Irish Pride. An unsocial tale of social life

Front matter

AN UNSOCIAL TALE OF SOCIAL LIFE. BT E. NOBLE,^_ ALIHOB OF "DOH.'s- DIAMONDS," ETC. LONDON : BEVINGTON AND CO., 5, JOHN STREET, ADELPHI, W.C 1885. [All rights' reserved.] Printed by Hazel), Watson, & Viney, Limited London and Ayleisbury CONTENTS. CHAV. PAGE I. ON THE RUSTIC BRIDGE . . . . 1 II. THE TERRIBLE GRANDMAMMA . . .15 III. COMING OUT 23 IV. " MR. LINDORES " 32 V. "DEEPLY, DARKLY, 'DESPERATELY' BLUF." 44 VI. MRS. MACNAMARA " AT HOME " . . .57 VII. " NOT IN OUR SET " 74 VIII. " COME LET US BE MERRY TO-NIGHT " . 86 IX. HOPE 95 X. THE HARCOURTS 102 XI. A PARTY AT THE JOINTURE HOUSE . .113 XII. QUEEN MAB AGAIN ..... 126 XIU. WORDS ONLY WORDS .... 140 XIV. " A FELLOW FEELING MAKES US WONDROUS KIND " 151 XV. "QUITE WITHOUT FEELINGS" . . . 161 b VI CONTENTS. CHAP. PAflE XVI. OUT OF HOUSE AND HOME . . .166 XVII.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN . . .172 XVIII. MR. HARCOURT HAS HEARD FROM AUS- TRALIA 187 xix. "i shall make it my business" . 192 xx. fred. encore ! 201 xxi. happiest of happy thoughts . .211 xxii. derrycarne versus harcourt abbey . 222 xxiii. "tall gay dashing" . . .231 xxiv. " sweet dream and delusion, for ever farewell" ..... 239 xxv. " those dreadful things you said of mr. lees harcourt" . . . 249 xxvi. " and all went merry as a marriage bell, when " . . . . 258 xxvii. " very quiet now ! " . . . . 269 xxviii. do your duty 275 xxix. at the antipodes ..... 287 XXX. LOST 293 XXXI. FOUND 304 XXXII. " RATHER EMBARRASSED " . . .312 XXXIII. " LIVE QUIETLY." . . . . - . 320 XXXIV. VERY LONELY FOR CECILE . . . 327 XXXV. DEPARTURE FROM THE COUNTRY, AND THE WORLD CONTENTS. VII CHAP. PAGE XXXVI. L'NCLE OLIVER'S WILL .... 343 XXXVII.

" WHAT SHOULD I DO?" . . . 353 XXXVHI. ST. HELENS 362 XXXIX. GUARDIANSHIP 368 XL. NOT TRIED YET 379 XLI. THE LAST POWER SCHEME . . . 389 XLII. QUITS 398 XLIII. " HOME AGAIN " 409 XLIV. FOLLY'S PENANCE . . . .418 XLV. ON THE RUSTIC BRIDGE ONCE MORE . 430 XLVI. FINIS

Chapter I. On The Rustic Bridge

The September sunset gleams slantingly over an extensive undulating park, backed by a glorious ascent of blue mountain, and interwoven by a broad stream, that chat ters to its green banks, and murmurs softly under the old wooden bridge, against whose moss-grown parapet are leaning two individuals. They are brother and sister — the youngest, almost the last survivors, of the proud race who for centuries possessed the surrounding lands, and dwelt -within the grey castellated walls which rise loftily in the foreground. De Burgh Towers the massive pile is styled,— owned by D'e Burghs no longer. Its bill of sale and consequent change of proprietorship have just been effected, for bidding the loiterers on the bridge to call henceforth "home," the abode wherein their fathers lived, and they themselves were born and reared.

A peculiarly " Irish fate " pronounces the general verdict ; and verily as to the fact we must agree, affixing, however, a query as to what distinctive trait of race this fate may be attributed, seeing tbat Ireland's population is as mixed in descent as tbat of England, and more so than that of Scotland or of Wales. These luckless De Burghs, retraced their name and lineage to the Anglo-Normans, that people characterised by contemporaneous historians as " more Irish than the Irish themselves" — id est, more rapacious, ferocious, uncivdised, — perhaps more extravagant. At any rate, whether hereditary or acquired in their adopted nationality, the De Burghs had during many generations developed and practised most efficiently a talent for spending money. And as relations seldom left them any, and they were much too aristo cratic to marry any, and it was very certain they never made any, so it came quite naturally to pass, that after experiencing the successive preliminary conditions of embarrassment, debt, mortgage, they finally lost everything — lost being here under stood, in its common but improper Irish definition ; for lost (English) means acci dental deprivation, whereas the De Burghs saw their possessions float from them piecemeal, with eyes recklessly indifferent even to the present, utterly regardless of what the future might bring — that future which must make the present to some of their posterity.

Sternly tbe spirit of the old Sinaitic denunciation, "I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children," attends and follows humanity. The De Burgh children, innocent of the fault, were yet doomed to expiate it. To their parents had appertained the pleasure — such as it was — of wanton expenditure, and running into irretrievable debt. To them seemed fastened the life-long penalty of poverty and dependence. Cold, cruel destiny for the brother and sister to contemplate this fan September evening, as silently they stand side by side, apparently thinking the same thoughts, engaged in the same monotonous occupation of watching the rippling face of the water. What do they see there? What visions, shadowy, vague, is fancy conjuring out of each tiny wavelet ? What memories of tbe past, dreams of the future, are floating through the young minds, whose " windows " are bent so persistently on the swift, clear current, as now with snowy crest it foams over stone and shingle ; now with a flutter ing leaf thrown by autumn's despoding hand on its bosom, it still pursues its way, on, on to its home, in the distant ocean.

Possibly that last picture illustrates rather vividly to one of the gazers the involuntary position he himself occupies on the perilous wave of misfortune ; for Frank De Burgh suddenly breaks the silence by exclaiming, — " Very dull work, this ; are you not cold, Cecy? The sun is setting." "But not set yet," she answers, lifting her eyes from the stream to where, above the firwood, rise the mountains, their summits crowned with the crimson and gold clouds of eventide. " This is the last time remember, Frank, that we shall ever look at those hills, or lean against these dear old railings." " Yes, I know," Frank sighs, but his sanguine temperament reasserts itself quickly. " It may not be the last time, Cecy ; what if 1 find lots of gold in Australia, return rich, and buy it ab back again? " "Buy it all back again."

She repeats the words in a gladder tone, a light break ing in the sad, earnest eyes. " Frank, could that be possible ? " " Of course ; provided when the time comes its new owner be wibing to part with it. Perhaps, though, he may un luckily grow as fond of it as we are." " Oh, I am sure he wdl not. Harriet says be quite agreed with Uncle Oliver that it was a desolate, ill-kept old place." " Yes, he is a friend of Uncle Oliver's (happy man), and is, moreover, bead of the big agency Arm, Lindores and Lindores, that do business for half tbe landed world, and are swimming in riches. He was mag nificently indifferent about this little cabin and cabbage garden, spending just half an hour, I believe, investigating the whole concern." " And yet bought everything : furniture, pictures — even the old portraits."

" Wanted ancestors probably. Pity our crest and arms were not auctioned too," said Frank, half contemptuously, half jest ingly. " Cecy, do look more cheery. Why cannot you see the fun of it ? " "Because I feel so utterly, utterly miserable ! " " Poor little Cecy ! I wish you were coming to Austraba with me, or that Harriet could take you to Africa." " I don't want to go with Harriet. I wish I could go with you to Austraba." " But that is past wishing, Cecy. Grand mamma — the terrible grandmamma, as Harriet calls ber — would not hear of such an arrangement. Now you have taken your fareweb look, come." Entwining his sister's arm within bis, he half drew her down a dark pathway, leading to the house where — by the kind sufferance of Uncle Oliver's friend — its late owners bad been permitted to stay till Frank's Australian outfit should be com pleted.

All was ready now. Boxes packed, corded, even directed, stood in the wide vaulted hall. The tesselated floor echoed drearily each footfall, as the two entered and crossed to the drawing-room, a spacious apartment panelled in oak, its time-worn massive furniture carved of the same sombre wood, and upholstered in velvet, faded by years into a misty indefiniteness of hue and texture. Certainly it seemed a queer freak of the buyer of De Burgh Towers to include in his purchase these cumbrous, thread-bare appendages ; stib queerer to wish to possess a series of old family portraits which had hung on the wabs so long that they seemed part of them, and from out whose tarnished frames smiling ladies, coiffeed, as elaborately as nineteenth-century belles, courtly gentle men in powdered wig and sword, looked calmly, indifferently down, on their young rained descendants.

Ab the living descendants are assembled beneath the painted ancestral gaze now ; for in addition to Frank and Cecile, there stands by the mantelpiece the elder sister, the lately married Harriet. Very beautiful she is, tall, stately, commanding, with waves of auburn hair, rose-tinted cheek, and eyes whose radiance mocks the firelight. Those eyes, that complexion, hair, and regal bearing had been Harriet's sole dowry. They had won her the admiration of a certain elderly and very cross Mr. Fitzherbert, home on leave from his govern orship in South Africa, whom she forth with accepted and married, simply because be was rich, and heir presumptive to a title. Riches and a title — that dual consummation of bliss, had formed Miss De Burgh's one ideal, one day-dream, one aspiration in life, in acquisition whereof, and considering such a very fair exchange, she offered beauty and grace.

They were literally all she could offer ; for besides being portionless, this beautiful being, who looks physically as if nature had moulded her for an empress, is intellectually incapable of standing with credit in the most junior class of the most ordinary national school. Not that she is a fool. Who dare apply that epithet to any one accomplishing successfully a given role in life ? (Hers had been to get married.) She is only uneducated, uncultured. Of the three R's it would be difficult to say which she hated most or practised least. She could not, for any consideration, localise her future home in South Africa, or tell whether it might be sooner reached by sailing round Cape Horn, or directing a train through the middle of India, or following the usual route thither. All she knows is that it must be a hot climate, as she had to order such dozens and dozens of muslins in her trousseau, and she would have preferred moires and silks.

Her brain, or mind, or soul, or whatever may be tbe seat of comprehension and emotion, is divided into three compartments, labelled respectively, "self," "dress," " admiration." The first compartment is the largest and best filled, the third, the smallest ; for next to that physically peerless self, Harriet Fitzherbert loves adorning same individual. This, the last day she may spend in her girlhood's home, the last of Frank's stay in Ireland, she has devoted to trying on all manner of new costumes. Since it became time for her recently acquired French maid to pack away these treasures, she has been cogitating such future matters as the amount of admiration (masculine) and envy (feminine) ber beauty will excite in the Colony. Whether the sun there will spoil her complexion, and how being styled " Her Excellency " and " Your Excebency " will sound, at which felicitous speculation she pauses before the mantelpiece mirror to con template therein Her Excellency.

" Charm ing ! " despite the "broken reflection" yielded by the glass, which displays across its surface a long seam or cleft, received at the hands of tbe late De Burgh, who look ing into it once, when drunk, and being not over pleased with the representation afforded, instantly administered a sound knock to the unflattering thing, anathematising it unreservedly for making him "so ugly." Cleft or whole, however, it could not make Harriet ugly, and in rapt worship of her fair double, after a good half-hour's homage she still stands as ber brother and sister enter. She turns slightly. " Oh, here you are at last. Such a time as you have been out ! I am dying for tea. What have you been doing ? " (The beautiful being's style of address is rather exclamatory and disjointed.) "Bidding everything goocl-bye, every leaf on the trees, every ripple on the river, every rail of the old bridge, watching our last sun go down and moon rise.

Haven't we been well employed, Harriet ? " Through tbe light words the voice rings sadly, but Mrs. Fitzherbert has not an acute ear for sentiment, and as her mental so comes her spoken judgment. " Absurd, Frank ! and as to you, Cecy, wait till tbe terrible grandmamma catches you practising such nonsense and unpunctuality. It won't be good for you, I can tell you." Cecy shudders to herself, but offers no answering remark, as she takes off her dew drenched hat, and approaches the fire to dry thereat her equally dew-drenched raiment. Beside the regal, gorgeously apparebed personage, already stationed at tbe mantelpiece, tbe new-comer's small, slight form, clad in shabby bmp muslin, shows poorly and insignificantly, neither has Cecile' s face any claim to perfection in feature or tinting. It is lighted, however, by eyes lustrous enough to bear comparison even with Harriet's, and it is fair and soft and pretty, expressive of some sweetness and a good deal of pride.

She is past eighteen, but looks childish for ber years, having been debarred from mixing in grown-up society by her sagacious elder sister, till the latter was engaged to be married. At that happy era — three months since — Cecy was inducted into her first trained dress, her first bonnet, and shortly afterwards, at the wedding festival, found herself for the first time in her life dressed, addressed, and altogether treated as a bridesmaid and responsible young lady. " Well, what have you been about besides bidding the leaves good-bye, and getting your clothes damp ?" propounds Mrs. Fitz herbert, in a tone slightly mollified, as she administers to herself a cup of the delayed tea, and exchanges her standing position on the rug for a recumbent one on the sofa. " We didn't do much else, except that I was wishing I could go with Frank to Australia, instead of living at the Jointure House with grandmamma.' " Good gracious !

" ejaculates Harriet solemnly. " What put such an idea into your head? As if it was not quite bad enough to think of Frank going out there to lower himself amongst those wretched convicts and miners and diggers ! " This young matron's idea of the fifth continent figured simply a huge prison, surrounded by gold mines, wherein the prisoners, chained in gangs, worked daily. She regarded alike all individuals, returned either wealthy or poor from Australia, as ticket-of-leave men. " What can I do ? " interposes Frank, "I have no profession, very little education, a great desire to be rich, and too much pride to slave at home. You know, Fitz herbert refused my gracious offer to act as his secretary." " Because you write such a dreadful hand," retorts Harriet, in extenuation of the governor, who had not accompanied his wife in her sisterly mission of seeing poor Frank and Cecile off, and breaking their farewell to the Towers.

A mission she was accomplishing in the effective manner just noticed. "You would never do for a secretary, a — a man of business, Frank." And she arranges her rings, remembering thoroughly all the time that Fitzherbert had promptly and resolutely declined his brother-in-law's proposal, on the simple ground, that he did not intend marrying tbe whole family. " You see, then, Australia is my only resource, and after all it may not be so bad. Uncle Oliver so strongly urges it, and says I shall be sure to return better off — those were his very words." " Better off! How like Uncle Obver ! he seemed absolutely glad we were sold out. Tiresome, cross, snappish old man. I always found him much harder to get on with than even the terrible grandmamma herself ; for to give her her due, so long as you dress tastefully, flirt successfully, and be the fashion, she will keep in good humour.

You had better not carry that downcast face to the Jointure House, Cecy ; she only tolerates bright, pretty people." Here Mrs. Fitzherbert, rising from the sofa, gladdens her eyes with another reflec tion. Then, in a tone of admonition, addresses her brother and sister conjointly. " There is one piece of advice I give you both. Never forget that the blood of the De Burghs and Macnamaras flows in your veins — never forget your pride ; I sha'n't." Having emphatically delivered this valu able counsel, she summoned her French attendant, fortunately an English-speaking one, and swept queen-like from the room. Behind remained the two so united in affection — so soon to be separated in situation — to bnger and talk till the candles burnt low, and the fire of mixed turf and wood cast a faint, fitful glare across the dim old portraits, which Cecde regarded in a more parental bgbt than the grand mother, under whose care she must abide till Fortune's lamp should guide Frank to the nugget big enough to redeem from stranger hands the forfeited inheritance.

Chapter II The Terrible Grandmamma

A form still erect, a face that in youth beautiful in age is still handsome and strik ing, hazel eyes still bright and penetrating, shapely hands still eager for occupation. Such, by looking into the Jointure House drawing-room this drear November after noon, is the view to be obtained of Mrs. Macnamara, the terrible grandmamma. She is knitting vigorously, and as she knits she talks equaby vigorously in a style of conversation rather resembbng the trian gular pointed pieces that fall from her needles. Her tongue, too, is a quicker, sharper instrument than even the needles — at least, so people say. Opposite, but with his chair drawn into closer contact with the fire than the lady permits her yet smooth complexion to venture, sits her brother and present mas culine head of her widowed establishment, Oliver Macnamara.

Decidedly he is not, nor could ever have been, handsome. His meagre share of good looks, moreover, has been tbe reverse of increased by a long sojourn in an unhealthy foreign country, where, according to popular belief, he ac quired money, according to his own state ment " common sense," and, it seemed, a consequent right to harass, censure, and admonish less lucky humanity. Being of a sardonic turn, he rather relishes his sister's little invectives, and rewards her by reading aloud for her benefit such articles in the morning paper as relate to personal casual ties or the general drooping and depraved state of the country. Very tired of both tbe reading and tbe conversation, to which for two hours she has been an involuntary listener, stands near a window Cecile, engaged in winding up skeins of white cotton for grandmamma's work.

She has now been two months an inmate of the Jointure House, and has found it nowise a pleasanter place of abode than she prophesied to herself that September evening when she took farewell of home on the rustic bridge. Has she any right to be THE TERRIBLE GRANDMAMMA. 17 discontented ? Ought she not rather to feel thankful for shelter, protection — any home at all under the circumstances ? Compared with others similarly bereft, with the bare footed, ill-clad peasant, with the sickly toiler in city lanes and alleys, hers is a splendid lot. But is it not human nature to estimate human happiness from one's own individual standpoint, and from this standpoint are we not much more prone to look enviously aloft at those above us in position, or around at those of our own level more prosperous ("lucky" we call them) than ourselves, than with grateful hearts to acknowledge exemption from the want and misery below us ?

This poor, scantily-taught, proudly-born Cecile was no exception to humanity's general rule ; and instead of gratitude for what had been vouchsafed her, the shadow of loneliness and desolation for what she had lost was daily falling lower and lower on her spirits — a shadow deep as the November mist that shrouded in wintry gloom the out side world. She could not help disliking the present, she could not help regretting the past, that sunny, careless past, when she and Frank had kept house at the Towers almost alone ; for Harriet did not trouble them much with her company ; and the two had led a sort of gipsy existence — fishing in the stream, riding untrained shaggy ponies ; wandering long summer mornings in the woods. Memory was fast bringing tears into the thinker's eyes, dim ming her vision, and almost dropping upon her work, wherein, we must confess, no light-fingered adroitness is apparent in the way the skein is placed round the back of a chair, and slowly through divers vents and entanglements formed into a ball.

Mrs. Macnamara notes ber grand daughter's inefficiency, and demands in a tone peremptorily requiring information : " Cecile, what are you doing ? " " Winding the cotton, grandmamma." "Winding, indeed! In my young days, girls did as they were told properly; they were obedient, and felt a pleasure in being useful. But nowadays, so sure as you ask a young miss to do anything useful, so sure is she to wilfully spoil it. However, I sha'n't stand such modern nonsense ; so rouse yourself, and remember I must have all those balls finished before dusk." Thus admonished, Cecile contrived to disentangle and pursue her task more carefully for a few minutes. Then, a fresh sense THE TERRIBLE GRANDMAMMA. 19 of loneliness waking within her, she asks, very irrelevantly to what ber grandmother has been saying, — " Does anybody ever come here, grandmamma ?

" "Anybody ever come here?" repeats Mrs. Macnamara testily. " What a silly question to ask ; but I shall satisfy your curiosity for once, by informing you that very few people indeed come here. An old woman is not (nowadays) a very well-looked-after member of the community, and your uncle hates society." " Society, as being interpreted by morning visits and visitors, or a couple of dozen people collected to a mild lunch, with after piece of trying who shall hit hardest round formations of wood over smooth formations of turf, or toss india-rubber balls frantically through the air. Finale, hot temper and cold tea. Shouldn't any man of sense hate it ! " growled Uncle Oliver ; " and when Cecy is as old as I am she'll be of the same mind." This cheering prospect had not, how ever, the solacing effect on Cecy that might be expected.

" Besides, you'll see plenty of people when we go to town after Christmas," added Mrs. Macnamara. "We shall go up for tbe first drawing-room, where I am afraid, Cecy, you will not do me as much credit as tbe four daughters and the three granddaughters I have already presented there ; apropos, I must initiate you into the proper deport ment, behaviour, curtsey, etc., beforehand. It will be good exercise for you of an evening, and Uncle Oliver can act His Excellency." "Excellency — humbug!" retorted Uncle Oliver. " Tell the girl simply what to do, or give her one lesson at most, and you may depend on it that in anything involving exercise of vanity, show, dress, dipping and curtseying, or other ' trap ' for gaining notice or admiration, a woman — especially one akin to the Macnamaras — wib do the part to perfection."

"How like a man that reasoning is!" snapped grandmamma. "Always telling us we ' make up ' too much, while at the same time there is nothing so unpardonable in masculine eyes as awkwardness in a girl ; lack of beauty may be excused, but an ungraceful movement is criticised and con demned without mercy. I foresee there will be trouble with Cecile; she is much shyer, more ill at ease than Harriet." THE TERRIBLE GRANDMAMMA. 21 " But much more what tbe French call gracieuse," says Uncle Oliver, perhaps out of sheer opposition. " Don't put nonsensical ideas into her head, Oliver. How could she be gracieuse, running wild in the country ? and she need only look in the glass to be aware of her inferiority to my pretty Harriet. Ah ! she was a beauty ! " "Yes, a good-looking animal," responds Mr. Macnamara, less enthusiasticaby.

" Cecy, put on your hat, and take a run up and down the avenue ; it will expand your muscles for the great training to be carried on this winter by Mrs. Macnamara, for the physical development of the new filly, prior to entering her fairly upon the matrimonial racecourse to win the best parti of the season. With what beautiful national appropriateness the farce of the ' Court Presentation ' wdl foUow the tragedy of being < Sold out '! " This last sentence was unheard by Cecile, who departed to put on her hat, a good deal relieved, it must be owned, by the intelligence of the projected change to town ; anywhere away from the dreary Jointure House. How thoroughly dreary it and all around it looked as she commenced her solitary promenade ! No blue mountains nor rippling river meeting ber sight as in old times ; nothing but a rather circumscribed lawn, just now brown with autumn leaves, and skirting it the plantations of Derrycarne, the country seat of the Macnamaras.

The family mansion was at present uninhabited, and its unpic turesque, low, square architecture showed gloomily through the trees, which made a very pervious screen in their wintry bareness. Larger, of course, but nearly as ugly as the ugly Jointure House itself, did her mother's ancient ancestral home look to Cecy's eyes now. Now — but she was destined to view those old grey walls again through a very different medium than that which clouded her spirit to-day.

Chapter III Coming Out

The Dowager Mrs. Macnamara was a daughter of a younger branch of the old stock, whose name she stib bore. Im mensely " old " it was, running quite back into fable-land and extending its genealogical tree roots into tbe very primary strata of Milesian aristocracy. The days of Milesian glory, however, are, it is needless to say, long since over. The mornings of whiskey, the noons of duelling, the nights of claret, which formed, so to speak, the renaissance period in Milesian social prominence, long departed likewise ; and to the simple rank of country gentry, obbged to observe the laws and exist after the manner of other mortals, were the descendants of the ancient 'Namara reduced when it devolves upon us to record a page in their family annals. The dowager was wont to boast, she had lived her seventy years as became ber great name and ancestry.

At seventeen, in the fresh bloom of her beauty, she had made her debut at the Viceregal Court. Of course (for those were the good old times, my dear), dozens, hundreds, of rival ad mirers, all sorts and conditions of men, from his Grace to his Reverence, duly worshipped, fought, died at her shrine. At eighteen, in the midst of these triumphs and to the general consternation and despair of the masculine world, she married her cousin, " The Macnamara," as was styled the head of the sept. He was a handsome, worthless individual, a good many years senior to the fair coquette, who accepted his addresses from no tenderer sentiment than pique at some fancied slight she had received from the one her heart really preferred amongst ber train of suitors. At thirty she was left a widow with four children ; daughters, alas ! — all ; and all inheriting the high looks, high spirit, high temper of their race.

Very regretful that Heaven had denied her a son to succeed to the entailed estate, which passed away to a more distant kins man, Mrs. Macnamara stdl contrived to perform her duty, as a woman and a mother, by marrying off the feminine quartette as quickly and eligibly as she could. She had herself introduced each in turn to whatever Excellency presided at Dubbn Castle, and in later years untiringly fulfilled a like parental office for successive grand daughters. Finally, on this day (or night) of grace, 28th January, 188 — , she is preparing to do the same for Cecile De Burgh — actually prepared, indeed, for she has already got into her moire jupe. Her velvet train has been fastened on ; lappets and diamonds adjusted; andmajestic and sufficiently terrible, she descends to the sitting-room, where Cecile, arrayed in the regulation white of coming out, has been for some time ensconced.

Her pulses are beating very fast, and ber colour is varying like an April day, as this dreaded presentation for which grandmamma has been drilling her all the winter draws nearer to reabsation. She is sure — quite sure — she will curtsey badly, fallback on her train — do everything wrong, in fact — just as grandmamma has predicted. But there is no help for it, the hour is come, and Uncle Oliver, looking horribly sardonic and meagre in his court-dress, announces, " The jobbed affair is at the door, madam," by which his audience understand the hired carriage is arrived. The maid assists in carefully arranging trains. Tbe two ladies are safely stowed into the vehicle, Uncle Oliver's lank person occupies the small additional space left over and above the feminine paraphernalia, grandmamma sees once more she has the cards ready for the chamberlain, tbe door is slammed, and they are off — quickly enough for two or three minutes tfll they get into the more crowded thoroughfares, and are blocked, stopped, passed at inter vals by tbe long line of carriages aU pro ceeding to the same destination.