Certainly it is a great responsibility taking a man into one's life. It is also an astonishment to me that I write thus in detail of Mrs. Dawson, for she has nothing whatever to do with the story.

"Who is it?" asked Mr. Dawson; immediately adding, "Say I'm engaged."

"He gave no name, sir. He says he wishes to see you on business."

"Business! I don't do business at tea time. Send him away."

But Fritzing, for he it was, would not be sent away. Priscilla had seen the cottage of her dreams, seen it almost at once on entering the village, fallen instantly and very violently in love with it regardless of what its inside might be, and had sent him to buy it. She was waiting while he bought it in the adjoining churchyard sitting on a tombstone, and he could neither let her sit there indefinitely nor dare, so great was her eagerness to have the thing, go back without at least a hope of it. Therefore he would not be sent away. "Your master's in," he retorted, when the maid suggested he should depart, "and I must see him. Tell him my business is pressing."

"Will you give me your card, sir?" said the maid, wavering before this determination.

Fritzing, of course, had no card, so he wrote his new name in pencil on a leaf of his notebook, adding his temporary address.

"Tell Mr. Dawson," he said, tearing it out and giving it to her, "that if he is so much engaged as to be unable to see me I shall go direct to Lady Shuttleworth. My business will not wait."

"Show him in, then," growled Mr. Dawson on receiving this message; for he feared Lady Shuttleworth every bit as much as Mrs. Dawson feared him.

Fritzing was accordingly shown into the room used as an office, and was allowed to cool himself there while Mr. Dawson finished his tea. The thought of his Princess waiting on a tombstone that must be growing colder every moment, for the sun was setting, made him at last so impatient that he rang the bell.

"Tell your master," he said when the maid appeared, "that I am now going to Lady Shuttleworth." And he seized his hat and was making indignantly for the door when Mr. Dawson appeared.

Mr. Dawson was wiping his mouth. "You seem to be in a great hurry," he said; and glancing at the slip of paper in his hand added, "Mr. Newman."

"Sir," said Fritzing, bowing with a freezing dignity, "I am."

"Well, so am I. Sit down. What can I do for you? Time's money, you know, and I'm a busy man. You're German, ain't you?"

"I am, sir. My name is Neumann. I am here—"

"Oh, Noyman, is it? I thought it was Newman." And he glanced again at the paper.

"Sir," said Fritzing, with a wave of his hand, "I am here to buy a cottage, and the sooner we come to terms the better. I will not waste valuable moments considering niceties of pronunciation."

Mr. Dawson stared. Then he said, "Buy a cottage?"

"Buy a cottage, sir. I understand that practically the whole of Symford is the property of the Shuttleworth family, and that you are that family's accredited agent. I therefore address myself in the first instance to you. Now, sir, if you are unable, either through disinclination or disability, to do business with me, kindly state the fact at once, and I will straightway proceed to Lady Shuttleworth herself. I have no time to lose."

"I'm blessed if I have either, Mr."—he glanced again at the paper—"Newman."

"Neumann, sir," corrected Fritzing irritably.

"All right—Noyman. But why don't you write it then? You've written Newman as plain as a doorpost."

"Sir, I am not here to exercise you in the proper pronunciation of foreign tongues. These matters, of an immense elementariness I must add, should be and generally are acquired by all persons of any education in their childhood at school."

Mr. Dawson stared. "You're a long-winded chap," he said, "but I'm blessed if I know what you're driving at. Suppose you tell me what you've come for, Mr."—he referred as if from habit to the paper—"Newman."

"Neumann, sir," said Fritzing very loud, for he was greatly irritated by Mr. Dawson's manner and appearance.

"Noymann, then," said Mr. Dawson, equally loudly; indeed it was almost a shout. And he became possessed at the same instant of what was known to Fritzing as a red head, which is the graphic German way of describing the glow that accompanies wrath. "Look here," he said, "if you don't say what you've got to say and have done with it you'd better go. I'm not the chap for the fine-worded game, and I'm hanged if I'll be preached to in my own house. I'll be hanged if I will, do you hear?" And he brought his fist down on the table in a fashion very familiar to Mrs. Dawson and the Symford cottagers.

"Sir, your manners—" said Fritzing, rising and taking up his hat.

"Never mind my manners, Mr. Newman."

"Neumann, sir!" roared Fritzing.

"Confound you, sir," was Mr. Dawson's irrelevant reply.

"Sir, confound you," said Fritzing, clapping on his hat. "And let me tell you that I am going at once to Lady Shuttleworth and shall recommend to her most serious consideration the extreme desirability of removing you, sir."

"Removing me! Where the deuce to?"

"Sir, I care not whither so long as it is hence," cried Fritzing, passionately striding to the door.

Mr. Dawson lay back in his chair and gasped. The man was plainly mad; but still Lady Shuttleworth might—you never know with women—"Look here—hie, you! Mr. Newman!" he called, for Fritzing had torn open the door and was through it.

"Neumann, sir," Fritzing hurled back at him over his shoulder.

"Lady Shuttleworth won't see you, Mr. Noyman. She won't on principle."

Fritzing wavered.

"Everything goes through my hands. You'll only have your walk for nothing. Come back and tell me what it is you want."

"Sir, I will only negotiate with you," said Fritzing down the passage—and Mrs. Dawson hearing him from the drawing-room folded her hands in fear and wonder—"if you will undertake at least to imitate the manners of a gentleman."

"Come, come, you musn't misunderstand me," said Mr. Dawson getting up and going to the door. "I'm a plain man, you know—"

"Then, sir, all I can say is that I object to plain men."

"I say, who are you? One would think you were a duke or somebody, you're so peppery. Dressed up"—Mr. Dawson glanced at the suit of pedagogic black into which Fritzing had once more relapsed—"dressed up as a street preacher."

"I am not dressed up as anything, sir," said Fritzing coming in rather hurriedly. "I am a retired teacher of the German tongue, and have come down from London in search of a cottage in which to spend my remaining years. That cottage I have now found here in your village, and I have come to inquire its price. I wish to buy it as quickly as possible."

"That's all very well, Mr.—oh all right, all right, I won't say it. But why on earth don't you write it properly, then? It's this paper's set me wrong. I was going to say we've got no cottages here for sale. And look here, if that's all you are, a retired teacher, I'll trouble you not to get schoolmastering me again."

"I really think, sir," said Fritzing stretching his hand towards his hat, "that it is better I should try to obtain an interview with Lady Shuttleworth, for I fear you are constitutionally incapable of carrying on a business conversation with the requisite decent self-command."

"Pooh—you'll get nothing out of her. She'll send you back to me. Why, you'd drive her mad in five minutes with that tongue of yours. If you want anything I'm your man. Only let's get at what you do want, without all these confounded dictionary words. Which cottage is it?"

"It is the small cottage," said Fritzing mastering his anger, "adjoining the churchyard. It stands by itself, and is separated from the road by an extremely miniature garden. It is entirely covered by creeping plants which I believe to be roses."

"That's a couple."

"So much the better."

"And they're let. One to the shoemaker, and the other to old mother Shaw."

"Accommodation could no doubt be found for the present tenants in some other house, and I am prepared to indemnify them handsomely. Might I inquire the number of rooms the cottages contain?"

"Two apiece, and a kitchen and attic. Coal-hole and pig-stye in the back yard. Also a pump. But they're not for sale, so what's the use—"

"Sir, do they also contain bathrooms?"

"Bathrooms?" Mr. Dawson stared with so excessively stupid a stare that Fritzing, who heaver could stand stupidity, got angry again.

"I said bathrooms, sir," he said, raising his voice, "and I believe with perfect distinctness."

"Oh, I heard you right enough. I was only wondering if you were trying to be funny."

"Is this a business conversation or is it not?" cried Fritzing, in his turn bringing his fist down on the table.

"Look here, what do you suppose people who live in such places want?"

"I imagine cleanliness and decency as much as anybody else."

"Well, I've never been asked for one with a bathroom in my life."

"You are being asked now," said Fritzing, glaring at him, "but you wilfully refuse to reply. From your manner, however, I conclude that they contain none. If so, no doubt I could quickly have some built."

"Some? Why, how many do you want?"

"I have a niece, sir, and she must have her own."

Mr. Dawson again stared with what seemed to Fritzing so deplorably foolish a stare. "I never heard of such a thing," he said.

"What did you never hear of, sir?"

"I never heard of one niece and one uncle in a labourer's cottage wanting a bathroom apiece."

"Apparently you have never heard of very many things," retorted Fritzing angrily. "My niece desires to have her own bathroom, and it is no one's business but hers."

"She must be a queer sort of girl."

"Sir," cried Fritzing, "leave my niece out of the conversation."

"Oh all right—all right. I'm sure I don't want to talk about your niece. But as for the cottages, it's no good wanting those or any others, for you won't get 'em."

"And pray why not, if I offer a good price?"

"Lady Shuttleworth won't sell. Why should she? She'd only have to build more to replace them. Her people must live somewhere. And she'll never turn out old Shaw and the shoemaker to make room for a couple of strangers."

Fritzing was silent, for his heart was sinking. "Suppose, sir," he said after a pause, during which his eyes had been fixed thoughtfully on the carpet and Mr. Dawson had been staring at him and whistling softly but very offensively, "suppose I informed Lady Shuttleworth of my willingness to build two new cottages—excellent new cottages—for the tenants of these old ones, and pay her a good price as well for these, do you think she would listen to me?"

"I say, the schoolmastering business must be a rattling good one. I'm blessed if I know what you want to live in 'em for if money's so little object with you. They're shabby and uncomfortable, and an old chap like you—I mean, a man of your age, who's made his little pile, and wants luxuries like plenty of bathrooms—ought to buy something tight and snug. Good roof and electric light. Place for horse and trap. And settle down and be a gentleman."

"My niece," said Fritzing, brushing aside these suggestions with an angrily contemptuous wave of his hand, "has taken a fancy—I may say an exceedingly violent fancy—to these two cottages. What is all this talk of traps and horses? My niece wishes for these cottages. I shall do my utmost to secure them for her."

"Well, all I can say is she must be a—"

"Silence, sir!" cried Fritzing.

Mr. Dawson got up and opened the door very wide.

"Look here," he said, "there's no use going on talking. I've stood more from you than I've stood from any one for years. Take my advice and get back home and keep quiet for a bit. I've got no cottages, and Lady Shuttleworth would shut the door in your face when you got to the bathroom part. Where are you staying? At the Cock and Hens? Oh—ah—yes—at Baker's. Well, ask Mrs. Pearce to take great care of you. Tell her I said so. And good afternoon to you, Mr. Noyman. You see I've got the name right now—just as we're going to part."

"Before I go," said Fritzing, glaring down at Mr. Dawson, "let me tell you that I have seldom met an individual who unites in his manner so singularly offensive a combination of facetiousness and hectoring as yourself. I shall certainly describe your conduct to Lady Shuttleworth, and not, I hope, in unconvincing language. Sir, good afternoon."

"By-bye," said Mr. Dawson, grinning and waving a pleasant hand. Several bathrooms indeed! He need have no fears of Lady Shuttleworth. "Good luck to you with Lady S.!" he called after him cheerily. Then he went to his wife and bade her see to it that the servant never let Fritzing in again, explaining that he was not only a foreigner but a lunatic, and that the mixture was so bad that it hardly bore thinking of.



VI

While Fritzing was losing his temper in this manner at the agent's, Priscilla sat up in the churchyard in the sun. The Symford churchyard, its church, and the pair of coveted cottages, are on a little eminence rising like an island out of the valley. Sitting under the trees of this island Priscilla amused herself taking in the quiet scene at her feet and letting her thoughts wander down happy paths. The valley was already in shadow, but the tops of the hills on the west side of it were golden in the late afternoon sunshine. From the cottage chimneys smoke went up straight and blue into the soft sky, rooks came and settled over her head in the branches of the elms, and every now and then a yellow leaf would fall slowly at her feet. Priscilla's heart was filled with peace. She was going to be so good, she was going to lead such a clean and beautiful life, so quiet, so helpful to the poor, so hidden, so cleared of all confusions. Never again would she need to pose; never again be forced into conflict with her soul. She had chosen the better part; she had given up everything and followed after wisdom; and her life would be her justification. Who but knows the inward peace that descends upon him who makes good resolutions and abides with him till he suddenly discovers they have all been broken? And what does the breaking of them matter, since it is their making that is so wholesome, so bracing to the soul, bringing with it moments of such extreme blessedness that he misses much who gives it up for fear he will not keep them? Such blessed moments of lifting up of the heart were Priscilla's as she sat in the churchyard waiting, invisibly surrounded by the most beautiful resolutions it is possible to imagine. The Rev. Edward Morrison, the vicar of whom I have spoken as venerable, coming slowly up the path leaning on his son's arm with the intention of going into the church in search of a mislaid sermon-book, saw Priscilla's thoughtful back under the elm-tree and perceived at once that it was a back unknown to him. He knew all the Symford backs, and tourists hardly ever coming there, and never at that time of the year, it could not, he thought, be the back of a tourist. Nor could it belong to any one staying with the Shuttleworths, for he had been there that very afternoon and had found Lady Shuttleworth rejoicing over the brief period of solitude she and her son were enjoying before the stream of guests for the coming of age festivities began.

"Robin, what girl is that?" asked the vicar of his son.

"I'm sure I don't know," said Robin.

"She'll catch cold," said the vicar.

"I dare say," said Robin.

When they came out of the church ten minutes later Priscilla had not moved.

"She'll certainly catch cold," said the vicar, concerned.

"I should think it very likely," said Robin, locking the door.

"She's sitting on a stone."

"Yes, on old Dawson's slab."

"Unwise," said the vicar.

"Profane," said Robin.

The vicar took his boy's arm again—the boy, head and shoulders taller than his father, was down from Cambridge for the vacation then drawing to its close—and moved, I fear, by the same impulse of pure curiosity they walked together down the path that would take them right in front of the young woman on the slab.

Priscilla was lost in the bright dreams she was weaving, and looked up with the radiance of them still in her eyes at the two figures between her and the sunset.

"My dear young lady," said the vicar kindly, "are you not afraid of catching cold? The evenings are so damp now, and you have chosen a very cold seat."

"I don't feel cold," said Priscilla, smiling at this vision of benevolence.

"But I do think you ought not to linger here," said the vicar.

"I am waiting for my uncle. He's gone to buy a cottage, and ought to be back, really, by now."

"Buy a cottage?" repeated the vicar. "My dear young lady, you say that in the same voice you might use to tell me your uncle had gone to buy a bun."

"What is a bun?" asked Priscilla.

"A bun?" repeated the vicar bewildered, for nobody had ever asked him that before.

"Oh I know—" said Priscilla quickly, faintly flushing, "it's a thing you eat. Is there a special voice for buns?"

"There is for a thing so—well, so momentous as the buying of a cottage."

"Is it momentous? It seems to me so nice and natural."

She looked up at the vicar and his son, calmly scrutinizing first one and then the other, and they stood looking down at her; and each time her eyes rested on Robin they found his staring at her with the frankest expression of surprise and admiration.

"Pardon me," said the vicar, "if I seem inquisitive, but is it one of the Symford cottages your uncle wishes to buy? I did not know any were for sale."

"It's that one by the gate," said Priscilla, slightly turning her head in its direction.

"Is it for sale? Dear me, I never knew Lady Shuttleworth sell a cottage yet."

"I don't know yet if she wants to," said Priscilla; "but Fr—, my uncle, will give any price. And I must have it. I shall—I shall be ill if I don't."

The vicar gazed at her upturned face in perplexity. "Dear me," he said, after a slight pause.

"We must live somewhere," remarked Priscilla.

"Of course you must," said Robin, suddenly and so heartily that she examined his eager face in more detail.

"Quite so, quite so," said the vicar. "Are you staying here at present?"

"Never at the Cock and Hens?" broke in Robin.

"We're at Baker's Farm."

"Ah yes—poor Mrs. Pearce will be glad of lodgers. Poor soul, poor soul."

"She's a very dirty soul," said Robin; and Priscilla's eyes flashed over him with a sudden sparkle.

"Is she the soul with the holes in its apron?" she asked.

"I expect there are some there. There generally are," said Robin.

They both laughed; but the vicar gently shook his head. "Ah well, poor thing," he said, "she has an uphill life of it. They don't seem able—they don't seem to understand the art of making both ends meet."

"It's a great art," said Robin.

"Perhaps they could be helped," said Priscilla, already arranging in her mind to go and do it.

"They do not belong to the class one can help. And Lady Shuttleworth, I am afraid, disapproves of shiftless people too much to do anything in the way of reducing the rent."

"Lady Shuttleworth can't stand people who don't look happy and don't mend their apron," said Robin.

"But it's her own apron," objected Priscilla.

"Exactly," said Robin.

"Well, well, I hope they'll make you comfortable," said the vicar; and having nothing more that he could well say without having to confess to himself that he was inquisitive, he began to draw Robin away. "We shall see you and your uncle on Sunday in church, I hope," he said benevolently, and took off his hat and showed his snow-white hair.

Priscilla hesitated. She was, it is true, a Protestant, it having been arranged on her mother's marriage with the Catholic Grand Duke that every alternate princess born to them was to belong to the Protestant faith, and Priscilla being the alternate princess it came about that of the Grand Duke's three children she alone was not a Catholic. Therefore she could go to church in Symford as often as she chose; but it was Fritzing's going that made her hesitate, for Fritzing was what the vicar would have called a godless man, and never went to church.

"You are a member of the Church of England?" inquired the vicar, seeing her hesitate.

"Why, pater, she's not English," burst out Robin.

"Not English?" echoed the vicar.

"Is my English so bad?" asked Priscilla, smiling.

"It's frightfully good," said Robin; "but the 'r's,' you know—"

"Ah, yes. No, I'm not English. I'm German."

"Indeed?" said the vicar, with all the interest that attaches to any unusual phenomenon, and a German in Symford was of all phenomena the most unusual. "My dear young lady, how remarkable. I don't remember ever having met a German before in these parts. Your English is really surprising. I should never have noticed—my boy's ears are quicker than my old ones. Will you think me unpardonably curious if I ask what made you pitch on Symford as a place to live in?"

"My uncle passed through it years ago and thought it so pretty that he determined to spend his old age here."

"And you, I suppose, are going to take care of him."

"Yes," said Priscilla, "for we only"—she looked from one to the other and thought herself extremely clever—"we only have each other in the whole wide world."

"Ah, poor child—you are an orphan."

"I didn't say so," said Priscilla quickly, turning red; she who had always been too proud to lie, how was she going to lie now to this aged saint with the snow-white hair?

"Ah well, well," said the vicar, vaguely soothing. "We shall see you on Sunday perhaps. There is no reason that I know of why a member of the German Church should not assist at the services of the Church of England." And he took off his hat again, and tried to draw Robin away.

But Robin lingered, and Priscilla saw so much bright curiosity in his eyes that she felt she was giving an impression of mysteriousness; and this being the last thing she wanted to do she thought she had better explain a little—always a dangerous course to take—and she said, "My uncle taught languages for years, and is old now and tired, and we both long for the country and to be quiet. He taught me English—that's why it's as good as it is. His name"—She was carried away by the desire to blow out that questioning light in Robin's eyes—"his name is Schultz."

The vicar bowed slightly, and Robin asked with an air of great politeness but still with that light in his eyes if he were to address her, then, as Miss Schultz.

"I'm afraid so," said Priscilla, regretfully. It really sounded gross. Miss Schultz? She might just as well have chosen something romantic while she was about it, for Fritzing in the hurry of many cares had settled nothing yet with her about a name.

Robin stared at her very hard, her answer seemed to him so odd. He stared still more when she looked up with the air of one who has a happy thought and informed him that her Christian name was Ethel.

"Ethel?" echoed Robin.

"It's a very pretty name, I think," said Priscilla, looking pleased.

"Our housemaid's called Ethel, and so is the little girl that wheels the gardener's baby's perambulator," was Robin's impetuous comment.

"That doesn't make it less pretty," said Priscilla, frowning.

"Surely," interrupted the vicar mildly, "Ethel is not a German name?"

"I was christened after my mother," said Priscilla gently; and this was strictly true, for the deceased Grand Duchess had also been Priscilla. Then a feeling came over her that she was getting into those depths where persons with secrets begin to flounder as a preliminary to letting them out, and seized with panic she got up off the slab.

"You are half English, then," said Robin triumphantly, his bright eyes snapping. He looked very bold and masterful staring straight at her, his head thrown back, his handsome face twinkling with interest. But a person of Priscilla's training could not possibly be discomposed by the stare of any Robin, however masterful; had it not been up to now her chief function in life to endure being stared at with graceful indifference? "I did not say so," she said, glancing briefly at him; and including both father and son in a small smile composed indescribably of graciousness and chill she added, "It really is damp here—I don't think I'll wait for my uncle," and slightly bowing walked away without more ado.

She walked very slowly, her skirts gathered loosely in one hand, every line of her body speaking of the most absolute self-possession and unapproachableness. Never had the two men seen any one quite so calm. They watched her in silence as she went up the path and out at the gate; then Robin looked down at his father and drew his hand more firmly through his arm and said with a slight laugh, "Come on, pater, let's go home. We're dismissed."

"By a most charming young lady," said the vicar, smiling.

"By a very cool one," said Robin, shrugging his shoulders, for he did not like being dismissed.

"Yes—oddly self-possessed for her age," agreed the vicar.

"I wonder if all German teacher's nieces are like that," said Robin with another laugh.

"Few can be so blest by nature, I imagine."

"Oh, I don't mean faces. She is certainly prettier by a good bit than most girls."

"She is quite unusually lovely, young man. Don't quibble."

"Miss Schultz—Ethel Schultz," murmured Robin; adding under his breath, "Good Lord."

"She can't help her name. These things are thrust upon one."

"It's a beastly common name. Macgrigor, who was a year in Dresden, told me everybody in Germany is called Schultz."

"Except those who are not."

"Now, pater, you're being clever again," said Robin, smiling down at his father.

"Here comes some one in a hurry," said the vicar, his attention arrested by the rapidly approaching figure of a man; and, looking up, Robin beheld Fritzing striding through the churchyard, his hat well down over his eyes as if clapped on with unusual vigour, both hands thrust deep in his pockets, the umbrella, without which he never, even on the fairest of days, went out, pressed close to his side under his arm, and his long legs taking short and profane cuts over graves and tombstones with the indifference to decency of one immersed in unpleasant thought. It was not the custom in Symford to leap in this manner over its tombs; and Fritzing arriving at a point a few yards from the vicar, and being about to continue his headlong career across the remaining graves to the tree under which he had left Priscilla, the vicar raised his voice and exhorted him to keep to the path.

"Quaint-looking person," remarked Robin. "Another stranger. I say, it can't be—no, it can't possibly be the uncle?" For he saw he was a foreigner, yet on the other hand never was there an uncle and a niece who had less of family likeness.

Fritzing was the last man wilfully to break local rules or wound susceptibilities; and pulled out of his unpleasant abstraction by the vicar's voice he immediately desisted from continuing his short cut, and coming onto the path removed his hat and apologized with the politeness that was always his so long as nobody was annoying him.

"My name is Neumann, sir," he said, introducing himself after the German fashion, "and I sincerely beg your pardon. I was looking for a lady, and"—he gave his spectacles a little adjusting shove as though they were in fault, and gazing across to the elm where he had left Priscilla sitting added with sudden anxiety—"I fear I do not see her."

"Do you mean Miss Schultz?" asked the vicar, looking puzzled.

"No, sir, I do not mean Miss Schultz," said Fritzing, peering about him at all the other trees in evident surprise and distress.

"A lady left about five minutes ago," said Robin.

"A tall young lady in a blue costume?"

"Yes. Miss Schultz."

Fritzing looked at him with some sternness. "Sir, what have I to do with Miss Schultz?" he inquired.

"Oh come now," said the cheerful Robin, "aren't you looking for her?"

"I am in search of my niece, sir."

"Yes. Miss Schultz."

"No sir," said Fritzing, controlling himself with an effort, "not Miss Schultz. I neither know Miss Schultz nor do I care a—"

"Sir, sir," interposed the vicar, hastily.

"I do not care a pfenning for any Miss Schultz."

The vicar looked much puzzled. "There was a young lady," he said, "waiting under that tree over there for her uncle who had gone, she said, to see Lady Shuttleworth's agent about the cottage by the gate. She said her uncle's name was Schultz."

"She said she was Miss Ethel Schultz," said Robin.

"She said she was staying at Baker's Farm," said the vicar.

Fritzing stared for a moment from one to the other, then clutching his hat mechanically half an inch into the air turned on his heel without another word and went with great haste out of the churchyard and down the hill and away up the road to the farm.

"Quaint, isn't he," said Robin as they slowly followed this flying figure to the gate.

"I don't understand it," said the vicar.

"It does seem a bit mixed."

"Did he not say his name was Neumann?"

"He did. And he looked as if he'd fight any one who said it wasn't."

"It is hardly credible that there should be two sets of German uncles and nieces in Symford at one and the same time," mused the vicar. "Even one pair is a most unusual occurrence."

"If there are," said Robin very earnestly, "pray let us cultivate the Schultz set and not the other."

"I don't understand it," repeated the vicar, helplessly.



VII

Symford, innocent village, went to bed very early; but early as it went long before it had got there on this evening it contained no family that had not heard of the arrivals at Baker's Farm. From the vicarage the news had filtered that a pretty young lady called Schultz was staying there with her uncle; from the agent's house the news that a lunatic called Neumann was staying there with his niece; and about supper-time, while it was still wondering at this sudden influx of related Germans, came the postmistress and said that the boy from Baker's who fetched the letters knew nothing whatever of any one called Schultz. He had, said the postmistress, grown quite angry and forgotten the greater and by far the better part of his manners when she asked him how he could stand there and say such things after all the years he had attended Sunday-school and if he were not afraid the earth would open and swallow him up, and he had stuck to it with an obstinacy that had at length convinced her that only one uncle and niece were at Baker's, and their name was Neumann. He added that there was another young lady there whose name he couldn't catch, but who sat on the edge of her bed all day crying and refusing sustenance. Appeased by the postmistress's apologies for her first unbelief he ended by being anxious to give all the information in his power, and came back quite a long way to tell her that he had forgotten to say that his mother had said that the niece's Christian name was Maria-Theresa.

"But what, then," said the vicar's wife to the vicar when this news had filtered through the vicarage walls to the very sofa where she sat, "has become of the niece called Ethel?"

"I don't know," said the vicar, helplessly.

"Perhaps she is the one who cried all day."

"My dear, we met her in the churchyard."

"Perhaps they are forgers," suggested the vicar's wife.

"My dear?"

"Or anarchists."

"Kate?"

The vicar's wife said no more, but silently made up her mind to go the very next day and call at Baker's. It would be terrible if a bad influence got into Symford, her parish that she had kept in such good order for so long. Besides, she had an official position as the wife of the vicar and could and ought to call on everybody. Her call would not bind her, any more than the call of a district visitor would, to invite the called-upon to her house. Perhaps they were quite decent, and she could ask the girl up to the Tuesday evenings in the parish-room; hardly to the vicarage, because of her daughter Netta. On the other hand, if they looked like what she imagined anarchists or forgers look like, she would merely leave leaflets and be out when they returned her call.

Robin, all unaware of his mother's thoughts, was longing to ask her to go to Baker's and take him with her as a first step towards the acquaintance after which his soul thirsted, but he refrained for various discreet reasons based on an intimate knowledge of his mother's character; and he spent the evening perfecting a plan that should introduce him into the interior of Baker's without her help. The plan was of a barbarous simplicity: he was going to choose an umbrella from the collection that years had brought together in the stand in the hall, and go boldly and ask the man Neumann if he had dropped it in the churchyard. The man Neumann would repudiate the umbrella, perhaps with secret indignation, but he would be forced to pretend he was grateful, and who knew what luck might not do for him after that?

While Robin was plotting, and his mother was plotting, that the next day would certainly see them inside Baker's, a third person was trying to do exactly the same thing at Symford Hall; and this third person was no other than Augustus, the hope of all the Shuttleworths. Augustus—he was known to his friends briefly as Tussie—had been riding homewards late that afternoon, very slowly, for he was an anxious young man who spent much of his time dodging things like being overheated, when he saw a female figure walking towards him along the lonely road. He was up on the heath above Symford, a solitary place of heather, and gorse bushes, and winding roads that lead with many hesitations and delays to different parts of Exmoor, and he himself with his back to that wild region and the sunset was going, as every sensible person would be going at that time of the evening, in the direction of the village and home. But where could the girl be going? For he now saw it was a girl, and in a minute or two more that it was a beautiful girl. With the golden glow of the sky the sun had just left on her face Priscilla came towards him out of the gathering dusk of approaching evening, and Tussie, who had a poetic soul, gazed at the vision openmouthed. Seeing him, she quickened her steps, and he took off his cap eagerly when she asked him to tell her where Symford was. "I've lost it," she said, looking up at him.

"I'm going through it myself," he answered. "Will you let me show you the way?"

"Thank you," said Priscilla; and he got off his horse and she turned and walked beside him with the same unruffled indifference with which she would have walked beside the Countess Disthal or in front of an attending lacquey. Nor did she speak, for she was busy thinking of Fritzing and hoping he was not being too anxious about her, and Tussie (God defend his innocence) thought she was shy. So sure was he as the minutes past that her silence was an embarrassed one that he put an end to it by remarking on the beauty of the evening, and Priscilla who had entirely forgotten Miss Schultz gave him the iciest look as a reminder that it was not his place to speak first. It was lost on Tussie as a reminder, for naturally it did not remind him of anything, and he put it down at first to the girl's being ill at ease alone up there with a strange man, and perhaps to her feeling she had better keep him at arm's length. A glance at her profile however dispelled this illusion once and for ever, for never was profile of a profounder calm. She was walking now with her face in shadow, and the glow behind her played strange and glorious tricks with her hair. He looked at her, and looked, and not by the quiver of an eyelash did she show she was aware of anybody's presence. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and she was deep in thought tinged with remorsefulness that she should have come up here instead of going straight home to the farm, and by losing her way and staying out so long have given Fritzing's careful heart an unnecessary pang of anxiety. He had had so many, and all because of her. But then it had been the very first time in her life that she had ever walked alone, and if words cannot describe the joy and triumph of it how was it likely that she should have been able to resist the temptation to stray aside up a lovely little lane that lured her on and on from one bend to another till it left her at last high up, breathless and dazzled, on the edge of the heath, with Exmoor rolling far away in purple waves to the sunset and all the splendour of the evening sky in her face? She had gone on, fascinated by the beauty of the place, and when she wanted to turn back found she had lost herself. Then appeared Sir Augustus to set her right, and with a brief thought of him as a useful person on a nice horse she fell into sober meditations as to the probable amount of torture her poor Fritzi was going through, and Augustus ceased to exist for her as completely as a sign-post ceases to exist for him who has taken its advice and passed on.

He looked at her, and looked, and looked again. He had never seen any one quite so beautiful, and certainly never any one with such an air of extreme detachment. He was twenty-one and much inclined to poetry, and he thought as she walked beside him so tall and straight and aloof, with the nimbus of flaming hair and the noble little head and slightly stern brow that she looked like nothing less than a young saint of God.

Tussie was not bold like Robin. He was a gentle youth who loved quiet things, quiet places, placid people, kind dogs, books, canaries even, if they did not sing too loud. He was sensitive about himself, being small and weakly, and took, as I have said, great care of what he had of health, such care indeed that some of his robust friends called him Fussie. He hated the idea of coming of age and of having a great deal of money and a great many active duties and responsibilities. His dream was to be left in peace to write his verses; to get away into some sweet impossible wilderness, and sit there singing with as much of the spirit of Omar Kayyam as could reasonably be expected to descend on a youth who only drank water. He was not bold, I say; and after that one quelling glance from the young saint's eyes did not dare speak again for a long while. But they were getting near Symford; they were halfway down the hill; he could not let her slip away perhaps suddenly from his side into the shadows without at least trying to find out where she was staying. He looked at her soft kind mouth and opened his own to speak. He looked at her stern level brows and shut it again. At last, keeping his eyes on her mouth he blurted out, growing red, "I know every soul in Symford, and every soul for miles round, but I don't know—" He stopped. He was going to say "you," but he stopped.

Priscilla's thoughts were so far away that she turned her head and gazed vaguely at him for a moment while she collected them again. Then she frowned at him. I do not know why Robin should have had at least several smiles and poor Tussie only frowns, unless it was that during this walk the young person Ethel Schultz had completely faded from Priscilla's mind and the Royal Highness was well to the fore. She certainly frowned at Tussie and asked herself what could possess the man to keep on speaking to her. Keep on speaking! Poor Tussie. Aloud she said freezingly, "Did you say something?"

"Yes," said Tussie, his eyes on her mouth—surely a mouth only made for kindness and gentle words. "I was wondering whether you were staying at the vicarage."

"No," said Priscilla, "we're staying at Baker's Farm." And at the mention of that decayed lodging the friendly Schultz expression crept back, smiling into her eyes.

Tussie stopped short. "Baker's Farm?" he said. "Why, then this is the way; down here, to the right. It's only a few yards from here."

"Were you going that way too?"

"I live on the other side of Symford."

"Then good-bye and thank you."

"Please let me go with you as far as the high-road—it's almost dark."

"Oh no—I can't lose myself again if it's only a few yards."

She nodded, and was turning down the lane.

"Are you—are you comfortable there?" he asked hurriedly, blushing. "The Pearces are tenants of ours. I hope they make you comfortable?"

"Oh, we're only going to be there a few days. My uncle is buying a cottage, and we shall leave almost directly."

The girl Ethel nodded and smiled and went away quickly into the dusk; and Tussie rode home thoughtfully, planning elaborate plans for a descent the next day upon Baker's Farm that should have the necessary air of inevitableness.

Fritzing was raging up and down the road in front of the gate when Priscilla emerged, five minutes later, from the shadows of the lane. She ran up to him and put her arm through his, and looked up at him with a face of great penitence. "Dear Fritzi," she said, "I'm so sorry. I've been making you anxious, haven't I? Forgive me—it was the first taste of liberty, and it got into my feet and set them off exploring, and then I lost myself. Have you been worrying?"

He was immensely agitated, and administered something very like a scolding, and he urged the extreme desirability of taking Annalise with her in future wherever she went—("Oh nonsense, Fritzi," interjected Priscilla, drawing away her arm)—and he declared in a voice that trembled that it was a most intolerable thought for him that two strange men should have dared address her in the churchyard, that he would never forgive himself for having left her there alone—("Oh, Fritzi, how silly," interjected Priscilla)—and he begged her almost with tears to tell him exactly what she had said to them, for her Grand Ducal Highness must see that it was of the first importance they should both say the same things to people.

Priscilla declared she had said nothing at all but what was quite diplomatic, in fact quite clever; indeed, she had been surprised at the way ideas had seemed to flow.

"So please," she finished, "don't look at me with such lamentable eyes."

"Ma'am, did you not tell them our name is Schultz?"

"But so it is."

"It is not, ma'am. Our name is Neumann."

Priscilla stared astonished. "Neumann?" she said. "Nonsense, Fritzi. Why should it be Neumann? We're Schultz. I told these people we were. It's all settled."

"Settled, ma'am? I told the woman here as well as the estate agent that you are my brother's child and that we are Neumann."

Priscilla was aghast. Then she said severely, "It was your duty to ask me first. What right have you to christen me?"

"I intended to discuss it during our walk to the village this afternoon. I admit I forgot it. On the other hand I could not suppose your Grand Ducal Highness, left for a moment unprotected, would inform two strange gentlemen that our name was Schultz."

"You should certainly have asked me first," repeated Priscilla with knitted brows. "Why should I have to be Neumann?"

"I might inquire with equal reason why I should have to be Schultz," retorted Fritzing.

"But why Neumann?" persisted Priscilla, greatly upset.

"Ma'am, why not?" said Fritzing, still more upset. Then he added, "Your Grand Ducal Highness might have known that at the agent's I would be obliged to give some name."

"I didn't think any more than you did," said Priscilla stopping in front of the gate as a sign he was to open it for her. He did, and they walked through the garden and into the house in silence. Then she went into the parlour and dropped into a horsehair armchair, and leaning her head against its prickliness she sighed a doleful sigh.

"Shall I send Annalise to you, ma'am?" asked Fritzing, standing in the doorway.

"What can we do?" asked Priscilla, her eyes fixed on the tips of her shoes in earnest thought. "Come in, Fritzi, and shut the door," she added. "You don't behave a bit like an uncle." Then an idea struck her, and looking up at him with sudden gaiety she said, "Can't we have a hyphen?"

"A hyphen?"

"Yes, and be Neumann-Schultz?"

"Certainly we can," said Fritzing, his face clearing; how muddled he must be getting not to have thought of it himself! "I will cause cards to be printed at once, and we will be Neumann-Schultz. Ma'am, your woman's wit—"

"Fritzi, you're deteriorating—you never flattered me at Kunitz. Let us have tea. I invite you to tea with me. If you'll order it, I'll pour it out for you and practice being a niece."

So the evening was spent in harmony; a harmony clouded at intervals, it is true, first by Priscilla's disappointment about the cottage, then by a certain restiveness she showed before the more blatant inefficiencies of the Baker housekeeping, then by a marked and ever recurring incapacity to adapt herself to her new environment, and lastly and very heavily when Fritzing in the course of conversation let drop the fact that he had said she was Maria-Theresa. This was a very black cloud and hung about for a long while; but it too passed away ultimately in a compromise reached after much discussion that Ethel should be prefixed to Maria-Theresa; and before Priscilla went to bed it had been arranged that Fritzing should go next morning directly after a very early breakfast to Lady Shuttleworth and not leave that lady's side and house till he had secured the cottage, and the Princess for her part faithfully promised to remain within the Baker boundaries during his absence.



VIII

Lady Shuttleworth then, busiest and most unsuspecting of women, was whisking through her breakfast and her correspondence next morning with her customary celerity and method, when a servant appeared and offered her one of those leaves from Fritzing's note-book which we know did duty as his cards.

Tussie was sitting at the other end of the table very limp and sad after a night of tiresome tossing that was neither wholly sleep nor wholly wakefulness, and sheltered by various dishes with spirit-lamps burning beneath them worked gloomily at a sonnet inspired by the girl he had met the day before while his mother thought he was eating his patent food. The girl, it seemed, could not inspire much, for beyond the fourth line his muse refused to go; and he was beginning to be unable to stop himself from an angry railing at the restrictions the sonnet form forces upon poets who love to be vague, which would immediately have concentrated his mother's attention on himself and resulted in his having to read her what he had written—for she sturdily kept up the fiction of a lively interest in his poetic tricklings—when the servant came in with Fritzing's leaf.

"A gentleman wishes to see you on business, my lady," said the servant.

"Mr. Neumann-Schultz?" read out Lady Shuttleworth in an inquiring voice. "Never heard of him. Where's he from?"

"Baker's Farm, my lady."

At that magic name Tussie's head went up with a jerk.

"Tell him to go to Mr. Dawson," said Lady Shuttleworth.

The servant disappeared.

"Why do you send him away, mother?" asked Tussie.

"Why, you know things must go through Dawson," said Lady Shuttleworth pouncing on her letters again. "I'd be plagued to death if they didn't."

"But apparently this is the stranger within our gates. Isn't he German?"

"His name is. Dawson will be quite kind to him."

"Dawson's rather a brute I fancy, when you're not looking."

"Dearest, I always am looking."

"He must be one of Pearce's lodgers."

"Poor man, I'm sorry for him if he is. Of all the shiftless women—"

"The gentleman says, my lady," said the servant reappearing with rather an awestruck face, "that he wishes to speak to you most particular."

"James, did I not tell you to send him to Mr. Dawson?"

"I delivered the message, my lady. But the gentleman says he's seen Mr. Dawson, and that he"—the footman coughed slightly—"he don't want to see any more of him, my lady."

Lady Shuttleworth put on her glasses and stared at the servant. "Upon my word he seems to be very cool," she said; and the servant, his gaze fixed on a respectful point just above his mistress's head, reflected on the extreme inapplicability of the adjective to anything so warm as the gentleman at the door.

"Shall I see him for you, mother?" volunteered Tussie briskly.

"You?" said his mother surprised.

"I'm rather a dab at German, you know. Perhaps he can't talk much English"—the footman started—"evidently he wasn't able to say much to Dawson. Probably he wants you to protect him from the onslaughts of old Pearce's cockroaches. Anyhow as he's a foreigner I think it would be kinder to see him."

Lady Shuttleworth was astonished. Was Tussie going to turn over a new leaf after all, now that he was coming of age, and interest himself in more profitable things than verse-making?

"Dearest," she said, quite touched, "he shall be seen if you think it kinder. I'll see him—you haven't done breakfast yet. Show him into the library, James." And she gathered up her letters and went out—she never kept people waiting—and as she passed Tussie she laid her hand tenderly for a moment on his shoulder. "If I find I can't understand him I'll send for you," she said.

Tussie folded up his sonnet and put it in his pocket. Then he ate a few spoonfuls of the stuff warranted to give him pure blood, huge muscles, and a vast intelligence; then he opened a newspaper and stared vacantly at its contents; then he went to the fire and warmed his feet; then he strolled round the table aimlessly for a little; and then, when half an hour had passed and his mother had not returned, he could bear it no longer and marched straight into the library.

"I think the cigarettes must be here," said Tussie, going over to the mantelpiece and throwing a look of eager interest at Fritzing.

Fritzing rose and bowed ceremoniously. Lady Shuttleworth was sitting in a straight-backed chair, her elbows on its arms, the tips of her ten fingers nicely fitted together. She looked very angry, and yet there was a sparkle of something like amusement in her eyes. Having bowed to Tussie Fritzing sat down again with the elaboration of one who means to stay a long while. During his walk from the farm he had made up his mind to be of a most winning amiability and patience, blended with a determination that nothing should shake. At the door, it is true, he had been stirred to petulance by the foolish face and utterances of the footman James, but during the whole of the time he had been alone with Lady Shuttleworth he had behaved, he considered, with the utmost restraint and tact.

Tussie offered him a cigarette.

"My dear Tussie," said his mother quickly, "we will not keep Mr. Neumann-Schultz. I'm sure his time must be quite as valuable as mine is."

"Oh madam," said Fritzing with a vast politeness, settling himself yet more firmly in his chair, "nothing of mine can possibly be of the same value as anything of yours."

Lady Shuttleworth stared—she had stared a good deal during the last halfhour—then began to laugh, and got up. "If you see its value so clearly," she said, "I'm sure you won't care to take up any more of it."

"Nay, madam," said Fritzing, forced to get up too, "I am here, as I explained, in your own interests—or rather in those of your son, who I hear is shortly to attain his majority. This young gentleman is, I take it, your son?"

Tussie assented.

"And therefore the owner of the cottages?"

"What cottages?" asked Tussie, eagerly. He was manifestly so violently interested in Mr. Neumann-Schultz that his mother could only gaze at him in wonder. He actually seemed to hang on that odd person's lips.

"My dear Tussie, Mr. Neumann-Schultz has been trying to persuade me to sell him the pair of cottages up by the church, and I have been trying to persuade him to believe me when I tell him I won't."

"But why won't you, mother?" asked Tussie.

Lady Shuttleworth stared at him in astonishment. "Why won't I? Do I ever sell cottages?"

"Your esteemed parent's reasons for refusing," said Fritzing, "reasons which she has given me with a brevity altogether unusual in one of her sex and which I cannot sufficiently commend, do more credit, as was to be expected in a lady, to her heart than to her head. I have offered to build two new houses for the disturbed inhabitants of these. I have offered to give her any price—any price at all, within the limits of reason. Your interests, young gentleman, are what will suffer if this business is not concluded between us."

"Do you want them for yourself?" asked Tussie.

"Yes, sir, for myself and for my niece."

"Mother, why do you refuse to do a little business?"

"Tussie, are we so poor?"

"As far as I'm concerned," said Tussie airily to Fritzing, "you may have the things and welcome."

"Tussie?"

"But they are not worth more than about fifty pounds apiece, and I advise you not to give more for them than they're worth. Aren't they very small, though? Isn't there any other place here you'd rather have?"

"Tussie?"

"Do you mind telling me why you want them?"

"Young man, to live in them."

"And where are the people to live who are in them now?" asked Lady Shuttleworth, greatly incensed.

"Madam, I promised you to build."

"Oh nonsense. I won't have new red-brick horrors about the place. There's that nice good old Mrs. Shaw in one, so clean and tidy always, and the shoemaker, a very good man except for his enormous family, in the other. I will not turn them out."

"Put 'em in the empty lodge at the north gate," suggested Tussie. "They'd be delighted."

Lady Shuttleworth turned angrily on Fritzing—she was indeed greatly irritated by Tussie's unaccountable behaviour. "Why don't you build for yourself?" she asked.

"My niece has set her heart on these cottages in such a manner that I actually fear the consequences to her health if she does not get them."

"Now, mother, you really can't make Mr. Neumann-Schultz's niece ill."

"Dearest boy, have you suddenly lost your senses?"

"Not unless it's losing them to be ready to do a kindness."

"Well said, well said, young man," said Fritzing approvingly.

"Tussie, have I ever shirked doing a kindness?" asked Lady Shuttleworth, touched on her tenderest point.

"Never. And that's why I can't let you begin now," said Tussie, smiling at her.

"Well said, well said, young man," approved Fritzing. "The woman up to a certain age should lead the youth, and he should in all things follow her counsels with respect and obedience. But she for her part should know at what moment to lay down her authority, and begin, with a fitting modesty, to follow him whom she has hitherto led."

"Is that what your niece does?" asked Lady Shuttleworth quickly.

"Madam?"

"Is she following you into these cottages, or are you following her?"

"You must pardon me, madam, if I decline to discuss my niece."

"Do have a cigarette," said Tussie, delighted.

"I never smoke, young man."

"Something to drink, then?"

"I never drink, young man."

"If I decide to let you have these cottages—if I do," said Lady Shuttleworth, divided between astonishment at everything about Fritzing and blankest amazement at her son's behaviour, "you will understand that I only do it because my son seems to wish it."

"Madam, provided I get the cottages I will understand anything you like."

"First that. Then I'd want some information about yourself. I couldn't let a stranger come and live in the very middle of my son's estate unless I knew all about him."

"Why, mother—" began Tussie.

"Is not the willingness to give you your own price sufficient?" inquired Fritzing anxiously.

"Not in the least sufficient," snapped Lady Shuttleworth.

"What do you wish to know, madam?" said Fritzing stiffly.

"I assure you a great deal."

"Come, mother," said Tussie, to whom this was painful, for was not the man, apart from his strange clothes and speeches, of a distinctly refined and intellectual appearance? And even if he wasn't, was he not still the uncle of that divine niece?—"these are things for Dawson to arrange."

Fritzing started at the hated name, and began to frown dreadfully. His frown was always very impressive because of his bushy eyebrows and deep-set eyes. "Dawson, as you call him," he said, "and he certainly has no claim to any prefix of politeness, is not a person with whom I will consent to arrange anything. Dawson is the most offensive creature who ever walked this earth clad in the outer semblance of one of God's creatures."

This was too much for Lady Shuttleworth. "Really—" she said, stretching out her hand to the bell.

"Didn't I tell you so, mother?" cried Tussie triumphantly; and that Tussie, her own dear boy, should in all things second this madman completely overwhelmed her. "I knew he was a brute behind your back. Let's sack him."

"James, show this gentleman out."

"Pardon me, madam, we have not yet arranged—"

"Oh," interrupted Tussie, "the business part can be arranged between you and me without bothering my mother. I'll come part of the way with you and we'll talk it over. You're absolutely right about Dawson. He's an outrageous mixture of bully and brute." And he hurried into the hall to fetch his cap, humming O dear unknown One with the stern sweet face, which was the first line of his sonnet in praise of Priscilla, to a cheerful little tune of his own.

"Tussie, it's so damp," cried his anxious mother after him—"you're not really going out in this nasty Scotch mist? Stay in, and I'll leave you to settle anything you like."

"Oh, it's a jolly morning for a walk," called back Tussie gaily, searching about for his cap—"And eyes all beautiful with strenuous thought—Come on, sir."

But Fritzing would not skimp any part of his farewell ceremonies.

"Permit me, madam," he said, deeply bowing, "to thank you for your extremely kind reception."

"Kind?" echoed Lady Shuttleworth, unable to stop herself from smiling.

"Yes, madam, kind, and before all things patient."

"Yes, I do think I've been rather patient," agreed Lady Shuttleworth, smiling again.

"And let me," proceeded Fritzing, "join to my thanks my congratulations on your possession of so unusually amiable and promising a son."

"Come on, sir—you'll make me vain," said Tussie, in the doorway—"'Hair like a web divine wherein is caught,'"—he hummed, getting more and more shrill and happy.

Lady Shuttleworth put out her hand impulsively. Fritzing took it, bent over it, and kissed it with much respect.

"A most unusually promising young man," he repeated; "and, madam, I can tell you it is not my habit to say a thing I do not mean."

"'The last reflection of God's daily grace'"—chirped Tussie, looking on much amused.

"No, that I'm quite certain you don't," said Lady Shuttleworth with conviction.

"Don't say too many nice things about me," advised Tussie. "My mother will swallow positively anything."

But nevertheless he was delighted; for here were his mother and the uncle—the valuable and highly to be cherished uncle—looking as pleased as possible with each other, and apparently in the fairest way to becoming fast friends.



IX

The cheerful goddess who had brought Fritzing and his Princess safely over from Kunitz was certainly standing by them well. She it was who had driven Priscilla up on to the heath and into the acquaintance of Augustus Shuttleworth, without whom a cottage in Symford would have been for ever unattainable. She it was who had sent the Morrisons, father and son, to drive Priscilla from the churchyard before Fritzing had joined her, without which driving she would never have met Augustus. She it was who had used the trifling circumstance of a mislaid sermon-book to take the vicar and Robin into the church at an unaccustomed time, without which sermon-book they would never have met Priscilla in the churchyard and driven her out of it. Thus are all our doings ruled by Chance; and it is a pleasant pastime for an idle hour to trace back big events to their original and sometimes absurd beginnings. For myself I know that the larger lines of my life were laid down once for all by—but what has this to do with Priscilla? Thus, I say, are all our doings ruled by Chance, who loves to use small means for the working of great wonders. And as for the gay goddess's ugly sister, the lady of the shifty eye and lowering brow called variously Misfortune and Ill Luck, she uses the same tools exactly in her hammering out of lives, meanly taking little follies and little weaknesses, so little and so amiable at first as hardly to be distinguished from little virtues, and with them building up a mighty mass that shall at last come down and crush our souls. Of the crushing of souls, however, my story does not yet treat, and I will not linger round subjects so awful. We who are nestling for the moment like Priscilla beneath the warm wing of Good Fortune can dare to make what the children call a face at her grey sister as she limps scowling past. Shall we not too one day in our turn feel her claws? Let us when we do at least not wince; and he who feeling them can still make a face and laugh, shall be as the prince of the fairy tales, transforming the sour hag by his courage into a bright reward, striking his very griefs into a shining shower of blessing.

From this brief excursion into the realm of barren musings, whither I love above all things to wander and whence I have continually to fetch myself back again by force, I will return to the story.

At Tussie's suggestion when the business part of their talk was over—and it took exactly five minutes for Tussie to sell and Fritzing to buy the cottages, five minutes of the frothiest business talk ever talked, so profound was the ignorance of both parties as to what most people demand of cottages—Fritzing drove to Minehead in the postmistress's son's two-wheeled cart in order to purchase suitable furniture and bring back persons who would paper and paint. Minehead lies about twenty miles to the north of Symford, so Fritzing could not be back before evening. By the time he was back, promised Tussie, the shoemaker and Mrs. Shaw should be cleared out and put into a place so much better according to their views that they would probably make it vocal with their praises.

Fritzing quite loved Tussie. Here was a young man full of the noblest spirit of helpfulness, and who had besides the invaluable gift of seeing no difficulties anywhere. Even Fritzing, airy optimist, saw more than Tussie, and whenever he expressed a doubt it was at once brushed aside by the cheerfullest "Oh, that'll be all right." He was the most practical, businesslike, unaffected, energetic young man, thought Fritzing, that he had even seen. Tussie was surprised himself at his own briskness, and putting the wonderful girl on the heath as much as possible out of his thoughts, told himself that it was the patent food beginning at last to keep its promises.

He took Fritzing to the post-office and ordered the trap for him, cautioned the postmistress's son, who was going to drive, against going too fast down the many hills, for the bare idea of the priceless uncle being brought back in bits or in any state but absolutely whole and happy turned him cold, told Fritzing which shops to go to and where to lunch, begged him to be careful what he ate, since hotel luncheons were good for neither body nor soul, ordered rugs and a mackintosh covering to be put in, and behaved generally with the forethought of a mother. "I'd go with you myself," he said,—and the postmistress, listening with both her ears, recognized that the Baker's Farm lodgers were no longer persons to be criticised—"but I can be of more use to you here. I must see Dawson about clearing out the cottages. Of course it is very important you shouldn't stay a moment longer than can be helped in uncomfortable lodgings."

Here was a young man! Sensible, practical, overflowing with kindness. Fritzing had not met any one he esteemed so much for years. They went down the village street together, for Tussie was bound for Mr. Dawson who was to be set to work at once, and Fritzing for the farm whither the trap was to follow him as soon as ready, and all Symford, curtseying to Tussie, recognized, as the postmistress had recognized, that Fritzing was now raised far above their questionings, seated firmly on the Shuttleworth rock.

They parted at Mr. Dawson's gate, Mrs. Dawson mildly watching their warmth over a wire blind. "When we are settled, young man," said Fritzing, after eloquent words of thanks and appreciation, "you must come in the evenings, and together we will roam across the splendid fields of English literature."

"Oh thanks" exclaimed Tussie, flushing with pleasure. He longed to ask if the divine niece would roam too, but even if she did not, to roam at all would be a delight, and he would besides be doing it under the very roof that sheltered that bright and beautiful head. "Oh thanks," cried Tussie, then, flushing.

His extreme joy surprised Fritzing. "Are you so great a friend of literature?" he inquired.

"I believe," said Tussie, "that without it I'd have drowned myself long ago. And as for the poets—"

He stopped. No one knew what poetry had been to him in his sickly existence—the one supreme interest, the one thing he really cared to live for.

Fritzing now loved him with all his heart. "Ach Gott, ja," he ejaculated, clapping him on the shoulder, "the poets—ja, ja—'Blessings be with them and eternal praise,' what? Young man," he added enthusiastically, "I could wish that you had been my son. I could indeed." And as he said it Robin Morrison coming down the street and seeing the two together and the expression on Tussie's face instantly knew that Tussie had met the niece.

"Hullo, Tuss," he called across, hurrying past, for it would rather upset his umbrella plan to be stopped and have to talk to the man Neumann thus prematurely. But Tussie neither saw nor heard him, and "By Jove, hasn't he just seen the niece though," said Robin to himself, his eyes dancing as he strode nimbly along on long and bird-like legs. The conviction seized him that when he and his umbrella should descend upon Baker's that afternoon Tussie would either be there already or would come in immediately afterwards. "Who would have thought old Fuss would be so enterprising?" he wondered, thinking of the extreme cordiality of Fritzing's face. "He's given them those cottages, I'll swear."

So Fritzing went to Minehead. I will not follow his painful footsteps as they ranged about that dreary place, nor will I dwell upon his purchases, which resolved themselves at last, after an infinite and soul-killing amount of walking and bewilderment, into a sofa, a revolving bookstand, and two beds. He forgot a bed for Annalise because he forgot Annalise; and he didn't buy things like sheets because he forgot that beds want them. On the other hand he spent quite two hours in a delightful second-hand bookshop on his way to the place where you buy crockery, and then forgot the crockery. He did, reminded and directed by Mr. Vickerton, the postmistress's son, get to a paperhanger's and order him and his men to come out in shoals to Symford the next morning at daybreak, making the paperhanger vow, who had never seen them, that the cottages should be done by nightfall. Then, happening to come to the seashore, he stood for a moment refreshing his nostrils with saltness, for he was desperately worn out, and what he did after that heaven knows. Anyhow young Vickerton found him hours afterwards walking up and down the shingle in the dark, waving his arms about and crying—

"O, qui me gelidis convallibus Haemi Sistat et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!"

"Talking German out loud to himself," said young Vickerton to his mother that night; and it is possible that he had been doing it all the time.

And while he was doing these things Priscilla was having calls paid her. Nothing could exceed her astonishment when about four o'clock, as she was sitting deep in thought and bored on the arm of a horsehair chair, Mrs. Pearce opened the door and without the least warning let in Mrs. Morrison. Priscilla had promised Fritzing for that one day to stay quietly at the farm, and for the last two hours, finding the farm of an intolerable dulness, she had been engaged in reflections of an extremely complex nature on subjects such as Duty, Will, and Personality. Her morning in the Baker fields and by the banks of that part of the Sym that meanders through them had tuned her mind to meditation. The food at one o'clock and the manner of its bringing in by Annalise—Priscilla had relieved Mrs. Pearce of that office—tuned it still more. The blended slipperiness and prickliness of all the things she tried to sit on helped surprisingly; and if I knew how far it is allowable to write of linen I could explain much of her state of mind by a description of the garments in which she was clothed that day. They were new garments taken straight from the Gerstein box. They were not even linen,—how could they be for Fritzing's three hundred marks? And their newness had not yet been exposed to the softening influence of any wash-tub. Straight did they come, in all their crackling stiffness, out of the shop and on to the Princess. Annalise had been supposed to wash them or cause them to be washed the day before, but Annalise had been far too busy crying to do anything of the sort; and by four o'clock Priscilla was goaded by them into a condition of mind so unworthy that she was thinking quite hard about the Kunitz fine linen and other flesh-pots and actually finding the recollection sweet. It was a place, Priscilla mused, where her body had been exquisitely cared for. Those delicate meals, served in spotlessness, surely they had been rather of the nature of poems? Those web-like garments, soft as a kiss, how beautiful they had been to touch and wear. True her soul had starved; yes, it had cruelly starved. But was it then—she started at her own thought—was it then being fed at Baker's?

And into the middle of this question, a tremendous one to be asked on the very threshold of the new life, walked Mrs. Morrison.

"How d'y do," said Mrs. Morrison. "The vicar asked me to come and see you. I hope the Pearces make you comfortable."

"Well I never," thought Mrs. Pearce, lingering as was her custom on the door-mat, and shaking her head in sorrow rather than in anger.

Priscilla sat for a moment staring at her visitor.

"You are Miss Schultz, are you not?" asked Mrs. Morrison rather nervously.

Priscilla said she was,—her name, that is, was Neumann-Schultz—and got up. She had the vaguest notion as to how Miss Schultz would behave under these trying circumstances, but imagined she would begin by getting up. So she got up, and the sofa being a low one and her movements leisurely, Mrs. Morrison told her husband afterwards there seemed to be no end to the girl. The girl certainly was long, and when at last unfolded and quite straightened out she towered over Mrs. Morrison, who looked up uneasily at the grave young face. Why, Mrs. Morrison asked herself, didn't the girl smile? It was the duty of a Miss Schultz called upon by the vicar's wife to smile; so profound a gravity on such an occasion was surely almost rude. Priscilla offered her hand and hoped it was all right to do so, but still she did not smile. "Are you Mrs. Morrison?" she asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Morrison with an immense reserve in her voice.

Then Priscilla suggested she should sit down. Mrs. Morrison was already doing it; and Priscilla sank on to her sofa again and wondered what she had better say next. She wondered so much that she became lost in mazes of wonder, and there was so long a silence that Mrs. Pearce outside the door deplored an inconsiderateness that could keep her there for nothing.

"I didn't know you had a double name," said Mrs. Morrison, staring at Priscilla and trying to decide whether this was not a case for the application of leaflets and instant departure. The girl was really quite offensively pretty. She herself had been pretty—she thanked heaven that she still was so—but never, never pretty—she thanked heaven again—in this glaringly conspicuous fashion.

"My name is Ethel Maria-Theresa Neumann-Schultz," said Priscilla, very clearly and slowly; and though she was, as we know, absolutely impervious to the steadiest staring, she did wonder whether this good lady could have seen her photograph anywhere in some paper, her stare was so very round and bright and piercing.

"What a long name," said Mrs. Morrison.

"Yes," said Priscilla; and as another silence seemed imminent she added, "I have two hyphens."

"Two what?" said Mrs. Morrison, startled; and so full was her head of doubt and distrust that for one dreadful moment she thought the girl had said two husbands. "Oh, hyphens. Yes. Germans have them a good deal, I believe."

"That sounds as if we were talking about diseases," said Priscilla, a faint smile dawning far away somewhere in the depths of her eyes.

"Yes," said Mrs. Morrison, fidgeting.

Odd that Robin should have said nothing about the girl's face. Anyhow she should be kept off Netta. Better keep her off the parish-room Tuesdays as well. What in the world was she doing in Symford? She was quite the sort of girl to turn the heads of silly boys. And so unfortunate, just as Augustus Shuttleworth had taken to giving Netta little volumes of Browning.

"Is your uncle out?" she asked, some of the sharpness of her thoughts getting into her voice.

"He's gone to Minehead, to see about things for my cottage."

"Your cottage? Have you got Mrs. Shaw's, then?"

"Yes. She is being moved out to-day."

"Dear me," said Mrs. Morrison, greatly struck.

"Is it surprising?"

"Most. So unlike Lady Shuttleworth."

"She has been very kind."

"Do you know her?"

"No; but my uncle was there this morning."

"And managed to persuade her?"

"He is very eloquent," said Priscilla, with a demure downward sweep of her eyelashes.

"Just a little more," thought Mrs. Morrison, watching their dusky golden curve, "and the girl would have had scarlet hair and white-eyebrows and masses of freckles and been frightful." And she sighed an impatient sigh, which, if translated into verse, would undoubtedly have come out—

"Oh the little more and how much it is, And the little less and what worlds away!"

"And poor old Mrs. Shaw—how does she like being turned out?"

"I believe she is being put into something that will seem to her a palace."

"Dear me, your uncle must really be very eloquent."

"I assure you that he is," said Priscilla earnestly.

There was a short pause, during which Mrs. Morrison staring straight into those unfathomable pools, Priscilla's eyes, was very angry with them for being so evidently lovely. "You are very young," she said, "so you will not mind my questions—"

"Don't the young mind questions?" asked Priscilla, for a moment supposing it to be a characteristic of the young of England.

"Not, surely, from experienced and—and married ladies," said Mrs. Morrison tartly.

"Please go on then."

"Oh, I haven't anything particular to go on about," said Mrs. Morrison, offended. "I assure you curiosity is not one of my faults."

"No?" said Priscilla, whose attention had begun to wander.

"Being human I have no doubt many failings, but I'm thankful to say curiosity isn't one of them."

"My uncle says that's just the difference between men and women. He says women might achieve just as much as men if only they were curious about things. But they're not. A man will ask a thousand questions, and never rest till he's found out as much as he can about anything he sees, and a woman is content hardly even to see it."

"I hope your uncle is a Churchman," was Mrs. Morrison's unexpected reply.

Priscilla's mind could not leap like this, and she hesitated a moment and smiled. ("It's the first time she's looked pleasant," thought Mrs. Morrison, "and now it's in the wrong place.")

"He was born, of course, in the Lutheran faith," said Priscilla.

"Oh, a horrid faith. Excuse me, but it really is. I hope he isn't going to upset Symford?"

"Upset Symford?"

"New people holding wrong tenets coming to such a small place do sometimes, you know, and you say he is eloquent. And we are such a simple and God-fearing little community. A few years ago we had a great bother with a Dissenting family that came here. The cottagers quite lost their heads."

"I think I can promise that my uncle will not try to convert anybody," said Priscilla.

"Of course you mean pervert. It would be a pity if he did. It wouldn't last, but it would give us a lot of trouble. We are very good Churchmen here. The vicar, and my son too when he's at home, set beautiful examples. My son is going into the Church himself. It has been his dearest wish from a child. He thinks of nothing else—of nothing else at all," she repeated, fixing her eyes on Priscilla with a look of defiance.

"Really?" said Priscilla, very willing to believe it.

"I assure you it's wonderful how absorbed he is in his studies for it. He reads Church history every spare moment, and he's got it so completely on his mind that I've noticed even when he whistles it's 'The Church's One Foundation.'"

"What is that?" inquired Priscilla.

"Mr. Robin Morrison," announced Mrs. Pearce.

The sitting-room at Baker's was a small, straightforward place, with no screens, no big furniture, no plants in pots, nothing that could for a moment conceal the persons already in it from the persons coming in, and Robin entering jauntily with the umbrella under his arm fell straight as it were into his mother's angry gaze. "Hullo mater, you here?" he exclaimed genially, his face broadening with apparent satisfaction.

"Yes, Robin, I am here," she said, drawing herself up.

"How do you do, Miss Schultz. I seem to have got shown into the wrong room. It's a Mr. Neumann I've come to see; doesn't he live here?"

Priscilla looked at him from her sofa seat and wondered what she had done that she should be scourged in this manner by Morrisons.

"You know my son, I believe?" said Mrs. Morrison in the stiffest voice; for the girl's face showed neither recognition nor pleasure, and though she would have been angry if she had looked unduly pleased she was still angrier that she should look indifferent.

"Yes. I met him yesterday. Did you want my uncle? His name is Neumann. Neumann-Schultz. He's out."

"I only wanted to give him this umbrella," said Robin, with a swift glance at his mother as he drew it from under his arm. Would she recognize it? He had chosen one of the most ancient; the one most appropriate, as he thought, to the general appearance of the man Neumann.

"What umbrella is that, Robin?" asked his mother suspiciously. Really, it was more than odd that Robin, whom she had left immersed in study, should have got into Baker's Farm so quickly. Could he have been expected? And had Providence, in its care for the righteous cause of mothers, brought her here just in time to save him from this girl's toils? The girl's indifference could not be real; and if it was not, her good acting only betrayed the depths of her experience and balefulness. "What umbrella is that?" asked Mrs. Morrison.

"It's his," said Robin, throwing his head back and looking at his mother as he laid it with elaborate care on the table.

"My uncle's?" said Priscilla. "Had he lost it? Oh thank you—he would have been dreadfully unhappy. Sit down." And she indicated with her head the chair she would allow him to sit on.

"The way she tells us to sit down!" thought Mrs. Morrison indignantly. "As though she were a queen." Aloud she said, "You could have sent Joyce round with it"—Joyce being that gardener whose baby's perambulator was wheeled by another Ethel—"and need not have interrupted your work."

"So I could," said Robin, as though much struck by the suggestion. "But it was a pleasure," he added to Priscilla, "to be able to return it myself. It's a frightful bore losing one's umbrella—especially if it's an old friend."

"Uncle Fritzi's looks as if it were a very old friend," said Priscilla, smiling at it.

Mrs. Morrison glanced at it too, and then glanced again. When she glanced a third time and her glance turned into a look that lingered Robin jumped up and inquired if he should not put it in the passage. "It's in the way here," he explained; though in whose way it could be was not apparent, the table being perfectly empty.

Priscilla made no objection, and he at once removed it beyond the reach of his mother's eye, propping it up in a dark corner of the passage and telling Mrs. Pearce, whom he found there that it was Mr. Neumann's umbrella.

"No it ain't," said Mrs. Pearce.

"Yes it is," said Robin.

"No it ain't. He's took his to Minehead," said Mrs. Pearce.

"It is, and he has not," said Robin.

"I see him take it," said Mrs. Pearce.

"You did not," said Robin.

This would have been the moment, Mrs. Morrison felt, for her to go and to carry off Robin with her, but she was held in her seat by the certainty that Robin would not let himself be carried off; and sooner than say good-bye and then find he was staying on alone she would sit there all night. Thus do mothers sacrifice themselves for their children, thought Mrs. Morrison, for their all too frequently thankless children. But though she would do it to any extent in order to guard her boy she need not, she said to herself, be pleasant besides,—she need not, so to speak, be the primroses on his path of dalliance. Accordingly she behaved as little like a primrose as possible, sitting in stony silence while he skirmished in the passage with Mrs. Pearce, and the instant he came in again asked him where he had found the umbrella.

"I found it—not far from the church," said Robin, desiring to be truthful as long as he could. "But mater, bother the umbrella. It isn't so very noble to bring a man back his own. Did you get your cottages?" he asked, turning quickly to Priscilla.

"Robin, are you sure it is his own?" said his mother.

"My dear mother, I'm never sure of anything. Nor are you. Nor is Miss Schultz. Nor is anybody who is really intelligent. But I found the thing, and Mr. Neumann—"

"The name to-day is Neumann-Schultz," said Mrs. Morrison, in a voice heavy with implications.

"Mr. Neumann-Schultz, then, had been that way just before, and so I felt somehow it must be his."

"Your Uncle Cox had one just like it when he stayed with us last time," remarked Mrs. Morrison.

"Had he? I say, mater, what an eye you must have for an umbrella. That must be five years ago."

"Oh, he left it behind, and I see it in the stand every time I go through the hall."

"No! Do you?" said Robin, who was hurled by this statement into the corner where his wits ended and where he probably would have stayed ignominiously, for Miss Schultz seemed hardly to be listening and really almost looked—he couldn't believe it, no girl had ever done it in his presence yet, but she did undoubtedly almost look—bored, if Mrs. Pearce had not flung open the door, and holding the torn portions of her apron bunched together in her hands, nervously announced Lady Shuttleworth.

"Oh," thought Priscilla, "what a day I'm having." But she got up and was gracious, for Fritzing had praised this lady as kind and sensible; and the moment Lady Shuttleworth set her eyes on her the mystery of her son's behaviour flashed into clearness. "Tussie's seen her!" she exclaimed inwardly; instantly adding "Upon my word I can't blame the boy."

"My dear," she said, holding Priscilla's hand, "I've come to make friends with you. See what a wise old woman I am. Frankly, I didn't want you in those cottages, but now that my son has sold them I lose no time in making friends. Isn't that true wisdom?"

"It's true niceness," said Priscilla, smiling down at the little old lady whose eyes were twinkling all over her. "I don't think you'll find us in any way a nuisance. All we want is to be quiet."

Mrs. Morrison sniffed.

"Do you really?" said Lady Shuttleworth. "Then we shall get on capitally. It's what I like best myself. And you've come too," she went on, turning to Mrs. Morrison, "to make friends with your new parishioner? Why, Robin, and you too?"

"Oh, I'm only accidental," said Robin quickly. "Only a restorer of lost property. And I'm just going," he added, beginning to make hasty adieux; for Lady Shuttleworth invariably produced a conviction in him that his clothes didn't fit and wanted brushing badly, and no young man so attentive to his appearance as Robin could be expected to enjoy that. He fled therefore, feeling that even Miss Schultz's loveliness would not make up for Lady Shuttleworth's eyes; and in the passage, from whence Mrs. Pearce had retreated, removing herself as far as might be from the awful lady to whom her father-in-law owed rent and who saw every hole, Robin pounced on his Uncle Cox's umbrella, tucked is once more beneath his arm, and bore it swiftly back to the stand where it had spent five peaceful years. "Really old women are rather terrible things," he thought as he dropped it in again. "I wonder what they're here for."

"Ah, it's there, I see," remarked his mother that night as she passed through the hall on her way to dinner.

"What is?" inquired Robin who was just behind her.

"Your Uncle Cox's umbrella."

"Dear mater, why this extreme interest in my Uncle Cox's umbrella?"

"I'm glad to see it back again, that's all. One gets so used to things."

Lady Shuttleworth and his mother—I shudder to think that it is possible Robin included his mother in the reflection about old women, but on the other hand one never can tell—had stayed on at the farm for another twenty minutes after he left. They would have stayed longer, for Lady Shuttleworth was more interested in Priscilla than she had ever been in any girl before, and Mrs. Morrison, who saw this interest and heard the kind speeches, had changed altogether from ice to amiability, crushing her leaflets in her hand and more than once expressing hopes that Miss Neumann-Schultz would soon come up to tea and learn to know and like Netta—I repeat, they would have stayed much longer, but that an extremely odd thing happened.

Priscilla had been charming; chatting with what seemed absolute frankness about her future life in the cottages, answering little questionings of Lady Shuttleworth's with a discretion and plausibility that would have warmed Fritzing's anxious heart, dwelling most, for here the ground was safest, on her uncle, his work, his gifts and character, and Lady Shuttleworth, completely fascinated, had offered her help of every sort, help in the arranging of her little home, in the planting of its garden, even in the building of those bathrooms about which Tussie had been told by Mr. Dawson. She thought the desire for many bathrooms entirely praiseworthy, and only a sign of lunacy in persons of small means. Fritzing had assured Tussie that he had money enough for the bathrooms; and if his poetic niece liked everybody about her to be nicely washed was not that a taste to be applauded? Perhaps Lady Shuttleworth expatiated on plans and probable building-costs longer than Priscilla was able to be interested; perhaps she was over-explanatory of practical details; anyhow Priscilla's attention began to wander, and she gradually became very tired of her callers. She answered in monosyllables, and her smile grew vague. Then suddenly, at the first full stop Lady Shuttleworth reached in a sentence about sanitation—the entire paragraph was never finished—she got up with her usual deliberate grace, and held out her hand.

"It has been very kind of you to come and see me," she said to the astounded lady, with a little gracious smile. "I hope you will both come again another time."

For an instant Lady Shuttleworth thought she was mad. Then to her own amazement she found her body rising obediently and letting its hand be taken.

Mrs. Morrison did the same. Both had their hands slightly pressed, both were smiled upon, and both went out at once and speechless. Priscilla stood calmly while they walked to the door, with the little smile fixed on her face.

"Is it possible we've been insulted?" burst out Mrs. Morrison when they got outside.

"I don't know," said Lady Shuttleworth, who looked extremely thoughtful.

"Do you think it can possibly be the barbarous German custom?"

"I don't know," said Lady Shuttleworth again.

And all the way to the vicarage, whither she drove Mrs. Morrison, she was very silent, and no exclamations and conjectures of that indignant lady's could get a word out of her.



X

Kunitz meanwhile was keeping strangely quiet. Not a breath, not a whisper, had reached the newspapers from that afflicted little town of the dreadful thing that had happened to it. It will be remembered that the Princess ran away on a Monday, arrived at Baker's in the small hours of Wednesday morning, and had now spent both Wednesday and Thursday in Symford. There had, then, been ample time for Europe to receive in its startled ears the news of her flight; yet Europe, judging from its silence, knew nothing at all about it. In Minehead on the Thursday evening Fritzing bought papers, no longer it is true with the frenzy he had displayed at Dover when every moment seemed packed with peril, but still with eagerness; and not a paper mentioned Kunitz. On the Saturday he did find the laconic information in the London paper he had ordered to be sent him every day that the Grand Duke of Lothen-Kunitz who was shooting in East Prussia had been joined there by that Prince—I will not reveal his august name—who had so badly wanted to marry Priscilla. And on the Sunday—it was of course the paper published in London on Saturday—he read that the Princess Priscilla of Lothen-Kunitz, the second and only unmarried daughter of the Grand Duke, was confined to her bed by a sharp attack of influenza. After that there was utter silence. Fritzing showed Priscilla the paragraph about her influenza, and she was at first very merry over it. The ease with which a princess can shake off her fetters the moment she seriously tries to surprised her, and amused her too, for a little. It surprised Fritzing, but without amusing him, for he was a man who was never amused. Indeed, I am unable to recall any single occasion on which I saw him smile. Other emotions shook him vigorously as we know, but laughter never visited him with its pleasant ticklings under the ribs; it slunk away abashed before a task so awful, and left him at his happiest to a mood of mild contentment. "Your Royal Parent," he remarked to Priscilla, "has chosen that which is ever the better part of valour, and is hushing the incident up."