Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 https://archive.org/details/monksbridgeOOaysc 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 MAROTZ 
 
 DROMINA 
 
 SAN CELESTINO 
 
 MEZZOGIORNO 
 
 HURDCOTT 
 
 FAUSTULA 
 
 LEVIA PONDERA 
 
 OUTSIDERS— AND IN 
 
 A ROMAN TRAGEDY 
 
 GRACECHURCH 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 BY JOHN AYSCOUGH 
 
 AUTHOR OF “GRACECHURCH,” “SAN CELESTINO,” ETC., 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS, 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO, 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 
 1914 
 
PR 
 
 (oQ03 
 
 .£ 3 
 
 tAC 
 
 i/yits 
 
 Copyright, igr 4 , by 
 LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 On the morning of June ioth, 1864, the post arrived 
 while we were at breakfast, and my mother at once 
 perceived that one of her letters was from an unknown 
 correspondent. As good news seldom came her way, it 
 made her vaguely uneasy; but, being a brave creature, 
 and wise too, she opened the letter at once to know 
 the worst it might contain. 
 
 We all went on eating our bread and butter without 
 watching her, but very soon a little cry of surprise that 
 did not suggest pain or anxiety made us look up 
 quickly. 
 
 “ Children,” she said, “ I’ve had a legacy ! ” 
 
 We were thoroughly taken aback. Of course, we 
 knew that other people did occasionally inherit money 
 and land, goods and chattels, but it had never occurred 
 to any of us that such things could come our way. 
 Even when our father was alive we had been poor 
 enough; since his death, nearly five years before, we 
 had had about as little to live upon as any four people 
 in the rank of gentry ever had. From the day of his 
 marriage my poor father had always been talking of 
 insuring his life, but he never did it; and his widow and 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 2 
 
 [CH. I 
 
 three children had less than a hundred a year for rent, 
 food, clothes, and education. 
 
 “ A legacy ! ” cried Peterkin. “ How much ? ” 
 
 My sister Sylvia looked as if she thought this quite 
 a vulgar question. She was seventeen, and had strictly 
 correct ideas. Being her twin, I was not really more 
 than twenty minutes younger, but I had not Sylvia’s 
 decisive views, and felt scarcely so old even as Peter- 
 kin, who was barely fifteen. 
 
 “ Well,” said our mother, “ it’s a house, and there’s 
 the interest of six thousand pounds ” 
 
 “ That’s three hundred a year at five per cent.,” 
 observed Peterkin. 
 
 “ It doesn’t say it’s at five per cent.,” Mamma ob- 
 served cautiously, looking up and down the letter in 
 vain for any mention of the rate of interest. 
 
 “ Who left it ? ” asked my brother, demanding an- 
 other lump of sugar from Sylvia, as if he knew we 
 could afford it now. 
 
 Sylvia gave it him — not in her fingers, as he sug- 
 gested, but with the sugar-tongs — frowning a little 
 as if to reprove his too-eager snatching at the fruits of 
 wealth. 
 
 “ That,” my mother answered, “ is the funny part 
 of it. It comes from Uncle Stapleton.” 
 
 We had heard of him. He was Sir Stapleton 
 Drumm, of Drumm Hall, and was an uncle of our 
 mother’s mother. He had only seen his grand-niece on 
 rare occasions, and had been much annoyed by her 
 marrying a “ curate with blue eyes ” without deigning 
 to explain what coloured eyes curates ought to have. 
 We knew that the old gentleman was dead, for our 
 mother had seen some notice of it in a newspaper, but 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. i] 
 
 3 
 
 it certainly had not occurred to her or to us that any 
 such result as this would accrue from it. 
 
 “ ‘ The interest of six thousand pounds,’ ” said 
 Mamma, half reading from the letter, and half talking 
 aloud out of her own head— “ ‘ of six thousand pounds 
 till I marry again.’ That’s so funny, since he was so 
 cross with me for marrying your dear father.” 
 
 “ I suppose,” remarked Peterkin, “ he thought, as 
 you’d married the wrong man once, you might marry 
 some one worse next time, and he’d punish you if he 
 couldn’t stop you.” 
 
 Mamma laughed, but Sylvia said, “ Peterkin ! ! ! ” 
 in her finest manner. 
 
 “ Well, that’s about the size of it,” my brother 
 persisted. 
 
 “ ‘ The size of it.’ ” And Sylvia looked as if no legacy 
 could atone for a brother who used such expressions. 
 
 “ I dare say it is,” said Mamma ; “ Uncle Stapleton 
 was a queer old man.” 
 
 “ Let’s hope you have a dozen great-uncles all just 
 as queer,” said Peterkin. 
 
 “ He’s the only one,” said Mamma. “ If I die un- 
 married I can leave the six thousand pounds to you.” 
 
 “To me?” asked our brother. 
 
 “ No, my dear — among you all. If I do marry, 
 the interest is to be divided equally between you three.” 
 
 “ You’re young yet — and there’s Simon Blowhard,” 
 Peterkin remarked cheerfully, to annoy Sylvia, as I 
 quite understood. 
 
 It did annoy her. But Mamma only laughed again. 
 Simon Blowhard was an elderly widower, whose let- 
 ters were addressed “ George Boson, Esq.” He sat 
 behind us in church and breathed very heavily, espe- 
 
4 
 
 MONICSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. I 
 
 cially during the sermon ; once he had followed us down 
 the church -yard with a pocket-handkerchief, really 
 dropped by Sylvia, which he presented to our mother 
 with great ceremony and a heightened complexion. 
 
 “ Now he’ll think you’re an heiress, Mugs, and speak 
 up,” Peterkin declared vivaciously. 
 
 Sylvia looked unutterable things, but said nothing; 
 she was tired of asking in what language “ Mugs ” was 
 a contraction of “ Mother.” 
 
 Presently we learned that the house bequeathed by 
 Uncle Stapleton was at Monksbridge, and that it had 
 a name, being called Cross Place. 
 
 “ In allusion,” suggested Peterkin, “ to the temper 
 of the testator.” 
 
 “ That,” said our mother, “ is ungrateful, seeing 
 he has left it to us.” 
 
 It was just like her to say “ us ” when it was left 
 simply and unconditionally to her. 
 
 “ Cross Place,” said Sylvia, thoughtfully ; she was 
 thinking of Hampton Place, a mile or two out of our 
 town, where Lord Coldhampton lived. 
 
 “ Reminds one of Laurel Place,” observed Peterkin, 
 who was as sharp as a needle, and followed the train 
 of our sister’s musings with perfect accuracy. 
 
 “ It doesn’t remind me in the least of Laurel Place,” 
 Sylvia declared warmly. “ Laurel Place was built by 
 Mr. Sugger, and nothing will ever make it look older, 
 or as if anybody but a retired grocer lived in it. And 
 the laurels won’t grow up, and it has bow windows, and 
 it’s in the town — Grange Road is in the town.” 
 
 Peterkin was delighted. Our pleasures were few, 
 and had to be cheap; it cost him nothing at all to 
 tease his very superior sister. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Three months afterwards we were living at Cross 
 Place, and there was nothing whatever about it to re- 
 mind us of Mr. Sugger and his juvenile laurels that 
 time could not age, though dust might stale, and a dry 
 summer was apt to wither. 
 
 “ It’s just the right size,” Mamma declared; and she 
 would have said the same had it been half as big, or 
 twice as big again. 
 
 “What for?” asked Peterkin. 
 
 “ For us, of course,” said Sylvia. 
 
 “ For four hundred a year,” said Mamma. 
 
 We really had four hundred a year. For there was 
 a bit of land attached' to Cross Place that was let off at 
 a pleasant little rental. Sylvia was not quite content 
 with the letting off; it would, she felt, be more digni- 
 fied to keep it in hand; but she liked to think that the 
 dairyman and butcher who rented it were our tenants. 
 
 “ The tenantry,” said Peterkin, “ shall have rejoic- 
 ings when I come of age. Mr. Melch shall present an 
 address and twenty-one pats of butter, and Mr. Kitney 
 shall present another and a tribute of chops.” 
 
 “ Peterkin,” begged his mother, “ do leave your sis- 
 ter alone.” 
 
 Monksbridge was not in the least like the ugly new 
 town where we had lived in the midlands ; it was very 
 old, and very staid, with a singularly large proportion 
 of houses that looked as if they defied any but gentry 
 to live in them. 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. II 
 
 A river cut the little town in two unequal halves ; or 
 rather on one side of it lay Monksbridge; over the 
 bridge, in Wales, was Llanthamy. The river (pro- 
 nounced Tern) was the Tham, that joined the lordly 
 Dee eight miles below Monksbridge. Monksbridge is 
 in the rich and aristocratic Rentshire, where the squires 
 are so great that they disdain baronets, until, as some- 
 times happens, they become baronets themselves; even 
 then they merely acquiesce in their new condition as 
 a temporary measure — a brief pause on the way to a 
 peerage. 
 
 Our big man on the Monksbridge side was, when we 
 went there, Mr. de Braose, of Monkspark, of whom 
 more will be heard in due time. The river for several 
 miles divided his territory from that of Lord 
 Monksbridge, who had originally been Sir Silas 
 Monk. 
 
 Almost the first person who called told us all about 
 Sir Silas, and his odd behaviour in taking Monks- 
 bridge for his title. This was Mrs. de Braose, of Island 
 Court, who landed at our garden-steps, and would have 
 taken us, like an angel, unawares, had she not sent 
 on a footman to ask if our mother was at home. As 
 it was, Sylvia went down to the river to meet and 
 escort her. 
 
 “ My dear,” said our visitor, disembarking, “ I hope 
 Mrs. Auberon will excuse my taking her in flank in this 
 way. But, you see, I live on an island, and it’s much 
 easier and pleasanter landing at your steps than rowing 
 down to Bridge Wharf and landing there. Living on 
 an island, one has one’s stables and carriage on the 
 mainland, and one has to row ashore before one can 
 drive anywhere. It’s only half a mile from Bridge 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 ch. n] 
 
 7 
 
 Wharf to your door, and that’s a short way to drive, 
 but too far for me to walk. I’m rather stout.” 
 
 In saying so, Mrs. de Braose did not overstate the 
 case; she was the fattest lady of her height Sylvia had 
 ever seen, but her stoutness took nothing from her 
 dignity, and Mrs. de Braose (pronounced “ Brooze,” 
 by the way) looked both dignified and important. 
 
 “ I should think it must be delightful to live on an 
 island,” said Sylvia. 
 
 “ Should you, my dear? Well, you do, you know. 
 But, then, England doesn’t belong to you, and my 
 island does belong to me — I bought it; Sir Silas wanted 
 to, so I cut in and offered five hundred more. It isn’t 
 our Dower House, Island Court isn’t. But, you see, 
 there are two Dowagers at present; I’m Mr. de 
 Braose’s mother, and his uncle’s widow, Lady Llant- 
 wddwy, is alive still — my son succeeded his uncle, you 
 know — so she reigns at Little Park, that’s our regular 
 Dower House; and when he married I bought Island 
 Court. These are pretty rose-walks. I like to pause 
 and admire them — and take breath. And, being 
 strangers, you may as well know who your visitors are. 
 Some queer folk will call, I dare say — we have all 
 sorts at Monksbridge; but we’re all good people, and 
 your Mamma will soon know which is which. My 
 friend the Baroness planted these rose-walks; she was 
 quite a gardener. Is this your mother ? How do you 
 do, Mrs. Auberon ? I’ve been making my apologies to 
 your daughter for boarding you in this manner. 
 She’ll make my excuses; you don’t want them all over 
 again from me.” 
 
 “ It’s very friendly of you to call so soon,” said my 
 mother. 
 
8 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. II 
 
 “ Well, I hope we shall be friends. Monksbridge is 
 friendly. A little place at the world’s end, but we’re 
 all very fond of it here. I did not put off calling, for 
 I knew the place was left to you all furnished — and 
 charming furniture too — so that you would not take 
 long settling in. I knew your uncle once, but he only 
 lived a month here. He made the place very nice, and 
 swore he should live here for ever, because the neigh- 
 bours at Drumm Hall were too friendly. But when we 
 all flocked to call upon him he wouldn’t stand it, and 
 went off in a fine pet. I was the last to call, and he 
 nearly ate me. ‘ Do you want anything ? ’ he asked 
 me. ‘Nothing particular,’ I told him; and he said 
 then there was no sense in my coming. ‘ We’re too 
 old for nonsense,’ he declared, and that wasn’t very civil 
 to a lady. However, it’s a good thing for you he came 
 at all, for he had a perfect taste in furniture and pic- 
 tures and china and so forth, and now it’s all here for 
 you. I’ll sit here, if you please; I call this my chair, 
 for I used to be here constantly when my friend Bar- 
 oness von Trautwitz had the place. Sir Stapleton let 
 her have it dirt cheap on condition she agreed to take 
 a month’s warning, like a kitchen-maid; however, she 
 had it seven years, and was lucky enough. She won’t 
 find herself in such clover at Burgh House. Of course 
 she hated turning out, but she’ll call, and you’ll find 
 her a good creature.” 
 
 “ I’m sure,” said our mother, quite guiltily, “ I’m 
 very sorry our coming should have been such an incon- 
 venience to her.” 
 
 But Sylvia looked quite prepared to ignore any 
 pretensions the Baroness might make to being a 
 victim. 
 
ch. ii] MONKSBRIDGE 9 
 
 “ Mamma,” she observed, “ she had Cross Place for 
 seven years ” 
 
 “ For an old song,” said Mrs. de Braose. 
 
 Sylvia liked this expression much better than “ dirt- 
 cheap,” and adopted it. 
 
 “ For an old song, Mamma.” 
 
 “ Yes, but seven years is a long time,” said my dear 
 mother, “ and I dare say she got very fond of all these 
 things,” looking round on her own pictures and furni- 
 ture, “ and felt as if she were parting from her own 
 household goods.” 
 
 Sylvia looked as if she thought this great nonsense, 
 if not great presumption, on the part of this Baroness; 
 but Mrs. de Braose reached out a plump and very 
 pretty hand and patted my mother’s, which was much 
 prettier, though much slimmer. 
 
 “ My dear,” she declared, “ I’m sure you’ll not quar- 
 rel with Julia von Trautwitz. And she’s an excellent 
 creature in spite of her whim-whams.” 
 
 “ Can she talk English ? ” asked Sylvia, anxious, I 
 suspected, to be able to quell the Baroness in her 
 mother-tongue. 
 
 “ My dear, she is English — or Welsh rather; of a 
 very good family — the Llewellyns, of Clwd. The Baron 
 was only her husband. He was a Bavarian and repre- 
 sented his Court as Minister in Sweden, in Bernadotte’s 
 time; that’s why she makes her servants call her Ex- 
 cellency, which is, between you and me, great nonsense. 
 English ambassadresses drop the Excellency when they 
 sink into private life; but then, English ambassadresses 
 don’t sink far. So you think you’d like to live on an 
 island of your own! You must come and see mine. 
 You all must. It’s a pretty place, and the house much 
 
IO MONKSBRIDGE [ch. n 
 
 too nice to be left to the ghosts. They don’t trouble 
 me, and servants don’t mind them either if you give 
 them good wages. Lord Monksbridge, as he calls 
 himself, can’t keep his, and my lady always pretends 
 it’s the ghosts at Llanthamy Castle; but that’s all 
 bosh, for we know his old father built ‘ the castle ’ — 
 fancy building a castle in the eighteenth century, my 
 dear ! ” — and here, with a singular intuition, Mrs. de 
 Braose appealed to my sister, who curled her very 
 pretty lips slightly — “ and there ain’t any ghosts in 
 those sorts of castles — spirits enough, if all we hear 
 is true! But my lady has a temper, and my lord is 
 a skinflint; servants won’t stand the combination.” 
 
 “ Monksbridge,” suggested Sylvia, who knew, I 
 supposed, as much about it as I did, “ is not an old 
 title.” 
 
 “ It’s as old, my dear, as my coachman’s baby, and 
 that’s nineteen months, as I ought to know who am his 
 god-mother and gave him an ugly mug (which Provi- 
 dence gave him before me) and a spoon, as I dare say 
 he’ll be himself if he’s like Watkins. Old, my dear! 
 It’s so new that it smells of paint, like the coronets on 
 the hot-water cans — I do assure you, Mrs. Auberon, 
 the hot-water cans at Llanthamy Castle all have coro- 
 nets on them ! ” 
 
 “ And why,” asked Sylvia, deeply interested, “ didn’t 
 he take the title of Llanthamy ? ” 
 
 “ The lord knows, my dear — the Lord of Llanthamy 
 Castle, I mean. All the land on Monksbridge side is 
 my son’s (except River Street in the town, the new 
 street where the wool- factory people live), and all the 
 land for nine miles round. River Street belongs to 
 Sir Silas, so did the bit where the New Jerusalem 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 ii 
 
 CH. Ii] 
 
 stands (he gave it them when he was standing against 
 my brother-in-law for Parliament) ; and one or two 
 new pot-houses are his, the Monk Arms and the Black 
 Cow, for instance (his father built the Monk Arms 
 when he got his shield from the Heralds College), 
 and this man had the Black Cow opened when he got 
 his peerage and supporters — a black cow and a white 
 goose. The wool-carders would have had a White 
 Goose to get drunk at if the magistrates hadn’t refused 
 another licence. His taking the title of Monksbridge 
 is the most monstrous thing. But my son only laughs 
 when I talk of it, and says after all he has Monks- 
 park, and Sir Silas only has Llanthamy Castle where 
 the chimneys all smoke, so that the geese are as black 
 as the cows over them. There are cows and geese 
 carved everywhere at Llanthamy Castle, and some say 
 the geese are the image of Sir Silas, and the cows 
 of my lady.” 
 
 “ But Monk is the family name,” observed Sylvia. 
 “ I suppose they’re old inhabitants here, though the 
 title is new? ” 
 
 “ That’s just what you’re meant to suppose. This 
 man’s grandfather was a miner in South Wales, and 
 his name was Evans. But he made a great fortune; 
 his son doubled it every ten or twenty years, and died 
 a millionaire. He came into the world Sammy Evans, 
 and went out of it Sir Samuel Monk. He changed his 
 name when he bought the property over there — in 
 the train, I suppose, when he came to take posses- 
 sion.” 
 
 Mrs. de Braose spoke so warmly on the subject of 
 Sir Silas that, when the housemaid came in with cards 
 on a salver, and my mother had read the names on 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 12 
 
 [CH. II 
 
 them, she almost trembled as she turned to her visitor 
 and said with nervous apology — 
 
 “ Lord and Lady Monksbridge ! ” 
 
 The old lady laughed very cheerfully, quite un- 
 moved at the announcement. 
 
 “ Well,” she said, “ you’ll not find them at all dan- 
 gerous.” And she settled herself in her chair as though 
 to dispel any idea of her shortening her own visit on 
 account of their arrival. 
 
 “ The footman said,” Hannah almost whispered, “ I 
 was to come and see if you was at home, Ma’am. I 
 said I knew you was ; but he said to kindly go and see.” 
 All this was fifty years ago, and I hope Hannah will 
 be forgiven for saying “ you was.” She did not dress 
 fashionably, nor have silver-backed hair-brushes; but 
 she was an excellent servant, and lived with us eighteen 
 years, till her marriage with a flourishing carpenter, at 
 the deliberate age of forty. 
 
 “ Yes, we’re at home,” said my mother, who never 
 thought of herself apart from Sylvia. 
 
 “ They’re very good people,” Mrs. de Braose re- 
 marked when Hannah was gone. “ We’re all good 
 people here, as I told you, though they’re not true 
 Monksbridgers, living on the wrong side of the river.” 
 “ I was afraid you might mind,” said my mother. 
 
 “ Me mind ! We’re au mieux.” And she nodded 
 and smiled vigorously. With such a short neck it was 
 quite hard to understand how she could nod at all. 
 
 When Hannah reappeared with the new visitors 
 there was some slight parley as to which of them 
 should enter first. My lady seemed to hold back for 
 her lord to go before her, and Mrs. de Braose watched 
 and listened delightedly. 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 13 
 
 CH. Il] 
 
 “ No, my lady, no ! Do you precede,” her sharp 
 ears heard him beg. “ I’m not Lord Lieutenant here 
 — on the wrong side of the water, you know.” 
 
 Mrs. de Braose explained to us later on that Lord 
 Monksbridge was Lord Lieutenant of his county, and 
 as such held that, representing Her Majesty, he could 
 not without disloyalty yield the pas to his wife. 
 
 Lady Monksbridge, with meek protest, entered first. 
 
 “ Lord and Lady Monksbridge ! ” announced Han- 
 nah, who knew nothing of Lord Lieutenants, but had 
 scriptural ideas as to the pre-eminence of man. 
 
 Lady Monksbridge was as tall and lean as Mrs. de 
 Braose was short and fat, and her dress was so fash- 
 ionable that one only saw the bust of her husband 
 behind her crinoline. Her gown was of royal-blue silk, 
 with a Greek Key pattern in black velvet running round 
 the flounces, enormous at the bottom row, and narrow- 
 ing to the waist. I had never seen the Greek Key 
 pattern before except in stucco round a cornice. 
 
 Lady Monksbridge was about fifty, and moved in 
 what she thought a willowy fashion — if you can imag- 
 ine a willow in a crinoline. 
 
 My lord was not so tall, and was five or six years 
 older. His trousers were of “ Shepherd’s Plaid ” — 
 little dazzling squares of black and white, about the 
 size of dice. He was handsome and remarkably clean 
 — quite unlike a miner, I thought. All the top of his 
 head was bald, but the hair at one side, plentiful, long, 
 and very black, was drawn over, like a lid, and covered 
 up the bare parts except when he stooped to pick up 
 Mrs. de Braose’s card-case, on which occasion the whole 
 lid lifted and fell to the right in a painful manner. 
 
 After having shaken hands with my mother, and 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 14 
 
 [CH. II 
 
 after Sylvia had been introduced, our visitors turned 
 to Mrs. de Braose. 
 
 “ You’ll not expect me to get up,” she observed 
 with smiling affability. “ Once down I have to be 
 hauled up.” 
 
 “ It’s wonderful,” Sylvia remarked to us afterwards, 
 “ how a woman with simply no neck can bow as she 
 does. Lady Monksbridge’s neck is as long as a goose’s 
 — one of the family geese — but she can’t bow — she 
 ducks.” 
 
 “ Gooses, you mean,” suggested Peterkin. 
 
 “ And Lord Monksbridge,” added Sylvia, ignoring 
 him, and slightly raising her voice, “ bows like a man 
 in a shop. Any well-bred butler could teach him.” 
 
 “ You never saw a butler in your life,” said Peter- 
 kin. We hadn’t returned Mrs. de Braose’s call, or 
 Lord and Lady Monksbridge’s, then. 
 
 “ Perkin,” pleaded our mother, “ do leave your sis- 
 ter alone.” (She never called me his sister.) “ I was 
 so glad,” she went on, “ that they got on so well to- 
 gether. From the way Mrs. de Braose spoke of them 
 I was quite frightened when they were announced.” 
 
 “ Oh ! ” said Sylvia, coolly, “ she was all gracious- 
 ness. She wasn’t in the least gracious to us.” And 
 my sister smiled complacently. 
 
 “What was she to you?” demanded Peterkin; 
 “ imgracious ? ” 
 
 Sylvia deigned no reply, and Mamma only said, 
 “ Perkin, you’d better let your sister alone. She 
 undeny/arccfa these things. Of course, I saw the dif- 
 ference. Even Marjory must have noticed it.” 
 
 “ Marjory,” observed Sylvia, “ seemed rather daz- 
 zled by my lord — I suppose it was his trousers. They 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. Il] 
 
 15 
 
 were dazzling. Did you hear him ask Mrs. de Braose 
 if she was riding, and offer her a lift?” 
 
 “ On a pillion ? ” asked Peterkin. 
 
 “ No, in their landau — as far as the Bridge Wharf, 
 I suppose. I think he would have pressed it, only he 
 remembered that Bridge Wharf is in his own county, 
 and the Lord Lieutenant could not sit back to the 
 horses in his own county.” 
 
 Peterkin, who had not heard Mrs. de Braose’s 
 explanation about the Lord Lieutenant’s ideas as to 
 precedence, stared hard. 
 
 “ Sylvia talks,” he remarked, “ as if we had been 
 very particular at Rawtown about the lords we chose 
 to associate with. What’s the matter with this one? ” 
 “ Nothing. He is a worthy person,” our sister re- 
 plied calmly. “ Quite worthy.” 
 
 She spoke as graciously as Mrs. de Braose could 
 have done. In her own way Sylvia was very clever. 
 
 “ Is the Dowager Mrs. What’s-her-name worthy?” 
 demanded Peterkin, opening one eye all the wider for 
 his leisurely closing of the other. 
 
 “ Not in the least. She’s a lady.” 
 
 Sylvia did not often laugh, but she smiled often — 
 and well. Her mouth never looked so pretty as when 
 she was smiling. 
 
 “ I liked her,” said our mother, “ and I think she 
 liked us too; but it was you, dear, she got on with.” 
 
 “ We understood each other,” said Sylvia. “ It is 
 very interesting having Llanthamy Castle over there ” 
 — and she pointed slightingly with her left hand across 
 the river — “ and Monkspark on our side. The new 
 lord and the old squire. Of course, these Monk£- 
 bridges are nobodies. The de Braoses ” 
 
i6 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. II 
 
 “ Bruises? ” queried Peterkin. 
 
 “ Sylvia always knows,” murmured our mother. 
 “ De Braose is pronounced ‘ de Brooze.’ ” 
 
 This tribute was quite just. Sylvia always did know. 
 Had she read a surname spelled St. Mark, she would 
 instantly have understood it should be called “ Sum- 
 mack indeed, I remember her at ten years old quot- 
 ing the sixth chapter of “ Sinjun.” 
 
 “ The de Braoses,” Sylvia continued, “ are really 
 people; they have owned all this land for over seven 
 hundred years. About six peerages are dormant in 
 their family. Our Mrs. de Braose would be Lord Pole 
 of the March had she been a man. And the last 
 squire, this one’s uncle, married a peeress in her own 
 right.” 
 
 Sylvia told us all this in an easy casual manner as 
 though she had known it all her life, whereas she had 
 known it about twenty minutes. Sir Stapleton had 
 left any number of Peerages, County Families, and 
 such works at Cross Place, and my sister had almost 
 a genius for the rapid assimilation of the sort of in- 
 formation they conveyed. She also had a way of 
 telling what she knew that gave the impression of its 
 being only a small part of her knowledge, when it was 
 all she had at the moment. 
 
 Peterkin rubbed his eyes and looked round the room 
 as if in search of stray noblemen, and slowly whis- 
 tling, shrugged his broad young shoulders. 
 
 “ You, my dear,” he would sometimes say to my- 
 self, with engaging frankness, “ are far from clever, 
 and it is just as well; one family could not support 
 twin Sylvias.” 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Our next visitor was Miss Belvoir, who called on the 
 following day, and came neither in a boat nor a landau, 
 but in a Bath-chair, drawn by a gaspy old man called 
 Hopple. He was not anybody else’s servant, so Miss 
 Belvoir considered him hers, and spoke of him as “ my 
 man,” but he only worked three out of the seven days 
 for her. On Sundays he was parish clerk, on Tues- 
 days, Thursdays, and Saturdays he was a cobbler. 
 
 Some people said that there was no reason on earth 
 why Miss Belvoir should not walk about like any one 
 else, and I never heard of any lameness or disease to 
 account for the Bath-chair, and she was not more than 
 fifty when we went to Monksbridge, but, after her 
 father’s death, she had no longer a pony-carriage, and 
 she had a spirit that could not brook going afoot. The 
 late Rev. Lionel Belvoir had been Vicar of Monks- 
 bridge, and very early in her visit his daughter men- 
 tioned him by name to avoid our taking up a wrong 
 pronunciation of it. She was Miss “ Beever,” and felt 
 that much depended on it. The consciousness of being 
 a “ Beever ” gave an arid flavour of dukeishness to her 
 manners. Of the actually ducal family of that name 
 she was fond of explaining that they only became pos- 
 sessed of Belvoir Castle “by a mere marriage late in 
 the fifteenth century. They are Belvoirs only in the 
 female line, and ours was the elder branch. I am a 
 male Belvoir.” 
 
 Her claim to being a male Belvoir was partly sus- 
 
 17 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 18 
 
 [CH. Ill 
 
 tained by a pale but distinct moustache, and by a voice 
 of gloomy bass. 
 
 The address on Miss Belvoir’s card was English 
 Gate, and we already knew the place. It was a sort of 
 tower, at the Monksbridge end of the bridge, with an 
 arch under which the roadway passed. It was a som- 
 bre, low-browed sort of building, like a weazened little 
 castle that had grown old without ever growing up. It 
 was, indeed, black with age; the windows were small 
 and deep in enormously thick walls, and it had a port- 
 cullis, and machicolated battlements ran round the top. 
 The habitable part was all on the left-hand side of the 
 road, except for one room over the arch which was 
 Miss Belvoir’s dining-room; if you lunched with her 
 you often heard weird rumblings under your feet as 
 some heavy cart passed on to the bridge. Her draw- 
 ing-room, bedroom, kitchen, and servant’s bedroom 
 were all on the left side, and there she had a small 
 garden with a high battlemented wall to match the top 
 of the tower. In it Hopple worked on three mornings 
 of each week, and from it, as from her drawing-room, 
 there was a lovely view down the river. 
 
 Miss Belvoir’s dress was not really feudal, but it 
 suggested a correspondence or sympathy with the 
 fortalice in which she lived. It was not an ancestral 
 home, being rented of the mayor and corporation, 
 whom she was bound to supply at Christmas with ten 
 turkeys, and at midsummer with ten live salmon and as 
 many fat capons. Keeping no poultry, and being no 
 fisherwoman, she remitted at each of those seasons 
 three five-pound notes, and received from his worship 
 a formal receipt for the live-stock. 
 
 “ I moved there — to English Gate — on my dear fa- 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 19 
 
 CH. Ill] 
 
 tiler’s death,” Miss Belvoir told us. “ Mr. Beever was 
 Vicar of Monksbridge, and for thirty years (since 
 before my birth, in fact) the Priory had been my 
 home. After the Priory I could not bear the idea of 
 living in a mere house.” 
 
 “ I should have thought,” observed our Sylvia, alert 
 for information, “ that Mr. Beever ” — distinctly to set 
 the lady’s mind at rest — “ would have been more than 
 Vicar. The Priory is such an immense church — 
 Rector would have seemed more suitable.” 
 
 “ Yes, my dear, you are right — in principle. But, 
 you see, the Abbot of Marybridge was Rector of 
 Monksbridge, and took the great tithes. The church 
 was built by the Abbey and made a sub-priory of it. 
 Mr. de Braose represents the Abbot and is lay Rector 
 now ; he draws the great tithes — for Monkspark is only 
 the name they gave to Marybridge Abbey when the 
 de Braoses got it at the Dissolution. The squire has 
 many quaint abbatial rights. The chancel of our 
 church is his, and marriages and baptisms have to be 
 registered at Monkspark — they keep the book in the 
 billiard-room ; and Mr. de Braose has a mitre for sec- 
 ond crest, and bears a crozier on a canton in his arms. 
 But my father, Mr. Beever, was more than Vicar; he 
 was Rural Dean. In his Ruri-decanal office he was 
 very active, and but for his death would now have 
 been Archdeacon ten years — the appointment found 
 him in his coffin.” 
 
 Miss Belvoir’s voice sounded so sepulchral that I 
 found it depressing, but Sylvia liked it. She was a 
 gaunt, lean lady, was our visitor, austerely clad, with- 
 out a hint of crinoline or flounce, and her bonnet looked 
 incomplete without a visor. But though she looked 
 
20 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. Ill 
 
 poor and was not of a jocund demeanour, she had, 
 Sylvia assured us later on, the grand manner, which 
 mattered much more. Sylvia could be all things to all 
 men so long as they had the grand manner and showed 
 they had a right to it. 
 
 Miss Belvoir’s features were “ Roman,” and her 
 complexion, if bilious, was rather distinguished. Her 
 feet, like Miss Bronte’s and Miss Ferrier’s, were small 
 and pretty, and any vanity she had centred in them. 
 Her boots were never shabby or ill-made. 
 
 “ You will like my abode,” she said, turning to my 
 mother, but meaning Sylvia. “ I must call it an abode, 
 for it is not a house — a river-tower, rather.” 
 
 “ I should love,” said Sylvia, “ to live in a river- 
 tower.” 
 
 “Should you, my dear? Well, so do I. It has a 
 character. And there’s plenty of room for me and my 
 reduced establishment.” Thus did Miss Belvoir allude 
 to Hopple’s granddaughter, who was her tire-woman 
 and cook, kitchen-maid, laundry-maid, stillroom-maid, 
 and chamberlain. “ I have a delightful drawing-room, 
 with a vaulted stone roof, and a dining-room that was 
 the guard-room.” 
 
 “ I should love,” said Sylvia, “ to dine in a guard- 
 room. Even a mutton cutlet would taste medievally.” 
 
 “ It does,” Miss Belvoir declared, with strong signs 
 of approval. 
 
 Strictly speaking, Miss Belvoir had never dined in 
 her guard-room. At one she lunched in it, and at five 
 she drank tea; at eight she discussed a sardine or a 
 poached egg, with a moderate glass of negus. If she 
 dined it was abroad. 
 
 “ My dear,” she added, “ I hope you will accompany 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 21 
 
 CH. Ill] 
 
 Mrs. Auberon when she favours me with a call, and ” 
 — turning to me — “ you also.” 
 
 “ Oh yes ! ” remarked Sylvia, slightly raising one of 
 her pretty eyebrows. She always did accompany 
 Mamma on such occasions, or rather Mamma never 
 called anywhere without Sylvia in command. “ I shall 
 be delighted. Marjory is often occupied with her 
 studies.” 
 
 Sylvia had at that time a habit of speaking of me 
 as though I were several years her junior, and Miss 
 Belvoir accepted the situation. She clearly set me 
 down as a schoolroom girl, and smiled encouragingly 
 as if to bid me not despair, for I should grow out 
 of it (D.V.). In her notes inviting her friends to tea, 
 she always mentioned that she would be at home 
 (D.V.) on Wednesday. 
 
 Sylvia was taller than me, and, in one of her old 
 coarse dresses, I looked shorter than I was. She was 
 in long frocks, and had her hair up. Having had 
 measles six months before I had no hair to put up, 
 but only short curls reaching to the nape of my neck. 
 Sylvia, of course, had not had the measles; she never 
 did have tiresome diseases. At seventeen she was tall, 
 slim, and very pretty — more than pretty — with beau- 
 tiful and abundant silky dark-brown hair, and dark- 
 brown eyes, large and soft. Her mouth and teeth were 
 quite perfect, neither too large nor too small. Her 
 nose was entrancing, not really retroussee, but very 
 nearly, thin, and most aristocratic. 
 
 At seventeen I was almost fat, and my eyes were 
 blue (like Hannah’s, as Sylvia observed; and it is true 
 that Hannah’s eyes were blue, but they were remark- 
 ably pleasant) ; and my curls were of a startling dark 
 
22 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. Ill 
 
 red, like a horse-chestnut, which is not in the least the 
 colour of a chestnut horse. My mouth was too wide 
 (because, Sylvia said, I laughed too much), and my 
 nose was larger than any miniature portrait we pos- 
 sessed authorized. Sylvia had the Auberon nose, as a 
 miniature of our father’s grandmother proved. 
 
 “ Having no figure you should,” she used to impress 
 upon me, “ cultivate carriage. Look at Mrs. de Braose. 
 She is fat, and she is almost a dwarf ; but her car- 
 riage ! ” 
 
 “ I think,” Mamma pleaded, “ that Madge will 
 grow. I was short at her age.” 
 
 “ Mamma ! You were never dumpy. Madge should 
 not trust to mere growth. That’s simply gambling 
 with Providence. She should learn carriage ; we should 
 use the means in our power, and not lean on contin- 
 gencies. Carriage and manner are within her reach. 
 Look at Miss Belvoir! I never saw a plainer woman; 
 and her clothes aren’t worth a scarecrow’s stealing. 
 But you can’t think of her looks, nor of her alpaca 
 cape ” 
 
 “Was it alpaca? I didn’t notice that,” murmured 
 our mother. 
 
 “ Of course it was,” said Sylvia, who couldn’t think 
 of Miss Belvoir’s clothes, “ and of no fashion ever 
 revealed to mankind, and a poor quality, and badly 
 made. But her manner would carry off a dozen capes. 
 She has breeding all over her.” 
 
 “ I don’t think Madge could ever say ‘ My father 
 was Rural Dean,’ like Miss Belvoir.” 
 
 “ No; and it would not be true,” said Sylvia, who 
 was always rather matter-of-fact. “ Fibs are not at 
 all in the grand manner.” 
 
ch. iii] MONKSBRIDGE 23 
 
 Mamma looked mildly surprised, for dear Sylvia 
 didn’t invariably stick to literal truth. 
 
 “ Manner comes,” my sister continued gravely, 
 “ from remembering what is behind one.” 
 
 Mamma glanced hastily over her shoulder, as if to 
 see if anything particular was behind her. 
 
 “ Miss Belvoir never forgets she is a ” 
 
 “ Male Belvoir,” I suggested. 
 
 “ Marjory dear, don’t try for smartness,” my sister 
 entreated. “At your age it is offensive; at any age it 
 is rarely combined with that repose so essential to a 
 fine manner. Wit is seldom well-bred. What I was 
 about to say when you interrupted was — remember al- 
 ways you are an Auberon, and a de la Beche on Mam- 
 ma’s side.” 
 
 Our mother had been a Miss Beech, and the ancient 
 form of the name was de la Beche, which my sister 
 greatly preferred. She herself had been christened 
 Sylvia Beech, but always signed herself Sylvia de la 
 Beche Auberon. An ancestor of Mamma’s, Nicholas 
 de la Beche, was summoned to Parliament, as a Baron 
 by Writ, by Edward III., on 25th February, 1342, and 
 Sylvia never forgot him. It was, I suspected, by re- 
 membering him that I was to attain the grand 
 manner. 
 
 “ All right,” I said cheerfully ; “ I’ll bear in mind 
 that I’m a Baron by Writ, in the female line, like the 
 Duke of Rutland.” 
 
 “ That,” said Sylvia, “ is nonsense. Should the 
 title be revived, I am the elder daughter.” 
 
 “ And there’s Peterkin,” observed Mamma. 
 
 “ I regard him merely as an Auberon.” And, so 
 saying, Sylvia left the room. 
 
24 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. iii 
 
 All this, however, took place when Miss Belvoir had 
 gone; we must return to her. 
 
 “ Can you,” she asked us, as her visit drew to its 
 close, “come to me on Wednesday next? It is not 
 very far to English Gate, but I should be sorry for 
 you to have the walk for nothing. If you called 
 unexpectedly I might be out — and you keep, I think. 
 
 “ Bath-chair? No,” Sylvia put in sweetly. She was 
 annoyed at the allusion to our having no carriage. 
 Mamma blushed, but perhaps Miss Belvoir did not 
 quite catch what my sister had said, for she merely 
 went on — 
 
 “ No; I thought not. The Baroness did not either, 
 but she is such a walker. Well, I shall be at home on 
 Wednesday ” 
 
 “ I think, Mamma,” said Sylvia, who had no idea of 
 cheapening her family by too easy a concession, “ that 
 you said we should have to return the Monksbridges’ 
 call on Wednesday.” 
 
 Mamma looked as if she did not recollect having 
 said so, and tried to look as if she did. 
 
 “ Perhaps we ought,” she murmured. “ First calls 
 should be returned at once.” 
 
 “ I hoped I was your first caller,” said Miss Belvoir. 
 
 “ Mrs. de Braose called yesterday,” Sylvia re- 
 marked slightly, “ and the Monksbridges.” She al- 
 most smiled as she mentioned their name, as if they 
 were a recognized joke. “ Charming people,” she 
 added with a demure propriety. 
 
 “We all think Mrs. de Braose charming,” said Miss 
 Belvoir, almost overpowered by my sister’s sang- 
 froid. 
 
 i 
 
ch. hi] MONKSBRIDGE 25 
 
 Sylvia smiled outright. “ Oh ! Mrs. de Braose ! 
 She is quite different.” 
 
 And Miss Belvoir was, I think, overpowered alto- 
 gether. Herself entirely of the de Braose faction, she 
 had never heard the nobility of Lord and Lady Monks- 
 bridge so entirely treated as a local pleasantry. 
 
 “ Lord Monksbridge has a good deal of influence 
 with his party,” she remarked. “ Of course the title 
 is new.” 
 
 “ And it never will be more than stale. Those sort 
 of titles never become old. No party can give its rich 
 adherents what only the Middle Ages can give. Pedi- 
 grees can’t begin in the nineteenth century. A Radical 
 nobody may become a peer, but he cannot become a 
 Man of Blood. Nothing can be called blood that does 
 not flow back to the Plantagenet times.” 
 
 Miss Belvoir fidgeted in her seat, but with a cer- 
 tain admiration. 
 
 “ But, my dear, of course we shall not see it, but 
 in five hundred years’ time, Lord Monksbridge’s will 
 be a very old family; it isn’t more than five hundred 
 years from Plantagenet times now ! ” 
 
 Sylvia smiled. “ Five hundred years in the modern 
 world will not make a family feudal,” she said calmly. 
 “ The de Belvoirs, the de la Beches, and the de l’Au- 
 berons were feudal. In the twenty-fourth century 
 the Monksbridges will be no more feudal than they are 
 now.” 
 
 Her tone, always mild and almost indolent, admit- 
 ted of no discussion, and Miss Belvoir was at heart 
 all on her side. 
 
 “ My dear Mrs. Auberon,” she said, “ your daugh- 
 ter has a spirit that is rare indeed in this vulgar age. 
 
26 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. Ill 
 
 She goes beyond me. I know money is nothing ” — 
 her own was only by about a hundred and nine pounds 
 a year removed from nothing — “ but I see so much 
 made of it, that at times I find it hard to so thoroughly 
 disregard it and its influence ” 
 
 “ Money,” said Sylvia, “ is anything but nothing. 
 It buys everything that is for sale. Blood isn’t. The 
 thing is to combine them. If Sir Silas had been wise 
 he would have married Blood — then the next Lord 
 Monksbridge might have been really noble, in the fe- 
 male line. Half a loaf is better than no bread.” 
 
 “ They say,” said Miss Belvoir, “ his son is likely to 
 marry Lady Agatha St. Rand, the Earl of Pall Mall’s 
 daughter.” 
 
 “ That won’t give him Blood,” Sylvia explained 
 coolly. “ Lord Pall Mall’s grandfather was found in 
 a basket, on a doorstep in the Strand, and Strand was 
 all the name he had. St. Rand is all nonsense ; the title 
 moved westward with the family — and I dare say the 
 Earl’s son will be Marquis of Piccadilly, and his son 
 Duke of Knightsbridge. But they’ll all be Strands — 
 out of a basket.” 
 
 Miss Belvoir rubbed the frosty tip of her Roman 
 nose with her card-case, and Mamma stared in admi- 
 ration. Hozv did Sylvia know all this? What cannot 
 genius learn — with “ Anecdotes of the Aristocracy ” in 
 the house? 
 
 “Well, shall we say Friday (D.V.)?” asked Miss 
 Belvoir, quite meekly. And her tone was not usually 
 meek. 
 
 And we said “ Friday,” Sylvia volente. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Sylvia managed us all; we had seen it coming for a 
 year or two, and only Peterkin really objected. 
 Mamma was made for slavery, and I for subjection, 
 and Peterkin, resolute against succumbing himself, 
 could breathe no spirit of rebellion into Mamma; he 
 breathed it daily into me, but, much more than daily, 
 Sylvia sat on any inflation he had inspired and ex- 
 ploded it. On him she did not sit, for she was fond 
 of easy seats, and her brother was not easy. 
 
 “ It’s a shame if she makes Mugs a snob,” he de- 
 clared fervently. “ She’s welcome to you, if you’re 
 fool enough to let her snobbify you. You’re a mere 
 twin.” 
 
 “ I defy the Archangel Gabriel to make a snob of 
 Mamma,” I expostulated, with loose and hasty rhetoric. 
 
 “ Sylvia doesn’t remind me a bit of archangels,” said 
 my brother. 
 
 “ But Mamma’s an angel,” I argued, sure of my 
 point and indifferent to lines of argument. 
 
 “Yes. But if Sylvia persuades her that she’s not a 
 curate’s widow, but a sort of Dowager Baroness by 
 writ ! They’re all dowagers here. There’s a Dowager 
 Viscountess and a Dowager Ambassadress (German 
 Ambassadress from Wales), and a Dowager Squiress, 
 and you’ll be a Dowager Idiot before you’re twenty 
 if you don’t stick up to Sylvia.” 
 
 Willing to justify myself, like the lawyer in the 
 Bible, I said — 
 
 27 
 
28 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. IV 
 
 “ She’s my twin; and how pretty she is! And she 
 is clever. Any one would think we had a thousand 
 a year — five thousand! — she manages so well. You 
 know Mamma could never keep accounts.” 
 
 “ What’s the good of accounts ? A mutton chop 
 doesn’t cost less because you write the price down in a 
 book. And Sylvia thinks money’s for anything but 
 to spend. Have you a penny more to spend for Syl- 
 via’s accounts — or I? If Mugs gives me five shillings 
 she looks as if she was stealing it.” 
 
 Poor Perkin ! He was always getting five shillingses 
 out of Mamma; and in a way she was stealing them, 
 for she had listened, with as much appearance of un- 
 derstanding as she could assume, to Sylvia’s explana- 
 tion of how four hundred a year could keep Cross 
 Place and us going without our falling into debt, and 
 had said “ Most certainly,” whenever Sylvia said, “ We 
 must not spend more than so much on this, or more 
 than so much on that.” My sister allowed a certain 
 sum for Peterkin (perhaps with an air of considering 
 him an expensive luxury), and all those five shillingses 
 were extras, by no means included in her calculation. 
 Her total estimate for everything came to £369 17s. 
 8d. per annum. 
 
 “ So,” she had bid us note, “ there will be thirty 
 pounds over — in round numbers.” 
 
 “ What’s the good of having thirty pounds over in 
 round numbers ? ” Perkin complained. 
 
 “ In case, for instance, of illness.” 
 
 “ But you’ve allowed for doctor and chemist al- 
 ready. Do you propose to send for Dr. Floke in 
 perfect health, or to take pills for pleasure? ” 
 
 “ The sum I put down for medical attendance and 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 29 
 
 CH. IV] 
 
 chemist is for ordinary medical attendance — coughs, 
 colds, bilious attacks of yours, and so on. It would 
 not cover real illnesses.” 
 
 “What’s the good of being really ill?” 
 
 “ I must say,” Mamma interposed, “ Sylvia never 
 is ill herself. It’s ” 
 
 And she paused, unwilling, while justifying my sis- 
 ter, to condemn me, for it was I who had indulged in 
 uncalled-for measles and chicken-poxes, pleurisy once, 
 and bronchitis twice. 
 
 I felt this and blushed. “ I’ve had most things now,” 
 I said apologetically. 
 
 “ You’re capable of having gout to-morrow,” Sylvia 
 observed, with unmoved calmness. “ It’s best to be 
 on the safe side.” 
 
 “ She eats much less than you,” said Perkin, bru- 
 tally. “ Gout, indeed ! ” 
 
 “No, she doesn’t,” I cried indignantly; “only she 
 eats slowly and I gobble.” 
 
 “ Yes, dear; you do,” Sylvia agreed, “ and so does 
 he. It’s not a refined habit. But my point is this : if 
 we keep out of debt, it’s our own fault if we’re not 
 comfortable and respected here at Cross Place. 
 There’s no rent to pay, and no rates — thanks to Uncle 
 Stapleton giving a thousand pounds towards the res- 
 toration of the Guildhall on condition that this estate 
 should be rate-free.” (Sylvia liked to talk of “this 
 estate.”) “The garden half feeds us; and the style 
 of living, I think, is very moderate in Monksbridge. 
 Cross Place gives us a position, and we ourselves can 
 assure it; but if we get into debt we shall be wretched 
 and despised.” 
 
 Mamma gurgled a melancholy approval. Sylvia 
 
30 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. IV 
 
 had common sense, and a conscience of her own; 
 but Mamma had imagination, and I knew she 
 was picturing us in woeful procession to the work- 
 house. 
 
 Peterkin, unable to controvert Sylvia’s position, ob- 
 jected to the application of her argument. Of course 
 we should keep out of debt, but not by tedious scru- 
 tiny of expenditure. 
 
 I always knew she was right; it was part of her 
 general superiority. Perhaps, had I stepped into the 
 world five and twenty minutes earlier, I might have 
 been less inferior; as it was I merely embraced the 
 fact — gingerly. 
 
 “ Education ! ” said my sister. “ For a time that 
 must be considered. Madge plays badly, but she likes 
 it ; there’s a Miss Boon, I find, who gives lessons at two 
 shillings each, provided you take a course. Marjory 
 must take it.” She spoke exactly as though it were a 
 pill, and I was to swallow it without dallying. “ And 
 I think we should both of us have French lessons. 
 There’s a school — Magnolia House — and the French 
 governess there could come here. I will arrange that, 
 and I see my way to doing it cheaply. Mrs. Fox is, I 
 gather, more or less in society here. (Her husband 
 was a perpetual curate in the neighbourhood, and 
 rather looked on.) She and her daughter will call, I 
 dare say; and one would wish to be particularly civil 
 to them. Of course, Mademoiselle would not call with 
 them, but I see the way quite clearly.” 
 
 Mamma and I felt no doubt of it. Perkin kicked 
 out one leg as if he had none either. 
 
 “ But,” said Mamma, “ there’s your brother. For a 
 boy, education is of practical importance.” 
 
ch. iv] MONKSBRIDGE 31 
 
 Perkin kicked out the other leg, but not this time 
 to express conviction. 
 
 “ Of course,” Sylvia remarked, without the least 
 concerning herself with him, “ I was coming to that. 
 He will have his own way to make.” 
 
 “ I,” he observed, with a grin, “ am the Heir Male 
 of this estate.” 
 
 “ That,” his sister declared, “ is nonsense. If you 
 were, and if the estate were four thousand instead of 
 four hundred a year, you would have to be educated. 
 In Monksbridge there are peculiar facilities. Mamma, 
 have you heard of Abbot’s School? No? I thought 
 not. But you must have noticed some boys in red 
 gowns going about in the town, and other boys with 
 odd jackets. Yes; well, they belong to Abbot’s School. 
 It was founded by an Abbot of Marybridge, and he 
 became a Cardinal ” 
 
 “ A Cardinal ! ” cried Mamma, rather pained. 
 
 “ Oh, it was in the fifteenth century ! ” Sylvia ex- 
 plained graciously. “ There was no harm in it then ; 
 princes often were. In fact, this Cardinal was a cousin 
 of King Henry III. And he liked boys” (Sylvia 
 mentioned the fact as a pardonable idiosyncrasy in a 
 semi-royal personage) ; “ at least ” (as though unwill- 
 ing to do him an injustice), “ he liked educating them. 
 So he founded this school — and a college at Cam- 
 bridge, I think, as well. It was for fifty-two boys at 
 first, because there are fifty-two ” 
 
 “ Cards in a pack,” suggested Perkin. 
 
 “No; but perhaps because there are fifty-two 
 hounds in a pack,” Sylvia corrected, with some slight 
 irritation, for she disliked interruption. “ But when 
 he was made Cardinal, he added seventy scholars in 
 
32 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. IV 
 
 red gowns, and each of them can get into his college 
 (at Cambridge or elsewhere) by passing a mere ex- 
 amination for nothing.” 
 
 “You mean the examination is gratis?” Perkin 
 asked coldly. 
 
 “ No; but the University education. There is only 
 twelve shillings a year to pay — in honour of the 
 Twelve Apostles.” 
 
 “ That’s an imposition; it ought only to be eleven,” 
 argued Perkin. “ Judas hanged himself.” 
 
 “ My dear ! ” cried Mamma. 
 
 “ He forgets,” Sylvia observed, with calm superi- 
 ority, “Matthias. Yes, and” (unanswerably) “St. 
 Paul. St. Paul was quite an Apostle.” 
 
 “ But he makes thirteen,” objected Perkin, averse 
 from cordial interest in the Abbot’s School. 
 
 “ The shillings, however, are paid monthly,” our 
 sister explained. 
 
 “ Twelve shillings a month make seven pounds four 
 a year. I hope your accounts are not so groggy as 
 your multiplication.” 
 
 “ * Groggy ! ’ Perkin, dear ! ” Mamma expostulated. 
 
 Sylvia paid no attention to either of them. “ There 
 are,” she reminded us, “ but twelve months in the year, 
 irrespective of the Apostles, and one shilling a month 
 is all that the Abbot’s Scholars pay. The Cardinal’s, 
 as the red ones are called, pay nothing. The education 
 is excellent. I understand that numbers — certainly 
 numbers; I believe nearly fifty — bishops have been 
 educated there.” 
 
 “ And I,” said Perkin, “ firmly refuse to be a 
 bishop.” 
 
ch. iv] MONKSBRIDGE 33 
 
 “ My dear, you are far too young,” Mamma began; 
 but Sylvia cut her short. 
 
 “ I,” she confessed, “ would like a bishop in the 
 family. Had dear papa lived and been educated at 
 Abbot’s School, he might have been one now.” 
 
 “ My dear, he is an angel,” Mamma reminded her. 
 
 “Yes, Mamma; but he might, as I say, be ‘My 
 lord ’ at this moment. It is tiresome and foolish,” our 
 sister added, “ that bishops’ wives have no title. You, 
 dear, would not have been ‘ My lady.’ ” 
 
 Perhaps this thought partly reconciled her to the 
 loss of papa’s bishopric; she left her musings and 
 returned to the practical considerations from which 
 she never strayed far. 
 
 “ I merely mentioned the number of bishops the 
 school has turned out,” she went on. “ It just 
 shows the education is first-rate; and it costs noth- 
 ing.” 
 
 “ And Perkin would live at home,” our mother re- 
 minded herself with extreme satisfaction. 
 
 “ Yes; at first,” said Sylvia. “ He could not begin 
 as a Cardinal’s Scholar. The Cardinal’s Scholars are 
 boarders. They are chosen out of the whole school as 
 vacancies occur — by ” 
 
 “ Death ? ” suggested Perkin, gloomily. 
 
 “ Nonsense. Boys of that age do not die.” 
 
 “What age?” 
 
 “ Perkin dear,” Mamma pleaded, “ you shouldn’t 
 contradict your sister when she is arguing for your 
 good.” 
 
 “ Mamma, I do not pay the slightest attention to 
 anything he says.” And this we all felt was strictly 
 true. “ The vacancies occur when one of the Gowners 
 
34 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. iv 
 
 (they are called Gowners, I hear) goes up to Cam- 
 bridge ” 
 
 “ Or elsewhere,” Perkin interposed. 
 
 “ I am nearly sure it is Cambridge ; or else it is Ox- 
 ford, and that can make no difference. They go up, 
 and then a vacancy occurs.” 
 
 “ Yes, dear, I understand,” said Mamma, much 
 pleased — Sylvia was always clear. 
 
 I think we all understood that Peterkin would go 
 to Abbot’s School. Sylvia had practically decided it, 
 and our business was submission. It was all as she 
 said: the school was an excellent one and it cost 
 nothing. 
 
 “ The grocer’s sons go there,” Perkin remarked in 
 a disengaged manner, hoping against hope to hit in 
 between a chink of Sylvia’s armour. “ Also the iron- 
 monger’s. Delightful boys, I hear. I shall bring them 
 to tea.” 
 
 “ Like to like,” our imperturbable sister responded ; 
 “ I know that most of the boys are gentlemen. If you 
 feel more at home with future grocers — but as to 
 bringing them to tea, that will depend on Mamma.” 
 
 “ Everything,” Perkin retorted, rising to leave the 
 room, “ does.” 
 
 Sylvia smiled serenely, accepting the innuendo as 
 a compliment and no flattery. 
 
 “ All the Abbot’s schoolboys,” she said, as soon as 
 the echo of the banged door had subsided, “ must be 
 residents of Monksbridge. Even Llanthamy boys are 
 not eligible. Mrs. Travers came to live here on pur- 
 pose, and her mother was Honourable. I look upon 
 the school as one of the providential things about our 
 getting Cross Place.” 
 
ch. iv] MONKSBRIDGE 35 
 
 Sylvia had the shrewdest sense of Providence as 
 applied to private life. 
 
 “ And you know,” she added, with her cool justice, 
 “ Peterkin is not dull. If others have become bishops, 
 why not he ? ” 
 
 “ I really don’t think,” Mamma confessed, “ that he 
 would like it. He only wore an apron once, and that 
 was Susan’s, to paint the arbour in. He spoilt it, and 
 your papa had to give her three new ones.” 
 
 “ That is nonsense, dear. Peterkin would like six 
 or seven thousand a year as much as anybody.” 
 
 Neither Mamma nor I could say anything against 
 this. 
 
 “ If,” she said weakly, “ he could have the income 
 without being a bishop ” 
 
 “ Mamma ! ” Sylvia interposed. “ In what other 
 way can he hope to have anything like it for doing 
 nothing ? ” 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 People who do not care to know what Monksbridge 
 was like half a century ago, when we went to live 
 there, had better skip most of this chapter. I can- 
 not help trying to give some idea of it. 
 
 First of all, there was no railway station — on which 
 fact the aristocratic Monksbridgers plumed themselves 
 greatly. A branch line of a Welsh railway ran up to 
 Llanthamy and ended there. It had been one of Sir 
 Silas Monk’s offences that he had brought anything so 
 vulgar so near; indeed, the “ loop ” belonged, I think, 
 to him. But over the river he had not prevailed to 
 bring it, and Monksbridge triumphed. 
 
 For our part we never used the Llanthamy station, 
 but, approaching our homes from the English side, 
 left the train at Ruyton Abbas, five miles off, and came 
 on in a “ fly.” There was an omnibus belonging to 
 the Mitre, which also met trains, but the upper classes 
 would not countenance it, because it also met those that 
 arrived at Llanthamy station. 
 
 The drive from Ruyton was very pretty, through a 
 rich, well-wooded country; the Llanthamy side of the 
 river was treeless and bare, and the first view of the 
 town was charming. The road ran down a long hill, 
 with the park palings of Monkspark on each side, and 
 over a Gothic (a.d. 1797) bridge connecting the two 
 halves of Mr. de Braose’s demesne, so that his deer 
 could pass to and fro from one part to the other. Just 
 outside the town the ground became suddenly flat, and 
 
 36 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 37 
 
 CH. V] 
 
 out of the main stream of the Tham a branch, like a 
 moat, circled the walls, and fell into the river again a 
 quarter of a mile lower down. The walls were mostly 
 ruinous, never having been re-built since their bat- 
 tering, during the Great Rebellion, by General Fairfax. 
 But the gate tower was still standing and a long, 
 slanting bridge ran up to it; in wet winters there was 
 plenty of water under the bridge, but in summer only 
 moist green meadowland. The mayor had the custody 
 of the towngate keys, but for generations they had 
 hung in the Corporation pew in the Priory Church. 
 That pew was just outside the chancel, and over it, 
 against one of the pillars, was an immense framed 
 coat-of-arms, like a hatchment, representing the es- 
 cutcheon of the borough — azure, a bridge, embattled, 
 proper, with a crozier, or, in chief, to remind the 
 townsfolk that it was to an Abbot of Marybridge that 
 they owed their bridge. In front of the gallery was 
 another shield, not quite so large, with the Royal 
 Arms, as borne by George III. at his accession, quar- 
 tering France, and with the Hanoverian quarterings 
 on an in-escutcheon. Of course this was supported 
 by a very ill-disposed-looking lion, and a unicorn 
 whose mane wanted cutting. The tower of the Priory 
 and the steep roof of the Guildhall could be seen over 
 the town walls. The parish church was never called 
 by any other name than that of the Priory, but we 
 had another church, St. Thomas’s, not dedicated to 
 the Apostle, but to the great Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. It was built “on royal ground,” as Miss Bel- 
 voir told us, whether by Henry VI. or Henry III. she 
 wasn’t sure. As it was older than the Priory, it was 
 probably built by Henry III. 
 
38 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. V 
 
 The population of Monksbridge was not more than 
 three thousand in our time, and we had three dis- 
 senting chapels — Siloam for the Primitive Methodists, 
 Ebenezer for the Wesleyans, and Pisgah for the In- 
 dependents — so that the huge Priory was big enough 
 for all the church folk who went to church, and St. 
 Thomas’s had but a meagre congregation. However, 
 the vicar was not badly off, for in pre-Reformation 
 days a good deal of property had been bequeathed to 
 it, out of devotion to the popular martyr, and, though 
 Mr. de Braose had the great tithes, his ancestors had 
 compounded, and the clergyman had about four hun- 
 dred a year, and Becket’s Close-House to live in. 
 
 From East Gate a winding street of very old houses 
 led to the Guild Piece, which in any less ordinary 
 town would have been called the Market Square — 
 though it was of long, irregular, triangular shape. 
 Here was the Priory, here was Abbot’s School, here 
 was Prior’s House, and here were the best shops, none 
 of them with ugly plate-glass shop-fronts. Abbot’s 
 School, a beautiful thirteenth-century building, stood 
 back, with exquisite lawns before it, and part of the 
 Guild Piece was a playground for the boys. Its later 
 hall and chapel were said by some to resemble those 
 of King’s College in Cambridge, and to have had the 
 same architect. From Guild Piece another irregular 
 street led to English Gate and the river. Most, though 
 not all, of the gentry lived in houses lying behind the 
 main body of the little town, and had gardens run- 
 ning back to the old walls. 
 
 Our own garden and land had the walls for their 
 northern boundary; Mayor’s Fields bounded them east- 
 ward, and the river westward; a lodge and shrubbery 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 39 
 
 CH. V] 
 
 asserted our dignity on the southern side, and just out- 
 side the lodge-gates was the beautiful fourteenth- 
 century Cross, which gave our house its name. It was 
 called Lamb’s Cross and had a figure, carved in stone 
 but much weather-worn, of the Lamb of God on one 
 of its four sides. 
 
 The chapels, I have mentioned, were all in side 
 streets, and eschewed the vanity of architectural at- 
 tractions. Siloam looked like an elderly cottage with- 
 out any chimney or garden; Ebenezer was built of a 
 bilious drab brick, staring on the street out of two 
 round windows, like sore eyes, edged with purplish- 
 red brick, and astonished-looking eyebrows over them, 
 excessively arched, of the same livid red. Pisgah had 
 been an assembly rooms, and was bought a bargain 
 when the Monksbridge aristocracy gave over assem- 
 bling once a month to dance and play whist. Per- 
 haps it was in allusion to its former uses that an 
 inscription over the entrance adjured the public to 
 “ Put away the Accursed Thing.” In Monksbridge 
 there was no Catholic chapel — that was reserved for 
 the generally inferior and illicit Llanthamy. 
 
 From the Priory a narrow street called Litany Row 
 ran up towards the walls, joining a much wider road 
 at a place known as Psalm Steps, whence a steep stone 
 stairway still led up to a spacious turret on the wall, 
 projecting from it on a sort of bracket; its sides were 
 open, but the roof was supported on four Gothic 
 arches. 
 
 Miss Belvoir told me that in Popish times the clergy 
 and choir used to go in procession on Rogation days 
 from the Priory, singing the Litany as they passed 
 down the street of that name, and changing to a Psalm 
 
40 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. V 
 
 at the Steps; from the balcony-turret the Prior blessed 
 the fields outside, hence the name of Blessing Tower 
 that it still kept. On the landward face of the turret 
 was a carved representation of a hand, raised as if 
 in benediction, proceeding from a cloud. 
 
 When we returned Miss Belvoir’s call we found her 
 abode at English Gate as odd and interesting as we 
 had expected. The stone staircase, narrow and spiral, 
 was rather dark, lit only by slits in a wall four feet 
 thick, but her drawing-room was huge and high, with 
 a groined stone roof, and from the window the view 
 down the river was really lovely. Her furniture was 
 all old and perhaps a little shabby, still it suited the 
 place better than smart new stuff would have done, 
 and she had a good many family portraits that suited 
 her. None of the originals could, I think, have been 
 beautiful, but they had an air of importance, as if 
 they had some right to have their portraits painted. 
 Among them the handsomest was that of King Ed- 
 ward I., and Miss Belvoir explained that he also was 
 an ancestor. 
 
 “ We,” said Sylvia, “ are descended from Edward 
 III.” 
 
 “ Ah ! Edward I. was half a century earlier,” ob- 
 served our hostess. 
 
 “Yes,” my sister agreed, but added ruthlessly: “If 
 you’re descended from Edward III. you must be de- 
 scended from Edward I. too, and in royal descents the 
 point is to be descended from as late a king as possible.” 
 
 After this speech I doubt if Miss Belvoir was as 
 fond of Sylvia as she had at first seemed inclined to 
 be. It was to me she turned as she said with a tight 
 little smile — 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. V] 
 
 41 
 
 “ As we both go back to the Hammer of the Scots 
 we’re cousins, my dear.” 
 
 “ How do you know,” Mamma asked Sylvia after- 
 wards, “ that we’re related to Edward III. ? I never 
 heard papa mention it, and he often talked of our 
 connection with the Blicks of Blickling Court — a very 
 important family in Norfolk, I think, or perhaps York- 
 shire. Probably Yorkshire, for I know it was through 
 a bishop, and he may have been Archbishop of York.” 
 
 “ Oh ! ” Sylvia replied coolly, “ I don’t suppose you 
 are descended from Edward III.; it’s an Auberon de- 
 scent. I read it in a book of Uncle Stapleton’s.” 
 
 “ But he,” Mamma urged, “ was not an Auberon. 
 Anything but. He was never on terms with your dear 
 father.” 
 
 “ No. The book was his; but it has a number of 
 royal descents, and I saw one in which a John Auberon 
 married a Howard of Corby, almost a Norfolk How- 
 ard.” (Mamma, I did not know why, jumped visi- 
 bly.) “ All the Howards are descended from Edward 
 III., and I’ve no doubt that John Auberon (it was 
 spelled Oberon in the pedigree) was papa’s ancestor. 
 Dear papa’s name was John, and Christian names al- 
 ways run in families.” 
 
 “ Well,” Mamma said, “ I think you were rather 
 too severe with Miss Belvoir about Edward I. if your 
 relationship to Edward III. isn’t quite certain. I don’t 
 think she was pleased.” 
 
 “ No, of course not. I meant her to be snubbed. 
 Miss Belvoir is a woman whom one must keep in her 
 place. And I have no doubt about Edward III. Papa 
 had at times quite the Plantagenet eye.” 
 
 “ I thought Miss Belvoir had the grand manner 
 
42 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. v 
 
 when she said we were cousins,” I suggested pleas- 
 antly. 
 
 “ You haven’t the least idea,” said Sylvia, “ what it 
 is. The grand manner is never heated. She was quite 
 warm.” 
 
 It was, I supposed, not in keeping with the grand 
 manner for Miss Belvoir to beg me to come often to 
 see her as we made our farewells — “ if,” she added, 
 with a cool little smile, “ your sister does not think 
 it would interrupt your studies.” 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 At Island Court Sylvia made no allusion to Edward 
 III.; indeed, she had not then discovered him, as we 
 returned Mrs. de Braose’s call before Miss Belvoir’s. 
 But I do not think she would have brought him in, in 
 any case, for Sylvia had a wonderful instinct, and 
 Mrs. de Braose would not have cared much for Ed- 
 ward III. 
 
 Sylvia had begged me not to try for wit, but she 
 could be amusing in her own way, and she made Mrs. 
 de Braose laugh more than once. As we were walking 
 through the hothouses, the old lady said to me — 
 
 “ Your sister is a genius. She has a genius for 
 classes — I don’t mean Sunday-school classes. The 
 smallest shade doesn’t escape her. Is she much older 
 than you? ” 
 
 “ Twenty minutes,” I confessed meekly. 
 
 “ Dear ! And one would say she had been ‘ out ’ 
 for three years at least. Perhaps she has not lived 
 lately with you ” 
 
 “ Oh yes! She has never been away from us. But 
 Sylvia is very clever.” 
 
 “ I see you’re not; but I wouldn’t mind, if I 
 were you. The gods don’t give us all the same 
 gifts.” 
 
 I blushed a little, and the sharp old woman noted it. 
 
 “ You’re not savage with me,” she said, “ for say- 
 ing you were not clever like your sister ? Not a bit ; I 
 see that.” 
 
 43 
 
44 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. vi 
 
 “ No,” I said, getting redder, “ but she is my sis- 
 ter; my twin, you know.” 
 
 Mrs. de Braose pinched my arm. “ You’re no fool 
 either,” she whispered, for Sylvia was coming back 
 to us ; “ and you were savage because you didn’t think 
 I was exactly praising her. I like that much better. 
 Pins and needles are useful things, but pincushions 
 don’t care much for them. I’m not a pincushion, and 
 Sylvia is uncommonly amusing. Don’t you try to be 
 pinny, though; only prick folk who say things you 
 don’t like about your own flesh and blood. You’ll 
 never be a Sylvia : — Miss Auberon, I can’t believe 
 you’re twins; your sister is five years younger at 
 least.” 
 
 At seventeen Sylvia had no objection to being 
 thought older than she was, and she smiled affection- 
 ately at me. 
 
 “ Madge is our baby,” she said. “ Our brother is 
 younger than us both, but he really comes between us 
 two.” 
 
 “ I haven’t seen him. Which is he like? ” 
 
 “ He isn’t like either of us. There’s a miniature at 
 Cross Place that is just like him; it is the portrait of 
 Lady Drumm, the mother of the Sir Stapleton you 
 knew. It’s odd how likenesses crop up again in fam- 
 ilies, for she is only our great-great-grandmother. But 
 she has Peterkin’s chocolate-brown eyes and hair and 
 his cream complexion — to say nothing of his nose.” 
 
 “ Why,” asked Mrs. de Braose, “ are we to say 
 nothing of his nose?” 
 
 “ Least said soonest mended,” my sister replied, 
 smiling. 
 
 “ Sylvia,” Mamma protested mildly, “ don’t be un- 
 
ch. vi] MONKSBRIDGE 45 
 
 just. Perkin has a beautiful mouth — such a sweet 
 expression, Mrs. de Braose.” 
 
 Sylvia looked up at young Mr. Eustace de Braose 
 and smiled again. He was not the squire, but a much 
 younger brother, and not more than one and twenty. 
 He had lately been appointed attache to the British 
 Legation at Lisbon, where the Minister was Lord Chil- 
 mark, Mrs. de Braose’s brother. He was as thin as his 
 mother was fat, and about two feet taller ; all the same 
 he was like her, as she now remarked. 
 
 “ Eustace is like me,” she said, “ or I was like him, 
 forty years ago, but better looking. Do you still think 
 you would like to live on an island, Miss Auberon, 
 now you’ve seen mine ? ” 
 
 “ It is prettier even than I expected, and much 
 larger.” And Sylvia went on praising it in detail, as, 
 indeed, it deserved, but she said nothing about living 
 on islands at present. 
 
 The house, built of grey stone, was very old, in the 
 Tudor style, but had been restored by its present owner ; 
 it was raised well above the' river, on terraces with 
 stone balustrades, and was much more imposing than 
 Cross Place, and about twice as big, though not large. 
 The gardens were beautiful, as was our own, but 
 they looked as if it would take a good many gardeners 
 to keep them in order. A chronic boy, a man three 
 days in the week, and Mrs. Auberon and her daughters 
 looked after ours. 
 
 “ Your sister has perfect taste,” Mrs. de Braose said 
 to me, very amiably, as we went along one of the river- 
 walks. “She praises excellently; it’s an art in itself. 
 When I go anywhere I can only see the things that 
 want altering — and it’s hard not to mention them.” 
 
4 6 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. VI 
 
 Sylvia was barely out of earshot, for though she 
 walked with Mr. de Braose, she constantly paused to 
 admire something, or to ask our hostess some question, 
 and so we were never far behind, and never once out 
 of sight. She held Mamma lightly by an arm, without 
 leaning on it; so thus I had Mrs. de Braose to myself. 
 When her son had moved on, Mamma had seemed 
 about to fall back on us, and it was then that Sylvia, 
 without pausing in the remark she was making, had 
 just laid her hand behind Mamma’s elbow, and taken 
 her on with them. Whatever she said was divided 
 between her two companions. 
 
 All this Mrs. de Braose observed, and she smiled a 
 little, but quite approvingly. 
 
 “ Your sister,” she told me, “ is an artist in tact. 
 I cannot watch her without admiration.” 
 
 All the same it seemed to me that she watched her 
 too much. 
 
 “ You put on a queer little look when I praise her,” 
 she said, giving my arm a pinch that did not hurt in 
 the least. “ I’m sure it’s not because you’re jeal- 
 ous.” 
 
 “Of Sylvia?” 
 
 “No, my dear; I know all about it. It’s be- 
 cause ” 
 
 “Yes, it is,” I interrupted. “It’s because I’m not 
 sure I understand what you mean when you praise 
 her.” 
 
 “ I admire her immensely. She is a lovely girl, and 
 her manner is perfection; but I think perfection is 
 thrown away on me. I ain’t perfect, you know, and I 
 can only do with a little perfection at a time. If there 
 were a duke here, I’d marry him to her; only I’d be 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 47 
 
 CH. Vi] 
 
 afraid she might meet an emperor afterwards and re- 
 pent of the mesalliance. Now you’re looking queer 
 again. I’ve no tact, have I? I think what I’ve no 
 business to, and say it all out.” 
 
 As I thought she did, I said nothing, and she gave 
 me another pinch. 
 
 “ I like you, my dear, very much. And it amuses 
 me that you won’t like me.” 
 
 “ I should if ” 
 
 “If I’d leave Sylvia alone?” 
 
 “ Yes. She’s my twin, and ” 
 
 But, even if I had quite known what I wanted to 
 say, I could not have said it, for Sylvia and the others 
 turned back — or, rather, Sylvia stopped and half 
 turned round, so that Mamma and Mr. de Braose 
 had to stop too. They had been walking quicker than 
 we could, for Mrs. de Braose was too fat for fast 
 walking, and my sister seemed quite determined not 
 to leave us behind. 
 
 “ Why don’t you young people move on,” cried Mrs. 
 de Braose, laughing, “ and leave us elders to follow 
 at our own pace?” 
 
 Mamma, who was about half the old lady’s age, pro- 
 tested that she was an elder, but I think she smiled 
 complacently at being counted among the young people. 
 Mamma was still very pretty, and had quite as nice a 
 figure as Sylvia’s, and, though I thought it rather in- 
 consistent of Mrs. de Braose, who had just declared 
 that Sylvia looked so much older than me, to count me 
 among the elders, it rather pleased me too. 
 
 “ Madge,” said my sister, reflectively, as if she had 
 been considering the same question, “ is our baby, and 
 Peterkin is older than her in most ways, but I think it 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 48 
 
 [CH. VI 
 
 very clever of you, Mrs. de Braose, to count her among 
 the elders. She was an old maid at ten.” 
 
 She smiled on us both, and gave us both the same 
 smile, friendly and a little patronizing. Somehow I 
 felt that, in spite of her smile, she was not thoroughly 
 pleased. 
 
 As we all went indoors, Mrs. de Braose and I were 
 again a little behind the others, and she said — 
 
 “ She snubbed us both, and you hadn’t done a thing 
 to deserve it.” 
 
 Mrs. de Braose never whispered; she could say 
 things in a voice that sounded quite loud without let- 
 ting any one hear except the person to whom she meant 
 to be confidential. I did not appreciate her fondness 
 for being confidential to me, and was not a bit sure 
 that I should like her; but, all the same, we became, 
 as time went on, very intimate, and she seemed so 
 determined to like me, that I could not help growing 
 fond of her too, up to a point. All the same, I never 
 became reconciled to a certain tone of hers when she 
 talked of Sylvia, as she was never tired of doing. 
 
 What often struck me as strange, when we had been 
 a little longer at Monksbridge, was that my sister, who 
 at first had seemed specially pleased with Miss Belvoir 
 and Mrs. de Braose, did not advance much in real 
 intimacy with either of them; whereas I, who had not 
 taken so much to them in the first instance, became 
 fast friends with both. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 But, on the other hand, I, who had not been half so 
 alert as Sylvia in discerning the joke afforded by Lord 
 and Lady Monksbridge, and thought them merely a 
 good-natured sort of elderly, wealthy people, at whom 
 it was not a social duty to laugh, never became at all 
 intimate with them; while my sister, in reasonable 
 time, did grow into quite a marked intimacy with the 
 Llanthamy Castle circle. 
 
 So little did Mamma or I foresee any such thing, 
 that we both felt a little nervous as we drove for the 
 first time to Llanthamy Castle. We were secretly half 
 afraid lest Sylvia should quiz our host and hostess, or 
 be “ gracious ” to an extent that they would perceive 
 and resent. 
 
 “ My dear,” Mamma whispered, and I could hear 
 her so plainly that I was glad to think that the wind 
 must be blowing the sound away from the gorgeous 
 coachman and footman high in the air behind my back 
 — “ my dear, I think it was very kind of Lord and 
 Lady Monksbridge to ask us to luncheon and insist on 
 sending their carriage for us.” 
 
 “ Kind?” said Sylvia, lifting her eyebrows coolly. 
 
 “ Nice, I mean.” 
 
 “ Of course they could not propose sending a car- 
 riage without asking us to luncheon. Even they would 
 understand that they could not offer to send a car- 
 riage for us to return their call — in.” 
 
 Sylvia often paused before adding a final preposi- 
 49 
 
50 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. VII 
 
 tion, not being quite sure whether it were necessary 
 or permissible, and Sylvia never did impermissible or 
 needless things. 
 
 “ Flys are very dear,” Mamma observed meekly, 
 anxious to avoid argument on a point she felt unable 
 to understand like Sylvia ; “ and they smell so of sta- 
 bles with grooms in them.” 
 
 “ I should never have dreamt of returning their call 
 in a fly,” my sister observed, almost absent-mindedly, 
 as people do when they hardly think a remark is worth 
 answering at all, and without giving the least hint 
 of what would have been her alternative. As Llan- 
 thamy Castle is three miles from the river we could 
 not have rowed there. 
 
 “ This,” said Mamma, still in her dangerous whis- 
 per, “ is their best carriage. I’ve seen Lady Monks- 
 bridge shopping (in a morning, I admit) in a much 
 smaller one — a one-horse brougham, though it has a 
 back seat.” 
 
 “ Of course,” Sylvia declared, with perfect confi- 
 dence, not so much in Lady Monksbridge as in our- 
 selves, “ she’d never have dreamt of sending that for 
 
 „ yy 
 
 US. 
 
 Her tone distinctly implied : “ She’d know better. 
 I’d like to catch her at it.” 
 
 All this made us rather nervous. It proclaimed 
 such an unyielding spirit. If Sylvia chose to be for- 
 midable, who could stop her? Certainly neither 
 Mamma nor I. And how would Lord and Lady 
 Monksbridge like it? 
 
 But we had not yet half learned how clever she was. 
 
 She had certainly almost smiled openly as her eyes 
 fell on the brilliant liveries, on the powder as deep 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 5i 
 
 CH. VIl] 
 
 almost as snow-drifts, and on the colossal coat-of- 
 arms, supporters, and coronet, when she came out of 
 our front door to get into the carriage, where Mamma 
 and I were already seated — I, of course, with my back 
 to the horses. And she took her place with so obvious 
 a condescension that the tall young man holding the 
 carriage door open for her had been instantly and 
 permanently impressed. Mamma and I had not im- 
 pressed him at all; he and the coachman had both 
 looked as if they thoroughly understood that we had 
 no carriage of our own; but after Sylvia had come 
 down, they had the air of believing in innumerable 
 splendid equipages of ours. 
 
 Sylvia smiled outright as we entered Llanthamy 
 Park by a Gothic lodge, with a portcullis and an im- 
 practicable drawbridge. 
 
 “ The trees,” she remarked, scanning the extensive 
 but new demesne, “have to be kept in cages lest they 
 should run away altogether.” 
 
 “ Sylvia ! ” Mamma protested ; but really her whis- 
 per was far more audible than Sylvia’s low voice. 
 
 “ They’re not,” I remarked wittily, “ cages, but 
 cradles — far more appropriate to infancy.” 
 
 Sylvia continued to look about her without seeming 
 to notice this sally, but presently recalled her inter- 
 ested gaze, and turned her pretty head gravely in my 
 direction with a conjectural sort of look, as though I 
 had asked what ninety-seven times eleven was, and 
 she was vaguely wondering, or as if, without previous 
 intimation of indisposition, I had broken a blood- 
 vessel, and she were trying to imagine what I had 
 done it for. 
 
 But if she thought of me, she did not speak of me. 
 
52 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. VII 
 
 “ I suppose the trees will grow up,” she said tol- 
 erantly, “ and then it will be a park. The ground is 
 well-shaped, and I think they were wrong to plant 
 these single trees at all ; little thickets, here and there, 
 would have looked nice almost from the first, and 
 would have been cover too. When there is as much 
 ground as this ” — she paused and looked round again — 
 “ six or eight hundred acres, I’m sure — trees don’t 
 matter much, especially when there’s a lake like that; 
 it is so curved, and lies in such a hollow that it must 
 seem like a river in places; but very young trees, 
 elms and oaks, have an uncomfortable effect — al- 
 most like a recitation, or one of Madge’s leaps at 
 wit.” 
 
 The park was really not eight hundred, but a thou- 
 sand, acres, and we were quite a long time before we 
 came in sight of the house. Sylvia was, I saw, on 
 the look-out for it. 
 
 “ It is,” she admitted, after considering it for sev- 
 eral minutes, as it appeared in the distance, at the end 
 of a long valley on a steepish rising ground, “ really 
 a castle, though a new one.” 
 
 “ You mean,” I said, “ that it is big.” I remem- 
 bered her original scorn of new castles, and also her 
 recent allusion to my wit. 
 
 “ A little castle is quite ridiculous,” she remarked, 
 not at all as noticing my critical tone, but merely as 
 one obliging the public with facts. 
 
 “If all new castles are sins, the bigger the castle 
 the bigger the sin,” I observed with what I took for 
 consistency. Nothing could show my inferiority in 
 point of age to my sister more plainly than the fatal 
 stand I was constantly taking on consistency. 
 
ch. vii] MONKSBRIDGE 53 
 
 “ My dear,” Mamma interposed, with pacific protest, 
 “ how can a castle be sinful ? ” 
 
 “ Marjory is aiming at sprightliness,” Sylvia ex- 
 plained coolly, and continued her survey of the huge 
 pile in front of us. “ At this distance,” she observed, 
 “ it would not look new — if one did not know it. In 
 this moist climate it will soon look old. I am afraid 
 the gardens must seem rawer than the house — we 
 shall see.” 
 
 The road now ran along the valley, where there 
 were no young trees, but only patches of gorse and 
 bracken, and my sister slightly nodded her head in 
 calm approval. You might have supposed that we 
 were invited solely that Lord Monksbridge might be 
 sustained by her favourable judgment. I had almost 
 to pinch myself to remember that it was only fourteen 
 weeks since we had heard of Cross Place being ours; 
 Sylvia had the air of silently comparing Llanthamy 
 Castle with all the ducal or baronial residences famil- 
 iar to her from a distant childhood. 
 
 The road now turned a pretty sharp corner, and for 
 some minutes we could not see the castle ; at the next 
 turning it came in full view again, standing high over 
 a lake, edged with tall osmunda fern, in which all its 
 towers were reflected. 
 
 “ The site was chosen well,” Sylvia informed us ; 
 “ there was taste somewhere — perhaps it was the 
 architect.” 
 
 “ The architect,” I suggested, “ was perhaps a peer 
 of medieval creation.” 
 
 Mamma’s common sense rushed forward again with 
 an olive branch in its beak. 
 
 “ My dear, they are never people of title,” she said, 
 
54 
 
 M0NKSBR1DGE 
 
 [ch. VII 
 
 with a little frown. I quite understood that Sylvia’s 
 calm approval of Llanthamy Castle relieved her mind, 
 and that she thought it behoved me to accept it in the 
 same spirit. How awkward it would have been for us 
 both had Sylvia been formidable! 
 
 The hill above the lake was too steep for a car- 
 riage-road, and we now turned away to the right, and 
 another side of the castle was seen, presenting nearly 
 as imposing a front as the other; at one end of it 
 were a few inconsiderable ruins rising out of a thicket 
 of ancient thorns. 
 
 “ Ah ! ” said Sylvia, “ I understand. There was a 
 castle here, and the new one only carries on the old 
 name. That makes a great difference.” And she 
 spoke as though removing a stain from the character 
 of Lord Monksbridge. For a few moments she was 
 silent; then, almost severely, she added, “ Mrs. de 
 Braose never mentioned that.” 
 
 “ Mrs. de Braose did not ask you to laugh at him,” 
 I reminded her ; “ she only wanted to do it herself.” 
 
 “ Your hat,” Sylvia told me, “ is crooked. There 
 are heads on which no amount of pins will hold a hat 
 straight.” 
 
 The justice of this criticism I could not impeach, 
 and I could only tug at my hat desperately. 
 
 “ It was too much that way already,” my sister 
 remarked; “ it will be back to front if you go on.” 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 We had feared lest our Sylvia should be formidable 
 or too crushingly gracious; but she was neither. At 
 the huge entrance-door a butler and two more footmen 
 received us; the footmen were deeply powdered, and 
 the butler had no hair to speak of at all. All three 
 had the air of receiving habitually, not angels una- 
 wares, but ducal personages, with full but unmoved 
 knowledge of their rank. The manner of the foot- 
 men was stony, and that of the butler beef-and-port- 
 winey; but in all these cases it expressed acquiescence 
 in Sylvia, and toleration of us as belonging to her. 
 
 The outer hall was an armoury, and the inner hall 
 looked like a cathedral into which a number of sheep- 
 ish statues had lost their way without the monuments 
 they belonged to. 
 
 Lord Monksbridge was visible at the choir-end of 
 the cathedral, where the stalls and altar should have 
 been, and he came a step or two to meet us. 
 
 “ I was merely,” he said, “ crossing the hall, but am 
 delighted that it happened at this moment.” 
 
 Sylvia perfectly understood that he was in full re- 
 membrance of his Lord Lieutenancy, and that it would 
 not be quite loyal to the Sovereign to let us suppose 
 he had come forth to meet us; and by infection (I was 
 always notoriously open to infection) I understood it 
 too. Mamma, who was immune from infection, did 
 not follow the workings of his mind in the least. It 
 never dawned upon her that his little speech was a 
 
 55 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. VIII 
 
 56 
 
 familiar formula, and that he was often discovered 
 by expected guests in the hall. He did not really take 
 us to the drawing-room himself, but merely joined the 
 cortege, the butler still leading on, the footmen skir- 
 mishing on our flank. The drawing-room door was 
 under an arched recess that should have led to a side- 
 chapel, and the butler threw it open with the air of 
 saying, “ I can’t help what’s inside. You’ll be dis- 
 appointed, but it’s not my fault.” 
 
 Only Lady Monksbridge seemed to be inside; and 
 she really did not seem enough. The room was as like 
 the hall as a calf is like a cow, and far too big, and 
 too Gothic; even the armchairs looked like episcopal 
 thrones, and the footstools were prayerful. There 
 were three enormous fireplaces, one at each end and 
 one in the middle, and each of them had its cow and 
 its goose, carved in white stone and supporting a 
 carved shield that Goliath would have fallen under; 
 over all was the coronet that would have fitted Giant 
 Blunderbore’s head. All the same it was a fine room, 
 and the view through the windows was fine too. 
 
 Lady Monksbridge rustled forward — her silks were 
 always too stiff and noisy — and a young man arose 
 from a seat where he had been hidden behind her and 
 also came to meet us. You could see in a moment he 
 was her son, and he was like his father too; but he 
 was very tall like Lady Monksbridge, and he was dis- 
 tinctly handsome, which my lord had given over being 
 if he had ever begun. 
 
 It was the Lord Lieutenant who introduced Mr. 
 Monk to my mother, and he was going to introduce 
 him to Sylvia, but they smiled, and the young man 
 said — 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 57 
 
 CH. VIII] 
 
 “ We met yesterday — at Prior’s House.” 
 
 “ Yes, you told me,” said his mother. Sylvia had 
 not told us; she had gone alone to Prior’s House to 
 explain how her headaches would prevent her from 
 accepting the vicar’s invitation to take a Sunday- 
 school class, and had only mentioned on her return 
 that she had promised I should take one instead. She 
 had been away quite a long time. 
 
 “ It would not do,” she had explained, “ to make 
 a hurried visit when one went to refuse a favour.” 
 
 “ But you didn’t. You offered up me” I had re- 
 minded her. 
 
 “ Oh,” she pointed out, “ it was me he wanted. Of- 
 fering you instead was a refusal.” 
 
 She and Mr. Monk were quite intimate; she was 
 not a bit “ gracious,” but treated him as an equal, in 
 spite of the cows and geese and coronets all over the 
 place. And I suddenly thought I understood why she 
 had criticized the park, and the castle, and the trees, 
 with such unprejudiced, almost optimistic, candour. 
 She admired the view, and both gentlemen led her to 
 a window to see it better. 
 
 “ What charming old gardens ! ” I heard her say. 
 And I had never till then realized how clever my sis- 
 ter was; the gardens were really old, and the only 
 things (except the ruins, invisible from the windows) 
 about the place that were not new. 
 
 “Yes,” said Mr. Monk, “they are old; when my 
 grandfather bought this place there was a small coun- 
 try-house adjoining the ruins, and the gardens were 
 here already.” 
 
 “ I merely extended and improved them,” said my 
 lord. 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 58 
 
 [CH. VIII 
 
 “ To extend and improve,” said Sylvia, a little 
 graciously, “ is harder than to create. It is,” with 
 grave decision, “ a stronger test of taste.” 
 
 Lord Monksbridge bowed quite meekly, and sub- 
 mitted, once and for all, to Sylvia’s serene patronage. 
 Mr. Monk looked a little amused, but no doubt he 
 admired my sister. After all, one isn’t one’s father, 
 especially when one has been to Eton and Christ 
 Church, and Sylvia did not patronize him. 
 
 “ I hope,” Lady Monksbridge observed, “ that the 
 carriage came in good time. I said half-past twelve.” 
 Perhaps she thought that her lord had submitted too 
 readily to my sister. 
 
 “ Oh yes ! It was so kind of you,” said Mamma. 
 
 “ Quite in time,” said Sylvia; “ I’m afraid I kept it 
 waiting. I’m always late.” (I stared, as this was 
 rather a libel on herself.) “ That’s because we gen- 
 erally go about in flys, and it doesn’t matter whether 
 they wait or not.” 
 
 I stared again; but my sister was much cleverer, 
 need I say, than I, and Lady Monksbridge collapsed. 
 She had very often to send carriages for us in the 
 future, but she never again asked if they had arrived 
 in good time. 
 
 Mr. Monk seemed again to be amused, but, per- 
 haps, less pleased. I fancy he was fonder of his 
 mother than of his father; still he evidently admired 
 Sylvia’s great social capacity. 
 
 “ I wonder,” said Lady Monksbridge, hastily, “ if 
 luncheon is ready ? ” 
 
 “ They,” said my lord, as if arguing a point, “ will 
 announce it when it is.” 
 
 Mr. Monk looked less amusedly at ease, and began 
 
ch. vm] MONKSBRIDGE 59 
 
 to talk to Sylvia as if carrying on some discussion 
 of yesterday. 
 
 “ Miss Auberon,” he said to his father, “ is an im- 
 pregnable Tory. I tried for half an hour to convert 
 her, but she is converting me.” 
 
 Lord Monksbridge smiled, and looked as if he 
 would not much mind the future peer being a Tory; 
 he couldn’t very well be converted himself, the geese 
 and cows were too new. 
 
 “ I never met a Radical before,” my sister explained. 
 “ All my life I have been in the opposite camp.” 
 
 Mamma, who knew as much about politics as I did, 
 tried not to look surprised ; but Lord and Lady Monks- 
 bridge understood at once that Sylvia had been bred up 
 among the great Tory magnates of the land. 
 
 “ It is,” she added, “ a question of tradition.” 
 
 And a vista of long centuries of Toryism behind 
 Miss Auberon caused our Liberal host and hostess to 
 regard her with deepening respect. 
 
 At this moment luncheon was announced, and our 
 further enlightenment as to Sylvia’s hereditary poli- 
 tics was postponed. Crossing the cathedral we passed 
 into a sort of chapter-house, octagonal as to its main 
 portion, with a tall mullioned window in each of its 
 sides; the lower portion of them was filled with plain 
 glass, but the upper part was enriched with stained 
 glass. There was the signing of Magna Charta, re- 
 sembling a tablecloth; Cromwell removing the bauble; 
 the Bill of Rights being passed, etc. 
 
 The stone walls were unpapered, and the groined 
 roof had a pendent boss in the middle, on which, 
 carved, painted, and gilded, were the Monksbridge 
 arms, coronet and supporters. For the convenience 
 
6o 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. VIII 
 
 of those who did not care to lie on their backs to 
 admire them, these were repeated much larger over 
 the fireplace, which stood back under a wide arch. 
 
 Lord Monksbridge said grace — to the butler and 
 footmen, so to speak. And we began to eat and talk. 
 
 “ I hope,” said our hostess to Mamma, “ that you 
 like Monksbridge ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes; very much. We like it extremely.” 
 
 “ For a place of the kind there is a good deal of 
 pleasant — ur — society,” said my lord. 
 
 “ It seems a friendly little place,” Sylvia observed 
 tolerantly, as if it would be unfair to expect much 
 socially. Her placid grandeur made me giddy, and it 
 acted on Mamma like an opiate; I am sure I saw 
 her rub her eyes. 
 
 Sylvia turned to Mr. Monk. “ There are little 
 samples of different sorts of society,” she told him. 
 “ That is rather amusing ; we range down from dow- 
 ager peeresses to dowager curatesses.” 
 
 Our sister often availed herself of little sayings of 
 Peterkin’s when she thought them worth using; she 
 was much too large-minded to deny herself a useful 
 thing because it had originally belonged to a context 
 she disapproved. 
 
 “ You know Lady Llantwddwy ? ” said Lord 
 Monksbridge. “ She is quite grande dame.” He pro- 
 nounced it as if he meant she were a certified grand- 
 mother. 
 
 “Oh yes; she called yesterday,” Mamma was begin- 
 ning; but Sylvia choked her off at the first syllable of 
 “ yesterday.” 
 
 “ She is an old family acquaintance,” she remarked 
 lightly, alluding no doubt to Lady Llantwddwy’s hav- 
 
ch. viii] MONKSBRIDGE 61 
 
 ing known Sir Stapleton. “ Madge and I are the 
 fourth generation of our family she has known.” 
 
 As for me I was hungry, and minded my luncheon ; 
 Mamma always ate very little and Sylvia seemed to, 
 but while she appeared to be only talking, she noted 
 perfectly anything she thought good. She had a 
 singular talent for guessing how it must be made, 
 and she could teach our very cheap cook how to make 
 it again. 
 
 “ You have,” said Lady Monksbridge to me, “ a 
 brother, I hear. I only heard yesterday.” Then to 
 Mamma, “ You must excuse my not having invited 
 him to come with you.” 
 
 “ Oh, Peterkin is a schoolboy,” Sylvia explained ; 
 “ he is at school at this moment. Abbot’s School is 
 one of the great advantages of Monksbridge for 
 us.” 
 
 “ The education is good,” Lord Monksbridge ad- 
 mitted, but with an air of reserve. The fact was, he 
 much wished to have the school “ reformed ” by Par- 
 liament. But Mr. Monk did not want a speech on the 
 necessity of such reforms, and chipped in rather 
 hurriedly — 
 
 “If Peterkin likes fishing I would take him out with 
 me,” he said good-naturedly. 
 
 Mamma was much pleased, and I began to like Mr. 
 Monk; Sylvia smiled, partly as though acknowledging 
 a compliment to herself, and partly as though she 
 thought Perkin had better mind his book. 
 
 “ Hampden,” said Lady Monksbridge, looking at 
 her son admiringly, “ fishes so beautifully. He al- 
 ways catches such a great many.” 
 
 Mr. Monk had been called after John Hampden out 
 
62 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. viii 
 
 of patriotism, not because of any family connection 
 with the Earl of Buckinghamshire. 
 
 Thus began our acquaintance with the Monksbridge 
 family, destined to ripen into a considerable intimacy. 
 That the intimacy would follow I think I perceived 
 even on that day, for Mr. Monk clearly wished it, and 
 Sylvia was not opposed to him. Lord Monksbridge, 
 too, evidently thought her (and us, for her sake) 
 worth cultivating. Lady Monksbridge, perhaps, was 
 less inclined to succumb to my sister and less satisfied 
 to see her son’s inclination that way; but she always 
 did what he wanted, and by this time I was aware that 
 a mere Lady Monksbridge had no chance at all against 
 Sylvia. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 “ Well,” asked Perkin that night, “ did we sit on the 
 lowly nobility of Llanthamy Castle? ” 
 
 “ Anything but,” I assured him, with sprightly 
 metaphor ; “ we were sweet as honey in the honey- 
 comb.” 
 
 Sylvia looked across the table with languid inat- 
 tention that would not even feign interest. 
 
 “ Of what,” demanded our brother, “ does the no- 
 bility consist ? ” 
 
 “ Why,” Sylvia suggested, “ not say ‘ the quality ’ ? 
 We should know then in what circles you had culled 
 your flowers of rhetoric.” 
 
 “ It consists,” I told him, “ of a papa and a 
 mamma, and an heir apparent.” 
 
 “ My dear,” pleaded Mamma, “ I am sure Mr. Monk 
 is very pleasant.” 
 
 “ Does Sylvia say he isn’t ? ” asked Perkin. 
 
 “ Anything but,” I said again significantly. 
 
 “ He wants you to fish with him,” Mamma explained 
 hastily. 
 
 “ ‘ He fishes beautifully,’ ” quoth I, and Sylvia 
 smiled. She did not at that time at all object to my 
 imitating Lady Monksbridge. Perkin was a little 
 puzzled by us all. 
 
 “ What’s it mean ? ” he asked me afterwards in 
 private. “ Sylvia seemed to think these humble crea- 
 tures were to be taught their place.” 
 
 “ Ah, but she hadn’t seen it then.” 
 
 63 
 
6 4 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. IX 
 
 “ * Succumstances alters cases,’ ” said my vulgar 
 brother, “ as the railway guard remarked when he’d 
 drunk the champagne and filled the bottles up with 
 water.” 
 
 “ Still, I don’t understand it,” I confessed. “ You 
 
 know she has her principles ” 
 
 “ As the lawyer said who’d boned the lady’s 
 interest.” 
 
 “Did he? Well, she has. And I never thought 
 she would abandon the ‘ family ’ notion.” 
 
 “ ‘ Blood ’ and that ? ” 
 
 “ Yes. Of course these people are as rich as Croesus. 
 But, really, I thought she would not dispense with — 
 ‘blood.’ And I think she means us to be as thick as 
 thieves with Llanthamy Castle.” 
 
 “ Well, if the fishing’s good ” 
 
 “ Sylvia doesn’t care tuppence for fishing. It’s Mr. 
 Monk. You see, he’s a gentleman. Not that I don’t 
 like his mother just as well myself; and Lord Monks- 
 
 bridge — he’s not like Mr. Monk; but ” 
 
 “ A good sort? ” 
 
 “ Yes. Only Sylvia would not care about that.” 
 Sylvia never explained herself; she always took it 
 for granted we would take her for granted. So, for a 
 long time, I wondered (and perhaps Mamma did). 
 But gradually we came to understand ; and we, some- 
 how or other, absorbed the idea that every one of any 
 importance has a mission. It was Sylvia’s to devote 
 herself to a work. She did not consider teaching 
 Sunday-schools, or carrying coal-tickets to stuffy old 
 women, works at all suited to her genius; her genius 
 was not parochial. 
 
ch. ix] MONKSBRIDGE 65 
 
 “ That,” she told Mamma, “ might do for Madge. 
 She will probably marry a rector.” 
 
 “ I,” pleaded Mamma, “ married a curate.” 
 
 “Yes, dear, temporarily; but had papa lived he 
 would have been an archdeacon: ‘Archdeacon Au- 
 beron ’ — it sounds so natural. Madge’s rector may be 
 an archdeacon too — it would do for her very well; 
 but my tastes are quite different. It is not everybody 
 who really knows how to spend a large income; rich 
 people are often so stupid that they might as well 
 be poor. I should know exactly how to be rich; no 
 income would be wasted in my hands. And rank — it 
 is often throwm away ; I hate waste. When I see some 
 people with more money than they know what to do 
 with, and with a position that they make ridiculous, 
 I long to set them right. Of course one cannot marry 
 everybody.” 
 
 Mamma stared a little and murmured a timid ac- 
 quiescence. 
 
 “ You may marry my archdeacon if you like,” I 
 declared ungratefully. 
 
 “ No. I should not care to be an archdeaconess.” 
 
 “Nor should I.” 
 
 “ That,” said my sister, whom no petulance ever 
 moved, “ is not the point. It is what you could do 
 pretty well. I cannot marry all the rich people with 
 titles that they seem awkward with; I wish I could. 
 It would be worth the trouble.” 
 
 “ Lord Monksbridge,” I observed pertly, “ is mar- 
 ried already.” 
 
 “ My dear,” cried Mamma, “ his son is grown up.” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Sylvia, calmly, “ he’s married already; 
 that’s the pity. If he had married somebody else he 
 
66 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. IX 
 
 might be five-and-twenty years nearer to what must 
 now be put off to another generation. If Lady Monks- 
 
 bridge had been of any family, and clever ” 
 
 “ I must say,” interrupted Mamma, “ I thought her 
 embroidery beautiful. Are you sure, dear, she is not 
 clever? ” 
 
 “ Quite,” said Sylvia, with conviction. “ An excel- 
 lent woman, and respectable in every way.” 
 
 “ They seemed to me an attached couple,” Mamma 
 remarked, in her tentative manner, always ready to 
 know herself wrong if Sylvia said so. 
 
 “Attached! Yes; but stupid. One as bad as the 
 other. She can do nothing for him, and he can do 
 nothing for her. If she had been a woman of family, 
 and known what to do, their son would always have 
 been thought of as her son, and passed for a man of 
 family too. No one would have remembered Lord 
 Monksbridge at all, except as Mr. Monk’s father and 
 Lady Monksbridge’s husband; as it is, Mr. Monk has 
 it all to do himself, and has both his parents on his 
 back.” 
 
 She paused and looked meditatively at her very 
 pretty feet. 
 
 “ One’s duties,” she remarked presently, “ some- 
 times seem so clearly thrown in one’s way.” 
 
 “ Ah, dear, your poor papa often said that. One 
 need not, he said, go searching about for duties, they 
 were to be found close at hand.” 
 
 Sylvia always listened respectfully to Mamma’s 
 quotations of our father ; she never thought of him as 
 a hard-worked curate, but as the bishop he might have 
 been had he been educated at Abbot’s School, and 
 lived longer. 
 
ch. ix] MONKSBRIDGE 6 7 
 
 “ Papa had a very correct mind,” she said, as 
 though acknowledging his approval of her plans. 
 
 I do not think Mamma understood quite so soon as 
 I did that it would be Sylvia’s duty to rescue the 
 Monksbridge title and wealth from absurdity and 
 waste. But she liked going to Llanthamy Castle bet- 
 ter than I did, and “ took ” to Lord and Lady 
 Monksbridge much more, especially to Lady Monks- 
 bridge. 
 
 “ I don’t quite know,” Mamma confided to me, 
 “ what Sylvia means by saying Lady Monksbridge is 
 stupid. She and I get always on so well. I find her 
 a friendly creature, and I’m sure Mr. Monk thinks 
 her amusing — he often smiles at her speeches, and 
 Sylvia says how clever he is. She has no pretence, 
 and she told me she had been poor enough as a girl; 
 her uncle, who left her all his great wealth at last, 
 took no notice of her, and thought her plain and dull 
 — ‘ As I was,’ she confessed, so simply. He used to 
 snub her, and she did not enjoy staying at his big 
 house a bit ; he would invite the county people, and she 
 never knew how to behave towards them. ‘ You’re 
 my niece,’ he used to say, ‘ and I could buy half a 
 dozen of them up. You should assert yourself; if you 
 can’t do the honours properly, you’d better stop away.’ 
 And he let her stop away a long time. But Lord 
 Monksbridge and she had played together as children 
 — of course he wasn’t a lord then, nor was his father 
 a baronet ; but they played together, and one day they 
 played at weddings, and his brother, who died, was 
 clergyman, in a night-gown — over his clothes, of 
 course — and he married them. And he said, ‘ It’s 
 done now; and mind you both stick to it.’ And long 
 
68 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XX 
 
 afterwards, when the brother was dead, and Lord 
 Monksbridge’s father had been made a baronet, Lord 
 Monksbridge (only he was not a lord yet) came to her 
 and said, ‘ Joe said we were to stick to it, and I want to 
 — will you ? ’ She was five-and-twenty then, and not a 
 bit good looking, she says ; but she had never cared for 
 anybody except him, and she thanked him. ‘ I sup- 
 pose,’ she told me, ‘ a young woman shouldn’t thank 
 a young fellow for sticking to it ; but I did, for I was 
 never clever enough to pretend different to what I felt, 
 and I thanked him, and cried too.’ So they were mar- 
 ried, and when his father died she became my lady, 
 and her uncle (who was a violent Radical, and had 
 never married because Lady Julia Something would 
 not have him) left her all his money. ‘ I was glad,’ 
 the good creature told me, ‘ for my husband’s sake ; 
 he had plenty of his own, but I was glad, because I 
 thought it so good of him to stick to it.’ ‘ So it was,’ 
 I said ; and then I saw how uncivil that sounded. But 
 she didn’t notice, and squeezed my hand, and I went 
 on, ‘ I mean it was nice of him to be so faithful; but 
 I’m sure he could not have done better.’ ‘ Eh, I don’t 
 know,’ she said. ‘ I was never cut out for a lord’s 
 wife; but it wasn’t a lord I was thinking of when we 
 married, and he says no one could suit him better. 
 “ In public,” says he, “ we have to live up to it; but I’d 
 never be so comfortable in private without you. You 
 belong to the old days, and all the rest of them are 
 gone. Even Hampden don’t belong to them. I have 
 to live up to Hampden generally, but you and me are 
 like a pair of old slippers.” ’ That’s what Lady Monks- 
 bridge told me yesterday, and I don’t quite see why 
 Sylvia calls her stupid. But perhaps you’d better not 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. IX] 
 
 69 
 
 mention it. Sylvia is so clever herself; she is more 
 particular than I am.” 
 
 “No, Mamma, I shan’t mention it; and I think 
 Lady Monksbridge much nicer since you told me.” 
 
 “ Well, dear, we can’t all be so clever as your sister, 
 and sometimes I like a chat like this with you ; not be- 
 ing clever, like Sylvia, you understand my feelings 
 better.” 
 
 “ I don’t think,” I observed carelessly, “ Sylvia 
 would dislike your thinking Lady Monksbridge nice. 
 She used to laugh when I imitated her, but now I don’t 
 think it amuses her. And I shall not imitate her any 
 more.” 
 
 “ No, my dear, you should not do anything your 
 sister doesn’t like.” 
 
 But when I said I would imitate Lady Monksbridge 
 no more, I was not thinking of Sylvia. After Mam- 
 ma’s story of his “ sticking to it,” I found even Lord 
 Monksbridge more interesting. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Peterkin liked being at Abbot’s School from the 
 very first, and no one could deny that Sylvia had been 
 right in wanting him to go there. The education was 
 really excellent, and Perkin got on quickly. He was 
 not clever in Sylvia’s way, but, in some other ways, he 
 was much cleverer. When the Warden and Mrs. Fitz- 
 Simon paid their second call, the Warden told Mamma 
 that “ Auberon ” was likely to do well. 
 
 “ Auberon has ability,” he said in his large manner, 
 “ and he is not idle. He is quick and alert ; his intel- 
 ligence is above the average. Putting the average at, 
 say, sixty (assuming the unit to be a hundred), I 
 should rate his intelligence not lower than eighty.” 
 
 Dear Mamma was delighted, and tried to look as 
 if she understood about the unit and the average. 
 
 “ Certainly eighty,” the Warden continued, frown- 
 ing, but not severely. “ One may say eighty already. 
 We may hope to be able to say ninety before 
 long.” 
 
 Mamma smiled again, and Mrs. FitzSimon looked 
 as generously complacent as if her husband had in- 
 vented Peterkin, and were making our family a pres- 
 ent of him with her consent. 
 
 “ Of course, when I say eighty,” Dr. FitzSimon 
 went on, “ I am speaking all round. There are sub- 
 jects in which one might put him, without rashness, 
 at eighty-five, or say 84.55. History, exempli gratia 
 — Auberon might one day distinguish himself in his- 
 
 70 
 
ch. x] MONKSBRIDGE 71 
 
 tory. He has — to borrow the metaphor of the bowl- 
 ing-green — a bias towards history.” 
 
 “ And classics ? ” inquired Sylvia, who had an idea 
 that bishops should be classical. 
 
 “ In classics,” said the Warden, not looking at Syl- 
 via, and with the air of not at all admitting her right 
 to talk as a parent, “ in classics he may do well, too. 
 It is early to say. There has been a defect of previous 
 training. In classics previous training is of first-rate 
 importance. I should rank it at ninety-five, or over.” 
 
 “ Ninety-five,” said Mamma, gratefully, “ is high 
 for a boy of his age.” 
 
 The slightest mention of any figures, even of a num- 
 ber, reduced her to imbecility. But the Doctor 
 thought it rather pretty in a lady to be a little im- 
 becile, and smiled indulgently. 
 
 “ Auberon,” he added to her, excluding Sylvia as 
 much as possible, “ may do well in classics. He has 
 capacity, and taste; and he is not indolent. Without 
 the spur of much emulation, he has an alertness that 
 almost takes its place. I cannot perceive emulation 
 in him — it stands low; twenty would be putting it 
 high. A duller boy would be likely to feel the want 
 of it. Emulation often saves the dull boy.” 
 
 “ Peterkin is not dull,” observed Sylvia, judicially, 
 “ but he should have emulation. Without it, others 
 may do as well as him.” 
 
 I understood perfectly that she saw, in coldly dis- 
 approving imagination, “ others ” seizing Perkin’s 
 mitre. 
 
 “ ‘ As he,’ ” corrected the Warden. “ That is true.” 
 But he still spoke with reserve, as if he resented two 
 parents to one boy whose father was deceased. 
 
72 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [ch. x 
 
 “ In mathematics,” he proceeded, “ Auberon is not 
 incapable. He lacks no capacity in any of our 
 
 branches.” And the Warden, as he spoke of his 
 branches, assumed a quite umbrageous look. “ But in 
 mathematics Auberon is not, as I hear, strongly inter- 
 ested. Mr. Pouncer, who presides over our mathe- 
 matical branch, a Wrangler himself, does not report 
 him as deeply interested.” 
 
 “ Mathematics,” said Sylvia, calmly, “ do not mat- 
 ter so much.” 
 
 She had an idea that bishops need not be mathe- 
 matical. Mamma looked as if she did not want Perkin 
 to be a Wrangler, it had a truculent sound; but she 
 only bowed, and adjusted the locket, with dear papa’s 
 miniature in it, on her chain bracelet, with a meek and 
 wistful smile. 
 
 Dr. FitzSimon looked almost fiercely at Sylvia, and 
 slowly removed his gold spectacles to do so with the 
 greater emphasis — he was only generally aware of 
 the public through them. It was impossible to look 
 thus attentively at Sylvia without becoming aware that 
 she was remarkably pretty — more than pretty; a girl 
 with a quite uncommon share of refined and delicate 
 beauty. Even Mrs. FitzSimon could see he was be- 
 coming reconciled to the adoption of his report by 
 two female parents, and I think she condemned his 
 weakness. 
 
 “ And why,” she inquired pursily, “ do not mathe- 
 matics matter so much ? ” 
 
 Of course Sylvia could not be expected to know 
 (though she usually knew everything) that Mrs. Fitz- 
 Simon had been a Miss Calculus, and that her father 
 was not only Dean of Lambeth at that moment, but 
 
ch. x] MONKSBRIDGE 73 
 
 had owed his deanery to having been a Wrangler, like 
 Mr. Pouncer. 
 
 “ In my brother’s career,” Sylvia replied without 
 hesitation, “ they would not be of the least consequence. 
 In diplomacy, mathematics do not matter at all.” 
 
 She did not really for a moment intend that Perkin 
 should be anything but a bishop; but she was deter- 
 mined to snub Mrs. FitzSimon, and the beginnings of 
 diplomacy have more eclat than the tiresome pre- 
 liminaries that even an Auberon has to go through 
 before donning his mitre. The Warden was still ab- 
 sorbing the notion that Sylvia was the best-looking 
 young lady he had seen for a long time, and he sup- 
 ported her instead of thinking of his duty as a 
 husband. After all if he had not been able, while he 
 still wished to do so, to snub Miss Auberon, it was 
 ridiculous that Alicia should attempt it. 
 
 “ No,” he said, “ in diplomacy it is more important 
 to know that two and two make four than to be 
 enamoured of logarithms.” 
 
 Mrs. FitzSimon almost gasped. The Dean, her 
 father, had written a book on logarithms. The 
 Warden had written a book on the Digamma, and per- 
 haps he felt that he should be a dean too. She half 
 suspected him of it; or rather, she knew he meant 
 to be a dean, and was tempted to think his impatience 
 made him jealous. She was several years the 
 Warden’s junior, and it was a fact that her father 
 had got his Deanery before he had quite reached Dr. 
 FitzSimon’s present age. 
 
 I was rather glad Sylvia had routed Mrs. Fitz- 
 Simon; one naturally cares more for one’s sister than 
 for a woman who wears orange gloves and ribbons 
 
74 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. X 
 
 with a pansy -purple bonnet; and the Warden’s wife 
 had thin slate-coloured lips, and her nose was all 
 nostril. 
 
 “ I’m so very grateful,” said Mamma, dimly con- 
 scious of electric conditions in the air, and changing 
 her mind, as she often did, while speaking, as to the 
 form of her speech, “ that Peterkin is so satisfactory. 
 It is so kind of you; and he is a dear good boy.” 
 
 “ For my part, I always like sons best,” Mrs. Fitz- 
 Simon remarked, not looking at me, “ and I’m so glad 
 all mine are boys.” 
 
 “ All Mamma’s sons are boys too,” said Sylvia, 
 smiling straight into the irritated lady’s eyes, “ but 
 she has only one; and it’s all the more important he 
 should do well. Under Dr. FitzSimon he is sure to. 
 When we came here our first thought was of the great 
 advantage it would be for him to be under him.” 
 
 The Warden did not correct Sylvia’s somewhat 
 careless arrangement of her pronouns this time, but 
 smiled as one who is resigned to being famous. 
 
 “You had heard of Abbot’s School?” he said 
 blandly. 
 
 “Of the Warden of Abbot’s School;” and Sylvia 
 turned her liquid eyes full on the Warden. 
 
 “ Yes,” said Mamma, “ we heard that the Warden 
 was a Doctor FitzSimon. I think Miss Belvoir told 
 us.” 
 
 Mrs. FitzSimon smiled remorselessly, and delivered 
 herself of a rather belated repartee. 
 
 “ As for one son being more important than sev- 
 eral,” she argued, “ I don’t see that. Where there 
 are four or five they may all be unsatisfactory.” 
 
 “ There is not the least fear of my brother being 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 75 
 
 CH. X] 
 
 unsatisfactory,” said Sylvia, and her manner con- 
 veyed a perfect readiness to believe that Mrs. Fitz- 
 Simon’s five sons might all go astray. And the Warden 
 took no notice; he was as much perverted parentally 
 as conjugally. 
 
 “ No,” he declared, “ Auberon will do well. A day 
 may come when Abbot’s School will be proud of him.” 
 
 Mrs. FitzSimon rose to take leave, and the Warden, 
 who liked his armchair and did not dislike looking at 
 Miss Auberon, had to rise too. 
 
 “ You are not forgetting, Alicia,” he said blandly, 
 “ we must not forget, our little invitation,” and he 
 turned urbanely to Mamma. 
 
 Thus adjured, Mrs. FitzSimon, who, I think, had 
 not wanted to remember, said — 
 
 “ We came intending to ask if you would join us 
 on Wednesday about nine o’clock; it is one of our 
 social evenings. We do not give parties; they are 
 merely social evenings. Would you and your party 
 join us in our social evening at about nine o’clock 
 on Wednesday next?” 
 
 At the first mention of “ social evenings ” she held 
 forth her orange right hand to Mamma, at the second 
 she bowed coldly towards a marble bust of Sir Staple- 
 ton that stood behind Sylvia, at the third she turned 
 to me and smiled and nodded encouragingly. We 
 were all to go. 
 
 “ And Auberon,” she added, “ though young for our 
 social evenings, bring him too. The Warden will be 
 pleased to judge of him in private life. So far he has 
 but viewed him from the Curule Chair.” 
 
 “ Perhaps,” the doctor suggested, “ not strictly 
 ‘ Curule.’ ” 
 
76 MONICSBRIDGE [ch. x 
 
 But Mrs. FitzSimon did not choose to take notice 
 of the correction, and the Warden had not urged it 
 loudly. As the moment of departure grew near he 
 became meeker; walking home with her there would 
 be no Miss Auberon to support him. 
 
 “ Four of us ! ” said Mamma. “ Four from one 
 family will be quite an invasion.” 
 
 “No, no!” cried the Warden, “pray let us see 
 you all.” And he did look at me, and tried not to 
 look at Sylvia. “ Pray let Auberon come.” 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 It was at Mrs. FitzSimon’s social evening that we first 
 saw Monksbridge in mass, so to speak. Hitherto, we 
 had only seen it in detachments. 
 
 Warden’s Lodge was a big house, and the drawing- 
 room, dining-room, and library were all on one floor, 
 opening into each other. They were large, and the 
 drawing-room was, our hostess confessed, a noble 
 apartment. 
 
 “ Including the bay,” she said, with so vast a man- 
 ner that she might have been speaking of the Bay of 
 Biscay, “it is forty-nine feet long.” 
 
 “ I should call it fifty,” Sylvia remarked sympa- 
 thetically; a big room always appealed to her best 
 feelings. “ It must be fifty including the wall.” 
 
 “ Forty-nine feet long,” Mrs. FitzSimon persisted, 
 who would accept no gifts from such a Greek, “ and 
 three and twenty broad. That, I understand, is a per- 
 fect proportion. And fifteen high. Papa always envies 
 our rooms. There is none of this size in the Deanery.” 
 Sylvia liked deans pretty well, but could not be 
 subdued by them; she regarded them as a sort of 
 addled bishops that had never hatched out. 
 
 Mrs. FitzSimon received Perkin half maternally, 
 and more than half magisterially. She glanced at his 
 shoes lest they might not be clean, and eyed his even- 
 ing clothes as if she thought he would be sure to grow 
 out of them, and an Eton jacket would have been better. 
 All her five sons wore Eton jackets still (the eldest 
 
 77 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 78 
 
 [CH. XI 
 
 was a year older than Perkin), and their trousers were 
 only pepper and salt, though she considered they 
 looked black at night. But Peterkin was tall, and all 
 her boys were “ stubby.” The Warden was stubby 
 too, and his wife in critical moments was inclined to 
 think it had gone against him ; the Dean, like herself, 
 was tall, and deans should, like footmen, be as tall 
 as possible. 
 
 “ Good evening, Auberon,” she said, with encourag- 
 ing condescension, poking the sticks of her fan into 
 his hand. “ You will find your friends further on — 
 there is Richards Max. talking to Fitz Ma.” 
 
 In public she always called her five by their school 
 names, and they were Fitz Max., Fitz Ma., Fitz Mi., 
 Fitz Min., and Fitz Quintus. 
 
 We all went further on. 
 
 There was the Vicar trying to convince Mrs. 
 Hawthorn that she had not left her handkerchief at 
 home, and Miss Hawthorn chatting provisionally with 
 Fitz Max. till some one better should turn up. We 
 were evidently not the only family that had “ come 
 four.” 
 
 There was Miss Belvoir, in slate satin, and her 
 Mechlin cap (over cherry-coloured sarcenet), smiling 
 across the room at Mr. Rumble, the Vicar of St. 
 Thomas’s, who only smiled back, and would not come 
 over to her, lest she should entangle him in reminis- 
 cences of pre-Hawthorn days, when she reigned at 
 Prior’s House. Mr. Rumble was ten years younger 
 than Miss Belvoir, and she would not remember it, but 
 insisted on his being a contemporary. At eight and 
 thirty he felt himself quite youthful, and no one on 
 earth thought Miss Belvoir young. He had a good 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 79 
 
 CH. Xl] 
 
 deal of hair, and it had a natural curl, and his com- 
 plexion, in which, as Miss Hawthorn said once, the 
 York and Lancaster roses met, entitled him to feel 
 younger even than he was. And Miss Rumble being 
 a little older was an advantage. She spoke of him 
 as “ my young brother,” to distinguish him from Mr. 
 Stephen Rumble the lawyer, who didn’t mind being 
 fifty. Mr. Stephen Rumble was there too with his 
 “ bride.” They had been married nearly four months, 
 but Mrs. Rumble was still called “ the bride ” at 
 Monksbridge, where marriages were rare events in 
 genteel circles. She was the daughter of her hus- 
 band’s partner, and had four thousand pounds from 
 her mother, and no brothers, so that in due time she 
 would have all that Mr. Bloom had, including Castle- 
 gate House, one of the best in Monksbridge, excel- 
 lently stocked with furniture, plate, and handsome old 
 china; so that Mr. Stephen Rumble had done very 
 well. And as Miss Bloom was not yet two and thirty, 
 some people thought she might have done better; but 
 then, some other people thought her hair more than 
 auburn, and they remarked that she had a tongue, 
 as of course we all have. 
 
 She looked extremely well in her white brocaded 
 silk, with a green sash, a green scarf, and green jade 
 ornaments. Her hair, red or no, was really beautiful, 
 and her clothes were so well made and so well put on 
 that Sylvia conceived a favourable opinion of her char- 
 acter, and promptly went over to talk to her. 
 
 Old Mr. Bloom was standing near, and he observed 
 to the Baroness that those two young ladies made a 
 striking couple. The Baroness had rather a liking for 
 widowers, and Mr. Bloom was still a fine-looking man, 
 
8o 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XI 
 
 tall, upright, and lean, with well-cut white hair, and a 
 bright ruddy complexion. He had not married till he 
 was over forty, and he was over seventy now, but he 
 scarcely looked more than sixty. The Baroness was 
 not quite sixty, but her spareness was of a different 
 sort, and in evening dress she gave a bony impres- 
 sion. Her grey hair, not by any means white, was 
 still abundant, so she wore it in what Monksbridge 
 called “ Marry Antoinette fashion.” She also wore 
 diamonds, and her black silk was relieved by a quan- 
 tity of fine creamy lace. Her hands had always 
 been beautiful and were so still, though now too 
 lean. 
 
 “ Yes,” she agreed, “ I never saw Eleanor look so 
 well; she knows how to dress. That peculiar shade of 
 green goes perfectly with her hair, so does the white 
 brocade; and she was quite right to relieve it with 
 the green. Jade-green is not a common colour, and 
 it was quite clever of her to get hold of it. Are the 
 jade ornaments an old family possession? ” 
 
 The Baroness knew that the Blooms had owned 
 Castlegate House for several generations, and had 
 always had good things. 
 
 “ Well, not exactly an heirloom ; but a gran’ uncle 
 of mine was an admiral and brought them home from 
 the East as a present for his sister-in-law, my grand- 
 mother. Eleanor unearthed them, and I gave them 
 to her at once, but I don’t remember her wearing them 
 before. But, Baroness, most people would say that 
 Miss Auberon takes the shine out of Eleanor.” 
 
 “Not in the least. They could never clash. Of 
 course she’s a lovely girl, but any one would say she 
 was one and twenty; and she manages them all too 
 
ch. xi] MONKSBRIDGE 81 
 
 much for her age. Her mother daren’t say ‘ Bo ! ’ to 
 her.” 
 
 “ I thought it was a goose one had to say ‘ Bo ! ’ to.” 
 
 “ She’s anything but that. A little cleverer than is 
 necessary, I think. In my young days we weren’t sup- 
 posed to let any one suspect we were clever till we 
 were married.” 
 
 “ If I had known you in your teens I should have 
 suspected it.” 
 
 “ Ah, but you’re a lawyer, and naturally suspicious,” 
 laughed the Baroness. Thus these old persons flirted 
 placidly and enjoyed themselves very well. 
 
 Mr. Bloom had no general leaning to widows, as the 
 Baroness had to widowers, but he rather liked his old 
 neighbour, and he was fond of people one knew all 
 about; he knew that the Baroness’s family was one of 
 the best in Wales, not rich, but respectable and well- 
 behaved, with an hereditary habit of solvency and de- 
 cency. He was a fierce old Tory, and utterly abomi- 
 nated the Llanthamy Castle splendours, though he did 
 not make fun of Lord Monksbridge like Mrs. de 
 Braose. Messrs. Bloom and Rumble managed all the 
 de Braose estates, as the firm had done for several gen- 
 erations. They also managed the “ Town ” property, 
 and Mr. Bloom, like Mr. Rumble’s father, was Town 
 Clerk; at election times Bloom and Rumble were al- 
 ways the Conservative agents, as Stiff and Pusher were 
 the Liberal agents. Stiff and Pusher’s offices were 
 in Llanthamy, and they managed for Lord Monks- 
 bridge. Old Mr. Stiff was a Dissenter, and young Mr. 
 Pusher was known to disbelieve in the Mosaic author- 
 ship of the Pentateuch. Neither of them was ever 
 invited to Mrs. FitzSimon’s social evenings — in fact, 
 
82 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XI 
 
 Mr. Pusher had only one child, a plain little girl with 
 a nursery governess, and though Mr. Stiff had three 
 daughters, they were obviously ineligible to be Ab- 
 bot’s Scholars; also they were “getting on,” the 
 youngest of them fifteen years older than Fitz Max. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The arrival of two young men, hitherto unseen at 
 Mrs. FitzSimon’s social evenings, caused almost a sen- 
 sation. She hoped it would be believed she had ex- 
 pected both of them, but neither had actually been 
 invited. 
 
 “ Mrs. FitzSimon,” said Mr. Eustace de Braose, as 
 he shook hands, “ I hope you will not think me very 
 forward ; but I found out you had a social evening on 
 Wednesdays.” 
 
 “ On the first, third, and fifth Wednesdays,” his 
 hostess corrected mildly — “ when there is a fifth 
 Wednesday.” 
 
 “There should always be a fifth Wednesday,” de- 
 clared the youthful diplomatist. “ And, as I am an 
 old boy, I thought I might come.” 
 
 He did not look like what is generally called an old 
 boy; but Mrs. FitzSimon understood, and smiled ur- 
 banely. For three months before going to Eton, he 
 had been “ coached ” by the Warden in dignified 
 seclusion. 
 
 “ And I,” said Mr. Monk, “ was dining at Island 
 Court. When he said he was coming on here, I re- 
 fused to be left behind, and determined to throw my- 
 self on your hospitality.” 
 
 Mrs. FitzSimon was not a Liberal; it was a Tory 
 Premier that had recognized the claims of her papa’s 
 logarithms to a deanery, but she thought well of hon- 
 ourables, and handsome young men can never be out 
 
 83 
 
84 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xii 
 
 of place at a party — not that her social evenings were 
 parties. 
 
 “ Oh ! ” she said, “ no invitation was necessary. 
 We do not invite ; we merely intimate — and our friends 
 supervene. Wednesday arrives (the first, third, and 
 fifth Wednesdays) and our rooms fill au-to-mat-i- 
 call-y. Pray do not speak of not being invited, but 
 consider yourselves as arriving ” 
 
 “ Au-to-mat-i-call-y,” a voice was heard to murmur. 
 
 It really was not Sylvia’s ; but Mrs. Stephen Rumble 
 was standing so close to my sister that I was not sur- 
 prised to see our hostess dart a vindictive look at the 
 Miss Auberon she did not like. And Sylvia did smile 
 at that precise moment. 
 
 As their hostess shot her quick glance at Sylvia, the 
 young men’s eyes naturally followed hers, and pres- 
 ently Mr. de Braose and his friend moved on to greet 
 my sister. I think Mrs. FitzSimon suspected why they 
 had come; but they had come, and their presence 
 gave, she told herself, a cachet to the social evening. 
 She often used French expressions to herself, and un- 
 derstood what they meant quite as well as a French- 
 man would have done. 
 
 Sylvia did not monopolize the young men, but firmly 
 handed on Mr. de Braose to Mrs. Stephen Rumble. 
 She could not hand them both on, and simply kept the 
 one whose mother would least have grudged him to 
 her. That Mr. Eustace de Braose admired her my 
 sister had perceived at their first meeting, but she had 
 also begun to doubt on that same occasion whether 
 his mother thoroughly appreciated her. An attache 
 and a younger son, she thought, should not be en- 
 couraged by people whom his parents and guardians 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XII ] 
 
 85 
 
 regard critically. Probably he owed most of his in- 
 come to his mother’s generosity and affection; that 
 gave her rights which Sylvia’s calm justice fully recog- 
 nized. And there was no call of duty to set her in 
 opposition to Mr. de Braose’s mother. Sylvia knew 
 she could do nothing for the de Braoses, whereas her 
 unerring instinct told her she could do a great deal 
 for the Llanthamy family. To do it might be her 
 duty; not that she was sure yet, for some higher duty 
 might appear in her path. 
 
 So she returned the greetings of both these young 
 men with perfect friendliness, and handed Mr. Eus- 
 tace de Braose on to Mrs. Stephen Rumble. She did 
 not hand Mr. Monk on to anybody, but it must not be 
 supposed that she had welcomed him in any specially 
 interested manner. She knew him quite well by that 
 time, and had only met Mr. de Braose once or twice, 
 but she received them both with the same calm good- 
 will. 
 
 Mrs. FitzSimon watched, greedily, prepared to ac- 
 cuse her of flirting; but that was because she did not 
 in the least know Sylvia, who never flirted. Old Mr. 
 Bloom and the Baroness in their corner by the piano 
 might be flirting, but nothing could be less like it than 
 Sylvia’s calm and public friendliness out almost in the 
 middle of the room. When the Warden came up to 
 welcome Mr. Monk, it was quite plain that she did not 
 in the least consider it an interruption. 
 
 “ Were you surprised to see me ? ” Mr. Monk had 
 been asking her, with a little smile. 
 
 “ You said yesterday,” she answered, without smil- 
 ing, “ that you knew the Warden and Mrs. Fitz- 
 Simon very little.” 
 
86 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XII 
 
 “ Yes; but it struck me that it was a duty to know 
 them better. When Eustace de Braose said he was 
 coming here, I determined to do my duty at once. 
 The performance of duties should never be post- 
 poned.” 
 
 “ No,” said Sylvia, gravely, quite ignoring the fact 
 that he smiled again, “ when one is sure anything is 
 a duty.” 
 
 She spoke thoughtfully, thinking more of herself 
 than of Mr. Monk. Then the Warden came up, and 
 Mr. Monk talked no more of his duty as connected 
 with his presence there. 
 
 “ We shall have some music presently,” the Warden 
 promised them. ‘‘That is Mrs. Stephen Rumble’s 
 harp. A beautiful and scriptural instrument.” 
 
 Sylvia glanced at the harp, as though to see in what 
 respect it looked scriptural. 
 
 “ It’s very pretty,” she said. (“ Her arms are good, 
 and I think she is quite right to play the harp.”) But 
 this she did not say aloud. 
 
 “And you, will you sing?” inquired the Warden. 
 “ I am sure you sing.” 
 
 “No; I do not sing. I have no accomplishments. 
 I can do nothing of the kind.” 
 
 “ Ah ! that is what ladies always say. Mr. Monk, 
 are you not sure that Miss Auberon sings ? ” 
 
 “Warden!” Mrs. FitzSimon whispered loudly at 
 his elbow. “ The Baroness has had no coffee ” 
 
 “ My dear, I thought Mr. Bloom ” said the 
 
 guilty Doctor, with an ill-repressed little jump. 
 
 “ No, no ; the Baroness will expect you to take her 
 to coffee. I will tell Mr. Bloom to attend to Mrs. 
 Hawthorn.” 
 
ch. xii } MONKSBRIDGE 87 
 
 So the Warden was piloted away, and Mr. Monk 
 suggested taking Sylvia to coffee. 
 
 “ No, thank you, I do not like it,” she said in her 
 calm, decisive way. “ But Mamma likes it. Perhaps 
 you would take her. I should like to ask Miss Belvoir 
 how she is — if you will take Mamma.” 
 
 And my sister left him to his duty, while she went 
 cheerfully to hers. Mr. de Braose was just proposing 
 coffee to Mrs. Stephen Rumble, and Sylvia saw them 
 move off together. 
 
 “ He evidently admires red hair,” she said to her- 
 self ; “ and hers is quite a rare shade. With those 
 jade-green scarves and sashes she looks wonderfully 
 well; I’m glad she was with me. I wonder why she 
 married that podgy lawyer?” 
 
 “ I say, Madge,” Perkin said in my ear, “ come and 
 have some coffee.” 
 
 I saw the Vicar of St. Thomas’s wavering down 
 on me, and accepted my brother’s offer promptly. For 
 all I knew, the Rev. William Rumble might be an 
 archdeacon in embryo. 
 
 “ Sylvia looks unkimmon, don’t you think ? ” Per- 
 kin observed as we went. “ We are,” he added, as we 
 passed a long mirror, “ a goodish-looking lot.” 
 “Who? You and Sylvia?” asked I. 
 
 “ And Mamma. She’s better-looking than anybody 
 here, except Sylvia.” 
 
 “ How about Mrs. Stephen Rumble ? ” 
 
 “ Oh ! I don’t care for carrots. Why, you're better- 
 looking than she is.” And that was all the compliment 
 I got for my fishing. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 “ So,” said Lady Llantwddwy, “you were out in so- 
 ciety last night ? ” 
 
 We were lunching with her at Little Park, and she 
 liked to hear all the local gossip. Little Park is in 
 Monksbridge, but neither the mother nor the aunt of 
 the reigning Mr. de Braose were ever to be seen at 
 Monksbridge parties, though they had a bowing ac- 
 quaintance with all the genteel Monksbridgians, and 
 called on most of them annually or quasi-annually. 
 
 With the Vicar and the Warden they dined once 
 every winter, and Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorn and Doctor 
 and Mrs. FitzSimon would dine at Little Park and 
 Island Court twice or thrice in a year. 
 
 “ So,” said Lady Llantwddwy, “ you were out in 
 society last night ? ” 
 
 “In or out?” said Sylvia, laughing a little; she 
 knew her company perfectly. Lady Llantwddwy was 
 a much simpler person than Mrs. de Braose. 
 
 “ It was quite a party,” said Mamma, “ though Mrs. 
 FitzSimon insists they are only social evenings.” 
 
 “ What is a social evening ? Did they play Dumb 
 Crambo or sing glees ? ” asked Lady Llantwddwy, with 
 smiling curiosity. 
 
 “ Miss Hawthorn played something,” Mamma ex- 
 plained, “ but I don’t know if it was called Dumb 
 Crambo; it was Italian music, I think. There were 
 no glees, only a duet.” 
 
 88 
 
ch. xiii] MONKSBRIDGE 89 
 
 “ We didn’t do anything in particular,” said Sylvia; 
 “ we merely behaved ourselves.” 
 
 “ Beautifully, I’m sure,” said the old Viscountess, 
 quite delighted. “ What a good thing Maria doesn’t 
 go” (Maria was Mrs. de Braose of Island Court); 
 “ she never can behave herself. And Eustace was 
 there. Did he behave pretty?” 
 
 “ Perfectly,” said Sylvia, who had discerned a 
 slightly increased touch of curiosity in the old lady. 
 “ He won golden opinions from everybody. Mr, 
 Stephen Rumble looked as if he didn’t know whether 
 to be most flattered or jealous.” 
 
 “ Hi, hi ! ” squeaked the Viscountess, enraptured. 
 “ An attache at a Monksbridge ‘ Evening ’ ! Mrs. 
 Rumble! That’s the Miss Bloom with brilliant hair. 
 I remember her mother, a nice woman, in Bright’s 
 disease; very decent people, of course. And the bride- 
 groom was jealous! I must tell Edgar.” (Edgar was 
 the reigning Mr. de Braose.) “If it was election 
 time he would have to look out, or his young brother 
 would be coming in for Monksbridge over his head.” 
 Though the old lady talked with such animation she 
 never neglected her luncheon; fat Mrs. de Braose ate 
 like a sparrow, thin Lady Llantwddwy ate like an 
 ostrich. The sisters-in-law, as they called themselves, 
 were not in any way alike. Mrs. de Braose had a 
 handsome and clever face, and carried her short, al- 
 most round, body with such dignity that anywhere she 
 would be imposing. Her skin and complexion had 
 always been fine, and she was proud of her abundant 
 brown hair, almost untinged with grey, and of her 
 beautiful hands. The Viscountess was tall, but had 
 no figure ; she had a bad way of walking, with a short 
 
90 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XIII 
 
 run and a half turn, as if she was never quite sure 
 where she meant to go, and her long head was gener- 
 ally craned out in front of her, as she peered out of 
 her near-sighted pale-grey eyes. She dressed rather 
 badly, and wore no cap on her scanty drab hair ; her 
 face was also drab, and her hands were rheumatic. 
 She was a plain, awkward woman, but all the same 
 you could, Sylvia said, see that she was somebody. 
 
 Little Park was a good deal larger than Island 
 Court, the present house dating from Charles II.’s 
 time when an older Tudor house had been burned 
 down; the rooms were big and lofty, lined with bro- 
 caded silk, on which hung large and fine portraits 
 by Lely, Kneller, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence. There really was a small park 
 of over fifty acres, long and narrow, with the town 
 walls on one side, and a very high stone wall, as old 
 as the present house, on the inner or town side; and 
 there were deer in it, whose ancestors had been brought 
 from Monkspark. A screen of tall cedars hid the 
 house from the road, from which one entered the 
 park through a splendid pair of old French wrought- 
 iron gates, hung on “ rustic ” stone pillars of the Inigo 
 Jones type. Opposite these gates was the top end of 
 Priory Gate, the quaint, irregular street that curved 
 down to the Guild Piece. 
 
 Little Park was altogether a grander place than 
 Island Court, though not, perhaps, so pretty, and with- 
 out any lovely river view, and I could not help won- 
 dering whether, if Lady Llantwddwy had lived in a 
 modern street, and been called Mrs. Somebody, Sylvia 
 would have been sure that she looked like Anybody. 
 
 “ Your party seems to have been entertaining,” Lady 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 9i 
 
 CH. XIII] 
 
 Llantwddwy declared, helping herself hastily to an- 
 other quenelle as if she was stealing it. “ Of course, 
 
 I don’t go out at night not to parties. I should 
 
 never dare to tell Evans that I wanted the carriage to 
 take me to Warden’s Lodge if it was not to dine there. 
 He lets me dine at Monkspark as often as I like, and 
 at the Duke’s. But then it’s nine miles to Castle 
 Peovor; a coachman never minds going out at night 
 to drive nine miles. He doesn’t cordially approve even 
 of my dining at Prior’s House or Warden’s Lodge, and 
 I haven’t courage to do it more than once in a win- 
 ter. You see, it’s dull going half a mile and coming 
 home again to put the horses up, and then having to 
 put them in again at quarter-past ten. I wish he’d put 
 them up at the Mitre, as my nephew does. I dare say 
 he would, only he don’t like Edgar’s coachman. Evans 
 was with us at Monkspark, and one never likes one’s 
 successor. But you certainly seem to have had all 
 sorts of fun. And who,” the old lady asked, with a 
 sudden pounce on me, “ came to the party to see you? ” 
 
 This remark quite puzzled Mamma, but Sylvia, I 
 could see, understood it very well, and was not par- 
 ticularly pleased. 
 
 “ Mr. William Rumble asked me if I did not think 
 my sister would like some coffee,” she said, laughing, 
 “ but I don’t know whether he came on purpose.” 
 
 “ Hi, hi ! Mr. William Rumble ! That’s the Vicar 
 of St. Thomas’s. And I hope, my dear, you enjoyed 
 the coffee ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, only Perkin jogged my elbow and spilled half 
 of it over Miss Hawthorn’s train.” 
 
 “ Brothers should not be too near sisters at parties,” 
 said her ladyship. 
 
92 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xiii 
 
 “ It was Perkin who gave me the coffee, and he gave 
 me another cup.” 
 
 “And what,” inquired the old lady, for whose 
 curiosity nothing was too insignificant, “ and what did 
 Miss Hawthorn say ? ” 
 
 “ She never knew. Perkin got me another cup, and 
 then fetched her pound-cake and talked to her. He 
 made her eat three pieces. And when she’d done, I 
 had gone off.” 
 
 “ With Mr. William Rumble, I hope.” 
 
 “ No; by myself. I went to listen to the musical- 
 box playing ‘ Allan Water.’ ” 
 
 “You managed badly: so did Perkin. But he 
 managed better than you. I’ve no doubt Mr. William 
 Rumble did come on purpose. And Becket’s Close is 
 a pretty sort of place. Mrs. Auberon, I’m afraid 
 you’re a bad chaperon. Those Rumbles have a way of 
 getting on — an uncle of this young parson’s became a 
 bishop somewhere — in Canada or New Zealand, I 
 think; and he married very well — one of Lord St. 
 Kevin’s five daughters. You know the St. Kevins al- 
 ways have crowds of daughters. You are not to think 
 of the Rumbles as just country lawyers. I’ve heard 
 my husband say (Mr. de Braose) that the family came 
 from France, and was really de Rambouillet; not at 
 the Revolution, but at the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes. They were Huguenots, I suppose. Anyway, 
 they dropped the ‘ de,’ and the name got changed into 
 Rumble.” 
 
 Sylvia was thoroughly interested. “ I think,” she 
 said, “ it was stupid of the uncle to have his bishopric 
 in Canada or New Zealand ” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XIIl] 
 
 93 
 
 “ Now I think of it, it was Mauritius,” Lady Llan- 
 twddwy remembered. 
 
 “ Or Mauritius,” Sylvia went on. “ There’s not 
 much use being a bishop in those sort of places. If 
 he could get made a bishop at all, he should have 
 taken more pains and got some diocese at home.” 
 
 All the same it was clear that she thought more of 
 Mr. William Rumble now, and it would not be fair to 
 blame him for his uncle’s defective perseverance. 
 
 “ And,” she said, “ I don’t see why they dropped 
 the ‘ de,’ and let their name be corrupted into Rumble.” 
 She was so seriously interested that I almost trem- 
 bled. What if she thought my duty pointed towards 
 the Vicar of St. Thomas’s ? Our hostess was amused, 
 and she said to Mamma — 
 
 “ I am afraid you are a bad chaperon. Miss Au- 
 beron would be much better.” 
 
 Lady Llantwddwy did not look clever, but she was 
 sharp enough; and Sylvia, who was much cleverer, 
 was not without a certain simplicity. Genius is often 
 clear, like other great things, such as the atmosphere. 
 
PART II 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Peterkin did very well at Abbot’s School, and I 
 think we were all a little surprised. He gained a num- 
 ber of prizes, and his reports every half-year were 
 more than satisfactory. All the masters spoke of his 
 capacity, and there was never any complaint of his 
 industry. The truth was, he was a great deal cleverer 
 than Sylvia or any of us had imagined, and he liked 
 learning. I dare say he would have been idle enough 
 had the things he had to learn bored him. The Warden 
 had said he lacked emulation, by which I suppose he 
 meant that Perkin was not eager to do well for the 
 sake of being better than other boys; but he did bet- 
 ter than them because he was cleverer; and what some 
 of them only learned because they had to, he learned 
 because he was interested in the things for their own 
 sake. 
 
 To me he was very good-natured, and I may say 
 that almost all the education I ever had I got from 
 him. 
 
 A year after entering the school there was a va- 
 cancy among the Cardinal’s Scholars, and Perkin 
 “ won the gown,” as they called it, passing the exami- 
 nation with such distinction that the Warden paid 
 Mamma a special visit of congratulation. Sylvia was 
 out, and the Doctor spoke so highly of Perkin 
 that Mamma quite broke down, and cried over the 
 
 94 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 95 
 
 CH. XIV] 
 
 Warden’s podgy hand, which at the moment seemed 
 to her as beautiful as anybody’s feet on the mountains. 
 
 “ I am so thankful,” she wept. “ He is a dear boy ; 
 but so light-hearted.” 
 
 “ Not at all light -headed, ma’am,” said the Doctor. 
 “ His head is well furnished.” 
 
 “ Yes. I knew he was capable. But I couldn’t tell 
 whether he would apply ... he is easy-going, and I 
 feared he might take things too easily.” 
 
 The real truth was that Mamma could only see 
 through Sylvia’s eyes, and had never guessed that Per- 
 kin was an unusually clever boy. She thought highly 
 of us all, because we were her children, and still more 
 because we were papa’s, and because it was impossible 
 for her not to have a high opinion of those she loved. 
 But it was only Sylvia whom she supposed every one 
 must recognize was clever. The great difference was 
 that Sylvia took herself very seriously, and Perkin did 
 not take himself seriously at all. His special charm 
 was that he never seemed to be thinking of himself, 
 and this quality made him very popular at school. 
 Even the Doctor spoke of it. 
 
 “Auberon,” he said, “does easily what many can 
 only do with tedious effort. Fortunately they are the 
 very things it is his present business to do. He has 
 got on rapidly; the progress he has made in a single 
 year is quite unusual. He will certainly do notable 
 credit to Abbot’s School. And he will make no one 
 jealous; for I have pleasure in saying that he is a boy 
 of a sweet disposition whom all are fond of. He is 
 brilliant and not vain ; there is no sign of conceit about 
 him. Masters often regard brilliant lads doubtfully, 
 because they are apt to think too well of themselves. 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 96 
 
 [CH. XIV 
 
 Auberon, they all say, never betrays the least appear- 
 ance of thinking of himself at all; and that is why he is 
 so well liked by his school fellows — boys hate a con- 
 ceited boy. And he is manly, cheerful, and, as you say, 
 light-hearted, and first-rate at games — without that 
 his capacity would make him few friends.” 
 
 “ I wish,” Mamma said, “ that Sylvia was here.” I 
 wasn't sure that I did, for though it would do her good 
 to hear all these praises of Perkin, I felt that the 
 Warden, with only Mamma to talk to, was at his best. 
 Perhaps he would never have become fond of “Au- 
 beron ” had Auberon been a dull or even average boy, 
 in spite of all his sweetness of disposition ; but Perkin, 
 he found, was not an average boy, and the Doctor fully 
 expected that Abbot’s School would have occasion to 
 be proud of him. So that the qualities which really 
 did exist in my brother the Warden was able to per- 
 ceive. And he was a friendly man, glad to bring 
 good news, and a little touched by this pretty widow’s 
 grateful emotion. 
 
 “ Ah, how kindly you speak ! ” she said. “ How 
 much we owe to you! It was Sylvia’s idea; she is 
 always right. It was she who saw at once what a 
 chance it would be for poor Perkin to enter Abbot’s 
 School under you.” 
 
 “ Well, well,” said the Doctor, not repudiating such 
 honest praise, “ we have all done our part — each in 
 his Own Branch. And latterly, Auberon has been 
 peculiarly my own charge. Not perhaps in History, 
 and Auberon’s strongest bent is History; but Mr. Fur- 
 nival, in whose Branch History lies, is most highly 
 qualified to Preside over that Branch. But what would 
 History be without Classics? And Classics are my 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XIV] 
 
 97 
 
 Own Branch. History is very well; but it will be by 
 Classical Distinction that Auberon will become — er — 
 Distinguished.” 
 
 “ Classics,” Mamma murmured, “ are so very gen- 
 tlemanly.” 
 
 “ Wither Classics,” the Warden explained, laying 
 a heavy emphasis on out, “ the English Conception of 
 the Finished Gentleman can hardly be — ur — conceived. 
 But, with that distinction in Classics that I foresee for 
 Auberon, it will be a question of — ur — More.” 
 
 He paused a moment, because a hair was tickling 
 his left ear, and it almost seemed to Mamma as though 
 he were thinking of Sir Thomas More. 
 
 “ More? ” she queried. 
 
 “Yes; more than the mere Finished Gentle- 
 man ” 
 
 “ I did not know,” said Mamma, with vague readi- 
 ness for distinctions accruing to her family, “ that they 
 gave peerages for Classics. I know that my dear hus- 
 band’s friend, Mr. Wing, of Oriel College, I think (no, 
 that was Mr. Burkett, who went over to Rome when 
 engaged to Clara Simmonds, and became a monk), 
 of Balliol College — yes, Balliol — edited a Greek play. 
 (Was it Livy, Marjory? But you would not know; 
 it was before your dear father and I were married.) 
 And he became a Baronet, Sir James Wing, of Wing- 
 dam, or Wingblow, a very fine place in Norfolk, called 
 after some place in Holland where the family came 
 from. But I thought he had inherited it from an 
 uncle. No doubt, however, you are right, and it was 
 for the Greek play they made poor Mr. Wing a bar- 
 onet. (He was very plain, and had a silver roof to 
 his mouth.) But things move so rapidly nowadays; 
 
98 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xiv 
 
 I dare say a peerage would be the thing now. And 
 
 Sylvia would like that ” 
 
 “ My dear madam,” the Warden was able to inter- 
 pose, Mamma having lost her vinaigrette in the chintz 
 of the sofa, and suddenly stopping to make plunges for 
 it. “ I alluded to the Distinctions of the Schools. To 
 Aca-Dem-Ic Honours.” 
 
 He became syllabic, partly to emphasize his lofty 
 point, and partly because dear Mamma, in thrusting 
 about for the vinaigrette, had encountered a latent 
 crochet-needle, which she, convinced it was a wasp, 
 declared had stung her. 
 
 “ They are so crawly at this time of year,” she com- 
 plained. “ Oh ! it’s that crochet-needle that I told you, 
 Marjory, I was sure Hannah had borrowed. I am sure 
 she did, too; and it was very crafty of her to hide it 
 like that, and dangerous too; it might just as well 
 have run into an artery.” 
 
 Under cover of this diversion the Warden, who had 
 gallantly risen to kill the wasp, took his leave. 
 
 “ Academic Honours,” were his last words. “ Aca- 
 demic Honours are what I foresee for Auberon.” 
 
 But Mamma, I think, never relinquished the idea 
 that a title was in store for Peterkin; the credit of 
 which she, however, would always largely attribute to 
 Sylvia. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 We knew nobody in Llanthamy and there was noth- 
 ing to take us there. Our shops were all in Monks- 
 bridge, and indeed no Monksbridge lady would have 
 confessed to wearing anything bought over the wa- 
 ter, though we understood that everything was cheaper 
 there. Even in going to Llanthamy Castle we did 
 not drive through the town from which it took its 
 name, for the town ran along the river to the left of 
 the bridge, and the road to the castle turned sharply 
 to the right. 
 
 But a few months after Perkin got his gown we 
 found that he had made some friends in Llanthamy. 
 The Cardinal’s Boys lived “ in College ” and he was at 
 home to sleep only in the holidays, so that, though 
 he was often in and out, we saw much less of him. He 
 was no longer with us at meal-times, or at night, and 
 I missed him a good deal. No Llanthamy boys were 
 eligible for Abbot’s School, but one day Perkin told 
 us that the Llanthamy High School had challenged 
 Abbot’s to play them at cricket, and that there was 
 some discussion as to whether the challenge should 
 be accepted or refused. There was a lofty feeling 
 among many of the Abbotites that the presumption of 
 the Llanthamists should be coldly snubbed. 
 
 The High School was not yet twenty years old, and 
 Abbot’s, it was urged, should assert its dignity. Syl- 
 via sympathized with this view, but Perkin laughed 
 at it. 
 
 99 
 
IOO 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XV 
 
 “ They play all the best schools in the two counties,” 
 he said, “ and lick some of the best. They’ve a good 
 eleven, and we’d better show them that ours isn’t 
 afraid of it.” 
 
 And Perkin, whose voice was now weighty at Ab- 
 bot’s, carried the day there. When Lord Monks- 
 bridge heard of this from Mamma, he spoke very 
 handsomely of her boy’s “ manly common sense,” and 
 she, who had agreed, naturally, with Sylvia, began to 
 feel sure that she had been on Perkin’s side all along. 
 Lord Monksbridge was a founder and visitor of Llan- 
 thamy High School, and always had a certain jealousy 
 of Abbot’s, which called for drastic reform, whereas 
 the High School had been born reformed. It was 
 free from sectarian tests, while all Abbotites had to 
 be members of the Church of England. Among the 
 things he wished to reform at Abbot’s were the Ex- 
 hibitions, of which Perkin gained one only four 
 months after getting his gown. These Exhibitions 
 were a sort of scholarship, and took the form of little 
 annuities for two, three, four, and five years, or of 
 considerable money-prizes not continued annually. 
 The education was already free, but an Abbot Hum- 
 phry Exhibitioner had eighty pounds a year for five 
 years, or for as long as he remained at school, and 
 for three years afterwards if he went up to Cardinal’s 
 College; an Abbot Watkin Exhibitioner had fifty 
 pounds a year for three years, and so on. What Per- 
 kin gained was the Cardinal’s Prize of Sixty-Seven 
 Pounds, the founder of it having been sixty-seven 
 years old at the time of its institution ; it was only 
 given once in three years. 
 
 Lord Monksbridge argued that all this showed the 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 IOI 
 
 CH. XV] 
 
 school to be too well off. Dr. FitzSimon, might be a 
 very good man, but twelve hundred a year was by far 
 too much for him. 
 
 Lord Monksbridge was pleased with Perkin; all the 
 same he thought he would like to reform Abbot’s, and 
 would have certainly made it his own particular busi- 
 ness if he had been a younger man. Perhaps Hamp- 
 den would do it; but Mr. Monk had been at Eton and 
 Christ Church, and did not care so much about re- 
 forming old educational establishments. 
 
 It was through that cricket match (in which Ab- 
 bot’s did not triumph) that Perkin became acquainted 
 with Llanthamists, and the friends he gradually made 
 on the wrong side of the water were destined to affect 
 his career. Sylvia, as Mamma confessed, with deep 
 but belated penitence, had been right as usual. 
 
 “ Mamma,” I said to her one day, “ you were out 
 when Perkin came, and he wants to bring a friend 
 to tea on Sunday. I was to tell you. Do you mind ? ” 
 
 “No, my dear; of course not. His friends are al- 
 ways nice.” 
 
 Perkin had by no means fulfilled his owm gloomy 
 prediction of becoming intimate with the sons of our 
 tradesmen; even as a Town Boy he had kept no such 
 undesirable company, and the Collegers, or Cardinal’s 
 Boys, rather made a point of exclusiveness. He was 
 very genial in school and everywhere with all the boys, 
 but he never brought any one to Cross Place that even 
 Sylvia could have objected to. She was not fond of 
 boys in general, and it was chiefly as a boy that she 
 regarded Perkin himself with some criticism; but the 
 boys he brought home would not be offensive if they 
 were only grown up. 
 
102 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xv 
 
 ‘‘What is his friend’s name? Did he say?” asked 
 Mamma. 
 
 “Byrne. Hubert Byrne.” 
 
 “ I used to dance with a Captain Burns, but he was 
 no relation of the poet. I asked him, and he seemed 
 quite offended, though his name was Bertie (I had 
 heard his brother officers call him so) , and I naturally 
 thought it was Robert. But it wasn’t; Ethelbert was 
 his name. And he was of a good family. The poet 
 was a ploughman, of course, and Captain Burns didn’t 
 like it. But he did not give over asking me to dance. 
 That was before my marriage; your dear papa’s Rec- 
 tor did not approve of clergymen’s wives dancing, 
 and I gave it up; his wife was a charming woman 
 with a wooden leg, not an accident but congenital, 
 as the doctors call it. I dare say Perkin’s friend 
 is his son — or nephew; I know he had brothers, 
 who probably married. The age would be just 
 right.” 
 
 “Hubert Byrne, Mamma; not Burns.” 
 
 “You never know; perhaps it is Burns. You may 
 have caught the name wrong, as I often do; and you 
 and I are more alike than Sylvia and I. In mind 
 you and I are more alike than Sylvia and I. Besides, 
 Hubert makes Bertie for short, just like his father — 
 or uncle, as the case may be. I wonder if he is like 
 Captain Burns; he had a slight limp (not ugly at all; 
 rather interesting) from i*heumatic fever: that would 
 settle it.” 
 
 “ Perkin did not mention it.” 
 
 “ No, dear. Perkin would be the last to mention 
 any physical defect in another. He would ignore it; 
 that is so like dear Perkin. His not mentioning it 
 
ch. xv] MONKSBRIDGE 103 
 
 would make it only the more probable — in a boy with 
 so scrupulous a delicacy as Perkin.” 
 
 Sylvia was away, on a short visit to Llanthamy Cas- 
 tle, and she did not come back till Monday. On Sun- 
 day, early in the afternoon, Perkin and his friend ap- 
 peared ; the friend certainly did not limp, and his name 
 was undoubtedly Byrne, but he confessed that Burns 
 might be the Scotch form of it, and Mamma, as soon 
 as she got the chance, triumphed over me. 
 
 “ He has,” she declared, “ Captain Burns’s nose, 
 with just a tilt — not actually retrousse. Noses run in 
 some families: more than eyes, I think. After all 
 there are only two eyes, the light and the dark, but 
 noses are almost infinite. The same nose means some- 
 thing. I am sure these Irish Byrnes are of the same 
 stock as the Scotch Burnses — apart from the fact that 
 I never heard Captain Burns was Scotch ; he may have 
 been Irish, too, for all I know — North of Ireland, very 
 likely; but that would not make him less Irish: I sup- 
 pose a Northumbrian is English. You argue some- 
 times, Marjory, but you will hardly assert that a 
 Northumbrian is not English. Elsie Pye at Miss 
 Tippet’s married a gentleman from Northumberland, 
 and his very name was English.” 
 
 Thus Mamma clave to her point, and insisted on 
 regarding Hubert Byrne with a certain sentimental 
 interest, as somehow covered with the halo in which 
 Captain Burns (who danced beautifully, in spite of 
 his limp) hovered in her memory. 
 
 Byrne was a very nice boy, two years older than 
 Perkin, tall and manly; not handsome (though 
 Mamma, endowing him with all Captain Burns’s good 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 104 
 
 [CH. XV 
 
 qualities, as heirlooms, said he had notable features), 
 but somehow attractive. 
 
 “ He has air,” Mamma told me in private, “ as Cap- 
 tain Burns had. His air was quite Archducal ; I heard 
 that said. Mrs. Quigg — I had known her as Amy 
 Plimmer at Miss Tippit’s — has travelled in Austria 
 (she stayed nearly a fortnight in Vienna), and she 
 said he reminded her of the Archduke Hildebrand. 
 This boy has air. It never comes accidentally. De- 
 pend upon it he is of good blood. You may not recog- 
 nize it, but Sylvia would.” 
 
 “He has quite beautiful eyes,” I hinted, “almost 
 violet; and I never saw such long, dark eyelashes. 
 But they are rather wistful, not sad exactly.” 
 
 “ I dare say,” said Mamma, cheerfully, “ they are 
 sad. You know there was a tragedy in the family; 
 poor Captain Burns’s father shot himself, or drowned 
 himself ; yes, now I remember, it was drowning himself 
 he was accused of, for they found the boat, and some 
 people (I heard) had pretended to think he merely 
 fell out, and was drowned because he could not swim. 
 But the general opinion was that the accident was pre- 
 meditated. That would account for a sad look in his 
 grandson’s eyes. I should not be surprised if the real 
 name was Burns after all, and they changed it be- 
 cause of the suicide.” 
 
 Hubert returning with Perkin from the garden at 
 that moment, I heard no more of his grandfather’s 
 suicide then. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Hubert not only had “ air ” but he had delightful 
 manners, not young-mannish but frank and boylike; 
 to Mamma he was prettily deferential, to me most 
 courteous and pleasant. He had lived nearly all his 
 life in England, and had no brogue, but just a hint 
 of an Irish intonation that I thought very pretty. In 
 spite of the sad look I had thought there was in his 
 eyes, he was anything but dismal, but merry and cheer- 
 ful. A lad of nearly nineteen will often be rather 
 patronizing to a boy of sixteen and a half, but Byrne 
 did not in the least try to patronize Perkin. They 
 seemed already great friends — but that was Perkin’s 
 way; he found out at once what there was to like in 
 people and became intimate immediately. It was easy 
 to see that my brother was quite fond of Hubert, and 
 that Byrne was pleased by it. 
 
 “ What a pretty room ! ” he said, looking about him 
 with alert, appreciative eyes; and Mamma was flat- 
 tered. “ Auberon has shown me the other rooms too, 
 and they are all charming. This is the first Monks- 
 bridge house I was ever in, but I have always admired 
 their outsides.” 
 
 “ You can’t see Cross Place from any road,” Mamma 
 observed complacently, mindful of our dignified se- 
 clusion. 
 
 “ No; but I’ve seen it from the river, and thought 
 how nice it looked. Our houses in Llanthamy are 
 mostly ugly.” 
 
 105 
 
io6 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xvi 
 
 “Isn’t yours a pretty house?” asked Mamma. 
 “ But perhaps you don’t live quite in the town ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, we do, in a regular street. And it’s an ugly 
 house, neither old nor very new. Just one of a row, 
 all nearly the same; and we’ve no lady to make it 
 pretty inside for us, even if we had the things — 
 and we have not. We have no pictures or china or 
 beautiful furniture like yours.” 
 
 “ Ah,” said Mamma, “ there should be a lady in 
 every house. Gentlemen can never manage servants.” 
 “Ours manage us. They have both been with us 
 since before I was born; but they don’t ill-treat us. 
 In fact, they are very kind so long as we are good.” 
 
 “ I’m sure you’re always good.” 
 
 “ My father is not ! He comes in at all hours for 
 his meals, and sometimes makes mud-marks on the 
 stair-carpet with his boots. Sarah is English and 
 thinks that frightful.” 
 
 Mamma, being also English, looked as if she thought 
 Sarah was right. 
 
 “ And both of us,” Hubert went on cheerfully, 
 “wear the holes in our socks so big that Sarah says 
 it’s cruel having to darn abbesses.” 
 
 “ Abysses,” Perkin suggested, that Mamma might 
 understand the allusion. She smiled, but her sympa- 
 thies were much divided between Sarah and the two 
 careless male creatures she had to darn for. 
 
 “ And,” said Hubert, “ Norah is a good cook, and 
 it drives her crazy when my father comes in so late 
 that his dinner is spoiled. He doesn’t care what he 
 eats, and only says, ‘ Well, Norah, I’ll be punctual if 
 you’ll arrange that no one shall be ill at meal-times.’ ” 
 
 “ Is Mr. Burns a clergyman ? ” Mamma inquired 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 107 
 
 CH. XVl] 
 
 with special interest. “ An old friend of mine of your 
 name (Marjory has heard me speak of him) became 
 a clergyman. I remember hearing that he had simply 
 no appetite — after measles that was; they’re so trying 
 when one has them full grown.” 
 
 “ A clergyman ! ” Hubert answered, laughing a lit- 
 tle. “ Anything but ! My father is a doctor and a 
 Catholic.” 
 
 “ Oh, really ! ” Mamma murmured. It was the first 
 time in her life she had ever sat down to tea with a 
 Catholic; and it was disappointing too, for she was 
 sure none of Captain Burns’s relations had been Catho- 
 lics. But a sanguine temperament is equal to any 
 emergency, and she had barely had time to ask Perkin 
 to pull one of the blinds down a little, before it oc- 
 curred to her that Hubert’s father had probably gone 
 over to Rome, and changed his name for the sake of 
 his family. 
 
 “ It is a sad pity,” she observed kindly, “ that you 
 and your father have no lady to take care of you.” 
 
 “ Yes, so I tell him. Father is only forty-six and 
 very good looking, and I say he ought to marry 
 again.” 
 
 “ You are right, especially as you are not a daugh- 
 ter. Stepsons and stepmothers get on very well, I 
 think.” 
 
 “ I say that too. But father won’t hear of it.” 
 
 “Won’t he, indeed?” said Mamma, a little stiffly, 
 as if she did not think much of the Doctor’s manners. 
 
 At tea we sat down round the dining-room table, 
 and Mamma said grace. I think it startled her a lit- 
 tle when Hubert bent his head and crossed himself, not 
 ostentatiously, but not in the least as if he were 
 
108 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xvi 
 
 ashamed of it. Perkin, I’m afraid, winked at me, and 
 asked me in a low voice if I had a vinaigrette about 
 me; but to do him justice, neither Mamma nor Hu- 
 bert could hear this. 
 
 “ You wouldn’t remember,” she said to me, her 
 rapid faculty of association having carried her thoughts 
 far from the present company, “the man that used 
 to sweep our chimneys at Carysford — your dear papa’s 
 first curacy; in fact, he was merely locum-tenens for 
 a Mr. Swilton who went under a long operation, and 
 we only stayed two or three months. But the chimneys 
 were quite clogged, and we had to have them swept on 
 the Tuesday after we came — no, Wednesday, for we 
 had boiled mutton, and it was red-raw inside. Murphy 
 his name was, and the blackest eyes you ever saw. 
 (It’s quite a mistake to think that the Irish have all 
 red hair.) I saw him afterwards in the street on a 
 Sunday, and he was quite smart, and as clean — only 
 of course his hair still black. He mended the caster 
 of an armchair that had come off, and it rocked so 
 that you felt quite sea-sick in it. Of course we gave 
 him sixpence extra for it (I fancy the Irish are all 
 handy), and he spat on it for luck — he was quite un- 
 educated, you understand; and I remember your fa- 
 ther (who talked to him while he was sweeping it) 
 told me that he only wished all our own people, chim- 
 ney-sweeps or no, knew and cared as much about their 
 religion as Tim Murphy did about his.” And dear 
 Mamma, always determined to look at the best side 
 of everything, smiled with kindly indulgence on Hu- 
 bert, whose father might still belong to her Burnses, 
 and who could not help being a Catholic himself if his 
 parents had been. 
 
ch. xvi] MONKSBRIDGE 109 
 
 Hubert smiled back, showing all his good-natured, 
 brilliant teeth, and if he only half understood Mam- 
 ma’s story and its connexion with himself, he evidently 
 understood her kind intention, and evidently liked her. 
 I think Perkin and I both liked him better, too, for 
 liking her: for we were fonder of her, perhaps, even 
 than Sylvia was, though neither of us could ever hope 
 to hold Sylvia’s place in her esteem. And, though 
 Mamma always missed Sylvia very much if she was 
 away for a day or two, and thought everything must 
 go wrong, still I think that on such occasions she talked 
 more, and enjoyed a sort of liberty. For her high 
 idea of Sylvia’s cleverness kept her just a little in 
 awe, and anxious to avoid rambling on in her presence 
 in the way that did very well for us. I dare say Mrs. 
 Milton felt something of the same sort when her hus- 
 band was out of the way. It must not be supposed that 
 Mamma’s favourite daughter snubbed her, or seemed 
 impatient at her reminiscences, for that would be most 
 unjust to my sister, who only snubbed me and Perkin, 
 and was never once in her life disrespectful to our 
 mother: it was only dear Mamma’s instinct that led 
 her to feel that for Sylvia conversation in slippers, 
 so to speak, was not good enough. 
 
 Hubert being a Catholic, once she had got over 
 the slight initial shock, gave him in Mamma’s eyes a 
 sort of outlandish interest — as if he had been an ami- 
 able (and good-looking) Patagonian or Friendly 
 Islander. 
 
 “ That sad look in his eyes,” she told me afterwards, 
 “ may be due to the Inquisition : no doubt he is 
 ashamed of it — and of course it’s not his fault.” 
 
 “I wish,” she said, during tea, “I had known: it 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 no 
 
 [CH. XVI 
 
 would have been quite easy to have some fish — just as 
 easy as eggs and cold ham.” 
 
 “ I can’t abide fish,” Hubert assured her, “ and I 
 like ham better than anything.” 
 
 “ You’re very polite,” she said, shaking her head, 
 “ but Perkin should have told us.” 
 
 Perkin laughed aloud and reminded her it was not 
 Friday. And Hubert laughed too and tried to con- 
 vince her that Catholics seldom care for fish. 
 
 “ I wish,” she said later on, “ that you and Perkin 
 were at school together.” 
 
 She really liked Hubert better than any of the boys 
 from Abbot’s School that Perkin had brought to Cross 
 Place. 
 
 “ I’m not eligible for Abbot’s, you see,” he answered, 
 smiling, “ I live on the wrong side of the bridge.” 
 
 “ And,” said Perkin, rather fiercely, with a sort of 
 little blush, “ nobody is eligible for the Cardinal’s 
 school who belongs to the Cardinal’s religion.” 
 
 Mamma, I am sure, did not understand at all why 
 Perkin spoke with a sort of protesting vehemence: 
 perhaps I did not, then. But Hubert did, and he said, 
 laughingly — 
 
 “ It’s not your fault, anyway. Cheer up, Perkin.” 
 
 “ My fault, no ! ” my brother exclaimed. “ But I 
 think it a beastly shame. Here am I, a Protestant, 
 collaring the Cardinal’s red gown and his sixty-seven 
 pounds ; and you who belong to his Church with much 
 
 more right to them ” 
 
 “ Except,” Hubert remarked, with all his good- 
 natured teeth shining out of his smile, “ except that 
 I haven’t gained them, and you have.” 
 
 “That’s nonsense,” said Perkin; “you could pass 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 hi 
 
 CH. XVl] 
 
 any examination, twice as well, that I could pass at 
 all. Lord Monksbridge is very keen about reforming 
 Abbot’s; he’d better begin by getting it thrown open 
 to the people it was founded for.” 
 
 Mamma was quite puzzled; she could not in the 
 least guess what had ruffled Perkin. 
 
 “ My dear,” she said nervously, “ if none of you will 
 have any more, I think we’d better go back to the 
 drawing-room. They will want to clear away and 
 wash up, to get to church.” 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 When Sylvia came home she heard about Hubert’s 
 visit, but did not, then, pay much attention. He lived 
 on the wrong side of the bridge; but as most of 
 Llanthamy belonged to Lord Monksbridge, and she 
 had just come from Llanthamy Castle, her strictly 
 Monksbridge prejudice was a good deal in abeyance. 
 
 “ Dr. Byrne ? Oh yes ! ” she remarked carelessly. 
 “ I heard his name only yesterday. Lady Monks- 
 bridge mentioned him. He is rather a clever doctor. 
 Not their doctor, I suppose: but he looks after the 
 servants — and the agent’s wife too, Mrs. Lloyd; she 
 is in a decline, I think.” 
 
 “ Hubert Burns,” Mamma declared (thinking of 
 the Captain, perhaps), “ is quite a gentleman. No one 
 could doubt that. I never saw more pleasing manners 
 in a youth.” 
 
 “ Very likely. One often sees it. A father may be 
 very ordinary and a son almost of a different class.” 
 
 “ You may,” I observed, “ have seen a recent in- 
 stance.” 
 
 Of course I had no business to say it, and knew 
 that I had not; but Sylvia talked of Perkin’s friend 
 just as she might have done if he had been a coach- 
 man’s son who had received an education. 
 
 She raised her eyebrows, but deigned no other no- 
 tice of my ill-breeding. She merely punished me by 
 saying nothing, till she was alone with Mamma, of an 
 
 112 
 
ch. xvii] MONKSBRIDGE 113 
 
 important subject: and probably would have waited 
 in any case. 
 
 “ For my part,” Mamma went on, “ I like Hubert 
 better than any of Perkin’s school friends. I only wish 
 he was at Abbot’s; but, of course, he can’t be — none 
 of the Llanthamy people’s sons can.” 
 
 “ That,” Sylvia observed, in a sort of family man- 
 ner, “ is one of the things Lord Monksbridge would 
 like to have reformed. Abbot’s is quite big enough for 
 Monksbridge and Llanthamy : he says it ought to be 
 open to both towns.” 
 
 “Yes, my dear, so it ought. Now Perkin has his 
 gown and his Exhibition. But Hubert is a Roman 
 Catholic, too. He wouldn’t be eligible in any 
 case.” 
 
 “ No. A Roman Catholic? I suppose Lady Monks- 
 bridge knew, but she didn’t mention it. She only 
 spoke of Dr. Byrne in relation to his profession. It’s 
 absurd to be a Roman Catholic nowadays.” 
 
 “ The Cardinal was one when he founded Abbot’s,” 
 I suggested — thinking of Perkin and his annoyance 
 at his friend’s exclusion from the good things the Car- 
 dinal had provided. 
 
 “ Of course,” said Sylvia, coldly. “ Our ancestors 
 all were. It was the same with everybody then. It 
 was the custom. But we don’t go about in chain- 
 armour now : to be a Catholic now is ridiculous. And 
 no one is. This Dr. Byrne, I fancy, merely attends 
 the servants at Llanthamy Castle. I quite gathered 
 that.” 
 
 Sylvia was not in the least concerned about Dr. 
 Byrne and his son, and Perkin’s intimacy with the lat- 
 ter. She had more important matters to interest 
 
H'4 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XVII 
 
 herself in: as I was soon to hear. She simply gave 
 utterance to her practical view of things. Perkin’s 
 irresponsible friendships were neither here nor there. 
 
 Later, in the evening, while I was dressing for din- 
 ner, Mamma came into my room. We dined at eight 
 now, and had a very slender luncheon at one. Not 
 that our dinner was much: still, we had soup, and 
 dessert — apples, or oranges, in winter, in summer any 
 fruit there was in the garden. 
 
 “ Madge,” said Mamma, in a fluttered, mysterious 
 manner, after going back to the door to see if it was 
 tightly closed, “ I have something to tell you about 
 dear Sylvia. You will hardly believe it.” 
 
 “ Yes, I shall. Mr. Monk has proposed to her.” I 
 was quite ashamed of having spoiled Mamma’s dis- 
 closure, when I saw how she had been intending to 
 creep gently up to it, round and about. 
 
 “ How did you guess ? She couldn’t have given 
 you a hint. She told me she hadn’t ! ” 
 
 And Mamma sat down, quite suddenly, by my 
 dressing-table. 
 
 “ No, dear. She didn’t tell me. But 7 could have 
 told her — eighteen months ago.” 
 
 “ Oh no, my dear ! It was only yesterday. In the 
 afternoon. He proposed just by that lead god (Apollo, 
 I think), with the water trickling down his cheek out 
 of the basket on his head — near the bowling green. 
 Eighteen months ago! You don’t suppose she would 
 have kept me in the dark for a year and a half? It 
 was yesterday. And Lord and Lady Monksbridge 
 both wish it. It is very flattering that they should. 
 He says so.” 
 
 “ Says it is flattering ? ” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XVIl] 
 
 US 
 
 “No, my dear: but that they are quite anxious 
 she should accept him.” 
 
 “ As she has, no doubt.” 
 
 “ No, my dear. She told him she would bear it in 
 mind.” 
 
 “ Bear it in mind ! ” 
 
 “ Well, she said she would give it her careful con- 
 sideration : it means the same thing. She told him she 
 would talk it over with me.” 
 
 “ Did she think you likely to object? ” 
 
 “ I don’t see why she should, though she is very 
 young — eighteen and a half. But I was only just 
 eighteen when I married your dear papa — and we had 
 been engaged four months.” 
 
 “ And Sylvia is much older for her age than you 
 were.” 
 
 “ Yes. I was very young at eighteen. I had not 
 Sylvia’s decision of character. When your dear papa 
 proposed I fainted.” 
 
 “ I’m sure Sylvia did not faint,” I observed, smiling 
 grimly. 
 
 “ No, dear. She has such self-command. And it 
 wasn’t, she confesses, wholly unexpected : he had tried 
 to propose (more than once) before, only she wouldn’t 
 let him ” 
 
 “ So she let him yesterday. I wonder she didn’t 
 say ‘ Yes ’ at once.” 
 
 I believe Mamma was really more surprised that 
 she had not than I was. Nothing Sylvia ever did 
 surprised me, for I never had the least idea what she 
 would do. It is when we think we know how people 
 are likely to behave that they are constantly surpris- 
 ing us. 
 
n6 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xvii 
 
 “ She does not seem at all excited,” Mamma re- 
 marked presently ; “ she takes it almost as a matter 
 of course.” 
 
 “ So it is. I only wonder it has taken so long. The 
 very day we went to luncheon there first I felt sure he 
 would propose to her.” 
 
 “ Did you really, my dear? Well, it never occurred 
 to me. I should have been less surprised if it had been 
 that young cavalry officer — Sir Hector FitzNorris — 
 who was staying at Monkspark; he paid her more 
 marked attention, and came over here several times. 
 I thought his attentions very marked, and she seemed 
 to have no objection.” 
 
 “ I dare say she had no objection. If he liked it, it 
 didn’t harm her.” 
 
 “ But, Madge, your sister is not a flirt.” 
 
 “ Not in the least. But she never flirted with Sir 
 Hector. If he chose to run after her, she was not 
 bound to run away — she never does run. Am I to say 
 anything about this to her? ” 
 
 “ Well, no, not unless she begins ; you can’t con- 
 gratulate her till we know what she has decided.” 
 
 “ I know that already.” 
 
 “ You think she will refuse him? You think she is 
 not in love with him ? ” 
 
 “ My dear Mamma, I haven’t the least idea how 
 Sylvia would look if she were in love. But I am quite 
 sure she won’t refuse Mr. Monk — definitely. May I 
 tell Perkin?” 
 
 “ She said / might tell you; and I don’t see why 
 you shouldn’t tell your brother. Only make him be 
 careful — he likes to tease her.” 
 
 So we went down to dinner, and found Sylvia in 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 117 
 
 CH. XVIl] 
 
 the drawing-room reading a review Lord Monksbridge 
 had lent her. She looked lovely. Her dress was sim- 
 ple, but she always dressed perfectly; and in the last 
 year and a half she had certainly improved, though 
 she had needed no improvement. She was taller, and 
 her figure was more graceful than ever. No one could 
 be surprised that Mr. Monk should admire her. 
 
 She got up, and put her review aside, saying with 
 a cool smile — 
 
 “ You two have been gossiping.” 
 
 Mamma gave a little laugh, and I, finding my sister 
 in a peculiarly amiable humour, took her hand and 
 pressed it, as I was not to say anything. 
 
 “ Nothing is decided,” she said quietly; “ we had 
 better not discuss it.” 
 
 Then dinner was announced, and we went away to 
 the dining-room, where she talked about the article on 
 University Reform Lord Monksbridge had asked her 
 to read. 
 
 “ Perkin had better hurry up,” she observed, smiling 
 seriously. “ Once they set to on the Universities you 
 don’t know what they will touch.” 
 
 At Abbot’s there was a special scholarship only to 
 be gained once in five years, or rather, the scholarship 
 was at Belesme College in Oxford, open to none but 
 Abbotites ; it was worth over three hundred a year and 
 considered a sort of blue ribbon among scholarships. 
 The examinations for it would take place in less than 
 a year, and Perkin would then be just old enough to 
 compete; the Warden thought his chance of success 
 very good. 
 
 “ Oh ! ” Mamma cried, almost groaning, “ I do wish 
 Lord Monksbridge would not interfere with the Uni- 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 118 
 
 [CH. XVII 
 
 versities till Perkin is safe. Does Mr. Monk want 
 to destroy the scholarships ? ” 
 
 “ Mr. Monk ? I don’t know at all. It was with his 
 father I was talking about it. And you know Mr. 
 Monk is not in Parliament yet.” 
 
 At the mention of his name she had looked quite 
 severely at us; the maid was in the room, waiting 
 upon us, and Sylvia did not wish her to have any 
 “ ideas ” about Mr. Monk. At dessert, when we were 
 alone, she said again — 
 
 “ Nothing is decided. Please do not think it is. 
 Mr. Monk quite understands that nothing is de- 
 cided.” 
 
 “ I’m sure,” Mamma declared, “ he will be terribly 
 disappointed if you don’t decide as he wishes.” 
 
 Sylvia shook her head slightly, not as if she doubted 
 it, but because she could not perceive that that was the 
 point. 
 
 “ It is, I am sure,” said Mamma, “ a most flattering 
 offer.” 
 
 “ Flattering? ” 
 
 And Sylvia, as she repeated the word, raised one 
 eyebrow a little. She never shrugged her beautiful 
 shoulders, but when she lifted one eyebrow it had just 
 the effect of a shrug. 
 
 “ Well, dear,” Mamma tried hurriedly to explain, 
 “ he is a charming young man ” 
 
 “ I should certainly not allow a nasty one to pro- 
 pose to me,” my sister remarked in a calm parenthesis. 
 
 “ No, dear; of course not,” Mamma went on much 
 more hastily. “ But then he has everything on his 
 side ” 
 
 “ Oh, Mamma!” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XVII ] 
 
 1 19 
 
 And I must say I never admired Sylvia more than 
 when she said this with unfeigned and calm pro- 
 test. 
 
 “ I mean,” poor Mamma pleaded, “ all the wealth 
 and position.” 
 
 “ They have,” Sylvia observed, peeling her orange 
 gracefully, “ only the makings of a position. And 
 wealth is nothing if you don’t know what to do with 
 it. They haven’t the least idea. In their hands the 
 position is a false position, and the wealth almost a 
 vulgarity.” 
 
 “ ‘ They ! ’ ” Mamma exclaimed. She had not been 
 thinking at all about Mr. Monk’s parents, and Sylvia 
 hardly seemed to be thinking at all about Mr. Monk. 
 
 Behind the rare exotic ( from the Llanthamy Castle 
 hothouses), in one of Sir Stapleton’s silver wine- 
 coolers, that screened my face from Sylvia’s, I smiled 
 grimly. 
 
 “Yes,” my sister explained, with lucid calmness, 
 “ they. Lord and Lady Monksbridge. Excellent 
 creatures! But a comic peer and peeress. And with 
 all their wealth like a millstone round their necks ! 
 How can you say he has everything on his side ? ” 
 
 It was the first time she had spoken of “ him,” and 
 I listened with keener interest. 
 
 “ If,” she went on, with a faint heightening of col- 
 our that made her look more lovely than ever, “ he 
 had everything on his side, I should not hesitate at 
 all ” 
 
 “ Ah ! ” cried Mamma, much relieved, “ you would 
 say yes ? ” 
 
 Sylvia almost frowned, which she never did quite. 
 “ I should say No. I am not a person who enjoys 
 
120 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XVII 
 
 receiving favours. If Mr. Monk were a duke’s son 
 (which he couldn’t be — he would be Lord Hampden; 
 unless he were the eldest son, and then he would prob- 
 ably be a marquis) I should say No. I could be of 
 no use to him.” 
 
 “ But, my dear,” Mamma expostulated, quite har- 
 rowed in her tender feelings for the duke’s son, “ if 
 he loved you ? And with your beauty ! ” 
 
 “ I could do nothing for him,” Sylvia went on 
 firmly. “ As for his being in love, that would be his 
 affair. One can’t marry every one who may be in 
 love with one. But I could do a good deal for the 
 Monksbridge family, if I decided to do what Mr. Monk 
 suggests. We have family. And breeding. And I 
 should be able to — make their position for them, and 
 teach them how to be rich without being a laughing- 
 stock.” 
 
 I could see plainly that the prospect of doing all 
 this appealed to her. She spoke with unusual fluency 
 and directness, and with the animation that her beauty 
 sometimes lacked to make it really interesting. Of her 
 beauty itself she never said a word, and thought, I am 
 sure, very little. She was not in the least vain. Her 
 beauty was merely a part of herself, and it was with 
 herself as a whole that she was serenely satisfied. No 
 doubt Mr. Monk thought of her beauty, but he was 
 only a young man; she was not thinking of any young 
 man, but of the next Lady Monksbridge. It would be 
 suitable, of course, that the next Lady Monksbridge 
 should be beautiful — it would be a part of her dis- 
 tinction. It was because I thoroughly understood all 
 this that I came to understand fully my sister’s idea 
 of her Mission. And when I went into Mamma’s 
 
ch. xvii] MONKSBRIDGE 121 
 
 room at bed-time to kiss her and say good night, I 
 whispered — 
 
 “ You needn’t be in the least suspense. She will 
 marry him.” 
 
 “ But, Madge, she hardly says a word about him. 
 Why do you think she cares for him ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, she never thinks of that. She thinks it will 
 be her duty.” 
 
 “For our sakes? Of course it would be a great 
 thing for us all — for you and Perkin. But I shouldn’t 
 like her to do it for that. We can get on very well 
 as we are.” 
 
 I couldn’t help laughing a little as I kissed her 
 again. 
 
 “ No, Mugs, she wouldn’t do it for that,” I said, 
 as I kissed her pretty ear, like a pink shell. “ It won’t 
 be for our sakes, but for the sake of the Monksbridge 
 family.” 
 
 And, laughing a little, I hugged dear Mamma, and 
 ran off to avoid explanations. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 On the following morning Sylvia said nothing to 
 either of us about Mr. Monk directly, though she 
 talked quite willingly of her visit to Llanthamy 
 Castle. 
 
 “ It is certainly a very fine house,” she observed 
 dispassionately. “ Really enormous. But they don’t 
 know what to do with it. I should think that there 
 are dozens of bedrooms no one has ever slept in — 
 Lady Monksbridge said as much. They know so few 
 people at all intimately; and of course Mr. Monk’s 
 friends are merely young men — they come; but I don’t 
 fancy he has many friends whom he invites to stay 
 there. And a succession of young men, even if there 
 were scores of them, would be no good — none what- 
 ever.” 
 
 Mamma did not know why, but felt she ought to, 
 and did not like to ask. 
 
 “ It is,” Sylvia declared, “ a house that should have 
 a great position of its own, on its own account, but it 
 has practically none. There are people who are made 
 by their house, but Lord and Lady Monksbridge are 
 only swallowed up by their Castle. Look at Mr. and 
 Mrs. B rocas- Jones ; if they hadn’t Fell Court they 
 would be nobodies. They are both of them plain, dull 
 people ; they have no appearance and no manners, and 
 they have nothing to say to anybody that anybody 
 on earth wants to hear. But they aren’t nobodies — 
 
 122 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 123 
 
 CH. XVIIl] 
 
 Fell Court does everything for them. It has been Fell 
 Court for four centuries, and there have always been 
 Brocases there. But Llanthamy Castle has never had 
 any position, and it can’t give Lord and Lady Monks- 
 bridge any, though it is at least six times as big as 
 Fell Court. It is very sad.” 
 
 “ Perhaps,” I suggested airily, “ Lord and Lady 
 Monksbridge don’t mind being nobodies.” 
 
 “She doesn’t,” Sylvia admitted frankly; “she 
 would rather be less than she is — if she could. But he 
 would like to be somebody if he knew how. He is not 
 a stupid man, and he must know that it is stupid to be 
 a peer with seventy or eighty thousand a year, and to 
 be really of not the least consequence. He is,” she 
 added calmly, “a man with a sense of right, and I 
 can see that he feels it. It is not fair to a neighbour- 
 hood to have a great place like Llanthamy Castle, with 
 a huge estate round it, empty and useless.” 
 
 “If Mr. Monk married well ” Mamma began 
 
 with furtive diplomacy. 
 
 “ Dear Mamma,” Sylvia interposed firmly, “ noth- 
 ing is decided. Do not let us speak of that. I was 
 merely talking of the general principle.” 
 
 “ Perhaps,” I suggested, “ Mamma was only mean- 
 ing the general principle. Mr. Monk might marry a 
 duke’s daughter.” 
 
 “ No, I think not,” Sylvia replied, after a moment’s 
 cool consideration; “ I don’t think he could. I fancy 
 the only duke he knows at all is the Duke of Tilbury, 
 here at Castle Peovor, and that very slightly ; and you 
 know Lady Adelberta and Lady Maria are nearly fifty. 
 I must say Llanthamy Castle is kept up perfectly. 
 There are nine housemaids, and their chef is a treasure 
 
124 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XVIII 
 
 (though Lady Monksbridge says he is not honest) ; 
 but then she prefers boiled mutton to anything, and 
 what’s the good of a chef when you like boiled neck 
 of mutton better than anything?” 
 
 “ I hoped,” said Mamma, with a puzzled disappoint- 
 ment in her tone, “ that you were enjoying your visit. 
 I like being there; Lady Monksbridge is always so 
 nice to me.” 
 
 “ Yes, she is nice; and so is he. Oh yes, I enjoyed 
 my visit, but one longs to set them right. I couldn’t 
 help feeling that all the time.” 
 
 “ Well, dear, and why shouldn’t you set it all right, 
 as you say? You seem so thoroughly to understand 
 what is amiss.” 
 
 “ Dear Mamma, nothing is decided,” Sylvia ex- 
 postulated, shaking her head a little. “ Please let us 
 keep to the general principle.” 
 
 I must say I began to doubt whether I had not been 
 hasty in assuring Mamma that Sylvia would certainly 
 marry Mr. Monk. 
 
 We all went that day to luncheon at Monkspark. 
 We had been engaged to go before Sylvia went to 
 stay at Llanthamy Castle, and she had returned on 
 purpose to keep this engagement, gently but firmly 
 refusing Lady Monksbridge’s earnest request that she 
 would stay on at Llanthamy, and send word that she 
 was doing so to Mamma. 
 
 “ Of course I could not do that,” Sylvia explained 
 to us; “ it would be as much as to say that something 
 was decided.” 
 
 “ I wish you had stayed on,” Mamma confessed in- 
 cautiously; “ I could easily have made your excuses to 
 Mr. de Braose and Lady Gladys.” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 125 
 
 CH. XVIIl] 
 
 “No; that would not have done. They would have 
 guessed something — and you know Lady Gladys is 
 rather a gossip. And Lady Llantwddwy is driving 
 us there. You would have had to explain to her ; and 
 she is always on the look-out for engagements. She 
 would tell every one it was decided.” 
 
 So we all three were driven out to Monkspark by 
 Lady Llantwddwy, who was full of curiosity to hear 
 all about Sylvia’s visit to Llanthamy Castle. 
 
 “ Oh yes ! ” my sister answered, in reply to half 
 a dozen leading questions. “ I enjoyed it very much. 
 I am so fond of Lady Monksbridge — no one who 
 knows her well could help it. They are very hospit- 
 able. No, hardly any one came to dinner; and no one 
 was staying there, except an old cousin of Lord 
 Monksbridge’s, a Miss Pilkin. Dull? No, I 
 am never dull anywhere. And they are not dull 
 people.” 
 
 “ Mr. Monk is clever, they tell me,” said the 
 Viscountess, with demure alertness. 
 
 “Yes; so I hear too. I should think it is true. 
 He was only there part of the time. You asked about 
 the menage; well, it is all very fine. They have legions 
 of servants, and very good ones, and the style of liv- 
 ing is excellent. I think their chef would suit you 
 better than Lady Monksbridge — she likes boiled mut- 
 ton and parsley sauce.” 
 
 I must say that I admired the way in which my sis- 
 ter, with her placid ingenuousness, defeated all that 
 old woman’s inquisitiveness. And I could see how it 
 gave Sylvia a calm pleasure to perceive that Lady 
 Llantwddwy was sure “ nothing had come ” of the 
 visit. 
 
126 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XVIII 
 
 “Ah,” said Lady Gladys de Braose, as she wel- 
 comed us, “ so Sylvia has torn herself away from the 
 charms of Llanthamy Castle! We thought they would 
 have inveigled her into staying on.” 
 
 “ Oh no,” said Sylvia. “ There was no idea of that. 
 I was only asked till Monday.” 
 
 Lady Gladys was forty-four, perhaps three years 
 older than her husband, and had long professed great 
 delicacy of health, but she was still very good-looking, 
 having been a beauty and an heiress. Almost all the 
 de Braoses married beauties and heiresses except the 
 squire who had preceded the present Mr. de Braose’s 
 father, who had only married an heiress — our neigh- 
 bour Lady Llantwddwy. 
 
 Mr. de Braose looked quite as old as his wife, and 
 had thin hair and rather watery eyes : he was a regu- 
 lar de Braose, whereas his brother Eustace had in- 
 herited his mother’s good looks — as she frequently 
 informed the public. Still Mr. de Braose looked dis- 
 tinguished; his features were rather over-refined, as 
 was his voice; and, if his eyes and hair were weak, 
 they suggested the idea that they had been wearing so 
 during centuries. His manners were very good, ami- 
 able, though not intimate; and though he was stout, 
 like his mother, he was tall enough to seem merely 
 portly: and he was not more than stout; only a po- 
 litical opponent in the blindness of party feeling could 
 have called him really fat. Lady Gladys was in 
 mourning. After several years of married life she had 
 borne a son, and the child, about ten months after our 
 arrival at Monksbridge, had died, which surprised no 
 one but his father, who had the highest ideas of duty 
 in one’s station. He had always done his: but how 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 127 
 
 CII. XVIIl] 
 
 could the heir of the great Monksbridge estates fulfil 
 his duties except here on earth? Mr. de Braose was 
 never uncharitable, but he secretly felt that the child 
 who could so desert his post must have inherited some 
 of the Van Teuffel inconsequence. Lady Gladys had 
 been a Van Teuffel, and that family, ever since Wil- 
 liam of Orange had brought it over to England, had 
 been, in spite of its beauty, inconsequent. But Mr. de 
 Braose was a fair-minded man, and he was not angry 
 with poor Lady Gladys because the only child she had 
 borne him was dead: if she came of an inconsequent 
 family he need not have married into it; that he per- 
 fectly recognized. Nor was he angry with Eustace 
 for being at present in quite a new position of im- 
 portance: it was not Eustace’s fault, but that unper- 
 severing baby’s. As for Eustace, he was heartily sorry 
 for his brother and his brother’s wife, and for the 
 baby too, but he did not think of the baby with the 
 slightest irritation. He was a good-natured young 
 man, and could not lean heavily on the failure to do 
 his duty of a child who had not injured him. No doubt 
 the poor little fellow would have lived if he could — 
 he himself would certainly not have died at four years 
 old, had he been born heir to Monkspark and twelve 
 thousand a year, and able to go on living. 
 
 Eustace was staying at Monkspark now, and was 
 aware that he had one of the best rooms, which he 
 used not to be given in former days ; and he knew that 
 his brother, and his sister-in-law, and the servants, 
 all treated him as if he had recently done something 
 distinguished and meritorious. He was very careful 
 now never to ask any of those little questions which 
 he had been used to ask by way of showing a brotherly 
 
128 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XVIII 
 
 interest in the old place, and the estate; but the squire 
 constantly told him of this or that plan, or projected 
 improvement, inquiring if he approved. Though one 
 of the brothers was eighteen years younger than the 
 other, they were very united. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The Duke of Tilbury and the Ladies Adelberta and 
 Maria Zouche lunched at Monkspark that day; and 
 Lord and Lady Closeborough and their son, Lord 
 Chevronel, were staying in the house. The late 
 Duchess had been an aunt of the present Mr. de 
 Braose’s ; and Lady Closeborough was a niece of that 
 other Mr. de Braose, who had married Lord Llantwd- 
 dwy’s widow. Lord Chevronel was, perhaps, a year 
 or so younger than Mr. Eustace de Braose and he was 
 also “ in diplomacy.” What I thought equally inter- 
 esting was that he was handsome and uncommonly 
 pleasant; and he evidently thought Sylvia worth all 
 the attention she would give him a chance of devoting 
 to her. It wasn’t very much, for she never flirted, 
 and she never annoyed people’s parents and guardians 
 by seeming to encourage attentions that she cared noth- 
 ing about. 
 
 The old Duke, who was wonderfully well preserved 
 while sitting down (he aged, rather, when he scram- 
 bled about), had very sharp eyes, and he saw that Lord 
 Chevronel was much more disposed to let Sylvia see 
 how much he admired her than she was to take advan- 
 tage of it; and his grace thought well of her, and was 
 extremely civil to her. So were his daughters: so 
 were Lord and Lady Closeborough. This civility of 
 the last-mentioned four dignitaries became specially 
 decided after a little talk between Lady Adelberta and 
 Sylvia which took place just after luncheon. We la- 
 
 129 
 
130 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXX 
 
 dies were in the picture-gallery, and my sister was 
 being shown a portrait of the late Duchess of Tilbury 
 as a girl (a girl with feet much smaller than any- 
 body’s hands, and eyes much larger than her own 
 mouth) trying to see what o’clock it was by a sundial 
 in a shady grove. 
 
 “ It is like both of you,” I heard Sylvia observe, 
 in her low voice, with a glance from Lady Adelberta 
 to Lady Maria — in the distance : I could only suppose 
 that the Duchess’s eyes had been divided between 
 her three sons and two daughters, and had naturally 
 grown smaller in the process. 
 
 Lady Adelberta smiled and confessed that likenesses 
 ran oddly in families even when the features were 
 different. 
 
 “ Gravesend has her nose,” she added (Lord Grave- 
 send was her eldest brother). “ I am so glad to meet 
 you — Lady Gladys was afraid they might keep you 
 on at Llanthamy Castle ” 
 
 “ Oh no ! ” said Sylvia, smiling. “ I told Lady 
 Monksbridge I must keep my engagement — I wanted 
 so much to come here.” 
 
 “ And she couldn’t prevail ! Lady Gladys thought 
 she would prevail.” 
 
 And I could see that Lady Adelberta was quite as 
 inquisitive as Lady Llanthamy : but instead of defeat- 
 ing her curiosity, to my surprise I found Sylvia this 
 time truckling to it: certainly it was best to make 
 up my mind, once and for all, that I could never guess 
 what she would do. 
 
 Sylvia smiled again, and asked demurely, “ Why ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, my dear ! You’ll think me so very indis- 
 creet.” 
 
ch. xix] MONKSBRIDGE 131 
 
 “ Not at all. Why did Lady Gladys think I should 
 not be here — when we had all promised ? ” 
 
 “ My dear Miss Auberon — it seems so very indis- 
 creet: you will think me so impertinent! You know 
 Gladys is so romantic.” 
 
 Sylvia did not know anything of the kind : she only 
 knew that her hostess was a gossip of the first water : 
 but she smiled once more, as if fully aware of Lady 
 Gladys’s romantic disposition. 
 
 “Romantic! Yes: but what romance would there 
 be in my staying on with dear Lady Monksbridge ? ” 
 murmured my sister innocently — innocently, but not 
 forbiddingly. 
 
 “ Ah, my dear ! There might be a romance — am I 
 too indiscreet? — in which Lady Monksbridge (an ex- 
 cellent woman, I hear on all sides) would be only a — 
 a third party.” 
 
 Sylvia slowly blushed, slowly and slightly (and 
 how she did it at all, I could not understand then; 
 perhaps, it now occurs to me, it was to hear her sup- 
 posititious mother-in-law called an excellent woman), 
 and after a moment’s pause, she looked down, and 
 round, and up, and said — 
 
 “ Nothing is decided.” 
 
 “ Ah ! ” Lady Adelberta almost whispered. “ How 
 very nice of you! How very nice of you not to pun- 
 ish my indiscretion. And you will find I am really 
 discreet: nothing (I understand perfectly) is decided” 
 
 “ No, nothing.” 
 
 It was not long afterwards that Lady Adelberta 
 nailed (so to speak) her sister, in a corner; and I 
 think Lady Closeborough was presently nailed in an- 
 other corner. At all events all three ladyships and 
 
132 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XIX 
 
 Lord Closeborough presently redoubled their civilities 
 to Sylvia. The Duke might be as gallant as he pleased, 
 and so might Lord Chevronel : when Sylvia had said 
 nothing was decided Lady Adelberta understood at 
 once that in Miss Auberon she beheld the next Lady 
 Monksbridge. 
 
 “ Papa,” said Lady Maria, ambling over to my 
 mother half an hour later, “ wishes so much you would 
 allow Miss Auberon to come and stay a few days at 
 Castle Peovor. We should enjoy it so much — Adel- 
 berta and I.” 
 
 I saw Sylvia listening, and I saw that something 
 had happened just as she intended it should; why, 
 I could not remotely guess. And when Lady Close- 
 borough, ten minutes later, sidled down into the seat 
 next Mamma and asked if she could spare Miss Au- 
 beron for a night or two, to join in tableaux vivants 
 at Close Chace, I could again perceive that Sylvia 
 had gained some point — inscrutable to me. When 
 Lady Maria had given her invitation, Sylvia’s face 
 was so turned that Mamma could see her almost in- 
 visible nod of acquiescence, and had accepted in the 
 sure and certain hope of doing what she should. Now, 
 though I could see my sister’s face, Mamma could 
 only see Lord Closeborough’s back, and she was not 
 so sure. 
 
 “ You are so kind,” Mamma murmured. “ It is 
 very kind of you. But I don’t quite know what Syl- 
 via’s plans are. For the fifteenth? There was some 
 idea that about the fifteenth she would be going to re- 
 visit ” 
 
 “ Ah ! ” Lady Closeborough whispered. “ I think 
 I guess. No, no! I know nothing is decided. But 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 133 
 
 CH. XIX ] 
 
 by the fifteenth, you know — three weeks — if anything 
 should be decided by then. We want an extra young 
 man too. (Eustace de Braose laughs too much for 
 tableaux.) Do let her come; and if she could help us 
 to a young man — tall; I know he is tall — excuse me, 
 I know it is a tall young man we want! Miss Au- 
 beron might (by the fifteenth) help us to a tall young 
 man. Pray understand that any tall young man she 
 could help us to would be included in the invitation.” 
 
 All this time I saw calculation gleaming in the eye 
 of this Countess just as if she had been a Mrs. Todgers 
 — not calculation as to beds and stowage, but as to 
 the much greater desirability of Miss Auberon’s com- 
 pany at Close Chace with a tall young man than with- 
 out. And Sylvia half turned and half nodded, and 
 Mamma hurriedly promised that, if her girl found she 
 could go, she should. And again I saw by Sylvia’s 
 face that she had scored a point — perhaps two 
 points. 
 
 “ So, Sylvia,” said Lady Llantwddwy, as we drove 
 home, “ you are going to stay at Castle Peovor, and 
 at Close Chace?” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Sylvia, as if she thought neither cir- 
 cumstance of much importance. 
 
 “ They are very big houses,” observed her lady- 
 ship, somewhat rashly. 
 
 “ They would both fit into Llanthamy Castle and 
 no one know they were there,” my sister remarked 
 coolly. 
 
 Lady Llantwddwy really blinked with astonish- 
 ment ; and she disliked being astonished so much that 
 she said, still more rashly, nudging, so to speak, with 
 her words — 
 
134 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xix 
 
 “ So you would not care to be a duchess — or a 
 countess ? ” 
 
 “ I shouldn’t care,” Sylvia replied, laughing gently, 
 “ to have step-daughters older than Mamma. Or a 
 mother-in-law in drab and green who thought herself 
 well-dressed.” 
 
 “ Sylvia ! ” gasped Mamma. 
 
 “ My dear Mamma,” Sylvia explained, with perfect 
 ease of manner, “ I was only putting ridiculous hypo- 
 thetical cases. No one on earth, not even dear Lady 
 Llantwddwy, thinks me in the least likely to be a 
 duchess or a countess. Lady Closeborough is good 
 enough to wish Mr. Monk to take part, and me also, 
 in her tableaux. I don’t know if he cares for the 
 sort of thing.” 
 
 Lady Llantwddwy gasped this time, and Mamma, 
 needlessly apprehensive of battle, fidgeted in her seat. 
 But peace is often maintained by the absolute readi- 
 ness for war displayed by the best equipped of the pos- 
 sible parties to it; and Lady Llantwddwy instantly 
 recognized that Sylvia’s equipment was far more com- 
 plete than her own. 
 
 “ I don’t know,” my sister remarked, “ whether Mr. 
 Monk cares for being the tall young man in tableaux 
 vivants. I advised Lady Closeborough to let Lady 
 Gladys drive her over to Llanthamy Castle and find 
 out. He is certainly tall, and that seems to be the 
 great thing.” 
 
 “ But, Sylvia dear,” said the old Viscountess, with 
 affable reproach, “ you never let on to us about Mr. 
 Monk, and I was dying to know; I was rather jealous 
 to hear it all from Elizabeth Closeborough.” 
 
 “ Dear Lady Llantwddwy, there was nothing to 
 
 i 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XIX] 
 
 135 
 
 hear. If you think I said anything to Lady Close- 
 
 borough ” 
 
 “ No; Adelberta told her.” 
 
 “ Ah, but I never told Lady Adelberta anything — 
 she was fishing, you know; and I assured her that 
 nothing was decided. Mamma would know if it was. 
 Ask Mamma if she has been told anything.” 
 
 “ No, dear, I really didn’t know anything till Lady 
 
 Adelberta began congratulating me ” Mamma was 
 
 beginning. 
 
 “ And,” said Sylvia, firmly, “ she knew nothing.” 
 
 “ Except,” Lady Llantwddwy remarked, wagging 
 her long head knowingly, “ that ‘ nothing is decided.’ 
 We must make our own guesses — and (if you weren’t 
 here to snub me) I should congratulate Mrs. Auberon.” 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 On the following Sunday Mr. Monk came to tea, and 
 so did Lord Chevronel and Mr. Eustace de Braose. 
 Lord Chevronel was quite cheerful, his cousin not par- 
 ticularly so; and Mr. Monk, who had arrived first, 
 looked as if he thought we had more young men than 
 was necessary. 
 
 “ My mother,” Lord Chevronel told him, “ is going 
 over to see Lady Monksbridge, to-morrow. It is some 
 time since she was at Monkspark, and she hasn’t seen 
 your mother for ages.” 
 
 Then, with a little laugh, he added : “ She would 
 like to find you in too. For she has a plot against 
 you. On the fifteenth we are breaking out into Tab- 
 leaux Vivants, and she wants you to be a young 
 man ” 
 
 “ A tall young man,” Sylvia suggested with her 
 most innocent sang-froid. “ Unless he’s tall you’d 
 better warn him not to attempt it.” 
 
 If Sylvia had been as old and plain as Miss Belvoir, 
 I dare say Lady Closeborough’s son would have 
 thought her impertinent : as it was he did not mind a 
 bit, but laughed very comfortably, and said — 
 
 “ She has perfect confidence in your being tall by 
 the fifteenth. Do think it over. I’m no good at 
 tableaux. I wobble too much: and Eustace simmers. 
 My mother builds on you.” 
 
 “ Won’t she and Lady Gladys come to luncheon 
 to-morrow? And you two as well.” 
 
 136 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 137 
 
 CH. XX] 
 
 “ I can't. I’m engaged, unfortunately,” Eustace de- 
 clared gloomily, looking as if the misfortune were that 
 he wasn’t engaged. 
 
 “I’m not,” said Lord Chevronel with vivacity. 
 “Yes; thank you very much, I’ll tell them, and bring 
 them.” 
 
 I am sure that he thought, this innocent young 
 creature, that Sylvia would be there: which she had 
 not meant to be. His Mamma had nonchalantly al- 
 luded, in his presence, to Miss Auberon’s engagement, 
 and mentioned with a succulent, almost caressing lin- 
 gering over the figures, that Lord Monksbridge had a 
 hundred thousand a year, which was only double his 
 actual income. And he had not minded in the least; 
 the eldest son of an Earl with only a nominal twenty 
 thousand a year, and thirty years of life in him, can’t 
 look to afford luxuries that lie open to only sons of a 
 hundred thousand a year. But he thought Monk un- 
 commonly lucky; he and Eustace de Braose had 
 known him, slightly, at Eton, and Lord Chevronel 
 thought him a decent fellow, but “ sticky.” Miss Au- 
 beron he foresaw, with his cheerful common sense, 
 would be the makings of the Monksbridge family. 
 Meanwhile he liked looking at her, not obtrusively, 
 and talking to or near her. 
 
 Eustace did not feel like that. He could (and, now 
 Miss Auberon was engaged, he thought that he would) 
 have behaved quite differently had he foreseen that his 
 poor little nephew would behave as he had. As a mere 
 attache, with an income chiefly supplied by his mother, 
 and the rest of it due to his elder brother’s correct 
 family feeling, he had perceived, when he first met her, 
 that Miss Auberon was out of the question. She, he 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 138 
 
 [CH. XX 
 
 had known, had taken it for granted : and, with her 
 wonderful, silent tact, had let him understand that he 
 was not to indulge in any foolish idea of admiring 
 her. But now he could please himself. Miss Au- 
 beron, he knew, was quite as fit to reign at Monkspark 
 as his sister-in-law was, as his mother or his aunt 
 had been. He was not mercenary, and he was not in 
 the least a snob: he need not, now, marry an heiress, 
 and he would as lief his wife should be plain Mrs. de 
 Braose as that she should be Lady Gwendoline, or the 
 Honble. Mrs. de Braose. 
 
 And Miss Auberon was to be the next Lady Monks- 
 bridge! He also admitted the suitability of the ar- 
 rangement: she would give Llanthamy Castle all it 
 needed : but then he did not care sixpence for the 
 regeneration of Llanthamy Castle, and felt much more 
 interest in the future mistress of Monkspark. Why 
 hadn’t he, miraculously, foreseen what Fate’s jum- 
 blings and jugglings would bring forth? He hadn’t: 
 and, without any dark and deep desires that Monk’s 
 happiness should be filched away from him, he could 
 feel no pleasure in assisting at his triumph. 
 
 When Lady Gladys had remarked on Miss Au- 
 beron’s wonderful luck, he had felt inclined to express 
 the conviction of several years that she was a fool : 
 but of course he hadn’t. He was a well-bred, civil 
 brother-in-law: he had only observed, quite politely — 
 
 “ Ah ! ladies always think of the lady’s luck : men 
 only think of the man’s. I don’t know that we thought 
 much of Monk at Eton.” 
 
 “ He’s rather capable,” Mr. de Braose had observed 
 with judicial candour, “ and not, I think, much of a 
 Radical. Miss Auberon changera tout g ela.” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 139 
 
 CH. XX] 
 
 “ Eton ! Radicals ! ” Lady Gladys had scoffed. 
 “ What has all that nonsense to do with it ? He will 
 have ninety thousand a year : and he’s as presentable 
 as any man in Rentshire ” 
 
 “Llanthamy is not in Rentshire,” her husband in- 
 terrupted quite angrily. 
 
 “ Or in Llanfairthamyshire,” Lady Gladys con- 
 tinued, unmoved. “ And Sylvia will work them up. 
 She is a genius ” 
 
 “ And quite beautiful,” Eustace murmured un- 
 guardedly. 
 
 “ Yes,” said his sister-in-law, with a glance at her 
 husband as if she were saying grace. “ Quite beau- 
 tiful. She’s the least vain girl I know: but she is: 
 and she knows exactly what it is worth. With her 
 looks, and her air (a parson’s daughter, but undeni- 
 able) and his money, she will be leading us all by the 
 nose presently.” 
 
 “ I don’t see that at all,” said Mr. de Braose, swal- 
 lowing a grape sooner than he had intended. 
 
 “ But she will. She’s a very clever girl. Ambi- 
 tious ” 
 
 “ And I should say her ambition would be satisfied 
 by marrying a man with Monk’s property.” 
 
 “ Not it ! She’s far too clever to think the present 
 position of the Monksbridges anything. She under- 
 stands it all, as if she’d been born a Duchess: depend 
 upon it she thinks she is obliging them by marrying 
 into the family ” 
 
 “ Of course, they are nothing,” Mr. de Braose in- 
 terposed with grim complacency. 
 
 “ And Sylvia knows it as well as you do. Only 
 she will enjoy making them something. Had she mar- 
 
140 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XX 
 
 ried a Duke there’d be nothing for her to do; it would 
 be all ready-made. She would be married and done 
 
 for like any other Duchess ” 
 
 “ Gladys ! ” exclaimed Mr. de Braose, as if he 
 thought his wife’s expressions less than parliamentary, 
 as they often were. “ You run on rather. Miss Au- 
 beron marry a Duke ! ” 
 
 “ As to that, Boody, she would marry just whom 
 she chose. If she made up her mind to it, she’d be 
 Duchess of Tilbury, and Adelberta and Maria should 
 thank her and Providence that she doesn’t care in the 
 least to be their step-mamma.” 
 
 Mr. de Braose almost shuddered ; the mere mention 
 of such things was like talking of the devil, which is 
 always supposed to invite his attentions. Eustace 
 groaned inwardly: here was a girl whom his own 
 sister-in-law thought capable of being a Duchess ! and 
 he had not had the pluck to indulge the admiration she 
 had inspired in him at their very first meeting. 
 
 “ Boody doesn’t understand a bit,” Lady Gladys 
 confided to him afterwards. “ He only thinks of posi- 
 tion and all that. I’m sure we ought all to be very 
 grateful to her. She might have married any of us — 
 I’m sure your mother thinks so.” 
 
 Certainly Lady Gladys had her share of the Van 
 Teuffel inconsequence; but, at that moment, her 
 brother-in-law was not so sure of her being a fool. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Just before tea on that Sunday afternoon Perkin 
 walked in with Hubert Byrne, and I could see at once 
 that Sylvia thought their arrival inopportune. So, I 
 think, did the young men, at all events two of them. 
 Boys of that sort of age are apt to bore young men 
 who have come to see the sister of one of the boys. 
 
 Even Mamma felt it awkward: she was very fond 
 of Perkin, and she liked Hubert; she would probably 
 have enjoyed their company quite as well as that of 
 Lord Chevronel and Mr. de Braose had she and I 
 been alone; as it was she did not know what to do 
 with them. Mr. Monk greeted Perkin with the cor- 
 diality due to a hypothetic brother-in-law, and tried 
 to look as if nothing of the kind was in his mind. 
 Lord Chevronel looked as if he would like to be giv- 
 ing Sylvia’s brother a handsome tip on his departure 
 for a distant seat of learning. Sylvia herself was 
 almost regretting that her choice had fallen on a school 
 so near home. 
 
 As soon as decency permitted I (a good-natured 
 person, though of no consequence) threw myself into 
 the breach. 
 
 “ Perkin,” I said in a loud aside, “ I want to talk 
 secrets. Come out into the garden.” 
 
 Though I cannot defend the practice in general, I 
 winked, and Perkin said — 
 
 “ All right. Come along, Hubs.” 
 
 And we “ saved ourselves ” (as I had recently gath- 
 
142 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXI 
 
 ered from Mademoiselle was the French, and signifi- 
 cant, expression). We did it by a window, and Mr. 
 de Braose took advantage of it and followed us. 
 
 “ I don’t believe in the secrets,” he explained apolo- 
 getically. 
 
 “ No. There aren’t any,” I confessed ingenuously. 
 “ But we three were in the way, and I determined on 
 flight. I would have brought Mamma too, if I could.” 
 
 Eustace was in that depressed frame of mind that 
 leads people to be unusually complacent to the un- 
 important members of a family; it was my striking 
 inferiority to Sylvia that drew him my way — and Per- 
 kin’s. She was our sister, and we had nothing in 
 common with her serene and prosperous superi- 
 ority. 
 
 He was rather nice to Perkin, and disposed to treat 
 me as a poultice — homely but soothing. I was flat- 
 tered. 
 
 “ I remember so well,” he observed, when we were 
 a little way from the house, and the two boys had 
 disappeared somewhere, “ the day you came to see my 
 mother.” 
 
 We were walking by the river in full view of Island 
 Court, so that his remark was not unnatural. 
 
 “ Oh yes. So do I,” said I, in my matter-of-fact 
 way — remembering perfectly that he had not had two 
 words to throw to me. 
 
 Perhaps he also recalled the circumstance, for he 
 had slightly glanced at me and was able to note that 
 the bud of my inferiority to Sylvia had burst into full 
 and legitimate bloom. I think it cheered him. If I 
 had been a proper twin, hardly distinguishable apart 
 from my wonderful sister, I shouldn’t have been of the 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 143 
 
 CH. XXl] 
 
 slightest use as a poultice. I should have been equally 
 beautiful, which would have distracted his attention, 
 and equally clever, and then he could not have solilo- 
 quized. 
 
 “ It seems,” he said, “ a long while ago.” 
 
 “ Nineteen months. A year and seven months,” 
 I suggested with all my striking originality. 
 
 The most conscientious historian need not detail 
 every conversation, and ours was conducted through- 
 out on these lines. He sighed a little, and was dis- 
 posed to reminiscence; I did not sigh, but verified 
 dates and advanced no ambitious claims to individual 
 existence apart from my brilliant sister. I think he 
 found my stupidity restful. 
 
 “ Is that handsome boy’s surname Hubbs ? ” he 
 asked, with languid interest, as Perkin and his friend 
 reappeared on the horizon. 
 
 “Oh no! Hubert Byrne is his name. Perkin has 
 nicknames for everybody. Mamma is Mugs, and I’m 
 Maggies; and Sylvia is Bubs — short for Syllabubs.” 
 
 My companion shuddered slightly; not that he re- 
 sented my being called Maggies, or even that our 
 mother was “ Mugs ” in my brother’s homely nomen- 
 clature. 
 
 “ Hubert is the son of Dr. Byrne over in Llan- 
 thamy,” I added, with my native love of imparting 
 useless information. 
 
 “ Ah ! ” said Eustace with gloomy satisfaction, “ the 
 Catholic doctor ! And the Monksbridges loathe 
 Catholics.” 
 
 “ I don’t think you’re quite right there ” said I, 
 asserting myself (since Perkin’s friend was concerned, 
 and Perkin’s friends were almost a part of him), 
 
144 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxi 
 
 “ Dr. Byrne is their doctor — at least he doctors their 
 servants.” 
 
 Eustace laughed a little, and I preferred him in his 
 sighing humour. But when Perkin and Hubert came 
 up he was quite nice to both of them. 
 
 “ I think,” I observed, snatching at a yawn with my 
 pocket-handkerchief, and no more catching it there 
 than if it had been a wasp, “ it is time to go in. Tea 
 will be ready. Come along, all of us.” 
 
 “ Thank you, Miss Auberon,” said Hubert, “ I must 
 say good afternoon ” 
 
 “ Oh, you must come in to tea,” I urged, with flaccid 
 hospitality, thinking of Sylvia and Mr. Monk, and 
 Lord Chevronel. 
 
 “ No,” Perkin put in, brusquely, “ he’s not coming 
 to tea to-day. I’m going to tea with him.” 
 
 Dear Perkin! How well I understood the superi- 
 ority of his hospitality to mine! No friend of his 
 should ever feel at our table that any one in our home 
 wished him away. 
 
 “ But,” I urged weakly, “ you must be at church, 
 Perkin.” 
 
 On Sunday evenings all the Cardinal’s boys had 
 to be in their place in the choir. 
 
 “ That’ll be all right. Church is not till half-past 
 six; and it’s not five yet.” 
 
 “ I’ll shoot him off in time,” said Hubert, with the 
 entrancing smile that showed all his good-natured 
 teeth. 
 
 “ They’re nice boys,” said Mr. de Braose as the two 
 lads went off. And I was pleased with him for say- 
 ing so. 
 
 “ Perkin and I have always been chums,” I ex- 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 145 
 
 CH. XXl] 
 
 plained, with a burst of my native tact. He looked 
 at me and evidently understood that I could be no 
 fit “chum” for Sylvia; it was natural that our 
 obvious inferiority should throw Perkin and me to- 
 gether. 
 
 “ Yes,” he said, “ I can see that.” 
 
 And I fancy he pitied Sylvia that her family pro- 
 vided no one she could regard as a confidante worthy 
 of her. 
 
 He made it so plain that I was rather nettled on 
 Perkin’s account. 
 
 “ My brother,” I observed warmly, “ is the only 
 one of us who inherits papa’s cleverness. They think 
 — the Warden and all of them — that he will be very 
 distinguished.” 
 
 But Mr. de Braose was not really thinking much of 
 Perkin. 
 
 “ Ah ! ” he said politely. Then, after a pause that 
 nearly brought us to the verandah, “ I wonder if I 
 ought to congratulate you? Perhaps you will think I 
 hardly know you well enough. And I dare say you 
 do not feel that the prospect of losing your sister is 
 much of a matter for congratulation.” 
 
 I was glad we were so near the window. “ Oh, 
 but,” I said hurriedly, “ if she likes it ! ” And I dived 
 into the drawing-room with the sound of a sigh over 
 my shoulder. 
 
 “ Perkin,” I announced, “ has gone away to tea with 
 Hubert ” 
 
 “ Hubert ? ” queried Sylvia, as if she hardly re- 
 called the name, or thought my use of it needlessly 
 intimate. 
 
146 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxi 
 
 “ Yes, Hubert Byrne. And he has promised to fire 
 Perkin of? in good time for church.” 
 
 “ But not to go himself,” Lord Chevronel noted with 
 his neat little smile. 
 
 “ The Byrnes,” Eustace explained, “ are Roman 
 Catholics.” 
 
 “ But such a nice boy,” dear Mamma pleaded in 
 mitigation of sentence. “You’d never think he was; 
 though certainly he crosses himself. But that, of 
 course, is merely habit.” 
 
 Sylvia looked as if she thought it a habit one should 
 break oneself of. And, to change the subject, perhaps, 
 said — 
 
 “ We must go to church, too. But not for a long 
 time yet.” 
 
 When the time came Mr. Monk decided that he also 
 must go to church — and so did Lord Chevronel; I 
 wished Mr. de Braose would decide that he had to 
 return to Monkspark, as I thought I had poulticed him 
 enough. But he could not leave his guests, and so all 
 six of us went to church. Sylvia was not sorry that 
 the two young men from Monkspark were added to 
 our party, for it made Mr, Monk’s presence with us 
 less striking. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 The evening service was held in the huge choir of the 
 Priory Church, which was almost cut off from the nave 
 by a high screen on the top of which was the organ. 
 There was a pulpit in the choir as well as the bigger 
 one down in the nave, and the screen of carved oak, 
 nearly black, matched the stalls that ran round three 
 sides of the chancel. Six of these stalls, facing the 
 altar, formed part of the screen itself. Next the door, 
 on the left as you entered, sat the Vicar in what had 
 been the Prior’s place, next him was Mrs. Hawthorn, 
 and, beyond her, their daughter. To the right of the 
 entrance sat the Warden, Mrs. FitzSimon, and the 
 curate. 
 
 We sat in similar stalls on the same level, and near 
 us were the Baroness, the Stephen Rumbles, and Mr. 
 Bloom : all the other upper stalls, on that side and 
 opposite, were occupied by other Monksbridgers of 
 credit and renown. 
 
 The Masters of Abbot’s School and the Cardinal’s 
 or gown-boys sat under us in lower stalls, and below 
 them the rest of the schoolboys, and the men singers 
 of the choir. 
 
 In the open space between the two high rows of 
 seats was a tomb, enclosed under a canopy with arched 
 sides filled with strong but beautiful wrought-iron work, 
 through which one could see the recumbent figure 
 within. It was that of Cardinal de Belesme, who, as 
 Abbot of Monksbridge, had founded the neighbouring 
 
 147 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 148 
 
 [CH. XXII 
 
 school; and it represented him as if lying in state in 
 his red robes and hat. 
 
 It was the twentieth day of the month (as the Vicar 
 announced, at the beginning of the psalms, in that 
 odd voice which I was always glad he reserved for 
 sacred occasions), and presently they were singing that 
 lovely poem of David’s all about the wild creatures 
 God has made. 
 
 The singing at the Priory Church was quite beauti- 
 ful, and, from the first moment I heard it, I always 
 began to have that queer feeling about my chest as 
 if I had been coming down in a swing. You heard it 
 before the choir appeared at all, for they sang some- 
 thing in the vestry, away in the south transept, and the 
 sound seemed unearthly as it came through that open 
 door far off. Then it sank into silence and you only 
 heard the measured cadence of their footfalls as the 
 procession passed out into the transept, across it, along 
 the chancel-aisle, and so into the chancel. The town- 
 boys came first, then the red scholars, then the men, 
 and the clergy after them, with the Vicar last of all : 
 in front of him walked his verger, in a dark blue vel- 
 vet gown, carrying the Lily Verge — a rod of antique 
 silver tipped with the Virgin’s flower, which in old 
 days had been borne before the Prior. 
 
 Perkin’s place was on the opposite side from where 
 we sat, a little nearer the altar, and I could see him 
 very well. I loved to look at him in church. His 
 merry, kindly face was as kind as ever, but sobered 
 a little, and a different light from that of mere good 
 nature beautified it. His eyes held a wonderful quiet- 
 ness and simplicity; and his reverence, in so light- 
 hearted a boy, seemed to me, somehow, touching. He 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 149 
 
 CH. XXIl] 
 
 was so absolutely himself, and yet another self of his 
 was half revealed there, as if the Perkin of our home- 
 life, of our chaffing, and little friendly skirmishes, 
 were not all of him. He had no conventional tricks 
 or gestures of piety: he moved and sat still as natu- 
 rally as at home, but his face had a different meaning 
 as though it were a clear screen that reverently hid 
 something poignant and great. Some of the lads, 
 very few, were careless and not reverent; most had 
 a decent solemnity and restraint; none were like 
 Perkin. 
 
 I loved to look at him, and yet I felt half ashamed 
 to watch him — even if he were not to catch me: it 
 seemed mean, as if one were eavesdropping — over- 
 hearing something intended for other ears. Perkin 
 was rather tall now, and very manly ; it was what you 
 noticed more than his good looks; still he was not 
 young-mannish; just a handsome, strong boy, full of 
 vigour and life. It is odd that, pausing to think of 
 him there, on that Sunday evening, it is the memory of 
 his laugh, though he certainly was not laughing then, 
 that seems to echo most clearly from those far-away 
 days — the exquisite laugh that belonged to out-of- 
 doors and home. No nasty boy could laugh as he did. 
 It came up from his clean, merry heart. . . . Eh, 
 dear! I’m an old woman now, and grown garrulous. 
 I must get back to my story — such as it is. Well, 
 they began that perfect psalm; and I felt as I always 
 felt when I heard it — a strange wistful delight, as if 
 a cold pulse were hitting against my ribs. Of course I 
 listened for Perkin’s voice, and tried to separate it 
 from the rest; but the boys sang too well for that — 
 it was only in an anthem, when there were solos, that 
 
150 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxii 
 
 any single voice stood out from the others. I never 
 could understand why it was so beautiful; much more 
 beautiful than any famous music I heard afterwards 
 in operas or oratorios in London. That later music 
 often astonished my mind, but never gripped my heart ; 
 it appealed to a sense of art that I haven’t got, but 
 made no cry to myself ; besides, I was a girl in those 
 first days at Monksbridge and knew very little — only 
 home and Peterkin. 
 
 After the psalm, during the lesson, he sat at first 
 sideways in his stall, facing towards us; but, after a 
 little smile at me, I saw his eyes fall on the Cardi- 
 nal’s tomb, and they had a grave musing in them. Mr. 
 Monk was looking at Sylvia (also sideways). Pres- 
 ently Perkin shifted himself in his seat, and he was 
 looking towards the huge white stone screen behind 
 the altar. In the middle was a carved figure of Christ 
 upon His cross, with arms outstretched, flat and 
 straight. A pious soldier of Cromwell’s had broken 
 His legs, as that other pious soldier had once thought 
 to do and had forborne. The whole figure was bat- 
 tered. Ever so many figures filled niches in the screen, 
 and the lower ones had been defaced, but hurriedly; 
 those high up were intact, and among them was one 
 of the English Pope, Adrian IV., one of St. Thomas 
 of Canterbury, one of the Cardinal who helped the 
 Barons at Runnymede, and one of St. Edward the 
 Confessor, with a weeny Westminster Abbey in his 
 hand. I could just see Perkin’s face; and it had the 
 same doubtful, wondering expression on it that I had 
 noticed there while he sat looking at the tomb of Car- 
 dinal de Belesme. 
 
 When the anthem came he was quite different. It 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXIl] 
 
 151 
 
 was an odd one, taken from Ezekiel, and a fat young 
 man, with a high coppery voice, began with a recitative 
 in which he sang how God carried the prophet into the 
 Valley of Dry Bones. “ And, lo,” he ended, “ they 
 were very dry.” 
 
 Then another man, in a voice lower and plainer, 
 sang, with a fine quietness and singular expression 
 of doubt, “ Son of man, can these dry bones live ? ” 
 
 It was Perkin’s voice that replied, “ O Lord God, 
 Thou knowest ! ” 
 
 I never felt till then, fully, how exquisite my brother’s 
 alto was. 
 
 It had no horrible tremolo in it, but it seemed to 
 hit my heart and shake it. Lord Chevronel looked 
 across with a quick air of surprise, and I could see that 
 in a moment he no longer was able to think of Sylvia’s 
 brother as a superfluous schoolboy. Mr. Monk was also 
 listening with all his eyes. Only Sylvia was unmoved 
 by any higher emotion than a ladylike gratification. 
 
 “ O Lord God, Thou knowest.” And high, high up 
 among the arches, and in the shadowy roof, echoed that 
 patient, poignant cry. 
 
 There was barely a pause before the recitative took 
 up the word, but somehow it seemed intense, a suspense 
 that mere brevity of duration could not deprive of its 
 acuteness. 
 
 “ Again He said to me,” came the recitative, 
 “ Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O 
 ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith 
 the Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will cause 
 breath to enter into you, and ye shall live. And I will 
 lay sinews upon you, and I will bring up flesh upon 
 you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 152 
 
 [CH. XXII 
 
 and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the 
 Lord.” 
 
 And now again my brother’s voice arose, clear, like 
 a silver bell or trumpet — 
 
 “ So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I 
 prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, 
 and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And 
 when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up 
 upon them, and the skin covered them above.” All 
 this was upon but one or two high notes, sustained 
 without the least shake or tremble; then with almost 
 a sudden drop, like a gasp, came the last words — “ But 
 there was no breath in them.” 
 
 Another incalculably brief but intense pause, and 
 it was Perkin still who sang on — 
 
 “ Then said He to me, Prophesy unto the wind, son 
 of man, and say to the wind, thus said the Lord God : 
 Come from the Four Winds , O breath, and breathe 
 upon these slain that they may live.” 
 
 In that last phrase the boy’s voice was given, by the 
 music, a larger play, and it rose and swayed and fell, 
 and rose again, like a cool breath of summer gale on 
 a burning day. When he ceased, many other voices 
 took up what he had sung, and repeated it : “ Come 
 from the Four Winds, O breath, and breathe upon these 
 slain that they may live.” And Perkin’s part in that 
 night’s anthem was finished. It was the first man, 
 with the coppery voice, hard and cold and clear, who 
 went on : “ And the breath came into them, and they 
 lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great 
 army.” And this the whole choir repeated. 
 
 Outside the Priory door, when church was over, 
 Mr. Monk said to Sylvia — 
 
ch. xxii] MONKSBRIDGE 153 
 
 “ You never told us of your brother’s singing — he is 
 wonderful.” 
 
 This was one of the special occasions when I really 
 liked Mr. Monk. We were destined to be brother and 
 sister-in-law, and there was a sort of aloof intimacy 
 between us in time, but we were seldom very sympa- 
 thetic. He never could regard me as belonging to the 
 same class with Sylvia, and, as I was her sister, he felt 
 it must be my fault. He was more really ambitious 
 than she was, and it slightly annoyed him that I never 
 did anything for our family. For my part I liked his 
 parents better than I liked him, and could never see 
 why my sister’s husband should interfere with me — or 
 Perkin. But I liked him now, when he said that to 
 Sylvia. 
 
 “ He was in better voice to-night than I ever heard 
 him,” she answered, with cool satisfaction. “ It is the 
 first time I have heard him take a solo.” 
 
 In better voice! I shot a quick glance at her under 
 the flickering lamp; Lord Chevronel intercepted it. 
 Strange to say, he understood, and I could see that he 
 felt as I did; it was no question of being in better voice. 
 For some reason, though what it was I did not know 
 then, my brother had been strongly moved by what he 
 had had to sing. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 I did not know then, but I knew soon, for the very 
 next day I saw Perkin alone and began to talk of the 
 anthem. He seemed shy about it, as if he would 
 rather not have talked about it. But I (ever tactful) 
 persisted; and he answered me quite simply. 
 
 “ Well,” he said, “ I was in a bad humour when I 
 went to church. I don’t care for all our grand friends 
 much; and, when Hubs and I came into the drawing- 
 room, Sylvia made it very plain she didn’t care for my 
 friend, who isn’t grand at all. Of course I wouldn’t 
 bring him in to tea to be tolerated or ignored; but I 
 had brought him to tea, and he knew it very well. So 
 when we went off to his house I felt mean and savage. 
 Don’t you think he’s quite as good a gentleman as Mr. 
 Monk, or Lord Chevronel, or Eustace de Braose ? ” 
 
 “ Of course, Perkin.” 
 
 “ So do I. And so he is. But Sylvia would have 
 been lofty and ‘gracious’: I couldn’t stand that; so 
 off we went. Then I had to go to church: and of 
 
 course he couldn’t come ” 
 
 “But, Perkin, that’s his fault, if anybody’s; Sylvia 
 wouldn’t mind his coming to church with you — only he 
 won’t because he’s a Roman Catholic.” 
 
 “ I know that. I wasn’t thinking any more of 
 Sylvia. It has nothing to do with her. But it seemed 
 such a shame — the whole thing. Here am I receiving 
 the education Cardinal de Belesme left the money to 
 pay for — and Hubert, who belongs to his church, not 
 
 154 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 155 
 
 CH. XXIIl] 
 
 eligible to receive it, because he does belong to the 
 Cardinal’s church. I’ve taken the Cardinal’s Prize, and 
 Hubert could have gained it, twice as well as I could — 
 only he’s a Catholic, like the Founder, so he may not. 
 I am in for the college scholarship — and I shall win it — 
 but Hubert could win it better than I can; only he 
 must not, because he belongs to the same religion as 
 the Cardinal who founded it. The subjects the Founder 
 laid down for the candidates to pass in were these: 
 there were to be four theses — on the Doctrine of Trans- 
 substantiation; on the Immaculate Conception of God’s 
 Mother; on the Primacy of Peter; on Purgatory. Of 
 course that is all changed. Since the Reformation the 
 candidates have to pass in Classics, Mathematics, 
 History, and Astronomy; even in those Hubert could 
 do better than I can : because he could really pass in 
 the subjects laid down by the Founder, and believes 
 about them what the Founder believed, he is not 
 eligible! I thought of it all, as I walked back to 
 college, and while we were putting on our surplices in 
 the vestry. I was thinking of it still during the first 
 lesson, and at last I couldn’t stand looking at the 
 Cardinal’s tomb, and thinking of it: there he lies, I 
 mean his alabaster portrait, just as if he were lying in 
 state, a dead Cardinal, in Cardinal’s dress; the man 
 who founded our school and meant it to be for those 
 who belong to the religion that has Cardinals — and 
 none of them may get any benefit from it. We can, 
 because we belong to a different religion that won’t 
 hear of the things he believed and wanted to have 
 taught for ever. His teachers were to be priests, and 
 to say Masses for ever for his soul, and the souls of all 
 the abbots and monks of Marybridge — and no one who 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 156 
 
 [CH. XXIII 
 
 would or could say Masses for the dead may teach in 
 his school. No one who believes what the abbot 
 believed who founded the Priory Church may preach 
 in it, or sing in it, or baptize in it, or give Holy Com- 
 munion in it. So I couldn’t stand thinking of it all, 
 and looking at the Cardinal’s tomb. It seemed such a 
 theft, and such a cheat — and I am receiving the stolen 
 goods. So I turned my back to the Cardinal and 
 looked at the altar, and there was the same thing to 
 be seen. Adrian IV., who was a monk and an abbot, a 
 Cardinal, and then a Pope: he also taught just what 
 Cardinal de Belesme taught. And St. Thomas of 
 Canterbury: and St. Augustine (whom a Pope sent 
 here) : and all of them — regular Roman Catholics, like 
 Hubert. And there was the big, battered Crucifix : the 
 stone portrait of Jesus Christ — the Roman Catholics 
 don’t smash His statues to show their reverence for 
 Him. The whole Priory is a Roman Catholic building, 
 built for Mass and for singing the Office the Roman 
 Catholics sing still — but they mustn’t use it, because 
 they would use it for the things it was meant for : and 
 it is ours because we don’t believe in those things.” 
 
 “ But, Perkin, when it came to the anthem you 
 weren’t in a bad humour ? ” 
 
 “ You can’t think of two things at once — not exactly. 
 And I had to think of what I had to sing. But it joined 
 on. It seemed to me that all the old Cathedrals, and 
 Abbeys, and priories, and parish churches, up and down 
 England, were the Valley of Dry Bones. They had 
 been alive once. And our friends came along and killed 
 them, and made dry bones of them. Could anything 
 make them come to life again? Can anything?” 
 And, as he said this, I heard the echo of his voice, 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXIIl] 
 
 157 
 
 high up among the arches; that patient, poignant cry 
 “ O Lord God, Thou knowest.” 
 
 I really could not say anything: because I hardly 
 knew what he meant, and had an uneasy feeling that it 
 was something none of us would like. Nor did he say 
 anything more for a little while, but walked quickly up 
 and down the room with his hands in his pockets, his 
 red gown flung off and thrown across a chair. 
 
 Presently he went on. “ You see, the dry bones did 
 come to life before. Nobody knows exactly when or 
 how Christianity came here : perhaps it was brought 
 from Rome, from the very house where St. Paul lodged 
 with the Senator Pudens and his wife Claudia, while he 
 and St. Peter were still alive, or soon after St. Paul 
 writes about Pudens and Claudia to St. Timothy; and 
 the Christian tradition makes Claudia, the wife of 
 Cornelius Pudens, the daughter of a British prince or 
 king. And the heathen poet Martial in one place men- 
 tions that the noble Roman Pudens married Claudia, 
 a foreign lady : in another place he says she was a 
 Briton. Tacitus, a heathen like Martial, tells of a Brit- 
 ish King, called Cogidunus, in the Emperor Claudius’ 
 reign, who was rewarded for faithfulness to Rome by 
 the grant of certain lands, and it is known now that 
 King Cogidunus added the Emperor’s names to his 
 own, and called himself on his coins Tiberius Claudius 
 Cogidunus. His daughter would be called Claudia, in 
 Roman fashion : and I believe that the Claudia whom 
 the Christians said was daughter of a British King was 
 daughter of Cogidunus: we know she was wife of 
 Pudens and a Christian, well known to St. Paul, and 
 she must have been well known to St. Peter too, for it 
 was in her house that he said Mass, using the altar part 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 158 
 
 [CH. XXIII 
 
 of which is still there, in the oratory that formed part 
 of the house of Pudens. The authority King Cogidunus 
 had from Claudius continued in his family, and his 
 descendant King Lucius was, it seems, a Christian ; as 
 if Claudia had brought or sent the faith to her family. 
 If Lucius was not a baptized Christian, he was a 
 Christian in sympathy, for he sent a letter to Pope 
 Eleutherius in the year 156 by the hands of two men, 
 whom some call Fagan and Dervan, praying to be made 
 Christian by an act of his authority. And the Pope 
 ordained the King’s messengers, and sent them back 
 to preach to the Britons, and establish the Church here 
 as it was in the other countries: and they did it, so 
 that in Pope Sylvester’s time, British Bishops of York, 
 London and Lincoln took part in his Council of Arles. 
 So you see, Mags, that the old dry bones of the heathen 
 temples here were given life, and the life came from 
 Rome.” 
 
 I rubbed my nose to express a suspension of judg- 
 ment, and Perkin dashed on. 
 
 “ And the British Church flourished, like the other 
 churches abroad; and was evidently just like them, 
 joining in their Councils and all that: only the Church 
 here was left more in peace, because the heathen 
 emperors were farther off, and their power was shaky 
 here. But persecution came all right under Diocletian ; 
 and then came the Saxons, and Angles, and the rest of 
 them; and the Britons and their Christianity were driven 
 west into the hills, into Wales and into Cornwall, and 
 England began — and was heathen, and there were dry 
 bones again, scorched bones, all that the heathen left 
 of the British churches. But they were to live again : the 
 Benedictine monk. Pope Gregory, sent the Benedictine 
 
ch. xxiii] MONKSBRIDGE 159 
 
 monk St. Augustine, and Christianity, that came from 
 Rome to the Britons, came again from Rome to the 
 English. For a thousand years the Catholic Church 
 went on, building all our cathedrals, our old parish 
 churches, and abbeys and priories — like ours here. 
 That’s why in the altar-screen there is the statue of St. 
 Eleutherius, and the statue of St. Gregory the Great, 
 and St. Augustine’s, and all the rest of them. It was 
 thinking of all this that first made me mad to think 
 Hubert’s religion can have no share in the Cardinal’s 
 school, or in the priory the Benedictine monks built, 
 and the Cardinal rebuilt ... and ” — he paused a mo- 
 ment, and ended more hurriedly — “ and I was think- 
 ing of all this when I had to sing ‘ O Lord God, Thou 
 knowest ’ — whether these dry bones can live again. 
 They’re dry enough, anyway.” 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Of course all this talk of Perkin’s gave me something 
 to think of; though I do not believe I even suspected 
 then what it was to lead to, or that it would lead to 
 anything in particular. He always said out, to me, 
 any special thing he had in his mind, and in general 
 nothing came of it. Sometimes he talked like a 
 violent radical, and then he would rave against the 
 rebels who had cut off Charles I.’s head, or the revolu- 
 tionists who killed Louis XVI. and his queen, and 
 multitudes of others, all in the name of liberty and 
 brotherhood. Whatever it was he was eager, burning, 
 and unrestrained. He had a perfect passion for justice, 
 and everything he thought unjust made him furious. 
 But, though I supposed this new vehemence would 
 be like all his other vehemence, still I could not help 
 wondering, rather grimly, what the Warden would 
 think if he knew what Perkin’s “ historical bias ” (to 
 borrow a metaphor of the bowling green) had led him 
 to. Perkin was quite capable of telling him. I could 
 only hope he wouldn’t — and picture the Doctor’s face, 
 and Mr. Hawthorn’s, if my brother should scold them 
 for keeping Roman Catholics out of the Cardinal’s 
 school in the Benedictines’ priory. I had, however, 
 other things to think of; anything really concerning 
 Perkin interested me more than matters that concerned 
 any one else; but these ideas of his would probably 
 have no important consequences, whereas Sylvia’s con- 
 cerns were of family importance. 
 
 160 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 161 
 
 CH. XXIV] 
 
 “ My dear,” said Miss Belvoir, when I met her, a 
 few days after that Sunday evening (which in my own 
 mind I always call the Dry Bones Sunday) in her Bath- 
 chair, “ I wish you would come to tea to-day; it’s not 
 a party, there’ll be no one else. But this change of 
 the season always tries me, and I’m not quite so well. 
 Do come and cheer me.” 
 
 She invited me with such guileless cordiality that I 
 said at once I would go. And, about four o’clock, 
 I walked off to English Gate. She greeted me with 
 special warmth, and there was a fire, which made her 
 grim and gaunt drawing-room look a warmer welcome 
 too. For my part I thought that room slightly too 
 medieval for mere comfort. 
 
 “ I was so afraid,” said Miss Belvoir, settling me 
 into the best chair, “ that Mrs. Auberon would not be 
 able to spare you.” 
 
 “Oh, Mamma and Sylvia are at Llanthamy; Mr. 
 Monk fetched them before luncheon, and they won’t be 
 back till dressing-time.” 
 
 “ Ah ! at Llanthamy Castle ! ” said Miss Belvoir, 
 pretending to poke the fire. “ My dear, are we to 
 congratulate you ? From what I hear I think I may 
 congratulate you.” 
 
 “ On what ? ” I asked with guilty innocence. 
 
 Then Miss Belvoir put down the poker and turned 
 round — that she might see my face, though of course it 
 enabled me to see hers. And I felt sure I knew why 
 she had invited me so pressingly to tea, and why she 
 had asked no one else. When I said “ On what? ” she 
 glanced at me with a reproachful air, and looked 
 particularly like a male Belvoir; her frigidity was quite 
 gentlemanly. 
 
162 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXIV 
 
 “ I see,” she observed, as if she were seated on the 
 jutting promontory of an iceberg, and looking down on 
 me, tittupping up and down in a cock-boat without 
 any oars, “ that I was — er — precipitate.” And she gave 
 a chemical sort of sound to her words. “ We were, 
 evidently, misinformed — Miss Auberon is not engaged 
 to Mr. Monk.” 
 
 I am sorry to be driven to so many metaphors, but 
 the effect of her last sentence I felt to be thumb- 
 screwy. 
 
 “ But,” I said feebly, “ who told you she was engaged 
 to him? ” 
 
 “No, my dear! The report being without founda- 
 tion, it is useless to trace it to its source. I shall 
 contradict it.” 
 
 When I saw how great her firmness and decision 
 were I wondered how the Belvoir estates could belong 
 to any one else, with so determined a male Belvoir 
 extant to support her claim. 
 
 “ I shall contradict it,” she added inexorably. “ I 
 need not mention on what authority; but I shall 
 contradict it.” 
 
 She evidently meant my authority, and I succumbed 
 to the thumbscrew. 
 
 “ But, Miss Belvoir, I don’t see why you should 
 
 contradict it ” I was beginning, when she tripped 
 
 me up. 
 
 “ Because I may have helped to spread the false 
 report — it was told me as a certain thing; and after 
 seeing him with your sister in church on Sunday evening 
 I may have given currency to the confounded rumour.” 
 
 “Oh!” I cried, with timorous pleasantry, “at 
 church! There were three gentlemen at church with 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXIV] 
 
 163 
 
 us; they couldn’t all be supposed to have come because 
 they were engaged to Sylvia.” 
 
 “ No,” said Miss Belvoir, with unsmiling dignity; 
 “ but there were three ladies also.” 
 
 Then I laughed. “ And I suppose Lord Chevronel 
 is going to marry Mamma, and I am going to marry 
 Eustace de Braose ! ” I suggested, aiming at a reductio 
 ad absurdum. 
 
 Miss Belvoir smiled tightly, and shook her head, 
 but not as if disclaiming the absurdity of the notion. I 
 became quite desperate. 
 
 “ The truth is,” I blurted out, “ I really can’t tell 
 you if Sylvia is engaged or not.” 
 
 Then Miss Belvoir relaxed a little. “ You mean,” 
 she said, less austerely, “ that you are not at liberty to 
 tell — pray forgive my — my interest in your fam- 
 ily ” 
 
 “ I mean that I don’t know.” 
 
 Miss Belvoir almost stared, but relaxed a little more. 
 
 “ Yes. No; I don’t know. All the same I wouldn’t 
 contradict it, if I were you,” I mumbled. 
 
 “ You wouldn’t? ” 
 
 And now Miss Belvoir relaxed a good deal, and 
 moved her chair a trifle nearer, with a glance at the 
 window as if she were merely edging out of a draught. 
 
 “ No,” I said, making a clean breast of it. “ I don’t 
 see any use in contradicting it. For though nothing 
 was settled when last my sister spoke of it, I believe it 
 will be settled. Perhaps it would be best to say nothing 
 either way, since I may be wrong.” 
 
 “ My dear, I will hold my tongue.” And I saw she 
 would; while resenting being kept in the dark herself 
 she had no objection to Monksbridge at large remaining 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 164 
 
 [CH. XXIV 
 
 without authentic information. “It is a great mar- 
 riage,” she went on thoughtfully, with a pensive inter- 
 est. “ But not at all above what your sister is entitled 
 to. With her beauty (of course you resemble her, my 
 dear, but her beauty is quite special) ” 
 
 “ We’re not in the least alike ! ” I protested. 
 
 “ Oh, there’s a family resemblance. But Miss 
 Auberon’s beauty is of a rare quality — quite. And 
 with her great distinction and talents, and her con- 
 sciousness of her claims, and the company she sees — 
 for you mix in very high company since you came into 
 our neighbourhood ” (and here Miss Belvoir’s relaxa- 
 tion was slightly curbed), “ I understand she is going 
 to stay at the Duke’s, and also at Lord Closeborough’s, 
 where she is pretty sure to meet the Marquess — Lord 
 Severn is constantly there, and very likely the Duke of 
 Menevia, and Lord Wrekin; probably, if she were not 
 already engaged, some even more brilliant alliance 
 might offer.” 
 
 I winced and felt myself reddening while she talked 
 of our fine company “ since we came into her neigh- 
 bourhood.” I could picture Perkin’s angry annoyance 
 if he had heard her. But she relaxed again and seemed 
 half pleased as she said, “ Mind : it is a great mar- 
 riage — but I think Mr. Monk is a wise man, and lucky. 
 He will have the loveliest wife in the two counties — in 
 the Principality I should say: and the next Lady 
 Monksbridge will be all that his family needs — dis- 
 tinguished, and a great Social Leader. Poor dear 
 Lady Monksbridge — that now is — no one could call 
 her distinguished, or a social anybody.” 
 
 Then tea was brought in, and we had it there in the 
 drawing-room, instead of having to go off to the guard- 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXIV] 
 
 165 
 
 room — where, perhaps, there was not another fire. 
 And over our muffin we waxed quite tender. 
 
 “ They’re the first of the season,” said Miss Belvoir, 
 “ I never begin them before fires. Yes, it’s a great 
 marriage; and every marriage among one’s own little 
 circle is — well, it stirs up one’s — not exactly memories, 
 for I never actually was married.” And she sighed as 
 she glanced covertly at the left corner of the chimney- 
 piece. The kettle-holder, embroidered in beads, the 
 Belvoir arms on a “ filoselle ” ground, hung there; and 
 over it a miniature in a flat, black frame. I knew it 
 represented a gentleman, with peepy eyes, like 
 Henry VIII. ’s, and a pink cheek and a half, and a 
 blue-grey chin, and hair that expressed a surmise less 
 wild than that of Cortes, though I should say the 
 gentleman was also stout. 
 
 “ We all grow old in time,” said Miss Belvoir, a 
 little shiny about the mouth (but that was muffin) and 
 perhaps about the eyes (and that wasn’t). 
 
 “ Oh yes, indeed,” I murmured, with so elderly an 
 air of acquiescence that it didn’t strike Miss Belvoir as 
 a fault in tact. 
 
 “ But I was giddy once,” she went on, absent- 
 mindedly, salting her muffin, out of a little silver acorn. 
 And it made me giddy to hear her say so. 
 
 “ Are you sure ? ” I was going to protest, but saved 
 myself, and sighed into my cup instead — with another 
 glance at Henry VIII. — or Cortes, so to speak. 
 
 “ Yes,” said Miss Belvoir, “ that is he.” I had 
 guessed as much, but didn’t say so. 
 
 “Was it like him?” I enquired, now openly re- 
 garding the portrait. 
 
 “ It never did justice to his commanding expression.” 
 
i66 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXIV 
 
 (That I could believe.) “ He might have been almost 
 anything ” — (that also seemed possible) — “ a leader of 
 men” (that, the miniaturist had, I thought, failed to 
 convey). 
 
 I merely sighed, because Miss Belvoir sighed, while 
 she put a little cream and a good deal of milk into my 
 second cup. 
 
 “ Yes, I see it now,” she confessed. “ I might have 
 seen it then. But I was young.” 
 
 She glanced at me, and I nodded entire assent — she 
 must have been young once. 
 
 . . and admired ” 
 
 Her glance was not removed, and I nodded more 
 forcibly. 
 
 “ . . . and giddy.” 
 
 I nodded again, but entirely on trust. 
 
 “ Yes, my dear. And young, admired, giddy as 
 I was, I hardly realized his latent powers. He had, of 
 course, a slight limp ” 
 
 (Why “ of course ”?) But I only nodded once more. 
 
 “ I thought it a disfigurement : Sir Walter Scott 
 limped, but I never thought then of the peculiarities of 
 genius, and I think it prejudiced me. Also he — no, 
 not stammered” (I felt certain from the miniature 
 that he did), “but there was a certain hesitancy in his 
 speech, like Demosthenes — or was it Socrates? And 
 I made light of it — like some giddy Athenian youth, 
 as I was. And tho’ papa wished it, and his own 
 wife ” 
 
 I jumped instead of nodding, but Miss Belvoir 
 fortunately was gazing at Cortes, and didn’t notice. 
 
 “. . . his own wife on her death-bed had advised 
 him to re-marry. He almost urged that on me : in the 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXIV] 
 
 167 
 
 light of a duty. But I said ‘ No.’ And, since, I have 
 felt my responsibility. A giddy girl’s responsibility is 
 very great. He (I am sure) knew his powers, tho’ 
 latent; with me (as he put it) ‘ to jog him up,’ he might 
 have developed them. As it was they were — buried.” 
 Her tone was so truly sepulchral that I asked, not 
 unnaturally, “ Did he die soon ? ” 
 
 The idea of the gentleman with the peepy eyes and 
 the indigo hair, dying of a broken heart for the giddy 
 Miss Belvoir was difficult, but touching. 
 
 “ Die ? my dear : perhaps I should not have told 
 you of the past (since it was his also, and not ex- 
 clusively mine). But I thought you recognized him. 
 Mr. Gwent — Hudibras Gwent, he was to me, though 
 now no more so.” 
 
 Mr. Gwent ! I knew him well by sight. He was the 
 coroner, and his grandson was at school with Perkin: 
 a gentleman with white hair (what there was of it; and 
 it looked a good deal till he took his hat off) and 
 several chins; and a “ presence ” in excess of his height. 
 Certainly he limped — on one crutch, in fact. 
 
 I gasped. 
 
 “ He married Tabitha Lloyd, an inferior woman, 
 though not ill-looking, and between three and four 
 thousand pounds; not five, as people say: under that 
 upas tree his abeyant powers have become extinct.” 
 Miss Belvoir might fetch her metaphors from nature 
 (or poetry) but her language was influenced by her 
 heraldic bias. She spoke, I thought, with a gloomy ex- 
 ultation of the upas tree, and of Mr. Gwent’s powers 
 being extinct under it, like a peerage. “ But,” she 
 concluded, rising and going to a cupboard, “ I was 
 godmother to their eldest daughter, and that’s why she 
 
1 68 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXIV 
 
 is called Adeliza; they have no family names of their 
 own, and are mostly called out of the Bible, her Lloyds 
 are no particular Lloyds, you understand.” 
 
 Miss Belvoir unlocked the cupboard and produced 
 thence mulberry cordial, in which we pledged Sylvia. 
 Miss Belvoir had a mulberry-tree in her garden, and 
 sent us all presents of the fruit when it condescended 
 to bear any, which was about once in three years. In 
 return we sent her peaches. At Monksbridge there was 
 a lively exchange of such presents — as the Baroness 
 had informed us on her first visit. 
 
 “ I shall feel that now,” she had remarked, “ that I 
 have no garden to send anybody anything.” 
 
 But she would have felt it more if Miss Belvoir had 
 given over sending mulberries, and Mr. Bloom no 
 longer sent grapes, and we had not risen to our duty 
 and contributed peaches. 
 
 “ Yes,” Miss Belvoir said, with a slow shake of her 
 head, sipping her cordial, “a girl has a great responsi- 
 bility. On her ill-considered decisions so much may 
 depend. Your sister recognizes that. I understand her. 
 In marrying Lord Monksbridge’s heir she is not merely 
 pleasing her own idle fancy, but devoting herself to 
 a life-work, to the playing of an important role. Here’s 
 success to her.” I was going to add “ and happiness,” 
 but my mulberry cordial went “ the wrong way,” and 
 I could only nod as I gulped down my choke. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 When Mrs. FitzSimon called next day on purpose to 
 tell Miss Belvoir that Sylvia Auberon was undoubtedly 
 engaged to Mr. Monk, she found that lady dignified and 
 mysterious. 
 
 “ I fancy,” said Miss Belvoir, “ that I know almost 
 as much as anybody of the actual position of affairs.” 
 
 “ Well, the condition is that they are engaged.” 
 
 “ It may be so,” Miss Belvoir conceded, with a cool 
 condescension. 
 
 “ Oh, but it is. Mrs. Auberon told me. She told me 
 this morning. There’s no secret about it, though Miss 
 Auberon does not wish the marriage to take place 
 immediately.” 
 
 Miss Belvoir looked annoyed, chiefly, perhaps, with 
 the younger Miss Auberon, who seemed to have 
 deceived her. 
 
 “ It was only settled yesterday — at Llanthamy 
 Castle. He proposed ten days ago, but she only con- 
 sented yesterday,” added Mrs. FitzSimon. 
 
 Then Miss Belvoir absolved me, though she was not 
 pleased with Mrs. FitzSimon for having public and 
 authentic information before her. 
 
 “ What a marriage for her ! ” cried the Warden’s 
 lady : “ I never could see anything special in her.” 
 
 “ Couldn’t you ? Then I suspect you’re the only 
 person in the country who couldn’t. I don’t know that 
 it is a great marriage for her, — would you be surprised 
 
 169 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 170 
 
 [CH. XXV 
 
 to hear that she might have married a Duke if she had 
 cared to try for one ? ” 
 
 “ Good gracious ! ” And at last Mrs. FitzSimon 
 began to feel that something in Miss Auberon had 
 escaped her. 
 
 “ An intimate friend of mine,” said Miss Belvoir, 
 alluding thus darkly to Lady Llantwddwy, “ a 
 peeress — assures me that she knows the Duke and all 
 his family, and that if Sylvia had been that scheming 
 sort of girl she might easily have been a Duchess.” 
 
 “ Dear me ! She’ll be walking over us all when she 
 is married,” said Mrs. FitzSimon, with sudden respect. 
 
 “ I don’t fancy you’ll see much of her when she’s 
 married,” Miss Belvoir declared, anxious to punish the 
 Warden’s wife for having known more than she did. 
 “ You’ll find that her sphere will be entirely among 
 the great.” 
 
 Mrs. FitzSimon did not like that at all. Her father 
 was Dean of Lambeth, and went to Court with loyal 
 assiduity; any caller at Warden’s Lodge might read his 
 name, while waiting the descent of Mrs. FitzSimon to 
 her drawing-room, in a Morning Post casually left 
 about for a week or two after each of these occasions; 
 she considered him to be “ O Mew ” with his Sover- 
 eign. 
 
 “ Sylvia,” Miss Belvoir added, “ is already engaged 
 to stay at the Duke’s, and at Lord Closeborough’s, the 
 most important houses in the county. Such visits lead 
 inevitably to others. She will be little seen in our local 
 society, I fancy.” 
 
 “ It will be very advantageous for Marjory,” Mrs. 
 FitzSimon observed, willing to leave the immediate 
 consideration of Miss Auberon’s coming splendour, 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXV] 
 
 171 
 
 “ and she needs assistance. She would never make her 
 own way much. She has her brother’s easiness of 
 disposition, and is ready to be intimate anywhere. And 
 she has not the boy’s talent — the Warden thinks him 
 likely to be distinguished, and with all this influence he 
 may be pushed up anywhere — he won’t push himself ; 
 he has no Emulation.” 
 
 “ Ah,” said Miss Belvoir, “ the next Lady Monks- 
 bridge will see to all that. Her marriage won’t be the 
 end of the story.” 
 
 And Miss Belvoir looked as if she knew so much 
 that she sent her visitor away (without any mulberry 
 cordial) depressed by the suspicion that Sylvia 
 Auberon’s engagement was only one item in a whole 
 as to which she, Mrs. FitzSimon, could only indulge 
 in barren conjecture. 
 
 I think I received more congratulations than Sylvia. 
 She had not my way of pattering about the town, and 
 was not so easily seen. When our neighbours called 
 she was often invisible, and very soon we had to report 
 her as away. For she went to the Duke’s (by “ the 
 Duke ” we always meant, at Monksbridge, the Duke of 
 Tilbury), and thence to Lady Closeborough, only re- 
 turning home for two days, when she carried Mamma 
 away to the Duke of Menevia’s at Caerleon Palace. 
 Even when my sister was at home, and to be seen, no 
 one said a great deal to her, or kissed her; but I was 
 embraced on all hands, and received volleys of con- 
 gratulations. Mr. Monk was not much mentioned; he 
 was merely implied in the brilliance of Sylvia’s meri- 
 torious achievement, as if he had been an opulent 
 territory conquered by her prowess. Hardly any one 
 spoke of her happiness, or of his; that would have done 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 172 
 
 [CH. XXV 
 
 very well if she had been a nursery-governess marrying 
 a pleasant young bank clerk. 
 
 “ How does it make you feel ? ” Perkin asked me, 
 hotly, one day when a party of congratulators had just 
 departed. Mamma and Sylvia were away, and he was 
 staying at home to take care of me. “ It makes me feel 
 as if we were all snobs together. I hope to goodness 
 you’ll never marry anybody in particular.” 
 
 “ Nobody in particular wants to marry me.” 
 
 “ Ah ! but Sylvia has carted Mugs off this time. 
 Next time she goes a-Duking you’ll be taken — and then 
 you’ll see. I never saw such a girl ! She never thinks 
 of herself — I wouldn’t mind so much if she would be 
 selfish, and just marry her own swells and be content. 
 But not she. She doesn’t care a rap for herself, or for 
 Hampden Monk either; it’s only families she thinks of : 
 his family and ours. If he had five sisters, she’d insist 
 on Dukes marrying them all.” 
 
 “ I don’t believe there are five unmarried Dukes in 
 England,” I objected, with my incurable insistence on 
 literal facts. 
 
 “ Then she’d make five Dukes divorce their wives 
 and marry the five Miss Monks. As for us — there’ll be 
 no peace for us.” 
 
 “ Why there’s only Mamma and me.” 
 
 “And isn’t that enough? If Mugs comes back a 
 Marchioness-elect, you’ll see I was right. And you’ll 
 follow She can’t marry me to anybody, but she’ll 
 arrange my future.” 
 
 “You’re to be a bishop — so you’re safe for a good 
 while. Even Sylvia can’t get you made a bishop at 
 sixteen-and-a-hal f . ” 
 
 “ That she shan’t. I don’t intend to be a parson at 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXV] 
 
 173 
 
 all, and if she thinks I shall, she has made one mistake, 
 anyway.” 
 
 If Hubert Byrne had been setting Perkin against 
 being a clergyman I thought it rather naughty of him, 
 but for once held my tongue tactfully. 
 
 When Mamma and Sylvia came home, I found that 
 Perkin had been to some extent a true prophet. Sylvia 
 had accepted an invitation, not to a Duke’s, but to Lord 
 Severn’s, and I was to go with her. And the Marquess 
 of Severn was so tremendous that it was currently 
 believed he would regard the offer of a dukedom as an 
 insult; and the Ladies Salop never married young 
 unless they married Dukes. Between forty and fifty 
 they were apt to become Archdeaconesses. 
 
 “ You see,” Sylvia explained, “ Hampden is going 
 too; and I cannot be staying about where he is with- 
 out Mamma or you.” 
 
 “ Why not Mamma? ” I asked fretfully. 
 
 “ Well,” my sister answered, with perfect calmness 
 and temper, “ it is partly a question of dress. Nearly 
 the same people will be at Lord Severn’s as we have 
 just met at the Duke of Menevia’s; and they would 
 remember her dresses. There would not be time to 
 have a couple of new ones made for Mamma, and ladies 
 of her time of life cannot dress in tarlatan and book- 
 muslin as you can; their dress has to be handsomer and 
 more costly. I’m sorry if it bores you, but you will 
 have to get used to it, and you may just as well begin 
 at once. After all, you’ll find it rather amusing — it 
 is rather amusing comparing these people with our 
 excellent Miss Belvoirs and Mrs. FitzSimons. You’re 
 observant in your way, and I think it will amuse you.” 
 “ I prefer Miss Belvoirs,” I said doggedly. 
 
174 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXV 
 
 “ As to that,” Sylvia pointed out, with her customary 
 reasonableness, “ you can’t tell till you’ve seen the other 
 people. I think I prefer the other people — she’s a 
 decent old woman, but rather prehistoric.” 
 
 “ I like her better than Lady Llantwddwy.” 
 
 “ I’ve no objection; I don’t care sixpence for either 
 of them. I dare say they’re much of a muchness. The 
 fact is, Lady Llantwddwy has spent so many years be- 
 ing toadied by middle-class people that she has become 
 rather middle-class herself. She stays at home too 
 much. If she went about she would not care for 
 Monksbridge gossip.” 
 
 And here I may as well say that Sylvia, with all 
 her faculty for picking up information, never gossiped 
 or seemed to listen to gossip. And also I felt con- 
 strained to admit to myself that her visits to these big 
 houses had, somehow, improved her. She still got her 
 own way, and managed us all, but the tinge of over- 
 bearingness she used to have at our first coming to 
 Monksbridge, had disappeared. She had never been 
 loud, but now she seemed gentle; and her manners 
 were perfect — though I could have done with much 
 less of them. Her power of assimilation was marvel- 
 lous, and, without copying any one, she had a fault- 
 less instinct for the best models. I resented her Dukes 
 and Marquesses with much of Perkin’s irritable an- 
 noyance, nevertheless I perceived that among them 
 all she had been meeting some nice people. 
 
 I was a little inquisitive as to how Mamma had 
 enjoyed herself, and slightly disappointed, perhaps, to 
 find that she had enjoyed herself more than we 
 (Perkin and I) had thought probable. 
 
 “ Oh,” she told me, “ Caerleon is a most beaytiful 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 175 
 
 CH. XXV] 
 
 place; my bedroom was delightful, with the loveliest 
 view down a glade in the park, and deer in it. And they 
 were very kind people. The Duchess of Menevia re- 
 minds me so of a Mrs. Bodger we knew (your dear 
 papa and I) at Dulleigh Magna with a hare-lip, though 
 the Duchess hasn’t one — only a slight moustache, 
 and you can’t see it with her veil on. A very good 
 woman, and so simple. You can see she has been a 
 beauty, and really handsome still, but no beauty airs, 
 and no fine-lady airs either. She came to my room 
 once, and we sat and talked of you having had so many 
 diseases one after another, and she said that was just 
 like Tighty (they call Lady Gwendoline ‘ Tighty ’). 
 
 “ ‘ Tighty always caught everything,’ she said, * and 
 Bo and Gaby never did.’ They call Lord St. Botulph 
 (the eldest son) Bo, and Gaby is their pet-name for 
 Lady Gladws. I told her of Tribb’s Emollient for 
 sore throat, and she took the receipt down on the 
 back of an envelope for her grandchildren. Lady 
 Gladws is married and the Duchess says, ‘ her girl is 
 croupy in foggy weather.’ And she was so sympathetic 
 talking of your dear papa. ‘ I know what it is,’ she 
 said, ‘to lose a young husband,’ which surprised me 
 rather, for the Duke is nearly seventy, and looks quite 
 healthy; but it seems she was a widow when he married 
 her (and only a Mrs. Colonel Shorthose of the 
 Guards). But oh, Marjory, don’t tell Sylvia I said 
 Mrs. Colonel Shorthose — it was a slip of the tongue; 
 it’s very vulgar to say ‘ Mrs. Admiral,’ or ‘ Mrs. 
 General So-and-So ’ now, though it wasn’t thought so 
 when I was a girl. And Sylvia was quite charming 
 all the time. She never fussed about me, or seemed to 
 be hanging about to see I did everything properly; and 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 176 
 
 [CH. XXV 
 
 yet she was always there if I wanted her, and was so 
 devoted and affectionate, just like that nice Lady 
 Geraldine Cumberland to her mother, Lady Solway. 
 Another sweet woman. She and Lady Severn are 
 sisters, and both married Marquesses, but they’re as 
 nice — they might be doctors’ wives, or clergymen’s. 
 Indeed, Lady Severn seems to care more for her 
 poor people than any clergyman’s wife I ever knew, 
 and she likes talking about them better than anything; 
 and Lady Solway would talk for ever of her poor 
 people, especially of their diseases — and she must 
 nearly ruin the doctors in her neighbourhood (only, 
 of course, they generally have club-doctors), for she 
 knows exactly how to cure everything herself. They 
 are twins, like you and Sylvia, and when I mentioned 
 it, Lady Solway was thoroughly interested, especially 
 to hear that you and Sylvia are not like each other; 
 for Lady Severn is dark and tall, and certainly hand- 
 some, whereas Lady Solway is shortish and of a full 
 habit, with her chest rather high up (like that Mrs. 
 Grebbers at Burlton), so that it gets crumby, I noticed, 
 at breakfast, and her face is large and whitish, with 
 hair of no special colour, and a long lip, and big pale 
 ears. There was a landlady at Blackpool (where you 
 had chicken-pox, and she charged it in the bill, even 
 your papa confessed, though she put it down as break- 
 ages and depreciation of furniture) just like her, but a 
 totally different sort of woman. Lady Solway would 
 be sympathy itself, and really generous, though any- 
 thing but extravagant. Her dress was as plain 
 
 * With five daughters to dress, and six sons to put out 
 in life, I can’t afford to be smart, Mrs. Auberon,’ she 
 told me. And she was as proud as Punch of a royal- 
 
CH. XXV] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 1 77 
 
 blue velvet she’d had dyed black. ‘ I diddled McTavish 
 out of it, I’m afraid,’ she said (meaning her maid), 
 * and I did feel rather mean ; but I gave her five pounds 
 conscience-money to make up for it.’ The elderly 
 people were all very nice, except a Miss Grogram with 
 half a million of money (from pills, I think), who 
 didn’t seem to care much for any one without a title. I 
 rather made up to her the first night, as Sylvia had told 
 me her father had been a butler who patented an em- 
 brocation — it was embrocation, not pills. But she 
 didn’t take any interest, and gaped when I talked about 
 Perkin, and asked if I was to be at the Duke’s on the 
 twenty-ninth; and when I said, ‘What Duke’s?’ she 
 said, ‘ Oh, the Duke of Ipswich’s.’ And when I told her 
 this was the only Duke’s I had stayed at, she said, 
 ‘Quite so,’ and smiled, as if I’d confessed to being 
 quite vulgar.” 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 Sylvia was extremely amiable in those days and made 
 quite a little speech to thank me for not refusing to 
 go with her to Lord Severn’s. 
 
 “ I had to say yes or no when Lady Severn asked 
 me to bring you,” she explained. “ I had myself refused 
 at first, because it would not be convenient for Mamma 
 to take me, and she said at once, ‘ But we hear of your 
 sister; you and your sister must come together. I 
 quite approve of your not choosing to go about to 
 houses where Mr. Monk is staying without one of your 
 own family coming with you. Do let it be settled that 
 we are to expect you and your sister on the ninth.’ So 
 I accepted for us both, and it is very nice of you not 
 to object. No doubt you think it a bore; but, you see, 
 Marjory, I do not choose to be separated from my 
 family. There’s a Miss Frilling one meets everywhere, 
 and she never has any mother or sister or brother or 
 anybody with her; she is quite intimate everywhere. 
 But you can see that she is looked upon as quite dif- 
 ferent from the girls who come with their mothers and 
 sisters; and she talks more to the young men than to 
 any of the girls. That would not do for me at all; I do 
 not choose to be regarded just as the Miss Auberon 
 whom Lord Monksbridge’s son is marrying. I am only 
 one of the Auberons, and people must understand that I 
 and my family are all one. No one shall say of me, 
 ‘Oh, Sylvia Auberon! Yes; you see her everywhere. 
 She’s marrying Lord Monksbridge’s son — I never 
 
 178 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 179 
 
 CH. XXVI] 
 
 heard of her people.’ I should not care in the least to 
 marry if it put me and my family in different — what’s 
 the word? — not catalogues — categories.” 
 
 Perkin was quite right. Sylvia, as he said, could 
 never think of herself apart from her family; and she 
 did not think it of the least consequence that our ideas 
 might be quite different from hers. She would gently 
 but firmly get her own ideas into us. She had begun 
 with Mamma and had, I thought, already made more 
 progress than Perkin would approve. 
 
 “ Sylvia,” I inquired irrelevantly, “ who is the 
 Bishop of Lowminster? ”, 
 
 “ Oh ! ” she sighed carelessly, “ his name is Garboyle 
 — Dr. Garboyle. He writes a good deal, against the 
 Pope and so on, or he used to. I’m not sure whether 
 his books were written before he became a bishop or 
 since. Lowminster is in the next county, as of course 
 you know; but he doesn’t live there. The palace is 
 small and poky, I fancy, and he only goes there for or- 
 dinations and those things ; the real palace is nine miles 
 out of Lowminster — Rood Abbey it is called. In the 
 Roman Catholic times, I believe, the canons of Low- 
 minster were all monks, and the Abbot’s country house 
 was out at Holy Rood; now the bishop lives there. It 
 is a very fine place.” 
 
 “ Will he be at Lord Severn’s ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t know, I’m sure — I should think not. Do 
 you want to meet him ? ” 
 
 “ Not at all. But he was at Caerleon, and Mamma 
 mentioned him.” 
 
 “ Yes, very likely. He was extremely civil to us, 
 and, as he did not shoot or hunt, of course, he naturally 
 was more with us than the other gentlemen.” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 180 
 
 [CH. XXVI 
 
 “ And Mrs. Gumboil, was she civil too? ” 
 
 “ It isn’t Gumboil — Garboyle. Pray don’t let your- 
 self fall into a habit of getting names wrong; nothing 
 is more fatal.” 
 
 “Well, Garboyle; I should think Gargoyle more 
 
 suitable for a clergyman ” 
 
 “ A clergyman ! You don’t meet many clergymen 
 staying at houses like the Duke’s. He’s a bishop; and 
 the last Bishop of Lowminster became Archbishop of 
 York, and another moved on to Canterbury.” 
 
 Of course, I knew Sylvia was dodging me, but I 
 was persistent. 
 
 “ You won’t say whether his wife was nice,” I 
 observed. “ I expect she was a pig.” 
 
 “ She may have been,” Sylvia admitted handsomely. 
 “ Anyway it doesn’t matter to us, for she’s dead.” 
 
 I thought her being dead did matter to us, but I 
 held my peace. 
 
 “ About your dresses,” Sylvia went on. “ Do let us 
 be practical. Your dresses are the point, not poor Mrs. 
 Garboyle — she was an honourable somebody or nobody, 
 daughter of some obscure lord — a law-lord, I think; not 
 of any importance. Green suits you (it ruins me). So 
 does one particular white — a maize so pale as to be 
 almost white at night. You must have three new ones, 
 and your last will renovate — we can have Bridget 
 Clancy in, and direct her. The Irish have more taste 
 than English women. They are more like the French.” 
 Bridget Clancy came from Llanthamy (not the 
 Castle, but the town), but Sylvia did not mind — a 
 dressmaker is not seen, and one does not mention her 
 to one’s friends. I had, indeed, once heard Sylvia 
 mention her, but not by name, merely as “ our sewing- 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 181 
 
 CH. XXVI] 
 
 maid.” The Baroness had insinuated that a dress my 
 sister was wearing must have been made by herself, it 
 showed such taste and skill. 
 
 “ No, indeed,” Sylvia had said, “ I wish I could 
 make my own clothes. I am a fool at anything of the 
 kind. It was made by our sewing-maid.” 
 
 Under my sister’s guidance, Bridget made me three 
 new dresses, and made one, not absolutely new one, 
 look as if it was new. I confess they were pretty, 
 and Sylvia praised my appearance in them. 
 
 “ It is so fortunate,” she said, “ that we are not in 
 the least alike; our colouring so different, our height, 
 and figure, and everything. No one will compare us. 
 You set up for yourself on independent lines.” 
 
 “ Madge is quite as pretty now as most of the girls 
 we saw at Caerleon,” Mamma declared. 
 
 “Certainly. And her eyes are uncommon. So is 
 her mouth — don’t be impertinent, Marjory; but that 
 look, while you hold your tongue, as if you were going 
 to say something impertinent, is characteristic; and 
 it goes with your nose. People will notice it. And 
 so long as you aren’t impertinent it keeps people in or- 
 der to think you could be — only don’t go beyond the 
 look; you’d lose by it. That annoys people, and be- 
 sides, they don’t mind when you’ve said your worst. 
 Keep a reserve.” 
 
 I was quite cowed by all this new sort of advice 
 and wisdom. 
 
 “ And * manner ’ ? ” I observed gruffly. “ You used 
 to entreat me to cultivate it.” 
 
 Sylvia laughed, quite pleasantly. “ So I did. I 
 was young then” (she was not twenty yet). “I 
 might as well have told a sandhill to cultivate pine- 
 
182 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxvi 
 
 apples. You never had ‘ manner,’ and you never will. 
 But it isn’t necessary ; so long as you have such a total 
 want of it. It almost looks like a manner of your own. 
 That is another good thing; it makes us more different. 
 No one will compare us. I’m like a looking-glass, 
 and reflect everything I look at — only I know where 
 to look, and you wouldn’t.” 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 I said long ago that I had given up expecting to know 
 beforehand what Sylvia would do; but it is hard to 
 give up trying to do what one knows is impossible, 
 and before going to Severn Court I felt almost sure 
 she would drill me, and warn me, and try to nudge 
 me into line and position. How hard it is for those 
 in his own country to know a prophet! Sylvia was 
 a thousand times cleverer than I thought — really be- 
 lieving that half her cleverness was mere obstinacy 
 and self-will. Especially I had imagined she would 
 hold out as a model the elder Miss Auberon. She 
 did no such thing. Nothing was evidently further 
 from her ideas than that I should figure as her twin — 
 moon to her sun. One reason why she now seemed 
 less managing than she used to be was that she had a 
 serener confidence in her own powers of management ; 
 and this made her leave little things more alone. She 
 set causes to work, and had a placid trust in their pro- 
 ducing legitimate effects. 
 
 I have always liked travelling, not only seeing 
 places, but the process of getting to them, and I never 
 could understand people who talk of being tired by 
 a journey. I like being in the train, and it was a 
 long time since I had gone anywhere by train when 
 Sylvia and I went to Severn Court. Of course 
 Mamma saw us off, and insisted we had forgotten 
 half the things we ought to have with us; and when 
 we proved we had not, she was nervously confident 
 
 183 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 184 
 
 [CH. XXVII 
 
 we should lose them at Dulchurch, where we had to 
 change. 
 
 “ Mamma dear, I never do forget or lose anything,” 
 said Sylvia, mildly. “ Lady Monksbridge will come 
 for you to-morrow to take you over there to luncheon. 
 I think she would like you to ask her to luncheon in 
 return, and those pheasants would do so well. Ask 
 her for Thursday.” 
 
 At last we were off (Mamma had got us to the 
 station twenty minutes too soon), and she looked 
 rather desolate alone on the platform, waving to the 
 last moment; I saw her give a little jump in the mid- 
 dle of her waving, and knew she had suddenly re- 
 membered something else she was sure we had for- 
 gotten. With all her confidence in Sylvia she had a 
 still older confidence in the malignant tendency of lug- 
 gage to get itself left behind. 
 
 “ Poor Mamma — how lonely she looks,” I said, 
 drawing in my head, as we plunged into the tunnel, 
 and feeling guilty for having left her, though it was 
 none of my doing. 
 
 “ She won’t be in the least lonely. Lady Monks- 
 bridge is going to look after her; they get on so well 
 together,” my sister replied calmly, settling herself 
 comfortably into her corner. “ It is so fortunate that 
 we got the carriage to ourselves. You can have a 
 corner by the window with your face to the engine.” 
 
 The station for Severn Court is called Little Tony, 
 which sounded, I thought, like a pet-name for some- 
 body, but was only to distinguish it from Earl’s Tony, 
 and Tony Royal. There was no village to speak of, 
 and we were the only people who got out of the train 
 there, but there were two porters and a station-master, 
 
CH. XXVIl] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 185 
 
 and they all leapt from their scabbards, so to speak, 
 in their polite eagerness to make much of us. Every 
 first-class passenger alighting at Little Tony was sure 
 to be bound for Severn Court, and in our case there 
 was no doubt at all, for a brougham from thence 
 awaited us, and a footman belonging to it presented 
 himself promptly at the door of our carriage to take 
 our rugs and pretend to take all our smaller luggage 
 — which really fell to the porters and the station- 
 master. 
 
 They all, evidently, regarded me as a sort of lady- 
 in-waiting to Sylvia (we were fortunately so differ- 
 ent) ; but then, when the potentate is really great, the 
 lady-in-waiting shines (mildly) in her splendour. I 
 was taller than Sylvia, and looked now, if anything, 
 older; but at nineteen I was merely a girl, and she 
 was a personage. 
 
 She tipped the station-master and the two porters, 
 and explained to me, in the brougham afterwards, 
 that it was better to do it on arriving rather than on 
 going away. “ Of course,” she said, “ the coachman 
 and footman notice it, and it gives them a good idea 
 of you. By the time you go away it doesn’t matter.” 
 
 We drove through the little village, and across a 
 goose-green, and I observed that all the cottages had 
 stone slabs on them with a big “ S ” and a Mar- 
 quess’s coronet over it. Then by a church, with one 
 round eye in the tower like a wink, and past the 
 Vicarage (Lord Severn was lay-rector of all the par- 
 ishes round, and had the great tithes), at the gate of 
 which a clerical-looking lady was talking to a crooked 
 old man with a sack round his shoulders. And so 
 out into unmitigated country where there was noth- 
 
1 86 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXVII 
 
 ing but wind and trees, and cold fields with a rising 
 fog in them. The trees were nearly bare, and yet the 
 darkening air seemed full of whirling leaves. It ap- 
 peared to be a flattish, oozy country, and the road 
 seemed too big for it; one could not imagine a town 
 anywhere near, and we only met one little group of 
 travellers — a pert, cheerful-looking gipsy man, with 
 a rabbit in his mouth as if he were a sort of retriever, 
 and his wife with a brown baby on her back. 
 
 Presently there was a park on one side of us, and 
 then we came to a lodge like a Greek temple with an- 
 other temple opposite, and a colonnade between. I 
 supposed that to go to bed the lodge-keeper’s family 
 had to go from one temple to the other, and thought 
 that a passage on the top of the colonnade might 
 have been a convenience in rainy weather. We drove 
 under the colonnade and skirted a twisting lake, where 
 seven swans looked as if they were catching cold, and 
 two others were standing on their heads to warm their 
 feet. To our right there was a low mound with a 
 triumphal arch on the top, and no road passing 
 through it. 
 
 Then the road dipped a little, and then it turned 
 gratuitously up-hill a little, just to prove, I thought, 
 that the county was not as flat as a pancake. But you 
 could see it was a real park, hundreds of years old; 
 the trees were ancient and many of them huge, oth- 
 ers had lost half their branches in some wintry gale, 
 and were propped up with timber supports. After 
 three miles of it we came to another lodge, Gothic 
 this time, with a sort of moat curving away on each 
 side of it ; it didn’t look a bit like Lord Monksbridge’s 
 Gothic lodge, and was in fact all that was left of a 
 
ch. xxvii] MONKSBRIDGE 187 
 
 castle battered down by General Ludlow. Beyond it 
 we skirted a long high wall, and some kennels with 
 a wolfish noise inside, and then out into the open 
 again; it was dusk now, and out of a huge expanse 
 of flat gardens rose an immense square palace with 
 rows and rows of lighted windows, which looked like 
 an outrageous stone box. Nothing of its fine faqade 
 showed in the half-darkness, only its dark overbear- 
 ing massive squareness, perforated with ugly slits of 
 light. Had we arrived ten minutes later all those 
 tall glaring slits would have been quenched, the win- 
 dows shuttered and curtained, and there would have 
 been but one huge, black bulk, with a watery moon- 
 light behind it. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 The first sight of his house convinced me that Lord 
 Severn must be a stony person, of unsociable dimen- 
 sions, of caryatid build, with a female caryatid for 
 Marchioness, wearing a granite slab for cap — since 
 she was not likely to appear in a coronet, no corona- 
 tion being impending. As usual, I was wrong. Lord 
 Severn looked like the miniature model for a noble- 
 man to be executed, with the purchaser’s improve- 
 ments, on a larger scale; but highly finished all the 
 same. His hands and feet were tiny, and seemed to 
 have been designed with perfect skill and great care. 
 All the usual features were there, and exactly pro- 
 portioned. He was not fat, nor thin; neither smart 
 nor shabby ; to be handsome and so small would have 
 been out of place, but he was neither plain nor hand- 
 some. What struck you at once was that he was an 
 excellent man, and shrewd without being sharp, hon- 
 est and ready to assume the honesty of everybody 
 not yet proven a knave; clever, too, without setting 
 any great store by cleverness, as if he had found 
 it apt to keep queer company. I never saw any one 
 simpler in manner, but you felt at once that this little 
 man was a big man, and had always known it too well 
 to be under the least necessity of calling heaven or 
 earth to witness the fact. 
 
 His welcome was perfect. You knew he wouldn’t 
 have anybody in his house who had no business there ; 
 and from the moment you received his greeting you 
 
 188 
 
ch. xxviii] MONKSBRIDGE 189 
 
 had no arriere-pensee of uneasiness as to your being 
 in the right place. He was friendly and kind, but 
 never gushing or effusive; the fact that you were his 
 guest made you his equal for all that mattered; and 
 yet it was not that he pretended a surface ignoring 
 of facts ; he was an enormously rich man, and he knew 
 it, and knew that it laid great duties on him ; knowing 
 also that some of his guests were anything but rich: 
 he thought much of birth, and counted it also a respon- 
 sibility, but remembered well that ancient descent was 
 not always titled: he knew, too, that he was of high 
 rank, and for that reason he felt an obligation of high 
 conduct over and above the common duty of all 
 Christians. Of religion I never heard him talk but 
 once, and then as if it were an indispensable depart- 
 ment of State; all the same he was a sincerely reli- 
 gious man, honest, charitable, of irreproachable life 
 and clean mind. No one was more fully aware than 
 he that with this life all his wealth and rank would be 
 taken from him, but he thought it as much his duty 
 to preserve and value his high station and vast pos- 
 sessions in the meantime as it was to preserve and 
 value health and life. 
 
 Lady Severn was not like him in any outward 
 feature, being stately and beautiful, but in character 
 they were well matched, and no one could see them 
 together without being certain that they had married 
 for love, and that twenty years of life together had 
 only made them more truly one in love and respect. 
 Her manner was a little graver than his, but equally 
 cordial, and she had the same way of seeming to 
 take it for granted that your being a guest in her 
 house was a proof that you were fit to be there. 
 
190 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxviii 
 
 “ This,” she said, introducing her son, “ is Bridge- 
 north. And here,” she added, with a little smile, 
 to Sylvia, “ is > some one who has been waiting for 
 you.” 
 
 Of course, it was Mr. Monk; he and Lord Bridge- 
 north were standing together, and they made a good 
 contrast. They were both very good looking — Hamp- 
 den Monk tall, dark, thin and rather icy; the boy (he 
 was not nineteen) tall too, but brilliantly fair, with 
 shining grey-blue eyes, and a lively, easy manner that 
 made one think both of Perkin and Hubert. 
 
 Sylvia and Mr. Monk met as if they had each heard 
 something quite to the other’s advantage, and made a 
 note of it: as if they held similar views on, say, the 
 Moabite Stone, or the identity of the Man in the Iron 
 Mask; and as if, should a suitable opportunity arise, 
 they would be glad to resume the discussion of those 
 interesting subjects, but were in no hurry to force the 
 opportunity. Still it was evident that Mr. Monk, as 
 he looked at her, was assuring himself that he had 
 made no mistake about Sylvia’s beauty, and yet it 
 was with as distant and impersonal an admiration as 
 he might have shown, had he recently purchased Mont 
 Blanc and met it in the best society. 
 
 There were many other guests, but only two of 
 them concern us at present. 
 
 Our host and hostess had welcomed us in a huge 
 room called the White Saloon; and at the moment 
 they, their son, and Mr. Monk were its only occupants 
 besides ourselves. But a few minutes later two gen- 
 tlemen walked in from another room opening from 
 it by a wide arch, if you can call that an arch which 
 has a flat top, supported on malachite pillars. 
 
ch. xxvm] MONKSBRIDGE 191 
 
 “ We have finished our letters ! ” said one of the 
 gentlemen, ambling up to Lady Severn with a smile 
 that was not meant to suggest amusement, but merely 
 to impress a universal peace and goodwill, inclusive 
 of all her Majesty’s subjects except Roman Catholics. 
 He was between fifty and sixty, a full head taller than 
 the Marquess, and broad in proportion, though not 
 fat. His features were as neat as his dress, and his 
 hands were as clean as his cuffs, and there was a 
 good deal of both. He had a good leg — two in fact : 
 and their fair proportions stood confessed in gaiters : 
 he was in short a bishop, and I instantly concluded 
 (rightly for once) that he was the Bishop of Low- 
 minster. He seemed glad to see Sylvia, and not quite 
 so glad to see me as her companion. 
 
 “ Oh ! ” he said, in response to a congratulation on 
 having finished his letters. “ Mr. Auld-Baillie helped 
 me. He has been quite a private secretary.” 
 
 And his lordship beamed on Mr. Auld-Baillie, and 
 rubbed his hands, and smiled around. He was really 
 a good-natured man, and he liked people in general. 
 All the same, I saw that he would have liked me bet- 
 ter had I been somebody else : so I didn’t like him, and 
 found his teeth too white, and a little too large and 
 numerous, and saw nothing to admire in his bulging 
 calves. 
 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie was a young man; he had been a 
 young man at eighteen, and he was a young man still 
 at eight and thirty : tallish, well-built and well-looking : 
 prosperous-looking too, and with every right to ap- 
 pear so. He had six or seven thousand a year, and no 
 incumbrances (not even a wife), a good estate, and 
 tenants who all paid their rents, and no jointures to 
 
192 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxviii 
 
 pay himself, or younger brothers and sisters to pro- 
 vide for. 
 
 He had been a Member of Parliament for a dozen 
 years, and had usually contrived to speak (at some 
 length, though not to a very full house) at least once 
 in each of those years, and always on the same sub- 
 ject, and more or less in the same terms. For rich, 
 healthy, respected and prosperous as he was, there 
 was one drop of bitterness in his cup, and that one 
 drop was — Convents. He could not possibly forget 
 or forgive them. The only ladies he had hitherto 
 thought much of were nuns (though in one sense he 
 thought very little of them). He hated them, in all 
 Evangelical charity, and longed to befriend them — by 
 abolishing them root and branch, and, in the interim, 
 by inspecting them. Factories had inspectors, and 
 convents must have them; if the people in factories 
 liked having inspectors, and the nuns didn’t want 
 them, it only showed how much worse nuns were than 
 factory-girls. It was on that theme he spoke in the 
 House of Commons, and on no other; taxes and re- 
 forms were all leather and prunella, the only reform 
 worthy of consideration was that of laying open the 
 privacy of nuns to Government Inspectors. A gruff 
 and burly Catholic Bishop had offered to give him 
 leave to inspect at any moment, without warning, any 
 convent in his vast diocese ; but that would not satisfy 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie at all. He did not want an in- 
 spector admitted de bon gre, but inspectors who should 
 force themselves in de mol gre. He dreamed of nuns, 
 not indiscreetly, but simply of the whippings and 
 starvings they were receiving at the hands of Ab- 
 besses. Pie thought of them while shaving, and as he 
 
193 
 
 ch. xxviii] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 laid his respectable head on the pillows of those ducal, 
 baronial and Marquessial houses he frequented, al- 
 ways decorously, never with any other desire than 
 that of having them inspected and shown up. 
 
 To the Bishop of Lowminster he was almost a son; 
 and the bishop would not have objected to his being 
 a son-in-law (for the late Mrs. Garboyle had left one 
 monument of their love) ; but the monument did not 
 interest Mr. Auld-Baillie ; she was not a nun, and her 
 hair was red, as was her nose. Could Miss Garboyle 
 have been all the nuns in England he might have 
 married her as a duty, fraught with grim pleasure. 
 As it was he didn’t think her quite his social equal; 
 and marrying her would not have made the slightest 
 difference to any convent anywhere. I was not a 
 nun either, but he did not look at me with the sort 
 of disappointment that his lordship betrayed at my 
 not being another member of my family. 
 
 “ I never,” said Sylvia, while we were dressing for 
 dinner, “ saw him take so much to any girl. I wish you 
 were an escaped abbess.” 
 
 Then she explained about Mr. Auld-Baillie’s fond- 
 ness for nuns, “ a fondness, that is to say,” like Tom 
 Tulliver’s for animals, “ for throwing stones at 
 them.” 
 
 “ What harm do they do?” I asked, not much ad- 
 miring Mr. Auld-Baillie’s hobby. 
 
 “ None in particular. They are old maids provided 
 for. I suppose if somebody married them all, there 
 wouldn’t be any.” 
 
 It didn’t seem as if she took any special interest 
 in Mr. Auld-Baillie, and just then I made a remark 
 that turned her attention to something else. 
 
194 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxviii 
 
 She had finished dressing, and was stooping over 
 the fire warming her pretty feet, first one, then the 
 other; and, as she leant forward, her locket hung 
 loose, and I could see the back of it. The only jewel- 
 lery she wore was this locket and three rings, three 
 plain half-hoops of large diamonds, sapphires, and 
 rubies, one of which was her engagement ring. All 
 three, and the locket, were presents from Mr. Monk; 
 the locket was rather large and very handsome; in 
 front there was one very big sapphire, flat and oblong, 
 surrounded by fine diamonds; on the back was a place 
 for hair or a miniature-portrait, but under the glass 
 there was no hair or portrait to be seen, only a little 
 piece of blue silk. 
 
 “ Sylvia,” I said abruptly, “ there’s nothing in your 
 locket; only a reserved seat.” 
 
 She put up her hand, and laughed. 
 
 “ Oh ! I forgot to put it in,” she said, calmly. “ He 
 gave me a lock of his hair for it. It was in a little 
 bit of tissue paper. Oh! now I remember — I was 
 reading ‘ Phineas Finn’ (the people in it are, many 
 of them, like those one meets in these sort of places, 
 or else I don’t see much in it) and I shut it up in 
 the book to keep the place; after he had gone, of 
 course, I finished the chapter. And there it is, at 
 home; Mamma was right, you see, though really I 
 hardly ever forget anything. It was stupid of me.” 
 She paused, and looked about her thoughtfully. 
 
 “ Will he find out ? ” I asked. “ Will he look at it ? ” 
 “ Yes, he’ll look at it. But, certainly, he would 
 never dream of touching it. Still, it is stupid. Your 
 hair is quite a different colour, so is mine.” 
 
 Then she looked down, and her eyes fell on the 
 
ch. xxviii ] MONKSBRIDGE 195 
 
 rug on which she was standing. It was of fur, some 
 long, dark fur, nearly black. 
 
 “ Ah ! ” she said, “ how lucky ! ” 
 
 And she went to the dressing-table, brought back a 
 little pair of scissors, stooped down, and cut from 
 the rug a lock of its hair. 
 
 “ You embroider? where are your silks? ” she then 
 demanded, and I pointed to the box in which they 
 were. She went over to it, to choose a pale blue, from 
 which she cut a short thread with which she tied up 
 her lock of hair — some sort of bear’s, I think. This 
 she trimmed, and taking off the locket, opened it at 
 the back, and put the hair in, then closed it again, 
 and surveyed it with mild satisfaction. 
 
 “ It is just the colour,” she observed. “ If it should 
 hang loose again, or get turned the wrong way — one 
 should always count on accidents — it would be all 
 right, even if he were looking. Come, there’s the 
 bell.” 
 
 All this time I had watched her silently ; my sister 
 stupefied me, and no remark of mine could have done 
 justice to my feelings. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 At dinner I sat between Mr. Auld-Baillie, who took 
 me in, and Lord Bridgenorth, who had fallen to the 
 lot of Lady Hermione Cressy, whose mamma, the 
 Countess of Agincourt, loomed large and crapey over 
 against us, but a little to our left. The late Lord 
 Agincourt had gone, not very recently, to that bourne 
 whence Earls do not return, and Lady Hermione was 
 a co-heiress. There was also a Lady Philippa, and 
 the House of Lords had not yet made up its mind 
 whether one should be Baroness Cinque Ports and 
 the other Baroness Nonsuch, or whether neither should 
 be a Baroness at present. 
 
 Lady Hermione was pretty and pleasant, and she 
 made friends with me across Lord Bridgenorth, who 
 seemed disposed to share his good-nature between us. 
 Sometimes Mr. Auld-Baillie looked as if he thought 
 these passages on my right were uncalled for, and 
 felt them an interruption. His remarks were apt to 
 degenerate into speeches, and sounded as if he knew 
 them by heart; they had a regular line of argument, 
 and it bothered him to have the thread of it broken. 
 
 “We’re so sorry for you,” said Lady Hermione (in 
 a voice stifled partly by tact and partly by a mouthful 
 of vol-an-vent ) across Lord Bridgenorth — a Miss 
 Beaufront, on the other side of Mr. Auld-Baillie, had 
 momentarily distracted his attention by an ill-timed 
 appeal for salt. “ We’re so sorry for you. You might 
 
 I96 
 
ch. xxix] MONKSBRIDGE 197 
 
 as well be in the House of Commons. Isn’t it awful, 
 Briggy?” 
 
 Lady Hermione, who looked hardly seventeen, and 
 Lord Bridgenorth were cousins, and called each other 
 Briggy and Glorum. 
 
 “ Try and shunt him on to his other neighbour,” 
 Lord Bridgenorth advised me, with real feeling. “ She 
 rather likes it; and she can cope with him better.” 
 
 It struck me that Mr. Auld-Baillie was aware of 
 it, and preferred me as a listener. Miss Beaufront 
 would seize a pretended clue and run off with it in 
 a speech of her own. She had a precipitous way of 
 talking, and would climb up words and tumble down 
 over them, and be up again, as if they were jumps in 
 a steeplechase; and some of the words she used were 
 not those she wanted, and only remotely resembled 
 them even in sound, but she let them come tumbling 
 out of her mouth, and never stopped to pick them up 
 again. 
 
 “ Ah ! Marriage ! ” I heard her say, rushing off 
 with her cue. “Yes, the proper goal of woman; but 
 marriage itself is often a rockery — and there aren’t 
 prizes enough to go round. People have different 
 vacations — some women may be called to be old 
 maids ” 
 
 “ Oh, quite so,” Mr. Auld-Baillie agreed, very hand- 
 somely. 
 
 “ And some men may be called to be old bacchusses. 
 No one interferes with them. I don’t see what’s the 
 harm of being a nun if you don’t mind it.” 
 
 “ The harm is ” Mr. Auld-Baillie was beginning, 
 
 but Miss Beaufront snapped the argument out of his 
 mouth and made off with it. 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 198 
 
 [CH. XXIX 
 
 “I quite follow you” (“follow” indeed!) “and 
 agree up to a point. The danger would be of a uni- 
 versal intimation; but is there any fear of it? One 
 never imitates what one really dislikes, and the life of 
 nuns is not likely to be one of general seduction to the 
 bulk of women. It’s poky, I should say; and the same- 
 ness! — one shrinks from mahogany.” 
 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie, I think, would have been glad to 
 shrink a good way down the mahogany; but if he him- 
 self embodied a certain monotony, Miss Beau front did 
 not shrink from it. 
 
 “ The Convent,” he interrupted desperately, “ is the 
 parody of the Home, and Home is the true sphere of 
 practical religion.” 
 
 “ There I’m with you — home is the place for reli- 
 gion,” chipped in Miss Beaufront, who was never at 
 home if she could help it. “ And there’s no doubt 
 nuns push religion too far — that’s why I don’t think 
 there’s any fear of generous limitation.” She knew 
 quite well she meant “ general imitation ” and hadn’t 
 said it, but she didn’t bother. “ There should be a 
 juste milieu, of course.” 
 
 “ A via media,” said Mr. Auld-Baillie, sarcastically, 
 not intending to wither Miss Beaufront, but Dr. New- 
 man, as if that too famous divine had advocated small 
 religious pills, or weak homoeopathic doses of sanctity. 
 
 “ But,” said Miss Beaufront, “ the blood-colonel 
 stories about convents are all nonsense.” 
 
 “ Ah ! we can only hope so,” said Mr. Auld-Baillie 
 as if he did not intend to indulge in any such hope. 
 
 Meanwhile my other neighbours were making me 
 quite at home, and I could hardly realize that I had 
 never set foot in Severn Court till that evening. The 
 
CH. XXIX ] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 199 
 
 great room was not in the least too large for the 
 numerous company, nor the many servants too many 
 for them. The table and the meal, the flowers and 
 plate, the dresses — all seemed to belong to each other. 
 It was all fine and grand together, and as simple and 
 natural as our own little dinner at home was for us 
 there. Every one was talking, no one talked too loud. 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie might wish to lecture, if Miss Beau- 
 front would let him, but even he had no idea of being 
 loud and offensive. 
 
 I found Lord Bridgenorth as easy to be intimate 
 with as Perkin, and Lady Hermione much easier than 
 Sylvia, though Sylvia herself was pleasanter (when 
 we met again in the drawing-room after dinner) than 
 I had ever known her. Certainly no one there was 
 so pretty. Sylvia’s beauty could be called nothing 
 but prettiness, but it was prettiness of a kind and 
 degree that I never saw equalled. Lady Severn was 
 still beautiful, and there was a Lady Adelaide de 
 Bohun who was quite lovely ; Sylvia was neither ; but, 
 though there were at least a dozen very pretty girls 
 there, none of them could be thought of in compari- 
 son with her. Her colouring was as exquisite as that 
 of the most perfect miniature, her little features were 
 perfect, her nose and hair alone would have set her 
 above any of the rest; so would her tiny, shell-pink 
 ears, and her mouth — though it was too small, not 
 for beauty, but to belong to any one one would wish 
 to be loved by. Long afterwards I heard crowds of 
 people in London raving about a certain Mrs. Appleby 
 because of her nose only; how well I knew that nose, 
 and how certain I was that Mrs. Appleby had no more 
 heart in her than a rose-petal. If you ask what its 
 
200 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXIX 
 
 form was I can only say that it might have been 
 “ Roman ” and wasn’t, that it had successfully avoided 
 the risk of being retrousse; that it was faultlessly 
 refined, and that its refinement had nothing on earth 
 to do with the feelings, and very little to do with 
 the mind, everything to do with taste, and habit, and 
 a natural aversion from what was vulgar, without 
 much inward aversion from what might be thought 
 coarse enough by common folk. 
 
 But Mrs. Appleby was poisonously vain — with only 
 a nose to go on; and Sylvia was no more vain than 
 a peacock, who shows the public his fine feathers 
 without thinking of the public at all, or imagining that 
 they are of his own making. 
 
 Honestly I doubt if Sylvia knew how dazzlingly 
 pretty she was; so far as she thought of her beauty 
 at all, it was as a lucky asset in the Auberon family. 
 She was singularly impersonal. 
 
 “ It is,” she observed to me, looking around her, 
 from the corner in which she had found me, “ the 
 most fortunate thing we are so different. If we were 
 alike — especially as we are so absurd as to be twins — 
 there would be only one and a half of us. No one 
 can compare us.” 
 
 Of that I was fully aware, not that she meant it that 
 way. 
 
 “ And if they did ? ” I asked stupidly. 
 
 “ They can’t. What’s the use of putting silly cases ? 
 People who admire me wouldn’t look at you.” 
 
 “ I know that,” I put in savagely. And she lifted 
 one pretty eyebrow with reasonable deprecation. 
 
 “ And there are plenty of people who would prefer 
 the younger Miss Auberon,” she added calmly (she 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 201 
 
 CH. XXIX] 
 
 never denied the existence of mental obliquity in her 
 fellow-creatures). “ You are admired already. Mr. 
 Auld-Baillie would require to be told that I was any- 
 thing remarkable. No one ever knew him epris before 
 — is it epris or eprise when the object is feminine? I 
 know so little French. It is quite a triumph. You 
 know quite well I shouldn’t tell you if I cared whether 
 you thought of him or not — I don’t. There’s no 
 hurry; this is your first peep into the real world, and 
 you’re here just to enjoy yourself. Still it’s a tribute, 
 and people will think all the more of you — you see 
 he never does pay attention to ladies, especially to girls 
 of our age — and they will think more still when they 
 see you don’t care a bit whether he pays attention to 
 you or lets it alone.” 
 
 “ Yes, I do care. I hope he’ll let it alone.” 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 It seemed to me that Mr. Auld-Baillie’s “ attentions ” 
 were purely imaginary; but Sylvia had no imagination, 
 wherever she thought she saw something there was 
 something to see; and within twenty-four hours I 
 began to perceive she was right, and that Mr. Auld- 
 Baillie was acquiring a tiresome habit of cropping 
 up in my neighbourhood. Lady Hermione expressed 
 it in a striking but disagreeable metaphor. 
 
 “ You are,” she assured me, in sympathetic con- 
 fidence, “ his carcase, and wherever you are there is 
 he gathered together.” 
 
 Sometimes the Bishop betrayed the same tendency, 
 but it was not for my own sake. 
 
 “ I hope,” he said the first time, “ that you left 
 Mrs. Auberon well.” 
 
 “Oh yes! Mamma always is well.” (He looked 
 needlessly glad to hear it.) “So is Sylvia.” (He 
 seemed less impressed.) 
 
 “ It is I,” I observed, “ who catch things.” 
 
 He looked as if he thought it an unpleasant habit, 
 and Lady Hermione (who was eavesdropping) de- 
 clared afterwards that it sounded like insects. 
 
 “ You must,” he observed, “ have been very sorry 
 to leave her.” 
 
 “ Yes, very.” 
 
 “ I’m sure you must have wished she were coming 
 with you — a very natural wish.” 
 
 He looked so much as if he shared it, that for the 
 
 202 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XXX] 
 
 203 
 
 moment I thought things might be as well as they 
 were. 
 
 “ Oh, she has Perkin. He’ll look after her.” 
 
 “ Perkin?” 
 
 “ Yes, my brother Perkin.” 
 
 Perkin was evidently a new idea to the Bishop, and 
 I think he regarded him as superfluous, so I dwelt 
 on him. 
 
 “ He is at school, but only in the town, and he 
 comes home every day. He will look after Mamma,” 
 I repeated, hoping that Miss Garboyle would do as 
 much for her own parent. 
 
 “ An excellent son, I’m sure,” said his lordship. 
 
 “ Oh yes ! He is to be a bishop.” 
 
 The one before me stared, and I added cheerfully — 
 
 “ That is Sylvia’s arrangement.” 
 
 To do him justice the Bishop of Lowminster 
 laughed. 
 
 “I see!” he said. “The ambition is all on your 
 sister’s side. One doesn’t much like to hear of a 
 boy’s being too ambitious.” 
 
 I was rather annoyed, for I didn’t see why he should 
 think it naughty ambition in Perkin to aim at the 
 mark he had hit himself. Perkin, I was sure, was 
 much cleverer. 
 
 “ Oh,” I remarked, “ Perkin won’t hear of being 
 a bishop; he won’t even be a clergyman.” 
 
 I caught Lady Hermione’s eye — that is to say, I 
 saw she was squinting at me ferociously; but I really 
 did not care if his lordship did think me unpleasant. 
 It would be rather a good thing if he thought us on 
 the whole a disagreeable family. 
 
 “ Does your Mamma wish your brother to take 
 
204 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxx 
 
 Orders ? ” the Bishop inquired gravely. “ She would 
 be a good judge of his fitness.” 
 
 “ Oh ! Mamma would think him fit to be a Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, or an Admiral,” I replied with tact- 
 less rhetoric. “ But it’s nothing to do with Mamma. 
 It is Sylvia who is disposer supreme in our family.” 
 
 Lady Hermione’s eyes came out of their squint 
 with abrupt alarm, and the Bishop gave a sort of wrig- 
 gle down his shiny black back, and seemed willing 
 to leave me. To speed him I added — 
 
 “ What Sylvia decides is what takes place in our 
 family.” 
 
 The Bishop did leave me, but I saw him turn a 
 meditative eye on my sister (who was discussing drains 
 with an elderly Viscount in the middle distance), as 
 if there might be something in it. 
 
 “ You’re an abandoned young creature,” Lady Her- 
 mione declared, closing in on me. 
 
 “ And we thought you all meekness and innocence,” 
 said Lord Bridgenorth. 
 
 “ That’s not the way to talk to Bishops,” said Lady 
 Hermione. 
 
 “ It all depends,” I assured her, “ what they’re up 
 to ; and whether you want to make a good impression 
 or not. I didn’t.” 
 
 “ So I gathered. Is it to make him report unfa- 
 vourably to Mr. Auld-Baillie ? ” 
 
 “ Ask her,” suggested “ Briggy,” “ no questions, 
 and she’ll tell you no lies.” 
 
 It was as Sylvia had said. When the other gentle- 
 men were out shooting the Bishop was in the midst of 
 us — and so was Mr. Auld-Baillie, who never shot, and 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 205 
 
 CH. XXX] 
 
 never hunted, but carried on an eager correspondence 
 with people who were arranging meetings for escaped 
 nuns to speak at. He w r as much in request as chair- 
 man on such occasions, and lived in a chronic state 
 of hope deferred and disappointment repeated, be- 
 cause the revelations of these ladies were not, as Miss 
 Beaufront would put it, sufficiently “ blood-colonel.” 
 I expressed to Lady Hermione, who informed me of 
 these particulars, my satisfaction that he was not in 
 the habit of quoting these ladies to me. 
 
 “ Oh,” she said, laughing, “ he’s the soul of pro- 
 priety in private life. It’s only on platforms that he 
 likes listening to — to that sort of thing.” 
 
 “What sort of thing?” 
 
 “ Well, it’s worse than any smoking-room. He’d 
 never sit still in a smoking-room while the sons of 
 Belial were telling stories a quarter as bad as those 
 he laps up like milk at his meetings. I hadn’t any 
 idea what the meetings were like, and asked Mamma 
 to take me to one for fun — last May, in London. I 
 thought she’d have a fit. ‘ Hermione,’ she said, and 
 she always calls me ‘ Glorum,’ unless I’ve done some- 
 thing bad, * never make such a suggestion again, or 
 let any one know you have made it now. They’re sim- 
 ply indecent, Mr. Auld-Baillie’s meetings are.’ All' 
 the same, I told Briggy, and he got as red as a sun- 
 set. It seemed Mr. Auld-Baillie had asked him to come 
 to one, and Uncle Severn was nearly as much horrified 
 as Mamma.” 
 
 “ But,” I said, “ I thought he was so pious? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes ! But he thinks it specially pious to listen 
 to ghastly things that are supposed to hgve happened 
 in convents ” 
 
206 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxx 
 
 “ To the ladies who tell them? ” 
 
 “ My dear, they’re never ladies. I saw a picture of 
 one of them outside Exeter Hall, on a placard — the 
 most awful-looking female: ‘Sister Emma, the Es- 
 caped Abbess.’ Mamma nearly shook me for looking 
 at it; she looked like a fat barmaid.” 
 
 “ How do you know ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t ; she looked red, and fat, and drinky, and 
 greedy, and brazen, and hypocritical, with goggly, 
 nasty eyes, and a horrible mouth, and ten red carrots 
 crossed on her lumpy chest. Mamma said she was 
 never a nun at all, only a sort of servant the nuns 
 had taken in out of green-ness, and had had to send 
 off for making love to the milkman, a married man 
 with seventeen children all under six ” 
 
 “ Hermione ! ” 
 
 “ Well, it came to that. Mamma puts things dif- 
 ferently. She was awful , anyway, and bamboozled 
 Auld-Baillie and twenty other gooses like him, and 
 became a sore subject. So Sister Caroline-Jane or 
 Augusta-Dumbella came into favour, though only an 
 escaped Prioress, and she hadn’t enough to tell, and 
 they quarrelled over terms. But he goes on and on. 
 I wouldn’t say all this, only I see he bores you to 
 frenzy.” 
 
 Lady Hermione had an exaggerated way of talking. 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie did not bore me to frenzy, but he 
 bored me whenever he got the chance, and his indif- 
 ference to outdoor occupations gave him too many 
 chances. He and the Bishop were supposed to shut 
 themselves up to write letters all morning, but they 
 seemed to require little breaks during which one or 
 other, or both, would refresh themselves with inter- 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 20 7 
 
 CH. xxx] 
 
 vals of female society. Miss Beaufront rather en- 
 joyed these incursions from the library, and was 
 pretty evenly balanced between the two gentlemen, 
 taste inclining her slightly to the M.P. and Squire, 
 and opportunity throwing the Bishop more in her 
 power, for Mr. Auld-Baillie had a certain dexterity 
 in avoiding her. Still I was aware that his lordship, 
 when he could, rather preferred talking to me about 
 my mother than being talked to by Miss Beaufront 
 about his daughter. 
 
 After luncheon these two gentlemen would always 
 walk or drive with us, and I warmly agreed with 
 Lady Hermione’s dictum that all old women should 
 wear petticoats as well as aprons, and not impose 
 on the public in pepper-and-salt trousers or petticoats 
 and black gaiters. 
 
 One evening, while we were dressing for dinner, 
 Sylvia, after looking at me meditatively for a moment 
 or two, said — 
 
 “ I don’t think you are going to care much for Mr. 
 Auld-Baillie ” 
 
 “ Certainly not,” I interrupted with a little 
 warmth. 
 
 “ Oh, it’s all right. There’s no necessity. No doubt 
 he is quite in earnest, and it would be a good match ; 
 but you’ve only just come to the sea, and there are 
 better fish in it. I merely alluded to it as a matter 
 of business.” 
 
 “ A matter of business! ” 
 
 “ Yes. I’m not going to try and make you fall in 
 love with him; don’t be anxious. But there’s a mat- 
 ter of business. Do you remember a portrait we have, 
 on panel, of Bishop Latimer?” 
 
208 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxx 
 
 “The burnt man? Yes, I remember it, it’s in the 
 library.” 
 
 “ Yes. It seems that Mr. Auld-Baillie is some sort 
 of descendant — collateral, I think — of that Bishop. 
 And the portrait belonged to an aunt of his, who had 
 no business to sell it, but she did — at least, it was 
 sold among her other things, when she died, at Chris- 
 ties’ or somewhere. And he went to bid for it, but 
 Uncle Stapleton was there too, buying china and 
 things; and, because Mr. Auld-Baillie wanted it, he 
 bid him up, for Uncle Stapleton couldn’t stand him; 
 and Uncle Stapleton got the picture for seventeen 
 hundred guineas. It’s by some great artist; Holbein, 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie thinks. He wants it still, and was 
 asking me questions about it: you know everything 
 at Cross Place is Mamma’s to do what she likes with. 
 She would let him have it if I told her to do so; and 
 I am sure he would be delighted if I said he might 
 have it for fifteen hundred pounds — that would be a 
 good deal less than he bid for it. We none of us care 
 a bit about the portrait, and fifteen hundred pounds 
 would be a godsend to Mamma, especially just now. 
 My marriage will cost a lot, and, of course, that must 
 be our affair. Lady Monksbridge has begged me to 
 let her give me cheques, for she knows all this going 
 about costs some money — you know I do it first and 
 foremost for Hampden’s sake; that was one reason 
 why I did not choose to allow the marriage to take 
 place at once; we have not been engaged many weeks, 
 and see how much it has done for him already! He 
 would never have been here, nor at Caerleon, nor at 
 the Closeboroughs’, nor at the Duke of Tilbury’s, if 
 he had not been engaged to me. I have launched him 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 209 
 
 CH. XXX] 
 
 already. And if I had married him at once it would 
 have been quite different, quite; and there would only 
 have been you for bridesmaid — now you will be one 
 of eight, and the other seven — but we needn’t talk of 
 that now. As I was saying, it all costs money, this 
 going about; so will the wedding and my trousseau; 
 if Mamma had this fifteen hundred pounds it would 
 be a godsend. I would ask her to let three hundred be 
 my marriage portion, and give it me at once; I should 
 pay for the wedding and my trousseau, and this going 
 about, out of it. The other twelve she would invest 
 (and it would add sixty pounds a year to her in- 
 come) ; at her death she would leave it to you and 
 Perkin. I shouldn’t want any then, and, besides, I 
 should have had my share at once. What do you 
 think? Of course, I should not think of it, if you 
 really meant anything about Mr. Auld-Baillie.” 
 
 “ That I don’t. But what has that got to do with 
 it?” 
 
 “ Everything. If you were going to marry him I 
 should not dream of having anything about money 
 between us. It would be as bad as if I let Lady 
 Monksbridge give me cheques. I saw you didn’t mean 
 to marry him — all the same, he will propose ” 
 
 “ No, he won’t,” I declared vehemently. “ I should 
 hate him to.” 
 
 “ But he will; and it will be just as well. I could 
 Stop him, if it was me, but you can’t, and it will do no 
 harm at all. He won’t break his heart, but he will be 
 upset; he’s as vain as a girl, in spite of his demure- 
 ness, and very obstinate; it will do him great good, 
 and us too. Of course, we shall not say he has pro- 
 posed, nor will he; but every one will know, and it 
 
210 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXX 
 
 will show these people that the Auberons are not to be 
 got for the mere asking. On the whole I’m glad you 
 don’t want him.” 
 
 I never could listen to my sister, on such occasions 
 as these, without staring at her; her mind moved on 
 lines above mine, and I could only watch her calm 
 progression in astonied silence, which suited her 
 very well, as she desired neither comment nor ap- 
 plause; my comments would be jejune, and, for 
 applause, her own well-padded conscience satisfied her. 
 She looked at me again, with unimpassioned criticism. 
 
 “ To think,” she said, with all her singular candour, 
 “ that once I should have thought Mr. Rumble good 
 enough for my sister ! I must say it was very good of 
 you not to mind ” 
 
 “I never had the least idea!” 
 
 “ No? You never could see two inches before you, 
 or half an inch before me. I knew he was well-off, 
 and likely to get preferment slowly. (By the way, 
 you needn’t go on bothering yourself with that Sun- 
 day-school when we go back.) But that’s all finished; 
 poor little Monksbridge ! We hardly belong there any 
 more. . . . We’re going to the Solways’ next month, 
 and you can have some new dresses (I’ll give them 
 you out of my three hundred). By that time you’ll 
 be the only girl who ever had the chance of being 
 Mrs. Auld-Baillie of Auld Crankie Castle, and who 
 has refused it! It is so fortunate we are so differ- 
 ent! Without being in the least like me, you will 
 have done as much, in a different way, for the Au- 
 berons as I have.” 
 
 For a moment I thought she was going to kiss me, 
 but she merely adjusted my sash, and the bell rang. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 When was Sylvia wrong? She was right, at all 
 events, about Mr. Auld-Baillie proposing, though how 
 on earth it came about I never could understand. If 
 my own impressions were worth anything (which I 
 am far from asserting) I should say it was over a 
 sketch of his East Lodge- — a sketch by his sister (now 
 in heaven) who had passed through this world en 
 route, apparently for no other purpose than to make 
 sketches of Auld Crankie Castle, from the south, west 
 and east — they utterly ignored the north, it being 
 somewhat over-far in that direction as a mere mat- 
 ter of latitude. Also she had left sketches of Fenny 
 Baillie (for my squire had a seat in Lincolnshire, too) 
 with a good deal of sky in them, and a good deal of 
 foreground, and a background that looked as if it 
 rather wanted a leg-up. But the late Miss Elspeth 
 Auld-Baillie’s view of the East Lodge to Auld Crankie 
 Castle was her piece de resistance; it was so baronial 
 that the views of the actual castle came, subsequently, 
 almost as an anticlimax. An outside public that saw 
 only that lodge could hardly fail of conceiving ideas 
 of the castle vague and vast. It looked as if dowager 
 countesses would have esteemed it a privilege to reside 
 in it. It frowned and ogled, and bristled, and elbowed 
 itself out in flanking turrets, and had machicolations 
 (for the convenience of visitors who liked to have hot 
 porridge poured down the nape of their necks) and 
 
 21 1 
 
212 MONKSBRIDGL [ch. xxxi 
 
 gates that yawned so widely that I wanted to yawn 
 too. 
 
 But those gates gave entrance to a road, and the 
 road led to a Home (where religion has its legitimate 
 operation), and what is a Home without a mistress? 
 Thus it was that (as I imagine) Mr. Auld-Baillie ar- 
 rived at his point. Anyway he arrived; and he was 
 there before I had got beyond the lodge. Once there 
 it was hard to get him out again. He was fond of 
 his castle, and obstinately determined to make me 
 fond of it too. It was not only a castle, but it had a 
 history (I understood him to say that two Kings of 
 Scotland had been murdered in it, but perhaps one 
 of them was only born there), and its owners had 
 always been fine rebellious people, who held their 
 heads up and bothered their Sovereigns, so that they 
 were much looked on. That was in Pre-Hanoverian 
 times ; during the eighteenth century they had been on 
 the Government side, against the clans, and the exiled 
 royal family. Mr. Auld-Baillie made love with a sort 
 of pious worldliness, letting me see that Auld Crankie 
 (in Scotland he was not called Mr. Auld-Baillie) was 
 able to make his wife somebody of importance; he 
 did not say that I should be the first untitled mistress 
 the castle had owned for generations, but he men- 
 tioned his mother, Lady Grissel, and his grandmother, 
 Lady Jean, and incidentally alluded to the feud be- 
 tween his family and that of the Duke of Staffa — 
 only partially healed by his great-grandfather’s mar- 
 riage with His Grace’s eleventh daughter, Lady Ali- 
 son; and it appeared that his great-great-grandfather’s 
 wife had been that Lady Christian Auld-Baillie who 
 kissed every man on the Auld Crankie lands willing 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 213 
 
 CH. XXXl] 
 
 to take arms against Charles Edward in ’45. In fact, 
 he dwelt so long and lovingly on birth and family that 
 I was convinced Sylvia had made a mistake, and in- 
 wardly thanked Heaven I had not refused him before 
 he asked me. But with a pious jump he suddenly 
 turned from these high names, and made it plain that 
 he wished to alter mine; that domestic, simple happi- 
 ness was his object, and that together we were to 
 attain it in the practice of solid religion in a not un- 
 worthy Home — to wit, Auld Crankie Castle. 
 
 Sylvia was not mistaken, nor was she wrong about 
 his being upset. He reddened at the first word of 
 refusal, and almost argued; he was obstinate, and 
 unwilling to be convinced that his serious offer was not 
 to be accepted. He waved the East Lodge rhetorically 
 in his gentlemanly hand, as if it had been the notes of 
 a speech, and we were in the House of Commons. He 
 spoke of the essentials of a happy marriage, and men- 
 tioned duty in connection with them, clearly implying 
 that mine was to be Mrs. Auld-Baillie of Auld Crankie 
 Castle. 
 
 “ Perhaps,” he admitted, “ I have spoken too 
 soon ” 
 
 “ Yes,” said I, with all my habitual grace and tact. 
 “ Yes. Any time would be too soon ” 
 
 And if he got redder, so did I. 
 
 “ I have not known you long,” he conceded (but 
 stiffly), “ and perhaps I should have waited. Still, we 
 have been much together — and I confess I have dis- 
 cerned till now, no repugnance.” 
 
 “ Repugnance ! No. But I don’t want to marry 
 anybody.” 
 
 ‘^Then there is no one else; no counter ” He 
 
214 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxi 
 
 was going to say “ attraction,” but changed his word 
 and said “ no prior attachment ? ” 
 
 “ Of course not,” I declared, and it seemed to mol- 
 lify him, though I only meant that I had never thought 
 in the least about getting married. It mollified him 
 too much, and he brisked up. 
 
 “ At home I only used to see Perkin’s schoolfel- 
 lows,” I explained. 
 
 “ Oh, and Eustace de Braose, and perhaps Lord 
 Chevronel; and there was nothing of that sort — 
 naturally ? ” 
 
 He smiled. “Well, well,” said he (like Mr. Pick- 
 wick, more cheerfully). “You are very young. It 
 is a new idea to you. / can’t regret it. New ideas are 
 
 often unpleasant at first ” 
 
 “ Very,” I agreed, too heartily. 
 
 “Well, well” (less cheerfully), “but as they be- 
 come more familiar they become more agreeable.” 
 
 I shook my head, and the gesture certainly implied 
 that he would not become more agreeable by increased 
 familiarity. He flushed again, and slightly elevated 
 the East Lodge, as though to deprecate interruption. 
 
 “ I must give you time,” he went on. “ You must 
 forget my suddenness (I did not think it too sudden — 
 nor did the Bishop) , but we were wrong. My friend 
 the Bishop, in his zeal for a suitable Christian mar- 
 riage, perhaps encouraged me too warmly; he per- 
 ceived my preference at an early date and showed 
 his strong approval — he thinks highly of your 
 family.” 
 
 “ Of me, or of Sylvia? — he hasn’t seen Perkin.” 
 “No; but he knows your mother; and I am sure 
 from his report that I can rely upon her strong sense 
 
ch. xxxi] MONKSBRIDGE 215 
 
 of fitness and duty. Let us forget that I have spoken, 
 if I have spoken too soon.” 
 
 “ Oh yes. Pray do forget it. That will be quite the 
 best thing,” said I, eagerly. But Mr. Auld-Baillie was 
 not so pleased as he should have been. 
 
 “ /,” he observed, “ cannot forget it; nor wish to.” 
 
 “ Oh, please try. It’s so easy to forget things even 
 when one doesn’t try.” 
 
 “ My dear Miss Auberon, you are very young. 
 These things are not of a nature to be forgotten. I 
 merely meant let us go on as if I had not yet spoken — 
 not yet. And in the meantime you will see your 
 excellent mother; her opinion (her mature judgment) 
 may, must, have weight, with so dutiful a daughter. 
 The Bishop says nothing can bear a higher testimony 
 to the excellence of the mother than the affectionate 
 devotion of her daughters.” 
 
 “ Oh, but he doesn’t know anything about us at 
 all. Of course, Mamma is a perfect darling, but she’s 
 not like that a bit. She never talks to us (to Perkin 
 and me) about our duty and all that — she only says 
 we had much better do what Sylvia says. We’re not 
 dutiful daughters — we are devoted to her — Sylvia is 
 wonderfully nice to her — but she just does what Syl- 
 via says, and lets me do what I like so long as Sylvia 
 doesn’t mind.” 
 
 I could see that Mr. Auld-Baillie was not inatten- 
 tive, he was (as Perkin would have said) sucking it 
 all in, and I think he began to discern a new line of 
 tactics. He hadn’t hitherto quite realized Sylvia. In 
 fact, Lady Hermione gave me to understand, he had 
 once slightly snubbed my sister. He became less red 
 and more thoughtful, and he softly patted the East 
 
2l6 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXXI 
 
 Lodge against the lower portion of his waistcoat with 
 reviving complacence. Unfortunately my frankness 
 had put a potent weapon in his hands, and had, as I 
 presently found, converted an all-powerful ally into 
 a determined foe. But for the moment I could only 
 feel it a relief that he passed from more personal 
 and heated discussions to calm eulogy of the Bishop 
 and Rood Palace. 
 
 “ It is pleasant to think,” he said, “ that what was 
 once a stronghold of monachism is now an Evangelical 
 Home; where once an Abbot ruled, there lives a Chris- 
 tian pastor with the keenest relish for domestic joys.” 
 
 For my part I should not have minded if the Abbot 
 had been there still. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 “ Of course,” Sylvia had said, “ we shall tell no one,” 
 and / did not even tell her. But she found out, and 
 she could not have found out unless some one had 
 known; she was right again — every one knew, and I 
 think Miss Beaufront was the universal informant, 
 and that the Bishop had let on to her. He was a bit 
 of a gossip, and it did not displease him that people 
 should be aware that the Auberon family in general 
 were receiving unexceptionable offers. To me Miss 
 Beaufront was a little tart, but approving all the 
 same. It was, she evidently thought, silly of Mr. Auld- 
 Baillie to propose to me, but very sensible of me to 
 refuse him; and all her tartness was mingled with an 
 increased respect. Poor Mr. Auld-Baillie was the only 
 person at Severn Court who had not the least idea 
 that every one knew what had happened. No one, 
 except Lady Hermione, said anything to me, but even 
 Mr. Monk treated me with a certain added consid- 
 eration; Lord and Lady Severn, who never suspected 
 they were showing it, did show that they thought more 
 of the Auberons because the most insignificant of them 
 had not snapped at a rich and highly respectable suitor. 
 So, it appeared, did Lady Agincourt. 
 
 “ Mamma,” Lady Hermione confided to me, “ saw 
 it all from the first; and she wondered how it would 
 be. Of course, your sister has you under her thumb 
 — she’s too clever for us poor creatures.” 
 
 “ Sylvia,” I declared angrily, “ * saw it all,’ as you 
 217 
 
2l8 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXXII 
 
 call it, though I didn’t believe her — and she didn’t 
 want'it in the least. If you and I are to quarrel, there’s 
 your subject. It makes me mad to hear the way you 
 talk about her.” 
 
 “ Who ? I never said black or white about her 
 before.” 
 
 “You’re all the same! You talk about her being 
 clever, and she is much cleverer than any of you ” 
 
 “ Don’t I say so? ” 
 
 “Yes; and you mean to be nasty. You’re just 
 like old Mrs. de Braose — she seems to bow down 
 before Sylvia, and calls her clever just in your 
 way.” 
 
 “ Well, she’s a clever old villain herself. If she says 
 
 so My dear Marjory, do keep your temper. We 
 
 can quarrel if you like, but what’s the good? Sylvia 
 is ten times prettier than you, or any of us; and a 
 hundred times wiser (in her generation) than you. 
 But it isn’t your generation; and you can thank God 
 for it. She is a great lady, and Mr. Monk will get 
 the good of it; but you don’t want to be a great lady, 
 and she wants to make you one. God made you a 
 lady, and if she spoils you I shall hate her, and be cross 
 with you. ‘ Fax is fax,’ as a nursemaid of ours used 
 to say, and you needn’t bite me if I drag them out 
 and laugh at them. She’ll be the new Lady Monks- 
 bridge — and the first, to all intents and purposes; and 
 we shall all succumb to her. But we can’t spare you 
 to her; we just want Marjory Auberon — to like her 
 and keep her. And I only wish I knew Perkin. Do 
 you think I don’t understand you all by now ? When 
 you talk to me and Briggy about Perkin and your 
 mother and Cross Place and Hubert Byrne, don’t you 
 
CH. XXXIl] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 219 
 
 suppose we see them all much better than in a picture ? 
 I just wish I knew Perkin. I’m on his side, so’s 
 Briggy, and we’d encourage him: he needs it, poor 
 boy! He’s the nicest of you all — oh, don’t interrupt. 
 I met your mother at Caerleon, and she is charming — - 
 but Sylvia intends to make her share the Lowminster 
 throne and mitre, and she’ll do exactly what Sylvia 
 chooses. What’s the use of looking savage? You 
 know it’s true. If Perkin could go about with your 
 mother and you, he might look after you both, but you 
 alone couldn’t look after your mother (you’re too 
 weak) ; and besides, Miss. Sylvia will only take one of 
 you with her at a time, and when it’s your mother’s 
 turn you’ll be left safe at home. Now I’ve had my 
 say, and I feel better. I’ve been smouldering for five 
 days, and getting more and more anxious. Now that 
 old maid in breeches has proposed, and you’ve said 
 you’d rather not, I breathe freely.” 
 
 “ I don’t care how you breathe,” I said fiercely. 
 “ And I think you’re a horrid girl. What sort of girl 
 must you think me, to think I’ll stand still and let you 
 talk like that of my sister? And, as it happens, you 
 have been quite wrong — Sylvia didn’t want me to ac- 
 cept him.” 
 
 “ That,” said Hermione, quite unmoved by my 
 angry recriminations, “ is the odd part of it. I won- 
 der ” 
 
 “ What do you wonder ? ” I demanded hotly. 
 
 “ I wonder if she knows that he will be an Earl? 
 She seems to know almost everything, but that may 
 have escaped her. His grandfather married Lady 
 Jean Macleod, the Duke of Iona’s only daughter; she 
 had only one brother, and he had only one son. The 
 
220 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxii 
 
 present Duke has no children at all. He’s about ninety, 
 and very shaky. When he dies there’ll be an end of 
 the Dukedom, but Mr. Auld-Baillie will be Earl of 
 Inverchlory. On the whole, I am pretty sure she 
 didn’t know it.” 
 
 And, alas ! I felt pretty sure of it too — and my face 
 betrayed it. But I was thankful she hadn’t known it, 
 though my spirit misgave me when I considered how 
 certain she was to find out. 
 
 “ Briggy, come here,” Lady Hermione called out, 
 as that youth peeped into the little yellow morning 
 room (not more than forty feet square) where this 
 troubled colloquy had taken place. “ Marjory is try- 
 ing to slay me, and I’d as lief have you to defend me 
 as any one.” 
 
 “ She’s been misbehaving?” the boy said, glancing 
 at her and me with a kind little smile of deprecation. 
 I neither smiled nor spoke, and he looked more trou- 
 bled. “ She does like you so,” he said to me, with such 
 an earnest simplicity that I could only think what a 
 nice lad it was. His shining blue eyes travelled to 
 and fro between her half-wilful face and my resentful 
 one with an expression more wistful than puzzled. 
 “ Glorum,” he said, “ you often say you’d like to have 
 been a boy — boys don’t quarrel.” 
 
 “ I didn’t want to quarrel — I haven’t quarrelled 
 now.” 
 
 “ No, but you’ve been saying things. Miss Au- 
 be ron ” 
 
 “Call her Marjory!” said Hermione. “You al- 
 ways do behind her back. At least, we call you ‘ Mug- 
 gles ’ — we’ve picked up all Perkin’s expressions.” And 
 Hermione turned so queer and kind a face to me, that 
 
ch. xxxii] MONKSBRIDGE 221 
 
 I knew Briggy would think me sulky if I resisted it, 
 and somehow I felt sure he would always be right. 
 
 I grinned, and felt (Lord knows why) lumpy about 
 the throat. 
 
 “We’re all for Perkin,” said Briggy. How diplo- 
 matic is plain simplicity! 
 
 “ I told her so, that’s what she flew out about.” 
 
 But Briggy knew better. “ You’ll never be a boy, 
 Glorum,” he said, shaking his head; and I’m sure he 
 knew as well as if he’d heard it all what I had flown 
 out about. “ But, Marjory, she’s a good chum, and 
 we wanted you to be one of us three. Do let us.” 
 His English was not lucid, but he was; and I liked 
 them both better than anybody I knew, except Per- 
 kin. They were not unlike Perkin in some ways. 
 As what comes into my mind, generally comes out, I 
 said — with a gesture intended to express oblivion 
 of the past, but rather like that of a laconic diner 
 waving away an entree he doesn’t want — 
 
 “ I wish Perkin was here ! At least, I don’t, be- 
 cause he wouldn’t like it at all.” 
 
 “ That’s civil ! ” said Briggy. 
 
 “ I’m all for Perkin,” said Hermione, with too much 
 meaning. 
 
 “ You mean ” I began, with some return of 
 
 warmth. 
 
 “ I mean just what you say — that he would not like 
 it a bit. He has too much sense.” 
 
 “ Oh,” said I, “if you think I wanted to come, 
 
 you’re just mistaken; it was ” 
 
 “ Not Sylvia, of course,” observed Hermione, coolly. 
 “Glorum! You’re the most hopeless person to set 
 up for being a boy,” our peacemaker interrupted; 
 
222 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxii 
 
 like all efficient peacemakers, he thoroughly under- 
 stood his own weapons. 
 
 She gave a little disconcerted kick, and held her 
 tongue. 
 
 “ No,” I hurried on, “ I didn’t want to come; but I 
 don’t mind it now I’m here — except for ” 
 
 “ Mr. Auld-Baillie,” suggested Hermione ; and to 
 all intents and purposes, I nodded, though I didn’t wag 
 my head at all. 
 
 “ Now that’s over ” I went on, but she chipped 
 
 in again. 
 
 “Over! Just begun, you mean. However, you’ve 
 begun well. Otherwise, I should say, you would have 
 been better at home.” 
 
 “ Glorum ! ” 
 
 “ Well, she would. It’s no use Gloruming. I don’t 
 see the good of repenting till you’ve done all you 
 want, and I want to set clearly before her the evils 
 of going a duke-ing (dear Perkin!) that she may not 
 fall alive into the pits that some (No! no! don’t leap 
 up; I never said ‘ Sylvia ’) have digged for her.” 
 
 I did leap, and Briggy leapt too; I left her to his 
 just reproaches and fled (through the hall, where I 
 saw Sylvia, without Mr. Monk, and with Mr. Auld- 
 Baillie) upstairs to our own bedroom. And all the 
 time I heard Perkin declaring, traitorously, that Her- 
 mione was right. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 Two important telegrams reached Severn Court that 
 very afternoon. One brought word that a duke was 
 dead, and one that a lord was very ill. The Duke was 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie’s cousin; the Lord was Mr. Monk’s 
 father. The telegrams arrived together just before 
 tea-time, and all Severn Court knew of them at once. 
 Both noblemen had had a “ stroke ” ; but Miss Beau- 
 front, who knew all about Dukes, assured the Bishop 
 that it was his grace’s fifth, and seemed almost sur- 
 prised it had killed him — the four others having 
 failed. 
 
 “ He was, I believe, a very worthy man,” said the 
 Bishop, patting his apron with a dolorous complacence. 
 He had always liked Mr. Auld-Baillie, and it is well 
 to have Evangelical Earls. “ He has been taken in 
 the fulness of time.” 
 
 He bent and stroked his calves, which had a certain 
 fulness too. 
 
 “ Oh yes,” said Miss Beaufront. “ As to Lord 
 Thingummy, I don’t know. It may be his first. Not 
 an old man, I fancy.” 
 
 The Bishop shook his head, with a less complacent 
 dolour. 
 
 “ About fifty-five, I hear,” he said. He was not 
 turned fifty-six himself. 
 
 “ Dear me ! Quite in the prime of life,” said Miss 
 Beaufront; “ he may live to have a dozen.” 
 
 223 
 
224 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxiii 
 
 “A dozen?” queried the Bishop, thinking of his 
 one ewe-lamb. 
 
 “ Strokes. But that Miss Auberon is so lucky — I 
 doubt it’ll be his first and last.” Then, suddenly espy- 
 ing me, in dubious neighbourhood, she said : “ My 
 dear! A terrible blow for your sister!” 
 
 At that moment I saw Sylvia enter the hall, in which 
 there was only the light of two great log fires — one 
 at each end of it ; she made a sign to me, and I went 
 over to her. 
 
 “ Come up to our room,” she said, and we went 
 up together; the curtains were drawn close, and the 
 room was full of warm firelight. We stood together 
 on the rug, and she leant one elbow on the chimney- 
 piece, looking down gravely into the fire. “ I have 
 seen Hampden,” she said, “ and he thinks his father 
 must be — he seems to have very little hope.” She was 
 pale, and shivered as she spoke. 
 
 “ It must be a horrible shock to him,” I said. 
 
 “ Yes. He is a devoted son. I think he cared 
 most for his mother ; but he will feel his father’s death 
 very much. He is going at once: he and Mr. Auld- 
 Baillie are going together. There is a train to Dul- 
 church at half-past five, and they will travel that far 
 together; then Mr. Auld-Baillie can catch the North 
 express, but there is no quick train to Monksbridge 
 till after eight. I advised Hampden to take a spe- 
 cial, and he is going to do so.” 
 
 All this she said very gravely, and it was easy 
 to see that the news had really moved her. The idea 
 of death, brought thus near ourselves, shocked and 
 almost frightened her. 
 
ch. xxxm] MONKSBRIDGE 225 
 
 For a few minutes we said nothing; then she sat 
 down and went on thoughtfully — 
 
 “ I am considering exactly how we ought to behave. 
 We must be very careful; all these people will watch 
 us. Our position is peculiar : though you refused him, 
 Mr. Auld-Baillie proposed to you to-day, and he will 
 not accept your refusal as final.” 
 
 “ But, Sylvia, it was final ; I can’t see what this has 
 to do with it. Of course I am very sorry that he has 
 had this sad news, so must every one in the house be; 
 but it doesn’t concern me more than any one else here.” 
 
 “ Yes, it does. Every one will think it does. They 
 all know he wants to marry you, and ” 
 
 “ If they do know that, they know that I don’t 
 want to marry him. Does any one on earth imagine 
 that a girl is bound to change her mind because the 
 man she has just refused has lost a cousin? That’s 
 nonsense.” 
 
 “Yes, that’s nonsense; but that’s what you say. 
 They will watch you to see how you behave. That 
 isn’t nonsense.” 
 
 Then, seeing I was becoming rebellious, she turned 
 quickly to another consideration. 
 
 “ I, at all events, am engaged,” she said. “ If we 
 were married, of course I should go away with him, 
 and take you with me. That is impossible as it is 
 now.” 
 
 She paused and pondered, and went on — 
 
 “ We certainly cannot leave to-night. Fortunately 
 there is no dinner-party — only the people in the 
 house.” 
 
 “ Thirty of them ! ” I suggested. 
 
 “ Eight and twenty after Hampden and Mr. Auld- 
 
226 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxiii 
 
 Baillie are gone. Simply the people in the house. I 
 have asked Hampden to telegraph first thing in the 
 morning, it will be too late to-night. If there is . . . 
 any change ... of course we will leave at once, and 
 I would ask Lady Severn to let us breakfast up here, 
 so that we could go straight down to the carriage. 
 But if his father is better I don’t think we should go 
 till later in the day. They are going to dance after 
 dinner; it was to have been your first dance; I’m sorry, 
 but there’s no help for it. After all it’s easier to ar- 
 range than if only the Duke — that zvould have been 
 a puzzle ! For you to be dancing ” 
 
 She paused and shook her head; grave and shocked 
 as she was, it gave her a sober satisfaction to think 
 how a Duke’s death should complicate the question 
 of her sister’s dancing. 
 
 At that moment a knock was heard at the door; it 
 was a housemaid who said that one of the footmen 
 was outside with a message from Mr. Monk — would 
 Miss Auberon be good enough to come to him, for a 
 moment, in the library; he was just leaving. 
 
 “ Come, Marjory,” said Sylvia, rising at once. But 
 I didn’t see why I should go. 
 
 “ Please come,” she repeated, and I went with her, 
 the footman going down before us to open the door. 
 In the library I saw no one but Mr. Monk, who came 
 forward, and touched my hand; to my great relief I 
 understood that I was not expected to say anything. 
 He looked darker than ever, and paler. A moment 
 later I found that he was not the only person in the 
 room besides Sylvia and myself. Mr. Auld-Baillie 
 was there, standing in the shadow of a huge recess 
 away from the fire and the lamps. Before I saw him 
 
ch. xxxiii] MONKSBRIDGE 227 
 
 I had moved a little apart from Sylvia and Hamp- 
 den, and he came forward at the same moment. 
 
 “ I am going,” he said, “ on a solemn errand — not 
 a sad one; for my poor cousin was very old, and 
 he has long ceased to live, to all intents and purposes. 
 He had had a previous seizure, and it deprived him 
 of all sense and power of recognition. He did not 
 feel his life a burden, because he did not know he was 
 alive; and he has been thus for two years; he might 
 have lived on thus a long time. I thought perhaps 
 he would. I did not mention him to-day in speaking 
 to you ; it would have been an indelicacy. This is no 
 time to re-open what we were then discussing.” 
 
 I agreed with him and bowed a silent assent. 
 
 “ No, of course,” he went on calmly. “ Even if 
 there were time.” 
 
 Then he held out a hand that I had no choice but 
 to take, and said — 
 
 “ Good-bye. I ask your recollection and your pray- 
 ers — added duties come upon me. Good-bye ; but even 
 at this moment it is right that I should tell you again 
 that I cannot take as final your decision of this morn- 
 ing: I shall seek you out in your own home.” He 
 glanced at Sylvia, and I knew she had told him he 
 might come. “ In your mother’s house I shall look for 
 you, and in her I shall look for a wise ally.” 
 
 He glanced at Hampden Monk, and I knew that 
 he counted on an ally there too. 
 
 I was angry with all three of them — not with poor 
 innocent Mamma — but with Sylvia, and Hampden, and 
 him, and knew well they had made time to conclude 
 some treaty, two and two probably, during the earlier 
 part of that fateful, slow afternoon. But how could 
 
228 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxiii 
 
 I turn on them then? Hampden Monk I had never 
 really liked, now I knew clearly that I disliked him: 
 was Sylvia going to make me turn against her too? 
 There was no objection on earth to disliking Mr. 
 Auld-Baillie, but I could not at that moment flare up 
 at him, in the midst of his solemn mourning that did 
 not even pretend to be grief. 
 
 “ Good-bye,” I said, drawing my hand back coldly. 
 
 “ And you will remember me ? ” 
 
 “ Not,” I answered in a low voice, “ if I can help it.” 
 
 He reddened as he had done that morning; and 
 Hampden saw it, if he had not heard me. He looked 
 my way, more brotherly-in-law than brotherly, and the 
 butler, to my great relief, opened the door, and, coming 
 forward a little way, bowed to Mr. Auld-Baillie. 
 
 “ Your lordship’s carriage is at the door,” he said in 
 a voice that reminded one of Court Mourning. 
 
 There are temptations that even the most perfect of 
 butlers can’t resist, and this butler, though he was sure 
 the Earl of Inverchlory’s new honours should be 
 decorously ignored till after the late Duke’s funeral, 
 could not resist being the first to “ my lord ” him. 
 
 “ Have you anything gray?” Sylvia asked me the 
 moment the door had closed upon our two' young 
 men. For the first time in her life she was a little bit 
 frightened of me, and she wanted to forestall anything 
 I might have to say. “ Have you anything grey? Your 
 new dresses are — not, of course, brilliant , but certainly 
 bright. Grey would be exactly the colour. I have a 
 grey gown ” 
 
 “No. I have nothing grey. But, Sylvia, please 
 understand once and for all that I have refused Mr. 
 Auld-Baillie finally. Neither you, nor he, nor Hamp- 
 
ch. xxxiii] MONKSBRIDGE 229 
 
 den shall interfere with me. I have never tried to in- 
 terfere in your affairs, and ” 
 
 At that moment the door opened again, and Sylvia, 
 I am sure, had never been so glad to see Lady Severn 
 as she was then. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 Miss Beaufront was right; Lord Monksbridge’s 
 stroke was his first and his last. About half-past eight 
 next morning Lady Severn received a telegram from 
 Mr. Monk asking her to break to Sylvia the news of 
 his father’s death. We were already up, and Lady 
 Severn came to our room; she made me a little sign 
 and I went out, leaving her alone with my sister. 
 Outside I found Hermione, who took me into Lady 
 Severn’s own sitting-room on the same corridor. 
 
 “ It is very sad,” she said at once, “ and I feel such 
 a pig for having talked to you as I did yesterday about 
 Sylvia. Last night I talked to her a little, and tried to 
 be nice. She feels it; and she says what an attached 
 son Mr. Monk was.” 
 
 “ Yes ; he is. Though I think he liked his mother 
 best, and it’s the best thing about him.” 
 
 “ I understand. I’ve heard of her, and she’s rather 
 queer, isn’t she? ” 
 
 “ Yes, but really nice.” 
 
 “ I know. I should like her best, too, best of the 
 family; but she wasn’t in his line quite, and so you’re 
 right about its being the best thing about him, his being 
 so fond of her.” 
 
 “ Hermione, we’re going away at once, and I can’t 
 help saying things I oughtn’t ; I am very sorry for 
 Hampden, but he’s not in my good books. He and 
 Sylvia — in a while, when all this trouble is past a little 
 
 — will try to interfere with me, about — about ” 
 
 230 
 
231 
 
 ch. xxxiv ] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 “ About Mr. Auld-Baillie ? ” 
 
 “Yes. He wants to come and stay at Cross Place; 
 and even if I can stop that, I can’t prevent Hampden 
 asking him to Llanthamy. It’s horrid thinking and 
 talking of such things now, but Mr. Auld-Baillie talked 
 of it again last night, just before he went away; and 
 Sylvia and Hampden were there. I could see they were 
 on his side, and that they and he had made a league 
 against me.” 
 
 “ Marjory ! Remember I’m on your side, and so is 
 Briggy. We’re not much account, but we’re on your 
 side; and if he comes to Cross Place, or Llanthamy, 
 and they are bothering you, I’ll tell you what to do — 
 just come to us, to Mount Cressy, or here, if you’d like 
 it better, and I’ll be here to meet you. Just telegraph, 
 and Mamma will write and ask you, or Aunt Muriel if 
 it’s to be here ” 
 
 Lady Severn came in and interrupted us, and said 
 I had better go to my sister ; then, very kindly indeed, 
 she held my hand and said — 
 
 “ Your first visit to us has had a sad ending, Mar- 
 jory ; but you must come again ” 
 
 “ Aunt Muriel,” said Hermione, “ let her come when 
 it’s not a big party: when only Mamma and we are 
 here, and ” 
 
 “ But, Glorum, perhaps she would find that dull.” 
 “ No, she wouldn’t. Would you, Marjory?” 
 
 “ I should like it much best,” I said, and then Lady 
 Severn kissed me, and I went away to Sylvia. She was 
 at breakfast, in her grey gown, attended by a house- 
 maid, with a face at half-mast, of whose presence I was 
 glad, as it prevented conversation. 
 
 On the stairs Lord Severn was waiting to say good- 
 
232 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxiv 
 
 bye; he was very kind and quiet, saying very little, but 
 exactly, as it seemed to me, what was right. He also 
 hoped to see us again. Of Hampden Monk he spoke 
 with respectful sympathy. “ He,” he said, “ will have 
 to console his poor mother. You ” — to Sylvia — “will 
 be his best consolation.” 
 
 He spoke of seeing them both, together, at Severn 
 Court again, in happier days, evidently meaning when 
 they were married. To me he said a little word in my 
 ear, as we went down. 
 
 “ You must come without waiting for them to bring 
 you,” he almost whispered. “ Briggy and Hermione 
 count on having you more to themselves.” 
 
 Briggy was there, in a darkish corner of the stairs; 
 he slipped forward and said — 
 
 “ Mind, you’re to come back ; or Glorum and I will 
 go and kidnap you.” 
 
 Then he disappeared, and we went down to the hall, 
 where the Bishop was tapping a barometer with a sim- 
 plicity that might have deceived the very elect, but I 
 was not elect, and was not in the least deceived. He 
 had not decided that it Set Fair till Sylvia had gone by, 
 then he turned to me, and squeezed my hand, or, 
 rather, my mackintosh which I was holding in it, and 
 murmured — 
 
 “ God bless you both ! God bless you all. Assure 
 your dear mother of my sympathy.” 
 
 I longed to remind him that it was Lady Monks- 
 bridge who had lost her husband, or rather that my 
 mother’s own loss was not very recent ; but, of course, 
 I wouldn’t, and, when I came to think of it, it did 
 not seem very necessary. He was obviously aware 
 of it. 
 
233 
 
 CH. xxxiv] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 Hovering round the dining-room door, I was con- 
 scious of a whirl of petticoats suggestive of Miss Beau- 
 front, and hoped she would nab the Bishop. She would 
 have thought more highly of me had she known how 
 cordially I wished to see her reigning over Rood Pal- 
 ace, and how readily I would have sacrificed poor Miss 
 Garboyle; still my conscience pricked me for that 
 sandy-eyebrowed virgin, and the notion of Miss Beau- 
 front as a stepmother shook me so that, as we drove 
 away, I almost forgot that Fate herself could never 
 make that warrior marry Mamma. 
 
 The station-master was fully aware of Sylvia’s loss 
 — perhaps of mine, and he scouted the porters, and was 
 almost jealous of the footman, as he led us to our 
 carriage, without, I am sure, the least thought of 
 tips. 
 
 “ The carriage is Reserved,” he whispered, touching 
 his cap (usually worn at a taking angle, now solemnly 
 straight) for the thirteenth time. He was clearly of 
 opinion that we required total solitude for the indul- 
 gence of our noble grief. And the guard stood by as 
 though it depended on us when the train should move 
 on; the convenience of an abject public mattered noth- 
 ing when it was a question of two young ladies pros- 
 trated, one by the death of a Lord, and one by 
 that of a Duke. Had we been hurrying home to the 
 funeral of our own father, the late Reverend Peter 
 Auberon, would the milk-cans have been smuggled 
 stealthily into the train with a warning “ Hsh ! ” from 
 the senior porter ? 
 
 Of course. Death is more dreadful than the impend- 
 ing threat of it; and certainly Sylvia had a more 
 lugubrious air as we were assisted into that railway- 
 
234 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxiv 
 
 carriage than she had worn last night by our fire, or 
 than she had assumed half an hour ago as we shook 
 hands with our host. 
 
 As the train moved away she said, “ People talk of 
 the decay of a proper spirit among the lower classes. 
 The right feeling is still there. It is gratifying. It’s all 
 very well for sarcastic old women, like Mrs. de Braose, 
 to sneer at new titles, but Lord Monksbridge was Some- 
 body after all. His political position was high. His 
 name, one sees, was well known to people like 
 these.” 
 
 “ So,” I observed angrily, “ was the Duke of Iona’s. 
 That station-master could not trust me to climb into the 
 carriage without his hand under my elbow. It’s an 
 awful thing for England when a Duke dies who didn’t 
 know for two years if he was alive or dead.” 
 
 “ Marjory ! It is indecent to talk like that — in your 
 position too.” 
 
 “ Then it was indecent for him to tell me. I shouldn’t 
 have known if he hadn’t told me. My position ! I have 
 no position, except that I’m Marjory Auberon, and all 
 the nonsense on earth will never make me Marjory 
 Auld-Baillie.” 
 
 “ ‘ Marjory Inverchlory.’ ” I saw her lips forming 
 the correction; and, with all her, perfectly just, horror 
 of my indecency, it was as plain as no part of her face 
 that she treated that future Countess with an indulgent 
 patience that Marjory Auberon could never have quite 
 reckoned on half a year before. 
 
 Perkin met us, and somehow he looked younger than 
 when we had gone away a week before ; certainly I felt 
 older. He was very nice to Sylvia, and very quiet and 
 gentle with us both. 
 
235 
 
 CH. xxxiv ] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 The reader may remember that the station was' 
 several miles from Monksbridge, and he told us that 
 Lady Llantwddwy had sent her carriage for us. It was 
 certainly kind of her, and made me think of Traddles 
 lending David Copperfield his pillow on the night when 
 the news came that David’s mother was dead. 
 
 As we drove home, Perkin told us that Lord Monks- 
 bridge had been alive, but unconscious, when Hampden 
 had arrived; an hour later he had become conscious, 
 and had spoken to his wife and son, and he mentioned 
 Sylvia, saying that he hoped they would not much 
 delay their marriage on account of his death. 
 
 Sylvia was touched when Perkin said how she had 
 been remembered, but she shook her head when she 
 heard that Lord Monksbridge did not wish the 
 marriage to be long postponed. 
 
 “ There was another thing,” our brother went on, “ it 
 shows what a kind and thoughtful man he was, and it 
 shows that he had been feeling ill — he told them. Lady 
 Monksbridge and Hampden, that, a few days before, he 
 had added something to his will, leaving Sylvia ten 
 thousand pounds in case he should die before she and 
 his son were married.” 
 
 “Yes,” said our sister, “he was kind; it was 
 thoughtful,” and for the first time she cried. 
 
 Mamma was crying, too, when she met us in the hall 
 at home. As soon as we were in the drawing-room she 
 brought out a letter that had come from Hampden 
 Monk after Perkin had gone to fetch us. 
 
 “ He wrote early this morning,” she said, “ and sent 
 the note over by a groom — he had written last night 
 too, just after getting home. I must say he is very 
 thoughtful.” Then she told us what we had heard 
 
236 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxiv 
 
 already from Perkin. “This letter,” she went on, “ is 
 to ask if you would go to Llanthamy.” 
 
 “ Oh, Mamma ! I don’t think that would be the 
 right thing at all,” said Sylvia. “ We are only engaged. 
 To go there now, at once, before the funeral — I’m sure 
 it wouldn’t be the right thing.” 
 
 “ My dear ! ” Mamma pleaded, with more inde- 
 pendence of Sylvia’s opinion than I had ever seen her 
 show, “ I think that does not matter if they want you. 
 He speaks of his mother.” 
 
 Perkin said nothing, but he looked at Sylvia much 
 less gently, and turned away to the fire almost im- 
 patiently. I could not help understanding that she 
 had not meant to go to Llanthamy Castle till — till the 
 poor dead man should be buried; and I felt half angry 
 with her like Perkin. Rather to my surprise Mamma 
 persisted. 
 
 “They are in such trouble ” she began. 
 
 “Yes; it is a trouble for us all,” Sylvia interrupted, 
 not without obstinacy. 
 
 “ But it is a trouble,” Mamma said simply, “ that 
 belongs specially to you. To us it must chiefly be 
 a trouble as it affects you. He speaks of his mother’s 
 loneliness — there is no lady in the house. Sylvia 
 darling, you ought to go. He sent a carriage and the 
 letter with it ; the carriage is waiting in the coach-yard 
 now.” 
 
 “ Mamma — he and I are not married. He is a 
 young man and does not understand. I think you 
 
 ought to write and say that ” 
 
 “ No, dear, I cannot do that ; if you will not go, you 
 must write yourself.” 
 
 “ But he wrote to you ” 
 
237 
 
 CH. xxxiv] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 “ Because you were not here. I think you must go — 
 or else write to him yourself. He knows you are here 
 by now, and he will expect you to go; if not, at least to 
 write — remember he has heard nothing from you since 
 his father died.” 
 
 I was really astonished at Mamma’s firmness, she 
 was usually like wax in Sylvia’s hands. And I was 
 surprised, too, at Perkin’s forbearance. He stood, 
 looking into the fire, with an ashamed expression on 
 his face, but without any outburst of interference. 
 
 “ How could he have heard anything from me ? ” 
 Sylvia complained; “we came away directly the tele- 
 gram arrived. I am famished and frozen ” 
 
 Then Perkin broke down. 
 
 “And Marjory?” he said. “I suppose she’s cold 
 and hungry too; but we’re not bothering much about 
 her.” For once I behaved myself, and interrupted on 
 the side of peace. 
 
 “ Pm all right,” I said. “ But Sylvia must either go 
 or write. I think it would be easier for her to go. But ” 
 (and I was thinking of poor Lady Monksbridge, and 
 thinking too of how Lord Severn had said to my sister : 
 ‘ You must be his consolation,’ for, if Hampden 
 naturally wished to have Sylvia with him, I was sure 
 Mamma would be a greater comfort to Lady Monks- 
 bridge) “I don’t think any one could expect her to go 
 alone. Dear Mamma! Why not go with her? You 
 are a widow too, and I’m sure you would be a comfort 
 to poor Lady Monksbridge.” 
 
 Sylvia, even at that moment, was irritated at my 
 allusion to Mamma’s widowhood, and the truth was 
 she did not want to go at all, either with or without 
 Mamma. But Mamma was against her. 
 
238 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxiv 
 
 “ Yes,” she said ; “ that will be best. I will go ” 
 
 “ Why can’t you go without me ? ” Sylvia suddenly 
 demanded. And Perkin spoke again. 
 
 “ If you do that,” he said, in a low voice — “ if you 
 let her go alone — we shall all be ashamed of you.” 
 
 And I made no protest of denial — nor did Mamma. 
 
 Sylvia hardly ever blushed. But a slight, slow 
 blush crept up her neck and spread over her cheeks. 
 She gave in; but I doubt if she ever forgave that calm, 
 cold speech of Perkin’s. 
 
 When they were gone he turned to me. 
 
 “ Muggles ! I shall never understand her,” he said. 
 “ Is it all propriety? Is it all just because she doesn’t 
 think people will think it ‘ the right thing ’ for her to be 
 at Llanthamy now, when she’s only engaged ? ” 
 
 “ No, Perkin; not all because of that. I think it is 
 because she has a horror of dead people, and is afraid.” 
 
 “Afraid! Of what?” 
 
 “Of being in the house with him ” — and Perkin 
 knew I meant Lord Monksbridge — “ of, perhaps, 
 having to see him.” 
 
 “ Poor Hampden Monk ! ” said Perkin. “ I’m not in 
 love with him myself, but ” 
 
 “ Perkin, that’s not fair. She can’t help feeling like 
 that. Some people can’t. She was never more sincere 
 in her life.” 
 
 “ That’s just it,” he answered, and his voice made 
 me think of Hermione. 
 
PART III 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 In spite of the late Lord Monksbridge’s wish that his 
 son and my sister should not greatly delay their 
 marriage on account of his death, it did not take place 
 for a full year. Sylvia would not hear of it. She put 
 on exactly the right degree of mourning for a man who 
 was her future husband’s father, but was not her 
 father-in-law; and by unhurried, but careful, degrees 
 changed it, till, within six months, she was not in 
 mourning at all. But she would not be persuaded to 
 marry during the first year of Lady Monksbridge’s 
 widowhood. Hampden, though there was nothing 
 much in his dress to betray it, was, she insisted, still in 
 deep mourning. He pleaded, and his mother obedi- 
 ently backed him; but Sylvia, with utmost gentleness, 
 remained firm. 
 
 “ Dear Lady Monksbridge,” she declared, “ you say 
 what he tells you ; but you know I am right. It would 
 be a lack of respect.” 
 
 Lady Monksbridge, like all people who are assured 
 of possessing special wisdom, felt that she did know 
 Sylvia was right, though she could not have told any 
 one why. 
 
 I think I could have enlightened her. Sylvia’s great 
 scheme of elevating the Monksbridge family was not to 
 be spoiled by the death of the first lord of that name. 
 But it would be spoiled if mere impatience should not 
 
 239 
 
240 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXXV 
 
 allow her to postpone its execution. During the early 
 period of her engagement, she felt she had done a great 
 deal for the second lord’s position; much that she had 
 done would be wasted if she had agreed to a marriage 
 while her husband was still in mourning. The wedding 
 must have been very quiet, and, after it, the bride and 
 bridegroom might have gone abroad, but they could not 
 have gone a round of great visits. How hard would it 
 have then become to strike upon a moment wherein the 
 new Lord and Lady Monksbridge could have assumed, 
 naturally and inevitably, the position Sylvia intended 
 for them. 
 
 “ I have promised,” she told Mamma, “ all those girls 
 that they should be bridesmaids.” (There were ten of 
 them, and the lowliest was an earl’s daughter, a Scotch 
 earl, but a Knight of the Thistle.) “Our domestic 
 troubles are no reason for disappointing them. If we 
 married at all quickly, there could hardly be any brides- 
 maids — only Marjory to hold one’s bouquet.” 
 
 Certainly the only existing Lady Monksbridge 
 understood none of this; but Sylvia made her think 
 there should be no hurry, and her own impatience for 
 a daughter-in-law was not vehement. Meanwhile, Miss 
 Auberon’s determination to abstain from a wedding too 
 soon after a funeral made the Monksbridgians attribute 
 “ more heart ” to that young lady than they had been 
 ready to suspect. Old Lady Llantwddwy was much 
 impressed — till old Mrs. de Braose had scoffed away 
 her sentimental applause over a cup of tea with buttery 
 muffins. Lady Gladws de Braose assured her family 
 that Miss Auberon was “ supreme ” — a dictum which 
 her brother-in-law seemed inclined first to accept 
 literally, and then to resent. 
 
CH. XXXV] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 241 
 
 “ Ah ! ” said Sylvia to me one day, standing in front 
 of Bishop Latimer’s portrait. “ Your affair with Lord 
 Inverchlory bothered me for the moment ! I wanted 
 that fifteen hundred pounds badly for Mamma. Your 
 affair with him put it out of the question.” 
 
 “ You said it would be all right if I did not mean to 
 marry him!” I reminded her, not without temper; 
 “ and I certainly don’t.” 
 
 “Did I? You probably misunderstood me. As 
 things are, any money dealings, even about a picture, 
 would be more impossible than ever.” 
 
 “ There aren’t any ‘ things.’ ” 
 
 Sylvia shook her head. “ It doesn’t matter now,” 
 she observed, without the least temper. “ Lord Monks- 
 bridge’s thoughtfulness made the money of noaccount.” 
 It was the first time she had mentioned Lord Inver- 
 chlory to me since we had returned home, but I knew 
 she had told Mamma about him, for Mamma could not 
 help speaking of it to me. 
 
 “ My dear,” she said complacently, “ so your very 
 first visit anywhere without me brought you your first 
 proposal.” 
 
 “My last too, I hope, if the others were to be like it.” 
 Poor Mamma almost jumped. “ But I understand,” 
 she said, “ that he is a charming young man ! ” 
 
 “ He may charm Sylvia; he didn’t charm me at all.” 
 “ Oh, of course there could be no idea of his 
 charming her — she has only Hampden to think of. 
 But she said he was quite excellent, and universally 
 esteemed.” 
 
 “I have no objection to esteem him universally. 
 But, Mamma dear, please don’t take Sylvia’s side 
 against me.” 
 
242 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXXV 
 
 “ Against you, my dear? ” 
 
 “Yes; you will be against me if you join Hampden 
 and Sylvia. I know they want me to marry him.” 
 
 “ Because he is so good — of such an excellent 
 character.” 
 
 “Oh, Mamma! One can’t marry all the people 
 who are good and of excellent character. Young 
 Slimber, the dairyman, is goodness itself, and perfectly 
 excellent. He teaches the third class of boys in the 
 Sunday school, and all the butter in his shop would 
 not melt in his mouth.” 
 
 “ But, dear, he is a common man — a dairyman, as 
 you say.” 
 
 “ Exactly. And Lord Inverchlory is an Earl. The 
 cases are altogether different.” 
 
 “ That’s what I say,” said Mamma, quite puzzled, 
 which served my turn as well as anything else. I did 
 not want to discuss my respectable wooer at all. 
 
 I soon discovered that Mamma had told Perkin, who 
 gathered that a titled Sunday-school teacher, somehow 
 connected with the dairy industry, had been smitten 
 with my charms. He did not understand that I had 
 exactly refused the tender of this mealy-mouthed young 
 nobleman’s hand, and was rather severe at first. 
 
 “ I knew you’d get into mischief,” he remarked 
 austerely. “ You didn’t take long. I suppose Sylvia 
 engineered it.” 
 
 “ No, she didn’t,” I assured him, for I like to be fair. 
 And then I told him all about it, explaining that Lord 
 Inverchlory was not mealy-mouthed or hypocritical, but 
 quite a good sort of man except for the one great fault 
 of thinking I would make a good Lady Inverchlory. 
 
 “ And,” inquired Perkin judicially, “ you really said 
 
ch. xxxv] MONKSBRIDGE 243 
 
 ‘ No ’ — flat and straight? Mamma seemed to think he 
 was to ‘ cut and come again.’ ” 
 
 “ That was Sylvia. And Sylvia knows quite well I 
 said * No/ only she chooses to forget it now. I couldn’t 
 exactly tell him to ‘ cut/ but the last word I said to him 
 was that I would never see him again if I could help it. 
 I believe she heard me; I’m sure Hampden did.” 
 
 “ Did he propose before Hampden and Sylvia? ” 
 Then I had to make further explanations, ending by 
 telling him how Hermione and Briggy were on my 
 side, and would help me— -also how they proposed to 
 do it. 
 
 “ All right,” said Perkin, now quite satisfied of my 
 innocence. “ I don’t see what you could do better. If 
 he really comes here, just you let them know, and if 
 you have to telegraph, I’ll send off the telegram for 
 you. But I should think that would not be necessary. 
 He can’t very well come to stay without writing to ask 
 if he may, and you would know that, and could write 
 yourself to Glorum ” 
 
 “ Perkin, you shouldn’t call her Glorum. Her name 
 is Lady Hermione Cressy, and she’s grown up — at 
 least she’s nearly seventeen.” 
 
 “ Well, she calls me Perkin, and I’m Mr. Peter 
 Auberon,” he answered cheerfully. “ She and Briggy 
 are good chaps, I can see that. But mind this — if you 
 change your mind and sprout out into Mrs. Auld 
 Crankie Castle, I shall know what to think of you.” 
 
 “ Tut ! Auld Crankie Castle is a thing, so to speak, 
 of the past. But I don’t intend to be Countess of In- 
 verchlory of Inver Palace, etc. — not even if our Papa- 
 in-law of Rood Palace wishes it.” 
 
 Then Perkin skipped, and I created a diversion from 
 
244 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XXXV 
 
 my own affairs. I must say I thought it rather selfish 
 of him to be much more deeply concerned by his own 
 danger of having an episcopal stepfather than he had 
 been by my danger of having Lord Inverchlory for a 
 husband. 
 
 To return to Sylvia. For several months she re- 
 mained at Cross Place. Then she began to go away 
 again “ a-Duking,” as Perkin and Hermione called it ; 
 in the first instance without either Mamma or me, and 
 still in a very slight mourning. Before accepting the 
 invitation she explained that she would rather not go if 
 there was, by any chance, to be dancing in the house ; 
 nor did she accept till she had made Hampden (rather 
 reluctantly) refuse — for he also had been asked. 
 
 On the next occasion, the new Lord Monksbridge 
 accepted by return of post — and Sylvia went, but took 
 Mamma. There was no dancing, only tableaux vivants, 
 and tableaux are not incompatible with the later stages 
 of half-mourning; but my sister firmly declined taking 
 any part in them — even that of Lady Jane Grey in the 
 beheading scene. “ And really,” Mamma confessed to 
 me on her return, “ I thought that would be mourning.” 
 
 “ Sylvia,” I observed, “ has a correct mind. Mourn- 
 ing can hardly be said to begin till the death has oc- 
 curred.” 
 
 “Yes, I didn’t think of that. They had two 
 executions — young Sir Budleigh Salterton had an exe- 
 cutioner’s suit, block and all, and he liked using it. 
 Charles I. was done too; Lord Wrekin, you know, in a 
 shirt that really belonged to him.” 
 
 “ Didn’t the other gentlemen’s shirts belong to 
 them ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes. But the King gave the shirt he was 
 
ch. xxxv] MONKSBRIDGE 245 
 
 beheaded in to Lord Wrekin’s ancestors just before (or 
 just after) ” 
 
 “ Who,” I interrupted suspiciously, “ was Bishop 
 Juxon?” 
 
 “Lord Alured Mohun ( moon they call it) ; he had 
 just been ordained; and the Bishop wouldn’t be — 
 though some of them said it would be so splendid to 
 have a real Bishop.” 
 
 “ To match the real block.” 
 
 “ Yes, I suppose. But the Bishop told me he couldn’t 
 think of it. It would be acting, even though he didn’t 
 say anything ; besides he couldn’t do anything to coun- 
 tenance Dr. Juxon, or Charles I. either, who were, he 
 thinks, much of a muchness.” 
 
 Within a few days of that little conversation I 
 became aware that the Bishop of Lowminster was 
 coming to Monksbridge, and that Lord Inverchlory 
 was expected at Llanthamy Castle ; and I thought their 
 lordships much of a muchness too. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 I had been to see Miss Belvoir, who was on the qui-vive 
 to perceive herself neglected since my visit to Severn 
 Court, though it had given her intense satisfaction to 
 pump me about all the smart company I had met there, 
 concerning whom she seemed to know much more than 
 I did. 
 
 “ Ah ! Lady Agincourt, yes,” she had remarked. 
 “ You might think the title goes back to Henry V., but 
 it was only created by James I. Sir James Cressy 
 was one of his whipping-boys. I remember the last 
 Earl died in November, ’65, and there are two co- 
 heiresses. Beaufront — she would be an aunt of the 
 present Baronet; the first was a dandy under the 
 Regent, and lent him money — of course he was never 
 paid back, but George IV. gave him a baronetcy. The 
 Severns have always been Whigs ” (Miss Belvoir was 
 a passionate Tory), “and had the Whig knack of 
 marrying great fortunes and keeping them in the 
 family. They began with a Parliamentary general of 
 no position, but related to the Protector’s wife; but 
 they got no title till William of Orange’s time, he gave 
 them their Viscountcy, and George I. added the Earl- 
 dom; after Culloden, where the Earl distinguished 
 himself (on the wrong side, of course), George II. 
 gave the Marquessate. Very big people.” 
 
 “ Lord Severn is very little.” 
 
 And then Miss Belvoir applied for a description of 
 
 246 
 
ch. xxxvi] MONKSBRIDGE 247 
 
 the reigning Marquess, and statistics as to his house- 
 hold. 
 
 “ So,” she observed presently, “ you met the Bishop 
 of Lowminster — Garboyle ; his father was a college- 
 scout at Oxford, and saved money enough to marry a 
 widow with a good inn, but not very young. There was 
 only the one child and they put him to a good school 
 and then sent him to Cambridge. Our Warden here 
 was an undergraduate with him, and knows all about 
 him. The Whig bishops are generally nobodies. ” 
 
 Of the Bishop’s friend, Mr. Auld-Baillie, I made no 
 mention, though I knew that Miss Belvoir would have 
 treated me with much more respect had she suspected 
 that the coronet of a highly Whig countess had been 
 within my grasp. Had I clutched it, she would not 
 have thought me spoiled even though my visits had 
 degenerated in frequency. Sylvia hardly ever went 
 near her; when she did, she was treated with much 
 more consideration than I was. 
 
 On the present occasion Miss Belvoir informed me 
 that Mrs. FitzSimon had called that morning. 
 
 “ When she comes in a morning it is always for 
 something special ; your Bishop, that Lowminster man 
 you met at Lord Severn’s, is coming to preach for the 
 Warden.” 
 
 “ When ? ” I inquired eagerly. 
 
 “ Not to-morrow — to-morrow week. He wrote to 
 the Warden and reminded him of their college days 
 together, and seemed quite sentimental about them. (I 
 dare say, if Mrs. FitzSimon knew all, they had fine 
 doings up at Cambridge.) He evidently hinted at a 
 visit, for the Warden promptly asked him to come and 
 preach ; and he accepted at once. Mrs. Fitz is all of a 
 
248 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvi 
 
 tilly-willy ; she loves to have a My Lord to show her 
 big rooms to, but she’s cross with her Warden for not 
 being a Bishop himself. ‘ They were in the same 
 college ’ (not much of a college either — Ely’s not much 
 better than a hall), she said, ‘and Garboyle was not at 
 all a leading man there — he had no scholarship. By 
 what I can make out, the Warden never saw anything 
 in him, or anybody else up at Cambridge; but he bought 
 a proprietary chapel up in town (with his mother’s 
 savings from the beer, I suppose), and preached to 
 old women who liked the idea of faith much better 
 than works, and drank a lot of tea with them, out of 
 church, and prescribed for their sick poodles, and 
 prayed over their own indigestions.’ ” 
 
 “ Miss Belvoir,” I protested, “ I don’t believe Mrs. 
 Fitz ever said that.” 
 
 “ Well, perhaps not in those words. I make the 
 best of her. She’s not very amusing in her way of 
 telling things, is she ? However, that’s the gist of it — 
 according to her, Garboyle muffined himself into 
 society. Where rich old women are, nephews and 
 brothers are never far off ; and he had a lot of tact and 
 talk, and knew exactly what friends were worth making 
 — so the long and short of it is that he’s a bishop, and 
 any My Lord is better than no My Lord, and Mrs. Fitz 
 is glad to get him; but the Warden ought to be My 
 Lord too, and his lady thinks it must be his fault. 
 She’s a Whig, like the Dean, her papa, and if she had 
 married a Whig Warden all might have been well.” 
 
 “ And,” I asked, “ is the Bishop coming to stay with 
 them at Warden’s Lodge?” 
 
 “ Of course he is. That’s what the sermon’s for. 
 There’d be no point in it without. There’ll be dinners 
 
249 
 
 CH. xxxvi ] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 and a social evening ; she’ll show the Bishop to Monks- 
 bridge, and show the de Braoses, and Lady Llantwd- 
 dwy, and Lord Monksbridge to the Bishop.” 
 
 I was glad he was not coming to stay with us, any- 
 way; but — would he not — would he not come on to us? 
 
 When I got home I announced his advent with 
 intentional abruptness. 
 
 “ The Bishop,” said I, with a keen eye on Sylvia, “ is 
 coming. Did you know ? ” 
 
 “The Bishop ! ” cried Sylvia. “Why, he’s just been.” 
 (Monksbridge, of course, , is not in the Lowminster 
 diocese.) “ He was here last month. Everybody was 
 confirmed — they can’t be done over again.” 
 
 As if Sylvia was to be entrapped by the likes of me ! 
 But Mamma, if ever in her life she dropped a stitch 
 without noticing it, dropped one then. 
 
 “ Besides,” said Sylvia, “ he has gone abroad.” 
 
 “ Oh, it’s not our Bishop,” I explained. “ And he’s 
 not coming to confirm anybody; only to preach for 
 the Warden, who was his boon companion at Cam- 
 bridge ” 
 
 “ Marjory! ” murmured our mother. 
 
 “ Well, whatever young bishops and wardens are 
 before they blow out.” 
 
 “ Blow out! ” gasped Mamma. 
 
 “ The Bishop of where ? ” asked Sylvia, overdoing 
 innocence by a shade. 
 
 “ There’s no Bishop of Ware,” I reminded her, 
 humorously. “ But you’ve heard of a Bishop of Low- 
 minster.” 
 
 “ Why didn’t you say so at once ? ” asked Sylvia, 
 still almost too innocently. “ Is he coming to stay with 
 the Warden ? He was at Lord Wrekin’s, and he didn’t 
 
250 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvi 
 
 mention it. Mamma, did the Bishop of Lowminster 
 tell you he was coming to stay with Dr. FitzSimon? ” 
 
 Sylvia I would watch inexorably. Mamma I could 
 not. I might, if I liked, have studied both of them in 
 the mirror opposite, but I went over to the fire and 
 poked it, quite noisily. 
 
 Still I heard Mamma’s answer. 
 
 “ No, dear. He didn’t. But I remember him saying 
 — twice — that he had a great desire to visit Monks- 
 bridge; and — and — that the place had a special at — 
 att — interest for him.” 
 
 I did not turn my head; but sat on the hearthrug, 
 poking the fire, and looking into it and into myself. 
 Why, I suddenly asked myself, if she (I would not say 
 “ Mamma”) — if she should really want to marry this 
 Bishop, why should I wish to prevent her ? I wouldn’t 
 let anybody, Sylvia, or even her, interfere with my life ; 
 what right had I, after all, to interfere with hers? To 
 me the Bishop seemed a silly, tiresome old man; but if, 
 if really, she would like to be his wife, no doubt she did 
 not think him dull and foolish. I could not pretend to 
 believe that he would be harsh or overbearing to her, or 
 in any way unkind ; he was not specially selfish, or in- 
 decorously self-indulgent. If he must needs marry 
 again, was it not in his favour that he did not look 
 about for money, or a title, or youthful beauty — but 
 should be content with quiet goodness and sweetness 
 like hers? At least there could be no worldliness in 
 his choice. And, if she too must needs marry again, 
 would it not be well that she should choose just such 
 an one as he ? He was not young ; it would have been 
 horrible had she fancied some pretty fellow younger 
 than herself; but neither was he old, or repulsive; no 
 
251 
 
 ch. xxxvi ] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 doubt he was a good man, and of his house she would 
 be a fit and gracious mistress, provoking no animosities 
 — reason seemed all against me; only prejudice and 
 instinct, and the unforgettable certainty how Perkin 
 would hate it, were on my side. 
 
 I beat a certain block of coal half savagely, and 
 could not turn round. A small tear oozed out of one 
 eye; there was something else. Even to myself I 
 would not say it, but — but, if this thing came about I 
 could not help feeling that I should have lost some- 
 thing I worshipped when my dear, dear mother was 
 no longer our father’s widow, but that sleek stranger’s 
 wife; and what I did say was that it would be Sylvia’s 
 doing. Why couldn’t she leave us alone? Of ambition 
 dear Mamma was as utterly incapable as she was of 
 scheming, but Sylvia would place us all, and her terrible 
 sense of fitness showed her no possible stepfather 
 more absolutely fit than an elderly irreproachable 
 bishop. 
 
 I heard the door open and close again, and when I 
 turned to look over my shoulder Mamma was gone. 
 Since I could remember anything, had she tried to 
 have a secret from me? Now I knew that she thought 
 she had one. 
 
 “ Sylvia ! ” I said angrily, getting up from the floor 
 and facing round upon her, “ you intend marrying that 
 old goose to her.” 
 
 I think she was rather glad to have it “ out ” with 
 me ; things had reached a point when it would be con- 
 venient to have the matter recognized. 
 
 “You are the goose,” she replied, with a perfectly 
 easy laugh, “ the marriages of bishops are not arranged 
 for them by young ladies.” 
 
252 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvi 
 
 “ You do not deny that this marriage is likely.” 
 
 “ No, I think it probable. He was at Lord Wrekin’s 
 and paid her attention. I have no doubt that his 
 coming to the Warden’s was his own idea, and that it 
 shows he has made up his mind.” 
 
 I looked around the pleasant room and said 
 abruptly — 
 
 “ And when your plans are crowned with success 
 what will happen to Cross Place ? You will have your 
 home, she will have hers — is this to be mine and 
 Perkin’s?” 
 
 “ Perkin has gained this great scholarship, and this 
 is his last term at Abbot’s School, next term he will be 
 at Oxford ” 
 
 “ And is he to have no home? ” I interrupted fiercely. 
 
 “Of course he would spend his vacations at the 
 Palace with Mamma,” she answered coolly. 
 
 “Would he? With all your cleverness there are 
 two people in the world you do not understand, one is 
 your brother and the other is your sister. You may 
 be certain of this, that Perkin will never live at Rood 
 Palace ” 
 
 “ There is no question of his living there. He will 
 live at Oxford.” 
 
 “ And have no home ! ” I cried bitterly. “ Sylvia, 
 why cannot I live on here, and make it a home for 
 him ? ” 
 
 “ That is nonsense. How could you, an unmarried 
 girl, live here alone ? — he would only be here for a few 
 weeks now and then. Besides, it would be convenient 
 to let Cross Place; it would let furnished for a good 
 rent, and it would be much better for Mamma to have 
 the money as a private income ; I, of course, would need 
 
ch. xxxvi] MONKSBRIDGE 253 
 
 none of it ; Perkin will be well off with his scholarship, 
 
 and you ” 
 
 “And I?” 
 
 “ Will have a house and an income of your own.’' 
 “Will I? I told you that there were two people 
 you didn’t understand, and I am one of them.” 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 At that moment the door again opened, and there 
 entered to us Mamma, Lady Monksbridge, her son, and 
 my brother. After leaving the drawing-room, Mamma 
 had met Perkin in the hall, just coming in, and they 
 had stayed thus, talking; a few minutes later Lord and 
 Lady Monksbridge had arrived. 
 
 After our greetings had been exchanged Hampden 
 said aloud so all might hear, though ostensibly to 
 Sylvia — 
 
 “ Inverchlory is coming to stay with my mother and 
 me next week. I have asked him to speak at a meeting 
 in Llanthamy on Thursday, and he is coming to us on 
 Wednesday.” 
 
 Perkin shot a little glance at me, and I saw his lips 
 form the word “ Telegram? ” I nodded, and listened. 
 Mamma, I saw, was troubled and uneasy, but that I 
 thought was due to her supposed secret about the 
 Bishop. Perkin also looked as though he had some- 
 thing on his mind, and I thought it very nice of him 
 to be so sympathetic with my annoyance about Lord 
 Inverchlory’s coming. 
 
 “I,” said my brother-in-law elect, “shall take the 
 Chair at the meeting and introduce him; Inverchlory 
 speaks very well.” 
 
 “ Is the meeting about Nuns? ” I asked. 
 
 “ Nuns! It is a political meeting; he is a Whig, as 
 I am.” 
 
 “ Oh. They said at Severn Court that he could 
 254 
 
255 
 
 ch. xxxvii] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 only make speeches about the Inspection of Convents.” 
 
 Hampden looked annoyed, and I had a shrewd 
 suspicion (and a correct one, as it happened) that Lord 
 Inverchlory had bargained for a free hand, and would 
 only speak on Whig politics if he were allowed to bring 
 in the vital question of Convent inspection. 
 
 “ Another friend of ours is coming to the neighbour- 
 hood,” Hampden went on, rather hurriedly, “ the 
 Bishop of Lowminster is coming to Warden’s Lodge to 
 preach for Dr. FitzSimon to the school. There will 
 be an address of welcome, the Warden tells me, and 
 one of the senior boys tvill read it — perhaps Peter.” 
 (Hampden never called him “ Perkin.”) “ Now that 
 he has taken the Cardinal Scholarship he is quite their 
 big gun.” 
 
 “ It certainly will not be read by me,” Perkin 
 answered; and I saw at once that something was 
 going to happen. 
 
 “Why shouldn’t it be you?” Lord Monksbridge 
 asked, with some sharpness. “ I believe the Warden 
 intends it.” 
 
 Perkin paused for a moment, and looked at Mamma, 
 who shook her head dismally. Then he spoke, in a low 
 but clear voice that we could all hear. 
 
 “ Because,” he said, “ I am going to do something 
 that will make it impossible. I think you are right in 
 supposing that the Warden will ask me to read the 
 address — perhaps he will do so when I go back to 
 College now; what I shall tell him will make it im- 
 possible. Probably he will agree that I had better 
 return home at once, and I shall not belong to Abbot’s 
 next week.” 
 
 “What does all this mean? ” Hampden asked, with 
 
256 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvii 
 
 a cold annoyance. “ You choose to be mysterious. 
 Your friends will be much surprised to learn that you 
 can have anything to tell the Warden which would 
 necessitate your leaving the school.” 
 
 “ But it is so. I am going to become a Catholic.” 
 
 Lady Monksbridge skipped in her chair; Mamma 
 gave a little groan ; Sylvia reddened (and I have said 
 how seldom she flushed), and exclaimed — 
 
 “ Idiot ! ” in an angrier voice than I had ever heard 
 her use. 
 
 Her betrothed put on a frown that was not unlike 
 a scowl, and said — 
 
 “ It would be an odd subject for a jest; but I find 
 it hard to believe you serious.” * 
 
 “ I am very serious,” Perkin replied, and he sighed 
 as he spoke. He was now standing behind Mamma’s 
 chair, and he laid a hand gently on her shoulder. There 
 was half the room between him and me, and I thought 
 how lonely he looked. 
 
 “ What mad whim is this ? ” asked Hampden, with 
 a sour scorn. 
 
 “ It is not new. It has been coming on during 
 many months.” 
 
 “ And you kept it a secret till now ! ” 
 
 “ No. As soon as I thought my misgivings might 
 end as they have ended I told my mother. No one 
 else had any right to know till I was certain. And she 
 would feel bound in honour to tell no one else till I 
 gave her leave.” 
 
 “ Gave her leave, indeed ! ” cried Hampden. 
 
 “ I thought it was a fancy, and would pass away,” 
 Mamma murmured, shaking her head grievously. 
 
 “ Of course you judged it to be a fancy — it was 
 
257 
 
 ch. xxxvn] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 a fancy, it is a fancy,” Hampden said, with loud 
 impatience. “ And you, Sir, behaved dishonourably in 
 binding her to silence on her honour.” 
 
 Then Perkin flushed also. “ I did not bind her,” 
 he answered quietly; “ I can trust my mother’s honour 
 without binding her.” 
 
 And I saw that he pressed the hand that rested on 
 her shoulder gently down. 
 
 “ She was mistaken. She should have consulted 
 me. I regard myself as her eldest son. I consider 
 that you should have consulted me.” 
 
 “ You may regard yourself as her eldest son; but I 
 regard myself as her only son, and what I didn’t tell 
 my own sisters I never even dreamt of telling you. 
 It did not concern you at all.” 
 
 “ But it did. It does. It concerns all who are con- 
 nected with your family. Your selfish folly, should you 
 persist in it, may (probably will) affect most lamentably 
 your mother and one of your sisters. But there is 
 room to hope that you will discard the folly — prob- 
 ably no one except ourselves is aware of your ab- 
 surdity.” 
 
 “No one but yourselves is aware that I intend to 
 become a Catholic; but the Warden will be aware 
 to-day.” 
 
 “ And you intend to tell him ? ” 
 
 “ I have told you so.” 
 
 “And how will you excuse yourself to him? What 
 explanation of your misconduct shall you have to 
 offer? ” 
 
 “ Lord Monksbridge, you may be my mother’s eldest 
 son, but you have mistaken her if you think it will 
 please her to hear you speak to her own son as you 
 
258 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvii 
 
 allow yourself to do. She has no misconduct to accuse 
 me of ” 
 
 Mamma wept and shook her head. “ Never,” she 
 was beginning, but Hampden roughly interposed. 
 
 “ But it is misconduct. And heinous misconduct 
 too. There is no excuse for it.” 
 
 “ I offer you no excuse. If the Warden should treat 
 me as you venture to do, I will give him no explanation 
 either. I shall be surprised if he does. I believe he 
 
 will be angry ” 
 
 “ And very rightly ! ” 
 
 “ But in his anger he will behave properly.” (Lord 
 Monksbridge jumped with indignation, and if he had 
 jumped to the moon, and stayed there, I should only 
 have been sorry for the man in the moon.) “ And any 
 questions he may put to me as to the causes of my 
 change I will answer as well as I can. He has been a 
 kind master, and I shall be sorry to displease him.” 
 
 “ You will do more than displease — you will dis- 
 grace him. To the Warden of Abbot’s School it will 
 be a deep disgrace that one of his pupils should prove 
 renegade to the religion of that school.” 
 
 For the first time Perkin smiled, and he had the 
 most sweet and charming smile that I ever knew. 
 
 “ The School,” he said simply, “ existed many 
 centuries before Dr. FitzSimon became its Warden. It 
 was founded for Catholics, and we are bragging of our 
 Founder eternally; he was first an Abbot and then a 
 Cardinal, and always a Catholic — it can hardly disgrace 
 him or his school that one of his boys should turn to 
 his own faith. They told me history was where I could 
 probably do best; and I studied it, and first of all the 
 history of our School itself and of its Founder, of what 
 
259 
 
 CH. xxxvii ] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 he founded it for, of what he willed to have taught in 
 it — which was first and foremost the religion he held 
 dear above everything else, the Catholic faith; and, 
 the more I studied what that faith was, the more I 
 loved it and our great Founder, the more true I found 
 his belief, the more outrageous and false and mean, and 
 baseless the charges made against it. By becoming a 
 Catholic I know I must leave my school (a dear school 
 to me now: though I did not want to go there when 
 Sylvia first took the idea into her head) ” 
 
 And here Hampden looked but grimly at Sylvia, 
 and she, for the first time in her life, repented of one 
 of her own successes. 
 
 “ I know I must leave it, because there is no place in 
 it for any one who has come tobelievewhatitsFounder 
 believed, and founded to have taught there. I have 
 earned his benefits and must relinquish them, because I 
 am of his faith; on his money I could go to a Univer- 
 sity, but I must not, because I earnestly hold all that he 
 laid down should be expounded in certain theses by 
 the winner of his munificent scholarships. I know this 
 must be so, but I am not willing to let you say that I 
 disgrace the Cardinal’s Red Gown in joining the 
 Cardinal’s Church.” 
 
 “ No one,” I said loudly, “ who knows you would 
 ever think you could disgrace yourself or anybody.” 
 
 Lord Monksbridge was very angry. Was I, Lord 
 Inverchlory’s choice, going to turn Catholic too? 
 
 “ Marjory! ” he said, “ you have wisely kept silence 
 till now; it is a pity you have broken it. Your brother 
 is disgracing himself — and all of us. As you yourself 
 may feel.” 
 
 “ I have been silent,” I cried, “ far too long. If I 
 
2<X> 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvii 
 
 said nothing, it was because I saw that my brother 
 could very well answer anything you might say to him. 
 He is only a boy, and you are a man; if I were a man 
 I should be ashamed to hector and scold a boy; but, 
 loud as you scold, he has had the best of it.” 
 
 “ Marjory,” Sylvia said impatiently, “ you had better 
 hold your tongue. Why should you interfere when I 
 don’t? Why should you put yourself forward?” 
 
 “ It is Hampden who is interfering, and I am free 
 to tell him so, though you, perhaps, are not.” 
 
 I believe that Sylvia herself thought him interfering, 
 but she said — 
 
 “ Some one must speak : Perkin is misbehaving, and 
 he must be told of it; there is no other man to do it, 
 and it is more a man’s work.” 
 
 “ It is not my idea of a man’s work to browbeat a 
 boy,” I repeated fiercely ; “ and I cannot see that Perkin 
 is bound to submit. If Hampden tried to interfere in 
 my affairs I would tell him that they did not concern 
 him in the least, and I do not see that Perkin’s affairs 
 concern him either.” 
 
 “ You allow yourself,” said Lord Monksbridge, in a 
 sort of cold white heat, “ to speak improperly. You 
 and your brother are always confederates. No doubt 
 you have known for months the disgrace he was 
 plotting for us all.” 
 
 “ That is not true. But, Hampden, I will not let you 
 speak of disgrace and my brother together. You cannot 
 insult him without insulting his mother and sisters.” 
 
 “ I think,” said Hampden, obstinately, “ any family 
 disgraced one of whose members turns Catholic.” 
 Mamma moaned, and could only shake her head 
 again in piteous protest. Perkin stood quite still and 
 
ch. xxxvn] MONKSBRIDGE 261 
 
 kept silent. Lady Monksbridge made uneasy rustlings 
 in her crepe. Sylvia bit her lip, and the flush on her 
 neck spread upwards : her lover had not sense enough 
 to see that he was making her also angry. 
 
 “ And how,” he asked Perkin, abruptly, “ do you 
 propose to live? Your future was assured : in sacrific- 
 ing all the singular advantages of your present position 
 (of which sacrifice you talk so magnanimously), how do 
 you propose to live? You were provided for; do you 
 intend to hang upon your mother’s small means? You 
 may be certain that / shall do nothing for you.” 
 
 Mamma sat up straight in her chair and stared at 
 him. His mother gasped. 
 
 “ Oh ! ’Ampden ! ” she cried out, and her face ex- 
 pressed a simple horror. His face reddened chiefly 
 at the sound of her solecism in pronunciation : he could 
 hardly remember having ever heard her drop an “ h.” 
 For my part I had always been sure she was a lady, 
 though in his heart the son, who really loved her, 
 thought her vulgar; and neither Eton nor Christ 
 Church had made him, who looked distinguished 
 among very fine folks, a gentleman. And, clever as 
 he was held to be, he was stupid too; he had not the 
 least idea that Sylvia herself would ruthlessly pun- 
 ish him. 
 
 “ You do not,” she said, looking at him with unim- 
 passioned disapproval, “understand us. I thought it 
 right to let you speak to him ” (glancing at Perkin) 
 “ because you are a man, and should know best what 
 to say. I told Marjory she was wrong to interrupt. 
 But you give them both the advantage, because you 
 speak wrongly to them. We are all Auberons, and 
 you do not understand us. We are not accustomed 
 
262 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvii 
 
 to hear the word ‘ disgrace ’ attached to our name. 
 And when you talk of one of us expecting you to r do 
 anything for him ’ you show that you quite misunder- 
 stand the situation. Perkin, with his Roman Catholic 
 nonsense, is behaving like a fool. You had a right 
 to say he is misbehaving; but if you imagine that my 
 marriage with you was supposed by him, or by any 
 one of us, to ‘ do anything ’ for any single member 
 of my family, you show that you have altogether mis- 
 understood the state of things.” 
 
 She paused, intentionally I think, for a moment, and 
 I knew that Perkin was looking down, like me, abashed, 
 and much more troubled by her speech than by any- 
 thing Hampden had said — troubled, not by her calling 
 him a fool, but by the smooth hardness with which she 
 punished her betrothed. 
 
 It is useless to repeat that I never could and never 
 should understand Sylvia or pretend to foresee what 
 she would do or say next. Utterly worldly I knew 
 her to be, full of schemes and plans, with as little 
 conscience as any thoroughly respectable young woman 
 could be, and yet with a peculiar standard of her own, 
 of which the man who loved her had no discernment. 
 Pride was her conscience, and it did not forbid her 
 making worldly plans, but it was up in arms when her 
 plans were misunderstood. 
 
 “ For any one of my family,” she went on, after 
 her pause, which was as ruthless and calculated as any- 
 thing she said. “ Did you suppose that my brother 
 would count himself a penny the richer for having you 
 for his sister’s husband? That Marjory would? That 
 Mamma ever imagined that her resources would be 
 affected by the marriage of either of her daughters? 
 
ch. xxxvii] MONKSBRIDGE 263 
 
 Their position was theirs before our engagement, and 
 is the same still. It is yours that has changed 
 
 I felt my face turn crimson, and I could hear Per- 
 kin’s movement of extreme misery: but Sylvia was 
 not miserable at all. Hampden was horribly in love, 
 and she could never be in love; half-measures she 
 never approved, and circumstances had brought into 
 her pitiless, exquisitely pretty hand a weapon she was 
 determined to use, once and for all, effectually — else 
 all her future position might suffer. 
 
 “ It is yours that has changed,” she said, quite 
 placidly. “ When you said that to my brother about 
 hanging on to you I saw you mistook the position. I 
 am not defending him, he is utterly senseless; but I 
 will not let you mistake the nature of your connection 
 with the Auberons. Our engagement has not altered 
 the condition of the Auberons in the least ” 
 
 It was Perkin who interrupted, as if she had hit 
 him across the face with a whip. 
 
 “ For God’s sake, Sylvia,” he cried out, “ stop ! It 
 is ghastly.” 
 
 But Hampden was not in love with him, only with 
 Sylvia, and it was at him that he darted a poisonous 
 look, because he had been the innocent occasion of this. 
 
 “ I am not,” said Sylvia, “ talking to you, Perkin. 
 You are misbehaving. But I will not sanction mis- 
 takes.” 
 
 I hoped she had done, Heaven knows she had said 
 enough; surely this wretched man must see that she 
 would not have said what I have written down had she 
 loved him in the least. He did see it, but he was mean 
 enough to want to marry her without her loving him, 
 and she knew it perfectly. And she fully intended 
 
264 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvii 
 
 to be his wife, but she would not have him mistake 
 her. 
 
 “ Surely,” she said, looking fully at him ( I could 
 not bear to, nor could Perkin), “ surely you have not 
 been thinking I was going to marry you for your 
 wealth, or for your title ! ” 
 
 If she had utterly despised money and rank, she 
 could not have alluded to his wealth and title with a 
 colder contempt. And yet she was not acting, in fact 
 she never could have acted well, if acting means the 
 speaking in a character which is not one’s own, but 
 assumed; the only part she could ever play was her 
 own, for no other interested her. 
 
 He tried to protest, but I could see, and Perkin, I 
 knew, must see, that he had in fact supposed that it 
 was for his money and title she was willing to be his 
 wife. It made her angry; not that she was outraged 
 by the assumption of love having had nothing to do 
 with it; that was the terrible part of it — of love for 
 him she never thought for a moment, and she as 
 plainly took it for granted that he had never dreamed 
 of her being in love with him — it made her angry be- 
 cause he had not, or pretended that he had not, under- 
 stood her real plans and purposes. 
 
 Perkin, I am certain, was truly sorry for him, and 
 so, in a way, was I. More by instinct than by looking 
 at him, I felt how he must be looking, and yet I 
 despised him in his misery, because he was mean 
 enough to want as much as ever to marry her; and, 
 besides, he had been prompt to browbeat Perkin, de- 
 fenceless and a boy, but when Sylvia turned upon him 
 he was not so manly as Perkin had been. Of her I 
 tried not to think at all; I could not think of her with- 
 
ch. xxxvii ] MONKSBRIDGE 265 
 
 out being ashamed of her. I had known well, at Sev- 
 ern Court, that Hermione, in all she had said, had 
 really meant that Sylvia was not a lady — that was why 
 I had been angry, and had, for the moment, hated 
 Hermione. I knew now that if I let myself think of 
 Sylvia, the horrible question would ask itself, against 
 my will, in my mind, was she a lady? But, instead of 
 thinking, I had to listen to her, and she had not, even 
 yet, quite finished. Before she married him she chose 
 that he should understand, if he pretended not to un- 
 derstand, she would make him abandon that pretence. 
 
 “ Your wealth and title! ” she exclaimed, lifting one 
 eyebrow, instead of shrugging her shoulders, “ I will 
 
 tell you what I thought of them ” 
 
 “ Sylvia ! ” Perkin cried out, in a sort of agony, 
 “ Sylvia, it is hideous. Stop ! I can’t stand it.” 
 
 “ Then you’d better go away,” she answered coolly ; 
 and he went ; but she said what she intended, while he 
 went, and after he had fled. 
 
 “ I will tell you what I thought of them,” she re- 
 peated, smiling on her lover; and it was characteristic 
 of her that she did not cite me as a witness, relying 
 as she did so completely on herself. “ From the mo- 
 ment I first met you, before I had met you, the Monks- 
 bridge money seemed to me a vulgarity, and the 
 Monksbridge title an absurdity.” 
 
 Mamma burst out crying openly, and Lady Monks- 
 bridge sat trembling in her chair, but Sylvia did not 
 interrupt herself. 
 
 “ You may judge,” she went on, serenely, “ how far 
 they attracted me! You soon showed that you would 
 wish to marry me, and I was not surprised when you 
 asked me : I agreed, for I had thought of it all, and I 
 
266 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxvii 
 
 knew you needed some one to help you. You are 
 ambitious, and you are not content to go on in the 
 position you inherit. But ambition is not knowledge : 
 without help you would go on trying in vain. With 
 my help it would not be in vain. I determined to show 
 you it was so, and I have shown you. You have seen 
 me in different surroundings from these, and you know 
 very well that the position you saw me hold there was 
 my own position; it was Miss Auberon you saw there; 
 the consideration you saw me held in was given to 
 me, to Sylvia Auberon, not to your wife — I am not 
 your wife even now. If I were never to marry you 
 at all, it would not take anything away from my posi- 
 tion: but it might reduce yours to what I found it. 
 It is not now what I found it. You know that very 
 well : and you know that it was I who changed it. You 
 are only a man; could you go knocking at the doors 
 of great houses asking to be let in? I could let you 
 in: and I did. And, that I might do it, I would not 
 marry you out of hand. As your wife, I could not 
 have helped you as Miss Auberon could, as she did 
 — Miss Auberon with no title and no money. Now I 
 think you must understand. If I marry you, your 
 wealth will be all yours. I can bring nothing to it, 
 and can claim no share of it. Your title will be yours 
 too, and I shall be called by it, though no one will 
 forget that I was Sylvia Auberon, and am only Lady 
 Monksbridge by marriage. But with me as your wife, 
 neither your money nor your title will make anybody 
 laugh.” 
 
 Perhaps the reader, if ever there is one. will con- 
 clude that Sylvia never would be Lady Monksbridge ; 
 nor w'ould she have been, I think, if the second Lord 
 
ch. xxxvii] MONKSBRIDGE 267 
 
 Monksbridge had been worth his father’s little finger. 
 But, then, he wasn’t; and the next Lord and Lady 
 Monksbridge were Hampden and Sylvia, a most re- 
 spectable couple, admitted everywhere, a good deal 
 sought after, of political and social importance, never 
 greatly liked, but never quite disliked, blameless in 
 conduct, and of most admired decorum; the Marchion- 
 ess (she died one), to all seeming, the most submissive 
 of wives, her lord neither tyrannical nor hen-pecked. 
 Her beauty never failed or flagged, time could write 
 no wrinkles on her brow, for wrinkles mostly mean 
 something; and in his heart her husband (though the 
 subject was never again mentioned between them) 
 knew perfectly that all his great success was owing 
 to the former Miss Auberon’s fixed resolve to take him 
 and his own false position in hand. 
 
 The world can, I think, be bought, if you are will- 
 ing to pay its price, which is your own self. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 When Perkin fled from the sound of his sister’s voice 
 he was not in a very fit state for another battle on his 
 own account; but he had to face one. He had hardly 
 got back to college before the Warden sent for him, 
 and with urbane smiles informed him that the Bishop 
 of Lowminster was coming to the school, and that 
 an address of welcome would be presented to his lord- 
 ship, which address he had decided should be read by 
 Auberon himself. 
 
 “ Stephenson,” he remarked, “ is Captain of the 
 school, but Stephenson has the mumps, and is on the 
 sick-list. It will therefore fall to you to perform this 
 honourable duty, for, though Hawkins is next in 
 seniority to Stephenson, his unfortunate stammer 
 renders him unfit.” 
 
 “ Sir,” Perkin suggested, with due deference, “ I 
 don’t think Hawkins would stammer when he only has 
 to read something — it is when he is talking that he 
 stutters.” 
 
 “ I could not trust him. He often stammers fright- 
 fully in calling the roll. An address badly read is 
 worse than nothing.” (The Warden had composed 
 the address himself, and was determined it should not 
 be spoiled.) “ It is my wish that you should read it: 
 I mentioned it to the Second Master, and he quite 
 agrees with me.” 
 
 Then Perkin told his lamentable story. 
 
 The Warden was by no means an ill-tempered man, 
 26s 
 
ch. xxxviii] MONKSBRIDGE 269 
 
 and he fancied he was fond of Auberon; the truth 
 being that he was proud of him, and confident of his 
 achieving academic honours at Oxford, which would 
 reflect lustre on the school and its head ; but he listened 
 with a horror that was deeply tinged with disgust. 
 He was himself what people called a Broad Church- 
 man, which meant, in his case at all events, that he 
 was neither High nor Evangelical. Evangelicalism he 
 mildly condemned as “ enthusiasm,” and such people 
 as John Wesley, he thought, had never had any busi- 
 ness in the English Church; but neither did he think 
 that Puseyites had any business there. The whole 
 Puseyite movement he disliked extremely as an at- 
 tempt to discredit the comfortable Erastianism of the 
 Church of England, and to revert to an ecclesiasticism 
 of which it had been freed by the Reformation. He 
 did not believe in the least in sacraments (though he 
 would have thought any man disreputable who refused 
 to have his children baptized), and considered the oc- 
 casional reception of the Lord’s Supper a sign of 
 conformity incumbent on all the clergy, and particu- 
 larly creditable in those of the laity who observed 
 the practice ; but he was well aware that many Cabinet 
 Ministers and other distinguished persons never did 
 observe that practice, and was not disposed to think 
 them on that account less satisfactory members of the 
 Established Church. He naturally remembered his 
 own ordination, first as deacon, then as priest, but 
 he did not consider himself a priest, except in the 
 sense that he was perfectly eligible to become a bishop 
 — which the Rev. Josiah Bibble, of the too adjacent 
 Wesleyan Chapel, of course, was not. He was also 
 aware that at present he could not confirm the boys 
 
270 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxviii 
 
 in his own school, nor ordain young men who aspired 
 to the clerical office; only bishops could do so; but 
 he did not imagine that, if he should be selected to fill 
 any vacant see, and receive the necessary consecration, 
 any new spiritual powers would have accrued to him; 
 he would merely be authorized to perform certain 
 ceremonies, which he had now no authority to per- 
 form. 
 
 He had for Dissenters no odium theologicum, though 
 he looked down upon them as under-educated persons, 
 mostly of the lower middle-classes; nor did he really 
 believe that they lacked any spiritual privileges that 
 would have been theirs had they belonged, like him- 
 self, to a regular Church, with bishops and priests and 
 two sacraments. All the same, he had a warm admi- 
 ration for the Established Church because it was es- 
 tablished, and was, he felt, an integral part of Eng- 
 land, which he was conscious was in every way 
 superior to all other countries. The Church of Eng- 
 land, he knew, had been made by England herself for 
 her own use (and he thoroughly approved of the use 
 of home manufactures; though, being free from bigo- 
 try of any sort, he would not insist that his own port 
 wine should be grown in these islands) ; and he almost 
 loved her, because she completely fulfilled the purposes 
 for which she had been made. No nation, he was 
 sure, could long exist without religion. France had 
 tried, and had failed so completely as to have been 
 forced to fall back, fante de mieux, on the religion 
 she had so noisily declared outlaw and defunct. Eng- 
 land could never exist without religion, but she had 
 known precisely what religion, and how much of it, 
 she wanted, and the Established Church was the calm 
 
271 
 
 ch. xxxviii] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 result. The genius of England, he felt, was practical 
 ( i.e . unsupernatural), and the religion that would serve 
 her turn must be practical, i.e. respectable, unsuper- 
 natural, and what eccentric persons might call Eras- 
 tian, that is to say, a State Department, like the For- 
 eign Office, or the Treasury. A State Department 
 has high sanction and authority, and is unlikely to fall, 
 or remain, a prey to faddists. And in England there 
 could only be one real Church, in Dr. FitzSimon’s idea 
 of a Church. That was why he despised Noncon- 
 formists; for Scottish Presbyterians he had quite a 
 different feeling, corresponding to their different po- 
 sition. Some English Dissenters might teach pre- 
 cisely what the Kirk of Scotland teaches, but in 
 England they were mere sectaries, heterogeneous to 
 the State. North of the Tweed, that teaching was not 
 alien, but suited to the natives of a subordinate por- 
 tion of Her Majesty’s realm that had for centuries 
 liked its own meagre, chill, and ill-furnished concep- 
 tion of Christianity. The Warden did not despise 
 Scotch Presbyterianism, he merely congratulated him- 
 self on being a South Briton. As for Catholicity, he 
 had never considered it with any polemic fury; it 
 was outside his mark. Being English, he was not in- 
 clined to waste himself in irritation against foreign 
 customs. They were inferior, and there was an end 
 of it. He had travelled for a few weeks, on his mar- 
 riage, and had been convinced that the languages of 
 the Continent were but awkward mediums for the ex- 
 pression of British needs and wishes, and that foreign 
 meals, foreign beds, and foreign amusements were 
 odd and unsatisfactory. Catholicity might suit na- 
 tions that breakfasted at noon, and had no real break- 
 
2J2 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxviii 
 
 fast at all, that needed only one other meal that was 
 neither dinner nor supper, and was followed by no 
 temperately protracted discussion of port wine. 
 Catholicism was apparently a part of the inscrutable, 
 but not objectionable, decree of Providence that made 
 the Continent continental and inferior, that left Eng- 
 land splendidly insular and Protestant. 
 
 Of course, the Warden was old-fashioned. He was 
 not Broad in the later sense. He did not consider that 
 it was the duty of a “ Broad ” ecclesiastic to preach and 
 print himself in venomous sneers against Christianity. 
 England was Christian, and therefore Christianity, far 
 from being ridiculous and effete, was very becoming 
 in all respectable Englishmen. To preach on Easter 
 Sunday against the Resurrection of Christ he would 
 have thought indecent : in fact, his tone of mind was 
 far from being irreverent or destructive. All that 
 called for destruction had been destroyed, for good 
 and all, at the Reformation. He was very far from 
 being irreligiously minded. Religion, he was certain, 
 was a sine qua non in a reasonable, permanent State, 
 and he had a decent consciousness that a State’s reli- 
 gion must be expressed in the speech and life of its 
 ministers — its ordained ministers : as to the other sort 
 of Ministers it behoved them to live decently too, and 
 to speak with accordant decency. The Warden would 
 not refuse to help them with his vote, or to be helped 
 by them in turn, though he understood that their lives 
 were privately scandalous, and that they were, in fact, 
 unbelievers. 
 
 And now a boy, and a boy in his own school, must, 
 forsooth, announce to him, the Warden, his decision 
 to leave the Church of England and enroll himself 
 
ch. xxxviii ] MONKSBRIDGE 273 
 
 under the alien banner of Rome. He was not an ill- 
 tempered man, but his temper was sorely tried. 
 
 “ A Roman Catholic ! ” he cried, with extreme dis- 
 gust. “ Become a Roman Catholic ! Become one ! 
 One of Abbot’s Scholars — a Cardinal’s Exhibitioner 
 and Scholar — become one ! ” 
 
 How, urged Perkin, with a meekness very different 
 from the rather proud independence he had shown of 
 Lord Monksbridge’s opinion, — how, he pleaded, could 
 he be a Catholic except by becoming one, and how 
 could he go on calling himself a Protestant when in 
 faith and conviction he was a Catholic? 
 
 “ Become a Catholic ! ” cried the Warden again. 
 “ Good gracious ! Become one ! There are people who 
 were born so — for the accident of birth they are not 
 responsible; Norfolk Howards and such like: but to 
 become one; it is preposterous.” 
 
 He spoke of the unlucky victims of heredity who 
 had been born Catholic as he might have spoken of 
 families born with hare-lips — would any sane man 
 ever slit his own upper lip on purpose? 
 
 “ Why should you ‘ call yourself a Protestant ’ ? 
 Why should you call yourself anything? At your age 
 it is not expected you should call yourself anything — 
 it is enough you should be a Protestant,” he protested, 
 rubbing a sleek white hand through his hair as if the 
 irritation were there. 
 
 “ But, sir, Pm not a Protestant. I don’t believe in 
 it. I am a Catholic ” 
 
 “ You mean you have been . . . been initiated, 
 
 already! When? Where? How? Good gra- 
 cious ! ” 
 
 “ No, sir. I meant that I am a Catholic by belief. 
 
274 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxviii 
 
 I have not been received into the Catholic Church, or 
 even instructed, yet.” 
 
 “ ‘ By belief ! ’ ‘ Belief ’ indeed. Really, Auberon, 
 I’m ashamed of you. Had you been properly occu- 
 pied with your studies you would not have had leisure 
 for such irrelevant considerations; you would have 
 believed what others of your age and in your position 
 are content to believe — what their responsible guardi- 
 ans and superiors believe. Do you suppose my sons 
 are considering and debating what it is they should 
 believe or disbelieve ? ” 
 
 Perkin was far from supposing that any of the 
 Warden’s sons had ever devoted an hour of any day 
 of his life to any “ consideration or debate ” concern- 
 ing religion; but he did not say so. 
 
 “ No,” cried their father, accepting Perkin’s sub- 
 missive silence as sufficient disclaimer. “ Of course 
 not. They are healthy, normal lads.” 
 
 No one could look healthier than Perkin; he only 
 failed to be normal in that his active and alert mind, 
 set on certain studies by his superiors themselves, had 
 found there food for considerations of absorbing in- 
 terest and, as he thought, importance. He was only 
 abnormal in that sort of almost passionate consistency 
 and devotion to truth of which I have spoken before. 
 
 “ I never thought,” said the Warden, regarding his 
 pupil with reproachful disappointment, “ that you 
 were morbid.” 
 
 Poor Perkin ! With all his vigorous youth, his look 
 of exuberant health and spirits, his tall and sinewy 
 athletic form, — certainly the Warden might be ex- 
 cused for having failed to think of him as a morbid 
 boy. 
 
275 
 
 ch. xxxviii ] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 “ I have always understood,” the Doctor declared, 
 “ that you were a merry lad ; you shared, as it was 
 reported to me, with wholesome zest and capacity in 
 the sports and games — the legitimate relaxations from 
 graver duties. Such vagrant considerations as you 
 now hint at, debatings as to belief (a boy’s belief! the 
 theological speculations of a lad!) are not legitimate 
 relaxations from the studies which constitute the busi- 
 ness and duty of your present period of existence; 
 but illicit dissipations, stolen wanderings, most lamen- 
 table aberrations. Most lamentable : most deplorable. 
 Perhaps I err in speaking with this reasoned calm- 
 ness,” cried the fuming Warden. “ It might well ap- 
 pear to be rather my duty, as it is my right, to adopt a 
 tone of heavier, more magisterial displeasure.” 
 
 And he whisked about upon his own axis till his 
 back was turned to Perkin, and his face was to the 
 chimney-piece — adorned with two busts, one of the 
 great Gibbon, and one of Minerva. 
 
 Minerva, indeed, never turned Catholic, and her 
 effigy suggested no argument specially appropriate — 
 except that irrefragable one that, if young Auberon 
 had attended exclusively, as he ought, to the heathen 
 classics, he would not have debauched his mind by 
 these puerile questions of Christian ecclesiasticism. 
 But Gibbon’s fat face did suggest something. 
 
 “ Auberon,” said the Doctor, soothed by that sug- 
 gestion, and by the sense that he had himself spoken 
 well, and to the point, “ I blame myself for the con- 
 descension of my tone, but I will condescend. From 
 me to you, a more crushing rejoinder might be fitter 
 to our respective positions — so far as you can be said 
 to have any position : nevertheless I will waive my po- 
 
276 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxviii 
 
 sition,” and he waved a ruler, as typical of it. “ I am 
 willing to hope that this may prove a temporary 
 aberration.” 
 
 Perkin quietly shook his head, but the Warden for 
 the moment was really thinking more of Gibbon than 
 of him, and went on almost without noticing it. 
 
 “ That Great Man,” and he pointed the ruler at the 
 tip of the Historian’s little snub nose, “ that Sublime 
 Genius was once a Boy.” 
 
 Perkin glanced in the direction indicated and seemed 
 to doubt it. 
 
 “ A Boy, no doubt, of Exceptional Brilliance ; but 
 a Boy — and subject to the infirmities of his time of 
 life.” 
 
 Perkin knew quite as much about Gibbon as the 
 Doctor, and fancied that the infirmities belonged to a 
 later stage than boyhood, and very unpleasant they 
 must have been. 
 
 “ As a Boy,” cried the Warden, pretty cheerfully, 
 “ Gibbon — ay, Gibbon — fell a victim to the lures and 
 wiles of the Harlot of the Seven Hills.” 
 
 A truly decorous man in ordinary social conversa- 
 tion, the Doctor had no difficulty in speaking of har- 
 lots to his young pupil — with whom, indeed, he had 
 translated Juvenal without turning a hair. 
 
 “ But,” he went on, with rising hope, “ it was but 
 a youthful slip: inexplicable ” 
 
 “ I never,” said Perkin, “ could understand how on 
 earth he came to do it.” 
 
 “ There is no need for you to understand. It was, 
 as I observed, inexplicable.” 
 
 “Yes, it was,” Perkin agreed; “he never had any 
 more sense of religion than a tom cat.” 
 
CH. xxxviii] MONKSBRIDGE 277 
 
 “Auberon! (My tolerance leads you to forget 
 yourself.) But Gibbon’s lapse was brief; he soon dis- 
 carded the effeminate shackles of Rome ” 
 
 (“ If ever,” thought Perkin, “ there was an old 
 woman, Gibbon was his name.”) 
 
 “Of Rome. And he lived to be her doughtiest 
 assailant.” 
 
 “ Yes, sir. I know he lived to sneer at Christi- 
 anity ” 
 
 “ Auberon!” 
 
 And the Doctor was not only offended, but sin- 
 cerely scandalized; the Decline and Fall was the only 
 History of the Church he had ever read, and he 
 thought very little of the Church, but he thought 
 heaven and earth of Gibbon; Gibbon understood what 
 a Church should be, and how the Church had failed 
 to be at all like Gibbon’s neat ideal of it. Of ortho- 
 doxy and heresies Gibbon had had a sane and just es- 
 timate — leather and prunella. 
 
 “ Auberon ! ” cried the Warden. “ I was hoping 
 that you might in part follow that Great Man’s ex- 
 ample — or take warning by what happened in his 
 case, and avoid his temporary lapse. I fear you are 
 not at all like Gibbon.” 
 
 “ I am sure I am not. He had not written his His- 
 tory when he became a Catholic; I have read it, and 
 I am certain that I shall become a Catholic, and by 
 God’s grace remain one. Sir, I do most truly thank 
 you for all your kindness to me: you have always 
 been kind, and to-day, too, when you might have been 
 very different. I did not think you would be harsh, 
 but you might have been, and I do most deeply feel 
 how far from harshly you have treated me. I am only 
 
278 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxviii 
 
 a boy, and you could easily snub and scold me down, 
 and you have not tried to do either. Above all, I 
 thank you for not sneering at me. I know that I am 
 doing what you must think wrong, though I know 
 that in me it would be horribly wrong not to do it : 
 for me there would be no excuse if I held back. Sir, 
 I know it would not be right for a boy like me to 
 talk to you, my dear, kind Master and Warden, of 
 God, and of prayer, but I am certain that God will 
 not be angry with me for doing what I hear Him tell- 
 ing me to do, and I have prayed and prayed to be led, 
 and no other way has been shown to me. You will, 
 I dare say, always be sorry that I have done this 
 thing, but I do not believe you will ever be sorry for 
 having listened to me so patiently and kindly. I have 
 been very happy here, and I love this place, and every 
 one in it; but I cannot stay in it, and you cannot let 
 me stay. As soon as I had told my own people I came 
 to tell you (with a very heavy heart) ; and now, I am 
 sure you will say that I ought to go home and come 
 back no more; I cannot make a secret of what I am 
 going to do, and it would not be right to tell the 
 other boys while I am one of them. I must go home; 
 and then I cannot help their knowing; they will hear, 
 and they will think me, no doubt, as you do, sir, a 
 silly fellow. I can’t help that, and it doesn’t matter. 
 But I should know myself to be a mean and dishonest 
 boy if I stayed here and pretended to believe what 
 every one who shares in the advantages of this place 
 has now to believe.” 
 
 There came a knock at the door, and the Doctor, 
 half ruefully, half with relief, called out, “ Come in ! ” 
 and the second master entered. 
 
279 
 
 CH. xxxviii] MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 “ Good-bye, sir,” said Perkin. 
 
 “ Good-bye, Auberon,” said the Warden. “ God 
 bless you.” 
 
 The door closed, and Auberon was gone ; they heard 
 his light footfall as he went downstairs, and some- 
 thing in the solemnity of the Warden’s farewell made 
 the second master say, “ No better boy in all the school; 
 no cleverer, nor simpler, nor merrier, nor cleaner- 
 lived.” 
 
 The Warden was worldly, but he had a heart, and 
 it was an honest one ; with the echo of the lad’s words 
 still ringing in it, he would not detract from his char- 
 acter or decry it. But he was not ready to speak, and 
 only nodded gravely. He moved to the great oriel 
 window and looked down into “ Founder’s Quad,” 
 and the second master came and stood beside him. 
 
 It was raining a little, but a watery gleam of sun- 
 light shone down between two rags of cloud, and 
 lighted the bare head of the Cardinal’s Scholar who 
 was crossing the paved yard — no boy walked covered 
 through Founder’s Quad. Opposite was Founder’s 
 Tower with its arch, leading to Chapel Quad, over 
 which, in a triple niche, was still Our Lady’s image, 
 weather-worn by the rains of nearly five centuries, with 
 St. Peter’s, to whom the college was dedicated, on her 
 right, and on her left the kneeling effigy of the Cardi- 
 nal Founder, looking up at her and the Divine Baby 
 in her arms. The boy looked up too, and the two 
 elderly men saw him bow his head in farewell greet- 
 ing. Because he held her for God’s Mother, and 
 trusted to her prayers for him ; because he did believe 
 that Christ had given those keys to Peter, and that 
 Peter’s successor held them still; because he thought 
 
2&Q 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxviii 
 
 of Christ’s Church and her Sacraments and her teach- 
 ing as that Founder, himself one of her princes, had 
 done; because he had learned exactly what the Car- 
 dinal had founded his school to teach — he had to go 
 out thence and never come back, and must strip off the 
 red gown he wore in token of being one of the Car- 
 dinal’s pupils. The two masters watched him pass 
 out of sight under the arch, and the Warden, turning 
 from the window whence Founder’s Tower and the 
 Founder’s image could be seen, towards Gibbon and 
 Minerva, said, shaking his head half regretfully and 
 half irritably — 
 
 “ He has gone. He leaves us. His exhibitions and 
 scholarships are vacant. He goes to join the Church 
 of Rome.” 
 
 The Warden spoke almost as though that church 
 were waiting round the corner (in a cab, for instance) 
 to drive the Cardinal’s Exhibitioner away. But the 
 second master was too thoroughly excited to notice the 
 mere form of the announcement. 
 
 “Auberon! Turn Catholic! Good Heavens! You 
 don’t mean it ! Good Heavens ! I never thought him 
 such a fool.” 
 
 Such is the perversity of our human nature, the Doc- 
 tor was irritated at this bald expression of what was 
 his own opinion, and showed it in his manner. With 
 an exclamation of impatience he turned to Gibbon, and 
 adjusted the great man’s bust — which was slewed a 
 little too much to the left, as if Miss Curchod’s lover 
 were ogling the austere Minerva. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 Auberon passed under the arch of Founder’s Tower, 
 and, crossing the quadrangle, ran up the semi-lunar 
 flight of shallow stone steps, under another arch, low- 
 browed and much worn with time and weather, into 
 the fore-porch of the chapel. Opposite the door into 
 the chapel itself was another niche in which another 
 image of the Blessed Virgin had once stood, and un- 
 der it was a sort of little stone cupboard, for a lamp 
 to be kept burning in her honour. At that precise mo- 
 ment it held only a Greek grammar, for which Haw- 
 kins mi (its careless and forgetful owner) was search- 
 ing in vain up and down his class-room. 
 
 Auberon pushed open the chapel door and went in. 
 A rainy gleam of sunlight was streaming through one 
 of the windows not filled with stained glass, though in 
 the middle of one of its panels were the Cardinal’s 
 arms, surmounted by his red hat and surrounded by 
 its strings and tassels. 
 
 The chapel was, as the boy knew it would be, empty : 
 and he stood, for a moment, looking round and taking 
 it all in for the last time. On each side of the door 
 were the old recessed stoups for holy water, and he 
 dipped his hand in one, as though it were not empty, 
 and crossed himself — how long was it since any boy 
 had done the same thing there? Some one must have 
 done it for the last time, and for his soul Perkin put up 
 a little prayer. Over the entrance was another win- 
 dow, in which was shown the Commission of the Keys 
 
 281 
 
282 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxix 
 
 to Peter, for the chapel, like the college, had been dedi- 
 cated in honour of Christ’s Mother and His Vicar. 
 Behind the altar was a carved stone reredos, repre- 
 senting the Annunciation : the ancient altar itself had 
 been removed in compliance with Edward VI.’s order 
 that all altars should be destroyed, and a somewhat 
 mean and meagre wooden table replaced it, and stood 
 there still. The ancient piscina for the Mass, with a 
 credence-shelf over it, was also still to be seen, in the 
 wall to the right, and, opposite, was an aumbry for 
 the holy oils, its oaken doors still intact, and, inside, 
 the college-porter’s wife kept a little brush and dust- 
 pan, of rather special quality, that she used for clean- 
 ing the stalls. 
 
 Auberon stood near the door for a minute or two, 
 and then knelt down in one of the lower boys’ benches : 
 his own stall, as Cardinal’s scholar, was up near the 
 altar, but he felt he had resigned his scholarships and 
 had no right to it. He hardly prayed, he was only 
 saying good-bye ; but he must say it on his knees. 
 
 It seemed to him much longer than it really was 
 since he had first come here : even of his short life 
 but a small proportion had been spent in this place; 
 but it seemed as though all his life that mattered much 
 had been crowded into the time during which he had 
 belonged to Abbot’s School. And everything in the 
 school, and everybody in it, had suddenly acquired 
 a sort of poignant interest that was almost sacred. He 
 had always been alert to notice anything queer, and 
 nothing odd or comic at Abbot’s had ever escaped 
 him; even now he half smiled to think of some of 
 the boys, and some of the masters, of the pompous, 
 good-natured, and obsequious college porter, utterly 
 
ch. xxxix] MONKSBRIDGE 283 
 
 h-less where h’s should be, but lavishly putting h’s 
 where none were demanded by law or custom ; and, 
 half smiling, he felt a rueful twinge of compunction, 
 such as one might feel beside the odd, unshaped form 
 of one well known on whom has fallen for ever the 
 Great Silence. 
 
 He would not have been my brother Perkin had he 
 felt any hardness towards any one. For what he was 
 losing he blamed no one, not even Fate the much- 
 abused: in stripping himself of all he had gained by 
 honest work, of the independent position he had 
 earned so young, he felt no grudging anger against 
 inexorable necessity. He had nothing left in all the 
 world but himself — and something greater than him- 
 self: he was making himself a penniless, dependent 
 boy, but he accepted his utter poverty (he who so 
 liked to spend) and dependence (to whom dependence 
 was so irksome) as simply as any grown gentleman has 
 ever accepted ruin, to whom ruin has come suddenly, 
 and said, “ You and I are decreed to one another.” 
 
 He had given himself to our Lord, as he saw Him, 
 and the little gift had been accepted and kept; it was 
 not flouted, as of mean and silly account, and flung 
 back. He never got back exactly what he had given, 
 only something greater in its place. God never gives 
 us back our wretched selves, unless we grudge and 
 snatch the gift back, and insist on that miserable 
 restitution. He gives Himself instead. So Perkin, 
 clutching at no such restoration of what he had lost, 
 never became quite the old Perkin; and the blemish 
 of a certain light and careless selfishness, that had 
 once been in him, withered up in the wonderful great 
 fire to which he had committed himself. 
 
284 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxix 
 
 The only thing of his own that he made any count 
 of was his conscience, because it did not belong to him, 
 and he durst not play the fool with it. Of his own loss 
 he thought (that rainy, sunny afternoon of gusty light 
 and petulant, laughing tears) only as it meant the 
 parting with what no boy, unlike him, would have 
 thought of at all. No one in all Abbot’s School had 
 one pang of regret for him like the pang he felt at 
 losing them. The playing-fields, the school quadran- 
 gles (where so much of the school-life, for five centu- 
 ries, had been lived), every common, trivial feature 
 of the place, and of the life, shone to him, in that 
 last light of farewell, sacred and poignantly remote, 
 part of himself and gone from himself for ever and 
 ever. And even here, too, he thought not of himself 
 alone, egotistically ; it all seemed to him a great, won- 
 derful river of undying youth, flowing onward through 
 the flat centuries, sunlit, with a sun that never touches 
 man’s jostling success, to some vast undiscovered 
 country; of himself he thought only as a drop in it, 
 infinitely trivial in comparison of that ever-living, 
 never-ceasing whole. The walls of the chapel seemed 
 like the banks of that ever-moving stream of youth, 
 endlessly flowing through them, never held or kept 
 back by them, themselves changing but little by time’s 
 slow erosion. 
 
 He was hardly praying now : only taking a farewell 
 so reverent that its bowing down of spirit and heart 
 was in truth a prayer — of love, and patience, and 
 thanksgiving, and submission ; but he had often prayed 
 here: it was here that he had, perhaps, learned to 
 pray. 
 
 It was growing dusk now, and he must be going; 
 
ch. xxxix ] MONKSBRIDGE 285 
 
 it was hard to go, and leave behind him here, as he 
 felt he would, his merry boyhood. The careless days 
 of play, and of work almost as pleasant and easy as 
 play, must give place to a man’s heavier work. He 
 had his bread to earn, and could no longer expect to 
 be able to pick and choose the way of it. Almost from 
 the beginning of his coming to this place he had cost 
 his mother nothing, and certainly he must cost her 
 nothing henceforward. He was old enough to earn 
 a livelihood, and he must do it, in whatever fashion 
 he should find possible; and he knew it might have 
 to be in some manner irksome enough. He did not 
 shrink from that, or from the idea of dull, meagrely 
 remunerated, toil: but he stood at the threshold of 
 manhood with all his boyhood torn away, and made 
 suddenly as distant, as irrevocably part of the past, 
 as though it were actually thrust behind him by the 
 vague, slow lapse of years. 
 
 Around the chapel walls, under the windows, ran 
 a scripture, carved in stone letters; it was too dark 
 to read it now, but he knew it was there, and it 
 preached to him, giving him a motto for his life: — 
 
 EXSPECTA : DOMINVM : VIRILITER : AGE • 
 ET : CONFORTETVR • COR : TVVM • 
 
 ET SVSTINE : DOMINVM. 
 
 He was just beginning really to pray at last — for 
 his mother and his sisters — when the chapel door was 
 pushed open, and some one came in with a light, hur- 
 ried step, uncertain and troubled; and he knew that 
 some one else had knelt down, hastily, just inside the 
 door, and he could hear a panting whisper, as if the 
 
286 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxix 
 
 new-comer were praying unaware of any other human 
 presence. So he rose to go away; and, dim as the 
 place was grown, he recognized, when close to him, 
 who it was that had interrupted him; a young boy 
 whom he scarcely knew, but whose face he knew well, 
 an almost childish face, innocent and not wise, as 
 though the innocence were half silly, and the silliness 
 but a part of its innocence. He was not kneeling up, 
 but, rather, crouching on the floor, and the attitude ex- 
 pressed such pain and trouble that Auberon could not 
 pass by on the other side. 
 
 “ Is anything the matter ? ” he asked gently, pausing 
 and bending down. 
 
 “ Oh yes ! ” the child answered miserably ; “ that’s 
 why I came here. I couldn’t think of anything else 
 to do. I’m so horribly afraid.” 
 
 And all his body shook with gasping sighs that were 
 like dry sobs. 
 
 “ What is it? Tell me. Can I help you?” 
 
 His grave, whispering voice sounded so kind in 
 that quiet place, that the child, half desperate, took 
 heart to blurt out an answer under the covering 
 dusk. 
 
 “ I’m in a frightful trouble. Something has been 
 found out. A fearful thing. K knows. He sus- 
 
 pected, and spied, and found out. He will tell, I’m 
 sure he’ll tell. And if he does it will be expelling. 
 My mother — it will kill her. All day (since I knew 
 that K knew) I have been nearly mad with hor- 
 
 ror and fright, and just now it came into my head to 
 come here; but I can’t pray, I can’t think, I can’t do 
 anything. . . . Oh, Auberon! everybody thinks such 
 a lot of you; K does. You . . . could you . . . 
 
ch. xxxix] MONKSBRIDGE 287 
 
 would you speak to him? He would listen to you — 
 only not to be expelled — in two weeks it is the holi- 
 days, and I would promise not to come back; I would 
 make my mother not let me come back. Only not 
 to be expelled. Auberon, you asked if you could do 
 anything. Will you help me?” 
 
 The chapel was all one grey shadow now; but to 
 the big boy who was leaving it for ever it seemed to 
 be filled with eastern light, and it held more than him 
 and the gasping, agonized child; the writing Christ 
 was there, stooping to His writing on the ground, 
 the only writing He ever did on earth; a cowering 
 figure was near Him, waiting for His first condem- 
 nation who was without sin. Only He would not ; but 
 wrote, for the clean-eyed angels to read, His decree 
 of pardon and sweet hope. 
 
 To Him first, and not to the child, the lad spoke; 
 he prayed now, without any show of it, his heart only 
 kneeling, and his lips making no sound. 
 
 “ Give me this child instead of myself,” he asked. 
 “ Let me promise for You, and keep my word. I am 
 being expelled from this place. Let that be enough. 
 Give me leave, Christ Jesus, to promise for You.” 
 
 What leave could he expect? Could he look for 
 any voice from heaven? 
 
 It did not come from heaven, but from low down 
 on the earth. 
 
 “ Promise ! ” wailed the cowering child at his feet. 
 
 And, because he knew Him, already, to Whom he 
 had spoken, he took it for leave to answer. 
 
 “ I promise,” he said gently. 
 
 Then the child wept, in gusts and sobs of tears. 
 At first he could not speak. 
 
288 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xxxix 
 
 “And you will speak for me to K ?” he 
 
 gasped, at last. “ Oh, Auberon, how kind you are ! 
 He will attend to you, you will speak to him ? ” 
 
 To Perkin it seemed like a temptation. Should 
 he interfere? Should he speak? Or should he believe, 
 and not thrust himself in at all? Is God so far away 
 that He can, in these stale days of little faith, be 
 trusted to do nothing any longer by Himself? 
 
 “ Oh, Auberon! You promised,” pleaded the child. 
 “ I do promise. No harm shall happen to you.” 
 With a tearing sigh of relief the child thanked him 
 again. 
 
 “ No. No harm will happen if you speak for 
 me.” 
 
 “ I have spoken. No harm will happen to you.” 
 
 “ Spoken ? spoken already ? Did you know before 
 
 I told you? Had K told you? ” 
 
 “No. I knew nothing. It was to Him — Himself — 
 I spoke ; and I promise — for Him — that no harm shall 
 happen to you. Can you not believe ? When you came 
 here you knew what you were coming for — Who it 
 
 was you were going to ask ” 
 
 “ Yes,” the poor child pleaded, “ because there was 
 nothing else to do. No one else to ask. But you were 
 here, and it came into my head to ask you — and oh! 
 I thought you had promised.” 
 
 “ I did, I do. He sent you here. He put me here 
 to answer for Him. I do answer. He is here to 
 know, if He would not be bound by the promise I 
 know He gave me leave to make He would say so, 
 you would hear Him ; I would. Listen : I promise, for 
 Him, that no harm shall happen to you.” 
 
 The silence that fell when the lad ceased speaking 
 
ch. xxxix] MONKSBRIDGE 289 
 
 was like the resonance of the great ocean, as children 
 hear it in an empty shell. It tingled in their ears. 
 
 “ Believe him,” it whispered to the child : he wav- 
 ered, trembled, clutched at the deeper-grounded hope 
 it gave than any that mere compliance with his often- 
 urged plea for human interference could really have 
 given — and he did believe. He knew that there was 
 no disavowal of the bold, strange promise. For the 
 first time in his life the Divine, conquering blow of 
 faith had stricken him also. 
 
 “ Good-bye,” Auberon whispered as simply as ever 
 boy spoke. “ It will be all right.” 
 
 And he went away, out of the place where he had 
 learned to pray, and where he would never be again. 
 It never even occurred to him to tag on to his mes- 
 sage of comfort the warning “ Sin no more ; ” he was 
 only a boy, and God’s Eternal Law could gain no 
 strength by his officious reminder of it. 
 
 And no harm did happen to the child. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 Before the next day’s sun had set, all Monksbridge 
 was agog with the portentous news that one of the 
 boys of Abbot’s School had turned Catholic. He had 
 been, it was reported, publicly stripped of his red gown, 
 publicly expelled, his name had been publicly erased 
 from the College Roll, and his name (written in gilt 
 letters in Hall, like that of all Cardinal’s scholars) had 
 been publicly painted over with black paint. Simon 
 Plummer, the glazier and painter, had been sent for, 
 and had daubed it over with his black paint in the 
 presence of the whole school and all the masters, who 
 had hissed (not Plummer, but the culprit Papist boy) 
 “ in a profound silence,” which burst into “ God save 
 the Queen ” by way of protest against the disloyalty of 
 Catholics. It was reported that the Warden had pub- 
 licly flogged the renegade, till, overcome by tears, he 
 had been unable to proceed. A later version of this 
 rumour added that the second master had then taken 
 Dr. FitzSimon’s place; in this form the story crossed 
 the bridge and reached old Lawyer Stiff, in Llanthamy, 
 who said — 
 
 “ Tut, tut! It would be assault — a lad of eighteen 
 can’t be set upon with blows by two men for leaving 
 the Church of England.” 
 
 But then old Stiff was a Dissenter, and his incredu- 
 lity was readily understood. 
 
 Mrs. Auberon was declared by half the servants in 
 Monksbridge to have fallen into a succession of faint- 
 
 290 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 291 
 
 CH. XL] 
 
 ing fits, and to be lying at death’s door with two doc- 
 tors in constant attendance ; the other half understood 
 that she and her daughters had all been perverted by 
 “the son,” and were about to enter convents; in the 
 case of the elder Miss Auberon this was partly at- 
 tributed to disappointment, Lord Monksbridge having 
 instantly broken his engagement. 
 
 In the bar of the Cross Keys it was said that the 
 Duke, as Visitor of Abbot’s School, was leaving for 
 London to apply for a Royal Commission with a view 
 to “ suspending ” it, till such reforms could be intro- 
 duced as would purge it from the disgrace it had 
 sustained and render impossible any such scandals 
 in the future. It was also asserted that an action at 
 law would lie against the renegade, who, it now ap- 
 peared, had long been a Catholic and a Jesuit in dis- 
 guise; that he would be sued in damages for the costs 
 of his board, lodging and education, which he had 
 obtained under false pretences ; probably he would also 
 be charged with conspiracy. 
 
 “ Tut, tut! ” said old Mr. Stiff, to whom this report 
 also filtered. “ The question is, whether he could not 
 sue them for deprivation of the income of his scholar- 
 ships — if he hadn’t been weak enough to resign them 
 of his own accord.” 
 
 The Dissenters on the whole were rather pleased, 
 and the Rev. J. Bibble only wondered that the she- 
 wolf of Rome didn’t snap up more of the ill-shep- 
 herded lambs of the Establishment; but none the less 
 did he and they condemn the precocious depravity of 
 young Auberon — there would be no harm in his leav- 
 ing the Church of England had he left it for a Gospel 
 religion (of which there were several in Monksbridge), 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 292 
 
 [CH. XL 
 
 but to hark back to the vomit of Rome was a sign of 
 a fearfully depraved nature. 
 
 One very old gentleman, a retired publican, who 
 had been ineffectually trying to drink himself to death 
 for many years, and relieved the burden of his leisure 
 by much reading of the newspapers, ascribed it to 
 the French as direct emissaries of the Pope. The 
 French, it seemed, had long been taking his instruc- 
 tions in Rome, under a flimsy pretext of garrisoning 
 that Seven Hilled City (we had no hills in Monks- 
 bridge, and felt our superiority). He had recently let 
 them go away, and no doubt had bidden them scatter 
 themselves through Protestant countries as spies and 
 what not. A French drill-sergeant had quite lately ap- 
 peared in Monksbridge, and made a show of giving 
 lessons in fencing and calisthenics; most likely every 
 town in England had been similarly invaded. 
 
 “ And what,” asked Mr. Porter, tragically, “ is to 
 prevent them rising, throughout England, as one man, 
 and killing of us all in our beds ? ” 
 
 And certainly it appeared likely that, if they rose 
 at all, it would be as one man, seeing that there was 
 only one of them in each of the doomed towns. 
 
 Elijah Castor, a fifth-rate grocer, who did but a 
 meagre trade, almost entirely on long credit, was 
 quite pensive about it throughout Monday, and spoke 
 dismally to his customers as he weighed out tea and 
 sugar, so absent-mindedly as not to be aware that 
 the ounce weight lay all day under a scrap of whitey- 
 brown paper at the bottom of that scale where no 
 weights were supposed to be. 
 
 “ ’Tis a back-sliding,” he observed, “ and a stroke o’ 
 reprobation cuttin’ very nigh oursens. Two women 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 293 
 
 CH. XL] 
 
 grindin’ at the mill, one taken, and another left. It 
 might as well be huz onst that vulture’s paw is scrattin’ 
 round. Oo’s to say where it’ll scrat next? ” 
 
 “ Very true, Mr. Castor,” agreed Mrs. Plugram, of 
 the Abbot’s Trusts’ Almshouses, eyeing her quarter- 
 pound of tea with a strong impression that it looked 
 less than usual, but (conscious of a running account 
 that might, perhaps, run longer than herself) voicing 
 no suspicion. 
 
 “ ’Twould be,” she said, “ a crool thing for the 
 poor, if the Pope came over universal, and raised the 
 prices on us — nezessities o’ life are dear enough 
 a’ready.” 
 
 “ Nezessities ! I counts tea a luggzory. There’s 
 yourn, Mrs. Plugram; and I loses on it. I loses on 
 every quarter-pound I make up; ’tis only the quantity 
 as shows a profit — that’s well known i’ the trade.” 
 
 But Mrs. Plugram and Elijah Castor, and even Mr. 
 Porter, lay in very low strata of the Monksbridge 
 formation. In much higher layers of it young Au- 
 beron was equally, though differently, condemned. 
 
 Miss Belvoir took “ his apostasy ” as a reflection on 
 her late father, who had been a Vicar, and only missed 
 being an Archdeacon by becoming an angel at a pre- 
 mature and inopportune moment ; the Church of Eng- 
 land had been good enough for him — was it not good 
 enough for a schoolboy of eighteen? But he was an 
 Auberon, and there was a fund of conceit in the Au- 
 beron blood. His eldest sister, it was well known, 
 had meant him for a bishop — but to be Archbishop of 
 Canterbury would not satisfy him; there were no Car- 
 dinals in the English Church, so he went where there 
 were (his red gown, no doubt, had put it in his head), 
 
294 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XL 
 
 and he most likely aimed to be Pope — Perkin I., but 
 his real name was Peter, and he would be Peter II., 
 and English travellers would have to kiss his 
 toe. 
 
 Mrs. Hawthorn, the Vicar’s wife, knew that Au- 
 beron had not been expelled, and deplored the cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 “ If you had been Warden, Vicar, you would have 
 done it, or my name’s not Genesta.” 
 
 The Vicar, a mild man with four chins, was well 
 aware that her name was as she stated it; she had it 
 from her godmother (called after her aunt, who was 
 an Honourable of the Grooby-Mere family, that de- 
 scended in the female line from the Plantagenets). 
 
 “ But, Jenny,” he argued, “ I couldn’t. No Warden 
 could.” 
 
 “ He should have been stripped of his gown — as 
 people say he was. The report was correct in princi- 
 ple, tho’ mistaken in fact. Vox populo , you know.” 
 
 “ Populi, my dear, populi.” 
 
 “ I or Oh — I’d have stripped him. I never cared for 
 those Auberons — after all, quite new people in Monks- 
 bridge, and full of airs; a curate’s widow, and only 
 duke’s houses good enough for her and her young 
 madams to stay at; and that brazen-haired daughter 
 that’s to marry the lord ” 
 
 “ The Lord, my dear ! ” 
 
 “ Jeremiah, don’t be profane, if weaned childs — 
 children, I should say — are becoming Papists all 
 around you. I never thought much of her looks — nor 
 Mrs. Fitz either; I dare say it’s her bose yew, as Mrs. 
 Fitz would say, that account for the brother not being 
 expelled. The Warden was inclined to make a pretty 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XL] 
 
 295 
 
 goose of himself about her when first into this parish 
 she came.” 
 
 “ My dear, we’d better not be scandalous,” the 
 Vicar suggested, not intolerantly. He had no idea of 
 Deaneries or Bishoprics himself, but rather inclined 
 to the view that you should be content in that sta- 
 tion in life in which it had pleased Providence to set 
 you — with seven hundred a year, two curates, only 
 one daughter, and a wife who had ninety-one pounds, 
 thirteen and fourpence a year of her own, and no 
 extravagant tastes. He was not at all jealous of the 
 Warden, and did not dislike him in the least, but he 
 thought him a shallow fellow (the sort that gets on, 
 however), and had heard of his neighbour’s transient 
 appreciation of the pretty Miss Auberon with some 
 chuckling, and without the slightest apprehension of a 
 clerical scandal. He thought highly of the young 
 lady’s prudence, and did not think meanly of Mrs. 
 FitzSimon’s alertness and circumspection. 
 
 “ Come, come,” he said, “ we mustn’t be uncharita- 
 ble; they’re our very good neighbours. He’s a life- 
 long friend; I remember his sister, a personable young 
 woman who married a wholesale tanner in quite a 
 big way.” 
 
 “ There are no tanners in my family,” Mrs. Haw- 
 thorn observed loftily. “ If we don’t grab up lords, 
 or take Wardens and be thankful for them, we mate 
 with beneficed clergy, like our mothers and grand- 
 mothers before us; and if I were one ” 
 
 “A grandmother, my dear?” said the Vicar, with 
 ill-timed jocosity. 
 
 “ If I were a beneficed clergyman in a parish where 
 a parishioner of mine, however young and jacka- 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 296 
 
 [CH. XL 
 
 napesy, had gone over to Rome, I’d expel him pub- 
 licly.” 
 
 “ But he has expelled himself. And publicly enough 
 — all Monksbridge is talking about it. I’m sick of 
 hearing of it. I lament it. But if it concerns any- 
 body it concerns the Warden; why do you assail 
 me? ” 
 
 And the poor Vicar grew almost pathetic in his 
 sense of female injustice. 
 
 “ The boy,” he added, “ expelled himself. What 
 more do you want? He just told the Doctor what he 
 was going to do, and walked off, leaving all his schol- 
 arships behind him.” 
 
 “ He shouldn’t have been allowed to walk off. He 
 should have been retained for Public Expulsion. It’s 
 odd if you take his part. He has been a Catholic at 
 heart ever so long, no doubt. A Papist in dis- 
 guise ” 
 
 “ Disguised like a Cardinal in a red robe ! ” cried 
 the Vicar, who had been a good husband too long 
 not to love scoring a point against the wife of his 
 broad bosom. To tell the truth, he was bored to death 
 by all the talk of young Auberon’s shocking misbe- 
 haviour; it was now Sunday afternoon, and the news 
 had reached Prior’s House by six on Saturday even- 
 ing. From that moment till she went to sleep his wife 
 had spoken of nothing else, and she had begun again 
 first thing in the morning. 
 
 On Sunday afternoons the Vicar was used to have 
 his study to himself, that he might meditate — espe- 
 cially if, as to-day, he were to preach at the evening 
 service. But, after receiving several visitors (rare 
 on Sundays), Mrs. Hawthorn had invaded that sane- 
 
CH. XL] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 297 
 
 tuary, and he much wished she would go. He was 
 actually sitting upon the third volume of the Last 
 Chronicle of Barset, and though he might not, like 
 the Princess, have felt a single parched pea through 
 twenty feather-beds, he was fully conscious of the 
 book, and would like to go on with it. Being a clergy- 
 man himself, he was not in the least sensitive about 
 Mr. Trollope’s presentation of parsons; it was by the 
 ecclesiastically-minded laity that that portraiture was 
 held to be libellous and cynical. The clergy, he con- 
 sidered, were no more perfect than other people, and 
 he resented the assumption that they should be perfect, 
 much more than the clever author’s representations of 
 them. He would not even confess that Archdeacon 
 Grantly was worldly in any objectionable degree, but 
 thought him a fine specimen of the older type of clergy- 
 man, well-born and affluent, not haughty to his in- 
 feriors, or supercilious among his equals, without 
 humbug and with many excellent qualities not uni- 
 versally found among more “ Apostolic ” pastors of 
 a newer school. Of Mr. Crawley he thought very 
 much as the Archdeacon did, pitying his great mis- 
 fortunes but disliking him, and holding him for a 
 poor creature with a bee in his bonnet. The gentle 
 and sweet Mr. Harding he admired much less than 
 Trollope himself evidently did, and when the old man 
 refused the Deanery, Mr. Hawthorn was quite as 
 impatient and irritated as Dr. Grantly. 
 
 Mrs. Hawthorn was not at all like Mrs. Proudie, 
 but the Vicar was still less like that awful lady’s 
 husband, and he determined to have his study to him- 
 self ; and he made himself understood. 
 
 “ Well, I’ll go,” said Mrs. Hawthorn. “ I see what 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 298 
 
 [CH. XL 
 
 you’re going to preach: and you’ll want to read it 
 through. Shall I bring your tea in here — or ” — per- 
 ceiving some access of impatience in her lord — “ shall 
 I send it in? ” 
 
 “ Yes, my dear. Do ! Let Sarah bring it in.” 
 
 (It was a perpetual satisfaction to Mrs. FitzSimon 
 that they only kept a “ Sarah,” while Warden’s Lodge 
 gloried in a “ Willoughby ” — in ginger-coloured 
 livery.) 
 
 Mrs. Hawthorn had her eye on the sermon, an old 
 one, and it had caught the text. 
 
 “ Ah ! ” she observed, “ ‘ Out of the mouths of 
 babes and sucklings.’ I do believe you’re going to 
 preach on it — that you’re going to bring him in.” 
 
 “ No, I’m not. I never thought of it,” her husband 
 protested, with gathering impatience for his book. 
 “ I shouldn’t think of it. But it may be as well not to 
 preach that one at all.” 
 
 “ ‘ Curse ye Meroz,’ would be more seasonable, I 
 should say,” declared the lady. 
 
 “Nonsense, Jenny! Do you suppose I’m going to 
 behave as if a green boy’s folly were turning us all 
 upside-down? I shall ignore it.” 
 
 “ Don’t be angry, Jeremiah,” pleaded his wife, com- 
 ing back from the door and speaking with an almost 
 tearful meekness. “ I have never dictated or sug- 
 gested, have I, now? Only I do love for you to dis- 
 tinguish yourself ; I know you don’t care to — you’ve 
 no paltry ambitions, like some. You never do use 
 the pulpit to advertise yourself. But don’t be cross 
 because I ” 
 
 “ No, Nesta ; no, I’m not cross,” the elderly clergy- 
 man assured her good-naturedly. “ I know you meant 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 299 
 
 CH. XL] 
 
 well; but really I don’t think it dignified to make a 
 public fuss about a thing like this . . . and . . . and, 
 Nesta, if I had a lad of my own I should feel it, if he 
 couldn’t be content with the religion that his father 
 preached, but this boy is no son of ours, and it can’t 
 cut us that way. And — and, Nesta; if one had a son, 
 it would not be a bad thing, after all, if he thought 
 enough, and cared enough, about religion, to be ready 
 to give up all that lad is giving up. Few boys do.” 
 
 “ But, Jeremiah, that’s as much as to say that he’s 
 sincere.” 
 
 The elderly clergyman, who really longed to be 
 reading about Mr. Trollope’s worldly clergymen, whom 
 he did not think too worldly at all, paused a moment ; 
 he had not always been elderly, and out of a far- 
 off time shone still certain gleams of a light that had 
 not been worldly, when sarcasm had not seemed 
 synonymous with truth, or all enthusiasm mere folly. 
 
 “Why should we say he is not sincere?” he an- 
 swered, one of those half-lost gleams lighting his grey 
 face. “God is the judge. / know he is wrong: but, 
 if he doesn’t, his mistake is not insincerity.” 
 
 Out of the pulpit and the church, alone with his 
 wife, he hardly ever had that great Name in his mouth. 
 His tone in his family was usually urbane, complacent, 
 kindly, and often jocose, rarely solemn. 
 
 “ Oh, Jerry,” cried his wife, feeling herself, some- 
 how, nearer to the days of their courtship, before he 
 was ordained at all, when she was a comely lass, very 
 proud of her lover. “ Oh, Jerry, you are a good man.” 
 And she plumped down, not lightly, on the hassock 
 at his feet (that nearly played her false and sent her 
 toppling over), and hugged him strenuously. 
 
300 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XL 
 
 “ Oh, Jerry ! how good you are ! ” 
 
 “ No, Nesta, no ! ” he protested, almost wishing the 
 Last Chronicle were not so hard, and disliking a scene 
 as heartily as she enjoyed it. 
 
 “ Ah, but I know better,” the stout lady cried, kiss- 
 ing her husband’s handsome gold watch-chain (a 
 presentation from his last curacy). “ I know better.” 
 “ No, my girl, no ! But let us be honest, and char- 
 itable, if we can.” 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 Our papers at Monksbridge only reached us at mid- 
 day, but within an hour after noon on Monday all 
 Monksbridge knew itself famous : and, though no one 
 condoned young Auberon’s transgression because our 
 fame arose out of it, the fame was savoury on the 
 palate of our somewhat remote and unheeded town. 
 
 There was a newspaper called the Flag, and we all 
 knew it well by name. Some said it had no politics, 
 few believed it had any religion, but all were aware 
 that it had great standing and high influence. It knew 
 all that it behoved omniscience to know; and it sel- 
 dom stooped to cognizance of local or purely provin- 
 cial matters. What the Cabinets of Europe had at 
 heart it thoroughly understood, what English folk in 
 border counties were excited about could raise in 
 the columns of the Flag neither frown nor smile; such 
 trivialities were beneath it. 
 
 But on that marvellous Monday it had an article — 
 “ a Leading Article,” Mr. Stephen Rumble said, and 
 he was conversant with such high matters — all about 
 Monksbridge. It had no title or heading, and that, 
 Mr. Rumble explained, proved at once that it was a 
 Leading Article. I cannot reproduce it here, but 
 I can give its substance. 
 
 “ There is,” the Flag instructed its readers, “ a 
 little town, far away on the Welsh Border, but itself 
 in England, in the great, important, and opulent county 
 called Rentshire, in fact : inhabited (at the last census) 
 
 301 
 
302 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xli 
 
 by something under five thousand of Her Majesty’s 
 lieges. The name of the town is Monksbridge, and 
 that name enshrines the history of its origin; for the 
 place grew up in consequence of the building there 
 of a bridge — the only one there for many miles along 
 the reaches of the deep, if not very broad, river Tham 
 — whereby the Rentshire folk could cross into Wales, 
 and the Welsh people pass into England; and that 
 bridge had owed its existence to the public spirit and 
 munificence of certain monks — the community of St. 
 Mary’s Abbey, a house of Benedictines founded by 
 one of the Saxon Kings whose own sixth son was its 
 first Abbot. As the hamlet by the bridge grew in 
 population, the neighbouring monks provided, by pro- 
 gressive benefactions, for its spiritual and temporal 
 needs. They built first a chapel, with a * cell ’ ( for 
 two priests and as many lay-brothers) attached; later 
 on the cell became a Priory, and the small chapel 
 was succeeded by a stately conventual church; a mar- 
 ket was inaugurated under charter from the monarch 
 whose brother was Abbot at that time; the town was 
 enclosed within walls — also at the cost of the Abbey. 
 And early in the thirteenth century Abbot Aymer de 
 Belesme founded in the town a school for boys, which 
 he dedicated as the College of Our Lady and St. Peter, 
 obtaining from the Sovereign a charter of incorpora- 
 tion and from the Pope a bull conceding many privi- 
 leges to the new foundation; the Pope was Honorius 
 III. and the King was Henry III., who was the Ab- 
 bot’s kinsman, that prelate’s mother having been a 
 daughter of the King’s mother by her second mar- 
 riage; partly by the influence of the monarch, partly 
 in reward, no doubt, of his personal merit, the Abbot- 
 
CH. XLl] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 303 
 
 Founder of the College of St. Mary and St. Peter was, 
 near the end of his long and useful life, created a Car- 
 dinal by Pope Urban IV. Nevertheless, his college 
 continued to be called, and has been called ever since, 
 the Abbot’s School. At his death the Cardinal (partly 
 because such a monument would too much encroach on 
 the smaller space of the college chapel, and partly 
 because he had largely rebuilt the chancel of the ad- 
 jacent Priory Church), was buried in the latter place, 
 in a fine chantry erected in his own lifetime, but under 
 a tomb provided by the munificence and gratitude of 
 the monks and their new Abbot. The name of Car- 
 dinal de Belesme is more widely known than that of 
 Monksbridge, because he founded, in addition to the 
 local school, a college at Oxford, where many emi- 
 nent persons have been students. 
 
 “ It is time,” said the article, “ that we should now 
 say something of the various scholarships attached 
 to the Monksbridge school and the Oxford College. 
 At first the former was to consist of a Warden, twelve 
 fellows (in honour of the twelve Apostles), and 
 thirty-three scholars — in commemoration of the re- 
 puted years of Christ’s life on earth, and as many 
 * Town Boys ’ as should be in need of education; these 
 last were to receive education only, all the rest were 
 to be fed, clothed, and housed. When the Founder 
 became a Cardinal he raised the number of ‘ scholars ’ 
 to seventy, being the full number of the princes of the 
 Church, and changed their black gown into a red one — 
 which, by a quaint survival, is still worn by these 
 young people. As the Founder’s life was very long, 
 he, from time to time, enriched the school with vari- 
 ous prizes, some of considerable value, in money; 
 
304 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XLI 
 
 and when he had founded his college at Oxford he 
 endowed certain scholarships for students there, only 
 eligible to the ‘ Red Boys ’ of his school at Monks- 
 bridge — one of these is, now at all events, of the enor- 
 mous comparative value of three hundred a year. In 
 the deed of Foundation de Belesme laid down that 
 the school was for the teaching, first and foremost, 
 of the Holy Catholic Faith, to the knowledge of which 
 all other learning, how pretty and convenient soever 
 as ornament and ’broidery, was but handmaiden and 
 servant. Accordingly, to every one of his prizes and 
 scholarships was annexed the condition that the can- 
 didate should prove his proficiency in such knowledge 
 of the teaching of the Holy Roman and Catholic 
 Church. No Town Boy could be advanced to the red 
 gown without satisfying the Warden and Fellows 
 of his proper science in these matters; and, later on, 
 when Peter College (now known everywhere as 
 Balaam, a supposed corruption of Belesme or de 
 Belesme) was founded, the Cardinal decreed that no 
 Monksbridge scholar should be awarded his great 
 Exhibition (Prize, it was called then), except he who 
 should best treat in Latin of the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion of ‘ Godde’s Mother,’ of Transubstantiation in 
 the Eucharist, of the Primacy of Peter (Heavenly Pa- 
 tron of the College), and of the Office and Intercession 
 of Angels and Saints. 
 
 “ The remoteness of Monksbridge may partly, but 
 cannot wholly, account for its comparative immunity 
 at the Reformation. King Henry, of conjugal and 
 very pious memory, made short work of the great 
 neighbouring abbey, and did so well out of its spoils, 
 and of those of the town priory, that perhaps he 
 
CH. XLl] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 305 
 
 spared the college with less reluctance. The Abbot 
 refused the Oath of Supremacy in religion, and was 
 duly hanged, drawn, and quartered, with little of 
 that tedious delay so common in affairs of law; as 
 were, then or afterwards, most of the monks. The 
 Monksbridge Prior had the same difficulty in perceiv- 
 ing how the King could be head of the Catholic 
 Church, and seems to have been of an argumentative 
 disposition; according to him, either the old religion 
 was wrong or the Pope was right, and he also was 
 hanged, as His Majesty loved ever to keep the last 
 word in an argument. The Warden of Abbot’s saw 
 his neighbour die, and he, good easy man, felt him- 
 self unwofthy of the Martyr’s Crown; to get to 
 heaven, body and soul, was plainly desirable, but to 
 arrive there in detachments, from the four places 
 where his four quarters might be disposed, was but a 
 confusing idea. He took the oath, and subscribed 
 everything — the Six Articles, and what not — as sub- 
 scription was required. Meekly following his lead, 
 four of the twelve fellows did the like; the other eight 
 were imprisoned, five died of the rigour of their con- 
 finement, three were hanged. As the fellowships fell 
 vacant, they were filled by gentlemen of the Court, to 
 whom the King explained that so great an honour 
 needed no recompense, and their stalls became hon- 
 orary, and were mostly unoccupied by their holders. 
 Under Henry there was no Wardeness. Under Ed- 
 ward VI. the then Warden conquered any personal 
 predilection for clerical celibacy he may have felt, and 
 dutifully espoused a waiting-woman in the household 
 of the Lord Protector — a termagant, but useful to her 
 husband. 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 3°6 
 
 [CH. XLI 
 
 “ And why do we regale our readers with all this 
 pretty archaeology? Because an odd thing has hap- 
 pened, and Monksbridge is all agog. It seems that 
 among the Red Boys of Abbot’s School, the Cardinal’s 
 Seventy, is one Auberon, with the appropriate name of 
 Peter, appropriate to the College of St. Mary and 
 St. Peter, and to that of St. Peter’s House at Oxford, 
 the great scholarship in which, already mentioned, 
 he has lately gained — whether in reward of his trea- 
 tises concerning the Conception of the Virgin, etc., 
 we will not presume to decide. This youth, of eighteen 
 summers, should in due course proceed to Oxford in 
 the enjoyment of the prize he has earned. But lo! 
 a portent. A clergyman’s son, and (as report de- 
 clares) prospective son-in-law of a bishop, the lad in- 
 continently proclaims himself a Catholic! Tableau! 
 For three centuries and some twenty years, Abbot’s 
 School has been duly Protestant : a flower on the fair 
 robe of the Establishment. And lo, on its hem appears 
 a Popish weed! What next? To ‘Balaam’ it seems 
 certain he cannot go as Cardinal’s Exhibitioner. Is 
 his Exhibition vacant? Must it remain so till he dies? 
 He cannot draw the income of that Exhibition — or 
 can he? If not, who can? Can any one? Can any 
 other boy gain it? Or is he still in possession? At 
 Abbot’s School he clearly cannot remain, even if he 
 chose; for the Red Boys are ex officio choristers, and 
 whether they can sing or no, must sing in the Prot- 
 estant services of the Protestant Priory Church. 
 These be great questions : and the answer to them 
 may direct a belated light upon the whole fabric of 
 Abbot’s School. Has there ever been any Parliamen- 
 tary Statute whereby the de facto Protestantism of 
 
CH. XLl] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 307 
 
 Abbot’s School is made de jure and obligatory? If 
 not, such Statute may, and probably must, be provided. 
 One scents a Royal Commission in the air. But if no 
 present Statute to the point exists, and a new one 
 is ‘indicated’ (as the faculty say), how can such 
 Statute be retrospective? How can young Auberon 
 (who raises the Catholic population of the world to 
 three hundred millions and one) be dispossessed of 
 his lawfully earned income as Cardinal de Belesme’s 
 Exhibitioner ? 
 
 “ We pause for a reply.” 
 
 There was a good deal more of the article ; I have 
 only quoted some paragraphs; and every word in it 
 was read again and again by everybody at Monks- 
 bridge who got hold of the paper. Lady Llantwddwy 
 heard of the articles from her maid, and borrowed 
 the paper from her butler. Miss Belvoir tried hard 
 to borrow a copy, and had to send out and buy one — 
 which confirmed her bad opinion of young Auberon. 
 There were half a dozen copies flying about Abbot’s 
 School, and at Prior’s House there was one. The Mayor 
 had it, and all the Aldermen; every lawyer in the two 
 towns had his copy, and old Mr. Stiff declared that 
 he should not be surprised if young Auberon should 
 prove to have a case; but then, every one knew he 
 was a Dissenter and would rejoice to believe in any- 
 thing tiresome, as likely to happen to a Church foun- 
 dation. The Rev. Mr. Bibble was shocked to think 
 how carelessly the Reformers had dealt with such a 
 place — dedicated to “ Our Lady and St. Peter.” 
 
 By bedtime half the tradesmen in Monksbridge had 
 it on good authority that young Auberon was going 
 to claim four thousand pounds damages from the 
 
308 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xli 
 
 Warden and Fellows, and half of that half saw no 
 reason why he shouldn’t get them. 
 
 Mrs. Hawthorn thought it likely enough that the 
 eldest Miss Auberon’s brother would claim anything, 
 no matter how iniquitous, but had too much confidence 
 in the Lord Chancellor (who must be a Protestant) 
 to believe he would get sixpence. The Vicar pooh- 
 poohed the whole idea of the claim, but thought the 
 point of law interesting, and would not deny that 
 there might be some inquiry into the income of the 
 school, and its application, which would perhaps give 
 his neighbour the Warden some trouble. 
 
 “ They’re cutting everything down,” he observed, 
 “ and twelve hundred a year and extras — house, coals, 
 lighting, and what not — is too much, now they’re cut- 
 ting down the bishops and deans.” 
 
 The Warden himself was angrier with Auberon 
 than he had been yet — especially when he received, 
 at luncheon time on Monday, a telegram from the 
 Bishop of Lowminster saying it would not be pos- 
 sible for him to preach at Monksbridge, as he was 
 confined to his bed at Rood Palace with an attack 
 of gout. The Bishop had heard from Lord Monks- 
 bridge by that morning’s post, and on the top of the 
 letter came that article in the Flag. It was when he 
 read in it that the now notorious Peter Auberon was 
 “ prospective son-in-law to a bishop,” that the pros- 
 pective “ father-in-law ” took to his bed. The inde- 
 cency of the modern press (he had always been strong 
 for its “ freedom ”) quite sickened him. And in his 
 bed only, if indeed there, could he escape the conjec- 
 tural face of Miss Garboyle. She knew he was going 
 to Monksbridge, and she knew that her papa had been 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 309 
 
 CH. XLl] 
 
 meeting these Auberons, in grand houses whither she 
 had not been taken. Of course she also read the 
 article, as did other bishops’ daughters; but her papa 
 was the only bachelor or widower bishop in England. 
 
 “ Son-in-law to a bishop,” she cried. “ What can 
 the man mean? A boy of eighteen can’t be engaged 
 to be married.” 
 
 “ Of course not, of course not,” almost moaned her 
 father. “ It is just the scandalous licence of the press. 
 Probably the wretched, misguided lad never saw a 
 bishop’s daughter, or a bishop either, in his life.” 
 
 “ Oh, but, papa, he is eighteen. He must have seen 
 a bishop if he has been confirmed ” 
 
 ‘*And very likely he has not,” her papa declared, 
 as though endeavouring to account for the lad’s fall. 
 
 “ Then his parents — his mother (he has no father, 
 it appears) ” 
 
 “ No, my dear. She is a widow — a widow of long 
 standing.” 
 
 “ Ah ! But she must be greatly to blame herself 
 if her only son has never (at eighteen) been con- 
 firmed. It’s like a cottager, or those manufacturing 
 people. I never heard of a lady with unconfirmed 
 sons nearly grown up. As you say, it seems only 
 too likely the poor neglected youth never was con- 
 firmed — but what a responsibility for her! What 
 must she be feeling now?” 
 
 The Bishop had scarcely leisure to imagine how 
 any one else was feeling, he knew too well what he 
 was feeling himself. But he didn’t like to hear Mrs. 
 Auberon thus solemnly condemned, and, of course, 
 he had no reason whatever for supposing that the 
 poor lady’s son had never been confirmed. 
 
310 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xli 
 
 He moaned a little and said, “ In the foot. I hope 
 it won’t rise to the stomach.” 
 
 “No, papa. We must hope not; but why should 
 it ? it never has, you know. ‘ Son-in-law ’ — in books 
 they often call step-sons sons-in-law; Dickens does. 
 Do you think the man means step-son, papa ? ” 
 
 There was that in Miss Garboyle’s tone that made 
 her father quail. 
 
 “No, Carry; I don’t suppose he meant anything 
 but insolence. There’s an animus in the whole arti- 
 cle — a sneering tone against the Church; some Rad- 
 ical fellow of no sort of Church principles.” 
 
 Now, Miss Garboyle was not used to hearing Rad- 
 icals severely handled; her papa was only a Whig, 
 but, even then, Whigs had Radical friends and sup- 
 porters. 
 
 “ Perhaps,” she suggested, “ he’s a Tory and a 
 Roman Catholic.” 
 
 “ Perhaps,” agreed the Bishop, though he did not 
 think so; then, his native honesty (and his habit of 
 setting his daughter right) prevailed, and he added : 
 “No, Carry; you don’t understand these things. 
 There are no Roman Catholics connected with the 
 Flag; they’re all Radicals and Disestablishment peo- 
 ple, and the tone is . . . But you don’t understand at 
 all. I think I shall have to go to bed.” 
 
 “ Yes, do, papa. ‘ Step-son! ’ I wonder if it means 
 step-son? ” 
 
 Then the Bishop fled, and from his bedroom sent 
 off the telegram excusing himself from coming to 
 Monksbridge. Miss Garboyle knew it had been dis- 
 patched, and she was quite sure that “ the man meant 
 step-son.” Young Auberon must be an abandoned 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 3 11 
 
 CH. XLl] 
 
 lad, but she had never expected much from the fam- 
 ily; and certainly Providence does marvellously bring 
 good out of evil. On the whole she could not help 
 feeling that, if some ill-disposed and ill-guided youth 
 was to become a Roman Catholic, it was a wonder- 
 fully lucky thing that Mrs. Auberon’s son should be 
 the boy. It seemed to her quite impossible that a 
 bishop who had written so much, and preached so 
 much, and spoken (even in London) so much against 
 Rome and the Scarlet Lady of that ilk, could so far 
 forget himself as to become “ father-in-law ” to a 
 notorious young apostate of whom England was hear- 
 ing. “ The man,” no doubt, was a conscienceless 
 fellow, who would be ready to do any mischief in the 
 cause of Disestablishment and so on (Disestablish- 
 ment, she concluded, meant doing away with bishops 
 and their palaces), but, after all, her papa had always 
 taught her that the liberty of the press was our safe- 
 guard, and in this instance it might prove to have 
 been hers. 
 
 The Warden, when he got the Bishop’s telegram, 
 was reading the article aloud to Mrs. FitzSimon, 
 and he almost swore. Swear he never did, but he 
 meant nearly the same thing when he cried out — 
 
 “ Good heavens ! What a feeble creature ! What 
 an idiot!” 
 
 “Who, my dear?” asked Mrs. Fitz, with eager 
 curiosity. 
 
 “ Why, Garboyle — the Bishop. He won’t come. 
 He’s gone to bed. ‘ Prospective son-in-law to a 
 bishop,’ that’s what has sent him to bed with the gout, 
 and the old fool ” (the Warden was ten months the 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 312 
 
 [ch. xli 
 
 elder of the two) “ can’t see that he’s fitting the cap 
 on his own head. Good gracious ! ” 
 
 “ And do you mean,” demanded Mrs. Fitz, with 
 rising fierceness, “ that he was coming here to see 
 her? You do? Then I call it a gross impertinence. 
 Did you ask him? Didn’t he propose himself? Did 
 we want him? And he oils himself into our house 
 to carry on a liaison with a widow ! ” 
 
 “A liaison? fie, my dear! No doubt he meant to 
 propose to her.” 
 
 “ Propose! to propose — to Mrs. Auberon, from this 
 Warden’s Lodge ! And he a bishop, and she a curate’s 
 widow ! ” 
 
 “ Well, he couldn’t exactly propose to a curate’s 
 wife. But what a pusillanimous old woman!” 
 “Pusillanimous! Old woman, if you like; for all 
 she pretends she married at sixteen, I’ll engage she’ll 
 never see forty-five again. ‘ Pusillanimous ! ’ rather 
 the contrary; barefaced, you should say. If I were a 
 widow ” 
 
 “ God forbid, my dear. And let us hope that, if 
 any such accident befell, you’d be a bishop’s widow 
 yourself. Well, well; let him stop away.” 
 
 “ I shouldn’t think he’d show his face here in a 
 hurry, now all the world knows. After proposing 
 himself, and I bought things for his bedroom, a china 
 inkstand and a new quilt; at least I bought them 
 at the bazaar, and decided to put them on his 
 bed.” 
 
 Presently the Warden went back to the article in 
 the Flag; he had hardly got beyond the prospective 
 son-in-law when the Bishop’s telegram arrived, and his 
 anger against young Auberon gathered as he reached 
 
CH. XLl] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 3i3 
 
 the final paragraphs. So, forsooth, because a slip 
 of a boy in his own school had decided that the Church 
 of England wasn’t good enough for him, there was 
 to be an inquiry into the whole legal status of Abbot’s 
 and its endowments! That sort of wickedness was 
 in the air — and the Flag was precisely the sort of 
 quarter whence such pestilential winds were likely 
 to blow. 
 
 “ They’re cutting everything down,” he declared, 
 with a black frown. “ Bishops’ incomes, Deaneries — 
 everything: and this Wardenship is one of the best 
 things in the Church. I know many deans think it 
 a better thing than what they’ve got. Our foundation 
 is all land, and it has gone on improving in value — 
 so much of it built on, and old common-land enclosed 
 and improved. Good gracious! And all to come 
 from the action of a moony-pated boy ! ” 
 
 “ He has bad blood, my dear. You never know how 
 it’ll come out. But — Warden! Do you really think 
 they’ll cut us down?” 
 
 And Mrs. Fitz turned almost as bad a colour as 
 if she were hanging already. 
 
 “ Do you think,” she added, “ he’ll claim, as the 
 man in the paper seems to think he might ? ” 
 
 “ There’s no saying what he’ll do ; but it isn’t any 
 claim of his I should fear — that would be a small 
 matter, and besides, it’s nonsense.” 
 
 “ But the Flag seems to think it isn’t nonsense.” 
 
 “ Oh, the Flag! The Flag will say anything, and 
 pretend to think anything; it’s a Royal Commission, 
 
 or an inquiry I should dislike : that would ” 
 
 “Good gracious, Herbert! You really think they 
 might cut us down ! ” cried Mrs. Fitz again. 
 
314 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xli 
 
 At that moment in Prior’s House her friend the 
 Vicar was saying — 
 
 “ I really think if there was an inquiry they’d be cut 
 down; they’d feel it.” 
 
 “ I should think so,” Mrs. Hawthorn agreed com- 
 fortably; “of course, they’ve never saved a penny; 
 living so high and always expecting to get a deanery 
 or something.” 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 On Monday evening our servant, Hannah, observed to 
 Mamma that all the town was talking of Mr. Peter, 
 and how he was going to get five thousand pounds 
 damages out of Abbot’s School; and presently, in a 
 great flutter, Mamma came into the drawing-room and 
 told us about it. Hannah had lent her the paper, and 
 now Sylvia took it. 
 
 “ Read it aloud, dear,” begged Mamma, settling 
 herself down to knit. 
 
 “ For goodness’ sake don’t,” said Perkin; “ I’m sick 
 of it already. When I was out, a dozen people were at 
 me about it. It’s a horrible thing that the papers can’t 
 let people alone : and it’s written by some radical fellow 
 who wants to make a bother or ” 
 
 “You’ve read it yourself, then?” Sylvia interrupted. 
 
 “ Yes. Hours ago. Please don’t read it aloud — it 
 makes me sick.” 
 
 Sylvia took no notice of this, and was evidently 
 going to read the article aloud. So Perkin went off to 
 the library and wrote a letter. Then Mamma said 
 what Hannah had told her. When she came to the 
 prospective son-in-law Sylvia stumbled and pouted 
 angrily, and I got red in the face; poor Mamma’s 
 fingers trembled as she knitted, and instead of blushing 
 she grew quite pale. I think she was hurt, too, with 
 Sylvia for reading the thing aloud, though at her own 
 request. 
 
 315 
 
316 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xlii 
 
 Poor Mamma! it seemed to her as if all England 
 were talking about her. 
 
 Sylvia, when she had finished the article, felt rather 
 less angry with Perkin; he was a bad, tiresome boy, 
 who had done great mischief — but Hannah had said 
 that everybody thought he would get five thousand 
 pounds “ damages,” and the Flag clearly thought that 
 something of the kind might be possible. A boy of 
 eighteen, with five thousand pounds, might be (and 
 this boy was) thoroughly naughty, senseless, and mis- 
 behaving; still, one could not despise him quite in the 
 same way as if he had simply thrown all he had away. 
 
 At that moment Perkin was on his way to Warden’s 
 Lodge with a note that he had written in the library. 
 At the Doctor’s door he rang, and presently gave the 
 note to the Doctor’s Willoughby, who stared at him as 
 though a burglar had called to say he would look in 
 again after the family should have gone to bed. 
 
 “ Please,” said Perkin, “ give that to the Warden.” 
 
 The Willoughby hesitated to undertake any such 
 (probably) treasonable commission; but Perkin 
 promptly went away, and the man retreated to his 
 pantry, for a salver and advice. 
 
 “ Young Auberon’s just bin and left this — for the 
 Warden,” he explained, calling next in the kitchen. 
 
 “ Well, I never ! ” cried the cook. “ What brass ! ” 
 
 She and both housemaids crowded round the note, 
 and eyed it as though it were an infernal machine duly 
 labelled as such. 
 
 “ Him,” exclaimed the under-housemaid, “ as is for 
 turning master and all of us out of house and home ! ” 
 
 As it happened, the Doctor’s bell rang at that 
 moment, and Willoughby went upstairs, note and all. 
 
CH. XLIl] 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 3i7 
 
 “ I beg your pardon, sir,” he said apologetically, 
 when face to face with his master, “ but a person left 
 this at the front door.” 
 
 “ I heard the bell, and thought it might be the 
 second master, and I wish to see him. I said ‘Not at 
 home’; but I wish to see him if he comes across.” 
 
 The Warden took the note, and Willoughby had to 
 go. He would have lingered outside, in case a mes- 
 senger for the police were required, but he saw his 
 mistress coming upstairs, and reluctantly went down 
 to the kitchen. 
 
 “ What did he say ? ” demanded the cook. 
 
 “ He didn’t say naught. He didn’t seem to reckonize 
 the writin’.” 
 
 “ Poor lamb ! ” cried the under-housemaid. “ / 
 shouldn’t have had the ’art to give it him, not if it 
 had been me.” 
 
 “ It couldn’t be you,” observed the upper-housemaid. 
 “ On Willoughby’s days out it’s my place to take letters 
 up. You talk wild, ’Melia.” 
 
 Meanwhile the Warden had read the note, which 
 was not long. This was all : — 
 
 “ Cross Place, 
 
 “ Monday Night. 
 
 “Dear Warden, 
 
 “ I have seen that hateful article in the Flag. 
 How on earth they got hold of it I can’t help wonder- 
 ing. No one knew here till Saturday afternoon. I write 
 to say this: I resign to you, if it be necessary, any 
 scholarships or exhibitions I held, any rights (if I had 
 any) as a Cardinal’s scholar at Abbot’s. I simply 
 took it for granted that my becoming a Catholic 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 3i8 
 
 [CH. XLII 
 
 deprived me of them, as I still believe is the case. If 
 by any chance I was wrong, and any one could pretend 
 they are not vacant, and if it would, therefore, save 
 you any trouble or annoyance to say that I have myself 
 resigned them to you in writing, I now do so. I dare 
 say you may think me very officious, but I wanted, if 
 I could, to save you any possible trouble. Thanking 
 you again for all your kindness, and especially on 
 Saturday evening, I am, 
 
 “ Yours respectfully, 
 
 “ Peter Auberon.” 
 
 His critics said that the Warden was weak, and he 
 could not help admiring the boy. He had been angry 
 with him, had softened towards him, had become much 
 more angry with him, and now he softened again. 
 
 “ Warden,” said Mrs. FitzSimon, coming into the 
 room, “ I can’t get this worry out of my head. The 
 very servants know all about it. I can see that they 
 are wondering how soon we shall be cut down.” 
 
 “ My dear Sarah ! Don’t be so — so precipitous, 
 precipitate, I would say. That’s nonsense. Even if 
 there were an inquiry, it would take months to appoint 
 the commission, and months and months for them to 
 act; and then there would be their report and all 
 sorts of formalities; and, even if any changes were to 
 be made, it would not be for a long time. Besides, 
 there would be compensation for vested rights, if the 
 worst came to the worst. I see by the evening paper 
 that the Dean of Battersea is very bad — a stroke, and 
 his third ...” 
 
 “ Old Dr. Combe-Bisset ! Well, he is over ninety, 
 and has been Dean forty years. Poor dear old man! 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 3i9 
 
 CH. XLIl] 
 
 What courage you have, Herbert! But there’ll be a 
 good deal of trouble if this brat of a boy should go to 
 law with us.” 
 
 “ Pfh! He’ll do no such thing.” 
 
 “Oh, you’re so trustful! You play no dirty tricks 
 yourself, you never scheme; and you can’t imagine 
 that others will.” 
 
 “ My dear, he’ll play no dirty tricks.” 
 
 “ Ah ! ” cried Mrs. Fitz, shaking her head dolor- 
 ously, “ you don’t realize the power and astuteness 
 of the Jesuits — and, of course, this wretched boy is 
 in their hands.” 
 
 “ My dear, there are no Jesuits at Llanthamy. Read 
 that.” And the Warden thrust Perkin’s letter into her 
 hands. 
 
 She read it slowly (having left her glasses down- 
 stairs, she had to hold it afar off), and was not 
 immediately impressed. 
 
 “ ‘ Cross Place,’ ” she cried. Then, turning to the 
 signature, “ He, to write to you ! What insolence ! 
 The indecency of the lad!” 
 
 “ Read it, my dear, read it,” begged the Warden. 
 
 “ Well! ” said Mrs. Fitz, when she had read it, “ I 
 call it a piece of impertinence. Resign his scholarships, 
 indeed! As if they were his! and he turned out of 
 them for apostasy! It merely shows how utterly 
 without a leg to stand on he feels himself. And why 
 should he call it a hateful article ? Sheer hypocrisy — 
 his sister all over. Why, the article is all on his side. 
 My belief is he wrote it.” 
 
 “ Sarah, that’s absurd. But I wonder who did write 
 it — or, rather, how the writer knew about Auberon and 
 all that?” 
 
320 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xlii 
 
 “ No one knew except himself,” Mrs. Fitz declared 
 with angry scorn, tossing back her maize ribbons, 
 which (said Mrs. Stephen Rumble) she wore to carry 
 out her complexion. 
 
 “ No, no ! ” said the Warden, “ it wasn’t Auberon. 
 But who was it?” 
 
 “ Mr. Porker ! ” announced Willoughby, opening 
 the door to usher in the second master. 
 
 “ Come in, come in! ” said the Warden, not resent- 
 ing the interruption of his tete-a-tete. “ Porker,” he 
 went on, when Willoughby had disappeared, “ Mrs. 
 FitzSimon and I were wondering who could have 
 written the article — who could, I mean, have supplied 
 the data.” 
 
 But Mrs. Fitz wondered no longer. She had a fine 
 faculty for getting hold of the wrong end of a stick, 
 but a lady who is always seizing sticks must now and 
 then catch one by the right end. When Willoughby 
 had announced Mr. Porker, he had told her the answer 
 to her husband’s question. 
 
 “ An indecent article whoever wrote it ! ” she 
 observed, with a flaming coldness, turning to the fire- 
 place, but not losing sight of the second master in the 
 glass over it. 
 
 Minerva only stared at nothing out of her round 
 blind eyes, and Gibbon merely went on simpering fatly, 
 but Mrs. Fitz took no heed of either, and looked care- 
 fully into the mirror. 
 
 “ A wicked, incendiary article ” she cried. “ But 
 what can you expect from the Flag? ” 
 
 Now Mr. Porker’s younger brother was a rising 
 member of the staff of that powerful, but nefarious 
 paper; had he ever bragged of it? He thought not, 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XLIl] 
 
 321 
 
 but could not be sure. He wished to Heaven he could 
 be sure. 
 
 “ A regrettable article,” he confessed. “ It raises 
 questions ” 
 
 “Regrettable!” almost screamed Mrs. Fitz, “vile 
 and traitorous.” 
 
 “ Mrs. FitzSimon,” the Warden interposed, almost 
 jocosely (willing to be revenged on the partner of his 
 joys, and the cause of some of his minor arrogancies) 
 — “ Mrs. FitzSimon thinks that Auberon himself 
 supplied the data ! ” 
 
 “ Does she, really ? ” remarked Mr. Porker, as if a 
 good deal struck by her acuteness. And Mrs. Fitz saw 
 him, very plainly, in the glass. 
 
 “ I did, for a moment,” she observed. “ I know 
 better now.” 
 
 Her tone was not lost on either of her hearers. The 
 Warden looked puzzled, and Mr. Porker did his best 
 to look puzzled too. 
 
 “ I should not think,” he said, rubbing his hands 
 nervously, “ that Auberon would take any such step as 
 the Flag seems to think he might.” 
 
 “ Of course not,” said the lady, as if such an idea 
 could enter no head but Mr. Porker’s and that of the 
 writer in the odious Flag. 
 
 “ He might , of course,” pleaded the wavering 
 second master. 
 
 “ Tut, tut ! ” said Mrs. Fitz. “ All the low papers 
 in the world couldn’t make a boy like that do such an 
 indecent thing.” 
 
 “ His friends — his new friends,” urged Mr. Porker, 
 “ might persuade him — for the sake of the cause — the 
 
322 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xlii 
 
 Catholic cause — a mere boy in the hands of Jesuitical 
 intriguers.” 
 
 “Tut, tut! There are no Jesuits at Llanthamy,” 
 cried Mrs. Fitz, impatiently. “Only one old snuffy 
 
 priest; Father McGuire or O’ something ” 
 
 “ My dear Porker,” interposed the Warden, 
 “ Auberon will do no such thing. Mrs. FitzSimon ” 
 (the second master was an elderly bachelor, and the 
 Warden had — in his weaker moments — envied him; he 
 was not unwilling to thrust wifely wisdom down his 
 throat now). “ Mrs. FitzSimon is quite correct in 
 her opinion. Auberon has written to resign, if any 
 such resignation could to human perversity be thought 
 necessary, any rights or scholarships he held here. 
 
 Quite unnecessary, of course ” 
 
 “ Ridiculously unnecessary,” said Mr. Porker. 
 
 “ Perhaps,” interrupted Mrs. Fitz, “ but decently 
 meant; a gentleman’s action; rendered less foolish by 
 the appearance of such an outrageous, mischief- 
 intending article, written by a penny-a-liner’s ” 
 
 “ My dear! ” cried the Warden, “ who can say who 
 wrote it ? ” 
 
 “ No one will say,” observed Mrs. Fitz, with a fell 
 coolness, turning round abruptly, “ but we can guess.” 
 
 “ Sarah ! ” said the Warden, when the second master 
 had gone at last, “ what did you mean? Your fierce- 
 ness positively frightened Porker.” 
 
 “ I meant it to. He did it.” 
 
 “ Wrote the article!” 
 
 “ Sent the data as you call them. He has boasted 
 of a brother of his on the Press — the Times, he would 
 have liked us to think. Mark my words, he sent the 
 
ch. xlii] MONKSBRIDGE 323 
 
 data. That brother of his is on the Flag. He sent 
 the data.” 
 
 To do him justice, Mr. Porker would have given his 
 eyes not to have sent them. When, on leaving the 
 Warden’s study late on Saturday afternoon he had 
 walked out to the railway station — four miles from 
 Monksbridge, as the reader may recollect — he had not 
 at first intended to do any such thing. He often took 
 that walk for the sake of exercise, and because he 
 liked to see a train come in or go out; and on this 
 particular evening he expected a parcel which he knew 
 would not be delivered till Monday, unless he fetched 
 it himself. All the way, however, he was thinking of 
 young Auberon, and wondering whether a new exami- 
 nation would have to be held for the scholarship at 
 “ Balaam,” or whether the boy who had scored second 
 marks, after Auberon, would be entitled to the scholar- 
 ship by succession, so to speak. At the station he first 
 thought of sending a telegram to his brother, and 
 what he sent was only this : — 
 
 To 
 
 Wiltshire Porker, Esq., Cannibals Club, London. 
 Excitement here. Peter Auberon, eighteen, son 
 clergyman’s widow here, Cardinal’s Scholar Abbot’s, 
 and recent gainer Cardinal’s Scholarship, Balaam, 
 turned Catholic, vacates everything. — Matthias. 
 
 1 
 
 When the younger Mr. Porker received the message 
 he was dining at the Cannibals Club with a country 
 friend, the Rev. Austin Singer, a Minor Canon of 
 Lowminster, who had just told him that his Bishop 
 was shortly proceeding to Monksbridge, ostensibly to 
 
324 MONKSBRIDGE [ch. xlii 
 
 preach for the Warden of Abbot’s, but, as was 
 rumoured in the Close, to cement an alliance with a 
 pretty Mrs. Auberon of that town, in whose company 
 he had been recently thrown at various great houses. 
 The Minor Canon was Highish and didn’t especially 
 admire the Bishop, but liked Miss Garboyle much 
 better, whom he considered more of a suitable age for 
 matrimony. From him, and from the Encyclopedias 
 (carefully collated and supplemented by references to 
 the Rev. Cope Pinnacle’s “ History of Ecclesiastical 
 Foundations in England”), Mr. Porker had derived 
 all the information which appeared in his article. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 When old Mr. Stiff heard that young Auberon had 
 resigned, in writing, any rights he might have, he 
 almost groaned. 
 
 “ Dear, dear ! A very uncalled-for measure,” he 
 declared, “ most ill-advised ! Who can have advised 
 him? If it was that Irish lawyer, O’Riordan, I’m 
 sorry for his clients.” 
 
 All the same, Mr. Stiff felt a sort of warming round 
 the cockles of his old heart, and never spoke slightingly 
 of “ that headlong boy ” again. He was honest enough 
 himself, and, though he had a strong professional dis- 
 approval of signing any right, or chance of a right, 
 away, still, under his shabby waistcoat there was some- 
 thing not merely professional. He was not, himself, 
 quite a gentleman, but he was aware that many gentle- 
 men came to ask him how they might do things which 
 he would not have done, and he understood well 
 enough what had made that clear-faced lad sit down 
 and write off to renounce any claim to “ damages.” 
 He thought Catholics far more securely bound for the 
 wide-mouthed haven of perdition even than the 
 worldly, tepid, Erastian members of the Establishment, 
 but he liked them rather better — Llanthamy Catholics 
 had no great social standing. 
 
 On that Tuesday evening he was shambling, rather 
 heavily, to post his own letters, for he preferred that no 
 unnecessary persons should read their addresses (not 
 that he was in the habit of writing to undesirable 
 
 325 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 326 
 
 [CH. XLIII 
 
 people), when his foot slipped, and he nearly tumbled. 
 Llanthamy (inferior to Monksbridge in everything) 
 had a clay soil, quite unlike our Rentshire gravel, and 
 on “ soft ” days its streets were apt to be clammy and 
 slimy. 
 
 “ Dear, dear! ” cried Mr. Stiff, as he felt his para- 
 lytic leg going from under him; and he sprawled, and 
 flung his arms out, and all his letters slipped from his 
 hand. But he didn’t come down after all. 
 
 “ Hold up ! It’s all right, Mr. Stiff,” a cheery 
 young voice sounded over his shoulder, quite close to 
 one of his big yellowish ears ; and a pair of very strong 
 young arms gripped him under the armpits, and set 
 him on his legs again. 
 
 “ I hope you’ll excuse me grabbing you like that,” 
 laughed Perkin, “ and not think me as presumptuous 
 as the Princess of Spain, who had the fellow beheaded 
 that clutched hold of her to prevent her tumbling and 
 breaking her leg.” 
 
 “ Did she, though — the baggage ? ” cried Mr. Stiff, 
 with wonderful presence of mind. “ A Spanish 
 princess, eh? Bad place that, where the Inquisition 
 comes from.” 
 
 Perkin laughed again, and the old man gave a 
 grunting chuckle, as the lad bent down to gather up the 
 letters. Mr. Stiff could not have stooped like that; 
 what Miss Stiff called his lower chest was so formed 
 that he could only stoop round it, so to speak, and it 
 wasn’t a swift or easy process. He noticed, with ex- 
 treme approval, that the boy picked the letters up, as 
 they had fallen, face-downwards, and so returned them 
 to their owner ; it would have been so natural to read 
 the addresses! 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XLIIl] 
 
 327 
 
 “Good night, Mr. Stiff,” says Perkin, lifting his 
 cap, and making off. 
 
 “ Good night, sir, and thank you,” said the old man, 
 looking after the lad’s straight, slim figure. “ A poor 
 Samaritan,” he thought to himself, “ but a pleasant, 
 kind-hearted lad, and comely.” 
 
 Perhaps that other Samaritan was quite young after 
 all, and had a pleasant way of talking; and he may 
 have been comely. There’s no Divine law necessarily 
 connecting ugliness and grimness with the sort of 
 neighbourliness that was held up for our example in 
 that citizen of a despised and naughty town. 
 
 “ He shouldn’t have signed any renunciation what- 
 ever,” the old lawyer said to himself, as he dropped his 
 letters one by one into the slit of the post-office. “ I 
 couldn’t have advised it.” 
 
 But as he jogged home (very cautiously now) he 
 did, dimly, realize that a young lad who is a gentleman 
 and isn’t giving that up, with other pleasant things, for 
 conscience’ sake, may find advice somewhere that no 
 attorney could give him, and that may be none the 
 worse for that. Anyway, he did not join in any real 
 abuse of Perkin any more, but would only shake his 
 big, pale head and say, “ 111 advised, no doubt, through- 
 out.” 
 
 Sylvia was of the same opinion, but she only said 
 so at home. 
 
 “ Everybody seems to think,” Mamma observed, that 
 same Tuesday night, “ that Perkin can claim very 
 heavy damages for his invested interests, as they call 
 them ; twelve hundred pounds at least ; even Mr. 
 Bloom, I understand, admits four years’ purchase.” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 328 
 
 [CH. XLIII 
 
 “ No, Mamma,” I interposed. “ All Mr. Bloom said 
 was that the whole value of the scholarship at Balaam 
 could only be twelve hundred pounds — at four years’ 
 purchase; Miss Belvoir told me.” 
 
 “ Well, that’s what I say,” urged Mamma. 
 
 “ If,” said Sylvia, “ Mr. Bloom admits twelve 
 hundred, you may be sure it’s more — that Perkin 
 might get more.” 
 
 “ But,” I said, “ Perkin has resigned every possible 
 claim. He wrote to the Warden last night and said 
 so.” 
 
 “ Dear Perkin ! ” cried Mamma, her pretty eyes 
 glistening. 
 
 But Sylvia had much finer eyes, and they only 
 expressed criticism. 
 
 “ How do you know ? ” she asked coldly. “ He told 
 you? And why not all of us? His whole procedure 
 has been bad, headstrong, wilful, and self-opinionated. 
 He should have consulted — us. He had no right at all 
 to throw away any indemnity (indemnification) that 
 might be legally due to him without taking our advice. 
 Before signing anything he should have consulted his 
 family. Hampden could have guided him, and con- 
 sulted legal counsel for him.” 
 
 “ Oh ! ” I said. “ Hampden ! Is he likely to ask 
 Hampden’s advice after the way Hampden treated 
 him on Saturday ? ” 
 
 This made Sylvia all the more displeased with 
 Perkin, because she was seriously displeased with 
 Hampden, and it was Perkin’s fault. 
 
 Hampden had not been near us since Saturday. 
 He was sulking. And that very morning he had gone 
 away. A dog-cart had taken him to the station, and 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XLIIl] 
 
 3 2 9 
 
 the groom had, on his way back, brought Sylvia a note, 
 as follows: — 
 
 “ Llanthamy Castle, Tuesday. 
 
 “Dear Sylvia, 
 
 “ I have to go to London. Inverchlory tele- 
 graphed yesterday that he cannot now speak at the 
 meeting. You can guess why he thinks it better not to 
 come down just at present. It would be very marked 
 if he stayed with me without (as he intended) seeing 
 you all, and he can hardly wish to come to Cross Hall 
 just yet. You know how strongly he takes up the 
 Protestant cause, and he can scarcely wish to meet 
 your brother; nor can I pretend to do so at the moment. 
 But Inverchlory wrote yesterday (he had read that 
 highly objectionable article in the Flag; I hope your 
 brother’s new friends had no hand in it; it would be 
 deplorable taste), I got his letter at 7.30 a.m. to-day; 
 he begs me to come to town and take my seat in the 
 Lords; since my dear father’s death, you know, Par- 
 liament has not been sitting; he suggests that he (you 
 know that he is Baron Fennskip in the English peer- 
 age) and the Duke of Clantuddlem (who sits as 
 Viscount Houndsditch) should introduce me. It is 
 uncommonly friendly of them at this juncture, for 
 both are on the extreme Protestant side, and both of 
 great position and weight; the Duke is High Com- 
 missioner for the Kirk of Scotland; in fact, I may say 
 that though religion and politics are, perhaps, not nec- 
 essarily connected, my own leaning is to the Protestant 
 side, which, after all, is that of safety and loyalty. So 
 I am going up now, and the man who takes me to the 
 station will bring this. I wish I could have seen you 
 
330 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XLIII 
 
 yesterday or on Sunday, but my mother has not been 
 well (the events of Saturday affected her sadly), and 
 I dare say your brother would not regret my absence. 
 
 “ Yours ever, 
 
 “ Monksbridge.” 
 
 Sylvia knew perfectly that it was not a good- 
 tempered letter, and that her betrothed was sulky. 
 There was not a word of entreaty for their speedy 
 marriage, as there had been in every note he had sent 
 her since his father’s death, and, though she was as far 
 as possible from being on Perkin’s side, it was plain 
 that Lord Monksbridge, in every allusion to her 
 brother’s great misconduct, was almost scolding her. 
 She did not believe in the least that his mother had 
 really been ill, only he had been feeling awkward and 
 cross, and had not tact enough to come and see her as 
 if nothing had happened : nor had he the pluck to 
 write plainly, objecting to her treatment of himself, 
 so he abused her brother sideways. 
 
 All this annoyed her seriously : the Bishop was not 
 coming, Lord Inverchlory was not coming, thus had 
 Perkin’s folly and misbehaviour injuriously affected 
 his mother’s and younger sister’s interests. A little red 
 spot appeared on her cheeks as she asked herself, 
 “ What if Hampden himself should draw back? ” He 
 must know her well enough to be sure that the very 
 slightest sign of any such desire would make her end 
 the engagement herself. Sylvia in her own way was 
 full of pride, and she had never considered him as 
 equal to her — most certainly she would not marry him 
 if he wavered in his sense of her great goodness in 
 becoming his wife. I have signally failed in drawing 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 331 
 
 CH. XLIIl] 
 
 her portrait if the reader thinks of her as a girl deter- 
 mined to marry a rich young lord at any price. And 
 there was nothing to wound her heart in the idea of 
 not marrying him, for she cared no more for him than 
 for any other man : she never would care for any man ; 
 the only person she really liked much was her mother 
 — yet to have to break off her marriage after so long 
 and public an engagement would be very trying, and, 
 though she would do it if necessary, her anger against 
 Perkin grew very deep as she thought of it, and deeper 
 still as she thought of all she had meant to do, and 
 could have done, for Hampden’s family and her own. 
 She had nearly succeeded, she believed, in those great 
 plans of public usefulness, after patient consideration 
 and hard, though willing, work — and now, by a boy’s 
 hasty folly, failure was almost threatening. She con- 
 trived to make Perkin’s home very unpleasant for him 
 in those days. All the same, she snubbed old Lady 
 Llantwddwy, who came to call, and said almost as 
 soon as she had sat down — 
 
 “ I hope your naughty brother is not in, Marjory. 
 Pm the weakest creature! and if he clapped a candle 
 in my hand, and insisted on my turning Catholic, I 
 should succumb! ” Of course she laughed as she said 
 this. “ So,” she added, “ he has renounced his claims 
 to legal compensation — very pretty of him, I must say 
 — for they tell me he might have caused a deal of 
 annoyance, if he had done as that wicked Flag 
 suggested.” 
 
 “ There could never,” said Sylvia, “ have been the 
 least fear of it in the mind of any one who knew him. 
 He is a bad boy, and is behaving quite outrageously, 
 but being a Roman Catholic won’t alter his being an 
 
332 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XLIII 
 
 Auberon. He would think no more of money than any 
 of us; and it only shows how little Monksbridge un- 
 derstands a gentleman’s feelings that it is so astonished 
 at his behaving like one.” 
 
 “ Don’t eat me, my dear,” cried the old Viscountess, 
 quite meekly : “ I only meant to praise him.” 
 
 “ Oh, dear Lady Llantwddwy,” said my sister with 
 terrible graciousness, “ you’re not a Monksbridgian. 
 There are islands in Monksbridge, like Littlepark and 
 Cross Place.” 
 
 “ And Island Court,” suggested her ladyship, whose 
 mind was rather literal than inclined to metaphor. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 All this while, the reader may be wondering whether 
 I had sent any telegram to Lady Hermione. When I 
 returned from Miss Belvoir’s, on that fateful Satur- 
 day, I had certainly thought of doing so : the Bishop 
 was coming and Lord Inverchlory was coming — but 
 then came Perkin’s announcement, and it seemed to me 
 mean to run away and leave him in the midst of his 
 great unpopularity. On Sunday, however, I wrote 
 and told Hermione all about it, ending with a bold- 
 sounding, but really timorous, suggestion. I knew she 
 was at Severn Court again ; did she think Lady Severn 
 would invite us both, Perkin and me, to come there ? 
 
 On Tuesday morning I received her reply: which 
 ran thus — 
 
 “ Severn Court, 
 
 “ Monday. 
 
 “ Dear Muggles, 
 
 “ What a beast you’ll say I am ! Aunt 
 Muriel begs you to come here if you will, and wanted 
 to write herself; but I told her not to. And Uncle 
 Severn wants you to come; and of course I do. But I 
 don’t believe you’d come now without Perkin, and 
 Perkin is a bad boy. You know they take e.ery sort 
 of paper here, and that horrid Flag is full of him 
 to-day. Neither Uncle Severn nor Aunt Muriel are 
 bigoted, but they are very churchy, and Mamma is just 
 a little Low (church, I mean) ; they’re all three nerv- 
 
 333 
 
334 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XLIV 
 
 ous, and are afraid for Briggy and me ! I’m so very 
 religious, you know, and so likely to join a religion 
 that wouldn’t be easy unless I fasted all day long, and 
 lay on a plank all night (except when I had to get up 
 and whip myself with a — what K.G.’s wear). Of 
 course you’ll think me horrid, laughing like this; but 
 seriously, I know they are nervous; I don’t often 
 strike up fierce friendships, and I did with you. So 
 did Briggy, and they know it. We always said we 
 were all for Perkin, and it’s become a sort of little 
 proverb among us all. And now he’s going to be 
 the Pope, and Mamma and Aunt Muriel — and Uncle 
 Severn too, in a way — are nervous; if you and Perkin 
 were here together, of course we should be, all four 
 of us, as thick as thieves, and he would twiddle us 
 three round his finger. I see you are all on his side, 
 and are probably in a convent by now, and the Ab- 
 bess won’t let you read this, so I’ll just put in for her 
 (to pay her out for reading other people’s letters) 
 that I don’t like the Catholic religion at all, and would 
 take good care to have something to say if I had to 
 go to Confession. All the same, Mamma wouldn’t 
 trust me with a new-blown convert, and Aunt Muriel 
 wouldn’t trust Briggy, especially as he’s taken Per- 
 kin’s part violently. I abused your bad brother up 
 hill and down dale, but he said out that he thought him 
 splendid, and asked his mother whether she thought 
 boys of eighteen in general so keen about religion 
 that they would give up all they had in the world for 
 it. I think that frightened her and Mamma — and even 
 Uncle Severn — more than anything. Briggy got red, 
 and looked very handsome and honest, and I dare 
 say they thought that the moment he met Perkin he 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 335 
 
 CH. XLIV] 
 
 would fly into his arms and say, ‘ Please, I’m another. 
 Pray hand me into the Catholic Church immediate.’ 
 Oh! Muggles, can’t you see why I write such silly, 
 flippant, nasty stuff? I feel such a pig, and you’ll 
 think us all pigs — I should. We begged you to come 
 here, and we say we’ll only have you without Perkin, 
 and I know you’ll not come without him. You’re 
 a pig if you do, though I hope and beg you will. No, 
 I don’t; I don’t believe the Bishop or Lord I. will 
 bother either you or your Mamma this little while. 
 Did Perkin and you plot the whole thing? But I 
 should think you a perfect S. if you came and 
 left him all alone to face her, and her Monksbridge, 
 and everything. Tell him from me (not his lordship) 
 that I utterly condemn him and like him very much. 
 And, dear Muggles, try to understand how ashamed 
 I feel of us all. 
 
 “ Your affectionate 
 
 “ Glorum.” 
 
 At the end was a little postscript from Briggy. 
 
 “ Tell Perkin I do think him splendid. Glorum 
 won’t let me see what she has written, and I’m sure 
 it’s all it oughtn’t to be. But she is all for Perkin 
 still, and is dashing about abusing us all to our faces 
 and threatening to become an abbess next week, be- 
 cause father and mother don’t think it would be quite 
 the best thing to ask him here yet. You see, she’s 
 only eighteen herself — and I’m only nineteen and a 
 bit — and they know we are fond of you both, and — 
 do try and understand — father and mother don’t really 
 blame him for doing what he thinks right. You don’t 
 know how good they are, only they would so dis- 
 
MONICSBRIDGE 
 
 336 
 
 [CH. XLIV 
 
 like me or Glorum doing the same sort of thing, and 
 we never come across fellows (or girls) of our age 
 who think much of religion in that way at all, and 
 they think it might put it in our heads. It’s partly 
 my fault (so don’t blame father and mother, or Aunt 
 Hester entirely), for I flared up about the old religion, 
 and said Perkin was only belonging to the religion all 
 our fine forefathers believed in. Post is just leaving; 
 I can’t write more. But do give my love to him, and 
 say how I do admire him. So does Glorum, just as 
 much. 
 
 “ Your ever affectionate 
 
 “ Briggy.” 
 
 “ Of course, I couldn’t go anywhere,” Perkin re- 
 minded me, when I told him what I had proposed, and 
 how my proposal had been a failure. “ I am being- 
 instructed, and can’t go away anywhere till it’s over 
 and I am received ” but he read Hermione’s let- 
 
 ter and Briggy’s postscript, and he didn’t scold me 
 for having made an offer of his company at Severn 
 Court and been refused. 
 
 “ How nice they are — all of them ! ” he said, when 
 he had finished; and I saw his odd, chocolate-brown 
 eyes shining. “ I like Briggy best, for sticking up for 
 his father and mother so.” 
 
 “They’re just the same, Glorum and Briggy; only 
 she’s a girl ” 
 
 And now, I am going to say good-bye to you; to 
 you, if there are any of you, who have stuck to me 
 and Perkin all this while. A long farewell, and it 
 will take a little time. 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 337 
 
 CH. XLIV] 
 
 I read a book once, some years ago, that ended with 
 a question to which each reader might give the answer 
 he liked best. / will answer some of the questions you 
 may want to put ; the rest I will leave you to answer 
 as you choose. 
 
 Instead, then, of Finis at the end of this book I 
 shall write only my initials — M. B., and what do they 
 stand for? Marjory Bridgenorth? No, for Briggy 
 has been Lord Severn these twenty years, and I am 
 the only member of my family whose husband or wife 
 has no title. As poor Sylvia used to remark, quite 
 patiently, anybody might have foreseen that Marjory 
 “ would only marry a gentleman,” and I did. Though 
 he was Sergeant-Surgeon to His late Majesty, my hus- 
 band is not even Sir Hubert; whereas Sylvia’s, for 
 his high political services, became Earl of Llanthamy 
 of Llanthamy Castle, in 1880, and Marquess of Monks- 
 bridge in 1901. And Perkin, though he thought but 
 poorly of me, once, for going a Duke-ing — Perkin’s 
 eldest son will be a peer, and his wife never was Mrs. 
 Auberon; she signs herself, in semi-state, “Her- 
 mione ” ; in full state “ Cressy,” and in undress — so 
 to speak — “ Glorum.” 
 
 She never became an abbess, but one of her five 
 daughters is a nun, and one of her three sons is a 
 priest in the slummiest part of a northern town that 
 looks all slums from the train. 
 
 There is no Mrs. Auberon. But our dear mother 
 is alive and hardly looks very old. 
 
 The present Lady Inverchlory, a good deal 
 younger than his lordship, was a Miss Massachusetts 
 of America; but when they are down in Lincolnshire, 
 where she attends the parish church (in London she 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 338 
 
 [CH. XLIV 
 
 is a Christian Scientist), she passes, on her way 
 through the chancel to the great family pew, still un- 
 profaned by the restorer, a monument inscribed as 
 Sacred to the Memory of Belisante, wife of Ronald, 
 tenth Earl of Inverchlory, (“first wife” thinks the 
 former Miss Massachusetts, not intolerantly), daugh- 
 ter and heiress of Sir Hamelyn Beaufront, of Beau- 
 site, in this county, fifth baronet. 
 
 There is no Mrs. Auberon. Fate herself was hardly 
 a match for our Sylvia, and — well, it happened in 
 this way: As the time of her marriage drew on, my 
 sister wrote, without mentioning the fact to any of 
 us, to the Bishop of Lowminster. 
 
 “ The Archbishop,” said she, “ is going to marry 
 me to Lord Monksbridge; his wife, you know, was a 
 Drum, of Sir Stapleton’s family, from whom my 
 mother inherited this dear place: and the Dean of 
 Battersea (our old mutual friend the Warden) is to 
 assist him — I do not think a Bishop should assist even 
 an Archbishop. Nevertheless, I would fain be so 
 bold as to ask a dear friend, most highly valued, 
 
 to My dear lord, how can I ask my poor 
 
 brother to give me away? You know the sad, sad 
 religious difference that divides us. He might be 
 willing, for he is a loving brother (and most dutiful 
 son), but I can hardly even wish to ask him. It would, 
 as I look at things, be scarcely decent to invite him 
 to stand with me before an ” (“ Altar ” she had writ- 
 ten, but changed it to “ Communion Table”) “ from 
 which, alas! he has severed himself. Would it be 
 too great a presumption to hope that you, my dear 
 lord, would — you know we have no father — stand for 
 that one day in a father’s place, and place my hand 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 339 
 
 CH. XLIVj 
 
 in my future husband’s? Your dear daughter I do 
 not, much as I have always wished it, know: but, if 
 you would consent to what I so boldly propose (after 
 all, every proposal worth making involves some bold- 
 ness !), perhaps you would tell her how greatly I should 
 like to count her as one of my ten bridesmaids ” (one 
 of the original ten, Lady Rosamond Montacute, had 
 just been announced by her mother, Lady Stonehenge, 
 as developing unmistakable scarlatina). 
 
 When the Bishop read Sylvia’s letter he longed to 
 say Yes, but was not at once sure whether he dared 
 say anything but No. In vain is the net spread in 
 the sight of any bird, unless indeed the bird likes the 
 look of it, and would not mind being inside. The 
 Bishop would like, but there was Carry. Still, that 
 odious article in the Flag had led to nothing much 
 (the Bishop didn’t particularly object to the “ cutting 
 down ” Mrs. FitzSimon had once so fearfully dreaded; 
 nor, indeed, did she now she was getting ready to move 
 to the Deanery, and understood that Mr. Porker was 
 likely to be the new Warden — seven hundred a year 
 would be far too much for him). Many papers had 
 descanted on Abbot’s School, but not a single one 
 had said a word as to young Auberon’s prospective 
 father-in-law. 
 
 “ My lord,” cried his lordship’s domestic chaplain, 
 hurrying in, almost without knocking, “ my lord, a 
 dreadful thing has happened. Dr. Flebly, the Rector 
 of Billincoot, has gone off — gone off with ” 
 
 “Good gracious, Tumbler, gone off! with whom? ” 
 
 “ Oh, my lord, No ! ” cried the chaplain, quite blush- 
 ing. “ With apoplexy — dead, my lord ! In his gig.” 
 
 “ Dear, dear ! You shock me ! With apoplexy ” 
 
340 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XLIV 
 
 and the Bishop rose, and shook himself, and stretched 
 his neck a little, as though to prove it was longer than 
 it looked. “ A bachelor, though : it is harder on a 
 beneficed clergyman when there is a wife — and chil- 
 dren. He had only a sister.” 
 
 “Yes, my lord: a sister,” said Mr. Tumbler, with 
 a meek sigh — he had two, who lived with him. 
 
 “ Dear me ! It is very sad,” observed the Bishop, 
 not thinking much of the two Miss Tumblers. He 
 was thinking, in fact, of a daughter, and he evi- 
 dently rather wished to be alone. Poor Mr. Tumbler 
 — trying not to think of Billincoot Rectory — went 
 away, and the Bishop presently betook himself to the 
 drawing-room, where he found Miss Garboyle making 
 a “ kissiboo,” out of red and white duster-cloth, for 
 some little African boy she would never see. 
 
 “ Carry,” he said, with a solemn resignation that 
 was almost cheerful, “ Dr. Flebly, the Rector of Bil- 
 lincoot (a Rural Dean), has been taken. It is very 
 sad. He was quite well this morning, and now he 
 is gone. Of apoplexy; in his gig. On his way, as I 
 make no doubt, to discharge some Ruridecanal func- 
 tion — a very exemplary clergyman.” 
 
 Miss Garboyle, who had only seen Dr. Flebly once, 
 was duly shocked. 
 
 “ But still, papa, if he was a good man, and pre- 
 pared, and in the discharge of his duty — I don’t un- 
 derstand much about Rural Deans.” 
 
 “ Quite so. Of course not. I felt the same,” said 
 the Bishop, rather absent-mindedly. “ But, Carry, the 
 living is in my gift: it is my turn to present — the 
 patronage is alternately in the hands of the Bishop 
 and of the Dean and Chapter: it is my turn ” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 341 
 
 CH. XLIV] 
 
 “Oh, papa! I hope you’re not thinking of Mr. 
 Tumbler — he may be an excellent chaplain, but he’s 
 not up to a Rural Dean: he snuffles so — he can’t 
 always have a cold ” 
 
 Dr. Garboyle was not, in general, disposed to seek 
 advice from his daughter: but on this occasion he 
 showed no displeasure. 
 
 “ The Rural Deanship,” he explained (mildly), “ is 
 not involved in the Rectory. But I wasn’t thinking of 
 Tumbler ... I had a thought — what do you think of 
 Mr. Singer ?' ” 
 
 Miss Garboyle really blushed, and her father noted 
 the circumstance with inward pleasure. 
 
 “ An excellent clergyman,” remarked the Bishop, 
 “ and popular in the diocese ” (Miss Garboyle stitched 
 eagerly at the kissiboo, and almost wondered her papa 
 had not thought Mr. Singer of too upward a tend- 
 ency), “and his father was Archdeacon. I like 
 clergymen of clerical families. Of course he’s young- 
 ish, but so was poor Flebly; he’s been Rector many 
 years, and was not old; about my own time of life. 
 It makes one think ” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Miss Garboyle. “ But if he was young 
 when he got it — and Mr. Singer is not much under 
 forty.” 
 
 “ No, my dear, no. A very suitable age.” And 
 there came almost a jocosity, certainly a complacence, 
 into her papa’s tone as he added, “ in every way.” 
 
 Miss Garboyle did, undoubtedly, blush, and the 
 Bishop observed it with mild triumph. 
 
 “ The Rural Deanship,” he went on, “ is not in- 
 volved in the Rectory of Billincoot. But the Rector of 
 Billincoot has usually been a personage in the Arch- 
 
342 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XLIV 
 
 deanconry. Singer is popular (so was his father), 
 and the clergy will like the appointment. It will show, 
 too, that I am not averse to recognising the claims of 
 what is not (precisely) my own party in the diocese. 
 
 Singer is Higher than we are ” 
 
 “ Papa, he’s not in the least a Puseyite.” 
 
 “ Of course, of course ! And I’m sure,” said the 
 Bishop, “ he won’t become one.” 
 
 “ Certainly not,” agreed Miss Garboyle, as one mak- 
 ing a promise to that effect. 
 
 “ He,” said her papa, affectionately, “ shall have it.” 
 “ My dear,” he added, in a lower tone, “ I’m a 
 watchful and loving father” (she felt the appeal, and 
 was conscious that it behoved her to be a loving, and, 
 perhaps, not too watchful, daughter), “and I do this 
 — for public motives of utility, of course, but to please 
 you too.” 
 
 “ Thank you, papa.” And Carry almost wished the 
 kissiboo was a pocket-handkerchief without a needle 
 in it. 
 
 “ And, Carry,” he went on, “ there are lighter mat- 
 ters to tell you of. The Duchess of Cowchester asks 
 me to go and stay there on the third of next month to 
 confirm young Lord Calfhampton, and I shall take 
 you. Cowpark is worth seeing — one of the ancestral 
 homes of England. I couldn’t suggest Tumbler. But 
 I might take Singer as Chaplain pro tem. I really 
 think I might.” 
 
 Carry thought he might, but didn’t say so. Then 
 the Bishop asked her if she would like to be a brides- 
 maid, with nine others, all Lady Somebodies (he 
 forgot me, as people always have done throughout my 
 insignificant life). 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 CH. XLIV] 
 
 343 
 
 “ It may be,” he added, with undisguised jocosity, 
 “ your last chance.” 
 
 Carry blushed again, and even laughed a little. 
 
 Then her papa told her whose wedding it was, and 
 she understood everything perfectly; the giving away 
 of the bride hardly surprised her — but to be a brides- 
 maid (after going to the Duchess on the third) with 
 nine others, all Lady Cynthias and Lady Arabellas, 
 especially when it would be her last chance, after all 
 it was worth something. And besides, out at Bil- 
 lincoot, what would it matter to her who poured out 
 tea at Rood Palace? Especially as Mrs. Auberon 
 had no title — Carry would have found it much harder 
 to bear cheerfully if some lady of obviously higher 
 social standing than her own had succeeded her. 
 
 “Papa,” she said (in parenthesis), “wasn’t Arch- 
 deacon Singer Rector of Billincoot ? ” 
 
 “ No, my dear; Vicar of Kiddlemere. But the Arch- 
 deaconry is not attached to any benefice. Archdeacon 
 Thumper is very old.” 
 
 “ Well, yes — I don’t mind being bridesmaid,” said 
 Carry, emerging from her parenthesis, as her papa 
 went into it. “ Shall you write and accept, or must 
 I?” 
 
 “ We have both to accept,” replied the Bishop; and 
 Miss Garboyle felt that it was a settled thing. So 
 did Miss Belvoir as ( from the organ gallery, with Mr. 
 Porker beside her) she watched the Bishop of Low- 
 minster giving away Miss Auberon. 
 
 “ How truly paternal his manner is ! ” she whis- 
 pered ; and Mr. Porker — who was not always quick — 
 said — 
 
 “ Quite so ! An amiable man, I fancy.” 
 
344 
 
 MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 [CH. XLIV 
 
 “Tut, tut! He’s a deal more taken up by the 
 bride’s mother in her lavender silk than by the bride, 
 for all her white satin and Mechlin and orange-blos- 
 soms ! Bishops are like other people, and there’s noth- 
 ing like one wedding for bringing on another. He’d 
 better too ; or that Perkin will be perverting his mother, 
 now Sylvia won’t be on the spot to look after her. 
 Marjory would be no good at all, and she has always 
 been all on her brother’s side. There! She’s Lady 
 Monksbridge now.” 
 
 “ And you think,” said Mr. Porker, “ you really 
 think the Bishop ” 
 
 “ It’s as plain as the nose on your face.” Porker 
 put his hand up, and felt it; it ivas plain — but he was 
 Warden elect for all that. 
 
 “ And you think one wedding leads to — others ? ” 
 he whispered. 
 
 “ It ought to,” Miss Belvoir declared firmly. “ It’s 
 an old saying, and proverbs reflect great Human 
 Truths.” 
 
 Mr. Porker thought there might be something in it 
 (his mind had wandered from the Bishop), and after 
 all she was a Male Belvoir, whereas the Porkers of 
 Pigginwhistle were only yeoman farmers. When Mrs. 
 FitzSimon knew, she was quite glad the Wardenship 
 had been cut down. 
 
 “ They’ll have nine hundred a year and her furni- 
 ture,” she said, “ and for him that will be really too 
 much.” 
 
 As for Miss Belvoir, she congratulated herself that 
 she would not have to move to a house. “ I never did 
 live in one,” she boasted, “ first in a Priory, then in a 
 Gate, and now in a Warden’s Lodge.” 
 
MONKSBRIDGE 
 
 345 
 
 CH. XLIV] 
 
 The Baroness came back to Cross Place; she and 
 Mr. Bloom were Mamma’s tenants for many years. 
 They died within six months of each other; and ten 
 weeks later the Bishop of Lowminster died too; then 
 Mamma went back to Cross Place, and Hubert and 
 I gave up our London home and went to live with 
 her. Archdeacon Singer and Carry often stay with 
 us, and get on much better with us, and with Perkin 
 and Hermione, though we are all Catholics, than they 
 ever did with Sylvia. Sylvia’s eldest son is very like 
 Perkin, and his mother never counted it to him for 
 righteousness, though she liked to -talk of the tradi- 
 tional Auberon face; but her only daughter (named 
 after her august Godmother) is Sylvia’s living image, 
 and is Princess Hermann Gluck von und zu Geldstein, 
 who has opened more bazaars than any woman of her 
 age in London. 
 
 The present Marchioness of Monksbridge, forty- 
 nine years younger than her husband, is no relation 
 of mine, and was born in Chicago — not of a “ media- 
 tized” family; and Lady Inverchlory, being a Bos- 
 tonian, won’t look at her. 
 
GRACECHURCH 
 
 BY JOHN AYSCOUGH 
 
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