Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

The
Affair at the Inn

by
Kate Douglas Wiggin
Mary Findlater
Jane Findlater
Allan McAulay

Gay and Hancock, Ltd.
12 and 13 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden
LONDON
1910

All rights reserved

An account of certain events which are supposed to have occurred in the month of May 19—, at a quiet inn on Dartmoor, in Devonshire; the events being recorded by the persons most interested in the unfolding of the little international comedy.

The story is written by four authors, each author being responsible for one character, as follows:—

Miss Virginia Pomeroy, of Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A., by Kate Douglas Wiggin, Author of 'Penelope's Experiences,' etc.

Mrs. MacGill, of Tunbridge Wells, by Mary Findlater, Author of 'The Rose of Joy,' etc.

Miss Cecilia Evesham, Mrs. MacGill's companion, by Jane Findlater, Author of 'The Green Graves of Balgowrie,' etc.

Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie, of Kindarroch, N.B., by Allan McAulay, Author of 'The Rhymer,' etc.

THE AFFAIR AT THE INN

I

VIRGINIA POMEROY

Dartmoor, Devonshire,
The Grey Tor Inn,
Tuesday, May 18th, 19—

When my poor father died five years ago, the doctor told my mother that she must have an entire change. We left America at once, and we have been travelling ever since, always in the British Isles, as the sound of foreign languages makes mamma more nervous. As a matter of fact, the doctor did not advise eternal change, but that is the interpretation mamma has placed upon his command, and so we are for ever moving on, like What's-his-name in Bleak House. It is not so extraordinary, then, that we are in the Devonshire moorlands, because one cannot travel incessantly for four years in the British Isles without being everywhere, in course of time. That is what I said to a disagreeable, frumpy Englishwoman in the railway carriage yesterday.

'I have no fault to find with Great Britain,' I said, 'except that it is so circumscribed! I have outgrown my first feeling, which was a fear of falling off the edge; but I still have a sensation of being cabined, cribbed, confined.'

She remarked that she had always preferred a small, perfectly finished, and well-managed estate to a large, rank, wild, and overgrown one, and I am bound to say that I think the retort was a good one. It must have been, for it silenced me.

We have done Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and having begun at the top of the map, have gone as far as Devon in England. We have been travelling by counties during the last year, because it seemed tidier and more thorough and businesslike; less confusing too, for the places look so alike after a while that I can never remember where we have been without looking in my diary. I don't know what will come after England,—perhaps Australia and New Zealand. I suppose they speak English there, of a sort.

If complete ignorance of a place, combined with great power of appreciation when one is introduced to it,—if these constitute a favourable mental attitude, then I have achieved it. That Devonshire produces Lanes, Dumplings, Cider, Monoliths, Clouted Cream, and Moors I know, but all else in the way of knowledge or experience is to be the captive of my bow and spear.

It is one of the accidents of travel that one can never explain, our being here on this desolate moor, caged, with half a dozen strange people, in a little inn at the world's end.

In the hotel at Exeter mamma met in the drawing-room a certain Mrs. MacGill, who like herself was just recovering from the influenza. Our paths have crossed before; I hope they'll not do so too often. Huddled in their shawls, and seated as near to the chilling hotel fire as was possible, they discussed their symptoms, while I read Lorna Doone. Mrs. MacGill slept ill at night and found a glass of milk-arrowroot with a teaspoon of brandy and a Bath Oliver biscuit a panacea; mamma would not allow that any one could sleep worse than she, but recommended a peppermint lozenge, as being simple, convenient, and efficacious. Mrs. MacGill had a slight cough, so had mamma; Mrs. MacGill's chest was naturally weak, so was mamma's. Startlingly similar as were the paths by which they were travelling to the grave, they both looked in average health, mamma being only prettily delicate and Mrs. MacGill being fat and dumpy, with cap ribbons and shoulder capes and bugles and brooches that bespoke at least a languid interest in life. The nice English girl who was Mrs. MacGill's companion in the railway train, sat in the background knitting and reading,—the kind of girl who ought to look young and doesn't, because her youth has been feeding somebody's selfish old age. I could see her quiet history written all over her face,—her aged father, vicar of some remote parish; her weary mother, harassed with the cares of a large family; and the dull little vicarage from whose windows she had taken her narrow peeps at life. We exchanged glances at some of Mrs. MacGill's reminiscences, and I was grateful to see that she has a sense of humour. That will help her considerably if she is a paid companion, as I judge she is; one would hardly travel with Mrs. MacGill for pleasure. This lady at length crowded mamma to the wall and began on the details of an attack of brain fever from which she had suffered at the Bridge of Allan thirty years ago, and I left the room to seek a breath of fresh air.

There is never anything amusing going on in an English hotel. When I remember the life one lives during a week at the Waldorf-Astoria or the Holland House in New York, it fairly makes me yearn with homesickness. It goes like this with a girl whose friends are all anxious to make the time pass merrily.

Monday noon.—Luncheon at the University Club with H. L. and mamma.

Monday afternoon.—Drive with G. P. in a hansom. Tea at Maillard's. Violets from A. B., American Beauty roses from C. D. waiting in my room. Dinner and the play arranged for me by E. F.

Tuesday.—One love-letter and one proposal by the morning mail; the proposal from a Harvard Freshman who wishes me to wait until he finishes his course. No one but a Freshman would ever have thought of that! G. H. from Chicago and B. C. from Richmond arrive early and join us at breakfast. B. C. thinks G. H. might have remained at home to good advantage. G. H. wonders why B. C. couldn't have stayed where he was less in the way. Luncheon party given by G. H. at one. Dinner by B. C. at seven.

Wednesday.—Last fitting for three lovely dresses.

Thursday.—Wear them all. The result of one of them attention with intention from the fastidious A. B.

And so on. It would doubtless spoil one in time, but I have only had two weeks of it, all put together.

The hall of the hotel at Exeter was like all other English hotel halls; so damp, dismal, dull, and dreary, that it is a wonder English travellers are not all sleeping in suicides' graves. Were my eyes deceiving me or was there a motor at the door, and still more wonderful, was there a young, good-looking man directly in my path,—a healthy young man with no symptoms, a well-to-do young man with a perfectly appointed motor, a well-bred, presentable young man with an air of the world about him? How my heart, starving for amusement, rushed out to him after these last weary months of nursing at Leamington! I didn't want to marry him, of course, but I wanted to talk to him, to ride in his motor, to have him, in short, for a masculine safety valve. He showed no symptom of requiring me for any purpose whatever. That is the trouble with the men over here,—so oblivious, so rigid, so frigid, so conventional; so afraid of being chloroformed and led unconscious to the altar! He was smoking a pipe, and he looked at me in a vague sort of way. I confess I don't like to be looked at vaguely, and I am not accustomed to it. He couldn't know that, of course, but I should like to teach him if only I had the chance and time. I don't suppose he knew that I was wearing a Redfern gown and hat, but the consciousness supported me in the casual encounter. Naturally he could not seek an introduction to me in a hotel hall, nor could we speak to each other without one.

His chauffeur went up to him presently, touched his hat, and I thought he said, 'Quite ready, Sir—Something'; I didn't catch the name.

Well, he bowled off, and I comforted myself with the thought that mamma and I were at least on our way to pastures new, if they were only Dawlish or Torquay pastures; or perhaps something bracing in the shape of Dartmoor forests, if mamma listens to Mrs. MacGill.

The owner of the motor appeared again at our dinner-table, a long affair set in the middle of the room, all the small tables being occupied by uninteresting nobodies who ate and drank as much, and took up as much room, as if they had been somebodies.

It is needless to say that the young Britisher did not, like the busy bee, improve the shining hour—that sort of bee doesn't know honey when he sees it. He didn't even pass me the salt, which in a Christian country is not considered a compromising attention. I think that too many of Great Britain's young men must have been killed off in South Africa, and those remaining have risen to an altogether fictitious value. I suppose this Sir Somebody thinks my eyes are fixed on his coronet, if he has one rusting in his upper drawer awaiting its supreme moment of presentation. He is mistaken; I am thinking only of his motor. Heigh ho! If marriage as an institution could be retained, and all thought of marriage banished from the minds of the young of both sexes, how delightful society could be made for all parties! I can see that such a state of things would be quite impossible, but it presents many advantages.

MRS. MACGILL

Exeter, Devonshire,
Rougemont Castle Hotel,
Sunday, May 16th, 19—

I have made out my journey from Tunbridge wells in safety, although there has been a breakdown upon the Scotch Express, which is a cause of thankfulness. There were two American women in the same carriage part of the time. The mother was, like myself, an invalid, and the daughter I suppose would be considered pretty. She was not exactly painted, but must have done something to her skin, I think, probably prejudicial like the advertisements; it was really waxen, and her hair decidedly dark—and such a veil! It reminded me of the expression about 'power on the head' in Corinthians—not that she seemed to require it, for she rang no less than eight times for the guard, each time about some different whimsey. The boy only grinned, yet he was quite rude to me when I asked him, only for the second time, where we changed carriages next. Cecilia spoke a good deal to the girl, who made her laugh constantly, in spite of her neuralgia, which was very inconsistent and provoking to me, as she had not uttered a word for hours after we left Tunbridge Wells. The mother seemed a very delicate, sensible person, suffering from exactly the same form of influenza as myself—indeed many of our symptoms are identical. They happened to be going to this hotel, too, so we met again in the afternoon. I had a bad night. Exeter is small, but the Cathedral chimes are very tiresome; they kept me awake as if on purpose; Cecilia slept, as neuralgic people seem often able to do.

Somehow I do not fancy the idea of Dartmoor at all. It may brace Cecilia, but it will be too cold for me, I'm sure. I must send for my black velvet mantle—the one with the beads at the neck, as it will be the very thing for the moor. At present I have nothing quite suitable to wear. There is a great deal of skirt about Americans, I see. Even the mother rustled; all silk, yet the dresses on the top were plain enough. As I had nothing to read in the train, I bought a sixpenny copy of a book called The Forest Lovers, but could not get on with it at all, and what I did make out seemed scarcely proper, so I took up a novel which Mrs. Pomeroy (the American) lent me, by a man with a curious Scriptural name—something like Phillpotts. It was entirely about Dartmoor, and gave a most alarming account of the scenery and inhabitants. I'm sure I hope we shall be safe at Grey Tor Inn. Some of the wilder parts must be quite dangerous—storms—wild cattle roaming about, and Tors everywhere.

MRS. MACGILL

Dartmoor, Devonshire,
The Grey Tor Inn,
Tuesday, May 18th, 19—

I wish I had brought winter flannels with me. It is all very well to call it the middle of May on Dartmoor, but it is as cold as the middle of winter in Aberdeen. There may be something odd about the red soil that accounts for flowers coming out in spite of it, for certainly there are primroses and violets on the banks, a good many,—very like flowers in a hat.

We met Miss Pomeroy, the American girl, in the lobby of the hotel. She said that her mother was resting in the drawing-room. Like me, she seems to suffer from shivering fits. 'I can't imagine,' I said, 'why any doctor should have ordered me to such a place as this to recover from influenza, which is just another form of cold.' The windows look straight out on Grey Tor. It is, of course, as the guide-books say, 'a scene of great sublimity and grandeur,' but very dreary; it is not mountain, and not what we would call moor, either, in Scotland—just a crumpled country, with boulders here and there. Grey Tor is the highest point we can see—not very lonely, I am glad to say, for little black people are always walking up and down it, like flies on a confectioner's window, and there is a railing on the top.

There is a young man here, who, I was surprised to find, is a nephew of the uncle of my poor brother-in-law, Colonel Forsyth, who died in a moment at Agra. Sir William Maxwell Mackenzie used to be often at the Forsyths, before his death. This young man's name is Archibald, and he drives a motor. I sat next him at dinner, and we had quite a pleasant little chat about my poor brother-in-law's sudden death and funeral. Miss Pomeroy ate everything on the table and talked a great deal. Cecilia said she wasn't able to come down to dinner, but, as usual, ate more than I could, upstairs. Like me, Mrs. Pomeroy finds the Devonshire cream very heavy. The daughter and Sir Archibald finished nearly the whole dish, although it was a large china basin.

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE, Bart.

Grey Tor Inn

I must get away from these women at all costs. People may say what they like, but there's no question that nothing is more destructive to comfort than the society of ladies. A man cannot smoke, nor wear the clothes nor use the language that he wants to when they are present,—so what is the use of pretending, as some fellows do, that they add to the pleasantness of life? I certainly thought that by coming to these out-of-the-way parts in the motor, with no one but my servant, I should be free of the women; but no such luck! In the hotel at Exeter there was a batch of them,—some Americans, of course, particularly a girl, so deuced lively she could not be ignored. I dislike the whole girl-tribe with all my heart, and I dislike the kittenish ones most: they're a positive pest.

This is a rum sort of country,—a sort of inferior Scotland, I should call it; but if you were to say that to the artist chaps and writing fellows you meet about here, they would murder you. There is a lot of rot talked about everything in this world, but there's more and worse rot talked about scenery than anything else. For instance, people will yarn away about 'the blue Mediterranean,' but it's not a bit bluer than any other sea,—the English Channel, for example; any sea will be blue if the sky is blue. I suppose it earns somebody's living to talk and write all this sort of stuff, and get idiots to believe it. Here they are always jawing away about 'giant monoliths' and wonderful colossal stone-formations on the moor, till you really think there's something rather fine to be seen. And what are the giant monoliths? Two or three ordinary sorts of stones set up on end on a mound! What rot!

This is a goodish hotel, and the roads so far have been all right for the motor; we have come along fairly well; Johnson can drive a bit now, and understands the machine.

The country was pretty decent for a while, before reaching this; plenty of trees, no good for timber, though, and there was a lot of that rotten holly—I'd have it all up if it grew on Kindarroch. And the gorse, too, was very bad. There was a fellow at Exeter—a sort of artist, I conclude, from the nonsense he talked—who said he was coming up here to see the gorse,—came every year, he said. To see the gorse! To see a lot of dirty weeds that every sensible man wants to root up and burn! O Lord!

This morning it was rather fine, and I was having a smoke after breakfast in the hall, when that American girl—the one I saw at Exeter—came down the staircase, singing at the top of her voice. I knew she was here, with a mother in the background; she had been fooling around the motor already, asking a lot of silly questions, and touching the handles and the wheels—a thing I can't bear—so we had made acquaintance in a kind of way. The artist at Exeter, I remember, asked me if I didn't think this girl remarkably pretty, and I told him I hadn't looked to see, which was perfectly true. But you can't help seeing a girl if she's standing plump in front of you. Of course these Americans dress well—no end of money to do it on. This one had a sort of Tam o' Shanter thing on her head, and a lot of dark hair came out under it, falling over her ears, and almost over her cheeks—untidy, I call it. She wore a grey dress, with a bit of scarlet near her neck, and a knot to match it under the brim of her cap. I can notice these things when I like. She has black eyes, and knows how to use them. I don't like dark women; if you must have a woman about, I prefer pink and white—it looks clean, at any rate. The name of these people is Pomeroy, Johnson told me; they appear to have got the hang of mine at Exeter; trust women for that sort of thing.

'Good morning, Sir Archibald,' said Miss Pomeroy now, as pat as you please. 'It's a mighty pretty morning, isn't it? Don't you long for a walk? I do! I'm going right up to that stone on the slope there. Won't you come along too?' A man can hardly refuse outright, I suppose, when a thing is put to him point blank like this, and we started together, I pretty glum, for I made up my mind I must give up my after-breakfast pipe, a thing which puts me out of temper for the day. However, Miss Pomeroy said she liked smoke, so there was a kind of mitigation in the boredom which I felt was before me.

Grey Tor, as the guide-books call it, is just above the hotel, a sort of knob of rock that is thought a lot of in these parts. (We make road metal of the same kind of thing in Scotland; I'd like to tell the chaps that who write all the drivel about Dartmoor.) There's an iron railing round the top of this Tor, to keep the tourists from falling off, though they'd be no loss if they did. Coach loads of them come every day, and sit on the top and eat sandwiches, and leave the paper about, along with orange and banana skins—same as they do at the Trossachs at home. There's a grassy track up to this blessed Tor, and Miss Pomeroy and I followed it; American women are no good at walking, and, in spite of her slight figure, she was puffing like a grampus in no time, and begging me to stop. We sat down on a rock, and soon she had breath enough to talk. The subject of names came up, I forget for what reason.

'I like your kind of name,' Miss Pomeroy was good enough to say. 'I call it downright sensible and clear, for it tells what you're called, and gives your background immediately, don't you see? Now, you couldn't tell what my Christian name is without asking—could you?'

'No, I couldn't,' I agreed, and was silent. I am no hand at small talk. She gave me rather a funny look out of her black eyes, but I took no notice. She seemed to want to laugh—I don't know why; there's nothing funny on Dartmoor that I can see. We got on to the Tor presently, and nothing would satisfy a woman, naturally, but climbing all over the beastly thing. She had to be helped up and down, of course. Her hands are very white and slim; they were not at all hot, I am glad to say, as she wore no gloves, and I had to clutch them so often. There was a very high wind up there, and I'm blessed if her hair didn't come down and blow about. It only made her laugh, but I considered it would be indecent to walk back to the hotel with a woman in such a dishevelled state.

'I will pick up the hairpins,' I said seriously, 'if you will—will do the rest.' She laughed and put up her arms to her head, but brought them down with a flop.

'I'm afraid my waist is too tight in the sleeves for me to do my hair up here; it'll have to wait till I get down to the hotel,' she said gaily. I suppose she meant that she tight-laced, though I couldn't see how her waist could be tight in the sleeves. I was quite determined she should not walk to the hotel in my company with her hair in that state.

'I will stick these in,' I said firmly, indicating the hairpins, of which I had picked up about a bushel, 'if you will do the rolling up.' It got done somehow, and I stuck in the pins. I never touched a woman's hair before; how beastly it must be to have all that on one's head—unhealthy, too. I dare say it accounts for the feebleness of women's brains. Miss Pomeroy's cheeks got pinker and pinker during this operation—a sort of rush of blood, I suppose; it is all right as long as it does not go to the nose. She is not a bad-looking girl, certainly.

We got back to the hotel without any further disagreeables.

CECILIA EVESHAM

Grey Tor Inn, Dartmoor

If a policeman's 'lot is not a happy one,' neither is a companion's: I lay this down as an axiom. I have lived now for two years with Mrs. MacGill, and know her every frailty of character only too well. She has not a bad temper; but oh! she is a terrible, terrible bore! Not content with being stupid herself, she desires to make me stupid along with her, and has well-nigh succeeded, for life with her in furnished apartments at Tunbridge Wells would dull a more brilliant woman than I have ever been.

Mrs. MacGill has lately had the influenza; it came almost as a providential sending, for it meant change of air. We were ordered to Dartmoor, and to Dartmoor we have come. Now I have become interested in three new people; and that, after the life I have lived of late in Mrs. MacGill's sickroom, is like a draught of nectar to my tired fancy. We met these three persons for the first time in the train, and at the hotel at Exeter where we stopped for the night; or rather, I should say that we met two of them and sighted the third. The two were a mother and her daughter, Mrs. Pomeroy and Virginia Pomeroy by name, and Americans by nation; the third person was a young man, Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie, of Kindarroch, N.B. The Americans were extremely friendly, after the manner of their nation; the young man extremely unfriendly, after the manner of his. We found that the Pomeroys were coming on to this inn, but the Scotchman whizzed off in his motor car, giving us no hint of where he intended to go. I thought we had seen the last of him, but it was to be otherwise.

The morning after our arrival at the Grey Tor Inn Mrs. MacGill assumed a Shetland shawl, closed the window of the sitting-room, and sat down to do a bit of knitting. I sat by the window answering her little vapid remarks and looking out. As I sat thus, I heard a puffing noise and saw a scarlet motor steam up to the door of the inn. It was, of course, Sir Archibald.

'What is that noise, Cecilia?' asked Mrs. MacGill.

'It's a motor car,' I replied.

'Oh, how curious! I never can understand how they are worked,' said she.

I was beginning to try to explain some of the mysteries of motoring when the door of the sitting-room opened, and Miss Virginia Pomeroy came in. Her appearance was a delight to the eyes; tall and full grown, yet graceful, and dressed to perfection. She had none of that meek look that even the prettiest English girls are getting nowadays, as if they would say, 'I'm pretty, but I know I'm a drug in the market, though I can't help it!' No, no, Virginia Pomeroy came into the room with an air of possession, mastery, conquest, that no English girl can assume. She walked straight up to the window and threw it open. 'How perfectly lovely!' she exclaimed. 'Why, there's a motor; I must have a ride in it before very long.' She turned pleasantly to me as she spoke, and asked me if I didn't adore motoring.

'I've never tried,' I said.

'Well, the sooner you begin the better,' she said. 'Never miss a joy in a world of trouble; that's my theory.'

I smiled, but if she had known it, I more nearly cried at her words; she didn't know how many joys I had missed in life!

'I'll go right downstairs and make love to the chauffeur,' she went on, and at this Mrs. MacGill coughed, moved the fire-irons, and told me to close the window. Miss Pomeroy turned to her with a laugh.

'Why!' she said, 'are you two going to sit in this hotel parlour all the morning? You won't have much of a time if you do!'

'I have had the influenza, like Mrs. Pomeroy,' announced Mrs. MacGill solemnly, 'but if Miss Evesham wishes some fresh air she can go out at any time. I'm sure I never object to anything that you choose to do, Cecilia, do I?'

I hastened to assure her that she did not, while the American girl stood looking from one of us to the other with her bright, clever eyes.

'Suppose you come down to the hall door with me then, Miss Evesham,' Miss Pomeroy suggested, 'and we'll taste the air.'

'Shall I, Mrs. MacGill?' I asked, for a companion must always ask leave even to breathe. Mrs. MacGill answered petulantly that of course I might do as I liked.

The motor stood alone and unattended by the front door, both owner and chauffeur having deserted it. It rested there like a redhot panting monster fatigued by climbing the long hill that leads up to Grey Tor Inn.

'Isn't it out of breath?' cried Virginia. 'I want to pat it and give it a drink of water.' The next minute she skipped into the car and laid her white hand on the steering-wheel.

'Oh, don't! Do take care!' I cried. The thing may run away with you or burst, or something, and the owner may come out at any moment—it belongs to that young man who was at Exeter, Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie.'

'I should like it very much if he did come out,' said Virginia, looking over her shoulder at me with the most bewitching ogle I ever saw, and I soon saw that she intended to conquer Sir Archibald as she had conquered many another man, and meant to drive all over Dartmoor in his motor. Well, youth and high spirits are two good things. Let her do what she likes with the young man, so long as she enjoys herself; they will both be old soon enough!

II

VIRGINIA POMEROY

Dartmoor, Devonshire,
Grey Tor Inn

The plot thickens; well, goodness knows it was thin enough before, and it is now only of the innocent consistency of cream sauce. For myself I like a plot that will stand quite stiff and firm; still the Exeter motor is here and the Exeter motor-man is here. I don't mean the chauffeur, but the owner. He doesn't intend staying more than a day or two, but he may like it better as time goes on,—they often do, even these British icebergs. It is, however, a poor climate for thawing purposes. There are only six people in the inn all told, and two, we hear, are leaving to-night.

I was glad to see the English girl standing at the window when we arrived. She brightened, as much as to say that we two might make life more cheerful by putting our heads together. Mrs. MacGill is a good companion for mamma, but could not otherwise be endured for a moment. I find it very difficult to account for her on any ordinary basis; I mean of climate or nationality or the like. The only way I can explain her to my satisfaction is, that some sixty years ago her father, a very dull gentleman, met her mother, a lady of feeble mind and waspish disposition; met her, loved her, married her,—and Mrs. MacGill is the result of the union.

Her conversation at table is aimless beyond description, often causing Miss Evesham to blush, and Sir Archibald to raise his eyebrows. It doesn't take much to produce this effect on Sir Archibald's part; when he was born they must have been slightly lifted.

Mrs. MacGill asked me, at dinner, my Christian name, not having heard it, as mamma often calls me 'Jinny.' Here is the colloquy.

Jinny. My name is Virginia; it is one of the Southern States, you know.

Mrs. Mac. Oh, I see! how curious! Is that a common habit of naming children in America?

Jinny. Oh yes; you see it is such an enormous country, and there are such a number of children to be named that we simply had to extend the supply of names in some way. My mother's middle name, which is my own also, is something really quaint—'Secessia.'

Mrs. Mac. Secessia! What an extraordinary name! Has it any significance?

Jinny. Yes, indeedy! My mother was born in the early days of the Civil War, at the time of the secession, and her father, an ardent Southerner, named her Gloria Secessia.

Mrs. Mac. Let me see, I don't seem to remember any secession; were we mixed up in what you call your Civil War?

(Here Sir Archibald caught my eye and smiled, almost a human smile it was.)

Jinny. No, but you had a good deal to do with the War of Independence. That was nearly a century before. (Sir Archibald was honestly amused here. He must know American history.)

Mrs. Mac. I thought your last war was called the War of Independence, because it made the negroes independent, but I must have got the two confused; and you've just had another small one, haven't you, though now I remember that we were engaged in only one of them, and that was before my time. It seems strange we should have gone across the ocean to help a younger country to fight its battles, but after all, blood is thicker than water. I had a nephew who went to America—Brazil, I think, was the name of the town—a barrister, Mr. George Forsyth; you may have met him?

Jinny. I think not; I seldom go so far from home.

Mrs. Mac. But you live in South America, do you not?

Jinny. I live in the south, but that is merely to say in the southern part of the United States.

Mrs. Mac. How confusing! I fear I can't make it out without the globes; I was always very good at the globes when I was a child. Cecilia, suppose after dinner you see if there is a globe in the inn.

Poor Miss Evesham! She is so pale, so likeable, so downtrodden, and she has been so pretty! Think of what is involved when one uses the past tense with a woman of thirty. She has fine hair and eyes and a sweet manner. As to the rest, she is about my height, and she is not dressed; she is simply clothed. Height is her only visible dimension, the village mantua-maker having shrouded the others in hopeless ambiguity. She has confessed to me that she dresses on fifteen pounds a year! If she had told me that her father was dead, her mother a kleptomaniac, and she the sole support of a large family, I should have pitied her, but a dress allowance of fifteen pounds a year calls for more than pity; it belongs to the realm of tragedy. She looks at thirty as if she never had had, nor ever expected to have, a good time. How I should like to brighten her up a bit, and get her into my room to try on Paris hats!

She and I, aided by Sir Archibald, have been to Stoke Babbage to try to secure a pony, sound, kind, and fleet, that will drag Mrs. MacGill up and down the hills. She refused the steeds proffered by the Grey Tor stables, and sent Miss Evesham to procure something so hopelessly ideal in the shape of horseflesh that I confess we had no expectation of ever finding it.

The groom at the Unicorn produced a nice pony chaise, well padded and well braked, with small low wheels, and a pony originally black, but worn grey by age, as well as by battling with the elements in this region of bare hills and bleak winds. Miss Evesham liked its looks particularly. I, too, was pleased by its sturdy build, and remarked that its somewhat wild eye might be only a sign of ambition. Sir Archibald took an entirely humorous view of the animal, and indeed, as compared with a motor, the little creature seemed somewhat inadequate. We agreed that for Mrs. MacGill (and here we exchanged wicked glances) it would do admirably, and we all became better acquainted in discussing its points.

Miss Evesham and I offered to drive the pony back to Grey Tor, and Sir Archibald saw us depart with something that approached hilarity. He is awfully nice when he unbends in this way, and quite makes one wish to see him do it oftener. From all our previous conversations I have come away with the sort of feeling you have when you visit the grave of your grandmother on a Sunday afternoon.

I don't know the number of miles between Stoke Babbage and Grey Tor. The distance covered cuts no actual figure in describing the time required for a drive with the new pony, whom I have christened Greytoria. The word 'drive' is not altogether descriptive, since we walked most of the way home. I hardly think this method of progression would have occurred to us, but it did occur to Greytoria, and she communicated the idea by stopping short at the slightest elevation, and turning her head in a manner which could only mean, 'Suppose you get out, if you don't mind!'

Having walked up all the hills, we imagined we could perhaps drive down. Not at all. Greytoria dislikes holding back more, if anything, than climbing up. We kept our seats at first, applied the brake, and attempted a very gentle trot. 'Don't let us spoil the pony,' I said. 'We must begin as we mean to go on.' Miss Evesham agreed, but in a moment or two each issued from her side of the chaise, and that without argument. Greytoria's supports are both stiff and weak—groggy is Sir Archibald's word. She takes trembling little steps with her forelegs, while the hind ones slide automatically down any declivity. The hills between Stoke Babbage and Grey Tor being particularly long and steep, we found that I was obliged to lead Greytoria by the bridle, while Miss Evesham held the chaise by the back of the seat, and attempted to keep it from falling on the pony's legs; the thing, we finally discovered, that was the ruling terror of her life.

Naturally we were late at luncheon, but we did not describe our drive in detail. The groom at the stables says that the pony can drag Mrs. MacGill quite safely, if Miss Evesham is firm in her management. Of course she will have to walk up and down all the hills, but she doesn't mind that, and Mrs. MacGill will love it. It is bliss to her to lie in slippered ease, so to speak, and see all the people in her vicinity working like galley slaves. We shall be delightfully situated now, with Greytoria, Sir Archibald's motor, and an occasional trap from the stables, if we need other vehicles.

Sir Archibald as yet does not look upon a motor as a philanthropic institution. There are moments when he seems simply to regard it as a means of selfish pleasure, but that must be changed.

Item. Miss Evesham looked only twenty-nine at luncheon.

MRS. MACGILL

Last night I slept so badly that I could not go down to the dining-room this morning. Cecilia, in spite of her neuralgia yesterday seemed well and bright. I asked her to send me up some breakfast, but could scarcely eat it when it came; the tea was cold, the bread damp and tough, and the egg fresh enough, but curious. Cecilia never came near me after breakfast. When I came down about eleven o'clock, very cold, I found no one in the sitting-rooms. Hearing voices, I went to the door and found Cecilia talking to the American girl, who had a great deal of colour for that hour in the morning. Sir Archibald came up, grinding round the drive in his motor. It is quite unnecessary to have brought a motor here at all, for I observe that the hillsides are covered with ponies. There must have been a herd of twenty-five of them outside my window this morning, so a motor is quite out of place. The doctor here recommends me to try driving exercise, but some of the animals are so very small that I scarcely think they could pull me up these hills. Cecilia says the smaller ones are foals. Many of them kick, I see, so we must select with care. I wish we could procure a donkey. The feeling of confidence I have when in a donkey-chair more than makes up for the slowness of motion.

Like me, Mrs. Pomeroy was kept awake by the wind—it never stops here. When I remarked on this, Cecilia said in her patronising way, 'Don't you remember Borrow's famous line,—

'There's always the wind on the heath'?

'I see nothing clever in that,' I said; 'there is always wind on the heath here, and I particularly dislike it.'

When we came into the drawing-room Miss Pomeroy was saying, 'I've discovered a piano!' The piano, to my mind, was the largest object in the room, so she must be short-sighted, if she had not seen it before; pride probably prevents her wearing glasses. She sat there singing for quite a long time. She wouldn't finish her songs, but just sang scraps of a number of things. Sir Archibald came into the room and stood about for some time. I asked him several questions about his father's sister, whom I used to know. He replied so absently that I could make nothing of it. Miss Pomeroy has a clear voice. She sang what I suppose were translations of negro songs—very noisy. When she afterwards tried one of Moore's exquisite melodies, I confess to admiring it. It was a great favourite with Mr. MacGill, who used to sing it with much feeling:—

'Around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart.'

What a touching expression that is for a middle-aged woman—'the dear ruin'!

Grey Tor is certainly very bleak. The guide-books speak of 'huge monoliths' (I suppose they mean the rocks on the moor), 'seeming to have been reared by some awful cataclysm of nature in primordial times.' I hope there will be no cataclysms during our stay on the moor; the accounts of tempests of which I read in some of the novels quite frighten me, yet I can scarcely think there is much danger about this tor—'a giant, the biggest tor of all,' the guide-books say. It is so fully peopled by tourists with luncheon-baskets that one loses the feeling of desolation. Miss Pomeroy has been up to the top already—twice, once alone. Cecilia means to go too, though nothing can be worse for neuralgia than cold wind. She will always say that nothing hurts her like sitting in hot rooms. I should be very glad to have a hot room to sit in! She has got a nice, quiet-looking animal at last, and a low pony chaise, so I hope to have some drives.

Neuralgia is one of those things one cannot calculate on. Cecilia will be ill all day, and then suddenly able to come down to dinner. I have suffered a good deal from tic douloureux myself, but was never able to eat during the paroxysms, as Cecilia seems to be. After having five teeth pulled, I once lived exclusively on soup for three days.

Miss Pomeroy, I suppose, is what most people would call a pretty girl. Hot bread and dyspepsia will soon do for her, though, as for all American women. The bread here is tough and very damp. She is dark, very dark in hair and eyes, in spite of her white skin, and she describes herself as a 'Southerner.' I should be inclined to suspect a strain of negro or Indian blood. I heard her discussing what she called 'the colour problem' with Cecilia, and she seemed to speak with a good deal of bitterness. Yet Mrs. Pomeroy is evidently a lady. The girl dresses well in the American style, which I never attempt. She has, I suppose, what would be called a fine figure, though the waist seems of no importance just now. Her feet, in shoes, look small enough, though the heels she wears astonish me; it is years since I have worn anything but a simple cloth boot, neat but roomy. I have seen her glance at my feet several times, as if she observed something odd about them.

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

Grey Tor Inn

Isn't it a most extraordinary thing that when people are in a comfortable house, with a good roof over their heads, solid meals served at regular intervals three or four times a day, and every possible comfort, they instantly want to go outside and make themselves not only thoroughly uncomfortable, but generally ill besides, by having a picnic in the open? Ever since I had that walk with Miss Pomeroy, she has done nothing but talk about a picnic at some beastly little village in the vicinity where there is a church that the guide-books tell the usual lies about. As to churches—a church to my mind is a place to go to on Sundays with the rest of the congregation. It is plainly not constructed for week-days, when it is empty, cold, and damp, and you have to take your hat off in the draughts all the same, and talk in whispers. As to picnics—there's a kind of folly about them that it is altogether beyond me to understand. Why such things ever take place outside the grounds of a lunatic asylum, goodness only knows; they ought to be forbidden by law, and the people who organise them shut up as dangerous. However, I see I am in for this one. Miss Pomeroy wants the motor, but she won't get the motor without me. Heaven be praised, the weather has broken up in the meantime, which is the reason I am staying on here. Motoring on Dartmoor in a tearing nor'easter is no catch. My quarters are comfortable, and but for the women I should be doing very well.

The worst of it is, there is a whole batch of them now. A Mrs. MacGill and her companion are here, and these two and the Americans seem to have met before. The two old women are as thick as thieves, and the fair Virginia (she told me her name, though she might have seen, I am sure, that I was simply dying not to know it) seems to have a good deal to say to the companion, though the latter doesn't appear to me much in the line of such a lively young person. There's no rule, of course, for women's likes and dislikes, any more than for anything else that has to do with them. The unlucky part of it is that Mrs. MacGill seemed to spot me the moment she heard my name. She says my father was her brother-in-law's first cousin, and her brother-in-law died in Agra in a fit; though what that has to do with it, goodness knows. It means I have got to be civil and to get mixed up with the rest of the party. A man can never be as rude as he feels, which is one of the drawbacks of civilisation. So I have to sit at their table now, and talk the whole time—can't even have a meal in peace. The old woman MacGill is on one side, the American girl on the other. The companion sits opposite. She keeps quiet, which is one mercy; generally has neuralgia,—a pale, rather lady-like young woman with a seen-better-days-and-once-was-decidedly-pretty air about her. The American girl's clothes take the cake, of course—a new frock every night and such ribbons and laces—my stars! I'd rather not be the man who has to pay for them. I'm surprised at her talking so much to the humble companion—thought this sort of girl never found it worth while to be civil to her own sex; but I conclude this is not invariably the case.

'I'm afraid your neuralgia is very bad up here,' I heard her say to Miss Evesham (that's the companion's name) after dinner last night. 'You come right along to my room, and I'll rub menthol on your poor temples.' And they went off together and disappeared for the night.

The weather has cleared up to-day, though it is still too cold and windy, thank the Lord, for the picnic to Widdington-in-the-Wolds. I took the motor to a little town about four miles off, and overtook the fair Virginia and Miss Evesham, footing it there on some errand of Mrs. MacGill's. I slowed down as I got near, but I soon saw Miss Pomeroy intended me to stop; there's no uncertainty about any of her desires.

'Now, Sir Archibald,' said she with a straight look which made me understand that obedience was my rôle, 'I know what you're going to do this very minute. Miss Evesham's neuralgia is so bad that she can scarcely see, and you've got to take her right along in your motor to the Unicorn Inn, and help choose a pony for Mrs. MacGill. Just a man's job—you'd love doing it, I should think.'

I wanted to hum and haw a bit, but she didn't give me the chance. She pulled open the door behind. 'Get in quick!' she said to the companion. 'Quick, quick! a motor puff-puffing this way always makes me think it's in a desperate hurry and won't wait!'

I, however, was not in such a hurry this time, though there's nothing I hate more, as a rule, than wasting motor power standing still.

'What are you going to do, Miss Pomeroy?' I shouted above the throbbing and shaking of the machine.

'Going right home to my mother,' she replied. 'It's about time, too.'

'No, you don't,' thought I, 'and leave me saddled with the companion.' For if you must have female society, you may as well have it good-looking when you are about it.

'Won't you do me the pleasure of taking a ride too?' I asked politely. I knew perfectly well she was dying for a ride in the motor, and I had turned a deaf ear to dozens of hints. But now that she wanted to do the other woman a good turn and walk home herself, nothing would content me but to have her in the motor. I know how inconvenient it is to be good-natured and unselfish. I am obliged to be both so often, against my natural inclinations.

Miss Virginia's eyes gave a sparkle, but she hesitated a moment.

'The front seat's much the jolliest,' I remarked, 'and it's very good going—no end of a surface.' She gave a jump and was up beside me in half a second, and we were off.

By Jove—that was a good bit of going! The road was clear, the surface like velvet. I took every bit out of the motor that was in it, and we went the pace and no mistake. Miss Virginia was as pleased as Punch, I could see. She had to hold on her hat with both hands, and her cheeks and lips were as red as roses; the ribbons flew out from her neck, and flapped across my face, which was a nuisance, of course; they had the faint scent of some flower or other; I hate smells, as a rule, but this was not strong enough to be bad. We got down at the Unicorn, and though I said I knew nothing whatever about ponies, I had to look through the stables with the hostler, and choose a beast and a trap for Mrs. MacGill. There was only one of each, so the choice was not difficult. The two girls drove home in the turnout. I thought it was time to disappear.

CECILIA EVESHAM

Grey Tor Inn,
Thursday

I have had a miserable thirty-six hours. Mrs. MacGill has been ill again—or has believed that she is ill again. I do not think there is much wrong with her, but the over-sympathetic Mrs. Pomeroy went on describing symptoms to her till she became quite nervous and went to bed, demanding that a doctor be sent for. This was no easy matter, but at last a callow medical fledgling was dug out somewhere, who was ready to agree with all I said to him.

'Suggest fresh air and exercise to Mrs. MacGill,' I said, 'for she considers the one poisonous, the other almost a crime, and knitting the only legitimate form of amusement.'

So he recommended air and exercise—driving exercise by preference.

'I used to like the donkey-chairs at Tunbridge Wells,' Mrs. MacGill responded, 'but horses go so rapidly.'

However, after the doctor had gone she began to consider his advice.

'Shall I go to the stables and arrange for you to have a drive this afternoon?' I asked.

She demurred, for she never can make up her mind about anything.

'I can't decide just now,' she hesitated. 'I'll think it over.'

I took up the guide-book, and was allowed to read its thrilling pages for some ten minutes. Then Mrs. MacGill called me again.

'Perhaps if you go and select a very quiet horse we might have a drive in the afternoon,' she said.

I went and saw the horse, and arranged for the drive, then returned to tell Mrs. MacGill of the arrangement. She was not pleased. Had I said that perhaps we would drive out at three o'clock, it would have been more to her mind.

'Go back and tell the man that perhaps we'll go,' she said.

'But perhaps some one else will take out the horse, in that case,' I suggested, cross and weary with her fidgeting. All the rest of the forenoon was one long vacillation: she would go, or she would not go; it would rain, or it would not rain; she would countermand the carriage or she would order it. But by three o'clock the sun was shining, so I got her bonneted and cloaked and led her down to the hall. The motor had come round at the same moment with our carriage. Its owner was looking it over before he made a start, and I was not surprised to see that Miss Virginia Pomeroy was also at the door, and that she showed great interest in the tires of the motor. Had I been that young man I must have asked her to drive with me there and then, she looked so delightful; but he is rather a phlegmatic creature, surely, for he didn't seem to think of it. Just as we were preparing to step into the carriage, the motor gave out a great puff of steam, and the horse in our vehicle sprang up in the shafts and took a shy to one side. It was easily quieted down, but of course the incident was more than enough for Mrs. MacGill.

'Take it away,' she said to the driver. 'I won't endanger my life with such an animal—brown horses are always wild, and so are black ones.'

It was vain for me to argue; she just turned away and walked upstairs again, I following to take off her bonnet and cloak, and supply her again with her knitting. So there was an end of the carriage exercise, it seemed.

But there's a curious boring pertinacity in the creature, for after we had sat in silence for about ten minutes she remarked:—

'Cecilia, the doctor said I was to have carriage exercise—Don't you think I could get a donkey-chair?'

'No,' I replied quite curtly. 'Donkey-chairs do not grow on Dartmoor.'

She never saw that I was provoked, and perhaps it was just as well.

'No,' she said after a pause for reflection. 'No, I dare say they do not, but don't you think if you walked to Stoke Babbage you might be able to get one for me?'

'I might be able to get a pony chaise and a quiet pony,' I answered, scenting the possibility of a five-mile walk that would give me an hour or two of peace.

'Well, will you go and try if you can get one?' she asked.

'If you don't mind being left alone for a few hours, I'll do what I can,' I said. She was beginning to object, when Virginia appeared, leading in her mother.

'Here's my mother come to keep you company, Mrs. MacGill,' she explained. 'She wishes to hear all about your chill, from the first shiver right on to the last cough.' She placed Mrs. Pomeroy in an armchair, and fairly drove me out of the room before her, pushing me with both hands.

'Come! Run! Fly! Escape!' she cried. 'You are as white as butter with waiting on that woman's fads. I won't let you come in again under three hours. My mother's symptoms are good to last for two and a half hours, and then Mrs. MacGill can fill up the rest of the time with hers.'

Gaiety like Virginia's is infectious. I ran, yes, really ran downstairs along with her, quite forgetting my headache and weariness. I almost turned traitor to Mrs. MacGill, and was ready to laugh at her with this girl.

'She wants a pony chaise, and I'm to go down to Stoke Babbage to choose it,' I said.

'Why, that's five miles away, isn't it?' she asked. 'You're not half equal to a walk like that.'

'Anything—anything for a respite from Mrs. MacGill!' I cried.

'Well, if you are fit for it, I reckon I am,' Virginia said, and with that we set off together down the road....

III

VIRGINIA POMEROY

Grey Tor Inn

'The inn at the world's end. The inn at the world's end.' These words come into my mind every morning when I look out of my window at the barren moor with its clumps of blazing whin, the misty distance, and the outline of Grey Tor against the sky. That 'giant among rocks rising in sombre and sinister majesty athwart the blue' looks to my eye like an interesting stone on a nice, middle-sized hill. If only they would dwell more upon the strange sense of desolation and mystery it seems to put into the landscape, instead of being awed by its so-called size! I am fascinated by it, but refuse to be astounded.

This naughty conception of the colossus of the moor is the one link between Sir Archibald and me, for he has seen Ben Nevis and I the Yosemite crags. Geologically speaking, I admit that these moor rocks must be fascinating to the student, and certainly we at home are painfully destitute of 'clapper-bridges,' 'hut-circles,' and 'monoliths'; although I heard an imaginative fellow-countryman declare yesterday to a party of English trippers that we had so many we became tired to death of the sight of them, and the government ordered hundreds of them to be pulled down.

Every inn, even one at the world's end, is a little picture of life, and we have under our roof all sorts of dramas in process of unfolding.

Shall I always be travelling, I wonder, picking up acquaintances here and there, sometimes friends, now and then a lover perhaps! Imagine a hotel lover, a lodging-house suitor, a husband, whom one would remember afterwards was rented with an apartment! But if I had found only Cecilia Evesham in this bleak spot I could be thankful for coming. She is like a white thornbush in a barren field, and she is not plain either, as they all persist in thinking her. Life, Mrs. MacGill, and the village dressmaker have for the moment placed her under a total eclipse; but she will shine yet, this poor little sunny beam, all put out of countenance by fierce lights and heavy shadows. To-day is her birthday, and mamma, who has taken a great fancy to her, gave her a long, wide scarf of creamy tambour lace. I presented a little violet brooch and belt-buckle of purple enamel, and by hard labour extracted from Mrs. MacGill a hideous little jug of Aller Vale pottery with 'Think of Me' printed on it. Think of her, indeed! One can always do that without having one's memory jogged, or jugged. Sir Archibald joined in the affair most amiably, and offered a red-bound Dartmoor Guide which he chanced to have with him. When we made our little gifts and I draped Miss Evesham in her tambour scarf, she looked only twenty-seven and a half by the clock! I wanted to put a flower in her hair, but she shook her head, saying, 'Roses are for young and lovely people like you, Virginia, who have other roses to match in their cheeks.' I was pleased that Sir Archibald was so friendly about the simple birthday festivities. I can forgive being snubbed a little myself, or if not exactly snubbed, treated as a mysterious (and inferior) being from another planet; but if he had been condescending or disagreeable with Miss Evesham I should have hated him. As it is I am quite grateful for him as a distinct addition to our dull feminine party. He is a new type to me, I confess it, and I had not till to-day made much headway in understanding him. When a man has positively no shallows one always credits him (I dare say falsely) with immeasurable depths. His unlikeness to all the men I've known increases his charm. He seems to attach such undue importance to small attentions, as if they meant not only a loss of dignity to the man, but an unwise feeding of the woman's vanity as well. He gave me the Black Watch ribbon for my banjo with as much inward hesitation and fear as Breck Calhoun would feel in asking me to share his future on nothing a year. He didn't grudge the ribbon, not he! but he was awfully afraid it might prove too encouraging a symptom for me to bear humbly and modestly.

Then that little affair of yesterday—was there ever anything more characteristic or more unexpected! I am certain he followed me into the lane for a walk, and would have joined me if Madam Spoil-Sport had not been my companion. Then came the stampede of the hill ponies, which may or may not have been a frightful and dangerous episode. I can only say it seemed so terrifying that I should have fainted if I hadn't been so surprised at Sir Archibald's behaviour; and I'm not at all a fainting sort of person, either.

Mrs. MacGill never looked more shapeless and stupid, and having been uncommonly selfish and peevish that day, was even less worth preserving than usual. I don't know what the etiquette is in regard to life-saving. No doubt the (worthy) aged should always have the first chance, but in any event I should think a man would evince some slight regret at seeing a young and lovely creature, just on the threshold of life, stamped into jelly by a herd of snorting ponies! But Sir Archibald apparently did not care what happened to me so long as he could rescue his countrywoman. I waited quite still in that awful moment when the clattering herd was charging down upon us, confident that a man of his strength and coolness would look out for us both. But he snatched the sacred person of the Killjoy, threw her against a gate, stood in front of her, and with out-stretched arms defied the oncoming foe. His gesture, his courage, the look in his eye, would have made the wildest pony quail. It did more,--it made me quail; but in the same instant he shouted to me, 'Look out for yourself and be sharp! Shin up that bank! Look alive!'

Shinning was not my customary attitude, but it was not mine 'to make reply.' I shinned; that is all there is to say about the matter. I was 'sharp' and I did 'look alive,' being deserted by my natural protector. I, Virginia Pomeroy, aged twenty-two, native of Richmond, U.S.A., clambered up one of those steep banks found only in Devonshire lanes,—a ten or twelve foot bank, crowned with a straggling, ragged hedge of thorn. I dug my fingers and toes into the earth and clutched at grass tufts, roots, or anything clutchable, and ended by tumbling into a thicket of freshly cut beechen twigs. I was as angry as I had breath to be, but somehow I was awed by the situation: by Mrs. MacGill's trembling gratitude; by Sir Archibald's presence of mind; by his imperious suggestion as to my way of escape, for I could never have climbed that sheer wall of earth unless I had been ordered to in good set terms. Coming down from my heights a few minutes later, looking like an intoxicated lady who has resisted the well-meant advice of a policeman, I put Mrs. MacGill together and shook Sir Archibald's hand. I am sure I don't know why; he did precious little for me, but he had been something of a hero, nevertheless.

'Shin up that bank and look alive!' I was never spoken to in that way before, in all my life. I wish Breck Calhoun could have heard him!

MRS. MACGILL

Saturday afternoon

I have had a terrible experience, which has upset me completely and damaged my right knee, besides agitating me so much that I can scarcely remember how it happened. I have read that a drowning man sees his whole life before him in a flash of time. It is different with women perhaps. I saw no flash of anything, and thought only of myself,—remembering a horrible story I read somewhere about a horse in the Crimea that bit the faces of the enemy. Sir Archibald flung me against a gate. The intention was kind, I dare say, but even then I could just hear the beads ripping off my mantle as I fell against the bars. The lane seemed full of ponies, all screaming, as I didn't know horses could scream, and kicking like so many grasshoppers.

'It's all right! Nothing has happened!' he called to the girl, when the herd receded.

'I don't know what you two call happened,' I said, as soon as I could speak. 'We have been nearly killed—all of us, especially me.'

I looked at Miss Pomeroy; so did Sir Archibald. She is an active girl, and at the first suggestion of danger she had scrambled headlong up a steep bank, where she clung to the roots of the hedge, entirely forgetting all about me. She now came down, and required some assistance in descending, although she had climbed up, which is more difficult, all in a moment. She was certainly pale—really pale for the first time since she came here, and did not seem to think about her hat, which was hanging half-way down her back by this time. Poor Mr. MacGill used always to say that when a pretty girl forgot her appearance there was something really serious in the air. She seemed to have forgotten, but I dare say she really was thinking that she looked nicer that way. She came up to the young man, and held out her hand to him, saying, 'Thank you, Sir Archibald.' Americans are very forward, certainly. If I had said 'Thank you,' and offered to shake hands with him, there might have been some reason for it, although I never thought of doing so; it was decidedly Me that Sir Archibald had rescued. This did not seem to make a bit of difference to them, however. He took her hand and shook it, and then I must say had the civility to give Me his arm, and we all walked back to the hotel. I felt so shattered that I went to bed for the rest of the afternoon.

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

Grey Tor Inn

Mrs. MacGill is not the kind of person you'd associate with danger,—being an armchair-and-feather-bed sort of character,—yet, by Jingo, the old girl has had a narrow squeak to-day. She and Miss Virginia went out for a walk together, the companion being invisible with the usual headache. I thought I would follow them a little way. Mrs. MacGill is an interfering old person, and I have noticed of late that she scents a flirtation between the fair American and me. Whether there is a flirtation or not, I don't know (I am not learned in such things); but if there were, she is not the person to stop it, nor any other old cat on earth. She has merely succeeded—I wish she knew—in putting it into my head that American girls are apt to be exceedingly attractive as well as eligible in the matrimonial market. I should think Miss Virginia was as eligible as any of them, and better looking than most.

I kept the pair in sight, and it was lucky that I did. A tremendous explosion from a quarry where some men are blasting made me stop short, and as to the old girl in front, she leaped about a foot into the air, and I could hear Miss Virginia laugh and say something funny about ankles and white stockings. Just then a most extraordinary noise began at the top of the lane, a pounding of hoofs and grinding of gravel and flying of stones; and in another minute, round the corner of this lane, which was of the narrowest sort and nearly roofed in with trees and banks, as these beastly Devonshire lanes always are, came a herd of moor ponies—about twenty or thirty of them—squeaking and biting and kicking, in a regular stampede. The report of the blasting had startled them, I don't doubt, and part terror, part vice, made them kick up a shindy and set off at full gallop. There wasn't a moment to lose. I ran for the women, with a shout, thinking only of the young one, of course. But when I saw the two together, there wasn't a question of which I must help. Miss Virginia had legs of her own; if Mrs. MacGill had any, they were past helping her now. There was a sort of hurdle to the right; I managed to jam the old woman against it and shout to the girl, 'Shin up that bank! Look alive!' while I stood in front, waving my arms and carrying on like a madman to frighten the ponies. They bore down on us in a swelter of dust; but just when they were within about a yard of our position they swerved to the left, stopped half a second, looking at us out of the corners of their eyes, snuffed the air, snorted, gave a squeal or two more, and galloped off down the lane. It was a pretty narrow shave,—nothing, of course, if the women hadn't been there. Miss Virginia and I shook hands over it, and between us we got the old lady back to the hotel, nearly melted with fright.

That night after dinner I was smoking on the verandah in front of the hotel. I heard Miss Virginia singing as she crossed the hall, and looked in.

'It's rather a jolly night, Miss Pomeroy,' I said, 'not at all cold.'

'Isn't it?' she asked, and came to the door.

'There's a comfortable seat here,' I added, 'and the verandah keeps off the wind from the moor.'

She came out. It was quite dark, for the sky was cloudy and there was no moon, but there was a splash of light where we sat, from the hall window, so that I could see Miss Virginia and she could see me. She was dressed in a very pretty frock, all pink and white, and I have certainly now come round to the artist's opinion that she is an uncommonly pretty girl; not that I care for pretty girls,—of course they are the worst kind, and I have always avoided them so far.

'Well,' said Miss Virginia, 'you've done a fairly good day's work, I should think, and can go to bed with an easy conscience and sleep the sleep of the just!'

'Why, particularly?' I inquired bashfully.

'Why?' cried Miss Virginia. 'Haven't you rescued Age and Scotland from a cruel death? I suppose it didn't matter to you what became of Youth and America. But I forgive you, you managed the other so well.'

I couldn't help laughing and getting rather red, and Miss Virginia gave me a wicked look out of her black eyes.

'Why, Miss Pomeroy,' I said in a confused way, 'don't you see how it was? I argued to myself you had your own legs to save yourself on, while'—

But here Miss Virginia jumped up with a little scream.

'We don't talk about legs that way, where I come from!' she said, but I saw she was not really shocked, only laughing, with the rum little dimples coming out in her cheeks.

'Won't you shake hands again,' I suggested, 'to show you have quite forgiven me?'

Miss Virginia's hand was in mine, I was holding it, when who should come to the door and look out but Mrs. MacGill.

'I think it is very cold and damp for you to be out at this hour, Miss Pomeroy,' she remarked pointedly.

'Well, I suppose it is, Mrs. MacGill,' said Miss Virginia, as cool as you please, lifting up the long tail of her dress and making a little face at me over her shoulder.

Mrs. MacGill gave a loud sniff and never budged till Miss Virginia was safely inside. The old harridan—I'll teach her a lesson if she doesn't mend her manners!

CECILIA EVESHAM

Friday evening

Here I was interrupted, and now something new has happened that requires telling, so I'll skip our adventures of Thursday afternoon, and go on to Friday....

Well, this morning I came down to breakfast, almost blind with neuralgia. I struggled on till luncheon, when it became unbearable. Virginia (I call her that already) looked at me in the kindest way during the meal.

'You're ill,' she said. 'You need putting to bed.'

Mrs. MacGill looked surprised. 'Cecilia is never very ill,' she observed tepidly.

'She's ill now, no mistake,' Virginia persisted, and rose and came round to my side of the table. 'Come and let me help you upstairs and put you to bed.'

I was too ill to resist, and she led me to my room and tucked me up comfortably.

'Now,' she said, 'this headache wants peace of mind to cure it; I know the kind. You can't get peace for thinking about Mrs. MacGill. I'm going to take her off your mind for the afternoon—it's time I tried companioning—no girl knows when she may need to earn a living. You won't know your Mrs. MacGill when you get her again! I'll dress her up and walk her out, and humour her.'

She bent down and kissed me as she spoke. It was the sweetest kiss! Her face is like a peach to feel, and her clothes have a delicious scent of violets. Somehow all my troubles seemed to smooth out. She rustled away in her silk-lined skirts, and I fell into a much-needed sleep, feeling that all would be well.

I was mistaken, however. All did not go well, but on the contrary something very unfortunate happened while I was sleeping so quietly. It must have been about four o'clock when I was wakened by Virginia coming into my room again. She looked a little ruffled and pale.

'I've brought Mrs. MacGill back to you, Miss Evesham,' she said, 'but it's thanks to Sir Archibald, not to me. She will tell you all about it.' With that Mrs. MacGill came tottering into the room, plumped down upon the edge of my bed, and began a breathless, incoherent story in which wild ponies, stampedes, lanes, Sir Archibald, and herself were all mixed up together.

'Did he really save you from a bad accident?' I asked Virginia, for it was impossible to make out anything from Mrs. MacGill.

Virginia nodded. 'He did, Cecilia, and I like him,' she said.

'Oh ho!' I thought. 'Is it possible that I am going to be mixed up in a romance? She likes him, does she? Very good; we shall see.'

And then, because the world always appears a neutral-tinted place to me, without high lights of any kind, I rebuked myself for imagining that anything lively could ever come my way. 'I couldn't even look on at anything romantic nowadays,' I thought, 'I doubt if there is such a thing as romance; it's just a figment of youth. Come, Mrs. MacGill, I'll find your knitting for you,' I said; 'that will compose you better than anything else.'

IV

VIRGINIA POMEROY

The Grey Tor Inn

We had rather a nice half-hour at Little Widger to-day, Sir Archibald and I. Of course we were walking. It is still incomprehensible to me, the comfort, the pleasure even, these people get out of the simple use of their legs. We passed Wishtcot and Wildycombe and then came upon Little Widger, not having known of its existence. The tiny hamlet straggles down a side hill and turns a corner, to terminate in the village inn, quaintly named 'The Mug o' Cider.' An acacia laden with yellow tassels hangs over the stone gate, purple and white lilacs burst through the hedges, and there is a cob-and-thatch cottage, with a dazzling white hawthorn in front of it and a black pig nosing at the gate.

O the loveliness of that May noon, a sunny noon for once; the freshness of the beeches; the golden brown of the oaks; above all, the shimmering beauty of the young birches! It was as if the sap had just brimmed and trembled into leaves; as if each drop had thinned itself into a transparent oval of liquid green.

The sight of Mrs. MacGill being dragged by Greytoria over a very distant hill was soothing in itself, or it would have been if I hadn't known Miss Evesham was toiling up beside her. We were hungry and certain of being late to luncheon, so Sir Archibald proposed food of some sort at the inn. He had cold meat, bread and cheese, and a tankard of Devonshire cider, while I had delicious junket, clouted cream, and stewed apple. Before starting on our long homeward stroll we had a cosy chat, the accessories being a fire, a black cat, and a pipe, with occasional incursions by a small maid-servant who looked exactly like a Devonshire hill pony,—strong, sturdy, stocky, heavy-footed, and tangled as to mane.

We were discussing our common lack of relatives. 'I have no one but my mother and two distant cousins,' I said.

The sympathetic man would have murmured, 'Poor little soul!' and the too sentimental one would have seized the opportunity to exclaim, 'Then let me be all in all to you!' But Sir Archibald removed his pipe and remarked, 'Good thing too, I dare say'; and then in a moment continued with graceful tact and frankness, 'They say you can't tell anything about an American family by seeing one of 'em.'

Upon my word, the hopeless candour of these our brethren of the British Isles is astonishing. Sometimes after a prolonged conversation with two or three of them I feel like going about the drawing-room with a small broom and dust-pan and sweeping up the home truths that should lie in scattered profusion on the floor; and which do, no doubt, were my eyes as keen in seeing as my ears in hearing.

However, I responded meekly, 'I suppose that is true; but I doubt if the peculiarity is our exclusive possession. None of my relatives belonged to the criminal classes, and they could all read and write, but I dare say some of them were more desirable than others from a social point of view. It must be so delicious to belong to an order of things that never questions itself! Breckenridge Calhoun says that is the one reason he can never quite get on with the men over here at first; which always makes me laugh, for in his way, as a rabid Southerner, he is just as bad.'

There was quite an interval here in which the fire crackled, the black cat purred, and the pipe puffed. Sir Archibald broke the cosy silence by asking, 'Who is this Mr. Calhoun whom you and your mother mention so often?'

The conversation that ensued was quite a lengthy one, but I will report as much of it as I can remember. It was like this:—

Jinny. Breckenridge Calhoun is my 'childhood's friend,' the kind of man whose estates join yours, who has known you ever since you were born; liked you, quarrelled with you, forgotten you, and been sweet upon you by turns; and who finally marries you, when you have both given up hope of finding anybody more original and startling.—By the way, am I the first American girl you've met?

Sir A. Not the first I've met, but the first I've known. There was a jolly sort of schoolgirl from Indiana whom I saw at my old aunt's house in Edinburgh. There were half a dozen elderly tabbies pressing tea and scones on her, and she cried, just as I was coming in at the door, 'Oh, no more tea, please! I could hear my last scone splash!'

Jinny (shaking with laughter). Oh, how lovely! I am so glad you had such a picturesque and fearless young person as a first experience; but as she has been your only instructress, you have much to learn, and I might as well begin my duty to you at once.

Sir A. You're taking a deal of trouble.

Jinny. Oh, it's no trouble, but a pleasure rather, to put a fellow-being on the right track. You must first disabuse your mind of the American girl as you find her in books.

Sir A. Don't have to; never read 'em.

Jinny. Very well, then,—the American girl of the drama and casual conversation; that's worse. You must forget her supposed freedom of thought and speech, her rustling silk skirts, her jingling side bag or chatelaine, her middle initial, her small feet and hands, her high heels, her extravagant dress, her fortune,—which only one in ten thousand possesses,—her overworked father and weakly indulgent mother, called respectively poppa and momma. These are but accessories,—the frame, not the picture. They exist, that is quite true, but no girl has the whole list, thank goodness! I, for example, have only one or two of the entire lot.

Sir A. Which ones? I was just thinking you had 'em all.

Jinny. You must find out something for yourself! The foundation idea of modern education is to make the pupil the discoverer of his own knowledge. As I was saying when interrupted, if you remove these occasional accompaniments of the American girl you find simply the same old 'eternal feminine.' Of course there is a wide range of choice. You seem to think over here that there is only one kind of American girl; but if you would only go into the subject deeply you would find fat and lean, bright and dull, pert and meek, some that could only have been discovered by Columbus, others that might have been brought up in the rocky fastnesses of a pious Scottish home.

Sir A. I don't get on with girls particularly well.

Jinny. I can quite fancy that! Not one American girl in a hundred would take the trouble to understand you. You need such a lot of understanding that an indolent girl or a reserved one or a spoiled one or a busy one would keep thinking, 'Does it pay?'

Sir A. (reddening and removing his pipe thoughtfully, pressing down the tobacco in the bowl). Hullo, you can hit out when you like.

Jinny. I am not 'hitting out'; I get on delightfully well with you because I have lots of leisure just now to devote to your case. Of course it would be a great economy of time and strength if you chose to meet people half-way, or perhaps an eighth! It's only the amenities of the public street, after all, that casual acquaintances need, in order to have a pleasant time along the way. The private path is quite another thing; even I put out the sign, 'No thoroughfare,' over that; but I don't see why you need build bramble hedges across the common roads of travel.—Do you know what a 'scare-cat' is?

Sir A. Can't say I do.

Jinny. It's a nice expressive word belonging to the infants' vocabulary of slang. I think you are regular 'scare-cats' over here, when it comes to the treatment of casual acquaintances. You must be clever enough to know a lady or a gentleman when you see one, and you don't take such frightful risks with ladies and gentlemen.

During this entire colloquy Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie, Baronet, of Kindarroch, eyed me precisely as if he had been a dignified mastiff observing the incomprehensible friskings of a playful, foolish puppy of quite another species. 'Good Heavens,' thinks the mastiff, raising his eyes in devout astonishment, 'can I ever at any age have disported myself like that? The creature seems to have positively none of my qualities; I wonder if it really is a dog?'

'Do you approve of marriage,—go in for it?' queried Sir Archibald in a somewhat startling manner, after a long pause, and puffing steadily the while.

'I approve of it entirely,' I answered, 'especially for men; women are terribly hampered by it, to be sure.'

'I should have put that in exactly the opposite way,' he said thoughtfully.

'I know you would,' I retorted, 'and that's precisely the reason I phrased it as I did. One must keep your attention alive by some means or other, else it would go on strike and quit work altogether.'

Sir Archibald threw back his head and broke into an unexpected peal of laughter at this. 'Come along out of doors, Miss Virginia Pomeroy,' he said, standing up and putting his pipe in his pocket. 'You're an awfully good chap, American or not!'

MRS. MACGILL

Sunday evening

This day has been very wet. I had fully intended to go to church, because I always make a point of doing so unless too ill to move, as I consider it fully more a duty than a privilege, and example is everything. However, after the fright I had yesterday, and the shaking, I had such a pain in my right knee that devotion was out of the question, even had my mantle been fit to put on (which it won't be until Cecilia has mended all the trimming), so I resolved to stay quietly in bed. After luncheon I could get no sleep, for Miss Pomeroy was singing things which Cecilia says are camp meeting hymns. They sounded to me like a circus, but they may introduce dance music at church services in New York, and make horses dance to it, too. Anything is possible to a people that can produce girls like Virginia Pomeroy. One can hardly believe in looking at her that she belongs to the nation of Longfellow, who wrote that lovely poem on 'Maidenhood.' Poor Mr. MacGill used to be very fond of it:—

'Standing, with reluctant feet,

Where the brook and river meet.'

Even if there were a river here (we can see nothing of the Dart from this hotel), one could never connect Miss Pomeroy with 'reluctant feet' in any way. She has quite got hold of that unfortunate young man. With my poor health, and sleeping so badly, it is very difficult for me to interfere, but justice to the son of my old friend will make me do what I can.

About half-past five I came down and could see nobody. Mrs. Pomeroy suffers from the same tickling cough as I do, after drinking tea, and had gone to her own room. Cecilia was nowhere to be seen. I asked the waiter, who is red-faced, but a Methodist, to tell me where she was, and he told me in the Billiard Room. Of course I didn't know where I was going, or I should never have entered it, especially on a wet Sunday afternoon; but when I opened the door I stood horrified by what I saw.

Miss Pomeroy may be accustomed to such a place (I have read that they are called 'brandy saloons' in America), but I never saw anything like it. There was a great deal of tobacco, which at once set up my tickling cough. Sir Archibald was holding what gamblers call a cue, and rubbing it with chalk, I suppose to deaden the sound. On a table—there were several chairs in the room, so it cannot have been by mistake—sat Miss Pomeroy and Cecilia. The American was strumming on a be-ribboned banjo.

'O Mrs. MacGill, I thought you were asleep,' said Cecilia.

'I wish I were; but I fear that what I see is only too true. Pray, Cecilia, come away with me at once,' I exclaimed.

Sir Archibald had placed a chair for me, but I took no notice of it, except to say, 'I'm surprised that you don't offer me a seat on the table.'

We left the room at once, and I spoke to Cecilia with some severity, saying that I could never countenance such on-goings, and that Miss Pomeroy was leading her all wrong. 'If she is determined to marry a baronet,' I said, 'let her do it; but even an American might think it more necessary that a baronet should be determined to marry her, and might shrink from such a form of pursuit. Well, if you are determined to laugh at me,' I went on, 'there must be some other arrangement between us, but you cannot leave me at present, alone on a hillside like this, just after influenza, amongst herds of wild ponies.'

Cecilia cried at last, and upset me so much that I had another bad night, suffering much from my knee, and obliged to have a cup of cocoa at 2.30 A.M. Cecilia appeared half asleep as she made it, although the day before she could spring out of bed the moment the light came in, to look at the sunrise. These so-called poetic natures are very puzzling and inconsistent.

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

There is no doubt, alas! that the weather is improving and that we shall soon be in for that picnic. I have promised the motor and promised my society. There is something about that girl which makes me feel and act in a way I hardly think is quite normal. She forces me to do things I don't want to do, and the things don't seem so bad in themselves, at least as long as she is there. The artist I saw at Exeter has turned up here, the one who comes to look at the gorse; at any rate he makes a man to speak to, which is a merciful variety. He talks a lot of rot of course,—raves about the 'blue distance' here, as if it mattered what colour the distance is. But I think he is off his chump in other ways besides; for instance, he was saying to-day he was sick of landscape and pining to try his hand at a portrait.

'There's your model quite ready,' said I, indicating Miss Virginia, all in white, with a scarlet parasol, looking as pretty as a rose.

'Bah!' said the artist, 'who wants to paint "the young person" whose eyes show you a blank past, a delightful present, and a prosperous future! Eyes that have cried are the only ones to paint. I should prefer the old lady's companion.'

I felt positively disgusted at this, but of course there is no accounting for tastes, and if a man is as blind as a bat, he can't help it; only I wonder he elects to gain his livelihood as an artist.

I walked with Miss Virginia to-day down to the little village about a mile away. It was all through the lanes, and I could hardly get her along because of the flowers. The banks were certainly quite blue with violets, and Miss Virginia would pick them, though I explained it was waste of time, for they would all be dead in half an hour and have to be thrown away.

'But if I make up a nice little bunch for your buttonhole,' said she, 'will that be waste of time?' Of course I was obliged to say 'No,'—you have to tell such lies to women, one of the reasons I dislike their society.

'But of course you will throw them away as soon as they are faded, poor dears!' continued Miss Virginia.

I didn't see what else a sensible man could do with decaying vegetation, though it was plain that this was not what she expected me to say. Luckily, the village came in sight at this moment, so I was able to change the subject.

Miss Virginia seems very keen on villages, and went on about the thatched cottages and the church tower and the lych-gate in such a way that I conclude they don't have these things in America, where people are really up to date. It was in vain for me to tell her that thatch is earwiggy, as well as damp, and that every sensible landowner is substituting slate roofs as fast as he can. We went into the church, which was as cold and dark as a vault, and Miss Virginia was intensely pleased with that too, and I could hardly get her away. In the meantime, the sun had come out tremendously strong, and as it had rained for some days previously, the whole place was steaming like a caldron, and we both suddenly felt most awfully slack.

'Let's take a bite here,' I suggested. 'There is sure to be a pothouse of sorts, and we shall be late for the hotel luncheon anyway.'

The idea seemed to please Miss Virginia, and we hunted for the pothouse and found it in a corner.

'Oh, what a dear little inn!' cried she. 'I shall love anything they serve here!'