Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family

Part 1, Chapter XVIII.
Doubts

It was nearly twelve o’clock, and in spite of her efforts, Sage Portlock’s thoughts had wandered a good deal from the work she had in hand. It was the morning upon which Luke Ross’s appointment was to be confirmed, and her face flushed as she thought of the time when he would be conducting the next school, and the future looked very rosy and bright, for she told herself that in secret she was very fond of Luke.

Julia and Cynthia Mallow had been there to take a class and chat with her for a few minutes, Cynthia being ready with a sly allusion to the business upon which papa had been left.

“We are going to pick up papa after he has fastened your schoolmaster, Sage,” she said; “but first of all we are going to drive over to the farm and see Mrs Berry and the little ones. When does she go away?”

“To-morrow, Miss Cynthia,” said Sage, turning rather white, “and – and she is not very well. Would you mind not calling, Miss Julia?”

“Oh, no, certainly not,” said Julia; “but I am sorry. Give our kind love to her, Sage, and say we will drive over to Lewby some day and see her there.”

“Thank you, Miss Julia,” said Sage, and she gladly saw the school visitors depart, with the intention of going on to the ford.

Sage sighed as she stood at the door and saw the sisters get into the handsomely appointed carriage that was waiting, and then she wished that she had asked them when they were going back to London, for it seemed to her that both she and Rue would feel happier and more at ease if the Mallow family were gone.

Then she recalled her last meeting with Luke at home, and his words upon learning – short conversation interrupted by her aunt – that there was to be no engagement until he had realised a better income than would accrue from the schools.

“That does not matter,” she said, brightening up. “Luke is so brave and determined, and has such spirit, that he will soon become rich enough for us to marry, and, of course, we can wait.”

There was no impatience in Sage’s love for Luke Ross. She told herself that she was very fond of him, and some day they would be man and wife, but when did not seem to her to matter, and she busied herself once more, light-hearted enough, with the children.

Then came the beginning of another train of thought, and there was once more a slight flush in her cheeks as her mind turned to Cyril Mallow, his coming to the school with his father, his meeting and speaking to her once or twice when she was leaving school, and then, too, of his coming to the farm to sit, and smoke, and talk with her uncle.

The colour deepened in her cheeks a little more as she thought of all this; but, directly after, she drove these thoughts away, and busied herself with the conclusion of the morning lessons.

Twelve o’clock, and the buzz and hurry of the dismissal, and then the pleasant scent of the cool outer air as the windows were thrown open, and again the bright elasticity of feeling as, well wrapped in warm furry jacket and with her natty little, not-too-fashionable hat setting off the freshness of her complexion and youthful looks, she started for her brisk walk along the lane and across the field to the farm.

She had to pass Mrs Searby’s cottage on her way, where that worthy woman with upturned sleeves was standing at the open door in converse with another of the mothers whose children attended the school.

“Good-morning,” said Sage, as she passed them, and the second woman returned the salutation; but Miss Searby’s mamma replied by giving her an uncompromising stare, and saying aloud before the young mistress was out of hearing —

“Ah, she’s going to meet young Cyril Mallow. Nice goings on, indeed, for one like her.”

Sage’s cheeks turned scarlet as she hurried on, and a strange feeling of shame and confusion troubled her. It was nothing that she was perfectly innocent of any such intent, she felt horribly guilty all the same, and it was only by a great effort that she kept back the hot tears of indignation.

Then her conscience smote her with the recollection that she had thought a good deal of Cyril Mallow lately, and she asked herself whether she was turning traitorous to Luke Ross, but only to indignantly repel the self-inflicted charge.

It was monstrous, she told herself. She was sure that she loved Luke very dearly, as she always had from a child, when he had been like a brother to her. Some day when he had climbed higher she would be his wife, for she was sure her uncle never meant all that he had said. He was too fond of her, and too eager to do all he could to make her happy.

“Such a shameful thing to say! A wicked woman!” exclaimed Sage then; “as if I ever thought – Oh!”

She quickened her steps with her face growing scarlet once more, the red flush having died out to leave it pale, for there were footsteps behind her coming on quickly, and it was Cyril Mallow, she felt, hurrying to catch her; and that was why the spiteful woman had spoken in that bitter way.

The steps were coming nearer in spite of Sage’s efforts to get home before she was overtaken. Pat, pat, pat, pat! just as her heart was beating with excitement. She felt frightened, she hardly knew why, and dreaded being overtaken by Cyril, who seemed to have obtained some power over her that she could not understand.

He was very pleasant spoken, and frank, and manly-looking, but she did not like him nor his ways, for she was sure that he was a bad son.

“I wonder whether he would try to improve if I asked him, and pointed out how wrong it is of him to be so much trouble to his parents,” thought Sage; and then she shivered with a strange kind of dread.

Why had she thought all that? What was Cyril Mallow to her? It was only out of civility that he had spoken to her as he had, but she felt that it was out of place, and that Mr Mallow would not have approved of it at all, and – and it was very dreadful.

As a rule, Sage Portlock was a firm, determined girl, full of decision and strength of character, but the words of the spiteful woman seemed to have quite unnerved her, and with the sense of being very guilty, and of having behaved treacherously to Luke Ross, she had hard work to keep from starting off, and breaking into a run.

“And he is coming on so quickly,” she thought. “He will overtake me before I get to the gate. How dare he follow me about like this, and why is not Luke here to protect me!”

Sage Portlock’s excitement had thoroughly mastered her, and she uttered quite a hysterical little cry, as the steps drew quite near now, and a voice exclaimed —

“Why, Sage, I almost had to run.”

“Luke!”

“Yes; Luke,” he replied, smiling, as he took her hand in his. “Who did you think it was?”

“I – I – didn’t know; I wanted to get home quickly,” she faltered. “I did not know it was you.”

“I know that,” he said, drawing her hand through his arm, “or else you would have stopped, wouldn’t you?”

“Why, of course, Luke,” she said, smiling in his face, and with a calm feeling of rest and protection coming over her disturbed spirit.

“I’m glad I caught you,” he said. “Let’s walk slowly, for I’ve a great deal to say to you before you go in.”

“But, first of all, tell me, Luke, dear,” she cried eagerly, “is the appointment confirmed?”

“No.”

“No? Not confirmed? Then, that wicked old Bone – ”

“That wicked old Bone of contention,” he said, laughingly taking her up, “has had very little to do with it. At one time I thought that it would be very cruel to take his post, but I do not think so now.”

“But not confirmed, Luke?” she cried, stopping short and clinging to his arm, the picture of bitter disappointment. “Why, this is the meaning, then, of the opposition uncle spoke of yesterday. Who has dared to stop you from having the school?”

“You,” said Luke, as he gazed admiringly in her animated face.

“I, Luke? I?” she exclaimed, in a puzzled way.

“Well, it is through you, dear,” he said, smiling.

“But I have done nothing, Luke,” she cried. “You are teasing me! Has the meeting taken place?”

“Yes; I have just come from it.”

“Well? Mr Bone was there I know, for he gave the boys a holiday, so that he might come.”

“Yes, he was there, evidently looking upon me as the greatest enemy he had in the world till he heard me decline the post.”

“You? – you declined the post, Luke?”

“Yes, I declined the post.”

“And you told me you loved me,” she said, reproachfully, as she drew back.

“As I do with all my heart,” he cried, taking her hand, and drawing it through his arm once more. “Sage, dear, it is because I love you so well that I have declined to take the school.”

“When it was so near,” she cried; and her tears seemed to have stolen into her voice. “And now you will go and take a school ever so far away. Oh, Luke,” she cried, piteously, “it is too bad!”

“Hush, little one,” he said, firmly. “It is not like you to talk like that. I shall not take a school far away, though I shall have to leave you. Sage, dear, I have felt that I must give up present pleasure for a future joy.”

“I – I – don’t understand you,” she cried; “your talk is all a puzzle to me.”

“Is it, dear? There, it shall not be long. You know what your uncle said to me the other day?”

“Oh, yes, Luke; but I don’t think he quite meant it.”

“I am sure he did mean it,” he replied; “and he is quite right. For the past year I have been learning lessons of self-denial, and been taught to place the schoolmaster’s duty above questions of a pecuniary kind; but your uncle has placed my position in a practical light, and, Sage, dear, it is as if all the past teaching has been undone.”

“Oh, Luke, Luke,” she cried, “don’t talk like that!”

“I must. I have had another talk with your uncle. This morning I overtook him, and he asked me, as a man, whom he says he can trust, to set aside all love-making, as he called it in his homely Saxon-English, and to treat you only as a friend! ‘Let matters stand for the present, and see what a couple of years bring forth, if you are doing well,’ he said, ‘in your new position.’”

“In your new position, Luke? Why, what do you mean?”

“Sage, dear, I have decided to set aside the idea of being the master of a school.”

“Oh, Luke!”

“And to read for the bar.”

“Read for the bar?”

“Yes, read for the bar: become a barrister; and I shall work hard to win a name.”

“But the school, Luke – the training college. It is not honest to take advantage of their teaching, gain all you can, and then take to some other career.”

“You think that?” he said, smiling. “Yes, of course,” she said, indignantly. “The principal at Westminster spoke very warmly about two of the students giving up their schools directly, and taking situations as governesses in good families.”

“I quite agree with her,” said Luke, quietly; “and I have appraised the cost to the institution at fifty pounds. That sum I feel bound to send. It is quite as much as so bad a master as I should have turned out is worth.”

“Oh, Luke, that is nonsense,” she cried, as she looked proudly in his face.

“Nay,” he said, “it is truth. And now listen to me. This has all been very sudden.”

“Yes, and you never said a word to me.”

“I came and told you as soon as I knew,” retorted Luke, firmly. “And now I say once more this has been very sudden, but it is irrevocably in obedience to your uncle’s wishes. I shall exact no promises from you, tie you down in no way, but go away in perfect faith that in a few years as the reward of my hard struggle, and when I can go and say to your uncle, ‘See, here, I can command the income you said that I ought to have!’ you will be my little wife.”

“But must you go away, Luke?” she said, with a pitiful look in her eyes.

“Yes, it is absolutely certain. How could I climb up in the world if I stayed here?”

“But I don’t want you to go,” she cried, excitedly.

“And I don’t want to leave you,” he said, fondly.

“I want you to stop and protect me, and take care of me and keep me for yours, Luke.”

“Don’t – don’t talk like that,” he cried, speaking hoarsely, “or you will make me forget my promise to your uncle. Let us be firm and true, and look the matter seriously in the face. It is for our future, and I pray and believe that I am acting wisely here.”

“But you will be away,” she said, with a piteous look in her eyes. “There will be no one to take care of me when you are gone.”

“Nonsense, little one,” he exclaimed. “There is your uncle. What have you to fear? Only be true to me.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” she sobbed; “but you do not know, Luke. I might be tempted, I might be led away from you – I might – ”

“Might!” he said, with scorn in his voice. “My little Sage, whom I have known from the day when she gave me first her innocent sisterly love, could not be untrue to the man she has promised to wed. Sage, dear,” he continued, holding her hands in his, and gazing in her agitated, tearful face, “look at me – look me fully in the eyes.”

“Yes, Luke,” she said, hesitatingly; and her pretty, troubled face looked so winning that it was all he could do to keep from clasping her in his arms tightly to his own trusting breast.

“Now,” he said, smiling, “you see me. Can you doubt, dear, that I should ever be untrue to you?”

“No, no! oh, no, Luke,” she cried.

“Neither could I, dearest,” he said, softly. “I am a very plain, unimpulsive man, wanting, perhaps, in the soft speech and ways that are said to please women; but I think my heart is right, and that in spite of my quiet ways I love you very, very dearly.”

“I know, I know you do,” sobbed the girl.

“Yes, and I trust you, my dear,” he said. “I know that you could never give look or word to another that would cause me pain.”

“No, no, dear Luke, I could not,” she sobbed; “but I want you with me. I cannot bear for you to leave me helpless here.”

“Nonsense, my little pet,” he said, tenderly. “The years will soon slip by, and then all will be well. There, we understand each other, do we not?”

“Yes, yes, Luke, I think so,” she sobbed.

“One kiss, then, darling, the last I shall take, perhaps, for years, and then – ”

“Oh, no, not now – not now,” she cried, hastily, as he sought to take her in his arms in the sheltered lane. “Uncle is coming with Mr Cyril Mallow;” and then she moaned passionately to herself, “Him again! Oh, Luke, Luke, I wish that I was dead.”

Part 1, Chapter XIX.
Julia’s Horror

Two young men leaning over the park railings on a bright spring morning, when the soot-blackened, well-worn grass that had been suffering from a winter’s chronic cold was beginning to put forth its tender green shoots and dress itself for the season.

The rather muddy drive was on one side, the Serpentine on the other, and indications that London was coming to town could be seen in the increasing string of carriages.

One of the young men was undoubtedly dressed by Poole – well dressed; and he looked worthy of his tailor’s care. Frank, manly, handsome, there was a pleasant look in his grey eyes; and if his fair moustache had not been quite so heavy, a well-cut firm mouth would have been better seen. Perhaps that very glossy hat was worn a trifle too much on one side, and with the well set up appearance it suggested military, but the gold horse-shoe pin with diamond nails directly after hinted equine: the result being a compromise, and the looker-on concluded cavalry.

The other was of a heavier build, and was decidedly not dressed by a good tailor. He was not shabby, but careless; and while his companion was carefully gloved, he carried his hand-shoes in his hands, and certainly his hat had not been touched by a brush that morning.

He was a good-looking, manly fellow, with very short hair and a very long beard, thick enough to hide three parts of his chest.

The judge of human nature who had tried to read him at a glance, would, if right, have said, “Good fellow, somewhat of a cynic, don’t care a sou for appearances.”

Two of the characters in this comedy, to wit, Henry Lord Artingale, man of fashion with a good income; and James Magnus, artist of a manly school, who had cut deeply his mark upon the time.

Another character was seated upon a bench some twenty yards away, cutting his mark, not on the time, but upon the park seat, with an ugly, sharp-pointed clasp-knife, which he closed with a snap, and then threw one great leg over the newly-cut wood, as he seemed to feel more than see the appearance of a policeman, who ran his eye shrewdly over the fellow as if considering him a “party” likely to be “wanted.”

Jock Morrison looked decidedly like the proverbial fish out of water as he stared sullenly about, but not as one might stare who finds himself in an incongruous position by accident. About the only ill-dressed person in his neighbourhood, Jock seemed in no wise abashed, nor yet the worse for his course of imprisonment, his dark beard having rapidly grown and got well over the blacking-brush stage so affected by the Parisian “swell.” Far from seeming abashed, Jock Morrison was ready with a cool, defiant look for every one not in the law, and as a rule those who stared at the great swarthy fellow once were satisfied not to repeat the look.

Jock was evidently in the park for a purpose, and every now and then his eyes wandered over the lines of carriages, but without seeing that of which he was in quest, and as soon as the policeman was gone he once more opened his knife, and began to carve, handily enough, a new design – this time a couple of hearts locked together after the time-honoured fashion shown in a valentine.

“That’s about as picturesque-looking a blackguard as I’ve seen for months,” said Magnus, looking across the road at where the fellow lounged. “I wonder whether he’d come and stand for me.”

“H’m, yes,” said his companion; “nice-looking youth.”

“He’d make a splendid bull-fighter in a Spanish scene.”

“H’m, bull-dog fighter, I should have said, Mag. By the way, I’d have a certificate from the baths and wash-houses before I admitted him to the studio. He looks disgustingly dirty.”

“Yah! horrible! Take me away, Harry. I feel as if I were going to be sick.”

“Why, what’s the matter now?”

“Talk about that great blackguard looking disgusting: here’s my great horror!”

“What, Perry-Morton?”

“Yes. Look at his hideously fat, smooth face, and his long greasy hair tucked behind his ears. Look at his open throat, and – confound the animal, yes – a crimson satin tie. Harry, I shall be had up one of these days for an atrocious assault upon that creature. I shall lie in wait for him like a bravo, and armed with a pair of new scissors I shall cut his hair. Is it possible to prevail upon him to go about clothed, and in his right mind?”

“For shame, Jemmy! and you a brother artist.”

“Brother artist be hanged! You don’t call that thing an artist.”

“Why, my dear boy, he’s acknowledged in society as the apostle of the poet-painters’ school.”

“Good God!”

“My dear boy, do restrain yourself,” laughed the other.

“I can’t help it. I do like a man to be a man, and for goodness’ sake look at that thing.”

“That thing,” as Magnus so contemptuously dubbed him, was certainly striking in appearance, as the open carriage in which he was riding came to a standstill, and he signed to the footman to let him out. For as he descended it was to stand upon a very thin pair of legs that in no sense corresponded with his plump, white, boyish face.

It was a handsome, well-appointed carriage from whose front seat he had alighted, the back being occupied by two ladies of between twenty and thirty, who looked as if their costume had been copied from a disinterred bas-relief; so cold and neutral were their lines that they might have been lady visitors to the Grosvenor Gallery, instead of maidens to whom the word “aesthetic” was hardly known. For the Graeco-Roman extended to their hair, which stood out from their foreheads, looking singed and frizzed as if scorched by the burning thoughts that were in their brains; for even in those days there were ladies who delighted to belong to the pre-Raphaelic cum fleshly school of painting and poetry, and took pains to show by their uniform that they were of the blessed.

As the footman folded the steps and closed the door, the gentleman – to wit, Mr Perry-Morton, of Saint Agnes’, Park Road – posed himself in an artistic attitude with one arm upon the carriage-door, crossed one leg over the other, and gazed in the faces of his sisters, one delicately-gloved hand in correct harmony of tint playing with a cambric handkerchief, specked with toy flowers of the same tone.

As he posed himself, so did the two ladies. The nearer curled herself gracefully, all but the legs, in a pantherine style in the corner of the carriage, and looked at her brother sweetly through the frizz of hair, as if she were asking him to see if there were a parting. The further drooped over florally in a manner that in another ordinary being would have suggested crick in the neck, but here, as with her brother and sister, everything was so deliriously unstudied – or well studied – that she only gave the idea of a bending flower – say, a bud – or a pallid virgin and martyr upon painted glass.

“Oh, Lord!” said Magnus, aloud.

“Hush! don’t. Come along, though. Gently, man, or they’ll see us, and we shall have to talk to the girls.”

“I’m an ostrich,” said the artist; “my head is metaphorically buried in sand. Whatever my pursuers see, I am blind.”

As it happened a group of people came along, and under their cover the two young men escaped.

“He is an awful fool,” said Artingale, “but the people believe in him.”

“Bah! so they will in any lunatic who makes himself fashionably absurd. I’ll be reasonable, Harry, though that fellow has half driven me wild with his airs and patronage. He gave me a thumping price for one of my pictures, for he’s immensely rich. Then he had the impudence to want me to alter it – the composition of months of hard, honest study – and began to lecture me on art.”

“From his point of view.”

“Yes, from his point of view. But as I said, I will be reasonable. There is a deal in this pre-Raphaelitism, and it has done its part in reviving some of the best of the ancient art, and made its mark on our schools of to-day. But there it was not allowed to stop. A pack of idiots – there, I can call them nothing else – go into frantic worship of all the worst portions of old art, and fall down and idolise things that are ugly, ill-coloured, and grotesque.”

“True, O magnate! and they’ll grow worse.”

“They imitate it in their paintings, drawing impossible trees, landscapes, and houses for backgrounds, and people their foregrounds with resurrections in pigment of creatures that seem as if they had been dead and buried for a month, and clothe them in charnel-house garb.”

“Bravo! charnel-house garb is good.”

“Thankye, Polonius junior,” said the artist; “I tell you, Harry, I get out of patience with the follies perpetrated under the name of art, to the exclusion of all that is natural and beautiful and pure. Now I ask you, my dear boy, would you like to see a sister of yours dressing up and posing like those two guys of girls?”

“Haven’t got a sister, worse luck, or you should have her, old fellow.”

“Thanks. Well, say, then, the woman you loved.”

“Hush! stop here, old fellow. Here they come.”

“Who? Those two stained-glass virgins?”

“No, no, be quiet; the Mallow girls.”

There was so much subdued passion in the young man’s utterance that the artist glanced sidewise at him, to see that there was an intensity of expression in his eyes quite in keeping with his words, and following the direction of his gaze, he saw that it was fixed upon a barouche, drawn by a fine pair of bays, which champed their bits and flecked their satin coats with foam as they fretted impatiently at the restraint put upon them, and keeping them dawdling in a line of slow-moving carriages going east.

There was another line of carriages going west between the two young men and the equipage in question, and Magnus could see that his companion was in an agony of dread lest his salute should not be noticed, but, just at the right moment, the occupants of the barouche turned in their direction, acknowledged the raised hat of Lord Artingale, and, the pace just then increasing, the carriage passed on.

“Feel better?” said Magnus, cynically.

“Better? yes,” cried the young man, turning to him flushed and with a gratified smile upon his face. “There, don’t laugh at me, old fellow, I can’t help it.”

“I’m not going to laugh at you. But you seem to have got it badly.”

“Awfully,” replied the other.

“Shouldn’t have thought it of you, Harry. So those are the Mallow girls, eh?”

“Yes. Isn’t she charming?”

“What, that girl with the soft dreamy eyes? Yes, she is attractive.”

“No, man,” cried Artingale, impatiently; “that’s Julia. I mean the other.”

“What, the fair-haired, bright-looking little maiden who looks as if she paints?”

“Paints be hanged!” cried Artingale, indignantly, “it’s her own sweet natural colour, bless her.”

“Oh, I say, my dear boy,” said Magnus, with mock concern, “I had no idea that you were in such a state as this.”

“Chaff away, old fellow, I don’t care. Call me in a fool’s paradise, if you like. I’ve flirted about long enough, but I never knew what it was before.”

“Then,” said Magnus, seriously, “you are what they call – in love?”

“Don’t I tell you, Mag, that I don’t care for your chaff. There, yes: in love, if you like to call it so, for I’ve won the sweetest little girl that ever looked truthfully at a man.”

“And the lady – does she reciprocate, and that sort of thing?”

“I don’t know: yes, I hope so. I’m afraid to be sure; it seems so conceited, for I’m not much of a fellow, you see.”

“Let’s see, it happened abroad, didn’t it?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. I met them at Dinan, and then at Baden, and afterwards at Rome and in Paris.”

“Which means, old fellow, that you followed them all over the Continent.”

“Well, I don’t know; I suppose so,” said the young man, biting his moustache. “You see, Mag, I used to know Cynthia when she was little and I was a boy – when the governor was alive, you know. I was at Harrow, too, with her brothers – awful cads though, by the by. She can’t help that, Mag,” he said, innocently.

“Why, Artingale, it makes you quite sheepish,” laughed the artist. “I wish I could catch that expression for a Corydon.”

“For a what?”

“Corydon – gentle shepherd, my boy.”

“Get out! Well, as I was telling you, old fellow, I met them abroad, and now they’ve come back to England, and they’ve been down at the rectory – Lawford Rectory, you know, six miles from my place. And now they’ve come up again.”

“So it seems,” said Magnus, drily.

“Chaff away, I don’t mind,” said Artingale.

“Not I; I won’t chaff you, Harry,” said the other, quietly. “’Pon my soul I should miss you, for you and I have been very jolly together; but I wouldn’t wish you a better fate than to have won some really sweet, lovable girl. It’s a fate that never can be mine, as the song says, and I won’t be envious of others. Come along.”

“No, no, don’t let’s go, old fellow. They’ll only drive as far as the corner, and then come back on this side. Perhaps they’ll stop to speak. If they do, I’ll introduce you to Julia; she’s a very nice girl.”

“But not so nice as, as – ”

“Cynthia,” said the other, innocently. “No: of course not.”

Magnus burst out laughing, and his friend looked at him inquiringly.

“I could not help it, old fellow,” exclaimed Magnus; “you did seem so innocent over it. But never mind that. Plunge head foremost into the sweetest life idyll you can, and, worldly-minded old sinner as I am, I will only respect you the more.”

He spoke so sincerely, and in such a feeling tone, that the younger man half turned and gazed at him, saying directly after —

“Thank you, old fellow; I’m not demonstrative, so just consider that I have given you a hearty grip of the hand.”

“All right,” was the gruff reply. “Hallo! here comes my brigand. By Jove, he’s a fine-looking specimen of the genus homo. He’s six feet two, if he’s an inch.”

Jock Morrison, who seemed at home beneath the trees, came slouching along with his hands deep in his pockets, with a rolling gait, the whole of one side at a time; there was an end of his loose cotton neckerchief between his teeth, and a peculiar satisfied smile in his eye which changed to a scowl of defiance as he saw that he was observed.

“I say, my man,” said Magnus, “would you give me a sitting, if I paid you?”

“Would I give you what?” growled the fellow. “I don’t let out cheers.”

Before Magnus could explain himself, the man had turned impatiently away, and gone on towards Kensington Gardens.

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Artingale. “Our friend is not a model in any way. Have a cigarette, old fellow?”

The artist took one, and they stood smoking for a few minutes, till Artingale, who had been watchfully looking in the direction of the Achilles statue, suddenly threw down his half-smoked cigarette, for the Mallow carriage came into sight, and, as the young man had hoped, a voice cried “stop!” and the coachman drew up by the rails.

“Ah, Harry!” cried Cynthia, leaning forward to shake hands, and looking very bright and charming in the new floral bonnet that had caused her such anxiety that morning; “I didn’t know you had come up to town.”

“Didn’t you,” he replied, earnestly. “I knew you had. I went over to the rectory yesterday, and saw your brothers.”

“Oh, Harry!” cried Cynthia, blushing with pleasure.

“It didn’t matter; I drove over to do the horse good,” said the young man, shaking hands warmly with Julia in turn. “Here, let me introduce my friend Magnus. Julia, this is James Magnus. Cynthia, Magnus the artist.”

“Lord Artingale has often spoken of you, Mr Magnus,” said Cynthia, looking at him rather coquettishly, in fact as if she was better used to London society than the quietude of a country rectory. “He has promised to bring me some day to see your pictures.”

“I shall only be too proud to show you what I am doing,” said the artist, meeting frankly the bright eyes that were shooting at him, but which gave him up directly as a bad mark, as he turned and began talking to Julia Mallow, who seemed to have become singularly quiet and dreamy, but who brightened up directly and listened eagerly, for she found that Magnus could talk sensibly and well.