We nearly froze to death at Bourget, but I have not time to tell you of it. I must pass on to the last sortie—toward Montretout and Malmaison. That was a dark, foggy, leaden morning, with a drizzling rain. We passed through the whole French army on our way out—line, National Guards, Mobiles, artillery, cavalry: we passed through them all, everywhere meeting with a grateful reception. Sometimes they cheered us and our wagons (now increased to eight) and our immense coffee-pot. This last was an institution: it consisted of three great boilers mounted on wheels. Before the meat gave out we used sometimes to put soup in our coffee-pot and take it to the field. Coffee by some means we still had. Even on the desolate morning I am now telling you of many a poor foot-soldier who had been upon the almost impassable roads all night had been cheered by a sly tin cupful of the precious liquid as we trudged on toward the field. Well, we were finally ordered to halt at the little village of Rueil, within a stone's throw of the church where Josephine and Hortense lie buried. I climbed a hill on the left, and saw the French pushing toward Buzenval. They could see nothing before them but a line of fire—not a Prussian above the low wall in front of the thick mass of wood. Though I could see these Frenchmen dropping down by hundreds, they went steadily on and on. Some of them were National Guards who had never before been under fire. It was here that young Henri Regnault fell, with many other Parisians known in literature and art. After a while the Germans began shelling the hill on which I was, and I scampered down to the open square where the wagons were. It was not long, however, till another German battery got to throwing shells into this square, each discharge bringing them nearer and nearer to us. Suddenly a shell struck the corner house in front of us. The door opened in a very deliberate way, and out came a man in a blouse, smoking a pipe, and followed by a woman with a baby in her arms. He leisurely locked the door behind him, and put the key into his pocket. Then he started slowly across the square, with his wife and baby still behind him. As he passed us I exclaimed, "For Heaven's sake, what are you doing here with that baby? Don't you see they are shelling all around us?"

"Yes, I see, I see: one of them struck our house just now. I've got another one up here, and we're moving to it." And without taking his hands out of his pockets or his pipe out of his mouth, he strolled on across the open square, followed by his wife, who seemed absorbed only in hushing the baby as it wailed in fright at the sound of the bursting shells.

The French line was soon thrown back, and we filled our wagons with wounded and started for the city, the shells still falling unpleasantly thick and near. One of them struck right under our coffee-pot, and, exploding, sent it in a hundred directions. The horses which drew it did not happen to be hit, but they took fright and dashed off, wrecking what was left of the coffee-pot wagon. We got back to town as fast as we knew how that day. We tried to go out again at night, but could make no headway against the crowd of wagons, artillery and the retreating army on the roads. It was an utterly demoralized mob. We barely escaped massacre by a regiment of Belleville National Guards, who were mad, raving mad, accusing everybody of incapacity and treason. The next day we went out with a burying-party, and found members of this same National Guard thickly strewn among the vines of Buzenval and Montretout, and we buried them. In their new knap-sacks we found crested note-paper and many such things, showing their owners' rank and want of military experience at the same time. Some of these articles were stained with blood. We saw out there the young lady who was soon to have married Henri Regnauit. She was looking for his body among the dead, and found it during the day. Young Regnault, it is claimed, was introducing a new school in French painting. He had made some remarkable studies in Algiers, one of the results of which was the well-known picture of Salome in the Salon of 1870. I have said we saw his betrothed searching for his body among the dead; and the memory of that sweet, brave girl in that awful scene has lent a pathos to the story of his life and death which I do not get out of the writers and painters who have since dwelt so much and so lovingly upon the subject.

George McFarland of New York and two other fellows got lost from our wagons the night before, when we left the field. They took refuge in a tomb, where half a dozen poor wounded had crawled before them. They remained there for three long hours, hearing the shells burst around them from a tremendous cross-fire of the Germans. These three fellows, by the by, were the unlucky men of the ambulance. Whenever, by any chance, any of us were missing late at night, it was always they. When the wagons were full, the roads dusty or covered with sleet, it was they too who failed to get a seat, and had to walk to town. When our eatables had disappeared, or we had no wine or drink of any kind, they were sure to come in hungry, thirsty and foot-sore from some distant part of the field. At Champigny they slept on a billiard-table; upon the Plateau d'Avron they just happened around when the Prussians began the awful bombardment which obliged the French to scurry off, leaving guns and stores. This, they said, was their worst day out, for they half ran, half rolled down the hillside through a rain of shells, about a hundred guns, they maintained, having been concentrated upon that particular plateau. At Rueil one of them was just coming up to get a cup of coffee when the shell struck our coffee-pot. I witnessed the escape that time, and it did truly seem miraculous.

I think I may state it as a fact that if it had not been for the loss of that coffee-pot we should never have eaten the cook's dog. It came about in this natural—or perhaps I should say unnatural—way. In the early days of the siege, you see, some poor wretch who lived near our hospital possessed, as is almost always the case with a Frenchman removed a quarter of a degree, say, above abject poverty, a favorite dog. One day his beast and house were made glad by the appearance of two pups. They were tawny, bright-eyed little fellows, and the Frenchman loved them with a love that the Anglo-Saxon knows not of, especially in the matter of dogs. Well, provisions got scarcer and scarcer, and finally, with an anguish that I have no right to ridicule, and as the only thing left for him to do, the poor Frenchman brought his pups around and presented them to the cook of our hospital. Here the little fellows waxed fat and strong, and were soon great favorites, not only of the good-natured cook, but of all the fellows of the ambulance. Perhaps you never saw a pot of horse-soup boiling: if you have, you will never forget the great blotches of fat that float upon the surface of it. Many skimmings of this did John Cook, as we used to call our chef, put aside for the pups. In the course of time, however, famine began to invade the ambulance. The canned meat and the hams had long since disappeared; a horse belonging to one of our corps, found overtaken by mysterious death in his stall, had been devoured; but the two pups, fat and tender, no one ventured to attack. And they had the powerful protection of the cook. Still, it made our mouths water to see them gambol in their sleekness. At length came the memorable morning of the last sortie at Montretout. Then for the first time we mounted the cook upon our coffee-pot wagon, with an extra large brassard around his arm, allowing him about three times the ordinary amount of linen to show how peacefully and culinarily he was neutral. Poor fellow! I am sorry to say he was soon demoralized that day. The coffee he had brewed was a success, but he could not stand Krupp shells. Long before one of them had exploded under his coffee-pot he had wanted to go home. At that fearful moment he completely lost his head and—his white cap. How he got back to the hospital not even himself ever knew. It was long after nightfall when he wandered in, weary, listless, sorrowful. One of the pups came up to greet him as he crossed the threshold of the kitchen. The chef met that welcome with an unfeeling kick, he was so demoralized. The fate of the pup was sealed. Scarce had the cook found his way to a bed in one of the tents when the scullions made for the pup, and had his fat frizzing on the gridiron and his bones dancing in a seething soup-pot. We all had a feast that night. Even the cook himself had a greasy morsel brought to his bedside. But somehow thenceforth the name of that dog was never mentioned, and his brother led a more luxurious, a sleeker life than ever. We had learned, I think, the old moral of being moved by sorrow for the dead to be kinder to the living.

As I have said before, we became very well acquainted with many of the wounded men at our hospital. With some, indeed, we contracted strong friendships. We buried many by subscription, thus rescuing them from the fosse commune to which soldiers, French or German, were as a rule consigned within the French lines. Among others was a fair-haired Saxon by the name of Bruno, almost a boy in years, who was brought in from Champigny. He won our hearts from the very first by asking that a suffering Frenchman who lay beside him might have his wounds dressed before his own. He was dangerously and painfully wounded himself, yet no one ever heard him complain. I shall never hear the "Wacht am Rhein" without thinking of him, for he was the first one that I ever heard sing it. He sang it to me one night in return for some old German songs I had tried to cheer him with; that is, he sang some of it: his voice was so feeble that I had to stop him. He seemed to expect death, and was prepared for it. His long, wavy blonde hair and his beardless boy face were always beautiful, but imagine them when his blue eyes were lit up by the sentiment of that song!

The next night, when I came to visit Bruno, a French National Guard was dying not far from him, with wife and family kneeling around the bed. The tent was hushed, and I hesitated a moment at the door. One or two American ladies, volunteer nurses of the ambulance, were grouped near the dying man back of the family. Suddenly, Lisette, an Alsatian nurse who worked devotedly night and day for friend or foe alike, and who in her neat white cap had been standing in a corner wiping her eyes, approached me and said in her broad German French, "Partonn, but I will pray for this poor unfortunate." And she dropped on her knees beside the bed and commenced aloud in German a simple, earnest, honest prayer to which the scene and the language gave an effect utterly indescribable. There were few dry eyes in the tent. Soon after that I could tell by the movements about the bed that the poor National Guard was dead. I turned to the bedside of the wounded Saxon, and found his hands clasped upon his breast and his lips muttering a prayer for his enemy.

It was near Christmas then, and to cheer Bruno after the foregoing scene I spoke to him of the merry Christmas-times in the Fatherland. He shook his head mournfully: "Ach Gott! die werd' ich nie wiedersehen" ("I shall never see them again"). The only thing which he seemed very much to regret was that he should not live long enough to get the cross he had won, so that it might be sent to his father at his little village on the Elbe. Well, the next afternoon we were gathered in the same mournful and hushed way about his bedside. The dying Saxon alone broke the silence. There is no way of reproducing in English the wonderful pathos of his speech, mellow even in its faintness. I suppose I ought to say that his mind was wandering, but at the time it did not seem so to me. He spoke first of the green fields approaching his native village, then of the flowers; and then finally he exclaimed, "There gleams the Elbe, and there comes father!—Father!" And in the joy of that meeting, real or imaginary, a smile parting his lips, he died.

We gave the gentle Saxon the poor honor of a separate grave, and as soon after the siege as I could get a letter out I wrote to his father, sending the few little trinkets that had been trusted to my keeping. In the answer and thanks of the lonely old man—for he was now widowed and childless—there was something almost as sad as the death I have been telling you of. He could not hear enough of his son's last days, and our correspondence ceased only when my minutest details had been given.

I have already told you of our last sortie, and really of our last service as a corps. A few days after the loss of our coffee-pot the armistice was declared. Those were sad times. I can't tell you of the despair of that whole city. It makes me dizzy even to remember it. When the people saw that their endurance, suffering, starvation for those long months had been unavailing, there were no bounds to their speech or acts. The two words, "Treason!" and "Bread!" were heard everywhere. Men wept like children. Many actually lay down and died, half starved, half heartbroken. These things will never be written up—they never can be written up. It needed hope with the scant food so many had lived on. The city at the mercy of the conquerors—But there is no use in trying to recall those wild, miserable days. The air was charged with the common despair. I saw the burning of the Tuileries and all the horrors of the Commune, but nothing ever had such an effect upon me as that.

I must, however, before I draw these reminiscences to a close, tell you about Major O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army. It was he who brought the pumpkin into camp at Chatillon. That he should have risked his life most recklessly in doing it was nothing odd, as you will soon learn. It was only a little droll that he should have taken just that time and place to gratify his curiosity. He had heard Americans talk a great deal about pumpkin-pies, and he wanted to know if they were as good as their reputation; so he took the first chance and the first pumpkin that came in his way. Major Thomas Vincent O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army, was of course an Irishman. He was tall, tawny, impassive as any Englishman; modest and mild-mannered in camp, and in the field utterly unconscious of bullets or shell. He had married a Hindoo lady, whom we called the Begum. She was just as excitable as he was impassive. He owned a pair of splendid black horses, which he generally drove himself in one of our wagons. Sometimes, however, he rode, as estafette or orderly, a splendid sorrel stallion, also his property; and this stallion, "Garryowen" by name, was the pride and delight of our hearts, the pet of our camp. The major had a poodle dog too, distinct from the Begum's. It was generosity rather than effeminacy on his part to have this dog, for he bought it to save its life: the former owners were about to eat it when the major came to the rescue. The dog was white, and our Indian warrior used to spend much time washing it on the eve of a fight. The dog would ride stretched across its master's feet on the front of the wagon; and upon the field, if the major was capable of the sense of fear—which-I doubt—it was exercised solely for his horses and dog. When away from these he was always getting to the front. The only provision he made against any possible danger was to fill his pocket with silver five-franc pieces. A man didn't know, he said, when he might be taken prisoner by those "thaves" of Prussians, and he'd better have his money with him till he could get his remittances from across the Channel. He had enough of living upon next to nothing—which was horse-flesh—and he didn't want to live on nothing among the Germans. Those five-franc pieces, however, he always put to the drollest uses. He would find his way in among the artillerymen, and, pointing to a given spot, he would tell them in the worst imaginable French to throw a shell in there: "Ploo haut, ploo haut, mon bong ami: aim at the chimney, the chimney." Then he would step aside, with hands in his pockets, and watch results. If it was a good shot, he would give the gunner a five-franc piece. Thus he would pass along the line until he had exhausted the money with which he had fortified himself against starvation among the Prussians. And this was all for pure love of fighting, for the major saw so much of the French officers' incompetency that he soon had precious little sympathy for their cause.

At the second assault on Bourget, O'Flynn grew tired of waiting for the attack, and, what is more, terribly hungry. "I've lived long enough on horse-mate," exclaimed the major, "especially when I've none of it at all!" So he unhitched one of his black horses from the ambulance-wagon, and, taking a saddle from an orderly, tore off his brassard and other ambulance insignia, threw away his cap, so as not to compromise us, and rode bareheaded down to the very frontest of the front. The advance were lying crouched down in the rifle-pits, awaiting the signal to storm the village. Motioning to the amazed soldiery, he cried, still in his horrible French, "Now or never! Voila Bourget! Follow me! See, there's Bourget. Sooivez moi!" All this to the rattle of German musketry. Seeing that he got no response in one place, he rode madly to the other rifle-pits and repeated the invitation, the officers shouting to him as he passed that he was riding into certain death, and conjuring him to save himself. But the major could not or would not understand them. Finally, some officers ran out, and, taking him forcibly from his horse, led him away.

The major often went on commissions from our camp on the Avenue de l'Imperatrice down into the city. In those days many of the young French swells, to keep from going into the field, had donned the ambulance uniform and passed their time loafing about the cafes in the Boulevards. This became so great a scandal that Trochu was obliged to issue an order forbidding the uniform to be worn except on active duty. One day, as the major, bound on some errand in the interest of a Frenchman lying wounded in our hospital, was majestically riding his superb stallion Garryowen down the Champs Elysees, his long tawny side-whiskers waving gently in the breeze, his wiry frame erect as a ramrod, the blue regulation-coat buttoned close to his throat with American buttons, the International brassard on his arm and the ambulance shield on his cap,—as the major, I say, sailed down in this state, he was hailed by one of the chiefs of the French ambulance, which just then was all powerful in Paris. The major pulled up Garryowen leisurely, and the little Frenchman, who spoke tolerable English, demanded brusquely, "Don't you know General Trochu has forbidden to wear ambulance uniform when off duty? And we want this thing stopped."

The major very deliberately leaned over and caught the little French official by the button of the coat, and in an undertone asked, "And, sure, who are you?"

"I am Mr. So-and-so," mentioning the name of one of the chiefs of the French International corps.

"Oh, ye are, are ye?" rejoined the major, retaining his hold of the little man's button. "Then, Mr. So-and-so, give my compliments—Major O'Flynn's compliments, if ye loike it better—to General Trochu, and tell him, if you plase, that the gentlemen of the American ambulance and meself buy our own clothes and pay for them, ride our own horses and fade them; and when we want or have time to parade aither the one or the other, we will ask permission from the general himself."

Releasing his hold of the Frenchman's button, the major saluted and rode gracefully away upon his errand of mercy. 'And after this specimen of his politeness none of us was ever interfered with.

I have heard from others that the major and the Begum are still alive and thriving. One day in the times of the Commune I had crept up behind the Arc de Triomphe, during a lull in the fire, to take a look at the Communist batteries at Porte Maillot. Now, the major lived halfway between the Arc and the batteries. Suddenly from my concealment I saw the gateway of his house open, and the major sally forth on Garryowen. He gave merely a glance at the batteries, and slowly rode up toward the Arc. There was not a soul else visible on the highway, and it must have been he who drew the attention of the Versaillais, for their guns opened at once and the shells came spinning around in the neighborhood. Garryowen, the grand, the beautiful, was as accustomed to fire as his rider was: neither was shaken from his equilibrium. With the same easy pace they gradually wound their way up to and around the Arc de Triomphe, and thus calmly down the Champs Elysees. The droll, gallant fellow waved me a graceful good-day as he passed me peeping from behind my hiding-place; and that was my last sight, and a characteristic one, of Major Thomas Vincent O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army.

RALPH KEELER.



THE HUMMING-BIRD.

Poised in a sheeny mist Of the dust of bloom, Clasped to the poppy's breast and kissed, Baptized in pools of violet perfume From foot to plume!

Zephyr loves thy wings Above all lovable things, And brings them gifts with rapturous murmurings: Thine is the golden reach of blooming hours, Spirit of flowers!

Music follows thee, And, continually, Thy life is changed and sweetened happily, Having no more than rose-leaf shade of gloom, O bird of Bloom!

Thou art a winged thought Of tropical hours, With all the tropic's rare bloom-splendor fraught, Surcharged with Beauty's indefinable powers, Angel of flowers!

JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON.



A PRINCESS OF THULE.

By William Black, Author of "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."

CHAPTER X.

FAIRY—LAND.

"Welcome to London—!"

He was about to add "Sheila," but suddenly stopped. The girl, who had hastily come forward to meet him with a glad look in her eyes and with both hands outstretched, doubtless perceived the brief embarrassment of the moment, and was perhaps a little amused by it. But she took no notice of it: she merely advanced to him and caught both his hands, and said, "And are you very well?"

It was the old and familiar salutation, uttered in the same odd, gentle, insinuating fashion, and in the same low and sweet voice. Sheila's stay in Oban and the few days she had already spent in London had not taught her the difference between "very" and "ferry."

"It is so strange to hear you speak in London—Mrs. Lavender," he said, with rather a wry face as he pronounced her full and proper title.

And now it was Sheila's turn to look a bit embarrassed and color, and appear uncertain whether to be vexed or pleased, when her husband himself broke in in his usual impetuous fashion: "I say, Ingram, don't be a fool! Of course you must call her Sheila—unless when there are people here, and then you must please yourself. Why, the poor girl has enough of strange things and names about her already. I don't know how she keeps her head. It would bewilder me, I know; but I can see that, after she has stood at the window for a time, and begun to get dazed by all the wonderful sights and sounds outside, she suddenly withdraws and fixes all her attention on some little domestic duty, just as if she were hanging on to the practical things of life to assure herself it isn't all a dream. Isn't that so, Sheila?" he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

"You ought not to watch me like that," she said with a smile. "But it is the noise that is most bewildering. There are many places I will know already when I see them, many places and things I have known in pictures; but now the size of them, and the noise of carriages, and the people always passing, and always different, always strangers, so that you never see the same people any more—But I am getting very much accustomed to it."

"You are trying very hard to get accustomed to it, any way, my good girl," said her husband.

"You need not be in a hurry: you may begin to regret some day that you have not a little of that feeling of wonder left," said Ingram. "But you have not told me anything of what you think about London, and of how you like it, and how you like your house, and what you have done with Bras, and a thousand other things."

"I will tell you all that directly, when I have got for you some wine and some biscuits."

"Sheila, you can ring for them," said her husband, but she had by that time departed on her mission. Presently she returned, and waited upon Ingram just as if she had been in her father's house in Borva, with the gentlemen in a hurry to go out to the fishing, and herself the only one who could serve them.

She put a small table close by the French window; she drew back the curtains as far as they would go, to show the sunshine of a bright forenoon in May lighting up the trees in the square and gleaming on the pale and tall fronts of the houses beyond; and she wheeled in three low easy-chairs, so as to front this comparatively cheerful prospect.

Somehow or other, it seemed quite natural that Sheila should wheel in those chairs. It was certainly no disrespect on the part of either her husband or her visitor which caused both of them to sit still and give her her own way about such things. Indeed, Lavender had not as yet ever attempted to impress upon Sheila the necessity of cultivating the art of helplessness. That, with other social graces, would perhaps come in good time. She would soon acquire the habits and ways of her friends and acquaintances, without his trying to force upon her a series of affectations, which would only embarrass her and cloud the perfect frankness and spontaneity of her nature. Of one thing he was quite assured—that whatever mistakes Sheila might make in society they would never render her ridiculous. Strangers might not know the absolute sincerity of her every word and act, which gave her a courage that had no fear of criticism, but they could at least see the simple grace and dignity of the girl, and that natural ease of manner which is beyond the reach of cultivation, being mainly the result of a thorough consciousness of honesty. To burden her with rules and regulations of conduct would be to produce the very catastrophes he wished to avoid. Where no attempt is made, failure is impossible; and he was meanwhile well content that Sheila should simply appear as Sheila, even although she might draw in a chair for a guest or so far forget her dignity as to pour out some wine for her husband.

"After all, Sheila," said Lavender, "hadn't I better begin and tell Ingram about your surprise and delight when you came near Oban and saw the tall hotels and the trees? It was the trees, I think, that struck you most, because, you know, those in Lewis—well, to tell the truth—the fact is, the trees of Lewis—as I was saying, the trees of Lewis are not just—they cannot be said to be—"

"You bad boy, to say anything against the Lewis!" exclaimed Sheila; and Ingram held that she was right, and that there were certain sorts of ingratitude more disgraceful than others, and that this was just about the worst.

"Oh, I have brought all the good away from Lewis," said Lavender with a careless impertinence.

"No," said Sheila proudly. "You have not brought away my papa, and there is not any one in this country I have seen as good as he is."

"My dear, your experience of the thirty millions of folks in these islands is quite convincing. I was wholly in the wrong; and if you forgive me we shall celebrate our reconciliation in a cigarette—that is to say, Ingram and I will perform the rites, and you can look on."

So Sheila went away to get the cigarettes also.

"You don't say you smoke in your drawing-room, Lavender?" said Ingram, mindful of the fastidious ways of his friend even when he had bachelor's rooms in King street.

"Don't I, though? I smoke everywhere—all over the place. Don't you see, we have no visitors yet. No one is supposed to know we have come South. Sheila must get all sorts of things before she can be introduced to my friends and my aunt's friends, and the house must be put to rights, too. You wouldn't have her go to see my aunt in that sailor's costume she used to rush about in up in Lewis?"

"That is precisely what I would have," said Ingram: "she cannot look more handsome in any other dress."

"Why, my aunt would fancy I had married a savage: I believe she fears something of the sort now."

"And you haven't told even her that you are in London?"

"No."

"Well, Lavender, that is a precious silly performance. Suppose she hears of your being in town, what will you say to her?"

"I should tell her I wanted a few days to get my wife properly dressed before taking her about."

Ingram shrugged his shoulders: "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps, indeed, it would be better if you waited six months before you introduced Sheila to your friends. At present you seem to be keeping the footlights turned down until everything is ready for the first scene, and then Sheila is to burst upon society in a blaze of light and color. Well, that is harmless enough; but look here! You don't know much about her yet: you will be mainly anxious to hear what the audience, as it were, say of her; and there is just a chance of your adopting their impressions and opinions of Sheila, seeing that you have no very fixed ones of your own. Now, what your social circle may think about her is a difficult thing to decide; and I confess I would rather have seen you remain six months in Lewis before bringing her up here."

Ingram was at least a candid friend. It was not the first nor the hundredth time that Frank Lavender had to endure small lectures, uttered in a slow, deliberate voice, and yet with an indifference of manner which showed that Ingram cared very little how sharply his words struck home. He rarely even apologized for his bluntness. These were his opinions: Lavender could take them or leave them, as he liked. And the younger man, after finding his face flush a bit on being accused of wishing to make a dramatic impression with Sheila's entrance into London society, laughed in an embarrassed way, and said, "It is impossible to be angry with you, Ingram, and yet you do talk so absurdly. I wonder who is likely to know more about the character of a girl than her own husband?"

"You may in time: you don't now," said Ingram, carefully balancing a biscuit on the point of his finger.

"The fact is," said Lavender with good-natured impatience, "you are the most romantic card I know, and there is no pleasing you. You have all sorts of exalted notions about things—about sentiments and duties, and so forth. Well, all that is true enough, and would be right enough if the world were filled with men and women like yourself; but then it isn't, you see, and one has to give in to conventionalities of dress and living and ceremonies, if one wants to retain one's friends. Now, I like to see you going about with that wide-awake—it suits your brown complexion and beard—and that stick that would do for herding sheep; and the costume looks well and is business-like and excellent when you're off for a walk over the Surrey downs or lying on the river-banks about Henley or Cookham; but it isn't, you know, the sort of costume for a stroll in the Park."

"Whenever God withdraws from me my small share of common sense," said Ingram slowly, "so far that I shall begin to think of having my clothes made for the purpose of walking in Hyde Park, well—"

"But don't you see," said Lavender, "that one must meet one's friends, especially when one is married; and when you know that at a certain hour in the forenoon they are all to be found in a particular place, and that a very pleasant place, and that you will do yourself good by having a walk in the fresh air, and so forth, I really don't see anything very immoral in going down for an hour or so to the Park!"

"Don't you think the pleasure of seeing one's friends might be postponed till one had done some sort of good day's work?"

"There now!" cried Lavender, "that is another of your delusions. You are always against superstitions, and yet you make work a fetish. You do with work just as women do with duty: they carry about with them a convenient little god, and they are always worshiping it with small sacrifices, and complimenting themselves on a series of little martyrdoms that are of no good to anybody. Of course, duty wouldn't be duty if it wasn't disagreeable, and when they go nursing the sick—and they could get it better done for fifteen shillings a week by somebody else—they don't mind coming back to their families with the seeds of typhus about their gowns; and when they crush the affections in order to worship at the shrine of duty, they don't consider that they may be making martyr of other folks, who don't want martyrdom and get no sort of pleasure out of it. Now, what in all the world is the good of work as work? I believe that work is an unmistakable evil, but when it is a necessity I suppose you get some sort of selfish satisfaction in over-coming it; and doubtless if there was any immediate necessity in my case—I don't deny the necessity may arise, and that I should like nothing better than to work for Sheila's sake—"

"Now you are coming to the point," said Ingram, who had been listening with his usual patience to his friend's somewhat chaotic speculations. "Perhaps you may have to work for your wife's sake and your own; and I confess I am surprised to see you so content with your present circumstances. If your aunt's property legally reverted to you, if you had any sort of family claim on it, that would make some little difference; but you know that any sudden quarrel between you might leave you penniless to-morrow."

"In which case I should begin to work to-morrow, and I should come to you for my first commission."

"And you shouldn't have it. I would leave you to go and fight the world for yourself; without which a man knows nothing of himself or of his relations with those around him."

"Frank, dear, here are the cigarettes," said Sheila at this point; and as she came and sat down the discussion ceased.

For Sheila began to tell her friend of all the strange adventures that had befallen her since she left the far island of Lewis—how she had seen with fear the great mountains of Skye lit up by the wild glare of a stormy sunrise; how she had seen with astonishment the great fir-woods of Armadale; and how green and beautiful were the shores of the Sound of Mull. And then Oban, with its shining houses, its blue bay and its magnificent trees, all lit up by a fair and still sunshine! She had not imagined there was anywhere in the world so beautiful a place, and could scarcely believe that London itself was more rich and noble and impressive; for there were beautiful ladies walking along the broad pavements, and there were shops with large windows that seemed to contain everything that the mind could desire, and there was a whole fleet of yachts in the bay. But it was the trees, above all, that captivated her; and she asked if they were lords who owned those beautiful houses built up on the hill and half smothered among lilacs and ash trees and rowan trees and ivy.

"My darling," Lavender had said to her, "if your papa were to come and live here, he could buy half a dozen of those cottages, gardens and all. They are mostly the property of well-to-do shopkeepers. If this little place takes your fancy, what will you say when you go South—when you see Wimbledon and Richmond and Kew, with their grand old commons and trees? Why, you could hide Oban in a corner of Richmond Park!"

"And my papa has seen all those places?"

"Yes. Don't you think it strange he should have seen them all, and known he could live in any one of them, and then gone away back to Borva?"

"But what would the poor people have done if he had never gone back?"

"Oh, some one else would have taken his place."

"And then, if he were living here or in London, he might have got tired, and he might have wished to go back to the Lewis and see all the people he knew; and then he would come among them like a stranger, and have no house to go to."

Then Lavender said, quite gently, "Do you think, Sheila, you will ever tire of living in the South?"

The girl looked up quickly, and said, with a sort of surprised questioning in her eyes, "No, not with you. But then we shall often go to the Lewis?"

"Oh yes," her husband said, "as often as we can conveniently. But it will take some time at first, you know, before you get to know all my friends who are to be your friends, and before you get properly fitted into our social circle. That will take you a long time, Sheila, and you may have many annoyances or embarrassments to encounter; but you won't be very much afraid, my girl?"

Sheila merely looked up to him: there was no fear in the frank, brave eyes.

The first large town she saw struck a cold chill to her heart. On a wet and dismal afternoon they sailed into Greenock. A heavy smoke hung about the black building-yards and the dirty quays; the narrow and squalid streets were filled with mud, and only the poorer sections of the population waded through the mire or hung disconsolately about the corners of the thoroughfares. A gloomier picture could not well be conceived; and Sheila, chilled with the long and wet sail and bewildered by the noise and bustle of the harbor, was driven to the hotel with a sore heart and a downcast face.

"This is not like London, Frank?" she said, pretty nearly ready to cry with disappointment.

"This? No. Well, it is like a part of London, certainly, but not the part you will live in."

"But how can we live in the one place without passing the other and being made miserable by it? There was no part of Oban like this."

"Why, you will live miles away from the docks and quays of London. You might live for a lifetime in London without ever knowing it had a harbor. Don't you be afraid, Sheila. You will live in a district where there are far finer houses than any you saw in Oban, and far finer trees; and within a few minutes' walk you will find great gardens and parks, with lakes in them and wild-fowl, and you will be able to teach the boys about how to set the helm and the sails when they are launching their small boats."

"I should like that," said Sheila, with her face brightening.

"Perhaps you would like a boat yourself?"

"Yes," she said frankly. "If there were not many people there, we might go out sometimes in the evening—"

Her husband laughed and took her hand: "You don't understand, Sheila. The boats the boys have are little things a foot or two long—like the one in your papa's bed-room in Borva. But many of the boys would be greatly obliged to you if you would teach them how to manage the sails properly, for sometimes dreadful shipwrecks occur."

"You must bring them to our house. I am very fond of little boys, when they begin to forget to be shy, and let you become acquainted with them."

"Well," said Lavender, "I don't know many of the boys who sail boats in the Serpentine: you will have to make their acquaintance yourself. But I know one boy whom I must bring to the house. He is a German-Jew boy, who is going to be another Mendelssohn, his friends say. He is a pretty boy, with ruddy-brown hair, big black eyes and a fine forehead; and he really sings and plays delightfully. But you know, Sheila, you must not treat him as a boy, for he is over fourteen, I should think; and if you were to kiss him—"

"He might be angry," said Sheila with perfect simplicity.

"I might," said Lavender; and then, noticing that she seemed a little surprised, he merely patted her head and bade her go and get ready for dinner.

Then came the great climax of Sheila's southward journey—her arrival in London. She was all anxiety to see her future home; and, as luck would have it, there was a fair spring morning shining over the city. For a couple of hours before she had sat and looked out of the carriage-window as the train whirled rapidly through the scarcely-awakened country, and she had seen the soft and beautiful landscapes of the South lit up by the early sunlight. How the bright little villages shone, with here and there a gilt weathercock glittering on the spire of some small gray church, while as yet in many valleys a pale gray mist lay along the bed of the level streams or clung to the dense woods on the upland heights! Which was the more beautiful—the sharp, clear picture, with its brilliant colors and its awakening life, or the more mystic landscape over which was still drawn the tender veil of the morning haze? She could not tell. She only knew that England, as she then saw it, seemed a great country that was very beautiful, that had few inhabitants, and that was still and sleepy, and bathed in sunshine. How happy must the people be who lived in those quiet green valleys by the side of slow and smooth rivers, and amid great woods and avenues of stately trees, the like of which she had not imagined even in her dreams!

But from the moment that they got out at Euston Square she seemed a trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade her—clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of guidance. She did indeed glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into which Lavender put her, apparently asking how such a tall and narrow two-wheeled vehicle could be prevented toppling over. But when he, having sent on all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler, got into the hansom beside her, and put his hand inside her arm, and bade her be of good cheer that she should have such a pleasant morning to welcome her to London, she said "Yes" mechanically, and only looked out in a wistful fashion at the great houses and trees of Euston Square, the mighty and roaring stream of omnibuses, the droves of strangers, mostly clad in black, as if they were going to church, and the pale blue smoke that seemed to mix with the sunshine and make it cold and distant.

They were in no hurry, these two, on that still morning, and so, to impress Sheila all at once with a sense of the greatness and grandeur of London, he made the cabman cut down by Park Crescent and Portland Place to Regent Circus. Then they went along Oxford street; and there were crowded omnibuses taking young men into the city, while all the pavements were busy with hurrying passers-by. What multitudes of unknown faces, unknown to her and unknown to each other! These people did not speak: they only hurried on, each intent upon his own affairs, caring nothing, apparently, for the din around them, and looking so strange and sad in their black clothes in the pale and misty sunlight.

"You are in a trance, Sheila," he said.

She did not answer. Surely she had wandered into some magical city, for now the houses on one side of the way suddenly ceased, and she saw before her a great and undulating extent of green, with a border of beautiful flowers, and with groups of trees that met the sky all along the southern horizon. Did the green and beautiful country she had seen shoot in thus into the heart of the town, or was there another city far away on the other side of the trees? The place was almost as deserted as those still valleys she had passed by in the morning. Here, in the street, there was the roar of a passing crowd, but there was a long and almost deserted stretch of park, with winding roads and umbrageous trees, on which the wan sunlight fell from between loose masses of half-golden cloud.

Then they passed Kensington Gardens, and there were more people walking down the broad highways between the elms.

"You are getting nearly home now, Sheila," he said. "And you will be able to come and walk in these avenues whenever you please."

Was this, then, her home?—this section of a barrack-row of dwellings, all alike in steps, pillars, doors and windows? When she got inside the servant who had opened the door bobbed a curtsey to her: should she shake hands with her and say, "And are you ferry well?" But at this moment Lavender came running up the steps, playfully hurried her into the house and up the stairs, and led her into her own drawing-room. "Well, darling, what do you think of your home, now that you see it?"

Sheila looked round timidly. It was not a big room, but it was a palace in height and grandeur and color compared with that little museum in Borva in which Sheila's piano stood. It was all so strange and beautiful—the split pomegranates and quaint leaves on the upper part of the walls, and underneath a dull slate color where the pictures hung; the curious painting on the frames of the mirrors; the brilliant curtains, with their stiff and formal patterns. It was not very much like a home as yet; it was more like a picture that had been carefully planned and executed; but she knew how he had thought of pleasing her in choosing these things, and without saying a word she took his hand and kissed it. And then she went to one of the three tall French windows and looked out on the square. There, between the trees, was a space of beautiful soft green, and some children dressed in bright dresses, and attended by a governess in sober black, had just begun to play croquet. An elderly lady with a small white dog was walking along one of the graveled paths. An old man was pruning some bushes.

"It is very still and quiet here," said Sheila. "I was afraid we should have to live in that terrible noise always."

"I hope you won't find it dull, my darling," he said.

"Dull, when you are here?"

"But I cannot always be here, you know?"

She looked up.

"You see, a man is so much in the way if he is dawdling about a house all day long. You would begin to regard me as a nuisance, Sheila, and would be for sending me out to play croquet with those young Carruthers, merely that you might get the rooms dusted. Besides, you know I couldn't work here: I must have a studio of some sort—in the neighborhood, of course. And then you will give me your orders in the morning as to when I am to come round for luncheon or dinner."

"And you will be alone all day at your work?"

"Yes."

"Then I will come and sit with you, my poor boy," she said.

"Much work I should do in that case!" he said. "But we'll see. In the mean time go up stairs and get your things off: that young person below has breakfast ready, I dare say."

"But you have not shown me yet where Mr. Ingram lives," said Sheila before she went to the door.

"Oh, that is miles away. You have only seen a little bit of London yet. Ingram lives about as far away from here as the distance you have just come, but in another direction."

"It is like a world made of houses," said Sheila, "and all filled with strangers. But you will take me to see Mr. Ingram?"

"By and by, yes. But he is sure to drop in on you as soon as he fancies you are settled in your new home."

And here, at last, was Mr. Ingram come; and the mere sound of his voice seemed to carry her back to Borva, so that in talking to him and waiting on him as of old she would scarcely have been surprised if her father had walked in to say that a coaster was making for the harbor, or that Duncan was going over to Stornoway, and Sheila would have to give him commissions. Her husband did not take the same interest in the social and political affairs of Borva that Mr. Ingram did. Lavender had made a pretence of assisting Sheila in her work among the poor people, but the effort was a hopeless failure. He could not remember the name of the family that wanted a new boat, and was visibly impatient when Sheila would sit down to write out for some aged crone a letter to her grandson in Canada. Now, Ingram, for the mere sake of occupation, had qualified himself during his various visits to Lewis, so that he might have become the home minister of the King of Borva; and Sheila was glad to have one attentive listener as she described all the wonderful things that had happened in the island since the previous summer.

But Ingram had got a full and complete holiday on which to come up and see Sheila; and he had brought with him the wild and startling proposal that in order that she should take her first plunge into the pleasures of civilized life, her husband and herself should drive down to Richmond and dine at the Star and Garter.

"What is that?" said Sheila.

"My dear girl," said her husband seriously, "your ignorance is something fearful to contemplate. It is quite bewildering. How can a person who does not know what the Star and Garter is be told what the Star and Garter is?"

"But I am willing to go and see," said Sheila.

"Then I must look after getting a brougham," said Lavender, rising.

"A brougham on such a day as this?" exclaimed Ingram. "Nonsense! Get an open trap of some sort; and Sheila, just to please me, will put on that very blue dress she used to wear in Borva, and the hat and the white feather, if she has got them."

"Perhaps you would like me to put on a sealskin cap and a red handkerchief instead of a collar," observed Lavender calmly.

"You may do as you please. Sheila and I are going to dine at the Star and Garter."

"May I put on that blue dress?" said the girl, going up to her husband.

"Yes, of course, if you like," said Lavender meekly, going off to order the carriage, and wondering by what route he could drive those two maniacs down to Richmond so that none of his friends should see them.

When he came back again, bringing with him a landau which could be shut up for the homeward journey at night, he had to confess that no costume seemed to suit Sheila so well as the rough sailor-dress; and he was so pleased with her appearance that he consented at once to let Bras go with them in the carriage, on condition that Sheila should be responsible for him. Indeed, after the first shiver of driving away from the square was over, he forgot that there was much unusual about the look of this odd pleasure-party. If you had told him eighteen months before that on a bright day in May, just as people were going home from the Park for luncheon, he would go for a drive in a hired trap with one horse, his companions being a man with a brown wide-awake, a girl dressed as though she were the owner of a yacht, and an immense deerhound, and that in this fashion he would dare to drive up to the Star and Garter and order dinner, he would have bet five hundred to one that such a thing would never occur so long as he preserved his senses. But somehow he did not mind much. He was very much at home with those two people beside him; the day was bright and fresh; the horse went a good pace; and once they were over Hammersmith Bridge and out among fields and trees, the country looked exceedingly pretty, and all the beauty of it was mirrored in Sheila's eyes.

"All can't quite make you out in that dress, Sheila," he said. "I am not sure whether it is real and business-like or a theatrical costume. I have seen girls on Ryde Pier with something of the same sort on, only a good deal more pronounced, you know, and they looked like sham yachtsmen; and I have seen stewardesses wearing that color and texture of cloth—"

"But why not leave it as it is," said Ingram—"a solitary costume produced by certain conditions of climate and duties, acting in conjunction with a natural taste for harmonious coloring and simple form? That dress, I will maintain, sprang as naturally from the salt sea as Aphrodite did; and the man who suspects artifice in it or invention has had his mind perverted by the skepticism of modern society."

"Is my dress so very wonderful?" said Sheila with a grave complaisance. "I am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine thing, and perhaps you would like me to tell you its history. It was my papa bought a piece of blue serge in Stornoway: it cost three shillings sixpence a yard, and a dressmaker in Stornoway cut it for me, and I made it myself. That is all the history of the wonderful dress."

Suddenly Sheila seized her husband's arm. They had got down to the river by Mortlake; and there, on the broad bosom of the stream, a long and slender boat was shooting by, pulled by four oarsmen clad in white flannel.

"How can they go out in such a boat?" said Sheila, with a great alarm visible in her eyes. "It is scarcely a boat at all; and if they touch a rock or if the wind catches them—"

"Don't be frightened, Sheila," said her husband. "They are quite safe. There are no rocks in our rivers, and the wind does not give us squalls here like those on Loch Roag. You will see hundreds of those boats by and by, and perhaps you yourself will go out in one."

"Oh, never, never!" she said, almost with a shudder.

"Why, if the people here heard you they would not know how brave a sailor you are. You are not afraid to go out at night by yourself on the sea, and you won't go on a smooth inland river—"

"But those boats: if you touch them they must go over."

She seemed glad to get away from the river. She could not be persuaded of the safety of the slender craft of the Thames; and indeed for some time after seemed so strangely depressed that Lavender begged and prayed of her to tell him what was the matter. It was simple enough. She had heard him speak of his boating adventures. Was it in such boats as that she had just seen? and might he not be some day going out in one of them, and an accident—the breaking of an oar, a gust of wind—

There was nothing for it but to reassure her by a solemn promise that in no circumstances whatever would he, Lavender, go into a boat without her express permission; whereupon Sheila was as grateful to him as though he had dowered her with a kingdom.

This was not the Richmond Hill of her fancy—this spacious height, with its great mansions, its magnificent elms, and its view of all the westward and wooded country, with the blue-white streak of the river winding through the green foliage. Where was the farm? The famous Lass of Richmond Hill must have lived on a farm, but here surely were the houses of great lords and nobles, which had apparently been there for years and years. And was this really a hotel that they stopped at—this great building that she could only compare to Stornoway Castle?

"Now, Sheila," said Lavender after they had ordered dinner and gone out, "mind you keep a tight hold on that leash, for Bras will see strange things in the Park."

"It is I who will see strange things," she said; and the prophecy was amply fulfilled. For as they went along the broad path, and came better into view of the splendid undulations of woodland and pasture and fern, when on the one hand they saw the Thames, far below them, flowing through the green and spacious valley, and on the other hand caught some dusky glimpse of the far white houses of London, it seemed to her that she had got into a new world, and that this world was far more beautiful than the great city she had left. She did not care so much for the famous view from the hill. She had cast one quick look to the horizon, with one throb of expectation that the sea might be there. There was no sea there—only the faint blue of long lines of country apparently without limit. Moreover, over the western landscape a faint haze prevailed, that increased in the distance and softened down the more distant woods into a sober gray. That great extent of wooded plain, lying sleepily in its pale mists, was not so cheerful as the scene around her, where the sunlight was sharp and clear, the air fresh, the trees flooded with a pure and bright color. Here, indeed, was a cheerful and beautiful world, and she was full of curiosity to know all about it and its strange features. What was the name of this tree? and how did it differ from that? Were not these rabbits over by the fence? and did rabbits live in the midst of trees and bushes? What sort of wood was the fence made of? and was it not terribly expensive to have such a protection? Could not he tell the cost of a wooden fence? Why did they not use wire netting? Was not that a loch away down there? and what was its name? A loch without a name! Did the salmon come up to it? and did any sea-birds ever come inland and build their nests on its margin?

"Oh, Bras, you must come and look at the loch. It is a long time since you will see a loch."

And away she went through the thick breckan, holding on to the swaying leash that held the galloping greyhound, and running swiftly as though she had been making down for the shore to get out the Maighdean-mhara.

"Sheila," called her husband, "don't be foolish!"

"Sheila," called Ingram, "have pity on an old man!"

Suddenly she stopped. A brace of partridges had sprung up at some little distance, and with a wild whirr of their wings were now directing their low and rapid flight toward the bottom of the valley.

"What birds are those?" she said peremptorily.

She took no notice of the fact that her companions were pretty nearly too blown to speak. There was a brisk life and color in her face, and all her attention was absorbed in watching the flight of the birds. Lavender fancied he saw in the fixed and keen look something of old Mackenzie's gray eye: it was the first trace of a likeness to her father he had seen.

"You bad girl!" he said, "they are partridges."

She paid no heed to this reproach, for what were those other things over there underneath the trees? Bras had pricked up his ears, and there was a strange excitement in his look and in his trembling frame.

"Deer!" she cried, with her eyes as fixed as were those of the dog beside her.

"Well," said her husband calmly, "what although they are deer?"

"But Bras—" she said; and with that she caught the leash with both her hands.

"Bras won't mind them if you keep him quiet. I suppose you can manage him better than I can. I wish we had brought a whip."

"I would rather let him kill every deer in the Park than touch him with a whip," said Sheila proudly.

"You fearful creature, you don't know what you say. That is high treason. If George Ranger heard you, he would have you hanged in front of the Star and Garter."

"Who is George Ranger?" said Sheila with an air, as if she had said, "Do you know that I am the daughter of the King of Borva, and whoever touches me will have to answer to my papa, who is not afraid of any George Ranger?"

"He is a great lord who hangs all persons who disturb the deer in this Park."

"But why do they not go away?" said Sheila impatiently. "I have never seen any deer so stupid. It is their own fault if they are disturbed: why do they remain so near to people and to houses?"

"My dear child, if Bras wasn't here you would probably find some of those deer coming up to see if you had any bits of sugar or pieces of bread about your pockets."

"Then they are like sheep—they are not like deer," she said with some contempt. "If I could only tell Bras that it is sheep he will be looking at, he would not look any more. And so small they are! They are as small as the roe, but they have horns as big as many of the red-deer. Do people eat them?"

"I suppose so."

"And what will they cost?"

"I am sure I can't tell you."

"Are they as good as the roe or the big deer?"

"I don't know that, either. I don't think I ever ate fallow-deer. But you know they are not kept here for that purpose. A great many gentlemen in this country keep a lot of them in their parks merely to look pretty. They cost a great deal more than they produce."

"They must eat up a great deal of fine grass," said Sheila almost sorrowfully. "It is a beautiful ground for sheep—no rushes, no peat-moss, only fine, good grass and dry land. I should like my papa to see all this beautiful ground."

"I fancy he has seen it."

"Was my papa here?"

"I think he said so."

"And did he see those deer?"

"Doubtless."

"He never told me of them."

By this time they had pretty nearly got down to the little lake, and Bras had been alternately coaxed and threatened into a quiescent mood. Sheila evidently expected to hear a flapping of seafowls' wings when they got near the margin, and looked all around for the first sudden dart from the banks. But a dead silence prevailed, and as there were neither fish nor birds to watch, she went along to a wooden bench and sat down there, one of her companions on each hand. It was a pretty scene that lay before her—the small stretch of water ruffled with the wind, but showing a dash of blue sky here and there, the trees in the enclosure beyond clad in their summer foliage, the smooth green sward shining in the afternoon sunlight. Here, at least, was absolute quiet after the roar of London; and it was somewhat wistfully that she asked her husband how far this place was from her home, and whether, when he was at work, she could not come down here by herself.

"Certainly," he said, never dreaming that she would think of doing such a thing.

By and by they returned to the hotel, and while they sat at dinner a great fire of sunset spread over the west, and the far woods became of a rich purple, streaked here and there with lines of pale white mist. The river caught the glow of the crimson clouds above, and shone duskily red amid the dark green of the trees. Deeper and deeper grew the color of the sun as it sank to the horizon, until it disappeared behind one low bar of purple cloud, and then the wild glow in the west slowly faded away, the river became pallid and indistinct, the white mists over the distant woods seemed to grow denser, and then, as here and there a lamp was lit far down in the valley, one or two pale stars appeared in the sky overhead, and the night came on apace.

"It is so strange," Sheila said, "to find the darkness coming on and not to hear the sound of the waves. I wonder if it is a fine night at Borva?"

Her husband went over to her and led her back to the table, where the candles, shining over the white cloth and the colored glasses, offered a more cheerful picture than the deepening landscape outside. They were in a private room, so that, when dinner was over, Sheila was allowed to amuse herself with the fruit, while her two companions lit their cigars. Where was the quaint old piano now, and the glass of hot whisky and water, and the "Lament of Monaltrie" or "Love in thine eyes for ever plays"? It seemed, but for the greatness of the room, to be a repetition of one of those evenings at Borva that now belonged to a far-off past. Here was Sheila, not minding the smoke, listening to Ingram as of old, and sometimes saying something in that sweetly inflected speech of hers; here was Ingram, talking, as it were, out of a brown study, and morosely objecting to pretty nearly everything Lavender said, but always ready to prove Sheila right; and Lavender himself, as unlike a married man as ever, talking impatiently, impetuously and wildly, except at such times as he said something to his young wife, and then some brief smile and look or some pat on the hand said more than words. But where, Sheila may have thought, was the one wanting to complete the group? Has he gone down to Borvabost to see about the cargoes of fish to be sent off in the morning? Perhaps he is talking to Duncan outside about the cleaning of the guns or making up cartridges in the kitchen. When Sheila's attention wandered away from the talk of her companions she could not help listening for the sound of the waves; and as there was no such message coming to her from the great wooded plain without, her fancy took her away across that mighty country she had traveled through, and carried her up to the island of Loch Roag, until she almost fancied she could smell the peat-smoke in the night-air, and listen to the sea, and hear her father pacing up and down the gravel outside the house, perhaps thinking of her as she was thinking of him.

This little excursion to Richmond was long remembered by those three. It was the last of their meetings before Sheila was ushered into the big world to busy herself with new occupations and cares. It was a pleasant little journey throughout, for as they got into the landau to drive back to town the moon was shining high up in the southern heavens, and the air was mild and fresh, so that they had the carriage opened, and Sheila, well wrapped up, lay and looked around her with a strange wonder and joy as they drove underneath the shadow of the trees and out again into the clear sheen of the night. They saw the river, too, flowing smoothly and palely down between its dark banks; and somehow here the silence checked them, and they hummed no more those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what were they thinking, then, as they drove through the clear night along the lonely road? Lavender, at least, was rejoicing at his great good fortune that he had secured for ever to himself the true-hearted girl who now sat opposite him, with the moonlight touching her face and hair; and he was laughing to himself at the notion that he did not properly appreciate her or understand her or perceive her real character. If not he, who then? Had he not watched every turn of her disposition, every expression of her wishes, every grace of her manner and look of her eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the more he knew of her the more he loved her? Marriage had increased rather than diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her. He was more her lover now than he had been before his marriage. Who could see in her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks can look at a girl's eyes, and see that they are brown or blue or green, as the case may be; but the lover looks at them and sees in them the magic mirror of a hundred possible worlds. How can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there, or tell what strange fancies and reminiscences may be involved in an absent look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake, or of the old bygone days on the hills? All her former life is told there, and yet but half told, and he longs to become possessed of all the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a constant mystery to him, and there is a singular and wistful attraction for him in those still deeps where the thoughts and dreams of an innocent soul lie but half revealed. He does not see those things in the eyes of women he is not in love with; but when in after years he is carelessly regarding this or the other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn of expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all the old wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to think that he has grown old, that he has forgotten so much, and that the fair, wild days of romance and longing are passed away for ever.

"Ingram thinks I don't understand you yet, Sheila," he said to her after they had got home and their friend had gone.

Sheila only laughed, and said, "I don't understand myself sometimes."

"Eh? What?" he cried. "Do you mean to say that I have married a conundrum? If I have, I don't mean to give you up, any way; so you may go and get me a biscuit and a drop of the whisky we brought from the North with us."



CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRST PLUNGE.

Frank Lavender was a good deal more concerned than he chose to show about the effect that Sheila was likely to produce on his aunt; and when at length the day arrived on which the young folks were to go down to Kensington Gore, he had inwardly to confess that Sheila seemed a great deal less perturbed than himself. Her perfect calmness and self-possession surprised him. The manner in which she had dressed herself, with certain modifications which he could not help approving, according to the fashion of the time, seemed to him a miracle of dexterity; and how had she acquired the art of looking at ease in this attire, which was much more cumbrous than that she had usually worn in Borva?

If Lavender had but known the truth, he would have begun to believe something of what Ingram had vaguely hinted. This poor girl was looking toward her visit to Kensington Gore as the most painful trial of her life. While she was outwardly calm and firm, and even cheerful, her heart sank within her as she thought of the dreaded interview. Those garments which she wore with such an appearance of ease and comfort had been the result of many an hour of anxiety, for how was she to tell, from her husband's railery, what colors the terrible old lady in Kensington would probably like? He did not know that every word he said in joke about his aunt's temper, her peevish ways, the awful consequences of offending her, and so forth, were like so many needles stuck into the girl's heart, until she was ready to cry out to be released from this fearful ordeal. Moreover, as the day came near what he could not see in her she saw in him. Was she likely to be reassured when she perceived that her husband, in spite of all his fun, was really anxious, and when she knew that some blunder on her part might ruin him? In fact, if he had suspected for a moment that she was really trembling to think of what might happen, he might have made some effort to give her courage.

But apparently Sheila was as cool and collected as if she had been going to see John the Piper. He believed she could have gone to be presented to the queen without a single tremor of the heart.

Still, he was a man, and therefore bound to assume an air of patronage. "She won't eat you, really," he said to Sheila as they were driving in a hansom down Kensington Palace Gardens. "All you have got to do is to believe in her theories of food. She won't make you a martyr to them. She measures every half ounce of what she eats, but she won't starve you; and I am glad to think, Sheila, that you have brought a remarkably good and sensible appetite with you from the Lewis. Oh, by the way, take care you say nothing against Marcus Aurelius."

"I don't know who he was, dear," observed Sheila meekly.

"He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher. I suppose it was because he was an emperor that he found it easy to be a philosopher. However, my aunt is nuts on Marcus Aurelius: I beg your pardon, you don't know the phrase. My aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible, and she is sure to read you bits from him, which you must believe, you know."

"I will try," said Sheila doubtfully, "but if—"

"Oh, it has nothing to do with religion. I don't think anybody knows what Marcus Aurelius means, so you may as well believe it. Ingram swears by him, but he is always full of odd crotchets."

"Does Mr. Ingram believe in Marcus Aurelius?" said Sheila with some accession of interest.

"Why, he gave my aunt the book years ago—confound him!—and ever since she has been a nuisance to her friends. For my own part, you know, I don't believe that Marcus Aurelius was quite such an ass as Plato. He talks the same sort of perpetual common-places, but it isn't about the True and the Good and the Beautiful. Would you like me to repeat to you one of the Dialogues of Plato—about the immortality of Mr. Cole and the moral effect of the South Kensington Museum?"

"No, dear, I shouldn't," said Sheila.

"You deprive yourself of a treat, but never mind. Here we are at my aunt's house."

Sheila timidly glanced at the place while her husband paid the cabman. It was a tall, narrow, dingy-looking house of dark brick, with some black green ivy at the foot of the walls, and with crimson curtains formally arranged in every one of the windows. If Mrs. Lavender was a rich old lady, why did she live in such a gloomy building? Sheila had seen beautiful white houses in all parts of London: her own house, for example, was ever so much more cheerful than this one; and yet she had heard with awe of the value of this depressing little mansion in Kensington Gore.

The door was opened by a man, who showed them up stairs and announced their names. Sheila's heart beat quickly. She entered the drawing-room with a sort of mist before her eyes, and found herself going forward to a lady who sat at the farther end. She had a strangely vivid impression, amid all her alarm, that this old lady looked like the withered kernel of a nut. Or was she not like a cockatoo? It was through no anticipation of dislike to Mrs. Lavender that the imagination of the girl got hold of that notion. But the little old lady held her head like a cockatoo. She had the hard, staring, observant and unimpressionable eyes of a cockatoo. What was there, moreover, about the decorations of her head that reminded one of a cockatoo when it puts up its crest and causes its feathers to look like sticks of celery?

"Aunt Caroline, this is my wife."

"I am glad to see you, dear," said the old lady, giving her hand, but not rising. "Sit down. When you are a little nervous you ought to sit down. Frank, give me that ammonia from the mantelpiece."

It was a small glass phial, and labeled "Poison." She smelt the stopper, and then handed it to Sheila, telling her to do the same.

"Why did your maid do your hair in such a way?" she asked suddenly.

"I haven't got a maid," said Sheila, "and I always do my hair so."

"Don't be offended. I like it. But you must not make a fool of yourself. Your hair is too much that of a country beauty going to a ball. Paterson will show you how to do your hair."

"Oh, I say, aunt," cried Lavender with a fine show of carelessness, "you mustn't go and spoil her hair. I think it is very pretty as it is, and that woman of yours would simply go and make a mop of it. You'd think the girls now-a-days dressed their hair by shoving their head into a furze bush and giving it a couple of turns."

She paid no heed to him, but turned to Sheila and said, "You are an only child?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave your father?"

The question was rather a cruel one, and it stung Sheila into answering bravely, "Because my husband wished me."

"Oh. You think your husband is to be the first law of your life?"

"Yes, I do."

"Even when he is only silly Frank Lavender?"

Sheila rose. There was a quivering of her lips, but no weakness in the proud, indignant look of her eyes: "What you may say of me, that I do not care. But I will not remain to hear my husband insulted."

"Sheila," said Lavender, vexed and anxious, and yet pleased at the same time by the courage of the girl—"Sheila, it is only a joke. You must not mind: it is only a bit of fun."

"I do not understand such jests," she said calmly.

"Sit down, like a good girl," said the old lady with an air of absolute indifference. "I did not mean to offend you. Sit down and be quiet. You will destroy your nervous system if you give way to such impulses. I think you are healthy. I like the look of you, but you will never reach a good age, as I hope to do, except by moderating your passions. That is well: now take the ammonia again, and give it to me. You don't wish to die young, I suppose?"

"I am not afraid of dying," said Sheila.

"Ring the bell, Frank."

He did so, and a tall, spare, grave-faced woman appeared.

"Paterson, you must put luncheon on to two-ten. I ordered it at one-fifty, did I not?"

"Yes, m'm."

"See that it is served at two-ten, and take this young lady and get her hair properly done. You understand? My nephew and I will wait luncheon for her."

"Yes, m'm."

Sheila rose with a great swelling in her throat. All her courage had ebbed away. She had reflected how pained her husband would be if she did not please this old lady; and she was now prepared to do anything she was told, to receive meekly any remarks that might be made to her, to be quite obedient and gentle and submissive. But what was this tall and terrible woman going to do to her? Did she really mean to cut away those great masses of hair to which Mrs. Lavender had objected? Sheila would have let her hair be cut willingly for her husband's sake; but as she went to the door some wild and despairing notions came into her head of what her husband might think of her when once she was shorn of this beautiful personal feature. Would he look at her with surprise—perhaps even with disappointment?

"Mind you don't keep luncheon late," he said to her as she passed him.

She but indistinctly heard him, so great was the trembling within her. Her father would scarcely know his altered Sheila when she went back to Borva; and what would Mairi say—Mairi who had many a time helped her to arrange those long tresses, and who was as proud of them as if they were her own? She followed Mrs. Lavender's tall maid up stairs. She entered a small dressing-room and glanced nervously round. Then she suddenly turned, looked for a moment at the woman, and said, with tears rushing up into her eyes, "Does Mrs. Lavender wish me to cut my hair?"

The woman regarded her with astonishment: "Cut, miss?—ma'am. I beg your pardon. No, ma'am, not at all. I suppose it is only some difference in the arrangement, ma'am. Mrs. Lavender is very particular about the hair, and she has asked me to show several ladies how to dress their hair in the way she likes. But perhaps you would prefer letting it remain as it is, ma'am?"

"Oh no, not at all!" said Sheila, "I should like to have it just as Mrs. Lavender wishes—in every way just as she wishes. Only, it will not be necessary to cut any?"

"Oh no, miss—ma'am; and it would be a great pity, if I may say so, to cut your hair."

Sheila was pleased to hear that. Here was a woman who had a large experience in such matters among those very ladies of her husband's social circle whom she had been a little afraid to meet. Mrs. Paterson seemed to admire her hair as much as the simple Mairi had done; and Sheila soon began to have less fear of this terrible tiring-woman, who forthwith proceeded with her task.

The young wife went down stairs with a tower upon her head. She was very uncomfortable. She had seen, it is true, that this method of dressing the hair really became her—or rather would become her in certain circumstances. It was grand, imposing, statuesque, but then she did not feel statuesque just at this moment. She could have dressed herself to suit this style of hair; she could have worn it with confidence if she had got it up herself; but here she was the victim of an experiment. She felt like a school-girl about for the first time to appear in public in a long dress, and she was terribly afraid her husband would laugh at her. If he had any such inclination, he courteously suppressed it. He said the massive simplicity of this dressing of the hair suited her admirably. Mrs. Lavender said that Paterson was an invaluable woman; and then they went down to the dining-room on the ground floor, where luncheon had been laid.

The man who had opened the door waited on the two strangers: the invaluable Paterson acted as a sort of hench-woman to her mistress, standing by her chair and supplying her wants. She also had the management of a small pair of silver scales, in which pretty nearly everything that Mrs. Lavender took in the way of solid food was carefully and accurately weighed. The conversation was chiefly alimentary, and Sheila listened with a growing wonder to the description of the devices by which the ladies of Mrs. Lavender's acquaintance were wont to cheat fatigue or win an appetite or preserve their color. When by accident the girl herself was appealed to, she had to confess to an astonishing ignorance of all such resources. She knew nothing of the relative strengths and effects of wines, though she was frankly ready to make any experiment her husband recommended. She knew what camphor was, but had never heard of bismuth. On cross-examination she had to admit that eau-de-cologne did not seem to her likely to be a pleasant liquor before going to a ball. Did she not know the effect on brown hair of washing it in soda-water every night? She was equably confessing her ignorance on all such points, when she was startled by a sudden question from Mrs. Lavender. Did she know what she was doing?

She looked at her plate: there was on it a piece of cheese to which she had thoughtlessly helped herself. Somebody had called it Roquefort—that was all she knew.

"You have as much there, child, as would kill a ploughman; and I suppose you would not have had the sense to leave it."

"Is it poison?" said Sheila, regarding her plate with horror.

"All cheese is. Paterson, my scales."

She had Sheila's plate brought to her, and the proper modicum of cheese cut, weighed and sent back.

"Remember, whatever house you are at, never to have more Roquefort than that."

"It would be simpler to do without it," said Sheila.

"It would be simple enough to do without a great many things," said Mrs. Lavender severely. "But the wisdom of living is to enjoy as many different things as possible, so long as you do so in moderation and preserve your health. You are young—you don't think of such things. You think, because you have good teeth and a clear complexion, you can eat anything. But that won't last. A time will come. Do you not know what the great emperor Marcus Antoninus says?—'In a little while thou wilt be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus.'"

"Yes," said Sheila.

She had not enjoyed her luncheon much—she would rather have had a ham sandwich and a glass of spring water on the side of a Highland hill than this varied and fastidious repast accompanied by a good deal of physiology—but it was too bad that, having successfully got through it, she should be threatened with annihilation immediately afterward. It was no sort of consolation to her to know that she would be in the same plight with two emperors.

"Frank, you can go and smoke a cigar in the conservatory if you please. Your wife will come up stairs with me and have a talk."

Sheila would much rather have gone into the conservatory also, but she obediently followed Mrs. Lavender up stairs and into the drawing-room. It was rather a melancholy chamber, the curtains shutting out most of the daylight, and leaving you in a semi-darkness that made the place look big and vague and spectral. The little, shriveled woman, with the hard and staring eyes and silver-gray hair, bade Sheila sit down beside her. She herself sat by a small table, on which there were a tiny pair of scales, a bottle of ammonia, a fan, and a book bound in an old-fashioned binding of scarlet morocco and gold. Sheila wished this old woman would not look at her so. She wished there was a window open or a glint of sunlight coming in somewhere. But she was glad that her husband was enjoying himself in the conservatory; and that for two reasons. One of them was, that she did not like the tone of his talk while he and his aunt had been conversing together about cosmetics and such matters. Not only did he betray a marvelous acquaintance with such things, but he seemed to take an odd sort of pleasure in exhibiting his knowledge. He talked about the tricks of fashionable women in a mocking way that Sheila did not quite like; and of course she naturally threw the blame on Mrs. Lavender. It was only when this old lady exerted a godless influence over him that her good boy talked in such a fashion. There was nothing of that about him up in Lewis, nor yet at home in a certain snug little smoking-room which these two had come to consider the most comfortable corner in the house. Sheila began to hate women who used lip-salve, and silently recorded a vow that never, never, never would she wear anybody's hair but her own.

"Do you suffer from headaches?" said Mrs. Lavender abruptly.

"Sometimes," said Sheila.

"How often? What is an average? Two a week?"

"Oh, sometimes I have not a head-ache for three or four months at a time."

"No toothache?"

"No."

"What did your mother die of?"

"It was a fever," said Sheila in a low voice, "and she caught it while she was helping a family that was very bad with the fever."

"Does your father ever suffer from rheumatism?"

"No," said Sheila. "My papa is the strongest man in the Lewis—I am sure of that."

"But the strongest of us, you know," said Mrs. Lavender, looking hardly at the girl—"the strongest of us will die and go into the general order of the universe; and it is a good thing for you that, as you say, you are not afraid. Why should you be afraid? Listen to this passage." She opened the red book, and guided herself to a certain page by one of a series of colored ribbons: "'He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being, and thou wilt not cease to live.' Do you perceive the wisdom of that?"

"Yes," said Sheila, and her own voice seemed hollow and strange to her in this big and dimly-lit chamber.

Mrs. Lavender turned over a few more pages, and proceeded to read again; and as she did so, in a slow, unsympathetic, monotonous voice, a spell came over the girl, the weight at her heart grew more and more intolerable, and the room seemed to grow darker: "'Short, then, is the time which every man lives, and small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short, too, the longest posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died long ago.' You cannot do better than ask your husband to buy you a copy of this book, and give it special study. It will comfort you in affliction, and reconcile you to whatever may happen to you. Listen: 'Soon will the earth cover us all; then the earth, too, will change, and the things also which result from change will continue to change for ever, and these again for ever. For if a man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave, and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.' Do you understand that?"