THE HALL AND THE GRANGE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE HALL AND THE GRANGE

A NOVEL

BY

ARCHIBALD MARSHALL

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1921

Copyright, 1921

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.

TO

WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

CONTENTS

THE HALL AND THE GRANGE

[CHAPTER I]

THE HALL

Colonel Eldridge was enjoying an afternoon doze, or a series of dozes, in the Sabbath peace of his garden. His enjoyment was positive, for he had a prejudice against sleeping in the day-time, and sat upright in his basket chair with no support to his head; so that when sleep began to overtake him he nodded heavily and woke up again. If he had provided himself with a cushion from one of the chairs or lounges by his side, he would have slumbered blissfully, but would have been lost to the charm of his surroundings.

These included a great expanse of lawn, mown and rolled and tended to a sheeny perfection of soft rich colour; the deep shade of nobly branching trees in their dark dress of mid-July; bright flower-beds; the terraced front of a squarely built stone house of a comfortably established age. These were for the eye to rest upon after one of those heavy nods, and to carry their message of spacious seclusion and domestic well-being. For the other senses there were messages that conveyed the same meaning—the hot brooding peace of the July afternoon, tempered by the soft stirring of flower-scented breezes, the drone of bees and of insects less usefully employed, the occasional sweet pipe of birds still mindful of earlier courtships, the grateful and secure absence of less mundane sounds. The house was empty, except for servants, who obtruded themselves neither on sight nor hearing. The tennis net on the levelled space by the rose garden hung in idle curves. Colonel Eldridge had the whole wide verdurous garden to himself, and the house, too, if he cared to enter it. Though he liked to have his family around him as a general rule, he found it pleasant to keep his own company thus for an hour or so.

He was just approaching the time when one of those droops which punctuated his light slumbers would wake him up to a more lively sense of well-being, and he would take up the book that lay on his knee, when his half-closed eyes took in a figure emerging from the trees among which the lawn lost itself at the lower end of the garden. He aroused himself and waved a welcoming hand, which meant among other things: "Here you have a wide-awake man reading a book on Sunday afternoon, but you need not be afraid of disturbing him." The grateful lassitude, however, which enveloped his frame prevented his rising to greet his brother, who came towards him with an answering wave of the hand, and took a seat by his side.

There was not much difference in the age of the two brothers, which was somewhere in the fifties. In appearance, also, they were something alike, of the same height and build, and with the same air of wearing their years well. Colonel Eldridge had the military caste impressed upon him, with closely cropped hair underneath his straw hat, small grey moustache, and a little net-work of wrinkles about his keen blue eyes. His clothes were neat and unobtrusive, as of a man who gets the best tailoring and leaves it at that.

Sir William Eldridge also, quite obviously, got the best tailoring. He wore a suit of soft brown, with boots polished to an enviable pitch; the narrow sleeves of his jacket, ornamented with four buttons, showed the doubled-over cuffs of his blue flannel shirt, fastened with enamelled links; a gay bandana tie heightened the agreeable contrast of blue and brown; his soft felt hat was of light grey, with a black band. With a new pair of chamois leather gloves he would have been beautifully dressed for any occasion that did not demand a silk hat and whatever should go with it. But he wore or carried no gloves for a walk of half a mile across the fields, by the river, from Hayslope Grange, where he lived, to Hayslope Hall, his brother's house. He had the same regularity of feature as his brother; his hair was a shade or two greyer, but he looked some years younger, with his fresh skin and his active figure. There was almost an exuberance about him. If Colonel Eldridge had allowed his hair to grow longer than convention demanded, it would only have looked as if it wanted cutting. If Sir William had done so it would have seemed natural to his type.

"Been having a little nap?" he said, as he dropped into a chair by his brother's side.

Colonel Eldridge flinched ever so little. His strict regard for truth forbade him to deny the charge, but it should not have been brought against him. "Couldn't have much of a nap sitting up in a chair like this," he said, rather brusquely.

Sir William ignored this. "How jolly and peaceful it is here," he said. "Really, I don't know a more delicious garden than this anywhere. It would take a hundred years to produce just this effect at the Grange, though I've spent pots of money over the gardens there."

"Gardening with a golden spade," said his brother. "You can't do everything with money."

"You can do a good deal. And if you've got big trees you can do practically everything. The misfortune about the Grange is that there are no big trees immediately around the house. If there had been I should have aimed at something of this sort. I could have got the lawn all right. It's the best sort of garden to look out on—an expanse of lawn and shady trees—quiet and green and peaceful. You're quite right, Edmund. With all I've done, and all I've spent on my garden, it's fussy compared to this. You remember I wanted you to do certain things here, when I first got keen on the game. Well, I'm glad you didn't. If you had, I should have wanted you to undo them by this time."

Colonel Eldridge smiled, his momentary pique forgotten. "Oh, well, people come miles to see your garden," he said. "It's worth seeing. But on the whole I'd rather have this one to live in."

"Ah, that's it; you've just hit it. There's all the difference between a garden to look at and a garden to live in. I've come to see that, and I suppose you've always seen it. I generally do come around to your views in the long run, old fellow. In this matter of a lawn shaded by trees, I've come round so completely that I've got to have it, though I'm afraid I can't have it to walk straight out of the house onto, and to look at from my windows. But there's that four-acre field—Barton's Close—down by the wood. I want to bring that in—I suppose you'll have no objection. By thinning out a bit, so as to leave some of the bigger trees isolated, and planting judiciously, I can get the effect there."

"Rather a pity to cut up old pasture, isn't it? And it must be half a mile from the house."

"Oh, nothing like as much as that—not more than five hundred yards, I should say. I wish it were nearer; but it will be effective to lead down to it by a path through the corner of the wood. You'll come upon a charming, restful, retired place that you hadn't been expecting. I only wish the lake had been closer, so as to have brought that in; but I think we could get a vista by cutting down a few trees. I might ask you to consider that later on; but we'd better see how the lawn turns out first."

"I don't think I should want to cut down trees there, William. Whatever distance Barton's Close may be from the Grange, the lake is certainly over a mile. You can't turn the whole place into a garden. As it is, it's overweighted. You've got to consider the future. It would have been all right if poor Hugo had lived. He'd have succeeded me here, and I suppose Norman would have gone on living at the Grange after you."

"Oh, I know, old fellow, but—"

"Let me finish. When I die, and you or Norman come here, Cynthia and the girls will have to live at the Grange. It's much too big a place for them already. I dare say you'd get a big rent for it; but that's not what they'll want. They would have had enough to live on there as it used to be; but with the way things are going now it'll be a place that will want a lot of keeping up. It will want a good deal more keeping up than this."

"Of course you're right to think about the future, old fellow." Sir William spoke more slowly, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees and tapping his stick on the turf. "I've thought about it a good deal, too. Things are altered now—unfortunately. I come into it more, don't I?—I and Norman."

"Oh, yes, of course. Still, I'm not an old man yet. And Cynthia.... It's not out of the question.... But we needn't think of that. The chances are you'll succeed me. But for a good many years yet—in the ordinary way—I shall be here at Hayslope, and—"

He did not finish, and Sir William did not help him out. He frowned a little as he sat looking down on the grass and tapping his stick, but there was no alteration in the kindly tone of his speech when he said after a time: "If Cynthia bears you another son, nobody will be more pleased than I shall. Some people might think I didn't mean that, but you know better. That's why we can talk over the future between us without misunderstanding one another."

Colonel Eldridge stirred in his seat. "Oh, yes, Bill," he said. "You don't want to step into my shoes yet a while. I know that well enough. You will step into them sooner or later. I know that, too. We shan't have any more children. And as for what's to come after us, Norman will make a better squire of Hayslope than poor Hugo could have done. I wouldn't say so to Cynthia—I don't know that I'd say it to anybody but you—but I've come to see that the poor fellow had made too much of a mess of things for us to have hoped that he'd ever pull up. I feel no bitterness against him—God knows. I did; but that's all wiped out. I loved him when he was a little fellow, and I never really left off loving him, though he brought me a lot of trouble. Now I'm free to love his memory. He did well at the end."

"Oh, yes. You can be proud of him. There was lots of good in him, and it came out at the last. No need to think about all the rest. I haven't thought about it for a long time."

"Well, I've got to think of it occasionally, I'm afraid. Things are still difficult because of poor Hugo. But—"

"Look here, old fellow—why don't you let me wipe all that off? I can do it without bothering myself in the least."

"Thanks, Bill, you're very good. But I'll bear my own burdens."

"Between you and me—what is there to quibble about? I've been lucky in life. But you're a better man than I am, when all's said and done. And you're the head of the family. We ought to stand together—'specially now, when I'm almost in the same position towards you as Hugo was, you might say. Take it as done for Hayslope. In a way, I'm as much interested in the place as you are."

"Thanks, William, but this is a personal matter. Most of my income comes from the place, but I'm only tenant for life. I've got to make good on my own account. It means a bit of skimping, but that's all. There's enough for me and Cynthia and the girls, and I'll hand over Hayslope to you, or whoever it may be, as I received it from our father."

"Well, I won't press you. But you know at any time that the money's there if you want it, and you'll give me pleasure if you'll take it. What's money between you and me? I've been in the way of making it and you haven't. There you have it in a nutshell. But after all, I'm not a money-grubber. I only care for it for what it will bring. It's at your service any time, Edmund—five thousand, ten thousand—whatever you want to clear off that old trouble. Take it from me, that you'll be doing me a real pleasure if you'll ask for it at any time. Are you coming over to tea? I promised Eleanor I'd get back. I think there'll be some people from the Castle."

He rose from his seat. Colonel Eldridge retained his. "I don't think I'll come, thanks," he said, with a slight frown. "I don't particularly care about meeting people from the Castle."

Sir William looked away. There was a slight frown on his face now, but not of annoyance. "I know it's rather difficult for you," he said. "But wouldn't it be better to face it? You must meet them sooner or later. And as far as they are concerned, it's all over. There'd be no real awkwardness. As a matter of fact I don't think that the Crowboroughs are coming themselves. It's the Branchleys—who are staying with them. If they do come, there'd be more or less of a crowd—with all the young people. You'd get over the first meeting, and then it would all be buried."

"I know I've got to meet them some time or other. I know that Crowborough did have cause for complaint against Hugo. But he went much too far, and I can never forget it, now the poor boy's dead."

"You couldn't have forgotten it if he hadn't taken back the worst of what he accused Hugo of. I admit that. But he did take it back, didn't he?"

"Well, did he? That's what I'm not so sure about. I've got to behave as if he did—I know that. If we were to have it out together again, there's likely to be such a row that we should be enemies for life. I don't want that, for the sake of Cynthia and the girls. I suppose he doesn't want it, either, or he wouldn't have tried to mend the row we did have."

"But, surely—"

"I know what you're going to say. He wrote and said he'd never intended to accuse Hugo of swindling young Horsham. It was the way I'd taken what he did say that made him lose his temper and go farther than he'd meant to. That's all very well. But he didn't withdraw the charge."

There was a look of perplexity on Sir William's face as he stood by his brother, preparing to leave him, but not to leave the discussion into which they had so lightly drifted with a ragged edge of uncertainty. "Poor Hugo!" he said. "He made trouble for you, Edmund—for all of us. It's all forgiven and ought to be forgotten. But where it remains alive it ought to be faced, oughtn't it? He did lead Jim Horsham into bad ways. You've admitted as much as that."

"Yes, I did admit it. It was bad enough. But to lay that a son of mine cheated a brother officer out of a large sum of money—! That was the accusation."

"Crowborough made it when he was worked up about what he had discovered, and he withdrew it."

It was Colonel Eldridge who ended the discussion, and allowed his brother to go free. "Well, that's what we began with," he said. "I'm ready to act on the supposition that he did withdraw it. But I don't feel inclined to meet him this afternoon, William. Thanks all the same."

Sir William took his departure. His brother watched his smart, alert figure crossing the lawn, until it was lost among the trees at the bottom of the garden. Then he rose and sauntered slowly towards the house, and his face was thoughtful and disturbed—more disturbed than the previous conversation might have seemed to warrant.

[CHAPTER II]

THE GRANGE

Sir William Eldridge, with a step wonderfully light and quick for a man of his years and weight, came out of his brother's garden by a gate that led to a woodland path, and so down a long slope under the thick shade of trees, till the wood gave place to an open meadow bordered by a placid-flowing stream—almost a river. The meadow sloped up to the high woods which enclosed it in a long crescent, but on the other side of the stream was open grass-land, with lines of willows here and there, dykes, and little bits of wooden fences. Cattle were dotted all over it, feeding peacefully in the hot afternoon sunshine, or recumbent on the rich turf. In the distance were more woods, and where the river took a turn and followed the contour of the hill in front, it was seen to be flowing towards a lake of considerable size, to judge by the growth of the trees which encircled and hid all but the nearer end of it.

The river path continued for a quarter of a mile or so, and then once more became a woodland path, turning sharply to the left and rising more steeply than it had dropped in the other wood. The exit there had been by a stile, not as firm as it might have been under the weight of a big man. But this entrance was by a closely fitting gate, and a new solid fence ran away to right and left of it, gate and fence alike carrying an elaborate wire defence against rabbits.

Sir William climbed the steep path, slowly, but not, apparently, because of any necessity to save his breath. He looked to right and left of him with interest at the plantings of shrubs and flowers and ferns that had been made in clearings under the trees. On the outside this was a thick wood, as the other had been; but once through the gate it was seen to be a garden, full of interest and surprise. Little winding paths led off from the main ascent, and Sir William followed one or two of these to look at some treasure that he had established, and lingered over it as if his chief interest in life were the planting and the growth of flowers.

The steep path became a rocky staircase, which emerged from the wood into an elaborate rock garden, so artfully constructed that it seemed almost a natural outcrop from the leafy soil. On the further side the trees closed in on it again, but they had been still further thinned out here and did not conceal the artificially flat expanse of tennis and croquet lawn upon which the path came somewhat too suddenly. Immediately beyond the lawn was a house—a long rambling structure of many-gabled red brick and tile, with rose-covered verandas, loggias, pergolas, and all the paraphernalia of a rich man's country cottage. The original house, of a date somewhere about the seventies, was ugly enough, and had never pretended to be a cottage; and the additions, though in much better architectural taste, were incongruous to it. But it might have been supposed, even from an outside view, that everything about this house would be of the highest possible convenience for a life of country pleasure, and that if anything should occur to its occupants that would improve its amenities in this respect it would promptly be supplied.

Four young people were playing lawn tennis, and four older people were playing croquet, as Sir William came within sight of the lawn, and on the broad pillared veranda which finished off the house at this end other people were sitting, and servants were arranging tea-tables. House and garden seemed to be fulfiling their purpose with these groups of people laughing and talking and playing games in the summer afternoon, and everything at hand to enhance their enjoyment. Sir William's face lightened as he waved his greetings. He loved these lively gatherings of the summer time. He had something to offer at Hayslope Grange that people found it worth while to seek out and enjoy. There was more coming and going between the Grange and Pershore Castle, the Earl of Crowborough's seat five miles away, than between the Castle and Hayslope Hall, although the two families had run neck and neck in this part of the country for generations, and intimacy had established itself between their two houses almost to the exclusion of others.

It was with Lord Crowborough that Sir William walked down to the meadow which he wanted to bring into his garden, while the rest of the party were still busy round the tea-tables. Lord Crowborough was a man of sixty, heavy in bulk and somewhat heavy in demeanour, though with a kindly expression of face and of speech that relieved him of the charge of pomposity. He was disturbed, it appeared, at the coolness that had arisen between him and his old friend and neighbour, Edmund Eldridge, and wanted a word about it alone with Sir William. "Such old friends!" was the burden of his regrets. And he enlarged on it: "Surely such old friends ought to be able to speak freely to one another—even lose their tempers; we both did that, but surely—"

Sir William was more silent under the complaints than would have seemed to be natural to him. "It was the charge of swindling," he said rather shortly.

"Oh, I know," said Lord Crowborough. "After all your kindness, one doesn't want—"

"Never mind about that," Sir William interrupted him almost peremptorily. There was a hint in his manner that spoke of another man than the one who grew his flowers and welcomed his friends at Hayslope Grange. Lord Crowborough, some years older, and of greater apparent importance, seemed to bow to it. "I know it was never to be mentioned," he said, apologetically. "Very well. But really, you know, William—! Well, the poor fellow's dead; but he was an out and out wrong 'un. I did do my best to hush it all up. Edmund must know that. If it had come out he'd have been kicked out of the regiment. I should think he must know that, too, if he thinks straight about it at all."

"Perhaps he doesn't think quite straight about it, poor old chap! You can hardly blame him. As far as I'm concerned I'm going to do all I can to encourage him to think that Hugo was just sowing his wild oats, and that he'd have settled down to be a credit to his name. I'm afraid it isn't true, but surely it's a good thing if Edmund can think so."

"Oh, yes, I quite agree. Poor old fellow! I'll ask him to dine. I remember him quite well as a little fellow—you too, of course. I believe I was even a sort of hero of his when I was a big boy and he was a little one."

Sir William laughed. "Of course you were," he said. "I think that's the line to go on, you know. Old times, and all that. At least, I shouldn't mention the affair again, if I were you. Treat him with—well, affection. I know you feel that for him. The row will pass over. He's sore all round. He's sore about Hugo. He's a little sore about my stepping into the position of heir to him—though, goodness knows, I've no wish to change places with him in any way."

"No, you've made yourself a bigger man than he is."

"Well, that's as may be. Anyhow, I'm in a different line altogether. He's nothing to be sore about there; and we stick together. I can help him in lots of ways, if he'll let me."

"He's stiff about things; he's got stiffer as he's got older."

"Yes, that's true. He's the military type; and going back to his old job during the war has brought it out in him, more than ever. Still, I know well enough how to deal with men of that sort—had lots of practice at it lately. And Edmund's my brother. I'm fond of him. In some ways I look up to him; he's straight and honest as the day. And he's affectionate, too, under his stiffness. You can't drive him, but you can lead him, if you're careful in the way you do it. Hold out a hand to him, Crowborough. He'll respond all right, and you'll soon git rid of that soreness."

They strolled back to the upper garden together, and Lord Crowborough lost no time in goading his wife into asking Mrs. Eldridge to dine. It was necessary to detach her from the side of Lady Eldridge and draw her a little aside, and it was plain to everybody that something in the way of pressure was being exercised. Lady Crowborough did not want to invite the Eldridges. She was more incensed against Colonel Eldridge than her husband, and had no memory of intimacies of early childhood to soften her towards him. However, she obeyed her husband, as a good wife should. She had not yet had any conversation with Mrs. Eldridge, and might even have been supposed to have avoided her. But she went straight up to her and said: "We haven't really seen anything of each other for months. I wish you and your husband and Pamela would come over and dine to-morrow evening. Lord and Lady Branchley aren't going until Tuesday, and I've asked the Hobkirks and one or two other people."

Mrs. Eldridge looked up at her from the cushioned chair in which she was sitting, so very much at her ease, showing the neatest feet and ankles under her short-skirted summer frock. A wonderful woman for her age, it was the custom to say of her. Her age might have been forty-five, but she looked at least ten years younger than that, and on some occasions younger still. There was not a thread of grey in her rippling, lustrous brown hair; her cheeks were softly rounded, her skin was fresh. She wore a large flowery hat, which accentuated the graceful slimness of her form. She looked up at Lady Crowborough, looming profusely above her, out of untroubled blue eyes. "Thanks so much," she said. "I'm not sure what Edmund is doing to-morrow. Pamela and I could come. I could let you know if he can't."

Lady Crowborough grunted. She was a tall, upright woman with a decorative façade, and seemed to have been formed by nature to play the part of a great lady. But there was something lacking in her equipment. She was easily flustered, and when confronted with any difficulty seemed to lose even in physical bulk. "Crowborough particularly wanted me to ask Colonel Eldridge," she said in a tone that did not carry out the promise of the preliminary grunt.

"So I saw," said Mrs. Eldridge, with unbaffled sweetness. "It was very good of him. I don't see in the least why he shouldn't come, but it's never safe to make promises for him. If you don't want me and Pamela without him—"

"Oh, of course I do, if he can't come. Yes, of course I shall be delighted. It's really ages since we saw anything of one another."

She suddenly became friendly and confidential, dropping into a seat next to Mrs. Eldridge's, and demanding her ear for a low-spoken account of the trouble she had been going through with a laundry maid who had unwisely loved a Canadian soldier. Mrs. Eldridge was all sympathy, but managed to impart some lightness into an affair that Lady Crowborough had never thought to regard as anything but a gloomy tragedy. When she took leave of her Lady Crowborough's manner was intimately affectionate. She kissed her and called her "my dear," and said what a comfort it was to pour out one's troubles to an old friend.

Afterwards, in conversation with her husband, she was a little doubtful whether she had not gone rather too far. "Of course I have known her for a good many years," she said. "And I've always liked her too. But the fact is, I like her better when I'm with her than when I'm away from her; I don't know why. She's got a sort of way with her."

"She's a very charming woman," said Lord Crowborough. "I've nothing against her at all. I don't know why you shouldn't like her when you're away from her. Anyhow, I'm glad you made a bit of a fuss with her. And evidently she responded, from what you say. No doubt she wants this trouble ended. So do we. Poor old Edmund! I've forgiven him for what he said, though 'pon my word it was outrageous."

"Well, I said I never would forget it," said Lady Crowborough. "And really, John, when I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure you're right in making it so plain that we are anxious to see Colonel Eldridge back on the old terms with us. Perhaps he'll even refuse my invitation, and we shall have given him a handle. If he does come, of course I shall be polite to him, but I've no intention of treating him in the same way as I have Cynthia."

"Well, I don't suppose you'll kiss him; but I'm quite sure you won't treat him stiffly, my dear. You may begin like that, but you're incapable of keeping it up."

Lady Crowborough sighed. "I am like that," she admitted. "I get carried away."

When the party from Pershore Castle had driven off, Lady Eldridge took her sister-in-law into the house, leaving the young people still at their games, and Sir William, who had changed into gleaming white, playing with them. Lady Eldridge was a handsome dark-eyed, dark-haired woman, very well preserved for her years, which were about the same as those of Mrs. Eldridge, but without the look of fragile youth that was the note of that lady's appearance in her most favourable moments. She had an agreeable, decisive manner of speech, and a straightforward, honest look. The two of them had been friends at school, and it was at Hayslope Hall that Lady Eldridge had first met her husband, at that time a young barrister, not entirely briefless, or he would not have been in a position to marry, but with nothing in his prospects to indicate the opulence that he now so much enjoyed.

Lady Eldridge's special room was the most recent addition to the house, pleasing in its proportions and decoration, and beautifully but quietly furnished. Mrs. Eldridge sank into a deep cushioned chair, and said with a plaintive sigh: "I wish I could afford a room like this. You've made such a perfect success of it, Eleanor. I don't think it could possibly be nicer."

"It's very sweet of you to say so, my dear. But I don't think you have any cause to grumble, with all the beautiful old things you have in your room. Of course these are mostly old, too, but then they have all been bought. I might easily have gone wrong, you know. You don't think it looks like just money, do you?"

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" Mrs. Eldridge held up hands of expostulation. Then she dropped the subject. "The Crowboroughs want to bury the hatchet," she said. "I'm glad enough, I do hate rows, especially between old friends. But my poor old Edmund had a lot to put up with. I suppose Lord Crowborough means well. It's what everybody says of him. It's what they generally do say of thoroughly tiresome people, isn't it?—especially if they've got titles. Of course he is tiresome, and so is she, but both of them have their uses, so one puts up with it."

Lady Eldridge laughed. Her laugh was agreeable to listen to, and always meant that she was amused. "What uses?" she asked.

"Well, there's the Castle to go to, for one thing."

"You used to bewail your lot in being expected to go so much to the Castle."

"My dear, I've grown wiser, as well as a good deal poorer. Nobody can deny that the Castle is desperately dull, entirely owing to the people who inhabit it; for it's a fine enough house. But they do occasionally have people to stay, though I don't know whether you've noticed that the same people seldom come twice. It's a house to go to. To that I've come—that I'm thankful for an invitation to dine at Pershore Castle. I'm not sure that I didn't even angle for it. I certainly intimated that if Edmund didn't think it good enough, the invitation was on no account to be withdrawn from Pam and me. I made eyes at her, and she gave in at once. She thinks I'm a very sweet woman, until she goes away from me, and then she's not so sure about it. Am I a sweet woman, Eleanor, or a bit of a cat? I'm never quite certain."

"You were a very sweet child," said Lady Eldridge, whose face had become rather serious during this speech. "I always loved you and always shall. And as long as you say everything you think to me...."

"Oh, my dear, I shall always do that. You're one of the few comforts left to me in life. I can't grumble to Edmund, or the children. Besides, you're so generous. I should never have had my little bit of London this year but for you. How I should have missed it! And how I enjoyed it! There is no doubt that one does enjoy pleasures that come to one unexpectedly more than those that one takes as a matter of course."

"Well, Cynthia, you know that until you have a house of your own again in London, ours is there for you to come to whenever you like. And for the girls too. It doesn't want saying, does it, dear? We've always been very close together. There was a time when I owed almost all my pleasures in life to you, and I don't forget how generous you were. We've been fortunate, Bill and I, and at a time when so many people have had to alter their way of living. It's nice to think that our good fortune is of use not only to ourselves; that those we love can share it with us. I suppose there aren't many people who are so close together as you and Edmund and Bill and I. And our children too. I can't imagine anything that would come between us."

"No," said Mrs. Eldridge. "I can't either. It's a great comfort to have you here. I don't know what we should do without you."

[CHAPTER III]

NORMAN

Norman Eldridge and his cousin Pamela detached themselves from the tennis players and strolled off through the bare blaze of the upper garden with its elaborate architecture of walls and steps and pavings and pergolas, and its bright, restless plantings, into the shade of the woods.

They were close friends, these two, and had been so ever since Norman as a boy of eight had fallen in love with Pamela as a baby of two. It's a nice sort of boy who loves children, and Norman had been a very attractive small boy, high-spirited, energetic and mischievous, but never a source of anxiety with his mischievousness, as his cousin Hugo had been. Hugo was a year older than Norman, and always eager to make his seniority felt. In those early days Norman had paid visits from the little house in Hampstead where his parents then lived, to Hayslope Hall, and greatly enjoyed the ample life of the country house, with ponies to ride, the river to fish, later on rabbits and birds to shoot, and all the blissful freedom of the woods and fields. But Hugo, his constant companion in holiday activities, had spoilt a good deal of the pleasure of them. At first Norman had given way and been bullied. It seemed as if Hugo were unable to enjoy himself without being unpleasant. He was bigger and stronger than Norman, and had all the advantage of being on his own ground. In earlier visits, when both children had been under the eye of nurses and governess, there had been frequent quarrels, but Hugo had been forced more or less to behave himself. But during that month of Christmas holidays, when Hugo had come home from his first term at school, he had turned Norman's excitement and pleasure into a dragging unhappiness, which increased so much that he came to count the days before the end of his visit as eagerly as he had counted those which had brought him to it.

Hugo, as a schoolboy, tyrannized over him, and yet he wanted him for his games, and hardly ever left him in peace. There was another boy, a year older than Hugo—Fred Comfrey, son of the Rector of Hayslope—who was constantly with them. He took his line from Hugo, and helped in the bullying. Poor little Norman used to cry himself to sleep every night, but it was his pride never to let his tormentors see how much they hurt him. His uncle and aunt were kind to him. It would sometimes come over him with a sense of bewilderment how little they knew of his real feelings; for everything seemed to be right when the boys were with them. No doubt they thought he was enjoying himself to the full, having everything that a boy could want to make him happy.

It was at this time that he came to adore little Pamela, whose bright prattle and pretty, loving ways with him soothed his sore heart. But it was only now and then that he could forget himself, playing with her. The other boys were brutally scornful of his taste for the companionship of a baby.

He did not go to Hayslope again until a year later. By that time he was a schoolboy himself. He had thought a good deal about his cousin Hugo, and about Fred Comfrey, in the interval, and come to the conclusion, assisted by an intimate friend of his own age to whom he had disclosed the matter, that he had been a bally ass to be put down by them.

He had entered the republic of his school with unhappy anticipations of the life he would lead there, with forty tyrants to domineer over him instead of two. If it had not been for his experience with Hugo and Fred, he would have escaped months of anticipatory dread. But his fears proved groundless. This was a very good school for small boys, with a headmaster whose outstanding aim was to make friends of them all and to keep them happy. He was helped by his wife, who loved children and had none of her own. The forty boys were her family, and outside school hours they used the whole house as if it were their home. Under this happy rule there were no awkward fences for a little boy new to school life to surmount. He was welcomed as a member of the family, and one who was expected to do it credit. Everything was done to bring out whatever originality of character he had in him. The elder boys, taking their tone from the headmaster, his wife and assistants, were kind and protective. The only objection to the system was that a new boy of self-assertive habits occasionally made himself something of a nuisance. But the standards and ideals of school life soon told on all but the incorrigibles; the headmaster knew when and how to exercise severity on the rare occasions on which it was required; and if a boy had not submitted himself to the tone of the school by the end of his first year his parents were asked to remove him. That sometimes made trouble for the headmaster, but he was content to put up with that now and then for the sake of his beloved school.

Norman, after a pause of bewilderment, expanded under this treatment. He was gay and bright and bubbling over with life; he was quick with his work and had an aptitude for the pursuits that are valued among boys. He was made much of from the first, but his native modesty prevented his being spoilt.

It was this agreeable modesty of his that had led him to knuckle under to Hugo and Fred the year before, and they had taken advantage of it. He went down to Hayslope with his father and mother for Christmas with the determination to knuckle under in nothing, and rather enjoyed, though with some tremors, the prospect of making it quite plain where he stood, and where he intended to stand for the future. He had learnt to box a little at school, and thought it might come in useful. He didn't suppose that he was capable of taking on Hugo and Fred together, but if it should be necessary he was not averse from trying.

To his immense surprise, however, Hugo greeted him affably, and seemed to have forgotten the disagreeables of the previous visit. They played together with no more than the normal amount of friction between small boys, and settled their differences as they arose without coming anywhere near to blows.

Then Fred Comfrey, who had spent Christmas away from home, came on the scene. Now was the time for the three of them to take stock of one another. So far, Norman had been content to make friends with an apparently much improved Hugo, without bothering himself about whether he would have liked him if he had seen him in contact with other boys. In the give and take of school life a boy finds his level very quickly. He is known through and through, and sized up with an accuracy seldom at fault, though the rule by which he is measured is more rigid than any that is applied in after life. Outside, the rule is somewhat relaxed. Boys not acceptable to their fellows may find themselves liked by older people, and show themselves in an altogether different light. The ordinary courtesies of life, disregarded at school, have some sway. There is the softening influence of feminine and family society. A truce is called, and allowances unconsciously made. So it was with Hugo and Norman, who were not made to run together, but managed to find some community of interest in the pursuits of holiday time.

But with the advent of the third party new adjustments had to be made. There was a pause of observation, and then the struggle began.

The Rector's son was a stocky, dark-haired boy of considerable strength for his age. He was already at one of the minor public schools, where they took boys from the age of eleven. His manners were rough, as his school was, and his ideals did not include that of any sort of courtesy, though he was retiring enough in the company of his elders.

Hugo was as tall as Fred, but not nearly so broad or strong. He was dark, too, and good-looking in boy fashion, though not remarkably so. His manners were agreeable in grown-up society, and Norman had lately found them inoffensive when not affected by outside influences. In a very short time it was to be proved whether he would keep up his new-found amity with his cousin or put himself on Fred's side against him. His character was weak, and a year before Fred had played upon it, ostensibly following his lead, because with unpleasant precocity he recognized his superiority of place, but actually pushing him into the attitude that suited his inclinations.

Now came Norman's second surprise. During the pause of observation which came before the three of them settled down to the respective places which their characters and experience had earned for them, Fred seemed to realize that Norman partook in some measure of Hugo's superiority. It would have been marked enough to anybody who had seen the three of them together. The frankness of demeanour which had been encouraged by Norman's short experience of admirably conducted school life formed a significant contrast with Fred's clumsy diffidence in presence of his elders and his sniggering audacities when released from restraint. He was an unpleasant boy even at that early age, and Norman instinctively disliked him from the first moment of the second period of intimacy, and was inclined to hug his dislike.

It was he who made the breach that presently came. Otherwise, Fred would have kept the peace, and they would have got on as long as they were together without an open quarrel.

Three-year-old Pamela was the cause of it. Norman had found her more entrancing than ever, and had made no attempt to hide his love for her during the week before Fred had come on the scene. Hugo had grumbled sometimes when Norman had wanted to play with her, and he had wanted him to do something else, but there had been no repetition of the contempt that this unmanly preference for the society of a baby had previously called forth. Hugo was rather fond of his little sister, though he never put himself out to amuse her.

On the third day after Fred's arrival he came up to the hall immediately after breakfast, all agog for the game devised the evening before.

It had been snowing hard, then and through the night, and now it was a glorious, sparkling morning, with the garden and the park and the woods all muffled in white, under a frost which bound the whole landscape into gleaming, motionless beauty. The boys had found a pair of Canadian snowshoes in a lumber-room. They were to use them for a game of Indian trackers in the woods, and had agreed upon their several parts, not without some dispute, but on the whole amicably. Hugo and Fred were eager to be off at once. So was Norman, but he was rolling on the floor of the hall when Fred arrived, Pamela pursuing him with shrieks of laughter, and did not at once respond to Fred's urgings. When they were repeated with impatience he responded still less. He wasn't going to be ordered about by Fred, and his latent hostility impelled him to make it plain to him that the more insistent the summons the less quickly would it be obeyed. When Hugo added his impatient word, he said: "All right, you go out and begin, if you're in such a hurry. I'll come when I'm ready."

The two boys flung off grumbling, and Norman played with Pamela until a nurse came to fetch her. Then he set out to join them, not without some tremors over the reception he would meet with. But there was something not altogether disagreeable about these tremors, and he grinned widely, though he was not in the least amused, as he turned the corner of the house and saw Hugo and Fred sitting on a snow-covered log at the edge of the wood some distance off. Curiously enough, this scene came back to him vividly ten years later as he was crouching under the lee of a trench in Flanders, waiting for the signal to attack a more formidable foe. And, though he didn't know it, there was actually the same grin on his face when the signal came.

He walked slowly across the park towards them, stepping rather carefully in the footmarks that one of them had made in the snow. When he got within hailing distance of them he called out: "Haven't you tried the snowshoes yet?"

There was no reply. They had their heads together and Fred was eyeing him balefully.

When he got near them Fred rose from his seat, and said: "Look here, we're not going to stand this any longer."

"Well, then sit it," replied Norman, rather pleased with the readiness of the repartee.

Fred looked uglier than usual, but his next speech was more in the tone of reason than Norman had expected. "You're the youngest of the three of us," he said. "You're not going to keep us hanging about waiting for you when we've all settled on something to do. The cheek of it!"

Norman glanced at Hugo, who still sat on the log. There was nothing in his face yet to show whether he was hostile or not. He looked more interested than anything, and it came home to Norman that if he got the better of Fred, Hugo need no longer be feared as an adversary.

"Well, I'm sorry I kept you waiting," said Norman. "But I'm here now, so let's begin."

Fred was still inclined for argument. "I'm the oldest," he said, "but we're both here to play with Hugo, I suppose. As you're staying with him, naturally he doesn't like to make too much fuss over your cheek. But—"

"He didn't mind making a fuss last year," interrupted Norman, "and you sucked up to him and helped him. I was a bally ass to stand it then, and I'm not going to stand it now."

Fred made a threatening gesture. "Sucking up!" he repeated. "You'd better be careful what you say."

Hugo still held aloof, hunched up on the log, with his hands in his pockets. Somehow Norman felt it necessary to bring him in. "He does suck up to you," he said. "I'm not going to, you know."

Hugo stirred uneasily, and said: "It's quite true what he says. It's cheek keeping us waiting like this for a quarter of an hour."

"To play with a baby," added Fred with scorn. It was the charge, so frequently brought, which had hurt him the year before. But it hurt him no longer. "I like playing with little Pam," he said. "So does Hugo sometimes, when you're not here. You'd like it too, if you weren't such a dirty scug."

This was the turning-point. Fred made another gesture of attack, but did not follow it up. If he had done so the battle would have been short and sharp, and whoever had won—it must have been he—bad blood would have been let off and the three boys would have settled down together. Instead, he turned to Hugo. "Really, that's a bit too much!" he said angrily. "Shall I teach him his lesson?"

Hugo rose. "Oh, let's chuck it," he said. "What's the good of scrapping when there's a game to play?"

They played their game, which none of them enjoyed. The contest had seemed to be quite indecisive, but Norman had won it hands down. It was Hugo, the weakest character of the three, who was the decisive factor. Fred deferred to him, and lost ground by doing so. Norman made no effort to gain ascendancy over him, being content with equal terms, but his ascendancy none the less became marked. Because he disliked Fred, finding something in him antagonistic to all the clean ideals in which he had been reared, Hugo came rather to dislike him too. Fred met this attitude with deprecation, which made matters worse. He began to be cold-shouldered, and towards the end of the holidays his society was as much as possible dispensed with.

The next time that Norman came to Hayslope, in the summer, Fred had made his ground good again, having become necessary to Hugo in the meantime. There was no quarrel this time, but Norman never liked Fred, and their intimacy was only on the surface. He didn't like Hugo much either, or wouldn't have liked him if he had known him at school among a lot of other boys. But there was some sense of relationship and he was part of Hayslope Hall and all its keen delights.

As the years of boyhood went by, the cousins remained friends in some sort. But Norman's lead became more pronounced. Hugo went to Harrow, which was his father's school. William Eldridge by this time had left the Bar to engage in commerce, and was already beginning to make money. Norman was sent to Eton. When he had been there a year his foot was on the ladder. He was one of those boys to whom success in school life comes naturally, while Hugo was a potential rotter, destined to remain in the ruck, unless he should emerge from it for some discreditable reason.

When Norman was fifteen and Fred nearly eighteen, the antagonism between them at last found its vent. Fred had grown into a lout of a boy, whose only saving grace was athleticism. He was already in his school eleven and fifteen, and Norman, though coming on well, was as yet far below those altitudes. Fred, uplifted by his successes, was not so careful now to conciliate him. He encouraged the worst side of Hugo, and had established an influence over him while Norman had been off the field. This always happened, but now Hugo did not gradually come over to Norman, as he had done before. His adolescence had brought him to Fred's unsavoury views of life and conduct. Fred was his chosen companion at Hayslope, in a way that Norman would never be.

Norman, an attractive, light-hearted boy, in the early years of his school life, was not without experience of evil, to which he had shut his eyes as much as possible. The talk of the two older boys offended and troubled him, but he did not at first combat it. He was parted from them by more than years. Hitherto they had all been boys together; now the other two were essentially men, of the baser sort, and he remained a boy, with a boy's clean distaste for what was as yet none of his business. He fell silent when they pursued their promptings, and presently began to withdraw himself from them.

Pamela had reached the age of nine. She was an engaging little sylph-like creature, with laughing, mischievous ways, and a bright intelligence beyond her years. She was quite fit to be a companion to Norman, and he took pleasure in her society. Judith was only a year younger, and companionable, too, in a more serious way. Alice and Isabelle were five and four. All of them loved Norman, who played childish games with them, and was entirely happy in doing so. But this brought on him some return of the treatment by which he had been made so unhappy during his first intercourse with Hugo and Fred together. It did not make him unhappy now, but contemptuous of them. Still, there was the fact that Norman's childhood still hung about him, while they had got rid of theirs; and no boy of fifteen likes having his youth emphasized, especially by those, rather older, with whom he desires to be on equal terms. Fred and Hugo held this advantage over him, which delayed the outbreak for some time.

It came suddenly when it did come, and its beginnings were almost a repetition of the quarrel of years before. Norman was wanted to do something with the other two, and was not to be found. They came upon him by chance, with Pamela, in a retired part of the garden. They were sitting on a bench deep in conversation, for they found plenty to talk about that interested them, and Pamela was often very serious in these confabulations, when she laid aside the quick activities of her nature and was content to sit quietly and talk to a friend.

The discovery was made an occasion of whooping triumph by Fred and Hugo, as if they had surprised some secret. Pamela flamed out against them for disturbing her and Norman, and told them to go away and leave them alone. Their interference stung Norman to a cold fury that was quite a new experience to him, and beyond what was natural to his years. He stood up with a white face and confronted Fred, whose eyes flickered for a moment before him. "I'll just go and get my cap," he said, "and then I'll come with you. Wait for me down by the wood."

So he got Pamela away. She expostulated indignantly as they crossed the lawn together. "I hate Fred Comfrey," she said. "Why do you want to go with him instead of staying with me?"

"Oh, we'd already arranged something. I'd forgotten," he said shortly. "I can't always be with you."

It was beyond him altogether to affect indifference before her, and this unusual brusqueness served its turn. "You're ashamed of them finding you talking to a girl," she said hotly. "You're like that horrid Fred. Very well, then, you needn't pretend to be friends with me any more. Go with him."

"Oh, don't be silly," he said, and left her.

He went through the garden and across the park to where they were waiting for him. As he went he gave reign to his anger. Little Pamela! That coarse brute to jeer at their being together! And Hugo had stood by, grinning, if not even adding jeers of his own. His fist clenched as he walked up to them. "You're a foul swine," he said, stopping short within a yard of Fred, and added more, in language that seemed to come readily to his lips, though as a rule he avoided the grosser forms of schoolboy abuse.

Fred was taken aback for the moment by the violence of the attack, and Norman turned to Hugo. "You're a swine, too," he said. "Fancy letting this filthy cad treat your own sister like that!"

Fred began to say something; Norman did not wait to hear what. Fred's speech goaded him to action, and he dashed his fist in the other's face. Then they were at it. Fred's anger was loosed, too, and for a few moments it was a desperate scrimmage, with no science shown on either side. Norman, battered by the attack, was the first to gird himself to some self-possession, and by fighting warily delayed the end for a little. But he had no chance whatever against the much stronger and bigger boy, and was soon on the grass with the fight knocked out of him.

He was struggling up to continue it, but Hugo intervened. "This is rot," he said, more decisive than his wont. "Fred was only chaffing. He meant nothing by it."

Norman was gasping and sobbing, the blood dripping from his nose. "He's a swine," he cried, "a filthy swine."

Fred stood over him, breathing hard. Norman had marked him, but not enough to keep his blood hot. Already he was feeling some compunction at having let himself go to the full against a boy of Norman's size. "It was just chaff," he repeated; "nothing to get shirty about."

Norman struggled to his knees and unsteadily to his feet, and with his handkerchief to his face went off into the wood away from them.

Fred and Hugo looked at one another. "Better go after him," Hugo said. "There'll be a row if—"

"No good my going," said Fred sulkily. Dread of what should happen began to take hold of him. "You'd better go. He won't want to sneak."

Hugo caught Norman up. He was standing against a tree, sobbing. "You put up a jolly good fight against him," Hugo said awkwardly. "Better shake hands, now it's all over."

"I shan't," cried Norman passionately. "He's a foul swine."

"Well, you keep on saying that, but I think you're making too much of it. He didn't mean anything beastly about Pam. Naturally, I shouldn't stand that."

"Yes, you would," said Norman, facing him. "You'd stand anything from that beast. You're just like you used to be with him. I'll tell you this—I stood it then, but I'm not going to stand it now. I won't have anything more to do with him, and when you have him here I won't have anything to do with you. You can go and be swines together. I'll play with the children instead. You can say what you like about it. I don't care what you say about it."

He was still somewhat incoherent, but Hugo understood him. "I dare say it was rotten to chaff you about that," he said. "Anyhow, I apologize for it, and I'm sure Fred will. Now you've had a scrap, you ought not to keep it up against him."

Norman turned away. "I'm going down to the river to wash my face," he said. "I don't want you."

"Aren't you going to make it up with Fred?"

"No, I'm not. I hate the beast, and I've had enough of him."

"Well, you won't say anything—"

Norman cut him short. "I'm not a cad," he said.

Hugo went back to Fred. The result of their confabulation was that Fred kept away from the hall until Norman's visit was over. Norman did not see him again until years afterwards.

[CHAPTER IV]

PAMELA

"Pam, I've got something to tell you."

Norman had waited until they were away from the glare of the garden, and the green gloom of the summer woods was all about them, cool and secret and inviting to confidences.

He had not changed much since those days of boyhood, though he was now nearly twenty-five, and the last years of the war had caught him, and taught him some things that he wanted to forget, as well as much that had strengthened the fibre of which he was made. There was a boyish atmosphere about him still. He was tall and slim, and his fair hair, which he tried to keep plastered to his head, was always breaking away from the bounds of its cosmetics and dropping a skein over his forehead. Nothing he had undergone had affected that bright light-hearted charm of his boyhood. He seemed to be rejoicing in his youth and his strength, and in all the world about him, which, in spite of the shadows that still hung over it, he at least found as good as the young men of a generation earlier had found their more untroubled world.

Pamela was very young still, and very pretty. Her hair and her colouring were as fair as Norman's, whom she resembled in a cousinly way. Indeed the resemblances between them were more than superficial. They had the same eager pleasure in whatever life they found about them. They thought alike in most things to which they put their adventurous minds, and to neither of them did it seem odd that Pamela, who had not long since left the schoolroom, and had grown up under the shadow that had dulled and limited the life of her kind, should claim an equality of opinion with Norman, who was six years older, and knew so much more than the generality of young men had ever known before.

One may pause for a moment to note this unexpected attribute of those whose early years of manhood, instead of being passed in the pursuits and interests, educative or otherwise, adapted to their youth, had been given to the war, of which they had borne the ultimate brunt. The years which divide us from it are passing away. The social phenomena of each successive stage of the long struggle, and those that have succeeded it, too familiar to call for much notice at the time, will become blurred, and half forgotten even by those who were part of them; and in after years they will be difficult to gauge. This, among them, is not likely to be seen as it was, when the years have increased, and later generations try to recapture the spirit of the great war: that the young men, and the older men too, who lived through it, and came out of it whole, or not too broken to make what they would of their lives, put it to all effective purposes out of their minds. While it was going on they did the work appointed to them as if it were no more than any other work proper to their years, and pursued their recreations with an added zest. And when at last they were released, they crowded back into the various ways of life open to them, and put it all behind them as just an experience like any other which might have come to them. It could never be forgotten, but it was not to come between them and the life to which they had returned; and the interests of that life were exactly what they would have been if it had never happened.

So Norman Eldridge, who would have gone to a university in the ordinary way, but for the war, was at Cambridge now, three years later than his time, and with his three years of service behind him. His enjoyment of undergraduate life was even greater than it would have been in normal times, for it was a more conscious enjoyment, and he could gauge his opportunities better. Games, in which he excelled, though he had not quite succeeded in gaining his hoped-for Blue for cricket, did not take up even the greater part of his attention. He was a lover of the arts, and found Cambridge a delectable place in which to pursue them. He had plenty of money at his disposal, and social life was open to him at its widest. When term-time was over he could go where he liked, and enjoy himself as he pleased. And at this time he was enjoying himself to the full.

"Pam, I've got something to tell you," he said as they went down into the wood together.

"Is it the real thing this time?" she asked, with a quick smiling glance at his face.

"Oh, none of the others have been anything—just fancies—boyish fancies, you know."

He laughed gaily. He was very good to look at, with his close-cropped shapely head thrown back on the firm column of his neck. Pam smiled up at him again, with a sort of proprietary fondness. She admired him, as she had always admired him ever since she could remember, and had never met a young man whom she thought his equal. And it was a source of pride to her that he was one of her own family—to all intents and purposes a brother. Poor Hugo, over whose death she had cried, as something strange and unexpected and infinitely pathetic, had been a kind brother to her—she liked to remember that the last time she had said good-bye to him, never to see him again, he had given her ten pounds to spend as she liked—but he had never made a confidante of her, as Norman had always done. She had known very little of Hugo's life as it was spent away from Hayslope, but she thought she knew all about Norman's life. He had fallen in love once or twice, and had always told her everything about it. Hugo seemed to have gone through life without falling in love. Poor Hugo! She could not but believe, from her intimate talks with Norman, that he had died without acquiring the crown of his manhood. Norman was attractive under the influence of his love affairs, and she was not surprised that he had them continually, though she saw quite plainly that without some such guidance as she was fortunately able to give him he might have got into trouble with them. Men were so foolish where girls were concerned. Even the best of them, who had a lot to give—like Norman—fell in love with girls who were in no way their equals. But it never did to tell them so. Give them all sympathy and affection, and the affair died away of itself. So it had been three times with Norman already, and Pamela, who had been a little alarmed over the first affair, was confirmed in the belief that she had dealt most wisely with each situation as it had arisen. Still, the genuine lasting emotion must come into play sooner or later. There must be, somewhere, a girl who was worthy of such a rare prize as Norman's love, and Pamela had always told herself that when that girl was found she would welcome her whole-heartedly.

"Yes, you've been in love with love," she said impressively; and they both laughed, for this was a quotation.

"Trying my wings," said Norman. "They were all dears, but there wasn't enough to them when it came down to the things one is interested in."

"Well, now I'm free to speak," said Pamela, "I'll confess that they seemed to me a set of brainless idiots. I hope the new one has got some intelligence. It would be such an advantage if you had to spend your life with her. She's pretty, of course. Have you got a photograph of her?"

"Not a proper one. I'm not up to that point yet."

"Worshipping at a distance?"

"No, not exactly. We've danced together a lot in London, and been the greatest pals. Really, I've been rather clever about it. She's very young—only in her first season. She's out to have a jolly good time, but her life isn't only amusement. She's slogging hard at the piano. She'd like to be a pro, but of course her people won't let her."

"Why not?"

"Oh, well, her father's a Duke. She's Lady Margaret Joliffe. I dare say you've seen pictures of her in the papers. But they don't do her justice. She's perfectly lovely. Oh, I've got it terrible bad this time, Pam."

"Yes, I've seen her pictures. She's very pretty indeed," said Pam. "And Jim knows her. He says she's very clever."

The time seemed to have come at last, then. If Norman succeeded in winning a girl like this, nobody could say he was not getting as good as he gave, not even Pam, who thought that hardly anybody would be good enough for him. Yet she did not experience the quick sense of pleasure which she had persuaded herself would be her response whenever Norman did come to announce the real thing.

"Oh, clever!" repeated Norman. "That's not the word for her. She knows. She's got extraordinary perceptions for a girl of her age. It isn't only music. It's books, and art—everything that's jolly and interesting. And she's such fun with it all. No more of a highbrow than you are. In fact, she's the only girl I've ever met who sees things in the way that you do."

Pamela did feel some pleasure at this. "That's topping," she said. "Of course prettiness isn't everything. I suppose the others were pretty, except the girl with a squint; but they—"

"Oh, come now, Pam, she hadn't got a squint. She—"

"Well, a slight cast in the eye, then; and some people think it an added beauty. But they all seemed to have the brains of rabbits. I was beginning to think that you never would fall in love with anybody that had got beyond Short Division. Of course I'm glad you've found somebody intelligent at last. But do you mean to say that you never got beyond talking about Hanbert and Ravel and Augustus John with her?"

Norman looked at her with a slightly pained expression. "Pam dear!" he expostulated. "Why this acidulation?"

Pamela laughed, and they began again. "Well, it's really rather exciting," she said. "Do tell me about it, Norman. You haven't told me anything yet. When did you catch fire?"

His face took on a beatific expression. "Well, I'd held off just a trifle," he said. "We'd had a topping time together here and there. She always seemed to be pleased to see me, but—well, there was generally the old Duchess somewhere in the background; she's not really old, of course, but— You see, it seemed to be flying a bit high for me. I was at school with Cardiff—her brother—and he was in the Regiment too for a bit."

"Whose brother? The Duchess's?"

"No. Margaret's."

"Do you call her Margaret?"

"Well, I was going to tell you. I lunched with them at the Harrow match. Duchess rather cordial. Duke ditto. He used to be a bit of a cricketer, and he knew I'd got my Eleven at Eton. I was feeling a bit bucked with myself—seemed to be getting a sort of domestic hold, you know. So I plumped myself down beside her, without being invited to do so, and she didn't turn me away. I made her laugh. I believe I made them all laugh at our end of the table. I was feeling good and happy, you know, and rather let myself go. So after lunch I asked her to perambulate with me; and we perambulated. I don't think it was quite in the bargain. I could amuse them as a bright young lad, while they were stuffing, but I mustn't take liberties. She gave a sort of quick look at the old Dutch, and said: 'Yes, come along; we'll run away.' The old Dutch caught us with her eye as we were twinkling off, and called out, 'Margaret!' But Margaret wasn't taking any, so we had a very pleasant half-hour together, and she gave me most of her dates."

"Most of her dates!"

"Oh, we weren't eating 'em out of a paper bag. I found out most of the places she was going to when they left London. I don't anticipate an invitation to Balmoral, or anything of that sort; but Goodwood's open to everybody, and there are one or two houses in Scotland I think I can wangle myself into later on, and there's a chance of her going to the Canterbury cricket week. If she does, Norman Eldridge will also take part in that festival. Oh, it's not over yet, by any means. By the time I have to resume my studies at Cambridge University, I hope—"

"Yes, but what about—?"

"Wait a minute. You're in such a hurry. I took her back to the Dukeries. They were in a box, and fortunately Cardiff was there. He'd been off on a little line of his own at lunch, and I hadn't seen him for some time. His welcome was obstreperous. He was feeling good and happy himself, owing to his own particular fairy smiling on him, I suppose. He'd brought her with him. She was some peach."

"Oh, never mind about her. Stick to the point."

"I did. I took advantage of the genial atmosphere, and brought the old Dutch into it. She didn't want to laugh at first, but I made her. I wanted to remove the impression that I was a sort of snatch-lady pirate, but only wanted to play with them all together. I could tell the point where I succeeded. Soon kind of unhitched herself generally, and—"

"Oh, do come to the point, Norman. You're getting as long-winded as one of the old almshouse women. When did you call Margaret Margaret? That's the important thing."

"Yes, I know it is. It was a thrill, Pam. I didn't do it as if I'd done it by accident. I did it loud and bold—at least, not loud; I thought it would try the old Dutch too much. But it was all quite simple. When we said good-bye, I looked at her straight, and said: 'Good-bye, Margaret.'"

"I think it was rather bold—if not crude."

"No, dear; not crude. Not crude at all. I put a world of meaning into it—the auld hackneyed phrase, which may mean so little and may mean so much."

Pamela laughed. "I don't believe you're in love with her at all, if you can make fun of it," she said.

"How little you know, Pam! I jest to hide my emotions. I've fed on that sweet moment ever since."

"You've told me of other moments rather like it. I suppose her eyes dropped before yours."

"They did not. That's where she's different from all other girls—except you."

"Thanks awfully, Norman. I'll try and keep my eyes from dropping if it ever happens to me. But from what you've said before I thought they ought to drop. What did she do then—or say?"

"She looked at me straight, and said: 'Good-bye, Norman,' with a little half smile."

Pamela considered this. "That was the end, then," she said.

"Yes, but what an end, Pam! It was the beginning too. You can see what a thrill it was, can't you?"

"Yes, I think I can," she said slowly.

"Mind you, this was the very first time. Up to then there hadn't been a word or a sign. That's what makes it something to remember, you know. Oh, Pam! It's a heavenly feeling being in love. And it's such a score having somebody like you to tell it to. I don't know who I should have told if I hadn't had you—my tailor, I dare say; I shouldn't have been able to keep it to myself, and I owe him something which it isn't quite convenient to pay just yet. I told her about you, you know."

"Did you?"

"Oh, yes. I always do talk about you when I get really confidential."

"What did you tell her? And what did she say?"

"She was very sweet about you, and said you were just the sort of girl she would like to have for a friend. A lot of her friends were such ninnies."

"I never meet that sort of girl now," said Pamela with a sigh. "If only I hadn't had flu when Auntie Eleanor asked me to stay with you in London, I suppose I should have met her."

"Yes, that was jolly bad luck. We should all three have had a jolly good time together."

Pamela laughed again. "Perhaps I should have had somebody of my own," she said. "I'm old enough now, you know, Norman."

"Of course you are. You're just the same age as Margaret, as a matter of fact. You'd have had 'em swarming. But there are precious few of them I should think good enough for you. I say, old girl, what about Jim Horsham?"

"Well, what about him?"

"I don't think he's good enough, you know, though he is a Viscount."

"I like Jim. I've known him all my life."

"He's a good chap, but he's a desperate dull dog. Don't go falling in love with Jim, Pam."

"I'm not likely to fall in love with him."

"It occurred to me this afternoon that he showed some slight inclination to fall in love with you. There was a sort of concentrated heaviness on him whenever he was with you. I suppose he'd sparkle if he could, under emotion, but as he can't, he's got to be duller than usual. Perhaps there's nothing in it. But I shouldn't blame him if he did fall in love with you. In fact, I should think it rather cheek, in a way, if he didn't. He's not likely to meet anybody more worth falling in love with. But it isn't good enough, Pam."

"Well, I shouldn't worry about it, if I were you. Jim isn't my ideal, though he's a nice old thing, and I think you're too superior about him altogether. Did you know Fred Comfrey had come home?"

"Fred Comfrey!" Norman frowned. "I shouldn't think you're likely to fall in love with him," he said.

"Oh, bother falling in love! I'm leaving that to you at present. But there aren't many people to play with about here just now. He makes another one. He's much improved."

"Oh, Pam, he's an awful creature. Surely, you're not going to have anything to do with him!"

"I used to hate him; but he's quite different now. I should never have known him. You know he went out to China, before you came to live here, and he never came home until he joined up for the war. He did very well in the war—got his Commission quite soon, and the Military Cross. He was badly wounded too, and isn't fit yet. I'm sorry for him; and really, Norman, he's quite nice. Anyhow, we couldn't not have him to play with us, because of Mr. and Mrs. Comfrey. I expect Auntie Eleanor will ask him here too. He only came yesterday."

"Well, I suppose you've got to give everybody his chance. He was an unmitigated beast as a boy, but perhaps he's improved. He couldn't very well have got any worse. Still, it does rather stick in my gizzard that he should be making friends with you, as I suppose he'll want to. I should be a bit cautious if I were you, Pam. After all, one does know something of what a man is, when one has known him as a boy. I should say that Mr. Fred Comfrey was a nasty specimen, even if he has succeeded in disguising it, as he used not to. How long is he staying here?"

"I think he may stay in England altogether. He has done very well in business in China, and thinks he may be able to carry on in London."

"I wish he'd stayed in China. But how long is he staying in Hayslope?"

"For some time, I think. He had to go back to China, directly he was demobbed, and hasn't had a holiday since the war. You ought to be nice to him, Norman. Poor Hugo liked him. He talked to me very nicely about Hugo this morning."

"When did you see him?"

"After church. Mother asked him to lunch, but he thought he'd better go home."

"He wasn't at all a good friend for Hugo, you know."

"Perhaps not; but that's so long ago. Hugo improved too, afterwards."

Norman acquiesced perfunctorily. He knew that Hugo had not at all improved, afterwards, but also that Pamela didn't. "Well, I'll try to forget what he used to be like," he said. "But don't let's talk about him any more. Let's talk about Margaret."

[CHAPTER V]

THE FAMILY

Colonel Eldridge rode into his stable-yard and delivered up his horse to Timbs, who came hobbling out to receive it with a cheerful morning air and a general appearance of satisfaction with himself and his circumstances. Yet there were those who would have said that Timbs had no particular reason to be pleased with the way things had gone for him.

He had come to Hayslope Hall as groom ten years before, and had succeeded the old coachman four years later. He might have considered himself lucky then, for he was only twenty-six years of age. He had half a dozen horses in his stables and two grooms under him. There was also a chauffeur for the big car and the little runabout. Timbs had a young wife and a new baby, and comfortable quarters in which to keep them. In fact there seemed nothing left for him to desire, unless it was another baby of a sex complementary to the first one.

Then the war came. Timbs joined up among the first, and was turned into a good soldier, always cheerful and reliable, and diligent in writing home to the young wife who was being taken care of at Hayslope. Colonel Eldridge, who had gone back to soldiering himself, had exercised pressure, where it was required, as it was not in the case of Timbs, upon the able-bodied men on his estate to join the army, but had done his utmost to ensure their leaving their homes free of anxiety to those dependent upon them. So Mrs. Timbs and the baby prospered, while Timbs fought for his country; but Mrs. Timbs always wished that the war would end and Timbs would come home again, in which she differed from many wives in similar circumstances.

Timbs did come home at last, and she did not have to wait for him until quite the end. His left leg was shattered, and he had been for a long time in a hospital before she was allowed to have him. About the time the armistice was signed he was ready for work again. But it was not in his master's power to give him the work he had done before the war. Hayslope Hall could no longer support a coachman, two or three grooms and a chauffeur. Timbs took the place of all of them. One horse was kept and both the cars, but the bigger one was seldom used because of the price of petrol and tires. Timbs turned himself into an efficient chauffeur, and liked the change in his duties. He had higher wages than before, but perhaps not quite so high as he could have got elsewhere if he hadn't preferred to stick to his old master. His quarters were the same, his wife was as devoted to him as ever, and his baby had grown into a pretty little girl of seven, who was the apple of his eye, and made a pet of by the young ladies. Timbs thought himself well off, even with his crooked leg; and perhaps he was, as things go nowadays.

Timbs knew when the Colonel was in the mood for a little chat, and when it was wise to render quick service with a silent tongue. In the good old days the Colonel had seldom come in from his morning ride without a cheery word or two to this favourite servant of his. He loved his horses and found plenty to say about them, though most of it might have been said many times before. And he would have something to say to Timbs about what he might have seen in the course of his inspection of farms and fields, which he liked to undertake before breakfast in the summer. In the autumn there were early starts for cubbing, and then of course there was plenty to talk about on the return.

The good days did not seem to have disappeared entirely when the war was over, though Hugo's death had made him more silent than before, and the reduction in stables and outdoor upkeep generally had already begun. But there was a season's hunting, and Pamela had made her first appearance in the field. Timbs, with one groom to help him, had been kept busy enough, but his first winter at home had seemed to him very good. This was what the Colonel and he had always looked forward to—the time when the young ladies would hunt regularly, one after the other. Miss Pamela was good company for her father. He would soon pick up his spirits, and everything would be as it had been again.

But by the next season the economies had increased. There was no more hunting from Hayslope Hall. The Colonel kept one horse to get about on, and there was an old pony for pottering work on the place, which the younger children sometimes rode. That was what the war had brought to Colonel Eldridge in return for his services, which had included a year in the field, and after that four years of routine work in various provincial centres of industry. As a soldier he made no complaints. At his age he expected no reward other than the conviction of having done his duty where he could be made most useful. As a landowner he had many complaints to make, but kept them mostly to himself. He had passed for a rich man before the war; now he was a poor one. But one did not flaunt one's poverty before the world. That was why he had dropped hunting altogether; his old Caesar would have carried him well enough for a day or so a week, if he had cared to go on.

The morning chats with Timbs were getting rarer. There would certainly be none this morning. After a look at his master's face Timbs led Caesar away without a word, and the Colonel went into the house. Something happened to put him out. Timbs's own face was overcast, and it was fully two minutes before he began to whistle at his work.

It was a quarter past eight. Breakfast was at half-past, and as Colonel Eldridge would ride no more that day, he went upstairs to change his clothes. He came down as the gong sounded, and his expression had somewhat cleared. He held strong opinions about keeping an even temper before his family.

An English family assembled for breakfast in an old-established country house—the nations of the earth may be invited to contemplation of it. Here at Hayslope Hall was an example that could have been multiplied by thousands at that hour, or at one a little later; for as a nation we are not early risers except on compulsion.

The room was large, but not too large for an air of domesticity when there was only the family to use it. It had three long small-paned windows, which on this summer morning were open to the wide, yet secluded garden. The walls were hung with pictures, some good, some indifferent, and all so familiar that they were never looked at. Of the portraits none were older than the middle of the eighteenth century; but five or six generations of men and women of the same blood who have lived in the same house, and, allowing for differences of era, in much the same way, is already something substantial in the way of background. The furniture was not more than about a hundred years old, of that period of solid and dignified ugliness which was yet so much more satisfactory than the fashions succeeding it that by contrast with them it is now beginning to acquire merit. How it had come to replace the eighteenth century furniture which the periwigged gentlemen and hooped ladies on the walls had used when in the flesh was now forgotten; but it is only of late years that old furniture has been preferred to new, and there was nothing remarkable in this. The refurnishing of the dining-room might very well have been set in hand again since the last clearing out a hundred years before if it had not been thought that it would do very well as it was, and that there were more important rooms to spend money on, if money was to be spent in this way. As a setting for the family that now used it the room was eloquent of an ancestry already respectably established, and it told somehow of interests that were not markedly concerned with the decorations and appointments of a house. To the Eldridges, their dining-room was the place for the enjoyment of food and the sociability that went therewith, and it fulfilled all purposes that could be required of it. It was only in the matter of large assemblies, of which the great expanse of dark mahogany and the score or so of well-padded chairs seemed to make perpetual suggestion, that any incongruity might have been felt. The time for that was not now. But with the table lessened to the needs of family use and the space around it thus agreeably increased, the normal occupation of the room was sufficient for it. Here began the day with the assembling of those who would go their ways, some together and some apart, throughout its course, but all with a sense of the nearness of the rest; and here they would meet twice again before the day was done, to keep alive one of the best of the good things that English country life has cherished and made complete—the community of the family.

Colonel Eldridge, after greeting his daughters with a mixture of formality and affection, occupied himself with his breakfast and the letters which lay in a little pile beside his plate. It had not been his habit to deal thus with his correspondence in the days before the war. He had been more ready to talk then. He would choose a few letters out of the pile and perhaps discuss them, as Mrs. Eldridge did with hers at the other end of the table, and leave the rest for afterwards. Now he went through them all, business letters as well as private, and, schooled as he was to hide his emotions, he could not always keep from his face some expression of annoyance, or even dismay. But it was only in his face that this showed, and his wife and daughters knew that it was not meant to show at all. By degrees they had learnt to ignore it. If they addressed him he would always respond, and he would have been annoyed if they had tried to suit themselves to his moods. He liked to hear them chattering gaily among themselves, though he was not always ready to join in their chatter. They were, indeed, the reward that all his anxieties and schemings brought him. It was the happiness and freedom of their lives in the home which it behooved him to keep intact about them that sweetened it to him. But for them there would have been no anxiety, but only some reduction of opportunities which would still have left the main interests of his life untouched.

Colonel Eldridge was very neat in his suit of grey tweed, well-cut, well-brushed, but well-worn, his white stock creaseless, his figure thin and a little stiff, but not with the stiffness of age, his gold-rimmed glasses on the ridge of his thin, straight nose, his well-shaped nervous hands manipulating his papers or the implements of his meal. He was as different as possible, in outward appearance, from those ancestors of his whose pictures hung upon the walls; but probably he was very like them at root. Certainly there was not one who had been more attached to the house and acres which had been theirs and were now his. He had been a good soldier, of a limited kind, but he was above all a country gentleman, and looked thoroughly in his place in this room, which could only have been found, just as it was, in an English country house.

Mrs. Eldridge also looked thoroughly in place behind the old silver and china of her equipage. She always came down to breakfast in a state of apparent content with herself and her surroundings, cool and unruffled both in dress and demeanour. In the time that was past there had been so much to look forward to in the day of which this gathering was the inauguration. Though not, presumably, attached to the life of the country by the same ties as bound her husband, and enjoying her life equally when the periodic moves were made to London, she would have chosen the country rather than the town for permanent residence. The choice had not been hers, but it had had to be made. Much had gone that had made life agreeable to her at Hayslope, but much remained. On these summer mornings it was not so unlike what it had always been to her. There was the pleasant meal with her husband and her children, whom she loved; the appointments of the table, in which she never failed to take pleasure, though she had used them regularly for over twenty years; the sense of being newly and becomingly dressed; the birds singing in the garden, which was so fresh and inviting, and with the windows open so much a part, as it were, of the room itself. Her letters never brought her worries, as her husband's sometimes brought him—only occasionally a mild regret for opportunities of which she could no longer take advantage. But at this time of the day she was not much inclined to want more than she had. Her domestic duties were immediately in front of her, and she enjoyed them. She enjoyed them even more than before, for with fewer servants more depended on her. Only half of her desired the distractions due to wealth; the rest of her was pure domesticity. She had never been happier than during the first few years of married life, before her husband had succeeded his father as Squire of Hayslope. She was happy now in much the same responsibilities as had then devolved upon her, had she but known it. In these early hours of the day the consciousness of what she had lost did not trouble her. Besides, something might always happen in the long hours before her. She was not so old as to have lost that sense of the unexpected.

Pamela was happy too. She might grumble sometimes—to Norman—about the restrictions that had come to spoil the life of Hayslope Hall; but she loved it. And all the future was before her, golden and glamorous. It wrapped her in a sort of happy aura, which contained no definite point of desire. Anything might happen to her, in any one of these summer days, which began with the family meeting at breakfast. Something was bound to happen some day, and in the meantime life was sweet, and the shadow that had come to lie over her home hardly darkened at all the radiance in which she walked.

Judith was as pretty as Pamela in her way, which was an entirely different way. She was the only dark member of the family, now that Hugo was dead. Some forgotten ancestress had bequeathed her her lustrous hair, of which the shadows were almost visibly blue, and her large, deep, solemn eyes, her very skin was dark, but with the bloom of youth on it, and the healthy blood that flowed beneath its soft surface, it was rich and delicate. At the age of eighteen she had not yet come into the full heritage of her beauty, which did not depend so much as Pamela's upon youth. She hardly even seemed aware of it, and clothes were not yet a matter of much interest to her. She had alternations of childish high spirits and brooding reflection. Out of doors she was still something of a tomboy, in her young and restless energy; but she would sit for hours over a book, and in those moods she was oblivious to everybody and everything around her. She seldom talked about what she read, and indeed her reading would have been a puzzle to anyone who had tried to draw inferences of literary taste from it. Pamela had once reported to Norman the books over which Judith had spent hours of a wet day. They were Grimm's Fairy Tales, "The Wide, Wide World," and Bacon's Essays, and she seemed to have spent about the same time over each. Pamela held that she had no literary taste whatever; Norman was inclined to treat her preferences as a touchstone of merit. If Judith liked something, it was probably good. This theory was strengthened when she said she liked a picture of Gaugin's, of which he submitted to her a reproduction, and weakened by her absorption in Martin Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy," which she had found in the library and carried up to her room with her. She was quite ready to laugh with them over her tastes, but she would never give any explanation of them. "I like it," or "I don't like it," was her sole contribution to literary criticism, and she would never be moved a hair's breadth by any consensus of opinion. Judith went her own way in everything, but her way at present was confined almost entirely to Hayslope, where she found everything that she wanted. Less than Pamela did she feel the loss of what had made the life of her home rich in interest before the war. She had grown up from childhood under the new conditions and was happy in them.

The exceptional family beauty seemed to have stopped short at Judith. Alice and Isabelle, who were thirteen and twelve, respectively, had their abundant fair hair to recommend them, and their active youth, but nothing much else as yet in the way of looks. They were agreeable children, much alike in their eager interest in whatever went on around them, and their unerring pursuit of pleasure. They were always "the children" to the rest of the family, and what they thought was of small importance, though what they did sometimes obtruded itself upon their elders. Sitting at breakfast, one on either side of their mother, in their neat clothes, which would not be so neat later on in the day, their thick manes confined in heavy plaits, they seemed eminently good children, showing a healthy appetite, but no greediness, in the consumption of viands, taking a bright part in the conversation when it touched their orbit, but not obtruding themselves in such a way as to make their company noxious. Their presence at the breakfast table seemed, indeed, to heighten the effect of a family at one and at peace; for young children in a happy home have no desires outside it. Their parents, their brothers and sisters, even the servants and dependants who are also part of the family for the time being, are the chief characters in their little world. Not even their parents themselves are so bounded in their interests by the home they have made for them. And the wonderful imagination of children makes it the chief place of delight to them, even where its opportunities are small. Opportunities were not small at Hayslope Hall for these two, and they were as happy as children of their age could very well be.

If Miss Baldwin, their governess, was not completely happy—as what woman living always in other people's houses can be?—she was as contented as the accidents of her lot in life could make her. She was a precise spinster of middle age, and sat very prim and mindful of her manners between Pamela and Alice, never speaking unless when spoken to, but then speaking with an attention to the composition of sentences and the correct enunciation of her vowels which was a lesson to everybody present, and intended to be so to at least two of them. Colonel Eldridge addressed her directly, at least once in the course of every meal at which she was present, out of politeness. Mrs. Eldridge always found it difficult to remember that she was there, but also addressed her occasionally; but her attention was apt to wander over the reply.

Miss Baldwin had been at Hayslope for two years, but was no nearer to making one of the family circle than when she arrived. She was strict in the schoolroom and a good teacher in a limited way, but without any real interest in the subjects which she taught. Nobody would have thought, from her appearance and manner, that she was an incurable sentimentalist. She lived in a world of her own—a world of romance, of which the materials were sent her once a week in official-looking long envelopes with a typewritten address. Her time came when the children were in bed, and the life of the house, in which she had no wish to take part, was concentrated below. Then, in the large quiet schoolroom, sitting by the open window in the summer, or in winter time by the fire, she would be wafted away from the actual life about her, with all its restrictions for one of her age and class, to live richly and freely with the heroes and heroines of her chosen world. Baldness of narrative troubled her not at all. In the novels by authors of repute which she sometimes heard people discussing, there seemed no room for the play of imagination; the novelist would have it just so and not otherwise, and the characters to which he introduced his readers were so much like the characters one might meet at any time in the dull and sterile flesh. Those strong heroes of her favourite romances were as gods beside the emasculate earth-dwellers who stood for hero even in the best of stories bound between boards; the very virtue of their titles, if titles they had, seemed to be denied them. Nor did the heroines please her any better. She could never imagine herself one of them with any pleasure. If stately, they were never stately enough; if blushing and timid, they were merely passed by as of no account. Even Ouida, for whom she made an exception, having read some of her novels in early life, under a strong sense of immodesty, concerned herself with unessentials. Miss Baldwin wanted no pages of description, however poetic. She could get that in Wordsworth, duly annotated, so that there should be no mistake as to locality. If it was question of a garden in which a love scene was to be enacted, she only wanted to imagine it for herself—the most beautiful garden that ever was, not without indications of wealth on the part of its owners; or if a cottage garden, the mere mention of roses and honeysuckle would suffice. It was the people who mattered and what happened to them, and with them she smiled and wept, and felt, to the depths of her being.

So perhaps Miss Baldwin was happy after all, if not in the circumstances of her daily life, which she went through conscientiously and efficiently, in that paradise the gates of which were always open to her, where men were as gods, and women were worshipped by them, and none of them ever behaved in the way that Miss Baldwin was always impressing upon her pupils was the only possible way to behave.