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 ^t^^^*^^ 
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS 
 
 I l^obel. 
 
 BY 
 
 C. H. D. STOCKEE. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 gttblishcrs in ©riinarg to ^er c^ttaj^stg ihz (Q,mzn. 
 
 1884. 
 
 [All Eights Reserved.']
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/betweenactsnovel01stoc
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 
 ^ 
 <>>. 
 
 ' Farewell ! 
 Listen to the passing l>ell ! 
 It says, thou and I must part, 
 AVith a light and a heavy heart' 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 HE appointed half-past five, and 
 I am here ; but I need hardly 
 expect her for an hour yet, to 
 put it mildly.' 
 
 The speaker put his Tvatch back into his 
 pocket, dropped on to a rough garden-seat 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 near at hand, and began to look about him. 
 The place of appointment was a neglected 
 garden on the side of a hill looking down 
 upon Mentone, one of those artificial terraces 
 whereby the industrious Piedmontese win 
 a few narrow acres from the sloping lime- 
 stone hills, and grow their flowery corn. 
 
 Looking downwards over the broken 
 Avail beside him, he saw the green corn 
 growing, full of scarlet and purple anemones, 
 with great patches of wild hyacinths beside 
 it, and yellow and white narcissus. On 
 the bare rock all about hung geranium and 
 cactus plants ; wild myrtle, heliotrope, 
 and masses of roses grew luxuriantly over 
 the fragments of wall and about an old 
 Saracen tower that stood amongst the ruins 
 of what had been a little convent, and 
 latterly had probably been used as a villa, 
 but was now deserted and desolate in the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 midst of this flowery wilderness. It had 
 been a fine warm day, after an unusually 
 open T\T.nter ; but though the earth still 
 kej^t the warmth of the noonday sun, a 
 little cold evening wind, scented with 
 hyacinth and orange-blossom, was blowing 
 off the sea. 
 
 ' What an hour to choose to keep one 
 waiting about I' he muttered, shivering, 
 and began to pace up and down along the 
 overgrown walks amongst the ilex and 
 orange trees. The momentary irritation 
 soon faded from his face, and left a melan- 
 choly, troubled expression that seemed to 
 rest habitually there, since it had worn a 
 furrow between the brows, and drawn stern 
 lines beside the mouth ; it was no fleeting 
 emotion of the hour, but some long, living 
 trouble of the heart that made the young 
 face look old before the time, and scattered 
 
 1—2
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 stealthy threads of grey amongst the brown 
 hair. 
 
 It was a dark, sunburnt face, with fine 
 straight features ; a handsome face, but that 
 something — sorrow, perhaps, or illness — 
 which had made the cheeks hollow, drawn 
 the brows together, and given a sad ex- 
 pression to the firmly closed lips under the 
 dark moustache, efixiced the impression of 
 its beauty, lending it, however, a deeper 
 though a painful interest. The blue-grey 
 eyes that wander so absently over the sunset 
 landscape are unspeakably sad — sad and 
 tired. This soul has been beating its wings 
 against some prison- walls in vain, you 
 would say. But hope dies hard in youth ; 
 the struggle is fitful now, but it is not over ; 
 courage is giving way, though it may yet 
 rally to a strong will. 
 
 For two long hours he paced and stood
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 about, now looking at his watch, now 
 staring at the western sky with eyes that 
 saw none of its glory, while the sound of 
 mule-bells came up from hidden paths below, 
 and the sun took his last look of all the 
 fair valley, throwing long yellow lights and 
 longer shadows across it, lighting the 
 opposite mountains with a tender rosy tint, 
 and revealing clefts, and peaks, and scarped 
 crags that had been lost in the blaze of 
 noon. 
 
 ' A hoax, I suppose,' he said at last, in 
 the tone of a man who is used to such 
 things, and as if he had perhaps scarcely 
 expected anything else. He hesitated a 
 minute, more than half inclined to go, but 
 he sat down again. ' It is the last 
 chance,' he said — ' the last. I'll wait a little 
 longer.' 
 
 He covered his face with his hand, and
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 sat motionless ; the chill wind stirred the 
 leaves and made a little bodeful sio^hino; 
 amongst the ruined walls, and through the 
 silence he heard, far, far away, the slow 
 tolling of some church bell. 
 
 * Patience on a monument !' said a voice 
 close beside him. 
 
 He had been so lost in thought that he 
 had not heard approaching steps. 
 
 ' Victorine !' he exclaimed, rising to his 
 feet, and his hands moved towards hers — 
 involuntarily as it seemed, for they did not 
 meet. ^ Will you sit here, or walk about ?' 
 he asked in coldly courteous tones, his eyes 
 not seeking hers. 
 
 ' Oh ! this will do, I suppose/ she 
 answered, flinging herself upon the bench at 
 the edge of the terrace, and opening a large 
 fan. ' I wonder you waited — you might 
 have known I wasn't coming so early.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' It was your own appointment,' he ob- 
 served quietly. 
 
 ' What time did I say ?' she demanded. 
 
 ' Half-past five.' 
 
 'AYell, it's not seven yet,' she said 
 pettishly ; ' and besides, I meant half-past 
 six — you might have known that. You 
 needn't have come ; besides, I kept you 
 waiting on purpose.' 
 
 He made no remark, but sat down on the 
 broken wall hard by ; at the same moment 
 he saw the sun dip behind the dark pro- 
 montory, and all the valley was shrouded 
 in shadow\ It went dimly across his fancy 
 that here was the true picture of the life 
 that lay before him — the sun gone down, 
 the shadows deepening towards the long 
 cold night ; only, for him, what hope that 
 it would ever rise again ? He raised his 
 eyes mechanically as he put the thought
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 aside, and there against the evening sky 
 rose the far-off peaks of eternal snow, still 
 wearing a crown of light. 
 
 ' Well, what do you want ?' her voice 
 broke in upon his reverie. ' I can't stay 
 here all night catching my death of cold to 
 suit your whims ; so if you have anything 
 to say, say it ; though you needn't suppose 
 I shall listen, for I shan't 1' and she leaned 
 back and fanned herself, and hummed a 
 little air. 
 
 She was a large, handsome woman, 
 somethino^ older than the man to whom 
 she spoke, although by the waning light it 
 would have been difficult to guess the 
 exact difference. Her golden -brown- hair 
 was arranged in massive plaits on the top 
 of her head, and fell in great curls on her 
 shoulders, and was perhaps the most 
 striking thing about her appearance, al-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 though she was dressed in the extreme of 
 fashion ; her ungloved hands and arms, 
 bare to the elbow, covered with rings and 
 bracelets ; long ear-rings hanging from her 
 ears, and flashing now and again as she 
 tossed her head and the stones cauo^ht a 
 gleam of light ; and about her throat a 
 quantity of lace and massive gold orna- 
 ments. 
 
 He looked at her face mstfully ; nay, 
 there was more than wistfulness in those 
 miserable eyes. 
 
 ' Yictorine,' he said at last huskily, ' is 
 this to be the end ? — the last time ?' 
 
 ' What else do you suppose ?' she asked 
 scornfully. 'It's no use going on, and 
 there's no great pleasure or excitement in 
 these melodramatic scenes, is there ? I, at 
 least, am sick of it all. We really needn't 
 try to be sentimental any longer.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 It was easy to see that ready words had 
 risen to his lips, some bitter, stinging retort 
 perhaps, for there went a flash across his 
 face Hke the sudden leaping of a flame ; but 
 the lips closed again patiently, and he said 
 nothing. 
 
 ' You think you are keeping your temper 
 now, I suppose !' she exclaimed, looking 
 scornfully at his set pale face ; ' don't do it 
 on my account. It used to amuse me to 
 hear you throwing away your logic and 
 your sarcasm — why don't you do it 
 now ?' 
 
 ' Yictorine,' said he, in tones of barely 
 subdued vexation, ' if you and I are to part 
 now, and for ever, for God's sake let us 
 part in peace, or go our ways at once 
 without another word.' 
 
 'You want to get rid of me,' she cried; 
 ' I knoAV you do !'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. ii 
 
 ' I should not be here, I think, if that 
 were all I wanted,' he answered sadly. 
 
 • Well, I'm not going to England with 
 yon, and I shan't wait here for you, or 
 anywhere else. I don't believe you are 
 obliged to go at all. That old man can 
 surely die without you.' 
 
 ' We need not discuss that,' he said shortly. 
 ' On that point I am determined.' 
 
 ' Very well ; then you will never see me 
 again.' 
 
 * Then I can't help it,' he answered 
 gloomily. *We have tried the experiment 
 long enough. I am beaten ; I give it up 
 now. God forgive me if I do wrong !' 
 
 'You're glad to be rid of me, I know!' 
 she cried. ' If you say you're not, I shan't 
 believe you. Why did you ever marry me? 
 Why did you pretend to love me ? Oh ! 
 you couldn't bear me out of your sight ; I
 
 12 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 was perfect, beautiful, good — heaven knows 
 what besides — noAv you can hardly wait to 
 say good-bye. Why did you marry me ?' 
 
 Half-a-dozen different answers rose in his 
 mind. 
 
 * Because I loved you ; because I was 
 mad, infatuated ; because I was but a boy, 
 and believed in beautiful womanhood ; 
 because I thought honour demanded it ; 
 because you made me do it — I don't know 
 why ;' but he only looked away gloomily 
 across the shadowy fields and was silent. 
 Why answer her ? 
 
 ' You never loved me I' she went on, her 
 voice rising and her gestures becoming 
 somewhat theatrical ; ' you were ashamed 
 of me from the first. I know you were. 
 Otherwise, why have you kept your mar- 
 riage such a dire secret from your people in 
 England all these seven years ?'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 13 
 
 ' You know very well that I did it at 
 your entreaty,' he replied wearily, as though 
 he had gone over this ground many times 
 already. ' I wanted to tell them at once, 
 and take all the consequences. I should 
 have thought my being ready to forego the 
 property might have conveyed to you some 
 idea of the — of the love I had for vou,' he 
 said bitterly. ' Money is a standard that 
 you can appreciate things by. ' 
 
 ' I wasn't going over there to be pointed 
 and sneered at by all your fine friends,' she 
 exclaimed irrelevantly ; ' and to go to 
 church and play propriety, and act the 
 virtuous wife before your uncle — that was 
 what you expected!' 
 
 ' I didn't know then that any virtue you 
 could show would have to be put on. I 
 was a fool, but I beheved in you then, 
 Yictorine.'
 
 14 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 She laughed contemptuously. 
 
 ' I believe still that there is a better soul 
 in you if you would not stifle it — if you 
 would once for all abandon these vicious, 
 worthless pleasures that get such hold on 
 you, and come away out of reach of temp- 
 tation. Why ruin your life and mine, 
 Yictorine ?' 
 
 Her eyes were staring fixedly into the 
 darkening distance, and the lines about her 
 mouth moved and trembled, although her 
 lips were set fast together. 
 
 ' Mine is ruined,' he went on, speaking 
 low, and trying to keep down something of 
 impetuous urgency that would creep into 
 his tone. ' Whatever happens, I can never 
 look my friends in the face again as an 
 upright, honourable man ; I have deceived 
 them these seven miserable years. Whether 
 I tell it now or not, and whether my wife
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 comes home ^vith me or leaves me to fight 
 my battles and bear my bm^dens alone. I 
 have lost what can never be mine again. 
 But I don't blame you, Yictorine — I ought 
 to have known better than to yield — I did 
 know. Come away with me — away from 
 temptation I' He bent a little nearer, his 
 voice was tremulous with strono- 'feelino- 
 his hand made some little movement to- 
 wards hers. 
 
 The set, staring eyes filled with tears ; 
 for one brief moment she was softened, but 
 only for a moment. 
 
 ' I don't want to stand in your wa}',' she 
 said in a hard voice, ' but I will not be in- 
 terfered with. I will live how and where I 
 please, and do exactly what I like exactly 
 when I like, and nothing else ; and no one on 
 earth shall stop me — you least of all !' 
 
 ' As long as I am your husband I am
 
 1 6 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 responsible for you/ he replied with all the 
 emotion gone out of his voice, and his eyes 
 upon the ground ; but his hand was trembling 
 as it nervously pulled the grasses from the 
 wall. 
 
 'Ah ! well, you've satisfied your conscience 
 now, I should think, with all the sermons 
 you have preached me, and the way you 
 have stuck to me and persecuted me all these 
 years, following me about as you have done. 
 You have not done the slightest good with 
 it all. If that's all you care about, you can 
 leave me — I wish 3^ou would — you never 
 cared for me !' and she began to cry passion- 
 ately. 
 
 ' Oh, Yictorine !' he murmured with weary 
 impatience. ' You might spare yourself and 
 me such nonsense as this.' 
 
 ' I hate you !' she cried presently, drying 
 her eyes. ' I only married you to ruin you.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 17 
 
 It's done now. and you may go where you like 
 — you can't g^t rid of me nor undo it. And 
 you'll have to support me, too. I shall want — 
 oh ! I shall let you know often enough what 
 I want, and you'll have to j^ay — you'll have 
 to pay, and you won't dare to tell. Aha ! 
 it would be quite worth while to convert 
 me, wouldn't it ?' She lauo-hed out loud. 
 ' And some day I shall come and clabn my 
 place in your grand home — some day when 
 3'ou have forgotten me, and all the world is 
 ignorant of your wretched secret, your wife 
 will walk in. Why I I thought you wanted 
 me to come ? you don't seem to like the 
 prospect now.' 
 
 He had turned so pale that she could see 
 it even in the wan evenino- lio^ht. 
 
 ' Yictorine,' he said, determined to keep 
 quiet, ' as long as you are my wife my home 
 is yours ; when you come you will find the 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 i8 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 door open. I shall not compel you to 
 come.' 
 
 * Ha, ha ! I know you won't,' she 
 retorted ; ' and as for saying " as long as I 
 am your wife," that is a threat to divorce 
 me, I know : but you can't do it, and you 
 daren't do it.' 
 
 ^ It rests with you to take care that I 
 never can,' he said. ' As for daring — you 
 may push things too far.' 
 
 Her eyes flashed with fury. She seized a 
 stone that lay loose on the top of the low, 
 broken wall beside her, and raised her hand 
 to throw it at him. 
 
 He knew she was quite capable of doing 
 it, and sat still looking at her without 
 flinching. At the moment he really did 
 not care whether she threw it or not. Life 
 was misery, and nothing, he thought, could 
 make it worse ; certainly not a blow on the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 19 
 
 head from a stone ; that might prove a swift 
 and certain cure. 
 
 Seeing that he was absolutely indifferent 
 she let her hand sink beside her, still hold- 
 ing' the stone, her handsome flice distorted 
 with rage and hate. 
 
 ' I tried to poison you once/ she said 
 between her teeth. 
 
 'I know you did — more than once, I should 
 have said,' he remarked quietly; 'and if I 
 hadn't lono; ceased to look for reasons for 
 anything you do, I should have wondered 
 Avhat possible object you could have had 
 in poisoning me, because it is rather a 
 dangerous game, and even you couldn't 
 ofet monev out of a dead man.' 
 
 ' Xo ; but you would have been out of 
 my way,' she said indifferently. 
 
 ' Why did you stop short, then ?' he asked. 
 
 She paused, playing with the jagged 
 
 2—2
 
 20 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 stone in her band ; it was so large that her 
 fingers scarcely met over it. 
 
 ' I don't know,' she answered presently ; 
 * it was always open to me to go on at any 
 time. I can throw this stone at you now if 
 I like — would it kill you ?' 
 
 He knew her too well to feel any sort of 
 shock at the cold-blooded curiosity of her 
 question, but a slight shadow of irrepressible 
 disgust passed across his face. 
 
 ' I really don't know,' he answered with 
 frank indifference — ' nor do I much care, for 
 myself. Give it to me ;' then as she only 
 held it tighter, ' I would rather be dead 
 than alive, but I should be sorry if you 
 threw it, Yictorine — sorry for you.' 
 
 ' Sorry for me !' she cried, blazing up, half 
 raising her hand again. ' Oh ! I know. 
 You pity me, I suppose, for my violent 
 temper, my bad education, my life on the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 21 
 
 stage, my — my — my low, foreign birth — 
 my — what did you call it ? — my utter god- 
 lessness — is that what you pity me for? 
 Say — speak !' she cried, raising the stone 
 higher as he only looked vexed and bored 
 and made no reply. ' You think you 
 will always be master of the field by 
 keeping your temper and holding your 
 tongue, even when you are pale with 
 passion ! That is your English pride ! 
 You think you — you think ' she stam- 
 mered with angry excitement — ' you think 
 you can rejoice in your superiority over a 
 raving woman — a mere mad foreigner. 
 You have always looked down upon me. 
 You think I dare not throw this stone at 
 you. I wish I had anything better ! You 
 try to frighten me with your pity — pity me 
 then !' and she suddenly flung the stone 
 with all her force.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Instinctively he bent his head, and it flew 
 past him and went tumbling down the 
 slope. 
 
 They looked at each other, and he rose 
 to his feet. Yictorine burst out laughing. 
 
 ' We only want footlights and an au- 
 dience,' cried she, *to make it quite com- 
 plete. Yery effective !' 
 
 ' Good-bye, Yictorine,' said he. ' We 
 may drop the curtain now, I think.' 
 
 She held out her hand, the same right 
 hand that even now had thrown the stone 
 at him. 
 
 ' We may as well shake hands, I sup- 
 pose,' she said indifferently ; ' it looks 
 better. ' 
 
 ' Never mind the look, since we have no 
 audience,' said he bitterly, ignoring her 
 hand and turning away. ' Good-bye.' 
 
 ' Oh, good-bye, Lucifer ! Pray don't !
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 said she, Avith a mocking laugh. ' I shall 
 take good care of your address, you know. 
 Eemember, this may not be the last act/ 
 she cried after him, as he went; " the curtain 
 may rise again any day.'
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ' But my good father thought a king a king, 
 He cared not for the affection of the house ; 
 He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 
 To lash offence, and with long arms and hands 
 Eeached out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 
 For judgment' 
 
 The Princess. 
 
 SAY,' said Jack "\Yorsley, pusli- 
 
 ino' open the back-door of the 
 
 paternal mansion — no, by-the- 
 
 bye, it was not a mansion, for it had but 
 
 one staircase ; nor, now I come to think of 
 
 it, am I sm^e that it could strictly be called 
 
 paternal, for tlie AVorsley family possessed 
 
 not a foot of oTound of their own on the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 25 
 
 face of the earth ; and if a place, to be 
 called paternal, must be the residence of 
 one's father, even then it will hardly come 
 within the limit, for Mr. Worsley was 
 seldom there. What falsehoods one does 
 tell ! We will content ourselves with 
 simply calling it the back-door, then. 
 
 * I say, there's a storm brewing I' he re- 
 marked, kicking his heavy boots against 
 the doorstep to loosen the mud that clung 
 to them, and survevins^ his two sisters with 
 a knowing and somewhat mischievous air 
 of caution. 
 
 Jack was the youngest of the four elder 
 Worsleys, and very small and slight for his 
 fifteen years ; he looked, in fact, more like 
 a child of eleven ; his hair, undoubtedly 
 the most striking thing about him, was of 
 a brilliant red — we may call it red, as he 
 was only a boy, and nobody took much
 
 26 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 pains to be polite to him, or to mince 
 matters with regard to his personal ap- 
 pearance ; his grey -green eyes and freckled 
 face generally wore a pleasant, good-natured 
 expression, and looked at all times de- 
 cidedly intelligent, though much older than 
 his size seemed to warrant, except, indeed, 
 his feet and hands, which were dispropor- 
 tionately large. 
 
 ' A storm brewing ?' echoed Janet 
 quickly, looking up from beating eggs and 
 milk in a basin. ' What do you mean ?' 
 
 ' A storm,' repeated Jack, nodding in a 
 provokingly reticent manner ; * don't we all 
 know what that means ?' and he grinned 
 significantly. 
 
 ^ Well, but what about, I mean ?' de- 
 manded Janet. 
 
 Jack here took upon himself to enter the 
 kitchen, and Rachel, his elder sister, who
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 27 
 
 was always called Ella, looked sharply 
 round. She was sittino^ by the fire with a 
 big baby on her knee, warming its bare 
 feet at the open grate. 
 
 ' Look at your dirty boots. Jack !' cried 
 she; 'how can you get them into such a 
 state, and then bring it all into the house T 
 
 'Not all,' said Jack sulkily, looking at 
 his boots ; ' there's a good deal on the 
 step ; and besides, if you ' 
 
 ' Oh ! and his hands !' cried Ella, her 
 eyes lighting on one which rested against 
 the white-washed wall, whereby its little 
 pecuHarities were rendered unusually pro- 
 minent ; ' positively covered with mud — 
 nasty boy !' 
 
 Jack glared at her a moment and then 
 flung out of the kitchen without another 
 word, slammino; the door behind him with 
 violence, and singing defiantly at the top of
 
 28 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 his voice as he tramped away across the 
 back -yard. 
 
 ^ Poor Jack I' said Ella rather remorse- 
 fully, kissing the little step-sister on her 
 knee. ' But isn't he tiresome ?' 
 
 * Yes/ sighed Janet ; ' but I Avish we 
 knew what he meant. You may be sure 
 you and I are in for something, or he would 
 not have been so cheerful.' 
 
 ' I can't think what it can be,' mused 
 Ella ; ' I've nothing much on my con- 
 science just now — have you ?' 
 
 ' My fowl-houses want cleaning,' said 
 Janet rather gloomily. ' And what's more, 
 I must do them this afternoon.' 
 
 ' Jack will help you,' suggested Ella; 
 
 ' No, he's got the pigsty and cow-house 
 to do ; that reminds me — some of those 
 children will have to herd the pigs in the 
 field while he does it, or we shall have them
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 29 
 
 in the pound before one of us can say Jack 
 Robinson/ 
 
 ' I ought to be cleaning the plate now,' 
 said Ella, jumping up. ' This child must 
 go to bed. How fast Saturdays come round 
 again, don't they ? And there's my blessed 
 greenhouse I must get done to-day — some- 
 how. What a waste of life !' and she left 
 the kitchen and went singing upstairs with 
 the little one. 
 
 ' A waste of life, indeed !' soliloquized 
 Janet. ' Nothing seems to waste her life — 
 always contrives to take it pretty easy and 
 be cheerful. I suppose she is born for a 
 happy fate;' and Janet beat the eggs more 
 vigorously, and sighed as one who, without 
 envying others their brighter destiny, has 
 very little confidence in the future, but 
 rather a dim foreboding of suffering, sacri- 
 fice, and disajDpointment. Her serious face,
 
 30 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 with its high broad forehead and dehcately 
 chiselled features, wears in repose a look 
 of slight depression, and the small fine 
 mouth expresses a kind of suffering as well 
 as great strength of will. She moves about 
 her work with a certain heaviness, and her 
 grey eyes have deep transparent shadows 
 round them, as though her strength were 
 constantly overtaxed. 
 
 She had just put the cake into the oven 
 and turned to rouse up the fire, when the 
 kitchen-door opened quickly, and her step- 
 mother, Mrs. Worsle}^, slipped in, shutting 
 it after her with expressive gestures of 
 caution and alarm, and watching it for a 
 few seconds as though she half expected it 
 to open again. 
 
 ' Anything up ?' asked Janet, as she 
 packed the coals well down through the 
 hole in the top of the hot plate.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 31 
 
 Mrs. Worsley held up a T^^arning finger 
 as manly steps passed along the carpetless 
 passage outside, dignified by the name of 
 * hall ;' and when they had died away she 
 relinquished the door-handle and came and 
 sat upon the kitchen -table. 
 
 ' That's the pastry-board you're sitting 
 on,' observed Janet, without displaying 
 much excitement. 
 
 ' Dear, how nasty I' exclaimed Mrs. 
 Worsley, dropping on to the floor and 
 beating off some of the flour tliat whitened 
 her gown ; she then sat down on another 
 corner of the table. 
 
 ' The master's in a frightful state of mind 
 about the washing-bill,' she said, in a low 
 tone. 
 
 * There's milk spilt there,' murmured 
 Janet, with a glance at that part of the 
 table which ]\Irs. AYorsley had selected for a
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 seat ', ' all the same a hundred years hence !' 
 she added philosophically. ' About the 
 washing-bill : it is pretty heavy, I know. 
 Washing, however, is about the one thing 
 we cannot do without.' 
 
 ' He says he shan't pay it,' continued 
 Mrs. Worsley ; ' he says it's at the rate of 
 a hundred a year. He says we're all as 
 extravagant as we can be — that he slaves 
 and wears himself out for us, and that we, 
 instead of trying to make both ends meet, 
 simply fling the money away right and left, 
 and make ourselves comfortable. He 
 brought up that wretched bill of Twigg and 
 Butter's agam.' 
 
 'Bug and Twitter !' laughed Janet,. and 
 it sounded rather disrespectful. ' He does 
 work awfully hard — that's quite true,' she 
 went on ; ' the rest — h'm ! — we've often 
 heard it before.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 33 
 
 ' It's over eighty pounds, you know,' Mrs. 
 Worsley continued ; ' we shall never hear 
 the last of it. What am I to do ? AYe 
 must have clothes ; we must have our 
 things washed. He forgets that there are 
 seven children.' 
 
 ' Most blessed condition !' laughed Janet. 
 ' I wish any of us could forget it some- 
 times.' 
 
 ' Of course the washing-bill comes to 
 more than it did when there were only our- 
 selves,' said the young mother, sweetly 
 ignoring Janet's grim pleasantry. * I don't 
 know icliat to do.' 
 
 ' I don't see where we can retrench,' said 
 Janet thoughtfully. ' The children seldom 
 look clean as it is ; I'm sure I don't. Ella, 
 in fact, is the only one of us that ever does 
 look decent ; but then, it's her nature to be 
 tidy and bright.' 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' And extravagant,' added Mrs. Worsley, 
 with a little laugh. 
 
 ' Well, I doubt if she costs more than we 
 do with it all,' said Janet, standing up for 
 her sister, whose little refinements made the 
 ground of many a family accusation against 
 her. 
 
 At this moment Ella came in with the 
 plate-basket. 
 
 ' Thank heaven, Lottie has gone to sleej) 
 at last !' said she. ' I suppose there's no 
 chance of Jane's doing this to-day ?^ she 
 asked, setting it down, and taking wash- 
 leathers, brushes, and whitening out of a 
 drawer, and looking with an air of reluct- 
 ance from the grey leathers to her own 
 dainty hands. 
 
 ' Oh Aar, no !' said Mrs. Worsley, with 
 the very faintest infusion of contempt and 
 reproof, and Ella buckled to in silence.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 35 
 
 Then Janet explained matters about ' tlie 
 wretched washing,' as she called it, and 
 they both looked at Ella for a suggestion. 
 
 ' How annoying !' said Ella. ' Why, I 
 wanted to send my green and white cotton 
 gown this wxek, and a white petticoat — in 
 fact, they onust go !' 
 
 Janet looked uneasy, and Mrs. AYorsley 
 was grave and silent. 
 
 ' I wish the master would stop things 
 before they get to this pass,' Ella said 
 presently. ' It's just the same with Twigg 
 and Butter ; he lets us get all our new 
 things there, and you know if lie chooses 
 them, they're sure to be the most expensive 
 things in the shop, and then he rows and 
 storms, and objurgates over the bill.' 
 
 This was true enough, but it did not 
 mend matters, and the other two merely 
 looked gloomy. 
 
 3—2
 
 Z(> BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 'I suppose Janet and I had better go 
 out as governesses/ said Ella rather 
 savagely. ' I always thought it would 
 come to that. For my part, I don't sec 
 that the dignity of trying to live at home 
 on a red herring a day is much to be 
 preferred to it. The sooner w^e go the 
 better, and then we shall get used to it 
 before we're too old.' 
 
 ' The master wouldn't hear of it,' said 
 Mrs. Worsley decidedly ; * and I should not 
 like it at all. All your mother's people 
 would immediately look askance at me, and 
 say, " That is the doing of the second wife." ' 
 
 ' Pooh !' exclaimed Janet, ' let them say 
 what they like. Surely you w^ouldn't mind 
 their being so absurd ! Nobody could com- 
 plain of our doing something for ourselves 
 without making themselves so foolish that 
 we needn't regard their opinions.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 37 
 
 Young Mrs. Worsley shook lier head. 
 She was only some six or seven years older 
 than her step -daughters, and their mother's 
 relations, as such will be, were jealous of 
 her and of her supposed interference in their 
 affairs. 
 
 Suddenly the three started into listening 
 attitudes ; a manly step, taking large 
 strides, was heard drawins: nearer throuo^h 
 the hall. 
 
 ■ ' He's coming !' whispered the girls in 
 suspense. 
 
 'Fly !' exclaimed Mrs. AYorsley under 
 her breath, suiting the action to the word, 
 and darting out at the back-door, followed 
 by the girls, across the yard, and round 
 behind the cow-house into the woodshed. 
 
 When Mr. Worsley looked into the 
 kitchen there was no one there ; the plate- 
 basket stood defenceless upon the table, the
 
 38 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 farther door stood o])&ii to invite the casual 
 thief, and a strong smell of burning issued 
 from the oven. He uttered an impatient 
 exclamation of annoyance and vexation, and 
 retired, slamming the door. 
 
 It was a door — let me say this in his 
 excuse — that one could hardly help 
 slamming, for, though it did not nearly 
 reach the floor at the bottom, it always 
 stuck tight at the top, and had a way of 
 swinging slowly open with a deliberate and 
 irritating squeak just when one had got a 
 couple of yards away from it under the 
 serene impression that one had shut it. Of 
 course it was but natural to take it out of 
 the door w^hen one had to go back after it. 
 
 Meanwhile, the three fugitives in the 
 stick-house leant breathless against the 
 faggots, laughing at themselves for the 
 fright they were in.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 39 
 
 ' It's all very well to laiigli,' said Mrs. 
 Worsley ruefully ; ' I wish I was dead ! I 
 seem only to bring trouble and expense, 
 and never do any good I' 
 
 Her voice quivered, though she still tried 
 to smile, and the girls felt their hearts smite 
 them for their manifold allusions to the 
 seven children, and to the general poverty 
 that seemed to have overtaken them of late 
 years. 
 
 Til tell you what,' said Janet, '"As 
 well be hung for a sheep as a lamb !" We'll 
 put down the slave. Jane, you know, goes 
 next week ; we haven't found another ; 
 we'll go without. There's nothing she has 
 to do that we couldn't all do better.' 
 
 ' No,' said Ella. ' What's the use of our 
 superior education if it unfits us for real 
 hard work ?' 
 
 ' We should be fools if we couldn't scrub
 
 40 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 a floor or black a grate as well as one of 
 these miserable maids of all work !' ex- 
 claimed Janet, laughing. 
 
 ' He won't object, I suppose,' said Ella, 
 moving to the door and looking out across 
 the fields, ^ as long as the work is properly 
 done, and no money asked for/ 
 
 ' The last man T laughed his wife rather 
 bitterly. * But how about the washing ?' 
 
 * Do it at home,' said Janet promptly. 
 
 They looked at each other ; there was a 
 moment's hesitation at the bottom of their 
 hearts, but it gave way. 
 
 ' Oh yes !' they cried with enthusiasm. 
 ' There are those two grand coppers in the 
 back-kitchen neve?^ used ' 
 
 ' Except for making the dogs' porridge,' 
 put in Janet, ' and keeping the children's 
 odd boots in.' 
 
 ' Ah ! well, they're easily cleared out/
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 41 
 
 said Ella brightly. ' We shall get the 
 place into something like order -^vhen once 
 the maid is off the premises.' 
 
 ' Well !' sighed Mrs. Worsley, ' I must 
 go. I haven't dusted the drawing-room 
 yet ; the master made such a commotion 
 about the bills that I escaped as soon as I 
 could. We're very late to-day.' And so 
 saying, she rose and tripped away. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Janet softly, with scorn in 
 her tones, ' we're very late to day, and we 
 were very late yesterday, and as many days 
 before that as we can remember, and so we 
 shall be to-morrow.' 
 
 Ella sighed audibly and coloured a little, 
 and Janet contemplated her thoughtfully 
 from the faggot where she sat. 
 
 Janet was the only early riser of them 
 all, and her sister's delinquencies on this 
 point were a great source of annoyance to
 
 42 • BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 her ; it was trying to have one whom she so 
 dearly loved and also greatly admired fail- 
 ing egregiously in the matter of tm^ning 
 out of bed in the morning. The vexation 
 in her face gave way, however, to a wistful 
 expression half of envy, half of despair, as 
 she looked up at Ella's bright face and 
 glowing hair — hair which sprang into waves 
 and curls wherever it could contrive to 
 escape from its ribbon and its plaits, and 
 caught new hues with every gleam of light ; 
 whose colour was neither gold nor red, nor 
 had one thread of brown in it or of yellow ; 
 whose shadows were more j)urple than any- 
 thmg else, whose lights were simply inde- 
 scribable. Jack called it bay, and said 
 that her eyelashes being black proved it, 
 ' because,' he added, ' a bay horse always 
 has black continuations.' 
 
 'Ella,' said Janet, 'you have stolen all
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 43 
 
 the good things of the family, and only left 
 the refuse to be divided amongst the rest 
 of us.' 
 
 Ella glanced from the early April fields 
 into the dimness of the stick-house with a 
 surprise that was not all unfeigned, for she 
 had not lived to be nineteen without sus- 
 pecting that she possessed a certain amount 
 of attractiveness. 
 
 ' I ?' laughed she. 
 
 ^ Yes,' said Janet rather moodily ; ' you 
 seem to have gleaned up every little talent 
 and grace and colour that could be turned 
 to account. Look at your hands, and look 
 at ours ' 
 
 * Because I take care of them,' interrupted 
 Ella. 
 
 ' Well, and your hair ' 
 
 * Yours is very much prettier !' exclaimed 
 Ella. • N'obody could call it red, as they do
 
 44 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 mine — a soft, warm brown, shot with 
 gold.' 
 
 'And you never have a day's illness; 
 always singing and whistling and laugh- 
 ing ; doing pretty things, playing or paint- 
 ing, arranging flowers or embroidering — 
 I can't do any of those things.' 
 
 ' But your carving beats all my rubbishy 
 fiddling and dabbling to sticks!' cried Ella, 
 ' and you're ever so much cleverer ; look 
 how you beat me at Latin and German! 
 What's more/ she added recklessly, ' you'll 
 go to heaven, Janet, and I never shall.' 
 
 ' Don't !' said Janet, getting up ; ' you 
 will if you choose to take the trouble. I 
 suspect my cake is burnt to a cinder by this 
 time.' 
 
 ' Bother ! and I must clean the silver — 
 it's twelve already !' exclaimed Ella. ' Come 
 on, Janet/
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 45 
 
 ' I must just see what BufFy is doing in 
 that run ; she ought to have laid to-day,' 
 said Janet, going into the paddock where 
 she kept her fowls. 
 
 ' I shall go/ said Ella, who had no affi- 
 nities with her sister's feathery favourites ; 
 ' but, Janet !' 
 
 ' What ?' came half smothered from the 
 fowl -house. 
 
 ' We can't begin the new regime until 
 Jane is gone.' 
 
 ' Of course not.' 
 
 ' l^ov yet the washing,' pursued Ella — 
 ' not with her o-rinnino^ at us.' 
 
 ' I suppose not, but I feel easier in my 
 mind,' replied Janet, emerging from the 
 fowl-house with a warm buff egg in her 
 hand, ' now that we have resolved on our 
 plan of action.' 
 
 ' The Draycotes must never hear of it,'
 
 46 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 observed Ella, as they went into the house 
 together. 
 
 ' Ye gods !' laughed Janet. ' Xo, indeed ! 
 AVhat a groaning and shrieking and outcry 
 there would be !' 
 
 ' I wonder how long it is likely to last,' 
 mused Ella, proceeding to turn up her 
 sleeves and smear whitening on to the 
 silver spoons. 
 
 * "What ! are you fainting already ?' asked 
 Janet. 
 
 'Xo, but I am nineteen, you know,' 
 replied Ella, with a little laugh. ' I shouldn't 
 like to think it would go on for ever.' 
 
 ' Then probably it's lucky for us that we 
 can't see into the future,' said Janet grimly. 
 
 ' "Well, I should like to marry some day,' 
 said Ella simply. 
 
 ' Then you will, I supjDOse,' her sister 
 answered ; ' you always have what you like.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ' Unser "Wirthschaft ist nur klein, 
 
 Und doch will sie versehen sein. 
 
 Wir haben keine ]\Iagd ; muss kochen, fegen, stricken 
 
 Und nahn, und laufen friih und spilt. 
 
 * ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 Und immerfort wie heut so morgen. 
 
 Da geht's, mein Herr, nicht immer muthig zu ; 
 
 Doch schmeckt dafiir das Essen, schmeckt die Ruh.' 
 
 Faust. 
 
 0-0-0-OX'T, Gog !' was the 
 sound that broke the stilhiess 
 of early morning in the 
 chamber where slept Ella and Janet and 
 two of the younger children — Madge, aged 
 -Q^YQ, and Godfrey aged four. These two 
 occupied each an end of one single bed,
 
 48 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 and were given to rousing one another 
 with kicks from time to time. 
 
 ^ Madge P came with intense emphasis 
 from between Godfrey's teeth, accompanied 
 by an exasperated spasm under the 
 blankets. 
 
 ' Naughty, cruel boy !' whimpered Madge 
 with another spasm, quickly followed by 
 one from Godfrey, then another from 
 herself, with ejaculations of wrath and 
 indignation on both sides, till the sheets 
 and blankets were reduced to a forlorn 
 heap on the floor, and four little bare 
 feet were kicking vigorously on the 
 mattress. 
 
 ' Be quiet, you two !' said Janet peremp- 
 torily, without opening her eyes ; and there 
 was a silence of three minutes, except for 
 the rapturous singing of early birds floating 
 in at the open window.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 49 
 
 Then it began again, sotto voce, but 
 ci^esceiido. 
 
 ' Go-o-o-g !' and a kick. 
 
 ' Mao^-o^ie !' and another kick. 
 
 ' Wicked, cruel boy !' and a still more 
 vigorous kick. 
 
 Then Gog sprang up, administered a 
 thump on the head to his adversary, and by 
 the time her yell broke upon the air, was 
 apparently fast asleep at his end of their 
 common couch, snoring profoundly with 
 uncomfortably quivering eyelids, in spite 
 of the fact that all their coverings lay on 
 the floor. 
 
 His brief slumbers, however, were rudely 
 disturbed by a smart spank from a slipper 
 and Janet's severe voice saying : 
 
 ' It's curious — singularly curious — that 
 neither of you two seems to care about 
 coming primrosing to Sunley Woods to-day.' 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 At this sarcastic remark there was a 
 short pause of dismay, and then both 
 children began to roar in a desolate and 
 heart-broken manner. 
 
 ' You d better leave off that hullabaloo !' 
 observed Janet in a tone that seemed to 
 suggest that all was not yet lost, and deep 
 quiet ensued. 
 
 ' There's an end of rest,' murmured Janet 
 as the alarum clock that hung over her 
 pillow went off, announcing half-past five, 
 time to get up. 
 
 She flung on a dressing-gown, and went 
 out across the passage to call Jack. 
 
 ^ Easter Eve, Jack !' she said, knocking at 
 the door and eliciting a weary, smothered 
 groan ; ' birds singing, sun shining, dew on 
 the grass ; going to be a glorious day — the 
 very thing for primrosing and Sunley. 
 Jack !' Another feeble and very unenthusi-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 51 
 
 astic groan. ' Do get up ! There's so 
 much to be done before we can get off. 
 Jack !' 
 
 ' All right,' responded Jack more man- 
 fully; and she heard him tumble out on 
 to the floor, and went back to her room. 
 
 ' Ella ! (I shall never get her up,' she 
 murmured). 'Ella! primroses! Sunley 
 Woods ! All the children to wash and 
 dress, breakfast to make, hamper to pack — 
 Ella ! — all the boots to clean, and the tart 
 to make for to-morrow! There's Jack gone 
 down already,' she added, after an interval 
 of five minutes — the modest time allowed 
 himself by her worthy brother for the 
 performance of his very simple toilet ; ' I 
 must fly !' and she proceeded to hurry^ 
 through her dressing, while Ella slept on 
 as though nothing had happened. 
 
 At six Janet was ready. 
 
 4—2 

 
 52 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 'Now, Ella,' said she, as she tied on a 
 large coarse apron, ' I'm going down, and 
 I must take the clock. It's six, and you'd 
 better get up.' With that she left the room 
 and went down. 
 
 The maid had left them a day or two 
 before, and they had watched her departure 
 from the drawing - room window with 
 mingled feelings, much as mariners on a 
 new land might watch the flames con- 
 suming their ships. 
 
 ' A good riddance of bad rubbish !' Jack 
 had said, and said with feeling, for he 
 always quarrelled with the maid. 
 
 ' Now we shall have some peace and com- 
 fort !' said his sisters. ' Now we shall be 
 masters in the house ! Now things will be 
 properly done, and we shan't feel that a hire- 
 ling is sitting eating her head off in the 
 kitchen, and having buttered toast for break-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 53 
 
 fast while we eat bread and dripping. Hurrah 
 for the new regime ! Hurrah for liberty I' 
 
 Liberty is a very fine thing, and admir- 
 able to hurrah about, but it must be con- 
 fessed that even Janet, with all her heroism 
 and self-denial, did not enjoy all the results 
 of their revolution, glorious though it was. 
 To go down the creaking stairs when the 
 rest are warm asleep and let the first day- 
 light into rooms that you last saw by lamp 
 and firelight, of whose genial warmth and 
 glow nothing now remains but ghastly 
 ashes and an oppressive smell of paraffine, 
 is not a pleasant task, especially when the 
 mornings are cold. When you are ready 
 to sit down to hot coffbe and clean bread 
 and butter, what can be harder than to have 
 to brush out your grate and light — if you 
 can light — a fire, and then, while it pretends 
 to burn, to have to clear away, as Janet
 
 54 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 did this morning, the remains of last night's 
 supper — the cheese, a jug and tumblers 
 smelling faintly of beer, a mince-pie nibbled 
 all round by a midnight mouse, and the 
 little saucepan in which they had made 
 chocolate for the master. 
 
 As she entered the kitchen by one door, 
 Jack, followed by Ban and Hardigras, two 
 handsome and portentous-looking mastiffs, 
 entered from the backyard at the other with 
 a pail in his hand. 
 
 ' I've filled the ducks' water-pans and the 
 cow's trough, and fed the pigs/ he said, 
 with a happy, business-like air, flinging 
 down the pail on the mat, and giraig it a 
 kick that was quite superfluous and uncalled 
 for, just to show his general superiority^ 
 ' and I've opened the frame ; it's up to 
 eighty, and my gourds are coming up 
 grandly. Let me carry out those cinders
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 55 
 
 for you,' he added, as Janet began to rake 
 out the grate and shovel up the ashes into 
 the empty scuttle. 
 
 ' All right, thank you ; and bring it back 
 full of coals as quick as you can, Jack. I 
 want to feed those fowls, only I must just 
 get the fire under way first.' 
 
 ' I'll feed the beasts,' said Jack eagerly. 
 
 ' Xo you won't,' replied his sister ; 
 ' thank you all the same. Be off with 
 those cinders !' 
 
 ' Oh, very well !' exclaimed the boy, 
 snatching up the scuttle resentfully, and 
 dashing off with it, precipitating about half 
 its contents on to the floor as he went. 
 
 ' See what you've done !' cried poor Janet. 
 ' I had better by half have done it myself 
 
 'Well,' retorted Jack sulkily, setting 
 down his burden again, ' you shouldn't fill 
 it so beastly full.'
 
 56 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 * There's nothing beastly about the ful- 
 ness of a coalscuttle/ said Janet, as she 
 swept up the cinders. 
 
 ' Yes there is, when it makes a mess all 
 over the place like that,' argued Jack, 
 looking on. 
 
 ' You did that,' retorted his sister sig- 
 nificantly. 
 
 * Oh yes, of course,' began Jack sulkily, 
 resuming the scuttle and walking slowly to 
 the door, * Jack's beastly ; his clothes are 
 beastly ; his hands are beastly ; but not the 
 dear, sweet coalscuttle ; not the charming, 
 innocent little ducks of cinders !' Here he 
 set down the articles in question, clasped 
 his hands theatrically, and cast his eyes 
 heavenward with an air of abject servility. 
 ' Oh no ! Let us be particular about our 
 adjectives while we turn our good-for- 
 nothing brother into a beast of burden.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 57 
 
 ' Ass, Jack !' cried Janet, snatching up 
 the shovel and aiming a playful blow at the 
 top of his head. ' How you waste the time ! 
 I might have done it twice over Avhile you 
 stand there arguing.' 
 
 ' You began it,' retorted Jack, evading 
 the shovel and taking flight across the yard, 
 hopping on one foot, and of course sending 
 the cinders flying about his path in all 
 directions. ' I empty it as I go, to save 
 the precious time,' he called out, on finding 
 nothing in it when he reached the coal- 
 house door, and Janet heard him performing 
 ' Over the Garden Wall ' in his own noisy 
 but not unmusical manner, while she turned 
 to and laid the fire. 
 
 ' Now, Jack,' she said, looking at the 
 clock when he came back, ' you must go 
 for the milk — five pints will be enough of 
 skim, and one of new for Lottie. I shall
 
 58 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 give them all bread and milk for breakfast 
 to save time; and if there's enough over, 
 I'll make a blanc-mange for to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Blue monge !' interrupted Jack appre- 
 ciatively. ' I'll bring you in the laurel- 
 leaves.' 
 
 ' Well, make haste,' said his sister ; 
 * there are the cans.' 
 
 ' My wig ! how shiny !' 
 
 * Ella cleaned them yesterday — be off !' 
 'All right — it's just twenty to seven. 
 
 How long d'ye bet it takes me to go there 
 and back ? What d'ye bet me I won t be 
 here within the quarter ?' 
 
 * Oh yes ! and all the milk spilt on the 
 road !' laughed Janet. ' A good box, on 
 the ear, not to say two.' 
 
 ' Then I box your ears if I'm late ; all 
 right ; very neat arrangement ! Good-bye, 
 my lovely creature !' and Jack danced out
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 59 
 
 of the kitchen to the rattle of the milk-cans, 
 and set off down the road at a furious pace, 
 accompanied by Ban and Hardigras bark- 
 ing and jumping round him. 
 
 ' Come, the water's getting hot at last,' 
 observed Janet, talking to herself, and 
 trying its temperature by the simple ex- 
 pedient of dipping her fingers into the 
 boiler ; ' now for my fowls !' and she began 
 mixing up their mash of meal under the 
 boiler- tap, 
 
 ' I'd better see what Ella is about, per- 
 haps, before I go out,' she said, looking 
 meditatively at the steaming pail and the 
 fire. ' Those brats are making row enough, 
 at any rate !' 
 
 So saying, she went to the foot of the 
 stairs. 
 
 ' Ella ! the water's hot !' 
 
 ' All right,' responded Ella, leaning over
 
 6o BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 the banisters in a blue dressing-gown; '• I'm 
 just ready. You little ones must lie still 
 till I come up with the bath- water. Stella, 
 that is Nora's petticoat that you're putting 
 on ; take it off. Sidney, your knicker- 
 bockers are hindside before — you can't wear 
 them like that ; when will you learn to 
 dress yourselves ?' 
 
 ' I don't know,' replied Sidney with 
 humble simplicity, extricating himself awk- 
 wardly from his misplaced garment, in 
 which process both his shoes came off and 
 stuck in the elastic at the knees. 
 
 ' What on earth is that sticking out at 
 the top of your waistcoat behind ?' de- 
 manded Ella, passing the door again on 
 her way down. 
 
 ' I don't know,' said the little boy, twist- 
 ing his head and standing on tiptoe in the 
 vain attempt to view himself from the rear.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. " 6i 
 
 'Well, then, I'll tell you/ said Ella 
 severely, though her mouth twitched with 
 suppressed amusement ; 4t's the tail of 
 your shirt, and that's not the place for it.' 
 
 'Oh!' was the embarrassed rejoinder; 
 and Sidney, with a sigh, set painfully about 
 reorganizing the attune which had already 
 cost him so much pains to put on. 
 
 When Ella went into the kitchen she 
 found Janet and Jack indulging in mutual 
 recriminations over the milk. 
 
 ' Good-morning, Quilp !' said she to her 
 brother, with an air of good-natured su- 
 periority. 
 
 ' Good-morning, Sally Brass !' returned 
 Jack, and went on to Janet. ' You said 
 five quarts of skim ' 
 
 ' I didn't, I said pints ; only you were so 
 busy making an idiot of yourself that you 
 couldn't attend,'
 
 62 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' Well, it's only a beggarly twopence- 
 halfpenny when it's biled and the skin took 
 off; I'll drink it — or why not make a 
 thundering blue monge of it ? Or — I'll 
 tell you what ! bottle it, and take it to 
 Sunley with us !' 
 
 ' Quilp, my beloved/ said Ella, reaching 
 down a large jug for hot water, ' will you 
 have the gallantry to open the greenhouse 
 for me, and to water everything ?' 
 
 ' Anything to please my lovely Sally/ 
 responded Quilp demonstratively, and was 
 going into the hall when Ella took alarm. 
 
 ' You're not thinking of going through 
 the drawing-room in those boots, I should 
 hope ! And do you mean to tell me that 
 you went down the village with your pro- 
 longations tied up like that ?' pointing at 
 Jack's trousers, which he chose to wear girt 
 in just below the knees with a ragged piece
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 63 
 
 of string — tarred line for choice — in beau- 
 tiful imitation of the labouring men of bis 
 acquaintance. 
 
 ' I don't mean to tell you anything about 
 them,' said Jack, glancing tenderly at his 
 extremities and then regarding his sister 
 with his most aggravating air. 
 
 ' Well, you look quite sufficiently caddish 
 without that, let me tell you. You needn't 
 be afraid of people finding out that you're 
 a gentleman.' 
 
 ' Oh ! how I do like to hear you two 
 going on !' said Jack, grinning in the door- 
 way. ' I wonder if either of you ever 
 expects to be taken for a lady ! Xurse-girl 
 and hen-wife — that's about what you're fit 
 for.' 
 
 ' And you're the dirty odd-job -boy-about 
 the-place,' said Ella, pushing him out of her 
 way by applying the hot jug to his nose.
 
 64 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' I say, we shall get no breakfast to-day 
 if you two can't leave off squabbling for an 
 hour,' put in Janet. 
 
 ' I'm smit all of a heap at the bare idea/ 
 protested Jack, falling back against the 
 passage-wall with his eyes shut and his 
 tongue out. 
 
 This might easily have gone on for hours 
 had not sounds of wild confusion amongst 
 the children upstairs caused Ella to rush up 
 after them. 
 
 ' Maggie won't say her prayers i' ex- 
 claimed Nora with flaming cheeks, as Ella 
 entered the room, giving her shock of tawny 
 hair a general backward push with both 
 hands and looking almost as guilty as her 
 victim who stood beside one of the beds 
 with an expression wavering between piety 
 and sullenness, as she inclined either to say 
 her prayers or to refuse. Nora was two
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 65 
 
 3'ears older than Madge, and made the most 
 of her authority. 
 
 ' Maggie is an obstinate pig !' remarked 
 Godfrey from inside the bed, putting in his 
 oar. 
 
 ' Ella, it was Gog's fault,' interposed 
 Stella, th€ eldest of the seven. Every time 
 Xora o^ot ]\Iao'orie down on her knees he 
 stuck up his foot under the bedclothes in 
 front of her and made her laugh.' 
 
 Godfrey, on this, assumed an expression 
 of guilt and remorse until he saw that Ella 
 was paying no attention to any of them, 
 when it instantly vanished and his usual 
 devil-may-care look settled down upon his 
 small round face. 
 
 In half an hour 'the whole boiling,' as 
 their elders called them, had gradually and 
 in instalments found their way down to the 
 breakfast-table and were doing execution 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 in various styles upon their bowls of bread 
 and milk. 
 
 Godfrey, being as he thought pressed for 
 time, began his kneeling on his high stool ; 
 he had just contrived to lodge the contents 
 of a monstrous spoon half upon his pinafore 
 and the rest chiefly in his mouth — if we 
 don't count what was left upon his cheeks 
 and on the glistening tip of his nose — when 
 Sidney interfered effectively by tripping up 
 the stool and its occupant and bringing 
 both with a crash and a yell to the floor. 
 
 ' That's not the way to eat your break- 
 fast, Grog,' remarked he, quite in the dry, 
 judicial style of his betters. 
 
 Godfrey scrambled up and ran after him 
 round the table, spoon in hand ; Xora made 
 grabs at their hair as they passed with 
 enterprise and impartiality ; Stella, absorbed 
 in more important thoughts, ate on in
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 67 
 
 silence and oblivion of all that was passing ; 
 Madge gazed, amused, upon the scene with 
 spoon suspended and mouth wide open. 
 
 ' Xow, you little fools !' cried Jack's voice, 
 suddenly putting an end to the tumult, 
 * you'd better sit down in your places before 
 Ella and Janet come, or you'll one and all 
 be skinned alive ; no going to Sunley then !' 
 
 The force of this observation was not lost 
 upon his hearers, and the scene was tolerably 
 orderly and peaceful when the two elder 
 sisters came in. 
 
 ' I'll just take up mamma's chocolate,' said 
 Janet, peeping in and disappearing again. 
 
 Mrs. Worsley was delicate, and seldom 
 came down to breakfast. 
 
 ' We never all sit down in comfort 
 together,' sighed Ella, as she poured out the 
 coffee. ' Jack, what did become of the post- 
 man ?' 
 
 5—2
 
 68 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 * Postman ? Why, I suppose he's on his 
 way to Brackenbury by this time.' 
 
 * Yes, of course ; but weren't there any 
 letters ? 
 
 ' Letters ? Didn't you go to him T 
 asked Jack, stuffing his mouth unusually 
 full to conceal his embarrassment. 
 
 ' I'm sure there's a letter for me, Jack, or 
 you wouldn't bother and prevaricate like 
 that. You may as well give it me,' said 
 Ella, inclining to coax a little, yet not sure 
 that Jack was going to be amenable. 
 
 Jack took a letter out of his pocket and 
 began to study the address with a critical 
 air. 
 
 Ella's quick eye recognised the writing at 
 once. 
 
 ' It's from Lady Dray cote — I see it, Jack 
 — give it to me at once. An invitation, 
 perhaps! Oh, Jack! I call you a fiend!'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 69 
 
 ' Oh ! you do, do you !' remarked the 
 boy with a wink, stuffing the letter back 
 into his pocket. ' Amiable Sally Brass !' 
 
 * Quilp, you're an angel !' said Ella, 
 laughing in order to keep her temper ; 
 ' hand it here, please.' 
 
 ' Take it!' cried Jack at last, and threw it 
 at her. 
 
 It went into the slop-basin, and all the 
 children screamed with delight and looked 
 at Jack with admiration. Ella scarcely 
 noticed where it fell, but picked it up, opened 
 it, and glanced hastily through it. 
 
 ' Janet !' she cried, as her sister passed 
 the door, ' an invitation to Draycote House 
 — for me — the week after next. Oh ! if I 
 could only go !' 
 
 Janet went cautiously upstairs with Mrs. 
 Worsley's breakfast, and presently came 
 back.
 
 70 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 * Oh, you must go !' said she, sittmg down 
 at last. ' It'll be your first glimpse of a 
 reofular London season.' 
 
 ' I feel quite shaky at the bare idea,' said 
 Ella ; ' but we must talk it over on the way 
 to Sunley. Now, children, come along ; 
 who's ready ?'
 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass 
 
 Upon the boundless ocean plain, 
 So on the sea of life, alas ! 
 
 Man meets man — meets, and quits again.' 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 W^^ MAYING divided 
 
 the available 
 straw hats of the family amongst 
 the children, brushed, up the 
 perambulator, packed the little hamper, and 
 let out the mastiffs, away they all went up 
 the hill in grand spirits, with a good four 
 miles of walk before them ere they could 
 reach the welcome shade of Sunley Woods. 
 Ella and Janet had just changed hands
 
 72 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 at the wheeling of the two children in the 
 perambulator, and Jack was proposing 
 to lead the two dogs for the present, 
 lest, tempted by erratic squirrels, they 
 should dash off into the pine- woods on 
 either side, and get their owners into diffi- 
 culties for disturbing the game, when they 
 descried a light cart approaching rapidly 
 with the village carpenter's son in it, and, 
 alas ! his black retriever careering merrily 
 alongside. 
 
 Ban and Hardigras, as befitted their 
 rank and station, were dogs of large and 
 tolerant mind ; but there was that in their 
 history which led them to regard a black 
 curly dog as their natural enemy. The 
 bristles rose forbiddingly along their backs 
 and lion-like necks, insults were exchanged 
 — they bit their thumbs, so to speak, at 
 each other, and took no pains to disguise it.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 73 
 
 Long before Jack or anybody else could 
 catch them, they were rolling over in clouds 
 of dust, and the air was hideous with a 
 roaring as of wild beasts. 
 
 Much good it was to bawl out 'Ban!' 
 'Hardigras!' Likely it was that they 
 would hear ! Jack dashed forward and 
 tugged at their collars ; but one might as 
 well match one's weight against that of a 
 bull, to say nothing of the extra risk of 
 being bitten. 
 
 Joe, the carpenter's son, stood up in his 
 cart, feeling only tolerably safe, and looking 
 pale with fright. 
 
 ' Call off your dog !' cried Jack. 
 
 ' Call off yours /' retorted young Joe. 
 
 ' Get down and use your whip !' cried 
 Janet, astonished at his inaction. 
 
 'I daren't,' he said; 'they might turn 
 upon me.'
 
 74 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Janet laughed at him. 
 
 ' Give me the whip then !' said she scorn- 
 fully ; but the dogs, if they felt it at all, 
 must each have thought it was his enemy 
 biting him, and they only redoubled their 
 awful energy. At last, however, they 
 simultaneously decided that they had had 
 enough, and the two victors drew off with 
 gory jaws all fringed with alien wool, and 
 left the retriever singing very small indeed 
 in the ditch. 
 
 Janet turned to and thrashed them. 
 
 ' Carry off your wretched dog !' cried Jack. 
 But the pallid youth declined to adventm-e 
 his person in the arena, and elected to wait 
 till the Worsleys and their retinue were, at 
 a safe distance. 
 
 ' I'll corty- count you for this 'ere !' 
 shouted he, as they drew off. 
 
 ' Hark at the fool !' laughed Jack ; and
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 the girls promised to go slowly if he would 
 just take the dogs home again and shut 
 them up. 
 
 * You see it rather wastes the time and 
 spoils the fun,' they all said, feeling that 
 now that their blood was up the two would 
 be for taking the life of every dog whom 
 chance might bring their way without con- 
 sidering too curiously whether he was black 
 enough and curly enough to warrant his 
 execution. 
 
 They were all very hot and tired by the 
 time they reached the bowers of Sunley, and 
 here Jack's good spmts came to their aid. 
 
 ' Stella and I can tackle the grub,' said 
 he, in his best manner, pushing the big 
 perambulator into the middle of a large 
 clump of rhododendrons to hide it from the 
 passer-by, and emerged with a large basket 
 and a tin or two. * Come on, Stella ! heave
 
 76 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 out those bottles — and take care you don't 
 smash them, for that milk cost twopence- 
 halfpenny, and we shall all have to go short 
 for a week to catch it up again !' 
 
 ^ Then we'll begin primrosing,' said Ella, 
 turning off with Janet down a grassy glade 
 where the primroses grew plentifully. 
 
 ' Gently, gently, now!' Ella cried, as with 
 shouts of delight the little ones let them- 
 selves loose upon the flowers. ' Long 
 stalks, mind, and plenty of leaves ; and 
 don't all try to gather the same primrose. 
 N"ow. Janet, let's rest a little. Isn't this 
 heavenly ?' and the sisters sat down 
 together on one of the mossy hillocks at 
 their feet, and Janet lay right back and 
 gazed up at the blue breezy sky and sailing 
 clouds crossing the open space above, 
 beyond the young green boughs of the 
 beeches.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 77 
 
 ' Divine !' Janet murmured, closing her 
 eyes ; ' all tlie air is faint with primroses. 
 Where else, I wonder, does one hear 
 nightingales singing in the full blaze ' of 
 noon ?' 
 
 ' It makes one feel rather mad, and wild, 
 and unhappy though,' sighed Ella. ' The 
 more you have, the more you want.' 
 
 ' That sounds oracular. How do you 
 mean ?' 
 
 ' Why, when I'm cooking, or washing 
 dishes, or blacking boots, I feel quite con- 
 tented and happy, and altogether hopeful. 
 But here, where all is peace and sweetness, 
 I feel almost as if I were possessed. I 
 suppose I don't notice my general feeble 
 incapability when I'm only drudging, but 
 here it does come over me.' 
 
 ' Well, you see,' replied Janet, * while 
 we're working we feel we're doing our duty,
 
 78 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 which always helps to make one cheerful ; 
 but when we get a lull like this, and feel 
 that torment — the presence of a soul for 
 better things within us, and compare what 
 • might be with what is, and feel that it is 
 imprisoned and being stifled and worn out 
 in the ignoble labour for the meat which 
 perisheth — ah ! well, we must hope it 
 won't last for ever/ Janet broke off rather 
 abruptly. 
 
 ' I don't feel so sure of the better things,' 
 said Ella wearily ; ' I don't know what I'm 
 fit for, and yet I am always longing and 
 wearying for something that never comes/ 
 
 ' Perhaps this visit to the Draycotes may 
 set you up,' suggested Janet. ' We shall 
 have to w^ork like tigers to get your clothes 
 ready. It's lucky we got our new things 
 before the explosion, isn't it ?' 
 
 ' Tiie explosion ' was the term they
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 79 
 
 used to describe the period of storm and 
 stress through which thej had passed 
 about quarter-day, when the dreaded bills 
 came in. 
 
 ' Yes, very. But, Janet, our jjoor 
 novels ! When shall we ever be able to 
 write again ?' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said the philosophical 
 Janet. ' When it is o-ood for us to o'o on, 
 I. suppose we shall find the time. Don't 
 you find that you have many more ideas 
 when you're so hard worked that you 
 scarcely know which way to turn ? I do.' 
 
 ' Yes, and what's the good?' sighed Ella. 
 ' Seems to me to mean that nobody wants 
 our higher powers as long as common work 
 can be got out of us. They are just given 
 us to cheat and tantalize us and make us 
 miserable — seems to be the object of most 
 things in this life.'
 
 So BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ^ So it does, mostly ; but even while 
 you're saying that, doesn't a strong convic- 
 tion of the reality of the next life make 
 you feel it unreasonable to murmur at this 
 *' which is but for a moment " ? ' 
 
 ' That doesn't console me a bit/ said 
 Ella, ' except on Sundays, when I'm in an 
 unnaturally celestial frame of mind and can 
 believe anything. It is exasperating to 
 think that not only does this life consist 
 chiefly of dulness and disappointment, but 
 that one cannot reasonably wish for any- 
 thing else.' 
 
 Janet closed her eyes again, and evidently 
 did not think it worth while to offer any 
 more consolation. To herself, however, she 
 said confidentially, ' Ah ! I know my bird ' 
 (Janet's phraseology, though expressive, 
 was apt, as we shall see, to be homely, not 
 to say coarse, for a young lady) ; ' I know
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 8i 
 
 my bird. She is not really in this con- 
 dition of black despair, nor half so near it 
 as I am habitually. But I won't grudge 
 her her little illusions.' 
 
 There was silence, therefore, for a space, 
 and the two lay extended on the moss with 
 their broad hats pulled over their faces, and 
 pondered the mysteries of life. 
 
 ' You look like a couple of squashed 
 toadstools,' said Jack's disrespectful voice. 
 ' We've laid out the oTub.' 
 
 ' How about that coffee ?' asked Janet, 
 sitting up. 
 
 ' I've made a place for the fire,' said Jack 
 eagerly. ' Come and see. Ella T\ill lie here 
 till all the dirty work is done, I suppose — 
 eh, Miss Rachel ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; call me when you're quite ready,' 
 said Ella, under her big hat, and the other 
 two went away. 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Presently Ella heard footsteps drawing 
 nearer, stumbling in an uncertain and jerky 
 way over the moss, and making a crackling 
 of dead sticks ; then some one knelt down 
 beside her, lifted her hat stealthily, and 
 thrust a bunch of warm fragrant primroses 
 into her face. 
 
 ' Is that you, Nora ?' asked Ella, opening 
 her eyes, and seeing a brilliant vision of 
 rosy cheeks and ruddy curling hair between 
 the primroses and the sky. 
 
 ' Yes ; look at my bunch, Ella!' 
 
 ' Sublime ! Do you love me, Nora ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' How much, you horrid fat thing ?' 
 
 * A great deal.' 
 
 ' Show me how much.' 
 
 Nora carefully put down her flowers, and 
 then flung herself demonstratively upon her 
 sister, regardless of hat and hair, thrusting
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. Ss 
 
 her fat arms tightly round her neck, and 
 giving her a tremendous hug. 
 
 ^ There !' she uttered, quite out of breath ; 
 ' I love you all that, and Goggle's lost/ 
 
 'Goggle lost? Nonsense!' said Ella, in 
 momentary alarm. 
 
 ' He says he's perfectly sure he is,' said 
 Nora earnestly. 
 
 ' Where is he ?' 
 
 ' In that big rhododendron bush,' replied 
 Nora, pointing to a mass of green boughs 
 in a hollow. 
 
 ' Oh ! go and tell him he'll get no dinner 
 till he is found again. And call the others 
 to come too.' 
 
 Nora obeyed, and ran down the slope, and 
 in a few minutes the scattered children began 
 to find their way to where the little feast was 
 spread under a big tree. 
 
 Janet and Jack had withdrawn to a little 
 
 6—2
 
 84 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 distance, and were painfull}' trying to boil 
 some water by means of a little kettle and 
 a spirit-lamp in a hole under a stump. 
 
 ' It's this confounded Avind that blows the 
 flame all over the place/ remarked Jack ; 
 'the water's stone-cold still.' 
 
 ' We must shelter it more,' said Janet 
 patiently ; when suddenly Jack in a loud 
 whisper cried ' Care ! — cave /' and promptly 
 flung himself flat upon the trembling flame 
 and gingerly-balanced kettle, destroying the 
 whole arrangement, spilling the water and 
 the spirit, and extinguishing the flame. 
 
 Janet looked round hurriedly, and was 
 aware of a slight, youngish man strolling 
 leisurely towards them oyer the mossy 
 knolls between the trees, swinging a stick 
 in his hand, and evidently taking an in- 
 terest in what they were about. 
 
 Guilt, confusion, and suspense were
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 85 
 
 painted upon Jack and Janet's ingenuous 
 faces ; Ella, all unconscious of danger, lay 
 stretched at full length A\ith her hat over 
 her face, JSTora sitting beside her with a lap- 
 ful of primroses, gazing at the approaching 
 stranger with placid interest. 
 
 The other children sat about near where 
 the little feast was spread, their hats flung 
 aside, the sunlight dancing through the 
 leaves upon their bright hair and flushed 
 faces and the heaps of flowers, and they all 
 suspended their work of making up bunches 
 and stared at the stranger as he went by ; 
 only Godfrey, with his usual irreverent 
 audacity, called out delicately, half afraid 
 of being heard, yet loth not to be : 
 
 ' Hullo, old fellow I' 
 
 The ' old fellow,' who before had seemed 
 inclined, on the whole, to pass inofifensively 
 by, interested though he was, now halted in
 
 86 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 the middle of them all with a shy smile on 
 his face and looked from one to the other, 
 addressing himself finally to Jack, whose 
 manner wavered between the aggressive 
 and the ' caught-in-the-very-act.' 
 
 ' I don't think you need be alarmed about 
 your little fire there,' said he ; ' it can't do 
 any damage.' 
 
 ' It's only a sph'it-lamp,' declared Jack, 
 getting up and shaking himself to dislodge 
 the dead leaves and earth that clung to his 
 clothes, much reassured by the friendly tone 
 in which the words were spoken ^ and dis- 
 posed at once to be communicative. ' I 
 know it can't do any harm, only we 
 thought it safer not to let every passer-by 
 notice what we were doing. You were too 
 quick for us. I shouldn't like old Stick- 
 in-the-mud to come by and catch us, 
 though.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 87 
 
 ' Who is " old Stick-in-the-mud"?' asked 
 the young man, as he examined their spirit- 
 lamp. 
 
 ' The fellow these woods belong to — Sir 
 Somebody Something — I forget his name ; 
 I dare say you kno^y, though. But I don't 
 think he's very likely to come by.' 
 
 ' Oh no,' said Janet confidently ; ' people 
 never walk in their own woods, I believe.' 
 
 ' Well, but I don't see how you make 
 cofi'ee with this thing,' observed their new 
 acquaintance, changing the subject and 
 brinoino' them back to the business in 
 hand. 
 
 ' Don't you ?' cried Jack, in his excitable 
 way ; ' easy as kissing. If you'll wait a 
 hap'orth I'll show you — you'll see us do it. 
 Where are those beastly matches ?' This 
 last in an audible aside to himself. 
 
 ' Here,' said Janet promptly ; and added
 
 88 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 in another audible aside, ' They aren't 
 beastly, Jack.' 
 
 ' Well, shove 'em here !' he said mag- 
 nanimously, ignoring her correction for 
 once, and then between them they soon re- 
 kindled their fire. 
 
 'The thing is, you see,' began Jack, 
 doing showman, ' to get the flame to burn up 
 
 straight — only, you see ' here he altered 
 
 some of his arrangements. ' A murrain 
 upon the bea — ahem ! — the wretched thing ! 
 it won't. Cant you sit that side, Janet, 
 and keep the wind off?' 
 
 ^ That w^on't do any good, Gaby!' 
 answered Janet, with her habitual politeness. 
 ' Don't you see that it'll never burn as long 
 as you don't take more trouble at the 
 beginning ? you must make a deeper hole.' 
 
 ' Don't you think it might burn if you 
 sheltered it with your hat ?' suggested the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 stranger. Then, however, his eye fell upon 
 the thing Jack wore upon his head — a 
 home-made article of green serge (part of 
 an old gown of Janet's) trimmed round 
 with the skin of a tabby cat, of his own 
 killing, skinning, and curing, of wdiich he 
 w^as extremely proud, -and which he wore at 
 all seasons as lono^ as his elders did not 
 interfere. He had persisted in it so long- 
 now that it ceased to strike even their 
 fastidious eyes, and he had come in it to-day 
 without eliciting a single sneer or smart 
 word from anybody. 
 
 ' Ahem ! er — h'm ! Perhaps mine ?' 
 murmured the young man, kneeling down 
 on the moss between them, and placing his 
 hat judiciously so as to intercept the draught. 
 The flame began then to burn steadily, and 
 they watched it with breathless interest, 
 Janet, however, finding leisure to remark
 
 90 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 to herself that this young man must be 
 much older than he looked at first, for the 
 dark brown head that bent over the flame 
 was sprinkled with grey. 
 
 ^It's beginning ! It's beginning !' they 
 all cried out suddenly, as the little kettle 
 began to snore and sing, and the young 
 man was quite as much excited as Jack, and 
 looked round wildly for a coffee-pot. 
 
 ' Coffee-pot ! Bless you !' exclaimed 
 Jack, now all familiarity. ' Ours is a much 
 better dodge — I'll ingratiate you ! Here, 
 one of you brats ! Gog, give us that tin 
 of coffee and the mug !' he shouted. 
 
 Gog ran to obey, but was immediately 
 fallen upon and collared by Nora. ' He 
 mustn't touch the things !' she cried, as 
 they struggled and hit out at each other. 
 ' Goggie, you're not to ! Ella said you 
 were not to !'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 91 
 
 ' Don't quarrel, you two,' said Ella, lying 
 in lazy oblivion under her hat, ' and don't 
 touch anything.' 
 
 Janet laughed, partly at Ella's easy way 
 of settling things ; partly at the distressed 
 expression with which their companion 
 viewed the fight. Til get them,' she said ; 
 ' be off, you two I You'll get some food 
 presently !' 
 
 ' Let me get them,' interposed the young 
 man, springing forward to help her. 
 
 ' Oh no ! I can do it ; please don't 
 trouble,' said Janet stiffly, pursuing her 
 way, all unused to be waited upon. 
 
 ' Do allow me I I can see you are tired, 
 he persisted. 
 
 They were close to Ella, who was roused 
 from her day-dreams by the unwonted 
 sound of so much politeness and the accents 
 of a manly voice.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 When the voices had passed by she sat 
 up, and looking in the direction of the fire, 
 saw a strange young man and Jack and 
 Janet standing side by side ; Jack with a 
 decent wideawake hat in his hand ; Janet 
 with the coffee-tin and a spoon, watching 
 their companion who, bareheaded, was 
 drinking coffee out of the mug — the only 
 mug they had brought with them. 
 
 ' It's first-rate,' he declared. ' You have 
 indeed i7igratiated me,' he said, with mis- 
 chievous emphasis on Jack's word. ' Let 
 me get a cup for you ' — this to Janet. 
 
 ' There isn't one,' said Janet bluntly. 
 
 'No,' added Jack; 'carriage is a con- 
 sideration when you are your own beast 
 of burden. We don't mind.' 
 
 'I am keeping you all from your food, I 
 know/ said the young man, evidently a 
 little disconcerted about the cup. ' Thank
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 93 
 
 you very much for the hospitality and the 
 fun — I hope we may meet again some 
 day.' 
 
 ' Do you live anywhere hereabouts T 
 asked Jack, restoring the hat to its owner. 
 
 'Well, yes, rather,' replied the other 
 doubtfully ; ' where do you live ?* 
 
 ^ About four or five miles off — Bracken- 
 bury way — a little hovel called The Roses, 
 because, you know, there's beech- trees in 
 front. Do stay and have some of the grub 
 — Janet made those rissoles — they're tinned 
 lobster ; and Ella made the rolls — I recom- 
 mend them. Do /' 
 
 ' I should like it very much/ he said, 
 with a frank, pleasant smile, ' but I won't, 
 thank you. Good-bye ;' he lifted his hat, 
 and seeing Jack and Janet each half extend 
 a somewhat grubby hand, he shook hands 
 heartily. ' Good-bye,' he said again, took a
 
 94 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 few steps, hesitated, and then came back. 
 ' Will you tell me your name ?' he asked, 
 half of Janet, though he looked chiefly at 
 Jack, whom he appeared to find less 
 embarrassing. 
 
 ' My name ?' repeated Jack (he always 
 did repeat what you said to him before 
 he would answer) — * my name ? Bernard 
 Worsley — Jack for common — Bernard 
 when the governor's angry, or the girls 
 have got their best things on — Jack when 
 I'm cleaning out the pig- sty.' 
 
 ' Ah ! I see ; very convenient that must 
 be. Worsley — I shall remember it if we 
 meet again.' 
 
 'What an idiot you were. Jack, not to 
 ask Im name !' whispered Janet, watching 
 him as he walked away, lifting his hat to 
 Ella as he passed her ; ' why didn't 
 you?'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 95 
 
 ^Why didn't I? Why didn't you? 
 What do I care about his name ?' 
 
 ' You don't mean to say you didn't ask 
 him when he gave you the chance ?' said 
 Ella, joining them now, and following the 
 retreating figure with her eyes. 
 
 ' I didn't like to,' replied Janet ; ' Jack 
 might easily have done it. But never 
 mind,' she added, with a little sigh, ' we 
 never shall see him again, you know — we 
 never do see anybody ; so it doesn't matter. 
 Come on. Let's have some food. Xow, 
 children — food I'
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 * How full of briars is this working-day world !' 
 
 As You Like It. 
 
 HE first thing the Worsleys heard 
 when, with weary lagging steps, 
 they dragged themselves and 
 the children up to their own door, was 
 that the carpenter's dog was dead, and that 
 young Joe, as they called him, had been 
 up to The Roses to say that Worsley was 
 to be sued for damages, unless he liked' to 
 pay them at once to the exorbitant tune of 
 five pounds. Jack held his sides and 
 roared extravagantly. 
 
 ' Whv, the mongrel would be dear at a
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 97 
 
 gift !' cried he. ' I'll engage to get them 
 another for three-and-six, which will be 
 twice what this was worth.' 
 
 ' What did you say to him, mamma ?' 
 asked the girls. 
 
 * Oh ! I told him to call again,' answered 
 Mrs. Worsley wearily ; ' I'm sure there must 
 be forty people with bills and complaints to 
 whom I have said the same thing.' 
 
 ' The deuce !' laughed Jack ; ' let's hope 
 they'll come when we're all out.' 
 
 ' Has papa come home ?' was the next 
 inquiry, for Mr. Worsley, who was an artist, 
 had gone away for a few days' sketching 
 in the neighbourhood. 
 
 ' Xo,' said his wife, ' he won't be here till 
 midnight, I dare say. He works till it is 
 nearly dark, and then he will have heaven 
 knows how many miles to walk home. I 
 shall sit up for him.' 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ^ I suppose we must ask the master about 
 this invitation ?' said Ella that night, when 
 the two girls were in their bedroom and 
 she once more took out her aunt's letter and 
 read it through again. 
 
 ' Oh ! of course you must ask him,' 
 answered Janet, who was already in bed ; 
 ' but we know very well what he will say : 
 " I object to your going — Lord Dray cote 
 has not behaved well to me. We are rat- 
 poor — but I leave it to your conscience " — 
 that is what he will say.' 
 
 ' Then I'd better give it up at once,' said 
 Ella reluctantly. ' Only a week,' she went 
 on, ' and the journey would cost very little 
 — of course I should go third. I may ^s 
 well ask him.' 
 
 ' And when he leaves it to your 
 conscience you may as well go. It's all 
 bosh about the Draycotes' not having
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 99 
 
 behaved well. I believe he thinks Lord 
 Draycote ought to have put Koland and 
 Jack to school, and brought us out and 
 married us off, and perhaps settled some- 
 thing handsome upon us into the bargain. 
 But, you know, on the subject of his neigh- 
 bour's duty to him he really is a little mad. 
 Lord Draycote is only our half-uncle, and, 
 besides, he has half-a-dozen plain daughters 
 of his own.' 
 
 Ella laughed. 
 
 * Yes,' she said, ' and the master never 
 misses an opportunity of writing him a 
 sarcastic letter, and saying something nasty. 
 I wonder they ask us at all. But I'm 
 dying to go. I've got tAvo or three fairly 
 decent gowns— they've seen them all before, 
 but that can't be helped.' 
 
 ' Can't be helped !' echoed Janet, who 
 admired her sister from the bottom of her 
 
 7—2
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 heart. ' Why, that'll just set them longmg 
 to see them again ! AYhat could be prettier 
 than your white embroidered muslin Avith 
 sea-green ribbons, and the pearls ?' 
 
 ^ The pearls ' were a family heirloom, 
 a beautiful and valuable set which had 
 belonged to their mother, and which they 
 either of them Avore when occasion served. 
 
 ' What an uproar Jack is making in 
 there !' remarked Ella, pausing to listen 
 to the stamping and clatter that was going 
 on in the next room ; ' he will wake Sidney 
 and everybody else, and there'll be no peace 
 to-night.' 
 
 ' AYell,' said Janet, * I only know that if 
 those children are but half as tired as I am, 
 they'll not wake before morning. It's Jack's 
 Saturday night's wash, you know,' she 
 added, half asleep. ' You wouldn't grudge 
 him that.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, loi 
 
 ' I don't see that lie need make sucli a 
 noise.' 
 
 ' It's the pummice-stone,' murmured 
 Janet, ' and he icill use the whole bar of 
 dog- soap instead of cutting a piece off. He 
 says it feels more lordly.' 
 
 ' Lordly, indeed !' laughed Ella. ' As if 
 a lord TN'ould be likely to use dog-soap at 
 all !' 
 
 ' Do make haste to bed, Ella !' 
 
 ' I've got so awfully cold,' said Ella, 
 shivering, ' and I'm not nearly ready — I've 
 got all my tuckers to put in for to-morrow 
 and my Lessons to read, and I'm half dead 
 with sleep and cold already.' 
 
 ' Leave it all,' murmured Janet, and fell 
 asleep. 
 
 But Ella opened a drawer, hunted out 
 some lace, and sat down with her gown and 
 her workbox, and spent a good half-hour
 
 102 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 putting in the lace. Then, when all that 
 was done and put away, she opened her 
 Bible and began to read the evening 
 Lessons. She read a few lines, then the 
 words all ran together and vanished ; then 
 she found them again and read a little more ; 
 then they vanished again, and she was 
 asleep with her head against the chest of 
 drawers, the Bible open on her knee, and 
 the candle burning lower and lower. In a 
 quarter of an hour she woke sneezing, 
 colder than ever, and found the light just 
 going out, flickering so that it was impos- 
 sible to read, and the room filled with the 
 smell of tallow-smoke. 
 
 So she gave up the attempt to read, and 
 went and knelt down beside the little bed 
 in the recess where Madge and Godfrey 
 were sleeping. 
 
 The candle went out, the sounds in Jack's
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 103 
 
 room had ceased ; only the steady ticking 
 of the clock over Janet's head, and the low 
 breathing of the children broke the silence, 
 except when a couple of benighted labour- 
 ing men went by, singing snatches of some 
 uncouth song ; and still Ella knelt on. 
 
 ' Ella !' 
 
 No answer or movement. 
 
 ' Ella !' 
 
 It was Janet calling her. 
 
 *Wnat, not in bed yet, and the candle 
 out ? What is the good of it, Ella ? Get to 
 bed. You'll catch your death of cold. I 
 suppose you're quite stiff as usual ? 07'at 
 qui bene labor at' 
 
 'Well, I hope that is true,' said Ella 
 wearily ; and Janet heard her sister's teeth 
 chattering as she stole about the room 
 trying to finish her toilet in the dark. 
 
 ' You ought to do it in the daytime when
 
 104 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 you'v6 got your wits about you,' said Janet 
 sleepily. ^ I'm always telling you.' 
 
 ' If only to-morrow were not Sunday !' 
 ejaculated Ella when at last she laid her 
 head on the pillow. 
 
 ' Pious girl !' murmured Janet. ' Thank 
 your star it isn't Monday !' 
 
 Soon after seven the next morning Janet 
 was walking happily to church at Haw- 
 bourne, some three miles off, all in the early 
 sunshine, exulting in the fresh morning air, 
 the singing of the birds, the dew, the young 
 leaves, the shadows on the beech- stems, the 
 mist amongst the fir-woods. 
 
 The church was full of flowers, and smelt 
 like a hothouse ; azaleas, hyacinths, tulips, 
 ferns, dracinas and beautiful foliage-plants 
 banked up all the east end to right and left 
 of the Altar ; every window-sill in the nave 
 was covered with primroses and daffodils,
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 105 
 
 and on every one of the graves outside, too, 
 lay primroses and daffodils, first-fruits of 
 the resurrection of the spring, smiling their 
 own sweet silenr promise to all who had 
 eyes to see and hearts to understand. 
 
 At home the confusion on Sundays was 
 always worse than on other days. To begin 
 with, clean clothes had to be found for the 
 children ; and when, as usual, these were 
 not all forthcoming, they had to make shift 
 with some of each other's things, when the 
 owner of the garment in question always 
 felt aggrieved, and the wearer ridiculous, 
 and tears and sulks were the general 
 result. 
 
 Then Ella had to keep shrieking out all 
 dressino^-time first to one and then to 
 another to take care and keep clean ; not to 
 put their best frocks on the floor ; not to 
 drop their hair-ribbons into the bath ; not
 
 io6 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 to touch the pomatum ; not to put the wet 
 towels on the bed, and so forth, till she felt 
 quite hoarse, distracted, and ill-tempered. 
 She had no sooner left them in order to 
 fetch some hot water from the kitchen, than 
 Stella came running down after her. 
 
 ' Oh ! Do come up to Gog, Ella ! he has 
 eaten all the new cold-cream, and he has 
 been plastering his hair with pomatum and 
 brushing it with the clothes-brush, and he 
 won't leave off!' 
 
 ' Tell him I'm coming,' said Ella, in an 
 awful voice. ' And how often am I to tell 
 you not to run about in your stockings 
 without your shoes ?' 
 
 ' I don't know,' answered Stella, some- 
 what subdued, and disappeared. The chil- 
 dren always humbly replied to the sarcastic 
 questions of their elders. 
 
 Ella felt almost ready to cry with the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 107 
 
 worry of it — on Easter morning, too, and 
 such a lovely day. 
 
 Besides, there was the breakfast to get 
 ready, and herself and the two elder children 
 to dress for church, and the drawing-room to 
 dust ; how was she ever to get it all done ? 
 And how was she to feel ' like Easter ' 
 afterwards. 
 
 Then Jack came in with the milk, look- 
 ing quite nice in his dark-blue Sunday suit 
 and his decent hat, his hair being well 
 brushed, and his face unusually clean. 
 
 ' You look quite decent, Jack/ said Ella, 
 pleased at the rare sight, and feeling more 
 sisterly than on week-days, when they were 
 all too busy and too dirty to be affection- 
 ate. 
 
 ' Shall I make the cocoa and spread some 
 bread and dripping ?' he asked, always ready 
 to help.
 
 io8 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' Oh, if you only would !' said Ella. 
 ' You'll find a pot of pork -dripping in the 
 larder. They're not to have their eggs till 
 tea-time, because it's such a bother feeding 
 them all, and they make such a dreadful 
 mess of everything, and we should never 
 get off to church.' 
 
 ' Is Janet gone to early service ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; she's going to stay at home this 
 morning and do the dinner, and look after 
 the children.' 
 
 ' Ma going ?' 
 
 ' Don't know. I suspect not,' answered 
 Ella, taking up her jug of hot water. 
 ' She's got frightful neuralgia, and has been 
 up half the night with Lottie.' So saying 
 she went upstairs to the children. 
 
 Neither she nor Jack made any comment 
 on the neuralgia or the bad night with 
 the baby ; they were so used to these things.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 109 
 
 When Janet came in she found Jack 
 giving the children their breakfast, with the 
 exception of Goggie, who, glistening with 
 pomatum, stood in the corner amusing him- 
 self by making greasy marks on the wall 
 with his head, and cast a guilty and penitent 
 look at her as she peeped in. 
 
 ' Ella not down ?' she asked. 
 
 ' She's putting her gown on,' said Nora ; 
 ' and we're all going to have eggs for tea.' 
 
 ' Don't talk with your mouth full, Nora. 
 Sidney, you're not to bite your bread into 
 patterns — I've told you so a hundred times. 
 You really are the most maddening chil- 
 dren ' 
 
 ' Oh !' in a subdued voice, as the lovely 
 viaduct of bread is sorrowfully devoured. 
 
 ' Sidney ! Stella ! If you want to go to 
 church, come up directly and put on your 
 things!' cried Ella's voice over the banisters,
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 and the two jumped off their high chairs 
 and ran. 
 
 'Come back and say your grace!' said 
 Janet. ' Oh ! and one of you has covered 
 the door-handle with dripping. Go and 
 wash your hands, and for heaven's sake 
 don't touch anything. Get a cloth, Nora !' 
 
 ' My pinafore will do,' said this obliging 
 child. 
 
 ' Nasty little creature ! Do what you are 
 told,' said Janet ; ' and Godfrey, come and 
 eat your breakfast !' 
 
 This process of breakfast dragged on an 
 interminable time. Never, as Ella re- 
 marked, did they all sit down together and 
 have it in peace ; one or other was certain 
 to be called away, or to have to look after 
 something in the kitchen ; or just as they 
 sat down, hens would be perceived scratch- 
 ing in the garden, and Jack would fling up
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. iii 
 
 the window and dash after them with some 
 of his own particular imprecations ; or they 
 would hear something boiling over in the 
 kitchen ; or they discovered that the knives 
 had been forgotten, a child would be sent 
 to fetch them and would omit to come back, 
 and be found standing ' wondering,' and 
 trying to make out what it had been sent to 
 fetch. One or other of the children was 
 always in disgrace, and from morning till 
 night they had to be told not to do this, 
 to leave off that, to do the other thinof 
 directly; not to make so much noise ; not 
 to jump the last four steps of the carpetless 
 stairs ; to go and scrape their muddy boots ; 
 not to wipe their dirty hands on their 
 pinafores, and so on. And then, as Jack 
 expressed it, ' as fast as you choke 'em off one 
 thing, they do something else, twice as bad.' 
 And children, unfortunately, cannot be
 
 112 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 put away for a time, until the nerves of 
 their keepers are more equal to the task of 
 looking after them ; they are instant in 
 season, out of season. If they are making a 
 noise, you must stop them ; if they are 
 quiet, you know they are in mischief; if 
 they are with you, you are impelled to turn 
 them out of the room ; if you have turned 
 them out, you must go and see what they 
 are up to. 
 
 Everything that any of their elders did, 
 said, or thought, was pervaded and in- 
 fluenced by these seven terrible children ; 
 they formed the pivot on Avhich everything 
 turned ; everything followed or gave way 
 to or shaped itself according to their re- 
 quirements. Xot that they were spoiled or 
 made much of in any way; it was enough 
 that they were there, and that there were 
 seven of them. Some people, indeed, said
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 113 
 
 it wa8 more than enough; but the Worsleys, 
 being philosophical, did not dwell upon this 
 view of the matter. 
 
 ' You really are an angel, Jack — some- 
 times !' said his sisters that afternoon, when 
 he proposed to ' take the whole blessed 
 pack ' up the field for an hour, and thus 
 relieve them for a little while. 
 
 ' We shall be able to read some Ruskin 
 for once,' they said to each other. ' You'll 
 only have to see, Jack, that they don't get 
 into the ditch or the pond, or go too near 
 the cow, or touch anything on the rubbish- 
 heap, or dance on the wire-fence — and they 
 mustn't get through the fence ' 
 
 ' Oh, I know, bless you !' said the boy 
 impatiently, going off to collect the chil- 
 dren, and leaving his sisters to enjoy the 
 ' Seven Lamps of Architecture ' and ' Modern 
 Painters.' 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 TI4 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ^ I've the greatest mind to get out my 
 story and write a little,' said Ella presently. 
 ' You don't think it wrong, Janet, do 
 you ?' 
 
 * Well, the only reason I don't do it is 
 that I want it to pay,' replied Janet. ' I 
 Avant to make that my vocation eventually, 
 and so it's a sort of working for one's bread. 
 Otherwise, I should do it with joy.' 
 
 ' Ah ! well, I won't then,' said Ella, 
 resuming her book. 
 
 The oirls were each writinsf a novel. 
 
 ' Literature,' said they, ' is our vocation. 
 Cooking, scrubbing, teaching, gardening, 
 nursing, cattle-tending, hen-wifing, and so 
 forth, are our avocations. But we will 
 keep the great aim in view, and not let our 
 refined tastes go all rusty and mouldy if we 
 can help it.' 
 
 ' I don't think they are likely to do that,'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 115 
 
 Ella said, ' because you see, it is all born in 
 us ; we were never specially taught to care 
 for these things, or taught anything much 
 in fact. We've just — just come so.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' sighed Janet. ' When 
 you're tired out, you don't care a hang 
 for the most exquisitely refined thing in 
 existence ; and we are nearly always tired 
 out now. I can quite imagine giving it all 
 up and becoming notliing but a drudge. 
 Besides,' she added, ' I don't care half so 
 much for outward refinements as you do.' 
 
 Ella glanced at her neat lace frills, her 
 rings and bangles, the little pretty trifles 
 on her silver watch-chain, and from these 
 to Janet's plain old cuffs, strong, un- 
 adorned hands, and common steel guard, 
 and smiled rather sadly to feel that there 
 was a difference, and that no doubt Janet 
 — though she could not sympathize with 
 
 8—2
 
 ii6 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 her indifference to these things — was on 
 the better side. 
 
 The afternoon came to an end all too 
 soon. 
 
 ' Sunday is over,' said Ella, with a long 
 siofh, as the front- door was heard to burst 
 open, and several pairs of feet — muddy, no 
 doubt — clattered along the bare floor of 
 the hall. 
 
 ' Don't come in here!' cried Ella, opening 
 the drawing-room door and seeing lumps 
 of mud in all directions. ' Go back and 
 rub your boots. Oh, Jack ! how could you 
 let them come in so dirty ! Oh, it is too 
 disheartening !' 
 
 Jack glared at her and at the children, 
 and flung out of the house again without a 
 word. He felt hurt at this termination to 
 his self-sacrificing afternoon, and thought 
 Ella awfully unkind and ridiculously fussy.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 117 
 
 * 1 must go to the fowls,' said Janet, 
 tucking up her skirts and tying on a hirge 
 apron ; and she went out with half a pail of 
 barley. 
 
 Ella swept up the mud, got the children 
 out of their hats and coats, set them on 
 chairs with orders not to move, and pro- 
 ceeded to get their tea ready. Jack came 
 in, and took the milk-can and went away 
 again. Mrs. Worsley came down looking 
 ill, silently suffering agonies of neuralgia ; 
 while Lottie, fretful over a new tooth, 
 tugged at her hair and cried. 
 
 And so the work and the worry went on 
 again.
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 ' Oh ! this life 
 Is nobler than attending for a check, 
 Kicher than doing nothing for a bauble, 
 Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk ; 
 Such gain the cap of him that makes them fine, 
 Yet keeps his book uncrossed : no life to ours.' 
 
 Cymbeline. 
 
 FTER Sunday comes Monday. 
 It sounds almost like a proverb, 
 or a platitude, or something of 
 that kind. Anyhow, it is a fact which few 
 of us will be inclined to dispute — a fact of 
 which the girls were made painfully aware 
 by the ruthless whirring ring and clatter of 
 the alarum next morninof — hideous sound !
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 119 
 
 ' Jack, you must clean out the little 
 copper before breakfast,' said Janet, when 
 she had succeeded in waking him. ' It's 
 washing-day.' 
 
 The back -kitchen after breakfast pre- 
 sented a cheerful scene. Wash-tubs were 
 scarce in the house, so every bath on the 
 premises had been brought down, and Jack, 
 in his shirt -sleeves, his cat skin cap well on 
 the nape of his neck, his trousers hitched 
 up with string, and a great clasp-knife 
 slmig romid his neck, was pumping as if 
 the very existence of the family depended 
 on his sole exertions, and making a most 
 frightful noise. Water splashed and trickled 
 in all directions on the uneven brick floor ; 
 the girls clattered in and out in pattens, 
 feeUng, as they said to one another, ' very 
 like the real thing,' under the influence of 
 the steam, the smell of soap, and the noise
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 of pattens and pumping. They had dis- 
 encumbered themselves of some of their 
 attire, and wore short petticoats, loose 
 jackets, and large aprons ; their sleeves 
 were pinned up to their shoulders, and their 
 faces glowed with a generous enthusiasm. 
 
 ' We shall know the things are clean, at 
 any rate,' they said to each other. 
 
 * The copper's getting jolly hot,' said 
 Jack with some pride, as he mopped his 
 crimson face ; ' I advise you to put pounds 
 of soda in.' 
 
 * We don't want your advice, thank you,' 
 said Ella ; ' we know quite well how it has 
 all got to be done.' 
 
 ' Yes,' added Janet. ' Suppose you go 
 and get on with the weeding.' 
 
 ' And have an eye to the children while 
 you are about it,' said Ella. 
 
 * Oh ! bother the weeds and the brats!'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 121 
 
 said Jack, lingering to adjust the copper 
 fire with his boot ; * I've got something else 
 to do.' 
 
 ' Then go and do it,' said both his sisters 
 promptly. ' You're in the way now, Jack.' 
 
 ' Oh, of course ! Jack's always in the 
 way unless he's slaving himself to death !' 
 and he flung out into the yard. 
 
 ' I've got Lottie to sleep at last,' said Mrs. 
 Worsley, coming in and beginning to roll 
 up her sleeves. ' Where are the children ? 
 Stella might be practising.' 
 
 ' Here is Sid,' said Ella, as Sidney ap- 
 peared from the kitchen with a slate. 
 
 ' Please, will you set me a sum ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; and go and find Stella, and tell 
 her she is to practise ; and leave the door 
 open so that we can hear the mistakes. 
 What is Xora doing ?' 
 
 ' Nora and Madge have got to drag Gog
 
 122 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 round the garden in my cart,' replied 
 Sidney. 
 
 ' Got to ? What do you mean ?' 
 
 ' Gog said they were to, and he's lying 
 on his back in the cart with his eyes shut 
 and his legs hanging out over the back.' 
 
 ' What a savage he is !' commented the 
 girls, laughing. ' And where's Muriel ?' 
 
 Muriel came between Godfrey and 
 Lottie. 
 
 ' Oh ! they've put her into one of the 
 seakale pots Avith the lid on, to keep her 
 quiet, she's so cantankerous,' said the boy ; 
 and Mrs. Worsley went off up the garden 
 like an arrow, foreboding suffocation. 
 
 Sidney withdrew with his slate, and 
 presently the thumping of scales on the 
 piano told that Stella had been found and 
 set to work. 
 
 ' I'll wash up the breakfast- things,' said
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 123 
 
 Mrs. Worsley ; ' and has anyone thought 
 about dinner ?' 
 
 ' Cold mutton,' said Ella, 'and boiled rice.' 
 
 ' Ah ! but the master ?' objected Mrs. 
 Worsley ; * he is sure to look in here on 
 his way to town. If I had only known he 
 was not coming on Saturday, I needn't have 
 sat up all night, and we needn't have cooked 
 that fowl.' 
 
 ' Well, the fowl is a thing of the past, 
 unhappily,' said the girls. ' What a nuisance 
 this eating is ! If it wasn't for men, the 
 whole world might live on cold mutton and 
 red herrings.' 
 
 The wife went away to reconnoitre the 
 meagre larder, and devise some new disguise 
 for the mutton. 
 
 ' Aren't your knuckles getting sore ?' 
 asked Ella presently, shaking the soapy 
 foam off her hands and lookinsr at the
 
 124 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 reddened joints where she had rubbed the 
 skin nearly oiF. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Janet pluckily, without 
 looking at hers. ' I suppose we shan't feel 
 it after a time or two. If only I could 
 persuade myself that the things were coming 
 any cleaner !' 
 
 ' Perhaps they'll improve in the boiling,' 
 suggested Ella. 
 
 ' Let's leave them to soak a bit while we 
 go and make the beds,' said Janet. ' Why 
 not set some of them to boil ?' As she 
 spoke she turned to take the lid oif the 
 copper, when a shadow in the doorway made 
 them both look up. 
 
 ' Roland !' they both cried, letting every- 
 thing go, and running to embrace a tall 
 young fellow who stood smiling in the 
 doorway ; but they both thought of their 
 wet soapy arms and fell back.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 125 
 
 ' You never said you were coming ; did 
 you leave Oxford this morning ? why didn't 
 you write, Roland ? the master will be 
 annoyed !' — thus the sisters both together. 
 
 ' Oh ! h'm ! never thought of it ; only 
 made up my mind this morning. I thought 
 I'd just drop in and see what you were all 
 about. Can you give me a bed ?' 
 
 ' Do you mind a brat or two in the room, 
 and Jack ?' asked Janet anxiously. 
 
 ' Oh no ! I can kick 'em out if they make 
 themselves a nuisance,' replied Roland, in 
 the most accommodating way in the world. 
 
 ' Well, it's their room, you know,' said 
 Ella. 
 
 ' Pray don't apologize,' said Roland 
 lightly ; ' and what are you up to here with 
 all this mess ?' he inquired, looking round. 
 
 * We do the washing at home now,' said 
 the girls gaily.
 
 126 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Roland whistled ; stood about in the 
 pools on the floor ; glanced at their curious 
 attire, their pretty hair ; noticed their 
 awkward way of handling the things ; and 
 began to feel dull. 
 
 ' Look at my poor hands, Roland,' said 
 Ella plaintively, showing him the little red 
 places on her knuckles. 
 
 ' Raw, by Jove ! You can't do it the 
 proper way, I should say,' was his com- 
 ment. 
 
 * Do you think we ought to boil them 
 first ?' asked Janet, to whom Roland, their 
 eldest brother, was an authority on every 
 matter, worldly or unworldly, except fowls. 
 
 ' Try,' said her brother boldly ; ' it'll save 
 no end of trouble, won't it ? You may 
 depend upon it washerwomen don't rub 
 their hands raw and put themselves into 
 such a frantic perspiration with so little
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 127 
 
 result. There must be an easier way. 
 Stick 'em in the copper.' 
 
 ' It seems too easy to be the right way,' 
 said Ella doubtfully. 
 
 ' Oh ! pooh !' laughed young AVorsley, 
 taking the lid off the copper. ' What a 
 slavish, woman's sentiment ! Here, shove 
 'em in !' 
 
 ' Come on, Ella,' said Janet, with implicit 
 confidence — ' those pinafores, and all those 
 little shirts and things.' 
 
 * We want something to stir it with,' said 
 Roland, as the things went in. 
 
 * I'll get you something,' said Jack, who 
 was looking in at the window, and presently 
 in he came with a long scarlet-runner 
 otick. 
 
 *Give it here!' said Roland, authorita- 
 tively. He always used this tone to Jack. 
 ' It's muddy ; I'll just pump on it a bit,'
 
 128 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 said Jack obligingly, holding it under the 
 pump. 
 
 ' Look sharp, young un ! that'll do ; 
 hand it here !' and therewith Roland plunged 
 it into the copper and stuTed the things 
 round vigorously. 
 
 * It's just like the Christmas pudding,* 
 observed the girls, standing behind him 
 and looking on. 
 
 *It isn't nearly full,' said Worsley, getting 
 quite enthusiastic over it. 'What more have 
 you got ?' 
 
 ' Here are the towels and the kitchen- 
 cloths — they II take a deal of boiling — and 
 the table-napkins ' 
 
 * Shove 'em all in,' said Roland confi- 
 dently ; ' the water's getting jolly grey 
 already — it'll do 'em a deal of good. What 
 are these ?' picking up Lottie's white lamb's- 
 wool socks. ' They're white — will be all
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 129 
 
 the better for a boil — in they go ! Now I 
 think we may leave it and recruit ourselves,' 
 he remarked, shutting the lid with infinite 
 satisfaction. ' The more you boil at once, 
 you know, the greater the saving of time 
 and fuel. You look after the fire, 
 Jack !' 
 
 ' Bio wed if I do !' muttered Jack resent- 
 fully. ' Have you put any soda in ?' he 
 asked the girls. 
 
 ' Oh no ! we forgot. You do it, Jack — 
 there's a dear ! and a good lot of soap too ;' 
 and away they went, while Jack ' doctored 
 the things,' as he called it, with quantities 
 of soda and soap. 
 
 ' Come round the garden, Koland,' said 
 his sisters, one on each side of him. ' The 
 master will be here directly ; he's awfully 
 vexed about the state of the garden — there's 
 such a lot to be done, and we none of us 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 know which way to turn, and feel guilty 
 whatever we do.' 
 
 Roland suffered himself to be led round 
 the garden, and the girls pointed out to him 
 great tracts of weeds which were all to be 
 cleared away by next Saturday, when ' the 
 master,' as they all called their father, was ex- 
 pected to return and call them all to account. 
 
 'We never shall get it done,' said Ella, 
 half- laughing, half- groaning ; ' especially 
 now that there's the washing to be done ; 
 and really, you know, Janet, we ought to 
 scrub the bedrooms this week.' 
 
 ' Why don't you set Jack to do this ?' 
 asked Roland, as they all stood looking at 
 some half-dozen square yards of chickweed 
 and dog-mercury, which the girls said was 
 an onion -bed. ' It oughtn't to take more 
 than half an hour,' said the young scholar 
 in an off-hand way.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 'Oh! oh! Just you try it!' cried Janet. 
 You must hand- weed it, you know.' 
 
 ' The deuce ! Well — what else is there ?' 
 
 ' Well, there's the east border ; come and 
 see/ said Janet. ' Look at it. What should 
 you think this was meant for ?' 
 
 ' I see the ubiquitous dog-mercury, docks, 
 nettles, and groundsel/ replied Roland, fail- 
 ing to detect any signs of cultivation. 
 
 ' This is our main crop of potatoes, and 
 the master says we shan't have one if these 
 are not all cleared away at once.' 
 
 ' H'm! I can quite believe him,' uttered 
 Roland, not, apparently, much drawn to the 
 potato -plot as a field of labour ; ^ and what 
 else is there ?' 
 
 ' Oh ! Will you help ?' asked the girls 
 delighted, and instantly discarding the 
 thought of weeding for so grand and ad- 
 mirable a being as their adored brother — 
 
 9—2
 
 132 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 the brother for whose sake it chiefly was 
 that so many retrenchments were made. 
 ' Why, there's always the grass to mow, and 
 the edges to trim ; it has not been done this 
 spring yet.' 
 
 'All right,' said Roland; 'first I must 
 change my things ;' and he disappeared into 
 the house to get out his flannels. 
 
 'How jolly that he has come!' said 
 Janet to Ella as they went back to the 
 scullery. 
 
 ' Yes ; let's make haste and get this 
 wretched washing done,' said Ella, ' and get 
 out to the garden, where we can see him. 
 How jolly he looks in his flannels ! Hallo !' 
 she exclaimed, fishing up a mass of grey, 
 dripping clothes on the end of the stick out 
 of the copper. ' Don't these things look 
 rather odd ? Don't they seem rather dark 
 in colour to you, Janet ?'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 133 
 
 ' Oh, the blueing and rinsing ^vill set all 
 that to rights,' replied Janet confidently. 
 
 ' Ah ! yes ; and of course we must bleach 
 them properly on the grass — I don't sup- 
 pose Mrs. Manners ever did such a tiling.' 
 
 ' Of course not. She'd be rather as- 
 tonished to see what we can do,' said Janet, 
 rinsing the things with energy. 
 
 ' We ought to put them through several 
 goes of water,' observed Ella, ' and the 
 more blue you use, the whiter they come, I 
 believe.' 
 
 * Oh ! Then we'll put lots of blue. I 
 dare say these washerwomen spare the blue 
 just to save a few halfpence each time. 
 Penny-wise, pound-foohsh ! Isn't it a 
 lovely colour ?' 
 
 ' Celestial ! Help me out now Avith this 
 basket. Isn't it just like real ? We'll hang 
 the things on the hedge in the field, and
 
 134 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 put some on the grass to bleach. I expect 
 this'll be a grand success, and such a 
 saving !* 
 
 And they trudged out merrily with a 
 great basket of wet things to hang out. 
 
 ' Don't these flannel jerseys of the master's 
 look a trifle queer ?' asked Janet, holding 
 up one of them. 
 
 ' Queer? Yes, they do rather ; but they'll 
 come all right, you know, when they're 
 dry.' 
 
 When they returned to the scene of their 
 labours they found Mrs. Worsley fishing in 
 the copper Avith consternation depicted on 
 her face. 
 
 ^What's the matter?' they asked with 
 sinking hearts. 
 
 * Why, you surely haven't boiled all the 
 children's flannels?' said Mrs. Worsley. 
 * Look at Lottie's socks — you can't get so
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 135 
 
 much as a finger into them — they're all 
 ruined — quite ruined!' 
 
 She looked at the little shrunk socks in 
 her hand, not liking to cast reproachful eyes 
 on the two remorseful girls. 
 
 ' Can't we stretch them ?' said Ella 
 eagerly. ' Let's try. Will all the flannel 
 things be spoilt, then ?' 
 
 ' What ! Have you boiled them all ?' 
 asked Mrs. Worsley, her face lengthening 
 visibly. 
 
 ' A good many,' said Ella. 
 
 'Not any of the master's, I hope T 
 
 'His jerseys.' 
 
 'Heavens! His lamb's- wool jerseys? We're 
 lost ! What can we do ? — we can't tell him. 
 We must buy some more amongst us. How 
 could you boil them ! — didn't you know that 
 wool always shrinks ? Oh dear ! oh dear ! 
 Well ' with a deep sigh of resignation,
 
 136 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 * it's no use crying over spilt milk ; let us 
 wash the rest.' 
 
 'I must lay the cloth, I suppose,' said 
 Ella, ' and get the creatures ready. I 
 haven't a notion where they are. The 
 practising stopped long ago, and Sidney 
 never brought his sum.' 
 
 The others sighed audibly, and rubbed 
 away in silence ; and Ella went off to lay 
 the dinner. 
 
 Presently she came back with an anxious 
 face. ' I say, there won't be enough dinner, 
 I'm afraid, will there ? Roland eats as 
 much as all of us put together.' 
 
 ' Of course he does,' said Janet with 
 pride. * So he ought.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; but how shall we manage ? 
 Couldn't we girls eat bread and cheese ? 
 We can say we don't care for meat. He 
 doesn't notice things, you know.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 137 
 
 ' And I shan't want any !' said Mrs. 
 Worsley ; ' so I dare say there will be 
 enough.' 
 
 Ella disappeared again, and presently 
 there was a trampling and a stamping in 
 the hall and on the stairs, and a sound of 
 children's voices. 
 
 Then a rather fierce manly voice above 
 the rest : ' What are all these hats doing 
 here ? Who brought in all this mud and 
 littered the whole place with daisies and 
 dandehons ? Come down and clear it up ?' 
 
 Thereupon followed a sound of children 
 in heavy boots coming down again. 
 
 ' Who brought this in ? You, Nora ? 
 Then clear it aw^ay instantly. Whose hat 
 is this? Yours, Sidney? You're fined a 
 penny. Godfrey, this is yours ; you're fined 
 a penny. Stella, yours ; you're fined a 
 penny !'
 
 138 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Dead silence amongst the children, except 
 the trampling of their boots. 
 
 ' I'm sure they've been told a hundred 
 times,' whisj)ered their mother to Janet as 
 they held their breath in the adjacent 
 kitchen. ' He's annoyed at Koland's having 
 come over.' 
 
 ' Poor Koland !' muttered Janet. ' So 
 likely that he would read in his holidays !' 
 
 ' Who has been playing with earth and 
 flower- pots on the front doorstep ?' pro- 
 ceeded Mr. Worsley. 
 
 Silence amongst the criminals. 
 
 ' Oh ! all of you then, I suppose,' he said 
 in blood-curdling tones. 
 
 ' I didn't ! I didn't !' came from one 
 and another. 
 
 ' Well, I shall punish you all if you don't 
 tell me. I am going up to wash my hands, 
 and you can tell me when you have found
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 139 
 
 out. Xo dinner till the guilty one lias 
 cleared it all away:' and with that he went 
 up to his room, and the children all began 
 to cry. 
 
 ' I shall never be able to ask him about 
 going to the Draycotes',' whispered Ella, 
 as they gathered in the kitchen. ' All the 
 children are in disgrace, and Jack hasn't 
 come in. Somethmg has gone wrong.' 
 
 ' Roland's coming has put him out,' said 
 his wife. ' I know what he thinks — that it 
 is hard we should all work so to try and 
 keep Roland at College, and then that 
 Roland should run over here — which doesn't 
 cost nothinof — instead of readino; in all his 
 spare time.' 
 
 Janet looked angry. ' Let's take in the 
 dinner,' said she shortly; and the next 
 minute she rang the dinner-bell, and Mr. 
 Worsley came down.
 
 I40 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ']!^o dinner till it's cleared awayl' he said; 
 and the elders went in to dinner in silence. 
 
 They looked at Jack's empty place and 
 at one another with inquiring eyes, but 
 nobody said anything, and all the children 
 stood crying in the passage outside. 
 
 ' Stop that noise!' shouted Worsley, much 
 exasperated. But the crying only became 
 louder, and he, incensed at their insubor- 
 dination, threw down the carving knife and 
 fork and strode out of the room. 
 
 Then w^as heard a scuffling, a trampling, 
 a banging of various doors, and the crying 
 was subdued by intervening walls. 
 
 ' What has happened to Jack ?' whispered 
 the girls hurriedly. ' He's in some scrape, 
 or the master would have been angry at his 
 not being in his place.' 
 
 ' The governor set him ' began Roland 
 
 in his big young voice.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 141 
 
 'Oh, sh — sh!' cried the girls in agi- 
 tated whispers ; ' here he comes ! Don't 
 argue with him, Roland, whatever you do.'. 
 
 'Deuce!' muttered Roland angrily, look- 
 ing round with a queer feeling of baffled 
 pride and indignation at being cooped up 
 with three servile women in this tiny, bare, 
 dilapidated dining-room, where the faded, 
 stained paper only adhered in patches to the 
 walls, showing great holes in the lath and 
 plaster ; where the canvas and paper 
 dangled in ragged corners from the ceiling, 
 and the floor was full of chinks and holes, 
 and where, nevertheless, reigned the one 
 influence which had power to make him 
 feel a child still, in spite of his twenty 
 years. 
 
 As it was Monday, the tablecloth was 
 still fairly clean, and the plate tolerably 
 brio;ht ; but the dull twice- cooked mutton,
 
 142 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 the great bowl of not very good potatoes, 
 and the large jug of cold water and loaf of 
 bread in the middle of the table, were all of 
 a piece with the rest of the surroundings. 
 Mrs. Worsley and Janet were in the same 
 deshabille in which they had been washing 
 the clothes ; Ella had on an old, shabby, 
 but still neat gown with which Roland had 
 been familiar for years ; she was going to 
 accompany the master to the station. 
 
 There was nothing in all this to overawe 
 the young Oxonian ; it was simply Mr. 
 Worsley himself. He had that in his bear- 
 ing, his face, voice, look, that made every- 
 body afraid of him. The girls used to 
 laugh, and say he had the evil eye ; it was 
 an eye that the most liardy and the most 
 innocent could not meet without a certain 
 quailing ; quick, fierce, piercing, under dark 
 brows that met in a perpetual frown. Not,
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 143 
 
 of course, that his face was always severe ; 
 on the contrary, no one had a keener sense 
 of humour, a readier eye for the ludicrous, 
 a heartier laugh ; no one could be tenderer 
 when once the tender chord was struck. 
 
 Eoland, however, knew absolutely nothing 
 of this last side of his nature ; the fun he 
 appreciated, and admired as much as any- 
 body his gifts of head and hand ; but he 
 writhed under that sarcastic tongue, and 
 feared that searching, unsparing eye. 
 
 He said ' Deuce !' therefore, under his 
 breath, and was conscious of feeling young 
 and small. 
 
 In the middle of dinner Jack came in, 
 looking very sulky, and sat down in silence, 
 having probably just finished some task 
 that ought to have been done a week ago. 
 
 In the pause before pudding Worsley 
 went out to look up the other culprits, and
 
 144 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 by this time his method had succeeded ; 
 public opinion had been too much even 
 for the audacious Goggie, and he now con- 
 fessed that the flower-pot and mud-pie were 
 his affair, was ordered dry bread for dinner, 
 and the rest came in, better late than 
 never.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 God said to man and woman, " By thy sweat, 
 And by thy travail, thou shalt conquer earth :" 
 is ot, by thy ease or pleasure : — and no good 
 Or glory of this life but comes by pain.' 
 
 The Disciples. 
 
 LL the way to the station Ella's 
 mind was full of the invitation 
 to the Dray cotes', and how to 
 frame her request to be allowed to accept 
 it, while she gave but a part of her attention 
 to her father's talk about the garden, the 
 hay-crop, the poultry ; about Roland's mis- 
 demeanours, Jack's enormities, and her 
 own and Janet's shortcomings. 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 She thought of a score of different ways 
 of opening the subject, but as soon as there 
 came a suitable pause she grew hot and 
 cold by turns, her heart died within her 
 and she let it slip. And yet she was bent 
 on going if she could, for she and Janet 
 had often looked their future in the face 
 and canvassed their chances of any better 
 sort of life than that they led at present, 
 and had decided that in the Draycotes 
 alone lay their hope of any such oppor- 
 tunities, their sole chance of a glimpse 
 into society and the great world ; of 
 meeting their fellow-creatures, snd among 
 them perhaps — perhaps that one kindred 
 spirit for which each restless heart was 
 seeking. 
 
 As they began to descend the last hill 
 towards the station Ella grew desperate, 
 for she was determined not to take the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 147 
 
 easier but somewhat cowardly course of 
 writing to her father after he was gone. 
 
 ' I've had a letter from Lady Draycote,' 
 she said abruptly, without so much as a 
 little cough by way of a preamble, ' asking 
 me to go up for a week or ten days next 
 week. May I go, papa ?' 
 
 She felt that his impulse was to say no ; 
 he was silent, but he made a vigorous slash 
 or two at the brambles by the wayside, and 
 looked thoughtful and a little annoyed. 
 
 ' I shall not want any clothes,' she 
 ventured to say presently, as the whistle 
 of an engine in the station reminded 
 her of the shortness of the precious 
 time. 
 
 'If you did, that would simply put it 
 out of the question at once,' said her 
 father. 
 
 'And I can pay the journey out of my 
 
 10—2
 
 148 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 pocket-money,' she went on, 'if you'll give 
 me something for the servants/ 
 
 ' The servants are better off than any of 
 us. Who is to escort you ?' 
 
 'Can't I go alone?' asked Ella; ^'ve 
 done it often.' 
 
 ' I know you have, but I don't like it ; 
 I don't like it at all.' 
 
 *Yery well,' she uttered in a low voice, 
 half choked with vexation. 
 
 ' Very well ! What do you mean by 
 that ?' asked Worsley. 
 
 Ella conquered her rising tears, and con- 
 trived to say with dry composure : 
 
 ' I suppose I can't go, then ?' 
 
 ' I didn't say that,' said her father ; ' on 
 the contrary, I should like you to go if 
 we can manage it ; but you know — or 
 perhaps you don't know — the state of our 
 finances ?'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 149 
 
 ' But this will only cost a few shillings/ 
 observed Ella as dispassionately as she 
 could, for she was too proud to try per- 
 suasion. 
 
 ' There's Twigg and Butter asking for 
 eighty pounds,' Worsley went on leisurely. 
 ' There's the butcher's bill upwards of fifty, 
 although we keep that intolerable quantity 
 of poultry : it seems to me they do nothing 
 but destroy the garden. Then there's 
 Roland — his scholarship contributes a mere 
 drop in the ocean towards paying his bills. 
 Those bookcases are not paid for ; the 
 manure for the hot-bed is not paid for ; the 
 last half-year's groceries are not paid for. 
 I really don't know, upon my word, where 
 the money is to come from ! I slave at the 
 rate of some sixteen hours a day for my 
 family, and I can't see that any one of you 
 appreciates it, or lends a hand to keej)
 
 I50 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 things together a little, or makes any 
 attempt to keep down the expenses. 
 Everything is done in the same reckless 
 way; bills rmi up here, there, and every- 
 where, as if money were to be had for the 
 asking; the garden allowed to go to rack 
 and ruin ; Jack's education utterly neg- 
 lected ; while you girls write fiction and 
 expect to go off to London at a moment's 
 notice to stay with your swell relations, 
 just at the very time when every day, every 
 hour indeed, is of incalculable consequence 
 in the garden.' 
 
 ' Bang the garden !' thought Ella, sensible 
 of the mingled justice and injustice of these 
 remarks, and of course equally annoyed by 
 both ; but aloud she said, ' Then I'd better 
 write and decline, I suppose ?' 
 
 Worsley did not answer immediately, 
 and they went up the steps into the station-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 151 
 
 yard; and passed through the bookmg-office 
 on to the platform. 
 
 Here they ^Talked up and down, waiting 
 for the train — Ella in a fever of anxiety and 
 impatience; Worsley calm and collected, 
 and apparently only bent on enforcing U230n 
 her a due sense of their extreme poverty, 
 of the shameful extravagance, carelessness, 
 and idleness of herself and all the rest, in 
 order to show her what ample grounds he 
 had for refusing her request ; perhaps also 
 to enhance his magnanimity in granting it, 
 but of this Ella did not feel at all sure. 
 
 She thought she could have taken with a 
 good grace a scolding, pure and simple, for 
 her own very patent shortcomings ; or the 
 flat refusal of her request. But this being 
 hauled over the coals for the sins of the 
 whole family, many of them fictitious ones, 
 and the suspense as to the final issue was
 
 152 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 almost more than her temper would bear 
 amiably. 
 
 She saw the train comino- round the 
 
 o 
 
 curve from Brackenburv, and knew she had 
 but two minutes now, but she pretended 
 not to mind. 
 
 The next minute they stood at the open 
 door of a third-class carriage, and she 
 collared Hardigras and held him while 
 people took their seats, as he always showed 
 a strong desire to follow his master. 
 
 Poor Ella was ready to cry with dis- 
 appointment, and was thankful to the shady 
 hat which concealed her tell-tale face. 
 
 The bell rano- and the doors beofan to 
 bang one after another ; the guard ap- 
 proached with his flag, and some one cried, 
 ' Take your seats, please !' 
 
 ' Well. I suj^j^ose I must say yes,' said 
 Worsley with a kind and rather melancholy
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 153 
 
 smile, as they parted. ' I like you to meet 
 your relations, and I don't want to seem 
 hard upon you. Good-bye !' 
 
 Ella stood holdino; Hardio;ras and watched 
 the tram out of sight under the bridge, and 
 then set off homeward, only half happy at 
 this very tardy success. 
 
 Her way lay across a wild undulating 
 stretch of heath covered with gorse be- 
 ginning to blossom, and knee-deep in 
 heather. Beyond this was a wood, guarded 
 by the usual announcement about the rigor- 
 ous prosecution of trespassers, but which 
 was used daily as a short-cut by all the 
 foot-passengers between Eastcott and 
 Windon, or Brackenbury. Just now, how- 
 ever, one was liable to meet a keeper because 
 the pheasants were breeding ; so Ella passed 
 her handkerchief through Hardigras's collar 
 (not without a thought on having to wash
 
 154 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 that handkerchief eventually), and led him 
 along — led him, at least, when he did not 
 lead her, for he was nearly as big as a 
 donkey and had quite as strong a will of 
 his own y moreover he took extra advantage 
 always of Ella, because he knew she was half 
 afraid of him. 
 
 They dragged each other in a fitful way 
 safely across the heath, and entered the wood. 
 Here difficulties began to thicken. Hardi- 
 gras thought it would be pleasant to hunt 
 squirrels and pheasants ; Ella wished him 
 to walk sedatel}^ beside her along the grassy 
 road through the middle of the wood. 
 Every now and then he stood still and 
 looked about him wistfully ; and then Ella 
 stood still too, giving a feeble pull at his 
 collar to make him come on, but much afraid 
 he might object. Then he would walk on 
 reluctantly, j^ulling at his collar and regard-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 155 
 
 ing lier from time to time with an expres- 
 sion in his yellow eyes that she could not 
 interpret, but Avhich she felt sure meant no 
 good. Then he would perceive a squirrel 
 or some other miserable creature moving 
 somewhere, and plunge forward, dragging 
 Ella with liim at a reluctant trot, her arm 
 aching with the effort to hold him in. 
 
 ' I declare I'll never take vou out ag^ain, 
 Hardigras !' she exclaimed, standing still at 
 last with the great creature beside her, look- 
 ing up with those strange sulky yellow eyes 
 of his. ' You are enough to madden a saint, 
 much more a poor coward like me. Come 
 on now, quietly, Hardigras I' but he did 
 not respond to her hesitating hand on his 
 collar, e\ddently expecting her to give way 
 if only he persisted long enough. 
 
 Standing there waiting the dog's pleasure, 
 Ella became aware of steps behind her. It
 
 156 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 was against her principles to look round, 
 but her cheeks grew hot at being seen by 
 anybody, were it but a workman, in this 
 ignominious situation. She longed to pre- 
 tend that it was of her own free choice 
 that she stood thus by the wayside, doing 
 nothing ; she looked down to see if there 
 were not a little flower — a botanical speci- 
 men — in which she might appropriately 
 be interested ; but there was none. 
 
 When the steps had passed her she 
 looked up to see what kind of person it was 
 who had witnessed her incapacity, and met 
 the inquiring eyes of a young — a rather 
 young man ; eyes which seemed to have, 
 expected her to look up, and to say that 
 they had seen her before, for he lingered, 
 and a hesitating trace of a smile flickered 
 round his mouth. 
 
 Ella glanced nervously at him, and away
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 157 
 
 a2:am at the D-rouncl at his feet ; a vao;ue 
 idea that she had seen him before began to 
 gain ground in her mind. Meanwhile 
 Hardigras, diverted from his former inten- 
 tions, whatever they were, by this new 
 object of interest, made a spring forward, 
 which Ella involuntarily followed. 
 
 Emboldened by her advance, the young 
 man lifted his hat and smiled, while Ella, 
 flushed and at a loss, smiled too, and then 
 stammered out : 
 
 ^ It's the dog — I — I beg your pardon — I 
 d — don't think I know you.' 
 
 * Scarcely,' replied he, in a reassuring 
 voice ; ' but we have met before, Miss 
 Worsley.' 
 
 ' Oh ! yes, in the woods at Sunley/ 
 murmured Ella, recognising the voice at 
 once. ' I shouldn't have known you if you 
 had not spoken.'
 
 158 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' Perhaps I had no business to speak/ 
 said he apologetically ; ' but I fancied the 
 dog was one too many for you, and when 
 I saw who it was — I — I ' 
 
 He scarcely seemed to see his way out of 
 the sentence he had begun. 
 
 Ella was much embarrassed, however, for 
 she was oppressed by the feeling that it was 
 very improper to be speaking to a stranger 
 here all alone ; and yet she did not see how 
 to avoid him now that he was there and 
 that they were both going the same way. 
 She made one feeble attempt to let him go, 
 however, saying abruptly : 
 
 ' I can get him through the wood, I. 
 think, thank you ; and he wouldn't mind 
 you, I'm afraid. Thank you very much.' 
 
 * But we are going the same way, are we 
 not ?' he asked simply. ' Will you not 
 allow me to walk with you as far as the
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 159 
 
 gate up there ? I can at least defend you 
 from the casual keeper.' 
 
 Ella was much perturbed. Her sole 
 experience of society and its ways had been 
 drawn from half a dozen dull dinner-parties ; 
 and the precejDts of the good maiden ladies 
 under whom she had been at school, com- 
 bined with her father's strictures on girls 
 who flirted and chaffed, and were on easy 
 terms with the young men of their ac- 
 quaintance, rendered her stiff and shy to a 
 most painful degree with any man under 
 forty whom she did not know to be 
 married. 
 
 'Oh! — h'm ! — thank you,' uttered she 
 confusedly ; ' it's not very far — please don't 
 trouble.' 
 
 ' Trouble ! AVhat next ?' he exclaimed, 
 laughing. * Are you afraid of me ?' 
 
 There was something protecting and re-
 
 i6o BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 assuring in his tone ; something that made 
 her feel like a child all at once. 
 
 She laughed, and her cheeks grew hotter. 
 
 'Rather/ she admitted desperately; 'at 
 least — not of you ; only — only, isn't it — 
 isn't it not quite proper ?' 
 
 'Ah!' 
 
 He seemed suddenly to have thought of 
 something far away from these present 
 things — something sad, for his face clouded. 
 Meanwhile, they were walking on up the 
 hill under the pines and the budding 
 beeches. 
 
 ' Oh I don't be afraid, Miss Worsley,' he 
 said, after a minute. ' At any rate, it is not- 
 w^orse than your walking alone.' 
 
 ' Hardigras, you know !' Ella said laconi- 
 cally, patting his big head as she spoke. 
 
 ' His protection seems of a doubtful kind,' 
 observed her companion.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. i6i 
 
 ' Well, I generally come home by the 
 road when I'm alone with him,' said Ella ; 
 ' only this is so much shorter that I thought 
 I'd risk it.' 
 
 ' Didn't I see you at Eastcott Station ? 
 You must have walked very fast.' 
 
 ' I have to go Hardigras's pace,' she ex- 
 plained, laughing. ' We are all good 
 walkers, though.' 
 
 ' But aren't you very tired ? I am sure 
 you are. Let me lead him — he pulls your 
 arm unmercifully. Give me the handker- 
 chief.' 
 
 ' Xo, it will be more tiring for you, 
 because you will have to stoop,' said Ella, 
 who had not yet learned to accept civility 
 with a good grace, being so used to serve, 
 so utterly unused to be served. 
 
 ' But I don't mind stooping or being 
 tired,' he replied, taking it out of her hand ; 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 i62 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' I insist. Have you much farther to go ?' 
 he inquired presently, when they came in 
 sight of the gate at the top of the hill. 
 
 ' Only about half a mile down the hill — 
 Windon way,' she answered. 
 
 ' Oh ! Then you belong, I suppose, to 
 Windon Church ?' he suggested. 
 
 ' Well, we do really,' said Ella ; ' but we 
 never go there, it is so awfully low. We 
 go to Hawbourne generally ; sometimes to 
 Eastcott. ^^ 
 
 ' Have you a seat at Eastcott ?' he asked 
 rather quickly. 
 
 'Oh no ; we sit in the free seats. We 
 are very poor, you know.' 
 
 * And do you think that a misfortune T 
 he asked. 
 
 * A misfortune ? No, I believe it is the 
 best thing for us ; I believe we owe all the 
 ii^ood that is in us to our poverty. It makes
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 163 
 
 us work and do things for ourselves. We 
 are much nearer the heart of thinofs ; I 
 can't quite explain — closer, face to face with 
 life — we have fewer delusions, I mean, and 
 fewer prejudices, and fewer shams. We 
 know nobody, and live in a world of our 
 own — a real world, full to overflowing with 
 interests, and cares, and duties of every 
 kind — not a lazy round of fashionable 
 emptiness, and small talk, and wasted 
 
 gifts; 
 
 He laughed at this summary description 
 of the rest of the world. 
 
 ' And you have no delusions and no 
 prejudices ?' he remarked rather satirically. 
 * Are you content with 3^our life and your 
 poverty?' 
 
 Ella looked up quickly. 
 
 ' Oh ! no, no ; frightfully discontented. 
 I only said T believed it was good for us. 
 
 11—2
 
 i64 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 But I don't like it, except in theory. Our 
 theory is, that we all stand back to back 
 and shoulder to shoulder against the whole 
 world, and hold our own by love, and 
 unity, and self-sacrifice.' 
 
 ' I like your theory,' said he ; ' but why 
 against the w^orld ?' 
 
 * I mean all that in the world against 
 which we all fight ; all things that come 
 against us fi^om without — hardships — Oh! 
 I put it so lamely.' 
 
 ' I understand,' interrupted he ; * and 
 what is the diiFerence between your theory 
 and your practice ?' 
 
 Ella coloured and glanced round for 
 words ; then she looked at him with a shy 
 deprecating smile. 
 
 ' Our shoulders ache sometimes,' she said, 
 * and that spoils the perfectness of it — it 
 darkens it all.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 165 
 
 He was silent ; all this was something 
 new to him. 
 
 ' Sometimes,' Ella went on presently, 
 ' Janet and I get so sick of it that we say 
 we will just abandon everything, and aspire 
 to nothing at all beyond the work of the 
 moment.' 
 
 ' x\bandon everything ?' he repeated in- 
 terrogatively. 
 
 ' I mean all our nice pursuits — our music, 
 drawing, reading, carving — and — and 
 writing.' 
 
 ' Then what is the work of the moment,' 
 he asked, ' if not any of those things ?' 
 
 ' Oh I' murmured Ella, in some confusion, 
 ' we — we have a good many things to do.' 
 
 ' Am I too curious ?' asked he, smiling. 
 
 ' Oh ! I don't mind telling any sensible 
 person,' said Ella ; ' but '' the world " looks 
 askance at us and pities us, and condescends
 
 i66 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 to be affable when it can't help meeting us, 
 but avoids us if it can. We have no 
 servant, and mamma and Janet and I do it 
 all — house, children, garden and all ; Jack 
 helps too, and does the cow and the pigs, 
 and so on.' 
 
 ' What — everything ?' uttered he. be- 
 wildered, although he had no very accurate 
 conception of what it involved. 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Ella, ' and sometimes we 
 are quite happy and enthusiastic over it ; 
 and at other times everything goes wrong, 
 and we feel there's nothing we wouldn't do 
 to get away ; though of course,' she added, 
 ' we don't, in point of fact, do anything but 
 stay where we are and work on.' 
 
 * I know, I know/ he said sympathetically. 
 'Life is much the same under whatever 
 circumstances ; the same plan and pattern 
 on different scales. Suffering of some kind
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 167 
 
 forms the inevitable groundwork — don't you 
 think so ?' 
 
 ' It is the same in other things,' said Ella. 
 ' We set the highest value on those things 
 for which we have paid pain or sorrow as 
 part of the price.' 
 
 By this time they had reached the gate ; 
 he opened it for her, and they both passed 
 out into the road. 
 
 ' I'll take him now,' said Ella, laying her 
 hand on Hardigras's collar. ' Thank you 
 very much.' 
 
 ' I think there is a great deal more that 
 we could say, Miss Worsley, isn't there ?' 
 said he. ' I hope you will not want to cut 
 me the next time we meet. Good-bye.' 
 
 ' Good-bye,' said Ella, thinking about 
 shaking hands and wondering what was the 
 proper thing to do. ' Safer not,' she said to 
 herself, and drew off with a little stiff bow.
 
 i68 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' Who can he be ?' she said, talking to 
 herself as she went down the hill ; ' I'm 
 very glad he didn't come on and see the 
 house — to-day of all days. Ten to one 
 dinner isn't cleared away yet.' 
 
 Sm^e enough, when she got in, there was 
 the dining-room just as she had left it; the 
 kitchen fire out ; the kitchen littered with 
 dinner-things ; saucepans in the fender ; 
 cloths hanging on odd chairs, or fallen on 
 the floor ; two or three pairs of boots 
 waiting to be cleaned ; and a great basket 
 of dry clothes of a most remarkable greyness 
 tinged with blue, standing under the dresser. 
 In the pantry were the breakfast -things not 
 yet w^ashed up, and the house was empty 
 and all the doors and windows open. 
 
 Ella's heart sank dow^n like lead at ' the 
 misery of it,' as she mentally called it, and 
 she wandered out across the back -yard and
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 169 
 
 found Janet and Mrs. Worsley hanging out 
 clothes, while Jack was seen coming down 
 the garden with another load of weeds. 
 
 ^ The kitchen fire's out,' she said dis- 
 consolately, standing about amongst the 
 daisies and buttercups ; ' and there's all the 
 washing-up to be done.' 
 
 * I'll light it,' said Janet cheerily. 
 ' You'll be more tired than any of us after 
 your six miles walk.' 
 
 Ella felt better at once. 
 
 ' I'll change my gown while you do it, 
 said she ; and added, laughing, ' then I 
 shall forget that I've been off the place 
 at all.' 
 
 I don't much think she did forget it, 
 though.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ' Conclude, conclude he is in love.' 
 
 Much Ado About Nothing. 
 
 ACK, are you sure he'll be here 
 in time ?' ' 
 
 ' I told him you wanted to 
 catch the 12.15,' replied Jack, with a shrug of 
 his thin, narrow little shoulders ; ' I couldn't 
 do more ;' and he w^ent on calmly sharpening 
 his knife on the sole of his great boot. 
 
 Ella turned and went back into the house, 
 into the kitchen where Janet was peeling 
 potatoes and three of the children sat on 
 chairs against the wall, in disgrace for
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 171 
 
 leaving the paddock -gate open and letting 
 out all the fowls. 
 
 ' It seems too brutal to go off and leave 
 you all at work,' she said, standing by the 
 table m her neat, faded frock, and watching 
 Janet rather wistfully. 
 
 ' Oh I never mind,' said the philosophical 
 Janet ; ' we take our share in turn. And if 
 they press you to stay, mind you do. A 
 week more or less can make very little 
 difference to us, after all.' 
 r_ ' How pretty you look in that veil I' re- 
 marked Sidney from his chair. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Xora. ' Are you going to be 
 married, Ella ?' 
 
 Ella laughed, and looked at Janet, who 
 turned sternly round upon the culprits and 
 reduced them with one awful glance to 
 blushing and embarrassed silence. 
 
 ' Think of me to-night at about eight or
 
 172 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 SO, Janet, all in white, with pearls, and 
 flowers in my hair,' said Ella ; ' as if there 
 was no such thing as washing-up or boot- 
 blacking ?' 
 
 ' I hope you have taken your songs,' said 
 Janet. 
 
 ' I hear wheels !' exclaimed Ella, running 
 out into the passage. ' There's the fly ! 
 Good-bye, Janet !' 
 
 * Please I want to kiss you !' cried N'ora. 
 'And I do!' cried Sidney; and Stella 
 echoed, ' And please may I ?' 
 
 Ella rushed round and kissed them all. 
 ' Say good-bye to mamma for me,' said she, 
 as she ran out. 
 
 ' The luggage is up,' said Jack, holding 
 out his grimy hand. ' Good-bye. Don't 
 come back in a hurry!' 
 
 ' All right !* said Ella to the flyman ; and 
 the other children ran up to the far corner
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 173 
 
 of the garden to cheer as she drove 
 past. 
 
 ' My lady is off !' said Jack to Janet, as 
 they went back together into the kitchen. 
 ' You'd think she'd never set eyes on a 
 dishcloth, or touched a broom with a pair 
 of tongs.' 
 
 ' That I should think she never had/ 
 observed Janet. 
 
 ' Well, you know 't I mean,' said Jack 
 aggressively. ' You really are so precious 
 sharp!' 
 
 * She alwavs looks nice,' sig-hed Janet : 
 ' I shouldn't wonder if she never came back 
 to us at all.' 
 
 ' H'm ! Well, she turns up her nose at 
 all the people,' said Jack, who had often 
 been the silent and totally disregarded wit- 
 ness of his sisters' private conversations. 
 ' He'll be a pretty remarkable specimen that
 
 174 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 takes my lady's fancy. Oh !' here he 
 began to mimic Ella's manner and voice, 
 ^ " I couldiit marry a man whose manners 
 were not aristocratic — blue blood running 
 down his noble brow — or who was stout, 
 or had red hair, or who didn't ride and 
 shoot, and read his Bible, and write 
 novels " ' 
 
 'Jack, what an ass you are!' 
 
 ' Well, poetry then, or essays — ah ! yes ; 
 — a scholarly man he must be — ahem ! I 
 am so very clever and refined myself, I 
 really couldn't Iwe with a man whose hair 
 didn't curl, or who wore checked trousers — 
 and fancy if his name were Richard ! — or 
 James !' — he shuddered theatrically. 
 
 ' Shut up. Jack, you idiot !' said Janet, 
 with a smile of contempt. ' That's not the 
 least like her. Don't waste any more 
 time. You'll have to get the children
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 175 
 
 ready for dinner, Avliile I feed my new 
 chickens.' 
 
 At about four o'clock that afternoon — it 
 Avas a Wednesday — ^just as Janet and her 
 stepmother, having cleared up the kitchen 
 and the pantry, were settling down to a 
 few hours' ironing and folding ; and Jack, in 
 his shirt- sleeves, was littering down the 
 cow and the pigs ; and the children were 
 making mud -pies, and playing with broken 
 flower-pots and old battered meat-cans as 
 usual, Ella was ushered into the spacious 
 and faintly perfumed drawing-room at Dray- 
 cote House in the most fashionable part of 
 Kensington, and rapturously and enthusi- 
 astically embraced by her aunt. Lady Dray- 
 cote, and three of the ' six plain daughters 
 to whom she has once made allusion in our 
 hearing. 
 
 They were not really very plain — some
 
 176 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 of them, indeed, were sometimes called hand- 
 some — but they were singularly like every- 
 body else, all the ordinary good-natured, 
 properly brought-up, fashionably-dressed 
 nobody -in -particulars that one knows — or 
 doesn't know ; brownish hair, greyish eyes, 
 thinnish figures, dullish complexions, 
 largeish mouths, and possessed of a moderate 
 command of tolerable conversation. 
 
 ' Now I am quite sure you are tired, 
 Ella, dear child !' said Lady Draycote, 
 taking her hand in one of hers, while she 
 laid the other kindly on her shoulder. 
 * You shall go up to your room and have 
 a nice little rest before tea !' 
 
 Ella began to deprecate all notion of 
 being tired, being really rather rested by 
 her journey than otherwise ; but Lady 
 Draycote was quite sure she knew better, 
 and sent her away with her cousin Maude,
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 177 
 
 with strict orders, playfully given, not to 
 come down till five. 
 
 ' There's a dinner-party this evening, 
 Ella.' said Maude, as they went up the 
 Avide, thickly-carpeted staircase together. 
 * Have you any flowers for your hair ?' 
 
 ' I brought a few white narcissus,' said 
 Ella modestly, thinking how worn and 
 old her frock looked beside [Maude's dark- 
 blue silk and velvet ; and how insufi'erable 
 her country-made boots appeared on these 
 luxurious carpets amongst the dainty - 
 buckled shoes of her aunt and cousins. 
 
 '• We'll go to the conservatory after tea 
 and get a little maidenhair for you,' said 
 Maude. 
 
 ' Won't their own leaves do ?' asked Ella, 
 with a diffidence for which Janet would 
 have scorned her. 
 
 *I never saw them worn,' replied 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Maude. ' Everybody wears maidenhair, 
 you know!' 
 
 This ' you know ' sounded to Ella like 
 ' of course you don't know/ and she gave 
 way with a smile. 
 
 ' I suppose I mustn't go down till five,' 
 she said to herself, when Maude was gone. 
 ' I'd better unpack.' 
 
 So she unpacked, and then laid out her 
 white embroidered muslin and sea-green 
 ribbons, put her flowers in water, took a 
 fond look at her pearls, and found it was 
 five. 
 
 When she first entered the drawing-room 
 it appeared to her to be densely crowded 
 with people whom she had never seen 
 before ; but on a nearer view, and after one 
 or two introductions, she found matters 
 grow simpler and less alarming. 
 
 ' Mr. Barry !' said Lady Draycote, taking
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 179 
 
 her hand protectingly — ' Miss Worsley, my 
 niece. This is your cousin Fred — oh ! and 
 Nellie — you have never met Nellie before, 
 have you, dear ?' Then followed several 
 more introductions, and Ella, quite be- 
 wildered, made a few distracted little bows, 
 o-lanced at the stran^'e faces, shook hands 
 rather at random, and finally, having not 
 the slightest notion who they all were, she 
 found herself sitting on a sofa next to a 
 stout elderly lady, who was looking at her 
 benignantly, and saying she was ' the image 
 of her dear mother.' 
 
 To complicate matters two gentlemen 
 were standino; over her mth cake and 
 bread and butter, sugar and cream ; and in 
 helping herself she observed that the fore- 
 finger of her left hand Avas all rough from 
 sewing, and somewhat discoloured by grate- 
 cleaning and boot-blacking, and vaguely it 
 
 12—2
 
 t8o between the ACTS. 
 
 flitted through her mind that they probably 
 did not supply pumice-stone to the guests 
 here, nor even ' gents' super sand-tablets/ 
 such as Jack sometimes indulged in. 
 
 ' I remember your mother when she first 
 married,' the benignant lady went on, 'a 
 mere girl, poor thing — so pretty, and so 
 fragile. She and your father were at 
 Florence — he was studying there, and a 
 very promising artist, though he did 
 quarrel with his best friends, and never 
 did anything like other people. That 
 would go off though, as he grew 
 older.' 
 
 ('Ah!' thought Ella, 'if she did but 
 know !') 
 
 ' There was not a cleverer man in 
 Florence. Of course you all draw?' she 
 added, with a smile. ' I remember his 
 wonderful theories about all that you were
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 to learn. What, now, is your special 
 pursuit ?' 
 
 Ella blushed, and laughed, and hesitated. 
 In speaking to strangers she always felt 
 that any word she uttered might inadver- 
 tently let, as she expressed it, ' one of the 
 fifty thousand cats out of the family bag,' 
 for they wished to keep their troubles and 
 struggles as much as possible to them- 
 selves. So she guardedly admitted that 
 they were fond of many nice pursuits ; and 
 since, happily, well-bred people do not 
 listen too attentively to what you say, it 
 all passed off quite naturally, and her old 
 friend went away with the idea that they 
 were entirely devoted to art, and spent 
 happy lives in all its gentle studies. 
 
 ' Let me get you some more tea.' A 
 fair, stoutish, red •■ whiskered individual 
 was bendino; over her with some solicitude,
 
 i82 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 and she wondered, as he carried off her 
 tea-cup, whether it was ' your cousin Fred ' 
 or Mr. Barry. 
 
 ' If it's Fred,' she thought to herself as 
 he talked rather stiffly, and yet with a 
 little air of interest and goodwill, about 
 the Heathshire air and scenery, about her 
 journey, and about the weather — ' if it's 
 Fred, I wonder why he looks so unlike a 
 gentleman ; and if it's Mr. Barry, I wonder 
 who Mr. Barry is !' 
 
 ' Here is Ella making conquests already,' 
 laughed old Lord Draycote, when a few of 
 the people were gone and Ella was trying 
 to sort them a little in her mind, and had 
 discovered that the rest were all part of the 
 large family party. ' Mr. Barry is deeply 
 smitten — never saw him S23eak to a lady 
 before. You've all lost your chance of the 
 millionaire, girls — that's plain.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 183 
 
 * Barry's plain/ said Fred, laughing — 
 ' plain but solid, like tlie speckled donkey 
 at school. Not a bad fish, though.' 
 
 ' Is Mr. Eomilly coming to-night, papa ?' 
 said Maude. 
 
 ' Yes, he is ; and by-the-bye, mamma, I 
 asked him to bring that musical foreign 
 friend of his — seems a decent fellow for a 
 foreigner and a musician,' Lord Draycote 
 added slily. ' I'm not sure that he isn't 
 an artist, too.' 
 
 ' Oh, Charles !' exclaimed Lady Dray- 
 cote, alarmed. ' We don't know anything 
 about him — he may be anybody. I've 
 heard that some of Mr. Romilly's friends 
 are very queer — he was abroad so long, 
 you know. It never does — you never know 
 — these young men nowadays, Charles ; 
 and nothing but a musician and an artist — 
 what will people think ?'
 
 i84 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Ella tried to follow this argument, and 
 was a little surprised that nobody laughed. 
 
 ' We shall never know what they think/ 
 said her uncle composedly ; ' and Romilly's 
 a rattling good fellow. Make yourselves 
 very smart, girls ; he's no end of a parti — 
 will be at least. By-the-bye, you must 
 know him, Ella ; his future property is in 
 your neighbourhood. Sunley is the name, 
 I think.' 
 
 '/ know him I' thought Ella, as she 
 denied all knowledge of so much as his 
 name. 'As if I knew anyho&j ! We 
 know the woods,' she added aloud, 'but 
 only as outsiders — what we call empty- 
 bottle - and - newspaper - people ; we picnic 
 there sometimes.' 
 
 ' Well, then, you've all a fair and equal 
 chance,' laughed Lord Draycote. ' She 
 doesn't know him, so' you can breathe
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 1S5 
 
 freely. They say he's not a marrying 
 man ; but many men are not, you know, 
 till the fatal she ' 
 
 ' Charles I What nonsense you talk ! 
 Don't mind him, Ella,' said Lady Dray- 
 cote. 
 
 Then the girls showed her their crewel- 
 work, and lace-work, and their painting on 
 china ; and asked about her music, and 
 would she like to go to lectures with 
 them ? Maude and Xellie attended lectures 
 in History and Physiology. 
 
 ' Or if you like ambulance, you can go 
 with Violet,' they said. ' Yi goes in for 
 the useful. Of course you wouldn't care 
 for cookery ? it's so — well — you have to do 
 things, you know. Lectures are so much 
 nicer.' 
 
 Ella felt that her cousins were very 
 clever, and gave them to understand that
 
 i86 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 she knew nothing, and never did anything, 
 and that her music was a mere farce. 
 
 ' How beautifully you draw,' she said, 
 reluctantly acknowledging to herself that 
 even young ladies of rank and fashion 
 might do some things well, as she examined 
 B china plaque with a group of figures 
 on it. 
 
 ' Nellie did that. Isn't it nice ?' said the 
 others. ' She could teach you, if you like 
 — she only gave five guineas for the colours 
 and things, and you get several nice patterns 
 with them — you trace it, you know — it is 
 very effective for bazaars and presents, and 
 you needn't be able to draw.' 
 
 ' Tracing patterns — five guineas — bazaars 
 — presents !' thought Ella to herself, feel- 
 ing that a gulf yawned between her and 
 these guileless, comfortable dabblers. ' I'm 
 afraid I shouldn't have much time at home,'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 187 
 
 she said aloud ; and I must admit that a 
 wicked thrill of satisfaction went through 
 her heart to find that the drawing was only 
 traced. 
 
 Poor Ella! she liked to delude herself 
 with a theory of universal equality. ' They 
 are rich, and they have rank and society, 
 and everything they want/ she and Janet 
 used to say; ' but they are dull and common- 
 place, and of course they can't do half the 
 things that we can.' Thus they consoled 
 themselves. 
 
 It was rather disconcerting to find them 
 attending learned lectures, ' doing ambu- 
 lance,' as they called it, learning cooking, 
 and drawing and painting all sorts of pretty 
 things ; and, moreover, to find that they 
 were not very plain after all. 
 
 ^ The compensation, perhaps, will be in 
 the future,' said Ella to herself, as she
 
 i88 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 dressed for dinner and contrasted her 
 cousins' life with her own. 
 
 Fred took her in to dinner. 
 
 * Make hay while the sun shines,' he 
 whispered to her confidentially as he 
 handed her the menu to study. 
 
 ' I'm not hungry,' she replied innocently, 
 and in fact the prospect of having to sing 
 after dinner made her teeth chatter with 
 nervousness. 
 
 ' No, no,' laughed Fred, ' of course not ; 
 but,' in an almost inaudible voice, ' you've 
 got the great jjarti on your right — Romilly, 
 you know — Nellie is dying of envy.' 
 
 ' What a dreadful brother to have !' 
 thought Ella, glancing across at Nellie's 
 face, certainly more flushed and more ani- 
 mated than it had been ; and then she was 
 just beginning cautiously to survey the 
 great partly when he, too, looked up,
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 189 
 
 and each recognised the other in a 
 moment. 
 
 ' Miss Worsley !' he exclaimed frankly, 
 delighted. ' How very funny that we should 
 find ourselves here, side by side, and not 
 know it — how jolly I Are you staying 
 here ? So am I. Oh, I am so glad !' and 
 then, meeting Lord Draycote's astonished 
 eyes, he said, * Miss Worsley and I are old 
 friends — are we not ?' 
 
 Ella blushed a good deal to find several 
 pairs of eyes directed towards her. 
 
 ' Yes,' she stammered, ' but I — I didn't 
 know it was you.' 
 
 ' Oh ! oh!' laughed Lord Draycote. ' Oh, 
 Miss Ella! She told us this afternoon, 
 Romilly, that she had never heard your 
 name ; as to knowing you — she scorned 
 the base insinuation. Now I hear you are 
 old friends, and she declares she didn't
 
 I90 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 know it was you ! A pretty story ! Which 
 am I to believe ?' 
 
 Curiosity and astonishment were visible 
 through all the politeness of her cousins' 
 glances, and she caught Fred in the act of 
 winking at Xellie. 
 
 ' How absurd they all are!' she thought, 
 with cheeks aflame. ' They never will 
 understand.' 
 
 'It is a very romantic story, isn't it, 
 Miss Worsley?' said Romilly, turning to 
 her with laughing eyes. ' I think we won't 
 satisfy public curiosity on the subject ; 
 what do you say ?' 
 
 ' I will leave it entirely to you/ said 
 Ella shyl}^, feeling very safe with him. 
 
 ' How kind of him not to tell !' she 
 thought, when the second course created a 
 diversion. ' I dare say he knew the girls 
 would giggle over it.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 191 
 
 Ella stood in some awe of the opinion of 
 society as she imagined it, and she looked 
 back upon that walk and talk wdth the un- 
 known young man in the woods as a social 
 enormity which could scarcely be forgiven 
 if once it were known. Indeed, when she 
 imparted the little episode to Janet over the 
 washing-up, her final comment had been, 
 ' Pleasant, but wrong ! as the monkey said 
 when he kissed the cat ;' and Janet had 
 agreed w^ith her, though neither of them 
 could see anything wrong in it. 
 
 ' Where did you learn all your pretty 
 German songs ?' the girls asked after dinner, 
 as they stood about the piano wdth their 
 coffee-cups and examined her music. 
 
 ' I learned in Germany — I was at school, 
 
 you know ' Ella said, remembering that 
 
 more than one of the ' fifty thousand cats ' 
 in the family bag was connected mth the
 
 192 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 fact ; for at the age of seventeen she had 
 made the journey alone and third-class, and 
 had taught English to her German school- 
 fellows, and thus paid only half what the 
 others paid — one of the many things that 
 had to be concealed from her aristocratic 
 relations. 
 
 The girls set her to sing. They all petted 
 and patronized her a little, and after each 
 song they all called out, ' How lovely ! 
 How delicious! Do sins; somethins" more!' 
 and made such a pleasant noise about 
 her that she did not hear the gentlemen 
 come in. 
 
 ' Ah ! that is Schubert,' said a manly . 
 voice behind her ; and she looked round and 
 up to see Mr. Komilly standing there, and 
 beside him an elderly man with long grey 
 hair and a little neat dark moustache, and 
 large spectacles over kindly blue eyes.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 193 
 
 The elderly man turned to Mr. Romilly 
 and said in German : 
 
 ' She has the sweetest voice I have 
 heard for many years ; and feeling, too, 
 which English girls so seldom have. One 
 can hear, of course, that she has not been 
 taught ; but, bah 1 — there are many voices 
 in which that is the only thing you do 
 hear,' he laughed, and then asked for 
 another song. 
 
 * You mustn't speak German if you don't 
 wish me to understand,' said Ella, blushing. 
 ' It is lucky that speech was so very 
 complimentary !' 
 
 * This is my friend Herr Dregert,' said 
 Romilly, introducing him. ' His praise is 
 w^orth having.' 
 
 He praised her next song so much, and 
 in such an audible voice, that Ella hastily 
 made her escape, covered with blushes, and 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 slipped into a chair beside her cousin 
 Nellie. 
 
 Xellie was laughing immoderately, though 
 apparently trying to suppress her mirth. 
 
 ' Isn't he a funny, ridiculous old crea- 
 ture ?' she whispered to Ella. ' I did pity 
 you so.' 
 
 This was a new view of the matter to 
 Ella, for until this moment she had felt a 
 good deal flattered ; but she immediately 
 felt there might be truth in it, and resolved 
 not to be an object of pity or ridicule again 
 if she could help it. 
 
 Meanwhile, Herr Dregert was playing 
 one of Chopin's beautiful melodies, and the 
 buzz of talk died away as the soul-com- 
 pelling music spread its spell through the 
 room. 
 
 Ella sat motionless, with her hand over 
 lier eyes, not so much listening as lost and
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 195 
 
 absorbed in the music, till her lips quivered 
 and the foolish tears ran do^vn. Oh for a 
 fim to hide her face I and how, oh! how 
 Avas she to get at her handkerchief, on 
 which, poor ^dctim of fashion, she was 
 sitting, without standing up and being 
 found out? 
 
 ' Of course he's a professional,' said 
 Xellie, when the music ceased, ' so there's 
 nothing wonderful in it. I don't think I 
 care for that sort of playing in a drawing- 
 room. It is rather overpowering — don't you 
 think so ?' 
 
 ' Perhaps it is,' mumbled Ella, with bent 
 head, making a dive for the occult handker- 
 chief, and feeling, as she told Janet after- 
 wards, ' such a fool sitting there with nasty 
 tears dribbling all down her cheeks, and 
 pretending she wasn't crying.' 
 
 She began to have an instinctive shrink- 
 
 13—2
 
 196 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ing from Xellie, and was relieved when her 
 cousin was fetched away to sing, and Violet 
 came and sat down beside her. 
 
 Yiolet was about as far beyond twenty- 
 nine as a young unmarried lady might be. 
 She had had her romance, recovered from 
 her disappointment, and now had leisure to 
 take a kindly and somewhat motherly 
 interest in her younger and happier con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 ' You look tired, dear Ella,' she said, 
 noticing the girl's pale face. * Shall I tell 
 you a compliment I heard paid you just 
 now ?' 
 
 *Well,' said Ella, laughing a little, 
 ' perhaps you'd better. Only, when Janet 
 hears anything complimentary about me, I 
 always make her keep it till some time 
 when I m awfully dull and miserable, and 
 then it encourages me to go on, you know.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 197 
 
 ' I don't think you are often miserable,' 
 said Violet, 'you have such a bright face. 
 Mr. Romilly and Herr Dregert were talking 
 about you.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ought you to repeat it ?' interrupted 
 Ella ingenuously. 
 
 Violet laughed. 
 
 ' Keep it for one of your rainy days,' she 
 said. ' Herr Dregert said you were like 
 an Italian Madonna, and that your hair was 
 the perfect colour.' 
 
 * Oh I — oh, don't!' murmured Ella, blush- 
 
 ing. 
 
 ' And then,' pursued Violet, amused, 
 ' Mr. Romilly said, " Yes ; it was Titian's 
 colour, and he thought it very beautiful." 
 Aren't you very proud of it now ? I admire 
 it too, though the others don't,' Violet went 
 on ; and added with unconscious humour, 
 • but I dare say they will when they hear
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 Mr. Komilly's opinion. What colour do 
 you call it ?' 
 
 ' Red, of course,' replied Ella promptly, 
 though she cherished a secret suspicion that 
 it was auburn, never having been able to 
 ascertain what colour that might be, and 
 having observed in several novels that the 
 heroine in the ugly-duckling stage has red 
 hair, which, when she dawns upon society 
 as a beauty, turns out to be auburn. She 
 half thought Violet might enlighten her 
 now on the subject ; but she did not. 
 
 ' Mr. Romilly is staying till Wednesday,' 
 said Violet, ' and Mr. Barry is coming 
 to-morrow, too.' 
 
 ' Is that the millionaire ?' asked Ella. 
 
 ' Papa calls him the millionaire,' replied 
 Violet, smiling. ' He is a stockbroker, and 
 very rich. He got Fred out of one or two 
 bad scrapes at Oxford last year — that was
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 199 
 
 how we came to know him. He is rather 
 what people call a rough diamond ; but he 
 has a great many nice friends, and nice 
 tastes and things/ 
 
 ' Oh !' said Ella, wondering, since Violet 
 apologized for him in this delicate way, 
 whether any of her cousins was destined for 
 the millionaire. 
 
 ' Here come your admirers !' said Violet, 
 looking mischievous, and Romilly and his 
 friend came up and begged for another 
 song.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Lo here the worlde's bliss ! lo here the end ! 
 To which all men do aim, rich to be made ! 
 Such grace now to be happy is before thee laid.' 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 HAT do you do on Sunday after- 
 noons ?' Ella asked her cousins 
 at luncheon the next Sunday. 
 I'll tell you,' said Fred ; * we 
 smoke, and wish for to-morrow.' 
 
 ' I didn't mean you,' said Ella, as loftily 
 as if he had been Jack, 'I meant your 
 sisters and the grown-up people.' 
 
 * Oh ! the females. They meditate in 
 
 Oh!
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 their bedrooms till tea-time/ Fred responded, 
 miabashed. 
 
 ' Then, if there's no objection/ Ella said, 
 ' I shall write in the garden this afternoon.' 
 
 After luncheon, people hung about the 
 fireplaces in the various rooms, chatting, 
 fiddling, lolling, idly turning the pages of 
 Sunday books and magazines, making jokes 
 that would not have passed muster on any 
 other day, and laughing in a subdued and 
 discreet fashion. 
 
 Ella very soon slipped away, collected 
 her writing materials, betook herself to the 
 silence and seclusion of the arbour in the 
 garden — a wooden shed with a feeble 
 pretence of greenery straggling about it, 
 much disguised with soot — and sat down to 
 write to Janet. 
 
 Far and near bells were ringing for after- 
 noon service, the noise of the streets was
 
 202 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 hushed, crowds of grimy sparrows chirped 
 and twittered and quarrelled on the wall 
 amongst the rosy almond-blossom, and 
 tumbled fighting down upon the meagre 
 grass plot between the gravel walks. 
 Everything was quiet in the house, standing 
 there so stately and so w^ell ordered, with 
 trim blinds and curtains, and backs of look- 
 ing-glasses in all the upper windows ; and 
 high above, the white clouds travelled 
 through the blue sky in the sunshine. 
 
 ' Even in London,' wrote Ella, taking 
 promptly a dip of ink, ' you can tell without 
 a calendar that it is Sunday and that the 
 spring has come — there is that same name- 
 less something in the air that vre always 
 notice at home. Aunt Alicia and the girls 
 are all resting — Sunday seems to tire them 
 a good deal. They should try a little of our 
 method. The gentlemen — Heaven may or
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 203 
 
 may not know where they are ; and I have 
 the garden and the tortoise — tethered by a 
 strino: and a hole drilled in its shell to a 
 scrubby medlar — all to myself. I suppose 
 people who have gardens in London are too 
 grand to walk in them/ 
 
 Luckless boast ! Before the ink was dry, 
 voices and tobacco simultaneously invaded 
 her retreat, and she descried several manly 
 forms patrolling the far end of the garden. 
 
 * I judged them prematurely, it seems,' 
 she went on, after muttering ' Bother !' to 
 herself, ' but they'll hardly like to come to 
 
 this arbour ' a shadow fell across the 
 
 floor, and there stood ]\Ir. Romilly with a 
 cigar between his fingers. 
 
 ' Oh,' said Ella, reddeniDg and sweeping 
 her papers together, ' is this the smoking- 
 room ?' 
 
 ' I know you don't mean that for a snub,
 
 204 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Miss Worsley,' answered Romilly, with a 
 smile. ' It's only a place where you can't 
 write in peace — somebody is sure to come 
 bothering — talking — poisoning the air with 
 smoke, and wasting the precious time.' 
 
 Ella felt that her face must have betrayed 
 her. ' You are snubbing me now,' she said, 
 laughing. ' I like the smoke, and I'd rather 
 talk to you than write my letter — it's only 
 to Janet ; it doesn't matter.' 
 
 ' May I sit here, then ?' Romilly asked. 
 ' Janet is your pretty sister, isn't she ? 
 The one that keeps Jack in order and has 
 such very good use of her head and her 
 hands ? ''Gaby" she called him,' Romilly 
 mused aloud. ' I nearly broke down then, 
 and upset the spirit-lamp,' he went on, laugh- 
 ing — ' it was so funny to hear her — only 
 I didn't dare. How strange that we should 
 have met that day in the wood, aud then
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 205 
 
 find ourselves here under the same roof, 
 isn't it ?' 
 
 * Very,' said Ella, ' but it is stranger, 
 don't YOU think, that after these few days 
 we both shall go back into the world 
 whence we came, and shall never, perhaps, 
 meet again. It is one of the things in life 
 that puzzle me. Why meet at all ? It is 
 like a novel with a great many superfluous 
 characters and meaningless incidents, isn't 
 it?' 
 
 * What, life you mean ? Yes, if you look 
 at it merely from a novelist's point of view. 
 But don't you think two people may be not 
 wholly without influence on each other's 
 lives even though they see no more of each 
 other than, for instance, you and I ?' 
 
 ' I suppose so,' admitted Ella, ' but I feel 
 so impatient for larger things, greater 
 events, stronger fi'iendships, solutions of
 
 2o6 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 some of the many riddles of life, some 
 distinct gain from time. It seems so baffling 
 to go back to my drudgery next week as if 
 nothing had happened, none the better, 
 none the wiser, none the nearer achieving 
 anything worth achievement, only having 
 realized a little more plainly what my ideal 
 is, and that it is hopelessly out of reach.' 
 
 ^ Then it is more likely to be the right 
 sort/ said Eomilly encouragingly. ' What 
 do you mean bv your ideal ? Tell me 
 about it.' 
 
 Ella began readily enough. ' First, we 
 
 want to get something out of life ' and 
 
 then she paused. 
 
 ' Money, for instance ?' suggested Romilly 
 mischievously, expecting her to fire up in- 
 dignantly ; but she only sighed rather hope- 
 lessly. 
 
 ' Of course we must make money some-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 207 
 
 how,' she said simply enough, ' but we 
 Avant our work to be worth something apart 
 from its money value ; not to be mere 
 money-making. And life — oh ! Mr, Romilly, 
 it is so awfull}^ short, and still I never make 
 up my mind how I will take it, and what 
 make of it. Do you know what I mean ?' 
 
 ' Quite,' said Romilly, with a sad smile. 
 ' Go on.' 
 
 ^ Oh ! I dare say — at least of course you 
 have made your chart long ago,' Ella said, 
 looking up deprecatingly, ' and perhaps you 
 never had any doubt about it. But I don't 
 know what to aim at ; of course if you 
 haven't a definite aim, you just diffuse any 
 power you have over all sorts of insignifi- 
 cant things that produce nothing. And then 
 people come between and baffle you — you 
 can't sit alone and work out your own sal- 
 vation ; and women are always personal !'
 
 2o8 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Romilly laughed at the curious abruptness 
 of this last remark, and asked for an ex- 
 planation. 
 
 ' I mean that we worship our ideals 
 personally; we embody them in individuals, 
 and lose ourselves at the outset. And we 
 are almost always self-conscious.' 
 
 ' Miss Worsley,' said Romilly, after a 
 long silence, ' will it console you at all 
 for the time you have wasted in London to 
 know that I owe to that walk in the woods 
 with you a certain moral impetus which has 
 changed the whole course of my life ?' 
 
 ' Oh !' murmured Ella, her eyes suddenly 
 filling with tears. ' Then it is only because 
 you do not know me as I am.' 
 
 ' That's as it may be,' said he; ' however 
 it came about, I owe it to you, and I thank 
 you and the — the chance that brought me 
 across your path, from the bottom of my
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 209 
 
 soul. I cannot tell you my story,' he went 
 on, shading his face with his hand, ' it is 
 not edifying. But when I say that vcij 
 own wrongdoing has completely blasted and 
 ruined my life, you must believe it, and 
 believe besides that I have not been man 
 enough to own it before the world.' 
 
 'It is difficult to believe ill of you/ Ella 
 said, very low. 
 
 ' Then,' said he, looking up with a faint 
 smile as he used her own words, ' " it is only 
 because you do not know me as I am." ' 
 
 Then perhaps he saw the tears brimming 
 in her eyes, and thought he was making her 
 unhappy about things which should never 
 have troubled her, for he rose rather 
 abruptly and stood looking out at the 
 others a minute; then he turned to her and 
 said, half lauo^hino; : 
 
 ' DO 
 
 * I didn't mean to make you sad — I 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 thought you would like, perhaps, to know 
 it — these ill-winds that waste your time 
 blow good to people you come across with- 
 out your being conscious of it.' 
 
 ' Oh ! Please don't laugh at me about 
 wasting time,' Ella said. ' Janet and I 
 always talk in that high-flown strain. I'm 
 afraid you must think us very conceited and 
 silly. We don't mean it altogether.' 
 
 'I wasn't laughing at you at all,' said 
 he. ' But I won't keep you any longer 
 from your letter. May I be remembered to 
 your sister and to Jack — Bernard, I sup- 
 pose, I ought to call him ?' 
 
 ' They will be pleased,' said Ella ; and 
 he lingered a little wistfully in the doorway, 
 and then sauntered away across the grass. 
 
 Lady Draycote's meditations, assisted by 
 Violet, took a very practical turn that Sun- 
 day afternoon.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 211 
 
 ' They are admirably suited to each 
 other, Violet,' she remarked from the com- 
 fortable sofa, where she lay among shawls 
 and cushions, in a lovely crimson peignoir, 
 with a volume of sermons in her hand. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Violet, who was ensconced in 
 a large armchair, mth her feet on the 
 fender, and a Japanese fan between her face 
 and the fire. ' Each has what the other 
 lacks. He has money, and a good position 
 among moneyed people ; and she has the 
 birth and refinement and social tact that he 
 is rather wanting in.' 
 
 ' She would really be a very good partie 
 for him!' Lady Dray cote went on. 'He 
 wants, as your father says, "licking into 
 shape ;" a good wife who is socially a cut 
 above him would be the making of him. 
 The more I think of it, the more I like it, 
 Violet, I feel, too, that we ought to do 
 
 14—2
 
 212 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 something for him after what he did for 
 Fred; 
 
 ' And you really believe he is smitten ?^ 
 Violet asked. 
 
 ' My dear ! He never takes his eyes off 
 her — he who never looks at a woman. He 
 doesn't talk to her, but that is because he 
 has nothing to say to ladies. You can see 
 how he listens when she speaks, and how 
 struck he is by the curious straightforward 
 things she says. And then, my dear^ see 
 him when she sine's — vou'd think it was an 
 angel at the piano !' 
 
 ' I am rather surprised, mamma,' said 
 Violet thoughtfully, ' that Mr. Barry should 
 have singled out such a girl. She is very 
 pretty and attractive, but so unconven- 
 tional — you'd have thought he would be 
 more commonplace in his tastes.' 
 
 Lady Draycote was silent a minute, and
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 213 
 
 then she laughed a dry little laugh. ' Mr. 
 Barry is a shrewd man of business. Lewis 
 Komilly was telling me yesterday that there 
 is not a sino^le thino; in his house that is 
 not good of its kind and valuable. As for 
 Ella — at the Gathorne's, on Friday night , 
 the Duchess came up to me and said, " Do 
 tell me, my dear Lady Draycote, who is that 
 lovely girl ?" and everybody was admiring 
 her.' 
 
 ' Do you call her lovely, mamma ?' 
 ^ Ah ! well — one could find fault of 
 course,' said Ladv Dravcote. ' But vou 
 notice her in a moment among a crowd of 
 girls — that beautiful mass of bright, crisp 
 hair ; that fair skin ; those dark, expressive 
 eyes ! And then, she looks so happy — 
 that is a great charm. I do think Mr 
 Barry will be a lucky man if he 
 succeeds.'
 
 214 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' I should think he is sure to succeed, 
 mamma/ said Violet. ' They must be 
 miserably poor at home. Have you noticed 
 Ella's hands ?' 
 
 ' I thought them very well-bred-looking. 
 Why?' 
 
 ' Why, we girls were telling fortunes last 
 night, and studying the lines on our hands; 
 and Nellie — you know how very thoughtless 
 she is sometimes — Kellie said, " Oh, Ella I 
 what a funny colour your hands are on the 
 inside I What makes the palm so different 
 from the back ?" and poor Ella coloured 
 and said in her curious way, " They're 
 meant more for use than ornament. I've" 
 got a good deal of work out of them in my 
 time." And do you know, mamma, there 
 were little scars of blisters worn all along 
 the palm. She told me afterwards it was 
 from gardening. Fancy what they must
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 215 
 
 have to do ! I am sure, by her manner, 
 that that was not all.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I haven't patience when I think of 
 them. Cecil Worsley never was like any 
 other human being !' Lady Draycote ex- 
 claimed, settlino; herself for a reo^ular talk 
 on this — one of the standing themes of 
 wonder, annoyance, and irritation in the 
 family, and one which remained after every 
 discussion just as much of an enigma as 
 it had been before. ' When he came 
 here three - and - twenty years ago,' she 
 went on, ' and wanted to marry poor 
 Kachel, your father wouldn't hear of it. 
 Bat there was always a little bitterness and 
 constraint between him and the young half- 
 brothers and sisters ; Rachel fretted, and 
 the others said he was cruel, and he gave 
 in. Poor Rachel ! How she idolized him ! 
 After all, he Avas as handsome as could be ;
 
 2i6 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 very dark ; and he was full of talent and 
 cleverness of every kind — eccentric, of 
 course ; but one thought it would wear oiF. 
 Ah ! and then the babies came one after 
 another, and she died before she was six- 
 and-twenty.' 
 
 'But if he is so wonderfully clever,' said 
 Violet, ' how is it that they are so poor ? 
 That is what I cannot understand.' 
 
 ' ;N"obody understands it,' Lady Dray- 
 cote said impatiently ) ' only if you knew 
 him you would not wonder at anything. 
 I don't profess to understand art, but people 
 say he is, or might be if he chose, a first- 
 rate painter. But his theories are quite too- 
 grand for this world ; he won't attempt to 
 please anybody ; looks down upon all man- 
 kind, and the more likely they are to be 
 able to help him, the greater is his contempt 
 for them. He has quarrelled with the Eoyal
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 217 
 
 Academy and with all liis brother artists ; 
 he won't — so they say at least — he won't 
 sell his pictures for anything less than the 
 exorbitant prices he puts upon them, nor 
 part with them to anybody who, he thinks, 
 cannot thoroughly appreciate them. Of 
 course he never sells a thing.' 
 
 ' A sort of genius !' remarked Violet, 
 with a little half- compassionate, half-con- 
 temptuous laugh. 
 
 * And he only paints when he feels in- 
 spired,' pursued Lady Dray cote. ' Such 
 ridiculous affectation ! As if his wife and 
 children would wait for his inspiration 
 before they die of want. He spends years 
 over one picture, and then says it would be 
 sacrilege to part with it. That's how he 
 goes on.' 
 
 ' How dreadful, mamma !' 
 
 ' Your father declares that when he dies
 
 2i8 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 he will leave the contents of his studio to 
 the nation, and expect the nation, in mere 
 gratitude, to provide for his destitute 
 family.' 
 
 *I wish all the more that we could get 
 Ella well married,' said Violet, with a sigh. 
 
 ' I'm quite determined she shall marry 
 Richard Barry,' answered her mother con- 
 fidently ; ' they will have seen enough of 
 their father's high-flown style to be practical 
 themselves. I don't think she is hkely to 
 hesitate. I shall give her a little hint or 
 two, and of course she must not go home 
 on Wednesday.' 
 
 ' I think she wants to,' said Violet, who 
 had a little more of Ella's confidence than 
 the rest. ' She said Janet was very easily 
 knocked up, and would be ill if she didn't 
 go back.' 
 
 ' Oh I I think I shall be able to get over
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 219 
 
 that,' said Lady Draycote, smiling airily, 
 and not the least realizing the difficulties in 
 her way. 'I shall put it seriously before 
 her.' 
 
 ' Wouldn't it be a pity to say too much ?' 
 suggested Violet. 
 
 ^ / shall manage it beautifully,' said her 
 mother ; ' and now, my dear, I think I will 
 just take forty winks before tea.' 
 
 Violet rose. ' You have just an hour,' 
 she said, as she left the room. 
 
 ' Now, Ella, my dear child,' said her 
 aunt the next day, when she had contrived 
 to have her alone and felt safe from inter- 
 ruption, ' this is all nonsense about your 
 wanting to run away on Wednesday. Why, 
 we have seen nothing of you. I quite hoped 
 you would stay a month.' 
 
 ' Oh !' said Ella, and thought to herself, 
 then why didn't you mention it before ?'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 ' So now you are going to stay a nice 
 long time/ said lier aunt comfortably, ' like 
 a good child.' 
 
 ' It is very kind of you. Aunt Alicia/ 
 said Ella, in an unpromising tone, ' but you 
 know there is a good deal to do at home, 
 and they can ill spare a hand, especially as I 
 am the strongest of them all. It isn't fair.' 
 
 ' Oh ! but they can easily spare you 
 another week/ urged her aunt. ' They 
 can get a woman in to help the servants 
 if there is really so much to do.' 
 
 Ella laughed at this large and general 
 idea of the menage at The Roses. ' We 
 can't afford any extra expense/ she saidj 
 refraining from any imprudent revelations 
 about servants. ' Of course, if I thought 
 they would have to get anyone in, that 
 would only be an additional reason for 
 hurrying back.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 221 
 
 Lady Drajcote sat silent a while, looking 
 distressed. 
 
 ' I really think, please, that I ought to 
 go/ Ella ventured to say. ' Indeed, I would 
 really rather go on Wednesday.' 
 
 ' Xow, Ella, I am going to speak to you 
 very seriously,' said her aunt, smiling a 
 little, however, to take off the edge of her 
 gravity in case Ella should he alarmed or 
 annoyed ; ' really, very seriously. You 
 are not a child any longer, you know ' 
 
 ' But my first duty is to papa,' interrupted 
 Ella stoutly. 
 
 ' Quite right, dear, quite right — that isn't 
 what I meant — of course, dear ; and I 
 shouldn't wish ever to interfere,' she said 
 hastily, ' but there is the future to consider — 
 that is what I want to talk to you about.' 
 
 ' Ah ! the future !' sighed Ella' ; ' of 
 course that isn't my affair.'
 
 222 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Lady Draycote paid no attention, but the 
 argument of ' duty ' had commended itself 
 to her as a useful weapon. 
 
 ' Don't you think it is your duty to your 
 father and to Janet, and indeed to all those 
 poor young children, to take advantage of 
 opportunities of seeing people, and making 
 nice acquaintances ?' 
 
 ' H'm — what's the good ?' asked Ella 
 rather gloomily; and then Lady Draycote 
 smiled with great significance. 
 
 ' I mustn't betray any confidences, must 
 I ?' she said archly; ' but you know you are 
 much too pretty to be shut up and hidden 
 away down there where you have no society. 
 Think, my dear child, what it would be to 
 Janet now, if you were to make a good 
 marriage! Think of the advantage to all 
 your family !' 
 
 ' Yes, of course,' said Ella innocently,
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 223 
 
 ' but I can't hang about idling and leaving 
 them all to work extra hard, while I wait 
 for some one to come around and propose. 
 " To be left till called for ;" I haven't the 
 time, you see, Aunt Alicia. One ought to 
 be able to sink capital in a venture of that 
 sort, and I haven't got it. I quite agree 
 with you that it would be very nice if I 
 had; 
 
 Lady Draycote almost suspected sarcasm 
 in this grave speech, but Ella had evidently 
 no such intention. 
 
 ' But you don't know, dear child,' she 
 said, rather baffled ; and then went on with 
 sudden tenderness, ' Ella dear, you have 
 no mother ; you must let me be a mother 
 to you ;' she went over to Ella, who was 
 sitting on a sofa opposite, and gave her a 
 kiss ; ' you must take my word for some 
 tilings that you don't understand.'
 
 224 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Ella felt embarrassed, as she always did 
 when people were demonstrative of their 
 affection : it ' made her feel a fool,' as she 
 expressed it ; so she merely said ' Yes,' 
 in a dubious and provisional sort of 
 way. 
 
 ' I dare say you don't know how lovely 
 you are,' Lady Draycote went on, sitting 
 beside her, and taking her hand in one of 
 hers, while she caressingly stroked her 
 curly hair with the other. ' People have 
 admired you very much since you have 
 been here, and I have been quite proud of 
 my niece.' 
 
 Ella blushed and smiled with pleasure at 
 this very new idea. What would Jack and 
 Janet say when she told them ? Of course, 
 though, they wouldn't believe it. 
 
 ^ And I know somebody who admires 
 you very much indeed,' her aunt went on ;
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 225 
 
 ' somebody who wants a wife, Ella, and 
 who is not easily pleased.' 
 
 ' Then I'm afraid / shan't please him,' 
 laughed Ella. 
 
 'Dear child, I am serious,' said Lady 
 Draycote, with slight reproof in her voice 
 and eyes. ' I have thought about it a great 
 deal, and I think it is a great chance of 
 happiness which you ought not to throw 
 away. He must be twelve or fifteen years 
 older than you are — a very good age. He 
 is exceedingly well oflf — one should not be 
 worldly of course, and I have a horror of 
 marrying for money,' Lady Draycote went 
 on virtuously, ' but that is no reason 
 people should not look at things as they 
 are. Always look at the common sense of 
 a thing, I say. He has nice tastes; he is 
 fond of music — especially your music, I 
 have observed ; collects beautiful things — 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 enamels, china, pictures, lace, and so on ; 
 and then he is steady — that is everything, 
 absolutely everything.^ 
 
 ' When the rest is thrown in as it were,' 
 said Ella carelessly, longing to laugh, but 
 not quite daring. ' I suppose you mean he 
 doesn't drink ?' 
 
 ^ My dear child, thank Heaven that you 
 don't know all it means ! Such men are 
 rare nowadays, and marrying men are rare.' 
 
 Lady Dray cote spoke wdth some emotion, 
 and Ella felt penitent. It occurred to her 
 that she must have seen the man, since he 
 had seen her ; spoken to him, no doubt, in 
 blissful ignorance of his designs upon her 
 happiness. 
 
 * Oh, Aunt Alicia I' she murmured, as 
 the thought took shape in her mind, and 
 the shy colour dyed her cheek and brow. 
 ' Won't you tell me who it is ?'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 227 
 
 Aunt Alicia laughed and kissed her. 
 
 * That would never do,' she said; 'but I 
 think it will be very foolish of you to run 
 away from him.' 
 
 Ella's face fell. She had quite forgotten 
 about the going home. 
 
 ^ May I leave it open till to-morrow ?' 
 she said at last. * The letters from home 
 may make a difference.' 
 
 ' Yes, dear ; do leave it. There is no 
 hurry,' said her aunt kindly; 'and I am 
 sure now that you ^^ill not do anything 
 rash or foolish, will you ? My heart is 
 quite set on this, and I am sure you are 
 too sensible to look only at the outward 
 appearance. A little roughness and want 
 of polish is nothing compared Avith steadi- 
 ness of character, and a good, clever wdfe 
 may do a great deal for her husband if she 
 takes the trouble.' 
 
 15—2
 
 228 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Ella listened, and wondered, and looked 
 submissive. 
 
 ' And now,' said her aunt, ' I am going 
 to take you for a little drive in the park, 
 and Mr. Barry is coming with us, so run 
 away and put on your hat, dear; the 
 carriage will be round directly.' 
 
 Ella ran to her room, turned the key, 
 and fell on her knees beside the bed, her 
 blushing face hidden in her hands, her 
 heart going up in glad thanksgiving for 
 the happiness that was coming to her. It 
 only seemed too good and too wonderful 
 to be true. She laughed and sang as she 
 dressed for the drive, and came down 
 looking radiant. 
 
 'First I must go to one or two shops,' 
 Lady Draycote said, as they rolled away 
 in great state from the door ; and Ella was 
 thinking how delicious it was to drive in a
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 229 
 
 large barouche with a pair of fine horses, 
 and an imposing footman jumping up and 
 down on the slightest symptom of anyone's 
 wanting anything — so much jollier than an 
 omnibus, she thought, glancing into one as 
 they passed it, and fancying herself one of 
 those dowdy, weary -looking women inside 
 it, crushed between ' stout parties,' and 
 handing coppers between the conductor and 
 the passengers, and being stared at by the 
 man like a foreign Count in the corner — 
 how well she knew it all ! 
 
 ' I shall not take you in here, dear,' her 
 aunt said, as they drew up in a long line 
 of sumptuous carriages which were waiting 
 before a fashionable milliner's. ' It is hardly 
 worth while. I shall not be a minute.' 
 
 So Ella Avas left sitting opposite Mr- 
 Barry, who fixed his brown eyes upon 
 her with a pleased and benignant air.
 
 230 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Ella, with the keenest interest, was 
 looking for heroes and heroines among 
 the passing faces, and reading imaginary 
 characters in them as they strolled or 
 hurried by. 
 
 ' This is rather dull for you,' observed 
 Barry. 
 
 'Oh no!' Ella exclaimed; 'I could sit 
 here for hours watching the people. I was 
 just hoping Aunt Alicia's minute might 
 prove half an hour.' 
 
 ' You don't care for the shops, then ?' he 
 asked, trying to find a topic that would 
 keep her talking. 
 
 Ella laughed. 
 
 ' I dare say I should like them well 
 enough if I had plenty of money and no 
 better way of spending it,' she said, her 
 eyes still travelling hither and thither with 
 the faces in the crowd.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 231 
 
 ' But you like London ?' he suggested. 
 
 * Oh, very much !' was her enthusiastic 
 reply. ' I used to thlak it so ugly, and 
 the misery of the streets used to depress 
 me ' 
 
 ' Oh r interposed Barry. * You mustn't 
 think too much about that — it is a waste of 
 pity. The beggars, and cripples, and 
 match-women are mostly a rascally lot ^ 
 
 ' That's why I pity them so,' interrupted 
 Ella simply ; ' but I have come to the 
 conclusion that we others are just as un- 
 happy in other ways, and in proportion to 
 our light and our opportunities just as 
 rascally.' 
 
 Mr. Barry thought this very amusing, 
 and laughed a good deal. 
 
 ' I didn't mean it for a joke,' said Ella, 
 glancing at him half annoyed, and there 
 flashed through her mind the thought, ' Mr.
 
 232 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Komilly would have known what I meant, 
 and he wouldn't have guffawed like that/ 
 
 ' I hope you don't consider all your 
 friends as rascally as that old blind humbug 
 at the corner there,' Barry said banteringly, 
 indicating a placarded beggar mth a money- 
 box, standing near. 
 
 * I don't know whether he is a humbug 
 or not,' Ella said, with some dignity ; ' and 
 I said "in proportion to our light and 
 knowledge," or something to that effect. 
 And being only a woman,' she added, with 
 self-contempt, ' I'm afraid my friends are 
 beyond the pale of my judgment.' 
 
 ' Then I hope you will include me, Miss. 
 Worsley, among that happy number/ said 
 Barry, with a smile. 
 
 ' I hardly know you, Mr. Barry,' Ella 
 answered, in a careless matter-of-fact way, 
 ' and I shouldn't think it could matter
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 233 
 
 much to you what my judgment might be, 
 supposing I happened to think about it.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, it would,' said Barry signifi- 
 cantly; and added, ' do you know you are 
 rather cutting, Miss Worsley ?' 
 
 If he expected to elicit a gleam of 
 coquetry, or a blushing smile and toss of 
 the head, or another cutting remark, he 
 must have been disappointed. 
 
 ' Did I say anything rude ?' she ex- 
 claimed, colouring distressfully. ^ You 
 must not mind me, Mr. Barry, if I say 
 stupid things. I have been so little in 
 society, I am always making mistakes. I 
 am so sorry — I really didn't mean to hurt 
 your feelings.' 
 
 She raised her eyes to his face in timid 
 deprecation, with a pleading look that 
 trembled on the verge of tears, and Barry 
 was enchanted. It was the first time she
 
 234 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 had really looked him in the face since they 
 had left the house ; he felt inclined to pro- 
 long the situation ; she was generally so 
 difficult to talk to, he found ; she did not 
 seem readily to lend herself to that sort of 
 personal banter which was his idea of love- 
 making in the preliminary stage. 
 
 'But you did hurt my feelings, Miss 
 Worsley, very much,' he said, withholding 
 his pardon till she should yield a little more 
 of that cool, girlish indifference that was so 
 difficult to deal with. 
 
 ' I am so sorry,' murmured Ella ; ' I 
 don't know what I said. What did I say, 
 Mr. Barry ?' 
 
 'I am sure you would not like me to 
 repeat it,' said he gravely ; ' but I have not 
 forgotten ' (he had by this time, but that's 
 a trifle when you're making love). ' I 
 shouldn't have expected it of you.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 235 
 
 ' I assure you I didn't mean it,' said Ella, 
 beginning to regain her composure. ' I am 
 afraid the truth is that I was not paying 
 much attention, so don't think any more 
 about it, please, whatever it was.' 
 
 * We'll, I've forgotten what it was,' said 
 Barry composedly, looking her full in the 
 face ; ' but 1 couldn't resist the temptation 
 of prolonging your penitence a little — it 
 was so pretty.' 
 
 Ella turned away without speaking. 
 
 ^ Miss Worsley, have I offended you ? 
 Are you angry?' 
 
 ' Yes, very !' said Ella crossly, dimly 
 conscious that he had taken a liberty, but 
 feeling helpless to avenge herself. 
 
 ' Oh ! don't be angry,' said he easily ; ' I 
 couldn't bear it.' 
 
 ^ Please don't be silly, Mr. Barry — 
 Oh ! what beautiful lilies of the valley !
 
 236 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 How lovely! I wonder where they get 
 them?' 
 
 Barry found himself forgotten and 
 deserted, and saw Ella, who had hastily 
 alighted, talking to a gaunt, hollow-eyed 
 girl, mth an emaciated baby huddled in a 
 drab shawl on one arm, and a basket of 
 lilies on the other. He had no notion, 
 however, of being leffc in the lurch in this 
 way, and promptly followed her. He heard 
 her asking all sorts of questions about the 
 baby, and saw her lift its tiny claw-like 
 hand, while the lovely eyes she raised to 
 the mother's face were full of painful tears. 
 The mother answered her questions with a 
 dull sort of apathy, and didn't seem to think 
 there was much the matter with the child. 
 Ella bought some of the flowers, and turned 
 away to find Mr. Barry standing beside her, 
 admiring and amused.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 237 
 
 * I shall give her something for your 
 sake,' he said ; * I know you'd like me to.' 
 
 ' Of course I should,' said Ella, blush- 
 ing ; ' I can give so little myself.' And 
 with that she returned to the carriage. 
 
 * Buying flowers, you extravagant people ?' 
 asked Lady Draycote, smiling on them as 
 she came back at last. 
 
 * May I give them to you, Aunt Alicia ?' 
 said Ella, as they drove on ; ' they are so 
 sweet.' 
 
 ' My dear child, are they really for me ? 
 That is too good and nice of you!' ex- 
 claimed her aunt, smelling them rapturously, 
 not without a diplomatically interested 
 glance at the other bunch. 
 
 ' And, Miss Worsley, will you accept 
 mine,' said Barry, presenting them with a 
 curious little air of gallantry, ' as a slight 
 token of my humble penitence?'
 
 238 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' Oh!' murmured Ella (the Worsleys all 
 said 'Oh!'), 'Oh! thank you.' And she 
 accepted them with a sort of cold, shy 
 restraint, and let them lie on her lap, while 
 she kept her eyes below the level of Mr. 
 Barry's, and felt nervous, she knew not 
 why. 
 
 At the next shop they stopped at, Ella 
 volunteered to accompany her aunt, and 
 left her admirer to amuse himself as best he 
 might. But Lady Draycote found oppor- 
 tunity to whisper : 
 
 ' I think, dear, you had better remain 
 in the carriage next time. It seems a little 
 rude to poor Mr. Barry, does it not ?' 
 
 ' I am sure he would rather be left to his 
 own reflections than be bothered by a dull 
 person like me,' said Ella, with confident 
 simplicity ; ' I don't know what to say to 
 him.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 239 
 
 ^ Oh ! nonsense, you foolisli child !' 
 
 So Ella sat still next time and tried to talk. 
 
 ' People call London ugly,' said -she ; 
 ' but I think, in its way, it is as beautiful as 
 anything that artists paint.' 
 
 Barry looked more flattered than any- 
 thing else at this remark. 
 
 ' I think so too,' said he. ' There are a 
 great many fine buildings in London.' 
 
 ' I am not much of a judge of fine build- 
 ings,' said Ella ; 'I was thinking more of 
 the picturesqueness and poetry of views one 
 gets every now and then. On a stormy 
 afternoon I have seen the sky a mass of 
 broken smoky-grey clouds, with pools of 
 orange and crimson light, high up between 
 the dark houses on either side of the street ; 
 and the people and their traffic looking so 
 Httle in the dimness and the mud down 
 below. I dare sav vou have often seen it?'
 
 240 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' I ajvoid the streets in that kind of 
 weather/ said Barry; 'but now that you 
 have told me that, I shall go out sometimes 
 and look for " picturesque effects." ' 
 
 ' Then go to one of the Thames bridges, 
 and look up towards the sunset when it 
 looms lurid through the smoke and the 
 mist/ said Ella, ' and see the spires and 
 towers and house-tops against the strange 
 light, and the great dark barges and grimy 
 steamers moving slowly down out of the 
 cloud and mystery of the distance ; and you 
 will hear the rattle and the roar of the 
 streets, and the whistling of trains, and the 
 lovely grinding organs ' 
 
 Barry broke out laughing at this. 
 
 'Oh! Come, Miss Worsley — you don't 
 admire the organs — 3^ou, who are so 
 musical !' 
 
 'I love them,' said Ella ardently; 'they
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 241 
 
 mean so much to me — I can't explain. I 
 like all the sounds of London ; even to sit 
 at an open widow and hear footsteps passing 
 along the pavement, and the ding -cling of 
 bicycle-bells, and little boys laughing.' 
 
 ^ But you should go to the opera, ' said 
 Barry, remembering by way of explanation 
 of her odd taste that she probably didn't 
 know any better. 
 
 ' Ah !' uttered Ella with a long-drawn 
 sigh, ' that icould be grand !' and there- 
 upon Barry made plans for the distant — the 
 not very distant future. 
 
 'We must wear some of our lilies to- 
 night,' said her aunt, as they drew near 
 home ; ' don't you think so, Ella ?' 
 
 ' Very w^ell,' said Ella obediently. 
 
 ' She is very shy,' said Lady Dray cote to 
 Violet, when they bade each other good- 
 night, ' but that is nothing.' 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 La mon paiivre coeur est rest6. 
 S'il doit m'en etre rapporte 
 Dieu le conduise !' 
 
 Alfred de Musset. 
 
 N joining the ladies that evening 
 after dinner, Barry made straight 
 for the sofa where Ella, in white, 
 with his lilies in her hair, sat in earnest con- 
 versation with Lady Draycote. 
 
 ' I shall tell Mr. Barry,' said her aunt, 
 hiding a little real annoyance with a play- 
 ful smile, as he came up. ' Mr. Barry, this 
 naughty child insists on going away on 
 Wednesday, in spite of all I can say. She
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 243 
 
 thinks they cannot get on without her at 
 home.' 
 
 ' I can't wonder at that,' said Barry, 
 looking at her with admiration which he 
 was at no pains to conceal, ' but I think 
 they might spare her a little longer.' 
 
 ' Yes ; of course they ought to — I shall 
 leave you to persuade her, Mr. Barry ;' and 
 Lady Draycote rose and moved away. 
 
 Barry promptly sat down in her vacant 
 place, and addressed himself to his task. 
 ' Do stay, ^liss Worsley,' said he. * Won't 
 you, to please me ?' 
 
 ' It is not a question of pleasure,' Ella 
 answered; 'it is duty.' 
 
 'Oh!' uttered Barry, amused as usual, as 
 though it was really a little too preposterous 
 for such a pretty girl to be talking of duty ; 
 ' I don't think it can be that.' 
 
 ' I don't see how you can possibly know 
 
 16—2
 
 244 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 anything about it, Mr. Barry,' said Ella, 
 thinking, ' He really is too idiotic' 
 
 Poor Barry ! It was his fate to annoy 
 her, it seemed ; luckily for his peace, how- 
 ever, it did not occur to him to view it in 
 this light. Her blunt answers always sur- 
 prised and delighted him afresh. 
 
 ' You gave it me that time,' laughed he, 
 as much pleased as if between them they 
 had said the funniest thing of the season. 
 ' And if it was only a question of pleasure. 
 Miss Worsley, what would you do ?' 
 
 * Oh ! I should stay here,' she answered 
 decidedly. 
 
 ' Would you ? Dare I feel flattered, Miss 
 Worsley ?' he asked with a beaming smile. 
 
 Ella looked at him in unfeigned wonder, 
 and then suddenly broke into irrepressible 
 laughter. ' Yes, Mr. Barry,' she said, as soon 
 as she could speak, * I believe you dare.'
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 245 
 
 ' And what were you laughing at ?' asked 
 he confidentially, feeling he was really 
 getting on at last. 
 
 ' I don't suppose you mean it/ Ella an- 
 swered, her mirth brimming over again, 
 ' but you say such very funny things.' 
 
 Barry looked crest-fallen, and uneasily 
 wondered what funny thing he could pos- 
 sibly have said. 
 
 ' I think you are very easily amused, 
 then,' he remarked, with the air of a sulky 
 schoolboy. 
 
 * Yes, I know I am/ said Ella with a con- 
 ciliatory smile. ' The least thing sets me 
 off if it happens to show its comic side.' 
 
 Barry didn't like to think that he had a 
 comic side. He rather despised the comic 
 and the funny as beneath a man of his sense 
 and capacity. 
 
 ' But you mustn't laugh at me,' he said in
 
 246 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 a slightly lowered voice, with significant 
 stress upon the final pronoun. 
 
 ' Yery well ) if you will undertake not to 
 be funny, I will promise not to laugh,' said 
 Ella. ' But really, Mr. Barry, I think that 
 up to the present you have laughed at nearly 
 everything I have said, and I haven't com- 
 plained. Why should you mind ?' 
 
 ' Because it's different,' he replied, and 
 she perceived with the utmost astonishment 
 that he was annoyed. ' A man may be 
 dull in drawing-room talk among ladies 
 when his life has been spent like mine in 
 work and not in idling, but he may have 
 feelings,' Barry said, and Ella felt rathei* 
 than heard an unw^onted vibration in his 
 voice, ' and they may be all the stronger for 
 his not knowing how to express them to 
 please a lady's ear.' 
 
 Ella felt frightened and remorseful. ' I
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 247 
 
 am so sorry,' she said, inwardly voAving to 
 steer clear in future of this odd man who 
 passed so unexpectedly fi'om light banter to 
 sulkiness bordering on ferocity, without any 
 apparent determining cause. 
 
 ' I wish, ]\Ir. Barry, since I always have 
 the misfortune to be rude or unfeeling when 
 I speak to you, that you would go and 
 please the ears of the other ladies who know 
 how to behave.' 
 
 There was no mistaking the penitent sin- 
 cerity of this speech, though indeed he 
 might have been excused for laughing at it. 
 
 ' I don't care about the other ladies,' he 
 said rather doggedly. ' It is you that I 
 want to please.' 
 
 ' Oh !' murmured Ella. ' What a pity !' 
 
 ' And if you go on Wednesday, I shall go 
 on Wednesday. The place will be unbearable 
 Avithout you. I don't care for women.'
 
 248 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 ' I hope the rest of the party will contrive 
 to survive our absence/ laughed Ella, won- 
 dering whether there were many men like 
 this 4n society,' and what was really the 
 proper way to treat their strange conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 Barry rose abruptly and walked away. 
 
 * Old Barry seems very condescending to 
 you, Ella,' remarked Fred, balancing himself 
 on two or three chairs in her vicinity. 
 
 * Oh ! it's condescension, is it ?' said 
 Ella. ' I wanted to know.' 
 
 ' Queer, isn't he ? But he's an awfully 
 kind-hearted chap,' Fred went on. 'He 
 pulled me out of a bad scrape or two at- 
 Oxford — one of my chums is a sort of 
 nephew of his, and Barry does everything 
 for him. No end of a good thing, I fancy, 
 being a stockbroker, you know — takes 
 pretty good brains too. Barry's cleverer
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 249 
 
 than you'd think — quite a self-made man 
 and all that sort of thing ; and we know 
 he's done a lot of kind things — helping 
 young fellows — and strong sense of sort of 
 —sort of duty, you know, to his own rela- 
 tions — quite common sort of poor people 
 that nobody knows an}i:hing about. We 
 never had him here before — but he's taking 
 a few days' holiday just now, like me and 
 other busy fellows,' said Fred with a grin, 
 * as it's Easter-time. I fancy a stock- 
 broker is obliged to be pretty much on the 
 spot, you know, generally.' 
 
 ' In every sense,' laughed Ella, delight- 
 fully relieved at this rambling talk that was 
 not, as Mr. Barry's, perpetually introducing 
 a personal element ; ' and Fred — do tell me 
 — will Aunt Alicia really be vexed at my 
 going home on Wednesday 7 
 
 ' Oh no ; of course not,' responded Fred
 
 250 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 cheerfully. Must you do what you like. 
 That's only her agreeable way of putting 
 things. I'm generally precious ready to go 
 back to Oxford after a very few days of 
 this. It is slow, you know. Aren't you 
 going to sing ? I like your singing — 
 seems to have some sense about it. Come 
 along — I wish you'd sing that thing that 
 goes waving up and down ; or that other 
 jolly thing with the kind of waltz business 
 in the middle — know't I mean ?' and they 
 went off to the piano together. 
 
 On Wednesday, accordingly, as she and 
 fate would have it, Ella bade her aristocratic 
 relations farewell. 
 
 As she was going through the last 
 embraces, Romilly in a greatcoat came in 
 with an apologetic and hurried air. ^ Miss 
 Worsley — you're going down to Eastcott 
 by the 3.10, are you not ?'
 
 BETWEEN THE A CTS. 2 5 1 
 
 ' Yes,' said Ella, with a sudden sinking 
 at heart. (' '* More cats in bags, as usual !" 
 I said to myself,' said she to Janet that 
 evening, when she found leisure to recount 
 her adventures.) 
 
 ' Then why shouldn't we share a cab ? — I 
 have very little luggage,' Romilly said ; 
 and Ella caught sight of such a scowl on 
 Mr. Barry's broad face as had nearly put 
 thought and speech to flight, it was so 
 startling. But Romilly w^as not noticing 
 him, and w^ent on : ' And then I can be 
 your escort, if you will allow me, to your 
 journey's end.' 
 
 Ella glanced at her aunt and surrounding 
 cousins, and they none of them seemed to be 
 shocked ; so concluding it was all right, she 
 accepted his companionship, and he hurried 
 aw^ay to have their luggage put up. 
 
 ' That is very nice for you, dear,' said
 
 252 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 her aunt, holding her hand as they stood 
 waiting for the return of the footman to say 
 that all was ready ; and Ella felt as if half 
 the things would be forgotten unless she 
 saw to them in person, especially as neither 
 Jack nor Janet was to the fore. 
 
 Nellie was giggling a little, and looking 
 as if she saw a good deal in the situation 
 that did not occur to other people. 
 
 ' You must come up and see us again 
 later on,' Lady Draycote said at parting ; 
 and whispered, ' I think you very foolish 
 to run away, but I know somebody who is 
 not so easily discouraged. He will wait/ 
 
 The sense of these words did not find 
 its way into Ella's preoccupied brain till 
 long afterwards ; Romilly handed her into 
 the cab, said ' Waterloo — main line,' to the 
 driver, jumped in after her, and away they 
 rattled. The wonderful visit was over like
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 253 
 
 a dream, and slie felt just about as much 
 the better or the forwarder for it as one does 
 after a dream for having dreamt it. 
 
 Ella was much disturbed in mind as they 
 drove along by the fear that Romilly, as 
 she had known other people do, would want 
 to pay the whole fare of the cab. At the 
 station he took charge of the luggage and 
 had it labelled, and then volunteered to get 
 Ella's ticket. 
 
 ' The gates are not open yet/ he said. 
 ^ You'd better stay in the waiting-room, 
 hadn't you ?' 
 
 * Please, I'd rather get my ticket myself,' 
 faltered Ella, feeling herself grow crimson 
 beneath her veil. 
 
 'Wby?' 
 
 * We are not going together,' she 
 stammered, opening her purse and tendering 
 her share of the cab-fare.
 
 254 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' That's the cab,' said Romilly in 
 pleasant business-like tones, pocketing the 
 money to her great relief ; ' and I thiiik we 
 are going to travel together — I'm going 
 to look after you I' 
 
 ' I don't want — at least — in fact, I'd 
 rather — you don't know/ Ella stammered 
 out. ' Let me get my own, and — and good- 
 bye, Mr. Eomilly.' 
 
 ' Miss Worsley, I really don't understand,' 
 said Eomilly ; ' I'm dull.' 
 
 ' Well, I'm going third then,' groaned 
 Ella desperately ; ' so yoa can't come with 
 me, and you wouldn't like to get the 
 ticket.' 
 
 ' Oh r said Romilly, his face clearing ; 
 ' and is that all ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Ella, and away he went to 
 the ticket-office, while she, unable to believe 
 that things could go well without her
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 255 
 
 personal supervision, mounted guard over 
 the portmanteaus. 
 
 When he came back the gates were open, 
 bells were ringing, and imparting a general 
 sense of being left behind to all the people 
 on the platform, who immediately began to 
 run, to assault the harmless porters, to 
 tumble over the lamp-barrows and milk- 
 cans, jump into the wrong carriages, and 
 ask the guard what on earth he meant by 
 it. Ella, of course, set off running with the 
 rest, scanning the luggage-heaps as she went, 
 when Eomilly stopped her with a hand on 
 her arm and assured her she might take it 
 quietly, as they had still a good three 
 minutes before the train started. 
 
 '- What a thing it is to be a man, and to 
 know the time !' thought she admiringly, 
 and Eomilly next declared that the luggage 
 was perfectly safe.
 
 2s6 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' My first conviction when I enter the 
 gate and see the train,' said Ella, ' is that 
 unless I can run a mile in considerably less 
 than five minutes, I am done for ; I 
 generally stand by the luggage- van till the 
 last moment, and then run for my life to 
 get into my place, and still all the way 
 along I am tormented by the fear that 
 something has been left behind.' 
 
 'Poor child!' laughed Eomilly. 'Her 
 we are,' he added, finding an empty third- 
 class carriage with bare wooden seats and 
 partitions only half-way up. 
 
 * Oh ! thank you very much,' said Ella, 
 with heart-felt gratitude, clambering up and 
 turning to bid, at least, a temporary good- 
 bye. ' You will lose your place if you wait 
 any longer.' 
 
 ' Won't you let me in too ?' he asked, 
 looking up with a shy smile.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 257 
 
 ' You're not going third !' said Ella 
 incredulously. 
 
 ' Yes, I am/ said he. ' Why not ?' and 
 he jumped in and shut the door. 
 
 ' Oh ! but aren't you only doing it for — 
 for me ?' asked Ella, in pretty confusion. 
 
 ' Of course,' he answered ; 'it's all the 
 same to me what class I travel by ; and if 
 you go third, 3'ou need an escort all the 
 more.' 
 
 * But you aren't used to it — you must 
 mind it so much more than I do.' 
 
 ' I don't know about that/ said he, letting 
 down the far window and then unstrapping 
 a plaid for her ; ' but I think it more than 
 probable that I shall travel third-class for 
 the rest of my life. I'm going to mend my 
 ways, Miss Worsley/ he added cheerfully, 
 sitting down opposite her ; * those, at least, 
 that are not past mending.' 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 BE TWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' Of course, if you think it right, that is 
 a different thing/ said Ella simply. 
 
 * You think so/ said he rather sadly ; 
 'but it hasn't always for me made the 
 difference that it should.' 
 
 Ella looked at him a little inquiringly, 
 but shrank from asking any question. 
 
 ' I mean that when you think anything 
 the right thing to do, you do it without 
 more debate,' he said, ' although, from what 
 I see and know, it often goes sorely against 
 the grain. Now I don't ; when it goes 
 beyond a certain very moderate limit I fail 
 — that is where you have put me to shame.' 
 
 ' I wish you knew Janet, then,' said Ella ; 
 'you would think nothing of me if you 
 did.' 
 
 Komilly looked out at the streets above 
 which they were passing, and made no 
 answer.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 259 
 
 At each station the carriage took in a 
 fresh batch of travellers, and was soon more 
 than full ; and an exceedingly mixed sample 
 it presented of the British public. There 
 were several poor women ; a smart pair of 
 barmaids ; a genteel person of the dress- 
 maker sort ; and a pale girl in a shabby 
 black dress, who might have been a daily 
 governess ; there were babies, too, and 
 rather sticky-looking little boys without 
 pocket-handkerchiefs ; the rest were mostly 
 working-men, in whitey-brown coats and 
 corduroys, carrying satchels of tools. The 
 prevailing odours at first were peppermint 
 and tobacco ; but later on a man in a jersey, 
 with half a bushel of shrimps, got in, and 
 then the smell of stale fish became pre- 
 dominant. Then a young soldier in a red 
 coat, with his cap well on to one ear, got in ; 
 and finding no room to sit down, he very 
 
 17—2
 
 2bo BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 obligingly said he would stand, and rocked 
 about on his feet, threatening with every 
 involuntary lurch to pin somebody against 
 the partition in an effort to save himself. 
 Meanwhile, he supported his constitution 
 with shrimps out of the basket at his feet 
 when the man in the blue jersey was looking 
 the other way. 
 
 ^ I shall be glad when you are out of 
 this,' said Romilly in an undertone to Ella, 
 somewhat sickened by the tout ensemble. 
 
 Ella smiled discreetly. ^ I should have 
 been frightened alone,' she whispered ; ' but 
 now that I feel quite safe, it is great fun — I 
 like to see them.' 
 
 * Do you think anyone has ordered a fly 
 for you ?' said Romilly, when they stood 
 together on the gravel at Eastcott, and the 
 train was disappearing round the curve 
 beyond them, and a couple of porters hung
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 261 
 
 about for their tickets and instructions as 
 to luo'D^ao^e. 
 
 ' Smart's cart will fetch my things,' said 
 Ella to a little old porter who was familiar 
 with the Worsley ways ; ' I am going to 
 walk,' she added, turning to Romilly. 
 
 ' What ! Three miles after your journey ! 
 Oh ! you oughtn't to do it,' said he, as they 
 went out. 
 
 Ella only laughed. * I always do,' she 
 said ; ' and I know your way lies in the 
 opposite direction, as I am going over the 
 heath. So good-bye, and thank you for 
 all the kind things you have done for me.' 
 
 * Miss Worsley, I'm awfully sorry to say 
 good-bye !' Romilly said frankly, as he 
 heartily grasped the hand she held out to 
 him. 
 
 ' So am I,' returned Ella ; ' but it must 
 be done, you know.'
 
 262 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 ' Yes, it must,' said he, smiling. ' And I 
 suppose you would say the sooner the 
 better T 
 
 ' Yes, I suppose so,' said Ella; and there- 
 with she went her way, turning with a last 
 nod and smile as she ran down the wooden 
 steps into the footpath. 
 
 He looked after her for a minute, and then 
 turned away with a sigh to the carriage 
 which w^as waiting for him in the station- 
 yard. 
 
 Ella, toiling up the steep station hill 
 alone, heard the carriage drive off, and then 
 the regular and fast-receding double trot of 
 the horses' feet till all was silent — how 
 silent after the rattle of London, the bustle 
 of Waterloo, and the whirling roar of the 
 train on the down journey ! Her heart 
 sank lower and lower as she went, past the 
 school at the corner, across the high-road,
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 263 
 
 over the ditch and broken fence on to the 
 heath, and along the soft peaty ruts between 
 the heather-scrub and pushing crooks of 
 bracken, in a stillness that made her very 
 breathing seem a disturbance of some en- 
 chanted repose. 
 
 ' And it hasn't found out yet that dogs 
 can't climb !' she said angrily to herself, as 
 she passed a high wooden hoarding and a 
 bull- dog on the other side charged furiously 
 against it, and contrived by sheer impetus 
 to fly a few feet up the perpendicular 
 planks, falling back as inevitably as a wave 
 that rushes up the cHff, and barking itself 
 hoarse with impotent passion. She could 
 not suppress a thrill of fear as she heard the 
 violent assault of its body against the fence, 
 the momentary pause, and then the clat- 
 tering rasp of its claws as it slid down for 
 another spring. It really seemed as if by
 
 264 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 some access of rage it might hurl itself 
 clean through, leaving — Ella already saw 
 it with her mind's eye — a clean-cut pattern 
 of a doubled-up bull- dog in the planks. 
 She was accustomed to trust a good deal to 
 average luck, however, and did not quicken 
 her pace very much as she reflected that the 
 dog had been at it now for a good two 
 years, and the chances were all in her favour 
 against its happening to succeed just when 
 she was passing by. 
 
 That was the only approach to an in- 
 cident on the homeward way. When she 
 came through the wood where she had first 
 spoken to Eomilly, she lingered, and a 
 faintly smiling dreaminess crept over her 
 face. A pile of felled trunks opposite the 
 great sandpit offered a strong temptation, 
 but she knew that her leisure meant extra 
 work for some one else, and passed on.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 265 
 
 ' Is it possible,' she thought, with down- 
 ward, dreamy eyes, her thoughts scarcely 
 shaping themselves in words — ' is it possi- 
 ble that only half an hour ago he was with 
 me, takino: care of me ? and now I walk 
 here alone and know nothing of him, nor 
 he of me ; and there is not the slenderest 
 gossamer thread of connection or possible 
 communication between us. Oh, life, life ! 
 How strange it is !' 
 
 If it scarcely seemed still a reality as she 
 walked through the wood, how was it all 
 thrust away and blotted out when she 
 reached home ! Glancing up at the house 
 as she passed down the road to the gate, 
 the first thing her order-loving eye ob- 
 served was that the blind- cord in her bed- 
 room was broken, and the blind, torn half 
 off its roller, was streaming idly out of 
 window.
 
 266 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 * Well,' she said to herself, determined to 
 bear up, ' it won't take long to mend it, 
 after all.' 
 
 A branch of roses had fallen — probably 
 snatched down playfully by some of the 
 children — right across the front- door from 
 the top of the bow- window of the study, 
 and the door- step, which of course no one 
 had had time to wash since she left, was 
 green with damp, and covered with mud 
 and gravel. The door hung open, and all 
 the worn, splintered floor was strewn with 
 gravel and children's shoes ; a heap of little 
 hats and coats was piled on the slab at the 
 foot of the stairs ; and half-way up the 
 staircase wall she saw, flapping loosely, a 
 great jagged wing of paper and canvas 
 that had parted company with the lath and 
 plaster, and allowed some handfuls of mortar 
 to tumble downstairs which no one had
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 267 
 
 found time or thought it worth while to 
 sweep up. Ella summoned all her self- 
 command and pushed on to the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 ' Don't shut the door ! Don't shut the 
 door !' shouted Jack from the greenhouse, 
 into which the windows opened. ' The 
 handle's off ! Come and see what I'm 
 doino: !' he went on, as Ella crossed the 
 room and looked in to see her special 
 domain a mass of broken flower-pots, heaps 
 of earth and leaf-mould, and all the young 
 tomato plants at the point of death for want 
 of water. 
 
 She felt a lump growing in her throat. 
 
 ' And what are you doing ?' she asked as 
 calmly as she could, not liking to get into 
 a rage the very first day of her return. 
 
 ' Oh ! I'm having a grand turn out,' said 
 Jack, with that bustling superiority which
 
 268 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 we display when we are putting our neigh- 
 bours' affairs to rights. ' I find everything 
 wants re -pot ting.' 
 
 ' And the tomatoes, I see, are dead,' said 
 Ella, with the apathy of despair. 
 
 ' The tomatoes ? H'm ! they ai^e in rather 
 a bad way,' Jack began apologetically. 
 
 ^ It is too bad,' Ella murmured, half 
 choking. 
 
 ' Well r cried Jack, in a fury, * you can't 
 expect me to do all your work as well as 
 mine. I've had something better to do.' 
 
 ^ Then why go out of your way to make 
 all this mess ?' retorted Ella. 
 
 ' Oh, veri^ well ! Everything I do is 
 wrong, of course!' said Jack, with the 
 overdrawn humility which he always put 
 on when the girls were down upon him. 
 ' I'd better leave it for you to do. Of 
 course, I shan't presume to interfere 720w ;
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 269 
 
 and he, Avith the air of a thorough labouring 
 man, spit on his hands, seized the barrow, 
 and ran it violently at the narrow door^ 
 where, being at the best of times a tight fit, 
 it stuck. 
 
 Ella turned a way, and as she went to the 
 kitchen heard him, with loud interjections, 
 such as ' Plague ! Beast ! Tarnation ! Xow 
 thenP charging the fi^ail door-posts with the 
 ^ idiotic barrow,' as he was calling it, until 
 he recovered himself enough to wheel it 
 carefully through, and went off, leaving the 
 greenhouse in statu quo for anybody to 
 finish up that liked. ' Of course he didn't 
 want his head bitten off!' 
 
 Ella went into the kitchen. 
 
 ' Oh. there you are !' said Mrs. Worsley, 
 in a weary, overworked way. ' Sit still, 
 Godfrey ! Well — enj oyed yourself ?' 
 
 * Pretty well,' Ella answered, feeling very
 
 270 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 nearly extinguished, as she surveyed the 
 bare kitchen-table, with a loaf, and a pot of 
 dripping, and a jug of milk and water on it, 
 and all the children sitting round with 
 crumby cheeks, and mouths too full for 
 speech — and oh, such dirty pinafores ! 
 
 ' Make haste, children !' said their mother; 
 ' you must all be in bed by half-past six — 
 there's all the ironing to do/ 
 
 ' The beds aren't made,' observed IN'ora, 
 as if she was imparting the most delightful 
 news. 
 
 ' Bother the beds ! no more they are ! I 
 dare say Janet will do them when she 
 comes in.' 
 
 ' Where is Janet?' Ella asked huskily. 
 
 ^ Doing something with those precious 
 fowls, I suppose,' was the weary answer; 
 and Ella divined that the fowls had been 
 trespassing again.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 271 
 
 ' I'll do the beds,' she said, and went out 
 across the } ard to look up Janet first. 
 
 Janet, in an old brown serge that looked, 
 since Ella had last seen it, ten times as old 
 and brown, and which was unevenly 
 tucked up to keep it more or less out of 
 the mud, and partly protected by a very 
 coarse and dirty apron, was cleaning out 
 one of her fowl-houses. 
 
 'So you're back again!' she remarked, 
 looking up with a nod. 'It's a pity you 
 didn't stay on, as they wanted you to.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said EUa ; ' there seems 
 already to be arrears of work to last a fort- 
 night. The pleasure is hardly worth the 
 price one pays for it. Besides, I thought 
 you would knock up if I didn't come 
 back.' 
 
 The Worsleys did not waste their 
 graciousness upon each other, and Janet,
 
 272 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 going on with her work all the time, merely 
 shrugged her shoulders with an expres- 
 sion which said, ' What would it have 
 mattered ?' 
 
 ' Can you come in and make the beds 
 with me?' 
 
 ' I want to get this done before dark,' 
 said Janet ; and Ella went away to do it 
 alone, and was weak enough to shed a few 
 furtive tears on Madge's pillow as she shook 
 it up, and an image of Eomilly — a glance of 
 his eyes, a tone of his voice — flashed through 
 her memory, and made her feel more 
 bitterly alone.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 It is the mind that maketh good or ill, 
 That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.* 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 HEX the world uttered its opinions 
 on Cecil "Worsley, it was seldom 
 far wrong ; and when it dis- 
 cussed his character and manner of hfe, 
 and all that he did and left undone, what 
 it said — in the strain of what we have 
 already overheard — was mostly true. Yet 
 to the world he remained a sealed book — 
 rather was it a book they could all read, 
 but which perhaps not one cotild under- 
 stand. There was no denying that he was 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 clever — indeed, he had been one of the 
 bright stars of his University, and after 
 carrying off many laurels in the shape of 
 prizes and scholarships, had crowned his 
 undergraduate's career by winning a First 
 Class, and then, to the disappointment of 
 Dean, Fellows, and Tutors — to say nothing 
 of his family — he cut all connection with 
 the University, declining its proffered 
 honours and emoluments, and declared him- 
 self a votary of art. His assured income 
 was exactly a hundred a year, and on this 
 he did not hesitate to marry. All the 
 hesitation was on the part of the elder half- 
 brother of his intended bride ; but this, as 
 we know, was overborne or wearied out by 
 the tears and insinuations of pretty Eachel 
 and her young brothers and sisters, and she 
 was reluctantly suffered to bestow herself 
 and her meagre fortune — some two or three
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 275 
 
 hundred a year — on the poor, hut hand- 
 some, gifted, and fascinating young suitor 
 who had already made himself master of 
 her girlish heart. 
 
 Diplomatic relations between the families 
 were thus strained at the outset, and never 
 recovered it ; of late years, indeed, the chief 
 connecting: link was broken : Rachel was 
 dead, and Worsley had taken another wife 
 — different in every possible way from the 
 first ; and the mutual jealousy and distrust 
 of the opposite camps was apt to find vent 
 upon the devoted heads of Rachel's children 
 who were taken to task by each party in 
 turn for their participation in, or supposed 
 connivance at, the alleged crimes and 
 enormities of the other. 
 
 The boys cared little for all this unpro- 
 fitable jangling ; but it had a chilHng effect 
 upon the girls. Often bewildered by the 
 
 18—2
 
 276 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 strange accusations they heard on either 
 side, it seemed that they had no place to 
 flee unto, and no man cared for their soul. 
 Misgivings crept in even when their hearts 
 most expanded, checking the outcome of 
 their best feelings, and they grew up un- 
 demonstrative and somewhat sceptical. 
 
 Of late years they had seen less and less of 
 their father, for when the new family of young 
 children began to flourish and abound, he 
 looked about him for a cheap place to keep 
 them all in, and hit, by chance, upon ' the 
 very thing ' in Heathshire, w^ithin a couple 
 of hours of London. They had not long- 
 been installed there before they found that 
 it was in a state of almost hopeless dis- 
 repair and dilapidation; but stoicism rose 
 to the occasion, and what could not be 
 cured was patiently endured. 
 
 Worsley, after trying the experiment for
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 277 
 
 a little while, decorating the little drawing- 
 room with the hoarded gleanings of his life 
 in Italy, draping the windows and painting 
 the doors, creating a large garden out of a 
 grassy wilderness, and stocking the field 
 and outhouses with as much live stock as 
 the place would bear, bethought him once 
 more of his painting, had a new attack of 
 inspiration, and went back to London to 
 his studio. He shared this studio, which 
 was in Kensington, with another artist ; 
 and there he spent his days, only going 
 down to The Koses now and then to see 
 how things were going, and keep them all 
 up to the mark. 
 
 That he never was like any other human 
 being was very fairly true; what his 
 fiiends — or those, one should rather say, 
 who had once been his friends — found 
 most provoking was, that he was, as they
 
 278 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 said, ' such an extraordinary mixture.' 
 There were very few good qualities that 
 he did not possess ; but somehow he turned 
 them to such singularly bad account, that 
 it would have seemed really more satis- 
 factory if he had been without them. 
 Armed, as it were, with the best weapons 
 for the battle of life, he was always siding 
 with fate and fortune against himself. In 
 her most charitable moods Lady Draycote 
 always said she hoped he was mad, ' for the 
 sake of those poor children.' 
 
 I don't quite follow her train of reasoning 
 myself, but that is what she said. Many 
 people set Cecil Worsley apart in their 
 minds as a being beyond the pale of 
 ordinary judgment. 
 
 'Oh, Woi'sley /' they said, with a shrug 
 and a smile that spoke volumes, and put 
 the question by.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 279 
 
 Ella and Janet were tolerably well aware 
 of his peculiarities, because they became in 
 turn the confidantes of their young step- 
 mother, and of their mother's people; 
 besides which, the slow gleanings of years 
 from casually expressed public opinion, 
 combined with their own experience, all 
 tended to confirm them in the conviction 
 that their father was extraordinary. And 
 still, woman-like, they admired and loved 
 him all the more. 
 
 People complained that he was cruel to 
 let his wife and daughters slave as they 
 did. 
 
 ' Granted,' they said, ' that the house and 
 children must be attended to ; but why keep 
 up a large garden and a fowl -yard, pigs, and 
 cattle, and dogs, and heaven knows what 
 not, when you don't keep so much as a boy 
 to do the dirty work ?'
 
 28o BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Worsley treated this view of his affairs 
 with lofty contempt. Never happy himself 
 unless working at the liighest pressure, it 
 did not occur to him to suppose that the 
 three young and not over -strong women 
 who, with the help of Jack, carried on the 
 work of the house, the nursery, the garden, 
 and the farm, did not find the labour alone 
 ample reward. 
 
 When Ella and Janet were little things 
 of seven and six, and came to watch their 
 father at whatever he was domg, he used to 
 chafe at seeing anybody idle. 
 
 ' I don't see you working,' he used to 
 say, and would immediately set them some- 
 thing to do or to learn. 
 
 Poor Worsley ! The children were a 
 little afraid of him, and thought him cross ; 
 how could they tell that their little bright 
 faces recalled to him the face he should see
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 no more : while the thouo^ht of their neo;- 
 lected bringing up brought bitterly home 
 to him all that he had lost and could not 
 supply to them. At these times he would 
 set himself to teach them sometliing, but 
 the quick, scholarly mind and nervous 
 temper could not bend and curb themselves 
 to keep pace and patience with their childish 
 intellects, and the lessons generally broke 
 up in tears on their part, and bitter heart- 
 ache on his. 
 
 These casual tasks were all the actual 
 teaching they received till they were in 
 their teens ; but the influence of their 
 father's constant companionship had been 
 such that they Avere then better educated, 
 and infinitely more capable than most girls 
 of their age. When they went to school 
 they were set down as dunces by their 
 companions, because they knew nothing by
 
 282 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 book, and could not string off any list of 
 names or grammar rules. But as soon as 
 they had understood what was expected of 
 them, they set to and soon surpassed all the 
 rest. Not that they were singularly clever, 
 but from their early infancy they had been 
 made to use their brains, and as Janet used 
 to say: 
 
 ' I don't believe there are many things 
 we couldn't do if you'd just give us a 
 notion what you want done.' 
 
 It was rather a conceited opinion of their 
 own powers, but perhaps the fault was on 
 the right side, and preferable to that refined 
 helplessness which seems to result from a 
 ofood deal of feminine education. The 
 experience of life is generally enough to 
 undeceive one's conceit, but it will not 
 always cure helplessness. 
 
 ' Xow I don't want you to get into idle-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 283 
 
 young-lady habits of frittering away your 
 time/ said Worsley to his daughters when 
 they left school. ' Get something to do.' 
 
 It did not occur to them to reply, that 
 with half-a-dozen children to attend to and 
 teach, the farming and gardening on their 
 hands, and the care of their own and the 
 children's wardrobes, idleness was hardly 
 hkely to get so much as a chance of 
 becoming a habit, and that the something 
 to do w^as not far to seek. On the con- 
 trary they received the suggestion with 
 enthusiasm, and quite saw that it w^ould 
 never do for them to become ' like other 
 girls.' 
 
 ' Let us write !* they exclaimed, pur- 
 chased a ream of sermon pajDer, and began 
 each a three- volume novel, in which they 
 proposed to expose all the shams, fallacies, 
 and conventionaHties of society, and to point
 
 284 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 out as the only legitimate aim in life their 
 own lofty and Utopian ideals. 
 
 At about the same time Mr. Worsley 
 decided that Jack, who had already run 
 away from several schools, and who showed 
 no aptitude for the study of Latin and 
 Greek, was to receive now a modern educa- 
 tion — and, furthermore, at the hands of his 
 two sisters. Who more fitted than they 
 who had just returned from school, and 
 could speak German like natives, to instruct 
 Jack in modern languages ? This they also 
 undertook with characteristic energy and 
 assurance ; and w^hen, not long afterwards, 
 it was discovered that the expenses of wash- 
 ing, dressing, and feeding, and of keeping 
 Roland at Oxford were far in excess of 
 their income, they cheerfully dismissed their 
 last servant, and took absolutely everything 
 upon their shoulders.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 285 
 
 Even in their economies they could not 
 be like other people. ' It is the worst 
 economy in the Trorld to get a cheap thing/ 
 was a remark Worsley was wont to make; 
 and the idea was speedily assimilated by the 
 girls to whose intelligence the logic of the 
 statement recommended itself, cheap of 
 course being synonymous with inferior. 
 
 ' If you do a thing at all, do it properly,' 
 said Worslev. 
 
 ' Is it agreed that we keep fowls ?' 
 
 Oh ! of course they must keep fowls. 
 
 * Very well, then, we must keep the best ; 
 none of your rubbishy barn-door birds. 
 Are we to keep cows ?' 
 
 Of course — to utilize the meadow ; and 
 think of the saving ! 
 
 The same with the garden. Xo mere potato- 
 growing ! though that, indeed, would repre- 
 sent no trifling labour. Decency required a
 
 286 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 flower-garden, and with a greenhouse ready 
 to their hands, economy itself demanded 
 the forcino; of tomatoes and the culture of 
 vines. 
 
 ' What was the use,' said AVorsley, when 
 taking up his position with regard to the 
 gardening question, ' what was the use of 
 growing inferior vegetables, when a very 
 little extra expenditure of money, time, and 
 trouble would produce the very best that 
 could be grown ?' The family scouted the 
 bare suggestion that any of them should be 
 thought capable of producing so much as 
 a turnip that was not superior to other 
 people's turnips ; and so on all hands the 
 extra expenditure was embarked upon, and 
 every time that they had to hire a man to 
 dig the heavier ground for them, each and 
 all felt a vague sense of failure and disgrace 
 in that thev had been forced to call in aid
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 287 
 
 from the outer world, and to act, for once 
 and most reluctantly, like everybody else. 
 
 Seeing that Worsley was apt to be absent 
 from home for weeks at a time, it was 
 agreed that some sort of dog ought to be 
 kept on the premises, for the house stood 
 alone amongst the fields on a somewhat 
 unfi^equented road, and the rural policeman 
 was tacitly understood to be the greatest 
 thief in the village — perhaps he was ma- 
 ligned. At any rate a dog became im- 
 perative. 
 
 Did they adopt a stray dog for nothing, 
 or purchase a second-hand cur for about 
 half-a-crown ? Not they, 
 
 A mastiff, they thought, would be a jolly 
 sort of dog to keep — a good powerful beast 
 that could tackle two or three burglars at 
 once. Accordingly, they set about getting 
 up the subject, and soon found out that
 
 288 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 there are mastiffs and mastiffs. You can 
 either have a plain mongrel about the size 
 of a donkey — a common barn-door or 
 garden mastiff as it were ; or — here they 
 became really interested — you can have a 
 creature who traces his descent from the 
 ancient Britons, who knows the names of 
 his progenitors for generations back, who be- 
 longs to the very bluest aristocracy of dogs, 
 prizes being the commonest events in his 
 career. 
 
 ' Hint's the sort of dog !' they cried, and 
 betook themselves with ardour to the fasci- 
 nating columns of the Sivop and Sell, an 
 advertising paper which played the me- 
 dium's part in most of their speculations 
 in fowls, cats, cows, plants, and such like. 
 Many were the rare bargains the Worsleys 
 effected by means of the Stoop and Sell; 
 Janet, indeed, had quite a passion for
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 289 
 
 answering advertisements, especially when 
 fowls were in question, but lately even 
 Janet's sanguine confidence had received a 
 blow. She had purchased for her yard a 
 monstrous cinnamon Cochin cock, whose 
 pedigree was said to be faultless. In think- 
 ing over the matter afterwards, she was fain 
 to confess that what had really determined 
 her to ' buy the beast ' was the fact that the 
 man who wanted to get rid of him asked 
 four guineas for him. All went well at 
 first ; he really was a magnificent creature, 
 and such a colour, ^ Like a haughty scroll of 
 gold r said Janet, caressing him fondly ; 
 'like burnished wall-flowers ; like Ella's 
 hair ; like maple leaves in Canada in the 
 fall!' The bird was turned into his new run 
 to fraternize with his future companions, 
 and Janet went away to other things. In 
 course of time they could not help noticing 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 2 90 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 that the glorious bird, weighed down, 
 ]3erhaps, with the burden of his own rank 
 and beauty, was seldom seen in any but a 
 reclining posture. 
 
 ' He's weak on his legs,' said Jack bluntly 
 one day, after watching him intelligently, 
 ^ that's what it is.' 
 
 ' Make him into curried rabbit,' suggested 
 Ella, who really was too heartless about the 
 fowls. 
 
 * What !' cried Janet, outraged. ' A prize 
 bird ? And we've only just given four 
 guineas for him !' 
 
 ' Well, I suspect the only way to save his 
 life will be to eat him up before he dies,' 
 said Jack contemptuously. 
 
 And sure enough the bird became daily 
 less animated, till it was evident that he 
 must be sold at once if ever any part of that 
 four guineas was to be seen again.
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 291 
 
 Janet set to work and devised, with 
 masterly astuteness and a wary regard for 
 truth, as alluring an advertisement as ever 
 graced the pages of the Swop and Sell, and 
 the great bargain went away the next week, 
 sold, but not — oh, not for four guineas. It 
 was long a painful subject. 
 
 The result of the great mastiff question 
 was the purchase first of a puppy, who 
 turned out singularly unlike a prize animal ; 
 this, as they had brought it up and become 
 fond of it, they kept ; but as it did not 
 answer their ideal, they added Hardigras, 
 a really handsome dog, to their modest 
 kennel, and were startled one fine February 
 morning by the arrival of ten squealing, 
 squirming, mastiff puppies ; while Ban, 
 their proud mother, had suddenly become 
 so savage, that no one's life was safe out of 
 doors after dark. 
 
 19—2
 
 292 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 Jack declared that most of tlie puppies 
 ought to be drowned at once ; but the girls, 
 with an eye to profit, besides being shocked 
 at so horrible an idea, said they would 
 rather bring up half of them by hand than 
 destroy a single puppy — the lovely fat 
 things with grave, sooty, wrinkled faces. 
 
 Accordingly the ten puppies were kept, 
 and oh ! the trouble they were ! Three 
 times a day Jack fetched in half a dozen 
 of them, shot them down on the kitchen 
 floor, and left them, merely shouting out, 
 ' Here you are !' and the puppies tumbled 
 and tottered vaguely over the boards till 
 somebody came to feed them. This took 
 place on a large sheet of brown paper, with 
 a saucer of warm milk placed in the middle ; 
 and many, I fear, were the execrations and 
 maledictions pronounced over the untoward 
 little creatures as they reluctantly under-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 293 
 
 went the process. As fast as one was 
 caught and applied to the saucer, the rest 
 escaped into the stick -cupboard, down a 
 hole in the floor, under the grate, or walked 
 into the saucer and upset it ; and by the 
 time their benefactor was ready to start 
 again, the milk was sure to have got cold, 
 and any puppy that supped off cold milk 
 always had a bad pain. 
 
 ' It's much worse than babies,' said Ella 
 one nio;ht, as she knelt in the dim fireliofht 
 over the brown paper, and held one of the 
 wrinkled things head first into the saucer, 
 while the retreating forms of the others, 
 like locomotive sausages, might have been 
 descried just vanishing into the gloom. 
 
 ' Nothing could be worse than babies/ 
 said Janet, moved to pity by the mere sug- 
 gestion, for babies were not her forte, ' Let 
 me do it.'
 
 294 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 It became one of their items of private 
 self-denial to offer to feed the puppies. 
 When their nurse for the time was on the 
 point of starting off for an evening service 
 at Hawbourne, the conduct of these puppies 
 seemed to be dictated by nothing short of 
 fiendish malignity, and was anything but 
 conducive to a Christian frame of mind. 
 
 ' Little nuisances ! I wish them all at 
 the bottom of the sea !' cried Ella one even- 
 ing, with a despairing glance at the in- 
 exorable clock and another at the equally 
 inexorable puppies waddling fatuously about 
 the brown paper. 
 
 ' You had the chance of the stable - 
 bucket,' said Jack, as he steamed his boots 
 at the fire. 
 
 * Ah ! poor dear little doggies !' and she 
 fell to coaxing them with renewed patience. 
 
 It was amid distractions like these that
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 295 
 
 the girls were told to get something to do, 
 and began their novels. 
 
 It was diverting to hear them talking to 
 each other across the table, where they sat 
 with bescribbled papers scattered all round 
 them, note-books, favourite extracts, jot- 
 tings and happy notions sprinkled freely 
 about. 
 
 ' Doesn't it look nice and literary ?' they 
 said to each other as they settled down 
 about bedtime for what they called ' a re- 
 gular orgie,' which meant an hour or so of 
 writing, interspersed with cups of Epps's 
 cocoa. 
 
 ' Our aim, of course,' Janet said one day, 
 * is to educate the public' 
 
 ' Of course,' said Ella readily ; ' and I 
 shall have headings to all my chapters in as 
 many languages as possible.' 
 
 ' I fancy that is calculated to annoy the
 
 296 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 being known as '' the ordinary reader of 
 fiction," ' laughed Janet ; ' but that doesn't 
 matter in fche smallest degree.' 
 
 ' No, if it rouses in his breast even the 
 wish that he knew anything of those lan- 
 guages,' said Ella, ' I shall not have lived 
 and written in vain.' 
 
 ' We must expect obloquy,' said Janet 
 tranquilly. ' Work like ours can't be popu- 
 lar. We don't write for popularity.' 
 
 ' Listen to this, Janet,' said Ella pre- 
 sently, and read out a passage that she had 
 just completed. ' Is that passionate enough? 
 1 really can't do these deathbed scenes — 
 I'd as soon say my prayers out loud at the 
 breakfast-table, or do my crying by day- 
 light, as analyse my most sacred feelings 
 and elaborate them on paper just to help 
 the reader to an emotion or two. I wonder 
 whether he feels himself a superior being
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 297 
 
 when lie has shed a few tears over his book ? 
 I dare say he does. Besides, you know, 
 when once you have pumped up the tears 
 you can turn them to any purpose you 
 please. Don't you remember, Janet, when 
 we were whipped for stealing apricots and 
 then lying about it, and we cried all the 
 afternoon, you said, after the first half-hour, 
 that you were crying for your sins, and I 
 said I was crying because grandmamma 
 was dead — and she died long before I was 
 bom?' 
 
 ^ Yes ! what jolly little fools we must 
 have been !' 
 
 'Do you know, Janet,' said Ella de- 
 spondently, after a minute's silent reflection, 
 * I am not sure that we are not fools still, 
 though neither so little nor so jolly perhaps 
 as we were. I'm afraid we shall never 
 succeed.'
 
 298 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 ' Why not ?' demanded Janet, without 
 looking up, as she wrote calmly on. ^ I 
 mean to succeed !' 
 
 * Why, you see, we haven't a grain of 
 sympathy with our public — we ride rough- 
 shod over their prejudices and their tastes. 
 The mere sight of a three- volume novel 
 calls forth our sneers and sarcasms. As 
 for crying over one — why,' Ella went on, 
 looking round the room in search of an 
 epithet, ' I just feel I've been betrayed into 
 tears over a paltry tricking with words. If 
 the situation doesn't call forth one's sym- 
 pathy, I'm sure one oughtn't to have to 
 give it to the mere piling up of tearful 
 words ; and then, when you've done crying, 
 you know they did it on purpose.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Janet. ' It reminds me of 
 when we had to go and apologize at school, 
 after a bad morning. Miss Skeen never let
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 299 
 
 us out of her room till she had made us 
 cry.' 
 
 ' She had her regular touchstone for each 
 girl,' said Ella. ' Some of them used to 
 begin yelling at once ; but it took her a 
 long time to work me up. I used to see 
 how long I could balance myself on one 
 leg, and count the stripes on her gown ; 
 but when she came to " Your poor deai' 
 mother," or said anj-thing about papa, I 
 always knew she was gaining on me, and 
 then I cried out of sheer rage. I knew it 
 was a trick all the time.' 
 
 ' Well, we've merely to adopt the trick,' 
 said Janet, 'and practise it on the " ordinary 
 reader of fiction." ' 
 
 Here Roland, who chanced to be at home, 
 broke in, and startled them with a remark 
 when they thought he was reading. 
 
 * You two are going quite the wrong way
 
 300 BETWEEN THE ACTS, 
 
 to work. If you write for the public, you 
 must write what the public likes, not what 
 you think the public ought to like.' 
 
 ' What !' cried Janet, firing up at once. 
 'Deliberately stoop to flatter and indulge 
 tastes which we despise ?' 
 
 ' Despise ! There you are again,* said 
 the worldly-wise Koland. * How can you 
 expect your precious reader of fiction ^to 
 read your things when you take no pains to 
 disguise your unutterable contempt for him 
 and his fiction ?' 
 
 ' Of course we don't tell him that,' said 
 Ella. 
 
 ' No,' retorted Roland, ' you pay him the 
 extra compliment of taking him for such a 
 fool that he will not find you out.' 
 
 Ella began to see some force in this 
 argument, and coloured as she glanced at 
 Janet to see how she took it. Janet, how-
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 301 
 
 ever, was not so ready to part with her 
 opinions. 
 
 ' To please the public is not our object/ 
 she said with lofty gravity ; ' we intend to 
 raise and improve the taste of the ordinary 
 rea ' 
 
 ' Bosh !' rudely interrupted Eoland, taking 
 up the poker and turning away, as if, 
 after expressing such sentiments, she really 
 was not worth his further consideration. 
 He went on, however, when he had finished 
 poking the fire : * You can't expect any 
 human being to absorb all that intolerable 
 quantity of medicine without one half- 
 pennyworth of jam — much less to like it. 
 As for Janet' — he looked at his clever 
 sister with mingled contempt and despair — 
 * she seizes the reader by the scruff of his 
 neck, thrusts a raw beefsteak before him, 
 rubs his nose in it, and says, "Now, you
 
 302 BETWEEN THE ACTS. 
 
 contemptible palterer ! eat that instantly, or 
 fight me !" and for that she expects to be 
 handsomely paid, and worshipped into the 
 bargain.' 
 
 Having delivered himself of these wither- 
 ing sentiments young Worsley resumed his 
 paper, and the girls, somewhat subdued, 
 pursued their writing in silence, reserving 
 their further remarks till they should be 
 alone. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SlfRREY.