ARAMINTA

ARAMINTA

BY
J. C. SNAITH
Author of “William Jordan, Junior,” “Broke
of Covenden,” Etc.

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1909

Copyright, 1908, 1909, by
THE FORUM PUBLISHING COMPANY

Copyright, 1909, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
New York

Published, February, 1909
Second Printing, March, 1909
Third Printing, May, 1909
Fourth Printing, July, 1909
Fifth Printing, August, 1909

CONTENTS

ARAMINTA

CHAPTER I
THE OLD WOMAN OF HILL STREET

AN old lady who lived in Hill Street was making arrangements to enter upon her seventy-fourth year.

It was a quarter to nine in the morning by the ormolu clock on the chimney-piece; and the old lady, somewhat shriveled, very wide-awake, and in the absence of her toupee from the position it was accustomed to grace—at present it was in the center of the dressing-table—looking remarkably like a macaw, was sitting up in bed. Cushions supported her venerable form, and an Indian shawl, the gift of her Sovereign, covered her aged shoulders.

There were people who did not hesitate to describe her as a very worldly-minded, not to say very wicked, old lady. The former of these epithets there is none to dispute; in regard to the latter, let our silence honor the truth. It is far from our intention to asperse the character of one who has always passed as a Christian; nor do we ascribe to human frailty the sinister significance that some people do. But as far as this old lady is concerned it is a point upon which we have no bigotry.

If sheer worldliness of mind is akin to wickedness, the old woman who lived in Hill Street must have come perilously near to that state. Her views upon all matters relating to this world were extremely robust, and years and experience had confirmed her in them. In regard to the next world she seldom expressed an opinion. In this she was doubtless wise. Sitting very upright in her bed, with those glittering eyes and hawklike features the unmistakable mistress of all they surveyed, she was enough to strike the boldest heart with awe. Not that temerity was the long suit of Miss Burden, a gentlewoman of a certain age whose sole mission in life it was to do her good-will and pleasure in return for board and residence, and forty pounds per annum paid quarterly.

Duly fortified with a slice of dry toast and a cup of very strong tea, the old lady said in such a clear and incisive tone that she must have studied the art of elocution in the days of her youth—

“Burden, cover my head.”

The gentlewoman obeyed the command with delicacy and with dexterity. Yet it must not be thought that the elaborate mechanism which adorned the venerable poll fourteen hours out of the twenty-four was taken from the center of the dressing-table. It was not. Various ceremonies had to be performed before the moment arrived for its reception. In its place a temporary, but none the less marvelous, erection of fine needlework and point lace was produced by Miss Burden, and arranged like a veritable canopy about the brow of Minerva.

“Admit Marchbanks,” said the voice from the bed.

The door opened and that personage was ushered in. Mr. Marchbanks merits a description quite as much as his mistress. Yet how to do justice to him, that is the problem. The poise of his bearing, his urbane reserve, his patrician demeanor were those of an ambassador. His whole being was enveloped in an air of high diplomacy. His most trivial action seemed to raise the ghost of Lord John Russell. Like his venerable mistress, he was a Whig to the core. He had been born, he had been bred, and by the grace of God he was determined to die in that tradition.

Under the left arm of Mr. Marchbanks was the Morning Post, which organ of opinion had been warmed by his own hands. In his right hand he bore a small silver dish. Upon it was a little pile of rather important-looking correspondence.

With the courtly grace of a bygone age, Mr. Marchbanks bowed to the occupant of the four-poster—old ladies who live in Hill Street do not put their faith in new furniture—and his venerable mistress was pleased to say—

“Good morning, Marchbanks.”

“Good morning, my lady,” said Mr. Marchbanks very gravely; and then said he with a benevolence that would have made a considerable fortune in Harley Street: “I trust your ladyship has slept well.”

“As well as one can expect at my age,” said the occupant of the four-poster.

No, Mr. Marchbanks did not offer his venerable mistress many happy returns of her birthday. And to those of our readers who aspire to serve old ladies who live in Hill Street—and let us not be judged immodest if we express the belief that many who are inspired with this excellent ambition will be found among them—a word of warning may not be out of place. Let us urge these neophytes not to take the practice of Mr. Marchbanks for their guide. His eminence was the fruit of years. Remember he had been tipped by the Duke of Wellington. He had pulled down the coat collar of Lord Palmerston on more than one occasion; while as for Lord Granville, he knew him as well as he knew his own father.

“How is Ponto this morning?” inquired the occupant of the four-poster.

“In excellent spirits, my lady.”

“And his appetite?”

“He has eaten a chicken, my lady, with excellent relish.”

“Humph,” said the occupant of the four-poster, “that dog eats as much as a Christian.”

In the opinion of Mr. Marchbanks Ponto ate more, but he did not say so. He was content merely to bow and withdraw with simple yet ample dignity. The old lady read her letters and glanced at the Court Circular, the Parliamentary Report, and the Money Market. She then announced her intention of getting up. Over the divers things incident to this complex process it is doubtless well to draw the veil. Let it suffice that an hour and a half later she reached her morning-room, a veritable dragon in black silk and a brown wig, leaning on an ebony walking-stick.

The normal condition of her temper was severe, “Acidulated to the verge of the morose,” said those who had particular cause to respect it. A considerable, not to say representative body they were. On this wet morning of the early spring, this seventy-third annual commemoration of the most pregnant fact of her experience, her temper was so positively formidable that it smote the officers of her household with a feeling akin to dismay.

Various causes had contributed to the state of the barometer. For one thing that impertinent fellow Cheriton had issued his annual persiflage upon the subject of her birthday. It fell, it appeared, upon the first of April; a stroke of irony, in Cheriton’s opinion, for which she had never quite been able to forgive her Creator. Then, again, if you came to think of it, what had existence to offer an old woman who had so long outlived her youth; who had neither kith nor kin of her own; who bored her friends; who rendered her dependents miserable; who was unable to take exercise; who distrusted doctors and despised the clergy: a praiser of past times who considered the present age all that it ought not to be?

Why should this old lady be in a good humor on her seventy-third birthday? She was a nuisance to everybody, including herself. She was a vain and selfish old woman, as all the world knew. Yet even she had her points. Everybody has to have points of some kind, else they would never be allowed to persist—particularly to their seventy-fourth year.

For one thing she was good to her pug. Upon that extraordinarily repulsive and overfed animal she lavished a great deal of affection. Yet mark the ingratitude of the canine race. How did that misshapen, dumb, soulless, pampered beast, whose figurehead was like a gargoyle, and whose eyes were so swollen with baked meats that they could scarcely revolve, requite the constant care and caresses of his mistress? Why, by getting fat. There could be no doubt about it that Ponto was getting fat.

Almost the first thing the old woman did upon what was destined to prove one of the most memorable days of a long and not particularly useful life, was to issue an edict. It was to the effect that John, the second footman, was to exercise Ponto for an hour every morning in Hyde Park. The manner in which John, who himself consumed more than was good for a human being, received the edict is no concern of ours.

It was about a quarter to two—at least it was getting near luncheon-time—that the rare event happened from which springs the germ of this history. How it came to pass will never be known. It is a problem to baffle the most learned doctors and the most expert psychologists. For at about a quarter to two, just as Miss Burden had returned from a visit to the circulating library, the occurrence happened. The old lady of Hill Street was visited by an Idea. To be sure it did not reveal itself immediately in that crude and startling guise. It had its processes to go through, like a cosmos or a tadpole, or any other natural phenomenon that burgeons into entity. The evolutions by which it attained to its fullness were in this wise.

“Where have you been, Burden?” said the old lady, fixing a cold eye upon the abashed blue-backed volume under the arm of her gentlewoman.

“I have been changing a novel at Mudie’s,” said Miss Burden.

“The usual rubbish, I suppose,” said the old woman, giving a grim turn to her countenance, which rendered that frontispiece an admirable composite of a hawk and a hanging judge.

“Lord Cheriton said it was the best novel he had read for years,” said Miss Burden with the gentle air of one who reveres authority.

“Humph,” said the old lady. “Whatever Cheriton is, he has taste at least. Give it to me.”

Miss Burden handed the blue-backed volume to her mistress. The old lady opened it warily, lest she should come too abruptly upon a fine moral sentiment.

“Man uses good English,” she said suspiciously. “Reminds one of the man Disraeli before he made a fool of himself in politics.”

The next thing that Miss Burden was aware of was that the old lady was fast asleep.

When Mr. Marchbanks came a few minutes later to announce that luncheon was ready, his mistress, with the blue-backed volume in her lap, was snoring lustily. An anxious consultation followed. Her ladyship had not missed her luncheon for seventy-three years.

The far-seeing wisdom of Miss Burden—doubtless due in some measure to her pure taste in English fiction—was allowed to prevail. The state of the old woman’s temper could not possibly be worse than it had been that morning if the sun was to remain faithful to the firmament. If she slept undisturbed it might conceivably be better.

Miss Burden was justified of her wisdom. The old lady missed her luncheon for the first time in seventy-three years. Ideas come to us fasting; and that is the only explanation there is to offer of how her Idea came to be born.

CHAPTER II
THE IDEA WHICH CAME TO HER

IT was a quarter to three when the old woman awoke. She was alone save for Ponto, her fidus Achates, who was snoring in front of the fire with his tail curled up in the most ridiculous manner. And yet she was not alone, for there is reason to believe that her Idea was already born in her. There can be little doubt that the Idea had sprung into being, even before she had time to turn, which she did almost immediately, to the half-pint of claret and the plate of goose liver pie that Miss Burden and Mr. Marchbanks in consultation had caused to be laid beside her.

Now do not suppose that the Idea was proclaimed forthwith in its meridian splendor. Nothing of the kind. It was still in its infancy. It had to be shaped and reshaped, to be dandled and cosseted, to be born and born again in the dim recesses of the mind, before it gathered the requisite force to issue as it were from the armory of Minerva.

At four o’clock precisely it was the custom of this old lady, if the light and the British climate permitted, to drive the whole length of Bond Street and once round Hyde Park.

At that hour the sky having cleared sufficiently for the sun to make a tardy and shamefaced appearance, the old lady, accompanied by her faithful gentlewoman and her somnolent four-footed beast, entered the equipage that was drawn up before her door.

It was an extraordinary vehicle. It had yellow wheels and a curious round body, which, according to scale, was very nearly as fat as Ponto’s. It was perched up on very high springs, and was in the forefront of the fashion about the year 1841.

Mr. Bryant and Mr. Gregory, who shared the box-seat, would doubtless have been in the forefront of the fashion about the same period. Their broad backs, their box-cloth, the shape and texture of their hats and the angle at which they wore them unmistakably belonged to a very early period of the world’s history. No, they did not wear side whiskers. We don’t know why. Perhaps it was that side whiskers were either a little in front or a little behind the mode in 1841. But it is enough that Mr. Bryant and Mr. Gregory did not wear them. And had they worn them, had the present biographer had reason for one single moment to suspect that Messrs. Bryant and Gregory had been in possession of these appendages, he would have given up this history. Really the line has to be drawn somewhere.

The progress along Bond Street was at the rate of two miles an hour. The horses, Castor and Pollux by name, were very fat and very somnolent, the yellow chariot was very unwieldy, and in the language of Constable X, who touched his helmet at the corner of Hanover Square, “it took up a deal o’ room.” None the less the progress of the vehicle was almost royal.

The old lady sat very upright in the center of the best seat, which she had all to herself. With a nose of the Wellington pattern and a chin to match, displayed under a canopy of feathers, she looked more like a macaw than ever. Miss Burden, in charge of Ponto and a pair of folders with a tortoiseshell handle, was seated opposite at a more modest elevation.

Every member of the male sex whom this redoubtable veteran chanced to meet, who had the good fortune to wear his clothes with a sufficient air of distinction, received a bow from her; and in return she was the recipient of some highly elaborate and wholly inimitable courtesies. With these she ranked as “an agreeable old woman.”

With the members of the other sex, which socially the more critical, who seated in their barouches, their victorias, their broughams, and their motors, who inclined their own distinguished heads from under their own barbaric canopies, yet with no vain strivings in the direction of effusiveness, she was greeted with a half-veiled hostility of the eyelids, and a whispered, “There goes that old cat.”

We offer no opinion on the justice or the taste of the remark. We claim no learning in feminology. Why these ladies, each of whom vied with the other in the propagation of good works, each of whom was an honored patroness of more than one institution for the amelioration of the human race, should apply such a figure of speech to one who was old and venerable it is not for us to conjecture.

Did they refer to the quantity of feathers she was wearing upon her helmet? If so, since April 1, 183-, she had caused many a beautiful and harmless bird to be destroyed. But then they themselves were wearing similar great canopies of feathers. Did they refer to her features? We think not, for although her nose was shaped like a talon of a bird of prey, they were not conspicuously feline. Perhaps it was that they referred to her personal character. At any rate they are known to be high authorities upon such a matter as the human character, and as a rule are very searching in their judgments. Certainly the old lady proceeding along Bond Street in her yellow chariot at the rate of two miles an hour had done a fair amount of mischief in her time; and if health and strength continued to be vouchsafed to her by an All-wise Creator, before she died she hoped to do a good deal more.

In her own little corner of her own little parish no old lady was more respected. Where she was not respected she was feared, and where she was neither respected nor feared she was very heartily hated. Of one thing we are sure. There was not a living creature who loved her, unless it was Ponto, who being a creature without a soul was denied the consolations of religion.

We don’t believe for a moment that Miss Burden loved her. She had caused her faithful gentlewoman, who in the space of twenty years had given all she had had of youth, beauty, and gayety in return for board and residence and forty pounds per annum, paid quarterly, to weep too many tears in the privacy of her chamber for such a sacred emotion as love to requite her persecutor. Yet it is far from our intention to dogmatize upon the female heart. If we do we are sure to be wrong. That complex and wonderful mechanism has defeated us too often. Therefore it is possible that Miss Burden hugged her chains to her bosom and lavished the poetry pent up in her soul upon the hand that chastened her. We say it is possible, but we protest that it is hardly likely. Yet do not let us express a positive opinion upon the emotional apparatus of even Miss Burden, who, whatever else she might be, was a woman and a gentlewoman and the thirteenth daughter of a rural dean.

It is really no use trying to hide the fact that the old lady in the yellow chariot had in the course of her seventy-three summers wrought a great deal of misery and unhappiness among her fellow-creatures. Nobody’s reputation was safe in her keeping. She never said a kind word of anybody if she could possibly help it; and although she may have done good by stealth she very seldom did it in the light of day. Yet there can be little doubt that Ponto loved her in his dumb way, and there is every reason to believe that Mr. Marchbanks respected her immensely.

Proceeding along Bond Street with her Idea—she had not forgotten it, and you must not forget it either—she continued to evolve that mysterious phantasm in the grim purlieus of her hard yet not capacious mind. Sitting very upright in the center of her yellow chariot, bleakly indifferent to those who did not interest her, and coldly overlooking those who did, this old woman in her marvelous equipage had come almost alongside the little shop on the left going towards Piccadilly where you can get the nicest silk hat in London, of which we forget the name, when she beheld an apparition.

It was a Hat. It was of gray felt with a dent in the middle and rather wide in the brims, of the variety which is called a Homburg because it is worn at Cannes. Round this article of masculine attire, in itself sufficiently bizarre, was what is technically known as “a Guards’ ribbon.” Those who are acquainted with the merits of this decorative emblem will not thank us for describing them; while those who are not will be unable to appreciate the special texture of their excellence from a mere categorical statement. Let it suffice that the old lady in the yellow chariot beheld a Homburg hat with a Guards’ ribbon approaching at the rate of one mile an hour.

Now there was only one individual, not in London only, but in the whole of what at that time ranked as the civilized world (circa 190-), who by any concatenation of events could possibly be seen walking in Bond Street in a Homburg hat with a Guards’ ribbon on April the first. Messrs. Bryant and Gregory knew that quite as well as their mistress. Therefore, quite naturally and properly, the yellow chariot came to a stand automatically, just as the Hat came to a stand also, immediately opposite the coat-of-arms on the near side panel of this wonderful equipage, which itself was immediately opposite the little shop where you can get the nicest silk hat in London.

We wish our readers could have seen the manner in which Mr. Bryant and Mr. Gregory each removed his own headgear (circa 1841), in an act of homage to the Hat of Hats. We feel sure it would have reconciled them to a number of things they are likely to find in this history.

“How d’ye do, George?” said the old lady.

Now that form of salutation may mean much or it may mean little. With the occupant of the yellow chariot it meant the former. She only said, “How d’ye do?” to the highest branch of the peerage.

“How d’ye do, George?” said the occupant of the yellow chariot.

“Pooty well for an old ’un,” said the owner of the Hat in a gruff, fat voice.

“How old are you?” said the occupant of the chariot.

“Nearly as old as you,” said the Hatted one. Then said he with slow and gruff solemnity: “Many happy returns of your birthday, Caroline. It is a great pleasure to see you looking so well.”

“Thank you, George,” said the old lady with formidable politeness. “Regular habits and a good conscience are worth something when you get past seventy.”

George Betterton, Duke of Brancaster, began to gobble like a turkey. He was a heavy-jowled, purple-faced, apoplectic-looking individual, rather wide in stature and extremely short in the neck. So famous was he for his powers of emulation of the pride of the farmyard, that he went by the name of “Gobo” among his friends. As his habits were not so regular and his conscience was not so chaste as they might have been, George Betterton grew redder in the jowl than ever, and rolled his full-blooded eyes at the occupant of the yellow chariot.

“Something been crossing you, Caroline?” inquired her old crony, in his heavy, slow-witted way.

“Yes and no,” said the occupant of the chariot with that bluntness of speech in which none excelled her. “Ponto is getting fat, and Burden is getting tiresome, and Cheriton has been insolent, and I am tired of life; but I intend to hold on some time yet just to spite people. It is all the better for the world to have an old nuisance or two in it.”

This philanthropic resolution did not appear to arouse as much enthusiasm in George Betterton as perhaps it ought to have done. All the same he was very polite in his gruff, stolid, John Bull manner.

“Glad to hear it, Caroline,” said he. “We should never get on, you know, without your old standards.”

“Rubbish,” said the old lady robustly. “You would only be too pleased to. But you won’t at present, so make your mind easy.”

The occupant of the yellow chariot flung up her nostrils as if to challenge high heaven with a snuff of scorn.

“What are you doing in London?” said the old lady. “That woman is at Biarritz, they tell me.”

George Betterton pondered a moment and measured his old friend with his full-blooded eye.

“I’ve come up to judge the dog show,” said he.

“Oh, is there a dog show?” said the old lady, upon a note of interest she seldom achieved. “When is it?”

“A week a’ Toosday,” said the owner of the hat.

We apologize to our readers, but if you belong to the highest branch of the peerage you have no need to be the slave of grammar.

“If I send Ponto,” said the old lady, “will you guarantee him a prize?”

“First prize,” said her old friend.

“Look at him well so that you will know him again. Burden, let the Dook look at Ponto.”

“I’ve seen him so often,” said George Betterton plaintively, as that overfed quadruped leered at him biliously. “He’s a ducky little dog.”

“Don’t forget that American creature that Towcaster married has the effrontery to have one just like him. If you confuse him with hers I shall not forgive you.”

“Better tie a piece o’ bloo ribbon round his tail,” said George.

His grace of Brancaster turned upon his heel.

“Remember my Wednesday,” the old lady called after him in stentorian tones.

Whether George Betterton heard her or whether he did not it is doubtless well not to inquire. It is rather a failing with high personages that they are apt to be afflicted with a sudden and unaccountable deafness. The old lady’s voice could be heard at the other side of Bond Street, but her old acquaintance made no sign whatever that it had penetrated to him.

The yellow chariot moved on. Its occupant, looking exceedingly grim, and more than ever like a Gorgon or a dragon born out of due time, immediately proceeded to cut dead the inoffensive widow of a Baron in Equity who with her two pretty daughters was driving to the Grosvenor Galleries.

If there were those who could be deaf to her, there were also those to whom she could be blind. There can be no doubt that during the course of her long life she had had things far more her own way than is good for any human creature. But there were now those who were beginning openly to rebel from her despotic sway. George Betterton was not the only person who of late had been afflicted with deafness.

All the same, if the aspect of this old woman meant anything it was that its possessor had to be reckoned with. It had often been remarked by those of her friends who followed “the fancy,” that in certain aspects it bore a striking resemblance to that of an eminent pugilist. It was a very tight and hard and arbitrary mouth, and a general demeanor of perfectly ruthless sarcasm that returned to Hill Street at a quarter to five. The rebels must be brought to heel.

The redoubtable Caroline had been home about an hour, when suddenly, without any sort of warning, the Idea assumed an actual and visible guise. She was in the middle of a game of piquet, a daily exercise, Sundays excepted, in which she showed the greatest proficiency, which generally ended in the almost total annihilation of her adversary. Having “rubiconed” her gentlewoman, and having mulcted her in the sum of two shillings which Miss Burden could ill afford to lose, her Idea burst from its shell and walked abroad.

“Burden,” said the old lady, “do you remember the name of the person that was married by my sister Polly?”

Miss Burden was so much startled by the question that she could not answer immediately. Not only was its abruptness highly disconcerting, but its nature was even more so. It dealt with one outside the pale.

“Per-Perring—Perkins,” floundered Miss Burden. It was a name never mentioned in Hill Street upon any pretext whatever.

“Look it up in Walford.”

Miss Burden consulted that invaluable work of reference. With some difficulty and many misgivings she was presently able to disinter the following:—

Perry Aloysius, clerk in holy orders, master of arts. Eldest surviving son of Reverend John Tillotson Perry and Maria, 2nd daughter of Montague Hawley esquire. Born 1842. Married Mary Augusta, younger daughter of Charles William Wargrave, third duke of Dorset, and Caroline daughter of 5th marquis of Twickenham. Incumbent of Saint Euthanasius Slocum Magna and perpetual curate of Widdiford parish church. Heir S., Richard Aloysius Wargrave Perry, clerk in holy orders, bachelor of arts. Address, The Parsonage Slocum Magna, North Devon.

When the old lady had been duly acquainted with these facts she knitted her brows, pondered deeply and said “Humph!” A pause followed, and then a look of resolution settled upon her grim countenance.

“Burden,” said she, “I am going to try an experiment. I shall write to that man.”

In that apparently simple sentence was embodied the old lady’s Idea in the fullness of its splendor. For the first time in her life or in his she deigned to recognize the existence of the Reverend Aloysius Perry.

The recognition duly dictated to the gentlewoman assumed the following shape:—

“The Countess of Crewkerne presents her compliments to the Reverend Perry. Lady Crewkerne will be pleased to adopt a girl of her late sister’s. Lady Crewkerne would suggest in the event of this course being agreeable to the Reverend Perry, that the most refined and mannerly of her late sister’s children be forwarded to her.”

“Get my spectacles, Burden,” said the old woman, grimly. “I will read it myself.”

It is perhaps too much to say that a tear stood in the kind eyes of the gentlewoman when she rose to obey this behest. But certainly a long-drawn sigh escaped her, and the beating of her heart was quickened. The coming of a third person would at least help to relieve the tedium of that establishment.

The old woman read her letter with patience and with cynicism.

“It will serve,” said she. “Send it immediately.”

And then, as they say in the best fiction, a strange thing happened. The most natural and becoming course for Miss Burden to take was to ring the bell, in order that this curious document might be dispatched by a servant. But she did not do this. In her own person Miss Burden went forth of the room, and without waiting to put on her hat she passed out at the hall door, and with her own hand dropped the letter in the pillar-box opposite.

CHAPTER III
LORD CHERITON LOOKS IN

THREE days later there was delivered in Hill Street a letter bearing the west-country postmark. It was written in narrow, upright characters, which seemed to bear a shade of defiance in them. The envelope was inscribed with some formality to the Right Honorable the Countess of Crewkerne, yet its shape was unfashionable, the paper was of inferior quality, and was innocent of any sort of adornment.

When this document was borne upon the silver dish by Mr. Marchbanks to the chamber of his aged mistress, and delivered to her in the sanctity of her four-poster, there was a slight flicker of the eyelids of that elderly diplomatist. It was as though with the flair that always distinguished him, he had come to divine that a great event was in the air.

The conduct of his mistress added weight to this theory. No sooner did she observe this commonplace missive to be nestling among those more ornate communications emanating, as Mr. Marchbanks knew perfectly well, from dukes and marquises and earls, and the ladies of dukes and marquises and earls, than she swooped down upon it for all the world as some old eagle might have done with outstretched talon. She read as follows:—

The Revd Aloysius Perry has the honor to present his compliments to the Countess of Crewkerne, and begs to say in response to her request that he is forwarding to-morrow (Tuesday) per passenger train, his second daughter Araminta, who in his humble judgment is the most attractive of those with which it has pleased Providence to endow him.

The old lady, propped up in her four-poster, honored this communication with two readings and with a knitted brow. She was a very sharp-witted old woman, as we are constantly having to remark, and she could not quite make up her mind whether the unconventional flavor that clung to the letter of the man that had been married by her sister Polly was the fruit of conscious irony or of bona-fide rusticity.

“Humph,” said she, her invariable exclamation when in doubt about anything. “An underbred person, I am afraid.”

She flung the cause of her uncertainty across the counterpane to her gentlewoman with a contemptuous gesture.

“It is an experiment,” said she. “I dare say it is not wise for a woman of my age to add to her responsibilities. We shall see. At any rate, Burden, you are getting tiresome, and Ponto is getting fat.”

“I feel sure she will be a sweet girl,” Miss Burden ventured to say.

“Why do you think so?”

“Girlhood is so delightful,” said Miss Burden. “All young things are so adorable.”

“Burden,” said the old lady, ruthlessly, “you are a fool.”

Miss Burden blushed faintly, as she always did when her birthright was applied to her scornfully. Yet it was a trial she had had daily to endure for many years past. She had been called a fool so often that she had come to believe that she was one. And that is the kind of belief that renders the human lot very hard. The faint tinge of shame that dyed the cheek of the poor, sensitive, downtrodden dependent was the sign manual of something that lay too deep for tears.

“It is a dangerous experiment,” said the old lady. “At my age I ought to know better than to try experiments. I hope the creature will be decently bred.”

“Surely, dear Lady Crewkerne,” said Miss Burden, “a girl of poor dear Lady Augusta’s can hardly fail to be that.”

“The father is quite a common man; a person of no particular family. And, unfortunately, girls take after their fathers.”

“I feel sure the husband of dear Lady Augusta is a gentleman.”

“Burden,” said the old lady, ruthlessly, “you are a born fool. Ring the bell. It is time I had my massage.”

During the course of the morning Caroline Crewkerne’s oldest friend looked in to pass the time of day with her. He stayed to luncheon.

Cheriton was one of those men whose mission in life it is to appear on all occasions and in every season as one apart from the vulgar herd. There can be no doubt that he succeeded in this laudable ambition. His corsets were not to everybody’s taste, and there were also those who did not care greatly for the color of his wig and the way in which he wore it. Its hue was as the raven’s, abundant in texture and arranged low on the forehead in the form of a fringe. But Caroline Crewkerne’s judgment of her old gossip was the correct one. Whatever Cheriton was or whatever he was not, emphatically he was not a fool. Had he been in any sort oppressed by that not unamiable form of human weakness the redoubtable Caroline would have been very quick to expose it. In a matter of that kind no one could have had a keener or more uncompromising instinct. They knew each other so well, they had crossed swords so often, each derived so much zest from the display of the other’s dexterity, that while interpreting one another with a frankness that less robust persons might have found almost brutal, it had respect for a mutual basis.

To Cheriton’s credit let it be written, he was an admirer of women. If they were pretty his admiration was apt to increase. If a character of quite singular merit had its vulnerable point—and I do not positively assert that it had—it was perhaps to be found in his dealings with the most attractive members of what has always been allowed to be a most attractive institution.

To the whole of that sex, however, it was his wont to be extraordinarily polite, charming, supple, and attentive. No one could call Miss Burden supremely attractive. She had so many things against her, including the immediate loss of her place had she developed any special powers in this direction. But she had long been Lord Cheriton’s devoted slave and adherent. It was merely the result of his way with the whole of womankind. Young or old, fair or ugly, it made no difference. An air of deferential pleasantness, of candid homage so lightly touched with sarcasm that it passed for whimsicality, was extended towards all who bore the name of woman, whether it was Caroline Crewkerne herself, her penniless dependent, or the old flower-seller at the top of the Haymarket. His grace of demeanor and his slightly ironical bonhomie were at the service of each of them equally.

It is not too much to say that Miss Burden adored Lord Cheriton. Not openly, of course, not in the broad light of day; but there can be little doubt that had the occasion ever arisen she would gladly have yielded her life for this handsome, deferential, finely preserved nobleman of five-and-sixty. Nor is it a matter to be wondered at. Although she was a well-read woman with an excellent taste of her own, he made out her circulating-library lists for her; he invariably had a bunch of violets to offer her, or any other simple flower that was in season; he took a genuine interest in the condition of her health; and further there was every reason to suspect that in his heart of hearts he shared her intense dislike of Ponto, who had very rudimentary ideas indeed of the deference due to light-gray trousers.

“Cheriton,” said the old lady, as soon as they were seated at luncheon, “did you know that George Betterton was in London?”

The pair of old gossips looked one another in the face with an air of demure innocence.

“And she at Biarritz,” said Cheriton, musically.

The old lady bent across the table with the gesture of a sibyl.

“Mark my words,” said she. “The régime is at an end.”

“I never prophesy in these cases,” said Cheriton. “She is a very able woman, which of course is not surprising, and George is the incarnation of sheer stupidity, which is not surprising either. All the same, Caroline, I don’t say you are not right.”

“Of course I am right,” said Caroline Crewkerne, robustly. “And I put it to you, Cheriton, what will be the next move upon the tapis?”

“George will marry,” said Cheriton, tentatively.

“Precisely,” said the old woman, nodding her head in sage approval.

“Have you selected a duchess for him?”

“Why do you ask?” said the old lady, with an air of diplomacy which amused Cheriton, because it was so unnecessary.

“I ask merely for information. If I were a sporting tipster, Priscilla L’Estrange would be my selection.”

“No,” said Caroline Crewkerne, with immense decision, “a man never marries a woman as stupid as himself. Nature’s an old fool, but she knows better than that.”

Cheriton pondered this philosophical statement with a sagacious smile. Caroline’s air, however, was so pontifical that it was not for his sex to dissent from it.

“Well, there is a great amount of stupidity in the world,” said he, “and it seems to be increasing. By the way, was George sober?”

“He was holding himself very erectly, and he was walking very slowly.”

“Then I am afraid he wasn’t. But it must be the most tedious thing out to spend one’s life in losing one’s money at cards and in criticising the Militia.”

“Yes,” said the old lady. “I share your opinion that it is time George began to pay attention to more permanent things.”

“The Militia is always with us.”

“I meant spiritual things, Cheriton,” said Caroline Crewkerne, whose day-of-judgment demeanor nearly choked his lordship.

“George Betterton,” said he, “has the spirituality of a wheelbarrow. It will give me great pleasure to be present when the subject is mentioned.”

“He is coming to my Wednesday,” said the old lady. “I shall speak to him then. That reminds me that Mary Ann Farquhar says this new Lancashire bishop eats his cheese in the old-fashioned manner and he is now in London. If I knew his address I would send him a card.”

“The Carlton Hotel,” said Cheriton, “is the headquarters of the Church in London.”

“Burden,” said the old lady, “make a note of that.”

With an ostentation that Caroline Crewkerne considered wholly unnecessary, Cheriton inscribed this important contribution to sociology on the tablets of the gentlewoman. “What new game is the old heathen going to play, I wonder?” was the question that passed through his mind as he did so.

“What was Gobo doing in the parish?” inquired Cheriton. “Come to worry the War Office as usual?”

“No,” said the old lady, “he seemed more serious than usual, but that may have been drink. As I am showing Ponto at the dog show on Tuesday week, George has consented to award the prizes. I have chosen a silver collar with his name inscribed suitably. I don’t know anything more becoming than a silver collar for a dog of Ponto’s type.”

“I am afraid it’s a job; and don’t forget, my dear Caroline, the last one you perpetrated did no good to the country.”

“What do you mean, Cheriton?” said the old lady, with her bristles going up like a badger. “Have the goodness to explain your meaning.”

“That boy from Eton—your protégé—whom you sent out to South Africa to command a brigade, made a dooce of a hash of it, they tell me.”

“That is a lie, Cheriton, and you know it,” said the old lady, whose voice quivered so much with passion that it frightened Miss Burden considerably. “Poor dear Arthur once told me himself that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton.”

“It is your thoughtlessness, my dear Caroline, in taking for gospel the senile speeches of an old fogy who lived far longer than he ought to have done, that has so nearly cost us a continent. The playing-fields of Eton forsooth!”

“Cheriton,” said the old lady, “I despise you.”

The light of battle was in her eye. It is hardly correct to speak of their crossing swords. The weapons they used were cudgels, in the use of which they were very expert.

Miss Burden was not a little shocked and affrighted. But she had witnessed so many exhibitions of a similar character between these combatants, who fully enjoyed a rough and tumble whenever they met, that I am by no means sure that the gentlewoman’s fear was not in the nature of a pleasant emotion. It seems to be right and proper that a gentlewoman shall derive a legitimate pride from being shocked and affrighted. At least it used to be so in that bright and glad heyday of decorum before some person unknown invented a hockey stick to beat out the brains of female sensibility.

It was not until they were drinking coffee in the seclusion of her ladyship’s boudoir that peace was restored between the combatants. They had both appeared to advantage, for they had had long practice in all kinds of verbal warfare. Cheriton’s phrases, by long association with the great world, were as direct as possible. He called a spade a spade, but his manner of so doing was extremely charming. Miss Burden thought his most incisive speeches were full of melody. As for Caroline Crewkerne, she was the sharpest-tongued old woman in London. And the least scrupulous, said the very considerable body who had been flayed by it.

Peace restored, the old lady made an abrupt suggestion.

“Cheriton,” said she, “it has occurred to me that it is time you settled down. You ought to marry.”

“Cherchez la femme,” said Cheriton, with a lightness of tone that ill became him.

“If you will place the matter in my hands,” said Caroline Crewkerne, “I shall be happy to do what I can for you.”

“I am overwhelmed.”

“Don’t be a coxcomb, Cheriton,” said Caroline, sharply. “Let us take a broad view of the subject and let us place it on a matter-of-fact basis. I repeat, in my opinion you ought to marry.”

“Pourquoi?”

“In the first place,” said the old woman, ruthlessly, “you are not quite what you were. Five-and-sixty is—well, five-and-sixty. It is no use disguising the fact that young and attractive women are a little inclined to smile at you.”

Cheriton writhed. Rather pitifully he raised a hollow guffaw. It was perhaps the worst thing he could have done in the circumstances; but the poor butterfly, when the pin is through its middle, is prone to augment its own tortures by twisting its body and flapping its wings. Caroline Crewkerne smiled grimly.

“The fact is, Cheriton,” said she, “you have grown already a little passé for the rôle of Phœbus Apollo. Understand the phrase is not mine. It was whispered in my ear by an insolent girl who looks upon you in the light of a grandfather.”

Cheriton mopped his perspiring features with a yellow silk handkerchief. He conducted this operation very delicately because his cheeks were flushed with a carmine that was apt to run all over the place.

“I have heard a complaint of your mustache,” said his old friend. “In my opinion it requires careful treatment. At present it does not harmonize with your general scheme of color. When did you dye it last?”

“The same day on which you last dyed your hair, my dear Caroline,” said Cheriton, rather laboriously. “As they both belong to the same period, I thought it right to——”

“Don’t explain at length,” said Caroline. “I dye my hair weekly. But what I want to point out to you is this. In my opinion it is quite time you were married. You are rich. It is almost a national scandal that there is no entertaining at Cheriton House; and the title reverts to a branch of the family you don’t esteem. Surely there is to be found in the world some youngish person of modest attractions—do not delude yourself, Cheriton, that you can ask for more—to whom you can offer a vocation.”

“There is a little actress at the Gayety,” said Cheriton, thoughtfully. “She seems a healthy creature. I dare say she——”

“Burden, quit the room,” said the old lady.

Blushing like a peony and trembling like an aspen—a double feat of which gentlewomen nurtured in the best Victorian traditions were always capable—Miss Burden obeyed.

Cheriton closed the door.

“Yes, I dare say she would,” said Caroline Crewkerne, with her hanging-judge demeanor. “All the same, Cheriton, you talk like a fool.”

What Caroline Crewkerne said to Cheriton, and what Cheriton said to Caroline Crewkerne, I shall not set down. The plain truth is, I dare not. She was a survival of a famous aristocracy which was never accustomed to mince its language. She had always been used, as her Georgian forbears had before her, to call a spade a spade. It was a mark of caste. And Cheriton, too, beneath his superficial airs and dandified graces, which had earned for him the title of “the last of the macaronis,” which really meant nothing at all, had a strain of the most uncompromising frankness.

Really I must apologize to my readers for these two old and hardened worldlings. I hope they will make all the allowance that is possible, for whatever the pretensions of one of them, neither was inclined to view the great institution we call Woman at all romantically. Cheriton would certainly have rebutted the charge with scorn, but none the less it is perfectly just. His affectation of delicacy was only skin deep. Had a third person overheard their conversation without being furnished with the key to it, he would have concluded that it had to do with the bringing into the world of a pedigree horse, a thoroughbred dog, a prize cow, or a speckled rhinoceros. And he must have wondered how it was that two persons who had obviously moved in good society from their youth up, could sit tête-à-tête in a beautiful room in one of the most fashionable thoroughfares in all London, discoursing with remarkable point and gusto upon a subject which would have befitted a couple of yokels in a farmyard.

“There’s my niece,” said Caroline Crewkerne.

“Have you a niece?” said Cheriton.

“A girl of Polly’s. You remember Polly?”

“Polly was a very plain woman,” said Cheriton, slowly. “I think, take her altogether, she was the plainest woman I ever saw.”

“It is odd,” said Caroline, “that I had all the good looks as well as all the brains. It made life so difficult for Polly. Yet I think her heart was better than mine.”

“Yes, Caroline, I think so,” said Cheriton, assenting gracefully. “But I don’t seem to remember Polly’s marriage.”

“It was not a marriage.”

“No?” said Cheriton, with a sudden access of interest which was open to misinterpretation.

“Polly married the village curate, who hadn’t a shilling.”

“Poor devil.”

“To which of the contracting parties do you refer?” said Caroline, incisively.

“Must have been a poor devil if he hadn’t a shilling.”

“Of course,” said Caroline, “the Family never forgave her. Dearest papa forbade her the neighborhood. He might have forgiven the village, and he might have forgiven the curacy, but he could not forgive the shilling.”

“Naturally,” said Cheriton. “But I’ve known parsons’ daughters turn out very well before now. I’ve seen one or two who looked capital in the Gayety chorus. What’s the age of the gal?”

“Nineteen.”

“An alluring period. Has she a good disposition?”

“She is my niece,” said Caroline, with admirable succinctness.

“I shall come and see her. When is she on view?”

Caroline Crewkerne enfolded herself in her mantle of high diplomacy. She paused to measure Cheriton with that hawklike eye of hers.

“A month to-morrow.”

“Capital,” said Cheriton.

He rose at his leisure.

“So long, Caroline,” said he. “It is a great pleasure to find you so fit.”

Caroline gave him a withered talon.

“Get another wig,” said she. “And consult a specialist about your mustache.”

“What, for a parson’s daughter!”

“A duke’s granddaughter,” said the imperious Caroline.

“I’m damned if I do,” said Cheriton, amiably.

“You are damned if you don’t,” said Caroline, making the obvious retort which is so apt to be mistaken for wit, and fixing an eye upon him that was positively arctic. “That is, if the creature is worth her salt.”

“You are doubtless correct, Caroline,” said Cheriton, with the air of a man who made a god of reason. “You have a good head. If only your heart——!”

With a bow and a smile, which had wrought great havoc in their time, although to some they had a certain pathos now, Cheriton withdrew. He pointed a course towards a famous shop at the corner of Burlington Gardens.

“It is quite true what they say,” this nobleman of distinguished appearance and open manners might have been heard to mutter to high heaven, as he gazed upwards to inquire of Jove whether he intended to ruin his hat. “She is the most disagreeable old woman in London.”

However, there is always the reverse of the medal, the other side to the picture. This handsome, courtly and carefully-preserved specimen had been somewhat badly mauled no doubt by the old lioness. But had he been endowed with eyes in the back of his head, or been gifted with some occult faculty, he would have found a salve for his wounds. For his exit from the house in Hill Street was marked by a mildly ascetic form which was efficiently and discreetly veiled amid the curtains of the dining-room windows. Could he have been conscious of the eyes that were concentrated upon the back of his gracefully erect and faultlessly tailored exterior; could he by some special process of the mind have ravished the secrets of that chaste yet susceptible bosom, he would have been assured that it is not always necessary to invoke the black arts of the perruquier to recommend one’s self to the mind and heart of a Christian gentlewoman. Had Lord Cheriton cut off his mustache as a Lenten sacrifice—which we regret to say was not at all likely, as there is reason to fear he did not respect the Church sufficiently to contemplate such a course of action—or had he been as bald as an egg, which Caroline Crewkerne declared he certainly was, within the sanctity of Miss Burden’s breast there would still only have reigned the image of one perfect man, of one true prince.

CHAPTER IV
ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST CAUSE OF ALL ROMANCE

WRAPPED in these reflections that we have dared to disclose, Miss Burden was oblivious of the fact that an old woman leaning upon an ebony stick, and accompanied by the roundest of all possible dogs, with the curliest of all possible tails, had entered the room. With a somewhat cruel abruptness she was made aware of that fact.

“Burden, don’t be a fool,” said a voice that was full of hard sarcasm. “Come away from that window immediately.”

In dire confusion Miss Burden endeavored to disentangle herself from the folds of the window curtains.

“That man is as hollow as a drum,” said the old woman, with a comprehensive wave of her walking-stick, “and as vain as a peacock. Where is your self-respect, Burden? A person of your age, position, and appearance—it is indecent.”

Miss Burden was prepared to swoon. Fifty years earlier in the world’s history there is reason to believe she would have done so. But even the emotional apparatus of a Christian gentlewoman is susceptible to streams of tendency. Swoons are seldom indulged in in these days by the best and most sensitive people. Therefore Miss Burden was content to blush guiltily, to droop her head, and to hoist a hunted look in her mild gray eyes that was really charming.

“Burden,” said the old woman, sternly, “where is your list for the circulating library? I shall have to supervise your reading. It is exercising a pernicious influence upon your mind and character.”

Miss Burden produced the list from the recesses of the small wallet which she bore suspended from her waist.

“Precisely as I thought,” said the old lady, with a snort. “Novels, novels, novels! And by male writers. For some time past, Burden, it has been plain to me that an influence has been at work which has been undermining your sense of delicacy. ‘The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,’ by George Meredith. Cross it out. Substitute Mrs. Turner’s ‘Cautionary Stories.’ ‘The Dolly Dialogues,’ by Anthony Hope. Cross it out. Substitute ‘The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.’ ‘An Old Maid’s Love Story,’ by Anon. Cross it out. Substitute ‘The Pleasures of Life,’ by Lord Avebury. ‘L’Abbé Constantin,’ by ——! Cross it out. Burden, I forbid you to read French authors until the end of May.”

Having issued this Draconian edict, this tyrant, over whose head three and seventy winters had already passed, left her gentlewoman impaled haplessly upon the two-spiked thorn of shame and confusion. She proceeded to indulge in her daily siesta, which advancing years rendered more than ever necessary if her store of natural energy was to remain equal to the demands which were made upon it.

At four o’clock, as I think I have told you already, it was the old lady’s custom, if the weather was favorable, to take the air in her yellow chariot. Upon this momentous day, however, the elements were adverse; and at twenty-seven minutes past four, by the clock in the blue drawing-room, she was to be found in that spacious, somber, yet magnificent apartment. She was wearing her second-best turban, a black silk dress, and a collar of priceless old lace, secured by a brooch which was said to have been given to an ancestress by good Queen Elizabeth, who, for reasons of state, afterwards cut off the head of the recipient. Enthroned before a silver teapot and twelve Crown Derby teacups, with a monogram upon the bottom, prepared to offer some very weak tea and some stale bread and butter to a number of persons who were not in the least likely to appear to claim it, she presented as formidable a figure as any to be found in London.

I lay stress upon the time—twenty-seven minutes past four—for that is the hour at which this history really begins. Then it was that a four-wheeled vehicle of a rapidly disappearing type drew up before the imposing front door of the house in Hill Street. Upon the roof of the “growler” was a dilapidated wooden box, insecurely tied with a cord which had been pieced in three places. And seated modestly enough in its interior was—well, the First Cause of All Romance.

I cannot say more than that. There she was. The first thing appertaining to her that was projected from the dim recesses of the “growler” was her straw hat. Now, as I think I have already observed, there is a great deal in a hat. They are full of character—straw hats especially. And as it is the duty of a historian to extenuate nothing, it has to be said that this was a preposterous hat altogether. In the first place, its dimensions were certainly remarkable; it flopped absurdly; there was a sag of the brims which was irresistibly impossible; while as for the general condition and contour of the hat, the less said upon that subject the better.

In general shape, design, and texture, this primitive article was more like an inverted vegetable basket than anything else. Unmistakably rustic, even in its prime, it was now old, discolored, and misshapen; and the piece of black ribbon that had adorned it in its youth was really not fit for the West End of London. Purchased of the general outfitter of Slocum Magna for the sum of one and elevenpence halfpenny in the spring of 1900, I am not concerned to deny that it was as rudimentary a form of headgear as was ever devised by the very remote district to which it owed its being. It had absolutely no business at all in that chaste thoroughfare which for many years past has been dedicated to the usage of fashion.

I am taking up a lot of time over the hat, although I am aware that my readers are saying, “Bother the hat! Tell us what is underneath it.” Precisely. All in good time. But it is my duty to set down things in the exact order they emerged from the dim recesses of the “growler.” The inverted vegetable basket was the first to emerge undoubtedly. And then came the tip of a chin. It was inclined at a furtive angle of feminine curiosity. Although only the extreme tip of it was visible, the preposterous headgear which overshadowed it really ought not to be mentioned on the same page with it. For there can be no question that the chin was the work of a very great Artist indeed.

The cabman came down from his perch. He was a veteran, with an extremely red visage, and a general look of knowledge which he had a perfect right to assume.

“You are ’ere, miss,” said he, as he opened the door of the “growler” with a spacious air which almost suggested that he was the ground landlord of the whole of the West End of London. “You would like the portmanter down, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, please,” drawled a friendly voice from within.

While the cabman, with great ceremony and an immense display of exertion, was lifting the corded box from the roof, the owner of the inverted vegetable basket emerged from the “growler,” marched up the steps of the Right Honorable the Countess of Crewkerne’s town residence, and rang a loud peal upon the front-door bell.

The front door was opened immediately by no less a person than John, who was rather inclined to expect a duchess. John devoted the greater, the more serious portion of his life to the expectation of duchesses. And with his imperturbable mien, his somewhat supercilious eyes, and his superb suit of livery, which did infinite credit to the most exclusive firm in Savile Row, no man on this planet, whatever point they have reached in Mars, was better fitted to receive one.

John was taken aback. By an inexcusable oversight on the part of the powers that obtained in Hill Street, the personal retainers of the Right Honorable the Countess of Crewkerne had not been informed that her ladyship expected her niece. No carriage had been sent to meet her. The fact was that the old lady expected her on the following day. Whether the Reverend Aloysius Perry had expressed himself obscurely, or whether Lady Crewkerne and her gentlewoman had read his letter carelessly, is a problem not easy to solve. But there the matter stood. The fair visitor from Slocum Magna in the middle of Dartmoor, North Devon, was not in the least expected, and John was taken aback.

It did not take him long to recover, however, for his natural self-possession was considerable, and he was a man of the world. Almost immediately he began to subject the invader to a very severe scrutiny. He began with the crown of her hat. To say the least, the beginning was very unfortunate. From the hat his hostile gaze passed to a very rustic-looking cloak which had a hood to it. If there was one thing that John despised more than another, it was a cloak with a hood.

Then the frock underneath! It was a sort of lilac print arrangement, faded in places, and completely outgrown by its wearer, who—whisper it not in Bond Street!—stood exactly six feet in her stockings. As the intelligent reader will doubtless surmise, the skirt of this nondescript garment displayed a great deal more ankle than is considered correct in the metropolis. And such ankles! Yet the boots which adorned them may have made them appear worse than they really were. The village cobbler at Slocum Magna has always been allowed to be a conscientious and painstaking craftsman, but it is very doubtful whether he will ever be awarded a diploma for his skill in the higher graces of his calling. The ankles of the fair visitor were encased in the stoutest, most misshapen pair of laced-up boots John had ever seen in his life.

Further, John’s eye fell upon a pair of gloves which in his opinion were all that a pair of gloves should not be. They were made of black cotton and were very freely darned; and, as if this were not enough, the right glove was clasped round the handle of a wicker basket of a dreadfully rural, not to say common, character. The lid, which was secured by a piece of string, had a great air of uncertainty about it. At any moment it threatened to give way to the weight it had to bear. And as if all these unlucky details did not themselves suffice, there was a “growler” immediately opposite the sacred precincts; while at that very moment a red-faced and festive-looking cabman was toiling up the steps with a dilapidated wooden box, tied by a cord which had been pieced in three places.

In the circumstances there was only one thing for John to do. This John did with great energy and conviction. He sniffed.

At almost the same moment a perfectly ludicrous drawl assailed his ears.

“Does Aunt Caroline live here, please?” said the occupant of the doorstep.

It is not too much to say that John was nonplused by the question.

“This is the residence of the Countess of Crewkerne,” said he with hauteur.

Unhappily, the effect of this announcement was marred by the officious behavior of the cabman. That worthy was oppressed by no sense of embarrassment. With a wheeze and a grunt which were wholly unnecessary, because the box contained so little, he made his way past its owner with ostentatious heaviness, and was about to bring it into forcible contact with John’s best suit of livery, when the custodian of the portals realized that it was a time for action.

“Don’t bring it in,” said he, sternly. “Stay where you are. I will make inquiries.”

With a glance, not to the cabman only, but to the wearer of the inverted vegetable basket also, which intimated that they crossed that threshold upon peril of their lives, John turned upon his heel. He walked across the entrance-hall to confer with his chief, who of course was no less a personage than Mr. Marchbanks himself.

The conference was grave, but it was brief. Mr. Marchbanks came forward in his own inimitable manner, only to find that the fair intruder, preposterous hat, hooded cloak, cobbled boots, darned gloves and all, had had the temerity to enter.

I do not say positively that Mr. Marchbanks frowned upon her; but certainly he looked very majestic; and it is my deliberate judgment that had you searched the length and breadth of Mayfair it would have been impossible to find a more imposing man than he. His nose was like the Duke of Wellington’s, and it was known that his demeanor was modeled upon that of that renowned hero and patriot. In his cutaway morning-coat and spotless shirt-front, and his great Gladstone collar, purchased at the same shop as was affected by that distinguished statesman, with his black-bow tie and his patrician features, he might just as well have been prime minister of these realms as merely the butler to old Lady Crewkerne.

I lay particular stress upon these facts, and I want all my feminine readers to make an especial effort to comprehend them, because the behavior of the Heroine was such as has never previously been offered to the public in a work of this character.

She attempted to shake hands with the butler.

In a measure John was to blame. He approached Mr. Marchbanks so reverently, he addressed him with such an air of deference, that the artless intruder might almost be pardoned for jumping to the conclusion that Mr. Marchbanks was a marquis uncle whom she had never heard of before. At any rate, no sooner had the finely chiseled profile of Mr. Marchbanks confronted her than the creature of the straw hat tucked the wicker basket under her left arm, and thrust out her right hand with a spasmodic suddenness which dumfounded Mr. Marchbanks completely.

“Oh, how do you do?” she said. “I hope you are quite well.”

Mr. Marchbanks did exactly what you would expect him to do. He drew himself up to his full height. Yet there was no confusion in his gesture, although it was a great crisis in his life. After an instant of silence in which he sought very successfully to recover the grand manner, he held a short private colloquy with his subaltern. Neither of these gentlemen had been informed that her ladyship expected her niece, but Mrs. Plunket the housekeeper had informed them that a new under-housemaid was expected at six o’clock.

That is how the instinct of Mr. Marchbanks came to betray him.

CHAPTER V
THE INSTINCT OF MR. MARCHBANKS BETRAYS HIM

IT is impossible to forgive Mr. Marchbanks. He of all men ought to have known that the fair intruder was what is technically known as “a lady.” In these democratic times it is true this mysterious entity is of many kinds, and it was a point of honor with Mr. Marchbanks to keep as far behind them as he decently could. But it is impossible to forgive him for jumping to his absurd conclusion. One can understand a comparative amateur such as John, who judged things objectively, making such an inexcusable blunder; but that such a past master in the fine shades of social status should have confirmed him in it, is one of those things that frankly defeats us.

In the stateliest fashion, with his silvered head held very erectly, Mr. Marchbanks made his way to the housekeeper’s room.

Mrs. Plunket, indisputable sovereign of the nether regions, was taking tea. Mr. Marchbanks greeted her with an air of private wrong.

“A young person, ma’am, is arrived,” said he.

“The new under-housemaid is not due until six o’clock,” said Mrs. Plunket. “She has no right to come before her time.”

“I am almost afraid, ma’am,” said Mr. Marchbanks, with diplomatic reserve, “that this is her first place.”

“Surely not,” said Mrs. Plunket. “She has been ten months in the service of the Duchess Dowager of Blankhampton.”

“Then, I fear,” said Mr. Marchbanks, gravely, “that she has not profited by her experience.”

“Indeed, Mr. Marchbanks!” said Mrs. Plunket.

“She rang the front-door bell,” said Mr. Marchbanks.

“That is unpardonable,” said Mrs. Plunket. “Yet the Duchess Dowager of Blankhampton is generally considered very good service.”

“Things are very unsettled, ma’am, in these days,” said Mr. Marchbanks, gloomily. “It seems sometimes that even good service is a thing of the past. If we must have Radical Governments and we must have higher education of the masses, there is no saying where we shall get to. She—ah, she attempted to shake hands with me!”

Mr. Marchbanks’ solemn, deep-toned note of pathos impinged upon the domain of poetry.

Mrs. Plunket shuddered.

“Mr. Marchbanks,” said she, “if you desire it she shall be dismissed.”

At heart, however, Mr. Marchbanks was a man of liberal views, as became one who had been nurtured in Whig traditions.

“She is young, ma’am,” said he, with a dignified mildness which in the circumstances Mrs. Plunket admired extremely. “A word in season from the right quarter might bear fruit.”

“She shall have it,” said Mrs. Plunket, with a truculent shake of the teapot.

“Her style of dress also leaves much to be desired,” said Mr. Marchbanks. “It is distinctly suburban to my mind. But no doubt, ma’am, you will prefer to judge for yourself.”

“I will see her,” said Mrs. Plunket. “But I feel sure I shall have to dismiss her at once. Yet to be an under-housemaid short does make life so difficult.”

“Perhaps, ma’am, she may be molded,” said Mr. Marchbanks with the optimism of the true Whig.

Mr. Marchbanks withdrew, climbed the stairs at a dignified leisure, and reached the marble floor of the spacious entrance-hall. He was greeted immediately by a gesture of distress from John. It seemed that the chaste air of Hill Street was being defiled by an altercation between a person in a battered straw hat and a rustical frock and an elderly cabman who smelt strongly of gin.