A Lame Dog's Diary

"But, Hugo dear," she said, "why did you not tell me long ago?"

A LAME DOG'S DIARY

S. Macnaughtan

Thomas Nelson and Sons,
London, Edinburgh, and New York
1908

A LAME DOG'S DIARY.

CHAPTER I.

Perhaps curiosity has never been more keen, nor mystery more baffling, than has been the case during the last few weeks. There have been "a few friends to tea" at almost every house in the village to see if in this way any reasonable conclusions can be arrived at, and even Palestrina is satisfied with the number of people who have taken the trouble to walk up the hill and chat by my sofa in the afternoons. But although each lady who has called has remarked that she is in the secret, but at present is not at liberty to say anything about it, we are inclined to think that this is vain boasting, or at least selfish reticence.

The two Miss Traceys have announced to almost every caller at their little cottage during the last two years that they intend to build.

We have all been naturally a good deal impressed by this statement, and although it was never plainly said what the structure was to be, we had had for a long time a notion of a detached house on the Common. And surely enough the foundation-stone was laid last year by Miss Ruby Tracey with some ceremony, and the first turf of the garden was cut by Miss Tracey, and only last month the whole of the Fern Cottage furniture was removed in a van to Fairview, as the new house is called—the handsomer pieces placed upon the outside of the van, and the commoner and least creditable of the bedroom furniture within. Every one was at his or her window on the day that the Miss Traceys' furniture, with the best cabinet and the inlaid card-table duly displayed, was driven in state by the driver of the station omnibus through the town. A rumour got abroad that even more beautiful things were concealed from view inside the van, and the Miss Traceys satisfied their consciences by saying, "We did not spread the rumour, and we shall not contradict it."

But the mystery concerns the furniture in quite a secondary sort of way, and it is only important as being the means of giving rise to the much-discussed rumour in the town. For mark, the drawing-room furniture was taken at once and stored in a spare bedroom, and the drawing-room was left unfurnished. This fact might have remained in obscurity, for in winter time, at least, it is not unusual for ladies to receive guests in the dining-room with an apology, the drawing-room being a cold sitting-room during the frost. But Mrs. Lovekin, the lady who acts as co-hostess at every entertainment in our neighbourhood, handing about her friends' cakes and tea, and taking, we are inclined to think, too much upon herself, did, in a moment of expansion, offer to show the Traceys' house to the Blinds, who happened to call there on the day when she was paying her respects to Miss Tracey. Mrs. Lovekin always removes her bonnet and cloak in every house, and this helps the suggestion that she is in some sort a hostess everywhere.

Palestrina, who was also calling on the Miss Traceys, gave me a full, true, and particular account of the affair the same evening.

"Mind the wet paint," Mrs. Lovekin called from the dining-room window to the Miss Blinds as they came in at the gate, "and I'll open the door," she remarked, as she sailed out into the passage to greet the sisters. Miss Ruby Tracey would rather have done this politeness herself, in order that she might hear the flattering remarks which people were wont to make about the hall paper. It is so well known that she and her sister keep three servants that they never have any hesitation in going to the door themselves. Whereas the Miss Blinds, who have only one domestic, would seem hardly to know where their front door is situated.

"What an elegant paper!" exclaimed Miss Lydia Blind, stopping awestruck in the little hall. Miss Lydia would, one knows, have something kind to say if she went to pay a call at a Kaffir hut.

"Yes," said Mrs. Lovekin in a proprietary sort of way; "it is one of Moseley's which Smithson got down in his book of patterns. The blue paint is what they call 'eggshell'—quite a new shade. Come this way and have a cup of tea."

"I am sure it is all very simple," said Miss Tracey, in a disparaging manner that showed her good breeding, as they sat down in the dining-room. "How do you like the new carpet, Miss Belinda?"

"Glory, glory, glory!" said Miss Belinda; "glory, glory, glory!"

"Show Miss Lydia the new footstools, Ruby dear," said Miss Tracey; "I am sure she would like to see them." For we all believe—or like to believe—that to praise our property must be Miss Lydia's highest pleasure.

Mrs. Lovekin seized the opportunity to act as tea-maker to the party. She poured cream and sugar into the cups with the remark that there was no one in Stowel whose tastes in these respects she did not know, and she handed a plate of cake to Miss Belinda, saying,—

"There, my dear, you sit comfortable and eat that."

"Glory, glory, glory!" said Miss Belinda.

The Miss Traceys had tea dispensed to them by the same hand, and accepted it with that slight sense of bewilderment which Mrs. Lovekin sometimes makes us feel when she looks after us in our own houses; and Miss Lydia Blind distributed her thanks equally between her and the Miss Traceys.

Nothing was talked of that afternoon but the new house—its sunny aspect and its roomy cupboards in particular commanding the heartiest commendation. Presently the ladies were taken to see all over it, with the exception of one of the spare bedrooms and the drawing-room. They knew these rooms existed, because Miss Tracey paused at the door of each, and said lightly, "This is the drawing-room," and "This is another spare bedroom;" and although, as my sister confided to me, they would have given much to see the interior of the rooms, they could not do so, of course, uninvited.

They paused to admire something at every turn, even saying generously, but playfully, that there were many of Miss Tracey's possessions which they positively coveted for themselves. The Miss Traceys smilingly repudiated their felicitations, while Mrs. Lovekin accepted them and announced the price of everything. She became quite breathless, hurrying upstairs, while she exhibited stair-rods and carpets, and with shortened breath apostrophized them as being "real brass" or "the best Brussels at five-and-threepence." No one is vulgar in Stowel, but Mrs. Lovekin is, we fear, not genteel.

At the close of the visit, Mrs. Lovekin again ushered the visitors into the hall, and opening, "by the merest accident," as she afterwards said—without, however, gaining any credence for her statement—opening by the merest accident the door of the drawing-room, she peeped in.

The drawing-room was void of furniture. The wild thought came into Mrs. Lovekin's mind—had the Traceys overbuilt themselves, and had the furniture, which had been carried so proudly through the town on the top of the furniture-van, been sold to pay expenses? The suggestion was immediately put aside. The Miss Traceys' comfortable means were so well known that such an explanation could not be seriously contemplated for a moment. No; putting two and two together, a closed spare bedroom and an empty drawing-room, and bringing a woman's instinct to bear upon the question, it all pointed to one thing—the Miss Traceys were going to give a party, probably an evening party, in honour of the new house, and the drawing-room furniture was being stored for safety in the spare bedroom until the rout was over. Doubtless the first rumour of the Miss Traceys' party was meanly come by, but it was none the less engrossing, all the same. Miss Lydia hoped that no one would believe for a moment that she was in any way connected with the fraudulent intrusion that had been made into Miss Tracey's secret, and Miss Tracey said,—

"I have known Mary Anne Lovekin for thirty years"—this was understating the case, but numbers are not exactly stated as we grow older—"but I never would have believed that she could have done such a thing."

"Bad butter," said Miss Belinda, shaking her head in an emphatic fashion; "bad butter, bad butter!"

"I do not want to judge people," said Miss Tracey; "but there was a want of delicacy about opening a closed door which I for one cannot forgive." The Miss Traceys' good-breeding is proverbial in Stowel, and it was felt that her uncompromising attitude could not but be excused when it was a matter of her most honourable sensibilities having been outraged.

"I shall not say what I think," said Miss Ruby.

We often find that when Miss Ruby cannot transcend what her sister has said, she has a way of hinting darkly at a possible brilliance of utterance which for some reason she refrains from making.

"Bad butter!" said Miss Belinda; "bad, bad butter!"

Many years ago Miss Belinda Blind, who was then a beautiful young woman, was thrown from a pony carriage. The result of the fall was an injury to the spine, and she was smitten with a paralytic stroke which deprived her of all power of speech. She was dumb for some years, and then two phrases came back to her stammering tongue, "glory," and "bad butter." She understands perfectly what is said to her, but she has no means of replying, save in this very limited vocabulary. And, strangely enough, these words can only be made to correspond with Miss Belinda's feelings. However polite her intentions may be, if at heart she disapproves she can only utter her two words of opprobrium. When a sermon displeases her she sits in her pew muttering softly, and her lips show by their movement the words she is repeating; while a particularly good cup of tea will evoke from her the extravagant phrase, "Glory, glory, glory!"

"Certainly," I said to Miss Lydia on the day succeeding the famous visit to the Traceys, "Mrs. Lovekin's information, if so it may be called, has been wrongly come by, and yet so frail is human nature one cannot help speculating upon it."

"That is what is so sad," said Miss Lydia; "one almost feels as though sharing in Mrs. Lovekin's deceit by dwelling upon her information, and yet one's mind seems incapable of even partially forgetting such an announcement."

Perhaps some suggestion of what was forming the topic of conversation in the town may have reached the Miss Traceys, and hastened their disclosure of the mystery. For very shortly afterwards, one morning when a flood of April sunshine had called us out of doors to wander on the damp paths of the garden, and watch bursting buds and listen to the song of birds in a very rural and delightful fashion, we were informed by a servant who tripped out in a white cap and apron, quite dazzling in the sunshine, that the Miss Traceys were within.

I appealed to my sister to furnish me with a means of escape. But she replied: "I am afraid they have seen you. Besides, you know I like you to see people." We went indoors, and Miss Ruby apologized for the untimely hour at which she and her sister had come, but explained it by saying, "We wanted to find you alone." And then we knew that the mystery was about to be solved.

"You are the first to hear about it," said Miss Tracey in a manner which was distinctly flattering. The Miss Traceys sit very erect on their chairs, and when they come to call I always apologize for having my leg up on the sofa.

"The fact is," Miss Tracey went on, "that we knew that we could rely upon your good sense and judgment in a matter which is exercising us very seriously at present."

"It is a delicate subject, of course," said Miss Ruby, "but one which we feel certain we may confide to you."

"We always look upon Mr. Hugo as a man of the world," said Miss Tracey, "although he is such an invalid, and we rely upon the sound judgment of you both."

Well, to state the subject without further preamble—but of course it must be understood that everything spoken this morning was to be in strict confidence—would we consider that they, the Miss Traceys, were sufficiently chaperoned if their brother the Vicar were present at the dance, and promised not to leave until the last gentleman had quitted the house?

I do not like to overstate a lady's age, and it is with the utmost diffidence that I suggest that Miss Ruby Tracey, the younger of the two sisters, may be on the other side of forty.

"You see, we have not only our own good name to consider," said Miss Tracey, "but the memory of our dear and ever-respected father must, we feel, be our guide in this matter, and we cannot decide how he would have wished us to act. If our brother were married it would simplify matters very much."

"You would have had your invitation before now," said Miss Ruby, "if we had been able to come to a decision, but without advice we felt that was impossible. I am sure," she went on, giving her mantle a little nervous composing touch, and glancing aside as though hardly liking to face any eye directly—"I am sure the things one hears of unmarried women doing nowadays ... but of course one would not like to be classed with that sort of person."

Palestrina was the first of us who spoke.

"I think," she said gravely, "that as you are so well known here, nothing could be said."

"You really think so?" said Miss Ruby.

But Miss Tracey still demurred. She said: "But it is the fact of our being so well known here that really constitutes my chief uneasiness. We often feel," she added with a sigh, "that in another place we could have more liberty."

"I assure you," said Miss Ruby, in a tone of playful confession, "that when we go to visit our cousins in London we are really quite shockingly frivolous. I do not know what it is about London; one always seems to throw off all restraint."

"I think you are giving a wrong impression, dear," said Miss Tracey. "There was nothing in the whole of our conduct in London which would not bear repetition in Stowel. Only, in a place like this, one feels one must often explain one's actions, lest they should give rise to misrepresentations; whereas in London, although behaving, I hope, in a manner just as circumspect, one feels that no apology or explanation is needed."

"There is a sort of cheerful privacy about London," said the other sister, "which I find it hard to explain, but which is nevertheless enjoyable."

To say that there is a dull publicity about the country, was too obvious a retort.

"I think we went out every evening when we were in West Kensington," said Miss Tracey.

"Counting church in the evening," said Miss Ruby.

"Still, those evening services in London almost count as going out," said Miss Tracey; "I mean, they are so lively. I often blame myself for not being able to look upon them more in the light of a religious exercise. I find it as difficult to worship in a strange pew as to sleep comfortably in a strange bed."

The Miss Traceys' morning call lasted until one o'clock, and even then, as they themselves said, rising and shaking out their poplin skirts, there was much left undiscussed which they would still have liked to talk over with us. The ball supper, as they called it, was to be cooked at home, and to consist of nothing which could not be "eaten in the hand."

Claret-cup was, to use Miss Tracey's own figure of speech, to be "flowing" the whole evening, both in the dining-room with the sandwiches and cakes, and on a tray placed in a recess behind the hall door.

"Gentlemen always seem so thirsty," said Miss Tracey, making the remark as though speaking of some animal of strange habits which she had considered with the bars of its cage securely fixed between herself and it at the Zoo.

"We have bought six bottles of Essence of Claret-cup," said the younger sister, "which we have seen very highly recommended in advertisements; and although it says that three tablespoonfuls will make a quart of the cup, we thought of putting four, and so having it good."

"As regards the music," went on Miss Tracey, "we have come, I think, to a very happy decision. A friend of ours knows a blind man who plays the piano for dances, and by employing him we feel that we shall be giving remunerative work to a very deserving person, as well as ensuring for ourselves a really choice selection of the most fashionable waltzes. Ruby pronounces the floor perfect," said Miss Tracey, glancing admiringly at her younger sister's still neat figure and nimble feet; "she has been practising upon it several times——"

"With the blinds down, dear," amended Miss Ruby, simpering a little. "We understand," she continued, "that some chalk sprinkled over the boards before dancing begins is beneficial. You should have known Stowel in the old days, when there was a county ball every winter at the Three Jolly Postboys—such a name!" continued Miss Ruby, who was in that curiously excited state when smiles and even giggles come easily.

"Now remember," said Miss Tracey to Palestrina, as she took leave of her, "you must come and help with the decorations on the morning of the dance. You can rest in the afternoon, so as to look your best and rosiest in the evening."

In Stowel it is ingenuously admitted that a young lady should try and look her best when gentlemen are to be present, and rosy cheeks are still in vogue.

The Miss Traceys' drawing-room is not a very large room, even when empty of furniture, but it certainly had a most festive appearance when we drove up to the famous house-warming. Every curtain was looped with evergreens, and every fireplace was piled with ivy, while two large flags, which were referred to several times as "a display of bunting," festooned the little staircase. Several friends in the village had lent their white-capped maids for the occasion, and these ran against each other in the little linoleum passage in a state of great excitement, and called each other "dear" in an exuberance of affection which relieved their fluttered feelings.

A palm had been ordered from London and placed triumphantly in a corner—the palm had been kept as a surprise for us all. In the course of the evening it was quite a common thing to hear some girl ask her partner if he had seen The Palm; and if the reply was in the negative, the couple made a journey to the hall to look at it.

And here I must note a curious trait in the conversation prevalent in our select circle at Stowel. We all speak in capitals. The definite article is generally preferred to the "a" or "an" which points out a common noun; and so infectious is the habit, that when writing, for instance, of the Jamiesons, I find myself referring to The Family, with a capital, quite in a royal way, so perspicuously are capital letters suggested by their manner of speech. In the same way, the Taylors' uncle is never referred to by any of us except as The Uncle, and I feel sure that I should be doing the Traceys' plant an injustice if I did not write it down The Palm.

This, however, is a digression.

The calmness of the Miss Traceys was almost overdone. They stood at the door of their drawing-room, each holding a small bouquet in her hand, and they greeted their guests as though nothing could be more natural than to give a dance, or to stand beneath a doorway draped with white lace curtains, and with a background of dissipated-looking polished boards and evergreens. The elder Miss Tracey, who is tall, was statuesque and dignified; the younger lady was conversational and natural almost to the point of artificiality—so determined was Miss Ruby to repudiate any hint of arrogance this evening. And it may be said of both sisters that they were strikingly well-bred and unembarrassed. Those who had seen them in all the flutter of preparations during the day—washing china and glass, issuing packets of candles from their store cupboard below the stairs, and jingling large bunches of keys—could admire these outward symbols of ease, and appreciate the self-restraint that they involved.

I do not remember before, at any dance, seeing so many old young ladies, or so few and such very juvenile young men. The elderly young ladies smiled the whole time, while their boy partners looked preternaturally grave and solemn. They appeared to be shyly conscious of their shirt collars, and these, I fancy, must have been made after some exaggerated pattern which I cannot now recall; I only remember that they appeared to be uncomfortably high and somewhat conspicuous, and that they gave one the idea of being the wearers' first high collars.

The Vicar, who had promised to come at eight o'clock so that there should be no mistake about his being in the house from first to last of the dance, and who had been sent for in a panic at a quarter past eight, acted conscientiously throughout the entire entertainment. He began by inviting Mrs. Fielden to dance, and afterwards he asked every lady in turn according to her rank, and I do not think that during the entire evening his feet can have failed to respond to a single bar of the music. The blind musician was a little late in arriving, and we all sat round the drawing-room with our backs to the new blue wallpaper and longed for home. No one dared to offer to play a waltz, in case it should be considered an affront at a party where etiquette was so conspicuous, and where the peculiar Stowel air of mystery pervaded everything.

The Jamiesons arrived, a party of nine, in the station omnibus, and chatted in the hearty, unaffected manner peculiar to themselves, waving little fans to and fro in the chilly air of the new drawing-room, and putting an end to the solemn silence which had distinguished the first half-hour of the party. Each of the sisters wore a black dress relieved by a touch of colour, and carried a fan. Their bright eyes shone benignly behind their several pairs of pince-nez; and as they shook hands with an air of delight with every single person in the room when they entered, their arrival caused quite a pleasant stir.

Mrs. Lovekin had already, in her character of co-hostess, begun to distribute the Essence of Claret-cup that, diluted with water, formed the staple beverage of the evening and was placed on a small table behind the hall-door. There was rather a curious sediment left at the bottom of the glasses, and the flavour of cucumber suggested vaguely to one that the refreshment might be claret-cup. Very young men in split white kid gloves drank a good deal of it.

At last the blind musician was led solemnly across the room, and took up his position at the piano. He always left off playing before a figure of a quadrille or lancers was finished, and then the dancers clapped their hands to make him continue, and the elderly young ladies smiled more than ever. At the second or third waltz my sister was in the proud position of being claimed in turn by the Vicar as his partner; and the position, besides being prominent, was such an enviable one that Palestrina, who is not more given to humility than other good-looking young women of her age, was carried away by popular feeling so far as to remark in a tone of gratitude that this was very kind of him.

He replied, "I have made up my mind to sacrifice myself for the night;" and one realized that a lofty position and a prominent place in the world may carry with them sufficient humiliations to keep one meek.

The conscientious Vicar did not allow his partner to sit down once throughout the entire waltz, and I think the blind musician played at greater length than usual. I began to wonder if her partner regarded my excellent Palestrina as a sort of Sandow exerciser, and whether he was trying to get some healthy gymnastics, if not amusement, out of their dance together.

"There!" he said at last, placing her on a chair beside me as a fulfilled duty; and feeling that she was expected to say "Thank you," Palestrina meekly said it.

"I have only danced once in the last twenty years," said the Vicar, "and that was with some choir boys." And the next moment the blind man began to play again, and he was footing it with conscientious energy with Miss Lydia Blind.

Young ladies who had sat long with their empty programmes in their hands now began to dance with each other with an air of overdone merriment, protesting that they did not know how to act gentleman, but declaring with emphasis that it was just as amusing to dance with a girl-friend as with a man.

The music, as usual, failed before the end of each figure of the dance, and the curate, who wore a pair of very smart shoe-buckles, remarked to me that the lancers was a dance that created much diversion, and I replied that they were too amusing for anything.

The Jamiesons' youngest brother, who is in a shipping-office in London, had come down to Stowel especially for this occasion. Once, some years ago, Kennie, as he is called, made a voyage in one of the shipping company's large steamers to South America. He landed at Buenos Ayres armed to the teeth, and walked about the pavement of that highly-civilized town, with its wooden pavements and plate-glass shop windows, in a sombrero and poncho, and with terrible weapons stuck in his belt. At the end of a week he returned in the same ship in which he had made the outward voyage, and since then he has had tales to tell of those wild regions with which any of the stories in the Boys' Own Paper are tame in comparison. In his dress and general appearance he even now suggests a pirate king. His tales of adventure are always accompanied by explanatory gestures and demonstrations, and it is not unusual to see Kennie stand up in the midst of an admiring circle of friends and make some fierce sabre-cuts in the air. He was dressed with a red cummerbund round his waist, and he drew attention to it by an apology to every one of his partners for having it on. "One gets into the habit of dressing like this out there," he said in a tone of excuse. The Pirate Boy was in great demand at the dance.

Pretty Mrs. Fielden, who had driven over from Stanby, beautifully dressed as usual, and slightly amused, ordered her carriage early, and had merely come to oblige those quaint old dears, the Miss Traceys.

Even at the house-warming Mrs. Fielden would have considered it quite impossible to sit out a dance. She brought an elderly Colonel with her, and she conducted him into a corner behind The Palm, and talked to him there till it was her turn to dance with the Vicar. Had it not been Mrs. Fielden, whose position placed her above criticism, the breath of envy might have whispered that it was hardly fair that one couple should occupy the favourite sitting-out place—two drawing-room chairs beneath The Palm—to the exclusion of others. But Mrs. Fielden being whom she was, the young ladies of Stowel were content to pass and repass the coveted chairs and to whisper admiringly, "How exquisite she is looking to-night!"

"Is there anything of me left?" she said to me, looking cool and unruffled when her dance with the Vicar was over. She had only made one short turn of the room with him, and her beautiful dress and her hair were quite undisturbed.

"You haven't danced half so conscientiously as his other partners have," I said.

"I wanted to talk about the parish," said Mrs. Fielden, "so I stopped. I think I should like to go and get cool somewhere."

"I will take you to sit under The Palm again, as Colonel Jardine did," I replied, "and you shall laugh at all the broad backs and flat feet of our country neighbours, and hear everybody say as they pass how beautiful you are."

Mrs. Fielden turned her head towards me as if to speak, and I had a sudden vivid conviction that she would have told me I was rude had I not been a cripple with one leg.

We sat under The Palm. Mrs. Fielden never rushes into a conversation. Presently she said,—

"Why do you come to this sort of thing? It can't amuse you."

"You told me the other day," I said, "that I ought to cultivate a small mind and small interests."

"Did I?" said Mrs. Fielden lightly. "If I think one thing one day, I generally think quite differently a day or two after. To-night, for instance, I think it is a mistake for you to lean against the Miss Traceys' new blue walls and watch us dance."

"I'm not sure that it isn't better than sitting at home and reading how well my old regiment is doing in South Africa. Besides, you know, I am writing a diary."

"Are you?" said Mrs. Fielden.

"You advised it," I said.

"Did I?"

When Mrs. Fielden is provoking she always looks ten times prettier than she does at other times.

"A good many people in this little place," I said, "have made up their minds to 'do the work that's nearest' and to help 'a lame dog over stiles.' I think I should be rather a brute if I didn't respond to their good intentions."

"I don't think they need invent stiles, though!" said Mrs. Fielden quickly; "wood-carving, and beating brass, and playing the zither——"

"I do not play the zither," I said.

"—are not stiles. They are making a sort of obstacle race of your life."

"Since I have begun to write the diary," I said, "I've been able to excuse myself attempting these things, even when tools are kindly brought to me. And, so far, no one has so absolutely forgotten that there is a lingering spark of manhood in me as to suggest that I should crochet or do cross-stitch."

"You know I am going to help to write the diary," said Mrs. Fielden, "only I'm afraid I shall have to go to all their tea-parties, shan't I, to get copy?"

"You will certainly have to go," I said.

"I'm dreadfully bored to-night; aren't you?" she said confidentially, and in a certain radiant fashion as distant as the Poles from boredom. "No one can really enjoy this sort of thing, do you think? It's like being poor, or anything disagreeable of that sort. People think they ought to pretend to like it, but they don't."

"I wish I could entertain you better," I said sulkily; "but I'm afraid I never was the least bit amusing."

Mrs. Fielden relapsed into one of her odd little silences, and I determined I would not ask her what she was thinking about.

Presently Colonel Jardine joined us, and she said to him: "Please see if you can get my carriage; it must be five o'clock in the morning at least." And the next moment I was made to feel the egotism of imagining I had been punished, when she bade me a charming "good-night." She smiled congratulations on her hostesses on the success of the party, and pleaded the long drive to Stanby as an excuse for leaving early. The Colonel wrapped her in a long, beautiful cloak of some pale coloured velvet and fur—a sumptuous garment at which young ladies in shawls looked admiringly—and Mrs. Fielden slipped it on negligently, and got into her brougham.

"Oh, how tired I am!" she said.

"It was pretty deadly," said the Colonel. "Did you taste the claret-cup?" he added, making a grimace in the dark.

"Oh, I found it excellent," said Mrs. Fielden quickly.

Margaret Jamieson now took her place at the piano, to enable the blind man to go and have some supper; but, having had it, he slept so peacefully that no one could bear to disturb him, so between them the young ladies shared his duties till the close of the evening.

Palestrina had suggested, as a little occupation for me, that I should write out programmes for the dance, and I had done so. Surely programmes were never so little needed before! Every grown man had left the assembly long before twelve o'clock struck, the feebleness of the excuses for departing thus early being only equalled by the gravity with which they were made. Even the lawyer, who we thought would have remained faithful to the end, pleaded that since he ricked his knee he is obliged to have plenty of rest. The Pirate Boy had had some bitter words with the lawyer at a previous stage in the evening about the way in which the lancers should be danced, and had muttered darkly, "I won't make a disturbance in a lady's house, but I have seen a fellow called out for less." He considered that the lawyer was running away, unable to bear his cold, keen eye upon him during the next lancers, and he watched him depart, standing at the head of the tiny staircase, beneath the display of bunting, with his arms folded in a Napoleonic attitude.

All good things come to an end, and even the Vicar of Stowel must have felt that there are limits to the most conscientious energy. And girls, dancing with each other, learn perhaps that the merriment caused by acting as a man is not altogether lasting; while elderly young ladies, although agreed in smiling to the very end, must be aware how fixed in expression such a smile may become towards the end of a long evening.

Good-nights were said, and carriages were called up with a good deal of unnecessary shouting, while the Pirate Boy insisted upon going to the heads of the least restive horses and soothing them in a way which he said he had learned from those Gaucho fellows out there.

I have never been able to tell what the Miss Traceys thought about their dance. If they were disappointed, the world was not allowed to probe that tender spot. Possibly they were satisfied with its success; the proprietary instinct of admiration applies to entertainments as well as to tangible possessions. But that satisfaction, if it existed, was modestly veiled—the house-warming was less discussed by them than by any one else. Miss Ruby spoke rather wistfully one day about simple pleasures being the best and safest after all, and she alluded with a sigh to the time which must come some day when she would be no longer young. Miss Tracey drew herself up and said: "A woman is only as old as she looks, my dear," and glanced admiringly at her sister.

The diluted Essence of Claret-cup was bottled, and formed a nice light luncheon wine at the Miss Tracey's for many weeks afterwards. The furniture was brought down from the spare bedroom by the maids, who walked the heavier pieces in front of them with a curious tip-toeing movement of the castors of the several easy-chairs. The art tiles in the grate were cleared of their faded burden of evergreens, and The Palm was carried into the bay-window, where it could be seen from the road.

I drove over to see Mrs. Fielden and to ask her if she thought I had been a sulky brute at the dance.

"Were you?" said Mrs. Fielden, lifting her pretty dark eyebrows; "I forget."

CHAPTER II.

Palestrina and I live in the country, and whenever we are dull or sad, like the sailors in Mr. Gilbert's poem, we decide that our neighbourhood is too deadly uninteresting, and then we go and see the Jamiesons. They are our nearest neighbours, as they are also amongst our greatest friends, and the walk to their house is a distance that I am able to manage. I believe that our visits to the Jamiesons are most often determined by the state of the weather. If we have passed a long wet day indoors I feel that it is going to be a Jamieson day, and I know that my sister will say to me after tea, "Suppose we go over and see the Jamiesons;" and she generally adds that it is much better than settling down for the evening at five o'clock in the afternoon.

I do not think that Palestrina was so sociable a young woman, nor did she see so much of her neighbours, before I came home an invalid from South Africa—I got hit in the legs at Magersfontein, and had the left one taken off in the hospital at Wynberg—but she believes, no doubt rightly, that the variety that one gets by seeing one's fellow-men is good for a poor lame dog who lies on a sofa by the fire the greater part of the day, wishing he could grow another leg or feel fit again.

Acting upon this unalterable conviction of my sister, we drive about in the afternoon and see people, and they come and see me and suggest occupations for me. In Lent I had a more than usual number of callers, which says much for the piety of the place, as well as for the goodness of heart of its inhabitants.

There is a slight coolness between what is known as the "County" and the Jamiesons, and their name is never mentioned without the accompanying piece of information, "You know, old Jamieson married his cook!" To be more exact, Mrs. Jamieson was a small farmer's daughter, and Captain Jamieson fell in love with her when, having left the army, he went to learn practical farming at old Higgins's, and he loved her faithfully to the day of his death. She is a stout, elderly woman who speaks very little, but upon whom an immense amount of affection seems to be lavished by her family of five daughters and two sons. And it has sometimes seemed to my sister and me that her good qualities are of a lasting and passive sort, which exist in large measure in the hearts of those who bestow this boundless affection. Mrs. Jamieson's form of introducing herself to any one she meets consists in giving an account of the last illness and death of her husband. There is hardly a poultice which was placed upon that poor man which her friends have not heard about. And when she has finished, in her flat, sad voice, giving every detail of his last disorder, Mrs. Jamieson's conversation is at an end. She has learned, no doubt unconsciously, to gauge the characters of new acquaintances by the degree of interest which they evince in Captain Jamieson's demise. It is Mrs. Jamieson's test of their true worth.

Of the other sorrow which saddened a nature that perhaps was never very gay, Mrs. Jamieson rarely speaks. Possibly because she thinks of it more than of anything else in the world. Among her eight children there was only one who appeared to his mother to combine all perfection in himself. He was killed by an accident in his engineering works seven years ago, and although his friends will, perhaps, only remember him as a stout young fellow who sang sea-songs with a distended chest, his mother buried her heart with him in his grave, and even the voice of strangers is lowered as they say, "She lost a son once."

The late Captain Jamieson, a kindly, shrewd man and a Scotchman withal, was agent to Mrs. Fielden, widow of the late member for Stanby, and when he died his income perished with him, and The Family of Jamieson—a large one, as has been told—were thankful enough to subsist on their mother's inheritance of some four or five hundred a year, bequeathed to her by the member of the non-illustrious house of Higgins, late farmer deceased. It is a hospitable house, for all its narrow means, and there live not, I believe, a warmer-hearted or more generous family than these good Jamiesons. The girls are energetic, bright, and honest; their slender purses are at the disposal of every scoundrel in the parish; and their time, as well as their boundless energy, is devoted to the relief of suffering or to the betterment of mankind.

Mrs. Fielden is of the opinion that nothing gives one a more perfect feeling of rest than going to Belmont, as the Jamiesons' little house is called, and watching them work. She calls it the "Rest Cure." Every one of the five sisters, except Maud, who is the beauty of the family, wears spectacles, and behind these their bright, intelligent small eyes glint with kindness and brisk energy. The worst feature of this excellent family is their habit of all talking at the same time, in a certain emphatic fashion which renders it difficult to catch what each individual is saying, and this is especially the case when three of the sisters are driving sewing-machines simultaneously. They have a genius for buying remnants of woollen goods at a small price, and converting them into garments for the poor; and their first question often is, as they hold a piece of flannel or serge triumphantly aloft, "What do you think I gave for that?" Palestrina always names at least twice the sum that has purchased the goods, and has thereby gained a character for being dreadfully extravagant but sympathetic.

"I do not believe," I said to Palestrina the other day, "that these good Jamiesons have a thought beyond making other people happy."

"That and getting married are the sole objects of their existence," said Palestrina.

"It is very odd," I said, "that women so devoid of what might be called sentiment are yet so bent upon this very thing."

"Eliza told me to-day," said Palestrina, "that as Kate has not mentioned one single man in her letters home, they cannot help thinking that there is something in it."

The Jamiesons have the same vigorous, energetic ideas about matrimony that they have about everything else, and almost their sole grievance, naïvely expressed, is that Maud, "who gets them all"—meaning, I believe, offers of marriage—is the only one of the family who is unable to make up her mind clearly on this momentous question.

"We should not mind," say the conclave of sisters during one of the numerous family discussions on this subject, "even if she does get all the admirers—for of course she is the pretty one—if only she would accept one of them. But she always gets undecided and silly as soon as they come to the point."

It should be observed in passing that the different stages of development in love affairs are shrewdly noted and commented upon by the Jamiesons. The first evidence of a man's preference is that he "is struck;" and the second, when he begins to visit at the house, is known as "hovering." An inquiry after Maud's health will sometimes elicit the unexpected reply that another admirer is hovering at present. The third stage is reached when the lover is said to be "dangling;" and the final triumph, when Maud has received a proposal, is noted as having "come to the point."

If Maud's triumphs are watched with small sighs of envy by her sisters, they are a source of nothing but gratification to them to retail to the outside world. There is a strict account kept of Maud's "conquests" in the letters sent to relatives, and the evening's post will sometimes contain the startling announcement that Maud has had a fourth in one year.

"Of course, you know how fond we all are of each other," said Eliza Jamieson to me one day with one of those unexpected confidences which the effeminacy of sickness seems to warrant, if not actually to invite, "but we can't help thinking that, humanly speaking, we should all have a better chance if only Maud would marry. No one would wish her to marry without love, but we fear she is looking for perfection, and that she will never get; and it was really absurd of her to be so upset when she discovered, after nearly getting engaged to Mr. Reddy, that he wore a wig. After all, a man may be a good Christian in spite of having no hair."

"That is undoubtedly a fact," I said warmly.

"And Mr. Reddy had excellent prospects," said Eliza, "although perhaps nothing very tangible at present. Then there was Albert Gore, to whom, one must admit, Maud gave every encouragement, and we had begun to think it quite hopeful; but just at the end she discovered that she could not care for any one called Albert, which was too silly."

"She might have called him Bertie," I suggested.

"Yes," said Eliza eagerly; "and you see, none of us hope or expect to marry a man who has not some of these little drawbacks, so I really do not see why Maud should expect it."

Five matrimonial alliances in one house are, perhaps, not easily arranged in a quiet country neighbourhood, yet there is always a hopeful tone about these family discussions, and it is very common to hear the Miss Jamiesons relate at length what they intend to do when they are married.

And there is yet another maiden to be arranged for in the little house; Mettie is the Jamiesons' cousin who lives with them, and I believe that what appeals to me most strongly in this unknown provincial family is their kindness to the little shrunken, tiresome cousin who shares their home. Mettie is like some strange little bright bird, utterly devoid of intelligence, and yet with the alertness of a sparrow. Her beady eyes are a-twinkle in a restless sort of way all day long, and her large thin nose has always the appearance of having the skin stretched unpleasantly tightly across it. The good Jamiesons never seem to be ruffled by her presence among them, and this forbearance certainly commands one's respect. Mettie travesties the Jamiesons in every particular. She has adopted their matrimonial views with interest, and she utters little platitudes upon the subject with quite a surprising air of sapience. One avoids being left alone with Mettie whenever it is possible to do so, for, gentle creature though she is, her remarks are so singularly devoid of interest that one is often puzzled to understand why they are made. Yet I see one or other of the Jamiesons walk to the village with her every day—her little steps pattering beside their giant strides, while the bird-like tongue chirps gaily all the way.

Every one in our little neighbourhood walks into the village every day; it is our daily dissipation; and frivolous persons have been known to go twice or three times. On days when Palestrina thinks that I am getting moped she steals the contents of my tobacco-jar, and then says, without blushing, that she has discovered that my tobacco is all finished, and that we had better walk into the village together and get some more. When I am in a grumpy mood, I reply: "It's all right, thank you; I have plenty upstairs." But it generally ends in my taking the walk with my sister.

Our house is pleasantly situated where, by peeping through a tangle of shrubs and trees, we can see the lazy traffic of the highroad that leads to the village. Strangers pause outside the screen of evergreens sometimes and peep between the branches to see the quaint gables of the old house. Its walls have turned to a soft yellow colour with old age, and its beams are of oak, gray with exposure to the storms of many winters.

"This old hall of yours is much too dark," Mrs. Fielden said, when she came to call the other day muffled up in velvet and fur. She lighted the dull afternoon by something that is radiant and holiday-like about her, and left us envying her for being so pretty and so young and gay. "Oh, I know," she said in her whimsical way, "that it is Jacobean and early Tudor and all sorts of delightful things, but it isn't very cheerful, you know. I'm so glad it is near the road; I think if I built a house I should like it to be in Mansion House Square, or inside a railway station. Don't you love spending a night at a station hotel? I always ask for a room overlooking the platform, for I like the feeling of having the trains running past me all night. I love your house really," she said, "only I'm afraid it preaches peace and resignation and all those things which I consider so wrong."

Since I have been laid up I have been recommended to carve wood, to beat brass, to stuff sofa-cushions, and to play the zither; but these things do not amuse me much. It was Mrs. Fielden who suggested that I should write a diary.

"You must grumble," she said, raising her pretty eyebrows in the affected way she has. "It wouldn't be human if you didn't; so why not write a diary, and have a real good grumble on paper every night before you go to bed. Of course, if I were in your place I should grumble all day instead, and go to sleep at night. But I'm not the least bit a resigned person. If anything hurts me I scream at once; and if there is anything I don't like doing I leave it alone. Palestrina," she said to my sister, "don't let him be patient; it's so bad for him."

Palestrina smiled, and said she was afraid it was very dull for me sometimes.

"But if one is impatient enough, one can't be dull," said Mrs. Fielden. "It's like being cross——"

"I am constitutionally dull," I said. "I used to be known as the dullest man in my regiment."

"You studied philosophy, didn't you?" said Mrs. Fielden. "That must be so depressing."

I was much struck by this suggestion. "I dare say you are quite right," I said, "although I had not seen it in that light before. But I'm afraid it has not made me very patient, nor given me a great mind."

"Of course, what you want just now," said Mrs. Fielden gravely, "is a little mind. You must lie here on your sofa, and take a vivid interest in what all the old ladies say when they come to call on Palestrina. And you must know the price of Mrs. Taylor's last new hat, and how much the Traceys spend on their washing-bill, and you must put it all down in your diary. I'll come over and help you sometimes, and write all the wicked bits for you, only I'm afraid no one ever is wicked down here.

"Good-bye," she said, holding out the smallest, prettiest, most useless-looking little hand in the world. "And please," she added earnestly, "get all this oak painted white, and hang some nice muslin curtains in the windows."

Kindly folk in Stowel are always ingenuously surprised at any one's caring to live in the country; and although it is but a mile from here to the vestry hall, and much less by the fields, they often question us whether we do not feel lonely at night-time, and they are of the opinion that we should be better in "town." They frequently speak of going into the country for change of air, or on Bank Holidays; but considering that the last house in the village—and, like the City of Zoar, it is but a little one—is built amongst fields, it might be imagined that these rural retreats could readily be found without the trouble of hiring the four-wheeled dog-cart from the inn, or of taking a journey by train. Yet an expedition into the country is often talked of as being a change, and friends and relations living outside the town are considered a little bit behindhand in their views of things—"old-feshioned" they call it in Stowel—and these country cousins are visited with just a touch of kindly condescension by the dwellers in a flower-bordered, tree-shadowed High Street.

One is brought rather quaintly into immediate correspondence with the domestic concerns of every one in Stowel, and Palestrina has been coaching me in the etiquette of the place. It is hardly correct to do any shopping at dinner-time, when the lady of the house, busy feeding her family, has to be called from the inner parlour, where that family may all be distinctly seen from the shop. Driving or walking through Stowel at the hour thus consecrated by universal consent to gastronomy, one might almost imagine it to be a deserted village. Even the dogs have gone inside to get a bone; and one says, as one walks down the empty streets, "Stowel dines."

When a shop is closed on Thursday, which is early-closing day, one can generally "be obliged" by ringing at the house-bell, and, under conduct of the master of the place, may enter the darkened shop by the side door, and be accommodated with the purchase that one requires. For the old custom still holds of living—where it seems most natural for a merchant to live—in the place where he does his business. There is a pleasurable feeling of excitement even in the purchase of a pot of Aspinall's enamel behind closed shutters, and this is mingled with a feeling of solemnity and privilege, which I can only compare, in its mixed effect upon me, to going behind the scenes of a theatre, or being permitted to enter the vestry of a church.

Any purchases except those which may be called necessaries are seldom indulged in in our little town. A shop which contains anything but dress and provisions has few customers, and its merchandise becomes household fixtures. I called at the furniture shop the other day; the place looked bare and unfamiliar to me, but I did not realize what was amiss until my sister exclaimed, "Where is the sofa?" The sofa had been for sale for fifteen years, and had at last been purchased. There are other things in the shop which I think must have been there much longer, and I believe their owner would part with them with regret, even were a very fair profit to be obtained for them. Palestrina tells me she ordered some fish the other day, and was met with the objection that "I fear that piece will be too big for your fish-kettle, ma'am," although she had never suspected that the size of her fish-kettle was a matter known to the outside world.

And yet Stowel prides itself more upon its reserve than upon anything else, except perhaps its gentility. There is a distinct air of mystery over any and every one of the smallest affairs of daily life in the little place, and I hardly think that our neighbours would really enjoy anything if it were "spoken about" before the proper time. There is something of secrecy in the very air of the town. No one, I am told, has ever been known to mention, even casually, what he or she intends to have for dinner; and the butcher has been warned against calling across the shop to the lady at the desk, "Two pounds of rumpsteak for Miss Tracey," or, "One sirloin, twelve two, for the Hall." Mr. Tomsett, who was the first butcher to introduce New Zealand mutton to the inhabitants of Stowel, lost his custom by this vulgar habit of assorting his joints in public. And Miss Tracey, who knew him best (he was still something of a stranger, having been in Stowel only five years), warned him that that was not the sort of thing we were accustomed to. "If you must make our private concerns public in this way," she said, "at least it cannot be necessary to mention in what country the mutton was raised."

It is even considered a little indelicate to remain in the post-office when a telegram is being handed in. And parcels addressed and laid on the counter at the grocer's, although provocative of interest, are not even glanced at by the best people.

On the authority of my sister, I learn that when the ladies of Stowel do a little dusting in the morning the front blinds are pulled down. And keen though the speculation may be as to the extent of our neighbours' incomes, the subject is, of course, a forbidden one. Poor though some of these neighbours are, a very kindly charity prevails in the little town. When the elder Miss Blind was ill—as she very often is, poor thing!—it might seem a matter of coincidence to the uninitiated that during that week every one of her friends happened to make a little strong soup, a portion of which was sent to the invalid—just in case she might fancy it; while the Miss Traceys, who, as all the world knew, had inherited a little wine from their father, the late Vicar of the parish, sent their solitary remaining bottle of champagne, with their compliments, to Miss Belinda. The champagne proved flat after many a year of storage in the lower cupboard of Miss Tracey's pantry, but the two sisters to whom it was sent, not being familiar with the wine, did not detect its faults, and they left the green bottle with the gilt neck casually standing about for weeks afterwards, from an innocent desire to impress their neighbours with its magnificence.

Palestrina, with the good intention, I believe, of providing me with what she calls an object for a walk, asked me to call and inquire for Miss Blind on the day that the bottle of champagne was drawn and sampled. Miss Lydia was in the sick-room, and Mrs. Lovekin, who had called to inquire, was sitting in the little parlour when I entered. "How do you do?" she said. "I suppose you have heard about Belinda and the champagne?"

The reproachful note in Mrs. Lovekin's voice, which seemed to tax the invalid with ingratitude, subtly conveyed the impression that the flat champagne had not agreed with poor Miss Belinda.

CHAPTER III.

It is a subject of burning curiosity with every woman in Stowel to know whether it is a fact that the Taylors have taken to having late dinner instead of supper since Mrs. Taylor's uncle was made a K.C.B. There was something in a remark made by Miss Frances Taylor which distinctly suggested that such a change had been effected, but Stowel, on the whole, is inclined to discredit the rumour. A portrait of the General has been made in London, from a photograph in uniform which Mrs. Taylor has of him, and it has been framed, regardless of expense, by the photographer in the High Street. Mr. Taylor at one time had thought of having the whole thing done in London, but it had been decided by an overwhelming majority that it would be only fair to give the commission to provide the frame to some one in our own town; and Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have granted a permission, which amounts to a command, that the portrait of "Sir John" shall be placed in the window for a week before it is sent home, so that Stowel may see it—for the Taylors, it should be remembered, do not receive every one at their own house.

To-day I met the younger Miss Blind—Miss Lydia, she is generally called—at the window of the photographer's, to which she had made a pilgrimage, as we all intended to do, to see the famous picture. Probably she had stood there for some time, for she turned nervously towards me, and said in a tone of apology and with something of an effort in her speech, "I used to know him."

"Ah!" I replied. "I suppose he has often been down to stay with the Taylors?"

"He has not been once in twenty years," said Lydia. I was thinking of other things, and I do not know why it suddenly struck me that there was a tone of regret, even of hopelessness, in Miss Lydia's voice, and that she spoke as one speaks, perhaps, when one has waited long for something.

Lydia Blind is a tall woman with a slight, stooping figure. Sometimes I have wondered if it is only her sister's constant ill-health that has made Miss Lydia stoop a little. There is something delicately precise about her, if so gentle a woman can fitly be described as precise. Perhaps her voice explains her best, as a woman's voice will often do; it is low and of a very charming quality, although broken now and then by asthma. Each word has its proper spacing, and does not intrude upon the next; each vowel possesses the rare characteristic of its proper sound. I have never heard her use an out-of-the-way expression; but her simple way of speaking has an old-fashioned gracefulness about it, and her manner, with all its simplicity, is dignified by reason of its perfect sincerity. Her eyes are large and gray, and set somewhat far apart; her hair is worn in a fringe so demure and smooth, so primly curled, that it has the appearance of plainly-brushed hair. It is Mrs. Fielden who says that no good woman can do her hair properly, and she wonders if St. Paul's recommendations as to plain braids has for ever stamped the hairdresser's profession as a dangerous art.

To-day when I met Lydia it struck me suddenly to wonder how old she is. Perhaps something in the insolent youthfulness of the springtime suggested the thought, or it may have been because Miss Lydia looked tired.

When one meets a friend in Stowel High Street, it is considered very cold behaviour merely to bow to her. Not only do we stop and chat for a few minutes, but it is the friendly fashion of the place for ladies to say to each other, "Which way are you going?" and to accompany their friend a little way along the sunny, uneven pavement, while offers to come in and rest are generally given and accepted at the end of the promenade. Of course it is quite unusual for gentlemen to be detained in this way, and I am sure it cost Miss Lydia an effort to suggest to me that I should come in and sit down for a little while, and that she only did so because I seemed tired. Also I think that a man with a crutch and with but one leg—and that one not very sound—is not considered such a source of danger to ladies living alone as a strong and hale man is supposed to be. We stopped at the little green gate in the village street, with its red flagged pathway beyond, bordered with spring flowers—wall-flowers, early blooming in this warm and sheltered corner, forget-me-nots and primroses, while a brave yellow jasmine starred with golden flowers covered the walls of the cottage. I asked after her sister's health, and Miss Lydia begged me to come in and rest for a few minutes; which I did, for I was horribly tired. But this was one of Miss Belinda's bad days, and her sister, who watches every variation in colour in the hollow cheeks and deep-set eyes of the invalid, saw that she was unable to speak, and motioned me out of the room. She showed me into her own little sanctum, and gave me a cushioned chair by the window, and said: "Do wait for a few minutes and rest. I can see that my sister wants to say something to me, but she is always more than usually inarticulate when she is in one of these nervous states."

I have been thinking a good deal about old maids lately—one has time to think about all manner of subjects when one is lying down most of the day. Mrs. Fielden is of opinion that an old maid may have an exaggerated sense of humour. To my mind her danger may be that she is always rather pathetically satisfied with everything. She prefers the front seat of a carriage and the back seat of a dog-cart, and the leg of a chicken and a tiny bedroom. Doubtless this is a form of self-respect. This suitability of tastes on the part of an old maid enables her to say, as she does with almost suspicious frequency, that she gets dreadfully spoiled wherever she goes. Adaptability to environment is the first law of existence, and yet there may have been times, even in the life of an old maid, when she has yearned for the wing of a chicken.

The little room into which Miss Lydia ushered me was plainly furnished, but Miss Lydia says that she is always getting something pretty given to her to add to her treasures. Her room is, indeed, rather suggestive of a stationer's shop window, where a card with "Fancy goods in great variety" is placed. It would not be unkind to hint of some of the articles on the table and on the wall-brackets that they must have been purchased more as a kindly remembrance at Christmas-time or on birthdays than from any apparent usefulness to the recipient. There are three twine-cases from which the scissors have long since been abstracted by unknown dishonest persons; and there are four ornamental thermometers, each showing its own fixed and unalterable idea respecting the temperature of the room. A large number of unframed sketches which children have given her are fastened to the wall by pins, or hung on tacks whose uncertain hold bespeaks a feminine hand on the hammer. There are several calendars, and there is quite an uncountable collection of photograph frames, which fall over unless they are propped against something. Most of the photographs are old and faded, and they are nearly all of babies. Babies clothed and unclothed; babies with bare feet and little nightshirts on; babies sucking their thumbs; babies lying prone on fur carriage-rugs; babies riding on their mammas' backs, or sitting on their mammas' knees; babies crowing or crying. No one who has a baby ever fails to send this maiden lady a photograph of it.

Miss Lydia settled me with some cushions in my chair, and shut the doorway leading to her bedroom beyond, where I caught sight of a painted iron bedstead, and a small indiarubber hot-water bottle hanging from one of its knobs. It is Miss Lydia's most cherished possession, and she generally speaks of it reverently as "the comfort of my life."

Poor Miss Lydia! Hers must be, I think, a lonely life, sacrificed patiently to an invalid and almost inarticulate sister, and yet it is the very solitude of this little chamber which is one of the few privileges to which she lays claim. It is to this little room, with its humble furnishings, that all her troubles are taken, and it is here by the window that she can sit with folded hands and think perhaps of something in life which surely poor Lydia has missed. It is here she prays for those whose sins weigh far more heavily upon her than they do upon themselves, and it is here that she can pause and question with gentle faith the perplexities of life.

Miss Lydia tells my sister that she makes a thorough examination of her room every night before she goes to bed, to see if there is a burglar concealed anywhere. The movable property in the tiny house is probably not worth many pounds, as a pawnbroker appraises things, and it would be a hardened thief that could deprive the sisters of their small possessions; but the dread remains—the dread of burglars and the dread of mice. Were it not for the look of the thing, she would almost rather discover a burglar than a mouse—"for at least burglars are human," she explains, "and one might be able to reason with them or pray for them, but who shall control the goings of a mouse?"

Sometimes these fears become quite a terror to Lydia Blind, and she once said that she felt so defenceless that she thought it would be a great comfort to have a male defender to protect her.

It is the only unmaidenly remark she ever made, and it makes her blush in the dark when she thinks of it. She believes every one remembers it with as vivid a distinctness as she does, and she trembles to think what sort of construction may have been put upon her words by ill-natured or thoughtless persons. It is a real trouble to her; but then all her troubles are real, and so are her bitter repentances over perfectly imaginary sins. But she has her little room and her faded photographs—life has its consolations.

CHAPTER IV.

Kate Jamieson, who is the independent member of The Family, and has been in a situation for some years as companion to a lady at Bath, has written home what she calls a "joint-letter" to apprise the whole of her family at one and the same time that she is engaged to be married. The excitement which this letter produced in the little household is hardly possible to describe. The news arrived when the Jamiesons were at breakfast. Perhaps I should mention, before going any further, that the Jamiesons' only extravagance is to take in three daily papers. One is an evening paper, which arrives at breakfast-time, and the other two are morning publications, which arrive at the same hour. It is customary for the members of this family each to read his own particular paper aloud during the entire meal, the rest of the party read their letters to each other, and there are still left several voices to demand what you will have for breakfast, to inquire how you have slept, and to comment upon the weather. So that from half-past eight until nine a cross-fire of conversation is going on all the time....

"I see Hearne has scored sixty-eight at cricket, not out. That's not bad, you know. Kent ought to be looking up. The Australians are doing well. Yorkshire might do better. Extraordinary! Here's this chap who promised so well bowled for a duck!" This from the eldest son of the House of Jamieson; while at precisely the same moment may be heard the voice of Maud: "I must say I am rather astonished at the way boleros have remained in. This is one of the prettiest designs I have seen this year. How soon one gets accustomed to small sleeves. Well, I cannot say I like these Chesterfield fronts."

Mrs. Jamieson is meanwhile reading aloud the columns of births, deaths, and marriages from beginning to end. Her limited acquaintance with the outside world might seem to preclude her from any vivid interest in those who must necessarily only be names to her, yet she finds subject-matter for comment through the entire perusal of the column. Needless to say, Mrs. Jamieson inclines to regard only the sadder aspects of these natural occurrences, and her comments thereupon are full of a sort of resigned melancholy. From her corner of the table may be heard the plaintive words: "Here's a young fellow of twenty-four taken," or, "Fourscore years, well, well, and then passed away!" While the happier news of birth provokes her to hark back to an announcement of a similar nature in the family, perhaps only a year ago, and to talk of the responsibilities and the expense that the poor young couple will have to undergo. Mettie, who spends the greater part of every day writing letters, and whose chief joy in life is to receive them, reads the whole of her correspondence aloud from beginning to end; while Margaret Jamieson, behind the teapot, is letting off rapid volleys of questions respecting individual tastes about cream and sugar, and the Pirate Boy offers ham-and-eggs or sausages in a deep stentorian bass.

In the midst of this confusion of noise, when only a Jamieson, whose ear is curiously trained to it, can possibly hear what is being said, Mrs. Jamieson bursts into tears and, in the strong Kentish dialect of her youth, exclaims: "Here's our Kate going to be married!"

After the first burst of delighted surprise, there is a family feeling of apology towards Maud. That Kate should marry first is surely a little disloyal to the beauty of Belmont, and Mrs. Jamieson goes so far as to say: "Never mind, Maud; it will be your turn next."

After that, they all, singly and severally, recall their previously-expressed opinion that they knew something was up, and that certainly Kate could not have given them a more pleasant or more unexpected surprise.

The letter is then read aloud, and it is so long that one is glad to think that the absent Kate did not attempt to duplicate it, but contented herself with the Pauline method of one general epistle. With the Jamieson characteristic of telling everything exhaustively, Kate writes:—

"Mr. Ward is not at all bad-looking; a little hesitating in his manner, and inclined to be untidy—you see, I am telling you everything quite candidly—but of course I can remedy all these defects when we are married. He has a short brown moustache, and rather a conical-shaped head." (This is a fault that one feels Kate will not be able to remedy, even when she has married him.) "He looks clever, though I do not think he is, very; he is well-connected, but does not know all his best relations. Poor, but with generous instincts"—one feels as though a chiromancist were reading a client's palm—"well-read, but without power of conveying intelligence to others; hair rather thin, and (I am afraid) false teeth; very religious, but I consider this in him more temperament than anything else. He has had a hard life, and not always enough to eat, until his uncle died; but now he could be quite independent if he liked, but he prefers the position which a Government appointment gives him.

"I hope to bring him down to stay when I return; please let him have the south bedroom, as that is the warmest, and I do not think James is very strong. I should like him to have a fire at night—I can arrange that with mother, as I feel quite well off now. We are to be married in July, and I am giving up my post here at once, so as to see something of you all before I go away."

At this point the letter referred once more to Mr. Ward's personal appearance, and the description was of so great length that when Margaret Jamieson, who had run all the way from her home to ours to give it to us to read, asked me breathlessly what I thought about it, I determined to leave unread the remaining paragraphs, and to judge for myself of the bridegroom when he should come to Belmont and we should be invited to meet him.

"There is one thing," said Mrs. Jamieson when, at the request of The Family, Palestrina went to sit with her one afternoon a few weeks later, to support her through the trying ordeal of waiting for Kate and "James," as he is now familiarly called, to arrive; "the girls have nothing to be ashamed of in their home." She looked with a certain amount of pardonable pride at the clean white curtains, and we gathered that we were meant to comment upon their early appearance. The white curtains, Palestrina says, are not usually put up at Belmont until the first week in May.

"They look very handsome," I said. It was a Jamieson afternoon—very wet, but clearing up about sundown, and Palestrina had suggested my escorting her as far as Belmont. But the rain came down in torrents again when I would have started to return home, and the good Jamiesons begged me to stay, to avoid the chance of a chill, and to meet James.

"It is the first break in the family," said Mrs. Jamieson tearfully, "since poor Robert died. But, as James says, he hopes I am gaining a son and not losing a daughter." From which I gathered that James was a gentleman given to uttering rather a stale form of platitude.

All were waiting in a state of great trepidation the arrival of the engaged couple, and it was quite hopeless to avoid the encounter, for the rain descended in sheets outside, and preparations for supper seemed to be going on in the dining-room at Belmont. It was decided, by universal consent, that only Mrs. Jamieson and Palestrina and I should be in the drawing-room at the moment when they should enter. The presence of strangers, it was thought, would make it easier for James at the meeting where all were kinsfolk except himself. With their usual consideration The Family decided that the rest of their large number should afterwards drop in casually, two by two, and be introduced to the new brother-in-law without ceremony. Mrs. Jamieson, who had not left the house that day, nor for many days previously, having been absorbed in preparations for the expected guest, was dressed in a bonnet and her favourite jacket with the storm-collar, which, as she explained to my sister, took away from the roundness of her face and gave her confidence.

Her habitual shyness, added to her fears of the unknown in the shape of the future son-in-law, had wrought her into a sort of rigid state in which conversation seemed impossible, and although we did our best to divert her attention I am doubtful if she heard a word we said.

"They should be here soon," I remarked presently.

Mrs. Jamieson, following some line of thought of her own, remarked that the first marriage in a family was almost like a death; and to this mournful analogy I gave assent.

"Kate says he is quite a gentleman," hazarded Mrs. Jamieson, still rigid, and now white with anxiety and shyness.

I found myself replying, without overdone brilliance, that that seemed a good thing.

The sands of Mrs. Jamieson's courage were running very low. "I hope he is not one of your grandees," she said apprehensively; "I would not like to think of Kate not being up to him. But their father was a gentleman—the most perfect gentleman I ever knew, and I have always that to think of. Still, a gentlemanly man is all I want for any of my girls, with no difference between the two families."

Sometimes in this way Mrs. Jamieson gives one an unexpected insight into the difficulties of her life, and one feels that even her admiration for her daughters may be tinged with a slight feeling of being their inferior. I have heard her say, making use of a French expression such as she hazards so courageously, that there is something of the "grawn dam about Maud;" and perhaps the loyal admiration thus expressed may have been mingled with another sensation not so pleasurable to the farmer's daughter.

I endeavoured to follow the intricacies of her train of thought, but the station omnibus had stopped at the gate, and the moment of supreme excitement had arrived.

Kate entered first. This was probably the crowning moment of her life. She came in with a little air of assurance that already suggested the married woman, and having kissed her mother she said in a proprietary sort of way: "This is Mr. Ward, mamma."

Mr. Ward had a curious way of walking on his toes; he came into the room as though tip-toeing across some muddy crossing on a wet day, and shook hands with a degree of nervousness that made even Mrs. Jamieson appear bold. One can hardly be surprised at Kate for having mentioned that he has a conical-shaped head, for it is of the most strange pear-shape, and the sparse hair hangs from a ridge behind like a fringe. He sat down and locked his knees firmly together, with his clasped hands tightly wedged between them, while Kate made inquiries about the rest of the family, and I plunged heavily into remarks about the weather and the state of the roads. It was a great relief when two of the sisters entered, in their best silk blouses, even although they repeated exactly what I had said a moment before about the weather and the mud. Five minutes later, according to preconceived arrangement, two other sisters came in and were kissed by Kate, and introduced by her to James. We had unconsciously taken up our position in two straight lines facing James, and it is no exaggeration to say that by this time shyness was causing great beads of perspiration to stand out on poor James's pear-shaped head. "Surely they will spare him any more introductions before supper," I thought; but the door had again opened, and Mettie and the Pirate Boy entered, and some unhappy chance was causing these last comers to comment upon the weather and the state of the roads, and to extend the line of chairs now facing James. We began to make feverish little remarks to each other, as though we were all strangers, and Palestrina asked Eliza if she were fond of dancing. George Jamieson, the eldest brother, was the last to enter the room, and Kate said: "George, I am sure James would like to unpack before supper;" and the unhappy James tip-toed out between the two lines of chairs, with his eyes fixed upon the carpet.

"Well?" said Kate. And as The Family was The Family of Jamieson, that of course was a signal for each member of it to say the kindest thing that could possibly be said for the new arrival. Margaret found that he had kind eyes. And Eliza said: "Not intellectual, but a good man." Eliza, it must be remarked in passing, is the intellectual sister, with a passion for accurate information, and for looking up facts in the "Encyclopedia Britannica." Maud found that even his shyness was in his favour, and disliked men who made themselves at home at once. Mettie remarked that marriage was a great risk. This is one of poor little Mettie's platitudes, which she makes with faithful regularity upon all occasions. The Pirate Boy preferred, perhaps, a more robust development, and throwing out his own chest, he beat it with a good deal of violence, and said he would like to put on the gloves with Mr. Ward. Mrs. Jamieson could be got to say nothing but "Poor fellow, poor fellow!" at intervals. But Gracie, the youngest daughter, remarked that she was sure that they would all get to like him immensely in time.

Kate looked grateful, and spoke with her usual fine common sense. "What I say is," she remarked, "that of course no one sees James's faults more clearly than I do, but then I don't see why any of us should expect perfection. We haven't much to offer: I am sure I have neither looks, nor money, nor anything. And, after all, it's nice to think of one of us getting married—and I was no bother about it," said the independent Kate. "I mean, The Family had not to help, or chaperon me, or ask James down to stay."

The sisters assented to this in a very hearty, congratulatory sort of way; and then, as the rain had ceased, I took my leave, but Palestrina was persuaded to stay and have supper. Kennie offered, in a doughty fashion, to see me home. The boy's kindness of heart constitutes him my defender upon many occasions, and he always looks disappointed if I do not take his arm. I do not think that the peaceful country road in the waning twilight could be considered a dangerous one, even to a cripple like myself; but Kennie, armed with a large stick and wearing a curious felt hat turned up at one side, appeared a most truculent defender, and regarded with suspicion all the pedestrians whom we met. Did but a country cart pass us, Kennie made a movement to ward off the danger of a collision with his arm. There is something in my helpless condition which, quite unconsciously I believe, produces a very valorous frame of mind in the Pirate, and he beguiled the whole of the way home with stories of his own prowess, and of the hair-breadth escapes which he had had.

"I only once," he said, "had to take a human life in self-defence. Curiously enough"—Kennie's voice deepened, and he spoke with the air of a man who will spare a weak fellow-mortal all he can in the telling of his tale, and he enunciated all his words with a measured calm which was very impressive—"curiously enough, it was on the Thames Embankment!" Kennie cleared his throat, and dropping the deep bass voice of reminiscence, he began the history in a high-pitched tone of narrative. "I was walking home alone one night from the City, when a very strange, low fellow accosted me, and asked me for some money. The man's destitute appearance appealed to me, and unfortunately I gave him threepence. I suppose the action was about as dangerous a thing as I could have done. It showed that I had money, and I was practically defenceless while feeling in my pockets. The Embankment at that time of the evening was almost deserted; I could see the shipping in the river and the lights, and even passing cabs, but I was strangely alone, and still the man followed me. At last, in desperation, I raised my stick to drive him from me, and the next moment he had grappled with me! Instantly my blood was up!" The Pirate Boy stood still in the middle of the highroad, and went through a series of very forcible pantomimic gestures, and with awful facial contortions, indicative of violent exertion, he raised some imaginary object above his head and flung it from him. "The next moment," said Kennie, "I heard a splash. I had vanquished the man, and flung him far from me, straight from the Thames Embankment into the river."

I was prepared to make an exclamation, but was prevented by Kennie, who said in a dramatic sort of way, "Wait!" and went on with his story. "My instinct was to plunge after him, but I heard no sound, no cry, and from that day to this that struggle by the water's edge remains as one of the most vivid experiences of my life—in England, at least. But the man's end remains a mystery: I can tell you nothing more of him."

"I think I would have fished the poor wretch out," I said, and moved onwards on our walk, our pause in the public highway having lasted a considerable time.

"One learns rough justice out there," said Kennie.

CHAPTER V.

Miss Taylor was really responsible for the formation of the Stowel Reading Society, but Eliza Jamieson was her staunch supporter. Eliza drew the line at poetry and metaphysics, "Neither of which," she said, "I consider an exact science."

Miss Taylor said: "But it is not a scientific course that I propose; it is English literature in its fullest sense. I do think that Stowel is getting behind the rest of the world in its knowledge of the best literature, and I am sure that if a Reading Society were founded The Uncle would be pleased to choose books and send them to us from London."

To no one, perhaps, is the specializing definite article felt to be more appropriate than to Sir John. It seems to distinguish him from ordinary human beings; and it is felt to be indicative of a considerable amount of good taste and good feeling on the part of the Taylors to drop the General's title when conversing with their intimate friends, and to refer to him merely as "The Uncle." When we call upon the Taylors we always ask how The Uncle is.

Eliza Jamieson became the Society's secretary and treasurer in one, and she it was who in her neat hand transcribed the letter, which all had helped to compose, to ask The Uncle what works in English literature it would be advisable for the Reading Society to get. His reply was read aloud at one of the first meetings, and each eulogized it in turn as being "courtly," "gentlemanly," "manly," and "concise." It could not but be felt, however, that as a guide to a choice of literature the letter was disappointing:—

"DEAR MADAM" (it ran),

"I much regret that I am unable to help you in any way about your books. I read very little myself, except the newspapers, though I occasionally take a dip into one of my old favourites by Charles Lever. I think a cookery-book is the most useful reading for a young lady, and she would be best employed studying that, and not filling her head with nonsense. This is the advice of a very old fellow, who remembers many charming girls years ago who knew nothing about advanced culture...."

It was a distinct salve to the Society's feelings to note that the letter was written on paper stamped with the address of a military club, and instead of copying it, and making an entry of it in the minutes of the Reading Society, it was pasted into the notebook, as it was thought the autograph and the crest were "interesting."

Since the foundation of the Reading Society there has followed a period during which the young ladies of Stowel have written essays, and have met in each other's drawing-rooms to read poetry aloud, to their own individual satisfaction and to the torture of other ears.

Mrs. Fielden did not join the Society, her plea being that poetry is merely prose with the stops in the wrong places, and therefore very fatiguing to read, and very obscure in its meaning. But Eliza has worn us out with books of reference, and we have become so learned and so full of culture that it is impossible to say where it will all end. My own library has been ransacked for books—I think it is the fact of my having a library that has made our house a sort of centre for the Reading Society. We criticize freely all contemporary literature, and base our preference for any book upon its "vigorous Saxon style."

Eliza has written two reviews for the local newspaper, pointing out some mistakes in grammar in one of the greatest novels of the day, and this naturally makes us feel very proud of Eliza. Those of us who plead for an easy flowing style consider that she has an almost hypersensitive ear for errors in the use of the English accidence. A split infinitive has heretofore hardly arrested our attention; now we shudder at its use: while the misuse of the word to "aggravate," which up to the present we believed in all simplicity to mean to "annoy," causes the gravest offence when employed in the wrong sense. Books from the circulating library have been known to be treated almost like proof-sheets, and corrections are jotted down in pencil on the margin of the leaves. Even the notes which ladies send to each other are subject to revision at the hands of the recipient. Ordinary conversation is now hardly known in Stowel, and tea-parties take the form of discussions. The spring weather is so warm that I generally have my long chair taken on to the lawn in the afternoons, and tea is sometimes brought out there when the meetings of the Reading Society are over. But tea, and even pound-cake, are thrown away upon young ladies who partake of it absently, and to whom all things material and mundane—these words are often used—must now be offered with a feeling of apology.

Major Jacobs rode over to see me this afternoon, and we had not long enjoyed the repose of deckchairs and cigarettes under the medlar-tree, and the songs of birds which have begun nesting very early this year, and the quiet rumbling of heavy wagons that pass sometimes in the highroad beyond the garden, when the Reading Society in a body joined us from the house, and I heard my sister give directions for tea to be brought out on to the lawn. The other day I heard Palestrina tell a friend of hers that she nearly always contrived to have some one to tea, or to sit with Hugo in the afternoon, and my sister's satisfaction increases in direct proportion to the number of people who come.

We had hardly finished tea when Frances Taylor said suddenly, yet with the manner of one who has risen to make a speech on a platform, "Was Coleridge a genius or a crank?"

Eliza, assuming the deep frown of learning which is quite common amongst us nowadays, was upon her in a moment, and said emphatically, "How would you define a genius?" The Socratic habit of asking for a definition is one that is always adopted during our discussions, and it is generally demanded in the tone of voice in which one says "check" when playing chess. Frances Taylor was quite ready for Eliza, and said, "Genius, I think, is like some star——"

"Analogy is not argument!" Eliza pounced upon her in the voice that said, "I take your pawn."

It will be noticed, I fear, that in Stowel we are not altogether original in our arguments—many of them can be traced, alas! to the "Encyclopædia Britannica," and they are not often the outcome of original thought.

Frances Taylor's king was once more in check, and she became a little nervous and irritable. "I do not think we need go into definitions," she said; but Eliza had gone indoors to "look it up." She returned presently with a dictionary, walking across the lawn towards us with its pages held close to her near-sighted eyes. "A genius," she began, and then she glanced disparagingly at the title of the book, and said, "according to Webster, that is—but I do not know if we ought to accept him as a final authority—is explained as being 'a peculiar structure of mind which is given by Nature to an individual which qualifies him for a particular employment; a strength of mind, uncommon powers of intellect, particularly the power of invention.' A crank," she went on, "in its modern meaning, seems hardly to have been known to the writer of this dictionary; the word is rendered literally, as meaning 'a bend or turn.'"

"Then I submit," said Miss Taylor, "that Coleridge was a genius."

Miss Tracey said in a very sprightly manner—she often astonished us by showing a subtle turn of mind, and a graceful aptitude for epigram which, it was believed, could only have found its proper field in those salons which are now, alas! things of the past—"Let us write him down a genius and a crank! The two"—she advanced her daring view bravely—"the two are often allied." She had a volume of Coleridge on her bookshelves, and prided herself upon her appreciation—unusual in a woman—of the "Ancient Mariner."

"A genius in italics, and a crank followed by a mark of interrogation!" said Eliza in a brilliant fashion; and Miss Taylor, not to be beaten in a matter of intellect, said at once, "Did Bacon write Shakespeare's plays?"

Mrs. Gallup and Mr. Lee were quoted extensively.

Miss Taylor could only suggest, with a good deal of quiet dignity, that she could write to The Uncle and find out who is right. This of course closes the controversy for the present.

George Jamieson, who goes to town every day, gains advanced views from the magazines which he reads during his dinner-hour in the City, and he is a great assistance to the Reading Society. I contribute the use of my library, and I have heard the members of the Reading Society say that "women are the true leaders of the present movement, and already their influence is being felt by the male mind."

George brought with him the current number of the Nineteenth Century when he came home last Friday, instead of Pearson's or the Strand, and already there are whispers of a Magazine Club in Stowel. Miss Frances Taylor received nothing but books on her last birthday, and Palestrina told me a pathetic little story of how Gracie Jamieson went without a pair of shoes to buy a copy of Browning. Perhaps the climax of culture and learning was felt only to have been reached when Eliza introduced the expression "Hypothesis of Purpose" into an ordinary conversation at the conclusion of one of the meetings of the Reading Society.

After this, as Palestrina remarked, it was quite refreshing to hear that the curate's wife had got a new baby. It was born on Sunday, and the anxious father spent his days bicycling wildly to and fro between his own house and the church, hopelessly confusing his reading of the service, and then flying back to inquire about his wife's health. Led by him we prayed successively for fine weather and for rain, while the Sunday-school teachers' meeting was announced for 2 a.m. on the following Saturday, and the Coal Club notices were inextricably confused with the banns of marriage. After each service the distracted little man would leap on his bicycle again, and, scattering the departing congregation with his bicycle bell, he was off down the hill to his house. His perturbation was nothing compared with the confusion at home, where, so far as I could make out, the bewildered household did nothing but run up and down stairs, and madly offer each other cups of tea.

My sister's kind heart suggested that we should have Peggy, the eldest child, to stay with us until her mother should be better. Is it necessary to mention the fact that Palestrina is fat and very pretty, and that she spoils me dreadfully? Do I want a book, I generally find that Palestrina has written for it, almost before I had realized that life was a wilderness without it. I have never known her out of temper, nor anything else but placid and serene. And she has a low, gurgling laugh, and a certain way of saying, "Oh, that will be very nice!" to any proposal that one makes, which one must admit makes her a very charming and a very easy person to live with. She is fond of children, and she announced to Peggy with a beaming smile this morning that she had a new little brother.

Peggy went on quietly with her breakfast for some time without making any remark; then she gave a little sigh, and said: "Mamma thought she had enough children already, but I suppose God thought otherwise."

Peggy has been in low spirits all day, and closely following some line of reasoning of her own she has flatly refused to say her prayers at bedtime.

Mrs. Fielden rode over to see us this morning, in her dark habit and the neat boots which she loves to tap with her riding-crop. She came into the dim hall like the embodiment of Spring or of Life, and sat down in her oddly-shaped habit as though she were at home and in no hurry to go off anywhere else. This gives a feeling of repose to a sick man. One knew that she would probably stop to luncheon, and that one would not have to say to her half a dozen times in the morning, "Please don't go."

Presently Margaret Jamieson, who had been doing the whole work of the curate's household during the late trying time, came with the baby in her arms to show him to Palestrina. Her manner had a charming air of matronliness about it, and she threw back the fretted silk of the veil that covered the face of the little creature in her arms with an air of pride that was rather pretty to see. But Eliza, who had raced over to our house in the usual Jamieson headlong fashion, to say something to us on the subject of textual criticism, looked severely at the infant through her glasses, and remarked that she had no sympathy whatever with that sort of thing. Margaret hugged the baby closer to her, and Mettie, who had pattered over to see us with her cousin Eliza, remarked that children and their upbringing were doubtless among the great risks of matrimony.

"I am sure," said Eliza, "when one sees how happy Kate is with James, it makes one feel that marriage is not so very great a risk after all."

That there should be an element of sarcasm in this remark did not even suggest itself to Eliza.

"We should all be thankful," piped forth Mettie, who is always ready to talk, "that it has turned out so well. Kate's courage and independence of mind seem exactly suited to Mr. Ward. But that is what I think about us all at Belmont; our characteristics are so different that any gentleman coming amongst us might find something to attract him in one, if not in the others. Margaret is our home-bird, and Eliza is so cultured, and Kate——"

The two Miss Jamiesons were looking very uncomfortable, and Margaret said, "O Mettie, dear!" while Mrs. Fielden made an excuse for walking over to the piano. There was a piece of music open upon it. "Do sing it," she said to Palestrina.

THE GAY TOM-TIT.

"A tom-tit lived in a tip-top tree,
And a mad little, bad little bird was he.
He'd bachelor tastes, but then—oh dear!
He'd a gay little way with the girls, I fear!

"Now, a Jenny wren lived on a branch below,
And it's plain she was vain as ladies go,
For she pinched her waist and she rouged a bit.
With a sigh for the eye of that gay tom-tit.
She sighed, 'Oh my!'
She sighed, 'Ah me!'
While the tom-tit sat on his tip-top tree-tree-tree.
And she piped her eye
A bit-bit-bit
For the love of that gay tom-tit-tit-tit.

"She saw that her rouge did not attract,
So she tried to decide how next to act:
She donned a stiff collar and fancy shirt,
And she wore, what is more, a divided skirt.
Then she bought cigarettes and a big latch-key,
And she said, 'He'll be bound to notice me!'
But she found her plan did not work one bit,
For he sneered, as I feared, did that gay tom-tit.
He sneered, 'Oh my!'
He sneered, 'Oh lor!
What on earth has she done that for-for-for?'
And he winked his eye
A bit-bit-bit,
That giddy and gay tom-tit-tit-tit.

"'Alas! no more,' said the poor young wren,
'Will I ape the shape of heartless men!'
So she flung cigarettes and big latch-key
With a flop from the top of the great green tree.
And she wouldn't use rouge or pinch her waist,
But she dressed to the best of a simple taste;
Then she learned to cook and sew and knit—
'What a pearl of a girl!' said the gay tom-tit.
Said he, 'Good day!'
Said she, 'How do?'
They were very soon friends, these two-two-two.
And I'm bound to say
In a bit-bit-bit
She married that gay tom-tit-tit-tit."

Thus sang Palestrina.

"Ethically considered, my dear Palestrina," said Eliza, "that song is distinctly unmoral."

"Don't let us consider it ethically," said Palestrina tranquilly; and she went over and sat in the corner of the sofa with several pillows at her back.

"Ethically considered," repeated Eliza, "that song, if one pursues its teaching to a logical conclusion, can only mean that all female social development is impossible, and that the whole reason for a woman's existence is that she may gratify man."

"They are really not worth it," murmured Mrs. Fielden, who was in a frivolous mood.

"And mark you," said Eliza, in quite the best of the Reading Society manner: "it does not suggest that that gratification may be inspired either by our beauty or by our intellect; indeed, it proves that such powers are worthless to inspire it. It postulates the hypothesis"—Eliza is really splendid—"that man is a brute whose appreciation can only be secured by ministering to his desire for food and suitable clothing, and that woman's whole business is to render this creature complacent."

"Don't you think things are much pleasanter when people are complacent?" said my sister easily.

Eliza fixed her with strong, dark eyes. "Were I describing you in a book," she said—one feels as though Eliza will write a book, probably a clever one, some day—"I should describe you as a typical woman, and therefore a pudding. A dear, tepid pudding, with a pink sauce over it. Very sweet, no doubt, but squashy—decidedly squashy. Some day," said Eliza triumphantly, "you will be squashed into mere pulp, and you will not like that."

This did not seem to be a likely end for Palestrina. Eliza continued: "Who will deny that men are selfish?"

"But they are also useful," said Mrs. Fielden in an ingenuous way. "They open doors for one, don't you know, and give one the front row when there is anything to be seen, even when one wears a big hat; and they see one into one's carriage—oh! and lots of other useful little things of that sort."

"Admitted," said Eliza, "that women have certain privileges—have they any Rights?"

Mrs. Fielden admitted that they had not. "But," she said, "I don't really think that that is important. The men whom one knows are always nice to one, and I don't think it matters much what the others are."

"Rank individualism," said Eliza. And she said it without a moment's hesitation, which gave us a very high opinion indeed of her powers of speech. "It is the fashion to say that each woman has only one man to manage, and she must be a very stupid woman if she cannot manage him; but there are thousands of women who, being weaker morally and physically than their particular man, can do nothing with him, and it is not fair to leave their wrongs unredressed because you are comfortable and happy."

"Still, you know," said Mrs. Fielden thoughtfully, "one cannot help wishing that they could get what they want without involving us in the question. You see, if they got their rights we should probably get ours too, and then I'm afraid we should lose our privileges."

"You are like the man," said I, "who could do quite well without the necessaries of life, but he could not do without its luxuries."

"What a nice man it must have been who said that!" exclaimed Mrs. Fielden. "It would be quite easy to do without meat on one's table, but it would be impossible to dine without flowers and dessert."

It must be admitted that Eliza had the last word in the argument after all.

"Just so," she said; "and all life shows just this—that a woman has, with her usual perverseness, chosen a diet of flowers and dessert with intervals of starvation, instead of wholesome meat and pudding."

CHAPTER VI.

"We shall have to ask the engaged couple to dinner," I said to Palestrina one morning a few days later. "And I suppose one or two more of the rest of The Family would like to be asked at the same time."

"I never know in what quantities one ought to ask the Jamiesons," said my sister, "nor how to make a proper selection. It seems invidious to suggest that Kate and Eliza and Margaret should come, and not Maud and Gracie; and yet what is one to do? The last time that you were away from home I wrote and said, 'Will a few of you come?' And Mrs. Jamieson, the Pirate Boy, and four sisters came."

"One feels sure," I replied, "that the Jamiesons thought that was quite a modest number to take advantage of your invitation. One knows that had they been inviting some girls from a boarding-school they would have included the entire number of pupils."

Palestrina protested that as the meal to which our friends were to come was dinner, it would be only reasonable to invite the same number of ladies and gentlemen; and to this I assented. She suggested asking the Darcey-Jacobs, whom we had not seen for a long time.

Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs is a woman who always affords one considerable inward amusement, being herself, I believe, more conspicuously devoid of humour than any one else I have ever met. Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs has never been known to see a joke. That she herself should appear to any one in a humorous light would, I know, appear an inconceivable contingency to her. She has a high Roman nose, and rather faded yellow hair, which was her principal claim to beauty when a girl. It is even now thick and long, and is always worn in a sort of majestic coronet on the top of her head. Her manner is somewhat formidable and emphatic, and the alarm which this engenders in timid or diffident persons is increased by the habit she has of accentuating many of her remarks by a playful but really somewhat severe rap over the knuckles of the person she is addressing, with her fan or lorgnettes. She dresses handsomely in expensive materials somewhat gaudy in colour, and she has an erect carriage, of which she is very proud. Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs has a good deal to say on the subject of the feeble-mindedness of the male sex, and when something has been proved impossible of attainment by them she always says, "A woman could have done it in five minutes."

At the time of her marriage, Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs (Miss Foljambe she was then) was a dowerless girl with two admirers, Major Jacobs and Mr. Morgan. Not being, it would seem, a young lady of very deep affections, her choice of a husband was decided entirely by the extent of the worldly prospects he could offer, and the Major, being the better match of the two, was accepted. But how cruel are the tricks that fate will sometimes play! Not long after her marriage Mr. Morgan not only inherited a large fortune, but shortly afterwards left this world for a better, and Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs is in the habit of remarking, with a good deal of feeling, "If I had only chosen the other I might have been a happy widow now!"

Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs lives in our quiet country neighbourhood during the greater part of the year, on the distinct understanding that she loathes every hour of it. When she goes abroad or to London she talks quite cheerfully of having had one breath of life. So fraught with happy successes are these pilgrimages in her brocaded satin gowns into the outer world that she often says that were she but free she might have the world at her feet to-morrow. And she has been known to refer to the Major, still in the tone of cheerful resignation and with her emphasizing tap of the fan, as "a dead weight round her neck."

The Major himself is a guileless person, whose very simplicity causes his wife more exquisite suffering than even a husband of keen, vindictive temper could inflict.

Does Mrs. Jacobs give a dinner-party, it is not unusual for the master of the house to remark in a congratulatory tone from his end of the table, "What has Mullens been doing to the silver, my dear? it looks unusually bright;" while his greeting to his friends as they arrive at his house, though distinctly cordial, often takes the form of a hearty "I had no idea that we were going to see you to-night." As Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs always sends some kind message from the Major in her notes of invitation, this of course is most disconcerting, both for her and for her guests. This year when they were in Italy a friend of ours in the same hotel overheard a lady ask the Major if he were related to the Darceys of Mugthorpe. "I really can't tell you," said the Major; "the Darcey was my wife's idea."

"Four Jamiesons," I said, "and the Darcey-Jacobs, and our two selves. Isn't it humiliating to think that we have invariably to invite the same two men to balance our numbers at a dinner-party? I can't help remarking that Anthony Crawshay and Ellicomb are present at every dinner-party in this neighbourhood, as surely as soup is on the table."

"We might ask Mrs. Fielden," said Palestrina; "she is sure to have some colonels with her. Besides, I love Mrs. Fielden, though people say she is a flirt. I think most men are in love with her; some propose to her, and some do not, but they all love her."

"Even when she refuses to marry them?"

"I have heard Mrs. Fielden say that an offer of marriage should be refused artistically," said Palestrina. "She says young girls hardly ever do it properly, and that they are brusque and brutal. I suppose she herself has some charming way of her own of refusing men which does not hurt their feelings. I believe," said Palestrina, "that she would marry Sir Anthony Crawshay if he could play Bridge."

"Anthony is an excellent fellow," I said.

Mr. Ellicomb is a young man of High Church principles and artistic tastes who has taken an old Tudor farmhouse in the neighbourhood, and has furnished it very well. He waxes eloquent on the monstrous inelegance of modern dress, and the decadence of Japanese art, and he says he would rather sit in the dark than burn gas in his house, and he dusts his own blue china himself. In his house it is a sign of art to divert anything from its proper use, and to use it for another purpose than that for which it was originally intended. Poor Ellicomb uses a cabbage-strainer as a fern-pot, a drain-tile for an umbrella-stand, his mother's old lace veils as antimacassars, bed-posts as palm-stands, a linen press as a book-case, and a brass spittoon for growing lilies. It is almost like playing at guessing riddles to go over his house with him, and to try and discover for what purpose some of his things were originally created. Their conversion to another use is, I am sure, a very high form of art.

"There are the Jamiesons," said my sister, as we sat in the hall ready to receive our guests.

It does not require any occult power to sit indoors and to be able to distinguish the Jamiesons' carriage-wheels from those of the other arrivals, for the Jamiesons have, as usual, employed the "six-fifty" bus on its return journey from the station to set them down at our gate. It is quite a subject of interest with our neighbours to find themselves fellow-passengers with the young ladies, in their black skirts and their more dressy style of bodice concealed beneath tweed capes. And it generally gets about in Stowel circles before the evening is over, or certainly soon after the morning shopping has begun, that the Miss Jamiesons have been dining at such or such a house. Even the bus conductor has a sympathetic way of handing the young ladies into his conveyance when they are going out to dinner, and he fetches a wisp of straw and wipes down the step if the night is wet.

Mr. Ward piloted the independent Kate up the short carriage-drive with quite an affectionate air of solicitude, frequently inquiring of her if she did not feel her feet a little damp; and Kate answered cheerfully and kindly, feeling, no doubt, that this sort of fussing was one of the drawbacks of prospective matrimony, but that it was only right to accept the little attentions in the spirit in which they were made. The Pirate Boy, who followed with his sister Maud, begged her to take his arm in a burly fashion, and fell a little distance behind. The Pirate Boy thinks that it is etiquette to place himself at a distance from any engaged couple, even during the shortest walk. He does so even when he makes the untoward third in a party. On these occasions he falls behind and puts on an air of abstraction a little overdone. The Jacobs arrived next, and then Anthony Crawshay, who drove over in his high dog-cart, with its flashing lamps and glittering wheels—a very good light-running cart it is; Anthony and I used often to drive in it together—and Ellicomb arrived in a brougham, in which we have a shrewd suspicion that there is a foot-warmer.

Maud began to flirt with Mr. Ellicomb directly. I have never known her to be for long in the society of a gentleman without doing so, and her sisters are wont to say of Maud that she certainly has her opportunities, while the criticism of an unprejudiced observer might be that she certainly makes them. Mr. Ellicomb, it is believed, has written an article in one of the magazines on the reformation of men's clothing, and it is hoped he will become a member of the Reading Society. He ate very little at dinner, and talked in a low, cultured voice about Church matters the whole of the evening, and uttered some very decided views upon the subject of the celibacy of the clergy.

"I must say," said Major Jacobs, "that I also approve of celibacy in the Church, and I may say in the army and in the navy. If I had my life to live over again——"

"William!" said Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs in an awful voice.

William was about to retreat precipitately from his position, but catching sight perhaps of a sympathetic eye turned upon him from that good comrade of his, Anthony Crawshay, he blundered on,—

"If Confession, now, became more general in the English Church," he said, "secrets confided to the clergy could hardly be kept inviolate. A clergyman's wife might almost—well, not to put too fine a point on it—wring from him by force the secret that had been committed to him."

"I hope so, indeed," said Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs.

"The Anglican Church," said Mr. Ellicomb, "recognizes that difficulty, and has met it in the persons of the Fathers of the Church."