Too Soon ... New edition, revised

Front matter

NEW NOVELS. By Mrs. Macquoid. MAISIE DERRICK. 2 vols. £1 ls. Od. By Boma White. PUNCHINELLO'S ROMANCE. 1 vol. 6s. By Esme Stuart. VIRGINIE'S HUSBAND. 1 vol. 6s. By Anthony Hope. MR. WITT'S WIDOW: A Frivolous Tale. 1 vol. 6s. London: A. D. INNES & CO., (late Walter Smith & Innes), 31 & 32, Bedford Stkeet, Strand, W.C. NOVELS BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID. New and cheaper issue. Each volume 5s. Uniform with this Volume. the series commences with BESIDE THE RIVER. A FAITHFUL LOVER. London: A. D. INNES & CO., (late Walter Smith & Innes), 31 & 32, Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. A STORY. BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID, AtJTHOB OF 'PATTY,*' "AT THE BED GLOVE," "LOUISA," ETC, A NEW EDITION, REVISED. ionbon. A. D. INNES & CO., (late Walter Smith & Innes), 31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1892. LONDON : FEINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Cousins ... ... ... ... ... 1 II. Another Pair of Cousins ... ... ... 6 III. An Old Bookworm ... ... ... ... 11 IV. At the British Museum ... ... ... 18 V. Quite out of Sorts ... ... ... ... 25 VI. Michael Helder's Visit to Vine Cottage ... 33 VII. At Hampton Court ... ... ... ... 41 VIII. A Change in Mr. Helder ... ... ... 54 IX. Frank too goes away ... ... ... ... 59 X. Miss Fraser's Discovery ... ... ... 62 XL Love works Trouble ... ... ... ... 66 XII. A Moth ... ... ... ... ... 71 XIII. In which Mr. Helder shows his Great Strength of Mind ... ... ... ... ... 76 XIV. A Sage's Tribulation ... ... ... 81 XV. "Why does he love me?" ... ... ... 85 XVI. Miss Fraser learns the Truth ... ... . 89 XVII. Sudden ... ... ... ... ... 96 XVIII. Ursula yields ... ... ... ... 101 XIX.

The Evening before ... ... ... ... 105 XX. Married ... ... ... ... ... 110 XXI. The Visit ... ... ... ... ... 114 XXII. Frank's Confession ... ... ... 123 XXIII. Ursula's Dinner ... ... ... ... 127 XXIV. Clouds gather ... ... ... ... CONTENTS. VIII PAGE

Chapter I. The Cousins

In one of the quietest of the quiet streets of Blooms bury there is a house rather larger than those on each side of it — larger, and older ; it has a quaint, old-fashioned doorheading ; the street door itself has carved panels, and the window-frames have a broad antiquated solidity unmatched by any others in the street. Within the house a look of former times is even more apparent. The entrance hall is shut in by glass doors ; from the midst of the spacious black-and white pavement in the inner hall springs a massive oak staircase, which takes its square, leisurely way up to the top of the house, making an open room-like well in the front centre of it, and guarded on each landing, where it pauses for a good broad breathing space, by solid oak standards with heavy round knobs atop, shining, as their maker never meant them to shine, under a coat of most incongruous varnish.

There is no carpet on the dark, slippery oak stairs, and Miss Fraser's footsteps echo as she goes, key basket in hand, to her cousin's study. But she stops when she reaches the end of the B landing gallery which extends on each side along the square opening; on the right it leads to the next flight of stairs, on the left to the doors of the drawing room and study. The drawing-room extends across the back of the house. The study is long and narrow ; it has a window at one end looking into the street, and a door at the other which leads into the drawing-room ; it has also a door leading on to the staircase-gallery, and before this hangs a heavy brown curtain. Rachel Fraser stops before this curtain, and you see against its dark background what a fine figure she has, and how well her head is placed on her some what sloping shoulders.

Her dark hair is getting a grey tinge, but Miss Fraser does not wear a cap. If you study her dress carefully for a minute or two, you will see there is nothing superfluous about it — a close-fitting black woollen gown, fine, yet stout and likely to wear well ; her collar and cuffs are of worked French cambric ; her hair is simply arranged, but there is not a hair out of place ; something in the straight well-cut features, and narrow lips is suggestive of order and neatness. A comely, well-featured woman still, she must have been handsome once, although she must always have wanted complexion and grace of movement. The sharp rap of her knuckles on the door as she draws back the curtain is so in keeping with her face, that you know before you hear it that her voice will have the clear incisive tone in which she says, " May I come in, Michael ?

" No answer, but after a minute the door is opened by a man who matches her so well in height and stateliness of figure, that, till you see how much younger he is, you might have taken Michael Helder for Rachel Fraser's husband ; going past her into the carpetless room with books and papers littered on every table, letters and memoranda scattered pell-mell behind every bit of china on the high oak mantel- THE COUSINS. 3 shelf, you would have said, " And what a blessed helpmate she must be to this untidy student ! " But Miss Fraser is nearly ten years older than Michael Helder, and she is not his wife — she is his cousin ; she has kept his house for him ever since he was left an orphan at ten years old; and Michael Helder, his life and fortunes, his talents and his virtues, are the whole world to his cousin Rachel.

She has all the idolatry of a mother without any of a mother's privileges ; Michael's will is the law of her life ; she is never hard and unyielding to him, whatever she may be to others; certainly he never contradicts her, but then this would be difficult where his will or his opinion is made the law of the entire household. Michael chooses to have his study upstairs, although the first floor of the great gloomy house has never been furnished. There are three rooms below, but the large dining-room is only used for visitors; it is too vast for two people, Michael thinks, so Miss Fraser has one of the smaller rooms for her special sanctum, and the other is the living room of this quiet pair of cousins. They rarely meet except at meal-times. " I am sorry to disturb you, Michael," says the clear direct voice, " but here is a note which has just been brought round, and the man waits for an answer."

She looks up at her cousin and puts a note in his hand, and while he reads it she looks at him with the proud fondness of an elder sister. Michael Helder is not handsome : he is a tall, broad-shouldered man ; both his face and his limbs look strong and full of power ; there is power in his broad-lined forehead and in the crisp light hair that is brushed off it — power in his deep-set grey eyes and his too strongly-marked jaw — power, too, in his firm lips, though it is tempered here by kindly curves. He has a face you could scarcely help noticing, though you may not think it possesses one beauty ; it is masterful and peaceful at the same time, and when a smile breaks over it it has an indescribable attraction. " I'll not write an answer " — he looks up — " don't you trouble, Rachel ; I will go round presently my self.

It is only a query from Mr. Williams, and I can explain it better than I can write it." She lingers while he goes downstairs to speak to the messenger : she does not alter the position of the books or papers, but she deftly squares the books on the tables, picks up the papers which have fallen on the floor, and before Michael comes upstairs again she has given the room a set, orderly straightness which he at once recognizes. " Thank you," he smiles. " I wonder what sort of a place this would be if I were left quite to myself ? I could never bear being put regularly to rights ; it would take me a month to set all my disjointed links in order again. Jones was telling me yesterday that his wife insists on tidying his study table every week, and the consequence is he never finds anything when he wants it."

" He should not allow her to insist." Michael Helder smiles. " I believe you and I live here all alone till we make a code of our own ; so far as I can judge, most wives do pretty much as they please, and act very independently of their husbands. The fact is, Rachel, you have spoiled me out of all fitness for matrimony; I should drive a wife dis tracted." Miss Fraser's face goes back to the firm fixed look it wore till she went into the study. " You are not spoiled, only no woman would ever rule you, Michael ; but I think very few would under stand you— you are not easy to understand, you know." She is smiling again now. " I dare say if I had not been studying you for five-and-twenty years I sliould not understand you either, and you see no oue can ever have that chance a<min " THE COUSINS. 5 There is an exultation in her words that seems to strike her cousin.

" Then I suppose," he says, with a pretended regret, " that I had better give up all hopes of marriage : it seems to amount to this — either I should drive a wife distracted or she would have the same effect on me ! " She does not quite like his bantering tone. " I never said that, Michael. I am quite sure you could make any woman happy : my doubt is whether you could ever find one to suit you, now that your habits and ways of life are so fixed and regular." " I don't know about that ; I sometimes think it is good for people to have the old stiff furrows they have grown up in, broken and scattered : perhaps a wife who kept me in order, and insisted on being taken into society, might be better for me than your indulgence, for you do spoil me, Rachel." He gives her a kind, cousinly look, but she does not see it : she has turned to the door, and as he ends she says, " Good-bye," and goes out.

He has spoken partly in joke, partly in the teasing way which men are sure to inflict on women who worship them. Rachel knows this; but she feels pained at what he has just said ; there seems in his words a possibility of change ; with all her sense and strong understanding, she knows that if ever Michael marries, all the light will go out of her life. She does not love him — she would scorn the folly at her age and at Michael's — but she idolizes him, and her idolatry will not yield an iota of worship to be paid by any one but herself. " A wife ! Michael would be miserable with any wife ! " Miss Fraser says to herself, as she goes down the broad, shallow stairs.

Chapter II. Another Pair Of Cousins

Springtime was in its full glory : the glossy green leaves floated lazily in the soft genial warmth, no longer crinkled with fear that they had thrown off their outer wrappings too early. The grass-plot behind Vine Cottage was girdled in with colour just now; it was too small to be called a lawn, only a straight bit of grass, separated from the brick wall on each side by a flower-bed, backed with trees ; laburnums drooping golden showers of blossoms, and gueldres roses with warm grey shadows lurking in their snowball flowers, and lilacs of all shades of exquisite colour, took the upper range ; beneath were standard hawthorns with deep-cupped flowers, so pale without, so glowing crimson within, and double cherry-blossoms like miniature roses ; below these again, to fill the space still left above the bright green grass, were grand purple flags, their stiff leaves standing round the blossoms like a guard of honour, wall-flowers of every shade, from gold to chocolate ; and long graceful sprays of Solomon's seal bending over dark-eyed heartsease.

At the back of the border, against the surrounding walls, were violets and lilies of the valley ; but the blossoms of these were more a tradition than a reality, since " improvement," in the shape of building, had begun to invade " Old Brompton." Forty years ago — for it is forty years since this spring afternoon at Vine Cottage — the quaint quiet suburb had still some breathing spaces, some fields where children might pick buttercups and revel on the fresh green grass, and find the rare treasure of an occasional cowslip ; but, alas ! the reign of brick and mortar was fore shadowed; foundations were dug round and about, ANOTHER PAIR OF COUSINS. 7 houses had been planned, and the flowers in the little old-fashioned gardens were growing smaller, for the over-drained ground was becoming yearly more barren.

The old law was acting itself out here as elsewhere — Nature bowing her beautiful head before Man, her conqueror, and yielding possession to his destroying footsteps. " I say, Ursula, that's too bad ; you are no better than Jumbo." Frank Williams shook his handsome head at his cousin, and then burst out laughing; his blue eyes twinkling with amusement at the utter mystifica tion his words had called into her face. Frank was not tall, but he was a charming looking fellow of four and twenty, as he stood laughing and pulling out his long soft auburn whiskers. Ursula still gazed up at him wonderstruck. This youth and maiden were not lovers ; there was no love in the girl's eyes, and yet they were just the eyes that would reveal any absorbing feeling, so full of varied expression, that it was difficult to characterize them, except in the words of one of Andersen's fairy tales, as " the most beautiful dark lakes in which all manner of thoughts swam about."

Ursula was not beautiful ; she was of middle height, and she had a slender, graceful figure ; but for her eyes and her intensity of expression she would not, perhaps, have attracted much notice. Soft dark hair was gathered loosely away from her low broad forehead into a coil of plaits at the back of her head ; her mouth was almost as expressive as her eyes, full of sensitive curves, and yet with a curling upper lip which betokened some disregard for the sensitiveness of others. There was a strange mingling of vivacity and dreaminess in her face, and the last had got the mastery as she tried to find out her cousin's meaning. " I do not understand," she said slowly. He pointed to her fingers. " Look at them, purple with the heartsease I gave you, the best in the garden too; and you have been deliberately rolling it up between your thumb and finger while you read me that poem."

Ursula bit her lip ; it was red before, but it glowed now like a bit of coral. " And you, instead of listening, as I thought, you were watching the fate of the heartsease. Frank, I believe you are quite illiterate, though you are an Oxford man." She rose up from her low garden chair, and shook her head at her com panion. " You have not got a spark of sentiment in you." " I don't suppose I have much, and yet " — he gave her a long wistful look — " sometimes I think you are harder on me than you know." He sighed, but the look and the sigh were lost on the girl : she had not been following his thoughts — she was intent on studying her own. " I should not like to be a man for most things, but there is one thing I do envy you, Frank — your power of gaining sympathy, of going out into the world, and if you find a kindred spirit there, of claiming its companion ship."

Frank's bright face had clouded since his sigh. He looked at his cousin now with a merry smile. " You'll never listen to me, of course, any more than you used to ; but I make the same complaint of you that I made when you were a little girl — you are too romantic, your world is not a real world, and you will never get common flesh-and-blood people to satisfy your lofty ideas." His cousin's lip curled, and she moved her shoulders impatiently. " If you read more and amused your self less, Frank ; if you cared more for books and less for the theatre and for dancing, your ideas would be loftier; it is men like you, who set up a low standard of life, who help to make life commonplace and dull." She stopped abruptly. She could have gone on stinging him with words about his easy content and ANOTHER PAIR OF COUSINS. his want of high aim, but something told her she should not be understood ; and after all Frank was Frank, and he was very good and always kind to her, and perhaps it was not worth while to try and make him anybody else.

" I am commonplace, I know," he said humbly ; "you have taught me that, Ursula, not by words only." The girl's pale clear skin glowed, her eyes were liquid with softness, as she looked up in her cousin's face. " I beg your pardon ; I ought never to be rude or unkind to you, Frank, because you always take my part." The young man flushed too ; he seemed as if he were going to make an earnest answer, and then he broke into a short laugh. " I was only joking ; but to change the subject, are you all going anywhere for change this autumn ? " " I don't suppose so ; you know we only go awaj" every three years, and then always to Herne Bay and I would much rather stay at home ; it is such an ugly place ; the sea is the only enjoyment, and then one feels the sea is not as bold there as it might be in other places.

Frank, do you think people ever realize the great longing of their lives ? " '.' Often, I fancy ; but of course this depends much on the thing coveted. I don't know," he said mis chievously, " whether a young lady ever finds her ideal hero — a perfection, strong as a rock, in whom is no flaw, who is never impatient or wanting in devotion, and who guides her safely through all the shoals and perils of life." " Frank, what do you mean ? " Ursula's eyes opened widely. " Ah, you see, I can guess something ; " then, seeing trouble and perplexity in every line of his cousin's earnest, expressive face, he said, " My dear Ursula, Aunt Sophy gave me these verses ; " he took a sheet of manuscript from his pocket ; " I confess I felt guilty after reading them, because I don't think you meant them to be read.

Don't be angry— they are very sweet and musical; but if they really express your feelings, I don't think it is quite safe to have such feelings. There are no such men as you picture, and the devotion your heroine lavishes would hardly bring her happiness with an ordinary man." He spoke earnestly and yet timidly ; he did not under stand the cloud that had gathered in his cousin's eyes. She was very pale and quiet when she spoke again. "It is unfair; Aunt Sophy had no right to hand about my private papers ; I call such a thing a household treason." Then she smiled and held out her hand for the manuscript. " I should have thought a man like you, Frank, would have found out before now that the feelings and thoughts which people set down on paper are not necessarily their own, otherwise how would writers ever get any variety in their work ?

Every person described must have his or her own special feelings, but these are not necessarily the feelings of the writer. I don't choose to say whether I speak for myself or not in this poem ; I consider no one else has a right to know my own private feelings." She crushed up the paper in her hand and went abruptly into the house. Frank looked after her, but he did not laugh. " Poor, dear little thing, she will be miserable if she goes on like this ! she's quite vexed ; I believe she does feel as she writes ; she is not really silly or affected, though she is so awfully romantic : if she loved a fellow, perhaps it would all come to nothing, as girls' notions do. Still, if I could only feel sure " And then Frank Williams remembered he had an appointment in his rooms in the Temple at five o'clock, and that it was certainly against his interest to miss it.

" I wish they had made me a solicitor instead of a barrister," he thought, as he went back to town ; " I might be making money by this time, and be able to think about marrying."

Chapter III. An Old Bookworm

Ursula Williams's life had been dull in the sense of monotony. Her mother had died before she could remember, and her father, a dreamy, learned scholar, had never recovered the sorrow of her loss. When Ursula was eight years old, her aunt, Miss Sophia Ashton, came to live at Vine Cottage, and the gentle, placid lady, as " Aunt Sophy," had ever since had the care of the household. She had given up her share in Ursula's education, for the girl had soon gained all the book learning her aunt had to teach. Partly from her father, partly from masters, and very much from her own persever ing thirst for knowledge, she had acquired a large amount of thorough information, and had also culti vated her talent for languages and music. Mr. Williams was fond of his daughter, but fonder of his books : he understood books better than he understood human beings, and therefore he loved them better ; he spent his weekday life, except a scanty amount of holiday, within the walls of the State Paper Office, and every year he became more and more absorbed in his researches, while his home life grew to be an episode in his existence.

Ursula often longed for the talks in which her father had indulged her while he gave her Latin lessons, but these never came now. Mr. Williams seemed to think his daughter belonged more to her aunt than to himself. He spoke very seldom, especially to Ursula. Miss Ashton was sitting in the back room at needle work, waiting her brother-in-law's coming home. They could not be called two rooms, although there were folding doors between them, but these were never closed. Meals were eaten in the front room, and in the other there were book-cases, and a piano forte, and a work-table, and glass doors leading by a short flight of steps on to the gravel walk. If formal visitors came to Vine Cottage, they were ushered into the prim little drawing-room upstairs. Aunt Sophy was a gentle, sweet-looking woman between forty and fifty ; her fingers this evening held her needlework, but she was not sewing ; her mild eyes followed Ursula's impetuous walk up and down the grass-plot with a kind of fearful expectation, _ and there was a painfully timid expression on her delicate lips.

" Poor dear child ! she sadly wants a mother," the quiet woman murmured ; " it is not likely I can be enough for her." " Sophy ! " — Mr. Williams had come in so quietly that she started — " let me tell you, before I forget, I have asked Raven to dine with us on Saturday. Oh ! " — he saw his daughter coming towards the house — " Ursula, my dear, Mr. Raven is coming on Saturday. He asked after you to-day." " Did he ? " — a little toss of her head — " he thought I was a book, perhaps : I hope he will make himself a little agreeable when he comes, and croak, croak over something younger than Sanchoniathan ! " " What a child you are ! But he is very gifted, and — and — " Mr. Williams hesitated ; he was trying to find a word which would fit his friend and satisfy Ursula — " and, my dear, he likes young people."

" Papa ! " — such a look of comic disdain came into her face — " he does not even know whether I am old or young ; my only merit in his eyes is that I listened one day to a fearfully long discussion about Nisroch, and eagles' wings, and pretended I understood it. I don't really see any difference between Mr. Raven and a mummy, if there were Assyrian mummies." Her father turned away as if he were weary, and went upstairs. AN OLD BOOKWORM. Ursula groaned. " Oh dear ! oh dear ! I wish that dreadful old fossil would stop away ! I'm sure he is older than any raven on record. Aunt Sophy, what is there about this house that nothing young ever comes into it ? I believe my hair will be grey by the time I am twenty ! " " Why, my dear ! " — Aunt Sophy's voice had a shade of surprised rebuke in it — " what do you call your cousin Frank ?

" Ursula had been standing on the steps ; she came up them now into the room, and stood facing her aunt. " Aunt Sophy, you like mutton chops ; but do you think you could go on all your life eating mutton chops every day for dinner ? Frank is very nice and kind and good — good ? why, he's excellent, and he is certainly young, very young." She gave a little weary sigh. " But he is not anybody in the way I mean : I have known Frank ever since he was three ; there's nothing to find out in him — I know his thoughts and ideas, inside and outside too." " Well but, Ursula " — Aunt Sophy's remonstrance came timidly, she was in wholesome fear of her niece's sharp, nimble tongue — " Frank was muc*h more than three when you first knew him, and you missed see ing him for several years ; he must be like a new friend again now."

Ursula shook her head. " He was rather new at first, but he's always just the same ; there's nothing in Frank to change, dear old fellow ! He is a good, orderly, matter-of-fact man, like a hundred other men. I am sure there is nothing about him which need be special to Frank Williams. Of course I like him very much, but I see him as often as I want to : I don't feel sorry when he goes away." She gave another weary sigh ; then, with a sudden change of voice, " Please, aunt, when you find my — my papers about, don't show them to everybody." A slight flush came into the aunt's gentle face ; Ursula's tone was hardly rude, but it was certainly not deferential. ' I only showed that paper to Frank, my dear." ' I know ; but I don't wish what I write shown to any one ; I don't want any one to know that I ever write anything but letters.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that my papers ought to be as sacred as my account book, and I suppose, aunt, you would not show that to Frank ? " " I did not know you kept accounts," said Aunt Sophy, laughing, glad to think the storm was blowing over. " I'm very pleased to hear it ; it is a very good habit, my dear." " Oh, don't be glad too soon, aunt. I don't keep them properly. I put down what I remember, and how much papa gives me, and then I set down sundries to make it even, and there are always more sundries than anything." Here her father came in, and dinner was served. It seems sometimes as if there were more that is akin to us in trees, and plants, and flowers, than in other parts of creation : spring seems to stir our frame as it stirs the sap in the living nature around us ; and as that satisfies its instincts in the develop ment of leaves and flowers, so the craving which visits most of us early in the year will be sure to give some outward sign of its presence ; in some it may be joy — a bounding gladness of heart which not even poetry can render adequately, which finds its echo only in the growing loveliness of budding leaf and flower, in the colour developing around ; in others there is a tender languorous sadness.