THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 MKI
 
 ; OrlAUrU#^> <s ^t\t UNlVtKi^ ^UJW 
 
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 Nj\tUNIVfcKi> 
 
 Or"
 
 " Look your last before I go to don my 
 fine lady's furbelows" 
 
 A Lady of Quality
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Being a most curious, hitherto unknown 
 
 history, as related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff 
 
 but not presented to the World of 
 
 Fashion through the pages of 
 
 The Taller, and now for the 
 
 first time written down 
 
 BY 
 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 ILLUSTRA TED 
 
 P. F. COLLIER & SON 
 NEW YORK
 
 Copyright 1896 by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 A Lad? <,f Quality
 
 TS 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Were Nature just to Man from his first hour, 
 he need not ask for Mercy ; then 'tis for us 
 the toys of Nature to be both just and merciful, 
 for so only can the wrongs she does be undone 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Twenty-fourth Day of November in the Year 1685 5 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 In which Sir Jeoffry Encounters his Offspring . . . 15 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Wherein Sir Jeoffry's Boon Companions Drink a Toast 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Lord Twemlow's Chaplain Visits his Patron's Kins- 
 man, and Mistress Clorinda Shines on her Birthday 
 
 I VOL. 2 
 
 688020
 
 2 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FACE 
 
 "Not I," she said. "There thou mayest trust me. I 
 
 would not be found out." 56 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Relating How Mistress Anne Discovered a Miniature 70 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Twas the Face of Sir John Oxon the Moon Shone 
 
 Upon 86 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Two Meet in the Deserted Rose-garden, and the Old 
 
 Earl of Dunstanwolde is Made a Happy Man . 99 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 "I give to him the thing he craves with all his soul 
 
 myself" 119 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 "Yes I have marked him" 136 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Wherein a Noble Life Comes to an End 147
 
 CONTENTS 3 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Which Treats of the Obsequies of my Lord of Dun- 
 stamvolde, of his Lady's Widowhood, and of her 
 Return to Town 158 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 Wherein a Deadlv War Begins 168 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Containing the History of the Breaking of the Horse 
 Devil, and Relates the Returning of his Grace of 
 Osmonde from France 185 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 In which Sir John Oxon Finds Again a Trophy he 
 
 had Lost 204 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Dealing with that which was Done in the Paneled 
 
 Parlor 226 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Wherein his Grace of Osmonde's Courier Arrives from 
 
 France 237 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 My Lady Dunstanwolde Sits Late Alone and Writes . 253
 
 4 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PACK 
 
 A Piteous Story is Told, and the Old Cellars Walled In 260 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 A Noble Marriage 276 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 An Heir is Born . , 286 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 Mother Anne 300 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 "In One who will do justice, and demands that it shall 
 be done to each thing He has made, by each who 
 bears His image" 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 The Doves Sat upon the Window-ledge and lowly 
 
 Cooed and Cooed 319
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE TWENTY-FOURTH DAY OF NOVEMBER *IN THE 
 YEAR 1685 
 
 ON a wintry morning at the close of 1685, the sun 
 shining faint and red through a light fog, there was a 
 great noise of baying dogs, loud voices, and trampling 
 of horses in the courtyard at Wildairs Hall. Sir Jeof- 
 fry, being about to go forth a-hunting, and being a 
 man with a choleric temper and big loud voice, and 
 given to oaths and noise even when in good humor, 
 his riding forth with his friends at any time was at- 
 tended with boisterous commotion. This morning it 
 was more so than usual, for he had guests with him 
 who had come to his house the day before and had 
 supped late and drunk deeply, whereby the day found 
 them, some with headaches, some with a nausea at 
 their stomachs, and some only in an evil humor which 
 made them curse at their horses when they were rest- 
 less, and break into loud surly laughs when a coarse 
 
 5
 
 6 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 joke was made. There were many such jokes, Sir 
 Jeoffry and his boon companions being renowned 
 throughout the county for the freedom of their con- 
 versation as well as for the scandal of their pastimes, 
 and this day it was well indeed, as their loud-voiced, 
 oath-besprinkled jests rang out on the cold air, that 
 there were no ladies about to ride forth with them. 
 
 'Twas Sir Jeoffry who was louder than any other, 
 he having drunk even deeper than the rest, and 
 though 'twas his boast that he could carry a bottle 
 more than any man and see all his guests under the 
 table, his last night's bout had left him in ill-humor 
 and boisterous. He strode about, casting oaths at the 
 dogs and rating the servants, and when he mounted 
 his black horse Rake 'twas amid such a clamor of 
 voices and baying hounds that the place was like 
 pandemonium. 
 
 He was a large man of florid good looks, black eyes 
 and full habit of body, and had been much renowned 
 in his youth for his great strength, which was indeed 
 almost that of a giant, and for his deeds of prowess 
 in the saddle and at the table when the bottle went 
 round. There were many evil stories of his roister- 
 ings, but it was not his way to think of them as evil, 
 but rather to his credit as a man of the world, for 
 when he heard that they were gossiped about, he 
 greeted the information with a loud, triumphant 
 laugh. He had married, when she was fifteen, the 
 blooming toast of the county, for whom his passion 
 had long died out, having indeed departed with the
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 7 
 
 honeymoon, which had been of the briefest, and after- 
 ward he having borne her a grudge for what he chose 
 to consider her undutiful conduct. This grudge was 
 founded on the fact that though she had presented 
 him each year since their marriage with a child, after 
 nine years had passed none had yet been sons, and as 
 he was bitterly at odds with his next of kin, he con- 
 sidered each of his offspring an ill turn done him. 
 
 He spent but little time in her society, for she was 
 a poor, gentle creature of no spirit, who found little 
 happiness in her lot, since her lord treated her with 
 scant civility, and her children one after another sick- 
 ened and died in their infancy until but two were left. 
 He scarce remembered her existence when he did not 
 see her face, and he was certainly not thinking of her 
 this morning, having other things in view, and yet it 
 so fell out that while a groom was shortening a stir- 
 rup and being sworn at for his awkwardness, he by 
 accident cast his eye upward to a chamber window 
 peering out of the thick ivy on the stone. Doing so 
 he saw an oldish woman draw back the curtain and 
 look down upon him as if searching for him with a 
 purpose. 
 
 He uttered an exclamation of anger. 
 
 "Damnation, Mother Posset again," he said. "What 
 does she there, old frump?" 
 
 The curtain fell and the woman disappeared, and in 
 but a few minutes more an unheard-of thing happened 
 among the servants in the hall the same old woman 
 appeared making her way with a hurried fretfulness,
 
 8 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 and she descended haltingly the stone steps and came 
 to his side where he sat on his black horse. 
 
 "The devil!" he exclaimed; "what are you here 
 for? 'Tis not time for another wench upstairs, 
 surely." 
 
 " 'Tis not time," answered the old nurse acidly, tak- 
 ing her tone from his own. "But there is one but an 
 hour old, and my lady " 
 
 "Be damned to her!" quoth Sir Jeoffry, savagely. 
 "A ninth one and 'tis nine too many. 'Tis more 
 than man can bear. She does it but to spite me." 
 
 " 'Tis ill treatment for a gentleman who wants an 
 heir," the old woman answered, as disrespectful of his 
 spouse as he was, being a time-serving crone and 
 knowing that it paid but poorly to coddle women who 
 did not as their husbands would have them, in the way 
 of offspring. "It should have been a fine boy but it 
 is not, and my lady " 
 
 "Damn her puling tricks," said Sir Jeoffry again, 
 pulling at his horse's bit until the beast reared. 
 
 "She would not let me rest until I came to you," 
 said the nurse, resentfully. "She would have you told 
 that she felt strangely and before you went forth 
 would have a word with you." 
 
 "I can not come, and am not in the mood for it if I 
 could," was his answer. "What folly does she give 
 way to ? This is the ninth time she hath felt strangely, 
 and I have felt as squeamish as she but nine is more 
 than I have patience for." 
 
 "She is light-headed, mayhap," said the nurse.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 9 
 
 "She lies huddled in a heap staring and muttering 
 and she would leave me no peace till I promised to 
 say to you 'for the sake of poor little Daphne whom 
 you will sure remember/ She pinched my hand and 
 said it again and again." 
 
 Sir Jeoffry dragged at his horse's mouth and swore 
 again. 
 
 "She was fifteen then and had not given me nine 
 yellow-faced wenches," he said. "Tell her I had gone 
 a-hunting and you were too late." And he struck his 
 big black beast with the whip and it bounded away 
 with him, hounds and huntsmen and fellow roisterers 
 galloping after, his guests, who had caught at the 
 reason of his wrath, grinning as they rode. 
 
 In a huge chamber hung with tattered tapestries, 
 and barely set forth with cumbersome pieces of fur- 
 nishing, my lady lay in a gloomy canopied bed with 
 her new-born child at her side, but not looking at or 
 touching it, seeming rather to have withdrawn her- 
 self from the pillow on which it lay in its swaddling 
 clothes. 
 
 She was but a little lady, and now, as she lay in the 
 large bed, her face and form shrunken and drawn with 
 suffering, she looked scarce bigger than a child. In 
 the brief days of her happiness those who toasted her 
 had called her Titania for her fairy slightness and 
 delicate beauty, but then her fair, wavy locks had been 
 of a length that touched the ground when her woman 
 unbound them, and she had had the color of a wild
 
 io A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 rose and the eyes of a tender little fawn. Sir Jeoffry, 
 for a month or so, had paid tempestuous court to her, 
 and had so won her heart with his dashing way of 
 love-making, and the daringness of his reputation, 
 that she had thought herself being child enough to 
 think so the luckiest young lady in the world that 
 his black eye should have fallen upon her with favor. 
 Each year since, with the bearing of each child, she 
 had lost some of her beauty. With each one her 
 lovely hair fell out still more, her wild-rose color 
 faded, and her shape was spoiled. She grew thin and 
 yellow, only a scant covering of the fair hair was 
 left her, and her eyes were big and sunken. Her mar- 
 riage having displeased her family, and Sir Jeoffry 
 having a distaste for the ceremonies of visiting and 
 entertainment, save where his own cronies were con- 
 cerned, she had no friends and grew lonelier and 
 lonelier as the sad years went by. She being so with- 
 out hope, and her life so dreary, her children were 
 neither strong nor beautiful and died quickly, each 
 one bringing her only the anguish of birth and death. 
 This wintry morning her ninth lay slumbering by her 
 side ; the noise of baying dogs and boisterous men had 
 died away with the last sound of the horses' hoofs ; the 
 little light which came into the room through the ivied 
 window was a faint yellowish red. She was cold, be- 
 cause the fire in the chimney was but a scant, failing 
 one. She was alone, and she knew that the time had 
 come for her death; this she knew full well. 
 
 She was alone, because being so disrespected and
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 11 
 
 deserted by her lord, and being of a timid, and gentle 
 nature, she could not command her insufficient retinue 
 of servants, and none served her as was their duty. 
 The old woman Sir Jeoffry had dubbed Mother Posset 
 had been her sole attendant at such times as these 
 for the past five years, because she would come to her 
 for a less fee than a better woman, and Sir Jeoffry 
 had sworn he would not pay for wenches being 
 brought into the world. She was a slovenly, guz- 
 zling old crone, who drank caudle from morning till 
 night, and demanded good living as a support dur- 
 ing the performance of her trying duties, but these 
 last she contrived to make wondrous light, knowing 
 that there was none to reprove her. 
 
 "A fine night I have had," she had grumbled, when 
 she brought back Sir Jeoffry's answer to her lady's 
 message. "My old bones are like to break, and my 
 back will not straighten itself. I will go to the kitchen 
 to get victuals and somewhat to warm me ; your lady- 
 ship's own woman shall sit with you." 
 
 Her ladyship's "own woman" was also the sole at- 
 tendant of the two little girls, Barbara and Anne, 
 whose nursery was in another wing of the house, and 
 my lady knew full well she would not come if she were 
 told, and that there would be no message sent to her. 
 
 She knew, too, that the fire was going out, but 
 though she shivered under the bedclothes, she was too 
 weak to call the woman back when she saw her de- 
 part without putting fresh fuel upon it. 
 
 So she lay alone, poor lady, and there was no sound
 
 12 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 about her, and her thin little mouth began to feebly 
 quiver, and her great eyes, which stared at the hang- 
 ings, to fill with slow, cold tears, for, in sooth, they 
 were not warm, but seemed to chill her poor cheeks 
 as they rolled slowly down them, leaving a wet streak 
 behind them, which she was too far gone in weakness 
 to attempt to lift her hand to wipe away. 
 
 "Nine times like this," she panted faintly, "and 'tis 
 for naught but oaths and hard words that blame me. 
 When 'twas 'My Daphne/ and 'My beauteous little 
 Daphne,' he loved me in his own man's way. But 
 now " She faintly rolled her head from side to 
 side. "Women are poor things," a chill salt tear 
 sliding past her lips so that she tasted its bitterness, 
 "only to be kissed for an hour and then like this 
 only for this and nothing else. I would that this one 
 had been dead." 
 
 Her breath came slower and more pantingly and 
 her eyes stared more widely. 
 
 "I was but a child," she whispered, "a child as 
 as this will be if she lives fifteen years." 
 
 Despite her weakness, and it was great and wofully 
 increasing, with each panting breath, she slowly la- 
 bored to turn herself toward the pillow on which her 
 offspring lay, and this done, she lay staring at the 
 child and gasping, her thin chest rising and falling 
 convulsively. Ah, how she panted and how she stared, 
 the glaze of death stealing slowly over her wide- 
 opened eyes. And yet dimming as they were, they 
 saw in the sleeping infant a strange and troublous
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 13 
 
 thing. Though it was but a few hours old, 'twas not 
 as red and crumple visaged as new-born infants usu- 
 ally are; its little head was covered with thick black 
 silk and its small features were of singular definite- 
 ness. She dragged herself nearer to gaze. 
 
 "She looks not like the others," she said. "They 
 had no beauty and are safe. She she will be like 
 Jeoffry and like me." 
 
 The dying fire fell lower with a shuddering sound. 
 
 "If she is beautiful and has but her father, and no 
 mother!" she whispered, the words dragged forth 
 slowly, "only evil can come to her. From her first 
 hour she will know naught else, poor heart, poor 
 heart!" 
 
 There was a rattling in her throat as she breathed, 
 but in her glazing eyes a gleamlike passion leaped, and 
 gasping she dragged nearer. 
 
 "Tis not fair," she cried. "If I if I could 
 lay my hand upon thy mouth and stop thy breath- 
 ing thou poor thing, 'twould be fairer but I have 
 no strength." 
 
 She gathered all her dying will and brought her 
 hand up to the infant's mouth. A wild look was on 
 her poor small face, she panted and fell forward on 
 its breast, the rattle in her throat growing louder. The 
 child awakened, opening great black eyes, and with her 
 dying weakness its new-born life struggled. Her cold 
 hand lay upon its mouth and her head upon its body, 
 for she was too far gone to move if she had willed to 
 do so but the tiny creature's strength was marvelous.
 
 i 4 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 It gasped, it fought, its little limbs struggled beneath 
 her, it writhed until the cold hand fell away, and then, 
 its baby mouth set free, it fell a-shrieking. Its cries 
 .were not like those of a new-born thing, but fierce 
 and shrill, and even held the sound of infant passion. 
 'Twas not a thing to let its life *o easily, 'twas of 
 those born to do battle. 
 
 Its lusty shrieking pierced Her ear perhaps she 
 drew a long slow breath and tHen another and an- 
 other still the last one trembled and stopped short, 
 and the last cinder fell dead from the fire. 
 
 When the nurse came bustling and fretting bade 
 the chamber was cold as the grave's self, there were 
 only dead embers on the hearth, the new-born child's 
 cries filled all the desolate air and my lady was lying 
 stone dead, her poor head resting on her offspring's 
 feet and her open glazed eyes seemed to stare at it 
 as if in asking Fate some awful question.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN WHICH SIR JEOFFRY ENCOUNTERS HIS OFFSPRING 
 
 IN a remote wing of the house, in barren ill-kept 
 rooms, the poor infants of the dead lady had struggled 
 through their brief lives and given them up, one after 
 the other. Sir Jeoffry had not wished to see them nor 
 had he done so; but upon the rarest occasions and 
 then nearly always by some untoward accident. The 
 six who had died, even their mother had scarcely wept 
 for ; her weeping had been that they should have been 
 fated to come into the world, and when they went out 
 of it she knew she need not mourn their going as un- 
 timely. The two who had not perished, she had re- 
 garded sadly day by day, seeing they had no beauty 
 and that their faces promised none. Naught but great 
 beauty would have excused their existence in their 
 father's eyes, as beauty might have helped them to 
 good matches which would have rid him of them. But 
 'twas the sad ill-fortune of the children Anne and 
 Barbara to have been treated by Nature in a way but 
 niggardly. They were pale young misses with insig- 
 nificant faces and snub noses, resembling a poor aunt 
 who had died a spinster as they themselves seemed 
 
 IS
 
 1 6 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 most likely to do. Sir Jeoffry could not bear the sight 
 of them, and they fled at the sound of his footsteps, 
 if it so happened that by chance they heard it, hud- 
 dling together in corners and slinking behind doors or 
 anything big enough to hide them. They had no play- 
 things and no companions and no pleasures but such 
 as the innocent invention of childhood contrives for 
 itself. 
 
 After their mother's death, a youth desolate and 
 strange indeed lay before them. A spinster who was 
 a poor relation was the only person of respectable 
 breeding who ever came near them. To save herself 
 from genteel starvation she had offered herself for the 
 place of governess to them, though she was fitted for 
 the position neither by education nor character. Mis- 
 tress Margery Wimpole was a poor dull creature, hav- 
 ing no wilful harm in her, but endowed with neither 
 dignity nor wit. She lived in fear of Sir Jeoffry, and 
 in fear of the servants, who knew full well that she 
 was an humble dependent and treated her as one. She 
 hid away with her pupils in the bare schoolroom in the 
 west wing, and taught them to spell and write and 
 work samplers. She herself knew no more. 
 
 The child who had cost her mother her life had no 
 happier prospect than her sisters. Her father felt her 
 more an intruder than they had been, he being of the 
 mind that to house and feed and clothe, howsoever 
 poorly, these three burdens on him was a drain 
 scarcely to be borne. His wife had been a toast and 
 not a fortune, and his estate not being great, he pos-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 17 
 
 sessed no more than his drinking, roistering, and gam- 
 bling made full demands upon. 
 
 The child was baptized Clorinda, and bred, so to 
 speak, from her first hour/ in the garret and the ser- 
 vants' hall. Once only did her father behold her 
 during her infancy, which event was a mere accident, 
 as he had expressed no wish to see her, and only came 
 upon her in the nurse's arms some weeks after her 
 mother's death. 'Twas quite by chance. The woman, 
 who was young and buxom, had begun an intrigue 
 with a groom, and, having a mind to see him, was 
 crossing the stable-yard, carrying her charge with her, 
 when Sir Jeoffry came by to visit a horse. 
 
 The woman came plump upon him, entering a stable 
 as he came out of it; she gave a frightened start and 
 almost let the child drop, at which it set up a strong 
 shrill cry, and thus Sir Jeoffry saw it, and seeing it, 
 was thrown at once into a passion which expressed 
 itself after the manner of all his emotions, and left the 
 nurse quaking with fear. 
 
 "Thunder and damnation!" he exclaimed as he 
 strode away after the encounter, " 'tis the ugliest yet. 
 A yellow-faced girl brat with eyes like an owl's in 
 an ivy-bush, and with a voice like a very peacock's. 
 Another mawking, plain slut that no man will take off 
 my hands." 
 
 He did not see her again for six years. But little 
 wit was needed to learn that 'twas best to keep her out 
 of his sight as her sisters were kept, and this was done 
 without difficulty, as he avoided the wing of the house
 
 1 8 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 where the children lived, as if it were stricken with 
 the plague. 
 
 But the child Clorinda, it seemed, was of lustier 
 stock than her older sisters, and this those about her 
 soon found out to their grievous disturbance. When 
 Mother Posset had drawn her from under her dead 
 mother's body she had not left shrieking for an hour, 
 but had kept up her fierce cries until the roof rang 
 with them, and the old woman had jigged Her about 
 and beat her back in the hopes of stilling her, until 
 she was exhausted and dismayed. For the child would 
 not be stilled, and seemed to have such strength and 
 persistence in her as surely infant never showed before. 
 
 "Never saw I such a brat among all I have brought 
 into the world," Old Posset quavered. "She hath the 
 voice of a six months' boy. It cracks my very ears. 
 Hush thee then, thou little wildcat." 
 
 This was but the beginning. From the first she 
 grew apace, and in a few months was a bouncing in- 
 fant with a strong back and a power to make herself 
 heard, such as had not before appeared in the family. 
 When she desired a thing, she yelled and roared with 
 such a vigor as left no peace for any creature about 
 her until she was humored, and this being the case, 
 rather than have their conversation and love-making 
 put a stop to, the servants gave her her way. In this 
 they but followed the example of their betters, of 
 whom we know that it is not to the most virtuous they 
 submit, or to the most learned, but to those who, being 
 crossed, can conduct themselves in a manner so dis-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 19 
 
 agreeable, shrewish, or violent, that life is a burden 
 until they have their will. This the child Clorinda 
 had the infant wit to discover early, and having once 
 discovered it, she never ceased to take advantage of 
 her knowledge. Having found, in the days when her 
 one desire was pap, that she had but to roar lustily 
 enough to find it beside her in her porringer, she tried 
 the game upon all other occasions. When she had 
 reached but a twelvemonth, she stood stoutly upon her 
 little feet and beat her sisters to gain their playthings, 
 and her nurse for wanting to change her smock. She 
 was so easily thrown into furies, and so raged and 
 stamped in her baby way, that she was a sight to be- 
 hold, and the men-servants found amusement in badg- 
 ering her. To set Mistress Clorinda in their midst 
 on a winter's night, when they were dull, and to 
 torment her until her little face grew scarlet with 
 ,the blood which flew up into it, and she ran from 
 one to the other beating them and screaming like 
 a young spitfire, was among them a favorite enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 "Ifackens!" said the butler one night, "but she is 
 as like Sir Jeoffry in her temper as one pea is like an- 
 other. Ay, but she grows blood-red, just as he does, 
 and curses in her little way as he does in man's words 
 among his hounds in their kennel/' 
 
 "And she will be of his build, too," said the house- 
 keeper. "What a mishap changed her to a maid in- 
 stead of a boy, I know not. She would have made a 
 strapping heir. She has the thigh and shoulders of
 
 20 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 a handsome man-child at this hour, and she is not 
 three years old." 
 
 "Sir Jeoffry missed his mark when he called her an 
 ugly brat," said the woman who had nursed her. "She 
 will be a handsome woman, though large in build it 
 may be. She will be a brown beauty, but she will have 
 a color in her cheeks and lips like the red of Christmas 
 holly, and her owl's eyes are as black as sloes and have 
 fringes on them like the curtains of a window. See 
 how her hair grows thick on her little head and how 
 it curls in great rings. My lady, her poor mother, was 
 once a beauty, but she was no such beauty as this one 
 will be, for she has her father's long limbs and fine 
 shoulders, and the will to make every man look her 
 way." 
 
 "Yes," said the housekeeper, who was an elderly 
 woman, "there will be doings there will be doings 
 when she is a ripe young maid. She will take her 
 way, and God grant she mayn't be too like her father 
 and follow his." 
 
 It was true that she had no resemblance to her plain 
 sisters, and bore no likeness to them in character. The 
 two elder children, Anne and Barbara, were too meek- 
 spirited to be troublesome, but during Clorinda's in- 
 fancy Mistress Margery Wimpole watched her rapid 
 growth with fear and qualms. She dare not reprove 
 the servants who were ruining her by their treatment, 
 and whose manners were forming her own. Sir Jeof- 
 fry's servants were no more moral than their master, 
 and being brought up as she was among them, their
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 21 
 
 young mistress became strangely familiar with many 
 sights and sounds it is not the fortune of most young 
 misses of breeding to see and hear. The cooks and 
 kitchen wenches were flighty with the grooms and 
 men-servants, and little Mistress Clorinda having a 
 passion for horses and dogs spent many an hour in the 
 stables with the women who, for reasons of their 
 own, were pleased enough to take her there as an 
 excuse for seeking amusement for themselves. She 
 played in the kennels and among the horses' heels and 
 learned to use oaths as roundly as any Giles or Tom 
 whose work was to wield the currycomb. It was in- 
 deed a curious thing to hear her red baby mouth pour 
 forth curses and unseemly words as she would at any 
 one who crossed her. Her temper and hot-headedness 
 carried all before them, and the grooms and stable- 
 boys found great sport in the language my young lady 
 used in her innocent furies. But balk her in a whim 
 and she would pour forth the eloquence of a fish-wife 
 at Billingsgate or a lady of easy virtue in a pot-house 
 quarrel. There was no human creature near her who 
 had mind or heart enough to see the awfulness of her 
 condition, or to strive to teach her to check her pas- 
 sions, and in the midst of these perilous surroundings 
 the little virago grew handsomer and of finer carriage 
 every hour, as if on the rank diet that fed her she 
 throve and flourished. 
 
 There came a day at last when she had reached six 
 years old, when by a trick of chance a turn was given 
 to the wheel of her Fate.
 
 22 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 She had not reached three when a groom first set 
 her on a horse's back and led her about the stable- 
 yard, and she had so delighted in her exalted position 
 and had so shouted for pleasure and clutched her 
 steed's rein and clucked at him, that her audience had 
 looked on with roars of laughter. From that time she 
 would be put up every day, and as time went on 
 showed such unchildish courage and spirit that she 
 furnished to her servant companions a new pastime. 
 Soon she would not be held on, but, riding astride like 
 a boy, would sit up as straight as a man and swear at 
 her horse, beating him with her heels and little fists, 
 if his pace did not suit her. She knew no fear and 
 would have used a whip so readily that the men did 
 not dare to trust her with one, and knew they must 
 not mount her on a steed too mettlesome. By the 
 time she passed her sixth birthday, she could ride as 
 well as a grown man, and was as familiar with her 
 father's horses as he himself, though he knew noth- 
 ing of the matter, it being always contrived that she 
 should be out of sight when he visited his hunters. 
 
 It so chanced that the horse he rode the oftenest 
 was her favorite, and many were the tempests of rage 
 she fell into when she went to the stable to play with 
 the animal and did not find him in his stall because 
 his master had ordered him out. At such times she 
 would storm at the men in the stable-yard and call 
 them ill names for their impudence in letting the beast 
 go, which would cause them great merriment, as she 
 knew nothing of who the man was who had balked
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 23 
 
 her, since she was in truth not so much as conscious 
 of her father's existence, never having seen or even 
 heard more of him than his name, which she in no 
 manner connected with herself. 
 
 "Could Sir Jeoffry himself but once see and hear 
 her when she storms at us and him because he dares 
 to ride his own beast," one of the older men said once 
 in the midst of their laughter, "I swear he would burst 
 forth laughing and be taken with her impudent spirit, 
 her temper is so like his own. She is his own flesH 
 and blood, and as full of hell-fire as he." 
 
 Upon this morning which proved eventful to her, 
 she had gone to the stables as was her daily custom, 
 and going into the stall where the big black horse was 
 wont to stand she found it empty. Her spirit rose 
 hot within her in a moment. She clenched her fists 
 and began to stamp and swear in such a manner as it 
 would be scarce fitting to record. 
 
 "Where is he now?" she cried. "He is my own 
 horse and shall not be ridden. Who is the man who 
 takes him? Who? Who?" 
 
 " 'Tis a fellow who hath no manners," said the man 
 she stormed at, grinning and thrusting his tongue in 
 his cheek. "He says 'tis his beast and not yours, and 
 he will have him when he chooses." 
 
 " 'Tis not his 'tis mine !" shrieked Miss, her little 
 face inflamed with passion. "I will kill him ! 'Tis my 
 horse. He shall be mine!" 
 
 For a while the men tormented her to hear her rave 
 and see her passion, for in truth the greater tempest
 
 24 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 she was in, the better she was worth beholding, hav- 
 ing a color so rich and eyes so great and black and 
 flaming. At such times there was naught of the femi- 
 nine in her, and indeed always she looked more like a 
 handsome boy than a girl, her growth being, for her 
 age, extraordinary. At length a lad who was a helper 
 said, to mock her: 
 
 "The man hath him at the door before the great 
 steps now. I saw him stand there waiting but a mo- 
 ment ago. The man hath gone in the house." 
 
 She turned and ran to find him. The front part of 
 the house she barely knew the outside of, as she was 
 kept safely in the west wing and below stairs, and when 
 taken out for the air was always led privately by a 
 side way, never passing through the great hall where 
 her father might chance to encounter her. 
 
 She knew best this side entrance and made her way 
 to it, meaning to search until she found the front. 
 She got into the house, and her spirit being roused, 
 marched boldly through corridors and into rooms she 
 had never seen before, and being so mere a child not- 
 withstanding her strange wilfulness and daring, the 
 novelty of the things she saw so far distracted her 
 mind from the cause of her anger that she stopped 
 more than once to stare up at a portrait on a wall, or 
 to take in her hand something she was curious con- 
 cerning. 
 
 When she at last reached the entrance-hall, coming 
 into it through a door she pushed open, using all he'r 
 childish strength, she stood in the midst of it and
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 25 
 
 gazed about her with a new curiosity and pleasure. It 
 was a fine place with antlers and arms and foxes' 
 brushes hung upon the walls, and with carved panels 
 of black oak and oaken floor and furnishings. All in 
 it was disorderly and showed rough usage, but once 
 it had been a notable feature of the house, and well 
 worth better care than had been bestowed upon it 
 She discovered on the walls many trophies that at- 
 tracted her, but these she could not reach and could 
 only gaze and wonder at, but on an oaken settle she 
 found some things she could lay hands on and forth- 
 with seized and sat down upon the floor to play with 
 them. One of them was a hunting crop, which she 
 brandished grandly, until she was more taken with a 
 powder flask which it so happened her father, Sir 
 Jeoffry, had laid down but a few minutes before, in 
 passing through. He was going forth, coursing, and 
 had stepped into the dining-hall to toss off a bumper 
 of brandy. 
 
 When he had helped himself from the buffet and 
 came back in haste, the first thing he clapped eyes on 
 was his offspring pouring forth the powder from the 
 flask upon the oaken floor. He had never seen her 
 since that first occasion after the unfortunate incident 
 of her birth, and beholding a child wasting his good 
 powder at the moment he most wanted it, and had no 
 time to spare, and also not having had it recalled to 
 his mind for years that he was a parent, except when 
 he found himself forced reluctantly to pay for some 
 small need, he beheld in the young offender only some 
 a VOL. 2
 
 26 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 impudent servant's brat, who had strayed into his 
 domain and applied itself at once to mischief. 
 
 He sprang upon her and, seizing her by the arm, 
 whirled her to her feet with no little violence, snatch- 
 ing the powder flask from her, and dealing her a 
 sound box on the ear. 
 
 "Blood and damnation on thee, thou impudent little 
 baggage !" he shouted. "I'll break thy neck for thee, 
 little scurvy beast," and pulled the bell as he were like 
 to break the wire. 
 
 But he had reckoned falsely on what he dealt with. 
 Miss uttered a shriek of rage which rang through the 
 roof like a clarion. She snatched the crop from the 
 floor, rushed at him, and fell upon him like a thou- 
 sand little devils, beating his big legs with all the 
 strength of her passion, and pouring forth oaths such 
 as would have done credit to Doll Lightfoot herself. 
 
 "Damn thee! Damn thee!" she roared and 
 screamed, flogging him. "I'll cut thy liver from 
 thee! Damn thy soul to h 11!" 
 
 And this choice volley was with such spirit and fury 
 poured forth that Sir Jeoffry let his hand drop from the 
 bell, fell into a great burst of laughter, and stood thus 
 roaring while she beat him and shrieked and stormed. 
 
 The servants, hearing the jangled bell, attracted by 
 the tumult, and of a sudden missing Mistress Clo- 
 rinda, ran in consternation to the hall, and there be- 
 held this truly pretty sight Miss beating her father's 
 legs and tearing at him tooth and nail, while he stood 
 shouting with laughter as if he would split his sides.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 27 
 
 "Who is the little cockatrice?" he cried, the tears 
 streaming down his florid cheeks. "Who is the young 
 she-devil? Ods bodikins, who is she?" 
 
 For a second or so the servants stared at each other 
 aghast, not knowing what to say, or venturing to utter 
 a word, and then the nurse, who had come up panting, 
 dared to gasp forth the truth. 
 
 " 'Tis Mistress Clorinda, Sir Jeoffry," she stam- 
 mered. "My lady's last infant. The one of whom 
 she died in childbed." 
 
 His big laugh broke in two, as one might say. He 
 looked down at the young fury and stared. She was 
 out of breath with beating him, and had ceased and 
 fallen back apace, and was staring up at him also, 
 breathing defiance and hatred. Her big black eyes 
 were flames, her head was thrown up and back, her 
 cheeks were blood-scarlet, and her great crop of crow- 
 black hair stood out about her beauteous, wicked little 
 virago face, as if it might change into Medusa's 
 snakes. 
 
 "Damn thee!" she shrieked at him again. "I'll kill 
 thee, devil!" 
 
 Sir Jeoffry broke into his big laugh afresh. 
 
 "Clorinda do they call thee, wench," he said. 
 "Jeoffry thou shouldst have been but for thy mother's 
 folly. A fiercer little devil for thy size I never saw 
 nor a handsomer one." 
 
 And he seized her from where she stood and held 
 her at his big arm's length, gazing at her uncanny 
 beauty with looks that took her in from head to foot.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHEREIN SIR JEOFFRY's BOON COMPANIONS DRINK 
 A TOAST 
 
 HER beauty of face, her fine body, her strength of 
 limb and great growth for her age would have pleased 
 him if she had possessed no other attraction, but the 
 daring of her fury and her stable-boy breeding so 
 amused him and suited his roistering tastes that he 
 took to her as to the finest plaything in the world. 
 
 He set her on the floor, forgetting his coursing, and 
 would have made friends with her, but at first she 
 would have none of him, and scowled at him in spite 
 of all he did. The brandy by this time had mounted 
 to his head and put him in the mood for frolic, liquor 
 oftenest making him gamesome. He felt as if he 
 were playing with a young dog or marking the spirit 
 of a little fighting-cock. He ordered the servants back 
 to their kitchen, who stole away, the women amazed, 
 and the men concealing grins which burst forth into 
 guffaws of laughter when they came into their hall 
 below. 
 
 "Tis as we said," they chuckled. "He had but 
 to see her beauty and find her a bigger devil than him- 
 28
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 29 
 
 self, and 'twas done. The mettle of her damning 
 and flogging him ! Never was there a finer sight 1 She 
 feared him no more than if he had been a spaniel. 
 And he roaring and laughing till he was like to 
 burst." 
 
 "Dost know who I am?" Sir Jeoffry was asking 
 the child, grinning himself as he stood before her 
 where she sat on the oaken settle on which he had 
 lifted her. 
 
 "No," quoth little Mistress, her black brows drawn 
 down, her handsome owl's eyes verily seeming to look 
 him through and through in search of somewhat, for, 
 in sooth, her rage abating before his jovial humor, the 
 big, burly laughter attracted her attention, though she 
 was not disposed to show him that she leaned toward 
 any favor or yielding. 
 
 "I am thy dad," he said. " Twas thy dad thou 
 gavest such a trouncing. And thou hast an arm, too. 
 Let's cast an eye on it." 
 
 He took her wrist and pushed "up her sleeve, but 
 she dragged back. 
 
 "Will not be mauled," she cried. "Get away from 
 me!" 
 
 He shouted with laughter again. He had seen that 
 the little arm was as white and hard as marble, and 
 had such muscles as a great boy might have been a 
 braggart about. 
 
 "By God!" he said, elated. "What a wench of six 
 yea r s old! Wilt have my crop and trounce thy dad 
 again ?"
 
 30 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 He picked up the crop from the place where she 
 had thrown it, and forthwith gave it in her hand. She 
 took it, but was no more in the humor to beat him, 
 and as she looked, still frowning, from him to the 
 whip, the latter brought back to her mind the horse 
 she had set out in search of. 
 
 "Where is my horse?" she said, and 'twas in the 
 tone of an imperial demand. "Where is he?" 
 
 "Thy horse!" he echoed. "Which is thy horse, 
 then?" 
 
 "Rake is my horse," she answered. "The big, black 
 one. The man took him again." And she ripped out 
 a few more oaths and unchaste expressions, threaten- 
 ing what she would do for the man in question; the 
 which delighted him more than ever. "Rake is my 
 horse," she ended. "None else shall ride him." 
 
 "None else?" cried he. "Thou canst not ride him, 
 baggage!" 
 
 She looked at him with scornful majesty. 
 
 "Where is he?" she demanded. And the next in- 
 stant, hearing the beast's restless feet grinding into the 
 gravel outside as he fretted at having been kept wait- 
 ing so long, she remembered what the stable-boy had 
 said of having seen her favorite standing before the 
 door, and struggling and dropping from the settle, she 
 ran to look out; whereupon, having done so, she 
 shouted, in triumph. 
 
 "He is here!" she said. "I see him." And went 
 pell-mell down the stone steps to his side. ^ 
 
 Sir Jeoffry followed her in haste. 'Twould not
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 31 
 
 have been to his humor now to have her brains kicked 
 out. 
 
 "Hey !" he called, as he hurried. "Keep away from 
 his heels, thou little devil." 
 
 But she had run to the big beast's head with an- 
 other shout and caught him round his fore-leg, laugh- 
 ing, and Rake bent his head down and nosed her in 
 a fumbling caress, on which, the bridle coming within 
 her reach, she seized it and held his head that she 
 might pat him, to which familiarity the beast was 
 plainly well accustomed. 
 
 "He is my horse," quoth she, grandly, when her 
 father reached her. "He will not let Giles play so." 
 
 Sir Jeoffry gazed and swelled with pleasure in her. 
 
 "Would have said 'twas a lie if I had not seen it," 
 he said to himself. " 'Tis no girl this, I swear. I 
 thought 'twas my horse," he said to her, "but 'tis 
 plain enough he is thine." 
 
 "Put me up!" said his new-found offspring. 
 
 "Hast rid him before?" Sir Jeoffry asked with some 
 lingering misgiving. "Tell thy dad if thou hast rid 
 him." 
 
 She gave him a look askance under her long fringed 
 lids a surly yet half slyly relenting look, because she 
 wanted to get her way of him, and had the cunning 
 wit and shrewdness of a child witch. 
 
 "Ay!" quoth she. "Put me up Dad." 
 
 He was not a man of quick mind, his brain having 
 been too many years bemuddled with drink, but he 
 had a rough instinct which showed him all the won-
 
 32 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 drous shrewdness of her casting that last word at him 
 to wheedle him, even though she looked sullen in the 
 saying it. It made him roar again for very exulta- 
 tion. 
 
 "Put me up, Dad !" he cried. "That will I and see 
 what thou wilt do." 
 
 He lifted her, she springing as he set his hands be- 
 neath her arms, and flinging ber legs astride across 
 the saddle when she reached it. She was all fire and 
 excitement and caught the reins like an old huntsman, 
 and with such a grasp as was amazing. She sat up 
 with a straight, strong back, her whole face glowing 
 and sparkling with exultant joy. Rake seemed to an- 
 swer to her excited little laugh almost as much as to 
 her hand ; it seemed to wake his spirit and put him in 
 good humor. He started off with her down the avenue 
 at a light spirited trot, while she, clinging with her 
 little legs and sitting firm and fearless, made him 
 change into canter and gallop, having actually learned 
 all his paces like a lesson and knowing his mouth as 
 did his groom, who was her familiar and slave. Had 
 she been of the build ordinary with children of her 
 age, she could not have stayed upon his back, but she 
 sat him like a child jockey, and Sir Jeoffry, watching 
 and following her, clapped his hands boisterously and 
 hallooed for joy. 
 
 "Lord, Lord!" he said. "There's not a man in the 
 shire has such another little devil. And Rake, 'her 
 horse/ " grinning : "and she to ride him so. I love 
 thee, wench. Hang me if I do not !"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 33 
 
 She made him play with her and with Rake for a 
 good hour, and then took him back to the stables and 
 there ordered him about finely among the dogs and 
 horses, perceiving that somehow this great man she 
 had got hold of was a creature who was in power and 
 could be made use of. 
 
 When they returned to the house, he had her to eat 
 her midday meal with him, when she called for ale 
 and drank it, and did good trencher duty, making him 
 the while roar with laughter at her impudent child 
 talk. 
 
 "Never have I so split my sides since I was twenty," 
 he said. "It makes me young again to roar so. She 
 shall not leave my sight, since by chance I have found 
 her. Tis too good a joke to lose, when times are dull, 
 as they get to be as a man's years go on." 
 
 He sent for her woman and laid strange new com- 
 mands on her. 
 
 "Where hath she hitherto been kept?" he asked. 
 
 "In the west wing, where are the nurseries and 
 where Mistress Wimpole abides with Mistress Bar- 
 bara and Mistress Anne," the woman answered with 
 a frightened courtesy. 
 
 "Henceforth she shall live in this part of the house 
 where I do," he said. "Make ready the chambers that 
 were my lady's and prepare to stay there with her." 
 
 From that hour the child's fate was sealed. He 
 made himself her play-fellow, and romped with and 
 indulged her until she became fonder of him than of 
 any groom or stable-boy she had been companions
 
 34 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 with before. But, indeed, she had never been given to 
 bestowing much affection on those around her, seem- 
 ing to feel herself too high a personage to show soft- 
 ness. The ones she showed most favor to were those 
 who served her best, and even to them it was always 
 favor she showed, not tenderness. Certain dogs and 
 horses she was fond of, Rake coming nearest to her 
 heart, and the place her father won in her affections 
 was somewhat like to Rake's. She made him her 
 servant and tyrannized over him, but at the same time 
 followed and imitated him as if she had been a young 
 spaniel he was training. The life the child led it would 
 have broken a motherly woman's heart to hear about, 
 but there was no good woman near her, her mother's 
 relatives and even Sir JeofTry's own having cut them- 
 selves off early from them, Wildairs Hall and its mas- 
 ter being no great credit to those having the misfortune 
 to be connected with them. The neighboring gentry 
 had gradually ceased to visit the family some time be- 
 fore her ladyship's death, and since then the only 
 guests who frequented the place were a circle of hunt- 
 ing, drinking, and guzzling boon companions of Sir 
 Jeoffry's own, who joined him in ail his carousals and 
 debaucheries. 
 
 To these he announced his discovery of his daugh- 
 ter with tumultuous delight. He told them, amid 
 storms of laughter, of his first encounter with her; 
 of her flogging him with his own crop and cursing 
 him like a trooper; of her claiming Rake as her own 
 horse, and swearing at the man who had dared to
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 35 
 
 take him from the stable to ride, and of her sitting 
 him like an infant jockey and seeming by some strange 
 power to have mastered him as no other had been able 
 heretofore to do. 
 
 Then he had her brought into the dining-room, 
 where they sat over their bottles drinking deep, and 
 setting her on the table he exhibited her to them, boast- 
 ing of her beauty, showing them her splendid arm and 
 leg and thigh, measuring her height, and exciting her 
 to test the strength of the grip of her hand and the 
 power of her little fist. 
 
 "Saw you ever a wench like her?" he cried, as they 
 all shouted with laughter and made jokes not too po- 
 lite, but such as were of th'e sole kind they were given 
 to. "Has any man among you begot a boy as big and 
 handsome? Hang me! if she would not knock down 
 any lad of ten if she were in a fury." 
 
 "We wild dogs are out of favor with the women," 
 cried one of the best pleased among them, a certain 
 Lord Eldershawe, whose seat was a few miles from 
 Wildairs Hall. "Women like nincompoops and chap- 
 lains. Let us take this one for our toast and bring 
 her up as girls should be brought up to be companions 
 of men. I give you, Mistress Clorinda Wildairs 
 Mistress Clorinda, the Enslaver of six years old. 
 Bumpers, lads! Bumpers!" 
 
 And they set her in the very midst of the big table 
 and drank her health standing, bursting into a jovial 
 ribald song, and the child, excited by the noise and 
 laughter, actually broke forth and joined them in a
 
 36 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 high, strong treble, the song being one she was quite 
 familiar with, having heard it often enough in the 
 stable to have learned the words pat. 
 
 Two weeks after his meeting with her, Sir Jeoffry 
 was seized with the whim to go up to London and set 
 her forth with finery. 'Twas but rarely he went up 
 to town, having neither money to waste nor finding 
 great attraction in the more civilized quarters of the 
 world. He brought her back such clothes as for rich- 
 ness and odd unsuitable fashion child never wore 
 before. There were brocades that stood alone with 
 splendor of fabric, there was rich lace, fine linen, rib- 
 bons, farthingales, swansdown tippets, and little slip- 
 pers with high, red heels. He had a wardrobe made 
 for her such as the finest lady of fashion could scarcely 
 boast, and the tiny creature was decked out in it, and 
 on great occasions even strung with her dead mother's 
 jewels. 
 
 Among these strange things, he had the fantastical 
 notion to have made for her several suits of boy's 
 clothes : pink and blue satin coats, little white or am- 
 ber or blue satin breeches, ruffles of lace, and waist- 
 coats embroidered with colors and silver or gold. 
 There was also a small scarlet-coated hunting cos- 
 tume, and all the paraphernalia of the chase. It was Sir 
 Jeoffry 's finest joke to bid her woman dress her as a 
 boy, and then he would have her brought to the table 
 where he and his fellows were dining together, and 
 she would toss off her little bumper with the best of
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 37 
 
 them, and rip out childish oaths and sing them, to 
 their delight, songs she had learned from the stable- 
 boys. She cared more for dogs and horses than for 
 finery, and when she was not in the humor to be made 
 a puppet of, neither tire-woman nor devil could put 
 her into her brocades ; but she liked the excitement of 
 the dining-room, and as time went on would be dressed 
 in her flowered petticoats, in a passion of eagerness to 
 go and show herself, and coquet in her lace and gew- 
 gaws with men old enough to be her father, and loose 
 enough to find her premature airs and graces a fine 
 joke indeed. She ruled them all with her temper and 
 her shrewish will. She would have her way in all 
 things or there should be no sport with her, and she 
 would sing no songs for them, but would flout them 
 bitterly and sit in a great chair with her black brows 
 drawn down and her whole small person breathing 
 rancor and disdain. 
 
 Sir Jeoffry, who had bullied his wife, had now the 
 pleasurable experience of being hen-pecked by his 
 daughter, for so indeed he was. Miss ruled him with 
 a rod of iron, and wielded her weapon with such skill 
 that before a year had elapsed he obeyed her as the 
 servants below stairs had done in her infancy. She 
 had no fear of his great oaths, she possessed a 
 strangely varied stock of her own upon which she 
 could always draw, and her voice being more shrill 
 than his, if not of such bigness, her ear-piercing shrieks 
 and indomitable perseverance always proved too much 
 for him in the end. It must be admitted likewise that
 
 38 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 her violence of temper and power of will were some- 
 what beyond his own, notwithstanding her tender 
 years and his reputation. In fact he had found him- 
 self obliged to observe this, and finally made some- 
 thing of a merit and joke of it. 
 
 "There is no managing of the little shrew," he would 
 say. "Neither man nor devil can bend or break her. 
 If I smashed every bone in her carcase she would die 
 shrieking hell at me and defiance." 
 
 If one admits the truth it must be owned that if 
 she had not had bestowed upon her by nature gifts of 
 beauty and vivacity so extraordinary, and had been 
 cursed with a thousandth part of the vixenishness she 
 displayed every day of her life, he would have broken 
 every bone in her carcase without a scruple or a 
 qualm. But her beauty seemed but to grow with 
 every hour that passed, and it was, by exceeding good 
 fortune, exactly the fashion of beauty which he ad- 
 mired the most. When she attained her tenth year 
 she was as tall as a fine boy of twelve, and of such 
 a shape and carriage as young Diana herself might 
 have envied. Her limbs were long and most divinely 
 molded, and of a strength that caused admiration and 
 amazement in all beholders. Her father taught her 
 to follow him in the hunting-field, and when she ap- 
 peared upon her horse, clad in her little breeches and 
 top-boots and scarlet coat, child though she was, she 
 set the field on fire. She learned full early how to 
 coquet and roll her fine eyes, but it is also true that she 
 was not much of a languisher, as all her ogling was
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 39 
 
 of a destructive or proudly attacking kind. It was her 
 habit to leave others to languish, and herself to lead 
 them with disdainful vivacity to doing so. She was 
 the talk, and it must be admitted, the scandal -of the 
 county by the day she was fifteen. The part wherein 
 she lived was a boisterous hunting shire, where there 
 were wide ditches and high hedges to leap, and rough 
 hills and moors to gallop over, and within the region 
 neither polite life nor polite education were much 
 thought of. But even in the worst portions of it 
 there were occasional virtuous matrons who shook 
 their heads with much gravity and wonder over the 
 beautiful Mistress Clorinda.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 LORD TWEMLOW'S CHAPLAIN VISITS HIS PATRON'S 
 
 KINSMAN, AND MISTRESS CLORINDA SHINES 
 
 ON HER BIRTHDAY NIGHT 
 
 UNCIVILIZED and almost savage as her girlish life 
 was, and unregulated by any outward training as was 
 her mind, there were none who came in contact with 
 her who could be blind to a certain strong, clear wit 
 and unconquerableness of purpose for which she was 
 remarkable. 
 
 She ever knew full well what she desired to 
 gain or to avoid, and once having fixed her mind 
 upon any object, she showed an adroitness and bril- 
 liancy of resource, a control of herself and 'others, 
 the which there was no circumventing. She never 
 made a blunder because she could not control the ex- 
 pression of her emotions, and when she gave way to 
 a passion 'twas because she chose to do so, having 
 naught to lose, and in the midst of all their riotous 
 jesting with her, the boon companions of Sir Jeoffry 
 knew this. 
 
 "Had she a secret to keep child though she is," 
 said Eldershawe, "there is none, man or woman, who 
 40
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 41 
 
 could scare or surprise it from her. And 'tis a strange 
 quality to note so early in a female creature." 
 
 She spent her days with her father and his disso- 
 lute friends, treated half like a boy, half a fantastical 
 queen until she was fourteen. She hunted and coursed, 
 shot birds, leaped hedges and ditches, reigned at the 
 riotous feastings, and coquetted with these mature and, 
 in some cases, elderly men, as if she looked forward 
 to doing naught else all her life. But one day, after 
 she had gone out hunting with her father, riding Rake, 
 who had been given to her, and wearing her scarlet 
 coat, breeches, and top-boots, one of the few re- 
 maining members of her mother's family sent his 
 chaplain to remonstrate, and advise her father to 
 command her to forbear from appearing in such 
 impudent attire. 
 
 There was indeed a stirring scene when this mes- 
 sage was delivered by its bearer. The chaplain was 
 an awkward, timid creature, who had heard stories 
 enough of Wildairs Hall and its master to undertake 
 his mission with a quaking soul. To have refused to 
 obey any behest of his patron would have cost him 
 his living, and knowing this beyond a doubt, he was 
 forced to gird up his loins and gather together all the 
 little courage he could muster to beard the lion in 
 his den. 
 
 The first thing he beheld on entering the big hall 
 was a beautiful tall youth, wearing his own rich black 
 hair, and dressed in scarlet coat for hunting. He was 
 playing with a dog, making it leap over his crop, and
 
 42 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 both laughing and swearing at its clumsiness. He 
 glanced at the chaplain with a laughing, brilliant eye, 
 returning the poor man's humble bow with a slight 
 nod as he plainly harkened to what he said as he 
 explained his errand. 
 
 "I come from my Lord Twemlow, who is your 
 master's kinsman," the chaplain faltered. "I am bid- 
 den to see and speak to him, if it be possible, and his 
 lordship much desires that Sir Jeoffry will allow it to 
 be so. My Lord Twemlow " 
 
 The beautiful youth left his playing with the dog 
 and came forward with all the air of the young master 
 of the house. 
 
 "My Lord Twemlow sends you?" he said. " 'Tis 
 long since his lordship favored us with messages. 
 "Where is Sir Jeoffry, Lovatt?" 
 
 "In the dining-hall," answered the servant. "He 
 went there but a moment past, Mistress." 
 
 The chaplain gave such a start as made him drop 
 his shovel hat. "Mistress!" And this was she this 
 fine young creature who was tall and grandly enough 
 built and knit to seem a radiant being even when clad 
 in masculine attire ! He picked up his hat and bowed 
 so low that it almost swept the floor in his obeisance. 
 He was not used to female beauty which deigned to 
 cast great smiling eyes upon him, for at my Lord 
 Twemlow's table he sat so far below the salt that 
 women looked not his way. 
 
 This beauty looked at him as if she was amused at 
 the thought of something in her own mind. He won-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 43 
 
 dered tremblingly if she guessed what he came for and 
 knew how her father would receive it. 
 
 "Come with me," she said ; "I will take you to him. 
 He would not see you if I did not. He does not love 
 his lordship tenderly enough." 
 
 She led the way, holding her head jauntily and high, 
 while he cast down his eyes lest his gaze should be 
 led to wander in a way unseemly in one of his 
 cloth. 
 
 Such a foot, and such ! He felt it more becoming 
 and safer to lift his eyes to the ceiling and keep them 
 there, which gave him somewhat the aspect of one 
 praying. 
 
 Sir Jeoffry stood at the buffet with a tankard of ale 
 in his hand, taking his stirrup-cup. At the sight of a 
 stranger, and one attired in the garb of a chaplain, he 
 scowled surprisedly. 
 
 "What's this?" quoth he. "What dost want, Clo? 
 I have no leisure for a sermon." 
 
 Mistress Clorinda went to the buffet and filled a 
 tankard for herself, and carried it back to the table, 
 on the edge of which she half-sat with one leg bent, 
 one foot resting on the floor. 
 
 "Time thou wilt have to take, Dad," she said, with 
 an arch grin, showing two rows of gleaming pearls. 
 "This gentleman is my Lord Twemlow's chaplain, 
 whom he sends to exhort you, requesting you to have 
 the civility to hear him." 
 
 "Exhort be damned, and Twemlow be damned, 
 too !" cried Sir Jeoffry, who had a great quarrel with
 
 44 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 his lordship, and hated him bitterly. "What does the 
 canting fool mean?" 
 
 "Sir," faltered the poor message-bearer, "his lord- 
 ship hath hath been concerned having heard " 
 
 The handsome creature balanced against the table 
 took the tankard from her lips and laughed. 
 
 "Having heard thy daughter rides to field in 
 breeches and is an unseemly behaving wench," she 
 cried. "His lordship sends his chaplain to deliver a 
 discourse thereon not choosing to come himself. Is 
 not that thy errand, reverend sir?" 
 
 The chaplain poor man turned pale, having 
 caught, as she spoke, a glimpse of Sir Jeoffry's red- 
 dening visage. 
 
 "Madam," he faltered, bowing, "madam, I ask par- 
 don of you most humbly. If it were your pleasure to 
 deign to to allow me " 
 
 She set the tankard on the table with a rollicking 
 smack, and thrust her hands in her breeches pockets, 
 swaying with laughter. And indeed 'twas ringing 
 music, her rich, great laugh, which when she grew of 
 riper years was much lauded and written verses on by 
 her numerous swains. 
 
 "If 'twere my pleasure to go away and allow you 
 to speak, free from the awkwardness of a young lady's 
 presence," she said. "But 'tis not, as it happens, and 
 if I stay here I shall be a protection." 
 
 In truth he required one. Sir Jeoffry broke into a 
 torrent of blasphemy. He damned both kinsman and 
 chaplain, and raged at the impudence of both in dar-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 45 
 
 ing to approach him, swearing to horsewhip my lord 
 if they ever met, and to have the chaplain kicked out 
 of the house and beyond the park gates themselves. 
 But Mistress Clorinda chose to make it her whim to 
 take it in better humor, and as a joke with a fine point 
 to it. She laughed at her father's storming, and while 
 the chaplain quailed before it with pallid countenance 
 and fairly hang-dog look, she seemed to find it but a 
 cause for outbursts of merriment. 
 
 "Hold thy tongue a bit, Dad," she cried when he 
 had reached his loudest; "and let his reverence tell us 
 what his message is. We have not even heard it." 
 
 "Want not to hear it !" shouted Sir Jeoffry. "Dost 
 think I'll stand his impudence? Not I!" 
 
 "What was your message?" demanded the young 
 lady of the chaplain. "You can not return without 
 delivering it. Tell it to me. 7 choose it shall be told." 
 
 The chaplain clutched and fumbled with his hat, 
 pale, and dropping his eyes upon the floor for very 
 fear. 
 
 "Pluck up thy courage, man," said Clorinda. "I 
 will uphold thee. The message?" 
 
 "Your pardon, madam 'twas this," the chaplain 
 faltered. "My lord commanded me to warn your hon- 
 ored father that if he did not beg you to leave off 
 wearing wearing " 
 
 "Breeches," said Mistress Clorinda, slapping her 
 knee. 
 
 The chaplain blushed with modesty, though he was 
 a man of sallow countenance.
 
 46 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "No gentleman," he went on, going more lamely at 
 each word "notwithstanding your great beauty no 
 gentleman " 
 
 "Would marry me?" the young lady ended for him 
 with merciful good-humor. 
 
 "For if you if a young lady be permitted to bear 
 herself in such a manner as will cause her to be held 
 lightly, she can make no match that will not be a dis- 
 honor to her family and and " 
 
 "And may do worse!" quoth Mistress Clo, and 
 laughed until the room rang. 
 
 Sir Jeoffry's rage was such as made him like to 
 burst, but she restrained him when he would have flung 
 his tankard at the chaplain's head, and, amid his storm 
 of curses, bundled the poor man out of the room, pick- 
 ing up his hat, which in his hurry and fright he let fall, 
 and thrusting it into his hand. 
 
 "Tell his lordship," she said, laughing still, as she 
 spoke the final words, "that I say he is right and I 
 will see to it that no disgrace befalls him. 
 
 "Forsooth, Dad," she said, "perhaps the old son of 
 
 a " something unmannerly "is not so great a 
 
 fool. As for me, I mean to make a fine marriage and 
 be a great lady, and I know of none hereabouts to 
 suit me but the old Earl of Dunstanwolde, and 'tis 
 said he rates at all but modest women, and in faith, 
 he might not find breeches mannerly. I will not hunt 
 in them again." 
 
 She did not, though once or twice, when she was 
 in a wild mood, and her father entertained at dinner
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 47 
 
 those of his companions whom she was most inclined 
 to, she swaggered in among them in her daintiest suits 
 of male attire, and caused their wine-shot eyes to gloat 
 over her boyish maiden charm and jaunty airs and 
 graces. 
 
 On the night of her fifteenth birthday, Sir Jeoffry 
 gave a great dinner to his boon companions and hers. 
 She had herself commanded that there should be no 
 ladies at the feast, for she chose to announce that she 
 should appear at no more such, having the wit to see 
 that she was too tall a young lady for childish follies, 
 and that she had now arrived at an age when her 
 market must be made. 
 
 "I shall have women enough henceforth to be dull 
 with," she said. "Thou art but a poor match-maker, 
 Dad, or vvouldst have thought of it for me. But not 
 once has it come into thy pate that I have no mother 
 to angle in my cause and teach me how to cast sheep's 
 eyes at bachelors. Long-tailed petticoats from this 
 time for me, and hoops and patches and ogling over 
 fans until at last, if I play my cards well, some great 
 lord will look my way and be taken by my shape and 
 my manners." 
 
 "With thy shape, Clo, God knows every man will," 
 laughed Sir Jeoffry, "but I fear me not with thy man- 
 ners. Thou hast the manners of a baggage, and they 
 are second nature to thee." 
 
 "They are what I was born with," answered Mis- 
 tress Clorinda. "They came from him that begot me, 
 and he has not since improved them. But now"
 
 48 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 making a great sweeping courtesy, her impudent bright 
 beauty almost dazzling his eyes "now, after my birth- 
 night, they will be bettered, but this one night I will 
 have my last fling." 
 
 When the men trooped into the black oak wain- 
 scoted dining-hall on the eventful night, they found 
 their audacious young hostess awaiting them in greater 
 and more daring beauty than they had ever before 
 beheld. She wore knee-breeches of white satin, a pink 
 satin coat embroidered with silver roses, white silk 
 stockings, and shoes with great buckles of brilliants, 
 revealing a leg so round and strong and delicately 
 molded, and a foot so arched and slender as surely 
 never before, they swore one and all, woman had had 
 to display. She met them standing jauntily astride 
 upon the hearth, her back to the fire, and she greeted 
 each one as he came, with some pretty impudence. 
 Her hair was tied back and powdered, her black eyes 
 were like lodestars, drawing all men, and her color 
 was that of a ripe pomegranate. She had a fine, 
 haughty little Roman nose, a mouth like a scarlet bow, 
 a wonderful long throat, and round cleft chin. A 
 dazzling mien indeed she possessed, and ready enough 
 she was to shine before them. Sir Jeoffry was now 
 an elderly man, having been a man of forty when 
 united to his conjugal companion. Most of his friends 
 were of his own age, so that it had not been with un- 
 ripe youth Mistress Clorinda had been in the habit of 
 consorting. But upon this night a newcomer was 
 among the guests. He was a young relation of one
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 49 
 
 of the older men, and having come to his kinsman's 
 house upon a visit, and having proved himself, in spite 
 of his youth, to be a young fellow of humor, high 
 courage in the hunting-field, and by no means averse 
 either to entering upon or discussing intrigue and gal- 
 lant adventure, had made himself something of a fa- 
 vorite. His youthful beauty for a man almost equaled 
 that of Mistress Clorinda herself. He had an elegant, 
 fine shape, of great strength and vigor, his counte- 
 nance was delicately ruddy and handsomely featured, 
 his curling fair hair flowed loose upon his shoulders, 
 and though masculine in mold, his ankle was as slender 
 and his buckle shoe as arched as her own. 
 
 He was, it is true, twenty-four years of age, and 
 a man, while she was but fifteen and a woman, but 
 being so tall and built with such unusual vigor of 
 symmetry, she was a beauteous match for him, and 
 both being attired in fashionable masculine habit, these 
 two pretty young fellows standing smiling saucily at 
 each other were a charming, though singular, spectacle. 
 
 This young man was already well known in the 
 modish world of town for his beauty and adventurous 
 spirit. He was indeed already a beau and a conqueror 
 of female hearts. It was suspected that he cherished 
 a private ambition to set the modes in beauties and 
 embroidered waistcoats himself in time, and be as re- 
 nowned abroad and as much the town talk as certain 
 other celebrated beaux had been before him. The art 
 of ogling tenderly and of uttering soft nothings he had 
 learned during his first season in town, and as he had 
 3 VOL. 2
 
 50 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 a great melting blue eye, the figure of an Adonis, and 
 a white and shapely hand for a ring, he was well 
 equipped for conquest. He had darted many an in- 
 flaming glance at Mistress Clorinda before the first 
 meats were removed. Even in London he had heard 
 a vague rumor of this handsome young woman, bred 
 among her father's dogs, horses, and boon companions, 
 and ripening into a beauty likely to make town faces 
 pale. He had almost fallen into the spleen on hear- 
 ing that she had left her boy's clothes and vowed she 
 would wear them no more, as above all things he had 
 desired to see how she carried them and what charms 
 they revealed. On hearing from his host and kins- 
 man that she had said that on her birth-night she 
 would bid them farewell forever by donning them for 
 the last time, he was consumed with eagerness to ob- 
 tain an invitation. This his kinsman besought for 
 him, and, behold, the first glance the beauty shot at 
 him pierced his inflammable bosom like a dart. Never 
 before had it been his fortune to behold female charms 
 so dazzling, and eyes of such lustre and young majesty. 
 The lovely baggage had a saucy way of standing with 
 her white jeweled hands in her pockets like a pretty 
 fop, and throwing up her little head like a modish 
 beauty who was of royal blood; and these two tricks 
 alone, he felt, might have set on fire the heart of a 
 man years older and colder than himself. 
 
 If she had been of the order of soft-natured charm- 
 ers they would have fallen into each other's eyes before 
 the wine was changed, but this Mistress Clorinda was
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 51 
 
 not. She did not fear to meet the full battery of his 
 enamored glances, but she did not choose to return 
 them. She played her part of the pretty young fel- 
 low who was a high-spirited beauty with more of wit 
 and fire than she had ever played it before. The rol- 
 licking, hunting squires who had been her play-fellows 
 so long, devoured her with their delighted glances, 
 and roared with laughter at her sallies. Their jokes 
 and flatteries were not of the most seemly, but she had 
 not been bred to seemliness and modesty, and was no 
 more ignorant than if she had been in sooth some gay 
 young springald of a lad. To her it was part of the 
 entertainment that upon this last night they conducted 
 themselves as beseemed her boyish masquerading. 
 Though country-bred, she had lived among compan- 
 ions who were men of the world and lived without 
 restraints, and she had so far learned from them 
 that at fifteen years old she was as worldly and as 
 familiar with the devices of intrigue as she would 
 be at forty. 
 
 So far she had not been pushed to practising them, 
 her singular life having thrown her among few of her 
 own age, and those had chanced to be of a sort she 
 disdainfully counted as country bumpkins. 
 
 But the young gallant introduced to-night into the 
 world she lived in was no bumpkin, and was a dandy 
 of the town. His name was Sir John Oxon, and he 
 had just come into his title and a pretty property. His 
 hands were as white and bejeweled as her own, his 
 habit was of the latest fashionable cut, and his fair,
 
 52 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 flowing locks scattered a delicate French perfume she 
 did not even know the name of. 
 
 But though she observed all these attractions and 
 found them powerful, young Sir John remarked with 
 a slight sinking qualm that her great eye did not fall 
 before his amorous glances, but met them with high- 
 smiling readiness, and her color never blenched or 
 heightened a whit for all their masterly skilfulness. 
 But he had sworn to himself that he would approach 
 close enough to her to fire off some fine speech before 
 the night was ended, and he endeavored to bear him- 
 self with at least an outward air of patience until he 
 beheld his opportunity. 
 
 When the last dish was removed and bottles and 
 bumpers stood upon the board, she sprang up on her 
 chair and stood before them all, smiling down the 
 long table with eyes like flashing jewels. Her hands 
 were thrust in her pockets with her pretty young fop's 
 air, and she drew herself to her full comely height, 
 her beauteous lithe limbs and slender feet set smartly 
 together. Twenty pairs of masculine eyes were turned 
 upon her beauty, but none so ardently as the young 
 one's across the table. 
 
 "Look your last on my fine shape," she proclaimed 
 in her high, rich voice. "You will see but little of 
 the nether part of it when it is hid in farthingales and 
 petticoats. Look your last before I go to don my fine 
 lady's furbelows." 
 
 And when they filled their glasses and lifted them 
 and shouted admiring jests to her, she broke into one
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 53 
 
 of her stable-boy songs and sang it in the voice of a 
 skylark. 
 
 No man among them was used to showing her the 
 courtesies of polite breeding. She had been too long 
 a boy to them for that to have entered any mind, and 
 when she finished her song, sprang down and made 
 for the door, Sir John beheld his long-looked-for 
 chance, and was there before to open it with a great 
 bow, made with his hand upon his heart and his fair 
 locks falling. 
 
 "You rob us of the rapture of beholding great beau- 
 ties, mistress," he said in a low, impassioned voice. 
 "But there should be indeed but one happy man whose 
 bliss it is to gaze upon such perfections." 
 
 "I am fifteen years old to-night," she answered, 
 "and as yet I have not set eyes upon him." 
 
 "How do you know that, madam?" he said, bow- 
 ing lower still. 
 
 She laughed her great rich laugh. 
 
 "Forsooth, I do not know," she retorted. "He may 
 be here this very night among this company. And as 
 it might be so, I go to don my modesty." 
 
 And she bestowed on him a parting shot in the shape 
 of one of her prettiest young fop waves of the hand 
 and was gone from him. 
 
 When the door closed behind her and Sir John Oxon 
 returned to the table, for a while a sort of dulness fell 
 upon the party. Not being of quick minds or senti- 
 ments, these country roisterers failed to understand
 
 54 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 the heavy cloud of spleen and lack of spirit they ex- 
 perienced, but as they filled their glasses and tossed 
 off one bumper after another to cure it, they soon 
 began again to laugh and fell into boisterous joking. 
 
 They talked mostly, indeed, of their young play- 
 fellow, of whom they felt, in some indistinct manner, 
 they were to be bereft; they rallied Sir Jeoffry, told 
 stories of her childhood, and made pictures of her bud- 
 ding beauties, comparing them with those of young 
 ladies who were celebrated toasts. 
 
 "She will sail among them like a royal frigate," said 
 one. "And they will pale before her lustre as a tallow- 
 dip does before an illumination." 
 
 The clock struck twelve before she returned to them. 
 Just as the last stroke sounded, the door was thrown 
 open, and there she stood, a woman on each side of 
 her, holding a large silver candelabrum bright with 
 wax tapers high above her, so that she was in a flood 
 of light. 
 
 She was attired in rich brocade of crimson and sil- 
 ver, and wore a great hooped petticoat, which showed 
 off her grandeur; her waist, of no more bigness than 
 a man's hands could clasp, set in its midst like the 
 stem of a flower; her black hair was rolled high and 
 circled with jewels, her fair long throat blazed with 
 a collar of diamonds, and the majesty of her eye and 
 lip and brow made up a mien so dazzling that every 
 man sprang to his feet beholding her. 
 
 She made a sweeping obeisance, and then stood up 
 before them, her head thrown back and her lips curv-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 55 
 
 ing in the triumphant mocking smile of a great beauty 
 looking upon them all as vassals. 
 
 "Down upon your knees," she cried, "and drink to 
 me kneeling. From this night all men must bend so 
 all men whom I deign to cast my eyes on."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 "NOT i," SHE SAID. "THERE THOU MAYEST TRUST ME. 
 
 I WOULD NOT BE FOUND OUT" 
 
 SHE went no more a-hunting in boy's clothes, but 
 from this time forward wore brocades and paduasoys, 
 fine lawn, and lace. Her tire-woman was kept so 
 'busily engaged upon making rich habits, fragrant 
 waters, and essences, and running at her bidding to 
 change her gown or dress her head in some changed 
 fashion, that her life was made to her a weighty bur- 
 den to bear and also a painful one. Her place had be- 
 fore been an easy one but for her mistress's choleric 
 temper, but it was so no more. Never had young lady 
 been so exacting and so tempestuous when not pleased 
 with the adorning of her face and shape. In the 
 presence of polite strangers, whether ladies or gentle- 
 men, Mistress Clorinda in these days chose to chasten 
 her language and give less rein to her fantastical pas- 
 sions, but alone in her closet with her woman, if a 
 ribbon did not suit her fancy, or a hoop not please, she 
 did not fear to be as scurrilous as she chose. In this 
 discreet retirement she rapped out oaths, and boxed 
 her woman's ears with a vigorous hand, tore off her 
 56
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 57 
 
 gowns and stamped them beneath her feet, or flung 
 pots of pomade at the poor woman's head. She took 
 these freedoms with such a readiness and spirit that she 
 was served with a despatch and humbleness scarcely 
 to be equaled, and it is certain never excelled. 
 
 The high courage and undaunted will which had 
 been the engines she had used to gain her will from 
 her infant years, aided her in these days to carry out 
 what her keen mind and woman's wit had designed, 
 which was to take the county by storm with her 
 beauty, and reign toast and enslaver until such time as 
 she won the prize of a husband of rich estates and 
 notable rank. 
 
 It was soon bruited abroad, to the amazement of 
 the county, that Mistress Clorinda Wildairs had 
 changed her strange and unseemly habits of life, and 
 had become as much a young lady of fashion and 
 breeding as her birth and charm demanded. This was 
 first made known by her appearing one Sunday morn- 
 ing at church accompanied, as though attended with a 
 retinue of servitors, by Mistress Wimpole and her two 
 sisters, whose plain faces, awkward shapes, and still 
 more awkward attire were such a foil to her glowing 
 loveliness as set it in high relief. It was seldom that 
 the coach from Wildairs Hall drew up before the lich- 
 gate, but upon rare Sunday mornings Mistress Wim- 
 pole and her two charges contrived, if Sir Jeoffry was 
 not in an ill-humor and the coachman was complai- 
 sant, to be driven to service. Usually, however, they 
 trudged afoot, and if the day chanced to be sultry, ar-
 
 58 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 rived with their snub-nosed faces of a high and shining 
 color, or if the country roads were wet, with their 
 petticoats bemired. 
 
 This morning, when the coach drew up, the horses 
 were well groomed, the coachman smartly dressed and 
 a footman was in attendance, who sprang to earth and 
 opened the door with a flourish. 
 
 The loiterers in the churchyard, and those who were 
 approaching the gate or passing toward the church- 
 porch, stared with eyes wide stretched in wonder and 
 incredulity. Never had such a thing before been be- 
 held or heard of as what they now saw in broad day- 
 light. 
 
 Mistress Clorinda, clad in highest town fashion, in 
 brocades and silver lace, and splendid furbelows, 
 stepped forth from the chariot with the air of a queen. 
 She had the majestic composure of a young lady who 
 had worn nothing less modish than such raiment all 
 her life, and who had prayed decorously beneath her 
 neighbors' eyes since she had left her nurse's care. 
 
 Her sisters and their governess looked timorous, 
 and as if they knew not where to cast their eyes for 
 shamefacedness, but not so Mistress Clorinda, who 
 moved forward with a stately swimming gait, her 
 fine head in the air. As she stepped into the porch, 
 a young gentleman drew back and made a profound 
 obeisance to her. She cast her eyes upon him, and re- 
 turned it with a grace and condescension which struck 
 the beholders dumb with admiring awe. To some of 
 the people of a commoner sort, he was a stranger, but
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 59 
 
 all connected with the gentry knew he was Sir John 
 Oxon, who was staying at Eldershawe Park with his 
 relative, whose estate it was. 
 
 How Mistress Clorinda contrived to manage it, no 
 one was aware but herself, but after a few appear- 
 ances at church, she appeared at other places. She 
 was seen at dinners at fine houses, and began to be 
 seen at routs and balls. Where she was seen she 
 shone, and with such radiance as caused match-mak- 
 ing matrons great dismay and their daughters woful 
 qualms. 
 
 Once having shone, she could not be extinguished, 
 or hidden under a bushel, for being of rank and 
 highly connected through mother as well as father, 
 and playing her cards with great wit and skill, she 
 could not be thrust aside. 
 
 At her first hunt-ball she set aflame every male 
 breast in the shire, unmasking such a battery of 
 charms as no man could withstand the fire of. Her 
 dazzling eye, her wondrous shape, the rich music of 
 her laugh, and the mocking wit of her sharp, saucy 
 tongue, were weapons to have armed a dozen women, 
 and she was but one, and in the first rich tempting 
 glow of blooming youth. 
 
 She turned more heads and caused more quarrels 
 than she could have counted had she sat up half the 
 night. She went to her coach with her father, fol- 
 lowed by a dozen gallants, each ready to spit the other 
 for a smile. Her smiles were wondrous, but there 
 seemed always a touch oi mockery or disdain in them,
 
 60 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 which made them more remembered than if they had 
 been softer. 
 
 One man there was who perchance found something 
 in her high glance not wholly scornful, but he was 
 used to soft treatment from woman, and had in sooth 
 expected milder glances than were bestowed upon him. 
 This was young Sir John Oxon, who had found him- 
 self among the fair sex that night as great a beau as 
 she had been a belle ; but two dances he had won from 
 her, and this was more than any other man could 
 boast, and what other gallants envied him with dark- 
 est hatred. 
 
 Sir Jeoffry, who had watched her as she queened it 
 among rakes and fops and honest country squires and 
 knights, had marked the vigor with which they plyed 
 her, with an emotion which was a new sensation to his 
 drunk-bemuddled brain. So far as it was in his nature 
 to love another than himself, he had learned to love 
 this young lovely virago of his own flesh and blood, 
 perchance, because she was the only creature who had 
 never quailed before him, and had always known 
 how to bend him to her will. 
 
 When the chariot rolled away, he looked at her as 
 she sat erect in the early morning light, as unblenched, 
 bright and untouched in bloom as if she had that mo- 
 ment risen from her pillow and washed her face in 
 dew. He was not so drunk as he had been at mid- 
 night, but he was a little maudlin. 
 
 "By God, thou art handsome, Go!" he said. "By 
 God, I never saw a finer woman."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 6f 
 
 "Nor I," she answered back, "which I thank Heaven 
 for." 
 
 "Thou pretty brazen baggage," her father laughed, 
 "Old Dunstanwolde looked thee well over to-night. 
 He never looked away from the moment he clapped 
 eyes on thee." 
 
 "That I knew better than thee, Dad," said the 
 beauty. "And I saw that he could not have done 
 it if he had tried. If there comes no richer, younger 
 great gentleman, he shall marry me." 
 
 "Thou hast a sharp eye and a keen wit," said Sir 
 Jeoffry, looking askance at her with a new maggot in 
 his brain. "Wouldst never play the fool, I warrant. 
 They will press thee hard and 'twill be hard to with- 
 stand their love-making, but I shall never have to 
 mount and ride off with pistols in my holsters to 
 bring back a man and make him marry thee, as Chris 
 Crowell had to do for his youngest wench. Thou 
 wouldst never play the fool, I warrant wouldst thou, 
 Clo?" 
 
 She tossed her head and laughed like a young, 
 scornful devil, showing her white pearl teeth between 
 her lips' scarlet. 
 
 "Not I," she said. "There thou mayest trust me. 
 I would not be found out" 
 
 She played her part as triumphant beauty so suc- 
 cessfully that the cleverest managing mother in the 
 universe could not have bettered her position. 
 Gallants brawled for her, honest men fell at her 
 feet, romantic swains wrote verses to her, praising
 
 62 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 her eyes, her delicate bosom, the carnation of her 
 cheek, and the awful majesty of her mien. In every 
 revel she was queen; in every contest of beauties, 
 Venus; in every spectacle of triumph, empress of 
 them all. 
 
 The Earl of Dunstanwolde, who had the oldest name 
 and the richest estates in his own county and the six 
 adjoining ones, who, having made a love-match in his 
 prime and lost wife and heir but a year after his 
 nuptials, had been the despair of every maid and 
 mother who knew him, because he would not be melted 
 to a marriageable mood. After the hunt-ball this 
 mourning nobleman, who was by this time of ripe 
 years, had appeared in the world again as he had not 
 done for many years before. Before many months 
 had elapsed it was known that his admiration of the 
 new beauty was confessed, and it was believed that 
 he but waited further knowledge of her to advance 
 to the point of laying his title and estates at her feet. 
 
 But though two years before the entire county 
 would have rated low, indeed, the wit and foresight 
 of the man who had even hinted the possibility of such 
 honor and good fortune being in prospect for the 
 young lady, so great was Mistress Clorinda's bril- 
 liant and noble beauty, and with such majesty she bore 
 herself in these times, that there were even those who 
 doubted whether she would think my lord a rich 
 enough prize for her, and if when he fell upon his 
 knees, she would deign to become his countess, feeling 
 that she had such splendid wares to dispose of as
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 63 
 
 might be bartered for a duke, when she went to town 
 and to court. 
 
 During the length of more than one man's lifetime 
 afterward, the reign of Mistress Clorinda Wildairs 
 was a memory recalled over the bottle at the dining- 
 table among men, some of whom had but heard their 
 fathers vaunt her beauties. It seemed as if in her 
 person there was not a single flaw, or indeed a charm 
 which had not reached the highest point of beauty. 
 For shape she might have vied with young Diana, 
 mounted side by side with her upon a pedestal; her 
 raven locks were of a length and luxuriance to clothe 
 her as a garment, her great eye commanded and flashed 
 as Juno's might have done in the goddess's divinest 
 moments of lovely pride, and though it was said none 
 ever saw it languish, each man who adored her was 
 maddened by the secret belief that Venus herself could 
 not so melt in love as she, if she would stoop to love 
 as each one prayed she might himself. Her hands 
 and feet, her neck, the slimness of her waist, her man- 
 tling crimson and ivory white, her little ear, her scar- 
 let lip, the pearls between them, and her long white 
 throat were perfection each and all, and catalogued 
 with oaths of rapture. 
 
 "She hath such beauties," one admirer said, "that 
 a man must toast them all and can not drink to her 
 as to a single woman. And she hath so many that 
 to slight none her servant must go from the table 
 reeling." 
 
 There was but one thing connected with her which
 
 64 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 was not a weapon to her hand, and this was that she 
 was not a fortune. Sir Jeoffry had drunk and rioted 
 until he had but little left. He had cut his timber and 
 let his estate go to rack, having indeed no money to 
 keep it up. The great hall, which had once been a fine 
 old place, was almost a ruin. Its carved oak and noble 
 rooms and galleries were all of its past splendors that 
 remained. All had been sold that could be sold, and 
 all the outcome had been spent. The county indeed 
 wondered where Mistress Clorinda's fine clothes 
 came from, and knew full well why she was not 
 taken to court to kneel to the Queen. That she 
 was waiting for this to make her match, the envi- 
 ous were quite sure and did not hesitate to whisper 
 pretty loudly. 
 
 The name of one man of rank and fortune after 
 another was spoken of as that of a suitor to her hand, 
 but in some way it was discovered that she refused 
 them all. It was also known that they continued to 
 worship her, and that at any moment she could call 
 even the best among them back. It seemed that while 
 all the men were enamored o'f her, there was not one 
 who could cure himself of his passion, however hope- 
 less it might be. 
 
 Her wit was as great as her beauty, and she had a 
 spirit before which no man could stand if she chose 
 to be disdainful. To some she was so, and had the 
 whim to flout them with great brilliancy. Encounters 
 with her were always remembered, and if heard by 
 those not concerned were considered worthy both of
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 65 
 
 recollection and of being repeated to the world; she 
 had a tongue so nimble and a wit so full of fire. 
 
 Young Sir John Oxon's visit to his relative at 
 Eldershawe being at an end, he returned to town, and 
 remaining there through a few weeks of fashionable 
 gaiety, won new reputations as a triumpher over the 
 female heart. He made some renowned conquests, and 
 set the mode in some new essences and sword knots. 
 But even these triumphs appeared to pall upon him 
 shortly, since he deserted the town and returned again 
 to the country, where, on this occasion, he did not 
 stay with his relative, but with Sir Jeoffry himself, 
 who had taken a boisterous fancy to him. 
 
 It had been much marked since the altered life of 
 Mistress Clorinda, that she, who had previously de- 
 fied all rules laid down on behavior for young misses, 
 and had been thought to do so because she knew none 
 of them, now proved that her wild fashion had been 
 but wil fulness, since it was seen that she must have 
 observed and marked manners with the best. There 
 seemed no decorum she did not know how to observe 
 with the most natural grace. It was indeed all grace 
 and majesty, there being no suggestion of the prude 
 about her, but rather the manner of a young lady 
 having been born with pride and stateliness, and most 
 carefully bred. This was the result of her wondrous 
 wit, the highness of her talents, and the strength of 
 her will, which was of such power that she could carry 
 out without fail anything she chose to undertake. 
 There are some women who have beauty and some
 
 66 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 who have wit, or vigor of understanding, but she 
 possessed all three, and with them such courage and 
 strength of nerve as would have well equipped a man. 
 
 Quick as her wit was, and ready as were her bril- 
 liant quips and sallies, there was no levity in her de- 
 meanor, and she kept Mistress Margery Wimpole in 
 discreet attendance upon her, as if she had been the 
 daughter of a Spanish hidalgo, never to be approached 
 except in the presence of her duenna. Poor Mistress 
 Margery, finding her old fears removed, was over- 
 powered with new ones. She had no lawlessness or 
 hoyden manners to contend with, but instead, a 
 haughtiness so high and demand so great, that her 
 powers could scarcely satisfy the one or her spirit 
 stand up before the other. 
 
 "It is as if one were lady-in-waiting to her Maj- 
 esty's self," she used to whimper when she was alone 
 and dare do so. "Surely the Queen has not such a 
 will and such a temper. She will have me toil to 
 look worthy of her in my habit, and bear myself like 
 a duchess in dignity. Alack, I have practised my 
 obeisance by the hour to perfect it, so that I may 
 escape her wrath. And I must know how to look, 
 and when and where to sit, and with what air of 
 being near at hand, while I must see nothing! And 
 I must drag my failing limbs hither and thither with 
 genteel ease while I ache from head to foot, being 
 neither young nor strong." 
 
 The poor lady was so overawed by, and yet so ad- 
 mired her charge, that it was piteous to behold.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 67 
 
 "She is an arrant fool," quoth Mistress Clorinda to 
 her father. "A nice duenna she would be, forsooth, if 
 she were with a woman to watch her! She could be 
 hoodwinked as it pleased me a dozen times a day. It 
 is I who am her guard, not she mine. But a beauty 
 must drag some spy about with her, it seems, and she 
 I can make to obey me like a spaniel. We can afford 
 no better, and she is well born, and since I bought her 
 the purple paduasoy and the new lappets she has 
 looked well enough to serve." 
 
 "Dunstanwolde need not fear for thee now," said 
 Sir Jeoffry. "Thou art a clever and foreseeing wench, 
 Clo." 
 
 "Dunstanwolde nor any man!" she answered. 
 "There will be no gossip of me. It is Anne and Bar- 
 bara thou must look to, Dad, lest their plain faces lead 
 them to show soft hearts. My face is my fortune." 
 
 When Sir John Oxon paid his visit to Sir Jeoffry, 
 the days of Mistress Margery were filled with carking 
 care. The night before he arrived, Mistress Clorinda 
 called her" to her closet and laid upon her her com- 
 mands in her own high way. She was under her 
 woman's hands, and while her great mantle of black 
 hair fell over the back of her chair and lay on the 
 floor, her tire-woman passing the brush over it, lock 
 by lock, she was at her greatest beauty. Either she 
 had been angered or pleased, for her cheek wore a 
 bloom even deeper and richer than usual, and there 
 was a spark like a diamond under the fringe of her 
 lashes.
 
 68 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 At her first timorous glance at her, Mistress Mar- 
 gery thought she must have been angered, the spark 
 so burned in her eyes, and so evident was the light but 
 quick heave of her bosom, but the next moment it 
 seemed as if she must be in a pleasant humor, for a 
 little smile deepened the dimples in the corner of her 
 bowed full lips. But quickly she looked up and re- 
 sumed her stately air. 
 
 "This gentleman who comes to visit to-morrow," 
 she said, "Sir John Oxon do you know aught of 
 him?" 
 
 "But little, madam," Mistress Margery answered 
 with fear and humility. 
 
 "Then it will be well that you should, since I have 
 commands to lay upon you concerning him," said the 
 beauty. 
 
 "You do me honor," said the poor gentlewoman. 
 
 Mistress Clorinda looked her straight in the face. 
 
 "He is a gentleman from town, the kinsman of Lord 
 Eldershawe," she said. "He is a handsome man, con- 
 cerning whom many women have been fools. He 
 chooses to allow it to be said that he is a conqueror 
 of female hearts and virtue, even among women of 
 fashion and rank. If this be said in the town, what 
 may not be said in the country? He shall wear no 
 such graces here. He chooses to pay his court to me. 
 He is my father's guest and a man of fashion. Let 
 him make as many fine speeches as he has the will to. 
 I will listen or not as I choose, I am used to words. 
 But see that we are not left alone."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 69 
 
 The tire-woman pricked up her ears. Clorinda saw 
 her in the glass. 
 
 "Attend to thy business if thou dost not want a box 
 o' the ear," she said, in a tone which made the woman 
 start. 
 
 "You would not be left alone with the gentleman, 
 madam," faltered Mistress Margery. 
 
 "If he comes to boast of conquests," said Mistress 
 Clorinda, looking at her straight again and drawing 
 down her black brows, "I will play as cleverly as he. 
 He can not boast greatly of one whom he never makes 
 his court to but in the presence of a kinswoman of ripe 
 years. Understand that this be your task." 
 
 "I will remember, madam," answered Mistress Mar- 
 gery; "I will bear myself as you command." 
 
 "That is well," said Mistress Clorinda, "I will keep 
 you no more. You may go."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 RELATING HOW MISTRESS ANNE DISCOVERED A 
 MINIATURE 
 
 THE good gentlewoman took her leave gladly. She 
 had spent a life in timid fears of such things and per- 
 sons as were not formed by Nature to excite them, but 
 never had she experienced such humble terrors as 
 those with which Mistress Clorinda inspired her. 
 Never did she approach her without inward tremor, 
 and never did she receive permission to depart from 
 her presence without relief. And yet her beauty and 
 wit and spirit had no admirer regarding them with 
 more of wondering awe. 
 
 In the bare west wing of the house, comfortless 
 though the neglect of its master had made it, there 
 was one corner where she was unafraid. Her first 
 charges, Mistress Barbara and Mistress Anne, were 
 young ladies of gentle spirit. Their sister had said 
 of them that their spirit was as poor as their looks. 
 It could not be said of them by any one that they had 
 any pretension to beauty, but that which Mistress Clo- 
 rinda rated at as poor spirit was the one element of 
 comfort in their poor dependent kinswoman's life. 
 70
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 71 
 
 They gave her no ill words, they indulged in no fan- 
 tastical whims and vapors, and they did not even seem 
 to expect other entertainment than to walk the coun- 
 try roads, to play with the little lap-dog Cupid, wind 
 silks for their needlework, and please themselves with 
 their embroidery frames. 
 
 To them their sister appeared a goddess whom it 
 would be presumptuous to approach in any frame of 
 mind quite ordinary. Her beauty must be heightened 
 by rich adornments, while their plain looks were left 
 without the poorest aid. It seemed but fitting that 
 what there was to spend must be spent on her. They 
 showed no signs of resentment, and took with grati- 
 tude such cast-off finery as she deigned at times to 
 bestow upon them, when it was no longer useful to 
 herself. She was too full of the occupations of pleas- 
 ure to have had time to notice them even if her nature 
 had inclined her to the observance of family affec- 
 tions. It was their habit, when they knew of her 
 going out in state, to watch her incoming and out- 
 going, through a peep-hole in a chamber window. 
 Mistress Margery told them stories of her admirers 
 and of her triumphs, of the county gentlemen of for- 
 tune who had offered themselves to her, and of the 
 modes of life in town, of the handsome Sir John 
 Oxon, who, without doubt, was of the circle of her 
 admiring attendants, if he had not fallen totally her 
 victim as others had. 
 
 Of the two young women it was Mistress Anne who 
 had the more parts, and the attraction of the mind the
 
 72 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 least dull. In sooth, Nature had dealt with both in 
 a niggardly fashion, but Mistress Barbara was the 
 plainer and the more foolish. Mistress Anne had per- 
 chance the tenderer feelings and was in secret given 
 to a certain sentimentality. She was thin and stoop- 
 ing and had but a muddy complexion; her hair was 
 heavy, it is true, but its thickness and weight seemed 
 naught but an ungrateful burden, and she had a dull, 
 soft eye. In private she was fond of reading such 
 romances as she could procure by stealth from the 
 library of books gathered together in past times by 
 some ancestor Sir Jeoffry regarded as an idiot. Doubt- 
 less she met with strange reading in the volumes she 
 took to her closet, and her simple virgin mind found 
 cause for the solving of many problems, but from tlie 
 pages she contrived to cull stories of lordly lovers and 
 cruel or kind beauties, whose romances created for 
 her a strange world of pleasure in the midst of her 
 loneliness. Poor neglected young female, with every 
 guileless maiden instinct withered at birth, she had 
 need of some tender dreams to dwell upon, though 
 Fate herself seemed to have decreed that they must 
 be no more than visions. 
 
 It was in sooth always the beauteous Clorinda about 
 whose charms she builded her romances. In her great 
 power she saw that for which knights fought in tour- 
 ney, and great kings committed royal sins, and to her 
 splendid beauty she had in secrecy felt that all might 
 be forgiven. She cherished such fancies of her that 
 one morning when she believed her absent from the
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 73 
 
 house, she stole into the corridor upon which Clo- 
 rinda's apartment opened. Her first timid thought 
 had been that if a chamber door were opened she 
 might catch a glimpse of some of the splendors her 
 sister's woman was surely laying out for her wearing 
 at a birth-night ball at the house of one of the gentry 
 of the neighborhood. 
 
 But it so happened that she really found the door of 
 entrance open, which indeed she had not more than 
 dared to hope, and finding it so she stayed her foot- 
 steps to gaze with beating heart within. On the great 
 bed, which was of carved oak, and canopied with tat- 
 tered tapestry, there lay spread such splendors as she 
 had never beheld near to before. 'Twas blue and sil- 
 ver brocade Mistress Clorinda was to shine in to- 
 night; it lay spread forth in all its dimensions; the 
 beautiful bosom and shoulders were to be bared to the 
 eyes of scores of adorers, but rich lace was to set 
 their beauties forth, and strings of pearls. Why Sir 
 Jeoffry had not sold his lady's jewels before he be- 
 came enamored of her six-year-old child it would be 
 hard to explain. There was a great painted fan with 
 jewels in the sticks, and on the floor as if peeping 
 forth from beneath the bravery of the expanded petti- 
 coats was a pair of blue and silver shoes, high heeled 
 and arched and slender. In gazing at them Mistress 
 'Anne lost her breath thinking that in some fashion 
 they had a regal air of being made to trample hearts 
 beneath them. 
 
 To the gentle hapless virgin, to whom such posses- 
 
 4 VOL. 2
 
 74 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 sions were as the wardrobe of a queen, the temptation 
 to behold them nearby was too great. She could not 
 forbear from passing the threshold, and she did with 
 heaving breast. She approached the bed and gazed, 
 she dared to touch the scented gloves that lay by the 
 outspread petticoat of blue and silver, she even laid a 
 trembling finger upon the pointed bodice, which was so 
 slender that it seemed small enough for even a child. 
 
 "Ah me," she sighed gently, "how beautiful she will 
 be! How beautiful, and all of them will fall at her 
 feet, as is not to be wondered at. And it was always 
 so all her life, even when she was an infant, and all 
 gave her her will because of her beauty and her power. 
 She hath a great power. Barbara, and I are not so. 
 We are dull and weak and dare not speak our minds. 
 It is as if we were creatures of another world. But 
 He who rules all things has so willed it for us. He 
 has given it to us for our portion our portion." 
 
 Her dull poor face drooped a little as she spoke the 
 words, and her eyes fell upon the beauteous tiny shoes 
 which seemed to trample even when no foot was within 
 them. She stooped to take one in her hand, but as 
 she was about to lift it, something which seemed to 
 have been dropped upon the floor and to have rolled 
 beneath the valance of the bed, touched her hand. It 
 was a thing to which a ribband was attached, an ivory 
 miniature, and she picked it up wondering. She stood 
 up gazing at it, in such bewilderment to find her eyes 
 upon it, that she scarce knew what she did. She did 
 not mean to pry, she would not have had the daring so
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 75 
 
 to do if she had possessed the inclination. But the in- 
 stant her eyes told her what they saw, she started and 
 blushed as she had never blushed before in her tame 
 life. The warm rose mantled her cheeks and even 
 suffused the neck her chaste kerchief hid. Her eye 
 kindled with admiration and an emotion new to her 
 indeed. 
 
 "How beautiful," she said. "He is like a young 
 Adonis and has the bearing of a royal prince! How 
 can it by what strange chance hath it come here !" 
 
 She had not regarded it more than long enough fo 
 have uttered these words when a fear came upon her, 
 and she felt that she had fallen into misfortune. 
 
 "What must I do with it," she trembled. "What 
 will she say, whether she knows of its being within 
 the chamber or not. She will be angry with me that 
 I have dared to touch it. What shall I do?" 
 
 She regarded it again with eyes almost suffused. 
 Her blush and the sensibility of her emotion gave to 
 her plain countenance a new liveliness of tint and ex- 
 pression. 
 
 "I will put it back where I found it/' she said, "and 
 the one who knows it will find it later. It can not be 
 she it can not be she! If I laid it on her table she 
 would rate me bitterly. And she can be bitter when 
 she will." 
 
 She bent and placed it within the shadow of the 
 valance again, and as she felt it touch the hard oak 
 of the polished floor her bosom rose with a soft sigh. 
 
 "It is an unseemly thing to do," she said; " 'tis as
 
 76 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 though one were uncivil but I dare not I dare not 
 do otherwise." 
 
 She would have turned to leave the apartment, be- 
 ing much overcome by the incident, but just as she 
 would have done so she heard the sound of horses' 
 feet through the window by which she must pass, and 
 looked out to see if it was Clorinda who was return- 
 ing from her ride. Mistress Clorinda was a matchless 
 horsewoman, and a marvel of loveliness and spirit she 
 looked when she rode, sitting upon a horse such as no 
 other woman dared to mount, always an animal of 
 the greatest beauty, but of so dangerous a spirit that 
 her riding-whip was loaded like a man's. 
 
 This time it was not she, and when Mistress Anne 
 beheld the young gentleman who had drawn rein in 
 the court, she started backward and put her hand to 
 her heart, the blood mantling her pale cheek again in 
 a flood. But having started back, the next instant she 
 started forward to gaze again, all her timid soul in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Tis he !" she panted ; " 'tis he himself ! He hath 
 come in hope to speak with my sister and she is abroad. 
 Poor gentleman, he hath come in such high spirit, and 
 must ride back heavy of heart. How comely, and 
 how finely clad he is !" 
 
 He was in sooth with his rich riding-habit, his 
 handsome face, his plumed hat, and the sun shining on 
 the fair luxuriant locks which fell beneath it. It was 
 Sir John Oxon, and he was habited as when he rode 
 in the park in town and the Court was there. Not so
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 77 
 
 were attired the country gentry, whom Anne had been 
 wont to see, though many of them were well mounted, 
 knowing horseflesh and naught else, as they did. 
 
 She pressed her cheek against the side of the oriel 
 window, over which the ivy grew thickly; she was so 
 intent that she could not withdraw her gaze. She 
 watched him as he turned away, having received his 
 dismissal, and she pressed her face closer, that she 
 might follow him as he rode down the long avenue 
 of oak trees, his servant riding behind. 
 
 Thus she bent forward gazing, until he turned and 
 the oaks hid him from her sight, and even then the 
 spell was not dissolved, and she still regarded the place 
 where he had passed until a sound behind her made 
 her start violently. It was a peal of laughter, high 
 and rich, and when she so started and turned to see 
 whom it might be, she beheld her sister Clorinda, who 
 was standing just within the threshold as if move- 
 ment had been arrested by what had met her eye as 
 she came in. Poor Anne put her hand to her side 
 again. 
 
 "Oh, sister!" she gasped; "oh, sister!'* but could 
 no more. 
 
 She saw that she had thought falsely, and that Clo- 
 rinda had not been out at all, for she was in home at- 
 tire. And even in the midst of her trepidation there 
 sprang into Anne's mind the awful thought that 
 through some servant's blunder the comely young 
 visitor had been sent away. For herself, she expected 
 but to be driven forth with wrathful, disdainful
 
 78 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 words for her presumption. For what else could she 
 hope from this splendid creature, who, while of her 
 own flesh and blood, had never seemed to regard her 
 as being more than a poor superfluous underling. But, 
 strangely enough, there was no anger in Clorinda's 
 eyes; she but laughed as though what she had seen 
 had made her merry. 
 
 "You here, Anne," she said, "and looking with light- 
 mindedness after gallant gentlemen. Mistress Mar- 
 gery should see to this and watch more closely, or we 
 shall have unseemly stories told. You, sister, with 
 your modest face and bash fulness ! I had not thought 
 it of you." 
 
 Suddenly she crossed the room to where her sister 
 stood drooping, and seized her by the shoulder so that 
 she could look her well in the face. 
 
 "What," she said with a mocking not quite harsh 
 "what is this ! Does a glance at a fine gallant, even 
 taken from behind an oriel window, make such change 
 indeed! I never before saw this look, nor this color, 
 forsooth. It had improved thee wondrously, Anne 
 wondrously." 
 
 "Sister," faltered Anne, "I so desired to see your 
 birth-night ball gown, of which Mistress Margery hath 
 much spoken I so desired I thought it would not 
 matter if, the door being open and it spread forth 
 upon the bed I I stole a look at it. And then I 
 was tempted and came in." 
 
 "And then was tempted more," Clorinda laughed, 
 still regarding her downcast countenance shrewdly,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 79 
 
 "by a thing far less to be resisted a fine gentleman 
 from town, with lovelocks falling on his shoulders and 
 ladies' hearts strung at his saddle-bow by;, scores. 
 Which found you the most beautiful?" 
 
 "Your gown is splendid, sister," said Anne, with 
 modest shyness; "there will be no beauty who will 
 wear another like it or should there be one she will 
 not carry it as you will." 
 
 "But the man the man, Anne," Clorinda laughed 
 again. "What of the man?" 
 
 Anne plucked up just enough of her poor spirit to 
 raise her eyes to the brilliant ones that mocked at her. 
 
 "With such gentlemen, sister," she said, "is it like 
 that / have aught to do?" 
 
 Mistress Clorinda dropped her hand and left 
 laughing. 
 
 " "Tis true," she said, "it is not but for this one 
 time, Anne, thou lookest almost a woman." 
 
 " 'Tis not beauty alone that makes womanhood," 
 said Anne, her head on her breast again. "In some 
 book I have read that that it is mostly pain. I am 
 woman enough for that." 
 
 "You have read you have read," quoted Clorinda; 
 "you are the bookworm, I remember, and filch ro- 
 mances and poems from the shelves. And you have 
 read that it is mostly pain that makes a woman ? Tis 
 not true. 'Tis a poor lie. I am a woman and I do not 
 suffer for I will not, that I swear ! And when I take 
 an oath, I keep it, mark you ! It is men women suffer 
 for; that was what your scholar meant for such fine
 
 8o A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 gentlemen as the one you have just watched while he 
 rode away. More fools they ! No man shall make me 
 womanly in such a fashion, I promise you ! Let them 
 wince and kneel 7 will not." 
 
 "Sister," Anne faltered, "I thought you were not 
 within. The gentleman who rode away did the ser- 
 vants know " 
 
 "That did they," quoth Clorinda, mocking again; 
 "they knew that I would not receive him to-day, and so 
 sent him away. He might have known as much him- 
 self, but he is an arrant popinjay and thinks all women 
 wish to look at his fine shape, and hear him flatter 
 them when he is in the mood." 
 
 "You would not let him enter?" 
 
 Clorinda threw her graceful body into a chair with 
 more light laughter. 
 
 "I would not," she answered. "You can not under- 
 stand such ingratitude, poor Anne; you would have 
 treated him more softly. Sit down and talk to me, 
 and I will show thee my furbelows myself. All 
 women like to chatter of their laced bodices and petti- 
 coats. That is what makes a woman." 
 
 Anne was tremulous with relief and pleasure. It 
 was as if a queen had bid her to be seated. She sat 
 almost with the humble lack of ease a serving-woman 
 might have shown. She had never seen Clorinda wear 
 such an air before, and never had she dreamed that 
 she would so open herself to any fellow creature. She 
 knew but little of what her sister was capable of the 
 brilliancy of her charm when she chose to condescend,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 81 
 
 of the deigning softness of her manner when she chose 
 to please, of her arch pleasantries and cutting wit, and 
 of the strange power she could wield over any human 
 being, gentle or simple, with whom she came in con- 
 tact. But if she had not known of these things before, 
 she learned to know them this morning. For some 
 reason best known to herself, Mistress Clorinda was 
 in a high good humor. She kept Anne with her for 
 more than an hour, and was dazzling through every 
 moment of its passing. She showed her the splendors 
 she was to shine in at the birth-night ball, even bring- 
 ing forth her jewels and displaying them. She told 
 her stories of the house of which the young heir to-day 
 attained his majority, and mocked at the poor youth 
 because he was ungainly, and at a distance had been 
 her slave since his nineteenth year. 
 
 "I have scarce looked at him," she said. "He is a 
 lout, with great eyes staring, and a red nose. It does 
 not need that one should look at men to win them. 
 They look at us and that is enough." 
 
 To poor Mistress Anne, who had seen no company 
 and listened to no wits, the entertainment bestowed 
 upon her was as wonderful as a night at the playhouse 
 would have been. To watch the old changing face, 
 to harken to jesting stories of men and women who 
 seemed like the heroes and heroines of her romances, 
 to hear love itself the love she trembled and palpi- 
 tated at the mere thought of spoken of openly as an 
 experience which fell to all, to hear it mocked at with 
 dainty or biting quips, to learn that women of all
 
 82 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 ages played with, enjoyed, or lost themselves for it 
 it was with her as if a nun had been withdrawn from 
 her cloister and plunged into the vortex of the world. 
 
 "Sister," she said, looking at the Beauty with 
 humble, adoring eyes, "you make me feel that my 
 romances are true. You tell such things. It is like 
 seeing pictures of things to hear you talk. No wonder 
 that all listen to you, for indeed 'tis wonderful the way 
 you have with words. You use them so that 'tis as 
 though they had shapes of their own and colors and 
 you builded with them. I thank you for being so 
 gracious to me, who have seen so little and can not 
 tell the poor quiet things I have seen." 
 
 And being led into the loving boldness by her grati- 
 tude, she bent forward and touched with her lips the 
 fair hand resting on the chair's arm. 
 
 Mistress Clorinda fixed her fine eyes upon her in a 
 new way. 
 
 "F faith it does not seem fair, Anne," she said; "I 
 should not like to change lives with thee. Thou hast 
 eyes like a shot pheasant soft and with the bright hid 
 beneath the dull. Some man might love them, even 
 if thou art no beauty. Stay" suddenly. "Me- 
 thinks " 
 
 She uprose from her chair and went to the oaken 
 wardrobe and threw the door of it open wide while 
 she looked within. 
 
 "There is a gown and a tippet or so here, and a 
 hood and some ribbands I might do without," she said. 
 "My woman shall bear them to your chamber and
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 83 
 
 show you how to set them to rights. She is a nimble- 
 fingered creature, and a gown of mine would give al- 
 most stuff enough to make you two. Then some days 
 when I am not going abroad and Mistress Margery 
 frets me too much, I will send for you to sit with me, 
 and you shall come and listen to the gossip when a 
 visitor drops in to have a dish of tea." 
 
 Anne would have kissed her feet then if she 
 had dared to do so. She blushed red all over, 
 and adored her with a more worshiping gaze 
 than before. 
 
 "I should not have dared to hope so much," she 
 stammered. "I could not perhaps it is not fitting 
 perhaps I could not bear myself as I should. I would 
 try to show myself a gentlewoman and seemly. I 
 I am a gentlewoman, though I have learned so 
 little. I could not be aught but a gentlewoman, 
 could I, sister being of your own blood and 
 my parents' child?" half afraid to presume even 
 chis much. 
 
 "No," said Clorinda. "Do not be a fool, Anne, and 
 carry yourself too humbly before the world; you can 
 be as humble as you like to me." 
 
 "I shall I shall be your servant, and worship you, 
 sister," cried the poor soul, and she drew near and 
 kissed again the white hand which had bestowed with 
 such loyal bounty all this joy. It would not have oc- 
 curred to her that a cast-off robe and ribband were 
 but small largesses. It was not a minute after this 
 grateful caress that Clorinda made a sharp movement
 
 84 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 a movement which was so sharp that it seemed 
 to be one of dismay. At first, as if involuntarily, 
 she had raised her hand to her tucker, and after 
 doing so she started though 'twas but for a sec- 
 ond's space, after which her face was as it had been 
 before. 
 
 "What is it?" exclaimed Anne. "Have you lost 
 anything ?" 
 
 "No," quoth Mistress Clorinda, quite carelessly, as 
 she once more turned to the contents of the oaken 
 wardrobe; "but I thought I missed a trinket I was 
 wearing for a wager, and I would not lose it before 
 the bet is won." 
 
 "Sister," ventured Anne, before she left her and 
 went away to her own dull world in the west wing, 
 "there is a thing I can do if you will allow me. I 
 can mend your tapestry hangings which have holes 
 in them. I am quick at my needle, and should love 
 to serve you in such poor ways as I can and it is 
 not seemly that they should be so worn. All things 
 about you should be beautiful and well kept." 
 
 "Can you make these broken things beautiful ?" said 
 Clorinda. J'Then indeed you shall. You may come 
 here to mend them when you will." 
 
 "They are very fine hangings, though so old and 
 ill-cared for," said Anne, looking up at them. "And 
 I shall be only too happy sitting here thinking of all 
 you are doing while I am at my work." 
 
 "Thinking of all I am doing?" laughed Mistress 
 Clorinda. "That would give you such wondrous
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 85 
 
 things to dream of, Anne, that you would have no 
 time for your needle, and my hangings would stay 
 as they are." 
 
 "I can think and darn also," said Mistress Anne. 
 "So I will come."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 'TWAS THE FACE OF SIR JOHN OXON THE MOON 
 SHONE UPON 
 
 FROM that time henceforward into the young 
 woman's dull life there came a little change. It did 
 not seem a little change to her, but a great one, 
 though to others it would have seemed slight indeed. 
 She was an affectionate, housewifely creature, who 
 would have made the best of wives and mothers, if 
 it had been so ordained by fortune, and something 
 of her natural instincts found outlet in the furtive 
 service she paid her sister, who became the empress 
 of her soul. She darned and patched the tattered 
 hangings with a wonderful neatness, and the hours 
 she spent at work in the chamber were to her almost 
 as sacred as hours spent at religious duty, or as those 
 nuns and novices give to embroidering altar-cloths. 
 There was a brightness in the room that seemed in 
 no other in the house, and the lingering essences in 
 the air of it were as incense to her. In secrecy she 
 even busied herself with keeping things in better order 
 than Rebecca, Mistress Clorinda's woman, had ever 
 had time to do before. She also contrived to get in 
 86
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 87 
 
 her own hands some duties that were Rebecca's own. 
 She could mend lace cleverly, and arrange ribband 
 knots with taste, and even change the fashion of a 
 gown. The hard-worked tire-woman was but too 
 glad to be relieved, and kept her secret well, being 
 praised many times for the set or fashion of a thing 
 into which she had not so much as set a needle. 
 Being a shrewd baggage, she was wise enough al- 
 ways to relate to Anne the story of her mistress's 
 pleasure, having the wit to read in her delight that 
 she would be encouraged to fresh effort. 
 
 At times it so befell that when Anne went into the 
 bedchamber, she found the Beauty there, who, if she 
 chanced to be in the humor, would detain her in her 
 presence for a space, and bewitch her over again. In 
 sooth, it seemed that she took a pleasure in showing 
 her female adorer how wondrously full of all fascina- 
 tions she could be. At such times Anne's plain face 
 would almost bloom with excitement, and her shot 
 pheasant's eyes would glow as if beholding a goddess. 
 
 She neither saw nor heard more of the miniature 
 on the ribband. It used to make her tremble at times 
 to fancy that, by some strange chance, it might still 
 be under the bed, and that the handsome face smiled 
 and the blue eyes gazed in the very apartment where 
 she herself sat and her sister was robed and disrobed 
 in all her beauty. 
 
 She used all her modest skill in fitting to her own 
 shape and refurbishing the cast-off bits of finery be- 
 stowed upon her. It was all set to rights long before
 
 88 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Clorinda recalled to mind that she had promised that 
 Anne should some time see her chance visitors take 
 their dish of tea with her. 
 
 But one day, for some cause, she did remember, and 
 sent for her. 
 
 Anne ran to her bedchamber and donned her re- 
 modeled gown with shaking hands. She laughed a 
 little hysterically as she did it, seeing her plain, snub- 
 nosed face in the glass. She tried tD dress her head 
 in a fashion new to her, and knew she did it ill and 
 untidily, but had no time to change it. If she had 
 had some red she would have put it on, but no such 
 vanities were in her chamber or Barbara's. So she 
 rubbed her cheeks hard and even pinched them, so 
 that in the end they looked as if they were badly 
 rouged. It seemed to her that her nose grew red too, 
 and indeed 'twas no wonder, for her hands and feet 
 were like ice. 
 
 "She must be ashamed of me," the humble creature 
 said to herself. "And if she is ashamed she will be 
 angered, and send me away and be friends no more." 
 
 She did not deceive herself, poor thing, and imagine 
 she had the chance of being regarded with any great 
 lenience if she appeared ill. 
 
 "Mistress Clorinda begged that you would come 
 quickly," said Rebecca, knocking at the door. 
 
 So she caught her handkerchief, which was scented, 
 as all her garments were, with dried rose-kaves from 
 the garden, which she had conserved herself, and went 
 down to the chintz parlor trembling.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 89 
 
 It was a great room with white panels, and flow- 
 ered coverings to the furniture; there were a num- 
 ber of ladies and gentlemen standing talking and 
 laughing loudly together. The men outnumbered the 
 women, and most of them stood in a circle about Mis- 
 tress Clorinda, who sat upright in a great flowered 
 chair, smiling with her mocking stately air as if she 
 defied them to dare to speak what they felt. 
 
 Anne came in like a mouse. Nobody saw her. She 
 did not indeed know what to do. She dared not re- 
 main standing all alone, so she crept to the place where 
 her sister's chair was and stood a little behind its high 
 back. Her heart beat within her breast till it was like 
 to choke her. 
 
 There were only country gentlemen who made the 
 circle, but to her they seemed dashing gallants. That 
 some of them had red noses as well as cheeks, and 
 that their voices were big and their gallantries boister- 
 ous, was no drawback to their manly charms, because 
 she had seen no other finer gentlemen. They were 
 specimens of the great conquering creature, Man, 
 whom all women must aspire to please if they have 
 the fortunate power and each and all of them were 
 plainly trying to please Clorinda, and not she them. 
 
 And so Anne gazed at them with admiring awe, 
 waiting until there should come a pause in which she 
 might presume to call her sister's attention to her 
 presence; but suddenly, before she had indeed made 
 up her mind how she might best announce herself, 
 there spoke behind her a voice of silver.
 
 90 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "It is only goddesses," said the voice, "who waft 
 about them as they move the musk of the rose gar- 
 dens of Araby. When you come to reign over us in 
 town, madam, there will be no perfume in the mode 
 but that of rose-leaves, and in all drawing-rooms we 
 shall breathe but their perfume." 
 
 And there at her side was bowing to her sister, in 
 cinnamon and crimson, with jeweled buttons on his 
 velvet coat, the beautiful being whose fair locks the 
 sun had shone on the morning she had watched him 
 ride away the man whom the imperial beauty had 
 dismissed and called a popinjay. 
 
 Clorinda looked under her lashes toward him with- 
 out turning, but in so doing beheld Anne standing in 
 waiting. 
 
 "A fine speech lost," she said, "though 'twas well 
 enough for the country, Sir John. 'Tis thrown away, 
 because 'tis not I who am scented with rose-leaves, 
 but Anne there, whom you must not ogle. Come 
 hither, sister, and do not hide as if you were ashamed 
 to be looked at." 
 
 And she drew her forward; and there Anne stood, 
 and all of them stared at her poor, plain, blushing face, 
 and the Adonis in cinnamon and crimson bowed low 
 as if she had been a duchess, that being his conquer- 
 or's way with gentle or simple, maid, wife, or widow, 
 beauty or homespun uncomeliness. 
 
 It was so with him always he could never resist 
 the chance of luring to himself a woman's heart, 
 whether he wanted it or not, and he had a charm,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 91 
 
 a strange and wonderful one, it could not be denied. 
 Anne palpitated indeed as she made her courtesy to 
 him, and wondered if Heaven had ever before made 
 so fine a gentleman and so beautiful a being. 
 
 She went but seldom to this room again, and when 
 she went she stood always in the background, far more 
 in fear that some one would address her than that she 
 should meet with neglect. She was used to neglect 
 and to being regarded as a nonentity, and aught else 
 discomfited her. All her pleasure was to hear what 
 was said, though 'twas not always of the finest wit, 
 and to watch Clorinda play the queen among her ad- 
 mirers and her slaves. She would not have dared to 
 speak of Sir John Oxon frequently; indeed, she let 
 fall his name but rarely, but she learned a curious wit 
 in contriving to hear all things concerning him. It 
 was her habit cunningly to lead Mistress Margery to 
 talking about him and relating long histories of his 
 conquests and his grace. Mistress Wimpole knew 
 many of them, having, for a staid and prudent ma- 
 tron, a lively interest in his ways. It seemed truly 
 if one must believe her long-winded stories, that no 
 duchess under seventy had escaped weeping for him 
 and losing rest, and that ladies of all ranks had com- 
 mitted follies for his sake. 
 
 Mistress Anne, having led her to this fruitful sub- 
 ject, would sit and listen, bending over her embroidery 
 frame with strange emotions, causing her virgin breast 
 to ache with their swelling. She would lie awake at 
 night, thinking in the dark, with her heart beating.
 
 92 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Surely, surely there was no other man on earth who 
 was so fitted to Clorinda, and to whom it was so suited 
 that this empress should give her charms. Surely no 
 woman, however beautiful or proud, could dismiss his 
 suit when he pressed it. And then, poor woman, her 
 imagination strove to paint the splendor of their mu- 
 tual love, though of such love she knew so little. But 
 it must in sooth be bliss and rapture; and perchance, 
 was her humble thought, she might see it from afar 
 and hear of it. And when they went to court, and 
 Clorinda had a great mansion in town and many ser- 
 vants who needed a housewife's eye upon their doings 
 to restrain them from wastefulness and riot, might it 
 not chance to be that, if she served well now and had 
 the courage to plead with her then, she might be per- 
 mitted to serve her there, living quite apart in some 
 quiet corner of the house ? And then her wild thoughts 
 would go so far that she would dream reddening at 
 her own boldness of a child who might be born to 
 them a lordly infant, son and heir, whose eyes might 
 be great and blue and winning, and his hair in great 
 fair locks, and whom she might nurse and tend and 
 be a slave to and love and love and love, and 
 who might end by knowing she was his tender ser- 
 vant, always to be counted on, and might look at 
 her with that wooing, laughing glance, and even 
 love her too. 
 
 The night Clorinda laid her commands upon Mis- 
 tress Wimpole concerning the coming of Sir John 
 Oxon, that matron, after receiving them, hurried to
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 93 
 
 her other charges, flurried and full of talk, and poured 
 forth her wonder and admiration at length. 
 
 "She is a wondrous lady!" she said. "She is, in- 
 deed! It is not alone her beauty, but her spirit and 
 her wit. Mark you, how she sees all things and lets 
 none pass, and can lay a plan as prudent as any lady 
 old enough to be twice her mother. She knows all 
 the ways of the world of fashion, and will guard her- 
 self against gossip in such a way that none can gain- 
 say her high virtue. Her spirit is too great to allow 
 that she may even seem to be as the town ladies. She 
 will not have it ! Sir John will not find his court easy 
 to pay. She will not allow that he shall be able to 
 say to any one that he has seen her alone a moment. 
 Thus, she says, he can not boast. If all ladies were 
 as wise and cunning, there would be no tales to tell." 
 She talked long and garrulously, and set forth to them 
 how Mistress Clorinda had looked straight at her with 
 her black eyes until she had almost shaken as she sat, 
 because it seemed as though she dared her to disobey 
 her will. And how she had sat with her hair trailing 
 upon the floor over the chair's back; and at first it had 
 seemed that she was flushed with anger, but next as 
 if she had smiled. 
 
 "Betimes," said Mistress Wimpole, "I am afraid 
 when she smiles, but to-night some thought had crossed 
 her mind that pleased her. I think it was that she 
 liked to think that he who has conquered so many 
 ladies will find that he is to be outwitted and made a 
 mock of. She likes that others shall be beaten if she
 
 94 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 thinks them impudent. She liked it as a child, and 
 would flog the stable-boys with her little whip until 
 they knelt to beg her pardon for their freedoms." 
 
 That night Mistress Anne went to her bedchamber 
 with her head full of wandering thoughts, and she 
 had not the power to bid them disperse themselves 
 and leave her; indeed, she scarce wished for it. She 
 was thinking of Clorinda, and wondering sadly that 
 she was of so high a pride that she could bear herself 
 as though there were no human weakness in her breast, 
 not even the womanly weakness of a heart. How 
 could it be possible that she could treat with disdain 
 this gallant gentleman if he loved her, as he surely 
 must? Herself she had been sure that she had seen 
 an ardent flame in his blue eyes even that first day, 
 when he had bowed to her with that air of grace as 
 he spoke of the fragrance of the rose-leaves he had 
 thought wafted from her robe. How could a woman 
 whom he loved resist him ? How could she cause him 
 to suffer by forcing him to stand at arm's length, 
 when he sighed to draw near and breathe his passion 
 at her feet? 
 
 In the silence of her chamber as she disrobed she 
 sighed with restless pain, but did not know that 
 her sighing was for grief that love of which there 
 seemed so little in some lives could be wasted and 
 flung away. She could not fall into slumber when 
 she lay down upon her pillow, but tossed from side 
 to side with a burdened heart. 
 
 "She is so young and beautiful and proud," she
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 95 
 
 thought. "It is because I am so much older that I 
 can see these things that I see that this is surely the 
 one man who should be her husband. There may be 
 many others, but they are none of them her equals, 
 and she would scorn and hate them when she was 
 once bound to them for life. This one is as beautiful 
 as she, and full of grace and wit and spirit. She could 
 not look down upon him, however wroth she was at 
 any time. Ah, me ! She should not spurn him, surely 
 she should not!" 
 
 She was so restless and ill at ease that she could 
 not lie upon her bed, but rose therefrom, as she often 
 did in her wakeful hours, and went to her lattice, 
 gently opening it to look out upon the night and calm 
 herself by sitting with her face uplifted to the stars, 
 which from her childhood she had fancied looked 
 down upon her kindly, and as if they would give her 
 comfort. 
 
 To-night there were no stars. There should have 
 been a moon three-quarters full, but in the evening 
 clouds had drifted across the sky and closed over all 
 heavily, so that no moonlight was to be seen, save 
 when a rare sudden gust made a ragged rent, for a 
 moment, in the blackness. 
 
 She did not sit this time, but knelt clad in her night- 
 rail as she was. All was sunk into the profoundest 
 silence of the night. By this time the entire house- 
 hold had been long enough abed to be plunged in sleep. 
 She alone was waking, and being of that simple mind 
 which, like a child's, must ever bear its trouble to a
 
 96 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 protecting strength, she looked up at the darkness of 
 the cloudy sky and prayed for the better fortune 
 of the man who had indeed not remembered her 
 existence after the moment he had made her his 
 obeisance. She was too plain and sober a creature 
 to be remembered. 
 
 "Perchance," she murmured, "he is at this moment 
 also looking at the clouds from his window, because 
 he can not sleep for thinking that in two days he 
 will be beneath her father's roof, and will see her 
 loveliness, and he must needs be contriving within 
 his mind what he will say if she do but look as 
 if she might regard him with favor, which I pray 
 she will." 
 
 From the path below, that moment, there rose a 
 slight sound so light a one that for a second she 
 thought she must have been deceived in believing it 
 had fallen upon her ear. All was still after it for full 
 two minutes, and had she heard no more she would 
 have surely forgotten she had heard aught, or would 
 have believed herself but the victim of fancy. But 
 after the long pause the same sound came again, 
 though this time it was slighter; yet despite its slight- 
 ness it seemed to her to be the crushing of the earth 
 and stone beneath a cautious foot. It was a foot so 
 cautious that it was surely stealthy, and scarce dared 
 to advance at all. And then all was still again. She 
 was for a moment overcome with fears, not being of 
 a courageous temper, and having heard but of late 
 of a bold gipsy vagabond who, with a companion,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 97 
 
 had broken into the lower rooms of a house of the 
 neighborhood, and, being surprised by its owner, had 
 only been overcome and captured after a desperate 
 fight, in which shots were exchanged, and one of the 
 hurriedly awakened servants killed. So she leaned 
 forward to harken further, wondering what she should 
 do to best alarm the house, and as she bent so she 
 heard the sound again and a smothered oath, and 
 with her straining eyes saw that surely upon the path 
 there stood a dark-draped figure. She rose with great 
 care to her feet and stood a moment shaking and 
 clinging to the window-ledge, while she bethought 
 her of what servants she could wake first, and how 
 she could reach her father's room. Her poor heart 
 beat in her side, and, as her breath came quickly, the 
 soundlessness of the night was broken by one of the 
 strange sudden gusts of wind which tossed the trees 
 and tore at the clouds as they hurried. She heard the 
 footstep again, as if it feared its own sound the less 
 when the wind might cover it. A faint pale gleam 
 showed between two dark clouds, behind which the 
 moon had been hidden; it grew brighter, and a jagged 
 rent was torn, so that the moon herself for a sec- 
 ond or so shone out dazzling bright before the clouds 
 rushed over her again and shut her in. 
 
 It was at this very instant Mistress Anne heard the 
 footsteps once more, and saw full well a figure in dark 
 cloak and hat, which stepped quickly into the shade of 
 a great tree. But more she saw and clapped her hand 
 upon her mouth to stifle the cry that would have other- 
 5 VOL. 2
 
 98 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 wise risen in spite of her that notwithstanding his 
 fair locks were thrust out of sight beneath his hat, and 
 he looked strange and almost uncomely, it was the face 
 of Sir John Oxon, the moon, bursting through the 
 jagged clouds, had shone upon.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TWO MEET IN THE DESERTED ROSE-GARDEN, AND THE 
 
 OLD EARL OF DUNSTANWOLDE IS MADE A 
 
 HAPPY MAN 
 
 IT was not until three days later, instead of two, 
 that Sir John Oxon rode into the courtyard with his 
 servant behind him. He had been detained on his 
 journey, but looked as if his impatience had not caused 
 him to suffer, for he wore his finest air of spirit and 
 beauty, and when he was alone with Sir Jeoffry made 
 his compliments to the absent ladies, and inquired of 
 their health with his best town grace. 
 
 Mistress Clorinda did not appear until the dining 
 hour, when she swept into the room like a queen, fol- 
 lowed by her sister, Anne, and Mistress Wimpole, this 
 being the first occasion of Mistress Anne's dining, as it 
 were, in state, with her family. 
 
 The honor had so alarmed her that she looked pale, 
 and so ugly that Sir Jeoffry scowled at sight of her, 
 and swore under his breath to Clorinda that she should 
 have been allowed to come. 
 
 "I know my own affairs the best, by your leave, 
 sir," answered Clorinda, as low and with a grand flash 
 of her eye. "She hath been drilled well." 
 09
 
 ioo A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 This she had indeed, and so had Mistress Wimpole, 
 and throughout Sir John Oxon's stay they were called 
 upon to see that they played well their parts. Two 
 weeks he stayed, and then rode gaily back to town, 
 and when Clorinda made her sweeping courtesy to the 
 ground to him upon the threshold of the flowered room 
 in which he bade her farewell, both Anne and Mistress 
 Wimpole courtesied a step behind her. 
 
 "Now that he has gone and you have shown me 
 that you can attend me as I wish," she said, turning 
 to them as the sound of his horse's hoofs died away, 
 "it will not trouble me should he choose some day to 
 come again. He has not carried with him much that 
 he can boast of." 
 
 In truth, she had held him well in hand. If he had 
 come as a sighing lover, the whole county knew she 
 had shown him but small favor. She had invited com- 
 panies to the house on several occasions, and all could 
 see how she bore herself toward him. She carried 
 herself with a certain proud courtesy as becoming the 
 daughter of his host, but her wit did not spare him, 
 and sometimes, when it was more than in common 
 cutting, he was seen to wince, though he held himself 
 gallantly. 
 
 There were one or two who thought they now 
 and then had seen his blue eyes fall upon her 
 when he believed none were looking, and rest there 
 burning for a moment, but 'twas never for more than 
 an instant, when he would rouse himself with a start 
 and turn away.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 101 
 
 She had been for a month or two less given to pas- 
 sionate outbreaks, having indeed decided that it was 
 to her interest as a young lady and a future great one 
 to curb herself. 
 
 Her tire-woman, Rebecca, had begun to dare 
 to breathe more freely when she was engaged 
 about her person, and had, in truth, spoken of her 
 pleasanter fortune among her fellows in the ser- 
 vants' hall. 
 
 But a night or two after the visitor took his de- 
 parture, she gave way to such an outburst as even 
 Rebecca had scarce ever beheld, being roused to it by 
 a small thing in one sense, thought in yet another per- 
 haps great enough, since it touched upon the despoil- 
 ing of one of her beauties. 
 
 She was at her toilet-table being prepared for the 
 night, and her long hair brushed and dressed before 
 retiring. 
 
 Mistress Wimpole had come into the chamber to 
 do something at her bidding, and, chancing to stand 
 gazing at her great and heavy fall of locks as she 
 was waiting, she observed a thing which caused her, 
 foolish woman that she was, to give a start and utter 
 an unwise exclamation. 
 
 "Madam!" she gasped. "Madam!" 
 
 "What, then?" quoth Mistress Clorinda, angrily. 
 "You bring my heart to my throat!" 
 
 "Your hair!" stammered Wimpole, losing all her 
 small wit. "Your beauteous hair I A lock is gone, 
 madam !"
 
 102 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Clorinda started to her feet and flung the great 
 black mass over her white shoulder, that she might 
 see it in the glass. 
 
 "Gone !" she cried. "Where? How? What mean 
 you? Ah h!" 
 
 Her voice rose to a sound that was well-nigh a 
 scream. She saw the rifled spot a place where a 
 great lock had been severed jaggedly and it must 
 have been five feet long. 
 
 She turned and sprang upon her woman, her beau- 
 tiful face distorted with fury and her eyes like flames 
 of fire. She seized her by each shoulder and boxed 
 her ears until her head spun round and bells rang 
 within it. 
 
 " 'Twas you !" she shrieked. " 'Twas you she- 
 devil beast slut that you are! 'Twas when you 
 used your scissors to the new head you made for me. 
 You set it on my hair that you might set a loop 
 and in your sluttish way you snipped a lock by accident 
 and hid it from me." 
 
 She beat her till her own black hair flew about her 
 like the mane of a Fury and having used her hands 
 till they were tired, she took her brush from the table 
 and beat her with that till the room echoed with the 
 blows on the stout shoulders. 
 
 "Mistress, 'twas not so !" cried the poor thing, sob- 
 bing and struggling. " 'Twas not so, madam." 
 
 "Madam, you will kill the woman," wept Mis- 
 tress Wimpole. "I beseech you! 'Tis not seemly, I 
 beseech"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 103 
 
 Mistress Clorinda flung her woman from her and 
 threw the brush at Mistress Wimpole, crying at her 
 with the lordly rage she had been wont to shriek with 
 when she wore breeches. 
 
 "Damnation to thy seemliness," she cried. "And 
 to thee too ! Get thee gone from me both get thee 
 gone from my sight!" 
 
 And both women fled, weeping and sobbing and 
 gasping, from the room incontinently. 
 
 She was shrewish and sullen with her woman for 
 days after, and it was the poor creature's labor to 
 keep from her sight, when she dressed her head, the 
 place from whence the lock had been taken. In the 
 servants' hall the woman vowed that it was not she 
 who had cut it, that she had had no accident; though 
 it was true she had used the scissors about her head, 
 yet it was but in snipping a ribbon ; she had not touched 
 a hair. 
 
 "If she were another lady," she said, "I should 
 swear some gallant had robbed her of it, but, 
 forsooth, she does not allow them to come near 
 enough for such sport, and with five feet of hair 
 wound up in coronals, how could a man unwind a 
 lock, even if 'twas permitted him to stand at her 
 very side?" 
 
 Two years passed, and the Beauty had no greater 
 fields to conquer than those she found in the county, 
 since her father, Sir Jeoffry, had not the money to 
 take her to town, he becoming more and more in- 
 volved and so fallen into debt that it was even whis-
 
 io 4 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 pered at times it went hard with him to keep even 
 the poor household he had. 
 
 Mistress Clorinda's fortunes the gentry of the neigh- 
 borhood discussed with growing interest and curiosity. 
 What was like to become of her great gifts and powers 
 in the end, if she could never show them to the great 
 world and have the chance to carry her splendid wares 
 to the fashionable market where there were men of 
 quality and wealth who would be like to bid for them. 
 She had not chosen to accept any of those who had 
 offered themselves so far, and it was believed that for 
 some reason she had held off my Lord of Dunstan- 
 wolde in his suit. 'Twas evident that he admired her 
 greatly, and why he had not already made her his 
 countess was a sort of mystery which was produc- 
 tive of many discussions and bore much talking over. 
 Some said that with all her beauty and his admiration 
 he was wary, and waited, and some were pleased to 
 say that the reason he waited was because the young 
 lady herself contrived that he should, it being her de- 
 sire to make an open conquest of Sir John Oxon and 
 show him to the world as her slave, before she made 
 up her mind to make even a much greater match. 
 Some hinted that, for all her disdainfulness and 
 haughty pride, she would marry Sir John if he asked 
 her, but that he, being as brilliant a beau as she a 
 beauty, was too fond of his pleasures and his gay 
 town life to give them up even to a goddess who had 
 no fortune. His own had not been a great one, and 
 he had squandered it magnificently, his extravagances
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 105 
 
 being renowned in the world of fashion, and having 
 indeed founded for him his reputation. 
 
 It was, however, still his way to accept frequent 
 hospitalities from his kinsman Eldershawe, and Sir 
 Jeoffry was always rejoiced enough to secure him as 
 his companion for a few days, when he could lure him 
 from the dissipation of the town. At such times it 
 never failed that Mistress Wimpole and poor Anne 
 kept their guard. Clorinda never allowed them to 
 relax their vigilance, and Mistress Wimpole ceased to 
 feel afraid and became accustomed to her duties; but 
 Anne never did so. She looked always her palest and 
 ugliest when Sir John was in the house, and she would 
 glance with sad wonder and timid adoration from him 
 to Clorinda; but sometimes, when she looked at Sir 
 John her plain face would grow crimson, and once or 
 twice he caught her at the folly, and when she dropped 
 her eyes, overwhelmed with shame, he faintly smiled 
 to himself, seeing in her a new though humble conquest. 
 
 There came a day when in the hunting-field there 
 passed from mouth to mouth a rumor, and Sir Jeoffry 
 hearing it came pounding over on his big black horse 
 to his daughter, and told it to her in great spirits. 
 
 "He is a sly dog, John Oxon," he said, a broad grin 
 on his rubicund face. "This very week he comes to 
 us, and he and I are cronies, yet he has blabbed noth- 
 ing of what is being buzzed about by all the world." 
 
 "He has learned how to keep a closed mouth," said 
 Mistress Clorinda, without asking a question. 
 
 "But 'tis marriage he is so mum about, bless ye!"
 
 io6 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 said Sir Jeoffry. "And that is not a thing to be hid 
 long. He is to be shortly married, they say. My 
 lady, his mother, has found him a great fortune in a 
 new beauty but just come to town. She hath great 
 estates in the West Indies as well as a fine fortune in 
 England and all the world is besieging her ; but Jack 
 has come and bowed his face, pining before her, and 
 writ some verses and borne her off from them all." 
 
 " Tis time," said Clorinda, "that he should marry 
 some woman who can pay his debts and keep him out 
 of the sponging-house, for to that he will come if he 
 does not play his cards with skill." 
 
 Sir Jeoffry looked at her askance and rubbed his 
 red chin. 
 
 "I wish thou hadst liked him, Clo," he said, "and 
 ye had both had fortunes to match. I love the fellow 
 and ye would have made a handsome pair." 
 
 Mistress Clorinda laughed, sitting straight in her 
 saddle, her fine eyes unblenching though the sun 
 struck them. 
 
 "We had fortunes to match," she said. "I was a 
 beggar and he was a spendthrift. Here comes Lord 
 Dunstanwolde." 
 
 And as the gentleman rode near, it seemed to his 
 dazzled eyes that the sun so shone down upon her be- 
 cause she was a goddess and drew it from the heavens. 
 
 In the west wing of the Hall 'twas talked of be- 
 tween Mistress Wimpole and her charges that a rumor 
 of Sir John Oxon's marriage was afloat. 
 
 "Yet can I not believe it," said Mistress Margery;
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 107 
 
 "for if ever a gentleman was deep in love, though he 
 bitterly strove to hide it, 'twas Sir John, and with 
 Mistress Clorinda." 
 
 "But she," faltered Anne, looking pale and even 
 agitated "she was always disdainful to him and held 
 him at arm's length. I I wished she would have 
 treated him more kindly." 
 
 " Tis not her way to treat men kindly," said Mis- 
 tress Wimpole. 
 
 But whether the rumor was true or false and there 
 were those who bestowed no credit upon it and said 
 it was mere town talk, and that the same thing had 
 been bruited abroad before it so chanced that Sir 
 John paid no visit to his relative or to Sir Jeoffry for 
 several months. 'Twas heard once that he had gone 
 to France, and at the French Court was making as 
 great a figure as he had made at the English one, but 
 of this even his kinsman, Lord Eldershawe, could 
 speak no more certainly than he could of the first 
 matter. 
 
 The suit of my Lord of Dunstanwolde if suit it 
 was during these months appeared to advance some- 
 what. All orders of surmises were made concerning 
 it that Mistress Clorinda had privately quarreled 
 with Sir John and sent him packing that he had 
 tired of his love-making, as 'twas well known he had 
 done many times before, and having squandered his 
 possessions and finding himself in open straits, mast 
 needs patch up his fortunes in a hurry with the first 
 heiress whose estate suited him. But 'twas the women
 
 io8 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 who said these things; the men swore no one could 
 tire of or desert such spirit and beauty, and that if 
 Sir John Oxon stayed away 'twas because he had been 
 commanded to do so, it never having been Mistress 
 Clorinda's intention to do more than play with him a 
 while, she having been witty against him always for 
 a fop, and meaning herself to accept no man as a hus- 
 band who could not give her both rank and wealth. 
 
 "We know her," said the old boon companions of 
 her childhood, as they talked of her over their bottles. 
 "She knew her price and would bargain for it when 
 she was not eight years old, and would give us songs 
 and kisses but when she was paid for them with sweet 
 things and knickknacks from the toy shops. She will 
 marry no man who can not make her at least a count- 
 ess, a^d she would take him but because there was not 
 a duke at hand. We know her and her beauty's 
 ways." 
 
 But they did not know her; none knew her save 
 herself. 
 
 In the west wing, which grew more bare and ill- 
 furnished as things wore out and time went by, Mis- 
 tress Anne waxed thinner and paler. She was so thin 
 in two months' time that her soft, dull eyes looked 
 twice their natural size, and seemed to stare piteously 
 at people. One day, indeed, as she sat at work in her 
 sister's room, Clorinda being there at the time, the 
 Beauty, turning and beholding her face suddenly, 
 uttered a violent exclamation. 
 
 "Why look you at me so?" she said. "Your eyes
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 109 
 
 stand out of your head like a new-hatched, unfeath- 
 ered bird's. They irk me with their strange, asking 
 look. Why do you stare at me?" 
 
 "I do not know," Anne faltered. "I could not tell 
 you, sister. My eyes seem to stare so because of my 
 thinness. I have seen them in my mirror." 
 
 "Why do you grow thin?" quoth Clorinda, harshly. 
 "You are not ill." 
 
 "I I do not know," again Anne faltered. "Naught 
 ails me. I do not know. For forgive me!" 
 
 Clorinda laughed. 
 
 "Soft little fool," she said, "why should you ask 
 me to forgive you? I might as fairly ask you to 
 forgive me that I keep my shape and show no 
 wasting." 
 
 Anne rose from her chair and hurried to her sis- 
 ter's side, sinking upon her knees there to kiss her 
 hand. 
 
 "Sister," she said, "one could never dream that you 
 could need pardon I love you so that all you do, it 
 seems to me must be right whatsoever it might be." 
 
 Clorinda drew her fair hands away and clasped 
 them on the top of her head, proudly, as if she 
 crowned herself thereby, her great and splendid eyes 
 setting themselves upon her sister's face. 
 
 "All that I do," she said slowly, and with the stead- 
 fast high arrogance of an empress self "all that I do 
 is right for Me. I make it so by doing it. Do you 
 think that I am conquered by the laws that other 
 women crouch and whine before because they dare not
 
 i io A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 break them, though they long to do so ? / am my own 
 law and the law of some others." 
 
 It was by this time the first month of the summer, 
 and to-night there was again a birth-night ball, at 
 which the Beauty was to dazzle all eyes; but 'twas 
 of greater import than the one she had graced pre- 
 viously, it being to celebrate the majority of the heir 
 to an old name and estate, who had been orphaned 
 early and was highly connected, counting, indeed, 
 among the members of his family the Duke of Os- 
 monde, who was one of the richest and most envied 
 nobles in Great Britain, his dukedom being of the old- 
 est, his numerous estates the most splendid and beau- 
 tiful, and the long history of his family full of heroic 
 deeds. This nobleman was also a distant kinsman to 
 the Earl of Dunstanwolde. At this ball, for the first 
 time for months, Sir John Oxon appeared again. He 
 did not arrive on the gay scene until an hour some- 
 what late. 
 
 But there was one who had seen him early, though 
 no human soul had known of the event. 
 
 In the rambling, ill-cared for grounds of Wildairs 
 Hall, there was an old rose-garden which' had once 
 been the pride and pleasure of some lady of the house, 
 though this had been long ago, and now it was but a 
 lonely wilderness where roses only grew because the 
 dead Lady Wildairs had loved them in her loneli- 
 ness, and Barbara and Anne had tended them, and 
 with their own hands planted and pruned during their 
 childhood and young maiden days. But of late years
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY in 
 
 even they had seemed to have forgotten it, having be- 
 come discouraged, perchance having no gardeners 
 to do the rougher work, and the weeds and brambles 
 so running riot. There were high hedges and wind- 
 ing paths overgrown and run wild, the stronger rose- 
 bushes grew in tangled masses, flinging forth their 
 rich blooms among the weeds ; such as were more deli- 
 cate, struggling to live among them, became more frail 
 and scant blossoming season by season ; a careless foot 
 would have trodden them beneath it, as their branches 
 grew long and trailed in the grass, but for many 
 months no foot had trodden there at all, and it was 
 a beauteous place deserted. 
 
 In the centre was an ancient broken sun-dial, which 
 was in these days in the midst of a sort of thicket 
 where a bold tangle of the finest red roses clambered, 
 and, defying neglect, flaunted their rich color in the 
 sun. 
 
 And though the place had been so long forgotten, 
 and it was not the custom for it to be visited, about 
 this garlanded, broken sun-dial, the grass was a little 
 trodden, and on the morning of the young heir's com- 
 ing of age, some one stood there in the glowing sun- 
 light as if waiting. 
 
 This was no less than Mistress Clorinda herself. 
 She was clad in a morning gown of white, which 
 seemed to make of her more than ever a tall tran- 
 scendent creature, less a woman than a conquering 
 goddess and she had piled the dial with scarlet red 
 roses, which she was choosing to weave into a mas-
 
 ii2 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 sive wreath, or crown, for some purpose best known 
 to herself. Her head seemed haughtier and more 
 splendidly held on high, even than was its common 
 wont, but upon these roses her lustrous eyes were 
 downcast and were curiously smiling, as also was her 
 ripe arching lip, whose scarlet the blossoms vied with 
 but poorly. 
 
 It was a smile like this, perhaps, which Mistress 
 Wimpole feared, and trembled before, for 'twas not a 
 tender smile, nor a melting one. 
 
 If she was waiting, she did not wait long, nor, to 
 be sure, would she have long waited if she had been 
 kept by any daring laggard. This was not her way. 
 'Twas not a laggard who came soon, stepping hur- 
 riedly with light feet upon the grass, as though he 
 feared the sound which might be made if he had trod- 
 den upon the gravel. It was Sir John Oxon, who 
 came toward her in his riding costume. 
 
 He came and stood before her on the other side of 
 the dial, and made her a bow so low that a quick eye 
 might have thought 'twas almost mocking. His 
 feather, sweeping the ground, caught a fallen rose, 
 which clung to it. His beauty, when he stood up- 
 right, seemed to defy the very morning's self, and all 
 the morning world, but Mistress Clorinda did not lift 
 her eyes, but kept them upon her roses and went on 
 weaving. 
 
 "Why did you choose to come?" she asked. 
 
 "Why did you choose to keep the tryst in answer 
 to my message?" he replied to her.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 113 
 
 At this she lifted her great shining eyes and fixed 
 them full upon him. 
 
 "I wished/' she said, "to see what you would say 
 more to see you than to hear." 
 
 "And I," he began "I came" 
 
 She held up her white hand with a long-stemmed 
 rose in it, as though a queen should lift a sceptre. 
 
 "You came," she answered, "more to see me than 
 to hear. You made that blunder." 
 
 "You choose to bear yourself like a goddess and 
 disdain me from Olympian heights," he sneered. "I 
 had the wit to guess it would be so." 
 
 She shook her royal head, faintly and most strangely 
 smiling. 
 
 "That you had not," was her clear- worded answer. 
 "That is a later thought sprung up since you have 
 seen my face. 'Twas quick for you, but not quick 
 enough." And the smile in her eyes was maddening. 
 "You thought to see a woman crushed and weeping, 
 her beauty bent before you, her locks disheveled, her 
 streaming eyes lifted to Heaven and you with 
 prayers, swearing that not Heaven could help her so 
 much as your deigning magnanimity. You have seen 
 women do this before, you would have seen me do it 
 at your feet crying out that I was lost lost for- 
 ever. That you expected! 'Tis not here." 
 
 Debauched as his youth was, and free from all 
 touch of heart or conscience for from his earliest 
 boyhood he had been the pupil of rakes and fashion- 
 able villains well as he thought he knew all women
 
 ii 4 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 and their ways, betraying or betrayed, this creature 
 taught him a new thing a new mood in woman 
 a new power which came upon him like a thunderbolt. 
 
 "Gods !" he exclaimed, catching his breath and even 
 falling back a pace. "Damnation! you are not a 
 woman !" 
 
 She laughed again, weaving her roses, but not allow- 
 ing that his eyes should loose themselves from hers. 
 
 "But now you called me a goddess and spoke of 
 Olympian heights," she said; "I am not one. I am a 
 woman, who would show other women how to bear 
 themselves in hours like these. Because I am a 
 woman, why should I kneel and weep and rave? 
 What have I lost in losing you? I should have 
 lost the same had I been twice your wife. What is 
 it women weep and beat their breasts for? Because 
 they lose a man because they lose his love? They 
 never have them." 
 
 She had finished the wreath and held it up in the 
 sun to look at it. What a strange beauty was hers, as 
 she held it so a heavy, sumptuous thing in her white 
 hands, her head thrown backward. 
 
 "You marry soon," she asked, "if the match is not 
 broken?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered, watching her, a flame growing 
 in his eyes and in his soul in his own despite. 
 
 "It can not be too soon," she said, and she turned 
 and faced him, holding the wreath high in her two 
 hands poised like a crown above her head, the bril- 
 liant sun embracing her, her lips curling, her face up-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 115 
 
 lifted as if she turned, to defy the light, the crimson 
 of her cheek. 'Twas as if from foot to brow the 
 woman's whole person was a flame, rising and burn- 
 ing triumphant, high above him. Thus for one sec- 
 ond's space she stood, dazzling his very eyesight with 
 her strange, dauntless splendor. And then she set the 
 great rose-wreath upon her head, so crowning it. 
 
 "You came to see me," she said, the spark in her 
 eyes growing to the size of a star ; "I bid you look and 
 see how grief has faded me these past months, and 
 how I am bowed down by it. Look well, that you 
 may remember." 
 
 "I look," he said, almost panting. 
 
 "Then," she said, her fine-cut nostril pinching itself 
 with her breath, as she pointed down the path before 
 her, "go! back to your kennel!" 
 
 That night she appeared at the birth-night ball with 
 the wreath of roses on her head. No other ladies wore 
 such things ; 'twas a fashion of her own, but she wore 
 it in such beauty and with such state that it became a 
 crown again, even as if it had been the first moment 
 that she had put it on. All gazed at her as she en- 
 tered, and a murmur followed her as she moved with 
 her father up the broad oak staircase, which was 
 known through all the county for its width and mas- 
 sive beauty. In the hall below guests were crowded, 
 and there were indeed few of them who did not watch 
 her as she mounted by Sir Jeoffry's side. In the upper 
 hall there were guests also, some walking to and fro,
 
 i 1 6 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 some standing talking, many looking down at the arri- 
 vals as they came up. 
 
 " 'Tis Mistress Wildairs," these murmured as they 
 saw her. "Clorinda, by God!" said one of the older 
 men to his crony who stood near him. "And crowned 
 with roses! The vixen makes them look as if they 
 were built of rubies in every leaf." 
 
 At the top of the great staircase there stood a gen- 
 tleman, who had indeed paused a moment, spellbound 
 as he saw her coming. He was a man of unusual 
 height and of a majestic mien; he wore a fair periwig, 
 which added to his tallness; his laces and embroider- 
 ings were marvels of art and richness, and his breast 
 blazed with orders. Strangely, she did not seem to 
 see him, but when she reached the landing and her face 
 was turned so that he beheld the full blaze of its 
 beauty, 'twas so great a wonder and revelation to him 
 that he gave a start. The next moment, almost, one 
 of the red roses of her crown broke loose from its 
 fastenings and fell at his very feet. His countenance 
 changed so that it seemed, for a second, to lose some 
 of its color. He stooped and picked the rose up and 
 held it in his hand. But Mistress Clorinda was 
 looking at my Lord of Dunstanwolde, who was 
 moving through the crowd to greet her. She gave 
 him a brilliant smile, and from her lustrous eyes 
 surely there passed something which lit a fire of 
 hope in his. 
 
 After she had made her obeisance to her entertainers 
 and her birthday greetings to the young heir, he con-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 117 
 
 trived to draw closely to her side and speak a few 
 words in a tone those near her could not hear. 
 
 "To-night, madam," he said, with melting fervor, 
 "you deign to bring me my answer as you promised ?" 
 
 "Yes," she murmured; "take me where we may be 
 a few moments alone." 
 
 He led her to an antechamber where they were shel- 
 tered from the gaze of the passers-by, though all was 
 moving gaiety about them. He fell upon his knee and 
 bowed to kiss her fair hand. Despite the sobriety of 
 his years, he was as eager and tender as a boy. 
 
 "Be gracious to me, madam," he implored. "I am 
 not young enough to wait. Too many months have 
 been thrown away." 
 
 "You need wait no longer, my lord," she said "not 
 one single hour." 
 
 And while he, poor gentleman, knelt kissing her 
 hand with adoring humbleness, she, under the splen- 
 dor of her crown of roses, gazed down at his gray 
 head with her great steady shining orbs, as if gazing 
 at some almost uncomprehended piteous wonder. 
 
 In less than an hour the whole assemblage knew 
 of the event and talked of it. Young men looked 
 daggers at Dunstanwolde and at each other, and 
 older men wore glum or envious faces. Women told 
 each other 'twas as they had known it would be, or 
 'twas a wonder that at last it had come about. Upon 
 the arm of her lord that was to be, Mistress Clorinda 
 passed from room to room like a royal bride. As she 
 made her first turn of the ballroom, all eyes upon her,
 
 i 1 8 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 her beauty blazing at its highest, Sir John Oxon en- 
 tered and stood at the door. He wore his gallant air 
 and smiled as ever, and when she drew near him he 
 bowed low and she stopped and bent lower in a 
 courtesy sweeping the ground. 
 
 'Twas but in the next room her lord led her to a 
 gentleman who stood with a sort of court about him. 
 It was the tall stranger with the fair periwig and the 
 orders glittering on his breast the one who had 
 started at sight of her as she had reached the landing 
 of the stairs. He held still in his hand a broken red 
 rose, and when his eye fell on her crown the color 
 mounted to his cheek. 
 
 "My honored kinsman, his Grace the Duke of Os- 
 monde," said her affianced lord. "Your Grace, it is 
 this lady who is to do me the great honor of becoming 
 my Lady Dunstanwolde." 
 
 And as the deep, tawny brown eye of the man bend- 
 ing before her flashed into her own, for the first time 
 in her life Mistress Clorinda's lids fell and, as she 
 swept her courtesy of stately obeisance, her heart 
 struck like a hammer against her side.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HIS SOUL MYSELF 
 
 IN a month she was the Countess of Dunstanwolde 
 and reigned in her lord's great town house with a 
 retinue of servants, her powdered lackeys among the 
 tallest, her liveries and equipages the richest the world 
 of fashion knew. She was presented at the Court blaz- 
 ing with the Dunstanwolde jewels, and even with 
 others her bridegroom had bought in his passionate 
 desire to heap upon her the magnificence which be- 
 came her so well. From the hour she knelt to kiss the 
 hand of royalty she set the town on fire. It seemed 
 to have been ordained by Fate that her passage 
 through this world should be always the triumphant 
 passage of a conqueror. As when a baby she had ruled 
 the servants' hall, the kennel, and the grooms' quar- 
 ters, later her father and his boisterous friends, and 
 from her fifteenth birthday the whole hunting shire 
 she lived in, so she held her sway in the great world, 
 as did no other lady of her rank or any higher. Those 
 of her age seemed but girls yet by her side, whether 
 married or unmarried, and howsoever trained to mod- 
 119
 
 120 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 ish ways. She was but scarce eighteen at her mar- 
 riage, but she was no girl, nor did she look one, glow- 
 ing as was the early splendor of her bloom. Her 
 height was far beyond the ordinary for a woman, but 
 her shape so faultless and her carriage so regal, that 
 though there were men whom she was tall enough to 
 look down upon with ease, the beholder but felt that 
 her tallness was an added grace and beauty with 
 which all women should have been endowed, and 
 which, as they were not, caused them to appear but 
 insignificant. What a throat her diamonds blazed on, 
 what shoulders and bosom her laces framed, on what 
 a brow her diadem sat and glittered. Her lord lived 
 as 'twere upon his knees in enraptured adoration. 
 Since his first wife's death in his youth, he had dwelt 
 almost entirely in the country at his house there, 
 which was fine and stately, but had been kept gloomily 
 half closed for a decade. His town establishment had 
 in truth never been opened since his bereavement, and 
 now an elderly man he returned to the gay world 
 he had almost forgotten, with a bride whose youth 
 and beauty set it aflame. What wonder that his head 
 almost reeled at times, and that he lost his breath be- 
 fore the sum of his strange late bliss, and the new 
 lease of brilliant life which seemed to have been given 
 to him! 
 
 In the days when, while in the country, he had 
 heard such rumors of the lawless youth of Sir Jeoffry 
 Wildair's daughter, when he had heard of her daunt- 
 less boldness, her shrewish temper, and her violent
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 121 
 
 passions, he had been awed at the thought of what a 
 wife such a woman would make for a gentleman ac- 
 customed to a quiet life, and he had indeed striven 
 hard to restrain the desperate admiration he was 
 forced to admit she had inspired in him even at her 
 first ball. 
 
 The effort had, in sooth, been in vain, and he had 
 passed many a sleepless night, and when, as time went 
 on, he beheld her again and again and saw with his 
 own eyes, as well as heard from others, of the great 
 change which seemed to have taken place in her man- 
 ners and character, he began devoutly to thank heaven 
 for the alteration, as for a merciful boon vouchsafed 
 to him. He had been wise enough to know that even 
 a stronger man than himself could never conquer or 
 rule her, and when she seemed to begin to rule herself 
 and bear herself as befitted her birth and beauty, he 
 had dared to allow himself to dream of what per- 
 chance might be if he had great good fortune. 
 
 In these days of her union with him, he was indeed 
 almost humbly amazed at the grace and kindness she 
 showed him every hour they passed in each other's 
 company. He knew that there were men, younger 
 and handsomer than himself, who, being wedded to 
 beauties far less triumphant than she, found that their 
 wives had but little time to spare them from the world 
 which knelt at their feet, and that in some fashion 
 they themselves seemed to fall into the background. 
 But 'twas not so with this woman, powerful and wor- 
 shiped though she might be. She bore herself with 
 6 VOL. 2
 
 122 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 the high dignity of her rank, but rendered to him the 
 gracious respect and deference due both to his position 
 and his merit. She stood by his side and not before 
 him, and her smiles and wit were bestowed upon him 
 as generously as on others. If she had once been a 
 vixen she was surely so no longer, for he never heard 
 a sharp or harsh word pass her lips, though it is true 
 her manner was always somewhat imperial, and her 
 lackeys and waiting-women stood in the greatest awe 
 of her. There was that in her presence and in her 
 eye before which all commoner or weaker creatures 
 quailed. The men of the world who flocked to pay 
 their court to her, and the popinjays who followed 
 them, all knew this look and a tone in her rich voice 
 which could cut like a knife when she chose that it 
 should do so. But to my Lord of Dunstanwolde she 
 was all that a worshiped lady could be. 
 
 "Your ladyship has made of me a happier man than 
 I ever dared to dream of being, even when I was but 
 thirty," he would say to her, with reverent devotion. 
 "I know not what I have done to deserve this late 
 summer which hath been given me." 
 
 "When I consented to be your wife," she answered 
 once, "I swore to myself that I would make one for 
 you." 
 
 And she crossed the hearth to where he sat. She 
 was attired in all her splendor for a Court ball and 
 starred with jewels; bent over his chair and placed a 
 kiss upon his grizzled hair. 
 
 Upon the night before her wedding with him, her
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 123 
 
 sister, Mistress Anne, had stolen to her chamber at a 
 late hour. When she had knocked upon the door and 
 had been commanded to enter, she had come in, and 
 closing the door behind her, had stood leaning against 
 it, looking before her, with her eyes wide with agita- 
 tion and her poor face almost gray. 
 
 All the tapers for which places could be found had 
 been gathered together and the room was a blaze of 
 light. In the midst of it, before her mirror, Clorinda 
 stood attired in her bridal splendor of white satin and 
 flowing rich lace a diamond crescent on her head, 
 sparks of light flaming from every point of her rai- 
 ment. When she caught sight of Anne's reflection in 
 the glass before her, she turned and stood staring at 
 her in wonder. 
 
 "What nay, what is this?" she cried. "What do 
 you come for ? On my soul, you come for something 
 or you have gone mad." 
 
 Anne started forward, trembling, her hands clasped 
 upon her breast, and fell at her feet with sobs. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she gasped, "I came for something 
 to speak to pray you ! Sister Qorinda, have pa- 
 tience with me till my courage comes again !" And 
 she clutched her robe. 
 
 Something which came nigh to being a shudder 
 passed through Mistress Clorinda's frame; but it was 
 gone in a second, and she touched Anne though not 
 ungently with her foot, withdrawing her robe. 
 
 "Do not stain it with your tears," she said, " 'twould 
 be a bad omen."
 
 124 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Anne buried her face in her hands, and knelt so be- 
 fore her. 
 
 " Tis not too late!" she said, " 'tis not too late yet." 
 
 "For what ?" Clorinda asked ; "for what, I pray you 
 tell me if you can find your wits. You go beyond my 
 patience with your folly." 
 
 "Too late to stop," said Anne "to draw back and 
 repent." 
 
 "What?" commanded Clorinda. "Of what, then, 
 should I repent me?" 
 
 "This marriage," trembled Mistress Anne, taking 
 her poor hands from her face to wring them. "It 
 should not be." 
 
 "Fool!" quoth Clorinda. "Get up and cease your 
 groveling. Did you come to tell me it was not too 
 late to draw back and refuse to be the Countess of 
 Dunstanwolde ?" And she laughed bitterly. 
 
 "But it should not be it must not," Anne panted. 
 "I I know, sister! I know !" 
 
 Clorinda bent deliberately and laid her strong, jew- 
 eled hand on her shoulder with a grasp like a vise. 
 There was no hurry in her movement or in her air, 
 but by sheer, slow strength she forced her head back- 
 ward so that the terrified woman was staring in her 
 face. 
 
 "Look at me," she said. "I would see you well, and 
 be squarely looked at, that my eyes may keep you from 
 going mad. You have pondered over this marriage 
 until you have a frenzy. Women who live alone are 
 sometimes so, and your brain was always weak. What
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 125 
 
 is it that you know? Look in my eyes and tell 
 me." 
 
 It seemed as if her gaze stabbed through Anne's 
 eyes to the very centre of her brain. Anne tried to 
 bear it and shrunk and withered; she would have 
 fallen upon the floor at her feet a helpless, sobbing 
 heap, but the white hand would not let her go. 
 
 "Find your courage if you have lost it and speak 
 plain words," Clorinda commanded. Anne tried to 
 writhe away, but could not again, and burst into pas- 
 sionate, hopeless weeping. 
 
 "I can not I dare not !" she gasped. "I am afraid. 
 You are right, my brain is weak, and I but that 
 that gentleman who so loved you " 
 
 "Which?" said Clorinda, with a brief, scornful 
 laugh. 
 
 "The one who was so handsome with the fair 
 locks and the gallant air " 
 
 "The one you fell in love with and stared at through 
 the window," said Clorinda, with her brief laugh, 
 again. "John Oxon! He has victims enough, for- 
 sooth, to have spared such an one as you are." 
 
 "But he loved you!" cried Anne, piteously; "and 
 it must have been that you you, too, sister or or 
 else " She choked again with sobs, and Clorinda re- 
 leased her grasp upon her shoulder and stood upright. 
 
 "He wants none of me nor I of him," she said, 
 with strange sternness. "We have done with one an- 
 other. Get up upon your feet, if you would not have 
 me thrust you out into the corridor."
 
 126 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 She turned from her, and walking back to her dress- 
 ing-table, stood there steadying the diadem on her 
 hair, which had loosed a fastening when Anne tried 
 to writhe away from her. Anne half sat, half knelt 
 upon the floor, staring at her with wet, wild eyes of 
 misery and fear. 
 
 "Leave your kneeling/' commanded her sister again, 
 "and come here." 
 
 Anne staggered to her feet and obeyed her behest. 
 In the glass she could see the resplendent reflection, 
 but Clorinda did not deign to turn toward her while 
 she addressed her, changing the while the brilliants in 
 her hair. 
 
 "Hark you, sister Anne," she said. "I read you bet- 
 ter than you think. You are a poor thing, but you 
 love me, and in my fashion I think I love you 
 somewhat, too. You think I should not marry a gen- 
 tleman whom you fancy I do not love as I might a 
 younger, handsomer man. You are full of love, and 
 spinster dreams of it which make you flighty. I love 
 my Lord of Dunstanwolde as well as any other man, 
 and better than some, for I do not hate him. He has 
 a fine estate and is a gentleman and worships me. 
 Since I have been promised to him, I own I have for 
 a moment seen another gentleman who might but 
 'twas but for a moment, and 'tis done with. 'Twas 
 too late then. If we had met two years agone 'twould 
 not have been so. My Lord Dunstanwolde gives to 
 me wealth and rank and life at Court. I give to him 
 the thing he craves with all his soul myself. It is
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 127 
 
 an honest bargain, and I shall bear my part of it with 
 honesty. I have no virtues. Where should I have got 
 them from, forsooth, in a life like mine? I mean I 
 have no women's virtues, but I have one that is some- 
 times not always a man's. 'Tis that I am not a 
 coward and a trickster, and keep my word when 'tis 
 given. You fear that I shall lead my lord a bitter 
 life of it. 'Twill not be so. He shall live smoothly 
 and not suffer from me. What he has paid for he 
 shall honestly have. I will not cheat him as weaker 
 women do their husbands; for he pays poor gentle- 
 man he pays." 
 
 And then, still looking at the glass, she pointed to 
 the doorway through which her sister had come, and 
 in obedience to her gesture of command Mistress Anne 
 stole silently away. 
 
 Through the brilliant, happy year succeeding to his 
 marriage my Lord of Dunstanwolde lived like a man 
 who dreams a blissful dream and knows it is one. 
 
 "I feel," he said to his lady, "as if 'twere too great 
 rapture to last, and yet what end could come unless 
 you ceased to be kind to me, and in truth I feel that 
 you are too noble above all other women to change, 
 unless I were more unworthy than I could ever be 
 since you are mine." 
 
 Both in the town and in the country, which last 
 place heard many things of his condition and estate 
 through rumor, he was the man most wondered at and 
 envied of his time envied because of his strange hap-
 
 128 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 piness, wondered at because having, when long past 
 youth, borne off this arrogant beauty from all other 
 aspirants. She showed no arrogance to him, and was 
 as perfect a wife as could have been some woman 
 without gifts whom he had lifted from low estate and 
 endowed with rank and fortune. She seemed both to 
 respect himself and her position as his lady and spouse. 
 Her manner of reigning in his household was, among 
 his many delights, the greatest. It was a great house, 
 and an old one, built long before by Dunstanwolde, 
 whose lavish feasts and riotous banquets had been the 
 notable features of his life. It was curiously rambling 
 in its structure. The rooms of entertainment were 
 large and splendid, the halls and staircases stately ; be- 
 low stairs there was space for an army of servants to 
 be disposed of, and its network of cellars and wine 
 vaults was so beyond all need that more than one 
 long arched stone passage was shut up as being with- 
 out use, and but letting cold, damp air into the cor- 
 ridors leading to the servants' quarters. It was in- 
 deed my Lady Dunstanwolde who had ordered the 
 closing of this part, when it had been her pleasure to 
 be shown her domain by her housekeeper, the which 
 had greatly awed and impressed her household, as sig- 
 nifying that, exalted lady as she was, her wit was 
 practical as well as brilliant, and that her eyes being 
 open to her surroundings, she meant not that her 
 lackeys should rob her and her scullions filch, thinking 
 that she was so high that she was ignorant of common 
 things and blind.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 129 
 
 "You will be well housed and fed and paid your 
 dues," she said to them ; "but the first man or woman 
 who does a task ill or dishonestly will be turned from 
 his place that hour. I deal justice not mercy." 
 
 "Such a mistress they have never had before," said 
 my lord, when she related this to him. "Nay, they 
 have never dreamed of such a lady one who can be 
 at once so severe and so kind. But there is none other 
 such, my dearest one. They will fear and worship 
 you." 
 
 She gave him one of her sweet, splendid smiles. It 
 was the sweetness she at rare times gave her splendid 
 smile which was her marvelous power. 
 
 "I would not be too grand a lady to be a good house- 
 wife," she said. "I may not order your dinners, my 
 dear lord, or sweep your corridors, but they shall know 
 I rule your household, and would rule it well." 
 
 "You are a goddess!" he cried, kneeling to her en- 
 raptured. "And you have given yourself to a poor 
 mortal man, who can but worship you." 
 
 "You give me all I have," she said, "and you love 
 me nobly, and I am grateful." 
 
 Her assemblies were the most brilliant in the town, 
 and the most to be desired entrance to. Wits and 
 beauties planned and intrigued that they might be bid- 
 den to her house; beaux and fine ladies fell into the 
 spleen if she neglected them. Her lord's kinsman, the 
 Duke of Osmonde, who had been present when she 
 first knelt to royalty, had scarce removed his eyes 
 from her so long as he could gaze. He went to
 
 1 30 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Dunstanwolde afterward and congratulated him with 
 stately courtesy upon his great good fortune and hap- 
 piness, speaking almost with fire of her beauty and 
 majesty, and thanking his kinsman that through him 
 such perfections had been given to their name and 
 house. From that time, at all special assemblies 
 given by his kinsman he was present, the observed of 
 all observers. He was a man of whom 'twas said that 
 he was the most magnificent gentleman in Europe, that 
 there was none to compare with him in the combina- 
 tion of gifts given both by nature and fortune. His 
 beauty, both of feature and carriage, was of the great- 
 est, his mind was of the highest, and his education far 
 beyond that of the age he lived in. It was not the 
 fashion of the day that men of his rank should devote 
 themselves to the cultivation of their intellects instead 
 of to a life of pleasure ; but this he had done from his 
 earliest youth, and now in his perfect, though early, 
 maturity he had no equal in polished knowledge and 
 charm of bearing. He was the patron of literature 
 and art men of genius were not kept waiting in his 
 antechamber, but were received by him with courtesy 
 and honor. At the Court 'twas well known there was 
 no man who stood so near the throne in favor, and 
 that there was no union so exalted that he might not 
 have made his suit as rather that of a superior than 
 an equal. The Queen both loved and honored him, 
 and condescended to avow as much with gracious 
 frankness. She knew no other man, she deigned to 
 say, who was so worthy of honor and affection, and
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 131 
 
 that he had not married must be because there was no 
 woman who could meet him on ground that was equal. 
 If there were no scandals about him and there were 
 none 'twas not because he was cold of heart or im- 
 agination. No man or woman could look into his 
 deep eye and not know that when love came to him 
 'twould be a burning passion, and an evil fate if it 
 went ill instead of happily. 
 
 "Being past his callow youtfiful days, 'tis time he 
 made some woman a duchess," Dunstanwolde said re- 
 flectively once to his wife. ' 'Twould be more fitting 
 that he should, and it is his way to honor his house in 
 all things, and bear himself without fault as the head 
 of it. Methinks it strange he makes no move to 
 do it." 
 
 "No, 'tis not strange," said my lady, looking under 
 her black-fringed lids at the glow of the fire, as though 
 reflecting also. "There is no strangeness in it." 
 
 "Why not?" her lord asked. 
 
 "There is no mate for him," she answered, slowly. 
 "A man like him must mate as well as marry, or he 
 will break his heart with silent raging at the weakness 
 of the thing he is tied to. He is too strong and splen- 
 did for a common woman. If he married one, 'twould 
 be as if a lion had taken to his care for mate a jackal 
 or a sheep. Ah!" with a long-drawn breath "he 
 would go mad mad with misery." And her hands, 
 which lay upon her knee, wrung themselves hard to- 
 gether, though none could see it. 
 
 "He should have a goddess, were they not so rare,"
 
 132 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 said Dunstanwolde, gently smiling. "He should hold 
 a bitter grudge against me, that I, his unworthy kins- 
 man, have been given the only one." 
 
 "Yes, he should have a goddess," said my lady, 
 slowly again. "And there are but women, naught but 
 women." 
 
 "You have marked him well," said her lord, admir- 
 ing her wisdom. "Methinks that you, though you 
 have spoken to him but little and have but of late 
 become his kinswoman, have marked and read him 
 better than the rest of us." 
 
 "Yes, I have marked him," was her answer. "He 
 is a man to mark, and I have a keen eye." She rose 
 up as she spoke and stood before the fire, lifted by 
 some strong feeling to her fullest height and towering 
 there, splendid in the shadow for 'twas by twilight 
 they talked. "He is a man," she said, "he is a man! 
 Nay, he is as God meant man should be. And if men 
 were so, there would be women great enough for them 
 to mate with and to give the world men like them." 
 And but that she stood in the shadow, her lord would 
 have seen the crimson torrent rush up her cheek and 
 brow and overspread her long round throat itself. 
 
 If none other had known of it, there was one man 
 who knew that she had marked him, though she had 
 borne herself toward him always with her stateliest 
 graciousness. This man was his Grace the Duke him- 
 self. From the hour that he had stood transfixed as 
 he watched her come up the broad oak stair, from the 
 moment that the red rose fell from her wreath at his
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 133 
 
 feet and he had stooped to lift it in his hand, he had 
 seen her as no other man had seen her, and he had 
 known that, had he not come but just too late, she 
 would have been his own. Each time he had beheld 
 her since that night, he had felt this burn more 
 deeply in his soul. He was too high and fine in all 
 his thoughts to say to himself, that in her he saw for 
 the first time the woman who was his peer; but this 
 was very truth or might have been, if fate had set 
 her youth elsewhere, and a lady who was noble and 
 her own mother had trained and guarded her. When 
 he saw her at the Court surrounded, as she ever was, 
 by a court of her own; when he saw her reigning in 
 her lord's house, receiving and doing gracious honor 
 to his guests and hers; when she passed him in her 
 coach, drawing every eye by the majesty of her pres- 
 ence, as she drove through the town, he felt a deep 
 pang which was all the greater that his honor bade 
 him conquer it. He had no ignoble thought of her, 
 he would have scorned to sully his soul with any light 
 passion. To him she was the woman who might have 
 been his beloved wife and duchess, who would have 
 upheld with him the honor and traditions of his house, 
 whose strength and power and beauty would have been 
 handed down to his children, who so would have been 
 born endowed with gifts befitting the state to which 
 Heaven had called them. It was of this he thought 
 when he saw her, and of naught less like to do her 
 honor. And as he had marked her, so he saw in her 
 eyes, despite her dignity and grace, she had marked
 
 i 3 4 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 him. He did not know how closely, or that she gave 
 him the attention he could not restrain himself from 
 bestowing upon her. But when he bowed before her 
 and she greeted him with all courtesy, he saw in her 
 great, splendid eye that had fate willed it so, she 
 would have understood all his thoughts, shared all his 
 ambitions, and aided him to uphold his high ideals. 
 Nay, he knew she understood him even now, and was 
 stirred by what stirred him also, even though they met 
 but rarely, and when they encountered each other, 
 spoke but as kinsman and kinswoman, who would 
 show each other all gracious respect and honor. It 
 was because of this pang, which struck his great heart 
 at times, that he was not a frequent visitor at my Lord 
 Dunstanwolde's mansion, but appeared there only at 
 such assemblies as were matters of ceremony, his ab- 
 sence from which would have been a noted thing. His 
 kinsman was fond of him, and though himself of so 
 much riper age, honored him greatly. At times he 
 strove to lure him into visits of greater familiarity, 
 but though his kindness was never met coldly or re- 
 pulsed, a further intimacy was in some gracious way 
 avoided. 
 
 "My Lady must beguile you to be less formal with 
 us," said Dunstanwolde. And later her ladyship spoke 
 as her husband had privately desired: "My Lord 
 would be made greatly happy if your Grace would 
 honor our house oftener," she said one night, when 
 at the end of a great ball he was bidding her adieu. 
 
 Osmonde's deep eye met hers gently and held it.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 135 
 
 "My Lord Dunstanwolde is always gracious and 
 warm of heart to his kinsman," he replied. "Do not 
 let him think me discourteous or ungrateful. In truth, 
 your ladyship, I am neither the one nor the other." 
 
 The eyes of each gazed into the other's steadfastly 
 and gravely. The Duke of Osmonde thought of Juno's 
 as he looked at hers. They were such liquid velvet, 
 and held such fathomless deeps. 
 
 "Your Grace is not so free as lesser men," Clo- 
 rinda said ; "you can not come and go as you would." 
 
 "No," he answered, gravely, "I can not as I would." 
 
 And this was all.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "YES I HAVE MARKED HIM" 
 
 IT having been known by all the world that, despite 
 her beauty and her conquests, Mistress Clorinda Wil- 
 dairs had not smiled with great favor upon Sir John 
 Oxon in the country, it was not wondered at or made 
 any matter of gossip that the Countess of Dunstan- 
 wolde was but little familiar with him, and saw him 
 but rarely at her house in town. Once or twice he 
 had appeared there, it is true, at my Lord Dunstan- 
 wolde's instance, but my lady herself scarce seemed 
 to see him after her first courtesies as hostess were 
 over. 
 
 "You never smiled on him, my love," Dunstanwolde 
 said to his wife. "You bore yourself toward him but 
 cavalierly, as was your ladyship's way with all but 
 one poor servant," tenderly; "but he was one of the 
 many who followed in your train, and if these gay 
 young fellows stay away 'twill be said that I keep 
 them at a distance because I am afraid of their youth 
 and gallantry. I would not have it fancied that I was 
 so ungrateful as to presume upon your goodness and 
 not leave to you your freedom." 
 136
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 137 
 
 "Nor would I, my lord," she answered. "But he 
 will not come often. I do not love him well enough." 
 
 His marriage with the heiress who had wealth in 
 the West Indies was broken off, or rather 'twas said 
 to have come to naught. All the town knew it, and 
 wondered and talked, because it had been believed at 
 first that the young lady was much enamored of him 
 and that he would soon lead her to the altar, the which 
 his creditors had greatly rejoiced over as promising 
 them some hope that her fortune would pay their bills, 
 of which they had been in despair. Later, however, 
 gossip said that the heiress had not been so tender as 
 was thought, that indeed she had been found to be in 
 love with another man, and that even had she not, she 
 had heard such stories of Sir John as promised but 
 little nuptial happiness for any woman that took him 
 to husband. 
 
 When my Lord Dunstanwolde brought the great 
 beauty, his bride, to town, and she soared at once to 
 splendid triumph and renown, inflaming every heart 
 and setting every tongue at work clamoring her 
 praises, Sir John Oxon saw her from afar in all the 
 scenes of brilliant fashion she frequented and reigned 
 queen of. 'Twas from afar it might be said he saw 
 her only, though he was often near her, because she 
 bore herself as if she did not observe him, or as 
 though he were a thing which did not exist. The 
 first time that she deigned to address him was upon 
 an occasion when she found herself standing so near 
 him at an assembly that in the crowd she brushed him
 
 138 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 with her robe. His blue eyes were fixed burningly 
 upon her, and as she brushed him he drew in a hard 
 breath, which she hearing, turned slowly and let her 
 own eyes fall upon his face. 
 
 "You did not marry?" she said. 
 
 "No, I did not marry," he answered, in a low, bitter 
 voice. " 'Twas your Ladyship who did that." 
 
 She faintly, slowly smiled. 
 
 "I should not have been like to do otherwise," she 
 said. " Tis an honorable condition. I would advise 
 you to enter it." 
 
 When the Earl and his Countess went to their 
 house in the country, there fell to Mistress Anne a 
 great and curious piece of good fortune. In her 
 wildest dreams she had never dared to hope that such 
 a thing might be. 
 
 My Lady Dunstanwolde, on her first visit home, 
 bore her sister back with her to the manor and there 
 established her. She gave her a suite of rooms and 
 a waiting-woman of her own, and even provided her 
 with a suitable wardrobe. This last she had chosen 
 herself, with a taste and fitness which only such wit 
 as her own could have devised. 
 
 "They are not great rooms I give thee, Anne," she 
 said, "but quiet and small ones, which you can make 
 homelike in such ways as I know your taste lies. 
 My Lord has aided me to choose romances for your 
 shelves, he knowing more of books than I do. And 
 I shall not dress thee out like a peacock, with gay 
 colors and great farthingales. They would frighten
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 139 
 
 thee, poor woman, and be a burden with their weight. 
 I have chosen such things as are not too splendid, but 
 will suit thy pale face and shot-partridge eyes." 
 
 Anne stood in the middle of her room and looked 
 about at its comforts, wondering. 
 
 "Sister," she said, "why are you so good to me? 
 What have I done to serve you? Why is it Anne 
 instead of Barbara you are so gracious to?" 
 
 "Perchance because I am a vain woman and would 
 be worshiped as you worship me." 
 
 "But you are always worshiped," Anne faltered. 
 
 "Aye, by men!" said Clorinda, mocking; "but not 
 by women. And it may be that my pride is so high 
 that I must be worshiped by a woman too. You would 
 always love me, Sister Anne. If you saw me break 
 the law if you saw me stab the man I hated to the 
 heart, you would think it must be pardoned to me." 
 
 She laughed, and yet her voice was such that Anne 
 lost her breath and caught at it again. 
 
 "Aye, I should love you, sister!" she cried. "Even 
 then I could not but love you. I should know you 
 could not strike so an innocent creature, and that to 
 be so hated he must have been worthy of hate. You 
 are not like other women, Sister Clorinda, but you 
 could not be base, for you have a great heart." 
 
 Clorinda put her hand to her side and laughed 
 again, but with less mocking in her laughter. 
 
 "What do you know of my heart, Anne?" she said. 
 "Till late I did not know it beat, myself. My Lord 
 says 'tis a great one and noble, but I know 'tis his
 
 I 4 o A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 own that is so ! Have I done honestly by him, Anne, 
 as I told you I would? Have I been fair in my bar- 
 .gain as fair as an honest man and not a puling, slip- 
 pery woman?" 
 
 "You have been a great lady," Anne answered, her 
 great dull, soft eyes filling with slow tears as she 
 gazed at her. "He says that you have given to him 
 a year of Heaven, and that you seem to him like some 
 archangel for the lower angels seem not high enough 
 to sit beside you." 
 
 " Tis as I said, 'tis his heart that is noble," said 
 Clorinda. "But I vowed it should be so. He paid 
 he paid!" 
 
 The country saw her lord's happiness as the town 
 had done, and wondered at it no less. The manor 
 was thrown open and guests came down from town, 
 great dinners and balls being given at which all the 
 county saw the mistress reign at her consort's side 
 with such a grace as no lady ever had worn before. 
 Sir Jeoffry, appearing at these assemblies, was so 
 amazed that he forgot to muddle himself with drink 
 in gazing at his daughter and following her in all her 
 movements. 
 
 "Look at her!" he said to his old boon companions 
 and hers, who were as much awed as he. "Lord! 
 who would think she was the strapping, handsome 
 shrew that swore and sang men's songs to us, and rode 
 to the hunt in breeches?" 
 
 He was awed at the thought of paying fatherly visits 
 to her house, and would have kept away but that she
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 141 
 
 was kind to him in the way he was best able to under- 
 stand. 
 
 "I am country bred, and have not the manners of 
 your town men, my Lady," he said to her, as he sat 
 with her alone on one of the first mornings he spent 
 with her in her private apartment. "I am used to 
 rap out an oath or an ill-mannered word when it 
 comes to me. Dunstanwolde has weaned you of hear- 
 ing such things and I am too old a dog to change." 
 
 "Wouldst have thought I was too old to change," 
 answered she, "but I was not. Did I not tell thee 
 I would be a great lady? There is naught a man or 
 woman can not learn who hath the wit." 
 
 "Thou hadst it, Clo," said Jeoffry, gazing at her 
 with a sort of slow wonder. "Thou hadst it. If thou 
 hadst not !" He paused and shook his head, and 
 there was a rough emotion in his coarse face. "I was 
 not the man to have made aught but a baggage of 
 thee, Clo. I taught thee naught decent, and thou 
 never heard or saw aught to teach thee. Damn me !" 
 almost with moisture in his eyes, "if I know what kept 
 thee from going to ruin before thou wert fifteen." 
 
 She sat and watched him steadily. 
 
 "Nor I," quoth she in answer. "Nor I but here 
 thou seest me, Dad an earl's lady, sitting before 
 thee." 
 
 " 'Twas thy wit," said he, still moved and fairly 
 maudlin. " 'Twas thy wit and thy devil's will." 
 
 "Aye," she answered, " 'twas they my wit and my 
 devil's will!"
 
 142 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 She rode to the hunt with him as she had been wont 
 to do, but she wore the latest fashion in hunting hat 
 and coat, and though 'twould not have been possible 
 for her to sit her horse better than of old, or to take 
 hedges and ditches with greater daring and spirit, yet 
 in some way every man who rode with her felt that 
 'twas a great lady who led the field. The horse she 
 rode was a fierce, beauteous devil of a beast which Sir 
 Jeoffry himself would scarce have mounted, even in 
 his younger days, but she carried her loaded whip and 
 she sat upon the brute as if she scarcely felt its temper, 
 and held it with a wrist of steel. 
 
 My Lord Dunstanwolde did not hunt this season. 
 He had never been greatly fond of the sport, and at 
 this time was a little ailing, but he would not let his 
 lady give up her pleasure because he could not join it. 
 
 "Nay," he said, " 'tis not for the queen of the hunt- 
 ing-field to stay at home to nurse an old man's aches. 
 My pride would not let it be so. Your father will 
 attend you. Go and lead them all, my dear." 
 
 In the field appeared Sir John Oxon, who for a brief 
 visit was at Eldershawe. He rode close to my lady, 
 though she had naught to say to him after her first 
 greetings of civility. He looked not as fresh and 
 glowing with youth as had been his wont only a year 
 ago. His reckless wildness of life and his town de- 
 baucheries had at last touched his bloom, perhaps. He 
 had a haggard look at moments when his countenance 
 was not lighted by excitement. 'Twas whispered that 
 he was deep enough in debt to be greatly straitened,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 143 
 
 and that his marriage having come to naught his cred- 
 itors were besetting him without mercy. This, and 
 more than this, no one knew so well as my Lady Dun- 
 stanwolde, but of a certainty she had little pity for 
 his evil case if one might judge by her face, when in 
 the course of the running he took a hedge behind 
 her, and, pressing his horse, came up by her side 
 and spoke. 
 
 "Clorinda," he began, breathlessly, through set 
 teeth. 
 
 She could have left him and not answered, but she 
 chose to restrain the pace of her wild beast for a 
 moment and look at him. 
 
 "Your Ladyship !" she corrected his audacity. "Or 
 my Lady Dunstanwolde." 
 
 "There was a time " he said. 
 
 "This morning," she said, "I found a letter in a 
 casket in my closet. I do not know the mad villain 
 who wrote it. I never knew him." 
 
 "You did not!" he cried with an oath, and then 
 laughed scornfully. 
 
 "The letter lies in ashes on the hearth," she said. 
 " 'Twas burned unopened. Do not ride so close, Sir 
 John, and do not play the madman and the beast with 
 the wife of my Lord Dunstanwolde." 
 
 "The wife!" he answered. "'My Lord!' 'Tis a 
 new game this, and well played, by God !" 
 
 She did not so much as waver in her look, and her 
 wide eyes smiled. 
 
 "Quite new," she answered him "quite new. And
 
 144 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 could I not have played it well and fairly, I would 
 not have touched the cards. Keep your horse off, Sir 
 John. Mine is restive and likes not another beast near 
 him." And she touched the creature with her whip, 
 and he was gone like a thunderbolt 
 
 The next day, being in her room, Anne saw her 
 come from her dressing-table with a sealed letter in 
 her hand. She went to the bell and rang it. 
 
 "Anne," she said, "I am going to rate my woman 
 and turn her from my service. I shall not beat or 
 swear at her as I was wont to do with my women in 
 time past. You will be afraid, perhaps, but you must 
 stay with me." 
 
 She was standing by the fire with the letter held 
 almost at arm's length in her finger-tips when the 
 woman entered, who, seeing her face, turned pale, 
 and casting her eyes upon the letter, paler still, and 
 began to shake. 
 
 "You have attended mistresses of other ways than 
 mine," her lady said in her low, clear voice, which 
 seemed to cut as knives do. "Some fool and mad- 
 man has bribed you to serve him. You can not serve 
 me also. Come hither and put this in the fire. If 
 'twere to be done, I would make you hold it in the live 
 coals with your hand." 
 
 The woman came shuddering, looking as if she 
 thought she might be struck dead. She took the let- 
 ter and kneeled, ashen pale, to burn it. When 'twas 
 done, her mistress pointed to the door. 
 
 "Go and gather your goods and chattels together
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 145 
 
 and leave within this hour," she said. "I will be my 
 own tire-woman till I can find one who comes to me 
 honest." 
 
 When she was gone Anne sat gazing at the ashes 
 on the hearth. 
 
 She was pale also. 
 
 "Sister," she said, "do you?" 
 
 "Yes," answered my lady. " "Pis a man who loved 
 me, a cur and a knave. He thought for an hour he 
 was cured of his passion. I could have told him 
 'twould spring up and burn more fierce than ever 
 when he saw another man possess me. 'Tis so with 
 knaves and curs. And 'tis so with him. He hath 
 gone mad again." 
 
 "Aye, mad!" cried Anne, "mad and base and 
 wicked !" 
 
 Clorinda gazed at the ashes, her lips curling. "He 
 was ever base," she said. "As he was at first, so he 
 is now. 'Tis thy favorite, Anne," lightly, and she 
 delicately spurned the blackened tinder with her foot 
 "thy favorite, John Oxon." 
 
 Mistress Anne crouched in her seat and hid her 
 face in her thin hands. 
 
 "Oh, my Lady!" she cried, not feeling that she 
 could say "sister." "If he be base, and ever was 
 so pity him, pity him! The base need pity more 
 than all." 
 
 For she had loved him madly, all unknowing her 
 own passion, not presuming even to look up in his 
 beautiful face, thinking of him only as the slave of 
 7 VOL. 2
 
 146 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 her sister, and in dead secrecy knowing strange things 
 strange things ! And when she had seen the letters 
 she had known the handwriting, and the beating of 
 her simple heart had well-nigh strangled her for she 
 had seen words writ by him before.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WHEREIN A NOBLE LIFE COMES TO AN END 
 
 WHEN Dunstanwolde and his lady went back to 
 their house in town, Mistress Anne went with them. 
 Clorinda willed that it should be so. She made her 
 there as peaceful and retired a nest of her own as she 
 had given to her at Dunstanwolde. By strange good 
 fortune, Barbara had been wedded to a plain gentle- 
 man, who, being a widower with children, needed a 
 helpmeet in his modest household, and through a dis- 
 tant relationship to Mistress Wimpble encountered her 
 charge, and saw in her meekness of spirit the thing 
 which might fall into the supplying of his needs. A 
 beauty or a fine lady would not have suited him; he 
 wanted but a housewife and a mother for his orphaned 
 children, and this a young woman who had lived 
 straitly and been forced to many contrivances for 
 mere decency of apparel and ordinary comfort might 
 be trained to become. 
 
 So it fell that Mistress Anne could go to London 
 without pangs of conscience at leaving her sister in 
 the country and alone. The stateliness of the town 
 mansion, my Lady Dunstanwolde's retinue of lackeys 
 
 147
 
 148 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 and serving-women, her little black page who waited 
 on her and took her pug dogs to walk, her wardrobe 
 and jewels and equipages, were each and all mar- 
 vels to her, but seemed to her mind so far befit- 
 ting that she remembered, wondering, the days when 
 she had darned the tattered tapestry in her chamber 
 and changed the ribbands and fashions of her gowns. 
 Being now attired fittingly though soberly as became 
 her, she was not in these days at least as far as 
 outward seeming went an awkward blot upon the 
 scene when she appeared among her sister's company, 
 but at heart she was as timid and shrinking as ever, 
 and never mingled with the guests in the great rooms, 
 when she could avoid so doing. Once or twice she 
 went forth with Clorinda in her coach and six and 
 saw the glittering world, while she drew back into 
 her corner of the equipage and gazed with all a coun- 
 try-bred woman's timorous admiration. 
 
 " 'Twas grand and like a beautiful show !" she said, 
 when she came home the first time. "But do not take 
 me often, sister, I am too plain and shy, and feel that 
 I am naught in it." 
 
 But, though she kept as much apart from the great 
 world of fashion as she could, she contrived to know 
 of all her sister's triumphs, to see her when she went 
 forth in her bravery, though 'twere but to drive in 
 the Mall, to be in her closet with her on great nights 
 when her tire-women were decking her in brocades 
 and jewels, that she might show her highest beauty 
 at some assembly or ball of state. And at all these
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 149 
 
 times, as also at all others, she knew that she but 
 shared her own love and dazzled admiration with my 
 Lord Dunstanwolde, whose tenderness, being so fed 
 by his lady's unfailing graciousness of bearing and 
 kindly looks and words, grew with every hour that 
 passed. 
 
 They held one night a splendid assembly, at which 
 a member of the royal house was present. That night 
 Clorinda bade her sister appear. 
 
 "Sometimes I do not command it always but 
 sometimes you must show yourself to our guests. My 
 Lord will not be pleased else. He says it is not fit- 
 ting that his wife's sister should remain unseen as 
 if we hid her away through ungraciousness. Your 
 woman will prepare for you all things needful. I 
 myself will see that your dress becomes you. I have 
 commanded it already, and given much thought to 
 its shape and color. I would have you very comely, 
 Anne.'' And she kissed her lightly on her cheek, al- 
 most as gently as she sometimes kissed her lord's gray 
 hair. In truth, though she was still a proud lady and 
 stately in her ways, there had come upon her some 
 strange subtle change Anne could not understand. 
 
 On the day on which the assembly was held, Mis- 
 tress Anne's woman brought to her a beautiful robe. 
 'Twas flowered satin of the sheen and softness of 
 a dove's breast, and the lace adorning it was like a 
 spider's web for gossamer fineness; the robe was 
 sweetly fashioned, fitting her shape wondrously, and 
 when she was attired in it at night a little color came
 
 150 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 into her cheeks to see herself so far beyond all come- 
 liness she had ever known before. When she found 
 herself in the midst of the dazzling scene in the rooms 
 of entertainment, she was glad when at last she could 
 feel herself lost among the crowd of guests. Her only 
 pleasure in such scenes was to withdraw to some hid- 
 den corner and look on, as at a pageant or a play. 
 
 To-night she placed herself in the shadow of a 
 screen, from which retreat she could see Clorinda 
 and Dunstanwolde as they received their guests. Thus 
 she found enjoyment enough, for, in truth, her love 
 and almost abject passion of adoration for her sister 
 had grown, as his Lordship's had, with every hour. 
 For a season there had rested upon her a black shadow, 
 beneath which she wept and trembled, bewildered and 
 lost, though even at its darkest the object of her hum- 
 ble love had been a star whose brightness was not 
 dimmed, because it could not be so whatsoever passed 
 before it. This cloud, however, being, it seemed, dis- 
 pelled, the star had shone but more brilliant in its high 
 place and she the more passionately worshiped it. To 
 sit apart and see her idol's radiance, to mark her as 
 she reigned and seemed the more royal when she bent 
 the knee to royalty itself, to see the shimmer of her 
 jewels crowning her midnight hair and clasping the 
 warm whiteness of her noble neck, to observe the ad- 
 miration in all eyes as they dwelt upon her, this was, 
 indeed, enough of happiness. 
 
 "She is as ever," she murmured, "not so much a 
 woman as a proud, lovely goddess who has deigned
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 151 
 
 to descend to earth. But my Lord does not look like 
 himself. He seems shrunk in the face and old, and 
 his eyes have rings about them. I like not that. He 
 is so kind a gentleman and so happy that his body 
 should not fail him. I have marked that he has looked 
 colorless for days, and Clorinda questioned him kindly 
 on it, but he said he suffered naught." 
 
 'Twas but a little later than she had thought this, 
 that she remarked a gentleman step aside and stand 
 quite near without observing her. Feeling that she 
 had no testimony to her fancifulness, she found her- 
 self thinking, in a vague fashion, that he, too, had 
 come there because he chose to be unobserved. Twould 
 not have been so easy for him to retire as it had been 
 for her smallness and insignificance to do so, and, in- 
 deed, she did not fancy that he meant to conceal him- 
 self, but merely to stand for a quiet moment a little 
 apart from the crowd. 
 
 N And as she looked up at him, wondering why this 
 should be, she saw he was the noblest and most stately 
 gentleman she had ever beheld. 
 
 She had never seen him before; he must either be 
 a stranger or a rare visitor. As Clorinda was beyond 
 a woman's height, he was beyond a man's. He carried 
 himself as kingly as she did nobly; he had a counte- 
 nance of strong manly beauty, and a deep tawny eye, 
 thick-fringed and full of fire; orders glittered upon 
 his breast, and he wore a fair periwig which became 
 him wondrously and seemed to make his eye more deep 
 and burning by its contrast.
 
 1 52 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Beside his strength and majesty of bearing, the 
 stripling beauty of John Oxon would have seemed 
 slight and paltry, a thing for flippant women to trifle 
 with. 
 
 Mistress Anne looked at him with an admiration 
 somewhat like reverence, and as she did so a sudden 
 thought rose in her mind, and even as it rose she 
 marked what his gaze rested on, and how it dwelt 
 upon it, and knew that he had stepped apart to stand 
 and gaze as she did only with a man's hid fervor 
 at her sister's self! 
 
 'Twas as if suddenly a strange secret had been told 
 her. She read it in his face, because he thought him- 
 self unobserved and for a space had cast his mask 
 aside. He stood and gazed as a man who, starving 
 at soul, fed himself through his eyes, having no hope 
 of other sustenance, or as a man weary with long car- 
 rying of a burden, for a space laid it down for rest 
 and to gather power to go on. She heard him draw 
 a deep sigh, almost stifled in its birth, and there was 
 that in his face which she felt it was unseemly that 
 a stranger like herself should behold, himself unknow- 
 ing of her near presence. 
 
 She gently rose from her corner, wondering if she 
 could retire from her retreat without attracting his 
 observation, but as she did so, chance caused him to 
 withdraw himself a little further within the shadow 
 of the screen, and doing so, he beheld her. 
 
 Then his face changed, the mask of noble calmness, 
 for a moment fallen, resumed itself, and he bowed
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 153 
 
 before her with the reverence of a courtly gentleman 
 undisturbed by the unexpectedness of his recognition 
 of her neighborhood. 
 
 "Madam," he said, "pardon my unconsciousness that 
 you were near me. You would pass ?" And he made 
 way for her. 
 
 She courtesied, asking his pardon with her dull, 
 soft eyes. 
 
 "Sir," she answered, "I but retired here for a mo- 
 ment's rest from the throng and gaiety, to which I 
 am unaccustomed. But chiefly I sat in retirement that 
 I might watch my sister." 
 
 "Your sister, madam?" he said, as if the question- 
 ing echo were almost involuntary, and he bowed again 
 in some apology. 
 
 "My Lady Dunstanwolde," she replied ; "I take such 
 pleasure in her loveliness, and in all that pertains to 
 her, it is a happiness to me to but look on." 
 
 Whatsoever the thing was in her loving mood which 
 touched him and found echo in his own, he was so far 
 moved that he answered to her with something less of 
 ceremoniousness, remembering also in truth that she 
 was a lady he had heard of, and recalling her relation- 
 ship and name. 
 
 "It is, then, Mistress Anne Wildairs I am honored 
 by having speech with," he said. "My Lady Dunstan- 
 wolde has spoken of you in my presence. I am my 
 Lord's kinsman, the Duke of Osmonde," again bow- 
 ing, and Anne courtesied low once more. 
 
 Despite his greatness she felt a kindness and grace
 
 154 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 in him which were not condescension, and which al- 
 most dispelled the timidity which, being part of her 
 nature, so unduly beset her at all times when she ad- 
 dressed or was addressed by a stranger. John Oxon, 
 bowing his bright curls and seeming ever to mock 
 with his smiles, had caused her to be overcome with 
 shy awkwardness and blushes, but this man, who 
 seemed as far above him in person and rank and mind 
 as a god is above a graceful painted puppet, even ap- 
 peared to give of his own noble strength to her poor 
 weakness. He bore himself toward her with a courtly 
 respect such as no human being had ever shown to 
 her before. He besought her again to be seated in 
 her nook, and stood before her conversing with such 
 delicate sympathy with her mood as seemed to raise 
 her to the pedestal on which stood less humble women. 
 All those who passed before them he knew and could 
 speak easily of. The high deeds of those who were 
 statesmen, or men honored at Court, or in the field, 
 he was familiar with, and of those who were beau- 
 ties or notable gentlewomen he had always something 
 courtly to say. 
 
 Her own worship of her sister she knew full well 
 he understood, though he spoke of her but little. 
 
 "Well may you gaze at her," he said. "So does all 
 the world and honors and adores." 
 . He proffered her, at last, his arm, and she, having 
 strangely taken courage, let him lead her through the 
 rooms and persuade her to some refreshment. Seeing 1 
 her so wondrously emerged from her chrysalis and
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 155 
 
 under the protection of so distinguished a companion, 
 all looked at her as she passed with curious amaze- 
 ment; and indeed Mistress Anne was all but over- 
 powered by the reverence shown them as they made 
 their way. 
 
 As they came again into the apartment wherein the 
 host and hostess received their guests, Anne felt her 
 escort pause, and looked up at him to see the mean- 
 ing of his sudden hesitation. He was gazing intently, 
 not at Clorinda, but at the Earl of Dunstanwolde. 
 
 "Madam," he said, "pardon me that I seem to detain 
 you; but but I look at my kinsman. Madam," with 
 a sudden fear in his voice, "he is ailing he sways as 
 he stands. Let us go to him quickly ! He falls !" 
 
 And, in sooth, at that very moment there arose a 
 dismayed cry from the guests about them, and there 
 was a surging movement, and as they pressed forward 
 themselves through the throng, Anne saw Dunstan- 
 wolde no more above the people, for he had indeed 
 fallen, and lay outstretched and deathly on the floor. 
 
 'Twas but a few seconds before she and Osmonde 
 were close enough to him to mark his sunken face 
 and ghastly pallor and a strange dew starting out upon 
 his brow. 
 
 But 'twas his wife who knelt beside his prostrate 
 body, waving all else aside with a great majestic ges- 
 ture of her arm. 
 
 "Back! back!" she cried. "Air! air and water. 
 My Lord! My dear Lord!" 
 
 But he did not answer or even stir though she
 
 1 56 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 bent close to him and thrust her hand within his breast. 
 And then the frightened guests beheld a strange but 
 beautiful and loving thing, such as might have moved 
 any heart to tenderness and wonder. This great 
 beauty, this worshiped creature, put her arms beneath 
 and about the helpless, awful body for so its pallor 
 and stillness indeed made it and lifted it in their 
 powerful whiteness as if it had been the body of a 
 child, and so bore it to a couch near by and laid it 
 down, kneeling beside it. Anne and Osmonde were 
 beside her. Osmonde pale himself, but gently calm 
 and strong. He had despatched for a physician the 
 instant he saw the fall. 
 
 "My Lady," he said, bending over her, "permit me 
 to approach ! I have some knowledge of these seizures. 
 Your pardon !" 
 
 He knelt also and took the moveless hand, feeling 
 the pulse; he, too, thrust his hand within the breast 
 and held it there, looking at the sunken face. 
 
 "My dear Lord," her Ladyship was saying, as if 
 to the prostrate man's ear alone, knowing that her 
 tender voice must reach him if aught would as indeed 
 was truth. "Edward ! My dear dear Lord !" 
 
 Osmonde held the hand steadily over the heart 
 the guests shrunk back, stricken with terror. 
 
 There was that in this corner of the splendid room 
 which turned faces pale. 
 
 Osmonde slowly withdrew his hand, and turning to 
 the kneeling woman with a pallor like that of marble, 
 but with a noble tenderness and pity in his eyes
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 157 
 
 "My lady," he said, "you are a brave woman. Your 
 great courage must sustain you. His heart beats no 
 more. A noble life is finished." 
 
 The guests heard and drew still farther back, a 
 woman or two faintly whimpering, a hurrying lackey 
 parted the crowd, and so, way being made for him, 
 the physician came quickly forward. 
 
 Anne put her shaking hands up to cover her gaze. 
 Osmonde stood still, looking down. My Lady of Dun- 
 stanwolde knelt by the couch and hid her beautiful face 
 upon the dead man's breast.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHICH TREATS OF THE OBSEQUIES OF MY LORD OF 
 
 DUNSTANWOLDE, OF HIS LADY'S WIDOWHOOD, 
 
 AND OF HER RETURN TO TOWN 
 
 ALL that remained of my Lord Dunstanwolde was 
 borne back to his ancestral home, and there laid to 
 rest in the ancient tomb in which his fathers slept. 
 Many came from town to pay him respect, and the 
 Duke of Osmonde was, as was but fitting, among 
 them. The Countess kept her own apartments, and 
 none but her sister, Mistress Anne, beheld her. The 
 night before the final ceremonies she spent sitting by 
 her lord's coffin, and to Anne it seemed that her mood 
 was a stranger one than ever woman had before been 
 ruled by. She did not weep or moan, and only once 
 kneeled down. In her sweeping black robes she seemed 
 more a majestic creature than she had ever been. She 
 sent away all other watchers, keeping only her sister 
 with her, and Anne observed in her a strange protect- 
 ing gentleness when she spoke of the dead man. 
 
 "I do not know whether dead men can feel and 
 hear," she said. "Sometimes there has come into my 
 mind and made me shudder the thought that 
 158
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 159 
 
 though they lie so still mayhap they know what we 
 do and how they are spoken of as nothings, whom 
 live men and women but wait a moment to thrust 
 away, that their own living may go on again in its 
 accustomed manner, or perchance more merrily. . If 
 my Lord knows aught, he will be grateful that I watch 
 by him to-night in this solemn room. He was ever 
 grateful and moved by any tenderness of mine." 
 
 'Twas as she said, the room was solemn, and this 
 almost to awfulness. It was a huge cold chamber at 
 best, and draped with black and hung with hatch- 
 ments, a silent gloom filled it which made it like a 
 tomb. Tall wax candles burned in it dimly, but add- 
 ing to its solemn shadows with their faint light, and 
 in his rich coffin the dead man lay in his shroud, his 
 hands like carvings of yellowed ivory clasped upon 
 his breast. 
 
 Mistress Anne dared not have entered the place 
 alone, and was so overcome at sight of the pinched 
 nostrils and sunk eyes that she turned cold with fear. 
 But Clorinda seemed to feel no dread or shrinking. 
 She went and stood beside the great funeral-draped 
 bed of state on which the coffin lay, and, thus stand- 
 ing, looked down with a grave, protecting pity in her 
 face. Then she stooped and kissed the dead man long 
 upon the brow. 
 
 "I will sit by you to-night," she said. "That which 
 lies here will be alone to-morrow. I will not leave 
 you this last night. Had I been in your place you 
 would not leave me."
 
 160 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 She sat down beside him and laid her strong, warm 
 hand upon his cold waxen ones, closing it over them 
 as if she would give them heat. Anne knelt and prayed 
 that all might be forgiven, that sins might be blotted 
 out, that this kind poor soul might find love and peace 
 in the kingdom of Heaven, and might not learn there 
 what might make bitter the memory of his last year 
 of rapture and love. She was so simple that she for- 
 got that no knowledge of the past could embitter aught 
 when a soul looked back from Paradise. 
 
 Throughout the watches of the night, her sister sat 
 and held the dead man's hand ; she saw her more than 
 once smooth his gray hair almost as a mother might 
 have touched a sick sleeping child's; again she kissed 
 his forehead, speaking to him gently as if to tell him 
 he need not fear, for she was close at hand; just once 
 she knelt, and Anne wondered if she prayed and in 
 what manner, knowing that prayer was not her habit. 
 
 'Twas just before dawn she knelt so, and when she 
 rose and stood beside him, looking down again, she 
 drew from the folds of her robe a little package. 
 
 "Anne," she said, as she untied the ribband that 
 bound it, "when first I was his wife, I found him one 
 day at his desk looking at these things as they lay upon 
 his hand. He thought at first it would offend me to 
 find him so, but I told him that I was gentler than he 
 thought though not so gentle as the poor innocent 
 girl who died in giving him his child. 'Twas her pic- 
 ture he was gazing at and a little ring and two locks 
 of hair one a brown ringlet from her head, and one,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 161 
 
 such a tiny wisp of down, from the head of her infant. 
 I told him to keep them always and look at them often, 
 remembering how innocent she had been, and that she 
 had died for him. There were tears on my hand when 
 he kissed it in thanking me. He kept the little package 
 in his desk, and I have brought it to him." 
 
 The miniature was of a sweet-faced girl with large, 
 loving, childish eyes, and cheeks that blushed like the 
 early morning. Clorinda looked at her almost with 
 tenderness. 
 
 "There is no marrying or giving in marriage, 'tis 
 said," quoth she, "but were there, 'tis you who were 
 his wife not I. I was but a lighter thing, though I 
 bore his name and he honored me. When you and 
 your child greet him, he will forget me and all will 
 be well." 
 
 She held the miniature and the soft hair to his cold 
 lips a moment, and Anne saw with wonder that her 
 own mouth worked. She slipped the ring on his least 
 finger, and hid the picture and the ringlets within the 
 palms of his folded hands. 
 
 "He was a good man," she said. "He was the first 
 good man that I had ever known." And she held out 
 her hand to Anne and drew her from the room with 
 her, and two crystal tears fell upon the bosom of her 
 black robe and slipped away like jewels. 
 
 When the obsequies were over, the next of kin, who 
 was heir, came to take possession of the estate which 
 had fallen to him, and the widow retired to her father's 
 house for seclusion from the world. The town house
 
 1 62 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 had been left to her by her deceased lord, but she did 
 not wish to return to it until the period of her mourn- 
 ing was over and she laid aside her weeds. The in- 
 come the Earl had been able to bestow upon her made 
 her a rich woman, and when she chose to appear again 
 in the world it would be with the power to mingle with 
 it fittingly. 
 
 During her stay at her father's house she did much 
 to make it a more suitable abode for her, ordering 
 down from London furnishings and workmen to set 
 her own apartments and Anne's in order. But she 
 would not occupy the rooms she had lived in hereto- 
 fore. For some reason it seemed to be her whim to 
 have begun to have an enmity for them. The first day 
 she entered them with Anne she stopped upon the 
 threshold. 
 
 "I will not stay here," she said. "I never loved 
 the rooms and now I hate them. It seems to me 
 it was another woman who lived in them in another 
 world. 'Tis so long ago that 'tis ghostly. Make ready 
 the old red chambers for me," to her woman; "I will 
 live there. They have been long closed, and are worm- 
 eaten and moldy, perchance but a great fire will warm 
 them. And I will have furnishings from London to 
 make them fit for habitation." 
 
 The next day it seemed for a brief space as if she 
 would have changed even from the red chamber. 
 
 "I did not know," she said, turning with a sudden 
 movement from a side window, "that one might see 
 the old rose-garden from here. I would not have taken
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 163 
 
 the room had I guessed it. It is too dreary a wilder- 
 ness, with its tangle of briars and its broken sun-dial." 
 
 "You can not see the dial from here," said Anne, 
 coming toward her with a strange paleness and haste. 
 "One can not see within the garden from any window, 
 surely." 
 
 "Nay," said Clorinda, " 'tis not near enough, and 
 the hedges are too high; but one knows 'tis there and 
 'tis tiresome." 
 
 "Let us draw the curtains and not look, and forget 
 it," said poor Anne. And she drew the draperies with 
 a trembling hand, and ever after, while they dwelt in 
 the room, they stayed so. 
 
 My Lady wore her mourning for more than a year, 
 and in her sombre, trailing weeds was a wonder to 
 behold. She lived in her father's house and saw no 
 company, but sat or walked and drove with her sister 
 Anne, and visited the poor. The perfect stateliness 
 of her decorum was more talked about than any lev- 
 ity would have been, those who were wont to gossip 
 expecting that, having made her fine match and been 
 so soon rid of her lord, she would begin to show her 
 strange, wild breeding again, and indulge in fantastical 
 whims. That she should wear her mourning with 
 unflinching dignity and withdraw from the world as 
 strictly as if she had been a lady of royal blood mourn- 
 ing her prince, was the unexpected thing, and so was 
 talked of everywhere. 
 
 At the end of the eighteenth month she sent one 
 day for Anne, who, coming at her bidding, found her
 
 1 64 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 standing in her chamber surrounded by black robes 
 and draperies piled upon the bed and chairs and floor, 
 their sombreness darkening the room like a cloud; but 
 she stood in their midst in a trailing garment of pure 
 white, and in her bosom was a bright-red rose tied 
 with a knot of scarlet ribband, whose ends fell floating. 
 Her woman was upon her knees before a coffer, in 
 which she was laying the weeds as she folded them. 
 
 Mistress Anne paused within the doorway, her eyes 
 dazzled by the tall, radiant shape and blot of scarlet 
 color, as if by the shining of the sun. She knew in 
 that moment that all was changed, and that the world 
 of darkness they had been living in for the past months 
 was swept from existence. When her sister had worn 
 her mourning weeds she had seemed somehow almost 
 pale, but now she stood in the sunlight with the rich 
 scarlet on her cheek and lip, and the stars in her 
 great eyes. 
 
 "Come in, sister Anne," she said. "I lay aside my 
 weeds, and my woman is folding them away for me. 
 Dost know of any poor creature, newly left a widow, 
 whom some of them would be a help to ? "Pis a pity 
 that so much sombreness should lie in chests when 
 there are perhaps poor souls to whom it would be 
 a godsend." 
 
 Before the day was over there was not a shred of 
 black stuff left in sight, such as had not been sent out 
 of the house to be distributed being packed away in 
 coffers in the garrets under the leads. 
 
 "You will wear it no more, sister?" Anne asked
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 165 
 
 once. "You will wear gay colors, as if it had never 
 been?" 
 
 "It is as if it had never been," Clorinda answered. 
 "Ere now her lord is happy with her, and he is so 
 happy that I am forgot. I had a fancy that perhaps 
 at first Well, if he had looked down on earth, re- 
 membering, he would have seen I was faithful in my 
 honoring of him. But now, I am sure " she stopped, 
 with a half laugh. " 'Twas but a fancy," she said. 
 "Perchance he has known naught since that night he 
 fell at my feet; and even so, poor gentleman, he hath 
 a happy fate. Yes, I will wear gay colors," flinging 
 up her arms as if she dropped fetters, and stretched 
 her beauteous limbs for ease. "Gay colors, and roses 
 and rich jewels, and all things all that will make me 
 beautiful !" 
 
 The next day there came a chest from London, 
 packed close with splendid raiment; when she drove 
 out again in her chariot her servants' sad-colored liv- 
 eries had been laid by, and she was attired in rich 
 hues, amidst which she glowed like some flower new 
 bloomed. 
 
 Her house in town was thrown open again and set 
 in order for her coming. She made her journey back 
 in state, Mistress Anne accompanying her in her trav- 
 eling coach. As she passed over the high-road with 
 her equipage and her retinue, or spent the night for 
 rest at the best inns in the towns and villages, all 
 seemed to know her name and state. 
 
 " Tis the young widow of the Earl of Dunstan-
 
 1 66 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 wolde," people said to each other. "She that is the 
 great beauty, and of such a wit and spirit that she is 
 scarce like a mere young lady. 'Twas said she wed 
 him for his rank, but afterward 'twas known she made 
 him a happy gentleman, though she gave him no heir. 
 She wore weeds for him beyond the accustomed time, 
 and is but now issuing from her retirement." 
 
 Mistress Anne felt as if she were attending some 
 royal lady's progress ; people so gazed at them, nudged 
 each other, wondered, and admired. 
 
 "You do not mind that all eyes rest on you," 
 she said to her sister. "You are accustomed to be 
 gazed at." 
 
 "I have been gazed at all my life," my Lady an- 
 swered. "I scarce take note of it." 
 
 On their arrival at home they met with fitting wel- 
 come and reverence. The doors of the town house 
 were thrown open wide, and in the hall the servants 
 stood in line, the housekeeper at the head with her 
 keys at her girdle, the little, jet-black negro page 
 grinning beneath his turban with joy to see his lady 
 again, he worshiping her as a sort of fetish after the 
 manner of his race. 'Twas his duty to take heed to 
 the pet dogs, and he stood holding by their little sil- 
 ver chains a swart-faced pug and a pretty spaniel 
 His lady stopped a moment to pat them and to speak 
 to him a word of praise of their condition, and, being 
 so favored, he spoke, also rolling his eyes in his delight 
 at finding somewhat to impart. 
 
 "Yesterday, Ladyship, when I took them out," he
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 167 
 
 said, "a gentleman marked them, knowing whose they 
 were. He asked me when my Lady came again to 
 town, and I answered him to-day. 'Twas the fair 
 gentleman in his own hair." 
 
 " 'Twas Sir John Oxon, your Ladyship," said the 
 lackey nearest to him. 
 
 Her Ladyship left caressing her spaniel and stood 
 upright. Little Nero was frightened, fearing she was 
 angered, she stood so straight and tall, but she said 
 nothing and passed on. 
 
 At the top of the staircase she turned to Mistress 
 Anne with a laugh. 
 
 "Thy favorite again, Anne," she said. "He means 
 to haunt us now we are alone. 'Tis thee he comes 
 after."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WHEREIN A DEADLY WAR BEGINS 
 
 THE town and the world of fashion greeted her 
 on her return with open arms. Those who looked 
 on when she bent the knee to kiss the hand of royalty 
 at the next drawing-room, whispered among them- 
 selves that bereavement had not dimmed her charms, 
 which were even more radiant than they had been 
 at her presentation on her marriage, and that the mind 
 of no man or woman could dwell on aught as mourn- 
 ful as widowhood in connection with her; or, indeed, 
 could think of anything but her brilliant beauty. 'Twas 
 as if from this time she was launched into a new life. 
 Being rich, of high rank, and no longer an unmarried 
 woman, her position had a dignity and freedom which 
 there was no creature but might have envied. As the 
 wife of Dunstanwolde she had been the fashion and 
 adored by all who dared adore her, but as his widow 
 she was surrounded and besieged. A fortune, a toast, 
 a wit, and a beauty, she combined all the things either 
 man or woman could desire to attach themselves to 
 the train of; and had her air been less regal and her 
 wit less keen of edge, she would have been so beset 
 168
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 169 
 
 by flatterers and toadies that life would have been 
 burdensome. But this she would not have, and was 
 swift enough to detect the man whose debts drove him 
 to the expedient of daring to privately think of the 
 usefulness of her fortune, or the woman who maneu- 
 vred to gain reputation or success by means of her 
 position and power. 
 
 "They would be about me like vultures if I were 
 weak fool enough to let them," she said to Anne. 
 "They cringe and grovel like spaniels, and flatter till 
 'tis like to make one sick. 'Tis always so with toad- 
 ies; they have not the wit to see that their flattery 
 is an insolence, since it supposes adulation so rare that 
 one may be moved by it. The men with empty pockets 
 would marry me, forsooth, and the women be dragged 
 into company clinging to my petticoats. But they are 
 learning. I do not shrink from giving them sharp 
 lessons." 
 
 This she did without mercy, and in time cleared her- 
 self of hangers-on so that her banquets and assemblies 
 were the most distinguished of the time, and the 
 men who paid their court to her were of such 
 place and fortune that their worship could but be 
 disinterested. 
 
 Among the earliest to wait upon her was his Grace 
 of Osmonde, who found her one day alone, save for 
 the presence of Mistress Anne, whom she kept often 
 with her. When the lackey announced him, Anne, 
 who sat upon the same seat with her, felt her slightly 
 start, and, looking up, saw in her countenance a thing 
 8 VOL. 2
 
 170 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 she had never beheld before, nor had indeed ever 
 dreamed of beholding. It was a strange, sweet crim- 
 son which flowed over her face, and seemed to give 
 a wondrous deepness to her lovely orbs. She rose as 
 a queen might have risen had a king come to her, but 
 never had there been such pulsing softness in her look 
 before. 'Twas in some curious fashion like the look 
 of a girl, and in sooth she was but a girl in years, 
 but so different to all others of her age, and had lived 
 so singular a life, that no one ever thought of her 
 but as a woman, or would have deemed it aught but 
 folly to credit her with any tender emotion or blush- 
 ing warmth girlhood might be allowed. 
 
 His Grace was as courtly of bearing as he had ever 
 been. He stayed not long, and during his visit con- 
 versed but on such subjects as a kinsman may gra- 
 ciously touch upon ; but Anne noted in him a new look 
 also, though she could scarce have told what it might 
 be. She thought that he looked happier, and her fancy 
 was that some burden had fallen from him. 
 
 Before he went away he bent low and long over 
 Clorinda's hand, pressing his lips to it with a tender- 
 ness which strove not to conceal itself. And the hand 
 was not withdrawn, her Ladyship standing in sweet 
 yielding, the tender crimson trembling on her cheek. 
 Anne herself trembled, watching her new, strange love- 
 liness with a sense of fascination; she could scarce 
 withdraw her eyes, it seemed so as if the woman had 
 been reborn. 
 
 "Your Grace will come to us again," my Lady said,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 171 
 
 in a soft voice. "We are two lonely women" with 
 her radiant compelling smile "and need your kindly 
 countenancing." 
 
 His eyes dwelt deep in hers as he answered, and 
 there was a flush upon his own cheek, man and warrior 
 though he was. 
 
 "If I might come as often as I would," he said, 
 "I should be at your door, perhaps, with too great 
 frequency." 
 
 "Nay, your Grace," she answered; "come as often 
 as we would and see who wearies first. 'Twill not 
 be ourselves." 
 
 He kissed her hand again, and this time 'twas pas- 
 sionately, and when he left her presence it was with 
 a look of radiance on his noble face, and with the 
 bearing of a king new-crowned. 
 
 For a few moments' space she stood where he had 
 parted from her, looking as though listening to the 
 sound of his step, as if she would not lose a footfall; 
 then she went to the window and stood among the 
 flowers there, looking down into the street, and Anne 
 saw that she watched his equipage. 
 
 'Twas early summer, and the sunshine flooded her 
 from head to foot ; the window and balcony were full 
 of flowers yellow jonquils and daffodils, white nar- 
 cissus, and all things fragrant of the spring. The 
 scent of them floated about her like an incense, and 
 a straying zephyr blew great puffs of their sweetness 
 back into the room. Anne felt it all about her and 
 remembered it until the hour she died.
 
 172 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Clorinda's bosom rose high in an exultant, raptur- 
 ous sigh. 
 
 " Tis the spring that comes," she murmured, breath- 
 lessly. "Never hath it come to me before." 
 
 Even as she said the words, at the very moment of 
 her speaking, fate a strange fate indeed brought to 
 her yet another visitor. The door was thrown open 
 wide, and in he came, a lackey crying loud his name. 
 'Twas Sir John Oxon. 
 
 Those of the world of fashion who were wont to 
 gossip had bestowed upon them a fruitful subject for 
 discussion over their tea-tables, on the future of the 
 widowed Lady Dunstanwolde. All the men being en- 
 amored of her, 'twas not likely that she would long 
 remain unmarried, her period of mourning being over, 
 and accordingly forthwith there was every day chosen 
 for her a new husband by those who concerned them- 
 selves in her affairs, and they were many. One week 
 'twas a great general she was said to smile on, again 
 a great beau and female conqueror, it being argued 
 that having made her first marriage for rank and 
 wealth, and being a passionate and fantastic beauty, 
 she would this time allow herself to be ruled by her 
 caprice and wed for love; again, a certain marquis 
 was named, and after him a young earl renowned for 
 both beauty and wealth; but though each and all of 
 those selected were known to have laid themselves at 
 her feet, none of them seemed to have met with the 
 favor they besought.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 173 
 
 There were two men, however, who were more 
 spoken of than all the rest, and whose court awak- 
 ened a more lively interest indeed, 'twas an interest 
 which was lively enough at times to become almost 
 a matter of contention ; for those who upheld the cause 
 of the one man would not hear of the success of the 
 other, the claims of each being considered of such dif- 
 ferent nature. These two men were the Duke of Os- 
 monde and Sir John Oxon. 'Twas the soberer and 
 more dignified who were sure his Grace had but to 
 proffer his suit to gain it, and their sole wonder lay 
 in that he did not speak more quickly. 
 
 "But being a man of such noble mind," 'twas said, 
 "it may be that he would leave her to her freedom 
 yet a few months, because, despite her stateliness, she 
 is but young, and 'twould be like his honorableness to 
 wish that she should see many men while she is free 
 to choose, as she has never been before. For these 
 days she is not a poor beauty, as she was when she 
 took Dunstanwolde." 
 
 The less serious, or less worldly, especially the sen- 
 timental spinsters and matrons and romantic young, 
 who had heard and enjoyed the rumors of Mistress 
 Clorinda Wildairs's strange early days, were prone to 
 build much upon a certain story of that time. 
 
 "Sir John Oxon was her first love," they said. "He 
 went to her father's house a beautiful young man, in 
 his earliest bloom, and she had never encountered such 
 an one before, having only known country dolts and 
 her father's friends. 'Twas said they loved each other,
 
 174 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 but were both passionate and proud, and quarreled bit- 
 terly. Sir John went to France to strive to forget her 
 in gay living he even obeyed his mother and paid 
 court to another woman and Mistress Clorinda, being 
 of fierce haughtiness, revenged herself by marrying 
 Lord Dunstanwolde." 
 
 "But she has never deigned to forgive him," 'twas 
 also said. "She is too haughty and of too high a tem- 
 per to forgive easily that a man should seem to desert 
 her for another woman's favor. Even when 'twas 
 whispered that she favored him she was disdainful, 
 and sometimes flouted him bitterly, as was her way 
 with all men. She was never gentle, and had always 
 a cutting wit. She will use him hardly before she 
 relents, but if he sues patiently enough, with such 
 grace as he uses with other women, love will conquer 
 her at last, for 'twas her first." 
 
 She showed him no great favor, it was true ; and yet 
 it seemed she granted him more privilege than she had 
 done during her lord's life, for he was persistent in his 
 following her, and would come to her house whether 
 of her will or of his own. Sometimes he came there 
 when the Duke of Osmonde was with her this hap- 
 pened more than once and then her Ladyship's face, 
 which was ever warmly beautiful when Osmonde was 
 near, would curiously change. It would grow pale 
 and cold, but in her eyes would burn a strange light, 
 which one man knew was as the light in the eyes of 
 a tigress lying chained but crouching to leap. 
 
 But it was not Osmonde who felt this ; he saw only
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 175 
 
 that she changed color, and having heard the story 
 of her girlhood, a little chill of doubt would fall upon 
 his noble heart. It was not doubt of her, but of him- 
 self, and fear that his great passion made him blind; 
 for he was the one man chivalrous enough to remem- 
 ber how young she was, and to see the cruelty of the 
 fate which had given her unmothered childhood into 
 the hands of a coarse roisterer, making her his play- 
 thing and his whim. And if in her first hours of 
 bloom she had been thrown with youthful manhood 
 and beauty, what more in the course of nature than 
 that she should have learned to love, and being sep- 
 arated from her young lover by their mutual youth- 
 ful faults of pride and passionateness of temper, what 
 more natural than, being free again, and he suing with 
 all his soul, that her heart should return to him, even 
 though through a struggle with pride. In her lord's 
 lifetime he had not seen Oxon near her, and in those 
 days when he had so struggled with his own surging 
 love and striven to bear himself nobly, he had kept 
 away from her, knowing that his passion was too great 
 and strong for any man to always hold at bay and 
 make no sign, because at brief instants he trembled 
 before the thought that in her eyes he had seen that 
 which would have sprung to answer the same self in 
 him if she had been a free woman. But now, when 
 despite her coldness, which" never melted to John Oxon, 
 she still turned pale and seemed to fall under a re- 
 straint on his coming, a man of sufficient high dignity 
 to be splendidly modest where his own merit was con-
 
 176 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 cerned, might well feel that for this there must be a 
 reason, and it might be a grave one. 
 
 So, though he would not give up his suit until he 
 was sure 'twas either useless or unfair, he did not 
 press it as he would have done, but saw his lady when 
 he could, and watched with the tenderness of passion 
 her lovely face and eyes. But one short town season 
 passed before he won his prize, but to poor Anne it 
 seemed that in its passing she lived years. 
 
 Poor woman, as she had grown thin and large-eyed 
 in those days gone by, she grew so again. Time in 
 passing had taught her so much that others did not 
 know, and as she served her sister, and waited on 
 her wishes, she saw that of which no other dreamed, 
 and saw without daring to speak, or show by any sign, 
 her knowledge. 
 
 The day when Lady Dunstanwolde had turned from 
 standing among her daffodils and had found herself 
 confronting the open door of her salon, and John 
 Oxon passing through it, Mistress Anne had seen that 
 in her face and his which had given to her a shock of 
 terror. In John Oxon's blue eyes there had been a 
 set, fierce look, and in Clorinda's a blaze, which had 
 been like a declaration of war. And these same looks 
 she had seen since that day, again and again. Gradu- 
 ally it had become her sister's habit to take Anne with 
 her into the world as she had not done before her 
 widowhood, and Anne knew whence this custom came. 
 There were times when, by use of her presence, she 
 could avoid those she wished to thrust aside, and Anne
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 177 
 
 noted with a cold sinking of the spirit that the one she 
 would plan to elude most frequently was Sir John 
 Oxon ; and this was not done easily. The young man's 
 gay lightness of demeanor had changed. The few 
 years that had passed since he had come to pay his 
 court to the young beauty in male attire, had brought 
 experiences to him which had been bitter enough. He 
 had squandered his fortune and failed to reinstate him- 
 self by marriage, his dissipations had told upon him, 
 and he had lost his spirit and good humor, his mock- 
 ing wit had gained a bitterness, his gallantry had no 
 longer the gaiety of youth. And the woman he had 
 loved for an hour with youthful passion, and had 
 dared to dream of casting aside in boyish insolence, 
 had risen like a phenix and soared high and trium- 
 phant to the very sun itself. 
 
 "He was ever base," Clorinda had said. "As he 
 was at first he is now," and in the saying there was 
 truth. 
 
 If she had been helpless and heartbroken, and had 
 pined for him, he would have treated her as a victim, 
 and disdained her humiliation and grief; magnificent, 
 powerful, rich, in fullest beauty and disdaining him- 
 self, she filled him with a mad passion of love, which 
 was strangely mixed with hatred and cruelty. To 
 see her surrounded by her worshipers, courted by the 
 Court itself, all eyes drawn toward her as she moved, 
 all hearts laid at her feet, was torture to him. In 
 such cases as his and hers it was the woman who 
 should sue for love's return and watch the averted
 
 178 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 face, longing for the moment when it would deign 
 to turn and she could catch the cold eye and plead 
 piteously with her own. This he had seen, this men, 
 like himself but older, had taught him with vicious 
 art; but here was a woman who had scorned him at 
 the hour which should have been the moment of his 
 greatest powerfulness, who had mocked at and lashed 
 him in the face with the high derision of a creature 
 above law, and who never for one instant had bent 
 her neck to the yoke which women must bear. She 
 had laughed it to scorn and him and all things 
 and gone on her way, crowned with her scarlet roses, 
 to wealth and rank and power and adulation, while 
 he the man whose right it was to be transgressor 
 had fallen upon hard fortune, and was losing step by 
 step all she had won. In his way he loved her madly 
 as he had loved her before and as he would have 
 loved any woman who embodied triumph and beauty, 
 and burning with desire for both, and with jealous 
 rage of all, he swore he would not be outdone, be- 
 fooled, cast aside, and trampled on. 
 
 At the playhouse, when she looked from her box, 
 she saw him leaning against some pillar or stationed 
 at some noticeable spot, his bold, blue eyes fixed burn- 
 ingly upon her. At fashionable assemblies he made 
 his way to her side and stood near her, gazing or 
 dropping words into her ear ; at church he placed him- 
 self in some pew near by, that "she and all the world 
 might behold him ; when she left her coach and walked 
 in the Mall, he joined her or walked behind. At such
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 179 
 
 times in my Lady's close-fringed eyes there shone a 
 steady gleam, but they were ever eyes that glowed, 
 and there were none who had ever come close enough 
 to her to know her well, and so there were none who 
 read its meaning. Only Anne knew as no other crea- 
 ture could, and looked on with secret terror and dis- 
 may. The world but said that he was a man mad 
 with love, and, desperate at the knowledge of the 
 powerfulness of his rivals, could not live beyond sight 
 of her. 
 
 They did not hear the words that passed between 
 them at times, -when he stood near her in some 
 crowd, and dropped, as 'twas thought, words of burn- 
 ing prayer and love into her ear. 'Twas said that it 
 was like her to listen with unchanging face, and when 
 she deigned reply, to answer without turning toward 
 him. But such words and replies it had more than 
 once been Anne's ill-fortune to be near enough to 
 catch, and hearing them she had shuddered. 
 
 One night at a grand rout, the Duke of Osmonde 
 but just having left the reigning beauty's side, she 
 heard the voice she hated close by her, speaking. 
 
 "You think you can disdain me to the end?" it said. 
 "Your Ladyship is sure so?" 
 
 She did not turn or answer, and there followed a 
 low laugh. 
 
 "You think a man will lie beneath your feet and 
 be trodden upon without speaking. You are too high 
 and bold." 
 
 She waved her painted fan and gazed steadily before
 
 180 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 her at the crowd, now and then bending her head in 
 gracious greeting and smiling at some passer-by. 
 
 "If I could tell the story of the rose-garden and 
 of what the sun-dial saw, and what the moon shone 
 on," he said. 
 
 He heard her draw her breath sharply through her 
 teeth, he saw her white bosom lift as if a wild beast 
 leaped within it, and he laughed again. 
 
 "His Grace of Osmonde returns," he said, and then, 
 marking, as he never failed to do bitterly against his 
 will, the grace and majesty of this rival, who was 
 one of the greatest and bravest of England's gentle- 
 men, and knowing that she marked it too, his rage 
 so mounted that it overcame him. 
 
 "Sometimes," he said, "methinks that I shall kill 
 you !" 
 
 "Would you gain your end thereby?" she answered, 
 in a voice as low and deadly. 
 
 " 'Twould frustrate his and yours." 
 
 "Do it, then," she hissed back; "some day when 
 you think I fear you." 
 
 " 'Twould be too easy," he answered. "You fear 
 it too little. There are bitterer things." 
 
 She rose and met his Grace, who had approached 
 her. Always to his greatness and noble heart she 
 turned 'with that new feeling of dependence which 
 her whole life had never brought to her before. His 
 deep eyes, falling on her tenderly as she rose, were 
 filled with protecting concern. Involuntarily he hast- 
 ened his steps.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 181 
 
 "Will your Grace take me to my coach?" she said. 
 "I am not well. May I go?" as gently as a tender, 
 appealing girl. 
 
 And, moved by this, as by her pallor, more than 
 his man's words could have told, he gave her his arm, 
 and drew her quickly and supportingly away. 
 
 Mistress Anne did not sleep well that night, hav- 
 ing much to distract her mind and keep her awake, 
 as was often, in these days, the case. When at length 
 she closed her eyes, her slumber was fitful and broken 
 by dreams, and in the mid-hour of the darkness she 
 wakened with a start, as if some sound had aroused 
 her. Perhaps there had been some sound, thougji all 
 was still when she opened her eyes, but in the chair 
 by her bedside sat Clorinda in her night-rail, her hands 
 wrung hard together on her knee, her black eyes star- 
 ing under a brow knit into straight, deep lines. 
 
 "Sister," cried Anne, starting up in bed. "Sister!" 
 
 Clorinda slowly turned her head toward her, where- 
 upon Anne saw that in her face there was a look of 
 horror which struggled with a grief a wo too mon- 
 strous to be borne. 
 
 "Lie down, Anne," she said. "Be not afraid; 'tis 
 only I," bitterly, "who need fear." 
 
 Anne cowered among the pillows and hid her face 
 in her thin hands. She knew so well that this was 
 true. 
 
 "I never thought the time would come," her sister 
 said, "when I should seek you for protection. A thing 
 has come upon me ; perhaps I shall go mad. To-night,
 
 1 82 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 alone in my room, I wanted to sit near a woman. 'Twos 
 not like me, was it ?" 
 
 Mistress Anne crept near the bed's edge, and stretch- 
 ing forth a hand, touched hers, which were as cold as 
 marble. 
 
 "Stay with me, sister," she prayed. "Sister, do not 
 go! What what can I say?" 
 
 "Naught," was the steady answer. "There is naught 
 to be said. You were always a woman. I was never 
 one till now." 
 
 She rose from her chair and threw up her arms, 
 pacing to and fro. 
 
 "I am a desperate creature," she cried. "Why was 
 I born?" 
 
 She walked the room almost like a thing mad and 
 
 "Why was I thrown into the world?" striking her 
 breast. "Why was I made so, and not one to watch 
 or care through those mad years ! To be given a body 
 like this and tossed to the wolves." 
 
 She turned to Anne, her arms outstretched, and so 
 stood white and strange and beauteous as a statue, 
 with drops like great pearls running down her lovely 
 cheeks, and she caught her breath sobbingly, like a 
 child. 
 
 "I was thrown to them," she wailed piteously, "and 
 they harried me, and left the marks of their great 
 teeth, and of the scars I can not rid myself, and since 
 it was my fate, pronounced from my first hour, why 
 was not this," clutching her breast, "left hard as 'twas
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 183 
 
 at first? Not a woman's not a woman's, but a she- 
 cub's. Ah! 'twas not just not just that it should 
 be so!" . 
 
 Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling 
 upon her knees and clinging to her, weeping bitterly. 
 
 "Poor heart!" she cried. "Poor, dearest heart!" 
 
 Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to 
 herself. She started, as if wakened from a dream, and 
 drew her form up rigid. 
 
 "I have gone mad/' she said. "What is it I do?" 
 She passed her hand across her brow and laughed a 
 little wild laugh. "Yes," she said. "This it is to be 
 a woman, to turn weak and run to other women, and 
 weep, and talk. Yes, by these signs I am a woman !" 
 She stood with her clenched hands pressed against her 
 breast. "In any fair fight," she said, "I could have 
 struck back blow for blow, and mine would have been 
 the heaviest, but being changed into a woman, my 
 arms are taken from me. He who strikes, aims at 
 my bared breast, and that he knows and triumphs 
 in." 
 
 She set her teeth together and ground them, and 
 the look, which was like that of a chained and harried 
 tigress, lit itself in her eyes. 
 
 "But there is none shall beat me," she said through 
 these fierce shut teeth. "Nay! there is none! Get up, 
 Anne," bending to raise her. "Get up, or I shall be 
 kneeling, too and I must stand upon my feet." 
 
 She made a motion as if she would have turned and 
 gone from the room without further explanation, but
 
 1 84 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Anne still clung to her. She was afraid of her again, 
 but her piteous love was stronger than her fear. 
 
 "Let me go with you," she cried. "Let me but 
 go and lie in your closet, that I may be near if you 
 should call." 
 
 Clorinda put her hands upon her shoulders, and, 
 stooping, kissed her, which in all their lives she had 
 done but once or twice. 
 
 "God bless thee, poor Anne," she said. "I think 
 thou wouldst lie on my threshold and watch the whole 
 night through if I should need it ; but I have given way 
 to womanish vapors too much ; I must go and be alone. 
 I was driven by my thoughts to come and sit and look 
 at thy good face; I did not mean to wake thee. Go 
 back to bed." 
 
 She would be obeyed, and led Anne to her couch! 
 herself, making her lie down and drawing the cover- 
 let about her; after which she stood upright, with a 
 strange smile, laying her hands lightly about her own 
 white throat. 
 
 "When I was a new-born thing, and had a little 
 throat and a weak breath," she cried, " 'twould have 
 been an easy thing to end me. I have been told I lay 
 beneath my mother when they found her dead. If, 
 when she felt her breath leaving her, she had laid her 
 hand upon my mouth and stopped mine, I should 
 not " with the little laugh again "I should not lie 
 awake to-night." 
 
 And then she went away.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CONTAINING THE HISTORY OF THE BREAKING OF THE 
 
 HORSE DEVIL, AND RELATES THE RETURNING OF 
 
 HIS GRACE OF OSMONDE FROM FRANCE 
 
 THERE were, in this strange nature, depths so awful 
 and profound that it was not to be sounded or to be 
 judged as others were. But one thing could have 
 melted or caused the unconquerable spirit to bend, 
 and this was the overwhelming passion of love not 
 a slight, tender feeling, but a great and powerful one, 
 such as could be awakened but by a being of as strong 
 and deep a nature as itself one who was in all things 
 its peer. 
 
 "I have been lonely lonely all my life," my Lady 
 Dunstanwolde had once said to her sister, and she had 
 indeed spoken a truth. 
 
 Even in her childhood she had felt in some strange 
 way she stood apart from the world about her. Before 
 she had been old enough to reason, she had been con- 
 scious that she was stronger and had greater power 
 and endurance than any human being about her. Her 
 strength she used in these days in wilful tyranny, and 
 indeed it was so used for many a day when she was 
 185
 
 1 86 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 older. The time had never been when an eye lighted 
 on her with indifference, or when she could not rule 
 and punish as she willed. As an infant she had 
 browbeaten the women servants and the stable-boys 
 and grooms; but, because of her quick wit and clever 
 tongue, and also because no humor ever made her 
 aught but a creature well worth looking at, they had 
 taken her bullying in good humor and loved her in 
 their coarse way. She had tyrannized over her father 
 and his companions, and they had adored and boasted 
 of her ; but there had not been one among them whom 
 she could have turned to if a softer moment had come 
 upon her and she had felt the need of a friend; nor, 
 indeed, one whom she did not regard privately with 
 contempt. 
 
 A god or goddess forced upon earth and surrounded 
 by mere human beings would surely feel a desolate- 
 ness beyond the power of common words to express, 
 and a human being endowed with powers and physical 
 gifts so rare as to be out of all keeping with those of 
 its fellows of ordinary build and mental stature, must 
 needs be lonely too. 
 
 She had had no companion, because she had found 
 none like herself and none with whom she could have 
 aught in common. Anne she had pitied, being struck 
 by some sense of the unfairness of her lot as com- 
 pared with her own. John Oxon had moved her, 
 bringing to her her first knowledge of buoyant, ardent 
 youth, and blooming strength and beauty. For Dun- 
 stanwolde she had felt gratitude and affection, but,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 187 
 
 than these three, there had been no others who even 
 distantly had touched her heart. 
 
 The night she had given her promise to Dunstan- 
 wolde and had made her obeisance before his kins- 
 man as she had met his deep and leonine eye, she had 
 known that 'twas the only man's eye before which her 
 own would fall, and which held the power to rule her 
 very soul. 
 
 She did not think this as a romantic girl would 
 have thought it; it was revealed to her by a sudden 
 tempestuous leap of her heart, and by a shock like 
 terror. 
 
 Here was the man who was of her own build, whose 
 thews and sinews of mind and body were as pow- 
 erful as her own here was he who, had she met 
 him one short year before, would have revolutionized 
 her world. 
 
 In the days of her wifehood, when she had read 
 in his noble face something of that which he endeav- 
 ored to command, and which to no other was apparent, 
 the dignity of his self-restraint had but filled her with 
 tenderness more passionate and grateful. 
 
 "Had he been a villain and a coward," was her 
 thought, "he would have made my life a bitter battle 
 but 'tis me he loves, not himself only, and as I honor 
 him so does he honor me." 
 
 Now she beheld the same passion in his eyes, but 
 no more held in leash ; his look met hers, hiding from 
 her nothing of what his high soul burned with, and 
 she was free free to answer when he spoke, and only
 
 1 88 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 feeling one bitterness in her heart : if he had but come 
 in time God ! why had he not been sent in time ? 
 
 But, late or early, he had come ; and what they had 
 to give each other should not be mocked at and lost. 
 The night she had ended by going to Anne's chamber, 
 she had paced her room saying this, again and again, 
 all the strength of her being rising in revolt. She had 
 been then a caged tigress of a verity; she had wrung 
 her hands; she had held her palm hard against her 
 leaping heart; she had walked madly to and fro, bat- 
 tling in thought with what seemed awful fate; she 
 had flung herself upon her knees and wept bitter, 
 scalding tears. 
 
 "He is so noble," she had cried. " He is so noble 
 and I so worship his nobleness and I have been 
 so base!" 
 
 And in her suffering her woman's nerves had for 
 a moment betrayed her. Heretofore she had known 
 no weakness of her sex, but the woman soul in her 
 so being moved, she had been broken and conquered 
 for a space and had gone to Anne's chamber, scarcely 
 knowing what refuge she so sought. It had been a 
 feminine act, and she had realized all it signified when 
 Anne sank weeping by her. Women who wept and 
 prated together at midnight in their chambers, ended 
 by telling their secrets. 
 
 So it was that it fell out that not on the next day, 
 nor indeed again, did Anne see the changed face to 
 the sight of which she had that night awakened. It 
 seemed as if my Lady, from that time, made plans
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 189 
 
 which should never for a moment leave her alone. 
 The next day she was busied arranging a brilliant 
 rout, the next a rich banquet, the next a great assem- 
 bly; she drove in the Mall in her stateliest equipages, 
 she walked upon its promenade, surrounded by her 
 crowd of courtiers, smiling upon them, and answering 
 them with shafts of graceful wit; the charm of her 
 gaiety had never been so remarked upon her air 
 never so enchanting. At every notable gathering in 
 the world of fashion she was to be seen; being bid- 
 den to the Court, which was at Hampton, her bril- 
 liant beauty and spirit so enlivened the royal dulness 
 that 'twas said the Queen herself was scarce resigned 
 to part with her, and that the ladies and gentlemen 
 in waiting all suffered from the spleen when she 
 withdrew. 
 
 She bought at this time the fiercest but most beau- 
 tiful beast of a horse she had ever mounted. The 
 creature was so superbly handsome, but apparently 
 so unconquerable and so savage, that her grooms were 
 afraid to approach it, and indeed it could not be sad- 
 dled and bitted unless she herself stood near. Even 
 the horse-dealer, rogue though he was, had sold it to 
 her with some approach to a qualm of conscience, hav- 
 ing confessed to her that it had killed two grooms 
 and been sentenced to be $hot by its first owner, and 
 was still living only because its great beauty had led 
 him to hesitate for a few days. It was by chance that 
 during these few days Lady Dunstanwolde heard of 
 it, and going to see it, desired and bought it at once.
 
 190 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "It is the very beast I want," she said, with a gleam 
 in her eye. "It will please me to teach it that there 
 is one stronger than itself." 
 
 She had much use for her loaded riding-whip, and 
 indeed, not finding it heavy enough, ordered one made 
 which was heavier. When she rode the beast in Hyde 
 Park, her first battles with him were the town talk, 
 and there were those who bribed her footmen to in- 
 form them beforehand when my lady was to take out 
 Devil, that they might know in time to be in the Park 
 to see her. Fops and hunting-men laid wagers as to 
 whether her Ladyship would kill the horse or be killed 
 by him, and followed her training of the creature with 
 an excitement and delight quite wild. 
 
 "Well may the beast's name be Devil/' said more 
 than one looker-on, "for he is not so much horse as 
 demon. And when he plunges and rears and shows 
 his teeth, there is a look in his eye which flames like 
 her own, and 'tis as if a male and female demon fought 
 together, for surely such a woman never lived before. 
 She will not let him conquer her, God knows, and it 
 would seem that he was swearing in horse fashion that 
 she should not conquer him. 
 
 When he was first bought and brought home, Mis- 
 tress Anne turned ashy at the sight of him, and in 
 her heart of hearts grieved bitterly that it had so 
 fallen out that his Grace of Osmonde had been called 
 away from town by high and important matters, for 
 she knew full well that if he had been in the neigh- 
 borhood he would have said some discreet and tender
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 191 
 
 word of warning to which her Ladyship would have 
 listened, though she would have treated with disdain 
 the caution of any other man or woman. When she 
 herself ventured to speak, Clorinda looked only stern. 
 
 "I have ridden only ill-tempered beasts all my life, 
 and that for the mere pleasure of subduing them," 
 she said. "I have no liking for a horse like a bell- 
 wether and if this one should break my neck, I need 
 battle with neither men nor horses again and I shall 
 die at the high tide of life and power and those who 
 thl-nk of me afterward will only remember that they 
 loved ie." 
 
 But the horse did not kill her, nor she it. Day after 
 day she stood by while it was taken from its stall, 
 many a time dealing with it herself, because no groom 
 dare approach, and then she would ride it forth, and 
 in Hyde Park force it to obey her, the wondrous 
 strength of her will, her wrist of steel, and the fierce, 
 pitiless punishment she inflicted actually daunting the 
 devilish creature's courage. She would ride from the 
 encounter, through two lines of people who had been 
 watching her, and some of them found themselves fol- 
 lowing after her even to the Park Gate almost awed 
 as they looked at her, sitting erect and splendid on 
 the fretted, anguished beast, whose shining skin was 
 covered with lather, whose mouth tossed blood-flecked 
 foam, and whose great eye was so strangely like her 
 own, but that hers glowed with the light of triumph 
 and his burned with the agonized protest of the van- 
 quished. At such times there was somewhat of fear
 
 192 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 in the glances that followed her beauty, which al- 
 most seemed to blaze her color was so rich, the 
 curve of her red mouth so imperial, the poise of her 
 head, with its loosening coils of velvet black hair, 
 so high. 
 
 "It is good for me that I do this," she said to Anne, 
 with a short laugh, one day. "I was growing too soft 
 and I have need now for all my power. To fight 
 with the demon in this beast rouses all in me that I 
 have held in check since I became my poor Lord's wife. 
 That the creature should have set his will against-, all 
 others, and should resist me with such strength and 
 devilishness, rouses in me the passion of the days when 
 I cursed and raved and struck at those who angered 
 me. 'Tis fury that possesses me, and I could curse 
 and shriek at him as I flog him, if 'twould be seemly. 
 As it would not be so, I shut my teeth hard and shriek 
 and curse within them and none can hear." 
 
 Among those who made it their custom to miss no 
 day when she went forth on Devil, that they might 
 stand near and behold her, there was one man ever 
 present, and 'twas Sir John Oxon. He would stand 
 as near as might be and watch the battle, a stealthy 
 fire in his eye, and a look as if the outcome of the 
 fray had deadly meaning to him. He would gnaw his 
 lips until at times the blood started; his face would 
 by turns flush scarlet and turn deadly pale, he would 
 move suddenly and restlessly and break forth under 
 breath into oaths of exclamation. One day a man 
 close by him saw him suddenly lay his hand upon his
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 193 
 
 sword, and having so done still keep it there, though 
 'twas plain he quickly remembered where he was. 
 
 As for the horse's rider, my Lady Dunstanwolde, 
 whose way it had been to avoid this man and to thrust 
 him from her path by whatsoever adroit means she 
 could use, on these occasions made no effort to evade 
 him and his glances in sooth, he knew, though none 
 other did so, that when she fought with her horse she 
 did it with a fierce joy in that he beheld her. 'Twas 
 as though the battle was between themselves and 
 knowing this in the depths of such soul as he pos- 
 sessed, there were times when the man would have 
 exulted to see the brute rise and fall upon her, crush- 
 ing the life out of her; or dash her to the earth and 
 set his hoof upon her dazzling, upturned face. Her 
 scorn and deadly defiance of him, her beauty and mad- 
 dening charm which seemed but to increase with every 
 hour that flew by, had roused his love to fury. De- 
 spite his youth he was a villain as he had ever been; 
 even in his first freshness there had been older men 
 and hardened ones who had wondered at the sel- 
 fish mercilessness and blackness of the heart that was 
 but that of a boy. They had said among themselves 
 that at his years they had never known a creature 
 who could be so gaily a dastard, one who could plan 
 with such light remorselessness, and using all the gifts 
 given him by nature solely for his own ends, would 
 take so much and give so little. In truth, as time had 
 gone on, men who had been his companions and had 
 indeed small consciences to boast of, had begun to 
 9 VOL. 2
 
 194 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 draw off a little from him and frequent his company 
 less. He chose to tell himself that this was because 
 he had squandered his fortune and was less good 
 company, being pursued by creditors and haunted by 
 debts; but though there was somewhat in this, per- 
 chance 'twas not the entire truth. 
 
 "By God !" said one over his cups, "there are things 
 even a rakehell fellow like me can not do but he 
 does them and seems not to know that they are to his 
 discredit." 
 
 There had been a time when without this woman's 
 beauty he might have lived indeed he had left it of 
 his own free, vicious will; but in these days when his 
 fortunes had changed and she represented all that he 
 stood most desperately in need of, her beauty drove 
 him mad. 
 
 In his haunting of her, as he followed her from 
 place to place, his passion grew day by day, and 
 all the more gained strength and fierceness because 
 it was so mixed with hate. He tossed upon his bed 
 at night and cursed her, he remembered the wild past, 
 and the memory all but drove him to delirium. He 
 knew of what stern stuff she was made, and that even 
 if her love had died, she would have held to. her com- 
 pact like grim death, even while loathing him. And 
 he had cast all this aside in one mad moment of boy- 
 ish cupidity and folly, and now that she was so radi- 
 ant and entrancing a thing, and wealth and splendor 
 and rank and luxury lay in the hollow of her marble 
 hand, she fixed her beauteous devil's eyes upon him
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 195 
 
 with a scorn in their black depths which seemed to 
 burn like fires of hell. 
 
 The great brute who dashed and plunged and 
 pranced beneath her seemed to have sworn to con- 
 quer her as he had sworn himself, but let him plunge 
 and kick as he would, there was no quailing in her 
 eyes; she sat like a creature who was superhuman, 
 and her hand was iron, her wrist was steel. She held 
 him that he could not do his worst without such pain 
 as would drive him mad, she lashed him and rained 
 on him such blows as almost made him blind. Once 
 at the very worst, Devil dancing near him, she looked 
 down from his back into John Oxon's face, and he 
 cursed aloud, her eyes so told him his own story and 
 hers. In those days their souls met in such combats 
 as it seemed must end in murder itself. 
 
 "You will not conquer him," he said to her one 
 morning, forcing himself near enough to speak. 
 
 "I will unless he kills me," she answered, "and that 
 methinks he will find it hard to do." 
 
 "He will kill you," he said; "I would were I in his 
 four shoes." 
 
 "You would if you could," were her words; "but 
 you could not with his bit in your mouth and my hand 
 on the snaffle. And if he killed me 'twould be he, not 
 I, was beaten ; since he could only kill what any bloody 
 villain could with any knife. He is a brute beast and 
 I am that which was given dominion over such. Look 
 on till I have done with him." 
 
 And thus, with other beholders, though in a differ-
 
 196 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 ent mood from theirs, he did, until a day when even 
 the most skeptical saw that the brute came to the fray 
 with less of courage, as if there had at last come into 
 his brain the dawning of a fear of that which rid him 
 and which all his madness could not displace from its 
 throne upon his back. 
 
 "By God!" cried more than one of the bystanders, 
 seeing this despite the animal's fury, "the beast gives 
 way! He gives way! She has him!" And John 
 Oxon, shutting his teeth, cut short an oath and turned 
 pale as death. 
 
 From that moment her victory was a thing assured. 
 The duel of strength became less desperate, and hav- 
 ing once begun to learn his lesson the brute was made 
 to learn it well. His bearing was a thing superb to 
 behold, once taught obedience there would scarce be ai 
 horse like him in the whole of England. And day; 
 by day this he learned from her, and being mastered, 
 was put through his paces and led to answer to the 
 rein so that he trotted, cantered, galloped, and leaped 
 as a bird flies. Then, as the town had come to see 
 him fight for freedom, it came to see him adorn the 
 victory of the being who had conquered him, and over 
 their dishes of tea in the afternoon beaux and beau- 
 ties of fashion gossiped of the interesting and exciting 
 event, and there were vaporish ladies who vowed they 
 could not have beaten a brute so, and that surely my 
 Lady Dunstanwolde must have looked hot and blowzy 
 while she did it, and have had the air of a great rough 
 man ; and there were some pretty tiffs and even quar-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 197 
 
 rels when the men swore that never had she looked 
 so magnificent a beauty and so inflamed the hearts of 
 all beholding her. 
 
 On the first day after her Ladyship's last battle with 
 her horse, the one which ended in such victory to her 
 that she rode him home hard through the streets with- 
 out an outbreak, he white with lather and marked with 
 stripes, but his large eye holding in its velvet a look 
 which seemed almost like a human thought on the 
 day after there occurred a thing which gave the town 
 new matter to talk of. 
 
 His Grace of Osmonde had been in France, called 
 there by business of the state, and during his absence 
 the gossip concerning the horse Devil had taken the 
 place of that which had before touched on himself. 
 'Twas not announced that he was to return to Eng- 
 land, and indeed, there were those who, speaking with 
 authority, said that for two weeks at least his affairs 
 abroad would not be brought to a 'close ; and yet, on 
 this morning, as my Lady Dunstanwolde rode 'neath 
 the trees, holding Devil well in hand, and watching 
 him with eagle keenness of eye, many looking on in 
 wait for the moment when the brute might break forth 
 suddenly again, a horseman was seen approaching at 
 a pace so rapid that 'twas on the verge of a gal- 
 lop, and the first man who beheld him looked amazed, 
 and lifted his hat, and the next, seeing him, spoke to 
 another who bowed with him, and all along the line 
 of loungers hats were removed and people wore the 
 air of seeing a man unexpectedly ; and hearing a name
 
 198 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 spoken in exclamation by his side, Sir John Oxon 
 looked round and beheld ride by my Lord Duke of 
 Osmonde. 
 
 The sun was shining brilliantly, and all the Park 
 was gay with bright warmth and greenness of turf 
 and trees. Clorinda felt the glow of the summer 
 morning permeate her being; she kept her watch upon 
 her beast, but he was going well, and in her soul she 
 knew that he was beaten, and that her victory had 
 been beheld by the one man who knew that it meant 
 to her that which it seemed to mean also to himself. 
 And, filled with this thought and the joy of it, she 
 rode beneath the trees, and so was riding with splen- 
 did spirit, when she heard a horse behind her, and 
 looked up as it drew near, and the rich crimson swept 
 over her in a sweet flood, so that it seemed to her 
 she thought she felt it warm on her very shoulders, 
 'neath her habit, for 'twas Osmonde's self who had 
 followed and reached her, and uncovered, keeping 
 pace by her side. 
 
 Ah, what a face he had, and how his eyes burned 
 as they rested on her. It was such a look she met that 
 for a moment she could not find speech, and he him- 
 self spoke as a man who, through some deep emotion, 
 has almost lost his breath. 
 
 "My Lady Dunstanwolde," he began, and then, with 
 a sudden passion, "Clorinda, my beloved !" The time 
 had come when he could not keep silence, and with 
 great leapings of her heart she knew. Yet not one 
 word said she, for she could not, but her beauty,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 199 
 
 glowing and quivering under his eyes' great fire, an- 
 swered enough. 
 
 "Were it not that I fear for your sake the beast you 
 ride," he said, "I would lay my hand upon his bridle, 
 that I might crush your hand in mine. At post haste 
 I have come from France, hearing this thing that 
 you endangered every day that which I love so madly. 
 My God ! beloved, cruel, cruel woman sure you must 
 know!" 
 
 She answered with a breathless, wild surrender. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she gasped, "I know." 
 
 "And yet you braved this danger, knowing that you 
 might leave me a widowed man for life." 
 
 "But," she said, with a smile whose melting radi- 
 ance seemed akin to tears "but see how I have mas- 
 tered him and all is passed." 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said; "as you have conquered all 
 as you have conquered me and did from the first 
 hour. But God forbid that you should make me suffer 
 so again." 
 
 "Your Grace," she said, faltering, "I I will not!" 
 
 "Forgive me for the tempest of my passion," he 
 said. " Twas not thus I had thought to come to make 
 my suit. 'Tis scarcely fitting that it should be so 
 but I was almost mad when I first heard this rumor, 
 knowing my duty would not loose me to come to you 
 at once and knowing you so well that only if your 
 heart had melted to the one who besought you, would 
 you give up." 
 
 "I give up!" she answered; "I give up!"
 
 200 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "I worship you !" he said ; "I worship you !" And 
 their meeting eyes were drowned in each other's ten- 
 derness. 
 
 They galloped side by side, and the watchers looked 
 on, exchanging words and glances, seeing in her 
 beauteous, glowing face, in his joyous one, the final 
 answer to the question they had so often asked each 
 other. 'Twas his Grace of Osmonde who was the 
 happy man, he and no other. That was a thing plain 
 indeed to be seen, for they were too high above the 
 common world to feel that they must play the paltry 
 part of outward trifling to deceive it; and as the sun 
 pierces through clouds and is stronger than they, so 
 their love shone like the light of day itself through 
 poor conventions. They did not know the people 
 gazed and whispered, and if they had known it the 
 thing would have counted for naught with them. 
 
 "See !" said my lady, patting her Devil's neck ; "see, 
 he knows that you have come, and frets no more." 
 
 They rode home together, the great beauty and the 
 great Duke, and all the town beheld, and after they 
 had passed him where he stood, John Oxon mounted 
 his own horse and galloped away, white-lipped and 
 with mad eyes. 
 
 "Let me escort you home," the Duke had said, "that 
 I may kneel to you there, and pour forth my heart 
 as I have so dreamed of doing. To-morrow I must 
 go back to France, because I left my errand incomplete. 
 I stole from duty the time to come to you, and I must 
 return as quickly as I came."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 201 
 
 So he took her home, and as they entered the wide 
 hall together, side by side, the attendant lackeys bowed 
 to the ground in deep welcoming obeisance, knowing 
 it was their future lord and master they received. 
 
 Together they went to her own salon, a beautiful 
 great room hung with rare pictures, warm with floods 
 of the bright summer sunshine and perfumed with 
 bowls of summer flowers, and as the lackey departed, 
 bowing, and closed the door behind him, they turned 
 and were enfolded close in each other's arms, and 
 stood so, with their hearts beating as, surely it seemed 
 to them, human hearts had never beat before. 
 
 "Ah! my dear love, my heavenly love!" he cried. 
 "It has been so long. I have lived in prison and in 
 fetters and it has been so long!" 
 
 Even as my Lord Dunstanwolde had found cause 
 to wonder at her gentle ways, so was this man amazed 
 at her great sweetness, now that he might cross the 
 threshold of her heart. She gave of herself as an 
 empress might give of her store of imperial jewels, 
 with sumptuous lavishness, knowing that the store 
 could not fail. In truth, it seemed that it must be a 
 dream, that she so stood before him in all her great, 
 rich loveliness, leaning against his heaving breast, her 
 arms as tender as his own, her regal head thrown 
 backward that they might gaze into the depths of each 
 other's eyes. 
 
 "From that first hour that I looked up at you," she 
 said, "I knew you were my lord my lord! And a 
 fierce pain stabbed my heart, knowing that you had
 
 202 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 come too late by but one hour; for had it not been 
 that Dunstanwolde had led me to you, I knew ah! 
 how well I knew that our hearts would have beaten 
 together, not as two hearts, but as one." 
 
 "As they do now," he cried. 
 
 "As they do now," she answered ; "as they do now." 
 
 "And from the moment that your rose fell at my 
 feet and I raised it in my hand," he said, "I knew I 
 held some rapture which was my own. And when 
 you stood before me at Dunstanwolde's side and our 
 eyes met, I could not understand. Nay, I could scarce 
 believe that it had been taken from me." 
 
 There, in her arms among the flowers and in the 
 sweetness of the sun he lived again the past, telling 
 her of the days when, knowing his danger, he had 
 held himself aloof, declining to come to her lord's 
 house with the familiarity of a kinsman, because the 
 pang of seeing her often was too great to bear; and 
 relating to her also the story of the hours when he had 
 watched her and she had not known his nearness or 
 guessed his pain, when she had passed in her equipage, 
 not seeing him, or giving him but a gracious smile. 
 He had walked outside her window at midnight, some- 
 times, too, coming because he was a desperate man, 
 and could not sleep, and returning homeward, had 
 found no rest, but only increase of anguish. 
 
 "Sometimes," he said, "I dared not look into your 
 eyes, fearing my own would betray me, but now I can 
 gaze into your soul itself, for the midnight is over 
 and joy cometh with the morning."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 203 
 
 As he had spoken, he had caressed softly with his 
 hand her cheek, and her crown of hair, and such was 
 his great gentleness that 'twas as if he touched lov- 
 ingly a child, for into her face there had come that 
 look which it would seem that in the arms of the man 
 she loves every true woman wears a look which is 
 somehow like a child's in its trusting, sweet, sur- 
 render, and appeal, whatsover may be her stateliness 
 and the splendor of her beauty. 
 
 Yet as he touched her cheek so and her eyes so 
 dwelt on him, suddenly her head fell heavily upon his 
 breast, hiding her face even while her enwreathing 
 arms held more closely. 
 
 "Ah, those mad days before !" she cried ; "ah, those 
 mad, mad days before!" 
 
 "Nay, they are long passed, sweet," he said, in his 
 deep noble voice, thinking that she spoke of the wild- 
 ness of her girlish years "and all our days of joy 
 are yet to come." 
 
 "Yes, yes," she cried, clinging closer, yet with shud- 
 dering. "They were before the joy the joy is all 
 to come."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN WHICH SIR JOHN OXON FINDS AGAIN A TROPHY 
 HE HAD LOST 
 
 His Grace of Osmonde went back to France to com- 
 plete his business, and all the world knew that when 
 he returned to England 'twould be to make his prep- 
 arations for his marriage with my Lady Dunstan- 
 wolde. It was a marriage not long to be postponed, 
 and her Ladyship herself was known already to be 
 engaged with lacemen, linen-drapers, toyshop-women, 
 and goldsmiths. Mercers waited upon her at her 
 house, accompanied by their attendants, bearing bur- 
 dens of brocades and silks and splendid stuffs of all 
 sorts ; her chariot was to be seen standing before their 
 shops, and the interest in her purchases was so great 
 that fashionable beauties would contrive to visit the 
 counters at the same hours as herself, so that they 
 might catch glimpses of what she chose. In her own 
 great house all was repressed excitement; her women 
 were enraptured at being allowed the mere handling 
 and laying away of the glories of her wardrobe; the 
 lackeys held themselves with greater state, knowing 
 that they were soon to be a duke's servants^ her little 
 204
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 205 
 
 black Nero strutted about, his turban set upon his pate 
 with a majestic cock, and disdained to enter into bat- 
 tle with such pages of his own color as wore only sil- 
 ver collars, he feeling assured that his own would soon 
 be of gold. 
 
 The world of fashion said when her Ladyship's 
 equipage drove by that her beauty was like that of the 
 god of day at morning, and that 'twas plain that no 
 man or woman had ever beheld her as his Grace of 
 Osmonde would. 
 
 "She loves at last," a wit said; "until the time that 
 such a woman loves, however great her splendor, she 
 is as the sun behind a cloud." 
 
 "And now this one hath come forth and shines so 
 that she warms us in mere passing," said another. 
 "What eyes, and what a mouth with that strange 
 smile upon it. Whoever saw such before ? And when 
 she came to town with my Lord Dunstanwolde, who, 
 beholding her, would have believed that she could 
 wear such a look?" 
 
 In sooth there was that in her face and in her voice 
 when she spoke which almost made Anne weep 
 through its strange sweetness and radiance. 'Twas 
 as if the flood of her joy had swept away all hardness 
 and disdain. Her eyes, which had seemed to mock at 
 all they had rested on, mocked no more, but ever 
 seemed to smile at some dear inward thought. 
 
 One night, when she went forth to a Court ball, 
 being all attired in brocade of white and silver, and 
 glittering with the Dunstanwolde diamonds which
 
 206 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 starred her as with great sparkling dewdrops, and 
 yet had not the radiance of her eyes and smile, she 
 was so purely wonderful a vision, that Anne, who had 
 been watching her through all the time when she had 
 been under the hands of her tire-woman and behold- 
 ing her now so dazzling and white a shining creature, 
 fell upon her knees to kiss her hand almost as one who 
 worships. 
 
 "Oh, sister," she said, "you look like a spirit. It 
 is as if with the earth you had naught to do as if 
 your eyes saw Heaven itself and Him who reigns 
 there." 
 
 The lovely orbs of Clorinda shone more still like the 
 great star of morning. 
 
 "Sister Anne," she said, laying her hand on her 
 white breast, "at times I think that I must almost be 
 a spirit, I feel such heavenly joy. It is as if He whom 
 you believe in, and who can forgive and wipe out sins, 
 has forgiven me and has granted it to me, that I may 
 begin my poor life again. Ah! I will make it better, 
 I will try to make it as near an angel's life as a woman 
 can, and I will do no wrong, but only good, and I will 
 believe and pray every day upon my knees and all my 
 prayers will be that I may so live that my dear lord 
 my Gerald could forgive me all that I have ever 
 done and seeing my soul would know me worthy of 
 him. Oh ! we are strange things, we human creatures, 
 Anne," with a tremulous smile; "we do not believe 
 until we want a thing and feel that we shall die if 'tis 
 not granted to us, and then we kneel and kneel and
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 207 
 
 believe, because we must have somewhat to ask help 
 from." 
 
 "But all help has been given to you," poor tender 
 Anne said, kissing her hand again, "and I will pray, 
 I will pray " 
 
 "Ay, pray, Anne, pray with all thy soul," Clorinda 
 answered. "I need thy praying and thou didst be- 
 lieve always, and have asked so little that has been 
 given thee." 
 
 "Thou wast given me, sister," said Anne. "Thou 
 hast given me a home and kindness such as I never 
 dared to hope ; thou hast been like a great star to me ; 
 I have had none other, and I thank Heaven on my 
 knees each night for the brightness my star has shed 
 on me." 
 
 "Poor Anne dear Anne!" Clorinda said, laying 
 her arms about her and kissing her. "Pray for thy 
 star, good, tender Anne, that its light may not be 
 quenched." Then with a sudden movement her hand 
 was pressed upon her bosom again. "Ah, Anne," she 
 cried, and in the music of her voice agony itself was 
 ringing "Anne, there is but one thing on this earth 
 God rules over, but one thing that belongs belongs 
 to me. And 'tis Gerald Mertoun and he is mine and 
 'shall not be taken from me, for he is a part of me and 
 I a part of him !" 
 
 "He will not be," said Anne. "He will not." 
 
 "He can not," Clorinda answered. "He shall not. 
 'Twould not be human." 
 
 She drew a long breath and was calm again.
 
 208 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "Did it reach your ears," she said, reclasping a band 
 of jewels on her arm, "that Sir John Oxon had been 
 offered a place in a foreign court, and that 'twas said 
 he would soon leave England ?" 
 
 "I heard some rumor of it," Anne answered, her 
 emotion getting the better of her usual discreet speech. 
 "God grant it may be true !" 
 
 "Ay!" said Clorinda, "would God that he were 
 gone!" 
 
 But that he was not, for when she entered the assem- 
 bly that night he was standing near the door as though 
 he lay in wait for her, and his eyes met hers with a 
 leaping gleam which was a thing of such exultation 
 that to encounter it was like having a knife thrust deep 
 into her side and through and through it; for she 
 knew full well that he could not wear such a look 
 unless he had some strength of which she knew not. 
 
 This gleam was in his eyes each time she found her- 
 self drawn to them, and it seemed as though she could 
 look nowhere without encountering his gaze. He fol- 
 lowed her from room to room, placing himself where 
 she could not lift her eyes without beholding him; 
 when she walked a minute with a royal duke, he stood 
 and watched her with such a look in his face as drew 
 all eyes toward him. 
 
 ;< Tis as if he threatens her," one said. "He has 
 gone mad with disappointed love." 
 
 But 'twas not love that was in his look, but the 
 madness of long-thwarted passion mixed with hate 
 and mockery, and this she saw and girded her soul
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 209 
 
 with all its strength, knowing that she had a fiercer 
 beast to deal with and a more vicious and dangerous 
 one than her horse Devil. That he kept at first at a 
 distance from her, and but looked on with this secret 
 exultant glow in his bad, beauteous eyes, told her that 
 at last he felt he held some power in his hands against 
 which all her defiance would be as naught. Till this 
 hour, though she had suffered, and when alone had 
 writhed in agony of grief and bitter shame, in his 
 presence she had never flinched. Her strength she 
 knew was greater than his, but his baseness was his 
 weapon, and the depths of that baseness she knew she 
 had never reached. 
 
 At midnight, having just made obeisance before 
 royalty retiring, she felt that at length he had drawn 
 near and was standing at her side. 
 
 "To-night," he said, in the low undertone it was his 
 way to keep for such occasions, knowing how he could 
 pierce her ear "to-night you are Juno's self a very 
 Queen of Heaven!" 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 "And I have stood and watched you moving among 
 all lesser goddesses as the moon sails among the stars, 
 and I have smiled in thinking of what these lesser 
 deities would say if they had known what I bear in 
 my breast to-night." 
 
 She did not even make a movement, in truth she 
 felt that at his next words she might change to stone. 
 
 "I have found it," he said, "I have it here the lost 
 treasure the tress of hair like a raven's wing and six
 
 210 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 feet long. Is there another woman in England who 
 could give a man a lock like it?" 
 
 She felt then that she had in sooth changed to 
 stone; her heart hung without moving in her breast, 
 her eyes felt great and hollow and staring as she lifted 
 them to him. 
 
 "I knew not," she said slowly and with bated breath, 
 for the awfulness of the moment had even made her 
 body weak as she had never known it feel before "I 
 knew not truly that hell made things like you." 
 
 Whereupon he made a movement forward, and the 
 crowd about surged nearer with hasty exclamations, 
 for the strange weakness of Jier body had overpowered 
 her in a way mysterious to her, and she had changed 
 to marble, growing too heavy of weight for her sink- 
 ing limbs. And those in the surrounding groups saw 
 a marvelous thing, the same being that my Lady Dun- 
 stanwolde swayed as she turned, and falling, lay 
 stretched as if dead in her white and silver and flash- 
 ing jewels at the startled beholders' feet. 
 
 She wore no radiant look when she went home that 
 night. She would go home alone and unescorted ex- 
 cepting by her lackeys, refusing all offers of compan- 
 ionship when once placed in her equipage. There 
 were of course gentlemen who would not be denied 
 leading her to her coach; Sir John Oxon was among 
 them, and at the last pressed close with- a manner of 
 great ceremony, speaking a final word. 
 
 " Tis useless, your Ladyship," he murmured as he
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 211 
 
 made his obeisance gallantly, and though the words 
 were uttered in his lowest tone and with great soft- 
 ness, they reached her ear, as he intended that they 
 should. "To-morrow morning I shall wait upon 
 you." 
 
 Anne had forborne going to bed, and waited for her 
 return, longing to see her spirit's face again before 
 she slept, for this poor tender creature, being denied 
 all woman's loves and joys by Fate, who had made 
 her as she was, so lived in her sister's beauty and tri- 
 umphs that 'twas as if in some far-off way she shared 
 them, and herself experienced through them the joy 
 of being a woman transcendently beautiful and trans- 
 cendently beloved. To-night she had spent her wait- 
 ing hours in her closet and upon her knees, praying 
 with all humble adoration of the Being she approached. 
 She was wont to pray long and fervently each day, 
 thanking Heaven for the smallest things and the most 
 common, and imploring continuance of the mercy 
 which bestowed them upon her poor unworthiness ; 
 for her sister her prayers were offered up night and 
 morning, and ofttimes in hours between, and to-night 
 she prayed not for herself at all, but for Clorinda and 
 for his Grace of Osmonde, that their love might be 
 crowned with happiness and that no shadow might in- 
 tervene to cloud its brightness and the tender rapture 
 in her sister's softened look, whicK was to her a thing 
 so wonderful that she thought of it with reverence as 
 a holy thing. 
 
 Her prayers being at length ended, she had risen
 
 212 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 from her knees and sat down, taking a sacred book 
 to read, a book of sermons such as 'twas her simple 
 habit to pore over with entire respect and childlike 
 faith, and being in the midst of her favorite homily 
 she heard the chariot's returning wheels and left her 
 chair surprised, because she had not yet begun to ex- 
 pect the sound. 
 
 " Tis my sister," she said, with a soft, sentimental 
 smile. "Osmonde not being among the guests, she 
 hath had no pleasure in mingling with them." 
 
 She went below to the room her Ladyship usually 
 went to first on her return at night from any gath- 
 ering, and there she found her sitting as though she 
 had dropped there in the corner of a great divan, her 
 hands hanging clasped before her on her knee, her 
 head hanging forward on her fallen chest, her large 
 eyes staring into space. 
 
 "Clorinda! Clorinda!" Anne cried, running to her 
 and kneeling at her side. "Clorinda! God have 
 mercy! What is't?" 
 
 Never before had her face worn such a look ; 'twas 
 colorless, and so drawn and fallen in that 'twas indeed 
 almost as if her great beauty was gone ; but the thing 
 most awful to poor Anne was that all the new soft- 
 ness seemed as if it had been stamped out, and the 
 fierce hardness had come back and was engraven in 
 its place, mingled with a horrible despair. 
 
 "An hour ago," she said, "I swooned. That is why 
 I look thus. 'Tis yet another sign that I am a woman 
 a woman!"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 213 
 
 "You are ill ! you swooned !" cried Anne. "I must 
 send for your physician. Have you not ordered that 
 he be sent for yourself? If Osmonde were here how 
 perturbed he would be!" 
 
 "Osmonde!" said my Lady. "Gerald! Is there a 
 Gerald, Anne?" 
 
 "Sister!" cried Anne, affrighted by her strange look; 
 "oh, sister!" 
 
 "I have seen heaven," Clorinda said; "I have 
 stood on the threshold and seen through the part- 
 opened gate and then have been dragged back 
 to hell." 
 
 Anne clung to her, gazing upward at her eyes in 
 sheer despair. 
 
 "But back to hell I will not go," she went on say- 
 ing. "Had I not seen heaven, they might perhaps have 
 dragged me, but now I will not go. I will not, that 
 I swear ! There is a thing which can not be endured. 
 Bear it no woman should. Even I, who was not born 
 a woman, but a wolf's she-cub, I can not. Twas not 
 I, 'twas fate," she cried out ; " 'twas not I, 'twas fate 
 'twas the great wheel we are bound to, which goes 
 round and round, that we may be broken on it. 'Twas 
 not I who bound myself there. And I will not be 
 broken so." 
 
 She said the words through her clenched teeth and 
 with all the mad passion of her most lawless years; 
 even at Anne she looked almost in the old, ungentle 
 fashion, as though half scorning all weaker than her- 
 self and having small patience with them.
 
 2i 4 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 'There will be a way," she said; "there will be a 
 way. I shall not swoon again." 
 
 She left her divan and stood upright, the color hav- 
 ing come back to her face, but the look Anne worshiped 
 not having returned with it, 'twas as though Mistress 
 Clorinda Wildairs had been born again. 
 
 "To-morrow morning I go forth on Devil," she said. 
 "And I shall be abroad if any visitors come." 
 
 What passed in her chamber that night no human 
 being knew. Anne, who left her own apartment and 
 crept into a chamber near her to lie and watch, knew 
 that she paced to and fro, but heard no other sound, 
 and dared not intrude upon her. 
 
 When she came forth in the morning she wore the 
 high look she had been wont to wear in the years gone 
 by when she ruled in her father's house and rode to 
 the hunt with a following of gay, middle-aged, and 
 elderly rioters. Her eye was brilliant and her color 
 matched it, she held her head with the old dauntless 
 carriage, and there was that in her voice before which 
 her women quaked and her lackeys hurried to do her 
 bidding. 
 
 Devil himself felt this same thing in the touch of 
 her hand upon his bridle when she mounted him at the 
 door, and seemed to glance askance at her sideways. 
 
 She took no servant with her, and did not ride to 
 the park, but to the country. Once on the high-road 
 she rode fast and hard, only galloping straight before 
 her as the way led, and having no intention. Where 
 she was going she knew not, but why she rode on
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 215 
 
 horseback she knew full well, it being because the 
 wild, almost fierce motion was in keeping with the 
 tempest in her soul. Thoughts rushed through her 
 brain even as she rushed th'rough the air on Devil's 
 back, and each leaping after the other seemed to tear 
 more madly. 
 
 "What shall I do?" she was saying to herself. 
 "What thing is there for me to do? I am trapped 
 like a hunted beast, and there is no way forth." 
 
 The blood went like a torrent through her veins, 
 so that she seemed to hear it roaring in her ears; her 
 heart thundered in her side or 'twas, so she thought 
 of it, as it bounded while she recalled the past and 
 looked upon the present. 
 
 "What else could have been?" she groaned. "Naught 
 else naught else. 'Twas a trick a trick of fate to 
 ruin me for my punishment." 
 
 When she had gone forth it had been with no hope 
 in her breast that her wit might devise a way to free 
 herself from the thing which so beset her, for she had 
 no weak fancies that there dwelt in this base soul any 
 germ of honor whicK might lead it to relenting. As 
 she had sat in her dark room at night, crouched upon 
 the floor and clenching her Hands as the mad thoughts 
 went whirling through' her brain, she had stared her 
 fate in the face and known all its awfulness. Before 
 her lay the rapture of a great, sweet, honorable pas- 
 sion, a higti and noble life lived in such bliss as rarely 
 fell to lot of woman on this one man she knew that 
 she could lavish all the splendor of her nature and
 
 216 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 make his life a heaven as hers would be; behind her 
 lay the mad, uncared-for years and one black mem- 
 ory blighting all to come, though 'twould have been 
 but a black memory with no power to blight if the 
 heaven of love had not so opened to her, and with 
 its light cast all else into shadow. 
 
 "If 'twere not love," she cried, "if 'twere but am- 
 bition, I could defy it to the last. But 'tis love, love, 
 love, and it will kill me to forego it." 
 
 Even as she moaned the words, she heard hoof- 
 beats near her, and a horseman leaped the hedge and 
 was at her side. She set her teeth, and turning, stared 
 into John Oxon's face. 
 
 "Did you think I would not follow you?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "No," she answered. 
 
 "I have followed you at a distance hitherto," he said. 
 "Now I shall follow close." 
 
 She did not speak, but galloped on. 
 
 "Think you you can outride me?" he said grimly, 
 quickening his steed's pace. "I go with your Lady- 
 ship to your own house. For fear of scandal you 
 have not openly rebuffed me previous to this time, for 
 a like reason you will not order your lackeys to shut 
 your door when I e*nter it with you." 
 
 My Lady Dunstanwolde turned to gaze at him 
 again. The sun shone on his bright, falling locks 
 and his blue eyes as she had seen it shine in days 
 which seemed so strangely long passed by, though 
 they were not five years agone.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 217 
 
 " Tis strange," she said, with a measure of won- 
 der, "to live and be so black a devil." 
 
 "Bah! my Lady," he said, "these are fine words 
 and fine words do not hold between us. Let us leave 
 them. I would escort you home and speak to you in 
 private." 
 
 There was that in his mocking that was madness 
 to her, and made her sick and dizzy with the boiling 
 of the blood which surged to her brain. The fury of 
 passion which had been a terror to all about her when 
 she had been a child, was upon her once more, and 
 though she had thought herself freed from its domin- 
 ion, she knew it again and all it meant. She felt the 
 thundering beat in her side, the hot flood leaping to 
 her cheek, the flame burning her eyes, themselves as 
 if fire was within them. Had he been other than he 
 was, her face itself would have been a warning. But 
 he pressed her hard. As he would have slunk away 
 a beaten cur if she had held the victory in her hands, 
 so, feeling that the power was his, he exulted over the 
 despairing frenzy which was in her look. 
 
 "I pay back old scores," he said. "There are many 
 to pay. When you crowned yourself with roses and 
 set your foot upon my face, your Ladyship thought 
 not of this! When you gave yourself to Dunstan- 
 wolde and spat at me, you did not dream that there 
 could come a time when I might goad as you did." 
 
 She struck Devil with her whip, who leaped for- 
 ward, but Sir John followed hard behind her. He 
 had a swift horse, too, and urged him fiercely, so that 
 10 VOL. 2
 
 218 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 between these two there was a race as if for life and 
 death. The beasts bounded forward, spurning the 
 earth beneath their feet. My Lady's face was set, her 
 eyes were burning flame, her breath came short and 
 pantingly between her teeth. Oxon's fair face was 
 white with passion ; he panted also, but strained every 
 nerve to keep at her side, and kept there. 
 
 "Keep back ! I warn thee !" she cried once, almost 
 gasping. 
 
 "Keep back !" he answered, blind with rage. "I will 
 follow thee to hell!" 
 
 And in this wise they galloped over the white road 
 until the hedges disappeared and they were in the 
 streets, and people turned to look at them, and even 
 stood and stared. Then she drew rein a little and 
 went slower, knowing with shuddering agony that the 
 trap was closing about her. 
 
 "What is it that you would say to me?" she asked 
 him, breathlessly. 
 
 "That which I would say within four walls, that 
 you may hear it all," he answered. "This time 'tis 
 not idle threatening. I have a thing to show you." 
 
 Through the streets they went, and as her horse's 
 hoofs beat the pavement, and the passers-by, looking 
 toward her, gazed curiously at so fine a lady on so 
 splendid a brute, she lifted her eyes to the houses, the 
 booths, the faces, and the sky with a strange fancy 
 that she looked about her as a man looks who, doomed 
 to death, is being drawn in his cart to Tyburn tree. 
 For 'twas to death she went, nor to aught else could
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 219 
 
 she compare it, and she was so young and strong, and 
 full of love and life, and there should have been such 
 bliss and peace before her but for one madness of her 
 all-unknowing days. And this beside her, this man 
 with the fair face, and looks and beauteous devil's eyes, 
 was her hangman, and carried his rope with him, and 
 soon would fit it close about her neck. 
 
 When they rode through the part of the town where 
 abode the world of fashion, those who saw them knew 
 them, and marveled that the two should be together. 
 
 "But perhaps his love has made him sue for pardon 
 that he has so borne himself," some said, "and she has 
 chosen to be gracious to him since she is gracious in 
 these days to all." 
 
 When they reached her house, he dismounted with 
 her, wearing an outward air of courtesy, but his eye 
 mocked her, as she knew. His horse was in a lather 
 of sweat, and he spoke to the servant : 
 
 "Take my beast home," he said. "He is too hot 
 to stand, and I shall not soon be ready." 
 
 He followed her to her private saloon, the one to 
 which she had taken Osmonde on the day of their 
 bliss, the one in which in the afternoon she received 
 those who came to pay court to her over a dish of 
 tea. In the mornings none entered it but herself or 
 some invited guest. 'Twas not the room she would 
 have chosen for him, but when he said to her, " 'Twere 
 best your Ladyship took me to some private place," 
 she had known there was no other so safe. 
 
 When the door was closed behind them, and they
 
 220 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 stood face to face, they were a strange pair to behold, 
 she with mad defiance battling with mad despair in 
 her face, he with the mocking which every woman 
 who had ever trusted him or loved him had lived to 
 see in his face when all was lost. Few men there 
 lived who were as vile as he, his power of villainy 
 lying in that he knew not the meaning of man's shame 
 or honor. 
 
 "Now," she said, "tell me the worst." 
 
 " 'Tis not so bad," he answered, "that a man should 
 claim his own and swear that no other man shall take it 
 from him. That I have sworn and that I will hold to." 
 
 "Your own!" she said; "your own, you call it 
 villain!" 
 
 "My own, since I can keep it," quoth he. "Before 
 you were my Lord of Dunstanwolde's, you were mine 
 of your own free will." 
 
 "Nay, nay," she cried. "God! through some mad- 
 ness I knew not the awfulness of because I was so 
 young and had known naught but evil and you were 
 so base and wise." 
 
 "Was your Ladyship an innocent?" he answered. 
 "It seemed not so to me." 
 
 "An innocent of all good," she cried, "of all things 
 good on earth, of all that I know now, having seen 
 manhood and honor." 
 
 "His Grace of Osmonde has not been told this," 
 he said. "And I shall make it all plain to him " 
 
 "What do you ask, devil ?" she broke forth. "What 
 is't you ask?"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 221 
 
 "That you shall not be the Duchess of Osmonde," 
 he said, drawing near to her. "That you shall be 
 the wife of Sir John Oxon, as you once called your- 
 self for a brief space, though no priest had mumbled 
 Over us " 
 
 "Who was't divorced us?" she said, gasping; "for 
 I was an honest thing, though I knew no other virtue. 
 Who was't divorced us?" 
 
 "I confess," he answered, bowing, "that 'twas I 
 for the time being. I was young and perhaps fickle " 
 
 "And you left me," she cried, "and I found that you 
 had come but for a bet and since I so bore myself 
 that you could not boast, and since I was not a rich 
 woman whose fortune would be of use to you, you 
 followed another and left me me!" 
 
 "As his Grace of Osmonde will when I tell him 
 my story," he answered. "He is not one to brook 
 that such things can be told of the mother of his heirs." 
 
 She would have shrieked aloud but that she clutched 
 her throat in time. 
 
 "Tell him !" she cried ; "tell him, and see if he will 
 hear you ! Your word against mine !" 
 
 "Think you I do not know that full well," he an- 
 swered, and he brought forth a little package folded 
 in silk. "Why have I done naught but threaten till 
 this time? If I went to him without proof he would 
 run me through with his sword as I were a mad dog. 
 But is there another woman in England from whose 
 head her lover could ravish a lock as long and black 
 as this?"
 
 222 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 He unfolded the silk and let other silk unfold itself, 
 a great and thick ring of raven hair which uncoiled 
 its serpent length, and though he held it high, was 
 long enough after swaying from his hand to lie upon 
 the floor. 
 
 "Merciful God!" she cried, and shuddering, hid 
 her face. 
 
 " Twas a bet, I own," he said. "I heard too much 
 of the mad beauty, and her disdain of men, not to be 
 fired by a desire to prove to her and others that she 
 was but a woman after all, and so was to be won. I 
 took an oath that I would come back some day with 
 a trophy and this I cut when you knew not that I 
 did it." 
 
 She clutched her throat again to keep from shriek- 
 ing in her impotent horror. 
 
 "Devil, craven, and loathsome and he knows not 
 what he is!" she gasped. "He is a mad thing who 
 knows not that all his thoughts are of hell." 
 
 'Twas in sooth a strange and monstrous thing to 
 see him so unwavering and bold, flinching before no 
 ignominy, shrinking not to speak openly the thing be- 
 fore the mere accusation of which other men's blood 
 would have boiled. 
 
 "When I bore it away with me," he said, "I lived 
 wildly for a space, and in those days put it in a place 
 of safety, and when I was sober again I had for- 
 got where. Yesterday by a strange chance I came 
 upon it. Think you it can be mistaken for any other 
 woman's hair?"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 223 
 
 At this she held up her hand. 
 
 "Wait," she said. "You will go to Osmonde, you 
 will tell him this, you will " 
 
 "I will tell him all the story of the rose-garden and 
 of the sun-dial, and the beauty who had wit enough 
 to scorn a man in public that she might more safely 
 hold tryst with him alone. She had great wit and 
 cunning for a beauty of sixteen. 'Twould be well for 
 her lord to have keen eyes when she is twenty." 
 
 He should have seen the warning in her eyes, for 
 there was warning enough in their flaming depths. 
 
 "All that you can say I know," she said; "all that 
 you can say. And I love him. There is no other 
 man on earth. Were he a beggar I would tramp the 
 high-road by his side and go hungered with him. He 
 is my lord and I his .mate his mate!" 
 
 "That you will not be," he answered, made devilish 
 by her words. "He is a high and noble gentleman, 
 and wants no man's cast-off plaything for his wife." 
 
 Her breast leaped up and down in her panting as 
 she pressed her hand upon it, her breath came in sharp 
 puffs through her nostrils. 
 
 "And once" she breathed "and once I, loved 
 thee cur!" 
 
 He was mad with exultant villainy and passion, and 
 he broke into a laugh. 
 
 "Loved me!" he said. "Thou! As thou lovedst 
 me and as thou lovest him so will Moll Easy love 
 any man for a crown !" 
 
 Her whip lay upon the table, she caught and whirled
 
 224 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 it in the air. She was blind with the surging of her 
 blood and saw not how she caught or held it, or what 
 she did only that she struck ! 
 
 And 'twas his temple that the loaded weapon met, 
 and 'twas wielded by a wrist whose sinews were of 
 steel, and even as it struck he gasped, casting up his 
 hands, and thereupon fell and lay stretched at her feet. 
 
 But the awful tempest which swept over her had 
 her so under its dominion that she was like a branch 
 whirled on the wings of the storm. She scarce noted 
 that he fell, or, noting it, gave it not one thought as 
 she dashed from one end of the apartment to the other 
 with the fierce striding of a mad woman. 
 
 "Devil !" she cried, "and cur ! And for thee I blasted 
 all the years to come! To a beast so base I gave all 
 that an empress herself could give all life all love 
 forever! And he comes back shameless to barter 
 like a cheating huckster because his trade goes ill, 
 and I / could stock his counters once again !" 
 
 She strode toward him raving. 
 
 "Think you I do not know, woman's bully and pol- 
 troon, that you plot to sell yourself because your day 
 has come and no woman will bid for such an outcast, 
 saving one that you may threaten. Rise, vermin rise, 
 lest I kill thee!" 
 
 In her blind madness she lashed him once across the 
 face again. And he stirred not, and something in the 
 resistless feeling of the flesh beneath the whip, and in 
 the quiet of his lying, caused her to pause and stand 
 panting and staring at the thing which lay before her !
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 225 
 
 For it was a thing, and as she stood staring, with wild 
 heaving breast, this she saw. 'Twas but a thing 
 lying inert, its fair locks outspread, its eyes rolled up- 
 ward till the blue was almost lost, a purple indentation 
 on the right temple, from which there oozed a tiny 
 thread of blood.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DEALING WITH THAT WHICH WAS DONE IN 
 THE PANELED PARLOR 
 
 "THERE will be a way," she had said, and yet in her 
 most mad despair of this way she had never thought 
 though, strange it had been, considering her lawless 
 past, that she had not never of this way never ! 
 Notwithstanding which, in one frenzied moment in 
 which she had known naught but her delirium, her 
 loaded whip had found it for her the way! 
 
 And yet, it so being found, she stood staring, see- 
 ing what she had done seeing what had befallen 
 'twas as if the blow had been struck not at her own 
 temple, but at her heart a great and heavy shock, 
 which left her bloodless and choked and gasping. 
 
 "What ! what !" she panted. "Nay ! nay ! nay !" and 
 her eyes grew wide and wild. 
 
 She sank upon her knees so shuddering that her 
 teeth began to chatter. She pushed him and shook 
 him by the shoulder. 
 
 "Stir!" she cried in a loud whisper. "Move thee! 
 Why dost thou lie so? Stir!" 
 
 Yet he stirred not, but lay inert, only with his lips 
 226
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 227 
 
 drawn back, showing his white teeth a little, as if her 
 horrid agony made him begin to laugh. Shuddering, 
 she drew slowly nearer, her eyes more awful than 
 his own. Her hand crept, shaking, to his wrist, and 
 clutched it. There was naught astir naught ! It stole 
 to his breast and, baring it, pressed close. That was 
 still and moveless as his pulse for life was ended, and 
 a hundred moldering years would not bring more of 
 death. 
 
 "I have killed thee," she breathed. "I have killed 
 thee though I meant it not even hell itself doth 
 know. Thou art a dead man and this is the worst 
 of all!" 
 
 His hand fell heavily from hers, and she still knelt, 
 staring, such a look coming into her face as through- 
 out her life had never been there before for 'twas 
 the look of a creature who, being tortured, the worst 
 at last being reached, begins to smile at fate. 
 
 "I have killed him !" she said in a low, awful voice, 
 "and he lies 'here and outside people walk and know 
 not. But he knows and I and as he lies methinks 
 he smiles knowing what he has done !" 
 
 She crouched even lower still, the closer to behold 
 him, and indeed it seemed his still face sneered as if 
 defying her now to rid herself of him. 'Twas as 
 though he lay there mockingly content, saying : "Now, 
 that I lie here, 'tis for you for you to move me." 
 
 She rose and stood up rigid, and all the muscles of 
 her limbs were drawn as though she were a creature 
 stretched upon a rack, for the horror of this which
 
 228 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 had befallen her seemed to fill the place about her and 
 leave her no air to breathe nor light to see. 
 
 "Now!" she cried, "if I would give way and go 
 mad as I could but do, for there is naught else left 
 if I would but give way, that which is I and has 
 lived but a poor score of years would be done with 
 for all time. All whirls before me. 'Twas I who 
 struck the blow and I am a woman and I could go 
 raving and cry out, and call them in, and point to 
 him, and tell them how 'twas done all! all!" 
 
 She choked and clutched her bosom, holding its 
 heaving down so fiercely that her nails bruised it 
 through her habit's cloth, for she felt that she had 
 begun to rave already, and that the waves of such 
 a tempest were arising as, if not quelled at their first 
 swell, would sweep her from her feet and engulf her 
 forever. 
 
 "That that " she gasped "nay that I swear I 
 will not do! There was always One who hated me 
 and doomed and hunted me from the hour I lay 'neath 
 my dead mother's corpse, a new-born thing. I know 
 not who it was or why or how but 'twas so! I 
 was made evil and cast, helpless, amid evil fates, and 
 having done the things that were ordained, and there 
 was no escape from, I was shown noble manhood and 
 high honor, and taught to worship as I worship now. 
 An angel might so love and be made higher. And at 
 the gate of heaven a devil grins at me and plucks me 
 back, and taunts and mires me, and I fall on this!" 
 
 She stretched forth her arms in a great gesture,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 229 
 
 wherein it seemed that surely she defied earth and 
 heaven. 
 
 "No hope no mercy naught but doom and hell," 
 she cried, "unless the thing that tortured be the 
 stronger. Now unless fate bray me small the 
 stronger I will be!" 
 
 She looked down at the thing before her. How its 
 stone face sneered, and even in its sneering seemed to 
 disregard her. 
 
 She knelt by it again, her blood surging through 
 her body, which had been cold, speaking as if she 
 would force her voice to pierce its deadened ear. 
 
 "Aye, mock!" she said, setting her teeth, "thinking 
 that I am conquered yet am I not! 'Twas an hon- 
 est blow, struck by a creature goaded past all thought ! 
 Aye, mock and yet, but for one man's sake would 
 I call in those outside and stand before them, crying : 
 'Here is a villain whom I struck in madness and he 
 lies dead ! I ask not mercy but only justice/ " 
 
 She crouched still nearer, her breath and words 
 coming hard and quick. 'Twas indeed as if she spoke 
 to a living man who heard as if she answered what 
 he had said. 
 
 "There would be men in England who would give 
 it to me," she raved, whispering. "That would there, 
 I swear! But there would be dullards and dastards 
 who would not. He would give it he ! Aye, mock 
 as thou wilt! But between his high honor and love 
 and me thy carrion shall not come !" 
 
 By her great divan the dead man had fallen, and
 
 230 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 so near to it he lay that one arm was hidden by the 
 draperies. And at this moment this she saw before 
 having seemed to see nothing but the death in his face. 
 A thought came to her like a flame lit on a sudden, 
 and springing high the instant the match struck the 
 fuel it leaped from. It was a thought so daring and 
 so strange that even she gasped once, being appalled, 
 and her hands, stealing to her brow, clutched at the 
 hair that grew there, feeling it seem to rise and stand 
 erect. 
 
 "Is it madness to so dare?" she said, hoarsely, and 
 for an instant, shuddering, hid her eyes; but then un- 
 covered and showed them burning. "Nay, not as I 
 will dare it," she said, "for it will make me steel. 
 You fell well," she said to the stone- faced thing ; "and, 
 as you lie there, seem to tell me what to do, in your 
 own despite. You would not have so helped me had 
 you known. Now, 'tis 'twixt fate and I a human 
 thing who is but a hunted woman." 
 
 She put her strong hand forth and thrust him 
 he was already stiffening backward from the shoul- 
 der, there being no shrinking on her face as she felt 
 his flesh yield beneath her touch, for she had passed 
 the barrier lying between that which is mere life and 
 that which is pitiless hell, and could feel naught that 
 was human. A poor wild beast at bay, pressed on all 
 sides by dogs, by huntsmen, by resistless weapons, by 
 nature's pitiless self, glaring with bloodshot eyes, pant- 
 ing, with fangs bared in the savagery of its unfriended 
 agony, might feel thus. Tis but a hunted beast, but
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 231 
 
 'tis alone and faces so the terror and anguish of death. 
 The thing gazing with its set sneer and moving but 
 stiffly, she put forth another hand upon its side and 
 thrust it farther backward until it lay stretched be- 
 neath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes 
 seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of 
 its strange prison ; she thrust it farther backward still, 
 and letting the draperies fall, steadily and with care so 
 rearranged them that all was safe and hid from sight. 
 
 "Until to-night," she said, "you will lie well there. 
 And then and then " 
 
 She picked up the long silken lock of hair which 
 lay like a serpent at her feet and threw it into the 
 fire, watching it burn as all hair burns, with slow 
 hissing, and she watched it till 'twas gone. 
 
 Then she stood with her hands pressed upon her 
 eyeballs and her brow, her thoughts moving in great 
 leaps. Although it reeled, the brain which had worked 
 for her ever, worked clear and strong, setting before 
 her what was impending, arguing her case, showing 
 her where dangers would arise, how she must provide 
 against them, what she must defend and set at defi- 
 ance. The power of will with which she had been 
 endowed at birth, and which had but grown stronger 
 by its exercise, was indeed to be compared to some 
 great engine whose lever 'tis not nature should be 
 placed in human hands, but on that lever her hand 
 rested now, and to herself she vowed she would con- 
 trol it since only thus might she be saved. The tor- 
 ture she had undergone for months, the warring of
 
 232 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 the evil past with the noble present, of that which 
 was sweet and passionately loving woman with that 
 which was all but devil, had strung her to a pitch 
 so intense and high that on the falling of this un- 
 natural and unforeseen blow she was left scarce a 
 human thing. Looking back, she saw herself a crea- 
 ture doomed from birth, and here in one moment 
 seemed to stand a force ranged in mad battle with 
 the fate which had doomed her. 
 
 "'Twas ordained that the blow should fall so," 
 she said, "and those who did it laugh laugh at 
 me." 
 
 Twas but a moment, and her sharp breathing be- 
 came even and regular, as though at her command; 
 her face composed itself, and she turned to the bell and 
 rang it as with imperious haste. 
 
 When the lackey entered she was standing, hold- 
 ing papers in her hand as if she had but just been 
 consulting them. 
 
 "Follow Sir John Oxon," she commanded. "Tell 
 him I have forgot an important thing, and beg him 
 to return at once. Lose no time. He has but just left 
 me, and can scarce be out of sight." 
 
 The fellow saw there was no time to lose. They 
 all feared that imperial eye of hers, and fled to obey 
 its glances. Bowing, he turned and hastened to do 
 her bidding, fearing to admit that he had not seen 
 her guest leave, because to do so would be to confess 
 that he had been absent from his post, which was 
 indeed the truth.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 233 
 
 She knew he would come back shortly, and thus he 
 did, entering somewhat out of breath by his haste. 
 
 "My Lady," he said, "I went quickly to the street, 
 and indeed to the corner of it, but Sir John was not 
 within sight." 
 
 "Fool, you were not swift enough!" she said, 
 angrily. "Wait, you must go to his lodgings with 
 a note. The matter is of importance." 
 
 She went to a table 'twas close to the divan, so 
 close that if she had thrust forth her foot she could 
 have touched what lay beneath it and wrote hastily 
 a few lines. 
 
 They were to request that which was stiffening 
 within three feet of her to return to her as quickly 
 as possible, that she might make inquiries of an 
 important nature which she had forgotten at his 
 departure. 
 
 'Take this to Sir John's lodgings," she said. "Let 
 there be no loitering by the way. Deliver it into his 
 own hands and bring* back at once his answer." 
 
 Then she was left alone again, and, being so left, 
 paced the room slowly, her gaze upon the floor. 
 
 "That was well done," she said.. "When he returns 
 and has not found him I will be angered, and send 
 him again to wait." 
 
 She stayed her pacing and passed her hand across 
 her face. 
 
 " 'Tis like a nightmare," she said. "As if one 
 dreamed and choked and panted and would scream 
 aloud, but could not. I can not. I must not. Would
 
 234 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 that I might shriek and dash myself upon the floor, 
 and beat my head upon it until I lay as he does." 
 
 She stood a moment breathing fast, her eyes widen- 
 ing, that part of her which was weak woman putting 
 her in parlous danger, realizing the which she pressed 
 her sides with hands that were of steel. 
 
 "Wait! wait!" she said to herself. 'This is going 
 mad. This is loosening hold, and being beaten by 
 that One who hates me and laughs to see what I have 
 come to." 
 
 Naught but that unnatural engine of will could have 
 held her within bounds and restrained the mounting 
 female weakness that beset her, but this engine being 
 stronger than all else, it beat her womanish and swoon- 
 ing terrors down. 
 
 "Through this one day I must live," she said, "and 
 plan and guard each moment that doth pass. My face 
 must tell no tale, my voice must hint none. He will 
 lie still God knows he will lie still enough." 
 
 Upon the divan itself there had been lying a little 
 dog; 'twas a King Charles spaniel, a delicate pam- 
 pered thing which attached itself to her, and was not 
 easily driven away. Once during the last hour the 
 fierce, ill-hushed voices had disturbed it, and it had 
 given vent to a fretted bark, but being a luxurious 
 little beast, it had soon curled up among its cushions 
 and gone to sleep again. But as its mistress walked 
 about muttering low words and ofttimes breathing 
 sharp breaths, it became disturbed again. Perhaps, 
 through some instinct of which naught is known by
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 235 
 
 human creatures, it felt the strange presence of a thing, 
 which roused it. It stirred, at first drowsily, and lifted 
 its head and sniffed, then it stretched its limbs, and 
 having done so stood up, turning on its mistress a 
 troubled eye, and this she saw and stopped to meet 
 it. 'Twas a strange look she bestowed upon it, a 
 startled and fearful one; her thought drew the blood 
 up to her cheek, but backward again it flowed when 
 the little beast lifted its nose and gave a low but wo- 
 ful howl. Twice it did this, and then jumped down, 
 and, standing before the edge of the couch, stood 
 there sniffing. 
 
 There was no mistake, some instinct of which it 
 knew not the meaning had set it on, and it would 
 not be thrust back. In all beasts this strange thing 
 has been remarked that they know that which ends 
 them all, and so revolt against it that they can not 
 be at rest so long as it is near them, but must roar 
 or whinny or howl until 'tis out of the reach of their 
 scent. And so 'twas plain this little beast knew and 
 was afraid and restless. He would not let it be, but 
 roved about, sniffing and whining, and not daring to 
 thrust his head beneath the falling draperies, but grow- 
 ing more and yet more excited and terrified until at 
 last he stopped, raised head in air, and gave vent to a 
 longer, louder, and more dolorous Howl, and albeit 
 to one with so strange and noticeable a sound that 
 her heart turned over in her breast as she stooped 
 and caught him in her grasp and shuddered as she 
 stood upright, holding him to her side, her hand over
 
 236 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 his mouth. But he would not be hushed, and strug- 
 gled to get down, as if indeed he would go mad unless 
 he might get to the thing and rave at it. 
 
 "If I send thee from the room thou wilt come back, 
 poor Frisk," she said. "There will be no keeping thee 
 away, and I have never ordered thee away before. 
 Why couldst thou not keep still ? Nay, 'twas not dog 
 nature." 
 
 That it was not so was plain by his struggles and 
 the yelps but poorly stifled by her grasp. She put her 
 hand about his little neck, turning, in sooth, very pale. 
 
 "Thou too, poor little beast," she said "thou too, 
 who art so small a thing and never harmed me " 
 
 When the lackey came back he wore an air more 
 timorous than before. 
 
 "Your Ladyship," he faltered, "Sir John had not 
 yet reached his lodgings. His servant knew not when 
 he might expect him." 
 
 "In an hour go again and wait," she commanded. 
 "He must return ere long if he has not left town." 
 
 And having said this, pointed to a little silken heap 
 which lay outstretched limp upon the floor. 
 
 " 'Tis poor Frisk, who has had some strange spasm 
 and fell, striking his head. He hath been ailing for 
 days and howled loudly but an hour ago. Take him 
 away, poor beast."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 WHEREIN HIS GRACE OF OSMONDE's COURIER 
 ARRIVES FROM FRANCE 
 
 THE stronghold of her security lay in the fact that 
 her household so stood in awe of her, and that this 
 room, which was one of the richest and most beauti- 
 ful, though not the largest in the mansion, all her 
 servitors had learned to regard as a sort of sacred 
 place, in which none dared to set foot unless invited 
 or commanded to enter. Within its four walls she 
 read and wrote in the morning hours, no servant en- 
 tering unless summoned by her, and the apartment 
 seeming as it were a citadel, none approached with- 
 out previous parley; in the afternoon the doors were 
 thrown open and she entertained there such visitors 
 as came with less formality than statelier assemblages 
 demanded. When she went out of it this morning 
 to go to her chamber, that her habit might be changed 
 and her toilet made, she glanced about her with a 
 steady countenance. 
 
 "Until the babblers flock in to chatter of the modes 
 and playhouses," she said, "all will be as quiet as the 
 grave. Then I must stand near, and plan well and 
 237
 
 238 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 be in such beauty and spirit that they will see naught 
 but me." 
 
 In the afternoon 'twas the fashion for those who 
 had naught more serious in their hands than the kill- 
 ing of time, to pay visits to each other's houses, and, 
 drinking dishes of tea, to dispose of their neighbors' 
 characters, discuss the playhouses, the latest fashions 
 in furbelows or commodes, and make love either lightly 
 or with serious intent. One may be sure that at my 
 Lady Dunstanwolde's many dishes of Bohea were 
 drunk, and many ogling glances and much witticism 
 exchanged. There was in these days even a greater 
 following about her than ever. A triumphant beauty 
 on the verge of becoming a great duchess is not like 
 to be neglected by her acquaintance, and thus her 
 Ladyship held assemblies both gay and brilliantly 
 varied, which were the delight of the fashionable 
 triflers of the day. 
 
 This afternoon they flocked in greater numbers 
 than usual. The episode of the breaking of Devil, 
 the unexpected return of the Duke of Osmonde, the 
 preparations for the union, had given an extra stimu- 
 lant to that interest in her Ladyship which was ever 
 great enough to need none. Thereunto was added the 
 piquancy of the stories of the noticeable demeanor of 
 Sir John Oxon, of what had seemed to be so plain 
 a rebellion against his fate, and also of my Lady's 
 open and cold displeasure at the manner of his bear- 
 ing himself as a disappointed man who presumed to 
 show anger against that to which he should gallantly
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 239 
 
 have been resigned, as one who is conquered by the 
 chance of war. Those who had beheld the two ride 
 homeward together in the morning were full of curi- 
 ousness, and one and another mentioning the matter 
 exchanged glances, speaking plainly of desire to know 
 more of what had passed, and of hope that chance 
 might throw the two together again in public, where 
 more of interest might be gathered. It seemed, in- 
 deed, not unlikely that Sir John might appear among 
 the tea-bibbers, and perchance 'twas for this lively rea- 
 son that my Lady's room was, this afternoon, more 
 than usually full of gay spirits and gossip-loving ones. 
 They found, however, only her Ladyship's self, and 
 her sister, Mistress Anne, who of truth did not often 
 join her tea-parties, finding them so given up to fash- 
 ionable chatter and worldly witticisms that she felt 
 herself somewhat out of place. The world knew Mis- 
 tress Anne but as a dull, plain gentlewoman, whom 
 her more brilliant and fortunate sister gave gracious 
 protection to, and none missed her when she was ab- 
 sent or observed her greatly when she appeared upon 
 the scene. To-day she was perchance more observed 
 than usual, because her pallor was so great a contrast 
 to her Ladyship's splendor of beauty and color. The 
 contrast between them was ever a great one, but this 
 afternoon Mistress Anne's always pale countenance 
 seemed almost livid; there were rings of pain or ill- 
 ness round her eyes, and her features looked drawn 
 and pinched. My Lady Dunstanwolde, clad in a great 
 rich petticoat of crimson-flowered satin, with won-
 
 2 4 o A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 drous yellow Mechlin for her ruffles, and with her 
 glorious hair dressed like a tower, looked taller, more 
 goddess-like and full of splendid fire than ever she 
 had been before beheld, or so her visitors said to her 
 and to each other, though to tell the truth this was 
 no new story, she being one of those women having 
 the curious power of inspiring the beholder with the 
 feeling, each time he encountered them, that he had 
 never before seen them in such beauty and bloom. 
 
 When she had come down the staircase from her 
 chamber, Anne, who had been standing at the foot, 
 had, indeed, started somewhat at the sight of her rich 
 dress and brilliant hues. 
 
 "Why do you jump as if I were a ghost, Anne?" 
 she asked. "Do I look like one? My looking-glass 
 did not tell me so." 
 
 "No," said Anne, "you are so so crimson and 
 splendid and I " 
 
 Her Ladyship came swiftly down the stairs to her. 
 
 "You are not crimson and splendid," she said. 
 " Tis you who are a ghost. What is it ?" 
 
 Anne let her soft, dull eyes rest upon her for a 
 moment helplessly, and when she replied her voice 
 sounded weak. 
 
 "I think I am ill, sister," she said. "I seem to 
 tremble and feel faint." 
 
 "Go, then, to bed and see the physician. You must 
 be cared for," said her Ladyship. "In sooth, you look 
 ill, indeed." 
 
 "Nay," said Anne, "I beg you, sister, this afternoon
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 241 
 
 let me be with you. It will sustain me. You are so 
 strong let me " 
 
 She put out her hand as if to touch her, but it 
 dropped at her side as though its strength was gone. 
 
 "But there will be many babbling people," said 
 her sister, with a curious look. "You do not like 
 company, and these days my rooms are full. 'Twill 
 irk and tire you." 
 
 "I care not for the people I would be with you," 
 Anne said, in strange imploring. "I have a sick fancy 
 that I am afraid to sit alone in my chamber. Tis but 
 weakness. Let me this afternoon be with you." 
 
 "Go, then, and change your robe," said Clorinda; 
 "and put some red upon your cheeks. You may come 
 if you will ; you are a strange creature, Anne." 
 
 And thus saying she passed into her apartment 
 
 As there are blows and pain which end in insensi- 
 bility or delirium, 'so there are catastrophes and perils 
 which are so great as to produce something near akin 
 to these. As she had stood before her mirror in her 
 chamber watching her reflection, while her woman at- 
 tired her in her crimson-flowered satin and builded 
 up her stately head-dress, this other woman had felt 
 that the hour when she could have shrieked and raved 
 and betrayed herself had passed by and left a deadness 
 like a calm behind, as though horror had stunned all 
 pain and yet left her senses clear. 
 
 She forgot not the thing which lay staring upward 
 blankly at the under part of the couch which hid it, 
 the look of its fixed eyes, its outspread locks, and the 
 ii VOL. 2
 
 242 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 purple indentation on the temple she saw th'em as 
 clearly as she had seen them in that first mad moment 
 when she had stood staring downward at the thing 
 itself; but the coursing of her blood was stilled, the 
 gallop of her pulses, and that wild, hysteric leaping of 
 her heart into her throat, choking her and forcing her 
 to gasp and pant in that way which in women must 
 ever end in shrieks and cries and sobbing beatings of 
 the air. But for the feminine softness to which her 
 nature had given way, for the first time since the 
 power of love had mastered her, there was nothing 
 of earth could have happened to her which would have 
 brought this rolling ball to her throat, this tremor to 
 her body. Since the hour of her birth she had never 
 been attacked by such a female folly, as she would in- 
 deed have regarded it once ; but now 'twas different 
 for a while she had been a woman a woman who had 
 flung herself upon the breast of her soul's lord, and, 
 resting there, her old, rigid strength had been relaxed. 
 
 But 'twas not this woman who had known tender 
 yielding who returned to take her place in the paneled 
 parlor, knowing of the companion who waited near 
 her unseen for it was as her companion she thought 
 of him, as she had thought of him when he followed 
 her in the Mall, forced himself into her box at the 
 play, or stood by her shoulder at assemblies; he had 
 placed himself by her side again, and would stay there 
 until she could rid herself of him. 
 
 "After to-night he will be gone, if I act well my 
 part," she said, "and then may I live a freed woman."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 243 
 
 'Twas always upon the divan she took her place 
 when she received her visitors, who were accustomed 
 to finding her enthroned there. This afternoon, when 
 she came into the room, she paused for a space, and 
 stood beside it, the parlor being yet empty. She felt 
 her face grow a little cold, as if it paled, and her un- 
 derlip drew itself tight across the teeth. 
 
 "In a graveyard," she said, ''I have sat upon the 
 stone ledge of a tomb, and beneath there was worse 
 than this, could I but have seen it. This is no more." 
 
 When the Sir Humphrys and Lord Charleses, Lady 
 Bettys and Mistress Lovelys were announced in flocks, 
 fluttering and chattering, she rose from her old place 
 to meet them, and was brilliant graciousness itself. 
 She harkened to their gossipings, and though 'twas 
 not her way to join in them, she was this day witty 
 in such way as robbed them of the dulness in which 
 sometimes gossip ends. It was a varied company 
 which gathered about her, but to each she gave his 
 or her moment, and in that moment said that which 
 they would afterward remember. With those of the 
 Court she talked royalty, the humors of her Majesty, 
 the severities of her Grace of Marlborough; with 
 statesmen she spoke with such intellect and discretion 
 that they went away pondering on the good fortune 
 which had befallen one man, when it seemed that it 
 was of such proportions as might have satisfied a 
 dozen, for it seemed not fair to them that his Grace 
 of Osmonde, having already rank, wealth, and fame, 
 should have added to them a gift of such magnificence
 
 244 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 as this beauteous woman would bring. With beaux 
 and wits she made dazzling jests, and to the beauties 
 who desired their flatteries she gave praise so adroit 
 that they were stimulated to plume their feathers 
 afresh and cease to fear the rivalry of her loveliness. 
 
 And yet, while she so bore herself, never once did 
 she cease to feel the presence of that which, lying 
 near, seemed to her racked soul as one who lay and 
 listened with staring eyes which mocked; for there 
 was a thought which would not leave her, which was 
 that it could hear, that it could see through the glaz- 
 ing on its blue orbs, and that knowing itself bound 
 by the moveless irons of death and dumbness, it im- 
 potently raged and cursed that it could not burst them 
 and shriek out its vengeance, rolling forth among her 
 worshipers at their feet and hers. 
 
 "But he can not," she said within her clenched teeth 
 again and again. "That he can not." 
 
 Once, as she said this to herself, she caught Anne's 
 eyes fixed helplessly upon her, it seeming to be, as 
 the poor woman had said, that her weakness caused 
 her to desire to abide near her sister's strength and 
 draw support from it, for she had remained at my 
 Lady's side closely since she had descended to the 
 room, and now seemed to implore some protection 
 for which she was too timid to openly make request 
 
 "You are too weak to stay, Anne," her Ladyship 
 said. " 'Twould be better that you should retire." 
 
 "I am weak," the poor thing answered in low tones, 
 "but not too weak- to stay. I am always weak. Would
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 245 
 
 that I were of your strength and courage. Let me 
 sit down sister here." She touched the divan's 
 cushions with a shaking hand, gazing upward wearily 
 perchance remembering that this place seemed ever 
 a sort of throne none other than the hostess queen 
 herself presumed to encroach upon. 
 
 "You are too meek, poor sister," quoth Clorinda. 
 " Tis not a chair of coronation or the woolsack of a 
 judge. Sit! sit! and let me call for wine!" 
 
 She spoke to a lackey and bade him bring the drink, 
 for even as she sank into her place, 'Anne's cheeks grew 
 whiter. 
 
 When 'twas brought her Ladyship poure'd it forth 
 and gave it to her sister with her own hand, obliging 
 her to drink enough to bring her color back. Having 
 seen to this, she addressed the servant who had obeyed 
 her order. 
 
 "Hath Jenfry returned from Sir John Oxon'?" she 
 demanded in that clear, ringing voice of hers, whose 
 music ever arrested those surrounding her, whether 
 they were concerned in her speech or no. But now all 
 felt sufficient interest to prick up ears and barken to 
 what was said. 
 
 "No, my lady/' the lackey answered. "He said 
 that you had bidden him to wait." 
 
 "But not all day, poor fool," she said, setting down 
 Anne's empty glass upon the salver. "Did he think 
 I bade him stand about the door till night? Bring 
 me his message when he comes." 
 
 " Tis ever thus with these dull serving folk," she
 
 246 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 said to those nearest her. "One can not pay for wit 
 with wages and livery. They can but obey the literal 
 word. Sir John leaving me in haste this morning, 
 I forgot a question I would have asked, and sent a 
 lackey to recall him." 
 
 Anne sat upright. 
 
 "Sister I pray you another glass of wine." 
 
 My Lady gave it to her at once, and she drained it 
 
 "Was he overtaken?" said a curious matron, who 
 wished not to see the subject closed. 
 
 "No," quoth her Ladyship, with a light laugh 
 "though he must have been in haste, for the man was 
 sent after in but a moment's time. 'Twas then I told 
 the fellow to go later to his lodgings and deliver my 
 message into Sir John's own hand, whence it seems 
 that he thinks that he must await him till he comes." 
 
 Upon a table near there lay the loaded whip, for 
 she had felt it bolder to let it lie there as if forgotten, 
 because her pulse had sprung so at first sight of it 
 when she came down, and she had so quailed before 
 the desire to thrust it away to hide it from her sight. 
 "And that I quail before," she had said, "I must have 
 the will to face or I am lost." So she had let it stay. 
 
 A languishing beauty with melting blue eyes and 
 a pretty fashion of ever keeping before the world of 
 her admirers her waxen delicacy, lifted the heavy 
 thing in her frail, white hand. 
 
 "How can your Ladyship wield it ?". she said. "It 
 is so heavy for a woman; but your Ladyship is is 
 not"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 247 
 
 "Not quite a woman," said the beautiful creature, 
 standing at her full, great height and smiling down 
 at this blue and white piece of frailty with the flashing 
 splendor of her eyes. 
 
 "Not quite a woman," said two wits at once. "A 
 goddess rather an Olympian goddess." 
 
 The languisher could not endure comparisons which 
 so seemed to disparage her ethereal charms. She 
 lifted the weapon with a great effort, which showed 
 the slimness of her delicate, fair wrist and the sweet 
 tracery of blue veins upon it. 
 
 "Nay," she said, lispingly, "it needs the muscle of 
 a great man to lift it. I could not hold it much 
 less beat with it a horse," and to show how coarse 
 a strength was needed, and how far her femininity 
 lacked such vigor, she dropped it upon the floor 
 and it rolled beneath the edge of the divan. 
 
 "Now" the thought shot through my Lady's 
 brain as a bolt shoots from the sky "now he 
 laughs I" 
 
 She had no time to stir there were upon their 
 knees three beaux at once and each would sure have 
 thrust his arm below the seat and rummaged had not 
 God saved her! Yes, 'twas of God she thought of in 
 that terrible mad second God ! and only a mind that 
 is not human could have told why. 
 
 For Anne poor Mistress Anne white-faced and 
 shaking, was before them all and with a strange 
 adroitness stooped and thrust her hand below, and, 
 drawing the thing forth, held it up to view.
 
 248 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 " Tis here," she said ; "and in sooth, sister, I won- 
 der not at its falling its weight is so great." 
 
 Clorinda took it from her hand. 
 
 "I shall break no more beasts like Devil," she said, 
 "and for quieter ones it weighs too much; I shall lay 
 it by/' 
 
 She crossed the room and laid it upon the shelf. 
 
 "It was ever heavy but for Devil. 'Tis done 
 with," she said and there came back to her face 
 which for a second had lost hue a flood of crimson 
 so glowing, and a smile so strange, that those who 
 looked and heard said to themselves that 'twas the 
 thought of Osmonde, who had so changed her, which 
 made her blush. 
 
 But a few moments later they beheld the same 
 glow mount again. A lackey entered, bearing a sal- 
 ver on which lay two letters. One was a large one, 
 sealed with a ducal coronet, and this she saw first 
 and took in her hand even before the man had time 
 to speak. 
 
 "His Grace's courier has arrived from France," he 
 said; "the package was ordered to be delivered at 
 once." 
 
 "It must be that his Grace returns earlier than 
 we had hoped," she said, and then the other missive 
 caught her eye. 
 
 " 'Tis your Ladyship's own," the lackey explained, 
 somewhat anxiously. " 'Twas brought back, Sir John 
 not having yet come home, and Jenfry having waited 
 three hours."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 249 
 
 " 'Twas long enough," quoth her Ladyship. " Twill 
 do to-morrow." 
 
 She did not lay Osmonde's letter aside, but kept 
 it in her hand, and seeing that she waited for their 
 retirement to read it, her guests began to make their 
 farewells. One by one, or in groups of twos or threes, 
 they left her, the men bowing low and going away 
 fretted by the memory of the picture she made, a tall 
 and regal figure in her flowered crimson, her stateli- 
 ness seeming relaxed and softened by the mere hold- 
 ing of the sealed missive in her hand ; but the women 
 were vaguely envious, not of Osmonde, but of her 
 before whom there lay outspread, as far as life's hori- 
 zon reached, a future of such perfect love and joy; 
 for Gerald Mertoun had been marked by feminine 
 eyes since his earliest youth, and had seemed to em- 
 body all that woman's dreams, or woman's ambitions, 
 or her love could desire. 
 
 When the last was gone, Clorinda turned, tore her 
 letter open, and held it hard to her lips. Before she 
 read a word she kissed it passionately a score of times, 
 paying no heed that Anne sat gazing at her ; and hav- 
 ing kissed it so, she fell to reading it, her cheeks warm 
 with the glow of a sweet and splendid passion, her 
 bosom rising and falling in a tempest of tender, flutter- 
 ing breaths, and 'twas these words her eyes devoured : 
 
 "// / should head this page I write to you, 'Goddess, 
 and Queen, and Empress of my deepest soul' what 
 more should I be saying than 'My Love' and 'My
 
 250 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 Clorinda,' since these express all the soul of man could 
 crave for or his body desire? The body and soul of 
 me so long for thee, sweetheart, and sweetest, beau- 
 tiful woman that the hand of nature ever fashioned 
 for the joy of mortals, that I have had need to pray 
 Heaven's help to aid me to endure the passing of the 
 days that lie between me and the hour which will make 
 me the most strangely, rapturously, happy man, not 
 in England, not in the world, but in all God's universe. 
 I must pray Heaven again, and, indeed, do and will, 
 for humbleness which shall teach me to remember that 
 I am not deity, but mere man mere man though I 
 shall hold a goddess to my breast and gaze into eyes 
 which are like deep pools of Paradise, and yet answer 
 mine with the marvel of such love as none but such 
 a soul could make a woman's, and so fit to mate with 
 man's. 
 
 "In the heavy days when I was wont to gaze at 
 you from afar with burning heart, my unceasing 
 anguish was that even high honor itself could not sub- 
 due and conquer the thoughts which leaped within me, 
 even as my pulse leaped, and even as my pulse could 
 not be stilled unless by death. 'And one that forever 
 haunted, aye, and taunted, me was the image of how 
 your tall, beauteous body would yield itself to a strong 
 man's arm, and your noble head, with its heavy tower 
 of hair resting upon his shoulder, the centres of his 
 very being would be thrilled and shaken by the up- 
 lifting of such melting eyes as surely man never gazed 
 within on earth before, and the ripe and scarlet bow
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 251 
 
 'of a mouth so beauteous and so sweet with woman- 
 hood. This beset me day and night, and with such 
 torture, that I feared betimes my brain might reel, and 
 I become a lost and ruined madman. And now, it is 
 no more forbidden me to dwell in it nay, I lay wak- 
 ing at night, wooing the picture to me, and at times 
 I rise from my dreams to kneel by my bedside and 
 thank God that he hath given me at last ivhat surely 
 is my own; for so it seems to me, my love, that each 
 of us is but a part of the other, and that such forces 
 of nature rush to meet together in us, that nature her- 
 self would cry out were we rent apart. If there were 
 aught to rise like a ghost between us, if there were 
 aught that could sunder us, noble soul, let us swear 
 that it shall weld us but the closer together, and that, 
 locked in each other's arms, its blows shall not even 
 make our united strength to sway. Sweetest lady, 
 your lovely lip will curve in smiles and you will say, 
 'he is mad with his joy, my Gerald' (for never till my 
 heart stops at its last beat and leaves me still, a dead 
 man, cold upon my bed, can I forget the music of your 
 speech ivhen you spoke those ivords, 'My Gerald! My 
 'Gerald!'}. 'And, indeed, I crave your pardon, for a 
 man so filled with rapture can not be quite sane, and 
 sometimes I wonder if I walk through the palace gar- 
 dens like one who is drunk, so does my brain reel. But 
 soon, my heavenly, noble love, my exile will be over, 
 and this is in truth what my letter will tell you, that 
 in four days your lackeys will throw open your doors 
 to me and I shall enter, and, being led to you, shall kneel
 
 2 $2 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 at your feet and kiss the hem of your robe, and then 
 rise standing to fold her who will soon be my very 
 wife to my throbbing breast." 
 
 Back to her face had come all the softness which 
 had been lost, the hard lines were gone, the tender 
 curves had returned, her lashes looked as if they were 
 moist. Anne, sitting rigidly and gazing at her, was 
 afraid to speak, knowing that she was not for the 
 time on earth, but that the sound of a voice would 
 bring her back to it, and that 'twas well she should 
 be away as long as she might. 
 
 She read the letter not once but thrice, dwelling 
 upon every word, 'twas plain; and when she had 
 reached the last one turning back the pages and be- 
 ginning again. When she looked up at last, 'twas with 
 an almost wild little smile, for she had, indeed, for 
 that one moment, forgotten. 
 
 " 'Locked in each other's arms,' " she said ; " Mocked 
 in each other's arms.' My Gerald ! My Gerald ! What 
 surely is my own my own!" 
 
 Anne rose and came to her, laying her hand on her 
 arm. She spoke in a voice low, hushed, and strained. 
 
 "Come away, sister," she said. "For a little while, 
 come away."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MY LADY DUNSTANWOLDE SITS LATE ALONE 
 AND WRITES 
 
 THAT she must leave the paneled parlor at her 
 usual hour, or attract attention by doing that to which 
 her household was unaccustomed, she well knew, her 
 manner of life being ever stately and ceremonious in 
 its regularity. When she dined at home, she and Anne 
 partook of their repast together in the large dining- 
 room, the table loaded with silver dishes and massive 
 glittering glass, their powdered, gold-laced lackeys in 
 attendance as though a score of guests had shared the 
 meal with them. Since her lord's death there had been 
 nights when her Ladyship had sat late, writing let- 
 ters and reading documents pertaining to her estates, 
 the management of which, though in a measure con- 
 trolled by stewards and attorneys, was not left to them 
 as the business of most great ladies is generally left 
 to others. All papers were examined by her, all leases 
 and agreements clearly understood before she signed 
 them, and if there were aught unsatisfactory both 
 stewards and lawyers were called to her presence to 
 explain. 
 
 253
 
 254 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "Never did I or any other man meet with such 
 a head upon a woman's shoulders," her attorney said. 
 And the head steward of Dunstanwolde and Helversly 
 learned to quake at the sight of her bold handwriting 
 upon the outside of a letter. 
 
 "Such a lady !" he said. "Such a lady! Lie to her 
 if you can, palter if you know how ; try upon her the 
 smallest honest shrewd trick, and see how it fares with 
 you. Were it not that she is generous as she is pierc- 
 ing of eye, no man could serve her and make an hon- 
 est living." 
 
 She went to her chamber and was attired again 
 sumptuously for dinner. Before she descended she 
 dismissed her woman for a space on some errand, and 
 when she was alone, drawing near to her mirror, gazed 
 steadfastly within it at her face. When she had read 
 Osmonde's letter her cheeks had glowed, but when she 
 had come back to earth, and as she had sat under her 
 woman's hands at her toilet, bit by bit the crimson 
 had died out as she had thought of what was behind 
 her and of what lay before. The thing was so stiffly 
 rigid by this time and its eyes still stared so. Never 
 had she needed to put red upon her cheeks before, na- 
 ture having stained them with such richness of hue, 
 but, as no lady of the day was unprovided with 
 her crimson, there was a little pot among her toilet 
 ornaments which contained all that any emergency 
 might require. She opened this small receptacle 
 and took from it the red she for the first time was 
 in want of.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 255 
 
 "I must not wear a pale face, God knows," she said, 
 and rubbed the color on her cheeks with boldness. 
 
 It would have seemed that she wore her finest crim- 
 son when she went forth full dressed from her apart- 
 ment. Little Nero grinned to see her, the lackeys 
 saying among themselves that his Grace's courier had 
 surely brought good news, and that they might ex- 
 pect his master soon. At the dinner table 'twas Anne 
 who was pale and ate but little, she having put no 
 red upon her cheeks, and having- no appetite for 
 what was spread before her. She looked strangely, 
 as though she were small and shrunken, and her face 
 seemed even wrinkled. My Lady had small leaning 
 toward food, but she sent no viand away untouched, 
 forcing herself to eat and letting not the talk flag, 
 though it was indeed true that 'twas she herself who 
 talked, Mistress Anne speaking rarely; but as it 
 was always Anne's way to be silent and a listener 
 rather than one who conversed, this was not greatly 
 noticeable. 
 
 Her Ladyship of Dunstanwoldc talked of her guests 
 of the afternoon, and was charming and witty in her 
 speech of them; she repeated the mots of the wits and 
 told some brilliant stories of certain modish ladies 
 and gentlemen of fashion; she had things to say of 
 statesmen and politics, and was sparkling indeed in 
 speaking of the lovely languisher whose little wrist 
 was too delicate and slender to support the loaded 
 whip. While she talked, Mistress Anne's soft, dull 
 eyes were fixed upon her with a sort of wonder which
 
 256 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 had some of the quality of bewilderment, but this was 
 no new thing either, for to the one woman the other 
 was ever something to marvel at. 
 
 "It is because you are so quiet a mouse, Anne," my 
 Lady said, with her dazzling smile, "that you seem 
 never in the way. And yet I should miss you if I 
 knew you were not within the house. When the Duke 
 takes me to Camylott you must be with me even then. 
 It is so great a house that in it I can find you a bower 
 in which you can be happy, even if you see us but little. 
 'Tis a heavenly place, I am told, and of great splendor 
 and beauty. The park and flower-gardens are the envy 
 of all England." 
 
 "You will be very happy, sister," said Anne, "and 
 and like a queen." 
 
 "Yes," was her sister's answer, "yes." And 'twas 
 spoken with a deep indrawn breath. 
 
 After the repast was ended she went back to the 
 paneled parlor. 
 
 "You may sit with me till bedtime if you desire, 
 Anne," she said, "but 'twill be but dull for you, as I 
 go to sit at work. I have some documents of import 
 to examine and much writing to do. I shall sit up 
 late." And upon this she turned to the lackey hold- 
 ing open the door for her passing through. "If be- 
 fore half-past ten there comes a message from Sir John 
 Oxon," she gave order, "it must be brought to me at 
 once, but later I must not be disturbed. It will keep 
 until morning." 
 
 Yet as she spoke there was before her as distinct
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 257 
 
 a picture as ever of that which lay waiting and gazing 
 in the room to which she went. 
 
 Until twelve o'clock she sat at her table, a despatch- 
 box by her side, papers outspread before her. Within 
 three feet of her was the divan, but she gave no 
 glance to it, sitting writing, reading, and comparing 
 documents. 
 
 At twelve o'clock she rose and rang the bell. 
 
 "I shall be later than I thought," she said when the 
 servant came. "I need none of you who are below 
 stairs. Go you all to bed. Tell my woman that she 
 also may lie down. I will ring when I come to my 
 chamber and have need of her. There is yet no mes- 
 sage from Sir John?" 
 
 "None, my Lady," the man answered. 
 
 He went away with a relieved countenance as she 
 made no comment. He knew that his fellows as well 
 as himself would be pleased enough to be released 
 from duty for the night. They were a pampered lot 
 and had no fancy for late hours when there were no 
 great entertainments being held, which pleased them 
 and gave them chances to receive vails. 
 
 Mistress Anne sat in a large chair, huddled into a 
 small heap, and looking colorless and shrunken. As 
 she heard bolts being shot and bars put up for the 
 closing of the house, she knew that her own dismissal 
 was at hand ; doors were shut below stairs, and when 
 all was done the silence of night reigned as it does 
 in all households when those who work have gone to 
 rest. 'Twas a common thing enough, and yet this
 
 258 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 night there was one woman who felt the stillness so 
 deep that it made her breathing seem a sound too loud. 
 
 "Go to bed, Anne," she said. "You have stayed 
 up too long." 
 
 Anne rose from her chair and drew near to her. "Sis- 
 ter," said she as she had said before, "let me stay." 
 
 She was a poor, weak creature, and so she looked 
 with her pale, insignificant face and dull eyes, a wisp 
 of loose hair lying damp on her forehead. She seemed 
 indeed too weak a thing to stand even for a moment 
 in the way of what must be done this night, and 'twas 
 almost irritating to be stopped by her. 
 
 "Nay," said my Lady Dunstanwolde, her beautiful 
 brow knitting as she looked at her. "Go to your cham- 
 ber, Anne, and to sleep. I must do my work and finish 
 to-night what I have begun." 
 
 "But but," Anne stammered, dominated again and 
 made afraid as she ever was by this strong nature, "in 
 this work you must finish is there not something I 
 could do to aid you, even in some small and poor 
 way? Is there naught?" 
 
 "Naught," answered Clorinda, her form drawn 
 to its great full height, her lustrous eyes darkening. 
 "What should there be that you could understand?" 
 
 "Not some small thing, not some poor thing?" 
 Anne said, her fingers nervously twisting each other, 
 so borne down was she by her awful timorousness, for 
 awful it was indeed when she saw clouds gather on 
 her sister's brow. "I have so loved you, sister, I have 
 so loved you that my mind is quickened somehow
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 259 
 
 at times, and I can understand more than would be 
 thought when I hope to serve you. Once you said 
 once you said " 
 
 She knew not then, nor ever afterward, how it came 
 to pass that in that moment she found herself swept 
 into her sister's white arms and strained against her 
 breast, wherein she felt the wild heart bounding nor 
 could she, not being given to subtle reasoning, have 
 comprehended the almost fierce kiss on her cheek nor 
 the hot drops that wet it. 
 
 "I said that I believed that if you saw me commit 
 murder," Clorinda cried, "you would love me still, and 
 be my friend and comforter " 
 
 "I would, I would," cried Anne. 
 
 "And I believe your word, poor faithful soul, I do 
 believe it," my Lady said, and kissed her hard again, 
 but the next instant set her free and laughed. "But 
 ' you will not be put to the test," she said, "for I have 
 done none. And in two days' time my Gerald will 
 be here and I shall be safe saved and happy for ever- 
 more for evermore. There, leave me! I would be 
 alone and end my work." 
 
 And she went back to her table and sat beside it, 
 taking her pen to write, and Anne knew that she dare 
 say no more, and, turning, went slowly from the room, 
 seeing for her last sight as she passed through the 
 doorway the erect and splendid figure at its task, the 
 light from the candelabrum shining upon the rubies 
 round the snow-white neck and wreathed about the 
 tower of raven hair like lines of crimson.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A PITEOUS STORY IS TOLD, AND THE OLD CELLARS 
 
 WALLED IN 
 
 IT is indeed strangely easy in the great world for 
 a man to lose his importance, and from having been 
 the target for all eyes and the subject of all conver- 
 sation, to step from his place or find it so taken by 
 some rival that it would seem, judging from the gen- 
 eral obliviousness to him, that he had never existed. 
 But few years before no fashionable gathering would 
 have been felt complete had it not been graced by the 
 presence of the young and fascinating Lovelace, Sir 
 John Oxon. Women favored him and men made them- 
 selves his boon companions, his wit was repeated, the 
 fashion of his hair and the cut of his waistcoat copied. 
 He was at first rich and gay enough to be courted and 
 made a favorite, but when his fortune was squandered 
 and his marriage with the heiress came to naught, 
 those qualities which were vicious and base in him 
 were more easy to be seen. Besides, there came new 
 male beauties and new dandies with greater resources 
 and more of prudence, and these beginning to set fash- 
 260
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 261 
 
 ions, win ladies' hearts, and make conquests, so drew 
 the attention of the public mind that he was less no- 
 ticeable, being only one of many, instead of ruling 
 singly as it had seemed that by some strange chance 
 he did at first. There were indeed so many stories 
 told of his light ways that their novelty being worn 
 off and new ones still repeated, such persons as con- 
 cerned themselves with matters of reputation, either 
 through conscience or policy, began to speak of him 
 with less warmth or leniency. 
 
 " 'Tis not well for a matron with daughters to marry, 
 and with sons to keep an eye to," was said, "to have 
 in her household too often a young gentleman who 
 has squandered his fortune in dice and drink and wild 
 living, and who 'twas known was cast off by a repu- 
 table young lady of fortune." 
 
 So there were fine ladies who began to avoid him, 
 and those in power at Court and in the world who 
 regarded him with lessening favor day by day. In 
 truth, he had such debts, and his creditors pressed 
 him so ceaselessly, that even had the world's favor 
 continued, his life must have changed its aspect greatly. 
 His lodgings were no longer the most luxurious, in the 
 fashionable part of the town, his brocades and laces 
 were no longer of the richest, nor his habit of the 
 very latest and most modish cut; he had no more an 
 equipage attracting every eye as he drove forth, nor 
 a gentleman's gentleman whose swagger and pomp 
 outdid that of all others of his world. Soon after 
 the breaking off his marriage with the heiress, his
 
 262 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 mother had died, and his relatives being few and 
 those of an order strictly averse to the habits of ill- 
 provided and extravagant kinsmen, he had but few 
 family ties. Other ties he had, 'twas true, but they 
 were not such as were accounted legal or worthy of 
 attention either by himself or those related to him. 
 
 So it befell that when my Lady Dunstanwolde's 
 lackey could not find him at his lodgings, and as the 
 days went past, neither his landlady nor his creditors 
 beheld him again, his absence from the scene was not 
 considered unaccountable by them, nor did it attract 
 the notice it would have done in times gone by. 
 
 "He hath made his way out of England to escape 
 us," said the angry tailors and mercers who had be- 
 sieged his door in vain for months, and who were 
 now infuriated at the thought of their own easiness 
 and the impudent, gay airs which had befooled them. 
 "A good four hundred pounds of mine hath he car- 
 ried with him," said one. "And two hundred of 
 mine." "And more of mine, since I am a poor man 
 to whom a pound means twenty guineas." "We are 
 all robbed, and he has cheated the debtors' prison, 
 wherein, if we had not been fools, he would have been 
 clapped six months ago." 
 
 "Think ye he will not come back, gentlemen?" 
 quavered his landlady. "God knows when I have 
 seen a guinea of his money, but he was such a hand- 
 some, fine young nobleman, and had such a way with 
 a poor body and ever a smile and a chuck o' the 
 chin for my Jenny."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 263 
 
 "Look' well after your Jenny if he hath left her be- 
 hind," said the tailor. 
 
 He did not come back indeed, and hearing the ru- 
 mor that he had fled his creditors the world of fashion 
 received the news with small disturbance, all modish 
 persons being at that time much engaged in discussion 
 of the approaching nuptials of her Ladyship of Dun- 
 stanwolde and the Duke of Osmonde. Close upon 
 the discussions of the preparations came the nuptials 
 themselves, and then all the town was agog and had 
 small leisure to think of other things. For those who 
 were bidden to the ceremonials and attendant enter- 
 tainments, there were rich habits and splendid robes 
 to be prepared, and to those who had not been bidden 
 there were bitter disappointments and thwarted wishes 
 to think of. 
 
 "Sir John Oxon has fled England to escape seeing 
 and hearing it all," was said. 
 
 "He has fled to escape something more painful than 
 the spleen," others answered. "He had reached his 
 rope's end, and finding that my Lady Dunstanwolde 
 was not of a mind to lengthen it with her fortune, 
 having taken a better man, and that his creditors would 
 have no more patience, he showed them a light pair 
 of heels." 
 
 Before my Lady Dunstanwolde left her house she 
 gave orders that it be set in order for closing for 
 some time, having it on her mind that she should 
 not soon return. It was, however, to be left in such 
 condition that at any moment, should she wish to
 
 264 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 come to it, all could be made ready in two days' time. 
 To this end, various repairs and changes she had 
 planned were to be carried out as soon as she went 
 away from it Among other things was the closing 
 with brickwork of the entrance to the passage lead- 
 ing to the unused cellars. 
 
 " Twill make the servants' part more wholesome 
 and less damp and drafty," she said, "and if I 
 should sell the place will be to its advantage. 'Twas 
 a builder with little wit who planned such passages 
 and black holes. In spite of all the lime spread there, 
 they were ever moldy and of evil odor." 
 
 It was her command that there should be no time 
 lost, and the day before her departure from the house, 
 men were already at work, carrying bricks and mortar. 
 It so chanced that one of them going in through a 
 back entrance with a hod over his shoulder, and being 
 young and lively, found his eye caught by the coun- 
 tenance of a pretty, frightened-looking girl who 
 seemed to be loitering about watching, as if curious 
 or anxious. 
 
 Seeing her near each time he passed, and observ- 
 ing that she wished to speak, but was too timid, he 
 addressed her: 
 
 "Would you know aught, mistress?" he said. 
 
 She drew nearer gratefully, and then he saw her 
 eyes were red as if with weeping. 
 
 "Think you her Ladyship would let a poor girl 
 speak a word with her ?" she said. "Think you I dare 
 ask so much of a servant? or would they flout me and
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 265 
 
 turn me from the door? Have you seen her? Does 
 she look like a hard, shrewish lady?" 
 
 "That she does not, though all stand in awe of her," 
 he answered, pleased to talk with so pretty a creature. 
 "I but caught a glimpse of her when she gave orders 
 concerning the closing with brick of a passageway 
 below. She is a tall lady, and grand and stately, but 
 she hath a soft pair of eyes as ever man would wish 
 to look into be he duke or ditcher." 
 
 The tears began to run down the girl's cheeks. 
 
 "Aye !" she said, "all men love her, they say. Many 
 a poor girl's sweetheart has been false through her 
 and I thought she was cruel and ill-natured. Know 
 you the servants that wait on her? Would you dare 
 to ask one for me, if he thinks she would deign 
 to see a poor girl who would crave the favor to be 
 allowed to speak to her of of a gentleman she 
 knows ?" 
 
 "There are but lackeys, and I would dare to ask 
 what was in my mind," he answered, "but she is near 
 her wedding day, and little as I know of brides' ways, 
 I am of the mind that she will not like to be troubled." 
 
 "That I stand in fear of," she said; "but oh! I 
 pray you, ask some one of them a kindly one " 
 
 The young man looked aside. "Luck is with you," 
 he said. "Here comes one now to air himself in the 
 sun, having naught else to do. Here is a young woman 
 who would speak with her Ladyship," he said to the 
 strapping powdered fellow. 
 
 "She had best begone," the lackey answered, striding 
 
 12 VOL. 2
 
 2 66 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 toward the applicant. "Think you my Lady has time, 
 the day before she goes to church with her bride- 
 groom, to receive traipsing wenches?" 
 
 " 'Twas only for a moment I asked," the girl said. 
 "I come from I would speak to her of of Sir John 
 Oxon whom she knows." 
 
 The man's face changed. It was Jenfry. 
 
 "Sir John Oxon," he said. "Then I will ask her. 
 Had you said any other name, I would not have gone 
 near her to-day." 
 
 Her Ladyship was in her new closet with Mistress 
 Anne, and there the lackey came to her to deliver his 
 errand. 
 
 "A country-bred young woman, your Ladyship," 
 he said, "comes from Sir John Oxon " 
 
 "From Sir John Oxon!" cried Anne, starting in 
 her chair. 
 
 My Lady Dunstanwolde made no start, but turned 
 a steady countenance toward the door, looking into 
 the man's face. 
 
 "Then he hath returned?" she said. 
 
 "Returned!" said Anne. 
 
 "After the morning he rode home with me," my 
 Lady answered, " 'twas said he went away. He left 
 his lodgings without warning. It seems he hath come 
 back. What does the woman want?" she ended. 
 
 "To speak with your Ladyship," replied the man, 
 "of Sir John himself, she says." 
 
 "Bring her to me," her Ladyship commanded. 
 
 The girl was brought in overawed and trembling.
 
 A LADY IF QUALITY 267 
 
 She was a country-bred young creature, as the lackey 
 had said, being of the simple rose and white freshness 
 of seventeen years perhaps, and having innocent blue 
 eyes and fair curling locks. 
 
 She was so frightened by the grandeur of her sur- 
 roundings and the splendid beauty of the lady who 
 was so soon to be a duchess, and was already a great 
 earl's widow, that she could only stand within the 
 doorway, courtesying and trembling with tears welling 
 in her eyes. 
 
 "Be not afraid," said my Lady Dunstanwolde. 
 "Come hither, child, and tell me what you want." In- 
 deed, she did not look a hard or shrewish lady, she 
 spoke as gently as woman could, and a mildness so un- 
 expected produced in the young creature such a revul- 
 sion of feeling that she made a few steps forward 
 and fell upon her knees, weeping and with uplifted 
 hands. 
 
 "My Lady," she said, "I know not how I dared to 
 come, but that I am so desperate and your Ladyship 
 being so happy it seemed it seemed that you might 
 pity me, who am so helpless and know not what to 
 do." 
 
 Her Ladyship leaned forward in her chair, her 
 elbow on her knee, her chin held in her hand, to 
 gaze at her. 
 
 "You come from Sir John Oxon?" she said. 
 
 Anne, watching, clutched each arm of her chair. 
 
 "Not from him, asking your Ladyship's pardon," 
 said the child. "But but from the country to him,"
 
 268 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 her head falling on her breast, "and I know not where 
 he is." 
 
 "You came to him?" asked my Lady. "Are you," 
 and her voice was pitiful and slow, "are you one of 
 those whom he has ruined?" 
 
 The little suppliant looked up with widening orbs. 
 
 "How could that be and he so virtuous and pious 
 a gentleman?" she faltered. 
 
 Then did my Lady rise with a sudden movement. 
 
 "Was he so?" says she. 
 
 "Had he not been," the child answered, "my mother 
 would have been afraid to trust him. I am but a 
 poor country widow's daughter, but was well brought 
 up and honestly and when he came to our village 
 my mother was afraid because he was a gentleman; 
 but when she saw his piety and how he went to church 
 and sang the psalms and prayed for grace, she let me 
 listen to him." 
 
 "Did he go to church and sing and pray at first?" 
 my Lady asks. 
 
 " 'Twas in church he saw me, your Ladyship," she 
 was answered. "He said 'twas his custom to go al- 
 ways when he came to a new place, and that often 
 there he found the most heavenly faces, for 'twas 
 piety and innocence that made a face like to an 
 angel's. And 'twas innocence and virtue stirred his 
 heart to love and not mere beauty, which so fades." 
 
 "Go on, innocent thing," my Lady said, and she 
 turned aside to Anne, flashing from her eyes unseen 
 a great blaze, and speaking in a low and hurried
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 269 
 
 voice. "God's house/' she said, "God's prayers 
 God's songs of praise, he used them all to break a 
 tender heart, and bring an innocent life to ruin and 
 yet was he not struck dead!" 
 
 Anne hid her face and shuddered. 
 
 "He was a gentleman," the poor young thing cried, 
 sobbing, "and I no fit match for him, but that he loved 
 me. 'Tis said love makes all equal, and he said I was 
 the sweetest, innocent young thing, and without me he 
 could not live. And he told my mother that he was 
 not rich or the fashion now, and had no modish 
 friends or relations to flout any poor beauty he might 
 choose to wed.'* 
 
 "And he would marry you," my Lady's voice broke 
 in; "he said that he would marry you?" 
 
 "A thousand times, your Ladyship, and so told my 
 mother, but said I must come to town and be married 
 at his lodgings, or 'twould not be counted a marriage 
 by law, he being a town gentleman and I from the 
 country." 
 
 "And you came," said Mistress Anne, down whose 
 pale cheeks the tears were running "you came at his 
 command to follow him?" 
 
 "What day came you up to town?" demands my 
 Lady, breathless and leaning forward. "Went you 
 to his lodgings and stayed you there with him even 
 for an hour?" 
 
 The poor child gazed at her, paling. 
 
 "He was not there !" she cried. "I came alone be- 
 cause he said all must be secret at first, and my heart
 
 270 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 beat so with joy, my Lady, that when the woman of 
 the house whereat he lodges let me in, I scarce could 
 speak. But she was a merry woman and good- 
 natured, and only laughed and cheered me when she 
 took me to his rooms, and I sat trembling." 
 
 "What said she to you?" my Lady asks, her breast 
 heaving with her breath. 
 
 "That he was not yet in, but that he would sure 
 come soon to such a young and pretty thing as I, 
 and I must wait for him; for he would not forgive 
 her if she let me go. And the while I waited there 
 came a man in bands and cassock, but he had not a 
 holy look, and late in the afternoon I heard him mak- 
 ing jokes with the woman outside, and they both 
 laughed in such an evil way that I was affrighted, and, 
 waiting till they had gone to another part of the 
 house, stole away." 
 
 "But he came not back that night thank God!" 
 my Lady said. "He came not back!" 
 
 The girl rose from her knees trembling, her hands 
 clasped on her breast. 
 
 "Why should your Ladyship thank God?" she said, 
 pure drops falling from her eyes. "I am so humble 
 and had naught else but this great happiness, and it 
 was taken away and you thank God?" 
 
 Then drops fell from my Lady's eyes also, and she 
 came forward and caught the child's hand and held 
 it close and warm and strong, and yet with her full 
 lip quivering. 
 
 " 'Twas not that your joy was taken away that
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 271 
 
 I thanked God," said she. "I am not cruel God him- 
 self knows that, and when He smites me 'twill not 
 be for cruelty. I knew not what I said, and yet 
 Tell me, what did you then? Tell me." 
 
 "I went to a poor house to lodge, having some little 
 money he had given me," the simple young thing an- 
 swered. " 'Twas an honest house, though mean and 
 comfortless. And the next day I went back to his 
 lodgings to question, but he had not come and I would 
 not go in, though the woman tried to make me enter, 
 saying Sir John would surely return soon, as he had 
 the day before rid with my Lady Dunstanwolde and 
 been to her house, and 'twas plain he had meant to 
 come to his lodgings, for her Ladyship had sent her 
 lackey thrice with a message. 
 
 The hand with which Mistress Anne sat covering 
 her eyes began to shake, my Lady's own hand would 
 have shaken had she not been so strong a creature. 
 
 "And he has not yet returned, then?" she asked. 
 "You have not seen him?" 
 
 The girl shook her fair locks, weeping with piteous 
 little sobs. 
 
 "He has not," she cried, "and I know not what to 
 do and the great town seems full of evil men and 
 wicked women. I know not which way to turn, for 
 all plot wrong against me, and would drag me down 
 to shamefulness and back to my poor mother I can 
 not go." 
 
 "Wherefore not, poor child?" my Lady asked her. 
 
 "I have not been made an honest wedded woman,
 
 272 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 and none would believe my story and and he might 
 come back." 
 
 "And if he came back?" said her Ladyship. 
 
 At this question the girl slipped from her grasp 
 and down upon her knees again, catching at her rich 
 petticoat and holding it, her eyes searching the great 
 lady's in imploring piteousness, her own streaming. 
 
 "I love him," she wept, "I love him so I can not 
 leave the place where he might be. He was so beauti- 
 ful and grand a gentleman, and sure he loved me bet- 
 ter than all else and I can not thrust away from me 
 that last night when he held me to his breast near our 
 cottage door and the nightingale sang in the roses, 
 and he spake such words to me. I lie and sob all 
 night on my hard pillow, I so long to see him and to 
 hear his voice and hearing he had been with you 
 that last morning, I dared to come, praying that you 
 might have heard him let drop some word that would 
 tell me where he may be ; for I can not go away think- 
 ing he may come back longing for me and I lose him 
 and never see his face again. Oh! my Lady, my 
 Lady, this place is so full of wickedness and fierce peo- 
 ple and dark kennels where crimes are done I am 
 affrighted for him, thinking he may have been struck 
 some blow and murdered and hid away. And none 
 will look for him but one who loves him who loves 
 him! Could it be so? Could it be? You know the 
 town's ways so well. I pray you, tell me, in God's 
 name I pray you!" 
 
 "God's mercy!" Anne breathed, and from behind
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 273 
 
 her hands came stifled sobbing. My Lady of Dunstan- 
 wolde bent down, her color dying. 
 
 "Nay, nay," she said, "there has been no murder 
 done none! Hush, poor thing, hush thee. There is 
 somewhat I must tell thee." 
 
 She tried to raise her, but the child would not be 
 raised and clung to her rich robe, shaking as she knelt, 
 gazing upward. 
 
 "It is a bitter thing," my Lady said, and 'twas as 
 if her own eyes were imploring. "God help you bear 
 it, God help us all. He told me nothing of his journey. 
 I knew not he was about to take it, but wheresoever 
 he has traveled, 'twas best that he should go." 
 
 "Nay! Nay!" the girl cried out. "To leave me 
 helpless. Nay, it could not be so. He loved me 
 loved me as the great duke loves you !" 
 
 "He meant you evil," said my Lady, shuddering 
 and yet with passion, "and evil he would have done 
 you. He was a villain a villain who meant to trick 
 you. Had God struck him dead that day 'twould have 
 been mercy to you. I knew him well." 
 
 The young thing gave a bitter cry and fell swoon- 
 ing at her feet, and down upon her knees my Lady 
 went beside her, loosening her gown and chafing her 
 poor hands as though they two had been of sister 
 blood. 
 
 "Call for hartshorn, Anne, and for water," she said. 
 "She will come out of her swooning, poor child, and 
 if she is cared for kindly, in time her pain will pass 
 away. God be thanked she has no pain that can not
 
 274 & LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 pass! I will protect her aye, that will I, as I will 
 protect all he has done wrong to and deserted." 
 
 She was so strangely kind through the poor vic- 
 tim's swoons and weeping that the very menials who 
 were called to aid her went back to their hall, won- 
 dering in their talk of the noble grandness of so great 
 a lady, who, on the very brink of her own joy, could 
 stoop to protect and comfort a creature so far beneath 
 her, that to most ladies her sorrow and desertion would 
 have been things which were too trivial to count; for 
 'twas guessed and talked over with great freedom and 
 much shrewdness that this was a country victim of Sir 
 John Oxon's, and he, having deserted his creditors, 
 was ready enough to desert his rustic beauty, finding 
 her heavy on his hands. 
 
 Below stairs the men closing the entrance to the 
 passage with brick, having caught snatches of the ser- 
 vants' gossip, talked of what they heard themselves as 
 they did their work. 
 
 "Aye, a noble lady indeed," they said. "For 'tis 
 not a woman's way to be kindly with the cast-off fancy 
 of a man, even when she does not want him herself. 
 He was her own worshiper for many a day, Sir John ; 
 and before she took the old Earl, 'twas said that for 
 a space people believed she loved him. She was but 
 fifteen and a high mettled beauty, and he as handsome 
 as she, and had a blue eye that would melt any woman ; 
 but at sixteen he was a town rake and such tricks 
 as this one he had played since he was a lad. "Tis
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 275 
 
 well indeed for this poor thing her Ladyship hath 
 seen her. She hath promised to protect her, and sends 
 her down to Dunstanwolde with her mother this very 
 week. Would all fine ladies were of her kind. To 
 hear such things of her puts a man in the humor to 
 do her work well."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A NOBLE MARRIAGE 
 
 WHEN the Duke came back from France and to pay 
 his first eager visit to his bride that was to be, her 
 Ladyship's lackeys led him not to the paneled parlor, 
 but to a room which he had not entered before, it 
 being one she had had the fancy to have remodeled 
 and made into a beautiful closet for herself, her great 
 wealth rendering it possible for her to accomplish 
 changes without the loss of time the owners of lim- 
 ited purses are subjected to in the carrying out of 
 plans. This room she had made as unlike the pan- 
 eled parlor as two rooms would be unlike one another. 
 Its panelings were white, its furnishings were bright 
 and delicate, its draperies flowered with rosebuds tied 
 in clusters, with love-knots of pink and blue; it had 
 a large bow window, through which the sunlight 
 streamed, and it was blooming with great rose-bowls 
 overrunning with sweetness. 
 
 From a seat in the morning sunshine among the 
 
 flowers and plants in the bow window there rose a 
 
 tall figure in a snow-white robe a figure like that of 
 
 a beautiful, stately girl who was half an angel. It 
 
 276
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 277 
 
 was my Lady who came to him with blushing cheeks 
 and radiant, shining eyes, and was swept into his 
 arms in such a passion of love and blessed tenderness 
 as Heaven itself might have smiled to see. 
 
 "My love! my love!" he breathed. "My love! my 
 love and my soul!" 
 
 "My Gerald !" she cried ; "my Gerald, let me say it 
 on your breast a thousand times !" 
 
 "My wife!" he said, "so soon my wife and all my 
 own until life's end." 
 
 "Nay, nay!" she cried, her cheek pressed to his 
 own, "through all eternity, for love's life knows 
 no end." 
 
 As it had seemed to her poor lord who had died, 
 so it seemed to this man who lived and so worshiped 
 her that the wonder of her sweetness was a thing to 
 marvel at with passionate reverence. Being a man of 
 greater mind and poetic imagination than Dunstan- 
 wolde, and being himself adored by her as that poor 
 gentleman had not had the good fortune to be, he had 
 ten thousand-fold the power and reason to see the 
 tender radiance of her. As she was taller than other 
 women, so her love seemed higher and greater, and 
 as free from any touch of earthly poverty of feeling 
 as her beauty was from any flaw. In it there could 
 be no doubt, no pride; it could be bounded by no 
 limit, measured by no rule, its depths sounded by no 
 plummet. 
 
 His very soul was touched by her great longing to 
 give to him the feeling, and to feel herself, that from
 
 278 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 the hour that she had become his her past life was 
 a thing blotted out. 
 
 "I am a new-created thing," she said. "Until you 
 called me 'Love' I had no life. All before was dark- 
 ness. 'Twas you, my Gerald, who said, 'Let there be 
 light, and there was light.' " 
 
 "Hush, hush, . sweet love," he said. "Your words 
 would make me too near God's self." 
 
 "Sure love is God," she cried, her hands upon his 
 shoulders, her face uplifted. "What else? Love we 
 know, love we worship and kneel to love conquers 
 us and gives us heaven. Until I knew it I believed 
 naught. Now I kneel each night and pray and pray 
 but to be pardoned and made worthy." 
 
 Never before, it was true, had she knelt and prayed, 
 but from this time no nun in her convent knelt oftener 
 or prayed more ardently, and her prayer was ever that 
 the past might be forgiven her, the future blessed, and 
 she taught how so to live that there should be no faint- 
 est shadow in the years to come. 
 
 "I know not what is above me," she said. "I can 
 not lie and say I love it and believe, but if there is 
 aught, sure it must be a power which is great, else had 
 the world not been so strange a thing and I, and those 
 who live on it, and if He made us, He must know He 
 is to blame when He has made us weak or evil. And 
 He must understand why we have been so made, and 
 when we throw ourselves into the dust before Him 
 and pray for help and pardon, surely, surely, He will 
 lend an ear! We know naught; we have been told
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 279 
 
 naught; we have but an old book, which has been 
 handed down through strange hands and strange 
 tongues, and may be but poor history. We have so 
 little, and we are threatened so but for love's sake 
 I will pray the poor prayers we are given, and for 
 love's sake there is no dust too low for me to lie in 
 while I plead." 
 
 This was the strange truth though 'twas not 
 so strange if the world feared not to admit such 
 things that through her Gerald, who was but no- 
 ble and high-souled man, she was led to bow 
 before God's throne as the humblest and' holiest 
 saint bows, though she had not learned belief and 
 only had learned love. 
 
 "But life lasts so short a while," she said to Os- 
 monde. "It seems so short when it is spent in such 
 joy as this ; and when the day comes for, oh ! Gerald, 
 my soul sees it already when the day comes that I 
 kneel by your bedsfde and see your eyes close, or you 
 kneel by mine, it must be that the one who waits 
 behind shall know the parting is not all." 
 
 "It could not be all, beloved," Osmonde said. "Love 
 is sure eternal." 
 
 Often in these blissful hours her way was almost 
 like a child's, she was so tender and so clinging. At 
 times her beauteous, great eyes were full of an im- 
 ploring which made them seem soft with tears, and 
 thus they were now as she looked up at him. 
 
 "I will do all I can," she said. "I will obey every 
 law; I will pray often and give alms, and strive to
 
 2 8o A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 be dutiful and holy, that in the end He will not thrust 
 me from you ; that I may stay near, even in the low- 
 est place even in the lowest that I may see your 
 face, and know that you see mine. We are so in His 
 power. He can do aught with us, but I will so obey 
 Him, and so pray that He will let me in." 
 
 To Anne she went with curious humility, question- 
 ing her as to her religious duties and beliefs, ask- 
 ing her what books she read and what services she 
 attended. 
 
 "All your life you have been a religious woman," 
 she said. "I used to think it folly, but now " 
 
 "But now " said Anne. 
 
 "I know not what to think," she answered. "I 
 would learn." 
 
 But when she listened to Anne's simple homilies 
 and read her weighty sermons, they but made her 
 restless and unsatisfied. 
 
 "Nay, 'tis not that," she said, one day, with a deep 
 sigh. " "Pis more than that 'tis deeper and greater, 
 and your sermons do not hold it. They but set my 
 brain to questioning and rebellion." 
 
 But a short time elapsed before the marriage was 
 solemnized, and such a wedding the world of fashion 
 had not taken part in for years, 'twas said. Royalty 
 honored it, the greatest of the land were proud to 
 count themselves among the guests; the retainers, 
 messengers, and company of the two great houses were 
 so numerous that in the west end of the town the 
 streets wore indeed quite a festal air, with the passing
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 281 
 
 to and fro of servants and gentlefolk with favors upon 
 their arms. 
 
 'Twas to the Tower of Camylott, the most beauti- 
 ful and remote of the bridegroom's several seats, that 
 they removed their household when the irksomeness 
 of the extended ceremonies and entertainments was 
 over; for these they were of too distinguished a rank 
 to curtail as lesser personages might have done. But 
 when all things were over, the stately town houses 
 closed, and their equipages rolled out beyond the sight 
 of town into the country roads, the great duke and 
 his great duchess sat hand in hand, gazing into each 
 other's eyes with as simple and ardent a joy as they 
 had been but young 'prentice and country maid flying 
 to hide from the world their love. 
 
 "There is no other woman who is so like a queen," 
 Osmonde said, with tenderest smiling. "And yet your 
 eyes wear a look so young in these days that they are 
 like a child's. In all their beauty I have never seen 
 them so before." 
 
 "It is because I am a new-created thing, as I have 
 told you, love," she answered, and leaned toward him. 
 "Do you not know I never was a child. I bring myself 
 to you new born. Make of me then what a woman 
 should be to be beloved of husband and of God. 
 Teach me, my Gerald ! I am your child and servant." 
 
 'Twas ever thus, that her words, when they were 
 such as these, were ended upon his breast as she was 
 swept there by his impassioned arm. She was so god- 
 dess-like and beautiful a being, her life one strangely
 
 282 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 dominant and brilliant series of triumphs, and yet she 
 came to him with such softness and humility of pas- 
 sion that scarcely could he think himself a waking 
 man. 
 
 "Surely," he said, "it is a thing too wondrous and 
 too full of joy's splendor to be true." 
 
 In the golden afternoon, when the sun was deepen- 
 ing and mellowing toward its setting, they and their 
 retinue entered Camylott. The bells pealed from the 
 gray belfry of the old church ; the villagers came forth 
 in clean smocks and Sunday cloaks of scarlet, and 
 stood in the street and by the roadside courtesying 
 and baring their heads, with rustic cheers ; little coun- 
 try girls with red cheeks threw posies before the 
 horses' feet and into the equipage itself when they 
 were of the bolder sort. Their chariot passed be- 
 neath archways of flowers and boughs, and from the 
 battlements of the Tower of Camylott there floated a 
 flag in the soft wind. 
 
 "God save your Graces," the simple people cried. 
 "God give your Graces joy and long life ! Lord, what 
 a beautiful pair they be! And though her Grace was 
 said to be a proud lady, how sweetly she smiles at a 
 poor body. God love ye, madam, God love ye !" 
 
 Her Grace of Osmonde leaned forward in her equi- 
 page and smiled at the people with the face of an 
 angel. 
 
 "I will teach them to love me, Gerald," she said. 
 "I have not had love enough." 
 
 "Has not all the world loved you ?" he said.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 283 
 
 "Nay," she answered, "only you and Dunstanwolde 
 and Anne." 
 
 Late at night they walked together on the broad 
 terrace before the Tower. The blue-black vault of 
 heaven above them was studded with myriads of God's 
 brilliants; below them was spread out the beauty of 
 the land, the rolling plains, the soft low hills, the for- 
 ests and moors folded and hidden in the swathing robe 
 of the night; from the park and gardens floated up- 
 ward the freshness of acres of thick sward and deep 
 fern thicket, the fragrance of roses and a thousand 
 flowers, the tender sighing of the wind through the 
 huge oaks and beeches bordering the avenues, and 
 reigning like kings over the seeming boundless grassy 
 spaces. 
 
 As lovers have walked since the days of Eden they 
 walked together, no longer duke and duchess, but man 
 and woman near to Paradise as human beings may 
 draw until God breaks the chain binding them to earth ; 
 and indeed it would seem that such hours are given 
 to the straining human soul that it may know that 
 somewhere perfect joy must be, since sometimes the 
 gates are for a moment opened that Heaven's light 
 may shine through, and human eyes catch glimpses of 
 the white and golden glories within. 
 
 His arm held her, she leaned against him, their slow 
 steps so harmonizing, the one with the other, that they 
 accorded as with the harmony of music; the nightin- 
 gales trilling and bubbling in the rose trees were not 
 affrighted by the low murmur of their voices; per-
 
 284 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 chance this night they were so near to Nature that the 
 barriers were o'erpassed and they and the singers were 
 akin. 
 
 "Oh, to be a woman!" Clorinda murmured. "To 
 be a woman at last. All other things I have been, 
 and have been called 'Huntress/ 'Goddess/ 'Beauty/ 
 'Empress/ 'Leader/ 'Conqueror' but never Woman. 
 And had our paths not crossed I think I never could 
 have known what 'twas to be one, for to be a woman 
 one must close with the man who is one's mate. It 
 must not be that one looks down or only pities or 
 protects and guides and only to a few a mate seems 
 given. And I, Gerald, how dare I walk thus at your 
 side and feel your heart so beat near mine, and know 
 you love me and so worship you so worship you " 
 
 She turned and threw herself upon his breast, which 
 was so near. 
 
 "Oh, woman, woman!" he breathed, straining her 
 close. "Oh, woman, who is mine, though I am but 
 man!" 
 
 "We are but one," she said "one breath, one soul, 
 one thought, and one desire. Were it not so I were 
 not woman and your wife, nor you man and my soul's 
 lover as you are. If it were not so, we were still apart, 
 though we were wedded a thousand times. Apart what 
 are we but like lopped-off limbs, welded together; we 
 are this." 
 
 And for a moment they spoke not, and a nightin- 
 gale on a rose-vine clambering o'er the terrace's balus- 
 trade threw up its little head and sang as if to the
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 285 
 
 myriads of golden stars. They stood and listened, 
 hand in hand; her sweet breast rose and fell, her 
 lovely face was lifted to the bespangled sky. 
 
 "Of all this," she said, "I am a part as I am part 
 of you. To-night, as the great earth throbs and as 
 the stars tremble and as the wind sighs, so I being 
 woman throb and am tremulous and sigh also. The 
 earth lives for the sun, and through strange mysteries 
 blooms forth each season with fruits and flowers. Love 
 is my sun, and through its sacredness I may bloom too 
 and be as noble as the earth and that it bears."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AN HEIR IS BORN 
 
 'IN a fair tower, whose windows looked out upon 
 spreading woods and rich, lovely plains stretching to 
 the freshness of the sea, Mistress Anne had her abode, 
 which her duchess sister had given to her for her 
 own living in as she would. There she dwelt and 
 prayed and looked on at the new life which so beau- 
 tifully unfolded itself before her day by day, as the 
 leaves of the great tree unfold from buds and be- 
 come noble branches housing birds and their nests, 
 shading the earth and those sheltering beneath them, 
 braving centuries of storms. 
 
 To this simile her simple mind oft reverted, for in- 
 deed it seemed to her that naught more perfect and 
 more noble in its high likeness to pure nature and 
 the fulfilling of God's will than the passing days of 
 these two lives could be. 
 
 "As the first two lived Adam and Eve in their 
 Garden of Eden they seem to me," she used to say 
 to her own heart; ^but the Tree of Knowledge was 
 not forbidden them, and it has taught them naught 
 ignoble.*;) 
 
 286
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 287 
 
 As she had been wont to watch her sister from be- 
 hind the ivy of her chamber windows, so she often 
 watched her now, though there was no fear in her 
 hiding, only tenderness, it being a pleasure to her full 
 of wonder and reverence to see this beautiful and 
 stately pair go lovingly and in high and gentle con- 
 verse side by side, up and down the terrace, through 
 the paths, among the beds of flowers, under the thick 
 branched trees, and over the sward's softness. 
 
 "It is as if I saw love's self, and dwelt with it the 
 love God's nature made," she said with gentle sighs. 
 
 For if these two had been great and beauteous be- 
 fore, it seemed in these days as if life and love glowed 
 within them, and shone through their mere bodies, 
 as a radiant light shines through alabaster lamps. The 
 strength of each was so the being of the other that 
 no thought could take form in the brain of one with- 
 out the other's stirring with it. 
 
 "Neither of us dares be ignoble," Osmonde said, 
 "for 'twould make poor and base the one who was 
 not so in truth." 
 
 " Twas not the way of my Lady Dunstanwolde to 
 make a man feel that he stood in church," a frivolous 
 court wit once said, "but in sooth her Grace of Os- 
 monde has a look in her lustrous eyes which accords 
 not with scandalous stories and playhouse jests." 
 
 And true it was that when they went to town they 
 carried with them the illumining of the pure fire which 
 burned within their souls, and bore it all unknowing 
 in the midst of the trivial or designing world which
 
 288 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 knew not what it was that glowed about them, making 
 things bright which had seemed dull, and revealing 
 darkness where there had been brilliant glare. 
 
 They returned not to the house which had been my 
 Lord of Dunstanwolde's, but went to the Duke's own 
 great manion, and there lived splendidly and in hos- 
 pitable state. Royalty honored them, and all the wits 
 came there, some of those gentlemen who write verses 
 and dedications being by no means averse to meeting 
 noble lords and ladies, and finding in their loves and 
 graces material which might be useful. 'Twas not 
 only Mr. Addison and Mr. Steele, Dr. Swift and Mr. 
 Pope, who were made welcome in the stately rooms, 
 but others who were more humble, not yet having 
 won their spurs; and how these worshiped her Grace 
 for the generous kindness which was not the fashion, 
 until she set it, among great ladies, their odes and 
 verses could scarce express. 
 
 "They are so poor," she said to her husband. "They 
 are so poor, and yet, in their starved souls there is a 
 thing which can less bear flouting than the dull con- 
 tent which rules in others. I know not whether 'tis a 
 curse or a boon to be born so. 'Tis a bitter thing 
 when the bird that flutters in them has only little 
 wings. All the more should those who are strong 
 protect and comfort them." 
 
 She comforted so many creatures. In strange parts 
 of the town, where no other lady would have dared 
 to go to give alms, it was rumored that she went and 
 did noble things privately. In dark kennels, where
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 289 
 
 thieves hid and vagrants huddled, she carried her 
 beauty and her stateliness, the which, when they shone 
 on the poor rogues and victims housed there, seemed 
 like the beams of the warm and golden sun. 
 
 Once in a filthy hovel, in a black alley, she came 
 upon a poor girl dying of a loathsome ill, and as she 
 stood by her bed of rags she heard in her delirium 
 the uttering of one man's name again and again, and 
 when she questioned those about she found that the 
 sufferer had been a little country wench enticed to 
 town by this man for a plaything, and in a few weeks 
 cast off, to give birth to a child in the almshouse, and 
 then go down to the depths of vice in the kennel. 
 
 "What is the name she says?" her Grace asked the 
 hag nearest to her, and least maudlin with liquor. "I 
 would be sure I heard it aright." 
 
 " 'Tis the name of a gentleman, your Ladyship may 
 be sure," the beldame answered ; " 'tis always the name 
 of a gentleman. And this is one I know well, for I 
 have heard more than one poor soul mumbling it and 
 raving at him in her last hours. One there was, and 
 I knew her, a pretty rosy thing in her country days, 
 not sixteen, and distraught with love for him, and lay 
 in the street by his door, praying him to take her back 
 when he threw her off, until the watch drove her away. 
 And she was so mad with love and grief she killed 
 her girl child when 'twas born i' the kennel, sobbing 
 and crying that it should not live to be like her and 
 bear others. And she was condemned to death and 
 swung for it on Tyburn Tree. And, Lord! how she 
 X3 VOL. 2
 
 290 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 cried his name as she jolted on her coffin to the gal- 
 lows, and when the hangman put the rope round her 
 shuddering little fair neck, 'Oh, John,' screams she, 
 'John Oxon, God forgive thee! Nay, 'tis God should 
 be forgiven for letting thee to live and me to die like 
 this.' Aye, 'twas a bitter sight! She was so little 
 and so young and so affrighted. The hangman could 
 scarce hold her. I was i' the midst o' the crowd, and 
 cried to her to strive to stand still, 'twould be the 
 sooner over. But that she could not. 'Oh, John,' 
 she screams, 'John Oxon, God forgive thee! Nay, 
 'tis God should be forgiven for letting thee to live 
 and me to die like this !' " 
 
 Till the last hour of the poor creature who lay be- 
 fore her when she heard this thing, her Grace of 
 Osmonde saw that she was tended, took her from her 
 filthy hovel, putting her in a decent house, and going 
 to her day by day until she received her last breath, 
 holding her hand while the poor wench lay staring 
 up at her beauteous face and her great deep eyes, whose 
 lustrousness held such power to sustain and comfort. 
 
 "Be not afraid, poor soul," she said, "be not afraid; 
 I will stay near thee. Soon all will end in sleep, and 
 if thou wakest, sure there will be Christ who died, and 
 wipes all tears away. Hear me say it to thee for a 
 prayer," and she bent low, and said it soft and clear 
 into the deadening ear, "He wipes all tears away. 
 He wipes all tears away." 
 
 The great strength she had used in the old days to 
 conquer and subdue, to win her will and to defend
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 291 
 
 her way, seemed now a power but to protect the suf- 
 fering and uphold the weak, and this she did, not 
 alone in hovels, but in the brilliant court and world 
 of fashion, for there she found suffering and weak- 
 ness also, all the more bitter and sorrowful since 
 it dared not cry aloud. The grandeur of her beauty, 
 the elevation of her rank, the splendor of her 
 wealth, would have made her a protector of great 
 strength, but that which upheld all those who 
 turned to her was that which dwelt within the high 
 soul of her, the courage and power of love for all 
 things human, which bore upon itself, as if upon an 
 eagle's outspread wings, the woes dragging themselves 
 broken and halting upon earth. The starving beggar 
 in the kennel felt it and, not knowing wherefore, drew 
 a longer, deeper breath as if of purer, more exalted 
 air ; the poor poet, in his garret, was fed by it, and hav- 
 ing stood near or spoken to her, went back with light- 
 ening eyes and soul warmed to believe that the words 
 his muse might speak the world might stay to hear. 
 
 From the hour she stayed the last moments of John 
 Oxon's victim she set herself a work to do. None 
 knew it but herself at first and later Anne, for 'twas 
 done privately. From the hag who had told her of 
 the poor girl's hanging upon Tyburn Tree, she learned 
 things by close questioning which, to the old woman's 
 dull wit, seemed but the curiousness of a great lady, 
 and from others, who stood too deep in awe of her 
 to think of her as a mere human being, she gathered 
 clues which led her far in the tracing of the evils fol-
 
 292 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 lowing one wicked, heartless life. Where she could 
 hear of man, woman, or child on whom John Oxon's 
 sins had fallen, or who had suffered wrong by him, 
 there she went to help, to give light, to give comfort 
 and encouragement. Strangely, as it seemed to them, 
 and as if done by the hand of Heaven, the poor trades- 
 men he had robbed were paid their dues, youth he 
 had led into evil ways was checked mysteriously and 
 set in better paths, women he had dragged downward 
 were given aid and chance of peace or happiness, 
 children he had cast upon the world unfathered and 
 with no prospect but the education of the gutter and 
 a life of crime were cared for by a powerful unseen 
 hand. The pretty country girl saved by his death, 
 protected by her Grace, and living innocently at Dun- 
 stanwolde, memory being merciful to youth, forgot 
 him, gained back her young roses, and learned to 
 smile and hope as though he had been but a name. 
 
 "Since 'twas I who killed him," said her Grace to 
 her inward soul, " 'tis I must live his life which I 
 took from him, and making it better, I may be for- 
 given if there is One who dares to say to the poor 
 thing He made, 'I will not forgive.' " 
 
 Surely it was said there had never been lives so 
 beautiful and noble as those the Duke of Osmonde 
 and his lady lived as time went by. The Tower of 
 Camylott, where they had spent the first months of 
 their wedded life, they loved better than any other of 
 their seats, and there they spent as much time as their 
 duties of Court and State allowed them. It was in-
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 293 
 
 deed a splendid and beautiful estate, the stately Tower 
 being built upon an eminence, and there rolling out 
 before it the most lovely land in England, moorland 
 and hills, thick woods and broad meadows, the edge of 
 the heather dipping to show the soft silver of the sea. 
 
 Here was this, beauteous woman,, chatelaine and 
 queen, wife of her husband as never before, he thought, 
 had wife blessed and glorified the existence of mortal 
 man. All her great beauty she gave to him in tender, 
 joyous tribute, all her great gifts of mind and wit 
 and grace it seemed she valued but as they gave joys 
 to him ; in his stately households in town and country 
 she reigned a lovely empress, adored and obeyed with 
 reverence by every man or woman who served her 
 and her lord. Among the people on his various 
 estates she came and went a tender goddess of benev- 
 olence. When she appeared amid them in the first 
 months of her wedded life the humble souls regarded 
 her with awe not unmixed with fear, having heard 
 such wild stories of her youth at her father's house, 
 and of her proud state and bitter wit in the great 
 London world when she had been my Lady Dunstan- 
 wolde; but when she came among them, all else was 
 forgotten in wonder at her gracious and nobte way. 
 
 "To see her come into a poor body's cottage, so tall 
 and grand a lady, and with such a carriage as she 
 hath," they said, hobnobbing together in their talk of 
 her, "looking as if a crown of gold should sit on 
 her high black head; and then to hear her gentle 
 speech and see the look in her eyes as if she was but
 
 294 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 a simple new-married girl full of her joy, and her 
 heart big with the wish that all other women should 
 be as happy as herself, it is, forsooth, a beauteous 
 sight to see." 
 
 "Aye, and no hovel too poor for her, and no man 
 or woman too sinful," was said again. 
 
 "Heard ye how she found that poor young wench 
 of Haylits lying sobbing among the fern in the Tower 
 woods, and stayed and knelt beside her to hear her 
 trouble? The poor soul had gone to ruin at fourteen, 
 and her father finding her out, beat her and thrust 
 her from his door, and her Grace coming through the 
 wood at sunset it being her way to walk about for 
 mere pleasure as though she had no coach to ride in 
 the girl says she came through the golden glow as if 
 she had been one of God's angels and she kneeled 
 and took the poor wench in her arms as strong as 
 a man, Betty says, but as soft as a young mother and 
 she said to her things surely no mortal lady ever said 
 before that she knew naught of a surety of what 
 God's true will might be, or if His laws were those 
 that had been made by man concerning marriage by 
 priests saying common words, but that she surely 
 knew of a man whose name was Christ, and He had 
 taught love and helpfulness and pity, and for His 
 sake, He having earned our trust in Him, whether 
 He was God or Man, because He hung and died in 
 awful torture on the cross for His sake all of us 
 must love and help and pity 'I you, poor Betty,' 
 were her very words, 'and you me.' And then went
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 295 
 
 she to the girl's father and mother, and so talked to 
 them that she brought them to weeping and begging 
 Betty to come home ; and also she went to her sweet- 
 heart, Tom Beck, and made so tender a story to him 
 of the poor pretty wench, whose love for him had 
 brought her to such trouble, that she stirred him up 
 to falling in love again which is not man's way at 
 such times and in a week's time he and Betty went 
 to church together, her Grace setting them up in a 
 cottage on the estate." 
 
 "I used all my wit and all my tenderest words to 
 make a picture that would fire and touch him, Gerald," 
 her Grace said, sitting at her husband's side in a great 
 window from which they often watched the sunset 
 in the valley spread below. "And that with which I 
 am so strong sometimes I know not what to call it, 
 but 'tis a power people bend to, that I know that 
 I used upon him to waken his dull soul and brain. 
 Whose fault is it that they are dull, poor lout he 
 was born so, as I was born strong and passionate, and 
 as you were born noble and pure and high. I led 
 his mind back to the past when he had been made 
 happy by the sight of Betty's little smiling, blushing 
 face, and when he had kissed her and made love in 
 the hayfields. And this I said though 'twas not 
 a thing I have learned from any chaplain that when 
 'twas said he should make an honest woman of her, 
 it was my thought that she had been honest from the 
 first, being too honest to know that the world was not 
 so, and that even the man a woman loved with all
 
 296 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 her soul might be a rogue and have no honesty in 
 him. And at last 'twas when I talked to him about 
 the child and that I put my whole soul's strength 
 in he burst out a-crying like a schoolboy, and said, 
 indeed she was a fond little thing, and had loved him 
 and he had loved her, and 'twas a shame' he had so 
 done by her, and he had not meant it at first, but she 
 was so simple and he had been a villain; but if he 
 married her now he would be called a fool and laughed 
 at for his pains. Then was I angry, Gerald, and felt 
 my eyes flash, and I stood up tall and spoke fiercely. 
 'Let them dare,' I said, 'let any man or woman dare, 
 and then will they see what his Grace will say.' " 
 
 Osmonde drew her to his breast, laughing into her 
 lovely eyes. 
 
 "Nay, 'tis not his .Grace who need be called on," 
 he said, " 'tis her Grace they love and fear and will 
 obey, though 'tis the sweetest, womanish thing that 
 you should call on me when you are power itself and 
 can so rule all creatures you come near." 
 
 "Nay," she said, with softly pleading face, "let me 
 not rule. Rule for me, or but help me, I so long to 
 say your name that they may know I speak but as 
 your wife." 
 
 "Who is myself," he answered, "my very self." 
 
 "Aye," she said, with a little nod of her head, "that 
 I know that I am yourself and 'tis because of this 
 that one of us can not be proud with the other, for 
 there is no other, there is only one. And I am wrong 
 to say, 'Let me not rule/ for 'tis as if I said, 'You must
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 297 
 
 not rule/ I meant surely, 'God give me strength to be 
 as noble in ruling as our love should make me.' But 
 just as one tree is a beech and one an oak, just as the 
 grass stirs when the summer wind blows over it, so a 
 woman is a woman, and 'tis her nature to find her joy 
 in saying such words to the man who loves her, when 
 she loves as I do. Her heart is so full that she must 
 joy to say her husband's name as that of one she 
 can not think without who is her life as is her blood 
 and her pulses beating. "Pis a joy to say your name, 
 Gerald, as it will be a joy " and she looked far out 
 across the sun-goldened valley and plains with a 
 strange, heavenly, sweet smile "as it will be a joy 
 to say our child's, and put his little mouth to my full 
 breast." 
 
 "Sweet love!" he cried, drawing her by her hand 
 that he might meet the radiance of her look. "Heart's 
 dearest!" 
 
 She did not withhold her lovely eyes from him, but 
 withdrew them from the sunset's mist of gold and 
 the clouds piled, as it were, at the gates of heaven, 
 and they seemed to bring back some of the far-off 
 glory with them. Indeed, neither her smile, nor she, 
 seemed at that moment quite to be things of earth. 
 She held out her fair noble arms, and he sprang to 
 her, and so they stood, side beating against side. 
 
 "Yes, love," she said. "Yes, love and I have 
 prayed, my Gerald, that I may give you sons who 
 shall be men like you, but when I give you women 
 children I shall pray with all my soul for them, that
 
 298 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 they may be just and strong and noble, and life begin 
 for them as it began not for me." 
 
 In the morning of a spring day, when the cuckoos 
 cried in the woods and May blossomed thick, white 
 and pink, in all the hedges, the bells in the gray church 
 steeple at Camylott rang out a joyous, jangling peal, 
 telling to all the village that the heir had been born 
 at the Tower. Children stopped in their play to listen, 
 men at their work in field and barn, good gossips 
 ran out of their cottage doors, wiping their arms dry 
 from their tubs and scrubbing buckets, their honest 
 red faces broadening into maternal grins. 
 
 "Aye, 'tis well over, that means surely/' one said 
 to the other, "and a happy day has begun for the poor 
 lady, though God knows she bore herself queenly to 
 the very last, .as if she could have carried her burden 
 for another year, and blenched not a bit as other 
 women do. Bless mother and child, say I." 
 
 "And 'tis an heir," said another. She promised us 
 that we should know almost as quick as she did, and 
 commanded old Rowe to ring a peal and then strike 
 one bell loud between if 'twere a boy, and two if 'twere 
 a girl child. Tis a boy, hark you, and 'twas like her 
 wit to invent such a way to tell us." 
 
 In four other villages the chimes rang just as loud 
 and merrily, and the women talked and blessed her 
 Grace and her young child, and casks of ale were 
 broached, and oxen roasted, and work stopped, and 
 dancers footed it upon the green.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 299 
 
 "Surely the new-born thing comes here to happi- 
 ness," 'twas said everywhere, "for never yet was 
 woman loved as is his mother." 
 
 In her stately bed her Grace the Duchess lay with 
 the face of the Mother Mary, and her man-child 
 drinking from her breast. The Duke walked softly 
 up and down, so full of joy that he could not sit still. 
 When he had entered first it was his wife's self who 
 had sat upright in her bed and herself laid his son 
 within his arms. 
 
 "None other shall lay him there," she said. "I 
 have given him to you. He is a great child, but he 
 has not taken from me my strength." 
 
 He was indeed a great child, even at his first hour, 
 of limbs and countenance so noble that nurses and phys- 
 icians regarded him amazed. He was the offspring of 
 a great love, of noble bodies and great souls. Did such 
 powers alone -create human beings, the earth would be 
 peopled with a race of giants. Amid the veiled spring 
 sunshine and the flower-scented silence, broken only 
 by the twittering of birds nesting in the ivy, her Grace 
 lay soft asleep, her son resting on her arm, when Anne 
 stole to look at her and her child. Through the night 
 she had knelt praying in her chamber, and now she 
 knelt again. She kissed the new-born thing's curled 
 rose-leaf hand and the lace frill of his mother's night- 
 rail. She dared not further disturb them. 
 
 "Sure God forgives," she breathed. "For Christ's 
 sake, He would not give this little tender thing a pun- 
 ishment to bear."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MOTHER ANNE 
 
 THERE was no punishment. In this God was as 
 honest as a human thing may be. The tender little 
 creature grew as a blossom grows from bud to fair- 
 est bloom. His mother flowered as he, and spent her 
 days in noble cherishing of him and tender care. Such 
 motherhood and wifehood as were hers were as fair 
 statues raised to nature's self. 
 
 "Once I thought that I was under ban," she said 
 to her lord in one of their sweetest hours, "but I have 
 been given love and a life, and so I know it can not 
 be. Do I fill all your being, Gerald ?" 
 
 "All, all!" he cried, "my sweet, sweet woman." 
 
 "Leave I no longing unfulfilled, no duty undone, 
 to you, dear love, to the world, to human suffering 
 I might aid? I pray Christ, with all passionate hum- 
 bleness, that I may not." 
 
 "He grants your prayer," he answered, his eyes 
 moist with worshiping tenderness. 
 
 "And this white soul, given to me from the outer 
 bounds we know not, it has no stain; and the little 
 human body it wakened to life in, think you that Christ 
 300
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 301 
 
 will help me to fold them in love, high and pure 
 enough, and teach the human body to do honor to its 
 soul? "Pis not monkish scorn of itself that I would 
 teach the body. It is so beautiful and noble a thing, 
 and so full of the power of joy. /'Surely That which 
 made it in His own image would not that it should 
 despise itself and its own wonders, but do them rever- 
 ence and rejoice in them nobly, honoring all their 
 seasons and their changes, counting not youth folly 
 and manhood sinful, or age aught but gentle ripeness 
 passing onward, j I pray for a great soul, and great 
 wit, and greater power to help this fair human thing 
 to grow, and love, and live." 
 
 These thoughts had been born and had rested hid 
 within her when she lay a babe struggling beneath 
 her dead mother's corpse. Through the darkness of 
 untaught years they had grown but slowly, being so 
 unfitly and unfairly nourished; yet life's sun but fall- 
 ing on her, they seemed to strive to fair fruition with 
 her days. 'Twas not mere love she gave her offspring, 
 for she bore others as years passed, until she was the 
 mother of four sons and two girls, children of strength 
 and beauty as noted as her own ; she gave them of her 
 constant thought and of an honor of their humanity 
 such as taught them reverence of themselves as of all 
 other human things. Their love for her was such a 
 passion as their father bore her. She was the noblest 
 creature that they knew; her beauty, her great un- 
 swerving love, her truth, were things bearing to their 
 child eyes the unchangingness of God's stars in heaven.
 
 302 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "Why is she not the Queen ?" a younger one asked 
 his father once, having been to London and seen the 
 Court. "The Queen is not so beautiful and grand as 
 she, and she could so well reign over the people. She 
 is always just and honorable, and fears nothing." 
 
 From her side Mistress Anne was rarely parted. 
 In her fair retreat at Camylott she lived a life all un- 
 disturbed by outward things. When the children were 
 born strange joy came to her. 
 
 "Be his mother also," the Duchess had said, when 
 she had drawn the clothes aside to show her first- 
 born sleeping in her arm. "You were made to be the 
 mother of things, Anne." 
 
 "Nay or they had been given to me," Anne had 
 answered. 
 
 "Mine I will share with you," her Grace had said, 
 lifting her Madonna face. "Kiss me, sister. Kiss 
 him, too, and bless him. Your life has been so inno- 
 cent, it must be good that you should love and guard 
 him." 
 
 'Twas sweet to see the wit she showed in giving 
 to poor Anne the feeling that she shared her mother- 
 hood. She shared her tenderest cares and duties with 
 her. Together they bathed and clad the child in the 
 morning, this being their high festival in which the 
 nurses shared but in the performance of small duties. 
 Each day they played with him, and laughed as women 
 will at such dear times, kissing his grand, round limbs, 
 crying out at their growth, worshiping his little rosy 
 feet, and smothering him with caresses. And then
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 303 
 
 they put him to sleep, Anne sitting close while his 
 mother fed him from her breast, until his small, red 
 mouth parted and slowly released her. 
 
 When he could toddle about, and was beginning 
 to say words, there was a morning when she bore 
 him to Anne's tower, that they might joy in him 
 together as was their way. It was a beautiful thing 
 to see her walk, carrying him in the strong and lovely 
 curve of her arm, as if his sturdy babyhood were of 
 no more weight than a rose; and he cuddling against 
 her, clinging and crowing, his wide, brown eyes shin- 
 ing with delight. 
 
 "He has come to pay thee court, Anne," she said. 
 "He is a great gallant and knows how we are his lov- 
 ing slaves. He comes to say his new word that I have 
 taught him." 
 
 She set him down where he stood holding to Anne's 
 knee and showing his new pearl teeth in a rosy grin; 
 his mother knelt beside him, beginning her coaxing. 
 
 "Who is she?" she said, pointing with her fingers 
 at Anne's face, her own full of lovely fear lest the 
 child should not speak rightly his lesson. "What is 
 her name? Mammy's man, say " and she mumbled 
 softly with her crimson mouth at his ear. 
 
 The child looked up at Anne with baby wit and 
 laughter in his face, and stammered sweetly: 
 
 "Muz Muzzer Anne," he said, and then being 
 pleased with his cleverness, danced on his little feet, 
 and said it over and over. 
 
 Clorinda caught him up and set him on Anne's lap.
 
 304 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 "Know you what he calls you?" she said. "Tig 
 but a mumble; his little tongue is not nimble enough 
 for clearness, but he says it his pretty best. Tis 
 Mother Anne, he says, 'tis Mother Anne." 
 
 And then they were in each other's arms, the child 
 between them, he kissing both and clasping both, with 
 little- laughs of joy as if they were but one creature. 
 
 Each child born they clasped and kissed so, and were 
 so clasped and kissed by, each one calling the tender, 
 unwed woman "Mother Anne," and having a special 
 lovingness for her, she being the creature each one 
 seemed to hover about with innocent protection and 
 companionship. 
 
 The wonder of Anne's life grew deeper to her hour 
 by hour, and where she had before loved she learned 
 to worship, for 'twas indeed worship that her soul was 
 filled with. She could not look back and believe that 
 she had not dreamed a dream of all the years gone 
 by and that they held. This this was true the 
 beauty of these days, the love of them, the gener- 
 ous deeds, the sweet courtesies and gentle words 
 spoken, this beauteous woman dwelling in her hus- 
 band's heart, giving him all joy of life and love, rul- 
 ing queenly and gracious in his house, bearing him 
 noble children, and tending them with the very genius 
 of tenderness and wisdom. 
 
 But in Mistress Anne herself life had never been 
 strong, she was of the fibre of her mother, who had 
 died in youth crushed by its cruel weight, and to her, 
 living had been so great and terrible a thing. 'There
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 305 
 
 had not been given to her the will to battle with the 
 fate that fell to her,] the brain to reason and disen- 
 tangle problems, or the power to set them aside. 
 So, while her Grace of Osmonde seemed but to gain 
 greater state and beauty in her ripening, her sister's 
 frail body grew more frail, and seemed to shrink and 
 age. Yet her face put on a strange worn sweetness, 
 and her soft, dull eyes had a look almost like a saint's 
 who looks at heaven. She prayed much and did many 
 charitable works both in town and country. She read 
 her books of devotion and went much to church, sit- 
 ting with a reverent face through many a dull and 
 lengthy sermon, she would have felt it sacrilegious 
 to think of with aught but pious admiration. In the 
 middle of the night it was her custom to rise and offer 
 up prayers through the dark hours. She was an hum- 
 ble soul, who greatly feared and trembled before her 
 God. 
 
 "I waken in the night sometimes," the fair, tall 
 child Daphne said once to her mother, "and Mother 
 Anne is there she kneels and prays beside my bed. 
 She kneels and prays so by each one of us many a 
 night." 
 
 " Tis because she is so pious a woman and so loves 
 us," said young John in his stately, generous way. 
 The house of Osmonde had never had so fine and 
 handsome a creature for its heir. He o'ertopped every 
 boy of his age in height, and the bearing of his lovely, 
 youthful body was masculine grace itself. 
 
 The town and the Court knew these children, and
 
 306 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 talked of their beauty and growth as they had talked 
 of their mother's. 
 
 "To be the mate of such a woman, the father of 
 such heirs, is a fate a man might pray God for," 'twas 
 said. "Love has not grown stale with them. Their 
 children are the very blossoms of it. Her eyes are 
 deeper pools of love each year."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 "IN ONE WHO WILL DO JUSTICE, AND DEMANDS THAT 
 
 IT SHALL BE DONE TO EACH THING HE HAS 
 
 MADE, BY EACH WHO BEARS HIS IMAGE" 
 
 'TWAS in these days Sir Jeoffry came to his end, 
 it being in such way as had been often prophesied ; 
 and when his final hour came there was but one who 
 could give him comfort, and this was the daughter 
 whose youth he had led with such careless evilness 
 to harm. 
 
 If he had wondered at her when she had been my 
 Lady Dunstanwolde, as her Grace of Osmonde he re- 
 garded her with heavy awe. Never had she been able 
 to lead him to visit her at her house in town, or at 
 any other which was her home. " 'Tis all too grand 
 for me, your Grace," he would say; "I am a country 
 yokel, and have hunted and drunk and lived too hard 
 to look well among town gentlemen. I must be drunk 
 at dinner, and when I am in liquor I am no ornament 
 to a duchess's drawing-room. But what a woman 
 you have grown," he would say, staring at her and 
 shaking his head. "Each time I clap eyes on you 'tis 
 to marvel at you, remembering what a baggage you 
 307
 
 3 p8 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 were, and how you kept from slipping by the way. 
 There was Jack Oxon, now," he added one day ; "after 
 you married Dunstanwolde I heard a pretty tale of 
 Jack that he had made a wager among his friends 
 in town he was a braggart devil, Jack that he would 
 have you, though you were so scornful; and knowing 
 him to be a liar, his fellows said that, unless he could 
 bring back a raven lock five feet long to show them, 
 he had lost his bet, for they would believe no other 
 proof. And finely they scoffed at him when he came 
 back saying that he had had one, but had hid it away 
 for safety when he was drunk and could not find it 
 again. They so flouted and jeered at him that swords 
 were drawn "and blood as well. But though he was 
 a beauty and a crafty rake-hell fellow, you were too 
 sharp for him. Had you not had so shrewd a wit 
 and strong a will you would not have been the 
 greatest duchess in England, Clo, as well as the finest 
 woman." 
 
 "Nay," she answered, "in those days nay, let us 
 not speak of them ! I would blot them out out." 
 
 As time went by, and the years spent in drink and 
 debauchery began to tell even on the big, strong body 
 which should have served any other man bravely long 
 past his threescore and ten, Sir Jeoffry drank harder 
 and lived more wildly, sometimes being driven des- 
 perate by dulness, his coarse pleasures having lost 
 their potency. 
 
 "Liquor is not as strong as it once was," he used 
 to grumble, "and there are fewer things to stir a man
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 309 
 
 to frolic. Lord, what roaring days and nights a man 
 could have thirty years ago." 
 
 So, in his efforts to emulate such nights and days, 
 he plunged deeper and deeper into new orgies, and 
 one night, after a heavy day's hunting, sitting at the 
 head of his table with his old companions, he sud- 
 denly leaned forward, staring with starting eyes at an 
 empty chair in a dark corner. His face grew purple, 
 and he gasped and gurgled. 
 
 "What is't, Jeof?" old Eldershawe cried, touching 
 his shoulder with a shaking hand. "What's the man 
 staring at, as if he had gone mad?" 
 
 "Jack," cried Sir Jeoffry, his eyes still farther 
 starting from their sockets. "Jack! What say you? 
 I can not hear." 
 
 The next instant he sprang up, shrieking and thrust- 
 ing with his hands as if warding something off. 
 
 "Keep back!" he yelled. 'There is green mold on 
 thee. Where hast thou been to grow moldy? Keep 
 back! Where hast thou been?" 
 
 His friends at table started up, staring at him and 
 losing color, he shrieked so loud and strangely; he 
 clutched his hair with his hands and fell into his chair 
 raving, clutching, and staring, or dashing his head 
 down upon the table to hide his face, and then rais- 
 ing it as if he could not resist being drawn, in his 
 affright, to gaze again. There was no soothing him. 
 He shouted and struggled with those who would have 
 held him. 'Twas Jack Oxon who was there, he swore 
 Jack, who kept stealing slowly nearer to him, his
 
 3 io A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 face and his fine clothes damp and green. He beat 
 at him with mad hands, and at last fell upon the floor, 
 and rolled foaming at the mouth. 
 
 They contrived, after great smugglings, to bear him 
 to his chamber, but it took the united strength of all 
 who would stay near him to keep him from making 
 an end of himself. By the dawn of day his boon 
 companions stood by him with their garments torn to 
 tatters, their faces drenched with sweat, and their own 
 eyes almost starting from their sockets; the doctor, 
 who had been sent for, coming in no hurry, but scowled 
 and shook his head when he beheld him. 
 
 "He is a dead man," he said; "and the wonder is 
 that this has not come before. He is sodden with 
 drink and rotten with ill-living, besides being past all 
 the strength of youth. He dies of the life he has 
 lived." 
 
 'Twas little to be expected that his boon companions 
 could desert their homes and pleasures and tend his 
 horrors longer than a night. Such sights as he pre- 
 sented did not inspire them to cheerful spirits. 
 
 "Lord," said Sir Chris Crowell, "to see him clutch 
 his flesh, and shriek and mouth, is enough to make a 
 man live sober for his remaining days," and he shook 
 his big shoulders with a shudder. 
 
 "Ugh !" he said. "God grant I may make a better 
 end. He writhes as in hell fire." 
 
 "There is but one on earth will do aught for him," 
 said Eldershawe. " 'Tis handsome Clo who is a duch- 
 ess, but she will come and tend him, I could swear.
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 311 
 
 Even when she was a lawless devil of a child she had 
 a way of standing by her friends and fearing naught." 
 
 So, after taking counsel together, they sent for her, 
 and in as many hours as it took to drive from London 
 her coach stood before the door. By this time all the 
 household was panic-stricken and in hopeless disorder, 
 the women servants scattered and shuddering in far 
 corners of the house, such men as could get out of the 
 way having found work to do afield or in the kennels, 
 for none had nerve to stop where they could hear the 
 madman's shrieks and howls. 
 
 Her Grace, entering the house, went with her woman 
 straight to her chamber, and shortly emerged there- 
 from, stripped of her rich apparel and clad in a gown 
 of strong blue linen, her hair wound close, her white 
 hands bare of any ornament, save the band of gold, 
 which was her wedding ring. A serving-woman 
 might have been clad so, but the plainness of her 
 garb but made her height and strength so reveal 
 themselves that the mere sight of her woke some- 
 what that was like to awe in the eyes of the servants 
 who beheld her as she passed. 
 
 She needed not to be led, but straightway followed 
 the awful sounds, until she reached the chamber be- 
 hind whose door they were shut. Upon the huge, 
 disordered bed Sir Jeoffry writhed and tried to tear 
 himself, his great sinewy and hairy body almost 
 stark. Two of the stablemen were striving to hold 
 him. 
 
 The Duchess went to his bedside and stood there,
 
 3 i2 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 laying her strong white hand upon his shuddering 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Father," she said, in a voice so clear, and with such 
 a ring of steady command, as, the men said later, 
 might have reached a dead man's ear "Father, 'tis 
 Clo!" 
 
 Sir Jeoffry writhed his head round and glared at 
 her with starting eyes and foaming, mouth. 
 
 "Who says 'tis Clo ?" he shouted. " Tis a lie ! She 
 was even a bigger devil than any other, though she 
 was but a handsome wench. Jack himself could not 
 manage her. She beat him and would beat him now. 
 Tis a lie!" 
 
 All through that day and night the power of her 
 Grace's white arm was the thing which saved him 
 from dashing out his brains. The two men could 
 not have held him, and at his greatest frenzy they 
 observed that now and then his blood-shot eye would 
 glance aside at the beauteous face above him. The 
 sound of the word "Clo" had struck upon his brain 
 and wakened an echo. 
 
 She sent away the men to rest, calling for others in 
 their places, but leave the bedside herself she would 
 not. 'Twas a strange thing to see her strength and 
 bravery, which could not be beaten down. When the 
 doctor came again he found her there, and changed 
 his surly and reluctant manner in the presence of a 
 duchess, and one who, in her close linen gown, wore 
 such a mien. 
 
 "You should not have left him," she said to him,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 313 
 
 unbendingly, "even though I myself can see there is 
 little help that can be given. Thought you his Grace 
 and I would brook that he should die alone if we could 
 not have reached him?" 
 
 Those words, "his Grace and I," put a new face 
 upon the matter, and all was done that lay within the 
 man's skill, but most was he disturbed concerning the 
 lady, who would not be sent to rest, and whose noble 
 consort would be justly angered if she were allowed to 
 injure her superb health. 
 
 "His Grace knew what I came to do, and how I 
 should do it," the Duchess said, unbending still. "But 
 for affairs of state, which held him, he would have 
 been here at my side." 
 
 She held her place throughout the second night, and 
 that was worse than the first, the paroxysms growing 
 more and more awful ; for Jack was within a yard, and 
 stretched out a green and moldy hand, the finger-bones 
 showing through the flesh, the while he smiled awfully. 
 
 At last one pealing scream rang out after another, 
 until, after curving his shuddering body into anlkrc, 
 resting on heels and head, the madman fell exhaujjjgd, 
 his flesh all quaking before the eye. Then the Duchess 
 waved the men who helped away. She sat upon the 
 bed's edge close close to her father's body, putting 
 her two firm hands on either of his shoulders, hold- 
 ing him so, and bent down, looking into his wild face 
 as if she fixed upon his very soul all the power of her 
 wondrous will. 
 
 "Father," she said, "look at my face. Thou canst 
 14 VOL. 2
 
 3 i4 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 if them wilt. Look at my face. Then wilt thou see 
 'tis Clo, and she will stand by thee." 
 
 She kept her gaze upon his very pupils, and though 
 'twas at first as if his eyes strove to break away from 
 her look, their effort was controlled by her steadfast- 
 ness, and they wandered back at last, and her great 
 orbs held them. He heaved a long breath, half a big, 
 broken sob, and lay still, staring up at her. 
 
 "Aye/' he said; " 'tis Clo! 'tis Clo!" 
 
 The sweat began to roll from his forehead and the 
 tears down his cheeks. He broke forth, wailing like 
 a child. 
 
 "Clo Clo," he said, "I am in hell." 
 
 She put her hand on his breast, keeping will and 
 eyes set on him. 
 
 "Nay," she answered, "thou art on earth and in thine 
 own bed, and I am here and will not leave thee." 
 
 She made another sign to the men, who stood and 
 stared aghast in wonder at her, but feeling in the 
 very air about her the spell to which the madness had 
 given way. 
 
 " 'Twas not mere human woman who sat there," 
 they said afterward in the stables among their fellows. 
 " 'Twas somewhat more. Had such a will been in an 
 evil thing a man's hair would have risen on his skull 
 at the seeing of it." 
 
 "Go now," she said to them, "and send women to 
 set the place in order." 
 
 She had seen delirium and death enough, in the 
 doings of her deeds of mercy, to know that his strength
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 had gone and death was coming. His bed and room 
 were made orderly, and at last he lay in clean linen 
 with all made straight. Soon his eyes seemed to sink 
 into his head and stare from hollows, and his skin grew 
 gray, but ever he stared only at his daughter's face. 
 
 "do," he said at last, "stay by me! Clo, go not 
 away !" 
 
 "I shall not go," she answered. 
 
 She drew a seat close to his bed and took his hand. 
 It lay knotted and gnarled and swollen-veined upon 
 her smooth palm, and with her other hand she stroked 
 it. His breath came weak and quick, and fear grew 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "What is it, Clo?" he said. "What is't?" 
 
 " 'Tis weakness," replied she, soothing him. "Soon 
 you will sleep." 
 
 "Aye," he said, with a breath like a sob. " 'Tis 
 over." 
 
 His big body seemed to collapse, he shrank so in 
 the bedclothes. 
 
 "What day o' the year is it ?" he asked. 
 
 "The tenth of August," was her answer. 
 
 "Sixty-nine years from this day was I born," he 
 said, "and now 'tis done." 
 
 "Nay," said she. "Nay God grant 
 
 "Aye," he said "done. Would there were nine 
 and sixty more. What a man I was at twenty. I 
 want not to die, Clo. I want to live to live live, 
 and be young," gulping, "with strong muscles and 
 moist flesh. Sixty-nine years and they are gone!"
 
 3 i6 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 He clung to her hand and stared at her with awful 
 eyes. Through all his life he had been but a great, 
 strong, human carcass, and he was now but the same 
 carcass worn out, and at death's door. Of not one 
 human thing but of himself had he ever thought, not 
 one creature but himself had he ever loved, and now 
 he lay at the end harking back only to the wicked 
 years gone by! 
 
 "None can bring them back," he shuddered. "Not 
 even thou, Clo, who art so strong. None none! 
 Canst pray, Clo?" with the gasp of a craven. 
 
 "Not as chaplains do," she answered. f"I believe 
 not in a God who clamors but for praise."J 
 
 "What dost believe in, then?" 
 
 "In One who will do justice and demands that 
 it shall be done to each thing He has made, by each 
 who bears His image aye and mercy, too but jus- 
 tice always, for justice is mercy's highest self." 
 
 Who knows the mysteries of the human soul ? Who 
 knows the workings of the human brain? The God 
 who is just alone. In this man's mind, which was so 
 near a simple beast's in all its movings, some remote, 
 unborn consciousness was surely reached and vaguely 
 set astir by the clear words thus spoken. 
 
 "Clo, Clo!" he cried; "Clo, Clo!" in terror, clutch- 
 ing her the closer. "What dost thou mean ? In all my 
 nine and sixty years " and rolled his head in agony. 
 
 In all his nine and sixty years he had shown jus- 
 tice to no man, mercy to no woman, since he had 
 thought of none but Jeoffry Wildairs and this truth
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 317 
 
 somehow dimly reached his long-dulled brain and 
 wakened there. 
 
 "Down on thy knees, Clo !" he gasped. "Down on 
 thy knees !" 
 
 It was so horrible the look struggling in his dying 
 face that she went down upon her knees that mo- 
 ment, and so knelt, folding his shaking hands within 
 her own against her breast. 
 
 "Thou who didst make him as he was born into 
 Thy world," she said, "deal with that to which Thou 
 didst give life and death. Show him in this hour, 
 which Thou mad'st also, that Thou art not man who 
 would have vengeance, but that Justice which is 
 God." 
 
 "Then then " he gasped. "Then will He damn 
 me!" 
 
 "He will weigh thee," she said. "And that which 
 His own hand created will He separate from that 
 which was thine own wilful wrong, and this sure He 
 will teach thee how to expiate " 
 
 "Clo," he cried again, "thy mother she was but a 
 girl and died alone I did no justice to her! Daphne! 
 Daphne!" And he shook beneath the bedclothes, shud- 
 dering to his feet, his face growing more gray and 
 pinched. 
 
 "She loved thee once," Clorinda said. "She was 
 a gentle soul and would not forget. She will show 
 thee mercy." 
 
 "Birth she went through," he muttered, "and death 
 alone. Birth and death ! Daphne, my girl" And
 
 3 i8 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 his voice trailed off to nothingness, and he lay staring 
 at space and panting. 
 
 The Duchess sat by him and held his hand. She 
 moved not, though at last he seemed to fall asleep. 
 
 Two hours later he began to stir. He turned his 
 head slowly upon his pillows until his gaze rested upon 
 her, as she sat fronting him. 'Twas as though he had 
 wakened to look at her. 
 
 "Clo!" he cried, and though his voice was but a 
 whisper there was both wonder and new, wild ques- 
 tion in it. "Clo!" 
 
 But she moved not, her great eyes meeting his with 
 steady gaze, and even as they looked at each other 
 his body stretched itself, his lids fell, and he was a 
 dead man.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE DOVES SAT UPON THE WINDOW-LEDGE AND LOWLY 
 COOED AND COOED 
 
 WHEN they had had ten years of happiness, Anne 
 died. 'Twas of no violent illness, it seemed, but that 
 through these years of joy she had been gradually 
 losing life. She had grown thinner and whiter, and 
 her soft eyes bigger and more prayerful. 'Twas in 
 the summer and they were at Camylott, when one 
 sweet day she came from the flower garden with her 
 hands full of roses, and sitting down by her sister in 
 her morning room, swooned away, scattering her blos- 
 soms on her lap and at her feet. 
 
 When she came back to consciousness she looked 
 up at the Duchess with a strange far look, as if her 
 soul had wandered back from some great distance. 
 
 "Let me be borne to bed, sister," she said. "I 
 would lie still. I shall not get up again." 
 
 The look in her face was so unearthly and a thing 
 so full of mystery, that her Grace's heart stood still, 
 for in some strange way she knew the end had 
 come. 
 
 They bore her to her tower and laid her in her bed, 
 
 319
 
 3 20 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 when she looked once round the room and then at her 
 sister. 
 
 " Tis a fair, peaceful room," she said. "And the 
 prayers I have prayed in it have been answered. To- 
 day I saw my mother and she told me so." 
 
 "Anne! Anne!" cried her Grace, leaning over her 
 and gazing fearfully into her face, for though her 
 words sounded like delirium, her look had no wildness 
 in it. And yet, "Anne! Anne! you wander, love," 
 the Duchess cried. 
 
 Anne smiled a strange, sweet smile. "Perchance I 
 do," she said. "I know not truly, but I am very 
 happy. She said that all was over and that I had not 
 done wrong. She had a fair young face with eyes 
 that seemed to have looked always at the stars of 
 heaven. She said I had done no wrong." 
 
 The Duchess's face laid itself down upon the pillow, 
 a river of clear tears running down her cheeks. 
 
 "Wrong !" she said. "You ! Dear one woman of 
 Christ's heart, if ever lived one. You were so weak 
 and I so strong, and yet as I look back it seems that 
 all of good that made me worthy to be wife and 
 mother I learned from your simplicity." 
 
 Through the tower window and the ivy closing 
 round it, the blueness of the summer sky was heavenly 
 fair, soft and light white clouds floating across the 
 clearness of its sapphire. On this Anne's eyes were 
 fixed with an uplifted tenderness until she broke her 
 silence. 
 
 "Soon I shall be away," she said. "Soon all will
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 321 
 
 be left behind. And I would tell you that my prayers 
 were answered and so sure yours will be." 
 
 No man could tell what made the Duchess then 
 fall upon her knees, but she herself knew. 'Twas 
 that she saw in the exalted dying face that turned to 
 hers, concealing nothing more. 
 
 "Anne! Anne!" she cried. "Sister Anne! Mother 
 Anne of my children! You have known you have 
 known all the years and kept it hid!" 
 
 She dropped her queenly head and shielded the 
 whiteness of her face in the coverlid's folds. 
 
 "Aye, sister," Anne said, coming a little back to 
 earth "and from the first. I found a letter near the 
 sundial I guessed I loved you and could do 
 naught else but guard you. Many a day have I 
 watched within the rose garden many a day and 
 night, God pardon me and night. When I knew a 
 letter was hid 'twas my wont to linger near, knowing 
 that my presence would keep others away. And when 
 you approached or he I slipped aside and waited 
 beyond the rose hedge that if I heard a step I might 
 make some sound of warning. Sister, I was your 
 sentinel and being so, knelt while on my guard 
 and prayed." 
 
 "My sentinel!" Clorinda cried. "And knowing 
 all you so guarded me, night and day and prayed 
 God's pity on my poor madness and girl's frenzy!" 
 And she gazed at her in amaze and with burning tears. 
 
 "For my own poor self, sister, as well as for you 
 did I pray God's pity as I knelt," Anne said. "For
 
 322 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 long I did not know it being so ignorant but alas! 
 I loved him too I loved him too! I have loved no 
 other man all my days. He was unworthy any 
 woman's love and I was too lowly a thing for him 
 to cast a glance on; but I was a woman and God 
 made us so." 
 
 Clorinda clutched her pallid hand. 
 
 "Dear God," she cried, "you loved him!" 
 
 Anne moved upon her pillow, drawing weakly, 
 slowly near until her white lips were close upon her 
 sister's ear. 
 
 "The night," she panted, "the night you bore him 
 in your arms " 
 
 Then did the other woman give a shuddering start 
 and lift her head, staring with a frozen face. 
 
 "Down the dark stairway," the panting voice went 
 on, "to the far cellar I kept watch again." 
 
 "You kept watch? You?" the Duchess gasped. 
 
 "Upon the stair which led to the servants' place 
 that I might stop them if- if aught disturbed them, 
 and they oped their doors that I might send them 
 back, telling them it was I." 
 
 Then stooped the Duchess nearer to her, her hands 
 clutching the coverlid, her eyes widening. 
 
 "Anne, Anne," she cried, "you knew that he was 
 there?' 
 
 Anne lay upon her pillow, her own eyes gazing out 
 through the ivy-hung window of her tower at the blue 
 sky and the fleecy clouds. A flock of snow-white doves 
 were flying back and forth across it, and one sat upon
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 323 
 
 the window's deep ledge and cooed. All was warmed 
 and perfumed with summer's sweetness. There 
 seemed naught between her and the uplifting blueness, 
 and naught of the earth was near but the dove's deep- 
 throated cooing and the laughter of her Grace's 
 children floating upward from the garden of flowers 
 below. 
 
 "I lie upon the brink," she said "upon the brink, 
 sister, and methinks my soul is too near to God's pure 
 justice to fear as human things fear, and judge as 
 earth does. She said I did no wrong. Yes, I knew." 
 "And knowing," her sister cried, "you came that 
 afternoon " 
 
 "To stand by that which lay hidden, that I might 
 keep the rest away being a poor creature and tim- 
 orous and weak." 
 
 "Weak, weak," the Duchess cried amid a greater 
 burst of streaming tears. "Aye, I have dared to call 
 you so, who have the heart of a great lioness. Oh, 
 sweet Anne, weak!" 
 
 " 'Twas love," Anne whispered ; "your love was 
 strong and so was mine. That other love was not 
 for me. I knew that my long woman's life would pass 
 without it for woman's life is long, alas! if love 
 comes not. But you were love's self and I worshiped 
 you and it. And to myself I said praying forgiveness 
 on my knees that one woman should know love if I 
 did not ; and being so poor and imperfect a thing, what 
 mattered if I gave my soul for you and love which 
 is so great and rules the world. Look at the doves,
 
 3 2 4 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 sister, look at them, flying past the heavenly blueness 
 and she said I did no wrong." 
 
 Her hand was wet with tears fallen upon it as 
 her Duchess sister knelt and held and kissed it, 
 sobbing. 
 
 "You knew, poor love, you knew?" she cried. 
 
 "Aye, all of it I knew," Anne said. "His torture 
 of you and the madness of your horror. And when 
 he forced himself within the paneled parlor that day 
 of fate, I knew he came to strike some deadly blow 
 and in such anguish I waited in my chamber for the 
 end, that when it came not, I crept down praying that 
 somehow I might come between and I went in the 
 room." 
 
 "And there what saw you?" quoth the Duchess, 
 shuddering. "Somewhat you must have seen or you 
 could not have known." 
 
 "Aye," said Anne, "and heard;" and the chest 
 heaved. 
 
 "Heard!" cried Clorinda. "Great God of Mercy!" 
 
 "The room was empty, and I stood alone; it was so 
 still I was afraid. It seemed so like the silence of the 
 grave, and then there came a sound a long and shud- 
 dering breath but one and then " 
 
 The memory brought itself too keenly back and 
 she fell a-shivering. 
 
 "I heard a slipping sound and a dead hand fell on 
 the floor lying outstretched, its palm turned upward, 
 showing beneath the valance of the couch." 
 
 She threw her frail arms around her sister's neck,
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 325 
 
 and as Clorinda clasped her own, breathing gaspingly, 
 they swayed together. 
 
 "What did you then?" the Duchess cried in a wild 
 whisper. 
 
 "I prayed God keep me sane and knelt and looked 
 below. I thrust it back, the dead hand, saying aloud, 
 'Swoon you must not, swoon you must not, swoon 
 you shall not God help, God help' and I saw! The 
 purple mark his eyes upturned his fair curls spread, 
 and I lost strength and fell upon my side, and for 
 a minute lay there knowing that shudder of breath 
 had been the very last expelling of his being, and his 
 hand had fallen by its own weight." 
 
 "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" Clorinda cried, 
 and over and over said the word, and over again. 
 
 "How v/as't, how was't?" Anne shuddered, cling- 
 ing to her. "How was't 'twas done? I have so suf- 
 fered, being weak I have so prayed! God will have 
 mercy but it has done me to death, this knowledge, 
 and before I die I pray you tell me, that I may speak 
 true at God's throne." 
 
 "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" Clorinda 
 groaned. "Oh, God !" And having cried so, looking 
 up, was blanched as a thing struck with death, her 
 eyes like a great stag's that stands at bay. 
 
 "Stay, stay," she cried, with a sudden shock of 
 horror, for a new thought had come to her which, 
 strangely, she had not had before. "You thought I 
 murdered him?" 
 
 Convulsive sobs heaved Anne's poor chest, tears
 
 326 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 sweeping her hollow .cheeks, her thin soft hands cling- 
 ing piteously to her sister's. 
 
 "Through all these years I have known nothing/* 
 she wept; "sister, I have known nothing but that I 
 found him hidden there, a dead man whom you so 
 hated and so feared." 
 
 Her hands resting upon the bed's edge, Clorinda 
 held her body upright, such passion of wonder, love, 
 and pitying, adoring awe in her large eyes, as was a 
 thing like to worship. 
 
 "You thought I murdered him, and loved me still !" 
 she said. "You thought I murdered him and still you 
 shielded me and gave me chance to live, and to repent, 
 and know love's highest sweetness! You thought I 
 murdered him, and yet your soul had mercy! Now 
 do I believe in God for only a God could make a 
 heart so noble." 
 
 "And you did not?" cried out Anne, and raised 
 upon her elbow, her breast panting, but her eyes grow- 
 ing wide with light as from stars from heaven. "Oh, 
 sister love thanks be to Christ who died !" 
 
 The Duchess rose and stood up tall and great, her 
 arms out-thrown. 
 
 "I think 'twas God himself who did it," she said, 
 "though 'twas I who struck the blow. He drove me 
 mad and blind, he tortured me and thrust to my heart's 
 core. He taunted me with that vile thing nature will 
 not let women bear, and did it in my Gerald's name, 
 calling on him. And then I struck with my whip, 
 knowing nothing, not seeing, only striking like a
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 327 
 
 goaded, dying thing. He fell he fell and lay there 
 and all was done." 
 
 "But not with murd'rous thought only through 
 frenzy and a cruel chance a cruel cruel chance. 
 And of your own will blood is not upon your hand," 
 Anne panted, and sank back upon her pillow. 
 
 "With deepest oaths I swear," Clorinda said, and she 
 spoke through her clenched teeth, "if I had not loved 
 if Gerald had not been my soul's life and I his, I 
 would have stood upright and laughed in his face at 
 his devil's threats. Should I have feared ? You know 
 me. Was there a thing on earth or in heaven or hell 
 I feared until love rent me? 'Twould but have fired 
 my blood, and made me mad with fury that dares all. 
 'Spread it abroad !' I would have cried to him ; 'tell it 
 to all the world, craven and outcast, whose vileness 
 all men know, and see how I shall bear myself and 
 how I shall drive through the town with head erect. 
 As I bore myself when I set the rose crown on my 
 head, so shall I bear myself then. And you shall see 
 what comes!' This would I have said, and held to it 
 and gloried. But I knew love, and there was an an- 
 guish that I could not endure that my Gerald should 
 look at me with changed eyes feeling that somewhat 
 of his rightful meed had gone. And I was all dis- 
 traught and conquered. Of ending his base life I 
 never thought, never at my wildest, though I had 
 thought to end my own; but when fate struck the 
 blow for me, then I swore that carrion should not taint 
 my whole life through. It should not should not
 
 328 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 for 'twas fate's self had doomed me to my ruin. And 
 there it lay until the night for this I planned, that 
 being of such great strength for a woman, I could bear 
 his body in my arms to the farthest of that labyrinth 
 of cellars I had commanded to be cut off from the 
 rest and closed. And so I did when all were sleeping 
 but you, poor Anne but you! And there I laid him 
 and there he lies to-day an evil thing turned to a 
 handful of dust." 
 
 "It was not murder," whispered Anne. "No, it was 
 not." She lifted to her sister's gaze a quivering lip. 
 "And yet once I had loved him years I had loved 
 him," she said, whispering still. "And in a woman 
 there is ever somewhat that the mother creature feels." 
 The hand which held her sister's shook as with an 
 ague and her poor lips quivered. "Sister, I saw 
 him again!" 
 
 The Duchess drew closer as she gasped : "Again !" 
 
 "I could not rest," the poor voice said. "He had 
 been so base, he was so beautiful, and so unworthy 
 love and he was dead, none knowing, untouched by 
 any hand that even pitied him that he was so base a 
 thing for that indeed is piteous when death comes 
 and none can be repentant. And he lay so hard; so 
 hard upon the stones." 
 
 Her teeth were chattering, and with a breath drawn 
 like a wild sob of terror the Duchess threw her arm 
 about her and drew her nearer. 
 
 "Sweet Anne," she shuddered. "Sweet Anne 
 come back; you wander!"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 329 
 
 "Nay, 'tis not wandering," Anne said. " Tis true, 
 sister. There is no night these years gone by I have 
 not remembered it again and seen. In the night after 
 that you bore him there I prayed until the mid 
 hours when all were sleeping fast and then I 
 stole down in my bare feet that none could hear 
 me and at last I found my way in the black dark 
 feeling the walls until I reached that farthest 
 door in the stone and then I lighted my taper and 
 oped it." 
 
 "Anne!" cried the Duchess. "Anne, look through 
 the tower window at the blueness of the sky at the 
 blueness, Anne!" but drops of cold water had started 
 out and stood upon her brow. 
 
 "He lay there in his grave it was a little black 
 place with its stone walls his fair locks were tum- 
 bled" Anne went on whispering "the spot was 
 black upon his brow and methought he had stopped 
 mocking and surely looked upon some great and awful 
 thing which asked of him a question. I knelt and 
 laid his curls straight and his hands, and tried to shut 
 his eyes, but close they would not, but stared at that 
 which questioned. And having loved him so, I kissed 
 his poor cheek as his mother might have done that 
 he might not stand outside having carried not one 
 tender human thought with him. And, oh, I prayed, 
 sister, I prayed for his poor soul with all my own. 
 'If there is one noble or gentle thing he has ever 
 done through all his life,' I prayed, 'Jesus, remem- 
 ber it Christ, do not forget! We who are human
 
 330 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 do so few things that are noble. Oh, surely one 
 must count." 
 
 The Duchess's head lay near her sister's breast, and 
 she had fallen a-sobbing a-sobbing and weeping like 
 a young, broken child. 
 
 "Oh, brave and noble, pitiful, strong, fair soul!" 
 she cried. "As Christ loved you have loved, and He 
 would hear your praying. Since you so pleaded, He 
 would find one thing to hang His mercy on." 
 
 She lifted her fair, tear-streaming face, clasping her 
 hands as one praying. 
 
 "And I and I," she cried, "have I not built a tem- 
 ple on his grave? Have I not tried to live a fair life 
 and be as Christ bade me? Have I not loved and 
 pitied and succored those in pain? Have I not filled 
 a great man's days with bliss and love and wifely wor- 
 ship? Have I not given him noble children, bred in 
 high lovingness and taught to love all things God 
 made, even the very beasts that perish, since they too 
 suffer as all do? Have I left aught undone? Oh, 
 sister, I have so prayed that I left naught. Even 
 though I could not believe that there was One who, 
 ruling all, could yet be pitiless as He is to some, I 
 have prayed that which sure it seems must be, though 
 we comprehend it not to teach me faith in some- 
 thing greater than my poor self and not of earth. 
 Say this to Christ's self when you are face to face 
 say this to Him, I pray you. Anne, Anne, look not 
 so strangely through the window at the blueness of 
 the sky, sweet soul, but look at me."
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 331 
 
 For Anne lay upon her pillow so smiling that 'twas 
 a strange thing to behold. It seemed as she were smil- 
 ing at the whiteness of the doves against the blue. A 
 moment her sister stood up watching her, and then 
 she stirred, meaning to go to call one of the servants 
 waiting outside, but though she moved not her gaze 
 from the tower window, Mistress Anne faintly spoke. 
 
 "Nay stay," she breathed. "I go softly stay." 
 
 Clorinda fell upon her knees again and bent her lips 
 close to her ear. This was death, and yet she feared 
 it not this was the passing of a so.ul, and while it 
 went it seemed so fair and loving a thing that she 
 could ask it her last question her greatest know- 
 ing it was so near to God that its answer must be 
 rest. 
 
 "Anne, Anne," she whispered, "must he know, my 
 Gerald? Must I must I tell him all? If so I must, 
 I will upon my knees." 
 
 The doves came flying downward from the blue, 
 and lighted on the window-stone and cooed. Anne's 
 answer was as low as her soft breath, and her still 
 eyes were filled with that she saw, but which another 
 could not. 
 
 "Nay," she breathed. "Tell him not. What need- 
 wait, and let God tell hint who understands." 
 
 Then did her soft breath stop and she lay still, her 
 eyes yet open and smiling at the blossoms, and the 
 doves who sat upon the window-ledge and lowly cooed 
 and cooed.
 
 332 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 'Twas her duchess sister who clad her for her last 
 sleeping and made her chamber fair. The hand of 
 no other touched her, and while 'twas done the tower 
 chamber was full of the golden sunshine, and the doves 
 ceased not to flutter about the window and coo as if 
 they spoke lovingly to each other of what lay within 
 the room. Then the children came to look, their arms 
 full of blossoms and flowering sprays. They had been 
 told only fair things of death, and knowing but these 
 fair things, thought of it but as the opening of a 
 golden door. They entered softly as entering the 
 chamber of a king, and moving tenderly, with 
 low and gentle speech, spread all their flowers 
 about the bed, laying them round her head, on her 
 breast, and in her hands, and strewing them thick 
 everywhere. 
 
 "She lies in a bower and smiles at us," one said. 
 "She hath grown beautiful like you, mother, and her 
 face seems in some way like a white star in the 
 morning." 
 
 "She loves us as she ever did," the fair child 
 Daphne said; "she will never cease to love us, and 
 will be our angel. Now have we an angel of our 
 own." 
 
 When the Duke returned, who had been absent since 
 the day before, the Duchess led him to the tower cham- 
 ber, and they stood together hand in hand, and gazed 
 at her peace. 
 
 "Gerald," the Duchess said, in her tender voice, 
 "she smiles, does not she?"
 
 A LADY OF QUALITY 333 
 
 "Yes," was Osmonde's answer. "Yes, love, as if 
 at God, who has smiled at herself faithful, tender 
 woman heart!" 
 
 The hand which he held in his clasp clung closer. 
 The other crept to his shoulder and lay there trem- 
 bling. 
 
 "How faithful and how tender, my Gerald," Clo- 
 rinda said, "I only know; she is my saint sweet 
 Anne, whom I dared treat so lightly in my poor, way- 
 ward days. Gerald, she knows all my sins, and 
 to-day she has carried them in her pure hands to 
 God and asked His mercy on them. She had none of 
 her own. 
 
 "And so having done, dear heart, she lies amid her 
 flowers and smiles." And he drew her white hand to 
 press it against his breast. 
 
 While her body slept beneath soft turf and flowers, 
 and that which was herself was given in God's heaven 
 all joys for which her earthly being had yearned, even 
 when unknowing how to name its longing, each year 
 that had passed made more complete and splendid the 
 lives of those she so had loved. Never, 'twas said, 
 had woman done such deeds of gentleness and shown 
 so sweet and generous a wisdom as the great Duchess. 
 None who were weak were in danger if she used her 
 strength to aid them; no man or woman was a lost 
 thing whom she tried to save ; such tasks she set her- 
 self as no lady had ever done before, but 'twas not 
 her way to fail her will being so powerful, her brain
 
 334 A LADY OF QUALITY 
 
 so clear, her heart so purely noble. Pauper and prince, 
 noble and hind, honored her and her lord alike, .and 
 all felt wonder at their happiness. It seemed that they 
 had learned life's meaning and the honoring of love, 
 and this they taught to their children, to the enrich- 
 ing of a long and noble line. In the ripeness of years 
 they passed from earth in as beauteous peace as the 
 sun sets, and upon a tablet above their resting-place 
 there are inscribed lines like these: 
 
 "Here sleeps by her husband the purest and noblest 
 lady God e'er loved, yet the high and gentle deeds of 
 her chaste, sweet life sleep not, but live and grow, 
 and so will do so long as earth is earth." 
 
 THE END
 
 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in 1849 at Manchester, 
 England, and at the close of the American Civil War came 
 to the United States and lived in Tennessee until her mar- 
 riage with Dr. L. M. Burnett in 1873. I H J ^P^ sne divorced 
 Dr. Burnett and married Mr. Stephen Townsend. Her 
 homes are in Washington and in Europe. Her first notice- 
 able story appeared in "Scribner's Magazine" in 1872, and 
 the one that established her reputation was "That Lass o' 
 Lowrie's" 1877. H gr other stories are as follows: "Surly 
 Tim and Other Stories" "Haworth's," "Louisiana," "A Fair 
 Barbarian," "Through One Administration," "Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy" "Sara Crewe" "Little Saint Elizabeth," "The 
 Pretty Sister of Jose," "A Lady of Quality," "His Grace 
 of Osmonde," "The Captain's Youngest," "In Connection 
 with the De Willoughby Claim," "The Making of a Mar- 
 chioness," and "The Little Unfairy Princess." 
 
 Of plays she has written, besides "Esmcralda," in col- 
 laboration with Mr. W- H. Gillette, the following: "Phyl- 
 lis," "The Showman's Daughter," "The First Gentleman of 
 Europe," "Little Lord Fauntleroy," which has brought its au- 
 thor over $100,000, and, in collaboration with Mr. Townsend, 
 
 33S
 
 "Nixie" and "A Lady of Quality," in the latter of which 
 plays Miss Julia Arthur made a great success as the heroine. 
 Mrs. Townsend is especially interested in children, and 
 has not only written many charming stories to entertain 
 them, such as "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "Editha's Burglar" 
 etc., but in many other ways has done much to improve 
 their lot. 
 
 336
 
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