Involuntarily I looked at Miss Bellasys. She saw she was detected; but, instead of betraying any embarrassment, she turned upon Guy a queer little imploring look, not indicative in the least of shame or repentance, but such as might be put on by one of those truly excellent people who do good by stealth and blush to find it known, when some of their benevolent acts have come to light, and they wish to deprecate praise.

Livingstone gazed piercingly at her for several instants without moving a muscle of his face; suddenly its fixed and stern expression—you could not say softened, but—broke up all at once like a sheet of ice shivering.

"Let there be peace," he said, sententiously. "We forgive all the errors of your long vacation in consideration of the good it has evidently done you. You are looking brilliantly!"

There was an unusual softness, almost a tremor, in his deep voice as he spoke the last words, and a look in his bold eyes that many trained coquettes would have shrunk from—a look that I should be sorry and angry to see turned on any woman in whom I felt an interest—a look such as Selim Pasha might wear as the Arnauts defile into his harem-court, bringing the fair Georgians home.

Flora Bellasys only smiled in saucy triumph.

"You say you never pay compliments," she answered, "and I always try to believe you. We will suppose this one is only the truth extorted. My glove—thank you." The same smile was on her lip as she turned her head once in her haughty progress to the door.

As Guy sat down again, and filled a huge glass with claret, I heard him mutter between his teeth, "Royale, quand meme!"

"Close up, gentlemen, close up!" broke in the cheery voice of our rare old host. "Livingstone, if you begin back-handing already, you'll never be able to hold that great raking chestnut I saw your groom leading this evening. The man looked as if he thought he would be eaten before he got in."

"Whatever you do, drink fair," Guy answered, laughing; "so saith the immortal Gamp. The squire's beginning to tremble for his '22 wine."

"I don't wonder," said Godfrey Parndon, the M.F.H. "I've always observed that, after flirting disgracefully at dinner, you drink harder afterward. It's to drown remorse, I suppose. So you ride that new horse of yours to-morrow? My poor hounds!"

"Don't be alarmed," cried Guy; "he never kicks hounds, and I won't let him go over them; it's only human strangers the amiable animal can't endure: that's why I call him the Axeine. He is worth more than the L300 I gave for him."

"Well, he nearly spoiled two grooms for Hounscott," Parndon said. "The stablemen at Revesby had a great beer the day they got rid of him."

"He wouldn't suit every one," remarked Livingstone—"not you, for instance, Godfrey, who always ride with a loose rein. I was obliged to give him his gallops myself at first; he's a devil to pull, and if he once gets away with you, you may 'write to your friends.' But I've nothing like him in my stable."

Then the conversation became general, revolving in a circle of hound-and-horse talk, as it will do now and then in the shires.

"Guy," whispered Forrester, as we went up stairs, "there's a little woman here who says she used to know you very well: won't you go and talk to her?"

"Many little women say that," answered Guy; "it's a way they have. Which is it, now?"

Charley pointed out a small, plump, rather pretty blonde, with long ringlets, and light, laughing blue eyes. It seemed the lady's reminiscences were well founded, for in five minutes Livingstone and she were talking like old friends.

In the course of the evening I found myself near Miss Bellasys. This time she did me the honor to address me, and soon began asking me more questions than I could answer, even had she waited a reply. Did I like Kerton Manor? Had there been many agreeable people there yet? Not any remarkably so! She was surprised at that. Miss Raymond was there en permanence, of course? She was such a favorite with her (Flora), and with her cousin too, she thought. Was Mr. Livingstone always playing with his uncle, and always losing? She supposed he liked losing—at play. Did I know the lady in pink, with twenty-five flowers in her hair? She had counted them. Yes, that was her husband, the stout man looking uncomfortable, in the corner—an old friend of Mr. Livingstone's? He had so many old friends; but he did not always talk to them for a whole evening without intermission. Ah! she was going to sing; that is, if Mr. Livingstone had quite finished with her, and would let her go. Little women with pink cheeks and dresses always did sing, and never had any voice.

I don't know how many more questions she put to me in the same quiet, clear tones; but just then I happened to look down on the handkerchief she held in her hand, and I saw a long rent in its broad Valenciennes border that I am very sure was not there an hour ago; for Flora's toilette, morning and evening, was faultless to a degree.

I had hardly time to remark this when Guy lounged up to us. My companion's dark eyes were more eloquent than her lips, which quivered slightly as she said,

"I wonder you have not more consideration. A new arrival in the county, and compromised irretrievably! Look at Mr. Stafford now."

"The husband?" Guy said, with intense disdain; "the husband's helpless. He may sharpen his—tusks, but he'll never come to battle. How good and great you are! It is quite refreshing to hear your strictures on innocent amusements. But I beg you will speak of that lady with due respect; she is the first—yes, positively the first—woman I ever loved."

"Monseigneur, que d'honneur!" Flora said, curling her haughty lip.

"It is true," Guy went on. "At a children's ball, about fifteen years ago, I met my fate. She was in white muslin, with a velvet bodice (Flora shuddered visibly); for a year after I pictured to myself the angels in no other attire, and now—years vitiate one's tastes so—I can fancy nothing but a jockey in 'black body and white sleeves.' I suppose she was very pretty; let us hope so; it is my only excuse for being enchanted in ten minutes, and stupidly enslaved in half an hour. The thing would not have been complete without a rival; he came—a plump, circular-faced boy, with severely flaxen hair. No, you need not look across the room—not the least like what she is now! Great jealousy may make me unjust, but I don't think he had any advantage over me save one, and he used that mercilessly. He wore collars boldly erect under his fat checks, while those of the rest of us lay prostrate, after the simple fashion of my childhood. The prestige was too much for Ellen's weak mind. (Did I tell you her name was Ellen?) Bottom monopolized Titania for the rest of the evening. I could have beaten him with ease and satisfaction to myself, but I refrained; and, rushing into the supper-room, drained three glasses of weak negus with the energy of despair.

"I have never suffered any thing since like the torment of the next two hours. I saw her several times afterward, and might have made play, perhaps, but the phantom of a round red face, with collars starched a l'outrance, always came between us. It is only a slight satisfaction to hear that she has utterly lost sight of my rival, and promises to cut him dead the first time they meet. There's the history of a young heart blighted—of a crushed affection! I am not aware if there is any moral in it; if there is, you are very welcome to it, I am sure. You might look a little more sympathizing, though, even if I have bored you."

Flora tried to look grave, but the dancing light in her rebellious eyes betrayed her, even before her merry musical laugh broke in.

"It is far the most touching thing I ever heard. Poor child, how you must have suffered! I wonder you ever smiled again. How well she sings, does she not? when she does not try to go too high."

"Don't be severe," Guy retorted; "you may have to sing yourself some day. You prefer talking, though? Well, with a well-managed contralto, it comes nearly to the same thing, and I suppose you consider the world in general is not worthy of it?"

Almost imperceptibly, but very meaningly, her glance turned to where I sat close beside her.

"How absurd! you know why I don't sing often. To-night it would be—too cruel. (Flora's idea of modest merit was peculiar.) Now tell me, what are you going to ride to-morrow? We shall all go and see them throw off."

Without answering her question, he leaned over her, and said something too low for me to hear, which made her color brighten.

From a distant corner two ancient virgins, long past "mark of mouth," surveyed the proceedings with faces like moulds of lemon-ice. Flora glanced toward them this time, and said demurely, making a gesture of crossing her arms a a la Napoleon I., "Take care; from the summit of yonder sofa forty ages behold you."

The caution was a challenge; and so her hearer interpreted it as he sank down beside her.

I seemed to be lapsing rapidly into the terrible third that spoils sport, so I left them; but not all the adjurations of Godfrey Parndon invoking his favorite antagonist to the whist-table could draw Guy from his post again that evening.

I know men who would have given five years of life for the whisper that glided into his ear as he gave Miss Bellasys her candle on retiring, ten for the Parthian glance that shot its arrow home.



CHAPTER IX.

"I know the purple vestment; I know the crest of flame; So ever rides Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name."

The next was a perfect hunting morning; a light breeze, steady from the southwest, and not too much sun; the very day when a scent, in and out of cover, would be a certainty, if there were any calculation on this contingency. Let us do our sisters justice—there is one thing in nature more uncertain and capricious than the whims of womankind.

The hounds had come up with their usual train of officials, and of those steady-going sportsmen who love the pack better than their own children, and can call each individual in it by his name. Godfrey Parndon was doing the civil to the "great men in Israel," his heaviest subscribers; pinks were gleaming in every direction through the clumps and belts of plantation, as the men came up at a hard gallop on their cover-hacks, or opened the pipes of their hunters by a stretch over the turf of the park.

On the hall steps stood Flora Bellasys—Penthesilea in a wide-awake and plume; a dozen men were round her, striving emulously for a word or a smile, and she held her own gallantly with them all. She was waiting patiently till Guy had lighted an obstinate cigar, and was ready to mount her. He understood putting her up better than any one else, she said. Perhaps he did; but, though he swung her into the saddle with one wave of his mighty arm as lightly as Lochinvar could have done, the arrangement of the skirt and stirrup seemed a problem hardly to be solved.

If there was any truth in the old Courland superstition that the display of a lady's ankle to the hunters before they started brought them luck, we ought to have had the run of the season that day.

He rode by her side, too, as near as the plunges of the chestnut would allow, till we reached the gorse that we were to draw; once there, the stronger passion prevailed. Aphrodite hid her face, and the great goddess Artemis claimed her own. As the first hound whimpered, he drew off toward a corner, where a big fence would give a chance of shaking off the crowd, and I do not think he turned his head till the fox went away.

The last thing I remember there was the anxious look in two beautiful hazel eyes as they gazed after the Axeine, charging his second fence with the rush of an express train.

The fetiche did not fail us; we had a wonderful run, of which only five men saw the end. I confess, the second brook stopped me and many others. Forrester got over with a fall; but they were preparing to break up the fox, when he came up first of the second flight.

Guy came home in great spirits; he had been admirably carried. He and the first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, while the hounds were rolling over their fox, a hundred yards farther, in the open.

After dinner he amused himself with teasing his cousin. At last he asked her if she would lend him Bella Donna to hack to cover, as his own favorite was rather lame.

Miss Raymond's indignation was superb; for, be it known, she was prouder of the said animal than of any thing else in the world.

She (the mare, not the lady) was a bright bay, with black points, quite thorough-bred, and as handsome as a picture. Livingstone had bought her out of a training-stable, and had given her to his cousin, after having broken her into a perfect light-weight hunter.

One of the few extravagances in which Mr. Raymond indulged his daughter was allowing her to take Bella Donna wherever she went.

"Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon!" replied Guy to her indignant refusal. "How you do believe in that mare! I wonder you don't put her into some of the great Spring Handicaps! You would get her in light, and might win enough to keep you in gloves for half a century."

"Well, I don't know," Forester's slow, languid voice suggested; "I think she's faster, for three miles, than any thing in your stable. I should like to run the best you have for L50, weight for inches."

"I am not surprised at your supporting Bella's opinion," said Guy, with a shade of sarcasm in his voice, "but I did not expect you would back it. Come, I'll make this match, if you like; you shall ride catch-weight, which will be about 11 st. 7 lb., and I'll ride the Axeine at 14 st. 7 lb.: I must take a 7 lb. saddle to do that. They are both in hard condition, so it can come off in ten days; and I'll give the farmers a cup to run for at the same time. Is it a match?"

"Certainly, if Miss Raymond will trust me with Bella Donna."

Isabel's eyes sparkled—so brilliantly! as she answered, "I should like it, of all things."

"Now, Puss," Guy went on, "you ought to have something on it. There is a certain set of turquoises and pearls that I meant to give you whenever you had been good for three weeks consecutively; it is no use waiting for such a miracle, so I'll bet you these against that sapphire and diamond ring you have taken to wearing lately."

His cousin looked distressed and confused. "Any thing else, Guy," she said. "I can not risk that; it was a present from—from Mrs. Molyneux."

"I don't think," Charley suggested, very quietly, "Mrs.—Molyneux, was it not?—could object to your investing her present on such a certainty. I really believe we shall bring it off; and if not—" He checked himself with a smile.

"Oh, if you think so," answered Isabel, blushing more than ever, "I will venture my ring. But you must win; I don't know what I should do if I lost it." So it was settled.

"You seem confident," I remarked to Livingstone, later in the evening. I remember the peculiar expression of his face, though I did not then understand it, as he answered gravely,

"Bella ought to be; for—she has laid long odds."

There was great excitement in the neighborhood when the match, and the farmers' race to follow, became known. Half the county was assembled on the appointed morning, an off-day with the Pytchley. Godfrey Parndon was judge, and had picked the ground—a figure of 8, with 17 fences, large but fair for the most part; the horses were to traverse it twice, missing the brook (16 feet of clear water) the second time.

I wish they were not getting so rare, those purely country meetings, where three wagons with an awning make the grant stand; where there are no ring-men to force the betting and deafen you with their blatant proffers—"to lay agin any thing in the race;" where the bold yeomen, in full confidence that their favorite will not be "roped," back their opinions manfully for crowns.

Livingstone's great local renown, and the reputation of the Axeine for strength and speed (though no one knew how fast he could go), made the betting 5 to 4 on him; but takers were not wanting, calculating on the horse's truly Satanic temper. Miss Bellasys, who, with her mother, had arrived at Kerton the night before, laid half a point more—not in gloves—on the heavy-weight.

The bell for saddling rang, and the horses came out. The mare stripped beautifully, as fine as a star—no wonder her mistress was proud of her; and I think she had, to the full, as many admirers as the Axeine.

The latter was a dark chestnut with a white fetlock, standing full 16 hands (while the mare scarcely topped 15), well ribbed up, with a good sloping shoulder, immense flat hocks, and sinewy thighs; his crest and forehand were like a stallion's; and, when you looked at his quarters, it was easy to believe what the Revesby stablemen said, "They could shoot a man into the next county."

He was "orkarder than usual that morning," the groom remarked; perhaps he did not fancy the crowd without the hounds, for he kept lashing out perpetually, with vicious backward glances from his red eyes.

Then the riders showed: Livingstone in his own colors, purple and scarlet cap, workmanlike and weather-stained; Forrester in the fresh glories of light blue with white sleeves, his cap quartered with the same.

Charley lingered a minute by Miss Raymond's side, taking her last instructions, I suppose. She looked very nervous and pale, her jockey pleasantly languid as ever.

The instant the chestnut was mounted he reared, and indulged in two or three "buck-jumps" that would have made a weaker man tremble for his back-bone, and then kicked furiously; but Guy seemed to take it all as a matter of course, sitting square and erect; all he did was to drive the sharp rowels in repeatedly, bringing a dark blood-spot out with each stroke. It was not by love certainly that he ruled the Axeine. Then came the preliminary gallops, the mare going easily on her bit, gliding over the ground smoothly and springily; the horse shaking his head, and every now and then tearing madly at the reins, without being able to gain a hair's breadth on the iron hands that never moved from his withers.

"They're off!" Guy taking the lead; well over the first two fences, fair hunting ones; the third is a teaser—an ugly black bulfinch, with a ditch on the landing side, and a drop into a plowed field. The chestnut's devil is thoroughly roused by this time. When within sixty yards of the fence, he puts on a rush that even his rider's mighty muscles can not check: his impetus would send him through a castle wall; but he hardly rises at the leap, taking it, too, where there is a network of growers—a crash that might be heard in the grand stand—and horse and man are rolling in the field beyond.

Flora Bellasys strikes her foot angrily with her riding-whip, and turns very pale.

Ten lengths behind, the mare comes up, well in hand, and slips through the bulfinch without a mistake—hardly with an effort—just at the only place where you can see daylight through the blackthorn.

What is Guy doing? Even in that thundering fall he has never let the reins go. Horse and rider struggle up together. A dozen arms are ready to lift him into the saddle, and a cheery voice says in his ear, "Hold up, squire; keep him a going, and you'll catch the captain yet!" He hardly hears the words though, for his head is whirling, and he feels strangely sick and faint; but before he has gone a hundred yards his face has settled into its habitual resolute calmness, only there is a thin thread of blood creeping from under his cap, and his brow is bent and lowering.

A fall, which would have taken the fight out of most horses, has only steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say, "The race is not over yet."

They are over the brook without a scramble. Forrester still leads, riding patiently and well. He knows better than to force the running, even with the difference in weight, for the going is too heavy quite to suit his mare.

As Livingstone passed the spot where Miss Raymond was stationed, he turned half round in his saddle, and looked curiously in her face. She did not even know he was near. All her soul was in her eyes, that were gazing after Forrester with an anxiety so disproportioned to the occasion that her cousin fairly started.

"Poor child," he said to himself, all his angry feelings changing, "she seems to have set her heart so upon winning, it would be sad if she were disappointed. No one has much on it; shall I try 'Captain Armstrong' for once? It would make her very happy. Bar accidents, I must win. They do not know that the chestnut has not extended himself yet."

We lose sight of the horses for a little. When we see them a gain, the mare has decidedly gained ground; and, to our astonishment, the Axeine swerves, and refuses at rather an easy fence.

Miss Bellasys' cheek flushes this time. She goes off at a sharp canter through a gate that takes her into a field where the horses must pass her close; several of her attendants follow. Charley comes up, looking rather more excited and happy than usual. He has made the pace better for the last half mile, and still seems going at his ease. More than a distance behind is the chestnut, evidently on bad terms with his jockey; he is in a white lather of foam, and changes his leg twice as he approaches. Guy has his face turned slightly aside as he nears the spot where Miss Bellasys waits for him, in the midst of her body-guard. For the first time since the race began, her voice was heard, cutting the air with its clear mocking tones, like the edge of a Damascus sabre, "The chestnut wins—hard held!"

Guy's kindly impulses vanished instantly before the sarcasm latent in those last two words. He could sacrifice his own victory and the hopes of his backers, but he would not give a chance to Flora's merciless tongue. We saw him change his hold on the reins, and, with a shake and a fierce thrust of the spurs, he set the Axeine fairly going.

Every man on the ground, including his late owner [who hated himself bitterly at that moment for parting with him], was taken by surprise by the extraordinary speed the horse displayed. He raced up to Bella Donna just before the last fence, at which she hangs ever so little, while he takes it in his swing, covering good nine yards from hoof to hoof. Nothing but hurdles now between them and home. The down-hill run-in favors his vast stride. A thousand voices echo Flora's words, "The chestnut wins!" Charley made his effort exactly at the right time, and the brave little mare answered gallantly; but it was not to be. He shook his head, and never touched her with whip or spur again.

The race was over. No one disputed the judge's fiat: "The Axeine by six lengths."

Up to the skies went the hats and the shouts of the sturdy yeomen, who "know'd he couldn't be beat," exulting in the success of their favorite. Round winner and loser crowded their friends, congratulating the one, condoling with the other, praising both for their riding. At that moment I do not think any one except myself remarked Isabel Raymond, who sat somewhat apart, her tears falling fast under her veil as she looked upon her lost ring.

Just then Forrester rode up. "Woe to the vanquished!" he said. "All is lost but honor. Will you say something kind to me after my defeat, Miss Raymond? You will find your pet not punished in the least, and without a scratch on her."

Without answering, she held out her hand. As he bent over it, and whispered, what I could not hear, I saw her eyes sparkle, and a happy consciousness flush her cheeks, till they glowed like a sky at sunset when a storm is passing away in the west. Then I knew that he had won a richer prize than ever was set on a race since the first Great Metropolitan was run for at Olympia.

Livingstone had washed away the traces of his fall (his wound was only a cut under the hair, above the temple), and was going to get the horses in line to start them for the farmers' cup. As he passed Miss Bellasys he checked his horse for an instant, and said, very coldly,

"You are satisfied, I trust?"

"All's well that ends well," answered Flora; "but I began to tremble for my bets. I thought you were waiting too long."

Guy did not wish to pursue the subject apparently, for he rode on without reply. Flora made no attempt to detain him. She had studied the signs of the times in his countenance long enough to be weather-wise, and to know that the better part of valor was advisable when the quicksilver had sunk to Stormy.

The cup was a great success. Eleven started, and three made a most artistic finish—scarcely a length between first and third. The farmers of the present day ride very differently from their ancestors of fifty years ago, whose highest ambition was to pound along after the slow, sure "currant-jelly dogs."

Go down into the Vale of Belvoir; watch one of the duke's tenants handing a five-year old over the Smite, and say if the modern agriculturists might not boast with Tydides,

"hemeis de pateron meg' ameinones euchometh' einai."

They are getting so erudite, too, that I dare say they would quote it in the original.

When all was over, and they were returning to Kerton, Guy ranged up to his cousin's side. He looked rather embarrassed and penitent—an expression which sat upon his stern, resolute face very strangely. But Isabel was radiant with happiness, and did not even sigh as she held out the forfeited ring. He put it back with a decided gesture of his hand, and, leaning over her, whispered something in her ear. I don't know how they arranged it; but Miss Raymond wore the turquoises at the next county ball—the ring, to her dying day.



CHAPTER X.

"Souvent femme varie; Bien fol est, qui s'y fie."

We sat by the firelight in the old library of Kerton Manor. The dreary January evening was closing in, with a sharp sleet lashing the windows and rattling on their diamond panes, but the gleams from the great burning logs lighted up the dark crimson cushions of Utrecht and the polished walnut panels so changefully and enticingly that no one had the heart to think of candles.

All the younger members of the party were assembled there, with Mrs. Bellasys to play propriety. It was her mission to be chaperon in ordinary to her daughter and her daughter's friends, and she went through with it, admirable in her patient self-denial. May they be reckoned to her credit hereafter—those long hours, when she sat sleepy, weary, uncomplaining, with an aching head but a stereotyped smile.

Let us speak gently of these maternal martyrs, manoeuvring though they be. If they have erred, they have suffered. I knew once a lady with a lot of six, nubile, but not attractive, all with a decided bias toward Terpsichore and Hymen. Fancy what she must have endured, with those plain young women round her, always clamoring for partners, temporary or permanent, like fledglings in a nest for food. Clever and unscrupulous as she was—they called her the "judicious Hooker"—she must have been conscious of her utter inability to satisfy them. She knew, too, that if, by any dispensation, one were removed, five daughters of the horse-leech would still remain, with ravenous appetites unappeased. Yet the poor old bird was cheerful, and sometimes, after supper, would chirp quite merrily. Honneur au courage malheureux. Let us stand aside in the cloak-room, and salute her as she passes out with all the honors of war.

Mrs. Bellasys was a little woman, who always reminded me of a certain tropical monkey—name unknown. She wore her hair bushily on each side of her small face, just like the said intelligent animal, and had the same eager, rather frightened way of glancing out of her beady black eyes, accompanied by a quick turning of the head when addressed. She had her full share of troubles in her time, but she took them all contentedly—not to say complacently—as part of the day's work. Her husband was not a model of fidelity, nor, indeed, of any of the conjugal or cardinal virtues. He was a sort of Maelstrom, into which fair fortunes and names were sucked down, only emerging in unrecognizable fragments. His own would have gone too, doubtless; but he had been lucky at play for a long time—too constantly so, some said—and a pistol bullet cut him short before he had half spent his wife's money, so that she was left comfortably off, and her daughter was a fair average heiress. She had long ago abdicated the government in favor of Flora, who treated her well on the whole, en bonne princesse.

It is an invariable rule that, if there is a delicate subject which we determine beforehand to avoid, this particular one is sure imperceptibly to creep into the conversation.

Mr. Bruce was to arrive before dinner, an event which we guessed would not add materially to the comfort of two of our party (how silent those two were in their remote corner where the firelight never came), so of course we found ourselves talking of ill-assorted marriages.

"You count mesalliances among such?" Guy asked, at length. "Yes, you are right; but I know a case where 'a man's being balked in his intention to degrade himself' ruined him for life. Ralph Mohun told me of it. It was a nine-days' wonder in Vienna soon after he joined the Imperial Cuirassiers. A Bohemian count flourished there then—a great favorite with every one, for he was frank and generous, like most boys well-born and of great possessions, who have only seen things in general on the sunny side. While down at his castle for the shooting, he fell in love with the daughter of one of his foresters. The man was a dull, brutal cur, and, when drunk, especially savage. His daughter was rarely beautiful; at all events, the count, a good judge, thought her peerless.

"He meant fairly by the girl from the first, and promised her marriage, actually intending to keep his word. Still there were arrangements to be made before he could introduce such a novel element into blood that for centuries had been pure as the sangue azzura. He went up to Vienna for that purpose, leaving his design a profound secret to all his dependents. If these thought about it at all, they probably believed their master's intentions to be—like Dick Harcourt's toward the Irish lady—'strictly dishonorable.'

"One night during his absence shrieks came from the cottage where the forester lived alone with his daughter. Those who heard them made haste; but it was a desolate spot, far from any other dwelling, and they came too late.

"They found the girl lying in her blood, not a feature of her pretty face recognizable. Near her were the butt of a gun shivered, and her father senselessly drunk. He had evidently finished the bottle after beating her to death.

"Whether it was merely an outbreak of his stupid ferocity, or if she had exasperated him by her threats and taunts, for she was of a haughty spirit, poor child! and perhaps rather elevated by the thought of the coming coronet, will never be known. The murderer was in no state to make a confession, and he remained obstinately silent in prison till his lord's return."

"How very horrible!" Mrs. Bellasys cried out, shuddering; "was not the count very angry?"

"Well, he was rather vexed," replied Guy, coolly. "They are high justiciaries on their own lands, those great Bohemian barons, and so he gave the forester a fair trial. It was soon over; the man denied nothing, only whining out, in excuse, that he thought his daughter was dishonored. The shadow of death was closing round him, and he was nearly mad with fear.

"The old steward saw a strange sort of smile twist his master's white, quivering lips when he heard this, but he never said a word. I imagine he thought to reveal his purpose now that it was crushed too great a sacrifice even to clear the dead girl's fair fame; perhaps, though, he could not trust his voice, for he did not announce the sentence in words, but wrote it down: his hand shook very much, and it never carried a full glass unspilled to his mouth again.

"The court broke up at midday, and the man went straight, unconfessed, to the place of his punishment. They tied him to the tree nearest his own door, and the count sat by while he howled his life out under the lash. He was hardly dead by sundown."

"It was revenge, not justice," Mrs. Bellasys said, more firmly than was her wont. I saw the quick, impatient movement of her daughter's little foot; she did not appreciate her mother's moralities.

The answer came in the deepest of Livingstone's deep, stern tones.

"He was no saint, but a man, and a very miserable one; he acted according to his light, and in his despair caught at the weapon that was nearest to his hand. After all, the blood of a base, brutal hound, take it in what fashion you will, is a poor compensation for one life cut short in agony, and another blasted utterly.

"Mohun knew the count's family. Some of them, maiden aunts I suppose, were devotees of the first order: these came in person, or sent their pet priests, to argue with him on his unchristian habits of sullen solitude. The men of his old set came too, to laugh him out of the horrors. Saint and sinner got the same answer—a shake of the head, a curse, a threat if he were not left alone, growled out between deep draughts of strong Moldavian wine. They went, and were wise; for his pistols lay always beside him—in case his servants offended him, or if he should take a sudden fancy to suicide—and the shaking finger could have pulled a trigger still.

"After a little he left Vienna, shut himself up in his castle, and would see no one.

"In England they would have tried at the 'de lunatico' statute; but his next of kin left him in peace, biding their time as patiently as they could. They had not to wait long; in four years a good constitution broke up, suddenly at last, and the count exchanged stupor for a sleep with his fathers, without benefit of clergy. Perhaps they would not have given him absolution, for he died certainly not in charity with all men."

"I don't know," Mrs. Bellasys objected, with a timid obstinacy; "I can not argue with you; but I am sure it was very wrong."

I struck in to the meek little woman's rescue.

"That's right, Mrs. Bellasys, don't let him put you down with the high hand; it's always his way when truth is against him; but I never knew him break down a stubborn fact yet."

Guy turned upon me directly.

"Frank, I have often remarked in you, with pain, quite a feminine propensity to theorize. Women will do it. My dear Mrs. Bellasys, don't look so dreadfully like an accusing angel about to bring me to book; you know I am a hopeless heretic. They get up a sort of Memoria Technica in early youth, and it clings to them all their life through. If they go astray, they never cease proclaiming aloud that 'they know it's very wrong;' though eminently unpractical, they think it due to themselves to pet certain abstract truths (circumstances don't affect them in the least), like that priestess of Cotytto, who said to the magistrate, through her tears, 'I may have been unfortunate, but I've always been respectable!' Sometimes principle gets the pull over passion, but, in such a case, regrets come as often afterward as remorse does in the reverse. I was reading a French story the other day—" He checked himself with a laugh. "Bah! I am in the prosaic vein, it seems, anecdoting like the old knave of clubs."

"Will you go on?" Flora said, leaning over toward him, her eyes glittering in the firelight.

The thrill in her voice—strangely contagious it was—told how much she was interested. I do not wonder at it. There was only one man on earth for whom she had ever really cared—he sat beside her then—and, I believe, what attracted her most in him was the daring disregard of opinions, conventionalities, and more sacred things yet, which carried him on straight to the accomplishment of his thought or purpose. In those days, if either were an obstacle, he flinched no more before a great moral law than at a big fence.

"Well," Guy went on, "it is the simple history of Fernande, an ange dechue of the Quartier Breda. She had formed a connection with a man who suited her perfectly in every way, and they went on in happy immorality, till she found out that Maurice had a wife somewhere, a very charming person, who loved him dearly; perhaps she thought that the possession of two such affections by one man was de luxe; at all events, she cut him at once, refusing consistently to see him again. Maurice, after trying all other means to move her in vain, resorted to the expedient of a brain fever. When his wife and mother saw him very near his end, they sent for Fernande as a last resource. They ought to have preferred death to dishonor, of course; but, my dear Mrs. Bellasys, they were not strong-minded. What would you have? There are women and women.

"She came and nursed him faithfully; when he got better, though still very weak, she took advantage of his unprotected position to inflict on him the longest lectures, replete with good sense and good feeling, as to his conjugal duties, proprieties, and so forth. He gave in at last, on the principle of 'any thing for a quiet life,' and promised to behave himself like a decent head of a family. When the balance of power was thoroughly re-established, she left him, first entreating him, when he found himself really in love with his wife, and happy, to write and tell her so. This was to be her reward, you know. The others went to Italy, Fernande to a place she had in Brittany, where she put herself on a strict regime of penitence, attending matins regularly, and doing as much good in her neighborhood as Lady Bountiful, or—my mother. In about a twelvemonth the letter came; Maurice was devoted to his wife, and great on the point of domestic felicity. Then Fernande went into her oratory and prayed. What do you think was the substance of her prayer?"

"That she might go mad or die," was the quick answer: it came from Flora Bellasys.

"How good of you," Guy said, "to let me finish that long story, when you knew it by heart."

I think no ear but his and mine caught the whisper—"I never read or heard of it till now."

He bent his head in assent, as if the intelligence did not surprise him much, and then spoke suddenly,

"Charley, will you make an observation? You have been displaying that incontestable talent of yours for silence long enough."

Very seldom was Forrester taken by surprise, but this time his reply was not ready. There was an embarrassing pause, broken by a Deus ex machina,—the butler announcing that Mr. Bruce had arrived, and was in the drawing-room.



CHAPTER XI.

"And now thou knowest thy father's will, All that thy sex hath need to know: 'Twas mine to teach obedience still— The way to love thy lord may show."

From that dark distant corner I heard a sigh, ending in a nervous catching of the breath, and then a muttered word unpleasantly like an oath, as Forrester sprang to his feet.

Livingstone rose slowly.

"I'll go and receive him. Let Mr. Raymond know, Wise. I suppose he will not care to see any one else before dressing-time; it must be near that now."

As he passed his cousin, he whispered something inaudible to us; and I saw his heavy hand fall on Charley's shoulder, crushing him down again like a child.

Then Flora went to Miss Raymond, and asked her, with more kindness in her manner than usual, to come to her rooms for some tea; they always seriously inclined to the consumption of that cheerful herb about this hour. Isabel clung to her companion as they went out with a meek helplessness which was sad to see.

Charley had vanished before them. After that first involuntary movement he had become nonchalant as ever, so I remained alone to ruminate. I confess, after some thought, I was still in the dark as to where things would end.

The meeting had been got over somehow, for, when I came down before dinner, Bruce was sitting on a sofa by Miss Raymond's side.

Why does a man in such a position invariably look as if he were on the stool of repentance, expiating some misdeed of unutterable shame? He has sat by the same woman before, when it was only a strong flirtation; more eyes, curious and spiteful, were upon him then, and he met them with perfect self-possession. Now that he is in his right, why does he look blushingly uneasy, as if he would call on the curtains to hide him, and the cushions to cover him? Have any mortals existed so good, or great, or wise, as to be exempt from that dreadful poll-tax levied on all males unprivileged to woo by proxy—the necessity of looking ridiculous from the moment their engagement is announced to that when they leave the church as Benedicts? I should like to have watched Burke, or Herschel, or the Iron Duke, or any Archbishop of Canterbury, through the ordeal of a recognized courtship. Would the dignity of the statesman, the sage, the soldier, or the saint have been sustained? I trow not.

In truth, it is a sight full of sad warning, that ever-recurring spectacle of an engaged man (the lady is always provokingly at her ease) in general society. His friends turn away in compassion and charity; the girls, whom he ought to have married and—didn't, look on, exchanging smiles with their mothers; it is their hour of savage triumph. The French manage things more comfortably, I think. The promessi sposi meet so seldom before the contract is signed—between sentence and execution the time is so brief that there is little space for intermediate terrors.

Nature had not been bountiful to Mr. Bruce in externals. He was very tall, with round shoulders, long, lean limbs, large feet and hands, and immense joints. There was a good deal of strength about him, but it wanted concentration and arrangement. His features were rather exaggerated and coarse in outline, with the high cheek-bones common on the north side of the Tweed; his hair of an unhappy vacillating color that could not make its mind up to be red; and his eyes, that rarely met you fairly, of a light cold gray. About the mouth, in particular, there was a very unpleasant expression, alternately vicious and cunning.

I do not believe that his intimates, if he had any, in their wildest moments of conviviality, ever called him "Jack;" nor his mother, in his earliest childhood, "Johnnie." Plain "John Bruce" was written uncompromisingly in every line of his face; just the converse of Forrester, whom old maids of rigid virtue, after seeing him twice, were irresistibly impelled to speak of as "Charley."

I wish some profound psychologist would give us his theory on the question of "The influence of nomenclature on disposition and destiny." It is all very well to ask, "What's in a name?" I think there is a great deal; and that our sponsors have much to answer for in indulging their baptismal fancies. Not to go into the subject (which some have already done without exhausting it), have you not remarked that Georgiana is always pretty and slightly sarcastic; that Isabella has large, soft, lustrous eyes—generally they are dark; that Fanny invariably flirts; and that Kate is decided in character, if not haughty?

Tragedy and comedy both are forced to observe these nominal proprieties. Who was it that illuminated his house, and had the church bells rung, on finding a name for his hero? We should never have believed in Iago's treacheries if he had appeared before us as simple "James."

The new arrival seemed to have chilled us all into stupidity. Dinner languished; and afterward, Guy, after trying at first to be laboriously civil—the sense of duty was painfully evident—lapsed into silence, passing the claret rather faster than usual, so that Mr. Raymond, to his intense disgust, had to make an effort and force the conversation.

When we entered, Isabel was nestling under Miss Bellasys' wing, from which shelter she had to emerge at Bruce's request for some music. She went directly, and played several pieces that he asked for straight through, while he stood gravely behind her with a complacent air of proprietorship which was inexpressibly aggravating.

When her task was done she went back to her sofa again; there she was safe, for all Bruce's devotion to his ladye-love and stubbornness of character could not give him courage enough to affront, at close quarters, the mingled dislike and scornful humor that played round Flora's lips, and gleamed in her eyes like summer lightning. He had to retreat upon Lady Catharine, who, thinking him hardly used, in her inextinguishable charity exerted herself to entertain him.

We were all glad when that first evening was over, and we got into the smoking-room, whither Mr. Bruce was not entreated to follow. It was always an augury of foul weather in Livingstone's temper when, instead of the decent evening cigar, he smoked the short black brule-gueule, loaded to the muzzle with cavendish. He sat thus for some minutes, rolling out stormy puffs from under his mustache, and then broke out,

"I haven't an idea what to do with him" (there was no need to name the object of his thoughts); "I made up my mind to risk a horse or two, for, of course, he would have broken their knees; but when I offered him a mount, he thanked me and said, 'He didn't hunt.' It would have got him away from home, at all events. Poor Bella! how heavy on hand she will find him."

"Ah! and he might have come to a timely end over timber; Providence does interfere so benevolently sometimes." This was Forrester's pious reflection.

"Well, that's over," Guy went on. "He must shoot, though; every one shoots, or thinks he does. We have all the pheasants to kill yet (by-the-by, Fallowfield comes over on Thursday for the Home Wood); that will keep him employed for some time; but it's only putting off the evil day. My match-making aunt, of blessed memory, how much she has to answer for! I hate to think of Bella's mignonne face alongside of that flinty-cheeked Scotchman's."

"Don't be angry, Guy," suggested Charley, with some diffidence; "but, if it's not an impertinent question, do you think he ever tries to kiss your cousin?"

"I never thought of that," replied Livingstone, not without an oath; "there's another pleasant reflection. No, I should think not. He is ceremonious, to give the devil his due. I'll find out to-morrow, though, without making Bella blush. Miss Bellasys is sure to know. I saw them exchanging confidences all this evening, and I am certain there were instigations to rebellion. Flora would delight in an emeute; she's a perfect Red Republican, that girl."

"The opposition seems organizing," I remarked; "ministers will find themselves soon, I fear, without a working majority."

"Not unlikely," said Guy, filling another pipe; "but they won't resign. Some men never know when they are beaten. Well, he who lives will see. If this wind lasts, we shall have a cracker from Lilbourne to-morrow. You ride the young one, don't you, Charley?"



CHAPTER XII.

"A life whose waste Ravaged each bloom by which its path was traced, Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art, With what sad holiness—the human heart."

It is a bright, crisp morning, and there is a gathering round the hall door of Kerton Manor.

To the right is Sir Henry Fallowfield, already established on the broad tack of his shooting pony, an invaluable animal, that can leap or creep wherever a man can go, and steady under fire as old Copenhagen. The baronet is very gouty. The whip made out of his favorite vices cuts him up sharply at times, and he does not like it alluded to. I never saw him look so savage at Guy as when the latter quoted, "Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede poena claudo." Of course, he can not walk much; but, placed in a ride, or at the corner of a cover, he rolls over the hares and pulls down the pheasants unerringly as ever; when you come up, you will find him surrounded by a semicircle of slain, and not a runner among them.

The battle of life has left its tokens on the face of the strong, skillful Protagonist. The features, once so finely cut, are somewhat full and bloated now; but it is a magnificent ruin, and there are traces yet of "the handsomest man of his day." Very expressive are his glances still; a little too much so, some people think, when he is criticising a figure or a face; but, to do him justice, gourmandise is his pet weakness now, a comparatively harmless one; and a delicate entremet will bring the light into his eyes that only war or love could do in the old days.

By Sir Henry's side, encouraging him with great prophecies of sport, stands Mallett, the head-keeper. What a contrast his fresh, honest face makes with the veteran roue's! He is the elder of the two by a good ten years, and there is scarcely a wrinkle on his ruddy cheeks and smooth forehead. Wind and weather have used him with a rough kindness, and his foot is almost as light, his hand quite as heavy, as when he entered the service of Guy's grandfather half a century ago. For generations his family have been devoted to the preservation of game; his six stalwart sons are all eminent in that line; and the "Kerton breed" of keepers is renowned throughout the Midland shires. He is a prime favorite with the village children and their mothers, for, in all respects save one, his heart is as soft as a woman's; to poachers it is as the nether millstone. There is the stain of a "justifiable homicide" on the old man's hands—the blood of an antagonist slain in fair fight, in those rough times when the forest was, and marauders came out by scores to strike its deer. I do not think the deed has weighed heavily on his conscience (though he never has spoken of it since), or troubled his healthy, honest slumbers.

To the left is Guy, repressing the attentions of four couple of strong red and white spaniels, but not those of Miss Bellasys, who, standing at the oriel window of the library, is good-natured enough to fasten the band of his wide-awake for him, which has come undone. As he stands with his towering head a little bent, murmuring the "more last words," Sir Henry, contemplating the picture with much satisfaction, smacks his lips, and suggests "Omphale."

Last of all, Mr. Raymond comes slowly down the staircase, followed by his son-in-law that is to be. Forrester and I have been ready long ago, so we start.

Bruce did shoot, certainly, if discharging his gun on the slightest provocation constituted the fact; but he shot curiously ill. Indeed, he might have formed a pendant to that humane sportsman who, having taken to rural sports sero sed serio, said, in extreme old age, "that it was a satisfaction to him to reflect that he could not charge himself with having been, wittingly, the death of more than a dozen of his fellow-creatures."

It was a problem whereon Mallett ruminated gravely long afterward—"Wherever Mr. Bruce's shot do go to?" He could not conceive so much lead being dispersed in the atmosphere without a more adequate result. This want of dexterity, too, was thrown into strong relief that day; for all the other men, putting myself out of the question, were rare masters of the art.

Livingstone headed the list, though Fallowfield ran him hard. He got the most shots, indeed; for his knowledge of the woods and great strength enabled him always to keep close to the spaniels. He was a sight to marvel at, as he went crashing through bramble and blackthorn with a long even stride, just as if he had been walking through light springs.

At the end of the day we were all assembled outside the cover, where the game was being counted, except Bruce, who was still in the wood. A stray shot every now and then gave notice of his approach.

"We heard but the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing,"

Guy quoted, laughing.

"Random! you may say that," remarked Fallowfield. "That man ought to be in a glass case, and ticketed; he's a natural curiosity. His bag to-day consists of one hare, one hen, and one—sex unknown, for no one saw it rise or tried to pick it up; it was blown into a cloud of feathers within six feet of his muzzle. Here he comes; don't ask him what he's done—it's cruelty."

Bruce came up to us, looking rather more discontented than usual, but not nearly so savage as the keeper who had attended him all day, who immediately retreated among his fellows to relieve himself, by many oaths, of his suppressed disgust and scorn. They offered him beer, but it was no use. I heard him growl out, "That there muff's enough to spile one's taste for a fortnit."

It was the hour of the wood-pigeons coming in to roost, and several were wheeling over our heads at a considerable height.

"There's something for you to empty your gun at, Bruce," Sir. Raymond said, pointing to one that came rather nearer than the rest.

He was leveling, when Forrester cried out, "Five-and-twenty to five on the bird!"

"Done!" answered Bruce, as he pulled the trigger. It was a long and not very easy shot, but the pigeon came whirling down through the tranches with a broken pinion.

"You are unlucky in your selection, Captain Forrester," the successful shot remarked, coolly. "You might have won a heavy stake by laying the same odds all day."

"It serves you right," interposed Guy, "for speaking to a man on his shot. Don't you remember quarreling with me the other day for doing so, Charley?"

Charley's face of perplexity and disgust was irresistible. We all laughed. "What a guignon I have," he said. "Mr. Raymond, I believe you were in the robbery."

"Not I," was the answer. "I was as much surprised as any one. I think," he went on, lowering his tone, "Guy is right; he changed his aim, as you spoke, involuntarily, or he must have missed."

Then we turned homeward through the twilight.

I do not know if the reminiscence of his lost "pony" was rankling in Forrester's mind, or if he was only affected by the presence of Sir Henry Fallowfield—an immoral Upas, under whose shadow the most flourishing of good resolutions were apt to wither and die; but certainly, after dinner, he broke through the cautious reserve which he had always in public maintained toward Miss Raymond since Bruce's arrival. He not only talked to her incessantly, but tempted her to sing with him, during which performance they seemed rapidly lapsing into the old confidential style.

Bruce sat apart, the shades on his rugged face gradually deepening from sullenness into ferocity. He looked quite wolfish at last, for it was a habit he had to show his white teeth more when he was savage than when he smiled. But the music went on its way rejoicing,

"Unconscious of their doom, The little victims played."

Isabel was too happy, and Charley too careless to be prudent. Once I caught his glance as it crossed with Bruce's scowl. There was an expression on his pleasant face that few men had ever seen there, approaching nearly to an insolent defiance. Looking at those two, a child might have known that between them there was bitter hate.

But what of that? Are not the laws of society and the amenities of civilized life supreme over such trifles as personal animosities? How many women are there who never meet without mingling in a close embrace, when each is to the other a Brinvilliers in heart? My gentle cousin Kate, only last night I saw you greet your intimate enemy. It was the moat gushing thing I ever imagined. The kisses were profuse and tantalizing in the extreme; yet I wish, if thoughts could kill, dearest Emma's neck would have been safer in the hug of a Norway bear than in the clasp of your white willowy arms.

Are there not men, sitting constantly at each other's tables, who, in the Golden Age, when people spoke and acted as they felt, would only have encountered at the sword's point?

If we hear that our mortal foe is ruined irretrievably, we betray no indecorous exultation, but smile complacently and say, "We are not surprised;" or, if we have the chance, give him a last push to send him over the precipice on whose brink he is staggering. But as for any violent demonstration—bah! the Vendetta is going out of fashion, even in Corsica, nowadays; only on the boards of the "Princess's" does it have a run.

It is better so. Is it not far more creditable and less ridiculous for two of our reverend seniors, between whom there exists a deadly feud, to comport themselves with decent reserve toward each other, than to go vaporing about on crutches, stamping the foot that is not gouty, and blaspheming in a weak, cracked treble, like Capulet and Montague? Hot rooms and cold draughts are dangerous, but not so fatal as the Aqua Tofana, and other pleasant beverages more revolting and rapid in their effects. Could any thing be more harrowing to a well regulated mind than to see, in the midst of a neatly-turned compliment, one's partner literally look black at one, and expire incontinently in great torments?

It is less romantic, but I prefer to be given an unmedicated rose. When I win a pair of gloves, it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that in Houbigant or Pivert there is no venom or guile.

All these consoling thoughts, and more, passed through my mind that evening; yet I could not get rid of a strange, indistinct impression that it was only the presence of Livingstone which averted some great danger imminent over his cousin and Forrester.



CHAPTER XIII.

"This is all The gain we reap, from all the wisdom sown Through ages. Nothing doubted those first sons Of time; while we, the schooled of centuries, Nothing believe—"

We were scattered round the smoking-room, about midnight, in different attitudes of repose. Bruce was of the party, decidedly out of his element. He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast.

"Charley," asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan, "how is the regiment going on? Insolvent as ever?"

"More so," was the reply. "When I came away they were thinking of framing a L5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we had some money—just like the man who pitched loaves over the city-walls when they were dying of famine—but there was a difficulty about procuring one. However, we have been promised the son of an opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes something to drink), who is to join before Easter. Perhaps he may set us afloat again."

"Yes," Guy remarked; "fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the Third Estate. Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre. If there is one moneyed man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your Croesus. You deserve statues—as Sydney Smith would have said—aeris alieni."

"I am not the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester, sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of Bendemeer to the tradesmen."

"I believe it is precisely such regiments," remarked Bruce, "that the political economists have in view when they attack the army estimates."

The observation was aggressive; but Charley's countenance was unruffled as the Dead Sea as he answered, "Personal, but correct. You are intimate with Joseph Hume, probably? You look as if you were." (These last words were a stage aside, not quite so inaudible as could be wished.) "I think we should fight, if we had a chance, though."

His lip wore a curious smile, and he raised himself on his arm to look the last speaker full in the face.

"Of course you would," broke in Sir Henry; "that's not a peculiarity of crack regiments or second sons. It's only in their baptism of fire that the young ones shrink and start; after that, the meekest of men develop themselves wonderfully. I heard an old Indian, the other day, speak of a case in point.

"There was an officer in his service, mild and stupid to a degree. He had been a butt all his life; bullied at school, at Addiscombe, and in his corps worst of all.

"They were attacking a hill-fort, and the fire from wall-pieces and matchlocks was so heavy that the storming-party would not face it. Among those who retreated were two of his superior officers and chief tormentors. The junior lieutenant saw them cowering away to seek shelter, and laughed out loud; then he flung his shako before him into the fort, and led the sepoys back to the charge, and right over the breastwork—bareheaded and cheering. He was shot down inside, and lived only a few hours, all the time in horrible agony; but Western told us that Bayard or Sidney could have made no braver or calmer ending."

"You are right," Livingstone said. "The Roundheads fought fully as well as the Cavaliers. I only know of two instances where the thoroughbreds had the advantage of a contrast. One was when the Scottish regiment took the island in the Rhine; the other was the exploit of the Gants Glaces. Don't you know it? It's worth hearing.

"They were attacking some town in the wars of the Fronde. The breach was scarcely practicable, and the best of the besieging army had recoiled from it with great loss. The Black Mousquetaires stood by in all the coquetry of scarf, and plume, and fringed scented gloves, laughing louder at each repulse of the Linesmen. The soldiers heard them and gnashed their teeth. At last there was a murmur, and then a shout—'En avant les Gants Glaces!' They wanted to see 'the swells' beaten too. Then the Household Brigade went up and carried the breach, leaving a third of their number on it. The general in command made the whole army defile past their guidon, and salute it with sloped standards.

"No; very few men are physical cowards in battle, whatever they may be across country. I don't believe Paris was, when he ran from Menelaues; and Helen did not think so, though she teased him about it, or she would never have spoken to him again. I rather imagine his feeling was that of a certain Guardsman of our acquaintance, who said, declining the ordeal of combat, that 'his first duty was to his partners, and this did not allow him to risk a black eye.'"

"Might not remorse at the sight of the man he had injured have had something to do with his flight?" Bruce asked.

He was full of moral sentiments—that man; only you could not look at him without fancying that they sprung more from an inclination to be contradictious and disagreeable than from any depth of principle.

"Absurd," Guy retorted. "Wasn't he a heathen, and rather an immoral one? It was of profligates with far greater advantages of education that some one said, ''Le remords nait de l'abandon, et non de la faute.' The walls of Troy were strong then, and the Destroyer-of-ships safe behind them, 'getting herself up alarmingly' for his return. No wonder Menelaues was eager for the duel: he was staking his loneliness against Paris's nine points of the law."

Sir Henry Fallowfield smiled approvingly.

"Yes," he observed, not answering what had been said, but evidently following out a train of his own thought. "Modern exquisites have courage, and self-possession, and conceit—great elements of success with women, I own—but they have not much more. I am certain Charley, who is a favorable specimen of the class, often affects silence because he has nothing on earth to say. There is a decadence since my younger days (I hope I speak dispassionately), and how very far we fell short of the roues of the Regence! We could no more match them than a fighting-man in good training could stand up to one of the old Pict giants. Look at Richelieu: good at all points—in the battle, in the boudoir, in the Bastille—a dangerous rival at the two ages of ordinary men's first and second childhood."

"He was a great man in his way," I assented. "Do you remember his answer to the Duchesse de Maine, when she asked him, for a political purpose, if he could remain faithful for one week to an intrigue then twenty-four hours old? 'Madame, quand une fois j'embrasse un parti, je suis capable des plus grandes sacrifices pour le soutenir.' The object of that heroic constancy was the Marechale de Villars, one of the loveliest women in France. It was the sublime of fatuity—was it not?"

"Well, I don't know," said Charley, settling himself comfortably in his cushions, and glancing almost imperceptibly at Bruce; "they seem to fancy us, notwithstanding. We have only one great obstacle—the mothers that bore us."

Be it known that "they," used simply, stood in his vocabulary for the fair sex in general.

"Nonsense," replied Fallowfield; "don't be so ungrateful. You don't know what you owe to those anxious parents. It helps you enormously, being the objects of perpetual warnings from husbands and chaperons, the first considering you mauvais sujets, the last mauvais partis; for you are 'detrimentals,' for the most part, you will own."

"Vetitum ergo cupitum," interrupted Livingstone. "A good many moralists before and since old Rabelais have discoursed on that text. The Chief of Errington was probably much more agreeable, besides being a better match than Jock of Hazeldean, who clearly was what an old Frenchman lately described to me—'un vaurien, mon cher, qui court les filles et qui n'a pas le son.' But then poor Frank was the government candidate; so, of course, in a popular election, he went to the wall."

Sir Henry's face grew more pensive and grave as he said, "It is very hard on the women, certainly, that our race should have degenerated so, for I believe in my conscience they are as clever and wicked, and appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of truth, and a general aptitude for making fools of men, that poor Philip the Regent would have worshiped. When she had no one better to corrupt, I have seen her take in hand an older, sadder, wiser, uglier man than myself, and in three days bring him to the verge of insanity, so that he would scowl at his wife, his companion for forty years, the blameless mother of six grown-up children, with a hideous expression indicative of carving-knives and strychnine. Guy suits her best. His thews and sinews awe her a little sometimes; and he has a certain hardness of character and pitilessness of purpose, improved by my instructions, which will carry him far, but not far enough, I think. You're right not to look flattered" (Guy's face had moved no more than the marble Memnon's); "you are only a shade better than the rest. Our effete world is not worthy of that rare creature: she was born a century too late."

"I quite differ with you," Bruce said, in his harshest voice; "I am certain the great plurality of the women of our day would resist any temptation, from fear of the consequences, if not from principle."

Fancy the feelings of the Greek professor interrupted in his lecture by a controverting freshman, and you will have some idea of Fallowfield's. His eye lighted on the last speaker, glittering like a hooded snake's, as it were caressing him with a lambent scorn.

I never guessed how much sneering provocation could reside in tones usually so very soft and musical till I heard him answer, "I suppose you do differ with me. We probably both speak from experience. On one point you are scarcely practical, though. You think you can frighten a woman into propriety. Try it."

"Are you not too general in your strictures or encomiums?" I suggested, wishing to relieve the awkwardness which ensued; "surely there are many instances to the contrary. Take Lady Clanronald, for instance, married to a man her elder by twenty years, and not very clever or agreeable, I should think. No one ever breathed a whisper against her, and it has not been through default of aspirants."

An evil smile curled round the old roue's sensual mouth, radiating even to the verge of the forest of his iron-gray whiskers.

"Clanronald not clever?" he replied. "The cleverest man I know. He knew how his wife would be tempted, and he has taken the greatest pains to encourage a counteracting influence—family pride. Don't you know she is a Hautagne? It is a tradition with that race that their women never go wrong—under a prince of the blood. None of these are available just now, so she is still 'Une Madeleine, dans la puissance de son mari, et dans l'impuissance de se repentir.'"

It was worse than useless to argue with Fallowfield. All your own best hits were turned aside by the target of his cynicism and unbelief, while his sophistries and sarcasms often came home. Like old wounds, they would begin to shoot and rankle in after years, just when it was most important and profitable to forget them.

We separated soon after this. Sir Henry's face wore an expression of placid self-congratulation. He thought the conversation had been rather improving, I believe, and that some of the ideas and illustrations had been rather neatly put; so he laid his head down that night with the calm, satisfied feeling of a good man who has done his duty and not lost a day.

He was not more ingenious in overcoming the scruples of others than in silencing his own conscience, though of late years this last had probably ceased to give him much trouble. Finer feelings with him were only "sensations morbidly exaggerated," and he made no sort of allowance for such; among others, utterly ignoring remorse, I doubt if he ever looked forward; I am sure he never looked back. A parody on the "tag" which was given to Cambronne would sum up his terribly simple and consistent creed—La femme se rend, mais ne meurt pas.



CHAPTER XIV.

"I hold him but a fool, that would endanger His body for a girl that loves him not."

Fallowfield left us the next morning, the Bellasys later in the same day. They were to pay divers visits, and then return to Kerton. Lady Catharine pressed them to do so; though she liked the daughter less than the mother, she was so anxious Guy should marry some one that I think she would have accepted even Flora with thankfulness.

It is a favorite delusion with the British parent that marriage will work a miracle, and steady their children for life, by casting forth the lutins who beset them. A thousand failures have not convinced the good speculative matrons of the hazard of the experiment, nor will as many more do so; they will go on match-making and blundering to the end of time. For a very brief space the evil spirits are exorcised; but before the gloss is off the new-married couple's new furniture, one of the band creeps back and opens the door to his fellows. These hardly know their old quarters at first, but they soon begin to like them better than ever—are they not swept and garnished? "So they enter in and dwell there, and"—I need not finish the sentence; a thousand sweet though somewhat shrill voices will save me that trouble—a doleful music—an ancient tale of wrong—the Song of the Brides! They used to say that a man never went so hard to hounds after entering the holy estate. If this be so, I fear it is the only comforting result which follows of course.

What Flora and Guy said to each other at parting I can not guess. Neither was of the sentimental order, and both might have taken for their motto, "Lightly won and lightly lost." Her hand lingered somewhat long in his as they said farewell, but she was smiling, if any thing, more saucily than ever. So she went, leaving behind her no tangible token, except a tiny pearl-colored glove, which Guy twisted rather pensively between his fingers as he stood on the hall steps, and watched the carriage disappear down the avenue. Mr. Bruce exulted after his saturnine fashion, and Isabel Raymond trembled; the one had lost a strong, unscrupulous ally, the other a formidable enemy.

"Why don't you open those letters, Charley?" Livingstone asked at breakfast, next morning, pointing to a pile that lay unopened by the letters plate.

"My dear boy, I haven't the heart to do it," was the reply. "They are all expressive, I know, of different phases of mercantile despair. I believe these men keep a supplicant, as Moses maintains a poet. The last appeal from my saddler was perfectly heartrending: he could not have written it himself, for he looks as tough as his own pig-skin. If he had, he would be impayable in more ways than one. What can I do? I can't come down on the poor old man who has the misfortune to be my father for more supplies when rents are being reduced fifteen per cent. The tradesmen must learn to endure. They have a splendid chance of attaining the victory of suffering."

Bruce smiled complacently to himself, and then superciliously at Charley. He had just received a letter from his banker, consulting him as to the disposal of a superfluous thousand or so, and he was hesitating between some dock shares and a promising railway.

"Yes," Forrester went on, "it's very well for you to talk in that hardened way, as you did the other night, about detrimentals and second sons. I wonder how you would like to have an elder brother, a pillar of learned societies, and as tenacious of life as one of his pet zoophytes? He used to consume quantities of medicine, which was encouraging; but lately he has taken to homoeopathy, which was quite out of the match. He told me, lately, that 'four hundred a year and my pay was affluence.' Affluence!"

It is impossible to describe the cadence of plaintive indignation which he gave to the last word. The recollection of his wrongs had made him almost energetic: we listened to his eloquence in respectful surprise.

"It was adding insult to injury," answered Guy. "If Parliament does not do something for you all soon, there will be another exodus of the Parthenidae."

Charley looked at his friend admiringly, as he always did when Guy was classical in his allusions; but the unwonted effort had evidently exhausted him, and he lapsed into silence.

We rode out that afternoon to make some calls in the neighborhood, and, in returning, Livingstone proposed a short cut through a line of gates, with a short interval of cross-country work.

His cousin looked delighted, Bruce decidedly uncomfortable, though, of course, he could not refuse. He was riding Kathleen, an Irish mare, one of the quietest in the Kerton stable, where none were very steady. The fences were nothing at first; at last we came to a brook. It was not broad, but evidently deep, with high, rotten banks. However, as we were going at a fair hunting pace, all, including Bella Donna and her mistress, took it in their stride, but pulled up at once, seeing that Bruce was left behind, with the groom who was following us.

The first time he came at it, it was a clear case of "craning." He was hauling nervously at the reins, and would not let the mare have it.

Guy regarded him with intense contempt. "By G—d," he muttered, "I believe the man's afraid!"

Forrester laughed so unrestrainedly that Isabel looked at him beseechingly, in evident dread of the consequences.

"My dear Miss Raymond," he said, answering her frightened glance, "don't alarm yourself. Do you think I am a Quixote, to war with windmills?"

No one could look at Bruce's long arms and legs, all working at once, without owning the aptness of the simile.

For the third time he came down at the brook, and, I really believe, meant going; but Kathleen, unused to such vacillating measures, had got sulky, and swerved on the very brink, almost sliding over it. Her rider lost his seat, rolled over her shoulder, and for an instant disappeared in the water.

Achelous or Tiber, emerging from his native waves, crowned with aquatic plants, presented, I doubt not, an appearance at once dignified and becoming, but I defy any ordinary non-amphibious mortal to look, under similar circumstances, any thing but supremely ridiculous. The wrathful face framed in dripping hair and plastered whiskers—the movements of the limbs, awkward and constrained—the rivulets distilling from every salient angle, turning the victim into a walking Lauterbrunnen—when we saw all these absurdities exaggerated before us, no wonder that from the whole party, including the groom, there broke "unnumbered laughters."

"Curse the mare!" Bruce hissed out. The words came crushed and broken, as it were, through the white ranges of his grinding teeth.

Livingstone's face hardened directly. "Swear as much as you think the circumstances require, or as my cousin will allow," he said, "but be just before you're generous: don't anathematize Kathleen. It was no fault of hers. I never saw her refuse before; but she is used to be put straight at her fences. Hold her still, Harry" (to the groom on the farther side, who had caught the mare's rein); "I'll ride her at it myself."

He threw his bridle to Forrester, and, dismounting, cleared the brook at a bound. Then he went up to Kathleen, and began to coax her with voice and hand.

"I'll bet an even fifty he takes her over the first time," said Charley.

Bruce nodded his head, without speaking, to show that he took the bet. I thought he had the best of it, for the mare was so savage and sulky still that a refusal seemed a certainty.

Guy had mounted by this time, and, after taking a wide sweep in the field, came down at the brook. Kathleen was curling her back up, and going short, with the most evident intention of balking; but swerving was next to impossible, for she was fairly held in a vice by her rider's hands and knees. The whip fell heavily twice on either shoulder, and, just at the water's edge, Livingstone drove his heels in and lifted her. It was almost a standing leap, and, as Kathleen landed, a fragment of the bank went crashing into the water from under her hind hoofs, and she went down on her head; but Guy recovered her cleverly, and, turning again, sent her over it twice, backward and forward. The first time the mare did not try to refuse again, but rushed at it, snorting wrathfully, with her head in the air; the second she was quite tamed, and took it evenly in her stride.

"Give Mr. Bruce your horse, Harry, and take the Czar," Guy said. "I'll ride Kathleen home. Steady, old lady—don't fret. We are friends again now."

"So you have got your pony back," I remarked to Forrester.

"Yes, and with interest," was the quiet reply. "I don't think he will owe me much when I have done with him."

Though I had nothing on earth to do with it, I felt something like compunction as I guessed what he meant.

Bruce's was a hard, money-loving nature, unromantic to a degree; but I believe he would gladly have waked to find himself a houseless, landless beggar, if he could thus have regained what Charley, with his soft voice, and eyes, and manner, had stolen from him long ago.

Am I right in saying "stolen?" Perhaps he never had it; at all events, he thought he had, which comes to nearly the same thing.

It is true that, unraveling the cord of a man's existence, you will generally find the blackest hank in it twined by a woman's hand, but it is not less common to trace the golden thread to the same spindle.

Great warrior, profound statesman, stanch champion of liberty as he was, without Edith of the Swan's-neck, Harold would scarcely have risen into a hero of romance. We do not quite despise Charles VII. when we think how faithfully, in loneliness and ruin, the Lady of Beauty loved her apathetic, senseless, discrowned king. Others never found it out, but there must have been something precious hid in a dark corner of his wayward heart near which Agnes nestled so long. We look leniently on Otho—parasite and profligate—when we see him lingering on his last march, on the very verge of the death-struggle, in the teeth of Galba's legions, to decorate Popaea's grave. More in pity than in scorn, be sure, did Tacitus, the historic epigrammatist, write "Ne tum quidem veterum immemor amorum."

Was it in remorseful consciousness of having inflicted a deep, irreparable wrong, that Isabel rode so constantly by Bruce's side, striving, by all means of timid propitiation, to chase the cloud lowering on his sullen face as we returned slowly home?



CHAPTER XV.

"To de prokluein, Epei genoit' an elusis, prochaireto; Ison de to prostenein, Toron gar exei sunorthron augais."

My stay at Kerton Manor was drawing to a close. I had lingered there too long already, and letters from neglected relatives and friends came, reproachful, with every post. The day before I went, Guy called me into his study.

"Frank," he said, "I am in a great strait of perplexity; my uncle has been attacking me this morning about Isabel and Charley. Bruce puts him up to it, of course."

"I thought it would come; but why on earth did not Bruce speak to you, if not to Forrester, himself? Perhaps it was from delicacy, though. Let us hope so."

"How philanthropic we are!" Guy retorted. "I don't believe any other man would have spoken of delicacy and that rough-hewn log of Scotch-fir in the same breath. My dear boy, the thing is as simple as possible—the man is a coward. He is as careful of that precious person of his as if it were worth preserving, so he shoots his arrows from behind Uncle Henry's Telamonian shield. Nothing is so acute and right-judging as the instinct of fear. He knows that if he had a fancy for a quarrel, either Charley or I would be too happy to indulge him."

"He can't be such a dastard," I said.

"I am sure of it; but he is not the less dangerous for that. Such men are always the most unscrupulous in revenge. I have seen murder in his eyes a score of times in the last fortnight. If our lines had fallen in the pleasant Italian places, he would have invested twenty scudi long ago in hiring a dagger. As it is, civilization and the rural police stand our friends; but I have strongly advised Charley not to trust himself near him in cover. By G—d, I think, for once in his life, he would hold straight!"

"You don't like him, that's evident."

The pupils of Livingstone's eyes contracted ominously; a lurid flash shot out from under his black, bent brows, and there came on his lip that peculiar smile that we fancy on the face of Homeric heroes—more fell, and cruel, and terrible than even their own frown—just before they leveled the spear. He laid his broad hand, corded across with a net-work of tangled sinews, on the table before him, and the stout oak creaked and trembled.

"If I were to strangle him," he said, "as I constantly feel tempted to do, I believe I should deserve well of the state. But, with all that, I don't like plotting against him under my own roof; it strikes me that is a phase of hospitality not strictly Arabian. My mother laments over him already as hardly dealt with. Then Uncle Henry is a great difficulty. He is not in the least one of the light comedy fathers who, during two acts, stamps about with many strange oaths and stormy denials, but in the last yields to fate and soubrettes, says 'Bless you, my children!' and hands out untold gold. There is no more appeal from his decisions than from Major A——'s. He dislikes Bruce, of course; but he would just as soon think of objecting to a partner at whist as to a son-in-law because he happened to be unprepossessing. When the poor little Iphigenia is sacrificed on the shrine of expediency, you will see him, not veiling his face but taking snuff with the calm grace that is peculiar to him. Arguing with such a man is a simple absurdity."

"I can not advise you," I answered, sadly; "but it seems hard on Miss Raymond, too."

"Of course it is," Livingstone broke in; "and the worst of it is, the poor child looks to me to help her. I can't bear to think of what her life would be if she married Bruce. He would be constantly retaliating on her for what he is suffering now—for he does suffer. A pleasant idea that she, who is only meant to be petted, should be set up as a target for his jealousy and ill-humor! She would never be able to stand it, and Charley wouldn't if she could; and then there would be a denouement like that which ruined Ralph Mohun. If there is to be a row, it had better come before than after marriage. It's more moral, and saves an infinity of trouble. I think Charley is better away, too, just now. Parndon wants us both to stay with him. We'll go; and so my conscience will stand at ease for the present. When we are on neutral ground I can help them, or, at all events, 'let the justice of the king pass by.'"

"Have you spoken to Forrester yet?"

"No; but he will do as I advise, and temporize, I am sure, though he would hardly give up Bella, even if I asked him. He means business for once, evidently. They will have plenty of time to concert their plans before the summer. Charley wants no help in that. As to carrying them out—we shall see. Well, you will go to-morrow. I am very sorry, for all reasons. I hope you have not been much bored here. Kerton counts on you for next winter."

I need not give my answer. I felt really loth to go; but, fortunately for my peace of mind, I could not guess at the changes that would be wrought in the hopes, the intentions, the destinies of all of us before I should stand in the fine old manor-house again.

If adieus are painful in reality, they ate intensely stupid on paper—a landscape without a foreground—so I spare you next morning's leave-takings.

Guy had said nothing to his cousin then of the plan he had determined on. I was glad of it. I was glad not to see, at parting, her sweet face so sad as I am sure it became when she heard that she was to struggle against Brace's persecutions and her own antipathies unaided and alone.

I wandered through many counties, and then went to Ireland. During the next few months I saw the faces I had left behind me many times, but only in my dreams.



CHAPTER XVI.

"The only living thing he could not hate Was reft at once—and he deserved his fate, But did not feel it less; the good explore For peace, these realms where guilt can never soar; The proud—the wayward—who have fixed below Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe, Lose in that one their all—perchance a mite— But who in patience parts with all delight?"

Pleasant days they were when, through the soft spring weather, I wandered round the coasts of Kerry, Clare, and Galway, hooking salmon in broad pools, where the vexed water rests a while from its labors under wooded cliffs, and at the tail of roaring rapids, specked with white foam-clots, or sea-trout in the estuaries where the great rivers hurry down to their stormy meeting with the Atlantic rollers.

Every where I met the frank, cheery welcome that you must cross the Channel to find in its perfection.

It is sad to see how widely over that fair land the abomination of desolation has cast its shadow. Many halls are tenantless besides those of Tara. The ancient owners of the soil—where are they? Not a country in Europe but is conscious of these restless, careless, homeless Zingari. In distant provincial towns of France you hear their enormous blunders in grammar and musical Milesian brogue breaking the uniformity of dull legitimist soirees. Hombourg and Baden are irradiated with the glory of their whiskers. You find their blue eyes and open, handsome features diversifying the sameness of wooden-faced Austrian squadrons. Nay, has it not been whispered that the proudest name in Ireland attained a bad eminence in the Grecian Archipelago as the captain of the wickedest of those long low craft that, in the purple dawn or ivory moonlight, steal silently out from behind the headlands of the Cyclades?

But let us do justice to those who remain behind.

The sceptre of Connemara has passed away from the ancient dynasty. If the penultimate monarch could rise from his peaceful grave, his place would know him no more. If he traveled through all his thirty miles of seaboard, the Scotch laborers would doff their hats more respectfully to the steward of the "Law Life" than to the humane old homicide. The royal writ, which he defied from his place at St. Stephen's, might be served now, I imagine, without danger of the bailiff's breaking his fast on the same. Claret flows soberly from long-necked bottles whose corks bear the brand of the wine-merchant, high priced and legal, instead of from the cask of which the snug sandy cove and the roguish-looking hooker could have told tales. But, in spite of visionary rents, and poor-rates sternly real, the Irish squire still clings to the exercise of that hospitality which has been an heirloom with the tribes since the days of Strongbow.

One of my longest halting-places was at Ralph Mohun's, by whom, though personally unknown to him, I was made very welcome as a friend of Guy's. My host deserves a more especial mention, for his history was a sad, though not an uncommon one.

He began life in a Cavalry regiment, wherein he conducted himself with fair average propriety till he met Lady Caroline Desborough. He fell in love with her—most people did—but, unluckily, when she married Mr. Mannering, to whom she had been predestined since her debut, he could not bring himself to wear the willow decently and in order, like her other disappointed admirers.

It was the old unhappy story: her husband neglected Lady Caroline consistently—ill-treated her sometimes. Mohun pursued his purpose with the relentless obstinacy of his character. Eighteen months after her marriage they fled together.

He was not rich, so that the trial which ensued, with its heavy damages, completely crippled him. The partner of his crime was absolutely penniless. They went to Vienna, and Ralph entered the Austrian Cuirassiers, where he had some interest to push him. He had lingered some time within reach of England, to give Mannering an opportunity of demanding satisfaction. But the injured husband knew his man too well to trust himself within fifteen paces of Mohun's pistol. He chose a surer, safer revenge in taking no steps to procure a divorce, and so debarring Ralph from his only means of atonement—marriage with his victim.

He varied the dull routine of seducers, it is true, for he never wearied of, or behaved unkindly to, the woman he had ruined. Time brought many troubles on them, but never satiety or coldness. To the very last he worshiped her, and, to the utmost of his power, guarded her tenderly. Rough, and hard, and morose as he was to others, she never heard his lips utter one harsh word.

But she was of a proud, sensitive spirit, and had miscalculated her strength when she thought she could bear dishonor. After that duel with which Austria rang, in which the best schlager in his brigade fell, horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; but the women—who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned—the choosers of the slain.

I pity from my heart the frailest, the most utterly fallen of her sex, when once the social Nemesis hands her over to the chorus of the Eumenides.

We deride the subsignanae who line the wall; we make a mock at their old-fashioned whist; we risk jokes whereat our partners smile approvingly on their false fronts and wonderful head-gears; but may the wittiest of us never know by experience how much worse is the bite than the bark of the Veteran Battalion!

Caroline Mannering had all this to contend with, for Vienna was a favorite resort in those days for the English, and she was constantly encountering some of her old set. She bore up bravely for a while, but it killed her. She never wearied her lover with her self-reproach, but crushed back her sorrows into her heart, and met him always with a gentle smile. That same smile contrasted so sadly, at last, with the wan, worn features, that it often made him bend his bushy brows to conceal the rising tears.