XVIII…

XVIII

It was the first Sunday in July. Under a sky of pure and cloudless blue the village of St. Rest lay cradled in floral and foliage loveliness, with all the glory of the morning sunshine and the full summer bathing it in floods of living gold. It had reached the perfect height of its annual beauty with the full flowering of its orchards and fields, and with all the wealth of colour which was flung like spray against the dark brown thatched roofs of its clustering cottages by the masses of roses, red and white, that clambered as high as the tops of the chimneys, and turning back from thence, dropped downwards again in a tangle of blossoms, and twined over latticed windows with a gay and gracious air like garlands hung up for some great festival. The stillness of the Seventh Day's pause was in the air,--even the swallows, darting in and out from their prettily contrived nests under the bulging old-fashioned eaves, seemed less busy, less active on their bright pinions, and skimmed to and fro with a gliding ease, suggestive of happy indolence and peace. The doors of the church were set wide open,--and Adam Frost, sexton and verger, was busy inside the building, placing the chairs, as was his usual Sunday custom, in orderly rows for the coming congregation. It was about half-past ten, and the bell-ringers, arriving and ascending into the belfry, were beginning to 'tone' the bells before pealing the full chime for the eleven o'clock service, when Bainton, arrayed in his Sunday best, strolled with a casual air into the churchyard, looked round approvingly for a minute or two, and then with some apparent hesitation, entered the church porch, lifting his cap reverently as he did so. Once there, he coughed softly to attract Frost's attention, but that individual was too much engrossed with his work to heed any lesser sound than the grating of the chairs he was arranging. Bainton waited patiently, standing near the carved oaken portal, till by chance the verger turned and saw him, whereupon he beckoned mysteriously with a crook'd forefinger.

"Adam! Hi! A word wi' ye!"

Adam came down the nave somewhat reluctantly, his countenance showing signs of evident preoccupation and harassment.

"What now?" he demanded, in a hoarse whisper-'"Can't ye see I'm busy?"

"O' coorse you're busy--I knows you're busy,"--returned Bainton, soothingly--"I ain't goin' to keep ye back nohow. All I wants to know is, ef it's true?"

"Ef what's true?"

"This 'ere, wot the folks are all a' clicketin' about,--that Miss Vancourt 'as got a party o' Lunnon fash'nables stayin' at the Manor, an' that they're comin' to church this marnin'?"

"True enough!" said Frost--"Don't ye see me a-settin' chairs for 'em near the poopit? There'll be what's called a 'crush' I can tell ye!- -for there ain't none too much room in the church at the best o' times for our own poor folk, but when rich folks comes as well, we'll be put to it to seat 'em. Mister Primmins, he comes down to me nigh 'arf an hour ago, an' he sez, sez he: 'Miss Vancourt 'as friends from Lunnon stayin' with 'er, an' they're comin' to church this marnin'. 'Ope you'll find room?' An' I sez to 'im, 'I'll do my best, but there ain't no reserve seats in the 'ouse o' God, an' them as comes fust gits fust served.' Ay, it's true enough they're a- comin', but 'ow it got round in the village, I don't know. I ain't sed a wurrd."

"Ill news travels fast,"--said Bainton, sententiously, "Mister Primmins no doubt called on his young 'ooman at the 'Mother Huff' an' told 'er to put on 'er best 'at. She's a reg'ler telephone tube for information--any bit o' news runs right through 'er as though she was a wire. 'Ave ye told Passon Waldon as 'ow Miss Vancourt an' visitors is a-comin' to 'ear 'im preach?"

"No,"--replied Adam, with some vigour--"I ain't told 'im nothin'. An' I ain't goin' to neither!"

Bainton looked into the crown of his cap, and finding his handkerchief there wiped the top of his head with it.

"It be powerful warm this marnin', Adam,"--he said--"Powerful warm it be. So you ain't goin' to tell Passon nothin',--an' for why, may I ask, if to be so bold."

"Look 'ere, Tummas,"--rejoined the verger, speaking slowly and emphatically--"Passon, 'e be a rare good man, m'appen no better man anywheres, an' what he's goin' to say to us this blessed Sunday is all settled-like. He's been thinkin' it out all the week. He knows what's what. 'Tain't for us,--'tain't for you nor me, to go puttin' 'im out an' tellin' 'im o' the world the flesh an' the devil all a- comin' to church. Mebbe he'a been a-prayin' to the Lord A'mighty to put the 'Oly Spirit into 'im, an' mebbe he's got it--just THERE." And Adam touched his breast significantly. "Now if I goes, or you goes and sez to 'im: 'Passon, there's fash'nable folks from Lunnon comin' 'ere to look at ye an' listen to ye, an' for all we kin tell make mock o' ye as well as o' the Gospel itself in their 'arts'-- d'ye think he'd be any the better for it? No, Tummas, no! I say leave Passon alone. Don't upset 'im. Let 'im come out of 'is 'ouse wise an' peaceful like as he allus do, an' let 'im speak as the fiery tongues from Heaven moves 'im, an' as if there worn't no fashion nor silly nonsense in the world. He's best so, Tummas!--you b'lieve me,--he's best so!"

"Mebbe--mebbe!" and Bainton twirled his cap round and round dubiously--"But Miss Vancourt---"

"Miss Vancourt ain't been to church once till now,"--said Adam,-- "An' she's only comin' now to show it to her friends. I doesn't want to think 'ard of her, for she's a sweet-looking little lady an' a kind one--an' my Ipsie just worships 'er,--an' what my baby likes I'm bound to like too--but I do 'ope she ain't a 'eathen, an' that once comin' to church means comin' again, an' reg'lar ever arterwards. Anyway, it's for you an' me, Tummas, to leave Passon to the Lord an' the fiery tongues,--we ain't no call to interfere with 'im by tellin' 'im who's comin' to church an' who ain't. Anyone's free to enter the 'ouse o' God, rich or poor, an 'tain't a world's wonder if strangers worships at the Saint's Rest as well as our own folk."

Here the bells began to ring in perfect unison, with regular rhythm and sweet concord.

"I must go,"--continued Adam--"I ain't done fixin' the chairs yet, an' it's a quarter to eleven. We'll be 'avin 'em all 'ere d'rectly."

He hurried into the church again just as Miss Eden and her boy-and- girl 'choir' entered the churchyard, and Bainton seeing them, and also perceiving in the near distance the slow halting figure of Josey Letherbarrow, who made it a point never to be a minute late for divine service, rightly concluded that there was no time now, even if he were disposed to such a course, to 'warn Passon' that he would have to preach to 'fashionable folks' that morning.

"Mebbe Adam's right," he reflected--"An' yet it do worry me a bit to think of 'im comin' out of 'is garden innercent like an' not knowin' what's a-waitin' for 'im. For he's been rare quiet lately--seems as if he was studyin' an' prayin' from mornin' to night, an' he ain't bin nowhere,--an' no one's bin to see 'im, 'cept that scarecrow- lookin' chap, Adderley, which HE stayed a 'ole arternoon, jabberin' an' readin' to 'im. An' what's mighty queer to me is that he ain't bin fidgettin' over 'is garden like he used to. He don't seem to care no more whether the flowers blooms or doesn't. Them phloxes up against the west wall now--a finer show I never seen--an' as for the lilum candidum, they're a perfect picter. But he don't notice 'em much, an' he's not so keen on his water-lilies as I thought he would be, for they're promisin' better this year than they've ever done before, an' the buds all a-floatin' up on top o' the river just lovely. An' as for vegetables--Lord!--he don't seem to know whether 'tis beans or peas he 'as--there's a kind o' sap gone out o' the garden this summer, for all that it's so fine an' flourishin'. There's a missin' o' somethin' somewheres!"

His meditations were put to an end by the continuous arrival of all the villagers coming to church;--by twos and threes, and then by half dozens and dozens, they filed in through the churchyard, exchanging brief neighbourly greetings with one another as they passed quietly into the sacred edifice, where the soft strains of the organ now began to mingle with the outside chiming of the bells. Bainton still lingered near the porch, moved by a pardonable curiosity. He was anxious to see the first glimpse of the people who were staying at the Manor, but as yet there was no sign of any one of them, though the time wanted only five minutes to eleven.

The familiar click of the latch of the gate which divided the church precincts from the rectory garden, made him turn his head in that direction, to watch his master approaching the scene of his morning's ministrations. The Reverend John walked slowly, with uplifted head and tranquil demeanour, and, as he turned aside up the narrow path which led to the vestry at the back of the church the faithful 'Tummas' felt a sudden pang. 'Passon' looked too good for this world, he thought,--his dignity of movement, his serene and steadfast eyes, his fine, thoughtful, though somewhat pale countenance, were all expressive of that repose and integrity of soul which lifts a man above the common level, and unconsciously to himself, wins for him the silent honour and respect of all his fellows. And yet there was a touch of pathetic isolation about him, too,--as of one who is with, yet not of, the ordinary joys, hopes, and loves of humanity,--and it was this which instinctively moved Bainton, though that simple rustic would have been at a loss to express the sense of what he felt in words. However there was no more leisure for thinking, if he wished to be in his place at the commencement of service. The servants from Abbot's Manor were just entering the churchyard-gates, marshalled, as usual, by the housekeeper, Mrs. Spruce, and her deaf but ever dutiful husband,-- and though Bainton longed to ask one of them if Miss Vancourt and her guests were really coming, he hesitated,--and in that moment of hesitation, the whole domestic retinue passed into church before him, and he judged it best and wisest to follow quickly in silence, lest, when prayers began, his master should note his absence.

The building was very full,--and it was difficult to see where, if any strangers did arrive, they could be accommodated. Miss Eden, in her capacity as organist, was still playing the opening voluntary, but, despite the fact that there was no apparent disturbance of the usual order of things, there was a certain air of hushed expectancy among the people which was decidedly foreign to the normal atmosphere of St. Rest. The village lasses looked at each other's hats with keener interest,--the lads fidgeted with their ties and collars more strenuously, and secreted their caps more surreptitiously behind their legs,--and the most placid-looking personage in the whole congregation was Josey Letherbarrow, who, in a very clean smock, with a small red rose in his buttonhole, and his silvery hair parted on either side and just touching his shoulders, sat restfully in his own special corner not far from the pulpit, leaning on his stick and listening with rapt attention to the fall and flow of the organ music as it swept round him in soft and ever decreasing eddies of sound. The bells ceased, and eleven o'clock struck slowly from the church tower. At the last stroke, the Reverend John entered the chancel in his plain white surplice, spotless as new-fallen snow,-and as he knelt for a moment in silent devotion, the voluntary ended with a grave, long, sustained chord. A pause,--and then the 'Passon' rose, and faced his little flock, his hand laid on the open 'Book of Common Prayer.'

"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive."

Walden's voice rang clear and sonorous,--the sunshine pouring through the plain glass of the high rose-window behind and above him, shed effulgence over the ancient sarcophagus in front of the altar and struck from its alabaster whiteness a kind of double light which, circling round his tall slight figure made it stand out in singularly bold relief.

"If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

A ripple of gay laughter here echoed in through the church doors, which were left open for air on account of the great heat of the day. There was an uneasy movement in the congregation,--some men and women glanced at one another. That light, careless laughter was distinctly discordant. The Reverend John drew himself up a little more rigidly erect, and his face grew a shade paler. Steadily, he read on:--

"Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness; and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God our Heavenly Father, but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent and obedient heart---"

He ceased abruptly. A glimmer of colour,--a soft gliding swish of silken skirts, an affectation of tip-toe movement up the nave,--a wave of indescribable artificial perfume,--and then, a general stir and head-turning among the people showed that a new and unaccustomed element had suddenly merged into the simple human material whereof the village of St. Rest was composed,--an element altogether strange to it, not to say troublous and confusing. Walden saw, and bit his lips hard,--his hand instinctively clenched itself nervously on the 'Book of Common Prayer.' But his rigid attitude did not relax, and he remained mute, his eyes fixed steadily on the fashionably dressed new-comers, who, greatly embarrassed by the interruption their late entrance had caused,--an interruption emphasised in so marked a manner by the silence of the officiating minister, made haste to take the chairs pointed out to them by the verger, with crimsoning faces and lowered eyelids. It was a new and most unpleasant experience for them. They did not know, of course, that it was Walden's habit to pause in whatever part of the service he was reading if anyone came in late,--to wait till the tardy arrivals took their places,--and then to begin the interrupted sentence over again,--a habit which had effectually succeeded in making all his parishioners punctual.

But Maryllia, whose guests they were,--Maryllia, who was responsible as their hostess for bringing them to church at all, and who herself, with Cicely, was the last to enter after service had begun, felt a rebellious wave of colour rushing up to her brows. It was very rude of Mr. Walden, she thought, to stop short in his reading and cause the whole congregation to turn and stare curiously at herself and her friends just because they were a little bit behind time! It exposed them all to public rebuke! And when the stir caused by their entrance had subsided, she stood up almost defiantly, lifting her graceful head haughtily, her soft cheeks glowing and her eyes flashing, looking twenty times prettier even than usual as she opened her daintily bound prayer-book with a careless, not to eay indifferent air, as though her thoughts were thousands of miles away from St. Rest and all belonging to it. Glancing at the different members of her party, she was glad that one of them at least, Lady Eva Beaulyon, had secured a front seat, for her ladyship was never content unless she was well to the foremost of everything. She was a reigning beauty,--the darling of the society press, and the model of all aspiring photographers,--and she could hardly be expected to put up with any obscure corner, even in a church;--if she ever went to the Heaven of monkish legend, one could well imagine St. Peter standing aside for her to pass. Close beside her was another wonderful looking woman, a Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, a 'leader' in society, who went everywhere, did everything, wore the newest coat, skirt or hat from Paris directly it was put on the market, and wrote accounts of herself and her 'smartness' to the American press under a 'nom-de-plume.' She was not, like Lady Beaulyon, celebrated for her beauty, but for her perennial youth. Her face, without being in the least interesting or charming, was smooth and peach-coloured, without a line of thought or a wrinkle of care upon it. Her eyes were bright and quite baby-like in their meaningless expression, and her hair was of the loveliest Titian red. She had a figure which was the envy of all modellers of dress-stands,--and as she was wont to say of herself, it would have been difficult to find fault with the 'chic' of her outward appearance. Painters and sculptors would have found her an affront to nature--but then Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay had no acquaintance with painters and sculptors. She thought them 'queer' people, with very improper ideas. She was exceedingly put out by Walden's abrupt pause in his reading of the 'Dearly beloved,' while she and the other members of the Manor house-party rustled into their places,--and when he recommenced the exordium she revenged herself by staring at him quizzically through a long- handled tortoiseshell-mounted lorgnon. But she did not succeed in confusing him at all, or in even attracting his attention,--so she merely shrugged her shoulders, with what the French call an 'air moqueuse.'

The momentary confusion caused by the pause in the service soon passed, and the spirit of calm again settled on the scene after the 'General Confession.' But Maryllia was deeply conscious of hurt and vexation. It was too bad of Mr. Walden, she kept on. saying to herself over and over again,--too bad! Her friends and herself were only five or six minutes late, and to have stopped in his reading of the service like that to put them all to shame was unkind--'yes, unkind,' she said in her vexed soul,--vexed all the more because she was inwardly conscious that Walden was right and herself wrong. She knew well enough that she could have reached the church at eleven had she chosen, and have brought her friends punctual to time as well. She knew it was neither reverent nor respectful to interrupt divine worship. But she was too irritated to reason the matter out calmly just then,--all she could think of was that she and her London guests had received a reproof from the minister of the parish--silent, but none the less severe--before all the villagers- before her own servants--and on the first occasion of her coming to church, too! She could not get over it.

"If he can see me," she thought, "he will know that I am angry!"

Chafed little spirit!--as if it mattered to Walden whether she was angry or not! He saw her well enough,--he noted her face 'red as a rose,' with its mobile play of expression, set in its frame of golden-brown hair,--it flitted, sunbeam-like between his eyes and the 'Book of Common Prayer'--and, when he ceased reading, while the village choir, rendered slightly nervous by the presence of 'the quality,' chanted the 'O come let us sing unto the Lord,' he was conscious of a sudden lassitude, arising, as he knew, from the strain he had put upon himself for the past few minutes. He was, however, quite calm and self-possessed when he rose to read the Lessons of the Day, and the service proceeded as usual in the perfectly simple, unadorned style of 'that pure and reformed part of Christ's Holy Catholic Church which is established in this Realm.' Now and then his attention wandered--once or twice his eyes rested on the well-dressed group directly opposite to him with a kind of vague regret and doubt. There was an emotion working in his soul to which he could scarcely give a name. Instinctively he was conscious that a certain embarrassment and uneasiness affected the ordinary members of his congregation,--he knew that their minds were disquieted and distracted,--that the girls and women were open-eyed and almost open-mouthed at the sight of the fashionable costumes and wondrous millinery which the ladies of Miss Vancourt's house-party wore, and were dissatisfied with their own clothing in consequence,- -and that the lads and men felt themselves to be awkward, uncouth and foolish in the near presence of personages belonging to quite another sphere than their own. He knew that the showy ephemera of this world had by a temporary fire-fly glitter, fascinated the simple souls that had been erstwhile glad to dwell for a space on the contemplation of spiritual and heavenly things. He saw that the matchless lesson of Christ's love to humanity was scarcely heeded in the contemplation of how very much humanity was able to do for itself even without Christ's love, provided it had money and the devil to 'push' it on! He sighed a little;--and certain words in the letter of his friend Bishop Brent came back to his memory--"Many things seem to me hopeless,-utterly irremediable ... I grow tired of my own puny efforts to lift the burden which is laid upon me." Then other, and stronger, thoughts came to him, and when the time arrived to read the Commandments, a rush of passion and vigorous intensity filled him with a force far greater than he knew. Cicely Bourne said afterwards that she should never forget the thrill that ran through her like a shock of electricity, when he proclaimed from the altar:- -"GOD spake these words and said: Thou shalt have none other gods but me!"

Looking up at this moment, she saw Julian Adderley in the aisle on her left-hand side,--he too was staring at Walden as though he saw the figure of a saint in a vision. But Maryllia kept her face hidden, listening in a kind of awe, as each 'Commandment' was, as it seemed, grandly and strenuously insisted upon by the clear voice that had no tone of hypocrisy in its whole scale.

"Thou shalt NOT bear false witness against thy neighbour!"

Lady Beaulyon forgot to droop her head in the usual studied way which she knew was so becoming to her,--the NOT was so emphatic. An unpleasant shiver ran through her daintily-clothed person,--dear me!--how often and often she had 'borne false witness,' not only against her neighbour, but against everyone she could think of or talk about! Where could be the fun of living if you must NOT swear to as many lies about your neighbour as possible? No spice or savour would be left in the delicate ragout of 'swagger' society! The minister of St. Rest was really quite objectionable,--a ranter,--a noisy, 'stagey' creature!--and both she and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay murmured to each other that they 'did not like him.'

"So loud!" said Lady Beaulyon, breathing the words delicately against her friend's Titian-red hair.

"So provincial!" rejoined Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, in the same dulcet undertone, adding to her remark the fervent--"Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law!"

One very gratifying circumstance to these ladies, however, and one that considerably astonished all the members of Miss Vancourt's house-party, as well as Miss Vancourt herself, was that no 'collection' was made. Neither the church, the poor, nor some distant mission to the heathen served as any excuse for begging, in the shrine of the 'Saint's Rest.' No vestige of a money-box or 'plate' was to be seen anywhere. And this fact pre-disposed them to survey Walden's face and figure with critical attention as he left the chancel and ascended the pulpit during the singing of 'The Lord is my Shepherd.' At the opening chords of that quaint and simple hymn, Cicely Bourne glanced at Miss Eden and Susie Prescott with a little suggestive smile, and caught their appealing glances,--then, as the quavering chorus of boys and girls began, she raised her voice as the 'leading soprano,' and like a thread of gold it twined round all the notes and tied them together in clear and lovely unison:

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want, He maketh me down to lie, In pleasant fields where the lilies grow, And the river runneth by."

Everyone in the congregation stared and seemed stricken with sudden wonderment. Such singing they had never heard before. Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay put up her lorgnon.

"It's Maryllia Vancourt's creature,"--she whispered--"The ugly child she picked up in Paris. I suppose it really IS a voice?"

"It really is, I think!" responded Lady Beaulyon, languidly, turning her fair head to look at the plain sallow girl with the untidy black hair whom she had only seen for a few minutes on her arrival at Abbot's Manor the previous day, and whom she had scarcely noticed. But Cicely saw her not--her whole soul was in her singing,--and she had no glance even for Julian Adderley, who, gazing at her as if she were already the prima donna in an opera, listened enrapt.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; He feedeth me, In the depth of a desert land; And, lest I should in the darkness slip, He holdeth me by the hand."

Maryllia felt a contraction in her throat, and her eyes unconsciously filled with tears. How sweet that hymn was!--how very sweet! Tender memories of her father crowded upon her,--her mother's face, grown familiar to her sight from her daily visits to the now no longer veiled picture in the Manor gallery, shone out upon her from the altar like a glorified angel above the white sarcophagus where the word 'Resurget' sparkled jewel-like in the sunshine,--and she began to feel that after all there was something in the Christian faith that was divinely helpful and uplifting to the soul.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want, My mind on Him is stayed, And though through the Valley of Death I walk, I shall not be afraid!"

Pure and true rang Cicely's young, fresh and glorious voice, carrying all the voices of the children with it on the pulsating waves of the organ chords,--and an impression of high exaltation, serenity and peace, rested on the whole congregation with the singing of the last verse--

"The Lord is my Shepherd: O Shepherd sweet, Leave me not here to stray; But guide me safe to Thy heavenly fold, And keep me there, I pray! Amen!"

During the silence that immediately followed, Walden stood erect in the pulpit, looking down upon the people. He saw Maryllia's face,-- he saw all the eyes of her London friends fixed on him with a more or less critical and supercilious stare,--he saw his own flock' waiting for his first word with their usual air of respectful attention,--every small point and detail in his surroundings became suddenly magnified to his sight,--even the little rose in old Josey Letherbarrow's smock caught his eye with an almost obtrusive flare. The blithe soft carol of the birds outside sounded close and loud,-- the buzzing of a bumble-bee that had found its way into the church and was now bouncing fussily against a sunlit window, in its efforts to pass through what seemed to itself clear space, made quite an abnormal noise. His heart beat heavily,--he fancied he could hear it thudding in his breast,--then, all at once, an inflow of energy rushed upon him as though the 'fiery tongues' of which Adam Frost had spoken, were in very truth descending upon him. Maryllia's face! There it was--so winsome, so bright, and proud and provocative in its every feature,--and the old French damask roses growing in her garden borders could not show a prettier colour than her cheeks! He lifted his hands. "Let us pray!"

The villagers all obediently dropped on their knees. The Manor 'house-party' politely bent their heads.

"Supreme Creator of the Universe, without Whose power and permission no thought is ever generated in the brain of Thy creature, man; Be pleased to teach me, Thy unworthy servant, Thy will and law this day, that I may speak to this congregation even as Thou shalt command, without any care for myself or my words, but in entire submission to Thee and Thy Holy Spirit! Amen."

He rose. The congregation rose with him. Some of the village folks exchanged uneasy glances with one another. Was their beloved 'Passon' quite himself? He looked so very pale,--his eyes were so unusually bright,--and his whole aspect so more than commonly commanding. Almost nervously they fumbled with their Bibles as he gave out the text:--"The twenty-sixth verse of the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew."

He paused, and then, as was his usual custom, patiently repeated-- "The sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, twenty-sixth verse." Again he waited, while the subdued rustling of pages and turning over of books continued,--and finally pronounced the words--"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Here he closed the Testament, leaning one hand upon it. He had resolved to speak 'extempore,' just as the mood moved him, and to make his discourse as brief as possible,--a mere twelve minutes' sermon. For he knew that his ordinary congregation were more affected by a sense of restlessness and impatience than they themselves realised, and that such strangers as were present were of a temperament more likely to be bored, than interested.

"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"--he began, slowly, and with emphasis, his eyes resting steadfastly on the fashionably-attired group of persons immediately under his observation--"This was one of the questions put by the Divine Man Christ, to men,--and was no doubt considered then, as it surely is considered now, a very foolish enquiry. For to 'gain the whole world' is judged as so exceedingly profitable to most people that they are quite willing to lose everything else they have in exchange for it. They will gladly barter conscience, principle, honour and truth to gain 'the whole world'--and as for the 'soul,' that fine and immortal essence is treated by the majority as a mere poetic phrase--a figure of speech, without any real meaning behind it. I know well how some of you here to-day will regret wasting your time in listening, even for a few minutes, to anything about so obsolete a subject as the Soul! The Soul! What is it? A fiction or a fact? How many of us possess a Soul, or THINK we possess one? Of what is it composed, that it should be judged as so much more precious than the Body?--the dear Body, which we pamper and feed and clothe and cosset and cocker, till it struts on the face of the planet, a mere magnified Ape of conceit and trickery, sloth and sensuality, the one unforgivable anachronism in an otherwise perfect Creation! For Body without Soul is a blot on the Universe,--a distortion and abomination of nature, with which nature by and by will have nothing to do. Yet I freely grant that while Soul animates and inspires all creation, man cannot or will not comprehend it; he may, therefore, in part, be condoned for not endeavouring to 'save' what he is not taught to truly recognise. To explain the 'Soul' more clearly, I will refer you all to the Book of Genesis, where it is written--'And God made man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became A LIVING SOUL.' Thus we see that 'Soul' is the breath of God, which is also the Eternal breath of Eternal Life. Each human being is endowed with this essence of immortality, which cannot die with death, being, as it is, the embryo of endless lives to come. This is why it is pre-eminently valuable--this is why we should take heed that it be not 'lost.' It may be argued--'How can anything be lost which is eternally alive?' That proposition is easily answered. A jewel may be 'lost' in the sea, but it is still existent as a jewel. In the same way a man may 'lose' his Soul, though he can never destroy it. It is the 'breath of God'--the germ of immortal Life,-- and if one 'loses' it, another may find it. This is not only religion,--it is also science. In the present age, when all imagination, all poetry, all instinctive sense of the divine, is being subordinated to what we consider as Fact, there is one supreme mystery which eludes the research of the most acute and pitiless materialist--and that is life itself,--its origin, its evolution and its intention. We can do many wonderful things,--but we cannot re- animate the corpse of a friend! Christ could do this, being Divinity incarnate,--but we can only wring our hands helplessly, and wonder where the spirit has fled,--that spirit which made our beloved one speak to us, smile, and exchange the looks which express the emotions of the heart more truly than words. We want the 'Soul' we loved! The inanimate clay, stretched cold in its coffined rest, is a strange sight to us. We do not know it. It is not our friend! Our friend was the 'Soul' that lived in the clay,--the 'breath of God' that moved our own 'Soul' to respond to it in affection and tenderness. And we instinctively know and feel that though this breath of God' is gone from us, it cannot be dead. And 'lost' is not an expression that we would ever apply to it, because we hope and believe it is 'found'--found by its Creator, and taught to realise and rejoice in its own immortality. All religion means this,--the 'finding' of the Soul. The passion of our Saviour teaches this,--His resurrection, His ascension into Heaven, symbolises and expresses the same thing. Yet, in the words of Christ Himself, it would nevertheless seem, that the 'Soul' divinely generated and immortal as it is, can be 'lost' by our own act and will. 'What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' I venture to think the text implies, that in the very attempt to 'gain the whole world,' the loss of the soul is involved. I am not going to detain you here this morning with a long exordium concerning how some of you can and may, if you choose, play havoc with the priceless gift God baa bestowed upon each one of you. I only desire to impress upon you all, with the utmost earnestness, that it is idle to say among yourselves 'We have no souls,' or 'The soul is an unknown quantity and cannot be proved.' The soul is as and actual a part of you as the main artery is of the body,--and that you cannot see it, touch it, or put it under the surgeon's dissecting knife is no proof that it is not there. You might as well say life itself does not exist, because you cannot see its primaeval causes or beginnings. The Soul is the centre of your being,--the compass of your life-journey,--the pivot round which, whether you will or not, you shape your actions in this world for the next. If you lose that mainspring of motive, you lose all. Your conduct, your speech, your expression in every movement and feature all show the ungoverned and ungovernable condition in which you are. God is not mocked,--and in many cases,--taking the grand majority of the human race,--neither is man!"

He paused. The congregation was very quiet. He felt, rather than saw, that Maryllia's eyes were fixed upon him,--and he was perfectly aware that Lady Beaulyon,--whom he recognised, as he would have recognised an actress, on account of the innumerable photographs of her which were on sale in the windows of every stationer in every moderate-sized town,--was gazing straight up at him with a bright, mocking glance in which lurked a suspicion of disdain and laughter. Moved by a sudden impulse, he bent his own regard straight down upon her with an inflexible cool serenity. An ugly frown puckered her ladyship's brow at once,--and she lowered her eyelids angrily.

"I say God is not mocked,"--he continued slowly; "Neither is man! The miserable human being that has 'lost' his or her Soul, may be assured that the 'gain' of the whole world in exchange, will prove but Dead Sea fruit, bitter and tasteless, and in the end wholly poisonous. Loss of the Soul is marked by moral degradation and deterioration,--and this inward crumbling and rotting of all noble and fine feeling into baseness, shows itself on the fairest face,-- the proudest form. The man who lies against his neighbour for the sake of worldly convenience or personal revenge, writes the lie in his own countenance as he utters it. It engraves its mark,--it can be seen by all who read physiognomy--it says plainly--'Let not this man be trusted!' The woman who is false and treacherous carries the stigma on her features, be they never so perfect. The creature of clay who has lost Soul, likewise lacks Heart,--and the starved, hopeless poverty of such an one is disclosed in him, even if he be a world's millionaire. Moreover, 'Soul'--that delicate, divine, eternal essence, is easily lost. Any earthly passion carried to excess, will overwhelm it, and sink it in an unfathomable sea. It can slip away in the pursuit of ambition,--in schemes for self- aggrandisement,--in the building up of huge fortunes,--in the pomp, and show, and vanity of mundane things. It flies from selfishness and sensuality. It can be lost in hate,--it can equally be lost in love!"

Again he paused--then went on--"Yes--for even in love, that purest and most elevating of human emotions, the Soul must have its way rather than the Body. Loss of the 'Soul' in love, means that love then becomes the mere corpse of itself, and must needs decay with all other such dust-like things. In every sentiment, in every thought, in every hope, in every action, let us find the 'Soul,' and never let it go! For without it, no great deed can be done, no worthy task accomplished, no life lived honourably and straightly in the sight of God. It shall profit us nothing to be famous, witty, wealthy, or admired, if we are mere stuffed figures of clay without the 'breath of God' as our animating life principle. The simple peasant, who has enough 'soul' in him to reverently watch the sunset across the hills, and think of God as the author of all that splendour, is higher in the spiritual scale than the learned scholar who is too occupied with himself and his own small matters to notice whether it is a sunset or a house on fire. The 'soul' in a man should be his sense, his sight, his touch, his very inmost and dearest centre,--the germ of all good,--the generator of all peace and hope and happiness. It is the one and only thing to foster,--the one and only thing to save,--the only part of man which, belonging as it does to God, God will require again. Some of you here present to-day will perhaps think for a little while on what I have said when you leave this church,--and others will at once forget it,--but think, forget, or remember as you choose, the truth remains, that all of you, young and old, rich and poor, are endowed in your own selves with the 'making of an angel.' The 'Soul' within you, which you may elect to keep or to lose, is the infant of Heaven. It depends on you for care,--for sustenance;--it needs all your work and will to aid it in growing up to its full stature and perfection. It shall profit you nothing if you gain the whole world, and at death have naught to give to your Maker but crumbling clay. Let the Angel be ready,--the 'Soul' in you prepared, and full-winged for flight! According to the power and purity with which you have invested and surrounded it, will be its fate. If you have voluntarily checked and stunted its aspirations, even so checked and stunted must be its next probation,--but if you have faithfully done your best to nourish it with loving thoughts and noble aims,--if you have given it room to expand and shine forth with all its own original God-born radiance, then will its ascension to a higher sphere of action and attainment be attended with unimaginable joy and glory. Let the world go, rather than lose the Divine Light within you! For that Light will, and must, attract all that is worth knowing, worth loving and worth keeping in our actual environment. The rest can be well spared,--whether it be money, position, notoriety or social influence,--for none of these things last,--none of them are in any way precious, save to such ignorant and misguided persons as are deceived by external shows. The Soul is all! Keep but that 'breath of God' within you, and the world becomes merely one step of the ladder on which you may easily mount through everlasting love upon love, joy upon joy, to the utmost height of Heaven!"

He ceased. For a moment there was a profound stillness. And then, with the usual formula--"Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be praise, honour and glory for ever and ever"--the congregation stood up. Lady Beaulyon shook her silken skirts delicately. Mrs. Bludlip Oourtenay put her hand to her back hair coil and made sure that it was safe. And there was a general stir and movement, which instantly subsided again, as the people knelt to receive the parting benediction. Maryllia's eyes were riveted on Walden as he stretched out his hands;--she was conscious of a certain vague awe and reverence for this man with whom she had so casually walked and talked, only as it seemed the other day;--he appeared, as it were, removed from her by an immeasurable distance,- -his spirit and hers had gone wide apart,--his was throned upon a height of noble ideals,--hers was low, low down in a little valley of worldly nothings,--and oh, how small and insignificant she felt! Cicely's hand caught hers and gave it an affectionate little pressure, as they bowed their heads together under the solemnly pronounced blessing.

"The peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord,"--here Walden turned ever so slightly towards the place where Maryllia knelt; "and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always!"

"A---men!"

With this last response from the choir, the congregation began to disperse, and Walden, glancing over the little moving crowd, saw the eager bustle and pressure of all its units to look at 'the ladies from the Manor' and take stock of their wonderful costumes. The grip of 'the world' was on them, and the only worshipper remaining quietly in his place, with hands clasped across his stick, and eyes closed, was Josey Letherbarrow. The old man seemed to be praying inwardly--his face was rapt and serene. Walden looked down upon him very tenderly. A verse of Browning's ran through his mind:--

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life for which the first was made. Our times are in His hand, Who saith: 'A whole I planned,' Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid!"

And musing on this, he descended slowly from the pulpit and retired.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIX

Outside in the churchyard, there was a general little flutter of local excitement. Maryllia lingered there for several minutes, pointing out the various beauties in the architecture of the church to her guests, not that these individuals were very much interested in such matters, for they were of that particular social type which considers that the highest form of good breeding is to show a polite nullity of feeling concerning everything and everybody. They were eminently 'cultured,' which nowadays means pre-eminently dull. Had they been asked, they would have said that it is dangerous to express any opinion on any subject,--even on the architecture of a church. Because the architect himself might be somewhere near,--or the architect's father, or his mother or his great-grandam--one never knows! And by a hasty remark in the wrong place and at the wrong moment, one might make an unnecessary enemy. It is so much nicer--so much safer to say nothing at all! Of course they looked at the church,--it would have been uncivil to their hostess not to look at it, as she was taking the trouble to call their attention to its various points, and they assumed the usual conventional air of appreciative admiration. But none of, them understood anything about it,--and none of them cared to understand. They had not even noticed the ancient sarcophagus in front of the altar except as 'some odd kind of sculptured ornament.' When they wore told what it was, they smiled vacuously, and said: 'How curious!' But further than this mild and non-aggressive exclamation they did not venture. The villagers hung about shyly, loth to lose sight of the 'quality';-- two or three 'county' people lingered also, to stare at, and comment upon, the notorious 'beauty,' Lady Beaulyon, whose physical charms, having been freely advertised for some years in the society columns of the press, were naturally 'on show' for the criticism of Tom, Dick and Harry,--Mrs. Mandeville Poreham, marshalling her five marriageable daughters together, stalked magisterially to her private 'bus, very much en evidence, and considerably put out by the supercilious gaze and smile of the perfectly costumed Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay,--Julian Adderley, coming up in response to the beckoning finger of Cicely Bourne, was kindly greeted by Maryllia, introduced to one or two of her friends, and asked then and there to luncheon, an invitation he accepted with alacrity, and, after this, all the Manor party started with their hostess to walk home, leaving the village and villagers behind them, and discussing as they went, the morning's service and sermon in the usual brief and desultory style common to fashionable church-goers. The principal impression they appeared to have on their minds was one of vague amusement. The notion that any clergyman should have the 'impudence'--(this was the word used by Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay)--to pause in the service because people came in late, touched the very apex of absurdity.

"So against his own interests too,"--said Lady Beaulyon, carelessly- -"Because where would all the parsons be if they offended their patrons?"

Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, a thin gentleman with a monocle--assented to this proposition with a "Where indeed!" He considered that clergymen should not forget themselves,--they should show proper respect towards those on whom they depended for support.

"Mr. Walden depends on God for support, I believe,"--said Cicely Bourne suddenly.

Mr. Bludlip Courtenay fixed his monocle firmly in his left eye and stared at her.

"Really!" he drawled dubiously--"You surprise me!"

"It IS funny, isn't it?" pursued Cicely--"So unlike the Apostles!"

Maryllia smiled. Lady Beaulyon laughed outright.

"Are you trying to be satirical, you droll child?" she enquired languidly.

"Oh no, I'm not trying,"--replied Cicely, with a quick flash of her dark eyes--"It comes quite easy! You were talking about clergymen offending their patrons. Now Mr. Walden hasn't got any patron to offend. He's his own patron." "Has he purchased the advowson, then?" enquired Mr. Courtenay--"Or, to put it more conventionally, has he obtained it through a friend at court?"

"I don't know anything about the how or the why or the when,"--said Cicely--"But I know he owns the living and the church. So of course if he chooses to show people what he thinks of them when they come in to service late, he can do it. If they don't like it, he doesn't care. He doesn't ask anybody for anything,--he doesn't even send round a collection plate."

"No--I noticed that!--awfully jolly!"--said a good-natured looking man who had been walking beside Julian Adderley,--a certain Lord Charlemont whose one joy in life was motoring--"Awfully game! Ought to make him quite famous!"

"It ought,--it ought indeed!" agreed Adderley--"I do not suppose there is another clergyman in England who obliterates the plate from the worship of the Almighty! It is so remote--so very remote!"

"I think he's a funny sort of parson altogether,"--said Cicely meditatively--"He doesn't beg, borrow or steal,--he isn't a toady, he isn't a hypocrite, and he speaks his mind. Queer, isn't it?"

"Very!" laughed Lord Charlemont--"I don't know another like him, give you my word!"

"Well, he can't preach,"--said Lady Beaulyon, decisively--"I never heard quite such a stupid sermon."

All the members of the house-party glanced at one another to see if this verdict were generally endorsed. Apparently some differed in opinion.

"Didn't you like it, Eva?" asked Maryllia.

"My dear child! Who COULD like it! Such transcendental stuff! And all that nonsense about the Soul! In these scientific days too!"

"Ah science, science!" sighed Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, dropping his monocle with a sharp click against his top waistcoat button--"Where will it end?"

Nobody volunteered a reply to this profound proposition.

"'Souls' are noted for something else than being saved for heaven nowadays, aren't they, Lady Beaulyon?" queried Lord Charlemont, with a knowing smile.

Lady Beaulyon's small, rather hard mouth tightened into a thin line.

"I really don't know!"--she said carelessly--"If you mean the social 'Souls,' they are rather unconventional certainly, and not always discreet. But they are generally interesting--much more so, I should think, than such 'Souls' as the parson preached about just now."

"Indeed, yes!" agreed Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay--"I can imagine nothing more tiresome than to be a Soul without a Body, climbing from height to height of a heaven where there is no night, no sleep, no rest for ever and ever. Simply dreadful! But there!--one only goes to church for form's sake--just as an example to one's servants--and when it's done, don't you think it's best to forget it as soon as possible?"

She raised her baby eyes appealingly as she put the question.

Everybody laughed, or rather sniggered. Real honest laughter is not considered 'good form' by certain sections of society. A gentle imitation of the nanny-goat's bleat is the most seemly way for cultured persons to give vent to the expression of mirth. Maryllia alone was grave and preoccupied. The conversation of her guests annoyed her, though in London she had been quite well accustomed to hear people talk lightly and callously of religion and all religious subjects. Yet here, in the quiet country, things were different, somehow. God seemed nearer,--it was more difficult to blaspheme and ignore Him. And there was a greater sense of regret and humiliation in one's self for one's own lack of faith. Though, at the same time, it has to be reluctantly conceded that in no quarter of the world is religious hypocrisy and sham so openly manifested as in the English provinces, and especially in the small towns, where, notwithstanding the fact that all the Sundays are passed in persistent church and chapel going, the result of this strenuous sham piety is seen in the most unchristian back-biting and mischief-making on every week-day.

But St. Rest was not a town. It was a tiny village apart,--utterly free from the petty pretensions of its nearest neighbour, Riversford, which considered itself almost 'metropolitan' on account of its modern red-brick and stucco villas into which its trades- people 'retired' as soon as they had made enough money to be able to pretend that they had never stood behind a counter in their lives. St. Rest, on the contrary, was simple in its tastes,--so simple as to be almost primitive, particularly in its religious sentiments, which the ministry of John Walden had, so far, kept faithful and pure. Its atmosphere was therefore utterly at variance with the cheap atheism of the modern world, and it was this discordancy which struck so sharply on Maryllia's emotional nature and gave her such a sense of unaccustomed pain.

At the Manor there were a few other visitors who had not attended church,--none of them important, except to themselves and the society paragraphist,--none of them distinguished as ever having done anything particularly good, or useful in the world,--and none of them possessing any very unconventional characteristics, with the exception of two very quaint old ladies, who were known somewhat irreverently among their acquaintances as the 'Sisters Gemini.' They were of good birth and connection, but, being cast adrift as wrecks on the shores of Time,--the one as a widow, the other as a spinster,--had sworn eternal friendship on the altar of their several disillusioned and immolated affections. In the present day we are not overtroubled by any scruples of reverence for either old widowhood or old spinsterhood; and the 'Sisters Gemini' had become a standing joke with the self-styled 'wise and witty' of London restaurants and late suppers. Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby were their actual names, and they were happily unconscious of the unfeeling sobriquet bestowed upon them when they were out of hearing. Lady Wicketts had once been a reigning 'beauty,' and she lived on the reputation of that glorious past. Miss Fosby aided and abetted her in this harmless self-deception. Lady Wicketts had been painted by all the famous artists of her era, from the time of her seventeeth birthday to her thirtieth. She had been represented as a 'Shepherdess,' a 'Madonna,' a 'Girl with Lilies,' a 'Lady with a Greyhound,' a 'Nymph Sleeping,' and more briefly and to the purpose, as 'Portrait of Lady Wicketts,' in every exhibition of pictures that had been held during her youth and prime. Miss Fosby carried prints and photographs of these works of art everywhere about with her. She would surprise people by casually taking one of them out of her album and saying softly "Isn't that beautiful?"

And then, if the beholders fell into the trap and uttered exclamations of rapture at the 'Shepherdess' or the 'Madonna,' or whatever allegorical subject it happened to be, she would smile triumphantly and say-'Lady Wicketts!'--to all appearance enjoying the violent shock of incredulous amazement which her announcement invariably inflicted on all those who received it.

"Not possible!" they would murmur--"Lady Wicketts---!"

"Yes,--Lady Wicketts when she was young,"--Miss Fosby would say mildly--"She was very beautiful when she was twenty. She is sixty- seven now. But she is still beautiful,--don't you think so? She has such an angelic expression! And she is so good--ah!--so very goodl There is no one like Lady Wicketts!"

All this was very sweet and touching on the part of Miss Fosby, so far as Miss Fosby alone was concerned. To her there was but one woman in the world, and that was Lady Wicketts. But the majority of people saw Lady Wicketts in quite another light. They knew she had been, in her time, as unprincipled as beautiful, and that she had 'gone the pace' more openly than most of her class. They beheld her now without spectacles,--an enormously fat woman, with a large round flaccid face, scarred all over by Time's ploughshare with such deep furrows that one might have sown seed in them and expected it to grow.

But Miss Fosby still recognised the 'Shepherdess,' the 'Madonna' and the 'Girl with Lilies,' in the decaying composition of her friend, and Miss Fosby was something of a bore in consequence, though the constancy of her devotion to a totally unworthy object was quaintly pathetic in its way. The poor soul herself was nearer seventy than sixty, and she was quite as lean as her idol was fat,--she had never been loved by anyone in all her life, but,--in her palmy days,--she had loved. And the necessity of loving had apparently remained a part of her nature, otherwise it would have been a sheer impossibility for her to have selected so strange a fetish as Lady Wicketts for her adoration. Lady Wicketts did not, in any marked way, respond to Miss Fosby's tenderness,--she merely allowed herself to be worshipped, just as in her youth she had allowed scores of young bloods to kiss her hand and murmur soft nothings in her then 'shell-like' ear. The young bloods were gone, but Miss Fosby remained. Better the worship of Miss Fosby than no worship at all. Maryllia had met these two old ladies frequently at various Continental resorts, when she had travelled about with her aunt,-- and she had found something amusing and interesting in them both, especially in Miss Fosby, who was really a good creature,--and when in consultation with Cicely as to who, among the various people she knew, should be asked down to the Manor and who should not, she had selected them as a set-off to the younger, more flippant and casual of her list, and also because they were likely to be convenient personages to play chaperones if necessary.

For the rest, the people were of the usual type one has got accustomed to in what is termed 'smart' society nowadays,--listless, lazy, more or less hypocritical and malicious,--apathetic and indifferent to most things and most persons, save and except those with whom unsavoury intrigues might or would be possible,--sneering and salacious in conversation, bitter and carping of criticism, generally blase, and suffering from the incurable ennui of utter selfishness,--the men concentrating their thoughts chiefly on racing, gaining, and Other Men's Wives,--the women dividing all their stock of emotions between Bridge, Dress, and Other Women's Husbands. And when Julian Adderley, as an author in embryo, found himself seated at luncheon with this particular set of persons, all of whom were more or less well known in the small orbit wherein they moved, he felt considerably enlivened and exhilarated. Life was worth living, he said to himself, when one might study at leisure the little tell-tale lines of vice and animalism on the exquisite features of Lady Beaulyon, and at the same time note admiringly how completely the united forces of massage and self-complacency had eradicated every wrinkle from the expressionless countenance of Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay. These two women were, in a way, notorious as 'leaders' of their own special coteries of social scandalmongers and political brokers; Lady Beaulyon was known best among Jew financiers; Mrs. Courtenay among American 'Kings' of oil and steel. Each was in her own line a 'power,'--each could coax large advances of money out of the pockets of millionaires to further certain 'schemes' which were vaguely talked about, but which never came to fruition,--each had a little bevy of young journalists in attendance,--press boys whom they petted and flattered, and persuaded to write paragraphs concerning their wit, wisdom and beauty, and how they 'looked radiant in pink' or 'dazzling in pea green.' Contemplating first one and then the other of these ladies, Julian almost resolved to compose a poem about them, entitled 'The Sirens' and, dividing it into Two Cantos, to dedicate the First Canto to Lady Beaulyon and the Second to Mrs. Courtenay.

"It would be so new--so fresh!" he mused, with a bland anticipation of the flutter such a work might possibly cause among society dove- cots--"And if ALL the truth were told, so much more risque than 'Don Juan'!"

Glancing up and down, and across the hospitable board, exquisitely arranged with the loveliest flowers and fruit, and the most priceless old silver, he noticed that every woman of the party was painted and powdered except Maryllia, and her young protegee, Cicely. The dining-room of Abbot's Manor was not a light apartment,- -its oak-panelled walls and raftered ceiling created shadow rather than luminance,--and though the windows were large and lofty, rising from the floor to the cornice, their topmost panes were of very old stained glass, so that the brightest sunshine only filtered, as it were, through the deeply-encrusted hues of rose and amber and amethyst squares, painted with the arms of the Vancourts, and heraldic emblems of bygone days. Grateful and beautiful indeed was this mysteriously softened light to the ladies round the table,--and for a brief space they almost LOVED Maryllia. For HER face was flushed, and quite uncooled by powder--'like a dairymaid's--she will get so coarse if she lives in the country always!' Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay confided softly to Lord Charlemont, who vaguely murmured-- 'Ah! Yes! I daresay!' quite without any idea of what the woman was talking about. Maryllia's pretty hair too was ruffled, she having merely taken off her hat in the hall on her return from church, without troubling to go up to her room and 'touch up' her appearance as all the other ladies who had suffered from walking exercise had done,--and her eyes looked just a trifle tired. Adderley found her charming with this shade of fatigue and listlessness upon her,--more charming than in her most radiant phases of vivacity. Her peach-like skin, warmed as it was by the sun, was tinted with Nature's own exquisite colouring, and compared most favourably with the cosmetic art so freely displayed by her female friends on either side of her. Julian began to con verses in his head, and he recalled the lines of seventeeth-century Eichard Crashaw:--

"A Face that's best By its own beauty drest, And can alone command the rest."

And he caught himself wondering why,--whenever he came near the Lady of the Manor,--he was anxious to seem less artificial, less affected, and more of a man than his particular 'Omar Kayyam' set had taught him to be. The same praiseworthy desire moved him in the company of John Walden, therefore sex could have nothing to do with it. Was it 'Soul'?--that 'breath of God' which had been spoken of in the pulpit that morning?

He could not, however, dwell upon this rather serious proposition at luncheon, his thoughts being distracted by the conversation, if conversation it could be called, that was buzzing on either side of the table, amidst the clattering of plates and the popping of champagne corks. It was neither brilliant, witty nor impersonal,-- brilliant, witty and impersonal talk is never generated in modem society nowadays. "I would much rather listen to the conversation of lunatics in the common room of an asylum, than to the inane gabble of modern society in a modern drawing-room"--said a late distinguished politician to the present writer--"For the lunatics always have the glimmering of an idea somewhere in their troubled brains, but modern society has neither brains nor ideas." Fragmentary sentences, often slangy, and occasionally ungrammatical, seemed most in favour with the Manor 'house-party,'--and for a time splinters of language flew about like the chips from dry timber under a woodman's axe, without shape, or use, or meaning. It was a mere confused and senseless jabber--a jabber in which Maryllia took no part. She sat very quietly looking from one face to the other at table with a critical interest. These were the people she had met every day more or less in London,--some of them had visited her aunt constantly, and had invited her out to dinners and luncheons, 'at homes,' balls and race parties, and all were considered to be 'very select' in every form that is commended by an up-to-date civilisation. Down here, in the stately old-world surroundings of Abbot's Manor, they looked very strange to her,--nay, even more than strange. Clowns, columbines and harlequins with all their 'make-up' on, could not have seemed more out of place than these socially popular persons in the historic house of her ancestors. Lady Beaulyon was perhaps the most remarkable 'revelation' of the whole company. Maryllia had always admired Eva Beaulyon with quite an extravagant admiration, on account of her physical charm and grace,- -and had also liked her sufficiently well to entirely discredit the stories that were rife about the number of her unlawful amours. That she was an open flirt could not be denied,--but that she ever carried a flirtation beyond bounds, Maryllia would never have believed. Now, however, a new light seemed thrown upon her--there was a touch of something base in her beauty--a flash of cruelty in her smile--a hardness in her eyes. Maryllia looked at her wistfully now and then, and was half sorry she had invited her, the disillusion was so complete.

The luncheon went on, and was soon over, and coffee and cigarettes were served. All the women smoked with the exception of Maryllia, Cicely and old Miss Fosby. The rings of pale blue vapour circled before Maryllia's eyes in a dim cloud,--she had seen the same kind of mixed smoking going on before, scores of times, and yet now--why was it that she felt vaguely annoyed by a sense of discrepancy and vulgarity She could not tell. Cicely watched her lovingly,--and every now and again Julian Adderley, waving away the smoke of his own cigar with one hand, studied her face and tried to fathom its expression. She spoke but little, and that chiefly to Lord Charlemont who was on her left-hand side.

"And how long are you going to stay in this jolly old place, Miss Vancourt?" he asked.

"All my life, I hope,"--she said with a little smile--"It is my own home, you know."

"Oh yes!--I know!--but--" he hesitated for a moment; "But your aunt- --"

"Aunt Emily and I don't quite agree,"--said Maryllia, quietly--"She has been very kind to me in the past,--but since Uncle Fred's death, things have not been just as pleasant. You see, I speak frankly. Besides I'm getting on towards thirty,--it's time I lived my own life, and tried to do something useful."

Charlemont laughed.

"You look more like eighteen than thirty,"--he said--"Why give yourself away?"

"Is that giving myself away?" and she raised her eyebrows quizzically--"I'm not thirty yet--I'm twenty-seven,--but that's old enough to begin to take things seriously. I've made up my mind to live here at Abbot's Manor and do all I can for the tenantry and the village generally--I'm sure I shall be perfectly happy." "How about getting married?" he queried.

Her blue eyes darkened with a shade of offence.

"The old story!" she said--"Men always think a woman must be married to be happy. It doesn't at all follow. I know heaps and heaps of married women, and they are in anything but an enviable state. I would not change with one of them!"

"Would you like to be another Miss Fosby?" he suggested in a mirthful undertone.

She smiled.

"Well--no! But I would rather be Miss Fosby than Lady Wicketts!"

Here she rose, giving the signal for general adjournment to the drawing-room. The windows of this apartment were set open, and a charming garden vista of lawn and terraee and rose-walk opened out before the eyes.

"Now for Bridge!" said Lady Beaulyon--"I'm simply dying for a game!"

"So am I!" declared Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay--"Lord Charlemont, you'll play?"

"Charmed, I'm sure!" was the ready response. "Where shall we put the card tables? Near the window? Such an enjoyable prospect!"

"We'll have two tables, or even three,"--said Lady Beaulyon; "I suppose most of us will play?"

"Oh yes!" "Why of course!" "I should think so!" "Just what we're all longing for!" Such were the expressions of general delight and acceptance chorussed by the whole party.

"You'll join, Lady Wicketts?"

"With pleasure!" and Lady Wicketts' sunken old eyes gleamed with an anxious light over the furrows of flesh which encircled them, as she promptly deserted Miss Fosby, who had been sitting next to her, for the purpose of livelier entertainment;--and in a moment there was a general gathering together in the wide embrasure of the window nook, and an animated discussion as to who should play Bridge and who should not. Maryllia watched the group silently. There were varying shades of expression on her mobile features. She held Cicely's hand in her own,--and was listening to some of Adderley's observations on quite ordinary topics, when suddenly, with, an impulsive movement, she let Cicely go, and with an 'Excuse me!' to Julian, went towards her guests. She had made a resolve;--it would be an attempt to swim against the social current, and it was fraught with difficulty and unpleasantness,--yet she was determined to do it. "If I am a coward now," she thought--"I shall never be brave!" Her heart beat uncomfortably, and she could feel the blood throbbing nervously in her veins, as she bent her mind to the attitude she was about to take up, regardless of mockery or censure. Scraps of the window conversation fell on her ears--"I won forty pounds last Wednesday,-- it just paid my boot-bill!" said one young woman, laughing carelessly.

"Luckier than me!" retorted a man next to her--"I had to pay a girl's losses to the tune of a hundred. It's all right though!" And he grinned suggestively.

"Is she pretty?"

"Ripping!"

"I want to make up five hundred pounds this week," observed Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, in the most serious and matter-of-fact way--"I've won it all but a hundred and fifty."

"Good for you!"

"Rather!" said Lord Charlemont, nodding approval--"I'd like to get you for a partner!"

"I AM considered lucky,"--smiled Mrs. Courtenay, with an air of virtuous pride--"I always win SOMETHING!"

"Well, let's begin at once,--we'll play all the afternoon." said Lady Beaulyon.

"Where are the tables?" "AND the cards?"

"Ask Maryllia---"

But at that moment Maryllia stepped gently into their midst, her eyes shining, her face very pale.

"Not on Sunday, please!" she said.

A stillness fell upon them all. They gazed upon each other in sheer stupefaction. Lady Beaulyon smiled disdainfully.

"Not on Sunday? What are you talking about, Maryllia? Not WHAT on Sunday?"

"Not Bridge,"--replied Maryllia, in her clear soft voice--"I do not allow it."

Fresh glances of wonderment were exchanged. The men hummed and hawed and turned themselves about on their heels--the women simply stared. Lady Beaulyon burst out laughing.

"Ridiculous!" she exclaimed,--then flushed, and bit her lip, knowing that such an ejaculation was scarcely civil to her hostess. But Maryllia took no offence.

"Pray do not think me discourteous,"--she said, very sweetly. "I would not interfere with your pleasure in any way if I could possibly help it. But in this instance I really must do so."

"Oh certainly, Miss Vancourt!" "We would not think of playing if you do not wish it!" These, and similar expressions came from Lord Charlemont, and one or two others.

"My dear Maryllia," said Mrs. Courtenay, reproachfully--"You are really VERY odd! I have myself seen you playing Bridge, Sunday after Sunday at your aunt's house in London. Why should you now suddenly object to your friends doing what you have so often done yourself?"

Maryllia flushed a pretty rose-red.

"In my aunt's house I had to do as my aunt wished, Mrs. Courtenay," she said--"In my own house I do as I wish!"

Here her face relaxed into a bright smile, as she raised her candid blue eyes to the men standing about her--"I'm sure you won't mind amusing yourselves with something else than cards, just for one day, will you? Come into the garden,--it's such a perfect afternoon! The rose-walk just opposite leads down to the bank of the river,--would some of you like to go on the water? There are two boats ready there if you would. And do forgive me for stopping your intended game!-- you can play Bridge every day in the week if you like, but spare the Sunday!"

There was a brief awkward pause. Then Eva Beaulyon turned her back indifferently on the whole party and stepped out on the lawn. She was followed by Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, and both ladies gave vent to small smothered bleats of mocking laughter as they sauntered across the grass side by side. But Maryllia did not care. She had carried her point, and was satisfied. The Sunday's observance in Abbot's Manor, always rigorously insisted upon by her father, would not be desecrated by card-playing and gambling under his daughter's sway. That was enough for her. A serene content dwelt in her eyes as she watched her guests disperse and scatter themselves in sections of twos and threes all over the garden and grounds--and she said the pleasantest and kindest things when any of them passed her on their way, telling them just where to find the prettiest nooks, and where to pick the choicest fruit and flowers. Lord Charlemont watched her with a sense of admiration for her 'pluck.'

"By Jove!" he thought--"I'd rather have fronted the guns in a pitched battle than have forbidden my own guests to play Bridge on Sunday! Wants nerve,--upon my soul it does!--and the little woman's got it--you bet she has!" Aloud he said--

"I'm awfully glad to be let off Bridge, Miss Vancourt! A day's respite is a positive boon!"

"Do you play it so often, then?" she asked gently. He flushed slightly.

"Too often, I'm afraid! But how can I help it? One must do something to kill time!"

"Poor Time!" said Maryllia, with a smile--"Why should he be killed? I would rather make much of him while I have him!"

Charlemont did not answer. He lit a cigar and strolled away by himself to meditate.

Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay just then re-entered the drawing-room from the garden, fanning herself vigorously with her handkerchief.

"It is so frightfully warm!" she complained--"Such a burning sun! So bad for the skin! They are picking strawberries and eating them off the plants--very nice, I daresay--but quite messy. Eva Beaulyon and two of the men have taken a boat and gone on the water. If you don't mind, Maryllia, I shall rest and massage till dinner."

"Pray do so!" returned Maryllia, kindly, smiling, despite herself; Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay's life was well-nigh, spent in 'massage' and various other processes for effacing the prints of Time from her carefully guarded epidermis--"But I was just going to ask Cicely to play us something. Won't you wait five minutes and hear her?"

Mrs. Courtenay sighed and sank into a chair. Nothing bored her so utterly as music,--but as it was only for 'five minutes,' she resigned herself to destiny. And Cicely, at a sign from Maryllia, went to the piano and played divinely,--wild snatches of Polish and Hungarian folk-songs, nocturnes and romances, making the instrument speak a thousand things of love and laughter, of sorrow and death,-- till the glorious rush of melody captivated some of the wanderers in the garden and brought them near the open window to listen. When she ceased, there was a little outbreak of applause, and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay rose languidly.

"Yes, very nice!" she said--"Very nice indeed! But you know, Maryllia, if you would only get one of those wonderful box things one sees advertised so much in the papers, the pianista or mutuscope or gramophone--no, I THINK it's pianola, but I'm not quite sure--you would save such a lot of study and brain-work for this poor child! And it sounds quite as well! I'm sure she could manage a gramophone thing--I mean pianista--pianola--quite nicely for you when you want any music. Couldn't you, my dear?"

And she gazed at Cicely with a bland kindliness as she put the question. Cicely's eyes sparkled with fun and satire.

"I'm sure I could!" she declared, with the utmost seriousness--"It would be delightful! Just like organ-grinding, only much more so! I should enjoy it of all things! Of course one ought NEVER to use the brain in music!"

"Not nowadays,"--said Mrs. Courtenay, with conviction--"Things have improved so much. Mechanism does everything so well. And it is SUCH a pity to use up one's vital energy in doing what one of those box- things can do better. And do you too play music?"

And she addressed herself to Adderley who happened to be standing near her. He made one of his fantastic salutes.

"Not I, madam! I am merely a writer,--one who makes rhymes and verses---"

Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay waved him away with a hand on which at least five diamond rings sparkled gorgeously.

"Oh dear! Don't come near me!" she said, with a little affected laugh--"I simply HATE poetry! I'm so sorry you write it! I can't think why you do. Do you like it?--or are you doing it for somebody because you must?"

Julian smiled, and ran his fingers through his hair, sticking it up rather on end, much to Mrs. Courtenay's abhorrence.

"I like it more than anything else in the world!" he said. "I'm doing it quite for myself, and for nobody else."

"Really!"--and Mrs. Courtenay gave him a glance of displeased surprise--"How dreadful!" Here she turned to Maryllia. "Au revoir, my dear, for the present! As you won't allow any Bridge, I'm going to sleep. Then I shall do massage for an hour. May I have tea in my own room?"

"Certainly!" said Maryllia.

"Thanks!" She glided out, with a frou-frou of her silken skirts and a trail of perfume floating after her.

The three she left behind her exchanged amused glances.

"Wonderful woman!" said Adderley,--"And, no doubt, a perfectly happy one!"

"Why of course! I don't suppose she has ever shed a tear, lest it should make a wrinkle!" And Cicely, as she made these remarks, patted her own thin, sallow cheeks consolingly. "Look at my poor face and hers! Mine is all lined and puckered with tears and sad thoughts--SHE hasn't a wrinkle! And I'm fourteen, and she's forty! Oh dear! Why did I cry so much over all the sorrow and beauty of life when I was young!"

"Ah--and why didn't you have a pianista-pianola!" said Adderley. They all laughed,--and then at Maryllia's suggestion, joined the rest of the guests in the garden.

That same evening when Maryllia was dressing for dinner, there came a tap at her bedroom door, and in response to her 'Come in!' Eva Beaulyon entered.

"May I speak to you alone for a minute?" she said.

Maryllia assented, giving a sign to her maid to leave the room.

"Well, what is it, Eva?" said Maryllia, when the girl had gone-- "Anything wrong?"

Eva Beaulyon sank into a chair somewhat wearily, and her beautiful violet eyes, despite artistic 'touching up' looked hard and tired.

"Not so far as I am concerned,"--she said, with a little mirthless laugh--"Only I think you behaved very oddly this afternoon. Do you really mean that you object to Bridge on Sundays, or was it only a put on?"

"It was a put off!" responded Maryllia, gaily--"It stopped the intended game! Seriously, Eva, I meant it and I do mean it. There's too much Bridge everywhere--and I don't think it necessary,--I don't think it even decent--to keep it going on Sundays."

"I suppose the parson of your parish has told you that!" said Lady Beaulyon, suddenly.

Maryllia's eyes met hers with a smile.

"The parson of the parish has not presumed to dictate to me on my actions,"--she said--"I should deeply resent it if he did."

"Well, he had no eyes for anyone but you in the church this morning. A mole could have seen that in the dark. He was preaching AT us and FOR you all the while!"

A slight flush swept over Maryllia's cheeks,--then she laughed.

"My dear Eva! I never thought you were imaginative! The parson has nothing whatever to do with me,--why, this is the first Sunday I have ever been to his church,--you know I never go to church."

Lady Beaulyon looked at her narrowly, unconvinced.

"What have you left your aunt for?" she asked.

"Simply because she wants me to marry Roxmouth, and I won't!" said Maryllia, emphatically.

"Why not?"

"First, because I don't love him,--second, because he has slandered me by telling people that I am running after his title, to excuse himself for running after Aunt Emily's millions; and lastly, but by no means leastly, because he is--unclean."

"All men are;" said Eva Beaulyon, drily--"It's no use objecting to that!"

Maryllia made no remark. She was standing before her dressing-table, singing softly to herself, while she dexterously fastened a tiny diamond arrow in her hair.

"I suppose you're going to try and 'live good' down here!"--went on Lady Beaulyon, after a pause--"It's a mistake,--no one born of human flesh and blood can do it. You can't 'live good' and enjoy yourself!"

"No?" said Maryllia, tentatively.

"No, certainly not! For if you never do anything out of the humdrum line, and never compromise yourself in any way, Society will be so furious with your superiority to itself that it will invent a thousand calumnies and hang them all on your name. And you will never know how they arise, and never be able to disprove them."

"Does it matter?"--and Maryllia smiled--"If one's conscience is clear, need one care what people say?"

"Conscience!" exclaimed Lady Beaulyon--"What an old-fashioned expression! Surely it's better to do something people can lay hold of and talk about, than have them invent something you have never done! They will give you no credit for virtue or honesty in this world, Maryllia, unless you grow ugly and deformed. Then perhaps they will admit you may be good, and they will add--'She has no temptation to be otherwise.'"

"I do not like your code of morality, Eva," said Maryllia, quietly.

"Perhaps not, but it's the only one that works in OUR day!" replied Eva, with some heat, "Surely you know that?"

"I try to forget it as much as possible,"--and Maryllia's eyes were full of a sweet wistfulness as she spoke--"Especially here--in my father's home!"

"Oh well!" said Lady Beaulyon, with a touch of impatience--"You are a strange girl--you always were! You can 'live good,' or try to, if you like; and stay down here all alone with the doldrums and the humdrums. But you'll be sick of it in six months. I'm sure you will! Not a man will come near you,--they hate virtuous women nowadays,-- and scarce a woman will come either, save old and ugly ones! You will kill yourself socially altogether by the effort. Life's too short to lose all the fun out of it for the sake of an ideal or a theory!"

Here the gong sounded for dinner. Maryllia turned away from her dressing-table, and confronted her friend. Her face was grave and earnest in its expression, and her eyes were very steadfast and clear.

"I don't want what you call 'fun,' Eva,"--she said--"I want love! Love seems to me the only good thing in life. Do you understand? You ask me why I left my aunt--it was to escape a loveless marriage,--a marriage that would be a positive hell to me for which neither wealth nor position could atone. As for 'living good,' I am not trying that way. I only want to understand myself, and find out my own possibilities and limitations. And if I never do win the love I want,--if no one ever cares for me at all, then I shall be perfectly content to live and die unmarried."

"What a fate!" laughed Lady Beaulyon, shrugging her white shoulders.

"A better one than the usual divorce court result of some 'society' marriages,"--said Maryllia, calmly--"Anyhow, I'd rather risk single blessedness than united 'cussedness'! Let us go down to dinner, Eva! On all questions pertaining to 'Souls' and modern social ethics, we must agree to differ!"

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XX

For the next fortnight St. Rest was a scene of constant and unwonted excitement. There was a continual coming and going, to and from Abbot's Manor,--some of the guests went away to be replaced by others, and some who had intended to spend only a week-end and then depart, stayed on, moved by unaccountable fascination, not only for their hostess, but for the general pleasantness of the house, and the old-world, tranquil and beautiful surroundings of the whole neighbourhood. Lord Charlemont and Mr. Bludlip Courtenay had brought their newest up-to-date motor-cars with them,--terrible objects to the villagers whenever they dashed, like escaped waggons off an express train, through the little street, with their horns blowing violently as though in a fog at sea. Mrs. Frost was ever on the alert lest any of her smaller children should get in the way of these huge rubber-tyred vehicles tearing along at reckless speed,-- and old Josey Letherbarrow resolutely refused to go outside his garden gate except on Sundays.

"Not but what I ain't willin' an' cheerful to die whenever the Lord A'mighty sends for me;"--he would say--"But I ain't got no fancy for bein' gashed and jambled."

'Gashed and jambled,' was his own expression,--one that had both novelty and suggestiveness. Unfortunately, it happened that a small pet dog belonging to one of the village schoolboys, no other than Bob Keeley, the admitted sweet-heart of Kitty Spruce, had been run over by Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, as that gentleman, driving his car himself, and staring indifferently through his monocle, had 'timed' his rush through the village to a minute and a half, on a bet with Lord Charlemont,--and 'gashed and jambled' was the only description to apply to the innocent little animal as it lay dead in the dust. Bob Keeley cried for days,--cried so much, in fact, over what he considered 'a wicked murder' that his mother sent for 'Passon' to console him. And Walden, with his usual patience, listened to the lad's sobbing tale:

"Which the little beast wor my friend!" he gasped amid his tears-- "An' he wor Kitty's friend too! Kitty's cryin' 'erself sick, same as me! I'd 'ad 'im from a pup--Kitty carried 'im in 'er apron when 'e was a week old,--he loved me--yes 'e did!--an' 'e slept in my weskit iviry night of 'is life!--an' he 'adn't a fault in 'im, all lovin' an' true!--an' now 'e's gone--an'--an'-I HATE the quality up at the Manor--yes I do!--I HATE 'em!--an' if Miss Vancourt 'adn't never come 'ome, my doggie 'ad been livin' now, an' we'd all a' bin 'appy!"

Walden patted the boy's rough towzled head gently, and thought of his faithful 'Nebbie.' It would have been mere hypocrisy to preach resignation to Bob, when he, the Reverend John, knew perfectly well that if his own canine comrade had been thus cruelly slain, he also would have 'hated the quality.'

"Look here, Bob," he said at last,--"I know just how you feel! It's just as bad as bad can be. But try and be a man, won't you? You can't bring the poor little creature back to life again,--and it's no use frightening your mother with all this grief for what cannot be helped. Then there's poor Kitty--SHE 'hates the quality';--her little heart is sore and full of bad feelings--all for the sake of you and your dog, Bob! She's giving her mother no end of trouble up at the Manor, crying and fretting--suppose you go and see her? Talk it over together, like two good children, and try if you can't comfort each other. What do you say?"

Bob rose from beside the chair where he had flung himself on his knees when Walden had entered his mother's cottage,--and rubbed his knuckles hard into his eyes with a long and dismal sniff.

"I'll try, sir!" he said chokingly, and then suddenly seizing 'Passon's' hand, he kissed it with boyish fervour, caught up his cap and ran out. Walden stood for a moment inert,--there was an uncomfortable tightness in his throat.

"Poor lad!" he said to himself,--"He is suffering as much in his way as older people suffer in theirs,--perhaps even more,--because to the young, injustice always seems strange--to the old it has become customary and natural!"

He sighed,--and with a pleasant word or two to Mrs. Keeley, who waited at her door for him to come out, and who thanked him profusely for coming to 'hearten up the boy,' he went on his usual round through the village, uncomfortably conscious that perhaps his first impressions respecting Miss Vancourt's home-coming were correct,--and that it might have been better for the peace and happiness of all the simple inhabitants of St. Rest, if she had never come.

Certainly there was no denying that a change had crept over the little sequestered place,--a change scarcely perceptible, but nevertheless existent. A vague restlessness pervaded the atmosphere,--each inhabitant of each cottage was always on the look- out for a passing glimpse of one of the Abbot's Manor guests, or one of the Abbot's Manor servants,--it did not matter which, so long as something or somebody from the Manor came along. Sir Morton Pippitt had, of course, not failed to take full advantage of any slight surface or social knowledge he possessed of Miss Vancourt's guests,- -and had, with his usual bluff pomposity, invited them all over to Badsworth Hall. Some of them accepted his invitation,--others declined it. Lord Charlemont and Mr. Bludlip Courtenay discovered him to be a 'game old boy'--while Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby found something congenial in the society of Miss Tabitha Pippitt, who, cherishing as she did, an antique-virgin passion for the Reverend John Walden, whom her father detested, had come to regard herself as a sort of silent martyr to the rough usages of this world, and was therefore not unwilling to listen to the long stories of life's disillusions which Lady Wicketts unravelled for her benefit, and which Miss Fosby, with occasional references to the photographs and prints of the 'Madonna' or the 'Girl with Lilies' tearfully confirmed. So the motor-cars continually flashed between Abbot's Manor and Badsworth Hall, and Lady Beaulyon apparently found so much to amuse her that she stayed on longer than she had at first intended. So did Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay. They had their reasons for prolonging their visit,--reasons more cogent than love of fresh air, or admiration of pastoral scenery. Both of them kept up an active correspondence with Maryllia's aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, a lady who was their 'very dear' friend, owing to her general usefulness in the matter of money. And Mrs. Fred having a fixed plan in her mind concerning the welfare and good establishment of her niece, they were not unwilling to assist her in the furtherance of her views, knowing that whatever trouble they took would be substantially rewarded 'under the rose.'

So they remained, on one excuse or the other,--while other guests came or went, and took long walks and motor-rides in the neighbourhood and amused themselves pretty much in their own way, Maryllia rightly considering that to be the truest form of hospitality. She herself, however, was living a somewhat restrained life among them,--and she began to realise more than ever the difference between 'friends' and 'acquaintances,' and the hopeless ennui engendered by the proximity of the latter, without the sympathy of the former. She was learning the lesson that cannot be too soon mastered by everyone who seeks for pure happiness in this world--'The Kingdom of God is within you.' In herself she was not content,--yet she knew no way in which to make herself contented. "I want something"--she said to herself--"Yet I do not know what I want." Her pleasantest time during the inroad of her society friends, was when, after her daily housekeeping consultations with Mrs. Spruce, she could go and have a chat with Cicely in that young person's small study, which was set apart for her, next to her bedroom nearly at the top of the house, and which commanded a wide view of the Manor park-lands, and the village of St. Rest, with the silvery river winding through it, and the spire of the church rising from the surrounding foliage like a finger pointing to heaven. And she also found relief from the strain of constant entertaining by rising early in the mornings and riding on her favourite 'Cleopatra' all over her property, calling on her new agent, Frank Stanways, and his wife, and chatting with the various persons in her employ. She did not however go much into the village, and on this point one morning her agent ventured to observe--

"Old Mr. Letherbarrow has been saying that he has not seen you lately, Miss Vancourt,--not since your friends came down. He seems to miss you very much."

Maryllia, swaying lightly in her saddle, stooped over her mare's neck and patted it, to hide sudden tears that sprang, she knew not why, to her eyes.

"Poor Josey!" she said--"I'm sorry! Tell him I'll come as soon as all my visitors are gone--they will not stay long. The dinner-party next week concludes everything. Then I shall have time to go about the village as usual."

"That will be delightful!" said Alicia Stanways, a bright little woman, whose introduction and supervision of a 'model dairy' on the Abbot's Manor estate was the pride of her life--"It really makes all the people happy to see you! Little Ipsie Frost was actually crying for you the other day."

"Was she? Poor little soul! The idea of a child crying for me! It's quite a novel experience!" And Maryllia laughed--"But I don't think I'm wanted at all in the village. Mr. Walden does everything."

"So he does!"--agreed Stanways--"He's a true 'minister' if there ever was one. Still, he has not been quite so much about lately."

"No?" queried Maryllia--"I expect he's very busy!"

"I think he has only one wish in the world!" said Mrs. Stanways, smiling.

"What is that?" asked Maryllia, still stroking 'Cleopatra's' glossy neck thoughtfully.

"To fill the big rose-window in the church with stained glass,--real 'old' stained glass! He's always having some bits sent to him, and I believe he passes whole hours piecing it together. It's his great hobby. He won't have a morsel that is not properly authenticated. He's dreadfully particular,--but then all old bachelors are!"

Maryllia smiled, and bidding them good-morning cantered off. She was curiously touched at the notion of old Josey Letherbarrow missing her, and 'Baby Hippolyta' crying for her.

"Not one of my society friends would miss me!"--she said to herself- -"And certainly I know nobody who would cry for me!" She checked her thoughts--"Except Cicely. SHE would miss me,--SHE would cry for me! But, in plain matter-of-fact terms, there is no one else who cares for me. Only Cicely!"

She looked up as she rode, and saw that she was passing the 'Five Sisters,' now in all the glorious panoply of opulent summer leafage. Moved by a sudden impulse, she galloped up the knoll, and drew rein exactly at the spot where she had given Oliver Leach his dismissal, and where she had first met John Walden. The wind rustled softly through the boughs, which bent and swayed before her, as though the grand old trees said: 'Thanks to you, we live!' Birds flew from twig to twig,--and the persistent murmur of many bees working amid the wild thyme which spread itself in perfumed purple patches among the moss and grass, sounded like the far-off hum of a human crowd.

"I did something useful when I saved you, you dear old beeches!" she said--"But the worst of it is I've done nothing worth doing since!"

She sighed, and her pretty brows puckered into a perplexed line, as she slowly guided 'Cleopatra' down the knoll again.

"It's all so lonely!" she murmured--"I felt just a little dull before Eva Beaulyon and the others came,--but it's ever so much duller with them than without them!"

That afternoon, in compliance with a particularly pressing request from Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, she accompanied a party of her guests to Badsworth, driving thither in Lord Charlemont's motor. Sir Morton Pippitt, red-faced and pompous as usual, met them at the door, in all the resplendency of new grey summer tweeds and prominent white waist-coat, his clean-shaven features shining with recent soap, and his white hair glistening like silver. He was quite in his element, as he handed out the beautiful Lady Beaulyon from the motor-car, and expressed his admiration for her looks in no unmeasured terms,--he felt himself to be almost an actual Badsworth, of Badsworth Hall, as he patted Lord Charlemont familiarly on the shoulder, and called him 'My dear boy!' As he greeted Maryllia, he smiled at her knowingly.

"I think I have a friend of yours here to-day, my dear lady!" he said with an expressive chuckle--"Someone who is most anxious to see you!" And escorting her with obtrusive gallantry into the hall, he brought her face to face with a tall, elegant, languid-looking man who bowed profoundly; "I believe you know Lord Roxmouth?"

The blood sprang to her brows,--and for a moment she was so startled and angry that she could scarcely breathe. A swift glance from under her long lashes showed her the situation--how Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay was watching her with ill-concealed amusement, and how all the rest of the party were expectant of a 'sensation.' She saw it all in a moment,--she recognised that a trap had been laid for her to fall into unwarily, and realising the position she rose to it at once.

"How do you do!" she said carelessly, nodding ner head without giving her hand--"I thought I should meet you this afternoon!"

"Did you really!" murmured Roxmouth--"Some magnetic current of thought---"

"Yes,--'by the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes!'--THAT sort of sensation, you know!" and she laughed; then perceiving a man standing in the background whose sleek form and lineaments she instantly recognised, she added--"And how are you, Mr. Longford? Did you bring Lord Roxmouth here, or did he bring you?"

Marius Longford, 'of the Savage and Savile,' was taken by surprise, and looked a little uncomfortable. He stroked one pussy whisker.

"We came together," he explained in his affected falsetto voice-- "Sir Morton Pippitt was good enough to invite me to bring any friend,--and so--"

"I see!" and Maryllia lifted her little head with an unconscious gesture, implying pride, or disdain, or both, as she passed with the other guests into the Badsworth Hall drawing-room; "The country is so delightful at this time of year!"

She moved on. Lord Roxmouth stroked down his fair moustache to hide a smile, and quietly followed her. He was a good-looking man, tall and well-built, with a rather pale, clean-cut face, and sandy hair brushed very smooth; form and respectability were expressed in the very outline of his figure and the fastidious neatness and nicety of his clothes. Entering the room where Miss Tabitha Pippitt was solemnly presiding over the tea-tray with a touch-me-not air of inflexible propriety, he soon made himself the useful and agreeable centre of a group of ladies, to whom he carried cake, bread-and- butter and other light refreshments, with punctilious care, looking as though his life depended upon the exact performance of these duties. Once or twice he glanced at Maryllia, and decided that she appeared younger and prettier than when he had seen her in town. She was chatting with some of the country people, and Lord Roxmouth waited for several moments in vain for an opportunity to intervene. Finally, securing a cup of iced coffee, he carried it to her.

"No, thanks!" she said, as he approached.

"Strawberries?" he suggested, appealingly.

"Nothing, thank you!"

Smiling a little, he looked at her.

"I wish you would give me a word, Miss Vancourt! Won't you?"

"A dozen, if you like!"--she replied, indifferently--"How is Aunt Emily?"

"I am glad you ask after her!"--he said, impressively--"She is well,--but she misses you very much." He paused, and added in a lower tone--"So do I!"

She was silent.

"I know you are angry!" he went on softly--"You went away from London to avoid me, and you are vexed to see me down here. But I couldn't resist the temptation of coming. Marius Longford told me he had called upon you with Sir Morton Pippitt at Abbot's Manor,--and I got him to bring me down on a visit to Badsworth Hall,--only to be near you! You are looking quite lovely, Maryllia!"

She raised her eyes and fixed them full on him. His own fell.

"I said you were angry, and you are!" he murmured--"But you have the law in your own hands,--you need not ask me to your house unless you like!"

The buzz of conversation in the room was now loud and incessant. Sir Morton Pippitt's 'afternoon teas' were always more or less bewildering and brain-jarring entertainments, where a great many people of various 'sets,' in the town of Riversford and the county generally, came together, without knowing each other, or wishing to know each other,--where the wife of the leading doctor in Riversford, for example, glowered scorn and contempt on Mrs. Mordaunt Appleby, the wife of the brewer in the same town, and where those of high and unimpeachable 'family,' like Mrs. Mandeville Poreham, whose mother was a Beedle, stared frigidly and unseeingly at every one hailing from the same place as creatures beneath her notice.

For--"Thank God!"--said Mrs. Poreham, with feeling,--"I do not live in Riversford. I would not live in Riversford if I were paid a fortune to do so! My poor mother never permitted me to associate with tradespeople. There are no ladies or gentlemen in Riversford,-- I should be expected to shake hands with my butcher if I resided there,--but I am proud and glad to say that at present I know nobody in the place. I never intend to know anybody there!"

Several curious glances were turned upon Miss Vancourt as she stood near an open window looking out on the Badsworth Hall 'Italian Garden,'--a relic of Badsworth times,--her fair head turned away from the titled aristocrat who bent towards her, as it seemed, in an attitude of humble appeal,--and one or two would-be wise persons nodded their heads and whispered--"That's the man she's engaged to." "Oh, really!---and his name---?" "Lord Roxmouth;--will be Duke of Ormistoune---" "Good gracious! THAT woman a Duchess!" snorted Mrs. Mordaunt Appleby, as she heard--"The men must be going mad!" Which latter remark implied that had she not unfortunately married a brewer, she might easily have secured the Ormistoune ducal coronet herself.

Unaware of the gossip going on around her, Maryllia stayed where she was at the window, coldly silent, her eyes fixed on the glowing flower-beds patterned in front of her,--the gorgeous mass of petunias, and flame-colored geraniums,--the rich saffron and brown tints of thick clustered calceolarias,--the purple and crimson of pendulous fuchsias, whose blossoms tumbled one upon the other in a riot of splendid colour,--and all at once her thoughts strayed capriciously to the cool green seclusion of John Walden's garden. She remembered the spray of white lilac he had given her, and fancied she could almost inhale again its delicious perfume. But the lilac flowering-time was over now--and the roses had it all their own way,--she had given a rose in exchange for the lilac, and--Here she started almost nervously as Lord Roxmouth's voice again fell on her ears.

"You are not sparing me any of your attention," he said--"Your mind is engrossed with something--or somebody--else! Possibly I have a rival?"

He smiled, but there was a quick hard gleam of suspicion in his cold grey eyes. Maryllia gave him a look of supreme disdain.

"You are insolent," she said, speaking in very low but emphatic tones--"You always were! You presume too much on Aunt Emily's encouragement of your attentions to me, which you know are unwelcome. You are perfectly aware that I left London to escape a scheme concocted by you and her to so compromise me in the view of society, that no choice should be left to me save marriage with you. Now you have followed me here, and I know why! You have come to try and find out what I do with myself--to spy upon my actions and occupations, and take back your report to Aunt Emily. You are perfectly welcome to enter upon this congenial task! You can visit me at my own house,--you can play detective all over the place, if you are happy in that particular role. Every opportunity shall be given you!"

He bowed. "Thank you!" And stroking his moustache, as was his constant habit, he smiled again. "You are really very cruel to me, Maryllia! Why can I never win your confidence--I will not say your affection? May I not know?"

"You may!"--she answered coldly--"It is because there is nothing in you to trust and nothing to value. I have told you this so often that I wonder you want to be told it again! And though I give you permission to call on me at my own home,--just to save you the trouble of telling Aunt Emily that her 'eccentric' niece was too 'peculiar' to admit you there,--I reserve to myself the right at any moment to shut the door against you."

She moved from him then, and seeing the Ittlethwaites of Ittlethwaite Park, went to speak to them. He stood where she had left him, surveying the garden in front of him with absolute complacency. Mr. Marius Longford joined him.

"Well?" said the light of the Savage and Savile tentatively.

"Well! She is the same ungovernable termagant as ever--conceited little puss! But she always amuses me--that's one consolation!" He laughed, and taking out his cigar-case, opened it. "Will you have one?" Longford accepted the favour. "Who is this old fellow, Pippitt?" he asked--"Any relation of the dead and gone Badsworth? How does he get Badsworth Hall? Doesn't he grind bones to make his bread, or something of that kind?"

Longford explained with civil obsequiousness that Sir Morton Pippitt had certainly once 'ground bones,' but that he had 'retired' from such active service, while still retaining the largest share in the bone business. That he had bought Badsworth Hall as it stood,-- pictures, books, furniture and all, for what was to him a mere trifle; and that he was now assuming to himself by lawful purchase, the glory of the whole deceased Badsworth family.

Lord Roxmouth shrugged his shoulders in contempt.

"Such will be the fate of Roxmouth Castle!" he said--"Some grinder of bones or maker of beer will purchase it, and perhaps point out the picture of the founder of the house as being that of a former pot-boy!"

"The old order changeth,"--said Longford, with a chill smile--"And I suppose we should learn to accustom ourselves to it. But you, with your position and good looks, should be able to prevent any such possibility as you suggest. Miss Vancourt is not the only woman in the world."

"By no means,"--and Roxmouth strolled into the garden, Longford walking beside him--"But she is the only woman I at present know, who, if she obeys her aunt's wishes, will have a fortune of several millions. And just because such a little devil SHOULD be mastered and MUST be mastered, I have resolved to master her. That's all!"

"And, to your mind, sufficient,"--said Longford--"But if it is a question of the millions chiefly, there is always the aunt herself."

Roxmouth stared--then laughed.

"The aunt!" he ejaculated--"The aunt?"

"Why not?" And Longford stole a furtive look round at the man who was his chief literary patron--"The aunt is handsome, well- preserved, not more than forty-five at most--and I should say she is a woman who could be easily led--through vanity."

"The aunt!" again murmured Roxmouth--"My dear Longford! What an appalling suggestion! Mrs. Fred as the Duchess of Ormistoune! Forbid it, Heaven!"

Then suddenly he laughed aloud.

"By Jove! It would be too utterly ridiculous! Whatever made you think of such a thing?"

"Only the prospect you yourself suggested,"--replied Longford--"That of seeing a brewer or a bone-melter in possession of Roxmouth Castle. Surely even Mrs. Fred would be preferable to that!"

With an impatient exclamation Roxmouth suddenly changed the subject; but Longford was satisfied that he had sown a seed, which might,-- time and circumstances permitting,--sprout and grow into a tangible weed or flower.

Maryllia meantime had made good her escape from the scene of Sir Morton Pippitt's 'afternoon-tea' festivity. Gently moving through the throng with that consummate grace which was her natural heritage, she consented to be introduced to the 'county' generally, smiling sweetly upon all, and talking so kindly to the Mandeville Poreham girls, that she threw them into fluttering ecstasies of delight, and caused them to declare afterwards to their mother that Miss Vancourt was the sweetest, dearest, darlingest creature they had ever met! She stood with patience while Sir Morton Pippitt, over-excited by the presence of the various 'titled' personages in his house, guffawed and blustered in her face over the 'little surprise' he had prepared for her in the unexpected appearance of Lord Roxmouth; she listened to his "Ha!-ha!-ha! My dear lady! We know a thing or two! Handsome fellow,--handsome fellow! Think of a poor old plain Knight when you are a Duchess! Ha! ha! ha! God bless my soul!"---and without a word in confirmation or denial of his blatant observations, she managed to slip gradually out of the drawing-room to the hall and from thence to the carriage drive, where she found, as she thought she would, Lord Charlemont looking tenderly into the mechanism of his motor-car, unscrewing this, peering into that, and generally hanging round the vehicle with a fatuous lover's enthusiasm.

"Would you mind taking me back to St. Rest now?" she enquired--"I have an appointment in the village--you can do the journey in no time."

"Delighted!" And Charlemont got his machine into the proper state of spluttering, gasping eagerness to depart. "Anyone coming with you?"

"No--nobody knows I am leaving." And Maryllia mounted lightly into the car. "You can return and fetch the others afterwards. Put me down at the church, please!"

In a moment more the car flashed down the drive and out of Badsworth Hall precincts, and was soon panting and pounding along the country road at most unlawful speed. As a rule Maryllia hated being in a motor-car, but on this occasion she was glad of the swift rush through the air; had the vehicle torn madly down a precipice she would scarcely have cared, so eager was she to get away from the hateful vicinity of Lord Roxmouth. She was angry too--angry with Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, whose hand she recognised in the matter as having so earnestly begged her to go to Badsworth Hall that afternoon,--she despised Sir Morton Pippitt for lending himself to the scheme,--and with all her heart she loathed Mr. Marius Longford whom she at once saw was Roxmouth's paid tool. The furious rate at which Lord Charlemont drove his car was a positive joy to her--and as he was much too busy with his steering gear to speak, she gave herself up to the smouldering indignation that burned in her soul while she was, so to speak, carried through space as on a panting whirlwind.

"Why can they not leave me alone!" she thought passionately--"How dare they follow me to my own home!--my own lands!--and spy upon me in everything I do! It is a positive persecution and more than that,--it is a wicked design on Aunt Emily's part to compromise me with Roxmouth. She wants to set people talking down here in the country just as she set them talking in town, and to make everyone think I am engaged to him, or OUGHT to be engaged to him. It is cruel!--I suppose I shall be driven away from here just as I have been driven from London,--is there NO way in which I can escape from this man whom I hate!--NO place in the world where he cannot find me and follow me!"

The brown hue of thatched roofs through the trees here caused Lord Charlemont to turn round and address her.

"Just there!" he said, briefly--"Six minutes exactly!"

"Good!" said Maryllia, nodding approvingly--"But go slowly through the village, won't you? There are so many dear little children always playing about."

He slackened speed at once, and with a weird toot-tootling of his horn guided the car on at quite a respectable ambling-donkey pace.

"You said the church?"

"Yes, please!"

Another minute, and she had alighted.

"Thanks so much!" she said, smiling up into his goggle-guarded eyes. "Will you rush back for the others, please? And--and--may I ask you a favour?"

"A thousand!" he answered, thinking what a pretty little woman she was, as he spoke.

"Well--don't--even if they want you to do so,--don't bring Lord Roxmouth or Mr. Marius Longford back to the Manor. They are Sir Morton Pippitt's friends and guests--they are not mine!"

A faint flicker of surprise passed over the aristocratic motor- driver's features, but he made no observation. He merely said:

"All right! I'm game!"

Which brief sentence meant, for Lord Charlemont, that he was loyal to the death. He was not romantic in the style of expressing himself,--he would not have understood how to swear fealty on a drawn sword--but when he said--'I'm game,'-it came to the same thing. Reversing his car, he sped away, whizzing up the road like a boomerang, back to Badsworth Hall. Maryllia watched him till he was out of sight,--then with a sigh of relief, she turned and look wistfully at the church. Its beautiful architecture had the appearance of worn ivory in the mellow radiance of the late afternoon, and the sculptured figures of the Twelve Apostles in their delicately carved niches, six on either side of the portal, seemed almost life-like, as the rays of the warm and brilliant sunshine, tempered by a touch of approaching evening, struck them aslant as with a luminance from heaven. She lifted the latch of the churchyard gate,--and walking slowly with bent head between the rows of little hillocks where, under every soft green quilt of grass lay someone sleeping, she entered the sacred building. It was quite empty. There was a scent of myrtle and lilies in the air,--it came from two clusters of blossoms which were set at either side of the gold cross on the altar. Stepping softly, and with reverence, Maryllia went up to the Communion rails, and looked long and earnestly at the white alabaster sarcophagus which, in its unknown origin and antiquity, was the one unsolved mystery of St. Rest. A vague sensation of awe stole upon her,--and she sank involuntarily on her knees.

"If I could pray now,"--she thought--"What should I pray for?"

And then it seemed that something wild and appealing rose in her heart and clamoured for an utterance which her tongue refused to give,--her bosom heaved,--her lips trembled,--and suddenly a rush of tears blinded her eyes.

"Oh, if I were only LOVED!" she murmured under her breath--"If only someone could find me worth caring for! I would endure any suffering, any loss, to win this one priceless gift,--love!"

A little smothered sob broke from her lips.

"Father! Mother!" she whispered, instinctively stretching out her hands--"I am so lonely!--so very, very lonely!"

Only silence answered her, and the dumb perfume of the altar flowers. She rose,--and stood a moment trying to control herself,--a pretty little pitiful figure in her dainty, garden-party frock, a soft white chiffon hat tied on under her rounded chin with a knot of pale blue ribbon, and a tiny cobweb of a lace kerchief in her hand with which she dried her wet eyes.

"Oh dear!" she sighed--"It's no use crying! It only shows what a weak little idiot I am! I'm lonely, of course,--I can't expect anything else; I shall always be lonely--Roxmouth and Aunt Emily will take care of that. The lies they will tell about me will keep off every man but the one mean and slanderous fortune-hunter, to whom lies are second nature. And as I won't marry HIM, I shall be left to myself--I shall be an old maid. Though that doesn't matter-- old maids are often the happiest women. Anyhow, I'd rather be an old maid than Duchess of Ormistoune."

She dabbed her eyes with the little handkerchief again, and went slowly out of the church. And as she stepped from the shadow of its portal into the sunshiny open air, she came face to face with John Walden. He started back at the sudden sight of her,--then recollecting himself, raised his hat, looking at her with questioning eyes.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Walden!" she said, affecting a sprightly air-- "Are you quite well?"

He smiled.

"Quite. And you? You look---"

"As if I had been crying, I suppose?"--she suggested. "So I have. Women often cry."

"They do,--but---"

"But why should they?--you would say, being a man,"--and Maryllia forced a laugh.--"And that's a question difficult to answer! Are you going into the church?"

"Not for a service, or on any urgent matter,"--replied John--"I left a book in the vestry which I want to refer to,--that's all."

"Fetch it," said Maryllia--"I'll wait for you here."

He glanced at her--and saw that her lips trembled, and that she was still on the verge of tears. He hurried off at once, realising that she wanted a minute or two to recover herself. His heart beat foolishly fast and uncomfortably,--he wondered what had grieved or annoyed her.

"Poor little soul!" he murmured, reflecting on a conversation with which Julian Adderley had regaled him the previous day, concerning some of the guests at Abbot's Manor--"Poor, weary, sweet little soul!"

While Maryllia, during his brief absence was thinking--"I won't cry, or he'll take me for a worse fool than I am. He looks so terribly intellectual--so wise and cool and calm!--and yet I think--I THINK he was rather pleased to see me!"

She smoothed her face into a smile,--gave one or two more reproving taps to her eyelids with her morsel of a kerchief, and was quite self-possessed when he returned, with a worn copy of the Iliad under his arm.

"Is that the book you wanted?" she asked.

"Yes--" and he showed it to her--"I admit it had no business to be left in the church."

She peeped between the covers.

"Oh, it's all Greek!"--she said--"Do you read Greek?"

"It is one of the happiest accomplishments I learned at college,"-- he replied. "I have eased many a heartache by reading Homer in the original."

She looked meditative.

"Now that's very strange!" she murmured--"I should never have thought that to read Homer in the original Greek would ease a heartache! How does it do it? Will you teach me?"

She raised her eyes--how beautiful and blue they were he thought!-- more beautiful for the mist of weeping that still lingered about their soft radiance.

"I will teach you Greek, if you like, with pleasure!"--he said, smiling a little, though his lips trembled--"But whether it would cure any heartache of yours I could not promise!"

"Still, if it cures YOUR heartaches?" she persisted.

"Mine are of a different character, I think!"--and the smile in his eyes deepened, as he looked down at her wistfully upturned face,--"I am getting old,--you are still young. That makes all the difference. My aches can be soothed by philosophy,--yours could only be charmed away by--"

He broke off abruptly. The hot blood rose to his temples, and retreated again, leaving him very pale.

She looked at him earnestly.

"Well!--by what?"

"I imagine you know, Miss Vancourt! There is only one thing that can ease the burden of life for a woman, and that is--love!"

She nodded her fair head sagaciously.

"Of course! But that is just what I shall never have,--so it's no use wanting it. I had better learn to read Greek at once, without delay! When shall I come for my first lesson?"

She laughed unforcedly now, as she looked up at him. They were walking side by side out of the churchyard.

"You are much too busy to learn Greek," he said, laughing with her. "Your London friends claim all your time,--much to the regret of our little village."

"Ah!--but they won't be with me very long now,"--she rejoined-- "They'll all go after the dinner next week, except Louis Gigue. Gigue is coming for a day or two and he will perhaps stay on a bit to give lessons to Cicely. But he's not a society man. Oh, dear no! Quite the contrary--he's a perfect savage!--and says the most awful things! Poor old Gigue!"

She laughed again, and looked happier and brighter than she had done for days.

"You have rather spoilt the villagers," went on Walden, as he opened the churchyard gate for her to pass out, and closed it again behind them both. "They've got accustomed to seeing you look in upon them at all hours,--and, of course, they miss you. Little Ipsie Frost especially frets after you."

"I'll go and see her very, very soon," said Maryllia, impulsively; "Dear little thing! When you see her next, tell her I'm coming, won't you?"

"I will," he rejoined,--then paused, looking at her earnestly. "Your friends must find St. Rest a very old-fashioned, world-forgotten sort of place,"--he continued--"And you must, equally, find it difficult to amuse them?"

"Well, perhaps, just a little," she admitted--"The fact is--but tell it not in Gath--I was happier without them! They bore me to death! All the same they really mean to be very nice,--they don't care, of course, for the things I care about,--trees and flowers and books and music,--but then I am always such an impossible person!"

"Are you?" His eyes were full of gentleness as he put this question- -"I should not have thought that!"

She coloured a little--then changed the subject.

"You have seen Lady Beaulyon, haven't you?" He bent his head in the affirmative--"Isn't she lovely?"

"Not to me," he replied, quietly--"But then I'm no judge."

She looked at him in surprise.

"She is considered the most beautiful woman in England!"

"By whom?", he enquired;--"By the society paragraphists who are paid for their compliments?"

Maryllia laughed.

"Oh, I don't know anything about that!" she said--"I never met a paragraphist in my life that I know of. But Eva is beautiful--there is no denying it. And Margaret Bludlip Courtenay is called the youngest woman in the world!"

"She looks it!" answered Walden, with great heartiness. "I cannot imagine Time making any sort of mark upon her. Because--if you don't mind my saying so--she has really nothing for Time to write upon!"

His tone was eminently good-natured, and Maryllia glancing at his smiling face laughed gaily.

"You are very wicked, Mr. Walden," she said mirthfully--"In fact, you are a quiz, and you shouldn't be a quiz and a clergyman both together. Oh, by the way! Why did you stop reading the service when we all came in late to church that Sunday?"

He looked full at her.

"Precisely for that reason. Because you all came in late."

Maryllia peered timorously at him, with her pretty head on one side, like an enquiring bird.

"Do you think it was polite?"

Walden laughed.

"I was not studying politeness just then,"--he answered--"I was exercising my own authority."

"Oh!" She paused. "Lady Beaulyon and the others did not like it at all. They thought you were trying to make us ashamed of ourselves."

"They were right,"--he said, cheerfully--"I was!"

"Well,--you succeeded,--in a way. But I was angry!"

He smiled.

"Were you, really? How dreadful! But you got over it?"

"Yes,"--she said, meditatively--"I got over it. I suppose you were right,--and of course we were wrong. But aren't you a very arbitrary person?"

His eyes sparkled mirthfully.

"I believe I am. But I never ask anyone to attend church,--everyone in the parish is free to do as they like about that. Only if people do come, I expect them to be punctual,--that's all."

"I see! And if they're not, you make them feel very small and cheap about it. People don't like being made small and cheap,--I don't, for instance. Now good-bye! You are coming to dine next week, remember!"

"I remember!" he rejoined, as he raised his hat in farewell. "And do you think you will learn Greek?"

"I am sure I will!--as soon as ever all these people are gone. The week after next I shall be quite free again."

"And happy?"

She hesitated.

"Not quite, perhaps, but as happy as I ever can be! Good-bye!"

She held out her hand. He pressed it gently, and let her go, watching her as she moved along the road holding up her dainty skirt from the dust, and walking with the ease and graceful carriage which was, to her, second nature. Then he went into his own garden with the Iliad, and addressing his ever attentive and complaisant dog, said:

"Look here, Nebbie--we mustn't think about her! She's a bewildering little person, with a good deal of the witch glamour in her eyes and smile,--and it's quite absurd for such staid and humdrum creatures as you and I, Nebbie, to imagine that we can ever be of the slightest service to her, or to dream that she ever gives us a single thought when she has once turned her back upon us. But it is a pity she should cry about anything!--her eyes were not made for tears--her life was not created for sorrow! It should be all sunshine and roses for her--French damask roses, of course!" and he smiled--"with their hearts full of perfume and their petals full of colour! As for me, there should only be the grey of her plots of lavender,--lavender that is dried and put away in a drawer, and more often than not helps to give fragrance to the poor corpse ready for burial!"

He sighed, and opened his Homer. Greek, for once, failed to ease his heartache, and the Iliad seemed singularly over-strained and deadly dull.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXI

That evening before joining her guests at the usual eight o'clock repast, Maryllia told Cicely Bourne of the disagreeable 'surprise' which had been treacherously contrived for her at Sir Morton Pippitt's tea-party by the unexpected presence of the loathed wooer whom she sought to avoid.

"Margaret Bludlip Courtenay must certainly have known he was to be there,"--she said--"And I think, from her look, Eva Beaulyon knew also. But neither of them gave me a hint. And now if I were to say anything they would only laugh and declare that they 'thought it would be fun.' There's no getting any help or sympathy out of such people. I'm sorry!--but--as usual--I must stand alone."

"I daresay every one of them was in the plot--men and all, if the truth were told!"--burst out Cicely, indignantly--"And Mrs. Fred is at the bottom of the mischief. It's a shame! Your aunt is a brute, Maryllia! I would say so to her face if she were here! She's a calculating, selfish, title-grubbing brute! There! What are you going to do?"

"Nothing!"--and Maryllia looked thoughtfully out of the window at the flaming after-glow of the sunset, bathing all the landscape in a flood of coppery crimson--"I shall just go on as usual. When I go down to dinner presently, I shall not speak of to-day's incident at all. Eva Beaulyon and Margaret Courtenay will expect me to speak of it--and they will be disappointed. If they allude to it, I shall change the subject. And I shall invite Roxmouth and his tame pussy, Mr. Marius Longford, to dinner next week, as guests of Sir Morton Pippitt,--that's all."

Cicely opened her big dark eyes.

"You will actually invite Roxmouth?"

"Of course I will--of course I MUST. I want everyone here to see and understand how absolutely indifferent I am to him."

"They will never see--they will NEVER understand!" said Cicely, shaking her mop of wild hair decisively--"My dear Maryllia, the colder you are to 'ce cher Roxmouth' the more the world will talk! They will say you are merely acting a part. "No woman in her senses, they will swear, would discourage the attentions of a prospective Duke."

"They may say what they like,--they may report me OUT of my senses if they choose!" declared Maryllia, hotly--"I am not a citizeness of the great American Republic that I should sell myself for a title! I have suffered quite enough at the hands of this society sneak, Roxmouth--and I don't intend to suffer any more. His methods are intolerable. There is not a city on the Continent where he has not paid the press to put paragraphs announcing my engagement to him-- and he has done the same thing with every payable paper in London. Aunt Emily has assisted him in this,--she has even written some of the announcements herself, sending them to the papers with my portrait and his, for publication! And because this constantly rumoured and expected marriage does not come off, and because people ask WHY it doesn't come off, the pair of conspirators are reduced to telling lies about me! I almost wish I could get small-pox or some other hideous ailment and become disfigured,--THEN Roxmouth might leave me alone! Perhaps Providence will arrange it in that way."

Cicely uttered an exclamation of horror.

"Oh, don't say such a thing, Maryllia! It's too dreadful! You are the prettiest, sweetest creature I ever saw, and I wouldn't have a scar or a blemish on your dear face for a million Roxmouths! Have patience! We'll get rid of him!"

Maryllia gave a hopeless gesture.

"How?"

"Well, I don't quite know!" and Cicely knitted her black brows perplexedly--"But don't worry, Maryllia! I believe it will all come right. Something will happen to make short work of him,--I'm sure of it!"

"You are an optimist,"--said Maryllia, kissing her--"and you're very young! I have learned that in this best of all possible worlds, human nature is often the worst part of all creation, and that when you want to avoid a particularly objectionable human being, that being is always round the corner. However, if I cannot get rid of Roxmouth, I shall do something desperate! I shall disappear!"

"Where to?" asked Cicely, startled.

"I don't know. Nowhere that you cannot find me!"

She laughed,--she had recovered her natural buoyancy and light- heartedness, and when she joined her party at dinner that evening, she showed no traces of annoyance or fatigue. She made no allusion to Lord Roxmouth's appearance at Sir Morton Pippitt's, and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, glancing at her somewhat timorously, judged it best to avoid the subject. For she knew she had played a mean trick on the friend whose guest she was,--she knew she had in her pocket a private letter from Mrs. Fred Vancourt, telling her of Lord Roxmouth's arrival at Badsworth Hall, and urging her to persuade Maryllia to go there, and to bring about meetings between the two as frequently as possible,--and as she now and then met the straight flash of her hostess's honest blue eyes, she felt the hot colour rising to her face underneath all her rouge, and for once in her placid daily life of body-massage and self-admiration, she felt discomposed and embarrassed. The men talked the incident of the day over among themselves when they were left to their coffee and cigars, and discussed the probabilities and non-probabilities of Miss Vancourt becoming the Duchess of Ormistoune, with considerable zest.

"She'll never have him--she hates him like poison!"--declared Lord Charlemont.

"Not surprised at that,"--said another man--"if she knows anything about him!"

"He has gone the pace!" murmured Mr. Bludlip Courtenay thoughtfully, dropping his monocle out of his eye and hastily putting it back, as though he feared his eye itself might escape from its socket unless thus fenced in--"But then, after all--wild oats! Once sown and reaped, they seldom spring again after marriage."

"I think you're wrong there!" said Charlemont--"Wild oats are a singularly perpetual crop. In many cases marriage seems to give them a fresh start."

"Will there be a good harvest when YOU marry, Charly?" asked one of the company, with a laugh.

"Oh, I shouldn't wonder!" he returned, good-naturedly--"I'm just as big a fool as any other man. But I always do my best not to play down on a woman."

"Woman"--said Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, sententiously--"is a riddle. Sometimes she wants a vote in elections,--then, if it's offered to her, she won't have it. Buy her a pearl, and she says she would rather have had a ruby. Give her a park phaeton, and she declares she has been dying for a closed brougham. Offer her a five-hundred- guinea pair of cobs, and she will burst into tears and say she would have liked a 'little pug-dog--a dear, darling, little Japanese pug- dog'--she has no use for cobs. And to carry the simile further, give her a husband, and she straightway wants a lover."

"That implies that a husband ceases to be a lover,"--said Charlemont.

"Well, I guess a husband can't be doing Romeo and 'oh moon'-ing till he's senile," observed a cadaverous looking man, opposite, who originally hailed from the States, but who, having purchased an estate in England, now patriotically sought to forget that he was ever an American.

They laughed.

"'Oh moon'-ing is a good expression,"--said Lord Charlemont--"very good!"

"It's mine, sir--but you're welcome to it,"--rejoined the Anglicised renegade of the Stars and Stripes,--"To 'oh moon' is a verb every woman likes to have conjugated by a male fool once at least in her life."

"Yes--and if you don't 'oh m-moon' with her,"--lisped a young fellow at the other end of the table--"She considers you a b-b-brute!"

Again the laugh went round.

"Well, I don't think Roxmouth will have a chance to go 'oh moon'-ing with our hostess,"--said Charlemont--"The whole idea of her marriage with him has been faked up by Mrs. Fred. The girl herself,--Miss Vancourt,--doesn't want him, and won't have him."

"Will you take a bet on it?" asked Mr. Bludlip Courtenay.

"Yes, if you like!" and Charlemont laughed--"I don't bet much, but I'll bet anything you choose to name on that. Maryllia Vancourt will never, unless she is bound, gagged and drugged into it, become Duchess of Ormistoune."

"Shall we say a tenner?" suggested Courtenay, writing the bet down in his notebook.

"Certainly."

"Good! I take the other side. I know something of Roxmouth,--he's seldom baffled. Miss Vancourt will be the Duchess before next year!"

"Not a bit of it! Next year Miss Vancourt will still be Miss Vancourt!" said Charlemont. emphatically--"She's a woman of character, and if she doesn't intend to marry Roxmouth, nothing will make her. She's got a mind of her own,--most women's minds are the minds of their favourite men."

"He-he-te-he--te-he--he!" giggled the young man who had before spoken,--"I know a girl---"

"Shut up, old chappie! You 'know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows'--that's what YOU know!" said Charlemont. "Come and have a look at the motor."

Whereupon they rose from the table and dispersed.

From that day, however, a certain additional interest was given to the house-party entertainment at Abbot's Manor. Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay and Lady Beaulyon fell so neatly into the web which Maryllia carefully prepared for them, that she soon found out what a watch they kept upon her, and knew, without further trouble, that she must from henceforth regard them as spies in her aunt and Lord Roxmouth's service. The men took no part in this detective business, but nevertheless were keenly inquisitive in their own line, more bets being given and taken freely on what was likely to be the upshot of affairs. Meanwhile, Lord Roxmouth and Mr. Longford, sometimes accompanied by Sir Morton Pippitt, and sometimes without him, called often, but Maryllia was always out. She had two watch- dogs besides her canine friend, Plato,--and these were Cicely and Julian Adderley. Cicely had pressed the 'moon calf' into her service, and had told him just as much as she thought proper concerning Roxmouth and his persecution of her friend and patroness.

"Go as often as you can to Badsworth Hall,"--she commanded him--"and find out all their movements there. Then tell ME,--and whenever Roxmouth comes here to call, Maryllia will be out! Be vigilant and faithful!"

And she had shaken her finger at him and rolled her dark eyes with such tragic intensity, that he had entered zealously into the spirit of the little social drama, and had become as it were special reporter of the Roxmouth policy to the opposing party.

But this was behind the scenes. The visible action of the piece appeared just now to be entirely with Maryllia and her lordly wooer,--she as heroine, he as hero,--while the 'supers,' useful in their way as spies, messengers and general attendants, took their parts in the various scenes with considerable vivacity, wondering how much they might possibly get out of it for themselves. If, while they were guests at Abbot's Manor, an engagement between Lord Roxmouth and Maryllia Vancourt could be finally settled, they felt they could all claim a share in having urged the matter on, and 'worked' it. And it was likely that in such a case, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, with millions at her disposal, would be helpful to them in their turn, should they ever desire it. Altogether, it seemed a game worth playing. None of them felt any regret that Maryllia should be made the pivot round which to work their own schemes of self- aggrandisement. Besides, no worldly wise society man or woman could be expected to feel sorry for assisting a young woman to attain the position of a Duchess. Such an idea would be too manifestly absurd.

"It will soon be over now,"--said Cicely, consolingly, one afternoon in the last week of Maryllia's entertaining--"And oh, how glad we shall be when everybody has gone!"

"There's one person who won't go, I'm afraid!" said Maryllia.

"Roxmouth? Well, even HE can't stay at Badsworth Hall for ever!"

"No,--but he can stay as long as he likes,--long enough to work mischief. Sir Morton Pippitt won't send him away,--we may be sure of that!"

"If HE doesn't go, I suppose WE must?" queried Cicely tentatively.

Maryllia's eyes grew sad and wistful.

"I'm afraid so--I don't know--we shall see!"--she replied slowly-- "Something will have to be settled one way or another--pleasantly or unpleasantly."

Cicely's black brows almost met across her nose in a meditative frown.

"What a shame it is that you can't be left in peace, Maryllia!"--she exclaimed--"And all because of your aunt's horrible money! Why doesn't Roxmouth marry Mrs. Fred?"

"I wish he would!" said Maryllia, heartily, and then she began to laugh. "Then it would be a case of 'Oh my prophetic soul! mine uncle!' And I should be able to say: 'My aunt is a Duchess.' Imagine the pride and glory of it!"

Cicely joined in her laughter.

"It WOULD be funny!" she said--"But whatever happens, I do hope Roxmouth isn't going to drive us away from the Manor this summer. You won't let him, will you?"

Maryllia hesitated a moment.

"It will depend on circumstances," she said, at last--"If he persists in staying at Badsworth, I must leave the neighbourhood. There's no help for it. It would only be for a short time, of course--and it seems hard, when I have only just come home, as it were,--but there,--never mind, Cicely! We'll treat it as a game of hare and hounds,--and we'll baffle the hounds somehow!"

Cicely gave a comic gesture of resignation to the inevitable.

"Anyhow, if we want a man to help us,"--she said,--"There's Gigue. Fortunately he's here now."

Gigue WAS there--very certainly there, and all there. Louis Gigue, renowned throughout the world for his culture of the human voice divine, had arrived the previous day direct from Paris, and had exploded into the Manor as though he were a human bombshell. He had entered at the hour of afternoon tea, wild-eyed, wild-haired, travel-soiled, untidy and eminently good-natured, and had taken everybody by surprise. He had rushed up to Maryllia, and seizing her hand had kissed it rapturously,--he had caught Cicely in his arms and embraced her enthusiastically with a 'Mon enfant prodigue!' and, tossing his grizzled locks from off his broad forehead, he had seated himself, sans ceremonie, amidst the company, as though he had known everyone present all his life.

"Mon Dieu, ze mal der mer!" he had exclaimed--"Ze bouleversement of ze vagues! Ze choses terribles! Ze femmes sick!--zen men of ze coleur blieu! Ah, quel ravissement to be in ze land!"

Gigue's English was his own particular dialect--he disdained to try and read a single word of it, but from various sources he had picked up words which he fitted into his speech as best it suited him, with a result which was sometimes effective but more often startling. Maryllia was well accustomed to it, and understood what she called 'Gigue's vernacular'--but the ladies and gentlemen of her house- party were not so well instructed, and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, whose knowledge of the French language was really quite extraordinary, immediately essayed the famous singing-master in his own tongue.

"Esker vous avez un moovais passage, Mo'sieur?" she demanded, with placid self-assurance--"Le mer etait bien mal?"

Gigue laughed, showing a row of very white strong teeth under his grizzled moustache, as he accepted a cup of tea from Cicely's hand, who gave him a meaning blink of her dark eyes as she demurely waited upon him.

"Ah, Madame! Je parle ze Inglis seulement in ze England! Oui, oui! Je mer etait comme l'huile, mais avec un so-so!" And he swayed his hands to and fro with a rocking movement--"Et le so-so faisaient les dames--ah, ciel!--so-so!"

And he placed his hand delicately to his head, with an inimitable turning aside gesture that caused a ripple of laughter. Maryllia's eyes sparkled with fun. She saw Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay surveying Gigue through her lorgnon with an air of polite criticism amounting to disdain,--she noted the men hanging back a little in the way that well-born Britishers do hang back from a foreigner who is 'only' a teacher of singing, especially if they cannot speak his language,-- and she began to enjoy herself. She knew that Gigue would say what he thought or what he wanted to say, reckless of censure, and she felt the refreshment and relief of having one, at least, in the group of persons around her, who was not in her Aunt Emily's service, and who uttered frankly his opinions regardless of results.

"Et maintenant,"--said Gigue, taking hold of Cicely's arm and drawing her close up to his knee--"Comment chante le rossignol? Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do! Chantez!"

All the members of the house-party stared,--they had taken scarcely any notice of Cicely Bourne, looking upon her as more or less beneath their notice--as a 'child picked up in Paris'--a 'waif and stray'--a 'fad of Maryllia Vancourt's'--and now here was this wild grey-haired man of renown bringing her into sudden prominent notice.

"Chantez!" reiterated Gigue, furrowing his brows into a commanding frown--"Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do!"

Cicely's dark eyes flashed--and her lips parted.

"Do--re--mi--sol---"

Round and full and clear rang the notes, pure as a crystal bell,-- and the listeners held their breath, as she made such music of the common scale as only a divinely-gifted singer can.

"Bien!--tres-bien!" said Gigue, approvingly, with a smile round at the company--"Mademoiselle Cicely commence a chanter! Ze petite sera une grande cantatrice! N'est-ce-pas?"

A stiffly civil wonderment seemed frozen on the faces of Lady Beaulyon and the others present. Wholly lacking in enthusiasm for any art, they almost resented the manner in which Cicely was thus brought forward as a kind of genius, a being superior to them all. Gigue sniffed the air, as though he inhaled offence in it. Then he shook his finger with a kind of defiance.

"Mais--pas en Angleterre!" he said--"Ze petite va commencer a Milan- -St. Petersburg--Vienna! Zen, ze Inglis vill say--'Ha ha! Zis prima donna chante pour les Francais, les Italiens, les Russes!--il faut qu'elle chante pour nous!' Zen--zey vill pay ze guinea--ces commes des moutons! Zey follow les autres pays--zey know nosing of ze art demselves!"

Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay coughed delicately.

"Music is so very much overdone in England"--she said, languidly-- "One gets so tired of it! Concerts are quite endless during the season, and singers are always pestering you to take tickets. It's quite too much for anyone who is not a millionaire."

Gigue did not catch this flow of speech--but Cicely heard it,

"Well, I shall never ask anyone to 'take tickets' to hear me!" she said, laughing. "A famous prima donna never does that kind of thing!"

"How do you know you will be famous?" asked Lady Beaulyon, amused.

"Instinct!" replied Cicely, gaily--"Just as the bird knows, it will be able to make a nest, so do I know I shall be famous! Don't let us talk any more about singing! Come and see the garden, Gigue!--I'll take you round it--and I want a chat with you."

The two went off together, much to the relief of the rest of the party.

"What an extraordinary-looking creature!" said Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay--"Is he quite a gentleman, Maryllia?"

Maryllia smiled.

"He is a gentleman according to my standard," she said. "He is honest, true to his friends, and faithful to his work. I ask nothing more of any man."

She changed the subject of conversation,--and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, in the privacy of her own apartment, confided to her husband that she really thought Maryllia Vancourt was a little 'off her head'--just a little.

"Because, really,"--said Mrs. Courtenay--"when it comes to harbouring geniuses in one's own house, it is quite beyond all reason. I sympathise so much with poor Mrs. Fred! If Maryllia would only marry Lord Roxmouth, all these flighty and fantastic notions of hers about music and faithful friends and honour and principle would disappear. I am sure they would!--and she would calm down and be just like one of us."

Mr. Bludlip Courtenay stared hard through his monocle.

"Why don't you talk to her about it?" he said--"You might do more for Roxmouth than you are doing, Peggy! I may tell you it would mean good times for both of us if you pushed that affair on!"

Mrs. Courtenay looked meditative.

"I'll try!"--she said, at last--"Roxmouth is to dine here to-morrow night--I'll say something before he comes."

And she did. She took an opportunity of finding Maryllia alone in her morning-room, where she was busy answering some letters. Gliding in, without apology, she sank into the nearest comfortable chair.

"We shall soon all be gone from this dear darling old house!" she said, with a sigh--"When are you coming back to London, Maryllia?"

"Never, I hope,"--Maryllia answered--"I am tired of London,--and if I go anywhere away from here for a change it will be abroad--ever so far distant!"

"With Lord Roxmouth?" suggested Mrs. Courtenay, with a subtle blink in her eyes.

Maryllia laid down the pen she held, and looked straight at her.

"I think you are perfectly aware that I shall never go anywhere with Lord Roxmouth,"--she said--"Please save yourself the trouble of discussing this subject! I know how anxious you are upon the point-- Aunt Emily has, of course, asked you to use your influence to persuade me into this detestable marriage--now do understand me, once and for all, that it's no use. I would rather kill myself than be Lord Roxmouth's wife!"

"But why--" began Mrs. Courtenay, feebly.

"Why? Because I know what kind of a man he is, and how hypocritically he conceals his unnameable vices under a cloak of respectability. I can tolerate anything but humbug,--remember that!"

Mrs. Courtenay winced, but stuck to her guns.

"I'm sure he's no worse than other men!"--she said--"And he's perfectly devoted to you! It would be much better to be Duchess of Ormistoune, than a poor lonely old maid looking after geniuses. Geniuses are perfectly horrible persons! I've had experience with them. Why, I tried to bring out a violinist once--such a dirty young man, and he smelt terribly of garlic--he came from the Pyrenees--but he was quite a marvellous fiddler--and he turned out most ungratefully, and married my manicurist. Simply shocking! And as for singers!--my dear Maryllia, you never seem to realise what an utter little fright that Cicely Bourne of yours is! She will never get on with a yellow face like that! And SUCH a figure!"

Maryllia laughed.

"Well, she's only fourteen---"

"Nonsense!" declared Mrs. Courtenay--"She tells you that--but she's twenty, if she's a day! She's 'doing' you, all round, and so is that artful old creature Gigue! Taking your money all for nothing!--you may be sure the two of them are in a perfect conspiracy to rob you! I can't imagine why you should go out of your way to pick up such people--really I can't--when you might marry into one of the best positions in England!"

Maryllia was silent. After a pause, she said gently:

"Is there anything else you want to tell me? I'm rather pressed for time,--I have one or two letters to write---"

"Oh, I see you want to get rid of me," and Mrs. Courtenay rose from her chair with a bounce--"You have become so rude lately, Maryllia,- -you really have! Your aunt is quite right! But I'm glad you have asked Roxmouth to dine to-night--that is at least one step in the right direction! I'm sure if you will let him say a few words to you alone---"

Maryllia lifted her eyes.

"I have already asked you to drop this subject," she said.

"Well!--if you persist in your obstinacy, you can only blame yourself for losing a good chance,"--said Mrs. Courtenay, with real irritation--"You won't see it, of course, but you're getting very passee, Maryllia--and it's only an old friend of your aunt's like myself that can tell you so. I have noticed several wrinkles round your eyes--you should massage with some 'creme ivoire' and tap those lines--you really should--tap on to them so---" and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay illustrated her instructions delicately on her own pink- and-white dolly face with her finger-tips--"I spend quite an hour every day tapping every line away round my eyes--but you've really got more than I have---"

"I'm not so young as you are, perhaps!" said Maryllia, with a little smile--"But I don't care a bit how I look! If I'm getting old, so is everyone--it's no crime. If we live, we must also die. People who sneer at age are likely to be sneered at themselves when their time comes. And if I'm growing wrinkles, I'd rather have country ones than town ones. See?"

"Dear me, what odd things you do say!" and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay shook out her skirts and glanced over her shoulder at her own reflection in a convenient mirror--"You seem to be quite impossible at times---"

"Yes,--Aunt Emily always said so!"--interposed Maryllia, quietly.

"And yet think of the advantages you have had!--the education--the long course of travel!--you should really know the world by this time better than you do?"--went on the irrepressible lady--"You should surely be able to see that there is nothing so good for a woman as a good marriage. Everything in a girl's life points to that end--she is trained for it, dressed for it, brought up to it--and yet here you are with a most brilliant position waiting for you to step into it, and you turn your back upon it with contempt! What do you imagine you can do with yourself down here all alone? There are no people of your own class residing nearer to you than three or four miles distant--the village is composed of vulgar rustics--the rural town is inhabited only by tradespeople, and though one of your near neighbours is Sir Morton Pippitt, one would hardly call him a real gentleman--so there's really nobody at all for YOU to associate with. Now is there?"

Maryllia glanced up, her eyes sparkling.

"You forget the parson!" she said.

"Oh, the parson!" And Mrs. Courtenay tittered. "Well, you're the last woman in the world to associate with a parson! You're not a bit religious!"

"No," said Maryllia--"I'm afraid I'm not!"

"And you couldn't do district visiting and soup kitchens and mothers' meetings"--put in Mrs. Courtenay--"It would be too sordid and dull for words. In fact, you wil simply die of ennui down here when the summer is over. Now, if you married Roxmouth---"

"There would be a gall-moon, instead of a honey one," said Maryllia, calmly,--"But there won't be either. I MUST finish my letters! Do you mind leaving me to myself?"

Mrs. Courtenay tossed her head, bit her lip, and rustled out of the room in a huff. She reported her ill-success with 'Maryllia Van' to her husband, who, in his turn, reported it to Lord Roxmouth, who straightway conveyed these and all other items of the progress or retrogression of his wooing to Mrs. Fred Vancourt. That lady, however, felt so perfectly confident that Roxmouth would,--with the romantic surroundings of the Manor, and the exceptional opportunities afforded by long afternoons and moonlit evenings,-- succeed where he had hitherto failed, that she almost selected Maryllia's bridal gown, and went so far as to study the most elaborate designs for wedding-cakes of a millionaire description.

"For,"--said she, with comfortable self-assurance--"St. Rest, as I remember it, is just the dullest place I ever heard of, except heaven! There are no men in it except dreadful hunting, drinking provincial creatures who ride or play golf all day, and go to sleep after dinner. That kind of thing will never suit Maryllia. She will contrast Roxmouth with the rural boors, and as a mere matter of good taste, she will acknowledge his superiority. And she will do as I wish in the long run,--she will be Duchess of Ormistoune."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXII

The long lazy afternoons of July, full of strong heat and the intense perfume of field-flowers, had never seemed so long and lazy to John Walden as during this particular summer. He felt as if he had nothing in the world to do,--nothing to fill up his life and make it worth living. All his occupations seemed to him very humdrum,--his garden, now ablaze with splendid bloom and colour, looked tawdry, he thought; it had been much prettier in spring-time when the lilac was in blossom. There was not much pleasure in punting,--the river was too glassy and glaring in the sun,--the water dripped greasily from the pole like warm oil--besides, why go punting when there was nobody but one's self to punt? Whether it was his own idle fancy, or a fact, he imagined that the village of St. Rest and its villagers had, in some mysterious way, become separated from him. Everybody in the place, or nearly everybody, had something to do for Miss Vancourt, or else for one or other of Miss Vancourt's guests. Everything went 'up to the Manor '--or came 'down from the Manor'--the village tradespeople were all catering for the Manor-- and Mr. Netlips, the grocer, driving himself solemnly ever to Riversford one day, came back with a board--'a banner with a strange device'--painted in blue letters on a white ground, which said:

PETROL STORED HERE.

This startling announcement became a marvel and a fascination to the eyes of the villagers, every one of them coming out of their houses to look at it, directly it was displayed.

"You'll be settin' the 'ouse on fire, Mr. Netlips, I'm afraid," said Mrs. Frost, severely, putting her arms akimbo, and sniffing at the board as though she could smell the spirit it proclaimed--"You don't know nothink about petrol! An' we ain't goin' to have motor-cars often 'ere, please the Lord's goodness!"

Mr. Netlips smiled a superior smile.

"My good woman,"--he said, with his most magisterial air--"if you will kindly manage your own business, which is that of pruning the olive and uprooting the vine, and leave me to manage my establishment as the reversible movement of the age requires, it will be better for the equanimity of the gastritis."

"Good Lord!" and Mrs. Frost threw up her hands--"You're a fine sort of man for a grocer, with your reversibles and your gastritis! What in the world are you talking about?"

Mr. Netlips, busy with the unpacking of a special Stilton cheese which he was about to send 'up to the Manor,' waved her away with one hand.

"I am talking above your head altogther, Mrs. Frost,"--he said, placidly--"I know it! I am aware that my consonances do not tympanise on your brain. Good afternoon!"

"Petrol Stored Here!"--said Bainton, standing squat before the announcement, as he returned from his day's work--"Hor-hor-hor! Hor- hor! I say, Mr. Netlips, don't blow us all into the middle of next week. Where does ye store it? Out in the coal-shed? It's awful 'spensive, ain't it?"

"It is costly,"--admitted Mr. Netlips, with a grandiose manner, implying that even if it had cost millions he would have been equal to 'stocking' it--"But the traveling aristocrat does not interrogate the lucrative matter."

"Don't he?" and Bainton scratched his head ruminatively. "I s'pose you knows what you means, Mr. Netlips, an' you gen'ally means a lot. Howsomever, I thought you was dead set against aristocrats anyway-- your pol'tics was for what you call masses,--not classes, nor asses neither. Them was your sentiments not long ago, worn't they?"

Mr. Netlips drew himself up with an air of offended dignity.

"You forestall me wrong, Thomas Bainton,"--he said--"And I prefer not to amplify the conference. A sentiment is no part of a political propinquity."

With that, he retired into the recesses of his 'general store,' leaving Bainton chuckling to himself, with a broad grin on his weatherbeaten countenance.

The 'Petol' board displayed on the front of Mr. Netlips' shop, however, was just one of those slight indications which showed the vague change that had crept over the erstwhile tranquil atmosphere of St. Rest. Among other signs and tokens of internal disquiet was the increasing pomposity of the village post-mistress, Mrs. Tapple. Mrs. Tapple had grown so accustomed to various titles and prefixes of rank among the different guests who came in turn to stay at the Manor, that whereas she had at one time stood in respectful awe of old Pippitt because he was a 'Sir,' she now regarded him almost with contempt. What was a 'Sir' to a 'Lord'? Nothing!--less than nothing! For during one week she had sold stamps to a real live Marquis and post-cards to a 'Right Honourable,' besides despatching numerous telegrams for the Countess of Beaulyon. By all the gods and little fishes, Sir Morton Pippitt had sunk low indeed!--for when Mrs. Tapple, bridling with scorn, said she 'wondered 'ow a man like 'im wot only made his money in bone-boilin' would dare to be seen with Miss Vancourt's real quality' it was felt that she was expressing an almost national sentiment.

Taking everything into consideration, it was not to be denied that the new element infused into the little village community had brought with it a certain stir and excitement, but also a sense of discontent. And John Walden, keenly alive to every touch of feeling, was more conscious of the change than many another man would have been who was not endowed with so quick and responsive a nature. He noted the quaint self-importance of Mrs. Tapple with a kindly amusement, not altogether unmixed with pain,--he watched regretfully the attempts made by the young girls of his little parish to trick themselves out with cheap finery imported from the town of Riversford, in order to imitate in some fashion, no matter how far distant, the attire of Lady Beaulyon, whose dresses were a wonder, and whose creditors were legion,--and he was sincerely sorry to see that even gentle and pretty Susie Prescott had taken to a new mode of doing her hair, which, though elaborate, did not suit her at all, and gave an almost bold look to an otherwise sweet and maidenly countenance.

"But I am old,--and old-fashioned too!"--he said to himself, resignedly--"The world must move on--and as it moves it is bound to leave old times behind it--and me with them. I must not complain-- nor should I, even in my own heart, find too many reproaches for the ways of the young."

And involuntarily he recalled Tennyson's lines:--

"Only 'dust to dust' for me that sicken at your lawless din,-- Dust in wholesome old-world dust before the newer world begin!"

"'Wholesome old-world dust'!" he mused--"Yes! I think it WAS more wholesome than our too heavily manured soil!"

And a wave of pained regret and yearning arose in him for the days when life was taken more quietly, more earnestly, more soberly--with the trust and love of God inspiring the soul to purity and peace-- when to find a woman who was at the same time an atheist was a thing so abnormal and repulsive as to excite the utmost horror in society. Society! why, now, many women in society were atheists, and made no secret of their shame!

"I must not dwell on these thoughts,"--he said, resolutely. "The sooner I see Brent, the better. I've accepted his invitation for the last week of this month--I can be spared then for two or three days- -indeed, I doubt whether I shall even be missed! The people only want me on Sundays now--and--though I do try not to notice it,--a good many of the congregation are absent from their usual places."

He sighed. He would not admit to himself that it was Maryllia Vancourt--'Maryllia Van'--or rather her guests who had exercised a maleficent influence on his little cure of souls, and that because the 'quality' did not go to church on Sundays, then some of the villagers,--like serfs under the sway of nobles,--stayed away also. He realised that he had given offence to this same 'quality,' by pausing in his reading, when they entered late on the one occasion they did attend divine service,--but he did not care at all for that. He knew, that the truth of the mischief wrought by the idle, unthinking upper classes of society, is always precisely what the upper classes do not want to hear;--and he was perfectly aware in his own mind that his short, but explicit sermon, on the 'Soul,' had not been welcome to any one of his aristocratic hearers, while it had been a little over the heads of his own parishioners.

"Mere waste of words!" he mused, with a kind of self-reproach--"I don't know why I chose the text or subject at all. Yes--yes!--I do know! Why do I play the deceiver with myself! She was there--so winsome--so pretty!--and her soul is sweet and pure;--it must be sweet and pure, if it can look out of such clear windows as her eyes. Let all the world go, but keep that soul, I thought!--and so I spoke as I did. But I think she scarcely listened--it was all waste of time, waste of words,--waste of breath! I shall be glad to see dear old Brent again. He wants to talk to me, he says--and I most certainly want to talk to him. After the dinner-party at the Manor, I shall be free. How I dread that party! How I wish I were not going! But I have promised her--and I must not break my word!"

He began to think about one or two matters that to him were not altogether pleasing. Chief among these was the fact that Sir Morton Pippitt had driven over twice now 'to inspect the church'-- accompanied by Lord Roxmouth, and the Reverend 'Putty' Leveson. Once Lord Roxmouth had left his card at the rectory, and had written on it: 'Wishing to have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Walden'--a pleasure which had not, so far, been gratified. Walden understood that Lord Roxmouth was, or intended to be, the future husband of Miss Vancourt. He had learned something of it from Bishop Brent's letter- -but now that his lordship was staying as a guest at Badsworth Hall, rumour had spread the statement so very generally that it was an almost accepted fact. Three days had been sufficient to set the village and county talking;--Roxmouth and his tools never did their mischievous work by halves. John Walden accepted the report as others accepted it--only reserving to himself an occasion to ask Miss Vancourt if it were indeed true. Meantime, he kept himself apart from the visitors--he had no wish to meet Lord Roxmouth-- though he knew that a meeting was inevitable at the forthcoming dinner-party at Abbot's Manor. Bainton had that dinner-party on his mind as well as his master. He had heard enough of it on all sides. Mrs. Spruce had gabbled of it, saying that 'what with jellies an' ices an' all the things as has to be thought of an' got in ready,' she was 'fair mazed an' moithered.' And she held forth on the subject to one of her favourite cronies, Mrs. Keeley, whose son Bob was still in a state of silent and resentful aggressiveness against the 'quality' for the death of his pet dog.

"It's somethin' too terrible, I do assure you!" she said--"the way these ladies and gentlemen from Lunnon eats fit to bust themselves! When they fust came down, I sez to cook, I sez--'Lord bless 'em, they must 'ave all starved in their own 'omes'--an' she laughed--she 'avin 'sperience, an' cooked for 'ouse-parties ever since she learned makin' may'nases [mayonnaise] which she sez was when she was twenty, an' she's a round sixty now, an' she sez, 'Lor, no! It do frighten one at first wot they can put into their stummicks, Missis Spruce, but don't you worry--you just get the things, and they'll know how to swaller 'em.' Well now, Missis Keeley, if you'll b'lieve me"--and here Mrs. Spruce drew a long breath and began to count on her fingers--"This is 'ow we do every night for the visitors, makin' ready for hextras, in case any gentleman comes along in a motor which isn't expected--fust we 'as horduffs---"

"Save us!" exclaimed Mrs. Keeley--"What's they?"

"Well I calls 'em kickshaws, but the right name is horduffs, Primmins sez, bein' a butler he should know the French, an' 'tis a French word, an' it's nothin' but little dishes 'anded round, olives an' anchovies, an' sardines an' messes of every kind, enough to make ye sick to look at 'em--they swallers 'em, an' then we sends in soup--two kinds, white an' clear. They swallers THAT, an' the fish goes in--two kinds--the old Squire never had but one--THAT goes down, an' then comes the hentreys. Them's sometimes two--sometimes four--it just depends on the number we 'as at table. They'se all got French names--there's nothing plain English about them. But they'se only bits o' meat an' fowl, done up in different ways with sauces an' vegetables, an' the quality eats 'em up as though they was two bites of an apple. Then we sends in the roast and b'iled--and they takes good cuts off both--then there's game,--now that's nearly allus all eat up, for I like to pick a bone now and then myself if it comes down on a dish an' no one else wants it--but there's never a morsel left for me, I do assure you! Then comes puddings an' sweets--then cheese savouries--then ices--an' then coffee--an' all the time the wine's a-goin', Primmins sez, every sort, claret, 'ock, chably, champagne,--an' the Lord alone He knows wot their poor insides feels like when 'tis all a-mixin' up together an' workin' round arterwards. But, as I sez, 'tain't no business o' mine if the fash'nables 'as trained their stummicks to be like the ostriches which eats, as I'm told, 'ard iron nails with a relish, I onny know I should 'a' bin dead an' done with long ago if I put a quarter of the stuff into me which they puts into theirselves, while some of the gentlemen drinks enough whiskey an' soda to drown 'em if 'twas all put in a tub at once---"

"But Miss Vancourt," interrupted Mrs. Keeley, who had been listening to her friend's flow of language in silent wonder,--"She don't eat an' drink like that, do she?"

"Miss Maryllia, bless 'er 'art, sits at her table like a little queen,"--said Mrs. Spruce, with emotion--"Primmins sez she don't eat scarce nothin', and don't say much neither. She just smiles pretty, an' puts in a word or two, an' then seems lookin' away as if she saw somethink beautiful which nobody else can see. An' that Miss Cicely Bourne, she's just a pickle!--'ow she do play the comic, to be sure!--she ran into the still-room the other day an' danced round like a mad thing, an' took off all the ladies with their airs an' graces till I nearly died o' larfin'! She's a good little thing, though, takin' 'er all round, though a bit odd in 'er way, but that comes of bein' in France an' learnin' music, I expect. But I really must be goin'--there's heaps an' heaps to do, but by an' by we'll have peace an' quiet again--they're all a-goin' next week."

"Well, I shan't be sorry!"--and Mrs. Keeley gave a short sigh of satisfaction--"I'm fair sick o' seein' them motor-cars whizzin' through the village makin' such a dust an' smell as never was,--an' I'm sure there's no love lost 'tweens Missis Frost an' me, but it do make me worrited like when that there little Ipsie goes runnin' out, not knowin' whether she mayn't be run over like my Bob's pet dog. For the quality don't seem to care for no one 'cept theirselves--an' it ain't peaceful like nor safe as 'twas 'fore they came. An' I s'pose we'll be seein' Miss Maryllia married next?"

Mrs. Spruce pursed up her mouth tightly and looked unutterable things.

"'Tain't no good countin' chickens 'fore they're hatched, Missis Keeley!" she said--"An' the Lord sometimes fixes up marriages in quite a different way to what we expects. There ain't goin' to be no weddin's nor buryin's yet in the Manor, please the A'mighty goodness, for one's as mis'able as t'other, an' both means change, which sometimes is good for the 'elth but most often contrariwise, though whatever 'appens either way we must bend our 'eads under the rod to both. But I mustn't stay chitterin' 'ere any longer--good day t'ye!"

And nodding darkly as one who could say much an' she would, the worthy woman ambled away.

Scraps of information, such as this talk of Mrs. Spruce's, reached Bainton's ears from time to time in a disjointed and desultory manner and moved him to profound cogitation. He was not quite sure now whether, after all, his liking for Miss Vancourt had not been greatly misplaced.

"When I seed her first,"--he said to himself, pathetically, while hoeing the weeds out of the paths in the rectory garden, "When me an' old Josey went up to get 'er to save the Five Sisters, she seemed as sweet as 'oney,--an' she's done many a kind thing for the village since. But I don't care for 'er friends. They've changed her like--they've made her forget all about us! An' as for Passon, she don't come nigh 'im no more, an' he don't go nigh 'er. Seems to me 'tis all a muddle an' a racket since the motor-cars went bouncin' about an' smellin' like p'ison--'tain't wot it used to be. Howsomever, let's 'ope to the Lord it'll soon be over. If wot they all sez is true, there'll be a weddin' 'ere soon, Passon'll marry Miss Vancourt to the future Dook, an' away they'll go, an' Abbot's Manor'll be shut up again as it used to afore. An' the onny change we'll 'ave will be Mr. Stanways for agent 'stead of Oliver Leach-- which is a blessin'--for Stanways is a decent, kindly man, an' Oliver Leach--well now!" And he paused in his hoeing, fixing his round eyes meditatively on a wall where figs were ripening in the sun--"Blest if I can make out Oliver Leach! One day he's with old Putty Leveson--another he's drunk as a lord in the gutter--an' another he's butterfly huntin' with a net, lookin' like a fool--but allus about the place--allus about--an' he's got a face that a kid would scream at seein' it in the dark. I wish he'd find another situation in a fur-off neighbourhood!"

Here, looking towards the lawn, he saw his master walking slowly up and down on the grass in front of his study window, with head bent and hands loosely clasped behind his back, apparently lost in thought.

"Passon ain't hisself,--seems all gone to pieces like," he mused-- "He don't do nothin' in the garden,--he ain't a bit partikler or fidgetty--an all he cares about is the bits o' glass which comes on approval from all parts o' the world for the rose window. I sez to him t'other day--'Ain't ye got enough old glass yet, Passon?'--and he sez all absent-minded like, 'No, Bainton--not yet! There are many difficulties to be conquered--one must have patience. It's almost like piecing a life together,' sez he--'one portion is good--another bad--one's got the true colour--the other's false--and so on--it's hard work to get all the little bits of love an' charity an' kindness to fit into their proper places. Don't you understand?' 'No, Passon,' sez I, 'I can't say as I do!' Then he laughed, but sad like--an' went away with his 'ead down as he's got it now. Something's wrong with him--an' it's all since Miss Vancourt came. She's a real worry to 'im I 'spect,--an' it's true enough the place ain't like what it was a month ago. Yet there's no denyin' she's a sweet little lady for all one can say!"

Bainton's sentiments were a fair reflection of the general village opinion, though in the town of Riversford the tide of feeling ran high, and controversy raged furiously, over the ways and doings of Miss Vancourt and her society friends. A certain vague awe stole over the gossips, however, when they heard that, whether rapid or non-rapid, 'Maryllia Van,' as Sir Morton Pippitt persisted in calling her, was likely to be the future Duchess of Ormistoune. Lord Roxmouth had been seen in Riversford just once, and many shop-girls had declared him 'so distinguished looking!' Mordaunt Appleby, the brewer, had thrown out sundry hints to Sir Morton Pippitt that he 'should be pleased to see his lordship at Appleby House'--Appleby House being the name of his, the brewer's, residence--but somehow his lordship had not yet availed himself of the invitation. Sufficient, however, was altogether done and said by all concerned to weave a web of worry round Maryllia,--and to cause her to heartily regret that she had ever asked any of her London acquaintances down to her house.

"I did it as a kind of instruction to myself,--a lesson and a test," she said--"But I had far better have run the risk of being called an old maid and a recluse than have got these people round me,--all of whom I thought were my friends,--but who have been more or less tampered with by Aunt Emily and Roxmouth, and pressed in to help carry on the old scheme against me of a detestable alliance with a man I hate. Well!--I have learned the falsity of their protestations of liking and admiration and affection for me,--and I'm sorry for it! I should like to believe in the honesty of at least a few persons in the world--if that were possible!--I don't want to have myself always 'on guard' against intrigue and humbug!"

Everyone present, however, on the night of the last dinner-party she gave to her London guests, was bound to admit that a sweeter, fairer creature than its present mistress never trod the old oaken floors of Abbot's Manor; and that even the radiant pictured beauty of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt,' to whom no doubt many a time the Merry Monarch had doffed his plumed hat in salutation, paled and grew dim before the living rose of Maryllia's dainty loveliness and the magnetic tenderness of Maryllia's eyes. Something of the exquisite pensiveness of her mother's countenance, as portrayed in the long hidden picture which was now one of the gems of the Manor gallery, seemed to soften the outline of her features, and deepen the character and play of the varying expression which made her so fascinating to those who look for the soul in a woman's face, rather than its mere physical form. Lady Beaulyon, beautiful though she was, owed something to art; but Maryllia was nature's own untouched product, and everything about her exhaled freshness, sweetness, and radiant vitality. Roxmouth, entering 'most carefully upon his hour,' namely at a quarter to eight o'clock, found her singularly attractive,--more so, he thought, than he had ever before realised. The stately old-world setting of Abbot's Manor suited her--the dark oak panelling,--the Flemish tapestries, the worn shields and scutcheons, the old banners and armorial bearings,--all the numerous touches of the past which spoke of chivalry, ancestral pride and loyalty to great traditions, lent grace and colouring to the picture she herself made, as she received her guests with that sweet kindness, ease and distinction, which are the heritage of race and breeding.

"Pretty little shrew!" he said, in an aside to Marius Longford--"She is really charming,--and I begin to think I want her as much for herself as for her aunt's millions!"

Longford smiled obsequiously.

"There is a certain air of originality, or shall we say individuality, about the lady,"--he observed, with a critical, not to say insolent stare in Maryllia's direction,--"The French term 'beaute du diable' expresses it best. But whether the charm will last, is another question."

"No woman's beauty lasts more than a few years,"--said Roxmouth, as he glanced at the various guests who had entered or were entering. "Lady Beaulyon wears well--but she is forty years old, and begins to show it. Margaret Bludlip Courtenay must be fifty, and she doesn't show it--she manages her Paris cosmetics wonderfully. Some of these county ladies would be better for a little touch of her art! But Maryllia Vancourt needs no paint,--she can afford to be natural. Is that the parson?"

Walden was just entering the room, and Longford put up his glasses.

"Yes,"--he replied--"That is the parson. He is not without character."

Roxmouth became suddenly interested. He saw Walden go up to his hostess and bow--he also saw the sudden smile that brightened Maryllia's face as she welcomed her clerical guest,--the one Churchman of the party.

"Rather a distinguished looking fellow,"--he commented carelessly-- "Is he clever?"

Longford hesitated. He had been pulverised in one of the literary weeklies by an article on the authenticity of Shakespeare's plays, signed boldly 'John Walden'--and he had learned, by cautious enquiries here and there in London, that though, for the most part, extremely unassuming, the aforesaid John Walden was considered an authority in matters of historical and antiquarian research. But he was naturally anxious that the future Duke of Ormistoune, when he had secured Mrs. Fred Vancourt's millions, should not expend his powerful patronage to a country clergyman who might, from a 'Savage and Savile' point of view, be considered an interloper. So he replied with caution:

"I believe he dabbles a little in literary and archaeological pursuits,--many parsons do. As an archaeologist, he certainly has merit. You entertain a favourable opinion of the church, he has restored?"

"The church, as I have before told you, is perfect,"--replied Roxmouth--"And the man who carried out such a design must needs be an interesting personality. I think Miss Vancourt finds him so!"

His cold grey eyes lightened unpleasantly as he made this remark, and Marius Longford, quick to discern every shade of tone in a voice, recognised a touch of satire in the seemingly casual words. He made no observation, however, but kept his lynx eyes and ears open, watching and listening for anything that might perchance be of use in furthering his patron's desires and aims.

Walden, meanwhile, had, quite unconsciously to himself, created a little sensation by his appearance. HE was the parson who had dared to stop in his reading of the service because the Manor house-party had entered the church a quarter of an hour behind time,--HE was the man who had told them that it was no use gaining the whole world if they lost their own souls,--as if, in this advanced era of progress, any one of them had souls to lose! Preposterous! Here he was, this country cleric, who, as he was introduced by his hostess to the various gentlemen standing immediately about her, smiled urbanely, bowed ceremoniously, and comported himself with an air of intellectual composure and dignity that had a magnetic effect upon all. Yet in himself he was singularly ill at ease. Various emotions in his mind contended together to make him so. To begin with, he disliked social 'functions' of all kinds, and particularly those at which any noted persons of the so-called 'Smart Set' were present. He disliked women who made capital out of their beauty, by allowing their photographs to be on sale in shop-windows and to appear constantly in cheap pictorials, and of these Lady Beaulyon was a notorious example, to say nothing of the graver sins against morality and principle for which she was renowned. He had no sympathy with sporting or betting men--and he knew by repute that Lord Charlemont and Bludlip Courtenay were of this class. Then again, deep down in his own soul, he resented the fact that Maryllia Vancourt entertained this sort of people as her guests. She was much too good for them, he thought,--she wronged herself by being in their company, or allowing them to be in hers! He watched her as she received part of the 'county' in the Ittlethwaites of Ittlethwaite Park, with a charming smile of welcome for Bruce Ittlethwaite, a lively bachelor of sixty, and for his eldest sister Arabella, some ten years younger, a lady whose portly form was attired in a wonderful apple-green satin, trimmed with priceless lace, the latter entirely lost as an article of value, among the misshapen folds of the green gown, which had been created, no doubt, by some local dressmaker, whose ideas were evidently more voluminous than artistic. And presently, as he stood, a quiet spectator of the different types of persons who were mingling with each other in the casual conversation on current topics and events, which always occupies that interval of time known as the 'mauvais quart d'heure' before the announcement of dinner, he happened to look at Maryllia's own dress, and, noticing it more closely, smiled. It was not the first time he had seen that dress!--and a faint colour warmed his cheeks as he remembered the occasion when Mrs. Spruce had sent for him as a 'man o' God' to serve as a witness to her system of unpacking her lady's wardrobe. That was the dress the garrulous old housekeeper had held up in her arms as though she were a clothes- prop, with the observation, 'It's orful wot the world's a-comin' to- -orful! Fancy diamants all sewed on to a gown!' The gown with the 'diamants' was the very one which now clothed Maryllia,--falling over an underskirt of palest pink satin, it glittered softly about her like dew spangles on rose-leaves--and involuntarily Walden thought of the pink shoes he had also seen,--those absurd little shoes!--did she wear them with that fairy-like frock, he wondered? He dared not look towards the floor, lest he should catch a sudden glimpse of the shining points of that ridiculous but fascinating foot-gear that had once so curiously discomposed him. Those shoes might peep out at any moment from under the 'diamants'--with a blink of familiarity which would be, to say the least of it, embarrassing. His reflections were at this juncture interrupted by a smooth voice at his ear.

"How do you do, Mr. Walden?"

A glance showed the speaker to be Mr. Marius Longford, and he responded with brief courtesy.

"Permit me"--continued Mr. Longford--"to introduce you to Lord Roxmouth!"

Walden bowed stiffly.

"I must congratulate you on the beauty of your church, Mr. Walden,"- -said Roxmouth, with his usual conventional smile--"I have never seen a finer piece of work. It is not so much a restoration as a creation."

Walden said nothing. He did not particularly care for compliments from Lord Roxmouth.

"That sarcophagus,"--continued his lordship--"was a very singular 'find.' I suppose you have no clue to the possible identity of the saint or sinner whose ashes repose within it?"

"None,"--replied Walden--"Something might probably be discovered if the casket were opened. But that will never happen during my lifetime."

"You would consider it sacrilege, no doubt?" queried Roxmouth, with a tolerant air.

"I should, most certainly!"

"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Sir Morton Pippitt, obtruding himself on the conversation at this moment--"God bless my soul! Not so very long ago every churchyard in England used to have its regular clean out--ha-ha-ha!--all the bones and skulls used to be dug up and thrown together in a charnel house, higgledy-piggledy--and nobody ever talked about sacrilege! You should progress with the age, Mr. Walden!--you should progress! Why shouldn't a coffin be opened as readily as any other box, eh? There's generally nothing inside--ha- ha-ha!--nothing inside worth keeping, ha-ha-ha! The plan of a spring-cleaning for churchyards was an excellent one, I think;--God bless my soul!--why not?--makes room for more hodies and saves extra land being given up to those who are past farming it, except in the way of manure, ha-ha-ha! There's no such thing as sacrilege nowadays, Mr. Walden!--why we've got the photograph of Rameses, taken after a few thousand years' decomposition had set in--ha-ha- ha! And not bad looking--not bad looking!--rather wild about the eyes, that's all--ha-ha! God bless my soul!"

These choice observations of the knight Pippitt were brought to a happy conclusion by the marshalling of the guests into dinner. Sir Morton, much to his chagrin, found himself deputed to escort Lady Wicketts, whose unwieldy proportions allied to his own, made it difficult for both to pass with proper dignity through the dining- room doorway. A little excited whispering between Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay and Lady Beaulyon took place, as to whether 'Maryllia Van' in her professed detestation of Lord Roxmouth, would forget etiquette and the rule of 'precedence'--but they soon saw she did not intend to so commit herself. For when all her guests had passed in before her, she followed resignedly on the arm of the future Duke. As the greatest stranger, and as the highest in social rank of all present, he had claim to this privilege, and she was too tactful to refuse it.

"What a delightful chatelaine you are!" he murmured, looking down at her as she rested her little gloved hand with scarce a touch on his arm--"And how proud and glad I am to be once more beside you! Ah, Maryllia, you are very cruel to me! If you would only realise how happy we could be--always together!"

She made no answer. Arriving in the dining-room, she withdrew her hand from his arm, and seated herself at the head of her table. He then found that he was on her right hand, while Lord Charlemont was on her left. Next to Lord Charlemont sat Lady Beaulyon,--and next to Lady Beaulyon John Walden was placed with the partner allotted to him, Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay. On Roxmouth's own side there were Lady Wicketts and Sir Morton Pippitt,--so it chanced that the table was arranged in a manner that brought certain parties who were by no means likely to agree on any one given point, directly opposite to each other. Cicely, peeping out from a little ante-room, where she had entreated to be allowed to stand and watch the proceedings, made a running commentary on this in her own particular fashion. Cicely was looking very picturesque, in a new white frock which Maryllia had given her,--with a broad crimson sash knotted carelessly round her waist and a ribbon of the same colour in her luxuriant black hair. She was to sing after dinner--Gigue had told her she was to 'astonish ze fools'--and she was ready to do it. Her dark eyes shone like stars, and her lips were cherry-red with excitement,--so much so that Mrs. Spruce, thinking she was feverish, had given her a glass of 'cooling cordial'--made of fruit and ice and lemon water, which she was enjoying at intervals while criticising the fine folks in the dining-room.

"Well done, Maryllia!" she murmured, as she saw her friend enter on Roxmouth's arm--"Cold as a ray of the moon, but doing her social duty to the bitter end! What a tom-cat Roxmouth is!--a sleek pussy, sure to snarl if his fur is rubbed up the wrong way--but he is just the type that some women would like to marry--he looks so well-bred. Poor Mr. Walden!--he's got to talk to the Everlasting-Youth lady,-- and old Sir Morton Pippitt is immediately opposite to him!--now that's too bad of Maryllia!--it really is! She knows how the bone- boiler longs to boil Mr. Walden's bones, and that Mr. Walden wishes Sir Morton Pippitt were miles away from him! They shouldn't have faced each other. But how very, very superior to all the lot Mr. Walden looks!--he really IS handsome!--he has such an intellectual head. There's Gigue chattering away to poor old Miss Fosby!--oh dear! Miss Fosby will never understand him! What a motley crew! And I shall have to sing to them all after they've dined! Saint Moses! It will be a sort of 'first appearance in England.' A good test, too, because all the English eat nearly to bursting before they go to the opera. No wonder they never can grasp what the music is about, or who's who! It's all salmon and chicken and lobster and champagne with them--not Beethoven or Wagner or Rossini. Good old Gigue! His spirits are irrepressible! How he is laughing! Mr. Walden looks very serious--almost tragic--I wonder what he is thinking about! I wish I could hear what they are all saying--but it's nothing but buzz, buzz!"

She took a sip at her 'cordial,' watching with artistic appreciation the gay scene in the Manor dining-room--the twinkling lights on the silver and glass and flowers--the elegant dresses of the women,--the jewels that flashed like starbeams on the lovely neck and shoulders of Lady Beaulyon,--the ripples of gold-auburn in Maryllia's hair,-- it was a picture that radiated with a thousand colours on the eye and the brain, and was certainly one destined, so far as many of those who formed a part of it were concerned, never to be forgotten. Not that there was anything very remarkable or brilliant in the conversation at the dinner-table,--there never is nowadays. Peeple dine with their friends merely to eat, not to talk. One never by any chance hears so much even as an echo of wit or wisdom. Occasionally a note of scandal is struck,--and more often than not, a questionable anecdote is related, calculated to bring 'a blush to the cheek of the Young Person,' if a Young Person who can blush still exists, and happens to be present. But as a rule, the general habitude of the dining class is to discourse in a very desultory and inconsequential, not to say stupid, style, and the guests at the Manor proved no exception to the rule. Sir Morton Pippitt fired off bumptious observations at Walden, who paid no heed to them--Bruce Ittlethwaite of Ittlethwaite Park, found a congenial spirit in Lord Charlemont, and talked sport right through the repast--and Louis Gigue enlivened the table by a sudden discussion with Mr. Marius Longford, relative to the position of art in Great Britain.

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, with a snap of his fingers--"Ze art is dead in Angleterre,--zere is no musique, ze poesie. Zis is ze land of ze A-penny journal--ze musique, ze poesie, ze science, ze politique, ze sentiment,--one A-penny! Bah! Ca, ce, n'est pas possible!--zis pauvre pays is kill avec ze vulgarite of ze cheap! Ze people are for ze cheap--for ze photographic, instead of ze picture- -ze gramophone, instead of ze artist fingers avec ze brain--et ze literature--it is ze cheap 'imitation de Zola,' qui obtient les eloges du monde critique a Londres. Vous ecrivez?"--and he shook his finger at Longford--"Bien'! Ecrivez un roman qui est sain, pure et noble--et ze A-penny man vill moque de ca--mais--ecrivez of ze dirt of ze human naturel, et voila! Ze A-penny man say 'Bon! Ah que c'est l'art! Donnes moi l'ordure que je peux sentir! C'est naturel! C'est divin! C'est l'art!'"

A murmur, half of laughter, half of shocked protest, went round the table.

"I think," said Mr. Longford, with a pale smile--"that according to the school of the higher criticism, we must admit the natural to be the only divine."

Gigue's rolling eyes gleamed under his shaggy hair.

"Je ne comprends pas!"--he said--"Ven ze pig squeak, c'est naturel-- ce n'est pas divin! Ven ze man scratch ze flea, c'est naturel--ce n'est pas divin! Ze art ne desire pas ze picture of ze flea! Ze literature n'existe pas pour ze squeak of ze pig! Ah, bah! L'art,-- c'est l'imagination--l'ideal--c'est le veritable Dieu en l'homme!"

Longford gave vent to a snigger, which was his way of laughing.

"God is an abstract illusion,"--he said--"One does not introduce a non-available quantity in the summing up of facts!"

"Ah! Vous ne croyez pas en Dieu?" And Gigue ruffled up his grey hair with one hand. "Mais--a quoi bon! Ca ne sert rien! Dieu pent exister sans votre croyance, Monsieur!--je vous jure!"

And he laughed--a hearty laugh that was infectious and carried the laughter of everyone else with it. Longford, irritated, turned to his next neighbour with some trite observation, and allowed the discussion to drop. But Walden had heard it, and his heart went out to Gigue for the manner in which he had, for the moment at least, quenched the light of the 'Savage and Savile.'

Up at the end of the table at which he, Walden, sat, things were of rather a strained character. Lord Roxmouth essayed to be witty and conversational, but received so little encouragement in his sallies from Maryllia, that he had to content himself with Lady Wicketts, whom he found a terrible bore. Sir Morton Pippitt, eating heartily of everything, was gradually becoming purple in the face and somnolent under the influence of wine and food,--Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, tired of trying to 'draw' Walden on sundry topics, got cross and impatient, the more so as she found that he could make himself very charming to the other people in his immediate vicinity, and that, as the dinner proceeded, he 'came out' as it were, very unexpectedly in conversation, and proved himself not only an intellectually brilliant man, but a socially entertaining one. Lord Roxmouth glanced at him curiously from time to time with growing suspicion and disfavour. He was not the kind of subservient, half hypocritical, mock-meek being that is conventionally supposed to represent a country 'cure.' His independent air, his ease of manner, and above all, his intelligence and high culture, were singularly displeasing to Lord Roxmouth, especially as he noticed that Maryllia listened to everything Walden said, and appeared to be more interested in his observations than in those of anyone else at the table. Exchanging a suggestive glance with Lady Beaulyon, Roxmouth saw that she was taking notes equally with himself on this circumstance, and his already hard face hardened, and grew colder and more inflexible as Walden, with a gaiety and humour irresistibly his own, kept the ball of conversation rolling, and gradually drew to his own strong and magnetic personality, the appreciative attention of nearly all present.

Truth to tell, a sudden exhilaration and excitement had wakened up John's latent forces,--Maryllia's eyes, glancing half timidly, half wistfully at him, and her fair face, slightly troubled in its expression, had moved him to an exertion of his best powers to please her, and make everything bright and gay around her. Instinct told him that some secret annoyance fretted her--and watching her looks, and noting the monosyllabic replies she gave to Lord Roxmouth whenever that distinguished personage addressed her, he decided, with a foolish thrill at his heart, that the report of her intended marriage with this nobleman could not be true--she could never look so coldly at anyone she loved! And with this idea paramount in his brain he gave himself up to the humour of the hour--and by and by heads were turned in his direction, and people whispered--'Is that the parson of the parish?'--and when the answer was given in the affirmative, wondering glances were exchanged, and someone at the other end of the table remarked sotto voce:--'Much too brilliant a man for the country!'--whereat Miss Arabella Ittlethwaite bridled up and said she 'hoped nobody thought that town offered the only samples of the human brain worth noticing,' as she would, in that case, 'beg to differ.' Whereat there ensued a lively discussion, which ended, so far as the general experience went, in the decision that clever men were always born or discovered in the country, but that after a while they invariably went up to town, and there became famous.

Presently, the dinner drawing to an end, dessert, coffee and the smoking conveniences for both ladies and gentlemen were handed round,--cigars for the gentlemen, cigarettes for both gentlemen and ladies. All the women helped themselves to cigarettes, as a matter of course, with the exception of Miss Ittlethwaite,--(who, as a 'county' lady of the old school, sat transfixed with horror at the bare idea of being expected to smoke)--poor old Miss Fosby, and Maryllia. And now occurred an incident, in itself trifling, but fraught with strange results to those immediately concerned. Lady Beaulyon was just about to light her own cigarette when, in obedience to a sudden thought that flashed across her brain, she turned her lovely laughing face round towards Walden, and said:

"As there's a clergyman present, I'm sure we ought to ask his permission before we light up! Don't you think it very shocking for women to smoke, Mr. Walden?"

He looked straight at her--his face paling a little with a sense of strongly suppressed feeling.

"I have always been under the impression that English ladies never smoke,"--he said, quietly, with a very slight emphasis on the word 'ladies.' "The rest, of course, must do as they please!"

Had a bombshell suddenly exploded in the dining-room, the effect could hardly have been more stupefying than these words. There was an awful pause. The women, holding the unlit cigarettes delicately between their fingers, looked enquiringly at their hostess. The men stared; Lord Roxmouth laughed.

Maryllia turned white as a snowdrop--but her eyes blazed with sudden amazement, indignation and pride that made lightning in their tender blue. Then,--deliberately choosing a cigarette from the silver box which had been placed on the table before her, she lit it,--and began to puff the smoke from her rosy lips in delicate rings, turning to Lord Roxmouth as she did so with a playful word and smile. It was enough;--the 'lead' was given. A glance of approval went the round of her London lady guests--who, exonerated by her prompt action from all responsibility, lighted their cigarettes without further ado, and the room was soon misty with tobacco fumes. Not a word was addressed to Walden,--a sudden mantle of fog seemed to have fallen over him, covering him up from the consciousness of the company, for no one even glanced at him, except covertly,--no one appeared to have heard or noticed his remark. Lord Charlemont looked, as he felt, distressed. In his heart he admired Walden for his boldness in speaking out frankly against a modern habit of women which he also considered reprehensible,--but at the same time he recognised that the reproof had perhaps been administered too openly. Walden himself sat rigid and very pale--he fully realised what he had done,--and he knew he was being snubbed for it--but he did not care.

"Better so!"--he said to himself in an inward rage--"Better that I should never see her again than see her as she is now! She wrongs herself!--and I cannot be a silent witness of her wrong, even though it is wrought by her own hand!"

The buzz of talk now grew more loud and incessant;--he saw Sir Morton Pippitt's round eyes fixed upon him with an astonished and derisive stare,--and he longed for the moment to come when he might escape from the whole smoking, chattering party. All that his own eyes consciously beheld was Maryllia--Maryllia, the dainty, pretty, delicate feminine creature who seemed created out of the finest mortal and spiritual essences,--smoking! That cigarette stuck in her pretty mouth, vulgarised her appearance at once,--coarsened her-- made her look as if she were indeed the rapid 'Maryllia Van' his friend Bishop Brent had written of. What did he care if not a soul at that table ever spoke to him again? Nothing! But he cared--oh, he cared greatly for any roughening touch on that little figure of smooth white and rose flesh, which somehow he had, unconsciously to himself, set in a niche for thoughts higher than common! He was quite aware that he had committed a social error, yet he was sorry she could not have reproved him in some other fashion than that of deliberately doing what he had just condemned as unbecoming to a lady. And his mind was in a whirl, when at last she rose to give the signal to adjourn, passing out of the dining-room without a glance in his direction.

The moment she had vanished, he at once prepared to leave, not only the room, but the house. No one offered to detain him. The men were all too conscious of what they considered his 'faux pas'--and they were also made rather uncomfortable by the decided rebuff he had received from their hostess. Yet they all liked him, and were, in their way, sorry for what had occurred. Lord Roxmouth, with the easy assurance of one who is conscious of his own position, remarked with kindly banter:--

"Won't you stay with us, Mr. Walden? Are you obliged to go?"

Walden looked at him unflinchingly, yet with a smile.

"When a man elects to speak his mind, Lord Roxmouth, his room is better than his company!"

And with this he left them--to laugh at him if they chose--caring little whether they did or not. Passing into the hall, he took his hat and coat,--he was angry with himself, yet not ashamed,--for something in his soul told him that he had done rightly, even as a minister of the Gospel, to utter a protest against the vulgarising of womanhood. He stepped out into the courtyard--the moon was rising, and the air was very sweet and cool.

"I was wrong!"--he said, half aloud--"And yet I was right! I should not have said what I did,--and yet I should! If no man is ever bold enough to protest again the voluntary and fast-increasing self- degradation of women, then men will be most to blame if the next generation of wives and mothers are shameless, unsexed, indecorous, and wholly unworthy of their life's mission. How angry she looked! Possibly she will never speak to me again. Well, what does it matter! The wider apart our paths are set, the better!"

He reached the gate of the courtyard, and was about to pass through it, when a little fluttering figure in white, with crimson in its rough dark hair, rushed after him. It was Cicely.

"Don't go, please Mr. Walden!" she said, breathlessly; and he saw, even by the light of the moon, that her eyes were wet--"Please don't go! Maryllia wishes to speak to you."

He turned a pale, composed face upon her.

"Where?"

"In the picture-gallery. She is alone there. She saw you cross the courtyard, and sent me after you. All the other people are in the drawing-room, waiting to hear me sing--and I must run, for Gigue is there, and he is so impatient! Please, Mr. Walden!"--and Cicely's voice shook--"Please don't mind if Maryllia is angry! She IS angry! But it's all on the surface--she doesn't really mean it--she wouldn't be unkind for all the world! I know what you said,--I was watching the dinner-party from the ante-room and I saw everything-- and--and--I think you were just splendid!--it's horrid for women to smoke--but they nearly all do it nowadays--only I never saw Maryllia do it before, and oh, Mr. Walden, make it all right with her, please!"

For a moment John hesitated. Then a kind smile softened his features.

"I can't quite promise that, Cicely,--but I'll do my best!" And taking her hand he patted it gently, as she furtively dashed one or two tear-drops from her lashes--"Come, come, you mustn't cry! Run away and sing like the little nightingale you are--don't fret---"

"But you'll go to Maryllia, won't you?" she urged, anxiously.

"Yes. I'll go!"

She lifted her dark eyes, and he saw how true and full of soul they were, despite their witch-like wildness and passion. Just then a stormy passage of music, played on the piano, and tumbling out, as it seemed, on the air through the open windows of the Manor drawing- room, reminded her that she was being waited for by her impetuous and impatient maestro.

"That's the signal for me!" she said--"I must run! But oh do, do make it up with Maryllia and be friends!"

She rushed away. He waited till she had disappeared, then turning back through the courtyard, slowly re-entered the house.

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