THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE AND
THE HEIR APPARENT

Lovell’s International Series, No. 156.

THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE AND
THE HEIR APPARENT

BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF
“FOR LOVE AND LIFE,” “A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN,” ETC., ETC.
Authorized Edition
NEW YORK
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY
150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE
Copyright, 1891,
BY
UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY.

THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE
AND
THE HEIR APPARENT.

CHAPTER I.

Lord Frogmore was about sixty when his step-brother, John Parke, his heir presumptive, announced to him one day his desire to marry. John was thirty-five, the son of another mother, with whom, however, Lord Frogmore had always lived in the best intelligence. A more indulgent elder brother could not be. He had never himself married, or even thought of doing so, so far as anybody knew. He had considered John’s interests in everything. Had he been his father instead of his elder brother he could not have been more thoughtful. Whether perhaps it was John’s advantage he was thinking of when he remained unmarried was another matter, though you would have supposed that was the elderly peer’s only notion to hear how John’s mother spoke of it. At all events it was very much to John Parke’s advantage. His creditors did not press him, his tailor and he were the best friends in the world, everything was in his favor in life, and in London, where even his little extravagancies were greatly encouraged and smiled upon. Heir presumptive, the Honorable John Parke: that one line in the “Peerage” made life very smooth for John.

Lord Frogmore was not, however, so entirely actuated by consideration for his brother as his stepmother thought. He was a man who took, and had taken all his life, very great care of himself. Whatever was his reason for not marrying, it was not on account of his brother John. No doubt he was aware that in all probability his brother would be his heir: but he did not dwell on that thought, or indeed contemplate the necessity of an heir at all. He took great care of his health, which was perfect, and had a system of life which secured him the utmost possible comfort and pleasure with the least possible trouble. A man who has no family to interfere with his liberty, plenty of money, perfect control of his own time and actions, and no duties to speak of, can make himself exceedingly comfortable when he sets his mind to it, and this was what Lord Frogmore had done.

He was, however, a little startled but much more amused when John announced to him his intentions. It was at the beginning of the season, before as yet Mr. Parke could have been endangered by any of the blandishments of society, and Lord Frogmore’s mind, which was a very lively one, made a sweep over the country houses at which he knew his brother to have been staying. “Do I know the lady?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye. He had not a very high opinion of his brother John, in point of intellect at least, and he immediately leapt to the conclusion that it was not John’s intention so much as the lady’s which had decided this important step.

“I don’t think so,” said John. “She is of a good family, but very fond of the country, and they don’t come much to town. She is a Miss Ravelstone, of Grocombe—Yorkshire people—perhaps you may never even have heard the name.”

“No, I can’t say I have ever heard the name,” said Lord Frogmore, with his face lengthening: for there is this unconscious arrogance in people who belong to what is called society that it seems to them as if it was the same as not to exist at all, if you are not at once recognized and identified by the mention of your name.

“No,” said John with something of a blush, “I did not expect you would. Her father has got a nice little estate, but they don’t much mind society. There’s several brothers. I don’t suppose I shall have very much money with her. They’re chiefly a hunting family,” John said.

“Well, that is no harm. But it’s a pity if there is no money,” said Lord Frogmore calmly. “You have not money enough yourself to make you independent of that. What do you mean to do?”

Lord Frogmore looked with great composure at John, who in his turn looked very blank at his brother. John was very much more warmly conscious of being Frogmore’s heir than Frogmore was. He had taken it for granted, though not without cold sensations, that Frogmore would do something, nay, much for him in this emergency. The old gentleman would feel that John was fulfilling a duty to the common family which he himself (thank heaven!) had never taken the trouble to do. John felt indeed that Frogmore ought to be grateful to him for marrying, which was clearly a duty as he was almost the last of the race. Lord Frogmore saw through this with very lively perceptions, but it amused him to play a little on his brother’s fears.

“You will wish to get an appointment of some sort or another,” he said. “It is a thing not very easy to get, but still we must see what can be done for you. But I don’t know how you are to pull through those examinations which are necessary for everything, John.”

John kept silence for a time with a very disconcerted countenance, then he burst forth almost with an explosion. “I thought you would have been pleased, Frogmore——”

“I am not displeased: you are old enough to judge for yourself, and to choose for yourself. Of course, I am delighted that you should be happy,” said Lord Frogmore with his bland smile which always took the fortitude out of John. But when he had reduced the poor fellow almost to a jelly, and made his purpose and his prospects look equally impossible, which was not difficult to do, the elder brother relented: or else it would be better to say he did for John what he had always intended to do, notwithstanding that he could not resist the temptation of turning him outside in. He inquired into the antecedents, or rather into the family of Miss Ravelstone, for she had no antecedents, happily for herself—and discovered that there was at least nothing against them if they were scarcely of the caste of those who usually gave heirs to Frogmore. Her father was a squire in Yorkshire though but of small estate; whose family had been Ravelstones of Grocombe long before the Parkes had ever been heard of. Unfortunately ancient family does not always give refinement or elevation either of mind or manners, and horses, though most estimable animals and the favorite pursuit of the English aristocracy, have still less influence of that description. Horses were the devotion, the vocation, and more or less the living of the Ravelstone family. From father to son all the men of the house were absorbed in the cultivation, the production, the worship of that noble animal. Women there were none in the house save Miss Letitia, who was only so far of the prevailing persuasion that she was an admirable horsewoman. But in her heart she never desired to see a horse again, so long as she lived. She had heard them talked of so long and so much that she hated the very name. The stable talk and the hunting talk were a weariness to her. Her mind was set on altogether different things. To get into society and to make some sort of figure in the world was what she longed for and aspired to. The county society was all she knew of, and that was at first the limit of her wishes. But these desires rose to higher levels after awhile as will hereafter be seen. She had as little prospect of admission into the elevated society of the county as she had of access to the Queen’s court at the moment when kind fate called her forth from her obscurity.

This happened in the following way. A very kind and good-natured family of the neighborhood, one of the few county people who knew the Ravelstones, had as usual a party for the Doncaster races. It was not a good year. There were no horses running which excited the general expectation, nothing very good looked for, and various misfortunes had occurred in the Sillingers’ usual circle. Some were ill and some were in mourning, and some had lost money—more potent reasons for refraining from their usual festivities than the buying of oxen or even the marrying of wives—and the party at Cuppland was reduced in consequence below its usual numbers. It was then that Lady Sillinger, always good-natured, suggested to her daughters that they should ask “Tisch”—which was the very unlucky diminution by which Letitia was known. Poor Tisch had few pleasures in life. She had no mother to take her about—hardly even an aunt. She would enjoy the races for their own sake, the family being so horsey—and she could come in nobody’s way. The Sillinger girls were young and pretty and careless, quite unconcerned about the chance of anyone coming in their way, and very sure that Tisch Ravelstone was the last person in the world to fear as a rival. They agreed to the invitation with the utmost alacrity. Poor Tisch never went anywhere. They were as pleased to give her a holiday as if it had been of some advantage to themselves. And Letitia came much excited and very grateful, with one new dress and something done to each of the old ones to make them more presentable. The result was not very satisfactory among all the fresh toilettes from London and Paris which the Sillingers and their friends had for the races, but Letitia had the good sense to wear dresses of subdued colors which were not much remarked. She was not pretty. She had light hair without color enough in it to be remarkable, and scanty in volume—hair that never could be made to look anything. Her nose was turned up a little at the tip, and was slightly red when the weather was cold. Her lips were thin. She herself was thin, with an absence of roundness and softness which is even more disadvantageous than the want of a pretty face. She was said by everybody to be marked out for an old maid. So it may easily be perceived that Lady Sillinger was right when she said that poor Tisch would come in nobody’s way.

On the other hand, John Parke was a very eligible person, highly presentable, and Lord Frogmore’s heir presumptive, a man about town who knew everybody and who never could have been expected in the ordinary course of affairs to be aware of the existence of such a homely person as Tisch Ravelstone. He did not indeed notice her at all except to say good-morning when they met, and good-night when she joined the procession of ladies with candlesticks going to bed, until the third day. On that fatal morning, before the party set out for the Races, Mr. Parke had an accident. He twisted his foot upon the slippery parquet of the breakfast-room, which was only partially covered by the thick Turkey carpet; and though the twist was supposed not to be serious, it prevented him from accompanying the party. He was very much annoyed by this contretemps, but there was nothing for it but to submit. Before Lady Sillinger set out for Doncaster she had everything arranged for his comfort, so far as it could be foreseen. He was put on a sofa in the library, with a table by his elbow covered with all the morning papers, with the last English novels out of Mudie’s box, and the last yellow books from Paris which had reached the country. There was an inkstand, also a blotting book, pens and pencils—everything a disabled man would be supposed to want.

“I would stay to take care of you,” said kind Lady Sillinger, “but Sir Thomas——”

“Oh, don’t think of such a thing,” said John, “I shall be very comfortable.”

They all came to pity and console him before they drove away—the girls in their pretty dresses, the men all spruce and fresh. He felt it a little hard upon him that after having been invited specially for the Races he should have to stay at home, and he felt very angry with the silly fashion, as he thought it for the moment, of those uncovered floors and slippery polished boards. “What the blank did people have those things for?” he said to himself. Still he did his best to grin and bear it. He settled himself on his sofa and listened to the distant sounds of the setting off, the voices and the calls to one and another. “Tom will come with us——” “No, but I am to have the vacant place in the landau.” “Oh, now, Dora, there is room for you here.” Dora was the youngest of the Sillingers and the one he liked best. He wondered with whom she was to be during the drive. There was another vacancy besides his own. One of the ladies had stayed behind as well as himself. He wondered which it was. If it was Mrs. Vivian, for example, he wished she would come and keep him company. But, perhaps, it was some horrid cold or other which would make her keep her bed.

The sound of their departure died away. They had all gone. No chance of anyone now coming into the room to deliver John Parke from his own society. He would have to make up his mind to spend his day alone. With a great sigh, which nearly blew the paper which he held so carelessly out of his hand, John betook himself to this unusual occupation. He read the whole of the Morning Post and Standard from beginning to end, and then he began upon the Times. There was nothing in the papers. It is astonishing how little there is in them when you particularly want to find something that will amuse you for an hour or two. He felt inclined to fling them to the other corner of the room after he had gone over everything from the beginning to the end. And it was just at this moment, when he was thoroughly tired of himself and would have welcomed anybody, that he heard a movement at the door. He looked up very eagerly and Miss Ravelstone came in. To do her justice Letitia was quite ignorant of the accident and that Mr. Parke had been left behind. She had woke with a violent cold—so bad that she too had been compelled to give up the idea of going out. She had put on her plainest dress, knowing that no one would be back till it was time for dinner, and feeling that her gray gown was quite good enough for the governess and the children with whom she would have to lunch: she had indulged herself by having breakfast in bed, which was quite an unusual luxury. Her nose was more red than usual through the cold, her eyes were suffused with unintended tears. She did not want to see anyone. When she met John Parke’s eager look, Miss Ravelstone would have liked the substantial library floor to open and swallow her up. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she cried.

“Is that you, Miss Ravelstone,” said John. “Is it possible that you have not gone with the rest?”

“I had such a bad cold,” stammered Tisch—for a moment she actually felt as if she had done something wrong in going into the room.

“And here am I laid by the leg—I mean by the ankle,” said Mr. Parke. Even then Letitia was not fully awakened to the magnitude of the chance which her good fortune had thus put into her hands. She said she was very sorry, and for a moment stood hovering at the door uncertain whether she ought not to retire at once. But John was so much delighted to have somebody to tell his story to that he would not let her go.

“It was all those confounded boards in the breakfast-room,” he said. “Why can’t they have carpets all over the room. When one is abroad one makes up one’s mind to that sort of thing, everything’s slippery and shiny there: but in a house in Yorkshire! I came down like an elephant, Miss Ravelstone. I wonder you did not feel the whole house shake.”

“I was in bed,” said Letitia, “nursing a bad cold.”

“A bad cold is a nasty thing,” said John, “but it is not so bad as a twist in the foot. You can move about at least—and here am I stuck on a sofa—not able even to ring the bell.”

“I will ring the bell for you with pleasure, Mr. Parke.”

“That’s just one of the last things one would ask a lady to do,” cried John, “and I don’t know why you should ring the bell for me. If the fellow was here I don’t know what I want. I couldn’t tell him to sit down and talk to me. It’s such a bore to be left here alone, and everyone else away.”

“I’ll sit down and talk to you if you like,” said Tisch, with a laugh. Her eyes recovered in the most marvelous manner. She felt inclined to sneeze, but shook it off. She began to wake up and see what was before her. Heir presumptive to Lord Frogmore! She had made up her mind that she was likely to meet somebody of importance on this great visit—and had no intention of neglecting any opportunity—though she had never even supposed, never hoped, to have such a captive delivered into her hands in this easy way.

“I wish you would,” said John. “I’m afraid I’m not very lively, and this confounded ankle hurts; but perhaps we can find something to talk about. Are you fond of playing games, Miss Ravelstone? I wonder if there are any here?”

“There is a chess board, I know,” said Letitia; “but I don’t know much about chess: and there’s bezique, and I have a ‘go bang’ of my own.”

“Oh, if it’s not too much to ask, please fetch the go bang,” cried John.

Miss Letitia nodded her head, she disappeared, and in two minutes returned a little out of breath with the box containing that intellectual amusement in her hand. She had done something to herself in the meantime, John felt, but though he was trained in the things that ladies “do” to make themselves more attractive he could not make out what it was. They played about twenty games at go bang, and time which had been so leaden-footed flew. But everything exhausts itself after a while. When an hour and a half had passed thus, John began to fidget again, and wonder what o’clock it was, and if it would soon be time for luncheon—which was at two in this late house: and it was now only one o’clock, another lingering hour.

“Should you like,” said Miss Ravelstone, “to hear a great secret about Cobweb?” Now Cobweb was the favorite for the next day’s race, and John Parke had, as he would himself have said, a pot of money on that horse.

“Anything about the race? Why, to be sure, of all things in the world,” he said.

It has already been mentioned that the Ravelstones were all horsey to the last degree except Tisch, who was not of that persuasion; but she had heard horses talked of all her life, and while she entered into the biography of Cobweb, John Parke listened with eager eyes.

CHAPTER II.

This was how it all began; how it went on was more than anyone could say, certainly not John himself, who woke up one morning to feel himself an engaged man with a more startled sensation than words could express. He knew that it was all right; that Letitia had been everything that was nice and proper, and had even spoken humbly of her own merits as not good enough for such a distinguished person as himself; but what were the steps that lead up to it, or how it had come about, John could give no clear account. He spoke of the incident with a kind of awe. How it happened, or what had come to pass before it happened, was something too great for him, which he could not follow; but from the very first moment he was aware that it was, and could neither be got rid of nor explained away. John was not a very triumphant lover. He was a little subdued indeed, scarcely knowing how to announce it to his friends; but Letitia took it upon her instantly to bear his burdens, and it was she who told Lady Sillinger, who told everybody, and so that matter was got over. I do not mean to say that it was all settled during the Doncaster week at the Sillingers; for however Letitia might have felt, John could never have been got to be so prompt as that. But another benevolent lady who saw how the tide was turning, and who thought it a great pity that a girl should not have her chance, invited Letitia and also John, who happened to have no other pressing engagement, and in a fortnight more great things were done. I have said before that he never could tell how it was, but he very soon came to understand that it was all settled, and that it necessitated a great many other arrangements. One of them was the conversation with Lord Frogmore with which this story began. John Parke was still a little dazed and overawed by the great event when he informed his brother, and the manner in which Lord Frogmore at first received his confidence at once bewildered and disconcerted him. But afterwards everything came right, and the arrangements made were satisfactory in every way. Lord Frogmore paid his brother’s debts. He gave Miss Ravelstone a very handsome wedding present, and he made such an allowance as became the conditions and expectations of his heir. He did, indeed, everything that could have been expected in the circumstances. He did not say “I shall never marry, and of course you will have everything when I am gone,” which Letitia thought he ought to have said, considering everything; but he acted exactly as if he had said this. You do not make your younger brother an allowance of three thousand a year unless your intentions towards him are of the most decided character; nor, indeed, was it in the least probable that anything could come to snatch the cup from John Parke’s lips.

When the time came for the wedding it was discovered by all parties that Grocombe was too far off among the fells—too much out of order, too bare, and—in a word—too shabby for such a performance. Letitia had felt this from the very first moment, and had been strongly conscious of it when she wrote to Lady Sillinger on the very evening on which the engagement took place. She had told her kind friend that she was the happiest girl in the world, and that nobody knew how much there was in John; but even at that early period when she had said something modestly of her lover’s ardor and desire to have the marriage soon, she added: “But oh! dear Lady Sillinger, when I think of Grocombe and old Mr. Hill, our vicar, my heart sinks. How can I ever—ever be married there?”

As Lady Sillinger entered with great enthusiasm into a marriage which she might be said to have made, Miss Ravelstone had many opportunities of repeating this sentiment, and the conclusion of all was that this kind-hearted woman invited her young friend to be married from Cuppland if she pleased. “It will be such fun for the children,” Lady Sillinger said. It was therefore amid all the surroundings of a great house that Lord Frogmore first saw his brother’s bride. John did not ask any questions as to the impression Letitia had made. He had a dull kind of sense that it might be better to ask no questions. He was not himself at all deceived about her appearance, nor did he expect his friends to admire her. He took the absence of all enthusiasm on their part with judicious calm. He was not himself enthusiastic, but he had a sober satisfaction in the consciousness that his income was more than doubled, and that he was likely to be very comfortable until the time should come when Frogmore would in the course of nature die. And then, of course, he knew very well what the succession would be. Letitia knew it too. She had read a hundred times over every detail in the paragraph. She managed to get a copy of the county history and study everything that was known about the family of the Parkes and their possessions. She had even managed to find an old dressmaker who had once been maid to one of the ladies of the family, and who told her about the jewels which must eventually be hers. By dint of industry and constant questioning Letitia had discovered everything about the Parkes before she became one of them. And it was all very satisfactory—more so to her, perhaps, than to any other of the family. John’s mother was not at all pleased, but what did it matter about that? She was only the Dowager, and, except so far as her own little savings were concerned, had no power.

When Lord Frogmore first saw his sister-in-law she was in all the importance and excitement of a young lady on the eve of marriage surrounded by dressmakers and by presents. The dressmakers were many and obsequious, the presents were few and did not make a very great show. This was got over, however, by the explanation that most of her wedding gifts had been sent to Grocombe, and that the show at Cuppland was only accidental, not contributed by her old family friends, by whom, of course, the most important were sure to be supplied. The head of the family of the Parkes, when he was asked into Lady Sillinger’s boudoir to make acquaintance with his sister-in-law, had a small packet in his hand, to which he saw her eyes turn almost before she looked at himself. Her eyes were light, and not very bright by nature, but there was a glow in them as they shot that glance at the packet in his hand. Did she think it was but a small packet? Lord Frogmore could not help asking himself. The jeweller’s box, which he carried done up in silver paper, thus became the chief and first thought on both sides. Letitia was in a pale pink dress which was not becoming to her. It made her thin hair and colorless complexion more colorless than ever. It threw up the faint flush on the tip of her nose. She rose quickly, and came forward holding out her hand, and rising suggestively on her toes. Did she mean to kiss him? the old gentleman asked himself, which was certainly what Letitia meant to do; but in such a salutation in such circumstances the initiative should at least be taken by the elderly brother-in-law, not by the bride. She stood suspended, however, for a moment, as it were in the air, with that expectation, and then resumed her seat with a little shake out of her draperies like a ruffled bird.

“I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Ravelstone,” said Lord Frogmore.

“Oh, I am sure so am I,” said Letitia. “Dear John’s brother.”

She simpered and held down her head a little, while Lord Frogmore did not know whether to laugh or be angry. He was not accustomed to this way of stating the relationship.

“Yes, to be sure dear John is my brother,” he said, “and as I don’t doubt you are going to make him a very happy man, the family will all be much indebted to you, Miss Ravelstone. In view of the coming event I have brought my little offering.” He began to open it out, fumbling at the string in a way which was very tantalizing to Letitia, who would have liked to pounce upon it and take it out of his hand.

“Let me cut it,” she said, producing scissors from the dressmaker’s box which was on the table, and once more her eyes gave a gleam enough to set that troublesome paper on fire.

“Thank you, but I like to save the string,” said the old peer. He felt himself, however, though he rather liked to tantalize her, that all this delay would make his present look still unimportant in her eyes. It was a pearl necklace with a pendant of pearls and diamonds, and it had in reality cost him a good deal, and was more valuable than Letitia thought. She drew a long breath when it was at last disclosed.

“Oh!” she said (adding within herself “it’s not diamonds after all.”) “Oh, how very pretty; oh, how sweetly pretty; oh, what a delightful little necklace. Oh, Lord Frogmore, it looks like someone younger and much, much prettier than me.”

“I am very glad you like it,” said Lord Frogmore.

“Oh, Lord Frogmore, any girl would like it. I am sure it is quite beautiful. I thought married ladies didn’t wear pearls; but only just to keep in the box and look at it would do one good. It is the loveliest little thing I ever saw.”

“You are mistaken I am sure about the married ladies, Miss Ravelstone.”

“Am I?” she said, looking up at him with engaging candor, “I am so inexperienced I don’t know, but someone told me so; dull stones for girls and bright ones for married ladies is what I was told; but I daresay that was all wrong and you know best——”

“I really don’t know what you mean by dull stones,” said Lord Frogmore stiffly.

“Oh, I mean pearls and torquoises and such things, and the others are rubies and emeralds and diamonds; but I don’t at all understand such questions, I only know they are lovely. How am I to thank you, Lord Frogmore?”

“I am quite sufficiently thanked if you are pleased, Miss Ravelstone.”

“Oh, but that is so cold,” said Letitia. “I know what I should do if it was my father, or my uncle, or any old friend. But when it is Lord Frogmore——” She stopped with the same arrested motion which had startled him so when they had first met. Decidedly the girl meant to kiss him. He started rather abruptly to his feet and made her a very elaborate bow.

“I am more than repaid, Miss Ravelstone, if you are good enough to be pleased with my little present,” he said.

“Oh! please call me Letitia—at least,” said the too affectionate bride.

If Lady Sillinger had not come forward at this moment to relieve the strain of the situation by boundless praise and admiration of the necklace, Frogmore did not know to what extremities he might have been driven. He withdrew as soon as he could without any demonstrations of tenderness—and hurrying through the suite of rooms came, to his confusion, upon Lady Frogmore, his stepmother, John’s mother, a woman a little younger than himself, and of whom he had always been a little afraid. She was very large, as so many ladies become in their maturity, and had a way of constantly fanning herself, which was disturbing to most men and to her stepson most of all. But as they had naturally perceived each other some way off there was no avoiding an encounter. The dowager Lady Frogmore had a voice not unlike a policeman’s rattle, and as she spoke her large bosom heaved as if with the effort to bring it forth.

“Well, Frogmore,” she said, “you have been paying your respects to the bride?”

“I have indeed,” he replied, with much gravity, and a nervous glance behind him.

“You look, my dear Frogmore, as if you were running away.”

“Something like it, I don’t deny. I—I thought she would have kissed me,” he said, with a burst of feeling. It might have seemed comical to some people, but it was not at all comical to Lord Frogmore.

The dowager Lady Frogmore stopped fanning herself. “She kissed me,” she said, in sepulchral tones; “actually got up upon her toes, and, before I knew what she was about, kissed me. I never was so taken by surprise in my life. If there is any kissing to be done it is the family, certainly, that should begin.”

“That is quite my opinion,” said Frogmore; “but I suppose she means it for the best.”

Lady Frogmore shook her head. She shook it so long and so persistently that the flowers upon her bonnet began to shed little bits of feather and tinsel. “Frogmore,” she said, solemnly, “mark my words. She will lead John a life!”

“Let’s hope not,” said his brother.

“Oh! don’t tell me. Men never understand. She will lead him a life.”

“At all events it is his own doing,” said Frogmore.

“I don’t believe it is his own doing. He could not give me a rational account of it when I asked him. I believe she’s a scheming minx, and this Lady Sillinger’s a designing woman.”

“What good will it do her? She’s got daughters of her own.”

“That is just the danger of it,” said Lady Frogmore, nodding her head. “If it had been one of her own daughters I would not have said a word. Her own daughters are well enough, but this girl! My poor dear John has been made a victim, Frogmore. He has been made a victim. I wish he had broken his leg or something before he came to this house.”

“Nonsense,” said Lord Frogmore, “he might have met her anywhere else as well as in this house.”

“It’s all a deep laid scheme,” continued the dowager, behind her fan. “What that woman has against my poor dear John I can’t tell, but it is she that has done it. And mark my words, Frogmore——”

“How many more words am I to mark,” said Frogmore peevishly—then he added, in the freedom of close relationship: “All you say about poor Lady Sillinger is the merest nonsense. She’s as good a woman as ever lived.”

“Mark my words, Frogmore,” repeated the dowager, “that girl will never rest till she has got you out of the way.”

“Me!” he laughed, “set your mind at rest,” he said, “I am not in her way at all. She means to make a friend of me.”

“She’ll make a friend of you, and then she’ll make you something quite different. She will never be happy,” said Lady Frogmore, “till she has got us all out of the way.”

“Oh! come, come! We don’t live in the fourteenth century,” Frogmore said.

And next day, notwithstanding all these prognostications of harm, John and Letitia were married, and set off for their honeymoon. And whatever her intentions might be there was no longer any possibility of shutting out the Honorable Mrs. John Parke from the amenities of the family. She was kissed. She was blessed. Old slippers were flung after her, and if she had been the most desirable wife in the world, no more could have been done by the family to put the best face upon this event before the eyes of a too quick-sighted world.

CHAPTER III.

Notwithstanding the dissatisfaction of his family, John Parke began his married life very comfortably, and it is doubtful whether he had ever been so happy in his life before. Lord Frogmore had let the newly married pair have a house of his in Berkshire, in a good hunting neighborhood, and not very far from town. John was by no means a great hunting man, but it is a respectable occupation to fall back upon when one has nothing else to do, and he was able to keep up his character and take a moderate interest in all that was going on without very much hard riding or sacrifice of comfort. His wife rode with him to the admiration of all the hunting field. But it was not in that way that Letitia meant to gain distinction. She had known too much about horses in her earlier days. She did not intend to be a hunting lady. Still it is always something to be known for one of the best horsewomen in your county. If you do not hunt after that it shows that you have higher aspirations. And it was very good for John to know that there was one thing at least which would have made any man proud of his wife. What Letitia was much more anxious about was that everybody should call. She procured a list of all the county families within reach, and carefully compared their names with those on the visiting cards that were left at Greenpark. And gradually her high aspirations were carried out. Gradually, not all at once, but under the weighty influence of the peerage and the hunting, most people came. Letitia found herself at the apex of the happiness she most desired, when she ascertained finally that she knew everybody—scarcely one was left out, and those who were left out were the insignificant people for whose opinion nobody cared.

She made a capital wife. She knew a great deal about housekeeping and how to make a little go a long way, and as she was very quick and kept her eyes wide open wherever she went, she very soon picked up those minutiæ of comfort and domestic luxury which were not understood at Grocombe. Grocombe, in fact, passed away altogether like a dissolving view. Sometimes when she sat in the boudoir which everybody said she had made so delightful, with its soft chairs and mossy carpets, and bewildering drapery, there would come before Letitia’s eyes a vision of the shabby parlor at home with its horsehair sofa and thin Kidderminster. The curtains were maroon rep in that family abode. The cover on the table was red and blue worsted: there was not a cosy chair in the place. It is true that there was a drawing-room in Grocombe, but everything in it was falling to pieces and it was never used. What a house to have been brought up in! And what a difference between Tisch Ravelstone, the hard-riding squire’s neglected daughter, who had never been educated, or dressed, or looked after by any one, whom the parson’s wife had been sorry for, who had been invited to the vicarage out of kindness, who had once thought the vicar’s son when he returned from Oxford the most splendid of young persons, and the Honorable Mrs. John Parke in her own beautiful boudoir, with her fine dresses and respectful servants and luxurious prosperity! What a difference! Letitia never permitted it to be seen or even divined that such luxury was new to her. But sometimes there would gleam before her a fading dissolving vision of that other life, and she would ask herself was it possible? Could it ever have been? To go back to such a state of affairs now would be the most horrible misfortune. She said to herself that she would rather die. It is true that the moors were glorious round about that Yorkshire house, but Letitia had seen too much of them to care for the moors: and the stables were admirably arranged, the pride of the district, but Letitia had seen a great deal too much of them and hated stables. And when she thought of the miry ways through which she used to tramp in her Wellington boots and short skirts, and the wintry blighted fir wood, all blown one way as if the trees were shabby pilgrims going to the west, which surrounded the house and the garden in which a few straggling rose bushes and old-fashioned flowers formed a respectful border to the cabbages, Letitia drew a long breath. Oh-h! she said to herself. What a difference! what a difference! But this breath of wondering transport was only breathed when she sat alone in her boudoir and John was well out of the way, and could not look up with an “Eh? did you speak?”

There were some things, however, not so easily dropped as Grocombe—and these were its inhabitants. Letitia had five brothers, such a number for a young woman on her promotion, whose aspirations were so far removed from anything they could understand. They could all ride like centaurs, they could doctor horses as well as any vet., harness them as well as any groom, and were as conversant with the pedigrees of their quadruped nobility as the Garter-King-at-Arms is with the precedence and qualifications of dukes and earls. Letitia was not unaware that knowledge of this kind is sometimes very valuable, and that in the society of a hunting country it is much esteemed. She knew there were distinguished houses in the neighborhood in which the stud-groom was a person highly prized for his conversation and social qualities; and on such a dreadful emergency as the appearance of Will, or Jack, or Ted, or Harry at Greenpark, she had already settled in her own mind how to make the best of their qualities: but it was a thought which made her shiver. She had made up her mind that intercourse with her old home was a thing to be gradually dropped altogether. Heaven be praised there were no sisters. Had there been sisters they would not have been so easily shaken off, they would probably have insisted upon sharing Tisch’s good luck, and getting “their chance” also through her means. “Tisch!” think only of hearing that name again ringing through the house in the stentorian voice of one of the boys! If there were no more than this to be avoided it would be enough. Letitia put her hands up to her ears as if to shut out the horrible sound. No, fortunately, nobody here, nobody in her new world had ever heard that dreadful name: the Sillingers, indeed—but they were people who knew better than to perpetuate such an injury. And on the whole Letitia thought it advisable to drop them also. They were so far off. The north of Yorkshire is a long way from Berks. It is much further off than either place is, for instance, from London. Mrs. John Parke lamented in her new neighborhood that she was so far off from the old; but on the whole it was a dispensation of Providence with which she was well pleased.

In the meantime Letitia began without delay to do her duty in the station to which she had been so fortunately called. She produced with much fortitude and pride a son and heir at the end of the first year, and after that judiciously, and not with too much haste, other little Parkes, one after the other, two boys and two girls, thus establishing the family upon a broad and sturdy basis, which precluded all fear of extinction to the family honors. Three sons—such a thing had not been known in the Frogmore family since the creation of the title, which was not, however, a very old one. There could be no doubt that Lord Frogmore was pleased. He sent Mrs. John some of the family diamonds, those jewels which she had so coveted, but which were by no means as splendid as she had hoped, after the first of these events—and he made a great many jokes with his brother as the family increased. But, in fact, he was very considerate indeed, making more than jokes, a considerable addition to John’s income, and also giving up to his brother the house in Mount Street, which Mrs. John had so long coveted. It is very evident, therefore, that Letitia’s course of prosperity for the first eight years of her married life was as nearly perfect as falls to the lot of woman. Her new family had forgotten that she was plain—they all had a respect for her as a very clever woman, who had done her duty by the race. She was not, perhaps, all that they could have desired; “not what I should have chosen for my dear boy,” said Lady Frogmore. “A little sharp for my taste—but then my taste had nothing to do with it,” said the old lord. But a woman against whom nothing was to be said. Her first season in London—the first season in which she had actually a house of her own, and could be said to take the place which the future Lady Frogmore had a right to aspire to, was not, indeed, triumphant—Letitia did not aspire to triumphs—but it was, as all her progress had been, a gradual and steady advance. She did not wish to take an insecure place among the fast duchesses and the wild millionaires. She disapproved of all the votaries of dissipation. “We come to town to meet our friends, and pay our duty to our Sovereign, and see what is going on,” she said, “but our delight is in our country home.” She had said ’ome at first, as, indeed, many very well-bred persons do; but Letitia had outgrown any weakness of that kind. And she was making her way. When she met the Sillingers now she was in a position to patronize them. The girls had not made very good marriages; and what was Lady Sillinger, after all, but the wife of a country baronet, well off, but not very rich, with a nice house and very hospitable in their way, but not a great country place. The Honble. Mrs. John Parke, the future Lady Frogmore, was very good-natured, and glad to be of use to her old friends.

There was another old friend who at this period was brought to her mind by an unexpected encounter at one of the exhibitions, which is a place where the poor may meet the rich without anything surprising being in it. Letitia, in the course of her cursory survey of the pictures, found before her a group which she recognized—or rather it would be more just to say she recognized one of the members of it. She looked, she turned away her head, she looked again. Yes, certainly, it was! it was! the very vicar’s daughter who had always been kind to Letitia Ravelstone, who had been held up to her as a model, whose neat frocks and pinafores it had been a vain effort to emulate. The name of the vicar’s daughter was Mary Hill, one of the most commonplace of names, yet capable of no such horrible travesty as that nickname of Tisch, which had been the burden of Letitia’s youth—yet she had always been prettier than Letitia, as well as more neat and carefully dressed. Mrs. John Parke stood in her fashionable London garments, in what might be called the height of her dignified maternal—but not too maternal—position (for Letitia had preserved her figure and was still slim) and gazed upon the companion of her youth. Miss Hill looked forty, though she was not quite so much as that. She was dressed in a grey alpaca, very simply made. She had a close little bonnet of the same color, tied with pink ribbons under her chin. She was as neat as she used to be in the old days when she was held up as an example to Tisch Ravelstone. She was accompanied by two elderly ladies of homely respectability, one of whom called to her continually, “Mary, Mary, you have not looked at this.” They were doing the honors of the pictures to her, not sparing her one. She had a catalogue in her hand, but between that and the lady who called Mary, Mary, and the other who stopped before all the worst pictures and said, with a wave of her hand, “This is one that has been a great deal talked about,” their gentle country cousin was evidently a little confused. She smiled, and allowed herself to be dragged in two directions at once. Letitia stood and watched with a sensation which was very mingled. There was good in it and there was evil, a sense of triumph which so swelled her bosom that had her dress not been so perfectly fitted some of the buttons must certainly have burst, but along with this a certain sense of kindness, of pleasure in such a kind face. If it had been anybody but Mary Hill not even the delight of showing how different she herself was from Tisch Ravelstone would have made Mrs. Parke pause. But a softer impulse touched her breast. She stood still where she was until Mary, in one of the many gyrations she had to make to please her companions, turned round full upon her and recognized her with a start and a cry. Letitia, in the excitement of the moment, actually forgave her old friend, whose cry was “Tisch!”

“It is surely Mary Hill,” she said, advancing in her turn, with all the magnificence of which she was capable, and that was no small matter. “I have been looking at you for five minutes wondering; but it is you. And you have not changed a bit.”

“Oh, no; how should I change? But you; now I look at you again I wonder that I recognized you at all. It was the first glance. I felt it could be no one else.”

“It makes a great difference to be married and have a number of children,” said Letitia with genial dignity. “You have never married, Mary.”

“Oh, no,” said Mary, with a faint laugh.

“And are you just at home—as you used to be?”

“Just at home—as I used to be. We are all older, the boys are out in the world, and little Fanny too, as a governess; but Annie and I are just the same, taking care of father and mother.”

“They can’t want two of you to take care of them.”

“That is true,” said Mary, with a faint change of color, “but we had no education—we elder ones—and we can’t teach, and there’s nothing else for a girl to do.”

“A girl!” said Letitia under her breath, looking at Mary in her gentle middle-agedness from top to toe. But she perceived that the two elderly ladies, who had hitherto kept at a distance overawed by her fashionable appearance, were now consulting together with evident intention of advancing, so she added quickly, “I am so glad to have seen you. Come and see me, please, in the morning before one, at 300, Mount street, Berkeley Square—the park end—will you? Come to-morrow, Mary, please.”

“I will indeed,” said Mary, with fervor. “It is the finest thing I have seen in London, dear Tishy, the face of an old friend: and as kind as ever,” she said with a glance of tender gratitude. She had not perhaps quite expected, nor had Letitia expected, that any such soft sentiment should have arisen in her bosom, if truth be told.

“Don’t call me that, for heaven’s sake,” cried Letitia, waving her hand as she hurried away. And so the two elderly ladies were balked, and Mrs. Parke left the exhibition with a new plan taking form in her mind—a plan which would be a great kindness, yet very useful to herself—a plan which was to produce fruits of an importance almost awful to Letitia, yet at this moment altogether hidden, and the very possibility of them, from her eyes.

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs. Parke went home with a little excitement in her mind, caused by the sight of this friend of her youth. The familiar form brought back still more distinctly all that was past and its extraordinary contrast with all that was present. Mary Hill in the clothes that she must have been wearing all this long time (“I am sure I know that frock,” Letitia said to herself), afforded the most perfect example of all the difference that had arisen in her own life. But this was not her only thought. Perhaps her mind was moved by a little touch of old kindness. Such darts of light will come through the most opaque blanks of a self-regarding life. Letitia was very practical, and it seemed to her that to keep two women like Mary and Anne Hill in the depths of the country with nothing to do but to take care of the vicar and the aviary, which one could do amply, while she herself stood much in need of a companion and help, was the greatest waste of material possible. Her active mind leaped in a moment to all the advantages of such a visitor in the house as Mary Hill, an old friend with whom it would not be necessary to stand on ceremony, who could be sent about whenever there was need for her, who would look after the children, and “do” the flowers and make herself useful. And what an advantage it would be to her. She would see the world; she could make acquaintance with the best society. She might perhaps meet some one; some old clergyman or family doctor who would make her an offer. The idea took possession of Letitia. It would be such a good thing. She spoke of it to John when they met at luncheon. “Should you mind if I asked an old friend to pay us a long visit,” she said.

“I—— mind? I never interfere with your visitors,” said John, surprised. He added, however, with a little surprise when he thought of it: “I never knew you cared for old friends.”

“They are generally a bore,” said Mrs. Parke; “they remind you of things you want to forget and people you hate. But not this one. It is Mary Hill. She is the vicar’s daughter at Grocombe. Poor people, they are very poor. It will be a kindness to them. A mouth to feed in such a house is a great matter.”

“It is very kind of you, Letitia, to think of it.”

“Oh, as for that! and she would be so useful to me. I do feel sometimes the burden of all I have to do—the housekeeping—to make a good show on such a limited income, and to keep up one’s social duties; and then the children always wanting something. I don’t know how I have borne it so long without any help.”

“But I don’t see,” said John, “how having a friend in the house would mend that.”

“No,” said Letitia with a sigh; “I did not expect you to see it. But so long as I see it!—all I want is to make sure that you won’t go on as so many men do. ‘How long is that Miss Hill going to stay? I can never say a word to you without that Miss Hill hearing everything! Is that Miss Hill to be always here?’ Now you must have heard men going on just so, making their wives’ lives a burden.”

“I hope I shall never do that,” said John, mildly.

“Mind you don’t,” said Letitia. And that was all that was said. But when Miss Hill came next morning with a pretty flush of pleasure on her face, and her grey dress looking so prim and old-maidish, and everything about her showing a life arrested just at the point where Letitia had left her—Letitia who had made so much progress—Mrs. Parke’s resolution became firmer than ever. She showed her visitor all over the house, apologizing for its small size and imperfections. “We must put up with many things,” she said, “in our present circumstances, you know. Frogmore is very nice to us, but so long as he lives we can only have the second place.”

“I wish I had only a hundred times as much to put up with,” said Mary, smiling. “It all looks very delightful to me.”

“You should see Greenpark,” said Letitia. “We have a great deal more room there. But we are only in town for a short season, and, of course, I don’t bring all the children. Yes, baby is just about ten months. They are all troublesome children. They give me a great deal to do. I often think I shall die of it if it goes on long. And there you are, Mary, a lady of leisure at home with next to nothing to do.”

Mary’s countenance changed. “I have more than you think,” she said, “but not in your way.”

“Oh, no, not in my way. When you are not married you can form no idea of the troubles one has. But I do wonder you should stay at home when there is so little for you all. Your poor mother must grudge it so. Two daughters to feed and clothe and no likelihood of any change.”

“Oh, Tishy, it is cruel to tell me so! Don’t I feel it to the bottom of my heart.”

“Don’t call me by that horrible name. If I was you I should certainly do something for myself. Who were the two—— whom you were with at the exhibition?”

“It was my aunt—— and a friend of mine. They live together,” said Mary.

“You should go and live with them,” said Letitia, boldly.

Mary shook her head. “My aunt is as poor as we are at home. She has asked me for a short visit, that is all she can do. But please Tis—— I mean Letitia, don’t make me wretched to-day. I want to get a little pleasure out of this day.”

“If I make you wretched it is for your good,” said Letitia. “If you have only come for a short visit it is not worth your while. Your railway fare would cost you more than all the relief it would be at home.”

“They were glad I should have the change,” said Mary, “but I’m afraid what you say is true, and it was perhaps selfish to come.”

“I should say it was very selfish to come if it’s only for a short visit. But you are dreadfully thoughtless people about money and always were. If I did not count up everything and calculate whether it was worth while, I don’t know what I should do. Now getting to town and back again from Yorkshire must have cost you two pounds at least, even second class——”

“I came third class,” said Mary, much downcast.

“But I am sure it cost you two pounds—why there must have been a cab from the station, and there will be a cab back again to the station, and I should not at all wonder if you gave the porter sixpence, though probably he is much better off than you are. And how long are you to stay with your aunt?”

“A fortnight,” said Mary almost inaudibly, hanging her head.

“A fortnight! You don’t imagine it can cost your father and mother a pound a week to keep you at home? Ten shillings is the very outside I should say. Well, then, you have thrown away a whole pound on this visit, and probably you got a new frock for it, or a bonnet or something. Oh, that is not the way to get on in the world! At this rate you will always be poor——”

“They were very glad I should have the change,” said Mary, pale but plucking up a little courage. “They don’t count up every penny like that. Oh, Ti—Letitia, I am sure you mean to be kind; but when you put things before one like that it is like flaying one alive! For what can I do? I can’t be a governess, and there is nothing else that I can be——”

“You might have married,” said Letitia, “if you had played your cards as you ought.”

At this Mary gave her friend a startled glance and grew very red, but then turned away her head and said nothing. Letitia saw and understood, but took no notice. She went on—

“You might have married old Captain Taylor when he came home from abroad. And what a nice house he had, and plenty of money, and only think how comfortable you might have been. But you just threw him into Cecilia Foster’s hands—I don’t mean to reproach you, Mary; but it is all the same sort of thing. You never calculate beforehand—now how are you to make up that pound?”

Letitia said these words with the greatest deliberation and emphasis, looking her friend almost sternly in the face. And to poor Mary a pound was no small matter. She had never thought of it before in this light, and an almost hysterical constriction came into her throat. Make up a pound! It is but a small sum of money, but she did not know how to do it any more than she knew how to fly.

When Letitia had thus brought her friend down to the very earth, she suddenly made a rush at her and gave her a little dab of a kiss. “I will tell you, you dear old thing,” she said; “you shall come and pay a long visit to me.”

“Tishy! I mean Letitia, oh what do you mean?” said Mary in her surprise.

Letitia threatened her with a forefinger. “I will kill you if you call me that again! What do I mean? I mean just what I say. You shall come and pay me a long, long visit—as long as you like—as long as—you live—or let’s say till you are married,” cried Mrs. Parke with a somewhat mocking laugh.

“You know very well I shall never marry,” said Mary, reproachfully.

“Well, never mind—wait till you have seen all the people at Greenpark. You shall come to me as soon as you have done your fortnight with your aunt, and you shall go down with us when we go to the country, and you will keep me company when John is away, and talk to me when I am lonely, and make friends with the children. That will be worth your while, not like a fortnight in London, where you must always be spending shillings and sixpences. Now is it settled, or must you write home and ask if you may come? For it is a real long visit I shall want.”

“Oh, Letitia,” said Mary, with tears in her eyes, “is it possible you can be so very, very kind, when we have not met for years, and when I thought——”

“What did you think? That I had forgotten my old friends? I am one that never, never forgets,” said Mrs. Parke. “The first moment that I set eyes upon you I said to myself, ‘It’s Mary! and she must come to me for a long, long visit.’ I can see no use in asking people for a fortnight. It only costs money, and it is not a bit of relief at home.”

“I am sure you are quite right,” said Mary. “I have been thinking so myself; but then they all thought it would be a change, and though I am fonder of Grocombe than of any place in the world——”

“You are a hypocrite, Mary,” said Letitia. “I never was fond of Grocombe at all. It is the dullest place in England—there is never anything going on. Oh, here is Mr. Parke, whom you don’t know yet. John, this is Miss Hill, who is coming to us for a long visit. I told you what a dear friend she was of mine.”

“How do you do, Miss Hill,” said John, and then he added, the only thing it occurred to him to say to a stranger, “What fine weather we are having. Have you been in the Park to-day?”

This was how it came about that Mary Hill became an inmate of Greenpark. She paid Letitia a long—very long—visit, so long that it looked as if it never would end. Mrs. Parke stood on no ceremony at all with her friend. She confided her children to her with as much freedom as if she had been the nursery governess. She suggested to her that her place was wanted at table when there was a dinner party, and her room when the house was very full for the shooting. She made use of her to interview the housekeeper, and to write the menus for dinner. Mary soon came to occupy the position which is sacred to the poor relation—the unsalaried dependent in a house. She sometimes replaced the mistress of the house, sometimes the nurse, sometimes the lady’s maid. She was always at hand and ready whatever was wanted. “Oh, ask Miss Hill! Don’t, for heaven’s sake, bother me about everything,” was what Letitia learned to say. She made the children’s clothes, because she liked needlework. She arranged the bouquets for the table because she was so fond of flowers. She even helped the maid to arrange any changes that were necessary in Letitia’s toilettes because she had so much taste. Mary was a very long time in finding out why it was that her friend was, as she said, “so kind.” Perhaps she never entirely discovered the reason of it. She began, when her visit had extended to months, to discover that Letitia was not, perhaps, so invariably kind as she had supposed. But that was a very natural discovery, for nobody is perfect; and to do Mrs. Parke justice, it was only when there was a very large party for the shooting, or a very important dinner, that Mary was ever disturbed either in her room or her place. She appreciated the value of such a friend. When anything was said of Mary’s visit coming to an end, Letitia was in despair. “Oh, Mary, how could you go and leave me when you see how much I have to do? Oh, Mary, how could you desert the children, who are so fond of you? And don’t you think it is far better to be here, costing them nothing, than to go back to be a burden at home?” These mingled arguments overcame the humble-minded woman. Though it was bitter to hear it said that she was a burden at home, no doubt it was true. And thus it happened that she stayed, always under pretence of being on a long visit, an unremunerated, much exercised upper servant at Letitia’s beck and call, for one whole long year.

It is true that nobody would have divined what confusion of all Mrs. Parke’s plans was to result from this expedient of hers; yet it was apparent enough to various people concerned that she was less long-sighted than usual upon this occasion—apparent, that is to say, after the event which proved it. There could be no doubt that Mary’s presence in the house made an opening for other persons to appear who were likely to be much less acceptable to Letitia, and whom, indeed, she had carefully kept at arm’s length up to this time, when that brilliant idea of seizing a domestic slave for herself entered into her mind. The world could never get on at all if the selfish people in it were always long-sighted and never forgot themselves. But for the first year all went very well—so well that Mrs. Parke was used to congratulate herself on her own cleverness and success. And everybody was pleased: Mary, who wrote home that she was so happy to be able to save dear Letitia in many little things, and it was quite a pleasure to do anything for her; and the people at the Vicarage, who were never weary of saying how kind Mrs. Parke was to Mary, and how many nice people she saw, and what a delightful, long visit she was having; and John, who declared that Miss Hill was the most good-natured and the nicest to the children of anyone he ever saw. An arrangement which brought so much satisfaction to all concerned must surely have been an admirable arrangement. And how it could lead to any upsetting of the life and purpose of the Honorable Mrs. John Parke, or dash the full breeze of prosperity that filled the sails, or in any way endanger her career, was what nobody could have divined. But the great drawback of all mortal chances and successes is that you never can tell, nor can the wisest of mankind, what strange things may be effected in a single day.

CHAPTER V.

It was in the beginning of the shooting-season, when birds were still plentiful and the best of the sportsmen visitors were come or coming, that Letitia was one evening startled by hearing of the arrival of a gentleman, who was one more than the number expected. Such a thing had been known before; for John’s invitations were sometimes a little vague, and he occasionally made a mistake; but it was particularly annoying on this occasion, because Mrs. Parke had not been at home for tea, and, therefore, was not at hand to place the unexpected guest.

“The only thing I could do, ma’am, in the circumstances,” said the butler, “was to refer to Miss Hill, and she said the gentleman must have her room; so I put him in Miss Hill’s room.”

“You were quite right, Saunders, since Miss Hill was so kind; and I daresay it will be all right. But you have not told me who the gentleman was.”

The butler made a little pause—a respectable family servant never forgets that every family has its secrets. He coughed discreetly behind his hand. “I did not ask the gentleman’s name, ma’am—Miss Hill seemed to know him very well.”

“Miss Hill—knew him very well!” Astonishment and a certain consternation came into Letitia’s face. But she recollected herself, perceiving Saunders’ look of extreme discretion, which is always an alarming thing. “I have no doubt it is all right,” she said, with great self-possession, “and you have done exactly what you ought to have done in referring to Miss Hill—send up someone to my room with a cup of good tea. One never gets tea one can drink out of one’s own house.”

Mrs. Parke repeated to herself, “Someone Mary knows,” under her breath. She was momentarily disturbed. Could it be a piece of presumption on Mary’s part bringing in someone she knew? But this was so incredible that Letitia dismissed the idea, laying it all upon the broad shoulders of John. “He must have made a mistake again,” she said to herself. She was late, everyone had gone to dress for dinner, and the mistress of the house only lingered for a moment in the drawing-room to see that all was in order, to give a little pull to the curtains, and a little push to the chairs such as the mistress of the house always finds necessary when she is expecting guests, breaking the air of inevitable primness which the best of servants are apt to have. She looked round to see that all was right, and then she went upstairs to her room to dress. Mary was standing on the stairs at the end of the corridor which led to the nursery, evidently waiting for her. “Oh, can I speak a word, Letitia?” she said.

“I don’t see how you can,” said Mrs. Parke, “for I am late, and you know the Witheringhams are coming. I cannot keep them waiting. But come into my room, if you like, while I dress.”

Mary was not coming to dinner on that evening: so that she had no need to dress. She looked pale and anxious standing in the doorway at the end of the nursery passage in her old grey gown. “But I must speak to you alone—not before your maid,” she said.

“Some naughtiness, I suppose,” said Letitia with a little sigh of despairing impatience. “Really, you are too particular. But it must wait till to-morrow, my dear—I have only time to slip on my dress.”

“But oh, Letitia——”

“For goodness sake don’t bother me to death when you know the Witheringhams are coming,” Mrs. Parke said. And she went into her room, leaving her friend standing outside. Letitia did not close the door, but left it possible for Mary to follow her, if the communication was so very urgent. But this Miss Hill did not do. She hesitated a moment, wrung her hands, and then disappeared like a ghost within the narrow portals of the nursery passage. Had Letitia only known the words that were on her lips, had Mary been less frightened, less terrified at the sound of her own voice. But it could not have made much difference after all—the shock would have been perhaps less great—but to do away with it altogether was not in any one’s power.

Letitia dressed in great haste. She had only time to swallow the cup of tea which she had ordered—to put on her new velvet with the point lace and diamonds—a rivière, but nothing much to speak of, which Frogmore had sent her on the birth of the heir—and to pull on one of her gloves, when a sound of carriage wheels in the avenue made her hurry downstairs to be in her place before the Witheringhams arrived. The Witheringhams had never dined at Greenpark before. They were very fine people indeed, the oldest family in the county, though he was only a baron, so rich that they did not know what to do with their money. They lived a great deal abroad, and it so happened that Letitia had never before been able to offer her hospitality to these distinguished persons who were so little in need of a dinner. For the first time it had “suited” to-night, and to have been a moment late, or to have anything out of order, would have been a sin which Letitia, such a model of social propriety as she was, would not have forgiven herself. Happily, she was not only in the drawing-room herself, but two or three of the élite of her guests had come down in good time and stood about like black statues in that irreproachable tenue which specially distinguishes Englishmen. It was a moment indescribable when Letitia placed Lady Witheringham in the easiest chair, and sitting down near her, with the warmest cordiality mingled with respect, made the discovery that this great lady’s diamonds were really after all not as good as her own. She did not betray the consciousness, but it gave her a secret exhilaration. She felt that she approached her guests upon nearer terms.

“It is a pleasure we have wished for so long, dear Lady Witheringham,” she said, “to see you in our own house.”

“We are a great deal away,” said the old lady. “Witheringham can’t stand the winter in England—and to tell the truth when we are at home we are not fond of new people, neither he nor I.”

“I hope,” said Letitia, “that we can scarcely be considered new people now. After nearly seven years—”

She saw her mistake immediately, but Lady Witheringham only smiled. “My husband,” she said, with a slight emphasis, “knew the first Lord Frogmore. He got his title for something or other—services to the government.” Here the old lady laughed, as if there could be nothing more ridiculous than acquiring a peerage in this way. “But I have heard,” she said, after a pause, “that your own family was quite respectable.”

Letitia was not proud of her family, and liked to bring it forward as little as possible, but a natural sentiment still existed in her bosom, which was touched by this remark. “Oh, indeed, I hope so,” she cried, with a slight movement of irritation, which she was not able to conceal.

“I mean, of course, in point of antiquity,” said Lady Witheringham, “in other respects we’re all in the hands of Providence. Nothing, you know, can secure morals, or those sort of things—and less in an old family than in others, I sometimes think—Dear me,” she added, raising a double eyeglass, and looking at the other end of the room with curiosity, “what have we here?”

Letitia looked up, following Lady Witheringham’s glance. I may truly say that if Mrs. Parke were to live for a hundred years she would never forget the spectacle that now presented itself to her eyes. The drawing-room at Greenpark was a long room, opening from an ante-room with large folding doors. In the middle of this ample opening stood a figure in a velvet coat the worse for wear, with a huge beard, long hair and a general air of savagery. He was a little scared apparently by the sight of so many people, and by the looks directed towards him, and stood with a certain hesitation, looking with a half-bold, half-alarmed air at the circle of ladies near the fire. Letitia sprang to her feet, and caught John by the arm. “Go and see who it is? go and send him away,” she said; but even as she spoke her voice went out in a kind of hollow whisper. Oh, heaven and earth! that this should happen to-night.

Everybody was looking towards the same point, and John much surprised, but not daunted, was walking towards this strange intruder, when he seemed to catch sight of Letitia standing thunderstruck by her own hearth. If she had kept her seat and thus kept partially out of sight, things might not have turned out so badly; but everything went against her to-night. The stranger saw her and came forward with a lurch and a shout. “Hallo, Tisch!” he cried. His voice was like a clap of thunder, and shook the pictures on the walls. His big step made the whole house thrill and creak. He caught her in his arms in the middle of all the astonished ladies and gentlemen, and gave her a resounding smack that might have been heard half a mile off. “How are you?” he said, “my lass. I’m as glad to see ye as if ye were the winner in a tip-top race. I began to think I’d been wrong directed and this wasn’t my sister’s house after all.”

The thoughts that passed through Letitia’s mind in the moment of that embrace were too many and too swift to be put on paper. She tore herself out of the huge arms which held her up like an infant, jumping on the floor in a momentary paroxysm of passion, in which if she could she would have killed the inopportune visitor. But even while she did so a whole discussion, argument and counter argument flashed through her mind. She would have liked to have killed him: but he was here, and the butler was at the door announcing that dinner was served, and Lady Witheringham was certainly surveying this big brute, this horrible savage as Letitia called him in her heart—through those double eyeglasses. It was necessary that the mistress of the house should quench every sentiment and keep up appearances. She said, “Ralph!” with a little shriek in which some of her excitement got out. “Gracious goodness!” said Letitia, “I thought you were in Africa. How could you give me such a start without a word of warning. John, it’s Ralph——” She paused a moment, and the desperate emergency put words into her mouth. “He has been after—big game—till he looks like a lion out of the woods himself,” she cried, with another little shriek—this time of laughter. There was a wildness in it which half betrayed her, but she recovered herself with a little stamp of her foot. “John,” she said, “dinner is waiting—don’t let us keep everything back for this little family scene.” She seized her brother by the hand while her guests filed off decorously, almost wounding him with the sharp pressure of her finger nails. “Don’t come to dinner,” she whispered; “Mary Hill’s in the house.”

Ralph gave another great laugh. “As if I didn’t know that,” he said; “but I’m coming to dinner. I want to see you in all your grandeur, Tisch.”

She had to take old Lord Witheringham’s arm while the brute was talking, and to smile into the old gentleman’s face and to sweep past the stranger, leaving him to follow or not as he pleased. Her heart was beating wildly with fury and dismay. “Don’t you think, Lord Witheringham, it is a bad thing when young men go off into the desert—after big game—and grow into savages?” she said. She laughed to blow off some of the excitement, but there was a glare which nobody could have believed possible in her dull eyes.

“That depends very much,” said Lord Witheringham, oracularly. He would not commit himself. “Sometimes it is the best thing a young man can do—sometimes it is not so fortunate.” Letitia, who expected every moment to have a denial thundering over her shoulder about this big game, and who knew very well that her brother Ralph had not gone away for hunting, as the men did among whom she passed her life, but for very different reasons and to very different regions, was very glad to hurry along at the end of the procession listening to what went on behind, hoping against hope that Ralph might do what she suggested; that he might go in search of Mary, and not appear at all among people who so plainly did not want him. She thought for some time with a great relief that this was what had happened. But when she had taken her place in the dining-room between Lord Witheringham on one side and young Lord George Hitherways on the other, that place to which she had looked forward to with so much pride and pleasure, she saw by the little commotion among the detached men who came in last, the men who had no ladies to take care of, that there was no such relief for her. Ralph was in the midst of them conspicuous in his velvet coat. He pushed them about a little so as to get nearer to his sister. “I beg your pardon if I’m taking your place, but I have not seen my sister for ten years,” she heard him saying in his big voice; and when all the guests were settled as near as possible in their right places, lo, there he was planted next to Mrs. Kington, within three of herself. Letitia grew pale when she saw that her brother was so near—then thanked her stars that at least, since it must be, he was within reach where she herself could do what was possible to subdue him. Oh that Mary had but been there! Oh, that Mary had but said that word of warning which she had been so anxious to give. Why did not the fool speak? What did it matter whether the maid was present or not? Three words only were needed—“Ralph is here,” and then she would have known what to do.

Letitia had looked forward to that dinner as her greatest triumph. She meant to have been so brilliant and entertaining that Lord Witheringham, who liked to have amusing young women to talk to him, might have been filled with admiration: but how can you be witty and brilliant when you are straining your ears to hear what somebody else is saying? The conversation flagged in spite of all she could do. Lord Witheringham devoted himself to his dinner with a look of supreme gravity. She herself sat, violently loathing her food, but swallowing it in sheer desperation, feeling every idea that had been in her head desert her. In fact poor Letitia was never brilliant in conversation, but this she did not know.

Meanwhile Mrs. Kington was amusing herself very much, and young Lord George did nothing but laugh and listen to the backwoodsman. “Tell me about the big game,” the lady had said in a little mellifluous voice. “I shoot myself, and my husband has made the most famous bags. He was in Africa too. Pray tell me about the big game. Did you go in for lions or elephants or what was it? It is so interesting to meet with a man fresh from the desert.”

“You are very kind to say so, my lady,” said Ralph, “but it’s all nonsense about big game. That’s only Tisch’s fun. She knows very well I had something quite different in my mind. I’ve had a shot at a kangaroo or a dog, and I’m sorry to say I’ve hit a black fellow more than once by mistake. Perhaps that’s what she calls big game. Well, it is if you come to that, and deuced serious game, too. You may shoot as many tigers as you like, and get a reward for it, as I’ve heard; but if you shoot a black fellow, he’s no use even for his skin; and if it’s known, you get the Government upon your shoulders just the same as if he was a Christian.”

“That is hard,” said Mrs. Kington, in her pretty voice. “I suppose you mean negroes, Mr. ——” She stopped and looked at Letitia with that delightful impertinence of the higher orders which is one of the finest flowers of civilization. “Do you know,” she whispered to Lord George, yet not so low but that Letitia could hear, “John Parke married so much out of our set that I don’t know what was her name.”

“My name is Ravelstone, and I don’t care who knows it,” said Ralph. “We are not very particular about names in the bush. Sometimes you may live for years with a fellow at the same station and never know more than some nick-name that’s been given him. They used to call me——”

“Your name is as old as any in Yorkshire, Ralph,” said Letitia, arresting the revelation. “Dear Lady Witheringham was just saying so. Do you know what she said? That you knew the first Lord Frogmore, Lord Witheringham. We won’t let John hear, but I know what she meant. She meant that the Parkes were nobody to speak of; but I am happy to say Lady Witheringham was quite acquainted with my family. We have never had a title. What is the good of a mushroom title, that dates only from this century?”

“I entirely agree with you, Mrs. Parke,” Lord Witheringham said.

“What is the use,” cried Letitia, “of putting on a gloss of nobility when you have the substance before; and what is the use of plastering over a name that means nothing with titles? For my part I think there’s nothing like real antiquity—a family that has lived in the same place and owned the same ground from the beginning of time.”

“Mrs. Parke, I admire every word you say. Such just feeling is very uncommon,” Lord Witheringham said.

“Lord, Tisch, how do you run on! How father would have stared if he had heard you. A title for us!—oh, by Jove?” cried Ralph. His roar shook the table. Oh, if some one would kill him—poison him—put him out of Letitia’s sight!

CHAPTER VI.

The room swam in Letitia’s eyes; a mist seemed to rise over the sparkling dining-table—over all the faces of the guests. The voices, too, rang in a kind of hubbub, one confused, big noise through which she seemed able to be sure of nothing except the words of Ralph and the laughter, in which all round were so ridiculously, so horribly ready to join. What revelations he might make! How certainly he would prove to the others that he was no elegant prodigal from the fashionable deserts where so many great persons went after big game, but a mere Australian stockman sent there because nobody knew what to do with him at home! She was vaguely aware of talking a great deal herself to stop his talking, if possible, with the dreadful result of merely increasing his outpourings, and of having to subside at last in sheer prostration of faculty, into an alarmed and horrified silence. Ralph, it was evident, amused her guests though he did not amuse Letitia. And that dreadful Mrs. Kington, how she devoted herself to him; how she played upon him and drew him out! When the moment came for the ladies’ withdrawal, Letitia rose with mingled relief and terror. She said to herself that no man could be so dangerous by Ralph’s side as that clever, spiteful woman; and yet at the same time the dreadful consciousness that among men when they were alone revelations still more appalling might be made, and that John knew nothing of this prodigal brother, gave her a new cause of alarm. Even in such dreadful circumstances, however, a woman has to endure and say nothing. She gave Ralph a glance as she passed him which might have annihilated him, but which conveyed no idea to the obtuse mind of the bushman: while he elevated his eyebrows at her, and made a noise with his tongue against his palate. “You are in all your glory, Tisch!” he said, as she passed. But furious and terrified as she was, she had to go like a martyr to the stake and leave him—to do further harm—who could tell? Mary Hill was in the drawing-room when the ladies filed in, wearing a dyed dress which Letitia had given her, with nervous hands clasped tightly together, and anxiety and panic in her eyes. Mrs. Parke gave her an angry grip as she passed, and said in a fierce whisper, “How could you let him come?” to which Mary answered with a confused murmur of anxious explanation. And then the ordeal began once more.

“How amusing your brother is, Mrs. Parke. I don’t know when I have laughed so much. It is so delightful to meet a man like that out of the wilds—and so genuine—and so funny!”

“You had all the fun at your end of the table,” said another lady. “We heard you all in shrieks of laughter, and wanted to know what it was about.”

“It was about everything,” said Mrs. Kington, laughing at the recollection. “He is so delightfully wild, and such a democrat, and so unconventional.”

“Too much so, a great deal, for the comfort of his family,” said Letitia, with a gasp. She was clever enough to seize upon the chance thus afforded her. “It is not so amusing when the person belongs to you, and when you know how he has thrown away all his chances,” she said, panting.

“Ah!” said Lady Witheringham, with sympathy, “young men are so silly; but none of us can throw a stone in that respect.”

This, though Letitia did not know it, was as good as a bombshell to Mrs. Kington, who knew a great deal about prodigals.

“To be silly is one thing and to be amusing is another,” said that lady, “every man is not such fun who sows wild oats abroad. You must make him tell you about the black fellows. I nearly died of laughing. There is one story I must tell you——”

“For my part I would rather not die of laughing,” said the great lady. She took Letitia by the arm and drew her in the direction of the conservatory. “Let me see your flowers,” she said, “and never mind what they say. I know what it is,” she added, shaking her head, “to have a boy in the family that you can make nothing of. I sympathize with your parents, Mrs. Parke.”

The emergency lent a cleverness which she did not possess to Letitia. She said with a half sob, “He had no mother.” This was not a loss which she had ever been specially moved by before; but necessity develops the faculties. Lady Witheringham clasped her arm still more closely. “Ah, poor boy!” she said; “tell me if it does not pain you, dear Mrs. Parke.”

Dear Mrs. Parke! the words inspired Letitia. Was it possible, she asked herself piously, that good was to come out of evil? and she did tell Ralph’s history, with many details unknown to that gentleman himself, to her sympathetic listener. They walked about softly in front of the subdued lights in the conservatory, the old great lady leaning tenderly upon the arm of John Parke’s wife, whom his other guests were describing to each other as a nobody. “He’s not a gentleman at all, and I daresay she was a milliner,” Mrs. Kington said, feeling it very piquant to communicate these conjectures all but within hearing of the person most concerned. And Letitia divined but now did not care, for had she not got Lady Witheringham on her side?

Mary Hill sat alone, not noticed by anyone. She occupied the place which a governess of retiring manners does in such a party. All governesses are not persons of retiring manners, and consequently the rule does not always hold. And Miss Hill was not the governess. She was not a salaried dependent, but a friend who in reality conferred instead of receiving benefits: but it was as a dependent that everybody regarded her. She sat very quiet with a sense of guilt towards Letitia, which was entirely gratuitous, and a confusing feeling that she was somehow to blame. That she would be blamed she was very well aware, and her powers of vindicating and asserting herself were small. Beyond this there was great trouble and confusion in Mary’s mind. The sight of this big, flushed, disorderly, half-savage man had been a revelation to her even more distressing than his sudden appearance had been to her friend. Letitia’s pride was assailed, but in Mary the wound went a great deal deeper. When Ralph had been sent to Australia ten years before, he was young, and his offences, though terrible to a girl’s sensitive innocence and ignorance, had been things to weep and pray over rather than to denounce. Poor Ralph! he had been her sweetheart when they were children, he had supposed himself in love with her years ago, and Mary had carried all these years a softened image of him in her heart. She had sighed to herself over it in many a lonely hour. Poor Ralph! if her expectations of his return had never been clear, it was still always a possibility pleasant to think of. And now he had come, and her faintly visioned idol had fallen prone to the ground, like Dagon in his temple. He had never attained the importance of a demi-god, to whom sacred litanies might be said. But there had been a vague niche for him in the background of the temple. And in a moment he had fallen, with the first sound of his rough voice and sight of his deteriorated countenance. Mary was still under the influence of this shock, and it was complicated by the conviction that she was to blame, that Letitia would think she was to blame, that she would be accused and would not know how to defend herself. She sat alone, trembling over the evening paper which she was pretending to read. She heard the chuchotement of the soft yet venomous voices near, which were tearing Letitia’s pretensions to pieces, and assuring each other that they had always known her to be a nobody, and the other less audible strain of Letitia’s narrative to Lady Witheringham. What romance was she telling about poor Ralph to interest the old lady so—poor Ralph, who never had any story but vulgar dissipation and the sharp remedy of being turned out of his father’s house to do as he pleased!

The gentlemen as they came in made the usual diversion, arrested the talk of the ladies, and made an alteration in the groups. But Ralph kept his place among the younger men, standing in a group of them telling his bush stories, keeping up noisy peals of laughter. Somehow the carriages of Lady Witheringham and of Mrs. Kington lingered long that night—or rather, which was a sign that the evening had not been a failure so far as they were concerned, these ladies lingered and showed no inclination to go away. When the great lady got up at last she bestowed a kiss upon her palpitating hostess. “I am so much touched by your confidence in me, my dear,” she said, and actually held out her hand to Ralph with a condescending good-night. “I hope you will find your native country the best now that you have returned to it, Mr. Ravelstone,” she said. Ralph was so dumbfounded that fortunately he could only reply by a bow. But Letitia’s troubles were not over even when her outdoor guests were gone. There were still the visitors in the house, and the familiarity of the smoking-room, in which she was sure her brother would fully unveil himself. She made an attempt to draw him with her when the moment came for the candlesticks. “Come with me to my boudoir, Ralph,” she said in her kindest note. But the monster was not to be cajoled. “Oh, I think I see myself in a bou-duar as you call it when there’s a lot of jolly fellows waiting me.” Letitia caught him by the hand sharply, though without putting her nails into it as she would have liked to do—“Mary’s coming with me,” she said with the most winning notes she could bring forth. Ralph roared over her head, opening a wide cavern of a mouth in the middle of his big head. “Mary—’s an old maid,” he said. As for John Parke, he had a troubled air, and cast curious glances of mingled reproach and interrogation at his wife; but he could not leave his guests in the lurch.

By the time she had escaped from the surveillance of the stranger’s looks and had got half way up the stair, Letitia had come to have one clear purpose in her mind if no more—and that was vengeance. She said to herself that all the miseries of the evening were Mary’s fault; its alleviations, Lady Witheringham’s kindness, and her kiss of sympathy Mrs. Parke felt she had achieved for herself—but for Ralph’s appearance, unannounced, and indeed for his presence at all untimely, it was Mary that was to blame. She paused on the stairs where the passage led off to the nursery apartments where Miss Hill, when her room was appropriated as now, found a refuge, and turning sharp round gripped Mary’s hand, who was so fluttered and frightened that she made a step backward and nearly lost her balance. Letitia held her up with that grip furious and tight upon her arm—“You come with me,” she said fiercely, “I’ve got something to say to you——”

“I’d rather—hear it to-morrow,” said poor Mary.

“No, to-night,” said Letitia between her pale lips. She led her way to the boudoir, which indeed was a room sacred not to sulkiness but to many a conflict. It was where she received her housekeeper, her nurse, her husband when he was in the way, the homely dressmaker who helped Mrs. Parke’s maid with her simple dresses, and Miss Hill; these were the privileged persons who knew and had to listen to the eloquent discourses of Letitia—and they had all a sacred horror of the boudoir. She swept into it this evening with Mary following and flung herself into a chair. Her eyes, not generally bright, had little flames in them. She was pale, and panted for breath. After all her long repression it was an unspeakable relief to get to this sanctuary to give vent to herself, to heap wrath upon everybody who was to blame—

“Well, Mary Hill!” she cried with a snort of passion, turning upon her friend. The diamonds on her neck gave forth little quick gleams as they moved with the panting of her wrath as if they simulated the passion which burned in their mistress’ eyes.

“Well, Letitia,” said the mild Mary, “I see you are very angry——”

“Have I not reason to be angry? Why on earth didn’t you let me know? What motive could you have to keep it a secret? Why, for goodness sake didn’t you tell me? I never will fathom you, Mary Hill! And to think that you should have brought this upon me without a word, without making a sign——”

“I implored you to let me speak to you, Letitia. I waited on the stairs for you.”

“Implored me! Waited for me: why you should have forced me to hear. Do you think if it had been as important as that I should have been content to wait on the stairs? I’d have let any one know that minded as much as you know I’d mind. If they’d killed me I’d have let them know—and to think I’ve tried to be so kind to—oh, oh Mary Hill. To think you should have stood by and seen it all and never lifted a hand!”

“What could I do?” said poor Mary, “I wasn’t even there——”

“And why weren’t you there? There are no risks in such a case as that; you should have dressed and come to dinner and made him take you in and kept him quiet. That’s what you would have done if you had been a true friend.”

“I couldn’t have taken—such a liberty; when you had settled it all.”

“What did it matter about my settling it all. Did I know what was going to happen? And to take the advantage just then of coming when I was out of the way! But I tell you what, Mary Hill. I blame you for more than that. You never should have let him come in at all—you never would had you been a true friend.”

“Oh, Letitia, what could I do? Your own brother.”

“My own brother—such a pleasant visitor, don’t you think?—such a credit to us all—without even an evening coat—like a clown, like a blackguard, like a navvy—— Oh, my patience!” cried Letitia, whose eyes were starting from her head and who had no patience at all. “But I know why you did it,” she added after an angry pause to get breath. “Oh, I remember well enough. It’s not for nothing you’re an old maid, Mary Hill! Don’t I know that you’ve had him in your mind all the while.”

Mary, though she was so mild, was being driven beyond the power of self-restraint. She was all the more easily shaken perhaps that there was a certain truth in it. It was true that Ralph Ravelstone had never been forgotten—and that his shadow had come between her and the only marriage she had ever had it in her power to make—but not, oh, not as he appeared now.

“I think,” she said with some gentle dignity, “that it is very improper of you to say anything of the kind. If I am an old maid it’s at least by my own will, and not because I could not help it.” Mary was very mild, and yet she felt that standing upon the platform of that proposal which was the one instance past in her life of the last years, it was hard to be assailed as an old maid by one who knew her so well.

Letitia stood for a moment surprised—scarcely believing her ears. That Mary should have turned upon her! It was like the proverbial worm that sometimes at unexpected moments will turn when nobody is thinking of it. “I know as well as you do that you refused a good offer. What was it made you do it. Oh, I can see through you, though you don’t think so. I always suspected it, and now I know it. But what did you expect to gain by bringing him here. Why should he be brought here? If you had ever told me, if I had known! a man who has been ten years in the bush, a man with a hand like that, and not an evening coat! Oh Mary, you that I have always been so kind to, how could I ever have expected such a thing of you.”

Tears of rage came to the relief of Letitia’s overburdened soul. But she suddenly regained command of herself in a moment, dried her eyes and turned to the door. It was now her own part to stand on the defensive, to prepare, to give explanations and excuses. There was no mistaking the step which was approaching, the heavy step of the outraged husband, he who had never even heard of Ralph’s existence. John Parke was not a man before whom his wife was accustomed to tremble. But she did not know what John might be about to pour forth upon her now.

CHAPTER VII.

John came into the room with gloom upon his countenance, and a frown upon his noble brow. Letitia had arrested the course of her own passion—she had dried her eyes, and dropped her voice, and prepared herself to meet him with a real apprehension. It was not often that she was afraid of John, but for once there was no doubt that if John was in the mind to find fault he had a sufficient reason. The sight of her husband’s troubled face checked her anger and dried up the tears of vexation that had been in her eyes. She gave Mary an appealing look, and made her a motion to sit down by her. It went through her mind quickly that Mary might make a little stand for Ralph when she could not do it herself, and thus break the edge of the assault. If John could be made to see that Ralph was Mary’s old sweetheart, that it was Mary’s indiscretion which had brought him there, it would be easier in every way to manage the dilemma. John came in with his heavy step and his countenance overcast, but he looked like a man perplexed rather than angry, and as he came forward it was apparent that he held a telegram in his hand.

“Look here,” he said, “Letitia, here is a bore: just when we have got the house full to the door: look at that—that he should choose this time of all others for the visit that has been spoken of so long!”

“John,” said Letitia, with a gasp, “I never meant him to come here.”

“You never meant Frogmore to come here?”

“Frogmore!” she said, with a sort of wondering obtuseness. She was never stupid, and it made John angry, because he was quite unaccustomed to be misunderstood.

“You had better look at the telegram,” he said impatiently. “I don’t pretend to know what you mean. Here is the house crammed with men, and my brother, for the first time since we have been married, proposes a visit. What are we to do?”

It took Letitia some time to understand; her mind was so preoccupied by the other subject that she could not distract her thoughts from it. Frogmore—Frogmore or Ralph—which was it? She tried to shake herself together and grasp the sense of the words at which she was gazing:

“Could come to you to-morrow for three or four days, if it suits you.

“Frogmore.”

“Was there ever such a bore?” John continued saying. “The first time he has proposed to come. And we’ve got the house crammed, and not a corner to put him in. What am I to do?”

“Frogmore!” Letitia murmured again to herself; and John went on saying, with a monotony which is natural to many men, the same burden of regret, “The house full of men and not a corner to put him in,” as if, in some way, the repeated statement of that fact might make a change.

“I don’t know what you are thinking of,” said Letitia at length with much relief in the sense that her own brother would be forgotten in the importance of his. “Of course, Frogmore must come, and there is an end of it. I hope you answered his telegram at once.”

“How could I answer the telegram—when the house is crowded with men and we have not a——”

“Yes, yes,” she said, “we know all that. Of course, he must come. If I should have to give him my own room; of course, he must come. There are so many things I want done. It would be tempting Providence to refuse Frogmore. I want a new nursery, and a cottage for the gardener, and I don’t know how many things. You had better write a telegram, and give it to Saunders to be sent the first thing in the morning.”

“But, Letitia, when you know the house is crowded, and there is not a——”

“Oh, don’t bother me,” said Letitia, “as if I had not enough without that! It is not a corner that will do for Frogmore. He must have, of course, the best room in the house. For goodness sake, John, go back to your men in the smoking-room, and tell them you have a very bad account of the covers, and that there are no birds to speak of. Say you’re dreadfully sorry, and that you find you’ve asked them on false pretences.”

“But——” said John. “Why Letitia! I have heard nothing of the kind.”

“I have, then,” she said. “They didn’t like to tell you—scarcely a bird. Those sort of accidents will happen. Go and tell them. Say you don’t know what to make of it.”

“I don’t, indeed,” said John; “I can’t understand it. Martin never said a word to me on the subject. That’s bad news, indeed. The men will think—I don’t know what they will think.” He turned to go away, looking more gloomy than ever; but when he got to the door of the boudoir turned round for a moment. “That brother of yours,” he said, “is a very queer fish.”

“Ralph! Oh, goodness gracious, do you think it’s necessary to tell me that?”

“He’s a very queer fish,” said John, with a laugh. “Those fellows are drawing him out. He is telling them all kinds of bush stories. I don’t believe half of them are true. Why did you never tell me you had a brother in the bush.”

“I thought he was dead,” she said. “I wish he had been dead before he came here. If I had only been at home it never would have happened. What’s the good of you, a man, if you can’t turn a fellow like that out of the house?”

John turned round upon her with amazement. “My wife’s brother!” he said.

“I don’t want to think of him as my brother. For goodness sake if you want me to have any peace turn him out of the house.”

“Letitia,” said John, “in most things you have your own way, and if you like to do a nasty thing yourself I never interfere; but as for turning your brother out of my house——”

“I’m ready to give up even my own comfort to your brother,” she said.

John stood for a moment feeling that there was something strained in the parallel—but not quite clever enough to perceive what it was. “Oh, as for that!” he said vaguely. Then he gave it up, the puzzle being too much for him. “And so would I,” he said, “do a great deal to please you, Letitia—but I can’t turn a man out of my house. If you have nothing more to say than that, I’ll go and tell those fellows about the birds.”

Letitia sat clenching her hands to keep in her wrath until he had closed the door, and his heavy foot sounded remote and far off as he went down the stairs. She then turned to Mary, who had made several attempts to go away, but had been retained by a gesture more and more imperative at every move she made. “Mary, I hope you know how much you owe me,” she said.

“You have been very—kind, Letitia—” said Mary faltering.

“You’ve been no expense to your father and mother for a whole year, not even for dress—you know there’s not many friends would do that.”

Mary hung her head and made no reply. She had not the courage to say that she had done something in return—scarcely even to think so, being very humble-minded—and yet—It was not generous to remind her so often of what was done for her, and the gratitude thus called for would not form itself into words.

“Well, now, you must do something for me. You must get Ralph out of this house.”

“I!” said Mary, in dismay.

“Yes, you. He came for you. Don’t deny it, for I am sure of it. What else would have brought him here? He and I were never friends. He knew I wouldn’t have him at any price, but he thought that through you, as you were always his sweetheart——”

“I never was anything to Ralph—never! He went away without so much as saying good-bye,” Mary said, with indignation.

“That proves exactly what I say. If he had been nothing to you you would not have remembered that he went away without saying good-bye—you needn’t try to deceive me, Mary. Now, you must get him out of this house.”

“Oh, Tisch!” said Mary, in forgetfulness of all injunctions. Their youth together and all its incidents came rushing back upon her mind. “Oh,” she said, “if you will remember, mother was kind to you then. Oh, don’t you remember how often you were all at the vicarage then? Oh, Letitia, I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to say that, but don’t—don’t be so hard upon me now!”

Letitia rose up with her eyes and her diamonds sending forth kindred gleams. “Do you dare to compare your mother’s kindness with mine,” she said. “What was it?—a bit of cake to a child—and I’ve taken all your expenses off them for a whole year. Where did you get that dress you are wearing, Mary Hill? Who is it that keeps a roof over your head and a fire in your room, and everything as comfortable as if you were a duke’s daughter? Your mother kind to me? I wonder you dare to look me in the face.”

But, indeed, poor Mary did not look her in the face. She had put down her head in her hands, beaten by this storm. Though it was but the most timid reprisals, Mary felt that it was ungenerous to speak of her mother’s kindness—and, after all, was not Letitia right? for there never had been much in the vicarage to give. And it was true about the dress—it was that dyed silk which Mrs. Parke had given her, a silk richer than anything poor Mary would have bought for herself. It was true, also, about the fire in the bedroom, which was a luxury impossible in the vicarage. It might not be generous to remind her of these things, but still it was true.

Letitia drew an angry breath of relief. She sat down again with the satisfaction of one who has achieved a logical triumph and silenced an adversary. “Look here,” she said. “I don’t think anything can be done to-night. We must just leave it. He’s done as much harm as he can. But if Lord Frogmore were to come to-morrow and find Ralph I should die. That is all about it. I should just die, rather than let that horrid old man see my brother in a velveteen coat, like a gamekeeper, and with the manners of a groom, I’d—— take chloral, or something. Now you know! I can’t bear it, and I won’t bear it. The Parkes were never very nice to me. And that old man as good as said—No, I will not bear it, Mary Hill. If he comes before Ralph is gone I shall be found dead in my bed, and you will be answerable, for without you he never could have got admission here.”

“Oh, Letitia! don’t say such dreadful things,” cried Mary, raising a horror-stricken face.

“No, I shall not say them, but I shall do them,” said Mrs. Parke. She was like one who has given a final decision, as she gathered up in her hands the train of her heavy velvet dress. “Good-night,” she said; “I may never say it again.”

“Letitia!” Mary’s horror and trouble could find no words.

“I can’t think—that you’d kiss me like Judas—and mean to kill me all the same,” said the possible martyr, withdrawing within the curtains which screened the door of her bedchamber. She heard the still more horror-stricken tone of Mary’s protest. “Oh, Letitia!” as she disappeared. Mrs. Parke was not afraid of a bold simile. She dropped her excitement as she dropped her velvet skirt, as soon as the door had closed upon her, and submitted herself to the hands of her maid with much calm. She had not the least doubt that Mary would lie awake all night, trembling over that threat, and that in the morning, by some means or other, her commands would be done.

Mary fulfilled these prognostications to the letter. She never closed her eyes all night, but pictured to herself all the horrors of suicide; the discovery of what had happened, the guilt of which she would never feel herself free all her life. She said to herself, indeed, a hundred times that people who threaten such dreadful acts never perform them, but then reflected that many people had taken comfort from such a thought and then found themselves confronted by a horrible fact contradicting everything. It might be folly for a hundred times, yet if once it should come true! Mary, who had never seen old Lord Frogmore, figured to herself a sneering dreadful old man, whose satirical looks would be enough to make life intolerable. She had read of such men in books, and specially of the relations of the husband who would pursue with rancour or contempt a wife whom they did not approve. She went over it so often in her waking dreams that she seemed to see the dreadful old cynic whose very glance would be like a sharp arrow. Poor Letitia! It was bad enough to have a brother like Ralph without exhibiting him at his very worst to the old lord. Though the sight of the man, who had once been her hero, in his fallen state was dreadful to poor Mary, it became more and more plain to her that she must see him; that she must even ask him to see her, and execute Letitia’s will and clear this obstacle out of her friend’s path even if she herself were to die of it, as Letitia threatened she would. Mary’s heart jumped up in her throat and beat like a fluttering bird as if it would escape altogether from her bosom at the thought. How was she to speak to him, to argue with him, to persuade him? What words could she find to bid him leave his sister’s house and never show himself there again. Poor Ralph! Her tender heart pitied him too—he was a terrible apparition, shaming the past, a scare and horror in the present, but what could be so dreadful for a man coming back after so many years as to be disowned and turned away by his nearest relations—to be forbidden his sister’s house? Mary thought, but with a thrill of horror, what she would have done had he been her own brother, or if Will or Harry should come back like that. What misery would be so dreadful, what misfortune so terrible! But Mary knew well that she would never turn her back upon “the boys” whatever happened. The worse things were, they would have the more need of her. She would stand up for them, cover their faults, invent virtues for them if they had not any, make everybody but herself believe that they were guiltless. Oh! nobody should say a word against those who were dear to her—no one! Not husband nor husband’s kin—no one, not even if it was the Queen herself. Mary said this to herself with a burst of generous indignation—and then her heart sank down, down into the depths, thinking of Letitia’s threat, of Letitia perhaps possibly—if it were only possible that was bad enough—doing what she said! And the horror in the morning; the little children weeping, John Parke confounded, not knowing what to think, looking dully at the bed.

Mary got up in the horror of this thought in the dusk of the October morning, before daylight. She heard with a tremor that Mrs. Parke was not very well, was not coming downstairs, but was consoled by the sight of the plentiful breakfast which was being carried up to Letitia. Her maid would not have carried up a breakfast like that if there had been anything wrong; and besides nothing would have gone wrong so far, for there had been no time as yet for sending Ralph away. The dreadful thing was that he did not appear to breakfast any more than his sister. Mary, as she sat behind the tea urn, heard the gentlemen laughing over the previous night. They were sure the bushman would not come up to the scratch this morning they said. If he appeared in time for lunch that would be all that could be looked for. Mary, listening with an anxiety which she could scarcely conceal, soon discovered that one at least of the guests was going away, called as he said by sudden business. If Ralph did not come down till luncheon what should she do? Lord Frogmore might come early, he might meet the prodigal brother—and then! Mary trembled from head to foot. She said to herself that it was folly, that nothing would happen, that Letitia was not that kind—and then she said to herself who could tell, who knows what might happen? By dint of thinking one thing and another her brain was in a whirl. What was she to do?

Sometimes it happens that by dint of mere terror a coward will do a more daring thing than the bravest person would undertake in command of his faculties. Mary ended by sending to Ralph, while he was still sleeping off the whisky of the smoking-room, a note with these words——

“Dear Ralph,—I must speak to you. Come to me for God’s sake in the garden by the sundial at twelve o’clock. It may be a matter of life and death.”

She sent this up after breakfast, and for a little while Mary was more calm. At least she would do what she could for Letitia. For herself and for what he might think of her, or how he might pronounce on her summons, she thought nothing at all.

CHAPTER VIII.

It was a dull morning, one of those grey days which sometimes come in autumn, when all the winds are still, when the changed and ruddy foliage hangs like a sort of illumination against the colorless atmosphere, and the air is soft and warm, though without sunshine. There had been a great deal of stir in the house in the morning. Two of the visitors had gone hastily away, summoned by urgent business which coincided strangely with the despairing account of the covers which John, prompted by Letitia, had carried to the smoking room on the previous night. These gentlemen had been driven from the door, one in the dogcart, one in Letitia’s own brougham, and the going away had caused a little bustle and commotion. The others had gone out late to the discredited covers, not expecting much sport. But by noon all was quiet about the house, where, as yet, Mrs. Parke was not visible, nor yet the unwelcome visitor who occupied Mary’s room, making her wonder, with a sense of disgust, whether she ever could go into it again. She went to the sundial with great perturbation and excitement, just as the stable clock was preparing, with a loud note of warning, which made a great sound in the still air, to strike twelve. The sundial was at some little distance from the house, in a little dell on the outer edge of the gardens, surrounded by blooming shrubs on one side and on the other by some of the large trees of the little park—a very small one, but made the most of—which surrounded the house. It was fully open to the gray still light in which there were no shadows, and a little damp with the autumnal mists. Mary wondered at herself for having given this rendezvous when she came to think of it. She might just as well have asked Ralph to meet her in the drawing-room or the library, where at this time of the day there was nobody. There were, indeed, two lady visitors in the house, but the morning room was their usual haunt; and she now reflected that she was much more likely to be seen by them in this opening, which was swept from end to end by the full daylight, than in any room in the house. She asked herself whether it was some romantic association—some thought of what people did in novels—which had made her suggest a meeting out of doors. How ridiculous it was! How much more likely to be remarked! But it was too late to think of this. She wandered through the garden, gathering a few late blossoms from the geraniums, which were just about to be taken up for the winter, and a handful of the straggling long stalks of mignonnette, which had a kind of melancholy sweetness in which there was a touch of frost and decay. Mary could never in all her life after endure the scent of mignonnette.

She saw him after awhile coming, directed by the footman, whom he had evidently asked the way without any veiling of intention, rather—as she suddenly perceived to be quite natural, and the thing she ought to have expected—with an ostentatious disclosure of what he wanted. She could almost imagine him saying that he had an appointment with a lady. The shock which had been produced in Mary’s mind by the sudden destruction of her youthful ideal in the person of this (as she now thought) dreadful man made her perhaps unjust to Ralph. He came towards the sundial, however, in the full revelation of the grey light with a smile of self-satisfaction on his face which strengthened the supposition. He had a habitual lurch in his walk, and his large, broad figure was made all the broader and more loose and large in the light suit of large checks which he wore. He had a flaming red necktie to accentuate the redness of his broad face. Mary felt with a shudder that there was reason in Letitia’s horror. To let this man be seen by a fastidious, aristocratic, cynical old gentleman, natural critic and antagonist of his brother’s wife—oh, no!—she understood Letitia now. If Will or Harry should come home like that! But the idea was too horrible to be entertained for a moment. Ralph came up to the sundial. She had hidden herself behind a clump of lilac bushes to watch him, with that smirk upon his face and a swing and swagger of conquest about him. He leant upon it, arranging himself in a triumphant pose to wait. Then he began to whistle, then he called “Hi!” and “Here!” under his breath. After a minute he became impatient and whistled more loudly, and detaching himself from the sundial looked round. “Hi, Mary!” he cried. “Hallo, my lass!” He caught sight at last of her dark dress among the lilacs, and turned round with a loud snap of his fingers. “Oh, there you are!” he cried, “and by Jove right you are, Mary, my girl. It’s too open here.”

He strolled across the grass towards her with a swing and a lurch of his great person more triumphant than ever. “Right you are,” he said, with a laugh. “It’s a deal too open. I like your sense, Mary, my dear.”

Mary hurried forward, feeling herself crimson with shame, and met him in the middle of the glade. “It can’t be too open for what I have to say to you,” she said; then added most inconsiderately, “We had surely better go back to the house. We shall be less remarked there.”

“I don’t think you know what you mean,” he said, thrusting his arm through hers, and holding it as though to lean upon her. “That’s a woman all over. Gives you a meeting and then’s frightened to keep it. I’ve been a rover, I don’t deny it, and I know their ways. You like me all the better now, don’t you, for knowing all your little ways?”

He held her arm, drawing her close to him, and bending over her, surrounding the prim and gentle Mary, fastidious old maid as she was, with that atmosphere of stale tobacco and half-exhausted spirits which breathes from some men. He reminded her of the sensations she had experienced in passing the village public-house, but she was not passing it, she was involved in it now, surrounded by its sickening breath. Every kind of humiliation and horror was in that contact to Mary. She tried in vain to draw herself out of his hold.

“Ralph, oh, please let me go. I have got a message for you. That was why I asked you to come here.”

He laughed and leaned over her more than ever, disgusting more than words could say this shrinking woman, whom he believed in his heart he was treating as women love best to be treated. “Come, now,” he said, “Mary, my love, don’t go on pretending: as if I wasn’t up to all these dodges. Say honest you wanted a word with your old sweetheart without Tisch spying on you with them sharp eyes of hers. And how she’s gone off. She’s as ugly as a toad—and stuck up! I daresay she’d think her brother was demeaning himself to the governess—eh? You’re the governess, ain’t you?” Mr. Ravelstone said.

“I am not the governess; and if either you or she think I would demean myself——” Mary’s habitual gentleness made her all the more fiery and impassioned now—the fierceness of a dove. She disengaged herself from his hold with the vehemence of her sudden movement. She stood panting beyond his reach and addressed him. “Don’t come a step nearer! I have a message to you from Tisch. Can’t you see, if you have any sense at all, that she cannot want you here?”

He gave her a strange and angry look. “What do you mean? Tisch—my own sister: you’ve gone out of your mind, Mary Hill.”

“It is you that have gone out of your mind. Look at her house, and the way she lives. Look at her husband, a gentleman. Mr. Parke may be stupid, but he is a gentleman. Didn’t you understand last night how she was feeling? What has a man like you to do here? Why, at Grocombe—even at Grocombe they would feel it; and fancy what it must be here.”

“What would they feel at Grocombe?” said Ralph, growing doubly red, and looking at her with a threatening air.

Mary paused. To hurt anyone was impossible to her—she could not do it. She looked at him; at the droop of his features, from which the jaunty air of complacence had gone, and at his debasement and deterioration, which were so evident in her eyes, not to be mistaken; and her courage failed her. “Oh! Ralph,” she said, “there is a difference. It’s not only money, or the want of money. You know there is a difference. She wants you to go away.”

“Who wants me to go away?”

His countenance grew darker and darker. He looked at her as if he would have struck her. It was she—his old playfellow—who was thus humiliating him to the earth.

Mary grew more and more compunctious. “It is her way of looking at things,” she said, faltering. “She is not like you, or me. She thinks so much of what people say. You came to dinner,” said Mary, suddenly, thinking of something that might break the blow, “in your velveteen coat.”

An air of relief came over Ralph’s face. He laughed loudly, yet with evident ease. “So that’s what it is!” he said. “You’re ashamed of my clo’es, you two young women. Well, I must say women are the meanest beggars I ever saw, and I’ve met all sorts. Ashamed of my clo’es!”

Mary was relieved beyond measure that he should so take it. She drew a long breath. “It’s so much thought of in this kind of a house,” she said; “and they are expecting Lord Frogmore. Oh, Ralph, don’t take it amiss. Letitia is not very strong. She has, perhaps, been spoilt a little, always getting her own way; and she has no room to give her brother-in-law. They get everything from him,” she added, hurriedly. “He is so rich: oh! Ralph, how can I say it. I would not for the world hurt your feelings. She wants you to go—while Lord Frogmore is here.”

“She has no room to give her brother-in-law, and she prefers my room to my company, eh?” he said, with a harsh laugh. “I’m not good enough to meet that old fogey in my velvet coat. Why I thought velvet was all the fashion. They said so in the papers, Mary.”

“Not in the evening, Ralph,” said Mary, with a sense of duplicity which made her turn away her face.

“Not in the evening, eh? I suppose this fellow must have swallow-tails? Well, it’s a poor thing to snub your brother for, ain’t it, Mary? You wouldn’t do that to a brother of yours.”

“I don’t think I should, Ralph; but then Letitia has married into a—grand family, and she has her husband’s people to think of.”

“By George!” he cried, “her husband’s people! and me her own brother!” Mary could not refrain from one glance of sympathy—which he caught in the momentary raising of her eyes, and which was so kind yet timid that he burst into a sudden laugh.

“Mary,” he said, endeavoring again to put his arm through hers—“You’ve never got a husband, my lass. Tell me how it is: for you were always a great deal prettier than Tisch, with nice little ways.”

“Don’t, Ralph—I prefer to walk alone, if you please.”

“You’re afraid to be seen, you little goose!” he said. “I know your dodges. Come, tell us how it was. If there was one lass in Grocombe that was sure to get a husband I should have said it was you. Come, Mary, tell! I think I know the reason why.”

Mary looked at him with a little air which she intended to check impertinence, but which had no effect on Ralph. “I should think it was enough—that I preferred to stay as I am—without any other reason,” she said.

“Oh, tell that to——anyone that will believe it,” cried Ralph. “I know women a little better than that. I’ll tell you what it was, and deny it, Mary, if you can. You are waiting for an old sweetheart to come home. Ah, now, I’ve made you jump. That’s your little secret. As if I didn’t know it the moment I set eyes on you, my dear.”

“You are quite, quite wrong—whatever you mean—and I don’t know what you mean,” said Mary, very angry. It was not true: and yet yesterday, before he had shown himself, there was just so much possibility in the supposition that it might have been true.

He laughed in his triumph over her, and sense of manly superiority, the sweetheart for whom she had waited, but who had no immediate intention of rewarding her for her constancy.

“We haven’t a chance you know,” he said, “my dear, for being as faithful as that: for you see a man has women after him wherever he goes. Oh, I’ve been a rover, Mary, I’ll not deny it. A fellow like me can’t help himself. I’ve never married, and you may think if you like it is because I hadn’t forgotten you; but I’ve had plenty more ready to fling themselves at my head: so you mustn’t be surprised if I can’t make up my mind to buy the ring all at once.”

“Will you tell me your answer for Letitia?” cried Mary, with a crimson countenance, looking him as steadily as she could in the face.

“An answer for Tisch—bother Tisch! if you want an answer for yourself, my dear——”