CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 L.I.jtevens 
 
Corneli University Library 
 PR 4519.C96T38 
 
 Theo Leigh, a novei. 
 
 3 1924 013 468 818 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013468818 
 
THEO LEien 
 
 ^ NotJel 
 
 BY ANNIE THOMAS, 
 
 ATITHOK OP 
 
 "DENIS DONNE" AND "ON GUARD." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FEANKLIN SQUAEB. 
 18 65. 
 
Novels by Miss Annie Thomas. 
 
 DENIS DONNE. A Novel. By Annie Thomas. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 THEO LEIGH. A Novel. By Annie Thomas, Author of "Denis Donne." 
 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 ON GUARD. A Novel. By Annie Thomas, Author of "Theo Leigh" and 
 "Denis Donne," 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 Extracts from English NoUces. 
 
 His9 Thomas'B writing is feeah and vigorous. Her fiketches of 
 ebaracter are full of clevemeas, and Theo Zeigh confirniB tho im- 
 presaion made by Dents J)onne, that the writer may take a fore- 
 most place in modem fiction.— ^afurda^ Review. 
 
 SEias Thomas displays an even vigor of diction which few of her 
 sex posaeas. Strong power of language and clear definition are 
 Miss Thomas's principal resources. — Athenwum. 
 
 Its characters ("Denis Donne"), men and women whom erety 
 
 body has met, are drawn with wonderful vigor, £reedoni, atij 
 freshness. — The I'reat. 
 
 Miaa Thomas need not have either doubt or fear as to the place 
 which will be awarded her among our modem novelists. — horn- 
 ing Poet.. 
 
 Miss Thomas will, we think, rank high among that class of 
 novelists of whom Miss Evaiie (George Eliot) is the first.— 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 Sent by Mail, postage free, to any part of tbe United States, on recdpt of the Price. 
 
T H E LEIGH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTBODUOES THEO. 
 
 Down on the sea-board of the county of 
 Norfolk, on the verge of a long waste of marsh- 
 land that intervenes between it and the German 
 Ocean, there stands a little village, Houghton 
 by name, semi-agricultural and semi-aquatic by 
 nature. 
 
 A hardy little village, as it befits one of such 
 purely Scandinavian traditions to be, scorning to 
 shelter itself from the fierce winds that blow 
 across to it from the hardier north,., or from the 
 , chilling blasts that whistle shrewishly along from 
 the east. A hardy enduring village, bravely 
 patient of the blasts, and as bravely opposed to 
 the mastery of the sea, whose encroachments it 
 has checked with a deftly-constructed bank of 
 most impervious mud ; an artistic village, whose 
 fields are tilled and pasture-lands are cultivated 
 into the semblance of the fairest mosaic ; an in- 
 dependent village, that sends its own smacks 
 out to " oyster-sea " and panders unassisted to 
 the bivalve loves of its inhabitants ; a gallant 
 little village that guards its own portion of the 
 coast from those ruthless rascals the smugglers, 
 by aid of a na^ officer in command of kbc. able- 
 bodied seamen ; a little village, that is so superb 
 in its appearance of utter remoteness from' and 
 indifference to all that goes on beyond its own 
 confines, — ^that revolves on its own axis so 
 quietly year after year, suffering the world and 
 all Its business to roll on without the let and 
 hindrance of question, — ^that cares so little 
 whether armies are decimated and countries 
 devastated for an idea, — that prays for the 
 Queen's ministers, but does not care very much 
 to what party they belong, — that is altogether 
 so absorbed in and satisfied with itself, that it 
 is hard to believe that it is only " eight hours 
 (usual speed) from London." 
 
 Houghton has its drawbacks. What village 
 is free from them ? Owen Meredith has declared 
 in one of his misery-fraught melodies that the 
 "women free from faults have beds beneath the 
 willow." I wish he would give a local habita- 
 tion and a name to the villages "free from 
 faults." The hordes of discontented ones who 
 are weary of the haunts of men, would be down 
 upon them to their detriment forthwith; and 
 ^oughton would not be amongst their number, 
 br Houghton has its drawbacks. 
 
 First amongst these shall be reckoned a 
 jenitude of the perfumes and a lack of the 
 Sxuries that commonly infest sea-side places. 
 
 i^h the majority of the winds that blow the 
 ur of marsh-mud is prevalent ; and the odour 
 larsh-mud, though healthy, doubtless, is not ; 
 
 delightful. But worse than this is the fact, that 
 unless the " tide serves " (which it never does 
 when you want to go on to the beach), it is im- 
 possible, though almost on the brink of it, for 
 Houghton to catch a sight of the German Ocean, 
 by reason of that bVoad expanse of marsh and 
 mud and many creeks which intervenes. 
 
 Houghton has its cockle-strand, and the fla- 
 vour of those cockles is esteemed in that county- 
 side. They are big, blue, burly. They form a 
 mighty portion of the integral trade of that 
 quiet little village, for " peasant girls with deep 
 blue eyes, and hands that offer" burly cockles, 
 " come smiling o'er Ihis paradise," through all 
 the summer months, with baskets full of the 
 result of their bare-footed labours down on the 
 strand. The way that leads down to this cockle- 
 strand is called by a name that indicates (so 
 Houghton proudly asserts) that it at one time 
 traded more largely and had a quay of its own, 
 for the way is called "Quay-land" — and it is 
 the haunt and lounge of the coastguard and 
 fishermen all the week, and of the whole pop- 
 ulation on Sundays. 
 
 The house in Houghton that stands nearest 
 to, and commands the best view of the sea, is, 
 though one of the only three good houses in the 
 village, known by no name. To strangers, the 
 very few who enter, it is pointed out as the 
 "chief officer's," or the " Leftenant's " house: 
 to the inhabitants it is familiar as " The Leighs'." 
 
 It is not particularly interesting from an archi- 
 tectural or artistic point of view, for it is simply 
 a square stone building, with straight sash 
 windows in front, — a shiny sloping slated roof, 
 and an entrance door planted with severe exacti- 
 tude in the centre. But to the casual passer-by 
 it ^as an importance by means of adventitious 
 aids. For instance, towering above its shiny 
 slated roof there is a "look-out" of whiter 
 painted woodwork which stands out well from 
 the blue tiles ; patrolling outside the gate there 
 is always a coastguard-man in naval uniform, 
 with a big "DoUond" aider his arm, and a 
 hand that is prompt with the graceful salute of 
 the service to any one who may address him. 
 
 It is a sweet old farce to me,, this guarding 
 the coast from nothing. Though we are now at 
 peace with evety possible invader, and free-trade 
 is' in the ascendant, still, I trust the play that gives 
 a remunerative " part " to so many will never be 
 played out. There is monotony, it is true, in 
 the work that falls to the lot of both officers and 
 men. It is tedious to serve your country by 
 writing down every change -in the wind and 
 weather daily from year to year ; monotony, in 
 boarding well-meaning vessels in which nothing 
 is ever found, and in perpetually patrolling with 
 
6 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 a spy-glass under your arm. But still it is pot 
 laborious monotony. 
 
 Down this lane one fine April day a man 
 walked, and the Imot of loungers at the top of 
 the lane who assembled themselves together in 
 the sun on the bench outside the Leighp' gar- 
 den wall, forthwith fell to wondering curiously 
 who he might be, and what he might be about 
 to do, for he was not a Houghton man. 
 
 " He's not a friend of the squire's, for he put 
 up at the Bull last night when he come," one of 
 the women said ; " he'd a' been sure to be at 
 the house if the squire knew anything of him." 
 
 " And he ain't no friend of Mr. Leigh's," the 
 watchman whom the woman specially addressed 
 replied ; " for Mr. Leigh he come out just now, 
 and he says, says he, ' Roberts,' says he, ' have 
 ycm seen,' he says, ' any one go down that there 
 lane ? ' says he, ' any stranger,' he says, '/or,' 
 says he, ' a stranger there is at the Bull,' he says, 
 ' who, I hear, has been asking about drawing 
 the beach ; " which prore," Roberts wound up 
 with triumphantly, "that our master knew 
 nothing about him." 
 
 " Nights ain't fine enough to draw for much 
 good, are they?" the woman asked, for the 
 words " drawing the beach," at Houghton 
 meant dragging the same with nets to which a 
 horse was attached, by which means mighty 
 draughts of fish were occasionally caught. 
 
 "Might be better, and might be worse," 
 Roberts replied, screwing up one eye and look- 
 ing out of the corner of the other away to the 
 horizon through the glass. 
 
 " Well," the woman said sharply, " I only know 
 what my man says, and he knows more about 
 it than all the lot of you put together," — she 
 was a fine smart-looking woman, with a brisk 
 voice and a clear eye, and a neat figure. Ro- 
 berts seemed struck with her statement, and 
 gazed at her with a vague eye of wonder. 
 
 "All the gentry have to come to my Bob 
 when they want to know anything of that 
 kind," Mrs. Barton went on with a bright laugh ; 
 "if that gentleman is wanting to draw the 
 beach, I shall know more about him before the 
 day's over, for he'll have to come to Bob." 
 
 Then Mrs. Barton collected her troop of 
 children around her, and prepared to depart 
 while the wound her last arrow had made was 
 still quivering. It was quite true, this vaunt 
 that she had made, and the truth of it awakened 
 the seldom sleeping jealousy the rest of the crew 
 of the coastguard station felt for Bob Barton, 
 whose knowledge of wild-duck shooting and 
 fishing had gained him much popularity, and 
 something more tangible still, from what his 
 wife denominated the sporting gentry round. 
 
 But before she could execute her purpose and 
 depart, she was arrested by the slamming of 
 the gate round the coi-ner, the gate of the 
 Leighs' garden, and the next moment Lieutenant 
 Leigh himself, with a young lady hanging on 
 his arm, came in sight. 
 
 He was a fine old sailor, erect and vigorous, 
 but neither rugged nor weather-beaten,' as it is 
 the fashion to depict naval officers of a by-gone 
 day. A man who had not been handsome in 
 youth, the friends'who knew him in it asserted, 
 but who was a most stately and dignified gentle- 
 man now that he was old. As thorough a sail- 
 or, as good an officer, as dashing and gallant a 
 
 man as ever stepped the quarter-deck ; but one 
 who never related his own feats of dashing 
 gallantry — who never swore, or used sea-slang 
 — ^who had known little of the sweet rewards of 
 merit, and who was only a lieutenant now at 
 sixty, and Theo Leigh's father. 
 
 The young lady who leaned upon his arm, 
 and whose appearance (for was she not the idol 
 of the "crew?") arrested Roberts' eloquence 
 and Mrs. Barton's departure, was Theo herself. 
 
 Theo had been a pet amongst her father's 
 crew for so long ! just nineteen years had she 
 lived in the vorld, and amongst themselves they 
 called her " little Miss " still, that bright young 
 lady in whose woman's form a woman's heart beat 
 strongly! And she knew and cherished and 
 nourished this feeling that the rough sailors and 
 their warm-hearted spouses had for her, and, 
 thoughtless girl as she was, prayed God 4hat, let 
 her be what she might, they might never know 
 or name her as other than " little Miss " and " our 
 Miss Theo." 
 
 What was she like, this girl who to the slow 
 music of the slaraini'ng of a gate, came round the 
 comer into my story ? She was charming ! that 
 was all. How can another woman hope to make 
 clear why she was so ? She was charming, with 
 none of the bright, blonde, beautiful charm of the 
 North, but with a darker witchery, with a duskier 
 hue, with the deeper, more dangerous, more in- 
 tense fire of the sleepy, languid, pasaon-fraught 
 South. 
 
 Pick her to pieces, anatomise her thoroughly, 
 and she lacked beauty. But who, in the old days 
 when I knew her first, would have picked to 
 pieces that glowing, brilliant, girlish face, or 
 anatomised thoroughly that well-rounded figure 
 that expressed health in every one of its move- 
 ments? Who could have done it then? The 
 rounded cheek is fallen now, and the bright, 
 merry dye faded from the light of yore, and Theo 
 4s a sylph no longer ! But she is Theo still, with 
 the old charm about her that no man (or woman 
 either, for that matter) could re.sist for long. 
 
 For my heroine was not one of Ihose adorable 
 creatures whom women perseciite. Many women 
 liked her very much indeed. Saw her faults, and 
 censured them maybe, but Uked the girl,, their 
 committer, despite them all. She was liked, she 
 was popular, she was thought well of, God knows 
 for what. She was sorely ill-used and sorely 
 tried, God knows why. 
 
 But on this day, when I show her to you first, 
 the love and popularity and good thinkings-of 
 had alone been hers ; the trials were " nowhere," 
 in turf parlance : and Theo Leigh was very bright 
 and fresh indeed ; as bright and fresh as the 
 spring costume she wore. 
 
 I will paint her portrait for you, with no back- 
 ground and no accessories. My heart knows her 
 well, my hand will limn her forth quicldy. I will 
 brighten the high-lights and deepen the shadows 
 in yet unwritten pages ; but the likeness of the 
 girl can be put before you in a paragraph or two. 
 No fairy, yet rather small; no sylph, yesE 
 rather slight. Cleanly made as to the head ana 
 limbs, in' fact, which always adds to the look of 
 " breed," while it detracts from the appearance 
 of size. With an oval, dark, glowing face, and 
 grey, glowing eyes, and a profusion of wavy jjair 
 that was half curl and half disorder, hanging in 
 richly brown masses from underneath her tulban 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 hat. On the round of each of these tangled curls 
 of hers there was a ruddy tinge when the sun fell 
 on it, and in the dark, glowing face not one fea- 
 ture, save the mouth, was perfect. Her eyes 
 were very deeply grey, and very full of feeling, 
 of fire, of thought, of the wildest merriment, of 
 the weirdest melancholy. "Very full indeed of 
 whatever the girl herself felt at the moment; 
 brilliantly intelligent, beautifully expressive and 
 sympathetic ; but not the large gazelle eyes that 
 should be a woman's portion. They did not look 
 off to the right and left Uke a hart's or a sheep's ; 
 they glanced out thrilltngly at you from very close 
 to her nose on either side. But for all that pro- 
 pinquity and thrill they were not the leasl bit 
 shrewidi or vixenish eyes. I love and admire 
 those shy gazelle orbs very much indeed ; but I 
 never felt that Theo Leigh's could have been 
 more beautiful than they were. 
 
 Do you remember, reader, what Lancelot says 
 when the lady of Shalot, victim to unrequited 
 love for him, floats by the palace— dead? 
 
 Ah me I she Ixas a lovely face ; 
 Qod in his mercy send her grace, 
 
 prays the man who has destroyed her. A similar 
 feeling found utterance in other words when the 
 stranger whose progress down the lane was com- 
 mented upon awhile ago caught the first glimpse 
 of Theo Leigh. 
 
 " I think I should like to have the boat to-day, 
 papa," Theo said, afier a minute's conversation 
 with Mrs. Barton, during which that good woman 
 had given a resume of the conjectures which had 
 been formed and to which utterance bad been 
 given respecting the stranger. 
 
 " The tide won't serve till it will be too late 
 for you to be on the water," her father replied. 
 Theo thereat looked slightly disappointed. Her 
 young heart was always very warmly set on hav- 
 ing tide boat when circumstances over which no 
 one had any control forbade the boat being avail- 
 able. 
 
 " I believe there's water enough in the creek 
 for the little boat, papa. I'll go down the lane 
 and see ; and if there is. Barton wouldn't just 
 mind pulling me over, would he ? ''"sSe continued, 
 addressing Barton's wife, who immediately as- 
 sured her that " Bob would with all the pleasure 
 in life, if so be he could be spared." 
 
 Theo released her father's arm now, and 
 sauntered away down the before-mentioned lane. 
 Sauntered slowly, as one is apt to do when the 
 young spring leaves are bathed in bright April 
 sunshine : sunshine that is warm, soft, and ten- 
 derly bright as the touch of a maiden's lips, or 
 the first love-light in her eye. There was some- 
 thing delioiously sympathetic in the atmosphere, 
 in the sunshine, in the hum of recently-born in- 
 sects, in the fragrance of re-awakening nature, to 
 Theo. She sauntered slowly along down to the 
 marsh-bank that was covered with rushes ; and 
 in the beauty of the day, and the contemplation 
 pf the dazzling light the sun threw upon the 
 Vaters, she forgot her purpose, and was utterly 
 
 rgai'dless of the state of the creek. 
 The winter had been an iron-bound one, the 
 |{trliest spring had been one shrill whistling blast 
 ffiom the east. The memory of these things 
 made this sudden siunmer heat, which had en- 
 dured now for four or five days, doubly delightful 
 through the mighty power of contrast. Theo en- 
 
 joyed warmth — the warmth of the sun, not that 
 of a fire. She expanded under its influence, its 
 fervour went into her soul, and lapped it to a 
 slumber in which the sweetest dreams were hers. 
 She thoroughly revelled in doing nothing but 
 think — scarcely that, but feel. The girl did not 
 lack energy, hut she lacked that peculiar form of 
 it which expresses itself in bustling activity. She 
 had not been stirred into action yet — for life had 
 gone very easily with Miss Theo Leigh — and her 
 appreciation of the dolce far niente was too per- 
 fect to })e agreeable to her friends. It may be 
 that as the elder daughter of a large family Theo 
 would have been undesirable. But she was not 
 the elder daughter of a large family, happily for 
 herself She was the sole child of the house and 
 heart of her father, and he saw no wrong in 
 aught that Theo did. 
 
 She placed herself on the sunny side of the 
 bank of rushes — ^the side on which she was shel- 
 tered from even the light breeze that was up-r- 
 and thought of what life must be in the lands 
 where the sun always shone, and the sky was al- 
 ways blue. Of Greece, which she knew by heart, 
 she thought, from Byron's fervid and her father's 
 graphii description ; where the cypress and myr- 
 tle wafted their odours and the vultures raged 
 over, and the doves cooed forth their approba- 
 tion of that struggle for liberty which terminated 
 well for Greece, and better for Lord Cochrane 
 than anybody who served under him ; of Italy — 
 very much of Italy — ^for she loved art and olives, 
 and longed for a sight of blue-ridged mountains, 
 and brigands, and tdl the other things the South 
 alone could show her. In fact she dreamed a 
 tour that should last for ever, and found the 
 travelling most rarely sweet. 
 
 The dream was dissolved suddenly, but not un- 
 pleasantly. A step close behind her, a voice at 
 her elbow, a low, soft, deep voice, monotonous 
 even in its sweetness to some ears, the soul of 
 melody to hers, paying : 
 
 "Pardon me for disturbing you, but is there 
 any possibility of threading the maze of these 
 creeks and gaining the beach? " 
 
 The sound cut short the dream, the old fami- 
 liar dream, that Theo had dreamt so often, and 
 she woke to life with a bound, but not to the life 
 she had known before, no, never again to that 
 old peaceful' existence. . 4 
 
 " The beach can only be gained by a boat, un- 
 less you had mud-boots on, and didn't mind 
 walking three or four miles to reach the only 
 point where it is safe to cross the chaimel," she 
 said, rising to her feet as she spoke. 
 
 Then as she stood before him, speaking, de- 
 spite the suddenness of his address, despite the 
 surprise she could not but feel, with the self-pos- 
 session and kindly' courtesy of a gentlewoman, 
 he thought that which resembled Lancelot's apos- 
 trophe to the Lady of Shalot : 
 
 " She has a sweet, bright face : I hope it will 
 never be clouded." 
 
 She had dreamt of other things in her life be- 
 sides classic Greece and art-fraught Italy. She 
 had pictured many a hero, built them up as it 
 were from those who were her favorites in ro- 
 mance, and they were all of the cavalier type. 
 Leicester she had loved, though that was a black 
 business, Theo acknowledged, about Amy Kob- 
 sart. But about six months since she had stay- 
 ed at an old grange in Warwickshire, whose walls 
 
8 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 were covered with Vandycks, and there the grace 
 of BucMngham had made every other kind of 
 masculine beauty seem dull, tame, and unprofit- 
 able to her, and Leicester was less well-loved than 
 of yore. 
 
 Kow before her stood a man who, though he 
 wore a coat of Poole's and a hat of Andre's, 
 might have walked forth from the canvas Van- 
 dyck had covered. No velvet tunic, no clanking 
 sword, were needed to further the illusion. All 
 the Stuart grace was his, and thrice the Stuart 
 beauty. He was the embodiment of that ideal 
 which the portrait of Buckingham had first faint- 
 ly realized. 
 
 This man who dissipated Theo's earliest dreams 
 was no beardless Apollo, on whom the golden 
 glory of youth still hung enraptured. He was 
 a man of forty or more, this first god of her 
 imagination. 
 
 That lived still in the man's deep, steel-blue, 
 black-fringed eyes, that was more to a woman 
 than the laughing light of youth. There was that 
 in the contrast between his unstudied address, 
 his steady, deep tones, and the wonderful earnest- 
 ness of Ms eyes, that thrilled Theo almost before 
 she was conscious of its existence. She took in 
 all: his age, his well-made clothes, the air of 
 high breeding that there was about him, the per- 
 fect beauty of his face, and its rarely-refined ex- 
 pression, an expression in which hauteur habitu- 
 ally had a share, but there was no hauteur in the 
 eyes that were bent on Theo ; she took in all 
 these things in the one glance she gave him, as she 
 quietly answered his question. Then, when she 
 had answered it, he removed his hat ^om the 
 head on which grey curling locks still clustered 
 thickly, and stood bare-headed before her — a dig- 
 nified, handsome gentleman truly ; the very type 
 of some old cavalier family. 
 
 " Tou must allow me to profit by the informa- 
 tion you have afforded me," he said, with a cer- 
 tain subdued eagerness in his voice, to which it 
 was rarely pleasant to listen. "I have been'- 
 hoping for a fair opportunity of introducing my- 
 self to Mr. Leigh ; on your authority I shall tell 
 him now that the beach is not to be gained save 
 in one of his boats." 
 
 "I will introduce you to papa. I am Mr. 
 Leigh's daughter," Theo said animatedly. And 
 then she bliished a little, and laughed a little, 
 and added, "At least, I will tell him your strait, 
 your name I do not know; but I'll introduce 
 your difficulty to him, and he will place a boat at 
 your service, I am sure, as soon as ever there is 
 water enough in the creek." 
 
 " Perhaps my name maybe familiar to him," 
 the stranger said, handing Theo a card on which 
 was engraved "Mr. Harold Ffrench." "We 
 were in Greece together, but as I was but an 
 amateur your father very possibly never heard of 
 me, or if he did, has forgotten me." 
 
 "In Greece with papa!" Theo exclaimed; 
 did you serve with him? did you serve under 
 Lord Cochrane ? How could you come to 
 Houghton, and know that papa was here, and 
 not give him the great pleasure of seeing an old 
 comrade at once ? " 
 
 " I may not lay claim to that distinction. Miss 
 Leigh." Mr. Ffrench conveyed a most delicate 
 compliment to the daughter by that allusion to 
 the sire. Theo kindled to it, kindled vividly, 
 but that, perhaps, she would have done to any- 
 
 thing else uttered by that voice, and rendered 
 doubly eloquent by those eyes. 
 
 " I may not lay claim to that distinction. Miss 
 Leigh. I knew your father, certainly, knew him 
 well, as did every one else who was concerned 
 for the liberty of Greece, and interested in the 
 organization of her navy ; but I was, as I tell 
 you, an amateur, and my very name may have 
 escaped your father's memory: have you ever 
 heard him mention it ? " 
 
 " Never : did vou know the Maid of Athens 
 and Mr. Black?"" 
 
 " Wasn't Black her husband? " 
 
 " Yes ; did you know them ? " 
 
 "I did not, but I remember hearing your 
 father's name in connection with theili.. He had 
 them on board his frigate, hadn't he ? " 
 
 " Yes," Theo replied. They were walking up 
 the lane now, but though she was anxious to 
 bring this stranger face to face with her father, 
 she found it very pleasant to be walking and 
 talking with him alone, — ^walking through the 
 old familiar places which she had known from a 
 child, and talking on that scarcely less familiar 
 theme of which her father never tired. 
 
 " Yes, he had them on board the , I for- 
 get his ship's name, and he was god-father to their 
 eldest son ; she was fat when papa knew her, a 
 good deal of her beauty was^gone; but still, do 
 you know, I think there must have been a touch 
 of romance in knowing her, Byron's Maid of 
 Athens, at all." 
 
 " I think, perhaps, the romance would have 
 stood a better chance of being unimpaired if he, 
 your father, I mean, haadn't known her fat, and 
 no longer young; there were many romantic 
 affairs that sprang out of that song. Miss Leigh. 
 Byron was not the only Englishman who fancied 
 some roe-eyed Greek to be his life and soul for a 
 time." 
 
 Then Mr. Ffrench looked down at the bright 
 young girl who walked by his side, glancing up 
 at him occasionally with frank admiring gaze, and 
 as he looked at her, his deep blue eyes grew 
 strangely tender, and he thought, " I hope to God 
 her father has not forgotten me." 
 
 Bear this recorded aspiration in mind when 
 that which is to follow is recounted. He did 
 devoutly hope that himself and the story of his 
 life might be once known, even if now partially 
 forgotten things, by the father of this girl who 
 had won upon him already, brief as had been their 
 intercourse, by the undefinable charm of a most 
 profound sympathy. Through all the length of 
 that lane which, led from the msh-covered marsh- 
 bank up to the garden wall where Mr. Leigh still 
 stood, Harold Ffrench hoped it devoutly. When 
 the gate was gained, and Theo Leigh introduced 
 him eagerly to her father, before the latter had 
 time to express astonishment at the sight of his 
 daughter on these friendly terms with a stranger, 
 that hope died out, and anothei' sprang into being. 
 For in answer to Theo's " Papa, this gentleman 
 was looking for a way over to the beach ; he ia 
 Mr. Ffrench, and he remembers you in Greece/ 
 — in answer to this, there came no light of recog- 
 nition into the old officer's eyes : " I am heartily 
 glad to renew the acquaintance,'! he said, court- 
 eously ; " your name and face have escaped my 
 memory. I am getting an old man, you sge ; 
 walk in, Mr. Ffrench, you are most cordially wel- 
 I come." 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 9 
 
 As Mr. Ffrenoh took the other's offered hand, 
 he saw that if ever knovra he was now entirely 
 forgotten. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 IHE FRUIT OF THE SUN. 
 
 It was only natural that the Houghton Bull 
 should see little of Mr. Ffrenoh after this. 
 Though personally unknown to Theo's fiither, he 
 still was thoroughly fflw/fflji with all that had hap- 
 pened in Greece in '28 and the two following 
 years. "I was just of age when I went to 
 Athens," he said, in the course of conversation 
 with Mr. Leigh, " and the first use I made of my 
 nominally perfect Ubgrty was to be off to the seat 
 of the struggle, for everybody was talking about 
 It just then." When he said that, Theo did a 
 sum on the instant, and the year of my story's 
 opening being that of our first 'Great Exhibition, 
 arrived at the decision that Mr. Ffrenoh was 
 forty-four ! almost an old man in Theo's estima- 
 tion. She sighed to think of It. 
 
 But soon — before he had been with them an 
 hour — ^she ceased to think it a matter for sighing. 
 He charmed them all round, wd fairly won the 
 welcome that had been so frankly offered. Mrs. 
 Leigh asked him to stay and dine with them — 
 asked him with such an evident desire that he 
 should accept the invitation, that Theo felt at 
 once that her mamma was carried as quickly and 
 successfully as she herself had been. Her father, 
 too, was palpably inclining most kindly to one who 
 listened wi& understanding to his time-honoured 
 stories. 
 
 " Besides, he hasn't the look an^ manners of a 
 middle-aged man," thought the girl, as she looked 
 at the sUght and graceful figure, and the prouffly- 
 carried, handsome head of this delightful guest. 
 The time-honoUred stories, from which, truth to 
 tell, Theo generally fled, gained a new interest 
 now that they were listened to in his company. 
 She threw herself rashly into the conversation, and 
 fired off a brisk volley of questionsj^ some of 
 which struck her papa as being slightly irrelevant. 
 Her papa, in fact, desired to dwell principally: on 
 the naval and pofitical aspects of Greece ; Theo 
 wanted to hsax something about those other ro- 
 mances to which Mr. Efrench had alluded. 
 
 At length they quitted the past and came down 
 to the present. 
 
 " What finally fixed you in this outof-the-way 
 place after such a Oareer 1 " Mr. Ffrench asked of 
 his host. 
 
 " Want of interest to get anything better than 
 a coastguard station, and the necessity to take the 
 first thmg that offered, no matter what that tMng 
 was. I was struck off the list for some years in 
 consequence of that Greek affair, and when I was 
 Reinstated, I was ^veuto understand that promo- 
 ||on was over for me," Mr. Leigh answered. 
 
 "jJThat was a bad look-out." 
 
 '■^bad look-out ! — ^it was a blackguard look- 
 out!! Mr. Leigh cried; he could not endure to 
 hearffientle mention made of his grievances and 
 ill-tl£tment at the hands of the government; 
 they Bad been many and very hard to bear, 
 and %nient allusion to them was disgusting to 
 
 "WVat was the reason as^gned for striking 
 
 you off the list ? " the visitor asked, politely. He 
 had been looking at and thinking of Theo when 
 her father spoke before. His words, " that was 
 a bad look-out," referred to something vastly dif- 
 ferent to the old sailor's wrongs. But now he 
 recalled his attention and his eyes from Theo to 
 her father — for he was a well-bred gentleman, and 
 he saw that he was expected to do so. 
 
 " The reason — a ciirsedly unfair one, by the by 
 — was that I, being on half-pay, unable to find 
 employment under my own fiag,i did what any 
 other young fellow would have done, went off 
 and served without leave under a foreign one. 
 That was their only reason, sir — and by God, 
 though they've reinstated me, I have never been 
 able to get my arrears of half-pay from them up 
 to this day! You'd scarcely credit it, but such is 
 the fact ; they've robbed me of it, and as yet I 
 have* found no redress ; " and as Mr. Leigh 
 brought the recital of his wrongs to a conclusion, 
 he gave the table a thump in his excitement, and 
 to Theo's delight some of the same enthusiasm 
 appeared to fire the guest. 
 
 "Why don't you memorialize?" Mr. Ffrench 
 said, warmly; "it is, as you say, scarcely credi- 
 ble that such a punishment should be awarded for 
 such a venial offence against regulation: why 
 don't you memorialize ? " 
 
 " I have done so." 
 
 " Yes, that papa has," Theo cried ; " I can tes- 
 tify to that, for I have often had to copy your pe-. 
 titionS'— and I hate their endings, ' and your me- 
 morialist will ever pray ; ' it seems so abject. Fd 
 rather let them keep the arrears of half-pay, the 
 mean things! than humbly pray for them to 
 give it to me." 
 
 Theo had not been lapped in luxury all her life, 
 certainly, still it was evident enough that she had 
 never known the want of money or aught that 
 money could produce. Had she done so, the 
 stereotype prayer to those in power would not 
 have gone so palpably against the grain. 
 
 Strictly speaking, there was very little to 
 amuse the stranger guest in that country house- 
 hold. They could not gild the present by offer- 
 ing him the run of their stables in the hunting 
 season, or the freedom of so many acres in Sep- 
 tember. He was a middle-aged man, accustomed 
 to club, life in London, and they had neither a 
 French cook nor choice wines. He was a gentle- 
 man who, though never bored or weary when 
 alone, was very apt to become horridly bored m 
 the society of others ; and yet the prosy stories 
 of the old naval officer, and Theo's naive com- 
 ments on the same, were heard by him with a 
 fresher interest than he had accorded to anything 
 for longer than he cared to remember. He had 
 not counted on experiencing this phase of feeling 
 when he entered Houghton idly the day before. 
 
 At last — not long before he left them for the 
 night — ^it occurred to them to ask what had 
 brought him to their remote little village — a 
 stranger, with no apparent call there at all. It 
 was not the right time of year for sport of any 
 Idnd, and for what other end did men ever come 
 to Houghton? 
 
 " I came for the purpose of resting for a day 
 from the society of some very kind friends of 
 mine who are living at a lovely place about twen- 
 ty miles from this — that was the real reason of 
 my coming here ; my nominal one was that I 
 wanted to take a sketch of a headland that they 
 
10 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 call ' The Point,' that will come in well in a pic- 
 ture I'm about." 
 
 " Oh ! it was that kind of drawing the beach, 
 then — ^not what you thought, papa, when you 
 said ' what folly, at this season.' Do you paint, 
 Mr. Ffrench, in oils ? " 
 
 " Yes," he told Theo he did "a little in that 
 way." 
 
 " Hare you the picture with you at the 
 Bull?" 
 
 " Oh no ; would yon like to see it ? " he asked, 
 with a softened inflection of the monotonously 
 sweet voice that was very perceptible to the acute 
 ear of the girl whom he addressed. 
 
 " Very much, indeed," she replied, with the 
 hearty interest which, though unseen, unknown, 
 we all — the most indifferent among us as well as 
 those who yearn for appreciation — delight in see- 
 ing expressed about our works: "Very much, 
 indeed ; do you mind telling me what it is, as I 
 can't see it ? " 
 
 " But you can see it, and you shall see it, if 
 you will do me so much honour. I have it over 
 at the Grange — that's vague, for every third place 
 in Norfolk seems to be called the Grange ; the 
 place I mean is Haversham Grange : I am staying 
 there with a cousin of mine : if you will go over, 
 Mrs. Galton will be delighted to see fon, and do 
 the honours of my picture and her own." 
 
 " Her own ! is she your cousin ? does she 
 paint ? " 
 
 " She is my cousin, and she is obliging enough 
 to think my picture worthy of a copy, which she 
 is making with admirable intentions." 
 ■ " What is the picture ? " Theo asked. 
 
 " A description such as I can give will not con- 
 vey the slightest idea of it to your mind ; there 
 is a bay, and a boat in it pulling round a 
 headland which partially conceals a little frig- 
 ate, that is all ; it doesn't sound interesting, does 
 it ? " 
 
 " What is in the boat ?" Theo questioned. 
 
 " Three men and a woman," Mr. Ffrench re- 
 plied, rising as he spoke. " And now," he con- 
 tinued, " having given you such a barren account 
 of it, my self-esteem compels me to try and win 
 your promise to go to Haversham and look at my 
 picture." 
 
 Then Theo, though she shook her head in a 
 faintly negative manner, gave the promise with 
 her grey eyes ; and the guest departed, glad that 
 she had done so. 
 
 " Why not ? " he asked himself. Why should 
 he not be glad that a fresh, pretty, intelligent 
 girl, young enough to be his daughter, desired to 
 see a work of art — a work of his ? There was 
 no reason against it. Nothing to render such 
 a consummation undesirable. He was a time- 
 hardened man of the world, who had out-lived 
 all feeling such as might be detrimental to Theo's 
 peace. He had all his life experienced a certain 
 pleasure in doing a kind action which he had not 
 to go out of his path to accomplish. It would 
 be doing a kind action to introduce this Miss 
 Leigh, who seemed to have but a dull life of it, 
 to a woman who could render that life much 
 more lively, if it so pleased her, even at twenty 
 miles' distance. " And it will please Kate, to 
 please me," he said with a laugh iji his eyes. 
 " So why not do it for the little girl ? " 
 
 He sat down in the little parlour of the Bull 
 Tavern and wrote aletter, over the'composition 
 
 of which he laboured more than one would have 
 imagined so cool-mannered, so easy-going a man, 
 would have done. With his look of hauteur, 
 with that air of condensed pride and suppressed 
 passion in his face, he was not the kind of man 
 one would have accused of halting over a form of 
 address to any mortal, or choosing his words and 
 phrases with thought and labour. 
 
 But it was written at last, written and directed 
 to " Mrs. Galton, Haversham Grange, Haver- 
 sham, Norfolk." After that Mr. Ffrench went to 
 bed in a low-pitched room, and dreamt that he 
 was in a boat that was being pulled round a head- 
 land by two long-dead friends of his. In his 
 arms a woman was lying, and she wore the 
 Greek costume, and her face was the face of 
 Theo Leigh. This mingling of the real and the 
 ideal discomposed him sorely in his sleep, and 
 finally caused him to wake up with a start and a 
 curse. After remaining intensely wide awake for 
 a time,. he got up and destroyed that letter which 
 he had written with so much care and thought, 
 and resolved to leave Houghton to-morrow. 
 
 But with the dawning of that morrow came the 
 death of the resolution. The bright clear April 
 air, the appetite which it engendered, the diffi- 
 culty of finding in broad daylight a rea.^on why 
 he should do so, and above all the habit he had 
 of always doing as he wished, decided him upon 
 remaining yet another day in the village to which 
 he had drifted aimlessly, the village that had 
 shown him that which he had never thought to 
 look upon again — something that had the power 
 to stir him. 
 
 He may readily be forgiven for not remaining 
 at the Bull long after breakfast. He stayed just 
 long enough to write another letter to Mrs. Gal- 
 ton, and this time he wrote it in haste, and gave 
 no pains to its composition. Then, when he had 
 given the epistle into the hands of a trusty-look- 
 ing idler, who made many promises as to its 
 rapid delivery at the. post-offiice, he walked up to 
 the Leighs', for the sake of borrowing the "Dol- 
 lond' and going upon' the look-out. 
 
 Had Theo expected him ? He almost longed 
 to ask her, there was so full an assurance of what 
 her answer would be in the vivid brightness of 
 her face when he appeared. It was the flush of 
 blissful realisation more than gratified surprise. 
 It was such a flush as a woman can flame out 
 upon the man who moves her in .very truth alone. 
 Harold Ffrench was a man, nothing more nor 
 less, and he read it a.right. ' 
 
 She was far too open a book, this girl of nine- 
 teen, for him not to read, and read aright at a 
 glance. It had been the expectation, the hope 
 of seeing him which had robed her this morning 
 with a grace a woman never can attain until the 
 spirit of love bestows it upon her. There was a 
 seductive softness about the folds of the muslin 
 boddice tliis day that could come only from the 
 softened touch of the hand that had learnt to 
 tremble at a heart thrill, a very tenderness of 
 treatment about the flow of the skirt that jWuld 
 only be the result of that visual accuracy.which 
 is solely her portion who would adorn still more 
 what may perchance seem beautiful already in 
 the eyes of him who is now the world lio her. 
 There was all this, and Harold Ffrench saw that 
 there was all this, and still more besides. For on 
 the face of Theo Leigh there had comg' a light 
 which was a revelation to him of the heart that 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Jl 
 
 dwelt in the girl; and he knew that thia light 
 beams only once in a life-time, and then for the 
 man who first thoroughly awakens that heart, 
 and causes it to know t£at it beats for some other 
 purpose than that of mere existence. 
 
 The heroines of old romance were always 
 dressed in white muslin at most incongruous 
 times and seasons. White muslin represented 
 purity, poverty, grace, and guilelessness, and they 
 one and all wore it. But we costume in these 
 days with a more rigorous eye and a more cor- 
 rect taste. We go back to the fashion books of 
 the year in which the event we relate occurred, 
 and so in these minor matters are rarely caught 
 tripping. This confession may weaken the inter- 
 est of those readers who decline, to believe that 
 novels are built up bit by bit, and who elect to 
 favour the supposifion that they are struck out of 
 nothing in a white heat of inspiration. But those 
 who care for correctness of detail will be glad to 
 learn that when we give a full description of the 
 ball dress of our herSine, we do so on unimpeach- 
 able authority. 
 
 Oil this April morning Theo had dressed her- 
 self in a muslin that was a muslin of muslins, a 
 very miracle of clearness and fineness. It had a 
 white ground, powdered thickly with black dots- 
 that rendered the white ground' still clearer and 
 whiter, as does the patch on the cheek of beauty ; 
 over and above these black dots there was a 
 violet something that might be a leaf op a beetle, 
 or >* mere invention of the designer ; and the 
 effect of this, when hung upon Theo Leigh, and 
 tied in round her waist and neck and wrists, was 
 something that muslin might weE feel proud of 
 itself for attaining. 
 
 There had been a little comment at the break- 
 fast-table on this appearance of Theo when she 
 came down that morning so radiant with joy. 
 
 " Why, Theo ! how's this ? " her mother had 
 said ; and her father even had looked up proudly 
 at his darling, and rdbiarked, " Halloa, Theo ! 
 how fine you are ! " To which Theo had replied, 
 " It is so hot, you know, — not too hot at all, but 
 quite warm enough to make me take the coolest 
 dress I had into wear." As the coolest dress was 
 likewise uncommonly becoming, who could say 
 aught against the sdection, whatever the cause 
 of it? 
 
 They kept early hours at Houghton, and Theo 
 had plenty of time to feel remorse, and .cry, 
 Oh, file folly of it ! (as to the muslin) before Mr. 
 Ffrenoh sauntered up to borrow the " DoUond," 
 and beg a view of the German Ocean from their 
 house-top. When he came, remorse and bewail- 
 ings went by, and Theo gave him that mute vivid 
 welcome of which mention has before been made, 
 right freely, without a distracting thought. 
 
 It was a luscious morning, the first summer 
 day that Theo Leigh and Harold FfrenCh spent 
 together. What matter the girl being young and 
 Lthe man no longer so ? She had the heart of a 
 woman, and he the soul of a connoisseur for what- 
 ^S^ was beautiful in nature or art. That sum- 
 merimoming was luscious to them both, the 
 sweaness of it mounted like wine to their brains, 
 andioon it was a silent enjoyment of it that they 
 felt as they sat and rested on the bank of marsh 
 ruslres after the prolonged stroll, in the course of 
 whicli her little hand had more than once found 
 ng-plaCe and support on his arm. 
 
 H(iv came she to be out with this stranger 
 
 alone ? It would have been a breach of etiquette 
 had they been in a town, but in that rugged little 
 village, to defer to etiquette would have been a 
 profanation. He had asked Theo to go down and 
 look at the rising tide with him, and Theo had 
 gone without a word of objection, and remained 
 there in that open familiar solitude without a 
 particle of fear — a shadow of suspicion. 
 
 Nor was there cause for either. The most rigid 
 could have been defied to cast a stone at him for 
 what he had said to, and thought of, this girl, as 
 yet. There was no harm done, not a particle 
 that could have been taken hold of, as yet. He 
 had spoken to Theo Leigh of literature, of art, 
 of famous men and foreign places. Theo had 
 listened and thought it passing sweet, that was all. 
 He had said no word of love, he had refrained 
 from the slightest look of it. Through the whole 
 of that bright spring morning he had remembered 
 his own age and her youth, and some far more 
 insurmountable barrier than either to anything 
 but friendship between them. 
 
 But guarded as he was, that sunny morning 
 was very sweet to them both. 
 
 It was very pleasant to the girl, whose inter- 
 course alike with men and books had been rather 
 limited, to hear him speak of great names, which 
 were but names to her and nothing more. We 
 had no shilling magazines in those days, to keep 
 country people on terms of intimacy with those 
 who give us of their best in monthly parts. More- 
 over, there were no railway-station libraries, -and 
 lieutenants of coastguard stations were not likely 
 to be the possessors of an exhaustless choice of 
 books. Therefore was Theo's reading range a 
 limited one, and her longing for an extension of 
 it proportionately colosssd. 
 
 But all that she had found to read she had 
 read with understanding. The reading had been 
 desultory and promiscuous, but it had been dear 
 to her, and was consequently well remembered. 
 She was better up in Scott and James, in Bulwer 
 Lytton and Shelley, than Mr. Ffrench himself. 
 She was brimming over with quotations from 
 Shelley, in fact, and some of them in their fiery 
 force fell very strangely from her fresh young 
 mouth. She was wonderfully skilled in the art of 
 separating the moral from the merit, and dwell- 
 ing entirely on the latter. From her own frank 
 confession he leamtrthat she had seen little of 
 the world — nothing of " society," according to 
 his acceptation of the word. Yet her percep- 
 tive faculty enabled her to coin from the coarser 
 metal which had been around her tangibly, re- 
 sponses that were golden in the perfection of 
 their propriety to all he said, to all he sug- 
 
 Harold Ffrench found himself talking to Theo 
 as he had never talked to a woman before, and 
 yet his intercourse with her sex had been of no 
 restricted order. He had talked about love of- 
 ten, but he had kept what lore was his for the 
 solace of his solitary hours, for the benefit of his 
 few male friends. Never a woman had come 
 into his possession or crossed his path before 
 who had been capable or ambitious — ^which was 
 it ? — of making him feel that she was on a mental 
 equality with himself. They had been satisfied 
 with the manner of his words *ndthe languishing 
 of his eyes, and had lightly regarded his matter 
 and language. 
 
 But Thifo, clever in ■ her very ignorance, pan- 
 
?2 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 dered to his vanity unsuspectingly. She showed 
 such deep interest in what he said, that the 
 man could not but feel desirous of saying it well. 
 She kindled so brilliantly, that it was well 
 worth his while to strive to make her kindle 
 still more. He had an artist's soul and an 
 artist's eye, and was always on the look-out for 
 studies from nature. Theo was the fairest that 
 fate had thrown in his path for many a long 
 day. 
 
 Nature herself had a share in the evil that was 
 eventually wrought. Had April been herself this 
 year, he would have been chilled maybe into 
 prudence. But she was all smiles, all warm daz- 
 zling smiles and early fruit-blossoms and prema- 
 ture roses. All things develop more quickly 
 under the sun. The feeling that would have been 
 long in maturing itself in a dull small room by a 
 fire that woxild never burn properly by reason of 
 its being suffered to get very low indeed, because 
 it might " come warm in the afternoon," — ^the 
 feelmg that would have been of slow growth 
 under these circumstances, sprang up speedily in 
 the chequered shade, in the hum of sun-born in- 
 sects, and the fragrance of sun-bom flowers. 
 The day, the hour, were enough for the ^rl. All 
 joy, all that made her know how sweet a thing 
 life was, pervaded her spirit in his presence, and 
 iu her ecstasy of bliss she took no heed of what 
 the morrow might bring forth. And he ! Who 
 can tell " what idle dream, what lighter thought, 
 what vanity full dearly bought, joined to her 
 eyes' dark witchcraft," chained him to the village 
 in which Theo Leigh underwent her transforma- 
 tion ? 
 
 For chained there he was, apparently ; he took 
 a sketch of " the Point " the second day of his 
 sojourn at Houghton, and when that was done, 
 there was no good and valid reason why he 
 should have remained there any longer. But 
 still he stayed on yet another day, ajid yet anoth- 
 er, till the days grew into a week, and the week 
 into a fortnight, and at the end of the fortnight 
 he called Miss Leigh " Theo " in a tone that 
 made her love her name. 
 
 The cold in clime axe cold in blood, 
 
 — their love is scarcely worth the name ; — will all 
 my English readers feel disapprovingly towards 
 my heroine because this loVe of hers was no time- 
 ripened one, but a thing that flooded her soul 
 like a sun-burst in a moment? I own that it 
 was reprehensible not to put out the light for 
 sweet prudence' sake for awhile ; but she did not, 
 she could not. The statement is true, and must 
 stand : at the end of a fortnight Harold Ffrench 
 called Miss Leigh " Theo," and Theo rejoicpd in 
 his so calling her. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 KATE GAITON. 
 
 That letter — successor to the one whose com- 
 position cost Harold lYrench so much care and 
 thought — which we saw last in the hands of the 
 trusty idler at Houghton, arrived at its destina- 
 tion about ten o'clock on the following morning, 
 and was read by its recipient over her solitary 
 breakfast-table. 
 
 "How disgusting of Harold!" was her excla- 
 
 mation, as she concluded the perusal of the 
 epistle, which ran as follows : — 
 
 " Roiighton, Bih April, 1861. 
 
 " Dear Kate, — The headland will be the very 
 thing for our picture. I shall have to avail my- 
 self of the courtesy of the officer in command of 
 the station here in order to get put over to the 
 beach. By the way, he happens curiously enough 
 to have been in Greece with me. 
 
 " I wish you would show any civility you can 
 to his wife and daughter. I think they would 
 like to see the Grange, and to know you ; and as 
 Mr. Leigh intends taJimg his httle girl to town in 
 May, you might act as her chaperone'if you knew 
 her before. Couldn't you call ? 
 " Yours always, 
 
 " Harold Ffeenoh." 
 
 " How disgusting of Harold ! he doesn't say 
 a word about coming back here. No, I won't call 
 on his friends ; I'll see them' anywhere flrst." 
 
 She was a very pretty woman, this cousin of 
 Mr. Ffrench's, of whom he had said to himself 
 that it would please her to please him. A fair, 
 tall woman of thirty, with loosely arranged nut- 
 brown hair, and liquid blue eyes, and an animated 
 face. A pretty woman and a fascinating one — 
 not the ideal British matron, but still a mighty 
 pleasant one if nothing that was very dear to you 
 was in her keeping. 
 
 " Dull as I am here ! so heartless of him," she 
 muttered^ after once more reading the letter; 
 " men are so horribly selfish." Then a few tears 
 of weariness and spite welled up into her liquid 
 blue eyes, and Mrs. Galton rose up and walked to 
 the window. 
 
 It was a French window, and it opened on a 
 flight of steps which led down into a garden, 
 gorgeous even at that early season with the bright- 
 est flowers. Beyond the flower beds and the lawn 
 there was an invisible feffce and a ha-ha, and away 
 from this a timbered meadow that kept up the 
 park-like and pleasure ground appearance of the 
 place. 
 
 By-and-by across that meadow and over the 
 ha-ha and over the lawn and up the steps came a 
 man, whose progress towards her she watched in- 
 differently at first, and then with contemptuous 
 eyes. But as he came near enough to read them, 
 Kate banished the contempt, and reinstated the 
 normal expression of innocence so successfully 
 that Mr. Galton had not the slightest occasion to 
 be dissatisfied with his wife's matutinal welcome. 
 
 " I'm sorry I could not get down in time to 
 pour out your coffee, dear," she said, holding up 
 her cheek to be kissed as he entered. He was a 
 tall, well-looking man of five or six and thirty, 
 with a florid, good-tempered face, and close-crop- 
 ped auburn hair and whiskers. 
 
 " Look here : don't pore over your painting to- 
 day," he said, blithely: " Come out with me ; I 
 want to go to Norwich to look at a young horf 
 Jack Able has, and I thought I'd drive you aq^lffie 
 kid, if you'd go." 7 
 
 "Much toSlong a ride for that child, Bohn. 
 I'll go with you, of course. As to the painting, 
 I'm sick of it." 
 
 "Already?" 
 
 She looked up into his eyes and laughed. 
 
 "I do tire of most things soon, don't I, 
 dear?" 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 18 
 
 ' ' As Haveraham and I are not amongst them 
 I can't say I care very much." He bent over her 
 and kissed ber as he ssud these words ; his brow 
 was wet with the exertion of walking rapidly 
 home over rough fields to tell her of his plan for 
 the day as soon as he had formed it, and the em- 
 brace with which he accompanied- the kiss was a 
 rough one. 
 
 The woman he embraced and kissed so confid- 
 ingly would have deceived the Father of Deceit 
 himself had he come in her way. John Galton's 
 salute revolted her, but she checked all outward 
 signs of it, and replied, 
 
 " Tired of you and of Haversham ! — ^my dear 
 John, tired of heaven and happiness sooner. But 
 listen here. Couldn't we get up something that 
 would amuse that poor cousin of mine? We 
 bored him, dear, evidently, with our conjugali- 
 ties, for I have had a letter from him this morn- 
 ing, bemoaning, as usual : a plague he is, isn't 
 he?" ' 
 
 "I don't see why you need plague yourself 
 about him." 
 
 "No, I needn't, as far as duty goes; for he 
 isn't my brother, though I've always looked upon 
 his as one ; but he has always been most affection- 
 ate and generous to me, and I should like to see 
 him happy." 
 
 "Well, what does he want now? " 
 " He doesn't ' want ' — that is, he doesn't say 
 that he wants anything ; but he's evidently bored 
 where he is— at some dirty ion in a dirty village ; 
 and he doesn't seem to like to come here, poor 
 fellow, without an excuse. I wish you would 
 give him one,, John." 
 
 " Pooh ! An excuse — what can he want of an 
 excuse for coming to a house where he has al- 
 ways been made welcome ? " 
 
 " Ah ! but that's been by me, and I am his sis- 
 ter — I mean his cousin, you know. You must 
 write and ask him to come back to help you 
 in something, that will make him think that you 
 really want him, and that you don't only tolerate 
 him because you're fond of me." 
 
 " I daresay he's happy enough where he is ; if 
 he were not, he'd go somewhere else." 
 
 " No, he isn't happy, John. His letter (I wish 
 I had not torn it up) is written in such a doleful 
 strain ; do get him back here." 
 
 " I have notUng more alluring to hold out 'to 
 him than the prospect of seeing the hay cut by- 
 and-by, and the young horse I'm going to Able 
 about to-day broken." 
 
 " You dear old dunderhead ! Shall / write 
 then, and put it to him nicely ? " 
 
 " Yes, do, there's a darljng. And I say, Kate, 
 Where's the kid? I have not seen her to- 
 day." 
 
 " Out in the garden, I hope, this fine morning 
 
 — in the south garden, deay,; if you'll go and 
 
 look for Bijou I will write to poor Harold, and be 
 
 \ready to go to Norwich with you in half an 
 
 Aen the husband and wife separated, he to 
 loo^br his child, she to write to her cousin to 
 whom she would not have written without her 
 husb|nd's sanction— for Kate Galton was very 
 wary^ 
 
 Wp-y even in her treatment of the husband 
 upon whom such wariness was thrown away, for 
 it waai^n his nature to trust blindly and wholly 
 when he loved. Wary in her present conduct to- 
 
 wards the man who had failed her as cousin, 
 friend, lover, and to whom she had beSh most un- 
 guardedly frank in the past. If experience had 
 not taught this woman anything else, it had taught 
 her to be most wondrously cautious ; cautious, 
 that is, about many things— about the majority of 
 her acts and the whole of her correspondence. 
 Of her spoken words she took less heed, provid- 
 ed none other than the one to whom they were 
 specially addressed were by. But in her letters 
 she mas careful, very careful. 
 
 Fourteen years before, when she was a girl of 
 sixteen, very vain and very impressionable, her 
 cousin Harold Ffrench had come back to England 
 after a prolonged absence, during which he had 
 been a myth to her, so little had his family heard 
 of his doings. But when she was sixteen, Hai?old 
 came home and took up his residence at her 
 father's house, and devoted himself in a sort of 
 elder-brotherly way to his cousin Kate. 
 
 The elder-brotherly manner, admirably as it 
 was designed and carried out, broke down after a 
 period. Kate's cheek did not naturally " grow 
 pale and thinner than was well for one so young," 
 nor did her eye hang with a mute observance on 
 all his motions, but she grew desperately fond of 
 him, and showed it in her own way ; and he, be- 
 ing unable either to reciprocate fully or to tear 
 himself from the girl who was developing fresh 
 fascinations every day, tried to cure her with calm- 
 ness ; and he failed. 
 
 His habits of intimate intercourse with her had 
 come on so gradually that at the end of three 
 years he was startled to find that others — ^their re- 
 lations, mutual friends, the world at large indeed 
 — were deceived into supposing that which he had 
 sedulously refrained from giving the girl herself 
 just cause for supposing. Candid as he had been 
 with her-^for up to a certain point he had been 
 very candid with his pretty cousin — ^he was fain 
 to confess that he had been very injudicious — as 
 injudicious as the girl herself; and that, consider- 
 ing how much she knew, how well she was cau- 
 tioned, was saying not a little. But this confes- 
 sion to his own heart and to her did not mend 
 matterSj for Kate refused to aid him in making it 
 patent that it had been in all fraternal kindness, 
 and nothing more, this iatimacy of theirs. Young 
 girl as she was, she was very wary even then ;j,nd 
 she thought that the world's opinion might do 
 what her charms had been powerless to effect — ■ 
 namely, coerce him into a course of conduct in 
 which there would be both wrong and risk. 
 
 " What is it that makes yon eternally swear 
 that you never can be more than a brother tome, 
 Harold ? " die asked him once. " I will look over 
 the impertinence, if you will tell me the cause. Is 
 it that you care more for another woman ? " " 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Don't tempt me, Kate — for your own sake." 
 « Not tempt you to tell ?— but I will, dear. If 
 you had commenced your cautions at an earlier 
 - stage, I might have accepted them and your resolve 
 in silence ; but, after letting people tiiink for so 
 long that we are engaged, I think I ought to be 
 told the reason why we cannot be." 
 
 " I didn't mean don't tempt me to tell that ; but 
 don't tempt me in any other *-ay. My fate is 
 devilish hard as it is, without a girl like yourself 
 showing me constantly how much brighter it 
 might be." 
 
 Harold Ffrench had been more winning hand- 
 
14 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 some and attractive when he said this than at the 
 later date when I introduced him and Theo Leigh 
 to my readera. He might have won the heart of 
 the hardest in these earlier days, had he essayed to 
 do so. Hi.'? cousin Kate was a vain girl ; not one 
 burdened with deep feeling, but she was young 
 and impressionable, and ^e abominated being 
 baffled. She knew that he liked her, and that he 
 was better looking than any other of her acquaint- 
 ances she Ukened him to. So when he pleaded 
 that she should not tempt him, and declared that 
 his fate was hard already, she grew very daring 
 — daring as only an insatiably vain, cool-headed, 
 nnimpassloned woman may be with impunity. 
 
 " Harold, I could bear anything — ^I could stand 
 
 anything for you or from you," she exclaimed ; 
 
 and her looks were more eloquent than her words. 
 
 " Tou don't know what you are saying, Kate," 
 
 he replied, almost coldly. 
 
 " Yes, I do ; I know full well what I am say- 
 ing, and I mean it." 
 
 Then, despite the dangerous flattery contained 
 in those words, and that meaning of hers, this 
 man, who was no better and no worse than 
 thousands of his class and age, said words for her 
 good that were very hard to utter to so fair, so 
 winning a woman. 
 
 " My dear Kate, how you have deceived your- 
 self and me for four years." 
 "Deceived you? No." 
 " Indeed you have, to the extent of making me 
 believe that you really loved me, and almost 
 making yourself believe it too. Accept the 
 tribute of my unbounded astonishment and ad- 
 nuration. I had no idea you were a young lady 
 of such resource." Then he added, fearing that 
 she might press him again on this point, and 
 judging that the cause justified a Uttle bitter- 
 ness: 
 
 " little Kate, forgive me if I am bitter, but 
 you have shown me what I ought to have known 
 before — that all women are as deceitful as the 
 devil. You might as well have let me think well 
 of you." Then he muttered words to the effect 
 that " women had been his bane, some with the 
 love they bore him, and others with their hate," 
 the sound of which reached Kate's ears. 
 
 "Don't trouble yourself to taunt in poetry; 
 that's not necessary for my complete cure," she 
 said in a tone that made Harold exclaim, " Gad ! 
 you cold-blooded women have the best of it. Wo- 
 men are as deceitful as the devil. Curse it, 
 you might as well have let me think well of 
 yoay 
 
 Shortly after this conversation, Harold Ffrench 
 had gone away roaming no one knew whither 
 again, and soon after his departure Kate went 
 down to stay at Newmarket for the race week. 
 She was in rare spirits and high beauty at the 
 time, for Harold's abrupt departure was attri- 
 buted to her having refused him. This created a 
 fictitious interest in the minds of men about her, 
 and brought her a certain popularity that was 
 as pleasant to her vanity as had been Harold's 
 love. At Newmarket, the chief object of inter- 
 est was the winner of the " cup," " Beelzebub ; " 
 and next in order of the talked-about was "Beel- 
 zebub's " owner and breeder, a Mr. Galton, a Nor- 
 folk squire who lived on his own estate, and just 
 escaped being a county man. 
 
 He was a pleasant, good-tempered, good-look- 
 ing man, "not too intelligent, Kate thought, but 
 
 not stupid by any means, for he soon made it 
 evident to the young lady herself, and all around, 
 that he admired her very much. Had he not 
 been the chief object of interest in that sporting 
 circle, through being "Beelzebub's" owner, Kate 
 would have turned up her nose at him. As it 
 was, she was gracious andmerciful, and fanned the 
 flame which was palpably consuming him. It oc- 
 curred to her that it would be rather pleasant than 
 otherwise to be the mistress of a house, the owner 
 of which had a name in the sporting world, and 
 bred winning horses. He had a " colt in training 
 for the Derby next year," he told her, and Kate 
 saw herself in an elegantly appointed carriage, re- 
 ceiving the congratulations of all that was fastest 
 and most horsey in the Peerage on that colt's 
 prowess. John Galton looked such a big, amiable 
 fellow, that he would be as easily managed as a 
 Newfoundland dog, she thought. Above all, she 
 did not want Harold Ffrench to come back and 
 find her unmarried. 
 
 So she married Mr. Galton, and went down, 
 after her wedding tour, for what she meant to be 
 a brief sojourn at Haversham Grange. But when 
 she mooted the question of leaving it, and going 
 in search of the gaiety and society for which she 
 pined, she found that her husband, though ami- 
 able and attached to her, had a will of his own 
 that she could not break. He was well off — ^well 
 enough off to live like a gentleman upon his own 
 estate, and to indulge in aU the sports and pastimes 
 of his county. But he was not a rich man, and 
 he had not the smallest inclination to dissipate 
 what he had in doing what he didn't care to do, 
 namely, going to town in the season, and seeking 
 ingress^to the ranks of those amongst whom his 
 wife so miich desired to shine. 
 
 "Are we to live all the year round at the 
 Grange, dear John ? " she had asked. 
 
 " Well, I suppose you'll want to keep up your 
 town habits and go to the seaside in August, 
 Kate. We'll go to Cromer next year ; Cromer 
 is as nice a place, to my mind, as Brighton." 
 
 " Very well, we'll go there," she replied, for in 
 all things she resolved to agree with him verbally. 
 Nevertheless she had her own will about the soli- 
 tary annual outing. It was to Brighton they 
 always went for the sea air ; at Cromer, and in- 
 deed every other dull place, Mrs. Galton was in- 
 variably at death's door. 
 
 It was at Brighton that, some nine years after 
 her marriage, she again met her cousin Harold. 
 They elected to ignore the circumstances that at- 
 tended their parting, and met as cousins should 
 meet after such a long absence. She was on the 
 pier alone when he saw her first, and he asked 
 for her husband and her child with a promptitude 
 that must have deen delightful to her wifely and 
 maternal heart. 
 
 " I hear you're married to the best fellow in 
 the world, Kate : where is he ? Ydu must intro- , 
 duee me to him and to your little daughter." jj 
 
 " My big daughter, if you please, Katy is 
 eight "years old ; as to my husband, I shall lAde- 
 lighted to introduce you to his goodneS^on 
 which you must excuse me if I don't expatiate 
 further. I have so many opportunities of Study- 
 ing it uninterruptedly at Haversham all th^'year, 
 that I prefer a change of subject during my month 
 at Brighton, Tell me what ' you have been 
 about, and where you have been all thesf;years, 
 Harold." 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 16 
 
 "I cau more easily tell you where I have not 
 been ; but I am tired of wandering, and having 
 met with unpleasantness in most other places, I 
 have come to the conclusion that ' England, with 
 all thy faults I love thee still,' and that I may as 
 well give my own land a benefit. I see you're 
 looking at me and thinking what an old fellow 
 I have grown, Kate, while you are in a better 
 bloom than when I saw you last. See what it is 
 to be mai'ried and happy ! " 
 
 " About my being married there is no doubt ; 
 as to the other thing — well, the leSs said the bet- 
 ter. 'Twas not love made me marry John Gal- 
 ton, as you'll believe when you see him; I speak 
 to you as to a brother, you see." 
 
 " And I'll return the complunent and speak to- 
 you as I would to a sister. Keep your reasons, 
 whatever they are, to yourself, and make com- 
 plaints to no man. Is your child pretty ? " 
 
 " Some people think her lovely," Mrs. Galton 
 answered, glancing at her cousin through her 
 languishing lashes. "Do you remember what 
 / was when you came home the first time, 
 Harold?" 
 
 " Perfectly well." 
 
 "Katy is very much like what I was then; 
 people say she will never have a something in her 
 manner that I have, but still she is like me— or 
 rather like what I was when you came home, the 
 first time." 
 
 " Kather a forward little girl of eight to be like 
 you at sixteen. You were an uncommonly grown- 
 up young lady then, Kate. So your friends say 
 she lacks the charm of hei" mamma's manner. 
 Well, I daresay she will get on very well without 
 "it." Then, seeing her look a little chagrined, he 
 added : " You get too many compliments to need 
 them from me; besides, they're not current coin 
 between brother and sister, you know, and such 
 are to be our relations." 
 
 After this meeting at Brighton the Galtons saw 
 a good deal of Harold Ffrench. Kate was his 
 sole surviving female relative, and he had a cer- 
 tain tenderness for her very faults which was due 
 to that nameless something in her manner, which 
 little Katy lacked. He liked her husband too, 
 liked him for his good-heartedness and confiding 
 trust in everybody, and his happy habit of seeing 
 the 6est that can be seen on all occasions. It was 
 true that John Galton was not much of a com- 
 panion for the travelled, accomplished gentleman, 
 who had cultivated his ear, and eye, and taste 
 assiduously for years, in the best schools for such 
 cultivation that Europe offered, in the hope of 
 deadening his heart. That he had not succeeded 
 in sp deadening it utterly was shown in this fact, 
 that he was alive to John Galton's somewhat 
 rough merit. "An honest man's the noblest 
 wifrk of God," he said one day to Kate, pointing 
 out as he spoke the burly form of her good-na- 
 tured husband, who was turning himself into a 
 
 last of burden for his child's amusement. 
 
 What a pity it is you women never think so." 
 , "^ prefer art to honesty. Come in, Harold, 
 inalet us get on with our bay. I want you to 
 rive #iy waves a second painting : they won't 
 come tight." 
 
 " You promised to stay out all the morning 
 with ?;aty." ^ 
 
 " Oh, leave th^resome brat with her father ! 
 U shall get daggers in my head if I stay out here 
 i|n the sun. And I'm so interested in my picture," 
 
 So they went away into Harold's temporary 
 studio together, and her brush went freely over 
 the canvas on which she was reproducing his 
 nearly finished picture. 
 
 " TJpon my word you've caught my touch won- 
 derfully, Kate," he said, coniipg up to her easel, 
 and looking at her effort with the admiration one 
 is apt to bestow upon a tolerably accurate copy 
 of one's own original ide?,; "it's a pity, though, 
 you didn't tackle something higher." 
 
 " Something higher ? " 
 
 "Yes, a Landseer, or a Sir Joshua, or an 
 ' original picture," he said, suggesting the widely 
 different subjects recklessly. "By Jove! Kate, 
 why not an original picture ? " 
 
 " I should fiiil, Harold," Mrs. Galton replied, 
 softly. " I shall never paint, never copy any- 
 thing but yours." 
 
 This took place, a day or two before Harold 
 Ffrench went away to Houghton, where he met 
 Theo Leigh. He discovered immediately after 
 it that to give reality to the headland which he 
 desired to introduce into his picture, he must 
 paint from nature and not trust to his imagina- 
 tion ; that had run away with him on former oc- 
 casions, he said, and should never be relied upon 
 again. 
 
 Kate was not precisely displeased at his flight 
 — ^for his departure was of the character of a 
 flight, it was so abrupt, so unexpected. She 
 chose to take it as a confesaon of weakness on 
 Harold's part ; and she liked men to be, and feel, 
 and show themselves weak on her account. 
 
 He would soon be back again, she told herself; 
 such flights were never for long ; her falcon would 
 come back, and her jesses would be upon .him 
 again stronger than before. 
 
 Aye, stronger than before, for he had slipped 
 those jesses once, when to wear them would have 
 been no shame to her. Now he had come back 
 and fitted them on himself again, and is not the 
 relapse invariably worse than the first disease ? 
 So for a few days the thoughts of him filled her 
 leisure sufficiently, and prevented her finding her 
 husband and child more than ordinarily tedious 
 and boring. But after a few days — after the re- 
 ceipt of that letter, they grew extraordinarily so ; 
 and Kate Galton waxed pettis^and found as little 
 pleasure in her painting as a^pt else that Hav- 
 ersham could offer her. But still, though she 
 pined for Harold Pfrench's company, she was 
 such a prudent woman that she would not seem 
 to seek it by obeying his request and going to 
 call on those friends he had made at Houghton. 
 Come what would, wary. Mrs. Galton resolved 
 that the surface should show that Harold had al- 
 ways sought her with her husband's permission — 
 never that she had sought Harold, unless re- 
 quested by John Galton to do so. 
 
 So, while she was hourly expecting Harold 
 back the days passed and May came in, and there 
 was commotion up in London about the great 
 Exhibition, and all the wonders It contained, and " 
 all the visitors whom those wonders drew to our 
 shores. Mrs. Galton waxed very pettish indeed 
 now, for her husband kept on asking her what 
 day " she'd like to go to town ; " and she felt, 
 that she would not like to go to town at all until 
 she knew whether Harold would be there with 
 her or not, for London with John Galton alone 
 was not to her taste. There had been no letter 
 from Harold in reply to that one in which she 
 
16 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 had anawered hia request by simply entreating 
 him to " come back to Harersbam, as John wanted 
 him very much." At length she gave up ex- 
 pecting such letter, and cleverly lured her hua- 
 band on to asking her to go to Houghton. 
 
 " John, do you know that Harold has found 
 some old friends at Houghton, some man he 
 knew abroad somewhere, with a nice wife ? I'm 
 so glad of it, I wish he'd bring them here." 
 
 " When did you hear this ? " 
 
 " In that letter I had from him he told me — 
 I've only had that one. There's a daughter in 
 the case, and Harold asks me to be kind to her 
 in London ; her father is going to take her up to 
 see the Exhibition." 
 
 "That's right," John Galton said heartily : he 
 was always ready to enter into anything of this 
 sort with what his wife termed vulgar avidity. 
 " That's right. Lor ! you should have looked 
 them up before now, Kate. Drive over and see 
 them, and ask the young lady over here." 
 
 " It's a long drive, John." 
 
 "Nothing for your pony ; he don't get half 
 exercise enough." 
 
 "Very well, dear," Mrs. Galton said meekly; 
 she had determined on going as sOon as it be- 
 came patent to her that Harold was disinclined 
 to come hack to her, but she was also deter- 
 mined that her husband should tell her to go. It 
 should appear that he was cognizant of every- 
 thing, whatever happened. Accordingly, now 
 that he told her to drive over to Houghton, she 
 amiably arrayed herself in a blue bonnet that 
 would have been too decided in colour had all 
 the rest of her dress not been black, and drove 
 over. 
 
 CHAPTER IT 
 
 " THEO ! POEGIVE ME." 
 
 Confidential intercourse between Harold 
 Ffreneh and Theo Leigh was of less frequent oc- 
 currence at this date than it had been a few days 
 previously ; for May, as I have said, had come 
 in, and with it the necessity for a re-organization 
 of Theo's wardro]^ before she could be pro- 
 nounced ready tSJPgo to London. It rather 
 shaded over the vivid charm Houghton had pos- 
 sessed for him before this exigency arose — but 
 there was no help for it. Theo was very deeply 
 and naturally interested in the fit and make of 
 her new dresses— interested to the point of work- 
 ing upon them herself. The fact was that Miss 
 Leigh was anxious to appear in his eyes better 
 adorned, but that he did not know. - Consequently 
 he detested the new dresses, and began to find 
 Houghton dull. 
 
 But despite this temporary check to solitary 
 intercourse he lingered on in the place still, and 
 sedulously stifled the conviction that it would be 
 well for him to go. He had come upon this oasis 
 in the desert of his life by accident ; he woiild 
 just for awhile tent upon it, and then, before he 
 had brushed the bloom off its verdure, drift on 
 and be forgotten by her. 
 
 "I should be a beast to try and make the girl 
 love me," he would say. The saying this seemed 
 to relieve his conscience, and to be regarded by 
 him as an all-sufficient precautions For after 
 saying it in the solitude of his chamber at the 
 
 Bull, he would go up and sit by Theo's side, and 
 suffer the girl to see that she had won his affec- 
 tions ; which was not the wisest course to pur- 
 sue, if he really wished to avoid the other ca- 
 tastrophe — ^that, namely, of winning her to love 
 him. 
 
 He was assisting largely in the pavement of a 
 certain place at this juncture. Daily he made 
 the good resolution to go away and be forgotten 
 by, even if he could not forget, this girl ; daily 
 he suffered this good resolution to die away un- 
 accomplished. The middle of May was upon 
 them, and he was at Houghton stUl. 
 
 He had been sitting for an hour or two one 
 morning up in the Leighs' garden, near to the 
 open window by which Mrs. Leigh and Theo sat 
 working-^sitting there idly, watching the girl and 
 dreaming of bygone days, and events that had 
 occurred in them. Idly dreaming, and even more 
 idly wishing that those days might be lived over 
 again — ^when he would have acted differently, 
 ah ! how differently. 
 
 " Can you put that finery out of yout mind 
 for an hour this evening, and take a walk with 
 me, Theo?" he asked, when divers sighs made it 
 msmifest to him that the Leighs' dinner hour was 
 approaching. Theo Was prompt with her answer 
 that " she would gladly." 
 
 " What the deuce did I ask her to go for ? " he 
 asked himself as he walked down to the Bull. 
 ", What can I say that will be pleasant for her to 
 hear, that I hadn't better leave unsaid?" But 
 still, though be thus questioned himself, he held 
 to his resolve to take-that walk with Theo — and 
 to say what should be pleasant to her during it. 
 
 There was the unwonted presence of a well- 
 built little pony-phaeton in the inn-yard, but he 
 did not regand it much — ^he was thinking of other 
 tMngs than that, which caused no small excite- . 
 ment to the usual knot of village idlers lounging 
 round. But he was roused from his meditations 
 about these other things by the landlord coming 
 to meet him with the information that "a lady 
 was ar-waitin' for him in the parlour," and by the 
 sight of his cousin Kate Galton's boy in buttons, 
 the smart and invariable appendage to her pony- 
 earriage. 
 
 "Halloa, Mrs. Galton! — my dear Kate, I am 
 very sorry that you should have had to wait here 
 alone for me," he said as he entered the room 
 where Kate sat on a hard sofa, poking holes in a 
 soft slightly decayed carpet, wilii her parasol. 
 
 " Nevermind — as you have come in atjast," 
 she replied. There was a good deal of grace in 
 the welooHuug gesture she made, and a good deal 
 of affection in the tone she adopted. k 
 
 " I didn't expect you, you see, Kate, after yiBur 
 note ; if I had dreamt of your coming I shomd 
 have taken the precaution of leaving word wheSo 
 I was going when I went out, in order thatll 
 might have been sent for if you came." *j 
 
 " Could you have been sent for ? I thougmt 
 yoii were mudlarking." l* 
 
 " Not exactly — I was up at the Leighs'." i^\ 
 
 " I have come to call on your friends, HijttoldJ , 
 I refused to come at first on account of tlJB disJ , 
 tance solely ; but when John said I liad better!' 
 come over and look you up, and persuade you to/ 
 come back to Haversham, I made up my mind tol 
 call on them as well." .9 I 
 
 " Tour husband's very good, and so are you,''/ 
 and then he got up and rang the bell, and asked '. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 17 
 
 what she could eat and what they could have for 
 luncheon f Then, on the cessation of the small 
 fuss he himself had made, he continued — 
 
 " Very good Indeed, Kate, to come over in 
 this way. I wanted to introduce you to them, 
 because Leigh takes his daughter to town soon, 
 and I thought if you were there at the same time 
 you might give her a good deal of pleasure she 
 wouldn't otherwise get, and secure a very agree- 
 able companion for yourself." 
 
 "Thank you; I dorft find the society of my 
 own Katy so enthralling but what I can dispense 
 with it in London." 
 
 " Katy ! Katy's a child." 
 
 " Tou called your friend's daughter ' a little 
 girl ' in your note, Harold," she said, with a quiet 
 little smile of malicious satisfaction overspreading 
 her face as she spoke. Kate delighted in finding 
 every one out, even Harold Ffrenoh. 
 
 " Ah, well, so she is a little girl to an old buflFer 
 like myself; we'll go up there after we have had 
 some Woheon, and then you'll see Theo for 
 yourself. How gets on the painting ? " 
 
 " Not at all well ; it won't come right at all. 
 Tou must come back with me, Harold, and. set 
 me going again." 
 
 "I can't go back with you to-day." 
 
 "Why not?" she asked impatiently ; she had 
 set her mind on taking him back in triumph, and 
 she could ill bear to be baulked. " Why not ? " 
 
 " It would be hard on the pony." 
 
 " If it's only on the pony that it would be hard, 
 your leaving Houghton so suddenly, banish all 
 scruple. Fidget js s8P'full of com, little beast, 
 that he wants ' a deatfrxaken out of him,' as John 
 says ; it won't be a bit too much fof the pony." 
 
 " But it will be tog mjioh for me, to make up 
 my mind and pack and be off is such a way ; 
 
 be at your service to- 
 
 J;hat content you ? " 
 
 .ST^ered, rightly oon- 
 
 tllough she spoke 
 
 .1 loir her that this 
 
 'old Ffrench had made 
 
 'at more to do with his 
 
 oughtonT;han had the 
 
 8 man whom he had known 
 
 llage seems," she said 
 ' walking up to the 
 
 can't do it, 
 morrow in 
 
 "It 
 tinping' 
 lightly, 
 " little 
 such 
 unwillf 
 presence 
 In Greece." j!^ 
 
 "Delectable plai 
 with a sneer, whei 
 Leighs' after luncl 
 
 " I thought yoiUn^fflH," he replied, care' 
 lessly ; " the whole onRias turned out in ad- 
 miration of you and your blue bonnet." 
 
 " Does Miss Theo Leigh run about without 
 one then?" 
 
 " Oh, no, but hers is of a different order of 
 architecture altogether." 
 
 " The cottage, I suppose. Well, Harold, I 
 shall not think much of your consideration for 
 fey pleasure if you have lured me on to calling 
 on a rustic who'll grab at the chance of sad- 
 ' dling me with her country bumpkin ideas in 
 London." 
 le lauL 
 
 J You're not. likely to admire her, Kate, but 
 I fc't think she'll strike you as a country bump- 
 kin." 
 
 '.'Why am I not likely to admire her if she's 
 admirable ? Do you ? " 
 
 f Do you ever admire any other woman than 
 Mrs. John Galton ? / admire her, do you ask ? 
 2 
 
 I have given up such things, Kate, or I ought to 
 have given them up. Here we are." 
 
 Theo was not a country bumpkin ; Mrs. Galton 
 was fain to confess that she was not, as Miss 
 Leigh met half Vf ay the kindly courtesy that none 
 knew better than Kate how to evince. She was 
 not a country bumpkin, but she was something 
 else quite as ruffling to Mrs. Galton's feelings ; — 
 keenly alive to Harold Ffreuoh's merit, and inost 
 flattermgly unable to resist making it clear to the 
 eye of the beholder that she was what she seemed 
 to be. 
 
 Her good looks, or rather that same charm 
 which was commented upon a few chapters ago, 
 did not occur very vividly to Kate Galton. She 
 saw in Theo Leigh a nice lady-like girl enough, 
 nothing more. Lady-like, but unformed in man- 
 ner, the fascinating Mrs. Galton declared to her- 
 self, " too small to be fine, and too dark to be 
 pretty." A very feeble rival, as far as Harold 
 Ffrench was concerned. 
 
 For still — ^married woman, blameless matron, 
 wary wife as she was — ^she could but think of 
 possible rivalship in connection with any other 
 woman whom Harold knew and liked. His heart 
 in the depths of her own she acknowledged that 
 she had never touched.' But his fancy had owned 
 her its cherished queen once, and she desired 
 that it should do so again. 
 
 Despite this desire though, she contrived- to 
 make herself very agreeable to the Leighs, and 
 especially to Theo, and this as much from the 
 force of that good breeding which was second 
 nature to her, as from the deceit th^t was second 
 nature also. Theo delighted in her, in her softly 
 spoken words and graceful manners, and the 
 refinement of her fair expressive face, and the 
 elegance jmd general becomingness of her dress, 
 Mrs. Galton strove to please the girl, as she did 
 to please every one with whom she came in con- 
 tact for a time. She succeeded. Theo, always 
 enthusiastic, was not'only pleased but charmed. 
 
 Kate had " a way with her," undoubtedly a 
 way that few had ever withstood, at first. She 
 had that sort of insight into character which 
 enables one to detect the most easily worked 
 upon of people's idiosyncrasies, and when she 
 detected one she worked it cleverly when it 
 suited her : flattered the vanity of the vain, and 
 the folly of the fool, and was deferential to the 
 wisdom of those who were wise in their own 
 conceit. Gave her pretty sparkling dross freely 
 in fact, for awhile, in exchange for that special 
 form of it without a profusion of which life would 
 have been odious to her, namely, admiration, real 
 or affected. 
 
 She did npt make any overtures of an intro-. 
 duction to Haversham and the picture, but that, 
 as Harold" Ffrenoh told. Theo afterwards, " was 
 because she takes it so thoraugliy for granted , 
 that you'll call,'' biit she said several sentences 
 expressive of a wish to. see Miss Leigh when 
 they should both be in London together. Theo 
 felt well disposed towards the prospect which 
 savoured of future intimate intercourse with 
 Harold Ffrench's cousin. 
 
 "She's a charming woman. So kind of her 
 tct,say she hopes to have Theo with her a great 
 deal in tgwn ; and how affectionately she spoke 
 of her own little girl," Mrs. Leigh observed to 
 her husband when the visit was over, and Theo 
 had walked out to the gate with the visitors. 
 
18 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 " I don't like the woman," Mr. Leigh replied 
 shortly. 
 
 '' Not like her ! I can't think how you can say 
 so ; she has the sweetest manner." 
 
 " Beastly sweet, I thought. No, I don't like 
 her, and I don't want Theo to see much of her in 
 London." 
 
 "She'll be a most desirable acquaintance for 
 Theo, and after her kindness in coming all this 
 distance, to call on us, we can't do otherwise 
 than be friendly with her." 
 
 " You don't suppose that she came to call on 
 you?" 
 
 "ilfr. Leigh!" 
 
 " Why she came after Ffrench, to be sure." 
 Mr. Leigh said, laughing. " She came after 
 Ffrench as sure as there's a nose on my face. 
 I can't bear the woman with her smirks, and her 
 leers, and her mincing way of speaking." 
 
 As he concluded his denunciation Theo rushed 
 in again, animated, brilliant, happy. 
 
 " Isn't she charming f I like her so much. 
 And isn't it kind, papa, to say she'll be civil to 
 me in London, where I don't know anybody, you 
 kuow?" 
 
 " I daresay she's all very well," Mr. Leigh 
 replied ; he was more reserved in his expression 
 of opinion on the subject of woman before his 
 daughter than before his wife, naturally. It was 
 only at second-hand that Theo came to a knowl- 
 edge of his sentiments. "I daresay she's all 
 very well ; as to her promises of being civil in 
 town, she'll most likely not keep them, so I 
 would advise you not to count on them." 
 
 " Oh, papa, that's horribly suspicious : ' have 
 faith in one another,' as Arthur Manby sings. 
 1 shall count on her keeping her promises, 
 of course I shall. How did you like her, mam- 
 ma ? " 
 
 " Very much. Indeed." 
 
 "So did I. And her dress — did you notice 
 her dress? It hadn't half such a deep point 
 as Miss Watson would cut those of mine; but 
 there's time to save the silk still ; it shall have 
 quite a little point, like hers." Then Theo left 
 the room, still excited, brilliant, and happy, to 
 see about her new silk at once. 
 
 " ' Like hers,' " her father muttered, as Theo 
 vanished. "There she goes, the same impetuous 
 child she always was. I wonder she isn't calling 
 Mrs. Galton by her Christian name already, as 
 if they had been friends from the cradle ; the 
 child takes too strong fancies." 
 
 " Ah, my dear, don't forget that she's young," 
 the mother cried ; , she could not bear that her 
 darling should be censured even by implication. 
 " She's so young, and she sees so few people 
 besides ourselves; it's dull for her,^ou know, 
 and this promises such a change." 
 
 Such a change ! Poor Theo ! 
 
 He came in the evening to call Theo for that 
 walk he had asked her to take in the morning, 
 and there was a something that was different in 
 his manner to what it had been hitherto ; some- 
 thing that she could feel, but could not see or 
 define, and the feeling saddened her. 
 
 The something had been — as is all mischief — 
 the work of a woman. 
 
 " What do you think of the little rustic — eh, 
 Kate ? " he had asked of his cousin, when they 
 had parted with Theo at the gate. 
 
 " Oh, she's all very well." 
 
 " That's wonderful praise from your lip.s, but 
 it's not of the order to elevate the article spoken 
 about." 
 
 " I can't rhapsodise about another woman, 
 Harold. I think her all very well, very nice if 
 you like, and I say so ; I'll tell you what else I 
 think about her if you like to hear it." 
 
 " Don't I like to hear everything you say f " 
 he asked, with the usual air of gallantry be 
 adopted towards Kate Galton. 
 
 " I think, then, that it is a very good thing for 
 Miss Theo Leigh that you have promised to come 
 back to Haversham to-morrow." 
 
 " Why ? " he asked coldly, but his dark face 
 grew red as he asked it. 
 
 "Why? because your friend's daughter has 
 taken one of those likmgs for her father's friend 
 that are disagreeable and difficult to get over." 
 
 " Nonsense, Kate : you forget our respective 
 
 ages," he began. "She's too young "but 
 
 there his cousin interrupted him impatiently. 
 
 " Too young I Too young for what, pray ? Not 
 too young to love you, Harold, believe me ; it's 
 nonsense of you to affect to doubt it. Why, the 
 girl is twenty, if she's a day ; and if she were 
 years younger it would be the same. Girls are 
 never too young' to have their hearts touched. 
 There's my little Katy already prefers to ride-a- 
 cock-horse-to-Banbury-Cross on your knee to per- 
 forming the same journey on her papa's." 
 
 He laughed, but the colour had gone from his 
 face, leaving him very pale now. " Katy is an 
 ungrateful little minx, then,',' he said. "I thought 
 I understood you once that she wasn't at all like 
 her mamma, but it appears as if she, too, had. a 
 low appreciation of the legal and recognized. 
 You're wrong about Leigl\'s daughter though," 
 he added carelessly* . " She ^ has heard of me all 
 along as having been a yaijjg^man with her fa- 
 ther. It has never ( 
 reality very much hi^ 
 matter. I shall be __^__ 
 
 painting to-morrow, dear-'ligjU^IBB^^^queezed 
 Kate's hand,''land Kate d'e,^ ' 
 
 He spoke ^jjo word to TS^;tjiKi^P5g until 
 they had stfoUed ' the length', C^S|k lane and 
 gained the marsh bank where theifmSt met ; then 
 he said — ■. . , 
 
 "Well, Theo, vwhMjLdid, you think of my 
 
 " I liked her so n^Hj^^pieo said, warmly. 
 
 " I'm glad of thaiPq^mK'Ou'll continue to do 
 so : Kate's very nice anfrKind where she takes a 
 fancy, and I think she has taken one to you. I 
 shall often think of you enjoying yourselves to- 
 gether when I am gone away." 
 
 " Gone away ? " 
 
 There was no doubt about the girl's distress 
 being real as she turned round and faced him ; 
 it was so real, so deep, that he wished he had 
 gone away before. • 
 
 '" Gone away," she repeated, " are you going? " 
 
 " Yes," he murmured softly, " I ought to have 
 gone before." 
 
 The flat marsh-land scene swam before iier 
 eyes ; she grew dizzy, and the warm May evetung 
 air came down and nearly choked her ; there 
 was a ball of fire in her throat, a sensationl'of 
 numbness in her lips, a dull, dull aching at ' her 
 heart. She could not speak. She could only sit 
 stUl and suffer. 
 
 He ought to have gone before I Yes, he felt 
 
 »jl am in 
 ', it don't 
 with the 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 19 
 
 that since he must go from her at all, he ought 
 to have gone , before this evil, that came from 
 waat of thought, not want of heart, was wrought. 
 There was a pam on the girl's pinched temples, 
 pain such as he felt sorry to have caused to 
 one so young and bright as she had been but 
 an hour ago. Fain, a sickening agony that only 
 the young and fresh can feel, it is so vivid and 
 strong, 
 
 There was silence between them for some 
 minutes after that last recorded speech of his, 
 silence that was unbroken even by the slightest 
 movement. The girl was fainting in her spirit, 
 and the man was bitterly conscious of the feeling 
 and the cause, and his own inability to satisfac- 
 torily assuage the former. 
 
 They had placed themselves on the slope of 
 the bank, and away to the west they had a full 
 free view of the sea and the sun dying upon the 
 water in a fiery glory. A full view of it, but for 
 awhUe Theo gazed at it with eyes that did not 
 see. Then, the first agony over, the first giddi- 
 ness past, she blessed the spectacle as a means 
 of conversationally coming round again. 
 
 " What glorious colour 1 Don't you wish you 
 could paint a sunset as it is ? " 
 
 She made an effort to speak in her usual tone, 
 but her voice was a little husky, a little less sure 
 than was usual, and he marked the effort and 
 harshness with such keen sorrow that he could 
 not attend to the sense of what she said. At any 
 cost he felt that the pain that was curdling her 
 young blood in her veins must he assuaged. 
 
 "Theo! dear little Theo ! " 
 
 He put his hand out as he spoke, and gathered 
 both of hers in his grasp. The change was too 
 much for her, the joy that pervaded her soul 
 flooded her face, and made her gl6w in a way 
 that nearly maddened him. There was such 
 trust in the liftle hanfls' quiescence, such faith in 
 what she thought was to follow in the girl's lov- 
 ing look. 
 
 " Oh, Theo, don't, turn away, darling. By God 
 I can't stand it ! " he cried, suddenly releasing 
 her hand and starting to his feet. And when 
 Theo, pale and trembling again, rose also, she 
 felt that that which she had expected was not 
 coming, and her heart swelled with a bitterness 
 of grief. " 
 
 " We had better go home," he said presently. 
 " Don't look so miserable, my darling. Heaven, 
 what am I saying? Don't hate me, Theo; I 
 must go away, but think of me sometimes — ^think 
 of me kindly." 
 
 "Must you go?" 
 
 She stopped short by his side and looked full 
 up into his face as she ' asked it. He would as 
 soon have thought of telling a falsehood the mo- 
 ment before he knew he was to enter upon 
 eternity as telling a comforting lie to this girl 
 now. 
 
 " I must. Theo, forgive me ? " 
 
 " I have notliing to forgive," she said with a 
 stBong effort. She had made her appeal, poor 
 child, and it had failed, and now her pride prompt- 
 ed her to show him that the failure could be 
 borne. Her pride and a something softer ; there 
 was such misery in the man's eyes, that her gen- 
 erous woman's nature ur^ed her not to increase it 
 by showing him how fully it was shared. 
 
 "I must go; better I had never come," he 
 muttered, after a short pause. 
 
 "Don't say that ;l it has been a very pleasant 
 time — to me." 
 
 " And to me too ; too pleasant — far too pleas- 
 ant. You have been the only bright thing my 
 life has known for years, Theo, and I have cloud- 
 ed the brightness." 
 
 He bent his gaze upon her as he spoke, and 
 Theo's face quivered under it. 
 
 '' Oh, Mr. Ffrench, it has been so pleasant; 
 why must it end ? " 
 
 " Don't call me ' Mr. Ffrench,' for God's sake, 
 ^-call me Harold, and don't ask me why it must 
 end." 
 
 "I only meant," she replied proudly, "why 
 must your visit to Houghton end so soon, if you 
 find it pleasant ? " ' 
 
 " Theo, dear Uttle Theo, don't reproach me. I 
 know what you mean, I know what you can't help 
 meaning, and I can't-r — " ^ -Mjf 
 
 He stopped suddenly. 
 
 " Can't what ? " asked Theo timidly ; the tear- 
 ing might be painful, but she would beari^> 
 
 "Can't see you suffer, and can't helj^jTOur 
 doing so. You'll soon forget me, TheojBBpu't 
 hope that you will remember me long. wpPyou 
 forget me, darling ? " h# added pas^Spltely, in an 
 outburst of tenderness that startla^Re gin. ; 
 
 "No. Oh, donH speak in ^m way. Oh, 
 SaroM, you won't go ! " ^f 
 
 They had come home during this conversation, 
 for the things spoken had been spoken at inter- 
 vals and had taken some time to say. Now they 
 were in the little drawing-room alone, and even 
 the twilight was dying out of the sky. Theo's 
 last plaint went straight to his heart, and Ms heart 
 governed his head for a brief space. 
 
 " Theo ! " his arm went around her as he spoke, 
 and her head rested upon his breast, and there 
 was such passionate love in the way his hand 
 clasped hers. All the misery and uncertainty of 
 the last 'hour fled from her mind, and she was 
 deliriously happy. She never doubted what this 
 embrace should result in ; she never doubted but 
 that it was the prelude to a never-ending series of 
 the same, on which the world should smile. 
 Very confidingly did she submit to his caresses, 
 very modestly and sweetly did she respond to 
 them. The dream was bright that she dreamt in 
 those moments — bright and pure ; and he shrank 
 from the task of awakening her from it, his 
 heart still governing his head in an unaccustomed 
 way. ' 
 
 " Why awaken her from it at all ? " he asked 
 himself presently. " Love would be more to her 
 than the world." Thus he thought for a moment 
 or two, and tji.eji he did her the justice of repent- 
 ing him of the thought. Bemoving her head 
 from his shoulder, he bent down and pressed his 
 lips to heijiforehead, and pleaded for her pardon 
 for the unuttered wrong. 
 
 "Theo, forgive me, forgive me? " 
 
 "For what?" 
 
 " I'll tell you to-morrow. Let me go now," he 
 added, disengaging himself from her, "I can't 
 stand it, Theo." 
 
 "Oh, Harold," she cried passionately, "you 
 try me — ^you try me. Why not now as well as 
 to-morrow, to-morrow that will be so long in 
 coming ? " 
 
 " No, it won't, poor child, dear little Theo. It 
 will soon come, and you'll listen, and I shall speak 
 better than now. Let me go, darUng; don't 
 
20 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 turn your face away, Theo, there is no harm in 
 it." When he had so said, he departed, leaving 
 Theo in feverish expectation of that morrow 
 which was to make known to her so much. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Kate's way. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the day following 
 her visit to Houghton, Mrs. Galton put on her 
 hat and went out by herself for a stroll in the 
 grounds. 
 
 They were pretty grounds those around Haver- 
 sham Grange, especially in the early summer 
 days in which this story opens. Not very large, 
 but well arranged ; the glades and vistas vpere 
 wonderful, when the size of the place was con- 
 sidered, There was one avenue that gave you 
 utterly erroneous notions respecting the extent of 
 the place, until you discovered that it was fold- 
 ed JiMkwards and forwards, so to say, upon itself, 
 and^Kr separated from itself by an insertion of 
 Porn^I l^p rels and laurustinus. This avenue 
 led away tq^a^de-gate thU opened upon the high 
 road close |BP' compact plantation, in' which 
 rooks dwelt. ^K was a turfed avenue — one that 
 was conseoraWT solely to walking purposes ; the 
 approach by which everything on wheels or four 
 legs gained the Grange was straight and broad 
 and open as the day, and not the one affected by 
 Mrs. Galton when she went forth to meet her 
 cousin Harold Ffrench. 
 
 At an early hour, immediately after luncheon, 
 in fact, she had commenced expecting him ; her 
 expectations led her to request her husband to 
 take " Kate out for a ride ; horse exercise was so 
 good for the little dear." Accordingly the hus- 
 band and "Uttle dear " went out for an indefinite 
 period ; and, having thus killed two birds with 
 one stone, Kate Galton proceeded to make fur- 
 ther preparations which seemed good to her, and 
 with which their presence would materially have 
 interfered. 
 
 The drawing-room at Haversham Grange was 
 as pretty a room, as perfect a one of the kind, to 
 my mind, as I have ever seen. Indifferently as 
 Kate wielded the brush, she understood many of 
 the secrets of the art she was essaying to prac- 
 tice upon Harold. For example, she knew that 
 all light or aU shade was bad id a picture, and 
 could not therefore be good in a room ; and she 
 brought this'khowledge to bear upon the adorn- 
 ment of her special sanctuary, and the result was 
 good. She would not have her drawing-room all 
 heaviness and crimson velvet, or entirely pale 
 blue and frivolity and glare. But sheliad a happy 
 admixture of shade and high lights — of the sub- 
 stantial and the elegant — and the admixture was 
 eminently suicessfuL 
 
 A considerable portion of the success was due 
 to there being no over-crowding. Everything 
 was clearly outlined, and there were not too 
 many ornaments spotted about to break every line 
 and fatigue every eye, as is top often the case. 
 Kate Galton detested a mob — even of Dresden 
 monsters or Sfevres shepherdesses, or reproduc- 
 tions of goddesses in Parian marble. These 
 things were represented, and well represented, 
 but not in sufficient quantity to become weari- 
 some : you had no need to spread a mental chart 
 
 of Kate Galton's room before entering it, in order 
 to avoid dismay and destruction. 
 
 I have said she was a very pretty woman ; and 
 that she was so even women who were pretty 
 themselves allowed. A variable beauty hers was 
 — she avowed that it was so herself with engag- 
 ing frankness. It was wonderfully variable when 
 you came to think about it, for the nut-brown 
 hair came out in golden gleams of surpassing 
 brightness occasionally, and the fair, almost flax- 
 en eyebrows and lashes grew very brown indeed 
 at times. But they were all due, these marvel- 
 lous transformations, "to the weather," Kate 
 would teU you, for she had an organization very 
 susceptible to external influences. As she prob- 
 ably knew more about it than any one else, her 
 explanation, though not remarkably lucid, must 
 be accepted in default of a better. 
 
 The weather had a great effect on her shortly 
 after her husband's departure this day. It 
 brought a most delicate hue into her cheeks, 
 and shot her hair with that golden glory of 
 which we have spoken. When it had achieved 
 this, Kate disposed herself in an attitude on one 
 of the couches in her'drawing-room, and rested 
 there, • like another Lady Hamilton, awaiting 
 Harold Ffrench. 
 
 But the hours passed, and Harold Ffrench 
 did not appear, and she grew tired of playing 
 Sultana to the inanimate objects in the room — 
 even though an Apollo was amongst them. In 
 reality she was an active woman ; the sofa and 
 languor were little affected by her when she was 
 alone. 
 
 So about five o'clock she disturbed the ar- 
 rangement she had made of swelling pillow and 
 billowing drapery — of one bare arm from which 
 the sleeve had fallen back, and one delicately 
 shod foot from which the flcjunces had discreetly 
 retreated — of carefully dishevelled hair and 
 coquettishly adjusted half handkerchief of lace ; 
 she disturbed this arrangement, and uttered 
 a graphic incisive denunciation against that 
 offender who had caused It to have been 
 maintained so long for worse than nothing. 
 
 ■' That little monkey ! if she has wheedled 
 Harold into staying, she shall crawl on her 
 hands and knees in penitence for it." 
 
 Having uttered this amiable sentiment, Mrs. 
 Galton felt better, and put on her hat and went 
 forth, as has been stated, along the turfed 
 avenue, in the hopes of seeing'her cousin coming 
 along the highroad and intercepting him at the 
 side gate. 
 
 They had no lime-trees at Haversham ; but 
 the want of the fragrant linden was not felt in 
 that avenue, it was so'thickly studded between 
 the trunks of its forest trees with lilacs and 
 with hawthorn bushes in their sweetest, earliest 
 bloom. r 
 
 And if their odour caused the absence of 
 the linden blossoms to pass unremarked, so did 
 the verdure of the elm-trees leave Uttle room 
 for wishing for the linden's lovely green. Of 
 just the same fair pale hue, with just the same 
 indescribable air of freshness and grace about 
 them, the colour of those leaves brought to her 
 mind a day long passed by, when she, a girl, 
 had listened to Harold Ffrench's stories of 
 lazy hours he had known TJnter der Linden in 
 Berlin, 
 
 Hours that he had passed there and not 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 21 
 
 alone. But with whom, or whether happily or 
 not, she could never gather, though in these 
 minor matters she was much in his confidence 
 in those days. Walking there, some of the old 
 curiosity as to what this man's secret was arose 
 in her mind, and a new one that had relation to 
 Theo Leigh grew more poignant still. 
 
 " Past five," she muttered as she gained the 
 gate and rested her arms upon it; "if Ws 
 coming at all he will come soon ; " and she 
 looked anxiously along the dusty road that was 
 rendered unpicturesque by reason of its hedges 
 being clipped to the smallest proportions for the 
 furtherance of agriculture. 
 
 He came at last. She, still leaning on the 
 gate, hailed him as he was passing, and the trap 
 was stopped and Harold Ffrench descended 
 from it to join his cousin. It was a hired trap, 
 ill hung, and it had jolted heavily over the 
 roads, and the horse had been a trial also, for it 
 was slow in pace and by no means sensitive to 
 the whip. Altogether he was rather glad than 
 otherwise to descend and join his cousin at the 
 outlet to the shady odoriferous avenue. 
 
 " You know the way up to the house f Oh, 
 you don't ; Well, never mind, you cannot miss 
 it; go on and wait in the yard till I see- you," 
 he said to the boy who was let out with the trap. 
 " I wish I had come with you yesterday, Kate," 
 he continued as he took Mrs. Galton's hand and 
 placed it On his arm. "I have had a terrible 
 time of it with that horse ; he's accustomed to 
 considerate people, who g?t out to relieve him 
 at every hill and dip, and whenever the road is 
 rucky and he ' 'pears to flag,' and under sundry 
 other circumstances that make travelling with 
 him unpleasant." 
 
 " And it is a long way from Houghton,'' Mrs. 
 Galton replied sympathetically. Kow that she 
 had Harold back with her, she did not desire to 
 travel Houghton-wards again. " I thought' I 
 should never have reached home yesterday; 
 going it was different, I had something to look 
 forward to-^but coming home — — " 
 
 She pa,used, and Harold made no answer. 
 What was there to say to a woman — a pretty 
 woman too — who implied that it was returning 
 to a blank when she came to her home and her 
 husband and her child ! There was nothing to 
 say — so Harold Ffrench said nothing. 
 
 " I have been expecting you all the afternoon, 
 Harold," she went on presently ; " and the 
 afternoon has seemed so long ; it always does 
 when one is expecting an uncertainty." 
 
 " What do you mean by expecting an uncer- 
 t^nty?" 
 
 " I did not feel sure that you would come. I 
 suppose my heart was very much set upon it, 
 and that made me fear ; Harold, you don't know 
 what it is to me to have you here." 
 
 " Kather a bore, I should say, if Mrs. Galton 
 were not far too well-bred a woman to suffer any 
 guest to perceive that he bored her." 
 
 She laughed. " Ah ! Harold, a bore ? Well, 
 think that you bore me if you like ; perhaps it 
 is as well that you should think so." 
 
 " What the devil'sshe driving at ? " he thought. 
 Then a faint idea of the truth dawned upon him 
 — she was trying to drive Theo Leigh out of his 
 head. 
 
 " Woman, thy name is — Kate ; you can't resist 
 attempting to be pleasant, even though.you're- 
 
 quite pleasant enough without the attempt. 
 Where is Galton ? when do you dine ? " 
 
 "John is on his farm — where else does he 
 care to be? He's particularly entertaining at 
 this present time ; h)? crops are in his mouth 
 morning, noon, and night." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear you say that you derive 
 entertainment from the discussion of the source 
 of your husband's property ; some women are 
 weak enough to affect to despise it," he replied, 
 as gravely as if her speech had been made in all 
 good faith, 
 
 " The bullocks were absorbing in the winter, 
 and the pigs will come on in the autumn ; you 
 will be glad to hear of my prospects of salvation 
 from stagnation," 
 
 She said it in a slightly piqued tone, and a 
 temporary flush, that was of an entirely different 
 shade to the permanent one, dyed her cheeks for 
 a moment. He noticed neither the tone nor the 
 flush, but after a few moments' pause he went 
 on as if she had not spoken. 
 
 " For there's nothing more disheartening to 
 a fellow than to find that his wife does not care 
 about his pursuits, whatever they may be." 
 
 " Fortunately, JotiMKiot so easily disheart- 
 ened ; be has inoculAvBijou with a taste for 
 his hobbies ; the little monkey [ talks quite 
 learnedly on various farm-yard togj'os." 
 
 " Katy's a dear little thing, by Jove ! In a 
 few years she will be growing up, and you'll be 
 living your old triumphs over again in your 
 daughter ; Kate, you'll have plenty to interest 
 you then." 
 
 " I am not quite old enough to take comfort 
 for many things in the thoughts of dowager de- 
 lights yet, thank you, Harold ; and in the mean- 
 time, until my daughter is of an age to give me 
 six months' trouble and anxiety perhaps, and 
 then marry and be less to me than ever, you 
 will permit me to remark that my ' lot is not too 
 brilliant,' without giving me a veiled lecture. 
 It's very hard indeed," Mrs. Galton continued, 
 bringing the tears into her eyes for an instant, 
 and then banishing them abruptly as she re- 
 flected on the susceptibility of her lashes, " very 
 hard indeed that the only one to whom I have 
 dared to speak as I feel since my marriage 
 should deem me unreasonable, and chill me by 
 cutand-dried speeches." 
 
 , "I am oppressed with remorse. Though I 
 don't know what I have done, still I feel that 
 I'm in the wrong;" 
 
 " Let us sit down here," Mrs. Galton hurriedly 
 exclaimed ; and then she planted herself on a 
 mound at the base of a tree, and he stretched 
 himself along on the turf at her feet. 
 
 " Harold ! " she said softly, drooping her head 
 towards him, "nine years ago you ought to have 
 felt remorse." 
 
 He, took her hand and brushed his moustache 
 across its firm, rosy,i dimpled palm, but he 
 uttered no word of inquiry, or compliment, or 
 refutation. 
 
 " Do yov( ever think of those days, H^arold ! " 
 
 "Occasionally. They were uncommonly 
 pleasant ones : good cook your father had then, 
 to be sure." 
 
 "Is it only the cook who lives in your 
 memory as an element of the pleasure you de- 
 rived from your residence with us ? Thank 
 you, Harold." 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 " No, I have a kindly recollection of the wine 
 also, of which he had good store ; what else do 
 you want me to say, Kate ? You don't want 
 ootnplinients from me, you don't want me to tell 
 you such truisms as that .you are remembered 
 by me, do you? How the deuce should you be 
 forgotten?" 
 
 " They were my happiest days — and I dwell 
 on them far too often for my peace of mind," 
 she said rising. " Gome, Harold, let us go to 
 dinner." Then she heaved a sigh, and looked 
 resigned and very pretty. 
 
 "What do you want me to say?" he asked, 
 as they went on towards the house: and he 
 drew her hand more closely within his arm and 
 pressed it with as much tenderness as he had 
 pressed Theo's but yesterday. "You put 
 strange fancies in my head, my cousin, mine no 
 more ; you make me feel that it is well that I 
 should do as I have resolved, and leave Haver- 
 sham to-morrow." 
 
 She had looked forward -to a period of unin- 
 terrupted intercourse and semi-friendly semi- 
 sentimental flirtation with him. He was an 
 adept in the art of sayiag the things she loved 
 to hear, — namely, tha^Be was fair and fasci- 
 nating. Her husband^Wer complimented her 
 on her good looks, on her grace, or her se- 
 ductive bearing. John was affectionate, gener- 
 ous, trusting, and considerate to her— nothing 
 more. She wanted to inspire a grande passion 
 and see some one very miserable, — some one 
 who would be the victim of the first, and ex- 
 hibit the latter in good style. This resolve of 
 Parold's to leave Haversham so soon was ex- 
 tremely disappointing to her. 
 
 "Why go, Harold? You were to stay and 
 
 fo up to town with us ; can't you wait for a few 
 avs ? I shall be quite ready to start in a few 
 days." 
 
 " I have other engagements, ■engagements that 
 I can't avoid — unfortunately." 
 
 "But you'll be with us in town?" 
 
 " No, Kate, I cannot." 
 
 " Oh, Harold, why ? I shall be hideously 
 dull in London with — • — ^" 
 
 She paused, and portrayed confusion at hav- 
 ing been led as by irresistible impulse to the 
 brink of the confession of finding it dull with 
 her husband. Harold Ffrench's determination 
 to leave Norfolk as soon as possible was a fixed 
 one, and had nothing whatever to do with Mrs. 
 Gallon. But he knew that it would be soothing 
 to her to fancy, or at any rate to be told that 
 she had the power to move him in any way. 
 So he soothed her. 
 
 "Why? Total abstinence is easier than 
 moderation ; that's why." 
 * Then Kate Galton enacted modest embarrass- 
 ment in a way that was infinitely amusing to 
 the man who knew she did not feel it ; and felt 
 but one regret, which was, that for her own 
 credit's sake she dared not tell of this confes- 
 sion of weakness which Harold Ffrench had 
 made. 
 
 " Don't forget to show any attention you may 
 be able to show to Miss Leigh, Kate," said Har- 
 old Ffrench the next day, as he was standing 
 before Mrs. Galton's easel correcting the touches 
 she bad given to her picture during his absence. 
 He wanted to "win some kind of promise from 
 her that she would show kindness to this girl, 
 
 to whom he had been aught but kind, when he 
 was gone. 
 
 "Forget! Am I likely to forget any request 
 of yours?" 
 
 " She took an immense liking to you, fell in 
 love with your beauty, and your ' way,' as she 
 called it. You will be kind to her, won't you ? " 
 and then he felt a certain awkwardness when he 
 reflected how indignant Theo would be, if she 
 could but know that he had pleaded to any one 
 to show her kindness. 
 
 " Girls of that age are generally bores," Mrs. 
 Galton replied, cooUy. "I'll be as civil as the 
 distance will allow." 
 
 "She is not a bore." He could not say any 
 more ; he dared not trust himself to utter a de- 
 fence of Theo to his cousin. n 
 
 " Oh, isn't she ? How I shall hate the sight 
 of my tubes and brushes and easel when you are 
 gone, Harold?" 
 
 "Get Miss Leigh over here and give her 
 some lessons, you're quite capable of doing it." 
 
 " I am getting weary of Miss Leigh before I 
 know her. No, Harold, I couldn't desecrate 
 the taste you have developed in me by turning 
 it to account in that way. I will be kind to 
 Miss Leigh in a way that a chit of a girl will 
 appreciate far more fully^ I will ask her here, 
 and invite some good parti to meet and fall in 
 love with her." 
 
 The brush trembled in his hand. It was hor- 
 rible to him to hear Theo spoken about in such 
 a way, and yet what right had he to feel or re- 
 sent aught on her account ? 
 
 " Don't make jokes of that sort. You do in- 
 justice to your own delicacy as well as Miss 
 Leigh's by the suggestion." 
 
 " Do you think Miss Leigh's delicacy would 
 revolt at a good marriage, Harold? Poor fel- 
 low! how completely your flower of the wilder- 
 ness has deceived you. Trust me, if I bring her 
 out and give her the chance, I shall have a nice 
 little list of her conquests to forward you in six 
 months." 
 
 " Then in God's name don't bring her out. I 
 can't paint any more this morning," he ex- 
 claigjed abruptly. He left the room with a 
 darkened brow and an ill-tempered haste, and 
 Mrs, Galton resolved that the chance should be 
 given Theo ere long, for the mention of it 
 moved Harold more than was becoming in her, 
 "Kate's" vassal. 
 
 He was to leave the Grange by the three 
 o'clock train ; and as he sat at lunch with his 
 host and hostess, John Galton commenced lay- 
 ing amiable plans for further communion in 
 town. 
 
 " I'm sorry you wouldn't wait and go off with 
 us, Ffrench. Kate will want you in town, for 
 I'm not much good at knowing where it's best 
 to go." 
 
 " Where shall I address you, Harold, when 
 we do go up ? " Kate asked. 
 
 " The old address." 
 
 "The ^Club?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Why never at your lodgings? you must 
 have lodgings in town." 
 
 " Because I am apt to change them." 
 
 " What part of town are you in now ? " 
 
 " Belgravia." 
 
 " That's sketchy. What street?" 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 23 
 
 " I have not decided yet. I shall look about 
 to-morrow ; to-night I shall put up at a hotel ; so 
 you see that I can give you none other than the 
 club address," Harold said hastily fb John Gal- 
 ton, though it was John Galton's wife, and not 
 John himself, who had asked for another ad- 
 dress than the usual one. 
 
 " And your engagements ? Are you going to 
 stay with any one, or to travel with any one, or 
 what are you going to do?" 
 _ " Nothing. Some people I knew on the Con- 
 tinent are coming over to the raree-show, and I 
 have promised to meet them in town ; that is 
 all." 
 
 " Nice people ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "Nice enough." 
 
 " Then introduce them to me, and I'll do the 
 honours of our great metropolis to them, and 
 save you the trouble." 
 
 " Tou are very kind. I will see about it." 
 
 " And, Harold, get us an opera-box next Sat- 
 urday ; if you can I will go up on Friday." 
 
 '' You shall have your opera-box on Saturday. 
 B^ the way, some time or othe* I wish you 
 would take Miss Leigh to the Opera, she's pas- 
 sionately fond of music." 
 
 " Girls of that age always are ' passionately 
 fond' of whatever may be .mentioned. How- 
 ever, I will take her to the Opera; when do 
 they go up ? " 
 
 " Next week." 
 
 She darted a keen glance at him, which asked 
 as plain as possible, " Are you going to meet 
 them." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I shall be too fully occupied to pay the 
 Leighs attention : you do it for me, Kate. 
 They have been very kind to me, and you can 
 requite it far better than I can." 
 
 " I fancied from what Kate said that you were 
 going to requite it in the best way, if she's a 
 nice girl," John Galtou observed. 
 
 " Did Kate expect such infatuation on my 
 part?" Harold Ffrench asked. And Kate 
 blushed slightly as her husband answered, 
 • " Well, I don't know that she did, only she 
 wants to see you married, and so, I suppose, 
 suspects you to be infatuated before you are." 
 
 "I must be off; I shall only just catch the 
 train. Good-bye, Galton,' good-bye, Kate. 
 Don't plot for me." He whispered the last 
 words as he bent over his cousin's hand, and 
 discreet Mrs. Galton answered aloud : — ■ 
 
 "No, no, John is wrong. I don't venture to 
 suspect you of infatuation, Harold, any more. 
 I made a mistake once. Good-bye." 
 
 "What mistake did you ever make about 
 your cousin, Kate ? " John Galton asked of his 
 wife when he came back into her presence after 
 seeing his guest off. "Did you ever think he 
 cared for anybody ? " 
 
 "Yes, it was long ago, dear, when I was a 
 mere child : he seemed to admire a fashionable 
 girl whose name was — but what matters? you 
 are not interested in fashionable girls, nor am I 
 any more (till our Bijou is grown up); but it 
 passed off." 
 
 "Oh, did it?" John Galton replied, thought- 
 fully, and then he took both her slender white 
 hands in his and drew her towards him. " Do 
 you know, for half a minute I thought you 
 meant yourself, Kate. I ain glad you didn't." 
 
 CHAPTER VT. 
 
 LOVE'S TOITKO DEEAM. 
 
 Theo remained in the ;room alone where he 
 had left her after bestowing upon her that one 
 impassioned kiss in which he had declared there 
 was no harm ; remained there alone for an hour 
 after his departure, trying to think, and feeling 
 too happy to accomplish it. 
 
 She heard Harold Ffrench's voice out in the 
 garden, and she knew that he had joined her 
 father and mother, who were strfUing about in 
 the soft evening air. But she judged him to be 
 her own more especially now, and she could not 
 bear to share him with others, even with them, 
 just yet. So she sat still on the couch upon 
 which be had placed her when he was bidding 
 her adieu, and wondered why he had found her 
 fair, and how this marvel bad come to pass. 
 
 Her heart was throbbing audibly, but there was 
 no pain in the flutter ; it came from a very ful- 
 ness of joy, and was a commentary on the tidings 
 that she would not venture to tell to another, 
 that she was not ill pleased to hear. He had 
 told her he loved her! he had shown her that 
 he loved her! and he had said that he would 
 come to-morrow when the rest would beJold, 
 and would see it too, and the joy would oe a 
 secret no longer, though not one whit les? sweet. 
 
 It never occurred to the girl to give forth the 
 story at once in either a vaunting or an affectedly 
 indifferent spirit. She had lived a very quiet 
 life, and had not been lightly won and lightly 
 lo"st half a dozen times in the course of it. 
 Lively and light-hearted, and daring as none 
 but a country-bred girl and only daughter can 
 be, she was subdued and gentled and rendered 
 diffident at once by the truth, the reality, and 
 almost solemnity of the feeling that had grown 
 up in her heart for this stranger. Her first love 
 was a genuine one, and Theo blushed at the in- 
 fluence it had already gained over her, and 
 wondered at the vastness of the chasm it had 
 reft at once between the past and the present. 
 
 She had no very definite ideas as to what 
 might be expected to take place to-morrow. She 
 only felt that he would come and say something 
 which would entitle him to hold her hand in his 
 own through all time if he liked, and leave 
 her free to call him " Harold." Then she mur- 
 mured his name, first taking the precaution to 
 bury her head in the sofa-cushion, in order that 
 no one might by any chance hear what would 
 sound " so sUly." She pictured him at his easel 
 while she read poetry to him through endless 
 summer days, never thinking, poor child, that it 
 can be aught but pleasant for a man to listen to 
 metrical effusions from the lips. of his wife while 
 he is endeavoring to compose a picture. 
 
 The hours passed quickly in the indulgence of 
 these happy visions, and then she was summoned 
 to. supper, and she went in half shrinking from 
 the light, and strangely tremulous in eye and 
 lip, all happy as she was. Her happiness was as 
 the down on the butterfly's wing to her ; she 
 dreaded touching upon it- lest one particle might 
 be destroyed. It was so new, so fresh, so deli- 
 cate — so unlike anything that she had known 
 before. 
 
 Despite the wealth of womanly feeling that 
 had been aroused in her recently, she was more 
 of a child than ever in her manner to her 
 
24 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 parents that night. Perhaps it was the knowl- 
 edge that she was longing to try her wings 
 abroad that made her fold them so softly now. 
 She sat at her f;ither's feet and rested her loving 
 head on his knee, and held his hand between 
 those two which had known for the first time 
 this day the pressure of another love than his. 
 Her mother, sitting opposite, marked the bril- 
 liant colour in her face, and marvelled that Theo 
 should so soon have recovered from that abso- 
 lute fatigue \diich Harold Ffrench mentioned as 
 the cause of ner not joining them in the garden. 
 
 " Tou don't look tired now, Theo." 
 
 " No, ma, I am not a bit tired." 
 
 " Ah, I thought the reason you didn't come 
 was that you were gone to see after Miss Wat- 
 son, instead of being ' knocked up ' as Mr. 
 Ffrench said, when your father asked why you 
 didn't come out." 
 
 " Did he say that ? No, I didn't go near Miss 
 Watson ; she gets on better without me." 
 
 " She will have to get on better than she does 
 if your things are to be ready by Tuesday ; this 
 is Wednesday evening, and Saturday she can't 
 come to me. I wish a later day had been fixed 
 for your going." 
 
 "iHave you asked for leave, papa? " 
 
 " Yes, and got it," he replied. 
 
 " Oh dear ; do you know, after all, I don't 
 much care about going up," said Theo, throwing 
 her head back against her father's arm. She 
 was thinking how pleasant it would be to mean- 
 der about those marshes with Harold Ffrench in 
 the glorious summer days that were coming. 
 " If you had not written for leave, papa, I be- 
 lieve I should say, don't go." 
 
 " The child's crazy," Mrs. Leigh said, rising 
 and beginning to put away her work. 
 
 " No, she's not ; she's bnly showing how mag- 
 nanimous she can be when her magnanimity 
 can't be accepted," her father said, kissing her. 
 " Good night, my child ; Ffrench is going in the 
 morning ; did you know it ?" 
 
 " Tes -, liat is, he told me he was going, but 
 I don't think he win go," Theo answered; and 
 then she lyent off to bed, and prayed for and 
 dreamt of Harold Ffrench, while her father and 
 mother pondered over how much money might 
 in prudence be drawn from his agents to expend 
 in giving Theo a taste of relaxation in London. 
 
 This going to London, which had been a 
 dream of delight for some time past, sank now 
 into absolute unimportance by the side of this 
 new dehght which had arisen. She did not care 
 an atom any longer about those specimens of the 
 arts and sciences which were collected by the 
 enterprising and shown to the curious in Hyde 
 Park. It would be pleasant to look at them 
 with Harold Ffrench ; but the dead level of the 
 salt marshes would be equally agreeable objects 
 of contemplation in such companionship ; there- 
 fore the tedious journey might be saved. Tljen 
 she remembered that the leave had been asked 
 for and granted, and that some of her father's 
 brother officers might be put to inconvenience 
 as to their own contemplated absences, if he did 
 not take his when he could have it, and come 
 back at the . appointed time. She also remem- 
 bered that the giving this pleasure to her would 
 be the best pleasure her father had known for a 
 long time. So, remembering these things, she 
 resolved to go with all the glee she could mus- 
 
 ter, and show gratitude for the plan, and gratifi- 
 cation in realising it, whatever fftte might hold 
 in store for if r of. far brighter things. 
 
 "Dear papa, he means me to enjoy it, and he 
 shall see that 7 do enjoy it thoroughly," she 
 murmured to herself in her latest moments of 
 coherency that night. On that resolution she 
 fell asleep and dreamed away the hours till the 
 dawn broke — the dawn of the day that was to 
 hear said those words whose promise had been 
 given to her heart already. 
 
 It was not an easy thing to behave as if noth- 
 ing had happened or was going to happen the 
 following morning. She knew that the hour or 
 two which would probably elapse before Mr. 
 Ffrench, in accordance with his usual practice, 
 found his way up from the Bull would appear 
 interminable if she was not employed. She 
 knew this, and yet she was incapable of origi- 
 nating ,any employment of an absorbing nature, 
 or indeed of doing anything save look out of 
 the window and wonder when he would come. 
 
 " There are those frills to be hemmed for ^e 
 blue musUn,tfheo," her mother said to her o*e 
 when she came into the room and found Theo 
 at that occupation which I have just described. 
 
 "Tes, mamma." 
 
 " But you don't do them.'' 
 1 " I will presently, mamma — this evening." 
 
 "This evening you will be wanting to go out, 
 and then the frills wiU be forgotten ; they 
 wouldn't take you an hour, you lazy child, and 
 when they were hemmed I would put them on, 
 and the blue muslin would be finished." 
 
 " Bother the blue muslin," Theo thought ; but 
 she only said, " Tes, mamma, I'll get them di- 
 rectly ! I am busy just now." 
 
 "What are you looking at?" Mrs. Leigh 
 asked, coming to the window. 
 
 "An energetic fly dodging a spider," Theo 
 replied, promptly pointing out the spectacle she 
 described in the crevice of some rock-work. 
 
 "Tou may see dozens of them any day," Mrs. 
 Leigh rejoined. , 
 
 Then, Theo's day-dream being dispelled, she 
 went in search of the frills for peace' sake. * 
 
 He had said that he would come, and it never 
 occurred to Theo to doubt him ; and this, not so 
 much that she was dominated by her passion 
 for him, as that it would have seemed incredible 
 to her that a gentleman should lie. That men 
 break every spoken and implied vow, and still 
 hold their honour stainless; and that women 
 transfer their hearts and caresses from one lover 
 to another, and still consider themselves chaste, 
 she had yet to learn. The majority of young 
 girls believe what is said to them : it is their 
 virtue and their fault. Extreme caution comes 
 only from experience, and it is not desirable 
 that girls of twenty should possess it. 
 
 So she- sat through the morning hours, hem- 
 ming her muslin frills, excited and nervous 
 truly, but never doubtful for an instant that the 
 man who had pressed his Hps to hers, and told 
 her that in that impassioned salute there " was 
 no harm," would come to her this day as he 
 had promised. She would have been as likely 
 to suspect her father of committing petty lar- 
 ceny as to suspect this man (who had kissed her 
 with a kiss that seemed to make her his own, it 
 was so warm and wild) of lying. Thus, with her 
 strength unimpaired, her soul unshaken by a 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 doubt, she came to a knowledge of the wound- 
 ing truth at once, and bore it. 
 
 "Ffrenoh has left, I find," Mr. Leigh re- 
 marked, as Theo seated herself, still excited but 
 still happy, at the dinner-table. 
 
 " I think he might have come up to say good- 
 bye," Mrs. Leigh replied ; and Theo felt that her 
 mother was looking keenly and anxiously at her. 
 
 " They mustn't be made unhappy," the poor 
 child thjpught ; " I'll Speak at once." 
 
 "What took him away so suddenly, papa? 
 he ought to have said good-bye to us, we have 
 been so friendly." 
 
 She thought of that passionate kiss, and those 
 impassioned words which had passed between 
 them the previous night, as she spoke, and her 
 brain reeled with the remembrance, and her 
 proud young heart seemed as though it would 
 burst with the sense of the indignity that had 
 been put upon it. But still she spoke clearly ; 
 and she was rewarded for the effort she had 
 made by seeing the anxious look pass from her 
 mother's face. ' 
 
 "We shall miss him very much. I wonder 
 whether he will ever come back, or if we shall 
 ever see him again," Mrs. Leigh said briskly. 
 The words were kind to the departed stranger, 
 but the tone in which they were spoken told of 
 the hope which she felt on the subject. 
 
 " Ever see him again ? " Yes, it had come to 
 this, that it was more than improbable that she 
 would ever see him again — this man who had 
 won from and shown to her such signs of love 
 as she could never exhibit to another. His kiss 
 was burning on her lips still ; her heart had not 
 ceased those quickened bounding pulsations to 
 which his own had responded when he clasped 
 her to his breast last night ! He had set his 
 mark upon her, and she could never again be as 
 she had been before ; she felt this with a burn- 
 ing brow in the midst of her agony at losing 
 him at all. But even as this feeling was sting- 
 ing, this agony stultifying her, she resolved that 
 she would make no sign of her sorrow, for the 
 sake of sparing those whose only joy was in 
 her. 
 
 "Give me a little bit of the brown, papa? 
 Thank you, that's just the bit I wanted," Theo 
 said resolutely. Then she ate her bit of brown 
 meat resolutely, with apparent appetite, though 
 the eating it at all was a terrible task. 
 
 "I dare say Mr. Ffrench will call on you in 
 town," Mrs. Leigh remarked presently, " He 
 said so much last night about the kindness we 
 had shown him ; it's little enough, I'm sure, af- 
 ter all, but I don't think he's one to forget even 
 trifling kindnesses." 
 
 "I don't think he is,'' Theo replied; she 
 would not shirk the subject, but had she not 
 been placed with her back to the light they 
 would have seen that, steady as were the words, 
 the lips that uttered them were quivering. 
 
 " Ffrench seems to have known many of the 
 men I knew in Greece ; it's odd I can't recall 
 his name at' all," Mr. Leigh observed, thought- 
 fully, after a short pause. " There was a young 
 Englishman, whose name, — by-the-by, what was 
 his name ? I shall forget my own next, — who 
 joined the expedition in a casual sort of way ; 
 but I never met him, and I remember now his 
 name was Linley, so it couldn't have been 
 Ffrench." 
 
 " Mr. Ffrench " — her tongue felt as if it had a 
 mountain of alum upon it as she said his name — 
 " must have been too young for you to think 
 about in those days, papa ; being a young man 
 yourself, I have no doubt that you despised 
 boys." 
 
 " We must have come athwart one another 
 too," her father rejoined, " for he was speaking 
 last night of Mavrocordato and Church, — speak- 
 ing of things that occurred in connection with 
 them at the very tiine I was with them ; odd I 
 shouldn't remember his name." 
 
 " Very odd indeed," Theo thought, consider- 
 ing what a spell that name held for her, but she 
 said nothing. Determined as she was not to 
 shirk the subject, she was not capable yet of 
 being an active agent in its continuance. 
 
 In the afternoon of that same day, while a 
 consultation was being held as to the proper 
 position which the frills were to occupy upon 
 the blue muslin dress and mantle, Mrs. Leigh 
 returned to the charge, and Theo was nearly 
 asking for quarter. 
 
 "Do you know, Theo, I really can't help 
 thinking it somewhat extraordinary that Mr. 
 Ffrench should have gone off in that way." 
 
 " In what way, mamma ? " 
 
 " Without coming near us to say good-bye ; 
 don't you?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know;" 
 
 " Well, I do ; he has plenty of external polish, 
 but if he were as innately gentlemanly and re- 
 fined as he appears he would not so palpably 
 pick up and drop people just to suit his own 
 convenience." 
 
 Theo winced, but said nothing. 
 
 " And (it was absurd in a man of his age — ^for 
 a child like yourself/ of course), but I did think 
 he admired you, Theo." 
 
 "Oh, mamma! " 
 
 " I did really ; and I'm not like some mothers : 
 I don't fancy that there is something directly a 
 man looks at my daughter." 
 
 " No, mamma." 
 
 " But I suppose. I was mistaken, otherwise 
 he wouldn't have gone off in that manner ; and 
 I'm glad, as I was mistaken, that I didn't say 
 anything to you about it while he remained." 
 
 " So am I, very glad." 
 
 " And I do think that it was very impolite of 
 him to go away without saying gtrod-bye to uS ; 
 why, child, how you're trembling ! " 
 
 " Tes, ma. I have just got a woeful prick ; 
 the needle has slipped under my nail. Ah — 
 ah!" (impatiently )i "I can't work any more; 
 I'll go and get papa to go down on the marsh 
 with me." 
 
 So she went and secured her father's com- 
 pany in that her first visit after Haiold Ffrench's 
 departure to the spot on which he had made 
 love manifest to her. For about Miss Theo 
 there was no maudhn sentimentality; she was 
 resolved upon abstaining from the luxury of 
 making these haunts sacred and private. 
 
 But still it was hard to walk there and be all 
 a daughter, nothing more, so" soon, so very 
 soon! She did it, hdwever, with how much 
 pain and difficulty may not be known, since she 
 never told. She even spoke brightly of that 
 approaching visit to London, which now she 
 would rather have died than have been com- 
 pelled to pay. 
 
S6 
 
 THBO LEIGH. 
 
 Through all the intervening days she kept up 
 with that proud resolve which this kind of trial 
 is almost sure to develop in a proud woman's 
 breast. Many a chance allusion nearly broke 
 her down, and many a kindly word all but over- 
 powered her. But she was strong, and young, 
 and generous, and would neither be broken 
 down nor overpowered before those who would 
 most sorely have grieved to see her so. 
 
 Harold Ffrench had been very tender to her 
 — tender in a way that no very young man 
 could be ; and the remembrance of this tender- 
 ness would come upon her with a rush some- 
 times, but never before others. It was only 
 when the girl was alone that she bent before 
 the memory of it, and blushed and turned pale 
 in quick succession at the thought of how 
 warmly he had seemed to love, and how well he 
 had deceived her. 
 
 Before others, though, she would neither re- 
 pine nor repent: there " would have been weak- 
 ness in doing either," she told herself; besides, 
 repining and repentance on her part might have 
 paved the way to others blaming him'— her love, 
 her demi-god, her vitalised Vandyck. There 
 had been miserable misapprehension of his 
 meaning on her part, or foul trickery "on his; 
 she could not bear that comment should be 
 made on either. So she suffered in silence, and 
 would not permit her appetite to flag ; in which 
 last there was, I think, the truest heroism, it 
 being an awful thing to eat when one is ill in 
 mind or body, a-nd an equally awfulthing for all 
 such as dwell in the tents with one to witness 
 the daily increasing disinclination to dp so. 
 
 So she ate and drank, and made merry in the 
 old way, and was to all outward seeming the 
 same Theo she had been before this stranger 
 came, and saw, and loved^ and left her. But 
 her father's frequent assertion, that she "was 
 like a young bear, in that all her troubles were 
 before her," grated harshly on her ears now. 
 She knew that a something was gone from her 
 mind which could never come back to it ; a blot 
 made on the surface of her life which no after 
 happiness could eradicate. 
 
 She did not set herself to the task of solving 
 the problem of his enforced semijdeclaration 
 and sudden exit from the scene. There was a 
 something which had prevented that consumma- 
 tion which ite had taught her to desire, but 
 what that something was, God knew — she did 
 not question. 
 
 The result would be just the same ; the cause 
 was of little worth in comparison. That there 
 had been something insurmountable she did not 
 doubt ; for she did not degrade her love, and 
 insult her own heart, by deeming that it had 
 been sought, gained, and rejected as a summer 
 day's pastime by a motiveless trifler. 
 
 It was a sharp, deep cut, that she had re- 
 ceived; but she resolutely covered it up, and 
 kept the air of observation from it, and would 
 not suffer it to fester. Sharp and deep as it 
 was, it was a healthy wound, and she knew that 
 it would heal perfectly in time, and leave no 
 pain even though a scar remained. 
 
 While the wound was young, and before the 
 efficacy of this mode of treatment could be said 
 to be an ascertained thing, the day of departure 
 arrived, and Theo Leigh went up to London 
 with her father without so much as a hope now 
 
 of even holding intercourse with his cousin, for 
 the charming Mrs. Galton had made no sign. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 woman's friendship. 
 
 It has been said that Kate Galton was an 
 active woman, little disposed toward recUning 
 even in the most graceful of attitudSs when 
 there were none near to see her. With a wider 
 scope in the world, and as the wife of an utterly 
 different husband, this activity of hers might 
 have been turned to good account. As it was, 
 the arena of ambition was closed to her, for she 
 was simply the wife of a country gentleman 
 whose name was unknown beyond the limits of 
 his own parish, and whose fame rested solely on 
 " Beelzebub " and his invariably early crops. 
 
 Kate told herself and Harold Ffrench that 
 she "had missed her vocation" in marrying 
 John Galton. She thought that she had a diplo- 
 matic mind, and that she would have been a 
 charming repository for any man's state and po- 
 litical secrets. "I'm so sympathetic, you see," 
 she would say in her not unfrequent moments 
 of confidence with her cousin, "and I can 
 always expand to the occasion. I ought to be 
 other than I am, in. fact." 
 
 " There I heartily agree with you," he would 
 reply, leaving Kate in a state of uncertainty as 
 to whether he agreed with the spirit or the 
 letter merely of her statement respecting her- 
 self. 
 
 "I seem to have nothing to live for; it's im- 
 possible to stir John up to do anything." 
 
 , " What should he do, save breed another 
 two-year-old to run for the Two Thousand? 
 Let John' alone, Kate ; when country gentlemen 
 get stirred up, as you call it, they develop into 
 pragmatic, egotistical, twaddling prigs. You 
 wouldn't have him go about and adorn country- 
 town platforms with his flowers of ungrammati- 
 cal oratory, and his honest, stupid face, would 
 you? And what other vent would his enthu- 
 siaSin find if you did stir him up to feel any ? " 
 
 " There is the sting ; his orations would be 
 ungrammatical, and his face is honest, but 
 stupid. If he were other than he is, I should 
 not be so anxious for him to prove himself some- 
 thing higher than he seems." 
 
 "Whv can't you take him as he is, and be 
 content*? " Harold Ffrench would say ; but des- 
 pite this affected toleration towards his cousin's 
 husband, he was far from unpleasantly conscious 
 that her complaint of John was an implied ac- 
 knowledgment of his (Harold Ffrench's) superi- 
 ority, and this consciousness rendered him not 
 by any means intolerant to the complainer. 
 Harold was aware that, were his own deeds 
 brought to fight, and his life carefully analysed, 
 he would be found to have done less good in his 
 generation than even John Galton. But he felt 
 that there was no need to impress this fact upon 
 his cousin, since she had not displayed sufficient 
 acumen to discover it for herself. Therefore he 
 was compassionately tolerant to John Gallon's 
 ignominious career, and satisfaction in the same, 
 and subUmely resigned to having honours thrust 
 upon him that he did not at all deserve. 
 
 In a measure, he sympathised with and under- 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 2T 
 
 stood Eate's Tain-glorious desire to be a some- 
 thing, not better and higher, but more talked 
 about, more before the world, than she, was. 
 For in hia own lazy way he, too, had had his 
 hopes and ambitions, and he had girded fiercely 
 at fate when they had failed. But, after all, a 
 woman's ambition must ever be a poor, small 
 thing, he judged; and, therefore, whether it 
 were realized, or whether it failed, was of httle 
 oonsequence : it could do no lasting harm. 
 
 Beally in Kate's case he had good reason for 
 supposing this; for Mrs. Galton had ambitions 
 whose name was legion, and they failed her con- 
 tinually, and she bloomed while the memory of 
 them was green just as if nothing had happen- 
 ed. Harold, himself, was a permanent disap- 
 pointment to her, and he knew it. Yet not 
 even the vanity, of which he possessed an aver- 
 age share, could make him believe that he was 
 thought of by Mrs. Galton as aught but a possi- 
 ble cause of sensation of some sort in the future 
 ten minutes after his exit from her presence, if 
 another agreeable man appeared. 
 
 Just now, however, he was the cause of in- 
 dignation vexing her soul continually, for she 
 was up in lodgings in Piccadilly with her hus- 
 band, and Harold Ffrench was aware of the 
 fact, and still he abstained from seeking her 
 presence. It was hard on her, cruelly hard on 
 her ; for Mr. Galton insisted on patronising the 
 local tailor, a man who lived in the market- 
 town nearest to Haversham, and his coats, one 
 and all, had a ruck in the back that was horri- 
 bly suggestive of the country and all its abomi- 
 nations to her. It was good broad-cloth that 
 John Galton,wore, but the cut of it was a mad- 
 dening thing to the woman who bore his name, 
 and leant upon his arn% in the haunts of fash- 
 ionable men in that year of grace. He marred 
 the effect of her own exquisite toilettes, and 
 imade her miserable. He took the edge off the 
 Great Exhibition, and made her doubt, fur the 
 first time in her life, whether the many stares 
 which were directed toward her were of un- 
 mixed admiration or not. After three or four 
 days' endurance of this agony, she could bear 
 it no longer. 
 
 " I will write to Harold Ffrench," she said to 
 herself on the impulse of the moment, but she 
 thought better of that presently. Mr. Galton 
 had not suggested that she should write to her 
 cousin, even about that opera-box of which 
 mention had been made. 
 
 "I will take you there, Kate; never mind 
 bothering your cousin; he seemed to me to 
 want to shake us off. Country cousins, 
 you know, are not always agreeable, are 
 they?" 
 
 " I hope Harold does not look upon me as a 
 country cousin," Kate had retorted indignantly ; 
 but still she had said no more about writing to 
 Harold, for John Galton was one who would 
 foist his society on no man, and he would not 
 make the suggestion without which Kate was 
 too wary to write. "I will get that Miss Theo 
 Leigh here," she said to herself one morning 
 when she was languidly adorning herself for a 
 sacrificial saunter under conjugal auspices, "and 
 then, John is always so good-natured, and such 
 a fool, that he will soon propose bringing them 
 together again." 
 
 Bather than not have the society of the man 
 
 at all, she would have used Venus herself to 
 lure him into her presence. Mrs. Gallon's 
 scruples about abolishing Venus as soon as she 
 ceased to be necessary as a lure would have 
 beenfew, as may be supposed. So now she re- 
 solved to bribe Harold to come to her by prom- 
 ising him a sight of Theo, little caring what 
 came to Theo through the means. 
 
 Theo, meanwhile, had been struggling very 
 hard to live in the present, and think alone of 
 the future, and forget as much as might be for- 
 gotten of the past. She had her reward in 
 finding the present slightly fatiguing, but pleas- 
 antly so, and the future not a blank by any 
 means; the wound that she had received was 
 deep, but it was, as has been said, a clean cut, 
 and the edges did not fester and fret her con- 
 stantly. 
 
 Nevertheless, sensible girl and dutiful daugh 
 ter as she was, she did occasionally feel that 
 other companionship than her father's would 
 have been desirable. He exerted himself much 
 to give her pleasure, wearied himself daily for 
 hours . in that fairy palace in Hyde Park, and 
 nightly at the theatres where he distracted Theo 
 by comparing modern actors to the Siddons,, 
 Kembles, and Kean, to the invariable disadvan- 
 tage of the former. Then for a rest he took 
 her to Greenwich, and showed her the hospital 
 (for an appointment to which he yearned), and 
 partook of luncheon with an old comrade who 
 was eloquent on the delights of the place, and 
 the advantages derivable from a residence in it. 
 He was a plethoric old gentleman, this late com- 
 rade of her papa's, who grunted and swore a 
 great deal more than wag necessary, Theo 
 thought ; but he appeared to be admirably con- 
 tented with his position, which Theo's experi- 
 ence of old naval ofiHcers taught her was a 
 remarkable thing. 
 
 " No place like it for a man with a family, sir, 
 — no place like it ; to live rent-free in a palace 
 is something after knocking about all one's life, 
 eh. Miss Leigh*" 
 
 " I don't think that it's too much, after 
 knocking about all one's Ufe," Theo replied, du- 
 biously. 
 
 " You don't, eh ? you don't. My dear young 
 lady,-.let me tell you that it is the highest reward 
 the Service oifers us, an appointment here, and 
 that a man doesn't get it for nothing, I can tell 
 you." 
 
 In her heart Theo thought that no man had 
 seen so much service or done such doughty 
 deeds as her father. His old comrade's satisfac- 
 tion in the boon bestowed savoured, she thought, 
 of disparagement to her father's claim to it. 
 The young lady had yet to learn that the old 
 gentleman who grunted and swore held a differ- 
 ent tone to outsiders to that which those within 
 the gates were accustomed to hear from his lips. 
 She did not know this, so she only said, 
 
 " I suppose papa will have it then." 
 
 " You'll find the society here delightful," one 
 of the daughters of the house observed with 
 animation. Theo had mentioned that she lived 
 in a dull little village ; it was pleasant to the 
 daughter of the house to point out the diiference 
 in the places in which they were running the 
 best years of their respective careers. She then 
 yent on to give Theo a list of the names and 
 number of the families resident at the time, and 
 
28 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Theo remarked that there seemed "to be a 
 great many ladies." 
 
 The daughter of the house tried to look as if 
 she had never thought this fact a drawback to 
 the delights of the place before. 
 
 " There are a good many ; yes, certainly, 
 there are a good many ; of course if you don't 
 like ladies' society, you won't think such a 
 number of girls in the place any recommenda- 
 tion." " 
 
 " Ladies' society in moderation I like, but 
 such a number ! Papa, you mustn't come here. 
 I should feel ashamed of myself for adding to 
 such a heavy brigade," Theo said laughingly to 
 Mr. Leigh, whose heart was heavy at the thought 
 of not being there already, living in " rooms in 
 a palace rent-free, and having as many barrels of 
 small beer as he liked at cost-price." He was 
 making up his mind to " memorialise " again for 
 the next vacancy, and looking at his old com- 
 rade attentively, in order to detect whether 
 there were any signs of dissolution about that 
 hale but aged man, who fathomed the motive 
 of the attentive gaze, and resented it by being 
 haler and heartier than before out of sheer 
 opposition. 
 
 They made the tour of the place after lun- 
 cheon, went into the Chapel, and were brought 
 up by the rope before the viper and bundle of 
 sticks, and into the Painted Hall, where they 
 duly dislocated their necks and got headaches 
 in the cause of art, and into the wards and 
 kitchens. 
 
 These latter places deepened Mr. Leigh's 
 admiration for the " mag-m&cent scale " on 
 which everything was done, for he was in an 
 admiring mood, and thoroughly believed that 
 the height of naval bliss was to be found here. 
 But aged seamen feeding are pleasanter on can- 
 vas than in real life. Theo was quite ready to 
 believe in the place also, but the gastronomic 
 odours on this hot June day did not increase her 
 faith in this paradise to which she, fate and the 
 Admiralty willing, was to be consigned. 
 
 But there is a great charm about this place 
 after all, — at least there soon was to Theo. It 
 is utterly unlike every other place; and this 
 characteristic of singularity always will tell in 
 the end. The library and the librarian ; the 
 feudal observances of banging a gong at sunset, 
 and barring out visitors at nine ; the solemn 
 sorry state thM is maintained ; the pertinacity 
 with which certain benches are guarded from the 
 contaminating touch of those who " don't be- 
 long to the place," — all these things struck her, 
 and caused her to experience a throb of the 
 same sort of feeling that made her father linger 
 in the machinery department at the Exhibition ; 
 for, as that modern sage Dundreary says, human 
 nature " likes to wonder." 
 
 She did wonder ; wonder greatly about many 
 things that she saw and heard. Amongst other 
 things she wondered whether Queen Mary looked 
 down and smiled upon her work, and whether 
 William was as well satisfied with it as he has 
 cause to be with the majority of the acts of his 
 reign ? At least, I am not sure that the wonder- 
 ings took the form of those precise words at 
 the time, but she did afterwards, when the 
 habit of Greenwich Hospital was no longer 
 upon her. 
 
 She had other cause for wonderment when 
 
 she reached her temporary home in the lodg- 
 ings in Great George Street, Westminster, that 
 night, for on the table in the drawing-room she 
 found the card of " Mrs. John Galton." The un- 
 solved problem of how Mrs. Galton, his cousin, 
 had found her out, kept Theo awake the whole 
 night, and ill prepared her for bearing the bur- 
 den and heat of the following day. 
 
 With the nine-o'clock post that day came an 
 explanation in the form of an epistle from Mrs. 
 Leigh, acquainting her daughter with the grati- 
 fying fact of the kindest letter having been re- 
 ceived by her from Mrs. Galton, asking so par- 
 ticularly for Theo's address in town, and wishing 
 so much to see her. " I answered it at once," 
 the mother wrote, " and I should not be sur- 
 prised to hear that she has been to call upon 
 you already; she seems to be a very sweet- 
 tempered domestic woman ; she says she wishes 
 that Houghton and Haversham were nearer to 
 each other, in which case she should ask me to 
 have an eye to her dear little daughter during 
 her absence. As a mother," she feelingly re- 
 marks, " I can enter into the continual anxiety 
 she experiences while away from the dear child. 
 It is not often," Mrs. Leigh sagaciously added, 
 " that a young and beautiful woman such as 
 Mrs. Galton, is so devoted a mother as she 
 appears to be." (Some few weeks after this, 
 Theo showed her mamma's letter to her fasci- 
 nating friend in a moment of blind admiration 
 and unlimited confidence, and the fascinating 
 friend performed a mental pas of pleasure at 
 having " so successfully hoodwinked the old 
 lady.") 
 
 On Mrs. Galton's card was a pencilled state- 
 ment of an intention to call on Miss Leigh at 
 three o'clock on the following day. Before that 
 hour came, Theo had woven a vision of Harold 
 Ffrench accompanying his cousin ; indeed his 
 figure was the prominent one in the pattern, 
 and Mrs. Galton fell into position as merely an 
 accessory, the cause of an effect which should 
 banish thoughts of all beside itself. 
 
 She inducted herself into the blue muslin for 
 the first time this day. The sight of the frills 
 had been painful to her hitherto ; they had been 
 hemmed that day when she got her " woeful 
 prick," poor child, and theyipossessed the bal- 
 samic quality of making the wound smart. So 
 just in this one thing she had been indulgent to 
 her weakness, and she congratulated herself on 
 this indulgence now, when she put it on in all 
 its freshness towards solemnising with all due 
 splendour the advent of her expected guests, 
 and saw that she looked very well in it. 
 
 She would not go out at all this day. When 
 she had deemed that it was all over, and that 
 she should never see him again, she had been 
 most wisely patient, most bravely determined on 
 doing just as she had ever done. But this sud- 
 den revulsion, this relighting of the torch of 
 hqpe, upset her philosophy, and though she re- 
 solved to meet and greet him as a friend, — noth- 
 ing more, never anything more, — still till the 
 time of such meeting came she could but let 
 agitation reign supreme. 
 
 It was a long dull morning that Theo passed 
 in the drawing-room of their lodgings. It 
 would have been better for her bad she gone to 
 the Admiralty with her father, as he had invited 
 her to do ; but she had refused this slight diver- 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 29 
 
 sion, fearing tbat tbree o'clock would come upon 
 her like a thief in the night, and that they 
 would come and go and miss her, and make no 
 further attempt. Such a catastrophe waa of too 
 horrible a nature to be lightly brought upon 
 herself, thejefore she suffered her papa to go 
 off to a possible interview with the First Lord 
 alone, "^ifi 
 
 It wa<nol a hopeful room to contemplate, 
 with the prospect before you of spending several 
 hours in it by yourself, that drawing-room in the 
 house in Great George Street. Everything in it 
 was for show and not for use, and the show was 
 not fair to look upon. There was an undesira- 
 ble carpet on the floor, a dark-green ground with 
 branches of red trees strewed all over It, and 
 those branches stood out so well from the green 
 that one involuntarily stepped high in order to 
 avoid catching in and tripping over them ; there 
 were papier mdcM stands sprinkled with a lavish 
 hand about the apartment, and these supported 
 busts of Byron, and Scott, and Shakespeare 
 (the latter with ah evident predisposition to 
 water on the brain), and glass shades full of 
 wax fruit and flowers. The chairs, too, were of 
 an order from which one would turn with loath- 
 ing and disgust when fatigued mentally or 
 bodily, for they were heavy hot velvet ; and if 
 one deposited one's self upon one of them with 
 anything like velocity, clouds of dust arose and 
 rendered all things obscure for many minutes. 
 When to this is added the fact, that the French 
 clock on the mantel-piece was addicted to loud 
 ticking, and being always an hour too ,slow or 
 four hours too fast by reason of its purposeless 
 minute perpetually catching in a feeble kind of 
 way in its stumpy hour-hand, it will readily be 
 believed that the room was not hopeful — that it 
 was, on the contrary, decidedly disheartening. 
 It was not at all a room in a corner or portion 
 of which Theo could enshrine herself and be- 
 comingly await the arrival of possible devotees. 
 
 It never occurred to Theo to seek relief from 
 the tedium by taking up woman's universal pan- 
 acea, work. She was not one who could find 
 partial oblivion in a thimble, and alleviation for 
 much in the wielding of that useful little weapon, 
 by aid of which many women keep ennui, even 
 despair, at bay. The girl was far from being 
 muscular or coarse in her tastes or appearance ; 
 Btill a needle never looked quite at home in her 
 slender restless hand ; she had no liking for the 
 most customary of all feminine occupations. 
 
 Cut off, therefore, by habit from this re- 
 source ; cut off by circumstances from others 
 that were more congenial ; Theo sat all the 
 morning in idleness, and though Satan did not 
 find some mischief for her idle hands to do, 
 the fiend Imagination had a rare time of it, 
 waved on by the recently relighted torch of 
 Hope. 
 
 She had tutored herself into the belief that 
 she should not be very iinpatient even if three 
 o'clock passed and they came not. But the 
 Boho'oling waa unnecessary, for with the striking 
 of the hour mingled the sound of a resolutely 
 plied knocker, and presently Mrs. Galton alone 
 came into the room. 
 
 " I am very punctual, am I not ? " Mrs. Galton 
 asked, as she was shaking hands. " I always 
 keep my word." And so, to do her justice, she 
 did in some things; she never broke small 
 
 promises to casual acquaintances ; when Kate 
 Galton ruptured a faith it was a fine big one 
 invariably. 
 
 "It is very kind of you to have taken the 
 trouble to find me out," Theo replied ; her knees 
 were trembling with excitement and disap- 
 pointment, and despite her efforts, her eyes 
 rolled towards the door and rested there linger- 
 ingly. Kate Galton quite understood why they 
 did so, and resolved to punish this folly lightly 
 in some way or other. Theo Leigh conceiving 
 a genuine passion for a man she (Kate) had 
 elected to honour with an elastic regard, was a 
 person to be abased when she had served the 
 contemplated purpose. 
 
 " Ah, I see you looking ; but little Katy is 
 not with me, nor is my husband, for a marvel." 
 
 " Oh, I know that you did not bring your 
 little girl up ; I was not looking for her," Theo 
 said honestly ; and Mrs. Galton's brow clouded 
 ever so slightly as she weighed the probabilities 
 of Theo haying heard thus much from Harold 
 Ffrench. 
 
 " Have you seen my cousin, then, lately ? " 
 she asked., 
 
 Theo shook her head and said " No." 
 
 "Ah, I thought it most extraordinarily negli- 
 gent of him, if he had seen you, not to have 
 told me, knowing, as he does, how anxious I am 
 to see a great deal of you while in town, and in 
 the country too, I hope ; but Harold is so for- 
 getful that, after all, I ought not to have been 
 surprised if it had escaped his memory." 
 
 This speech was designed to show Theo how 
 absolutely unuanportant a thing she was in Harold 
 Ffrench's ey ", and also that Mrs. Galton's in- 
 tercourse with her cousin was incessant and 
 familiar. It failed in achieving the fi»st object, 
 fo^Theo did not believe that she was forgotten 
 by or utterly unimportant to the man who had 
 seemed to love her so warmly but the other 
 day. ^ujihe latter and equally natural impli- 
 cation shelLfirmly credited. Why should she 
 have doubted it, indeed ? It seemed to her to 
 be in the order of things that Mrs. Galton and 
 her Cousin Harold should be much together. 
 Theo had not begun to fear that there waa 
 either sin or shame in the combination, or to 
 suspect it of being other than right proper, 
 highly desirable, and extremely natural. 
 
 "And what have you been doing?" Mrs. Gal- 
 ton asked, after a few desultory remarks, that 
 did not bear upon anything in particular, and 
 shall therefore be suffered to pass unrecorded. 
 " I suppose you have seen the principal things 
 that are going on ; isn't it a wonderful season ? " 
 
 " It is my first experience of one ; of course 
 it is wonderful to me; but I am not in the 
 vortex, you know." 
 
 " Ah, how should you be in the vortex with 
 no ohaperone save your papa? I forgot that 
 when I asked you what you had been doing. I 
 have ebbed away from London society since my 
 marriage, but I do know some people still, and 
 it would give me great pleasure to take you 
 wherever I go myself." 
 
 Theo thanked Mrs. Galton for the kindly dis- 
 position evinced, but it was all she could do, for 
 she was beginning to develop the idea that a 
 little more was said than was meant on all occa- 
 sions. It is unpleasant to accept warmly a con- 
 ditional invitation, and then to discover that' the 
 
m 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 inviter did not intend to go quite so far in the 
 matter as you in your innocence imagined from 
 the manner. 
 
 "It would really give me great pleasure to 
 have you with me, Miss Leigh ; do you think 
 you could persuade your papa to leave you with 
 me when he returns?" 
 
 Theo tried to say that she thought she " ought 
 to go home with papa " firmly, and she failed. 
 The thought that she would surely see Harold 
 Ffrench at*his cousin's house would arise, and 
 it caused her resolution to totter. Mrs. Galton 
 felt persuaded of Theo's acquiescence in the 
 proposed scheme, despite that young lady's gen- 
 tle indication of a wish to sacrifice inclination 
 to duty ; and Mrs. Galton fathomed the cause 
 of this acquiescence, and again resented it in 
 the innermost recesses pi her mind. 
 
 "Little fooll to nurse hopes of Harold in 
 such a way," Kate thought, even while she was 
 saying :*— 
 
 "Let us leave the decision to your mamma. 
 I will write to her about it, and if she will trust 
 you with me, you need have no scruples about 
 staying. Mr. Galton will be obliged to return to 
 Haversham, but we shall never lack an escort 
 with my cousin Mr. Pfrench in town. I do not 
 like to think of your going back after only three 
 weeks' experience of this exceptional year." 
 
 Theo glowed at the prospect. 
 
 "It is very kind of you, very kind indeed, to 
 a stranger such as I am. I shall enjoy staying 
 with you above everything, but it does seem a 
 great thing for you to do for such a recent ac- 
 quaintance." 
 
 "Not at all. I have no sistere, no cousins, 
 no grown-up daughters " (she tinkled out a little 
 laugh heng at the prepi^terousness of the notion., 
 of her having grown-up,daughters).' " Perhwi 
 when Katy's of a fit and proper agjs to be given 
 her chance, I shall be disinclined fMjso&ily, 
 and shall be glad of some friend ^^fc.for her 
 what I am going to do for vou.H|^Hfei' Kate 
 rose up to go, and added, " MindJ^iss Leigh, 
 that you reward me by marrying brilliantly 
 at the end of the season ; my protege's glories 
 will be mine, remember." 
 
 " Papa, papa ! " Theo cried, when her father 
 came home from that interview with a suave 
 First Lord, who made him happy even while re- 
 fusing him all he asked, — " Mrs. Galton has 
 asked me to stay with her ; she is going to re- 
 main entirely on my account, and take me 
 everywhere, though Mr. Galton won't be able 
 to, — that is to say, Mr. Ffrench will, you know, 
 instead. Will you let me go ? " 
 
 " I don't quite understand the case. When 
 do you want to go to her ? " 
 
 " Not while you can stay here with me, papa ; 
 not till you go back, dear ; but then I thought — 
 that is, she thought that you would let me go 
 and stay with her and see a little more of what 
 is going. on; and she would take me to parties, 
 she says." 
 
 " I know so little of the woman, and what I 
 do know I don't like." 
 
 " That's mere prejudice, papa ; she's the 
 sweetest, kindest woman ; I wish you could have 
 Been her to-day, you wouldn't have been able to 
 help liking her ; even if you can't let me go to 
 her, don't say a word against her, please." 
 
 " We will hear what your mother says," Mr. 
 
 Leigh said, meditatively ; he was in a difficulty — 
 a difficulty that frequently oppresses parents. 
 He could not bear to deprive the child of one 
 jot or tittle of pleasure which might be hers. 
 But at the same time he sorely distrusted this 
 woman who was offering to give it fo her. 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 KATE GALTON MEANS SO KINDLY. 
 
 Kate had secured the bait! She knew that 
 she had done so as soon as she saw that the 
 girl's desire pointed to remaining with her, for 
 she had fathomed that Theo was a pet daughter 
 who could move her parents to consent to any 
 plan. The sole difficulty now was to win her 
 husband's consent to the retention of the cage 
 in which the bait was to be placed. For rooms 
 in Piccadilly let at their full value in 1861, and 
 John Galton was a man who gave thought as to 
 the disbursement of his cash. 
 
 It was not alone for the sake of luring 
 Harold Ffrench into her net that the pretty 
 spider with the nut-brown hair made use of the 
 fresh young country fly. Mrs. Galton wanted 
 an excuse, a fair and valid excuse with which 
 neither man nor woman could quarrel, for re- 
 maining in London and enjoying herself as much 
 as was seemly ; therefore" she converted herself 
 into a chaperone, and appealed to John Galton's 
 good-heartedness on behalf of her interesting 
 young friend. 
 
 "I have, been to call on that pretty Miss 
 Leigh this 'morning, John," she said to her 
 husband'^hile they were at dinner on the even- 
 ing of the day on which Hope told a flattering 
 tale to Theo. " Poor child ! she looked so dole- 
 ful at the idea of going back to Houghton so 
 soon that I couldn't help asking her to come 
 and stay with us here when her father goes 
 back." 
 
 " When is he going back ? " 
 
 " In five or six days." 
 
 " We shall not be long after him ; in ten days 
 at the latest I shall go back ; I don't like leav- 
 ing the place for longer : things get neglected 
 when the master is away." 
 
 "John! that's awkward in the extreme: I 
 have asked her, and she has accepted the in- 
 vitation." 
 
 " Take her down to the Grange with you, 
 then." 
 
 "She won't thank me for that alteration in 
 the prograiame ; really it's very awkward." 
 
 Mrs. Galton put down her knife and fork, and 
 rested her elbow on the table and her head on 
 her hand, in very weariness and vexation of 
 spirit. 
 
 " Very awkward, indeed," she repeated. " I 
 forgot when I was talking to her that I had 
 virtually done with London Ufe. I remembered 
 the days when I was a young girl myself, and 
 I tried to show her the sort of kindnega I lised 
 to appreciate most highly myself." 
 
 " It's impossible that I can stay more than 
 ten days longer, Kate," John Galton said, in a 
 vexed tone. 
 
 "And it would be miserable without you,"' 
 his wife rephed, calmly. 
 
 " It would be miserable for me, dear. But if 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 81 
 
 you have set your heart oa giving this young 
 lady a treat, you shall stay — ^if you care to stay 
 hero without me." 
 
 " I should renew a good many acquaintances, 
 for Aunt Glaskill is in town — she may be very 
 useful to my daughter when she is grown up," 
 Mrs. Gallon replied pensively, but promptly. 
 
 " Haversham will seem duller than ever to you 
 after such a taste of your old life." 
 
 She openedf her eyes with a little stare of in- 
 quiry and astonishment. 
 
 " Haversham dull to me f " 
 
 " There, I didn't mean to say it, Kate. I don't 
 think that you find it dull, dear, and it would be 
 confoundedly hard," he continued, defending her 
 against himself as it were, "if you, who are not 
 ■ much more than a girl yourself, mightn't want » 
 change sometimes : you shall stay here and enjoy 
 yourself with Miss Theo Leigh, and as soon as I 
 have set things going on the land, I'll come back 
 to you." 
 
 He got up and kissed her as he said it, but I 
 fear that the promise contained in his last sentence 
 robbed her response of a little of its warmth. 
 
 "I haven't said much about my own connec- 
 tions heretofore, John," she said, virtuously, 
 "but I often think that it is almost a pity that 
 we should drift away from them altogether. 
 Aunt Glaskill's countenance will be a good thing 
 for Katy when she is grown up, and Aunt Glas- 
 kill won't be ill pleased at my taking a pretty girl 
 like Theo Leigh to her house." 
 
 " Take her by all means and please Lady Glas- 
 kill, but my daughter won't want the counte- 
 nance of an old paint-pot when she's grown up, 
 thank God ! " 
 
 " Then you really think that I had better re- 
 main ? " 
 
 " Certainly, if you wish to do so." 
 
 "Not unless you wish it too, John: I had 
 rather be made downright rude to a dozen Miss 
 Leighs than displease you." 
 
 " I would not have my wife rude to anybody ; 
 no, Kate, you have asked this young lady to stay 
 with you, and you must not disappoint her. Katy 
 and I wiU try to get on without you, but it will 
 be dull work.'j| ^ 
 
 "As you wm; oflfcourse, if you think it right 
 that I should stay, Opll do so ; and John '- " 
 
 " Well, what is itTow ? » 
 
 "About a brougham? It won't do to rjsk 
 Miss Leigh's evening dresses in common cabs, 
 you know." 
 
 "Oh, won't it? wen, dear, as I shall not be 
 here, you can please yourself as to where you like 
 to send when you want a carriage for the night." 
 
 " With a young lady on my hands — a young 
 lady towards whom my fastidious cousin Harold 
 inclines most kindly, — I shall want a carriage for 
 other things besides idght-work." 
 
 "Do you think there is anything in that quar- 
 ter with Ffrench, then? He denied it when I 
 chaffed him." 
 
 " Of course he denied it, and you must not 
 ' chaff him,' as you call it ; how can I tell whether 
 or not there is anything in it yet ? That remains 
 to be seen. I think that ttiere is a very fair 
 chance of Theo Leigh marrying if she is brought 
 out properly ; marrying weU, even if she does not 
 marry Harold, which is more than probable." 
 
 " It would be different if you had- a town house 
 arid town coimeetion, Kate. However, you mean 
 
 it so kindly that I hope your plan will succeed, 
 though I don't think much of it myself. Tou 
 can't do much for a girl when you're living in 
 lodgings and don't entertain." - 
 
 " My friends can do a great deal for her. Lady 
 GlaakUl (I was under her auspices when I met 
 gou, remember, John) is always very kind to as- 
 pirants in anything, and she sees a great many 
 people. But about the brougham ? " 
 
 " Tou must have it, I suppose." 
 
 " And will you see about it, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes ; a single one will do, won't it ? " 
 
 " No, John, no ; were I alone concerned I 
 should infinitely prefer a single one, because — 
 because I do infinitely prefer it ; but supposing 
 we are invited to any party at Biohmond or 
 Greenwich, and asked to give any one a lift home, 
 my inability to do so might stop an offer. No, 
 there must be room for a third in the brougham, 
 and it must be very dark, and the horse I should 
 like to be black or grey and a very high stepper. 
 Of course you'll send up Rogers and Williams, 
 so that I shallhave my own liveries." 
 
 " Why, you're regularly going in for a town 
 establishment, Kate ; but you mean it so kindly, 
 little woman, that you shall have your own way 
 about it. I hope Ffrench won't disappoint you 
 after aU." 
 
 " I hope he will not," she said dryly. 
 
 " Or the girl herself, for that matter. Is she a 
 beauty?" 
 
 "No: too dark; but there is something at- 
 tractive about her, something very attractive in- 
 deed ; otherwise I shouldn't take all this trouble 
 to cultivate Harold's possible fancy. I shall call 
 on Lady Glaskill to-morrow and secure her co- 
 operation." 
 
 " Is she bent on marrying Harold off also ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; doesn't care for him a bit ; believes 
 him to be all bad, an utterly irreclaimable selfish 
 man, who is rightly dealt with in being wifeless 
 and homeless. She isn't his aunt, you know ; 
 she was my mother's sister, no relation to Harold 
 at all." 
 
 "Where has your aunt pitched her tent this 
 year ? I didn't know she was in town." 
 
 " In Wilton Place ; but we won't speak about 
 it any more ; for when I remember that you won't 
 be with me, all the edge of the pleasure I should 
 otherwise feel is taken off." 
 
 " I will run up as often as I can," John Galton 
 said, heartily ; " in fact, when I have set things 
 going I may as well come up altogether." 
 
 Which promise of happiness struck Mrs. Galton 
 speechless for a minute or two ; bui after a time 
 her powers of eloquence returned, and she en- 
 larged with a wifely interest on the short-comings 
 of his farm-bailiff — a man whom she " never 
 trusted further than she could see," she said — 
 and on the general and proverbial dishonesty and 
 laziness of the Haversham labourers. It was an 
 unfortunate topic to have chosen, if she desired 
 to have her husband's society in town. The up- 
 shot of it was, that he declared thf fact to be 
 " that they were not to be trusted, unless they 
 knew they were liable to the inspection of thj| 
 master every hour of the day ; farming won't do 
 itself, and of course I have more interest in see- 
 ing it well done than any one else. Ah ! well, 
 I shan't give them such another spell of their own 
 way for some time to come." 
 
 It was a most unfortunate topic to have chosen, 
 
82 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 this one which had terminated in such a decision. 
 And so Kate thought, it is to be hoped. 
 
 The days passed cpiickly, and the call was 
 made on Lady Glaskill, and a rapturous consent 
 to Theo's go&g to Mrs. Galton came up from 
 Mrs. Leigh, and the brougham was placed at Mrs. 
 Galton's absolute disposal ; and the happy hus- 
 band went home to superintend the ripening of 
 his crops and other things appertaining to his oc- 
 cupation — and the young fly walked confidingly 
 into the spider's net, which was in process of 
 renovation, almost of reconstruction ; and still 
 Harold Ffrenoh kept out of the way. 
 
 The apartments which Mrs. Galton occupied 
 in Piccadilly were situate opposite to the Green 
 Park. They were spacious and lofty, as became 
 their position in the world, but they were not 
 all that seemed desirable to her : they were 
 furnished after a grim and heavy fashion that 
 was repulsive to her, although the furniture 
 itself was good. The people to whom the 
 house belonged, before letting it for the season 
 and decamping for economic reasons, had care- 
 fully denuded their rooms of everything that 
 could by any possibility be broken or easily 
 carried away ; and this precaution had imparted 
 an air of rigidity and general dreariness to the 
 rooms, which it now became Mrs. Galton's task 
 to modify. 
 
 The task was one upon which she entered 
 with an avidity which only a pretty woman de- 
 sirous of worthily enshrining herself and render- 
 ing the casket deserving of so fair a jewel as she 
 feels herself to be can experience. She resolved 
 upon having a share in the glories that were 
 going. She had always sighed for a fashionable 
 life, and here was an opportunity of leading one, 
 for a brief space at any rate. Old friends should 
 be looked up and new ones formed through 
 their means, and a lion or two caught and per- 
 suaded to roar in her rooms — all for Theo's 
 sake, of course. The utmost triumph she could 
 attain would be in a small way ; but these were 
 better than none at all, she told herself. In- 
 deed her vanity led her to believe, that once 
 seen and known and spoken about, but a very 
 small effort would be necessary to make her 
 rooms the resort of all that was most brilliant: 
 it would be a second Gore House, and she rather 
 an improvement on Lady Blessington by right 
 of her youth. 
 
 If John Galton imagined the rooms in which 
 he left his wife to be already furnished, it was a 
 pity he could not have been shown the uphols- 
 tery bill which was run up the day of his de- 
 parture, and learnt his mistake. " There is no 
 extravagance in it," Kate said, when her aunt, 
 Lady Glaskill, reproached her with extravagance 
 in a tone of jocularity. . " There is no extrava- 
 gance in it, for all these things will do for 
 Haversham Grange by-and-by, when I am forced 
 to go back ; at all events you must acknowledge 
 the things are very pretty." 
 
 They were that, undoubtedly. The rooms 
 seemed to Theo when she saw them first to be 
 (liuch a combination of fragrance and beauty as 
 she had believed existed only in the "'Arabian 
 Nights' Entertainments." There were hanging 
 baskets of ferns and orchids, and creeping 
 things innumerable, and vases of rare roses and 
 pyramids of hot-house flowers of every hue, and 
 sweeping curtains of green velvet and filmy 
 
 muslin dividing one portion of the apartment 
 from another, and seductive couches, and beauty- 
 fraught statuettes, and a few pictures (all his- 
 torical) very warm in colouring, and mirrors and 
 tall pier-glasses on every side reflecting all these 
 things. 
 
 "It was hardly worth while to get them up in 
 this way for the short time you'll be allowed to 
 stay, my dear," Lady Glaskill observed, when 
 she bad marked and approved of her niece's 
 renovated web. 
 
 " I don't mean it to be for a short time ; I 
 have a plan in my head." 
 
 " Tou always had, if I remember, my dear, a 
 good many plans in. your head, and some of 
 them came to nothing." 
 
 Lady Glaskill was one of those pleasant old 
 ladies who never neglect an opportunity of say- 
 ing a possibly disagreeable thing to another 
 woman. She was a little old lady, slightly de- 
 formed, but she declared herself to have been a 
 fairy, a sylph, an ethereal beauty in the days of 
 her youth ; and as no one could remember those 
 days, she was never contradicted. She was 
 an active restless little woman even now, agile 
 and kittenish and gushing, and full of false 
 enthusiasm and sham brilliancy and fearfully 
 high spirits ; a ghastly old coquette who believ- 
 ed in herself and her love-winning properties 
 long after every one who knew her had come to 
 the conclusion that the only things real about 
 her were her bones : for the skin was enamel 
 and the colour was paint, and the teeth and hair 
 were constantly renewed and extremely variable, 
 and the heart and sentiments were falser than 
 everything else. She was a nice old lady! a 
 very nice old lady indeed was Lady Glaskill ; and 
 the people frequented her house largely when 
 she was in town, and only speculated as towhe- 
 ther she had really poisoned her husband for 
 threatening to tell that he had been forced to 
 marry her at the point of her papa's sword 
 when she was away. 
 
 Lady GlaskiU's hair was a great joke amongst 
 her acquaintances ; she was always imagining 
 .heraelf to be like some heroic of romance or 
 hl||piry, and investing in new iair that might 
 further the illusion. On^|[^oKday in a long 
 long past year she had f^jflP^ a'esemblance in 
 herself to Cleopatra, and fWhwith she organized 
 a Kichmond party and went up the river in a 
 boat under a flame-4oloured canopy with black 
 locks streaming wildly around her, a sandalled 
 foot in full view, and a fancy Egyptian garment 
 of scanty proportion over her skinny little 
 person, to the scandal of so much of the world 
 as thronged the banks to look at Lady GlaskiU's 
 current folly. Shortly after this she had cos- 
 tumed as " Corinne," and crowned herself with 
 a wreath of bays on the strength of having writ- 
 ten a volume of very immoral and unmetrical 
 poetry, which she read aloud with passion and 
 emphasis at several of her evening parties. She 
 had been robed to the chin and she had been 
 desperately dkcolleUe in rapid' succession for a 
 longer series of years than one would care to 
 enumerate. She ha,d gained a name for foolish 
 vanity beyond every one of her foolishly vain 
 compeers ; her name had been called in ques- 
 tion (mainly through her own vain-glorious 
 boasts), and her stories had been refuted a 
 thousand times. Yet still she kept her place in 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 33 
 
 the world, and the denizens of it ilocl^ed around 
 her tattered mud-bespattered old standard 
 ■wheresoeyer she erected it and called attention 
 to the fact. 
 
 She was not a good, a worthy, or a respected 
 woman, but she was a popular and very well- 
 known woman ; and she struggled hard .to re- 
 main this latter thing, and never faded away 
 from any one's mind through lack of 'continu- 
 ally stirring that mind up with a hint of her 
 existence. She had married Sir Archibald Glas- 
 kill by force, and fought her way into society 
 like the enterprisine woman she was, and ^he 
 had held her place Tiardly but warily, and won 
 for herself a name with which every one, who 
 was any one at least, was acquainted. This was 
 something, all must allow, even if they do not 
 rate the honour as highly as Lady Slaskill did ; 
 to her it was as the breath of her nostrils ; and 
 Kate Galton had been in the way of this breath 
 passing over her very often when she was a 
 girl. 
 
 But Lady GlaskiU was a clever fool only, and 
 Kate was something a trifle higher in the scale. 
 The former told her eccentric, enthusiastic, pur- 
 poseless lies only for the sake of being stared 
 at and called " so very peculiar, you know ; " 
 the latter told her better modulated ones for an 
 end always. Kate liked to be stared at, but not 
 to be stared at solely on account of her peou- 
 liafities. Her aunt — ^wizened, ruddled old Lady 
 Glaskill — was happy and content in the assertion 
 that every unmarried man she'had ever met had 
 loved and proposed to her, and every married 
 one had lost his head and heart and honour. 
 Lady Glaskill was happy and content with the 
 mere assertion of these things ; but Kate was 
 not satisfied unless such things were. The 
 shadow was enough for the. voracious vanity of 
 the old woman, but the substaSice alone sufficed 
 for the not less voracious vanity of the younger 
 one. 
 
 It was at Lady Glaskill's house in Wilton 
 Place that Theo Leigh made her entrance into 
 London society. Lady GlaskiU had issued cards 
 for a conversazione, and it promised to be bril- 
 liantly attended, for she audaciously. ,a3k«d, or 
 caused her friesds to ask, every one Whdse name 
 sounded that year, and her audacity was well 
 rewarded. 
 
 "That little girl you have taken up shall be 
 noticeable, my dear, for I won't have too many 
 other women," Lady Glaskill had said to her 
 niece Mrs. Galton, with the rarest magnanimity, 
 or rather with what would have sounded like 
 the rarest magnanimity if her niece had not been 
 fully aware of the fact that " too many women " 
 were not wont to grace her aunt's reunions. So 
 when Miss Leigh and her chaperone floated into 
 the crowded rooms ia Wilton Place, it was 
 through a lane hedged almost entirely by men 
 that Theo walked unconsciously to meet her 
 fate. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SHADOW BESINS TO FALI.. 
 
 Theke was a man at Lady Glaskill's that 
 night who had written a successful novel. No 
 personality is intended ; hundreds of men wrote 
 novels that were successful or the reverse in 
 
 1851 ; and there was also a political martyr, and 
 an African explorer, and a scientific man who 
 had poisoned his wife by accident, and found 
 himself the centre of attraction in the fashion- 
 able world ever since the catastrophe. Aiound 
 these revolved the usual ijhrong that one meets 
 at such places. In their midst rose the fez of 
 an Oriental ambassador, who had been inveigled 
 into gracing, the rooms for a few minutes. 
 
 The successful novelist and the scientific mur- 
 derer faded into insignificance, and poled into 
 nothing before the light of Osmanli Effendi, 
 around whom all the women were crowding, 
 basiling unctuously in the oily refulgence of the 
 smiles of the child of the sun, who was gazing 
 calmly at their long English throats bared for 
 the occasion, and thinking that not one of them 
 was worthy to be compared with the least lovely 
 of the lights of his far-off harem, and of how 
 many pounds of Rabat La Koum it would take 
 to improve their appearance. 
 
 The rooms were very fuU ; people stood thick 
 as ears of corn in a weU-growu field, and the 
 buzz confused Theo as she advanced up that 
 aforesaid lane, hedged in , by masculine humanity 
 on either side, in the wake of heojjfehaperone, 
 who made straight, with the rush w an adept, 
 towards her hostess. Mrs. Galton never faltered 
 when she entered a room, or undulated up and 
 down like an elastic female figure in cork — she 
 just floated on, cool, quiet, erect, and fair to- 
 wards her goal. But her advent always made 
 a sensation. l 
 
 She had the art of entering at th* right mo- 
 ment. I do not know whether she lurked in 
 the doorway until such a time as those whose 
 gaze would guide the rest began to yawn, and 
 look as if they needed something new. But at 
 all eveiits, this was the juncture afa|f7hich she 
 almost invariably appeared, and th® night she 
 made no exception te^er usual rule. 
 
 Her heai£^)e3|yilickly at finding herself once 
 more ami4^sceue's from which she had blindly 
 gone at twenty to grace a country Grange. She 
 jyas radiant in her w^ite robes — in the thick 
 sheeny silk and cloudy tulle that became her 
 fair loveliness so well. She was marked as a 
 married woman by the head-dress of downy 
 plumes, fastened by a diamond aigrette, which 
 she wore. 
 
 The girl, following in her wake, led the eye 
 off from this beautiful woman very pleasingly, ' 
 for Theo Leigh was all alight with excitement, — 
 excitement that Was, partly due to the novelty, 
 but still more to the fact of Mrs. Galton's having 
 imparted to her the probability " of their meet- 
 ing Harold there." Now this probability had 
 been alluded to by Mrs. Galton in what Mr. Leigh 
 would have termed a "jninoing manner," for she 
 had spoken of it softly, and with one of the 
 blushes she could call up at will. But Theo had 
 marked neither manner nor blush in the joy con- 
 sequent on this announcement. She was going 
 to see him again ! — ^to see him once more, and 
 that was enoiigh. 
 
 The hour of dressing had not been one of un- 
 mixed satisfaction to Theo, for Mrs. Galton was 
 one of those sweet women who are specially 
 skilful in the sticking in of small mental pins to ■ 
 another woman. She had left it till the day of 
 the party to question Theo as to what she meant 
 to wear. When Theo told her what, and " hoped 
 
34 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 it would do," Mrs. Gallon did not exactly say 
 that it was not fitting and proper, but she damned 
 it with the faintest praise, and Theo felt uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 Not that Mrs. Galton in reality disapproved of 
 her young friend's choice of toilette, but it was 
 a point of conscience with her never to let an 
 opportunity pass of putting a sister out of conceit 
 with her appearance, and she was rigorous in 
 attending to the demands of her conscience on 
 this point. 
 
 " It's very nice, but do you think it's becom- 
 ing ? " she had asked when Theo had told her 
 that she was going to wear pale blue net over 
 white muslin skirts. When Theo said she 
 " thought blue generally suited her," Mrs. Galton 
 replied, 
 
 " Oh, if you think it does, it's all right," in a 
 tone which implied that she (Mrs. Galton) did 
 not think that it did become Theo by any means. 
 Kate then went on to inquire about the wreath 
 Theo designed to wear, and to opine that " for- 
 get-me-nots were pretty, but affectedly simple, 
 didn't Theo think, as a rule ; only becoming, in 
 fact, to very fair women with little colour." 
 
 However, Theo inducted herself into both 
 dress and wreath perforce — she had none other 
 to wear. As she caught a glimpse of herself in 
 the pier-glass she felt that if Mrs. John Galton 
 were dissatisfied with her appearance, then was 
 Mrs. John Galton a difficult woman to please. 
 Theo had yet to learn that it is not invariably 
 excess of afiection which renders our friends 
 hypercritical about us. " I will consult her be- 
 forehand another time, and get her to order my 
 dress for me," the unsophisticated Miss Leigh 
 thought, as she stepped into the carriage after 
 her chaperone. 
 
 It was very exciting to her and very brilliant, 
 she thought, this new scene in which she found 
 herself, but it had not the power to absorb her 
 sufficiently to make her forgft»the hope that had 
 brightened her journey thither. Jlven as her 
 hostess was introducing her to His Excellency, 
 Theo's eyes wandered awav in search of Harold 
 Ffrench. 
 
 " Aunt Glaskill is making a terrible goose of 
 herself to-night," Mrs. Galton whispered con- 
 temptuously to Theo after the expiration of a 
 few minutes, during which Lady Glaskill had 
 succeeded in attracting all attention to herself 
 by being ecstatic about the "Orient," to the 
 neglect ,and partial oblivion of her niece. When 
 Lady Glaskill's follies led attention away from 
 Kate, Kate was as intolerant to them as the 
 wisest could desire. "She's boring that poor 
 man insufferably," Mrs. Galton continued ; " any 
 one can see that he wants to talk to me; but 
 Lady Glaskill does hold on so pertinaciously 
 when she once gains a man's ear." 
 
 The fact was that the majority of those who 
 stood within speaking range of Mrs. Galton were 
 strangers to her; she would, therefore, have 
 been condemned to a silence which it is always 
 painful to maintain perforce in a gay throng of 
 talkers and laughers. No wander that she 
 thought Lady Glaskill in a turban and ecstasies 
 was making a goose of herself by engrossing that 
 which Kate herself sighed for — the attention of 
 the mightiest in the room. 
 
 The crowd broke up into portions and re- 
 adjusted itself presently, when ices were brought 
 
 in and handed round, and then Mrs. Galton 
 found herself drafted on into the immediate 
 circle of which the ineffably bored Oriental was 
 the centre. The opportunity was one which she 
 would not suffer to pass; mental molestation 
 from her would, she rightly judged, be preferable 
 to the same from Jier aunt, therefore she smiled 
 and spoke with all the fascination of which she 
 was mistress. To this his Mightiness listened 
 with calm courtesy, and replied with solemn 
 stupidity ; but that he did listen and reply was 
 enough for Mrs. Galton. 
 
 She entirely baffl^ all Lady Glaskill's inno- 
 cent attempts to win him "olely and wholly to 
 herself again. The younger, prettier woman had 
 the will to take and the power to hold, and Lady 
 Glaskill retired routed — ignominiously routed by 
 one of her own allies. She was put out by her 
 defeat for a brief time, but although an insatiably 
 vain, she was a good-natured woman ; therefore 
 the sole revenge she took on her audacious niece 
 was couched in these words, which she uttered in 
 no very low tone when the Oriental 'vantage- 
 ground that Kate had gained departed: — 
 
 " Well, my dear, I'm sorry that you have so 
 soon lost the opportunity of making yourself con- 
 spicuous ; now, perhaps, you will be good enough 
 to come jaere and let me introduce some of my 
 particular friends to you. I suppose yov, are dis- 
 appointed that It isn't a dance, you're looking so 
 blank," she continued, turning sharply to Tmo ; 
 "never allow dancing in my house, my dear; 
 wear out your totigues as much as you Uke, but 
 not my carpets." 
 
 Which sally was rewarded by a brace of syco- 
 phants observing audibly that "Lady Glaskill 
 was as astonishingly vivacious as ever," which 
 remark caused Lady GlaskiU to suppose that 
 they were hopiiig to be invited to her next en- 
 tertainment, and" to decide that they should be 
 disappointed. Flattery, if she fathomed it, was 
 wont to receive mild punishment from her. 
 
 Among the particular friends whom Lady 
 Glaskill specially selected to honour with an in- 
 troduction to the handsome niece of whom she 
 was slightly jealous, was the successful novelist, 
 whose light had been put under a bushel while 
 the Oriental remained. Mrs. Galton, whose ob- 
 ject it was to make a party of her own before 
 she quarrelled with her aunt, which past experi- 
 once taught her she was liable to do at any mo- 
 ment after >■■ week's intercourse — Mrs. Galton, 
 knowing this, made the man of letters her own 
 adroitly in a very short time. 
 
 Not by praising his new novel ; she was no 
 such bungler as to seek her end by using such 
 clumsy means. She did not open a heavy fire 
 of her opinions respecting it upon him, reducing 
 him to the verge of imbecility by declaring his 
 book to be "so delightful," and herself "so 
 much interested in it," and the heroine to be "a 
 dear," and the end " delicious" or " dreadful," as 
 the case might be. But she anatomised it; 
 spoke of it as a whole as no one who did not 
 know it thoroughly could speak, he told himself; 
 judiciously extracted from him a statement of 
 what he considered to be the finest passages, 
 and then spoke with great' feeling and sympathy 
 of those very passages, in a way that was more 
 subtly flattering than any open praise would 
 have been. Men, even successful novelists, are 
 but mortal. Mr. Linley was not ill pleased to 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 36 
 
 find that a work of his was deemed so profound 
 by a woman who wag " far from shallow," so he 
 phrased it in his mind. Theo Leigh, standing by, 
 wondered greatly that Mrs. Galton should so 
 rashly venture upon the discussion of a book 
 which she only knew through the medium of re- 
 vie^fs, with its author, and still more whether 
 this Linley was the one of whom her father had 
 spoken — the man who had been a young En- 
 glishman in Greece contemporaneously with 
 Harold Ffrench. 
 
 But speculation on any subject ceased to oc- 
 cupy her mind almost immediately, for a man 
 made his way very quietly to her side and ad- 
 dressed her, and took her hand in his as though 
 they had parted on the most ordinary terms. 
 His coldness cooled her, and his steadiness 
 steadied her, and though she was disappointed — 
 wisely as slie had resolved^at this casual-ac- 
 quaintance manner which Mr. Ffrench adopted 
 towards her, she still could but feel glad that it 
 so immediately reacted upon her own. 
 
 " I was very glad to hear from Mrs. Galton 
 that you and she are going to enjoy yourselves 
 together ; it was the most sensible plan I ever 
 knew her to form. Is your father in town still ? 
 : — ^how is he ? " 
 
 " Papa is gone home — he is very well." 
 
 " What is the move ? — oh ! going down to 
 supper ; my experience of this sort of thing 
 teaches me that it is well to go down at once if 
 you want to get anything ; the hindermost are 
 overtaken by evil and hunger ; shall we go 
 down ? " 
 
 He held out his arm for her tb take as he 
 spoke, and she placed her hand upon it, and 
 would not suffer her hand to tremble. But she 
 kept her face partially averted from him, and he 
 marked that she did so. 
 • " Theo ! " he exclaimed suddenly, as they came 
 to a compulsory pause upon the staircase, " I am 
 very glad to see you again." 
 
 "And I am glad to see you," she said frankly ; 
 and as she said it she made one of the many ef- 
 forts to be brave and non-emotional that women 
 situated in her position are compelled to make ; 
 she looked him in the face and met his gaze un- 
 flinchingly. 
 
 " Glad to see me? very quietly 'glad ; ' well, 
 no matter, what can I expect but a very sober 
 satisfaction to be yours at sight of me. Ton 
 see many other people now. I ought to have 
 known that I should probably merely bore you, 
 yet I could not resist coming to meet you to- 
 night." 
 
 " You know vety well that you could never 
 bore me ; how can you be so unkind as to pre- 
 tend to think it ? " she cried. Then she was 
 afraid that she had said too much, and said it 
 too warmly, and her hand began to tremble on 
 his arm. 
 
 " Theo," he whispered softly, " have you for- 
 given me ? " , 
 
 " I have nothing to forgive, Mr. Pfrench," she 
 replied proudly, for there was the same tender 
 inflection in his voice that had been in it on 
 that night when he had told her his love for her, 
 and won her to show hers in return. She re- 
 membered this, and the remembrance stung 
 her. 
 
 " Nothing to forgive ! I wish to heaven you 
 had not anything to forgive," he muttered. 
 
 Then he went to get her a glass of wine ; and 
 Theo marked him as he walked away, and 
 thought what a grand gentleman he looked 
 amongst them all, and how no young man in the 
 room could compete with this one, who carried 
 his forty years so gracefully. 
 
 " You have not been long with Kate ? " he 
 asked when he 'came back to her ; and when she 
 had said " No," he went on to ask her how long, 
 and where she had been, and whom had she 
 seen ; he was very particular on this last point. 
 " This is my first party ; I have been to the 
 Academy several times." 
 "With whom?" 
 
 "Mrs. Galton." , 
 
 "Without Galton? — ^had you no gentleman 
 with you?" 
 
 " Mr. Galton is down at Haversham," Thep 
 replied ; she did not knojr that Harold Ffrench 
 was very indifferent as to John Gallon's where- 
 abouts, and only anxious to learn whether they 
 had been to the Academy unescorted, in order 
 that he might find out if Kate were fulfilling her 
 threat of introducing some desirable parti to 
 Theo. 
 
 " It's not much use your going to the Acade- 
 my with Mrs. Galton alone ; she knows nothing 
 at all about pictures ; when I can speak to her I 
 will make an appointment to accompany you 
 there to-morrow — she appears to be very deeply 
 interested just now," he continued with a laugh, 
 as Kate sailed into the supper-room on Mr. Lin- 
 ley's arm, and then (it was a supper^that people 
 took in a sketchy manner, standing up,) posed 
 herself against the wall, and continued to con- 
 verse enthusiastically. 
 
 " I think she is very much interested in his 
 book," Theo replied. 
 
 " What is his book fibout ? " 
 " I don't know ; ask Mrs. Galton, she knows 
 though she hasn't read it," Theo said laughing; 
 " it's a novel, and it's a success." 
 " What is his name ? " 
 
 " Linley — ^I was wondering " 
 
 " Oh ! Linley — oh, ah ! I have heard some- 
 thing about his novel ; one of the reviews said 
 that it was the work of ' a mighty mind accus- 
 tomed to profound reflections,' and another that 
 it was ' full of clearly defined thoughts of a hard 
 thinker,' — it struck me that it must be rather 
 duU." 
 
 "But it's not dull at all ; I should think, from 
 what they were saying, that it must b.e very 
 amusing ; but I was going to say I was wonder- 
 ing whether he could be the same Mr. Linley 
 who, papa says, was in Greece at the same time 
 you were there ; did you know him ? do you re- 
 member him ? " 
 
 It happened that as Theo asked this of Harold 
 
 Ffrench that Mrs. Galton and her cavalier were 
 
 advancing towards-them. The men were face to 
 
 ■ face, and were naturally looking directly at one 
 
 another. 
 
 " I do not know him," Harold Ffrench replied 
 to Theo's question in a tone loud enough, Theo 
 thought, to reach the ears of the man who was 
 spoken about. But the next instant Harold 
 Wrench did know him, for Mrs. Galton intro- 
 duced her cousin to her new friend with effusion. 
 The supper-room was rather crowded now, 
 consequently the drawing-room, to which the 
 quadrilateral with whom my story has to do 
 
3« 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 presently returned, was comparatively deserted 
 and free. When they regained it, Kate began 
 to tell Harold how that they had had a specimen 
 of " the land of the east and the cUme of the 
 BUD " there earlier in tjie evening, and to lament 
 that he had not seen the same. 
 
 "And do you know he appeared to be very 
 prosaic, not to say stupid and common-place, 
 despite' his turban and his wonderful costume," 
 she continued. 
 
 Then the author, who did not appear to like 
 the probability of lapsing into obscurity again, 
 said that if she liked he would give them a spe- 
 cimen of eastern story-telling, and endeavour to 
 bring the Orient more vividly before them than 
 Osmanli Effendi had succeeded in doing. 
 
 " What ? will you sit cross-legged on some 
 cushions and tell us a story ? " Kate asked ; and 
 Mr. Linley said, " Yes, jf she pleased — a story 
 with plenty of thrill in it," and forthwith depos- 
 ited himself in the position she described, and 
 commenced : — 
 
 "It does not matter whether it was one, or 
 ten, or forty years ago that two Franks, t^o 
 Giaours, two infidels, wandering about the 
 streets of an eastern city, saw a face at the grat- 
 ing of a well-secured window that struck them 
 both as being lovely as that of the young Haidee ; 
 the loveliest, in fact, that, they had ever seen. 
 Both men — they were Englishmen^thought 
 that face beautiful as that of Venus herself can 
 be, but the younger and warmer-nature* man 
 loved it on the instant. 
 
 "It will give a greater air of reality to my 
 story, and save a confusion of ideas respecting 
 which of the men I mean, if I give names both 
 to them and to the place ; you agree with me ? " 
 he continued, throwing a questioning glance 
 around. "Any names will do ; help me to some, 
 Mrs.' Galton, for I am in the novelist's usual diffi- 
 culty ; any names will do, my own for one 
 (just to avoid confusion) and yours for the 
 other." 
 
 " Thank you " — Harold Ffrench had been the 
 one addressed, and Harold Ffrench was now the 
 speaker — " but I had rather that you kept my 
 name out of the story."- 
 
 " As you will," Mr. Linley replied carelessly, 
 " it was only to avoid confusion. Well, I will 
 call them Stinton and Forbes then. The elder 
 of the two," he went on rapidly, dashing intc 
 his story again with velocity, " the elder of the 
 two men thought that face beautiful as that of 
 Venus herself — ^the younger, warmer-natured 
 man, loved it on the instant. 
 
 " I will say that the city was Constantinople ; 
 can you help me to a descriptiqn of Constanti- 
 nople — a photographic description, a description 
 auch as will bring the city itself before these 
 ladies ? " he asked, pulling himself up abruptly 
 in his narrative, and addressing Harold-Pfrench. 
 " I regret that I cannot assist you, for I never 
 saw Constantinople," Harold replied, and Theo 
 fancied that he looked annoyed at the attempt to 
 draw him into this " drawing-room , entertain- 
 ment." 
 
 " You can't assist me ? — good," the man of let- 
 ters went on glibly. "Briefly, then, the tale of 
 the mosques and minarets has been better told be- 
 fore, -so I will spare you the recital; but the win- 
 dow of the house at which this face appeared 
 must be described. 
 
 " It was a broad, high, thickly-grated window, 
 and from immediately beneath it projected a huge 
 drawer. This drawer revolved, the two men dis- 
 covered, on a nearer inspection, and was used as 
 a sort of bazaar. That is to say, the females of 
 the house placed therein articles of their own 
 handiwork ; then spun the drawer round, and 
 passers-by took these articles away, leaving 
 money in exchange. Forbes, the younger man, 
 had learnt the Turkish language ; he could speak 
 it well, and write it indifferently. But the 
 other language that ia familiar as their mother- 
 tougiie to the women of Stamboul — thelanguage 
 of flowers — he was an adept in. And soon single 
 sprigs and deftly arranged bouquets were laid 
 constantly in that revolving drawer, and the girl 
 came oftener to the grating without her yashmaJc 
 on. 
 
 " It was a brother and two sisters who dwelt in 
 that house ; the brother had been impoverished 
 by the revolution, and the sisters' fate, despite the 
 beauty of the elder one, was not ordained to be 
 bright. She was to go to, the seraglio of a small 
 pasha, an old man against whom she revolted ; 
 the younger girl's fate was harder and more 
 horrible still, — she was to be immured for life 
 amongst other women whom no man would 
 buy. 
 
 " Forbes, was as handsome a young fellow as 
 the sun ever shone upon ; a well-born, well-bred 
 Englishman ; and the Moslem girl with the 
 glorious face soon owned him, not lord of her 
 soul, for Moslem girls are not supposed to pos- 
 sess any, and LeUa, didn't presume to set herself 
 up above her sisters — but of her heart. And 
 then the solitary sprigs and well-arranged bou- 
 quets went on thicker than before. And finally 
 Forbes told Stinton one day that he must assist 
 in carrying Leila off. 
 
 " In the dead hour of the night, Leila placed 
 herself in the revolving drawer, which was then 
 slowly turned round by the sister who was left, 
 and lyhose sobs sounded mournfully in the ears 
 of the two' men who were rescuing the beauty. 
 The drawer moved heavily and uneasily ; in fact, 
 the eastern houri was of rather substantial pro- 
 portions, and though she shrank into a marvel- 
 lously small space under the influence of fear, 
 she was pulled through with difficulty, and not 
 without sljght detriment to her back, which got 
 grazed in the passage even through the folds of 
 muslin. 
 
 " He was a chivalrous youne Englishman ; the 
 act .was foolishly 'romantic, but fooUsh romance 
 was the worst of his offences. The girl he had 
 abduced he resolved to make his wife according 
 to the laws of the church and land to which he 
 belonged. So, with his friend Stinton — ^^the lady 
 still being closely veiled — Forbes took his Leila 
 awaly without delay, and put her on board an 
 English man-of-war, the chaplain of which mar- 
 ried the Ottoman lady to the hope of an English 
 house. 
 
 " The romance is generally over when the ring 
 is on and the service read. In this case, though, 
 the romance began at this juncture. I have said 
 that Leila, now Mrs. Forbes, had remained 
 closely veiled all the while, but now that she was 
 his wife, and under the protection of the , Eng- 
 lish flag, the ardent husband tore down the 
 yashmak and saw — not Leila, but her younger 
 sister. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 SI 
 
 " She fell upon her knees, and he did not kill 
 or curse her, as I think I should have done in 
 the like case. He took her away to Europe, and 
 did not hear what his friend Stinton, who re- 
 mained in the city, learnt the following day ; 
 namely, that Leila, who had sacrificed her lover 
 and herself to her selfish little sister — who, ic 
 addition to her other sins, was as ugjy as the devil 
 —that Leila expiated her offence against the 
 heaven-born passion, love, in the dark blue 
 waters of the Bosphorus." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 UTSS. GALTON IS A LITTLE MISTAKEN. 
 
 " A VEKY good story, with a great air of reali- 
 ty about it. I feel sorry that it isn't true," Kate 
 Galton said, as Mr. Linley brought his narration 
 to a close and rose to his feet. 
 
 " And I feel glad," Theo exclaimed. " I was 
 miserable for Forbes for a minute, when it came 
 to pulling down her veil and finding he had mar- 
 ried the wrong sister. I couldn't help feeling 
 how wretched he would be all his life; didn't 
 you pity him ? " she continued, looking up at 
 Harold, who had retained her hand on Ms 
 arm all the while Mr. Linley had been amusing 
 them. 
 
 " I did," he replied ; " the story does great 
 credit to your powers of invention," he went on| 
 looking at the successful novelist. 
 
 "My, powers of invention were not very se- 
 verely taxed. I am glad you liked it so well.'' 
 
 " I should have liked it better if you had given 
 us a sketch of Forbes's wretched after-career — for 
 of course it was wretched," Mrs. Galton remark- 
 ed. " Couldn't you come to my house some even- 
 ing, and give us a second part, — a sequel to the 
 story ? that would be delightful." 
 
 Harold Fjfrench turned away impatiently, draw- 
 ing Theo with him. 
 
 " What a humbug Kate is, to be sure," he mut- 
 tered ; " the stuff was all very well just to listen 
 to it, as we listen now ; but to set about having 
 more of it in cold blood in this way is a little too 
 much. Don't you agree with me ? " 
 
 " Yes," Theo replied ; " besides, I can't think 
 that the ' wretched after-career ' will be pleasant 
 to hear about." 
 
 "No, it cannot be," Harold Ffrenph said. And 
 then the pair seated themselves oh a couch, and 
 Theo said: — 
 
 " The misery of not alone marrying the wrong 
 sister, but being the cause of the death of the 
 one he loved." 
 
 " It was misery." 
 
 " He told it very well, or we shouldn't speak of 
 it as if it might be true ; didn't he ? " Theo ask- 
 ed. " I shouldn't have thought much of it, I 
 think, if I had read it ; but he told it in a way 
 that brought it home — (lidn't he ? " 
 
 "Yes, he brought it home to one." 
 
 "I suppose that's a trick he has gained from 
 writing ? " 
 
 " I suppose it is, at least I thought he told it 
 very badly; and if it is a specimen of the amuse- 
 ment Lady Glaskill and that mocking-bird, my 
 cousin, mean to provide for their guests, I shall 
 not trotible them very often. I hope you won't 
 follow in Kate's footsteps, and flatter that egotis- , 
 
 tioal fool's vanity by striking up a great friend- 
 ship with him, Theo." 
 
 " Oh dear, no. How should I do so f he a great 
 author ; but don't you like him ? " 
 
 " Like him ! I don't know him ? " 
 
 " Don't you like him even well enough to come 
 to your cousin's house if he comds much ? " 
 
 " While you are there I shall come, if you care 
 to see me." 
 
 She choked back a passionate sigh. " I shall 
 always be glad to see you." 
 
 " You are a very tender, sweet woman, Theo; 
 you felt genuine pity for the imaginary man 
 whose life waa cursed and blasted by a foul 
 trick." 
 
 "Who could have helped feeling pity for 
 him ? " 
 
 " I declare," he said, " if you ^ake fiction so 
 seriously, I fihall be inclined to try my hand at 
 it. I cannot originate, but I can follow up the 
 path Kate and that man have chalked out. 
 What do you say, Theo ? would you continue to 
 feel a kindly interest in Forbes if I went on with 
 his history? or must it be from Linley's lips 
 alone ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; I shall believe in him equally, I am 
 sure, if you undertook him. Take hii|Miip from 
 the lifting of the veil," she continues^reagerly, 
 " and tell me what he said to his wife, and what 
 she said to him, poor thing ! " 
 
 " And how in after years,'when his love for 
 Leila was a long-dead thing, he met another wo- 
 man whom he did not dare at first to tell he 
 loved because of Leila's sister, his wife ? and" 
 how afterwards he forgot everything and lived', 
 only for this woman, who lost the world for and- 
 forgave him ? " 
 
 " Yes," she cried eagerly, " tell me." 
 
 " I have told you already," he said, jumping 
 up. " Come back to your conscientious chap- 
 erone, who has left you to ^bter for your own 
 amusement the whole night. No, Theo ! Forbes 
 hangs fire in my hands ; I am not equal to the 
 task of galvanizing him; I must ieave that 
 pleasant office to Mr. Linley, whose vocation in 
 life it is to tell lies euphoniously. How about 
 the Academy to-morrow ? will you care to go ? " 
 
 By the time she had told him that she " should 
 care to go very much indeed," and he had 
 spoken to and obtained Kate's assent to ihe 
 plan. Lady Glaskill's first reunion gave signs of 
 fast-approaching dissolution. Soon the guests 
 were " fled, the garlands shed," the banquet 
 halls were deserted, and Mrs. Galton and Theo 
 were on their way home. 
 
 " I can give you a seat if you are lodging at 
 any place within a reasonable distance," Mrs. 
 Galton had said to her cousin when he was 
 handing her into the brougham, and Harold had 
 thanked her, but explained that he was not 
 lodging within a reasonable distance, and would 
 not, therefore, trouble her. 
 
 " Queer of Harold," Kate had said to her 
 companion as they drove off; "he never will 
 say where he is living. I should never inquire 
 too particularly into the extent of his establish- 
 ment. I'm not going to marry him ! " 
 
 " What difference would it make if you were ? " 
 Theo asked. 
 
 " Oh, you innocent! Well, he might have a 
 difficulty in, answering, my dear ; that's all I can 
 say. How cross he was to-night at my talking 
 
38 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 so much to that delightful Mr. Linley. I could 
 see that he -was nearly rabid as he walked about 
 with you." 
 
 " Could you ? " Theo asked, and a sudden new 
 pang assailed her. 
 
 "Oh, yes; it's too absurd of him. But 
 Harold ia such a dear creature that I have for- 
 given his absurdities, and so he imposes on 
 good nature. I felt sorry for him, for he looked 
 quite dull and wretched, and utterly different to 
 the Harold he is to me. You can have no idea, 
 Theo, how agreeable that man can make him- 
 self when he likes ; if you once saw him in one 
 of his best and brightest moods — in one of the 
 moods in which he is most familiar to me — you 
 would fall in love with him." 
 
 " I am glad we are at home," Theo said, the 
 carriage drawing up at the moment. " I am 
 very much tired." So she was, tired and con- 
 fused and unhappy, about she knew not what 
 exactly, but she had a dim idea ' that it was 
 because Harold Ffrench (so his cousin told her) 
 had been dull and wretched and rabid with 
 jealousy even while she(Theo) had been leaning 
 on his arm. 
 
 Mr. LMey called on Mrs. Galton the follow- 
 ing dayB|nd found his book lying on a little' 
 table b^ne side of the couch on which Kate 
 was seated. 
 
 " This is my constant companion," she said, 
 gently indicating it with the left while she ex- 
 tended the right hand to meet his ; and the 
 successful novelist went through the little farce 
 with which he was now famihar, of first appear- 
 ing not to recognize the book, and then to be 
 gently surprised at seeing it there, and then 
 to deprecate anything like admiration being felt 
 for a work which had been " thrown off. care- 
 lessly in his leisure hours." It is a difScult 
 thing to speak grs^efully of your own literary 
 performances. If * on censure them, people 
 are apt to ask, why, in the name of common 
 sense, did you foist that of which you thought 
 so meanly upon the reading public? If you 
 triumph ever so weakly in them, you are natur- 
 ally and very properly dubbed disgustingly con- 
 ceited by the unsympathetic masses. But of all 
 the little barriers against overwhelmuig confusion 
 which you erect, the one of affected indifference 
 is that which breaks down most surely and 
 swiftly. 
 
 David Linley had a face that his admirers 
 declared to be expressive of vast power; those 
 who were not his admirers, or those who were 
 capable of separatmg the man from his yorks, 
 held it to be unconditionally ugly. He had a 
 rugged nose, a grim chasm for a mouth, and 
 beetle brows. But his eyes were wonderful : 
 large, black, penetrating, they rarely failed in 
 causing the obhteration of his other features 
 from your mind as you met and quailed under 
 them. 
 
 For they were eyes under whose gaze the 
 many quailed. The man was a genial observer 
 of men and manners and women (especially the 
 latter) in his works. His characters had just 
 that happy admixture of good, and evil, of .wis- 
 dom and folly, which distinguishes the denizens 
 of the world in which we dwell. Yet for all 
 that they were romantic novels ; very romantic 
 novels indeed. Only you felt in perusing them I 
 that not only ' everything that he recounted I 
 
 miffhi have been, but that it had been ; and he 
 knew it. 
 
 But in the flesh David Linley was far from 
 being genial ; on the contrary, he was given to 
 the utterance of cynical truths concerning men 
 and things — and women too, very often. He 
 was not too careful as to whether those of whom 
 he spoke heard him utter these things or not. 
 However, it was well for those who met him if 
 he ad(jpted this view at first, for the case of 
 those whom he won to love him was a cruel one. 
 He stung his foes surely and painfully, but he 
 stung his friends, men said, with a still more 
 fatal poison. 
 
 Just on the surface of society, if you met him 
 there and there alone, he could be agreeable, 
 and was agreeable enough. This year, as has 
 been said, he was a lion, and more sought after 
 than usual, despite some doubtful things, which 
 again could never be well authenticated, that 
 were whispered about him. But even now it 
 was seen that he was more popular with women 
 than with men. The latter shunned him in- 
 stinctively, but the women flocked to his stand- 
 ard and declared it to be that of a true hero» 
 and appeared to find a sort of fascination in 
 that ugliness on which he presumed, as it were, — 
 he took so little care to adorn or set his person 
 off to'the best advantage. 
 
 Kate Galton would verily have flirted at the 
 veiled prophet himself, had he come in her way 
 and been of any mark in the circle in which she 
 moved. She merely saw in David Linley's ugli- 
 ness a something which, taken in conjunction 
 with his talent, rendered him the more remark- 
 able. He had shown her his fairest aspect at 
 Lady Glaskill's ; he was prepared to go on do- 
 ing so while this pretty woman pleased him. 
 But those who knew him best said that, if 
 ever the holy bond got broken, Mrs. Galton 
 would smart for the honours she was now en- 
 joying. 
 
 He scarcely noticed Theo Leigh when he 
 came into Mrs.'Galton's drawing-room this day; 
 he merely recognized her presence by "a slight' 
 bow, and uttered no word which could break 
 the train of her thoughts. Of this Theo was 
 rather glad than otherwise, for she was think- 
 ing of Harold Ffrench, and wondering when he 
 would come to take them to the Academy, and 
 whether she: would not be a wise girl to go back 
 to Houghton before, the frequent sight of him 
 had caused her a relapse. 
 
 Still she was a little disappointed and most 
 unwisely sorry when she heard Mr. Linley, in 
 reply to Mrs. Galton's request that he should do 
 so, decline to accompany them to the Aca^lemy. 
 It might not be well for her that she should be 
 .free to hear all that Harold Ffrench might care 
 to say to her. It might not be well, it might 
 even be dangerous. Still Theo Could but prefer 
 the possible ill and danger to the dismal cer- 
 tainty of his being entirely monopohsed by 
 Mrs. Galton, as he would be assuredly, were he 
 the only man. Kate's assertion that Harold had 
 been rabid with jealousy and wearily savage had 
 obtained with Theo during the night ; but now, 
 in the brighter, truer light of day, she saw its 
 fallacy and began to doubt it. 
 
 Mr. Linley's visit was brief, but highly satis- 
 factory,' to judge from Mrs. Galton's tnanner 
 when it was over. That it was paid at all was 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 39 
 
 a triumph in its way, for he was wont ' to malce 
 himself difficult of access to a remarkable de- 
 gree ; but in her case she could but feel that he 
 was most flatteringly tractable, for when his 
 call came to a conclusion he asked permission to 
 come again. 
 
 Before he went he said something which re- 
 newed Theo's interest in him, and made her 
 hope that he would come again and recur to the 
 subject. 
 
 "By the way, Mrs. Galton, where is your 
 cousin, Mr. Ffrench, living now ? I think we 
 have met in former days, and I should like to 
 renew the acquaintauce." 
 
 " I hardly know where he lives ; at an hotel 
 generally ; his address is the Club." 
 
 " He does not keep up a town establishment, 
 then ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ; and he is rather apt to vary 
 his bachelor quarters frequently. Tou will be 
 sure to meet him here." 
 
 "His bachelor quarters! he is not the man I 
 thought, then ; the Ffrench I knew was a mar- 
 ried man," he continued, turning round and 
 looking at Theo, who flushed scarlet under the 
 look iu a way that caused Mr. Linley's eyes to 
 flash smiles that were not pleasant. Then he 
 went away, and Mrs. Galton and Theo had only 
 just time, between his departure" and Harold's 
 arrival, to put on their bonnets. 
 
 " We have had Mr. Linley with us -all the 
 morning, Harold ; he wanted your address : he 
 seemed to think that he had known you some- 
 where at some time or other, till I told him fou 
 were a bachelor: the Ffrench he knew was a 
 married man." . ; 
 
 "It's not very flattering to be corifounded 
 with another fellow, is it?" Harold J-ejoined. 
 " Now, no one is likely to make such a mistake 
 with regard to Linley himself; you would have 
 a difficulty in finding - face that would remind 
 you of his, wouldn't you, Theo ? " 
 
 "Yes," Theo replied. It will be seen that 
 Miss Leigh was rather addicted to agreeing with 
 Mr. Ffrench on all subjects. 
 
 " I don't think it at all a disagreeable face," 
 B^te said warmly ; " it's exceedingly intellec- 
 tual, and has a — a— something about it that 
 appeals to me more than a merely handsome 
 face ever would have the power to do." 
 
 Kate was annoyed witii Harold for address- 
 ing his reply to Theo instead of to herself, 
 therefore she extolled Linley's ugliness, to the 
 implied disparagement of Harold's mere mascu- 
 line beauty. 
 
 "I believe," she continued, "that were he 
 only younger he could carry the day with any 
 woman against the handsomest man in the 
 world, if he only set himself to try. I am not 
 sure that he could not do it now." 
 
 " I have not the ^lightest desire to dispute or 
 deny his attractions ; I have no doubt you are 
 right ; the majority of women have a twist in 
 their minds : they like something fiendish, and 
 they find it in Linley." 
 
 The brougham drew up at the steps of the 
 National Gallery as he spoke. As he was hand- 
 ing Theo out he pressed her hand, hardly for an 
 instant, and whispered suddenly: — 
 
 " For God's sake, Theo, don't you get smit- 
 ten wiih that plague of liking Linley. I have 
 heard a good deal about him, and I believe him 
 
 to be as fatal as the disease I have likeped 
 him to." 
 
 » " He will never be fatal to me," Theo replied, 
 but Harold Ffrench repeated his caution more 
 emphatically than before, adding, 
 
 "He Is false in every relation of life ; hold no 
 intercourse with him, Theo, keep him at arm's 
 length. I shall write to Galton, and inform him 
 of the character of the man his wife has picked 
 up." 
 
 Kate had marked the confidental manner 
 with which her cousin had said these things to 
 Theo, though she had been unable to hear the 
 words, and she was annoyed thereat, and con- 
 sequently very cross. She had not remained in 
 London for this at all, she told herself; and she 
 felt hardly used, and really thought that Theo 
 was acting with wicked ingratitude in being the 
 passive recipient of those little attentions which 
 Harold was wont to bestow upon herself. 
 
 " It's too warm, much too warm to look at a 
 single picture in comfort — the rooms are stifling," 
 she said crossly. " I shall sit down ; you can go 
 round with Mr. Ffrench, if you like to go with' 
 out me, Theo." 
 
 " As she came for the purpose of seeing the 
 pictures, and does not object to the heat, I 
 think she had better do as you propose," Harold 
 Ffrench said quietly. 
 
 " If she, does not care foi; being liable to the 
 
 remark being made that she is without a chape^ 
 
 rone. I shall be rested presently," Mrs. Galton 
 
 observed pettishly ; she could not find it in her 
 
 ; jdeart to see Harold and Theo go off,without her 
 
 ' to look at the pictures. 
 
 " Make up your mind as to what you will do, 
 Kate, — if you want to see the pictures at all." 
 
 " Of course I want to see them — ^with you — I 
 came for that purpose," she said, regaining -her 
 amiability with a Uttle struggle. Then she rose 
 up and made him " tell her the pictures " from 
 his catalogue, an,d Theo Leigh had no further 
 private word from him that day. 
 
 When Mr. Ffrench was about to take leave of 
 his cousin, he repeated that caution to her 
 which he had already given to Theo. 
 
 "Kate," he said, "however you take it, I 
 must give you a word of advice. You'll believe 
 that I can have but one object." 
 
 "Well?" she interrupted. 
 
 " See as Uttle as passible of that man who 
 called on you to-day. It may be impossible for 
 you to avoid meeting him in society ; I know 
 that he has the freedom of your injudicious old 
 aunt's house ; but don't be carried away by his 
 popularity into giving him the run of your own." 
 
 " Ridiculous, Harold ! Why not ? " 
 
 " I can't tell youmy fuU reason, but this much 
 I will tell you, his character is worse than worth- 
 less ; he is a, man who without scruple would 
 sacrifice" his nearest, and I was going to say 
 dearest, but nothing could be truly dear to that 
 cold calculating heart ; he is not a man whose 
 hand I can bear you to touch : and as your 
 husband is not here I will act as be would act 
 did he know the character of this man — warn 
 you against him." 
 
 "Very kind towards me, and chivalrous to- 
 wards John, but, excuse me, rather mean to- 
 wards Mr. Linley, to simply denounce him in 
 this way : abuse proves nothing." 
 
 '.' Kate, ask yourself, what motive can I have 
 
40 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 but regard for you and your husband in thia 
 matter ? I am not at liberty to say what I know 
 concerning this man ; but this I do know tba| 
 he should never touch an honest woman If I 
 could prevent his doing it. Will you not be 
 guided by me ? will you persist in suffering an 
 intimacy to spring up between that man and 
 yourself and the young gii'l whom you have 
 undertaken to protect?" 
 
 His allusion to Theo was unfortunate ; Kate 
 could not mark his interest in her proUgee and 
 be calm. 
 
 " That young girl is not so extraordinarily 
 attractive that I need be always on the qui vive 
 about her ; and as to being cool to Mr. Linley, 
 really, Harold, I would do a great deal to please 
 . you, but you ask a little too much. His cha- 
 racter may not be all that is desirable, but if 
 I am to look into the hearts and morals of all 
 my friends and recoil frofii those in whom I find 
 a flaw, I shall be friendless ; what is there 
 against the man more than there is against the 
 majority ? * v 
 
 " You refuse to be guided by my judgment, 
 which I could not exercise if I had not a great 
 affection for you, Kate ? " 
 
 " I will be a lamb in everything else, dear 
 Harold, but everybody asks and makes much of 
 Linley just now. And 
 
 If he be but fair to me, 
 
 "What care I how false he be?" 
 
 "I might have known that you wouldn't 
 listen to reason," he said. Then he went away, 
 and Kate looked at herself in the glass and 
 thought, " Jealous at last." 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HAROLD FFBENCH CALLS HIMSELF TO ACCOtINT 
 
 It was not a wise thing to do, but as soon as 
 Harold Ffrench reached home that night he sat 
 down and wrote to John Galton. It was a very 
 foolish thing to do, but he was annoyed with 
 Kate at the time, and it is always an unsafe thing 
 to write to or about a person when you are angry 
 with that person. The spur of the moment in 
 such case is very liable to prick you into evil. 
 However, Harold Ffrench was very earnestly set 
 upon putting an end to all communion between 
 Mr. Linley and the present tenants of those 
 rooms in Piccadilly. Therefore, as the one course 
 of "speaking to Kate about it" had failed, he 
 took the other and surer course of writing to 
 Kate's husband. 
 
 " Circumstances have come to my knowledge 
 respecting him," he wrotfe, " which convince me 
 that he is no fit companion for your wife. Be- 
 cause he is the fashion and not found oiit, Kate 
 declines to admit of my interference; perhaps 
 she is right to submit to no dictation save yours : 
 but I should be untrue to the regard I have al- 
 ways had for her if % did not caution you on the 
 point ; he is not a man to be admitted to terms 
 of intimacy with any woman of reputation." 
 When he had thus written, Harold Ffrench walked 
 out in the cool night air, and did away with the 
 possibility of repenting availingly of anything he 
 had said in that letter, by posting it at once. 
 
 Then he went home and took himself to task ; 
 
 but before I relate what about, I will describe 
 the home to which he returned, in order that the 
 reader may feel that he had nothing concealed in 
 it which could make the secret of its locality one 
 of vital importance. 
 
 He had been occupying, since the date of his 
 return from Norfolk, a suite of three rooms in a 
 housein one of those severely respectable squares 
 which bear a strong family likeness to one an- 
 other, and bewilder the uninitiated who confound 
 the ducal title with the family name. It was 
 quite true, that assertion that he had made to 
 Kate Galton when she asked him to give her his 
 address at his lodgings ; " he was very apt to 
 change tbem," — for sheer love of change, as it 
 seemed, and certainly without any reason that 
 seemed valid to his various landladies. He 
 wearied of every place very quickly. He was a 
 man who could not make to himself a home upon 
 the earth. He had more than once striven to at- 
 tach himself to places and things. But there was 
 invariably a great hollow in the place that he 
 could not fill, and a barrenness about his sur- 
 roundings that even bis taste could not beautify. 
 So, after two or three repeated failures, he gave 
 up the game, and subsided into habits of restless- 
 ness. 
 
 ■The room to which he returned after posting 
 that well-meaning letter to John Galton had little 
 enough in it to indicate its present inhabitant's 
 tastes. It was the usual drawing-room of the 
 average lodging-house, nothing more. He had 
 seated himself in it for the express purpose of 
 thinking over some eventuahties which possibly 
 might — more than that — ^which probably would 
 arise. It seemed to him that it would be better 
 to do this in a room in which were no disturbing 
 elements, than in one that held some few things 
 that were stUl dear to him in life, as did the little 
 room adjoining. 
 
 Had he done weU, he asked himself, in bringing 
 about this intimacy between Theo Leigh and his 
 cousin Kate ? The question would arise, there- 
 fore he deemed that he might as well argue it 
 with his conscience, and settle it at once. His 
 intention had been good ; he had simply sought 
 to introduce a diversity that he had deemed 
 would be harmless enough into a very dull young 
 life. But, in the first place it had been the means 
 of renewing his intercourse with Theo, and this 
 he could not feel to be well for her : and, in the 
 second place, through Kate's obstinacy, Theo 
 would be subjected to the scarcely less dangerous 
 ordeal of intercourse with Mr. Linley — a man of 
 whom Harold Ffrench had his own well-grounded 
 reasons for thinking very badly. 
 
 " I'm sorry I did it ; they were wrong to suffer 
 her to come," he said to himself at last. ' By 
 " they " he meant Theo's parents, on whom he 
 was more than half inclined now to shift the 
 charge of imprudence. He almost resolved to 
 put it to Theo's reason that it would be well for 
 her to curtail her visit to Mrs. Galton, " by which 
 two good ends would be gained, for Kate couldn't 
 stay on in London without her husband or a lady 
 companion — she would have no excuse for doing 
 so," he thought, and by so thinking he did scanty 
 justice to Mrs. Galton's powers of resource ; she 
 was well prepared with another reason for re- 
 maining in London for awhile when Theo failed 
 her. This resolution was of so exalted an order 
 that he entertained it for some considerable time, 
 
THBO LEIGH. 
 
 41 
 
 and thought how, though it would-be painful 
 both for the girl and himself to part again so 
 soon, that it would be wiser and better in every 
 way that they should do so. Then he went away 
 into the other and more congenial room, where 
 were his books and papers and easel, and he 
 turned an unfinished portrait that was upon the 
 latter towards him, and leant back in an easy- 
 chair, with a cigar between his lips; and as'he 
 looked and smoked the resolution floated away in 
 fragrant vapour, and Harold Ffrench thought that 
 he had much better "let things alone." 
 
 It was a selfish resolution at the best, and, 
 looked at from the most tolerant point of view, 
 it was a very selfish resolution that one to which 
 Harold Ffrench had come after that brief self-ex- 
 amination. He knew it to be selfish, and scarcely 
 worthy of his manliness, and still he held to it. 
 It is always easier to let things alone than to en- 
 deavour to alter them. Now this unheroic Harold, 
 who occupies the space usually allotted to a hjero, 
 was much given to consulting his own immediate 
 ease. 
 
 Besides, in vvhat language could he couch a 
 caution which should be at the same time effi- 
 cacious and not painful to Theo, not subversive 
 of that easily aroused self-respect which in her 
 was so near akin to tender pride ? No, he had 
 been cruelly unguarded once for a moment ; but 
 for the future his impulses should be ironbound, 
 and so Theo would be safe from him at least. 
 While from the other man, from this Linley, he, 
 Harold himself would guard her as the friend he 
 strove to be. 
 
 On his uncertainty and final determination the 
 portrait on the easel looked approvingly ; at least 
 he came, after meeting its eyes for a long time, to 
 fancy that it did, and to half pity it for doing so. 
 For the face painted from nmuory, and all un- 
 finished as it was, was Theo Veigh's face as it 
 looked to him j other people would perhaps have 
 deemed it highly idealized. He had in truth 
 limned forth a very lovely face, but he had 
 simply painted that which he had seen ; when 
 the glamour is on, the loved is always lovely. 
 
 The solitary man sat there for hours, smoking 
 and looking at the picture and thinking. Think- 
 ing of how in a few years old age would be upon 
 him, and would find him friendless, homeless, 
 objectless, as he was now, and as he had been all 
 along. " It's a cursed fate," he muttered ; " life 
 was very bright to me when I entered it, and 
 everything has gone wrong. I haven't even been 
 suffered to go to the devil my own way." 
 
 The pleasures of retrospection assuredly are 
 not for the many. The chosen few may find bliss 
 in meandering about in the paths of the past, 
 but I doubt whether the majority do not find 
 that said paths lead them into the society of 
 blue-devils. Still, I trust that few look back 
 with such remorseful pain upon a /not-to-be- 
 recaUed career as Harold Ffrench was experi- 
 encing now. 
 
 The sharpest sting that struck home to his 
 heart in this and similar solitary hourSj was the 
 reflection that he had done nothing to mark him 
 from the brainless fool and the man of stolidly 
 stupid mind. For aught he had ever shown to 
 the contrary he might have been as these. He 
 had achieved nothing, he had attempted nothing. 
 He had been supine in an active age. He had been 
 an idle man, and now the curse was come upon 
 
 him of a full consciousness of how thoroughly, 
 bow inexcusably, he had wasted his life. 
 
 And this was owing to a romantic blunder com- 
 mitted at the very outset of what would otherwise 
 have, been a career. A blunder which left him 
 with the false conviction that because one thing 
 had failed, nought else was worth seeking. A 
 blunder that did not harden his heart — to the 
 last, he was a very tender-hearted man — or make 
 him distrust or hate his fellow-men, but that 
 weighted him so heavily that he never thought it 
 possible to be anywhere near the post when the 
 finish came in the race that is always being run. 
 It was true, and he felt it bitterly, that, for all he 
 had ever shown men to the contrary, he had been 
 as the bramless fool or the stolidly stupid. 
 
 And tMs for want of a motive power. 
 
 Hitherto, however, he had been bijt idle and 
 useless in his generation— nothing worse. He 
 had been what is termed a greater foe to him- 
 self than to any one else. No man or woman 
 had been ipjured by his neglect of many oppor- 
 tunities and bis lax cultivation of his natural 
 talents and advantages. He had been a lazy, a 
 purposeless, but never a harmful man. What 
 though he had wSfeted the best years of his life 
 in roaming np and down the picture galleries of 
 the world, in dreamy admiration of those works 
 which they contained, gaining nothing from 
 them, after aH, save a superficial knowledge, 
 for a mastery of the art in which he dabbled was 
 a thing for which he had no motive for striving 
 to attain. Such lotus-eating had injured no one, 
 save himself a little perhaps. 
 
 But now that he had come back to England, 
 it seemed as if the influence of the land of action 
 was upon him at once. . He had already ceased 
 to be a passi^ mistake : he had become an 
 active error tHe instant he had endeavored to 
 brighten the path of that solitary young creature 
 away down in the country who had flung an 
 affluence of gratitude at his feet that bade fair to 
 leave her poor indeed. Feeling the full force of 
 his mistake, he still could not rouse himself 
 sufficiently to rectify it before it proceeded still 
 further and assumed a darker hue. The sole 
 effort he made, was this compromise with his 
 conscience, — "I will keep near her only so long 
 as she is liable to danger from Linley : once safe 
 from him, I wiU leave her." 
 
 According to the plans that were formed dur- 
 ing the days immediately following this by Lady 
 Glaskill and Kate Galton, Theo was not likely to 
 be freed from Linley's influence just yet, if he 
 chose to exert it. But up to the present he 
 had betrayed no desire to attack either her heart 
 or her peace of mind. He was ' a frequent 
 visitor, certainly, but it was to his fair hostess 
 that he devoted himaeK As Harold was wont 
 on such occasions to sit by silent and moody, 
 Kate fairly glowed with pleasure at such satisfac- 
 tory evidence of the author's devotion and the 
 cousin's jealousy. 
 
 It had occurred to Lady Glaskill that, since 
 her niece was so fully determined upon sharing 
 in such delights of the season as she (Lady 
 Glaskill) could command, it would be well to 
 come to an amicable understanding : both would 
 benefit by it. The clever old lady found herself 
 compelled to share the honours ; this being the 
 case, she resolved that the costs should devolve 
 entirely upon the usurper. If she was to pipe 
 
i.% 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 up recruits to Mrs. Gallon's standard, Mrs. 
 Galton should pay for the piping. 
 
 " You will be some time working your way, my 
 dear, I'm afraid," she said to ' her niece one 
 morning when she came in and found Kate 
 looking over a list of names and cudgelling her 
 brains to decide with how many she was suffi- 
 ciently intimate to ask them to a " quiet evening 
 with a little music." 
 
 " I don't linow : Linley has promised to bring 
 several of his friends." 
 
 Lady Glaskill laughed. 
 
 " Linley will bring a brace of boobies, perhaps, 
 as a foU to himself, but none of his friends, my 
 dear, to a house and a hostess that are not 
 known ; shall I be magnanimous, my dear ? " 
 
 " If you can, aunt." 
 
 " Judge.for yourself, Kate. I wouldn't do such 
 a thing for any one else, with the reputation I 
 have of doing such things well, but for my dead 
 sister's child." Here Lady Glaskill's utterance 
 became obstructed by emotion, in which Kate, 
 knowing that her ladyship had not seen her dead 
 sister since the latter was fourteen, declined to 
 sympathise. 
 
 "Well, what is it, aunt? lou're capable, for 
 your dead sister's sake, of coming to me yourself 
 on the occasion, I suppose ? " 
 
 " More than that, my dear Kate, moi;e than 
 that," the old lady. rejoined briskly. "I have 
 arranged to have a party on the 30th ; Gunter is 
 to supply the supper. Now, if you like, I will 
 transfer it to you." 
 
 " Let it be my party at your house, my dear 
 aunt " 
 
 "No, no, my dear, you mistake me: it shall 
 be my party at your house, or rather I should say, 
 it shall be your party, for you sh^ give the sup- 
 per, but I will issue the invitatirois ; I am very 
 glad indeed that I thought of the arrangement, 
 for I think that it will answer admirably. Tour 
 name shall be on the card, of course, dear." 
 And then Lady Glaskill got up and kissed her 
 niece cautiously, and said virtuously that it 
 would be a comfort to her to know that she had 
 done this thing, for what a stepping-stone it 
 would be to society for little Kate. 
 
 " Thank you, aunt, you're very good ; then I 
 am to pay for the supper, and your friends will 
 be good enough to eat it in my house? That's 
 the plain English of it, isn't it ? " 
 
 Lady Glaskill nodded and laughed. 
 
 " There would be no one to eat it at all, my 
 love, if my friends didn't come," she replied. 
 
 " True ; on the other hand, it wouldn't be 
 here to be eaten if they were not coming ; well, 
 aunt Glaskill, it's a bargain. You supply the 
 people and I will the supper ; and both are to be 
 of the best obtainable, remember." 
 
 So the compact was made, and dear prudent 
 old Lady Glaskill resolved that the arrangement 
 should be repeated with variations throughout 
 the season. By which means she would put 
 money in her purse, and the better enable her- 
 self to gratify certain harmless tastes as to winter 
 residence, costume, &c., which were occasionally 
 rudely crushed. 
 
 Kate Galton was a model of absent wifely duty. 
 She never suffered a day to pass without writing 
 to her husband. They were charming letters, 
 those of hers, very charming letters indeed. On 
 several occasions he had read portions of them 
 
 I to a maiden sister of his, who had girded fiercely 
 at them in her maiden heart, and pursed up ben 
 maiden lips at them disparagingly. But then 
 she did not like Kate. On the contrary, she dis- 
 liked her for divers reasons, all more or less rea- 
 sonable under the circumstances. The first count 
 in Miss Galton's indictment against her brother's 
 wife, was that her brother had married. " Who 
 knows but that if he had not met that girl he 
 might have been living there as comfortably as 
 possible by himself still ? " she would remark to 
 her confidential servant, who would forthwith 
 reply with the sigh of resignation,^-" Ah ! who'd 
 a thought that Master John woiild ha' been that 
 foolish, as one might say f " Then again, Miss 
 Galton could not think well of any woman who 
 wore white cambric muslin peignoirs, trimmed 
 with pink or blue ribbons in the morning : " Sits 
 in her dressing-room on purpose to wear them, 
 as I'm an honest woman," she would tell the 
 sympathetic with tears in her eyes. When it is 
 understood that Miss Galton had never in the 
 whole course of her existence been known to 
 even momentarily adorn herself .with anything 
 that could be reckoned becoming by any but the 
 most distorted taste, this intolerarice to pink and 
 blue will be appreciated. 
 
 Then again Kate was the mother of little 
 Katie, and Miss Galton loved the child after an 
 acid fashion, and disliked any woman having 
 a nearer claim to it than herself. Could the 
 child have been her brother's alone, Miss Galton 
 would have adored it. As that in the nature of 
 things was impossible, she would have liked it to 
 be the offspring of a retiring, unassuming woman 
 who would have renounced her first share in it, 
 and meekly sat in subservience at the feet of her 
 own child. But Kate was not at all the sort of 
 woman to do thiatfor an instant ; on the contrary, 
 she had been knwn, on the best authority. Miss 
 Galton declared, to say,—" John, I won't have 
 Katie go very often to your sister's : she'll teach 
 her own frump notions to the child." Frump 
 notions ! angels and ministers of grace defend 
 us ! Miss Galton was a frump, but she never 
 forgave her blithe sister-in-law for calling her 
 one. 
 
 These were the great generals of her army of 
 sins and offences. There were regiments of 
 little ones that Miss Galton would frequently 
 review for the benefit of those " old family 
 friends " with whom the young wife had ever 
 been unpopular. On hot Sundays Kate would 
 put her feet up on the opposite seat and go to 
 sleep. "I am human myself," Miss Galton 
 would say, "and I have been overtaken by sleep 
 in church, but I always sleep uncomfortably and 
 get a pain in my side ; John's wife must have 
 her corner, and I call it impious." 
 
 Again, Mrs. Galton was not at all domesti- 
 cated, her sister-in-law averred. "When she 
 goes to the kitching " (Miss Galton, under the in- 
 fluence of emotion, was apt to give a fuller, richer 
 sound to words ending with " n " than belonged 
 to them) — " when she goes to the kitching it is 
 to sit on the table and play with John's pointers. 
 The half of every day did my dear mother spend 
 in her kitching, and John's wife only says, when 
 I tell her of it, ' how she must have muddled and 
 bothered the servants.' " 
 
 These accusations and many others had been 
 brought against Kate Galton at a very early stage 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 4? 
 
 of her wedded career, and she had borne them 
 with a good-humoured unconcern that was in- 
 finitely aggravating to their maker. A tolerable 
 show of friendliness had been been kept up all 
 along between Mrs. John and Miss Galton. But 
 still every one knew that Mrs. John despised her 
 toisband's sister, and that l^iss Galton disliked 
 and distrusted her brother's wife. 
 
 But the decent show had been of a quality to 
 make John Galton believe that beneath the sur- 
 face bickerings there dwelt a kindly feeling to- 
 wards one another. He thought that his sister 
 was over anxious though well-meaning,'instmd, 
 of being simply a meddlesome old maid. He afto 
 thought that Kate "appreciated Sarah's inten- 
 tions," which Kate did not. 
 
 When Harold Ffrenoh, the handsome cousin 
 with the atmosphere of mystery and sorrow and 
 romance about him, came down to stay at Haver- 
 sham, Miss Galton had been — there is but one 
 word for it — ^portentous. He was of the same 
 family, the same blood, and class, and order as 
 her sister-in-law, and Miss Galton held that no 
 good thing could come out of Egypt. She strove 
 earnestly to make her brother uShappy, and, fail- 
 ing that, she withdrew her countenance altogether 
 from the Grange, as if she felt confident that 
 darksome things were going to happen there 
 upon which the light of her face should not 
 shine. , 
 
 Huffy rectitude is a hard thing to treat. It 
 may be right in the main. If it may have more 
 than the shadow of a cause, but you cannot go 
 with it entirely, and you cannot make its stony 
 though imperfect vision see any of the softening 
 shades that are so very apparent to you. John 
 Galton knew, when be returned home alone, leav- 
 ing his wife in London, that he was not doing a 
 wise thing, or Kate a kind thing ; yet for all that 
 he felt that his sister was utterly wrong when she 
 implied that it was unmitigated folly on his part 
 and cruelty, on Kate's. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the worst folly of which he 
 was guilty was showing this litigious old lady 
 Harold Ffrenoh's letter. 
 
 " There," h? said, rather triumphantly, " you 
 have pretended to doubt Ffrench's being such a 
 good fellow as I know him to be ; read that : no 
 brother could have written differently, and Kate 
 ought to attend to him." 
 
 He handed her the letter, and Miss Galton sat 
 down to peruse it calmly, and then did that very 
 annoying thing — ^pushed her spectacles down and 
 read it over them. There is something judicial 
 and at the same time asinine in the proceeding 
 which drives the beholder to the verge of mad- 
 ness. No wonder John Galton felt angry with 
 his sister when, after reading it in this manner, 
 she put it down with the simple exclamation — 
 
 " Humph 1" 
 
 Not that those letters at all represent the sound 
 that did emanate from Miss Galton's mouth, but 
 I know of no better combination than the time- 
 honoured one which will stand its ground till 
 acoustics achieve the mightiest triumph possible 
 by correctly reproducing an old woman's grunt 
 of disbelief and dissatisfaction. 
 
 "I say Kate ought tj attend to him," John 
 Galton repeated. Then he went a little beyond 
 what he had ever before said to his sister. " Of 
 Bourse leaving her in town with Harold was very 
 like leaving her with a brother." 
 
 "Kate, is very obstinate," Miss gtalton said, 
 with a shake of her head. 
 
 "No, that she is not at all, Sarah; never met 
 with a woman who had so little obstinacy in her." 
 
 " I was going to say when you interrupted me, 
 John," Miss Galton went on with severity, "that 
 since your wife has quarrelled with her cousin it 
 would be well for you to discover what it is about. 
 Such very great intimacies broken off so abruptly 
 never look well.'[ 
 
 Miss Galton was more portentous than ever, 
 and John Galton waxed savage. 
 
 " Oh, bother ! I shouldn't have come to you 
 with Ffrench's letter if I had known that you 
 were going to insult me with these senseless sus- 
 picions. By Jove ! it's something strange if my 
 wife can't have a difference of opinion with a man 
 without a pack being down upon her at once to 
 know the reason why." 
 
 Miss Galton grew as angry as her brother. 
 
 " Oh, wouldn't you, Jolm ? well, since you did 
 come to ask my advice, I shall give it, whether 
 you hurl it back upon me with obloquy — yes, 
 obloquy — or not : I should just bring Mrs. John 
 home, if I Were you, before she has a chance of 
 cementing a stronger intimacy with her new 
 friend." 
 
 " I shall juat do nothing of the kind, for you 
 to raise the common cry that I doubt my wife," 
 John Galton cried indignantly. Then he went 
 away angry and resentfully sore with his sister, 
 and ashamed of the weakness which had induced 
 him to attempt to exonerate Harold from any 
 sort of suspicion. He almost felt as if he had 
 given room for Harold to be accused by excusing 
 him. He quite felt that he had ^ot guarded 
 Kate from the lightest shadow of blame as it be- 
 hoved him to have done. He was a simple- 
 hearted, single-minded, loyal man; suspicion was 
 so foreign to his own nature that it seemed to 
 him to soil whatever it fell upon. Now through 
 him, he told himself, it had been flung at two 
 who were very dear to him. It was in a very 
 tender frame of mind that he sat down to write 
 to Kate, and when the letter had left, his mood 
 grew softer still, and he felt that he must see her 
 before he slept. So he took the two o'clock up- 
 train from Haveraham station, and was in Picca- 
 dilly by half-past seven. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 OIT GUARD. 
 
 Kiue TuKMoii reigned triumphant in the sum- 
 mer of 1851. A merry madness was monarch 
 of all. Progress mounted like wine into the 
 brains of the majority ; under the influence of 
 the intoxicating idea all went as fast as was feasi- 
 ble to some goal, whether good or the reverse 
 was just a matter of eHance with the many. 
 There was much public frenzy and private mental 
 aberration. The wildest schemes and taost fragile 
 of follies obtained and had a temporary success 
 that was due to the disjointedness of the times. 
 There was such splendour in the metropoUs, that 
 naturally there was no inconsiderable amount of 
 havoc in the land. All were gorgeously bedight 
 that year, and, like the lilies of the field, they 
 took no apparent heed of what the morrow might 
 bring forth. 
 
44 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Mrs. John Galton was by nature addicted to 
 the diffusing around her, for beautifying and 
 comforting purposes, of all the dross she could 
 command. Some people call this extravagance; 
 others, lavish generosity. Whatever name you 
 like to bestow upon the quality, the fact remains 
 that Kate possessed it, and the house in which 
 her husband had planted her bore convincing 
 marks of the same. She was going with the 
 tide : and the tide set strongly in favour of fol- 
 lowing out the §.dvice given, to take no heed of 
 what the morrow might bring forth. 
 
 When John Galton reached the, door of his 
 wife's temporary residence, in Piccadilly, at half- 
 past seven that night, agreeable odours were 
 wafted up from the kitchen and down from the 
 balcony, as if to welcome him. The perfumes 
 from below were of delicate cates and rich sauces ; 
 the scents from above were of roses, and mignon- 
 ette, and other unpractical things. 
 
 " I'm glad Kate has not dined, for I'm hun- 
 gry," he thought to himself, as he rushed past 
 one of his own footmen, without pausing to notice 
 the irrepressible grin which succeeded that worthy 
 man's first expression of blank amaze on behold- 
 ing him. Then the sound of many voices smote 
 upon his ear ; and as he paused irresolutely on 
 the staircase, there came serpentining towards 
 him a cavalcade from the drawing-room. It was 
 only by an agile bound down into the hall again 
 that he escaped actual collision with the leader 
 of the van — an old lady, who looked as if she 
 were imperfectly riveted together with paint and 
 artificial flowers. 
 
 From a dark doorway at the foot of the stairs 
 he watched the descent of his wife's guests. He 
 felt dirty and travel-soiled, and at a terrible dis- 
 advantage, as he stood there. They who passed 
 him unconsciously were all so trim and bright. 
 He felt at a terrible disadvajitage ; but not at all 
 angry with Kate^only rather sorry that she had 
 " not told him about it," — ^that was all. 
 
 For a minute, a moment, rather, he thought 
 that he would go back again as he had come, 
 unknown, unnoticed. Then he remembered 
 that in such going back without seeing her there 
 would be a mute accusation, at least his sister 
 would so read it, and would force her reading 
 upon Kate some day perhaps. He could not 
 censure her even by implication ; he could not 
 shame or distress her by showing resentment at 
 such a very venial offence. So the kind-hearted 
 fellow reasoned as the guests filed down, he 
 unobserved by all of them — unobserved even 
 by Kate, who came last, leaning on the arm of 
 an ugly brilUant-eyed man. So he reasoned, 
 shrinking into an uncomfortably small compass, 
 in order to keep well in the shade, so that she 
 might not see him suddenly, and start and show 
 surprise- 
 When they were well inside the dining-room 
 door he called the footman who had grinned on 
 admitting him, and bade him unpack a portmaur 
 teau containing a dress coat and other articles 
 that were essential to his proper appearance, a 
 portmanteau which had been left in town, fortu- 
 nately. "And now," he said, when he was 
 ready, "just take this note to your mistress, 
 and lay a cover for me." The man took the 
 note to his mistress, and his mistress read it 
 with the slightest start in the world. 
 
 " My husband could not promise me and him 
 
 self the pleasure of being here to-night ; but he 
 has succeeded in coming nevertheless," she said, 
 handing the note with an untrembling hand to 
 Theo Leigh, as if Theo were to feel special plea- 
 sure in the advent of a man she did not yet 
 know. Then Mr. John Galton, judging from 
 those words that his wife was perfectly self- 
 possessed and ready to receive him, walked in, 
 and was received with an air of quiet surprise 
 by the majority of his guests, that made him 
 wish himself back at Haversham. 
 
 But for all his own discomfiture he did not let 
 one of them perceive that he had not come up 
 to*town fully expecting to meei them. Theo 
 remarked that he scarcely tasted anything, and' 
 Mr. David Linley that he " had a habit of silenced 
 that was uncommonly pleasant in a bucolic." 
 This was aU the notice that David Linley ac- 
 corded to the husband of the lady whose chains 
 he was reputed (by herself and immediate 
 friends) to be wearing. 
 
 Later in the evening, before John Galton 
 could gain quiet speech of his wife that should 
 not appear to be marked, Harold Ffrenoh came 
 in. 
 
 "Has he, that man I wrote to you about, been 
 hanging about her all the evening ? " Mr. 
 Ffrench asked of his cousin's husband as soon 
 as they had shaken each other by the hand. 
 
 "He hasn't been near her once," John Galton 
 replied. He was thinking of his wife, she being 
 the one woman in the world to him. It did not 
 occur to his single mind to suppose that Harold's 
 question, Harold's anxiety, related solely to 
 Theo Leigh. 
 
 " I have not spoken to Kate yet about what 
 you have said, Ffrench ; I shall tell her, though, 
 to-night, that you don't think Linley a desirable 
 acquaintance, and there will be an end of it." 
 " There won't be an end of it, I fear." 
 "You don't mean that you think Kate will 
 disregard my wishes when I express them, 
 Ffrench? Hang it, man, no one else should 
 hint such a doubt of her affection to me ! " 
 
 " Kate ? oh ! to be sure, Kate will be all right 
 about it. It was not Kate I meant at the mo- 
 ment, Galton. I was thinking of that young 
 girl ; between us we have got her away from the 
 home where at any rate she was safe and happy, 
 only to throw her in the way of one of the 
 greatest scoundrels unhung." 
 
 " Do you mean Miss Leigh and Mr. Linley ? " 
 "Yes. I do mean Miss Leigh and Linley: 
 he is attracted by her, as who would not be, 
 indeed? And I know only too well the sure 
 fate of the woman who attracts Linley. I can't 
 tell you what I feel when I see Kate persisting 
 in exposing that young girl to such a horrible 
 risk." 
 
 "What is the risk? He doesn't strike me as 
 being so remarkably attractive," John Galton 
 said in a low tone, looking curiously across the 
 room at bis abused guest the while. 
 
 "A snake is not remarkably attractive, still it 
 contrives to approach near enough to sting ; and 
 a precipice is not pleasant in itself, still it se- 
 duces a good many to gaze over its brink until 
 they grow giddy. He's playing his usual double 
 game, the rascal ! " Harold Ffrenoh continued, 
 in a tone of such deep rage and pain that John 
 Galton became involuntarily impressed with the 
 importance of the case, disposed as he was to 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 41 
 
 see only the side shown, and to think well of 
 the world at large. 
 
 "What is his usual game ? " he asked. 
 
 " To apparenJily devote himself to one woman ; 
 to show a surface devotion that may blind be- 
 holders. He aflects now to feel an interest in 
 Kate, and to find her society charming. His 
 real reason for coming here is to win that poor 
 unguarded girl." 
 
 "How do you . Look here, Ffrench, 
 
 don't be offended at the question ; but hon do 
 you come to know so much about tjiis man f 
 and knowing it at aU, why don't you say it out 
 straightforwardtyiand have done with it, what- 
 ever it may be ? " 
 
 John Galton looked very anxiously into 
 Harold's face as he thus questioned. The 
 honest, brave, straightforward fellow could not 
 bear to think that the man whom his own dear 
 wife held " dear as a brother " should be guilty 
 of saying that about a man which he either could 
 not or dared not prove. 
 
 Harold Ffrench sat down and leant forward, 
 covering his eyes with one hand. 
 
 " I have been a fool in my day, Galton ; but, 
 on my soul, I have never been a scoundrel or a 
 sueaJs. I am not offended with you ; but your 
 question looks strangely as if you thought me 
 one, or both." 
 
 " My good fellow, it's only that I am apt to 
 give out what my own heart holds ; I meant no 
 reflection upon you. I don't doubt, or I won't 
 again at all eyents, that your reasons for dis- 
 trusting this man, whom that old auut of my 
 wife's has brought upon us, are good enough. 
 Let me say one thing to you, though-^why don't 
 you guard that pretty girl you're so anxious 
 about?" 
 
 " I should be a villain to suffer her to see how 
 deeply I am interested in her, Galton ; and that 
 fellow knows it, or he would not dare to strive 
 to interest her himself before me. I wish to God I 
 had never gone to Houghton, or brought about 
 an intimacy between Kate and Theo Leigh." 
 
 " Theo Leigh couldn't well have a better 
 friend than my wife, I should think." 
 
 " UUi^er ordinary circumstances perhaps not. 
 Well, it's useless saying more, since I can't ex- 
 plain everything ; but get your wife away from 
 this vortex before mischief is done." 
 
 With that Harold Ffrench rose and walked 
 away to a corner of the room where Theo sat 
 talking to Mr. Linley. The latter had remained 
 near her for a long time this evening, speaking 
 to her occasionally with a softness in his eyes, 
 and voice that other women had found pleasant 
 and then painful full many a time before. Des- 
 pite Harold JFfrench's caution, to " beware of 
 this man as -if he were the plague," Theo had 
 given him a full confidence in return for his well 
 simulated one. " I forgot the manner of your 
 introduction to Mrs. Galton. Tou were men- 
 tioning the other day that it came about in a 
 semi-accidental way, much in the same way as 
 Ffrench's introduction to you in fact," he had 
 said, to which Theo replied, 
 
 "No, not a semi-accidental introduction • to 
 Mrs. Galton. My introduction to her was rightly 
 and properly compassed. It was Mr. Ffrench's 
 introduction to us that came about by chance. 
 He was wandering about on the marshes, near 
 our house in the country, trying to find his way 
 
 over a fordless creek. He asked me to direc 
 him, and I told him that he must have a boat- 
 papa's boat — since there was no other ; and wher 
 I mentioned my father's name, — no, I didn'! 
 mention his name, but it came round some wa^ 
 or other that Mr. Ffrench had known him bj 
 repute years ago in-^ — Greece." 
 
 She had paused before uttering the last word 
 for, as she approached the climax of her ex 
 planation, the face of the man she addressee 
 altered visibly. The soft tendeyiess, that while 
 it lived almost entirely redeemed his ugliness 
 vanished from his eyes, and in its place then 
 came two light laughing devils of malice anc 
 contempt. 
 
 " Mr. Ffrench managed matters most ingeni- 
 ously," he whispered; "he has sl»own far mort 
 tact than I ever knew him to employ before." 
 
 " You know him, then, although you nevei 
 speak ." She stopped herself abruptly. 
 
 " Theo, X never speak what ? " 
 
 " Well of him, or to him. How can you dis 
 like Mr. Ffrench, and seem to think tbingE 
 against him? " she continued warmly. 
 
 " Shall I tell you ? " he asked, in a low voice, 
 The devils had vanished now. The soft tender 
 ness reigned again more powerfully than befojft, 
 if possible, for Harold JPfrench was advancing 
 toward them to be pained by an exhibition of 
 it. " ShaU I tell you why I dislike him ? " he 
 repeated. " Because you love him, Theo, and ] 
 love you." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MES. JOHN SALTON OFFERS A PEEKEOTIT 
 SATISPACTOEY EXPLANATION. 
 
 Theo was but a girl — ^but a young impression- 
 able girl. What need after telling you that tc 
 add the fact that all must feel, that she waE 
 touched by those last words of Mr. Linley's. 
 Touched not into tenderness, but into that com- 
 passionately emotional frame of mind which 
 after a period may give birth to tenderness. He 
 was much older than herself; his name sounded 
 well mentally, but ill morally; she had heard 
 him much abused, yet nothing definite had evei 
 been brought against him — abOve all, he loved 
 her ! This last was the weight that brought the 
 balance down in his favour. He loved her, and 
 she could not requite his love. Therefore she 
 indulged in a plentiful supply and show of com- 
 passionate emotion toward him. 
 
 She did not tell him that she was sorry, or 
 honoured, or any other thing that it only comes 
 to one to affect to feel and utter after one-and- 
 twenty. She was not one-and-twenty yet, so, 
 though she was both sorry and honoured, very 
 unfeignedly sorry, and very considerably honour- 
 ed, she said nothing about either, but just suf- 
 fered a series of sensations — semi-detached they 
 were, not one of them had fair play — in silence. 
 
 The man had tasted the joy to the full in his 
 youth of causing a woman to thrill through all 
 her body and soul to his false words, doubly 
 false in- their apparently enforced frankness. 
 But this silent shiver that possessed Theo when 
 he had spoken was a new thing to him. It was 
 not a shiver of aversion : that he perceived at 
 once. He was no self-deludcr, though, and 
 therefore he was also prompt to perceive that it 
 
46 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 was no light trembling ripple of reciprocation. 
 They had clashed in their earlier years; the 
 memory of their having done so was rarely ab- 
 sent from his mind. Still he did not realise for 
 a few minutes that it was Harold Wrench's ap- 
 proach which had caused a considerable portion 
 of the trembling that he (Linley) had not under- 
 stood. 
 
 When he did realise it, It stung him far more 
 than if the girl had been antipathetic to him 
 uninfluenced. The sting did not move him out- 
 wardly, however, for he reminded him of days 
 gone by, when he, the Satyr, had won what had 
 been vowed to Harold the Hyperion. 
 
 " What have you been doing with yourself for 
 the last day or two, Theo ? " Mr. Ffrenoh asked, 
 seating himself by her side. 
 
 " Nothing,' to-day ; you were here yesterday, 
 you know," she answered, inclining her head 
 ever so slightly towards him as she spoke. There 
 was never that leaning action, that barely ex- 
 pressed yearning towards himself, Linley felt,, as 
 he watched her from the short distance to which 
 he had retired. 
 
 "Was I here yesterday? upon my word I 
 hardly know how the days go." N He did not 
 ^ok at her as he said this, but gazed away 
 vaguely into vacancy in a way that caused her 
 to gaze at him with painful earnestness. 
 
 " How you look at one, Theo," he exclaimed 
 presently, turning towards her. " Tour eyes 
 were going through me then in a way that 
 would make me fancy, if I didn't know you so 
 well, that you were trying to fathom something ; 
 what were you reading ? " 
 
 " Nothing — it's a sealed book to me." 
 
 "What is a sealed book to you? my charac- 
 ter?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I ought to say, thank God that it is, for the 
 reading would not profit you ; perhaps I Mad 
 better break the seals, though ; shall I ? " 
 
 "Do, do ; ah! you will trust me." 
 
 She spoke in a quick, low tone ; ^every note 
 reached his ear and his heart, but not a sound 
 of the words she used floated across to the 
 eagerly strained ears of the man who was listen- 
 ing for her accents. Love is the best master of 
 acoustics, after all. 
 
 " Trust you ! yes, but not myself," he mut- 
 tered in reply ; then he rose from her side, say- 
 ing that Kate was beckoning him. So once 
 again the goblet of explanation, or whatever it 
 might have been, was dashed from Theo's lips. , 
 
 Mrs. John Galton was a little pinker as to the 
 cheeks, and brighter as to the eyes, when Har- 
 old Ffrench obeyed her sign by going over to 
 her side. 
 
 " What is this, Harold? " she commenced, as 
 soon as he had seated himself on the small bit 
 of couch which she indicated was at his service. 
 " What is this, Harold ? What have you been 
 writing to my husband about ? " 
 
 She was all the aggrieved matron, nothing 
 more. Harold was aware of her talent for rapid 
 transformations, therefore he was spared sur- 
 prise at this last one that had come over her. 
 
 " About Mr. Linley," he replied quietly. 
 
 " Kidiculous ! what has the man done to you 
 that you should attack him in the dark ? " 
 
 John Galton had told his wife that Harold's 
 anxiety related solely and wholly to Theo Leigh. 
 
 "He says it would be all right enough for 
 you, of course, dear : you're above suspicion ; 
 but he fancies that Linley is fascinated by Miss 
 Leigh, and I — well, I suppose the long and the 
 short of it is that he is jealous." , 
 
 Jealous ! Harold Ffrench jealous of Mr. Lin- 
 ley about Theo Leigh, while she (Kate) was ex- 
 tant ! Small wonder that her cheeks grew 
 pinker and her eyes brighter. She would have 
 sacrificed the dawning friendship with Linley to 
 Harold's jealousy of her. But she would not 
 sacrifice it to his fears for Theo. 
 
 " Dear John," she had said to him with that 
 air of thorough conviction that may not be 
 questioned, " you know how I always endeavour 
 to paUiate Harold's follies, and screen bis faults, 
 because he has been as a brother to me since I 
 was an infant ; he really tries me a little too far 
 sometimes though ; he wants arrogantly to ban- 
 ish Mr. Linley from your house because Mr. 
 Linley is evidently acquainted with some of 
 Harold's juvenile delinquencies. I have no pa- 
 tience with such revengeful narrow-mindedness. 
 Have you ? " 
 
 "Well, I hardly " 
 
 " Oh, now, John, don't defend him for the 
 sake of sparing my feelings. Of course it's pain- 
 ful, most painful to me, to see Harold give way 
 to such pettiness of disposition, but 1 can't 
 blind myself to the fact that he does so give 
 way. Mr. Linley is so different, he never says 
 anything about Harold — never alludes to the 
 cause of the aversion that evidently exists be- 
 tween them. I love Harold as a brother," the 
 matron proceeded with creditable emotion, " but 
 I cannot help thinking that he must have been 
 very much in the wrong — ^it is so hard to forgive 
 any one whom we may have injured." 
 
 " Perhaps the less we say about it then the 
 better," John Galton said uneasily. It always 
 seemed to him that the less that was said about 
 anything unpleasant that might not be boldly 
 rectified the better. 
 
 "Perhaps so. I will tell Harold that I have 
 given an explanation to you of what he deemed 
 reprehensible, and that you are quite satisfied ; 
 shall I?" 
 
 "Certainly. Satisfied? I don't like that 
 word, Kate ; it sounds as if I had not always 
 been satisfied with you." 
 
 " Ah, dear ! no one knows better than Harold 
 what reason you have for being so," the fair 
 wife replied. In this speech there was much 
 truth ; no one knew better than Harold " what 
 reason " John Galton had for such satisfaction ! 
 
 So now when Harold Ffrench came to her at 
 her signal, Kate let him feel that he had been 
 unwise in interfering. " Because you do not 
 like him, is that any reason why you should at- 
 tack him in the dark,' and cast unfounded sus- 
 picions upon me ? " she asked. 
 
 " Now you are ridiculous, Kate," he replied 
 quickly. "I was attacked in the dark years 
 ago by that man; but let that pass; what I 
 want now is to do away with»the opportunity 
 you give 'him of exercising his cursed wiles on 
 that-r— " 
 
 " Girl over whom you have already exercised 
 yours," she interrupted " Pooh ! Harold, you 
 ought to be wiser in your maturity than to fear 
 such a kitten face will win all sorts of love and 
 evil for its possessor. I am tired of the girl 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 47 
 
 and her silent non-committal adoration for you 
 and Linley." 
 
 " She has no adoration for Linley as yet, 
 thank God," he struck in eagerly. 
 
 " Has she not ? well, all that I can say is that 
 she tries to blush him into the belief that she 
 has. However, she is going home in a few 
 days ; will that set your mind at rest ? " 
 
 "About her — yes." 
 
 "And about whom 'no?' — ^yourself?" she 
 asked, softening her voice abruptly and placing 
 her hand on his arm with the same quick warm 
 pressure he remembered she had employed 
 once, years ago, when she wanted to learn the 
 story of the forging of the chains that bound 
 him. 
 
 " I shall be as much at rest as I have been for 
 more than twenty years," he answered sadly. 
 
 " Confide in me, Harold ; now, though it's 
 late ; confide in me, and I would even befriend 
 you with her." 
 
 She glanced towards Theo as she spoke, and 
 he replied — 
 
 " Befriend her by sending her away home 
 from both of us, Kate." 
 
 " I will," she said huskily ; " indeed I will ; 
 how you love her, Harold ! She shall go soon, 
 very soon." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MK. BAKOLD rFRENCH OPFEKS AN EXPLANATION 
 WHICH IS NOT SO PEKFEOTLT SATISFACTOKT. 
 
 Mhs. John Galton had promised her cousin 
 that Theo should go back to Houghton and 
 safety "soon, very soon." She thoroughly 
 meant to keep her word. The sight of Theo 
 was painful to the prettier woman whom Theo 
 had eclipsed. This was one reason for the 
 ardent nature of the suddenly developed desire 
 of the prettier woman to banish Theo. But 
 added to this was another ^d better reason : 
 she did not wish Theo's heart to be wrung or 
 name to be sullied by even so much as the 
 shadow of a suspicion while under her auspices. 
 
 Kate had the special grace of doing two or 
 three things excellently well at the same time 
 and without apparent effort. She could be an 
 excellent hostess to the mass contemporaneously 
 with the discharge of her full battery on the 
 one. Moreover, while thus generally agreeable 
 and specially fascinating, she could plan, ar- 
 range, and decide upon some important course 
 of action. 
 
 This evening, while causing the majority of 
 her guests to hope that these reunions would be 
 of frequent recurrence, and weaving a conver- 
 sational web from which he could not escape 
 around Mr. Linley, she had to settle the form 
 of words in which Theo's sentence of dismissal 
 should be pronounced, together with the man- 
 ner of its delivery. Kate abhorred the notion 
 of going back to the old Grange, but she felt 
 capable of calmly sacrificing herself even to that 
 degree rather than of remaining a quiescent 
 spectator of Theo Leigh's success in that field 
 where the greatest glories of the day had always 
 been gained by her alone. It was the one 
 thing in life which Kate could not do grace- 
 fully — retire amiably into the background, 
 
 namely, and from thence watch with kind eyes 
 the fleshing of others' maiden swords. 
 
 Mrs. Galton had no very poignant pangs 
 about getting rid of Theo abruptly after almost 
 forcing her to remain. Mrs. John Galton in 
 fact never had any poignant pangs about any 
 one but herself, and she would suffer nothing in 
 the parting. So she resolved to say words to 
 Theo on the morrow that should prove to the 
 latter that it would be well for her not to stand 
 upon the order of her going, but to go at once. 
 
 It happened, however, -that Kate was not 
 called upon to accelerate Theo's departure after 
 all. The morrow's post brought a letter from 
 Mrs. Leigh, telling her daughter that a long- 
 looked-for appointment under Government had 
 fallen vacant, an,d been bestowed upon her 
 father. Further, that this would involve the 
 necessity of Theo's returning at once, "if Mrs. 
 Galton could kindly spare her," in order that 
 she might bear her part in the leave-takings 
 and packing-up which were consequent on the 
 change. 
 
 "Perhaps you had better start by the two 
 o'cl<(k train to-day," Mrs. Galton suggested, 
 when her young guest made her acquainted 
 with the contents of the letter ; " you'll have to 
 see so many people before you leave, and you 
 leave so soon, that I think you had better start 
 by the two o'clock train." 
 
 " Ought I to see — I mean, how can I see 
 people if I start so early ? " Theo asked. 
 
 " I meant that you would have so many people 
 down there to take leave of, not up here at all. 
 I am sure I am delighted to learn that you have 
 such intimate friends up here, I was not aware 
 of it." 
 
 " I will start by the two o'clock train, cer- 
 tainly, or by an earlier one, if there is an earlier 
 one," Theo replied hurriedly. Then she added 
 more slowly, but quite steadily and distinctly, — 
 " The only friend I have in London is Mr. 
 Ffrench ; I should like to have seen him before 
 I go, but I suppose I shall not." 
 
 " Np, dear, I don't suppose you will," Kate 
 rejoined affably. It always made Kate affable to 
 see another person baffled in this way. She her- 
 self would have obviated the difficulties attend- 
 ant on seeing Harold Ffrench with a deft readi- 
 ness by comparison with which Theo's discom- 
 fiture seemed a very ludicrous thing. But 
 Theo had no such deft readiness at command, 
 or at any rate would never have brought it to 
 bear on such a matter. 
 
 Mrs. Galton's reply to Theo's supposition, 
 that she should not see Harold Ffrench before 
 she left, was therefore given in the most affable 
 tone and spirit. 
 
 " No, dear, I don't suppose you will see him ; 
 he is sure though to call in by-and-by, and then 
 I will tell him that you are gone." 
 
 " That's very kind of you ; now I think I had 
 better go and pack-up, Mrs. Galton." 
 
 '-' Why, you seem annoyed ! don't you wish 
 me to tell him that you're gone ? You funny 
 child ! why, I really believe, Theo," she cried, 
 starting up, taking Theo's cold hands in her 
 own arid laughing as though the idea were too 
 eminently absurd to be discussed seriously, " I 
 really believe, Theo, that you imagine yourself 
 in love with my cousin Harold ! " 
 
 She bent her head to a level with Theo's, and 
 
48 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 looked with laugfamg oaruestness into her eyes 
 till Theo angrily averted them, 
 
 " I don't imagine jnvself anything, anything 
 
 of the no, I iron't tell a story: I know that I 
 
 love him ! Imagine, indeed ! " 
 
 Sbe was panting, crimson, trembling, but she 
 did not look one bit ashamed of herself as she 
 made her avowal. 
 
 "Poor child! " Kate said half pityingly, half 
 mockingly. "Harold will never marry, you 
 take my word for it ; I would prophesy good 
 things concerning your first romance if I didn't 
 know him so well." 
 
 Then Kate threw herself down on the sofa 
 again, and affected to look at a book and make 
 notes on the same, and Theo went away broken 
 and abashed now, to pack. . 
 
 How she loathed her task and herself, and 
 indeed everybody but him. She remembered 
 how she had felt when the trunks were first un- 
 packed in that room, and the dresses first un- 
 folded. Xow she wrapped up a hope in every 
 article she folded, and she thought, as she put 
 them aw.iy, that they would never be tak^ out 
 again. Her first romance Kate had calW it ! 
 It was soon over — ^how entirely over ! 
 
 She wearied over the task, as who would not 
 under the happiest circumstances ? Packing-up 
 is never nice unless some one is doing it for you, 
 and you are sitting by and are consulted about 
 the position of the things for which you care, 
 and left unharassed about the things for which 
 you do not care. Then the packing-up. of the 
 goods and chattels that are to accompany you 
 upon a pleasant tour is an agreeable occupation 
 to witness, though packing-up one's own things 
 is invariably depressing. 
 
 Poor Theo wearily put the bonnet that had 
 been on her head to the Academy with him into 
 the well of her box with a sigh, and sickened at 
 the sight of some roses he had given her. 
 
 Ah, those roses something held ' 
 Other roses seemed to lack 
 
 as Mr. Francesco Berger has told us in melo- 
 dious strains. They were no prize flowers, with 
 big broad deep leaves and the perfume of Para- 
 dise. They were just simple "roses red and 
 roses white," but they held something for the 
 girl that every other fiower in life would lack. 
 
 So at least she felt as she put them carefully 
 away, their poor old dwindled stalks wrapped in 
 silver paper, and some of the faded leaves en- 
 cased for their more complete security in one 
 corner of an embroidered pocket handkerchief. 
 So she felt then, but people get over things, 
 " love and urdove and forget " in this wicked, 
 weak, changeful world. 
 
 It would soon be time to go ; happily she 
 would not be compelled to see much more of 
 Kate, whose manner had changed to her so 
 completely and unkindly. She was telling her- 
 self this when Kate herself came to the door 
 with a pale face and a constrained mien. 
 
 " Harold Ffrench wants to speak to yon alone, 
 Theo," she said ; " he is down in the little draw- 
 ing-room ; I have agreed to it, go." 
 
 She needed no further bidding ; she was down 
 by his side almost before the echo of Kate's 
 words had died upon her ear. She was down by 
 his side, and she was happy. 
 
 " Theo," he began hurriedly, " I heard what 
 
 Linley said to you last night ; do you believe 
 that it was a horrible agony to me to hear it, 
 and not to be able to save you from a repetition 
 of it?" 
 
 She had not deemed it so before, but she be- 
 lieved it now as she watched his face. 
 
 "It was horrible, horrible, but I was power- 
 less then." He paused and stood further from 
 her, she watching him intently the while ; then 
 he went on, — " To-day I learn that a chain that 
 bound me to a silence so painful and ignomi- 
 nious is snapped, broken suddenly, awfully, but 
 thoroughly : I am called away at once, but I 
 must speak to you, though not to the world, 
 before I go. Theo, will you be my wife when I 
 come back, as I shall soon, free ? " 
 
 She gave a lo^cry, and held her hands out 
 towards him. He did not take them at first, hut 
 repeated — 
 
 " Will you trust me? Will you be my wife 
 when I come back, my darling, to whom I dare 
 not even yet show all the love I feel ? " 
 
 " Harold, tell me," she began, but he stop- 
 ped her by saying : 
 
 "What this chain was? No, not yet. For- 
 give me ; I dared not risk leaving you with this 
 untold, though all may not be told yet." Then 
 he took her hand and just pressed his lips to it 
 — ^whispered, " I have .your heart's promise, my 
 darling," and was gone. 
 
 There was no need to tell Kate what had 
 transpired ; she fathomed it all the instant she 
 saw Theo. 
 
 "He did not stay long. What is this fresh 
 mystery ? " Kate asked, and Theo answered — = 
 
 " I don't know; he told me not to ask till he 
 came back and made me his wife." Then the 
 feminine desire for a confidant obtained posses- 
 sion, and she added, — " He seemed afraid to be 
 with me, and kissed my hand as if I had -been a 
 duchess instead of what I am to be to him, you 
 know.'" 
 
 CHAPTER XT, 
 
 THE SHAnOW DEEPENS. 
 
 The time has passed so quickly — for much 
 had hiippened in it — that Theo only felt astonish- 
 ment and no particular uneasiness when the 
 truth dawned upon her one morning that it was 
 just six weeks since Haxold Ffrench had appear- 
 ed before her and asked her to let him carry 
 away with him the conviction that she would be- 
 come his wife on his return. Just six weeks 
 since that day, and during the whole of that time, 
 he had made no sign, had written no word ! 
 
 Still she only felt astonishment, no uneasiness 
 mingled with the sensation as yet She had 
 had plenty to think about and plenty to do during 
 these six weeks. She had had to bear her share 
 in the family rejoicing consequent on this long- 
 looked-for appointment, and in the packing-up 
 and unpacking that it involved. Bodily activity 
 does away,with the possibility of much mental be- 
 moaning. Theo had been very busy, too busy to 
 nurse idle fears and doubts that time alone could 
 realize or dispeL 
 
 The place was pleasant to her, for it was in 
 summer weather that Theo came to her new 
 abode, and the quarters that had been assigned to 
 Mr. Leigh had an out-look over the river. It 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 49 
 
 was all new and strange, and eminently satis- 
 factory to her father. Therefore was the place 
 pUasaiit to Theo, and she did not know the peo- 
 ple yet. 
 
 But when they had been "resident about a 
 month, and were considered tohaVo shaken down 
 and to have adapted themselves to their niches, 
 their existence began to be socially recognized in 
 due form. People called upon them with rigor- 
 ous solemnity, and made them welcome after the 
 decorous fashion of the place. 
 
 They were merely names to her as yet, she had 
 had no idea as to their relative importance, or of 
 what station they took in the rigid scale of the 
 place. Indeed she did not know that the place 
 had a scale at this tune. She learnt that in 
 company with muoh else that was pleasant and 
 beneficial by-and-by. 
 
 About a fortnight after the calling commenced 
 Theo came into tne big drawing-room, whose pro- 
 portions had been kept intact when the building 
 was apportioned into quarters, and found her 
 mamma entertaining an elderly lady and her 
 daughter, to whom Theo was forthwith intro- 
 duced. They were Mrs. and Miss Scott, and the 
 elderly lady had no peculiarly distinguishing 
 traits about her, but the girl, her daughter, had. 
 
 She was sitting on a couch far away from her 
 mother and hostess when Theo entered ; looking 
 not exactly out of temper or contemptuous; — her 
 face was naturally too brightly ftank and good- 
 humored for that, — but wearily fatigued at the 
 repetition of that which she had heard so many 
 times before. For her mamma was giving the 
 new-comer Mrs. Leigh a history in outline of 
 the faults and follies of the denizens of the estab- 
 lishment, and Sydney Scott was sick of the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 She was a pretty girl, with great deep-grey 
 eyes, a broad brow, and a very fair delicate 
 complexion, — a short, plump girl, with tiny white 
 hands, and a well-cut, laugUng mouth. But her 
 greatest charm lay in that aforesaid expression 
 of frankness and in her apparently effortless 
 honhomU. 
 
 She had walked to the window and seated her- 
 self upon an ottoman which was there, after 
 rising to meet Theo, As Theo followed her and 
 took a place by her side, she commenced the 
 conversation abruptly by saying — 
 
 " Are you glad you're here, Miss Leigh ? " 
 
 " I hardly ftel as if I were here yet," Theo re- 
 plied. 
 
 " I asked, because it's the regulation speech, 
 only I don't put it in the proper words. I'm 
 glad you were not impostor enough to say you 
 were gkd, and that it was delightful. New-comers 
 and outsiders are always told that it's a little 
 heaven, and they pretend to believe it; after a 
 time they rush to the other extreme, and think it 
 a little something else." 
 
 " I suppose it's very much like other places," 
 Theo answered, with as muoh interest as she 
 could throw into her tone. She was feeling that 
 in a short time probably it would matter little to 
 her individually whether this place were para- 
 disiacal as a residence or not. 
 
 "No," Miss Sydney Scott replied, shaking her 
 head resolutely, as if such a supposition were not 
 to be admitted for an instant, "that's just exact- 
 ly what I pompliun of; it is not like other 
 places, it's unlitce anything the imagination of 
 4 
 
 those blest enough not to live in it can con- 
 ceive. Let me see, your father is a lieutenant, 
 isn't he ? " 
 
 Theo nodded. 
 
 " Ugh ! " the girl exclaimed,, shrugging her 
 shoulders. " 'Well, you know — but are you up in 
 the grades already f " 
 
 "I have heard very little ' service ' talked ; it 
 doesn't make much difference to a man when he's 
 on shore whether he's an admiral or a lieutenant 
 (except so far as the pay is concerned) so long as 
 he's a gentleman." 
 
 " Oh, does it not I well, I hope you will retain 
 your illusions. If you do, you will be more for- 
 tunate than I have been. It makes this differ- 
 ence here, in the one case you are admitted 
 to the blessings of intimacy, in the other, the 
 sun of patronage occasionally irradiates your 
 path." 
 
 " And who is big enough to patronize ? Grant- 
 ed that I am very small mdeed, still, the patron- 
 age isn't a necessity. I can keep out of the way 
 of it." 
 
 "Then you'll be cleverer than I have been, 
 and I ain't at all addicted to the virtue of humili- 
 ty. I abominate people who give balls, and ask 
 me to them in a sort of merciful manner, as if I 
 were not quite up to the mark, but should be 
 granted the inestimable privilege- of purvetting 
 and capriolling about their rooms. ' I can't help 
 their asking me, you know, or their manner of 
 doing so either, worse luck." 
 
 "But you could help going, oould'nt you?" 
 Miss Sydney Scott and her outspoken sentiments 
 were beginning to interest Theo. 
 
 Sydney made a grimace. 
 
 "Ah 1 there it is ; I am but human, and I like 
 dsmoing. Now don't look as if you thought me 
 weak, it's one of the effects of the place ; you're 
 not a snob now, but you'll be one if you stay 
 here long. If you get the conviction into your 
 mind that in every other house in the place the 
 g)^s are reorganizing their wreaths and dresses 
 for some particular ball you will want to go to 
 that ball, and you won't think about the manner 
 of the invitation till after it's over." 
 
 " Oh I won't I ! if the manner's unpleasant 
 that's just the first thing I should think about. 
 But you haven't told me yet who are your big 
 people and who are your little people." 
 
 " ' Where ignorance is bliss,' &c.," Miss Sydney 
 quoted. "It's hard to say, such a mere accident 
 sends them up. There was a sweet little woman 
 here once, I forget whose wife she was, but few 
 of them knew anything about her, or where she 
 went, or who were her friends, for she never talk- 
 ed large; she was regarded as very insignificant, 
 ibr she didn't visit the magnates here. But one 
 
 day the Duchess of 's carriage was seen at 
 
 her door, and then she went up like a rocket. 
 She told me the story herself." 
 
 "Unfortunately a duchess's carriage is never 
 likely to be seen at our door ; if that is the price 
 of admission iq^o the regions of the select I can 
 never pay it ; but do you know " (and she laugh- 
 ed), "I think I can survive my inability." 
 
 Miss Sydney Scott looked at her curiously. 
 
 " Do you go in for common sense ? " she asked 
 dubiously. 
 
 Theo shook her head, by way not so muoh of 
 negative as of evading the question. 
 
 " Ah I I'm glad you don't, because if you did 
 
60 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 I should fight shy of you ; and as it is I have 
 rather taken a liking to you, because you're not 
 a bit of a humbug, at least," — Sydney hastily 
 corrected herself, — " you don't seem a humbug ; 
 but then I've been awfully deceived in women," 
 the frank-faced cynic continued, " and latterly I 
 have been suiTounded by such precious queer 
 specimens." 
 
 " I suppose we're all humbugs, more or less," 
 Theo answered. She was thinking of Kate's 
 charm and Kate's easily-shifted friendship. Her 
 new acquaintance combated the notion. 
 
 " No, no, we are not ; I am not, for instance. 
 I always say what I think, and do as I like." 
 
 " Except when you smile and suffer and go to 
 balls where you fancy you are asked on suffer- 
 ance," Theo interrupted. 
 
 "Ah! that's exceptional; besides, that isn't 
 all humbug even. I go for a reason ; I go well- 
 dressed, and all the men like me, and that puts 
 my entertainers and their daughters out wonder- 
 fully." 
 
 Some very real, true, and not unnatural vanity 
 flashed up into the fair frank face as she spoke. 
 Theo could readily enough believe that this 
 girl was "liked," ay, even more than th^t, by 
 many. 
 
 " Come and walk with me to-morrow," Miss 
 Sydney said, rising, as she saw her mamma get- 
 ting under weigh for departure, " and I'll show 
 you all our purgatorial places of promenade. 
 Oh, yes, and the South Road ; it's a great insti- 
 tution, the South Road." 
 
 " I shall be very happy to come. "Why is it a 
 great institution?" 
 
 " We all see each othfer there, and pass each 
 other with little surprised bows, and — oh ! well, 
 you will soon discover for yourself why the 
 South Road is affected beyond all other outlets 
 from this refuge for the destitute. Do you 
 ride?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Will you ride with me ? " « 
 
 " Tes, if I C5,n hire a horse." 
 
 " That's right," heartily ; " don't mind what I 
 have said. If you'll ride with me I shall drop 
 into my old habits again, and not brood over my 
 grievances here. I have only got into the way 
 of growling because I have been cut off from my 
 old occupations. Oome to-morrow and we'll 
 arrange." With that Miss Sydney Scott de- 
 parted, after having administered the most cor- 
 dial and impressive shake to it that Theo's hand 
 had ever received. 
 
 The fair face had wrought its usual charm. 
 Theo was very much taken with it and its off- 
 hand possessor, although she felt that the frank- 
 ness was partly affectation, and the rebellion 
 against the order of things considerably exagge- 
 rated. Still the frankness was pleasing, and the 
 exaggeration was in no wise offensive. Added 
 to this Sydney had seemed to like her (Theo) 
 very much ; and there is a subtle flattery in such 
 seeming, though we may feel all ttie Tf hile that it 
 will soon break down. 
 
 They went out for the proposed walk the next 
 day, Miss Sydney armed with a big key, by 
 means of which she procured for herself and com- 
 panion the inestimable boon of ingress to- a park 
 through a door that was closed to the public. To 
 be sure they had to go slightly out of their way 
 in order to avail themselves of this privilege. 
 
 But then it was a privilege, and as such to be en- 
 joyed. The big key was heavy also, and Sydney 
 soon palpably tired of carrying it. As a badge of 
 office, 80 to say, it was a pleasure, in itself simply 
 a burden and a mistake. However, Sydney had 
 volunteered to do the honours to the new arrival, 
 and she was resolved to do them with all the at- 
 tendant glories. 
 
 I am irfraid that Theo was chiefly fjsimiliar with 
 this place to which she had come through the 
 medium of novels. She had visions of the Virgin 
 Queen coquetting over her ruff with Leicester on 
 the terrace, and riding a-hawking through the 
 sylvan shades of the park with ever so many 
 more. It was disappomting to come suddenly on 
 to a flat outside the schools connected with the 
 establishment and find kiss-in-the-ring going on, 
 and a general atmosphere of orange-peel pervad- 
 ing everything. 
 
 " So this is the park ? " she asked. 
 "Yes; haven't you been here yet? odious 
 cockney place ? and I don't know whether the 
 common is not worse. Isn't it dummy? " Sydney 
 asked, suddenly seating herself on a, bench and 
 motioning for Theo to sit beside her. 
 
 "There is a view that makes up for the 
 ' dumminess ' in a measure," Theo said, pointing 
 as she spoke away through a vista that admitted 
 a view of the river. 
 
 " Does it make up for it indeed ? I wish it did, 
 that's all ; oh ! it is stagnation and nothing else 
 in this place, Theo ; the very worst of its kind, 
 too, pretentious stagnation ; we all make believe 
 to be rather garrison-towny than otherwise, and 
 we get up such surprising animation about such 
 uncommonly small excitement^" 
 
 " Why do you make believe about it ? " 
 "It would be duller than it is if we didn't, and 
 I do it because the rest do ; you'll be the same 
 before long." 
 
 " It won't seem dull to me," Theo said, leaning 
 back and looking away over the river. " I have 
 lived nearly all my life in a little coimtry village 
 away on ttie east coast; and you know a life 
 in a country village isn't one of dissipation 
 precisely." 
 
 " You'll go to the soirh next week ? " Sydney 
 asked, without vouchsafing any notice to 'Theo's 
 last speech. 
 
 " I have heard nothing about it. I have had 
 no invitation." 
 
 " Itis not a case of having an invitation ; your 
 father will subscribe, and so you'll go there with 
 a fraction of a share in the honour of the 
 entertainment: you have the privilege of taking 
 friends with you too, which is something if you 
 have a grudge against anybody," Miss Sydney 
 said, with a laugh of the most affable nature. 
 "The wretched friends get it both ways," she 
 continued merrily, " they have to be grateful to 
 you for giving them some hours of uiJtiappiness ; 
 it's great fiin ! " 
 
 "I'll keep my friends away, then, till I have 
 found from experience that you are painting the 
 my." 
 
 " My remark applies only to lady friends. We 
 admit of no rivalry on our own peculiar ground ; 
 this is our special territory, you know ; and as 
 we're quite enough to hold it, our name being 
 legion, I think that it's only fair to depress and 
 so drive away interlopers. I only tell you this, 
 in order that you may give any lady against 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 61 
 
 whom youVe a nuld spite, a ticket for the next. 
 Now I have been candid ; don't peach upon me ; 
 if you do I will never tell you anything again. 
 Everyone would indignantly repudiate the idea of 
 there being any truth in what I have said, may 
 be (I'll be charitable) they would delude them- 
 selves into the belief that there is no truth in it. 
 But you take some girl there attractive enough 
 to rival the daughters of the land, and make all 
 the best men visibly eager to inscribe their names 
 on her card, and see if you like what will be Said 
 about her afterwards." 
 
 " I don't think I should mind what was said, if 
 there was really nothing to say," Theo replied. 
 Then the two girls got up arid walked away 
 through the park and over the common, and into 
 a grove, with detached villas on either side, called 
 Rockheath Park. 
 
 As they walked along they fell to discussing, 
 with the usual absence of relevancy and reason in 
 such cases, appearances and slander, and their 
 own immaculate conduct and other people's ill- 
 nature. At least it was Sydney who discoursed 
 upon these two latter things — Sydney who looked 
 so bright and cloudless, but who, according to 
 her own account, had been the butt at which 
 countless shafts of envy, hatred, n;alice, and all 
 uncharitableness had been let fly. It was not 
 until she had listened to energetic and repeated 
 disavowals of being either, that Theo came to the 
 conclusion that her new friend wished to be con- 
 sidered fast and a flirt. 
 
 " I am called a foe simile of ' Kate Coventry,' 
 just as if I were anything of the kind ; isn't it 
 absurd ? " 
 
 "Very absurd, . unless you're like her, which 
 you say you're not," Theo answered carelessly. 
 
 "Ah, but one can hardly judge of one's-self ; 
 I don't think it's any bad compliment to be 
 told so, is it ? " Hargrave, of the —. — ^th, said it 
 first, and since then Tve heard it till Tm siek of it." 
 
 " I don't think it is either a bad or a good com- 
 pliment ; but if I were sick of it I would tell 
 
 people so, especially Hargrave, of the th, 
 
 who, aa he set the ball rolling, can probably stop 
 it." 
 
 " You're laughing at me, and I hate to be 
 laughed at," Miss Sydney said, ingenuously. 
 
 " Not at all ; I was but agreeing with you." 
 
 Sydney paused for a minute ; but she evi- 
 dently liked her subject, for she presently re- 
 sumed : 
 
 " That's not so bad, is it, though, aa being call- 
 ed a flirt ? Now, could you stand that ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's but one of the many things that are 
 said ; it's meaningless, because it's said by some 
 one of every one. I heard a frisky old thing of 
 fifty once called a ' a sad flirting naughty thing ' 
 by a dreadful toady who knew she would like it ; 
 it is not nice, of course." 
 
 " No, it's not nice," Sydney said, dubiously ; 
 she had rather liked the reputation on the whole, 
 therefore there was not much heartiness in her 
 assent. Suddenly she ibrightened up again, and 
 spoke with her usual force : 
 
 "Mind you do go to the next smr'ee, whether 
 you follow my advice about taking a friend or 
 not. I'll introduce you to a great friend of mine, 
 Hargrave ; I wouldn't introduce him to any one 
 else, but I will to you." 
 
 "That's very good of you; is he so pre- 
 cious? " 
 
 " I don't know about his being so precious, only 
 he's my great friend, and I don't choose that he 
 should diffuse himself too freely; he's very hand- 
 some, in thorough good style; dont you fall in 
 love with him, for I wouldn't stand that." 
 
 " I won't try you so far," Theo replied quick-, 
 ly ; she felt momentarily indignant at being sup- 
 posed to be capable of such a weakness, even by 
 one who was ignorant of Harold Firench's exist- 
 ence, as well as of that mighty man's claims upon 
 her heart. 
 
 "Are you engaged already, then?" Sydney 
 asked, opening hep eyes a little wider, and when 
 Theo had rephed " Yes," Miss Sydney went on to 
 ask.^" To whom ? what's his name ? " with most 
 engaging, frank curiosity. But before Theo 
 could answer this, a voice came over the hedge of 
 one of the villa gardens to the right which struck 
 her dumb. 
 
 " Good-bye till to-morrow, then, to-mOrrow at 
 five." Then the words grew indistinct, and Theo 
 had time to realise that it was Mr. Linley's voice 
 that she had heard, and to hope that she would 
 not meet him before she caught any more. Then 
 she heard him say something about "Mr. 
 Ffrench," with a laugh, and the next instqpt he 
 was coming out through the gate and advancing 
 towards her. 
 
 "Ah! Miss Leigh, this is a pleasure!" Theo 
 had to look as if she thought it one, too, and to 
 hold out her hand. 
 
 " You have walked over from Bretford, I sup- 
 pose ? I heard frorKkfrs. Galton of your father's 
 appointment ; I congratulate you upon it." Then 
 he lowered his voice and added, — " And about 
 something else more immediately interesting to 
 you, I suppose I ought to ofier my congratula- 
 tions, but I cannot." 
 
 She looked up, subduing her blushes as well as 
 she could, and shaking off her discomfiture. 
 
 " You are very kind about papa," she said. 
 Then she held out her hand to wish him good- 
 bye, and make him understand that she wanted 
 to go on. 
 
 "I am unkind, then, you think, about that 
 other thing ; ah, well ! " — thus far he had almost 
 whispered, at least he had spoken in that low, soft 
 tone which is far more likely to salute the ear 
 alone for which it is intended than a mere whisper. 
 He now added aloud : 
 
 "You w0 permit me to walk back across 
 the common with you; I am going to Bret- 
 ford." 
 
 " If Miss Scott — ^that is, I mean, — allow me to 
 introduce you : Mr. Linley, Miss Scott," Theo 
 said,' hurriedly. She was put out at his attaching 
 himself to her in this way ; she did not in the 
 least know how to shake him off, and she was well 
 aware that Harold Ffrench would be annoyed 
 when he came to hear of it. 
 
 Sydney, merry, loquacious, amiable Sydney, 
 would not assist her in this strait Miss Scott had 
 given one comprehensive glance at Mr. Linley 
 when he had first appeared, and she thought him 
 old and ugly, uncommonly ugly. His name just 
 struck her as being the same as stood on the back 
 of a novel that she had been reading lately. But she 
 did not think of associating this man with the au- 
 thor, and even had she done so she would have felt 
 no greater interest in him. He was elderly and 
 ugly, and he was arrayed in this bright summer 
 weather in darkand dingy clothes. Sydney only 
 
62 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 thought well at first sight of those who wore 
 flowers in their button-holes, and the palest mauve 
 gloves, and waistcoats of tender tints. An el- 
 derly ill-dressed man was an abomination to 
 her; therefore she walked along now with her 
 •pretty nose in the air, and would not assist 
 Theo in bearing this incubus by so much as a 
 word. 
 
 It was a terrible incubus to Theo, although 
 she had not a particle of personal disliie to him. 
 Indeed, had her taste been unfettered, she would 
 have been as prompt as the majority of her sex 
 in acknowledging his influence. His ugliness was 
 no drawback at all to the man in her eyes, but he 
 had had the misfortune to win Harold Ffrench's 
 ill opinion, and therefore Theo could not sutfer 
 herself to think well of him, though he had told 
 her he loved her. The burden of her mental 
 song as she walked over the common and down 
 to the barrier that was rMsed around her new 
 home with this man by her side, was, " How annoy- 
 ed Harold will be when he hears of it ! I 
 wouldn't have had it happen for the world." This 
 was the pertinacious refrain, and still- through it, 
 as it were, came the other thought, that he was 
 " very pleasant and kind." 
 
 At the gates they parted. " I am going to 
 dine with two or three men at the ' hotel,' " he 
 told her. He went on to mention the names of 
 the men at once, and Sydney looked at him with 
 greater attention, for they were well-sounding 
 names. There was a drag, too, outside the hotel 
 door ; maybe his friends haAome down in it, she 
 thought. So at parting the pretty blonde broke 
 the silence she had observed, by saying : 
 
 " If you dine in that room, then you'll see the 
 whole force of the place out after nine. It's such 
 a lovely evening, Theo, you must walk on the 
 terrace with me." 
 
 • CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OUT ON THE TERRACE AFTER NINE. 
 
 At about five minutes before nine that evening 
 Miss Sydney Scott appeared before Theo in rai- 
 ment so fresh, brilhant and voluminous, that she 
 resembled a substantial, not to say stout, butterfly. 
 The little lady was arrayed in a white muslin, in 
 a great expanse of it, and this was adorned with 
 blue bows, blue ends, and blue runnings of glossy 
 ribbon in a way that was very beautiful to be- 
 hold. Over this she wore a blue china crape 
 shawl, put on carelessly, so carelessly that it fell 
 back and bet/ayed the fact of her braceleted 
 arms and pretty white hands being bare. 
 
 " You see," she exclaimed, when Theo had de- 
 clared her "to be got up tremendously," "it's 
 like one's own grounds after nine ; we all come 
 out then just as we have been dressed for dinner ; 
 you must have seen that everybody comes out as 
 much got up as I am." 
 
 "I have not seen, for I have not thought of 
 looking. I have not known who the promena- 
 ders were, so I haven't been interested, you see. 
 What are we supposed to do now ? " 
 
 " Put on your hat and come out and walk up 
 and down." 
 
 "That sounds cheerful, on those pebbles ; can't 
 we go up under the colonnades ? " 
 
 " Oh, «o," Sydney cried decisively ; " no one 
 
 goes there, all the fun is on the terrace ; besides, 
 to-night " 
 
 " Well, what of to-night ? " 
 
 "Why, perhaps if he sees us, that friend of 
 yours might like to come in ; now don't be af- 
 fected, and pretend that you would rather your 
 grandfather did not join you from motives of pro- 
 priety. Mrs. Leigh, you will come out too, won't 
 you f Mamma's there, and will be delighted to 
 get you to talk to again." 
 
 " But who's Theo's friend f " Mrs. Leigh asked. 
 " I must hear that first." 
 
 " Oh, mamma, no friend ; of course I should 
 have mentioned meeting a ' friend,' but Mr. Lin- 
 ley, a mere acquiiintance like Mr. Linley, I didn't 
 think it worth while telling you that I met. I 
 used to see him at Mrs. (Jalton's, and I met him 
 this afternoon, that is all." 
 
 "Linley!" her father ejaculated; "that's a 
 name I ought to know very well." When he 
 said that, Theo knew that she was in for it — ^in 
 for continued intercourse with that man to whom 
 Harold Pfrench was so antipathetic. 
 
 "Come along," she said quickly to Sydney, 
 who was beating the floor with her foot in impa- 
 tience to be off; " you'll come out and join us 
 then, mamma ? " Then, without waiting for a 
 word more, the two girls went out of the house. 
 
 " Let us go up to the other end," Theo said ; 
 " it's more open up there." 
 
 " No," Sydney replied resolutely, " let us keep 
 down here, we shall see the drags go off.'' Miss 
 Sydney walked along towards the " hotel," with 
 her white robes and blue drapery floating around 
 her bravely. 
 
 There were four men out on the balcony of 
 that room in the hotel which faces the west. 
 Without looking up, Theo felt that one of the 
 four was Mr. Linley, and that he would come 
 down presently. Without looking up also, or at 
 any rate without appearing to look up, Sydney 
 knew that three of the men were young, and that 
 they rejoiced in tenderly-tinted waistcoats and 
 flowers in their button-holes. 
 
 Presently the four came in and gained the ter- 
 race just as the ringing-out bell commenced peal- 
 ing. Theo's father and mother had come out by 
 this time. And when an inexorable policeman 
 was insisting upon the immediate withdrawal of 
 the quartette, Mr. Linley came up to the Leighs, 
 hat in hand, and said : — 
 
 " Will you plead privilege for myself and my 
 friends. Miss Leigh, or will you see us turned out ? " 
 
 It had come ! there was no help for her. Theo 
 felt that she must introduce him to her father. 
 
 She shook off the feeling' of being a naughty 
 mouse whose guardian cat was absent after a 
 time, when the three younger men had been intro- 
 duced to them and had succeeded in engaging 
 Sydney and herself in conversation apart from the 
 elders. 
 
 " Harold cdrii mind papa talking to him, 
 surely," she thought; "it's only me he wants to 
 keep from being friendly with Mr. LinJ^y, and I 
 have no desire to be it." With the thought her 
 spirits rose, and altogether she was very happy, 
 though the path was pebbly, and though the 
 honours of the occasion were clearly with the 
 pretty creature in blue and white who was being 
 frank and engagingly out-spoken in a wonderful 
 manner. 
 
 It was very pleasantj and she wished that 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 6S 
 
 Harold Fftench could hare been there "with her 
 when the daylight quite died out of the sky and 
 the moon shone forth in all her glory, silvering 
 everything that she touched with her beams. 
 The old place is fair enough to be set as the scene 
 of any romance : it is all palace at such times. 
 By day th;e aged seaman is apt to interfere with 
 one's sense of the beautiful. 
 
 Some such sentiment as this last one I have 
 penned was being diSousse J. The two girls had 
 placed themselves on a bench, and the men were 
 standing before them looking down at them, and 
 while evidently seeing nothing save the two pretty 
 faces, were declaring that they "had never be- 
 lieved in the beauty of the place before." 
 
 "There's nothing to mar it to-night," Theo 
 said quietly ; while Sydney laughed, and said it 
 " was rank heresy to doubt the beauties of the 
 place ; she would introduce them to their notice 
 more fully." 
 
 " I like the idea of the aged seaman in the ab- 
 stract, but he is not pleasant in the flesh, espe- 
 cially en masse. My experience of him is that he 
 is a drunken, discontented old bear, who thinks 
 -that the casual visitor ou^t to bestow perpetual 
 reward upon him for disfiguring what would 
 otherwise be as pleasant an after-dinner lounge 
 as any along the river." 
 
 The youngest and best looking of the three 
 men was the speaker. He was the Honourable 
 Algernon Buekhurat, familiarly "Algy Buck," 
 and he meant to be a Lord of the Admiralty one 
 day, and to make the abuses of all things apper- 
 taining to the navy his special care. 
 
 " I don't object to him at all ; he might growl 
 and beg, and be a hundred times more discon- 
 tented than he does and is already," Sydney said, 
 putting her hand out to see how " strange " it 
 looked in the moonlight ; " what I complain of 
 is that my friends will swarm about me and pre- 
 tend to take an interest in how he's fed and 
 lodged, and so drag me through the halls and 
 wards ; that's awful ; for when you have .been 
 through once there is nothing fresh to be said 
 about anything, and you feel idiotic and stifled at 
 the same time." 
 
 " I should like to see you bear-leading,'' Algy 
 murmured languidly. " Linley and I Trill come 
 and get Miss Leigh and you to take mercy on 
 us. I ought to go through the thing as a duty, 
 and it would be making a duty pleasant for 
 once." 
 
 "Theo," Mr. Leigh called out from a short 
 distance. Theo rose and ran to him, ran up 
 slightly, swiftly, and unrestrainedly as a child 
 might have done, or rather, as the girl she was 
 still. 
 
 Her father was standing with his arms folded 
 across his chest and with his head up, but there 
 was a look in his face as if he had received a bad 
 blow, and Theo trembled. 
 
 "When did you hear from Ffreneh, my girl? 
 you have heard since he left ? " he asked as she 
 came up. Then Theo ceased to tremble and an- 
 swered promptly and coldly, for she resented this 
 inquisition before a stranger, and that stranger 
 Linley, his foe. 
 
 " No, papa, I have noi heard. Oh ! dear papa, 
 what is it ? " she cried, as he dropped his arms 
 and put out his hand to her. 
 
 " My poor child ! " he said in a fervent tone. 
 She asked him again impetuously, " What is 
 
 it, papa 1 what is it ? " but he only answered that 
 " my poor child." 
 
 "Will you suffter me to tell her?" Linley 
 asked softly. " Miss Leigh, will you kindly trust 
 
 yourself to hear from me what your father " 
 
 "No, I won't," Theo interrupted, turning on 
 him fiercely. " No, sir," as she saw him about 
 to speak. " Stop, as you are a gentleman : what- 
 ever it be — good or bad, true or false — I will not 
 hear it from you." 
 
 She had stood alone as she spoke thus : such 
 a little thing she looked to be so defiant : there 
 was not one sign of flinching about her as she 
 stood erect and algne, hurling out her refusal to 
 listen to him. But when she had answered Lin- 
 ley she turned to her father again and clung to 
 his arm. 
 
 " Don't let him feel that you can't say and ; 
 can't hear any words that should be said, papa ; 
 whatever it be, whatever it be, say it out, dear, 
 and see how I'll stand it." 
 
 It seemed to her to be a point of honour not to 
 quail before this man who hdted Harold and 
 whom Harold hated. She felt that that which 
 she was to hear Would concern Harold and would 
 be evil. But now as she urged her father to 
 speak she turned her face to the moon and pulled 
 off her hat in order that the light might stream 
 full and clear upon it. Nor did she wince or 
 falter when her father obeyed ' her by saying in 
 such a broken, humbled tone — 
 
 "Poor child ! you had better com$ in to your 
 mother before I tell you what you must hear." 
 " No, papa, but now, now ! " 
 " The man has deceived you ; " then he shout- 
 ed, " and by God he shall answer for it — he has 
 a wife living ! " 
 
 " You say it on that man's authority ? " she 
 aSked, indicating Linley with her hand hut not 
 looking towards him. Though she called bim 
 " that man," and expressed contempt and hatred 
 for him in every- accent, Linley had never beeB 
 so near loving a woman truly as he was at thai 
 moment. 
 
 Her father took her hand, but she could nol 
 stand caresses yet. She withdrew it determin 
 ately and repeated her question, and when hei 
 father had replied in the afiirmative she cried — 
 " Harold Ffreneh shall thank you for this in 
 terest in his aflkirs at some future time. By waj 
 of showing my gratitude for your interferenct 
 with mine, I will beg you to understand thai 
 henceforth we are such absolute strangers thai 
 common courtesy will, forbid your daring to dis 
 cuss them with me." 
 
 Then she bowed to him — ^bowed very low in 
 deed — and put her hand on her fa,ther's arm t( 
 lead him away in a manner that made Mr. Leigl 
 feel that she was not quite so much of a child ai 
 he had been wont' to deem her. She was some 
 thing besides his daughter to him from that mo 
 ment. He began to understand that there wen 
 other things in heaven and earth than those of 
 which he in his parental philosophy had hereto 
 fore dreamt. 
 
 " Are you going in, Theo ?" Sydney Scott cried 
 running up to her. 
 
 "Yes," Theo replied, "there's your mamma 
 you won't be alone." She shook hands witl 
 Sydney, and bow^d coolly tq Mr. Linley's friends 
 and walked in with what her father thought ti 
 be most wonderfid sang froid. When she wa 
 
64 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 in her own room, to which she went immediately, 
 "to take off her hat," she said, this sang frM 
 deserted her, and she went down on her knees 
 and buried her head iu the bed-clothes and 
 Bobbed with a bitter agony over the form of 
 assault that had been made upon her absent love. 
 Meanwhile the man who had assaulted him 
 was watching the horses being put-to, for he was 
 going back to town with his friends. 
 
 " That's a poisoned dart that will wound him 
 when he's perfectly cured of the other. Old 
 Leigh will never forgive the insult if Harold 
 Ffrench comes back free to-morrow." Then he 
 thought admiringly of Theo. " She took it grand- 
 ly, grandly," he muttered. "Harold Ffrench has 
 lost the best thing he ever had yet. I should 
 have gone on a different tack with such a girl as 
 that ; until I met her to-day I half fancied she 
 might know the truth." 
 
 Mr. Linley told his friends that Old Leigh had 
 been boring him cruelly, and that that was the 
 reason why he had said good night and broken 
 up the party abruptly, as it seemed to them he 
 had. " It was all very well for you fellows who 
 had two pretty girls to talk to, but I am past 
 caring for such things, and haven't acquired a 
 taste yet for old naval men's reminiscences. 
 Fellow never heard of my book either," he con- 
 tinued in a disgusted tone ; " what can you have 
 in common with a man who's so utterly out of 
 your orbit as that ? " 
 
 " There's something about the daughter that 
 I like though, do you know," Algy remarked. 
 " She's not quite so pretty as the little thing in 
 blue, but there was .something about her that I 
 Uked." 
 
 " Next time I see her I will make her happy 
 by communicating your approval of the ' some- 
 thing ' to Miss Leigh." 
 
 Mr. Linley began to think that it would be 
 rather a refined torture to apply to Harold 
 Ffrench to make some younger man his rival, — 
 some younger man of whom, like the Honourable 
 Algy, it might well be said that Theo had " de- 
 clined to a lower nature and a narrower heart," 
 could she be led into substituting him for Harold. 
 "But she's obstinate, I see that," he thought; 
 "precious obstinate, and plucky as the devil; 
 Aoai she turned on me ! " 
 
 Curiously enough her turning on him as she 
 had done was the thing that he could not forget, 
 and this not in anger but in admiration. She 
 was the first woman who had ever turned upon 
 him ; and she had done it so readily and so fear- 
 lessly. He had to thank her for the most novel 
 sensations ; he bore her no malice for her can- 
 dour. 
 
 He had called Theo " obstinate and plucky," 
 and it is a fact that she was both these things. 
 Yet it has been seen that she was all a woman in 
 her utter abandonment to grief and despair, when 
 there were none others by to be supported by an 
 outward show of courage on her part. I have 
 shown' her to you, kneeling by the bed with her 
 face buried in the clothes, sobbing in a strong 
 agony that such an assault should have been 
 made upon him. But her voice never faltered, 
 nor did her resolution, when she bore her part in 
 the discussion that took place that night. She 
 avowed her intention to be staunch to the man 
 till he told her himself that he was " false and un- 
 worthy," and she meant it. 
 
 For all that, she went through a terrible ordeal 
 of dread and fear and horrible doubt when she 
 came to be alone again in the night. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 fHEO AND MR. LINLEY BOTH HEiB THE TEtTTH. 
 
 Sydney Scott did not mean it unkindly, she 
 meant it the reverse of unkindly, in fact. She 
 wished to prove that her new friend's merits had 
 already received the recognition that seemed 
 the grandest to her. She wished to show that 
 she was already on terms of confidential in- 
 timacy with Theo. Above all, she desired to 
 strike a sharp blade into the hearts of several of 
 her acquaintances who were not engaged and 
 who wished to be engaged. These various 
 reasons combined to make her more than ordinar 
 arily loquacious, and so, just when the hearing it 
 spoken about was exquisitely painful to Theo, 
 her engagement was made the chief topic 
 amongst all those wih whdm she was thrown in 
 contact. 
 
 " She is engaged to a — I forget his name — 
 but it's a capital match, and she won't be in 
 your way here lohg," Sydney Scott had con- 
 tented herself with saying to one or two of her 
 favorite aversions at first. Bu* after a short 
 time this statement appeared tame to her, and 
 she touched it up slightly. 
 
 "Do you really think Miss Leigh is too 
 small and dark, and that she looks like a mere 
 fresh country girl ? Well, I don't agree with 
 you ; however, she won't be a vexed question 
 amongst us long, for she's going to be married ; 
 such a match, too ! " 
 
 So rumours arose that were wounding to both 
 Theo and her parents under existing circum- 
 stances. How they arose was not quite clear, 
 for Theo had entirely forgotten that she had 
 suffered the hint on which Sydney had built up 
 the full statement to escape her. 
 
 " Don't contradict it yet, papa, since it has 
 got abroad unfortunately," she pleaded. " Har- 
 old Ffrench will tell me the truth some day ; 
 don't' denounce him on that man's authority." 
 
 It was a horrible grief to her that her father 
 should at this time permit Mr. Linley's visits 
 and give the hand of friendship to him. "He 
 is false and treacherous, of that I am sure, 
 though I don't know how," she would say. So 
 she kept out of the way when he came, as he 
 did frequently, and would neither see him nor 
 listen to a repetition of what he had said. 
 
 "Poor child! " Mr. Linley said to her father 
 one night, "she hates me now very naturally 
 for telling you the truth about Ffrench ; she'll 
 forget that vacillating fool in time, and when 
 she does she'll cease to think me a devil, and wiU 
 believe that the ' refined, accomplished man,' 
 was the true embodiment of the Satan she 
 deems me." 
 
 But still though Linley would speak freely 
 enough of both Harold Ffrench and Theo, he 
 declined to tell the father of the girl how the 
 fact of Ffrench having a wife alive had come to 
 his knowledge. 
 
 " There was something underhand and con- 
 strained about his manner to your daughter, 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 66 
 
 and I took an interest in her : some day or 
 other, when this wound is healed, I will tell you 
 why. That being the case, I set myself to work 
 to find out why he was constrained and unde^' 
 cided, and as few things bafBe me for long, I 
 soon discovered what I have told you. His 
 pretty fool of a cousin imagined that it was her 
 fascination that drew me to her house so con- 
 tinually : my dear fellow, it was the interest I 
 took in your daughter, — on your account at 
 first, after a time I confess solely on her own. 
 It was hard to stab her, but Theo will forgive 
 me in time." 
 
 " Theo is very obstinate," her father replied, 
 mournfully ; " she still believes in that smooth- 
 tongued scoundrel." 
 
 " Her faith must be pretty well strained by 
 this time," Linley said eagerly; "it must give 
 way before long." 
 
 "And she will give way with it, I fear. 
 Strained I the strain is killing her, sir I but she 
 has never let us see a tear or hear a word of 
 repining. I would have given my heart's blood 
 to save my child from this sorrow that she won't 
 acknowledge to be one," the old man said in a 
 broken voice. He admired Theo for not making 
 her moan aloud, but his love made his pity for 
 her a poignant pain to himself. 
 
 At last, about a fortnight after Mr. Linley had 
 struck the first blow, the second fell. A letter 
 came from Harold Ffrench, not to Theo, but to 
 her father ; but Theo was the one to read it 
 first, for her hand was steadier than her father's, 
 and her vision was clearer. 
 
 " Two months ago," he wrote, " I was told, 
 and God knows that I believed, that a chain 
 which had bound me for years was snapped for 
 ever. The curse of impatience was upon me, 
 and the first use I made of my freedom was to 
 ask your daughter to be my wife. My horror 
 arid remorse when a few hours later I learnt 
 that I had been told a lie, broke me down more 
 utterly than I had ever thought to be broken 
 down and live. Had my brain been clear I 
 should before this have written the truth which 
 will bring down your curse upon me. To her 
 whom I have so oruellj wronged I dare utter no 
 plea for forgiveness. To you I will only say 
 that before God I thought myself a free man in 
 that fatal hour of parting with your dafighter. 
 I left her to find a woman who has been my 
 wife in name for years still alive. I left her to 
 find that I had Been tricked into deceiving her—r- 
 tricked into a more complete: destruction than 
 overtook me years ago at the hands of the man 
 you are now admitting to termsjjkf intimacy. 
 Beware of him ! he is the cause oflhe evil that 
 has come upon us all — of the dishonour that you 
 will always associate with the name of 
 
 " Habolo Ffkenoh." 
 
 She had read it through almost to the last line 
 without flinching ; but when she came to those 
 last words a tremor seized her, and she put the 
 letter down and leant her head against her 
 father's shoulder. 
 
 " I can't read it to you, papa dear, but I can 
 tell you that it is all black, aU black and misera- 
 ble ; we'll never say another word about him 
 after you have read the letter and told me that 
 you doiH associate ' dishonour ' with the name 
 
 of the only man I ever can love. Tell me that, 
 and then it shall be done with." 
 
 But her father could not tell her that. This 
 man had come and crushed his flower, for 
 though Theo would not be broken she was most 
 sorely bruised ; and now he had nothing better 
 to say for himself than that he had been the 
 victim of an idle tale, and that the curse of im- 
 patience had been upon him. Mr. Leigh could 
 not forgive him, and could not associate his 
 name with aught but dishonour. Theo had the 
 additional agony of reading in her father's face 
 unrelenting antagonism to the man " who was 
 the only man she could ever love>" 
 
 But he spared his daughter all allusion to it, 
 as she had desired. " It is all black, let it be 
 done with," she had said. To this appeal he 
 mutely agreed. Theo felt, when she saw her 
 father throw the letter into the fire, that he de- 
 sired to burn away as much as he could of that 
 episode in th^r lives which had commenced on 
 that bright spring morning, and was ending now 
 when the leaves were falling fast. " He wishes 
 to burn it away ; it shall never be recalled by 
 me," she thought. So from that day Harold 
 Ffrench's name was never mentioned between 
 the father and daughter.. 
 
 There was no answer sent to the letter which 
 struck the final blow. Mr. Leigh could not 
 write and Theo would not, partly because they 
 tacitly rehed upon her honour not to do so, and 
 partly because the great pity that fiUed her heart 
 for herself and for him, was too near akin to love 
 to be safely expressed to the man whose wife 
 still lived. But through all her silence she 
 hoped that he would do her the justice of be- 
 lieving that, as she had never distrusted or 
 doubted, so she did not now despise or dislike 
 liim. 
 
 It was a hard thing for the girl to live on and 
 act as usual at this epoch. To get up, and go 
 through the day as the day had ever been gone 
 through in their quiet household, and then to 
 go to her room at night without a hope that this 
 routine, would alter for the better. It was a 
 hard thing to do this with external fortitude — 
 more than that, with apparent content. But 
 she did it, never forgetting that she was not 
 alone in the world ; bearing in mind constantly 
 that in her face alone the sunshine of her home 
 was found ; remembering ever that it is so easy 
 to give up the game entirely. 
 
 She had other things to endure soon besides 
 her own heart's gnawing agony, and other efforts 
 to make in addition to the one she succeeded in, 
 of making that agony no household word. Quick 
 upon the heels of the announcement, the inju- . 
 dicious, well-meaning, . girlishly premature an- 
 nouncement thatSymey Scott had made of her 
 marriage — came the rumour of the dissolution of 
 it. And Theo h»A to hear many biting com- 
 ments through her frank-faced friend, who was a 
 fierce, albeit an injudicious partizan. Nor were 
 comments all : she had to nm the gauntlet of an 
 incomprehensible hostility that originated. Heaven 
 only -knew in what — an hostility that veiled itself 
 under the semblance sometimes of friendly re- 
 proof, sometimes of unwilling disapproval, some- 
 times of a guarding patronage that was only one 
 degree more absurd Aan loathsome to her. But 
 however veiled, it was co-existent with her resi- 
 dence there; and she knew it. Altogether it 
 
66 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 pas a hard time to live through from causes pure 
 md simple. In addition, as is general and so 
 >eThaps just, her own sex rendered it harder, 
 lometimes by censure and sometimes by com- 
 niseration, until Theo came to the conclusion that 
 nisfortune must be the worst guilt of all, it is so 
 orely punished. 
 
 "I wish you would tell me all about it, I 
 hould know better what to say then when they 
 ,re going on about you," Sydney remarked medi- 
 atively to Theo one day when together they 
 rere standing in the square listening to a choice 
 election of airs that were being performed by a 
 land. 
 
 " Who are ' they,' and what do they say ? " 
 Pheo asked wearily. 
 
 " Oh, everybody ! and they say — well, all sorts 
 if things ; it's very unpleasant for me, being your 
 riend ; but what can I say ? you have no confi- 
 lence in me." 
 
 " I have no confidence in any one," Theo 
 •eplied quickly. She simply meant that she 
 loufided this bitter sorrow of hers to no one. 
 Jut Sydney attached a different meaning to thg 
 vordg. 
 
 " Tou must have been most dreadfully ill-used 
 o say that, Theo. I won't believe that you have 
 )een to blame, though — though " 
 
 She stammered and stopped, with a blush on 
 ler bright face, and confusion in her clear elo- 
 [uent eyes. 
 
 "Though wh^?" Theo asked, turning her 
 lead slightly towards her companion. 
 
 "Though they do shy *way from you as 
 hough you were infected," Sydney said quickly. 
 
 " So I am infected — infected with a disease that 
 ■enders my companionship unpleasant and unim- 
 )roving," Theo answered carelessly. " I am in- 
 fected with more than a touch of reserve about 
 ny own affairs, and carelessness as to what they 
 ir you or anybody else may think about them. 
 Sxcuse me, but if you have nothing more agree- 
 ible to give vent to than your surmises as to their 
 urmises about me, I had rather not hear them ; 
 tnd I think I will go in." 
 
 So she went in, away from the candid young 
 iiend who told her all that was said and thought 
 md hinted to her disparagement, away from 
 hose who treated her, according to that friend's 
 'ersion of the case, " as though she were infect- 
 id." As soon as she was alone she sat down and 
 irayed unconsciously, gazing awhile over the 
 nuddy river, alive with crowded steamers, for a 
 )rief escape from the terror of this shame till 
 trength should be hers to bear it better. 
 
 " What is thought of me, and what is said f " 
 ihe asked herself. She shook with rage and 
 loom at that form of interest which was being 
 lisplayed towards her, and thought of a hundred 
 jlans of escape, and rejected each one of them 
 n rapid succession. Finally, she hoped that 
 rank-faced Sydney Scott had not thought her 
 rery petulant. 
 
 That Miss Sydney had so thought her she 
 ;peedily learnt, for Sydney was one who when 
 ;he had a grievance cried it aloud in the market- 
 ilace and from the housetops. This was a 
 avourite form of grievance with her too, which 
 idded to the pleasure to be conversationally ex- 
 iracted from it. It has been said that according 
 her own account Sydney had been the butt at 
 vhich countless shafts of envy, hatred, malice. 
 
 and all uncharitableness bad been let fly. And 
 these, be it borne in mind, had all been feminine 
 shafts. Perfidy from her own sex, the young 
 philosopher averred, she was well accustomed to 
 meet with. But this was a peculiarly black case 
 of perfidy, " to be turned upon and insulted by a 
 girl she had stood by, as she had stood by Theo 
 Leigh, was ingratitude that could not be easily 
 matched in deepness of dye." It was a lesson to 
 her never to trust a woman again, until -such 
 time as she felt constrained to tell how she was 
 called fast and a flirt and a regular "Kate 
 Coventry." 
 
 The little lady's wrath was loud, but, as is 
 usual when such is the case, it was not lasting. 
 Sydney could not nurse it to keep it warm; 
 she expended it in airy puffs, and having done 
 so, proposed a fresh (dliance offensive and de- 
 fensive with Miss Leigh in the following 
 terms : — 
 
 " I say that, after all, if you choose to keep 
 your own counsel you're quite justified in doing 
 it, and I made the Miss Boltons mad last night 
 at their abominable dull musical party by telling 
 them that I would offer them five to one against 
 your being Miss Leigh at the end of the year; 
 they took me, — in gloves, you know ; so look out 
 that you don't let me lose." 
 
 " You're very good to talk about me and to bet 
 about my marrying," Theo answered, "but if 
 you would be kind enough not to tell me of it, I 
 should be still more obliged to you." 
 
 " Now, Theo — however, I'm determined I won't 
 quarrel ; I won't expect much from you, but I 
 won't quarrel. Hargrove said, when I told him 
 about you first, that I should find you out in time 
 to be just hke every other girl." 
 
 " Mr, Hargrave betrays immense discernment 
 and knowledge of character." 
 
 "Tou needn't laugh at Hargrave; he is not 
 stupid, though he's not old and ugly like your 
 hideous talented friend who wrote the book and 
 stumbled upon you in Eockheath Park," Sydney 
 cried indignantly. The young soldier had sung 
 with her, and her alone, tie previous night, and 
 he had been the sole military light amidst a lot 
 of rather sombre civilians. The glow of these 
 things was still upon him, so Sydney spoke in- 
 dignantly in his defence when she deemed that 
 Theo aspersed his intellect. 
 
 "TRe man who wrote the novel, and who 
 stumbled upon us in Kockheath Park, is no 
 friend of mine, God knows ! " Even now, 
 though the truth had been ma3e known to her 
 by Harold himself, Theo could not forget that 
 Mr. Linley had been the first to whisper it, and 
 in her own|^nd she could not hold him guiltless 
 of the evil. 
 
 " Why, he is down at your house constantly ! " 
 Sydney cried. 
 
 " He is a friend of papa's ; I have never seen 
 hun since that day we met him first." 
 
 " Never seen him ? How is that ? " 
 
 " Because I hate him ! " Miss Leigh cried 
 hotly. "There, don't look at me in that way. 
 I wouldn't have said it if you had not suggested 
 the possibility of my mentally comparing any 
 other man with him. I hate him ! " 
 
 "To whom are you so animatedly declaring 
 hatred? " a voice asked behind her. And look- 
 ing round Theo saw Mr. Linley standing smiling, 
 with his hat raised in such a way that it concealed 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 SI 
 
 the expression of hia lips. The two girls were 
 seated on a couch midway up the length of the 
 drawing-room, with their backs to the door by 
 which he had entered unobserved. 
 
 "Neither papa nor mamma are at home," 
 Theo commenced hurriedly ; she would not give 
 him her hand. And he marked her resolve not 
 to do so in time to avoid offering his own. But 
 he stood close over her, smiling down upon her 
 in a benignant manner, and Theo quailed in her 
 soul at that benign false smile. 
 
 " Neither papa nor mamma will be at home till 
 night," she repeated. Then impatience conquer- 
 ed, and she threw down her cards. 
 
 " How long have you been In the room? did 
 you hear what we were saying ? " 
 
 " I heard you say you hated somebody, but 
 whom you did not mention," he replied softly. 
 Theo, looking straight into his eyes, read that he 
 was telling her a falsehood, and feared him. 
 
 " You will permit me to await your papa's re- 
 turn ? " he asked, presently. 
 
 " Certainly, if you wish it; but you will ex- 
 cuse my leaving you ! " 
 
 " Tou have a previous engagement ? Ah I I 
 am unfortunate ! " 
 
 She would not tell the story that should render 
 her withdrawal from his presence consistent with 
 civility. She simply repeated that he "must ex- 
 cuse her leaving him." She went away from the 
 room, taking Sydney with her, and feeling that 
 David Linley had heard more than her vague de- 
 claration of hatred, and that it was ill for her 
 that he had done so. 
 
 CHAPTER XVm. 
 
 A GREAT MISTAKE. 
 
 Stdnet had retired with her friend to the little 
 room that was sacred to the latter, leaving Mr. 
 Linley to the solitary enjoyment of the drawing- 
 room, which was as uncomfortable as all newly- 
 furnished and unfrequently occupied apartments 
 are. This spacious lofty room had been felt from 
 the first to be a white elephant. It was incumbent 
 upon them, since it was bestowed upon them, to 
 furnish it. But they had suffered in spirit while 
 doing 80, knowing it to be like the bog of Allen, 
 in that it would swallow up sums that had been 
 long held in reserve for other things. 
 
 It was a room, everybody told them, that de- 
 manded handsome furniture ; they abjectly listen- 
 ed to its demands. Its walls' "deserved and re- 
 quired" pictures, being really, as one lady re- 
 marked, of " palatial proportions ! " According- 
 ly Mr. Leigh purchased pictures, a set of them at 
 a time. Few people, I imagine, require to be 
 told how thoroughly satisfactory works of art pro- 
 cured in this way are to their possessors. 
 
 The pervading tint of the room was green. The 
 carpet was green, and the couches and chairs, and 
 even the curtains. Had Theo been in better 
 heart she would have proposed rose-coloured silk 
 blinds inside those verdant hangings. •But she 
 had not been in a state of mind to care about her 
 complexion, or indeed about anything save keep- 
 ing a brave face before her father and mother. 
 
 As to the pictures, too, had things been differ- 
 ent within, perhaps she would not have left the 
 selection of them so unreservedly to her papa, who 
 
 had taken his orders as to what he should buy 
 and what he should leave meekly from the mouth 
 of a picture-dealer. 
 
 "The walls are well covered," David Linley 
 had said to him when he had carried that gentle- 
 man to look upon them. And so they were, un- 
 commonly well-covered with frame, quite as much 
 as with paint. You noticed the breadth and the 
 rich gilding of the former before you thought of 
 observing the gentleman in black velvet and mel- 
 ancholy after Velasquez, and blowsy beauties af- 
 ter Titian, the " unmistakable Gainsborough," or 
 the " Lady with a 'awk, confidently attributed to 
 Sir Joshua by the most competent critics." But 
 as this is usual in the case of pictures that are 
 purchased in sets, there is nothing derogatory to 
 Mr. Leigh's taste in it. 
 
 As may be gathered, ^owever, the room in 
 which these pictures had*he first place was not 
 one in which a man such as David Linley could 
 spend an hour or two of waiting pleasantly. In 
 truth, he spent those hours most impatiently and 
 unpleasantly ; sneering to himself at the vulgar 
 art and the prevailing hue, and the rigid proprie- 
 ty that marked the disposition of the furniture. 
 Still he waited on and on — why he hardly knew ; 
 feeling resentful against poor miserable Theo for 
 leaving htm thus, yet half hoping that she would 
 be forced into his presence again on her father's 
 return. It has been said that he was left alone 
 through the withdrawal of the two girls into the 
 small room that was held sacred to Theo. Syd- 
 ney had followed her friend with aught but wil- 
 lingness. She had felt that it would be more en- 
 livening to stay and hold polite conversation with 
 the min whose name had called forth such a vol- 
 ume of verbal detestation from Theo. True, he 
 was elderly and ugly, but then he was clever, 
 other people told her; and she heard that his 
 voice could soften seductively, and he had friends 
 who were young and handsome, and honourables, 
 and who wore tenderly-tinted gloves and waist- 
 coats, and drove drags, and were otherwise all 
 that was satisfactory. 
 
 Miss Scott remembered that he was all these 
 things clearly and distinctly, but she bore the re- 
 membrance passively for a time. At last, how- 
 ever, dullness overcame her, for Theo had sub- 
 sided into a sad silence — a silence she would not 
 have indulged herself in had her father and 
 mother been by to be distressed by the sight of 
 their darling less bright than of old. Silence be- 
 ing ever a thing that Sydney abhorred, she finally 
 broke it. 
 
 " I must have left my gloves in the drayring- 
 room, they're not in these pockets," she exclaim- 
 ed, suddenly starting up and inserting her hands 
 into both pockets of her jacket, but abstaining 
 from searching the pocket of her dress. " I will . 
 go in and look for them. No, don't trouble 
 yourself to send the servant, she wouldn't see 
 them if they were not under her nose ; it is time 
 for me now to go home to dinner." 
 
 David Linley was leaning against the window, 
 looking ^ut at the river with absorbed attention 
 apparently, for he' did not turn hia head when the 
 door opened, or give any sign of a conscious- 
 ness of being no longer alone, until Sydney 
 spoke. 
 
 " I have come back to look for my gloves. Oh, 
 here they are." 
 
 He turned directly she addressed him, and 
 
68 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 smiled sweetly, as those rugged-featured men 
 with deep dark eyes can smile occasionally. 
 
 "I am sorry that your gloves were on the sur- 
 face, for you will be off again at once and leave 
 me to solitude." 
 
 He walked towards Tier as he said it, and stood 
 close to her while she smiled and blushed aiid ac- 
 curately fitted on her gloves, buttoning them with 
 deliberation, and wondering if the man who de- 
 scribed ladies' hands so frequently and well, mark- 
 ed the size and symmetry of hers. 
 
 "You must have found it dull here. Theo is 
 not well — that is, I believe she has a head-ache, 
 and a head-ache makes one an insuiferably dull 
 companion, you know; but Mr. Leigh will be 
 home shortly." She looked up into his face quite 
 confidingly as she spoke, and she was very fair. 
 
 He took out his wateii and looked at it. 
 
 '• Just two hours I have wasted in waiting," he 
 said. " Well ! I certainly have no one to blame 
 for it but myself, for Miss Leigh told me her 
 father would not be home tUl night. I could have 
 walked to Rockheath Park and back in the time, 
 couldn't I ? " 
 
 "Couldn't you? Of course you could. Why 
 that day we met you we were not half an hour 
 coming back to the gate." 
 
 " The time seemed very short then, but your 
 companionship may have been the cause of its 
 seeming only half an hour. I should have been 
 without that companionship to-day. Besides, I 
 really want to see Leigh, and had I gone over, 
 Mrs. Harold Efrench would not have let me come 
 away again." 
 
 He glanced keenly at the girl as he SEtid the 
 name, but he saw that it told her nothing. ' " For 
 all that, though," he thought, " the chances are 
 in favor of her going back to Miss Theo, and giv- 
 ing a verbose account of all that 1 have said, to- 
 gether with much that she thinks I ought to have 
 said, and have no doubt meant. In the course 
 of her communication Mrs. Harold Ffrench's 
 name wiU turn up, and many speculations as to 
 who she is will be dropped." Thea he again ut- 
 tered a regret aloud that he had not gone over to 
 Eockheath Park. 
 
 " The man is bored out of his mind nearly ; 
 you might just as well have been in there all this 
 time, Theo," Sydney exclaimed on re-entering 
 the room in which she had left Theo. 
 
 " Is he ? Have you found your gloveis ? " 
 
 " Yes, here they are ; Jouvin's best and quite 
 new, I didn't care to lose them. I was obliged 
 to tell him that you had a head-ache." 
 
 " To tell Jouvin ? " 
 
 "No, but Mr. Linley; he's savage, and no 
 wonder, at being left to his own devices ; he 
 says he would have gone over to Kockheath 
 Park to call on Mrs. Harold Ffrench if he hadn't 
 thought your father would have been back be- 
 fore." 
 
 Theo had known for some time now that the 
 man whose wife she had thought she herself was 
 to be, had a wife living. But she had never be- 
 fore heard another woman called " Mr^ Harold 
 Ffrench." The sound stabbed her like a knife, 
 but in the midst of her pain she could feel rage 
 at the ingenuity with which Linley had made an- 
 other use the dagger. ^ 
 
 "Did he say that?" 
 
 " Yes, and no wonder after your rudeness in 
 leaving hiTn in this way." 
 
 "Did he say where Mrs. Harold Ffrench 
 lived?" 
 
 " Eockheath Park. Oh 1 he won't go now, it's 
 too late. Do you know her ? Is she a friend of 
 yours ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " They are pretty houses over there, and such 
 lovely gardens — oh, lovely ! It would be nice to 
 know some one living there. Perhaps Mr. Linley 
 would introduce us to her — introduce you, I 
 mean." 
 
 "Perhaps he would do even that," Theo con- 
 trived to say firmly. But it was well for her that 
 Sydney took her departure just ; then, for the 
 thought of Mrs. Harold Ffrench's close vicinity 
 was almost subversive of all self-restraint. 
 
 Theo told her father a few days after this that 
 Bretford did not agree with her, and asked him 
 might she go away for a time ? It was hard for 
 him to part' With the pet, especially since her 
 trouble; stUl he had longed himself to propose 
 a change of scene and society for her. He had 
 only been withheld from doing so by the con- 
 sideration that her sensitive spirit would perhaps 
 feel that her own father deemed her under a 
 cloud. However, now that she had proposed 
 going away herself, he acceded to her proposition 
 with pleasure. • 
 
 " It will do you all the good in the world, and 
 you will be back in time for all the Christmas 
 gaieties ; but the question is where will you go, 
 ,Theo?" 
 
 " I have thought of that, papa. Norfolk would 
 be delightful, but I know it so well and I want 
 something new. I will put up a humble petition 
 to Aunt Libby to take me for a while ; she's often 
 asked me, you know." 
 
 " Your Aunt Libby will be aU that is kind, if 
 you can stand her." 
 
 " Oh ! I can stand her, papa ; I can stand any- 
 thing better than — do yon know my reason for 
 wanting to get away ? " 
 
 She looked at him with her honest grey eyes 
 fuU of tears, but she was less agitated than he 
 was as he answered : 
 
 "Yes, yes, my dear; I understand, I under- 
 stand. You're a good girl," he continued rapidly,r: 
 holding her off from him and looking at the work- 
 ings of the young face that still would not be 
 bowed down. " You're a good girl, and a brave 
 girl, by God ! and I — I am a poor old fellow who 
 can't bear it for you as you beai? it for yourself, 
 my poor child!" . 
 
 "Ah! papa, don't, don't; this is the worstf' 
 of all. One sorrow doesn't crush, dear, any 
 more.than one sin precludes all chance of salva- 
 tion ; if once ; you can feel that I am not aU 
 wretched, and that he is not all bad, you will be 
 happier." 
 
 But Mr. Leigh would not promise not to thinlc 
 the man whose name he could not bringhim- 
 self to mention "all bad." For all Theo's pride 
 and spirit, her father knew that she had been 
 most horribly wounded, and he could not bring 
 himself to forgive the one who had wounded 
 her. • .t. 
 
 The old officer could not believe that there was 
 anything good about the man who could offer 
 them this crowning insult, of suffering his wife to 
 dwell in their vicinity. He never stayed to in- 
 quire whether Mrs. Harold Ffrench had been 
 resident in her present abode before they came 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 69 
 
 to Bretford, or whether Harold Ffrenoh had any 
 influence on his wife's whereabouts or not. All 
 he knew about it he knew from Linley, who had 
 told him that " the poor woman who had married 
 Ffrench — to her cost, he believed — was living in 
 Bookheath Park; bad taste of Ffrench to put 
 her there, considering all things." Tliis was all 
 Mr. Leigh hfid heard, but it had been enough to 
 make him hate Harold Ffrench with an intensity 
 his hate had«been wanting in before. 
 
 The Aunt Libby to whom Theo wrote, offering 
 herself as a guest for an indefinite period, was the 
 wife of a clergyman in a midland county. The 
 Reverend Thomas Vaughan, thirty years ago, 
 when fresh from college, had married Elizabeth 
 Leigh, and together they had at once gone to the 
 midland county village in which we shall make 
 their acquaintance. 
 
 Previous to her mamiage Aunt Libby had resid- 
 ed with her brother (Theo's father), who had re- 
 mained on half pay for a year or two on purpose 
 that his sister might have the advantage to be 
 derived from a brother's protection. This piece 
 of self-sacrifice on his part she had never forgot- 
 ten, her " brother was one in a thousand," she 
 always sai'd ; " she was^ndebted to him for every- 
 thing she enjoyedij " — amongst others for the 
 Eev. Thomas Vaughan. These things consider- 
 ed, it may "readily be believed that Aunt Libby's 
 answer to Theo's request was not wanting in the 
 spirit of welcome. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan was glad that her niece was 
 coming to her, very glad for many reasons. She 
 liked acknowledging kindnesses, and she liked 
 patronizing any one who would submit to patron- 
 age from her. The kindnesses that she had re- 
 ceived from her brother were many, and her 
 hopes of Theo's receiving patronage were high. 
 Altogether she was well pleased at the idea of 
 receiving her young niece as her guest, and the 
 whole village sooa knew that she was so. 
 
 " She writes very kindly ; letter reads as if she 
 meant well ; but I should judge that it's rather a 
 risky thing to go and put yourself at the mercy 
 ^iie writer of it," Sydney Scott remarked to 
 , on handing the letter back aftgr^a swift 
 Sal. Theo had communicated|.lMr ?mtention 
 going away for a time^to^ppnend, but, as 
 may be supposed, she had'wilffield her reasons 
 for formin^^^yntention from Miss Scott. 
 
 " What aapw mean by that rather disparaging 
 
 Bsion to ffl^aunt, Sydney ? " 
 
 i'^ell, !■ mean just this. She writes in sen- 
 
 _|s — ' everybody does,' you'll say — ,but every-* 
 
 ^ doesn't ; at least the best sort don' t. There's 
 SOTiething cut and dried, that savours of having 
 been copied many times, about her letter. I'm 
 sure she looked up her thing-um-bob Lindley 
 Murray, Lempriere, and all those old fogies, be- 
 fore she wrote it." 
 
 "And if she did?" 
 
 "Well, if you can sit and see that sort of tl 
 going on, and keep sane, well and good ; bui 
 always a trial to me to see a common-place letter 
 written with eircumsMction. I shouldn't say 
 that there was muciyfflulsiveness about that old 
 lady." » W 
 
 "That old lady, as you call her, is a very kind 
 old lady, I'm sure, though I haven't seen her 
 since I was a small child," Theo answered. " Im- 
 pulsiveness in an old lady generally degenerates 
 into fussiness, and I could better endure over 
 
 precision than that. You can't set me against 
 going, Sydney." 
 
 " Ca,n't I? Well I'm sorry, for I shall miss 
 you terribly. The fact is I have extolled you so 
 frightfully that I have rendered myself obnoxious 
 to most Athe other girls, and I shall be unfriend- 
 ed, solitEffy, and slow, while you're away. It's 
 not often I venture upon a quotation," she con- 
 tinued abruptly, " and I don't know -^rhat that is 
 from, but it just expresses my position here when 
 you're gone." 
 
 " I am glad that you will miss me." 
 
 " Ton selfish thing ! " 
 
 " But I will write to you." , 
 
 "No, don't, ^feme," Sydney cried fervently. 
 "If you do I shall have to answer your letters, 
 and if you only knew how I hated writing, you 
 wouldn't try me so far. But I really shall miss 
 you, especially as Hargrave is ordered off next 
 week ; troubles never come singly." 
 
 " The greater trouble will absorb the lesser : 
 you will forget my loss in Hargrave's." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall, and won't it be natural? 
 I'm not a stickler for ' woman's friendship,' or 
 any twaddle of that kind, only you suit me, and 
 I can't help feeling a little sorry to lose you. 
 But of course I am more sorry to lose Hargrave, 
 for he can danc^ with me, and give me tickets 
 for the quarterly balls at Woolwich, and pay me 
 a great many attentions that you can't. It 
 doesn't do to talk about it. I begin to feel low. 
 Good-by, dear, enjoy your aunt to the utmost, 
 and come back as soon you can. After all, I 
 almost wish I could go with you." 
 
 But Theo could not re-echo that wish just 
 then. Her one desire was to get away from all 
 of the old for a time, in order that she might 
 gather herself together the more staunchly to 
 stand any shocks that were to come. Had Har- 
 old Ffrench never spoken those words which he 
 had spoken to her, she would have killed her 
 love. Her pride and her modesty would have 
 forbidden her to suffer it to so obtain in her 
 soul without "sufficient cause." But he had 
 spoken words that made the cause sufficient 
 even in the judgment of those who were un- 
 blinded by love for him. She had nourished 
 the feehng tenderly for weeks, checking all 
 doubt of him in her own heart, and all symptoms 
 of suspicion on the part of others. And then 
 love and faith and hope were all torn from the 
 heart in which they had been all too firmly 
 rooted, and the wounds thus made were cruel. 
 
 "I hope • Theo will come back with a little 
 more colour in her cheeks ; I suppose the air is 
 good at Hensley," Mrs. Leigh said, when they 
 were sitting round the uncomfortable early 
 breakfast-table on the morning of Theo's de- 
 parture. Mrs. Leigh was one of those prudent 
 women who, if travellers were about to leave 
 by an eight-o'clock train, would take care to 
 rouse them up at five in the grey dawn, in 
 order that they might not be hurried. Theo's 
 pallor under the circumstances was not surpris- 
 ing, but she dared not ascribe it to the true 
 cause. 
 
 "And mind that you get fat while you're 
 away, Theo," her father chimed in. ' "And — 
 there it's time to go. I wish you were coming 
 back, my child, instead of going." 
 
 " I shall come back in a very different case, 
 papa, — as fat and red as you can desire." Then 
 
60 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 she went away feeling yery sick at heart, and 
 doubtful of the wisdom of the move she was 
 making, with a miserable foreboding that flight 
 from an inward enemy was a futile thing. 
 
 The early hours of the journey strengthened 
 this conviction, for she was too weaifpto make 
 acute observations on the beauty of the country 
 to be reproduced conversationally at some future 
 time. Where are the wonderful ones to be 
 found who do mark the land through which they 
 tear behind an express engine, indeed ? Others 
 besides love-sick young ladies are oblivious of 
 the beauties of nature under such conditions, 
 and only anxious to reach their goal. 
 
 But about two o'clock she did begin to bestir 
 herself mentally and bodily, to readjust her bon- 
 net strings by aid of a small glass deftly inserted 
 in a fan ; to wonder who would meet her at the 
 Hensley Station, and how far the Hensley Sta- 
 tion was from the Hensley Vicarage ; to collect 
 about her her scattered thoughts and her books 
 and shawls, and to otherwise prepare herself for 
 debarkation. By the time she had done this 
 and disarranged everthing again, and began to 
 wonder if she would reach Hensley by day-light, 
 the train rushed up to a platform that suddenly 
 appeared between the hedges, and the guard 
 shouted out a name that aq obliging fellow- 
 passenger immediately translated to her as 
 Hensley. 
 
 The air felt bracing, and was bright and cleaf, 
 and so inspiriting as she stepped out on the 
 platform, and everything around, even the por- 
 ters, looked clean, and fresh. But it was de- 
 pressing to see nothing but cleanliness and fresh- 
 ness — nothing that could by any stretch of 
 imagination on her part be supposed to be 
 specially expectant of her in this strange place. 
 The station was the reverse of an oasis in the 
 desert ; it was a barren little ugly spot in a 
 smiling land^a land of rippling streams and 
 glowing plantations, and orchards in which 
 ruddy pears and yellow bloomy plums hung 
 thickly. But there were no houses near, as far 
 as she could see, therefore the glories of nature 
 were rather overlooked by her as she stood 
 casting anxious glances around, in hopes of dis- 
 covering a road that looked as if It led to the 
 vicarage. 
 
 Before despair could become her portion, a 
 grav6-looking groom came round the corner of 
 the station-house, and Theo, infinitely relieved, 
 almost bounded forward to meet him, feeling 
 that help had come in his person. 
 
 " You're the young lady for hus ? " he interro- 
 gated suggestively, and Theo replying at once in 
 the affirmative he signed for a porter "bring 
 along the trunk," and led the way to the back 
 of the station, where a good-looking trap, with a 
 fine bay horse in it, was waiting under the aus- 
 pices of a small boy. Theo's thought, as she 
 mounted up on the front seat, was, — "How 
 imagination leads one astray; I should never 
 have supposed Uncle Vaughan would have been 
 guilty of such a fast trap, and such, a splendid 
 horse. What drives I'll have ! " ' 
 
 The grave-looking groom took the reins in his 
 hand and his place by her side, and the small 
 boy released the bay's head, a civility which the 
 bay immediately returned by striking at him 
 with his near fore-leg in a playful manner. Then 
 they went out of the station-yard, past a small 
 
 pony carriage, and along a glorious country 
 road, at a pace that made Theo feel there was 
 much in life still. 
 
 "I should like to drive that horse ; I wonder 
 if I might ?" she said at last. The groom vouch- 
 safing no answer to this appeal, she resolved to 
 try command, and teach the aged servitor his 
 proper plape. 
 
 " Give me the reins. I wish to drive the rest 
 of the way. I will explain to you* master that 
 I insisted upon it," she began, holding out her 
 hand for the reins in a way that proved she 
 meant to take them. 
 
 " M' lord's very particular about Bay Surrey, 
 Miss." The groom was grave and surly stiU, 
 but he was civil, only why did he bestow a title 
 upon her uncle. " I suppose he's an abject old 
 servant," she thought; then she asked aloud, 
 "how long she was to keep on straight," and 
 dismissed the subject of the reverential mention 
 of her relative from her mind. 
 
 "You must take the first turn to the left, 
 then right up through the park to the 'ouse, 
 Miss," was the answer she received to her in- 
 quiry. The vicarage must be a finer j)lace, she 
 thought, than she had imagined, since it stood 
 in a park, and she began to feel impatient" to 
 reach it, and so gently indicated the same to 
 Bay Surrey, who met her views magnificently. 
 
 The first turning to the left was soon gained. 
 Theo took it cleverly, and drove through hand- 
 some lodge gates, along a grand old avenue, up 
 to the entrance dooi' of a house that dispelled 
 all her preconceived notions respecting Aunt 
 Libby, and caused her to exclaim : 
 " Is this the vicarage ? " 
 " Bless yer 'art, no, this is Haddington ; didn't 
 you. know you was coming here, Miss ? " 
 
 " Good gracious, there's some mistake ! " Theo 
 exclaimed confusedly. Then, to her blank 
 amaze, a lady came along the terrace, which was 
 cut in two by the carriage-drive, and said, point- 
 ing to a child who accompanied her : 
 
 " My little sister pleaded to come out and wel- 
 come you at once, mademoiselle." Then 
 held out her hand to Theo, who had deseed 
 frornll ttg -'trap in a state of bewilderment^ 
 added ; '*■•**•* 
 
 " And I hope we shall be able to make you 
 feel at home at Maddingtbn." i^^ • 
 
 " You are very kind, but I am^fe.id I have 
 been very stupid. I left the "HeSsley Stat^ 
 under the impression that I was going tq 
 aunt, Mrs. Vaughan." -^ 
 
 " Oh, dear ! Mrs. Vaughan ! This*^s a joS 
 the young lady cried. " Then you are the Mils 
 Leigh of whom we have heard, and John has 
 taken you for a French governess we are ex- 
 pecting, who must have gone on — missed the 
 station, and gone on goodness knows where! 
 Poor thing ! " she continued, with sudden grav- 
 ity. "Well, Miss Leigh," she added heartily, 
 " we shall know you a little sooner through this 
 mistake, that is all ; I must introduce myself : 
 I am Ethel Burgoyne, Lord Lesborough's sec- 
 ond daughter, and this is Haddington, a dear 
 old place, of which I trust you will see a great 
 deal while you're staying at H§nsley. Now 
 come in, and let me make you and the mistake 
 known to the rest before Mrs. Vaughan comes 
 to claim you, which she will do only too soon." 
 " You're very kind," Theo replied promptly ; 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 61 
 
 "do you know, you're so,kind that I can't re- 
 gret the mistake ? " 
 
 Then she followed the young lady along the 
 terrace, and John did something uncalled for to 
 the bay's bit, and declared that, 
 
 " He'd thought, that he had, that if she was 
 a furriner, then never tell him nothing about 
 their silly ways again : but this passed him, that 
 it did ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ATTNT LIBBT. 
 
 Miss Ethel Bubooyne led the way into a 
 room whose proportions and polished floor 
 made Theo feel very small and rather awkward 
 on her immediate entrance. Space and a slip- 
 pery boarding are apt to give one these sensa- 
 tions, when come upon sjuddenly through an 
 error of judgment such as Theo felt conscious 
 of having committed. She recovered herself 
 immediately, however, and comprehended the 
 apartment and its occupants before they had 
 time to mark either fleeting feeling. The inaui-. 
 mate things shall be described first. 
 
 The room into which they had passed through 
 a glass door from the terrace was lofty-arched 
 and groined as to the roof. Oak-panelled, and 
 well hung with unmistakeable family portraits as 
 to the walls — spacious and imposing altogether. 
 In the centre of the floor there was a richly- 
 coloured Turkey carpet, but the margin that was 
 left uncovered, of polished oak, would have cut 
 up into a good many moderately sized apart- 
 ments. 
 
 One entire end of the room was occupied by 
 a huge bay window; the broad, deep, solid, 
 carved sill, or seat, as it had been formerly, was 
 now made to serve as a flower-stand. There 
 was such a, wealth of flowers upon itt They 
 gave to the room what it would otherwise have 
 lacked— a glow of colour, a fullness of tone, 
 that time-daskened carved oak and time-hon- 
 oured portraits would have been powerless to 
 effect. 
 
 For carved oak was the predominant feature 
 in this room, into which Miss Leigh was led. 
 Carved oak writing-tables and cabinets, carved 
 oak chairs, mantel-piece, and screen. The sole 
 piece of furniture, indeed, that was not of 
 carved oak, was a small modern piano in an un- 
 adorned moc^n oak case. 
 
 It was no«p dMng-room, undoubtedly ; nor 
 was it a drawing-room ; books were not abun- 
 dant enough for it to be a library ; and the most 
 
 ijorant in such matters could hardly have 
 Snto the error of imagining it a boudoir, 
 t^been in truth the chief resort of the 
 irhen this old oak was new, and it was 
 .^ief resort of the family still, the home- 
 room, the heart of the house. They assembled 
 . themselves together in it more constantly and 
 comfortably than in»^any of the modernised 
 rooms, in the fitting-up of which Jackson and 
 Graham had had a hand. 
 
 There was a regular orthodox picture-gallery 
 at Maddington — a picture-gallery that was as 
 badly lighted, as long, as dull, as rigorously cor- 
 rect in all particulars, as the picture-gallery of 
 an old family mansion ought to be. But the 
 best pictures, the most important, interesting. 
 
 and agreeable-to-look-upon pictures were hung 
 here in the oak-parlour. 
 
 Fop by that simple name they called this big 
 room in which Theo Leigh felt herself to be so 
 very small a thing a^ first. The wifeand daugh- 
 ters of the Sir Hugh Burgoyne who had built 
 the mansion back away in those good old days 
 — those dark ages when the Lancastrian Queen 
 was striving to regain th^ rights her weakly 
 lord had lost— the wife and daughters of the 
 man who was then causing their name to sound 
 in the land had sat in this room weaving silken 
 standards, and had called it the oak-parlour on 
 account of its panelled walls, M a later date, 
 when the knight's descendants had been Lord 
 Tiscouiits.for some goodly period of years, at a 
 date when Addison wrote, and Steele drank, 
 and Marlborough fought for the queen, and the 
 queen quarrelled with Marlborough's wife — tt 
 a date when oak-carvings disputed public favour 
 with pug-dogs, the room was furnished anew 
 after the grand substantial fashion of the day, 
 and became more emphatically the oak-parlour 
 than before. 
 
 Prominent among the great array of pictures 
 that were on the wall facing the three windows 
 which opened on to the terrace, there hung one 
 that was at once Lord Lesborough's glory ^and 
 grief. It was that portrait of Charles the First' 
 coming out of a wood on a white charger of 
 which Vandyck painted three duplicates. Lord 
 Lesborough's glory was that this was one of the 
 great master's works.. His grief was that friends 
 and enemies alike were unanimous in declaring 
 it to be but a copy, " though a very good one," 
 they inhumanly added, of the exquisite origi- 
 nal. The picture was dear to his heart, but, 
 like many well-beloved objects, it was a great 
 trial to his temper. Friendship is ever apt to 
 point out to us with more pertinacity than pleas- 
 antness that what we prize as real is but a base 
 counterfeit. 
 
 By the side of the mounted melancholy mon- 
 arch'there hung a full-length of his pet courtier, 
 Villiers, in black velvet, and majesty such as 
 even Charles himself did not possess. As a 
 pendant to this* there was a portrait of a long 
 dead and gone Burgoyne, a tall, handsome, 
 blonde-haired, bright-visaged young cavalier, 
 whose presentment on canvas arrested Theo's 
 attention, and then enchained it, much as he 
 himself had been wont to arrest and enchain 
 the eyes of all women ^ho looked upon him 
 when he was in the flesh. From the moment 
 her looks fell upon him, Theo glanced no fur- 
 ther afield over the well-adorned oak-panelled 
 walls. She could only gaze at the prototype, 
 and feel a faint pity that so fair a thing as this 
 blue-eyed cavalier should have mouldered into 
 dust generations before she was born. 
 
 Miss Ethel Burgoyne had taken Theo Leigh 
 into the room, introduced her to Lord Les- 
 borough, "my father," and Miss Burgoyne, "my 
 sister," and planted her on a couch opposite to 
 these three pictures with a quiet celerity that 
 set Theo completely at her ease, through prov- 
 ing to her that Miss Ethel Burgoyne at any rate 
 saw nothing awkward or out of the way in the 
 mistake that she (Theo) had made« 
 
 " John made a mistake at 'the station, and 
 brought away the Throng young lady," Miss 
 Ethel said, when she had mentioned Theo's 
 
68 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 name to her father and sister. "Poor Mrs. 
 Vaughan will be in despair; I think we ought 
 to send down to the Ticarage and relieve her 
 anxiety." 
 
 " I think I ought to go to m^ aunt and ex- 
 plain to her how I came to be so stupid," Theo 
 suggested. Then she mentioned having passed 
 a pony-carriage by the station as she came 
 along in the dog-cart, and the two Miss Bur- 
 goynes exclaimed that " it -was Mrs. Vaughan'S 
 probably." 
 
 "Do you know — ah! but I know that you 
 are nearly a stranger to your aunt, Miss Leigh," 
 Miss Burgoyne said, when Theo again proposed 
 going with her explanation in person. 
 
 " She is a stranger to me ; I was a child when 
 I saw her last," Theo replied. 
 
 ' ' Now we know her very well, very inti- 
 mately indeed," the elder Miss Burgoyne went 
 on earnestly. "Ethel, shall we take Miss Leigh 
 over to the vicarage, and explain the reason of 
 her not being there before to Mrs. Vaughan ? " 
 
 "I don't see the necessity of our hurrying 
 Miss Leigh away in that manner, Grace," Theo's 
 first acquaintance rejoined, and a faint blush 
 overspread her face as she spoke. " Mrs. 
 Vaughan is sure to drive over here from the 
 station ; if she finds that we have already 
 draughted Miss Leigh on to the vicarage she 
 will think the very thing you want to prevent 
 her thinking." 
 
 Miss Burgoyne seated herself again in the 
 chair from which she had risen on Theo's en- 
 trance. She was a tall, fair, placid-faced woman 
 of thirty-four or five, composed and matronly 
 in her bearing ; so composed and matronly, in- 
 deed, that she might well have passed for the 
 mother of the younger lady who had gone out 
 on the terrace to welcome Theo. Miss Bur- 
 goyne smiled very softly and sweetly on Theo 
 as she reseated herself, and held out her hand 
 to the interloper in a way that bound her to the 
 house of Burgoyne forever. 
 
 " Then you must be kind enough to feel quite 
 happy and comfortable with us tiU such time as 
 your aunt comes to claim you, dear Miss Leigh ; 
 my sister is right, I think after all : Mrs. Vaughan 
 is apt to be a little nervous." 
 
 "Do you mean a little fidgettyf" Theo 
 asked ; she liked these Burgoynes, and was in 
 no particular hurry for her aunt's arrival. 
 
 " You must try not to think her so, for she is 
 a dear good woman," Miss Burgoyne replied. 
 
 " But she has her foibles, dear old lady," 
 Ethel whispered. Then Lord Lesborough, a 
 fine old gentleman with a great expanse of buff 
 waistcoat and bald head, said he thought he 
 heard the pony-carriage coming up the drive. 
 So forthwith they went oat in a body to meet 
 Mrs. Vaughan, and explain to her the reason of 
 her having had her journey to the railway sta- 
 tion for nothing — or worse. 
 
 It was the pony-carriage that they had heard, 
 and in it was Mrs. Vaughan, the " Aiint Libby," 
 whose name was so familiar and whose personnel 
 was so strange to Theo. Directly Theo saw her 
 aunt she appreciated the Burgoynes' motive for 
 desiring to assist at the explanatory meeting 
 between hersflf and her relative. 
 
 "Aunt Libby is a pretty old lady," was Theo 
 Leigh's first thought; "Mrs. Vaughan is fussy," 
 was her second, and when she thought this she 
 
 involuntarily threw off a little of the deprecating 
 manner she had been preparing, and stood rather 
 more on the defensive than she had been pur- 
 posing to do a minute before. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan got out of the pony-carriage 
 and came towards them rapidly, speaking words 
 that were evidently words of reprobation and 
 excuse. The reprobation was to Theo, and 
 Theo (she had ever been a petted child, remem- 
 ber) felt sorely inclined to resent it. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan was warm and excited, there- 
 fore, pretty old lady as she undoubtedly was, she 
 looked and felt somewhat at a disadvantage as 
 she came up to the cool composed group who 
 were awaiting her. She was a, fair, florid, 
 hazel-eyed and haired old lady, possessed even 
 now at sixty-eight of a neat trim plump figure, 
 and a " well-defined waist." Her glance was 
 quick and keen; her bonnet was gaily trimmed 
 and badly tied, her shawl was expensive, but 
 ungracefully adjusted. Now, none of these 
 things are pleasant to contemplate in the stran- 
 ger with whom we are bound to sojourn for a 
 period. But none of these sights would have 
 caused Theo a moment's regret had she not 
 observed that Mrs. Vaughan smiled vividly with 
 her thin cleanly-cut lips, the while her eyes were 
 darting unmistakeable sparks of anger: 
 
 " My dear Miss Burgoyne," she began, " it's 
 a thing that I wouldn't have had happen for 
 the world." Then she shook hands warmly 
 witli the two Miss Burgoynes, and gave the tips 
 of some badly gloved fingers to Theo the of- 
 fender. 
 
 " But we are very glad that it has happened," 
 Miss Burgoyne replied; "yqur niece has been 
 kind enough to overlook poor John's stupidity ; 
 you must do so also, Mrs. Vaughan." 
 
 " Ah, my dear, it's not John's stupidity," Mrs 
 Vaughan replied, with vicious emphasis. Then 
 she clutched her shawl more firmly around her, 
 settled her bonnet afresh vengefuUy on her 
 head, and endeavoured to smile refulgeritly upon 
 the Burgoynes and glare wrathfuHy at Theo at 
 one and the same moment. 
 
 " I shall very soon go bapk to Bretford," 
 Theo thought. The wrathful ,glare aggravated 
 her ; she was quite-ready and willing to render 
 unto Cseear the things that were Caesar's, in so 
 far as giving honour where honour was due 
 went. Still, she could not feel abjectly remorse- 
 ful on the subject of the unintentional raid upon 
 the Burgoynes, or her AunLXibj^y's vain drive 
 to the railway station. " 
 
 " We will come over, or at all events I will 
 come over to-morrow to see Ww you are getting 
 on," Miss Ethel whispered to Theo, as the^tl 
 in obedience to rather peremptory ordersjl sM 
 to adjust herself in Mrs. Vaughan's porl 
 riage, when Mrs. Vaughan proposed depaf|^ 
 
 " I don't think I shall get on too well,l|jPhep 
 replied : " I have been made to feel such a piti' 
 ful offender already, though she has scarcely 
 spoken to me, that I never shall like being with 
 her." 
 
 " Try not to mind her weaknesses," Miss 
 Ethel said, with the bravery that is so easy and 
 so customary when the weaknesses in question 
 do not immediately affect the speaker. " She's 
 a dear good woman, as I told you just now, and 
 I should like you to stay at Hensley for some 
 time." 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 63 
 
 Lord Lesborough'a second daughter shook 
 hands very warmly with Theo as she said this, 
 and looked strangely like that blonde-haired, 
 bright-visaged, blue-eyed, young cavalier Who 
 had enchained Theo's attention when she first 
 entered the oak-parlour. It was a glorious 
 beauty, truly, and Theo felt it to be so. " Ah, 
 how handsome a living man would be like it," she 
 thought; "it's too bold and bright for a wo- 
 man that Bometlung she has in common with 
 the picture." Then she had to bring her 
 thoughts back to the passing scene g| Lord 
 Lesborough and his eldest daughter caiM up to 
 say " Good-by " to her, and hope they should see 
 her again. 
 
 Hrs. Yaughan maintained an austere silence 
 towards her niece until they were clear of the 
 Haddington grounds and the Burgoyne influ- 
 ence, and she then gave her feelings voice. 
 
 " What must they have thought of you for 
 being so awkward, Theo ? I am very sorry that 
 the first member of my family that they have 
 seen should have impressed his lordship and the 
 young ladies so unfavorably." 
 
 It was a way of mentioning them that caused ' 
 Theo's blood to run cold, a style of designation 
 that bordered upon the servile, she thought, and 
 that might more fittingly fall from the lips of her 
 maid than her aunt. 
 
 " The Miss Burgoynes didn't seem to be un- 
 favourably impressed with me, aimt ; don't meet 
 troubles half way." 
 
 Theo leant back in the little pony-carriage as 
 she spoke, and strove to render herself comfort- 
 able by drawing the wrap-shawl, which they had 
 spread over their knees, around her more 
 closely. Mrs. Vaughan marked the movement 
 and resented the motive. She objected to the 
 one with whom she was ill-pleased striving to 
 attain bodily ease. 
 
 "I must say," she observed, viciously whip- 
 ping up her fat pony as she spoke, " that you 
 take things very coolly, and with considerably 
 more unconcern than is becoming, my dear." 
 
 "What things, aunt?" 
 
 "Things that vitally concern our interests," 
 Mrs. Vaughan snapped out suddenly. 
 
 "Good gracious, aunt! what?" Theo cried, 
 starting erect in an instant ; " what have I done ? 
 what do you mean ? Endangered your inter- 
 ests ! how ! " , 
 
 " Lord Lesborough and the Honourable Miss 
 Burgoynes — ^the Misses Burgoyne I should say — 
 are not likely to think the more highly of your 
 uncle, the Reverend Thomas Vaughan, and my- 
 self, from seeing how utterly unaccus^med a 
 member of my family is to the usages of good 
 society." 
 
 "Oh!" Theo said wearily; "iB that all, 
 •then?" 
 
 "That all indeed! quite enough, I'm sure. 
 To think," Mrs. Vaughan continued, lapsing into 
 a lachrymose tone, "that you should have 
 marred by your own stupidity and ignorance 
 the fine prospect I had opened for you. Ah ! 
 it's too vexatious!" 
 
 " But after all, aunt, it was a venial offence 
 that I committed. I was very tired ; oh ! I am 
 so tired ; and I was glad to meet anyone who 
 seemed to be there to meet me. The Miss Bur- 
 goynes were so kind, they quite understood how 
 it happened." 
 
 " The mistake was not so bad as the way you 
 acted after it was made, child ; you should with 
 'umble dignity have refused to intrude yourself 
 upon them. ' You do me too much honour. 
 Miss Burgoyne,' you should have said, 'but I 
 think that I had better instantly return to my 
 aunt, Mrs. Vaughan, who is doubtless awaiting 
 me at the railway station. I will not intrude 
 myself u^on you,' that's what you should have 
 said. 'Intrude myself upon you,' that would 
 have looked pretty and modest, and nave shown 
 them that you knew your own place and theirs. 
 As it is — why, mercy on us, child, what's the 
 matter?", 
 
 Theo had been engaged in a sharp mental 
 battle for maiiy weeks ;■ she had been wounded 
 in it, though not worsted in one sense. Still, 
 flpugh not worsted, she was terribly weakened. 
 Added to this she had been further enfeebled 
 by a long, tedious, trying .Journey, and the sense 
 of having made a mistake that was awkward, 
 though nothing more. These things combined 
 to render her less self-possessed than usual. 
 In combating an inclination to laugh during 
 Aunt Libby's delivery of the speech that she 
 could have wished her niece to have made to the 
 Miss Burgoynes, Theo went to the other extreme 
 and began to cry. 
 
 " I'm very tired, and I haven't been well for 
 weeks. Aunt Libby ; that's all, indeed that's all" 
 (she strove to explain things as agreeably as 
 possible). I don't mind a word that you have 
 said. Eeally not a word. I daresay," she con- 
 tinued, trying to clear up, " that I shall be all ' 
 right when I have had some dinner." 
 
 " You require a little camphor on sugar, more 
 than dinner, I'm thinking, child," Mrs. Vaughan 
 replied meditatively, as she turned into the vicar- 
 age garden, " or a little red lavender would be 
 better still, perhaps. We shall have dinner at 
 five o'clock, I wouldn't advise your having any- 
 thing before it ; not that I grudge it, of course, 
 but I should like to spare you indigestion the 
 first day you're here." 
 
 "Five o'clock will be quite soon enough. 
 Aunt Libby. Shall I see Mr. Vaughan before 
 dinner ? " 
 
 " My dear — I must tell you, excuse me, since 
 you don't seem to know — ^it's not the custom for 
 young persons to tell their entertainers that the 
 dinner-hour is ' quite soon enough,' or anything 
 else ; you don't know, so I will tell you, and you 
 musth't be hurt, for I tell you for your own 
 good. As to when you'll see Mr. 'Vaughan, I 
 can't say ; it's prettier for young people' to hold 
 themselves in readiness to wait upon their elders 
 and superiors, than to try to make off-handed 
 appointments with them." 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MRS. VAUGHAN ON ETIQUETTE. 
 
 The plump pony was pulled up at the door of 
 the vicarage as Mrs. Vaughan brought her hom- 
 ily to a close. Theo tried to step out of the 
 little carriage and into the house with, the light 
 unem'barrassed air which is popularly supposed 
 to indicate a bright unembarrassed heart and 
 spirit. But she was weary in body as well as in 
 
64 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 mind, therefore she failed in conveying to be- 
 holders the desired impression. 
 
 The brief lecture to which Mrs. Vaughan had 
 treated her had been depressing in its influence. 
 Youth is ever apt to regard with jealous eyes 
 any proposed amendment of its manners at the 
 hands of one whose own manners do not strike 
 youth as being of a particalarly high order. Theo 
 had already discovered a lack of self-jAssession 
 and calm about Mrs. Yaughan. She distrusted 
 the instructive capabilities of that breeding 
 which broke down on so small an emergency as 
 that of this morning. 
 
 She was ushered up-stairs to her own room by 
 a bland middle-aged woman with a soft mellow 
 voice and a soothing manner. The sort of 
 voice and manner, in fact, that must be invalua- 
 ble in attendants on lunatics, but that is ratl^ 
 aggravating when brought to bear upon the sane. 
 
 " Now, missy dear, whenever you feel to 
 want anything, ask me for it, and don't go 
 troubling our missus," she said, when she had 
 drawn up the blind and relieved Theo of her 
 bonnet.' 
 
 " Whenever I want anything I will ask for it, 
 thank you," Theo replied, in the bravery of igno- 
 rance. " Would you be good enough to open 
 the window a little ? " 
 
 " To be sure, missy ; young people like a little 
 fresh air, as I said to missus when I was get- 
 ting ,the room ready this morning. My name is 
 Ann, miss, and I have lived here, girl and 
 woman, nigh upon twenty years. Girl emd 
 woman 1 " 
 
 Ann's voice was very mellow when she said 
 this, and her manner was very soothing ; but 
 Theo felt tired and sick at heart ; she could not 
 cultivate the qualities Ann was palpably ready 
 to develop just now. 
 
 " Oh ! indeed ; twenty years : that's a long 
 time ; a very long time," she added, with sudden 
 emphasis, as she remembered that just so many 
 years had she herself lived in the world. 
 
 " Yes, missy, for twenty years, and much I 
 have seen in that time of missus's little ways, as 
 we may call them ; she's very kind at heart, but 
 she don't seem so always, and when she don't 
 seem so in some little matters that I can alter, 
 you just tell me, and I will alter them." 
 
 The woman went out of the room when she 
 had said that, and Theo thought, " Aunt Libby 
 can neither beat me nor starve me, and in any 
 other case Ann's aid Will be unavailing, I should 
 imagine." Then she dressed herself for the five- 
 o'clock dinner in a plain Wgh silk, and wandered 
 forth in search of the drawing-room. 
 
 She found it down on the left-hand side of 
 the hall door ; a pretty room, with a French 
 window at the end, which opened on to a gar- 
 den, which imperceptibly merged Into the 
 churchyard. "I should like it better if the 
 graves were not so visible," she thought, as she 
 walked to the window and looked out ; • " but 
 I shall get used to the ghoulish view in time, I 
 suppose ; I have got used to worse things than 
 that." Her thoughts always went back to her 
 trouble ; she compai;ed every possible grief or 
 annoyance with the mighty one that over- 
 shadowed this portion of her life. It really was 
 terribly depressing to find herself fixed for a 
 time in a place and amongst people that prom- 
 ised to be so utterly unsympathetic. But the 
 
 other day such a different, such a brilliant pros- 
 pect had loomed before her! But the "other 
 day!" 
 
 Soon her uncle — the Reverend Thomas him- 
 self — came into the room, and made her wel- 
 come with a certain austerity of manner that 
 was strangely at variance with his rotund little 
 person and rosy little face. Then, before she 
 had well had time to realise that the austerity 
 was a mere futile effort after dignity, Mrs. 
 Yaughan joined them, and speedily again Theo 
 wished^rself back at Bretford. 
 
 " M^^ear," Mrs. Vaughan began, " I think 
 it only right to tell you that it is not the custom 
 for young people to run at large over a house 
 directly they arrive at it. You don't know any 
 better, therefore I must tell you ; you should 
 have waited in your bed-roon\gtiIl I could send 
 Ann to tell you that dinner was ready." 
 
 Theo blushed scarlet: few girls of twenty are 
 strong-minded enough to retain possession of 
 their faculties when accused of a breach of 
 etiquette. For a few moments she almost be- 
 lieved she had grossly blundered, and though 
 unprepared to go to the extreme length of de- 
 claring " a blunder to be worse than a crime," 
 the dread that she had committed the former 
 was overwhelming. At the end of a few mo- 
 ments reason resumed its sway, and Miss Leigh 
 felt that it was her aunt who had blundered, and 
 not herself. 
 
 " I am very sorry. Aunt Libby, that I should 
 have trangressed your rules so soon." 
 
 " They are not my rules, my dear : they're 
 the rules of society ; I should be sorry for you 
 to betray any ignorance of the sort if Miss Bur- 
 goyne should be kind efnough after what has 
 happened to invite you to Haddington." 
 
 " I will try not to behave like a savage, 
 aunt," Theo replied, with a small laugh. Then 
 Mr. Yaughan had an access of curiosity, and 
 inquired " what had happened ? " And Theo 
 had the satisfaction of listening to a slightly 
 distorted version of the ^air before a melan- 
 choly man in drab came to tell them that dinner 
 was served. 
 
 Mr. Yaughan reserved judgment until he was 
 safely ensconced in his proper place at the diu- 
 ner4able \ he then gave it forth, tremulously it 
 must be owned, but it was given nevertheless. 
 
 "If J his lordsliip and the Honourable Miss 
 Burgoynes can overlook your niece's little — 
 little error, my dear, I think we, you I mean, 
 may do so also. Pray allow me to send you 
 some soup ? " 
 
 The fiffer of soup was made to Theo, whose 
 little effor had not at aU impaired bet appetite. 
 She was young, and hungry, and the soup gave 
 forth savoiiry odours, and looked of apeculiarly 
 appetising clear brown as it streamed from the 
 ladle. But before she could reply to the offer 
 of it Mrs. Yaughan intervened. 
 
 "After such a long journey and no luncheon 
 Theo ought to begin upon something substan^ 
 tial ; that soup would be sure to give her indiges- 
 tion. No, my dear, I won't have you take any; 
 it's my duty to see that you don't ruin your con- 
 stitution while you're staying here. You shall 
 have some nice plain beef, roast beef, not too 
 much done, and nothing else, not a thing else. 
 I should say by ypur looks that you're let eat 
 anything unwholesome you please at home." 
 
THBO LEIGH. 
 
 6S 
 
 " Well, Aunt Libby, certainly I am not dlet- 
 ecl,""Theo replied. 
 
 " No, I believe it ; your poor dear mother 
 was a very weak girl, so I never expected to 
 hear that she had turned into a strong-minded 
 woman." 
 
 " My mother's mind and heart are strong 
 enough to have won me to love her too well to 
 sit and listen to a word in disparagement of her," 
 Theo said, colouring brightly. 
 
 " My dear, such 'a display of temper is very 
 ill-bred," Mrs. Vaughan replied gravely ; " or 
 perhaps you're a httle nervous and upset after 
 your journey. Well, you shall have a glass of 
 wine, or half a glass of wine ; the merest drop, 
 Mr. Vaughan ? Do you hear ? the merest 
 drop?" 
 
 So Theo had the merest drop, with some very 
 under-done beef and a scanty supply of vege- 
 tables, "they being bad for her complexion," 
 Aunt Libby affirmed. Mrs. Vaughan then pro- 
 ceeded to remark that she couldn't imagine 
 where Tbeo had got her complexion. " It's 
 worse than any member of my family ever had 
 before, my dear. Not that it's your fault, I 
 don't say that it is ; but it's a great misfortune 
 for you, a very great misfortune indeed ; but no 
 wonder, if at your age you're accustomefl to eat 
 when and how and what you like. Mr. Vaughan 
 can tell you that when I married him I was like 
 a rose, a blush rose." 
 
 " Precisely like a blush rose," Mr. Vaughan 
 struck in promptly. 
 
 " Well, Aunt Libby, I feel properly penitent 
 about my complexion, but it's an evil of long 
 standing, you see : I have been brown all'my 
 life. May I have a glass of ale, please? I 
 don't care for wine. You're not shocked, I 
 hope?" 
 
 " Not shocked, but disgusted," Mrs, Vaughan 
 replied. "No, Theo; ale is not a beverage" 
 (Mrs. Vaughan called it " beveridge " in her 
 emotion) " for young ladies ; no ! «o pudding 
 for Miss Leigh, Thomas, bring it to me. I am 
 .^ sure," she continued, in a semi-apologetic tone 
 to Theo, " that you wouldn't go eating any nasty 
 sweets after your lojig fast, my dear." 
 
 " No nasty sweets, but that appears to be a 
 very nice sweet. Aunt Libby." ^ 
 
 " Too rich — far too rich " * 
 
 "For the stomach of youth,'' Mr. Vaughan 
 put in blithely. Then on his wife looking round 
 to give some directions to Thomas, Mr. Vanghan 
 nodded and winked at Theo, and made signs 
 expressive of " something," but what she could 
 iot imagine. On Mrs. Vaughau's facing the 
 table again he lapsed into rosy absorp^i^ m his 
 own pudding, leaving Theo with the impression 
 that he was a little mad and very cunning. 
 
 When the dinner, of which Theo's share had 
 been such a frugal one, was over, Mrs. Vaughan 
 sent Thomas to lock the drawing-room door, and 
 told Theo that she might amuse herself with a 
 book of engravings which she would find in the 
 sideboard drawer. 
 
 " We don't sit in the drawing-room when we 
 are alone, my dear," she explained ; " it would 
 be wearing out the furniture for nothing. Your 
 uncle will go to his study till tea is ready, and 
 we'll sit here." 
 1 " I don't care much for sha(3owy vi' (vs of 
 places. Aunt Libby. May I go and get a book 
 5 
 
 from the study ? " Theo asked. The prospect 
 was dull that Mrs-. Vaughan had held out to her, 
 of sitting there with a book of engravings be- 
 fore her till tea was ready. 
 
 " A book ! what for, child ? " 
 
 " To read." 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan had been reclining in rather an 
 inert manner in a stout easy-chair before this ; 
 she now sprang in^o animation and an erect 
 posture. 
 
 " To read ! really, child, it was time for you 
 to come here and be taught the rudiments of 
 manners. Your poor dear father, what can he 
 have been about to suffer you to acquire such 
 ill-bred habits? My dear, it's not the custom 
 for young people to take up books and read 
 when they are staying away from home on a 
 visit ; it's considered much prettier of them to 
 sit and talk to their hostess, if she feels inclined 
 to talk ; it looks selfish and thoughtless to take 
 up a book and read ; you will have many hours 
 to yourself while I am otherwise engaged, then 
 you can retire to your bed-room and read. But 
 when I am here to be talked to, it is your place 
 to talk to me." 
 
 " Aunt Libby has her idiosyncrasies, and no 
 mistake," Theo thought, but sh? was resolved to 
 bear them amiably as long as might be. 
 
 " I will just go and get some work. Aunt 
 Libby, and then I shall be able to talk as long 
 and as much as you like." 
 
 " Work ! like a milliner girl running away for 
 your work directly after dinner," Mrs. Vaughan 
 replied testily, resettling herself in her chair. 
 "*' I do hope you will learn to be calm before you 
 leave me, Theo, for this restless desire to be 
 doing something betrays that you are accustomed 
 to very inferior society, very inferior indeed. I 
 don't know what the Miss Burgoynes will think 
 of you." 
 
 Shortly after this Mrs. Vaughan went to sleep, 
 and Theo sat in the dimly-lighted room with the 
 volume of shadowy engravings before her in a 
 state of semi-despair. " This evening can't last 
 for ever," she kept on thinking, " and to-mor- 
 row must be better. I am beginning to hate 
 those eternal Burgoynes." 
 
 The late autumn, or rather the early winter, 
 wind went whistling shrilly round the house, and 
 not u, sound within the walls interrupted the 
 sorrowful tale the wind told to Theo of coldness, 
 blankness, and nothing better to come. She sat 
 near the window looking out into thftu garden 
 and graveyard beyond, wondering whether any- 
 thing bright had ever been seen froro'that win- 
 dow, whether anyone bright had ever looked 
 forth from it, whether it was always chilly, nip- 
 ping, early winter socially at Hensley ; whether 
 it was imagination which showed her two figures 
 coriiing along through the tombs towards the 
 house, or whether her vision was to be relied 
 upon. 
 
 They came on out of range of her sight, and 
 presently a sharp decided ring at the hall bell 
 proved to her that they had been realities, and 
 that a break was about to occur in this monot- 
 ony, which was becoming unbearable. Then 
 before she had quite collected her wandering 
 tired faculties, they came in ; and " they " were 
 Miss Ethel Burgoyne and the blond-haired, 
 bright-visaged, blue-eyed, young cavalier whose 
 •portrait had arrested her in the morning. 
 
66 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Had the portrait come out of its frame and 
 changed its garb for the express purpose of 
 mystifying her ? or was he a real being, only 
 like unto the pictured one, whose mouldering 
 into dust before her advent she had so poig- 
 nantly regretted? The dullness of mind and 
 the dimness of light which had been her portion 
 for the last two hours caused her thus to ques- 
 tion for a few moments. At the end of them 
 she realised that he was no galvanized Vandyck, 
 but a yyoung English gentleman of the present 
 day, the modern school, and very pleasant to 
 behold. 
 
 " Frank has come '' Miss Ethel Burgoyne 
 
 began. 
 
 " To lighten your darkness, my dear Mrs. 
 Vaughan ; you're the first person 1 always look 
 up when I come to Haddington," he interrupted, 
 passing along hastily from the side of the lady 
 he had been escorting to that of the partially 
 awakened and totally bewildered Mrs. Vaughan. 
 
 " You always were a most attentive, dear boy," 
 the old lady replied heartily, grasping both the 
 hands he extended to her, in amiable oblivious- 
 ness of its being the first time he ever had dis- 
 played the engaging promptitude he professed. 
 " What a pleasure to see you : that's my niece, 
 quite a child she is, oh, quite a child ; tell you 
 about her directly," she continued, nodding at 
 him, and blinking at Theo, who disregarded the 
 blinks in consequence of the rapt regard the 
 young, fair, bright, bold beauty of this man won 
 from her. 
 
 He had half turned round to look at Theo when 
 her aunt offered him the hazy introduction, and 
 as he stood, one hand still heldby Mrs. Vaughan, 
 the other planted on his hip, he made a finer 
 picture than the one that had held Theo's gaze 
 in the morning. He was rather a tall man, and 
 so he had bent his head slightly when he had 
 turned to look on Theo's face— rvbent his head to 
 an altitude that made his glance at her a level 
 one, that caused it to appear far far more earnest 
 than if he had simply turned and looked as any 
 other man would have done, she thought. 
 
 "Frank is my nephew. Miss Leigh; don't 
 you think we're like ? " Ethel Burgoyne asked 
 aloud of Theo ; and when the young aunt asked 
 this, the younger nephew threw his head up 
 and laughed, and looked strikingly like her at 
 once. 
 
 " He is now, he was not a minute ago," Theo 
 replied. 
 
 " The seriousness of a minute ago was an un- 
 precedented thing ; it's Frank's normal condition 
 to be volatile, as you will find when you know 
 him better." 
 
 "When I know him better," Theo repeated 
 vaguely. 
 
 " Yes, as you will, of course ; you're half 
 asleep, poor child, after your journey ; come 
 out in the garden for a turn or two ; I know 
 every bit of rock-work and every flower-bed, so 
 you need not fear that we'll be detrimental to 
 your plants, Mrs. Vaughan, in the darkness. 
 Come, Miss Leigh, we will leave Frank with his 
 old friend, and I will take you for a freshening 
 walk, and instruct you as to the importance of 
 the personage who has had the power to bring 
 me over from Maddington at this hour of, the 
 night." 
 
 Miss Ethel laid her hand on Theo's arm as 
 
 she spoke, and Theo followed her to the door, and 
 then cast a glance back towards the man they 
 were leaving. 
 
 " He's not like you again now," she whispered 
 hurriedly. He had lowered his head again, and 
 was looking straight at her with the level earnest ' 
 gaze that betokens intense interest and a deter- 
 mination to read all that may be read of the soul 
 of the scanned. 
 
 " I am thinking that you two young ladies 
 ought not to be suffered to go out in that goblin 
 garden alone," he said, with a rapid change of 
 expression. 
 
 " Come to us presently then, Frank ; keep him 
 for ten minutes, Mrs. Vaughan, and then send 
 him in search of us. He does not want to come 
 with us in reality, his great anxiety was to come 
 over here to you," Ethel Burgoyne replied ; and 
 then she went with Theo from the room, leaving 
 him with Mrs. Vaughan. 
 
 How it had been done, whether his eyes had 
 questioned it, or his lips, Theo could not tell, but 
 she was conscious of -this, that when Miss Ethel 
 had asserted that his great anxiety had been to see 
 Mrs. Vaughan, Mr. Frank had telegraphed to her 
 (Theo) an inquiry as to her belief in the truth 
 of this statement, and she, against her will, had 
 transmflted a doubt of it back to him. There 
 was an understanding between them from that 
 moment, she felt — one that might be neither 
 honourable, pleasureable, nor advantageous to 
 her, but that was an understanding neverthe- 
 less. 
 
 " My nephew is Frank by name and by nature 
 too," Miss Ethel Burgoyne said, when they were 
 outSide the halljdoor. " Isn't it pleasant out here ? 
 Chilly, but nice? Papa and Grace thought me 
 mad when I agreed to come over from Madding- 
 ton with Frank after dark ; he arrived quite un- 
 expectedly, dear boy, and insisted on coming over 
 before he slept to see his ' old friend,' as he 
 called her." 
 
 " Frank by nature, is he ? — I mean is he an old 
 friend ? Is he fond of Aunt Libby ? " 
 
 " I didn't know that he was till to-night, but it ,,■ 
 seems that he is, very." 
 
 " He is your nephew, did you say ? " 
 
 " Yes, ray only brother's only son ; my poor 
 brother diecL when Frank and I were children, 
 and we've air done our best to spoil him evei 
 since. He's such a darling fellow." 
 
 They had sauntered out of the garden away into 
 the graveyard, and now, when she said this, they 
 ceased their sauntering and sat down on a flat 
 tomb-stone, and the early winter wind went by 
 them shrilly. 
 
 " Ho^pnuch he is like that portrait that hangs 
 on the left of the white horse," Theo observed in 
 a low tone ; then she sank her voice to a still 
 fainter whisper and went on, "Do you know 
 when you came into the room to-night I thought 
 he was something unnatural, I did indeed; 
 don't mind my saying so ; I felt that I 
 had seen him before and yet hadn't seen him 
 before, and known him without having known 
 him." 
 
 " It was seeing the portrait," Ethel Burgoyne 
 answered aloud and cheerily. " We don't like 
 papa keeping it in that room at all, because 
 it's useless to deny that it is unhappily like 
 Frank." ^^ ' 
 
 " Why unhappily like him ? " 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 67 
 
 "Because he was such a bad fellow, so utterly 
 unlike Trank in character, a% unlike him morally 
 in fact as he is like him personally. He was 
 colled ' the bad Burgoyne,' and he was hung in 
 the darkesi end of the gallery till Frank grew up 
 like him, then papa had him brought down in 
 order that Frank might not have a chance 
 of forgetting that his great personal attrac- 
 tions couldn't save him from being utterly despi- 
 cable." 
 
 " Does Frank need such a reminder? " 
 
 "Well, papa thinks that he does, which 
 amounts to nearly the same thing. Papa dis- 
 trusts him partly on account of the resemblance 
 to that Hugo Burgoyne, and partly because he 
 never liked Frank's mother. Papa has made 
 what we think the mistake of always trying to 
 keep Frank straight by threats, for though the 
 title must be Frank's eventually, and a good por- 
 tion of the property, still the major portion of it 
 is not entailed, and if Frank offended papa he 
 would leave it to his immaculate pet, Harold 
 Ffrenoh, on conditions." 
 
 So she heard his name again ! — h^ard, his name 
 and a doubt oast upon his being " immaculate," 
 as she would have had her lover supposed at one 
 and the same time. 
 
 Theo did not answer when her new acquaint- 
 ance brought her speech to a close. The girl 
 could not have spoken without betraying more 
 anxiety than might be compatible with those 
 " conditions," which must be fulfilled in order to 
 ensure Harold's succession to that which Frank 
 Burgoyne might possible forfeit. She could not 
 have spoken with the. coolness that might be 
 essential to the well-being of the career of the 
 man who had wronged her. Wronged her unin- 
 tentionally and to his own lasting sorrow, she 
 firmly believed, but wronged lier nevertheless. 
 Therefore, though she longed to question and to 
 hear, she held her peace, and trusted that the 
 friendly darkness concealed her emotion from 
 Kthel Burgoyne. 
 
 "We — Grace and I — are always in a state of 
 anxiety while Frank is here, dearly fond of him 
 as we are," Ethel went on, after a short pause. 
 " I ought not to mention such things to a stran- 
 ger, I suppose, and yet after all I don't 
 know why I shouldn't, for they are unimpor- 
 tant" 
 
 "What are unimportant? — your anxieties?" 
 Theo asked. 
 
 " Yes ; our anxieties and their causes are un- 
 important in reality ; we have no reason to fear 
 that Frank will ever go wrong with papa ; still, 
 such a little thing would put him wrong that we 
 do fear it. I always hate Harold Ffrench when 
 I think of it." 
 
 "Who speais of the bogie of my boyhood? " 
 a voice from behind cried brightly, and the next 
 Instant Frank himself, the subject of their con- 
 versation, stood by Theo's side, and made as 
 though he would have seated himself there had 
 Theo given a movement of encouragement. 
 
 "I was speaking of Harold Ffrench," Ethel 
 replied, rather sharply. She was annoyed with 
 her pet for having stolen up to them thus quietly, 
 while she was on the subject of his grievances, 
 
 "What were you saying about him Ethel? 
 Do you know anything of him. Miss Leigh ? " 
 
 He seated himself by her side as he asked it, 
 seated himself there, though never a bit of the 
 
 encouragement for the lack of which he had at 
 first hesitated was given him ; his eyes ques- 
 tioning her, she could see this by the moonlight, 
 even more closely than they had done in the 
 room. 
 
 "Yes, and you know I do," she answered 
 suddenly ; she felt convinced • of this, and she 
 could not resist pying%oioe to the conviction, 
 injudicious as sbefelt herself to be. "^ 
 
 " Oh ! I didn't know that he was a friend of 
 yours," • Ethel said, rising as she spoke, "or 
 perhaps I would have held my tongue about 
 him ; and yet I don't know either that I should 
 have been so discreet. Come, let us stroll on, 
 I'm cold." 
 
 Ethel's speech had saved Pranlc the necessity 
 of replying to Theo's assertion of his knowledge 
 of her knowing Harold Ffrenoh. He waited, 
 listening attentively to what Ethel was saying, 
 until she had concluded, then he glided into, the 
 conversation again. 
 
 " Has Ethel been telling you that he, your 
 friend Mr. Ffrench, has been used 'to keep the 
 beast in awe,' I being the" beast in question." 
 
 " I have been telling Miss Leigh that Harold 
 Ffrench is a great pet of papa's, who absurdly 
 enough believes him to be immaculate," Ethel 
 rejoined hurriedly. She had no desire for Frank 
 to become acquainted with the full extent of the 
 confidence she had placed in Theo ; " darling 
 fellow " as 'Frank was in her estimation, she knew 
 that he was apt to cloud over at the free mentioft 
 of family matters when he had not the sole men- 
 tioning of them. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ; was that all ? " he said. He 
 was far too well-bred to probe an unpleasant 
 subject when he had nothing to gain by it, and 
 in this case, nothing could be gained, save the 
 pleasure of putting his usually self possessed 
 Aunt Ethel to confusion. He reflected that 
 "Ethel always stood by him, and most likely 
 always would do so," therefore he spared her. 
 
 "Oh! indeed; was that all? Well, . Miss 
 Leigh, you know more of him than we do pro- 
 bably I }s he all that my respected grandpapa 
 believes him to be ? or can we prove him a de- 
 faulter in honour, and so leave Lord Lesborough 
 nothing to love and lean upon, and leave his all 
 to, but my worthy self? " 
 
 " No one could prove him a defaulter in 
 honour, however intimately he was known," 
 Theo said quickly. But though she- spoke 
 promptly and firmly in her defence o^dlb loved 
 and lost, she felt that she was wiacingTMer the 
 interrogatory gaze of the man who had forced her 
 to speak. 
 
 " If you say that. Miss Leigh, I shallfeel bound 
 to believe in him for the future ; ladies generally 
 have good grounds for what they say about such 
 a handsome man as Harold Ffrenoh," Ethel said, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 " I dare say Miss Leigh has good grounds, 
 Ethel ; you must not imagine every one as frivo- 
 lous and easily blinded by appearances as you 
 are yourself," Frank replied, with a" mock gravity 
 that was amusing to Ethel and irritating to Theo. 
 " I have not the slightest doubt that Miss Leigh 
 speaks with utiderstauding." 
 
 Halooked very tenderly down at Theo as he 
 saidW, and there was a most sympathetic ii^ee- 
 tion in his voice. But then Theo remembered 
 that men are tender and sympathetic occasionally 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 without sufficient cause ; and so she strove to 
 stifle the conviction that he knew her story. 
 "He am't Itnow about Harold and me," she 
 Itept on saying to herself; " who could know it, 
 excepting a few people at Bretford f It is only 
 his way to say things as if he meant something 
 more than is said." 
 
 j'*-I speak with the*usnal amount of under- 
 sfending, I suppose," she said, trying to speak 
 carelessly. " Mr. Ffrench would always have iny 
 suffrages, because he looks as if he deserved 
 them. I believe in the jewel having a fair 
 casket ; I should have lost Portia, and chosen' 
 the wrong box, I am persuaded, if I had been 
 Bassanio." 
 
 " So should I, I think," he replied, laughing ; 
 "but I should have chosen the gold, hoping to 
 avoid her. I should have felt convinced that 
 such a strong-minded woman as Portia would 
 eschew baubles, and encase her counterfeit in 
 lead ; and as I have no fancy for being special- 
 pleaded out of niy mind, I should have avoided 
 her." 
 
 " And lost the fortune ! No, I don't think 
 you would have done that, Mr. Burgoyne," Theo 
 ■said, as they paused at the hall-door. " Won't 
 you come in again ? do." 
 
 "You don't give me credit for magnanimously 
 throwing away a chance ; well, Miss Leigh, I am 
 not guilty of such weakness often, I assure you. 
 No, Ethel, we won't go in to-night — it's too late; 
 I will come and make my apologies to Mrs. 
 Vaughan for not saying adieu to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Then he took Theo's hand and pressed it 
 gently, and told her that he looked forward to 
 meeting her on the morrow, as perhaps they 
 " might find out that they had some more mutual 
 friends." 
 
 When Ethel Burgoyne and her handsome 
 young nephew turned and departed, Theo went 
 in slowly and unwillingly, for she wanted to 
 think about many things, and thought and Mrs. 
 Vaughan's presence were not wont to agree. 
 She found her aunt sitting erect, brightly expect- 
 ant, and wide awake, and her uncle looking 
 rosily resigned to the animated state of affairs at 
 this late hour, just opposite to her. 
 
 "Why! where are they?" Mrs. Vaughan 
 asked hurriedly. 
 
 "Gone home: they thought it too late to 
 come inj Theo replied : then she thought of a 
 sop fo^lferberus, and added, "but Mr. Burgoyne 
 is comnlg to see you to-morrow morning, Aunt 
 Libby." 
 
 " Now look here," Mrs. Vaughan said sol- 
 emnly. " I have had the candles lighted in the 
 silver candlesticks instead of. burning the lamp 
 for your sake, Theo, for your sake, my child — 
 it's such a much more becoming light. We'U 
 put them out now, and go to bed, so that you 
 may have some beauty-sleep, and get up looking 
 fresh in the morning. Control your inclination 
 to be pert, and keep very quiet ; dashing men like 
 Mr. Burgoyne like that, and who knows what 
 may happen. Lord Lesborough doesn't want his 
 grandson and heir to marry money. Good night, 
 my dear." « 
 
 " Good night, aunt," Theo replied, just|puch- 
 ing her own cheek against the one Mrs. Vsirghan 
 presented to her for a kiss. Then she went 
 swiftly up-stairs to her own room, angrily repeat- 
 
 ing " dashing men," " who knows what may 
 happen." " What horrible phrases ! To use them 
 to me too, to me I " 
 
 "Frank, dear," Ethel Burgoyne said fondly to 
 her nephew, as they walked briskly along through 
 the park, "I wish you would makeup your mind 
 to marry, we should be so much happier about 
 you, and papa would be so much better satisfied 
 about you ? " 
 
 " I don't think he wants to be well satisfied 
 about me, Ethel." 
 
 " Ah ! you wrong him there, you do indeed. I 
 am on your side, you know ; still, now you are 
 unjust to papa." 
 
 " Besides, I haven't seen the woman yet who 
 can take and hold me, Ethel : I find them oul 
 too soon, and then they become. uninteresting." 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 POOR FKANK. 
 
 " The best plan wiU be to keep Frank out of 
 papa's way as much as possible," Ethel thought 
 the next morning, as she stood fastening her cuffs 
 at her dressing-room window, preparatory to 
 going down to breakfast. She had passed an 
 anxious night about this "boy," as she termed 
 him, who was more like a brother to her than a 
 nephew. Hitherto Frank had appeared to be 
 brightly oblivious of the fact of his grandfather 
 having no overweening affection for him. But 
 now evidently the fact had dawned upon him, 
 and from what he had said to her the previous 
 night, wheu she had suggested that he should 
 marry, he was rather more disposed to resent it 
 as an injustice than to strive to alter it. 
 
 " Papa feeds his wrath by looking at that 
 wretched picture. Sir Hugo, you 'were a bad 
 Burgoyne, for your fatal influence is at work even 
 now, making papa believe that Frank's little fol- 
 lies will develop into big crimes. There he 
 goes," she continued, throwing up the window 
 and leaning out to look after Frank, who was 
 cantering across the lawn towards some hurdles. 
 "Don't be late for breakfast, Frank. Good , 
 gracious, you have papa's horse," she added hur- 
 riedly ; but Frank did not hear, and so cantered 
 on, waving his hat to her as he rode. " A fool 
 John must have been to let him take the Baron," 
 she said aloud, in a vexed tone, as she watched 
 the old brown hunter with the short dock going 
 over the lawn with Frank on his back. " The 
 first morning of his visit too, and he knows what 
 papa is about that old horse ; how could John let 
 him make such a mistake ! " 
 
 She turned from the window and went down- 
 stairs into the oak-parlour, their breakfast-room 
 when they were alone, There she found her sis- 
 ter, but not her father, as she had hoped. For 
 the oak-parlour windows did not command that 
 lawn over which Frank had been cantering, and 
 she had hoped that his error of judgment might 
 gjill pass unknown and unnoticed. 
 
 "Where's papa, Grace? Do you know that 
 silly boy is riding the Baron ? What is to be 
 done?" 
 
 "I don't know, Ethel ; I must answer that to 
 all three of your questions. Oh, here's papa." 
 
 They went forward to kiss him as she spoke, 
 and read in his face that their troublesome pet 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 69 
 
 ■was safe Btill. Lord Lesborough's brow was 
 serene. 
 
 " The old man is the first afield," he said, abat- 
 ing himself and opening the paper. " Ma^er 
 Frank not down yet, I conclude." \ 
 
 This not being a direct appeal, Miss Burgoyne 
 busied herself with the coffee, and Ethel with 
 the Times advertisement sheet, and neither an- 
 swered it. 
 
 " While I," Lord Lesborough continued, " have 
 already been down to the home farm walking." 
 " Walking ! what was that for, papa ? " 
 " The old pony caught his leg over the halter 
 and threw himself down and lamed himself in 
 the night, and so, as I shall want the Baron after 
 breakfast, I thought I would walk." 
 
 Both daughters trembled a little guiltily as 
 the father spoke. The Baron had been spared 
 by him at his own personal inconvenience, to 
 what end ! 
 
 " I ought to have thought of reminding Frank 
 last night that the old brown horse is still held 
 sacred," Ethel thought, with a twinge of self- 
 reproach. " How could the poor boy be ex- 
 pected to remember such a trifle ? " 
 
 The breakfast proceeded slowly, and still 
 Frank did not come in. 
 
 "Had you not better send up to Mr. Bur- 
 goyne's room, my, dear?" Lord Lesbprough 
 asked, as he sent up bis cup for a second supply 
 of coffee ;' " your late walk, last night, Ethel, has 
 knocked up a young gentleman, who doubtless 
 keeps much earlier hours when he is away from 
 us." 
 
 When he said this his two daughters felt still 
 more uneasy, for Lord Lesborough was invariably 
 waxing angry when ho attemptGd to be ironical, 
 and called Frank, " Mr. Burgoyne." 
 
 " Oh, papa, now he wouldn't , pretend that it 
 was the walk — ^but he had a long journey yester- 
 day, you know," Ethel remarked depreeatingly. 
 
 "I suppose his mother carries his tea up, when 
 he condescends to live with her, whenever he's 
 lazy." Lord Lesborough rarely failed in lashing 
 himself up into a rage with his grandson, when 
 he began to speak of that grandson's mother. 
 
 "I dare say his mother is quite wise enough 
 not to question his right to please himself in such 
 matters," Ethel exclaimed. It seemed to her 
 that there would have been disloyalty to the 
 dead brother in suffering a disparaging remark 
 on the living sister-in-law to pass unrebuked. 
 
 " Here he comes — such a cup of coffee for you, 
 Frank," Miss Burgoyne exclaimed, smiling 
 brightly at him as he entered ; but the offender 
 did not recognise either the offer of the coffee, 
 or the smile that accompanied it. He went 
 directly up to his grandfather; he still held 
 bis hat in his hand, and he looked pale and agi- 
 tated. 
 
 " Good morning, sir," he began. " You will 
 be very much annoyed with me, I fear, when I 
 tell you what I have been unfortunftte enough to 
 do this morning?" 
 
 Ethel's heart sank, and her prophetic soul told 
 her that her fears when she first saw him on the 
 Baron had not been groundless. 
 
 " Good morning, sir. What have you done ? " 
 his grandfather replied, quietly, putting down the 
 paper, and pushing his spectacles up on his fore- 
 head as he spoke. There was little of either cor- 
 diality or conciliation in Lord Lesborough's man- 
 
 ner, and his grandson keenly marked the want 
 of these things. 
 
 " I took the Baron out this morning, and I 
 have been unfortunate enough to let him down 
 and cut his knees in landing him over a hurdle 
 and ditch at the end of the west lawn. I am 
 very sorry, both for the horse and your dis- 
 pleasure." 
 
 He said nothing of his own dislocated elbow, 
 and Lord Lesborough saw nothing of it. The 
 old man was moved to a deeper anger than his 
 soul had known since his only son had married 
 this present offender's mother. 
 
 " Had you regarded my displeasure — ^had you 
 given one thought to my wishes^-yoii would 
 never have touched the horse," was all he said. 
 Then Frank turned away from him, and Ethel 
 rose, crying out, " Don't you see he is hurt him- 
 self, papa — don't mind the horse; he is hurt. 
 Where is it, Frank?" 
 
 " My arm is broken, I believe," he replied, 
 going and throwing himself on one of the couches. 
 " Had it been my neck, Lord Lesborough would 
 have forgiven me for marking the Baron's knees ; 
 
 as it is- " 
 
 "I will send for a doctor," Lord Lesborough 
 interrupted, rising and walking towards the door; 
 " he will be more beneficial to you just now than 
 my forgiveness." 
 
 " Things look well for Harold Ffrench, don't 
 they, Ethel?" Frank Burgoyne asked with a 
 faint attempt at a smile, as Ethel knelt down by 
 his side, and shuddered over the disabled limb. 
 " He will remember this against me, I'm certain." 
 "Dear Fran^ how could you be so reckless?" 
 " Don't ask questions, dear Ethel. Aunt 
 Grace, you'll stay with me till the doctor comes, 
 won't you? And Ethel, you go and write a 
 note to a man called Linley, telling him of my 
 accident, and that before it happened I had time 
 to go and see that the shooting-box at Lownds 
 will just suit him. He may take it with the 
 greatest safety, tell him ; and add, that the sooner 
 he comes, the better I shall like it ; will you, 
 Ethel?" 
 
 " I will, Frank. But Linley, he's just one of 
 the very men papa does not like you being so 
 very intimate with ; is he coming ? " 
 
 " Not here — catch him at Maddington ! But 
 I suppose Lord Lesborough will suffer him to 
 come into the neighbourhood and shoot the harm- 
 less partridge, and by-and-by hunt the depre- 
 dating fox without questioning his right to do 
 either. Yes, write, and don't worry me, Ethel, 
 
 for by Jove this arm of mine " 
 
 He paused, and did not say what that arm of 
 his was precisely, but Ethel guessed that it was 
 too psunful to permit of polite converaation even 
 with her jiist at present, So she went and wrote 
 the letter, and then brought and perused it for 
 his approbation. 
 
 "Will it do? "she asked. 
 " Yes, it will do. You have said just the right 
 things, and not too many of them. Ton my 
 word, Ethel, our understandings match so admi- 
 rably, that I haye often ttioiight it a pity that a 
 man may not darry his father's sister ; don't for- 
 get to send it off by to-day's post. Ah, here 
 corajk the apothecary." 
 
 "me gentleSnan he thus irreverently designa- 
 ted being the Hensley surgeon, who had come 
 up to do his best for the injured limb, the two 
 
TO 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 ladies left Frank -with his doctor, and his own 
 raan, who had entered at the same time. 
 
 "His arm is worse than brolren. I believe 
 his elbow is dislocated," Miss Burgoyne said in 
 a raelanch'oly tone — " poor Frank ! " 
 
 " Papa is too hard, too hard," Ethel replied, 
 warmly. " It's cruel and wicked to be so preju- 
 diced against your own flesh and blood, as he is 
 against Frank ; and Frank has always taken it 
 so beautifully, hasn't he, Grace? Never seemed 
 to see it till to-day." 
 
 "Perhaps papa would have been better in- 
 clined towards him, if he had seemed to see it 
 and feel it a little more ; and yet one doesn't 
 know ; nothing, I fear, would ever have made 
 him heartily fond of Frank." 
 
 " When Mr. Burch is gone, we will hear how 
 Frank is, and then have the car, and go down 
 and call on Miss Leigh, shall we, Grace ? and 
 we'll get Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan and her to 
 come up to dinner ; it wiU be better to have 
 some one, than for Frank to be alone with only 
 papa and us in the evening ; shall we ? " 
 
 " Yea, we will, dear. Not that I see how it 
 would be possible for Frank to get wrong with 
 papa, when he is obliged to keep quiet on the 
 sofa ; we always are in a terrible turmoil while 
 that boy is here," the placid lady continued, 
 calmly. Then they went their respective ways 
 till such time as the doctor departed, and they 
 might learn how great Frank's injuries really 
 were. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan was in such a satisfied frame of 
 mind, that she seemed to ,be another woman on 
 the morning after her niece's arrival. She had 
 gone to bed big with hope, and had straightway 
 • fallen into dream-fraught slumbers, that were far 
 more refreshing than dream-fraught slumbers 
 usually are. She had supped on the reflection 
 that Lord Lesborough did not desire his heir to 
 wed for money, and the supposition that Mr. 
 Burgoyne was or was going to be attracted by 
 Theo. She had supped on these, and the supper 
 did not disagree with her. 
 
 " I shall take you round the garden and over 
 the village this morning, Theo, my dear," she 
 said, briskly, when Theo came jnto the room, 
 and seated herself at the breakfast table ; " that 
 is, if you'll like to go, I will take you ; later In 
 the day we may expect Mr. and the Misses Bur- 
 goyne." 
 
 "He said the morning, Aunt Libby." 
 "It, will be 'morning' whenever they come, 
 Theo; remember that. Theo, on no account 
 call it ' afternoon ; ' even if they should come at 
 five, it's morning to them, and they must sup- 
 pose that it's morning to you also. Can't you 
 eat anything, my dear ? " 
 
 "Nothing, thank you," Theo replied. She 
 hated the prospect of going over the garden and 
 round the village in Mrs. Vaughan's wake — it 
 destroyed her appetite, and made her wish her- 
 self back at Bretford again. Something of this 
 must have been visible in her face, for presently 
 her aunt said : 
 
 " You must stay with me till you get your 
 appetite and your roses up, my dear ; you must 
 stay with me a long time, Theo ; I shall have 
 you stay a long time." A 
 
 Theo tried hard to think of somethin^nice 
 and proper to say ; the effort resulted in a sim- 
 ple " Thank you, aunt," after all 
 
 " I wish you to stay. I'm very anxious in- 
 deed that you should stay a long time," Mrs. 
 Vaughan went on with a slightly flushed face, 
 " and you ought ; and so ought your parents — ■ 
 if they knew what was good for you, which 
 they don't — to wish it as well, instead of looking 
 as if you thought you'd be dull." 
 
 " I do, aunt. I do wish it ; dull, I don't mind 
 being dull, I assure you." 
 
 "Well, my dear," the old lady rejoined with a 
 perceptible softening of manner and spirit, " so 
 much the better, and you have more good sense 
 than I gave you credit for; I shall keep you 
 with me for a long time, and, if you have any 
 young friend you would like to have with you 
 to make a change, you may ask her to come 
 and stay with vou : there, what do you say to 
 that ? " 
 
 " That I am much obliged — you are very 
 kind, I mean," Theo replied absently. She was 
 wondering whether she should or should not 
 avail herself of this offer, and invite Sydney 
 Scott down to share with her the (desperate dul- 
 ness of Hensley, and the dubious delights of 
 Maddington. " I needn't decide yet," she 
 thought, " but if it's any one, it shall be Syd- 
 ney." 
 
 She however decided that Sydney should come 
 long before that morning walk came to a con- 
 clusion. Mrs. Vaughan was disheartening in 
 the garden, and distressing in the village. She 
 would, while in the former, indulge in a pro- 
 longed weeding of a bed of variegated gera- 
 niums ; and she would not suffer Theo to assist 
 her in the task, or accede either amicably or at 
 all to Theo's suggestion that sl^e " might as well 
 just walk round by herself, and come back to 
 her aunt when her aunt had done the bed." 
 Mrs. Vaughan ordained that Theo should re- 
 main within conversational range, and Mrs. 
 Vaughan's ordinations admitted of no appeaJ. 
 Theo resigned herself to the situation — strove 
 to appear interested in the account of the Mad- 
 dington mSnage, with which her aunt diversified 
 the running commentary she was pleased to de- 
 liver on " Theo's chances in that quarter " — and 
 resolved that when the subject should be mooted 
 again of the "young friend coming to make a 
 change," she would mention Sydney Scott as one 
 peculiarly adapted for the honour. 
 
 " At all events we shall be able to take long 
 walks together, and escape from Aunt Libby 
 with less appearance of design than I see I 
 shall ever be able to effect alone," she thought. 
 Then her meditations were cut short by Mrs. 
 Vaughan requesting her to fill a watering-pot 
 out of the garden tank, which Theo did to the 
 detriment of her well-starched morning dress, 
 and the consequent downfall of her aunt's amia- 
 bility. 
 
 "So careless of you, child; however your 
 father can afford to clothe you at all, if you 
 ruin your things in this way, I can't think. 
 Don't tell me that ' it's nothing,' and ' that it 
 will wash ; ' I know it will wash, and I know 
 that it's not nothing, for washing costs a great 
 deal of money, and a great deal of money is 
 what your father can't or oughtn't to spend 
 about you. Our income wouldn't stand'- it, I 
 know that." 
 
 " I don't carry watering-pots about and spill 
 their contents daily, Aunt Libby ; this is an out 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 11 
 
 of course proceeding, remember." Theo was 
 ceasing to be seriously affected, in other words 
 " cut up," by her aunt's habit of reproaching 
 stormily. She found it tedious simply, terrible 
 no longer. 
 
 " A lady should be able to do all such things 
 neatly, Theo ; I have.no patience with that ridi- 
 culous air of fine ladyism you affect. Not ac- 
 customed to carry water-pots, indeed; absurd 
 in your position to be above such things : you 
 would be thought far more of if you could do 
 any little thing of the sort in a neat, graceful 
 way, instead of being as awkward and untidy as 
 an untrained country-girl." 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan rose from the crouching posi- 
 tion she had taken up over the bed of variegated 
 geraniums with the abruptness of unmitigated 
 but doubtless most righteous anger. She was 
 checked midway in her effort to regain the up- 
 right by a terrible jerk, which made a wide rent 
 in the white China crape shawl she had unwise- 
 ly arrayed herself in prematurely for the walk 
 through the village. On Theo's going to her 
 assistance, it was discovBred that Mrs. Vaughan, 
 in the heat of her argument in favour of grace- 
 ful carefulness and neatness, had fastened the 
 end of her shawl securely to the rich, heavy 
 soil with the troweL 
 
 "It's ruined! ruined! "she exclaimed almost 
 tearfully. "It's one that your father brought 
 home the first voyage he made after my mar- 
 riage; I wouldn't have had it happen to my 
 brother's gift for the world." 
 
 The allusion to her father touched Theo, and 
 saved Mrs. Vaughan receiving from her observ- 
 ant niece the information that she had stuck the 
 trowel into the ground with hea,rt, and heat, and 
 force to the words, " I have no patience with 
 you," in reference to Theo's far slighter acci- 
 dent. 
 
 " I won't do any more gardening this morn- 
 ing; change your dress, Theo, and we will gO 
 into the village. I won't have you dress your- 
 self finely, though ; I mil not have you deck 
 yourself out just to walk through a little country 
 village where the people will not think one bit 
 the better of you for being dressed like a 
 peacock." 
 
 " It would never have entered into my head to 
 change my dress just to go in the village, Aunt 
 Libby, if you hadn't told me to do it ; even now 
 — see I'm nearly dry — I don't see the necessity 
 for it." 
 
 " Do break yourself of that habit of setting 
 your own judgment in opposition to the judg- 
 ment of your elders at every turn, Theo ; and 
 pray be careful how you utter disparaging re- 
 marks about the places people live in. I do see 
 the necessity for your making a nice appearance 
 in the village, however much you may despise 
 it. Not that I mind it. I attribute it to your 
 ignorance of the world. But be careful before 
 other people." 
 
 Theo stifled a laugh. " I'll promise to be very 
 careful, especially before the Misses Burgoyne," 
 she said demurely. " But I assure you I am so 
 far from being sUly enough to despise it, that I 
 felt quite anxious to get a friend- Of mine down 
 here to enjoy this pretty place with me." 
 
 " To .see Sydney with Aunt Libby will be rare 
 fun, and I shall enjoy it," she added to herself 
 as Mrs. Vaughan, now recovered from the torn 
 
 shawl, gave a gracious assent to the proposition 
 she herself had first made. 
 
 It was a pretty village, a very pretty village, 
 with a brawling stream running through the 
 centre of it, and white rose-covered cottages 
 climbing up the hills on either side. An unpre- 
 tentious village too, that made no attempt to 
 elevate itself into the dignity of a town, but that 
 was content to be a simple village still, with a 
 walking post and a shop that contained an oUa 
 podrida of eggs and bacon, calico, tallow-candles, 
 hair-pins', peppermint lozenges in very dusky 
 bottles, and all the other articles that are ordi- 
 narily found in aught but sweet profusion in a 
 country store. 
 
 Mr. Buroh represented the professional ele- 
 ment in Henaley, and on Mrs. Burch the first 
 call was made by the vicar's wife and Miss Leigh. 
 From her they heard the story of " Young Bur- 
 goyne's accident." Mrs. Burch always called 
 him "Young Burgoyne," when neither he nor 
 any of his immediate friends were by, in order 
 to impress her hearers with a notion that she 
 was on terms of careless intimacy at Madding- 
 ton. Under tho influence of the presence of his 
 immediate friends, she fell into the equal error 
 of speaking of Lord Lesborough'a heir as the 
 " Honourable Burgoyne." 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan looked annoy ed in a bright-eyed 
 way when they came out of Mrs. Buroh's house 
 and wended their steps towards one of the white 
 rose-covered cottages. This accident would keep 
 Mr. Burgoyne in the house for some time, %nd 
 the impression that she flattered herself her 
 niece had already made, might wear off before 
 he saw her again. She began to have her doubts 
 also^s to whether she had been wise in her 
 genwation in authorizing Theo to invite another 
 young girl down to Hensley. What if this 
 young girl were prettier than Theo ? She was 
 not wont to brook uncertainty, therefore she 
 asked : 
 
 "Is your friend. Miss Scott, better-looking 
 than you are, my dear? " 
 
 " I don't think she is," Theo answered frankly. 
 It was one of those things about which Theo 
 could not get up confusion and mock-modesty. 
 Very candidly would she have confessed her own 
 inferiority of appearance had the inferiority been 
 patent to her. But it was not patent to her in 
 this case, therefore she replied with such an air 
 of thorough and frank conviction that it carried 
 conviction, and consequently comfort, to the 
 heart of her aunt. 
 
 The whiiP rose-covered cottages that chmbed 
 up the hills which rose in gentle swell on either 
 side of the sparkling, brawling stream known as 
 " Hensley Water," were nearly all of them occu- 
 pied by maiden and widow ladies in a state of 
 decay. Not bodily or mental decay by any 
 means, but commercial decay that rendered 
 them meek and quiet in spirit, and remarkably 
 amenable to the chronic'advances of the vicar's 
 wife. 
 
 A species of lull came over Theo as she fol- 
 lowed her aunt into one of the prettiest of these 
 houses, to which they were admitted by a small 
 domestic of tender years and irreproachable 
 neatness. Deborah was her name, and subdued 
 was Deborah beyond her years, and thoughtful 
 beyond conception-^when in the house. What 
 Deborah was when she had her outings and join- 
 
n 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 ed the youth of both sexes in a brief tour of fes- 
 tivity to some neighboring town, may not be 
 told here. But a rumour of the transformation 
 that came over her at such seasons had reached 
 Mrs. Vaughan, and Mrs. Vaughan had now come 
 fraught with the design of shoclcing the souls of 
 Deborah's too confiding mistresses with a repeti- 
 tion of this rumour. 
 
 These mistresses were the two daughters of a 
 gentleman long deceased, who had written a 
 classical dictionary, and immortalized his name 
 in the annals of learnedom. His two daughters 
 had retained that name, and were not likely to 
 change it now, for one was seventy and the 
 other sixty-five. But whether they had retain- 
 ed it of their own free will, or because of no 
 man having been forthcoming sufSciently daring 
 to propose an alteration in it, this deponent say- 
 eth not. 
 
 Miss Dampier and Miss Margaret Dampier — 
 never in her earliest youth had any one been 
 rash enough to call her Madge or Maggie, or ab- 
 breviate her name in any way — ^were busily em- 
 ployed at their usual morning avocation, namely, 
 discussing the village politics and knitting little 
 socks and parti-coloured shawls to be disposed 
 of at bazaars. The windows were closed and 
 the crevices hermetically sealed, for they be- 
 longed to that unwholesome class who "dread a 
 draught," and apparently, feed and flourish on 
 the foul air in'which they delight. 
 
 " This is my niece. Theo, my dear, pick up 
 Mi^s Dampier's ball of wool," Mrs. Vaughan 
 said, introducing Theo to her friends. 
 
 " Ah, very like you ; very like you, indeed, 
 isn't she, sister ? " Miss Margaret Dampier re- 
 plied, with the palpably assumed air of henig- 
 nant blandness that old ladies frequently Hopt 
 towards contumacious cats and refractory small 
 relatives who are brought to see them. "Deb- 
 orah said, as you came up the hill, that it must 
 be Mrs. Vaughan's niece by the likeness; she 
 had just brought, me my twelve o'clock arrow- 
 root — never forgets it, never— the comfort she 
 is I can't tell you ; and we iiever can be grate- 
 ful enough to Miss Ethel Burgpyne for recom- 
 mending her from the school." 
 
 " If I had been consulted, Deborah wouldn't 
 have been the girl I should have recommended 
 for such a place as yours," Mrs. Vaughan re- 
 plied, bridling up in a moment. Then Theo sank 
 into obscurity while Mrs. Vaughan made known, 
 and the two Miss Dampiers groaned over, Deb- 
 orah's supposed enormities, So passed two weary 
 hours. A 
 
 CttAPTEE XXII. 
 
 mes. gaiton teels that jcsiiob is not rone 
 "hek. 
 
 Kate GrALTOsr was back at Haversham with 
 her husband and her child, attending to all her 
 wifely and maternal duties in her usually exem- 
 plary iaanner. She had made no sign, had ut- 
 tered no word of dissatisfaction when her hus- 
 band had carried her back to the Grange. She 
 never did make a sign or utter a word of dis- 
 satisfaction, when the d ing so would not further 
 her own ends. Mrs. Galton would have been a 
 first-rate political economist, she never wasted 
 her material. 
 
 She made no exception to her ordinary rule 
 in this instance. There had been a surface show of 
 willingness to go home as soon as ever she found 
 that the going home was inevitable. A surface 
 show was always quite enough for John <3alton. 
 It was not in him to suspect that there was 
 aught that was not perfect, pure, and fair be- 
 neath that perfect, pure, and fair exterior, which 
 was so dear to his heart — so golden to his eyes. 
 So he believed his wife, and never deemed that 
 this prompt acquiescence in his wishes about re- 
 turning to Haversham was due to the fact of 
 town emptying itself fast. Confidingly had h; 
 accepted the acquiescence, and conspicuously 
 had he flaunted it before his sister. " I shall be 
 glad of the peace and quiet, and so happy to be 
 alone with you at the dear old Grange again, 
 John," Kate had said to him on the morning of 
 their leaving town ; " and as it's always as well 
 to please people in this world if possible, we 
 won't ask Harold down for the shooting. Sarah 
 does disUke his being there, and I should like to 
 please her in something as she's your sister." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, let him come. Why shouldn't 
 he come ? " John Galton had replied. But 
 though he bad thus replied, he had deemed it a 
 very sweet concession that his wife had offered 
 to make. It never occurred to his honest, 
 manly mind to suppose that the concession to 
 his sister's idle prejudices was made solely be- 
 cause his charming Eate could not help herself 
 in the matter. Harold had refused to go to 
 Haversham for the shooting, therefore Mrs. Gal- 
 ton utilised the occasion, took the honours that 
 were to be had, and declared that she would not 
 have him. Mr. Ffrench was what Kate termed 
 "huffed," that is to say, he was too unhappy at 
 this juncture to endure either to flirt with, or be 
 flirted at by his bright cousin. He had shown 
 himself the reverse of amenable to the little ad- 
 vances she had made towards a better under- 
 standing springing up between herself and him 
 from the ashes of the Theo Leigh complication. 
 He had responded as gruffly as was compatible 
 withj/such a melodious voice as he possessed to 
 her suggestion of an invitation to the Grange. 
 So Kate paused on the brink of the invitation, , 
 and consoled herself with the reflection, that 
 John could be taught to appreciate the sacrifice 
 she had been compelled to make. 
 
 They arrived at Haversham one bright Satur- 
 day afternoon, in October, and even Mrs. Galton 
 — fractions of whose heart were in divers places 
 — was fain to confess that the Grange was not a 
 bad place at that season of the year. Scarlet 
 geraniums and October peaches blushed them a 
 joyous welcome, and the steward came to. John 
 Gallon's oflSce door pnesently with tidings of 
 much game being about. There was a wealth 
 of fruit in the garden too, and the best of qui- 
 nine in the air. Altogether Kate felt that things 
 might have been worse — at the same time she 
 set herself the task of determining how they could 
 be bettered. " I'll redeem the time by being 
 agreeable to Sarah— till some one else comes in 
 my way," she said to herself, while graciously 
 preparing to, accede to John Galton's request 
 that they "should take a stroll through the 
 grounds and village " after dinner on the even- 
 ing of their arrival. 
 
 She found it dull work strolling through the 
 semi-darkness in the soft autumnal evening air 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 13 
 
 with the man she had married because Beelze- 
 bub had won. Now and again she found herself 
 seeking about for something to say to him, and 
 not finding it. Ah 1 there had never been this 
 strain On thought when Harold Ffrenoh was by 
 hor side ! Words had come glibly enough then, 
 and not words alone, but something that words 
 were well employed in clothing. Nor had 
 speech and good cause for the same been lack- 
 ing whenever Linley had been near. 
 
 She never once told herself that this mental 
 oppression was due to some defect in her own 
 nature — some flaw in. her own heart. She 
 walked along by him struggling with the silence 
 she always desired to indulge in when her hus- 
 band was by her side, and declared to herself with 
 emphasis that he was dull. "Why didn't he 
 marry a woman who could care for the things 
 he cares for, and enjoy the eternal talk about 
 them," she asked herself; and her conscience 
 never once told her, that it was because she 
 had willed that he should marry her. 
 
 She had no interest in his pleasures, she had 
 no joy in his interests. His pointers jumped 
 about her boisterously, and she only thpught of 
 how her dress would suffer, and permitted the 
 dogs to feel that they were tronbleaome — a dis- 
 covery which it is grievous for a sensitive dog 
 to make. In fact, the horrible curse was upon 
 .her more strongly than ever, of being bored by 
 that from which there was no escape. 
 
 " It is too late to go into the stables and look 
 at the horses, I suppose, John ? " she asked after 
 a long silence, during which she had been de- 
 claring to herself that they had not an idea in 
 common — more than that, that he had none but 
 the commonest ideas. 
 
 " We'll look at the horses before church to- 
 morrow," he replied ; " you said you would go 
 on and see Sarah, to-night." 
 
 '^' Then if we are going there, I will go in and 
 get Bijou," Kate answered, hurriedly. Stagna^ 
 tion seized her soul at the thought of going 
 down alone with her husband to the dulness of 
 her sister-in-law's house. Bijou would be a 
 mutual friend, on whom their uncongeniality 
 might meet, and expend itself less markedly. 
 
 Miss Gallon had been seething within herself 
 for hours. She had heard from a biped retriever 
 — one who was warranted to fetch and carry 
 more abjectly than any dog — that the squire 
 and his lady had come by the 4.40 train. Infor- 
 mant had been unable to say whether or not 
 any one had accompanied them, having only 
 caught sight of the heads of the aforesaid, as 
 the carriage passed her on its way to the Grange. 
 This doubt as to whether they were alone or 
 not, was the primary cause of Miss Gallon's 
 seething; but as the hours went on a fit of feel- 
 ing neglected set in with aggravated symptoms, 
 and she raged furiously in her soul, for that 
 " John never thought of coming near his sister, 
 no, not he." 
 
 She was in this mood when they came in with 
 their child, John laughing and talking to his 
 small daughter with the unforced vivacity of 
 perfect satisfaction with all things ; Kate mak- 
 ing the air ring with her bell-like voice, because 
 it suited her to make Sarah believe her to be in 
 brightly overflowing spirits, though she had 
 been torn from London and Harold Ffrench. 
 
 "We only waited to have dinner before we 
 
 came to see you, Sarah," John Galton said, ex- 
 tending his hand to his sister, 
 
 " Yes — we were starving. Immediate cause 
 of your dear Norfolk air was to compel us to 
 appear impolite, and stay to eat before we came 
 to see >you, Sarah," Kate added, holding her 
 face down to grim Miss Galton to be kissed. 
 
 "As you waited so long — not that I expected 
 you before — it would have been more prudent 
 to have waited till to-morrow niorniug," Miss 
 Galton replied, gruffly, "Coming out at this 
 hour, at this time of year, with nothing over 
 your shoulders, and a thing on your head that 
 doesn't half cover it, seems to me the height 
 of folly." 
 
 " Oh ! I never take, cold," Kate replied care- 
 lessly, but her blue eyes dilated curiously as she 
 spoke. She was superbly indifferent to Miss 
 Galton's opinion at most fimes, but on this occa- 
 sion she had sought (with no very noble motive) 
 to win a good one from that acrid lady ; there- 
 fore she felt resentment kindling.. 
 
 " But the child may^-poor little dear," Miss 
 Galton said, snappishly. " Come here, Kathe- 
 rine — ah I as I thought, not half wrapped up," 
 she continued as she wound the cloak little 
 Katie wore closely round her till the child re- 
 sembled a mummy. 
 
 " I don't care to treat her like a sick chicken,, 
 thank you," Mrs, Galton said, quietly ; " loosen 
 your cloak, Bijou, you're not cold, you little 
 hypocrite." 
 
 " No, I'm not cold," Katie cried, laughing ; 
 " I don't want the old thing." 
 
 Bijou touched her cloak as she spoke, but 
 she looked at her aunt at the same time, and 
 Miss Galton felt that she was the "old thing" 
 to whom allusion was made. Her brother's 
 child was very dear to her, but now, strengthen- 
 ed by the presence of her disliked sister-in-law, 
 she resolved that justice should take its course. 
 
 " John, you ought to punish that child for her 
 impertinence," she began with severity ; and at 
 this Katie laughed a yOung laugh of derision. 
 The idea of being punished by her papa struck 
 her as being humorous, and she read partisan- 
 ship and the promise of support in her'mothgr's 
 bright speaking face. 
 
 , "My papa won't scold me for saying 'old 
 thing ' — and you mustn't, may she, mamma ? " 
 Katie was a fair, ethereal-looking child, winning^ 
 ^nd pretty to an extraordinary degree, but it is 
 astonishing^ how intensely disagreeable such a 
 child can be to any one on. whom it feels it safe 
 to empty its small vials of contempt. 
 
 " I think, as poor little Katie has offended 
 you, Aunt Sarah, that we had better go home," 
 Kate said, rising gracefully ; "we came to spend 
 the evening — didn't we, John? However, it 
 can't be helped." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense : sit down," John Galton said, 
 rather nervously. He hated feminine sparring 
 matches. They always, he observed, commenced 
 about and ended in nothing, and he liked tangi- 
 bilities. So now he told Kate to sit down, and 
 called Katie to " come and tell him what she had 
 been doing while he had been away." This last 
 was unwise, for by so doing he left the bellige- 
 rents to their own devices. 
 
 " That child is ruined by being left so much 
 to servants," Miss Galton commenced, " You 
 won't send her to school, and you go away and 
 
li 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 leave her, as my poor dear mothernever thought 
 of leaving us — never thought of it." 
 
 " The result of your mother's practice is 
 enough to make me follow it, certainly," Kate 
 said, coolly : the propriety of conciliating Mies 
 Gallon, if possible, now at this dull season when 
 there was nothing else to do, was ceasing to be 
 so vividly before her. 
 
 " At all events the conduct, of my mother's 
 children never brought a blush to any one's 
 cheek," Miss Galton replied fiercely. She was 
 quite ready to take the daggers, ay, and use 
 them too, for she had expected Kate to be con- 
 tumacious about this coming back to the Grange, 
 and Kate, instead of being contumacious, had 
 been surprisingly quiescent. Altogether, Miss 
 Galton felt disappointed in her sister-in-law, and 
 she w as not one who brooked disappointment, 
 or one who could take an unlooked-for turn in 
 events nicely. 
 
 "What uninteresting courses you must all have 
 run then," Kate said, languidly. " Fancy hav- 
 ing been so discreet all your lives as never to 
 have made even ' goodyness ' blush and tremble 
 for you and for itself in your society." 
 
 " It's more than every one can say, — more's 
 the pity." Miss Galton almost snorted as she 
 said this. 
 
 " As you say," Mrs. Galton said, affably, fasti- 
 diously fitting on her glove as she spoke, and 
 buttoning it with precision. ""Tis true — 'tis 
 pity — pity 'tis, 'tis true.' Every one can't say it. 
 I can't, for instance. I never had such a vault- 
 ing ambition as to attempt to pass through this 
 world unblushed for. I have only been careful 
 never to blush for myself. Now Bijou, look 
 sharp, dear ; don't stand gaping, but put your 
 hat on and come home." 
 
 " I thought you said you had come to spend 
 the evening with me, Mrs. John ? " 
 
 " So we did." 
 
 "Do you call this spending the ievening?" 
 
 "No, I don't." 
 
 " Well, why don't you stay a little longer then 
 — ^unless you have left company up at the 
 Grange, when of course " 
 
 Miss Galton, who had drifted into softness for 
 a moment, relapsed into severity again at the 
 bare mention of the company — the creature of 
 her own brain. 
 
 "No, we have no one with us; but you 
 haven't made it too pleasant to-night, Sarah, 
 I must say," John Galton said, deprecatingly. 
 
 " Never mind, dear. Pray don't say anything, 
 John," Kate murmured soothingly. Meekness 
 under unmerited rebuke was a strong card — 
 therefore Kate played it. " We ought not to 
 have come and taken your sister by storm to- 
 night, but I hadn't seen her for so long, that I 
 thought she'd excuse it being late." 
 
 " I never thought But there, you will 
 
 twist and turn my meaning," Miss Galton replied 
 bitterly. " Late ! I never care for John coming 
 late; but I'd better not speak, I'm always 
 wrong." 
 
 When a woman declares that she had better 
 not speak, and that she is always wrong, the 
 wisest thing to do is to flee her presence im- 
 mediately, before she has had time to say a 
 great deal in the endeavour to prove herself 
 right. These self-accusations are signals for de- 
 parture that it is worse than folly to disregard. 
 
 John Galton would have stayed to combat these 
 low opinions which his sister had formed respect- 
 ing herself. But Kate was wise as well as wary, 
 therefore she developed inflexibility of purpose, 
 and went away, taking John and Katie with her, 
 and leaving Miss Galton a prey to unuttered 
 spitefulness. 
 
 John Galton did not speak as they walked 
 along the village street, but when they had pass- 
 ed into their own grounds, and the gate was 
 closed behind them, he began : 
 
 " I wish to heaven, Kate, that Sarah and you 
 could hit it off better ? I don't say that it's yo&r 
 fault, dear." , 
 
 " Still you think that it is, John. Now don't 
 be unjust, but acknowledge that Sarah is too 
 litigious for an angel even to agree with her 
 long. I very rarely do take any notice of what 
 she says, but to-night I was tired, I suppose, and 
 I had gone down meaning to be amiable, and 
 rather hoping that she would see that I meant 
 to be amiable. That being the case, her man- 
 ner was enough to put any one out ; now 
 wasn't it?" 
 
 " Yes, it was." 
 
 " Tou see she's the same whatever I do, John, 
 — whether I try to please, or whether I do not 
 try to please her, I am always wrong in her esti- 
 mation. What hurts me most," Kate continued, 
 with virtuous emotion, " is that sometimes I feel 
 she impregnates you with her unjust views 
 about me : on more than one occasion she has 
 succeeded in sowing seeds of discord in your 
 breast, Johu." 
 
 "Never, Kate, never! Jove, though, Katie 
 ought not to hear such things." He said this 
 in a low tone, but presently he forgot his pre- * 
 cautions, for he burst out heartily with : " Sue 
 ceeded in making me distrust you! — no ; she 
 never has, and she never will! Distrust you, 
 Kate, darling! Do you know that would be 
 death to me ? " 
 
 He did not say it in the tones a young, impas- 
 sioned, chivalrous boy would use to the object 
 of his first love dream. The declaration that 
 death must ensue when distrust sets in is com- 
 mon enough under such circumstances, and is to 
 be taken for exactly what it is worth. John. 
 Galton meant all he said, and Kate, whose hand 
 he had taken and placed securely within his 
 arm, felt that he meant it. 
 
 She tried to get, a peep at his face without his 
 seeing her, and she succeeded, for his eyes were 
 bent steadily on the ground before him. She 
 succeeded : she saw his face and marked that it 
 looked graver than usual, but frank and kind as 
 ever. Then, for all the frankness and kindness 
 — for all the love he had but just expressed for 
 her — ^for all the thousand bonds of sympathy a 
 nine years' union ought to have caused to spring 
 up between them — Kate Galton felt that she was 
 weary of life at the Grange, and of the man who 
 had brought her there to be its mistress. 
 
 " The night air is chilly," she said, with a lit- 
 tle shudder; " I shall go to bed at once, I think, 
 for the journey has tired me — and I shall not 
 speak again till the morning." 
 
 Then when his wife said that, John Galton 
 crushed back the desire that was inhis heart to 
 have some quiet conversation with her, in the 
 course of which he could tell her how he had 
 always loved and trusted her, and how nothing 
 
THBO LEIGH. 
 
 "75 
 
 that mortal could say or do could cauae him to 
 love and trust her one atom less. It would have 
 been pleasant to him to tell her this, not in 
 romantic phrase — he wag not a romantic man, — 
 but in some plain, strong sentences that would 
 have gone straight to her heart. However, she 
 was sleepy, and the journey had tired her, there- 
 fore he never said the words, and Kate rejoiced 
 in his reticence. 
 
 " The dream of being nice to Sarah is over," 
 Kate said to herself when she reached her dress- 
 ing-room ; " but I have made him see how 
 wrong she was to-night, and that's a good work, 
 for it will pave the way to his often finding her 
 very wrong. Oh, dear ! to-morrow and all on 
 for ever so long will be like this evening. Poor 
 old stupid ! he will sit and look as if I ought to 
 speak to him, and I have nothing to say." 
 
 Then she gazed in the glass and took pleasure 
 in her beauty, and congratulated herself on her 
 management of iC, and wished that Beelzebub 
 had run second for the Two Thousand, and that 
 Mr. Linley lived near enough for her to cultivate 
 an intellectual ' friendship with him — ^for "he 
 thoroughly understood and appreciated her," 
 she told herself ; and perhaps she was fight- 
 John Galton sat alone for two hours after his 
 wife had retired tliat night. He sat alone, plunged 
 in thought, not in anxious or unhappy thought 
 by any means, but still in vexed thought for all 
 that. He was not a man to cherish i(fle dreams 
 of universal harmony, but he keenly desired that 
 pejce and good wiH should reign amongst those 
 who were of his own household, and his own 
 kith and kin. It had only come to him lately to 
 see clearly how antagonistic his wife and his sis- 
 ter were to each other. Few years his vision 
 had been indistinct in the matter, he had seen 
 dimly that they " didn't hit it off," as he called 
 it, but it had never occurred to him to seek for a 
 reason why they did not do so. Now, to-night 
 they had forced him to see more than one reason 
 -^his sister had implied that she did not deem 
 his wife too prudent, and his wife had suffered 
 him to see that she had long been aware of this 
 adverse opinion, and that she regarded it as less 
 than nothing, in fact that she despised it. " And 
 well she might— being what she was," he told 
 himself, proudly and honestly. Yet, though his 
 honest pride in. Kate was unshaken, he could not 
 forget that the opinion she scorned, the judg- 
 ment she held in such obvious contempt, had 
 emanated from his sister. 
 
 He sat alone, neither unhappy nor anxious, 
 but just a little sore and vexed that " some peo- 
 ple couldn't be satisfied unless the rest of the 
 world was cut after their own pattern. Sarah 
 woidd like every one to go to heaven in her car- 
 riage," he finally decided. "It comes of' her 
 having lived by herself at Haversham all her 
 life. Kate's too bright for her ; some people 
 would tell me that she is too bright for me too, 
 but I know her so well." 
 
 He meant that he loved her so well — too well 
 for her to be anything but perfectly congenial 
 and admirably adapted to him. Li his case 
 perfect love had cast out fear — and Mrs. Galton 
 knew it. 
 
 A week passed away, during which Mrs. John 
 Galton and her husband's sister abstained from 
 each other entirely, and John Galton shot and 
 rode and broke in a new setter, and was happy. 
 
 There was plenty of game that year, and as he 
 never tired of shooting it, so he deemed it pos- 
 sible that Kate would never tire of seeing it shot ; 
 therefore he would issue cordial invitations to 
 her every morning over the breakfast table to 
 drive into some field which he would mention, 
 and bring him sonft luncheon about one. In 
 former days, when three or more guns would be 
 out, Kate had joined thus far in her husband's 
 sports and pastimes with a charming vivacity, 
 that had made him feel her to be specially de- 
 signed for a country gentleman's wife. But now 
 the case was altered ; it was a weariness and woe 
 to her to go. Still she went daily as he asked 
 her, remembering that other days might dawn. 
 
 On the Friday after their return, they received 
 a note from Mr. Linley. I say "they" received 
 it — but the note was to Kate. "I Jiave taken a 
 shooting-box at Lownds, and I want Galton to 
 bring his dogs and have a few days amongst the 
 turnips with me. Do you think you could make 
 up your mind to come with him, and put up with 
 the rough accommodation of a bachelor's estab- 
 lishment ? If you wiU do so, I shall be eternally 
 grateful to you ; as you will, with your customary 
 amiability, take the ofiice of tea-maker upon 
 yourself, I feel sure." 
 
 "He has evidently only asked me because he 
 thinks you wouldn't go without me, John," Mrs. 
 Galton said, handing the letter to her husband, 
 and arranging a pout for his edification when he 
 should look up after perusing it. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know ; I daresay he will be bet- 
 ter pleasedt o see you than me. Your style of 
 talk suits him better, you see, Kate," John Galton 
 replied, honestly. 
 
 "I don't believe that — but I'll go, dear. I 
 know you can't bear being without me," Kate 
 said, virtuously. Then she sighed, and added, 
 "but it is hard to leave the Grange so soon 
 again." 
 
 ♦ 
 
 CH^TBK XXni. 
 
 WATERING ! 
 
 Feank Buegotnb had done himself no ill-ser- 
 vice by that piece of reprehensible carelessness of 
 his winch had terminated so badly for the Baron. 
 That is to say he had done himself no ill-servioe 
 with those powerful partisans, the women. His 
 aunts, for instance, idolized him and his injured 
 limb with a wealth of idolatry no amount of per- 
 fect health would ever have been able to call 
 forth. They made him and his patient endur- 
 ance of sufferings, that they slightly over-esti- 
 mated, the theme of a hymn of praise, in which 
 Theo Leigh eventually joined. For — ^be tolerant, 
 reader — Theo was young and impressionable, 
 and it is not in the nature of women to hear 
 eternally that a man is a hero without going into 
 a state of worship for him. She had given her 
 heart, she had been ready to give herself, without 
 doubt or fear, to Harold Ffrench — she had suf- 
 fered a horrible agony of baffled love and hope 
 on his account ; she had defied censure for his 
 sake, and set up her belief respecting him in op- 
 poation to her father's. But now — now, though 
 the time was young since all this had been — this 
 young blue-eyed man, who to his cost resembled 
 the bad Burgoyne, had a large share of her 
 thoughts ; to say nothing of the power he poa- 
 
16 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 sessed of making the old smile that Harold had 
 banished irradiate the face of Theo Leigh. 
 
 She was not false, she was not fickle, she was 
 not weak m aifectiou even, or -, votary of that 
 luxurious creed which holds it lawful to make 
 love to the lips that are near when the lips that 
 are loved are not by. But She listened too long 
 to the before-mentioned hymn of praise respecting 
 Frank for absolute indifference to continue its 
 reign in her heart about every other man than 
 Harold Ffrench. 
 
 A good deal of the bloom of her beauty had 
 been brushed off; her glow was gone, and her 
 eyes were brighter and less soft than of yore. 
 The bound was gone from her step, too, and the 
 highest notes of her voice were rarely, indeed 
 never called into requisition now. Every one 
 knows the (difference these changes make in a 
 girl, surely. We have all marked it in ourselves, 
 or others, and felt sorrowfully that the first great 
 experience has been learnt, that the brook and 
 river have met, and that another fellow-creature 
 is freed from the most glorious of all illusions — 
 the belief in the enduring nature of love's young 
 dream. 
 
 But though the best of her beauty— its bright- 
 ness, bloom, and freshness — was gone, enough 
 remained for her to seem a very fair thing in any 
 man's eyes. A tenderness had come in the place 
 of the lost buoyancy, that was soothing ; and as 
 Frank Burgoyne had not known her in her buoy- 
 ant days, he was well pleased with that which 
 had come, and incapable of lamenting its inferi- 
 ority to that which had vanished. 
 
 She got to think more about him than she 
 otherwise would have done, and to like him better 
 out of the very generosity of her nature and the 
 depth of her love for Harold Ffrench. She heard 
 this young man, in whose society she was thrown 
 through no design on her part, spoken of as one 
 whom Harold might 'be made to injure in a 
 measure. They were rivals in the race for a pre- 
 judiced old man's favour, and right she could but 
 feel was with the man who was before her, suf- 
 fering, — the man who never pushed that right or 
 sought to disparage that rival, or took the shadow 
 of an advantage : all he seemed to desire, all he 
 sought to win, was a. higher opinion of his char- 
 acter from his grandfather, not the suffrages of 
 Lord Lesborough. She felt him to be very noble 
 and very disinterested, and this question began 
 to torture her, " Would there not be foul mean- 
 ness and cowardly falseness in Harold taking 
 from this gallant young gentleman what would 
 never be given to Harold did Lord Lesborough 
 know of li'T' that which to her cost she knew? " 
 She could not breathe the story that had been 
 reft from Harold in an agony that she felt, though 
 she had not seen it I She could not breathe it : 
 but if he knew of Lord Lesborongh's intentions 
 and still suffered that story to remain untold ! the 
 only thing that remained to her now — her faith in 
 his honour — would be gone. 
 
 Through all these changes of feeling she could 
 not refrain from identifying herself with Harold, 
 though she knew him worse than dead to her. 
 Whenever she identified herself with Harold she 
 was doubly kind and attentive, and softly, gently 
 devoted to the man whom Harold might pos- 
 sibly injure; and he marked her manner and 
 responded to it, and made her read poetry to 
 him, and painted little word-pictures of vanished 
 
 dreams that he had had, of longings and aspirar 
 tions after " a career," which had assailed him 
 at divers periods. So a friendship sprang up 
 between these two, a friendship that would have 
 been love but for the memory of the man who 
 had brought his maturity to bear upon her mind, 
 down under the sun on that marsh-bank that had 
 witnessed her transformation. 
 
 What were the poems we read in '51 ? I ask, 
 because to them was due the temporary lapse 
 from that perfect fidelity which poor mistaken 
 Theo believed that it behoved her to keep un- 
 impaired. She read mellifluous verses to him — 
 to Frank with the blue eyes and the bandaged 
 arm — and he looked as if he felt all the rhymes 
 expressed, and altogether it was very danger- 
 ous. 
 
 Dangerous, but uncommonly agreeable, for 
 they were eminently sympathetic, these young 
 people ; they both had an ear for unforced easy 
 rhyme, and ait aversion, tea false quantity. 
 They both liked suggestive poetry, too, and as 
 Alfred Austin and Owen Meredith had not il- 
 lumined literature in those days, they were com- 
 pelled to fall back on those fountain-heads of 
 suggestive sweetness, Byron and Moore. 
 
 So she read with a deeper pathos in her tone 
 than she quite intended, because she. was think- 
 ing a good deal of the one who had vitalized 
 Byron to her ; and he, the interesting sufferer, 
 listened with a deeper pathos even than hers in 
 his looks, because it was the habit of his eyes to 
 look pathetic things on very small provocati^oi 
 Then before the reading or the listening had 
 palled upon either, Theo put her aunt's offer 
 into execution and sent a cordial invitation ito 
 join her to her JJretford ally, pretty Sydney 
 Scott. 
 
 "I shall not be able to come up to-morrow 
 morning," Theo said to Ethel Burgoyne one 
 day, after sitting for an hour or two with the 
 young aunt and nephew, who were so singular- 
 ly alike at times, so oddly dissimilar at others. 
 " I shall not be able to come up to-morrow 
 morning : a friend of mine is coming to the vic- 
 arage." 
 
 " Bring him up with you," Frank suggested 
 languidly. He was out in the garden for thjS 
 first time since his accident, and the two girls, 
 Ethel and Theo, were following him about in a 
 state of admiring awe, for that he was able to 
 walk and stand the full light of day. 
 
 " My friend is a Miss Sydney Scott," Theo 
 replied quickly, but without anything that could 
 be construed into a blush ; " she's such a pretty 
 girl, too." 
 
 " All the more reason for bringing her up. 
 Miss Leigh. I'll do no end of politeness in the 
 calling line as soon as ever I can ride over ; but 
 just at present you must- be lenient and teaon 
 your friend to be lenient, too. She must call on 
 me, as you have done — will she ? " 
 
 "I have no doubt she will," Theo said. 
 
 " That's-right, that's well; not one call only, 
 but many, for you must not- let her keep you 
 away : I couldn't do without you, Theo." Then 
 he passed round close to her side, and whispered 
 as Ethel paused to gather a flower. " You do 
 me more good than you can imagine. If I had 
 but known you two or three years ago I should 
 have been a different fellow." 
 
 There is something extraordinarily touching 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 11 
 
 in this statement always. A woman may not 
 care to see a man different in anywise ; he may 
 appear in her eyes Incapable of improvement ; 
 yet his assertion that had he known her before 
 he would have been a different man, is a tribute 
 to her power that she can but feel. It sets her 
 wondering what her influence might have been, 
 and what would have called it forth, and in 
 what way he would have altered under it. It 
 makes her think about him in connection With 
 herself, throws open a wide field of coiijeeture, 
 and gives her the idea of there being that 
 something sympathetic between herself and him 
 — that something which is so sweet while it 
 lasts, so sad when }t is over, even though love 
 does not spring up through its agency. 
 
 So when Frank Burgoyne told Theo Leigh in 
 a low tone of voice (that low tone of voice does 
 a power of mischief in itself) that he " would 
 have been a different fellow had he known her 
 two or three years ago." it set her thinking of 
 him with a degree of gentle turbulence that, if 
 well managed, will assuredly develop into some- 
 thing more exquisite still. 
 
 The average young lady of this world and age 
 says, when such a spee'ch is made to her, " Oh ! 
 now what nonsense," or " How can you say so 
 when you know you don't mean it?'— ridicu- 
 lous ! " But Theo was just a little different to 
 the majority ; neither better noi" worse perhaps 
 in reality, but a little different decidedly.- She 
 neither blushed nor called that statement of his 
 " ridiculous," but she began wondering curiously 
 whether indeed she might have influenced this 
 man for his good whom Harold, her love, might 
 injure. But of that wonder came a thought 
 which clothed itself in these words : 
 
 " I would have taught you to be careful; I 
 would have taught you to remember about the 
 Baron!" 
 
 " You would have taught me something else," 
 he said. 
 
 " Ah ! but that first, because it means pleas- 
 ing your grandfather ; and you ought to please 
 him, you ought to be careful." 
 
 "For who's sake, Theo? — I am alone in the 
 world, — that is to say, I have only a mother. 
 No one will be much injured or much benefited 
 whether I stand or fall with Lord Lesborough. 
 Who would care ? Would you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I would^ would ! " She flamed her 
 answer out upon him, in a way that made him 
 think the little girl was further gone than he had 
 intended her to be in the time. "She's got 
 over that fellow quickly, and no mistake," he 
 thought, for he adjudged that this firompt inter- 
 est which she betrayed was a heart-felt one for 
 him. 
 
 " So ! you would care to see me keep straight 
 with my mighty relative ? " 
 
 "Yes'; how like a German that ' so' was." 
 
 "What do you know of Germans ? " 
 
 " Just nothing." 
 
 "Then how did you know that there was 
 aught Germanic in my way of expressing gentle 
 surprise and acquiescence ? " 
 
 " Well ! Tve heard some one I know very 
 well say 'so' in that way so often, — oh! so 
 often ;— and he told me that without being an 
 imitative animal he had picked up that most 
 non-committal of expressions ' during' his resi- 
 dence in Germany." 
 
 "And who is your friend?" lie asked ; " who 
 is the happy man whose rather weak reasons for 
 a rather weak result are worth remembering ? " 
 
 Theo felt older than Frank Burgoyne on the 
 spot. None but a very young man ever indulges 
 himself in these verbal impertinencies. 
 
 "I never questioned either reason or result, 
 therefore they never seemed weak to me," she 
 replied. " You have given them importance, so 
 you ought to be the last to find fault with their 
 having it." 
 
 "You haven't told me who your friend was." 
 
 " He was Mr. Harold Ffrench," She answered. 
 Then, at the sound of her own voice mentioning 
 his name, all her love for him, all her fears for' 
 him, all her longings that he might come out 
 scatheless after all, welled up, and she went on, 
 " Oh! I wish, I had known you sooner, Frank 
 Burgoyne, or that I had never known you at 
 all." 
 
 What wonder that Frank Burgoyne dressed 
 his mental plumes more carefully from this mo- 
 ment, and deemed that Theo was in love with 
 him. 
 
 Ethel had gathered her flower and adjusted it 
 in her belt by this time. "Pretty, isn't it?" 
 that young lady asked abruptly, coming up, and 
 taking Frank by the sound arm, and pointing to 
 the result of her horticultural labours. " Scarlet 
 geranium goes well with anything ; this blue 
 dress might have been made for it, and so might 
 every other I remember that I have worn wi^ 
 it." 
 
 " I should think it would look pretty in your 
 dark hair at night. Miss Leigh," Frank sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " It does look well in my hair at night," Theo 
 answered, rather absently. 
 
 " The next time you come here to dine I'll 
 have a bouquet of it ready for you, shall I ? " 
 
 " If you will." 
 
 " No, but if you will I shall do so.'' 
 
 "I shall be much obliged j I always like 
 flowers." 
 
 " I won't prepare them carefully only to have 
 them accepted in such an indifferent spirit ; if 
 you won't accept my simple flowers I shall be 
 indeed unblessed ; but even that would be bet- 
 ter for me than the seeing them taken and worn 
 negligently." 
 
 " They shall be worn with such care and con- 
 sideration that they shall last the whole night, 
 Mr. Burgoyne ; what more can I say ? " 
 
 " And what more can I or any other man ex- 
 pect ? ' Last the whole night ! ' why it's a co- 
 lossal triumph to hear that an offering, a sacri- 
 fice, shall have a lady's attention for a whole 
 evening. So you'll really wear them till they 
 wither." 
 
 " They look equally well in fair hair, Frank, 
 let me tell you," Ethel struck in. " I'm rather 
 fond of adorning my yellow locks with crimson 
 and scarlet ; I know some people think they are 
 too pronounced for a blonde to wear, but then 
 some people are wrong." 
 
 "It's very little consequence what blondes 
 wear, in my opinion," Frank said languidly ; 
 " you're an exception, Ethel, but as a rule' I can't 
 say I admire fair women sufficiently to regard 
 with attention anything in which they may 
 please to array themselves. I like depth and 
 intensity," he continued, turning to Theo, " and 
 
78 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 that you don't get, you know, in ninety-nine fair 
 faces in a hundred. I lilte intensity, colour, and 
 warmth, such as you have," he added in a 
 ■whisper. 
 
 " Aunt Libby will be developing colour, and 
 warmth, and intensity of anger if I don't go 
 home soon," Theo replied, laughing. She would 
 not treat his speech with tender silence, but it 
 made her thrill. She was very loyal to the lost 
 love ; she was almost resentful against herself 
 for being an atom touched by this man's appro- 
 bation and manner of showing it. Yet she was 
 conscious the while that she was touched, and 
 that there was nothing very reprehensible in re- 
 ality in her being so. One always feels a little 
 nervous when drifting, drifting away ! 
 
 " Don't make her angry enough to put any 
 obstacle in the way of your resolve to bring your 
 friend, and come again to-morrow," he said 
 aloud. 
 
 Then Theo replied " certainly not," and gave 
 him her hand in farewell with eyes averted from 
 his gaze. It was the first time those honest 
 grey eyes of hers had ever fallen before him, 
 and there was something of triumph to him in 
 the thought that they had done so at last. 
 
 She drove herself home in her aunt's little 
 pony-carriage, and then, after reporting herself 
 " returned," and " Mr. Burgoyne much better," 
 she asked for and gained permission io go on to 
 the station and meet Sydney. 
 
 " You may go if you like, my dear," Mrs. 
 Vaughan told her, for Mrs. Vaughan thought 
 that things looked well for the Burgoyne al- 
 liance, and was therefore tolerant to all the 
 " whims," as in her heart of hearts she called 
 them, of the one who might compass it. Then 
 she weighted her consent with a veiled repri- 
 mand. 
 
 " Not that I should have supposed it possible 
 that you couldn't wait till to-morrow morning 
 to make those confidences to your friend which 
 I am not to hear ; however, go, by all means, 
 and meet her at the station." 
 
 " Thank you, aunt ; with the pony, I sup- 
 pose ? I have no ' confidences ' to make, I as- 
 sure you, but I should think it kinder, were our 
 positions reversed, for Sydney to meet me than 
 if she sent a servant; so I'll go." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I'm neither jealous nor sus- 
 picious, I assure you," Aunt Libby rejoined 
 quickly ; "and I know that young people like to 
 talk their idle folly unhampered by the pres- 
 ence of their elders. Well, if you're going it is 
 time to go, for the train must be nearly due." 
 
 So Theo, who did not care to combat the in- 
 sinuation, went to meet and make welcome her 
 friend. 
 
 She saw Sydney's face at the window as the 
 train stopped — saw Sydney before Sydney caught 
 sight of her, and marked that the usually beam- 
 ing blonde looked less bright than of yore. 
 But a minute after she caught sight of Theo, 
 and sprang out on the platform, exclaiming — 
 " How jolly of you to have come yourself, 
 Tlieo ! well, dear, I'm so glad to be with you ; 
 but what a hole of a place it seems." 
 
 " Just the station ; the village is pretty, and. 
 there are some nice — ^well, I can't tell you now, 
 but I don't think you will be dull," Theo replied, 
 thinking as she spoke of the antidotes to dulness 
 that were to be found at Maddington. " I have 
 
 brought the pony-car up for you : I suppose it 
 will hold all your luggage ? " 
 
 'They had turned the corner of the station 
 house by this time, and come in view of the pony 
 oar, which Sydney surveyed with a critical eye. 
 " What a little beast of a trap for that hand- 
 some little pony to be put in, Theo ; what a mis- 
 take to spoil his look in that way, for he's as 
 handsome as a harness-pony need be. Hold my 
 luggage, my dear! I respect my dresses, and 
 always travel with them laid out straight in a 
 box that will take the length of their skirts ; box 
 won't go into that car, I know." 
 
 " You must please to send it up, then," Theo 
 said, turning to the station-master. 
 
 " Any time this evening do, miss? " the man 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh ! yes ; I suppose so, at least ? " Theo 
 rejoined, looking interrogatively at Miss Sydney, 
 who forthwith drew a small watch from her 
 belt, and inquired — 
 
 " What time do you dine ? " 
 " Directly we get home ; you won't be expect- 
 ed to dress." 
 
 "But I expect myself to dress, thank you; 
 the porters must bring my big box up at once. 
 You had visitors the first night you came, and 
 who knows that I may not have visitors too? 
 I'm not vain a bit : I know that I can't stand 
 inspection after a long journey till I have got 
 myself up afresh." 
 
 Then she stepped into the car, and asked Theo 
 " might she drive ? " and on Theo willingly ac 
 ceding, she plied the whip so freely on the hand- 
 some lazy pony that Theo trembled lest the 
 sound of that flagellation should by any chance 
 reach the ears of her aunt. 
 
 " What is going on at Bretford ? How did 
 you know that I had visitors on the night of my 
 arrival ? " Theo asked, when they were fairly on 
 their road, and had told each other three times 
 that "they were very glad to meet again." 
 
 " Oh, the usual amount of envy, hatred, and all 
 uncharitableness. I don't care for it, though ; 
 I know that I am tremendously unpopular with 
 the ladies." 
 
 " But I don't think that you are unpopular," 
 Theo urged ; " I never heard any one speak 
 anything but well of you there yet, do believe me, 
 Sydney. It must be horrid to fancy oneself dis- 
 liked in the way you do." 
 
 " Oh ! it is horrid of course," Sydney rejoined, 
 with a bright smile ; " but I know that I am un- 
 popular. However ' I care for nobody, no not I, 
 and nobody cares for me,' as the old song says : 
 besides, as Hargrave says, after all it's easy to 
 know why I am unpopular. I'm not vain, but I 
 can't help knowing the reason. No, it wasn't 
 Hargrave said that, -it was Mr. Linley." 
 
 " Mr. Linley ! what ! have you seen him 
 again ? " 
 
 " I should think so I — rather ! He has taken 
 a shooting-box down near here, at Lownds, and 
 he has asked my permission to call on me at your 
 aunt's, which I needn't say that I have given gra- 
 ciously^ They always taught me to be provident 
 when I was a child, so I take care now to pro- 
 vide against dulness whenever I can. I hope I 
 shall have time to dress before dinner." 
 
 Miss Scott had ample time to dress before din- 
 ner, for the porters had been rather irain-essed 
 by a certain something that savoured of liber- 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 19 
 
 ality, not to say lavishness, in her manner, and 
 her long box followed her quickly. The toilette 
 was made, and successfully made too. Still dis- 
 appointment enthroned itself upon her brow as 
 the evening wore on, for nobody came. She 
 could but feel that her efforts to appear fresh af- 
 ter a long journey were wasted, since none but 
 the Vaughans and Theo wfere by to see them. 
 
 The following day brought a note from Miss 
 Burgoyne inviting them up to luncheon at Mad- 
 dington. They went, both in higher spirits than 
 usual, for the communion with a bright un- 
 clouded girl of her own age had been good 
 for Theo. They set each other off, and became 
 each other so well that Frank Burgoyne ex- 
 perienced difficulty in deciding to which he 
 would award the palm of beauty. " Theo has 
 more in her, and is therefore the more at- 
 tractive girl," he said to himself; " the other's 
 pretty, but only pretty, nothing more." 
 
 Judging thus, he still devoted himself chiefly 
 to Theo, a course of proceeding which laid him 
 open to Sydney's righteous indignation. She 
 was not accustomed to be put in the back- 
 ground, and the feeling that she was oeeupying 
 that unpleasant position now caused her spirits 
 to collapse after a time, and made her adopt an 
 air of complete indifference to the young man 
 who had suffered her to lapse into it — an air of 
 such complete indifference that it might have 
 deceived a man who had had no experience of 
 her sex into imagining it real, but that was as 
 a veil of the thinnest gauze over her sentiments 
 to Frank Burgoyne. He saw that she was think- 
 ing about him, and began to question whether, 
 after all, there was so much more in Theo Leigh, 
 
 CHAPTER XKIV. 
 
 MISS SCOW PEOMOTBD, VICE THEO LEIGH, 
 BESIGNED ! 
 
 " Give my compliments to Mrs. Vaughan, and 
 tell her that I shall be over to see her to-mor- 
 row," Mr. Burgoyne said, when the two girls 
 were leaving. At this statement of his inten- 
 tions Sydney elaborated her former indifference, 
 and got up an expression of utter weariness, and 
 Theo blushed scarlet, for he was shaking hands 
 with her as he spoke, and he bestowed more 
 than a warm clasp upon what she still held 
 sacred to Harold Ffrench. 
 
 " With Miss Ethel? " Theo asked. 
 
 " No," Ethel replied for him, " he has thrown 
 me over for a younger and lovelier — ^he won't 
 take me." 
 
 " But you oughtn't to ride, Mr. Burgoyne ; in- 
 deed yon ought not to ride yet, and you can't 
 drive yourself? " Theo questioned eagerly. 
 
 "And you do give me credit for having sufE- 
 cient good taste to eschew being boxed up in a 
 carriage, or being driven about by a trustworthy 
 groom like a helpless incurable. Well, you're 
 right, Theo — ^Miss Theo, I mean. I have a 
 friend in the neighbourhood, and he'll tool me 
 over to Hensley, if we shall not bore you." 
 
 " Tou won't do that," Theo answered candid- 
 ly, and Sydney shrugged her pretty plump 
 shoulders, and said : 
 
 " All things are relative, you know, Mr. Bur- 
 goyne ; most likely you'll lie the great diversion 
 
 of the day at Hensley; you may safely come 
 without fear of falling flat after other brilliant 
 excitements." 
 
 " You're very kind," be said languidly, "but 
 the fact is I'm hardly up to chaff to-day ;' I have 
 been away from the regions of it for a long 
 time ; " then, while Sydney blushed hotly with 
 the consciousness of having blundered in this 
 her first onslaught upon him, he turned to Theo, 
 and murmured : 
 
 . " And I am not so capable of appreciating 
 chaff you see, Miss Theo, as the young heroes 
 whose wits are sharpened by incessant inter- 
 course with garrison-town belles are ; your 
 friend is overpowering, teach her to be merci- 
 ful." 
 
 So far he had spoken in a light, almost scof- 
 fing, way, but now he altered his manner sud- 
 denly, and whispered : 
 
 " Teach her to be as sweet as you are your- 
 self, if that be possible." 
 
 Theo could but think of him as she drove 
 back to the Vaughans. Sydney ensconced her- 
 self in the corner of the oar in silence, and did 
 not even ask for the reins this time, for she was 
 seriously put out, she scarcely knew why. Miss 
 Scott maintained an absolute silence too, there- 
 fore Theo had full opportunity to think of him, 
 and think of him she did. 
 
 He had called her " sweet," and he liked her, 
 and trusted her, and believed her to be what a 
 woman should be! She felt that he did all 
 this ; she felt sure of it, for his eyes told her so, 
 and his words and manner corroborated and 
 bore witness to the truth of what his eyes said. 
 While she ! — knew that of bis rival, Harold 
 Ffrench, which, if known to Lord Lesborough, 
 would cause Lord 'Lesborough to cease from 
 thinking Harold Ffrench " immaculate," as Ethel 
 phrased it. She knew that Harold Ffrench had 
 been what the prejudiced old peer would con- 
 sider a " defaulter in honour," at the same time 
 she knew that the man who would be injured by 
 the retention of that knowledge, believed her to 
 be frank, and sweet, and true. 
 
 " Oh, if Harold would only tell all, and lose 
 all, and brave the blame ! " she thought, and 
 her heart went low, and her brow blanched as 
 the fear began to dominate that she had given 
 the first fruits of her heart to a coward. 
 
 Better that it should be proved that his 
 deserts were small ; better that he should be 
 adjudged and denounced as unworthy, than that 
 he should go on evading judgment and denun- 
 ciation by keeping silence. While she had 
 thought that it was to gain her love alone that 
 Har^ had held his tongue, she had never 
 blamed him once. But now she felt that per- 
 haps there might have been another motive for 
 that secrecy which she had held to be only 
 weak, not wicked ! A sordid motive—a motive 
 that it nearly broke her heart to think could 
 actuate the man she loved. Ah! she was all 
 a woman in giving birth to this fear. Every 
 crime under heaven will be of small account in 
 a woman's eyes if the man she loves stops short 
 on the commission of them, — of cowardice and 
 meanness. 
 
 Tou see hers had not been a purely feminine 
 tra,ining. She had been an only daughter, an 
 only child, and so the principles of honour that 
 her father would otherwise more assiduously 
 
80 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 have grafted upon sons, had he had them, were 
 made portions of Theo's education. She had 
 been tier father's companion and confidante all 
 her life, and she had early had a proud appre- 
 ciation of his renown for coura,ge and honour. 
 To be fearless and to be truthful were such vital 
 points with him, that Theo never deemed it 
 possible that a "gentleman" could shrink from 
 or evade anything. That Harold Ffrench had 
 maintained reserve, had shrunk from' making 
 the great event of his life public, for the sake of 
 some commercial benefit which might accrue to 
 him were privacy kept, was a bitter thought to 
 a girl who had been taught to brave everything 
 that came in her way without blenching. She 
 would have been horribly shamed to show fear 
 for herself for any less cause than love ! Think 
 what she was when she felt that the man she 
 loved bad shown itl She would not give the 
 thought words even to herself, but as she drove 
 home from Haddington that day she was miser- 
 ably conscious of feeling that had it not been 
 for those past passages of hers with Harold she 
 could have loved (as a sister of course, nothing 
 more!) the brilliant, brave carelessness of 
 Frank Burgoyne. 
 
 Will she be deemed very weak, very greedy 
 of that sweet something which she might not 
 reciprocate when I say that Theo felt a throb of 
 something like pleasure when she remembered 
 that Frank Burgoyne had drawn no unfavour- 
 able parallel between herself and Sydney Scott. 
 She wanted no more than a sister's quiet love 
 from him, but to have seen that gentle moonlit 
 affection out-blazoned at the first by the sun of 
 passion or admiration for her fair-faced friend 
 would have been painful, very painful. It is 
 easy enough to resign gracefully after a time, 
 but not at first, not abruptly, not till one gets 
 used to the idea of being compelled to do so. 
 
 Sydney Scott said very little about her new 
 acquaintances that day, to Theo's relief. 
 
 " They're very nice, not a bit snobbish," she 
 remarked when Mrs. Vaughan asked her if she 
 had not " found the Honourable Misses Bur- 
 goyne truly agreeable, and Mr. Burgoyne very 
 different to the majority of the young men one 
 met." 
 
 " They're very nice, not a bit snobbish. Dif- 
 ferent ? no, I don't think him exceptional at all ; 
 all young men who get petted up as his aunts 
 pet him want takmg down ; but I didn't remark 
 him much." 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan would have liked to have told 
 Sydney that she was not called upon to remark 
 Mr. Burgoyne much, or at all even. She would 
 have much liked to have told her niece's jlung 
 friend thus, much with the point and emphasis, 
 not to say spite, with which she deemed it well 
 elderly lacUes should address young ones. But 
 Sydney Scott had the air of one who might, not 
 be attacked with impunity, even for her own 
 ultimate good; therefore Mrs. Vaughan bore 
 this light mention of one of her articles of faith 
 in silence. 
 
 " Let us be out in the garden, if possible, 
 when those men come from Haddington," 
 Sydney said to Theo the following morning; 
 " a state call from them in your aunt's drawipg- 
 room and presence would be too much for me." 
 
 " "We'll be out in the garden when they come, 
 if you like, but don't flatter yourself that we 
 
 shall be suffered to remain there while they're 
 here ; don't you wish to see Mr. Burgc yne ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, if he comes in my way, but not 
 under Mrs. Vaughan's auspices, if I can avoid 
 it. I shouldn't feel myself. I should feel at a 
 disadvantage, for I'm certain she will never think 
 anything I do or say nice." 
 
 " She has a way of appearing terribly particu- 
 lar, but it's half appearance ; she is very kind in 
 reality." 
 
 " I could see that she thought me too fast," 
 Sydney began animatedly; "now didn't she, 
 Theo? say, didn't she?" 
 
 " N"o, I don't think she did ; she isn't up in 
 the term, and so she is not on the look-out for 
 the quality." 
 
 Sydney's animation flagged. She had been 
 more than ordinarily debonair and out-spoken 
 last night, and Mrs. Vaughan had failed to ob- 
 serve it ! 
 
 " Theo, don't you wish you were so dowdy, 
 and quiet, and uninteresting that no one would 
 notice you f " she asked presently. 
 
 " Indeed I don't," Theo replied heartily, '' and 
 you wouldn't find half the pleasure in lamenting 
 being so, that you do in bewailing being quite 
 the reverse." 
 
 Which assertion Sydney gravely negatived and 
 questioned, till Theo grew weary of it, and bit- 
 terly regretted having made it, for nothing that 
 in any way concerned herself was lacking in 
 interest, or immaterial to Miss Sydney Scott. 
 
 " I won't drag you out, you'll like to be in to 
 see them," Sydney said to Theo, when the hour 
 that Frank had mentioned as the one of his 
 intended call drew near. "I can go out and 
 amuse myself, don't you come." 
 
 Sydney had her hat on when she spoke, and 
 a wonderful pair of well-fitting gauntlets, to say 
 nothing of a broad leather belt across one shoul- 
 der from which hung suspended a pouch. 
 
 " You look as if you had been getting yourself 
 up for a 'specimen collection stroll,' Sydney. 
 Where are you going ? Wait, and I'U come too." 
 
 "No, don't; no, please don't, for why should 
 you ? This means nothing : one always wears 
 certain things in the country whether one wants 
 them or not ; I shall just rove about till your 
 aAlnt's grand guests have been and gone ; don't , 
 you come, you'll be wanted." 
 
 She walked off, hastily waving her hand to 
 Theo, and evidently meaning the latter to take 
 her at her word, and suffer her to go out alone. 
 
 "I shouldn't like' to miss Mr. Burgoyne, after 
 all," Theo thought. Then she went back into 
 the drawing-toom, and sitting down at the win- 
 dow, she suffered her thoughts to play round 
 that " all," after which she felt that she would . 
 be sorry to miss Mr. Burgoyne. 
 
 Sitting there she perceived that Sydney, after 
 all her elaborate preparations towards avoiding 
 the expected guests, was taking the only path 
 by which it was possible they could reach the 
 vicarage. " Stupid of her ! " Miss Leigh thought; 
 " however, she can just bow, and pass on when 
 she meets them. I wonder who'll be with him." 
 
 She felt a bright colour rush over her face as 
 she caught herself thinking of " him " thus, and 
 remembered how he had pressed her hand unre- 
 proved,.and found occasion to tell her that she 
 would have had the power to make him a differ- 
 ent fellow had he met her before. Then, while 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 ■81 
 
 the colour was at its brightest, her aunt came 
 into the room radiant, and told Theo that her 
 complexion was vastly improved, and that she 
 heard a horse's trot coming along the Haddington 
 Eoad. Which combined information rendered 
 the colour permanent, and caused her explana- 
 tion of Sydney's absence to be rather rambling 
 and vague. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan had entered the room radiant, 
 for she liked the idea well of the young heir of 
 Haddington paying his devoirs at Hensley at 
 this early gtage of his recovery. But minutes 
 passed, and she grew less radiant, and after a 
 time she grew very impatient. 
 
 " Just half an hour since I heard a horse 
 coming along that straight bit of road from the 
 Haddington turn; they might have been here 
 over and over again," she exclaimed angrily, 
 looking at Theo as if Theo were answerable for 
 the delay. 
 
 " Perhaps it was not them after all." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense, child! who elsCi can you 
 please to tell me, would be coming along that 
 straight bit of road from the Maddington turn, 
 eh ? " 
 
 " I don't know, aunt." 
 
 " Then don't talk about things you don't 
 understand," Mrs. Vaughan returned loftily. " I 
 wish you would break yourself of that habit you 
 have of setting up your judgment in opposition 
 to everybody else's, Theo." 
 
 Theo having nothing to reply to this the pair 
 relapsed into silence again for yet another dismal 
 ten minutes. At the expiration of these minutes 
 Mrs. Vaughan solemnly announced her belief 
 that the horse whose trot she had heard at the 
 Haddington turn had fallen down and done fresh 
 damage to Hr. Burgoyne. 
 
 " At all events we will put something on our 
 heads and run down to the gate, and look along 
 the road, Theo," she said, excitedly. 
 
 " Very well, I'E get my hat, not that we shall 
 do any good by going." 
 
 " Pray permit me to be the judge of that ; no, 
 don't stay to get your hat, this will keep the:cold 
 from your head," and as she spoke, before Theo 
 could interpose an objection, Hrs. Vaughan had 
 enveloped her niece's head in a small shawl of 
 ill-conditioned texture and unbecoming hue. 
 
 " Keep it nice and dose under your chin, — 
 stay, I'll put a pin in for you,'! the energetic old 
 lady continued. So Theo, after the feeblest re- 
 monstrance, submitted to an arrangement that 
 was not comfortable enough to reconcile her to 
 its unbecomingness. Theo felt that she looked 
 very plain in- that wretched little brown shawl, 
 and that her abnegation of the pomps and vani- 
 ties of this wicked world was complete indeed as 
 she walked soberly along the drive by the side of 
 her aunt. ' 
 
 The gate was closed, but they opened it, and 
 passed through, Mrs. Vaughan still apparently 
 hopeful of coming across some pieces at least of 
 the Honourable Mr. Burgoyne. ' About ten yards 
 from the vicarage garden gate there was a hazel- 
 nut copse, and immediately against this copse 
 they saw not pieces only, but Hr. Burgoyne 
 intact. 
 
 The dog-cart was drawn up to the side of the 
 
 road, and Miss Sydney Scott stood by the horse's 
 
 head, patting his nose, and calling him "good 
 
 boy," and "poor fellow, then," and asking him, 
 
 6 
 
 " was he a nice horse ? " after the most approved 
 feminine fashion. By her side Hr. Burgoyne 
 stood, breaking the husks away from n^its, which, 
 when thus far prepared, he handed to her ; and 
 inside the hedge, assiduously gathering the nuts 
 for the pair outside, was a man, whom Theo with 
 a start and, no, not " a stifled cry," — stifled cries 
 are not uttered in real life — recognized to be Mr. 
 David Linley. She could but feel the full force 
 of the unbecomingness of the abominable little 
 shawl as she came abruptly upon this road-side 
 picture. 
 
 " My friend Mr. Linley — allow me to intro- 
 duce Mr. Linley, Hrs. Vaughan, Hiss Leigh — 
 met an old acquaintance in Miss Scott, and in- 
 sisted on getting down to gather her some nuts ; 
 I was powerless to drive on by myself," Frank 
 said, making an effort to look as though he did 
 not think that Theo would think that he was 
 transferring his half-sworn allegiance from her- 
 self to another. 
 
 Mixed feelings agitated Theo. It was hard to 
 meet Linley again, hard to mark that the feeling 
 Frank had been apparently ready to develop but 
 yesterday-for her had, veered away to-Sydney, 
 hard to have that shawl upon her head ! that 
 odious little shawl, so unbecoming in hue, and 
 texture, and arrangement. 
 
 She had not encouraged the development of 
 that aforesaid feeling as she might have done in 
 all maidenly dignity. , And she had resolved to 
 encourage it even less in the future. Still, for 
 aU this resolve, a sense of disappointment came 
 over her as she marked that the resolve would be 
 no more tried. When we have elaborately armed 
 against temptation it is ' disappointing not to be 
 led into it ! 
 
 Sydney Scott looked up, beaming and bright ; 
 devotion always pleased her, and some show of 
 it had been made this morning .by the man who 
 had' played at absolute indifference with her yes- 
 terday. Her coming out along this road had not 
 been altogether purposeless, and yet she had not 
 aimed at that which she had attained. She had 
 merely desired to show hSi'self to them apparently 
 regardless of their coming : to show herself pret- 
 tily dressed, bright, fair, and fresh as the morn- 
 ing, and at the same time to show them that this 
 charming combination of dress and good quali- 
 ties was not mindful of them at all, but was actu- 
 ally conveying itself away from sheer indifference. 
 
 This had been her motive in coming out, but 
 the motives of the majority of girls are susceptible 
 of change, and Sydney was no exception to the 
 rule. When she met the dog-cart and found that 
 the friend of whom Frank Burgoyne had made 
 light mention the /previous day, was no other 
 than her own acquaintance, Hr. Linley, she came 
 to a halt, and brought her hand to her hat with a 
 graceful gesture of salutation that reminded them 
 of a pretty page, and compelled them to stop. 
 
 Miss Scott had looked forward to a meeting 
 with Mr. Linley at Hensley with pleasure, while 
 she had deemed that there would be no one else. 
 But now, since she had seen Frank Burgoyne 
 and found him possessed of that tawny beauty 
 that she specially affected, Linley's age and 
 plainness recurred to her in all its force, and she 
 began to hope that " Theo would take him off, 
 and leave her the other." 
 
 She told them that she had come out to ex- 
 plore, because it was impossible for her to keep 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 in the house when there was anything new to be 
 Reen, or any nuts in the neighbourhood to be had. 
 After a moment or two she appended frank re- 
 gret that she should have done so this morning. 
 "As you were coming," she continued, looking 
 at Frank, who responded by jumping down from 
 the trap at once and declaring that he too would 
 earn his nuts by honest toil. 
 
 " We had better go on and put up the horse, 
 hadn't we ? " Linley asked. He wanted to see 
 Theo, and to see how she acted upon Frank, and 
 how something that he had to tell would act upon 
 her. Pretty Sydney Scott was all very well, but 
 he had not taken the shooting-box at Lownds for 
 the purpose of witnessing Frank Burgoyne and 
 that young lady eat nuts towards a better under- 
 standing. 
 
 "We'll go on directly — lots of time," Frank 
 rejoined. " Here, be a good fellow and just pop 
 over this fence, and get some of those nuts for 
 Miss Scott" 
 
 " For you to help her to eat them, — ^that will 
 be the amount of your honest toil." 
 
 " Never do anything for yourself that you can 
 get another fellow to do for you. Yes, hasn't he 
 a handsome head, Miss Scott? Do you like 
 horses ? " 
 
 " That I do," she replied. And there was no 
 affectation in the warmth this time, for " that 
 she did," thoroughly. Then she saw Linley 
 safely over the hedge, and went on for the benefit 
 of the heir of Maddington alone. 
 
 " They never turn round on you and deceive 
 you." 
 
 " That depends upon whether you're up in 
 their little ways or not," he said, laughing ; then 
 he altered the expression of his eyes, and went on : 
 "A horse deceive you — no ! none but an ass 
 could do it. So you had the heart to come out 
 this morning ? How done I should have been 
 if I had missed you, which I might have done if 
 you had gone into the wood." 
 
 " Yes, if I'd gone into the wood before you 
 passed, we might have missed, mightn't we? 
 What nonsense, though, as if you would have 
 cared ! Oh ! thank you, Mr. Linley, what clus- 
 ters ! there's another bunch — no, farther on still 
 — that I should so wish to have if you wouldn't 
 mind taking the trouble to get it for me ; you 
 can't help seeing it if you walk down, but it's a 
 shame to ask you."' 
 
 " Not at all, don't mention it," Linley replied, 
 grimly. He felt that he was being foiled by this 
 gu:l of twenty, and he resolved to make her wince 
 for it. He had a trusty ally, before whom this 
 young lady would go down like corn before the 
 reaper. 
 
 It was while he was away searching for the 
 cluster that was so difficult to find that Mrs. 
 Vaughau and Theo came up, and Frank made 
 his praiseworthy effort. 
 
 It was but for a few minutes that Theo per- 
 mitted herself the indulgence of feeling sore and 
 wounded for — she knew not what. At the ex- 
 piration of those minutes she reminded herself 
 that she, who loved another—" God help me and 
 forgive me," she murmured— could not in reason 
 care for the best of this yoimg man's liking. It 
 is always, however, more agreeable to be the first, 
 always soothing to feel that yoU are the primary 
 consideration with some one who is present and 
 congenial to you. Of course every true woman 
 
 is capable of resigning this position to a friend 
 who may legitimately take it. But again, be it 
 acknowledged, that she is not a true woman if 
 she does not feel to some degree the being com- 
 pelled to do so. It is easy enough to resign 
 gracefully after a time ; but not at first ; not with 
 a shawl adjusted so unbecomingly 'upon your 
 head that it makes your resignation appear sim- 
 ply a matter of course. No, no I under such 
 circumstances one does indeed feel it hard to 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " IF SHE UNDEEVALXJE ME, WHAT CARE I HOW 
 EAIK SHE BE ? " 
 
 The whole party walked back to the vicarage 
 together, and the task of leading the horse de- 
 volved upon Mr. Linley, who disliked doing it, 
 and showed that he disliked doing it. 
 
 "I will drive you, Miss Leigh; you will get 
 up, and graciously pilot me, will you not ? " he 
 said to Theo, when he had come back over the 
 hedge and joined the group. And Theo had 
 negatived the proposition with more promptitude 
 than politeness. She would have been glad to 
 escape from Frank's society just then^ but fresh 
 as her eagerness was, it could not quite conquer 
 her well-established aversion to Mr. Linley. 
 
 "It's not worth any one's while to get up in 
 the trap again — distance is nothing; lead the 
 horse, there's a good fellow," Frank interposed, 
 before Linley could press the point again. Then 
 Theo felt a spasm of gratitude towards Mr. Bur- 
 goyne, in beautiful unconsciousness of the inter- 
 position being the fruit of his fear that Miss 
 Scott might be the one asked next, and that she 
 might go, and leave him to walk home with 
 Theo. 
 
 The walk home, short as it was, was a failure, 
 looked at from every point of view. It is always 
 unpleasant to keep step with a fast stepping, ; 
 horse, and civility compelled them to accommo- ' 
 date their paae to Linley's. Sydney Scott was 
 annoyed at'her rural court being broken in upon ; 
 it was far more in accordance with her ideas of 
 enjoyment to have two gentlemen in waiting upon 
 herself alone, than to share their attentions with 
 any one, even with her dear friend, Theo. Added 
 to which not whoUy unnatural feeling, she was 
 mortifyiugly conscious that Theo might imagine 
 that there had been design in her (Sydney's) 
 morning's course of conduct. Miss Scott had an 
 intense .dislike to being found out in any of those 
 little moves of hers that were made with such 
 winning careless frankness — such utter absence 
 of thought, apparently.. She marked now that 
 Theo appeared slightly downcast, and, with femi- 
 nine keenness of pei'ception| she read the cause 
 with tolerable clearness s therefore, though she 
 triumphed slightly in her soul, she was also mor- 
 tified, and, consequently, quiet. 
 
 " Things had not gone very far with either 
 gurl," Frank Burgoyne told himself. How should 
 fiiey have gone Sir in the time indeed ? Still he 
 was aware that he had shown that in his manner 
 to both which he might not with impunity con- 
 tinue to show to both if he desired to make 
 progress with either. There were two points to 
 be settled, he felt, and settled right quickly, too. 
 The first point was, did he desire to " go fur- 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 83 
 
 ther " with either one of them ? The second, 
 " which of them was it? " It would be hard to 
 decide ! 
 
 Things had not gone very far with either girl, 
 and they seemed likejy to remain where they 
 were during the greater part of that call. Under 
 the influence of the angry glances which Mrs. 
 Vaughan could not refrain from darting at Syd- 
 ney, that young lady passed from a. semi-repent- 
 ant state into one of defiance. She felt virtu- 
 ously indignant that her pleasing pastime should 
 be so palpably deemed faulty, and she included 
 Theo in her anger for being the niece of the lady 
 who so harshly regarded it. She pouted and 
 flushed, and looked very bright-eyed and pretty, 
 and taUced in a tenderly-mournful undertone to 
 Frank Burgoyne, and altogether aggravated Mrs. 
 Vaughan. She depressed Theo, too, and Theo 
 went down to dismal depths in her own estima- 
 tion for feeling this depression, and Mr. Linley 
 marked that she did so, and deeAied it well to 
 give her a counter-irritant in the hopes of string- 
 ing her up to the attractive point again. 
 
 " I have some old friends of yours staying 
 with me at Lownds, Miss Leigh. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Galton came last night; they'll be delighted to 
 hear that you're in the neighbourhood." 
 
 " The Galtons here ? " she asked. She was 
 obliged to reply to his communication ; so she 
 made her effort, and said out her little conven- 
 tional phrase, without emotion, apparently. But 
 it was only " apparently." In reajity there was 
 a dull, numbing pain at her heart ; they were 
 drawing around, they were closing in upon her 
 again, those who knew the story 'of her love and 
 sorrow — worse still, of the brightness of her 
 former hopes, and the blackness of the cloud 
 that had overshadowed them! It was Horrible ! 
 The light pangs that she had been lately feeling 
 at the fading away of the friendship that might 
 have been love, were as nothing now. She sat 
 there, compelled to keep a fair front before 
 them, to hear what they said, and to hold her- 
 self io readiness to answer them, with a sense 
 of being utterly crushed, utterly shaoaed, utterly 
 (this was the bitterest drop in her cup !) unable 
 to help herself—powerless to be anything but a 
 patient, enduring woman. Mr. Linley saw how 
 entirely his tidings had beaten her down, but he 
 did not bestow much sympathy upon her, for 
 he knew the elasticity of her nature, and was 
 aware that the beating down was a mere tempo- 
 rary affair, and that the rebound would come all 
 in good time. He liked the girl for many 
 things^or her pluck and her pride, and, above 
 all, for her power of holding on to her own 
 opinions. This liking would have merged into 
 something far warmer — it had done so, indeedj 
 but he had repressed it nearly entirely now — 
 had she not betrayed one of those shrinking 
 aversions to him which are not to be surmount- 
 ed. But, though he liked her, he would not 
 have spared her a single stab that might stir 
 her up to be the bright Theo of old — capable of 
 winning and retaining the taste and heart of this 
 young man, who could thus be made to riTal 
 and outshine Harold Ffrench in all things. 
 "Then, when the match is made, I'll let him 
 know that it was I who brought them tosether," 
 he thought ; and the thought was soothing and 
 agreeable to him to an extraordinary degree. 
 Onnn hp.fnrA he had robbed Harold Ffrftnnh nf a 
 
 woman's Jove, and though he could not do it 
 himself in this instance, he could do it vicari- 
 ously, he hoped. He decided on throwing 
 Frank and Theo together more than ever. " I'll 
 get them both to Lownds," he said to himself; 
 "Theo will come to Ffrench's cousin, I'll be 
 bound — women are so infernally foolish and 
 sentimental about such things ; and if Miss Syd- 
 ney stays here and threatens to mar things, I'll 
 tackle her myself — she's more amenable than 
 Theo." In his heart he firmly believed that 
 Theo was the exceptional woman who could re- 
 sist him, and his belief ought to have been 
 founded on experience, for he had lived and 
 loved. ^ 
 
 Mr. Linley put a stop to those before-men- 
 tioned " Undertones " after a time. He appeal- 
 ed to Sydney about a book that she had pro- 
 fessed one day at Bretford to have read, and 
 that he felt persuaded she had not read. He 
 put her through a brief catechism concerning it 
 now, held her looks and words securely, though 
 he was powerless to enchain her attention, and 
 by so doing he gave Frank a fair opportunity of 
 addressing Theo,, which Frank took sheepishly, 
 for he knew that he had swerved from his man- 
 ner of yesterday. 
 
 " Jolly well those scarlet geraniums look, Miss 
 Leigh," he said, walking to the window that 
 commanded the churchyard ; " that bed, I mean, 
 on the near side of that stumpy tomb with a 
 cherub's head sitting on the top of it ; the roses 
 are gone though — ^I'm sorry for that." 
 
 "But the dahlias are come, and one can't 
 have everything," Theo replied, going up to his 
 side at the window, and determining to be as she 
 had ever been to him, though his friendship, per- 
 haps, was a fleeting thing. 
 
 " That's the worst of it, one can't have every- 
 thing ; this morning, for instance, we hadn't you 
 
 at our Arcadian repast " 
 
 " But you had nuts, and they are better," she 
 interrupted. " Oh ! I wanted to ask yovi, do you 
 know the Galtons ? " 
 
 "No," he answered; then he went on, in 
 almost a whisper — " She, Mrs. Galton, is his 
 cousin, isn't she ? " 
 
 Then Theo nodded assent, and looked up 
 almost piteously into his eyes, for the manner of 
 his mention of Harold Ffrench told her plainly 
 that he knew a portion of her story, and she 
 feared that he might, even know the whole of it, 
 and, knowing it, deem her all that she deemed 
 herself just now. She remembered the keen 
 gaze he had bestowed upon her that first night 
 of their meeting : she remembered the fear that 
 had assailed her then, the fear that had slept 
 since she had been so much with him, and had 
 come to like him so well. But it returned now, 
 and she felt that its slumbering had been a sort 
 of disloyalty to Harold, for it had been lapped 
 to that slumber by the worst foe the one she 
 loved could have: — the man he might possibly 
 injure. 
 
 It was very hard to maintain composure from 
 the moment of the resuscitation of this fear, but 
 she was a practical girl to a certain degree, and 
 so she contrived to calm herself into propriety 
 of manner by the reflection that it could do no 
 good to give way at all. Nevertheless, she was 
 glad when the necessity for the strain was over, 
 and t.hfi r.all camp, to a p.nTin.lnHioTi- 
 
84 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 But Sydney was not glad, and Sydney could 
 not affect gladness. The catechism relating to 
 the unread book had been replied to by her 
 with a stifled impatience that had been marked 
 by Mrs. Vaughan ; and, now that the guests 
 were gone, Mrs. Vaughan reprimanded that im- 
 patience, and not the impatience alone, but 
 sundry other acts, and looks, and words of 
 Sydney's in a way that young lady did not like 
 at all. 
 
 " I must tell you, my dear,'' she began, " that 
 I had rather you did not go out to meet gentle- 
 men in the roads about the house ; it doesn't 
 look well." 
 
 " Go out to meet gentlemen 1 Mrs. Vaughan, 
 I wouldn't do such a thing ; I assure you I know 
 perfectly well " 
 
 "So do I, my dear; I know perfectly well 
 that I am only doing my duty as your hostess in 
 telling you of conduct that every right-minded 
 person would disapprove of. I must beg that 
 you won't go out to meet gentlemen in the 
 roads " 
 
 "But I didn't do anything of the kind," Syd- 
 ney cried hotly. 
 
 " You can't deny that you met them in the 
 road, as I say," Mrs. Vaughan rejoined stiffly ; 
 "and your manner to Mr. Burgoyne was not 
 what was thought pretty in my young days: 
 talking in lov tones never looks well. Of course 
 you mean well, my dear, it's only ignorance of 
 the ways of the world that makes you commit 
 these little epors." 
 
 "Ignorance ! " (choking with wrath and sur- 
 prise) J " yoti must allow me to correct that 
 statement as to my ignoranpe of the ways of the 
 world, Mrs. Vaughan. I'm excessively sorry if 
 I have offended you in any way : as I ha^e done 
 it, unfortunately, I had better " 
 
 " There, there, say no more about it," Mrs. 
 Vaughan exclaimed hastily. A row that she 
 could not regulate precisely as she wished was 
 painful to her to the last degree. Miss Scott 
 appeared willing to show fight, therefore Mrs. 
 Vaughan deemed it well to hoist the white flag, 
 and so she sai(J, " say no more about It." 
 
 " I'll go home at once, I'll start this day, this 
 hour," Sydney said to Theo, as soon as they 
 were alone, which ihej were quickly, for Theo 
 promptly suggested an adjournment to her bed- 
 room when her aunt had finished speaking. 
 "It's only the thought of her being an old 
 woman that kept me quiet, I can tell you, Theo." 
 
 " I can only say I'm sorry— I'm very sorry." 
 
 " Yes, but there's po balm in that after hav- 
 ing been downright insulted by a — a — well I 
 must call her it — an old buUy. What did I do 
 so very bad? did you see anything wrong in 
 anything I did, or didn't, or said, or looked ? " 
 
 " No, nothing wrong, of course not," Theo 
 replied, flushing up, and speaking with extra 
 warmth on account of her lively remembrance 
 of the depression she had felt, 
 
 " I couldn't help Mr. Burgoyne being very 
 attentive — now, could I, Theo ? " 
 "No, you couldn't." 
 
 " How should I have known that they would 
 want to get out, and get me nuts? I didn't 
 know there were any nuts even ; I wonder your 
 aunt doesn't accuse me of getting up that copse 
 for the'furtherance of my evil designs upon — 
 which nf them is it ? 
 
 " Don't think anything more about it. Acnt 
 iiibby will have forgotten all about it when we 
 go down, and you'll forget it when you see Mr. 
 Burgoyne the next time." 
 
 " Perhaps I shan't see_ him again — I can't if I 
 go to-day." 
 
 " But you won't go to-day, dear," Theo said 
 quickly and earnestly. "You won't make a 
 mountain of a mole-hill ; I'm sure you won't." 
 
 " Mr. Burgoyne says he thinks he has seen 
 me before. I told him that mine was not by any 
 means an uncommon face, so perhaps it was only 
 some one like me he had seen." 
 
 " Ah ! very likely," Theo replied ; she knew 
 that Sydney would remain and ■ suffer wrath to 
 go by for this time if discreetly suffered to re- 
 port dialogue. 
 
 " Me said he didn't call it a common face — 
 quite laughed at the notion." 
 
 " I don't wonder at that — I mean at his laugh- 
 ing — ^no, I mean at his saying " 
 
 " He says (and Hargrave has often said it too, 
 so I suppose it's true) that my eyes are just the 
 colour of Mary Stuart's." Sydney cared, very 
 little what Theo meant, she interrupted Miss 
 Leigh's attempted elucidation rather ruthlessly. 
 ^'I dare say they are ; so many people's eyes 
 seem to be like Mary Stuart's," Theo said wearily. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't take any sort of stand upon it ; 
 they do very well for every-day life. When are 
 we goingio Lownds ? " 
 
 " I don't think there was any day fixed." 
 
 " Mr. Burgoyne will be there too ; I hope 
 your aunt won't go, for if she does, and he de- 
 votes himself tb me, I shall have a pleasant time 
 of it. Does Mrs. Galton get herself up well ? 
 If we go there to luncheon I shall wear a costume 
 
 that I had for a luncheon at the • barracks the 
 
 otherday. Stop, I'll show it to you, it's violet 
 silk, and a lace mantle lined with the same, and 
 a violet bonnet, and parasol, and gloves. I wish 
 I had had a double row of flat bows on the 
 skirt, — ^it was an awful error not to have them^ 
 wasn't it?" . 1 
 
 "Yes," Theo said, "awful;" and wondered' 
 silently whether she would ever again feel earn- 
 estly interested about flat bows. To be capa- 
 ble of experiencing poignant regret about them 
 was a state of beatitude to which she might 
 never more hope to rise, she told herself, but 
 would she ever be interested about them at all, 
 just ever so Tittle ? 
 
 There had been no day fixed for this going to 
 Lownds, to which Sydney looked forward with 
 hopes that were high. No, happily for Theo, 
 there had been np day fixed as yet, and some- 
 thing might occur to avert the necessity for go- 
 ing at all. If it came to pass that she must go 
 down to the gates of the foe, and expose her 
 head uncovered to the arrows that would surely 
 be flying, then she would go down without a 
 word and only flinch inside. Still she hoped 
 that she might not be made to go down. No 
 good tlving, nothing more than the tamest main- 
 tenance of her present position, could be gained 
 by the pain she must feel and bear quietly did she 
 adventure into the midst of Harold's friends and 
 foes when they all met together. So she hoped 
 that Lownds might lapse from the minds of her 
 aunt and Sydney Scott, and that they might 
 lapse from the minds of those at Lownds. 
 She had an unconscious allv in Mrs. Galton. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 85 
 
 who was now the presiding genius at Lownds. 
 The shooting-box arrangements were very much 
 to her taste, for Mr. Linley had not transported 
 himself thither to be uncomfortable. He was 
 not keen enough sportsman to regard all things 
 as of little worth in a sporting establishment 
 save the game that might be arcmnd it, and the 
 dogs that were to point and set- at the same. 
 AH things were done decently and in order at 
 liOwnds. Kate found herself lodged luxuriously. 
 It suited Mrs. John Galton to reign, and reign 
 alone, and always give the law ; therefore it was 
 that she unconsciously aided and abetted Theo's 
 fervent hopes ; she desired not the presence of 
 any other of her own sex who might come and 
 share this empire which was all her own now. 
 
 Now Mr. Linley, who marked the majority of 
 things with tolerable clearness, marlied very 
 soon this disaffection of Kate's to the proposed 
 intBoduction of Theo and Sydney to his bachelor 
 quarters. He did not run counter to it openly, 
 for he wished Mrs. Galton to remain; and in 
 that she might be useful to him, he ardently 
 wished her to remain good tempered. But all 
 the same he resolved that Theo and Sydney 
 should come, and that Kate should invite them 
 afifably. 
 
 He carried his point on the Sunday morning 
 following Mrs. Galton's arrival at Lownds, one 
 bright sunny autumnal morning that they had 
 agreed would be far better spent out in the gar- 
 den than in the Hensley church. " 
 
 " I will go in the afternoon if you like," Kate 
 had said when her husband asked her if she 
 meant to accompany him. " I will go in the 
 afternoon, because probably it will be dull then, 
 and one may as well be in church as not ; but I 
 won't go with this sun shining. I shall get 
 more good by sitting out there and thinking." 
 
 " Out there " was on a low garden-chair under 
 a walnut-tree whose boughs reached nearly to 
 the earth on all but one side. There they kept 
 them short and open for the sake of the view 
 that stretched away to Maddington, and there 
 the sunbeams fell profusely now in that golden 
 warmth of theirs that they do occasionally dis- 
 plaflkred October. 
 
 ''^e have left you all the week for the par- 
 tridges ; it would be a shame for us both to 
 leave you this morning for the good of our 
 souls," Linley said, in answer to this statement 
 of her intention. " Shall we all ait out there 
 thinking, Galton ? " 
 
 " I like to go to church once in the day, and 
 after dinner always seems to me ■ " John 
 Galton began, but Mr. Linley interrupted him 
 by saying : 
 
 " Indiscreet after one arrives at years of indi- 
 gestion ; yes, you're right ; well, then, we will 
 manage it in this way, you go to church this 
 morning, because you like to go once in the day, 
 and I will stay at home and try to make Mrs. 
 Galton think better of us than she must have 
 been thinking all the week." 
 
 So John Galton walked across the fields to 
 the little church at Hensley, and behoved in all 
 that he heard, though he did not heed it much 
 on this occasion, for he was just a little sorry 
 that Kate was not there. You see he had 
 grown up with this notion, that there was some- 
 thing after all in these forms and ceremonies, 
 and he wished in all honest sincerity that those 
 
 who were dear to him should attend to them. 
 It in no way altered his own opinion of her. 
 Still he did wish that Kate could " think " on 
 sunny Sunday mornings in church as well as 
 under walnut-tree's. 
 
 Mrs. Galton took a shawl, and a rug, and a 
 book, and a dog, and went and ensconced her- 
 self under the tree with the sunbeams at her 
 feet. The book was speedily dropped, for Mr. 
 Linley soon followed her and went down upon 
 the rug where the sunbeams were never shrink- 
 ing from the hght they threw upon that ugU- , 
 ness on which men said he presumed. 
 
 " What a good fellow Galton is," he began ; 
 " he has all the qualities and all the qualifica- 
 tions that both men and women like." 
 
 " He can ride straight to hounds, and hit a 
 bird if he aims at it," she replied laughing. 
 
 " Women — and men too — like a fellow who 
 can ride and tell the truth without swerving," 
 he answered. 
 
 " There is an impression abroad that we weak- 
 minded women ' go in,' as you call it in your 
 slang, for the athletic," she rejoined. .' 
 
 " And don't we honour you by giving credepce 
 to such an impression? Isn't it better to be 
 able to ride straight at any hedge, moral or 
 physical, than to tell in glowing language how 
 another fellow does it ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think that it is better,"- (she re- 
 membered how well he did these things in print 
 himself, how game he was in the hunting-field, 
 and how prompt to resent everything, or noth- 
 ing, in post octavo) — " no, I don't think it better, 
 Mr. Linley." Then she recalled to her mind 
 how Beelzebub had won and how that winning 
 had been brought about, and she felt that she 
 would have flown at higher game had higher 
 things been shown her. " Better I " she went on, 
 rather sadly, "no, the one who simply tells 
 about them in type cannot talk of them eternally 
 as those can who really do them ; — were you 
 under the impression that I was quite contented 
 with ranking with, but after, the horse and dog 
 and gun ? " 
 
 " I was under the impression that you were a 
 very clever woman, and, I am under it still," he 
 replied, picking a walnut as he spoke, and en- 
 deavouring to get it away from its husk without 
 staining his fingers, " you are, with much tact 
 and talent, to say nothing of kindness, trying to 
 make me feel that you don't look upon me as 
 quite an inferior creature to your husband, the 
 man who rode into your affections one day in a 
 not long past memorable Newmarket year. Of 
 course you feel a certain degree of pride in him, 
 you must, whenever you compare him with your 
 cousin ETrench, for instance. God I it's enough 
 to make any man blush for the possession of 
 brains when he reflects on the use Ffrench has 
 made of his ; with such opportunities as he has 
 had too — such marvellous opportunities I " 
 
 "Harold is full of transcendental nonsense 
 that makes one rejoice in not being bound to 
 stand or fall with him," she repHed ; " but as to 
 the pride I feel in my husband's achievements 
 in the field — well, the less said about it the 
 better." 
 
 Mr. Linley had always thought her a very 
 pretty woman before this morning, very pretty 
 and rather affected. The affectation he had con- 
 doned, for it had been displayed for the purpose 
 
88 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 of pleasing him, and as is usually the case under 
 such circumstances it had pleased him though 
 he had seen through it. But this morning she 
 looked less pretty than she was wont to look, 
 and there was a certain fractiousness in her man- 
 ner that he liked less than the normal affecta- 
 tion. She had not stayed away from church for 
 the purpose of hearing her husband's praises in- 
 toned, nor, though she regarded Linley fayour- 
 ably enough now, did she quite like her idol of 
 the old days disparaged. He may have fallen 
 from his pedestal, that aforesaid idol, but to hear 
 aught detrimental to him is disgusting to the 
 last degree to the woman who placed him there, 
 unless she can charge the utterance of these de- 
 trimental speeches to jealousy, when she can 
 bear it better. 
 
 But vain as Kate was, she could not charge 
 them to jealousy in this instance, at any rate, 
 not to jealousy about herself. She felt that 
 there was a certain element of truth in what 
 Linley had said of Harold Ffreuch, and that it 
 was his thorough and conscientious ■ opinion 
 that Ffrench had made a poor use of such good 
 things as nature and education had given him. 
 So fully was she impressed with this belief that 
 she resolved to abstain from giving Linley to 
 understand that Harold had been her slave in 
 the past. As Linley did not believe in him her 
 triumph would be small, therefore sh& was com- 
 pelled to fall back upon vague statements of the 
 "influence she had had through no eiforts of 
 her own over a mighty mind — an influence that 
 had been so thrillingly acknowledged that it 
 had rather spoiled her for the sober happiness 
 and the calm appreciation of her merits which 
 she had afterwards gained by her marriage with 
 Mr. Galton." 
 
 It was very hard to come down to this tame 
 theme. Hers was all'a cousin's love for Harold 
 Ffrench now — nothing more, nothing warmer ; 
 but as she had liked him well, as she had gloried 
 in the halo his supposed gigantic intellect had 
 thrown over their attachment, it was not agree- 
 able to wake to the cold truth, and hear that 
 there had been nothing particular to glory in, in 
 the dispassionate tones of the man who now had 
 the power to sway her mentally. 
 
 After the bells of aU the neighbouring churches 
 had ceased tolling, and that strange lull had 
 come over the air which can only he found in 
 perfection in a country locality where dissent 
 does not obtain, where Salem and Ebehezer 
 chapels are not, they heard footsteps crossing 
 the lawn that intervened between the house and 
 themselves, and Kate gave a quick gesture of 
 annoyance and cried, " It's J.Dhn." A. moment 
 more showed them her mistake, for through the 
 opening where the boughs were short, over the 
 sunbeams that lay down (like Linley) at her feet, 
 came Frank Burgoyne. 
 
 "I made sure I should find you at home, 
 Linley," he began, raising his hat to the lady, 
 and in his eyes she read that be had made sure 
 also that he should find Linley alone. " He's 
 too young for me to care to make amends to 
 him for his disappointment," she thought, as 
 she looked lazily up at him, and told him liow 
 such a morning as this was a poem, and how 
 Mr. Linley and herself had decided on reading 
 it in preference to going to church at Hensley. 
 Frank Burgoyne almost felt as though he had 
 
 interrupted the reading ; strange sensations of 
 being unwanted, unwelcomed, set in. His an- 
 noyance at finding the lady there when he had 
 come to talk privately to Linley faded away be- 
 fore his annoyance at finding the lady was far 
 from well pleased to see him. ' 
 
 " Cannot the poem go on ? " he asked. " I 
 trust my advent has not spoiled the rhythm ; 
 the fact is, Linley, I wanted to ask you," he 
 went on hurriedly, " if any day was fixed after 
 all for the Hensley people to come here ? I 
 promised to come with my aunt, Miss Ethel, 
 when they came, and slie wouldn't like me to 
 make any other arrangements that would inter- 
 fere with that appointment." 
 
 '' There was no day fixed ; I left that to Mrs. 
 Galton, who I believe is going to be kind enough 
 to call and give the invitation in person to- 
 morrow," Linley replied, looking at Mrs. Galton 
 as if he had not known such had not been ^er 
 intention a minute ago. 
 
 " Of course I will do your bidding, as you 
 compel me to act as hostess while I am here ; 
 but a family party ? — All the people out of a 
 country rectory, to be asked, does sound very 
 awful ; do you mean that they're to be asked to 
 dinner ? " 
 
 " That by-and-by," her host rejoined, " we'll 
 invite them to luncheon first, a sort of prelim- 
 inary canter before we run that race of intima- 
 cy which people are compelled fo ran in the 
 country if they would avoid dying of them- 
 selves." 
 
 " Then to-morrow I am to commence my pil- 
 grimage along that interminable vista of enter- 
 tainment that I see looming before me, ? I'm to 
 ask them to luncheon, to say something to that . 
 very demure young lady, Miss Theo, about her 
 being good enough to come and relieve my 
 solitude ? I shall never die of myself, Linley, 
 believe me, I don't get bored alone ; but with a 
 family party on my hands for hours perhaps 
 
 " She paused and shrugged her shoulders, 
 
 but did not specify what might be expected to 
 happen. 
 
 " Tou heard Mr. Burgoyne say that h^jas 
 coming with Miss Ethel ? " 
 
 n^^a 
 iWfn' 
 
 " Ah ! forgive me, so he did say it ; itSPBn't 
 be quite a family party, then, if Miss Burgoyne 
 can stand it ? " 
 
 " I count for nothing, I perceive," Frank said, 
 and he tried to say it as if the counting for no- 
 thing was a great joke, which he relished very 
 much, but he did not quite succeed. 
 
 " Tou ! why, you will be out with my hus- 
 band and Mr. Linley," she said glancing care- 
 lessly at him. 
 
 " I can't carry a gun yet," he replied. 
 
 " To say nothing of Linley not having the 
 slightest intention of leaving you to hear the 
 burden and heat of the day alone, Mrs. Galton ; 
 we shall have had plenty of sport before one ; 
 and we will lunch at two — at two on Tuesday, 
 Burgoyne, — wiU that meet your views ? " 
 
 " Tes; perfectly," Frank answered. He wished 
 that Mrs. Galton would look up and betray a 
 little interest in whether it met his views or not, 
 he was not accustomed to be utterly disregarded 
 by women in this way, for Kate's was a genuine 
 disregard, very different from the one Sydney 
 had got up at first. But Mrs. Galton did not 
 look up and betray interest in him, or his coming 
 
THBO LEIGH. 
 
 61 
 
 or his staying away. Mrs. Galton evidently 
 looked upon him as very young indeed, far too 
 young to disturb herself about. This was a 
 manner of looking upon him that was eminently 
 distasteful to him, for he had no tenderness for 
 his youth, he never cared to see it brought to 
 the fore. 
 
 " She's a lovely woman, lovely," he thought, 
 as he walked slowly back to Maddington ; " that 
 sort of nonchalance which she assumes is dis- 
 gustingly out of place, though. By Jove! the 
 devil's in it if I am to be taught tliat my exist- 
 ence is very immaterial by a woman of that 
 rank." He reminded himself more than once 
 of how far superior a cast of character both 
 Theo and Sydney were^ how much better bred 
 they were, and how much more they thought ijf 
 him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE LUNCHEON AT LOWNDS. 
 
 There was a sweeter, softer cadence in the 
 poem after Frank Burgoyne took his leave of 
 them that morning. It rose and fell with more 
 pathos than before, for Linley felt that the pret- 
 ty woman who was reading it with him liked 
 him better than the interruption, though the 
 interruption had come in a guise fair enough to 
 have won its forgiveness from ninety-nine women 
 out of every hundred. There was a dulcet flat- 
 tery in this; Kate had been very judicious for 
 once without design, the fact beiftg that very 
 young men did not interest her, she having the 
 sense never to forget that she was thirty, and to 
 leave rather than be left. 
 
 "I suppose it's time to go in and look for 
 your husband and luncheon ; it's nearly one 
 o'clock," Mr. Linley remarked, looking at his 
 watch. 
 
 "I suppose it is: it always is time to go and 
 do something else when one would rather not, I 
 observe, in this abominable world." 
 
 " The world's as good as any we shall ever 
 know anything about, I expect." 
 
 "Probably; nevertheless I should like it to 
 be all sitting in sunbeams that have no scorch 
 in them, and being made to feel that that is 
 enough. I have not thought once of what is to 
 follow while I have been sitting here, and now 
 I am recalled by hearing that I must rise up 
 and go in." Then she rose up, gathering her 
 shawl around her as if she indeed felt that she 
 was going out of the sunbeams into chill life 
 again, and adding, "Pious exercises always 
 make my husband very hungry, I observe ; 
 don't let us keep him waiting." She went in, 
 and the poem was at an end. 
 
 The call came off, and the invitation to lun- 
 cheon at Lownds on the Tuesday was given and 
 accepted. There was not the shadow of embar- 
 rassment on Mrs. Galton's part at this her first 
 meeting with Theo since Theo had bien so hon- 
 oured, as she deemed it, by Harold's choice of 
 her — so disgraced by his defalcation. Theo had 
 nerved herself to bear a sympathetic word or 
 look, for she judged it impossible that such a 
 thing as had befallen her could be passed over 
 as though it had never been, by one who had 
 known of its occurrence. But the event proved 
 
 that she had armed herself against nothing, for 
 neither the sympathetic word nor look was 
 given. Mrs. Galton rather desired to sink the 
 subject of Theo's wrongs, out of no special love 
 or consideration for Theo, but because a recog- 
 nition of Theo's wrongs would have been an 
 acknowledgment of Harold Ffrench having been 
 more serious in the matter than she even now 
 liked to believe he had been. 
 
 "You're not looking half as well as when you 
 were staying in London with me, "Theo." 
 
 " She looks better than she did when she 
 came down." Mrs. Vaughan regarded the re- 
 mark resentfully as a slur on her hospitality. 
 " She carue looking squalid." 
 
 " It is the' Bretford air that disagrees with 
 you, I conclude." 
 
 " The Bretford air is good enough ; it's not 
 the air that disagrees with us at Bretford, is it, 
 Theo ? " Sydney struck in. Sydney had not 
 played a prominent part in the conversation yet, 
 and it occurred to her that unless she were 
 prompt she might miss an opportunity of telling 
 a stranger how sorely she was tried, and what 
 general injustice was done her at Bretford. 
 
 "I'm very well; it's jmy way not to look in 
 such rude health in the autumn as I do at other 
 times," Theo answered, unconsciously spoiling 
 Sydney's golden opportunity, and averting the 
 song of Miss Scott's injuries and independent 
 resentment of them. 
 
 " When I was young I had sense enough my- 
 self not to go about looking moody and melan- 
 choly, and if I had not had the sense'myself, my 
 parents would have drilled it into me ; but now- 
 
 a-days " Mrs. Vaughan stopped and shook 
 
 her head nervously, and Mrs. Galton asked — 
 
 "Yes— what?" 
 
 " Why, now-a-days girls are so inconsiderate ; 
 selfishly inconsiderate, I will and must call it ; 
 as to ruin all chance of establishing themselves, 
 by going about with a downcast moody air, as 
 if they had known all the woes of the world. 
 There's Theo, now, I speak to you as a friend, 
 Mrs. Galton " (Mrs. Vaughan frequently spoke 
 as a friend to utter strangers, to the dismay of 
 thgse who dwelt in the tents with her) — " Who 
 would think Theo ■ a mere child both in years 
 and experience to see her? Never known a 
 care, never known a sorrow, in her life : my 
 dear brother has sheltered her like an exotic, 
 and this is how she rewards him. Oh ! I have 
 no patience with it ! no patience with it ! " 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan had had small patience with all 
 things since Frank Burgoyne had cracked nuts 
 for Sydney ; none at all with Theo's pallor and 
 occasional depression. 
 
 " I am very sorry that I don't look as I ought 
 to look, Aunt Libby," Theo replied : the repre- 
 hensible pallor had given way to a scarlet flush 
 at Mrs. Vaughan's declaration to Eatc, to Eate 
 who knew bett^r, to Kate who knew all about 
 it, that she (Theo) had never known a care or 
 sorrow in her life, and that she had been tended 
 like an exotic. 
 
 " I must say good-bye now," Kate said, ris- 
 ing : " I can only hope that the bloom requisite 
 for Theo's establishment will come back when 
 the autumn is over. We shall see you to-mor- 
 row at two, then ? There will be a cavalier for 
 you, Theo : an interesting one, with his arm in 
 a sling, and melancholy in his eyes." 
 
88 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 " Oh ! Frank Burgoyne, do you mean ? " S yd 
 ney asked, with animation. 
 . " Yes, I mean Mr. Burgoyne," Mrs.' Gallon 
 replied sweetly, but through all the sweetness 
 Bhe contrived to make a tone of amused sur- 
 prise run at Misa Soott calling him "Frank" 
 Burgoyne. Sydney detected thaftone instantly, 
 and felt keenly that it would impart a rich 
 flavour to the story when Mrs. Galton should 
 tell it to the man now spoken about. Need I 
 say that after this Miss Scott lavished no great 
 amount of good feeling on the pretty woman 
 who was always in such full possession of her 
 senses, that she never lapsed into Christian- 
 naming men, however intimately she might 
 think of them ? 
 
 In addition to the car to which the lazy pony 
 belonged, the Vaughans kept a hooded box 
 upon four wheels, known in the village as " our 
 carriage." Theo had viewed it surreptitiously 
 through the half-open doors of the chaise-house 
 on two or three occasions, but she had never 
 ventured upon a close inspection of it, on ac- 
 count of a lively remembrance she had of her 
 aunt having made a statement of intolera- 
 tion to all stable tastes on the part of young 
 ladies. 
 
 This day, however, on which they were to go 
 to luncheon at Lownds, Theo made its nearer 
 acquaintance, and she was fain to confess after 
 a five miles' drive in it, that creeping over in the 
 car would have been preferable to this state 
 transit, upon which Mrs. Vaughan had insisted. 
 Mrs. Vaughan was a staunch advocate for eti- 
 quette, too, therefore she had desired that 
 Theo should occupy the seat of the lowly with 
 her back to the horses, while Miss Scott, the 
 fitranger, had the place of honour by her (Mrs. 
 Vaughan's) side. '' 
 
 Being seated with ' her back to the horses 
 would, under ordinary circumstances, have been 
 a light evil to Theo. But the ijircumstanoes 
 were extraordinary, so to say, for'it was a gala- 
 day, and on gala-days Mrs. Vaughan belonged 
 to what she called.her " very best cap." 
 
 Throughout their wedded career Mr. Vaughan 
 had heard at what appeared to him as hideously 
 short intervals, of his wife's "best cap," and he 
 hated it with a hatred that was demoniacal in its 
 intensity for so good a man. It had been a thorn 
 in his flesh and a saddle on his loins during the 
 earlier and less prosperous portion of his career, 
 for he had frequently been compelled to carry it 
 in a box that resembled an ark for weary miles 
 when they were going to those oonvi^al gather- 
 ings yclept tea-parties. Such days were over for 
 the Reverend Thomas now, and he no longer 
 trudged out to tea with Mrs. Vaughan's prodi- 
 gious best cap in his hand. But he keenly re- 
 membered those sufferings which he had borne 
 with such exemplary fortitude, and the sight of 
 the ark-like box was odious to him. 
 
 It was specially odious on this occasion, for 
 Mrs. Vaughan had declared that "it would ride 
 comfortably between Mr. Vaughan and Theo, if 
 they would only sit as close to their respective 
 sides of the carriage as they could." Which 
 they did accordingly, and then had the box 
 wedged in tightly between them, where it rode 
 comfortably at the cost of considerable personal 
 iuconvenience to them both , but that was nothing to 
 " the ann oyanoe of not having a cap to put on your 
 
 head when you go to a place," as Mrs, Vaughan 
 observed. 
 
 They found their host, together with the Gal- 
 tons and Frank and Ethel Burgoyne, in a room in 
 the fitting up of which they saw at once the fitness 
 of things had been studied. It was the perfection 
 of propriety as the chief room in a shooting-fcox, 
 and for all that, women looked thoroughly in their 
 places in it. 
 
 It was a long, low, lattice-windowed room, with 
 a broad rafter crossing the length of the ceiling, 
 in which he received them. To have removed 
 that rafter, whose noimal condition it was to look 
 heavy and burthensome, would have been impos- 
 sible. To utilise and make it conduce to the 
 beautifying of the room had been Mr. Linley's 
 task as soon as he came to Lownds. It was vei7 
 ornamental now, that formerly obnoxious rafter, 
 for it was of oak, and he had had it polished, 
 and its grain brought out, and a substantial line 
 of gold beading placed along it on either side. 
 Above all, nailed to its centre were two pairs of 
 antlers, and from these antlers trailed long, creep- 
 ing plants that hung down low, and then turned 
 up again abruptly in a most extraordinary way, 
 and that took their rise in tiny pots that lurked 
 between the horns. 
 
 The fashion of the furniture, too, was extraor- 
 dinary — as extraordinary as this gamey and floral 
 combination which I have described. The mate- 
 rial savoured of the chase, for it was of the skins 
 and horns of animals: the shape savoured of a 
 Sybarite. 
 
 The faces of tigers snarled at you, and the 
 claws of bears looked ready to catch and hug, and 
 the fangs of one grand lion grinned at you, from 
 the backs and tops jtf chairs and couches. When 
 you turned these irSund you found soft seats of 
 delight, elastic, w^rm, and cozy, and the wild 
 sports of the field and forest that they had sug- 
 gested vanished from your mind. 
 
 A pleasant room, with an atmosphere that was 
 agreeable to breathe, for there was a fire in the 
 grate^a bright, leaping little fire, that threw out 
 no mbre heat than could be well endured in Oc- 
 tolier— and the windows were open for the free 
 admission of the rarified autumn air, A wide 
 door at the end was open also, showing them the 
 luncheon they had been invited to eat, laid out 
 on a large round table, sparkling and bright with 
 glass and silver, brilliant with October fruits and 
 flowers. 
 
 " Shall we go into the other room ? I believe 
 we are all here ; there is no one else to wait for, 
 is there ? " Mrs. Galton said, after a few minutes 
 had elapsed, during which few minutes Mrs, 
 Vaughan had been suffering agonies of uncer- 
 tainty and qualms of douht as to whether her 
 cap-box had been brought in, and whether she 
 was to be invited up-stairs to adjust it properly or 
 not. 
 
 " No, we have no one to wait for. No prob- 
 ability of Ffrench coming, I suppose?" Mr. 
 Linley asked, carelessly, turning to Frank Bui^ 
 goyne. 
 
 " None at all — that is, I fancy he is engaged 
 with Lord Lesborough," Frank answered, and 
 Theo saw that he glanced uneasily at her as he 
 spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Galton rose, and led the way into the 
 dining-room, and Mrs. Vaughan was fain to fol- 
 low, with her bonnet on. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 89 
 
 "It's rather ^gular,"Mrs. Galton began, in 
 an explanatory tone, when they were seated, " a 
 cousin of mine, Harold Ffrench, has come down 
 to stay at Maddington." 
 
 " Oh ! indeed ! " (Mrs. Vaughan was but in- 
 differently interested in the cousin of a woman who 
 had shown such lack of consideration for her 
 comfort and her cap.) " Oh ! indeed I Harold 
 Ffrench." 
 
 "Yea; such a nice fellow. I wish he could 
 hare come to-day, don't you, John ? He would 
 have been quite an acquisition, wouldn't he ? " 
 Mrs. Galton addressed Theo this time, and 
 glanced at her from between half-closed lids in a 
 way that Theo found very hard to bear, 
 
 " He would," she said. She had been shocked 
 by the abrupt announcement of his being in her 
 vicinity, but she felt that it was intended to be a 
 shock to her, therefore she resolved to make the 
 signs of its being so as few and Uttle visible as 
 possible. In such a case it is surely pardonable 
 to deceive observant &iends. 
 
 "Ah! to be sure, Theo knows him," Ethel 
 Burgoyne observed, in airinnocence. "He's a 
 great friend of yours, isn't he, Theo ? I for- 
 got to tell him till this morning that you were 
 here." • 
 
 " I never heard Theo speak of him," Mrs. 
 Yaughan struck in, with prompt indignation; 
 " why didn't you tell me you knew him, child ? I 
 
 hate " she was going to add that " she hated 
 
 such sly ways," but the Burgoyne alliance should 
 never be frustrated by her. Frank might revolt 
 at anything underhand. 
 
 " There was no occasion to speak of him, aunt, 
 more than of any other man whom I have known 
 and you have not." 
 
 Theo was seated next to her host. 
 
 " Let me give you some Chablia with your 
 oysters," he s^d ; then he went on in a lower 
 tone, "Bravely said, Theo ; you have known him, 
 and, knowing him, feel that there is ' no occasion 
 to ' speak of him again." 
 
 "I did not mean that at all, Mr. Linley," she 
 said aloud, and he raised his eyebrows and shrug- 
 ged his shoulders, as though he would say, " If 
 she would be indiscreet, well ! " 
 
 "What didn't you mean at all, Theo?" Mrs. 
 Vaughan asked, sharply. There was an element 
 introduced into the conversation that was beyond 
 her comprehension, and the being compelled to 
 eat in her boimet ^ways " muddled her," as she 
 expressed it. "Sire, I hit where I dare," is a 
 principle that is frequently acted upon. Mrs. 
 Vaughan, imder the influence of wrath, felt that 
 it behoved her to be rigorous as to Theo's mean- 
 ing and manners. 
 
 " I didn't at all mean that Mr. Ffreneh was not 
 worth speaking about," Theo answered. 
 
 "And who (pray, Mr. Vaughan, allow me to 
 say a word to my own niece without trying to put 
 me down with such looks) thought you did mean 
 it?" 
 
 " Mr. Linley thought so, and it's not at aU what 
 I meant." Theo was nearly Choking with wrath 
 now, for Linley was smiling (derisively she 
 thought,) and Kate gazing at her with admirably 
 pourtrayed astonishment. 
 
 "I am sure my cousin would be very much 
 obliged to you," Mrs. Galton said, coldly. Then 
 she murmured in a low voice to Frank and Ethel 
 Bureovne who were seated near to her, " Heaven 
 
 preserve me from friends who tilt at windmills on 
 my behalf." 
 
 " It did seem rather imcalled for — unless there's 
 more in it than I know of," Ethel Burgoyne re- 
 plied, looking at Theo curiously. Then Mrs. Gal- 
 ton played with her rings, and said : 
 
 " Theo Leigh is rather imaginative, you know, 
 and imagination often letds people astray ; don't 
 mention this absurd scene to Harold, please : I 
 should be sorry that he should know what a little 
 fool she makes of herself." 
 
 " Was it his wife, — that Mr Harold Ffrench's 
 wife, — ^you were going over to Kockheath Park 
 once to see, Mr. Linley ? " Sydney Scott asked. 
 Miss Sydney had been slightly in the background 
 for a short time, and she hated being there ; she 
 came to the front again most effectively. 
 
 " His wife ! " Ethel Burgoyne exclaimed, " his 
 iBfuU ? " 
 
 "Shall I betray him?" Lmley shot these 
 words in a low whisper at Theo, and she saw that 
 Frank Burgoyne was watching her. 
 
 " Not now," poor Theo answered, and almost 
 before the echo of her own words had died away, 
 she heard Linley saying — 
 
 "My dear Miss Scott, I little thought that 
 spoken words of mine so dwelt in your mind. 
 This Mrs. Harold Ffreneh is the wife of the 
 man I knew long ago, Mrs. Galton, — ^the man I 
 thought your cousin might be when I heard his 
 name iirst this year," he continued, addressing 
 Eate. 
 
 "Oh! I see," Kate replied, and from Kate's 
 tone Theo knew that she too was ignorant of what 
 had been the barrier between herself and Harold 
 Ffreneh. 
 
 Theo was longing ardently that Harold Ffreneh 
 might tell the truth concerning himself to his 
 possible benefactor, but she did not desire that 
 anyone else should tell it ; she trembled indeed 
 with a sick pain at such a contingency. So now 
 it began to afflict her sorely, this doubt she had 
 as to whether Frank Burgoyne knew all about 
 Harold Or not. If he did know it, what motive 
 had he for keeping silence with his grandfather ? 
 And if he did not know it, what motive had he 
 for gazing at her curiously, as he had done from 
 the first ? She could- but think he knew it, she 
 could but fear he knew it ; and if so, what must 
 he, so frank, so honest himself, think of Harold 
 Ffreneh ? 
 
 This statement of Harold Ffreneh being in the 
 neighbourhood appeared to cast a somettung that 
 was partly gloom and partly restraint over the 
 little party. The spirits of aU flagged at that 
 luncheon-table, though it was a round one, and 
 no one person was isolated from another. Mr, 
 Linley took Theo at her word'— he did not betray 
 the secret of Harold Ffreneh having a wife to the 
 Burgoynes, but he made her feel that it was a 
 mean thing to have pleaded for that protecting 
 silence, and that Harold Ffreneh was a something 
 meaner still to need it. Over and over again as 
 she sat there trying to partake with appetite of 
 those viands for which the oysters and Chablis 
 were intended to givo her a zest, did she say to 
 herself with a quailing heart, — " Harold, why 
 won't you tell all, and lose aU, and let the world 
 say the worst ? " 
 
 That there was gloom and constraint over all 
 things was visible enough to others besides Theo. 
 Kate was annoyed by what had passed relative to 
 
90 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Harold Ffrencb. She was annoyed at Harold 
 Ffrench's having elected to stay at Maddington, 
 instead of having come on to Lownds to see her. 
 She wag annoyed with Linley for haying ad- 
 dressed Theo in tones too low for her (Kate) to 
 have caught the sense of them several times. 
 Above all she was annoyed at the prospect that 
 loomed before her, of ^having to entertain Mrs. 
 Vaughan for so long i period as that estimable 
 matron might choose to remain there. For Theo 
 was palpably now — for some reason or other that 
 remained a secret to Kate — absorbed with Linley. 
 And Frank Burgoyne would probably devote 
 himself to Sydney, when the ice of reserve that 
 was over all just now should be a little thinner. 
 The gentlemen remaining would be her own hus- 
 band and excellent Mr. Vaughan alone, and 
 neither excellent Mr. Vaughan nor her husband 
 had been in the list of her panaceas for the woe 
 of this luncheon, when the obligation of presiding 
 over it had been finally thrust upon her. 
 
 As for Sydney Scott, she was labouring' under 
 a sense of most cruel injustice. That nutting 
 episode and two or three brief chance meetings 
 since it, had made her very intimate with Frank 
 Burgoyne. He had shown himself willing to 
 come round entirely from the side of her friend 
 Theo to her own.' He had paid her many oom- 
 . pliments, buttoned many refractory gloves in her 
 service, and been generally devotional to her, in 
 a way that had made her remember keenly that 
 he was Lord Lesborough's heir. She knew by 
 experience what these long hours in a shooting- 
 box, with a luncheon as an excuse for them, are 
 almost sure to bring forth. She had gone with 
 high hopes, she had gone prepared for anything 
 save finding Frank Burgoyne distraught to the 
 degree of being more on the alert when Mrs. 
 Galton spoke, than when she, Sydney Scott, ut- 
 tered notes that but the other day he had seemed 
 to think were dulcet. 
 
 Frank Burgoyne was distraught, horribly so, 
 and horribly conscious of being so. Mrs. Galton 
 was no fairer, no sweeter, no softer, or more en- 
 thralling than were dozens of women whom he 
 had known, and who had smiled on and been for- 
 gotten by him: but she would not smile upon 
 him, or at least she would not smile upon him 
 particularly, nor would she particularly refrain 
 from doing so. She caused him to see clearly 
 that he was no more to her than another, that 
 she considered him rather youngr— that she 
 scarcely thought of him at all, in faf t. So Frank 
 Burgoyne, being unaccustomed tg such a light re- 
 gard from any woman about whom he thought at 
 ail, seethed in spirit, and was distraught in man- 
 ner as he sat at Mrs. Galton's side, and Mrs. 
 Galton's eyes were turned away from him lan- 
 guidly. He felt convinced that " those two girls 
 had little in them," in comparison to this delicate 
 woman with the material husband. He began to 
 wonder why she had married the honest-hearted 
 gentleman, who was obviously unable to reach 
 the heights of regarding her in the dim religious 
 light of semi-romance that he (Frank) was throw- 
 ing around her. He questioned whether the 
 " bogie of his boyhood," as he had once called 
 Harold Ffrench, had been an active agent in the 
 creation of that air of gentle melancholy that 
 hung abon* her. He marvelled whether or not 
 she had children, and if she had, were they that 
 "all" to her that the " something dearest" 
 
 should be to such a woman? In short, he 
 thought about her more perhaps than he should 
 have thought of his ndghbour's wife, and, not 
 being vicious, he was sorry for it. 
 
 Sorry for it, and ashamed of it, though there 
 had been no guilt in those thoughts. Still he was 
 ashamed when he looked at John Galton's honest 
 face, and Kate's apparently pure brow. There 
 was all the sanctity of the married woman about 
 her in Frank's eyes ; spoilt and petted as he had 
 been by women all his life, he had never learnt to 
 think Ul of them, for Ethel he knew to be pure 
 and good, and Ethel was as a sister to him ; all 
 the weaknesses that she had, he knew. 
 
 So he turned himself resolutely from Kate at 
 last, and found that the pretty girl whose gloves 
 he had buttoned and whose nuts he had shelled, 
 would not suffice to banish all thoughts of Mrs. 
 Galton, even for those few short hours. Then 
 once more he told himself that " there was more 
 in Theo," and subsided into his old friendly rela- 
 tions with Miss Leigh, who responded to him 
 half deprecatingly, as to one who was very gene- 
 rous, or v?ry much deceived. 
 
 The shadows of dissatisfaction deepened when 
 they rose from the table at last. For the first 
 time Theo was panting to gain private speech of 
 Linley, and Linley apparently had no design that 
 she should do so. Instead of suffering the party 
 to drift asunder and divide into pleasant knots of 
 twos, or more, he collected it together in the room 
 they were received in first, and installed himself 
 in their midst, in "• way that did away with all 
 hopes of anyone's gaining private speech of him. 
 Then, even as her aunt raged in her soul at 
 being compelled to sit in her bonnet with a full 
 knowledge of her best cap being up-stairs, did 
 Theo rage at not being able to speak to hun, to 
 have it out with him, about Harold Ffrench and 
 Harold Ffrench's wife. 
 
 She longed to tell him that she could bear it 
 all as it was, and to put it to his manliness not to 
 make it unbearable by speaking of it tUl Harold 
 Ffrench deemed the tune ripe to speak of it him- 
 self. " Till Harold deemed the time ripe ; " she 
 would put no harsher construction on his reti- 
 cence than that, even to herself. When he 
 deemed the time ripe he would cease to live this 
 lie, and be the»can(id gentleman she so hardly, so 
 vainly, sometimes strove to think him. 
 
 CHAPTER SXVn. 
 
 AFTER LUSOHEON AT LOWNDS. 
 
 Had he come there unwittingly? or had he 
 known of her being there, and come, hoping to 
 see her again, without apparent design? She 
 had not questioned thus when the note of his 
 arrival had been first soundedj.for all her thoughts 
 had been of him then. But that first flush, of 
 excitement was over, and she was standing now at 
 a window in the drawing-room, rather apart from 
 the rest, asking that question keenly — asking it 
 with an anxiety she could not subdue. 
 
 The dread that she had about him! There 
 would be danger in meeting him, and danger 
 in evading him, danger and pain. She could not 
 foresee anything but discomfort arising from this 
 combination, and when she thought of how it 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 91 
 
 miglit strike her father, she felt pitiably helpless 
 and uncertain how to act. 
 
 If he had come knowing that she was there, 
 and designing to see her, he had erred, in that he 
 had heen guilty of something underhand. She 
 could not bear to think this of him ; she put the 
 fear of it away from her resolutely, and told her- 
 self that he had come in ignorance, and that he 
 would go to-morrow perhaps, and spare her the 
 pain a meeting here, a meeting now, must cost 
 her. She looted up, disturbed by a slight sound, 
 and she saw that Frank Burgoyne had come over, 
 and was standing by her side. 
 
 "Ffreneh did not know you were here. Miss 
 Theo, tiU Ethel told him this morning," -he said, 
 and Theo drew a breath of relief that was a half 
 sigh, and replied : 
 
 " You say so — you mean it ? " 
 " I do, indeed. I would have affirmed it before 
 this, and more solemnly, had I known that you 
 attached such importance to it." 
 
 " I do attach importance to it, Mr. Burgoyne, 
 and I think you know why," she said quickly. 
 She was longing to test his knowledge to the 
 utmost ; she was capable of ruthlessly probing 
 her wound for the sake of finding out whether or 
 not Frank Burgoyne was wholly in Mr. Linley's 
 confidence. 
 
 He blushed more than the girl before him as 
 she spoke, he knew weE how this must pain her, 
 and he was so sorry for her pain. 
 
 " Do forgive me," he murmured earnestly; " I 
 had no right to broach the subject; but I do 
 know enough, Theo, to make me feel sure that 
 the assurance of the truth, the assurance that 
 Mr. Ffreneh did not know you were here, would 
 be agreeable to you." 
 
 " Then you knew that I " she stopped, half 
 
 choked for an instant, and the blood rushed up 
 in a fiood to her brow, " Then you know that 
 I-^thought myself engaged to him once?" she 
 went on, in a voice that she strained so hardly to 
 Steady that Frank felt more than pity for her. 
 
 " I know that he was engaged to you, and that 
 for some cause he has lost you, Theo," he replied, 
 so lovingly that Theo thought how "pleasant it 
 would be to have such a brother as this sympa- 
 thetic Frank Burgoyne. 
 
 "That cause, that cause?" she interrogated 
 eagerly, but Frank did not say whether or not he 
 knew what it had been, and so Theo was still in 
 doubt as to the extent of his knowledge on the 
 subject. He only sat down on the broad seat 
 of the latticed window, and talked to her of other 
 things, of indifferent things, looking past her 
 against his will the while at Kate, who saw him 
 not. He could but watch her and her graceful 
 affectations, and half sneer at them to himself, 
 and watch them still, and finally gird at her in 
 his heart for not playing any of them off upon 
 him. He chafed under her neglect, under the 
 spectacle of so much more being lavished upon 
 Linley than upon himself, the "younger man." 
 He set himself to watch her keenly ; he tried to 
 detect the minutest atom of assumption or un- 
 reality in Mrs. Galton's manner of regardlessness 
 towards himself. To his ultimate loss he failed 
 in detecting aught that could have put him on his 
 guard ; the lady was prepared to meet and baffle 
 all suspicifin of this unconcern of hers being 
 other than the undesigned pure and simple off- 
 BDrine of her feelings towards him. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan had thought of ordering her 
 carriage directly after luncheon, for she was warm 
 and weary. The day had been a failure, an utter 
 faUure, in her estimation. Frank Burgoyne had 
 been planted as far from her niece as was possible 
 at the table. Theo and her host had spoken in 
 low tones ; her best cap had not been suffered to 
 see the light ; and Mrs. Galton palpably was at 
 no pains to entertain her (Mrs. Vaughan). The 
 sense of these evils was upon her strongly as they 
 came back.into the room with the oaken rafter, 
 and it caused her to tell Mr. Vaughan that she 
 should order the carriage, and go home at once ; 
 and why they had come she &r One could not 
 tell, for certainly they were not wanted. 
 
 " It will scarcely do to go just yet, will it, my 
 dear?" Mr., Vaughan had replied, and there was 
 a something about his manner of saying it that 
 showed Mrs. Vaughan that the day had not been 
 such a failure to her. lord and master as it had 
 been to herself. In truth he had been discussiug 
 church-rates and parochial matters generally with 
 John Galton, and was very happy, and in no 
 hurry to be put away on the back seat of the car- 
 riage and galled by the cap-box again. 
 
 " Whether it will ' do ' or whether it won't (and 
 why it shouldn't I should like you to tell me), I 
 shall go at once," Mrs. Vaughan had rejoined. 
 But just then Frank Burgoyne followed Theo to 
 the window, and Mrs. Vaughan resolved to be all 
 the thoughtful relative, and bear her bonnet and 
 Kate Galton's neglect for yet another little while. 
 For Kate, graceful lady, charming hostess as 
 she was, and could be at times, was negligent of 
 Mrs? Vaughan. She had not wanted Mrs. Vaughan 
 and her party here, and now that they were here, 
 she let it be seen, not that she had " not wanted 
 them," she was too well bred for that, but that 
 she felt that she could not entertain them ; that 
 she lamented this incapability, but still was help- 
 less. " It's a cruel kindness asking people to 
 come so far and having nothing to amuse them 
 when they do come, Mrs. Vaughan," Mrs. Galton 
 said once to Mrs. Vaughan. " I am afraid you 
 find it very dull." Then Mrs. Vaughan had re- 
 joined, "Oh! pray don't mention it: very nice 
 and pleasant, I am sure," and had thought that 
 were Mrs. Galton properly afflicted with fears 
 as to its being dull she might ask her to " walk 
 round the garden," or, " look into the dairy," or, 
 " see the house," or propose any of the many 
 other things ladies of an inquiring turn of mind 
 and an active habit of body like to do when they 
 find themselves in strange quarters. But there 
 was no, dairy to see at Lownds, and Mrs. Galton 
 would not have offered to do the honours of it had 
 there been one; and as for walking round the 
 garden, she read at a glance that Mrs. Vaughan 
 would have bored her as to the ilames of flowers 
 and plants. Therefore Kate did not propose any 
 of the pastimes that Mrs. Vaughan had come to 
 consider customary in a country house, and so 
 Mrs. Vaughan felt herself neglected, and cast 
 about for a vessel on which to wreak her wrath. 
 
 Theo was employed profitably, her aunt hoped, 
 harmlessly she could but see, with Frank Buiv 
 goyne in the window. The legal recipient of her 
 sorrows and angers was deep in the discussion of 
 a large-hearted scheme for the furtherance of 
 decency and order in labourers' cottages. It 
 wounded his wife to see him so rosy and comfort- 
 able while she was crimson and uncomfortable : 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 it hurt her that he should be diseoursmg in such 
 a fiiendlv spirit with the husband of the woman 
 who was leaving her to her own devices; it 
 aggrieved her horribly that he should permit 
 enjoyment to appear upon his countenance when 
 all was vexation of spirit with her. She was pre- 
 parmg to swoop down upon him with some signi- 
 ficant reminder, with something that should at 
 once and thoroughly rouse him to a sense of his 
 baseness in being gay when she was sad — and 
 savage — when her eyes fell on Sydney Scott, 
 and wrath was averted from the head of her 
 spouse. 
 
 To no one had the day been a greater failure 
 than to Sydney. She had come prepared to see 
 Frank Burgoyne do very terrible things in Mrs. 
 Vaughan's eyes ; she had come joyfully expectant 
 of Frank and herself infuriating her hostess be- 
 yond those bounds of fury she had seen Mrs. 
 Vaughan observe hitherto. She -had thought 
 herself round into rather a soft . state of mind 
 about the handsome young man whose prospects 
 were so good, and had cadiiered Hargrave of the 
 — th, who had nothing but his pay, and not too 
 much of that. She had told herself that " Frank 
 understood her," and had bitterly lamented the 
 lacking violet bows. It was hard on her, there- 
 fore, to come and find him preoccupied with his 
 own thoughts at luncheon (that refection, which 
 former experience had taught her can be lingered 
 over so long and pleasantly, and at which two 
 can absorb themselvies, and separate themselves 
 from the rest so much more easily than at a more 
 formal dinner). It was harder still to find him 
 occupied with Theo in the wide latticed window 
 after luncheon. These things were hard ; but 
 harder than all else was the fact of there being 
 no one who could take Frank's place, and assist 
 her in proving her indifference to this unlooked- 
 for desertion. She was compelled to sit and 
 look on, and to know that they knew she was 
 compelled to be thus quiescent,- which was worse 
 than all else. 
 
 She could not even fall back upon Ethel Bur- 
 goyne, for Ethel had picked up a book and was 
 evidently interested in it ; besides, conversation 
 with Ethel just then would have been as panada 
 after caviare. His aunt was all very well as one 
 of the family, but it was with the nephew that 
 Sydney had proposed conversing principally to- 
 day. Twice Mr. Linley attempted to draw her 
 into the conversation with Kate and himself, but 
 Kaite did not back, him, and. Sydney did not 
 respond. She had no intention pf playing second 
 to Mrs. Gallon, so she made her answers to his 
 polite attempts in good-tempered monosyllables, 
 and waited. 
 
 Sydney had a marvellous power of looking 
 bright, and unconcerned, and good-tempered, 
 when in reality she was none of these things. 
 She was none of them now, as I have shown, but 
 she seemed them all ; even elear-sighted Mr. Lin- 
 ley thought so, when he passed near her to get a 
 screen for Mrs. Galton, and she (Sydney) said to 
 him-r- 
 
 " Very jolly it is, being here." 
 
 Her tone challenged an answer quite as much 
 as her words, and after giving Kate the screen he 
 came back to make that answer, standing before 
 her in the way she liked to see men stand — in a 
 way that showed lookers-on they were devoting 
 their words to her alone, and looking down at 
 
 her youth (she was redolent of that same wonder- 
 ful spirit of youth) with the admiration those 
 alone can feel for it who have left it behind. 
 
 " I was afraid you were not finding it jolly at 
 all. I am an old bachelor, and I forgot that 
 when I invited a couple of pretty young ladies I 
 ought to have provided against monotony reign- 
 ing by inviting a corresponding number of cava- 
 liers." 
 
 "Well, I wish you had thought of it, Mr. Lin- 
 ley " (she was franker than ever, for she was re- 
 solved not to lapse into obscurity again), " Well, 
 I wish jou had thought of it, Mr. Linley, for my 
 sake." 
 
 " I will be more provident the next time you 
 honour me," he replied, and there was ever so 
 small a tone of chagrin in his voice. He had 
 hardly anticipated the pretty flirt telling him so 
 jauntily that she wished for the society of an- 
 other man, though he had been neglecting her. 
 
 " That is right, do," she answered, and then 
 she lowered her voice, but not her eyes, and 
 went on, " and then perhaps Mrs. Galton will be 
 good enough 'to monopolise him, and leave me 
 a chance of having a word with you, Mr. Linley, 
 for yorfre the oldest friend I have here, you 
 know," she went on pathetically, " except Theo, 
 and I only knew her one day before I knew 
 you." 
 
 When she said that, Mr. Linley remembered 
 the night on the terrace, and the nutting the 
 other day, and the way she had thrown him over 
 then for Frank, and many other little episodes 
 in this young lady's life that he had marked. He 
 recovered the judgment he had nearly lost when ': 
 she seemed to be frankly lamenting that there ', 
 was no young cavalier here this day. He re- % 
 covered his judgment about her, and declared her 
 to be but a bungling coquette after all. How- 
 ever, he remained there, standing before her, and 
 looking down admiringly on the fair youthful 
 head, until at last he took both her pretty little 
 plump white hands in his, in order that he might, 
 read their palms and something of her character, 
 " which was a mystery to him," he said, to her 
 delight. It- was at this juncture, just at the com- 
 mencement of the readmg, that Mrs. Vaughan's 
 eyes fell upon her young guest, and wrath was 
 averted from the head of the vicar of Hensley. „, 
 
 "I think it high time that we were going, if ^ ij 
 we are to get back to Hensley to-night, Mr.I--| 
 Vaughan," Aunt Libby exclaimed, rising up with * 
 a flutter that sounded through the room like the 
 springing of an agitated hen. 
 
 " Surely not yet, Mrs. Vaug^^ ; don't go yet," 
 Mr. Linley answered, looking round at her, but 
 not releasing Sydney's hands. 
 
 " But indeed I shall." Mrs. Vaughan snapped 
 rather than spoke these words; they went off 
 with a click in Theo's ears, and made her come 
 away from the window, for they betokened anger. 
 
 " Will you order the carriage, Mr. Vaughan, 
 or must I ? wUl you be good enough to say good- 
 bye to Mrs. Galton, and not keep the carriage '. 
 waiting, Miss Scott ? " The old lady was bridling 
 her head at Sydney, and flashing glances of un- 
 mistakeable anger at her, but Sydney would not 
 cast her weapons from her and cry for mercy. 
 
 " There will be plenty of time to tell what I 
 am, and what I'll be, Mr. Linley, if, you make 
 haste. I won't keep the old horse waiting, Mrs. 
 Vaughan ; poor old fellow I I wouldn't be the 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 m 
 
 cause of his getting a cold, and roaring more 
 than he does alreadj^for the irorld. That means 
 that ' I shall be fortunate in all I undertake,' do^s 
 it ? how nice. And that other one — what's that ? 
 I never noticed my hand being so full of ugly 
 marks before. Let me see if you have any of 
 the same lines, Mr. Linley ; here's one — no, it's 
 a out ; how ever did you get that tremendous 
 scar, Mr. Linley ? " 
 
 He dropped her hands suddenly. 
 "It's not tremendous, it's a mere scratch, you 
 little exaggerator," he said quietly. Then Frank 
 Burgoyne, who had come up to hear what they 
 were dl talking about, said : 
 
 " Ah ! I've often remarked that, Linley ; it's a 
 sabre cut, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I am sorry there is no time to tell a story 
 about it before Mrs. Vaughan leaves us to 
 gloom," Linley answered. " You have had one 
 Uttle specimen of my skill in the art of liarration, 
 haven't you, Miss Leigh ? " he added inquiringly. 
 " Yes," Theo replied curtly. 
 " Oh ! yes," Mrs. Galton put in ; " you told us 
 some amusing nonsense the night we met you at 
 Lady GlaskiU's, about a girl being torn through 
 sonie bars, and being married to the wrong man, 
 and Harold Ffrench would be grand about it, and 
 refuse to have his name given to the fictitious 
 hero." • 
 
 " You honour me too much by so clearly re- 
 membering the pith of my poor story," Mr. Lin- 
 ley said, bowing to Kate. " You remember it 
 better than that, don't you ? " he added abiruptly 
 tp Theo, and Theo answered " yes," again, and 
 asked him piteously with her eyes, " why she did 
 so remember it ? " 
 
 To which mute question he did not make 
 reply, but perhaps that might have been because 
 the leave-taking became general at the moment, 
 "and Ethel Burgoyne was rather loudly demanding 
 to know whether they would not all of them go 
 to Maddington the following day, and see Mr. 
 Harold Ffrench. 
 
 " Perhaps we may, my dear, if I feel equal to 
 it," Mrs. Taughan murmured ; " but the charge 
 that girl is to me words can't tell. I wouldn't 
 have had her down if Theo had given me a hint 
 — ^no, nor half a hint." 
 
 "Oh! she's all right, dear Mrs. Vaughan," 
 Ethel said hopefully. 
 
 " Well, I hope she may be, but I don't think 
 it," Mrs. Vaughan replied, relapsing into a state 
 of doubt as to Sydney with virtuous celerity. 
 " Such ways, and such manners, and such as- 
 surance in-a girl of that age, makes me tremble ! 
 actually tremble ! " 
 
 And Mrs. Vaughan trembled forthwith to an 
 extraordinary extent, considering that she was 
 neither cold nor hungry. Perishing starvation 
 could not have shaken more vigorously than did 
 Mrs. Vaughan under the influence of feelings 
 that may not be analysed with regard to this 
 young charge of hers, who suffered men to hold 
 her hands and read her character the while. 
 
 CHAPTER XSVin. 
 
 HABOLD I 
 
 " He will not come." Over and over again 
 the girl said this to herself, and over and over 
 
 again she felt a blinding shame that she hoped 
 she might be telling herself a lie. He would not 
 come, she tried to feel sure of it. He ought not 
 to come, she knew that full well. But it would 
 be so sweet to see him, it was so hard to know 
 that he was so near and yet so far. 
 
 That drive home from Lowndes had been 
 dreary, not so much " dreary," Sidney averred, 
 as disgusting. Mrs. Vaughan had striven — 
 striven arduously, and with partial success — to 
 make her voice heard above the grinding of the 
 wheels. Now the roads were dry and stony be- 
 tween Lowndes and Hensley, and the result of 
 this striving on the part of Mrs. Vaughan was 
 that Theo was nearly maddened by, and Sidney 
 simply maddening to, Aunt Libby. 
 
 For Miss Scott had an aversion to being 
 screamed at (especially in reprobation) over the 
 stones, therefore she avoided as much of the 
 unpleasantness as she could by putting over her 
 ears the plump white hands which Mr. Linley 
 had been holding. It was this gesture which 
 made Mrs. Vaughan deem herself more of a 
 wronged woman than ever, it was this that made 
 her see Sidney's misdemeanors of a crimson hue. 
 Mrs. Vaughan had her little idiosyncrasies. 
 There was no doubt about her possessing them, 
 and no doubt about her fatal facility for develop- 
 ing them on the smallest provocation. She 
 elected to give them full play to-day, so she 
 went to bed with a headache immediately on her 
 arrival at home, and sent a message to the cook 
 to the effect that the luncheon at Lowndes had 
 been an early dinner in fact, and that conse- 
 quently they would not require the dinner she 
 had ordered before leaving in the morning, or 
 indeed anything at all tiU they had a cup of tea 
 at nine. 
 
 The two girls, in ignorance of this private em- 
 bassage, came down at half-past six dressed as 
 usual, and finding the drawing-room a blank, 
 they fell to wondering why it was so, and to 
 wandering about the dining-room like two stray 
 spirits. Everyone knows the discomfort of a 
 period of this description. Daylight is not dead 
 in the sky, yet it is too dark to see to do any- 
 thing ; nor is it cold, yet a fire would be pleas- 
 anter than a grate full of shreds of white tarle- 
 ton. Again, dinner is what you are in the habit 
 of expecting at this hour, and though you are 
 not hungry you expect it now, and your heart 
 swells with more anger than sorrow at seeing no 
 signs of it. , Theo and her friend had both been 
 set wrong in a measure, and this was not the 
 sort of thing to set them right. 
 
 " There goes the ghost of our chance of a 
 dinner to-day, Theo," Sydney said, when the ser- 
 vant came into the room about a quarter to 
 eight with the lamp, and asked them if they 
 would like some bread-and-butter cut for tea. 
 They were both lying down on sofas, and one 
 girl was very miserable, and the other very 
 cross. 
 
 " Bread-and butter ! no, none for me, thank 
 you," Theo said ; and then the servant looked at 
 Sidney, who shook her head vehemently. 
 
 "No, none for me, either; bring me a bed- 
 room candlestick." 
 
 " You're not going to bed at this hour surely, 
 Sidney," Theo said, turning round on her couch, 
 and gazing with amazement on the little blonde 
 who had lifted herself up on the opposite sofa, 
 
94 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 and wag now employed in carefully diehevelling 
 her long fair tresses. 
 
 " I should think I am indeed ; I'm utterly 
 worn out ; these arrangements don't agree with 
 me. I have been made very ill often by an un- 
 avoidable delay in the dinner-hour, and this is an 
 avoidable one, therefore it's ten times worse. I 
 feel shivered and ill, and dull to a degree you 
 can't comprehend in your abominnble placidity, 
 Theo. Mrs. Vaughan might have mentioned 
 that she was in the habit of cutting off one's ra- 
 tions when one annoyed her." 
 
 "It would have been a break to have sat 
 down and dined," Theo answered ; "not that I 
 am hungry." 
 
 Pending the arrival of her candle. Miss Scott 
 stood up and commenced divesting hei'self of 
 her rings and bracelets. She was very delicately 
 careful over these things : she polished them up 
 with her filmy handkerchief one by one as she 
 took them off. 
 
 "What's the matter with you, Theo? Do 
 you take that affair (isn't this a fine opal? 
 there, you can see it when I flash it so I) to heart 
 much, after all ? How about the presents ? 
 You have never told me whether you returned 
 them or not." 
 
 " Oh, don't ! I .had none to return." 
 " How mean of him — horribly mean ! and yet 
 I doubt whether they're not more bother than 
 anything, it's so awkward to go and give any- 
 thing back ; it looks as if you suspected a man 
 of being low enough to regard the worth of 
 them ; besides, I get to like things, don't youf " 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Now, there's that ring, for instance, and a 
 Btud-brooch, opals and diamonds to matolx it. I 
 begin to feel that I ought to give them back, be- 
 cause, you know, when Hargrave gave them to 
 me I think he understood that I — understood 
 
 what he — I meant what they " 
 
 Miss Scott having rambled slightly during the 
 whole of her explanation, now lost her way en- 
 tirely, and stopped. 
 
 " Meant," Theo suggested. 
 " Yes, meant, if you like it ; for my part, I 
 hate things that are 'meant,' they always put 
 one in the wrong place, and of all earthly things 
 I hate being in the wrong place. Hargrave has 
 been like a brother to me ; he's such a dear fel- 
 low, you know; we are great friends, and I 
 could love his wife, if he had one, like a sister ; 
 - but if I have to guard against what he ijay 
 ' mean,' or defend myself against what he has 
 'meant,' why, it will be a hideous nuisance." 
 
 "Has a necessity for guarding and defending 
 yourself arisen?" Theo asked. She asked it 
 with a fresher interest than she had yet betrayed, 
 for Sydney's speech savoured of a certainty of 
 something — of something concerning Frank per- 
 haps. 
 
 " It hasn?t — not exactly, at least, but one's al- 
 ways open to its arising ; and then if one has 
 to explain, and apologise, and say ' sorry ' for a 
 whole heap of things that would have been 
 nothing if a lot of people hadn't talked them up 
 to your misery, it makes it odious. No tea for 
 me ; I'll go up to my room, and you can come 
 and say good-night to me when you come up, 
 Theo." 
 
 With this permission she withdrew, leaving 
 Theo alone — quite alone in the dull, cool draw- 
 
 ing-room, that looked out on the garden which 
 merged almost imperceptibly into the grave- 
 yard. 
 
 Miss Sidney Scott had no special gift for play- 
 ing the martyr without sufficient cause, and she 
 deemed the cause insufficient to-night, therefore 
 she rang for Ann when she reached her own 
 room and suggested to that benign woman that 
 a fire after what she had suffered below would 
 be soothing. 
 
 " And missus is that queer that she doesn't 
 care for dinner like, when anything have put her 
 out ; but, at your age, miss, lor, 'tain't likely but 
 what you're fit to eat whenever it's the right 
 time ; now, couldn't you pick a bit of something 
 for supper?" 
 
 Miss Scott thought that she could pick a bit 
 of something for supper. 
 
 " That's right," the woman went on cheerily ; 
 " I know her ways and I pay no regard to them, 
 and I would have had Miss Theo pay no regard 
 to them either. I'll warm up a partridge in a 
 little gravy, and bring up the tray in ten min- 
 utes." 
 
 "Go and tell Miss Leigh when its ready, 
 Ann ; it will be "a capital arrangement," Sidney 
 called out, as Ann was closing the door. But 
 by-and-by the tray came up, and no Theo ap- 
 peared to partake of its contents. 
 
 •' Miss Leigh isn't in the drawing-roomi" Ann 
 said, in answer to Sidney's inquiries. 
 " See if she's in her room, then." 
 Bui Theo was not in her room, nor did a 
 carefully-conducted search, which avoided Mrs. 
 Vaughan's room, succeed in finding her. " Per- , < 
 haps she has gone to sit with her aunt," Sidney ■.;^ 
 said, but even as she said it she doubted the 
 probability of her surmise being correct, and the 
 warmed-up partridge was eaten with a far less ' , 
 zest than would have attended its consumption 
 had she not been marvelling greatly " where 
 Theo could be." 
 
 The lone chill room had been too much for 
 Theo ; the lamp cast unpleasant shadows— • 
 lamps always do if you are in a room by your- 
 self and your heart is low. She did not dare to 
 disturb her aunt ; she did not care to disturb 
 her uncle, who was in his study, engaged in a 
 tough tussle with a text which he did not under- '{ 
 stand, and which he was going to make clear to 
 the church-going Hensley mind on the follow- j 
 ing Sunday. There were no books in the house 
 that she cared to read, there were no thought? 
 in her heart that she cared to lie still and 
 analyse. She was in that condition of mind 
 when action is not alone meet and well, but an 
 absolute necessity for the sufferer. So she rose 
 up presently, and went out through the window, 
 which opened like a dOor, out into that garden- 
 graveyard where she had strolled with Ethel 
 Burgoyne, and sat down on the tombs with 
 Frank the first night of her arrival. 
 
 Eapidly along the paths, in and out from one 
 to another with no cessation of speed, and no 
 settled goal, Theo walked for a while. Then 
 the sound of the gravel under her feet grated 
 harshly on her ears, and she went yet farther 
 from the house, away on to the grass, and com- 
 menced threading her way amongst the tombs, 
 in and out, in and out, till her progress grew 
 into a quaint pattern, and she became gradually 
 conscious of it. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 96 
 
 Of it, and of something else that caused a 
 cord of feeling that was almost fear to tighten 
 round her heart. She was some way from the 
 house now ; a spreading cypress, a yew or two, 
 and a weeping elm intervened, and made her 
 isolation seem a perfect thing ; and the tombs 
 that marked where the quiet dead were laid 
 were about her, ghastly pale in the moonlight. 
 
 For the moon was up ; her beams fell through 
 a dense plantation that rose from the side of the 
 garden, fell shattered into a thousand bits of 
 living gold through the leaves down at Theo's 
 feet. And moving along there, sometimes in 
 the shade of that plantation, sometimes obliter- 
 ating the golden bars, sometimes showing dark 
 against the whiteness of a tomb, she, sheltered 
 from observation herself by the dark cypress 
 branches, fancied she saw a form. 
 
 For an instant she was startled, and she fell 
 back involuntarily still further into the shade of 
 the gloomy branches of that solemn cypress 
 tree. Then she shook off the feeling that she 
 feared might be superstitious dread, and went 
 forward again, out from beneath the branches, 
 from the concealing shade, from that dark haven 
 of calm, along the silent turf, across the shim- 
 mering moonbeams, on to the form that had 
 moved, that was moving still, which had troubled 
 her for awhile. 
 
 There was no presentiment in her mind to 
 prepare her for that to which she was. going, to 
 urge her on, or to restrain her. As uncon- 
 sciously as the great majority in real life she 
 went on in an unprepared state to that which 
 nothing in reason could have prepared her for. 
 At the worst she deemed that lurking form 
 could be but a stray village dog or child ; she 
 went on to pat or reprove it, as the case might 
 be — went on with a conscience void of either 
 fear or hope, and found herself face to face with 
 Harold Pfrench. • _ 
 
 No Eomeo waiting in the garden with the 
 warm pallor of passion and a southern night 
 upon his face, but visibly a middle-aged gentle- 
 man who felt the cold, for his coat was closely 
 buttoned, and he seemed to shudder. Only for 
 an instant had she time to observe these things, 
 in the next he was coming close to her with ex- 
 tended hands, and the words " My God ! Theo ! 
 you here," on his lips. 
 
 " I am so glad." Freely she rendered up her 
 welcome, honestly she showed him that it was 
 joy to her to see him again. It might have 
 been that five minutes before each had been 
 feeling sore and sorrowful at heart on account 
 of the pthec. But now, in this first moment of 
 greeting, no sign was made by either of aught 
 but genuine joy at once again having met. Life 
 is very short. God be praised that some na- 
 tures seize the golden moments without dim- 
 ming them by retrospective tears ! It was 
 nothing that the girl forgot that she had been 
 injured by, and had suffered for this man, but it 
 was grand in him to forget that he had so in- 
 jured, and caused her to suffer. 
 
 He had taken both her hands in his in his 
 first agitation, for though he forgot the sorest 
 part of the affair, he remembered quite enough 
 to be agitated. And now he released them oife 
 by one as he remembered more. Then she ' 
 spoke again rapidly, for she pitied him so 
 keenly for being there, and dared not show that 
 
 pity, and knew that he knew she dared not show 
 it, and bled at her heart for them both. 
 
 "I suppose you're on your way — you've miss- 
 ed the way to Maddington." 
 
 "Yes, I'm on my way to Maddington," he re- 
 plied. It was disconcerting to him to be found 
 (Jut in this weakness, even by Theo herself. 
 " What brought you out in the cold ? " 
 
 They were such cool words — they were spoken 
 in so calm a manner— and yet Theo could not 
 quell her pity^ or kill the fear she had of the 
 hot thoughts that dwelt in both. 
 
 "The night looked so fine, and I — ought I to 
 ask you to come in, Mr. Ffrench, or will you 
 come another day ? " 
 
 " Another day," he replied affirmatively ; then 
 he walked away hastily for two or three yards, 
 and came back to where the girl stood trem- 
 bling. 
 
 " What did you think of me ? " 
 
 " When ? " she answered. She was a coward 
 then, poor child, and strove to fence with the 
 necessity for understanding him at once. It 
 was all rushilig upon her now, and she could 
 hardly bear it. 
 
 " When ! when you learnt that I had been a 
 mad fool, and that you had to suffer for that 
 mad folly ! Theo, I had lost my trust in man 
 long before that day, but I lost my trust in God 
 then." 
 
 He put his hands up before his face, he bowed 
 it down upon them as a man who had lost his 
 trust in all things, and still felt he could not put 
 himself out as the snuff of a candle would do. 
 She stood shuddering strongly, for his words 
 were very horrible to her, and she dared not 
 essay to comfort him. 
 
 " Go in, child," he exclaimed suddenly. " Go 
 in ; it would be absurd to tell you to forget that 
 you have seen me here, but remember it only 
 as one of the thousand follies of a man who is 
 old enough to be your father ; go in." 
 
 She tried to obey him, but she could not go 
 till she had pleaded for himself against himself. 
 She had loved him so well " once," she told her- 
 self, adding that she liked him so well now, that 
 she could not bear him to continue this silence 
 which others might construe into shame. 
 
 " You, are going to Maddington ; the Bur- 
 goynes often talk of you," she began trem- 
 blingly. 
 
 " Do they ? " he rejoined carelessly. He could 
 not think about the Burgoynes just then. He 
 was occupied in wondering where God's mercy 
 had been when he suffered the calamity of 
 which he had been the means to this girl to 
 come to pass. The alteration in her was patent 
 to him. 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. Ffrench, if you would only " 
 
 she paused half fearfully as the question ob- 
 truded itself — what right had she to counsel or 
 direct this man, who was another woman's hus- 
 band? 
 
 " If I would ' only ' what, Theo ? — explain my 
 curse to you ? No, I cannot : don't ask me to 
 doit " 
 
 " No, not that," she interrupted eagerly, " but 
 go and tell Lord Lesborough that — that you 
 are " 
 
 She could not say " married," the word clung 
 to her tongue, and rendered it incapable of ar- 
 ticulating. 
 
96 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 " Go in, for God's sake," he said hurriedly, 
 as he marked her huskineas and gathering con- 
 fusion ; " tell me what you have to say another 
 time — another time, Theo," he continued, in- 
 wardly swearing the while that this was the last 
 time he would ever risk putting the girl to such 
 pain. Then the wistfulness of tier face wrought 
 upon him, so that as she almost sobbed out 
 " good night," he caught her hand again, and 
 pressed his lips upon it with the fervour that is 
 generally put into the last intended caress. 
 
 Tliere was. a step behind her — ^behind the girl 
 whose hand was being held to the lips of the 
 man who loved her, and whose wife lived, and 
 Harold Ffrench, raising his head at the sound, 
 started erect, as though he had been stung, and 
 cried out: 
 
 " By my soul, this was undesigned." 
 
 " By my soul, you are a scoundrel ! " was the 
 quick retort, in tones that made Theo cry out 
 with a pain she had never thought to feel at the 
 sound of her father's voice. 
 
 CHAPTER XXrX. 
 
 AN EXPLANATION. 
 
 Theo had been loved like a daughter, and 
 trusted like a son by her father. He had never 
 been deceived by her ; he had never anticipated 
 being deceived by her in any matter, whether 
 small or great, since the hour when, she had first 
 looked at him with understanding, and the great 
 love of his heart had gone out to his daughter. 
 It was very horrible to him to come upon her 
 thus, and to have a doubt of her perfect integ- 
 rity forced upon him for the first time In such a 
 way. 
 
 It did not occur to Theo to tell her father at 
 once that this was no assignation, no planned 
 romance under the moon, no trifling with his 
 honour or her own. She did not suppose it pos- 
 sible that he could deem it such ; she gave no 
 thought to the fact of appearances being horribly 
 against her. She only felt stung to her soul to 
 hear such words as those he had given vent to 
 used by her father to Harold Ffrench. 
 
 " Don't call him that," she cried, going up, 
 and trying to cling to her father's arm as she was 
 wont to cling to it, and feeling that he would 
 not suifer her to do so, — why she could not tell. 
 " Don't call him that, dear," she repeated. 
 Then the recollection of her desolation came 
 upon her, and she put her head on his shoulder, 
 and said: — 
 
 " Kiss me, papa ; oh, my dear father ! I am so 
 glad you have come." 
 
 " Don't add hypocrisy to it," he returned 
 sternly : then, while.TheO looked up at hiln witli 
 gad, wondering eyes, he went on with a sob in his 
 voice : "By God, I have trusted you so entirely, 
 my girl, it breaks my heart to think how you have 
 deceived me. I didn't deserve this, Theo, I 
 didn't deserve this." 
 
 " Papa ! do you think I came out here to see 
 
 " she did not name Harold, hjit she glanced 
 
 round at him as he stood there with his hat off, 
 waiting anxiously to speak. 
 
 "God help me, I do," her father rejoined. 
 
 " She did not," Harold Ffrench exclaimed, " on 
 my honour." 
 
 " Tour honour ? " 
 
 They were only two words, but they were 
 enough for both who heard them. Theo read in 
 them all her father's hatred and contempt for the 
 man she loved, and that man writhed under them. 
 The position was a pitiable one for them all, and 
 she felt the full pitiableness of it. But hurt, cut 
 to the soul as she was to know herself suspected 
 and Harold wronged, she pitied her father the 
 most. She knew how he would suffer when she 
 made him feel the truth. She knew how he 
 suffered now in doubting her. 
 
 "Let us go away, — back into the house, I 
 mean, — before I tell you how I came to be here," 
 she said, very quietly. She had no desire to make 
 a scene, or be emotional ; she only wanted now 
 to get in quickly, and right herself ui her father's 
 estimation. 
 
 "Good night, Mr. Ffrench. I shall tell my 
 father, and then he will be only sorry, not angry 
 any more, that we came here to-night." 
 
 Theo held her hand out to Harold Ffrench as 
 she spoke, and he took, and pressed, and released 
 it, without a word. Then he doffed his hat to 
 the old man, who stood looking on angrily, and 
 turned away to leave them. 
 
 " And now we will go in," Theo said, bringing . 
 her eyes back from that glance, that was half 
 after Harold and half away into the past, " and 
 you will soon say that I am no sneak, and that 
 he is no scoundrel." 
 
 She did not say this in either angry or injured 
 accents. She had a masculine way of looking at 
 many things, and it seemed to her neither opposed 
 to justice nor reason that her father should %>e 
 aggrieved and wrongfully suspicious of her. The 
 knowledge that he was so had been slow in dawn- 
 ing upon her, but as soon as it did dawn upon 
 her she felt that appearances were against her, 
 and that it would be idle folly to resent his having 
 judged her by them. 
 
 They went in, and found Mrs. Vaughan down 
 in the midst of the assembled household, re- 
 covered from her headache, and freely offering 
 suggestions as to Theo's whereabouts, and Mr. 
 Leigh's reasons for having come down in this 
 way, and confusion was rampant for awhile. 
 
 Confusion which Theo cleared up eventually in 
 her own honest straightforward manner. 
 
 " We have so much to say to each other, let u,? 
 go into a room by ourselves and say it, papa," , 
 she exclaimed, going away to the door. Then 
 her father followed her, trying to smile in appar- 
 ent lightness of heart at his sister as he passed, 
 an attempt which did not impose upon Mrs. 
 Taughan for an instant, or blind her to .the fact 
 of there being something wrong. 
 
 They went back, that father and daughter, 
 into the room the drear dulness of which bad 
 wrought the evil of driving Theo to escape from 
 it into the open night. When they had entered 
 it, and Theo had shut the door, she turned to 
 him, turned with a world of love in her out- 
 stretched hands and flashing earnest eyes, and 
 began ; 
 
 " I can't tell you quickly enough, that as little 
 as I thought to see you to-night, did I think to 
 see him out there." 
 
 " Theo, is this " he interrupted. 
 
 " Stop, dear" (in a lovingly imperative tone, a 
 tone that made him feel she would not permit 
 him to be unjust to her). "I only heard of his 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 91 
 
 being at Haddington this morning while we were 
 lunching at Mr. Linley's. Now tell me what has 
 brought you here, papa, and let ua have done with 
 that other subject." 
 
 Her father's arms were round her now, and he 
 was Icissing her on the forehead, and calling her 
 by her pet name, in a way that proved to her 
 right clearly that her simple statement had been 
 accepted. 
 
 "The reason I came," he said, "(don't be 
 hurt, child) was that I learnt from a friend that 
 there was danger to my daughter in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and BO, despite his offer to do so for 
 me, I came down to guard her from it myself." 
 
 " Danger ! from whom ? " she asked ; then a 
 sudden recollection came over her, and she 
 cried : 
 
 " Don't say, don't say, for it's untrue, you 
 know, and you'll be so sorry." 
 
 " Sorry, by God, na ! " he almost shouted, " I 
 can never forgive him for being the cause of my 
 having doubted my child." 
 
 She could not weep and moan, she could not 
 lapse into the Isfehrymose. Those women are 
 happy who can do so, for it gives them something 
 to do, and aids in passing away an awkward 
 time. But Theo could aot cry ; neither her mind 
 nor her face grew blurred. So now, though her 
 father was more affected than she cared to see 
 him on her accoimt, she only said : 
 
 " It's the friend who scented out a danger that 
 didn't exist, that has caused the doubt ; but 
 you'll forgive even that some day or other, so I'm 
 sure you will forgive the one who never hurt or 
 wronged us knowingly." 
 
 She uttered this steadily enough, without the 
 shadow of an alteration in her usual tones, but 
 she shivered and trembled when he replied : 
 
 "Sorry for having been blind enough to dis- 
 trust my daughter, even for an instant — yes ; 
 sorry for having c^ed down God's curses on the 
 man who would have wrecked her honour had he 
 not been found out in time, and who still pursues 
 her when she is away from her father's protec- 
 tion, — never ! " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, my dear, you were never so 
 hard, you were never so hard ; and you think 
 you are right, and I cant make you feel the 
 truth, though I feel it all so entirely myself." 
 
 " We'll say no more about it," he said, huskily ; 
 " only this, that I'm sure of you again." 
 
 Then she asked him to make her feel that he 
 ■vrss by staying there a few days, and>then letting 
 her go back to Bretford with him. When he had 
 promised this, she, like a true woman, asked for 
 one proof more. 
 
 " And you will scorn to turn informer, won't 
 you ? you will keep the secret that was told to 
 you to save, — ^uot that — but to cure me ? " 
 
 " If you are cured, yes." 
 
 She drew a long breath. 
 
 " I think I am." 
 
 "There is but one thing will make me think 
 it," Mr. Leigh replied. 
 
 " And that one thing, papa ? " 
 
 " I shall believe you cured of the folly I was 
 foolish enough to encourage once, when I see 
 you wipe this thing away from your life." 
 
 "What will make you believe that I have 
 wiped it away ? " < 
 
 "When you can look forward, child." 
 
 "I can do that now; I shall be very happy 
 
 with you and my mother, though my best happi- 
 ness is gone." 
 
 " While you say that, while I know you feel it, 
 how can I forgive that man, Theo ? " 
 
 He thought of her as he asked this—thought of 
 her as she had been on that day when Harold 
 Ffrench first came down to the rough old sea- 
 coast village. He thought of her as she was 
 then, with all her young bloom about her, with 
 her heart and cheek and mind fresh and unsullied 
 as those of a child. As he thought of her 
 thus, he showed in his face thal> his unrelent- 
 ing words were not words merely, they were 
 meant. 
 
 " What would make you, ttten? — and yet don't 
 say, don't say " (putting her hand over his mouth) ; 
 " it will come in time, even thai, perhaps, and 
 you will quite forgive, then." 
 
 " Yes ; if anytMjig can make me quite forgive, 
 my darling," he replied. "Now let us go back 
 to your aunt ; I will stay here a few days, and 
 take you back with me, if you like." 
 ."I think it will be better that I should go ; yes, 
 rmtch better that I should go and be with you ; 
 then no ' friend ' need write you false notes of 
 warning about me, papa, wringing your dear old 
 heart for nothing." 
 
 Miss Sydney Scott came to Theo's room that 
 night after the latter had retired, and questioned 
 her severely. " Why did you go out ? and where 
 did you go, Theo ? WTiy didn't you ask me to 
 go with you ? I should have preferred it to com- 
 ing up to bed, and then if we had been out to- 
 gether there wouldn't have been such a hulla- 
 baloo when your father came." 
 
 "I only went out in the churchyard." 
 
 "And meditated amongst the tombs: how 
 ghoulish your tastes are for a girl of your age : 
 didn't you feel creepy out there by your- 
 self?" 
 
 " Bather." 
 
 " I should think so. I wonder what would in- 
 duce me to go out there," she continued, walking 
 to the window which commanded the graveyard, 
 and placing her face against the glass, and her 
 hands closely on either side of her eyes, and peer- 
 ing steadily for a few seconds into the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 Suddenly she started, and said softly : - 
 
 " Come here, Theo ; gracious ! come quick." 
 
 " What is it ? " Theo asked, going up to her side. 
 
 Sydney turned a pale face round to look at her 
 friend, her eyes were sparkling brilliantly, and 
 her teeth almost chattering. She was ecstatic 
 and alarmed. 
 
 " There's a figure moving about down there, 
 Theo: — a man, I'm sure ! , do look." 
 
 " No," Theo said, shrinking back. 
 
 " But do, do ! he can't see us." Then Syd- 
 ney pressed her nose against the glass again 
 eagerly. * 
 
 " I see him now in the shade, I mean just out 
 of the shade of a tree ; I see hun quite pliunly, 
 that is, I can see one shoulder and his hat. Oh ! 
 Theo, who can it be? oh! Theo, did you see 
 any one?" 
 
 Poor Theo faltered. 
 
 "You know I have not looked," she re- 
 plied. 
 
 " Ah ! but I mean when you were out, did you 
 see any one when you were out? Who con 
 it be?" 
 
98 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 " Don't let whoever it may be see you at the 
 window, Sydney; pray don't, its nothing extra- 
 ordinary any one being in the churchyard at 
 night, after all." 
 
 " But I think it is extraordinary at this hour ; 
 all the village people would be gone to bed. 
 Theo, I tell you who I think it ia,— Frank Bur- 
 goyne." 
 
 Theo looked sharply up at Sydney, who had 
 again brought her face away from the glass. The 
 face was flushed now, and a smile of gratified 
 triumph irradiated it; Miss Sydney evidently 
 meant what she had said. 
 
 "Maybe it is Frank Burgoyne,'' Theo said, 
 tremulously, feeling very grateful to the vanity 
 that was ever ready to suppose what it 
 wished. 
 
 " And if it's Frank Burgoyne, what can have 
 brought him here ? Did you see him when you 
 were out ? " 
 
 " Indeed, indeed I did not, Sydney ; do believe 
 me, I did not." 
 
 " He must come hoping to see one of us ; why 
 else should he come, you know ? " 
 
 " Probably it is to see one of us, but it's not 
 to see me." 
 
 " Oh, Theo ! what a thing if, after all, I'm 
 Lady Lesborough ; what a jolly take down for 
 all those people at Bretford ! " 
 
 " Why on earth should you care to take them 
 down ? and how could it affect them ? You do 
 attribute such a lot of motives to people, Sydney. 
 I hope you will be Lady Lesborough, not for the 
 sake of seeing other people savage, but for the 
 sake of seeing you happy. I think Mr. Burgoyne 
 such a nice fellow ! now come away from the 
 window," she continued, coaxingly ; she was very 
 much afraid that some stray moonbeam might 
 show Sydney presently that the one she watched 
 was not Frank Burgoyne, and, above all. things, 
 Theo desired to avoid remarks being made about 
 the nocturnal visitant at to-morrow's breakfast- 
 table. While Sydney imagined it to be Frank 
 Burgoyne she would hold lier peace. 
 
 After a time Sydney consented to withdraw, 
 and go to her own room, the window of which 
 did not command the garden and graveyard. 
 And then poor Theo set herself seriously to work 
 to decide on what she ought to do, should she 
 ever see Harold Ffrench, or should the contin- 
 gency at which her father had hinted, and for 
 which he evidently hoped, arise. 
 
 In the order of things it would be only, natural 
 that in time to come some one else should see in 
 her a portion of that which Harold had seen, and 
 so perchance desire to possess it for his own. 
 She felt this, she acknowledged it to be but in 
 the order of things; perhaps (she was only a 
 woman) she did not feel strongly averse to such 
 a thing occurring. But how would she take it, 
 what ought she to do when it did occur? Would 
 the ashes of the fire that had burnt out her child- 
 hood, that had seared her youth, go on smoulder- 
 ing for ever, and scorch the tendrils of any new 
 hopes that might arise ? 
 
 It seemed a terrible thing even to herself as 
 she did it, to sit there and weigh the merits of 
 such a ease, and calculate the chances of what 
 she might be able to do in order to, at any cost, 
 make her father think that the bUght he so re- 
 sented had not been eternally blasting in its ef- 
 fects on her. It seemed unwomanly, unworthy of 
 
 one who had been dear to Harold Ffrench. But 
 then, again, she owed it to a prior love, to 
 the love her father bore her, to banish as many 
 as might be banished of the signs of that early 
 blight. 
 
 And all the while she sat there thinking of 
 .these and sundry other things, she could not lose 
 the consciousness that was half agony and half 
 bliss, that every flicker of the little candle that 
 lighted her vigil was watched from below by one 
 of whom she scarcely dared to think. 
 
 At last she came to a resolution that gave her 
 a strange kind of strength, that imparted a feel- 
 ing of endurance, a sensation of being able to 
 bear things, which she had long lacked, despite 
 that quiet treading of the path of duty which I 
 have portrayed. She resolved that this early 
 dream which her father, whom she loved so well, 
 had denominated a "folly," should never stand in 
 the way of her following any path upon which he 
 placed her, and which he wished her to pursue. 
 Her sorrow had caused him sorrow enough al- 
 ready; he should never, willingly, be given 
 another pang through her. * 
 
 There came a strong party over from Had- 
 dington the following morning : the two Miss 
 Burgoynes, and Frank, and the Galtons, and Mr. 
 Linley. These last had reinforced the Madding- 
 ton party on the road, so they all came along 
 together, with a view of taking luncheon with 
 Mrs. Vaughan, " if Mrs. Taughan would have 
 them," Frank said, which Mrs. Vaughan was only 
 happy to do at his instigation; 
 
 Kate Galton was on horseback, in a light-blue 
 habit, seamed with black braid, and in immense 
 spirits, and Frank was palpably in a bad case, 
 though no one save Linley, and perhaps Kate 
 herself, guessed the cause of it. It was Kate's 
 speciality to be lighter-hearted in exact propor- 
 tion as others were depressed, particularly if that, 
 depression arose from herself. She marked 
 Frank's moody manner, this morning as she had 
 marked it on that day when the first seeds of the 
 disease that was affecting him were sown, and as 
 she had no feeling with regard to him, she re- 
 solved to play the model matron, and discreetly' 
 point out to her husband how foolish young Mr. 
 Burgoyne was, when she found a fitting oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 " We couldn't get Harold Ffrench to come 
 with us to-day," eSicI Burgoyne said to Theo : 
 and Theo, calm as she was externally, quivered < 
 in her soul as she glanced at her father, and s|w 
 him drinking in the wprds. " He leaves us in a 
 day or two," Miss Burgoyne went on ; " but I 
 daresay you will see him before he goes." 
 
 " I leave in a day or two also ; I am gomg 
 back with my father," Theo replied. 
 
 " And I am going back with her," Sydney 
 Scott whispered to Frank Burgoyne. She re- 
 flected that if he had deemed it worth his while 
 to risk rheumatism in a damp graveyard at night 
 for the sake of watching her shadow on the blind, 
 he might even rist being rebuked by the pro- 
 fane, for being rashly romantic, and bringing 
 things to a climax under fear of so soon losing 
 her. 
 
 But all he said when she told him that she 
 was going back with Theo was, " Oh ! are you ? " 
 and he did not look.much more at the moment. 
 But his manner had lost so much of its former 
 buoyancy, that she was not much disheartened 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 99 
 
 at his being so undemonstrative at the first sbot. 
 She would fire a few more before they finally 
 parted, and giro him another chance. 
 
 Before they had left the Lowndes shooting-box 
 that morning Mr. Linley had received a telegram 
 from a man in town who was more than a ser- 
 vant and less than a friend to him : — a man who 
 wrote his letters, and corrected his proofs, and 
 disabused the minds of too despondent duns of 
 dread, when they came and waited in the hall, 
 urged to this repulsive line of conduct by thoughts 
 of the " heavy accounts they all had to make up 
 next Tuesday," — a man who was his secretary 
 in name, and who was divers other things in fact. 
 
 The telegram was very brief; it consisted only 
 of these words, — " ©ding fast ; he does not Ijnow 
 it ; will shortly." But brief as it was, and relat- 
 ing as it did to such a pleasant thing as the free- 
 dom of somebody or something, it plunged Mr. 
 Linley into a state of melancholy that lasted un- 
 til they had been on the road for some time, and 
 joined the Maddihgton party. When that event 
 came to pass he recovered a little, and entered 
 into a very lively disquiMtion with John Galton 
 us to the respective merits of a couple of colts 
 the latter possessed, one of which was shortly, to 
 go into training. 
 
 It so happened that John Galton directed his 
 whole conversation during the ride to Mr. Linley 
 and Ethel Burgoyne. BUs wife therefore fell to 
 the share of Prank, and Frank's elder aunt, 
 whose mind was fully occupied with the manage- 
 ment of her horse, and who consequently rather 
 neglected Mrs. Galton. It was an opportunity 
 which he dared not hope, which he did not 
 "hope" (for he wanted to do that which was 
 right), might arise again, so Mr. Frank made the 
 most of it according to his lights. 
 
 There was a variety of interests and counter- 
 interests, there was a wealth of plotting and 
 scheming, innocent and the reverse, assembled 
 that day inside that quiet rectory-house. 
 
 Events did not march far however this, morn- 
 ing. Linley was the only one who made a de- 
 cisive move on this board which I have endeav- 
 oured to place before my readers. He made it 
 by saying when the hour of separation was com- 
 ing on : • 
 
 " What do you all say to meeting to-morrow at 
 Lowndes, all of you who arp here now ? I want 
 my old friend (I may call you my old friend, 
 though, in years gone by, we had but a cursory 
 knowledge of each other) Mr. Leigh to come and 
 see me in my country quarters." 
 
 They all promised to go to him, all fexcept 
 Mrs. Vaughau, who did not care to take her best 
 cap a perilous journey a second time for nothing. 
 She declined on the score of the parish requiring 
 her supervision the following day. " There was 
 no occasion for her now," she said ; " her young 
 ladies could go with Mr. Leigh." 
 
 " And in order not to interfere with G^ton's 
 sport, and at the same tune not deprive him of 
 such deUghtful society, what do you say to dining 
 in my bachelor-hut at seven, instead of lunching 
 there at two?" Linley asked, in that sort of 
 generous, liberal way that implies " you mayfind 
 a Barmecide feast or a baronial festival, my dear 
 fellow, but you'U be heartily welcome to either, 
 esri^eially the latter." 
 
 They all said that it was a. good change, and 
 assented readily to the plan. 
 
 " You will be liable to Harold Ffrench, of 
 course you know that, Linley?" Frank said, 
 interrogatively. 
 
 " If Mrs. Galton's cousin is with you still, I 
 shall be most happy to see him." 
 , " I believe he will elect to remain with papa 
 again," Ethel put in. 
 
 " Papa, would you rather I didn't go ? " Theo 
 whispered, drawing her father into the bay- 
 window. 
 
 " Certainly not, you are not the one, nor am I 
 the one to let you, shrink from a meeting that's 
 fair and above board," her father replied. 
 
 " Then it's settled that we all meet at 
 Lowndes at seven to-morrow," the master of 
 Lowndes said, rising up ; " that is right. Now, 
 Burgoyne, had we not better have round the 
 horses ? " 
 
 They went oS, and took the road at a swinging 
 trot. It happened that the two fastest trotters 
 of the lot were Kate Galton's horse and Frank 
 Burgoyne's : this being the case they soon dis- 
 tanced the others, for there was no good canter- 
 ing ground belweena the Vaughans' house and 
 Maddington Park gates. 
 
 "Never mind, Galton," Linley muttered to 
 John Galton as the pair turned a corner out of 
 sight of those behind ; " the young fellow is 
 foolish, that's all." 
 
 Jolm Galton turned with a look of honest in- 
 quiry on his face towards the man who was 
 speaking to him. Something in that man's eyes 
 struck him apparently, for presently he flushed, 
 and asked : 
 
 " What am I not to mind ? and how is the 
 young fellow foolish? I think he's one of the 
 nicest young fellows that I ever met with in ray 
 life." 
 
 Linley laughed. "My dear fellow, all right; 
 I am ready to think so too ; on my word, Gal- 
 ton." he continued in a sort of admiring burst of 
 enthusiasm, " you're one of the most sensible 
 fellows I ever met in my Ufe." Then he drew 
 rather nearer to Ethel Burgoyne, and began 
 speaking to her, for John Galton was looking at 
 hhn with a queer expression in his eyes. Mr; 
 Linley had made another move. 
 - When they reached the Maddington gates 
 there was nothing to be seen of either Frank or 
 Mrs. Galton. "They have kept up a trotting 
 match to Lowndes, probably," Ethel said ; " never 
 mind, Mr. Linley, we have our own man with us ; 
 we can ride up without Frank. Mr. Galton and 
 you shall not come out of your road for us." 
 
 But Mr. Galton and Mr. Linley insisted on 
 doing so, since the Miss Burgoynes' cavalier had 
 deserted them for the lady for whose conduct 
 Mr. Galton, and Mr. Linley too, in a measure, 
 were accountable. 
 
 When they were riding back through the park, 
 after seeing their charges safely off their' horses, 
 and not so much as catching sight of Harold 
 Ffrench, John Galton commenced : 
 
 " What did you mean just now, Linley ? . I'm 
 not quick at taking things, but I hardljf liked 
 your allusion." ' 
 
 " ' Not easily jealous, but, being wrought, per- 
 plexed in the extreme,' eh! — ^no offence; I am 
 but making a quotation, you know." 
 
 "It would have improved the play, to my 
 mind, if that hoimd, lago, had received a score 
 or two blows from a well-loaded hunting-whip 
 
100 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 before they set about judging him like a man," 
 John Galton said slowly. 
 
 Mr. liinle; looked askance at hiin as they rode 
 slowly along. 
 
 " lago's is an ungrateful part ; how the devil 
 are we to know that he didn't mean well though 
 he was a little over-zealous in the cause of ' find- 
 ing out' Desdemona? But let me see; what 
 gave rise to all this ? oh ! I remember ; I ven- 
 tured to hint to you that that foolish, impres- 
 sionable boy, young Burgoyne, was boring your 
 wife, and you treat the hint as though I had as- 
 persed A«r." 
 
 " I fancied you were falling into the mistake 
 into which a lot of fellows have fallen with re- 
 gard to Kate, — through no fault of hers," he 
 added hastily. "Because she has no end of 
 g'ood-nature, people think she is guilty of levity, 
 very often when it's as far from her thought as — 
 as — anything bad can be," he continued ener- 
 getically. 
 
 " Of course, of course, that is all very apparent 
 to a man who has seen life, and known women as 
 I have," Linley replied hastily; "but Burgoyne 
 is just one of those young asses who would sell 
 their souls to be spoken about with a married 
 woman ; to be a diluted Don Juan, that is the 
 best ambition he has at present, I'm afraid ; and 
 that sort of fellow, little dangerous as he is in 
 reality, is awfully compromising to a woman. I 
 like Burgoyne very much," Mr. Linley went on 
 frankly, " and I wish with all my heart that you 
 would give him a setting down, or empower, me 
 to do it for you, for his grandfather has the 
 memory of that wretched Hugo who did some- 
 thing or other bad ever present in his mind, and 
 he would be down on Frank to Frank's detri- 
 ment at a word." 
 
 " Set him down for his own good as much as 
 you please," John Galton replied, but I will not 
 have my wife censured even by implication ; here 
 they come back to meet us," he added hurriedly, 
 and his face grew violently red as he said it. He 
 wished he had not used the word " they " in 
 speaking of Frank Burgoyne and his wife after 
 what Mr. Linley had said. 
 
 " We have had a charming trot; where are the 
 Miss Burgoynes? my horse never broke once, 
 did he ? " Kate exclaimed animatedly, appealing 
 to Frank. 
 
 " Not once," he replied abstractedly, staring 
 at her. 
 
 "Ton have blown him, poor feUow," John 
 Galton said, leaning over, and patting his wife's 
 horse; " let us walk home quietly now." 
 
 " I'll turn back with you, Burgoyne ; don't be 
 alarmed, Mrs. Galton, I won't be a moment late 
 for dinner," the master of Lowndes said, po- 
 litely taking off his hat to his fair guest as he 
 turned back on the road to Maddingtoh with 
 Frank Burgoyne. 
 
 "I say; young fellow," he exclaimed, as soon 
 as the Gallons were out of ear-shot, " you've 
 done it, and no 'mistake ; Galton is as jealous as 
 the devil ; how do you stand with her ? " 
 
 "Good God! what do you mean?" Frank 
 asked agitatedly. 
 
 What Mr. Linley meant, however, must be re- 
 served for another chapter. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXX. 
 Sydney's bitrmises. 
 
 Miss Scott was sorely distraught both in man- 
 ner and mind, for all her normal steadiness and 
 self-possession, and for all her experience of this 
 species of light skirmishing, till she could get 
 Theo alone, and relieve her feelings by speech. 
 
 " He never hinted to me that he was there last 
 night," she began ; " those old cats of aunts of 
 his watch him so closely." 
 
 Theo felt herself to be the meanest of all im- 
 postors, knowing so well as she did the one who 
 had been "there" last night. For an instant 
 she felt tempted to make a clean breast of it : 
 the next instant she felt tempted to do nothing 
 of the kind. . . 
 
 " It's useles? mincing the matter," Sydney went 
 on (there was this great bliss in conversing with 
 her, she never waited for your answers) — "it's 
 useless mincing the matter ; he's immensely fond 
 of me, I can see that ; and I have never made a 
 mistake yet," she continued, with a large air of 
 experience, so large an air in fact that it might 
 have been gained from the passionate and ap- 
 parent attachment of the whole army, nothing 
 less. " If he does not know his own mind before 
 I go, though, I can't be expected to wait till he 
 does, can I ? " 
 
 lim was a downright question ; besides. Miss 
 Scott had to pause for more breath ; therefore 
 Theo said, " certainly not." 
 
 "Certainly not," Sydney repeated after her, 
 with a mocking emphasis ; " you're like every 
 other girl in the world, ready to agree to any- 
 thing , that one doesn't want you to agree to ; I 
 didn't expect spite from you, Theo." 
 
 " Tou will never get it, either. I am not quite 
 sure what I ought to say to yoil about Frank 
 Burgoyne ; if I only knew what to say, I'm sure 
 I'd say it." 
 
 "You're very kind, uncommonly kind ; now, 
 Theo, have I ever come in your way? I ask 
 you, have I ever taken away any of your gen- 
 tlemen?" 
 
 Theo laughed. " I never had any in my pos- 
 session to be taken away." 
 
 " Then you can't bo jealoutf of me." 
 
 " I am not indeed," Theo replied heartily. 
 
 "Ah ! I'm delighted, at that," Sydney said, in 
 a tone in which disappointment would make 
 itself heard. " I'm delighted at that ; there is 
 nothing that would be so odious to me as the 
 idea of making any one jealous of me. I couldn't 
 bear it; oh! I wouldn't do it, not on smy ac- 
 count, if I could help it. I have done it some- 
 times unconsciously, for men mil like me, you 
 know ; of course that's pleasant, but the other is 
 horrible, isn't it?"" 
 
 " Very pleasant — ^I mean very horrible ; oh 
 yes, I quite agree with you." 
 
 " I can see Mrs. Galton bates me," Sydney 
 said, tetting her hair down before the glass, and 
 trying the effect of a different arrangement. It 
 was mways gratifying to Miss Scott to think that 
 Mrs. or Miss anybody else hated her. 
 
 " Why should she hate you ? " Theo asked. 
 
 " That's what I say to myself !-^why should 
 she ? But she does, any one can see with half 
 a glance. I'm not going to be put down by Mrs. 
 Galton, though ; she could have slain me to-day 
 when he handed me the butter at luncheon." 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 101 
 
 "Tou don't suppose she wanted all the butter, 
 do you ? " Theo asked, laughing. 
 
 "No, it wasnt that; she didn't like to see 
 Frank paying me so much attention. The butter, 
 indeed ! how absurd you are, Theo ! You must 
 have seen her look, Ouf! she glared like a 
 pretty-faced oat ; Tm sure, though, there ought 
 to be no question of cutting out in the matter ; 
 she is a married woman, and I have never at- 
 tempted to cut her out." 
 
 Theo tried very hard to interest herself in Syd- 
 ney's surmises. B seemed ill-natured not to do 
 so. Theo had perfectly recovered the little sore 
 feeling that came over her on that first day when 
 IVank Burgoyne had paused on his path to her 
 to provide nuts for Miss Scott . 
 
 "Then you really feel that he likes you, dear, 
 and you are sure you like him? " she said, sym- 
 pathetically. Sydney, however, was not one to 
 care for the tone Sympathetic, — it threw too se- 
 rious a hue over all things. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know about ' really feeling ' and 
 ' being sure ; ' how can one be sure of anything, 
 especially when a man is hedged in between a 
 lot of old aunts?" 
 
 "It is ridiculous to speak of the Burgoynes 
 in that way ; Ethel is very little older than we 
 are, if she is at all." 
 
 " I don't want to say a word against them, 
 only I hate being watched and glared at as if I 
 were the most outrageous flirt in the universe." 
 Sydney fervently prayed at this juncture that 
 Theo might say she "thought she was;" but 
 Theo neither thought nor said it. Her friend's 
 ambition had not been fully fathomed by her 
 yet, and even had it been Theo Leigh was too 
 conscientious to gratify it. 
 
 " Did they glare at you too ? I thought Mrs. 
 Galton did the glaring ? And all this fierceness 
 was thrown away upon me ; I wish I had seen it, 
 Sydney." 
 
 " I wish you had, because it is great fun to 
 see a lot of women spiteful to choking point, and 
 unable to help themselves ; Frank would go 6n, 
 you know." 
 
 " Go on what ? — ^handing you the butter ? " 
 
 " Paying me attention generally, Theo," Syd- 
 ney replied loftily. "If you didn't see it for 
 yourself, I am not the one to tell you about it. 
 I detest talking about myself. What shall you 
 wear to-morrow ? I shall be pale, and go in pink." 
 
 "Tou mi? be pale?" 
 
 " Yes ; I turn very pale at night if I am at 
 all thoughtful, and I shall be thoughtful to- 
 morrow," Sydney replied, deciding on her rdle 
 for the morrow with the gravity of a judge ; 
 " and one white flower in my hair : bother this 
 sudden move of going back to Bretford just as 
 I have got used to all your aunt's vagaries ! " 
 
 " I am sure my aunt would be glad to keep 
 you longer, if you'll stay. I must go back with 
 my father ; he wants me, and I want him. I 
 have been away from him too long already," she 
 continued sadly. 
 
 " Then of course you must go ; and it won't 
 matter whether you do or not if Frank proposes 
 to me, for then 1 can go and stay at Hadding- 
 ton," Sydney replied, suffering her selfishness to 
 crop out in the frankest manner; "and if he 
 doesn't why then the sooner I get away the bet- 
 ter, for I should be bored out of my life here : 
 isn't mine a charming philosophy ?" 
 
 " Very charming, indeed, — what there is of 
 it ; the philosophical porticoi of your speech wa 
 microscopic, though." 
 
 " Perhaps you will like the philosophy of thi 
 one I am about to make better. I always mab 
 the best of things ; I shall make the best of m; 
 house when I've one of my own, by having yoi 
 there as much as possible. That's rather s 
 pretty speech from one woman to another now 
 I wouldn't say it to any other girl in the worh 
 than yoUj Theo," Sydney said brightly, in bles; 
 oblivion of the scores of school companions anc 
 friends of later days to whom, in moments oi 
 confidence, the like speeches had been made by 
 her. 
 
 " Yery pretty indeed, and very nice of you ; 
 if you could mention at once in what directioi 
 your house is likely to be, I could take a yearlj 
 ticket on that line, and so be in a position to rut 
 down to you often," Theo said, smiling. 
 
 " Bather witty, and more than rather vicious,' 
 Sydney replied oooly. " Well, women are all 
 alike ! even you have the taint, Theo ; you're s 
 wee bit, I won't say ' annoyed,' but ' astonished ' 
 at my being so liked. ShaU I wear my hdi 
 turned back or over my forehead to-morron 
 night?" 
 
 " You look very well with it either way." 
 
 " Do I really now," Sydney exclaimed with 
 the freshest delight ; "no one ia less conceited 
 than I am ; I never thought myself pretty for a 
 minute in my life ; I wonder other people do, 
 don't you?" 
 
 " Think you pretty ? — yes." 
 
 "No: wonder at other people thinking m« 
 so ; they say they think me so, at least. I don't 
 believe them. Of course I know that I am ao( 
 hideous, but then my mouth is wide, you know 
 (don't you hate a button-mouth ? I do), and 
 my nose isn't quite straight, and, as Hargrave 
 says, I have ever so much more mind in my 
 forehead than any Greek statue thslt was evei 
 chiselled." i 
 
 " I agree with Mr. Hargrave ; and your nose 
 is nicer than any stupid straight one." 
 
 " Oh, 'you're delicious, Theo ! you're not a bit 
 like other girls, making people uncomfortable 
 whenever they can. I think you charming, and 
 I don't mind telling you so ; but then I very 
 seldom meet with any, one like myself and you, 
 who is equally open and above any little paltry 
 jealousy." Sydney pranced about the room as 
 she spoke, with ner head aloft and her face 
 flushed with excitement. The sound of her own 
 praises was to her as the smell of powder to 
 the young war-horse. 
 
 " Hargrave, you must know, Theo, abominates 
 anything statuesque in real life, and his taste is 
 peij^ct, — oh ! perfect. He always says, ' Fancy 
 waltzing with the Venus of Milo, or having a 
 Juno to pour out your tea.' " 
 
 " No, I can't fancy his doing the one with the 
 Venus, or Juno doing the other, for him," Theo 
 replied, laughing, as a vision of the crisp carroty 
 locks, and the stiffly-carried head which sur- 
 mounted the well set-up form of the gallant 
 young officer rose up before her. " It's quite a 
 treat to hear you speak of Hargrave, though, 
 Sydney ; he has been absent from your conver- 
 sation for a long time." 
 
 " He has ; not bnly absent from my conver- 
 sation, but from thd country ; he ia in Dublin 
 
102 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 now, going to Lords-Lieutenant's balls, and flirt- 
 ing with Irish girls, probably. He was very 
 nice, though," she continued, seriously, " so nice 
 that I should not wonder, dear, at your falling in 
 loTe with him if you saw much of him. When 
 I have a house of my own you shall see a good 
 deal of him ; he will be safe to like a friend m 
 mine." 
 
 " Poor Hargrave ! if he could hear you, how 
 gratified he would be : can't you let him manage 
 matters for himself for the future? " 
 
 " Theo, I only meant it kindly towards you," 
 Sydney replied, with severe gravity. " I should 
 not benefit by it at all, further than the benefit 
 it would be to me to see two people of whom I 
 am fond — ^yes, very fond — happy together.' 
 
 Theo looked at her wonderingly. " She really 
 believes herself for the moment," Miss Leigh 
 thought ; "she plays so many little harmless 
 parts, and rushes into them all with such spirit 
 that she really believes herself; she is quite 
 exalted now." 
 
 Presently Syduey came down from her tem- 
 porary pedestal, and resumed the manner of 
 every-day life. 
 
 " I won't be so selfish as to keep you here 
 talking any longer, dear, for I'm bo sleepy that 
 I can hardly keep my eyes open, and if I don't 
 go to bed now they will be heavy to-morrow 
 with too late sleep. Now go, I won't be selfish 
 enough to keep you a minute longer. Good 
 night, — and, Theo dear, if you do see Ann, tell 
 her I'd like some biscuits and a glass of sherry. 
 I'm tired." 
 
 That evening, while Theo had been sitting, 
 listening to her friend's frivolous surmises, 
 Harold Ffrench had received a telegram, and 
 had started off at once in what appeared to the 
 Burgoynes a most extraordinary state of excite- 
 ment as an answer to it. "I have received 
 news from town which will take me away by the 
 next train," he said to Lord Lesborough in a 
 broken, altered voice; and when Lord Les- 
 borough said, " Dear me, no bad hews, I hope, 
 my dear Harold ? " he could only say in a bewil- 
 dered manner that he " did not know yet." 
 
 Nor. did he, in truth. Once before he had 
 received a somewhat similar telegram, and he 
 had acted upon the supposition of its truth, to 
 his own lasting remorse, and Theo's lasting 
 sorrow, he feared. The former telegram had 
 told him of the death of his wife, this one which 
 he now held in his hand told liim that she was 
 dying. 
 
 He dared not believe it, he endeavoured not 
 to hope that it was true. And he failed !: From 
 the bottom of*his heart there rose up a big 
 prayer that would be prayed — a prayer that, 
 fervent as it was, mingled itself with the gurg- 
 ling of waters, with the sound of the soft Greek 
 tongue, with the noise of a cry that had burst 
 from his soul through his lips years, years ago, 
 when a veil had been torn down by a mistakenly 
 impassioned hand. 
 , If that prayer were realised ! if that prayer 
 were only realised ! " My God ! " he thought, 
 "what a vista opens before me, for the girl 
 loves me still." 
 
 He went off, and took his ticket, and wrapped 
 himself up in a corner in his railway rug, just as 
 though his journey were one of the common- 
 place things towards a common-place goal which 
 
 men take every day. Went off and took his 
 ticket, and startdfi on the journey towards death 
 aJllJnUberty abom. the same time that Theo was 
 hea^i^ng that Sydney would wear pink and be 
 pale on the following day, and praying God to 
 ifflveher grace to, bring sunshine on her father's 
 neart once more," If it might be that the option 
 of doing so should be offered her. 
 
 It was in the dull grey morning that the train 
 by which^e was'travelling reached the London 
 terminus. The out-look over the house-tops of 
 that east-end district, that he had had as the 
 carriages crept slowly home, was a disheartening 
 one. All was murky and cheerless, cold, ugly, 
 raw, and uncomfortable that morning in the 
 world (so much of it as he could see) and in his 
 own heart. 
 
 Life was not up and doing in the homesteads 
 of that business locality yet, save in a few in- 
 stances. Still looking at those houses over 
 which hung that deep air of all being at a stand- 
 still within, which marks the exterior of the 
 abode where all are sleeping ; looking at these 
 houses, steeped in quiet as they were, gave him 
 no sense of rest, no respite from that soul-fatigue 
 which was bowing him down. He called to 
 mind — the carriages the while lazily creeping 
 home — early hours that he had known in other 
 scenes, when his heart had been hotter than 
 now it was, and sorrow and waiting had been 
 harder things to endure. Hours when the night, 
 the dark gloomy night, had merged into a clear, 
 grey, bright childhood of young morn, that 
 found him standing on some hill, perhaps, at 
 the foot of which a village wrapped in slumbers 
 lay. Hours which had brightened impercepti- - 
 biy, and brought a certain soft peace to his 
 soul as the greyish tints grew warmer, and a 
 little shade of pink came over the east, and 
 blushed away the mists in a way that made him 
 know that hour to be the maidenhood of day. 
 Hours when^ life, the sleeping life around him, 
 bad wakened up, thrilled into being as it seemed 
 by that blush, when action had resumed its 
 sway, and rest had been rather softly laid aside 
 than broken rudely. Such hours he had known 
 often : — ^how often ! — and he passed many of 
 them in review before him as the train crept 
 slowly home over the summits of sordid-looking 
 houses, which in their grim repose gave him no 
 sense of rest, but only of stagnation. 
 
 There was an hour in his past that was given . 
 back to him more vividly than the others which 
 he remembered. Memory has an artist's hand 
 very often; she photographs a "something," 
 and then touches it deftly with gorgeous tints, 
 with tender accuracy, with loving skill. She 
 brought him back such an hour now: she 
 touched it in such a way : she galvanized that 
 golden hour from the past ! — between the tak- 
 ing of the tickets and the final stopping of the 
 train. 
 
 This was the scene, bereft of the tints by J 
 which memory enriched it : this was the hour, 
 devoid of the colour and glow ! 5 
 
 He was a boy I Not that, for the law allowed | 
 him just three days ago the honours and dignity ' 
 of manhood; but a boy in heart and feeling 
 though his years were twenty-one. A great in- 
 dignant cry, followed up by cantos ofmelodious 
 strains, had throbbed over from the land of 
 classic story, to the university at which he had 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 108 
 
 been studying. The time for doing this was 
 over now (at the hour I speak of), aud he was 
 on his way to "Greece and the struggle for 
 liberty ; " that was all, he thought. In reality 
 he was hastening forward to the worst of bond- 
 age and slayery. 
 
 There was with him one who had been his 
 sworn friend and comrade through numerous 
 school-boy joys and sorrows, through various 
 college ditoculties, through so much of the weal 
 and woe of life as either of them had yet known. 
 A sharp, brilliant young fellow, this latter, a 
 year or two older than Harold; a man with a 
 limitless faith in himself, and that which he was 
 destined to achieve ; likewise with a limitless 
 faith in the folly or the vice of the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 Such the dramatis personce. The scene was 
 the deck of the yacht. Time, that moment when 
 the purple-pink hue broke over the brow of the 
 morning, and blushed away the mists that had 
 prevailed before. 
 
 They were on deck together. Harold, then 
 the more active, as he was ever the more im- 
 passioned, of the two, was leaning over the bul- 
 wark, looking eagerly along towards the .east, 
 gazing with his soul in his eyes at the first sign 
 of the sun-burst which should preselitly flake 
 the sea, flood the scene with living goldl The 
 other man, his friend, was lying down by his 
 side, and both were silent, and the heart of one 
 (of the one who now recalled that hour) was 
 very full of the glory of the world God has 
 made, and of faith in the goodness of the crea- 
 tures He has placed in it. 
 
 Well! that hour and its illusions were long 
 past ; nothing was left to him now, save the 
 memory of it. 
 
 The train stopped : even that memory was 
 gone. 
 
 He stepped out on the platform shiveringly, 
 and looked round for a porter to fetch him a 
 cab, while he endeavoured to get himself a cup 
 of cofiee. . As he did so, a man rushed past 
 him from a carriage that was farther back than 
 the one he had occupied — a man whose gait and 
 figure he seemed to know. But he did not 
 pause to think more about the man, whose face 
 he had not seen. The atmosphere was cloudy 
 even under shelter on that chill foggy morning, 
 and his mind was troubled about matters so 
 important that they had the power to cast out 
 all thoughts of possible acquaintances. 
 
 He had to take a long dreary drive through 
 a wretched part of London, and then another 
 train for a short distance in order to reach the 
 suburb where lived the woman, if still she lived, 
 who was his wife. As fate would have it, the 
 sole cab that could "Be found for him was a four- 
 wheeled one, drawn by a. horse about which 
 there could be no manner of doubt. A horse 
 whose head was so low in the world, and whose 
 knees were so hopelessly broken and swollen, 
 would be safe to miss every train his unhappy 
 " fare " might be desirous to save. However 
 there was no other cab to be taken, so he took 
 this, and went away at an excruciating jog-trot 
 that was worse than a walk, inasmuch as it was 
 no faster and jolted him more severely. 
 
 Huge drays lumbered up at every corner to 
 obstruct him, gigantic loads of Cabbages per- 
 petually blocked the way, the earliest of all 
 
 butcher's-boys locked his wheel in a fast em- 
 brace, and then swore at his well-meaning but 
 unquestionably irritating driver for full five 
 minutes. He was taken down a very " short 
 out," and when at the extreme end he was 
 ifnominiously draughted back again, because 
 the "road was up." The horse grew lamer 
 every minute, the driver more considerate to 
 that luckless quadruped. The busy stream of 
 life poured faster and faster through the streets 
 every instant. London had shaken off slumber 
 as far as his eye could penetrate, and every 
 one was going the usual pace but himself 
 
 Delay was awful to endure ; he had never 
 known aught so slow as this progress he was 
 making, save a day's old Times or an evening 
 party. Delay was maddening, for she who had 
 injured him so might die deeming him cruel at 
 the last. 
 
 He would get out and walk ; he would hail 
 the first hansom. This was a good thought, a 
 bright thought : it irradiated two long streets in 
 the which no hansom could be found. They 
 either did not grow in those regions, or at that 
 hour ; anyway he could not see one, look out of 
 which window he would. 
 
 He gained the station from which he had to 
 take the train for a short distance at last, and 
 then he found that the train he had hoped to 
 catch was gone, but that in half an hour there 
 would be another ; so there was more waiting 
 to be done. More waiting, and more writhing 
 under the consciousness that he might stab at 
 the last, the solemn " last," and be misjudged. 
 
 That half-hour passed, the brief journey was 
 over soon, and at the station at which he 
 alighted he found a hansom and a horse that 
 was not lame. The day was clear and bright 
 now, well on her way to her first grand junction, 
 the breakfast-hour of the great majority. But 
 his spirits and his brow could not clear and 
 brighten in company with her. He was afraid to 
 think or hope in fact, and he could not help 
 doing both. 
 
 A sharp drive through a street or two of 
 houses, which, you cannot pass without marvel- 
 ling who on earth can#ve in them, they are so 
 devoid of all purpose in point of architecture, so 
 guileless of design in their turrets, which are far 
 too tiny for any one to harbour the thought for 
 an instant that a room lives inside those sym- 
 metrically arranged briciss, — ^up a stupendous 
 hill that rises right away out of these streets in 
 a way that suggests to you that if ever you have 
 a spite against the denizens of these latter you 
 can go up there' with a proper apparatus and 
 pour a su£Scient quantity of molten lead upon 
 their dwellings with extraordinary efFect,i — and 
 then across a common, the last thing between 
 himself and those abodes of pretentious subur- 
 ban bliss^in one of which he was going to meet 
 his wife.* 
 
 We have seen this man only as a lover, as 
 Theo Leigh's lover, heretofore ; we shall now 
 see a little of him as a husband. 
 
 The garden gate of the " villa residence " 
 where she who had borne his name, and had the 
 power to keep that name sacred or to dishonour 
 it as the case might he, had lived, stood open 
 when he reached it, and on the gravel path that 
 led up to the door there were the marks of a 
 pair of wheels, double marks, — ^they had been, 
 
104 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 and they had returned. He saw them without 
 remarking them, and his own hansom wheels 
 crushed these previous ones out with speed as 
 he dashed up to the door. 
 
 The door was opened to him in a second by a 
 pallid boy, whose trembling fingers had refusid 
 to adjust his jacket round his young person 
 with that perfect propriety which it is the am- 
 bition of a "Buttons " to achieve. Harold Ffrench 
 stepped over the threshold, through the portiere, 
 into a carpeted hall, — out of the fresh,, clear 
 winter air into an atmosphere that was made 
 up, God knows of what ! There was an un- 
 earthly sweetness, a languid fragrance about it 
 that he had never met with before. 
 
 He went on, he had not seen her for years ; 
 he went on, knowing now that she was dying. 
 
 The door of a room was open opposite to the 
 head of the Sight of stairs by which he ascended 
 to look his last upon her. He went through it, 
 and then he paused for a minute, and, with his 
 head bowed upon his hands, prayed for strength 
 to bear whatever he might see, whatever he 
 might hear. Then very reverentially he ap- 
 proached the couch shrouded by silken curtains 
 on which lay that the existence of which had 
 clouded Theo Leigh's life ; approached at the 
 signal of a man who rose from his knees at her 
 side — a priest of her own faith, of the Greek 
 Church, to which she had returned of late 
 years : and so, after long years, once more he 
 looked on the face of his wife. 
 
 CHAPTER XSXI. 
 
 AT THE LAST. 
 
 Deajh's seal was upon her : but for all that it 
 was such a common-place face to have caused 
 such a wealth of anguish to such a man. 
 
 She was lying with her eyes closed when he 
 first knelt down by her side, and all the casual 
 observer would have seen was a large white face, 
 coarse features, , and ill-marked brow, and a 
 mouth that had been voluptuous in youth, but 
 that now was pinched ^d drawn. He saw more 
 than this ; he saw the face of the woman he had 
 vowed all unwittingly to love and cherish years, 
 years ago, while still a boy ; the face of the 
 woman whose own conduct had forced him 
 from the hard task ; the face of the woman who 
 had been the cause (innocent in that, though) 
 of his seeming a scoundrel to Theo Leigh. 
 
 She opened her eyes after a while, and asked, 
 " Is he there stjU ? " in a querulous whining 
 tone ; and they told her in response that " her 
 husband was," and so presently she turned her 
 eyes upon him. 
 
 "So, you could come for this?" she asked ; 
 and there would have been sarcasm in the poor 
 dying voice, had he allowed himself t#ihear it. 
 
 He stooped down: he was very tender to 
 aught that was weak or womanly. She was 
 very weak now, in this parting hour, and very 
 womanly withal in her mild attempt to embitter 
 it. 
 
 " Zoe, let us forgive," he said, as softly as 
 though she had anything to pardon in him. 
 
 She moved her head wearily on the pillow, 
 this woman with the beautiful soft Greek name, 
 who was dying. 
 
 "I can forgive," she muttered; "take my 
 hand," (she drew it from beneath the coverlet) 
 " and tell me you will too, — everything." 
 
 He took her hand. 
 
 " Everything, everything," he whispered, 
 
 " Then raise me up, and with my head upon 
 your shoulder, I will tell you truly what became 
 of her whose head would have been moro wel. 
 come there than mine has ever been." 
 
 " Of Leila," he said mournfully, obeying her. 
 
 " Yes : she did not die." 
 
 " He lied, then, even though all was so long 
 over." Harold said, more to himself than to 
 her. 
 
 Her breath came quicker and shorter. " You 
 must lean me baok," she muttered brokenly; 
 "lean me back, and listen ! Leila lived for years. 
 Harold, do you remember when I was first false 
 to you ? " 
 
 He bent his head in bitter assent : had she 
 merely sent for him to stab him ? 
 
 " I gave myself to him on condition that he 
 should never let you know that Leila, who loved 
 you still, and whom he had forced away and 
 kept till— till " 
 
 "God! She was never his, say?" Harold 
 Ffrench cried; and the answer was a weary 
 closing of the eyes, a weary movement of the 
 lips. Op weary, sad, painful fleeing of the soul 
 from the frail body. The Greek woman, the 
 bride won in such a romantic way (fop Linley's 
 tale had been Harold's true story, with the sub- 
 stitution of Constantinople for Athens), the wife 
 who had been a curse to him, the sister of the > 
 girl who had first waked love in his soul, was 
 dead? 
 
 Her last words had been perhaps the bitterest 
 drop in the hitter cup his connection with her 
 had forced hidi to drink. For years, from the 
 date of that rash chivalrous marriage which had 
 marred him, up to the day of Linley's introduc- 
 tion to Kate Galton and Theo Leigh, Harold 
 Ffrench had never heard of Leila. He had 
 never dared to seek tidings of her while his love 
 for her Uved, because of his wife, her sister. 
 And when at lasttime killed that love, the day 
 for seeking tidings of her was long, long past. 
 So he went on till that night when Linley told*^ 
 him that Leila had " expiated her offence againsfrsS 
 the heaven-born passion Love in the dark bluBifj 
 waters of the Bosphorus." '*' * 
 
 He had grieved at the hearing ; grieved as a 
 man must grieve when he learns that the lovely, 
 thing he loved has come to a cruel end. He 
 had grieved and believed; now on her own 
 death-bed, his wife had deepened the grief by 
 abolishing the belief, and substituting for it a 
 fear that a deeper wrong had been his, a deeper 
 degradation Leila's than heihad ever feared. 
 
 He moved away presently : away out of the 
 presence of the senseless form that had beem a 
 burden to him so long: away down into the. 
 drawing-room of the suburban villa where the 
 signs of her, its late mistress, were manifold, 
 
 A luxuriously furnished room, heavy with 
 perfume, and reeking, as it were, with orna- 
 ments. Not with the ornaments that tend to 
 elevate the taste of those who look upon them, 
 but of an order that told clearly what manner 
 of woman she had been who had selected them. 
 
 There were gorgeous vases, vases all red and 
 gold, of queer fantastic shape, standing on the 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 108 
 
 floor, with their bases buried in deep wool mats 
 dyed of a brilliant scarlet. In these Tases gaudy 
 flowers bloomed or drooped rather, for the heavy 
 air, the atmosphere of artificial perfume, was 
 kiUing them. 
 
 He looked round at the low soft couches, on 
 which soft furs and oriental rugs were thrown, 
 at the little Maltese dogs, their hair tied up 
 with pink and blue ribbons, that were lying 
 upon them. He marked the colour and the 
 warmth, and the mighty amount of everything 
 that could tend to relax and enervate the body 
 and mind, and the absence of all that could 
 purify, brace, and refine. Then he sat down 
 with a sigh, and thought of how the ignorant 
 strong natured girl he had married had been 
 true to her fleshly instincts, true to bet disregard 
 of more ennobling influences to the last. 
 
 There were gilded toys about, movable flgures 
 arrayed in the last Paris fashions, that waggled 
 their heads and wriggled their hands when you 
 pulled, a wire. There were many volumes of 
 coloured engravings, whose bindings caused you 
 to blink. There was a wearisome waste of all 
 such things as a tasteless woman with plenty of 
 money to spend and an eye for bright colours is 
 sure to collect about her. But there was not a 
 single thing about the room which told that the 
 woman who had occupied it bad possessed either 
 heart, soul, or mind. 
 
 He had never been in that house before. 
 The little dogs, the only things that bad loved 
 and lived with his wife to the last, came round 
 him cringingly, as Maltese terriers will, expect- 
 ing either a kick or a biscuit, but there was no 
 recognition in their servile eyes, no friendship 
 in the wags of their time-serving tails. He had 
 never been there before, he bad never seen his 
 wife since that hour to which she herself had 
 alluded, when he first knew her false to him. 
 
 He had never known a moment's love for 
 her ; but when he had first recovered from the 
 stunning blow the deception which made her 
 his wife had dealt him, when first he recovered 
 from that, and along through a series of years 
 that appeared interminable, he had striven to 
 " make the best of things " for her and for him- 
 self. She was a babyish-minded, ignorant, plain 
 young girl. She had already shown herself an 
 adept at intrigue in a way that had wrecked his 
 life ; still he reminded himself that she was his 
 to guard and improve now, let the means by 
 which she had become so be ever so reprehensi- 
 ble. He strove with all his strength and mind 
 to so guard and improve, and her low ignorant 
 cunning baffled him at every point, till he sick- 
 ened over the task. 
 
 Then there came a day when the man who 
 had aided him in carrying her off " under a 
 mistake," as he (Harold) still supposed, ap- 
 peared upon the scefie. She brightened a little, 
 came out of her apathetic languor, seemed to 
 throw off a few of her wearJngly childish ways 
 and tedious laziness, when this friend came, till 
 at last Harold knew that both friend and wife 
 were foully false to him. 
 
 The men could fight. Harold had the poor 
 consolation of leaving a scar that never wore 
 out on the hand of the man who had wronged 
 him. But the woman, — the plain soulless 
 woman who had been the cause, — what of her ? 
 
 Her lover — the one who for some cruel spite 
 
 had played at being so — would have none of her, 
 that Harold knew. She relapsed into her former 
 apathy, making no defence, caring not what 
 became of herself; so he, reproaching himself a 
 little perhaps for that he had never loved her, 
 suffered her to remain a clog to him, sought no 
 divorce, and separated from her only to her 
 greater comfort. 
 
 The friend who had done him this last injury 
 was David Linley. 
 
 It seemed such a motiveless wrong, such a 
 causeless injury. It remained a profound enigma 
 to Harold Ffrench why David Linley should 
 have wrecked their friendship for this woman 
 without a charm, till on her death-bed she told 
 him brokenly that Leila had been loved by. Lin- 
 ley, and had never loved Linley in return. He 
 saw it all now : there had been a motive, and the 
 motive was jealousy, which sought to sting, no 
 matter how or when. 
 
 His "love for Leila was a long-dead thing," 
 as he had once said to Theo Leigh. But he 
 could not help thinking with some of the old 
 passion of the glorious-faced girl whom he had 
 loved and lost in his youth. She had been true 
 and tender, then, after all ; she had loved him 
 and her fate bad been so hard, so horrible ! It 
 was BO vague to him even now. 
 
 He roused himself from this dream of the 
 past, and the thoughts of the present came to 
 him and caused his heart to bound. Life held 
 much for him still. The past would be swept 
 away like an ugly dream ; the future was all his 
 own to give to Theo Leigh. 
 
 How he longed to hold her to his heart and 
 tell her all ! — his early love, his TWongs and 
 sufferings ; to lay bare his life before her, in 
 fact, and hear her say that she would take what 
 was left of it. How he longed to do this, and to 
 bring back the bloom to the fresh young cheek 
 that had blushed its best blush for him, and that 
 the moonlight told him but the night before had 
 g^own so very pale. 
 
 But he had been over hasty once. He would 
 wait now till none could censure him for being 
 premature. There would be safety in such wait- 
 ing he felt prpudly, for Theo Leigh was true as 
 steel he knew. 
 
 By-aud-by he summoned the confidential ser- 
 vant who had lived with his wife for years, and 
 she told him, rather more whiningly than was 
 well, how her mistress had cared for him and 
 craved for his presence at the last. He tried to 
 believe it, though ; he wished to believe it, 
 wished to think that she had been only weak and 
 erring, not wicked and heartless. 
 ' After a time he asked the question which he 
 had summoned her to ask, and which parched 
 his tongue in the asking. 
 
 " Mr. Linley never came here ? " he said, lift- 
 ing up one of the little dogs as he spoke. 
 
 "Never, sir. That you should think such a 
 thing,' with my poor dear mistress " 
 
 " Hush ! " he interrupted ; " I meant the ques- 
 tion-as no reflection upon her; I only want to 
 know the full measure of my debt to him," he 
 muttered, putting the little dog down again. 
 
 The woman coughed and sighed before she 
 spoke again. 
 
 "He never came near this house, and /was 
 always with my poor dear lady when she went 
 but. Would you not like to see her, sir? She 
 
106 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 looks BO peaceful and happy, it might comfort 
 you." 
 
 He could not refuse it : it would have looked 
 brutal to do so ; besides, a refusal might wriug 
 this woman's heart, and she had been faithful, 
 and was true according to her lights, bethought. 
 Still he could not avoid going along to the 
 chamber of death lingeringly and slowly ; there 
 was something in going at all from which his 
 soul recoiled. 
 
 He went in very softly. " All that was left of 
 her now was pure, womanly." She lay there in 
 raiment that was not whiter than the face, which 
 did look very happy and peaceful. There were 
 flowers on the pillow, and on the coverlet, and 
 between the waxen fingers of the gently-folded 
 hands there was a broken lily. It all looked 
 very pure and stainless, and there was a solemn 
 hush in the room. 
 
 He stood there gazing upon that which was 
 left of the woman who had been his wife, and 
 his heart was filled with as solemn a hush as that 
 which pervaded the room. He could not tear 
 himself away. He could only stand and think 
 very softly of her and of the solitary life she had 
 led for years in loveless penitence. 
 
 Presently there was a sound of tiny pattering 
 feet, then a rushing, and worrying, and scraping, 
 and the little Maltese terrier came from under a 
 chair that stood by the head of the bed, with 
 something in her mouth. "Here, Julie ! Julie ! " 
 the maid cried affrightedly. But before she 
 could rescue it, Harold Ffrench had taken from 
 Julie's mouth a scarcely^worn glove, and read 
 on the inside of the wrist the name of " David 
 Linley." * 
 
 CHAPTER SXXn. 
 
 SAVED AND LOST. 
 
 "Good God! what do you mean?" Frank 
 Burgoyne asked. . ' 
 
 " Mean ? Why, that that fellow, who is not 
 the fool you take him to be, has fathomed your 
 feelings for his wife. You have been mad," 
 David Linley replied sternly. His game seemed 
 very clear to him now ; he liked Theo himself, 
 and he would have won and worn her if he could 
 have done so. Failing that, however, as he felt 
 that he should fail, strive as he might, he re- 
 solved that Harold Ffrench should never have 
 her. It had been Harold's misfortune through 
 life to win love that Linley coveted : Linley had 
 still one arrow in his quiver to let fly into the 
 heart of his former friend. 
 
 Frank Burgoyne grew flushed and uneasy. 
 
 "You exaggerate in the most horrid way, 
 Linley," he began hotly ; " there has been no- 
 thing in my manner to Mrs. Galton, for whom I 
 have the deepest respect " 
 
 Linley groaned impatiently. 
 
 " Talk that trash to women, they'll believe you 
 perhaps. My dear fellow, there's been that in 
 your manner to Mrs. Galton, and, by Jove ! 
 that in Mrs. Galton's manner to you, that if 
 Harold Ffrench gets hold of it you're ruined with 
 your grandfather." 
 
 " I will not allow Mrs. Galton's name to be 
 handled in this way, or her conduct to be called 
 in question," Frank rephed indignantly. 
 
 " Then teach her to be more careful, show 
 her that it is incumbent upon her to be more 
 careful, not alone for her own sake, but for 
 yours. Good Heaven! your grandfather will 
 fancy himself justified in anything — a married 
 woman ! his favourite cousin ! " Linley said ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 " You are making the most groundless accusa- 
 tions in your anxiety for my welfare, Linley ; 
 ycju are over-shooting the mark altogether," 
 Frank said nervously. He was miserably con- 
 scious of the state of his own feehngs towards 
 Eate, and miserably uncertain as to how far be 
 had betrayed them. This uncertainty kept him 
 under as it were, and gave David Linley the 
 mastery. 
 
 " I can only tell you that Galton is on the 
 alert ; he told Ine to speak to you. I don't wish 
 to asperse Mrs. Galton, but when a married 
 woman sees a man is in love with her, it looks 
 rather fishy if she suffers the thing to go on." 
 
 " I have never thought of her for an instant 
 save as an agreeable companion," Frank replied 
 moodily. 
 
 " It is most unfortunate, most unfortunate, 
 then, that your manner should have implied so 
 much more. Knowing that she is a flirt, and 
 that you are impressionable, I ought never to 
 have thrown you in contact ; the fact is, I fan- 
 cied you were sweet on that charming girl, Theo 
 Leigh." 
 
 "So I am,'' Frank said hurriedly. He was 
 ready to say or do anything to avert the possi- 
 bility of the shadow of suspicion falling upon 
 Mrs. Galton's admired head. The folly had all 
 been his ; he alone would pay what penalty that 
 folly cost. 
 
 " I am heartily glad of it. No, I won't come 
 in, thank you ; I must get over to Lowndes, and 
 dine as quickly as possible. I have to run up to 
 town to-night to see my lawyer. I shall tell 
 Galton before I go that Theo Leigh is the one, 
 and I'll let Iter, Mrs. Kate, know it too, or she 
 will be compromising you." 
 
 " For God's sake don't say too much," Frank 
 said in a bewildered tone. 
 
 " If you regard your interests at all, too much 
 cannot be said," Linley replied flrmly ; " you 
 know the trifle that's required to make a very s 
 considerable difference in your grandfather's ' 
 will. By Jove ! I shall think that Mrs. Galton 
 has gone a little further than I gave her credit 
 for, since you are ready to risk so much for her 
 favour." 
 
 " I have never had her favour in the way you 
 imply : I have never been scoundrel enough to 
 seek it. Say of me what you please, but for 
 God's sake don't saddle her with the conse- 
 quences of my confounded stupidity." Frank 
 spoke quite warmly ; he was ready to do any- 
 thing to establish that guUelessness of Kate in 
 which he himself so firmly believed. 
 
 " I wish I could credit you quite, my boy," 
 Linley said. " Be careful, that's all I can say. 
 Don't rouse John Galton's jealousy, or it will be 
 all up with the woman, as well as yourself. 
 Don't look savage, Frank ; I have spoken for 
 your good. If you say ' drop it for the future,' 
 good; I will do so. Come over to dinner to- 
 morrow at seven, X will make a diversion by 
 bringing back a lot of town news, and be care- 
 ful." 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 107 
 
 " I -will," Frank replied eagerly ; " you'll see 
 I will." 
 
 David Litiley shook hands heartily with Frank 
 Burgoyne, and then rode rapidly back to 
 Lowndes. 
 
 " You'll excuse my dressing to-night, won't you, 
 Mrs. Gallon?" he said, going into the room 
 where Kate and her husband were. " I have to 
 run up to town directly, to see my publisher 
 about that confounded book of mine." 
 
 "Nothing wrong, I hope? Certainly, don't 
 dress ; you will be back to entertain your guests 
 to-morrow, I presume ? " Mrs. Galton said lan- 
 guidly. 
 
 "Oh yes," he said, he should be back; and 
 there was nothing very wrong, only some " 6opy " 
 missing. Then he offered his arm to Mrs. Gal- 
 ton, and they went in, and he made a choice 
 selection of .viands, and flavoured the same with 
 the right sort of wines, and had altogether a 
 capital dinner, partaking of it with the keenest 
 appetite, just as though he had not heard that 
 morning that the woman to whom he had been 
 one colossal wrong, from the moment he first 
 palmed her off upon his friend so falsely, lay 
 dying. 
 
 , When it was time to go oflf to catch the train- 
 he did it as quietly and blithely as possible, 
 making jokes the while with Mrs. Galton about 
 the new-born dandyism he was betraying in 
 gloves. " It's a shame for you who never used 
 to wear them at all to travel in such as these," 
 she said, taking up a pair of pale lavender ones, 
 in which he had written his name delicately and 
 legibly ; and He agreed with her " that it was a 
 shame ; but I have rushed from one extreme to 
 the other under your auspices." He travelled 
 up in those gloves nevertheless. 
 
 It is not essential to follow him upon that 
 journey ; the scenes through which he passed 
 are perhaps better left untouched. It need only 
 be told that he was more fortunate than Harold 
 Ffrench, in that when the train crept slowly up 
 to the terminus in that grey morning hour he 
 trusted to his own wit rather than to the por- 
 ter's, and so procured the solitary hanSom wait- 
 ing there, which wafted him speedily on towards 
 his goal. But he was more unfortunate in one 
 thing : when he reached his goal he lost a glove, 
 while Harold found one as we have seen. 
 
 The host was back in admirable time to re- 
 cover his fatigue, and receive his guests on the 
 following day. He wore an outside mantle of 
 extreme good humour and high spirits, but Kate 
 had a habit of lifting up corners of such man- 
 tles and looking beneath. She did so on this 
 occasion. 
 
 " Something has gone wrong with you," she 
 whispered, after tHe Leighs and Sydney had 
 arrived, and while they were awaiting the Bur- 
 goynes, and were all trying not to look as if they 
 were anxious for the Burgoynes to come. " Some- 
 thing has gone wrong with you, I am sure. 
 Can't the taissing copy be found ? " 
 
 " N6, and it makes me awfully anxious ; but 
 cover that anxiety if you can, that's «, good 
 creature," he replied ; and Kate promised, but 
 did not believe him. 
 
 It was easy enough to cover his anxiety, and 
 conceal it from the earliest arrivals, for Mr. 
 Leigh went back into the past at sight of Linley, 
 and enlarged upon the same for John Galton's 
 
 special behoof. It was a rare treat to Mr. Leigh 
 to meet with some one who felt an interest in 
 thai particular epoch which was brought to his 
 mind by the meeting with Linley. John Galton 
 felt and looked genuine interest at once in Mr. 
 Leigh's reminiscences, just as he would have felt 
 and looked about anything that concerned' any 
 one whom he liked however remotely. 
 
 As for Theo and Sydney Scott, they had not 
 come to that age yet when we mark the mien 
 that is not shown to us. 
 
 But when the Burgoynes appeared upon the 
 scene David Linley became what he had never 
 had cause to accuse himself of being before — a 
 fidgetty dispenser of hospitalities. " I am aw- 
 fully afraid of things going wrong even now, 
 though they're well in train," he said, half to 
 himself and half to Kate Galton, with a startled 
 look, when she laid her hand on his arm gently 
 and told him he must take her in to dinner. 
 "How should they? and what matter if they 
 do ? " she answered rather scornfully. She was 
 becoming weary of this reigning at his shooting- 
 box, and having to play the hostess to " so many 
 women." 
 
 " Ah ! you don't know how I have set my 
 heart on it : hov should you? " he repUed. Then 
 he laughed, and got himself together with a 
 shake, and asked impressively, when they had 
 all seated themselves, and there was the usual 
 silence, " why he had not the pleasure of seeing 
 Harold Ffrench?" 
 
 " He had to go up to town last night," Frank 
 Burgoyne replied. 
 
 " He received a telegram which carried the 
 (jiplay against my father's dismay at his departure," 
 Tilthel explained. " Do you know we hav« all, 
 even Frank, come round to liking Mr. Ffrench 
 very much ; he is so nice when you know him, 
 and he has such a story ! " 
 
 " Has he indeed ? Should you have thought 
 he looked like a man ' with a story,' Miss Leigh ? " 
 Mr. Linley asked of Theo, who sat shivering, and 
 thinking, "now it will all- come out, it will all 
 come out." 
 
 "Sut he has," Ethel persisted ; " a story that 
 there can be no harm in telling if we Burgoynes 
 don't mind telling it : the secret of our father's 
 liking for him is to be found in his story." 
 
 " Do tell it, if it isn't long," Kate Galton said, 
 uttering the first portion of her sentence aloud 
 for Ethel, and the latter part in a dulcet whisper, 
 that fell upon Mr. Linley's ear alone. < 
 
 " It might be made a great deal of .by aid of 
 yonr gift," Ethel Burgoyne rephed, looking at 
 her host ; " as I haven't your gift, however, I 
 will not draw it out to its ruin; it is simply 
 this," Ethel began to blush, and- her colour 
 brightened as she proceeded ; " my fa,ther fell 
 in love, desperately in love, with Harold Ffrench's 
 mother, after he was engaged to our mother ; 
 and she, who was afterwards Mrs. Ffrench, was 
 so honorable that, though she loved my father, 
 he believes to this day nothing would ever 
 tempt her to make another woman miserable ; 
 that is all the story." 
 
 " How unlike a woman," David Linley said, 
 laughing. 
 
 " How like her son," Theo Leigh cried quickly. 
 
 " How uncommonly lucky for your mamma 
 that she met with such'a generous rival, that is 
 all I can say," Mrs. Galton remarked quietly. 
 
108 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 And then they went into the question of whether 
 it be nobler to give up everything or to brave 
 everything for love, which topic imparted a 
 piquancy it would otherwise have lacked to 
 Theo Leigh's soup. 
 
 Frank Burgoyne, in accordance with the plan 
 he had proposed of misleading everyone as to 
 his sentiments regarding Mrs. Gallon, had taken 
 Theo Leigh into dinner. He had devoted him- 
 self to her in the marked manner which men 
 will show without an end or aim at times, and 
 Theo, feeling grateful for this lapse he was' 
 making into those habits which had been his 
 during the days of his broken arm, had re- 
 sponded sympathetically. The devotion, con- 
 ventional as it was, and the sympathetic response 
 to it, were both patent to Sydney ; therefore, 
 though Miss Scott had adhered to a portion of 
 her original intention by wearing pink, she 
 waived the paleness, and came out with such a 
 brilliant 'colour through annoyance that she 
 looked remarkably pretty. 
 
 Pretty in so brightly blooming, so unmistake- 
 ably young and fresh a way, that David Linley 
 saw with bitter vexation that she quite put Xheo 
 Leigh out. The latter should have had the win- 
 ning warmth and colour to-*ight, if Frank 
 Burgoyne's heart were to be caught in the re- 
 bound, when warned off the premises by regard 
 for Mrs. Galton's fair fame. However, he hoped 
 that a lot of wine and a few judicious words 
 might place Frank in the right groove. Once 
 there, he would run easily enough. The matter, 
 if it were to be managed at all, must be man- 
 aged quickly, he told himself, for Harold Ffrench 
 was free now, and unless this thing settled itsel||| 
 speedily, Harold Ffrench would soon know a 
 better happiness than the one he had lost at 
 starting. 
 
 " I am not going back to the drawing-room 
 with all those women alone," Kate whispered 
 to her host, when dinner was over ; " can't we 
 all move together ? " ^ 
 
 " Do you want to flirt with Frank Bur- 
 goyne ? " he asked, directing her gaze ^ the 
 same time to Frank aud Theo. " 
 
 Mrs. Gallon glanced hastily toward the pair, 
 and tried a little laugh. 
 
 "Indeed I don't," she said, shaking her head ; 
 " were I free to have any offered me, I would 
 have no boy's love." 
 
 She said it in a very low tone ; but Frank Bur- 
 goyne had a habit of hearing her lightest ac- 
 cents. She despised him, then, despised and dis- 
 regarded him. She had fathomed that he loved 
 her, and resented the impertinence in the ortho- 
 dox " noble matron" manner. Frank felt very 
 guilty and tferribly cast down. 
 
 Presently he looked up, 'across the table, at 
 the husband of the lady on whose account he 
 was enduring sensations of humiliation and re- 
 morse. He looked up, andfbund John Galton's 
 eyes fixed on him with an expression of pitying 
 contempt. The expression was not there in re- 
 ality ; it was only Frank's distorted judgment 
 which read in that interrogatory look such a 
 meaning. But the mistake did him good : 
 strung him up to " have done with this folly at 
 once." 
 
 " Before you go to-night I must spealc to you, 
 Theo," he whispered, bending his head towards 
 her in such a way that all at the table marked 
 
 the action. And when Theo looked up at him 
 with frightened eyes, and tried to stammer out 
 an answer that should sound as if she did not 
 know perfectly well what he meant, he felt that 
 he was, as he expressed it to himself, " in for it, 
 and no mistake, now." 
 
 David Linley disregarded Mrs. Galton's sug- 
 gestion as to the simultaneous return of both 
 seSes to the drawing-room. He was nervous 
 and excited himself, and he wanted more wine 
 than he cared to take before women to steady 
 his nerves. It was as much to him as his hopes 
 of heaven that iiiis last best joy should be taken 
 from Harold Ffrench, for he (David Linley) had 
 loved Leila, and Leila had never loved him. He 
 desired that Frank Burgoyne should warm his 
 imagination Theo-wards as muchas was possible 
 with wine, and Frank forwarded his desires in 
 this respect freely. 
 
 In the drawing-room, meanwhile, things were 
 not going so fast. Stagnation generally seizes 
 the souls, and manners, and tongues of women 
 wh6n they retire for that privileged twenty min- 
 utes or so after dinner, unless they happen to have 
 babies, or contumacious cooks. When their con- 
 versation is a maddening thing to those other 
 women who have not either. 
 
 The Burgoynes were old enough and well- 
 bred enough to conceal the extent to which 
 they were bored. For full five minutes Ethel, 
 gently seconded by her sister, made conversa- 
 tion, and contrived to make her words fall trip- 
 pingly Off her tongue. But there was no re- 
 sponse made by the others to ^hese efforts of 
 bees. Charming, vivacious, fascinating as Mrs. 
 Galton could be, and was ordinarily, she could 
 also be quite the reverse of these things on oc- 
 casions. One of these occasions presented it- 
 self now. She had nothing flwftor to hope 
 from the Burgoynes; such social radiance as 
 they could shed upon her would be over soon, 
 for it could not extend into Norfolk. While, as 
 for Theo Leigh and Sidney Scott, they were 
 wearisome to her to the last degree. Therefore 
 Mrs. Galton sat in an easy attitude and com- 
 plete silence before the fire, and gazed with 
 much satisfaction at the reflection of her own 
 pretty face in the back of a highly-glazed screen. 
 
 Nor were Theo and Sydney enlivening as 
 companions on the whole. Theo had had her 
 nerves considerably shaken by those meetings 
 with Harold Ffrench and her father out in the 
 goblin-garden, as Frank called the graveyard 
 the other night, and they had not recovered 
 their usual tone again. More than this ; she be- 
 gan to see, it began to dawn upon her, that it 
 was within her ability to do or accept a some- 
 thing that would heal the soreness of the past, 
 if she could honestly oblitfrate that past from 
 her heart. And this she began to feel she could 
 do. 
 
 In fact, the girl was in a flutter — ^in the thrOes 
 of the dread that it did not lie in her to act 
 honourably and well towards everybody, herself 
 included. 
 
 Life is very hard ! 
 
 As for Sidney Scott, she was siinply " huffed," 
 as the phrase goes, and huffiness, thank heaven, 
 is a thing to be got over. There was not a par- 
 ticle of malice in the girl's composition, and on 
 an emergency arising she would have been ca- 
 pable of doing and daring anything for anyone 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 109 
 
 vrho would ask her 3o to do and dare. But in 
 the meantime, while quiet reigned, and hum- 
 drum was prime-minister, Sydney could but feel 
 just a little splenetic and rosily indignant with 
 Theo for having come between her and all the 
 admiration that was going. 
 
 The pretty blonde was so pretty that she 
 might have been more generous even in her 
 own heart. But it was the thick spot in that 
 otherwise transparent porcelain, it was the flaw 
 in what would else have been a perfect copy of 
 %^orious little Venus, — this strong desire that 
 mS had to take and enfold, to hare and to hold, 
 all that was sweetest in the looks, and words, 
 and manners of all the men who might be within 
 hej range. She could not help it. She meant 
 no harm, and she paid whatever penalty might 
 be due, in the bitter, sick soreness which seized 
 and cramped her when she did not get all she'' 
 desired. 
 
 At the same time, though this might all be 
 guileless enough, it must be acknowledged that 
 there was a touch of something quite the re- 
 verse of noble in her suffering wrath to obtain 
 in her soul against Theo, simply because poor 
 Theo had been the r/ecipient of some of the 
 looks, and words, and manners that evening for 
 which she (Sydney) hungered. 
 
 "You are soon going to leave us. Miss Scott, 
 I find," Ethel Burgoyne remarked to her at last. 
 
 " Yes, in a day or two. I'm going to travel 
 up with the Leighs." 
 
 " Miss Leigh and you live very near to one 
 another, do you not ? " 
 
 " Ye — es," Sydney replied, as if the admission 
 compromised herrather, 
 
 " That is very pleasant for you," Ethel Bur- 
 goyne went on, feebly it must be confessed, but 
 really because she had nothing better to say. 
 
 " Yes ; it is pleasanter to have one's acquain- 
 tances near to one than at the other end of the 
 world, I suppose," Sydney replied, again in the 
 same dubious tone, and with a certain monoto- 
 nous drawl that was aggravating to listen to. 
 
 " But you are very intimate, are you not ? " 
 Ethel persisted. 
 
 " Oh ! we see each other often. I don't, 
 know about being very intimate; I haven't 
 known her — I mean she hasn't known me very 
 long." 
 
 "Isn't that the same as your not having 
 known her, that you corrected yourself? I fan- 
 cied that you were great friends from your com- 
 ing down here to stay with her." 
 
 Sydney almost shuffled on her chair, and felt 
 hot and flushed. Hiss Ethel Burgoyne was 
 most innocently (or was she doing it out of mal- 
 ice ?) putting her in an awkward position. On 
 cine side was a strong inclination to ignore all 
 special intimacy with or kindly feeling for the 
 traitor Theo, who had dared to let some loose 
 laurels that were flying about light upon her 
 own brow instead of bowing her head to the 
 dust, and suffering /them to waft along to their 
 proper destination on Sydney's. And on the 
 other side was the reflection that her position at 
 Hensley altogether was incompatible with a dec^ 
 lararion of utter indifference to and cold regard 
 for me cause of her being there at all. 
 
 "I came down here because she was so dull 
 and wanted me," she said, almost snappishly, 
 and very loud ; " but I hate the country : so 
 
 much is made of every trifle, and you bear of a 
 thing till you hate il)|j It's all very well for 
 Theo," she went on in a lower key ; " she likes 
 flirting, I suppose, and while there's any one to 
 flirt with she's amused, or seems to be ; but I 
 never do flirt, and " 
 
 "You don't care to see any one else indulge in 
 such idle folly, do you?" Ethel Burgoynesaid, in 
 a laughing tone ; then she took Sydney's morsels 
 of white hands in her own, and went on, looking 
 into the now sparkling blue eyes, " My dear, talk 
 in that strain when you're ten or fifteen years 
 older, biS not now — ^no ! don't even do it then, or 
 people may say that you are a spiteful, soured 
 woman, which you never will be in reality ; but 
 the habit of saying whatever may first come upon 
 the tongue grows upon one, dear." 
 
 She was too young and too good not to take a 
 small semi-flattering lecture from a still young 
 and pretty woman well and gracefully. So she 
 threw off a few smiles on the spot, and shook off 
 the appearance of chagrin at once, just in time in 
 fact to be her own best self when the men came 
 into the room. 
 
 There being .only four gentlemen, a rubber 
 seemed inevitable ; but David Linley knew better, 
 even while suggesting it, than to suffer it to come 
 to pass. He knew well that from a sober respect- 
 able game of long whist such as Mr. Leigh would 
 play, Frank would not arise prepared to go to 
 extreme lengths about Mr. Leigh's daughter. 
 The rattle of a dice-box on the desperate uncer- 
 tainty as to red or black would have urged him 
 on to commit any madness ; but not whist, not 
 debates to where were the honours, and who per- 
 chance would gain the odd trick. 
 
 The inevitable, or rather the apparently inevi- 
 table, rubber was evaded therefore deftly. 
 
 " We'll have a rubber ; you'll like a rubber, 
 Leigh ? " the host asked, in a genial tone. 
 
 " Yes, certainly ; I shall like it of all things. 
 Won't some of these ladies — — " Mr. Leigh was 
 beginning, when Linley interrupted liim. 
 
 "By Jove! I punched a lot of wads out of 
 some cards in the gun-room before dinner ! I 
 hope we have another pack ; 1 will ring and ask." 
 
 He rang and . asked accordingly, and great 
 search was made throughout the lodge, and, of 
 course, not another pack found. Whereat Mr. 
 Linley expressed much concern ; so much, in- 
 deed, that Xate, who fathomed him just at this 
 special place, almost determined to make him feel 
 what he expressed for a few minutes by declaring; 
 that she had a pack in her dressing-case. She re- 
 lented from her purpose, however, on the bbth 
 of the reflection that it was not well to rile Linley 
 for nothing. 
 
 "It being impossible to accomplish a rubber 
 without cards, we will put up with music ; you 
 shall play to us," Mr. Liiiley said to Sydney. 
 
 " I hate playing." 
 
 He sat down by her. 
 
 "When /ask you?" 
 
 " When you say you'll put up with it I should 
 think so." . 
 
 He made in reply one of the silly speeches shot 
 with satire which his experience taught him to 
 believe would tell upon a woman. 
 
 "I would 'put up' with strains from Pande- 
 monium, provided you were the singer of them, or 
 from Paradise, supposing I'were in Pandemonium, 
 on the same conditions. Do you believe me ? " 
 
110 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 She did not believe him, but she was charmed 
 with him, — channed, od<J as it may seem, by that 
 very ugliness from which she had at first revolted, 
 — charmed with the flattery that she felt to be 
 false, — charmed into obliviousness respecting 
 Frank and Theo. 
 
 Mr. Burgoyne had seated himself near to the 
 father and daughter, He had refrained from the 
 only spot in the world on which his foot would 
 willingly have rested just then, that spot, namely, 
 that was nearest to Kate Galton, and had put 
 himself close to the girl with whom (to avert sus- 
 picion from that other one) he had declfted him- 
 self to be in love. Then Theo's heart sank a lit- 
 tle, with — was it hope or fear ? — and her father's 
 rose. 
 
 Her heart would have sank still lower could she 
 but have looked into Frank Burgoyne's. He 
 was compelled to brace himself, to string himself 
 to the point by constantly reminding himself 
 that he " stood committed after what he had said 
 to her at dinner." She deluded herself with the 
 notion that the embarrassment he was evincing 
 came from love for her, and a knowledge that 
 she had loved Harold Ffrench. ■ 
 
 It was a " very nice evening, and thanh you 
 so much for it, Mr. Linley," all the ladies said to 
 him when they were going away. Before it was 
 over Frank Burgoyne had redeemed the verbal 
 pledge he had given Theo, and she was bound-to 
 bury all thoughts of the man whohad come to her 
 under the slanting sunbeams on that bright 
 spring morning down on the msh-covered bank. 
 In making the announcement of what " he had 
 done" to Linley, Frank Burgoyne felt that he 
 was saving what by his idle attentions he had 
 risked of Eate's fair fame ; and in hearing it, 
 Linley felt that once more " though his wife was 
 dead Harold Ffrenoh had lost." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXni. 
 
 ' MT NIECE S ENGAGEMENT.' 
 
 It was a very tender subject to touch upon 
 with her father. Theo knew that he would be 
 glad to the point of being blind to what she might 
 be feeling, if the art were hers to conceal feeling 
 at all. But still it was so tender a subject that 
 she dreaded touching upon it. 
 
 All the way home from Lowndes that, night 
 she, sitting silently in the corner of the carriage, 
 wandered about the English language, seeking 
 for words that should best tell the tale of Frank 
 Burgoyne's offer, and her acceptance of it. She 
 wished that she possessed Frank's graphic gift, 
 for, on thinking it over, really she could not 
 remember that he said more than a word or two. 
 Yet he had made himself intelligible — sufficiently 
 intelligible, that is to say. 
 
 Mrs. Taughan was sitting up awaiting them on 
 their return ; and Mrs. Vaughan was much de- 
 pressed, as was only natural on the part of the 
 soh'tary waiter for the gay and reckless who were 
 out enjoying themselves. Mrs. Vaughan had all 
 the materisds for utterly subduing and rendering 
 them miserable and downcast immediately they 
 entered ready at her hand. Over her injured head 
 (she felt injured at being left at home, though 
 she had distinctly refused to go) she wore a pallid 
 little shawl, that looked as if it had seen some 
 
 suffering, to represent chilly weariness. On her 
 lap She held a large book of a religious nature 
 to show how she had been enabled to endure 
 said chilly weariness. These means accomplished 
 her end. They all felt profoundly sorry — for them- 
 selves — the instant they came into her pres- 
 
 " ijgh ! Fm cold ; I'll go to bed," Sydney said 
 quickly. 
 
 " It will be but a short night," Mrs. Vaughan 
 remarked, in sepulchral tones, 
 
 " I am afraid you have been dull by yoursaK 
 my dear Elizabeth," Mr. Leigh suggested, cheOT- 
 ly, sitting down and stirring the fire. He could 
 not help feeling cheery; he saw in Theo's face that 
 she bad something to say to him ; and an undefined 
 feeling of satisfaction with all men and women 
 and things sprang into being in bis soul at the 
 •sight. 
 
 " I am never dull with this near me," Mrs. 
 Vaughan replied, patting the book rather fierce- 
 ly : and then the Keverend Thomas essayed to 
 cough down a sigh that arose at the thought of 
 the pleasant night that was in store for bim and 
 choked himself. 
 
 " And what sort Of an evening has my little 
 girl had ? " Mr. Leigh asked, in that tone of af- 
 fected liveliness which is so ghastly, and so jiard 
 to bear at unseemly times. Theo felt this present 
 time to be unseemly for the display of such 
 facetiousness, and therefore did not know how to 
 respond to it. 
 
 " The evening T^as well enough ; why shouldn't 
 it have been ? Of course it was nice there ; but 
 then the drive home is long and cold, you know," • 
 she answered, putting her arms across her father's 
 shoulder, and her head down upon her arms with 
 a weariness that made her uncertain as to whether 
 she was very happy or not. , 
 
 " You seenied to find it pleasant, anyway," 
 Sydney exclaimed abruptlyi "Now to me there 
 is nothing particularly pleasant in going out to 
 see people all bored with one another, as all those 
 people seemed to-night ; Mr. Linley is the only 
 one who ever has anything to say for himself, and 
 he was kilocked up with that journey he had 
 taken about his rubbishing book, which isn't 
 worth it, I dare say." 
 
 "If she thinks Mr. Linley the only one who 
 ever has anything to say, she won't mind when I 
 tell her' what Frank has said to me to-night,'' ^ . 
 Theo thought. •" "' 
 
 But here Theo reckoned without her host, or 
 rather without due reflection on the various in- 
 tricacies of Miss Sydney's nature. When rest 
 and apparent peace were over that clerical man- 
 sion that night ; when Theo had told her father 
 the tidmgs that were so hard for her to tell in the 
 precise manner in which she desired to tell them 
 to him, so hard for her to tell partly because 
 they were so joyous for him to hear ; when Mrs. 
 Vaughan had made incidental mention for the 
 forty-eighth time, because he'd counted, within 
 the hour, to her o?m special fraction of the 
 Church, of " my niece's engagement," — when<all 
 these things were, and many others besides that 
 may not be catalogued here, Theo went in, like a 
 restless spirit in plaited hair and cambric, to oom- 
 municate as much as she should have the rash 
 daring to communicate to the sleepy Sydney. 
 
 Miss Scott was in the debateable land between 
 slumber and waking when Theo entered her 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Ill 
 
 room, that is to say, sbe had just gone over a 
 precipice with velocity, and her heart was thump- 
 ing, partly with the bound she had given in her 
 bed, and partly with honest indignation at the 
 idea of anything so puerile as a precipice which 
 didn't exist coming between herself and the sleep 
 she coveted. The entrance of her friend at this 
 moment with a candle that loolced like sitting up 
 was not calculated to restore her equanimity. 
 She asked somewhat snappishly, " What do you 
 want ? Is the house on fire ? " 
 
 " Nothing so bad as that," Theo replied ; " only 
 I — I want to talk to you a little." 
 
 " Talk away, my dear ; you won't mind my 
 going to sleep, I hope, if your talk's to be long." 
 
 " It won't be long, Sydney ; do just turn your 
 head and look at me. You know what you said 
 to me yesterday about going to Lowndes to-day." 
 Theo was getting nervous: she feared that the 
 event would lead Sydney to accuse her (Theo) of 
 something like dishonesty in having listened, as 
 she had listened, to those sayings of "yester- 
 day ; " she was getting nervous, albeit she was 
 innocent of tliis great offence, therefore she stam- 
 mered. 
 
 " What I said to you yesterday about going to 
 Lowndes to-day ? " Sydney repeated after Theo. 
 Sydney felt intuitively that something antago- 
 nistic to her statements of yesterday was forth- 
 coming, consequently she was non-committal 
 now, and prepared to act upon the defensive. 
 
 Theo found herself on a wrong course ; she 
 therefore " tacked across," and made a slight 
 progress on her way to elucidation. 
 
 ' ' Sydney, , dear, I. thought till to-night that Mr. 
 Burgoyne was very much attracted — 1 mean, was 
 very fond of you. Of course he is ' attracted ' by 
 you, every one must be that." Theo spoke very 
 hurriedly, and there was almost an apologetic ca- 
 dence in her voice, hardly as she strove to eradi- 
 cate it, for she knew that such would be precisely 
 the cadence wliich would be most offensive to 
 Miss Sydney. , 
 
 Sydney looked fearlessly right out of her eyes, 
 as it were ; she saw very clearly what was coming 
 now, but she was determined to make no sign of 
 having been punished in this race which she had 
 run with Theo. After all, this was but a re- 
 hearsal, — ^practice is always good. 
 
 Thinking thus, Miss Sydney looked fearlessly, 
 as I said before, right out of her eyes, and said : 
 
 " And Ja)-night, I suppose, you have found tliat 
 Mr. Burgoyne rather prefers your noble self? 
 Tou don't think that I didn't see that too, do 
 you, Theo ? Well, dear, all I can do is to con- 
 gratulate you both on his offer, if he's made you 
 one, and on your having had the sense to bury 
 your dead, and give up going about and do- 
 ing the victim to man's perfidy business any 
 longer." 
 
 Theo looked guilty, miserable, in a moment ; 
 it was an unkind thrust from her little friend ; 
 but her little friend was capable of doing a good 
 deal in that way. 
 
 " Good night, Sydney ; I thought I would tell 
 you at once, because " 
 
 " It's rather nice to receive an offer from the 
 future Lord Lesborough :Wh, yes,' dear, I quite 
 understand. Good night. You must say, Theo," 
 she continued virtuously, "that I have been a 
 regidar brick. I have been discretion itself, for 
 your Master Frank isn't averse to flirting." 
 
 This being kind and unanswerable, Theo did 
 not attempt to answer it. 
 
 " You didn't see my joke last night when I was 
 talking to you, Theo," Sydney went on with the 
 most joyous franlmesB; she did rebound very 
 soon ; " you didn't, see that it was I who would 
 have to come and stay with you when you're 
 married, and be got off. How dense you were ! " 
 
 " I suppose I was : the truth is, I was not lis- 
 tening to what you said, Sydney." 
 
 " fiiat was civil, but I'll forgive you. Now I'll 
 give you a bit of advice, for I am not blinded by 
 being spoony on Mr. Frank, which you are," 
 (how heartily glad Theo felt that she wasl) — 
 " don't give him too much rope, for he'll take it, 
 and if I know anytiiing at all of men, which I 
 rather flatter myself I do, he's one who will al- 
 ways make love to the lips that are near : and 
 don't be jealous, for that is a bore to yourself; 
 and good night, Theo, I am so glad you have 
 been so lucky." 
 
 Perhaps it was not the nicest or most soothing 
 parting-speech that could have been uttered : 
 doubtless the bright little blonde meant it to be 
 both these things; still she felt a trifle disap- 
 pointed when she marked how very faint was the 
 impression that it made on Theo Leigh. 
 
 There was such a universal air of elation over 
 the whole house the following morning that Theo 
 almost expected to see her esteemed relatives, 
 together with the tables and chairs, burst into 
 Terpsichorean demonstrations. It was almost 
 mortifying to discover what a, mere nothing she 
 had been before in the eyes of her uncle and 
 aunt by the light of this sudden j'efulgence with 
 which they beamed upon her. Viands were lav- 
 ished upon her, fears as to her complexion no 
 longer assailed Mrs. Vaughan, she heard her 
 manners described to her ^father as being so 
 " innately well bred that Mrs. Vaughan felt, after 
 seeing them in a niece of hers, that she had 
 nothing further to wish for in life." Mr. Leigh, 
 in his satisfaction at what had transpired, accepted 
 these tributes to his daughter radiantly, believing, 
 after the manner of honest people, that they were 
 honestly paid to Theo, and would have been paid 
 to her in any case. In fact, Theo was nauseated 
 by her young success before it was one, indeed ; 
 for though Mr. Burgoyne had spoken the con- 
 clusive words to her, there was still Lord Les- 
 borough, Mr. Burgoyne's grandfather, to be con- 
 sulted. What would Ae say to this contemplated 
 marriage of his heir ? Theo was the only one 
 who could answer that question without flinch- 
 ing; though she felt that, if he said "No," not 
 all that wild brawling Hensley water would 
 suffice to put out the flame of Aunt Libby's 
 wrath. 
 
 " I suppose you won't go out this morning in 
 case? " Mrs. Vaughan said to her brother with a 
 transparent air of mystery, and an abrupt halt on 
 the word " case," which said more plainly than 
 aught else that she meant in " case Frank came." 
 
 " No-o, I shall look at the paper," Mr. Leigh 
 said. " You yoimg ladies will ^e ready to go 
 back to-morrow ? " he continued, addressing Syd- 
 ney Scott and his daughter. 
 
 " I shall, papa." 
 ■ "And I shall, Mr. Leigh," Sydney replied 
 promptly ; then, recovering her politeness, she 
 added, " although I'm sure we have had a most 
 delightful visit, Mrs. Vaughan." 
 
112 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Mrs. Taughan was too well pleased to be dovm, 
 as she otherwise would have been, upon the first 
 portion of the speech. She accepted the latter 
 part with smiles that were so broad, so free and 
 flowing, so rich in colour, and gorgeous alto- 
 gether, that they really rese;nbled flags of tri- 
 umph. When she had waved these over the 
 heads of her own household for a while, she wfent 
 out to make the village happy. 
 
 " I hope to goodness Aunt Libby won't say 
 anything in the village, papa ! did you caution 
 her?" 
 
 " Bless my soul, no ! " Mr. Leigh replied ; " but 
 of course she " 
 
 "Will," Theo interrupted; "yes, she will, I'm 
 sure, — she always does." 
 
 "Dear old ladyl Yes, she always does say 
 what she oughtn't to say," Sydney said, in a low 
 tone ; "shall I put on my hat and run after her, 
 Theo, and stop her from talking ? I know I Can 
 stop her, frighten her into complete prudence, 
 and yet only tell the truth." 
 
 Sydney's eyes sparkled with fun as she spoke. 
 Theo was much melted by the sight of this ear- 
 nest interest on behalf of her affiiirs. 
 
 "Tes, do, Sydney; I wouldn't have a word 
 said till— till " 
 
 " Oh ! all right, I understand," Sydney replied, 
 rushing ofl^ blithely. 
 
 In the meantime the momentous subject had 
 been broached at Haddington, and; as was only 
 just and natural. Lord Lesbotough was violently 
 opposed to that for which he had been verbally 
 anxious for years. "It was true that he had 
 desired to see Fj-ank married," he acknowledged ; 
 "marriage was the only safeguard against that 
 destruction towards which he was distressed to 
 see Frank drifting." Here he left off being ten- 
 der, and burst into wrath. " But such a marriage 
 as this ! It would be but a repetition of the 
 d d affair that ruined — yes, ruined — his fa^ 
 ther." 
 
 " Having made her an offer, and she having 
 accepted me, I'm not going to be hounded off it," 
 Frank said doggedly. "I shall stand to it, sir, 
 which will save you the trouble of looking out for 
 a cause for quarrelling with me any longer." 
 
 In his heart Lord Lesborough loved his grand- 
 son, but being obstinate unto death himself, he 
 had always elected to beMeve that obstinacy had 
 been the rock upon which Frank's father had split, 
 and that in the natural course of things obstinacy 
 would be the rock upon which Frank himself 
 would split. Still, he loved his grandson,, and he 
 was horribly angry with those words, which ap- 
 peared to cast a doubt upon that love. 
 
 "You know you like her yourself, papa," Ethel 
 said to him, reproachfully, when Frank had gone 
 out of the room. 
 
 "I do: nevertheless it is not the match for 
 Frank to make." 
 
 " I think he's very fond of her," Ethel pursued, 
 not that she was in reality very firmly convinced 
 of anything of the sort, but it is a nice womanly 
 thing to say on .such an occasion, so Ethel said 
 it. 
 
 " He'll get over that," Lord Lesborough re- 
 plied stifSy. ' 
 
 " Not if he's the true Eurgoyne I take him to 
 be." Ethel went on, warming to her theme and 
 feeling, as was natural, ten times more interested 
 in Frank's love now that she was put in the posi- 
 
 tion of counsel for the defence than she had been 
 before, — " not if he is the true Burgoyne I take 
 him to be. Why, papa, you of all men would 
 disown him for it if he could ' get over ' a genuine 
 thing soon. What did you teU us tlje other day ? 
 — that, well as you had loved our mother, you 
 never loved her with the deep wild love you had 
 for Harold Ffrench's mother? You never got 
 over it, — why should Frank ? " 
 
 "I wish Harold were here," was all Lord Les- 
 borough's answer. 
 
 "So do I, with all my heart," Ethel replied; 
 " he would plead for Frank, he — do promise one 
 thing, that if he thinks well of it you will too ; he 
 knows Theo, you know," 
 
 Accordingly Lord Lesborough promised, and 
 Ethel went into suspense for at least ten minutes 
 after the incoming of every train, and eagerly 
 awaited the advent of Harold Ffrench, who had 
 promised to come back to Maddington as soon as 
 he could. He was, in truth, on his way to them 
 now, for after Julie had transformed herself from 
 an innocent bundle of floss silk into a ruthless 
 detective, he had no heart to stay in the house 
 where was lying the dead body of her who had 
 been his wife. He was on his way back to his 
 friends and Maddington — Maddington that was 
 so near to the ppot made sacred to him by love. 
 He was on his way back, he was free, he was 
 happy with a feverish happinesa ; he was on his 
 way back to — what ? 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan had a very pleasant progress 
 through part of the village before Sydney ran 
 her to ground and unearthed her. The mere 
 mention of " my niece's engagement to Mr. Bur- 
 goyne " took away the breath of the majority of 
 her auditors, and as the majority of her auditors 
 would have burst their kincUy hearts rather than 
 have suffered her to perceive how staggered they 
 were, the delight was doubled. Mrs. Vaughan 
 had, it must be confessed, no bad notion of what 
 constitutes success and imparts the extra sheen to 
 it. Sh^ painted quite an effective picture of 
 Theo's having come, and seen, and conquered in 
 an incredibly short space of time. She mention- 
 ed, in a light and airy manner, the youth, the ex- 
 treme youth, the childhood almost, of said con- 
 queror, who was put back by her excellent aunt 
 to " between sixteen and seventeen," in a casual 
 kind of way that of course made an immense im- 
 pression on old ladies between sixty and seventy. 
 Mr. Burch's three daughters, who were all pro- 
 nounced at the county and assize balls to be " re- 
 markably effective, handsome girls," and who all 
 made a point of grouping in the window accord- 
 ing, to their lights whenever Mr. Burgoyne rode 
 past it down the village street, and who had indi- 
 vidually and collectively hoped a great deal from 
 the way in which he had raised his hat to them 
 at divers times, said, "Ah! how very nice I Soon 
 be married, of course ; there being nothing to 
 wait for if Lord Lesborough were agreeable." 
 At which poor Mrs. Vaughan, not having the 
 faintest notion yet whether or not Lord Les- 
 borough would be agreeable on this occasion, 
 went into the smiles of uncertainty, and the 
 Burch trio were partially avenged. 
 
 But the Miss Dampins were as water in the 
 desert to a panting heart ; they were sympathetic, 
 rejoiced, intensely curious. They plied Mrs. 
 Vaughan with questions in a way that made her 
 love them, and resolve to buy a lot of their un- 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 118 
 
 pleasant comforters and cuffs, and other results 
 of their incessant knitting. They went into the 
 matter in an able-bodied way you would not have 
 expected from such gentle old ladies. Their joy 
 at the hearing was a genuine thing, and they 
 wound up by sending such abject messages of 
 congratulation to Theo in the warmth of their 
 hearts, that Mrs. Vaughan was ashamed to de- 
 liver them. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan had always been a little what 
 her more envious neighbours about Haddington 
 termed bumptious ; but this day Haddington, as 
 it were, oozed out at every pore. She even hurled 
 it at the heads of the harmless peasantry, promis- 
 ing those who were out of it, work, and those 
 who were in want of it, soup, all from Madding- 
 ton. " 1 will speak to my niece. Miss Leigh, and 
 she will let Mr. Burgoyne know ; you may have 
 heard " (this in a condescending way, as if the 
 benighted wretches should be forgiven even if 
 stiU oblivious) "that Miss Theo and Mr. Bur- 
 goyne are," &c., &o. 
 
 She had gone half through the village dispens- 
 ing her news and her smiles, making,^ome miser- 
 able and herself happy, and still she had a fair 
 field, the other half, before her. She had left, 
 wary old sportswoman that she was, the best bit 
 of land for the last. In the portion still to be 
 beaten there lived her husband's predecessor's 
 widow and foui maiden daughters. And these 
 had never taken kindly to Mrs. Vaughan, and 
 Mrs. Vaughan had never taken kindly to them. 
 They disliked one another simply in the unreason- 
 able, motiveless way some women do dislike those 
 of their own sex who have gone before or follow- 
 ed after them. The dislike had never grown 
 into a feud, but always remained what it had 
 been at first, — a bitterly civil, cantankerous, and 
 hopeless aversion. 
 
 Before, however, Mrs. Vaughan could enter and 
 make their home too hot for them to dwell in it 
 calmly, she met Sydney Scott, who had been 
 sauntering about looking for her for some time, 
 and who was hot and tired, and consequently 
 just a little cross. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Vaughan," she began, " have you 
 done your rounds ? Why didn't you bring me 
 with you to carry your basket ? " Miss Scott's 
 tone was cordial to a degree, but as she made no 
 attempt to withdraw her hands from her jacket 
 pockets as she spoke, the suggestion as to the 
 basket was idle. 
 
 " I have not been to my paupers to-day," Mrs. 
 Vaughan replied ; and Sydney, being merely a 
 frivolous worldling, felt her blood run cold at 
 hearing such mention made of some of her fellow- 
 creatures. " I have been making a few calls." 
 
 " Oh ! you've made some of your calls already ; 
 they hadn't beard the big news yet, had they? " 
 
 "No, they had not heard — ^when I went in," 
 Mrs. Vaughan said, with a little cough. 
 
 " Did they hear while you were there ? How 
 quickly things must fly," Sydney asked innocent- 
 ly- 
 
 " I shall leave you here, my dear, for I must 
 go in and give the Blands a look," Mrs. Vaughan 
 answered testily; she was very unwilling to be 
 baulked of this crowning joy. 
 
 "Very well, good-by, I'll go home then," 
 
 Sydney said, turning away. Then, as she saw 
 
 that the Blands saw from their window that 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan was designing them the dubious 
 
 8 
 
 honour of a call, and that the old lady was 
 therefore fairly committed, and could not follow 
 and question her (Sydney) at once, she added, 
 "Poor Theo's first affair I To think that it 
 should all have gone utterly to smash, as it has 
 gone ! There, don't wait : they're looloBg : go 
 in." % 
 
 " Lord bless my heart ! " Mrs. Vaughan pant- 
 ed, as she walked up the Blands' garden. " The 
 monster ! — the wicked, unfeeling, little monster, 
 — to deal me such a blow here in the gate of 
 the enemy ! Oh, my poor heart ! that I should 
 have lived to boast too soon to any of the Hens- 
 ley people : but, thank God ! it wasn't the 
 Blands." 
 
 In the nature of things, no call could be a 
 comforting thing after this. Mrs. Vaughan 
 went in weak and came out worsted. The 
 Blands had numberless easy triumphs over her 
 that day. She was dubious in statements, de- 
 precating in style, dolefully depressed in soul. 
 She had been brave, she had not feared her fate 
 too much, or held her own deserts and the de- 
 serts of her niece as small. She had answered 
 a victory to the world before it had been oflS- 
 cially declared to herself, and now she learnt 
 from a well-informed ally that it was defeat, and 
 that she had been over-anxious in the well-doing 
 of making her acquaintances throb with envy. 
 
 It may seem a small thing to some people, 
 this blow that had been given her. But when her 
 position in the parish is considered, in conjunc- 
 tion with the earnest desire common to all 
 women to better the same, the full force of the 
 blow will be understood. Henceforth she would 
 be known as one who had striven, and had a 
 fall. Henceforth she would be open to ribald 
 mention as one who had overrated the amount 
 of toleration felt f^her at Maddington ; as one 
 who had intrigued^ ensnare the heir of Mad- 
 dington for her own niece, and been promptly 
 put into her proper place at the very moment 
 when success appeared to be about to crown 
 her unworthy efforts. 
 
 Such thoughts as these rushed through her 
 mind as she constrained herself to sit and talk 
 to the Blands, in the sketchy manner that was 
 the natural result of the morbid dread she had 
 every time the garden gate swung open that 
 either the butcher or baker were coming in, 
 and would "tell all" to the Blands' servants. 
 She pictured the scoffs that would be uttered in 
 that case immediately she removed herself fi:om 
 the house, and the glances of mingled pity and 
 contempt that would fall from the Blands' eyes 
 upon her discomfited back as she went down 
 the garden. As she pictured this scene she 
 pitied herself so profoundly . that she could 
 scarcely constrain herself to talk at all. 
 
 No thought of any possible pain that Theo 
 might feel in what Sydney had termed the 
 smashing of her first affair arose to soften her. 
 Not that she was an unkind or a cold-hearted 
 woman ; but her own position in the parish, her 
 social status as the clergymap's wife, and the 
 own familiar friend of the Burgoynes, was very 
 dear to her, so dear that when peril threatened 
 it, no matter how remotely, she could not en- 
 tertain the idea of another's sufferings. During 
 the whole period of her sojourn at Hensley she 
 had been eminently respectable. She had never 
 made a mistake, she had never seemed to aim 
 
114 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 at much, and she had never fallen short of that 
 at \rhich she had aimed. ScoiSTers had essayed 
 on more than one occasion to throw derision on 
 that best bloom of her life — the Burgoyne con- 
 nection ; but they had failed, for no man or 
 woman could say that in that quarter she strove 
 for moll than was willingly ceded to her. But 
 now ! — her heart quailed as she thought of how 
 now, in steering clear of the Charybdis of the 
 Burgoyne distrust, she would infallibly fall foul 
 of the Scylla of general discriminating contempt. 
 These thoughts were very hard to bear; so hard 
 that they would not admit of one gentle, pitying, 
 sympathetic one being given to Theo. Her 
 niece's engagement, instead of being the crown- 
 ing glory she had anticipated its being in the 
 morning, would be the one spot on the hitherto 
 undimmed radiance of her Hensley career. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 "WHAI MATTER A LITTLE MOKE ■WAITING TO 
 ONE WHO HAS WAITED FOR TEARS?" 
 
 To have stayed in that house where the life 
 had fled and the glove had been found, and 
 David Linley had to the last, to the very last, 
 been falsely friendly with that false wife, was 
 more than Harold Ffreneh could do. Had Julie 
 suffered things to remain as the more discreet 
 and deceitful human beings in the house would 
 have desired, Mr. Ffreneh would have done one 
 whom he deemed faithful (the servant who had 
 stayed with his wife for so many years) the 
 grace of remaining to see that wife buried. By 
 way of justifying what he had mistaken for 
 affection, — ^by way of rewarding that woman's 
 fidelity with a show of supnffiiition on his part 
 that such fidelity and affection was not unmerit- 
 ed, — he would have stayed, and have shown 
 that he believed the best of her who was gone. 
 But not now, not now. 
 
 Not now, with that woman laughing in her 
 sleeve at his having been hoodwinked so long 
 and so well. Not now, with the echo of the lie 
 she had uttered to him but just now still ringing 
 in his ears. It would be unworthy of him now 
 to stay and seem to sorrow and to sympathise 
 in ever so small a degree. Let her be buried 
 decently and in order, for the sake of humanity ; 
 but he was exempt now from all claim on his 
 special interest in the sorrow of the surviving 
 maid, and the dignity of the dead mistress. 
 
 For she, that mistress, had degraded him. 
 Not once in hot youth alone, not in agony and 
 shame, not with a sudden fury repented of and 
 atoned for afterwards through long, weary years 
 of well-doing and remorse. She had degraded 
 and deceived, and been coldly, systematically 
 false to him since the day when they were both 
 young, to the last, to the very last. 
 
 So he could not stay there in the house with 
 the mocking falsely humble and respectful 
 glance of the one who had aided and abetted, 
 ever ready to fall upon him. He could not take 
 up his London life again at once, that cold soli- 
 tary life which he had led in stagnation of soul 
 for years. The life which brought him in con- 
 tact with nothing warmer through the live-long 
 day than some well-known page from some well- 
 loved book read in youth, and cherished now as 
 
 one of the very few things that were still the 
 same as then. The life which left him long 
 solitary hours to be disposed of God knows how 
 at those periods of the day when other men of 
 his age and standing went from the cold of busi- 
 ness into the warmth of home. The life athwart 
 which the shadow of a friend so seldom fell that 
 when it did that life seemed strangely darkened 
 and saddened through the rarity of the thing. 
 The life which, if he had known was to be his 
 for so long when first it was thrust upon him, 
 would have been cut short by the horror of it 
 and the utter inability to face it. The life that 
 should be ended soon and swept away from his 
 memory by the charmed notes of promise which 
 should be uttered, the clouds which should be 
 melted away before the light of love which lived 
 for him in the eyes of Theo Leigh. 
 
 Even with the prospect of this joy before him 
 he could not take up that life again, though but 
 for a brief space. He would go back to Had- 
 dington. He wanted reassuring, he desired to 
 fbel the sense of security the sight of Theo 
 would give him. He needed to be with people 
 who' thoughl well of even if they did not like- 
 him, and for whom that sorrowful story of his 
 was not written upon his brow legibly in type 
 that those who ran might read. All this he 
 needed, and all this he would have down at, 
 Haddington. > 
 
 Together with something brighter still : the 
 sight of Theo's face when she should hear the 
 truth from him, and turn to him with euch balm'' 
 for what he had suffered in it, and such a joyous 
 pledge of recompense in the future. How she 
 would forgive him for that fond folly of his, 
 divided by such a tiny line from guilty selfish- 
 ness, which had caused him to linger by her 
 side down on those bleak marshes alone on the 
 rush-covered bank. How she would forgive 
 him and love him. The train sped slowly after 
 that thought arose. 
 
 It was scarcely absent from his mind during 
 the whole journey. It was present there and 
 vivid the whole time, and it was very comfort- 
 ing. 
 
 The only thingj the solitary shadow that fell i 
 across and marred the brightness of it (and that 
 very seldom) was the thought that would arise 
 once or twice of how many more years had passed 
 over his head than over hers. So many years as 
 he had known beyond her must he strike off from ■ 
 the roll of those which he might hope to know 
 with her. He found himself regretting his .age, 
 and fervently praying that th? blood of youth 
 could bound through his veins once more. For 
 youth would be her portion for many years to . 
 come, and the richest bloom of womanhood, 
 especially with such a physique, would be hers 
 when he was grey-haired and maybe decrepid'. 
 
 The train seemed very slow to him. It was 
 useless his asking himself " what matter a little 
 more waiting for one who has waited for years?'' 
 The " little more waiting " that was rendered a 
 necessity by space intervening, by space alone, 
 thank God ! he said almost aloud, was more bit- 
 terly hard to bear than aught had been for years. 
 He so longed to lift the sorrow from the young 
 heart, and the cloud from the young eyes that 
 had been the one so light and the other so bright 
 when first they turned towards him. 
 
 His greatest, his only ambition now, was, to 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 lis 
 
 have a home where Theo would be also, and to be 
 at rest with her. Had this incubus, which was 
 but just removed from him, been lifted away from 
 him years ago while yout.h and the desire to do 
 something, to make a stir in the world, had still 
 been his, he might have striven and failed, and 
 been more embittered than he was as things were. 
 So he looked leniently back upon that long series 
 of desultory attempts to do so little that when 
 those attempts failed he scarcely marked the 
 failure of them. Failure on a larger field might 
 have driven him down into depths from whence 
 there would have been no arising — into depths 
 from which he told himself now no man could 
 have arisen to Theo Leigh. Therefore he felt 
 leniently towards that long inactive career which 
 sometimes he had regretted while still leading it, 
 and thought that as that inactivity had led him 
 into comparatively little evil, so now after it he 
 was fairly entitled to nurse the sole ambition left 
 to him — to cherish, and dwell upon, and yearn 
 to realise the vision of the peaceful, quiet, loving 
 life which should be his with Theo. 
 
 " What matters a little more waiting to one who 
 has waited for years? " How had he borne that 
 enforced quiescence ? he asked himself. How had 
 he suffered this clog to chain him away from all 
 that was most prized by his man's heart! How 
 had he been enabled to keep love from being the 
 lord of all during those last few months espe- 
 cially? From what portion of his passionate 
 weakness had come the strength which had en- 
 abled him to refrain from testing whether love 
 were indeed powerful enough in that girl's heart 
 to make her consider the world well lost for it? 
 
 He had been sorely tempted, horribly tried ! 
 Tempted and tried by that very unguardedness 
 and perfect trust of hers which after all had been 
 her tower of strength. He shuddered, now that 
 she would so soon be his own in all honour, to 
 think of how often he had cursed the social bonds 
 that bound them both, and been on the point of 
 bursting them, when he had reflected on how 
 brief a thing after all life was, and how benighted 
 were those who laid down laws for themselves, 
 only, as it seemed, to make that life miserable. 
 
 But there was nothing between them any 
 longer, nothing ; neither shadow nor substance. 
 Nothing save the green fields and hedge-rows 
 which lay between the train and Hensley. 
 
 Harold Ffrench walked fast when he got Out of 
 the train at Hensley, walked fast as a man is apt 
 to walk when he has something pleasant to do 
 and is in haste to do it. He was in mourning, in 
 such mourning as a man can go into at once in 
 these sombrely clothed days without making any 
 material change in his dress. But there was no 
 mourning in his face, and none in his heart. He 
 was a brighter, happier man than he had been 
 for long years, and he was a better man too, as 
 is often the case when one is happier. 
 
 He was in, broad charity with 411 men except 
 David Linley, whose heart even then, in that 
 happy, gentUng hour, he could have torn from 
 his breast and flung to perdition without com- 
 punction. But for the rest of the world he had 
 such glowing kindly feelings, such a wealth of 
 toleration, such a mighty sym,pathy. 
 
 All things were fair, fair as the future that had 
 opened to him, fair as the face of the love of his 
 boyhood, or of her who had wakened this later 
 love in his soul._ Nature smiled so softly that 
 
 her child, the winter season, grew rosy and warm 
 in her rays. There was a promise in the sun- 
 shine, and on the light wind that was up there 
 was a hope, as he walked on towards the fate 
 that was in store for him. 
 
 " God ! what days we'll have together ! " he 
 said aloud to himself , as he got into the Hadding- 
 ton grounds and walked along even faster than 
 before, impatient to announce himself and then 
 go on to Theo. " Dear little thing'! she who was 
 satisfied with the prospect over those bleakj hard 
 marches, while I talked to her of better thing<8 
 and more luscious scenes ; to take her where I 
 have been myself, and see her whole soul leaping 
 towards me while I tell her what. I was suffering 
 then. It is worth having lived for, this ; it wiU 
 be no bad reward for the hell I have known." 
 
 Faster and even faster along the avenue, with 
 many of the hopes that were his in his long-left 
 youth coming back to him, and crowding tumul- 
 tuously through his brain. Resuming all uncon- 
 sciously the very gait that had been his in youth, 
 carrying his head more buoyantly, his hands in 
 his pockets more carelessly, his heart in his breast 
 more blithely than ever he had done since that 
 day when he had stood on the deck of the Eng- 
 lish frigate and lifted the Greek girl's veil. 
 
 He made as many plans as a girl with her first 
 pocket-money for giving pleasure to others — to 
 those to whom heretofore he had unhappily given 
 little else save pain. He bethought himself of 
 where it would be well for Theo and himself to 
 take up their headquarters when they were in 
 England, in order that they might be within an 
 accessible distance of her father. He even laid 
 down a plan very susceptible of improvement of 
 cultivating that mind of hers which in its uucul- 
 tivatlon was still so inexpressibly dear to him. 
 He never thought for an instant, as he strode 
 along like the man he felt himself to be once 
 more, but that he should have her for his own, 
 to do with her as it seemed good to him so long 
 as he should live. 
 
 So on to the house where he seemed to be 
 expected, and wished, and waited for, in a man- 
 ner that was very pleasant to behold, especially 
 by Ethel, who hadiinever been wont to be de- 
 monstrative towards him. But now she came 
 forward through the whole length of the oak par- 
 lour when he entered it and found her there 
 alone, and gladly made him welcome, telling him 
 how happy she was to see him, and how much 
 . they ail had been and were wanting him, in tones 
 that had the genuine ring of the metal. 
 
 " That's very good of you," he replied ; "I'U 
 hear what you want me for when I come back. 
 I'm just going over to Hensley." 
 
 "Oh! do wait a little," Ethel began ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 He shook his head, he was in no mood for 
 more waiting ; he had been waiting for years for 
 much, for months for this very thing which now 
 he was about to make his own. 
 
 " I shaU be back before long," he answered, 
 thinking the while that it would be extremely 
 probable that he should be nothing of the kind ; 
 "but I have something to do and I must go and 
 do it at once." 
 
 . He was about to leave the room as he spoke, 
 but Ethel checked him. 
 "Mr. Ffrench, do stop." 
 He stopped and went back to her, and she held 
 
116 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 out her hand, and when he gave his she held it 
 fast. 
 
 "What is it? "he asked. 
 " Oh ! it's about Frank ; do sit down and I will 
 tell you, but you mustn't be impatient, will you ?" 
 " I will try not to be impatient, if you will try 
 to tell me quickly." 
 
 " So I will ; as if your Hensley business, which 
 is probably about a gun, or a dog, or a saddle 
 couldn't wait ! I always find when men have 
 particular business down at Hensley that it's at 
 the farrier's or th^ vet's." 
 
 " Mine is neither ; however, go on." 
 " Well, then ; you know what a dear boy Frank 
 is, and that papa is often just a little perverse 
 with him ? " 
 Harold Ffrench nodded and asked, 
 " Has he smashed the Baron again ? '* 
 " Oh,no ! nothing bad,he has only fallen in love." 
 " Ay, and with whom ? " he had no suspicion, 
 not the faintest shadow, as to what her answer 
 would be, and Ethel had none either as to how 
 it would touch him. 
 
 " He has fallen desperately in love, poor boy, 
 and proposed and been accepted, a thing papa 
 has always been wishing him to do if the girl 
 was nice ; and here now when they are both 
 tremendously in love, and no girl can be nicer 
 than Theo Leigh, papa— — ^What's the matter? " 
 He had not started, or smote his chest or his 
 forehead, or fainted, or gone ghastly white, or 
 giren any other melodramatic sign of emotion. 
 He had merely flushed ; a strong man's flush of 
 disappointed passion and cruel jealousy is no 
 pleasant sight to witness. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " Ethel repeated wou- 
 deringly. 
 
 "Nothing; an old wound that I am apt to 
 feel after exertion ; go on." 
 
 "Well, Frank — but I didn't know you had 
 ever been wounded." 
 
 " Long ago, and it was to death I thought at 
 the time ; go on." It was to death now — the 
 death of all good within him, but he would hear 
 to the end. 
 
 " Well, Frank can't get papa's consent to 
 their engagement — ^it's cruel to him and to lier 
 
 too, poor girl, but if you " 
 
 "Are they so devotedly attached to each 
 other ? " Harold Ffrench interrupted bitterly. 
 
 "I believe they are, and you can't wonder at 
 it ; any girl would be sure to be won by Frank 
 if he tried to win her ; he has every quality to 
 attract and endear him to a woman ; do speak 
 to papa, Mr. Ffrench," she went on earnestly, 
 " he promises to be influenced by you ; and 
 even if you don't care for Frank, you hke Miss 
 Leigh, so just think of what she must have been 
 suffering all these days — with her temperament 
 to be subjected to such a mortifying uncertainty." 
 " She shall know no further suffering if I can 
 avert it ; I will go to your father at once." 
 
 " That's good of you ; before you go to Hens- 
 ley ? " she added inquiringly. 
 
 "Yes, before I go to Hensjey; in fact, my 
 Hensley business was very unimportant." 
 
 He was sitting now with his elbows on his 
 knees, his hands clasped together, and his head 
 bent down low, as though he were gazing ear- 
 nestly on the pattern on the carpet. Miss Ethel, 
 looking at him, marked the deadening influence 
 that seemed to have come over him sudden- 
 
 ly, and also for the first time observed the black 
 clothes. 
 
 " I have been so selfishly interested in dear 
 Frank's affairs that I didn't see — " she began 
 hesitatingly, then she added more rapidly, " I fear 
 you have lost some friend since we saw you." 
 
 He saw her eyes travelling down from the 
 black tie and jet studs to the band that was 
 round the hat which was lying on a chair by his 
 side. 
 
 " I have lost the only being in the world who 
 was dear to me," he siud savagely, " don't speak 
 to me about it any more ; lost ! I have been 
 losing all my life." 
 
 He rose up as he spoke, and Ethel, feeling 
 very sorry for him as she did, stiU hoped that he 
 was going to put the memory of his losses away 
 from him for the nonce, and proceed on his 
 mission on behalf of Frank the favorite without 
 delay. ■ 
 " Are you going to papa now ? " she asked. 
 " I hardly know ; I think, if youll allow me, I 
 will take a stroll first ; the young people," he 
 smiled grimly as he said it, " can exist for an 
 hour or two longer in uncertainty — cheered and 
 supported as they are by their mutual passion." 
 " I don't eypeot you to have much sympathy 
 with that sort of thing," Ethel replied, smiling ; 
 then she looked at him, and wondpred why she 
 had not expected him to have much sympathy 
 with "that sort of thing;" there was no incon- 
 gruity between himself and the subject. " But 
 I know you will do Frank a good turn if you 
 can," she went on earnestly, "and you'see, if he 
 is baulked in this thing,. the very thing we have 
 all been urging upon ^^im as a sure means of 
 pleasing papa, why, there's no saying how it may 
 affect him ; is there ? " 
 
 Harold Ffrench did not answer for a minute 
 or two. He was asking himself during that 
 pause why he should interest himself in the mat- 
 ter ? — why he should obey the behest of Miss 
 Ethel, and strive to smooth the path of his 
 rival ? — why he should interfere between Frank 
 and the possible perdition a disappointment 
 might drive Frank into ? But when he had ask- 
 ed himself why he should do this thing, which 
 would be putting his hand to the fatal wheel 
 of fortune which was crushing him he remem- 
 bered Theo. Remembered Theo, and resolved 
 that never another pang, another doubt, should 
 be hers, while he could save her from it. 
 
 "No, there's no saying how it may affect 
 him," he replied in an indifferent tone ; '' well, 
 my voice shall be raised for the happy pair ; 
 where is your father ? " 
 
 " He keeps in his own study, and declares he 
 feels the gout coming on." 
 
 " And where is Era , your nephew ? " 
 
 " Gone down to see Theo, I believe," Ethel 
 replied laughing ; " I never thought to see 
 Frank so completely upset ; he was as pale and 
 agitated as a girl this morning, and so touchy." 
 " Is he ?" Harold Ffrench replied sarcastic- 
 ally. " Miss Leigh will, without doubt, repay 
 him for his anguish." 
 
 Then he went off to speak with Lord Les- 
 borough ; hut had he known the true cause of 
 Frank's pallor and touchiness, he would have, 
 even at the risk of seeming to play Frank false, 
 carried out his original intention and gone over 
 to Theo at once. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 117 
 
 Lord Lesborough was sitting by the fire in 
 his study, with a table covered with bills by his 
 side, and a portentous frown of calculation on 
 his forehead. The bills were all duly docketed, 
 and they were all paid ; therefore at first sight 
 the frown appeared to be a work of supereroga- 
 tion on the part of his noble brows. But they 
 had a mission, those bills, and they were fulfil- 
 ling it. Theyjiad been incurred by Frank at 
 divers periods%f his career, and they had been 
 assiduously looked up this morning by Lord 
 Lesborough in order to feed the flame of his 
 wrath against his grandson. One of Lord Les- 
 borough's legs was extended straight out before 
 him, too, after the manner of one who is suffer- 
 ing from the gout. 
 
 " How are you, Harold 1 glad to see you back 
 again," he exclaimed, shuffling his papers about 
 with a great air of business, as Harold Ffrenoh 
 came in. 
 
 " Tm here only for an hour or two," Harold 
 replied, shaking hands with his host. 
 
 Lord Lesborough picked his leg off the chair 
 in most unseemly haste. 
 
 "You don't mean to say you're going off 
 again to-day? " he asked, " I wanted to talk to 
 you about that boy; he's got himself into a 
 d— d mess." 
 
 Harold Ffrench felt the blood rising to his 
 face and throbbing in his veins. It was hideous 
 to the man who loved her better than he had 
 ever loved any thing in his life, to hear Theo 
 Leigh alluded to in this way. He could not an- 
 swer the allusion immediately, so he said^ — 
 
 " Vm sorry to hear that you have signs of the 
 gout about you." 
 
 " Yes, I'm afraid it's coming on," Lord Les- 
 borough repKed, promptly acting on the re- 
 minder, and replacing his leg on the rest, with 
 much circumspection and many facial expres- 
 sions of anguish. 
 
 " Been taking too much port wine ? " Harold 
 suggested. In reality, he neither cared for nor 
 believed in Lord Lesborough's gout or its cause 
 at this juncture. He^only wanted to gain a lit- 
 tle time before the subject of the death-blow of 
 his hopes was mooted. 
 
 " It is not that," Lord Lesborough replied 
 quickly. Port that had been ten years in bottle , 
 and three in wood, was much affected- by him, 
 and he had an exceeding great dislike to hear- 
 ing that its effects were not invariably all that 
 was desirable. So now he replied somewhat 
 testily, that " It was not that," and then went 
 on to add — 
 
 " It's chiefly mental with me ; if a tiling weighs 
 on my mind, it's almost sure to fly to — to — ■ — " 
 he hesitated, and rubbed his leg ; he had not 
 quite made up his mind whether he would say 
 to his " knee " or his " foot." 
 
 Then Harold Ffrench determined that he 
 would no longer strive to evade the subject 
 which he had come to discuss, 
 
 " What is weighing upon your mind now ? " he 
 asked, rising up and leaning his back against 
 the chimney-board. 
 
 " That boy's folly — you have not heard yet ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have heard from your daughter that 
 he has engaged himself to Miss Leigh. On my 
 life I can't consider it a folly on his part." . 
 
 Once more Lord Lesborough forgot the effect 
 of his mental excitement ; he took his leg down 
 
 from the rest and planted both feet firmly on 
 the ground, 
 
 " You're about right, perhaps," he said ; " the 
 girl is more foolish still to have imagined for an 
 instant that I should permit the thing to go on." 
 
 Harold Ffrench stood silently looking down on 
 his old friend with a glowing face and steady 
 eyes for a few seconds. At last he said, holding 
 his hand out to Lord Lesborough as he spoke — 
 
 " You have treated me as your son for years, 
 and I am very grateful for the love you have 
 shown me for my mother's sake ; Heaven knows 
 your unswerving fliendship has been the only 
 light in a preciously black career ; but, if wrong 
 or insult is offered to Theo Leigh at your insti- 
 gation, or from a member of your family, I shall 
 banish th^t solitary light, and say good-by to 
 you and Maddington for ever." 
 
 "Are you mad, Harold?" Lord Lesborough 
 asked, wonderrngly. 
 
 " God knows I have enough to make me mad. 
 No ; I think I'm sane enough now. Come, 
 Lesborough," he continued abruptly, " grant me 
 this favour — ^let your grandson be happy with 
 that girl, who is far too noble for him, or for 
 any other man that I know." 
 
 "It's not the match he should make," Lord 
 Lesborough replied, shaking his head and rub- 
 bing his leg. 
 
 - "Kot the match he should make; I agree 
 with you in the letter, but not in the spirit. 
 What do you want him to marry ? Not money, 
 I know. She has no rank certainly, but she is a 
 gentiewoman bom and bred, and shd has a heart 
 of gold ; if it is set upon your gi'andson now " (he 
 gave a gMlp over the words), " don't try it, for 
 God's sake." 
 
 "You speak very warmly of the young 
 lady,'? Lord Lesborough said. " One would 
 think^ — " 
 
 "Stop! don't 'think' about it," Harold in- 
 terrupted. " I will tell you why I speak so 
 warmly of the young lady, and when you have 
 heard it you will put no obstacles in the way 
 your grandson is going if you're the man I take 
 you to be." - 
 
 Then Mr. Ffrench sat down, and in a law 
 voice, for his heart was heavy, he told the man 
 who had loved his mother the story of that first 
 meemig down on the bleak marshes, the love 
 that grew out of that meeting, the constraint, 
 the suffering, the blight that ensued; and, lastly, 
 the cause of that constraint and suffering, and its 
 recent removal. 
 
 " If this was broken off you might have her 
 still," Lord Lesborough said, somewhat' huskily. 
 
 "Have her still, after she has found out her 
 first mistake, and loved another man according 
 to her years ! God bless her, no. It is natural 
 that this should have come about. Let her be 
 happy at last." 
 
 "If she can be happy with that boy after 
 you," Lord Lesborough said somewhat scorn- 
 fully. " However, I won't interfere ; and you 
 will come to Maddington as usual while I live, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 Soon after this, Harold Ffrench went away ; 
 and late that evening Theo Leigh received a note 
 from Ethel containing warm congratulations from 
 the whole family, and a promise of coming to call 
 on her (Theo) the following day. Frank was 
 with her when she received the note, but instead 
 
118 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 of handing it to him, she kept a nervous hold on 
 it long after she had read its contents. 
 
 " What more does Ethel say ? " Prank asked. 
 
 " Not much," Theo replied. 
 
 " Let me see," he said ; then she handed it to 
 him, and he read: — '"Harold Ffrench came 
 down for a short time to-day, and won a most 
 complete consent from papa ; it seems he has a 
 great admiration for you, Miss Theo, and he has 
 quite succeeded in making papa sliare the feel- 
 ing.' " 
 
 " Curse him for interfering," Frank thought, 
 as he gave the letter back. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 CONGEATtTLATOET. 
 
 The engagement and the agreeable consent to 
 it from Haddington was not allowed to interfere 
 ■with the original arrangement. Theo and Syd- 
 ney Scott were to return to Eretford with Mr. 
 Leigh, and Hensley was to be left to its normal 
 quiet. 
 
 Lowndes was to be left to itself too. The Gal- 
 tons were going almost immediately, and David 
 Linley declared he would not remain there in 
 .solitude. Lowndes had answered his purpose 
 entirely, he had no reluctance to quit it now. It 
 had been the centre of that sociality which had 
 resulted in Harold Ffrench's stumble on the very 
 threshold of happiness. 
 
 Mr. Linley heard of Harold Ffrench's brief 
 visit, and its pleasing results, from Ethel; Mr. 
 Linley was "intensely interested in the young 
 people," he said. He also averred that he had 
 quite a feUow-feeling with F&euch in the matter ; 
 and on the strength of this fellow-feeling took 
 occasion to expatiate largely on Harold's good- 
 natured share in the affair to Theo. 
 
 At first Theo listened in silence to liis speeches 
 on the subject, but at last she told him that he 
 need not say any more about it. " I quite appre- 
 ciate the kindness, and good-nature, and ' right- 
 feeling,' as you call it, Mr. Linley, that Mr. 
 Flfrench has displayed ; you needn't din it 
 into my ears constantly. I don't see that, he , 
 could have done anything else, for my own 
 part." 
 
 " I won't ; but I must say Ffrench has acted 
 unselfishly at last," he replied ; " generally he 
 lets otljer people manage their own affairs with- 
 out let or hindrance from him; but he really 
 took the trouble to put the thing properly before 
 that old dunderhead Lesborough.'' 
 
 " Do you call Lord Lesborough a ' dunderhead ' 
 to Prank ? " 
 
 " Possibly I do ; why do you ask ? " 
 
 " He oughtn't to let you, then ; at any rate, / 
 won't let you speak of Lord Lesborougli in that 
 way to me." 
 
 " You're mounting guard over the family dig- 
 nity rather early ; have you anything else to say ? " 
 Mr. Linley asked suavelyi 
 
 " Yes, that I don't need to be told now that 
 Mr. Ffrench is imselfish ; I know it, I've known 
 it all along." 
 
 "I don't think you're aware of the full extent 
 of his unselfijshness in this instance, though," he 
 said impressively ; "and you ought to know it : 
 really, such an act of self-abnegation as his ought 
 
 to be made known to the one for whom he has 
 made it." 
 
 "What do yon mean?" she asked qmckly; 
 "why do you — how dare you talk to me in that 
 way about Mr. Ffrench? He has been kind, but 
 he would be the last to desire what he has done 
 to be looked upon in the light of a sacrifice ; the 
 last to desire it," she repeated scornfully; "he 
 would think such a supposition an insult to otc." 
 
 "Then you are what I half farfcied you might 
 be — ignorant of the death of his wife. He was 
 free to renew his vows, you see, but he has ceded 
 you to the better man and the brighter fate," 
 Linley said quietly, watching her sharply the 
 while. 
 
 He had no wish to pain her in the matter. 
 That is to say, he had no desire from the 
 beginning to pain her much. He only wanted 
 to wound her in such ways through Harold and 
 about Harold as should prevent her ever being 
 able to give Harold a taste of that joy in the 
 autumn of his life of which Linley had defrauded 
 him in the spring. 
 
 David Linley had no wish to pain Theo in the 
 matter, but he was watching her keenly to see 
 "how she would take " the intelligence ; and she, 
 marking the keenness of that glance, answered 
 with the most unaffected coolness — 
 
 " His wife dead f — poor thing." 
 
 " Poor thing truly 1" he said, with something 
 like emotion, as old recollections crowded upon 
 him. 
 
 " I know nothing of their story, but whatever 
 it is, her's must have been a very hard life. Did 
 she love Mm much ? " 
 
 " I believe she did, at first ; hardly in a way 
 you vrould understand, though. Poor Zoe ! he 
 represented liberty to her when she played off 
 her little ruse ; when she got the actual things she 
 ceased to care much for its representative." 
 
 " I know nothing of their story, and I don't 
 want to know anything of it," Theo said quietly ; 
 " but I should like to hear that all the fault was 
 not on his side." 
 
 "All what fault?" 
 
 " The fault that caused those long, long dreary 
 desperate years of separation, and all the harm 
 that came from it. I can't think that it was all 
 his fault ; but I should like to hear." 
 
 "Oh, she was harmless enough, poor little 
 soul, when I knew her," Linley replied, with 
 some embarrassment. "You see, that habit of 
 amusing himself with every ^rl he comes across, 
 is never a pleasant sight for a man's wife to 
 witness." 
 
 To which Theo replied, "No, it couldn't be," 
 very decidedly ; and then paused for a few sec- 
 onds, and then shook her bead and said, " no, it 
 wasn't," more decidedly still. 
 
 This conversation took place in the evening of 
 the day before their return to Bretford. The 
 Lowndes party and Frank Burgoyne were at the 
 vicarage, and they were all as restless and ill at 
 ease as people who are assembled to be happy 
 together on a last evening almost invariably are. 
 Mrs. Vaughan had invited them in a burst of en- 
 thusiasm, which faded out the moment she dis- 
 covered that their acceptance of her invitation 
 would cause a great disturbance in her household. 
 Not only had the enthusiasm faded, but truth to 
 tell, a certain something that strongly resembled 
 ill-humor reigned in its stead. "I suppose I 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 « 
 119 
 
 needn't give those people supper, Theo," she said 
 to her niece the day before, in a tone that made 
 Theo feel herself to be a miserable sinner on the 
 spot, and the cause of all things unpleasant, "I 
 suppose I need not giye those those people sup- 
 per, Theo." 
 
 " Don't give it to them on my account, Aunt 
 Libby," Theo replied, indifferently. Truth to tell, 
 she was very indifferent as to whether her friends 
 fed heartily iu her presence or not. It never oc- 
 curred to her to think her friends hungry when 
 they came to see her. 
 
 " Instead of scoffing at my well-meant endeav- 
 ours to make thin^ pleasant under existing 
 circumstances, I wkNjOu would give me the ben- 
 efit of your advice," Mrs. Vaughan exclaimed, 
 tearfully. 
 
 " My dear aunt ! — Well ! — let me think, No ; 
 give them tea and coffee when they come. They 
 all dine late, and don't want anything more." 
 
 " Don't want anything more," Mrs. Vaughan re- 
 peated, sarcastically. "My dear child, one would 
 imagine you had been accustomed to entertain 
 paupers, hungry paupers, to hear you talk of 
 people ' wanting ' anything more ; you miist 
 learn to be more careful in your conversation, 
 with your present prospects." And Mrs. Vaughan 
 threw up her head, and flattened her little back, 
 and thrust forward her little chest like an enter- 
 prising pouter pigeon, or a mistress of deport- 
 ment for the upper classes, as she spoke. 
 
 " Oh, give them the supper. Let us have the 
 supper by all means, Mrs. Vaughan," Sydney 
 Scott cried. The supper appeared to her the sole 
 element out of which pleasure might possibly be 
 extracted which was left in Hensley. "If we 
 don't have supper,' how on earth are we to get 
 over the" evening ? " Miss Scott asked of Theo 
 later in the day. " It may be all very well for 
 you. Miss Theo ; but for people who are not just en- 
 gaged to each other, let me tell you, a country con- 
 gregation of this sort is tedious to the last degree." 
 
 Finally, the supper was decided upon ; and 
 when once the fiat for it had gone forth, Mrs. 
 Vaughan went into the clotted cream, blanc- 
 mange, and whipped syllabub questions in a way 
 that relieved her guests most completely and en- 
 tirely of the onus of entertaining her. 
 
 If the truth and the whole truth be stated, 
 though, it must be told that when the evening 
 came, it was not the " people who were just en- 
 gaged " who found it the least tedious. It may 
 have been, that excess of happiness made Frank 
 remarkably quiet, not to say subdued: at any 
 rate, something had that effect upon him. As for 
 Theo, after that conversation which has been re- 
 corded with Mr. Linley on the Harold Ffrench 
 subject, a conversation which took place before 
 tea, she grew remarkably quiet, too, but quiet in 
 a gentle, tender way that offered a marked con- 
 trast to Frank's unmistakeable sullenness. She 
 was not regretting anything ; circumstances had 
 killed anything like love for Mr. Ffrench. David 
 Lin^y, too, was very thoughtful. He could not 
 help thinking a little of the dead woman who 
 had been his toy, his tool, his slave, but never 
 his love. He could not help thinking of her 
 now as he sat looking at the one he had intended to 
 be the third victim of his hate to Harold Ffrench. 
 
 For the rest : Mr. Leigh was happy in an un- 
 feigned sober way that neither sought to hide nor 
 to make itself manifest. He was exceedingly 
 
 gratified at the climax to which things had come. 
 He had arrived at Hensley anticipating all man- 
 ner of unpleasantness, in consequence of that 
 warning he had received as to Harold Ffrench's 
 proximity to Theo. The turn things had taken 
 was delightful to him, and he showed that he 
 thought it delightful, but he showed it so quietly 
 that none who knew him less well than Theo 
 could have discerned it all. 
 
 Mrs. Vaughan was happy, too, but in a quali- 
 fied way. She had her doubts about many 
 things, amongst others whether Theo felt proper- 
 ly impressed by the honour that had been done 
 her, and also whether Theo felt duly grateful to 
 her excellent aunt for that aunt's share in bring- 
 ing the honour about. Mrs. Vaughan also had 
 her doubts as to the lobster- salad, the construction 
 of which she had in an evil hour of blind confi- 
 dence entrusted to Sydney Scott, turning out 
 well. " She's sure to have put in too much of 
 something, the giddy-pated thing," the old lady 
 said to herself, constantly glaring at the uncon- 
 scious Sydney, who disregarded the glances, and 
 suffered them to pass without verbal retorts in an 
 unprecedented manner. 
 
 Sydney, in fact, was finding the evening far 
 from tedious, though her friend Theo was the 
 nominal heroine of the occasion. Miss Scott was 
 agreeably occupied in watching Mrs. Galton — 
 Mrs. Galton's silken skin was so visibly rubbed 
 the wrong way by this latest achievement of Theo's. 
 
 This was the second head of big game that had 
 fallen to Theo's gun before the eyes of Kate, the 
 far more skilled sportswoman. Mrs. Galton was 
 not precisely envious or jealous, but still she did 
 not like it. She had thought but little of Theo, 
 honestly thought but little of her, for Theo's was 
 not the type of grace to toueh Mrs. Galton. It 
 was hard, therefore, to feel that Theo was on the 
 highroad to all that for which she (Kate) had ever 
 pined, — rank and position. 
 
 Mrs. Galton began to think more of Frank 
 Burgoyne from the moment his engagement was 
 made known to her. The shock his proposal to 
 Theo caused throughout their circle, the talk and 
 speculation, the surmises and excitement it creat- 
 ed made her feel him to be the important man he 
 was, in a flash. In the order of things it was 
 out of the question that he could have married 
 her, l)ut for all that she did feel sore at his selec- 
 tion of Theo Leigh. 
 
 She had offered Theo congratulations in due 
 foBm, however. Theo had on Mrs. Galton's ar- 
 rival that evening unwarily accompanied that 
 lady up-stairs, for the purpose apparently of see- 
 ing her take off her bonnet ; and as soon as they 
 were alone Mrs. Galton said what it is proper to 
 say under such circumstances. She took both 
 Theo's hands in her own, Mssed Miss Leigh on 
 the brow in the approved beneficent feminine 
 fashion, and said : 
 
 " I find I have to congratulate you, Theo ; real- 
 ly, you lucky girl, Fm very glad." 
 
 " Thank you," Theo repUed. 
 
 " Thank you. Is that all you're going to say 
 to me ? " 
 
 "What more is there to be said?" Theo 
 asked. " Have some eau-de-Cologne ? " 
 
 " No ; I won't have anything but a free con- 
 fession from you that you are very thankful now for 
 not being linked to my cousin Harold in any way 
 that would have caused you to miss the chance." 
 
120 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 " I don't know that -we need talk about that 
 ow,'' Theo replied. 
 
 Kate looked out through the veil of nut-brown 
 air she was re-arranging. 
 
 '.' There's no harm in talking about it if you 
 ave quite got over all feeling for Harold, Theo ; 
 f course, if you have not, 1 will keep silence on 
 ae subject. Shall I ? " 
 
 " Just as you please," Theo replied, quietly. 
 
 "No, dear, it shall be as you please. The 
 ecovery has been rapid, marvellously rapid, I 
 wu ; still I hope, that is, I hoped, that it was a 
 ecovery ; if it is not, as I said before, I'll keep 
 ilence on the subject. Shall I ? " 
 
 " If I say ' yes,' she'll take that as a declaration 
 f the recovery not being perfected yet," Theo 
 lought ; " and if I say ' no,' she'll go on talking 
 ; over till I'm frantic : anything is better than 
 liking of it ; and, after all, what does it matter 
 'hat she thinks ? " 
 
 " If it is not, as I said before, I'll keep silence 
 n the subject. Shall I?" Mrs. Galton asked 
 nee more. To which Theo replied,— 
 
 " Yes." And so the matter dropped. 
 
 Dropped, that is, as far as conversation on the 
 ibject of it with Theo was concerned. But 
 lere was still Frank to be congratulated. 
 
 Now Mrs. Galton did not set about doing this 
 
 I the manner that is especially odious to men 
 -publicly, that is, in the face of the whole con- 
 regation. Had she done this she would have 
 ad the pleasing knowledge that Frank was feel- 
 ig exqiiisitely uncomfortable and ashamed of 
 imself, as publicly congratulated men are apt to 
 iel ; but she would also have had the fear of his 
 eing annoyed with and suspicious of hei*. She 
 ould not risk this, for at last Frank Burgoyne 
 ad become interesting to her. 
 
 So she, knowing that to the one who can wait 
 
 II things will come, waited for a quiet oppor- 
 mity to say her little speech to him. That op- 
 ortunity came at last, and she seized it promptly 
 kei the active quick-witted woman she was. 
 eized and utilised it at once unobserved, as she 
 nagined, by all then present. In this, however, 
 le was mistaken : Sydney Scott saw and marked 
 er. 
 
 The occasion taken by the fair strategist was 
 le move in, or rather the confusion arising from 
 le anticipation of the move in, to supper. Mrs. 
 'augban was one of those excellent women who, 
 irough the very intensity of their desire to . see 
 U things done decently and in order, create, en- 
 rely by thepaselves, confusion, disorder,*' and 
 ■equently rank anarchy and. despair. 
 The first sign of the approaching supper was 
 iven about an hour and a half before it was to 
 e eaten, by Mrs. Vaughan's partially subdued 
 ut palpably uneasy , desire to get out of the 
 3om. She had a presentiment that grew and 
 lengthened in a frightful manner each moment 
 lat she was delayed, that somebody was doing 
 jmething that ought not to be done to the table, 
 r the viands, or the silver, or the glass. "I 
 ould'nt tell what it was," -she explained, after 
 le guests were gone. " I could'nt tell what it 
 as, my dear, but I felt it in my throat ; and, 
 are enough, when I did get out at last there 
 as cook rubbing up my second-size silver salver 
 with a glass cloth, and the grey-cat licking his 
 paws, and looking at the trifle ; and I wish," 
 Mrs. Vaughan continued, with a rapid linking 
 
 together of cause and effect, — " and I wish, my 
 dear Miss Scott, that you wouldn't put your chair 
 right in the doorway when you see a person 
 wishes to get out of the room quietly and with- 
 out any fuss." 
 
 "I did'nt know what you wanted, Mrs. Vaugh- 
 an," Sydney replied. " I saw you were very 
 uncomfortable, but I didn't know what about. 
 Of course if I had known you wanted to go out 
 and look at the grey-cat licking his paws, I'd have 
 let you pass ; but I didn't, so I sat still." 
 
 Sydney had sat still, and Mrs. Vaughan had 
 thus been compelled (as she fancied) to confine 
 her flutterings to the room, the doorway of which 
 was partially blocked bylMiss Scott. But Mrs. 
 Vaughan had not done this calmly. She had dis- 
 turbed the deep repose, not to call it the dull 
 quietude, which had been hovering over this 
 small celebration-gathering of hers previously. 
 She had broken up the deep repose, and caused 
 people to wonder whether they were expected to 
 make moves towards a departure yet, or whether 
 there was anything more coming. 
 
 " Don't you think I had better order the car 
 riage ? " Mrs. Galton whispered to Theo. 
 
 " Oh ! dear no," Theo replied. 
 
 " I'll just ask the Burgoynes what they think. 
 I know she doesn't like late hours — she told me 
 so herself," Mrs. Galton said, rising, and moving 
 a little apart from the group of which she had 
 previously been one, a move which brought her 
 closer to Frank Burgoyne in the most undesign- 
 ed way. 
 
 " Mr. Burgoyne, yoij'll hear for me what your ' 
 aunt thinks about the propriety of making a 
 move, won't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you like," he replied aloud, Then 
 he crossed over and spoke to Ethel, and then re- 
 turned with her message, " No, certainly not ; 
 don't think of going yet," to Mrs. Galton. 
 
 He was near to her at last, and no one was 
 within earshot. Her opportunity had come. 
 
 " You have not thought me remiss or indifferent 
 because I have refrained from doing aloud what 
 everyone else has done — congratulating y ou ? " 
 she asked, in her lowest voice. 
 
 " I have not." 
 
 " I suppose I ought to do it now. I suppose 
 it is a settled thing?" she went on softly, and 
 (he thought) anxiously. 
 
 " Thant you ; it is a settled thing, I suppose," 
 he replied, somewhat confusedly. This was a 
 very newly-born thing, this interest which Mrs. 
 Galton was displaying towards him, and like the 
 majority of newly-born things, it was perplexing 
 to a man, he did not know how — to handle it. '• 
 
 " Then now I may venture to express a portion 
 of the deep interest I take in you ; you will be so 
 happy, for you have won her, and you must have 
 loved her dearly to have sought her so soon." 
 
 It did not occur to Frank to question why 
 Kate should be more free now to express interest 
 in him than she had been hitherto. He was but 
 a man, and it was pleasant to have this admirable 
 creature feel and express interest for him arall — 
 doubly pleasant, since he had doubted her feeling 
 the slightest interest in him previously. He 
 thought more about the former portion of her 
 sentence, but it was the latter part of it that he 
 answered. " I ought to be happy, for she's a 
 dear good girl." 
 
 " That she is," Mrs. Galton replied, glancing at 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 121 
 
 Tlieo J " and you may imagine how peculiarly 
 sed I am, and what my feelings are now that 
 3 such a fair prospect before her." 
 rank made no answer ; he knew that Mrs. 
 ;on was making allusion now to Theo'a first 
 -dream. He did not care about it, but he 
 not quite sure that he liked to hear it spoken 
 It. 
 
 It is an inexpressible relief to me," Mrs. Gal- 
 went on ; " before this I have really felt 
 imed to look Tbeo in the face ; not that I was 
 lonsible for my cousin's idle foUy, but stUl he 
 my cousin, and I always remembered that 
 a I looked at poor Theo." 
 Tltat's all gone and past," Frank said gloom- 
 
 Of course it is : utterly and entirely gone 
 past, and no one can rejoice more heartily at 
 being so than I. I Uttle thought, Mr. B\vc- 
 ne, that morning when you came to us under 
 walnut-tree, and just broke our monotony 
 f to let us relapse into it deeper still by your 
 3dy departure — ^I little thought that morning, 
 ; I should be offering you mch congratulations 
 jre we parted." 
 
 ■ I don't believe you thought about me at all 
 i morning," he said; and .then he felt pro- 
 adly ashamed of himself and his imprudence 
 hus betraying chagrin. 
 
 'hia was the small scene which had been re- 
 ied attentively by Sydney Scott, and found 
 iciently recompensing by her for the burden 
 . heat of the evening. Sydney told herself 
 t it was righteous indignation on Theo's ao- 
 nt which made her look with an unfavourable 
 upon the free ,display of fascination Mrs. pal- 
 was making to Theo LeigKs lovey ; in this 
 deceived herself, as is by no means uncom- 
 1 even with those who judge themselves more 
 jrously than did Miss Sydney Scott, 
 t came to be understood before the Leighs 
 , that the marriage should be in the following 
 just. In the commencement, of that month 
 nk would come into possession of certain prop- 
 es that had been bequeathed to him by an- 
 er relative; and though Lord Lesborough 
 . given his consent to the latest arrangement 
 heir had made, and was on the whole well and 
 erously disposed towards him, it still seemed 
 t)e only judicious that Frank should not em- 
 k upon the sea of matrimony in entire depen- 
 loe on his grandfather. 
 
 !heo was taken in possession by the Bur- 
 nes to Maddington, before her departure to 
 e an interview with the head of the house, 
 ■d Lesborough kept his leg on the rest during 
 whole of it, in order to be able to lapse into 
 liminary twinges of the gout did the meeting 
 short in the smallest particular of any one of 
 requirements. But the meeting did not so 
 Theo Leigh had great tact, and she was 
 Y fond, in a grateful, clinging way, of the man 
 Dre whose mighty relative she was now being 
 ;ted out. 
 
 [er father was with her naturally on the oooa- 
 
 1. He had gone with her to the important 
 
 jmony of her solemn recognition as FraA's 
 
 rothed, fraught with the determination to 
 
 w Lord Lesborough that he got as good as he 
 
 gave. In other words, that Theo Leigh was not 
 
 held to be oveq>oweringly honoured by any man's 
 
 choice of her. This determination was rather 
 
 thrown away, however, for when they reached 
 the audience chamber it was made patent to them 
 (despite that lurking gout-symptom) that Lord 
 Lesborough did not deem Theo to be overpower- 
 ingly hpnoured himself. 
 
 Of the journey back to Bretford little need be 
 said. So much of my story remains still un- 
 written, that I need not essay to draw it out by 
 throwing a great air of importance around, and 
 spreading the description over several pages of a 
 .transit by train. So I wM only say that my party 
 of three, Mr. Leigh, his daughter, and Sydney 
 Scott, travelled from Hensley to Bretford in per- 
 fect safety, since it would not suit my purpose to 
 kUl or maim them just yet. 
 
 Average reader, sojourner in the every-day 
 paths of life, you do not require to be told what 
 the majority o.f Theo Leigh's acquaintances said 
 on her return to Bretford as soon as the report 
 of this new engagement of hers made itself heard 
 amongst them. They spoke of Mr. Burgoyne as 
 "that poor young man," without having the 
 faintest idea in their innermost hearts why they 
 pitied him. " He can't know how she has been 
 jilted onoe," some of the matrons said, in a tone 
 that made some of their young military heroes 
 wince, and resolve solemnly to be extra careful 
 as to the quality pf the soft nothings they were 
 wont to whisper to said matrons' daughters. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVt 
 
 "as we roKeivE them that trespass against 
 us." 
 
 Hbb lines were cast in pleasant places, or, at 
 least, they bid fair to be cast in pleasant places 
 in a very short time. , They all said at Bretford 
 that it was a marvellous match for her, and that 
 she was a wonderfully lucky girl to be going to 
 make it. She told herself the same things con- 
 stantly, for she loved Frank with a true healthy 
 love, and her father walked more erectly than he 
 had done for months; indeed his daughter's en- 
 gagement had removed nearly all of thatgaU and 
 bitterness which had embittered his existence of 
 late from his heart, and left it free to beat health- 
 ily again. The cloud that had covered Theo's 
 head had been removed, he told himself, by a 
 higher hand than had placed it there, Theo 
 would be guarded safe and sure now from every- 
 thing from which a man could desire his daughter 
 to be guarded. She would be a viscountess; bet- 
 ter than this, she would be the wife of a man 
 whose past career was unsullied by secresy or 
 subterfuge — whose future was bright as such a, 
 past deserved. 
 
 . Mr. Leigh was very happy in these prospects 
 of Theo's. He was happy to see that Theo's was 
 a far soberer, truer joy than she had had in that 
 first unauspicioua engagement of hers, which had 
 been far less brilliant outwardly, and so far less 
 calculated to touch the majority of girls than this 
 one. This Iqve of hers for the younger man, 
 though by no means so young a love as that 
 which had blazed up little more than a year ago, 
 and burnt itself out, was still a better love. It 
 was calmer, less exacting, less fearful. It was 
 likewise far deeper, and more likely to last. 
 
 She clung very much to her companionship 
 with her father in these days, talking to him fre- 
 
122 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 quently of the old days down at Houghton, the 
 days before Harold Ffrench had come there. 
 They never spoke of aught that had transpired 
 after that bright April morning when I brought 
 them before you first. They dropped their lives 
 at that eipoch, as it were, and took them up again 
 in these days, passing over all that had gone be- 
 tween. 
 
 All that had gone between. All the sweetness, 
 and the sorrow, and the sympathy that had made 
 that period the richest portion of her life. Rich 
 in such thoughts as could never be hers again. 
 It was hard sometimes to pass it over in silence, 
 but she knew that Mr. Ffrench's forgiveness was 
 aot perfected in her father's heart as yet, and un- 
 til it was so, she could not bear him named. For 
 though her love for him was a dead thing now, 
 she thought kindly of him stiU. 
 
 They spoke more of her approaching marriage 
 than most fathers and daughters do : such a topic 
 is the mother's more especially ; but in this case 
 it was with her father! that she made little plans 
 for the future — plans in which he always had a 
 share. Was this because of some doubt she felt 
 that in his heart he was not well-assured of her 
 perfect satisfaction with that future, and that un- 
 til he was so assured he would remember the 
 happiness she had felt in a widely different one, 
 md remember the one who had changed that 
 happiness into misery for a time. 
 
 Lord Lesborough was suffering from a tedious 
 wasting illness, and Lord Lesborough's heir — 
 because his aunts willed it so lovingly — spent 
 much of his time at Maddington. But even when 
 tie was in London he was not extortionate in his 
 iemands on Theo's time and attention. He never 
 sought to withdraw her from her father's society ; 
 md though always pleased to be with her, and 
 So speak with her about his future life, and his 
 public hopes, he would stroll about for hours 
 done when he went to spend long quiet days 
 R'ith them. 
 
 From time to time pompous messages were 
 vafted up from the sick-room at Maddington to 
 rheo vid Ethel. " You are first favourite with 
 mpa," that young lady wrote ; " he discourses on 
 TOUT merits by the hour together to Harold 
 Ffrench, who comes here sometimes, or rather by 
 ;he five minutes together, for that's the extreme 
 eugth of time which Mr. Ffrench stays in his 
 •oom. When papa is better, and you're Mrs. 
 ?rank, Hugo Burgoyne will retire iato the ob- 
 !cure corner of the gallery again." 
 
 These things were very pleasant to Theo, and 
 
 hey made her feel more tenderly still towards 
 
 ^rank. It was not in her, she feared, to " for- 
 
 vard " in any other way this man who was to be 
 
 ler husband. But in his own family, or rather 
 
 vith the mightiest member of his family, she had 
 
 lone him good service already. Occasionally a 
 
 'ear crossed her mind that Frank, though he liked 
 
 ler to be well liked by all his family, did not care 
 
 'ery much for the larger meed of toleration that 
 
 ras now awarded to himself, and that 'he only 
 
 iccepted the situation because it was not worth 
 
 rhile to dispute it. But she strove to put that 
 
 ear behind her. She desired to believe him to ^ 
 
 le all that was good and dutiful. [ 
 
 These messages from Maddington were balm 
 
 and oil to her father and mother. Mr. Leigh 
 
 would have regarded with unfavourable eyes any 
 
 alliance, however brilliant, for his daughter, to 
 
 which the family of the one who might desire tc 
 make it with her did not incline. From the Bur 
 goynes there had been no demur ; more thar 
 that, from the Burgoynes there had been everj 
 evidence of a satisfaction as complete as his own ; 
 therefore was Mr. Leigh happy with a fulness of 
 content that made Theo feel that some things 
 could not be too dearly purchased. 
 
 On the whole, it will be seen, that this was a 
 happy time enough, for there was much to make 
 life very bright to the girl who had known much 
 sorrow, to the girl one of whose most poignant 
 sorrows had been the knowledge that through her 
 had been dealt the blow which had bowed a head 
 never before bowed by aught approaching to 
 shame — her father's. It was a happy time ; for 
 unless two lives could have been entirely un- 
 lived, there was no possibility of her life to come 
 being brighter and safer than it promised to be. 
 
 If Time could have been arrested there, if he 
 would only have stood still and suffered those 
 who sorrowed so much to be at rest, at peace ! 
 There was a dead lull, such a lull as we see and 
 feel sometimes after a mid-summer tempest, 
 when Nature seems too tired to do any more, and 
 so lies down, showing us how grandly calm she 
 can he in fatigue. But if you have lived on the 
 brink ef the ocean, as I have done for years, 
 watching all its changes, and marking all its 
 tooods, you will know that Nature's power is but 
 taking a brief respite, and that she will rise up 
 soon in such a storm as must wreck many. 
 
 She wakes from her lethargy, from that fear- 
 disarming torpor, by such gentle degrees at 
 times that you disregard the signs, and fall as 
 prone before her fury as though no such indica- 
 tions of waking had been given. A feeling of 
 something has been over you, perchance — of 
 something that is not fear, and that " resembles 
 sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain " — 
 which, after all, is resemblance close enough to 
 make the majority melancholy. 
 
 This lull had lasted then for a space that was 
 all too brief to look back upon, but that had 
 not been so very brief in reality. Summer was 
 oyer everything once more — summer as warm 
 and soft, but a trifle less bright, perhaps, to 
 some than that past one of '51. 
 
 The lull was very perfect, very soft, and full, 
 and deep, one gfentle June evening at Bretford. 
 Out on the terrace in front of Mr. Leigh's house 
 they stood enjoying it. " They " were the 
 father and his daughter, and that daughter's fu- 
 ture husband. 
 
 The marriage that was to be in August, 
 towards the latter end of August, had been 
 spoken about freely between them that even- 
 ing. 
 
 " We shall come here first, Frank, when we 
 come back from the Continent — here, before we 
 go anywhere else, shan't we ? " 
 
 " Certainly we shall," Frank replied. He 
 was rather indifferent, to tell the truth, as to 
 where they should go first when they returned 
 from the Continent. He would have said "cer- 
 tainly we shall," had Theo suggested the Bights 
 of Biafra. 
 
 " I don't ask that ; you'll have other places 
 that you must go to first, but hy-and-by. What 
 days we shall have together again, Theo ! " her 
 father said to her. 
 
 " Ah ! what days we shall have, dear ; there 
 
THBO LEIGH. 
 
 123 
 
 will be hardly any break, , papa, not so much of 
 a break as when I went to Hensley, in fact." , 
 She left her lover's side as she spoke, and 
 went round to her father's, looking up into his 
 eyes with some of the old sweet gladness in her 
 own that he had missed so long, so sorely ! He 
 was very happy then. 
 
 " Theo will have to rely principally on you 
 next season," Frank Burgoyue said. " You- see, 
 if things stand as they are (he meant if Lord 
 Lesborough still lived), I'm to come forward for 
 
 West shire, and I must make a show of at-j 
 
 tending to my electioneering interests^ and I 
 shan't care to know that Theo is out alone." 
 
 " Theo won]t be out alone much," Theo re- 
 plied. " I can promise that much, can't I, 
 ■ papa ? I suppose you won't be much interested 
 in reality, Frank ? — I'm very ignorant about 
 politics." 
 
 " Remain so ; that is all I ask," he rejoined, 
 laughing. 
 
 " I don't think Theo would have been the 
 ideal wife for a man who , had had to work out 
 his own career," Mr. Leigh remarked. " Tours 
 was made for you." 
 
 "Which accounts for my indifference con- 
 cerning it, and for hers too, for that matter. I 
 wish I had been compelled to work for a career ; 
 by heaven, it's the only thing to make a man of 
 a fellow." ( 
 
 " It's a very fine thing, and answers occasion- 
 ally," Mr. Leigh said quietly. 
 
 " Papa, don't pretend to think that it has not 
 answered in your case," Theo began earnestly. 
 " Why, mere success would have been nothing 
 to what you gained so early, and have kept i^ 
 long; to have made a^ name for such gallantry 
 so young, and to have held it untarnished all 
 these years ! I had rather have that knowledge 
 of my father than any other that could be given 
 me." I , , I, 
 
 "You see, the ohUd can be enthusiastic," the 
 father said, turning half away and scanning the 
 offing,*l|iecause he would not. let them See that 
 he was touched by her loving proud mention of 
 that which he never talked about himself. 
 Then the trio walked on in silence for a few 
 moments, in complete silence till — there 1 when 
 the blue, crimson, and gold, the tricolour of de- 
 parting day, was flaming over the west, when 
 the broad bosom of the water that rolled on at 
 their feet was studded with a myriad diamond 
 stars that were again momentarily shattered 
 into yet a myriad more, when the voices of the 
 seamen Treighing anchor in the river were rraisedt 
 aloft in that evening strain that is less sweet 
 than solemn, when the pall of silence was over 
 all else around, and the grey mantle of the 
 grand still night was descending rapidly, when 
 the day was done, when the hour of deepest 
 calm had come — then it was that Theo heard 
 the first breath of the coming storm. . 
 
 They had walked along in silence for a few 
 minutes — in a silence that not one of them felt 
 impatient to break. Suddenly Theo heard an 
 exclamation that was partly a groan^ and she 
 looked and. saw that her fauer had crossed his 
 arms firmly, as he had done that night when the 
 tale of Harold's shame, of Marold's wife, was 
 told them. 
 
 He had stopped, clasping himself over the 
 chest with that firm clasp which he had often 
 
 been wont to give himself when standing in the 
 bows of his boat he would b6 leading on a cut- 
 ting-out expedition. The attitude was the same, 
 but there was a touch less of " something " over 
 all that wrung her heart to tears, for that clasp 
 lasted but for an instant, then it relaxed, and 
 his arms fell prone. 
 
 There were no tears in her eyes though, and 
 no falter in her voice, as she moved closer to 
 him quietly, and asked him had he spoken to 
 her, had he said — anything. 
 
 While she questioned him thus quietly,'Frank 
 Burgoyne stood near to her, looking more 
 startled and anxious than the girl whose heart 
 was shedding tears, and for a few moments 
 there was no answer. 
 
 Only for a few moments, but, "my God," 
 Theo thought, whenever in after years she re- 
 called them, " the agony of them, the agony of 
 them I " Those moments were of dread and 
 horror so condensed that they might ha;ve been 
 spread over a whole lifetime, and have made 
 that life bitter. 
 
 Theo could not have said what had come 
 over her father, no word-painting can deseribe 
 that change,' none could have said precisely in 
 what way he was not as he had been a minute 
 before. There had come a tinge of pallor over 
 that bronzed old face that might have been the 
 work of months of sickness, and there had 
 come a weaker compression of the lip, and a 
 trembling where before there had been power in 
 the frame. 
 
 The anguish of it! of that standing there, 
 and being as powerless as the stones at her feet 
 to avert, or assist, or understand, indeed, this 
 fell visitant, whatever it might be. The anguish 
 of standing in that melting summer air, know- 
 ing nothing, save that the only rook she had 
 never split upon — the love that existed between 
 her father and herself — was being shattered 
 then. 
 
 He spoke at last, and even his voice was 
 changed. Is it worth being born into the world 
 to see such things come to pass? So they led 
 him in helpless as an infant between them, and 
 the doctors came, and told sorrowfully how the 
 strong man was stricken with paralysis. 
 
 It was not so much that for a' time they did 
 not know the Worst, as it was that they would 
 not think the worst. We are apt to say to the 
 truth in such cases, "get thee behind me," far 
 more determinately than to Satan. His wife 
 and daughter sat there by the side of his bed 
 for hours, and days, and weeks, knowing well 
 that he would never rise from it again, and be 
 as he had been— knowing this well, and refusing 
 to beUeve it, and telling each other and them- 
 selves that it was not so. 
 
 Had he been weak, puny, ailing, had he been 
 other than he was, in fact, a god of strength 
 and courage to his daughter^ she would have 
 suffered less ; she must have suffered less, for it 
 is not in the heart of woman to lament in like 
 degree the falling of a sapling as the shattering 
 of an oaki Theo could not tend upon him 
 with the unflagging, unceasing devotion of her 
 mother. She had been so proud of him in his 
 strength that it broke her down utterly to have 
 to minister to his weakness. 
 
 Shall I linger over these scenes? theyiwere 
 simply heart-breaking, for as after a brief space 
 
lU 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 there ceased to be hope, there soon also ceased 
 to be anxiety. It was a dull, numbing heart- 
 breaking time, nothing more. 
 
 There dawned a day at last when he could 
 speak ; but the bitter terror that altered speech 
 created in their hearts ! It was God's decree, 
 and morning and night in the course of her 
 prayers she said fervently, " Thy will be done." 
 But "not in this way should he have died, not 
 in this way," was her hourly cry. 
 
 This was the end of it all — of that which had 
 commenced more than fifty years ago, when, a 
 little midshipman of nine, he had first cocked 
 his bat and drawn his dirk for the king — of that 
 early promotion which made him a distinguished 
 man while still a mere boy, promotion the fruit 
 of a daring so winning, bright, and bold, that 
 bring him what it would, none could be found 
 to grudge it ; the end of that testless, coura- 
 geous spirit that lost all that early gain because, 
 when blows were striking anywhere for that 
 mythical liberty for which so many men have 
 suffered, he carried his sword thither and drew 
 it with effect, erring against the routine which 
 commanded him to remain quiescent ; — the end 
 of a life that had risked itself fieely on the 
 chilly shores of North America — that had offer- 
 ed itself up for the salvation of Greece — ^that 
 had nearly ebbed away in floods from fearful 
 wounds made by Mexican blades on Mexican 
 plains — that had staked itself right wiUingly a 
 thousand times, and never hesitated at placing 
 itself where sharp, immediate payment of that 
 stake might be claimed ;— the end of a life that 
 had been without fear, as all men could attest, 
 and that if it had not been without reproach, 
 was at least as free from it as the lives of men 
 whose blood does not flow pale may be. This 
 was the end, this was the end ! 
 
 It was very sad ! Even those who have never 
 tingled to the tales told by the lips they love of 
 such deeds, must feel that after them such an 
 end was very sad. The poor child, his daughter, 
 felt it to be cruelly, crushingly so, for she had 
 fallen into the error of imagining that he had 
 made himself famous by his sword, and that 
 there was a twist in Nature's mind when she 
 could bring such a man to such a pass as this. 
 
 He laid there for awhile scarcely living, yet 
 not dying, they told then ; and Theo sat by his 
 bedside through long summer days and even- 
 ings, watching the shipping on the river, and 
 trying to interest him sometimes about the 
 steamers and their destinations. But it was but 
 a flaccid interest he took in these things. He 
 rather liked to dwell in that past which had 
 been in a measure glorious to him, than in these 
 tame current days. Whenever he did speak of 
 a future, it was of hers as Frank Burgoyne's wife. 
 It rejoiced her often to perceive how dear this 
 thing was to him ; tow he comforted himself in 
 it, and, by reason of his knowledge of it, resign- 
 ed himself the more humbly to this sorrow of 
 his own. She had never known before how he 
 wearied over what would become of her when 
 he was dead and no longer able to take care of 
 her as he would have her cared for. How he 
 had doubted and distrusted what the morrow 
 might bring forth for his child in a way that 
 was entirely foreign to the brave carelessness 
 of his spirit. But she read all these truths 
 clearly by the light of that reliance he displayed 
 
 on Frank Burgoyne, and his satisfaction in her 
 prospects. 
 
 These prospects were not brought before her 
 too vividly just now, for she herself removed the 
 onus that would otherwise have been on Mr. 
 Burgoyne of coming down to Bretford whenever 
 he was able to do so. " You see I must devote 
 myself to my father while now I can," she had 
 said to Frank, with a little gulp over the last 
 three words ; and Frank had responded, " well, 
 then you see I had better not bother you by 
 coming when I'm in town next : I'll write." 
 
 " You wouldn't bother me," she replied ; " we 
 both know very well that you wouldn'fdo that, 
 bufit must be dull for you to sit down here by 
 yourself, and very sad to see me as I am now 
 about papa." 
 
 "Well, I will try to content myself with writ- 
 ing until your father is better, Theo," Frank 
 said, and he looked as though he could content 
 himself very easily with so doing, then he 
 added, " Don't let Mr. Leigh imagine that I 
 keep away on account of his illness ; tell him 
 we both thought it better till you had more 
 time and were less tired. As it is, I feel that 
 I'm in the way, and I can do no good." 
 
 " No, you can do no good," Theo answered 
 sadly. "I'll tell him, but he doesn't heed much 
 now." 
 
 With bitter, mute misery they marked that 
 he heeded less and less as the days sped on. 
 This withering foe that had come upon him while 
 still in the pride of his manhood, — this blig^ 
 that had: blasted liim in an instant, — seemed lo 
 lay deeper hold upon him day by day ; and soon 
 ^ey knew that its progress might not be 
 arrested, — that this first seizure required no 
 assistance from a second edition of itself to 
 prove fatal. 
 
 There, through those sultry July days, he 
 laid, — ^the man whom I showed to you, when 
 this story opened, erect and vigorous: an old 
 sea-lion, murmuring occasionally little scraps of 
 prayers that he had learnt in boyhd6d, and 
 being very helpless and very patient alwaya 
 They scarcely liked to tell him how old brother- 
 officers came about them, constantly tendering 
 their heart-felt sympathy for that which Thee 
 felt to be so bitingly hard — so void of mercy 
 They scarcely liked to tell him of this for th( 
 fear they had of arousing an anxiety about him 
 self which slept now. They did not quite realis( 
 that he had done with all hopes and fears foi 
 himself. 
 
 Currently, out in the world that knew of tha 
 blow which had fallen, speculations were rife ai 
 to who would succeed Mr. Leigh ; whether hii 
 widow would make a successful claim for thosi 
 arrears of half-pay that were due to him 
 whether he had been provident enough to in 
 sure his life for his daughter; and whether thi 
 man who would be appointed in his room wouli 
 have a large family, for " if so, these apartment 
 would be cramped." These were the subject 
 suggested to the minds of the passers-by, b; 
 the shaded windows of the house at the corne 
 in which one of them lay dying. 
 
 Kneeling by his side one night, waiting ther 
 in awe, Theo grew conscious of a desire tha 
 her father had that she should pray for hu 
 aloiid ; I mean, she was always praying for hi] 
 in her heart. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 12S 
 
 So she began the prayer of prayers in a low 
 voice, and she saw him trying to follow the 
 words that she accentuated in the steady Toiee 
 that never failed her when she was near him. 
 
 He opened his eyes when she came to the 
 place for forgiveness of our own sins, and his 
 last words were : 
 
 " ' As we forgive them that trespass against 
 us.' " 
 
 As Theo rose and staggered away out of the 
 room, — staggered under the first real blow that 
 had been dealt her, — she uttered a passionate 
 hope that " Frank would come and say some- 
 thing to her." She panted, she longed for kind, 
 gentle, reassuring words. The very ground 
 seemed shaken under her feet, and every im- 
 pulse of her loving nature urged her to cling to 
 Frank. 
 
 " If he would only come in ; if he only knew, 
 he would be here directly," she kept on sobbing 
 to herself, as she sat in a darkened room, and 
 listened with a painful earnestness to every slow 
 footstep that passed to and fro in the bouse. 
 She felt, with an intensity of feeling that was 
 nearly sickening, what was being done in that 
 other darkened chamber, in which the spirit had 
 fled. Then soon there fell upon her ear the 
 soul-subduing knell that told out the tale to all 
 the place of one more comrade gone — ^of one of 
 their band having received the last promotion. 
 
 While she was waiting for him thus eagerly, 
 Frank was on his way to her. When he was 
 about a hundred yards from the house he met 
 ■ Sydney Scott, and at the same moment the 
 passing bell comm,enced its sad chime. 
 
 " That's poor Mr. Leigh," Sydney said, mourn- 
 fully ; " I would like to go to Theo, but I dare 
 not;" and she shuddered, and then added, 
 " besides, no doubt she doesn't want anybody 
 just now." 
 
 So he did not go to the one who wearied 
 for him just yet. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXXVn. 
 
 FBANE'S SENTIUEKIg, 
 
 It was all over. The one who had fallen was 
 buried, and his place in the ranks was filled up 
 by an old brother-officer, who had been expect- 
 ant of this good thing for years, and could not, 
 therefore, affect aught but the most superficial 
 sorrow at the loss which was his gain. The 
 new appointment was an amiable, kind-hearted 
 man, but he had a large family, and some mem- 
 bers of the same demanded that he forthwith 
 make a tour of investigation over the suite of 
 apartments that had fallen to his share, and re- 
 port to them without delay how the furniture 
 was to be apportioned. 
 
 Death is sad enough, heaven knows, at any 
 time, and under any conditions. But it is sad- 
 dest when it falls in the midst of a but recently 
 attained sunny spot, and when its effects are 
 upon the "living left" immediately. There 
 would have been woe and tribulation through- 
 out the Leigh household whenever and however 
 this bolt had been let fly. ]|lut things had 
 become so very bright to them just before it ; 
 and now, through it, things must of necessity 
 be tem|)orariIy so very black. 
 
 It was in the order of things ; nevertheless it 
 was very aanoylng that the incomers should de- 
 sire to have their carpets fitted to the rooms 
 before the Leighs' carpets were removed from 
 the floors. . They (the Blfcfehs) were only to so- 
 journ in the place for six weeks after the date 
 of the funeral. Truly there was no temptation to 
 remain there longer ; they had no desire to do so. 
 Yet, for all this willhjgness to depart, the knowl- 
 edge that they had to do it, weighed heavily 
 upon the mother and daughter. Their sorrow 
 was so very young, — so cruelly heavy a thing as 
 yet. Time would lighten and render them less 
 averse to the trouble of moving under it. But 
 this was precisely what could not be granted 
 them. Pity, friendly consideration, sympathy, 
 assistance, if it were needful, in any small matter. 
 But not time. Time was government property, 
 and must not be wasted ; moreover, the incomers 
 were anxious to come in. Time, like a pitiless 
 master, sped, the six weeks away in most un- 
 seemly haste. 
 
 All Frank Burgoyne's best qualities came out 
 and aired themselves at this period. He was 
 considerate and most manfully tender to Theo, 
 and Theo responded to him, as it was in her 
 nature to respond to consideration and tender- 
 ness. She had entered into this compact at first 
 out of a feverish desire to please her father, and 
 make him feel that the world was not at all barren 
 and hard for her, that her plan of life was not 
 upset through Harold Ffrench. Having done 
 this for her father's sake, she was soon repaid by 
 coming to like Frank for his own ; and now, in 
 these latter days, the liking merged into some- 
 thing warmer, and Theo grew to loVe her future 
 husband well. '■' 
 
 But though all Frank's best qualities pame out, 
 they did so, it must be acknowledged^ under cir- 
 cumstances so adverse to them tha^heir flourish- 
 ing at all was a marvel. Theo was much harassed 
 and worried at this epoch about thiligs that might 
 not even be fully confided to Frankj,&d these 
 things told upon her, and rendered her less pleas-, 
 ant to the eye than she had been formerly. 
 Frank Burgoyne was not superhuman : he liked 
 what was pleasant to the eye. 
 
 August, the month in which the marriage had 
 been arranged to take place, had come and gone 
 before those weary weeks of hopeless, helpless 
 waiting were half over. It was October when 
 the last barren honour of a miUtary funeral was 
 offered to Mr. Leigh, and in the same month 
 they left the place to which they had come 
 scarcely more than a year before with high hopes 
 of various kinds. 
 
 It was a pleasant time of year. Heaths and 
 commons look well in the autumn ; one is apt to 
 fall into the error of imagining at this season 
 that they look well all the year round. Mrs. 
 Leigh and her daughter, with the natural aver- 
 sion of country people for closeness and thickly 
 populated parts, eschewed London, and decided 
 on settling themselves in a Uttle house on the 
 breezy brow of Hampstead Heath till such time 
 as Theo should be married, and the mother he 
 free to select her own residence. 
 
 It was an unfortunate settlement to have made 
 as it turned out "It's nice, and fresh, and 
 quiet," Theo said to Frank Burgoyne, when she 
 had acquainted him with their final decision as 
 to their place of abode ; " you didn't kno^r where 
 
126 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 to advise us to live, Fi-ank, but I tMnk you'll 
 like the place we've choBen." 
 
 "I dare say," Frank replied; "don't think 
 mueh of the neighborhood as a rule, though." 
 
 "It's lovely about ^ere, and we can have 
 plenty of nice walks," Theo said. 
 
 Now " nice walks " did not enter into Frank's 
 category of things plea-sant. They were all very 
 well when taken in an unpremeditated way, quite 
 away in the country ; but to lay oneself out in 
 cold blood to take them in a suburb was a very 
 different thing. 
 
 " Ah ! ye-s-s ; I wish you hadn't gone quite 
 so far out of the way : it's a day's journey to get 
 there." 
 
 " Is it very far out of the way ? " Theo asked. 
 She was hopelessly ignorant of localities and their 
 respective worth. She did not know how inac- 
 cessible were all places beyond Mayfair and' Bel- 
 gravia to the Frank Burgoynes of this world. 
 
 "Is it very far out of the way? we seemed 
 to get there very soon, I thought, and get the 
 omnibus " 
 
 " Omnibus ! " Frank interrupted. " My dear 
 Theo, your mother doesn't take you about in an 
 omnibus, does she? " 
 
 " Of course she does," Theo replied. 
 
 "What on earth for?" 
 
 " Well, Frank," she said, with a laugh, " the 
 sole carriage in our family is the box upon four 
 wheels down at Hensley,' you know." 
 
 " That's going from one extreme to another," 
 Frank replied, in an annoyed tone. ; " but there's 
 something incongruous in your going about in an 
 omnibus ; I can't have it." 
 
 " Tory well," Theo said ; " it's rather far for a 
 walk certainly, but if you object to the omnibus I 
 shall have to trudge. I must go there frequently 
 to see how they are getting on with the house 
 before mamma goes in." 
 
 " Tou must*taie a cab, of course." 
 
 " I muslin't tajie a cab, of course," she said 
 brightly ; " don't mind such things, Frank," she 
 added, suddenly and seriously. " I shall not be 
 less worthy of better things, shall I, for having 
 ridden in omnibuses ? " 
 
 " Less worthy ! — you're a darling girl ; but 
 you don't quite understand these things. Well, 
 as the house is taken it's no use saying any more 
 about it ; it won't be for long." 
 
 Theo blushed. " It must be for some months, 
 Frank." 
 
 "Perhaps' you're right; for two or three 
 months it may be ; you'll be settled there soon 
 now, won't you ? by the time I come back you 
 will be quite ready to receive me, and do the 
 honours of Hampstead Heath as an inha,bitant." 
 
 " Are you going away ? " she asked, with a 
 slight touch of disappointment in her tone ; " it's 
 so much to me to have you with me, Frank; that 
 I'm afraid I'm getting selfish about it." 
 
 " Yes ; didn't I teU you that I was going down 
 into Norfolk for a week or ten days ? " he replied, 
 with a great assumption of carelessness. 
 
 " No ; where ? " 
 
 " To Galtou's. Oh, yesj I must have told you, 
 because he asked me long ago." 
 
 "I suppose you forgot it," she said, rather 
 
 " I suppose I did," he said quickly. "By the 
 way, speaking of Galton, do you ever hear any- 
 thing of Harold Ffrench now ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I think, if you should chance to fall in wit! 
 him again, it will be just as well to give him tc 
 understand clearly that you don't want to hole 
 any communication with him ; I think it will bf 
 just as well, don't you ? " 
 
 " Perhaps it will be ; I mean, it will be if yot 
 think so," Theo answered. She was beginning 
 to feel far less interested in whether she saw oi 
 did not see Harold Ffrench, than in Frank'i 
 being fully satisfied and entirely pleased with her 
 There was a pause after this, for Theo about 
 this period was apt to be completely worn out k 
 body very often, and so less lively in spirit than it 
 behoves a girl to be in presence of her lover 
 Now, as regarded this particular of her fatigue, 
 Frank was delightful: he never upbraided her foi 
 it by word or manner. He was sorry for it fii i 
 sympathising way whenever it chanced to come 
 before his notice prominently; but he endurec 
 its existence with a good grace, and never re^ 
 preached Theo for it by the display of any ex- 
 uberant vitality on his own part. 
 
 So now, after Theo had agreed with him thai 
 it would be perhaps as well that, if she chancec 
 to fall in with Harold Ffrench, she should make 
 it apparent to him that what had "^been" was noi 
 any more, or something' to that effect, one of 
 these customary calms befel them, and they sal 
 for a space very silently. At last Theo spoke. 
 
 " When did you say you were going dowH'tc 
 Norfolk, Frank?" 
 
 " Oh, in a day or two. I must go ; it's a deuci 
 of a bOre, but I must go." 
 
 " Why is it a bore ? " she asked simply ; an( 
 here, be it remarked, that the pure and simph 
 interrogation, when one is not prepa.red to givi 
 an equally pure and simple response, is about thi 
 most unpleasant form of question to which oni 
 can be subjected. 
 Frank shuffled. 
 
 " Because I would rather stay with you," h( 
 said ; and Theo believed the assertion, finding i 
 a pleasant one, after the manner of women. 
 
 "Never mind, Frank; it will be only for s 
 week or ten days, you say. What a lot I shal 
 have to do, while you're away killing partridgei 
 with that dear, good-natured Mr. Galton. M; 
 soul recoils," she continued, with a little hardl; 
 achieved laugh, "from the task of moving; thi 
 going out from here will bring back all things si 
 vividly." 
 
 "Dear Theo," Frank Said soothingly — andjB 
 was a capital comforter in this, that he neve 
 talked reason in a time of distress, by way of al 
 leviating the latter. 
 
 " I am more than half glad after all that yoi 
 will be out of it," she continued ; "if you hai 
 stayed in town, you would have felt bound t 
 come down and see me sometimes, throughith 
 turmoil ; and I don't look at all well when Ti 
 very dusty and my eyes are red. No, you'lj fim 
 Mrs. Galton far pleasanter to look upon for th 
 next ten or twdve days." 
 
 She said it carelessly enough, in her desire t 
 reconcile.herself aloud to this proposed absenc 
 of his. But he fancied he detected a hidde; 
 meaning in her words. 
 
 "Eeally, Th^, I don't think Mrs. Galto: 
 would thank you for making such a speech." 
 
 " yes she would ; she likes people to- thin' 
 and say that she's pleasant to look upon," The 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 127 
 
 replied. "I have always thought it. I was 
 completely carried, fascinated out of all judg- 
 ment by her, the first time I saw her. I remem- 
 ber I called her ' charming,' and my poor father 
 said she was as full of airs and graces and falsity 
 as a performing monkey." ' 
 
 " A choice comparison." 
 
 "But then he didn't like her, yousee, Frank; 
 and he was half afraid that I was going to set her 
 up as my model, and copy all her lights and 
 shades (especially the latter), so he meant it as a 
 warning." 
 
 "She has the best manner of any woman I 
 know," Frank said decidedly; " any one might 
 make her a model with advantage." 
 
 "You think / might, for instance?" Theo 
 asked. It was scarcely a pleasant sound in her 
 ears — ^this unconditioned praise of another wo- 
 man's manner. 
 
 "I said, any one might," Frank Burgoyne re- 
 plied. "I didn't mean you particularly, you 
 little goose; there's a perfect repose about her 
 that is as far removed as the north pole from the 
 south from coldness or.^tupid indifference;, it's 
 wonderfully taking. A pity your friend, Sydney 
 Scott, hasn't it." 
 
 " It wouldn't suit Sydney," Theo said, laugh- 
 ing; "fancy Sydney with Mrs. Galton's manner, 
 and walk, and voice." , , 
 
 " They would be far more tjecoming in Sydney 
 or any other woman thanithat assumption of boy- 
 ish frankness and loudness in which Miss Scott 
 indulges," Frank Burgoyne said severely. 
 
 "Oh, Frank, you've forgotten the nutting," 
 Theo cried. 
 
 " No, I have not ; I have not forgotten any- 
 thing. She flirted furiously at me, if you mean 
 that." 
 
 " And what did you do, sir ? — one can't get up 
 a flirtation unassisted." 
 
 "She always tired me, I know that," he re- 
 plied ; " she was well enough, but a little of her 
 went a long way." 
 
 Theo was feeling rather warmly towards Syd- 
 ney at this special juncture. The bright little 
 blonde having nothing else on hand at the time, 
 was being very friendly and devoted in number- 
 less small and not easily to be recounted ways. 
 She had volunteered her services on more than 
 one shopping expedition, and she had approved 
 herself great in the giving of advice relative to 
 the most becoming way of having sable garments 
 made up. " Black, dead black unrelieved, would 
 ; make you look hideous, Theo, with your dark 
 % skin," she had said honestly. And as Theo had 
 no overweening ambition to look hideous, she 
 had availed herself of Sydney's instructions as to 
 the "relief" of the aforesaid black. 
 X '" "She not faultless, any more than any one 
 else ; but she's very nice and amusing, and good- 
 hearted," Theo said earnestly. She was- feeling 
 very warmly towards Sydney, partly, it maybe 
 here admitted, because Frank Burgoyne was ut- 
 tering 'speeches that savoured of disparagement 
 of that young lady. Had his allusions to Sydney 
 i been more enthusiastic, Theo might perchance 
 have remembered the nutting, and the wail for 
 the absent violet bows, and sundry other things 
 which she now elected to forget or magnanimously 
 pass over. However, Frank's, recollections of 
 Sydney, were not of an order to place Miss Scott 
 in the worst light before his betrothed bride; 
 
 therefore female friendship reigned triumphant,' 
 as it is wont to do, of course ; and Theo declared 
 Sydney Scott to be " nice and amusing, and good- 
 hearted, though not faultless." 
 
 " She's very brusque, if that is what you call 
 frank ; and she wouldn't hurt any one who didn't 
 come in her light, which you may consider good- 
 hearted," Frank replied. ", That is my candid 
 opinion of the young lady," he went on. 
 
 " Oh, Frank, it's an unjust one," Theo an- 
 swered. Then she checked herself, remembering 
 ' that after all Sydney Scott was not a point on 
 which it was quite worth while to have a debate. 
 
 " I suppose you won't see much of each other 
 ' when you go over to Hampstead," Frank inquired 
 presently. 
 
 " I don't see why we shouldn't ; in fact — :well, 
 to tell the truth, I have asked her to come and 
 stay with, me as soon as we're settled," Theo said, 
 rather cenfusedly. 
 
 " Good 'Lord 1 " Frank groaned. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " 
 
 "What eon make you want to see more of 
 that little mass of affectation ? " he asked. 
 
 "I remember the time you didn't think her 
 .that," Theo said, trying a laugh, and failing. 
 " Why did I ask her ? — oh ! because I shall be 
 quite in a strange land, you know, and rather 
 dull sometimes, I fancy; besides I like her. You 
 surely have no serious objection to it, Frank ? " 
 
 " Serious objection ? — why should I? " 
 
 " That's precisely what I want to know." 
 
 "I only think she'll be a. bore. Of course if 
 she ' amuses you ' (I must confess I can't imagine 
 how) it's all right; she is just the mixture of 
 giggling school-girl and sharp garrison-town 
 hack that is most odious to me. But, if you 
 
 like it " 
 
 , . He did not say what might be expected to 
 happen if Theo liked it. He paused on the 
 speculation, and began a whistle under his breath, 
 as it were^-a whistle with no heart in it, but a 
 great deal of ill-temper — a whistle of that soured, 
 SGundlesB character that is infinitely aggravating 
 to listen to. .... ■ 
 
 " Whatever she may be she isn't a bore," ffiieo , 
 argued.* 
 
 " That's just as you take it ; you must forgive 
 me, Theo, if I don't congregate together with her 
 at your new place at Highgate — Highbury — 
 which is it?" ' 
 
 " It's neither," Theo replied laconically. 
 
 "Where is it then?" ' 
 
 "I had better not give you the address again 
 tin you are on the verge of visiting it," she re: 
 plied; "you will forget it before occasion calls 
 you that way, since your memory is so bad for 
 ;that special quarter." • 
 
 " Don't try to be sarcastic, dear," he replied 
 with that big kit of superiority of every sort to 
 which a woman is tolerably sure to be subjected 
 sooner or later when she ventures upon a verbal 
 passage of arms with a man. " Don't try to be 
 sarcastic, dear; that essaying to be it is one' of 
 your friend Sydney's most disagreeable habits. I 
 dbtould be sorry to think that you had caught it 
 of her." 
 
 She was very tired. The only one who had 
 been uniformly tender, considerate, and loving to 
 her had been ''gone away "Such a very littln 
 time, She had been sorely buffeted. She was 
 vety tired ! 
 
128 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 "I won't try to be sarcastic, or anything else 
 you don't like, Frank, really," she said, almost 
 meekly ; " only dorCt snub me for liking Sydney 
 Scott, and sometimes wishing to see her, for I'm 
 often lonely, you know." 
 
 " Lonely ! when you have me ! " The grand 
 creature to whom she was engaged could scarcely 
 realise the possibility of loneliness and liimself 
 revolving in the same orbit. 
 
 " Lonely ! when you have me ! " 
 
 " I haven't you always — or often even ; I might 
 as well bewail or behowl myself because you are 
 going down to the Gallons, and ask how you can 
 care for pointers and partridge-shooting when you 
 can see me." 
 
 His fair Saxon beauty clouded over with a dark 
 red flush. 
 
 "We are talking mere imbecilities now," he 
 said coldly. Then, seeing that Theo's face fell, he 
 added suddenly: " And it must be my fault that 
 we are doing so, for you're a sensible dear girl." 
 
 Which afterthought was all very well in its 
 way, but was utterly powerless to efface the im- 
 pression made by the former part of his sentence. 
 
 " Come, Theo," he said, after a time, seeing 
 that Theo still continued grave, " you're not 
 going to be glum, are you ? " 
 
 "STo, certainly I'm not ; but I am engaged to 
 ask you to do something to-morrow night, and 
 now I scarcely know how to do it." 
 
 " Never mind ; tell me what it is." 
 
 " Tou won't like doing it, I'm sure now; but 
 after all, I only engaged to ask you, and you can 
 refuse." 
 
 " What is it ? — to go and See that there are no 
 leaks, or cockroaches, or other abominations at 
 the new house ? My. dear Theo, you'll soon have 
 a place of your own, a decent one too, by Jove ! 
 You'll never like this one, I'm persuaded, away 
 on those wilds." 
 
 " It's not that, Frank," she said, half laughing, 
 and more than half vexed ; " it's not that at all ; 
 it's nothing half so bad in reality as you have 
 imagined, so I have courage to ask ; will you go 
 with the Scatts to the ball to-morrow night ? " 
 
 "No, why should I?" 
 
 " There's no reason why you should, of^ourse ; 
 you may imagine that Pm not bent npon your 
 going ; only it was arranged that you should go, 
 you know, before " 
 
 She stopped suddenly, and Frank nodded his 
 perfect appreciation of all she had said; and thor- 
 ough appreciation of all she wanted, and found 
 herself unable, to say. 
 
 "And now Sydney Scott seems to think it 
 rather hard that you should be kept away, as she 
 calls it, on my account ; it's rather flattering to 
 you, sir, for Sydney is at a premium here." 
 
 Frank Burgoyne smiled. 
 
 "Does she pretend to you that she cares for 
 me to go ? she doesn't mean it ; it would ^e differ- 
 ent if I were not done fof." 
 
 " Eeally I don't think your bemg ' done for ' 
 makes the smallest difference in her wanting to 
 dance with you." 
 
 " Those balls are awfully slow affairs, are they 
 not?" 
 
 "I never found them slow," Theo answered 
 candidly. In truth those balls had seemed daz- 
 zling scenes of delight to her, unhappy as she had 
 been when she attended them. 
 
 " Ah ! that was because you were fresh ; I have 
 
 heard that they are mere travesties of the militar] 
 balls. However, as you have set your heart upoi 
 my going with your little friend, I'll do it." 
 
 " I think perhaps that Sydney's heart is mor( 
 set upon your going than mine is, since I shal 
 not be with you, Fi'ank ; but it's very good of yoi 
 to say you'll go, very good indeed." 
 
 FranJc looked as if he thought himself nobh 
 to a degree. 
 
 " I suppose there will be a whole army of 
 Scotts, won't there ? we shall go in procession." 
 
 "Oh, no: Sydney stands, alone; only hci 
 father and mother will be there; here's the 
 ticket." 
 
 Mr. Burgoyne took it with much unconcern. 
 
 " Need I write to old Scott, and express myself 
 obliged for this?" he asked, "because I ain'( 
 obliged, you know. I hate anything of the kind." 
 
 " Well, as you like ; it would be civil, but if 
 you don't want to be that, I will tell Sydney to- 
 night that your grace is going, and that she had 
 better stand in ti secluded corner and keep that 
 portion of the British army there assembled at 
 bay tUl you vouchsafe to arrive and lead her forti 
 in the mazy dance." 
 
 He laughed. " Tou may tell her I'm going," 
 he said. " I will just look in for an hour, and 
 then come back here and talk to you, my dar- 
 ling." Which remark settled the subject. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVm 
 
 THE BALL. 
 
 Frank — a recruit, for the overflowing ranks of 
 the noble army of martyrs, came down the follow 
 ing night and exhibited himself to Theo's admir 
 ing gaze in glorious ' garb. That is to say hii 
 garb was not glorious by any means, — the dresi 
 of the day does not deserve this epithet, — ^bul 
 solemnly arrayed in slight mourning, as it is the 
 custom of men to be when they are going tc 
 attend that most festive of all gatherings — a 
 ball. 
 
 The ball-room was a long apartment, wM 
 stone walls and marble busts at the upper oi 
 honourable end. It struck a chill into Frank's 
 heart as he entered it, partly by reason of these 
 stone walls and partly because the light whieil 
 pervaded it was of the dim religions order. J 
 band was perilously perched in a little gallerj 
 (a temporary erection) behind and above the rov 
 of marble busts. And countless fair beings were 
 the same — ^that is, perilously perched on benchgi 
 ejn all sides of the room. 
 
 It was scarcely what one could have called i 
 brilliant scene on the whole, but at least then 
 was brilliancy in one portion of it, as soon as hii 
 entrance was marked. The spot of groun4 ,«i 
 which Miss Scott stood seemed positively radiant 
 as that fair young being brought herself and he: 
 partner up abruptly at the sight of Frank, ane 
 welcomed Viim with a gracious smile, and a well 
 gloved hand. She was incapable of speech b; 
 reason of having gallopped all her breath away.' 
 
 " Shall I in&oduce you to a partner, Mr 
 Burgoyne ? " she asked, as soon as she had re 
 covered herself in a measure. 
 
 " Thank you," he was about to add, " not jus 
 yet," but she nipped his refusal in the bud. 
 
 " There's Miss Clarissa Snuth sitting down a 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 129 
 
 usual ; look, shall I take you up to her f " She 
 pointed as she spoke to a -lady who had been 
 young at some remote period. 
 
 " You're very good," Frank replied stifBly. " I 
 think, if you'll excuse me, I will " 
 
 "Or, see, if you don't like her there's her 
 second sister. I wouldn't advise her for a round 
 dance though," she continued, refleotiyely ; " she 
 has what we should call a gaudy action in a 
 horse." 
 
 Frank tried to look disgusted with the manner 
 adopted by his guide in this strange country, into 
 which he had adventured himself. He tried to 
 look disgusted, and he failed ; more than that, he 
 tried to feel disgusted, and not even in that could 
 he quite succeed. 
 
 " There are four more Miss Smiths some- 
 where about the room," Sydney said cheerfully ; 
 "fancy coming to a baU with five of one's 
 sisters ! " 
 
 " I can't fancy it," Mr. Burgoyne replied. 
 
 "Will you take another turn. Miss Scott?" 
 Sydney's partner, who had, like the far-famed 
 .Arab steed, been standing meekly by throughout 
 this conversation, here ventured to suggest. 
 
 " Presently," Miss Scott replied ; when she did 
 take another turn she meant to take it on the arm 
 of Mr. Frank Burgoyne, but she did not care to 
 make her meaning manifest. 
 
 "The Miss Smiths being unpromising, as far 
 as I can see, perhaps you will be good enough 
 not to hand me over to one of them," Frank 
 said. 
 
 " If you would rather not, I won't, certainly ; 
 but what is to be done ? " ^ 
 
 It was all plain sailing now. Frank's course 
 was obvious. , 
 
 "Nothing — unless you will take pity on me 
 yourself." 
 
 Syduey showed signs of a readiness to desert at 
 once. It .was useless the young ensign with 
 whom she had been dancing assuming a look of 
 humble trust that she would not leave him. It 
 was useless his delivering himself of the hope 
 that "she wouldn't spoil the best waltz of the 
 evening in ihat way." 
 
 " Oh ! you know everybody, and can find a 
 partner directly," she said aloud ; then she added 
 in a whisper, " don't be disagreeable, Mr. Har- 
 grave : what will Theo Leigh think of me if I 
 don't try to make things pleasant to Mr. Bur- 
 goyne ? " _ - 
 
 Hargrave declined to see the force of this. 
 
 "I have no doubt that Theo Leigh would 
 forgive you for not making such a tremendous 
 fuss as all this about him," he said, rather sulkily ; 
 "let him stand in a corner if he can't find a 
 partner. Our fellows never have much difficulty 
 in getting one here though," he continued, with a 
 small well-pleased laugh, that Sydney could have 
 smothered, and was determined to punish him for. 
 
 " Your ' fellows ' are more easily satisfied then, 
 I conclude ; come ! it must be so," she added 
 a trifle imperiously, " and I'll give you the next 
 quadrille." 
 
 " So you really mean to throw me over ? " Mr. 
 Hargrave asked, to which Sydney replied, " Oh ! 
 
 not that certainly, but " here she ceased all 
 
 efforts at explanation, and went off with Frank 
 Burgoyne. 
 
 Wl^en the dance was over Sydney made a 
 fleeting allusion to her mamma. 
 
 " We can't work our way through that crowd, 
 that is very clear," she began ; " if we do, away 
 will go the better part of my dress, and mamma 
 is there." 
 
 "Never mind: she will know you can't be 
 lost," he responded. 
 
 "Ah! but I must get to her presently, to 
 introduce you." 
 
 Now Mr. Burgoyne had no marked inclination 
 to be introduced to the parent-bird. Sydney was 
 all very well, for an hour or two, he told himself, 
 especially bedecked as she was on this occasion 
 and brilliant from excitement. But a matured, 
 expanded Sydney, from that he would abstain. 
 
 "Till I can pilot you in safety down to the 
 dowager's divan you may as well, beguile the 
 moments of waiting by telling me who's who in 
 18—." 
 
 " Shall I begin with the beauties or the pecu- 
 liarities ?" she asked. 
 
 "Begin with what you have most of," he 
 replied. 
 
 " H'm, well ! that's putting me in rather a 
 difficult place. There are the six Miss Joneses, 
 for instance " 
 
 "You called them Smith just now," he inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 " Ah ! they were the Smiths, but there are six 
 Joneses too ; they run in half-dozens in these 
 regions ; that is Miss Jones 'passing along there in 
 a blue dress and green wreath ; sweet taste, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 ' ' Under which denomination do you place her ? 
 — beauty or peculiarity ? " 
 
 "That is hard to say; she's the beauty of the 
 family, for the others are ever so much uglier ; 
 some people out of her family may admire her 
 too. I have no prejudice in favour of such an 
 extreme length of nose myself." 
 
 At this moment Miss Jones came too near to 
 be openly discussed. She was tall, fine, dark, 
 flashing. Small wonder that Sydney had no 
 prejudice in favour of Miss Jones' style of beauty. 
 By her side the bright little blonde looked 
 stumpy. 
 
 "Do you see those two Oa)khursts, in their 
 eternal black dresses ? " Miss Jones asked of 
 Sydney, as she came to a pause near her. 
 
 Sydney nodded. "Yes they always look 
 nice — not that I think them pretty," she re- 
 plied. 
 
 " Nice, do you think they look ? Well, now, 
 I think them so dowdy-loolung ; black wants so 
 much relief doesn't it ? " 
 
 "Yes," Sydney assented carelessly. She 
 wanted Miss Jones to 'move on, and Miss Jones 
 evidently had no desire to do so. Miss Jones was 
 partnerless at the moment, and Frank Burgoyne 
 looked 'promising. 
 
 "Talking of black, I saw Theo Leigh to-day; 
 how well it suits her ! but then she's pretty in 
 everything," Miss Jones remarked, rolling her 
 big dark eyes round upon Frank. She had never 
 been introduced to this gentleman, therefore it 
 was quite allowable, she thought, to discuss the 
 girl he was engaged to before him, and seem 
 not to know him to be what he was. 
 
 Frank turned his head away, and looked and 
 felt annoyed. Sydney replied curtly : 
 
 " Yes ; she does. Oh ! there's mamma." 
 
 "Wait one minute, Sydney," Miss Jones cried, 
 and then she made a whispered communication 
 
ISO 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 to Sydney, with many noddinga of her head, and 
 flutteringa of her fan, and archings of her eye- 
 brows, and rollings of her eyes. She was re- 
 garded as " a fine animated creature " by the 
 members of her own family, and by very youthful 
 marine officers generally. Small boys clothed in 
 the uniform of that glorious corpSj mentioned 
 with pride the number of times in which they 
 revolved round her in the mazy dance during the 
 evening. She had a bounding way of taking the 
 room at the first strain'of waltz or gallop that 
 caused their brains to whirl. " She was a fine 
 creature, and could go the pace and no mistake," 
 they said to one another as they wiped their 
 ' brows when they had deposited her after a burst 
 of the kind. Perhaps the secret of their adora- 
 tion for her might be found in the fact of a 
 progress with her never being wholly unmarked. 
 When they lacked height, she had it. "She 
 showed off well in a crowded room where little 
 girls were lost, you know." Frank looked at the 
 tine creature while she was making her whispered 
 communication to Sydney, and he hated her. 
 I He hated her for her evolutions, after the manner 
 •of ungrateful men — ^though they were all gone 
 through by her for the purpose of pleasing him. 
 He hated her for calling the girl he was going to 
 marry " Theo." He hated her for tapping Sydney 
 Scott with her fan. "Why the deuce ,when 
 women can't handle it better do they carry one 
 at all ? " he asked himself. He couldn't bear her 
 blue dress and her green wreath. She looked to 
 him like a woman who, when she had achieved 
 an introduction to him for herself, would bring 
 up her six sisters, and bid him stand and deliver 
 himself up to one of them for a dance. In a 
 word, he detested Miss Jones. He knew that if 
 he urged a flight from her that he would be car- 
 ried in procession, and shown to Mrs. Scott ; but 
 of two evils he favoured the unknown, and longed 
 for the moment when dutiful scruples should 
 again assail Sydney. 
 
 That moment came at last. " There's mamma 
 making a dear old funny face at me," Sydney 
 suddenly exclaimed, directing Frank's gaze as she 
 spoke down along a vista that was bordered by 
 beings with backs, and defenders of their coun- 
 try. Two sets of quadrilles had just been. And 
 the onus was off Sydney of attending to any one 
 save Frank for at least one dance more. 
 
 " Shall we go and see what she wants ? " Frank 
 asked, looking as he spoke at a wide old lady who 
 was attired in what resembled silken bed-curtains, 
 over which an arabesque pattesn had been formed 
 by an unsteady hand. Then his eye fell upon a 
 something crimson with what looked like a shav- 
 ing-brush stuck in at the top which surmounted 
 Mrs. Scott's head, and he felt sorry that he had 
 asked " shall we go and see what she wants ? " 
 "Why do British matrons wear turbans, and at- 
 tempt to achieve a faint resemblance to the lusty 
 Turk ? " he groaned in spirit, as he led Miss Syd- 
 ney up to her mamma. 
 
 Now Mrs. Scott had come to this ball fraught 
 with the fiiim determination to render all honour 
 unto Mr. Burgoyne. " I know what's due to the 
 nobility — none better,"' she had said when Syd- 
 ney had told her that Mr. Burgoyne was going to 
 be there, and that they must all be civil to him. 
 " I know what's due to the nobility — none better ; 
 it isn't they as give themselves most airs as has 
 mixed with the best ; before I married your 
 
 father, Sydney, I sat down lo dinner many a tim' 
 with a lord's son." • 
 
 " Well, Mr. Burgoyne isn't a lord's son, am 
 never mind telling him anything about those din 
 ners before you married papa, mamma," Mis 
 Sydney had replied. The mention of them wa 
 not by any means agreeable to her, for she ha( 
 gathered that the sole sprig of nobility who hai 
 partaken of her maternal grandfather's hospitaUt; 
 in those bygone days which Mrs. Scott recalle( 
 with unction, had been a naval cadet, the son ol 
 a lord mayor who had recklessly run up a Ion; 
 tailor's bill, and then affably dined v/ith sai( 
 tailor to decrease it. No wonder that Miss Syd 
 ney said : 
 
 " Never mind telling him anything about thos( 
 dinners." 
 
 Mrs. Scott was absolutely basking in the refill 
 gence of her own smiles when the pair came uj 
 to her. It had always appeared to her a mosi 
 unjust dispensation of Providence that all the 
 good that had come of that visit to Henslej 
 which her daughter had paid, should have faller 
 to Theo Leigh. The mother had some undeflnec 
 feeling of Sydney having been wronged in the 
 matter, for before the climax came, Sydney hac 
 communicated her belief in a widely differeni 
 climax approaching. There had been a semi- 
 tone of reproach in Mrs. Scott's salutation to hei 
 daughter on that daughter's return. "I nevei 
 expected, after what you said, to see you comi 
 back as you went, Sydney ; young men have ne 
 business to trifle with girls in that way, and if 1 
 were your father I should take the matter up 
 I'U be bound that's what Mr. Leigh went dowi 
 for — to bring him to the point with Theo." 
 
 " I don't think that," Sydney had replied. 
 " but I do think that Theo got him away just t( 
 spite me : I know he liked me best." 
 
 " To be sure he did," the fond parent replied 
 with a touch of the true parental prejudice 
 " and I have made no secret of what /think oi 
 their conduct in taking a young man by sur 
 prise, as one may say, before he knows his owi 
 mind ; but they ain't married, yet, and they'vi 
 behaved as bad to you." 
 
 Which speech caused Sydney to regard her 
 self as much wronged, and as being luUy jnsti 
 fied in doing anything. Nevertheless she prac 
 tised the virtue of Christian forgiveness, am 
 kept "very friendly," as has been seen, witl 
 Theo Leigh. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 KATE IMPROVES. 
 
 ApTEK4hat sojourn at the Lowndes shooting 
 box, John Galton and his wife returned to th 
 Grange, and passed a very quiet time there tc 
 gether for some four or five months. As thes 
 were winter months it was really very dull 
 even Miss Sarah could not feel much surprise 
 at Kate finding it so. John Galton had a habi 
 of going off several miles to the coast, an 
 lurking about in holes in the marshes throng 
 cold winter nights with a long duck-gun, 
 brace of big dogs, half Irish spaniel half retriei 
 er, and one of those rough beings only to l 
 found on the coast, who are partly sailor, parti 
 I fisherman, and partly on the loose look-out f( 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 181 
 
 a night on the marshes with any gentlemen 
 fond of wild-duck shooting and a position for 
 many hours in a damp bole in the'mud. 
 
 John Galton was a thorough sportsman, and 
 as yet he had never had his ardour damped by 
 ever so slight a touch of rheumatism. A mallard 
 would repay him for any number of hours wait- 
 ing, and a brace of snipes for any amount of 
 wet. But Kate was very dull while he was away 
 — so dull that she came at last to feel that there 
 must have been something after all in this com- 
 panionship which she missed. 
 
 At one period she took, as a sort of forlorn 
 hope, to being very intimate with Miss Sarah. 
 She would saunter down to Miss Sarah's cottage 
 in the morning with little Katie and some cream 
 or new eggs ; and she would be made to repent 
 having taken either of the latter, usually through 
 a habit Miss Sarah had of accepting them with a 
 grim allusion to the time when such goods from 
 the Grange were hers of right in a measure, the 
 time " before John married." " Well, John is 
 married now, you see," Kate would reply as 
 good-humouredly as she could, " and still you 
 get the eggs and cream, so you've nothing to 
 complain of." Upon which Miss Galton would 
 put her sister-in-law and her sister-in-law's good 
 intentions to flight, by asking sharply : 
 
 " Have I ever ' complained ? ' Don't I bear 
 poverty, and obscurity, and obloquy, and scorn in 
 silence, ow — a ! " when Miss Sarah's lamenta- 
 tions reached this point there was nothing for it 
 but flight, and Mrs. John Galton would be 
 driven back to the desolate Grange, where the 
 very watch-dogs hung their tails despondently 
 because their master was absent. 
 
 But these visits of Kate were surely, though 
 slowly, working upon the one to whom they were 
 paid. The particles of real kindness that was in 
 them might be infinitesimal, but the dose was 
 constantly repeated, and so told at last, and met 
 with its due reward. "John, I really think 
 your wife is improving," Miss ^arah said to her 
 brother on more than one occasion, " her con- 
 duct is much more like that of a respectable 
 married woman than it used to be." Which 
 meagre praise of the woman who was, despite 
 her faults and follies, so unspeakably dear to 
 him, John Galton had to accept and even to ap- 
 pear grateful for. 
 
 At length there came a break in the monotony 
 which had hung over all things for so long a 
 time. As a candid and honest historian I can- 
 not say that the break was one whit more 
 acceptable to any one of them than the monotony 
 had been. 
 
 John Galton had departed one bitter winter's 
 afternoon with his dlick-gun and dogs for a night 
 on the sands, leaving Kate rather more resigned 
 to her approaching solitude than usual : she had 
 just received a fine relay of new books. " Don't 
 forget that we have to dine at that place to- 
 morrow, John," his wife said to him as he was 
 getting up into the trap; "that place" being 
 the rectory, and to-morrow being the day of the 
 first feast given within its walls by their new 
 rector. " No, I won't," he replied ; " I shall be 
 back by twelve o'clock to-morrow : if you have 
 nothing better to do, come along the road to 
 meet me, will you ? " 
 
 She promised him that she would do so, and 
 then he drove off, and she went back to the 
 
 cosiest corner of her drawing-room, and turned 
 over the new books in pleasing uncertainty as to 
 which of thetn she should first fall upon and 
 devour. 
 
 The one she finally decided upon was that 
 novel of Mr. David Linley's, which he had been 
 compelled to go up to his publisher about while 
 she was staying at Lowndes, and she began to 
 read it with that pleasant clearness of vision for 
 its faults and shortcomings which we are all apt 
 to be endowed with while reading the work of 
 an acquaintance. It is so nice to pick out errors 
 of taste and grammar, and violations of the 
 unities and propriety in the, printed words of one 
 whom we know. So Kate read away happily, 
 and reviewed as she read far more severely than 
 any of the literary journals had done. 
 
 She had the prospect of a long afternoon of 
 uninterrupted bodily ease and mental relaxation 
 before her. Instead of a dinner she had (after 
 the manner of women when they are left to 
 themselves) ordered tea at six. " 'Tea and some- 
 thing nice," she had said to John ; and John, 
 when giving the order to cook in the kitchen 
 had added, — "which means that she'll trouble 
 us for something else 'nice' at ten, iuterfering 
 with one's supper-time." j 
 
 John Gralton had been gone an llbiJr ; it was 
 now four, and so much of the wintry-sky as she 
 could see from her corner of the couch near the 
 fire began to look dark. " He'll have a terrible 
 night of it, poor old fellow! " she thought ; " it 
 is plucky though to go through so much hard- 
 ship and find it all sportjiAe'd never do it " — she 
 brought her hand down on the open page before 
 her as she thought this of Lt^fa " He'd never 
 do It ; after all he was righ^^Dugh he did not 
 mean me to think him so, when he said that the 
 man who could do all such things was not so 
 far behind the one who could only write about 
 them." 
 
 Little Katie was stretched out on the rug 
 before the fire with a Punch scrap-book and a 
 tiny terrier puppy, and one or two other anti- 
 dotes to dulness around and about her. The 
 ohUd had had more of her mother's companion- 
 ship lately, and she seemed to love it so much 
 that Kate unconsciously granted more and more 
 of it daily to the innocent courtier. This latter 
 was supremely happy just now, for she had been 
 promised the exquisite bliss of having " tea with 
 mamma ; " moreover, the terrier puppy had been 
 her " very own " but for two short hours. It 
 was drear dull winter without, but in this room 
 there was warmth and comfort of so perfect an 
 order, that Kate's ardent prayer that she might 
 have no interruption had been quite natural. 
 
 Before settling down thoroughly she had run 
 over a list of possible callers, and she had given 
 herself a good and sufficient reason after naming 
 each one for that one not coming this day. 
 " The Reynolds' have a child with the scarlet 
 fever, so she'd never come near my child, and 
 Mrs. Sparks wouldn't be unfeeling enough to 
 leave her husband now he has sprained his 
 ancle ; Mrs. Williamson never calls when she 
 knows it's getting time for her to have another 
 dinner-party, stingy old thing ; and as for the 
 CaldwellB, dunce as she is, she must surely know 
 that I shall have quite enough of her to-morrow 
 dining there." Then she thought favourably 
 of one or two more acquaintances, who always 
 
182 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 got neuralgia if they came out in an easterly 
 wiad, and slie blessed the wind for coming from 
 the east this day, and went on with her book 
 luxuriously. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of a chapter, the 
 writing of whidh had made David Linley's hard 
 old head ache even, he had so elaborated the 
 intricacies of the situation in which everybody 
 was plunged in it, suddenly, in the midst of this, 
 there fell upon her ear the knell of parting 
 peace, the sound of the hall-door beU, and the 
 next minute Hiss Sarah Galton came into the 
 room. 
 
 She was not a pleasing interruption, undoubt- 
 edly. Even had she not been the interrupted 
 lady's sister-in-law she could not have been 
 deemed a pleasing interruption. As it was, Kate, 
 watching her as she came forward in ungainly 
 cloth buttoned boots, and barge-like goloshes, 
 felt her to be unbearable. 
 
 The guise in which Miss Sarah Galton adven- 
 tured forth in wintry weather, was comfortable, 
 she asserted, but certainly it was not becoming. 
 The sad-coloured bonnet which came "well- 
 forward," as she phrased it, might be forgiven ; 
 indeed it had a distinctly marked purpose about 
 it, and so far was estimable. It had been built 
 to come well-forward, and it came well-forward, 
 covering Miss Galton's ears from the cold blast, 
 and saving those organs from many an ache. 
 But the petticoat and dress that were short 
 enough to be hideous from eveiy point of view, 
 and long enough to catch up and carry all 
 extraneous matter in the shape' of mud that 
 might be in her path, were not things to be 
 tolerantly looked/upon. 
 
 "Such a walk as I have had," Miss Galton 
 began breathlessly, sitting down opposite to 
 Kate ; " I thought I should never have got here : 
 I tried the fields, and my goloshes were sucked 
 off my feet several times." 
 
 "How very uncomfortable for you," Mrs. 
 John Galton replied. She was marvelling much 
 why Miss Galton had come at all, and why, of 
 all ways, by the field-path. 
 
 "How very uncomfortable for you," Kate 
 said, drowsily. Then she resigned herself, put 
 her book down with ever so small n sigh, and 
 added : 
 
 " You must stay to tea with me, Sarah. John 
 is gone off for some duck-shooting, so I dined 
 early with Katie, and ordered a heavy tea ; 
 you'll stay, won't you ? " 
 
 Miss Galton looked sour. Heavy teas, any 
 number of them and of any weight, could be 
 hers in her own house. She had come up to her 
 brother's to-day intending to have a good gener- 
 ous dinner at seven, and to see if the plate was 
 in good order, and whether John's wife had a 
 decent cook or not. She had another motive 
 besides the anticipated dinner in coming, but 
 the dinner had been a powerful one. So now, 
 when Kate offered her the paltry substitute of a 
 heavy tea, she looked grim, and replied : 
 
 " I suppose you're surprised to see me." 
 
 " Oh) no, I am not," Kate answered, though 
 a little surprise pajght have been forgiven her, 
 since Miss Galton had not been to the Grange 
 for sever^ mpnths. " Oh! no I am not : I am 
 TCry glad to see you now you are come ; go up 
 into my room, and take your things off; you'll 
 find a fire there, Katie, go with your aunt." 
 
 Miss Galton looked more grim on the instant. 
 " A fire in her bed-room, and coals such a 
 price," she thought. Nevertheless she resolved 
 to go up, and take off her boots by that fire in 
 preference to going into a more inexpensively 
 arranged chamber. 
 
 " Of course you wonder to see me," Miss Gal- 
 ton persisted. "I will tell you — dear, dear, 
 how this wind affects my breath — what brought 
 me ; partly I was down in the village, and I 
 thought I would just pass by the end of the sta- 
 tion, and, ask Mrs. Banham if she could let me 
 have half-a-pint of cream on Friday night, for I 
 have asked the Caldwells to tea, and while I can 
 get it anyway I will not ask the clergyman I sit 
 under to drink his tea without cream." Having 
 said this with much severity. Miss Galton paused 
 to gain breath, and mark whether or not Kate 
 was withered. 
 
 But Kate was not withered by any means. 
 Eventually she knew that the cream for Mrs. 
 Caldwell's tea would go down to Miss Galton 
 from her (Kate's) own dairy. She knew this, and 
 was right willing that it should be so, and she 
 knew that Miss Galton knew it also. So she 
 declined to be withered, and only said : 
 
 "Oh! indeed; and then?" 
 
 " Then after I had heard from Mrs. Banham 
 that Friday was just the very day of all that she 
 would have the greatest diifieulty, the greatest 
 difficult}/, in obliging me, I went on to the plat- 
 form ; I thought I would just go, j ust go on and 
 see the three-o'clock train come in." 
 
 Miss Galton made another pause from lack of 
 breath, and Kate suggested : 
 
 " Hadn't you better go up and take off your 
 bonnet and wet boots ? " 
 
 " In one minute, if you'll listen," Miss Galton 
 replied severely. " Catherine, do keep that 
 nasty dog away from me ; of aU the play things 
 in the world to give a child, a filthy dog is 
 the worst." 
 
 " He's a dear little, clean beauty, and he has 
 only just left his mother," Katie the younger 
 argued indignantly. She mentioned the latter 
 fact as if it were something meritorious, some- 
 thing that redounded to puppy's credit vastly. 
 Indeed, in a vague and undefined way she held 
 that his having " only just left his mother " was 
 puppy's chiefest trait. Others he might devel- 
 ope in time, but at present he had done nothing 
 else worthy of record. 
 
 " Perhaps you had better take puppy into the 
 nursery to tea, Katie," Mrs. Galton suggested.: 
 
 " Oh, mamma ! you promised I should stay 
 here, and give him some cream out of my own 
 saucer." 
 
 " Cream ! for dogs ! " Miss Galton ejacu- 
 lated ; "Do you know, little Miss, that your poor 
 aunty only alIow.s herself cream sometimes as a 
 treat for her own tea." 
 
 " Oh ! that's nonsense," Katie rejoined, em- 
 phatically. The plaint was intended to be very 
 touching, but Katie looked at the respective 
 parties, and was touched in the wrong direction. 
 She was but a child ! The puppy was so very 
 pretty, and the poor old aunty was so very 
 plain. 
 
 "Don't let me be the cause of my brother's 
 child being banished, pray," Miss Sarahijsaid, 
 with some asperity. * ■ 
 
 "Very well; she shall stay here, sinci you 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 183 
 
 don't mind her," Mrs. Galton replied. " I wish 
 you would go and take your things off, though, 
 you would be so much more comfortable." 
 
 Mrs. Galton gave utterance to the wish as 
 heartily as she could under the circumstances. 
 She was not the sort of woman who takes a 
 pride and pleasure in putting her own inclina- 
 tions entirely out of court, but she did it on this 
 occasion with a tolerable grace. 
 
 "Yes, I'll go," Miss Galton said, rising up, 
 and marching in her muddy goloshes straight 
 over a white Astraoan rug ; " but as I was say- 
 ing, when I got on to the platform I stayed 
 tl(erc, speaking now to one and now to another, 
 as one does, you know, Kate." 
 
 " Yes," Kate assented, knowing well the while 
 that she never did anything of the kind. 
 
 " And so I stayed there till the train passed 
 — that is, it didn't pass as usual, it stopped, and 
 one of the most extraordinary women I ever saw 
 in my life got out." 
 
 "Ah ! indeed? " Kate replied, seeing her sis- 
 ter-in-law waited for her to say something. 
 
 "Yes, one of the most extraordinary, I may 
 say tTie most extraordinary ; she had about a 
 dozen yards of silk traiUng behind her; and 
 though she is quite old, old enough, at all 
 events, to have known better, she had a little 
 round cap of fur on her head that would suit 
 that child." 
 
 " Who can she be ? " Kate said, carelessly. 
 
 " That's what I wondered," Miss Galton snap- 
 ped out ; " when she had got herself and her 
 maid, and all her boxes (she'd about a dozen of 
 them), she began crying out in a cracked voice, 
 ' could any one tell her the way to the Grange.' " 
 The Grange, indeed ! I told the station-man 
 that we wanted no maniacs at the Grange, and 
 that they had better keep her there till she was 
 sent for ; and then I thought I , would walk 
 across the field and tell you about it." 
 
 " Good gracious ! " Kate exclaimed, rising up 
 with a sickening feeling of some evil being about 
 to .crowd down upon her, " it must be my aunt. 
 Lady Glaskill ; I will send and see." 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 X TERRIBLE OLD LAD7. 
 
 The CaldwcUs, the people with whom the 
 John Gallons were going to dine on the follow- 
 ing day, had not been in the parish long ; but, 
 for all that short term of residence, locally they 
 were large people. 
 
 Locally they were large, and religiously they 
 were rigid. Mr. Caldwell had been in posses- 
 sion of a fair, not to say a fat, living for years 
 before he had exchanged it for this Haversham 
 rectorship; and, additionally, he had taken the 
 precaution to ally himself unto a wealthy wife. 
 Therefore had all things gone smoothly with 
 him in the flesh, and in the spirit he was as un- 
 conditionally haughty and bigoted as any mem- 
 ber of the priesthood he adorned. 
 
 From the day of his leaving college, nearly 
 forty years before, up to this one of his intro- 
 duction into my story, the Kev. Eobert Cald- 
 well's had been uninterruptedly a country life, 
 and he -had grown big and plethoric with the 
 importance of it. His was no very uncommon 
 
 character. He was arrogant, but he was also 
 alive to the claims those who were in a worse 
 plight than himself had on his humanity. He 
 was intensely imbued with the letter of his pro- 
 fession; but, on the other hand, he had no 
 small share of the best of its spirit. He was a 
 staunch churchman, intolerant to aught that 
 savoured of indifference to one of the smallest 
 of his church's ordinances. He was not a bad 
 country gentleman, having a fine taste in port 
 wine and horseflesh. He was willing, nay anx- 
 ious, that all good should be done to all men^ 
 but he desired that it should be done through 
 that church of which he was a member alone. 
 Not that he ever said this in so many bold, hard 
 words, but he set his face steadfastly against any 
 reform which it was proposed to make without 
 the church's aid, guidance, or management. 
 
 Withal, he was a man much revered, for his 
 life was a blameless one. He had married a 
 wife, and brought up children, and sent these 
 latter out into the world in unimpeachable case. 
 His daughters had married, and married well — 
 their husbands, though laymen, had plump liv- 
 ings in their gift ; and his sons were well reputed 
 in their respective dioceses, and were serving 
 God with fair prospect of promotion. Altogether, 
 the Oaldwells were of good repute in the land, 
 and their claims to consideration were not to be 
 lightly regarded, even by their chief parishon- 
 ers; the greatest landowner in the pariah and 
 his wife. 
 
 When Mrs. John Galton said in response to 
 Miss Sarah's description of the person who was 
 at the station making inquiries for the Grange, 
 " It must be Aunt Glaskill," a qualm seized her 
 heart, and dragged it down to low depths. To 
 her husband and to Miss ^arah (who adored 
 them), and to herself, Kate w^s wont to laugh at 
 and deride the Oaldwells — to call him a narrow- 
 minded churchman who knew nothing of the 
 world, whose whole soul was in matters paro- 
 chial ; and to regard Mrs. Caldwell as a woman 
 without an individuality, merely as " the wife " 
 of a recognized institution, who was a dull but 
 necessary evil. 
 
 But despite this scoffing habit of hers, their 
 respectability had impressed itself upon her, 
 and she acknowledged to herself that it would 
 be too terrible to shock them by introducing such 
 an auxiliary as Lady Glaskill, and that Lady 
 Glaskill would probably definitely refuse to be 
 left behind. Here, down in the country, things 
 stood out before Mrs. Galton with clearer out- 
 lines, and in truer colours. Lady GlaskiU's 
 much-bespattered old banner would not float out 
 bravely in this atmosphere. 
 
 The certain conviction that ifwas Lady Glas- 
 kill — the dread truth, that she (Kate) was about 
 to be infested with that most volatile and inces- 
 sant of old women, smote her in such a way on 
 the first mention of the stranger at the station, 
 that she never questioned the probability of it for 
 an instant. " It's Aunt Glaskill, and what shall 
 I do with her at the Oaldwells' to-morrow — 
 ruddled!" she said to herself. And then she 
 added aloud, " I think I had better have the 
 waggonnette, and go down to the station and 
 see." 
 
 " It's a sight that I should keep, away from as 
 long as possible if /were in j^omj* place," Miss 
 Sarah replied grimly. 
 
134 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 "But you're not in my mamma'a place — 
 you're not a married woman," Katie replied, 
 with a child's odiously prompt partisanship. 
 
 " Don't be pert, miss," Miss Sarah retorted, 
 with red spots on either cheek, and a gleam of 
 angry light in her eyes, as if Katie's assertion 
 that she was " not a married woman," had been 
 a charge of an iniquitous, or at least compro- 
 mising, nature. " Don't be pert, mias ; I should 
 Bend my little girls to bed for such speeches as 
 that." 
 
 Now Katie was at the age when bed and all 
 mention of it is loathed and abhorred by day- 
 light. 
 
 " But you haven't any little girls, and you've 
 no gentleman either. Aunt Sarah," Miss Katie 
 retorted triumphantly; and Miss Gallon felt her- 
 self worsted in the war of words. 
 
 Kate, in utter disregard of the altercation, 
 commenced — "Will you excuse me? will you 
 mind waiting here alone while I go " 
 
 " On a wild-goose chase," Miss Gallon struck 
 in sharply. "I must say it will be the most 
 ridiculous thing on your part, Kate, to go up 
 and look after some mad woman, merely because 
 you have an eccentric relative of your own. 
 Of course none of your friends would have the 
 bad taste to come to your husband's — to my 
 brother's place in such a way." 
 
 "One never knows what olie'a friends will 
 have the bad taste to do," Kate replied; "it's 
 from no " 
 
 She stopped; she was about to say that it was 
 from no excess of anxiety to welcome Lady 
 Glaskill that this journey' in search of her to the 
 station should be made. But she stopped, re- 
 membering that saying as to stale fish and the 
 inability of crying' it. 
 
 " Then, if you are going, I will say good-by 
 to you," Miss Sarah said sharply, as Kate rang 
 the bell and ordered the waggonnelte, " I didn't 
 come up here to sit alone." 
 
 "I wiU be back very soon, or — come with 
 me ? " Kate pleaded. Odd as it appeared, even 
 to herself, she felt a desire to cling to something 
 undeniable, something tangible, and true, and 
 respectable — ^something that, however disagreea- 
 ble it might be, could not compromise her hus- 
 band now. The dread of her aunt, and of 
 those ways of the world of which her aunt was 
 a representative, was upon her strongly. No 
 one could have sheltered under the wall of Lady 
 Glaskill's reputation ; it was a tottering struc- 
 ture, full of holes; and who knew this better 
 than her niece ? 
 
 So now that niece asked pleadingly that her 
 disliked sister-in-law would stand by her in the 
 meeting with the inevitable guest. 
 
 Miss Gallon relaxed at the appeal, and was 
 moderately merciful. 
 
 "I don't mind going; but as for its being 
 Lady Glaskill, that's absurd," she said ; " I have 
 always understood that your aunt was a woman 
 of fashion and position ? " 
 
 "So she is," Kale said desperately. Lady 
 Glaskill had been one of her highest trump 
 cards, and she had been played with fell effect 
 for the neighbourhood very often. The asser- 
 tions of years may not be lightly contradicted 
 in a moment ; so now Kate said with despera- 
 tion, "So she is." 
 
 "Then don't go, for this old harridan is 
 
 neither," Miss Gallon said ruthlessly. Then for 
 the first time Kate quailed before John's sister ; 
 Lady Glaskill was an old harridan; no one 
 deemed her such more entirely than did her 
 affectionate niece. 
 
 "At any rate the drive wUl do us no harm; 
 I'll have my hat and cloak on in an instant ; " so 
 saying, Mrs. Gallon ran from the room to prepare 
 for the drive. 
 
 The waggonnelte was at the door when Mrs. 
 Gallon came down, and Miss Sarah was standing 
 at the hall steps ready to get in. This waggon- 
 nelte was another of Kate's iniquities in Miss 
 Gallon's eyes, for in it Mrs. John dtove a pjjr 
 of wicked-looking chestnuts, and she drove them 
 herself. 
 
 " WiU you be warm enough ? " Miss Gallon 
 asked as Kate came up in a black velvet bonnet 
 and eoat. Then Kate lifted up a corner of the 
 latter, showing that it was lined with fur, and 
 said, " Oh yes," cheerily enough, as Miss Gallon 
 nientaUy appraised the cost of it. 
 
 The drive to the station was a very short one, 
 but during it Miss Gallon found occasion to 
 shriek thrice, and to give numberless other in- 
 describable indications of woe. The chestnuts 
 had good mouths, and Kate had good hands; 
 naturally the corners were turned without any 
 waste of space. " I'm no coward, and I'm con- 
 vinced that I shall not die before my time," Miss 
 Gallon observed to Mr. Caldwell, in relation to 
 this drive, when he drank tea with her on Fri- 
 day, "but I do say that it's tempting Providence 
 for a woman to take the reins in her hands, and 
 to drive like Jehu the son of Nimshi, in the way 
 Mrs. John Gallon does." 
 
 To which Mr. Caldwell replied in general 
 terms, that he was averse to reckless driving 
 where he himself was concerned, but that, as 
 regarded other people, he couldn't undertake to 
 say: it was between themselves and their con- 
 sciences. 
 
 Kate's conscience on this occasion did cause 
 her driving to resemble that of the scriptural 
 person afterwards alluded to by her sister-in-lawi 
 It reminded her that Lady Glaskill was her rela- 
 tive, and it told her distinctly that Lady Glaskill 
 was a very unfit inmate for Haversham Grange. 
 She remembered Lady Glaskill's sharp practices, 
 and Lady Glaskill's double dealings, and Lady 
 Glaskill's direful inability to discern right from 
 wrong. She remembered Lady Glaskill's wicked 
 old leers, and her horrible old stories, and her 
 fearsome old jests. She remembered Lady Glas- 
 kill as a ghastly old occupant of a tawdry hardly 
 won and held booth in Vanity Fair; and she 
 trembled at the thought of meeting her at the 
 station when she should arrive there. 
 
 It was evident at the first glance, on reachjng. 
 this station, that something unusual had happen- 
 ed there. Kate drew up at the little door 
 through which you came off the road on to the 
 platform, and one of the porters came up to her 
 with a respectful finger to his cap, and what she 
 instantly construed into a disrespectful grin on 
 his face. 
 
 " Is there any one here for the Grange, Hodg- 
 son ? " she asked. 
 
 "There's a lady here as says she's for the 
 Grange," the man replied; "but, bless you, — 
 beg pardon, mum, — she's got twelve boxes, and 
 a Utile dawg with a pink wrap on, and two cages 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 136 
 
 with white cats in 'em, and a maid with paint 
 enough on her cheeks to do the station-wall up 
 smart for a year," 
 
 Miss Galton, sitting behind in the legitimate- 
 for-feminine-occupation part of the vehicle, laugh- 
 ed hvsterioally. Hodgson had been a gardener 
 at the Grange in John Galton's bachelor days ; 
 but his horticultural labours there had come to 
 an untimely end in consequence of Mrs. John 
 having discovered, shortly after the commence- 
 ment of her reign, that the reason the best roses 
 and finest branches of grapes did not grace her 
 table was, that Hodgson drove a thriving trade 
 in them on hia own account. This discovery led 
 to Hodgson's dismissal — his abrupt, not to say 
 ignominious, dismissal ; and Hodgson, being but 
 human, never forgave the one by whom that 
 ignominy was brought about. It was pleasant to 
 mm> now to be insolent under the veil of igno- 
 rance. 
 
 " I will go and see," Kate said, getting out 
 of the waggonnette ; " at any rate, I shall like 
 to see the cats ; you won't get out, Sarah? " 
 
 "No." Sarah said she would not get out, and 
 then Kate walked through the little door on to 
 the platform alone. 
 
 Mrs. Galton did not say "Be still, my heart," 
 as .she- walked along with that organ thumping 
 vehemently ; nor did she cry " Oh ! my prophetic 
 soul, my aunt, ! " as all her fears were verified, 
 and the vision of Lady Glaskill in the flesh dawn- 
 ed upon her. 
 
 In the flesh ; no, scarcely that ; her withered 
 old bones were decked in nothing so congruous 
 as flesh. She really was terrible to behold ; in 
 her trailing silken garment, in hSr girlishly-cut 
 paletot, in her small turban hat bound with fur. 
 She was terrible to behold ; and Kate, her niece 
 and former disciple, felt her to be terrible. 
 
 Lady Glaskill was standing amidst her boxes 
 haranguing an audience composed of all the por- 
 ters and idle boys about the place, when Kate 
 entered. The dear old lady had one hand on a 
 cage, in which a bundle of something white was 
 crouching, and she was redeeming the time and 
 distinguishing herself by making these ignorant 
 natives acquainted with the manners and habits 
 of Persian cats. 
 
 " My dear child, my precious Kate ! " Lady 
 Glaskill cried effusively, ambling up to her niece 
 as actively as her weak tottering legs would carry 
 her. Then, before Kate could ward off the 
 demonstration, the lean arms wound themselves 
 round Mrs. John Galton's neck, and Mrs. John 
 Galton was identified at once and for ever in the 
 local mind with this terrible old woman. 
 
 " I could not credit that it was you, aunt ; 
 pray come away now," Kate said quietly, as 
 soon as she eotdd disentangle herself from her 
 relatMie's caresses ; then she added, " why didn't 
 you send up to me at once, instead *of staying 
 down amongst the people ? " 
 
 Lady Glaskill turned and waggled her head at 
 her late audience, and kissed her wizened hand 
 to them. 
 
 " The dear creatures," she said, " I told them 
 about my cats, and made myself at home with 
 them at once." 
 
 "Well, I wish you hadn't," Kate said a 
 little coldly, as her aunt executed a little skip 
 befor^passing through the door. 
 
 "Such freshness, such enthusiasm ! " Lady 
 
 Glaskill cried, when she had been twisted up 
 into the waggonnette opposite to Miss Sarah. 
 " Where are my boxes and my maid ?" she con- 
 tinued, suddenly, in quite a different tone of 
 voice. 
 
 " They shall be sent for ; are you ready ? " 
 
 Lady Glaskill was a very old woman. Indeed, 
 no man now living could remember the day 
 when she was young. She was a very ' old 
 woman, and she was liable to exhaustion, espe- 
 cially after such feats of oratory and skipping as 
 she hadjust performed on the platform. She 
 was worn out and weak and old ; and, now that 
 the small excitement of making the vulgar herd 
 believe her to be a gay, volatile, reckless, in- 
 spired young creature was over, she relapsed 
 straightway into old-womanhood, and. whimpered 
 for her maid. 
 
 " She must come with me, Kate," — she whined 
 — " Hall must come with me, or I'm lost." 
 
 Which was true in one sense. No one but 
 Hall knew exactly where to look for what there 
 was left of Lady Glaskill amidst the millinery 
 and paint. , Hall put up the superstructure on 
 the rotten old foundation, therefore Hall was 
 essential for the nightly razing of the ruin that 
 took place. 
 
 "Let her come, Kate," Miss Galton said, 
 sharply. It was the first time Miss Galton had 
 opened her lips since Lady Glaskill had been 
 hoisted up into the waggonnette,- and now she 
 opened them with a snap that made her lady- 
 ship start and shiver. " Let her come, Kate ; 
 and then she can keep her ladyship from tum- 
 hUng out of her seat when you turn the corners." 
 
 By the time Hall came to them. Lady Glas- 
 kill had recovered herself in a measure. She 
 had got her gold-rimmed eye-glass up, and 
 through it she was rapturously surveying a pud- 
 dle, and a couple of pigs wallowing in the same. 
 Presently she addressed Miss Galton. 
 
 " This is all very pretty and fresh ; those 
 creattjires in the foreground," — she smiled by 
 way of finishing her speech, and made liiitle 
 movements towards the pigs with her hand. 
 
 "What?" Miss Galton asked sharply. 
 
 " Those creatures in the foreground," ' Lad^ 
 Glaskill squeaked ; but before she could get out 
 the rest of her sentence and say how much she 
 wished she had pencil and paper, in order just 
 to dash djwrn a few of these sights as they 
 struck he^xrst, — ^before she could say this, or 
 Miss Galton could interrupt her by declaring 
 them to be "not creatures, but pigs," — Kate 
 was up on the box of the waggonnette bidding 
 them sit steady, as she.was about to start. 
 
 When they reached the Grange, Lady Glas- 
 kill requested that she might be left alone in her 
 own room with Hall for an hour; "then you 
 can come to me, my dear, and I'll tell you the 
 cause of this freak of mine," she said conde- 
 scendingly. To which arrangement Kate — who. 
 was sick totjie heart of her aunt's customs, if 
 not indeed of her aunt — assented. . : 
 
 Before the expiration of the hour. Lady Glas- 
 kill's boxes and cats and dog — this latter an 
 Italian greyhound, whose, constitution had been 
 seriously undermined in his youth — had all ar- 
 rived. The boxes were many, as has been seen, 
 and they were also heavy. Their number and 
 weight were ominous to the last degree, as was 
 Miss Galton's dark glance at them, when she at 
 
186 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 length went up stairs to remove the unbecoming 
 bonnet. 
 
 "Between these two, what a night I shall 
 hare ! " Kate thought to herself, as she stood 
 with her hands clasped before the fire ; " and I 
 had intended being so coz; and happy; oh 
 dear ! Aunt GlaskiU sits upon my chest like a 
 gnawing anxiety ; what can have brought her ? " 
 
 Soon after this the hour expired, and as Mrs. 
 Gallon went along to the interview she prayed 
 heartily that a freak might carry those boxes 
 and their owner away from her habitation with- 
 out delay. 
 
 Lady GlaskiU was seated on a low chair be- 
 fore a Psyche when her niece came into her room ; 
 a fire was burning brightly in the grate, and there 
 was an odour as of strong coffee and hot toast 
 in the apartment. These creature comforts had 
 done much to restore Lady GlaskiU. She was 
 no longer the rickety old woman ready to whim- 
 per and to whine of the waggonnette. • She was a 
 gorgeous being, strong in the strength that 
 emanates from Bond Street — bedight in those 
 special gems which render one beautiful for ever. 
 
 Lady GlaskiU was seated before the glass, and 
 this is what she saw. ~ A slim form with skirts 
 of apple-green moire antique, with fair shoulders 
 rising very much out of the bodice, with golden 
 hair rippUng down in masses over a white brow 
 and blooming cheeks ; a figure with airs of grace 
 and beauty, and, above all, youth that was pass- 
 ing pleasant to look upon. This was what Lady 
 GlaskiU saw. 
 
 But Kate saw something widely different. A 
 deorepid old woman dressed like a girl, with hard, 
 bony, unwomanly shoulders, displayed in a hard, 
 bold, imwomanly manner ; with the ghastly pal- 
 lor of her withered cheeks brought into hideous 
 reUef by the rose-tints from the rouge-pot, and 
 the golden sheen of the false glittering hair. 
 This was what Kate saw, and her vision was the 
 clearer of the two. 
 
 " I'm quite myself again now," Lady GlaskiU 
 said as Kate came on into the room. 
 
 " It's a pity you took all this trouble to dress 
 to-night, aunt ; I am alone, and I dined early," 
 Mrs. Galton said, sitting down on a chair by the 
 side of the dressing-table. Then she marked 
 for the first time that Lady GlaskiU seemed mucn 
 aged, much shaken, since their last meeting in 
 town, and her heart softened a little^owards her 
 unwelcome guest. ~ 
 
 " You may go now, HaU," Lady GlaskiU said 
 when HaU had clasped a broad bracelet round 
 one bony brown wrist ; and as Hail went out of 
 the room. Lady GlaskUl, by a skUful backward 
 movement, propeUed herseS out of the blaze of 
 the lights on the table and said, 
 
 " My dear Kate, I ha,ve been infamously treat- 
 ed, — infamously ; it has nearly kUled me." 
 
 "What has happened, aunt?" Do what she 
 would, Mrs. Galton could not succeed in infusing 
 the least warmth into her inquiry, or even the 
 least interest. 
 
 " Why, some men — some impertinent trades- 
 men," Lady GlaskiU commenced, shaking her 
 head vehemently, " sent me in bUls that I must 
 have paid over and over again, and as my funds 
 were low, having had heavy puUs upon them, I 
 naturally refused to pay them-, when what do 
 the insolent creatures do," Lady GlaskiU contin- 
 ued, "but threaten to seize my thmgs. How- 
 
 ever, Hall was invaluable : we managed to pack 
 them all up, and get them away to her sister's 
 (a most exceUent person, the widow of a dissent- 
 ing minister) in the night. In the morning I 
 sent round the key of the house to the landlord 
 with my compliments, got my few worldly goods 
 together, and came off to one who, well I know 
 — " Lady GlaskiU choked herself at this juncture, 
 and embraced her niece. 
 
 " But this is terrible," Mrs. Galton said, as soon 
 as surprise and Lady GlaskiU's lean arms would 
 allow her to speak. And, indeed, it was ter- 
 rible, — very terrible, — ^this possibiUty that Lady 
 GlaskiU, who had come to the Grange in her 
 distress, might elect to remain there in her dis- 
 tress. 
 
 " But this is terrible ! " 
 
 " It might have been worse," Lady GlaskUl 
 cried philosophicaUy. She was a merry-hearted 
 old sinner. She was quite ready to rest and be 
 thankful in this haven into which fortune's gales 
 had blown her. "It might have been that I 
 should have been left without a thing," Lady 
 GlaskiU proceeded animatedly ; " as it is, I have 
 left nothing behind me but the key of the house, 
 which, not being there any longer, I don't want. 
 It's all for the best, I believe ;. I remembered 
 how solitary you were, and I came down to yo.u," 
 
 " Thank you, aunt," Mrs. Galton repUed 
 dryly. 
 
 " Don't mention it, my dear. Who's that 
 woman in a poke bonnet and short petticoats? " 
 
 " My husband's sister." 
 
 " Ah I odd a woman at her time of life 
 shouldn't know how to dress herself. Well, my 
 dear, I like this room very much ; with this, 
 and the dressing-room and the room beyond, 
 HaU and I shall do very weU, and not incom- 
 mode you, I trust. How pleased your rough 
 diamond of a husband wiU be to see me, won't 
 he?" 
 
 " I don't know," Kate repUed vaguely. , She 
 was thinking " Should she ever be such an 0I4 
 woman as this one before her," and was shud- 
 dering to the bottom of her soul at the possi- 
 bility. Then, as Lady GlaskiU rose to her feet 
 and pushed the golden locks back from her 
 powdered brow with her trembUng fingers, 
 Kate vowed that never another grain of gold- 
 dust should defile her hair. As she looked, 
 Lady GlaskiU's head began to shake at its image 
 in the glass, for in fact her ladyship was slightly 
 palsied now; but the gaUant old worldling 
 laughed merrily and explained, 
 
 " That she always had been so fuU of life and 
 motion." . ' - , 
 
 It was not a pleasant evening that which Mrs. 
 Galton passed by her own fireside. It was her 
 earnest desire, above all things, now to keep the 
 peace ; and between the two women, her gUests, 
 she had rather a hard time of it. It was her 
 earnest desire to keep the peace now ; war, de- 
 clared and decided, might be inevitable; but 
 until it did break out, there should be no un- 
 seemly brawling within her husband's walls. 
 That at least she owed him, and that tribute 
 she would pay. As she glanced from one to 
 the other that night. Miss Sarah's austerity and 
 unpleasantness were less patent to her than 
 usual; but she felt a sick sinking within her 
 whenever her glance fell upon her aunt: for 
 that aged whited sepulchre was a very good 
 
THBO LEIGH. 
 
 U1 
 
 representative of the gang to which she (Kate) 
 had ardently desired to belong. 
 
 It cooled all such ardour now to look upon 
 Lady Glaskill. She was a terrible specimen of 
 that to which a worldly, weak, vain, incorrigibly 
 vain woman may come. She was an animate 
 bundle of falsity. There was nothing reverend 
 about her old age ; she was a pretentious old 
 stucco sham. Kate recoiled from her, — ^frora 
 her, and from that of which she was a type, — 
 as she sat and believed in herself over the fire. 
 
 Shall I tell of that which was uncemented 
 and put to bed at night ? Of the miserable old 
 palsied frame, surmounted by the shaking head 
 which was crowned by just a few stiff bristling 
 hairs 1 Shall I tell of the rounded proportions, 
 and of that which " formed the waist " coming 
 away ? Of the shedding of the golden tresses, 
 and of the pearly teeth? Shall I tell of the 
 snarls at the maid, of the snarls tempered by 
 servility, for -Hall was her "best friend," she 
 told herself? In asking I have told, however ; 
 so I will leave Lady Glaskill to her text, and 
 end my chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 THE CALDWELLS' DINNEK-PAETT. 
 
 Lady Glaskill did not get up to breakfast 
 on the following morning. It took some time 
 to put her together, she being a composite 
 structure, and Hall was averse to early rising. 
 Consequently the little bit that was real of 
 Lady Glaskill remained in bed till a late hour ; 
 and Kate was left to think calmly over what 
 she could do with it. 
 
 It was with a wonderful sense of relief that 
 Mrs. Gallon got out of the house, and went 
 along the road to meet her husband. Lady 
 Glaskill's leers, and Lady Glaskill's loose stories 
 (these latter were always given in French, being 
 absolutely untranslatable), and Lady Glaskill's 
 allusions,— all these had been very terrible to 
 Mrs. Gaiton the night before. In her own 
 thoughtless girlhood she had heard them often, 
 and thought nothing of them, or rather had 
 only accredited her aunt with a certain Viva- 
 cious daring of a pardonable nature for telling 
 them at all. Nor had they occurred to her as 
 offensive when she last met Lady Glaskill in 
 town ; for Lady Glaskill was only one of many 
 . ther.e, and passed comparatively unnoticed, in 
 the crowd. But here there was no crowd. 
 Lady Glaskill would be a prominent feature in 
 the social landscape. 
 
 Mrs. John Galton's cheeks burnt as she 
 watted along. She coulcj not forget that at one 
 tin^i^he bad thought and uttered fine things of 
 her Stant ; she could not forget that she had 
 hoped and even essayed to emulate her. Her 
 ladyship's saloons had been regarded by Kate 
 as desii?able dazzling halls of delight in which to 
 display ^erself ; and now the truth struck her 
 that the glitter and the brilliancy had been of a 
 Brummagem order. Lady Glaskill had always 
 avowed that she cared for nothing more so long 
 as the "best men congregated at her house." 
 Undoubtedly, however it might have been 
 about the men, the beat women never passed 
 her portals. Those who had done so had come 
 
 and gone like fleeting shadows, leaving no mark 
 upon others who met them casually. But Kate's 
 memory reproduced them as they had been, and 
 she felt that they had not been fitting in all re- 
 spects. And she shook her head sadly over the 
 impossibility of mentioning, any one of them 
 with pride and satisfaction. 
 
 She met her husband about the place and 
 time he had mentioned ; and such a feeling of 
 security, such a sense of safety, came over her 
 as she caught sight of his florid, open, honest 
 face, she almost sprang into the trap as he 
 pulled up to greet her, and her hand went out 
 eagerly and clasped the one of his that was en- 
 gaged with the reins. 
 
 "Take care you don't give him a chuck, 
 dear," he said, as the horse threw up his head. 
 
 "No, I won't," she replied, removing her 
 hand; "but I'm so glad to see you, I hardly 
 know how to express it ; I bave such u piece 
 of news for you." 
 
 Her tone was the tone of weariness and 
 annoyance. Lady Glaskill, and her conversation 
 and her boxes, weighed heavily on Kate's 
 mind. 
 
 " There's nothing the matter with the child? " 
 he asked eagerly, with a paling face and a gulp 
 of agitation. 
 • " No, she's quite well, it's " 
 
 " Is it that bay colt, then ? " 
 
 "No, John, no; everything is right at home, 
 dear ; but Lady Glaskill has come down, "Wh&t 
 are we to do ? " 
 
 " Come down, has she ? " 
 
 " Yes ; what are wo to do ? " 
 
 " Make her as comfortable as we can. What 
 has brought her ? " 
 
 Then Kate poured out the whole story, and 
 trimmed it with the tale of her own discomfi- 
 ture. 
 
 " I see her exactly as what she is, and I am 
 heartily ashamed of her," Mrs. Gal#n wound 
 up with. " She must havei altered immensely ; 
 she surely used not to be such a burlesque of 
 old age as she is now." 
 
 Then Mrs. Gaiton remembered some of the 
 speeches she had been wont to make, during 
 the years of her married life, relative to the 
 social power and social charm, and social success 
 of her aunt, Lady Glaskill. She remembered 
 how only last year she had declared that Lady 
 Glaskill's countenance in years to come would 
 be' a fine thing for little Katie. She remem- 
 bered, all these things now, and wondered 
 whether her husband remembered therii too, 
 and would tell her of them. 
 
 But John Gaiton was made of very different 
 stuff. It never came into his big, generous 
 mind to recall a foolish speech for the sake of 
 confusing and discomfiting the utterer of it: 
 more especially when, as in this case, the utterer 
 of the folly was very dear to him. He did re- 
 member those speeches, but he only felt that it 
 was a very happy thing that his wife had got 
 oyer the habit of thought which dictated them. 
 He never for an instant thought of raking them 
 up and reminding her of them to her present 
 abasement. Which course of conduct on his 
 part made her feel the full force of her folly far 
 more than any taunts or sneering allusions could 
 have done. It did something else also : it made 
 her heart throb in proud acknowledgment of 
 
1S8 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 the nobleness, the manliness, the great loving 
 trustfulness of her husband. 
 
 John Galton made no immediate answer to 
 that rei^ark of his wife's, that her aunt could 
 not formerly hare been such a " burlesque of 
 old age as she was now." At last he said, look- 
 ing at her very kindly : 
 
 , " You must remember her age, even if she 
 forgets it, Kate dear; don't let her see that 
 she's not welcome to you." 
 
 "I could bear it for myself, but she'll be 
 such a bore to you, John ; it's evidently her 
 present intention to remain with us till she is 
 tired of it ; and she does not tire in a hurry of 
 good quarters." 
 
 "You have stood being bored very often for 
 me and through me," he replied heartily, pull- 
 ing up at the door. " Come, let us make the 
 best of it," he continued, lifting her out of the 
 trap, and following her into the house ; " let us 
 make the best of it, and a fresh compact : when- 
 ever I feel bored I'll come to you for rest ; and 
 you'll do the same by me, won't you, Kate ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that I will," she said, in a low voice ; 
 and he felt in that moment that the heart of his 
 wife was entirely his own. 
 
 " AH right," he cried aloud ; " we'll bear 
 Lady Glaskill together very well, I have no 
 doubt. I have brought you home half a dozen 
 snipes and a brace of mallard, Kate." 
 
 " We will send the snipes up to the Caldwells 
 at once," she said, laughing ; " they'll accept, 
 them, perhaps, as a set-off against Lady Glas- 
 kill." 
 
 Then Katie came to them with a pitiful tale 
 of one of the Persian cats out on parole having 
 scratched the terrier puppy " on his little soft 
 nose ; " and so the time passed tiU luncheon was 
 ready. 
 
 Lady Glaskill was rebuilt and ready for 
 luncheon when Kate at last went into her room 
 to see afilfer her. She was at her usual shrine, 
 surveying herself with a ghastly satisfaction, 
 when Kate entered the room^ but the hour be- 
 ing early there were np bare shoulders. 
 
 " My husband is come home ; will you come 
 down to luncheon, aunt ? " Kate commenced. 
 
 Lady Glaskill rose up and patted Kate on the 
 cheek with a weird finger. 
 
 " You have been using bad powder, child ; 
 you have made your skin quite coarse," she 
 said, as Kate drew her face quickly away from 
 the caress J " I have some that's excellent, 'im- 
 perceptible efflorescence ; ' I will give you a 
 Uttle." 
 
 " I shall never use another grain, thank you," 
 Kate replied tartly. Innocent powder began to 
 assume a hideous aspect in her eyes, now that 
 she saw it lying in furrows on Lady Glaskill's 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Eighty tighty ! " Lady Glaskill cried, caus- 
 ing her garments to sweep and surge about her 
 in a way that partially concealed her hobbUng 
 gait. " Eighty tighty ! how virtuous we're be- 
 come, to be sure." 
 
 John Galton was waiting for them at the bot- 
 tom of the stairs. 
 
 "How dy'e do? Take my arm. Lady Glas- 
 kill, you'll get along quicker," he said kindly to 
 his guest, giving his wife's hand a squeeze as she 
 passed him. On which invitation Lady Glas- 
 kill put her hand on his arm with a little pat, and 
 
 tried to trip by his side, and nearly tumbled in 
 the attempt. 
 
 "And what are we going to do to-night?" 
 Lady Glaskill asked, when she had made a very 
 good luncheon, and had had all her pets brought 
 in in procession and fed before her. " What are 
 we going to do to-night ? Is that very strange 
 person who was here in a poke bonnet yesterday 
 coming again ? " 
 
 "We are going out to dinner to-day," Kate 
 replied hurriedly. " I am sorry it should have 
 happened so, but you must excuse us ; dinner- 
 parties in the country are made up a long time 
 beforehand, you know." 
 
 " Oh ! my dear, don't apologise," Lady Glas- 
 kill replied afifably, '*'I shall be enchanted to 
 join your rustic revels." 
 
 " It's not a rustic revel," Kate replied, in a 
 vexed tone, while' John Galton suffered from 
 suppressed laughter just out of range of Lady 
 Glaskill's vision ; " it's rather a heavy affair, — a 
 state dinner at a clergyman's house. You 
 wouldn't care to go to it." 
 
 Lady Glaskill nodded her head with a half- 
 hilarious, half-involuntary motion : 
 
 " My dear, the manners of such people will 
 amuse me much." 
 
 A cold horror crept over Kate. She pictured 
 her aunt feeling and betraying " amusement " at 
 the "manners " of the best that the neighbour- 
 hood held. They were sure to be such ortho- 
 dox, well-bred, coldly correct, unassailable-in- 
 every-way people, who would assemble at the 
 Caldwells'. The Caldwells themselves were all 
 these things. They were all " country people," 
 or, at least, they were all connected with coun- 
 try-people ; and when they went to London, 
 right people — people who had local habitations 
 and names. Whereas the majority of the fre- 
 quenters of Lady Glaskill's saloons bad had nei- 
 ther worth mentioning congregated about them. 
 The Caldwell dinner might be dull; it was al- 
 most sure to be so, in fact ; but it would be a 
 thing to be mentioned with safety ; and Kate 
 was beginning to yearn toward all things in the 
 naming of which there was no danger. 
 
 " Ypu surely will like to stay at home and rest • 
 to-night, aunt," Kate pleaded. 
 
 " My dear ! , at my age ! Time enough to talk 
 of resting after a railway journey when I'm 
 many years older." 
 
 " Then don't you think it would be pleasanter 
 to be introduced to all these people at our house 
 fir^f ? We'll have a dinner directly ; won't we, 
 John?" 
 
 But Lady Glaskill would not hear of this plan. 
 She would go with them "to their nice quiet 
 party," she said, wafting out of the room airily on 
 Eall's arm ; and so Kate was fain to^give up. the 
 contest • g] 
 
 "I'd do anything almost to prevent heifgoing 
 up with us to-night, John," Mrs. Galton said in 
 a vexed tone as soon as they were alone. 
 
 " Never mind, she's a woman of the world, 
 and is used to swells," he replied. f 
 
 " But not to respectable swells, that's a fact." 
 
 " She has always been in good society." 
 
 " All surface society, and she has tossed about 
 on the top of it ; the people she knew in Lon- 
 don came in and went out, andmade no more ac- 
 count of her than they did of her door-mat. I 
 see it all now. And when the London season is 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 189 
 
 oyer, she hunts about from one spa or one 
 watering place to another, and just circulates 
 amongst the riff-raff. However, there is nothing 
 for it." 
 
 Kate was right in this, at least. There was 
 nothing for it ; for Lady Glaskill had a desire to 
 extend her experience, and glean some notion 
 of what good, solid, best-class country society 
 was. Her view was right : she never had been 
 in it. It would be as much a strange land to 
 her as the dubious soil she had stood upon all 
 her life would have been to the Caldwells and 
 others of that ilk. 
 
 Hall had a busy afternoon; but by seven 
 o'clock, the hour at which they were to start 
 from the Grange, Lady Glaskill was completed. 
 The pink silk skirt puffed with tulle looked very . 
 young, certainly ; but that — in consequence of 
 the large opera cloak Lady Glaskill had over 
 her shoulders, and the wide hood enveloping 
 her head — ^was the worst Kate saw till they 
 reached the Caldwells'. 
 
 But when they reached the rectory, and Mrs. 
 Caldwell's maid came forward to rid them of 
 their wraps. Lady Glaskill stood confessed be- 
 fore her niece a terror and a shsme. 
 
 Such old women are seen sometimes in some 
 London drawing-room^— old women with lem- 
 on-coloured bare necks, and roses on their wizen- 
 ed brows ; but they pass away from the mind 
 as does some liideously vivid dream : it shocks 
 us, but it is gone. They sit mumbling to them- 
 selves or to their duplicates in corners, or they 
 shake their fans bewitchingly at men young 
 enough to be their grandsons; and they go 
 away and are not missed. But in the country 
 such a spectacle is rare, and is much talked 
 about and commented on in the absence of bet- 
 ter conversational matter. 
 
 LSdy Glaskill's dress left off too far from her 
 shoulders, and her blooming face and golden 
 hair commanded immediate attention to her, 
 and all that concerned her, the instant she en- 
 tered. There were several stately ladies pres- 
 ent — ^ladies in black velvet, in ruby velvet, and 
 decorous lace that mounted to their chins ; lace 
 of price, lace from lace looms, lace to which the 
 heart of Mrs. Bury PaUisser — matchless historian 
 of the fabric ! — would have seriously inclined. 
 And over and upon their velvets and laces, 
 diamonds flashed — diamonds that might not 
 have been worth a prince's ransom (unless he 
 were a very small prince), but that were of 
 worth nevertheless. Yet the instant the shaking 
 figure that Hall had erected in the course of 
 the afternoon came into the room, the velvets 
 and laces and diamonds of price were absolutely 
 overlooked, and the common gaze was concen- 
 trift^on Lady Glaskill. 1 
 
 TlOTgs were always done well at the Cald- 
 wells'. ,_ There was no' need on the occasion of 
 extra festivity in their house to seek extra- 
 neous assistance. There was no halting on the 
 part of t%e dinner between the kitchen and the 
 dining-room. All things were done decently 
 and in ordjgr there, and punfetuality was as well 
 regarded ^ any of the other virtues. The Cald- 
 well arrangements were always well conceived 
 and well carried out ; and if the admirable ro- 
 tation in which one wine succeeded another at 
 his table, was owing to the Kev. Eobert super- 
 vising the bottles pretty sharply, and speeding 
 
 a happy hour in his cellar before the guests 
 came, who was the wiser for it? Or, if any one 
 was the wiser, did that detract from the merit 
 of the wines ? Things were always well done at 
 the Caldwells'. Whatever the effort there was 
 never the least appearance of it, or the smallest 
 possible flaw in the apparently perfect arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 But to-day these arrangements received a 
 shook. Lady Glaskill's appearance was as the 
 bursting of a bombshell among them. When 
 Kate found that her aunt's resolve was unalter- 
 able, she had sent up to the rectory to announce 
 the unexpected advent, and request permission 
 to bring it? Of course this permission was 
 granted. But equally of course (id the granters 
 quake to their foundation when the result of 
 that permission ambled into the room. 
 
 Her appearance was as the bursting of a 
 bombshell among them ; but, for all that, she 
 was the widow of a baronet, and entitled 
 to receive consideration as such. There were 
 present two Honourable Mrs. Somethings, but 
 they were young though honourable matrons ; 
 and Lady Glaskill was the widow of a baronet 
 and very aged, despite that rich bloom and 
 those golden tresses. Mr. Caldwell was placed 
 on the horns of a dilemma; but he was a 
 gentleman ; so, though his soul revolted when 
 those horns pulled him into action, he offered 
 his arm to the rickety skeleton in pink silk. 
 
 Lady Glaskill got on very well, that is to say, 
 very quietly, during dinner; so quietly that 
 Kate was beginning to hope that, for this eve- 
 ning at least, her aunt was going to evade all 
 opportunities of distinguishing herself. Bounded, 
 as Lady Glaskil was, on the one side by her host, 
 and on the other by a young man who oiEciated 
 as Mr. Caldwell's curate, she was kept in plaQe'<i 
 — kept down in a measure. Mr. Caldwell took 
 care to honour himself by honouring all who sat 
 at his table. But he honoured them aS'ter their 
 kind. So now, when he had seen that Lady 
 Glaskill's material wants were well supplied, he 
 left the charge of her mental refection to his 
 curate. 
 
 On the whole, this^ curate catered for her 
 very well and very willingly. He talked London 
 to ■ the old worldling, and the old worldling, 
 debating on the instant that he knew little or 
 nothing practically of that of which he talked, 
 delighted in him forthwith to an amazing extent. 
 He, too, in common with the rest of mankind, 
 had his hopes and ambitions. There hovered 
 before his mental vision *a velvet-cushioned 
 shrine, yclept "pulpit" in "the vulgar tongue, of 
 which he should be the .presiding deity. And 
 before this shrine ladies, chiefly of the old and 
 wealthy class, should congregate largely; and 
 he should show them safe and pleasant paths to 
 Paradise, and they should hang upon his words, 
 and make him handsome presents, not of the 
 worsted-work slippfers and cheap flower-basket 
 order, but presents of a rich, endearing, sub- 
 stantial, expensive nature, worthy of the ac- 
 ceptance of a son of the Church. This was his 
 vision of the future, when he should have 
 shaken off the trammels that were upon him 
 here as Mr. Caldwell's curate. This was his 
 vision of the future, and Lady Glaskill was like 
 a Uttle bit of it let into the present for his eu- 
 couragement^-for; she was evidently wicked 
 
140 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 enough and worldly enough to fire any man of 
 his stamp with the desire to save her soul — and 
 he took the wealth for granted, unwisely. 
 
 He was a young man, and an earnest one. 
 Ready for any amount of work, no matt^ir how 
 uncongenial, provided it would put him up 
 another round of so on the ladder he was 
 mounting. Young, and earnest, and fair, with 
 a pale early crop of whiskers, — six hairs to 
 either cheek — and a pensive nose. But he 
 went to his work — the labour his rector had 
 apportioned to him on this occasion — like a 
 man. Lady Glaskill was not at all the type of 
 venerable dame he had honoured and revered 
 in theory, but he deemed her a very fair speci- 
 men of that which he might be called upon (did 
 things go well with him) to regenerate in the 
 future. Therefore he took to hip task like a 
 man, and cracked bon-bons and ecclesiastical 
 jokes with her in the most gallant manner, and 
 tried not to blush when she told him a purely 
 Parisian story in an accent that scarcely matched 
 it — a story with plenty of " point " to it, un- 
 doubtedly with a point so sharp indeed that one 
 possessed of the smallest amount of decent 
 feeling could not fail to be wounded by it. But 
 she told this story of hers in the lowest voice 
 she found herself capable of sustaining for any 
 length of time, therefore Kate was unconscious 
 of it, and happy in that unconsciousness. 
 
 (But later, when the ladies were back in the 
 drawing-room alone, Kate was not so happy. 
 The strings of Lady Glaskill's tongue had been 
 untied by sundry goblets full of divers kinds of 
 sparkling wine, and Lady Glaskill's tongue was 
 an unruly member. She spoke freely of one or 
 two things about which it would have been but 
 prudent to have kept silence. She spoke freely, 
 very freely, and the heart of Kate, her' niece, 
 went low as she listened and looked round on the 
 audience of stately ladies in gloom and rich lace. 
 Lady Glaskill had deposited her draperies and 
 what there was of herself on a couch by the Ere, 
 and the heat was pleasant to her — and so was 
 the glimpse of herself which she caught in a mir- 
 ror. Vain as her ladyship was, she had not that 
 trick of sensitiveness which leads its possessor to 
 take offence or see neglect too quickly, so now 
 she did not perceive that the others held aloof 
 from her, and that even Mrs. Caldwell abstained 
 from her as much as it beseemed a. hostess to ab- 
 stain. 
 
 Kate, however, saw it all; and Kate winced 
 under it, and hardly knew whom to blame in her 
 amnoyance. Lady Glaskill might be objeclaon- 
 able, but all the same Lady Glaskill was her aunt ; 
 therefore Mrs. Galton resolved that some of these 
 stately ladies should " pay," in vulgar parlance, 
 for this holding aloof in the future. 
 
 It was but passive misery that Mrs. Galton en- 
 dured while the ladles were alone, but as soon as 
 the men struggled in, in that sheepfaced manner 
 in which men do struggle into a drawing-room 
 after having stayed as long as possible over their 
 wine, passive misery went by,. and active anguish 
 took its place. Lady Glaskill saw an opportu- 
 nity for making a sensation, and Lady GlaskiU 
 seized it. 
 
 She frisked about from her recumbent position 
 on the couch, and sat up in one comer of it,- pat- 
 ting the vacant space by her side with her hand, 
 and smiling an alluring smile to the one who 
 
 had catered for her mentally at dinner, in indicar 
 tion of her desire that he should occupy the saia 
 vacant space. Now Mrs. Caldwell's drawing- 
 room was not strewn with couches. The one on 
 which Lady Glaskill had deposited herself was 
 the softest of the two that graced the apartment. 
 The other was beautiful to behold, but it had a 
 rigid back, and was not affected a second time by 
 any one. Therefore when Glaskill patted the 
 couch and looked alluringly at the curate, Mrs. 
 Caldwell opened her eyes at him, and coaxed her 
 brows to express a hope that he was not going to 
 be BO very presumptuous. 
 
 But he was young and brave — or shall he he 
 termed rash, rather ? He thought of the prospec- 
 tive metropolitan congregation, and took Lady 
 Glaskill as the type of it, in a way that rendered 
 him careless as to what the former queen of his 
 soul, Mrs. Caldwell (whose sway was sometimes 
 a little severe over those helpless ones, her hus- 
 band's curates), thought of his occupying her 
 most comfortable couch. He suffered himself to 
 be lured on to the extreme edge of it by the aged 
 charmer whose state seemed to promise such an 
 extensive field for exploits in his warfare with 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil. And as soon 
 as Lady Glaskill saw that incUnation had con- 
 quered duty in him, she became excited, and con- 
 sequently, her niece perceived, dangerous. 
 
 " Don't let us be late to-night, John," Kate 
 whispered to her husband. " The flood-gates of 
 Aunt Glaskill's speech are loosed." 
 
 " I will go when you hke,"^he replied, as the 
 evening was seeming all its length to him, though 
 he was too broadly good-natured to admit even to 
 himself that it was dull, — " I will go when you 
 like ; but Lady Glaskill seems aU right." 
 
 " I don't know about that ; She was wanting 
 that man to get up a game of three-card loo 
 just now ; that won't do here, I'm very sure." 
 
 At this juncture Lady Glaskill's voice rose 
 shrilly above others in the room, and fell dis- 
 tinctly on the ears of both husband and wife. 
 
 " We were all as pleasantly occupied as pos- 
 sible in saying and hearing all the naughty 
 things that were said of each other and the rest 
 of the world, when the husband, a man from the 
 country, came in; and anything more like a 
 fool than he looked when he sat down at his 
 own table and none of his wife's guests knew 
 him, I never saw." Her ladyship laughed 
 hysterically here, and her chief auditor — hei, 
 fellow-occupant of the couch-^shuffled uneasily 
 on the latter, and against his conscience said — ' 
 " It must have been very funny." ' 
 
 "The -woman-^I forget her name, but she 
 was a dear friend of mine," Lady Glaskill pro- 
 ceeded, '^ had run tremendously in debt for new 
 furniture, or else some man had given it to her, 
 I forget which — but there, it's of no conse- 
 quence," she added abru^ly. Her memory was 
 very apt to play, her tricks^— to utterly forsake 
 her at some moments and flash back half-truth 
 upon her at others. A something eaine across 
 her now and told her that it would liave been 
 wiser far on her part to have refr^ned from 
 telling the capital story of the husband who had 
 arrived suddenly and found his wife in the midst 
 of: revelry' of which he knew nothing, and sur- 
 rounded by friends who knew nothing of bim. 
 
 John Galton had thrown his head up and 
 listened, not eagerly, but with a certain scorn- 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 141 
 
 ful attention, when her ladyship's tones first fell 
 upon his ear. He knew well what inci(Jent she 
 was narrating to these people, down among 
 whom he was a great man, and his wife was 
 above suspicion. He knew what incident she 
 was narrating; it had been painful enough to 
 him, God knows, for the slightest allusion to it 
 to recall it to his mind. But well as he re- 
 membered it, and the bitter smarting that, for 
 all his generous trust in Kate, it had caused him, 
 there was no anger in the look he turned upon 
 his wife presently. She, poor sinner, was almost 
 visibly trembling in an agony of dread as to 
 what Lady Glaskill might say next. Do not 
 make a mistake, and deem Kate Gallon a more 
 erring woman than she has been openly shown 
 to be in these pages. She had no dread, no 
 carking fear of anything fresh coming to her 
 husband's knowledge. But she did, by reason 
 of her recently awakened love for him, shrink 
 in her soul at the idea of Lady Glaskill making 
 it patent to these people with whom he stood so 
 high, that John Galtou had been the husband 
 "who was kept in the dark and slighted by his 
 wife's friends. That was her sole dread; but it 
 was bitter enough and heavy enough to have 
 expiated worse sins than hers had been. Lady 
 Glaskill's allusions aroused fears in Kate's breast 
 that had long slumbered, or rather that had 
 never been properly awakened in it before. 
 That furniture ! It was rare and costly, that she 
 knew — ^rare and costly, and very beautiful. But 
 it was unpaid for up to the present date, which 
 was a slight drawback to the pleasure of pos- 
 sessing property which had been warehoused 
 ever since she left London. 
 
 Mrs. Galton sat and ' trembled. Six months 
 ago she would have cared nothing for all this. 
 She would have told John Galton that the furni- 
 ture had been ordered certainly, and never paid 
 for; that it had unquestionably not been a ne- 
 cessity. Still, that it had seemed good to her to 
 have it, and he was always so indulgent that she 
 felt sure, &c., &c. In fact, she would have put 
 forth all her powers and have humbugged him 
 out of his forgiveness and his money. This she 
 would have done unscrupulously six months agoj 
 but things were altered now. She had lately 
 come to have a far warmer regard for her 
 husband, consequently she had also a far more 
 just appreciation of his good opinion. It pained 
 her, it was grievous to her now, to tbink that he 
 might with justice look upon her as a woman 
 who had been careless, reckless, and extrava- 
 gant, for the sake of making a show and a sen- 
 sation in society, from which she would willingly 
 have excluded him ; society which was not abso- 
 lutely above suspicion. The thought that he 
 might come to estimate her thus was grievous 
 toherJ\ She little knew that John Galton would 
 have canted himself a happy man just then, 
 could he'liave felt sure that one suggestion Lady 
 Glaskill had thrown out was entirely without 
 foundation; and that his wife had in truth only 
 ran him in debt to an upholsterer. He had never 
 refused to give her money during the whole of 
 her weddedi career ; more than this, he had 
 never inquired into her expenditure of it. He 
 remembered and feared that it had been no 
 dread of a remonstrance which had prevented 
 her sending in the bills to him ; and she remem- 
 bered it also, and took shame to herself for that 
 
 brief fling of extravagancer— that short term of 
 utter carelessness — that thoughtless, unnecessary 
 strain which would be felt eventually through 
 her on that generous spirit. " They would do 
 for the Grange, and make the old place sweet," 
 she said to herself; " only it's full already, and 
 new things are not wanted. Oh dear I I wish I 
 had screwed and paid for them out of my house- 
 keeping and pin-money." She little knew how 
 happy John Galton would count himself, in that 
 they were to be paid for still ; but she did know 
 herself to be the sort of woman who never can 
 screw a surplus penny out of her pin-money. 
 Therefore, when the Caldwell conviviality came 
 to an end, and Mr. Shalders (the aspiring curate) 
 had aided in hoisting Lady Glaskill into the 
 carriage, Kate sat in absolute, miserable, anx- 
 ious silence, till they reached the Grange. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 AN EARNEST SHEPHERD. 
 
 That night, long before Hall had cracked 
 away the shell and put the withered old kernel 
 to bed, John Galton and his wife had come to 
 an understanding. 
 
 Kate did not lack courage. With all her 
 frivolity, all her vanity, all her natural longings 
 for excitement, all her weaknesses, she was no 
 coward. True she would often evade a danger, 
 wriggle out of the way of an unpleasantness ; 
 but it was from no fear of the danger or un- 
 pleasantness ; it was solely to exercise her skill 
 that she did it. Or rather that she had done it ; 
 for now she was more desirous of bearing all the 
 UIs that might Tbe consequent on her own acts, 
 of bearing them entirely by herself — she was, in 
 fact, a better woman than when I first intro- 
 duced her into these pages. 
 
 Her reformation had been wrought by no 
 very extraordinary means, nor perhaps, broadly 
 speaking, was it a very wonderful reformation. 
 She had never been a wrong-doer of a very 
 marked order. Nor will she probably ever be a 
 well-doer of a very marked order. To the end 
 of her life she will most likely be addicted to 
 excitements that do not lie legitimately in those 
 paths of life which she is destined to pursue. 
 To the end of her life she will be afflicted with 
 a desire for admiration which is not always hers 
 to command. She will never be a perfect wom- 
 an, nor a specimen matron, but she will lead a 
 guileless hfe enough, for every particle of good 
 within her her husband has vitalized so success- 
 fully that it will only die when she herself 
 does. 
 
 She came up to the encounter bravely and 
 honestly enough that night after returning from 
 the Caldwells'. The encounter promised to be 
 a severe one, she thought ; for John had scarce- 
 ly spoken at all since Lady Glaskill had thrown 
 the glove down and forced Kate to defend 
 it. The encounter promised to be a severe one-; 
 there would be a sharp tussle, she knew, with 
 her own pride ; and she feared even a sharper 
 one with her husband's just wrath. 
 
 She was resolved upon one thing — to make 
 no little tricks of motherhood or domesticity 
 her allies in this battle which her own errors of 
 the past forced her to fight. She would not 
 
142 
 
 THEO LEIGa 
 
 take her husband to.the bedside of their sleep- 
 ing child, and there make her confession and 
 win his forgiveness. The trick was one that she 
 would have tried a short time since, but she 
 sware before God this nigtt, that henceforth 
 there should be no shadow'of turning, no tinge 
 of acting in her dealings with this honest, loyal 
 man who had married her. " It shall be all fair 
 and above board," she said to herself, and she 
 meant it. 
 
 She ran up stairs before him and went into his 
 dressing-room, and stood there leaning against 
 the chimney-board till he came into the room. 
 He had been hoping so earnestly, praying so 
 fervently, that she would speak to him, and tell 
 him whatever there might be to be told without 
 his asking her, that the tears came into his eyes 
 when he saw her there, evidently prepared to 
 speak. 
 
 " John," she ■ be'gain, directly he came up to 
 her, "you knew — I saw that you knew it — that 
 Lady Glaskill meant you and me ? " 
 
 "Yes, I knew it," he said. 
 
 " I was going to tell you that I had forgotten 
 to speak to you about tha,t furniture, but I will 
 tell no lies on the subject ; I have not forgotten 
 it. I've avoided it." 
 
 _" Why have you avoided it? " He asked this 
 with a falter in his voice ; he saw that she was 
 straining to speak the truth, let the truth be as 
 hard as it might be to speak, and h^ sickened 
 at the thought of that which he might have to 
 hear. 
 
 " Why have you avoided it ? " 
 
 " Ah ! why, indeed ; you may well ask me, 
 generous, lavish as you are with your money to 
 me. I may well be ashamed of having hesitated 
 to tell you I wanted more ; I gratified my 
 whim without counting the cost; can you for- 
 give me ? " 
 
 She put her hand out to him as she spoke, 
 and the dew came upon his brow. He could 
 not ask her " Had these things been given her ? " 
 but he very much feared it. 
 
 " What's the cost ? " he asked, in a thick voice. 
 
 " I don't know ; " then a blush came upon her 
 cheek as she repeated " I don't know — I don't 
 know, really ; I'm afraid that I've run dreadfully 
 in debt, John ; but the truth is I don't know 
 how much, for I tore up the bills when they 
 sent them in without looking at them ; the sight 
 of the sum that would have to be paid would 
 have bored me, so I tore them up." 
 
 He saw that she was speaking the truth, and 
 nothing but it ; and it was such an immense re- 
 lief to him. 
 
 "Thank God! " he began. "I mean — then 
 why shouldn't I say what I do mean ? " he con- 
 tinued, taking his wife round the waist and 
 drawing her up close to him. " Never mind the 
 debt, you foolish girl." (" If I win that, there 
 would be more excuse for her," she thought.) 
 " What a brute I must have shown myself, that 
 you dared not tell me before ! " 
 
 " Then you are not angry ? " she asked, with 
 a great sob of relief. 
 
 " TSo ; and you in turn teU me that in future 
 you'll take me into your confidence in prefer- 
 ence to Lady GlaskilL" 
 
 And BO they settled it. 
 
 After this the weeks rolled on, winter and 
 spring passed away, and summer was over the 
 
 land, and still Lady Glaskill made no ^gn of 
 moving. She had established herself in the best 
 suite of rooms at the Grange, and she had caused 
 it to be distinctly understood that the one-horse 
 brougham, which hitherto had been only used 
 for night-work, should be held sacred to her sole 
 and whole use. There had been more than one 
 passage of arms between Lady Glaskill and Miss 
 Sarah. Miss Sarah had reproved her sister-in- 
 law's aunt for being a whited sepulchre, " and 
 other offensive things," Lady Glaskill said, in the 
 course of her complaint to Kate ; and Lady 
 Glaskill had wept and gnashed her last new set 
 of teeth at Miss Sarah, and been generally, un- 
 availing in her wrath. But, despite the weeping 
 and gnashing of teeth, she had held her ground 
 at the Grange, and so even Hiss Sarah was made 
 to feel that her attacks had been futile. 
 
 But after her last round with Miss Sarah, Lady 
 Glaskill refused to join the family circle promis- 
 cuously. " I will come down when I'm protected 
 by society, but when you're alone I'm liable to 
 that woman in a poke-bonnet, and she shatters 
 me," Lady Glaskill said to her niece. So it came 
 to pass that Lady GlaskiU spent much of her 
 time in her own sitting-room, in the ante-room 
 to which her prodigious chests were piled one 
 on top of the other; and here Mr. Shalders 
 called upon her often, and brought her the best 
 of tracts. 
 
 " If Aunt Glaskill were younger and richer, 
 and Mr. Shalders older and poorer, I should 
 really think he was making up to her, John," 
 Kate would say sometimes ; " as it is, I can only 
 think that he is, as Mr. Caldwell says, ' wonder- 
 fully zealous.' " 
 
 " What is he supposed to be doing ? " John 
 Galton asked, laughing. 
 
 " Bringing Lady Glaskill to see the error of 
 her ways," Kate replied. 
 
 "Well, rather he than me, that's all I have to 
 say about it," John Galton replied, carelessly. 
 It struck him as rather pitiable, but nothing 
 more, that Mr. Shalders should have nothing bet- 
 ter to do on so many days of the week than to 
 sit in a stifling room and talk to a stupid old 
 woman. 
 
 " I have been so extremely fortunate, as I have 
 secured — and secured, I may say, for a compar- 
 atively small stipend — the services of one of the 
 most earnest men in the church," Mr. Caldwell 
 remarked one day, when Mr. Galton made some 
 allusion to Mr. Shalders's devotion to the very 
 unpromising in appearance cause of Lady Glas- 
 kill's salvation. " He is indefatigable — ^not only 
 on behalf of your aunt, Mrs. Galton — " (and 
 here Mr. Caldwell looked as though he believed 
 it quite possible that Lady Glaskill should tgJie 
 all the time of the most earnest and bew of 
 men) — " he is indefatigable, not only oaoehalf 
 of your aupt, Mrs. Galton, but on behalf'of many 
 another lost sinner amongst our paupA popula- 
 tion." 
 
 "Very gpod of him," Kate replied; "but, if 
 it's just the same to you, Mr. Caldwell, I would 
 rather that, before me, at least, my poor old 
 aunt should not be included in thef category of 
 lost sinners. She has her good points. I have 
 known her to do many a generous deed; and 
 though she hasn't exactly blushed to find it fame, 
 she has not blazoned it herself." 
 
 " We will hope the best for her. Shalders is 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 148 
 
 most indefatigable in his endeavours to bring 
 her to a right frame of mind — a frame of mind 
 befitting her age," Mr. Caldwell replied, sol- 
 emnly, and Kate restrained her inclination to 
 say, "Oh, you righteous in your own conceit," 
 and only uttered aloud her hopes that Mr.Shal- 
 ders' disinterested efforts might meet with their 
 due reward. 
 
 Doubtless Mr. Shalders was earnest, indefati- 
 gable, disinterested ; on the face of it he was 
 unceasing. Through the winter and spring 
 months the Grange avenue gates opened to and 
 closed behind him dailyi Lady Glaskill called 
 him a " good young man — a dear, good young 
 man," and declared him to be her sole comfort. 
 He read to her long windy extracts from long 
 windy discourses, in which a few originally good 
 ideas were smothered beneath superfluous words. 
 He talked to her over her five o'clock tea before 
 dinner, in a way that made her feel that it was 
 just as easy and pleasant to be pious when you 
 were in the country, and there were no ctird 
 parties going, as it was to be wicked and 
 worldly. Above all, he listened to her ; listen- 
 ed with keen interest, and laughed at her old 
 stories, and seemed to like the flavour she im- 
 parted to them. He " was a very clever man," 
 Lady GlaskiU told her niece, " and if he were 
 ever given his chance, he would be a shining 
 light," she added. And Kate said, "Oh! would 
 he ? " and did not care much about it. 
 
 The tendrils of Lady Glaskill's tough old 
 heart went out and wound themselves around 
 him. He was the sort of man to win his way 
 eventually with worn-out women, for he had a 
 subservient manner at command, which they 
 mistook for reverentialness, and a certain vi- 
 vacity, a way: of saying things in a cheerful 
 strain, as if (the Lord willing) he too could joke 
 within bounds, which they mistook for wit. He 
 could bow his head and press his lips on the 
 fattest or the most withered hand Without the 
 slightest sign of nausea. He practised this 
 legitimate mark of affection on Lady Glaskill, 
 and Lady Glaskill looked upon it as a very 
 proper and becoming outlet and escape-valve 
 for those holy enthusiasms of his which he as- 
 sured her he felt in the society of the chosen. 
 It was pleasant to her to feel that he believed 
 her to be a chosen vessel ; pleasant also to be the 
 recipient of the osculatory sign of his belief. 
 
 He wrote notes for her ladyship, and got her 
 to go to church on sacrament Sundays, by in- 
 ducing Mr. Caldwell to drop the sermon on 
 those occasions. He ran errands for her all 
 over the Grange, rendering himself like unto a 
 tame dog in her service. He told Mrs. Gallon, 
 with touching fervour, that he was " but an in- 
 strwnent," and led her to believe that her aunt 
 was^oming back to the fold from which she 
 had %ayed at some very remote period at a 
 hand cmiter. " I am only glad that her eccen- 
 tricities Jiave taken that form," Mrs. Galton said, 
 in reply! ^^^ t° "^^^ husband she added, " it's 
 a harmless way of passing her time — which is 
 more than can be said of any of her previous 
 oocupationg, I fancy." 
 
 So the Snontha passion uneventfully, and 
 summer came again, aM John Galton asked 
 Frank Burgoyne down to stay at the Grange, as 
 has been told. " If he comes, I shall ask Theo 
 Leigh down too," Kate said to her husband. 
 
 while it was still uncertain whether Prank would 
 come or not ; to which John Galton, who knew 
 that his wife could not have been blind to 
 •Frank's hopeless passion for her, /feplied, "It 
 would be better, perhaps." 
 
 But before anything wbs finally decided upon. 
 Lady Glaskill declared that sh6 must go up to 
 town to " see about her dividends ; " and when 
 John Galton offered to save her all trouble, she 
 snapped out an abrupt refusal. It happened, 
 fortunately, that when Lady Glaskill's intention 
 was made manifest, Mr. Shalders found that 
 business which needed his presence in London 
 would call him thither about the same time as 
 her ladyship.' 
 
 " So, if you could travel up together, and see 
 after aunt a little, I should he infinitely obliged 
 to you," Kate said to him; and he promised 
 that he would go up with and see after Lady 
 Glaskill ; in fact, as Hall observed^ " he was 
 quite conformable to the plan." 
 
 Fortunately for Mr. Shalders, who accom- 
 panied her. Lady Glaskill did not put him to 
 the test by wearing her velvet cap with the fur 
 border. It was warm weather, so she spared 
 his feelings, and abstained from the cap. But 
 she wore a sweet simple bonnet, that would 
 have been juvenile on a head that had seen but 
 eighteen summers — a girlish, airy nothing, tied 
 under her chin with tulle. Mr. Shalders bore 
 the bonnet like a man, however. The last that 
 was seen of him from the Haversham platform 
 was the curve of his reverend back as he leant 
 across and essayed to adjust the unadjustable 
 railway-carriage .blinds, in order that the sun 
 might not disport too fiercely on the deftly pre- 
 pared cheeks and brow which the before-men- 
 tioned tulle shaded. 
 
 , "It's quite a relief to be quit for a time of 
 poor Aunt Glaskill and her boxes," Kate said to 
 her husband that night, when they were seated 
 at dinner. 
 
 " I daresay. Bum freak, though, to lug her 
 boxes up with her if she means coming back, 
 which I Suppose she does." 
 
 " Yes," Kate replied. " Eeally, that Shalders 
 js good-natured, John. What trouble he gave 
 himself about seeing them all put into the van, 
 to be sure. He carries what Mr. Caldwell calls 
 his ' earnestness ' into everything." 
 
 CHAPTER XLHL 
 
 SYDNEY SCOXt'S GAIN. 
 
 Meanwhile the arrangements in that little 
 house on Hampstead Heath were all perfected, 
 thanks to Theo. Everything had devolved.upon 
 her since the day of her father's death^-the or- 
 dering and managing of all things fell upon 
 her, and She bore up under the unaccustomed 
 burden stoutly;' Mrs. Leigli had not loudly 
 lamented, or openly bewailed, the real loss 
 which she had sustained. But she had suffered 
 horribly in a gentle, uncomplaining secresy, and 
 she had just sunk under it into a state of leth- 
 argy that was hopeless enough./ She never wor- 
 riedi she never planned,', she never interfered. 
 She simply took no heed of aught that trans- 
 pired. ' Accordingly,^ as I said before, every- 
 thing had devolved upon Theo. 
 
U4 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 It was weary work, tedious uncongenial work, 
 that going constantly to tbe little house, at 
 Hampstead, and seeing things gradually right 
 themselves. Tbeo, after Frank had graciously 
 disapproved of the locality, had not had much 
 heart in her work. True, it was to be her home 
 for some time to come, and the place in which 
 we are going to dwell must always command a 
 certain amount of interest. But it was not go- 
 ing to be her permanent tent. Good and duti- 
 ful, unselfish and affectionate, painstaking and 
 untiring, as Theo was, she could not forget that 
 her own tent was to be pitched in a very differ- 
 ent position. 
 
 Nevertheless, all unaided as she was, this 
 young girl, cast at twenty on her own resources 
 to stand or fall as the case may be, without any 
 apparent let or hindrance from anybody, with 
 no one to counsel, no one to assist, no one to 
 control her, nevertheless she laboured unceas- 
 * ingly, and managed very well. No matter 
 through what trouble of mind and body, through 
 what perplexity and doubt, it was consummated ; 
 the house was habitable at last, the arrange- 
 ments were all perfected, and it was Theo's 
 work entirely. ' 
 
 They had been busy, bustling, unpleasant 
 weeks. All the bore of furnishing, and none of 
 the bliss, had been hers. She was not free to 
 exercise her taste ; bare necessities, absolute re- 
 quirements, these were all that common sense 
 told her she might get. Carpets and chairs and 
 tables, that were good and substantial, and were 
 warranted to wear well. Prudence held her rig- 
 orously to the purchase of these, and such as 
 these alone, and bade her turn away from the 
 tempting array of pretty things which were on 
 view in every shop she entered. It was very 
 hard work, for she was young and possessed of 
 taste, and also of a feeling that the absolutely un- 
 adorned paths of life are scarcely worth pursuing. 
 It was very hard to pass the adornments on every 
 side, and know that she must pass them,as though 
 they had not been. 
 
 By wa;y of improving the aspect of things, 
 Fralik, with a masculine disregard for the great 
 grinding god necessity, suggested all manner of 
 ways of relieving her which were not practi- 
 cable. 
 
 " Awfully you bother yourself when there's no 
 occasion for it, Theo," he would say, whenever 
 Theo seemed less fresh than he deemed fitting ; 
 " why not put the whole thing into Jackson & 
 Graham's hands, and let them do it." 
 
 "They'd charge more for looking at it than 
 the whole house must cost, Frank," she replied ; 
 and then Frank, with a gleam of something hke 
 sympathy for the high-hearted, uncomplaining 
 way in which she went on doing what she did not 
 like, told her — 
 
 "Never to mind; she should have it all her 
 own way at Maddington by-and-by." "By-and- 
 by " meaning whenever Lord Lesborough should 
 be good enough to die out of his grandson's way. 
 
 After the ball, Frank had inclined ever so 
 much more kindly towards Theo's friend. Miss 
 Scott. He cemented a fresh friendship with the 
 bright little blonde, who never had anything in 
 her head save the desire to make herself agreea- 
 ble to the one present. She was always ready to 
 walk, to talk, to do anything,.ln fact ; and Theo 
 very often in the evening was too tired to do any- 
 
 thing more laborious than sit still and listen. 
 When the Leighs migrated to Hampstead, Frank 
 declared that to be an admirable plan which had 
 once been frowned at by him. 
 
 "It will do you good to have Sydney Scott 
 with you when you're settled, Theo," he said; 
 and Theo agreed with him — 
 
 "As I can't have you always,'' she replied. 
 
 " I suppose you will quite desert Bretford when 
 Theo is gone," Sydney Scott said to him one day ; 
 and he tried to slip away from under the weight 
 of the full meaning of that speech, as men are 
 apt to do when such speeches are made to them. 
 It was notpleasant to him, even though he meant 
 to marry her, to have every one thrusting that 
 intention of his forward. Perhaps Sydney had 
 not calculated on the effect of her speech— per- 
 haps she had done so. Who can tell ? She was 
 believed by every one, herself included,.to be a 
 guileless, undesigning little thing. But the heart 
 is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
 wicked^ 
 
 " I don't know why you should suppose any- 
 thing of the sort," he replied, rather coldly. 
 
 "Oh, I didn't know; I fancied she wouldn't 
 like you to come ; but you won't quite cut me, 
 will you ? " 
 
 " No ; " he promised her that he would not. 
 
 "We have all three been so happy lately," 
 Miss Sydney went on rather plaintively. As 
 Theo's contribution towards the happiness per- 
 vading their gatherings lately had consisted of 
 lying down on a sofa and being very silent, it 
 was generous on Miss Scott's part to include her 
 at aU. 
 
 " We have all three been very happy lately. 
 Oh ! dear ; I shall miss you, and tliat's the truth ; 
 I hope Theo will let you come sometimes." 
 
 After this it was very natural, considering what 
 Frank was, that Bretford should see him fre- 
 quently. He gave up his contemplated visit to 
 Haversham Grange, simply because his desire to 
 see the mistress of it was fast fading away. He 
 gave up the contemplated visit because it no 
 longer had any charms for him ; but not the less 
 on account of that reason did he make a great 
 merit of his abnegation to Theo, and hurl it at 
 her whenever she suffered him to perceive that 
 she thought he might find his way to Hampstead 
 a little oftener. ■ 
 
 " My dear girl, you surely wouldn't have me 
 give up everything, would you ? " 
 
 " No, decidedly not, Frank, but " 
 
 " Didii't I give up going into Norfolk because 
 I thought you would be dull without me, in this 
 beastly, inaccessible spot you have put yourself 
 in ? What more can a fellow do ? " 
 
 Miss Scott was held by all her acquaintances," 
 herself included, to be guileless, . undesignmg, 
 open as the day. She most probably was glfof 
 these things— -in a measure. Who can exactly 
 tell where she left off bemg them ? Who, todeed, 
 can tell whether she did leave off being ^em, or 
 whether her acts and their results were as void of 
 all calculation as they appeared to bf? Who 
 can tell anything about anybody, if itfcoijoes to 
 that? -^ 
 
 Sydney Scott was a Jjretty, naturMly clever, 
 observant girl, gifted "th the grea# grace of 
 making the most of herself in every way. She 
 bad the trick of seeming, not only frank and cor- 
 dial, but well-bred, which she was not. At least 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 14S 
 
 her breeding, such as it was, did not come by in- 
 heritance, for the parent birds were uncondition- 
 ally vulgar, and Miss Scott saw that they were 
 so, and Miss Scott was heartily ashamed of 
 them. 
 
 Her father was the more endurable of the two 
 to her; that is to say, she could explain him 
 away, as it were. " He went to sea when he was 
 very young, and when the service was a very 
 rough school, you know," she would say, when 
 circumstances over which she had no control 
 forced her papa to the frbnt. But with regard to 
 her mother, no such explanation could be offered. 
 Mrs. Scott was a vulgar old woman, and her 
 daughter saw that she was so, and didn't like it. 
 
 Sydney was naturally a sharp, clever girl, and 
 as she was thrown more and more in contact with 
 people possessed even of superficial refinement, 
 she sharpened herself still more, and refined her- 
 self outwardly — refined herself, that is to say, 
 quite enough for the society in which she was 
 thrown not to find her wanting. When she had 
 done this, those speeches of her mamma's about 
 "knowing well what was due to the nobility," 
 and the like, grated upon her irritable young 
 nerves, and made her long for a fiing in the 
 world " quite free from mamma." 
 
 It was the old story of the new generation out- 
 stripping the old. They had themselves aided in 
 making her unsuited to themselves. In her own 
 outspoken way she had explained the whole case 
 to Theo in a moment of confidence, and this was 
 what she had said, " I pass muster very well, you 
 see, Theo, and mamma does not ; now is it unduti- 
 ful of me to wish to keep her quietly at home, 
 where she isn't laughed at 9 " 
 
 Theo declined to give an opinion. The posi- 
 tion was a delicate one ; but as Miss Leigh had 
 never been placed in it herself with respect to her 
 own parents, she perhaps failed to appreciate the 
 full force of the unpleasantness that had been an 
 incubus on Sydney since the day " distinctions " 
 had first dawned upon her. 
 
 Theoretically she would have scorned the idea 
 of aiming at a bird that had faUen already to her 
 friend's gUn; but Frank Burgoyne was " very 
 nice," and it was very pleasant to have him at the 
 house when her iuamma would refrain from lav- 
 ishing her was'a and were's in the wrong places 
 upon her. It was very pleasant to have him 
 there, and to remember that he had liked her 
 very much, and that he wasn't married to Theo 
 yet, and that he would be Lord Lesborough. 
 
 Mr. Burgoyne was a great deal up in town now, 
 1 though his grandfather was rapidly declining. 
 Jit last Mr. Burgoyne received a letter from Ethel 
 that made him feel that it would not do for him 
 to 3(^y any longer. Lord Lesborough desired to 
 see M[[ grandson married immediately : Lord 
 Lesborough made it a special request that the 
 days of !Hieo Leigh's mourning for her father 
 should be^shortened — brought to a termination 
 by her marriage with his heir. 
 
 Frank Burgoyne had not been near Theo for 
 ten days wl^pn he received this communication. 
 Hampstead was a long way off. Her selection of 
 Hampstead aa^t place of residence was the cause 
 of all the misSuef that might ensue he told him- 
 self. He felt- righteously angry with Theo for 
 having gone to Hampstead when he had protest- 
 ed against her doing so. He felt righteously 
 angry with Linl^y for having hurried mm into a ' 
 10 
 
 declaration before he was quite sure that he 
 wished to make it. He felt angry with his grand- 
 father for so unreasonably trying to precipitate 
 matters. Above ajl, he felt angry with himself. 
 
 He was unstable as water. The curse of being 
 so was upon him, and he knew it. He vacillated 
 for an honr between his inclination to carry the 
 contents of that letter to Sydney Scott, and hear 
 what she would say, and his knowledge that it 
 behoved him to go to Theo. He was unstable as 
 water. Finally he went down to Bretfor(J, and as 
 soon as she caught sight of him, the sharp little 
 blonde saw that a climax of some sort or other 
 was coming. ^^ 
 
 She fluked brilliantly with the hope that the 
 coming climax might be favourable to herself, and 
 checked all compunction within her breast with 
 the reflection that, "if she chose, she might 
 charge Theo with treachery, since she had con- 
 fided to Theo her belief in Frank Burgoyne'p 
 love and admiration for herself, and Theo had 
 listened." She flushed brilliantly, and she check- 
 ed all compunctious scruples. In fact, she look- 
 ed very pretty, and ready to do and dare any- 
 thing. 
 
 " Papa and mamma wanted me to go with them 
 to hear the band play," she said^ while she was 
 shaking hands with him, "but I wouldn't. I 
 thought you might come possibly." 
 
 One disposed to censure Miss Scott, might 
 have thought that it was scarcely in the order of 
 things that she should stay in alone, avowedly 
 with the hope of having an interview with a man 
 who was engaged to her friend. It was a dan- 
 gerous piece of flattery ; but Frank liked being 
 flattered, and was not at all disposed either to 
 censure Miss Scott or lament the absence of her 
 mamma. 
 
 He just gave the small white hand a tiny 
 pressure before be released it, and said, 
 
 ". I'm very glad of that. I want to tell you 
 something." 
 
 At once there flashed through her mind a 
 vision of that which he had to tell her, and she 
 resolved upon making a bold play to be Lady 
 Lesborough.^ She interlaced her delicate round- 
 ed fingers within each other almost convulsively, 
 and her large grey eyes dilated, and the corners 
 of her flexible mouth went down, as she ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 " Don't tell me — and yet do ; you're ordered 
 over the pi'eoipice ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I'm not over it yet," he said, plac- 
 ing his hand down upon hers, as they still 
 clasped each other. Then she knew that the 
 game was her own. She knew that she had 
 won. She knew that this man was ready to jilt 
 Theo Leigh at a word from her — at less even — 
 at a look, a sigh ! She knew this as she stood 
 silent and motionless for a few seconds, excusing 
 herself to herself, and declaring to herself simul- 
 taneously that no excuses were needed. 
 
 " No, you're not over it yet, certainly," she 
 rephed, slowly ; " have you come to tell me that 
 you're ready to go over it, though f because, if 
 you have," and here she began to speak very 
 fast, " say it at once." 
 
 " I didn't come to tell you that," he said, " I 
 came to tell you — " and then he paused, for he 
 was not quite sure of what he had come to tell 
 her. 
 
 She gave what he fancied 'to be a gasp of 
 
146 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 profound emotion ; ia reality it was only a bit 
 of excited breath-catching. The game was not 
 quite her own yet. She was horribly afraid of 
 losing it. 
 
 A word might make, or a word mar her. She 
 saw that. She recognised fully that it was upon 
 the cards still that she might lose, and with 
 such great gains in view, to lose would be so 
 very ignominious. A word might make or mar 
 her. She called silence, and sweet looks, and 
 a haltstifled sigh to her aid, the guileless little 
 creature, as skilfully as the most designing wo- 
 man could have done. 
 
 He never thought for an instant of what Theo 
 Leigh would suffer. He only felt that this 
 " dear little thing " before him, with the clasped 
 hands, and the big grey eyes, and the drooping 
 corners to the usually joyous mouth, was "feel- 
 ing awfully cut-up " at the prospect of his mar- 
 riage with another girl. It would not be a good 
 thing to do, but other men had done it before. 
 "By Jove! " (with a sudden flash of memory) 
 " another man had done it to Theo Leigh her- 
 self. It would not be a good thing to do, 
 but " 
 
 " God ! I can't stand it ! " he cried, drawing 
 Sydney nearer. " Believe me I was let into 
 that affair, Sydney, and I mean to get out of it, 
 if you'll reward me for the bother it will give 
 me." 
 
 So, on Sydney promising both to forgive and 
 to reward him, he determined upon his perfidy 
 to Theo, and justified his determination in the 
 manliest, most honourable manner, by declaring 
 that he "wasn't the first fellow who had served 
 her so." This was quite natural — in fact, this 
 was inevitable. The thing he was going to do 
 was so very mean and low, that only on the 
 meanest, lowest grounds could it be justified. 
 
 CHAPTER 5LIV. 
 
 THEO LEIGH S LOSS. 
 
 The arrangements were all perfected in that 
 little house at Hampstead. The place was very 
 habitable, and would have been notwithstanding 
 very dull to dwell in, had not hope perpetually 
 told a flattering tale to Theo. This region, that 
 was rather bleak, truth to tell, in this autumn 
 weather, in which she knew no one (for the 
 beautiful metropolitan custom, of fighting shy of, 
 and greatly distrusting, all new arrivals, holds 
 good in the suburbs) : this region, I say, would 
 have been dull and unendurable to her, had she 
 looked upon it as other than a waiting-place on 
 her road to the joyous goal that was before lier. 
 
 To those of my readers who hold that the 
 " first " is the only true love, the statement 
 that Theo Leigh loved Frank Burgoyne very 
 fondly, very warmly, very well, will seem either 
 wrong or ridiculous ? Nevertheless it ia a fact, 
 that she did so love him, aye, though she bad no 
 more utterly forgotten Harold Ffrench than one 
 human being can utterly forget another who has 
 been near and dear, and much spoken about. 
 
 She did not utterly forget Harold Ffrench. 
 She was neither weak-minded, nor false-hearted. 
 She did not forget Harold Ffrench: but, re- 
 membering him only made her think the more 
 fondly and consfently of Frank Burgoyne — of 
 
 the man who was aware of her youthful weak- 
 ness, and who loved her in spite of it. 
 
 Hampstead was out of the way, was inaccessi- 
 ble from the Frank Burgoyne starting-point 
 clearly. At least she tried to think that it was 
 Hampstead's inaccessibility alone which made 
 Frank keep away so much. 
 
 They were dull days, if the truth be told — 
 those earlier days of Theo Leigh's residence in 
 the little house on the Heath, the fitting up of 
 which she had superintended with much weari- 
 ness of spirit. They were dull days, very dull 
 days: but then you see she had such bright 
 things in store. 
 
 In the meantime, before these bright things 
 were realised, she tried hardly to get back all 
 those outward and visible signs of youth and 
 happiness which had been bruised and banished. 
 Frank Burgoyne's bride should go to him with 
 roses on her cheeks, and brightness iu her eyes, 
 and the rich dew of health on her lips. So 
 Theo went out bravely on that broad Heath 
 whereon she felt so friendless, and sought for 
 these fitting ornaments round about the region 
 of Jack Straw's Castle and the Spaniards: 
 sought for and found them, too, and rejoiced 
 over her renovation with a girl's natural vanity. 
 
 Life went at a very sober pace in that little 
 house on the Heath. The' greatest ejioi.teiment 
 ever got up within its walls was on the rare 
 occasions of Theo confidently expecting Frank, 
 and making preparations towards his advent — 
 which seldom took place. She did not make 
 preparations after the manner of her estimable 
 aunt, Mrs. Yaugb'an. She did not bustle and 
 fuss furiously, and endeavour to keep the fact of 
 doing these things in the background. She 
 brought all her preparations, and all the joy she 
 had in making them, forward frankly ; she rev- 
 elled in displaying them, and the grace with 
 which they were made, to Frank, their good and 
 proper cause. 
 
 With the exception of these occasions, life was 
 very monotonous in Theo's home. That old 
 hearty communion that had never failed, that had 
 always been so pleasant let all else be miserable 
 as it might, — ^this was a thing of the past. 'The 
 strangest thing in her strange home was the want 
 of her father's presence, and her father's friend- 
 ship. The saddest thing in it was the thought 
 that her father could never rejoice in her achieve- 
 ment of that destiny, the mere promise of which 
 had been so prized by him. She gauged the joy 
 he would have had in her triumphs by the proud 
 trustful love she bore him, — and I think the. 
 gauge was a true one. ^ 
 
 Fpr all this want, though, the girl was very 
 happy. She was only a woman, and the project 
 of being a titled one was not unpleasantito her. 
 Besides, as I have said before, she loved Frank 
 for that generosity of his which made him appar- 
 ently utterly ignore all that had g#e before. 
 She loved Mm with a hearty gratefujlove, than 
 which there could be nothing bet^r or more 
 complete. j^ 
 
 In the earlier days of their e;6gagement it 
 liad been settled that she shouldjbe married in 
 August. But her father's death had intervened, 
 and from that other delaying causes had sprung. 
 So that now, though it was late in September, 
 she was still Miss Leigh, and still uncertain of 
 how long she was to remain Miss Leigh. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 147 
 
 Nevertheless though her marriage was thus in- 
 definitely deferred, Bhe looked upon it as a thing 
 that would in the order of events come off very 
 soon. Accordingly, being only flesh and blood 
 of the middle class, she felt it behoved her to see 
 about the buying and making of the purple and 
 fine linen usual on such occasions. Moreover, 
 being only of the middle class, as has been said 
 before, she gave much thought to the matter. 
 Travelled arduously eastward ho ! on more than 
 one occasion, beguiled by an advertisement set- 
 ting forth in large letters, with many notes of 
 admiration appended thereui^to, the miserable 
 onus that was on certain firms of being cleared 
 out, no matter how alarming the sacrifice, before 
 a certain date. 
 
 Poor Theo ! There was no one to do it for her, 
 gentle Mrs. Leigh having subsided into nothing- 
 ness. There was no one to do it for her, and 
 it had to be done ; consequenfly Theo did it her- 
 self, it was not pleasant for the girl who had 
 never been about in the world before, to be 
 abroad on her own responsibility now, bargaining 
 with extortionate tradesman, and seeing cabmen, 
 who were lambs when she entered their equi- 
 pages, develop into roaring lions when she got out, 
 and mildly and tremulously questioned tiie jus- 
 tice of the e^hteen pence they put on for Hamp- 
 stead Hill. 
 
 It was not pleasant for her to do these things. 
 It was not seemly that the future Lady Lesbor- 
 ough should have done them. But unfortunately 
 the prospect of being Lady Lcsborough did not 
 fill her purse ; and with tins debased generation 
 the proudest pretensions and the most profound 
 belief in good things being in store for one, go 
 for nothing if the purse be empty. Accordingly 
 Theo did things that were neitber quite pleasant 
 nor quite seemly, — did them and suffered for 
 them, as people do and suffer in this everyday 
 commonplace world in which we everyday com- 
 monplace ones do dwell. 
 
 An obliging uncle had died when Theo was 
 three years old, leaving her a small legacy — a 
 sum of 160Z., into possession of which she was 
 to come when she was either married or had 
 attained the age of twenty-one. She was 
 twenty-one now, and she wa" about to fulfil the 
 other "condition. Consequently the money was 
 hers. 
 
 The money was hers to do as she pleased 
 with ; and when it was first given over to her in 
 the shape of a bundle of semi-transparent notes 
 that crackled under her hand, reminding her of 
 %^e well-cooked skin of pork, — ^when it was first 
 given over in this wealthy-sounding way, she 
 deemed it an all-suificient, not to say fabulous, 
 sum.^^Put after a day or two it dwindled. 
 
 It ™ndled in a surprising, not to say a 
 shocking\ way, after the manner of money. 
 Now the m'^ner of money was new to Theo, and 
 that way itfhad, of going fast and leaving no 
 trace behind, was quite a new feature in finance 
 to her. It^was startling at fitst to find how 
 small the amount of change was out of a five- 
 pound note, men the price of the article to be 
 paid for was fo^r pounds nineteen and sixpence. 
 This was very startling at first : but she got used 
 to it after a. time, and pocketed her sixpence 
 with gratitude. 
 
 Aunt Libby had undertaken to give her the 
 dress of dresses — ^the bridal robe and veil, and 
 
 Aunt Libby's ideas on the subject of these things 
 were of the most enlarged order. 
 
 " You may go to a guinea a yard, my dear," 
 the old lady had said to her niece, when the aus- 
 picious engagement with the heir of Maddington 
 was first made known to her. Accordingly 
 Theo " went to a guinea a yard," and ordered 
 home what she deemed a sufBcient quantity of 
 a white material with forked lightning and 
 splashes like big tears upon it, known to the in 
 itiated as " moire antique, best quality." 
 
 There was great pleasure in getting these 
 dresses : great pleasure in marvelling how she 
 would look in them, — or rather, how Frank 
 would think she looked in them. The solitary 
 little figure in black grew very bright within as 
 she toiled about from shop to shop ; the girl with 
 so little ihoney to spend in reality, spent it with 
 a joyous lavishness over such things as misled the 
 sellers of the same with the notion that the sto6k 
 of crisp notes was large. But it was such soli- 
 tary pleasure ! \ She went about this pleasantest 
 task that had fallen to her share yet in the 
 world, alone ! 
 
 Alone, quite alone ! It was very improper, of 
 course ; and not at all the sort of thing that 
 those parents who have the wherewithal to 
 mount outward guard over their daughters can 
 credit is ever done by gentlewomen. It is very 
 improper ; but all must allow that it is one of 
 those improprieties which are not committed by 
 preference. On the whole, Theo would rather 
 have rolled about in a snug brougham, and had 
 an intelligent footman follow her out of the shops 
 with the packages. 
 
 However, she had no brougham and no foot- 
 man, so perforce she was compelled either to 
 walk upon the earth or to take a cab in her jour- 
 neyings hither and thither, or (more terrible 
 still) to get into one of those dismal swamps — 
 an omnibus. 
 
 One day, after a severe morning of purchas- 
 ing, and feeling guilty of extravagance, and yej 
 being sure she could not do without the things, — 
 after many hours of disturbance of spirit, she 
 had practised a small economy, and gone down 
 from the select region of West-End shops to 
 Hampstead in an omnibus. At the foot of the 
 hill her spirit of endurance broke down, and she 
 crept out in the lame dilapidated way in which 
 people do creep out of an omnibus after a 
 lengthened indulgence in its delights — crept out, 
 resolving to walk Up the hill home, and so 
 freshen herself for that visit from Frank which 
 she confidently expected that evening. 
 
 That hill! that terror and trial to the tried 
 leg^ of man or beast. It is a hill to be thought 
 of with the darkest hatred, if you have ever 
 attempted to drive a lazy, self-willed, fatigued 
 horse up it. A sanguine feeling is yours at the 
 foot of it, perhaps. You imagine that your 
 skilful hand will administer a flick on that pre- 
 cise portion of the quadruped you are driving 
 which will ensure his pulling up well at once. 
 You try the skilful flick, and it has just no effect 
 whatever. He flags, and the traces slacken, and 
 his head goes down, and so do your hopes, and 
 pedestrians pass you, and time grbws weary and 
 you grow old, and still that hill stretches its 
 miserable length before you.. You can't hit 
 your horse as it is in your usually kind heart to 
 hit him, or yon would be had up under Mr. 
 
148 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Martin's act. Tou don't like to weep and guash 
 youT teeth for fear of being seized and immured 
 hj some myrmidon from a lunatic asylum. One 
 may make ghastly efforts to while away the 
 time by making intelligent remarks to one's 
 companion, but this is a miserable device for the 
 concealment of anxious misery, and is warranted 
 to fail. It does not even impose upon oneself, 
 — the most easily deceived of all one's acquaint- 
 ances. The only thing to be done is to meekly 
 resign oneself to melancholy, or to pretend to 
 be looking for Clarkson Stanfield's house. 
 
 Up this hill Theo Leigh walked on a clear 
 September afternoon, with the double conviction 
 on her mind that Frank would come and cheer 
 her up in the evening, and that she had spent 
 nearly all her money, and would have to severely 
 limit herself as to gloves, in order not to have 
 to encroach upon that magnificent sum which 
 Government awarded her mamma as compensa- 
 tion for the loss of a husband. " I must have a 
 lot to start with," Theo thought, " And I had 
 better get them all dark, though Frank unfor- 
 tunately only likes me to wear lemon-colour and 
 silver-grey. I'll write to Sydney, and ask her to 
 get me a lot at the same place she gets hers from 
 — at wholesale price, I think she says, — and I 
 had better fix a day for her to come over and 
 stay with me." 
 
 She quickened her pace as she said this, in 
 order to get home, and write, and cause a letter 
 to be posted before five o'clock. As she panted 
 up the last bend of the hill she heard her name 
 spoken in a voice that she knew well and re- 
 . membered kindly, and looking up she saw Harold 
 Ffrench. 
 
 She saw him such an altered man, such a grey- 
 haired elderly man, that the blood leapt into her 
 face with surprise. Great as was the inward 
 alteration which had been wrought in herself 
 during the last few months, the outward altera- 
 tion in this man was still greater ; and it is the 
 outward alteration that we are apt to mark and 
 fement. 
 
 There was no confusion in her soul nor con- 
 straint in her mind at this abrupt meeting with 
 and recognition of him. Consequently there 
 was no confusion or constraint in her manner. 
 
 "I am very glad to see you again, Mr. 
 Ffrench," she said, forgetting Frank's recently 
 avowed feelings on the subject. " I am very 
 glad to see you again ; — but — have you been 
 ill?" 
 
 Something seemed to jar upon his heart as 
 she spoke. It was a cordial, kind, lady-like 
 greeting, that which she awarded him. It should 
 in honour have been no more than these things. 
 Nevertheless it jarred upon him that it was no 
 more. 
 
 " No, I have not been ill ; " he replied, " but 
 I have been worried and anxious during the last 
 few hours." 
 
 "Won't you come back and see mamma?" 
 she asked. " We live near here." 
 
 " I know ; — I have just seen Mrs. Leigh," he 
 replied hurriedly ; " the fact ie, I came up from 
 Maddington this morning; Lord Lesborough 
 is much worse, and wants his grandson." 
 
 "Is Frank gone down? " Theo asked quickly. 
 
 " No ; we telegraphed for him, and no notice 
 was taken, so I came up ; he has not been at 
 his place for a day or two, and I fancied he 
 
 might be here, therefore I took the liberty of 
 calling at your house." 
 
 He attempted to say this in a stiff conventional 
 tone. Theo, in her frank indifference to him, 
 and through her equally frank display of interest 
 for Mr. Burgoyne, seemed so very far removed 
 from him. 
 
 She marked his tone, and fathomed the spirit 
 that dictated it. " Ah ! don't speak to me in 
 that way," she cried, "but tell me what you 
 will do about finding Frank ; I can't say where 
 he is." 
 
 " I have left a ijote at his rooms," he replied. 
 
 " And is Lord Lesborough really ill — 
 dying ? " 
 
 " I fear he is." 
 
 " Poor Frank ! How he'll feel it if he should 
 be too late to see his grandfather," she said, 
 earnestly. " I half fancied that he was at Mad- 
 dington, as I haven't seen him for several " 
 
 She stopped, blushing, as the remembrance 
 flashed across her mind that Harold Ffrench 
 might think that Frank was neglecting her, as 
 she herself occasionally was afraid he' was. ' The 
 pause and the blush told him more than the 
 completed sentence would have done, and he 
 felt that the one who had deprived him of this 
 jewel was not wearing it proudly by any means. 
 It was hard for him to walk calmly along by her 
 side and feel this ; so he stopped and said good- 
 by to her, and she went on quickly to her own 
 home, with footsteps rendered fleet by the 
 thought that she had " so much to tell Frank" 
 — "so much" that she now felt would not be 
 quite pleasant to him to hear, and that would 
 oppress her with a sense of concealment, till he 
 had heard. "He's sure to say Mr. Ffrench in- 
 terferes unnecessarily," she thought, " and to 
 rage against poor Miss Burgoyne for having 
 dispatched such an envoy in search of him: 
 anyway, I could not help meeting him on the 
 hill." 
 
 As soon as the door of the little house was 
 opened to her she asked, 
 
 " Is Mr. Burgoyne here ? " 
 
 " No, miss ; and your ma's " 
 
 '• Are any of my things come home ? " Theo 
 interrupted. 
 
 The servant shook her head, and resumed the 
 broken thread of her discourse. 
 
 " And your ma's up in her room, taking on 
 about something, miss," 
 
 "Poor mamma!" Theo thought, as she 
 plodded wearily upstairs. All the fleetneSs was 
 fled from her footsteps now that she learnt tha^ 
 neither of the expected arrivals were here betqfi- 
 her. / 
 
 Mrs. Leigh was sitting in an easy chaix^n a 
 corner of the room, over which a shac^ung, 
 when her daughter entered. ,-f 
 
 "I'm home again, mamma, youaee," Theo 
 commenced, in bright accents. SheTnever used . 
 the tone dolorous when people werein grief. It 
 never improved their case one whit she had dis- 
 covered; indeed, it usually had^the contrary 
 effect of plunging them into still deeper gloom. 
 
 Mrs. Leigh looked up with a start, and Theo's- 
 quick eyes read wistfulness in her liiother's 
 gaze, — sueh wistfulness as she had never seen in 
 it before. 
 
 " My dear, are you very tired ? " ^^ 
 
 " No, mother," Theo said, in more subdued 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 149 
 
 tones than those she had first used. Then she 
 went and knelt down by her mother's feet, and 
 Mrs. Leigh drew the head crowned with its 
 wavy masses of brown hair down upon her lap. 
 
 Tired ! No, she was not tired j but as she 
 felt her mother's hand press closer, tremblingly, 
 amidst those waves of hair, a feeling oppressed 
 her that was not fatigue — a feeling of desperate 
 helplessness, a very faintness of despair. She 
 strove to break the spell of sorrow that was 
 creeping over her. 
 
 " Mother, poor mother you have been alone 
 again, and are feeling dull," she said, fondly 
 pressing her lips upon the hand she had caught 
 and prisoned as it wandered over her head. 
 
 " No, my dear, not dull, but " 
 
 " Ah ! you've heard the bad news from Mad- 
 dington," Theo oried, with a sudden recollection 
 of Lord Lesborough's extreme case. •! met 
 Mr. Ffrench, and he told me. He wanted Frank. 
 I hope Frank will come to-night," she continu- 
 ed, hopefully. 
 
 Then the dull lethargy of sorrow that had 
 been Mrs. Leigh's portion since her husband's 
 death dissolved suddenly, and "she threw her 
 arms closely, tenderly, pityingly, round her 
 daughter's neck, as she sobbed out, — 
 
 "Poor child! my own poor child ! He will 
 never come again." 
 
 " Mother ! Mother ! " 
 
 The girl was on her feet in an instant. She 
 had started erect with fatal suddenness, as it is 
 the wont of those who are shot through the 
 heart to do. 
 
 " He's alive ! " Mrs. Leigh cried eagerly. She 
 had read aright the generous anguish that was 
 Theo Leigh's first pang. Her daughter's first 
 thought was of death, not desertion. As I said 
 once before, Theo Leigh never believed people 
 to be baser than they were. 
 
 "Then he has left me too," Theo wailed. 
 " Mother, dearest, don't look at me in that way. 
 I shall not die, tiough I have so little to live 
 for." 
 
 CHAPTER XLT. 
 
 LATE BEMOBSE. 
 
 When Frank Burgoyne had done the deed — 
 had spoken the iew words which made manifest 
 that which was within his vacillating heart to 
 Sydney, — ^he felt cast down and sorry. There 
 was none of successful love's elatian in his soul 
 &on his brow. He knew that he had done a 
 mSkn thing. He also knew that the girl for 
 whom he had done it would no more have the 
 poweAtjO make him feel all things to be well lost 
 in winning her than any other wonnbp had had 
 the powe^ jto hold him heretofore. 
 
 He also felt — and in feeling this there was 
 , much naturM soreness — that this change hehad 
 made, whieh^could not be concealed an hour 
 longer than necessary in honour, would not only 
 damage him w%h his grandfather, but sorely dis- 
 tress the latter?. He would now for a certainty 
 deem his granton capable of all the Hugo in- 
 iquities ; and Frank acknowledged to himself 
 that he would m deemed so not altogether un- 
 justly. 
 
 It was made patent to him at once that the fet- 
 ters he had himself adopted in such awkward, un- 
 
 seemly tiaste would be riveted fast and sure. It 
 was made patent to him at once that Sydney was 
 a young lady of immense determination. It was 
 made patent to him at once that he had been 
 egregiously mistaken in imagining it to be feas- 
 ible to play with fire without burning his fingers. 
 
 That first interview of his with the parent 
 Scotts was an awful ordeal, a memorable misery. 
 He would have given much to evade it, but his 
 days of evading aught that Sydney desired 
 should be faced, were over. As soon as those 
 sensations set in, to which allusion was made 
 at the commencement of this chapter — as soon 
 that is, as the small excitement consequent 
 on a verbal declaration of a change of faith, 
 had faded away, and he began to feel cast down 
 and sorry, he proposed " going away." 
 
 He proposed this in a half-guilty way — in a 
 way that plainly showed that he felt his propo- 
 sition would be opposed, and Sydney opposed it 
 promptly. 
 
 " Go away ! Why ? " she asked. " No, Frank, 
 do stay and see papa now ; you ought to stay 
 and see papa." 
 
 "I wiU write him a line to-night," he said, 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 " That won't do at all," she replied, resolute- 
 ly ; "They're very particular, and they're very 
 fond' of me. Your going away won't look well 
 to them." 
 
 " But Sydney ^" he began, taking her hand 
 
 caressingly. 
 
 "5W Frank," she interrupted, quickly, "if, 
 after all, you can't face it, how can you think of 
 leaving me to face it alone ? " 
 
 " There's nothing for you to face." 
 
 " Oh, isn't there ? Oh, isn't there, indeed ?' 
 'Nothing for me to face?' If you think so 
 lightly of me as that, I wonder jou could ask me 
 to marry you. I have feeling ; I feel very much, 
 though I always keep up before people." 
 
 She became transparent under the eyes as she 
 spoke, after the manner of blondes who restrain 
 their briny tears, and she was very fair. 
 
 " My dear Sydney, its no question of " 
 
 "It's just a question of straightforwardness 
 of speaking, it seems to me," she interrupted. 
 " Papa would think me a sneak if I kept any- 
 thing from him, and I can tell you / am not 
 going to be the one to speak of our engagement 
 first, so you must stay." 
 
 " Our engagement ! " the phrase caused him 
 to feel how thoroughly he was " in for it " 
 here, before he was "but of it" in another 
 quarter. 
 
 It was hard to say which of these twain, who 
 were about to become one flesh, according to 
 Miss Sydney's ordination, would have triumph- 
 ed, had not Mr. and Mrs. Scott providentially 
 returned at this juncture. They had timed their 
 absence well. 
 
 As she entered the room Mrs. Scott became 
 conscious of having that special sanguine hue 
 over her face which bespeaks intense excitement, 
 and it did not seem according to the fitness of 
 things in her estinjation that other than the cool 
 and collected side of the family should be shown 
 to Mr. Burgoyne just yet. She therefore en- 
 deavoured to explain her red cheeks away — 
 much to Sydney's horror. 
 
 " This autumn 'eat is that trying when one is 
 weak and given to flushing, that you'd scarcely 
 
180 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 believe, Mr. Burgoyce," she said in a voice that 
 was far lower pitched than her natural one, in 
 order to express that delicacy and fatigue for 
 which the occasion called. 
 
 Franls looked at her by way of reply^ooked 
 at her distastefully, and thought "It's devilish 
 seldom »Ae shall see the inside of my house, if I 
 have to marry her daughter. 
 
 " Then, mamma, go and cool yourself, do," 
 Sydney struck in promptly, " and Frank will-^ 
 won't you, Frank ? " 
 
 She did not say what Frank would do. But he 
 knew what she meant, and he said, " Yes," with 
 external composure and an internal groan. He 
 knew well that the aforesaid precipitate dec- 
 laration of a change of faith would have to 
 be repeated in due form to Mr. Scott, and 
 he began to wish that he had not made it at 
 aU. 
 
 It was an ugly leap truly : but Sydney, the 
 weaker vessel, had gone at a similar one so 
 valiantly that he could not baulk it for very 
 shame. It was not that he feared that there 
 would be any difficulties thrown in his way 
 on the Scott side ; on the contrary, he knew 
 that it would all be rendered offensively easy to 
 him, as far as they were concerned ; but the 
 shadow of that letter which would have to be 
 written to Theo's mother was looming over him 
 already. 
 
 He was correct in his deductions as regarded 
 one thing. It was all made easy for him as far 
 as the Scotts were concerned ; they were all 
 that was tolerant to what was past, and most 
 flatteringly anxious to smooth all obstructions 
 in the future. Mr. Scott clapped him heartily 
 on the back, and put on the last new uniform to 
 sit down to dinner with Frank, the caged ; for 
 a promise to stay to dinner was wrung from him 
 on the spot, as soon as ever he had spoken out 
 what Mrs. Scott called "his most honourable 
 intentions." 
 
 Sydney was the reverse of ill-natured ; never- 
 tlieless she gave no very serious thought to 
 what Theo would feel about it all. One allusion 
 she did make to her former friend, her worsted 
 rival, and, odd as it may appear, it was not a 
 disparaging one. 
 
 " It will be only fair to let Theo know of this 
 at once, Frank; you must promise me to do 
 that." 
 
 She paused ; but as he made no answer, she 
 resumed quickly, " If you won't promise me, I 
 tell you I'll make my mother write to hers at 
 once ; it would be too mean to keep her in the 
 dark." 
 
 I do not think that he liked this first evening 
 in the bosom of the family of his affianced. 
 They tried to absorb him too entirely into them- 
 selves ; to be hail-fellow-well-met with him ; to 
 be free and unembarrassed, and awfully intimate 
 in a jocular way. Mrs. Scott leapt abruptly 
 from the manner abject to the manner affec- 
 tionate ; and Mr. Scott mentioned so many things 
 " by-the-way " to him that he could do when 
 be took his seat in either House, that the last 
 state of that man was infinitely worse than the 
 first. Moreover, Sydney's habit of putting down 
 both her parents alternately was confusing ; 
 this was a thing to grow, he felt ; he might, in 
 time, fall under that commanding young man- 
 ner, which impressed the stranger as being so 
 
 very fresh and frank. He had his gentlemanly 
 well-bred instincts ; blood always " tells " in 
 some way or other; so, though he reminded 
 himself that Sydney "ought not to forget what 
 he had given up for her " (meaning the way he 
 had risked his honour in re Theo Leigh), he 
 never thought for an instant that Sydney ought 
 to remember the great good a union with him 
 would bring her. 
 
 He left at last, and walked up to town, revolv- 
 ing at his leisure the phrasing of that letter 
 which should convey the sorry truth to Theo. 
 "What will she thini of me?" he thought. 
 He had no fear of any outburst, any appeal. 
 He knew the girl ; he knew all her loving pride 
 too well to dread that. But he could but reflect 
 on what his sensations would be did she droop 
 and fade, and die of this blow he was preparing 
 to deal her. 
 
 It was but cowardly comfort, yet he hugged 
 it to his soul as he walked along, this gallant 
 young English gentleman, with the full supply 
 of courageous tavalier blood in his veins : it was 
 but cowardly comfort, yet it was the sole one 
 left to him, — ftie thought that, let what would 
 befall her, he would probably never know the 
 fate of Theo Leigh. 
 
 He felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. But 
 of idleness and a habit of giving way to the im- 
 pulse of the moment, the mischief had been 
 born. This trick he had taken up of loving 
 and unloving, of wooing and leaving! He 
 ceased to look upon it as a pretty pastime as 
 he walked along alone ; he saw it now as the 
 low, dull, dastardly thing it was. 
 
 Ah ! that seeing a thing as it is, and knowing 
 that we have brought it on ourselves, and that 
 there is no escape for us. " Lives there a man 
 with soul so dead " as to have taken comfort in 
 defeat and downfall from that sorry saying, 
 "you have no one but yourself to blame for 
 it ? " There is bliss in blaming the whole world 
 for the evil that overtakes us, but not in de- 
 nouncing our own blunders and miscalculations. 
 In this'there is none, absolutely none — save in 
 the case of a woman who loves the man who 
 neglects her, and so excuses him by accusing 
 herself. 
 
 Frank Burgoyne determined to write that 
 letter to Theo's mother while the glow of the 
 onus that was on him to write it at all was on 
 him freshly. He thought first that he would 
 make it very concise ; but that seemed brutal. 
 Then he thought that he would give a lengthjjjr ' 
 explanation ; a summary of his own weaknesse^; 
 and of the trials to which they had been sS>- 
 jected. That, on reflection, seemed needleisly 
 insulting, " By God ! I don't know what^o say 
 for myself! " he said, at last, in the exasperation 
 of his spirit. "I am a fool, a d — d ,fool! who 
 has lost in the selfish game." /^ 
 
 But, genuine as this statementfwas, power- 
 ful as it was in its simple truth, it would not do 
 to write that, and that alone, to rfeo's mother. 
 It might be taken to have appli^tion to ever 
 so many other things he felt, in |ni3 hour of his 
 humiliation, and it behoved hsn to make his 
 statement clear — all foul and Base as it was — 
 without needless delay. '^, 
 
 There are many disagreeable duties to be 
 performed in this world. Caligrkphical exer- 
 cises very frequently go against the grain. It 
 
X 1 1 1 ' jv uxji.urxL. 
 
 is unpleasant to be compelled to write a cheque 
 when your banking account is low. - It is odious 
 to write a page and a-half of condolence to the 
 bereaved with whom, in sober fact, you can't 
 quite sympathise, having perhaps known but 
 little, and that little but bad, of the deceased. 
 It is not nice to be behind-hand with the last 
 chapters of a novel announced as already in the 
 press. But more repugnant to the spirit and 
 taste than any one of these things is the knowl- 
 edge that you yourself must write such a letter 
 as will bruise another and blast yourself. 
 
 Such a letter Frank Burgoyne, was in' honour 
 bound (such honour as was left to him) to write 
 now. He had had previously no very over- 
 weening respect and esteem for Mrs. Leigh. 
 He had merely regarded her as a nice, ladylike, 
 excellent woman ; but now the full force of her 
 motherhood came upon him, and he flinched in 
 his soul as he pictured her reading the letter 
 which must be written. " By God ! I'd rather cut 
 my hand off than do it," he muttered, as he pulled 
 a writing-table towards him after an hour's soli- 
 tary reflection in the sitting-room he occupied 
 at the hotel. Cutting 1^ hand off, however, 
 would have been a futile*roceeding, void of all 
 power to further those arrangements which he 
 dared not suffer to stand still. Therefore he 
 took up a pen instead, and wrote that letter, 
 the contents of which came down upon Theo as 
 a thunderbolt when she returned from her weary 
 day's shopping. 
 
 It was a very lame performance. Looking 
 back upon it in after years, when the bloom 
 of time was upon it, he was fain to confess that 
 it was a very lame performance indeed ; yet he 
 said all that there was to say, — all that he dared 
 to say. 
 
 When he rose from the wiiting, when he had 
 directed and sealed his letter^ he felt that come 
 what would of passion, pf sober love, of joy in 
 that love, and security in it, there would be a 
 dimming shade cast over all by memory. He 
 would never be quite to himself even what he 
 had been before. The vagueness that would 
 be over Theo Leigh's fate to him would be a 
 depressing. thing, or should that vagueness be 
 dispersed, there might arise a more agonising 
 certainty. 
 
 " Girls don't die of broken hearts in these days, 
 thank the Lord ! " he said to himself, after a 
 time. But the very fact of his thanking the 
 Lord that the probability was averted, proved 
 that he feared the possibility of its arising. He 
 was very miserable and very cast down, and 
 later in the night he could but think 'of how all 
 ithis would tell upon his prospects at Haddington. 
 ^%g title would be his for a surely, but— there 
 wa^a lot of unentailed property. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVL 
 
 "ALL IN THE FAMILT.' 
 
 The letrer was written: so far well. More 
 than that, the letter was sent off: the statement 
 it contajnedliould never be recalled, never ex- 
 plained awa^ never softened. ' 
 
 The poor fellow who had penned it — ^for though 
 he was you|ig, healthy, handsome, and heir to a 
 fine title and estate, he felt himself to be a very 
 
 poor fellow indeed in that hour — was profoundly 
 miserable, more especially after he went to bed. 
 His oohscienoe had it all its own way with him as 
 soon as ever he got' his head upon his downy 
 pillow. It made him feel very sick; and very 
 desirous of sleeping away all his troubles, and 
 very incapable of sleeping at all. 
 
 " There'll b6 the devil to pay, too, when they 
 hear it at Maddington," he thought, and this, 
 though a very minor evil, was quite enough to 
 make the minutes he gave to reflecting upon it 
 in the stilly night hot and unrefreshing. He had 
 not reeked of this when he began flirting with 
 these two girls. Of his own. free will he had 
 made the idle folly so very serious — of his own 
 free will he had approved himself such a sneak. 
 
 If he could only get out of this second fix. He 
 turned the possibility of doing so over and over 
 in his mind, as the night faded away and the 
 morning light crept into his room ; and still he 
 could find no loophole; still, the impression 
 deepened that there was no escape for him. He 
 had gone into the Sootts' cainp, and the Scotts 
 had managed matters so that there was no get- 
 ting out of their camp again. 
 
 But even though he could escape, whaj then ? 
 Of what avail, as far as Theo was concerned, 
 would it be to free himself from Sydney ? The 
 letter which, when Theo read it, would make him 
 seem so very mean .a thing m her. eyes, was 
 written, was gone ! He knew himself to have 
 been a sneak m the transaction, and he knew 
 that she would feel him to have been one. 
 
 Stormy sensations succeeded. He had been 
 taken in, he had been induced to behave like a 
 blackguard ; the whole lot of them (he meant the 
 Sootts) had traded on those finer instincts of his 
 which made him gentle and gallant in his manner 
 to women ! He swore at his last betrothed and 
 her family, as he thought of all these things, and 
 there was more rage and fury in his heart against 
 them than they deserved. 
 
 He knew himself now to have been a green 
 foplish boy ; and he was but this, for all that 
 habit of his of seeming a man of the world. He 
 had been David Linley's tool first; and since then 
 he had been the tool of his own vanity. 
 
 Through the long hours of the night he gave 
 himself up to a grim black view of the case ; as 
 the dawn crept on he began to be more hopeful 
 — ^to think that he might drift Qut of it, and win 
 a pardon from Theo before any one knew that 
 he had contemplated this baseness towards her, 
 even for an hour. But when the morning came, 
 these latter hopes were crushed and kDled at 
 once and decidedly. 
 
 "There's a gentleman waiting for you in the 
 coffee-room, sir;" the man said, who brought in 
 Mr. Burgoyne's hot water. 
 
 "What's his name?" Frank asked sleepily. 
 He was much fatigued now with unwonted night 
 thought ; very gladly would he have turned his 
 head on the pillow, and let the gentleman wait 
 for yet another hour. But when he heard who 
 it was, he knew that even so much respite from ' 
 that family could not be granted. 
 
 " The gentleman said he wished to see yon 
 immediate, sir. Here's his card." The card was 
 inscribed with the name of Mr. Scott, and when 
 he read it Frank groaned, and said he would be 
 down presently. 
 
 He went down presently, and found Mr. Scott, 
 
1S2 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Sydney's father, awaiting him in undress uniform. 
 "Wliat the devil did he come in that for?" the 
 unfortunate Frank thought. "I must say that 
 for Leigh, that he never forced the unwelcome 
 truth down my throat that it was a fine thing to 
 be a lieutenant in the Navy." 
 • Mr. Leigh belonged to the past — ^to that past 
 on which, all things considered, Frank ought not 
 to have dwelt. What Mr. Leigh had done, and 
 what Mr. Leigh had left undone, was of no 
 moment whateyer (or should have been of no 
 moment) to Mr. Scott's future eon-in-law. Mr. 
 Leigh — grand dignified old gentleman that he 
 had been — was of the past. It was with this 
 very different sample of the service that Frank 
 had to deal now. 
 
 He attempted to look surprised in a superior 
 manner when he came into the room, and found 
 Mr. Scott strutting about impatiently between the 
 windows. Now, the strut was not a newly-acquir- 
 ed thing on the part of Mr. Scott. It had been 
 his all his life. He had strutted out of his cradle 
 vmder the grate when an infant. He had strutted 
 on the quarter-deck when a man. The gait had 
 done him some injury in the estimation of the 
 many who judge by appearances, all his life long ; 
 but it had never been so offensively apparent to 
 Frank Burgoyne as at this moment. 
 
 Aecorfiingly, that young patrician, though he 
 strove to look surprised in a. superior manner 
 only, looked disgusted at the mode of taking ex- 
 ercise affected by Mr. Scott, as well. Had Mr. 
 Scott been a mere sea-bear, Frank could have 
 stood him better. He would have laid all short- 
 comings to the score of the "service." But Mr. 
 Scott was not a rough sea-bear ; he was a pre- 
 tentious under-bred old snob, and Frank saw him 
 to be such. 
 
 " My dear boy, I thought I'd just give you a 
 call as I was passing. I'm a-going on to see one 
 of the ' Lords ' — a most useful fellow for you to 
 know, by-the-way ; you had better come with me, 
 and I'll introduce you." 
 
 Mr. Scott said this with affected carelessness ; 
 but Frafik looked through that carelessness, and 
 saw that his future father-in-law was bursting 
 ■with impatience to be seen abroad in the best 
 haunts he (Mr. Scott) knew with Lord Lesbo- 
 rough's heir. Frank saw the desire, and ill- 
 temperedly resolved to defeat it. 
 
 " Rather early /or a call, isn't it, unless you're 
 very intimate with him ? " 
 
 " Best friends in the world, my dear boy," 
 (this form of address was perhaps the most ob- 
 noxious to Frank of any Mr. Scott could have 
 selected). "Best friends in the world, my dear 
 boy ; his lordship has remarked to me more than 
 once ' Scott, my dear fellow, you'd be in a devil- 
 ishly different position if merit had its desert.' " 
 
 " Humph ! " Frank grunted. 
 
 " Tou had much better come on to him with 
 me, and I'll introduce you ; splendid fellow for 
 yon to know; most infiuential man under the 
 present administration." 
 
 "Perish the present administration; I don't 
 care a damn for it," Frank replied sulkily, striking 
 his hands in his pockets, and looking out of the 
 window. " The old cad talks to me as if I were 
 one of his own low-bom whelps," he thought. 
 Then he remembered that he had just adced 
 one of the aforesaid to be his own w&e, and he 
 winced. 
 
 Mr. Scott's eoul shivered at this blasphemous 
 mention of one who was to him a demi-god. 
 But he reminded himself that the speaker of 
 that blasphemy was one of the denizens in that 
 more perfect air in which his demi-god habitually 
 dwelt out of ofSce-hours. For aU he knew to 
 the contrary, this, his future son-in-law, might 
 wing his flight more boldly in those regions than 
 did the official ! The thought was a proud one. 
 It made Mr. Scott feel more affectionately to- 
 wards Frank on the spot. 
 
 " His Lordship is very much bent on the ex- 
 termination of some of our standing abuses : I 
 should like to bring you together — you might 
 promise him that when you take your seat you 
 would ask a question on the mismanagement 
 
 of " 
 
 " Curse the mismanagement and the misman- 
 agers; I don't care a damn about it." He 
 glared out of the window savagely, and there 
 was silence for a minute or two, till Frank felt 
 ashamed of himself, then he asked, by way of 
 apology, 
 
 " Any message from Sydney for me ? Tou 
 see I'm thinking mor^bout her just now than 
 about the blemishes iiHihe decayed old system." 
 - Sydney's father accepted the partially ex- 
 pressed apology with admirable promptitude. 
 The strongest feeling within him at this epoch 
 was, that it " was a mighty fine thing to be 
 father-in-law to a very magnificent," not three- 
 tailed bashaw, but that far finer thing, a rich 
 young English gentleman, who would before 
 long have a handsome handle to his name. 
 
 " Tes," he replied, diving into one of his 
 pockets, " Sydney sent you this note, and she 
 hopes — I mean, Mrs. Scott and I hope — that 
 you will come down to-ttiorrow and dine with 
 us at seven ; quite a plain family dinner, I assure 
 you." 
 
 Mr. Scott spoke the last portion of his invita- 
 tion in the impressive tones people are apt to 
 use when endeavouring to persuade another to 
 come and partake of a repast under their hos- 
 pitable roof. Why on earth the assertion that 
 it is a "mere quiet affair — quite a family din- 
 ner," should be looked upon by the majority of 
 warm-hearted inviters as an irresistible induce- 
 ment, I do not know. A family dinner, as far 
 as my experience goes, is a thing to flee from, 
 if you would not have melancholy claim you 
 for bis own. Others must feel the same as re- 
 gards it, I am sure ; yet the promise of it has a 
 permanent place in the conventional formula 
 man speaks when he asks his brother-man to 
 come and feed with him. ^ 
 
 There was no excuse for him; now, that is,,\ 
 that he could readily make. There was no ^ 
 cape for him ; he was in the meshes ; an^ any 
 struggles he might make in the attempt to free 
 himself from them w^uld be not alone unbecom- 
 ing and undignified, but futile. The .reflection 
 they would be this last kicked the (beam in 
 favour of his not making them. He felt him- 
 self to be a calf, but he reflected that, the riotous 
 calf is even more ridiculous than the meek one. 
 He promised therefore to go down to the 
 little pleasant family gathering at Mr. Scott's on 
 the following day ; and when he Had so prom- 
 ised, Mr. Scott, finding that the honour of strut- 
 ting out in company with Lord I^sborough's 
 heir could not be his, strutted away t&one. 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 168 
 
 Trank Burgoyne sauntered back to his private 
 room, where breakfast and the contributions of 
 many posts were awaiting him, and as he gat 
 himself down to pat6 and the perusal of those 
 letters, he swore that he would never gratify old 
 Sostt's wild desire to show him off. " I'll marry 
 the daughter, — I shall have to do that I suppose, 
 and then I'll cut the whole connection," he 
 muttered. "My God! fancy my being asked to 
 go off and sue for the patronage of an intimate 
 friend of that old ftUow's." Then he fell upon the 
 pat6 morosely, and found it lacking in flavour, 
 and opened letter after letter with a lax interest 
 until he came to one — a brief one — a sheet of 
 note-paper, containing a few lines from Harold 
 Ffrench, telling him of hU grandfather's danger 
 and approaching dissolution, and desiring his 
 instant presence at Haddington. He put the 
 letter down with a sigh of relief. He was not 
 naturally cruel, or even callous, but the fear of 
 the consequences of his own bad conduct was 
 crushing out the best of his nature. t"ormerly, 
 his first thought would have been to regret the 
 demise of his kind-hearted, wrong-headed old 
 grandfather ; but now his first thought was that 
 his change of faith would not change his pros- 
 pects. He would be Lord Lesborough himself 
 in a few days, perhaps in a few hours. Anyway, 
 if the transition of his troth could be kept quiet 
 for awhile, there would be no danger of his 
 being cut off with the entailed property alone. 
 
 His first impulse was "good enough, only he 
 did not act on it. " I will go down to Madding- 
 ton at once," he thought, as he laid the letter 
 down. By the time he had finished breakfast, 
 however^ it had occurred to him that he could 
 do no good by going down to Haddington at 
 once. " A day — since his grandfather was so 
 far gone already — could make no difference ; if 
 he could do any good, of course he would go 
 without delay ; but what good could he do ? He 
 would only create confusion ; so he had better 
 wait till to-morrow." Could it be that he was 
 getting cowardly — ^this gallant-looking, brave- 
 fronted, frank-eyed young fellow ? 
 
 So he stayed in town, and strove to pass the 
 . time in suth a way as to preclude thought, but 
 this he could not manage. Ever and anon it 
 would come upon him that he had done a base 
 thing, without the faint excuse of its being very 
 pleasant in the doing. The girl he had left had 
 to the full OS much charm for him as the one for 
 whom he had left her. As much ? Nay, more, 
 he began to feel bitterly, and as he felt this he 
 cursed that baneful habit of flirting which had 
 wrecked him. 
 
 There was no comfort in his Club for him 
 ^js day. He shrank away from all the men he 
 kn^, lest they should have heard of his grand- 
 father's state, and should ask him " why he was 
 not do>wn at Haddington?" Under ordinary 
 circumsVnces he would have been as qnick with 
 the tale' and ready with the lie as the majority. 
 But this was not an ordinary occasion ; he felt 
 himself to be equally unable to conceive a satis- 
 factory GcUon as to tell a shameful truth. 
 
 Finally, he bethought himself of going down 
 to Bretfor^ to see Sydney, this day, since he 
 would be compelled to break his appointment 
 with her $n the morrow. Hoodily he assured 
 himself that he " should not see any fellow down 
 there whom he knew " — none of his set con- 
 
 gregated in those regions. With which com- 
 plimentary reflection on the locality in which 
 dwelt his future bride, he set off to visit her. 
 
 He got down to the Scotts' about five o'clock, 
 and no sooner did he cross their threshold .than 
 it was made evident to him that his coming just 
 then was very inopportune. A gabble as of 
 Babel had smote upon his ears from the open 
 drawing-room window as he passed it, the sound 
 of many female voices in full cry over some re- 
 cently started subject. But no sooner did he 
 ring and give his name in a loud voice than a 
 a dead silence, a fearful calm, a terrible lull fell 
 over all the house. Then whispers like zephyrs 
 were heard — then breezy suggestions — then 
 windy remonstrances ; lastly, Sydney's voice rose 
 clear and defiant above all others. " Nonsense, 
 mamma," she said, " he's not to be kept dancing 
 in the hall any longer, I can tell you ; " and then 
 thi drawing-room door was thrown open, and 
 Sydney, very becomingly arrayed in demi- 
 toilette, came out determinately. 
 
 She was put out by something; perhaps it 
 might be by his coming when she had not ex- 
 pected him. He did not care to fathom the 
 cause, he was only conscious of being amused 
 by the effect. Sydney was very bright in the 
 eyes, and very flushed in the face, and very 
 bustling in manner. He was very glad that 
 he had. come to-day, for he cared for no " cahn 
 of love " with her. 
 
 " Oh, Frank, it's you ! " she began ; " wUl you 
 come into the dining-room for a minute ? " 
 
 She half-opened the door of the empty dining- 
 room as she spoke. Frank shook his head, 
 negativing her proposition. 
 
 "No, no; you have some friends with you, 
 I presume by all this " (he touched her diapha- 
 nous draperies as he 3poke). " Why should I 
 take you from them ? I can't come to-morrow ; 
 so as you hadn't told me of your company, I 
 thought I might come to-day." 
 
 " Why not to-morrow ? — I must have you." 
 
 "Tou can't, unfortunately," he said coolly; 
 " Fm off to Haddington ; my grandfather is 
 dying." 
 
 The spirit of exultation at the prospect before 
 her leaped up within her in a flash. 
 
 " Dying ! is he ? Of course you will go ; dear 
 Frank, I'm so glad you came to-day. Company 
 — ^it's no ' company ; ' but, come in." 
 
 She walked in before him willingly enough; 
 she no longer sought to delay his entrance into 
 the assemblage they were entertaining. She 
 was oblivious of all things save that it was on 
 the cards that she shoudd soon be Lady Les- 
 borough now. 
 
 It was a tolerably large party that upon which 
 he entered ; there were about a dozen or fourteen 
 people seated round a table, on which a high tea 
 was steaming. It was clearly no impromptu 
 festivity; there was a look about all who were 
 partaking of it of having come for the express 
 purpose of partaking of it — a look of having been 
 invited for that solemn end, together with a cer- 
 tain air of resolution not to be defrauded of an 
 atom of it. There were several well-conducted 
 young men at the table, — ^young men who sat 
 straight on the extreme verge of their chairs, 
 and made remarks to their immediate neighbours 
 in still small voices; and interspersed amongst 
 these there were several elderly ladies, who were 
 
IS4 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 one and all eating hot toast with a wealth of 
 butter upon it, in white kid gloTOB, that didn't 
 fit them. For one moment on his entrance Mrs. 
 Scott ahnost .toolt fire from excess of vexation ; 
 the next she spoke with the Brummagem liilarity 
 and recklessness of despair. 
 
 " Law ! how glad I am you're come, Mr. Bur- 
 goyne. Find him a chair, Scott, and make him 
 comfortable ; no ceremony you see — it's aU in the 
 family." 
 
 Then horror took the place amusement had 
 held for a few minutes in Frank Burgoyne's 
 heart, as Miss Scott . introduced him separately 
 and distinctly to each of the white-kidded ladies 
 and well-conducted young men, and he found 
 that they were one and all aunts and cousins of 
 the bright-eyed young being who was attentively 
 watching hun through this ordeal, to see how he 
 stood it. 
 
 It was simply awful to him. Had they b^en 
 grossly vulgar he could "have borne it better, he 
 thought. Anything, in fact, would have been 
 preferable to this atrocious under-breeding which 
 kept them straight, on the. edges of their chairs, 
 and suppressed and subdued their tones. From 
 the moment of his appearance on the stage not 
 one of them would eat a bit more toast, or do 
 more than simperingly sip their tea. They were 
 all in awe of Mm, that was evident; in awe of 
 his position and future rank ; but above all, in 
 awe of that gentle breeding which was stranger 
 than aU else to them. I am ashamed to say that, 
 for all his outward calmness, he was " cursing 
 the lot " in his heart, as he glanced round the 
 circle, and saw that the eyes of the whole party 
 were fixed smilingly upon him, in a way he could 
 have murdered, them for. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYH. 
 
 KEMESIS. 
 
 " Is he alive still ? " Frank Burgoyne asked 
 eagerly of his aunt Ethel as he was embracing 
 her immediately on his arrival at Maddington the 
 following day. 
 
 " Yes, dear," she replied, through her, tears, 
 "and quite senable, thank God! and oh ! Frank, 
 so anxious for you." 
 
 Frank Burgoyne was not bloodthirsty by 
 nature, nor was he murderously inclined. Tet 
 it is a fact that his heart sunk when he heard 
 that Lord Lesborough was alive, and in full 
 possession of his senses still. As he was going 
 to die, it would have been so much more pleas- 
 ant and convenient if he had done it already. 
 His hanging on, if discoveries were 'made, 
 would only complicate an already complicated 
 position. 
 
 "Come up to papa. at once — do, dear," Ethel 
 pleaded, after a silence of a few "minutes. 
 
 " I'm coming ; hadn't you better go and tell 
 him first ? " he pleaded. 
 
 "No. I sent up word of your arrival the 
 instant I saw you coming in. Oh ! my dear 
 boy, I am so glad you're here. Do come ! " 
 
 " Ye-es, I'm coming. Is Ffrench with him ? " 
 
 " No. Mr. Ffrench is in the oak parlour with 
 Mr. Vaughan; the dear Vaughans, they are so 
 kind. How's Theo?" 
 
 Frank started up. 
 
 " Come up with me, Ethel," he said, without 
 noticing her inquiry ; and then they went upstairs 
 together, he almost seeming to seek support 
 from her arm. 
 
 He had an invincible repugnance to going 
 into the presence of the moribund. It was 
 not the superstitious fear which sometimes seizes 
 a woman in the immediate atmosphere of death. 
 It was rather a weighty dread that the death 
 would be delayed till hia secret had transpired. 
 He almost prayed that his grandfather would be 
 past taking an interest in anything worldly ; he 
 had difficulty in checking an ardent hope that 
 Lord Lesborough might be quite speechless and 
 deaf.- 
 
 But Lord Lesborough was neither. Frank 
 could not control a little start of surprise when 
 he came up to the bed, and saw so little that 
 seemed to him to resemble death in the aspect of . 
 the composed old man who was stretched upon It. 
 Then a spasm seized his heart. Supposing that 
 composure should be marred and broken up by 
 him before it was merged in the more complete 
 and absolute composure of death. He could not 
 trust himself to speak immediately on the birth 
 of this reflection ; so he contented himself with 
 putting his hand on the pale one that was put 
 out feebly to greet him. 
 
 "I'm glad you're come, my boy. I'm going 
 fast, — going fast, Frank," Lord Lesborough 
 muttered feebly; and then Ethel created a diver- 
 sion by bursting out with a sob, for which one 
 of the nurses in attendance instantly ejected her ■ 
 from the room. 
 
 " Don't say that, sir," Frank replied feebly. 
 "But it is so, my boy — ^my dear boy, it is so," 
 and here Lord Lesborough's own voice broke 
 with a sob, for life was sweet, was very sweet to 
 the old man even yet. Presently he resumed, in 
 a calmer tone, " There's one thing I should have 
 liked — to see you married before I go ; but you'll 
 not wait long before you marry and settle here, 
 and be an honour to your name, will you 
 Prank?" 
 
 " No," Frank said faintly ; he felt that he was 
 acting a lie by thus suffering the belief which 
 dictated Lord Lesborough's words to remain 
 undisturbed when foundation for it no longer 
 existed. But "what could he do," he asked 
 himself; "what could he do — ^now? " 
 
 " No, no, you'll not delay it long," Lord Les- 
 borough repeated. " She's a dear good girl, 
 Frank, a dear good girl ; I wish she ,had come 
 down to see me before I go," and when he said 
 that Lord Lesborough began to cry again, and 
 Frank tried to shuffle away from the side of the ' 
 bed. 
 
 "I have left my black cabinet — that ope 
 that's filled with blue Sevres, to Theo, and mtfny 
 other things that Ffrench thought she would 
 like for her own." / 
 
 ("How can a man on the brink of tlfe grave 
 think of blue earthenware?") Frank Uiought 
 (" he can't be half as bad as they made out. 
 wish I hadn't come.") ' 
 
 " Harold Ffrench is very thoughtful for Miss 
 Leigh," he said aloud. J 
 
 " He knows her and values her. lYou're not 
 
 jealous, are you, boy ? '' the old man asked, as 
 
 his grandson drew himself away, an# sat down 
 
 on a cbmr that was partially behind tne curtain. 
 
 " Jealous ! No, no, sir." ♦* 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 156 
 
 " I liked the Kttle girl," Lord Lesborough 
 went on dreamily ; in truth he had thought but 
 little, and oared less for Theo Leigh, till his fa- 
 vourite Harold had impressed the fact of her 
 value upon him. "I liked the little girl; always 
 liked her ; I should like to do more for her; but 
 it doesn't matter, she will share a very fair for- 
 tune with you, my boy, a very fair fortune in- 
 deed." 
 
 Could he sit there and hear this. Oh ! for a 
 tongue to tell the truth without a falter that 
 might betoken fear. Such a tongue was not his, 
 he knew : therefore he kept silent. 
 
 " AU you have she'U share with you, and they 
 all tell me that she richly deserves it. You have 
 done well in your choice of a wife, my boy. 
 God bless you and her." 
 
 After this Frank got himself away out of the 
 room as fast as he could, and made his way to 
 his own suite of apartments, from whence he 
 dispatched a messenger for Ethel to come to 
 him. 
 
 "I want you to come and bathe my head 
 with eau-de-cdlogne, Ethel," he said, in his old 
 half-impieribus, spoiled-boy tone as soon as she 
 came into the cosy den they called his study.: 
 
 "Does it ache, dear?^' she said, fondly put- 
 , ting away all thoughts of her own throbbing 
 brows at once. Then he laid himself 4*Jwn 
 upon a couch, and she bathed his forehead ten- 
 derly, and beguiled the time by thinking how 
 hai;dsome and good, and noble altogether he was. 
 
 " I hope you'll be able to see Mr. Taughan 
 before he goes, Frank ? " she said softly at last, 
 in a suggestive tone, "he wants to see you." 
 
 " He be damned," Frank returned morosely : 
 "there, •! heg your pardon, Ethel. Lord how 
 my brain racks. I carft see old Vaughan, I tell 
 you ; what does he want to see me for ? " 
 
 Frank spoke with such unwonted peevishness 
 that Ethel stared. " Eeally Frank, I don't 
 know what he wants to see you for ; it's very 
 natural that he should do so, isn't it? Theo is 
 his niece, remember." 
 
 " What is that to me ? There," catching her 
 hand; " I didn't mean to be impWient ; but I'm 
 upset altogether ; don't you worry me, there's a 
 good girl. The two people in this world who 
 bore me most nearly out of my mind are 
 Vaughan and Harold Ffrenoh ; I can't stand 
 either of them now ; you may make any excuse 
 you think proper " (this was uttered after the 
 magnificent manner of men who never deem it 
 necessary to furnish those unfortunates whom 
 they elect to the honourable post of their ex- 
 cusers, with fitting words) " you may make any 
 excuse you think proper. Say I'm in my bed, 
 .or in my grave. Of in the devil's own humour ; 
 anything will serve, so long as you keep them 
 ffoffi me."^ 
 
 '%ph, Frank, Frank, what has come to 
 you?" Ethel asked thoughtfully; "something 
 has gpne wrong with you ; what is it ? " 
 
 BulUie told her nothing had gone wrong with 
 him ; he only needed a night's rest." Soon 
 after tifc she left him, and for the remainder of 
 that day he was spared all mention of Theo 
 Leigh, 'i 
 
 The Sorrow brought a little Spurious strength 
 to LormLesborough, and (more distracting still 
 to Lorm LesbOrough's grandson) a letter from 
 Sydnej'Scott, that got animadverted upon at 
 
 the breakfast-table before it was handed to 
 Frank by Ethel. 
 
 " Why, is that Miss Scott'S' writing — what can 
 the little thing have to say to you, Frank? — 
 nothmg amiss with Theo, I hope ? " ]|thel asked 
 eagerly, as Frank, after glancing at the letter, 
 put it away in his pofsket. 
 
 " No, nothing," he replied, and he looked up 
 scowlingly at Harold Ffrench, who was watching 
 him as he said it. 
 
 "She was a most charming little flirt, that 
 Miss Scott," Ethel went on ; " do you remem- 
 ber she even tried her hand on Mr. Linley, and 
 he was very much at her feet for a time." 
 
 " Very much at her feet — might have been 
 her grandfather ! " Frank exclaimed. 
 
 "So he might; but all the same he was, and 
 she liked it," Ethel replied, " He was, wasn't 
 he, Mr. Ffrench?" 
 
 " Was he ? " Harold Ffrench evidently was 
 not thinking about whether the statement was 
 correct or not. " Has anything been heard of 
 Linley lately ? Do you know where he is, Bur- 
 goyne ? " 
 
 " Abroad — where, I can't tell exactly ; some- 
 where on the Khine I believe," Frank replied 
 affably. He was uncommonly glad to change 
 the subject from Miss Sydney Scott and her 
 letter. 
 
 " If you come across his address I wish you 
 would give it to me," Harold Ffrench said 
 quietly ; and Frank in all unsuspiciousness 
 promised that be would do so. 
 
 Lord Lesborough continued better during the 
 day. His medical attendants shook their heads 
 with much sapience, and told evei'ybody what 
 everybody knew already, that his lordship had 
 rallied wonderfully ; " there was no saying now 
 what turn the case might take," they added— a 
 phrase which is frequently found to be soothing 
 as well as safe. 
 
 Frank had paid his grandfather a visit after 
 breakfast, and had been tortured by more allu- 
 sions to Theo Leigh. When he came out of the 
 sick room he felt much depressed and grieved in 
 Spirit. A longing for sympathy sei-zed him, and 
 he resolved upon making a confidante of Ethel 
 — of Ethel, who had always " stood by him " 
 since their babyhood. 
 
 " Come out in the grounds and have a turn 
 with me, will you, Ethel ? " 
 
 " Yes ; you ought just to go and' give Mrs. 
 Vaughan a look, Frank." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Vatighan be Well, I won't 
 
 say what, only don't make me go there." 
 
 " Very well," she replied simply, going away 
 to get her hat and shawl; and he hoped the 
 matter was ended, for already Frank, the vacil- 
 lating, had bfegun to repent him of the but' just 
 formed determination to confide in Ethel. 
 
 When, however, they had been out in the 
 grounds for a few minutes, Ethel resumed the 
 subject. 
 
 "Frank, tell me. Why do you shun the 
 Vaughans ? " 
 
 "Oh!— I don't know." 
 
 " You do -know, of course. But will you tell 
 me?" 
 
 He walked a little faster, and made no an- 
 swer. 
 
 "Something has gone wrong with Theo and 
 you ; tell me, Frank." 
 
166 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 Still no answer. 
 
 " Hare you found out that you were over hasty 
 that night at Lowndes ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have," he replied, suddenly. 
 
 "And broken it off? Oh, Frank, it will be an 
 awful blow to papa, after things have gone so far 
 — if he lives to know of it; that is," she added, 
 mournfully. 
 
 The spirit of confidence was tipon Frank 
 now. 
 
 " That isn't all," he said, sadly. " I wish to 
 heaven it was; but I'm In for another aifair, 
 Ethel. I'm " 
 
 "Not engaged to any one else?" she cried out 
 in her clear, ringing accents, dropping his arm, 
 and looking at him fixedly. 
 
 The colour came into his face under her 
 gaze. 
 
 " Don't tax a fellow with it as though it were 
 a crime," he said, depreeatingly. 
 
 " A crime — ^it would be a crime, Frank. Tell 
 me ? — you're not guilty." 
 
 " Not guilty, but engaged again," he said, mis- 
 erably; for again he felt himself to be a very 
 poor fellow. 
 
 " I emit think it of you," she said, sorrowful- 
 ly; " Indeed I can't. You must tell me all there 
 is to teli now, Frank. You must, indeed ; but, 
 before you tell it to me, understand that I'll be 
 no party to anything underhand. What there Is 
 to be known ought to be known at once, I 
 think." 
 
 And then, though he dreaded nothing so much 
 as its getting abroad, he felt himself drawn on to 
 tell her the whole story. 
 
 She loved him very dearly, but he could wring 
 no more from her than this — that she would not 
 volunteer the tale to his grandfather. 
 
 " I won't go up and teU papa, unless anything 
 is said that would make my holding my tongue 
 appear like a belief in the marriage between Theo 
 and you, Frank. In such a case I must speak, 
 because it would be mean to be silent." 
 
 When she said that, Frank remembered how 
 mean he had felt the night before in holding his 
 peace ; and so, though he was very wroth with her 
 for entertaining such scruples, he could not doubt 
 their being genuine and strong. 
 
 " Well, I can only hope that nothing will be 
 said ; but it will be like my cursed luck for it all 
 to come out. Lord Lesborough will make the 
 most of it, you may be sure." 
 
 He spoke in a bitter, sarcastic tone, and Ethel's 
 heart bled for him, but still she could not side 
 with him here. 
 
 " Don't sneer at papa, Frank," she said, mourn- 
 fully. " You have behaved very badly. The only 
 thing now is for you to bear the fruits of your 
 fault like a man." 
 
 As ill-luck would have it, the subject was 
 mooted by Lord Lesborough again that evening. 
 Mooted in such a way that Frank could not 
 evade it. 
 
 " And you hadn't the courage to avow your 
 scoundrelism yesterday, when, sir, my fond folly 
 made plans for your mutual happiness, as I 
 thought," the old man said, choking with 
 rage. 
 
 " If you think me a scoundrel, I had better 
 not stay in your presence," Frank replied, turn- 
 ning away and walking out of the room. His 
 heart was hardened against his grandfather, and 
 
 his grandfather's heart was hardened against 
 him. 
 
 In the night Lord Lesborough altered his will, 
 leaving the whole of the unentailed property to 
 Harold Ffrench ; and on the following morning 
 Lord Lesborough died, and Frank was master of 
 Maddington, 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII (amd last). 
 
 A SOUND OP WEDDING-BEILS. , 
 
 Foe a little time after the meaning of that 
 letter had been made clear to her, Theo laid at 
 her mother's feet with her head on her mother's 
 lap, remained there powerless and motionless 
 for the unexpectedness of the blow had struck 
 her down completely. They were terrible 
 thoughts that rolled through the girl's mind as 
 she la,id there ; her soul was very dark, and 
 there was none by to " quickly string " a harp 
 whose chords might perchance tell a tale of 
 brighter things. An hour before she had been 
 rich in the anticipation of so much. She laid 
 there prostrate now — a bankrupt in love, in hope, 
 in happiness. 
 
 For about an hour she remained there on the 
 ground, motionless in her misery. Then she 
 rose to her feet, and her face, instead of being 
 wan and pale, and worn, as her mother had an- 
 ticipated seeing it, was flushed and hot. She 
 looked at herself in the glass for a minute or 
 two, pushing her hair back over her ears as she 
 looked; and the action was so childish, and the 
 face that gazed into the glass so young, that her 
 mother could but sob over the many years of 
 sorrow that were before her child. After look- 
 ing at herself in silence for a few minuteB, Theo 
 retreated from the glass and rested against the 
 side of the window, with her face buried in the 
 curtains, and then she spoke : 
 
 " I mayn't be able to remember two things in 
 a day or two that I ought totell you at once, 
 mother dear ; one is, that I have bought my 
 wedding-dress, and it must be got rid of— it will 
 not be needed now ; and the other is, that I am 
 glad this didn't happen while my father was 
 alive." ^ 
 
 She did not say this calmly by any means ; 
 she said it with many sobs, and with a terrible 
 quivering throughout her frame. Suddenly, and 
 before her mother could frame a reply to her 
 last speech, she changed her position. Her rest- 
 lessness seemed to betoken bodily pain as well 
 as mental ; she went over and leant on the bed, 
 with her face upon the pillow. 
 
 " It's very bad, very hard ; do you think it has ^ 
 come to me because I was ready to love anothejj^ 
 man so soon after Mr. Ffrench ? It couldn'tjjbe 
 that. Or is God spiteful ? " !■ 
 
 "Theo, Theo, my child!" ' 
 
 Again Theo moved; this time it was away to 
 the mantel-piece, against the cold marble of 
 which she pressed her forehead. 
 
 " I can't think it's that, for he madefcne lov- 
 ing. What is it ? — what is it ? — why am I 
 cursed ? " 1 
 
 Again the hot tears poured thems^es in a 
 torrent from her eyes, as once more shfe moved 
 back to the bed. Mrs, Leigh congratulated her- 
 self at sight of those tears. " She woimb suffer 
 
THEO LEIGH. 
 
 167 
 
 so much if she can cry," she thought, in uncon- 
 sciousness of the exquisite anguish tears caused 
 one afflicted with such a temperament as Tljeo. 
 
 " I wonder what will become of me," she said 
 presently ; " it doesn't seem to matter a bit now, 
 battered about as I have been; but perhaps I 
 shall care agun some day. What can become of 
 me ? Oh ! Sil those things I've got ! I'll lie down 
 and think what I will do with them." 
 
 Then once more her hands went up to her 
 head, and she sank down upon the floor wailing. 
 
 " I thought'he loved me, — I was so sure of 
 it." V 
 
 They gathered her up, and carried her to her 
 room, and laid her on h«r bed, where she lay 
 tossing about and moaning for hours. In the 
 middle of the night she woke, and told her mother, 
 who was watching her with an anxiety that pre- 
 cluded all thoughts of fatigue, that she was " bet- 
 ter now, and in no pain, only thirsty." After 
 this the absence from pain and the thirst contin- 
 ued for four or five days, during which she got 
 up and dressed as usual. But when she was up 
 and dressed she would sit for hours doing noth- 
 ing, and saying nothing, and looking very pale. 
 At the end of that time the fever that was in her 
 came out and showed itself, and soon she was 
 shorn of her wavy tresses, and was lying perfect- 
 ly helpless, and perfectly unconscious of her mis- 
 ery. And this lasted for weeks. 
 
 Meanwhile the old Lord Lesborough was bur- 
 ied, and the young Lord Lesborough had fairly 
 taken possession of Maddington, to which place 
 Mr. Scott came presently, in order to comfort his 
 future son-in-law in his affliction, much to that 
 unlucky one's chagrin. Miss Burgoyne and Ethel, 
 together with their little sister, had decided upon 
 living in London, so Frank was free to bring' 
 home his bride as soon as he pleased, a fact 
 which Mr. Scott soon gave Lord Lesborough. to, 
 understand he perceived. • 
 
 Harold Ffrench had lefjt for — none knew where. 
 Before he left he had got Mr. Linley's current 
 address from Lord Lesborough, to whom David 
 Linley had written immediately on his accession 
 to the title. Mr. Linley was hving at a " sweet 
 sequestered spot," so he described it, just free of 
 the tourists' track, in a village whose very name 
 was unknown to the frequenters of the Rhine. 
 Here he was innocently, and he trusted profitably, 
 employed in writing a novel, that, when it came 
 out the following year, should win him that celeb- 
 rity and fortune which had hitherto been denied 
 to him. Harold Ffrench listened to these details 
 with interest, and even jotted down the name df 
 the village in his note-book. 
 
 It must be understood, before I proceed farther, 
 rtjiat though Harold Ffrench was aware of the 
 ffite Lord Lesborough having some cause of wrath 
 agaii^st his grandson — some cause sufBciehtly 
 strong to Induce him to alter his will in favour of 
 Harol(^ Ffrench — Harold Ffrench had no suspi- 
 cion oflifhe real reason of that wrath, for the Bur- 
 goynes Vere so absorbed in their grief for thftir 
 father, ftiat no mention was made of Frank's 
 shortcommgs. Accordingly, when he left Mad- 
 dington, Harold Ffrench still believed that Mad- 
 dington wis Theo's future home, and Lord Les- 
 borough hi r future husband. Had he known the 
 real state W the case, the end of this story might 
 have beeasunnier, perchance. 
 
 He wep to London and saw his lawyer, and 
 
 made a wiU, leaving not only all the property 
 Lord Lesborough had left him, but all the prop- 
 erty he had been possessed of before that, to 
 Theo Leigh. " It shall all go back to them," he 
 thought ; " her husband shall not eventually be 
 a poorer man through his grandfather's liking 
 for me," and as he thought this an unwonted soft- 
 ness erept over him, and he went out to Hamp- 
 stead, and just looked at the house where his 
 jewel was, not trusting himself to see her again, 
 in his blind ignoi:ance of how matters were going 
 within. 
 
 Well, the end must be told, and told quickly 
 now, for vetj little space is left to me. It must 
 be told : it is not bright, but " it boots not to 
 delay," as Thomas Ingoldsby has it in that most 
 perfect of mediaeval poems, "As I lay a think- 
 ygne," "It boots not to delay," " let that which 
 must be done be dbne qujckly." 
 
 I must drop aU my characters for a space, leav- 
 ing them planted'on the board of life thus : Theo 
 ill of a fevep; Harold Ffrench on the eve of de- 
 parture for the Continent in unconsciousness of 
 every evil that had befallen A«r ; Lord Lesbor- 
 ough in possession at Maddington ; and Sydney 
 Scott rather impatient than otherwise to become 
 ' my Lady.' The subordinate characters in this 
 quiet little drama, which has been played out 
 before you, shall come out in a body at the end, 
 and bow their acknowledgments to a discrimi- 
 nating public for a gracious hearing. 
 
 So for a apace the curtain falls. It rises again 
 some three months later in the year to the sound 
 of wedding-bells. 
 
 They are ringing out merrily through the keen 
 December air, foretelling all sorts of good things 
 for the pair whose nuptials- they are melodiously 
 celebrating. The church in whose belfry they 
 are hung is in the West-End district. Pausing 
 on the threshold of that church, inquirers may 
 hear the murmurs of a " double event." 
 
 A double event ! Two pairs made happy on one 
 day. Hail smiling morn, that sees this blessed 
 quadrilateral. They have " no connection what- 
 ever," the fusty old pew-opener will tell anyone 
 jfho will tip her sufficiently well to induce her to 
 tell anything at all. Nor had they, in reality, 
 any "connection whatever," save the connection 
 formed all unconsciously to themselves in these 
 
 The first pair, the pair tffwhom the pew-opener 
 and her fellow-sycophants curtseyed the lowest, 
 — ^the pair to whom the best-horsed carriages be- 
 longed, — the pair that called a hearty " God 
 bless 'em " from the populace, — were Lord Les- 
 borough and Sydney Scott. I^made her a hap- 
 py woman that morning, not perhaps with the 
 best will in the wprld, for he hated her cousins, 
 who required all sorts of good posts and lucrative " 
 appointment's at his hands ; but still with a suffi- 
 ciently good grace to pass muster, and look all 
 that was desirable in the eyes of the crowd. 
 
 Sydney was gorgeous, — as gorgeous as it was 
 possible to be in white. She looked very happy 
 and very plump, and very much as if all things 
 had gbne well with her in life, as she passed 
 down the aisle under her title and lace 'veil. 
 "Don't kissme till I get home and take off my 
 wreath, or you'll cram it, Frank," she said to him, 
 as soon as they had seated themselves in the car- 
 riage ; and he ceased from his deihonstrations at 
 once, in prompt recognition of her superior self- 
 
168 
 
 THEO LEIGH. 
 
 possession. Lady Lesborough made only one 
 more important speech that day : it deserves to 
 be noted down ere we take a last leave of her. 
 
 " Mamma, dear," she said, when she had made 
 a very good breakfast, and was holding herself in 
 readiness to take her husband away ; " give the 
 whole lot of them " (by the " whole lot of them " 
 she meant all such as sat on the verge of their 
 chairs and made timorous speeches) — " give the 
 whole lot of them to understand that they keep 
 clear of me. Frank shall provide for the boys, as 
 far as getting them good bertlis goes ; but I won't 
 have them lumbering up my house." 
 
 The other pair whom God joined in such a way 
 that no man could put them asunder, will, I fear, 
 administer a slight shock when witnessed in this 
 conjunction. ■ 
 
 The bride quakes like an indiffereOtly-made 
 jelly as she comes dowp the church, leaning on 
 the arm of the earnest young divine, Mr. Shal- 
 ders, who has taken Lady Glaskill for better for 
 worse in consideration of her dividends, the 
 fabulous wealth in those boxes which she has 
 never permitted him to open, and his own in- 
 tense desire to have a London pulpit, and an im- 
 pressionable female audience. He will have these 
 things now, and Lady Glaskill, the wife of his 
 evangelical bosom, will mutter and mouth full 
 many an evening in silent solitude, while he 
 is intoning prayers under a deftly adjusted 
 light, pleasantly posed upon crimson velvet 
 cushions. 
 
 As for John Galton and Kate, they are going 
 on much as when we saw them last, with this 
 difference, that Kate is in sorrow just now, in a 
 
 very natural and legitimate sorrow, for one who 
 had been very dear to her has come to an un- 
 timely end. The sorrow is so natural and legiti- 
 mate, and Eate evinces it in such a thoroughly 
 tender, womanly, open way, that even Miss Sarah 
 cannot find it in her heart to deem her sister-in- 
 law a flagrant offender for betraying it at all. 
 And here, as a veracious chronicler, I must pause 
 to observe that Miss Sarah is not one whit more 
 agreeable generally than she wa.s when she made 
 her first appearance in these pages ; but for all 
 that Kate now prefers her to women of the 
 " Aunt Glaskill" type. 
 
 This sorrow which has come upon Kate is one 
 that the reader will have surmised already — Har- 
 old Ffrench's death. He had fallen in a duel 
 which he had forced upon David Linley, who 
 shot his old friend through the chest, and then 
 fell down by his side sobbing over him and kiss- 
 ing him as a woman might have done. 
 
 As for Theo, she recovered from her fever to 
 find herself an heiress, and a person of sufficient 
 importance to make it well worth her while to 
 struggle for life. She has not, as she once jest- 
 ingly declared she would, taken a yearly ticket 
 on the line that leads to Maddington; but she 
 travels about perpetually, and is very contented 
 in mind, and only altered for the better from the 
 Theo we knew of yore in person. Perhaps be- 
 ing only a woman, and being convinced of the 
 truth of that assertion that it " is not good to 
 live alone,"; she may find a certain pleasure in 
 the reflection that a woman's life is not over at 
 her age. But in these pages we take leave of 
 her as Theo Leigh. 
 
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 without which the atoiy losea half its point— which illus- 
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 ways make fine birds ; but the finest birds do not disdain.^ 
 their fine feathei's, and therefore Thackeray, if he were 
 happily still living, with all his scorn of finery, would feel 
 proud of the garb in which he is arrayed by Messrs. 
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 A most elegant edition of the works of this greatest 
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 bust iu Westminster Abbey, the British- Pantheon, but 
 under the I'oof-tree of every educated family. We rejoice 
 that IJarper & Brothers hare laid the first stone of the 
 - new and magnificent monument. It is indeed a reproduc- 
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 firm binding, and careful engraving, that it can best he 
 briefly described as an edition de luxe. A luxurious edi- 
 
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 superb in all respects — Philadelphia Press. 
 
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 issuing, and the reverence of art for genius is made ap- 
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 solid worth and loving appreciation of the man and author 
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 of appreciation, Surely no novel has ever b|en so typo- 
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