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 MRS. B L I G H 
 
 H IWorcl 
 
 KV 
 
 RHODA BROUGHTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 COMF.TH L-r AS A FI.OWEk,' 'DOCTOR CtriD,' 'A[..\s1' fiTC. 
 
 LONDON 
 RIGHARD BENTLEY AND SON 
 
 gubliilier? in (Pviin.in) to ^jcr ittiijcstD the Quccit' 
 
 1892 
 
 [A/i rights ■'■est'^'ed]
 
 S5'iM7
 
 A N I ) R E W L A N G, 
 
 THIS Sl.KNDER STORY 
 
 IS OFFERED UY 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 iT 
 
 CHAPTER I, 
 
 The portals of that as unhandsome as highly- 
 frequented place of worship, Holy Trinity 
 Church, Chelsea, have just let loose the 
 customary crowd of well-fed, well-to-do 
 attendants on the 11.30 Sunday service. 
 Their ears, and let us hope their hearts 
 too, have been receiving the unsparing 
 rebukes and virile admonishments weekly 
 administered to them by the incumbent. It 
 is doubtful whether the spirit of all the 
 encomiums lavished on him bv his furred 
 and feathered flock as they stream home to 
 
 I
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 their excellent luncheons this sharp-breathed 
 Lenten Sunday would please him. 
 
 ** He was finer than ever to-day !" says a 
 mother to her daughter, in that tone of 
 cesthetic relish that might have applauded 
 the manner in which a popular actor has 
 given a famous point, or a favourite soprano 
 taken a high note ; " I think it is the best 
 series we have ever had ; it outdoes the 
 Beatitudes last year." 
 
 " I like the Beatitudes best still," replies 
 the daughter, "but" — enthusiastically — "he 
 certainly is A i. I tried to catch your eye 
 when he made that unmistakable allusion to 
 
 baccarat. I wonder how Lord felt ! 
 
 It is so annoying that we sit behind him, 
 and so could not see his face. I noticed 
 that he bent his head quite low down." 
 
 " I expect a good many people have come 
 out not feeling very comfortable," replies the 
 parent, with a complacency which shows that 
 she has no apprehension ol belonging to that 
 distempered band, and in the same spirit of 
 confident superiority which dictated Totty
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Peyser's speech about her brothers : " Dey 
 naughty naughty boys ! mc dood." 
 
 " Mrs. BHo-h has ofone out of mournino- !" 
 cries the g:irl, with that admirably abrupt 
 chaniife of idea {or which the female mind 
 has a special aptitude ; and indicating a 
 middle-sized woman, who is lightly and alone 
 walking homewards ahead of them. " I 
 knew what it nieant when she broke out 
 into an eruption of Parma violets on Septua- 
 gesima Sunday." 
 
 " She has somethinL"" yellow about her, 
 has not she ? Dear me, how bad my eyes 
 are ! 
 
 " She has planted a mimosa bush in her 
 bonnet : she is determined that there shall 
 be no mistake about her being out of mourn- 
 ing. I fancy" — uncharitably — "that inside 
 she has been out <;f mourning some time." 
 
 " Poor woman, one cannot blame her! It 
 would have been rank hypocrisy in her to 
 have pretended it was anything but a happy 
 release ; and 1 hear that, in sj)ite of her 
 mim(jsa, she has a perfect horror of a second
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 venture. Ah, Mr. Blank" (to a beautifully- 
 clad young gentleman who now joins them), 
 " I hope you took the baccarat to heart. 
 We were just talkinL>' of Mrs. Blioh. I was 
 saying that I hear she has a perfect horror of 
 a second marriage." 
 
 The young man, in answer, gives a " H'm !" 
 half facetious, and wholly dubious ; and both 
 ladies lauoh. 
 
 " That is what no man could ever be 
 induced to believe about an)' widow !" one 
 of them says, and then they all turn a corner 
 and disappear. 
 
 Meanwhile the unwitting person whose 
 name has been thus bandied about walks on. 
 with that light step, which means in her case 
 less youth, though she is young, than a 
 strong, if teniporary, cheerfulness, which 
 seems to be blowing her softly along her 
 homeward road, like a pleasant light breeze. 
 It blows her into the door of a little clean 
 house in Tite Street (obviously she is not 
 rich, since she lives in Tite Street), up a 
 narrow staircase, which yet with its white
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 paint and its mattinq- dado, is not without 
 its claim to ck'L^ance ; and into an exceed- 
 ingly unpretentious, yet palni-y and daffo- 
 dill-v drawincr-room. where her three dop-s — 
 a woman with so man)' do^s must needs 
 be childless — receive her, each after its 
 manner. Sally, with characteristic blunder- 
 ing- stupidity, mistakes her for a buro-lar, 
 and rushes barkinq- at her ; Tory, too com- 
 fortable to stir out of her fireside basket, 
 sleepily waves a civil but not enthusiastic 
 tail ; while poor little Twankle wreathes his 
 silly hairy face in joyous simpers, to express 
 his rapture at welcominq- her back froni the 
 perils of morning service. She answers each 
 one suitably, but not, as they all feel, quite 
 so whole-heartedly as usual, and pushing 
 them gently aside, walks over to the fire- 
 jjlace, and looks at herself in the neo-Adams 
 glass over the chimney-piece. As she does 
 so, sh(^ smiles. There are happy women 
 who possess faces at whose reriection one 
 would think the\- must n(;eds alwavs smile. 
 But Mrs. Bligh is not one of these; a fact
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 of which no one is better aware than she. 
 And yet presently, as she looks, her smile 
 grows into a laugh, and she says out loud, 
 as people who live alone gain a habit of 
 doinsf, " I am looking- so nice, almost hand- 
 some. Like Miss Squeers." 
 
 The dogs are so surprised at her lonely 
 mirth, that she laughs again ; and, in the 
 excess of her good spirits, catches up Tory 
 in her arms, and makes her also look at her- 
 self in the mirror. But Tory has no personal 
 vanity, and turns away her fawn-coloured 
 head, bored, and yawning. With a kiss 
 Mrs. Bligh sets down the pretty Sybarite, 
 who presently forming with the other two a 
 little dismal row, sends reproachful yaps 
 through the uprights of the balcony clown 
 after her mistress's figure, as with a step 
 even cheerfuller than that which had brought 
 it home from church, it lessens along the 
 sunshinv street. Mrs. Blioh's entertainer 
 lives in May Fair ; so she has plenty of 
 time to get up an appetite during her long 
 walk, by her Chelsea's squalid King's Road,
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 and by dull Eaton Square, up correct 
 Grosvenor Place, and throuoh the Park, 
 where the crocuses, strewn so prettily broad- 
 cast, are beginning to push their March fires 
 between the o-rass blades. Her calculations 
 of her own speed must be a little out, as 
 she finds her hostess alone in her drawino-- 
 room. 
 
 " How springy you look !" her friend says, 
 with a glance at the "mimosa bush," after 
 all a very modest little shrub, in her bonnet ; 
 " and what a colour vou have o-ot !" 
 
 " Is that a euphemistic way of telling me 
 mv nose is red ?" replies the '>-uest. lau''-hincr ; 
 yet gladdened by the flattering tone, as only 
 a bright-witted plain woman, whose mind 
 gets a great many more compliments than 
 her body, can be. 
 
 " Oh no, it is not at all red ; at least, 
 nothing to speak of," rejoins the lady of the 
 house absently ; being, indeed, much more 
 occupied by the thoughts of her approaching 
 luncheon party, than by care for the state of 
 her friend's complexion. " I am so glad you
 
 8 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 are here so early, as I shall ha\e time to tell 
 you who is coming- ; they are all men — you 
 will not mind that ?~-but I am afraid I have 
 not got any special friend of yours." 
 
 " My men-friends might be counted upon 
 the fingers of one hand, with a good many 
 fingers to spare," replies Mrs. Bligh gravely. 
 " So that is not very surprising." 
 
 "Well, there is Mr. Stanley, who is our 
 First Secretary of Legation at Petersburg. 
 I believe he has some awful stories about the 
 famine in Russia." 
 
 " I hope he will not tell them at luncheon!" 
 
 " Then there is Mr. Blank, the Theoso- 
 phist. He wants to become a Mahatma ; 
 so he has lived upon slops for fifteen 
 years." 
 
 " Will that make him a Mahatma?" 
 
 " Oh, he thinks it will help him to get up 
 to a higher level, or some such rubbish !" 
 
 " Yes ?" 
 
 " Well, then there is the coming impres- 
 sionist painter, Mr. Stannay ; you remember 
 that portrait by him of Mrs. Glanville
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Thomas in the New Gallery last year. He 
 painted her in a strong- north li,^'ht, as he 
 al\va\'s does, and made such an object of her 
 that she wanted her husband to prosecute 
 him for libel." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Then there is the author of that Ibsenish 
 play, which was acted only once, because the 
 Lord Chan^berlain stopped it after the first 
 performance — so provoking, just as I had 
 taken tickets. It is in the house, but I have 
 never had time to look at it." 
 
 " What have I done to be included in so 
 illustrious a band ?" asked the visitor, half 
 ironically, and yet half seriously too ; " but 
 I suppose in the most rccherchd feast there 
 must be bread and potatoes. I am your 
 bread and potatoes," 
 
 " I may have Wyndham," pursues the 
 hostess, still too preoccupied to pa)' much 
 heed to her companion's interpolations ; " he 
 asked me to let him leave it open ; he is 
 perfectly worn out. They have been re- 
 hearsing their new piece till three e\-ery
 
 lo MRS. BLIGH 
 
 mornino- ; fancy that ! but he said he would 
 come if he possibly could." 
 
 " At every fresh celebrity you mention, I 
 feel more and more inclined to crawl amone 
 the legs of the piano," says Mrs. Bligh, still 
 with that mixture of irony and serious mean- 
 ing- ; " how will you account for me ? You 
 will be as put to in explaining me as Mrs. 
 Blanco White was the other dav in the case 
 of the solitary obscurity who had crept into 
 one of her ' Hon ' parties, and whom she had 
 to introduce as ' Mr. Smith, who — who — 
 whose uncle was so fearfully mangled in the 
 Tay Bridge disaster.' " 
 
 " Then there is Robert Coke, the sculptor ; 
 of course you know who I mean." 
 
 Mrs. Bligh has been all along expecting 
 this name ; so she hopes that she shows no 
 particular emotion now that it has been pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 " Sir Robert he is now," pursues the hostess, 
 " only I always forg-et to call him so. You 
 know he was K.C.B.'d the other day." 
 
 "Not K.C.B.'d," corrects Mrs. Bligh
 
 MRS. BLIGH II 
 
 quickly, the next instant reo-rettini;- that she 
 has done so. " The Queen made him a 
 baronet." 
 
 "A baronet — yes, to be sure, so she did. 
 I suppose you saw it in the papers ?" 
 
 It is a careless question which does not 
 trouble itself about an answer, and the woman 
 to whom it is addressed would much rather 
 not give one, and )"et with a diseased honesty 
 she thinks it necessar\' to reply. 
 
 " No. I did not ; he told me of It himself." 
 
 "You know him?" cries the other, with 
 an air of extreme surprise tinged with 
 reeret ; "if I had known that I would have 
 put you near him." 
 
 Mrs. Bligh is conscious of a dry inward 
 amusement, coupled with the undoubted 
 disappointment which she receives from the 
 implication that her place at luncheon is not 
 to be in the great man's neighbourhood. 
 It is obvious that she is held to be far too 
 obscure and uninteresting" to be set within 
 the radius of the biggest star in Lady St. 
 George's firmament.
 
 12 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " T am afraid it is too late to change it 
 now ; it would entail the alteration of my 
 whole table, and you can talk to him after 
 luncheon." 
 
 " I have not the slightest reason for 
 supposing- that he will wish to talk to me," 
 says Mrs. Bligh with precipitate brusqueness, 
 and with an absurd superstitious feeling that 
 even to imply a desire on the part of the 
 person alluded to to con\'erse with her will 
 be the surest way of preventing his " changing 
 the weather " with her. 
 
 " And so you know him .^" The curiosity 
 of the question coloured, as its object feels 
 with a vet drier sense of amusement than 
 before, by a distinct increase of respect. 
 "Why, you always tell me that you do not 
 know anybody !" 
 
 "I do not ; knowing him was only an 
 accident !" 
 
 "A very pleasant accident! I wish such 
 accidents happened to me! Is not he 
 
 delightful r 
 
 Even Mrs. Bligh's distorted sense of
 
 MRS. BLIGH 13 
 
 probity does not insist on her answering this 
 question, and Lady St. George continues : 
 
 " I wonder how you came across him ? 
 Was it at any common acquaintance ot ours — 
 at the house of anyone I know ?" 
 
 Mrs. BHgh is looking straight before her, 
 and her voice is trenchant and dry. 
 
 " I should not think so. I met hini last 
 Christmas at the house of a relation of 
 mine, of whose wife he was doing a bust." 
 
 " H'm ! I am afraid his women are not 
 as a rule quite as good as his men and his 
 animals." 
 
 Mrs. Bligh reddens as if the disparage- 
 ment had been of herself. 
 
 " They were all delighted with it," she 
 says short!)' and with warmth ; the next 
 second repenting of the officious ardour ol 
 her defence, the more so when she sees the 
 vague surprise at such hot partisanship written 
 in Lady St. George's eyes, and hears her 
 next sincerelv regretful words. 
 
 "I wish I 'had known earlier that \oli 
 were such Lrreat triends."
 
 14 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " But we are not !" cries the other, in a 
 dischiimer quite as eager as her late champion- 
 ship. " You must not run away with such 
 an idea ; we get on very well when we meet, 
 
 but " 
 
 Her cheeks are Hushed ; her voice, never 
 quite of Cordelia's quality, is raised in her 
 excitement ; and her back beino" turned 
 towards the door, she does not perceive that 
 the object of discussion, who unlike all 
 artists and most celebrities has the small but 
 gracious virtue of punctuality, is entering the 
 room. The sculptor has perfecdy heard her 
 resonant denial of intimacy with somebody, 
 has instantly and justly concluded that that 
 somebody is himself; and being a humane 
 person, lingers over his salutation to the lady 
 of the house, before, in answer to the latter's 
 smiling " Here is a friend of yours !" he turns 
 to greet her. Her mode of showing her 
 confusion is to receive him with oflacial 
 frigidity, and as the perfect courtesy of his 
 manner is uncoloured by any tinge oi cuiprcsse- 
 nient, Lady St. George feels not unnaturaHy
 
 MRS. BLIGH 15 
 
 that her friend has misled her. " Why did 
 she give me to understand that they were 
 intimate ? ' is her inward reflection ; " they 
 are evidently nothing" of the kind." She is 
 confirmed in this opinion by the prompt and 
 comfortable way in which the artist drops 
 into the corner of the sofa beside herself and 
 remains there, while the guests arrive, and 
 interpose their frock-coated figures between 
 him and the lady, whom he shows no slightest 
 symptom of a desire to approach. "He does 
 not know that I am not to be near him at 
 luncheon !" is the poor woman's thought. 
 " Oh, if someone would tell him !" The 
 aspiration in its naif unlikeliness is worthier 
 of a mind of seventeen than one of twenty- 
 nine, and she realizes how far it is from beino- 
 fulfilled, when, on the move to the dining- 
 room, she finds that her allotted place is 
 between the author of the " suppressed " 
 <h-aina and a young unknown, whose insignifi- 
 cance is sufficiently proved by the fact that 
 he has not been thought worth including in 
 the hostess's descriptive cataloa"ue. For the
 
 1 6 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 first moment or two her irrational disappoint- 
 ment — for had not she known it all along ? — 
 is so great that she can't lift her eyes from 
 her plate. Was it for this that she had but 
 half listened this morning to the pungent 
 eloquence of that great preacher ? that she 
 had planted in her bonnet that unfitting Hag 
 of festival, that garish, futile mimosa sprig ? 
 After awhile she lifts her look, and snatches 
 a further olance at the other end of the table 
 to see whether her mortification is in any 
 degree shared by the object of it. But a 
 distinguished man of fifty, renowned for the 
 goodness of his manners, cannot wear his 
 heart on his sleeve, whatever an unimportant 
 widow of twenty-nine may do. On his lace 
 even she cannot find the faintest indication 
 of disappointment, nor if she could look into 
 his heart would she find much. His thoughts, 
 if translated into words, would probably run 
 thus : " Poor dear woman, I should like to 
 have had her next me ; but she would not 
 have allowed me to speak to anyone else ; 
 she would not have eaten a mouthful of
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 luncheon, or IcL mc cat any ; on the \vhol(j, 
 it is quite as well as it is." Seeing- hint so 
 philosophic, she vvotikl iain be philosophic 
 too, and tries to throw as much life and 
 sprig'htliness as a very crestfallen spirit and 
 an unfortunately truthful nature will allow 
 into her opening- remarks to her neighbour 
 the playwright. Btit whether it be that the 
 Lord Chamberlain lies heavy on his soul, or 
 that he does not think her worth talking to 
 (she herself attributes it to the latter cause), 
 he responds to her one observation so ciu'tly 
 that she resentfullv determines not to hazard 
 another. She must either apply herself to 
 her fellow-obscurity on the left-hand side or 
 address herself to listening. The diplomatist, 
 it seems, is an old acquaintance of the 
 sculptor's (although she flatters herself with 
 the hitter's intimacy, how little she knows of 
 his life really !), and now, though happiU' 
 reticent about the Russian famine, is telling 
 th(t artist a good story. It is apparentl)' 
 about a celebrated actress, " You know how 
 magnificent her proportions are now," laugh- 
 
 ><:• 
 
 'f
 
 i8 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 ing ; " well, I assure you, ten years ago she 
 was acting at the Gyinnase in a part where 
 she had to fall down in a fit or a faint, or 
 something ; she was then such a skeleton 
 that a Frenchman describino- it to me after- 
 
 wards said, " C etait une veritable " But 
 
 what the Frenchman said Mrs. Blio-h is not 
 destined to hear ; for at this stage a hesi- 
 tating voice at her left elbow, hesitating, 
 but yet loud enough effectually to drown 
 the point of the story, strikes in with a timid 
 remark : 
 
 " I think that we have an acquaintance 
 in common. I think that you know Miss 
 Smith ?" 
 
 " I know twelve compound and twenty-five 
 single Miss Smiths." answers she brusquely; 
 but she might as well have been civiller and 
 more leisurely, for by the time that she can 
 restore her attention to what is passing at the 
 other end of the table both the tale and the 
 topic have passed by, and given place to 
 another. It is her own friend who is the 
 spokesman now, and how respectfully every-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 19 
 
 one is listeniiiLi' to him ! This is sure to be 
 something really worth hearing. 
 
 "He, the Bishop, was dining one day at a 
 house, when the footman upset a whole plate 
 of soup down his back, right between his 
 neck and his collar ; he only looked round 
 the table and said very mildly, ' Would 
 some 
 
 But the prelate's do7i mot is destined to be 
 as much lost upon Mrs. Bligh as the Parisian's, 
 for ao-ain the irritatino- voice beside her inter- 
 poses : 
 
 " Do not you think that it is quite a mis- 
 fortune to have such a common name as 
 Smith ?" 
 
 " 1 know far worse misfortunes," replies 
 the widow piquantly, turning first a homicidal 
 look, and then a determined shoulder, upon 
 her tormentor. 
 
 ^ # # # # 
 
 " Who is the poor wretch whom you have 
 
 been tossino- and oorino- ?" asks a caressino- 
 000 t>' 
 
 good-humoured voice in her ear, as she leaves
 
 20 
 
 MRS BLIGH 
 
 the dining-room. " I am glad it is not me 
 this time !" and after all her anticipations, 
 this is the sum of her conversation with her 
 friend.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 If. like Richard II.'s queen. Mrs. Elijah had 
 set forth : 
 
 "Adorned hither, Hke sweet May," 
 
 she is certainly, as was that poor lady, 
 
 "Sent back like Hallowmas, or shortest day." 
 
 She has scarceh^ eneroy enough to turn 
 the latchkey in her own door, or to cliirib the 
 stairs, which all the dogs — even lazy Tory — • 
 come trundling- noisily down to meet her. 
 They can hardly believe their ears when she 
 crossly bids them get out of her way. But 
 there; is a far severer disappointment in store 
 tor thcMii than that caused bv any want of 
 amenity in her manner, when they by-and-by 
 discover that their earthly providence is not
 
 22 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 going to take them for their usual Sunday 
 walk. They watch her nervously as she 
 irritably pulls up the blinds, rattles the poker 
 among the sleeping coals, and finally throwing 
 off her cloak, flings herself into an armchair. 
 One slight spark of hope lingers in their 
 minds, from the fact of her not having' taken 
 off her bonnet, but by-and-by even this dies 
 out. It is difficult for a kindhearted person 
 to resist the urgent entreaty of six humbly 
 insistent eyes, and though in the case of Mrs. 
 Bligh's clogs the number is reduced to five — 
 since Sail was relieved of one in early life 
 by a cat — her will generally melts like wax 
 before the fire of that mutely eloquent joint 
 stare. To-day she is obdurate. It is not 
 that she is At Home on Sundays, being 
 rather new to London, with few acquaint- 
 ances and less belief in any ardent desire on 
 the part of those few to see her. 
 
 The one person whom she had credited 
 with a taste for her conversation has to-day 
 with unmistakable plainness shown her her 
 error. That she should ever have fallen into
 
 MRS. BLIGH 23 
 
 so oToss a one makes her face blaze now into 
 a flame, not kindled by the sulky fire, before 
 which she lies in her armchair — blaze so that 
 even the dogs' eyes trouble her and she puts 
 up both hands to hide them out, while from 
 between her fingers ejaculations such as 
 "Fool!" "Idiot!" "Fatuous folly!" shoot 
 out, uttered aloud into the silent and empty 
 rdoni. Looked back upon now, the founda- 
 tions on which she had built her towering 
 superstructure of hopes of his notice and 
 belief in his interest are seen to be fiimsy 
 ill the extreme. What are they, these foun- 
 dations, when examined with coolness and 
 . reason ? Three months ago she had acci- 
 dentally met him at an inexpressibly dull 
 Dorsetshire manor-house, whither his work 
 had brought him. and where a snow-fall had 
 detained him, bitterly against his will. 
 Thrcuigh five dreary days of frozen captivity 
 she — her indifferent jokes, her slight smatter- 
 ing knowledge of the books he loved, her 
 stupidly undisguised admiration for himself — 
 had been the refuge of his emiui ; a fact he
 
 24 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 has recognised and shown his generous grati- 
 tude for since, by spending upon her two or 
 three of his rare half-hours of leisure and 
 liberty. Until to-day she has never met him 
 in any company except her own, or that of 
 her bucolic cousins, has never seen him in 
 the " Milieu " in which he habitually lives. 
 Amid the polyglot company at luncheon there 
 had been no ladies for him to wound her 
 feelings by showing any preference for over 
 her, none except the hostess, who had been 
 far too much occupied in making her party 
 go off to have leisure or inclination for pri- 
 vate dalliance with any one member of it, 
 even the leading lion. Yet, as Mrs. Bligh's 
 memory recalls the half-words so immediately 
 understood, the allusions so instantly grasped 
 by her friend which in most cases had been 
 Greek to her she has an uncomfortable sen- 
 sation of havinof been out of it, of beino- the 
 hungry little street-boy staring in through the 
 window at the Christmas roast goose into 
 which he will never thrust his knife. Out of 
 it ! Out of his life ! Out of his interests !
 
 MRS. BLIGH 25 
 
 Out of all but his charity ! As he would give 
 an old woman in a workhouse half a poimd 
 of tea, or a screw of tobacco, so he has thrown 
 her ten civil words or a kind look, and she 
 has mistaken these paltry alms for the magni- 
 ficent gift of his equal friendship. This is 
 no doubt reserved for the feminine part of 
 that society with the masculine half of which 
 she has to-dav seen him on such terms of eav 
 cordialitv. He has always told her that he 
 greatly prefers women to men. If. then, such 
 is the heartiness and warmth of his manner 
 to the husbands and fathers, what must it be 
 to the wives and dau^'hters } She knows 
 that he is always at home on Sundays, re- 
 ceiving his friends in his studio, on a general 
 invitation, which he has extended to her, l)ut 
 of which she has hitherto been too shy to 
 axail herself 
 
 L\"ing dismally in her rumpled armchair, 
 she pictures liim doing the honoiu's of his 
 beloved atelier, surrounded b) beautiful 
 women who are going to sit to him, by witty 
 women with whom he is exchaneino- HashiniJ"
 
 26 MRS. BLICH 
 
 repartees, by sympathetic women, to whom 
 he is explaining his ideas before they are 
 translated into stone. Mrs, Blio-h is one of 
 the many Englishwomen who gratuitously 
 embitter their lives by cold Sunday supper 
 instead of dinner, and by allowing her 
 servants a right of almost universal exodus, 
 ending in the crowning gaiety, so dear to 
 every servant's heart, of evening church. 
 The result to herself is a crop of small dis- 
 comforts, in unremoved tea-table, late and 
 ill-lit lamps, and oddly announced visitors, 
 whose names suffer strange metamorphoses 
 in the mouth of an unaccustomed underling. 
 To this latter inconvenience she has not been 
 exposed to day, since she has had no callers, 
 and now it is too late to expect any, as the 
 clock's finger points to a quarter to seven. 
 The idea strikes her rather bitterly that 
 London out of all its five millions has not 
 spared one friendly human face and voice to 
 her. Shall she cro to evenino- church like the 
 servants ? No, she will not offer her bore- 
 dom to God. But she will, at all events, put
 
 MRS. BLIGH 27 
 
 an end to this contemptible cind idle puling" 
 over the inevitable, and will ring- for the 
 tarrying- lights, to help her by occupation to 
 rout her demon of discontent and sloth. She 
 rises and pulls the bell, thinking", as it peals 
 through the house, how like it is in sound 
 to the hall-door one which has huno" so idle 
 through the long afternoon. She does not 
 again sit down, but stands with foot on 
 fender, and hot forehead leant aoainst the 
 white wood of the chimneypiece, a position 
 she still keeps when the door opens in 
 answer, as she supposes, to her ring. 
 
 '' Bring the lamps !" she says, with her 
 head still Ivino- sidewavs on the mantelshelf, 
 but her languid order is drowned in a 
 universal uprising rush and clamour of the 
 dogs. Why should they bark so loudly at 
 their own fiimiliar scullion ? Their mistress 
 raises her head to put this question to them, 
 and finds herself facing one who is strangely 
 dressed for a kitchen-maid in a gray frock- 
 coat and a head to match — a head that, 
 though grizzly, is thick clad and curly.
 
 28 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " It's you, is it ?" she says in an odd jerky 
 voice, and though her visitor knows her and 
 her voice rather well, he has a moment of 
 misgiving that he is not welcome. 
 
 " Send me away if I am too late," he says 
 apologetically. " I am late. I see you have 
 got rid of all your other friends." 
 
 " They were such a crowd that they had 
 a difficulty in squeezing through the door," 
 replies she, laughing dryly, adding, with an 
 ungraciousness oddly out of harmony with 
 her real feelings, " I thought that you were 
 always at home on Sundays ?" 
 
 " Do not speak in that ferocious voice," 
 replies the sculptor, looking round for a safe 
 place on which to deposit his hat and stick 
 out of reach of the dogs, and, having foiund it, 
 subsiding on to a pouf at his hostess's teet. 
 " Are you going to dance on me as you did 
 on that unhappy innocent at luncheon ?" 
 
 Her breath comes a little fast with the 
 pleasure of seeing these indications of a pro- 
 posed stay on the part of her visitor, but her 
 answer does not display much softness.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 29 
 
 " If I dcinced It was the; lOaiice of Death! 
 Did N"()ii ever see anvthinii' so ill-manao-ed ? 
 Was not I wretchedly placed ? I could not 
 help thinkino- of a tale of a friend of mine 
 who was sent into cHnner with a terrific bore, 
 and in the middle of the feast burst out cry- 
 ing from sheer ennui. I could have followed 
 her example without any difficulty." 
 
 He looks up at her — her chair is on a 
 much higher level than his low seat — startled, 
 perhaps a little disturbed at the unnecessary 
 vehemence of her expressions of annoyance, 
 and for the moment has no rejoinder ready. 
 
 " Well, at all extents, somebody was 
 pleased," continues Mrs. Bligh; " you were in 
 your element ; you, at least, enjoyed yourself." 
 
 " I !" repeats he, with an air of extreme 
 surprise ; " my dear lady, you must be 
 jokino-. I went because our hostess has 
 never ceased asking' me to luncheon since 
 last Christmas twelvemonth ; and because " — 
 with a timely, if not very sincere afterthouoht 
 — "because I knew that I was to ha\'e the 
 pleasure of meeting' )'()ii there."
 
 30 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 She is aware that the last clause of this 
 sentence is not strictly true, but it gives her 
 such pleasure to even half believe it that she 
 lets it pass undisputed. 
 
 " And you know," he adds with a smile, 
 whose sweetness takes away any of the im- 
 plied rebuke that his words might seem to 
 convey, " you know that, pleasant as it would 
 undoubtedly be, one cannot always wear one's 
 heart outside without inconvenience." 
 
 " I know one cannot," she answers ; 
 " though it is where for nine-and-twenty ill- 
 spent years I have carried mine !" Then, 
 hurrying shyly away from the subject of that 
 oroan which between man and woman can 
 seldom be dispassionately discussed, " If you 
 were not enjoying yourself at luncheon, you 
 were at least the cause of enjoyment in 
 others. What good stories you and your 
 friend were telling ! I am sure they were 
 o-ood, thouo-h that little miscreant beside me 
 prevented my ever reaching their point. 
 What do you think he kept asking me, while 
 I was straining my ears to catch your boiis
 
 MRS. BLIGH 31 
 
 wofs — whether I knew Miss Smith? I 
 answered that I knew two hundred and fifty 
 Miss Smiths, and begged him to hokl his 
 tono-Lie." 
 
 " I shoukl not think he needed much beg- 
 ging after that," says Coke with a smile, and 
 a half-thought of what an impossible woman 
 to make love to this odd, prickly little friend 
 of his would be. 
 
 " Did I know Miss Smith ?" repeats she, 
 with an ire that is half put on, because she 
 feels that it is amusing him, and yet is half 
 sincere too. 
 
 "I do not know whether you did, but I 
 know a Miss Smith," rejoins Coke, still 
 lazily amused at her vehemence ; " that is to 
 say, I know one more Miss Smith than I did 
 yesterday — not a hard, plain Smith, but 
 some pretty little compound, though I cannot 
 remember what it was. .She was brought to 
 m)- studio by an old Gorgon, to whom I have 
 to be civil because she is ordering a big foun- 
 tain with river gods and a little Nereid — I 
 must show you the; clay sketch, dear friend — ■
 
 32 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 for her place in Bedfordshire ; and this little 
 wild rose Smith came with her, and she 
 knows you, and loves you, and we made 
 great friends over you !" 
 
 " Was it Pamela Capel-Smith ?" asks Mrs. 
 Bligh, sitting- upright in her chair, with her 
 eyes alight with interest. 
 
 He shakes his head smiling. 
 
 " We did not o-et to Christian names, 
 thouo-h at the rate we were ooinp- we mipht 
 have done in another quarter of an hour, it 
 that old Medusa had not carried her off," 
 
 " If it was Pamela," says the widow with 
 emphasis, " she is a darling." 
 
 " Then it was Pamela," returns he, laugh- 
 ing, " for she was a darling ; you, at least, 
 ought to say so, for she raved about you." 
 
 A colour that is by no means wholly born 
 of pleasure runs over Mrs. Bligh's face. 
 
 " I wish she would not ; it is so silly of 
 her. I hope you stopped her." 
 
 " Why should I ? On the contrary, y'^'/^^;/- 
 dais dans le vievie sens ; but, seriously, she 
 s[)oke of you with enthusiastic admiration."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 33 
 
 '• I c;LniK)t think what possesses her," says 
 the object of this coinnicndation, in a tone of 
 such unaffected wonder and disgust that her 
 companion laughs outright. " I could un- 
 derstand her liking me," continues she ; 
 ''there are thino-s in me that mii>ht breed a 
 moderate liking ; but what is there in me, I 
 ask you, which could command enthusiastic 
 admiration ?" 
 
 As she speaks she fixes on her hearer her 
 eager and intelligent eyes ; and since his own 
 feeling for her, though sincere, is quite un- 
 tinged with ecstasy, and she is too much in 
 earnest to be put off with a compliment, 
 he is for a moment at a loss for a reply. 
 Then — 
 
 " She told me," he says, with a half-hesi- 
 tating glance at an invalid chair standing in 
 e\'ident disuse against the wall of the back 
 drawing-room, "of what a hard life you had 
 had, and with what wonderful pluck you had 
 borne it." Her eye follows the direction of 
 his glance, and her lower lip twitches. " Why 
 have you never talkt^d to me about your 
 
 3
 
 34 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 past ?" he inquires in a tone of very nearly 
 tender reproach ; "why did you leave me to 
 learn from a little stranger chit what a heroine 
 you have been !" 
 
 " But I have not !" cries she, her trenchant 
 denial leaping out with the violence as of one 
 rebutting the accusation of a crime. "If she 
 told you so, she grossly misrepresented. 
 Come now, what has she told you ?" 
 
 The person thus challenged again hesitates 
 for an instant. It may be roughly averred 
 that none of us speak of our friends behind 
 their backs precisely as we should to their 
 faces ; and in the present instance Coke is 
 aware of the need of adapting and Bowd- 
 lerising the statements of his young informant 
 about the departed Bligh, so as to render 
 them palatable to his widow. 
 
 " She told me," he says slowly, and feeling 
 his way, "about your marriage; that your 
 husband was paralyzed almost from the be- 
 o-innino- of it, and that you nursed him for 
 eight years devotedly and without a mur- 
 mur !
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 35 
 
 " Without a murmur !" repeats she, and 
 her voice, althouoh this time ahiiost inaudiblv 
 low, expresses a disclaimer of the virtues 
 attributed to her, even more emphatic than 
 her former vociferous one. " Why, I did 
 nothing but murmur ! Looking back upon it 
 now, it seems to me as if I had never done 
 anything else !" 
 
 " She told me how wonderfully patient you 
 had been under the " 
 
 He stops, uncertain how best to paraphrase 
 the communication that had been made to 
 him : " Though he was paralyzed, he had 
 the temper of a devil, and used to throw 
 things at her head." 
 
 " I never was patient, it is not in me to be ; 
 I was dreadfully sorry for him ; yes, that I 
 was " (her voice shaking a little), " though I 
 do not kncnv whether he believed even that, 
 and 1 had a bad x\mv. (jf it. I had n(jt been 
 married six weeks when it began — creeping 
 
 paralysis ; and from that on to the end " 
 
 She j)auses expressively. " Yes, I had a 
 bad time ; but, alu r all, what was it in com-
 
 36 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 parlson of his ! a soul as much alive as yours 
 or mine, in a half-dead body ?" Again she 
 pauses. " And yet I (jften spoke crossly to 
 him, often. He was naturally irritable ; who 
 would not have been ?" A vision of three- 
 legged stools hurtling through the air passes 
 before the hearer's mental eye, "And of 
 course I ousfht to have understood that it 
 was only disease, and put up with it, but I 
 did not. Often, often, I answered him as 
 
 impatiently as " 
 
 " As your neighbour at luncheon to-day ?" 
 half playfully. But she is in downright des- 
 perate earnest. 
 
 "As badly as that — worse! It seems in- 
 credible now ; but I did. I kept that chair," 
 again glancing towards the back room, " to 
 remind me of it !" Her \'oice has grown 
 harsh, an effect which emotion always pro- 
 duces upon it, as she winds up with : "So 
 you'll know for the future how much to believe 
 of the pretty things that admiring girls tell 
 you about me !" 
 
 There is a silence, infringed only by a
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 foolish bark from Tory, as she catches the 
 sound of a dog's step in the street outside, 
 being never able to reahze that that thorough- 
 fare is not her private property.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Coke has not the least notion how to respond 
 to that embarrassing remark about the chaise 
 longuc, whose ugly presence, cramming up 
 his friend's little back room, his artistic eye 
 has several times revolted against, though 
 some instinct has happily preserved him from 
 telliuL!' her so. She herself comes to his 
 
 rescue 
 
 " Well," she cries brusquely, " we have 
 had quite enough of me for one while ; let us 
 have a little of you for a change. How is 
 ' Rayon d'Or ' getting on ?" (naming a famous 
 Derby winner). "Is he to be in bronze or 
 marble ?" 
 
 " The duke cannot make up his mind,"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 39 
 
 replies Coke, hoping that the rehet in his 
 \oice at the changed turn the conversation 
 has taken is not as evident to her as it is to 
 himself. 
 
 "And is he to stand on two legs or four? 
 I mean" (laughing) "not the duke, but the 
 horse !" 
 
 " I can't make up my mind ; you must " 
 (caressingly) "come and make it up for me." 
 
 "You are so apt to ask for advice about 
 your work, and I am so competent to give 
 it," answers she dryly ; but she colours 
 faintly with pleasure all the same. 
 
 They are both standing now — -he preparing 
 to go, and she to bid him good-bye— each 
 with a foot on the fender, and an elbow on 
 the chimneypiece ; they face each other 
 comfortably in the hrelight. 
 
 " When will you come ? Since I knew 
 
 you, you have been to the studio only " 
 
 He stops, for the life of him he can't recall 
 the exact number of her visits. But her 
 memory is more retentive : 
 
 " Only twice ; and for the present it w ill
 
 40 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 have to remain only twice, since I am going' 
 out ot London." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " Yes, I ! Moi qui voiis parlc ! all the rest 
 ol the nobility and gentry" (smiling) "are 
 turning out for Easter; why should not I, 
 too ? ' 
 
 " You are always gadding, madam ; and 
 \vhere are you going— to Dorsetshire ?" with 
 a rather lowered voice, and a not very sincere 
 sigh, paid to the memory of his sojourn in 
 that dreary county. 
 
 " No, not to Dorsetshire," her voice lao^ini:!- 
 with unconscious tenderness over tlie dear 
 name. "Geography is not a very strong- 
 point with me, nor with you, either ; but I 
 fancy it is a good deal in the other direction 
 that I am going ; it is to the Isle of 
 Anglesey !" 
 
 " Are you going to look for Lycidas ' on 
 the shaggy top of Mona high ?' " 
 
 " That was not my leading motive" (again 
 smiling) ; " but I dare say mine will turn 
 out nearly as much of a fool's errand as that
 
 MRS. BLIGIl 41 
 
 would be. I ;ini going to visit a friend of 
 my childhood, whom I have not seen since — 
 since " 
 
 " Since vou were short - coated ?" with 
 hurried jocosity, to avert an apprehended 
 drifting back into the painful memories of 
 her married life. That the effort is successful 
 is apparent by her next remark, thoughtfully 
 uttered : 
 
 "When last she saw me my hair was 
 down to my knees and my petticoats up to 
 them ; how am I to prove to her that I am I ?" 
 
 "It cuts both ways. How is she to prove 
 to you that she is she ?" 
 
 " She cannot be as much altered as I am ; 
 in the first place, when we parted, her skirts 
 were already long, and her hair short. She 
 is three years older than I. We were school 
 friends. I was a wretched ugly little girl, 
 and she was a \\\u\ buxom big one. She 
 always promised me that I should stay with 
 her when she was married ! Neither of us 
 ever faced so unlikely a possibility as my 
 marrying."
 
 42 MRS. BLIQH 
 
 " She has taken some time in fulfilling 
 her promise." 
 
 " That was not her fault. I never could 
 go anywhere, pay any visits during — 
 while " 
 
 " Yes, yes," hastily ; " I understand, and — 
 she has a husband living ?" 
 
 " Yes, an exceptionally attractive one, so 
 she tells me ; and she has a child and two 
 grown-up step-children, and oxen and sheep 
 and camels and asses, and a place in Anglesey 
 on the Menai Straits." 
 
 " No wonder that you cannot resist such a 
 list of attractions. Anglesey !" wrinkling his 
 forehead in the effort to recapture an illusive 
 recollection. "Where have I been hearing 
 of Anglesey lately ? Oh, I know ! only 
 yesterday I got a letter, dated from some 
 crackjaw Welsh Plas there ; it was from a 
 Sir Somebody Something — his name escapes 
 nie — orderino- a monument for his late mother. 
 He writes to me" (looking amused) "rather 
 as if I were a working stonemason ! Per- 
 haps" (with a sudden inspiration) "he may
 
 MRS. BLIGH 43 
 
 turn out to be your friend's husband, the 
 exceptionally attractive husband of whom "■ — ■ 
 movino- his erav coat-sleeve somewhat nearer 
 her black one on the mantelshelf — " I am 
 already a little jealous." 
 
 "No. he is not a Sir. He is only a 
 plain Mr." 
 
 "Well, vou must find out all about him 
 for me — all about him and his 'late mother.' 
 He wishes her to be recumbent like 
 
 Lady , only without the baby," 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " And if you find that he is a oreat 
 Cnesus — I expect he has slate quarries — and 
 that Anirlesey is very paradisaical, it mi^ht 
 be worth my while to run down tor a day 
 or two. No. no !" — marking-, and halt 
 startled bv the illumination of her whole face 
 at the suo^orestion. " I am only joking ! 
 Delightful as it would be. I could not possibly 
 spare the time." 
 
 " Of course not — of course not !" 
 " Shall you take all the dogs ?" stooping 
 to pull Sail's ear, as with her one eye rolling
 
 44 MRS. DLIGH 
 
 she stands up fat and tall, clawing his knee 
 to attract his attention, thouo-h when she has 
 gained it she has evidently nothing particular 
 to say to him. " I should like to do a little 
 group of you, with your dogs, in terra-cotta. 
 I could make a pretty thing of it !" 
 
 "You are a very clever man, but you are 
 not quite clever enough for that," replies she, 
 with one of her habitual and injudicious fleers 
 at her own appearance ; since there is no such 
 undoubted fact than that we are all valued at 
 our own appraisement. 
 
 " And when do you go ?" 
 
 " On Wednesday." 
 
 "And I shall not see you again?" in a 
 regretful tone, and with a still further en- 
 croachment on her half of the chimney-piece 
 by the gray elbow. 
 
 " T suppose not," wistfully — so wistfully 
 that he breaks out into a hurried explanation. 
 
 "It is most unluckv ; but these two next 
 days are specially busy ones with me. To- 
 morrow H.R.H. comes at five. Royalties 
 are often late, and ol course I do not know
 
 MRS. BLIGH 45 
 
 how Iqng he, will stay ; and on Tuesday 
 I have to go down into the countr}' to 
 get some more sketches of Rayon d"Or, 
 and " 
 
 " Of course, I had not the least expectation 
 of seeing you again," interrupts she, her 
 harsh touch reappearing in her voice with 
 the fear of haxing seemed exacting, adding 
 stiffly, " it was \ery good of you to come this 
 evening." 
 
 "It was very good of you to let me in. 
 Your little maid — the Sunday locuiu tcuciis. 
 is not she ? — did not much like my looks. 
 She made such a funny face, like a gargoyle ; 
 she is rather like one of those heads on the 
 spouts at Nuremberg. I must ask her to sit 
 to me ; do )'ou give your consent ?" 
 
 " You have my full permission !" replies 
 she ; and he goes away laughing, while she 
 remains behind, staring into the neglected 
 fire with a rather sardonic smile, and a re- 
 flective wonder as to which work of art will 
 give her distinguished friend the greatest 
 pleasure; in the execution : the terra-cotta
 
 46 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 group of herself and her dogs, or the gargoyle 
 head of the kitchen-maid ? The latter is 
 fated to have another shock before the evening- 
 is done. Mrs. Bligh is lingering over her 
 cold chicken and claret, less from any lively 
 enjoyment of them than from a reluctance to 
 return to her now doubly-empty drawing- 
 room, when the hall-door bell once again 
 peals. The idea instantly flashes across the 
 widow's mind that it is a commissionaire 
 bearino- a note from her late visitor. After 
 all, he has found an unoccupied half-hour 
 somewhere lurking in the compass of the 
 next two days. " Where there is a will there 
 is a way," and evidently in this case there is 
 a will, is her exulting reflection. But this 
 towering frame of mind lasts only during the 
 short space that it takes a quick young foot 
 to cross the little hall, an impatient young 
 hand to open the door, and a fur-wrapped 
 young figure to come skipping in. 
 
 " Pamela!" 
 
 " Yes, Anne, Pamela ! Am I too late ?" 
 her face falling at the not very decided wel-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 47 
 
 come of the. word and tone. " Send me 
 away if I am !" 
 
 It strikes Mrs. Blioh with a sHo-ht and 
 fanciful annoyance, which she would be 
 puzzled to explain, that both her guests have 
 employed exactly the same words with which 
 to conjure her displeasure at their unexpected 
 appearance. 
 
 " I left them all at dinner — my people, I 
 mean ; they think I have gone to bed. I had 
 to come and tell you of something so exciting 
 that has happened. Who do you think I 
 have met ? Whose acquaintance do you 
 suppose I have made to-day ? Ah !" some- 
 thing in her listener's face revealing that her 
 tidings come too late — " you have heard 
 already } He has told you ? He has been 
 here since ^ How delightful !" 
 
 " Delightful for whom ?"' playfully, and yet 
 not very playfully, either; "for me or for 
 him .'^" 
 
 " Oh. for him most ; of course, much the 
 most for him," her nut-brown eyes shining 
 with affectionate enthusjasni ; " but nice for
 
 48 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 you, too " (IcUio-hino), " to have such a celebrity 
 basking on your hearthrug. I had such a 
 happy talk with him about you. You should 
 have seen how cleverly he put off that tire- 
 some Lady , who took me to his studio,. 
 
 and who wanted to bore him all the time 
 about a fountain he is desio-ninp- for her. He 
 stopped her mouth playfully, you know ; not 
 in the least so that she could take offence, 
 but yet quite effectually." 
 
 " She will probably, to-morrow, order her 
 fountain elsewhere." 
 
 " I never heard anything more neatly 
 done. I wish I could remember the exact 
 words." 
 
 " Do not try. Nobody's good things bear 
 carrying, except Sidney Smith's." 
 
 " V\^ii talked of nothing but you," con- 
 tinues the young stranger, her voice uncon- 
 sciously taking a less jubilant inflection, as 
 she feels that the great news, to carry which, 
 hot and fresh, she had forfeited her dinner, is 
 falling unaccountably flat. " You should 
 have seen the change in his manner the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 49 
 
 moment he f(umcl that I was a friend of yours. 
 I told him what extraordinary luck it was tor 
 me, your having taken me up." 
 
 " I wish you would not !" exclaims the 
 other, impatiently pushing about the spoons 
 and forks on the dinner-table. Then, ashamed 
 of her own irritability, " Let us come up- 
 stairs. I do not want to regale you with the 
 fumes of my funeral-baked meats : it is fune- 
 real " — casting a disgusted look at her lonely 
 repast — "eating by one's self, is not it?" 
 Arrived at the drawing-room — " I am speak- 
 ing quite seriously," says the widow, still 
 battling not very successfully with a certain 
 tartness of voice. " I do wish you would try 
 to choose a better subject for your enthusiasm. 
 I know that you mean it very kindly, but it 
 makes me look such a fool ! as if I encouraged 
 you in your ludicrously exaggerated estimate 
 of my merits." 
 
 The pretty creature thus lectured looks 
 rather crestfallen. 
 
 " I do not rave about you to everybody — 
 not t(j le premier vetm^' she says, her fresh 
 
 4
 
 50 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 red under-lip quivering a little. " I choose 
 people who I know will be in sympathy with 
 me. He was quite in sympathy, quite as 
 enthusiastic as I ! He was so interested in 
 things I told him about you — about your 
 past life." Anne's mouth breaks into a 
 vexed yet half-humorous smile. 
 
 " My dear, I spent half an hour by 
 Shrewsbury clock in contradicting all your 
 statements. Can't you see the brutality of 
 giving" a poor woman a character that she 
 cannot possibly live up to — that she must 
 be found out in, even by ' a celebrity basking 
 on her hearthrug ' ?' 
 
 " But the celebrity is quite as foolish about 
 you as I am." 
 
 Anne shakes her head almost angrily. 
 " Did you ever hear of a monosyllable 
 called ' Fudge '?" 
 
 "Yes. I have; but it has no applicability 
 here ; however, I will not tease you, since you 
 do not like it. Time"- — confidently — "will 
 show which of us is rio-ht, and meanwhile I 
 have another bit of good news to tell you."
 
 MRS. BLIGII 51 
 
 "Another?" Mrs. Bligh's eyebrows had 
 moved up slightly. The tidings as yet 
 brought seeni to her scarcely to merit the 
 title of an Evangel. 
 
 "Yes; I am to be allowed after all to go 
 to Anglesey to visit the Mulhollands at the 
 same time as you. I am even to go on 
 Wednesday. We may travel together. I 
 shall have you" — smiling radiantly — "all to 
 myself from Euston to Beaumaris." 
 
 " I travel third-class." 
 
 " I do not mind. I have no doubt that it 
 will amuse me very much." 
 
 " Your experience will be different from 
 mine. then. Travelling third-class often dis- 
 gusts me, often makes me angry, but it never 
 amuses me. However, if anything can cure 
 you of your amiable craze, travelling with me 
 will. A railway journey with me means an 
 unbroken hand-to-hand tussle with my fellow- 
 travellers over the window !" 
 
 " I will tussle t(jo." 
 
 They both laugh, and then Pamela, in a 
 tone of stilled excitenient :
 
 52 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " I am dying to know what you will think 
 of them all." 
 
 " I am orrowing: rather nervous on that 
 head myself, too. Come, describe them 
 all over aoain to me. Mrs. Mulholland 
 first, the friend of my frilled trousers 
 days." 
 
 " Oh, she is a dear splunchy old thing !" 
 "That is a comfort, at all events" — dryly 
 — "but would you mind explaining what 
 ' splunchy ' means ?" 
 
 "Oh, do not you know what 'splunchy' 
 means ? I think it is such an expressive 
 word, there is nothing quite synonymous : 
 ' splunchy ' means — well — ' splunchy '!" 
 
 "That is about as lucid a definition as 
 Bardolph's of 'accommodated.' " 
 
 "Well, she is a dear, soft, pillowy kind of 
 old thing." 
 
 " Old thing ! Are you aware what a 
 dagger you are planting in my breast ? She 
 is exactly three years okler'than L" 
 
 "Impossible!" — with growing indignation 
 — "she might be your mother! I think she
 
 MRS BLIGH 53 
 
 tries to make herself look as old as she can 
 to match him." 
 
 "And the stepdaughter?" 
 
 " Lucile ? Oh, she is, as she herself would 
 express it, 'a ripper.' She is oiven over to 
 horses, and dogs, and donkeys." 
 
 "And my friend's own child?" 
 
 " Little Sue ? Oh, she is a ripper, too." 
 
 "They are all rippers, in fact; and the 
 father, Mr. Mulholland, is the o-reatest ripper 
 of all, no doubt ?" 
 
 The answer to this last query does not 
 come so trippingly as to the former ones. 
 
 "I do not think I should quite describe 
 Mr. Mulholland as a ripper." 
 
 " He is very gifted, isn't he? witty, accom- 
 plished, distinguished-looking ?" 
 
 The girl hesitates even more perceptibly 
 than before. 
 
 " Ye-es, I dare say. I suppose so." 
 
 "His wife has certainly always implied it." 
 
 " Oh, she worships him !" 
 
 "And his children, do they worship him, 
 too ?"
 
 54 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "Yes" — with an accent of involuntarv 
 wonder and dissent — "they think him 
 splendid," 
 
 Mrs. BHoh smiles. 
 
 "It is very obvious that you do not agree 
 with them." 
 
 " I ! oh no !" — vehemently — " I ha ' 
 
 • she pulls herself up short. "It is not of 
 the least consequence what I think. I am 
 a wretched judge of character. I will not 
 tell )ov\ anything more about any of them. 
 It will be much more amusing for you to 
 find everything out for yourself"
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It is obvious that H.R. H.'s visit to Sir 
 Robert Coke's studio niust have been pro- 
 lono'ed to quite the expected length on 
 Thursday afternoon, and that Rayon d'Or 
 must ha\'e swallowed up all Tuesday, for on 
 neither of those days, though she foolishly 
 stays within doors for the best part of most of 
 them, does Mrs. Blio-h receive any suggestion 
 of a rendezvous from her sculptor friend. And 
 on \\'edn(;sday she goes. Her departure is 
 in a windy pour of cold rain, and as she 
 watches the dirty moistm-e rolling down the 
 sacking-covered back of the stone-deaf old 
 dri\'er of the four-wheeler which convevs her 
 to Eust(jn, she asks herself, with too-late in-
 
 56 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 dignation, what is taking her on such a fool's 
 errand ? She repeats the question internally 
 as she stands at the door of a rapidly-filling 
 third-class carriage, trying alternately, and 
 with equal ill-success, to glare away from her 
 compartment the third-class babies who too 
 obviously have their eye upon it, and to 
 dissuade her young admirer from sharing her 
 own too certain discomforts. But Pamela, 
 radiant with the double brilliance born of 
 happy expectation, and of a really good com- 
 plexion in wet weather, keeps her ground 
 stoutly beside the object of her cult, asseve- 
 rating with every appearance of sincerity that 
 it will be very amusing, and that she shall 
 enjoy it of all things. Finding the uselessness 
 of her remonstrances, the widow desists, and 
 remains standing on the platform, glancing 
 with silent indifference at its occupants, until 
 she catches sioht of a fio-ure which causes 
 her to give utterance to an exclamation of 
 dismay. 
 
 "Oh, good heavens, there is that dreadful 
 bore ! Let us get in quick. I do not sup-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 57 
 
 pose that he would recognise me again, but 
 he might." 
 
 " What dreadful bore ?" following the direc- 
 tion of her friend's eyes, and scanning the 
 passers-by with a puzzled air. 
 
 " I met him at luncheon at Lady St. 
 George's on Sunday. Oh, he is such a 
 bore ! I should die if he ^"Ot into the car- 
 riage with us." 
 
 "I do not quite see who you mean," still 
 vaguely gazing about. 
 
 "He has stopped at the book-stall to buy 
 a paper. There ! do not you see ? that man 
 in the brown ox'ercoat, with a plaid over his 
 arm." 
 
 " That man," repeats Pamela, having at 
 length succeeded in discriminating the object 
 of Anne's animadversions from the other 
 hurrying or sauntering travellers, while her 
 face expresses a surprise that is rather acute 
 than pleasant. " Why, that is young Mul- 
 holland !" 
 
 " Young Mulholland ?" 
 
 " Yes, young Mulholland ; your fricMid's
 
 58 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 stepson. You knew, did not you, that she 
 held a stepson as well as a stepdauo-hter ?" 
 
 " How truly dreadful !" cries the other, in 
 a voice that sounds disproportionately aghast 
 for the occasion. " I did not catch his name 
 on Sunday ; if I had, of course I should— I 
 mean I should not " 
 
 She breaks off, while memory recalls to 
 her with officious vividness the gratuitous 
 incivility of her own manner to one who now 
 perversely turns out to be her host. 
 
 " I think," says the girl, turning only the 
 Q(\g& of a very rosy cheek to her companion, 
 " that he means — that he intends to travel 
 down by this train." 
 
 " Of course you were the Miss Smith 
 whom he tried to talk to me about," cries 
 Mrs. Bligh, with a very annoyed laugh, as 
 unpleasant little accesses of enlightenment 
 keep pressing in upon her mind. " It was 
 about you that I snubbed him so ferociously. 
 Oh, why does not one make a rule to be 
 always civil qnand 7uevie ! What frightful 
 retributions overtake one ! Oh, here he
 
 MRS. BLIGH 59 
 
 comes ! I really can't face him," \aiiltino- 
 into the carriage as she speaks, over the 
 bao's and bottles already established there, 
 divinn' into its farthest corner and sittino- 
 down with her nose against the pane. 
 
 She does not a^ain look round till the train 
 is in motion, and even then the o-jance she 
 throws over the occupants of the compart- 
 ment is an apprehensive one. But what it 
 shows her is reassuring. An Anglican 
 clergyman, five working women, a blue- 
 jacket, a carpenter with a bag of tools, and 
 a couple of infants. But no young gentle- 
 man in brown. Her eye meets her friend's 
 opposite with an expression of relief in it. 
 
 " You oot in in time. then. He did not 
 
 see us." 
 
 "Yes, he did" — hesitating somewhat — " I 
 think he meant to get in too, but I told him 
 — I persuaded him not." 
 
 " Good heavens !" cries Anne, observino- 
 the want of readiness with which this ex- 
 planation is given, while a new billow of 
 remorse and dismay rushes over her. " I
 
 6o - MRS. BLIGH 
 
 believe that he is a clear friend of yours — • 
 that it was an appointment." If the girl 
 colours it is almost invisibly. 
 
 " Oh, he is not bad in his way ; I like him 
 very well in his right place, as people say 
 about dogs when they do not care ab(3ut 
 them" — laughing — " but" — with a reproachful 
 accent — " do you suppose — can you imagine 
 that I want him, or anvthino- else, when I 
 have you }'' 
 
 The widow's sole answer to this declara- 
 tion is a good-humoured " Pooh !" and she 
 leans back in her hard corner, thinking that 
 she is as little able to rise to her young 
 votary's height of devotion as was Catherine 
 Morland to reciprocate Isabella Thorpe's 
 declaration of how much dearer she — 
 Catherine — would be to her than her own 
 sisters. The journey is long, and, as to dis- 
 comfort, much what mio-ht have been ex- 
 pected. The adult portion of the two ladies' 
 fellow-travellers eat obnoxious viands, and 
 drink nose - offending liquids almost un- 
 brokenly throughout its course, and the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 6i 
 
 babies go with unblushing pubHcity through 
 all the unpleasant gymnastics common to 
 third-class babies on their travels. Both 
 Pamela and Anne have lono- sunk into a 
 jaded silence by the time that the sight of 
 the incoming tide splashing the Welsh coast, 
 along- which the London and North-Western 
 Railway runs, revives their llagging spirits, 
 
 "We shall not be long now," says the 
 younger encouragingly. " And they are 
 sure to send to meet us. I hope they will 
 send something open." 
 
 " Is it a long drive ?" 
 
 '' Six miles ! Beaumaris is five miles 
 from a station, and they are a mile beyond 
 Beaumaris. It is a long way ; but it keeps 
 the trippers off, so I think on the whole they 
 are glad." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " It is a lo\-ely road : shaded by trees, and 
 runnino- alonir above the Menai Straits. 
 Now that there are no leaves on the trees, 
 you can see both them and the mountains 
 opposite beautikiUy,"
 
 62 AJRS. BLIGH 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " They will probably send the waggonette, 
 and most likely " — with a fresh access of 
 hesitation — "young MulhoUand will drive us 
 himself ; you will not mind that ? You will 
 not mind his beino- on the box ?" 
 
 Anne breaks into a vexed laugh. 
 
 " My dear child, not mind my host's son 
 taking the liberty of sitting in his own father's 
 carriage ! What can you think I am made 
 of ? Like Cleopatra, ' Tho' I am mad, I will 
 not bite him !' " 
 
 " Oh no ; it is only that you said you 
 thougfht him such a dreadful bore !" 
 
 " For pity's sake " — impatiently — " do not 
 quote me against myself, as Madame de 
 Seviofne said about her tiresome friend : 
 ' Dieu me fait la grace de ne pas I'ecouter ;' 
 so Dicii iiic fait la grace never to remember 
 my own speeches ! In mercy, try to imitate 
 me ! They are never worth remembering." 
 
 " On the contrary, your judgment is so 
 excellent, that I feel sure you are right. I 
 have no doubt that he is a bore. I wonder "
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 — thouo-htfullv — "that it never struck me 
 before." 
 
 " And I am sure he is nothingf of the 
 kind," with a too late compunctious effort to 
 repair the mischief she has done, and re- 
 pentinij;', for not the first time in her hfe by 
 many, her inabiHty to keep her tongue be- 
 tween her teeth. 
 
 Third - class passengers seldom possess 
 ladies' maids, and Mrs. Bli<)h is accustomed, 
 though never wholly reconciled, to the neces- 
 sity ot wrestling for her own luggage. She 
 is preparing to do so when at length de- 
 posited on the platform of the remote Welsh 
 station to which she is bound. But her in- 
 tention is forestalled by a young man in 
 brown, who has instantly joined her com- 
 panion, and who, whether goaded to the 
 action by the latter, or inspired by the 
 Christianity ot his own spirit, now ap- 
 proaches herself with lifted hat, and, with a 
 look and voice of ill-disguised terror, asks 
 her leave to find her boxes for her. 
 
 " I do not know why you should hav^e
 
 64 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 that trouljle," replies she abashed, while 
 memory thrusts upon her the tart request to 
 hold his tongue which had been her last 
 observation to him. " There are two ; both 
 have a laroe A. B. on them, and a red and 
 white stripe ; but I really do not know why 
 you should take the trouble." 
 
 He is out of hearingr before she has half 
 finished her apologies, and only Pamela has 
 the benefit of them. 
 
 " His manner is very bad," says the girl 
 apologetically, and yet in a critical tone 
 which Anne guiltily feels to be no older than 
 her own uncomplimentary remarks upon him. 
 " So abrupt, as if he wanted to bite your 
 head oft ; but I think he means to be civil." 
 
 " I am sure he does," cries Anne eagerly ; 
 and in a minute more he is back with them ; 
 and in her haste to make an amende for her 
 former lack of civility, she rushes into a well- 
 intended but brusque pleasantry, as to the 
 large coal fire he has been making on the top 
 of her head. 
 
 He looks perfectly blank, and she is
 
 MRS. B LI Gil 65 
 
 obliged to give a lame explanation of her 
 meaning, which lasts till they reach the 
 wao-o-onette. The reflection of how far more 
 tactful it would have been to have let sleep- 
 ing- dosfs lie, and ignored their former meet- 
 
 Of} o 
 
 ing, spoils the first quarter of a mile of her 
 drive. But the thud of the horses' feet as they 
 trot across the airy suspension bridge Hung 
 over the sea's arm, the salt taste of the air 
 after the noisome closeness of the train, and, 
 lastly, her young vis-d-vis bubbling joy and 
 pride in doing the honours of the lovely road 
 which they pursue, soon restore herequanimity. 
 " That is Penmaen Mawr !" pointing 
 through the naked arch of the tree-boughs, 
 and across the sun-dancino" water of the 
 Straits. " that great round-headed hill, with 
 the slopes of shale ; do not you remember we 
 passed right under it ? No, you can't see 
 Snowdon ; it is too far back. There is 
 
 General 's place that we are passing. 
 
 Mrs. Mulholland took me to call there once ; 
 it is so pretty inside ; the garden runs down 
 quite to the water. Here " — as they stop at 
 
 5
 
 65 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 a gate — " we go along a private road that 
 Sir Thomas Lascelles has made on a higher 
 level than the public one ; he is the local 
 swell here, and the Mnlhollands' little grounds 
 j()in his big ones, wliich he allows them to 
 use as if they were their own." 
 
 "Sir Thomas Lascelles," repeats Anne, as 
 her memorx- recalls the nameless Welsh 
 baronet and art })atron concerning whom 
 Sir Robert Coke had desired her to make 
 inquiries. " Does he live at Glan some- 
 thino-, and is he — had he a mother T' 
 
 The girl looks naturally a little surprised 
 at the idiotic shape taken by the latter half 
 of these inquiries. 
 
 " Glan y W^ern. It is a magnificent place, 
 and I suppose he had a mother once ; he 
 has not now." 
 
 " Did she die lately ?" 
 
 "I do not know ; they are not in mourning. 
 Why do you ask ?" 
 
 "Oh, I — I — had no particular reason — 
 mere idle curiosity,' shirking, as usual, the 
 necessity of mentioning her sculptor.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 67 
 
 She is saved from the danger of havino- 
 to give any more intehigible explanation of 
 her question by young Mulholland, who now 
 throws a remark from the box over his 
 shoulder — not at her. though it would be 
 easier so to do, since she is sittino" on the 
 opposite side to him, but at Pamela. 
 
 " Lucile is laid up again." 
 
 " You do not say so ! I thought her sprain 
 was better." 
 
 "So it was, and they said she might take 
 a quiet little drive ; but her idea of a quiet 
 little drive was to put the two donkeys 
 tandem into that coster's cart I made her ; 
 and in going through a gate, the new one — 
 the leader^mischievously shut it behind him, 
 leaving- the cart and the wheeler on the other 
 side ; so she was spilt, and she is as bad as 
 ever now." 
 
 " Poor Lucile !" 
 
 "Is she — is your sister very fond of 
 driving tandem T' asks Mrs. Bligh, with a 
 second, and this time not in the least 
 facetious, attempt at conciliation.
 
 68 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 But the young man either thinks, or pretends 
 to think, that the inquiry can't be addressed to 
 him ; and it would have fallen with perfect 
 llatness to the gfround had not Pamela, red 
 with indignation, picked it up. 
 
 " Mrs. Bligh is speaking to you, George ; 
 she is asking you whether Lucile is not very 
 fond of drivino- tandem ?" 
 
 The question thus repeated seemed as 
 worthless in its original owner's ears as do 
 the twice or thrice-shouted inanities which 
 we have all, in our day, shamefacedly bawled 
 into a deaf man's ear, and she makes no 
 further effort. They have trotted through a 
 drowsy little town — saved from vulgar ex- 
 pansion by its distance from a railway — along 
 a stone-walled, white road, into a modest 
 drive, and are nearing a good-sized, early 
 Victorian house with a tower, which stands 
 looking at the lovely Straits. 
 
 " I am feeling quite jumpy !" says Anne, 
 with a nervous laugh. "Am I tidy } — is my 
 bonnet straight ?" 
 
 " Perfectly ; you are always so beautifully
 
 MRS. BLIGH 69 
 
 neat, not a hair out of place ; nothino- could 
 look nicer than you do !" 
 
 Though not wholly crediting these agree- 
 able assurances, the widow is yet a little 
 comforted by them ; and her eye follows that 
 of her young friend, which is looking eagerly 
 out ahead, and who now breaks out into 
 pleased exclamations. 
 
 " Ah, I knew how it would be ! As soon 
 as they heard the wheels they would come 
 tl)ing out ! They are at the door !" 
 
 "What, all the 'rippers'?" asks Anne, 
 hiding her real shyness under a rather un- 
 certain merriment — "all except the sick 
 one r 
 
 There is no time for more, as they have 
 drawn up at the porticoed door, at which a 
 fair, fit woman, a long-leggy little girl with an 
 irregularly delightful face, and some servants, 
 are grouped ; and in another moment the fat 
 woman and Anne are standing- looking- at each 
 uthcr with undisguised stupefaction, and say- 
 ing scn'crally, and with equal brilliancy : 
 
 " Here you are !" and " Yes, here we are !"
 
 70 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 In yet another moment they are in the 
 drawing-room, and have bethought them- 
 selves that they ought to kiss, which — such 
 utter strangers do they appear to one another 
 — they do with a Httle hesitation. The 
 small familiarity loosens the string of their 
 
 tongues. 
 
 "Is it really and truly you. Nan?" cries 
 the hostess, still holding her guest's hand, 
 and peering at her features with an air of 
 friendly incredulity. 
 
 '* Nan !" repeats the other, in a rather 
 tremulous key. " How many, many years it is 
 since anyone called me Nan ! Yes, Char, I 
 am Nan, though I sometimes doubt it myself! 
 I believe," laughing shyly, "that you ex- 
 pected to see me still in frilled trousers !" 
 
 "Ah, that is more like you" — in a tone 
 of relief — "that is just the way in which 
 you used to say things at school. How 
 droll you were, and how you used to make 
 us lauo-h !" 
 
 " Did I ? I am not at all droll now ; I 
 shall not often make you laugh now."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " Oh yes, I am sure you will ; you were 
 always so droll." 
 
 The subject of Mrs. Blioh's deceased wa^- 
 o'eries seems about to drop, withcnit any other 
 being quite ready to take its place, which the. 
 author of those dead jokes feeling', makes an 
 awkward snatch — not literalh', l)ut ri<'urati\(*lv 
 — at the tall little Liirl, as a new theme. 
 
 " And this is Sue ? You see, I know ail 
 about you." 
 
 " And this is Fezy," replies the child, not 
 nearly so much embarrassed as the stran'>'c;r, 
 and indicating- a tiny coahblack muz/le tucked 
 under her arm, from which are proceeding- 
 such ear-piercin<4' yaps as could issue onl\' 
 from the mouth ol a Spitz. 
 " Poor Lucile is in Ix'd." 
 "Yes; how ainioxin^! the coster's cart" 
 — smiling;- intdliL^'cntly — " Mr. Mulhollaiul 
 told us." 
 
 "Mr. Mulholland!" cries the; hostess in a 
 key of acute disappointment, as of one fore- 
 stalled in the exhibition of some choice raritw 
 " D(j )()U mean — is it possible that )'oli ha\'e
 
 72 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 seen Czar already? Did he," turning to- 
 wards Pamela. " meet you at the station ?" 
 
 "1 do not think his name was Czar ; I 
 think it was Georo-e." 
 
 " Oh, only George!" with an air of relief; 
 " I thought you could not have seen Czar." 
 
 "If I have, it is without knowino- it. I 
 am afraid that I do not quite know who Czar 
 
 IS. 
 
 "Oh, do not vou ? Of course not ; how 
 stupid of me ! Czar is my husband. We 
 always call him Czar ; he will be in imme- 
 diately ; he is most anxious to make your 
 acquaintance. I am sure you and he will 
 get on. I am quite looking forward to hear- 
 ing how you will draw each other out. Ah ! 
 you ma)^ den)- it, but you always were so 
 amusing. As for you, Pamela dear," again 
 turning towards the girl, with a laugh, "you 
 will be nowhere now, not in the running at 
 all." 
 
 One would think that so harmless, if flat a 
 pleasantry, would call for an answering word 
 or smile from a civil visitor, but in Miss Capel-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 73 
 
 Smith it produces neither. It would seem 
 doubtful, indeed, whether she heard it. so 
 much occupied is she in explaininq- who she 
 is to Fezy, who is still strugg-Hng madly to 
 wriggle backwards from out the prison of his 
 young mistress's elbow. 
 
 " I am always so glad that he should have 
 anyone clever and brilliant to talk to." con- 
 tinues Mrs. Mulholland. " He is so thrown 
 away here. I expect it will be a real treat to 
 hear vou two too-ether. Oh, come now, no 
 false modesty ; you know you always were 
 considered one of the show girls at Madame 
 Rey baud's." 
 
 " But indeed, indeed," very earnestly. " I 
 am far from being a show woman now." 
 
 " Well, we shall judge about that," returns 
 the; hostess, with kn(^wing confidence, adding. 
 " I wonder Czar is not in by now ; I assure 
 you that he was quite excited about you." 
 
 " I am very sorry to hear it," ruefully ; 
 " someone has just passed the window, per- 
 haps that was h(^ But it looked like quite a 
 young man."
 
 74 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " Ouite a vouno- man !"' echoes the wife 
 deHghtedly. " I will tell him what you say. 
 Well, he does look absurdly boyish. I tell 
 him that I am sure I am often taken for his 
 mother." 
 
 As she speaks the door opens briskly, and 
 a man's jaunty fio-ure comes in. At the first 
 glance Anne has a recurrence of her first im- 
 pression of the youthfulness of that figure ; 
 and it is not till he has drawn quite near her 
 that she becomes aware of the unlikely chest- 
 nut colour of his close curls, and of the fine 
 network of little veins and wrinkles that go 
 to make up the florid old face wreathed into 
 so many smiles to "Teet her. Mrs. Blio-h 
 stands up shyly and holds out her hand ; while 
 Mrs. Mulholland cries out in a \'oice of de- 
 lighted expectation of all the brilliancies cer- 
 tain to follow upon the introduction : 
 
 "Czar, this is Nan! — Nan, this is 
 Gzar !" 
 
 " Will Mrs. Nan allow me to lay myself at 
 her feet ?" says the old gentleman, bowing- 
 over her hand. " I hope your friend Char
 
 MRS. BLIGH 75 
 
 has told yoii how much we are in your debt 
 lor consenting to shine upon our darkness !" 
 
 " I have left you to make the pretty 
 speeches," replies his wife, with an admirino- 
 smile ; "I know that y(ju will do it so much 
 better than I could !" 
 
 " We will do our best to amuse you ; but," 
 with a shruL;-, " I am afraid we shall have to 
 ask you to be lenient ! As you see, we are a 
 set of country bumpkins !" 
 
 He pauses, evidently to give an opportunity 
 for the contradiction, which the person ad- 
 dressed is perfectly incapable of uttering. 
 Seldom in her lite has she been made to feel 
 shyer than she is now by the florid amenities 
 offered her, and bv the consciousness that the 
 friend of her childhood is awaiting with con- 
 fident expectation the cascade of conversa- 
 tional fireworks which she knows herself to 
 be so perfectly unable to let off 
 
 " We have not much in the way of neigh- 
 bours," continues Mr. Mulholland, with, as 
 she fancies it, some slight diminution of ex- 
 pansiveness at her unresponsive silence ; " of
 
 76 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 course, exceptino- the Lascelles. They are 
 in one's own moncie, and one naturally knows 
 where to have them ; but as for the rest, they 
 are very good humdrum bodies in their way ; 
 but — ■ — " with another shrug. 
 
 She hears herself saying something trite to 
 the effect that country neighbours are apt to 
 be not very amusing, and he assents. 
 
 " I agree — I perfectly agree with you ; but 
 between you and me, when one gets below 
 the grand monde. political or social, one is 
 apt to find people everywhere a litde pro- 
 vincial, do not you think so ?" 
 
 " I am afraid," with a dry smile, " that I 
 am scarcely a judge ; not many of the gi-and 
 monde find their way to Tite Street !" 
 
 " Ah ! you live in Tite Street, a name of 
 doubtful omen, is not it ?" facetiously. " A 
 good many people live in Tite Street. Ha, 
 ha !" 
 
 His wife breaks into a hearty laugh at this 
 speech, but seeing with some surprise, as Anne 
 feels, that the latter echoes her mirth but 
 faintly, hastens to say civilly :
 
 MRS. BLIGH 77 
 
 " I cini so little in London that I do not 
 know Tite Street ; but Pamehi has told me 
 that Chelsea is the hei^-ht of the fashion, and 
 that you have made your house exceedingly 
 pretty — ha\'e not \"ou, Pamela ? Why, where 
 is she ?" lookin;^- in surprise round the room. 
 " She has fled ! Oh, no doubt Sue has taken 
 her to see Lucile ! Will vou come and see 
 poor Lucile ? Though she is in bed, it is a 
 shame that she should have to miss all the 
 good things that I know we may expect from 
 you two," glancing affectionately from one to 
 the other. 
 
 "Then I am not to be banished? I am 
 to be admitted ?" 
 
 His wife giving him an eager permission 
 to acc(jmpany them, he walks rather more 
 springily than if he were eighteen to open 
 the door for them, and thev all file out.
 
 ';v,\ "...';:. ': .: ^ _ , 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Miss Muliiolland lies in bed, n pattern 
 of vigorous English bloom, but she has 
 by no means a monopoly of her couch of 
 sickness. Pamela sits on one of her pillows, 
 and George on the other. Sue is stretched 
 all along the side of the mattress, with two 
 very long black silk legs kicking up in the 
 air ; while to obviate any danger that may 
 yet remain of the invalid's feeling hjnely, a 
 couple of dogs — a short-tempered lady of 
 the sheep-dog kind, and a broken-haired 
 white terrier — are having a friendly scrim- 
 mage across her prostrate body. With their 
 mouths wide open, and showing all their 
 beautiful clean teeth, they are apparently 
 takinor l^ro-e mouthfuls out of each other's
 
 MRS. BLIGH 79 
 
 ears. At the entrance of the visitor, how- 
 ever, they cheerfully break off their gallan- 
 tries in order to jump clown fn^m the bed 
 and "make for her" — a proceeding which, it 
 it has no other advantage, has at least that 
 of taking off the stiffness of a first introduc- 
 tion, leading, as it d(jes, to eager assurances 
 on the part of the young owner that the 
 bristled backs and rude voices mean nothing- ; 
 and counter-assurances on the stranger's side 
 that she is not at all frightened, that she has 
 dogs of her own, etc., etc. The ice is still 
 further broken by Mr. Mulholland, who, 
 having lingered behind the others, now 
 pounces playfully out from behind the door, 
 and is greeted l)y liis daughter with a cry 
 of surprise and joy that shows that his visits 
 to the sick-room are not frequent occur- 
 rences. 
 
 "Czar, is that you .-^ how awfully, awfully 
 good of you !" 
 
 His response is to ask playfully whether 
 she has room for one more, and getting a 
 deliii'lucd assent, sits down on her bed, the
 
 8o MRS. BLIGH 
 
 dogs also having leapt back thither and 
 resumed their tussle. 
 
 " I have not often seen an odder regimen 
 for an invalid !" 
 
 "Ah, now you are beginning!" cries Mrs. 
 IMulholland triumphantly; "that is just the 
 dry voice in which you used to say things at 
 Madame Reybaud's. Dear me, how it takes 
 me back ! do go on !" 
 
 " She likes us all to sit upon her — do not 
 you, Luce ?" breaks in Pamela, hurrying to 
 the rescue, as she sees the consternation 
 painted on Mrs. Bligh's face at this com- 
 mand to be funny. "We can't be too thick 
 on the ground, can we .^" 
 
 " vShe had the donkey up one day," cries 
 Sue ; "we had such difficulty in getting him 
 upstairs ; and he was so spiteful, he kicked 
 out one of Fezy's front teeth." 
 
 "That was not an amiable trait," replies 
 Anne ; and then, in terror of being accused 
 of dryness, adds hastily: "Was that the 
 same donkey who behaved so ill in the 
 tandem ?"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 8 1 
 
 " Oh no. that was the new one ; he is \^er)' 
 ill-natured, too, but this was the old owq, the 
 one that Pamela and Georg-e always dri\-e 
 in the coster's cart." 
 
 At this innocent and matter-of-fact implica- 
 tion of an intimacy more developed than she 
 had suspected between her youn^- disciple 
 and the person whom she herself had stigma- 
 tized as "a dreadful bore," Anne steals a 
 ij'uiltv L>"lance at Miss Capel-Smith in time 
 to see with what a \'exed flush the words 
 "I believe I did drive him once or twice;!" 
 are accompanied. 
 
 ''Once or tivice T repeats the little girl, in 
 guileless astonishment. "Why, Pamela, what 
 are vou thinking- of? have you forgotten? 
 When last you were here, you and George 
 \\iWi\ never out of the coster's cart, were you, 
 George ?" 
 
 BLit George has arisen from his easy 
 lounge on his sister's bolster, and calling to 
 his terrier to acconipany him, is stalking — an 
 image of wounded feeling — to the door. 
 
 "He has gone to dress!" says Mrs. Mul- 
 
 6
 
 82 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 holland, placid and unsuspecting-; "we had 
 better follow his example. Do not make 
 yourself very splendid " (as she leads the 
 way along the passage); "for, as you see, 
 we are quite a family party. No outsider, 
 except Pamela, and she" (affectionately) "is 
 not an outsider ; she is one of the family." 
 
 " I am nothing of the kind," says Pamela, 
 in a mouthing whisper behind her hostess's 
 back, to Mrs. Bligh. " You " (with a spas- 
 modic grateful squeeze of the hand nearest to 
 her) " have for ever saved me from that !" 
 
 Gratitude is a beautiful thino-, and it is 
 very delightful to have inspired it when one 
 feels it is really merited ; but Anne has not 
 that happy consciousness, and she draws 
 away her fingers. 
 
 Three-quarters of an hour later she is 
 sitting at a well - be - lit and be-blossomed 
 dinner-table at her host's right hand, and 
 thinking that though she has made up her 
 mind that she does not much like Mr. Mul- 
 holland, and that she wishes he would not 
 call her "Mrs. Nan." yet that family life is
 
 MRS. BLIGH 83 
 
 a pleasant thino-, and that if she could be 
 quite sure that the look of expectancy of bons 
 Dwts from herself, that never come, had 
 departed out of Char's mild eyes, she would 
 be quite enjoying- herself 
 
 Miss Capel-Smith is seated on the host's 
 left hand, but, though the arrangement is a 
 natural one, since there is no other lady, yet 
 Anne is conscious that it has not been made 
 without difficulty. She is almost certain of 
 having heard coming from behind her, as 
 they all entered the dining-room, an urgent 
 remonstrance in Mrs. Mulholland's voice, 
 addressed to somebody. "Pamela! what are 
 you thinking of? Oi course you will sit by 
 Czar ! you know he likes to have you." 
 On the girl's other side the injured Georg'e 
 has placed himself; and it is not without 
 a vexed entertainment that Anne throuohout 
 dinner watches her votary's efforts to do the 
 impossible, and turn a shoulder and a lump 
 of rust-coloured hair at the same time im- 
 partially upon both her neighbours. Mrs. 
 Bligh's own right hand is guarded by a per-
 
 84 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 son whom she incidentally learns to be staying 
 in the house for the purpose of cataloguing 
 the library. He is an under-bred, forward 
 young man, who, though never spontaneously 
 spoken to by anyone, interpellates each one 
 in turn with vulgar familiarity, and takes all 
 the fun and jokes as if addressed to himself. 
 
 "And how are we to entertain Mrs. Nan 
 now that we have o-ot her ?" asks the host 
 in a sprightly voice, looking up from a land- 
 rail which has just been placed before him, 
 and no duplicate of which has been offered 
 to any other member of the company, a fact 
 which Anne notes with surprise, though she 
 had already observed his being supplied with 
 a special and private vintage. "What are 
 we to do for Mrs. Nan ?" he repeats, as she 
 does not answer ; "shall we send her out for 
 a blow in the lifeboat ? or swing her up the 
 side of a cliff to the quarries ? or " 
 
 "Anything on dry land!" she interrupts, 
 smiling ; "but as to watery pleasures " 
 
 "You prefer terra-cotta, as Mrs. L 
 
 said !" pausing to give his family time to
 
 MRS. BLIGH 85 
 
 laugh at this fine crusted old jest. " Well, 
 then, terra-cotta it shall be !" 
 
 " I dare say the Lascelles will propose 
 something," says Mrs. Mulholland cheer- 
 fully ; " I am sure that they are dying to see 
 you ! I gave them such a glowing descrip- 
 tion of you ; told them, how amu " 
 
 " I do not know what you would do with- 
 out the Lascelles." cries Pamela, rushing in 
 to hinder the dreaded accusation from again 
 issuing froni the well-meaning lips that so 
 persistently frame it. 
 
 "And if you asked the Lascelles." replies 
 the old gentleman, taking up the remark, 
 "perhaps you might hear them say that 
 they did not quite know what they would 
 do without usy 
 
 "Without 7CS,'' repeats his wile, with a 
 protesting accent. "It is very civil ot you 
 to put it in the plural ; but we will not 
 quarrel over ivko is the attraction " (with a 
 meaning smile); "they really are very kind 
 neighbours to us all, when they are down 
 here ; and they are down a good deal !"
 
 86 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " And are you down here a good deal ?" 
 
 There is a slight pause before the answer 
 comes : 
 
 " Oh, we do not move much ; we are very 
 happy at home. Of course, Czar goes up 
 now and again, naturally ; but we do not 
 stir much, it is such a business moviiiL- a 
 whole household so trreat a distance." 
 
 " I take little bachelor trips up every now 
 and then," says the old gentleman, with a 
 shrug; "just to look in at the clubs, and 
 knock up a few old cronies ; and put in an 
 appearance at a ball or two, to see how my 
 former flames are wearing !" 
 
 "I do not suppose that the ladies thank 
 you much for that !" says the vulgar young 
 man, chuckling ; but nobody takes the 
 slii^htest notice of him or his remark. 
 
 "This is really too nice!" cries Mrs. Mul- 
 holland, with a fresh access of good-natured 
 expansiveness, as the two ladies stand tcte-a- 
 tete over the drawing-room fire. " That I 
 should be having ' little Nan ' under my 
 own roof! You were short of your age, do
 
 MRS. BLIGH 87 
 
 you recollect ? and you were so afraid that 
 you were going to be a dwarf! Do you 
 remember? It was always a promise that 
 you should stay with me when I married. 
 How little I thought then " (looking upwards 
 with feryent and unaffected gratitude) "what 
 happiness was in store for me !" 
 
 " And you really are yery happy ?" asks 
 Anne, hoping that her own tones do not 
 sound as incredulous to her triend as they 
 do to herself. 
 
 The wife answers by a rapturous smile : 
 "You see how brilliant he is! and he is 
 always like that, always, always, eyen when 
 we are quite alone ! except when he gets 
 out of spirits from having been here too 
 long, and then I send him up to London. 
 Of course, it would be niost unjustifiable to 
 keep him yegetating here always, and so we 
 liye rather quietly all the year round — we 
 are not yery well off— so that he may do his 
 little jaunts comfortably in the season." 
 
 " What an unselfish woman you must be !'" 
 She would haye liked to have exchanged
 
 88 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 this exckimation for its converse — " What a 
 selfish old pig he must be !" but she re- 
 frains. 
 
 " Unselfish !" (with a surprised accent) ; 
 "oh! l^ecause I have to lose his society for 
 so long ; but then I know he is enjoying him- 
 self. He pretends he does not, but I know 
 that he does. Of course he is made im- 
 mensely much ot in London ; and we all like 
 to be made much of ; and the children and I 
 are very happy together here. It is one of 
 my many blessings that his children like me. 
 Ah, Czar, here you are !" as the subject of 
 her encomiums, having finished his special 
 bottle, and grown tired of his son's and the 
 librarian's company, ikjw joins them. "We 
 were talking of you. Listeners never hear 
 any good of themselves, you know," smiling 
 at the excellence of the joke. "Come and 
 sit by Nan, and amuse her." 
 
 The old gentleman at once complies with 
 the first half of the request, sliding his jaunty 
 body into an armchair at his guest's side ; 
 but with the latter half it is — little as he
 
 MRS. BLIGH 89 
 
 suspects it — quite out of his power to com- 
 ply ; and though he asks leave to call her 
 Nan, tout court, and playfully threatens never 
 to answer her unless she addresses him as 
 " Czar." she feels that it is with a guilty 
 llatness that she responds to his w^ife's appeal 
 as they part for the night : 
 
 " He is brilliant, is not he ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, very !" answers she baldly ; 
 "and" (laughing awkwardly) "I hope you 
 are now quite disabused of that painful and 
 most erroneous idea that I am brilliant too."' 
 
 "You are tired to-night," replies Char, 
 with amiable evasiveness ; " but " (shaking 
 her head) " I have not altered my opinion ; 
 it is there still. It will come out to-morrow." 
 Reiterating that "it is there still," and i)ur- 
 sued by anguished assurances from her 
 visitor that it is not, Mrs. Mulholland retires 
 
 smilmg. 
 
 " Yes, it is all very fine, and of course I 
 am the gainer," says Mrs. Bligh next morn- 
 ing after breakfast, as she and Pamela walk
 
 90 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 throuo'h the climbinir wood that backs the 
 house to reach the barer hill beyond the 
 view. " But what I wish to arrive at is why 
 you are not at this moment in the coster's 
 cart, of which I overheard at breakfast an 
 almost tearful proffer being made you." 
 
 The girl makes no answer beyond a slight 
 grimace. Under the trees the Lent lilies 
 are strewn broadcast, and about their feet 
 are the creeping ivy and the hyacinth shoots 
 — all the delightful flooring of an early spring- 
 wood — while through the riot of wild garlic 
 that has the impudence to look like lily of the 
 valley, the dogs scampering after a hare 
 make it, by bruising its leaves, disclose its 
 true nature. 
 
 " According to Sue, last time you were 
 here you were never out of the coster's cart." 
 
 " I had nothino- better to do. I had not 
 yoii ; now that I have you " (rapturously). 
 
 " Oh yes " (hastily), " I understand ! or, 
 rather" (laughing), " I do not understand !" 
 
 " I suppose," says Pamela thoughtfully, 
 "that one outgrows people as one outgrew
 
 MRS. BLIGH 91 
 
 one's clothes when one was a child. I think 
 I have outoTown Georo-e." 
 
 " How long ago ?" (in a tone whose dryness 
 would have satisfied even Mrs. Mulholland) — 
 " twentv-four hours ?" 
 
 Miss Capel-Smith does not answer this 
 sarcastic question, but pursues her own line 
 of thought. 
 
 " When one has been used to people all 
 one's life, I suppose that one is apt to take 
 them for granted ; to accept them as one 
 accepts one's self One no more thinks ot 
 criticising them than one thinks ot criticising 
 one's parents, and then some fine day a 
 lanthorn is turned upon them, perhaps by 
 some careless remrU'k, uttered by a person 
 whose opinion one has every reason to value, 
 and one sees theni from henceforth in their 
 true; col<jurs." 
 
 " And no doubt," says Anne, with a laugh 
 of sincere vexation, " one fine day some 
 blabbing fool will casually observe to you 
 that I am ' a dreadful bore,' andl shall go to 
 the wall too."
 
 92 MRS. DLIGH 
 
 The girl breaks out into eager protestation, 
 " Oh, yo2i I as if there were the sHghtest 
 parallel ; as if there were the remotest pos- 
 sibility ; but" (slowly) "do not you think 
 that one's standard may change ? that when 
 one's experience is larger, and one gets a 
 glimpse of w^iat a man ought to be " 
 
 " And where have you been getting these 
 glimpses ?" asks Mrs. Bligh with a sudden 
 disagreeable fear of she knows not what. 
 " Where have you been meeting these giants 
 by whom you are going to measure poor 
 humanity ?" 
 
 " Oh. nowhere !" answers the girl, in 
 innocent surprise at the sharpness ot her 
 companion's tone. " You know all ray 
 acquaintances — how humdrum they are ! I 
 have not met anybody in the least interest- 
 ing all the winter except ■" 
 
 But for some perverse and inscrutable 
 reason the widow is resolved not to hear the 
 name of the exception, and she breaks in 
 with an abrupt remark about the scenery. 
 They have outclimbed the wood, and are
 
 MRS. BLIGH 93 
 
 standino- in the. close winter o-rass of the hill- 
 side which the sheep are cropping, and where 
 the lonq'-tailed lambs arc skipping over their 
 mothers' backs, and leaping in the air with 
 all four legs off the ground at once ; one 
 engaging black one, like a little dog, seems 
 leader of their artless games. Out ol un- 
 numbered small brown buds the liberal gorse 
 flowers are already profusely bursting, their 
 sweetness guarded by fierce green spikes. 
 Below, the trees of the wood they have just 
 left are purpling against the sea. and against 
 the bright, cold, lovely sky. 
 
 "What a })iece of luck it is for me!" 
 exclaims Pamela, "that that old — that Mr. 
 Mulholland keeps his wife running on his 
 errands all the forenoon, else I should never 
 have had a chance of asking you what you 
 think of them all. I3id I give you a good 
 idea of them — of Mrs. Mulholland, for in- 
 stance ?" 
 
 Anne laughs again, and much more 
 naturally than last tin"ie. 
 
 " I still fail to see why she is ' splunchy.' "
 
 94 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "And Sue?" 
 
 " She is an undoubted ' ripper ' ! " 
 
 "And Lucile?" 
 
 " I dare say she is a ripper, too ; she looked 
 Hke one, as far as I coiikl judoe from the 
 very Httle I coukl see of her, under the two 
 dogs and six people who were sitting upon 
 her !" 
 
 "And Mr. Mulholland ?" 
 
 They both pause in their walk, and face 
 each other. There is mirth as well as 
 inquiry in the younger woman's red-brown 
 eyes — a mirth so catching that it is reflected 
 in Anne's. 
 
 " I am not 2:oino- to be invelo-led into 
 sarcasms on my host," she answers; but her 
 voice is unsteady with laughter as she speaks. 
 "He is a very nice, civil-spoken old gentle- 
 man ; and, indeed, my dear child " (more 
 gravely), "as he is our host, you might be a 
 little polite to him." 
 
 For a moment or two it seems as thoucrh 
 Pamela were ooino- to receive this remon- 
 strance in silence, and thev both look down
 
 MRS. BLIGH 95 
 
 at the wood beneath them, where the still 
 wintry trees have a sort of uneasy look about 
 them ; no hint of green yet, but the feelino- 
 of all the great leaves encased in the little 
 compass of the restless buds. Then — 
 
 " Would you be polite to a person who 
 was always trying to kiss you on the stairs ?" 
 asks the o'irl slowlv. 
 
 " I really cannot face so unlikely a con- 
 tingency," answers Anne, taken aback. 
 " But do you mean — is it possible " 
 
 "He lies in wait for me on the landing ; 
 he pounces out on me from behind doors ; 
 he tries to squeeze my fingers when I hand 
 hini his teacup at breakfast," replies the girl 
 tragically. " I think I had better warn you, 
 lest he should attempt anything of the same 
 kind with you." 
 
 " I do not think that in my case there is 
 much danger," answers Mrs. Bligh, mentally 
 contrasting the homeliness of her own appear- 
 ance, of which she is at all times perhaps 
 exaggeratedly conscious, with the exquisite 
 ])orcelain texture, the fire and d(;w and
 
 96 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 carmine of the yoiino- face before her. " But 
 
 does Char — does his wife ■" 
 
 " I think she suspects it, and she does not 
 Hke it, poor dear !" — with an accent of dis- 
 o'ust — "she can't Hke it less than I do ! One 
 day I asked him whether he had ever read 
 Thackeray's ' Mrs, Perkins's Ball,' and 
 whether he had ever met those three attrac- 
 tive old gentlemen — Lord Tarquin, Lord 
 Methusaleh, Lord Billy Goat, He was so 
 ano-ry !" 
 
 " That was not very surprising." 
 " And yet she does not like me to snub 
 him, either," continues the girl, with a wonder- 
 ing intonation, " Sweet as her temper is, I 
 have seen her quite put out because she 
 thought I did not wish to sit by him. Good 
 heavens !" — with an accent of excessive 
 impatience — " what a horrible thing a love 
 like that is — a love that degrades! How 
 earnestly one must hope that when one's 
 hour comes one will love up, and not down !"
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Well, and how has Mrs. Nan enjoyed 
 her constitutional ?'' asks the host, one of 
 whose methods of oettino- on his o-uest's 
 nerves is by speaking of her in the third 
 person ; and when they are all gathered 
 round the luncheon-table a couple of hours 
 later : "1 was a little hurt at not beino- 
 invited to join the party ; but you were quite 
 right — quite right ! A pair of young 
 members of the Alpine Club like you would 
 soon have distanced such a poor old cripple 
 as I !" 
 
 He pauses to give time for the mirth that 
 must follow upon this picture of his infirmiti(;s, 
 adding, when the proper dues of merriment
 
 98 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 have been paid, " Come here, Miss Pamela," 
 patting the seat of a chair beside him, "and 
 give an account of yourself. How have you 
 been entertaining Mrs. Nan ?" 
 
 " We went up the- hill," replies Pamela ; 
 but perhaps in deference to her friend's 
 remonstrance accepting the seat offered with 
 less overt rebellion than usual. 
 
 " And what did you talk about ? From 
 the little I know of young ladies I do not 
 think two of them are likely to walk along 
 together in total silence — ha ! ha ! Did you 
 discuss us? I feel sure" (playfully) "that 
 Mrs. Nan was very cynical, and picked us 
 all to pieces." 
 
 " I am not at all afraid," replies his wife, 
 looking round with a benevolent confidence, 
 that makes both feel rather guilty, at the 
 two visitors — " not at all afraid of trusting 
 our characters in either of their hands." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that. I should 
 like to have been eavesdropping behind 
 one of our stone walls as you passed 
 —eh ?"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 99 
 
 " Perhaps it is as well that you were not," 
 repHes Anne daringly, and acting on the 
 maxim that if you wish to deceive a person 
 the easiest and surest way is to tell the exact 
 truth. " We said some very terrible things 
 of you !" 
 
 They all laugh heartily at the excellence of 
 this joke, Pamela seeming peculiarly tickled 
 by it ; and then there is a lull, while kind- 
 hearted little Sue, quite oblivious of her own 
 dinner, gallops round the table in eager 
 attention to everyone's wants ; while the 
 vulgar young man, with officious assiduity, 
 presses the family's own food upon it, address- 
 inor the vouno-er members with low-bred ease 
 by their Christian names. 
 
 " May I ask, Char, what your plans for the 
 afternoon are ?" inquires the old gentleman 
 presently, pouring himself out a glass of what 
 Anne, though perfectly ignorant of wines, 
 divines to be some costly fluid. " I send the 
 servants away ; do not you think I am quite 
 right ? Is nni it hard " — seeing Mrs. Bligh's. 
 eyes involuntarily fixed on his glass — " that
 
 loo MRS. BLIGH 
 
 I can't o-et anyone to liclp me with my 
 Chateau Margaux ? Char, I say, what are 
 your plans for the afternoon ?" 
 
 " I thoucrht of takino- Nan out in the 
 victoria, and, of course, it would be very 
 pleasant for Pamela if you felt inclined to 
 drive her out in your buggy." 
 
 Anne looks at her friend while she is 
 making this speech, and, enlightened by her 
 disciple's confidences of the forenoon, has no 
 difficulty in interpreting the dual anxiety 
 indicated on the dial -plate of her good- 
 natured face. A double and almost contra- 
 dictory anxiety that her proposal should not 
 be jumped at too eagerly by one of the 
 parties concerned in it was rejected with too 
 much energy by the other. 
 
 " I am afraid I have a pre-engagement," 
 replies Pamela precipitately ; for. being 
 between the devil and the deep sea, she 
 hastens to throw herself into the embrace of 
 the latter. " I believe I am to go out with 
 Georoe in the coster's cart. I do not think 
 he would like me to throw him over — only
 
 MRS. BLIGH loi 
 
 where is he ?" seemino- to become aware for 
 the first time that his place is empty. 
 
 " Oh, how sorry he will be !" cries Sue, 
 her brother's stanch little bottle-holder and 
 semi-confidant. "He thought you did not 
 want him, as you would not go out with him 
 this mornino-. So he has taken his o'un and 
 gone to look for a snipe. He said he would 
 not be back till near dinner.' 
 
 There is an awkward pause, broken by the 
 )-oung vulgarian saying jocosely, " I am 
 afraid your coster's cart does not look very 
 healthy," and by Mr. Mulholland observing 
 in a resentful tone, " And I am afraid that, 
 failing the young gentleman, you will have to 
 put up with the old one." 
 
 The situation is so strained, that everyone 
 is relieved when a diversion is made by the 
 entry of a servant with a note for Mrs. Mul- 
 holland, which she at once opens, and having 
 read, gives utterance to an exclamation of 
 disappointment. 
 
 " How provoking ! 1 beg your pardon, 
 Nan, but I asked tin: Lascelles to dinner lor
 
 I02 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 to-morrow to meet you, and they can't come. 
 Did not you understand, Czar, that they 
 were not going to have an Easter party this 
 year ? But it seems they are expecting a 
 man. Lady Lascelles mentions him as if I 
 ought to know who he is, but I never heard 
 of him before to my knowledge — Sir Robert 
 Coke !" (pronouncing his name as it is spelt). 
 
 "Cook, my dear! Cook!" cries her 
 husband, correcting her pronunciation with 
 as excruciated an air as a musician who hears 
 a false note struck. " Sir Robert Coke the 
 sculptor ; why, of course, we all know him ! 
 I met him at Marlborough House last year. 
 It my memory does not fail me, H.R.H. 
 himself did me the honour of presenting him 
 to me. I remember that I talked to him 
 about Marochetti." 
 
 Sir Robert Coke ! For the first moment 
 or two after the piece of news thus conveyed 
 falls upon her ear, Anne does not look up 
 from the cold tan muzzle which Lassie, the 
 sheep-dog, has just laid on her knee, with a 
 little knock to hint that she is quite willing
 
 MRS. BLIGH lo 
 
 o 
 
 to share in any of the refreshments that are 
 going. A repetition of the uttered name, in 
 a tone of stifled ecstasy from the other side 
 of the table, makes her hft her eyes, to meet 
 those of Pamela shooting a red fire of delight 
 across at her, while a vivid flash of pleasure 
 heightens the already remarkable beauty of 
 her colourinof. 
 
 " Good heavens !" (the reflection comes 
 with a quick shock) ; the girl is as pleased at 
 the tidings as she herself is, or was, a 
 moment ago. And though reason hastens to 
 assure her that it is on her account that her 
 votary is so elated, though memory recalls to 
 her how keenly the girl has identified herself 
 with her joys and sorrows from the beginning 
 of their acquaintance, yet she mislikes the 
 colour which is the flag that her joy hangs out 
 quite as much as Lancelot did poor Elaine's. 
 
 " Why not ask them to bring him with 
 them ?" suggests the host, after having read 
 the note, which has been passed down the 
 table t(j him. " I dare say they would be 
 glad tu show him that they have neighbours
 
 104 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 who speak some language beside Welsh ; 
 and you need not be nervous, my dear ; he 
 is perfectly couime il fautr 
 
 "Oh, I do not doubt it! The Lascelles 
 never have anybody who is not nice ; and 
 naturally, if you met him at Marlborough 
 House " 
 
 " Of course " (with a shrug), " in my young- 
 days — I mean" (correcting himself) " a very 
 few years ago — a man who makes faces and 
 busts — ha ! ha ! — was not precisely the person 
 whom one would invite to sit down to dinner 
 with one, but tcnipora niutaiitur ; and we 
 have all of us the highest example for taking 
 Bohemia by the hand," 
 
 Miss Capel-Smith laughs derisively. 
 
 " Do you call Sir Robert Coke Bohemia ?" 
 
 This remark brings down a shower of 
 questions upon its utterer. 
 
 " Do you know him ?" 
 
 " Is he a friend of yours ?" 
 
 " He is not a friend of uiine" with a very 
 slight accent on the pronoun, and as slight a 
 o'lance of intelli<>-ence thrown across to her
 
 MRS BLIGH 105 
 
 friend ; " but I was once taken to his 
 studio." 
 
 " Was he nice ? Did you like him ?" 
 
 "He was extremely, remarkably nice to 
 me ; but that was because — that was not " 
 
 Again she glances across the table, but 
 the answerino" look she receives makes her 
 abandon any intention she may have 
 nourished of explaining" that the civilities 
 paid her were vicarious ones. 
 
 " I must look in on him, if I have a spare 
 half-hour, next time I am up !" says the host 
 patronizingly. " I am told that he has been 
 doino- some cleverish thino-s," 
 
 "If you know him, Pamela, that is an 
 additional reason for asking him," says Mrs. 
 Mulholland. " We will put you next him 
 at dinner ; it will be much pleasanter for 
 him than findino- himself amonof such a set 
 of total strangers as we all are, will not it. 
 Nan? Is the messenger gone? Ring and 
 ask, and I will write at once." 
 
 " Was there ever anything so exciting ?" 
 cries Pamela, tlie moment that she and Mrs.
 
 io6 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Bligh are alone, thrusting her arm excitedly 
 through the widow's, as they both pass along 
 the corridor to pay the invalid Lucile a visit. 
 " To think of his having put aside all his 
 work — he whose whole heart and soul seems 
 bound up in it — to come posting down after 
 you ; and these dear idiots " — with a chuckle 
 of exquisite amusement — " quite making up 
 their minds that he is my friend ! What a 
 delicious mystification ! It is almost a pity 
 that we cannot keep it up a little !" 
 
 Anne is saved from the embarrassment 
 of either assentino- to or dissentino; from this 
 suggestion, by their having reached Lucile's 
 room. Miss Mulholland is convalescent, and 
 lying on a sofa, surrounded by drawing- 
 boards, paint-brushes, and oil-colours, and 
 with a spirited little oil sketch of two horses 
 pulling hay out of a manger on a small easel 
 before her. At her feet sits Sue, grasping 
 her adored Fezy in her arms. 
 
 " We must show Sir Robert Coke these, 
 must not we ?" says Pamela, picking up one 
 of the scattered drawings. " 1 dare say he
 
 MRS. BLIGH 107 
 
 will give you an introduction to the President 
 of the Blank Exhibition. I am sure he is 
 much too clever not to see how clever they 
 are. I prophesy" — joyously — "that he will 
 take a particular fancy to this !" — indicating 
 one. 
 
 " I hope he will not take a particular fancy 
 to Fezy !" cries Sue apprehensively, and 
 hugging the little inky c/icf cCosuvre to her 
 breast. "If he asks me for him. I shall 
 answer " • — ■ assuming a very tragic and 
 dramatic air — " ' I will give you the skin 
 off my back, but I will not give you Fezy.' " 
 
 Her sister lauo-hs. 
 
 " You know you are so fond of planning 
 long high-flown speeches, which you are 
 never able to deliver when the time comes. 
 Now, Sue, tell the truth : if you had to give 
 up me or Fezy, which would it be ?" 
 
 Sue hesitates. 
 
 " Of course " — reluctantly — " I suppose 
 I should have to keep you, but I should go 
 and hang myself at once !" 
 
 " Oh yes, I know " — derisively — " you
 
 io8 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 would go and hang yourself just opposite the 
 hall-door, where someone would be sure to 
 come and cut you down. But "^ — with a 
 change of key from this light banter to one 
 of serious interest — "do you really think 
 that so great a swell would care to look at 
 my sketches ? Sometimes, I know, the 
 bigger the swell, the kinder. It is often 
 only the small swells that give themselves 
 airs, and as he is a friend of yours, you would 
 be sure to know. He is a friend, isn't 
 he ?" 
 
 " Oh, a devoted friend !" replies Pamela, 
 her eyes sparkling. "He worships the 
 ground I tread on. Is not he coming all 
 the way to Anglesey to tell me so .^" 
 
 "Is he really ?" cries Sue in an awed 
 tone, while Lucile adds: "You had better 
 not say anything before Sue that you do 
 not want taken literally. She is as green 
 as grass !" 
 
 Anne has picked up another of the strewn 
 drawings, and is scrutinizing it with an 
 apparently close attention, of which she is
 
 MRS. BLIGH 109 
 
 not aware, unlil roused by the voice of the 
 young artist. 
 
 " Oh, do not look at that one ; the mare is 
 not so bad, but Czar is wretched. It does 
 not give any idea of his charm." 
 
 Anne thinks that it would be very odd if it 
 did, but she only says : 
 
 " Why do you call him Czar ?" 
 
 "He does not like the word 'father'; at 
 least, he does not like us to call him father 
 before people ; and you know the Russians 
 call their Emperor ' Little Father,' so he 
 asked us would we mind callinof him Czar." 
 
 " I see." In point of fact, Mrs. Bligh is 
 unconscious of what the object before her is 
 intended to represent, with such absent eyes 
 is she reo-ardino- it, while through her mind 
 there passes the reflection that it is ungrateful 
 not to be diverted by a jest, invented wholly 
 for your amusement, and that yet Pamela's 
 mystification seems to her singularly wanting 
 in the element of humour. She must be a 
 better actress, however, than she has ever 
 before had reason to suppose herself ; since,
 
 no MRS. BLIGH 
 
 in happy ignorance of her lack of appreciation 
 of any joke, her young admirer carries it on 
 with unflagging spirit, and with frequent 
 glances of delighted intelligence at herself 
 throughout the rest of that and the whole of 
 the ensuing day ; nor is the expected stranger 
 ever mentioned by any member of the family 
 — and in a household not very rich in events 
 it occurs somewhat frequently — without the 
 prefix of " Pamela's friend.'' 
 
 " It seems hardly worth while writing the 
 names of so small a party," says Mrs. Mul- 
 holland, ambling round the dinner-table on 
 the afternoon of the next day with some 
 strips of paper in her hand. " But I always 
 think it is safer, do not you, Nan } People 
 are sure to shuffle themselves badly if you 
 leave it to themselves." 
 
 " Oh, Czar, which is to take me in, Sir 
 Thomas or Sir Robert ? They are both 
 baronets." 
 
 " My dear child, I blush for you," returns 
 Czar, pulling her ear affectedly. " The Las- 
 celles' creation dates from 1660. while our
 
 MRS. BLIGH III 
 
 poor Coke is a mere unknown, a toadstool — 
 a toadstool of genius, I grant you — ha ! ha ! 
 — but still a toadstool !" 
 
 "Then Sir Robert must take Nan," says 
 the hostess, picking out the two names from 
 her little bundle. " But then how shall we 
 manage to put Pamela near him ?" 
 
 " He will have to bridle his impatience till 
 after dinner," replies the old gentleman, with 
 a rather spiteful smile ; *' and in the mean- 
 while they must content themselves with 
 sighing and ogling." 
 
 " Ogling !" repeats Pamela, bursting into a 
 lauorh. " What a dear old-fashioned word ! 
 Did people ogle in your young days, Mr. 
 Mulholland } Yes, if you put him opposite 
 to me, he can gaze his fill. Some people 
 think it an even better position than being by 
 the side of the adored object." . 
 
 As Mrs, Bligh dresses for dinner, with an 
 earliness that has a touch of the feverish in it, 
 one of her causes of hesitating self-congratu- 
 lation is, that a period will now surely soon 
 be \)\\\ to Miss Capel-Smith's rather tin^some
 
 112 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 joke. She finds in the drawino--room only 
 her hostess, who greets her with an exclama- 
 tion of genuine surprise that sounds very 
 pleasantly in her ears. 
 
 " Nan, what a metamorphosis ! Well, you 
 do pay for dressing, as they say. Come to 
 the light, and let me have a good look at you. 
 I remember at Madame Reybaud's they used 
 to laugh at me, but I always said you had 
 great possibilities. What a charming gown, 
 and what a delightful pendant ! Old, of 
 course. How pretty the little enamel ribbon 
 tying together the two diamond hearts ! Ah, 
 of course !"— changing her tone to a more 
 subdued one, befitting the lugubrious theme 
 — "poor Colonel BHgh's hair; reddish, was 
 it ? I always imagined him a dark man. 
 Czar, come here and admire Nan ! Why, 
 Pamela, you //a7'c made yourself smart. 
 Ah, we all know why !" laughing signifi- 
 cantly. 
 
 The old gentleman advances alertly, 
 odorous with white rose. 
 
 " I am dazzled," he says, in his usual strain
 
 MRS. BLIGJI 
 
 of florid compliment, putting- up his hand to 
 his eyes. " Char, give me a shade !" 
 
 "Sir Thomas and Lady Lascelles, and Sir 
 Robert Coke," anncninces the butler ; and 
 " Ah, Milady !" cries the host, " punctual to 
 the moment, and in such a frock ! I see " — 
 repeating his simulation of bedazzlement — 
 "you are determined to blind a poor old 
 fellow." 
 
 The two ladies exchange civil "So good 
 of you to come!" and "So good of you to 
 ask us!" And then it is Anne's turn to be 
 affectionately presented as " My dear old 
 school-friend, the one T have so often told 
 you about, who always used to make us laugh 
 so. 
 
 The subject of this kindly little memoir 
 would have been glad to have had the last 
 clause of the sentence omitted ; but she re- 
 sponds to the easy politenesses that the intro- 
 duction calls forth with such composure as is 
 left her by the consciousness that the sculptor, 
 with his bright dark eyes flashing under his 
 beautiful thick gray hair, is at her elbow, 
 
 8
 
 114 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 waiting his moment to claim her attention. 
 To-day, at least, she can accuse him of no 
 laggardness in greeting her. 
 
 The clasp of his hand, at once prompt and 
 lingering, speaks his real pleasure in the 
 meeting, and in his face she reads a far 
 pleasanter version of the surprised approba- 
 tion of her temporary good looks but lately 
 expressed with so much naivete by Char. 
 
 There is as distinct an effort to isolate 
 himself and her from the rest of the party 
 as is compatible with his perfect good breed- 
 ing — and oh. crowning mercy ! his eye has 
 lit carelessly on Pamela, without any apparent 
 consciousness of having ever before seen 
 her. These various sources of comfort 
 enable Mrs. Blioh to bear with calmness 
 the breakincr into Coke's first sentence to her 
 of the old host, with : 
 
 " Last time we met was under the roof of 
 our future king — ha ! ha ! If you remember, 
 I was fortunate enough to interest you by 
 telling you some traits of Marochetti, etc.," 
 and she addresses to herself a paraphrase of
 
 MRS. BLIGH 115 
 
 the consolation offered by Dry den to Mrs. 
 Anne KillioTew — " Heaven's eternal year is 
 thine." The dinner-hour, though, alas ! far 
 from eternal, will be hers.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " The shepherd, nipt with bitter winter's rage, 
 Frohcs not more to see the painted spring 
 Than I do to behold your majesty." 
 
 " Bless that dear old gentleman for giving 
 you to me !" says the sculptor, gently press- 
 ing the hand on his arm against his side, 
 as he leads Anne to the dining-room ; "what 
 a delightful face he has !" 
 
 " Delightful !" 
 
 "Yes : it is so like old Nellie, the ourang- 
 outang's, at the Zoo. You never go to the 
 Zoo ? Ah ! you must let me take you there, 
 and we will stroke the gazelles' wet black 
 noses, and laugh at the odd gawky birds 
 together." 
 
 " You are so likely to have time !" she
 
 MRS. BLIGH 117 
 
 answers, with an abrupt yet blissful laugh. 
 " I think," guiding him to the spot where 
 she had seen Mrs. Mulholland regretfully 
 deposit his name — regretfully, since it is at a 
 distance from his supposed favourite — in the 
 afternoon ; "I think we are here." 
 
 There is the usual little noise of pulling in 
 chairs and settling skirts, and Coke naturally 
 casts a glance round the table, in order to 
 make the arrangements of which easier, and 
 also because the master of the house thinks 
 it more genteel, he and his wife face each 
 other at the sides ; while Mrs. Blio-h and 
 the young librarian occupy the two most 
 prominent positions of head and foot. From 
 her point of vantage, Anne can command 
 the expression of each of the eight 
 faces round her ; and can, since the table 
 corner interposes between them, make sur- 
 reptitious observations on her neighbour's 
 countenance with more ease than if she were 
 alongside of him. Surely now that Miss 
 Capel-Smith is full in his eye on the host's 
 left hand, and now that table decorations
 
 ii8 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 creep instead of soaring, he cannot fail to 
 recognise her. But it so happens that just 
 as his eye takes its careless sweep round, 
 her head is averted, perhaps merely from 
 that tendency which seems inveterate in it 
 to present its back to " Czar," and Coke's 
 glance returns unenlightened, unexcited, and 
 contented to his own lady. 
 
 " Talking of time," she says, conscious 
 if yet quite unable to get rid of that ugly 
 brusqueness in her tone, " how did you get 
 time to come here } You assured me it was 
 a sheer impossibility !" 
 
 " Did not you tell me that you were going to 
 Anglesey ?" he asks ; then, seeing a hesitating 
 and too radiant credulity in her face, he adds 
 hastily : " What a terrible woman you are ! 
 you are not only horribly honest yourself, 
 but you compel a habitually dishonest person 
 like me to be honest too ! I should never, no 
 never, have summoned up energy to come " 
 — seeing her face fall — " if I had not known 
 you were here ; but the truth is, I had another 
 motive. I was told that this Welsh fellow
 
 MRS. BLIGH 119 
 
 had a Porbus in his collection that I wanted 
 to see. No, it is a fool's errand so far. He 
 thinks it is a replica of the one at the Hague, 
 but it is not. It is a copy, only I shall not 
 undeceive him ; he would turn me out of the 
 house " (laughing"), " and give his mother's 
 monument to the local stonemason, if I 
 did." 
 
 " That would be a pity !" she says flatly ; 
 and he, seeing perhaps a shadow of disap- 
 pointment for which he is responsible lying 
 on her features, cannot refrain from adding 
 caressingly : 
 
 " I had such a long chilly journey to-day, 
 that I think when first I saw the cold gray 
 sea splashing the shore I should have turned 
 back, if I had not had the thought to warm 
 me that I should find a little friend at the 
 end !" 
 
 " Did the Prince come to your studio on 
 Monday ?" asks the little friend precipitately. 
 Well as he knows her and her abruptness, 
 it always gives him a cold douche. 
 
 " Monday ? yes, it was Monday."
 
 I20 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " And Tuesday ?" (recalling the engage- 
 ments with which he had parried her un- 
 expressed wish for another sight of him 
 before her departure) — "did you go down 
 into the country and make more sketches of 
 Rayon d'Or ?" 
 
 " Did not I ?" answers he emphatically, 
 his whole face lighting up with an eager 
 delight, which, as she reflects, no thought 
 of her or relish of her society has ever been 
 able to call into it. "I had a glorious day 
 of it. I had him out into a meadow, and 
 ran by his side as he was trotting, galloping, 
 and sometimes rearing !" 
 
 •' I should like to have been there." 
 
 " I promised the groom half a crown a 
 rear, and we did our best." 
 
 "It must have been tiring work, was 
 not it ?" 
 
 "Yes, of course, that kind of study does 
 take a good deal out of you, and the strain 
 upon eye and brain to catch a particular 
 instant, which shows how the four leo-s can 
 at one moment be in relation to each other,
 
 MRS. BLIGH 121 
 
 is immense ; but " — with that recurring Hght- 
 ing of the eye — "it is a delightful kind of 
 fatigue ! And how one sleeps after it ! Like 
 a tired hound !" 
 
 Her intelligent face kindles with sympa- 
 thetic interest, and yet a light pang shoots 
 through her. Is it possible that she is jealous 
 even of his w^ork ? 
 
 "You will be able to get on swimmingly 
 now, then," she says, with keen relish, "with- 
 out any more of those hitches and delays 
 that have chafed you so much." 
 
 He sighs. 
 
 "No such luck ! There are half a dozen 
 dead people between me and him. You 
 know I was telegraphed for last week to 
 take a cast of old Sir Peter Mammon. He 
 looked " — with a slight shudder of disgust — 
 " like a dead Silenus !" 
 
 Her cheek flushes indignantly. 
 
 " Why do you accept such work ? Why 
 do not you leave dead brewers and live 
 aldermen to journeymen ? You, who are 
 fortunate enough not to have a wife and
 
 122 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 children to make degrading pot-boilers a 
 duty !" 
 
 " Fortunate !" he repeats in a tone of 
 melancholy, which for the moment he 
 believes to be perfectly genuine, though 
 there may possibly be in it a dash of what 
 in a woman would be called coquetry. " Do 
 you think me to be congratulated for having 
 struck no roots anywhere ?" 
 
 " What has become," she asks, shying 
 away from this vaguely agitating question, 
 " of the imaginative work that your heart 
 seemed so set upon, whose subject we so 
 often discussed in Dorsetshire ?" 
 
 He smiles with good-humoured indulgence 
 at her vehemence, thinking the while that 
 he wished she would get out of temper 
 oftener, since the effect is so greatly to 
 enhance her physical attractions. 
 
 " Did not I tell you that I was to do a foun- 
 tain for old Lady ? I only accepted on 
 
 the condition that I should have carie blanche 
 as to subject and treatment. Bless my soul !" 
 with a sudden change of tone, "' apropos
 
 MRS. BLIGH 123 
 
 of Lady , is not that the Httle dewy rose- 
 bud she brought to my studio last Sunday 
 — the Httle darling- with whom I made such 
 friends by echoing her raptures over you ?" 
 
 The recognition, hitherto accidentally 
 delayed, but which was, of course, inevitable, 
 has come. 
 
 " What must she think of me for not 
 having known her before ?" returning, with 
 what his friend thinks an unnecessary 
 enipressement, the hesitating smile and bow, 
 lovely in their rosy shyness, which the young- 
 girl throws him across the board. Not very 
 happily placed herself between the host and 
 the young vulgarian, she has been watching 
 with the deepest interest the two persons 
 on the opposite side of the table, and form- 
 ing absorbed conjectures as to the subject 
 of their conversation from the motion of 
 their lips. " Did I ever know her name, 
 or have I forgotten it ?" asks Coke, in a low 
 voice, of his nei^fhbour. " Tell me what it 
 is, but speak low, for she is pricking those 
 little shelly ears."
 
 124 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "Her name is Smith." 
 
 It would have been generous to add the 
 graceful prefix of " Pamela." But there are 
 moments when generosity is difficult. 
 
 " I wish she would sit for my Nereid," 
 still surveying the girl with the openness of 
 perfect innocence of heart. " I would put 
 her on a sea-horse, with her dear little 
 dimpled hands twisted in his mane." Then, 
 seeing no particularly avid acceptance of 
 this suggestion in the usually keenly sympa- 
 thetic face of his neighbour, he adds more 
 seriously : " Do you think, dear friend, that 
 you can be more .anxious for me, than I am 
 for myself, to get away from Kensal Green 
 into the upper air ? Do you think that I 
 enjoy seeing my studio " — with a gesture of 
 disgust — " fast becoming a necropolis ?" 
 
 " Then why do you let it } Why do not 
 you get away ?" asks she bluntly. 
 
 The question is, perhaps, not an easy one 
 to answer, and her downright earnest eyes 
 make him uncomfortable, for his reply is to 
 change the subject.
 
 MRS. BLICH 125 
 
 " Ought not I " — lowering his voice — " to 
 say something- to the good lady on my right ? 
 She is my hostess, and though you " — with 
 an affectionate smile — "have a way of making 
 me forget everyone else when I am talking 
 to you, yet I suppose I ought to say five 
 words to her, oughtn't I ?" 
 
 " Of course you ought," answers she 
 shortly, and instantly turns away her head, 
 to show that she makes no further claim on 
 his attention. 
 
 She can't avoid overhearing the rather 
 nervous apology for not having placed him 
 near his supposed intimate with which Mrs. 
 Mulholland opens the conversation ; but in 
 order to avoid catching his courteous, if 
 rather puzzled, rejoinder, she herself rushes 
 into talk with the sulky George, who, hitherto 
 wholly neglected by her, now sits looking 
 straight before him, eating his dinner in 
 morose silence. 
 
 " Did you get many snipe ?" 
 
 " Only one." 
 
 " You had better " — conciliatingly — " have
 
 126 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 stayed at home, and driven out Pamela in 
 the coster's cart." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " When you go out together, which 
 drives, you or she ? and do you stand up 
 Hke real costers ?" 
 
 "We sit down." 
 
 "How extremely well she is looking to- 
 night !" 
 
 "Is she .'^" Then, casting a glance of 
 resentful indifference in her direction, " I 
 think her very much over-dressed." 
 
 Mrs. Bligh pauses, baffled, reflecting, a 
 little cynically, how thankful she would have 
 been if the angry young gentleman beside 
 her had, on the occasion of Lady St. George's 
 luncheon, treated her to his present irate 
 silence. liut being a good-hearted woman, 
 conscious of having unintentionally done him 
 an injury, and, strongest motive of all, being- 
 determined not, by looking neglected, to 
 seem to claim a return of Coke's notice, she 
 perseveres. 
 
 " You would not like her to come down
 
 MRS. BLIGH 12' 
 
 to dinner in a tweed tailor gown ?" she asks, 
 not because she supposes that he or any 
 other hving being could nourish so senseless 
 a desire, but because she is resolved to keep 
 saying something. 
 
 And before the tardy reply to her idiotic 
 query can come, she hears a voice softly 
 saying at the back of her head : 
 
 " I have done my duty. Come back to me !" 
 
 For the rest of dinner young Mr. Mul- 
 holland is at liberty to sulk at ease. . . . 
 
 "Well?" cries Pamela, in a voice of 
 delighted expectation, sliding her arm under 
 the widow's, and detaining her with gentle 
 force in the hall before letting her enter the 
 drawing-room'after dinner. 
 
 " Well !" answers Anne, with an embar- 
 rassed laugh. 
 
 "I do not think I can keep up my mystifi- 
 cation much longer, can I .^" — with a pleased 
 chuckle. " Even they will see through it. 
 What an interesting face he has ! What a 
 play of features ! You had a delightful 
 dinner."
 
 128 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " It is more than you had, I am afraid." 
 
 " Oh, I did not mind! The old Satyr" — 
 with a grimace — " was happily too much 
 occupied in subjugating Lady Lascelles to 
 harry me ; and I was quite, quite happy 
 watching you two ! Oh, of course " — 
 anxiously — " I did not hear a word you 
 said ! I would not for worlds have tried ! 
 How determined he was " — again laughing 
 delightedly — -" that you should not waste any 
 words upon that stupid George ! and he was 
 perfectly right. It would have been casting 
 pearls before swine. Do you know " — 
 growing grave — " I am afraid that George 
 has not at all a nice nature ; I think he is 
 very vindictive." 
 
 " Poor George ! I do not know why he 
 visits your misdeeds upon me." 
 
 " I was thinking at dinner that I wondered 
 why it had never struck me before what a 
 very bad countenance he has !" 
 
 " Poor George ! You know " — playfully — 
 "love is always as unbecoming to a man 
 as it is becoming to a woman."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 129 
 
 "It is not Linbecomiiii^" to some men," 
 replies Pamela, with a siu-nificant shake of 
 her lovely head ; and though Anne is well 
 aware that the state of mind alluded to has 
 nothino- in common with the relations 
 between herself and the sculptor, yet the 
 baseless implication quickens her pulses. 
 
 Perhaps the little effervescence of spirits 
 produced by the suggestion helps her to bear 
 the trial in store for her, when, upon the 
 entry of the men, her host throws himself 
 with juvenile agility on a pouf at her feet, 
 declaring that, "whatever happens, Mrs. 
 Nan must not be neglected ;" while, with 
 eyes at the back of her head, she sees the 
 eao'er courtesv with which Sir Robert Coke 
 is making his apologies to Pamela, and the 
 rosy alacrity with which they are received. 
 
 But to-day Mrs. Bligh's star is in the 
 ascendant, for whether or not nettled by the 
 absence of manner w^ith which she responds 
 to his inquiries as to "who built that killinsf 
 frock," the old gentleman swiftly springs 
 with scarcely any difficulty to his little 
 
 9
 
 I30 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 patent-leather-covered feet, and leaves her. 
 And then — 
 
 "Is he comingf back ?" asks a voice at her 
 elbow. 
 
 " I hope not " — with a very slight smile. 
 
 "Then I may stay; but, as I am not so 
 young- as he" — laughing- — "I will not be so 
 lowly" — choosing" a higher chair. "They 
 do not do anything here of an evening, I 
 hope — no music ox petits jeitx7' 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Thank God! Then we can talk." 
 
 She hitches her chair unconsciously a 
 shade nearer his. 
 
 " Let us talk of your work." 
 
 "Let us" — with a shrug — "not talk of 
 my work ! When you look through me with 
 your gimlet eyes, and ask me in your 
 trenchant voice when I ani ooino- to do 
 something imaginative, you make me feel 
 such a shabby fellow ; you make me blush 
 for my pot-boilers ! I do not like feeling 
 shabby ; I do not like blushing !" 
 
 She is silent.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "Now, if" — with a sigh — "I had some- 
 one always at my elbow to pull me by the 
 sleeve, and point me with her little emphatic 
 forefinger to the stars, I might do some- 
 thing — I do not say that it is likely — but I 
 might." 
 
 She has dropped her eyes, conscious that 
 they are growing mistful. Mrs. Bligh has 
 not had much happiness in her life, and it 
 has seemed to her that the sufferings which 
 she has been called upon to bear have been 
 of a kind to sour, and not ripen. 
 
 "If I only had time " — hitching his chair 
 in turn nearer hers, and passing his hand 
 through his hair — " I have an idea that I 
 think would please my conscience. Do you 
 know that I always to myself call you my 
 conscience ?" 
 
 " Do you .^" 
 
 "It is the death of Pedasus. Now, you 
 have not the least idea who Pedasus was. 
 Do you know, madam, that you are very 
 ignorant !* Well, he was one of Achilles' 
 horses. Y\v had inno immortal horses,
 
 132 , MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Xanthus and Balius ; but poor Peclasus was 
 only a mortal, like you or me, and so, though 
 he was a fine plucky fellow, vSarpedon ran 
 him through with his spear ; and as old 
 Chapman says — do you ever read old 
 Chapman ? — 
 
 " as he joy'd to die 
 By his so honourable hand, did even in dying neigh." 
 
 Do you like the idea ?" (leaning closely over 
 her in his eagerness) — "is it a good 
 moment ?" 
 
 " I am so sorry to interrupt you," strikes 
 in the soft, apologetic purr of their hostess ; 
 " I am sure you will hate me for breaking 
 into your comfortable talk, but " — turning to 
 Coke — "you must know that it is my litde 
 girl's birthday, and it has been a long 
 promise that she should recite Gray's ' Bard.' 
 She has been learning it upon purpose, 
 and you will not be too hard upon her ; she 
 is only eleven years old," etc., etc. 
 
 They have both been so absorbed in their 
 topic that they are conscious of having almost
 
 MRS. BLIGH 133 
 
 sprung apart when suddenly called back to 
 the present. 
 
 " Perfidious woman !" says Coke, with an 
 air of humorous resentment, as soon as Mrs. 
 IMulholland's back is turned; "did not you 
 swear to me that they did nothing ?" 
 
 "It is in honour of you," she answers, 
 laughing, while a secret anxiety possesses 
 her lest, the thread of their talk being so 
 rudely broken, he should not care any longer 
 to keep his place beside her. But he does, 
 and not only his place, but his intimate 
 attitude of leaning over the side of his arm- 
 chair nearest to her, with his thoughtful head 
 propped on his nervous artist-hand. It 
 gives her a foolish glow to think how little 
 he cares to conceal the evidences of his high 
 friendship for her — a glow that lasts all 
 through the performance, from Sue's excited 
 rush at — 
 
 " Ruin seize thee, ruthless king !" 
 to the final — 
 " Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night."
 
 134 Mi^S. BLlCH 
 
 when the little ijirl, suitin^r the action to the 
 word, dressed in an old velvet coat of her 
 mother's, and a worsted beard made by the 
 French maid, plunges, accompanied by the 
 giggles of her relatives, off the fender stool, 
 somewhat too obviously pulling up her bard's 
 gown in front, foremost into the mattress 
 laid for her. 
 
 " Well, it really went off very well," says 
 Mrs. Mulholland, as the door closes on the 
 guests, speaking with that air of unaffected 
 comfort and relief with which we mostly 
 salute our friends' backs; "and I quite like 
 Sir Robert !" 
 
 " i\nd I like him too, awfully !" cries Sue, 
 still in her bardish wig and beard, which 
 have veered a good deal to one side in her 
 plunge. "He asked me how many prizes 
 Fezy had taken, and said he was abdominally 
 small." 
 
 They all laugh, but without surprise, for 
 Sue's malaprops are proverbial. 
 
 " Abnormally, Sue." 
 
 " Well, abnormallv, then ; but, Pamela,
 
 MRS. BLIGIl 135 
 
 did he really come all the way to Anglesey 
 to see you ? Why, he said scarcely anything 
 
 to VOLl !" 
 
 " That is the joke !" cries Pamela, begin- 
 ning to skip about and clap her hands. 
 " He never saw me but once in his lite 
 before, and he did not know me again from 
 Adam ! Poor man ! he was very remorseful 
 but he did not — that is the joke !" 
 
 " I can't say that I see much point in it," 
 says Czar dryly, adding: "As I told you, 
 my dear, he is quite one of our world — a 
 perfectly presentable person ; but I can't say 
 that he is well preserved. I am told he is 
 not much over fifty, but with that ' frosty 
 pow ' " — smiling — " I confess 1 should have 
 been inclined to give him ten years more." 
 
 " Everybody can't be as young as some- 
 body," replies his wife, giving him a small 
 fond slap ; and then they all retire. Pamela 
 follows Anne into her bedroom. 
 
 " I will not stay a moment ! .See, I will 
 not even put down my candlestick! I know 
 how you det(^st back-hair talks; but" —
 
 136 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 putting her arm round her friend's waist, 
 and looking closely into her eyes with the 
 dewy joyousness of her own — "you have 
 enjoyed yourself to-night, haven't you ? You 
 did look so bright !" 
 
 "Like the sign of the Rising Sun on a 
 pot-house !" replies Anne, half laughing, half 
 grateful, and yet vexed with herself for 
 having worn her heart so openly on her 
 sleeve for even this most friendly daw to 
 peck at. 
 
 " You always ludicrously under- rate your 
 own attractiveness ; but to-night you must 
 know that you are looking radiant ! 1 know 
 now how you must have looked before you 
 suffered so much ; but /wzu you must have 
 suffered !" 
 
 " I had not a particularly rosy time,' 
 replies Mrs. Bligh, though not expansively, 
 for, indeed, she is of almost as hoittoiinde a 
 nature as Cordelia; "but I dare say no 
 worse than I deserved, and after all " — 
 laughing constrainedly — "you must own 
 that it is better to have one's kicks first
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 m 
 
 and one's halfpence afterwards than vice- 
 versa. 
 
 " Halfpence, indeed !" cries Pamela ecstati- 
 cally. "Thousand-pound notes; and they 
 are only just beginnino- !"
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 '"Tis the chief principle to keep your heart 
 Under your own obedience; jest, but love not." 
 
 " SuprosK that he comes while we are out !" 
 
 The SLiotrestion is Pamela's, and is made 
 on the afternoon of the following- day, as the 
 young" Mulhollands and their guests are 
 gathered about the hall-door, just .setting off 
 on an excursion of the ride and tie kind, 
 to celebrate Lucile's convalescence. It is 
 made sot to voce, and to one person. That 
 person shakes her head. 
 
 "Not likely ! He was to go to Beaumaris 
 Church, to choose the site for old Lady 
 Lascelles' monument." 
 
 " He would do that in the mornino-. That 
 would leave the afternoon free, and the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 139 
 
 Lascelles always brini^- their people down 
 here. Oh, suppose !"" — with an almost tragic 
 emphasis — "just suppose that we find his 
 card when we come back !'" 
 
 Mrs. Blio'h laughs with a gallant air of 
 indifference. 
 
 " Why, we will draw lots for it. and 
 whoever ^ets it shall have it framed and 
 
 'Ma " With a sudden chanoe of tone — 
 
 " Here he is !" 
 
 "The lion has escaped from his cage, 
 and come to frolic with the kids !" says 
 Pamela, making- a snatch of congratulation 
 at Anne's nearest hand. "You double-faced 
 woman, you knew it all along !" 
 
 And then the sculptor is among them. 
 
 "You are going out?" he says, in a tone 
 whose politeness does not quite co\"er an 
 inflection of disappointment. " My host has 
 trone t') a Welsh function. I think he said 
 he was to be made a l)ard of!" — with a half- 
 smile — "and I— but do not let me delav 
 you. By Jove!" — with an involuntary touch 
 of envy in his voice — "how jolly you all look!"
 
 T40 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "Oh. how disappointed Czar will be!" 
 cries little Sue. in a key of heartfelt regret. 
 " He does so love seeing people — seeing 
 anybody." 
 
 They all laugh at the naivete of this 
 tribute, and Lucile adds in a shy but civil 
 and "grown-up " voice : 
 
 "I'm almost sure that mother is at home. 
 Sue, run and see." 
 
 " Mother is settino' a LanL>" Shano- hen, 
 and will not thank anybody for disturbing 
 her," says Pamela, arresting by a sudden 
 claw of the shoulder the willing child, who, 
 with her usual eagerness in the pursuit of 
 anyone else's supposed pleasure, is shooting 
 off like an arrow. " Why" — turning to the 
 newcomer with a faintly-deepened colour — 
 " why can't you be content with us? Why 
 can't you come with us ?" 
 
 She says it with a pretty and happy 
 audacity, which would not have misbeseemed 
 that lovely page who won and flouted Phoebe's 
 rustic heart in the Arden wood ; and the 
 person addressed looks back at her with the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 141 
 
 pleased gratitude that would naturally be 
 called forth by the sight of anything so fair, 
 so amiable, and so sprightly. 
 
 "May I really?" he asks eagerly, and, 
 despite his fifty years, with an accent of young 
 friskiness in his v^oice. " I should like it of 
 all things, but" — with as decided a turning 
 to Anne as on the previous night — *' you 
 say nothing? Do you endorse the invita- 
 tion ?" 
 
 "What a silly question!" is all the answer 
 she gives — an answer that for once he does 
 not misread. And then the little corti^ge sets 
 off. Lucile in a bath-chair, drawn by a 
 steady pon)', which has been substituted, 
 much to the invalid's annoyance, for the dear 
 but perilous jackasses ; George and Pamela 
 on either hand ; Sue and the dogs skirmishing 
 (jn the flanks, and the rear brought up by 
 the two elders. 
 
 On the spirit of the woman, despite the 
 deli''"htfulness of this arrangement, there rests 
 a slight cloud. She wishes that it had not 
 come about ihrnugh Pamela's management —
 
 142 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 wishes it without knowing- why, and with the 
 slig-ht but chilh'no- dread superadded that he 
 may think her too obviously assigned to him 
 in the disposition of the Httle party. He 
 certainly shows no signs of so doing as he 
 steps out actively beside her along the stony 
 upland road with an air of vigorous enjoy- 
 ment, asking- in a voice that keeps that gay 
 holiday touch in it : 
 
 "Where are we going? Not that I shall 
 be much wiser when you have told me." 
 "To Red Wharf Bay." 
 "So called because the sands are yellow," 
 cries Pamela, with a jolly laugh, throwing the 
 explanation over her shoulder, and oivino- the 
 fat pony a flick. 
 
 The little procession has turned inland, and 
 is crossing a corner of the island, mounting 
 by a rocky road over moorland, between stone 
 walls. Coke has taken off his hat, and with 
 inflated nostrils, parted lips, and dilating- eyes, 
 seems imbibing through the channel of every 
 sense the large brightness of the spring sky. 
 "What light!" he says enviously. "What
 
 MRS. BLIGH 143 
 
 might not one do if one had Hoht such as 
 .this ? Is not our want of hoht in itself enouoh 
 to account for the difference between our 
 work and theirs ? I mean the biowiors in our 
 Hne. Could Benvenuto have oroped out 
 his ' Perseus ' in a South Kensinoton fog ?" 
 
 " Then why do not you lix'e in the country ?" 
 
 " Why ?■' (with a shrug) ; " because I should 
 cut my throat in a week. Do not look at me so 
 witheringly" (laughing). " I am like Charles 
 Lamb ; I love the ' sweet security of streets.' " 
 
 " Do you .^" (with an accent of rather pro- 
 nounced dissent), "I wonder, shall I ever grow 
 to love the ' sweet securitv ' of Tite Street ?" 
 
 They have reached the highest point of 
 the rising ground they have been breasting, 
 and now stop to breathe and look back at 
 sea and Snowdon hills. A good deal of 
 snow must have fallen during the night. 
 \\ hat was rain here was evidently snow there. 
 Carnedd Llewellyn and Carnedd David are 
 closelier wrapped than they were yestere\'en. 
 1 he clouds are trying different dis{)ositi()ns 
 ol their shadows cx'cry inonicni on crag and
 
 144 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 slope, and the li^ht is darting- in between and 
 making" little meadows of white brightness 
 beside the hard purple lines. All around 
 them as they stand the gorse is blossoming 
 and scenting the fresh air. 
 
 " And you would cut your throat if you 
 lived in the country i^" says Anne, with an 
 accent of regret at a confession which seems 
 to open such a gulf between them, and a loving- 
 look at the smiling- Welsh hills. " I dare say 
 you would agree with a friend of mine about 
 mountains. She said she could not bear to 
 live among them ; she felt about them as one 
 does when people will stand too near one, a 
 desire to push them away, and bid them keep 
 their distance. But then " (reflectively) "she 
 had always lived in a flat country." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "It was the country I used to live in," her 
 voice involuntarily sinking, and her clear eye 
 darkening, as always when memory ap- 
 proaches her painful past; "there was not a 
 molehill within sight. I used to walk every 
 day along a road as flat as a pancake three
 
 MRS. BLIGH 145 
 
 miles out and thret: niiles in. I used to stop 
 and look over the same gate into the same 
 field." 
 
 " Poor little friend !" (very sympathetically) 
 "all alone?" 
 
 "How else? Oh, I did hate that road! 
 the doctors used to drive me out ; they said 
 I should break down if they did not. I do 
 not believe I should. I can see that field 
 now ; one year it had mangolds, and another 
 swedes ; and in the winter it was almost 
 always under water." 
 
 " Poor little friend !" 
 
 The ejaculation is meant to be fully as com- 
 passionately affectionate as on the first occa- 
 sion ; but Anne's ear seems to detect a flavour 
 of absence about it, and her eyes, hitherto 
 averted, snatching a sharp glance at him, 
 reveal the fact that, w^ith the best intentions 
 in the world, he is giving her narrative but a 
 divided attention. The explanation is not 
 far to seek. The pony-chaise has been drawn 
 up at about a hundred paces ahead of them, 
 and Pamela, Sue, and George have taken out 
 
 10
 
 146 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 their pocket-knives and cut sprigs and boughs 
 of the lavishh" blooming furze. Pamela has 
 stuck a gold spike in the front of her sailor 
 hat. The idea is caught by the others and 
 improved upon. George sticks a second 
 sprig in. then a third, till she has a whole 
 crown of rich oold. Sue must have one too. 
 Then Pamela, invention growing, demands a 
 sprig for each button-hole of her blue home- 
 spun cloak, so does Sue for her dapple-gray ; 
 while Lucile, from the chaise, claniours to be 
 equally decked. One makes herself a yellow 
 rosette for each neat shoe ; another will not 
 be distanced. Then they dress out the pony, 
 ornamenting headpiece and harness, and 
 shafts ; and then — sufficient reason for the 
 sculptor's abstraction — Pamela comes Hying 
 with her pretty pricked fingers full of odorous 
 yellow tributes to decorate her friend too. 
 But the friend will have none of them ; and 
 says so, with a trenchantness which brings 
 up a little cloud of disappointed surprise over 
 the radiant carnation of the girl's cheek, and 
 Causes Coke to strike in with a hasty playful
 
 MRS. BLIGH 147 
 
 appeal, m which Anne s jealous ear seems lu 
 detect a rebuke to herself. 
 
 "Am I to be kept out? I, who love 
 hnery ? Make me as fine as you can," hold- 
 ing out hat and coat lapel. 
 
 He will not be content till as in the case 
 of her own cloak, ever) button-hole has its 
 (laming glory. An exclamation from the 
 direction of the pony-chaise alone brings the 
 toilette to an end. The large gorse branch, 
 which has been stuck in over the pony's fore- 
 head, naturally is not long in pricking its 
 ears, and with a shake of its head off it starts. 
 George grabs at the reins, which have been 
 chucked carelessly on its back, wo-a-ing 
 lustily to it to stop, and the others, reinforced 
 by Miss Capel-Smith, and, alas! by the 
 sculptor, shouting with happy fun, scamper 
 after. The runaway, being much too fat and 
 mature in \ears to enjoy violent exercise for 
 its own sake, is soon brought to a standstill ; 
 but b\ this time they are all in such a fine 
 How ot spirits that they wish for a rej^etition 
 ol the race ; Pamela gets into the chair
 
 mS mus. bligh 
 
 with Lucile, though thei-e is really only room 
 for one. Sue snatches the reins out of 
 George's hand, and mischievously " tcl-ing " 
 up the pony, away they go down a steep 
 pitch, galloping and screaming ; half frigh- 
 tened, half delighted, over jolting new-laid 
 stones, over the wayside grass ; one side 
 of the Bath -chair up, the other doM'n ; hover- 
 ing over the edge of a ditch, nearly in it ; 
 rescued by a timely jerk of the reins on the 
 brink. At the bottom of the hill they stop 
 —at least they try to do so ; but the impetus 
 given them by their rush carries them half- 
 way up the next incline before they can 
 really pull up. 
 
 They are at a standstill at last, and ex- 
 changing inquiries, ejaculations, and re- 
 proaches, breathless and almost unintelligible 
 from laughter. The sculptor is the first to 
 regain his gravity, and with a half-shamefaced 
 look goes to meet his late companion, who, 
 alone uninfected by the frenzied frolicsome- 
 ness, and yet reproaching herself for not 
 having caught it, is soberly descending the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 149 
 
 steep pitch which the Bacchic rout had but 
 now rolled and tumbled down in such 
 childish o-lee. 
 
 " No wonder you are curling your lip at 
 us !" says Coke, half deprecatingly, and yet 
 still with that frisky ring in his voice. 
 
 " Indeed, I am doino- nothinof of the kind! 
 I know that boys will be boys." 
 
 It is meant for a jest, which indeed it is. 
 Nor is he at all less conscious than she that 
 he came of age the year she was born. But 
 no man of fifty, however little he may play 
 at youth, enjoys a fleer, even a sportive one, 
 at his age. A sort of annoyed blush skims 
 over his mobile face as he answers, without 
 ill-humour, but also without the holiday tone 
 of his former sentence : 
 
 " That is a verv just rebuke !" 
 
 "It is not a rebuke!" cries she eagerly, 
 too late repenting of her waspish pleasantry. 
 "It is a plain statement of fact : in myself I 
 am years older than you. I never had the 
 chance of being young when I was young, 
 and now it is too old to be^'in."
 
 ISO MRS. BLIGH 
 
 He has resumed his place at her side, and 
 has dropped into a pace as staid as hers, 
 while the rest of the cortege gets into motion 
 again, and moves on demurely now ahead 
 of them. 
 
 "If you had had my life," she goes on in 
 a key of almost pathetic appeal, as he 
 answers her paradoxical assertion only by a 
 gentle head-shake, "you would wonder that 
 I am not even more morose and fractious 
 than I am." 
 
 "When you took those dreary walks, and 
 looked over that Q-ate at the manoolds !" 
 
 She feels that this careful repetition of her 
 words is to prove to her how well he had 
 listened. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And you were quite alone ^ Had not 
 even a doo- ?" 
 
 "Not even a dog ; it was out of the ques- 
 tion for me to have a dog-. He could not 
 have borne its barking." 
 
 " And that went on for — how long ?" 
 
 The pause before the two last words
 
 MRS. BLIGH 151 
 
 implies a reluctant admission that he has 
 forgotten the extent of her probation, though 
 both are alike aware that it is not the first 
 time she has confided it to him. 
 
 " Eicrht years !" 
 
 " Eight years !" his mind wandering back 
 over the corresponding period of his own life 
 — years of engrossing work, growing fame, 
 swelling fortune. 
 
 " One would have thought that in such a 
 life I might at least have cultivated my mind, 
 have absorbed a good deal out of books ; 
 but even that was quite out of the question. 
 I never could count upon an unbroken 
 quarter of an hour. Whenever I was not 
 in his roc^ni I was listening for his bell. For 
 eioht years I was listening for a bell ! And 
 yet when the end came, when I need never 
 listen again, oh how dreary I felt ! Nobody 
 would believe I was sorry. I gave up trying 
 to persuade them. I could not help laughing 
 over m\ letters of condolence, they read so 
 much more like congratulation," after a 
 moments pause. "I never could persuade
 
 152 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 even him ; he often said, ' You poor soul, 
 how pleased you will be when I am dead !' 
 and at last I only answered, ' Yes, shall 
 not 1 ?" 
 
 "And when? how long ago?" — his sym- 
 pathy genuine and lively, but his memory 
 again a little at fault. 
 
 ' Two years, but that first year does not 
 count. I cannot remember how it passed. 
 I think I must have been dead too, and then 
 I came to life aoain, and then I went abroad, 
 and then I took a house in Tite Street, and 
 then"— her tone lio-htenino-, and her face 
 breakino- into smiles — " I met a lion in a 
 Dorsetshire snowstorm. You see," between 
 jest and earnest, "you have been the cul- 
 minating point of my life's history." 
 
 " What should I have done without you in 
 that snowstorm ?" In another key, " That 
 absurd girl ! what a madcap she is ! She 
 will never be satisfied till she has them all in 
 the ditch." 
 
 He quickens his pace as he speaks, and 
 comes up again with the Bath-chair, round
 
 MRS. BLIGH 153 
 
 the brow of whose patient steed Miss Pamela 
 is again arrangino- her aureole of painful gold, 
 in the obvious hope of pricking him up into 
 a second spurt of artificial liv^eliness. It is 
 only with great difficulty, and after a lively 
 wranole. that she is dissuaded. That wranele, 
 during which Mrs. Bligh, standing a little 
 apart, looks at the view, combined with their 
 previous dawdling, has made them so late 
 that they never get to their proposed destina- 
 tion after all. They turn back before they 
 reach the bay, which they see and hear 
 creaming and gently singing with its 
 sheltered succession of crescent - shaped 
 billowlets below them, in the sunlight. Now 
 and then a pompously threatening dark rain- 
 cloud sails up and shakes out three sprayey 
 drops from its skirts upon them ; but it is 
 quickly driven off seawards, before it can 
 even damp them. 
 
 They return in a different order from that 
 in which they came, though that is not the 
 fault of the sculptor, who would be well 
 content to drop behind again witli his ally,
 
 154 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 and, while his artist eye is pleased by the 
 graceful antics of the vouno- oirls ahead of 
 him, reward Mrs. Bhgh's confidence by that 
 intimate talk about himself and his work, 
 which to a man of his stamp, and in the case 
 of a thoroughly trusted and warmly-liked 
 woman, is such a genuine enjoyment. But 
 Anne keeps so persistent a hold of one side, 
 of the Bath-chair, and talks with such a 
 frenzy of determination to its inmate, that 
 after one or two oblique efforts to induce her 
 to detach her grip, he desists. He does his 
 best even then, by making a pendant to her 
 on the other side, and shooting remarks at 
 her across the convalescent. But it is not 
 the same thing as on the outward journey ; 
 and once acrain he feels that sense of chill 
 and repulse which her unaccountable snub- 
 bings and shortnesses have before inspired 
 him with. 
 
 And yet he must have thought the ex- 
 cursion a success, for next day, when they 
 repeat it, he is again one of them. It is 
 unlikely that Sir Thomas Lascelles is a
 
 MRS. BLIGH 155 
 
 second time to be made a bard, but yet his 
 o"uest ao-a.in manao-es to elude his hospitality ; 
 on what pretext they none of them — since 
 all are ^"lad to ha\'e him — too curiously in- 
 quire. They ^o to Penmaen to-day to see 
 a ruined prior\', and a lii>-hthouse beyond it ; 
 and either because they have more fixity ol 
 piu'pose, or the weather — it is a colourless 
 uniform da)', like a dull man's mind — holds 
 out less temptation to loiter, they do really 
 arrive at their promised point in this case. 
 Unlike yesterday, their road runs at first 
 sheltered between hedo-es, hio'h hedges, 
 where the new brown buds of the quickset 
 hedge show against patches of monotonous 
 evergreen, then out on an exposed and sea- 
 washed tract of sedgy land, over which the 
 tide must once have rolled, and where now 
 the gorse lights its yellow fires ; up to Pen- 
 maen, where a painfully newly restored 
 church, with fresh pointed bricks, ccMitrasts 
 the graceful decay of the ruined walls of the 
 ancient monastery, in whose roofless en- 
 closures chickens stroll, and along whose
 
 156 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 face an enormously old ivy tree stretches 
 like an apricot on a garden wall. Up a steep 
 pitch, over a blowy hill, whose fine grass is 
 nibbled down by rabbits, of which this green 
 slope is a warren, down, down to where the 
 black and white lighthouse stands, now at 
 low tide scarcely touched by the surf, which 
 at flow foams so high around it. In the 
 watches of the past night, Anne has taken 
 herself seriously to task for her conduct 
 during the Red Wharf Bay excursion ; for 
 her stupid and surly want of confidence in 
 her friend and his likino- ; for her lack of 
 spring and of sympathetic gaiety. To her 
 pillow she has made many a penitent vow, 
 that if fate gives her another chance, she 
 will be more cheerful, more skittish, more in 
 tune with her surroundings. A playfulness, 
 (/e conimande, is not as a rule worth much ; 
 but hers is happily not put to a very severe 
 test, as on this second trip the level of spirits 
 of the whole party is distinctly less boister- 
 ously high than on the former one. 
 
 Pamela, who both times has given the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 157 
 
 keynote, is lor some reason in a soberer vein, 
 and walks alono- so steadily and with a 
 demureness so o-entle — ofentle even to the 
 discarded George — that the latter is em- 
 boldened to offer her timidly a little rabbit's 
 skull, bleached and bare, which he has picked 
 up, and of which he surreptitiously keeps 
 back the lower jaw ; and when the odd pre- 
 sent is carelessly accepted, half furtively 
 hides his portion in his pocket. The elders, 
 following in the rear, witness the little 
 transaction. 
 
 " That is the oddest love-token I ever saw," 
 says Coke, laughing. "He had better have 
 given it to Fezy ; he would have appreciated 
 it more." 
 
 "Would he .•^" with interest. "There! I 
 told you ! She has dropped it already. Why 
 do you pick it up ?" (as he stoops to retrieve 
 the castaway love-gift). 
 
 " Why ? I do not know ; I suppose be- 
 cause I never can help a sneaking tender- 
 ness towards anything or anybody that is 
 dropped."
 
 158 MRS. BLIGII 
 
 " Vou certainly ouglit to have a tenderness 
 tor young Mulholland, then, since there is no 
 doubt as to her having dropped him," 
 
 " Has she ? Well, I know it is incon- 
 sistent, but I am olad of that." 
 
 " Why ?" (a little breathlessly). 
 
 "Why! Oh, because" (indifferently), "if 
 people must be mated — I do not myself see 
 any necessity — but if they must, I think it is 
 as well that they should not be mismated. 
 I never can quite pardon Shakespeare for 
 having given Celia to Oliver, or Hero to 
 that sweep Claudio !" 
 
 " I expect that a good many of Shake- 
 speare's couples were not very happy in their 
 married life," replies Mrs. Bligh thought- 
 fully. " I am not very sure about even 
 Benedick and Beatrice ; Oliver, of course, 
 beat Celia. I am afraid that Angelo and 
 Mariana led but a cat-and-dog life ; and I 
 must say I hope that Bertram paid out 
 Helena for having entrapped him. I never 
 could bear Helena." 
 
 " No ? and yet she is the mouthpiece for
 
 MRS. BLIGH 159 
 
 some of the sweetest sayings about love that 
 Shakespeare ever uttered. Ah, here we are ! 
 How would you like to live in a lighthouse, 
 madam ?" 
 
 " George has gone for the key," cries Sue, 
 sendino- her childish voice down the sea wind 
 to them. " W^e are all to 120 inside, and the 
 man is t(j show us the resolvinii' lii-ht." 
 
 " Ot course you need not come," says 
 Pamela, approaching her friend, the red light 
 in her eyes as bright with expectation as 
 Sue's "resolving" one can be. "That is if 
 you had rather not ; nor you either," waving 
 a little larch wand, lately cut by George out 
 of a hedge for her, in the direction ot Coke, 
 to show that she means him. 
 
 "Of course I shall come," replies Anne 
 stoudv* with a hurried recollection of her 
 midnight resolve to be not outdone in youfh 
 or enterprise, even by Sue or Fezy. " How 
 easy it looks — only those three little steps !" 
 
 lUit the three little steps, like niany other 
 things in life, wear a very different aspect 
 when looked at close, from that which they
 
 i6o MRS. BLIGH 
 
 present when seen from a distance. The 
 Hghthouse is reached now at low tide by a 
 path made of three narrow planks laid abreast, 
 and furnished with an iron handrail ; and 
 when this is passed, and the base of the 
 structure reached, Mrs. Bligh perceives how 
 razor-edged, how slippery, how strait, the 
 steps which from the hill had looked as easy 
 of ascent as xki^ perron of a Georgian country- 
 house really are. Her heart fails her, and 
 despite Sue's earnest adjuration and hand- 
 some offer, " Oh, do come, I will push you 
 from behind very hard ; and then if you fall 
 I shall be killed too !" she lets the young 
 ones — though with a slight heart-pinch at 
 the thought of her own oldness and want of 
 agility — go without her. Coke stays beside 
 her — at least, he really meant to do so ; and 
 together they amusedly watch the little girl 
 crawling up first, holding tight on to the rail 
 on each side, while her closely following 
 brother restrains her lively petticoats from 
 indulging a lively impulse to liy over her 
 head. She has reached the top in safety,
 
 MRS. BLIGH 1 6-1 
 
 and now it is Pamela's turn. She is oene- 
 rally daring- and hardy enough, but now she 
 hesitates. 
 
 "If vou hold me down as tiohtlv as you 
 did Sue," she says, eyeing- her expectant 
 squire with unveiled distrust, " I shall not be 
 able to move my legs at all !" 
 
 " I seem never to be able to do anvthine 
 right of late," he answers affronted, and, 
 turning- on his heel, begins to retrace his 
 steps across the slippery planks to where the 
 Bath -chair and Lucile are waitinaf on the 
 hillside. 
 
 Pamela on her part makes a feint of 
 attempting the ascent unaided. But It is so 
 evident a one, and the young man's lagging 
 retreat partakes so obviously of the same 
 character, that it is apparent to the meanest 
 understanding that necessity on one side and 
 tenderness on the other will, if they are left 
 to themselves, soon effect a rapprochement 
 between the couple. There is not the 
 smallest need for anyone else to interfere, 
 and yet Mrs, Bligh does so. The sculptor 
 
 1 1
 
 t52 MRS. BLlGH 
 
 is leaning over the rails, his attention strayed 
 away from the squabbling- youth and maiden, 
 listening pleased to the sea-song, and looking 
 at the rocklets below him, all covered with 
 the little bladders of the coarse yellow-brown 
 sea-tang, and the much more delicate briny 
 weeds that live in the mimic pools and 
 hollows left by the tide. He is fancifully 
 likening them to land things : the pink ones 
 to sea-heather, the green to meadow grass, 
 when his friend's voice breaks into his 
 reverie : 
 
 " Ought not you to go to the rescue ?" 
 She makes the suggestion : firstly, because 
 she has a perfectly groundless suspicion that 
 he wishes it ; and secondly, because she her- 
 self had very much rather that he did not. 
 
 "The rescue!" he answers, with a quite 
 o-enuine slioht start. " Whose rescue ? Oh, 
 I see ! By all means." 
 
 Two minutes later Pamela, flushed and 
 with wind-loosened hair, is blowing kisses to 
 Anne from the lighthouse doorway, up to 
 which she has been skilfully, swifdy.. and
 
 MRS. BLIGH 163 
 
 lightly piloted, and then with her guide dis- 
 appears in the interior. Mrs. Bligh rests her 
 arms on the rails as nearly as possible in the 
 same spot as that lately occupied by Coke, 
 tries to look at- exactly the same seaweeds, 
 and to catch the train of thought they had 
 suofeested to him. As she does so, an un- 
 disguisedly angry voice sounds in her ear : 
 '* I see you are my enemy still." She does 
 not answer young Mulholland, but to her 
 own heart she says, " Not nearly so much as 
 
 mv own."
 
 CHAPTER JX. 
 
 The Mulholland family no longer make com- 
 pany of Anne, as is apparent by the freedom 
 with which, on the evening following the 
 Penmaen trip, they are pursuing their usual 
 course of every-day occupation and rough 
 family jokes. The only exception is the 
 head, who is trying to read his Morning Post 
 without glasses by holding the paper at an 
 immense distance from his eyes, and has just 
 snubbed the objectionable librarian for an 
 officious offer to seek his spectacle-case for 
 him ; but, like most under-bred persons, this 
 one is quite unsnubbable, and only follows up 
 his proposal by a jocose anecdote of some 
 other elderly gentleman who was supposed to
 
 MRS. BLIGH 165 
 
 have said, " My sight is as good as ever ; I 
 onlv want mv arm lengthened." 
 
 It is received with a frozen silence, but its 
 author ""oes on chuckling" over it for several 
 minutes. Lucile in the tearing spirits of 
 \-ounij- con\'alescence and Sue are havino- a 
 quite noisy scuffle, which neither of their 
 parents appears to hear, and the object of 
 which is on Lucile's part the snatching away 
 and on Sue's the retention of a half-written 
 letter addressed by the latter to a correspon- 
 dent, and which the elder sister is mischie- 
 vously anxious to read aloud for the diversion 
 of the company. The war, rendered unequal 
 by the fact that Lucile is still supported by a 
 stick, is beinof waired with uncertain fortune 
 until George decides its issue by unexpectedly 
 filching the contested document out of the 
 hands of both combatants, and reading it out 
 in a loud, level voice over their heads. 
 
 " There are two very curous bridges here, 
 one is a suspention bridge, the other is a 
 tubibular l^ridge, because it resembles a 
 gigantic tobe."
 
 1 66 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 The little scribe's family burst into a roar 
 of laughter, while she herself hovers between 
 giggles and tears, crying : 
 
 " Oh, Czar, you too! you are unkind !" 
 
 '' I am sure you do not mean that, Sue !" 
 strikes in the librarian perkily. " I know 
 that you think your pappy a dear, kind old 
 gentleman !" 
 
 In a second everybody stops laughing. 
 
 "You are looking pale, Nan!" says the 
 hostess ; "we must not let these young 
 lunatics tear you to pieces ; they forget that 
 you are not quite the same age as them- 
 selves !" 
 
 This Imputation on her juvenility leaves its 
 object calm, but her young disciple reddens 
 with indignation. 
 
 "If people are all young together, I do 
 not see that a year or two makes much differ- 
 ence. I am sure we were all one as young 
 as another to-day." 
 
 " Including our poor Coke ?" suggests Czar 
 with a sneer. 
 
 " Yes, including ' our poor Coke ' " (stur-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 167 
 
 clily) ; "of course that is a joke, he is not 
 young, and he does not pretend to be ; but 
 Anne is vouncr !" 
 
 " Of course she is ! Your birthday is the 
 20th of February, Nan, is not it ? I remem- 
 ber it because it came between Constance 
 Fletcher's and Laura Wilde's. I have quite 
 lost sioht of Constance, and someone told me 
 that Laura had gone to the bad. I hope it 
 is not true." 
 
 She expresses this hope with an air of such 
 absolute snug indifference that Mrs. Bligh 
 smiles, but does not answer, because her at- 
 tention is at this moment claimed by the sight 
 of Fezy, whom she now sees standing on the 
 hearthrug shaking her lace pocket-handker- 
 chief like a rat. He has stolen it out of her 
 pocket so softly that she has not till now 
 become aware of her loss. 
 
 " Isiit he clever ?" cries his little owner 
 ecstatically; "he always goes to the right 
 side because he knows that people have their 
 pockets on the right side. Oh, I do hope he 
 has not done it much harm 1"
 
 i68 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 This unlikely aspiration is so far from 
 beinsf realized that Mrs. Blio;h's sole course 
 is good-naturedly to reassure the little girl by 
 telling her that it is only her second-best 
 pocket-handkerchief, and to make over the 
 wreck to George, who, anxious to display in 
 turn the accomplishments of his own favourite, 
 makes it up into an improbable mouse and 
 throws it to the end of the long room for Jim 
 the terrier to pursue and worry, which he 
 does with such artistic thoroughness as to 
 throw poor Fezy's talents into the shade. 
 Conscious of this, mad with mortification and 
 envy, yet too cowardly to dispute the prize, 
 the tiny performer lies eclipsed in an arm- 
 chair, easing his feelings by a short angry 
 bark each time that the small damp ball and 
 the scampering terrier's feet slither together 
 over the parquet. 
 
 "It is very good-natured of you to pretend 
 that you like their harum-scarum expeditions," 
 says Mrs. Mulholland, taking advantage of 
 a war of words which has arisen between the 
 dog-owners, and in which Pamela has been
 
 MRS. BLIGH 169 
 
 called in as umpire ; " but, of course, I know 
 that it is only g-ood-naturc, and so I told Lady 
 Lascelles to-day, when she came to arrange 
 about the visit to the Quarries for Monday ; 
 she made rather a point of having you, but 
 I really do not see why, when you have come 
 here to enjoy yourself, you should be made 
 use of to entertain other people's guests." 
 
 If there is any gratification to be derived 
 from this speech by the person to whom it 
 is addressed, it lies in the evidence it affords 
 of how very much better she must have 
 disguised her sentiments than is usually 
 possible to her. But her satisfaction, such 
 as it is, does not hinder her saying resolutely, 
 though with a laugh : 
 
 " I am afraid I do not often do anything 
 out of good-nature ; I should like to go on 
 Monday. I have never seen a slate- 
 quarry." 
 
 " There is not much to see " — disparagingly 
 — "and you have to be dragged up cliffs as 
 steep as the side of a house in little o|)en 
 trucks ; I can't think how any head can
 
 170 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 stand it. I am sure you would be much 
 happier at home with Czar and me." 
 
 "Pray do not include inc f cries he 
 huffily ; " upon my word, our friend Coke, 
 lor a man who is supposed to have come 
 down here professionally, is taking it pretty 
 coolly ; here to-day, there to-morrow. I fail 
 to see where the business comes in." 
 
 "He has spent the whole of each morning 
 in making sketches and taking measurements 
 for the monument in the church," says Anne, 
 picking up the cudgels for her absent friend, 
 and calling herself a fool for doing so ; " and 
 apparently Sir Thomas is satisfied with him, 
 as he now wishes him to do also a bust of 
 Lady Lascelles." 
 
 " H'm! I wonder how many more effigies 
 of herself that dear little lady will have before 
 she is content !" 
 
 "A bust of Lady Lascelles!" cries his 
 wife in a tone of lively interest. " I wonder 
 she never mentioned it when she was here 
 to-day ! I dare say she was afraid of your 
 chaffing her ; you know you are a little
 
 MRS. BLIGH 171 
 
 satirical sometimes to her, though she is a 
 great favourite. Oh. Czar " — with a sudden 
 inspiration — " how I wish that you would sit 
 to him ! Have you any idea " — to Anne — 
 "what his charge is? and would he make 
 a reduction in the case of a particularly good 
 subject ?" 
 
 " I have not an idea," with an inward 
 smile, oiven to the recollection of Coke's 
 delighted comparison of his host's face to 
 that of old Nellie, the ourang-outang. " I 
 believe — I imagine — that his price would be 
 about ^500 !" 
 
 " ^^500!" — this from Czar — "do you mean 
 to say that he has the conscience to ask 
 ^500 for a mere bust, just head and 
 shoulders ? I like his effrontery ! Why, 
 
 Marochetti himself " 
 
 lUit what Marochetti himself either did, 
 or did not, will never now be certainly 
 known, for at this juncture there arises a 
 hideous clamour of dogs and men. It springs 
 from the fact that at one last supernatural 
 bound of the pocketdiandkerchief mouse, and
 
 172 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 capture of It by Jim, Fezy loses all self- 
 control, and, casting prudence to the winds, 
 leaps from his armchair, and flies at the 
 terrier. The latter unhesitatingly retorts by 
 a very sincere nip into the beautiful black 
 jabof under his little chin ; while Lassie — 
 always a rather underhand character — seeing 
 here a good opportunity of paying off old 
 scores, plants her teeth in the happily thick 
 silk of his nape. All their owners at once 
 hurl themselves into the fray, and amid a 
 mingled din of howls, growls, tears, and 
 smacks, the evening ends. 
 
 When Monday comes it is apparent that 
 the energy of Mrs. Bligh's assertion of her 
 wish to visit the slate-quarries has been of 
 service to her, since no more efforts at 
 dissuasion are made. She sets off accom- 
 panied by reiterated hopes from her host 
 that she may enjoy herself, uttered in a tone 
 which plainly shows how assured he is that 
 she will not. His family leave him, making 
 ostentatious and unnecessary — since he had 
 not been Invited — actions of thanksgiving
 
 MRS. BLIGH 173 
 
 that he is not of the party. The third of 
 any series ought always to be the best ; and 
 surely this third and crowninof excursion, 
 exceeding the previous ones so far in scope 
 and ambition, must exceed them proportion- 
 ately in enjoyment too. It opens auspiciously. 
 Sir Thomas drives his own coach, but in 
 thoughtful deference to a dislike, carelessly 
 expressed on a previous day by Anne for 
 that form of conveyance, a victoria has been 
 pro\'ided for her ; and in that victoria it is 
 soon clear that the sculptor is meant to be 
 her companion. She fancies that he looks 
 surprised at the arrangement, and at once 
 asks him in her shortest voice whether he 
 would not rather go on the coach. He 
 answers her — as how can he help doing ? — - 
 and with every appearance of veracity, that 
 he had rather not, and seats himself beside 
 her with an expression of complete, if not 
 ecstatic, content. 
 
 " Now we are going to enjoy ourselves," 
 he sa\s in a tone of easy playfulness, that 
 yet to her ears conveys a very gentle ad-
 
 174 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 monlshment. " We are going to stroke 
 each other's fur the right way the whole day, 
 and not say anything that is not perfecdy 
 pleasant to one another, for who knows when 
 we shall have the chance of another ride 
 together in a one-horse shay ? Are you 
 agreed ?" 
 
 "Do you wish me to commit perjury?" 
 she asks ; but her voice is no longer short, 
 and she smiles. 
 
 It is an uncertain blowy day : now bril- 
 liant, now sulky ; the sea, a mere dark sheet 
 a moment ago, suddenly covered all over 
 with silver scales. By the side of the 
 charming Straits they pass, across the noble 
 Menai Bridge, since the quarries lie in Car- 
 narvonshire. Coke is obviously inclined to 
 be silent, and, despite his announcement of a 
 determination to enjoy himself, apparendy 
 somewhat out of spirits. His companion's 
 anxious desire to discover the cause shapes 
 Itself by-and-by into the query : 
 
 "You are really going back to London 
 to-night ?"
 
 MRS. BLiGH 1)^ 
 
 '* Yes ; I shall catch the night mail at 
 Chester." 
 
 " You are glad to go ?" 
 
 " To anv other woman I should, of course, 
 say 'No'; but to my conscience "—with a 
 look of affectionate confidence — " I may in- 
 dulge myself in the luxury of speaking truth. 
 I a))i glad. I can't work with comfort any- 
 where but in my studio. I can't sleep in a 
 strange bed. I miss my violent ride in the 
 park in the morning. I suppose " — with a 
 smile — "that I am like an old watch, which 
 after a o-ood shakino- o-oes ao-ain !" 
 
 Until the candour of this answer disabuses 
 her, Mrs. Bligh had not realized how much 
 of hope had lurked in her mind that the 
 sculptor's depression owed its cause to the 
 ending of his rural holiday. 
 
 "You have not seen my new horse," he 
 pursues— a livelier tone already evident in 
 his voice at the thought of his departure — 
 "he is the colour of a donkey. I think there 
 must have been a mesalliance in his family ! 
 I saw him in the street one day being trotted
 
 1)6 MRS. BLIGH- 
 
 out for someone, and he turned his head and 
 looked at me as if he said, ' I wish you would 
 buy me ' ; so I got the vet. to find out who he 
 belono-ed to, and outbid the fellow he did not 
 like, and now we are great friends. I must 
 ride him round to Tite Street some day to 
 show him to you ; but " — with impatience — 
 " you will not be there !" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " When are you coming back T' with 
 friendly urgency. 
 
 She shakes her head doubtfully. 
 
 " I have not very much to come back to. 
 I shall not find a Rayon d'Or and six dead 
 brewers, and an equestrian general, waiting 
 for me on my hearthrug." 
 
 " But if you like, you may find the guilty 
 author of them all there," replies he, laughing. 
 Then more seriously, "Without any joke, I 
 wish you would come home soon. You may 
 think I do not mean it — that it is only 
 ' Blague ' ; but I assure you the knowledge 
 that there is a tribunal in a little house in 
 Tite Street, before which I must appear, has
 
 MRS. BLIGH 177 
 
 more than once made me refuse work, which 
 otherwise I should probably for the sake 
 of filthy lucre" — with a shruQ- — "have 
 accepted." 
 
 " I wonder is that true ?" she asks doubt- 
 fully, her eyes averted from him, and resting 
 on the stone wall, which — -hideous but philan- 
 thropic, built to employ workmen in a famine 
 year — girdles for seven miles the park of the 
 owner of the Llanberis Quarries. 
 
 " Why is it that I never can get you to 
 realize A\hat a boon 3. genuine friendship with 
 a woman is to a man ?" Her ear detects 
 very readily the slight accent on the adjec- 
 tive. " The relations between men and 
 women are so apt to be spoilt by the intro- 
 duction of a — a spurious elem.ent, that I do 
 not know" — with gentle reproach — "why 
 one should be suspected of lying when one 
 rejoices at having secured the real thing." 
 
 It is dull of her not to have any answer 
 ready, not even a sign of acquiescence. 
 
 " Was not it"^ — he goes on, and there is a 
 slight indication of discomfort in his voice at 
 
 12
 
 178 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 her silence — "Balzac who said: ' Ce qui 
 rend les amities indissolubles, et double leur 
 charme est un sentiment qui manque a 
 I'amour, la certitude.' I wish" — kindly — "I 
 could put a little of that certitude into you ; 
 you would then be an ideal friend !" 
 
 The coach ahead of them has stopped ; the 
 little mining village, which is the point de 
 depart of their climb, being reached. An 
 hour later they are being wound up the side 
 of a cliff, on an incline of a gradient not 
 much less steep than the side of a house, in 
 little trucks, each with a backless board 
 thrown across it as sole seat. 
 
 " It is .T6> delightful !" Sue has explained as 
 they set off " You feel as if you must fall 
 backwards. Mother shut her eyes and 
 screamed the whole way. I wonder will 
 you t 
 
 But Mrs. Bligh does not. Her head is a 
 strong one, and to her the bird-like feeling of 
 triumphantly mounting brings into it nothing 
 but elation, as she looks down on the slate 
 rocks ; on the profound Llanberis lake, which
 
 MRS. BLIGH 179 
 
 is yearly being diminished by the heaps of 
 refuse slate weekly and monthly advancing 
 their feet further and further into its waters ; 
 on the men like little ilies walking about 
 below. And then they are slung up into the 
 heart of the quarries themselves, and hnd 
 what a grand meaning there lies in that word 
 — which to most of us calls up only memories 
 of the tearful essays in arithmetic of our 
 childhood — the homely word " slate."". Here, 
 they stand surrounded by sheer walls of it ^ 
 purple and lilac, and green and olive ; not a 
 scrap of vegetation anyvyhere ; sheer walls and 
 peaks and precipices of the sombre, yet many- 
 coloured splendour. One above another rise 
 the galleries where the quarrymen are work- 
 ing, some of the dark tunnel-mouths now 
 high up in air showing to what a depth 
 the cliff has been blasted and pickaxed away 
 since those tunnels were bored. There is 
 something of awful in the thought of the way 
 in wliich man — in some aspects so puny and 
 ephemeral an insect — is changing the face of 
 what we were wont to call the everlastino- hills !
 
 i8o MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Everlasting, indeed ! Whither has dis- 
 appeared the mountain block which once 
 filled the huge gap now yawning between 
 yon two parted promontories ? Within the 
 last few months it has been blown bodily 
 away ; the great rock dissolved, as it were, 
 into thin air. Soon, probably, the yet en- 
 durine crao-s vvill have melted awav with all 
 the noble tints and shades on their riven sides, 
 before the mieht and the malice of their tinv. 
 evanescent, yet all-powerful foe. 
 
 Anne has sat down to rest on a green gray 
 ledge in a part of the quarry which has 
 assumed the air of a gigantic amphitheatre ; 
 range above range of semicircular seats, on 
 which Titans, or vet huo'er than Titans, 
 might sit to look on at some giant fight or 
 oame or race, in the arena below. On the 
 
 o 
 
 lake's further side, cloud-capped Snowdon 
 and his vassal hills seem looking on with fear 
 and dread at the havoc wrought on their 
 brethren opposite. 
 
 Mrs. Bligh is for the moment alone, the 
 party having drifted in different directions.
 
 MRS. BLIGH i8i 
 
 Sue has carried off some of them to a shed 
 where men are at work spHtting the slates, 
 which requires nicety, and cutting them into 
 shape ; while Pamela, clinging to George's 
 hand to preserve her balance with a tenacity 
 which nothing but the instinct of self-pre- 
 servation could give, is craning over a sheer 
 rock-edcre to watch a slate loaded iron basket 
 worked by a crane slowly mount the scarped 
 hillside. 
 
 " What a strange idea of pleasure !" 
 The widow starts. She had not imagined 
 the sculptor to be near her ; nor that his 
 eyes, like her own, were watching Miss 
 Capel - Smith's rather perilous gymnastics. 
 They have not exchanged words since their 
 tctc-a-tctc drive, which has left a vague im- 
 pression of dissatisfaction on both their 
 minds. "It will be very perverse of her" 
 — laughing — " if she insists on breaking her 
 neck before I have succeeded in getting her 
 to sit for me." 
 
 "Is she o:oino- to sit for vou ?" rather 
 (|Liicklv.
 
 1^82 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " That is more than I can say ; I cannot 
 get a rational answer out of her. I can't 
 induce her to beHeve that I mean it 
 seriously.'' 
 
 ''No?" 
 
 " I can't oret either ' Yes ' or ' No' out of 
 her ; and when I thouoht I had driven her 
 into a corner, she escaped me by murmuring 
 something about her parents. I wish nobody 
 had parents. I wish every woman was born 
 a widow. Do you suppose it is true, and 
 that her parents would object ?" 
 
 " Since you wish to represent her as a 
 Nereid" — drily — "I think it is not un- 
 likely." 
 
 "I do not see" — warmly— "what harm it 
 could do either them or her to lend me her 
 pretty little head ; and whether I call her 
 Ligea or Cassiopceia or St. Cecilia, is surely 
 my affair — not theirs." 
 
 " Didn't I ?'' — still drily — "understand you 
 to say that you wished to have her dear 
 little hands, too, to twist in your seahorse's 
 mane ?"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 1 8 
 
 J 
 
 "Well, it would not do her much harm to 
 lend me them too, but, as it happens, I do 
 not want them. I have been looking at 
 them, and there is not much character in 
 them — there seldom is in young girls' 
 hands." 
 
 They are both silent for a minute or two, 
 watching the subject of their conversation, 
 who has by this time recovered her equili- 
 brium, and repudiated the support ' (which 
 even from here they can see to be offered 
 with such nervous eagerness) of young Mul- 
 holland. Anne is the first to speak, but her 
 utterance, when it comes, sounds rather 
 enigmatical, and is not elucidated by her 
 eves, which are fastened on the dark 
 Lvnn. 
 
 " I should have thought that your simplest 
 plan would have been to secure a permanent 
 sitter." 
 
 "A permanent sitter? How do you 
 
 mean ?" 
 
 "One who could never expose you to the 
 mortification of a refusal ; whose duty it
 
 1 84 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 would be to pose whenever and for whatever 
 you choose." 
 
 " Do you mean a professional model ? 
 But, of course, I have half a dozen." 
 
 " I do not mean a professional model." 
 She pauses, and then troes on in a con- 
 strained voice, and with averted eyes : "To 
 most professional men a wife is a costly 
 luxury ; to an artist she is a prime economy, 
 and a first-class investment." 
 
 "A wife!" he repeats, in a tone of 
 surprised consternation, which, had she been 
 open at the moment to impressions of the 
 ludicrous, must have made her laugh. " Is 
 that what your mysterious innuendoes have 
 been driving at } Et tit, B^-ute ! Well, I 
 did not expect it of you. I thought that 
 you, at least, were above the vulgar error 
 of believing every man must have an omni- 
 vorous wish to marry every woman he looks 
 or does not look at." 
 
 Coke speaks with a not unnatural irrita- 
 tion, and with the speed of one anxious to 
 close an unwelcome theme.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 185 
 
 *' Vulgar I may be, and no doubt am !"' 
 retorts she, highly netded, and wilfully mis- 
 understanding ; "but I still think that when 
 a man is perpetually devouring a girl with 
 his eyes, it is a not unnatural inference that 
 he wishes to appropriate her." 
 
 No sooner is this extremely objectionable^ 
 sentence out of her mouth than she bitterly 
 regrets its utterance, but, like most repen- 
 tances, hers comes too late. 
 
 He looks silently at her with a half-in- 
 credulous displeasure, and moves away to 
 meet Sue, who is coming flying towards 
 them. 
 
 '' We are to ofo back in the workmen's 
 train !' cries she, breathless with excitement ; 
 
 "and Sir Thomas has asked Mr. " — 
 
 the agent, and a personal friend of the 
 Lascelles — "to let as many of us as there 
 is room for travel on the engine. Oh, I 
 hope there will be room for ;;/r /" 
 
 "You shall vro instead of me — I will oivc 
 you up my place," replies the sculptor good- 
 naturedly, in a voice which bears no trace
 
 1 86 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 of the late ruffling of his temper ; and taking 
 Sue by the hand he walks off with her to 
 make the proposed sacrifice. 
 
 The workmen's train carries the quarry- 
 men back to Port Dinorwic after work-hours, 
 
 and on its engine, worked by Mr. 
 
 himself, Mrs. Bligh and the enraptured Sue 
 make their descent. In the interest of 
 observing the 1,200 quarrymen sitting to- 
 gether close as sardines on the loaded slate- 
 trucks, and in the excitement of watching 
 how many of the 2,400 pendant fustian legs 
 are grazed by the perilously close rock wall 
 as the train bends round an abrupt curve, 
 the little girl is so absorbed that the grown 
 woman may enjoy her own reflections un- 
 disturbed. At Port Dinorwic Coke is to 
 quit the party, in order to pursue his journey 
 to London. 
 
 Must they part thus? At first it seems 
 that it will be so. It appears obvious to 
 her that in the last rapidly-fleeting moments, 
 while the horses are being put to, he 
 pointedly avoids her. She cannot let him
 
 MRS. B LI Gil 187 
 
 go without any apology or peacemaki no- 
 overture. He is already drawing on his 
 gloves, and has said his last graceful civilities 
 to Lady Lascelles, when, in desperation, she 
 walks without any subterfuge straight up to 
 him, 
 
 "It was a temptation of the devil," she 
 says, in a low key; "are you very, very 
 angry with, me ?" 
 
 Her voice shakes perceptibly, and there is 
 an evident sincerity in her eyes. 
 
 He looks back at her, softened, but still 
 jarred. 
 
 " I am never angry with you," he answers, 
 taking her hand in farewell ; " but when you 
 say those sort of things, dear friend, you rub 
 a little of the bloom off our friendship," 
 
 1W
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 '' I AM the last person In the world to deny 
 what a boon to us the Lascelles are," says 
 Mrs, Mulholland the next mornino^ at break- 
 fast. 
 
 " You might as well deny that two and 
 two make four, as that they head our rather 
 scanty list of blessings," interrupts her 
 husband peevishly. 
 
 "I do not deny it, but" — with good- 
 humoured pertinacity — " what I do maintain 
 is that they are unsettling. One can't fix 
 one's mind to anything when one never 
 knows at what hour of the mornino; Ladv 
 Lascelles may spring a serene highness, or 
 an ambassador, or a sculptor, through the 
 garden door upon one."
 
 MRS. BLIGH J 89 
 
 " As many serene highnesses and ambassa- 
 dors as she pleases ; I am not much afraid 
 of lacking subjects of conversation with 
 them, and introduced by whatever door it 
 may please her whimsical little ladyship ; 
 but as to her last prott^gc^, I tell her fairly 
 I am inclined to pick a quarrel with 
 her !" 
 
 ''Do not set her against the poor man!" 
 — compassionately — " I dare say he is very 
 good in his own line ; and, indeed, he must 
 be, if he asks the prices Nan told us. Now. 
 Nan, I appeal to you" — rising from the 
 table, since the meal is ended, and putting 
 her hand on her schoolfellow's shoulder, as 
 they pass into the drawing-room — "shall not 
 we be much more cosy to-day, having our- 
 selves to ourselves ? I do not feel as if I 
 had had the least bit of good of you yet. I 
 do not grudge you to Czar, but I do grudge 
 \()u to perfect strangers. I have not heard 
 a single word about your life since we parted, 
 except, of course, just the main facts of your 
 marriage, and the — — in fact " — doubtfully
 
 I90 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 — " I never feel quite sure whether you Hke 
 talking about it." 
 
 " I had rather talk about yours." 
 
 "Ah, you poor clear thing! it must seem 
 wonderfully bright to you; but" — reassuringly 
 ^" I have one little shoe-pinch too." 
 
 " Have you } I am sorry to hear it." 
 
 " Not a very uncommon one — only L. S. D. 
 I could do with a little more money — not for 
 myself, of course ; when one has the main 
 thing of life, one does not much mind about 
 the extras — but for Czar." 
 
 "You look so well off." 
 
 "You mean that we have carriages and 
 horses, and plenty of servants ? Ah, that 
 is his royal sort of way ! Once I proposed 
 to him to reduce the establishment— send 
 away one of the footmen, and a housemaid 
 or two— and have fewer in the kitchen ; and 
 he made no objection, not a word ; but he 
 went about looking so drooping, so utterly 
 wretched, that, of course, I never had the 
 heart to repeat the suggestion." 
 
 "No?"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 191 
 
 '* Then, naturally, he would like to do 
 more for George. He — George — has never 
 been to either University, because his father 
 could not afford to send him — literally could 
 not afford — that is, unless he gave up his 
 own rooms in St. James's Place, and his 
 little summer trips to Dieppe, and, in fact, 
 everything that makes life life to him ! He 
 told the boy so himself, with tears in his 
 eyes ; that is why his children adore him so. 
 He treats them like friends and equals. 
 George was so touched !" 
 
 •' Was he ? Poor George !" 
 
 " Then, Lucile — you see what a really 
 remarkable turn she has for animal-drawing ? 
 He longs to give her a chance. Indeed, 
 one day I found her crying, because he had 
 just told her that he meant to put down his 
 Whitechapel, in order to be able to give 
 her some really good lessons ! Of course, 
 none of us would hear of such a sacrifice, 
 but those are the generous kind of impulses 
 that he has !" 
 
 An hour later, Mrs, Bligh and Pamela
 
 192 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 are walking through the crisp March morn- 
 ing towards the noble old feudal castle of 
 Beaumaris, which stands, with the little town 
 that has grown up at its feet, close beside 
 the Straits, across which the Snowdon Range 
 has looked down upon it for its 500 years of 
 stout life and robust decay. It is girdled by 
 a high loopholed wall, bursting out at in- 
 tervals into round towers. 
 
 They go inside and pace the grassy circle 
 — once, perhaps, a moat— between the outer 
 and the inner walls, and enter, through a 
 broken arch, the turfy square, where the 
 donjon fronts them, and where the still 
 massive though ruinous windows darken like 
 eye-sockets in the keep's gray face. They 
 sit down to rest on a bench, and after a 
 minute or two of silence Pamela says : 
 
 " Why is it that, as often as one is 
 particularly comfortable, one is sure to feel 
 Fate giving one a push from behind, and 
 telling one to move on Y' 
 
 " Does one ? I do not see the present 
 application."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 193 
 
 "No? But of course not! Why should 
 you? It is only that I am feeling just that 
 push at the present moment ; I should like " 
 —with girlish exaggeration — " to stay here 
 with vou for ever, and I know that if I did 
 right I should go back to London to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Why ?" — quickly — " have you " 
 
 She stops, unable to put into words the 
 senseless fear that assails her as to the 
 motive that may dictate the girl's proposed 
 return. 
 
 "Have I — what?" asks Pamela, looking 
 up, puzzled by something in her companion's 
 voice. " No, I have not — anything" — laugh- 
 ing — "but I know that if I had any sense of 
 honour — sometimes I think I have not — I 
 should be off from here by that horrible 
 jangling station 'bus to Bangor to-morrow 
 morning. I sec by unerring signs that a 
 crisis is approaching." 
 
 " Really ?" replies Anne, genuinely in- 
 terested, and with an inward blush at the 
 thought of how entirely her absorption in 
 
 ^3
 
 194 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 her own concerns has bHnded her to every- 
 thing outside them. "What reason have 
 you for thinking so ?" 
 
 " Have not you noticed " — again laughing, 
 but with vexation — "with what touching 
 iteration poor dear Mrs. Mulholland keeps 
 telling me that I am one of the family ?" 
 
 " Ye— es " — not quite truthfully, but 
 ashamed to acknowledge her own want of 
 observation — " I think I have." 
 
 "And Czar has quite given up trying to 
 kiss me on the stairs !" 
 
 " That at least is clear gain," 
 
 "Even he" — pursues Pamela, with a 
 short smile — "sees the impossibility of 
 making love to his own daughter-in-law." 
 
 " I should think so ! ' — emphatically. 
 
 " But I am not so much the gainer as 
 you suppose" — gloomily — "I do not find 
 the stairs any safer. I have only exchanged 
 the father for the son." 
 
 " Does George pounce out upon you too ?" 
 
 " Oh no, poor fellow ! there is no pouncing 
 about it, Only he is always on the landing.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 195 
 
 or at the foot of the staircase, looking re- 
 proachful, and begging me to tell him what 
 he has done, and why I am so changed. Of 
 course, I can't explain to him that growth is 
 not change." 
 
 Anne is silent. Her companion's asser- 
 tion, made once before, as to having out- 
 grown her old lover in intellectual stature, 
 always gives her a sense of discomfort and 
 guilt. Her eye rests absently on the ter- 
 centenary ivy which hangs on the wall, still 
 and unreached by the March wind that is 
 loudly singing and shouting to the white 
 horses in the Straits outside, like a charioteer 
 that is urging those foaming steeds to higher 
 speed. 
 
 "He is so under-educated!" — continues 
 the girl irritably, boxing a daisy's ears with 
 her umljrella point — "so limited ; his horizon 
 is no further from his nose than that !" 
 indicating a space not wider than an inch 
 from her own disdainful feature. 
 
 "Poor fellow! That is more his mis- 
 fortune than his fault."
 
 196 . MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " Yes ; I know he has only to thank that 
 abominable old Czar, who sent him to a 
 cheap and nasty school, for fear of having 
 to buy less expensive wigs and teeth, and 
 have fewer of the ' parties fines ' he is always 
 talking of at Bignon's, if he put him to a 
 decent one ; but the fact remains all the 
 same " — with a resolute shake of the head 
 — "he is as narrow as that T indicating 
 another minute space with her finger and 
 thumb. " If you begin to talk to him about 
 anything — art, literature — you are pulled up 
 at once by a blank wall of ignorance on his 
 part." 
 
 Mrs. Blieh is agfain silent. Her own 
 small experience of the young man has 
 tallied too completely with the opinion now 
 expressed by her companion for her to be 
 able honesdy to controvert it ; and yet she 
 feels a vague sense of regret at having been 
 the means of opening the disdainful young 
 eyes beside her to their old playfellow's 
 shortcomings. They sit for awhile in mute 
 quiet on their sunny bench ; and some militia,
 
 MRS. BLIGH 197 
 
 who, when they arrived, had been drilHno- in 
 the green close, making- a scarlet splash 
 against the sobriety of the low - toned 
 masonry, depart, and leave the place to 
 their undisputed possession. 
 
 "And yet there is something to be said 
 f(M' him too !" continues Pamela presendy, 
 the pendulum of her judgment beginning to 
 swine towards the other direction as it 
 becomes evident that no remonstrance 
 aofainst her unflatterino- estimate of her 
 admirer is forthcoming; "he has a good 
 deal of natural shrewdness ; he manages all 
 the business of the Tandem and Lifeboat 
 Clubs. I have known him all my life, so 
 that I should have nothing to find out ; his 
 conduct to that old pig, his father, who has 
 blasted his life, is simply angelic ; and I do 
 not suppose if I lived to be a hundred that 
 I should ever have such a solid block of 
 devotion offered to me aoain." 
 
 At the beginning of this speech, Anne has 
 felt inclined to laui^h at the sino'ularlv slender 
 and unattractive list of attractions so dis-
 
 198 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 passionately put forth, but at the end she 
 grows grave. " A soHd block of devotion !" 
 Judging from the very few and small chips 
 that have ever fallen to her own share, a 
 woman would indeed be wise to think lono- 
 and weigh nicely ere she rejected a whole 
 " block." And yet 
 
 "If the fors and againsts of any course of 
 action were not so inextricably mixed, how 
 much simpler life would be !" cries the girl 
 impatiently. 
 
 "Well," says Mrs. Bligh caustically, yet 
 not unkindly, " I suppose that since you 
 approach the subject in so business-like a 
 spirit, all you have to do is to take out your 
 scales and see which kick the beam, the pros 
 or the cons ; which weighs heaviest : his 
 want of book-learning, or his management 
 of the Tandem Club ; the narrowness of his 
 horizon, or the depth of his heart .'*" 
 
 Pamela's cheek grows a shade nearer in 
 hue to her fresh lips at the slight sarcasm of 
 her friend's tone, but after a minute she 
 rejoins impulsively :
 
 MRS. BLIGH 199 
 
 " I will abide by your decision, dien ! It 
 was you who first opened my eyes to his 
 deficiencies. Heaven knows, poor fellow, 
 they are obvious enough — but I did not 
 see them, or they did not seem to matter, 
 till you pointed them out ! — you shall make 
 Lip my mind for me." 
 
 "//"' — with an accent of the strongest and 
 most horrified negation — •" not for worlds !" 
 
 '• They all wish it so much, poor dears !"— 
 says Pamela, in a voice of the utmost per- 
 plexity, pushing up her hat and her curly 
 hair, and revealing a quarter of an inch more 
 of charming low square brow ; not. as in the 
 case of many people who unwittingly dis- 
 place their fringe, half a yard of disguised 
 high forehead — " even Sue, even Fezy " — • 
 laughing distressfully — " are learning to dis- 
 appear noiselessly out of any room in which 
 George and I happctn to be together ; and 
 though I have run him down so much to 
 you, — it was \ery mean of me, but after you 
 called him a dreadful bore so much as a 
 matter of course I was ashamed to own that
 
 200 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 I saw anything in him, — but all the same I 
 have a sneaking sort of kindness for him ; 
 sometimes I think it is not so very sneaking, 
 and then at other times it seems to dwindle 
 to nothing. I suppose " — with a troubled 
 look of appeal — "one ought by rights to 
 feel something quite different — something 
 headlong." 
 
 Anne laughs. 
 
 " That epithet can certainly scarcely be 
 applied to your sentiment as you describe it." 
 
 Pamela joins in the laugh, but vexedly. 
 "It does sound unutterably tame, does not 
 it ? but yet at one time it did very well. I 
 believe it would have gone on doing very 
 well if I had not seen — become acquainted 
 with— no, not so much as that, but just got 
 a glimpse of — something far different — some- 
 thing, oh, how much better !" 
 
 Her eyes are bent on the ground, but 
 more in thoughtfulness than confusion, nor 
 is there any variation of colour or flutter of 
 voice to justify the outrageous pang of fear 
 that clutches the elder woman bv the throat
 
 MRS. BLIGH 20I 
 
 at the innocently-meant words. There Is a 
 silence. The lion wind of March has pene- 
 trated, but translated into a lamb, even this 
 retired corner. How gently he is running 
 over the ivy branches, wagging them as he 
 goes. The girl looks up suddenly with 
 excited resolution in her blooming face. 
 
 " Since it is you who have showed me that 
 better — that different — yes, do you think I 
 have not seen the reflection of it in your face 
 all these days ? — you shall decide for me. I 
 have told you as well as I can how I feel. 
 I am not very happy at home, as you know ; 
 I rather wish to marrv ; I know that he 
 would be my humble servant all his life ; and 
 I really do like him — in a way ! But is that 
 enough ? If you say yes, it shall be yes ; if 
 you say no, it shall be no ! Now, which is it 
 
 to be r 
 
 She has turned her lovely countenance, 
 becomingly animated yet not deeply moved, 
 fully towards her companion, and awaits her 
 answer with a serious smile. Anne averts 
 her face. Since it is apparently a dial-plate
 
 202 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 on which her emotions are written with such 
 lamentable plainness, her young friend shall 
 not, at all events, have the opportunity of 
 reading the strong temptation now legibly 
 written upon it ; the temptation to accept 
 the power over another's destiny thus thrust 
 into her hand, to give the advice which to 
 many unprejudiced persons would seem the 
 best possible under the circumstances ; would 
 pronounce that Yes which, in addition to 
 wafting this exquisite little bark into a safe 
 and weather-tight harbour for life, would also 
 — even to her own soul she scarcely formu- 
 lates that "also." If George Mulholland 
 take Pamela Capel-Smith to wife, there is 
 not the slightest doubt that she will never 
 pose either as a Nereid or as any other 'id 
 or 'ad to Sir Robert Coke. She remains so 
 long silent, and with averted head, that 
 Pamela loses patience. 
 
 " I do not believe that you are paying the 
 smallest heed to what I am saying,' she cries 
 reproachfully. " Oh, do please answer, one 
 way or the other."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 203 
 
 Then, since it can no longer be avoided, 
 Mrs. Bligh turns her face — to the girl's sur- 
 prise a deeply troubled one— upon her ques- 
 tioner. 
 
 " How can you ask such a thing ?" she 
 says sternly. " How dare you try to thrust 
 upon me such a responsibility ?" 
 
 Pamela droops the corners of her mouth 
 like a scolded child. 
 
 " You refuse, then }" 
 
 " Undoubtedly I do!" with a stringent and 
 indignant emphasis. 
 
 " Absolutely ?"' 
 
 " More than absolutely, if there can be 
 more !" 
 
 The other sighs impatiently, and for a 
 minute or two looks extremely downcast. 
 Then her countenance clears. 
 
 " I will decide it by drawing lots !"' she 
 cries triumphantly ; " that is as good a way 
 as any other ; and at least you will not object 
 to holding them ?" 
 
 As she speaks she stoops and picks two of 
 the grass blades — fine and daint)-, as is ever
 
 204 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 the herbage in these unploughed feudal 
 closes — and measuring them carefully to- 
 gether, pinches off half the stalk of one to 
 make it conspicuously shorter than the other; 
 and having done so, unclasps the reluctant 
 fingers of one of her friend's hands and 
 forces the two blades between them. 
 
 " There !" turning away her head, and 
 screwing up her eyes ; "I will not look till 
 you have arranged them. You understand : 
 the long one is George ; the short one " — her 
 voice involuntarily taking on a tone of 
 greater alacrity — " is no George. Are you 
 ready Y' 
 
 Mechanically Anne obeys, and holds out 
 her clenched hand, in which the two fateful 
 grasses are sitting with their green heads 
 exactly and deceptively on a level. In a 
 second Pamela has whipped out — the long 
 one. 
 
 " Then it is to be George !" she says, in a 
 rather flat voice, which, if it expresses no 
 dismay, certainly evidences no elation. The 
 elation, if it exists, is elsewhere. Anne's
 
 MRS. BLIGH 20S 
 
 heart has given an ungovernable spring of 
 reHef and satisfaction in the answer thus 
 rendered by bHnd fortune to the appeal 
 addressed to her. 
 
 But that throb of keen and unalloyed 
 pleasure has but a moment's life. At the 
 sight of the delicate and brilliant creature 
 beside her, thus indifferently tossing herself 
 and her possibilities away to so unequal a 
 destiny, a w'ave of perhaps unnecessary re- 
 morse — since, after all, she has been only 
 passively instrumental in the decision — 
 sweeps over Mrs. Bligh. With an impulse 
 of possibly quixotic generosity, and a gesture 
 of revolt all the more decided because it is 
 the result of a victory over her own interests, 
 she snatches the grass blade, which the 
 other is still thoughtfully eyeing, out of her 
 hand, and tosses it to the spring breeze. 
 
 ''It is not George !" she says, in a low 
 and troubled, but emphatic voice. " It shall 
 not, and can't be George ! I refused just 
 now to interfere ; I know that ; but " — with 
 ever-rising agitation — "it is impossible— I
 
 2o6 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 should be committing a crime if I let you. 
 
 You do not care a straw about him. Would 
 
 you have taken such a way of deciding if you 
 
 had ? He is not the least worthy of you," 
 
 her excitement increasing as the image of 
 
 George, dull, sulky, and provincial, rises 
 
 before her mind's eye— "What a fool you 
 
 must be, not to see that you are meat for his 
 
 masters !" 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The week, but young when the foregoing 
 conversation was held, has run out. It is 
 Sunday morning, and against the obscured 
 window-panes the rain is smartly dashing. 
 At a table in the school-room window Mrs. 
 Mulholland, with Concordance and Bible 
 open before her, is helping Sue to prepare 
 that portion of Scripture, her exegesis of 
 which is shortly — weather permitting — to be 
 imparted to a class of small W^elsh scholars at 
 the Sunday-school. The little girl is listen- 
 ing, amiable but bored, and with an anxious 
 eye covertly cast on the weather. 
 
 *' Oh, mother!" cries she presently, in a
 
 MRS. BLIGH 207 
 
 distressed voice, " I am so afraid it is going 
 to clear," 
 
 "Afraid!" repeats Mrs. Bligh, who is also 
 present, looking up with lifted eyebrows from 
 her book. " I am sure I hope it is. I do 
 not at all agree with you, Sue." 
 
 " Ah ! but you have not to teach in the 
 Sunday-school," replies Sue, with a heavy 
 sio;h. 
 
 Mrs. Bligh laughs. " No, I own that 
 would alter my views of the weather a good 
 deal." 
 
 " I was in great luck last year," rejoins the 
 child, encouraged by this unexpected sym- 
 pathy from a grown-up person. " I had 
 seven quite wet Sundays. Oh, how I hope 
 it is not going to clear !" 
 
 I)Ut the ardour of this aspiration does not, 
 as some optimists would have us believe, 
 procure its fulfilment. The rain veil draws 
 away from the earth just in time for the 
 infant Cymri to receive the benefit of what- 
 ever new lights upon the subject of Joseph 
 and his Brethren can be struck out of the
 
 2o8 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 combined efforts of Sue, her mother, and 
 Fezy. The part taken by the latter has 
 indeed been confined to standing^ on the sofa 
 with one paw laid on the Concordance and 
 mumbling the fingers held out to wave him 
 off, with the little white pearls his teeth, but 
 all so gently and airily that it would need a 
 heart of stone— a heart, at all events, a good 
 deal harder than Sue's — to rebuff him. 
 
 By the afternoon, thanks to a drying wind, 
 it is fine enough for Mrs, Bligh and her 
 hostess to stroll together along the high- 
 running private road, through their neigh- 
 bour's park, the right to frequent which is 
 one of the most continual themes of Mrs. 
 Mulhollands gratitude and her husband's 
 brag. They have sat down on a now sunny 
 bench which for back has the quarried rock, 
 over whose crest great gorse bushes, all 
 aflower, are hanging out their oriflammes. 
 From their point of vantage, on what a fair 
 prospect their eyes may feed ! turn'ng from 
 where, on the extreme left, a long straight line 
 of foam stretching from the mainland to little
 
 MRS. BLIGH 209 
 
 Puffin Island shows where the Dutchman's 
 Bank — that fatal sandbank on which more 
 than one vessel has found her death — lies 
 right across the sea, to where, on the right, 
 intervening trees hide out the graceful Menai 
 Suspension Bridge. Between lie, and stand 
 and curve, the range of moderately heighted, 
 delicately varied Carnarvonshire mountains. 
 Lying in the bosom of the highest twain, 
 one divines, without seeing it, a little dark 
 lake. Anne's eyes are full of the quiet yet 
 deep pleasure of the true sea and mountain 
 lover, but her companion's might be fixed 
 upon the Cromwell Road, and the Natural 
 History Museum, for all the enjoyment they 
 express. 
 
 " I wish Czar had come with us," she says 
 uneasily. "If you had pressed him a little 
 more, I think he w^ould. It might have 
 distracted his thoughts." 
 
 "He does not care much about scenery, 
 does he ?" 
 
 " Oh. I do not know. About as much as 
 other people^ 1 dare say. P>ut I was not 
 
 14
 
 2 10 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 thinking of the scenery ; I feel as if he ought 
 not to be left to brood upon his own sad 
 thouQ-hts. I had no idea that he would have 
 taken it so much to heart." 
 
 " No more had I." 
 
 " I knew that he was always fond of 
 Pamela" — visions of an old Satyr jumping 
 out of stair-corners start involuntarily before 
 the listener's eye — "indeed, she was often 
 rather silly about it, and misunderstood him 
 when he onlv meant to be kind. But even 
 I had no notion of how much his heart was 
 set upon the marriage. In some ways I 
 think he is more to be pitied than even 
 George." 
 
 Anne raises her eyebrows. "I do not 
 think I can go quite so far as that." 
 
 " Young people get over anything ; but he, 
 poor darling, though he looks so boyish, of 
 course is not young really, and he has taken 
 it dreadfully to heart. You see, between 
 ourselves — I talk openly to you, because I 
 know how entirely you are on our side " — 
 (Mrs. Bligh winces.) " Pamela's little in-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 211 
 
 dependence would have made it all plain- 
 sailing. He frets sadly at not being able to 
 do more for Georo-e." 
 
 She pauses expectantly, and Mrs. Bligh 
 is aware that some sliQ^ht sio-n of admiration 
 for such paternal tenderness is expected of 
 her. But the recollection of the dinners at 
 Bignon, and the Chat Noir, as reported by 
 Pamela, are too recent in her mind to make 
 any such utterance possible. She looks away 
 uneasily towards the tallest hill, round whose 
 head a scarf of vapour is twisted, and thence 
 drops her eyes upon the lower range, with 
 their network of stone walls, and their little 
 dark-green woods sunk in hollows. 
 
 "It was a thunderbolt, nothing less to 
 us all," continues Mrs. Mulholland. " We 
 had always looked upon it as a certainty. I 
 am sure you must ha\'e heard me a hundred 
 tinies tell her that she was one of the 
 family." 
 
 " Yes, I have often heard you say so." 
 
 " I really thought she was ; we all took 
 it for granted. It shows " — disconsolately —
 
 212 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " that one ought never to take anything for 
 granted. But ever since she arrived this 
 time, I have seen a difference, a coldness. 
 One might really imagine that she must 
 have heard something against George, against 
 his character. And yet I am sure there is 
 no young man whose life could better bear 
 being looked into. Czar often laughs at 
 him for being so old-maidish, but then " — 
 in a tone from which the element of pride 
 is by no means absent — " I imagine that he 
 had ajeunesse very orageiise!' 
 
 The speaker's troubled eyes are fixed in 
 all innocence, and with no intention beyond 
 a vague desire for sympathy, upon her 
 listener's. But to the latter's guilty con- 
 sciousness there seems to be a questioning 
 suspicion in them. She can for the moment 
 frame no rejoinder. But her friend does 
 not miss it. With her nose down, like a 
 questing hound, she is following the trail 
 of the idea started by herself. 
 
 " Do you think it is possible that anyone 
 could have set her against him ? But no !
 
 MRS. BLIGH 213 
 
 what motive could anyone have for being 
 so malicious ? You are the only person she 
 is likely to have discussed him with, and "— 
 with a smile at the ludicrous improbability 
 of the suggestion — *' I scarcely suspect yo2c 
 of having done us such an ill turn. You " 
 — affectionately — " would have given us a 
 helping hand, if you could, thai I am 
 sure of." 
 
 These words, and the tone of simple 
 sincerity in which they are uttered, effectually 
 as thev remove the alarm under which Mrs. 
 Bligh had just been labouring, do not make 
 her feel more comfortable. She avoids her 
 companion's confident glance, and looks 
 straight before her, across the Strait, to the 
 sweet narrow valley of Aber, and the bluff 
 headland of Penmaen-Mawr. 
 
 "In such cases no one has any business 
 cither to help or hinder," she says tren- 
 chantly.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Long before a se'nnight has passed since 
 the departure of Pamela — who had wisely 
 fled immediately upon the springing of her 
 mine — Mrs. Bligh's action has changed its 
 aspect in her own eyes, from one of heroism 
 to that of treachery. She would have dearly 
 liked to have accompanied her young friend 
 in her exodus, but she stays behind as a 
 sort of expiation. To a nature frank to a 
 fault and open to a misfortune, the daily and 
 hourly dissimulation entailed by the guileless 
 confidence of the Mulholland family in her 
 sympathy, and by the certainty that they 
 express a hundred times a day of her wish 
 to help them if she could to the desired goal, 
 is a punishment and a trial almost beyond
 
 MRS. BLIGH 215 
 
 her powers. Scores of times she has all but 
 yielded to the temptation of bringing down 
 a new thunderbolt ; of springing a second 
 mine, by crying out, " You have to thank 
 me for it! It was I that did it!" vScores 
 of times she has begun a sentence, the end 
 of which must send her to pack up her box 
 in hopeless estrangement from the little 
 group now hanging so affectionately around 
 her. And scores of times the sentence has 
 dwindled away unfinished — the match has 
 gone out, the determination has died ; killed 
 partly by the difficulty and pain of forcing 
 any suspicion into minds so absolutely and 
 obtusely unsuspecting ; and secondly by the 
 entire hopelessness of conveying to any 
 intelligence a comprehension of the grotesque 
 and distorted generosity which had dictated 
 her action. 
 
 That she had counselled Pamela to reject 
 George, because she herself was particularly 
 anxious that she should marry him ; though 
 the exact and naked truth is so far more 
 incredible than any lies, that it would be
 
 2i6 ;i/A^5. BLIGH 
 
 impossible to gain credence for the statement 
 without further explanation, the mere distant 
 self-suofo-estion of which makes her writhe. 
 And so, through the lengthening spring days 
 • — in strolls among the quickening trees, and 
 by the breeze-swept sea ; in tedious thresh- 
 ings-out of the subject over needlework by 
 day, and endless lamentations over bedroom 
 fires at night — she works out her atone- 
 ment. 
 
 Mrs. Mulholland's topics of conversation 
 have never been very numerous, as, indeed, 
 they cannot be in the case of a person of 
 extremely limited intelligence and a mono- 
 tonous life ; but now to her tormented and 
 guilty brain it seems that the one voracious 
 theme of Pamela's mysterious crime has 
 swallowed up all its scanty brethren. It is 
 discussed, in all its bearings, from morning to 
 night ; but the favourite mode of treatment, 
 and the one which tries most severely the 
 auditor's nerves, consists of a never-endinof 
 series of speculations upon the whose and 
 the why of that malevolent influence which
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 2J7 
 
 had wrought the baneful metamorphosis. It 
 is not only from the friend of her school- 
 days, but from the whole of the family, with 
 the exception of the main sufferer, that she 
 has to bear the brunt of the maledictions 
 launched with such heartiness and unanimity 
 against the unknown author of the family 
 misfortune ; maledictions in which she is 
 called upon so often to join that Richard III.'s 
 line is perpetually rising in her mind : 
 
 *' Had I cursed now, I had cursed myself." 
 
 Twenty times a day she is obliged to curse 
 herself. Once, driven to desperation, she 
 has proposed an abridgment of her visit, a 
 return home, but has been met by such 
 piteous upbraidings and entreaties that no 
 course has been open to her but at once to 
 withdraw the suggestion. 
 
 "I do not know whcit would become of 
 Czar if you, too, left us. You are sure he 
 does not care about you ? Oh, come " — with 
 a light accent of reproach — " that is putting 
 the saddle on the wrong horse ; he is so sen-
 
 2i8 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 sitive, he says he is sure you do not Hke him. 
 I tell him it is only your manner — that you 
 always had rather a short manner ; but if you 
 go — and the Lascelles away, too — he will 
 have no motive for keeping up at all. You 
 do not know how he droops and mopes when 
 we are alone." 
 
 " Oh, don't I wish I could get hold of 
 whoever it was that set her against us !" cries 
 Lucile, with honest energy, " would not I 
 punch his or her head ? Dear pet !" — her 
 eyes tenderly following her father's figure, 
 seen through the window, walking with more 
 pensiveness and less spring than usual along 
 the garden path — " I declare it has made him 
 look five years older. But even now, is not 
 he wonderful for his age ?" 
 
 "I do not think" — evasively — "that I 
 quite know how old he is." 
 
 " Oh, no more do we exactly. He would 
 not like us to." 
 
 " He tore the leaf out of the Bible that had 
 his birthday on it," says Sue, in a rather 
 lowered voice, **so I expect he is pretty old.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 21 g 
 
 But is not he wonderful ? His lovely hair, 
 and his teeth all his own ; at least " — with 
 some stirrings of a compunctious veracity — 
 " at least, a great many of them." 
 
 "We must all do our best to cheer him 
 up," says Mrs. Mulholland, her glance, like 
 her step-daughter's, pursuing the languid 
 fiofure of the head of the house ; "I was 
 savinof so to Georfje. He went out this 
 morning early to try and get him a widgeon 
 for dinner ; it is the only thing he seems to 
 fancy." 
 
 " I should have thought that it was poor 
 George himself who needed widgeons," says 
 Anne drily. 
 
 But this is not the view taken by the 
 family, nor, indeed, by the sufferer himself. 
 With an angry and compunctious amazement 
 Mrs. Bligh sees how entirely the young man 
 — severely as his own dejected countenance 
 and forced spirits show him to be suffering — • 
 enters into his relatives' views as to Czar's 
 being the prime claims for sympathy and con- 
 solation. It gives an even sharper edge to
 
 2 20 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 the widow's remorse for her ill-judged inter- 
 ference to discover of what matter-of-fact self- 
 effacement, of what obscure heroism, he is 
 capable, whose future she has thought herself 
 justified in destroying, because he has a Welsh 
 accent ; because he once confused the poet 
 Browning with a local ironmonger of the 
 same name ; and because he had resented 
 with a not unnatural display of spirit her own 
 early incivility towards him. The result of 
 her compunctious reflections translates itself 
 directly into speech — speech addressed to her 
 victim's sister. 
 
 " How wonderfully well he bears it ! How 
 plucky he is over it !" 
 
 " Yes, is not he ?" — warmly. "It is so 
 unusual to have such spirits at his age." 
 
 " At /lis age } Why, he cannot be more 
 than four-and-twenty." 
 
 ''Czar 7iot more than four-and-twenty f 
 with a burst of astonished laughter. 
 
 " Czar ! Who was talking of Czar ? I 
 spoke of George." 
 
 " Oh, George, poor fellow ! Yes " — with
 
 MRS. BLIGH m 
 
 less enthusiasm — " it is good of him. He 
 tries to keep up for Czar's sake." 
 
 " You certainly are the most devoted son 
 and dauq-hter that ever man was blessed 
 with !" says Anne, in a tone the profound 
 astonishment expressed in v.hich she is her- 
 self not quite aware of. 
 
 "It would be very odd if we were not," 
 returns Lucile, with emotion ; " never in all 
 our lives can one of us remember his having 
 spoken crossly to us. What other father 
 jumps up to open the door for his own 
 daughter as he did for me last night ? And 
 if he //as to say anything disagreeable to us it 
 hurts him a great deal more than it hurts us. 
 When he told George last autumn that he 
 could not let him go with the Lascelles to 
 Scotland because it was impossible for him to 
 afford him any money to tip the keepers, the 
 tears literally rolled down his cheeks. George 
 told me so himself." 
 
 Anne sinks into a marvellinof silence, 
 pondering upon the strangeness of human 
 nature ; upon how little solid virtues or
 
 22 2 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 benefits avail to gain its oddly-built affec- 
 tions, and upon the incomprehensibility of 
 the cult produced in these honest and simple 
 hearts by an egotist, who can win their eager 
 consent to his gnawing of their patrimony 
 and suppression of their rightful pleasures 
 by a few blathering phrases and crocodile 
 tears. Her remorse towards the family 
 takes several different shapes. The first is 
 a warmly-urged invitation — addressed both 
 to the girl herself and to her mother — to 
 Lucile, to pay her a long visit in Tite Street, 
 with a view to getting those helps towards 
 the cultivation of her talent which her father 
 has tearfully explained himself unable to give 
 her. 
 
 " My little house and I are so useless," 
 Anne has said rather ruefully ; "I should 
 be so o'lad if I could feel that either of us 
 was doing any good to our fellow-creatures." 
 
 And when the girl has responded with 
 sparkling- eyes and phrases of exaggerated 
 yet evidently genuine gratitude, Mrs. Bligh's 
 conscience— such is our leniency to ourselves
 
 MRS. BLIGH 223 
 
 — already feels itself a little eased of its 
 burden. Another and much more irksome 
 form of her expiation is the joining with his 
 family in their attempts to raise Czar's spirits, 
 the best means of attainino- which would 
 apparently lie in inducing- him — no hard task 
 — to talk about his past life, and about the 
 wholesale ravages among the female sex 
 which, according to his own implication, 
 have characterized it. When she has 
 listened with complacency for the third 
 time to that anecdote which relates how, 
 being in a four-wheeled cab with a matron 
 — over his relations to whom he chuckles 
 a good deal — he recognised in the driver 
 the fair one's infuriated husband, and yet 
 had the presence of mind to put into his 
 hand his fare without any sign of conscious- 
 ness — when, I say, she has listened with a 
 smile of approbation for the third time to 
 this choice study in ethics, she feels as if her 
 debt were, indeed, all but wiped off. With 
 George himself it is true her efforts are not 
 crowned with that success which marks her
 
 2 24 MRS. BLlGH 
 
 intercourse with his kin. Though it is 
 apparent from their manner to her, and 
 their reiterated assurances of confidence in 
 her good will, that he has not imparted his 
 suspicions to them, yet she feels that if he 
 does not absolutely know — as how could he ? 
 —yet that he divines whose has been the 
 adverse influence which has laid low his 
 hopes. She has made several shy efforts — 
 very difficult to a reserved and self-conscious 
 woman— to approach him in a propitiatory 
 spirit, but has been invariably met by a 
 rebuff — a rebuff that in her normal state 
 would have driven her to a stinging retort, 
 but compunction has made her humble, and 
 sends her back to repeat her spurned 
 endeavour. One evening, seeing him sitting 
 with both hands clutching his forehead, as 
 he bends over an odd volume of Browning, 
 accidentally left behind by Pamela — poor 
 fellow ! it is clear that he has felt his blunder 
 about the ironmonger — she edges her chair 
 diffidently near him, and stealing a glance 
 over his shoulder at the open page of the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 225 
 
 "Ring and the Book," a poem no doubt 
 selected by him for the misleading simplicity 
 of its title, she says : 
 
 " You have chosen rather a hard nut to 
 crack. If you would let me, I think I could 
 pick you out something easier for a be- 
 "•inner. ' 
 
 He starts, not having been aware of her 
 neicrhbourhood. 
 
 " Thank you," he says brusquely. "It 
 would be a waste of time ; he is a cut above 
 me ! I had better stick to what I under- 
 stand," ostentatiously tossing away the book, 
 and picking up the Pink ' Uii. 
 
 vShe draws oft, red and abashed. But if his 
 rudeness is hard to bear, his kindness is far 
 worse. She is moved to tears of compunc- 
 tion, when on the day before her departure 
 — they let her go at last — he awkwardly 
 presents her with a basket of plovers' eggs, 
 gathered expressly for her, with a mumbled 
 intimation that she had said she was fond of 
 them. It is very stupid of her, but the 
 guilty tears literally spring to her eyes. 
 
 15
 
 2 26 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "For me? You got them on purpose for 
 me ! Oh, how wonderfully, how immensely 
 kind of you !" 
 
 The acknowledofment sounds to an unin- 
 structed ear so ludicrously out of proportion 
 to the benefit bestowed, that Mrs, Mulhol- 
 land breaks into a laugh. 
 
 " Why, Nan, you could not be more 
 obliged to him if he had saved your life !" 
 
 "He likes doing things for other people !" 
 adds Lucile, with a loving look at her brother, 
 "and besides "^ — pressing Anne's hand mean- 
 ingly — "he knows that you would get us 
 rocs' eggs if you could ; do not you, 
 Georo-e ?' 
 
 It is the clay before her departure, as I 
 have said. The spring — so long has she 
 been their guest — is, unlike Christabel's 
 coming, "quickly" up this way. It seems 
 a sin to leave these burgeoning woods before 
 the blue of their hyacinth floorincj has burst 
 from its green cradle ; and yet, wood and 
 hyacinth lover as Anne is, she feels a feverish 
 hurry to be back in her narrow town home,
 
 MRS. BLIGH 227 
 
 little as it would seem that she has to return 
 to. Between the two friends who parted 
 from her now nearly a month ago and her- 
 self a wall of separation appears to have 
 grown up. They afford her almost as little 
 knowledge of the world into which they have 
 flown back as did Noah obtain from his 
 heartless raven. From Sir Robert Coke 
 she has received a couple of notes, kindly 
 and very nearly affectionately worded, but 
 containing the minimum of information 
 which even a man's letter can supply. 
 The first is beautified in her eyes by a 
 hope for her own speedy return. The 
 second — ^but then he described himself as 
 in great haste at the time of its penning — 
 holds no such expression. She broods for 
 days over the reason — doubtless there is 
 none, save the hurry he alleged — for its omis- 
 sion. Nor is Pamela — usually to her friend 
 an enthusiastic and exuberant correspon- 
 dent — much less chary of her letters. She 
 at least cannot have the excuse of crowded 
 hours, and pressing work, justly alleged by
 
 228 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 the sculptor. Why is it, then, that her com- 
 munications are so few, so short, and so 
 dull ? Only one bears a trace of her old 
 effusiveness, and in that the expressions of 
 enthusiasm usually applied to Mrs. Bligh are 
 employed in describing a Sunday spent by 
 Miss Capel-Smith at a country house, which 
 she seems to have enjoyed with an extrava- 
 gant zest, of the cause for which she gives 
 no adequate explanation. Over this, too, 
 Anne puzzles long and anxiously. It may 
 be that the girl has a delicacy in addressing 
 letters to a house where the sight of her 
 handwriting — formerly so frequent and so 
 familiar — must need arouse painful feelings. 
 
 Well, speculation on the subject is useless, 
 since, as Anne reflects with a sigh of relief, 
 all will soon be explained. She smiles to 
 herself at the agony-column phrase in which 
 her thought has dressed itself. In four-and- 
 twentv hours she will be back in Tite Street, 
 and unless Pamela is more changed than she 
 can possibly believe, she will be on the 
 doorstep to receive her. Mrs, Bligh has
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 229 
 
 informed both her alHes of her intended 
 return in a few jubilant Hues ; as to the man, 
 even to her own heart, she formulates no 
 express or definite hopes, but on the girl she 
 may count with a cheerful certainty. She 
 is so ashamed of her own almost undis- 
 guisable gladness in her approaching depar- 
 ture that she spends herself in compunctious 
 and most sincere offers of hospitality to the 
 whole Mulholland family. She repeats and 
 presses her invitation to Lucile in particular, 
 urging the fixing of an exact date for it. 
 
 " I have been writing to a Slade student 
 about you," she says eagerly, "and she tells 
 me that there is a studio in Gower Street 
 • — Black is the artist's name — where they 
 paint animals from life. I will have it all 
 arranged by the time you come ; of course " 
 ■ — with a shade of embarrassment, and a 
 memory of Czar's crocodile tears — "you shall 
 be put to no expense." 
 
 I)Ut to her surprise, her proposal, formerly 
 met by so effusive a welcome, now calls forth 
 only a confused and rueful evasion from the
 
 2 30 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 girl, which is explained later by her step- 
 mother. 
 
 "You see, Czar would not hear of it; he 
 is very, very much obliged to you ; he says 
 that if he could bear to lie under an obliga- 
 tion to any one, it would be to you ; but 
 even to you — I assure you, you are a great 
 favourite, though you will not believe it — he 
 cannot! It is his wonderfully proud, lofty 
 sort of nature. He says it would break his 
 heart to think that his children were being 
 pauperized !" 
 
 It is, therefore, with a debt quite unliqui- 
 dated, and a conscience a good deal more 
 heavily loaded than the omnibus which carries 
 her and her moderate possessions, that Anne 
 departs. George drives her to the station, as 
 he had driven her from it on her arrival, 
 almost five weeks ago ; he escorts her, 
 despite her protestations, to the platform, 
 nor does he leave her till her train is well 
 in motion. He does it all with an iron air 
 of duty, which does not add to her ease in 
 receiving his civilities. It is not till she is
 
 iMKS. BLIGH 23 T 
 
 really seated In her carriage, and he is stand- 
 ing conscientiously beside the door till the 
 parting whistle releases him, that she finds 
 couraQe to sav : 
 
 " If ever you want to run up for a night 
 or two, you will not forget Tite Street? It 
 is not so zr;y out-of-the-way, whatever Czar 
 may say !" 
 
 There is in her own ears something selt- 
 betrayingly compunctious in her tone, and 
 perhaps he notices it. He only answers : 
 
 " Thank you, but I am not likely to be 
 in London ;" and then — the guard waving 
 his fiao- — the vouuq; man takes off his hat 
 with an honestlv struQ-o-led-with air of relief, 
 and in a minute more she has lost sight 
 of him. 
 
 Up to the last moment she had cherished 
 vague intentions of confessing herself to 
 him, of offering to try to undo the ill she 
 has done him ; but now it is too late. Her 
 country outing is over, and she may look 
 back upon it, and upon the mode she has 
 chosen of manifesting her gratitude for the
 
 232 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 simple and hearty hospitality offered her, 
 with what satisfaction she may. Remorse 
 holds undisputed sway over her mind till 
 Chester, then expectation begins to elbow 
 it a little aside, and has successfully shoved 
 it off the scene by the time, towards seven 
 o'clock in the evening, that she and her 
 dusty belongings drive up to her own little 
 green door. 
 
 Pamela is not on the doorstep ; that is not 
 very surprising, since the exact moment of 
 the traveller's arrival cannot be known ; and 
 a London doorstep is not a place suitable for 
 making a prolonged stay on. But neither, 
 when the thrilling of the electric bell has 
 brought a seinillante parlourmaid in an em- 
 broidered apron to the door, does there 
 appear any sign of a visitor within. For 
 these can hardly be called visitors, these two 
 fawn-coloured and one iron-gray person, who 
 are saying, "How do you do .'^" in so very 
 loud a voice from the stairfoot. Their barks 
 are soon turned into squeaks of pleasurable 
 recognition ; that is, Sail's and Tory's are.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 233 
 
 As for poor Twankle, his memory is as small 
 as his tinv bodv, and he has to own that he 
 cannot quite put a name to her. 
 
 She explains herself hurriedly to him, and 
 pushing them all gently aside, makes her 
 way to the hall-table, and casts an eager 
 slance over the notes and letters — not very 
 numerous — which await her there. Her first 
 impression is one of disappointment. In 
 Coke's handwriting there is nothing, and 
 though there is a letter with Pamela's super- 
 scription, yet a country post-mark, which her 
 eye at once perceives, tells her that of the 
 looked-for meeting with her to-day there is 
 no chance. The note — it is no more — when 
 opened, confirms and deepens the defeated 
 feeling that its outside had inspired. Miss 
 Capel-Smith has gone out of town for the 
 inside of a week, and though her letter is full 
 of expressions of regret at not being at home 
 to welcome back her friend, yet to that 
 friend's mind the words convey no adequate 
 explanation of the " why " of a departure 
 which so oddlv coincides with her own
 
 234 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 arrival. She is too chilled in spirit to care 
 for the moment to open the two or three 
 other missives addressed to her, but, 
 gathering them carelessly up, mounts the 
 stairs with her still agitated escort of wagging 
 tails, and smirking muzzles, and enters her 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Its look of rigidly neat fireless emptiness 
 damps her still more than she already is. 
 Accustomed to the lavish crowd of country 
 blossoms in the Mulholland drawing-room, it 
 looks nudely flowerless. Her palms — she 
 fingers them discontentedly — have not been 
 sponged since her departure, have been over- 
 watered, and look sick and yellow. Her 
 husband's chaise longuc, memento of the long 
 years of his agony, and her ordeal, always an 
 unsightly object, too big for the little room, 
 has been pulled more forward than usual. 
 She gives it an irritated shove back, and 
 then with a remorseful change of mood 
 restores It to its position of prominence. As 
 she stands looking disconsolately round at 
 her well-soaped and beeswaxed, but melan-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 235 
 
 choly little monarchy, she asks herself what 
 there was in so dismal a home-coming to 
 look forward to. With a shiver — late April 
 as it is, the evenings are still raw — she drops 
 on her knees before the fireplace, and puts a 
 match to the sticks. As they break into a 
 sudden cold little blaze, she draws up the 
 pottf on which — it flashes across her suddenly 
 — Coke had sat at her feet on his last visit, 
 and sinks down upon it. On that evening 
 she had expected him as little as she does 
 
 now, possibly then 
 
 To check so unwise a train of thought she 
 opens the letters still lying neglected in her 
 hand. The first is the prospectus of a mine ; 
 the second is a request from a philanthnjpic 
 acquaintance, to take the place of a fellow- 
 worker fallen ill, and accompany the writer 
 to a "happy evening" for factory girls at 
 Poplar, on the ensuing Monday ; the third 
 and last is a bidding from Lady St. George, 
 the giver of the luncheon at which she had 
 begun her course of ill-usage of young Mul- 
 holland, to dine with her, on the invitation of
 
 236 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 a member of the Government, at the House 
 of Commons on the following clay. She 
 throws the mine into the fire, and promptly 
 writes acceptances of the other two. 
 
 An easier desire has seized her to fill her 
 empty life with something, whether philan- 
 thropy or social pleasures is a matter of 
 detail compared with the main object of 
 filling the useless vacuity of her existence. 
 It had not seemed either so void or so profit- 
 less on her journey, either at Chester or even 
 at Willesden or Euston, as it does to her 
 to-night, sitting in tiat disappointment, with 
 her feet on her brass fender. Though of 
 late she has been countinof the hours till her 
 departure thence, she goes nigh now to wish- 
 ing herself back at Plas Drow ; to be again 
 seeing and hearing Jim the terrier gallop 
 clown the long drawing-room with the hearth- 
 brush, which it is his nightly privilege to have 
 thrown for him to pursue and worry, and 
 then return with it Into his basket, to bite 
 yet a few more bristles off She thinks 
 almost affectionately even of Czar. " I have
 
 MRS. BLIGH 237 
 
 fallen so low that I should be quite glad to 
 hear once more the tale of the four-wheeler 
 and the infuriated husband." She says it 
 out loud, and laughs. 
 
 Morning brings a brighter mood, but 
 neither it, nor noon, nor afternoon bring any 
 tidings of the sculptor. A postman has just 
 gone by, empty-handed for her, when the 
 arrival of Lady St. George, and her 
 brougham, to convey her to the proposed 
 entertainment, happily diverts her thoughts 
 into a different channel. 
 
 Lady St. George asks her how she has 
 enjoyed herself in the country, but is in too 
 great a hurry to tell her of her own next 
 Sunday luncheon, which is to include the 
 Bishop of the Andaman Islands, and the 
 strong man from the Aquarium, to listen to 
 the answer. The theme lasts till they reach 
 their destination, and after a walk and climb 
 of a1)0ut a mile and a half through the im- 
 measurable passages of the House, find 
 themselves in that black hole reserved for 
 the ladies. It is a new experience to Anne,
 
 238 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 and she leans eagerly over the shoulders of 
 the fortunate occupiers of the front seats, to 
 peer through the grating at the ranks of 
 legislators lounging so cavalierly below. 
 Without remembering her want of acquaint- 
 ance with her neighbours, she puts excited 
 questions to them, as to the identity of this 
 or that one. A prominent member of the 
 Opposition, with a mixed gift of waggery 
 and Billingsgate, is up, and is " slating " an 
 occupant of the Treasury Bench exactly op- 
 posite him, who, leaning comfortably back, 
 is listening with a smile of placid enjoyment 
 to a statement larded with suitable pleasantries, 
 to the effect that his mendacity is only equalled 
 by his imbecility. When the orator has sat 
 down to the music of profuse Hibernian 
 cheers, Lady St. George and her visitor 
 descend, guided by their intending host, to a 
 small and inconvenient room, where they 
 are presently joined by two or three smart 
 women, three or four well-known men, and 
 later, to Anne's astonishment, by the two 
 combatants in the war of words she has just
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 239 
 
 witnessed. As they enter, the object of 
 attack is patting his assailant friendHly on the 
 shoulder, and saying in a congratulatory tone, 
 " You were in capital form to-night."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Mrs. Bligii has never before dined at the 
 House of Commons, that justly popular form 
 of social enjoyment, whose popularity suffi- 
 ciendy disposes of any accusation brought 
 against the British upper classes of being the 
 slaves of their pampered palates, since they 
 cheerfully exchange their own chefs and 
 vintao^es for a worse cooked and served and 
 waited-on dinner than falls to the lot of many 
 meaner persons. But, then, no ducal mansion 
 boasts such an after-dinner promenade as the 
 Terrace of the House of Commons. 
 
 There is about these dinners something of 
 the scrambling charm of a picnic, and also 
 — which no other picnic can afford^ a 
 gratifying sense that you are helping to
 
 MRS. BLIGH 241 
 
 govern your country, when, at the sound 
 of the division bell, the men of your party, 
 with pushed-back chairs and thrown-down 
 dinner-napkins, fly from their tough mutton 
 to the legislative arena. None of the guests 
 are known to Anne, except by reputation, 
 although by the time the feast is half over 
 she has made out that one face which has 
 struck her as not quite unfamiliar is that of 
 the diplomat of Lady St, George's Sunday 
 luncheon, who had told one of the good 
 stories of which George Mulholland had 
 amputated the point for her ; and who had 
 appeared to be an intimate of Sir Robert 
 Coke's ; perhaps from him she may glean 
 some information about her strangely silent 
 Lion. She has already — sheltered by the 
 kindly gloom of the brougham — hesitated a 
 question to Lady St. George as to whether 
 she has lately seen him. Her answer has 
 been an absent and careless negative, fol- 
 lowed by a much more animated counter- 
 query, as to INIrs. Bligh's opinion upon the 
 possibility of capturing the sculptor for the 
 
 16
 
 242 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Bishop and the strong man next Sunday. 
 The Diplomat is not near Anne at dinner, 
 but afterwards on the Terrace her oppor- 
 tunity comes. She is standing alone gazing 
 over the balustrade at the river, when, since 
 no one' is talking to her, and he rather likes 
 her lookj he civilly addresses her. 
 
 " You have never done this kind of thing 
 before, I think I heard you say." 
 
 "Never!" then changing the subject with 
 abrupt fear of letting her moment slip, she 
 adds hurriedly, " I think you had the plea- 
 sure — I mean" — laughing confusedly — "I 
 think I had the pleasure of meeting you at 
 luncheon at Lady St. George's about six 
 weeks ago." 
 
 He has not the faintest recollection of 
 having ever set eyes upon her before to- 
 night, but he has not led Cotillons in Vienna 
 and Paris for twenty years for nothing ; so 
 he replies with a bow and a smile that he is 
 not very likely to have forgotten anything so 
 agreeable. 
 
 " We have an acquaintance in common !"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 243 
 
 she says, still rushing at her fences — " Sir 
 Robert Coke." 
 
 "Coke!" in a tone of relief and pleasure, 
 " dear old chap ! do you know him ? Let 
 us have a little talk about him ! do voli 
 mind." tin'nlng up his coat collar and shiver- 
 ing, " walking up and down a bit ? Thames 
 breezes are not exactly Zephyrs. And so 
 you know dear old Coke ? — charming artist, 
 is not he ? One or two of his things vei-y 
 ;/rc7r/)' great, just something wanting. People 
 say ill-natured things about him, of course ; 
 that he is played out, and Rococo, and that 
 the ' Equestrian H.R. H.,' which got him 
 his Baronetcy, has some startling anatomical 
 novelties, ha ! ha !" 
 
 As she does not join In his mirth he 
 arrests it, and continues more gravely : 
 
 "That is envy, pure envy, of course, but 
 I wish he would stop their mouths with 
 somethlnii: Indubitable, Instead of the catch- 
 penny prettinesses he has been giving us of 
 late." 
 
 Catchpenny prettinesses ! The thought
 
 244 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 flashes across the listener's mind whether the 
 bust of old Sir Peter Mammon, taken from 
 a cast after death, is likely to come under the 
 head of a " prettiness," whether catchpenny 
 or otherwise ; but the fancy is only a 
 momentary one, and gives way at once to 
 the immense and painful surprise caused by 
 her companion's words. It is the very first 
 time that the idea has been presented to her 
 that her friend's talent can be disputed or his 
 achievements held to be on the wane. The 
 combined novelty and unpleasantness of the 
 suggestion make her incapable of speech, 
 incapable, too, of appreciating the noble ter- 
 race she is pacing, the "huge and thoughtful 
 night " above her head, the towering Gothic 
 height of the House on her left hand, or the 
 dark river full of lovely reflections on her 
 right. They have almost reached that end 
 on which the Speaker's house abuts, and on 
 which — happy Speaker — one of his drawing- 
 room windows gives, before Mrs. Bligh's 
 companion, seeing that he is not going to 
 get any rejoinder out of her, resumes :
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 '■AS 
 
 "The fact is he wants an inspiration; he 
 is too comfortable ; he needs an emotion of 
 some kind to jog him out of his routine. If 
 he could get something or someone to stir 
 him up, he might do a big thing yet ; people 
 say no ; that it is too late, but I do not hold 
 with them. I believe in him, dear old chap ! 
 I told him so the other day when I met him 
 at ." 
 
 Mrs. Bligh starts. The name of the 
 country house mentioned is the same as that 
 where Miss Capel-Smith had described her- 
 self passing that Sunday, her prodigious 
 enjoyment of which had puzzled Anne. 
 
 " When did you meet him at ?" she 
 
 asks hastily. 
 
 " Oh, two or three Sundays ago " — seeming 
 surprised at the eager look with which she 
 accompanies her question — " I cannot recol- 
 lect the precise date." 
 
 " Was it a pleasant party ?'' 
 
 Again he looks surprised at a something 
 unnecessarily serious and urgent in her 
 tone.
 
 246 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "Was it ?" 
 
 " I declare I forget ; nothing very wonder- 
 fiil, I imagine ; Coke "—beginning to laugh — 
 " seemed to enjoy it." 
 
 A sort of foreboding of the cause of Coke's 
 enjoyment seems to close Anne's throat, but, 
 without further questioning, her interlocutor 
 proceeds to explain himself. 
 
 "Our hostess had got hold of a very 
 lovely young lady. I am bound to say we 
 were all rather on the qui vive about her, 
 and Coke — you know his partiality for your 
 sex — was very much at her feet." ■ 
 
 " Yes !" 
 
 "It was all in the way of business, of 
 course " — his mirth rising again — " he was im- 
 portuning her to sit to him for a Venus or 
 a nymph, or something. I never saw him 
 so much in earnest about anything in my 
 life." 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 " But the fair one was obdurate ; she 
 looked demure, and said she did not think 
 her mamma would like it. I am not sure
 
 MRS. BLIGH 247 
 
 that her mamma was not ri^ht. Ah ! there 
 
 O 
 
 is Ladv OH via Z " as a fat and heavy- 
 
 looking girl accompanied by a couple of 
 men comes within eyeshot. " They call 
 her Beef Olive. How do you do, Lady 
 Olivia Y' . . . 
 
 There is somethinQ; alwavs disturbino' to 
 the mental equilibrium in an entirely new 
 idea, and perhaps it is the absolute novelty 
 to her of the suggestion of her friend's 
 reputed decadence in his art that gives Mrs. 
 Bligh such an uneasy night. 
 
 " Played out," " Rococo," " Catchpenny 
 prettinesses." The objectionable phrases 
 buzz in her ears and brain, as she tosses 
 about in unhappy wakefulness, or slips off into 
 worrying dreams. But the new idea, after all, 
 has not the whole stage to itself. It is pushing 
 aside, and again pushed aside, by one that is 
 by no means new. " Very much at her feet." 
 " Never saw him so much in earnest about 
 anything in my life." 
 
 These phrases are but the expression of a 
 notion which has lain sometimes latent —
 
 248 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 sometimes more than latent — in Anne's own 
 mind. And then the two ideas, the new and 
 the old one, having tormented her separately, 
 join in a combined attack upon her, " What 
 he needs is an inspiration." "If he could 
 get hold of an emotion of some kind, he 
 might yet do something big !" And surely 
 if he never was so much in earnest in his 
 life, as in the endeavour to persuade Pamela 
 to lend her shy loveliness to his chisel, he 
 must be within hail of that very emotion, 
 which, in the opinion of one long intimate 
 with him, may be his artistic salvation. Is 
 he conscious of this himself.'^ If so, is it not 
 the bounden duty of anyone who wishes him 
 well, of anyone to whom his interest is nearer 
 and dearer than her own, to aid him to the 
 utmost of her power ? If he is not conscious 
 of what would work so greatly to his advan- 
 tage, is not it the bounden though still harder 
 duty of the supposed well-wisher to point 
 him out the path which, set with roses, yet 
 leads straight to the desired goal of his own 
 glory ?
 
 MRS. BLIGH 249 
 
 The disagreeable duties, that in the small 
 black hues of the night loom so great and 
 undoubted are apt. when morning comes, to 
 lose a good deal of their size and stringency, 
 and during her dressing, breakfast and fore- 
 noon a good deal of uncertainty as to her 
 own future action sways Mrs. Bligh's dis- 
 turbed heart and mind ; but through the 
 early afternoon the puritan-spirited formula, 
 "It must be right, because it is so disagree- 
 able," goes on gaining in convincingness, 
 until at four o'clock she puts herself into a 
 hansom for fear lest, if she trust herself to 
 walk, her resolution may break down, and 
 gives the address of Sir Robert Coke's 
 studio. It is the first time that she has 
 intruded upon him uninvited, and though he 
 has frequently reproached her for not visiting 
 him oftener, and begged her in general terms 
 to repair the omission in the future, yet the 
 nearer she draws to her destination — her 
 Shrewsbury and Talbot hansom conveys her 
 undesirably fast — the more general those 
 terms seem to have been, and the less to
 
 250 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 justify any special invasion. Probably he 
 has a model, or is engaged with some royalty 
 or millionaire, or, worst of all, with some 
 more favoured female friend, in his tete-a-tete 
 with whom she is about to intrude her un- 
 asked and undesired presence. 
 
 Coke's studio, or rather studios — for his 
 extensive clientele has long ago obliged him 
 to overflow the limits of his orio^inal atelier — 
 stands back from the street ; and after dis- 
 missing her cab, Mrs. Bligh has to cross a 
 small slip of smutty grass, ornamented with a 
 coal-black town tree, to reach it. In the brief 
 transit her courage falls so low that, but for 
 the accident of someone just happening to 
 issue from the general door of the block — an 
 accidental someone who would witness and 
 marvel at her flight — she would turn tail 
 even now. Besides the little forecourt, she 
 has — when once inside — a long corridor still 
 to traverse, as the door at which he has in- 
 structed her to ring — the door of the studio, 
 where he himself models — away from the din 
 of his workmen's tools, and shut from the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 251 
 
 inroads of the general public — is at the very 
 end of the passage. As she flits along that 
 passage, her eye rests on the casts of some of 
 his principal works, which stand on either 
 hand. The " Lioness and Cubs," which first 
 brought him into notice ; the " Dejanira and 
 Centaur," which was his first commission 
 from Royalty, etc. Surely — the belittling 
 phrase returning upon her memory — there is 
 no catchpenny prettiness about thejn. 
 
 She has reached the door, whose closed 
 aspect — although it is always closed — gives 
 her a fresh pang of misgiving, and rings the 
 bell with a shvness-born force which sets it 
 jangling for several moments — moments spent 
 by her in the too-late reflection of how much 
 more considerate and dionified it would have 
 been on her part to have rung the bell of the 
 larger and more public studio, and sent her 
 card by the head man to the sculptor. He 
 would then have had the option of escaping 
 her visit, if it is ill-timed. But she has now 
 left him no more choice in the matter than 
 has a fox tracked to its stopped earth.
 
 252 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 The bell has just ceased its unnecessary 
 length of clamour, when the door opens 
 slowly, and, as it seems to the trembling can- 
 didate for admission, reluctantly, and the 
 master of the demesne appears in the aper- 
 ture. In the second that elapses before he 
 recognises her, she has time to notice how ill 
 he is looking ; his features drawn as with 
 pain, and his whole look giving a pulled- 
 down impression. That impression disap- 
 pears, or at least is greatly lessened next 
 instant, when his whole mobile face lights up 
 with a smile of friendly surprise and welcome; 
 lights up with so bright a brightness as to 
 shine down the traces of sickness and suffer- 
 ing which at first had been so legibly written 
 upon it. 
 
 " My dear friend" — impulsively stretching 
 out both hands, and then laughingly drawing 
 them back — but then again holding them 
 towards her, though beyond touching dis- 
 tance, to show her that clayey coating which 
 forbids the pressure that his kind and glad- 
 dened eyes tell her he would like to give her
 
 MRS. BLIGH 253 
 
 fingers — "come In, come in; this is too 
 pleasant." 
 
 She gives a sigh of relief at so satisfactory 
 a solution of her doubts, but a trace of linger- 
 ing misgiving makes her still hesitate on the 
 threshold and ask dubiously : 
 
 "Are you sure that it is quite correct? 
 That you have no model, no Rothschild, no 
 crowned head in there ?" — peering beyond 
 him and laughing nervously. 
 
 " You suspicious woman " — laying his hand 
 in momentary forgetfulness of its condition 
 on her shoulder, and gently urging her in- 
 wards ; " come in and see for yourself." 
 
 Then, indeed, yielding joyfully, she enters 
 and follows him as he walks, keeping a little 
 before her. She gives a second sigh of 
 pleasure this time, when the inner door shuts 
 her in from the noise of the outer world, into 
 this pleasant-temperatured privacy ; where 
 there are no eyes more prying than the sight- 
 less ones of the cast of the latest Venus — duQ- 
 out of a Roman garden— to comment upon 
 her action, which now seems fully justified by
 
 2 54 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 its success. She looks round her with an 
 air of leisurely enjoyment upon the objects 
 so familiar to her, though she has only been 
 here two or three times before. The hiofh 
 carved wood mantelpiece, above which a pro- 
 cession of Greek filleted youths and maidens 
 and priests is leading a " heifer lowing at the 
 skies " to a flower- wreathed altar ; the charm- 
 ing little bronze group of the Erl-king snatch- 
 ing the boy out of his father s arms ; the 
 very lay figure ; and the unfinished clay bust 
 swathed in wet cloths — all, all are dear to 
 her. From these her quick complacent 
 glance returns to their owner. But it loses 
 some of its satisfaction when the strong 
 light pouring down from the top of the room 
 shows her afresh the traces of illness on her 
 friend's features, now that the transient, 
 startled flush has left them. From his worn 
 face her eye casually wanders downwards to 
 his foot, whose limping she had already ob- 
 served, and which she now perceives to be 
 made unshapely by a list shoe. 
 
 "Now, madam!" he cries gaily, "are you
 
 MRS. BLIGH 255 
 
 convinced that there is no little milliner 
 behind the screen ?"' 
 
 But she is too much occupied by the 
 problem of that startling shoe to be able to 
 answer in the same vein. 
 
 "What have you done to yourself?" she 
 asks quickly — " what have you done to your 
 foot ?" 
 
 He lifts his eyebrows, with a gesture of 
 rueful humour. 
 
 " What have I done to my foot ? Say, 
 rather, what has my grandfather's port wine 
 done to it ? I, too, that am not at all sure 
 I ever had a grandfather ? — do not look so 
 trao-ic, mv dear— but there is no use mincinsf 
 matters ; I have had neither more nor less 
 than a fit of the gout." 
 
 " The gont f 
 
 There is consternation in her tone, for, 
 indeed, it would have seemed to her almost 
 as unlikely that the Vatican Apollo or the 
 Diskobolos should have their immortal limbs 
 swollen and disfigured by the old and ugly 
 disorder indicated, as her spare and temperate
 
 256 Mrs. BLlGH 
 
 friend. He laug^hs at the exao-o-eration of 
 her tone. 
 
 " Yes, I have had my first memento — 
 not 7/107'/, for I beHeve it does not kill one — 
 but se7iescei^e, which" — with a shrug — "is 
 worse. Do you think" — affectionately — 
 " that, if I had not been such a poor old 
 cripple, I should not have been on the 
 doorstep of the dear little house to welcome 
 you home ? but " — with a half-tender, half- 
 shamefaced intonation — " it is very cowardly 
 of me ; but I had hopes I might have hidden 
 my infirmities even from you yet a little 
 longer." 
 
 She is still staring stupidly at that large 
 loose shoe. 
 
 "It is no use," she says presently, looking 
 up with a rather bewildered smile. " I have 
 been trying hard, but I cannot get you and 
 crutches to meet in my mind." 
 
 " Cannot you ?" with a somewhat gratified 
 intonation. 
 
 " But I suppose you really have been quite 
 ill — quite laid up ?"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 257 
 
 " I have been learning what a jolly thing 
 an old bachelor's sick-room is ;" then afraid — • 
 or she fancies so — of calling forth too pro- 
 nounced an expression of sympathy for his 
 lonely condition, he resumes hastily : " And 
 as ill-luck always goes to ill-luck, the first 
 day I was able to hobble down here I found 
 in mv letter-box a note from the man who 
 bought my Marsyas — do you remember the 
 Marsyas ?" 
 
 " No, it had left the studio before I first 
 visited you."' 
 
 "Well, a note from the fellow — he is a Shef- 
 field scissors-maker — saying that, after mature 
 consideration, he had come to the conclusion 
 that the stain in the marble on the back of 
 the statue is too bad for him to take it ; and 
 if I can sell it he will bear half the loss." 
 
 " How very annoying!" 
 
 " More annoying than you think, little 
 friend. He puts it upon the stain, but that 
 is not his real reason." 
 
 " What is his real reason ?" 
 
 He sighs and passes his hand through 
 
 17
 
 258 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 his hair, on which it leaves the imprint of 
 clayey fingers. 
 
 " Have you ever reckoned among your 
 acquaintances the number of people who 
 dare to have an opinion of their own ? 
 Well, my scissors friend is not one of them. 
 I can plainly read between the lines of his 
 letter that he has come across the critique 
 on my equestrian statue of H.R.H. in the 
 Tiines. You have not seen it ? I will send 
 it you — in which the writer " 
 
 " Well .^" — breathlessly — " what does he 
 say about you ?" 
 
 " What does not he say ?"— expressively— 
 " let me think. That I have always been 
 an impostor, and now, at last, I am an 
 exposed one. That this statue in especial 
 is only fit to ornament the top of a twelfth 
 cake — that my Baronetcy was a disgraceful 
 job— that " 
 
 His hearer has gradually been growing 
 more and more irefully hot at each clause 
 of the enumeration ; now she suddenly puts 
 up her hands to her ears, crying ;
 
 MRS. BLtGH 259 
 
 "Stop — stop! I will not hear any 
 more." 
 
 Her eves are brlmminof over with resentful 
 tears, and her voice is choked. Her sympathy 
 is sweet to him, but yet he feels a certain 
 embarrassment at the violence of her expres- 
 sion of it^an embarrassment that prompts 
 him to sav in a tone that aims at beino- liaht 
 and gay : 
 
 " But life is a system of balance and com- 
 pensation ; on the very day I heard of the 
 Marsyas, I got a so-and-so order for a 
 reclining statue, so that I was something like 
 the thief who summed up his day's work ; 
 'Lost a clasp knife; stole a jpocket-handker- 
 chief ' !" 
 
 His hearer Is quite Incapable of having 
 her thoughts conducted into the cheerfuller 
 channels he thus tries to lead them into. 
 Her eyes are still flashing wetly, and her 
 colour high. 
 
 "How dare he Invent such calumnies? 
 What does he mean ? What niotive can 
 he have ?"
 
 26o MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " Probably he believes them to be true ; 
 sometimes" — with a dispirited gesture — "I 
 am half of his way of thinking. Sometimes 
 I agree with him that, as he tersely puts it, 
 my old-world lumber ought to be cleared 
 out of the way of the really good con- 
 scientious work of the young fellows ; it is 
 surprisingly clever, some of it ; look at that, 
 now!" — in a key of renewed alacrity and 
 genuine interest, as he takes into his hand 
 a little terra-cotta model of a Breton peasant, 
 with her wooden shoe on the rocker of her 
 infant's cradle — "that was brought me a 
 week or two ago by a boy I sent to study 
 in Paris last year ; is not it good ? Did you 
 ever see the eivig luntterliebe more charm- 
 ingly expressed ?" 
 
 " I do not see much in it," she answers 
 pettishly, scarce deigning a look at the work 
 of art indicated, while in her ears there ring, 
 in dismal confirmation of the reviewer's 
 venomed words, the phrases employed by 
 her over-night companion on the Terrace of 
 the House of Commons.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 261 
 
 Coke had expected her to receive his 
 sug-Qfestion of decadence with derisive 
 laughter, and vehement disclaimers, and little 
 as she either is, or pretends to be, of an art 
 critic, her silence dashes him. To shake off 
 the sense of oppression derived from her 
 lugubrious air, he cries in a tone that only 
 an ear to which the intlcctions of his voice 
 are very familiar could detect to be not really 
 mirthful : 
 
 "Perhaps he is a liar; perhaps he had 
 a fit of indigestion while he was writing ; 
 perhaps my guilty conscience misleads me, 
 and my Sheffield patron had never heard of 
 him or his review ; anyhow, my dear friend " 
 • — with a tinge of exasperation, half, and only 
 half, feigned — " if you go on looking at me 
 with those tragic eyes, you will drive me to 
 borrow some of my scissor-maker's cutlery to 
 put an end to myself with." 
 
 " I know that my long face is very trying," 
 she says, ashamed and remorseful. " But 
 ) ou have taken m)- breath away." A minute 
 later, in a tone of l)rusque decision: "You
 
 262 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 must do something great — stop their mouths 
 with something indisputable." 
 
 It is not till she reaches the end of this 
 phrase that she recognises that it is a parrot 
 repetition of the diplomat's over-night. 
 " Why should not it be the fountain ?" 
 "I have thrown up the commission. The 
 old lady's views and mine differed too radi- 
 cally, so I bowed her out." 
 
 " Then you no longer wish for Pamela 
 Capel-Smith as a sitter }'' 
 
 She speaks in a furtive voice, as one 
 conscious that she is laying a trap. Into it 
 — such is the duplicity of man — her friend 
 falls — at least, to the extent of maintaining 
 a misleading silence. He takes up a syringe, 
 and begins to squirt at the wet-clothed bust 
 without answering. She cannot resist the 
 temptation of letting him know that she is 
 better informed than he suspects. 
 
 "At least," she goes on, "it was not as 
 a Nereid that you were trying to persuade 
 her to pose for you, when you met her 
 at ."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 263 
 
 He gives a perceptible start, and drops his 
 squirt, turning round with a flushed face and 
 a guilty laugh. 
 
 " You are a magician ; there is no use 
 trying to hide anything from you — not that 
 I did try ; I do want to persuade her to sit 
 to me. I did ask her, and got a ' No ' like 
 a box on the ear for my pains. I dare say " 
 — with a touch of bitterness — "that one of 
 these coming young Phidiases would have 
 got a different answer." 
 
 " No, that I am sure he would not !" — 
 stoutlv. 
 
 '• I wanted her to sit to me for Eos — yes, 
 Aurora — only the Greek name is so much 
 the more beautiful. I never saw a human 
 being who was such a bodily presentment 
 of morning; of course" — regretfully — "one 
 could not give in marble her look of dewy 
 newness ; she should have been just stepping 
 into her car. I have got a splendid horse for 
 her coursers ; she should have been throw- 
 ing a kind look over her shoulder back at 
 p(jur old Tithonus."
 
 264 
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Anne's throat is certainly a little dry this 
 afternoon, 
 
 " And who sits for poor old Tithonus ?" 
 
 " Oh, he is not there at all ; he is under- 
 stood, not expressed. However" — with a 
 vexed gesture, and a resumption of his 
 syringing — "she would not, and there is 
 an end on't. It is a pity, for I have a sort 
 of instinct that it would have been the 
 making of me !" 
 
 "That it would have been the making of 
 you !" repeats Mrs. Bligh thoughtfully.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Of tlie two engagements made by Mrs. 
 Bligh on the evening of her return home, 
 one yet remains to be fulfilled, the Happy 
 Evening for Factory Girls in Poplar, and on 
 the evening upon which it falls due she sets 
 out with no particular elation of spirit to fulfil 
 it. Whatever the evening may prove to the 
 girls, she has not much expectation of its 
 being a " happy evening " to her. Naturally 
 a shy woman, her spirit during the tedious 
 transit in the sordid District Railway is sink- 
 ing ever lower and lower, and as the last but 
 one of the smoke-grimed stations is reached 
 and passed, she ])uts to her companion a 
 faltering query as U) the t()i)ics she had best 
 choose, and the method to be adopted nKjst
 
 266 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 calculated to draw out the unknown and 
 dreaded objects of this her first spurt of 
 philanthropy. 
 
 " I think you will find they do not need 
 much drawing out,'' replies the other, laughing, 
 with a dryness upon which Anne's after-ex- 
 perience throws a lurid light. 
 
 They have reached their destination : a 
 large bare room, used indifferently for night- 
 schools, committees, classes, and treats. It 
 is aflare with gas, and resounding with riotous 
 female merriment, of which two or three 
 ladies, rendered helpless by the overwhelming 
 majority opposed to them, are vainly trying 
 to stem the tide. Mrs. Bligh is aware that it 
 is to supply the place of one of the habitual 
 workers in this loud field of labour that her 
 amateur services have been asked. It now 
 transpires that one or two more of the or- 
 dinary staft' have failed to appear, so that it 
 is with lamentably inadequate forces that the 
 litde army of civilization to-night takes the 
 field. The girls are evidendy aware of and 
 exhilarated by this fact. They are rushing
 
 MRS. BLIGH 267 
 
 round the room after one another in rude 
 horseplay, with facetious famiHarity flinging 
 their arms round the visitors' waists, and 
 gripping their hands with fingers that would 
 have made pale the raven's wing. For a few 
 moments Mrs. Bligh stands bewildered and 
 deafened, then, pulling herself together, she 
 says to her introducer to the pandemonium, 
 raising her voice to something like a shout to 
 enable herself to be heard : 
 
 " Would it be possible to make them quieter 
 by reading to them ?" 
 
 The other shakes her head. 
 
 " Most of them would not be read to ; if 
 there were enough of us we might draw a 
 few of the quieter ones into a second room 
 and read to them, but the majority prefer 
 conversation." 
 
 '' Conversation f' repeats Anne, with a 
 grimly ironical smile, as a fresh burst of 
 screeching laughter and a fresh steeplechase 
 over the benches make the very walls ring ; 
 "and I thought they wanted drawing out!" 
 
 " They are better than they were !" replies
 
 2 68 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 the other apologetically. " One of them 
 used to stand on her head !" And then she 
 dives into the vieic^c, followed — though with- 
 out much idea of what she will do when she 
 gets there — by Anne. 
 
 But the obstreperousness of the fifty or 
 sixty half-savage girls, tied down all day to 
 some sedentary occupation, and indemnifying 
 themselves generously now for the self- 
 restraint of their working-hours, has got to a 
 point far beyond the very inadequate means 
 of control at the disposal of the visitors. It 
 is, if anything, risen to a higher storm-pitch 
 than ever, w^hen the drama takes a new de- 
 velopment, through the arrival on the scene, 
 by a door into an adjoining room in which — 
 as it now appears — a missionary meeting is 
 being held, of an irate and remonstrant 
 curate. 
 
 " I must really beg you ladies to be so 
 good as to niake a little less noise. The 
 Bishop of Mngundi is speaking, and it is im- 
 possible to hear a word he says. His lord- 
 ship is giving some very interesting details
 
 MRS. BLIGH 269 
 
 about the Mngundi Mission, which are en- 
 tirely lost." 
 
 The reproof is, indeed, a just one ; and the 
 poor helpless ladies accept it with a meek- 
 ness that is almost tearful. 
 
 "It is most unfortunate ! There are so 
 few of us to-ni"ht, the Q-irls seem to have o-ot 
 quite out of hand. Oh, thank Heav^en " — in 
 a new key of relief and hope — "here is Miss 
 Capel-Smith ! she is such a favourite with 
 them ! perhaps she will be able to do some- 
 thing with them." 
 
 Miss Cape I - Sinif/i ! Pamela ! W^ith a 
 bewildered feelinof that her ears — whose 
 drums might easily have given way under 
 the strain lately imposed upon them — must 
 be playing her false, Anne bends her look 
 in the direction whither, as she sees, most of 
 the touzled heads and befiowered hats are 
 now turnino-, and recofjnises indeed, in the 
 figure making its smiling, joking way among 
 them, her most unexpected young friend. 
 The good effect of her advent makes itself 
 almost instantaneously felt. The senseless
 
 2 70 MRS. BLICH 
 
 inarticulate noise — made merely for noise's 
 sake — which has hitherto prevailed, is ex- 
 changed for loud expressions of welcome ; 
 and in the eao-erness to hold her hand in their 
 dirty clasp, they discontinue their earlier 
 pastime of boxing and cuffing each other. 
 With an admiration which, however, does 
 not impart the power of imitation, Anne sees 
 the well-carried little high head turning this 
 way and that among the gigantic bangs ; sees 
 the delicate hand surrendered, without the 
 faintest indication of wincing from the con- 
 tact, to the embrace of fingers none the less 
 sticky for being extremely affectionate. She 
 has not even gloves on, and is in the act of 
 yielding up her rings with unforced cheerful- 
 ness for examination when Anne reaches her 
 side. 
 
 "Is Saul also among the prophets ?" says 
 Mrs. Bligh, in a low voice, so as not to be 
 heard by the crowding girls, and raising her 
 eyebrows as she speaks, 
 
 "Anne!" 
 
 There is almost the old joy at the sight of
 
 MRS. BLIGH 271 
 
 her friend, mixed with the extreme surprise 
 of Pamela's tone, ahnost and yet not quite. 
 It is as if a thin Qrauze were drawn over the 
 real pleasure of her tone. Anne laughs. 
 
 " We are most unflatteringly astonished to 
 find each other in the pursuit of good works. 
 I thought you were in the country." 
 
 "So I am : I mean I came up only this 
 afternoon. Do you think" — reproachfully — 
 " that, if I had been at home, I should not 
 have been on the doorstep of the clear little 
 house to welcome you ?" 
 
 Anne gives a sort of start. The words are 
 identical with those used by the sculptor in 
 explaining his failure to visit her. Neither 
 of them had come to welcome her, yet both 
 have employed the same almost exaggeratedly 
 affectionate phrase. Once before, as she now 
 recalls, she had been made reasonlessly un- 
 comfortable by a similar accidental identity 
 of expression between them. 
 
 " The dear little house and the dear little 
 doorstep are still there ; when will you come ? 
 I have something to say to you."
 
 2 72 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 At the last clause of her speech a Hash of 
 what locks like alarm comes into the girl's 
 eyes. 
 
 "No bad news? nothing — nothing about 
 
 Anglesey ?" 
 
 Again Anne laughs dryly. 
 
 '' Poor Anglesey ! No, Anglesey is as 
 well as can be expected." 
 
 But at this point Miss Capel - Smith's 
 attention is imperatively claimed by her 
 young factory friends, who noisily demand 
 the names and value of the stones in her 
 rings; and until the "Happy Evening" is 
 over, no further private talk is possible. But 
 the humanizing influence of Pamela, aided 
 by the other ladies, whom her opportune 
 arrival and exertions have enabled to regain 
 their breath and their wits, aided also to the 
 best of her ignorant ability by Anne, enables 
 the remainder of the "Recreation" to be 
 passed in a more reasonable manner than at 
 its pandemonic opening had seemed possible ; 
 and no further irruption of exasperated clergy 
 from the meeting next door is necessary.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 273 
 
 When the end has come, and the lady 
 workers are hurrying to the District Railway 
 station, whence they are to take their west- 
 ward way to their distant homes, Mrs. Bligh 
 again approaches Pamela. 
 
 *' You will come to me to-morrow ^ At 
 what hour ? I really have something to say 
 to vou." 
 
 " I hope " — with a rather nervous inflection 
 — " that it is something pleasant." 
 
 " H'm ! c'cst scion ; ' what's one man's 
 meat is another man's poison !" 
 
 " That always sounds to me such a difficult 
 proverb to pronounce," says Pamela giggling, 
 not quite like herself; "there are so many 
 
 s in It ! 
 
 " But vou rev'// come ?" 
 
 "Of course I will; do I " — with a return 
 to some of the old tender expansiveness of 
 manner — " do I often need pressing when it 
 is a question of enjoying your society } I 
 will" — laughing naturally this time — "be on 
 the dear doorstep while it is still being 
 scoured !" 
 
 18
 
 2 74 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " That is all right ; I am so " 
 
 But at this point Mrs. Bligh's speech 
 breaks suddenly off", as she discovers, with an 
 unavoidable shrinking from the contact, that 
 one of the factory girls is with coarse friendli- 
 ness thrusting her arm through hers. Several 
 of them have insisted on escorting the ladies 
 to the station. One has tilready tucked 
 Anne's introducer under her arm ; and shouts 
 out to a companion, apropos of Mrs. Bligh : 
 
 "There's a poor lidy with no one to look 
 arter 'er ! Florry, you look arter 'er !" 
 
 Florry is not slow to comply, and screams 
 back : 
 
 " I can't get 'old on 'er ; she's got a cloak 
 
 on ! Ah !"' — triumphantly — "I 'ave 'er 
 
 I" 
 now ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 Pamela is as good as her word. The 
 doorstep is still in process of scouring next 
 morning when she presents herself upon it. 
 She is shown into the drawing-room, where 
 Anne, with a basin by her side, is on her 
 knees beside the most languishing of her
 
 MRS. BLIGH ■ 275 
 
 sick palms, scrubbing it with soap and water. 
 She kisses her visitor with a preoccupied 
 air, and they both sit down and look at each 
 other. Pamela is the first to break silence. 
 
 " I was so surprised to see you last night ! 
 Of course I know how radically kind-hearted 
 you are, but I did not think that Poplar was 
 quite your line of country ! Did you take 
 kindly to it ?'' 
 
 Anne laughs. 
 
 " I sat one day at dinner by an Eton boy, 
 and seeing him make wry faces over a glass 
 of old port, I asked him whether he liked it. 
 ' No,' he said ; ' I hate it, but it makes one 
 feel so Jolly !' I live in hopes of my good 
 works making nic feel jolly in time " — in 
 another key — "one must fill one's life with 
 so?)ici/iiiio\ when it is so ludicrously empty 
 as mine ! but " — hurrying on as if to avert 
 the compassion the last sentence might seem 
 to ask for — " is not it a new departure for 
 you, too .'' " 
 
 " Perhaps my life also is empty," replies 
 the girl, with a rather impatient accent,
 
 176 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "Well, no, not exactly empty, but" — looking 
 embarrassed — " when I came back from 
 Wales, I felt so upset and ' no how,' you 
 understand, that I thought the best thing I 
 could do was to take up some practical work." 
 
 " I am afraid the good of the factory girls 
 was not the leading motive in either of our 
 minds." 
 
 " No, and yet " — with a lovely light of 
 compassion in her starry eyes — " I am dread- 
 fully sorry for them ; I should like to make 
 their lives a little less hideous." 
 
 " Oh, poor devils ! I am sorry enough for 
 them too," replies Anne, in a ton,e which 
 betrays a good deal of compunction at her 
 own callousness. " But to tell the truth " — ■ 
 her incorrigible candour getting the upper 
 hand again — "last night I was a good deal 
 sorrier for myself." 
 
 The subject drops, and a silence which 
 has more of the awkward in it than would 
 seem likely in the case of intimacy such as 
 theirs, supervenes. Anne has resumed her 
 squatting attitude, and her sponging.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 277 
 
 " I am afraid," begins Pamela, " that my 
 time with you is Hmited, so if you have 
 
 anything you wish to say to me " She 
 
 pauses, but the other is rubbing so vigorously 
 that it would seem she did not hear. " Have 
 you anything you wish to say to me, or did 
 I misunderstand you last night ?" 
 
 Mrs. Bligh drops her sponge with a flop 
 into the china bowl beside her, and looks 
 her interlocutor straight between her eyes. 
 
 " Why will not you sit to Sir Robert 
 Coke ?" she asks, shooting out her question 
 with the suddenness, and almost the violence, 
 of a projectile. 
 
 The thrust is so unexpected that its victim 
 has no time to make ready weapons of 
 defence, or in any way protect or hide the 
 small face, which in an instant becomes a 
 sheet of dazzlino: blushes. 
 
 " Has he told you, has he been — been 
 com[)laining of me }'' 
 
 " That is no answer to m)- (question. No, 
 of course he has not been complaining of 
 )(Ai ; it W(juld not be the least like him" —
 
 2 78 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 indignantly — " he is far too chivalrous. I 
 learnt it indirectly. But why will not you 
 sit to him ?" 
 
 The tone in which this demand is made 
 is so far more imperative than its utterer has 
 any idea of, that Pamela laughs nervously. 
 
 "Is it Anne.^" she asks, holding up her 
 hands with a half- playful, half- frightened 
 gesture of warding off a threatened attack, 
 " or is it Queen Eleanor, with the dagger 
 and the bowl ?'' 
 
 Mrs. Bligh has by this time risen to her 
 feet, and is standing over her disciple, still 
 unconsciously gripping her sooty sponge. 
 
 "It cannot be prudery," she says, as if 
 addressing herself rather than the girl. " I 
 have never seen the least trace in you of 
 that contemptible quality ; and, besides, 
 there would be no place for it. You would 
 have your stepmother, or your maid, or that 
 old governess of yours — I can't remember 
 her name — during the whole of your sittings." 
 
 "Yes, of course I might," nervously 
 answering this assault.
 
 MRS. BLIGII 279 
 
 " Perhaps you are afraid of the irksome- 
 ness and fatigue of having to keep in one 
 position for so long?" continues Anne, her 
 unconsciously commanding tone changing 
 into one of eager persuasion. " But he 
 would be 7Nos^ considerate to you ; he would 
 let )ou rest as often as you liked, and you 
 would have his conversation to distract vou. 
 Many women " — with a gallantly swallowed 
 sigh — "admired women — women very much 
 in the world, would think it no great hard- 
 ship to have hini to talk to them for an hour, 
 or a couple of hours at a time." There is 
 not even an indistinct murmur in answer this 
 time, only a dead silence. "You think that 
 you are doing a good work," continues the 
 other, her voice swelling with indignation 
 at the dumb resistance offered to her argu- 
 ments, " when vou allow those factorv Q-irls 
 to drag you about, and claw you ; and you 
 do not seem to see how^ very much greater 
 an act of charity it would be to give essential 
 help at a critical moment — with so little cost 
 to yourself, too — to a man of real genius ! '
 
 2 So MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Apparently her friend's attitude — standing 
 in such heat of expostulation over her, and 
 waving the soapy sponge above her head — is 
 more than Pamela can bear, for she now 
 springs up and betakes herself to the window, 
 where she stands with her back to the room, 
 and whence a sound of uncomfortable remon- 
 strant laughter now makes itself heard. 
 
 " Dearest Anne, what gross exaggeration ! 
 Essential hclpy 
 
 " I suppose," resumes Anne, beginning to 
 march about the lonely little room with her 
 hand behind her, " that the same thing 
 happens to almost every genuine artist. In 
 most of their lives there comes a moment 
 when the fire seems to burn low ; when the 
 spring ceases to run ; a moment of exhaus- 
 tion ; and then, unless some new inspiration 
 comes, something to start them again, to 
 give them a fresh fillip, a new lease of artistic 
 life " 
 
 " And is it possible that you mean to 
 imply that / can do all this for him ?" The 
 girl's voice is quivering, and the colour burns
 
 MRS. BLIGH 28 1 
 
 in two fixed blazing patches under her eyes, 
 but she looks her companion full and directly 
 in the face. 
 
 "I do not know whether you can, but I 
 know that he thinks you can ; which comes 
 to much the same thing. Oh, do consent 1" 
 dropping the unheeded sponge at last on the 
 carpet, and gripping Pamela's wrists; "or, 
 if you will not, at least give a reason for your 
 refusal ; any reason, even a bad one ; come, 
 I will take even a bad one — a bad one !"' 
 
 There is a pause. The elder woman's 
 face, not quite unlovable in its expressive 
 })lainncss, is dyed in a hue as deep though 
 not as lovely as hers whom she so urgently 
 apostrophizes. 
 
 '■ Is it jpossible," says the latter, bringing 
 out the question with low-voiced difficulty, 
 " that you really wish me to sit to him .^" 
 
 Anne lau";hs rather harshly. 
 
 '' It is a little late in the day to ask that! 
 
 Do you suppose, then, that I have been 
 
 jokiuo- all this time ? Do I look, do I sound 
 
 as if I were in joke? But come," giving the
 
 282 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Other's slender captive wrists an impatient 
 jog, "your reason, if you have one, which I 
 am beginning gravely to doubt ?" 
 
 " My reason," repeats Pamela, turning her 
 head from side to side, as if looking for some 
 way of escape ; but finding none, pulls herself 
 together, and says with a heavy sighing 
 breath, in a hurried low voice, " since you 
 will have mv reason, it was that I — I — was 
 
 " Afraid ! Afraid of what !" 
 
 "Of— of— myself!" 
 
 An oppressive silence of several moments, 
 so oppressive that Pamela finds even explana- 
 tory speech preferable. 
 
 " I need not dilate to you, who know him 
 so well, upon his attractiveness. If I sat 
 to him I should have to see a great deal of 
 him ; you know his caressing manner to 
 women : it means nothing, less than nothing, 
 but I was afraid of getting too much sous le 
 chanuc. I do not think I have a stronger 
 brain than other girls, and I was afraid that 
 I might — I might — lose my head !"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 2 S3 
 
 Her utterance is rapid and very low ; and 
 here she stops, dropping her eyehds and 
 blushing intolerably. Mrs, Bligh has let 
 loose her hold upon her young friend's hands 
 and stepped back a pace ; each of her dark 
 eves seems to have secreted a burnino- coal 
 in its pupil. Pamela has told her the truth, 
 but not the whole truth ; one, and the more 
 important half of it, she has suppressed, out 
 of regard to her friend's feelino-s. On the 
 
 o o 
 
 simple page of that fair and loyal face before 
 her Mrs. Bligh reads the innocent secret, 
 that what Pamela has feared more than the 
 loss of her own heart, is the filching of that 
 one which she has — alas ! so erroneously — 
 believed to be, or at least have been, Anne's 
 possession. The feelings awakened by this 
 discovery are of too potent a nature to niake 
 utterance easy, or at first even possible. But 
 by-and-by she manages — though she does 
 not quite know how she gets hold of it — to 
 speak in a respectably steady voice, and with 
 a o-rave smile. 
 
 O 
 
 " I think vou were still more afraid that
 
 284 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 someone else might lose his head ! But," 
 she pauses for a second, then resumes still 
 more steadily than before, " why should you 
 be afraid of t/iat ?" 
 
 " But I am not," cries poor Pamela, in an 
 agonized voice, the carmine usually limited to 
 lips and cheeks deluging every visible inch 
 of her. " Do not for a moment suppose that 
 I was implying anything so fatuous. I am 
 speaking — thinking — only of myself Do 
 not, for heaven's sake, put such an interpre- 
 tation on my words ! It would be too — too 
 ■ — fatuous !" 
 
 She breaks off choked with maiden shame. 
 Anne has in her turn fled to the window, 
 and in feverish absence of mind tweaked off 
 one of the blossoms from a sole and expen- 
 sive pot of lilies of the valley. Then she 
 comes back, puts her arms round Pamela, 
 and kisses her almost solemnly. 
 
 " There is nothing fatuous in it," she says, 
 in a tone of great kindness. "It is ??iost 
 probable, and— and — ?nost to be desired!" 
 
 " Oh no, no !" with almost tearful em-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 285 
 
 phasis ; " it is most /wprobable, and most to 
 be ///^lesired ! He can't help saying pretty 
 graceful things to other women, but it is 
 you, you, who are his real object — his real 
 devotion." 
 
 • Anne passes her hand over her forehead. 
 The words so sincerely meant sound with 
 a horrible irony in her cars. 
 
 " My dear child," she says, mastering her- 
 self with great difficulty, "you have said 
 those sort of things till you believe them. 
 Let me earnestly beg of you, once for all, 
 to credit me when I assure you upon my 
 honour that Sir Robert Coke and I are 
 Iriends and Q^ood comrades — nothing more ! 
 What should we be more, indeed ? I am 
 very proud" — almost loudly — "of being his 
 good comrade. We like each other as two 
 men might — two very nice men. He is a 
 very nice man, and" — smiling — "it is more 
 my misfortune than my fault that I am not 
 a very nice man too." 
 
 And thus it comes to pass that Miss Ca[)el- 
 Smith consents to sit to Sir Robert Coke.
 
 .86 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 She does not stay long after her shy and 
 remorseful consent has been wrung out of 
 her ; but short as the interval is, it seems 
 lonsf to Anne. The sort of awkwardness 
 which, as both now realize, has been grow- 
 ing up between them ever since the sculptor's 
 shadow fell upon their friendship, and which 
 had melted under the fire of their joint 
 excitement half an hour ago, settles down 
 upon them again despite all their efforts. 
 With a sio-h of relief Anne hears the hall- 
 door shut behind her guest. She is stand- 
 ing before the fire, and as her eyes meet 
 her eyes in the Chippendale looking-glass, 
 a ofrim smile breaks over her face, as with 
 an expressive gesture, as of one who has 
 cut her own throat, she passes her forefinger 
 along its surface from ear to ear. 
 
 "It will be brought in felo dc st\' says 
 she, speaking out aloud, according to her 
 wont. Then she sits down upon the floor 
 again, and finishes washing her palm,
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Anne Blicii loses no time in informino- her 
 sculptor of the good turn she has done him. 
 The first draft of the note on which she does 
 so runs thus : 
 
 " Dear Friend, 
 
 " Your Ewe has been brought to 
 
 hear reason. You will find her now willinaf 
 
 to throw a smile ov'er her shoulder at old 
 
 Tithonus. 
 
 " Your Dcus ex Mac kind, 
 
 "A. Bligii." 
 
 She reads it over complacently at first, 
 with less satisfaction a second time, then 
 tears it up, "It is ungenerous to sneer at 
 his age. He can no more help being fifty
 
 288 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 than I can help being unattractive." She 
 takes another sheet. 
 
 " Dear Friend, 
 
 " I have persuaded Miss Capel-Smith 
 
 to sit to you. Will you communicate directly 
 
 with her } I enclose her address, in case 
 
 you have not got it. 
 
 " Yours ever, 
 
 "A. Bligh." 
 
 Her pen has halted a little over the 
 "Yours ever." It is his invariable signature 
 to her, which she has, with hesitating 
 pleasure, adopted. But would not it be well 
 to alter it now } "It would be truer with an 
 ' n ' before it—' Yours never.' " Then she 
 thinks of that of Mr. Moddle — " Unalter- 
 ably, never yours, Augustus" — laughs out 
 loud, and, with just a passing wish that she 
 had never adopted it, lets the usual formula 
 go. 
 
 For the next day or two she is the prey of 
 a dread which sometimes wears the face of a 
 hope that he will come and thank her in
 
 MRS. BLIGH 289 
 
 person. But he does not. He sends her 
 his gratitude in a prompt and ecstatic note, 
 in which he calls her his dear "little friend, 
 and his good angel" — handsome expressions 
 which scarcely fill her with the joy they 
 would have done had they been spontaneous, 
 and not the acknowledgment of the particular 
 kind of service rendered by her. The billet 
 contains also the expression of an eager wish 
 to come and see her, and talk over things, 
 as soon as he can find a moment's breathing- 
 space. 
 
 But as the days go by it becomes evident 
 that that breathing-space has not been, and 
 probably will not be, reached. Her common- 
 sense coming to her aid, she gives up hurry- 
 ing home, breaking through every other 
 engagement to be back at her own tea-table 
 by five o'clock. 
 
 The private view - day of the Royal 
 Academy, for which he has sent her tickets, 
 has arrived, and she has neither seen nor 
 heard anything further of Coke, or his in- 
 tending model. Probably on that general 
 
 19
 
 290 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 meeting-ground of the smart, the artistic, 
 and the frumpy she will come across them 
 both. But she comes across neither, for the 
 excellent reason that neither is there. Is it, 
 she asks herself — as she walks through the 
 crowded rooms alone, for she has hampered 
 herself with no companion — is it merely that 
 shyness and dread of overheard comment 
 and disparagement which keeps a good 
 many sensitive artists away, or a conscious- 
 ness that his work this year is not up to its 
 usual mark, that is accountable for his 
 absence ? 
 
 The sculpture-room is always empty, so 
 that, as she tells herself, the fact that no one 
 is looking at Coke's " Marsyas " when she 
 nears it is no indication of unsuccess. She 
 walks round the group, and with rather a 
 sinking heart observes how insignificant is 
 the flaw in the marble back — how inadequate 
 an excuse for the purchaser's refusal to take 
 it ! She is regarding it somewhat ruefully, 
 when someone touches her on the arm, and 
 looking round with a start, and with heaven
 
 MRS. BLIGH 291 
 
 knows what sudden expectation, she sees 
 Lady St. George ! 
 
 " How are you ? I do not care about It, 
 do you ? There is something strained in 
 the attitude ; but between you and me, I 
 cannot stand modern sculpture ; only"- — with 
 a knowing nod — ■" I do not tell our friend so. 
 But" — with animation — "do tell me where 
 1463 \s} A bust — they are all so alike — 
 and so hideous ! But they tell me it is the 
 thing to look at — quite a new man. Young, 
 and was a stone-mason ; picked up by the 
 wife of the Squire of his parish ; quite a 
 w^orking- man. 1 have no doubt he puts his 
 knife half-way down his throat — but I must 
 get hold of him." 
 
 Mrs. Bligh helps her friend to find 1463 ; 
 owns grudgingly that it is not bad for a 
 beginner ; and goes home in spirits that 
 would be yet more dispirited than they are, 
 were she not supported in some measure by 
 the thought that by next year the effect of the 
 new inspiration to which she herself has been 
 the means of helping her sculptor will be
 
 292 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 triumphantly displayed to the world. And 
 meanwhile reason tells her that she must con- 
 struct her life without any reference to him. 
 
 It seems hard that the having done one of 
 her two most intimate friends a service should 
 have robbed her of both, but as the weeks 
 slip by she has sardoniceilly to allow to her- 
 self that something not unlike this paradoxical 
 result has been attained. 
 
 Yet Coke does pay his promised visit after 
 awhile ; but as ill-luck would have it — lie 
 may call it good-luck is her after-reflection 
 — one or two of her not very numerous 
 acquaintances have chosen the same day and 
 hour to visit her ; and though, as he rises 
 to take leave after half an hour of trivial 
 general chat, she cannot keep out of her 
 eyes an entreaty to him to outstay her other 
 guests, he either does not see, or disregards 
 the dumb request. All she learns from that 
 tantalizing snatch of his company is that he 
 is in admirable looks and spirits, and appears 
 in no wise annoyed at his failure to secure a 
 tete- d-tete.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 293 
 
 As to Miss Capel- Smith, whose exag- 
 gerated estimate of herself, and insatiable 
 thirst for her society, had till lately filled her 
 with protesting wonder, it is but in snatches 
 that she catches a glimpse of her also. She 
 runs in now and again, but though extremely, 
 and, as it strikes Anne, remorsefully affec- 
 tionate in her manner, she is always in a 
 hurry, and never quite at her ease. She 
 does not volunteer, nor can Mrs. Bligh bring 
 herself to ask any information as to the 
 sittinofs which the elder woman knows to be 
 now in full swing. Pamela has had no gout 
 to get the better of ; and she is nineteen 
 instead of fifty, and yet, or the other fancies 
 it, there is a near kinship between the thinly- 
 veiled exuberance of life and joy in the more 
 than mature man and the scarcely-ripe girl. 
 " It is certainly coming," Anne says to her- 
 self with a dry sob, which makes Tory give 
 a short bark of interest and surprise — " If I 
 am not a perfect fool I shall get ni)' life into 
 som(; sr)rt of shape before it comes." 
 
 Nor does the resolution end in words.
 
 294 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Day by day she tries more and more 
 earnestly to give it effect in action, seeking 
 with feverish eagerness to find channels into 
 which to pour that energy of being and 
 fulness of feeling for which she has now no 
 natural outlets afforded. To the surprise of 
 the acquaintance who had introduced her to 
 that sphere of labour, and witnessed her exces- 
 sive distaste for it, she asks to be allowed to 
 repeat her visit to Poplar, and though she 
 can never be said to become very fond of the 
 factory girls, yet it grows with her into a habit 
 to forego her dinner every Monday night in 
 order to cut out skirts and jackets for those 
 boisterous young operatives — a share of the 
 work which she has asked for as being most 
 within her powers — and to discover how un- 
 expectedly particular and difficult to please 
 they are as to the fit of those garments. 
 
 Nor does she confine herself to the factory 
 hands. Charity organization lays a claw 
 upon her. She dabbles in "friendly girls," 
 and " lost mothers," and "cabmen." Nor is 
 it philanthropy alone that absorbs her in her
 
 MRS. BLIGH 295 
 
 quest of an existence of many-sided interests. 
 She attends three courses of lectures ; she 
 eagerly follows up any opening that may 
 lead to a widening of her narrow social circle. 
 In London, probably more than in any other 
 capital, the golden rule of " cutlet for cutlet" 
 holds sway ; and as the last census revealed 
 the inconvenient richness in womankind of 
 the British Isles, represented by a surplus of 
 nine hundred thousand fair ones, there is 
 naturally no great demand for an undinner- 
 giving, imillustrious, unbeautiful solitary 
 woman. But she accepts the few enter- 
 tainments that are offered to her ; and, as 
 she does her best to make herself pleasant at 
 them, they lead to more. Thus the weeks 
 pass, and the month of poetic name and 
 associations — the month of cuckoo and 
 nightingale ; often, also, of bitter breath and 
 pinching easterly airs ; the month when the 
 Derby is run ; and the missionaries " from 
 the plains of Timbuctoo " throng Exeter 
 Hall ; and th(j lilac has its brief span of 
 exquisite life — draws to a close.
 
 296 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Mrs. Bligh has not yet reached that stage 
 of existence when Hfe goes by electric tele- 
 graph. At twenty-nine it has not more than 
 the speed of the Flying Dutchman ; and of 
 late it has been going more slowly than 
 usual throuQfh beinQ; so much more and 
 more variously filled. Much slower, for 
 instance, than during the last three un- 
 eventful weeks of her visit to the Mul- 
 holiands. 
 
 The Mulhollands ! How little they have 
 been in her thouQ;hts of late is brouQ^ht home 
 to her when, on letting herself into her house 
 one afternoon, she finds her parlour - maid 
 spelling out the florid message of regret at 
 havinof missed her, scratched on a card left a 
 few minutes before by Czar. 
 
 He is up then, embarked on his career of 
 pleasure, in his comfortable bachelor rooms ; 
 and having left his long - suffering family 
 behind him with as little compunction as he 
 had left the spring cabbages and peas in his 
 garden. Her indignation at his selfishness 
 prevents her from taking any notice either
 
 MRS. BLIGH 297 
 
 of him or his pencilled despair. In a few 
 more days he has passed utterly out of her 
 head. 
 
 One morning early in June she is at her 
 bureau, puzzling over the accounts of a 
 charitable society which she has undertaken 
 to keep in order during- the absence, through 
 illness, of its secretary. The pugs are sitting 
 in the window, with their backs turned to 
 her, looking like a couple of jMorland's pigs. 
 Tory is sitting upright, as a sort of protest 
 against her mistress's absolute refusal to 
 saddle herself with her weight upon her 
 lap. Sail is occasionally trying with hand 
 and mouth to catch a torpid blue-bottle on 
 the pane. Both are bored and dc'swuvrc. 
 But all of a sudden they spring to their feet, 
 breaking into a storm of barks, which are 
 taken up and answered by other dog- voices 
 from Ijclow. 
 
 Mrs. Bligh asks them to st0[), but since 
 they pay no attention, being as disobedient 
 as women's dogs always are, she puts her 
 fingers resignedl\- in hc^r ears, and goes on
 
 298 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 counting. But after the lapse of a minute 
 or two, she becomes aware that the door has 
 opened, and visitors, whose names, thanks to 
 her stopped ears, she has not caught, are 
 being announced. 
 
 Who can be sufficiently intimate with her 
 to call upon her at eleven in the morning } 
 She is not long left in doubt. 
 
 " I do not know what you will say to our 
 bringing the dogs !" says Mrs. Mulholland, 
 appearing in the doorway, followed by her 
 daughter and stepdaughter, the former bearing 
 her beloved Fezy, in a state of overpowering 
 agitation at the sight of the pugs, and the 
 latter leading Jim in a string; "but we did 
 not dare to leave them at the hotel ; they 
 have got us into sad hot-water already !" 
 
 "Jim would not have thought of biting 
 that idiot of a waiter if he had sat down at 
 once," cries Lucile indignantly. " You re- 
 member he never can bear to see anyone that 
 he does not know, standing up ; if he had sat 
 down at once " 
 
 " I am afraid " — in laughing interruption —
 
 MRS. BLIGH 299 
 
 " that waiters, as a rule, cannot do much 
 sittino- down !" 
 
 "And I dare say the invalid lady whom 
 Fezy kept awake all night with his barking 
 is not much of an invalid really," cries Sue 
 warmly ; " and if they send him downstairs 
 to sleep in the kitchen to-night, they shall 
 send me too ! We will be found dead in 
 each other's arms among the blackbeetles !" 
 
 They all laugh. 
 
 "He had better take a bed here ; "I 
 wish" — hospitably — "you could all take beds 
 here ! I had not an idea that you were up. 
 I was out when Czar called." 
 
 " I think," says Mrs. Mulholland, with a 
 mildly reproachful tinge in her good-natured 
 voice, " that he was a little bit piqued at 
 your taking no notice of his card. His lady 
 friends, as a rule, are so very emprcssd. He 
 is too proud to say so ; but I think he rather 
 expected you to ask him to have a cup of 
 tea, or " 
 
 Anne feels herself growing guiltily pink. 
 
 " I should not heive ventured to invite
 
 300 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 such a swell ! I know he is always so over- 
 whelmed with engagements." 
 
 Czar's wife hesitates. 
 
 " He has not quite so many invitations 
 this year as he expect — as usual ; his friends 
 do not seem to be giving much ; they are all 
 very smart people, and have shut up their 
 houses on account of the royal mourning !" 
 
 Anne struggles with a smile at the 
 ingenuity that has evidently been needed 
 by the old gentleman in reconciling the dis- 
 crepancy between his rose-coloured accounts 
 of his own popularity and the actual fact. 
 
 " And so he brought you all up to console 
 him !" 
 
 Again Mrs. Mulholland hesitates, and 
 there is evidently a slight struggle in her 
 mind before she replies. 
 
 " Well, no, he did not bring us up, much 
 as he would have liked it ; the fact is, we are 
 up for a week on the strength of a cheque 
 sent me by an eccentric old cousin of Czar's, 
 with the stipulation that it should be spent 
 entirely on a treat for me and the children !
 
 MRS. BLIGH 301 
 
 Of course, one must not look a oift-horse in 
 the mouth ; but we were all a little indicrnant 
 at her excluding poor Czar so pointedly. 
 However, he took it very sweetly, and 
 begged us to enjoy ourselves." 
 
 " There is very little doubt " — smiling 
 openly this time — " about your being able 
 to oblige him in that particular!" 
 
 " Oh no, of course not ; only " — with a 
 rather harassed look — " unfortunately we all 
 want to go different ways. Lucile to South 
 Kensington and the Military Tournament ; 
 Sue to Westminster Abbey and the Dogs' 
 Home ; and I to the Stores, and " — with a 
 rueful glance at Jini and Fezy, to whom the 
 pugs are making advances of mixed ire and 
 coquetry — " there are so few places where 
 dogs are admitted." 
 
 " London is not a nice place for dogs ; I " 
 — doubtfully — "am a little surprised at your 
 bringing them uj)." 
 
 "Well, you see, Sue never will be 
 separated from Fezy." 
 
 "He would break his heart if I were to
 
 302 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 desert him," cries the Httle girl, interrupting 
 her darling in the marked homage he is 
 paying to Tory by snatching him up in her 
 arms, " and then I should break my heart, 
 and we should be buried in one grave !" 
 
 '' And we would put over you, ' They were 
 noisy and unpleasant in their lives,' " etc., 
 interjects Lucile, laughing. 
 
 Anne laughs too. 
 
 " Fezy, I own, is accounted for; but why 
 Jim?" 
 
 " George asked us to bring him up to 
 meet him." 
 
 " George is in London too ?" 
 
 "Yes, he is on his way to his new agency, 
 buying things for his house." 
 
 " His agency ? His house ?" in a tone of 
 surprised interest. 
 
 " Oh yes, I was forgetting ; you have not 
 heard our great news. George has got a 
 land agency ; it appears that he is a wonder- 
 ful judge of timber, which seems to be a 
 thing that is born with you, and that you 
 cannot acquire ; and on the strength of that
 
 MRS. BLIGH 303 
 
 and his being so good at accounts, Mr. 
 Blank " 
 
 " The nice man who brought us down from 
 the slate-quarries on his engine " — puts in 
 Sue explanatorily — "has got him a sub- 
 agency. Poor fellow, we are all so glad for 
 him." 
 
 "And so am I, heartily." 
 
 "As his chief lives on another estate, he is 
 to have his house ; a capital house I am told, 
 almost too good " — with a meaning look — ■ 
 " for a lonely bachelor." 
 
 That meaning smile, reflected in the girls' 
 faces, tells Mrs. Bligh that hope of the attain- 
 ment of their Blue Rose has revived in the 
 minds of the Mulholland family — that Blue 
 Rose which her own late action has made it 
 more out of the question than ever for them to 
 pluck. The consciousness of this fact makes 
 her feel at once so shabby and so regretful, 
 that she finds no words with which to hint to 
 them that their castle is built on the sand ; 
 and Mrs. Mulholland resumes in a contented 
 voice :
 
 304 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " He is in great spirits, poor boy! He is 
 coming- to tell you himself; he always fancied 
 that you did not think him good for much, so 
 it is quite a little triumph for him. Do not 
 let him know that we have been beforehand 
 with him. Be very much surprised. Ah ! 
 here he is !" as the sound of the front-door 
 bell is heard once again, moving the ire of 
 the parlour - maid with its electric tremor, 
 unwonted and unreckoned for in the fore- 
 noon. 
 
 "I do not know whether I can manage 
 being surprised ; but I shall not have the 
 slightest difficulty in being pleased," rejoins 
 Anne, turning a face, dressed out in com- 
 punctious congratulations, towards the door, 
 to be ready to greet the expected arrival. 
 
 But if Mrs. Bligh's congratulations are 
 needed, they will have to be new-shaped to 
 fit the requirements of a different object from 
 the one looked for. George Mulholland 
 would not bound into the room unannounced, 
 in a hat wreathed with roses ; nor pull him- 
 self up dead short in the middle of the room,
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 505 
 
 with a little " Oh !" of consternation, at the 
 sigfht of his mother and sisters. 
 
 The first glance at Pamela Capel-Smith's 
 face tells Anne that she has come to make 
 that announcement, which, as Mrs. Bligh has 
 daily and hourly told herself, can have no 
 element of surprise, much less shock, for her 
 when it comes ; since there is no moment of 
 her waking hours in which she does not 
 expect it. She is the one of the awkwardly 
 silent group who pales instead of redden- 
 ing. 
 
 " I did not know. I had not an idea," 
 stammers Pamela, recovering her speech 
 first, but imperfectly. 
 
 "W'Q are such country cousins, that every- 
 body is astonished to see us in London," 
 says Mrs. Mulholland, with an air of stiff 
 dignity which sits oddly on her; "but I do 
 not see why we should not have our fiing as 
 well as our neighbours ! We have paid you 
 a visitation " — turning to Anne, and be- 
 ginning to refasten the lace cloak — an 
 obvious fruit of the cousin's legacy, which in 
 
 20
 
 3o6 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 the warm room she has let drop upon her 
 ample shoulders. " Lucile, put Jim's muzzle 
 on again." 
 
 "Jim," repeats Pamela, in a rather moved 
 voice ; *' is Jim here too ?" 
 
 Then, as he is drawn forth from beneath 
 the sofa to which he has retired to avoid the 
 hoydenish overtures of Sail and Tory, she puts 
 out her hand to stroke him ; but some Inward 
 emotion makes her change her intention, and 
 she contents herself with saying gently : 
 
 " Poor dear Jim ! he does not look much 
 like a London dog." 
 
 "He does not wish to!" cries Lucile — • 
 inducting, as she speaks, his reluctant pink 
 nose and blinking eyes into their horrid 
 little leather cage — "he would not if he 
 could ; he hates London." 
 
 " We have brought him up to meet George! 
 He is to live with George at his agency. 
 George has got an agency," explains Sue 
 eagerly, mentioning the name and giving the 
 information which her elders have wished, 
 but felt their perfect Inability to introduce
 
 MRS. BLIGH 307 
 
 and impart. They glance gratefully at 
 her, 
 
 " George has got an agency !" repeats 
 Pamela, in a tone of lively interest, not un- 
 mixed with astonishment. " Oh !" — turning 
 towards Geors^e's relatives with a sort of 
 diffidence as to the manner in which her 
 congratulations may be received — " I am so 
 glad." 
 
 " We are all glad," replies Mrs. Mulholland, 
 still stiffly, but with indications of a tempta- 
 tion to thaw ; " he most of all. It was never 
 his wish to be idle. Come, girls, are you 
 ready ?" 
 
 They file out : women, child, dogs, bidding 
 a formal adieu to Miss Capel-Smith as they 
 pass her ; a formal one, all but Sue, who, 
 yielding to the instincts of an ineradicably 
 kind heart, and thinking that the culprit 
 looks snubbed, insists on both Jim and Fezy 
 shaking hands cordially with her. Anne ac- 
 companies her visitors to the hall-door, partly 
 to do them honour, partly also from an un- 
 avowed wish to defer for yet a few moments
 
 3o8 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 longer the reception of those tidings which 
 she knows that Pamela is feverishly waiting 
 to Impart. 
 
 But the adieux of the hurried little party, 
 hastening to begin the cramming of a season's 
 enjoyment Into their one brief week, cannot 
 be prolonged beyond two or three minutes, 
 and however slowly she may mount her 
 stairs, she gets back to the drawing-room 
 before she can find any confidence that her 
 armour against the coming blow is half braced 
 on. She finds Miss Capel-Smith standing 
 In the middle of the room evidently- in too 
 great a tremor of nerves to sit down. The 
 moment that her hostess appears she breaks 
 out into eager speech. 
 
 " Never, never will I burst in upon you 
 unannounced again ! I would have given 
 anything not to have met them here to-day !" 
 
 "It was unlucky." 
 
 " How cold they were to me — all but Sue. 
 Dear little Sue ! What a beautiful nature 
 that child has !" 
 
 It Is obvious to Mrs. Bllgh that she is not
 
 MRS. BLIGH 309 
 
 alone in her desire to put off the crucial 
 moment. Pamela is evidently trying to shirk 
 it too. But since it must come, it had better 
 come at once. 
 
 "You did not" — with a strained smile — - 
 " come here to talk to me about Sue ?" 
 
 " Did not I r 
 
 " You have something more interesting to 
 
 ^" 
 say : 
 
 " Have I ?" 
 
 The girl has turned her back to her friend, 
 in obedience as the friend finds to that ele- 
 mentary law of humanity which teaches you, 
 when vou are thrustini^ five inches of cold 
 steel into the heart or vanity of a fellow- 
 creature, nut to look at him or her while you 
 are doing it. 
 
 " I am a true prophet, then ? It is settled.-^" 
 
 Mrs. Bli-'h's stairs are short and easv. It 
 cannot be the climbintr them that has made 
 her so ridiculously short of breath. Pamela 
 is stooping over Mrs. Bligh's modestly fur- 
 nished silver table, iidgetingly handling tlic 
 little objects upon it.
 
 3IO MRS. BLIGH 
 
 "It is all your doing!" she says in an 
 agitated, low voice. " I owe it all to you ! 
 You first suggested the idea ! But for you 
 such a thought would never have crossed my 
 brain." 
 
 A/l her doiii^. The listener neither ac- 
 cepts nor disclaims the imputed glory. She 
 is realizing what a large difference there is 
 between having the sword hung at ever so 
 small a distance above your head, and the 
 same sword actually slicing the tendons and 
 arteries of your neck. 
 
 " Do you remember that day in Beaumaris 
 Castle, when you snatched the lots out of my 
 hand ?" — not looking up, and speaking very 
 quickly. 
 
 " Yes, I remember. I am so likely to 
 forget " — aside. 
 
 " You said that I was meat for George's 
 masters ! It came upon me with a flash that 
 you might mean ///;;/. Did you ?" — with a 
 ring of anxiety in her voice — " I am almost 
 sure that you did." 
 
 " Yes, I meant hini''
 
 MRS. BLIGH 311 
 
 Mrs. Bligh will be able, so she tells her- 
 self, to manao^e somethinor more than these 
 stupid assents in a moment or two. 
 
 " But it was only a flash," continues the 
 other, ''and it passed in a second ; in fact, I 
 was deadly ashamed of its ever ha\n'ng crossed 
 my mind." 
 
 " Yes ?" 
 
 " And then a little later on we stayed in 
 the same country house for a Sunday, and he 
 seemed to make a good deal of me, but I 
 tried to think it meant nothing! You see "' 
 • — a slight pause — " I had got a stupid mis- 
 taken idea in my head, built upon nothing 
 but my own silly fancies " 
 
 She breaks off, and though Mrs. Bligh 
 knows that the labouring sentence's drift is 
 to try and convince her that her own conduct 
 has given no colour to the silly fancies alluded 
 to, she can still bring out nothing but another 
 difficult "Yes?" 
 
 " I was so afraid of giving way to my — my 
 feeling for him, that I made up my mind 1 
 would avoid every chance of meeting him ;
 
 312 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 and then I saw you at Poplar, and you told 
 me to come and see you, and as, no doubt, 
 you remember, you asked me to sit to him — 
 begged it of me as a personal favour to your- 
 self; that was what decided me, and since then " 
 — her lovely face drooping rosily lower — ■'' it 
 has all been plain-sailing, and yesterday " 
 
 " Only yesterday ?" 
 
 " Last night ; do you think "^ — enthusiasti- 
 cally — "that I should be likely to delay in 
 telling _y^^/ — you to whom I owe him ? Yes " 
 • — with moistening eyes and unsteady voice 
 — "we both feel that you have given us to 
 each other." 
 
 Mrs. Bligh breaks into what may pass 
 muster for a laugh. 
 
 " I always knew that I was of a very 
 generous turn !" Then, with a sudden 
 change of key, "you are a foolish child, and 
 you put it rather too strongly ; but I have 
 ■ — yes, I have " — her voice gaining- in firm- 
 ness — " tried to be a friend to you — both!'' 
 
 "There never was such a friend!" cries 
 the excited girl, half crying. ''He says so;
 
 MRS. BLIGH 313 
 
 he says that if anyone you loved committed 
 a murder, you would hide him under your 
 bed ! He says that the phrase ' True as 
 steel ' must have been made expressly for 
 you. He says " 
 
 A sort of shiver passes over Anne. 
 These phrases of repeated encomium are 
 almost intolerably painful to her. To stem 
 them, she says abruptly : 
 
 "And you — you now feel that 'something- 
 headlong,' as you called it, which you lacked 
 before, and which poor George, with the 
 best intentions in the world, was quite unable 
 to inspire !" 
 
 A tiny cloud just skims over Pamela's 
 radiant brow. 
 
 " I do not know what I feel — I am all 
 in a whirl ! Sometimes the honour and the 
 responsibility seem almost more than I can 
 bear ! Never — never would such a presump- 
 tuous idea have entered my head if you had 
 not put it there ; you dear, dcaj' Anne !" — 
 throwing herself into her friend's arms — " it 
 is all your doing !"
 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Miss Capel - Smith's expansive outbreak 
 precedes, by a very few minutes, her depar- 
 ture. When she is o-one — her hostess accom- 
 panies her also to the hall-door — that hostess 
 stands before the empty fireplace, and looks 
 into the depths of that chimney -glass, to 
 which, in her solitary life, she has acquired 
 the habit of making confidences. " You 
 dear, {/ear Anne !" she says out loud, in a 
 mockino- voice to the imao-e which the mirror 
 gives her back; "it is all your doing !" and 
 repeating again more slowly: "You dear, 
 dear Anne, what an astonishing fool you 
 have been !" she drops into an arm-chair, 
 and, thoucrh the accounts of the charitable
 
 MRS. BLIGH 315 
 
 society still remain unravelled out on her 
 bureau, lies limp and idle for awhile. 
 
 Not a long while, however, since her 
 morning's trials are not yet over. It is not 
 much past noon when the door-bell sounds 
 yet a third time, and she has only just 
 succeeded in oettino- her countenance into 
 some sort of order — not, indeed, that she 
 has any tear-traces to remove — when " Mr. 
 George Mulholland " is announced. During 
 the last half-hour her pity for him has been 
 wholly submerged in her warm compassion 
 for herself, but it revives with a stab when 
 she sees how indescribably smartened up 
 and brightened he looks, how good a frock- 
 coat he wears — the cousin's legacy again, 
 doubtless — and with how alert and hopeful 
 an air, and how litde of the clodpole, he 
 enters. As he shakes her hand his eye 
 wandt^rs beyond her, evidently in search of 
 some expected and not found object. 
 
 "I — ^ I met ni\- people just now," he 
 begins ; " they told me that — that " 
 
 " Tlial I should be delighted to see you !"
 
 3i6 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 replies Anne hastily, finishing his sentence 
 for him in a way which, as she is well aware, 
 is not the one that he intended. His eye, 
 growing disappointed, still rambles. He 
 had, it is plain, hoped to find Pamela still 
 here. Is it as a propitiatory offering for 
 her that he has broucrht the macrnificent 
 bunch of Marshal Niel roses which occupy 
 his left hand ? 
 
 " What superb roses !" she says, for the 
 sake of saying something, after they are both 
 seated. 
 
 " Do you like them T' he answers, holding 
 them out rather diffidently to her. " I 
 thought that perhaps you might. I remem- 
 bered how fond of flowers you were at Plas 
 Drow." 
 
 They were not meant for Pamela, then. 
 He has bought them expressly for her, out 
 of the legacy, too, probably! Is there no 
 way of stopping him from making these 
 repeated coal fires on the top of her guilty 
 head ? And what a return she has to make 
 to him ! These thoughts are working such
 
 MRS. BLIGH 317 
 
 havoc in her mind and manners that she 
 entirely forgets to put out an answering hand 
 to receive the offered nosegay. Instead of 
 taking it, she cries out, to the surprise and 
 consternation of the would-be donor : 
 
 " Oh, but this is really too dreadful !" 
 Then, seeing the dismayed astonishment in 
 the young man's face, at this extraordinary 
 mode of reception, she recollects herself, 
 and stammers awkwardly : "I believe that 
 I am getting Aphasia ; is not Aphasia the 
 saying the exact opposite of what you in- 
 tend ? Of course, I mean how beautiful, how 
 delightful !" 
 
 But George is naturally not deceived by 
 this extremely lame explanation. 
 
 " Why should there be anything dreadful 
 in my giving you a few roses ?" he asks, 
 with a troubled voice, in which there seems 
 to be a sort of forecast of misfortune. "Is 
 it — have you " — bringing out the words at 
 first stammeringly, and then with a blurt— 
 "is it that you have been doing me any 
 more ill-turns T
 
 J 
 
 18 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 His words make certain what she has all 
 along suspected — that he is aware of the 
 part she has had in his disaster, nor does 
 she in any way try to rebut the accusation. 
 She lays down the Marshal Niels, whose 
 cool stalks seem to burn her palm. She 
 cannot tell him while holding his flowers in 
 her hand. Obeying the humane rule lately 
 put in practice by Pamela for her benefit, 
 Mrs. Bligh keeps her eyes averted while she 
 deals her blow. 
 
 " It is too late ; it is out of my power now 
 for me to do you either a good or an ill turn !" 
 
 " What do you mean ?"' hurriedly. 
 
 " I mean," still looking away, and almost 
 running her words into each other in her 
 eagerness to get the communication over, 
 "that the reason why Pamela came here 
 this morning was to announce her engage- 
 ment to Sir Robert Coke !" 
 
 She ends, and still with lowered eyes waits 
 with lips compressed as if to bear an expected 
 prick of pain for the words of disappointment 
 and bitter sorrow which will surely follow.
 
 MRS. BLIGH 319 
 
 But none such, not even an inarticulate 
 ejaculation, come. He is taking his punish- 
 ment silently, as a man should. She steals 
 an anxious crlance in his direction. He is 
 standing in exactly the same attitude as 
 when first he had entered the room, but 
 the whole look of brightness and smartness 
 has disappeared. Even his frock-coat seems 
 to have collapsed. Since she is looking at 
 him, it is evident that he thinks she is 
 expecting him to say something, so after an 
 obvious struggle he speaks : 
 
 "It was always your plan ; of course, you 
 are glad." 
 
 She winces. Is this his revenofe — this 
 ironical assertion of her joy in her successful 
 labours } But a second glance at his face 
 assures her that he has had no such ironical 
 intention, that the speech is uttered in all 
 good faith, and that he is much too smothered 
 and swallowed up in his own woe to have 
 the most distant suspicion of hers. 
 
 "I — I thought it better you should know 
 at once," she murmurs miserably.
 
 320 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " Thank you ; yes, of course — certainly — 
 it is better !" 
 
 He moves as he speaks, and, turning, 
 seems to be searching for his hat, with a 
 gesture as of one who does not see very well. 
 She divines what it is that has for the 
 moment obscured his strong young sight, 
 divines also his anxiety that she should not 
 guess the cause. She helps him to look for 
 his hat, and in a moment or two it is found. 
 Holding it in one hand, he offers her the 
 other. 
 
 " I am no worse off than I was before !" 
 he says, with a gallant attempt at a smile. 
 " One cannot lose what one never pos- 
 sessed." 
 
 The mixed self-respect and magnanimity 
 which, as she feels, have dictated this speech 
 are more than she can bear. 
 
 "It was inexcusable in me to meddle!" 
 she cries, in an irrepressible outbreak of 
 remorse. "It is too late now, and I dare 
 say you will not believe me ; but if you knew 
 how deeply, deeply I regret "
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 " You need not," he answers, with more 
 dio^nitv than she could have thouQfht him 
 capable of. "I think better of her than 
 to believe that, if she had had one spark of 
 real liking: for me, she could have been 
 turned against me by a comparative stranger 
 after all these years !" 
 
 The succession of strong emotions — all 
 disagreeable — which Mrs. Bligh has ex- 
 perienced during the brief compass of one 
 forenoon produces in her the not imnatural 
 result of a bad headache. It is not bad 
 enough to justify taking it to bed, but is yet 
 by dinner-time bad enough to make the 
 thoughts of an evening party to which she 
 is engaged particularly irksome. Were the 
 party in question given by a prosperous 
 member of society, she would not hesitate 
 to refuse it the insignificant boon of her 
 company. But as on the contrary it is the 
 struggling effort at festivity of the wife of a 
 far from successful artist, who had invited 
 her viva voce, and with a profusion of 
 apologies for the humility of the entertain- 
 
 21
 
 32 2 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 ment, her kind heart forbids her to yield to 
 her ardent desire to shirk it. 
 
 To set off to an evening party, when you 
 have not preceded it by dining out, always 
 needs an exertion. The cold-blooded dressing 
 after dinner, at an hour when nature bids 
 you put off your artificial weeds, instead of 
 enduing them, becomes yet more trying 
 when you face it alone. It is therefore with 
 a very jaded feeling of deep self-pity that 
 Anne steps into her hired brougham, and 
 joggles off to Metheglin Road in Kensington 
 beyond Jordan. She finds the studio in 
 which the entertainment is chiefly taking 
 place so full of people that she regrets her 
 unneeded philanthropy. 
 
 They are very odd-looking people—shaggy 
 men, and queerly bedizened ill - combed 
 women. As she recognises no acquaintances 
 among them, she employs herself in looking 
 at the pictures, of which the atelier contains 
 a painful plenty. She knows that three or 
 four have been refused by the Academy, and 
 is reflecting how very little worse they are
 
 MRS. BLIGH 323 
 
 than some of the triumphant daubs she has 
 lately seen hanging on the line at Burlington 
 House, when an affected and familiar voice 
 sounds in her ear. 
 
 " Que diabh\ Mrs. Nan, va-felle /aire dans 
 cette galere T 
 
 She turns round with a start, but recover- 
 ing herself, retorts with a smile : 
 
 " Qtte diab/c, M. Czar, va-fil faire dans 
 cetie galere 7' 
 
 " You may well ask !" — with a shrug, 
 "You do not suppose "^ — in anxious haste 
 to explain away his appearance in Metheglin 
 Road — "that I am often to be caught among 
 such a set of ragamuffins ; but one does a 
 thing of the kind, once in a ' blue moon,' for 
 a lark ! Though you would not believe it " 
 — laughing — " I have a strong streak of the 
 Bohemian in me, and one likes to be kind." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " But now that we have found one another 
 • — ah, here are a couple of chairs — we can be 
 independent of all these unclean beasts ! 
 Do you know, Mrs. Nan, that I have a crow
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 to pluck with you? Are you one of those 
 ladies who never look at your cards, or are 
 you aware that a poor old fellow came beg- 
 ging a cup of tea from you one sultry after- 
 noon, and was turned broken-hearted from 
 your door ?" 
 
 " I was out," replies she briefly, the old 
 temptation to stem the tide of his flummery 
 coming back strongly upon her. " I am so 
 glad" — speaking rather stiffly — "that you 
 are all up this year, and gladder still about 
 George's agency. I stupidly forgot to ask 
 when and where it is." 
 
 " It is one of Lord 's," replies the old 
 
 gentleman, his own voice stiffened by the per- 
 ception of the little appetite shown by Mrs. 
 Nan for his gallant reproaches. 
 
 " Lord !" repeats Anne, in a tone of 
 
 surprise. 
 
 The title is that of the owner of the country 
 house at which Pamela and her present yf^?/f^ 
 had spent the delicious Sunday that had so 
 potently influenced their after-destiny. 
 
 "Yes, Lord ; do you know him?
 
 MRS. BLIGH 325 
 
 He is a very old crony of mine ; we matricu- 
 lated at Christ Church tos^ether. If vou 
 meet him — well " — chuckling — " I can only 
 hope he will not tell tales out of school." 
 
 " I have no acquaintance with him. " 
 
 "I suppose" — still chuckling — "that he 
 expects to find George a chip of the old 
 block. He will not be longf in findincy out 
 his mistake ; poor George !" 
 
 " Poor Georcje !" echoes Mrs. Bli^jh in a 
 tone of such heart-felt compassion as at once 
 procures her pardon for any previous omis- 
 sions from her old companion, who naturally 
 thinks that she is pitying his son for being so 
 unlike his brilliant sire. 
 
 "He does not favour me much, as the 
 servants say," continues George's parent 
 complacently. " But he is a very good 
 fellow in his way — a very good fellow in- 
 deed ! never given me an hour's anxiety. 
 I am afraid " — with a look and smile of self- 
 congratulatory reminiscence — " that my poor 
 father would have had a very difl'erent story 
 to tell when / was his age."
 
 326 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Mrs. Bligh's face does not reflect, even 
 faintly, her companion's simper. She has 
 none of her Plas Drow reasons for keeping 
 him in good humour, and sees plainly that 
 the tide of his reminiscences is bearing them 
 both directly to the too-well-known tale of 
 the four-wheeler and the injured husband. 
 
 " I think," she says, with a gravely deter- 
 mined effort to kill two birds with one stone 
 — snub his father, and do George a tardy 
 justice — "that the more one knows of your 
 son, the more " 
 
 Her sentence stops short, like a broken 
 bridge in mid-air, for while it is still un- 
 finished, her eye, straying carelessly round 
 merely to avoid fixing itself on the grimacing 
 old face beside her, sees by a stir near the 
 door, and a thickening of the little crowd in 
 that direction, that an arrival of more im- 
 portance than any that have yet taken place 
 is happening. Out of the clustering knot 
 she presently sees emerge a figure whose air 
 of distinction, heightened in this case by 
 contrast, makes her break into a smile of
 
 MRS. BLIGH 327 
 
 indignant incredulity, his own joking doubt 
 as to his ever having had a grandfather. He 
 is shaking hands cordially with half a dozen of 
 the dingy men and women, when Czar, dis- 
 covering the cause of Anne's sudden in- 
 attention to himself, cries : 
 
 " Why, bless me, here is our friend who 
 makes faces and busts ; our poor Coke !" 
 
 It has always seemed to comfort Czar for 
 the inequality between the sculptor's social 
 success and his own opinion of his merits, to 
 repeat frequently the flat old joke at his 
 expense, and prefix every mention of him 
 by the epithet — "poor." " Our poor Coke !" 
 
 To-night the epithet seems ludicrously 
 inapt. With his well-cut clothes, and his 
 Malmalson carnation, and his brilliant smile, 
 he seems to have as little relation as possible 
 with Czar's depressed and sordid adjective. 
 
 " Our poor Coke does not look very poor 
 to-night," she says dryly, and at the same 
 instant he catches sight of her. 
 
 In a second a sort of a cloud has come 
 over the radiance of his face, and he half
 
 328 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 turns as if to move farther off. Good 
 heavens ! how she must have given herself 
 away, when he, the least coxcombical of men, 
 is obviously afraid to meet her— to see the 
 havoc wrought in her by the sight of his new 
 bliss ! She cannot, must not leave him for 
 an instant the prey of so humiliating a delu- 
 sion. Without the slightest compunction she 
 quits Czar, and going up straight to Coke, 
 accosts him brusquely. 
 
 " I thought you never went to evening 
 parties." 
 
 "The exception proves the rule" — still 
 with that shade of embarrassment over his 
 whole person, "He is a dear old friend of 
 mine ; we were in Paris together, as penni- 
 less art students, and lived in the Ouartier 
 des Etudiants.for sixty francs a month each, 
 and dined when we could afford it at a jolly 
 dingy restaurant for eighteen sous, pain a dis- 
 cretion ; afterwards our paths diverged " 
 
 " As widely as Pharaoh's butler and 
 baker," interrupts she, with what she feels 
 to be an overdone air of ease and good
 
 MRS. BLIGH 329 
 
 spirits. " You give the cup into Pharaoh's 
 hand at Marlborough House, and he is 
 hanged, or rather his pictures are not. 
 But " — with a still more forced sprightli- 
 ness — "you will have to give up Bohemia 
 now. I do not quite see Pamela among 
 these ' bangs and beads.' " 
 
 He looks at her, not very comfortably. 
 
 "Yes,"' he answers trravely. "I shall 
 have to give up Bohemia." And she could 
 almost fancy that there is a slight touch of 
 regret in his voice. 
 
 They have passed out of the studio into a 
 small adjoining room, where for the moment 
 they are alone. 
 
 " I suppose," he says, with an almost shy 
 smile, " that you are thinking that there is no 
 fool like an old fool !" 
 
 Now is her moment, and she rushes 
 upon it. 
 
 " On the contrary," she cries, with precipi- 
 tate eagerness, lifting her moved lit face to 
 his, " I think that you would have been the 
 base Indian over again if )ou had not
 
 330 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 snatched at the fine pearl that heaven threw 
 in your path." 
 
 " Rather that yoiL threw in my path," he 
 answers, in a tone of emotion, too poignant 
 to be wholly pleasurable. " Dear, dear 
 friend, do you suppose that without your 
 sweet encouragement I should ever have 
 dared to match my November afternoon 
 with that exquisite April morning ? You 
 know, as well as I do, that it is all your 
 doing." 
 
 She stoops her head in bitter acquiescence 
 with this second testimony to her own gift 
 for suicide. 
 
 "It is a tremendous venture," he goes on, 
 passing his hand through that hair, which, 
 though thick and wavy, yet shows un- 
 deniably the gray ensign of declining life. 
 "If it answers — if it answers " — repeating 
 the doubtful phrase with an energy of 
 anxiety that for the moment makes him 
 look old and worn — " the credit of it will 
 be all — a/l yours !" 
 
 tt ^r ^r ^p
 
 MRS. BLIGH 331 
 
 On the next day Mrs. Bligh has the 
 pleasing task of Imparting to the Mulholland 
 family the downfall of their revived hopes, 
 which George has — probably because he felt 
 that their commiseration Is more than he can 
 bear — omitted to do. Their laments are 
 loud and long. 
 
 " Why, he is old enough to be her grand- 
 father !" cries Luclle indignantly; "there 
 must be forty years between them." 
 
 " I cannot say much about that," says 
 Mrs. Mulholland emphatically ; " nobody 
 has better reason than I to know how 
 
 absolutely unimportant a discrepancy mere 
 
 I" 
 age is ! 
 
 " Then It was not a joke, after all, about 
 his coming all the way to Plas Drow to 
 see her ?" is Sue's contribution. 
 
 "We all thought he was your property, 
 Nan — did not we, girls T from Mrs. Mul- 
 holland. 
 
 " I am sure that I never did or said any- 
 thing to confirm so insane a delusion," replies 
 " Nan," with an energy whose unnecessary
 
 332 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 bitterness she feels the moment it is too 
 late. 
 
 " I am so sorry that I made Jim and Fezy 
 shake hands with her !" almost sobs Sue. 
 "Jim! Fezy!" — impressively taking hold of 
 a paw of each — "you are never, never to 
 shake hands with that lady again." 
 
 And then happily a hotel waiter enters 
 and announces the arrival of a "young lady " 
 from Russell and Allen, and a "young gentle- 
 man " from Peter Jones, with their respective 
 parcels, and in the frenzied skurry of their 
 London week, the subject of George's 
 wrongs is happily shorn of some of the 
 gigantic proportions it would have assumed 
 in the quiet and leisure of Wales. 
 
 Mrs. Bligh does her duty thoroughly and 
 warmly by her country friends, lunching, 
 teaing, and dining them as often as she 
 can prevail upon their delicacy to husband 
 the rapidly dwindling- legacy by sharing her 
 roast mutton and bread - and - butter. She 
 chaperones the girls untiringly to sights, and 
 makes up Mrs. Mulholland's endlessly vacil-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 2,2,^ 
 
 lating mind for her at every counter in 
 London. She would always have rendered 
 them these services out of gratitude and 
 goodwill, but usually she would have thought 
 them a coj^vde — now she is thankful for them, 
 looking on the unbroken succession of tire- 
 some little calls upon her time and attention 
 as so many allies to keep thought at bay. 
 
 When the jNIulhollands are gone, she 
 throws herself with passion into her good 
 works. In a moment of wild philanthropy 
 she treats eleven of the Poplar factory girls 
 to an afternoon at the Naval Exhibition ; 
 but after some hours of fervid heat and acute 
 mental and bodily strain, returns home late 
 in the evening a good deal crestfallen, with 
 only seven of her protdg(^s remaining ; the 
 other four having left her society for that of 
 as many soldiers from Chelsea Barracks, 
 whose appearance and manners pleased them, 
 and from under whose martial care they 
 mock her when she pursues them to the 
 Cock[>it of the " Victory " with kissed hands 
 tuid farewell smiles.
 
 334 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 The two people who have with such 
 enthusiastic gratitude attributed their happi- 
 ness to Mrs. Bligh do not, as the weeks go 
 on, thrust that happiness upon her, nor does 
 she, it is needless to say, intrude herself upon 
 their new bliss. She has done them her 
 good turn, and there is for the present 
 nothing for her to do but quietly to efface 
 herself from their orbit. She calls now and 
 then on Pamela to avoid any appearance of 
 coldness, but she usually chooses an hour at 
 which she is likely to be out, and with the 
 sculptor her intercourse is quite in abeyance. 
 
 Yet though she scarcely or ever comes across 
 this pair of lovers of her own making, the 
 consciousness that every hansom that flashes 
 past may show them to her enclosed within 
 the intimate precincts of its wooden flaps, 
 that every walk she takes with the dogs in 
 Kensington Gardens may reveal them pacing 
 or sittino' in dual felicitv beneath the summer 
 trees, keeps her feverish. She is far too sound 
 and strong to fall ill, but she grows thin, and 
 sleeps brokenly. When it is once irrevocable
 
 MRS. BLIGH 335 
 
 — when they are one flesh — she will, so she 
 tells herself, easily regain her equable spirits. 
 
 The marriage will certainly take place 
 soon ; what is there for them to wait for ? 
 and once in the list of accomplished facts, 
 she has surely sense and strength of char- 
 acter enough to accept it peaceably. But 
 though she longs with restless eagerness to 
 learn the date of the intended union, from 
 neither of the betrothed pair does she hear a 
 word of tiding concerning it. And mean- 
 while, like Ritter Toggerburg, 
 
 " Ruhe Kann sie nicht erjagen." 
 
 One morning, after a more than usually 
 unsatisfactory night, the question occurs to 
 her, why she should put herself to the need- 
 less pain of this perpetual condition of dread- 
 ing expectation. What is there to hinder 
 her from going away, out of reach of the 
 possibility of meeting those whom it is now 
 her highest wisdom to avoid, and not re- 
 turning until after they are wedded man and 
 wife } Why should not she go abroad } 
 
 She had spent the first year of her widow-
 
 336 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 hood on the Continent, so has gained the 
 habit of soHtary travel. Why should not 
 she revisit those places where she had passed 
 the first stupefied months of her release from 
 her eight years' bondage, so that she may 
 convince herself that, evil as her case now 
 seems to herself, it is yet conspicuously 
 better than when her stunned and dazed eyes 
 had last rested on Leman's Lake or Cha- 
 mouni's Glaciers ? 
 
 The plan approves itself so instantly to her 
 mind that, within a fortnight of its first con- 
 ception, she is making arrangements for the 
 temporary devolvement of her philanthropi- 
 cal labours upon a fellow-worker ; has pre- 
 sented herself at Mr. Cook's office ; is putting 
 away her best china, and, most difficult task 
 of all, is planting out the three dogs in 
 homes where their frailties will be leniently 
 dealt with. She has written to Pamela to 
 inform her of her imminent departure, and 
 has had a somewhat painful and unsatisfac- 
 tory farewell visit from her ; painful from the 
 girl's evident inability to conceal her remorse:;-
 
 MRS. BLIGH 337 
 
 ful conviction of the cause of her friend's 
 oldened and altered looks, and premature 
 departure, and unsatisfactory, because Pamela 
 tells her nothing of her future plans. Perhaps, 
 as Anne bitterly thinks, she supposes her 
 unable to bear the hearing of them. 
 
 The visit has taken place in the morning, 
 and in the late afternoon, when she has just 
 thrown herself, tired and heated with final 
 packings and puttings away, into her arm- 
 chair, another caller is announced, whose 
 name — thanks to the dogs being already 
 removed to their temporary homes — she is 
 actually able to catch. 
 
 " Sir Robert Coke !" She has not seen him, 
 except in passing snatches, for over a month. 
 Is it her sick fancy, or does he, despite 
 his gray frockcoat and his Malmaison, look 
 a degree or two less radiant than he did at 
 his old Quartier Latin friend's shabby even- 
 ing party ? And if he does, is she mean 
 enough to be glad of it ? 
 
 " So you are going to leave us ?" he says, 
 complying with her request to sit down, but 
 
 22
 
 338 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 not choosing his once favourite low seat. " I 
 think you are about right. I mean," in 
 hasty explanation, "that my dear London , 
 that I love is getting near its least lovable 
 stage, and you will be well out of it ; you set 
 off the day after to-morrow ?" 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Quite alone ?" 
 
 The tinge of almost caressing pity in his 
 voice goes near upsetting her. 
 
 " There is nothing new in that ; I have 
 done it before." 
 
 "And where are you going ?" 
 " 1 do not know ; I have no fixed plans. I 
 shall make and modify them as I go along." 
 
 "You are perfectly right ; that is the way 
 to enjoy one's self really." 
 
 She is silent. The word " enjoy," though 
 she intends honestly to try and learn what it 
 means by-and-bye, seems at present to have 
 little connection with her dreary, solitary 
 flight from herself 
 
 "And when" — very, almost too kindly — 
 "are we to welcome you back ?"
 
 MRS. BLIGH 339 
 
 She shakes her head. 
 
 " I do not know that, either; at all events" 
 — taking the bull by the horns and smiling — 
 "on my return I shall find you Benedick, the 
 married man." 
 
 He smiles too, but rather anxiously. 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 "Since you have nothing to wait for, I 
 conclude you will be married as soon as the 
 
 season is over ?' 
 
 His last answer had come slowly and pen- 
 sively, but there is energy enough in his next. 
 
 " No ; oh dear no! Quite impossible ! I 
 must go to Karlsbad. I cannot risk a repe- 
 tition of my wretched crippled state. I do 
 not want the poor child to start in life as a 
 sick-nurse." 
 
 " It will not be till autumn, then ?" 
 
 " Autumn !" — he repeats slowly — " yes, 
 that will be the right season ; gray hairs and 
 falling leaves go well together." . 
 
 Something in his tone makes her uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 " And the opus magnum, the''E(ut ?"
 
 340 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 His eye, slightly overcast hitherto, lights 
 up brilliantly. 
 
 " She is an ideal sitter. So quick to catch 
 the exact pose I want, and so untiring in 
 keeping it, poor little girl ! I am sure that 
 over and over again she must have been 
 ready to drop with fatigue ; when I am in 
 the heat of my work I know how inconsiderate 
 I am. But she has never uttered a murmur." 
 
 "The labour we delight in physics pain," 
 replies Anne, ashamed of herself for the 
 bitterness of her quotation, and yet with no 
 more original commentary rising to her lips. 
 
 " I suppose " — hesitatingly — " that you 
 would not have time to look in at the studio 
 to-morrow and give your verdict ?" 
 
 She turns away her head quickly, with a 
 mixed feeling of sharp pain and self-congra- 
 tulation. After all he must have very little 
 idea what "looking in at the studio" under 
 these altered circumstances means to her, or 
 he would never have made the proposition. 
 
 " No, I think I will wait till — till I come 
 back — till it is finished."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 341 
 
 He sighs. " Then you will never see the 
 old place again ?" 
 
 " Why not ?" — startled. 
 
 "I am going to give it up; in my— my 
 altered circumstances — I must have a house 
 with a studio attached." 
 
 " Will not you be sorry to leave it ?" 
 
 He seems to feel the stupidity of the ques- 
 tion almost as strongly as she does herself, 
 the moment it is uttered. 
 
 " Sorry !" — he repeats with asperity, then 
 calming himself — " well, yes, it will be a little 
 bit of a wrench after five-and-twenty years !" 
 
 Mrs. Bligh is sympathetically silent ; then 
 she asks : 
 
 " You have not begun to look for a house 
 yet, I suppose ?" 
 
 " How could I Y' — almost impatiently — 
 "when have I time for anything? and I 
 cannot " — snipping impatiently with Anne's 
 scissors at the woolly tassel of a sofa-cushion 
 near him — " I cannot o-et her to say what she 
 would like. I wish that people would say 
 what they like,"
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Mrs. Bligii had never meant her foreiafn 
 trip to be a short one, but it prolongs itself 
 even beyond her original Intention. She 
 makes her way to the Engadine, where, 
 thanks to her early start, she is ahead of the 
 mob of tourists ; and when the greatest heats 
 are over, drops down into Italy for the vint- 
 age. PVom one high-perched, sweet-named 
 Italian town to another she wanders, as the 
 spirit, the guide-book, or the advice of some 
 chance met or made acquaintance impels her. 
 The endless succession of new scenes and 
 objects inevitably diverts her attention from 
 herself ; and she is too intelligent in mind, 
 and too sound in body, not — as the calming 
 and healing weeks go by — to draw from the
 
 MRS. BLIGH 343 
 
 old historic sites and older natural lovelinesses 
 of the civilized world's pet and darling much 
 of that enjoyment at whose very name she 
 had mocked at the time of her gloomy setting 
 off She recovers her flesh and her sleep, 
 and here and there makes a pleasant friend 
 or two. 
 
 But from the thought of a return home her 
 soul for several months turns away with dread 
 and aversion. Return to her means an 
 empty little house, the neighbourhood of the 
 friends whom, despite her mental conva- 
 lescence, she still feels that it will be safer, 
 and at the same time most difficult to avoid ; 
 means manufactured interests and uncon- 
 genial work. Her communications with 
 England have been few and slight. Her cor- 
 respondents — never numerous — have, from 
 the very nature of her travels — so entirely 
 planless and guided by tht; impulse of the 
 moment — been baffled in their efforts to keep 
 in touch with her. She has had, indeed, 
 several letters from Mrs. Mulholland, con- 
 scientiously covering every inch of very thin
 
 544 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 paper, full of trifling family details, and 
 running over with alternate ecstasies and 
 lamentations over the beauty, commodity and 
 ironical too-bigness of George's new house. 
 From Pamela she has received a few short 
 notes, each of which she has laid down with 
 a balked sense of how unsatisfactory a scribe 
 Miss Capel-Smith has become. Not one of 
 her dull and superficial billets gives an ex- 
 planation of the fact that she is still Miss 
 Capel-Smith. 
 
 It is, perhaps, under the circumstances, 
 natural enough that her mentions of her 
 betrothed are so few and sketchy. He has 
 gone to Karlsbad. He has come back. 
 They have been looking at houses together. 
 The latter fact — out of regard, no doubt, to 
 her friend's feelings — in a rather indistinct 
 postscript. Before the end of November 
 even these baffling scraps of information 
 have ceased to reach her ; and Pamela is 
 altogether dumb. Mrs. Bligh explains this 
 silence to herself in her own way. 
 
 The marriage — already delayed beyond
 
 MRS. BLIGH 345 
 
 her expectations — has at length taken place. 
 Pamela is on her honeymoon. There is 
 nothing surprising in her letting that period 
 pass without making Anne a sharer in its 
 joys, but the latter feels a prick of pained 
 annoyance that the wedded pair should have 
 thought it kinder not to impart to her the 
 date of their union. It is true that she has 
 seen no announcement of the event in the 
 English papers ; but since she has read them 
 with no regularity, she may easily have 
 missed the particular issue in which it 
 appeared. 
 
 It is not till the week before Christmas 
 that she sees again her native shores ; to 
 which she returns with her mind about as 
 dark as the wintry weather around her con- 
 cerning those two of her country - people 
 whose doings chiefly interest her. She 
 reaches home late and fagged, after a 
 through journey from Turin, and a sick 
 and stormy crossing. She goes to bed al- 
 most at once, thankful to the bodily fatigue 
 which blunts the sense of dreariness of her
 
 546 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 unwelcomed home-coming. It comes up 
 with and overtakes her next morning, how- 
 ever, when she wakes up to the conscious- 
 ness of being boxed in by a close and dirty 
 darkness of ill-smelling fog. 
 
 " What possessed me to come home ?" she 
 ejaculates to herself, over her murky, gas-lit 
 breakfast ; to herself, since as yet she has 
 not even the doofs to make her moan to — - 
 ''home indeed!" In the afternoon the filthy 
 ebony veil lifts a little, and she goes out 
 shopping. It is odious out of doors, but 
 anything is better than to sit at home, a prey 
 to the vain and melancholy memories that, 
 despite her changed and braced condition of 
 being, throng back upon her in the depression 
 of the heavy atmosphere, where dirt has taken 
 the place of light. 
 
 The shops are crowded to suffocation with 
 people buying Christmas presents. She can 
 scarcely make her way through the eager 
 throngs, or gain any hearing from the dis- 
 tracted shopmen and women for her modest 
 requirements. She is standing near the door
 
 MRS. BLIGH 347 
 
 of a pretty shop in Oxford Street, waiting 
 for the chance of an opening, and making 
 the reflection which must occur over and 
 over ao^ain to us all — even thouo^h not like 
 Mrs. Bligh, just returned from the leisurely 
 elbow-room of a happier and emptier clime — 
 how hideously thick we are upon the ground, 
 when the sound of a familiar voice, uplifted 
 in the intense exasperation of a mild-tempered 
 person whose patience is at an end, salutes 
 her ears. 
 
 " May I ask ,'*" inquires Mrs. Mulholland, 
 making a frenzied clutch at a heated shop- 
 boy who is hurrying past her, " is there any 
 chance of my rz'rr being served ? I have 
 been waiting here five-and-thirty minutes, 
 
 and as my time is extremely limited • 
 
 Nan r 
 
 In the joyful surprise of catching sight of 
 her friend, Mrs. Mulholland lets the relieved 
 cmployt' slip through her fmgers, while she 
 and her daughters push their way with a 
 vigour before which all impediments yield, 
 to the spot where Anne is standing.
 
 548 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 *' Well, this is nice !" — kissing her warmly 
 — despite the publicity of the place — *' I had 
 not an idea you were back." 
 
 " I only arrived last night." 
 
 "Well, I suppose you have been seeing all 
 kinds of fine places. You will think us poor 
 stay-at-homes very humdrum." 
 
 " How well she is looking !" cries Lucile. 
 " I declare, Anne, that you have got a sort 
 of foreign cut about you." 
 
 " Have I ?" — grateful for and warmed by 
 the kindly looks of the three simple, affection- 
 ate faces round her — yet a little embarrassed 
 by their unanimity of scrutiny; "and you 
 all ? You do not look as if much ailed 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, we are in great form, thank God! 
 You should see Czar. He is looking so 
 ridiculously young ; you have only just 
 missed him ; we have had such difficulty in 
 getting him out of the shop ; we wanted him 
 out of the way because we have clubbed 
 together to buy a really good Christmas 
 surprise for him."
 
 MRS. BLIGH 349 
 
 " We have been staying with George at 
 his new house," says Sue, triumphantly 
 getting her oar in for the first time ; "it 
 is such a beautiful house — such lots of room 
 it it. I dare say he will ask you to stay with 
 him. He can put us all up, and all the dogs 
 and both the donkeys, too !" 
 
 " Indeed !" with a transient inward Hash 
 of compassion for the lonely-hearted George, 
 mocked by the spacious emptiness of his 
 abode. 
 
 " He is going to spend Christmas with us 
 at Plas Drow," says Lucile ; " we are all 
 going down together to-morrow ; we mean 
 to have such fun in the train, George is 
 going to pretend to have mumps, to keep 
 people out of the carriage." 
 
 This last piece of information inspires 
 Mrs. Bligh with a surprised doubt as to 
 whether the pity she had been lavishing 
 upon Miss Capel- Smith's rejected lover is 
 not a little superfluous. 
 
 "It will be diagona/lyoY>\)os\i(i to George's 
 last visit to us, when he moped so dread-
 
 35° MRS. BLIGH 
 
 fully !" almost shouts Sue, in her joyful 
 excitement. 
 
 •' Pamela is coming down with us too." 
 
 "Pamela!" repeats Anne, in a tone of 
 intense surprise ; " then when is the wedding 
 to be.?" 
 
 Her three hearers look at each other with 
 a puzzled air, then break into a simultaneous 
 laugh. 
 
 '' We do not say anything about that yet 
 awhile," answers Mrs. Mulholland, nodding 
 sagely ; " of course, such an idea has never 
 been mooted by anyone as yet. It would 
 be scarcely decent." 
 
 " Scarcely decent 7' 
 
 " Why, yes, it would be rather a case of 
 ' One down, t'other come on ' ; it is scarcely 
 three weeks — is it, girls } — since her engage- 
 ment was broken off" 
 
 '' Broken off ! Her engagement T Anne 
 can get out nothing but these fragmentary 
 repetitions, and even they come gaspingly. 
 " Do you mean to say " 
 
 She breaks off
 
 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 351 
 
 They are looking at her paled and quiver- 
 ing face with a new light of astonished com- 
 prehension on their features. 
 
 " And do you mean to say that you do 
 not know — that you have not heard that it is 
 broken off?" 
 
 She shakes her head, incapable of speech, 
 uncertain whether she wakes or sleeps. 
 
 "We thought, of course, that she had told 
 you." 
 
 " She — she did not know where I was 
 exactly — I w^as moving about ; but " — her 
 senses coming slowly back to her, accom- 
 panied by a passionate anxiety for the details 
 of the astounding, and as yet all unrealizable, 
 event — "please tell me — I know nothing — 
 how did it come about ? Was it her doinc: 
 or — or /lis ?" 
 
 " I do not think I ever quite made out," 
 replies Mrs, Mulholland, still surveying, with 
 a rather astonished air, the extraordinary 
 change in her friend's complexion — "did you. 
 Luce ? I think it was a case of mutual 
 consent. Vov my part, I always thought it
 
 352 Mrs. BLlGH 
 
 a silly sort of affair ; even if there had been 
 no George in the case, I should have said 
 just the same. I never could understand 
 what she saw in him — no, girls, do not talk 
 nonsense ; it had nothing to say to his age. 
 No doubt he is a very good sculptor, and, 
 from what you told us of him, he is certainly 
 a very expensive one ; but when it comes to 
 
 marrying " 
 
 It seems to Anne as if she should never 
 be able to disentangle herself from the 
 questions, the comments, the endearments 
 of her companions in order to carry out a 
 plan which she is passionately anxious to put 
 in action without a moment's delay. When 
 at length — it costs her conscience a wading 
 knee-deep in lies to effect it — she has freed 
 herself from them, she jumps into the first 
 hansom, without a glance either at the wheel- 
 tires, or the horse's knees, and has herself 
 driven to the house of Miss Capel-Smith, 
 whose presence in London she has learned 
 from the Mulhollands. As she goes along, 
 she asks herself how she shall possibly
 
 MRS. BLIGH 35- 
 
 bear the delay if she is met by a "not at 
 home." 
 
 But this contretemps is spared her ; Miss 
 Capel-Smith is at home, and as her parents 
 are neither very intimate with, nor very 
 congenial to, Mrs. Bligh, the latter has no 
 scruple in having herself shown directly up 
 to the daughter of the house's high-perched 
 sitting - room. Pamela is stretched in a 
 wicker-chair before a very good fire, with 
 a book in her hand, which, on the visitor's 
 entrance, is ruthlessly tumbled on the floor, 
 while the hand and arm that supported it 
 are with its fellow flung round Anne's neck. 
 
 " You darling woman ! I am glad to see 
 
 I" 
 you ! 
 
 The manner is an obvious return to the 
 earlier and adoring one, but Mrs. Bligh 
 pushes her restored worshipper gently but 
 decidedly away, looking piercingly at her 
 the while. The girl's beaming eyes drop a 
 little. 
 
 " I — I see that you have heard. Are you 
 — are you very anj^ry with me ?" 
 
 23
 
 354 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 Perhaps it is only Anne's guilty fancy that 
 there is a slight but mirthful tremble at the 
 corners of Pamela's mouth as she puts the 
 deprecating question. 
 
 " Have you thrown him over ?" she asks 
 sternly. 
 
 The lovely culprit's eyes still droop ; for a 
 moment she hesitates, then breaks into an 
 uncontrollable fit of laughter. 
 
 " Do not kill me for laughing!" she says 
 indistinctly. " But if you only knew — there 
 is such a ludicrous contrast between your 
 tragic face and the facts of the case ! I 
 threw him over ! Yes, I threw him over ; 
 but, oh, how thankful he was to be thrown !" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "He was far too chivalrous ever to have 
 done it himself ; but, oh, he ivas obliged to 
 me ! " 
 
 Anne is silent, staring at her young com- 
 panion with a feeling of stupefaction, behind 
 and through which some enormous muffled 
 joy seems to be stirring. 
 
 " Let us talk comfortably," says Pamela,
 
 MRS. BLIGH 355 
 
 putting her softly into the wicker chair, and 
 lying down on the rug at her feet. '* You 
 really need not look at me like a tigress 
 robbed of her whelps ; I am a great benefac- 
 tress to him ; ask him " — laughing delightedly 
 again — " if I am not." 
 
 Anne is still too stunned, and with every- 
 thing too much in a whirl about her to make 
 any comment. Only her eyes, into which 
 the light of a great yet doubting joy is 
 coming, ask for. further explanation of this 
 bewildering riddle. 
 
 "Well, you see," pursues Pamela, leaning 
 her silky rust-coloured head against her 
 friend's knees, " when the sittings were done 
 — he really has made a wonderfully beautiful 
 thing of me — he went to Karlsbad and 1 
 went to stay with Lady " 
 
 " That is where George Mulholland is 
 sub-agent, is not it ?" 
 
 " Ye — es, I believe so ; that is neither 
 here nor there !" — imi)atiently — " and when 
 he came back from Karlsbad — it had brought
 
 35^> MRS. BLIGH 
 
 on his gout and made him very cross— and 
 I came back from " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " He naturally had to dance attendance a 
 good deal upon me. I had to take him 
 about and introduce him to my friends ; and 
 it broke into his work a good deal ; you 
 know what a passion he has for his work, 
 and how he feels towards interrupters of 
 it ?" 
 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
 " But what finished him — what finished us 
 both, I think, was looking at houses to- 
 gether ; we went over five mansions in 
 Belgravia and three in South Kensington 
 from basement to attic, and on the morning 
 after the eighth I sent for him and told him 
 that I thought we should be happier apart. 
 You should have seen his face ; the unsup- 
 pressible rapture of relief struggling through 
 his honest endeavours to look broken- 
 hearted !" She stops to laugh softly again. 
 Then turning round so as to place her elbow 
 on Anne's knees, and lift the dewy rosy
 
 MRS. BLIGH 357 
 
 gaiety of her face towards hers, " You dear 
 thing, what possessed you to put it into our 
 heads that we were in love with each other ? 
 He is an Admirable Crichton as far as de- 
 lightfulness goes, but he is a little old ! We 
 are, thank God, qiiittc pour la pciir, but 
 we really must insist " — with a charming 
 wheedling gesture — "upon your giving u[) 
 match- makinof !" 
 
 .y, .a^ -ag- -A!* ■at' 
 
 ^f '17 ^C* w" ^P 
 
 The fog settles down thick again upon 
 London as the night draws on, and ^Nlrs. 
 Bligh's house is as full of it as suffocated 
 little house can be ; but to its owner it 
 seems to be alight with the sunshine of India 
 or Egypt. Nor is the inky vapour thick 
 enough to hinder one who feels his way 
 along the little street towards tea-time, and, 
 after groping awhile, finds the electric-bell. 
 His beautiful gray frock-coat is exchanged 
 for a wintry tweed, suited to the austerity of 
 the season ; and he has no Malmaison ; but 
 there, is not a touch of winter in his look, as 
 \\(: draws the /t^;// — she remembers how he
 
 358 MRS. BLIGH 
 
 had eschewed it on his last visit — to her feet, 
 and says with a long, low sigh of content, 
 " Dear little friend, how pleasant it is to be 
 here again !" 
 
 THE END. 
 
 r.lLI.ING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 
 
 /. D. & Co.
 
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