OF THE 
 
 U N I VERS ITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 LT'2'i 
 
JTIE LAST 
 
 OF 
 
 THE JERNINGHAMES. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. E. N. BEWICKE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 LOVE ME FOR MY LOYE,” “ ONE FOOT ON SHORE,” 
 ETC. 
 
 Uincit qui JJatitur. 
 
 “ Remember that thy departure will not be from men who have the 
 same principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there be any, 
 which could draw us the contrary way, and attach us to life, to be 
 permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. 
 But now thou seest how great is the distress caused by the difference 
 of those who live together, so that thou mayest say, £ Come quick, O 
 Death, lest perchance I, too, should forget myself,’ ” 
 
 Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL, I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 CHARLES J. SKEET, 10, KING WILLIAM STREET, 
 
 CHARING- CROSS. 
 
 1873. 
 
 [All J Rights Reserved .] 
 
?Z 3 
 472i 
 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 CONTENTS OF. VOL. T. 
 
 <j 
 
 c2> 
 
 c-' 
 
 <ri 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 II. OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS 
 
 III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS . 
 
 IY. A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY 
 Y. ENJOYMENT’S TRIALS . 
 
 YI. PERSEUS 
 
 VII. NIGHT AND MORNING THOUGHTS 
 YIII. UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS 
 
 IX. IN LADY BRYDGET’S STUDIO . 
 
 X. ADRIAN LEYISON 
 
 XI. TWO INTERVIEWS 
 
 XII. A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD 
 
 XIII. UNDER LADY BRYDGET’S EYE 
 XIY. THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS 
 XY. THE FANCY BALL 
 XYI. THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE 
 XYII. DOUBTS 
 
 XVIII. THE DREAM DREAMED OUT . 
 
 1 
 
 29 
 
 43 
 
 59 
 
 81 
 
 101 
 
 118 
 
 137 
 
 161 
 
 170 
 
 186 
 
 203 
 
 218 
 
 229 
 
 249 
 
 264 
 
 275 
 
 299 
 
 313 
 
 XIX. AWAKING 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/lastofjerninghamOOIitt 
 
THE 
 
 LAST OF THE JERNINGHAMES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 “ I remember, I remember 
 The house where I was born.” — Hood. 
 
 It was at the Deanery we lived ; my father 
 had been the Dean as long as I conld re- 
 member, and there we had always lived in 
 that comfortable old house, with the garden 
 sloping down between it and the road. As 
 long as I could remember, we had always 
 gone to the Cathedral to service twice a 
 day when it was fine, once when it was 
 stormy, for the carriage could only be taken 
 out once ; and though it was but a little 
 way, it was too far to walk in the wet 
 through the garden, then across the bridge, 
 up the steep hill, steep even for Wales, and 
 then to the right across the Cathedral Close. 
 
 VOL. I. 1 
 
2 
 
 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 My father loved the Cathedral ; it was 
 not beautiful, not even rich in historical 
 associations like many of the English 
 Cathedrals ; but he loved it, and he would 
 point out with pride the many monuments 
 to Jerninghames within its walls, especially 
 the monument to the Jerninghame who was 
 bishop there more than a hundred years 
 ago. He was bishop for twenty years, but 
 there is nothing more inscribed upon his 
 tombstone, only the date, when he was 
 born into this life, and the other date when 
 he was taken away. Altogether different 
 is his monument from that of the Jerning- 
 hame who was Canon but fifty years ago, 
 and who added that grand painted window, 
 which I always wished somewhere else, 
 after I grew up, but of which I was very 
 proud as a child. My father was prouu 
 of all the monuments, and proud of the 
 Cathedral, that had been in great measure 
 built by Jerninghames ; but besides being 
 very proud of it, he loved it very dearly, 
 and I loved it also. 
 
 I loved the music and the solemn silence 
 when the service was all over, and the choir 
 
DUKE, AND BKYDGET, AND I. 3 
 
 had done its part, and gone away to be just 
 men and boys again, no longer white-robed 
 angels telling tales of joy. I loved the 
 damp, cold air, that brought over me a 
 memory of death (or was it a foreboding ?) 
 whenever I passed within the massive walls. 
 As a child, I was very fond of thinking of 
 death : delicate children mostly are, and I 
 was never strong. 
 
 Duke also liked to think of death, and 
 one day he told me that, before he knew 
 any better, he used to pray every night 
 that we might all die before the morning ; 
 and whenever he woke up in the night he 
 used to pray it again, mentioning us all by 
 name, every one he knew, till he fell asleep 
 just for weariness. 
 
 Duke was my cousin, Sir Marmaduke 
 Jerninghame, but when we were children, 
 he was as much my brother as Brydget was 
 my sister ; indeed, more so, I think, for 
 Brydget was always so young, so much 
 younger than either of us, though there 
 were really only two years between her and 
 me. Duke was one year older again, but I 
 always felt as if I were the elder of the 
 
 1—2 
 
4 
 
 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 three, and the others were quite contented 
 that it should be so. 
 
 Duke did not regularly live with us : he 
 had to go to school, of course, and after 
 that to College, and when he came back 
 from school , he always went first to Castle 
 Jerninghame, the old family place of the 
 Jerninghames, where they had always lived 
 ever since they had been a family at all. 
 No one has ever quite settled when that 
 was ; I suppose because it is so very difficult 
 for them to think of the world ever having 
 been without the Jerninghames. So even 
 the antiquaries, who came to see us — and a 
 great many used to come, for my father was 
 an authority in all matters relating to anti- 
 quarian lore — even they shrank from fixing 
 any time for the Jerninghames having 
 begun to be a family. 
 
 But though Duke talked, we all talked 
 of his going home to the Castle, I think he 
 alwavs felt much more at home with us at 
 
 %J 
 
 the Deanery. It was lonely there, with no 
 companions of his own age, and I think he 
 was a little afraid of my aunt, Lady Brydget 
 Jerninghame. 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 5 
 
 Lady Brydget was so very talented, and 
 so very courteous, every one always called 
 her charming ; but I think every one was a 
 little afraid of her, and yet they loved her, 
 too. I used to love her very dearly : I do 
 not know why I do not love her any longer. 
 It must be from some fault in myself, for 
 indeed I have never known any one so 
 charming. She always said the right thing 
 to every one, always smiled so sweetly on 
 every one who came near her, had such a 
 musical voice, and such a soft white hand, 
 one always fancied she must be beautiful, 
 till one looked up into her face ; and even 
 then she had such a sweet expression, one 
 almost forgot again that she was not.. She 
 was very tall and stately, and- always moved 
 about like the Duke’s daughter that she 
 was ; though she was all kindness and 
 sympathy, she never forgot her station for 
 a moment, and sometimes I am afraid 
 that it was this that prevented me from 
 loving her as I wished. 
 
 For, as a girl, I was always forgetting 
 my position, always being solemn and icy 
 towards my equals, and freezing them into 
 
6 
 
 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 shyness by my condescending courtesy ; or 
 talking to a milliner’s daughter as if she 
 were the same as I was, only because we 
 had the same troubles, and felt the same 
 feelings about them. I knew it was not 
 right to do so, even when I was a child, 
 that it was undignified, and that though 
 it might be right to be as gracious as pos- 
 sible to a labourer’s daughter, who possibly 
 wore no shoes, and so could not fail to see 
 the difference between us ; yet one ought 
 always to be on one’s guard with people 
 nearer one’s own rank, especially now when 
 there are so many Radicals and new people, 
 who do not see the difference between them- 
 selves and the old families. 
 
 They always saw the difference when 
 they came in contact with Lady Brydget ; 
 her family was not so old as ours, certainly, 
 most of the Dukes’ families are rather new; 
 but then her’s had always married well. I 
 suppose that was the reason she was so pur 
 sang, as far as manners went. 
 
 My mother was very different from my 
 aunt ; of course I am not going to describe 
 my mother, how should I, since I am her 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 / 
 
 child ? But I know she was quite different 
 from Lady Brydget. Other people did not, 
 perhaps, think her quite so charming ; but, 
 indeed, if she had not been my mother, I 
 am sure I should always have loved her 
 best, and though she was only his aunt, 
 Duke loved her very dearly. At least he 
 has often told me so. At the same time, 
 both he and I loved my father best, for if 
 Brydget, little Brydget, was my mother’s 
 favourite daughter, I was certainly my 
 father’s. He was so learned, so well read, 
 so superior to all petty or foolish thoughts, 
 I could not but love him best, for I grew 
 up with a great admiration for intellect. 
 It was in that Duke and I so particularly 
 agreed- We both wished above all things 
 to be talented : and as we could not make 
 ourselves talented, we both determined to 
 try all we could to make ourselves wise. 
 We did not wish to be known as wise, nor 
 to do anything with our wisdom, when we 
 had it, only to be wise, and to learn as 
 much as possible. 
 
 Duke never distinguished himself at 
 school : he never took a prize. My father 
 
8 
 
 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 was sometimes vexed about this, for he said 
 Duke had great abilities, and he could not 
 understand his not showing them more, 
 but to me it always seemed quite natural. 
 Distinction was not suitable for Duke. 
 Who could ever fancy his walking up 
 through a crowd of boys to receive a book 
 from the master’s hands, and be compli- 
 mented on the pains he had taken, and his 
 general good conduct ? Why, Duke would 
 have been burnt to death rather than do 
 that. He was never a coward about 
 physical pain, but there were some things 
 he could never do ; we all knew that, even 
 when he was a boy, and, as he grew older, 
 this became clearer. 
 
 I do not know if many girls are happy 
 when they are young ; certainly Brydget 
 was, but then she would always have been 
 happy, young or old, always the same, and 
 certainly I was not. I believe I gave my 
 mother great anxiety by my low spirits, as 
 she called them. I did not call them so 
 then ; I do not call them so now. I was 
 not low spirited, but unhappy, regularly 
 unhappy — the world was so very different 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 9 
 
 from what it might be — I do not know when 
 I first discovered this ; it seems to me I 
 knew it always, was born into the world 
 knowing' it — and then there were so many 
 things I could not understand. I went to 
 the Cathedral every day, and it seemed to 
 soothe me to go there ; whilst I was kneel- 
 ing there, staring up at that painted window 
 I used to think so beautiful as a child, it 
 all appeared clear to me. They all chanted 
 it so beautifully, as if there were no doubt 
 about it ; there could be none, since the 
 important thing was evidently the way in 
 which they told it, not the thing which 
 they were telling. But when I left the 
 Cathedral everything became puzzling to 
 me again, even more puzzling than before. 
 I did not wish to be wicked, I was quite 
 sure of this, and if I was sure of this about 
 myself, it must be at least equally true of 
 other people, who were all so much better 
 and happier than I was ; then, if they did 
 not wish to be wicked, how did it happen 
 that they did wicked things ? It could not 
 be they that did them, since certainly they 
 did not wish to be wicked, and it could not 
 
10 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 be God that did them, for all sin is hateful 
 in His eyes ; and yet that wicked things 
 were done I knew. Henry the Eighth cut 
 off Anne Boleyn’s head ; either he must 
 have been wicked, or she must have been 
 so ; it could not be right to cut off a good 
 woman’s head. And then there are the 
 Roman Catholics, who call us heretics, while 
 we pray for them that they may mend the 
 errors of their ways ; and there were Cran- 
 mer and Sir Thomas More, they thought 
 very differently, and were both doomed to 
 death for the manner of their thoughts. 
 They were both good men, but they could 
 not both have been right. I could not un- 
 derstand it all. Perhaps some girls do not 
 think much of these things, but I cannot 
 recollect the time when I did not think of 
 them, yet it seems to me I was no wiser for 
 the thinking. 
 
 As I grew older I ceased to puzzle myself 
 with such great difficulties as those which 
 had saddened so many of my childish hours, 
 I took to a different kind of puzzles. I 
 wanted to know if Philip the Second did 
 really order his son’s death, and whether 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 11 
 
 Don Carlos were innocent or not. I wanted 
 to know whether there were men and 
 women in the stars, and whether there had 
 been men before Adam, and if so where 
 their descendants were now, and what was 
 to become of the Jews. That was always a 
 favourite subject of mine. I did not care 
 about the ten lost tribes ; I often heard 
 people talk about them, and read one or two 
 books about them, but, though I suppose it 
 was very stupid of me, it always seemed 
 to me they might all have died. Brydget 
 used to say, “ Then where are their graves ? 
 Their graves must be somewhere, and no 
 one has ever found them,” but then, though 
 we all loved Brydget very dearly, she was 
 not at all clever, and we often paid no at- 
 tention to her remarks. But though I did 
 not care about the ten lost tribes, I did care 
 about those that remained. Dean Milman’s 
 Fall of Jerusalem was one of my favourite 
 Sunday books for many years. I used to 
 take it in turns with Sintram, and Sou- 
 they’s Thalaba, and Curse of Kehama. 
 Of course I had other more serious books 
 to read on Sunday, but I used to go twice 
 
12 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 to church that day, and sometimes the 
 sermons were very long, and in the morning 
 I used to teach in the school for an hour, 
 and in the afternoon I used to read to an 
 old lady, who had been a governess once, 
 but who lived in the alms-houses now, and 
 could not get out to church, nor see to read 
 to herself very well. So on Sundays I was 
 always very tired before the evening came, 
 and though sometimes I tried to read But- 
 ler’s Analogy, or Taylor’s Holy Living 
 and Dying, I generally took to one of my 
 favourites very soon. No book could be 
 more beautiful than the Analogy on week 
 days, but on Sunday I liked poetry, or some- 
 thing that was all but poetry, like Sin tram. 
 My father often preached about the Jews ; 
 he said they had set too high a value upon 
 intellect, and that now they were punished 
 accordingly, perishing in their self conceit. 
 But to me it was dreadful to think of any 
 one perishing ; and then they had been so 
 much punished already. Spain had expelled 
 them ; F ranee had expelled them so often ; 
 they had been driven out from their old 
 home in Palestine; Borne, till but the other 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDUET, AND I. 
 
 13 
 
 day, treated them as lepers, giving them 
 hut one filthy, crowded corner in which to 
 live, only a few years ago forcing the Jewish 
 elders to run races with donkeys in the 
 public street, while Christian cardinals sat 
 by and laughed. Everywhere they had been 
 forbidden to deal in bread, lest they should 
 render it loathsome by their touch, in wine 
 lest they should defile it ; forced to that 
 miserable trade in money, by which their 
 name has become a bye-word. Forbid- 
 den to deal in new things, yet, notwith- 
 standing, as sellers of old clothes and 
 money lenders they had won honours 
 even in the lands where most they were 
 hated. And after all, what had these Jews 
 of to-day done ? For how many years were 
 the fathers’ sins to be visited upon the 
 children ? These J ews of to-day were so 
 charitable, so exemplary in their lives ; who 
 ever heard of a Jew tipsy, or stirring up a 
 disturbance ? They might do such things, 
 but it seemed to me it must be less often 
 than other men, at all events in England, 
 or surely I should have heard of their doing 
 so. I often asked my father what he 
 
14 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 thought about their going back to Jerusa- 
 lem ; but my father was not fond of such 
 subjects, he liked well enough to speak 
 about the present, and better still to look 
 back into the past, but it was always re- 
 luctantly that my father spoke of the future. 
 As to Duke, he was sure that the Jews 
 must be going back to Jerusalem almost 
 directly, for he was quite of the opinion 
 that the world had lasted its time, and 
 would come to an end in our own 
 days. 
 
 The Deanery garden was not very large, 
 there was only the slope down to the garden 
 gate, and a smooth lawn with flower-beds, 
 on to which the drawing-room windows 
 opened ; but just where the lawn ended and 
 the slope began, there grew a cedar of 
 Lebanon with crooked, twisted branches, 
 that hid any one beneath them from the 
 passers-by upon the road, yet without en- 
 tirely shutting out the pretty home view 
 that was all the Deanery commanded — the 
 bridge, with the water plashing underneath 
 it, the steep hill, with its quaint old houses, 
 crowned at the summit by the great Cathe- 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 15 
 
 dral tower. There was no pleasanter place 
 to sit and dream away a summer morning 
 than that bench under the old cedar of 
 Lebanon, listening to the skylark, with 
 whose “ clear, keen joyance languor cannot 
 be.” There I used to love to sit with one of 
 my favourite authors, only reading every 
 now and then, for the most part thinking, 
 looking back into the long past, or wish- 
 ing, longing, to fix the future. 
 
 “We look before and after, 
 
 And pine for what is not ; 
 
 Our sincerest laughter 
 
 With some pain is fraught ; 
 
 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
 thought.” 
 
 Shelley’s poems were full of meaning to 
 me then ; those, at least, which were suf- 
 fered to find their way into my hands. 
 Byron repelled me when I was a girl, but 
 visionary Shelley seemed to speak my own 
 language, whilst on one or two of Keats’ 
 shorter efforts my ideas of the beautiful 
 were formed — his Belle Dame sans 
 Merci; his Ode on a Grecian Urn, 
 telling how “ Beauty is truth, truth 
 beauty” — “ That is all ye know on earth, 
 
16 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, ANp I. 
 
 and all ye need to know.” But it was not 
 only dreaming, or lingering over “ the best 
 words in the best order,” that went on 
 under that old cedar. Sometimes it was real 
 serious work — a problem of Euclid, an in- 
 determinate equation, were also not seldom 
 solved beneath its branches, and as often as 
 anything one of the old classics — those clas- 
 sics to whom the name always seems of right 
 to belong rather than to Dante or to Shak- 
 speare, who in these latter days have grown 
 to be called classic also ; as often as 
 anything my companion under the cedar 
 branches was one of those old classics that 
 were honoured before ever Caesar conquered 
 the then savage Britons, and I was read- 
 ing Xenophon’s Memorabilia in the calm 
 gloaming, when the branches were lightly 
 pushed aside, and my cousin Duke stood 
 beside me. Duke was going back to Christ 
 Church in a day or two, and he had ridden 
 over to say good-bye to us all, for the Castle 
 was quite within a ride. 
 
 “ Dear Duke,” I said, glancing up from 
 my book, as he, having pushed the branches 
 aside, stood still smiling at me ; it was 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 17 
 
 never Duke’s way to speak first, and some- 
 how every one always called him “ dear ” — 
 every one who knew him well enough, that, 
 is to say. “ I am so glad you have come ! 
 There is such a beautiful idea here, I was 
 longing for you to share it with me.” 
 
 Then Duke sat down beside me, and we 
 read together Xenophon’s version of that 
 dear old story of Hercules’ choice between 
 Duty and Pleasure, till we came to that 
 speech of Duty’s, in which she says that 
 Pleasure’s votaries know no real happiness, 
 for they never hear the most beautiful 
 sound, that of well-merited praise ; they 
 never see the most beautiful sight, a good 
 deed done by their own hands. “ There, 
 is not that well expressed ?” I exclaimed. 
 
 “ Nobly,” said Duke. “ Oh, what a ter- 
 rible number of books there are to be read, 
 unless one is contented to pass by s)me of 
 the best ideas vouchsafed to men, their 
 ‘ guesses at truth.’ I feel as if I could not 
 bear to do so, could not bear to show my 
 own unworthiness by neglecting any one of 
 the ideas of master minds, and life is so 
 short, there is so little time.” 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 2 
 
18 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 Duke looked sad as he spoke, but, in- 
 deed, when was it that Duke did not look 
 sad ? He, the last male heir of the Jer- 
 ninghames, inherited all the melancholy of 
 their race, his eyes often looked as if they 
 were seeing all the dreadful things all the 
 Jerninghames had ever done since first there 
 had begun to be Jerninghames in the world ; 
 and though so many of them had served 
 the altar, yet they had always been gifted 
 with great talents, and cursed with a rest- 
 less ambition (should it not rather be called 
 a lasting discontent ?), and so they had 
 done many dreadful things in their time ; 
 and though Duke had only the talents, 
 none of the ambition, yet his eyes seemed 
 to see all the dark deeds of his ancestors, 
 to see everything, indeed, but the pleasant 
 side of life. That neither Duke nor I ever 
 looked at. But it is time to describe Duke 
 more particularly, for he was very different 
 from other men, taller and sadder, with a 
 rich colouring that artists have often ad- 
 mired, though his retreating chin spoiled 
 all. It made him look so weak, almost 
 wanting, at times, even in spite of a large 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 19 
 
 nose, that stamped him as of noble race, 
 and might have befitted a hero, even a 
 Wellington, or one of the Scipios of old 
 days. The upper part of his face was good 
 again, the forehead neither too high nor too 
 broad, yet thoroughly well shaped and in- 
 tellectual-looking, almost startlingly white 
 under the long dark hair, that would fall 
 over it. But his eyes were Duke’s best 
 feature — brown, with a yellow light in them, 
 and fuller of meaning than any eyes I have 
 seen since. But it is difficult for me to 
 write of his eyes, for they were often said 
 to be like mine, only his, I know, were 
 beautiful, but that they were so terribly 
 sorrowful, and when he spoke sadly, as just 
 now, one could hardly bear to look at them. 
 I hastened to change the subject. 
 
 “ What have you been doing since we 
 last saw you ?” I asked. 
 
 “ Doing ? ” repeated Duke. He was 
 always very absent, and it seemed impos- 
 sible for him now to collect his thoughts 
 sufficiently to answer my question. I leant 
 forward, resting my hands upon my book, 
 but looking round at him, that he might 
 
 2—2 
 
20 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 not let his thoughts fly quite away, as he 
 had a trick of doing, for then it was some- 
 times very difficult to bring him back to 
 earth. “You are more like it than ever,” 
 said Duke, smiling now as he looked at 
 me. “ Do you know what picture holds 
 the place of honour in my sitting-room, 
 Gwynydd ? It is the Sorrentina. I bought 
 it because she is so like you, and now you 
 are sitting in the very attitude, though she 
 has no book, but a musical instrument, a 
 mandoline, I think it is called.” 
 
 “ But, dear Duke, the Sorrentina is beau- 
 tiful.” 
 
 “ Yes, only insipid a little, and that your 
 face neither is, nor could be. 'Yours is the 
 most beautiful face I have ever seen.” 
 
 “You think so because you love me,” I 
 answered, quite calmly. No one ever could 
 have minded a compliment from Duke, he 
 said it so simply, and besides, every one knew 
 he was a bad judge of beauty ; indeed, he did 
 not care about it. That was the one point 
 upon which we differed ; he only admired 
 beauty in ideas, whilst I admired material 
 beauty also. “ Have you forgotten Mu- 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 21 
 
 rillo’s Virgins V’ I added, reproachfully. 
 “ When you described them to me, I 
 thought you were at last converted to 
 caring for the beautiful.” 
 
 “ But they are pictures ; I was thinking 
 of real people.” 
 
 “Well then, there is Brydget ; she is 
 beautiful, if you like.” 
 
 “ Not so beautiful to me ; but then I do 
 not care for her — ” began Duke, and then 
 paused. 
 
 “ Oh, Duke, you know you love Brydget.” 
 “ Yes — yes — ” said Duke, hesitatingly, 
 and what more he would have said I never 
 knew then, I never guessed till long after; 
 for as Duke did not care about beauty, I 
 did not care to discuss the subject with him, 
 so went back to what we had been talking 
 of before. 
 
 “ Why is it people now-a-days never say 
 such beautiful things as we read that So- 
 crates said, and Plato ? I wish they would. 
 There seems to me no reason why the 
 ancient times should be so much the best ; 
 sometimes I wonder if it is true, if people 
 would not say the Iliad bored them, if they 
 
22 DUKE, AND BftYDGET, AND I. 
 
 thought you or I had written it in this cen- 
 tury. Even I am bored by it sometimes. 
 It is beautiful when Achilles sits down by 
 the wine-coloured sea, and weeps, saying 
 that, as he is to die young, Zeus ought at 
 least to grant to him an occasion to win 
 honours ; but the list of ships, and all the 
 long strings of names ! It is just like 
 Virgil’s ‘fortemque Gy an, fortemque Cloan- 
 thum.” ’ My contemptuous tone woke Duke 
 from his reverie. “ You, too, Gwynydd !” 
 he exclaimed. “ Oh, do not take to carp- 
 ing at great men’s manner of expressing 
 themselves. There is no mind too small to 
 criticise, but it is the angels’ occupation to 
 admire. Why, you will be coming round 
 to competitive examinations next.” 
 
 “ No, Duke, no,” I interposed, faintly, 
 but he went on — 
 
 “ People seem to forget now, that the 
 struggle of life has always been too great 
 even for the greatest ; that if Belisarius did 
 not actually beg his bread, yet he so far fell 
 from his high estate as to give rise to the 
 story ; that Dante tasted the bitterness of 
 climbing other men’s stairs. They seem to 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 23 
 
 forget all that now, and to try only to make 
 the battle more arduous with no resting- 
 places and no favour. From the earliest 
 times, it is true, spiders ate flies, and wolves 
 sheep, at least since the fall of man, and 
 since then man has been subject to the 
 same laws, and preyed upon the inferior 
 animals, but now it is man against man, 
 and people hustle each other without re- 
 morse, and snatch at what they want. 
 They say that submission to authority was 
 a doctrine for the dark ages, or that they 
 are but following their father’s steps, hold- 
 ing that might is right. Oh, I often think 
 I should not feel it so much if I could go 
 down and fight with the others,” said Duke, 
 with his strange smile. “ But they are 
 fighting for their bread, and it would not be 
 fair. Of course I shall go into Parliament 
 when I am of age ; that will be my duty, 
 but it will be quite easy for me. People 
 may say old families no longer hold up their 
 heads, as they used to do ; but forty thou- 
 sand a year, and eight livings to give away, 
 they have their influence, if the old name 
 has not, not to speak of so many relations 
 
24 DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 in power — on both sides unfortunately. It 
 used not to be so in the old times. But of 
 course I shall go into Parliament ; and then 
 I will try to make laws to equalize the 
 division of property, and to keep down the 
 Radicals.” 
 
 This rather startling climax to a most con- 
 fused speech was quite in Duke’s own style. 
 The last clause was part of the political 
 creed he had been taught from his earliest 
 years ; but the other idea, so strangely 
 contradictory, sprang from his own good 
 heart, that could not bear to see other men 
 less favoured than himself. Sometimes I 
 think now, that Duke at heart was the most 
 thorough Radical I have ever known ; but 
 he called himself a Tory. We were all 
 Tories, we Jerninghames, and we held 
 that gentlemen who were not Tories were 
 Whigs, and that Radicals were vulgar, tur- 
 bulent people, who ought to be kept down. 
 As to Conservatives and Liberals, no such 
 words were ever heard at the Deanery ; we 
 liked the old names if we could not have the 
 old things. 
 
 Just as Duke finished the declaration of 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 25 
 
 liis intentions with regard to the nation, 
 we heard my mother’s voice calling, 
 “ Grwynydd ! — Duke ! Duke ! — Gwynydd !” 
 and we had to go in to talk to some visitors, 
 whom my mother wished us to help her to 
 entertain. 
 
 I always used to hate going into a room 
 full of strangers ; it frightened me, and if I 
 had dared, I should have liked to have said 
 to them, “ Be kind to me, oh, do be kind to 
 me, and then I will do my best. Indeed I 
 mean well.” But I know that I had the 
 air of saying, “ I am Miss Jerninghame, a 
 representative of one of the oldest families 
 in England, and not only that, but far 
 superior to you in intellect, and in all intel- 
 lectual acquirements. Be thankful that I 
 condescend to say to you, ‘ What a beau- 
 tiful day it has been !” ’ Duke did not like 
 strangers any more than I did, when he 
 had once realized that they were there. 
 But he was so absent, he would often walk 
 into a room full of people, all of whom ex- 
 pected him to speak to them, and would 
 pass by them all without taking the smallest 
 notice, and sit down by me and talk, just as 
 
26 D r JKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 if he and I were alone, or if I were not able 
 to attend to him, he would take up a book 
 and read quite quietly, till some one re- 
 minded him he was expected at the least 
 to say, “ How do you do ?” 
 
 On this day he behaved better than usual, 
 for I whispered to him just as we were going 
 in : “ Mind you shake hands, Duke,” and 
 then we both walked into the room very 
 tall, and very grave, and very condescend- 
 ing from our grandeur, only so terribly 
 stiff : at least I know I was, but then, as 
 a girl, I was so terribly shy. How I envied 
 Brydget, as she followed us a few minutes 
 afterwards, coming in with my father, with 
 whom she had been riding. She entered 
 the room with a little stoop in her graceful 
 figure, and quite a flush upon her cheeks at 
 seeing visitors ; but I knew she did not 
 mind it at all, was rather glad to see them 
 than otherwise, though she did look down 
 as if she were frightened, only glancing \ip 
 quickly every now and then, with those 
 lovely amethyst eyes of hers, so that every 
 one felt obliged to be kind to her, whilst 
 they were only frightened of poor me. 
 
DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 27 
 
 I often wondered how the world must 
 look seen through such pleading amethyst 
 eyes as Brydget’s ; once, I had put it into 
 his head, I believe, and, without thinking 
 what he was doing, Duke asked her. 
 
 “ It looks a very pretty world, and a very 
 pleasant world, and oh ! such a sunshiny 
 world when papa does not bother me with 
 Greek aorists,” cried Brydget, kissing my 
 father between every sentence in her pretty, 
 spoilt-child fashion. And after that, my 
 father said he would not come between her 
 and the sunshine. So Brydget learnt no more 
 Greek, nor Latin, only music and French and 
 history ; but she made up for doing so few 
 lessons by being my mother’s right hand 
 about the house, and before she was seven- 
 teen, she was just as competent to order 
 a dinner for twenty people as my mother 
 was herself, besides cutting out all the 
 clothes for the clothing club, whenever Mrs. 
 Harrison, who generally undertook it, found 
 she had not time enough, which was very 
 often, for Mrs. Harrison was not a good 
 economist of her time. Now that Brydget 
 certainly was, “ I don’t know what x + Y 
 
2S DUKE, AND BRYDGET, AND I. 
 
 to the N th means, ’’she used laughingly to say, 
 “ and I don’t want to know it ; but I know 
 how many things I can do in an hour, and 
 I always get to the end somehow, don’t I, 
 mamma, darling ?” And then my mother 
 used to kiss her, and call her her little 
 treasure. Some people are born to be 
 kissed, and to have their own way, and it 
 does them no harm ; it never did Brydget 
 any, though we never thought of contra- 
 dicting her. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 The tune the minstrel plays 
 Is not that tune alone, 
 
 Many forgotten lays 
 Chime in its undertone. 
 
 The Dove on the Cross. 
 
 As life goes on, how many books become 
 closed books to us ! “We cannot sing the 
 old songs,” we cannot read the old books : 
 they tell us other stories than those written 
 in their pages ; they bring before us, with 
 all the reality of life, heroes of whom their 
 authors never dreamt. It was not of pious 
 /Eneas I was thinking, as I turned over the 
 pages of the /Eneid to-day ; yet I read on 
 till I came to those lines, which tell how he 
 found Andromache married to another 
 husband, but performing funeral rites to 
 
30 
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 Hector, who had been “ father to her and 
 mother dear,” brother and husband all in 
 one. I read on till where, on seeing HUneas, 
 the blood leaves her cheeks, and falling she 
 remains speechless for a time, till at last 
 she cries out, “ Is it really you ? Oh, 
 Goddess-born, do you yet live ; or if the 
 dear light has flown from you, where is 
 Hector ?” 
 
 Then the book fell from my hands, and 
 my eyes filled with tears, and I looked 
 round, just as I fancy Andromache must 
 also have looked round. Oh ! is this a real 
 world, this in which we live ? Are we all 
 alive ; or is it not all a dream ? Hector ubi 
 est ? Virgil’s Epic was always very lifelike 
 to me, in spite of my objection to “fortem- 
 que Gyan,fortemque Cloanthum.” I always 
 thought of his men and women as real men 
 and women ; and it was never without a 
 tear that I read of that sudden terror, after 
 which Creusa was seen no more. Somehow 
 Creusa always reminded me of my mother ; 
 and, as a child, I had a dreadful fear that 
 she would disappear in some such incom- 
 prehensible way. 
 
OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 31 
 
 But it was Dido’s fate that touched me 
 most. Was it her fault ? Could she know 
 Cupid, when he came disguised ? Oh ! it 
 might he all very well to win friends for 
 the Trojans, but it was cruel, cruel to win 
 them thus ! There was nothing left for 
 her but death, so I used to think ; now I 
 know better. It is nobler, braver to live 
 or, but I could never have killed, myself, 
 as Dido did, not even if it had been right 
 to do so. After all it has been want of 
 courage that ha‘s saved me, I believe, but 
 it was want of courage lost me also. Of 
 which of Israel’s sons was it said, “ Un- 
 stable as water, thou shalt not excel ?” 
 
 That summer after Duke went away, I 
 worked very hard with my father, and 
 became more than ever his particular 
 daughter. It had been a great disappoint- 
 ment to him to have no son ; now he made 
 up for this by giving me a man’s education, 
 and trying to interest me in all his thoughts. 
 I was willing enough to be so interested. 
 If they had been about Paris fashions and 
 new waltzes, I must have tried to care 
 about them for his sake, so proud and fond 
 
32 
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 had I always been of my father ; but, as it 
 was, his thoughts were quite different from 
 these, and mine flowed in the same channel 
 as his. 
 
 In the summer evenings, and as the 
 autumn came on, and changed into winter, 
 we read Dante together, and I only recollect 
 one time when my father was displeased 
 with me. It was when I said Dante had 
 no business to put Franscesca di Rimini 
 into his Inferno. My father said there 
 were many better people there, and bade 
 me read Hallam and Sismondi, as he feared 
 I knew nothing of the history of those 
 times. I did read them both, and a good 
 deal more of Italian history besides ; but I 
 still think that Francesca was sufficiently 
 punished in this life, and I was glad when 
 I heard that some learned man had written 
 a pamphlet to prove that she was an in- 
 nocent, much injured woman, 'and that the 
 representative of her family in these days 
 had written to him a very beautiful letter, 
 thanking him for thus breaking a lance in 
 his ancestress’s honour. 
 
 Lady Brydget went abroad for that 
 
OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 33 
 
 winter, and as Duke had been given his 
 choice between joining her at Rome or 
 coming to stay with us at Christmas time, 
 we were all much flattered when he decided 
 to come to the Deanery, and Brydget and I 
 made grand preparations in his honour, 
 hanging up our favourite pictures in the 
 room, that was to be his, and decking it 
 with holly and ivy, till it looked as Christ- 
 mas-like as possible. 
 
 “ The worst of it is Duke will never 
 notice,” I said, sadly, as we hung up our 
 last wreath, and Brydget gave a final poke 
 to the fire. 
 
 “ Oh, but we must tell him,” said 
 Brydget. “ Yes, indeed, we must point 
 out every single thing that we have done,” 
 cried she, shaking her pretty head at me, 
 as I tried to edge in a “ No.” “ Nobody is 
 more touched and pleased than Duke is by 
 any little attention ; but, as you say, he 
 will never notice anything for himself, so it 
 would be just as unkind, as not to have 
 taken any trouble for him, if we did not 
 tell him all we had done.” 
 
 So Brydget had her way, as she always 
 
 VOL. I. 3 
 
34 
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 had, and dear Duke was so much touched, 
 he could hardly say anything, only I saw 
 there was something that did not quite 
 please him ; and after a little, it appeared 
 that there was no place left to hang up the 
 Sorrentina, so I took down my own parti- 
 cular copy of the Mater Dolorosa, and the 
 Sorrentina was hung up in her place. 
 Certainly I never could see that I was at 
 all like her ; that must have been Duke's 
 fancy. 
 
 My uncle, Lord Basset, and my Aunt 
 Barbara arrived the same day as Duke, so 
 that we were quite a nice little party for 
 Christmas, and it was very pleasant to get 
 so many new ideas, as they all brought with 
 them. Duke was full of a modern epic, an 
 epic that, as he said, deserved to have been 
 written before the Christian era. It was 
 Horne’s Orion ; and though my father 
 never would say that it would last as long 
 as the English language, which was what 
 Duke tried to get out of him, yet we all 
 admired it very much. I have forgotten it 
 a good deal by this time, and I could never 
 bear to read it again now ; but there were 
 
OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 via 
 
 some bits about Artemis no one could ever 
 quite forget, after once reading them, and 
 we all talked about this poem a great deal. 
 
 Uncle Basset was full of a very different 
 subject ; he could talk about nothing but 
 the iniquity of the Irish Church Establish- 
 ment, and the standing grievance the 
 English Government afforded the Irish by 
 keeping it up. 
 
 My father used to have long, and some- 
 times violent, disputes with him on the sub- 
 ject, and sometimes when my uncle left 
 the room, he would call him and his party 
 “ meddlesome fools, who would bring the 
 whole edifice about their ears, if they did 
 not look out what they were doing.” 
 
 Certainly my father knew much the most 
 about the subject, and consequently gene- 
 rally had the best of the arguments ; but it 
 often seemed to me that Uncle Basset had 
 justice on his side, and Duke said he could 
 not bear to hear the subject discussed, as 
 he never could make up his mind about it. 
 All the rest cf us sided with my father, 
 though Aunt Barbara was his warmest par- 
 tizan ; but, as she always finished up with say- 
 
 3—2 
 
36 CMJR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 ing, “Yes, Basset and I disagree on all political 
 matters/’ it seemed more as if she made a 
 point of doing so than as if she had any 
 principles at stake. 
 
 During that Christmas she spent with us, 
 my Aunt Basset came to the conclusion that 
 she very much disapproved of the way in 
 which Brydget and I were being brought 
 up. It was Brydget who first discovered 
 this, and told me, otherwise I do not think 
 I should have found it out for myself. 
 “ She says we have been taught everything 
 except what girls ought to know,” said 
 Brydget, lingering in my room one night 
 with her candle in her hand, “ and that we 
 have no more manners than if we were 
 fanners’ daughters, that you are growing 
 into a blue stocking, and that I do not 
 hold myself up, and she wants my mother 
 to let us spend next season with her in 
 town.” 
 
 “ Oh, but I should not like that at all.” 
 
 “And I think it would be just delightful,” 
 cried Brydget. “ I shall be seventeen very 
 soon now, and so I could be presented with 
 you, and I cannot fancy anything more de- 
 
OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 37 
 
 lightful than wear ing'white silk and feathers, 
 and kissing the dear little Queen’s hand. 
 Unless it were being the dear little Queen 
 herself,” she added, laughing. “ Besides, 
 you know, Gwynydd, we really have no 
 manners, and, as you often say yourself, it 
 would be very nice to see more people, for 
 then the pain must wear off by degrees.” 
 
 “ As if you ever felt any pain,” said T, 
 pushing my hair back from my forehead, 
 and staring up at my little sister, as she 
 stood bending over me with what light 
 there was caught into her gold brown hair, 
 whilst her eyes almost dazzled me. They 
 were always a fresh surprise to me every 
 time I looked at them : no one else had 
 eyes of that colour, and they made the face, 
 which would have been only a pretty face 
 without them, simply bewitching, at least 
 to me they did. 
 
 “No, I like seeing strangers, and the 
 more the better, and I want to go to the 
 opera, and oh ! Gwynydd, I want to go to a 
 real large ball. Do you think we ever shall ? 
 and do you think any one would ask me to 
 dance ? Oh, if any one does, I shall never 
 
38 
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 know how to be grateful enough. It would 
 be too nice, quite too nice.” 
 
 That was always Brydget’s way of looking 
 at things : they were all “ too nice, quite 
 too nice,” but they did not seem to over- 
 whelm her notwithstanding. 
 
 A short time after that it was settled 
 that Brydget and I should spend the next 
 spring with my uncle and aunt. At first I 
 begged my mother to let Brydget go, but 
 keep me at home ; indeed, I could not bear 
 to go away from St. Margaret’s and my 
 father and her, but she stroked my hair 
 lovingly, as she said, “ Indeed, my child, 
 it is on your account that I have consented 
 to let you both go. You are too grave and 
 serious for your years, Gwynydd dear ; and, 
 besides, I think it right that you should 
 see a little more of the world before — 
 before — It is always better for young 
 people to mix a little with others, and your 
 Aunt Barbara will be very kind to you.” 
 
 “ Yes, she will be very kind, I know, but 
 what shall I have to do for her ? Here at 
 home I read with my father, and help him 
 with his letters, and I help you, too, some- 
 
OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 39 
 
 times, though not so much as Brydget ; 
 but what will it be my duty to do, if I go 
 to stay with Uncle and Aunt Basset V’ 
 
 “ To learn to enjoy yourself, my child. 
 It is a duty you have never much practised, 
 but it will be better for you to learn it 
 now.” 
 
 So it was decided I was to stay w 7 ith 
 Uncle and Aunt Basset, and that it would 
 be my duty to learn to enjoy myself. It 
 seemed to me then it would be a very 
 difficult duty to practise rightly, but in the 
 end I enjoyed myself only too much. There 
 is an old German saying — 
 
 “ Sorrow and joy couched side by side, 
 
 The chamber of the heart divide ; 
 
 Speak gently, Joy, for Sorrow sleeps, 
 
 At too much mirth he wakes and weeps.” 
 
 No one would ever have thought before- 
 hand that I required this warning, but 
 though it was only for a short time, my Joy 
 spoke too passionately, and now Sorrow can 
 never sleep again, not till I sleep altogether ; 
 but I am content to live. 
 
 Duke was quite pleased when he heard 
 
40 
 
 OUE CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 we were to stay in London. “ I shall often 
 be able to run up from Oxford, and see 
 you,” be said. “ And tben tbink of the 
 pictures, Gwynydd, and the great men you 
 will probably meet. My mother knows 
 almost all the great men of the day, and 
 of course she will be in town, as usual, and 
 you will meet them at her house, if nowhere 
 else.” 
 
 Then I grew cross at the idea, that even 
 Duke should turn against me, and try to 
 persuade me I should like London. “ There 
 are no great men now,” I said ; “it would 
 be different if it were the last century, and 
 I could meet Goldsmith, or Gray, or Nelson ; 
 but now there are no heroes, and I do not 
 like Tennyson.” Duke looked a little 
 puzzled, for on other days he had often 
 heard me speak of Carlyle’s and Ruskin’s 
 books, as if I should care to see the writers, 
 much more to speak with them ; and he 
 knew a well-read copy of “ In Memoriam,” 
 that always lay on the drawing-room table ; 
 but he saw I was put out, and he did not 
 wish to worry me, so he only said, “ Do not 
 let us talk about great men then, let us 
 
OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 41 
 
 read Kingsley’s Andromeda. See, I have 
 got it from London for you.” 
 
 “ Dear Duke, how kind of you !” And 
 we read it together, read how Andromeda 
 was chained to the rock to be devoured by 
 the cruel monster, and how she heard “the 
 low of the outgoing herds,” and all the old 
 familiar sounds, thinking always it wa,s 
 for the last time, and that her place 
 would be among them all no more, till at 
 last Perseus appeared to save her, and she 
 saw him, and called him “ Beautiful.” Then 
 Duke and I amused ourselves by settling 
 what Perseus was like, and we agreed that 
 he was of the regularly Greek cast of coun- 
 tenance, with a low white forehead, the 
 nose and forehead all in one line, and with 
 bright, sunshiny hair, somewhat lighter 
 than Brydget’s, only with no red tint in it, 
 and that his eyes were dark, clear blue, just 
 the colour people always said the Italian 
 skies wore, and which we supposed Greek 
 skies might share with them. But before 
 we went to dress for dinner, I made a 
 change in this description, and said I was 
 sure that Perseus had an aquiline nose. 
 
42 
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS GUESTS. 
 
 Duke thought aquiline noses were apt to 
 look hooked, and he could not fancy Perseus 
 with anything at all like a hooked nose, so 
 in the end we were obliged both to confess 
 that we did not really know what he was 
 like, only we were sure he must have been 
 very beautiful ; and Duke told me his 
 mother was painting a picture of Perseus, 
 and Andromeda chained to the rock, so we 
 hoped she would bring it with her to 
 London, and then we could see if her 
 picture of Perseus came up to our idea of 
 him. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 “ I am in Rome ! Oft as the morning ray 
 Visits these eyelids, waking at once, I cry, 
 
 "Whence this excess of joy ? What has befallen 
 me ?” 
 
 It was with these words Brydget woke up 
 the first morning after our arrival in town, 
 waking me from my first sleep, for I was 
 ever a late sleeper, and restless during the 
 early hours of the night, especially during 
 my first experience of London. But whe- 
 ther sleepy or not, it was impossible to he 
 angry with my pretty little sister, she was 
 so absurdly, so senselessly happy. “ What 
 has befallen me ?” she would crv, then with 
 an ecstatic expression, “ I am in London ! 
 oh, Gwynydd, how happy we ought to be !” 
 
44 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 Yes, every one was agreed about it ; it 
 was not only our duty to enjoy ourselves, 
 but we should be actually going against 
 nature if we did not, yet all the while I 
 never felt sadder in my life. Uncle Basset 
 took us to ride in the Row on our first 
 morning, and whilst Brydget was with dif- 
 ficulty restraining herself from clapping her 
 hands at the beautiful horses and well- 
 dressed people, I was quite crushed by so 
 much apparent gaiety, and kept asking my 
 uncle, “ Why they had all come there ? 
 and what they had come to do ?” It was 
 only a new puzzle to me, when he told me 
 they came there as a matter of course, and 
 to do nothing. “ They have come here, 
 because they are so kind, and to make a show 
 for each other,” cried Brydget ; but they 
 did not look kind to me, and involuntarily 
 I felt my face growing harder and prouder 
 every moment, till at last my lip curled 
 superciliously, and I felt ready to cry and 
 disgrace myself then and there. 
 
 “ Ah, there goes one of the most pro- 
 mising young men of the day,” said my 
 uncle ; “ he’d soon make Liberals of you 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 45 
 
 both, if you were to talk to him. Unfor- 
 tunately — or I’d introduce him to you, for 
 he has got a mint of money.” 
 
 I could not hear what my uncle said 
 after “ unfortunately,” and eager though I 
 was to see the most promising young man 
 of the day, could only distinguish a black 
 pony vanishing among the crowd. 
 
 “ A Liberal is he !” cried Brydget, in a 
 tone of horror. “ Oh, I hope I shall never 
 know him ! how can any one help wishing 
 to keep everything just the same in such a 
 lovely world as this ? Look, uncle, look at 
 that dear little thing with the golden curls, 
 and the pink parasol ! Oh, who is that 
 very handsome man ? No, not the one 
 with the lady in yellow. He had a moss 
 rose-bud in his button-hole, and, oh ! I am 
 sure he is some one very distinguished. 
 
 What, is that the Marquis of , that 
 
 shabby, red- faced man, just like a farmer ? 
 I am sure riding in the Row must be the 
 most improving thing in the world, I shall 
 soon learn to know every one by sight.” 
 
 On this Uncle Basset burst out laughing, 
 and when we went home he told Aunt Bar- 
 
46 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 bara that he did not know which of ns 
 would have the hardest work, for he be- 
 lieved I intended to read all the books in 
 the world, and now Brydget was intending 
 to know all the people in London by sight. 
 
 Aunt Barbara answered, “ Well, of 
 course she ought to learn to know by sight 
 all the people who are anybody ; unfor- 
 tunately there are a great many who may 
 just as well be let alone. Brydget, I don’t 
 think you have such hard work before you 
 as your uncle seems to fancy. Anyhow, 
 you can but try, and I will take you and 
 Gwynydd to the Park this afternoon again, 
 and then you can see if you recognise any 
 of your friends of the morning.” 
 
 I still look back with horror to that first 
 drive in the Park ; though many things 
 have happened since, things which many 
 people would think might have wiped out 
 all such recollections from my mind, it still 
 sometimes comes back to me as a night- 
 mare, and there is none I dread more. 
 That row of men standing, lounging, staring, 
 the carriage stopping every moment, and 
 only moving at a funeral pace when it did 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 47 
 
 move, Aunt Barbara bowing right and left, 
 and pointing out people to us, and insisting 
 on our seeing them, while I could hardly sit 
 still in the carriage, so angry was I with all 
 that staring wall of faces, with its evil ex- 
 pression, and utter disregard of my opinion 
 of it. Aunt Barbara said I disliked it so 
 much, because people looked at Brydget 
 more than they did at me ; that was the 
 first time it had ever been suggested to me 
 that any one could like being stared at, but 
 I don’t believe it yet — at least, not that 
 any nice person could. The next day we 
 were to be presented by Aunt Barbara, and 
 my other aunt, Lady Brydget, came to see 
 how we looked before we started. It was 
 some time since I had seen Lady Brydget, 
 and I was quite surprised at the loving 
 fashion in which she clasped me in her 
 arms, giving me long, lingering kisses, in a 
 way peculiar to herself. 
 
 “ Dear child ! she looks very nice, does 
 not she ?” said she, addressing Aunt Bar- 
 bara; then she turned to me. “How I 
 wish Duke could have been here to-day ! 
 Poor dear Duke ! if he were to see you 
 
48 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 now he would throw the Sorrentina away 
 in disgust.” 
 
 So she knew that Duke thought me like 
 the Sorrentina. It was a surprise to me, 
 but at this moment Brydget came hounding 
 into the room, with her train all gathered 
 up over her arm, more as if she were going 
 to get over a stile, than as if she were about 
 to be presented to Royalty. 
 
 “ Gently, gently, wild child,” said Aunt 
 Barbara, and Brydget dropped her train, 
 and shaking it out behind her, turned round 
 and fronted us all. . 
 
 “ You must not let your head be turned, 
 pretty one,” said Lady Brydget, not kissing 
 her, but raising her chin with her hand, 
 and looking at the lovely laughing face, as 
 if it were some rare jewel she had found, of 
 which she wished to carry away the re- 
 membrance, then she kissed her, but much 
 less fondly than she had kissed me, and 
 after that she turned again to me, and 
 said : “ Gwynydd, you are just my idea of 
 Andromeda; you must sit to me for her, 
 if you can possibly find time for it. Do 
 you think you can, dear child ?” 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 49 
 
 “ In the mornings, I should think,” I said, 
 glancing at Aunt Barbara, to see if she 
 approved ; but it seemed to me then people 
 found very strange likenesses for me, and 
 certainly I had always thought that An- 
 dromeda’s hair was blue-black, and very 
 long. 
 
 “ It is the expression I want,” went on 
 Lady Brydget. “ I have sketched in a 
 hundred faces, and been dissatisfied with 
 them all. I cannot get the expression 
 with which she looked at Perseus, and the 
 way you looked at Brydget just now was 
 perfect for it ; it expressed exactly what I 
 want my Andromeda to express.” 
 
 “ What ! ‘ Beautiful !’ Andromeda called 
 Perseus ‘ Beautiful’ the first moment she 
 saw him,” cried Brydget. “ Oh, Gwynydd, 
 really after this I must look at myself,” and 
 she ran up to a mirror, and looked at her- 
 self in it, and then started back with an 
 expression of astonishment, crying, “ Beau- 
 tiful !” and began playing so many antics, 
 that Aunt Barbara had to interfere, upon 
 which that naughty Brydget took to making 
 curtseys to her, each one lower than the 
 
 VOL. i. 4 
 
50 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 last, till fortunately the carriage was an- 
 nounced, and we said good-bye to Lady 
 Brydget, and drove off to the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 Then for the first time I forgot my father 
 missing some one to read his favourite 
 authors with him, and my mother sitting 
 alone in the dear old drawing-room at the 
 Deanery, and St. Margaret’s standing 
 solemnly on the hill — I forgot all the 
 home sights and sounds, missing which 
 had made me feel so sorrowful th§ last 
 few days — and for the first time grew 
 as excited as Brydget, with the car- 
 riages all hurrying to get into the line 
 before each other, and the footmen trying 
 to appear dignified, with their great big 
 bouquets, and all the while looking so un- 
 comfortable, as they hung on behind. Even 
 the waiting, and the crowding, and the 
 pushing, which seemed to try Aunt Bar- 
 bara’s always rather hasty temper, were all 
 rather enjoyable to me than otherwise, and 
 in the end I w r as much less shy of the Queen, 
 and kissed her hand with much less trepi- 
 dation than I should have felt saying, “How 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 51 
 
 do you do ?” to the most common-place 
 visitor at the Deanery. So much for a 
 little excitement. 
 
 “ Well, I flatter myself our party was 
 very much admired,” said Aunt Barbara, 
 yawning, as she lay on the sofa after dinner. 
 She had said she was going to take things 
 easily at first, and that if London saw us 
 once a day it would be quite enough for a 
 beginning, only she had given us a double 
 allowance of Park as a special treat the day 
 before. I hoped we might have no more 
 special treats, if they were all to be like 
 the first. “ And as to you, Brydget, you 
 have made an impression already. George 
 Lumley insists upon it, I am to introduce 
 him to you before any one else, at Lady 
 Dorter’s, to-morrow night. I wanted to 
 manage it to-day, but it was impossible in 
 that crowd.” 
 
 “ Then he will ask me to dance,” cried 
 Brydget, with her eyes sparkling. “I know 
 I am a little country ignoramus, but I know 
 enough already of the etiquettes of this 
 great world of London to feel sure he must 
 ask me to dance if he is introduced to me 
 
 4—2 
 
 • y or 4LL Uik 
 
52 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 at a dancing party. Oh, Aunt Barbara, I 
 love George Lumley.” 
 
 “ My dear, that is not at all necessary. 
 He has not given me to understand that he 
 even likes you, as yet.” 
 
 “ But he would like to know me,” per- 
 sisted Brydget, “ and that is too nice of 
 him, too nice, so I will not be slow about 
 it as he is, I will love him all at once.” 
 And she went up to bed that night singing, 
 “ I love George Lumley.” 
 
 It made me feel very responsible to hear 
 her, and to see her so beyond all restraint, 
 from sheer excess of happiness. It was only 
 the other night that my mother had come 
 into my room at the Deanery, after I was in 
 bed, and sitting down at the foot of my 
 bed, had told me I must take care of her 
 little Brydget for her when we went away 
 together. “ She is so young she might get 
 into a scrape without knowing it, but you 
 are old beyond your years, Gwynydd, and 
 I look to you to help her. Though, indeed, 
 my dear child, I cannot tell you how ner- 
 vous I feel about you both. It seemed such 
 a good opportunity for you to see a little 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 53 
 
 mora society than you could ever hope 
 to see at St. Margaret’s, and your 
 Aunt Barbara was so pressing, and, indeed, 
 for many reasons, I thought it so much the 
 best thinor but, now I almost wish I had 
 
 O 7 
 
 said I could not spare you, for I lie awake 
 at nights thinking of all sorts of dreadful 
 things that may happen to you both. But 
 I think it must do you good, Gwynydd deal’, 
 and you’ll take care of my Brydget for me, 
 and not let her lose her heart to the first 
 good-looking young man who speaks civilly 
 to her.” Of course I had promised I would, 
 and then after crying a little while, holding 
 my hand in hers, kissing me, and saying 
 good-night several times before she could 
 bring herself to go aw r ay, my mother had 
 left me to lie and think over all she had 
 been saying ; and that was only a night 
 or two ago, and now here was Brydget going 
 to bed singing, “ I love George Lumley,” 
 and he had not even spoken to her yet. 
 Perhaps I was over tired with the drawing- 
 room, the first thing by which I recollect 
 ever being excited ; certainly I felt very 
 care-worn that night. 
 
54 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 Next day we went to the Academy in the 
 morning, and after luncheon Aunt Barbara 
 took us to some shops, and to call upon the 
 Valpys, as she said we had better know 
 some young ladies in town, to save us from 
 feeling lost among strangers, and we were 
 sure to meet the Valpys nearly everywhere. 
 
 We found Mrs. Valpy and her three 
 daughters all at home, all the three daugh- 
 ters dressed in violet, and all very lively at 
 first, but it seemed that after we had been 
 in the room a few minutes, we had quite 
 frozen them into silence, and even Brydget, 
 with her coaxing ways, could not persuade 
 them to talk to her. As for me I was all 
 the time thinking of the three Graces and the 
 three Furies, and the three Goddesses, from 
 whom Paris had to choose the most beau- 
 tiful, and I could not decide to which of 
 the three Miss Valpys I should have given 
 the apple if I had been Paris. They were 
 all three tall, and pretty, and insipid ; the 
 youngest the prettiest and the most insipid. 
 I liked her best, because she looked delicate, 
 and said she liked the country better than 
 town, because town life was so tiring. The 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 55 
 
 reason might not be a very good one, but the 
 conclusion coincided with my own, after my 
 first few days’ experience of London. How- 
 ever, what most surprised me in these young 
 ladies was that they talked slang ; I had 
 never heard slang talked before, but some- 
 how I knew what it was directly I heard it, 
 and I did not like the sound of it at all. 
 
 “What horrid, rude, stuck-up creatures !” 
 exclaimed Brydget, as soon as we drove 
 away from the Valpys’ door. 
 
 “ My dear, they are considered very nice 
 girls, and one of them was thought to be 
 going to marry the eldest son of an earl all 
 last season,” said Aunt Barbara, as if this 
 quite settled the question; but for my part 
 I could not see why earls’ eldest sons should 
 have at all better taste than other people, 
 and anyhow he had not married Miss 
 Valpy. 
 
 How many hackneyed quotations came 
 to my mind that night at my first ball, but 
 after I had once repeated to myself Byron’s 
 lines, “ There was a sound of revelry by 
 night,” I continued thinking of them till, 
 as the evening wore on, and I began to find 
 
56 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 it more and more tiring to smile at my 
 partners’ remarks, my thoughts took refuge 
 in Mrs. Browning’s lines : 
 
 “ Behind no prison grate, she said, 
 
 Are captives so uncomforted, 
 
 As souls behind a smile.” 
 
 I do not wonder that my partners found 
 it very hard work talking to me. 
 
 “ We, too, in Arcadia have been !” cried 
 Brydget, as we settled ourselves into the 
 carriage to drive home. “ Oh, thank you, 
 thank you, thank you a thousand times, you 
 best and kindest of aunts, for bringing me 
 to town. George Lumley is so like Apollo, 
 I really cannot see any difference between 
 them, and, will you believe it ? he did not 
 ask me only for one dance, he asked me 
 for three ! But I did not give him them all 
 at once, oh no ! one only quite late in the 
 evening, and I made quite a favour of it, 
 whilst all the time I had it on the tips of 
 my lips to thank him, and tell him how 
 delighted I was. Do you know, Aunt Bar- 
 bara, I believed till to-night that the most 
 charming thing in the world would be to 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 57 
 
 be asked to dance, and to stammer out 
 “ Yes,” but now I know what is ten times 
 nicer, it is to say, “ Engaged.” Oh, it is so 
 delicious, I only wish ten times the number 
 of people had asked me to dance, that I 
 might have said it to all of them, but as it 
 was I had to say it several times; and I was 
 engaged to six more people at the very least 
 when we came away.” 
 
 “ How that child does run on,” said 
 Aunt Barbara ; “I declare it makes me 
 young again to hear her. Well, and how 
 did you enjoy yourself, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ Thank you, Aunt Barbara, it was very 
 amusing. All my partners talked of 
 nothing but how many balls they had been 
 to last week, and asked me what I was 
 going to do all next week, just as if we 
 were such dear friends we could not pos- 
 sibly be happy till we knew where we were 
 likely to meet each other again.” 
 
 “ Ah, but people are not always such 
 dear friends in the end, as they promise to 
 be at the beginning ; and old friends are the 
 best, are they not, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “Very much the best, aunt,” 1 said, 
 
58 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 readily, and indeed I thought so, though I 
 did not know to what old friends in par- 
 ticular Aunt Barbara was alluding. Aunt 
 Barbara, however, knew very well. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 “ And with blue laughing eyes, behind her fan, 
 
 First acts her part with that great actor, Man.” 
 
 Rogers . 
 
 Whether other people find it difficult to 
 enjoy themselves, I do not know ; but it 
 often seems to me a duty very little prac- 
 tised in this world, “ where but to think is 
 to be full of sorrow.” It is all very well to 
 say, “ I love all that thou lovest, Spirit of 
 Delight !” The Spirit of Delight will not 
 come for just being called any more than 
 other spirits. Perchance there is a spell, a 
 magic “ Open Sesame,” which would make 
 of her a slave for ever, but though I lived 
 with one who, if there be such powerful 
 words, knew them right well, and once 
 knew another who, also not needing that 
 “ Spirit false,” was of course never forgotten 
 
60 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 by her, yet I do not think I ever learnt the 
 spell myself. My Spirit of Delight, the 
 spirit that came to me, was always trem- 
 bling her swift pinions, and threatening to 
 fly away before I had even learnt rightly 
 to know her name. Only in the fashion in 
 which all the countless generations of 
 children, one after another, find themselves 
 forced to learn the same old experience 
 their fathers would so willingly have taught 
 them — but that their hearts were har- 
 dened, so that they could not hear — learn- 
 ing it here a little, and there a little ; so 
 by dint of trying, or by a curious sequence 
 of fortuitous events, I acquired, not 
 
 “ That content surpassing wealth 
 The sage in contemplation found, 
 
 And walked with inward glory crowned,” 
 
 but a very comfortable power of taking plea- 
 sure in the various sights and sounds in 
 which my kind relations were so desirous 
 that I should find happiness. In truth that 
 quiet Deanery life had been too quiet for me; 
 it had suited gay, light-hearted Brydget very 
 well, though she had rejoiced at the idea of 
 escaping from it for a time, while I, crushed 
 by its steady pressure, had trembled at the 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 61 
 
 thought ; but “ All work and no play” — 
 every one knows the effect they had upon 
 Jack long ago. They had had the same 
 effect upon me, and afterwards the change 
 from “ no play ” to “ all play ” had been a 
 little sudden. I had felt thrown off my 
 balance at first, did not know what sort of 
 a world it was in which I was now living, 
 and could not tell what to think of days in 
 which it seemed I had no other duties to 
 perform than to say my prayers and thank 
 God for my many blessings. Some people 
 may think that I might have read Greek, 
 or puzzled over Algebra, just as well in 
 London as at St. Margaret’s, but then it 
 was not for anything of that kind I had 
 been sent to London. It was to learn to 
 enjoy myself, and I was very anxious to 
 perform this duty, not only because my 
 mother had told me that she wished it, but 
 because I had myself a great horror of all 
 people who did not enjoy themselves. A 
 smile had always been a better passport to 
 my heart than a sigh ; the knight of the 
 sorrowful countenance would have found 
 no favour in my eyes, and “ Will, if looking 
 well can’t move her, looking ill prevail ?” 
 had always seemed to me an utterly ridicu- 
 
62 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 lous question. Of course it would not. 
 Every one must surely have known that 
 since the beginning of the world. Venus 
 might look beautiful in tears, she certainly 
 seemed very often to have resorted to 
 them, but I always believed they were 
 April showers over which her smiles cast 
 many-coloured rainbows. And as to Cupid — 
 why his eyes were blinded, lest he should 
 be saddened by the sights he must other- 
 wise have seen, and thus his power should 
 leave him. 
 
 Brydget was dearer to me even than my 
 father and my mother ; I always recollect 
 loving her best, ever since she first laughed 
 baby laughter, whilst I stared at her in 
 grave wonder — and all because I knew no 
 one else so happy. Duke would have been 
 far dearer, if his. smile had been more a 
 part of himself, instead of shining like an 
 alien from his dark, mysterious eyes, and 
 wandering uneasily about his melancholy 
 mouth. Only I, who knew him well, knew 
 that Duke was not at all so sad as he 
 looked, and so I was very fond of him. 
 Otherwise I only cared for happy people, 
 who would have done very well without 
 my caring for them. And now I was trying 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 63 
 
 .very hard to become happy myself, and at 
 last it almost seemed I had succeeded, 
 when one morning Duke came up from 
 Oxford for the day, and went over the 
 Academy with us. 
 
 He and I had never had so much to say 
 to each other before, and after I had 
 pointed out to him one of the very few 
 pictures I had been able to distinguish as 
 possessing beauty in our first hurried 
 general inspection, we sank down upon a 
 vacant bench, and remained there talking to 
 each other, till the rest of the party came 
 back to look for us, and seemed greatly 
 amused to find us still where they had 
 originally left us. 
 
 “ Ho ! ho ! ho !” laughed Uncle Basset, 
 while Duke and I, who were not accus- 
 tomed to being laughed a,t, looked as if we 
 could not at all make out what the joke 
 was about. “ So you have found out one 
 picture you like, and you prefer to stick to 
 it, eh, Duke ?” 
 
 But Duke replied, in his absent fashion, 
 that he had not been looking at only one 
 picture, he could see several from where he 
 sat. “ Besides it is all so crowded, and I 
 wanted to talk to Gwynydd.” 
 
64 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 “ I daresay you did,” cried my uncle, 
 laughing again. “ But take care, beware, 
 or you’ll have to say, 
 
 “ i The time I’ve lost in wooing, 
 
 In watching and pursuing 
 The light that lies 
 In woman’s eyes, 
 
 Has been my heart’s undoing. 
 
 My only books 
 "Were woman’s looks, 
 
 And Folly’s all they’ve taught me.’ ” 
 
 Uncle Basset was one of those people 
 who never can begin a quotation and trust 
 to other people’s memories to fill up the 
 rest ; he could never have said, “forsan et 
 hcec olim meminisse juvabit,” without begin- 
 ning at “ revocate animos” and probably 
 even then he would have gone on to “Du- 
 rate,” and tbe following full stop. We 
 ought to have thought ourselves fortunate 
 to have been spared tw r o lines out of Moore’s 
 verse, but as it was, what we had beard 
 struck me as singularly inappropriate. In 
 the first place it was no question of books, 
 but of pictures, and in the second we had 
 not been looking at Perugini’s “ I know a 
 Maiden Fair to see,” but at “ Sunlight lin- 
 gering on the Autumn Woods,” and latterly 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 65 
 
 a little at “Ariadne,” in whose eyes there 
 certainly lay no light, seeing that Artemis 
 had already released her by death from her 
 weary waiting for Theseus. But, inappro- 
 priate though I thought the quotation, Uncle 
 Basset seemed greatly pleased with it, and 
 continued for some time repeating the last 
 few lines over and over again, whilst George 
 Lumley, who had attached himself to the 
 party during their absence from us, appeared 
 fairly convulsed with laughter. So as we 
 found that we had in some way or other 
 made ourselves ridiculous by sitting still, 
 Duke and I got up with dignity, and looked 
 together at Pygmalion’s wife. 
 
 “ She is not alive yet,” I said, indig- 
 nantly, for I wanted to show displeasure 
 against some one or some thing. It is not 
 pleasant all on a sudden to find one’s self 
 ridiculous. 
 
 “ H off terrible to love a statue !” replied 
 Duke, in his dreamy way. “ I cannot fancy 
 it, can you, Gwen ?” 
 
 “ Not the creature of one’s own imagina- 
 tion ?” I replied, quickly. “ Why, that is 
 what every one must love who loves at all. 
 It is phantoms of the imagination we all 
 
 VOL. I. 5 
 
66 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 love, not real people, and why not a statue 
 as soon as a phantom ?” 
 
 But Duke’s mind had wandered back to 
 the conversation we had been having to- 
 gether before the others came back and 
 laughed at us. We had been talking over 
 our troubles, or rather he had been telling 
 me some of his — T don’t think I ever 
 told anyone my troubles — but Duke was 
 disturbed in his mind, and so he had been 
 telling me some of his. 
 
 “ You see, Gwynydd,” he said, “ what is 
 one to do, when a fellow comes up, and 
 tries to make friends with one, and asks 
 one to dine, and all that ?” 
 
 “ Why one is to accept of course, dear 
 Duke. You do not dislike dining with 
 people, do you ?” 
 
 “No, not if they are nice people, but if 
 it is a fellow one does not fancy at all, what 
 is one to do then ? Is one to refuse at 
 once ? Sometimes it is rather difficult to 
 find an excuse, and it seems rather un- 
 christian to refuse to dine with a man 
 simply because one does not quite fancy the 
 first look of him. Then, on the other hand, 
 is one to go and be very stiff, and stand upon 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 67 
 
 one’s dignity, and be thought a horrid bore 
 for one’s pains ?” 
 
 “ Surely, dear Duke, one ought to try to 
 be friends with every one, as far as possi- 
 ble,” said I, smiling a little at the idea of 
 what Duke must be like when he tried to 
 be stiff and to stand upon his dignity. 
 Dear Duke ! always the most unassuming 
 of “ purse-proud proprietors !” 
 
 “But that is just the difficulty, that is 
 what I have tried to be, but it does not 
 answer. The kind of men I was thinking 
 of presume upon my having spoken civilly 
 even once to them, and then they at once 
 make out they are hand and glove with me, 
 and want me to introduce them to some one 
 else as my friends, or do some other little ser- 
 vice for them which I cannot quite undertake, 
 and then when I refuse they are offended, 
 and talk about ingratitude, and make out 
 that they have been putting me under an 
 obligation by giving me so many dinners, 
 when after all I thought I was doing them 
 a kindness by going. I don’t want any man 
 to give me a dinner. I always have a din- 
 ner of my own,” said Duke, pathetically. 
 
 So then we had a long discussion on the 
 duties and responsibilities incurred by living 
 
 5—2 
 
68 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 in a society, suddenly cut short by Uncle 
 Basset’s “ Ho ! ho ! ho !” but now Duke’s 
 mind seemed to have wandered into the old 
 track again. “ I fancy there are a great 
 many people who do not value affection at 
 all, at least not in comparison with what 
 they call real — that is to say visible or tan- 
 gible — things. There are people, for in- 
 stance, I fancy, who would be quite satisfied 
 if a man appeared friends with them, dined 
 with them, asked them to dinner, took their 
 arm if they happened to meet out walking, 
 and so on. They would think it, perhaps, 
 an impertinent curiosity, certainly quite 
 useless, to enquire with what feelings the 
 man’s heart regarded them, so long as his 
 face looked friendly, and in the same way a 
 man might perhaps be satisfied with a 
 woman whose face pleased his eye, though 
 he knew her to be utterly devoid of heart 
 or soul. I dare say it was in this way that 
 Pygmalion fell in love with his statue, and 
 then of course he wanted his statue to smile 
 and to look loving, so he could not be happy 
 till she had life given her. But for my part 
 I doubt if she ever had a soul.” 
 
 “ Mahomet says no women have.” 
 
 “ Now that is just one of those things 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 69 
 
 which people repeat till at last they come 
 to be believed. If you would look at the 
 Koran ” 
 
 Now, had I been at the Deanery, had I 
 been still the same depressed, conscientious 
 self I had been used to be, I should cer- 
 tainly have let Duke go on to say what I 
 should find in the Koran if I looked at it. 
 I should have thought it of great impor- 
 tance to get at the truth regarding Ma- 
 homet’s opinions, or regarding any other 
 subject whatsoever ; but as it was, my new 
 London self knew that I was a Christian 
 not a Mahomedan, and thought accordingly 
 that Mahomet’s opinions might very well 
 be left in doubt for a litt’e time longer, so 
 I called Duke’s attention back to the objects 
 immediately before his eyes — tangible and 
 visible, but evidently not very real to him 
 just then ; dear Duke ! “ Lovely, is it not ?” 
 I said, and paused before one of Red- 
 grave’s gems — trees reflected in a glassy pool 
 with a distinctness that recalled to me that 
 always charming “ Story without an End,” 
 where the little boy asks in his bewilder- 
 ment which are the real trees and which 
 is the real sky ; but Duke seemed not to 
 care for “ Ancestral Woods” just then, he 
 
70 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 was deep in the study of the affections, and 
 he took no note of anything till Prineps’ 
 Venetian Lover caught his wandering eye. 
 
 “ Ah !” he exclaimed, in a tone of disgust, 
 “ how can he care for her ? I could never 
 care for a woman who treated me as if she 
 were barely conscious of my presence, re- 
 garded me certainly less than the jewels on 
 her dress, or the cushions of her chair.” 
 
 “He hopes she will care for him some 
 day,” said I, but then paused, as Brydget 
 and George Lumley came up. 
 
 “ De deux arnans il y en a toujours un qvi 
 c time et Vautre qui se laisse aimer” read 
 Brydget from the catalogue. “ You horrid, 
 proud creature, how can anyone love you 
 if you do not allow them more pleasantly 
 than that ?” 
 
 “Oh, I dare say you will look just as 
 proudly at some unhappy man some day,” 
 said George Lumley. “ Women always do, 
 when they get the chance — to enhance their 
 value, I suppose.” 
 
 “ Indeed I shall do nothing of the kind,” 
 said Brydget, indignantly. “ If people will 
 not think me worth caring for without my 
 enhancmg my value in that way, why I will 
 get on as well as I can by myself.” 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 71 
 
 “ Ah, but if a man loved you very 
 much — like that, you know,” persisted 
 George Lumley, glancing up at the picture, 
 “ you know you’d be cruel, if it were only 
 for a little ; you know you’d turn your head 
 away, and pretend not to hear what he 
 said'.” * 
 
 “ Only if I thought he was talking non- 
 sense,” said Brydget, growing very red. 
 “ If I thought he loved me, I should — I 
 should be so grateful for his love, I could 
 not help showing that I liked it, and if he 
 did not care for me like that, why I should 
 not believe he had ever cared for me before. 
 Oh, I should make myself charming to him 
 — what I call charming — and then if he 
 liked me less like that it would be very 
 odd, I think.” 
 
 “Very odd, indeed,” said George Lumley; 
 and what more he added I could not hear, 
 for it was in a lower tone, only it was then 
 that Brydget crept closer to me, and passing 
 her arm through mine asked, 
 
 “ Are you tired, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “No, dearest ; why should I be ? Do I 
 look tired ?” 
 
 But Brydget made no answer to this, 
 only she seemed to prefer to stay near me, 
 
72 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 till we all agreed we had seen enough 
 pictures for one morning. 
 
 But as we were coming away, George 
 Lumley exclaimed in horror, “You have 
 not done the Sculpture yet !” and seemed 
 quite shocked when he heard that we had 
 already been once to the Academy without 
 even taking a look at the Sculpture Booms, 
 though at the same time I observed 
 that he never did more than glance at 
 the pictures we passed by, and devoted 
 much the greater part of his time to the 
 catalogue. 
 
 Aunt Barbara had not come with us this 
 morning, and Uncle Basset only just came 
 to the door of the Sculpture Boom, and then 
 said he was afraid of catching a chill there, 
 so he would go and see that the carriage 
 was ready, whilst we must make haste, or 
 we should be late for luncheon. So we 
 four went into the Sculpture Boom, and 
 coming from the ever-moving crowd among 
 the pictures, found ourselves suddenly quite 
 alone, with no other visitors to keep us in 
 order. 
 
 “ Do let us all laugh at once, or make 
 some quite awful noise !” cried Brydget. 
 “ I am so tired of all that bustle up stairs, 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 73 
 
 and now there is no one here, no one. Oh, 
 do laugh, all of you, do laugh !” 
 
 “ Ha ! ha ! ha !” laughed George Lumley, 
 while Bridget and I sank down on one of the 
 cool stone steps, and covering our faces with 
 our hands, shook with laughter, till at last, 
 quite ashamed of myself, I looked up, and 
 saw Duke smiling down upon usbenignantly, 
 as if he could not imagine what wild freak 
 had seized us ; but for his part he saw no 
 harm in it, no, no harm in it at all. 
 
 “ My dear Duke,” I cried, “ don’t you 
 know we must all laugh before being 
 amused, for fear of dying' without having 
 laughed V’ 
 
 “ It was a very cynical Frenchman said 
 that,” said Duke, smiling stiffly from his 
 superior altitude. 
 
 “ Never mind cynical Frenchmen,” ex- 
 claimed Brydget, starting up. “ Look at all 
 this lot of busts, and only five minutes to 
 pay them our devoirs. Dear creatures ! you 
 are all beautiful, supremely ; but I fly to 
 precipitate myself at the feet of our dear 
 little Queen.” 
 
 Brydget had become enthusiastically 
 loyal ever since she had enjoyed the pleasure 
 of kissing Her Majesty’s hand, and now she 
 
74 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 seized my arm and hurried me -with her to 
 look at a collection of busts of the Royal 
 Family. 
 
 “ Number 926. The Queen and Prince 
 Consort : by Theed. 927, Prince Louis of 
 
 Hesse : by Miss S. D. Durant. 928 ” 
 
 began George Lumley, diligently reading 
 his catalogue aloud for Brydget’s benefit, 
 she having impressed upon his mind earlier 
 in the day that she could not bear to look 
 at anything without knowing its name, and 
 that referring to the catalogue for herself 
 made her giddy ; but here, in the middle of 
 his very connected string of information, 
 Duke interrupted with a “ Look here, 
 Gwynydd ! Look here !” So we all looked, 
 and saw “ Clytie. Marble bust, unfinished. 
 J. F. Watts, R.A.,” as the catalogue in- 
 formed us. What we really did see, it 
 would be difficult to describe to anyone 
 who had not seen it also, and in that 
 case any description would be unnecessary. 
 We say Oly tie with all the beauty of woman- 
 hood, yet sinking from her high estate to 
 the lower life of a flower, and all the more 
 beautiful from the agony of that fall. 
 
 “ Oh, Duke, what would you not do to 
 save her !” I exclaimed, involuntarily. 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 75 
 
 Duke’s thoughts seemed to he all on love 
 that morning. “I would love her,” he 
 said, simply, “ though she had no more 
 heart than a flower to love back with ; but 
 then when I had saved her, brought her 
 back to be a woman again, I would not care 
 for her any more, not if she still kept a 
 flower heart.” 
 
 “ It is unfinished — quite absurd to put 
 it here,” said George Lumley. “ I have 
 walked all round it, and there is not a 
 single place from which one can see it, un- 
 less possibly suspended from the ceiling, 
 and, even then, I rather doubt one’s being 
 much better off. ” 
 
 “ Now you are trying to spoil our pleasure. 
 Naughty ! naughty !” cried Brydget. So 
 George Lumley had to walk once more 
 round the apparently unfinished bust, on 
 which sculptors say so much extra work has 
 been expended, in order to give it that very 
 look of want of finish, and pronounced each 
 point of view more perfect than the last, till 
 he came back to us again, when he professed 
 to be quite overcome, and took out his hand- 
 kerchief to hide his emotion. 
 
 Brydget however would not attend to 
 him. “ What was that you were saying, 
 
76 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 Duke ?” she asked ; “ that you would not 
 love Clytie unless she loved you ? Not 
 if she were perfectly beautiful — just like 
 Gwynydd, Duke ?” said that naughty 
 Brydget. 
 
 “ No, not anyhow,” said Duke, with a 
 slight contraction of his forehead. “Not I 
 would not, but I could not, if she did not 
 care for me.” 
 
 “ But that is very unromantic, Duke ; 
 Gwynydd will be quite shocked, and tell 
 you of — 
 
 “ ‘ The knight, that wore 
 Upon his shield a burning brand ; 
 
 And that for her long years he wooed, 
 
 The L ady of the Land.’ ” 
 
 “ That might be all very well for him,” 
 said Duke, “ but it would not suit me at 
 all. Who knows what may happen in ten 
 years ?” At St. Margaret’s I feel certain 
 that Duke would on this have fallen into a 
 melancholy reverie as to how many of us 
 would by that time be dead and buried, but 
 even he was forced to be a little gay in 
 London, so he went on, in an altered tone, 
 
 “ ‘ Oh, whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad, 
 
 Though father aud mither and a’ should gae mad ; 
 
 Oh, whistle aud I'll come tc. you, my lad.’ 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 77 
 
 That is the tune to suit me, little 
 Brydget.” 
 
 “ Oh, hut Gwynydd would never say that 
 to any one,” said Brydget. She had been 
 walking a few steps behind with Duke, but 
 now he seemed to have no more attention 
 to spare for her ; indeed, it was rarely he 
 deigned to address so long a speech to her, 
 and he came up on the other side of me, 
 where I was walking with George Lumley, 
 with whom it always seemed to me, at this 
 early period of our acquaintance, I had very 
 little in common, seeing that he had read 
 no books, except a few sporting novels, of 
 which I barely knew the names, that he 
 openly said he should be quite happy if he 
 never saw another picture, and that, though 
 he professed to be fond of music, his know- 
 ledge of it was confined to a few operas, 
 while mine hardly went beyond the an- 
 thems at St. Margaret’s. He was certainly 
 not at all like Apollo ; indeed, I suppose 
 Brydget was only joking when she said so, 
 for even now, when I know and value him, 
 I can only consider him a very ordinary- 
 looking young Englishman, and till this 
 morning my conversation with him had 
 chiefly consisted in his saying to me, “ You 
 
78 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 ride a great deal in the country, don’t 
 you ? Oh, but your sister does, does not 
 she ? What a beautiful seat she has !” or 
 “ Don’t you really play croquet ? What, 
 nor your sister, either ? I thought all 
 young ladies did, and I am sure she’d play 
 so well. I should have chosen her for my 
 partner anywhere if you had not told me, 
 and even now I tl ink — ’’and so on, thebe- 
 ginning part of his sentences about me, 
 and the last and the longest part about 
 Brydget. Now, when Duke came up, he 
 was seizing his opportunity to ask me, 
 “ When do you think you will be able to 
 spare a morning for the water-colours, Miss 
 Jerninghame ? I want one or two to en- 
 liven my snuggery at home, and your sister 
 has promised to help me to choose them.” 
 
 “ I thought you did not care for pic- 
 tures.” 
 
 •“ No, I know nothing about them, you 
 see ; they are not in my line at all. But 
 your sister says she likes water-colours 
 better than anything, and she has promised 
 to choose out some pretty ones for me.” 
 
 “ Even water-colours fetch tremendous 
 prices at present,” said Duke. “ I wonder 
 when sculpture will revive. It is the only 
 
A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 79 
 
 one of the arts that is not properly patron- 
 ised at present. As soon as I can, I mean 
 to build a monster conservatory at the 
 Castle, and have as many statues in it as 
 flowers. Something must be done for sculp- 
 ture ; there is such an immense outlay, and 
 at present the prospect of any recompense 
 at all is always a doubtful one. What do 
 you think ought to be done, Gwynydd V 
 But I was absorbed in wondering why, 
 because Brydget was fond of water-colours, 
 George Lumley should wish to have some 
 in his snuggery at home, especially as 
 they were so expensive, and though an 
 eldest son, his allowance was, I knew, not 
 altogether satisfactory to him, so I could 
 only say to Duke, in an absent sort of way, 
 that I thought a conservatory full of statues 
 would be very nice, and then we saw Uncle 
 Basset standing beside the carriage, and 
 looking, as he hastened to tell us, like 
 “ Patience on a monument smiling at grief.” 
 He tried to go on with “ She let conceal- 
 ment like a worm i’ the bud gnaw on her 
 damask cheek,” but could not get it quite 
 right, and instead of helping him, we all 
 began apologising for keeping him waiting 
 so long, and telling him about the Clytie. 
 
80 A MORNING AT THE ACADEMY. 
 
 “ What ! fine thing is it ? — a real work 
 of genius ? Oh ! ah, yes ! I must see it, if I 
 can look in some other day ; but there are 
 the horses waiting, and your aunt won’t be 
 pleased if you are late for luncheon, so 
 jump in, girls. Come, now, make haste, 
 Brydget, ‘ Parting is such sweet pleasure,’ 
 but ‘We part to meet again,’ you know. No, 
 how is it ? I declare my memory is getting 
 quite hazy. Dear ! dear ! how tiring pic- 
 tures are ! Some luncheon will do us all 
 good ; you must be fagged, I’m sure, girls.” 
 
 But I assured him I was not ; indeed, 
 never bad I felt less so, it had been such a 
 pleasant morning; whilst as to Brydget, she 
 certainly did not look tired, as all blushes 
 and animation she smiled an adieu to George 
 Lumley. Duke was going home with us 
 to luncheon, but George Lumley we were 
 not to see again till “the third valse at 
 Mrs. Valpy’s,” whispered Brydget. “ I told 
 him we could not be there very early, be- 
 cause of this horrid dinner.” This horrid 
 dinner was a party at Lady Brydget’s, 
 where we were to meet some of the great 
 men whom Duke had held forward as such 
 an inducement to me when the idea of 
 coming to town was first proposed. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 “ His name was Care, a blacksmith by his trade, 
 
 That neither day nor night from working spared, 
 But to small purpose iron wedges made, 
 
 Those be unquiet thoughts that careful minds in- 
 vade.” 
 
 Fairy Queen , . 
 
 How pleasant it is to see pictures ! how 
 exciting the thought of meeting great men! 
 Such were the two subjects of my medita- 
 tions, when Brydget came to disturb Sivell 
 doing my hair, and leaning against me in a 
 caressing way, that she called “ cuddling,” 
 first pronounced it too high, then too low, 
 and lastly said that she should like it much 
 better if it were not so very, so distress- 
 ingly smooth, till Sivell, in despair, said 
 she really could do nothing if Miss Brydget 
 would chatter so. For her part she did 
 
 VOL. i. 6 
 
82 
 
 ENJOYMENTS TRIALS. 
 
 not profess to be perfect, but she knew how 
 hair ought to be done, and she did not 
 like any remarks. On which Brydget 
 laughed. “ Dear, good Sivell, do scold me 
 a little, it does me good to be scolded, you 
 know.” 
 
 “ Then you’ll have to remain bad, I’m 
 afraid,” said the only half-propitiated Sivell, 
 and proceeded with her task, while Brydget 
 put up her hands and stroked my face. 
 
 “ Dear Gwynydd, I have just been writ- 
 ing to mamma, and telling her all our news, 
 how Duke has been spending the day in 
 town, and how you have not looked grave 
 once all day. You are happy now, and 
 glad that we came to town, are you not, 
 Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ Yes, darling, I am very happy,” I re- 
 plied, composedly ; “ but you should not 
 lump all your news together in that way, 
 or mamma will think that it is because 
 Duke has come to see us that I have not 
 looked grave once to-day.” 
 
 “ Well, and is it not ?” Then, as I shook 
 my head, “ Oh, no, of course we were not 
 the least bit glad to see Duke to-day either 
 of us, were we ?” 
 
 “ Silly Brydget ! of course we were glad. 
 
ENJOYMENTS TRIALS. 
 
 S3 
 
 I am always glad to see Duke, only I wish 
 he were not quite' so grave,” I added. “ It, 
 makes one feel quite melancholy.” 
 
 “ Now Uncle Basset was just saying he 
 had never seen Duke so lively before, that 
 he had no idea there was so much fun in 
 him.” 
 
 “ Uncle Basset has not talked to him so 
 much as I have to-day.” 
 
 “ No ; what were you two talking of all 
 that long time in the Academy V 
 
 “ It was not so very long,” I said, rather 
 colouring, but I don’t myself know whether 
 it was with annoyance at what she said, or 
 because Si veil was just then fixing a wreath 
 in my hair, always rather a trying process 
 to me. “We were talking over his difficul- 
 ties about making friends at Oxford. Duke 
 always finds it difficult to like strangers ; 
 indeed, I don’t think he will ever care about 
 any one he has not known from a child.” 
 
 “ How will he marry then V asked 
 Brydget, thoughtfully. “ Of course he 
 must marry, as he is the last of the Jerning- 
 hames.” 
 
 “ Brydget, you will be late, unless you 
 begin dressing directly,” I said, severely. I 
 was put out ; I did not know why. I sup- 
 
 6—2 
 
84 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 pose I inherited a hasty temper from my 
 father, and that when I grew stronger in 
 London, my temper became stronger also. 
 I had never been conscious of it at St. 
 Margaret’s ; but only the next morning I 
 was quite put out again. 
 
 Aunt Barbara began expressing her in- 
 dignation at the great attention every one 
 paid to Duke. “ After ail he is only a 
 boy,” she said, and she seemed to think 
 this made it quite unjustifiable. 
 
 Brydget, to my surprise, agreed with her. 
 Now for my part, I had been quite pleased 
 by seeing how popular Duke had appeared 
 the evening before ; for he certainly had 
 appeared to me popular, though only one 
 incident had struck me in especial. 
 
 Mrs. Valpy had come up to him whilst 
 he was dancing with me. “ Oh, Sir Mar- 
 maduke, I have hardly spoken to you yet. 
 So glad to see you in town. I must really 
 introduce you to my youngest daughter. 
 Liza, Sir Marmaduke Jerninghame. And 
 there is Meta now. Do go to her at once, 
 or- you may lose your opportunity, though I 
 know she has been keeping a dance for you 
 all the evening.” 
 
 Duke went rather reluctantly, for Meta 
 
enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 85 
 
 Yalpy seemed fully engaged talking to a 
 cavalry officer, who was her partner for the 
 dance ; but she at once promised Duke a 
 waltz later on ; and then Duke came back 
 to me with that sweet but rather un- 
 comfortable smile of his. “Very kind of 
 Miss Valpy, I am sure,” he said, but I 
 can’t think why she was keeping a dance 
 for me. I never asked her.” 
 
 I could not quite understand it either ; 
 but it would not do to let Duke think any 
 girl could possibly care more about dancing 
 with him than he about dancing with her ; 
 so I said at once, “ Well, I think it was 
 very kind of her, and especially at her own 
 ball, where so many people are sure to want 
 to dance with her.” 
 
 “ Oh, yes, very kind of her,” said Duke, 
 “ but I never asked her. I don’t know why 
 she should do it,” and in the end he actu- 
 ally forgot all about that dance, and I did 
 not know anything about it till afterwards, 
 when he glanced at his card, and said, “ Oh 
 dear, that was the dance I was engaged to 
 Miss Yalpy for. Well, it can’t be helped 
 now, as I have danced it with you.” 
 
 Of course I made him apologise for his 
 mistake, and felt it a little hard that Miss 
 
86 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 Valpy should look so severely on me, as she 
 forgave him. But I could not help being 
 quite pleased to see how much attention 
 was paid him, for in the country, though of 
 course every one showed great respect for 
 Sir Marmaduke Jerninghame, still it often 
 seemed to me that Duke himself was set 
 aside more than he ought to be ; but I now 
 found that Aunt Barbara and Brydget 
 viewed things very differently. 
 
 “ Really, I believe you are right about 
 those Yalpys, and that they are not nice 
 girls after all,” said Aunt Barbara. “ I 
 never saw a deader set than they made last 
 night. It is clear enough they want to 
 catch Duke.” 
 
 “ To catch him !” I exclaimed. “ They 
 will never catch Duke doing anything 
 wrong.” 
 
 Aunt Barbara looked as if my stupidity 
 were quite too much for her, while Brydget 
 hastened to explain. “ Aunt Barbara means 
 they want to marry him — one of them, I 
 mean.” 
 
 “ That is impossible !” I answered, hotly. 
 “ No girl could wish to marry a man 
 who did not care for her. It is odd 
 enough she should then,” I added, pro- 
 
enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 87 
 
 voked at having appeared stupid, and dog- 
 ged accordingly. 
 
 “ Then it is an oddity we ought to be 
 pretty well accustomed to by this time,” 
 cried Brydget, shrugging her pretty round 
 shoulders with the air of a woman of seventy, 
 who had seen all her children pair off around 
 her. “ And my dear Gwynydd, do remem- 
 ber, think of Sappho ! think of Dido !” 
 
 “ Oh, but she killed herself, that makes 
 a difference.” 
 
 “I am sure I don’t see how,” said Brydget; 
 “ but very likely the Yalpys will kill them- 
 selves, too, if Duke does not make up his 
 mind to marry one of them.” 
 
 “ Very likely, indeed,” said Aunt Barbara, 
 indignantly. “ Now, children, don’t talk 
 nonsense. I have got to think very seri- 
 ously about the trimming of my new amber 
 silk. Just hand me the fashion-book, 
 Gwynydd, and there is the Court Journal 
 for you. It will do you a great deal more 
 good than that stupid History. You want 
 a little every-day sort of knowledge : much 
 more useful for every-day sort of life, as 
 you will find.” 
 
 Then Brydget, who always loved to fight 
 my battles for me — she would have been 
 
88 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 glad enough to fight her own battles, too, 
 only she could never find any one to take the 
 opposite side for more than two minutes, at 
 the most — then Brydget sprang up from 
 her seat, and kneeling down by Aunt Bar- 
 bara, as she lay on the sofa, clasped her 
 hands, exclaiming, “ Now, Aunt Barbara, is 
 it quite certain that Gwynydd will live such 
 an every-day sort of life, after all ?” 
 
 “ Oh, my dear child, nothing is certain ; 
 let me study the fashions. Your hair is 
 very untidy, Brydget, run away and 
 smoothe it, and Gwynydd dear, if you 
 don’t like the Court Journal, you need not 
 read it quite at once. There is a list of 
 people your uncle wants asked to dinner on 
 Monday week, lying in my portfolio, and I 
 should be much obliged if you would write 
 the notes for me.” 
 
 So I got up, almost, but not quite, in a 
 good humour again, at having something 
 given me to do, and while I was writing 
 the notes Uncle Basset came in. 
 
 “ Gwynydd amanuensis as usual,” he re- 
 marked. “ Tell me, Gwen, how many is 
 
 it r 
 
 “ Now what does it matter to you, 
 Basset,” said Aunt Barbara ; she had been 
 
ENJOYMENTS TRIALS. 
 
 89 
 
 a spoilt child all her life, and I think the 
 spoiling had had more effect upon her than 
 it had upon Brydget. “ I never interfere 
 with your vote in the house, and you 
 should not interfere with the people I ask 
 to dinner.” 
 
 “ No, my dear, of course not. I only 
 just wanted to know. There is Levison, 
 we have not asked for a long time, and I 
 should like to invite him, if there were 
 room.” 
 
 “ Adrian Levison ! oh much better not, 
 while the girls are here,” said Aunt Bar- 
 bara, having searched about vainly for 
 some objection to make. “ Give a regular 
 political dinner, and ask him then.” 
 
 “ My dear, the girls are going to be here 
 for ever so long ; besides he is not so dan- 
 gerous as all that. Get some other young 
 men to look after them. There’s George 
 Lumley coming as it is ; and can’t Duke run 
 up again for the evening ?” 
 
 At this I became quite good-humoured 
 again, for as of course George Lunley must 
 be intended to take care of Brydget, so 
 Duke must be meant for me, but I won- 
 dered what this Mr. Levison could be like, 
 that it was necessary to take such precau- 
 
90 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 tions against him. I decided that he must 
 probably be one of those dreadful Radicals, 
 with some of whom I knew my uncle 
 actually condescended to keep up an ac- 
 quaintance, and that he was probably a 
 very low sort of man with terribly revolu- 
 tionary notions ; so I wrote him a note in 
 my very best handwriting, that he might 
 see that however effete the aristocracy 
 might be, we could still write like ladies. 
 I was rather proud of my handwriting, and 
 considered it quite an accomplishment of 
 the upper classes, though how I ever got 
 such a mistaken notion into my head I 
 really cannot say, seeing that the gentle- 
 men who can write well may almost be 
 numbered on one’s fingers, and the ladies 
 are not much more numerous. Still I grew 
 up with this notion, and believing Mr. 
 Levison to be a Radical, expected to see in 
 answer a slanting shopman’s hand upon 
 greasy looking blue paper, so when my aunt 
 tumbled a lot of notes into my lap a day or 
 two afterwards, that I might count up who 
 had accepted, it was a surprise to me, that 
 the first note I picked out to open on 
 account of its pretty, well rounded writing, 
 was signed, “ Adrian Levison.” It was 
 
enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 91 
 
 not on greasy blue paper, but on the 
 thickest double refined cream-laid. 
 
 “ Then I suppose he is not a Radical,” I 
 remarked. 
 
 “ Oh dear no \” exclaimed my aunt, “ not 
 so bad as that, only a rather advanced 
 Liberal, whom your uncle considers one of 
 the most rising young men of the day. Has 
 he not pointed him out to you on that 
 eternal black pony of his ?” 
 
 My uncle had pointed him out to me. I 
 recollected it now, as I recalled the black 
 pony, but not the rider, for I had just 
 missed seeing him, and once again I was 
 destined just to miss seeing Adrian Levison. 
 Once, again, then, the Fates relented, or grew 
 bitter against us, I know not which, even 
 now I know not which, only I know once 
 again I just missed seeing him, and then 
 we met and saw one another. Uncle 
 Basset was always very kind to me, indeed 
 every one was always very kind to me. I 
 have certainly no cause to reproach the 
 world with its want of kindness towards 
 me ; but, whether I am mistaken in this or 
 not, it has always seemed to me that men 
 were kinder to me than women, and that 
 of them the careless, easy-going, apparently 
 
92 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 thoughtless men took most thought for my 
 happiness. 
 
 Uncle Basset was one of these easy- 
 going men, he voted for the Liberals, and 
 he made his quotations, otherwise he 
 seemed not to have a care in life ; but yet 
 he was alwavs careful to get any pleasure 
 for me or Brydget that he thought either 
 of us might fancy, much more careful for 
 us in this way than Aunt Barbara, though 
 she also was good nature itself. But then 
 it had never occurred to Aunt Barbara 
 that other people might have different 
 tastes from hers, and that what pleased her 
 might not always please them ; this was to 
 her incomprehensible. So when Uncle 
 Basset, out of the kindness of his heart, pro- 
 posed to take me to the House one night 
 that 1 might hear a debate, Aunt Barbara, 
 out of the kindness of her heart, opposed 
 the idea with indignation, thinking that I 
 ran a danger of being bored to death by a 
 prosy old uncle, who had no idea of what 
 girls really liked, and did not see that I 
 should in this way lose a specially grand 
 ball at one of the Embassies. 
 
 “ How can you propose anything so 
 stupid, Basset ? Fortunately Gwynydd 
 
ENJOYMENTS TRIALS. 
 
 93 
 
 has got some rather more lively occupation 
 for this evening, of course she and Brydget 
 are going with me to the ball. I thought 
 you were coming, too.” 
 
 “ Well, I did think of it, but this is a good 
 opportunity, you see. There is rather an 
 interesting debate to-night, and I thought 
 Gwynydd might not like to lose it.” 
 
 “ Oh, nonsense, Gwynydd will like a good 
 waltz a great deal better. Because she 
 looks a little graver than that madcap 
 Brydget, you fancy she is a hundred.” 
 
 “No, now, my dear Bab, I know 
 Gwynydd has not even arrived at years of 
 discretion yet, but notwithstanding, she is 
 very sensible for her age, and I thought 
 
 she might prefer ” 
 
 “ Listening to a lot of old fogies making 
 themselves out to be a great deal wiser 
 than they are.” 
 
 “ There is not such a great number of 
 old fogies, as you call them, in the Lower 
 House. If Gwynydd wants to hear old 
 fogies, I shall be very glad to take her to 
 
 the Lords some other night, but ” 
 
 “ I should think you would, but no, no, 
 Gwynydd shan’t be victimised, while she is 
 w r ith me.” 
 
94 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 However while they thus fought over 
 my prostrate body, as it were, I had been 
 making up my mind what I wished to do, 
 and now seeing kind Uncle Basset look 
 rather vexed, I hastened to say, 
 
 “ But, dear Aunt Barbara, it would not 
 be victimising me at all. I do very much 
 want to hear a debate some night, and if 
 this is a good evening, there are so many 
 balls ” 
 
 “ You mean you would rather go with 
 your uncle to hear a lot of middle-aged 
 commoners stammer and stutter, than to 
 go to the Embassy with Brydget and me.” 
 
 “ I. don’t see why she should be forced 
 to make a decision,” said that, kind Uncle 
 Basset, coming to the rescue, as he saw I 
 was now rather in a difficulty how to avoid 
 vexing my aunt ; “ balls begin at any hour 
 of the night. I will take her down for an 
 hour or two to the house, and then she can 
 go on with me to the ball, and I should not 
 be surprised if the other two had not got 
 to the top of the staircase before we arrived 
 at the bottom, eh, Gwynydd and my un- 
 cle went away laughing. 
 
 “ Beally, G wynydd, you are too amiable,” 
 exclaimed Aunt Barbara, as soon as he was 
 
enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 95 
 
 out of hearing ; “ the other day you allowed 
 yourself to be bored to death, spending a 
 whole morning at the British Museum, and 
 now you know you will be so tired before 
 you get to the ball. Your uncle means well, 
 my dear child, but you should not let him 
 do just as he likes with you, in this way. 
 However, I am glad you are to come to the 
 ball in the end.” 
 
 “ Yes, it will be very nice,” I said, though 
 I knew this was not quite the truth. The 
 ball might be very nice, most exceedingly 
 nice, but I would much rather have gone to 
 hear the debate, and comequietlyhomeagain, 
 and gone to bed ; too many pleasures always 
 seemed to me as bad as too few, if, indeed, 
 not worse. It was in vain, though, that I 
 tried to persuade my aunt I liked going to 
 the House, she only repeated, “ I don’t 
 want you to be victimised whilst you are 
 with me ; I want you to enjoy yourself, 
 Gwynydd dear.” Yes, that was what 
 every one wanted, every one wanted me to 
 enjoy myself ; well, I was enjoying myself, 
 only I felt a little heart-ache, when I came 
 down stairs dressed for a, ball, and found 
 Brydget dancing a pas-de-deux with her 
 bouquet or her gloves — she always had a 
 
96 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 wonderful knack of dropping her things, 
 and a ball deprived her of what steadiness 
 she usually possessed. I could not help 
 feeling a little heart-ache, as I then thought 
 of my dear father, with St. Augustine open 
 before him, reading it rather wearily, now 
 that there was no one to discuss the difficult 
 passages with him, and my mother sitting 
 in her favourite chair by the open window, 
 whereshe always loved to sit to watch the twi- 
 light change into the night, with no Brydget 
 resting her golden hair upon her knee, and 
 gladdening her with her merry chatter. She 
 would be thinking of us I knew ; my father 
 might not be thinking of us, but — surely I 
 heard him sigh. It seemed that I heard 
 him quite distinctly, though I was all these 
 miles away, and then I knew my mother 
 would look up emboldened by that sigh and 
 say, “ I wonder what the girls are doing 
 now ?” Then I did not fancy that my 
 father would shut up St. Augustine, only 
 that he would leave it for a few minutes, 
 and walk to the window, and talk about us 
 with my mother, what we might be doing, 
 whom we might be meeting, what effect 
 this visit to London would be likely to 
 have upon our characters. Oh, I could 
 
ENJOYMENTS TRIALS. 
 
 97 
 
 fancy it all so well, what they both of them 
 would say, and how, after a little while, my 
 father would say, “Well, I must really 
 waste no more time talking about them 
 now,” and would go back to St. Augustine, 
 and would sigh again that there were no 
 young eyes and ready fingers to point out 
 the place where he had left off*, while my 
 mother would sit still for a little longer, 
 and then would brush away a tear or two, 
 and come away from the window, that she 
 might pour out the tea for my father, now 
 that there was no Brydget to do it for her, 
 and make the room look cheerful. I could 
 not help thinking of all this, a little 
 sadly at times, and feeling as if my proper 
 place was at the Deanery, not amusing my- 
 self in London, but I knew I had not come 
 away for my own pleasure, and now I had 
 done so I ought to enjoy myself as much as 
 possible, and so I tried to do so, and every 
 one was very kind to me, and I was quite 
 happy. I wrote this in every one of my 
 letters home with a sort of vague idea that 
 the answer might come, “ Since you have 
 learnt to enjoy yourself, you may return 
 home now.” But no such answer ever came; 
 
 VOL. I. 7 
 
93 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 there seemed to be no thought of our going 
 home as jet. 
 
 The debate, to which I had so much 
 looked forward, disappointed me in the end ; 
 perhaps every one is disappointed the first 
 time, just as every one, who first goes there 
 late in life, is said to be disappointed at the 
 theatre. I had such grand ideas of elo- 
 quence, visions of Demosthenes and Cicero, 
 mixed up with Burke and Sheridan, and a 
 whole host more of orators, of whom grand 
 sentences have been written, flitted round 
 me, as I drove with my uncle to the 
 House of Commons, but when I arrived 
 there, I found that “ Boldness ! boldness ! 
 boldness !” did not at all appear to be the 
 motto our modern day speakers had adopted 
 for themselves, and that there was a great 
 deal of that stammering and stuttering of 
 which my aunt had spoken. In the end, 
 however, I was sorry to come away ; a new 
 member had just got up to speak, and 
 though I was moving as he rose, and so did 
 not happen to see him, I yet caught the 
 first few words of his speech, and his voice 
 pleased me. I turned again to see what he 
 was like, but there were already two or 
 
ENJOYMENTS TRIALS. 
 
 99 
 
 three heads obstructing my view, and so 
 with that fresh, clear voice ringing in my 
 ears, in pleasing contrast with that oi‘ the 
 last member who had spoken, a man of 
 note, but of a distressingly monotonous 
 utterance, I joined my uncle, and drove off 
 with him to the Embassy. 
 
 “ I was sorry to take you away just then,” 
 said Uncle Basset, “ Levison was just be- 
 ginning to speak, and he always speaks 
 well. I had hoped his speech would come 
 on earlier in the evening, for you would 
 have liked to have heard him, I am sure.” 
 
 So that was Adrian Levison after all, the 
 owner of the fresh, clear voice ; I began quite 
 to look forward with pleasure to the dinner- 
 party, at which he was expected. Now I 
 often wonder what would have happened if 
 he had never come to that dinner, if he had 
 never been asked, if I had been taken sud- 
 denly ill that evening. Should we have 
 still met somewhere else ? Was it fated that 
 we should influence each other either for 
 good or for evil ? Oh, for which has it 
 been ? For which ? for which 1 I do not 
 ask for myself, only for him ; have I been 
 but a cloud that came between him and the 
 sun ? Have I been his evil angel ? Or have 
 
 " 7—2 
 
100 
 
 enjoyment’s trials. 
 
 I, can I possibly have been the base instru- 
 ment through which he has attained to a 
 glimmering of the truth ? Alas ! it can only 
 be a glimmering, but what more can we, any 
 of us, attain to here ? “ We have but faith, 
 
 we cannot know,” and well is it for those 
 who have faith ! Well, too, for those that 
 inspire faith in others ! As for me I do not 
 know, but I fear that I have been Adrian 
 Levison’s evil influence. But for me — ah, 
 well, w’ho knows ! Only, if I have done him 
 an injury, I can but repent it now ; no evil 
 deed once done can ever be undone, only 
 God grant that I may live long, that I may 
 have time for repentance — time for repen- 
 tance ! O Lord, I ask nothing more. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PERSEUS, 
 
 “ On heaven and earth 
 
 He smiled — as if man were not dust, he smiled; 
 
 The very air seemed kindling with his mirth.” 
 
 Mrs. Hemans. 
 
 In the end on the night of the dinner- 
 party (I call it the dinner-party, not because 
 there were no others, but because only this 
 one seems to me of any importance now 
 when I lookback), on that night I was not 
 taken seriously ill, but notwithstanding it, 
 was settled that I was not to dine in the 
 room. Duke had failed — Duke who had 
 promised to come up from Oxford to pro- 
 tect me, I believed, just as George Lumley 
 was to protect Brydget, though why this 
 Mr. Levison should be so formidable I could 
 not imagine. Duke had found out that he 
 
102 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 could not possibly arrive in town in time 
 for dinner, and so at the last moment a 
 telegram came from him to this effect, an- 
 nouncing that he would make his appear- 
 ance with the other more numerous guests 
 after dinner. This was all very well, but 
 my protector having failed, I found, a little 
 to my surprise, that it was considered 
 impossible I should dine down stairs 
 either. 
 
 “ My dear Gwynydd, you wcn’t mind 
 having dinner by yourself for once in a 
 way?” said Aunt Barbara. “You see I 
 think Brydget would be so disappointed, 
 that I don’t like to ask her.” 
 
 “ Oh, no, of course I don’t mind ; but is 
 it because of this Mr. Levison ?” I asked, 
 recollecting the previous conversation about 
 him, and not exactly understanding why 
 Duke’s not coming in time necessitated my 
 dining alone. 
 
 “ Because of Adrian Levison ! What 
 should it have to do with him ? But 
 don’t you see, you would have no gentle- 
 man to take you in, and I always dislike 
 the look of that. Of course I might ask 
 some one to take Duke’s place, but it is so 
 late in the day, and I don’t know whom we 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 103 
 
 should get. I did not think you would 
 mind.” 
 
 “ Indeed I don’t mind at all,” I said, 
 readily, “ and I dare say Duke will arrive 
 before the other people ; if he comes straight 
 from the station he certainly will, and then 
 we can have a nice long talk together, 
 which will be much nicer than just having 
 regular dinner in the dining-room.” 
 
 “ Yes, I dare say it will,” said Aunt 
 Barbara, smiling and looking very much 
 amused, though what there was ridiculous 
 in what I had just said I could not imagine. 
 “ I will tell them to lay dinner for you in 
 my morning room, and then if Duke comes, 
 you will take care he has something to 
 eat, and if it ends in a Ute-a-tete dinner, 
 why, so much the better, only don’t forget 
 altogether to come into the drawing-room. 
 If you do, I shall send Brydget to look 
 after you. Tete-a-tetes are all very well, 
 but they must not be prolonged for ever, 
 though Duke is a privileged person, of 
 course.” 
 
 Now this was so much a matter of course, 
 that it struck me as very ridiculous to say 
 it. Of course Duke was a privileged per- 
 son ; why, he was as much at home at the 
 
104 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 Deanery as we were ourselves. True, we 
 were not as much at home at Castle Jer- 
 ninghame as he was, but then that was be- 
 cause of Lady Brydget, she could never be 
 the same as my mother to me, hut Duke 
 was quite the same as my brother. 
 
 Dear Duke ! he came late, after all, 
 arriving with Lady Brydget, who had de- 
 clined coming to dinner, and who also took 
 care not to come till the ladies had left the 
 dining-room, so that in the end there was 
 no tete-d-tete for Duke and me — at least, 
 only a very short one. Duke had lost his 
 luggage, consisting of one portmanteau — he 
 had seen this portmanteau put in at Oxford, 
 he was sure — at least, he was very nearly 
 sure ; but then it had not been forthcoming 
 in London. He now wanted to write a 
 note about it, so I took him into my uncle’s 
 study, and provided him with pen and ink. 
 However, that was a very small step to- 
 wards getting Duke to write a note, as I 
 knew well of old ; he now wanted me to 
 tell him whom he was to write to, and 
 what he was to say, so in the end I dic- 
 tated a note to him, and then very slowly, 
 and with many pauses, Duke wrote it in 
 his own handwriting. When this process 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 105 
 
 was accomplished, we went hack to the 
 drawing-room, and found it already full of 
 people, so for a minute or two Duke and I 
 stood still together, trying to make out who 
 all the people were, and Duke asked me 
 how Andromeda was getting on, for he 
 had heard from his mother that I had been 
 sitting to her in that character in the 
 morning. 
 
 “ Andromeda is said to look too grave,” 
 I replied laughingly. “ Lady Brydget 
 says that seeing she called Perseus ‘ Beau- 
 tiful!’ before she knew his name, she pro- 
 bably looked rather pleased on seeing him, 
 but that though she has seen me at a 
 dozen balls, and always tried to catch 
 that expression on my face, she has never 
 seen it there ; no, not even when Lord 
 Dorter has asked me to dance for a second 
 time.” 
 
 “ Why when Lord Dorter asked you 
 rather than any one else ?” asked Duke, 
 looking not over pleased. 
 
 I could not resist teasing him. “ Why, 
 he is so like Perseus, don’t you see that, 
 you dear, stupid, old Duke.” Then as I 
 saw a cloud settling on his never too cheer- 
 ful face, I hastened to explain myself by 
 
106 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 saying, “ Seeing that he is so heroic, and 
 so daring, and so totally unlike any one 
 else, that he is just the man one would 
 select to slay a monster for one. Only 
 lancy Lord Dorter with wings on his feet !” 
 The Duke smiled again, for of all com- 
 mon-place young men Lord Dorter was the 
 most common-place, and the only pecu- 
 liarity I ever could discover in him, the 
 only thing that ever made me quite sure he 
 was not somebody else, just any one out of 
 the common herd, was, that he was rather 
 stout, just the least trifle in the world more 
 stout than the every-day young English- 
 man, and certainly not at all suited for 
 flying. Now seeing Duke at ease once 
 more, I was free to look about the room 
 again, so I glanced round, and in an instant 
 I exclaimed, “ Why, look, there he is ! 
 there is Perseus himself !” And sure 
 enough there he was, not Andromeda’s 
 Perseus, the Perseus who slew the sea- 
 monster for her, but my ideal Pei'seus, 
 barely above the middle height, but beau- 
 tifully proportioned, with hair of a sunny 
 brown, yet without a single tinge of red in 
 it, and blue eyes, dancing with happiness, 
 just such as one might fancy the blue of 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 107 
 
 the Italian skies. There he stood in the 
 doorway between the two drawing-rooms, 
 the lamplight falling full upon his face and 
 upon the bright flowering rhododendrons 
 beside him, only that day removed from 
 the greenhouse to do honour to the ex- 
 pected guests, and with some of the pas- 
 sion of the warm atmosphere in which they 
 had been nursed still clinging about them. 
 
 “ Yes, there is Perseus,” said Duke, 
 slowly. “ Who is he, Gwynydd ? You 
 certainly must have seen him before to 
 have described him so well ; but it is all 
 very well to call his nose aquiline. I still 
 say it is something of a hooked nose.” 
 
 I might have attempted to argue the 
 matter with Duke, but at this moment 
 Mrs. Valpy advanced. 
 
 “ Miss J erninghame, here is Mr. Levison, 
 I am sure, longing to be introduced to you. 
 Mr. Levison, Miss Jerninghame. Sir Mar- 
 maduke, how do you do ? So glad to see 
 you again. Excuse my interrupting you in 
 this way, but the girls are dying to discuss 
 some plan they have got about Commemo- 
 ration with you.” 
 
 But though Duke smiled as if to show 
 that he forgave being thus interrupted, he 
 
1 08 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 only just glanced at “ the girls,” and then 
 turned more determinedly to me, that he 
 might see how Perseus talked and moved 
 in these modern days, when there were 
 no sea monsters for him to slay, nor any 
 gorgon’s head for him to carry about. For 
 as it now appeared Perseus was in reality 
 the same as Adrian Levison, the rising 
 member on the Liberal side. I fancy I 
 must have been a little confused at being 
 thus abruptly introduced to him, otherwise 
 I don’t think I should have said, quite so 
 boldly as I did, “ I had such a disappoint- 
 ment the other night. I went for the first 
 time to hear a debate, and I had to leave 
 the House just as you were beginning to 
 speak.” 
 
 “ Now that explains it,” he exclaimed, in 
 tones even more joyous than those which 
 had before impressed me so favourably. 
 “ It was Thursday, was it not ? I stood up, 
 full of my subject, convinced that I was 
 about to make a speech at which the shade 
 of Pitt would shrink away abashed, and 
 just as I rose the inspiration deserted me. 
 I forgot what I had to say, and had the 
 comfort of seeing what it had taken me 
 hours to premeditate, condensed into one 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 109 
 
 paragraph of the Times next morning. 
 How could you he so cruel as to go away 
 just then ? I could not think how it was, 
 but now I know I should have won a niche 
 in History if you had but stayed.” 
 
 “ That is all very well to say now,” I re- 
 plied, smiling ; who did not smile while 
 talking to Adrian Levison ? “ But if my 
 
 presence was to have had any such great 
 effect upon you, I think it ought to have 
 made you nervous.” 
 
 “ Nervous ! How does it feel to be 
 nervous T 
 
 “You are very fortunate if you do not 
 know that by experience.” 
 
 “ I always knew I was. It is you, who 
 do not know, Miss Jerninghame, that you 
 are talking to the most fortunate man 
 alive.” 
 
 “ I am exceedingly glad to hear it now — 
 for your own sake, and also because a little 
 of your superabundant good fortune may, 
 perhaps, flow over to me.” 
 
 “I am afraid that is a poor prospect,” 
 said he, in the same gay tones, still unde- 
 pressed by the laborious manner in which I 
 dwelt upon his airy nothings. “ Like at- 
 tracts like. It is the rich people who make 
 
no 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 the wonderful speculations, and the happy 
 people who win happiness. But you, I hope, 
 are not in that state that you need to 
 pilfer from any one else’s store.” 
 
 “ Oh, no, I am very happy,” I said, 
 quickly. I had come to think it quite a sin 
 to be unhappy, a sin of which I did not wish 
 to be suspected, and besides I was happy, 
 just then, perfectly happy. Only as Duke 
 stood by, saying nothing, but smiling in his 
 strange, benignant fashion, I thought it 
 best to make him acquainted with Mr. 
 Levison, and in my next sentence intro- 
 duced his name incidentally, speaking of 
 him as my cousin, Sir Marmaduke Jerning- 
 hame. 
 
 Adrian Levison bowed. “ Any relation 
 of Lady Brydget’s ?” he asked. 
 
 “ Yes, she is my mother. Do you know 
 her ?” replied Duke. 
 
 “ I met her at Rome last year. It was 
 quite a chance meeting. I don’t suppose 
 she would recollect me,” and then he went 
 on to talk a little to Duke and me, saying, 
 as before, nothing worthy of note, save for 
 the manner of saying it. Only when Duke 
 asked him some question about his family, 
 I noticed that he in replying spoke of “ the 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Levisons,” just as we should speak of “the 
 Jerninghames,” taking for granted that 
 every one must know every thing about 
 them. Now I knew nothing whatever of 
 the Levisons, except that none of them had 
 ever intermarried with the Jerninghames, 
 or else I should have heard all about them ; 
 so this surprised me. However, he did not 
 stay long talking to us, for looking about 
 the room, he exclaimed, 
 
 “ Ah, there is Lady Brydget ! How 
 good of her to recognise me ! I must 
 really go and speak to her,” and he bounded 
 away at once. 
 
 Adrian Levison never seemed to walk. 
 There would have been nothing absurd in 
 imagining him with winged sandals ; one 
 almost fancied he must wear them, as it 
 was. 
 
 Later on in the evening Lady Brydget 
 said to me, “ You see now where I got my 
 idea of Perseus from ?” 
 
 “ Where ?” I asked, in a stupid sort of 
 way, and then of course she said, 
 
 “ From Mr. Levison,” and by degrees it 
 occurred to me that perhaps, after all, he 
 was not so like my original idea of Perseus 
 — always a very indefinite idea — but rather 
 
112 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 like Lady Brydget’s picture, which had 
 naturally lately very greatly modified and 
 amplified my idea, and which was in reality 
 a likeness of him taken from memory. It 
 was a disagreeable notion to me, this, and 
 I tried to put it away from me ; only, as I 
 did so, it occurred to me that if Lady 
 Brydget had seen me when I first saw Mr. 
 Levison, she might have learnt how Andro- 
 meda first looked at Perseus, that is to say 
 if I was really like Andromeda. But I 
 know now that I was not ; that she never 
 really thought me so, had, indeed, quite 
 another reason*for wishing me to sit to her ; 
 a reason which made her willing even to 
 spoil her picture, the work of so many months. 
 No, I was never like Andromeda. Duke 
 was more right in thinking me like the Sor- 
 entina, though I was not like her, either ; 
 but, whatever I was, Adrian Levison was 
 like Perseus, very like him, indeed, as 
 drawn by Lady Brydget from recollection 
 of Adrian Levison himself. 
 
 That night I spoke no more to Adrian 
 Levison, only I watched Brydget talking to 
 him, and for the first time I felt a sort of. 
 jealousy of my lovely little sister. Why 
 should her beautiful eyes look up and down 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 113 
 
 in such a winning fashion, while mine could 
 only look straight in front of them, or per- 
 haps more frequently be hidden beneath 
 their lashes ? Why should the merry 
 words flow from her lips so pleasantly, 
 whilst I could often find no words to say, 
 and when I spoke must always be in earnest, 
 serious, anxious to be believed ; never say- 
 ing just what might be true, or might not, 
 it did not matter which, what I might my- 
 self contradict next moment ? Of course 
 every one must like her best ; of course this 
 Mr. Levison must feel as if she were a 
 kindred spirit ; were they not both favoured 
 children of the Spirit of Delight ? whilst I 
 must appear to him as the sort of wet blanket, 
 that Duke sometimes struck me as being, 
 when he suddenly came among a party of 
 young people, gaily chatting. Poor Duke ! 
 who was so kind-hearted, he would never 
 have spoken to any one again, nor have 
 gone anywhere if he had thought his pre- 
 sence had a depressing effect. 1 seemed 
 to know it of my own, but I was determined 
 to change myself in this respect — to learn 
 to be light-hearted ; so I watched Adrian 
 Levison, that I might learn of him. 
 
 Brydget and I slept together in London, 
 vol. I. 8 
 
114 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 for Uncle Basset’s town house was not very 
 large. I had a little dressing-room, which 
 was supposed to ensure me the blessings of 
 privacy, but we generally kept the door 
 between the two rooms open, and I think 
 Brydget hod as much of the dressing-room 
 as I had, for she liked to talk things over 
 with me, as she expressed it, and we had 
 not much time for such talking during the 
 day. This evening she came into my room 
 seeming gladder even than usual, with all 
 the sunny hair tumbling about her shoul- 
 ders, while she had not yet taken off her 
 wreath, so that she looked almost like a 
 Bacchante, especially when with both 
 hands raised she violently pushed back the 
 hair, that was falling over her face, thus 
 showing to their full extent the round 
 white arms, from which the loose dressing- 
 gown sleeves fell back. 
 
 “ My dear Andromeda,” she exclaimed, 
 “ I am longing to hear how you feel.” 
 
 “ Very sleepy,” I replied, calmly proceed- 
 ing with my undressing, always conducted 
 in a much more orderly fashion than dear 
 winsome Brydget ’s. 
 
 “ Bather stony, I should say,” said 
 Brydget, sinking down on the floor at my 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 115 
 
 feet, and looking up at me, as she now at 
 last proceeded to despoil herself of her 
 flowery crown. “ Has Perseus made a 
 mistake, and shown you Medusa’s head, in- 
 stead of keeping it for — what goddess did 
 he give it to, Gwynydd ? After sitting for 
 Andromeda all the morning, you ought at 
 least to be well, up in the story.” 
 
 “ He gave it to the Goddess of Wisdom,” 
 I replied, “ but that was only after he had 
 made good use of it himself. I had for- 
 gotten about Medusa’s head,” I went on, 
 half to myself. 
 
 “ Then I am glad I reminded you,” con- 
 tinued that absurd Brydget. “ In affairs 
 of this kind it is as well to have all one’s 
 wits about one, and this one strikes me as 
 decidedly romantic.” 
 
 “ What affairs ? My dear Brydget, you 
 don’t know what nonsense you are talking.” 
 “Yes, I do,” cried she, tossing her head, 
 and springing up from the floor, “ it is just 
 the same kind as I always talk, real unmis- 
 takable nonsense, without any mischievous 
 affectation of sense. No, no, I am a true 
 blue Tory, and I hate half measures.” So 
 spoke Brydget, waving her wreath above 
 her head, and beginning to dance a sort of 
 
 8—2 
 
116 
 
 PERSEUS. 
 
 impromptu mazourka, but she paused 
 before I had time to check her, and passing 
 one arm round me, leant her cheek against 
 mine. “ What a pity Andromeda can’t 
 end by marrying Perseus, just as she did 
 long ago.” 
 
 Though I have described her attitude as 
 affectionate, her manner was indescribably 
 saucy, so though at any other time I should 
 have reproved her for making jokes about 
 marriage — a kind of jokes which I had 
 always been accustomed to consider very 
 unladylike, and utterly beneath a Jerning- 
 hame — still just at this moment I wanted 
 to put down her sauciness more decisively, 
 so lightly kissing her, before pushing her 
 away, that I might go on with the twisting 
 up of my hair for the night, I replied, with 
 the utmost coolness, 
 
 “ Well, why should not she ? There is 
 nothing against it, that I know.” 
 
 “ Oh, my dear Gwynydd ! Why it 
 would be impossible,” replied Brydget, 
 with wide open eyes. “ Besides, there is 
 Duke.” 
 
 “ Duke would certainly have nothing to 
 say to it,” I replied, haughtily. 
 
 “ No, I don’t think he would. I don’t 
 
PERSEUS. 
 
 117 
 
 think he would,” cried Brydget, laughing, 
 and kissing me in her turn. “ Oh 
 Gwynydd, you are very wise, but you are 
 the most delicious goose in the world.” 
 
 “ I may be the most delicious goose, 
 though, by the way, I object to the word 
 ‘ delicious ’ used in that manner ; but any- 
 how, Brydget, I have observed that you 
 are very fond lately of introducing Duke’s 
 name where it has no business to be, and 
 where Duke himself would be the last per- 
 son to wish it, and I cannot say that I 
 think it very nice of you, Brydget.” 
 
 Brydget looked astonished at such a 
 severe speech from me, and for a moment 
 or two she grew very red, then she said in 
 those coaxing tones of hers, which no one 
 could resist, “ I did not mean it, Gwen, 
 dear. I did not mean it, but I am so 
 sorry.” Then she put up her face to be 
 kissed, and after that we talked no more of 
 Adrian Levison, nor of Duke either, but 
 only the very next day Brydget was again 
 offending by talking of him in this way, to 
 which I had objected. I did not like it at 
 ah. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 “An unknown sweet land of delicate light, 
 Divinely aired, but where each rose and leaf 
 Was trembling, as if haunted by a dread 
 Of coming thunder. 
 
 Edwin of Deir a. 
 
 They trembled very little, the dread of the 
 coming thunder did not much oppress me 
 as we rode and danced, talked and laughed, 
 treading always those delightful ways, 
 which no human foot treads twice, those 
 ways which, if not of heaven, are yet 
 hardly of earth, for they are consecrated 
 to the old Greek god, eternally blooming 
 Eros. I can tell but little of those days, 
 there is nothing to tell, “ le vrai bonheur 
 ne se decrit pas,” it is difficult to me even 
 to recall them now. I have heard girls 
 discussing whether they enjoy a party most. 
 
NIGHT AND MORNING THOUGHTS. H9 
 
 taking it altogether one thing with another, 
 when there is one man, who makes all the 
 others in the room appear as ciphers, or 
 when all are alike moderately pleasing. It 
 is a subject on which I can form no opinion, 
 
 I only know those parties at which I met 
 Adrian Levison were like bits of Fairyland 
 to me, and I met him often now. I had 
 never enjoyed parties before; I enjoyed them 
 then, and I said it was because London 
 society was so different from any one could 
 possibly have in the country. I do not 
 know if I believed it even when I said it. 
 
 A ballad concert and Adrian Levison 
 sitting next me, that is the next thing I 
 remember in particular, distinctly from all 
 the other things, all more or less delightful ; 
 but what to tell of it I hardly know, and 
 yet I was happy that night ! Happy ! 
 it was not happiness I felt — it was rap- 
 ture. But what idea of this can I give 
 to any one else ? To any one who has 
 not felt it rapture is a word, nothing more, 
 a certain arrangement of seven letters, use- 
 ful also for other words, and not sounding 
 at all particularly harmonious in this parti- 
 cular arrangement. Of what use is it for 
 me to say that, though I did not care for 
 operatic music, never properly understood 
 
120 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 it, as I believe it is to be understood, yet 
 a ballad concert always stirred the depths 
 of my heart, always brought tears to my 
 eyes for very pleasure. Of what use is it 
 even to say that Madame Sainton Dolby 
 sang “Caller Herrin’, Caller Herrin’,” and 
 that though other people said she had gone 
 oft’ it was the first time I had heard that 
 bell-like voice that, even when it has ceased 
 to sound in concert halls, will still ring on 
 its rich melody in the hearts of many for 
 many and many a year to come ? Of what 
 use is it for me to say that Aunt Barbara 
 was talking to General Stevenson, an old 
 friend of hers, and that Brydget on the 
 other side of her was happy with George 
 Lumley — Brydget was always being happy 
 with George Lumley now — and that I had 
 been made to walk into the row first, in 
 order that the General might be next to 
 Aunt Barbara ; and that during the first 
 two songs there was a vacant seat next me, 
 and that then some one took possession of 
 it, and that I, drawing my dress aside, 
 fancying it might be encroaching on this 
 new comer’s seat, looked up and saw Adrian 
 Levison, Perseus, what you will ? What 
 good is there in saying all this to a person 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 121 
 
 who does not know what great effects may 
 be worked by little causes, by the accident 
 of chair seventy-nine being next to chair 
 seventy eight ? 
 
 I talked to Adrian Levison that night for 
 the first time ; before that night I had only 
 spoken with him — spoken with him in the 
 park— spoken with him at dinner-parties, or 
 crowded balls, but always only spoken with 
 him. True, I had learnt to love the sound 
 of his voice — I had learnt to love that very 
 quickly — learnt to look for his coming — to 
 think a room cold and unfurnished when 
 not lighted by his smile ; but I had never 
 talked to him ; and this night I talked to 
 him for the first time, and he talked to me, 
 and w T e listened to the music together. 
 Adrian Levison was a connoisseur in music. 
 He could not sing nor play, but he under- 
 stood the subject thoroughly, and his ear 
 was perfect. During one song he was in 
 agonies, and I was carried away into sharing 
 his agonies with him, and yet, I own it now, 
 I could not detect those false notes over 
 which he groaned. He it was who told me 
 Madame Sainton Dolby had gone off ; he it 
 was who made me properly admire her not- 
 withstanding, only I think I should have 
 
122 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 done so anyhow ; he it was who made me 
 admire all that he pronounced beautiful, 
 and who taught me to see a meaning in 
 music, of which I had never dreamt before, 
 as he talked to me of that German com- 
 poser who now writes operas in which the 
 music expresses each word of the libretto, 
 forgetting that, however expressed, it would 
 yet require another composer of equal talent 
 to hear the words in the music. Adrian 
 Levison first showed me how music can ex- 
 press feelings words never can, ideas that 
 the mind can grasp, but which books can 
 never handle. Nor did we talk only of 
 music ; we talked also of politics, a little, 
 too, of his future career, but of this he spoke 
 very cautiously, always as if keeping back 
 something. Evidently he preferred to talk 
 of the future, as concerned others rather 
 than himself. Then we talked of lighter sub- 
 jects — of our rides together in the Row, ol a 
 journey he had made through Spain, of Cin- 
 tra nightingales, and wild scrambles he had 
 had the year before in the little island of 
 Madeira, where the roads are said to be as 
 steep as possible in the south of the island, 
 but fairly to slope the wrong way in the 
 north, so that horses and people alike have 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 123 
 
 to go up them as flies walk along the ceiling, 
 and where the landscape is ever made radiant 
 by a gorgeous, always-changing tapestry of 
 flowers — the delicate pink belladonnas that 
 grow wild beneath the chestnut-trees giving 
 place to brilliant scarlet poyntsettias, con- 
 volvuli of the blue of summer skies, and 
 white trumpet-shaped daturas, which are 
 succeeded again in their turn by purple and 
 rose bougainvillias, and orange bignonias, 
 that make the eye ache with the rich bright- 
 ness of their colouring. Lastly, he fell to 
 telling wonderful anecdotes about the black 
 pony he now always rode, and which seemed 
 to be descended from some fairy breed, so 
 marvellous did he now make it out to me. 
 “ The gentlest, best-trained pony possible!” 
 he ended by proclaiming it. “It will trot 
 faster than any horse I know, and then it 
 will stop quite short the very instant I wish 
 it, and stand still or wheel round just as 
 I want. It is delightful to see how sur- 
 prised people look sometimes, they cannot 
 understand it stopping short so suddenly. 
 I must make it show oft' to you some 
 day.” 
 
 It was not in this way we praised our 
 ponies in the country ; we praised them for 
 
124 
 
 NTGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 their swiftness, or their powers of endurance, 
 not for suddenly stopping short in full 
 career, or wheeling round all at the rider’s 
 will. It set me thinking a little — Was 
 this the sort of quality wanted in London, 
 in people as well as in ponies ? “ Well 
 
 brought up !” I had heard it said of the 
 Miss Valpys, and of other girls, who would 
 be all enthusiasm one moment over a 
 picture, or a piece of music, and the next 
 laughing at enthusiasm, calling it out of 
 date, showing plainly they had never felt it, 
 only worn the appearance of it to chime in 
 with the feelings of the person talking to 
 them. Was not this, perhaps, what people 
 .meant by saying, “Well brought up ” ? To 
 have no impulses nor opinions of one’s own, 
 but just to hold them as the fashions bade, 
 altering always, when the most part of 
 those with whom one came in contact 
 altered also ? If so, I feared I had been 
 very badly brought up indeed, or that my 
 bringing up had had very little effect upon 
 me but then Madame Sainton Dolby 
 stood up to sing, and after that we talked 
 of music again, Adrian Levison and I, and 
 he gave me new ideas on the subject, ideas, 
 however, which seemed now always to have 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 125 
 
 been mine, only written in sympathetic ink, 
 and but first becoming visible at his words. 
 After that we passed on to a different kind 
 of harmony — the harmony that makes life 
 liveable, and the world endurable, and 
 Adrian Levison spoke very gravely about 
 this. He maintained that the world was a 
 very happy world, the best possible world, 
 but he maintained it very gravely. “ I 
 think it would be a much happier world if 
 we all thought alike,” I remember I said, 
 playfully, “ if there were no Radicals, and 
 no Liberals, and people who thought the 
 world good were content to keep it so.” 
 
 “ In that way you think it would be a 
 more harmonious world,” said Adrian Levi- 
 son, smiling again ; “ but would not the 
 melody be a little nothingly ? Might there 
 not as well be none ? When people talk 
 of changing the world, it sometimes seems 
 to me that they would like to do away 
 with it altogether, and that they think 
 how nice it would have been if we had all 
 been born in heaven ? I think it would 
 have been very nice, but I thank the 
 Creator for the gift of life notwithstanding ; 
 and life would be a mere vegetating, were 
 there no contest, no conflict of opinions.” 
 
126 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 “But should you not be glad that all 
 people should think as you do ?” 
 
 “ Yes, very glad, if you would agree with 
 me that it is better people should differ,” 
 saicl he, provokingly, and then all too soon 
 the concert ended, and Aunt Barbara 
 shook hands warmly with her General, 
 and Brydget grew red and looked down, 
 and said nothing, but yet was a long time 
 bidding good-night to George Lumley, and 
 I held out my hand and said good-bye to 
 Adrian Levison, and we were no time about 
 it at all, only for one moment he looked 
 straight into my eyes, and when I got into 
 the carriage, I felt as if there were a pain at 
 my heart, and I longed to cry, but of 
 course I did not cry. Brydget took hold 
 of Aunt Barbara’s hand, and said, 
 
 “ You darling auntie, I am so glad you 
 had General Stevenson to talk to to-night, 
 for now I am sure you have not heard 
 enough of the music to bore you, and it has 
 been so nice and Aunt Barbara replied, 
 “No, I did not listen to the music much, 
 but I don’t mind ballads, it is only the 
 opera that puts me to sleep. Well, you 
 did not seem to have much to say to Mr. 
 Levison, Gwynydd. I am surprised, I al- 
 ways find him so agreeable.” 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 127 
 
 “ Yes, he is very agreeable,” I said. Oh, 
 the idea of calling him agreeable ! “ But 
 
 we talked quite enough to each other. I 
 liked to listen to the singing, and he seems 
 very fond of music.” 
 
 “ Oh, yes ; all Jews are,” said Aunt Bar- 
 bara. “ By the way, Gwynydd, I wish you 
 would wear that gold band in your hair 
 oftener, it suits you better than anything 
 you have got. I never saw you look so 
 well as you did to-night.” 
 
 “ I will wear it oftener, aunt, but — but is 
 Mr. Levison a Jew ?” I asked, after a mo- 
 ment or two of hesitation. “ Not a Jew by 
 religion, surely!” 
 
 “ Oh, yes, a Jew altogether. I am sure 
 I told you so before, but I should have 
 thought you knew it for yourself. Every 
 one knows about the Levisons, they are 
 only less rich than the Rothschilds, and not 
 one of them has ever been converted. It 
 seems very odd, does it not ? Adrian Levi- 
 son always strikes me as such a much better 
 Christian than any of the other young men 
 I know, but he is a Jew all the same.” 
 
 “ It is a great pity, is it not V’ said 
 Bry dget. “ But you should not run down 
 all the other young men, you know, Aunt 
 
128 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 Barbara, it is a great shame, and I shall 
 stand up for them. You know all the young 
 men I do, and there’s Duke, I am sure he 
 is a good Christian, and there is George 
 Lumley, he is so very fond of going to All 
 Saints.” 
 
 “ If he has been there once it is all he 
 has done, and that more because it is talked 
 of than for any other reason. No, my dear 
 Brydget, church going is not one of George 
 Lumley ’s strong points.” 
 
 “ I am sure he has been talking to me 
 about it all the evening,” said Brydget, pi- 
 teously, “ about the chants they used, when 
 he went there last Sunday, and he says — he 
 says he is sorry he does not like it better,” 
 and Brydget broke down in her defence, in 
 a manner most unusual to her, and her 
 Amice sounded almost as if she were going 
 to cry. 
 
 “ Silly child,” said Aunt Barbara, stoop- 
 ing forward to kiss her, as the carriage 
 stopped at our own door. “ George Lumley 
 shall be an angel if you wish it, but all the 
 same I don’t know any one that I think 
 better than Adrian Levison, and I wish I 
 did. Only remember he is a Jew, so I had 
 rather see you talking to George Lumley 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 129 
 
 or any one else. Now good-night, my dears, 
 and mind you sleep well.” 
 
 But I did not sleep at all that night. I 
 did not fall asleep till the day-light began 
 to creep into the room through the crevices 
 of the closed shutters ; then I fell asleep, 
 and dreamt that Brydget wished to marry 
 George Lumley, and could not, because 
 he was a Jew, only she cried, and said she 
 must marry him, anyhow, and that when 
 he was an angel — I always firmly believed 
 that good people would hereafter be angels, 
 though my father often told me this was a 
 mistaken notion — that it would make no 
 difference whether he had been a Jew on 
 earth or not, and so she had her own way, 
 as she always had, and kissed every one all 
 round, because she was so happy, not ex- 
 cepting Adrian Levison, who happened to 
 be standing by, and who was not a Jew at 
 all in my dream, but as good a Christian as 
 Duke or George Lumley, or any of the 
 other young men whose champion Brydget 
 had constituted herself the night before. 
 Then I woke up and found Brydget was 
 really kissing me, but not because she was 
 going to be married to George Lumley 
 after all, only because it was time to get 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
130 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 up, and that was her way of trying to 
 waken me. 
 
 So that w r as one of the Jews of these 
 modern days, one of the Jews about whose 
 going back to Jerusalem Duke and 1 had 
 held such long talks together, the descend- 
 ant of that ill-treated, oppressed race, whose 
 name had been made a by-word, who had 
 been driven to take to usury, because no 
 other means of earning a livelihood had 
 been left to them, because no one would 
 buy milk or beef or mutton that had been 
 polluted by coming from a Jew. So that 
 w^as one of the Jews, who had in old times 
 been driven out from Portugal, and had 
 killed their children or themselves, some- 
 times both, because King Emanuel, out of 
 his Christian charity, would keep their 
 children, and baptise them ; one of those 
 Jews, who have been banished from all 
 lands, had their property taken from them 
 again and again ; who have been persecuted, 
 treated as outcasts ; in favourable times 
 have been given certain quarters of the city, 
 where they might live, contaminating as 
 little as possible the Christians by their 
 intercourse. I had so often mourned over 
 their injuries, feeling my heart grow hot 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 131 
 
 within me, so often dreamed about that mys- 
 terious sadness, which is said to mark their 
 descendants from among other men, even 
 as Cain’s mark distinguished him ; and now 
 this was the first of their nation I had seen 
 and known, this Adrian Levison, in whose 
 voice “ inner music semeed to play sym- 
 phony to all his words.” I was startled, 
 greatly startled, but I do not know that I 
 was shocked, not at least as I think other 
 girls would have been, by hearing that the 
 man they had been talking to all the evening, 
 the man whom they thought the most fasci- 
 nating of all the men they knew — the only 
 fascinating man I thought him — that he 
 was not even a Christian, was a Jew, indeed, 
 and that therefore between him and them 
 there was a great gulf fixed — a gulf that 
 could never be crossed over, for no Levison 
 had ever become a Christian. 
 
 I do not know how it is with others, per- 
 haps no two people feel quite alike on that 
 subject, but I have always had a great dis- 
 like to talking to people whose religious 
 opinions differed much from my own, it has 
 always seemed to me as if it were impossible 
 to speak to them from one’s heart, even on 
 the most indifferent topic. Perhaps it would 
 
 9—2 
 
132 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 be hard to say whose opinions did differ 
 much from my own, for what I had always 
 aimed at from a child was catholicity, but 
 Roman Catholics, who hold that 
 
 “ God will damn for ever 
 All wlio think those things untrue, 
 
 Of which priests make such ado,” 
 
 and the very Low Church party, who in 
 this, as in more points than they would 
 readily grant, have always seemed to me to 
 agree with the Romanists, all such people 
 had always exercised a repellent influence 
 over me. Perhaps it was partly because I 
 was the daughter of a Dean, and did not 
 wish to have my faith shaken, anyhow, al- 
 though I had always been ready enough to 
 believe that there was no religion without 
 some truth in it, and that there might 
 eventually be as many followers of Con- 
 fucius in heaven as of Luther, indeed, pro- 
 bably more in consideration of their greater 
 numbers, yet I always had an instinctive 
 shrinking from those whose opinions differed 
 much from my own, especially when it was 
 rather by greater or less intensity of colour- 
 ing, than as being regularly different opin- 
 ions. It seems almost as if there were some 
 confusion in my mind that I should write 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 133 
 
 all this, when I am trying to make clear to 
 myself how it was that it gave me no dis- 
 like to Adrian Levison to hear that he 
 belonged to the most intolerant religion 
 that perhaps ever existed, but what I felt 
 was that just that reason that made me 
 shrink from being friends with a Roman 
 Catholic did not apply at all as regarded 
 a Jew. A Jew’s opinions were necessarily 
 entirely different from my own, I thought, 
 there seemed to be then no danger of my 
 ever imbibing them, or ever allowing my 
 thoughts to be coloured by them ; nor did 
 it seem then even possible that there should 
 ever be any religious discussion between 
 me and a Jew, always a painful matter 
 where opinions differ, and in which the 
 feelings of one party at least are generally 
 roughly handled. This could never be the 
 case where there was no common ground to 
 start from, only the Old Testament, and 
 that no Christian looks at but through the 
 light the New Testament has cast upon it, 
 thus making it tell a very different tale from 
 that which it tells the J ew. Thus ail these 
 dangers being set aside, the controversial 
 danger and the converting danger, there 
 remained only my great love of catholicity 
 
134 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS AND 
 
 and the thought that all religions contain 
 great truths, that next to the Christian the 
 Jewish religion contains most of all, and 
 that the spirit of the Christian religion is 
 love, love to all men, not only to Christians 
 or to those who think just like ourselves. 
 These were the thoughts I fell asleep with 
 in the dawning, but when Brydget woke 
 me in the daylight, already things wore 
 very different colours. 
 
 Nothing had happened during the night, 
 nothing was altered since I fell asleep, only 
 my way of viewing things had changed. 
 The power that Adrian Levison’s presence 
 had exercised over me was weaker now. I 
 could no longer view things in the large- 
 minded, exalted fashion of last night. I 
 shrank from thinking that he was a Jew ; 
 I would not, could not believe it. Perhaps 
 he might call himself so : that was dreadful 
 enough, but that might be possible. Only 
 I could not believe that he was a Jew at 
 heart ; there could be no Jews now, really, 
 not at least among educated men. 
 
 In the bright light of that clear Spring 
 morning I declared to myself that the ful- 
 filment of prophecy must long ago have 
 convinced all capable of understanding such 
 
MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 135 
 
 proof. No one could be more so than 
 Adrian Levison ; and even without this, 
 the Christian religion all around them must 
 have long ere this cleared away all lingering 
 doubts from those of his people able to 
 think at all. Besides all Jews were said to 
 look sad. Where I had first heard this I 
 cannot now remember ; but it had certainly 
 made a great impression on my mind, and 
 a heavy weight seemed to pass from my 
 heart, as I recalled Adrian Levison’s sunny 
 smile, Adrian Levison’s ringing voice. 
 
 I often think now what a mistake people 
 make in arranging elaborate laws to repress 
 crime, building penitentiaries and prisons, 
 and sending Government Inspectors all 
 about the country to see that children are 
 taught according to the laws of the land. 
 Why do they not send a few Adrian Levi- 
 son’s about the country, and let the people 
 hear a really merry laugh, listen to a really 
 light-hearted voice ? They would soon put 
 away their sins from them, and try to grow 
 innocent and light-hearted as well. I be- 
 lieve if we were all innocent we could all 
 laugh like that. I never wished so much 
 to be good as after I first knew Adrian Levi- 
 son. I then first saw how attractive good- 
 
136 NIGHT AND MORNING THOUGHTS. 
 
 ness was. Up to that time I had always 
 striven to be good, prayed to be good, but 
 as a weary task, of which the reward might 
 one day be sweet, but one that was very 
 difficult, almost impossible to gain. Now I 
 first saw that the wish to be good brought 
 its ow r n reward ; that trying to be good was 
 in reality a far, far happier state than allow- 
 ing oneself to be bad. I have never for- 
 gotten it since, but it requires some resolu- 
 tion to grasp at happiness, it requires some 
 courage to aim at goodness, and I was 
 always weak, never could say what I 
 wanted, much less could ever try to obtain 
 it. So now I shrank from believing the 
 truth, and said to myself that it was im- 
 possible that Adrian Levison should be a 
 Jew. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 “ Clown. — If you have any music that may not he 
 heard, to it again ; but, as they say, to hear music the 
 general does not greatly care.” 
 
 Othello, the Moor of Venice. 
 
 We had not as yet gone to the opera. 
 When we first came up to town Brydget 
 had been very desirous to do so, but Aunt 
 Barbara had said music bored her, and 
 Uncle Basset that he disapproved of 
 operas ; so we had rather given up the 
 thought of it, till after the ballad concert, 
 Brydget, whilst expatiating on its delights 
 to my uncle, who had not heard it, began 
 again, 
 
 “ How I should like to go to the opera !” 
 
 “Well, you shall go, if you wish it so 
 much, only don’t expect me to go with 
 you. I dare say Mrs. Valpy would not 
 
138 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 mind chaperoning you some night ; the 
 Miss Valpys are very fond of going.” 
 
 So in the end it was settled that we were 
 to go to the opera with Mrs. and Miss 
 Valpy ; and when Lady Brydget heard of 
 the project, she became indignant at not 
 having been asked to take charge of us her- 
 self, and immediately offered us her box for 
 whatever night we would like it. This 
 seemed very satisfactory ; only Uncle Basset 
 rather surprised Brydget and me by being 
 exceedingly fussy as to which night we 
 should go. We had not thought he would 
 care, as he had from the first declined to 
 be “ victimised ” himself ; but he replied 
 to us with one of his favourite quotations, 
 
 “ ‘ Timotheus, to his breathing flute 
 
 And sounding lyre 
 
 Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.’ 
 
 Every schoolboy knows that, thanks to 
 Dryden ; but people seem to forget that an 
 opera, with all modern musical and scenic 
 improvements, may possibly have a yet 
 greater effect.” 
 
 Having made this speech, my uncle pro- 
 nounced that Don Giovanni was the 
 opera we ought to hear first ; and no one 
 falling ill, nor any other unforeseen accident 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 139 
 
 arriving to necessitate the changing of the 
 piece, Brydget and I went with Mrs. and 
 Miss Valpy to hear Don Giovanni. 
 
 “ Well, I hope you enjoyed yourselves 
 last night, girls,” said my uncle, in rather 
 a sarcastic tone of voice, next morning at 
 breakfast. 
 
 “ No, we did not enjoy ourselves at all, 
 thank you,” said Brydget, doggedly, becom- 
 ing at once all intent upon her breakfast. 
 
 “I am afraid we do not quite under- 
 stand operatic music,” I said, trying to 
 speak rather more pleasantly, for I knew 
 Uncle Basset had made a concession in 
 letting us go ; and so, though we had not 
 enjoyed the opera, I thought we yet ought 
 to be grateful. 
 
 “ Oh, you don’t understand operatic 
 music. That means you don’t like it, I 
 suppose,” said Uncle Basset. “ But did 
 you not think the dancing very pretty and 
 graceful ?” 
 
 “ No, we did not,” cried Brydget, flaring 
 up into the same red-hot state of indigna- 
 tion she had been in the evening before. 
 “ I wanted to come away, and Mrs. Valpy 
 would not, and I never will go again. I 
 think it is horrid, and if it were not usual 
 
140 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 for people to go, I am sure they would all 
 think any one person who liked it, horrid. 
 No one can really like it, I am sure, nor the 
 opera either. People only go because 
 others do, and then they pretend they see 
 no harm in anything, because they are so 
 wrapt up in the music. I hate such pre- 
 tence,” said Brydget. 
 
 “ You see you made the mistake of 
 going to an opera understanding Italian,” 
 said Uncle Basset, more quietly than he 
 had yet spoken, apparently satisfied by the 
 storm he had raised. 
 
 “No, I don’t understand Italian, I don’t 
 understand one word of it,” cried Brydget, 
 desperately ; “ but I — I hate the opera, if 
 it is all like that, and I am sure it must 
 be ; all very much like it, at least, or else 
 Don Giovanni would be hissed off the stage. 
 It is only that people have gradually accus- 
 tomed themselves to it.” 
 
 “ Well done, Brydget !” cried Uncle Bas- 
 set. “You are quite right, the other 
 operas may not be quite like the one you 
 have seen, but they are very much so. 
 The words may be better in some than in 
 others, but you say you did not understand 
 them.” Of course Uncle Basset knew that 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 141 
 
 librettos generally have an English trans- 
 lation by the side of the Italian, but 
 Brydget had not alluded to this, so neither 
 did he. “ Anyhow, the music has always 
 much the same tendency, and I say it is a 
 bad tendency, and that no one can go often 
 to the opera without being decidedly de- 
 moralised by it, either in one way or an- 
 other. You might, perhaps, have gone to 
 some opera that might have pleased you, 
 and in which you would not have detected 
 the poison at first, and so gradually you 
 might have been educated to admire even 
 Don Giovanni, and not to see the poison in 
 it either, but it would have told all the 
 same, and I wanted to save you and 
 Gwynydd from this. That is why I sent 
 you to Don Giovanni first, and now I am 
 glad to see you seem to be in no hurry to 
 go to the opera again.” 
 
 “ No, I will never go again,” said Brydget, 
 doggedly, while my uncle having got upon 
 one of his favourite hobbies, now went on 
 once more : 
 
 “ I think the amount of harm that 
 music is doing now-a-days would be dif- 
 ficult to estimate. People sing hymns to 
 tunes to which they formerly would not 
 
142 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 have thought it fit to dance, and then be- 
 cause the music gives them some feeling — 
 what they do not pause to analyse — they 
 call it spirit-stirring, and are quite unaware 
 that it is rather spirit-deadening, and that 
 the next really true harmonious sound will 
 fall flat upon their ears after the insidious, 
 enervating music in which they have been 
 delighting themselves. Not to speak of the 
 innumerable hours girls, without a note of 
 music in their composition, are compelled 
 to waste daily at the piano ; not to speak of 
 the innumerable unhappy marriages that 
 never would have taken place but for one 
 of these pernicious melodies striking upon 
 the ear at an unguarded moment ; not to 
 speak of all these, I say that the English 
 nation is being utterly demoralised by the 
 immensity of licentious music that is being 
 thrown broadcast through the land at 
 opera houses, music halls, concerts, and, 
 I regret also to add, at private parties. It 
 is a real comfort to me that you are not 
 musical, Gwynydd, and that Brydget’s re- 
 pertoire doss not aspire beyond a few of our 
 simple old English ballads. Sing those, 
 Brydget, and you will make your children 
 purer, and your husband love his home 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 143 
 
 more dearly, but let me never find you 
 taking to those new comic songs, as they 
 call them — tragic songs, I call them, for to 
 me it is tragic — that in an age which boasts 
 of its enlightenment, people should find 
 pleasure in burlesques, extravaganzas, and 
 such songs as those now in vogue. When 
 I first heard a young lady sing * Villikins 
 and his Dinah,’ I blushed for my country 
 that had so degenerated, and thought with 
 renewed admiration of the Athenians taking 
 pleasure in Euripides.” 
 
 “Hear, hear!” said Aunt Barbara. 
 
 “ Basset, I believe you think you are in the 
 House, but if it is a rehearsal, I think it 
 will do very well. J e vons en fais mes com- 
 plimens. That bit about the children and 
 the husband loving his home wants en- 
 larging a little. Englishmen can never hear 
 too much of that sort of thing ; they like 
 to go into little rhapsodies about their 
 homes, because they know they are well 
 snubbed there, and that it does them good. 
 Come, now, Basset, are you going to ride 
 with the girls this morning, or shall I take 
 them for some shopping ? I believe they 
 like riding best.” 
 
 “ Then they shall ride with me,” said 
 
144 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 Uncle Basset, good-humouredly; “but if 
 snubbing is good for people, you certainly 
 take care that I get my fair share of it, 
 Bab.” 
 
 “ You take it so well,” said Aunt Barbara, 
 laughing ; “ besides, I told you your speech 
 was very good, only I want Gwynydd to 
 write a whole lot of notes for me before she 
 goes out, and pleasant though it was to 
 listen to you, yet * Business before plea- 
 sure,’ you know, always was my motto.” 
 
 So I was carried off to write innumerable 
 notes for Aunt Barbara, and found, to my 
 surprise, that while Brydget and I had 
 been away the evening before, she and 
 Uncle Basset had decided to give a fancy 
 ball, or rather that my aunt had proposed 
 it and my uncle had made no objection, 
 
 “ Of course it is not the right time of 
 year,” said Aunt Barbara, handing me a 
 list of names, and then settling herself in 
 her own particular lounging chair, “but 
 that is, I suppose, why nobody else gives 
 one, and I want you and Brydget to see 
 everything this season. It is all very well 
 for one season to find everything quite new 
 and wonderful, and be yourself quite inno- 
 cent or ignorant, whichever people like to 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 145 
 
 call it ; but after one season in town, I con- 
 sider that a young lady ought to know 
 everything — everything that relates to good 
 society I mean. My first ball, my first 
 flower-show, my first opera, it is all very 
 nice as long as everything is first, but it 
 becomes tiresome afterwards.” 
 
 “We must make the most of our first 
 things, then,” whispered Brydget ; “ for un- 
 less good society is of an inventive turn, I 
 am afraid they are fast coming to an end, 
 aren’t you, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 Then while I looked out addresses and 
 wrote notes, Brydget began to inquire, 
 “And what shall I have to wear, Aunt 
 Barbara ? Gwynydd, of course, will be 
 Andromeda, though I am sure I don’t 
 know how she was dressed when she was 
 not tied to a rock.” 
 
 “ Don’t be silly, Brydget. I hate repre- 
 senting real characters, though Andromeda 
 certainly hardly was a real character ; but I 
 hate taking names in that way, almost, 
 though not quite as much, as I hate original 
 dresses, which are always only original in 
 being uglier than anything any one could 
 be conceived wearing in ordinary life. No, 
 
 I have quite settled what you and Gwynydd 
 
 VOL. i. 10 
 
146 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 are to wear : you are to be a shepherdess, 
 and she is to have a Greek dress — modem 
 Greek, mind, not ancient — it is quite 
 enough to be painted as Andromeda. Now 
 let me alone, I have got to put myself au 
 courant of the last novelties.” 
 
 So Aunt Barbara rustled the paper, and 
 Brydget set to work at a patchwork quilt, 
 a large undertaking, that yet had to be 
 completed before our return to St. Mar- 
 garet’s, in order to delight old Goody 
 Blake’s heart, to whom nothing that Lon- 
 don could supply would be so acceptable as 
 this work of her darling Brydget’s nimble 
 fingers, and meanwhile I requested the 
 pleasure — and requested the pleasure — till 
 it became quite a monotonous process, and 
 my thoughts were free to go back to the 
 opera of the night before, and I wondered 
 why it had shocked Brydget so much more 
 than me. I feared I must be wicked in 
 reality, and my life only a mockery, and a 
 playing at being good, for nothing ever 
 seemed to shock me. I had not much ad- 
 mired the music, and I certainly did not wish 
 to go to hear just that opera again, but I saw 
 no reason why there might not be another 
 opera, that might seem to be sent straight 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 147 
 
 from heaven, and would be, in fact, all that 
 Adrian Levison had described it. Uncle 
 Basset had doubtless good reason to speak 
 so strongly as he had that morning ex- 
 pressed himself, but for my own part I had 
 not yet felt the demoralising influence of 
 modern music ; it must be, I feared, be- 
 cause I was so bad already. And while I 
 thus thought to myself, the notes got them- 
 selves written, and Brydget and I ran up- 
 stairs to put on our habits. 
 
 Certainly there is nothing so delightful 
 as riding. With a good horse that knows 
 its rider, and the sun shining just warmly 
 enough to make the shade appear attrac- 
 tive, 'but not too warmly, thanks to the 
 grateful breeze, what could any one wish 
 for more ? I felt as if I certainly wished 
 for nothing ; and when George Lumley 
 joined Brydget, and they two went on a 
 little faster than we did, and I rode by my 
 uncle looking at them, and looking at all 
 the many people I knew, and the still 
 more numerous people I did not know, 
 wicked though I had feared I must be 
 earlier in the morning, I only wondered 
 now whether any one in all the Park was as 
 happy as I was, and decided I could not 
 
 10—2 
 
148 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 be so wicked after all, that wickedness 
 itself was but an ugly bogey, with which 
 men frightened themselves and each 
 other, but which had no existence really .. 
 How could it in a world so bright ? 
 
 “ There’s nothing half so sweet in life 
 As love’s young dream ! 
 
 Ob, there’s nothing half so sweet in life 
 As love’s young dream !” 
 
 hummed Uncle Basset, looking at the two 
 in front. 
 
 “ So you think it is that really,” I said, 
 inquiringly. 
 
 “ My dear Gwynydd, have you got two 
 eyes in your head ? Yes, I see you have, 
 and a very fine pair, too. Of course it is 
 plain enough that George Lumley has been 
 head over ears in love with Brydget since 
 the first moment he saw her, and that she, 
 though she coquettes with him a little, as 
 girls will when they get the opportunity, 
 yet likes him well enough all the same. 
 Well, I am sure I have no objection ; he is 
 a good young fellow, though he was rusti- 
 cated last year, but he’ll steady down soon 
 enough when he is married, and the pro- 
 perty is all strictly ent ailed. San dilands 
 is as fine a place as you’ll find anywhere ; it 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 149 
 
 will be nice to see little Brjdget queening 
 it there, will it not ?” 
 
 But my eyes bad so filled with tears at 
 the thought of losing my darling sister that 
 they could not rejoice at this imaginary 
 prospect, which seemed so present to Uncle 
 Basset. Of course I had often thought 
 that Brydget and George Lumley were 
 what is called in love with one another. I 
 had, indeed, written something to that effect 
 to my mother, only so vaguely expressed 
 that, as appeared by her answer, she had 
 not understood it; but it made it so terribly 
 certain to hear some one else speak of it, as 
 of an established fact, considering the 
 worldly advantages, and how Brydget 
 would look at Sandilands. I could not 
 bear to think of it in that way, of the 
 entail, and the broad acres, and the old 
 family place, and least of all, the probability 
 of George Lumley ’s steadying down after 
 his marriage. If that was only a proba- 
 bility, there must still be a possibility that 
 he might not. But no, there was not, I 
 could not think of it, the breeze blew so 
 softly on my cheek, the sun shone, and the 
 birds sang ; we put our horses to a canter, 
 and once more all the world was bright to 
 
150 
 
 UNCLE BASSET S OPINIONS. 
 
 me, and Brydget and George Lumley and 
 their love for one another were all a 
 beautiful Idyll, which every one might 
 watch with sympathising interest, but 
 which no one might dare to disturb by 
 thinking of possible advantages. 
 
 “How the birds sing!” cried Adrian 
 Levison, turning round his black pony, and 
 riding along on the other side of my uncle, 
 to whom he handed a paper. “ There, 
 that is the letter you asked me for yester- 
 day. I thought I should meet you here 
 to-day. Good morning, Miss Jerninghame ; 
 are not these birds worth fifty operas ?” 
 
 “ That they are!” I exclaimed. “ But if 
 one could have the opera out here in the 
 fresh air and sunshine, it would be very 
 nice, too.” This I said doubtingly. 
 
 “No, no; ‘colours seen by candle-light 
 do not look the same by day,’ ” laughed 
 Adrian Levison. “ Mario might be charm- 
 ing as ever, but fancy the buffo singer on 
 such a morning as this, or any of the ladies 
 but the prima donna,” this with a bow to 
 me, though why he should bow to me then 
 I could not imagine, seeing that he knew I 
 could not sing a note. “ To enjoy any- 
 thing one must have a mind properly 
 
UNCLE BASSETS OPINIONS. 
 
 151 
 
 attuned, or there results a sad discord, and 
 my mind is attuned now to a good canter 
 and hearing the sound of my own voice. 
 At least so it would appear. I always 
 have sympathised with Madame Du Maine, 
 have not you ? when she said she was fond 
 of society, because she listened to no one 
 and every one listened to her.” 
 
 “No, I don’t think I do sympathise with 
 her,” I replied, smiling. “ I had always 
 rather listen than talk.” 
 
 Meanwhile my uncle had glanced over 
 the paper that had been handed to him, 
 and now stuffed it into his pocket. 
 
 “ Thank you, Levison ; it is just what 
 you said. But wishing to hear the sound 
 of your own voice, are you ? That is almost 
 as bad as falling in love with your own 
 reflection.” 
 
 “ Poor Narcissus ! I always thought he 
 was badly used,” said Adrian Levison, care- 
 lessly. “ But now, are you not convinced 
 by that letter ? Do you not think that 
 this is only another instance of the good 
 man spoken against, the commonplace man 
 over-estimated ?” 
 
 “ Quite so, quite so,” replied my uncle, 
 moving uneasily in his saddle as he spoke. 
 
152 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 “ I hope now you will present Mr. Chilling- 
 worth to that living you spoke of, if only 
 to show that you at least are uninfluenced 
 by the newspaper reports against him.” 
 
 “ A good man like Roger Chillingworth — 
 a great man I had almost called him, only, 
 perhaps, good is the higher title — it ought 
 to he at all events — a man like him pro- 
 bably knows how to estimate the world’s 
 opinion without needing a pat on the back 
 from me, whose only claim to his attention 
 is that I have always believed in him. Be- 
 sides, of all people my support will do him 
 the least good.” I looked up at this, but 
 Adrian Levison’s face was unclouded, not only 
 that, there seemed a light to shine out of it ; 
 but perhaps I was blinded by the sunshine, 
 it was very bright just then. He went 
 on: “It seems at the first glance just, in- 
 deed, the least I could do, to try to give him 
 the competence and comfortable home he 
 has now lost, but is it just to the world to 
 remove from a sphere of activity a man 
 who shows himself so brave to battle with 
 the evil ? True, the world has ill-treated 
 him, misjudged him, but the world is such 
 a misguided world it is hardly fair to 
 punish it for its faults, and though Mr. 
 
UNCLE BASSETS OPINIONS. 
 
 153 
 
 Chillingworth would do good work wherever 
 he might be placed, still it would be rather 
 work for posterity than for the present 
 time if he were removed, to a country vil- 
 lage, and the present time needs such men 
 sorely.” 
 
 “ Yes, the world is out of joint, as it 
 always has been, and as I am afraid it 
 always will be ; hut whom do you think of 
 appointing rather than Chillingworth ?” 
 
 “ There is a Mr. Brown, with whom I 
 have long been acquainted : he has been a 
 curate for thirty years, and has a wife and 
 six children ; the children would do better 
 in the country, and might besides be useful 
 there, whilst in London what can children 
 do ? He has worked hard, perhaps not 
 less hard than Boger Chillingworth, though 
 without such abilities ; but his time of 
 drudgery has certainly lasted longer, and he 
 is almost broken down by it now. Would 
 it be just to pass him over ?” And Adrian 
 Levison looked at Uncle Basset as if he 
 were really asking his advice, and could not 
 decide unaided. 
 
 “ Is it just to leave Chillingworth op- 
 pressed by the load of obloquy his disinte- 
 rested conduct has drawn upon himself, with- 
 
154 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 out doing anything to right him in the 
 world’s eyes? Why not ask him, if he would 
 prefer to stay and live it down or go where 
 he could work in peace, no longer impeded 
 by the unjust enemies his recent conduct has 
 drawn upon himself ?” 
 
 “ What ! put him to the test ! Add 
 another difficulty, because he is already 
 weighed down with difficulties ! No, never; 
 it may be difficult for me to decide, but I 
 will not cast my difficulty upon another 
 man’s shoulders. Indeed, I have already 
 decided. Mr. Brown shall have the living; 
 it is more just that he should, though I 
 should have ten times the pleasure in giving 
 the presentation to Roger Chillingworth. 
 But now I want to ask a favour of you, 
 Lord Basset. You think Mr. Chillingworth 
 aggrieved, will you send that letter to the 
 Times, and have it published at your re- 
 quest ? I would do it myself directly, but 
 it would have ten times the effect coming 
 from you ; indeed, my name being mixed 
 up in the affair would probably do him more 
 harm than good. He is sufficiently censured 
 as broad already.” 
 
 “ I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Uncle 
 Basset, drawing the letter from his pocket, 
 
UNCLE BASSET S OPINIONS. 
 
 155 
 
 and looking at it again ; “I hardly feel as 
 if I were called upon, besides, ‘quieia non 
 movere,’ would it not be better just to let 
 things take their course ?” 
 
 “ You think it the kindest line of action ?” 
 said Adrian Levison. It was impossible to 
 say whether there was any irony in his 
 voice. 
 
 “ No, not the kindest ; the wisest, per- 
 haps ; hut no, certainly not the kindest.” 
 Uncle Basset seemed uneasy. “ Here, 
 Gwynydd, you always have a clear head ; 
 look at this letter, and tell me whether you 
 think it would do any harm to publish it.” 
 
 So I looked at the letter, and by the help 
 of a little explanation, understood that Mr. 
 Chillingworth had been suspected of very 
 underhand conduct, and of very unorthodox 
 doctrine, in consequence of which he had 
 been deprived of a very good and influential 
 post he had held, and left with an under- 
 paid London curacy, and that this letter 
 proved that his conduct, far from being 
 underhand, had been almost rashly above- 
 board, but that it cast rather a serious im- 
 putation upon the writer of the first article 
 that had appeared against him. “ If you 
 believe he has been falsely accused, and 
 
156 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 that the other man did it on purpose, I 
 should publish that letter,” I said. 
 
 “ Not otherwise, Miss Jerninghame; not 
 if you believed the other man to be mis- 
 taken ?” asked Adrian Levison, quickly. 
 
 “ It would not be kind,” I repeated. 
 
 “ People have been condemned to death 
 on false accusations before now ; it might 
 not be kind to their accusers to tell them 
 they told falsehoods ; but would it have 
 been right to keep such knowledge to one- 
 self, if one had it ? Would it be any con- 
 solation after the victim was gone from 
 man’s justice, or injustice, to think that one 
 might have righted him in the world’s eyes, 
 but would not, out of kindness to his 
 accusers ?” 
 
 “ You will publish that letter, will you 
 not, uncle ?” 
 
 “Well, I will see. Festina lente,” said 
 Uncle Basset ; but I knew when he said he 
 would see that he meant he would do it, 
 and so apparently did Mr. Levison, for he 
 smiled as he said, 
 
 “ Depend upon injustice is true kindness, 
 Miss Jerninghame.” 
 
 “Yes, if we knew how to be just,” I re- 
 plied, but he did not seem to hear me. He 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 157 
 
 was pointing out in the crowd under the 
 trees a man whom I had expressed a wish to 
 see — an artist who, though yet young, had 
 already been more prolific in his paintings 
 than almost any of those who have yet won 
 for themselves a name such that we almost 
 bow our heads as we mention it. I looked 
 at the young artist with interest ; he might 
 one day, perhaps, he as great as any of his 
 predecessors, or he might — yes, of course, 
 he might be content “ to sit down with a 
 little success.” 
 
 “ Because he has the gift to conceive and 
 to execute more rapidly than ever man did 
 before, all the art critics are now repeating 
 to him what Lord Basset quoted just now, 
 
 ‘ Festina lente.’ Fortunately he does not 
 listen to them, but consults his own genius 
 instead.” 
 
 “ That is all very well, Levison,” said my 
 uncle, laughing, “ but he always reminds 
 me of that saying, ‘Hell is paved with 
 good intentions.’ This fellow is determined 
 none of his intentions shall go to make 
 paving-stones, he carries them out as he 
 thinks of them.” 
 
 “ Well, I admire his energy ; the fault of 
 most people is that they attempt too little. 
 
158 
 
 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 It may be true that giants in all ages have 
 warred against God — it was a giant himself 
 said so — but anyhow there is one of your 
 hymns which says very truly what idle 
 hands do. I admire a man like this, who 
 gives himself no time to be idle.” 
 
 “ So do I,” said my uncle again, “ and I 
 don’t want to depreciate him at all, but 
 unless it is that he, like all great geniuses, 
 is constantly dissatisfied with what he has 
 done, I think his energy approaches to 
 restlessness. No man can perfect more 
 than a few great works, and great works 
 are what men ought to aim at. 
 
 “ ‘ Greatly begin! though tbou have time 
 But for a line, be that sublime — 
 
 Not failure, but low aim, is crime.’ ” 
 
 “ You have knocked me down with your 
 quotation as usual,” and Adrian Levison 
 bent over his pony’s neck, and patted it, 
 while the beautiful creature tossed her 
 head, and seemed hardly able to contain 
 herself for pleasure at his notice. “ But 
 these pictures of which we were talking can 
 hardly be said to aim low. If they have a 
 fault, it is rather that they are sublime be- 
 ginnings left unfinished. However, what 
 
UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 159 
 
 provokes me is that the critics should 
 attempt to dictate to such a man. It is his 
 duty to follow out his genius, and it is 
 theirs to take what he gives them, and be 
 thankful. Fancy a great picture, or a great 
 poem, or even a beautiful day, made accord- 
 ing to rules, such rules as men would lay 
 down.” 
 
 “ Fancy it !” exclaimed Brydget, who was 
 either tired of her tete-a-tete, or wanted to 
 enhance her value to George Lumley by 
 deserting him for a little. “ I am sure the 
 day laid down by my rules would be quite 
 delightful. Men, I dare say, don’t under- 
 stand about that sort of thing ; but women 
 would arrange it charmingly. I should 
 like to invite you to spend such a day as 
 Gwynydd and I would lay down.” 
 
 “ Would you lay down the day or the 
 rules ?” asked Uncle Basset. “ Come, come, 
 Brydget, let us hear how you would set 
 about making a beautiful day !” 
 
 “ First I would say that no one was to 
 tease any one, for half the beauty of the 
 day always consists in the frame of mind of 
 the people to whom it is to be beautiful ; 
 and next I should say that no one was to 
 be kept more than half an hour waiting for 
 
160 UNCLE BASSET’S OPINIONS. 
 
 luncheon, just for the same reason, and be- 
 cause no one’s temper is improved by that 
 sort of thing.” 
 
 “ Oh, poor Aunt Barbara !” I exclaimed. 
 “We have got to go to a kettledrum this 
 afternoon, and she will want a little drive 
 first.” 
 
 “Yes, we must hurry home, really.” So 
 we hurried home, and the sun shone, and 
 the birds sang, and the wind whispered, 
 “ Happy day ! happy day !” Could I believe 
 that Adrian Levison was a Jew ? I laughed 
 at myself for having been uneasy about it. 
 He was the best man, and the most charm- 
 ing, I had ever known, that was all. Still 
 I felt uneasy as I said so to myself, but I 
 tried to crush the uneasiness away. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN LADY BRYDGET’S STUDIO. 
 
 “ Obstinate questionings 
 Of sense and outward things, 
 
 Fallings from us, vanish ings, 
 
 Blank misgivings of a creature 
 Moving about in worlds not realised.” 
 
 JVordsvcorth. 
 
 The long vacation had begun, and Duke 
 had come up to town. We often met now. 
 He lived with Lady Brydget, of course, in 
 that pretty little house, that was so full of 
 objets de vertu, one never quite knew, 
 when one was in it, whether one was in an 
 artist’s studio, or a bijou museum, or where, 
 and where Duke was often sadly puzzled 
 to know what to do with all his length of 
 limb. Not that Duke was awkward ; at 
 least not as other men are awkward. He 
 never gave me the idea of being embarrassed 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
162 IN LADY BRYDGET’s STUDIO. 
 
 by his height, only of being conscious of it, 
 and of being conscious also that there could 
 not be room for him in a space already so 
 abundantly occupied by mutilated Psyches, 
 dying Gladiators, and dancing Fauns. 
 
 It was wonderful how often I had to sit 
 to Lady Brydget now. She was deter- 
 mined, she said, on making a real picture 
 this time. Hitherto hers had only been 
 dilettante work. If she had but had the 
 good fortune to have been obliged to work 
 for her livelihood, she believed she would 
 have been an artist long ere this. But 
 now Perseus and Andromeda was to be her 
 chef d’ceuvrc, and to accomplish this it was 
 necessary that her model should be very 
 obliging. 
 
 So I was very obliging ; that is to say, I 
 went and sat in the particularly picturesque 
 little room Lady Brydget called her studio, 
 and suffered myself to be posed, and as- 
 sumed expressions to order — at least as well 
 as I could ; I fear I was very stupid about 
 this — and made no objection to having re- 
 marks made upon me, and in fact allowed 
 myself to be treated just as if I were a real 
 model, paid so much the hour. And, indeed, 
 I think I was paid, very well paid often, for 
 
IN LADY RRYDUEt’s STUDIO. 163 
 
 all Lady Brydget’s family were well known 
 as patrons of art and literature, and she her- 
 self did a good deal of patronising also, be- 
 sides painting so well that many people 
 agreed with her that she would have made 
 an artist long ere this, if only she had been 
 compelled to work for her livelihood. ; so 
 that not seldom during these mornings I 
 spent in the pretty studio, one or other of 
 those men whose names are household, 
 names with all of us, whether we know 
 themselves or not, would, come in, and. 
 would, talk a much more satisfactory talk 
 than any that would be extracted from him 
 at a dinner-party, or on any of those other 
 occasions when the world generally meets 
 its great men. 
 
 I enjoyed these mornings thoroughly. 
 Sometimes Duke was there ; sometimes he 
 was not. When other people came in he 
 often disappeared. He knew he must not 
 sit silent all the while, it would not be 
 civil, and yet he knew also that his mother 
 loved to have most of the talk to herself, 
 or at all events addressed to herself ; so he 
 generally made some excuse and slipped, 
 away. But other mornings no one would 
 come in, and then Duke would stay, and 
 
 11—2 
 
164 IN LADY BRYDGET’s STUDIO. 
 
 really I think those mornings were the 
 pleasantest — those mornings which we spent 
 alone together, Duke and Lady Brydget 
 and I. 
 
 It is very interesting to know great men, 
 but I think one was meant to admire 
 them in their works, or reverence them in 
 their lives, not just to find them agreeable 
 as acquaintances. It seems to me hardly 
 treating them with sufficient honour to use 
 them in that way. Now Lady Brydget 
 was very clever, and very well informed, 
 and had the most charming manners pos- 
 sible ; and Duke was very good, and very 
 clever, too, in his own way, which was quite 
 unlike any one else’s way ; but I do not think 
 they could ever have been what is called 
 “ great so we could talk out our ideas 
 together, and I could listen to their opinions, 
 and differ from them, all without feeling as 
 if I were treating cheques, which might 
 yet be filled up to any amount, just as if 
 they were so many shillings intended for 
 the every-day purchases of common life. 
 
 Duke was very unhappy in his mind at 
 that time. I do not recollect when Duke 
 had not some subject for unhappiness ; but 
 at that time he said he was peculiarly un- 
 
IN LADY BRYDGET’s STUDIO. 
 
 165 
 
 happy. He had been reading “ Chips from 
 a German Workshop,” and he could not get 
 over the shock to his mind on finding that 
 Christians were in such a small minority in 
 the world. 
 
 I was in a cheerful frame of mind. I had 
 learnt to look at everything very cheerfully 
 of late, so I said, “Yes, it has been so 
 for a long time, but Truth is great, and if 
 if we have patience it will prevail ; if only 
 we have patience.” 
 
 But then Duke overpowered me with his 
 thousands of years and his millions of men. 
 “ There is not time to convert them all,” he 
 said. “ The world cannot certainly last 
 much longer, and there is not time ; be- 
 sides, think of all those millions who have 
 lived and died, and never been converted. 
 The word itself makes me shudder — what 
 are we to convert them to ?” 
 
 “ Yes, that is the great difficulty,” said 
 Lady Brydget, in that very feeling voice of 
 hers, which always seemed to come straight 
 from her heart — from a heart welling over 
 with emotion. “ To love each other as 
 Christians do ! Better let them remain in 
 darkness than have a little light to arrive 
 at only that.” 
 
166 IN LADY BRYDGET’S STUDIO. 
 
 “ And yet, even in saying that, yon ad- 
 mit that we are better off than they are. 
 Light is better than darkness, and if we 
 have it we must wish to give it to them.” 
 
 “ But have we got any light to give ?” 
 I asked. “ The Indian laws command men 
 to love virtue for herself, and to renounce 
 the fruit of their works. They declare that 
 the soul is God. Is not that bidding men 
 follow the dictates of their conscience, and 
 have we got beyond that ?” 
 
 “ No ; because we are so weak and so 
 wicked that we cannot even make such laws 
 as those, a part of ourselves, so as to stand in 
 need of them as laws no longer. But I 
 believe we have the truth,” cried Duke, all 
 that mysterious light, that sometimes came 
 there, streaming clearly now from his dark, 
 melancholy eyes, as if he were seeing more, 
 far more than words could tell. “ I believe 
 we have it, if we could but grasp it, and 
 hold it fast. Sometimes I fancy I have got 
 firm hold of it, but then it melts from me 
 again, and leaves me looking for it, only — 
 I know what heaven is like.” 
 
 The light had left his eyes, and he looked 
 sadder than ever. I had never noticed the 
 likeness before, but I noticed it then, and 
 
IN LADY BRYDGET’S STUDIO. 167 
 
 seeing it once never lost sight of it again. 
 I hope it is not irreverent to speak of it, 
 indeed I mean it in all reverence, hut Duke 
 was then like what painters have imagined 
 for us as the likeness of the “ Man of sor- 
 rows, acquainted with grief.” There was 
 no crown of thorns round his head, but I 
 seemed to see where it had been, and almost, 
 I thought, to miss it. 
 
 Lady Brydget laid her soft white hand 
 caressingly on Duke’s forehead. “ What is 
 heaven like ?” she asked. Duke looked up 
 as if awakened from a reverie, in which his 
 spirit had been very far away. “ It is to 
 understand all that puzzles us on earth, 
 and to have no longer any need for those 
 things we say we know here.” 
 
 “ The first part is beautiful,” said Lady 
 Brydget, softly. “ I do not think I under- 
 stand the second.” 
 
 Duke got up and moved away, he looked 
 very sad, as if he were longing for that 
 heaven of which he spoke. “ I understand 
 you, Duke,” I said. I could not speak so 
 softly as Lady Brydget, nor in that sym- 
 pathising tone, that always came so natu- 
 rally to her, and my voice seemed to jar 
 upon my own ears as I spoke. But it did 
 
168 IN LADY BRYDGET’s STUDIO. 
 
 not seem to jar upon Duke’s, for he smiled, 
 as he said, “ Thank you, Gwynydd,” and he 
 pressed my hand, as if in gratitude. 
 
 It seemed to me strange, then, that he 
 should thank me, hut I seem to understand 
 it now. What do we, any of us, ask of one 
 another, hut to be understood ? We do 
 not wish for gratitude for our good offices, at 
 least if we start by wanting that, we can all 
 soar above that want ; hut to he misunder- 
 stood ! Men have borne that : Galileo bore 
 to be pronounced a heretic for revealing the 
 law’s of God to man, Aristides bore to be 
 ostracised by the fellow citizens he served 
 too well, and women in almost all ages have 
 borne to be burnt to death as witches be- 
 cause they were somewhat wiser than their 
 neighbours. There is nothing people cannot 
 bear, but Mahomet — the prophet-hero, as 
 Carlyle shows him to us — the man who 
 claimed to be inspired, and thus immeasu- 
 rably above all other men, tells us why 
 Kadijah was his dearest wife of all his 
 wives, why he must always love her best 
 though no longer young nor fair. She had 
 believed in him, she had understood him, 
 wffien no one else did. So Duke thanked 
 me, because I said I understood him, and 
 
IN LADY BRYDGET’s STUDIO. 169 
 
 yet though I understood him, though I 
 should say so again but too gladly, could 
 he again give me the opportunity, yet 
 I hardly know if it was true in me to say 
 so, for I did not enter into his ideas, though 
 I knew what he meant. I knew what he 
 meant was that in heaven we should get 
 rid of all those things that so troubled him 
 here, those things that we call real, such as 
 time and place, so that no longer we should 
 have to talk of facts, but that all should be 
 swallowed up in one great fact, one Truth, 
 which we should then know perfectly. 
 Duke could not bear to be told that one 
 thing was beautiful, and another beautiful 
 also, but less so ; he believed in one abstract 
 Beauty, to which all beautiful things were 
 but approximations, dimly shadowing forth 
 their high ideal. He could not bear to call 
 one thing beautiful and another less beau- 
 tiful ; only Beauty could be beautiful, he 
 thought, and anything that awoke in us a 
 recollection or a prescience of it must, in so 
 far as it did so, be excellent, worthy of 
 honour and of gratitude. But he longed for 
 the time when we should know all things, and 
 all our knowledge be comprised in one, when 
 we might know God and live for ever. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ADRIAN LEYISON. 
 
 “ The expenditure of the Society for Promoting Chris- 
 tianity among the Jews last year was £36,000, and 
 since its foundation sixty years ago, the total number 
 of converts has been 1163.” — M. Emanuel (on refer- 
 ring to the Society’s published report ). — Jewish 
 Record. 
 
 “ Gwen, dear,” said Brydget, coming into 
 my dressing-room with her hair streaming 
 as usual, a brush in one hand and a comb 
 in another, “ Gwen, dear, you are so wise 
 and I am so foolish, tell me what do you 
 think a woman’s duty is ?” 
 
 “ Dear Brydget, that is rather a wide 
 question, but is not a woman’s duty the 
 same as a man’s, to ‘ do all to the glory of 
 God?”’ 
 
 “ Now that is just like every one else. I 
 can read, and I have got a Bible, so if just 
 
ADBIAN LEVISON. 
 
 1 71 
 
 the words I read there satisfied me, I should 
 not come asking you. Don’t answer me in 
 the words of the Bible, Gwynvdd, just as if 
 you were a clergyman preaching a sermon, 
 and dreadfully afraid lest any one should 
 say you were teaching heresy. Answer me 
 in your own words, and more particularly, 
 please.” 
 
 “ Then if you want it in my own words, 
 I think a woman ought always to do every 
 little thing that seems to be a duty, just as 
 it comes to hand, and then by degrees those 
 little duties will form themselves into a few 
 big duties. But I dare say I am wrong,” I 
 added, stroking Brydget’s soft fair hair, 
 lovingly. “ Duke, I know, would explain 
 it quite differently.” 
 
 “ How would Duke explain it ?” asked 
 Brydget. “Duke never speaks to me, he 
 does not seem to think it worth while; but 
 I like to hear what he thinks, it always 
 seems to do one good, does it not, Gwyn- 
 ydd ?” 
 
 “ Yes, because he is so much in earnest,” 
 I replied, thoughtfully. “ But I cannot 
 quite tell you what he would say, only I 
 know he would never let the little duties 
 serve to discover the greater ones, rather 
 
172 
 
 ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 the other way. I think he would say that 
 a woman ought to be sincere and thought- 
 ful and gentle and unselfish, and that as 
 she acquired these qualities, all her actions 
 would gradually become such as are fitting. 
 But he would not make it even so long as 
 that, he would probably say a woman ought 
 to be loving and truthful, but above all, 
 loving.” 
 
 “ You think he would say that ?” said 
 Brydget, gravely. “ But then whom is a 
 woman to love ?” 
 
 “ Every one,” I replied, at once, “ some of 
 course more than others, but she is to have 
 a loving spirit towards all the world.” 
 
 “ Then you don’t think it wrong to love 
 any one very much, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ No, why should it be ?” 
 
 “ I don’t know, only people never seem 
 to think it right to talk of it. But, of course, 
 I know that there are some things it is right 
 to do and not to speak of. I know that,” 
 said Brydget, looking very grave. Then 
 she put up her rosebud face, and kissed me. 
 “ Thank you, Gwynydd,” she said, and ran 
 away, and shut the door behind her, so we 
 each finished our dressing in silence, only 
 I could not help kneeling down and begging 
 
ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 173 
 
 God to make the man, whom my darling 
 sister might love, worthy of her, a helpmate 
 not a hindrance to her in doing her woman’s 
 duty, just as she would, I was sure, be a 
 help not a hindrance to him, and I thought 
 of George Lumley as I prayed. I liked him 
 much better now than I had at first ; I liked 
 him now because he loved Brydget so well, 
 and because he was evidently straightfor- 
 ward and good-humoured, also because I 
 heard that his father and mother were both 
 fond and proud of him, and that his sisters 
 loved him dearly ; but it was curious how 
 little I knew of this man, whom I had lately 
 begun to believe that my little sister, my 
 own darling Brydget, loved better than any 
 one in the world, better than me, better 
 than my father or my mother. I don’t 
 think I did believe it then, and yet I know 
 I thought she would be ready to marry him 
 when he asked her, and when she married 
 him she would henceforward have to cleave 
 to him in preference to every one, for his 
 sake forsaking all others, at least in a mea- 
 sure, no longer belonging to us as she had 
 been used to belong to us. 
 
 That day I was to go for one more sitting 
 to Lady Brydget ; it was always one more, 
 
174 
 
 ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 and one more ; but I was not at all sorry 
 that it should be so, I liked going to her 
 studio as well as almost anything, and that 
 is saying a great deal, for at that time I 
 liked everything, and many things very 
 much. That particular morning Duke was 
 not forthcoming. 
 
 “ Poor Duke ! he will be so sorry,” said 
 Lady Brydget, “ but he must have for- 
 gotten you were coming to-day. He went 
 out early, and I did not remember to 
 remind him.” 
 
 “ Duke is looking very ill,” I said, ab- 
 sently. “ Don’t you think so, too ?” 
 
 Lady Brydget looked at me. Certainly 
 she was very fond of Duke ; though I have 
 never been able to love her as I ought, I 
 have always loved her a little because she 
 loved Duke so much. 
 
 “ You do not think him ill ?” she said, 
 “ surely you do not think him ill ? He 
 has that sad expression they often say is 
 worn by those who are to die young, 
 but, oh Gwynydd, you do not think that 
 he is ill r 
 
 I hastened to assure her I did not really 
 think so, that I had only meant he was 
 looking less well than usual, just as we 
 
ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 175 
 
 might any of us look less well from the 
 weather, or anxiety, or anything. 
 
 Lady Brydget kissed me and pressed a 
 handkerchief to her eyes, from which the 
 tears had quickly overflowed. 
 
 “ You think me foolish,” she said, “ but 
 you young things do not know what it is 
 to he a widow with an only son, only one, 
 and such a son as Duke, too. I often think 
 I do not value him enough,” said Lady 
 Brydget, still pressing the handkerchief to 
 her eyes. “ I get provoked with him 
 because he cannot remember the day of the 
 week, or some stupid thing like that, which 
 any common man could do, and then I am 
 so angry with myself for being provoked, 
 for I know I am not worthy to be his 
 mother ; but he is his father’s son more than 
 mine, and before he was born his father 
 was in heaven. I often think that Duke 
 has more in him of heaven than of earth.” 
 
 “ I often think so, too,” said I, quite 
 simply, and then Lady Brydget turned to 
 her picture, and began upon the final 
 touches. While she was thus engaged a 
 card was brought in. 
 
 “ Mr. Levison ! Show him in ! Gwynydd, 
 dear, you won’t mind. I asked him to 
 
176 
 
 ADRIAN LEYISON. 
 
 come in some morning that he might see 
 himself as Perseus. I did not expect him 
 this morning, but it does not matter.” 
 
 So Adrian Levison came in, and looked 
 a great deal more like Perseus than the 
 picture, while all the time he declared his 
 was a very flattering likeness, and that 
 mine did not do me justice, only he sup- 
 posed it was necessary to alter me a little 
 for Andromeda, and he thought it had 
 been very successfully managed, that he 
 had no idea Lady Brydget was so much of 
 an artist, and so on ; all said with that 
 spontaneity and abandon that stamped all 
 he said as genuine, and made convention- 
 alities from him sound almost original. 
 Lady Brydget was delighted by his com- 
 pliments, and immediately began to exhibit 
 other pictures she had begun but never 
 finished, and sketches, of which there were 
 portfolios innumerable, but from which she 
 wisely selected the gems. Adrian Levison 
 appeared much interested by these sketches, 
 which, though some of them hasty and 
 imperfect, were all artistic, and so in a few 
 minutes the contents of one of the port- 
 folios were spread out upon the table, when 
 just as this was accomplished, the servant 
 
ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 177 
 
 appeared, and handing Lady Brydget 
 another card, told her the gentleman was 
 sorry to interrupt her, but he was only in 
 town for the day, and he wanted to see her 
 upon business ; so with a hasty apology to 
 Mr. Levison, and an empress^ injunction to 
 me to do the honours of her paintings 
 properly in her absence, Lady Brydget 
 statelily left the room, and for the first 
 time Adrian Levison and I were left alone 
 together. I do not know why I felt so 
 shy at being thus left — perhaps it was be- 
 cause Lady Brydget engrossed so much 
 attention, whilst she was present, that no 
 one could fail to feel a great difference 
 when she went away — perhaps it was 
 because I had fancied of late that obstacles 
 had been thrown in the way of my seeing 
 Adrian Levison, that Uncle and Aunt 
 Basset either received him coldly, or else 
 so entirely engrossed him that it was next 
 to impossible for him to say a word to 
 either Brydget or me; anyhow I know I 
 felt very awkward, and though Adrian 
 Levison could not possibly appear awkward, 
 I think he felt so also, for he moved away 
 from my side at once, and standing before 
 Lady Brydget’s picture, looked at it. 
 
 VOL. t. 12 
 
178 
 
 ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 “ Do you think I am at all like Andro- 
 meda ?” I asked, more because I wanted to 
 say something than because I had the 
 least desire to hear his opinion on this 
 subject. I was quite sure I was not. 
 
 “ No, that I do not,” he said, laughing ; 
 “ but then I have no feeling for Andromeda. 
 Perhaps it is the name I dislike, for other- 
 wise I remember nothing of her, except 
 that it was her beauty nearly cost her her 
 life. I hope yours may not be equally un- 
 fortunate.” 
 
 “How I wish I had beauty !” I said, 
 standing before the picture also now. I 
 fear I had got into Duke’s way of thinking 
 aloud at this time of my life, but thinking 
 aloud or not, I meant what I said ; not as 
 girls often say they wish for beauty, when 
 they mean that they desire to be loved or 
 admired, and desire beauty as a means— I 
 wished for beauty for itself, regarding it as 
 ;an excellence, the possible consequences of 
 -which I did not then pause to consider, but 
 which I desired, as I desired to possess all 
 excellence. 
 
 “ Rather an objectless wish,” said Adrian 
 Levison, laughing. “But to speak of 
 beauty of another kind. I like to pay my 
 
ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 179 
 
 homage to it, wherever I meet it, and you 
 will not think me impertinent, I fancy, if 
 I say that I have never met with a more 
 beautiful character than that of your 
 cousin.” 
 
 “ What ! Duke,” I said. “ Oh, I am so 
 glad. It always seems to me that people 
 do not properly appreciate him.” 
 
 “ It is the penalty of superior merit,” 
 said he, gaily. “ Do you believe Shake- 
 speare had many admirers ? Some great 
 admirers he doubtless had, but that he had 
 many I beg leave to doubt. Superiority of 
 any kind obliges its possessor to live as 
 among people of another nation, professing 
 a different creed.” 
 
 My eyes filled with tears ; he was speak- 
 ing of Duke allegorically, but I was looking 
 at him, and his words seemed to apply to 
 himself literally. 
 
 “ You are thinking of me and of my 
 people,” he said, quickly, catching my change 
 of expression; “ but I would not have any- 
 thing a 1 tered for the world. We can afford 
 to wait, and meanwhile I am prouder of my 
 nation than of anything. You ought to 
 sympathise with me in this, Miss Jerning- 
 hame, for I know you think much of ancient 
 
 12—2 
 
180 
 
 ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 descent, and your old families are but 
 mushrooms of yesterday compared with 
 ours.” 
 
 This was hitting me in my weakest 
 point ; for the first time in my life my 
 pride as a Jerninghame was hurt, and this 
 ruthless attack threw me off my balance, I 
 fancy, for I said what I do not think I 
 could ever otherwise have said : “ Eighteen 
 hundred years ago you might have boasted 
 in this way, but now — now it is no longer 
 a thing to be proud of. Oh, why are you 
 different from us ? How can you be ? It 
 is impossible, really — you have no temple, 
 no sacrifices.” The sentences fell from my 
 lips, one by one, disjointedly, without my 
 knowing what I was saying. 
 
 Then a cloud passed over Adrian Levi- 
 son’s face, such a cloud as I should not 
 have before thought possible could ever 
 shadow it, and I saw the look of sorrow all 
 the sons of his race are said to wear ever 
 since the dreadful day when they cried, 
 “ The sin be on us and on our children.” 
 
 He spoke solemnly now, almost as if he 
 were inspired. “ You see me a living ex- 
 ample that it is not impossible. True, we 
 can no longer worship at Jerusalem as we 
 
ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 181 
 
 used to worship, nor sacrifice as we used to 
 sacrifice, but it was not the slaughtered 
 animal that was pleasing in God’s sight, it 
 was the expression of the feeling. Already 
 the Talmud has declared that daily prayer 
 now occupies the place of sacrifice. We 
 are all priests for this, we can all sacrifice ; 
 every work of charity, every good act, every 
 pious emotion leading to a pious act, all 
 these are sacrifices pleasing to the Almighty. 
 He makes no account that they are not 
 offered in the temple, priesthood is tied to 
 no time nor place, and for such sacrificial 
 service altars are everywhere erected. We 
 as well as you can say, ‘ The trivial round, 
 the common task/ but I see you know those 
 beautiful lines of Keble’s too well for me to 
 need to quote them, only you need not pity 
 my co-religionists, Miss Jerninghame, as a 
 people without hope. We are rich in hope, 
 confident in our election. You yourselves 
 have borrowed more from us than you ima- 
 gine, only because you set charity before 
 justice you see no need to acknowledge 
 your obligation.” 
 
 “We have not borrowed, we have but 
 added,” I said, but I spoke it very low, for 
 it had come back to me how, when I had 
 
182 
 
 ADRIAN LEYISON. 
 
 first heard Adrian Levison was a Jew, I 
 had thought all religious discussion between 
 us consequently impossible, and that, there- 
 fore, this removed any objection there might 
 otherwise have been to knowing and liking 
 him. 
 
 Adrian Levison went on again. Evi- 
 dently he was little in the habit of speak- 
 ing of his religion, and the barrier of reserve 
 once broken down, it excited him greatly. 
 “ And though the principle you place at the 
 head of your moral code is charity, where 
 we place justice, yet I do not read that we 
 ever persecuted the Gentiles when we had 
 the power, not as the disciples of charity 
 have persecuted us even till the present 
 day.” 
 
 “It is dreadful,” I said, shuddering;, 
 “ but is your leading principle justice ? 
 An ‘Eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth,’ ” I murmured to myself. 
 
 “ That is one kind of justice,” he replied ; 
 “ but justice may be taken in a wider sense 
 than that. Is it not all that we ask from 
 one another, more than any man may hope 
 to obtain ?” 
 
 “ I don’t know,” I said, slowly, “ I think 
 I wish for more than justice ; but if you 
 
ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 183 
 
 do not regard charity, how is it that your 
 charitable institutions are the admiration of 
 all nations ?” 
 
 “ I did not say that we did not regard 
 charity, only that we placed justice higher, 
 and it is for that very reason. Our chari- 
 ties we look upon as debts which we owe 
 to the sick and suffering, you look upon 
 them as benefactions which you give them.” 
 
 I could not answer anything then, only 
 my eyes were full of tears as I looked up at 
 Adrian Levison, meeting his eyes looking at 
 me. The next moment I was sorry I had done 
 so, and moved away, and took up one of 
 Lady Brydget’s sketches, while Adrian Levi- 
 son walked to the window and looked out, 
 and was silent also. Then whilst we both 
 stood apart, and silent, Lady Brydget came 
 back, and was very gracious and very agree- 
 able, but I had a dreadful feeling as if I 
 had been taken into Adrian Levison’s confi- 
 dence, and he into mine, and whether be- 
 cause I had once seen it, and therefore could 
 never again not see it now, or because it was 
 still there, each time I looked at him, 
 though he laughed, and talked, and moved 
 about lightly, just as my ideal Perseus 
 would, yet I never failed to see that tradi- 
 
184 
 
 ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 tionary sadness about liis broad, white brow, 
 in liis deep sunny eyes ; and when Duke 
 came in just as I was saying good-bye to 
 Lady Brydget and refusing to stay to lun- 
 cheon, because — yes, because I had heard 
 Adrian Levison agree to do so — when 
 Duke came in I thought his face was the 
 gladdest of the two, but then Duke always 
 did look pleased on first seeing me. 
 
 When I said good-bye to Adrian that 
 morning I did not look at him, I felt as if 
 I dared not ; only as I was leaving the 
 room my sleeve caught up one of Lady 
 Brydget’s brushes, and turning to replace 
 it on the table, I saw Adrian Levison 
 gazing after me. I do not know how to 
 describe that gaze, only I ran down stairs 
 after seeing it, and sprang into Uncle Bas- 
 set’s brougham and buried my face in my 
 hands, and sobbed bitterly. It was the 
 first time I had cried since I had come to 
 London, but I could not forget that look of 
 Adrian Levison’s ; it was the look with 
 which Orpheus might have gazed on Eury- 
 dice when he saw her caught back to the 
 dreary regions beyond the Styx, never more 
 to be won back to earth by the sound of 
 his lyre — never more. I was as much 
 
ADRIAN LEVISON. 
 
 185 
 
 separated from Adrian Levison as ever 
 Eurydice had been from Orpheus ; there 
 was a gulf as great as death between us, 
 but why did he look at me in that way ? 
 Why, oh why ? 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 “ Those sighs were from the heart, 
 
 Too, too well taught, he plays the lover’s part.” 
 
 Human Life — Rogers _ 
 
 I had got on my bonnet to go out shop- 
 ping with my aunt, and Brydget was stand- 
 ing outside the drawing-room door tapping 
 impatiently with her foot, for she never 
 liked to be kept waiting, when there was a 
 ring at the bell, and Brydget having most 
 indecorously peeped down stairs, came run- 
 ning into the room. “ Oh, Gwen, here is 
 Duke !” and then running back again, en- 
 countered Duke himself in the door-way, 
 and holding out two fingers of her as yet 
 only half-gloved hand, said, “We are going 
 out shopping with Aunt Barbara, and we 
 are going this very moment, but I dare say 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 187 
 
 Gwynydd won’t mind stopping at home if 
 you have come to spend the morning.” 
 
 Certainly it was quite clear Brydget her- 
 self would mind it very much, and it was 
 just one of those dull, heavy days when 
 people feel as if they must go out, must find 
 some fresher air somewhere, hut I saw 
 Duke looked disappointed, so I hastened to 
 say I should not mind it at all, and began 
 taking off my bonnet to show my willing- 
 ness at once, while Brydget hastened out 
 to Aunt Barbara, whom she just then heard 
 descending the staircase. 
 
 “ What ! Gwynydd going to stay at 
 home! Oh, Duke is there, is he? Well, 
 I have not time to speak to him now. 
 Gwynydd, ask Duke if he will stay to lun- 
 cheon,” called out Aunt Barbara, all in a 
 hustle, for she had already exceeded Uncle 
 Basset’s regulation ten minutes, after which 
 he said he did right to be angry on the 
 horses’ account. 
 
 “ Duke, will you stay to luncheon ?” I 
 said. 
 
 “ Yes, if you ask me, Gwynydd.” 
 
 Duke said this so sentimentally, that I 
 could not help laughing, for he spoke as if 
 he would not have stayed unless I had 
 
188 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 asked him, and yet he must have heard 
 Aunt Barbara tell me to do so, and know 
 that the invitation came from her, not from 
 me. 
 
 “ Gwynydd, I cannot understand you 
 now,” said Duke, looking at me very 
 gravely, with that meek, puzzled expres- 
 sion on his face which Brydget said always 
 made her long to kiss him, or to shake him, 
 according to her humour at the moment. 
 I never felt inclined to do either. “ You 
 used not to laugh at St. Margaret’s, but 
 you are always laughing now.” 
 
 “ Don’t you like me to laugh, Duke ?” I 
 asked, growing grave at once. 
 
 “ I like everything that you do,” said 
 Duke, slowly ; “ but I think I understood 
 you best when you did not laugh so much. 
 I like it now, because you do it ; but I do 
 not feel as if I understood you any longer.” 
 
 “ Don’t you think it is a mistake, Duke, 
 to look always at the melancholy side of 
 things ? I think it is so 'wrong to be un- 
 happy, and nobody need be, if they try 
 not.” 
 
 “ There is a kind of unhappiness that is 
 wrong,” said Duke, thoughtfully, “ but I 
 do not think I am wrongly unhappy, only 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 189 
 
 when people laugh, I never can see what 
 they laugh at. Lord Byron, I believe, said 
 he could never laugh at a person falling, 
 however absurd the attitude might be, for 
 he always feared it might result from inhe- 
 rent weakness, not from what we call acci- 
 dent ; and in the same way, when people 
 laugh, I always seem to see what sorrow 
 there may be connected with the object of 
 their laughter, and thus, I suppose, fail to 
 see the ridiculous turn it has taken.” 
 
 “ If you are grave, dear Duke, I am sure 
 it is from the best reasons. But do you 
 not think that it makes people good to be 
 happy, and that, as sin brought sorrow into 
 the world, so sorrow is always connected 
 with sin now ? And of one thing I am 
 quite certain,” I added, “ that, if we look 
 sorrowful persistently enough, we shall soon 
 grow to be so ; and, on the other hand, if 
 we try hard enough to appear cheerful, we 
 shall in the end be rewarded by becoming 
 so.” 
 
 “ Exactly so,” said Duke, and his strange 
 smile flickered about his face, and then 
 suddenly went out, as if there were not 
 sufficient fuel for it. Somehow, though I 
 exhorted Duke so strenuously to be cheer- 
 
190 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 ful, I always liked him best when he was 
 sad. When Duke tried to be gay, there 
 was always something incongruous about it. 
 
 There is something impressive about a 
 bittern, even stripped of its natural melan- 
 choly surroundings, but if the bittern in 
 the Zoological Gardens were to hop about 
 like a tame canary, one could not be pleased 
 by the bittern’s merriment ; it would sim- 
 ply appear ludicrous. Not that Duke’s 
 smile was as ludicrous as this ; indeed, I 
 hardly think it was ludicrous at all, for it 
 always pained me : all I mean is, that 
 gravity was the natural and proper expres- 
 sion of his face, while all the time I know 
 that people in general ought to smile and 
 look happy. But then Duke was so dif- 
 ferent from people in general. However, he 
 did not seem inclined for a grave discussion 
 now, for he left the abstract subjects which 
 were generally such favourite topics with 
 him, and began upon something more prac- 
 tical : 
 
 “You are glad now that you came to 
 London, are you not, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ Yes, very glad,” I answered, promptly. 
 
 “ But you did not like the idea of it at 
 first at all ; why was that ?” 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 191 
 
 “ I don’t know,” I said. “ I was afraid 
 of something, I think, but I don’t know 
 what it was ; and then I did not like to 
 think of my father, with no one to help him, 
 and my mother without Brydget. I do not 
 like to think of it now, only they must be 
 accustomed to it by this time, I suppose. 
 It seems such a long time that we have 
 been away.” 
 
 “ It would not have seemed so long at 
 St. Margaret’s,” said Duke. “ I was think- 
 ing of going down for the night, and telling 
 them how you were ; but then it seems 
 such a pity to leave London, as you are 
 here, and I have only just come up.” 
 
 “ Yes ; it would not be at all civil to run 
 away at once,” said I, and I could not help 
 smiling to myself a little at the thought of 
 how surprised my father and mother would 
 be by Duke’s going down for the night, and 
 how puzzled what to do with him ; but it 
 was very kind of him to think of it, to con- 
 sider that they were lonely, and that it was 
 too far for us just to go and come back, and 
 so that it might be as well for him to go 
 and take news of us. 
 
 “ You have all the exhibitions to see,” I 
 went on. 
 
192 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 “ I do not care about them at all,” said 
 Duke, quickly. “ I only stay in town be- 
 cause you are here.” Then, seeing me look- 
 ing surprised, he hastened to add, “ I don’t 
 mean that I have ceased to care for pictures 
 and works of art ; if you were not in town 
 I might care for them, and stay on that 
 account, only your being here makes so 
 much the greatest reason, that I do not 
 care for anything else in comparison.” 
 
 “ Oh, Duke !” I exclaimed. 
 
 “ You see,” said Duke, “ you always 
 understand me. I know I am very stupid, 
 
 and very unlike other people ” 
 
 “ No, no.” 
 
 “But you always understand me,” he 
 went on, unheeding, “ what I want to say 
 and cannot. There is always something I 
 want to say, though no one else can under- 
 stand it ; but you always do. You will 
 go on understanding me always, will you 
 not?” 
 
 “ Always, I hope,” I said ; “ at least, I 
 shall always try ; and even if I cannot I 
 shall always believe you mean something — 
 that there is something you want to say, 
 though it may not be expressed.” 
 
 So I spoke, not knowing that even at 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 19 
 
 that moment there was something Duke 
 wanted to say which yet was unexpressed ; 
 and even when he did say it in unmistakable 
 language, I did not believe it — did not be- 
 lieve that he meant anything. 
 
 “ Thank you, Gwynydd,” said Duke. 
 “ I can never thank you enough for under- 
 standing me ; it is the only thing that 
 makes life tolerable ; and I can never love 
 you enough for it, though I have loved you 
 all my life, and must do so always, for you 
 love me, too, do you not, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ Yes, dear Duke, of course I love you, 
 just as if you were my brother. I have 
 always been your sister, have I not V’ 
 
 Duke looked at me rather blankly. 
 
 “ But I do not want you to love me as a 
 brother ; I do not love you as a sister." 
 
 “ Do you not, Duke V’ I said, and looked 
 up surprised in my turn. 
 
 “ I want you to say you will be my wife. 
 You will, will you not, Gwynydd V 
 
 “ Now, somebody has been putting this 
 into your head !” I exclaimed, quite angrily. 
 “ You never thought of this for yourself, I 
 know you did not, and it is absurd.” 
 
 “ Why do you call everything absurd to- 
 day ?” pleaded Duke. 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 “ Because I do not want to call it any- 
 thing worse,” I said. “ Dear Duke, I do 
 not wish to hurt your feelings, hut you 
 know you never thought of this for your- 
 self.” 
 
 “ Yes, I did,” said Duke ; “ I have al- 
 ways thought of it, and wished it. Tell 
 me, Gwynydd — I will believe you if you 
 say it — tell me, can it never be ?” 
 
 “ Never, Duke,” I said, decidedly, and 
 got up from where I was sitting. 
 
 It was a foolish idea of Duke’s, nothing 
 more. I did not believe him when he said 
 he had always thought of it, always wished 
 it ; but I did not feel as if I could go on 
 talking to him just the same now as if he 
 had not given utterance to this absurd 
 idea ; so I got up, thinking I would leave 
 him for a little to forget his folly. 
 
 “ Don’t be angry with me, Duke,” I said. 
 “ I don’t want to vex you.” 
 
 “ I could never be angry with you,” he 
 replied, slowly. 
 
 Oh, Duke, Duke ! 
 
 I went up-stairs and sat down in my 
 little dressing-room, and wondered why I 
 could not marry Duke ; surely I loved him 
 better than any one. There was Brydget 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 195 
 
 of course, and my dear father, and my 
 mother, and then — no, I thought I loved 
 Duke as well as my mother, at least I 
 thought I had at St. Margaret’s, but it was 
 so difficult to decide. Well, leaving out 
 those three, whom it was natural for me to 
 love best, whom in all the world should I . 
 be sorriest never to see again ? I wanted 
 to say, “ Why, Duke, of course,” but some- 
 how that morning I could not. Perhaps it 
 is never a very wise thing to sit down and 
 think whom in all the world one loves best, 
 and whom next, and next ; there is no next 
 in a case like that — one loves or one does 
 not love. So I think now, I know now 
 there are some feelings it is not wise to 
 analyse, certainly it was not wise for me 
 that morning to think whom I should be 
 sorriest not to see again, and to try to 
 answer, Duke, and find I could not. I got 
 up, and began putting away my cloak and 
 gloves, my bonnet I had forgotten down- 
 stairs, but the other things I had with me. 
 Then I sat down again, and took up my 
 Bible and read — I did not wish to think — 
 and I had no choice of reading just then, 
 except between that or my prayer-book, 
 otherwise the Bible was not the book I 
 
 13—2 
 
196 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 should have chosen just then to read. It 
 set me thinking very soon, and my thoughts 
 were very sad, and more about the things 
 of to-day than about the things that hap- 
 pened eighteen hundred years ago, only I 
 viewed these through the light of those, and 
 while I was still thinking Brydget came in. 
 She sank down on the floor at my feet, and 
 closing up my Bible, and putting it away 
 for me in the polite manner in which she 
 was very fond of taking my books out of 
 my hand, when there was anything of which 
 she wished to talk to me, she exclaimed, 
 “ Oh, Gwynydd, I am so happy.” 
 
 “Well, darling, that is nothing new. 
 You are always happy,” I replied, stroking 
 fondly her soft cheek. 
 
 “ No, I have never been happy before,” 
 cried Brydget, “that is what I have just 
 discovered, though I have always thought 
 I was happy. Is not that odd, Gwen, 
 dear.” 
 
 “Yes, not altogether a very pleasant dis- 
 covery, I should say.” 
 
 “ Oh, but it is ; because don’t you see, 
 Gwen, dear, it is because I am so very 
 happy now that I know it was all nothing 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 197 
 
 before. Ob, Gwynydd, he has told me he 
 loves me.” 
 
 “ Has he, dearest V I said. There was 
 no need to ask who he was. “ When did 
 he tell you so V 
 
 “ This morning, and, Gwynydd, it was in 
 a carpet shop. Did you ever hear of any- 
 thing so unromantic ? I am sure you could 
 never have accepted a man who offered to 
 you in a carpet shop.” I did not think myself 
 I should ever notice where it was. About a 
 thing like this I quite agreed with Duke, 
 that time and place mattered notb ng, that 
 it would be only the words that mattered, 
 or rather the feeling that prompted the 
 words. Brydget went on — “And he did 
 look so absurd, Gwen, dear.” 
 
 “ Who ? George Lumley ? I don’t think I 
 should ever say that, even if I had thought 
 so.” 
 
 “Not if you were in love, Gwen, dear ? 
 Oh, yes, you would,” said Brydget, from 
 her superior wisdom, “that makes every- 
 thing quite different, one likes everything 
 then, even when people look absurd.” 
 
 I thought of Duke, and shook my head, 
 but then, of course, I was not in love with 
 him, so I supposed I could not tell. 
 
198 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 “We were at Marion’s,” Brydget pro- 
 ceeded, “ when in came George, looking as 
 disconsolate as possible. The Row was so 
 dull he could not stay there, and he had 
 expected to meet us, and then he knew we 
 could not be coming, because it was past 
 our time, so Aunt Barbara very politely 
 asked him to come with us, and help her to 
 choose a carpet — was it not good of her ? 
 Then it was too absurd, there were all the 
 carpets, and Aunt Barbara asking if the 
 colours would fly, and the man assuring her 
 they would not, and there were we, George 
 and I, you know, and I was turning my 
 back on him, and pretending to be thinking 
 about the carpets, because you see I thought 
 he was talking nonsense about the Row. I 
 did not think he meant it, at least I thought 
 — I thought,” and Brydget now really 
 blushed ; hitherto she had only blushed as 
 she always did, the colour coming and going, 
 but now it came and did not go away again, 
 “ I thought I was not bound to believe it, 
 you know, Gwen, dear, and it was more con- 
 venient to seem not to, and so then he told 
 me — I shan’t say what he told me, only you 
 must come down and speak to him at once, 
 because he is waiting to speak to you.” 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 199 
 
 “ Oh, is he waiting to speak to me ?” I 
 said, and went down stairs, and held out 
 my hand to George Lumley, making the 
 little speech I had composed on my way 
 down stairs. “ Of course nothing can be 
 considered settled till my father and mother 
 have given their consent, but I cannot help 
 telling you how happy I think you to have 
 won our Brydget’s love. It is a thing to 
 be very highly thought of, I consider.” 
 
 “ Indeed I do think highly of it,” cried 
 George Lumley, grasping very warmly the 
 hand I held out to him, “ If valuing it and 
 her, and loving her could make me — ” and 
 then he paused and turned away, for he was 
 not much in the habit of expressing his 
 feelings, and so, though he had begun to do 
 so now, he somehow broke down in the 
 middle. 
 
 “ She has been such a darling with us 
 all, I do not know how we shall bear to lose 
 her,” I began, and then broke down in my 
 turn. 
 
 “ I am very sorry to take her away from 
 you,” said George, almost equally ruefully, 
 “ but I must have her, and I only wish I 
 was more worthy of her, and had more to 
 offer her, but she would make any place a 
 
200 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 palace, and — and even that £300 a year 
 they talk about — ” 
 
 “ Would not suit her at all,” cried a 
 laughing voice behind us, and there was 
 Brydget herself, who had slipped in on tip- 
 toe, and now passing her arm round my 
 waist, partly hid her face behind mine, and 
 thus, as from a refuge, looked out at George 
 Lumley, who looked as if he would much 
 have liked to punish her for her sauciness, 
 if he had only dared. However, she did 
 but look at him in this way for a moment 
 or two, then she tripped across the room, 
 exclaiming, “ George, draw down that blind, 
 don’t you see the sun streaming in ?” 
 George Lumley drew down the blind, but 
 then when Brydget proceeded, ensconcing 
 herself, in her favourite arm-chair, to order 
 him, in equally imperious tones, to fetch her 
 a footstool, he looked a little surprised, and 
 seemed to have no intention of obeying her 
 commands, though she repeated them, draw- 
 ing her dress aside, so as to show the little 
 feet under which he was to place the foot- 
 stool, as if she fancied he was stupid, and 
 did not understand her. Then, seeing my 
 surprise, she burst into a peal of merry 
 laughter, and as soon as she recovered her- 
 
TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 201 
 
 self sufficiently, exclaimed, “ Don’t you 
 know that after marriage the woman has to 
 obey the man, and so she has to make up 
 for it beforehand, by making a slave of him ? 
 and after what you said this morning, I 
 think I ought to make haste about it, if I 
 am to get any slavery out of you. Now, 
 the footstool, quick, don’t you understand?” 
 
 Apparently he did understand now, for 
 he hastened to fetch the footstool, and place 
 it under Brydget’s feet, kneeling as he did 
 so, and looking again, as if he would have 
 liked to kiss the little feet, had he but 
 dared. But then the idea of Brydget lux- 
 uriously reclining in an arm chair, with her 
 feet on a footstool, and her dress carefully 
 spread out about her, struck us as so absurd 
 that we all three burst out laughing, and 
 Brydget jumping up, sat down on the foot- 
 stool, and drawing me down on the sofa 
 beside her, buried her face in my lap. 
 
 Then Uncle Basset came in, having heard 
 all about what had gone on from Aunt Bar- 
 bara, and he, too, shook hands with George 
 Lumley, and said something about how 
 nothing must be considered certain, as yet, 
 and then he turned to Brydget and said, as 
 far as he knew, she was a very fortunate 
 
202 
 
 TWO INTERVIEWS. 
 
 girl, and he did not think she would have 
 any cause to regret her choice. 
 
 On this Bydget surprised him, and in- 
 deed all of us, by throwing herself into his 
 arms, and hiding her face on his shoulder. 
 
 “Come, come,” said Uncle Basset, “this 
 ought to be one of the happiest days in 
 your life. There is no need to cry.'’ 
 
 “ I am not crying,” said Brydget, indig- 
 nantly, but she still kept her face hidden 
 on his shoulder ; and at last she said, in 
 tones that certainly sounded very like cry- 
 ing, “ I want to thank you, uncle, for having 
 brought me to London, only I don’t know 
 how to say enough, for if you had not I 
 might never have known him.” 
 
 Then _ George Lumley was told that it 
 was time for him to go away, and though he 
 looked very much disappointed at not being 
 allowed to stay to luncheon, Aunt Barbara 
 was obdurate, and said she would not have 
 Brydget knocked up, and they were not to 
 see each other any more that day. 
 
 After so much other excitement, no one 
 recollected to ask what had become of 
 Duke. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A GLIMPSE OP MEDUSA’S HEAD. 
 
 “ We met — ’twas in a crowd.’* 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 “ I hope it will all turn out well,” said 
 Aunt Barbara ; “ really, it is a very respon- 
 sible thing to have brought you two girls 
 up to town. I suppose, if you were my 
 daughters, I should have grown used to the 
 anxiety by this time, but, as it is, it makes 
 me quite uneasy at times.” 
 
 “ Dear Aunt Barbara, I hope the anxiety 
 does not trouble you,” I said. “ Indeed, 
 we can never thank you enough for having 
 brought us.” 
 
 “ What, you, too, Gwynydd ! I am ac- 
 customed to Brydget’s thanks, but now 
 yours also ! Really, I shall advise all my 
 friends to bring their nieces to town for the 
 season, if they care about gratitude.” 
 
204 A GLIMPSE OP MEDUSA’S HEAD. 
 
 “ We should be very ungrateful if we did 
 not thank you,” I replied. “ If I did not 
 do so before, it was only because I thought 
 you must understand what I felt ; but one 
 ought not to take that for granted, I sup- 
 pose. Only what I really thank you and 
 Uncle Basset for is, not for having brought 
 us to town, but for your kindness to us 
 since we came.” 
 
 “ Oh, well, we have only tried to make 
 you happy,” said Aunt Barbara, carelessly. 
 “ It would have been rather odd if we had 
 not tried that.” 
 
 Aunt Barbara was reclining in her fa- 
 vourite lounging-chair. She was one of 
 those people who always look comfortable 
 wherever they are, but she certainly always 
 by preference selected the most comfortable 
 nook she could find. Generally she took 
 everything very easily, choosing that her 
 mind should be comfortable as well as her 
 body, but to-day she seemed rather uneasy 
 about Brydget’s engagement. “ It is a 
 pity Brydget is so very young,” she said ; 
 “ but I don’t think your father can object. 
 He may ask them to wait a little, but that 
 will be all, I expect. You see the Lumleys 
 are everything any one could wish, and your 
 
A GLIMPSE OP MEDUSA’S HEAD. 205 
 
 father and George’s father old schoolfellows ; 
 but then I wonder what George is himself? 
 I really hardly seem to know him at all.” 
 
 “ It is just the same with me,” I said. 
 “ You see he has always talked to Brydget, 
 no one else has ever done more than speak 
 to him, but I cannot help thinking he 
 must be good to love her so much; and 
 then he is certainly quite honest.” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Aunt Barbara, “ thoroughly 
 without pretence of any kind, and good- 
 humoured, but one can hardly say more. 
 That mess he got into at College he was 
 really very little to blame for. I inquired 
 into that, and of course they were quite 
 right to rusticate him, and I dare say it has 
 done him good ; but, though it was wrong, 
 it was what any young man might do.” 
 
 It seemed very strange that we should sit 
 thus and talk in the dark, as it were, of the 
 man whom we were all willing should one 
 day be Brydget’s husband; but George Bum- 
 ley was the kind of young man whom every 
 one always feels inclined to take upon trust. 
 “ He must be good, I think,” I said, at last. 
 
 “Well, I don’t know about that,” said 
 Aunt Barbara, laughing. “ You side with 
 Brydget, I see, and want to make him out 
 
206 A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 
 
 an angel, but I don’t think much of his 
 going to All Saints. After all I find he 
 does go pretty often, but then he is fond of 
 music, and the service there is altogether 
 attractive. Not that I think it proves any- 
 thing, one way or the other, whether he 
 goes to church or not. You like daily ser- 
 vice, and miss it here, I dare say, but I 
 must own it often bored me at St. Mar- 
 garet’s ; and really, Gwynydd, you are the 
 most extraordinary girl.” Aunt Barbara 
 was always rather inconsequential in her 
 talk. “Any other girl who cared about 
 going to church would like to go about to 
 all the different churches here, and see how 
 the service was done, but you never seem 
 to care about that, and I believe you’d say 
 your prayers with equal satisfaction at All 
 Saints or at Bloomsbury.” 
 
 “ I cannot see that it would make much 
 difference which it was,” I replied. “ I 
 know it does to some people, but to me the 
 feelings to which utterance is given are so 
 much the most important part of the ser- 
 vice, that they make everything else insig- 
 nificant. Whilst the angels are bringing 
 down such little bits of Truth as we 
 can understand, and carrying back our 
 
A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 207 
 
 prayer and praise, it always seems to me 
 that we ourselves are stricken into utter 
 nothingness, and then what can it matter 
 whether the words we use are sung to Gre- 
 gorian chants, or said with only that amount 
 of intoning we all of us use in repeating the 
 same thing often ?” 
 
 “ Then why go to church at all ?” ex- 
 claimed Aunt Barbara. “ Why not sit at 
 home and fancy it all ?” 
 
 “ Perhaps some people can,” I replied, 
 sadly. “ I know I cannot ; I want some 
 helps. I suppose that is the reason some 
 people want Gregorians,” I added, as this 
 new idea struck me, “and some people object 
 to them, and want something else. Differ- 
 ent things help different people.” 
 
 “Just so,” said Aunt Barbara, yawning; 
 “and going to church in hot weather does not 
 help me at all, especially when there are 
 such a lot of bonnets to look at as there 
 always are in town. My best ideas about 
 dress used always to occur to me at church, 
 so much so, indeed, that I had to make a 
 resolution at last that I would never get 
 anything which I first thought of in church, 
 and so for one whole season I was wretchedly 
 dressed, and even now I hardly dare glance 
 
208 A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA^ HEAD. 
 
 off my Prayer Book. But how grave you 
 look, Gwynydd ! I believe I am quite shock- 
 ing you, child, and really I was just consider- 
 ing I had never talked so seriously in all my 
 life before ; but seriousness is catching.” 
 
 “ Gwen, dear,” said Brydget, coming in 
 with a letter in her hand, “ do read what I 
 have written to mamma, please, and tell me 
 if you think I ought to send it, or whether 
 you think it is a crazy letter. I am so 
 afraid it is,” and then Brydget began to 
 caress Aunt Barbara, while waiting to hear 
 my opinion. She had always an immense re- 
 spect for my superior wisdom, as she called 
 it, though she did also call me a delicious 
 goose, at times, but that was only in play. 
 
 The letter was, perhaps, a little crazy, 
 there was a great confusion of pronouns in 
 it, and not seldom a repetition of the same 
 phrase, but it was sweet and loving, and 
 just what any one might have known our 
 darling Brydget would write. There was 
 a long postscript at the end, concluding 
 thus — 
 
 “ And I do hope I am not an unnatural 
 daughter, but I could not give him up — 
 not if you were to ask me, indeed, I 
 could not — so you must not ask it of me, 
 
A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 209 
 
 mother, darling, but you must love him for 
 my sake. It is not only that I could not, 
 but I should not think it right, so you see 
 you cannot ask it of me, mother, darling, 
 for you have never told me to do anything 
 before that I could not try to do, so I know 
 you will not now, and I am quite happy. 
 Your own little Brydget.” 
 
 “ I think it is a very nice letter,” I said, 
 handing it back to Brydget; “and I am 
 sure my mother will think so, too, and that 
 it is just what she would like you to 
 write.” 
 
 “You dear Gwynydd, you always are so 
 comforting,” said Brydget, now turning to 
 caress me. 
 
 “ Yes, I observe Gwynydd gets a great 
 reputation for wisdom,” said Uncle Basset, 
 who had meanwhile come in, “ by always 
 approving of anything people have before 
 determined upon. No wonder she is al- 
 ways consulted, for advice from her means 
 praise.” 
 
 “ Only a few people can praise,” cried 
 Brydget. “ Is there any one that cannot 
 tease, Uncle Basset ?” 
 
 “ Don’t be saucy, Brydget : it is all very 
 well in a girl, but you are going to be a 
 vol. I. 14 
 
210 A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 
 
 woman soon, and I look forward to seeing 
 you grow very wise, and as capable of 
 praising as Gwynydd there ; but you will 
 have to change greatly first, eh, Brydget ?” 
 
 “ But I don’t mean to change— at least, 
 not much,” said Brydget, growing very 
 grave. “You see, I must not, because — he 
 likes me as I am.” 
 
 On this Uncle Basset burst out laughing, 
 but Brydget looked so surprised and so 
 vexed at finding she had said something 
 absurd, when she thought she was saying 
 something so very much the contrary, that 
 he checked himself at once, and, drawing 
 her to him, said, 
 
 “Well, Brydget, I don’t wonder at it at 
 all ; indeed, I think he would have to be a 
 very foolish fellow indeed if he did not like 
 you as you are ; and perhaps the wisest thing 
 we could wish for you would be that you 
 might never change at all.” 
 
 Then Brydget burst into tears. 
 
 It was that afternoon that Lady Brydget 
 called and asked if one of us would not go 
 to the opera with her. Of course Brydget 
 would not go, but, as I was not engaged 
 anywhere that night, I readily agreed to go, 
 on hearing that the opera was to be, not the 
 
A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 211 
 
 Don Giovanni, which had so displeased 
 Brydget the time before, but II Barbiere 
 di Seviglia. I suppose it must be true 
 that, unless the mind is properly attuned, 
 the harmony the ear receives reaches the 
 soul as discord ; for certainly I could not 
 enjoy the music as I felt it ought to be en- 
 joyed. I drew the curtain on my side of 
 the box, and only looked out from behind, 
 every now and then, trying by thus shutting 
 out the outer world to shut out my own 
 thoughts also ; but they would not be shut 
 out. Lady Brydget was very kind, and 
 did not talk to me, for which I felt grateful, 
 but indeed it was all I could do to bear it. 
 I did so long to go home, and be alone and 
 able to cry, and when Mario sang, the tears 
 would no longer be kept out of my eyes, 
 and yet I did not know why I was so tear- 
 ful. I was not thinking of losing Brydget, 
 I was not thinking of Duke ; I did not know 
 what I was thinking of. Suddenly my heart 
 gave a great bound. 
 
 “ I have come to make my apologies in 
 person, Lady Brydget.” 
 
 I heard no more. The ringing voice rang 
 on and on in my ears, and for a moment I 
 felt as if I must faint. Adrian Levison had 
 
 14-2 
 
212 A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 
 
 entered the box. He started also on seeing 
 me, and looked almost as if he would have 
 gone away at once ; then he recovered him- 
 self and spoke, but I did not know what he 
 said after those first few words that startled 
 me. I did not know that I had been think- 
 ing of him. The fascinating, so well-known 
 prima donna was trilling, trilling, trilling, and 
 it seemed as if the song itself had come in to 
 us, as if my thoughts had taken form and 
 appeared before me, and both were one, and 
 both were Adrian Levison. I know I bowed 
 to him, and he bowed very coldly in return, 
 and then I drew back the curtain and looked 
 down upon the stalls and the stage, and 
 round upon the other boxes. There was no 
 need to try to shut out anything any longer ; 
 it was better to have air, to have space. 
 
 Lady Brydget talked to Adrian Levison 
 about some party to which she had invited 
 him, and to which he had not come ; talked 
 about his engagements, and her engage- 
 ments ; talked about the opera, about Rome, 
 where they had first met ; about all matters 
 in heaven and earth, as it seemed to me 
 then. I did not speak at all ; I sat, with 
 my lips tight pressed together, gazing down 
 upon the sea of heads beneath, looking cold 
 
A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 213 
 
 and proud, more like a marble statue than 
 a woman, doubtless, and feeling — well, I 
 do not remember how I felt, exactly : like 
 marble, too, a little, also a little as if I were 
 anything but marble, and were tearing out 
 my own heart, and must not blench, would 
 not blench. I never looked round once, I 
 know, and meanwhile Adrian Levison talked 
 as if all the world were but a pleasure- 
 garden, with not one thorn on all its many 
 roses, and laughed every now and then — 
 laughed as he only knew how. At last he 
 shook hands with Lady Brydget, a.nd bowed 
 again to me. 
 
 “Good night, Miss Jerninghame,” he said, 
 and then he was gone ; and after that the 
 opera seemed all to begin over again, cer- 
 tainly it must be the longest opera that 
 ever was composed, but I suppose it came 
 to an end somehow, for at last I found my- 
 self driving home with Lady Brydget. 
 
 “ You have not seen Mr. Levison since 
 you met him the other morning at my 
 house ?” she asked, a little eagerly. 
 
 “ No, aunt,” I said. 
 
 The words sounded so dreadfully bald, so 
 terribly full of meaning, standing thus alone 
 in the dead silence that followed, that I felt 
 
214 A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 
 
 obliged to add something ; and, with burn- 
 ing cheeks, and fingers that trembled, though 
 tightly locked together, I added, in hard, 
 hoarse tones, 
 
 “ Are his father and mother in London ? 
 1 heard you talking about them ?” 
 
 “No ; they are all abroad — the father for 
 health, I believe, and the brother’s making 
 the grand tour, or arranging business, I ana 
 sure I don’t know which : they have busi- 
 ness all over the world. This Mr. Levison 
 would be with them also if he were not in 
 Parliament. Leally, I don’t think he ought 
 to be allowed loose in society, he is so very 
 dangerous.” 
 
 “ I suppose it is because he is in Parlia- 
 ment,” I answered. 
 
 What connection this had with his being 
 in society. Heaven only knows; but, though 
 it is said to be a mark of a wise man to 
 know when to hold his tongue, I think 
 it is a mark of a wise woman to be able 
 to speak at all times, and that there are 
 times when it is better to say anything 
 than nothing. When people are silent, it 
 is so easy to guess their thoughts. 
 
 “ It is a great pity he is a Jew,” said 
 Lady Brydget, in those deeply sympathetic 
 
A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 215 
 
 tones that always seemed to thrill through 
 her hearer’s heart. “ I do not mean in the 
 sectarian spirit ; we can none of us know 
 what it is to be born a Jew ; they are so 
 taught from their earliest years to value 
 the faith of their fathers, that it may be 
 impossible for them in this life to see its 
 errors. When I see a man like Mr. Levison 
 I believe it is so, and that it will be for- 
 given him in the next world, but in this 
 life it cuts him off from nearly everything.” 
 
 “ They can do many things now, though,” 
 I answered, “ perhaps gradually it w T ill not 
 be considered a disadvantage ; a few years 
 ago they could not have got into Parlia- 
 ment.” And my manner seemed as if I 
 were utterly indifferent, and could only 
 with difficulty continue such an uninterest- 
 ing subject, but I saw more stars as I stared 
 out of the carriage window than I had ever 
 seen on any night before, millions of stars, 
 and all the street seemed but a continuous 
 row of flaring, dazzling gaslights. 
 
 “ As long as they hold themselves so 
 aloof from the world, the world will not 
 think it necessary to take precautions 
 against them,” said Lady Brydget, in her 
 gentle musical voice. “ They seek for no 
 
216 A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 
 
 converts, and they marry among them- 
 selves. I wonder, by-the-bye, who Mr. 
 Levison is to marry ; of course it has been 
 arranged long ago. I believe it always is 
 with them, but I hope it is somebody 
 worthy of him, for if he were only not a 
 Jew he might marry any one ; now, of 
 course, that cuts him off from everything.” 
 Then we arrived at Uncle Basset’s door, 
 and Lady Brydget kissed me, and said 
 good-night, and I thanked her for the plea- 
 sure she had so kindly given me, and then 
 went slowly up to bed. Brydget, of course, 
 was still awake, and curious to hear how I 
 liked the Barbiere. 
 
 “It is quite different from Don Gio- 
 vanni,” I replied, pausing beside her bed 
 with the candle in my hand. 
 
 “ Gwen, dear, how pale you are !” cried 
 she. “ You are like a beautiful ghost lady, 
 but you frighten me. Oh, do not sit down 
 on my bed, or I shall dream of you.” 
 
 “ Well, good night, then,” I said, and was 
 going, but Brydget sprang up. 
 
 “ Gwen, dear, I have vexed you,” and she 
 caught me in her arms, and kissed me with 
 her rosy, smiling lips. “ Oh, Gwynydd, 
 how cold you are !” she cried ; “ why, you 
 
A GLIMPSE OF MEDUSA’S HEAD. 217 
 
 are like ice ! What have you done to your- 
 self?” 
 
 “ Nothing,” I said, “ nothing,” and kissed 
 Brydget, and went away. Only when I 
 shut myself into my little dressing-room I 
 wondered why Adrian Levison had started 
 back on seeing me, and why he had never 
 spoken to me. “ I vexed him with what 
 I said so thoughtlessly the other day,” I 
 said to myself. “ Oh, I wish I had not 
 been so foolish to-night ; I wish I had tried 
 to speak kindly to him. He must think I 
 cannot be friends with him because he is a 
 Jew, and spoke like one the other day; 
 when it is not that at all, but only because 
 I am so sorry for him,” and I suppose I 
 was very sorry for him, for I fell a-crying. 
 And thus it never occurred to me to think 
 why Lady Brydget had spoken as she had, 
 and yet it was very unlike her to repeat 
 herself, very unlike her to think twice of 
 Adrian Levi, son’s being a Jew. Lady 
 Brydget was one of those people who con- 
 sider themselves above all religious preju- 
 dices. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 
 
 “ The moon shines bright : — In such a night as this, 
 When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, 
 
 And they did make no noise ; in such a night, 
 
 * # # ‘ # # # 
 
 Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, 
 
 And with an unthrift love did run from Venice 
 As far as Belmont.’’ 
 
 Merchant of Venice . 
 
 A grand conversazione in Lady Bryd get’s 
 museum boudoirs, all the lions in London 
 crowded together — the learned lions, the 
 art lions, the beauty lions, all as many of 
 them as could be had at three weeks’ notice, 
 the thermometer rising rapidly, the win- 
 dows all open, and a rich contralto voice 
 singing “Borneo’s adieu to Juliet the air 
 heavy with the music, and the intoxicating 
 perfume of hot-house flowers, Adrian Levi- 
 
UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 219 
 
 son standing by an open window, half in, 
 half out of the room, the curtains fanning 
 him gently. I could not help it, I must do 
 something, I wished so much to speak to 
 him, to show that I did not hate or despise 
 him, though he seemed to think that I did; 
 but words will not always come when they 
 are wanted, smiles are somewhat easier, so 
 I smiled faintly on him as I passed by him 
 into the balcony. The room was, indeed, 
 past bearing, so hot and crowded w 7 as it. 
 I did not mean my smile as an invitation 
 to him to follow me, and he did not seem 
 to take it as such, but he turned and looked 
 out as I moved into the darkness. 
 
 “ How beautiful is night! 
 
 A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
 
 No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, 
 Breaks the serene of heaven.” 
 
 I hardly knew whether he was speaking 
 it, or I was thinking it, recalling Thalaba, 
 my old friend at the Deanery, here in the 
 new world of London, but certainly it was 
 Adrian Levison who said, 
 
 “ Should you not like to spend a night in 
 the desert ?” 
 
 I laughed. “ That always sounds to me 
 like wishing to be a bird, or a butterfly, or 
 
220 UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 
 
 to have an Arab steed, which seems to have 
 been the leading wish of the last generation, 
 to judge by the verses in their albums.” 
 
 “ Thank you for putting me down, Miss 
 Jerninghame. Do you know no one ever 
 tried that before ?” 
 
 “ I did not mean to put you down !” I ex- 
 claimed, indignantly. 
 
 “ Then you did it without meaning it, 
 which is even more annihilating ; but to tell 
 the truth, I should not mind if I were a 
 bird, or a butterfly, or even if I had an 
 Arab steed, which seems, however, rather 
 an ante-climax after the other two wishes, 
 seeing that any one can buy one without 
 being ruined, and that the opinion of the 
 learned seems to be that the English breed 
 is best. But, anyhow, it would be very 
 nice to have a gallop on such a night as 
 this.” 
 
 “ I don’t wish for it,” I said, quietly. 
 
 “ Perhaps you don’t wish for anything,” 
 he replied, looking at me earnestly for a 
 moment or two. “ Indeed, I don’t believe 
 you do, any more than the night wishes for 
 anything — this beautiful night of which we 
 were speaking. What does it matter to 
 the night, if by the glimmering light of its 
 
UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 
 
 221 
 
 stars men rob and kill one another ? It is 
 they that do it, not the night.” Then with 
 a sudden transition of tone, “ It is a pity 
 we are not all so contented. Here am I 
 longing to get out of town, and there is 
 your cousin only looking forward to escaping 
 to-morrow.” 
 
 “ What, Duke !” I exclaimed. “ I did 
 not know that.” 
 
 “ Yes ; he says he has nothing to detain 
 him, so he is going to fly from this perpetual 
 splashing on the millstone, which we call 
 grinding corn, or making money, or doing 
 our duty by our country, and is going to 
 repose among green fields, or streams that 
 play, but do not work, and so leave men 
 time to think. Here we have no time for 
 that, and so as the season goes on I find 
 myself each night talking more nonsense 
 than the last. However, what I mean is, 
 that he told me he was going down to his 
 own place to-morrow, only where it is I 
 can’t remember now. 
 
 So Duke was going to the Castle next 
 day, and he had not told me so. It 
 gave me a little pang, I must confess. He 
 had not spoken to me all the evening, only 
 just shaken hands with me, when he first 
 
222 UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 
 
 saw me, with that curious smile of his 
 writhing about his lips, and then he had 
 turned to Brydget and congratulated her 
 on her engagement, for that was announced 
 now ; there was no need to keep it secret 
 any longer, though George Lumley had 
 been told he might have to wait a little, 
 for my father and mother considered 
 Brydget too young to part with yet. Bryd- 
 get had been very shy about receiving 
 Duke’s congratulations. She had grown 
 very shy since her engagement had been 
 announced, though she had made merry 
 about it at first, when it was yet a novelty, 
 and she had not rightly understood its 
 meaning. Now she was very grave about 
 it, and she grew very red, and did not look 
 up, as she pressed Duke’s hand, and said, 
 “ Thank you, Duke,” in that sweet, simple 
 way of hers. Duke looked at her so tenderly, 
 I longed to thank him for his kindness, but 
 of course I could not do that; though if 
 only he had not been so foolish that morn- 
 ing he saw me alone, we should probably 
 have spent the whole evening talking over 
 Brydget’s engagement together, and it 
 seemed strange to be thus cut off from his 
 sympathy, though of course it was much 
 
UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 223 
 
 better as it was, for now be attended to his 
 guests. He was most polite to every one 
 that night, poor Duke ! going about talking 
 to one person after another in the most 
 painstaking way. He never came near me ; 
 but that, of course, was not necessary. I 
 was hardly a guest, and I did not wish him 
 to come and talk to me, only I wished he did 
 not look so sad. It was so very usual for 
 him to look sad I did not think it necessary, 
 in order to account for it on this night, to 
 think that he was grieving over what I had 
 said to him when we last parted, but I just 
 remembered enough about that to know 
 that I could not go and comfort him, as I 
 should certainly otherwise have done. Now 
 when I heard he was going to leave town 
 next day, I looked across the room, and saw 
 him looking tall and sorrowful, almost as if 
 he were wapped round in a cloud, standing 
 talking to old Lady Dorter, Lord Dorter s 
 grandmother. She was a good old woman, 
 of whom no one could find it in their heart 
 to say a .bad word, but certainly she was 
 very stupid, and Lady Brydget had col- 
 lected together all the most beautiful 
 women, and all the most talented men in 
 London, yet there Duke stood, and talked 
 
224 UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 
 
 to old Lady Dorter, smiling down upon her 
 in his benignant fashion, and quite delight- 
 ing the poor old Dowager, who for half a 
 century had not met with so much attention 
 from a young man. I saw Lady Brydget 
 go up to Duke, and lay her hand on his 
 arm. I could not hear what she said, but 
 it was easy enough to guess, for she handed 
 him a shawl, and then she looked at me. I 
 knew she was telling him to bring it to me. 
 Duke looked across at me now — looked 
 about where my feet might be, never rais- 
 ing his eyes. He moved, as if he were com- 
 ing, then he turned to hear what last words 
 Lady Dorter was saying to him, then he 
 moved again, looked undecidedly about the 
 room, saw Mrs. Valpy in want of some one 
 to put down her ice-plate for her, advanced 
 and put it down for her and the shawl with 
 it, and so doing seemed to have forgotten 
 all about the latter. I dare say he had ; it 
 would have been quite like Duke so to have 
 forgotten, very unlike him, indeed, to re- 
 member, if anything prevented his bringing 
 it at once ; but somehow I was quite sure 
 then, and I am quite sure still, that he did 
 not forget the shawl, that it weighed far 
 heavier on his heart than it had upon his 
 
UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 225 
 
 arm, but that he did not choose to bring it 
 to me. 
 
 “ What a beautiful voice that is !” said 
 Adrian Levison, as the song ceased. 
 “ Whose music was it ? You do not know ? 
 I must really go and see.” 
 
 But even while he was going, there ap- 
 peared George Lumley. 
 
 “ Lady Brydget has sent you this shawl,” 
 he said. 
 
 “ I am coming in,” I replied, quickly. 
 
 “ Oh, why should you now, when I 
 have just brought you a shawl ? It can’t 
 do you any harm to stay out now ; indeed, I 
 don’t know what you’d have to be made of 
 to catch cold on such a night as this, only 
 Lady Brydget seemed so anxious. Let me 
 help you to put it on. It is much nicer 
 out here.” 
 
 It was much nicer out there. Adrian 
 Levison had gone to see what the music 
 was, though, as I have often noticed is the 
 case with people when they go on such 
 errands, he did not ask the singer, nor 
 approach the piano, but just suffered himself 
 to be drawn into conversation with the first 
 acquaintance that addressed him ; however 
 he had gone, so I stayed, and put on the 
 
 VOL. I. 15 
 
226 UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 
 
 shawl, but soon suffered it to fall off, it was 
 such a soft and balmy night. However, 
 Adrian Levison did not come back, and no 
 more shawls were sent me. So George 
 Lumley stayed and talked to me of 
 Brydget ; I was very desirous to like 
 George Lumley, but even if I had not 
 desired it, I think I must have liked him, 
 he was so simple and honest ; and then he 
 was so much in love with Brydget, besides 
 being not in the least ashamed of express- 
 ing his love. 
 
 “ I wish I had more in me, though,” he 
 said, after we had talked for some time, 
 and grown quite confidential together. 
 “ She’d make something out of a man, if 
 any one could, she is such a little jewel, 
 but I wish I was not such a great thick- 
 head. I mean to go in for reading regu- 
 larly, when I go back to Oxford ; but it 
 don’t do me a bit of good, you see. I took 
 up Blackstone yesterday, to see what I 
 could make of that, for they say that is the 
 sort of thing for a country gentleman ; but 
 it was not a bit of use, I fell asleep over 
 the first page, and when I woke up, I could 
 not recollect whatever that was about. It 
 is all these late hours, I believe ; I mean 
 
UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 227 
 
 to go to bed at nine o’clock at Oxford, I 
 think. Don’t you think that will be a 
 good plan ? As you are so awfully clever, 
 as Brydget tells me, don’t you think you 
 could advise me what to study, give me a 
 few hints, I mean. I don’t want people to 
 say she has chosen a fool.” 
 
 “ Brydget won’t think that, nor will 
 any one else whose opinion is worth caring 
 about,” I said, smiling. “ I am afraid I 
 can’t give you any hints, only you will find 
 plenty of people to advise you at Oxford, I 
 should think, and if you don’t there will 
 always be Duke.” 
 
 “ Sir Marmaduke ! Oh — yes — ah — yes. 
 I don’t know. I’m always afraid of him. 
 He’d — he’d think it a bore to talk to me, I 
 should say.” 
 
 “ How you mistake him !” I exclaimed, 
 indignantly. “ He would like nothing 
 better than to help you, if only he could, 
 and if you want somebody who is wise 
 you could not find any one wiser, though he 
 has no chance of taking honours, they say,” 
 I added, sadly, for it was always a little 
 vexation that Duke would not show the 
 world how superior he was. 
 
 “ Honours don’t prove much,” said 
 
 15—2 
 
228 UNDER LADY BRYDGET’s EYE. 
 
 George Lumley, sagely. “ I can tell- you 
 there’s more thought now of winning a cup 
 or two at Oxford than there is of taking 
 honours. Honours are gone by.” 
 
 “ I thought you said you wanted to 
 read,” I exclaimed, and then George saw 
 Biydget pass the window, and in a minute 
 he was speaking to her, and persuading 
 her to come out into the balcony ; and a 
 minute or two after that I had gone in, 
 and left them alone together. 
 
CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 “ Si tout cela consistait en faits, en actions, en paroles, 
 on pourrait le decrire, et le rendre en quelque 
 fagon ; mais comment dire ce qui n’etait ni dit, ni 
 fait, ni pense meme, mais goute, mais sen tip’* 
 
 Rousseau . 
 
 It was the morning of the fancy ball, and 
 my uncle had called me to help him in 
 writing out some papers for him. I had 
 long ago begged him to consider me as his 
 secretary, whenever he stood in need of 
 assistance, and he had already honoured 
 me more than once by allowing me to write 
 business letters for him, or to fill up some 
 of those innumerable circulars which it 
 seemed to be part of his lot in life to send 
 out. Brydget had with great difficulty 
 been at last persuaded by Aunt Barbara to 
 go and try on her dress, which having only 
 
230 THE 3>BIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 just arrived might very likely require some 
 alteration. At first she had declined, 
 humping up her pretty shoulders, and 
 quietly going on with her work, while she 
 declared that anyhow George would think 
 her delightful, and so what did it matter 
 whether her dress fitted her or not ? hut in 
 the end she had gone, and then Uncle Basset 
 called to me, 
 
 “ Gwynydd, if you are not busy can you 
 come into the study for a little ?” and I 
 had gone into the study, and found that 
 my morning’s task promised to be a lengthy 
 one ; for if was not only copying, there 
 were calculations to be made, and various 
 reports to be compared together. After he 
 had shown me what he wanted done, Uncle 
 Basset left the room, and I sat quietly add- 
 ing up “ six and three — nine, but they are 
 nearly double as expensive as these other 
 twelve ; nearly double, that is not exact 
 enough.” But Uncle Basset had told 
 me he only required an approximate esti- 
 mate ; for as usual in cases of this kind the 
 numbers were all fancy numbers, and had 
 never yet been put to the test of expe- 
 rience ; so I was not particular about 
 decimal places, and in a few minutes was 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 231 
 
 adding away again, “ seven and two, and 
 fifteen, then deduct five,” when the door 
 opened, and Uncle Basset entered again, 
 but not alone this time ; there was some 
 one else with him now, and I looked up 
 and saw Adrian Levison. We bowed 
 somewhat stiffly to each other, and then I 
 began gathering up my papers, preparing 
 to leave the room, and finish my calcula- 
 tions elsewhere, when my uncle said, 
 
 “ Never mind, Gwynydd, you’ll find all 
 the rest of the house topsy-turvy to-day, 
 and Levison has only come to talk to me 
 about the driest possible business. I don’t 
 think you need be afraid of its distracting 
 you.” 
 
 So I sat down again with my hack 
 almost turned upon them, and went on at 
 once with my business as if I were a calcu- 
 lating machine ; and meanwhile Adrian 
 Levison discussed the “ driest possible 
 business ” with my uncle, and for the first 
 time gas companies became romantic to me, 
 and I could repeat every word of that con- 
 versation now, though I have long ago 
 forgotten what my poor figures were about ; 
 they were the merest possible cyphers to 
 me, all noughts without exception, though 
 
232 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 from the time it took me to arrive at it, I 
 fancy the total must have been a big one. 
 
 At last. “ ‘0 tempora ! 0 mores !’ ” ex- 
 claimed my uncle. 
 
 “ Were they not not always what they 
 are now ?” said Adrian Levison, rather drily. 
 “For myself I agree with Goethe ; people 
 may say what they like about the im- 
 morality of the age, but if any one likes to 
 be moral I can see nothing in the age to 
 prevent him.” 
 
 “It is to be gathered from that, that 
 Goethe himself did not like to be moral,” 
 said Uncle Basset, laughing. 
 
 “ He was moral enough, if doing more 
 good than half the so-called moral men ever 
 attempt proves anything.” 
 
 “ Query,” said Uncle Basset. “ I am 
 quite ready to be grateful to Goethe for 
 any good he may have done me, or any of 
 those with whom I come in contact, but 
 gratitude does not blind me to his faults, 
 and I expect that, if one knew it, the rest 
 of Germany is very much like Prussia, 
 which, from disbelieving in miracles, has 
 gone on they say to disbelieve that God in- 
 terferes with the affairs of this life, and so 
 sees no use in prayer. When a nation has 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 233 
 
 come to that, I think it has arrived at a 
 very had stage of its development indeed, 
 and why not attribute that to Goethe’s 
 influence ? From what I have heard of his 
 writings I should think it very likely. I 
 don’t read German myself.” 
 
 “ And so of course speak upon hearsay. 
 Excuse me, Lord Basset, hut I think that 
 is what no man has a right to do ; he is risk- 
 ing a great injustice.” 
 
 Adrian Levison spoke sternly, almost 
 uncivilly, I thought, but then I could not 
 see his face, which doubtless explained away 
 what otherwise sounded abrupt in his 
 speech, for Uncle Basset laughed good- 
 humouredly. “Well, well,” he said, “we 
 should have to hold our tongues very often 
 if we never spoke upon hearsay, but come, 
 Gwynydd, I believe you are my authority 
 for what I know about Goethe, why don’t 
 you say something to back up your own 
 opinions ?” 
 
 “Perhaps Miss Jerninghame has nothing 
 to say ?” 
 
 It was spoken abruptly, quickly, without 
 allowing me any time to answer, had I 
 wished to do so, and now, without allowing 
 myself time to collect my thoughts, I re- 
 
234 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 peated his words, “No, I have nothing to 
 say.” I spoke very low, almost sullenly, 
 without looking round, and then Adrian 
 Levison shook hands with my uncle, and 
 with another bow, which I imagined, for I 
 did not see it, said, “ Good morning, Miss 
 Jerninghame,” and left the room. I bent 
 down over my writing, and I did not know 
 what to do to myself when I saw the paper 
 blistered with a tear-drop, I was really in 
 violent anger with myself for the first time 
 in my life that I remember being so, and I 
 suppose that was the reason that very soon 
 another tear-drop followed the first. Then 
 the totals were all arrived at, and I got up, 
 and went into the drawing-room, but the 
 drawing-room was not only trying on its 
 dress, like Brydget, it was really arraying 
 itself in its festive clothes, and there were 
 workmen hanging up garlands, and ar- 
 ranging candles, so I was going on to the 
 little boudoir, where Aunt Barbara’s par- 
 ticular chair was to be found, when I heard 
 voices proceeding thence, and among them 
 recognised Lady Brydget’ s, so, feeling dis- 
 inclined for talking just then, I crept into 
 the balcony, and there crouched on a low 
 stool, sheltered by the creepers from the 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 235 
 
 gaze of the passers by in the Square. Thus 
 sitting I was visible to Aunt Barbara, but 
 not to Lady Brydget, and thus undisturbed 
 I sat and listened to the conversation in the 
 little room. 
 
 “ I think that is such a narrow-minded 
 way of speaking. Why is it a pity he is a 
 Jew ? He is much more like a Christian 
 and certainly a far better man than half the 
 men of one’s acquaintance, and yet every 
 one mourns over him as if the greater part 
 of those men whom we are accustomed to 
 look upon as models had not been Jews 
 also. You look shocked, my dear Lord 
 Basset, but really it strikes me as incon- 
 sistent to be so unhappy about Mr. Levison, 
 and to sing King David’s psalms every Sun- 
 day in church.” 
 
 It was Lady Brydget speaking in her 
 soft silvery tones, just a little raised, to 
 show that she was in earnest. I fancied I 
 could see her leaning back on the sofa, 
 gently fanning herself with a lace handker- 
 chief in one of those soft white hands, 
 models for any sculptor, and glittering with 
 diamonds, which, beautiful though they 
 were, never could distract any one from 
 observing the beauty of the hands, for 
 
236 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 Lady Brydget’s hands were really beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 Uncle Basset answered uneasily, “ I have 
 nothing to say against David, nor anything 
 to say against the Jews even now, but it is 
 a very different thing now from what it was. 
 It is as wrong not to be a Christian now as 
 it was then — ” 
 
 “ Now, that is just where I think people 
 so mistaken,” interrupted Lady Brydget. 
 “ I recollect a hymn Duke used to say, 
 when he was a child, in which he thanked 
 God that he was a Christian. It may be a 
 great matter for thankfulness, but I see no 
 merit in it. It is merely an accident ; had 
 you, my dear Lord Basset, been born in 
 China, you cannot think that you would 
 have been a Christian, and had you been 
 born a Levison, I believe you would have 
 been much the same exemplary kind of 
 Jew that Mr. Levison is now. After all, 
 what do we know about religion ? The 
 Bible is true, I dare say ; I do not at all wish 
 to be classed with Colenso, or even with 
 those unfortunate Essays and Reviews, but 
 even if every word of the Bible is true, and 
 not a word has been interpolated, and So- 
 lomon’s Song is not only a love song after 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 237 
 
 all, even then for a time people believed 
 the Bible told them that the sun went 
 round the earth, and that all the world was 
 made in six days, and then all drowned in 
 the Flood, and now, I dare say, we are be- 
 lieving a great many things that are quite 
 as little told us as any of those. I dare say 
 the Jews are quite as near the truth as we 
 are. After all, as dear Duke is always say- 
 ing, all that is required of a man is that he 
 should act up to his lights.” 
 
 “ Quite so,” exclaimed Uncle Basset, at 
 last finding opportunity to edge in a word, 
 “ and the last thing I should wish to do is 
 to blame Levison or any one else for not 
 being a Christian. If we could all act up 
 to our own standards as consistently as he 
 does, the world would be very different. 
 All that I wish is to give him a higher 
 standard.” 
 
 “ And could you ?” exclaimed Lady 
 Brydget, with all that fire that always 
 seemed to come and go at her will. “ He 
 thinks it his duty to forgive his enemies, 
 so do we ; he thinks it his duty to serve 
 his friends, so do we. You cannot fancy 
 him doing anything dishonourable or selfish. 
 Oh, it is but a canting way of talking, to 
 
238 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 object to a man for being a Jew, when we 
 ought to be reverencing him for being a good 
 man. It is a commonplace, such as one 
 naturally falls into, but so is all cant more 
 or less natural. It is not the less inex- 
 cusable on that account. And now tell 
 me, how could you raise Adrian Levison’s 
 standard ?” 
 
 “ Perhaps not his standard, but at least 
 then his motives,” suggested Uncle Basset. 
 
 “His motive is a desire to do his duty. 
 I wish we could all say as much,” and Lady 
 Brydget’s voice faltered, and I could fancy 
 how she pressed her handkerchief to her 
 eyes. “ What motive could be nobler ?” 
 she added. 
 
 “ Stern daughter of the voice of God ! O 
 duty ! if that name thou love,” began Uncle 
 Basset, and being now happily landed in a 
 quotation, he did not pause again till he 
 arrived at, “ And happy will our nature be 
 When love is an unerring light, And joy 
 its own security.” Then Lady Brydget in- 
 terrupted him. 
 
 “ Unfortunately love is a will-o’-the-wisp 
 light at best in this world.” She sighed 
 heavily, and when she spoke again it was 
 about Duke ; and she said, “ I am so grieved 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 239 
 
 at Duke's leaving town so quickly ; really 
 he is too good to live, and sometimes I wish 
 selfishly he could grow a little more like 
 other people. Look what I found in his 
 blotting book the other day, he must have 
 been writing it when I sent him word to 
 come down, because the people were already 
 arriving for that party on his last night. 
 He is so careless he is always leaving his 
 papers about. But look, dear Lady Basset, 
 I should like you to read it.” 
 
 And Aunt Barbara read aloud : 
 
 “ ‘ Be desirous, my son, to do the will of 
 another rather than thine own. Choose 
 always to have less rather than more. Seek 
 always the lowest place, and to be inferior 
 to every one. Wish always, and pray — ’ ” 
 Then, apparently, Duke had been in- 
 terrupted, for she read no more ; but I 
 always knew Thomas a Kempis well, and 
 could easily finish in my mind the uncom- 
 pleted sentence. “ Wish always, and pray 
 that the will of Hod may be perfectly ful- 
 filled in thee.” I knew Duke's habit of 
 writing down anything he found difficult 
 to practise, which he thus tried to impress 
 upon his heart, and my eyes filled with tears 
 as I recollected his melancholy face on that 
 
240 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 last night in London, and the conscientious 
 way in which he had tried to do his duty 
 as host by entertaining the Dowager Lady 
 Dorter. Dear Duke ! he was, indeed, too 
 good to live, I thought, and at once my 
 heart warmed for his sake towards his 
 mother, and I got up and joined the others 
 in the little room, receiving Lady Brydget ’s 
 soft lingering kiss with a better grace than 
 usual as I asked after Duke, and whether 
 she had heard from him yet. But there 
 was not much said about him then. Lady 
 Brydget had only come to bring a magnifi- 
 cent basket of hothouse flowers for the ball, 
 and she soon took her departure. 
 
 It was weary work to me dressing myself 
 that night. Generally I dressed rather 
 quickly than otherwise, and I do not recol- 
 lect ever in my life taking down my hair and 
 doing it again, or trying on one ornament 
 after another, as Brydget would sometimes 
 do, running about the house to consult 
 every one as to which looked best; but 
 that night all my dress was strange to me, 
 and I did not know whether first to put 
 on my gold-embroidered jacket or many- 
 coloured sash ; and then my hair was to be 
 worn hanging down, and, though this may 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 241 
 
 sound a very simple way of wearing it, it is 
 not in reality so simple, when it will catch 
 upon the gold cord on one’s dress, and has 
 to be bound back from straying into one’s 
 eyes by a gold fillet which will not tie 
 firmly, and which is also in some incompre- 
 hensible manner to serve for a foundation on 
 which to fasten a scarlet gold-embroidered 
 cap and rich red pomegranite blossom. 
 
 Brydget had been dressed first, and I had 
 not even time to look at myself before I 
 ran down to join the others, feeling already 
 rather tired, and as yet decidedly not at 
 home in my foreign garments. There were 
 plenty of mirrors in the drawing-room, in 
 which I could regard myself back and front 
 and profile to my heart’s content, if I so 
 desired it ; so that I had no regret about 
 not having seen myself, as I went down- 
 stairs ; and when I got into the drawing- 
 room I altogether forgot I was in fancy 
 dress also, so entranced was I by Brydget’s 
 loveliness. She had run into my room 
 directly she was dressed, and thrown her- 
 self on her knees beside me, and kissed me 
 as she asked me if I did not think the 
 sheep would like their shepherdess. But 
 I had not rightly seen her then, and now 
 
 VOL. i. 16 
 
242 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 I had never seen anything so bewitching. 
 George Lumley had insisted on being a 
 shepherd directly he heard she was to be a 
 shepherdess ; and, though Aunt Barbara 
 had pronounced it bad taste, Brydget had 
 clapped her hands at the idea, declaring 
 she should call him “ silly” all the evening, 
 for that she believed was the true classical 
 appellation for a shepherd. But, though he 
 was in pink and blue, and he and Brydget 
 were, at the moment I entered, posing in the 
 attitude of the Dresden shepherd and shep- 
 herdess on the mantel-piece — that is to say, 
 she with one hand on her crook and the other 
 raised to her dimpled chin, was pretending 
 to turn her face away from him, whilst at 
 the same time looking roguishly at him, 
 and with one foot already pointed to hasten 
 to him, where he knelt before her, yet I 
 saw nothing of George Lumley, hardly 
 noticed that he was there, certainly not 
 that he was upon his knees before her, so 
 much was I struck by my darling Brydget, 
 whose loveliness fairly rivetted me to the 
 spot. But in a minute Brydget saw me, 
 and, saucily running past George, tripped 
 up to me, and, sinking on to an ottoman, 
 cried, 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 243 
 
 “ Stand still ; let me look at you, 
 Gwynydd.” 
 
 “ ‘ She walks in beauty, like the night 
 Of cloudless climes and starry skies ; 
 
 And all that’s best of dark and bright 
 Meets in her aspect and her eyes.’ 
 
 “ Gaudy clay, go and hide your abashed 
 face,” said Uncle Basset, addressing 
 
 Brydget. 
 
 “ George, George ! come and comfort 
 me,” cried Brydget, hiding her face in her 
 hands. “ I feel I am turning yellow with 
 jealousy. Oh dear ! and I always hoped 
 people called me the pretty Miss J erning- 
 hame — I notice there is always one of two 
 sisters called pretty — and now, oh my dear 
 Gwynydd ! you are beautiful.” 
 
 An d in a moment Brydget was kissing 
 me, and exclaiming, 
 
 “ But, look, look, Gwynydd ! is not she 
 beautiful ?” 
 
 This she said in a lower voice, as if afraid 
 of being overheard, as it was apropos of a 
 young lady whom I now saw standing oppo- 
 site, all scarlet and gold and white, with long 
 dark hair shadowing all, and a face that 
 glowed with the colour of her own pome- 
 granate flowers. 
 
 16—2 
 
244 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 “Beautiful!” I whispered back, admi- 
 ringly, and at once I wished that Duke 
 could see her, too : I had a feeling he 
 would so admire her. 
 
 Then Brydget went into a peal of laugh- 
 ter, and began kissing and embracing me 
 like a wild girl. 
 
 “ It is yourself, Gwynydd ; it is your- 
 self,” she cried. “ Oh, George, Uncle 
 Basset, Gwynydd does not know her own 
 reflection. She is grown into a beautiful 
 swan, though she never was an ugly duck- 
 ling, but only a dear, delicious old goose, 
 and that she is still just the same.” 
 
 Then our guests began to arrive, and 
 Brydget made us all laugh, just as the first 
 people entered the room, by pausing in the 
 middle of one of her impromptu dances, 
 and saying, in a peremptory tone, 
 
 “ Brydget, behave yourself!” 
 
 Upon which she immediately grew quite 
 sheepish in her behaviour, as I heard her 
 afterwards whispering confidentially to 
 George, otherwise I cannot say that I 
 should have found it out. 
 
 Every one said that that ball of Aunt 
 Barbara’s was the very prettiest thing seen 
 in London that year. I do not feel as if I 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 245 
 
 could express an opinion about this ; but, 
 indeed, I cannot think how anything any 
 year could be prettier. There was the con- 
 servatory lighted with Chinese lanterns, 
 and the ball-room lighted with gas-jets 
 draped in rose-colour, and another room, 
 filled with easy-chairs and ottomans, that 
 was lit with wax-candles ; and then there 
 was the passage, hardly lighted at all, and 
 everything was bright and fragrant with 
 flowers, and all the dresses were pretty, 
 and many of them almost dazzling with 
 jewels ; while all the ladies were lovely, 
 and the men at least looked fit to be their 
 companions in the dance. Indeed, to me 
 all the men looked like heroes, and the 
 ladies like enchanted princesses. I had 
 never fancied anything like it, not even in 
 fairy-land ; and I wondered vaguely whe- 
 ther I should have to come home as bonny 
 Kilmeny came home — “ late, late in the 
 gloamin’,” with a look that told she “ had 
 been she knew not where,” and she “ had 
 seen what she could not declare.” And, as 
 it was with Kilmeny, “ she heard a song, she 
 heard it sung, She kenn’d not where ; but 
 sae sweetly it rung, It fell on her ear like a 
 dream of the morn,” so it was with me; 
 
246 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 and I looked and saw Adrian Levison 
 standing beside me, and be it was who had 
 said, 
 
 “ Can you ever forgive my rudeness this 
 morning ?” 
 
 My eyes told well enough whether I 
 could ever forgive it or not. 
 
 “Were you rude?” I said. “I knew 
 you did not mean it, for I was rude, too, 
 and I did not mean it either.” 
 
 Adrian Levison laughed. 
 
 “ I never knew you were so Irish,” he 
 said. “But what does it matter, what does 
 anything matter, so that you forgive me ? I 
 have been half mad with myself ever since, 
 and now nothing matters.” 
 
 “ No ; I don’t think anything matters 
 much,” I said. 
 
 How could anything seem of importance 
 to me then — anything but the one thing, 
 that Adrian Levison stood beside me, 
 Adrian Levison was speaking to me, smiling 
 his joyous smile ? I recalled Lady Brydget’s 
 words of the morning, and smiled, too. 
 There was no dreadful gulf between us, 
 there was no gulf at all ; that was but 
 people’s canting way of talking, and I had 
 caught it from them, and magnified it in 
 
THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 247 
 
 my sorrowful imagination. But it was 
 commonplace and petty to think in that 
 way. I would be large-minded hencefor- 
 ward. And Adrian Levison stood beside 
 me, and there was no dreadful gulf be- 
 tween us. 
 
 “ Do you know you have more than 
 gained your wish V’ he said. “ Does it 
 make you very happy ?” 
 
 “ What wish ?” I asked. 
 
 It seemed to me then I had no wishes. 
 Had I not all I cared for ? What had I to 
 do wi th wishing ? 
 
 “ The wish I thought useless when you 
 wished it. But I see now even you can 
 gain additional beauty. Well, you wished 
 for it, and you have got your wish very 
 quickly. In Lady Brydget’s studio, you 
 remember?” 
 
 “ Yes, I remember,” I said. “ I wished 
 to be beautiful, but I am not beautiful ; 
 Brydget is, not I.” 
 
 “ Brydget is lovely — I beg your pardon ; 
 I mean, your sister is lovely — but you, you 
 have gained your wish, and you certainly 
 look the happier for it, too,” he added. 
 
 “ I am happy,” I replied. 
 
 Then several people came up and inter- 
 
248 THE DRIEST POSSIBLE BUSINESS. 
 
 rupted us, and I had to promise Lord 
 Dorter a dance, and George Lumley a 
 dance ; and while I was giving away all 
 my dances Adrian Levison engaged me for 
 one also. In a general way he did not 
 dance, and he only asked me now for the 
 first square dance for which I was disen- 
 gaged. I promised him a set of Lancers, 
 and then I had to go away and waltz my- 
 self, and for the first time I thought waltz- 
 ing heavenly, as I had heard other girls 
 describe it, and yet it took me away from 
 him; but then everything was heavenly 
 that night. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 “ Alas ! and life hath moments when a glance 
 (If thought to sudden watchfulness be stirr’d) — 
 A flush — a fading of the cheek, perchance— 
 
 A word — less, less, the cadence of a w r ord, 
 
 Lets in our gaze the mind’s dim veil beneath ; 
 Thence to bring haply knowledge, fraught with 
 death.” 
 
 Mrs. Hemans. 
 
 I HAVE never looked back on it all since 
 it happened — never as I am looking back 
 now, telling every little thing, that I may 
 try to show how the great things came 
 about ; and now that I have at last arrived 
 at describing the fancy ball — that fancy 
 ball of which I have been thinking ever 
 since I began to write — I hardly know 
 what to write of it. Words always seem 
 to tell so little, especially written words ; 
 and there are some things which, though 
 
250 
 
 THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 one can never forget them, are almost im- 
 possible to express in words. I know that 
 I danced several times that night, in the 
 description of which I had to break off and 
 pause, the thoughts came crowding upon 
 me so thick and so confusedly; I danced 
 several times, and at last it came to be my 
 turn to dance with Adrian Levison, and he 
 came and claimed me for his partner. Then 
 we stood up together ; but it seemed that 
 all the sets were already arranged, and the 
 room was hot and crowded ; so we did not 
 dance, but went into the passage. The 
 passage was full of people, walking up and 
 down, almost if not quite as full as the 
 room, and we walked up and down with 
 the rest. Then I do not know how it was, 
 nor what we talked about, but at last 
 Adrian Levison said, 
 
 “ I am sorry you do not like Byron’s 
 poetry, for I never thought of it as I do 
 to-night, while I see you wear that dress. 
 
 * Zoe mou, sas agapo’ ” he murmured, half 
 to himself and half to me. 
 
 I do not know how it was, my Greek 
 dress had set every one quoting Byron’s 
 Maid of Athens to me that night. George 
 Lumley had cried, “ Maid of Athens, ere 
 
THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 251 
 
 we part, Give, oh, give me back my heart,” as 
 he took me back to my seat after our waltz 
 together, and Lord Dorter had not been 
 satisfied with that, but had also said, “ Zoe 
 mou, sas agapo,” and almost every one of 
 my partners had quoted one or the other 
 to me, and I had thought nothing of it, yet 
 now when Adrian Levison spoke, he seemed 
 to be saying his own words, not Byron’s, 
 and for one long moment our eyes met, and 
 our souls spoke to one another. Then an 
 expression of agony passed over his face, 
 and with a gesture of despair he flung him- 
 self upon an ottoman, covering his face with 
 his hands. Trembling, I sank down upon 
 the ottoman beside him, and neither of us 
 spoke. I do not know how long we sat there 
 in silence, it seemed to me then like years, 
 so much did it cost me to sit there beside 
 him, seeing him suffering, and yet doing 
 nothing to comfort him. I longed to speak 
 to him, to ask him what ailed him, and yet 
 I would have died rather than spoken, un- 
 less he spoke first. It seemed to me then 
 like years, and yet it would never surprise 
 me to hear it was but for a few seconds, 
 and I can never know, only at last some 
 one came up and said, “ I think this is our 
 
252 
 
 THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 dance, Miss Jerninghame ; I should never 
 have found you, but Lady Basset told me 
 you were here.” Then I remembered that 
 Aunt Barbara had passed through the 
 passage some time before, how long I could 
 not remember, for I had lost my count of 
 time, just as we shall all lose our count of 
 time in Paradise, I suppose. People say 
 there will be no more time then, but I can- 
 not fancy how that should be, only, of 
 course, we shall all take no count of it, 
 just as I took no count of it that night. But 
 I recollected seeing Aunt Barbara pass 
 through the passage and look at me, and I 
 got up at once now, and walked away with 
 my partner without ever once looking at 
 Adrian Levison. Somehow I fancied if it 
 had been any one else I had been sitting 
 with, my partner might have looked for me 
 longer and never found me, but now Aunt 
 Barbara had told him where I was, and so 
 of course I danced with him. 
 
 “ How wild and pale Levison looks to- 
 night !” he said to me. 
 
 “ Does he look pale ?” I asked. 
 
 “ He looks as poor Yokes did the morn- 
 ing he found himself a bankrupt, and went 
 out and shot himself,” said my partner, re- 
 
THE FANCY BALL, 
 
 253 
 
 ferring to the one sensational experience of 
 his own life when he had met Yokes in the 
 street, and wondered why he had passed 
 him by so quickly, and half an hour after 
 heard that he had shot himself. He was 
 fond of telling the story. 
 
 Then I looked back, and just as I was 
 beginning to waltz I saw Adrian Levison 
 standing in the doorway by which we had 
 come in ; he looked very pale indeed, and 
 his eyes were fixed on me. Then we 
 waltzed, and when I looked again, a cabinet 
 minister was button-holing him, and Adrian 
 Levison was listening with his business air. 
 He did not look at all like Perseus then, 
 but just as he did in the House. I had 
 been there once or twice since that first 
 time when I missed hearing him, and each 
 time I had heard him speak, for my 
 uncle had taken me specially to hear him. 
 His speeches had not been on what are 
 generally considered interesting subjects, 
 but Uncle Basset said they told well in the 
 House, and that was of course what they 
 were meant for. They had interested me, 
 but I do not think they would appear very 
 interesting were I to write them down now 
 from memory, only it had struck me that 
 
254 
 
 THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 they were very clear, and Uncle Basset had 
 said, “ Yes, clear and to the point, that is 
 Levison exactly, though no one would think 
 it to see him in society ; but the great 
 thing in him is that he is always reliable ; 
 no one ever asks him for his authority as 
 they do other men, every one always knows 
 that he is right.” This did not surprise 
 me, he always looked so very business-like 
 in the House, and he looked very business- 
 like now as he listened to the cabinet 
 minister, but I could not help observing 
 that he was paler than usual, very decidedly 
 paler. As for me, my colour seemed to 
 burn my cheeks, and I moved about like 
 Kilmeny when she came home in the 
 gloaming, for “I had been I knew not 
 where, and I had seen what I could not 
 declare.” 
 
 People were fast going, the ball might al- 
 most be said to be over before Adrian Levi- 
 son spoke to me again. He sat down beside 
 me ; and I think my partner, who was 
 sitting on my other side, took for granted 
 that the next dance was his, for he got up 
 and left me, and then Adrian Levison got 
 up, too, and offered me his arm, and before 
 we knew what we were doing, we found 
 
THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 255 
 
 ourselves in the little boudoir where Lady 
 Brydget had talked that morning with 
 Uncle Basset, while Aunt Barbara had sat 
 and worked, and I had crouched on my low 
 stool in the balcony. We found ourselves in 
 the little boudoir and alone. Then Adrian 
 Levison dropped my arm again, and I sat 
 down on the sofa with my hair straying all 
 over the red velvet cushion, and Adrian 
 Levison sat down beside me, and very pale 
 and grave still, he touched lightly the long 
 lock of hair that lay nearest to him. 
 
 “ Do you care for me ? — Do you love 
 me ?” he asked, speaking very low, almost 
 hoarsely. 
 
 And as I looked at him I saw he dared 
 not look at me, and that he was still as 
 pale as ever ; he looked as if he had under- 
 gone some acute physical pain, and were 
 still white and drawn with the agony of it. 
 
 “ Love !” I exclaimed ; “ that is such a 
 cold word. I love my father, and mother, 
 and Brydget, and Duke. I love every one, 
 I think. I adore you.” I spoke as I felt, 
 at least as nearly as I could. I knew he 
 loved me now, knew it quite well, and so I 
 thought I might try to tell him what I felt, 
 that I ought, indeed, to try so to do, for I 
 
256 
 
 THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 had no idea of loving one man and marry- 
 ing another. I loved Adrian Levison, and 
 he loved me, and I thought it was as much 
 my duty to speak openly to him and tell 
 him how I loved him, as much my duty 
 now, as it could ever he had I been married 
 to him for fifty years. 
 
 He smiled now. “ But I do not wish to 
 be adored,” he said. 
 
 “ Then I live for you. If I were never 
 to see you again, it might not kill me, per- 
 haps, but I should wish it might. As to 
 loving, I love every one.” 
 
 “ Only not me, it appears.” He smiled 
 again, but he was terribly pale. 
 
 “ Not you ?” I cried ; then I do not 
 know what put it into my head to do it, 
 but he was still holding that long lock of 
 my hair, and I saw Aunt Barbara’s scissors 
 lying upon the table, and I bent forward 
 to take hold of them, and in a moment I 
 had cut off the lock of hair and given it to 
 him, and he was pressing it to his lips, and 
 kissing it passionately. 
 
 “ Gwynydd ! my Gwynydd !” he cried ; 
 “ Oh, I have never known what happiness 
 was till now.” 
 
 That was just like Brydget. She had 
 
THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 257 
 
 never known what it was to be happy, she 
 had said, till George Lumley told her that 
 he loved her, and now Adrian Levison 
 seemed to say the same. Of course I 
 thought 1 had never been happy before, but 
 then I had always had a sorrowful face, it 
 was not so strange for me. 
 
 Adrian Levison went on again. “ I have 
 been a child, playing with roses, till now,” 
 he said. “ Now there will be no more 
 roses, but all on a sudden all that a man 
 can desire has become mine.” 
 
 “ But why should there be no more 
 roses ?” I asked. W e were both standing 
 now ; he was still holding my lock of hair 
 in one hand, and the other he had placed 
 on my shoulder, lightly, as if holding me 
 that I might be looked at. 
 
 “ It is a thorny path that we must tread 
 together. Do you not know that ?” he said. 
 “ But if there were roses how could I ever 
 notice them, while you were by my side ; 
 and shall we either of us heed the thorns, 
 so long as we trample upon them together V 
 “ Certainly I would heed no trouble nor 
 sorrow shared by you,” I said, “ only if it 
 touched you.” 
 
 “ You must learn not to mind that also, 
 VOL. i. 17 
 
258 
 
 THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 sweetest,” and for one moment he clasped 
 me in his arms. Oh ! why did I not die 
 then ? Why did we not both die to- 
 gether ? 
 
 The hair that I had given him was 
 becoming loose and rough. “ You have 
 nothing to tie it with,” I said, and took the 
 gold fillet from my hair, and bound it to- 
 gether with that, then I handed it back to 
 him, and he took it and kissed it again, 
 passionately. All my hair was falling loose 
 about my shoulders now, there was nothing 
 left to fasten it any longer, since the fillet 
 was gone, and with it of necessity the gold- 
 embroidered cap ; only the pomegranate 
 flower still rested on it, and Adrian Levison 
 said, 
 
 “You should have been like this all 
 night, you are more beautiful than ever ; 
 but it is not your beauty that I care about, 
 Gwynydd, it is you that I love — you, your- 
 self. And you must learn to bear my griefs 
 bravely, as I know you would always bear 
 your own ; for, never forget, my sweetest, 
 that you have brought to me a joy worth 
 all the world, in comparison with which 
 everything else is alike immaterial, and you 
 will be true to me through all, will you not ? 
 
THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 259 
 
 But can you ? Dare you ?” he asked, sud- 
 denly, looking at me almost fiercely. 
 
 “ True to you !” I repeated. “ How could 
 I not be true to you ?” 
 
 “ How long is it since you have loved me, 
 Gwynydd ?” 
 
 I looked at him, so bright, so beautiful, 
 whom I knew to be so full of noble thoughts 
 and lofty aspirations, and my eyes filled with 
 tears at the thought that there had once 
 been a time, a dreary, meaningless time, 
 when I had not loved him, had not even 
 known of his existence. 
 
 “It seems as if we had always loved each 
 other, does it not V he went on. “ And I 
 am sure now that I have always loved you, 
 ever since I first saw you, and you spoke to 
 me with your dear, soft voice, only I never 
 knew it till the other day, in Lady Bryd- 
 get’s studio.” 
 
 “ When I vexed you ?” I said, sorrow- 
 fully. 
 
 “ Vexed me !” he exclaimed. “ How 
 could you possibly vex me ? But did you 
 know I loved you then, my own ?” 
 
 “No, I never knew it till to-night,” I 
 said, “ only I thought of it then, but I 
 could not bear to think of it, for I think I 
 
 17—2 
 
260 
 
 THE FA.NCY BALL. 
 
 must have loved you from the first, though 
 I never knew it till the opera, the other 
 night, when you would not speak to me, 
 and I would not speak to you.” 
 
 “ My own !” lie cried, “ you are my 
 own, and nothing shall take you from me ! 
 Promise me, Gwynydd, promise !” 
 
 There was a strange look in his eyes, a 
 look which I had never seen there before, 
 nor ever thought to see there — it was a look 
 of desire, and almost made me shrink from 
 him for a moment. He was as a man in- 
 toxicated, hardly master of himself, and 
 still so pale, so very pale. When a weak 
 man gives up the mastery of himself, there 
 is nothing strange about it, nothing start- 
 ling, but when a strong man yields, it is 
 almost awful, and I trembled, without an- 
 swering, though I did not understand why 
 I trembled. 
 
 Then we heard Brydget’s sweet voice 
 calling, “ Gwynydd, where are you ? 
 Gwynydd ! Gwynydd ! Gwen !” and we 
 came out of the boudoir and found the ball- 
 room deserted, only Brydget standing alone 
 in it looking for me. 
 
 Then Adrian Levison held my hand in his 
 for a moment. “Good-night, my Gwynydd,” 
 
THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 261 
 
 he whispered. After that he advanced and 
 said good-night to Brydget, then he joined 
 George Luinley in the hail, for George had 
 also lingered, and Brydget said to me, 
 
 “ Gwynydd, what have you done with 
 yourself? You have taken off that lovely 
 cap, but you look ten times better without 
 it. There is a gold light shining all about 
 you, Gwen, dear.” 
 
 “ Why, I am all scarlet and gold,” I said. 
 “ No wonder a gold light shines about me.” 
 No wonder, indeed. 
 
 Then Brydget said, “ Uncle and Aunt 
 Basset have gone into the supper-room to 
 refresh themselves, as they say. Do you 
 want to be refreshed, too, Gwynydd ?” she 
 asked it, laughingly. 
 
 “ No, I want nothing,” I replied, quickly, 
 “ only I am going to bed.” Then I ran up- 
 stairs, and as Brydget went into the supper- 
 room, I heard her say, 
 
 “ Gwynydd does not want anything to 
 eat, only she is tired, and she has gone to 
 bed.” 
 
 “ Oh, poor Gwynydd !” said Uncle Basset. 
 “ It has been too much for her, I suppose.” 
 
 Then I heard no more, and I shut myself 
 into my little dressing-room, and threw open 
 
262 
 
 THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 the window, and leant out into the night, 
 and looked at all the lovely, trembling stars, 
 and trembled, too, with happiness. Bryd- 
 get never made any remark on having found 
 me alone with Adrian Levison after all the 
 other guests had gone, and, thanks to her, 
 no one else, I think, ever knew of it. Now 
 I often wish they had. It must have been 
 different then, surely, and would not any 
 difference have made it better ? Surely in 
 no other way could everything have been 
 so sad. Oh, Brydget ! dear little Brydget ! 
 you meant it well, as you always meant 
 everything, but why did you not tell how 
 you had found Adrian Levison and me 
 alone together ? Why did you not say all 
 that you had seen ? I know your eyes 
 always saw everything, and even I, if I had 
 met myself then, even I must have noticed 
 something. But Brydget was to marry 
 George Lumley, and she did not regard it 
 as possible that I should marry Adrian 
 Levison, so how could she think that we 
 could care for one another ? 
 
 Only next morning, as we all sat together 
 in Uncle Basset’s study, while the rest of 
 the house was being restored to its usual 
 state, only then, while I sat resting, doing 
 
THE FANCY BALL. 
 
 263 
 
 nothing, but just resting, Brydget drew a 
 low stool beside me, and every now and 
 then stopped from her patchwork for a mo- 
 ment, and softly stroked my hand. “ Poor 
 Gwen !” she said, “ poor, poor Gwen !” 
 
 “ Why is Gwynydd to be so much pitied 
 this morning V asked Aunt Barbara, at last, 
 rousing herself from the comfortable nap in 
 which she had been indulging. 
 
 “ Oh, because she is so tired,” said 
 Brydget, at once. But I do not think that 
 was what she really meant. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 
 
 Wie diese treue liebe Seele, 
 
 Yon ihrem Grlauben voll, 
 
 Der ganz allein 
 
 Ihr selig macbend ist, sicb heilig quale 
 Dass sie den liebsten Mann verloren halten soli. 
 
 Faust. 
 
 Butler says moralists generally say that 
 there is left this doubt as to what it is our 
 duty to do, lest to the well-intentioned the 
 path of virtue should become too easy, hut 
 of one thing I am sure, that, whatever our 
 intentions may he, there are times in our 
 lives when, try how we may, we cannot tell 
 what it is right to do. All my life I have 
 never once been told that my intentions 
 were bad, and not seldom have I been told 
 that I meant too well, that I was tiresome, 
 from my too evident desire to please others, 
 rather than myself. 
 
 The learning not to say “ I don’t care ; I 
 
THE LITTLE MET WITHIN THE LUTE. 265 
 
 should like best whatever you like best,” had 
 been a difficult lesson to me. I had learnt 
 it, because I saw that however well meant, 
 it often vexed others ; but in learning to 
 have preferences, learning to have them (in 
 reality only), that I might please others, I 
 do not think that I had lost my natural 
 desire to do what was right, rather than 
 what happened to be pleasant to myself at 
 the moment. I do not think this, and I do 
 not think that the events of one evening 
 can have altered the whole tenor of my 
 character during all the years thatl had lived, 
 so it cannot have been that my intentions 
 were bad, and yet I could not tell what it 
 was right for me to do on the day after 
 that Fancy Ball. Had I been my mother’s 
 special child instead of my father’s, I think 
 I might have written to her and told her 
 that Adrian Levison loved me ; had I been 
 with my father, talking to him and sharing 
 his thoughts, as I had been wont to do, I 
 think I might have told him, but as it was 
 I could not write it to him, I could not 
 write it to my mother. Till yesterday I 
 had never dared to say as much even to 
 myself, I could not now all at once say it 
 to another, it was such a new thing as yet, 
 
266 THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 
 
 it might not perhaps be true, and yet I 
 knew it was true, I knew that Adrian Levi- 
 son loved me, or that if it were not true — if 
 it were not true — why, then, there could be 
 no such thing as truth. Nothing else could 
 possibly be true if that were not. Yet, 
 knowing it to be true, I did not know what 
 to do with my knowledge, I did not know 
 what was right to do, and what was wrong, 
 and so I just sat still and did nothing, and 
 Brydget stroked my hand and said, “ Poor, 
 poor Gwen,” yet all the time I was very 
 happy, for I knew I should see Adrian 
 Levison that day. I knew we were going 
 to a Flower Show in the afternoon, and I 
 knew we should see him there, for he knew 
 we were going ; besides, though I could not 
 think what I ought to do, I was very tired, 
 and did not feel really inclined to do any- 
 thing, so I sat still and was happy though 
 very troubled in my mind, and Brydget 
 said “ Poor, poor Gwen,” and worked away 
 at the patchwork quilt, which must be 
 finished before we left London, and which 
 was also so very big ; and Aunt Barbara 
 dozed upon the sofa, and at last it was time 
 for luncheon, and after that we went up 
 stairs and put on our bonnets. 
 
THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 267 
 
 Of all sights and sounds by daylight I 
 think I have seen nothing lovelier than the 
 large tent at the Horticultural Gardens, a 
 blaze of azaleas and rhododendrons, heard 
 nothing sweeter than the Mabel Waltz, as 
 played by Godfrey’s band. It was near the 
 band that we met Adrian Levison, and he 
 walked with us to the flowers, we were a 
 large party already, for parties grow like 
 snowballs at London Flower Shows, but he 
 and I were alone together, walking a little 
 behind. He still looked pale, but his face 
 no longer wore that set resolute expression, 
 as if he had had an agony to endure and 
 had endured it, he was more like what he 
 had been just when Brydget interrupted 
 us, only he was smiling now, radiant as 
 ever, and his voice as joyous as I had ever 
 heard it. 
 
 “ You have not forgotten last night,” he 
 said, and those were his first words of 
 greeting. 
 
 “ Forgotten!” I exclaimed. “ Is it possible 
 to forget ?” Oh God, has he forgotten it 
 now, or does he still remember ? 
 
 He smiled again, and his smile was so 
 brilliant, it seemed as if the sun had that 
 moment broken from behind a cloud, and 
 
268 THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 
 
 yet I know there had been no clouds, how 
 could there have been on such a day as 
 that ? 
 
 “ Gwynydd ! my Gwynydd !” he said. 
 
 “ Heaven knows I have never tried to win 
 your love, I would have died rather than 
 have tried to win it, but now that it has 
 come to me, now that it is mine — mine,” he 
 repeated, and again his eyes frightened me, 
 as he gazed on me passionately, imperiously, 
 as if I were already his very own, “ now — 
 
 I would not give it up, not even at the 
 price of my heart’s blood. Not unless you 
 asked me, at least,” he added, and a cloud 
 passed over his face, and all the world 
 seemed to grow cold to me at once, and I 
 shivered. 
 
 “ But you will not ask me,” he exclaimed, 
 “ oh, say you will not ask me, or if you will, 
 do so now, now at once, before — ” and his 
 voice, already thick and tremulous with 
 emotion, broke down here, and I cried, “ If 
 you gave me up I could only wish to die, 
 why should I ask you to give me up ?” 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” he said, “ there is not a day 
 passes, I believe, in which thousands of 
 human beings would not die rather than 
 live, if but the choice were given them. 
 
THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 269 
 
 Death is nothing. I would have died myself 
 once, ay, readily, rather than that we should 
 have loved each other as now. Do not talk 
 of dying if I give you up, but promise me 
 that you will hold to me through every- 
 thing, promise that you will never give me 
 up.” 
 
 “You will become a Christian,” I said, 
 “ of course you will become a Christian.” 
 Even now I recollect the change in his 
 expression. It was as if some one had 
 struck him a deadly blow, a blow beneath 
 the violence of which he reeled, but he re- 
 covered himself in a moment ; he stood 
 beside me, erect, tall — generally he did not 
 look tall, but he looked tall then — and his 
 eyes gleamed fire. 
 
 “ This from you ! from you,” he said, “ I 
 thought you were such a woman as could 
 only love a man of honour.” 
 
 “ There is nothing dishonourable in be- 
 coming a Christian,” I said. I was pale, 
 too, then, and my eyes swam in tears, and 
 indistinctly through a mist I saw the 
 flowers with their bright hues, and beneath 
 in one of the winding walks the rest of our 
 party moving on, glancing at the flowers, 
 and talking and laughing. There they 
 
270 THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 
 
 went, Aunt Barbara, with all her shining 
 coils of blue-black hair, daintily gathering up 
 her silken folds, whilst she paused by a rare 
 specimen, George Lumley bending over 
 Brydget, and Brydget looking so sweet and 
 simple in her white muslin dress, glancing 
 at him with those dear sunny eyes of hers. 
 There they went, and with them Lord 
 Dorter, looking stiff and supercilious, as he 
 twirled his gold-headed cane, and Aunt 
 Barbara’s friend, the old General, eagerly 
 pointing out the flowers he had known in 
 the tropics, where he had spent so many 
 years of his life, and Uncle Basset courte- 
 ously conversing with Mrs. Yalpy, while 
 one of the Miss Yalpys and a tall, sallow 
 young man, whom I did not know, were 
 evidently quizzing some acquaintance whom 
 they had just passed ; there they went, 
 and while I looked at them, though I loved 
 some of them and cared nothing for others, 
 I seemed to see the world personified, and 
 trembled before its opinion. Yet I stood 
 still with Adrian Levison beside that large 
 flowering blush of pink azalea, and said, 
 “There is nothing dishonourable in becom- 
 ing a Christian.” Ah, how weak, how miser- 
 able ! how very different from what I should 
 once have fancied I might have said ! 
 
A 
 
 THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 271 
 
 “ There is nothing dishonourable in ob- 
 taining any title that the world esteems, but 
 if a man seek to obtain it on false pretences, 
 what do you think of that man, Miss Jer- 
 ninghame ?” and Adrian Levison withered 
 me with his scorn, and again I shivered, 
 and was silent. 
 
 “ I thought you deemed more highly of 
 me than to hold me capable of this, but 
 since you think thus meanly of me, and yet 
 love me, the base creature that you fancy 
 me — ” 
 
 “ Oh, I do not,” I exclaimed, the tears 
 welling over from my eyes. “ I do not love 
 you base, I love you noble — as you are.” 
 
 He drew nearer to me, I almost think he 
 put his arm round me for a moment, but I 
 do not know, certainly his voice faltered as 
 he said, “ Forgive me, Gwynydd, forgive 
 me, my own, for doubting you for a moment. 
 It was only natural you should speak as 
 you did just now, you have not thought of 
 it all, as I have, but recollect if there is to 
 be any speech of love between us, there 
 must be no thought even of change of reli- 
 gion. A man’s religion is not like his glove 
 that he can take on or off at a lady’s bid- 
 ding, it is a part of himself, the dearest, the 
 
272 THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 
 
 most sacred, holy to him as his honour, the 
 one thing he must hold to, -when all 
 others fail him. I am ready to take you 
 as you are, I ask no change from you, I am 
 ready for your sake to be scouted by my 
 kindred, cut off from all those I have up till 
 now held dear, but if she for whom I do 
 all this, she whom I love better than all 
 the world beside, if she is to turn temptress 
 — but you will not, Gwynydd, promise me, 
 my own, promise me you will not. If you 
 once promise, I know I can trust to you for 
 ever.” 
 
 “ Yes,” I said, “ you may trust to me for 
 ever. If my religion cannot prove itself to 
 you holy and true, do you remain true to 
 what you hold, I will say nothing. You 
 may gain me, or you may gain a knowledge 
 of the truth, but you shall not gain both 
 together, as if one were not precious 
 without the other. Having me is nothing 
 in comparison with having my religion, but 
 I see I am the last person who ought to 
 speak to you on this subject.” 
 
 “Yes, you are the last,” said Adrian 
 Levison, decisively. “We may help each 
 other on the path of virtue, but let all con- 
 troversy be for ever silent between us ; in 
 
THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 273 
 
 that way only can there be peace and 
 honesty. Think of me, whenever you think 
 of me, as a Jew, Gwynydd, and as nothing 
 else. Now tell me, do you love me ? Do 
 you love me, a Jew ?” 
 
 “ I cannot but love you, Adrian,” I said, 
 firmly, looking into his eyes as 1 spoke, and 
 calling him by his name for the first time. 
 
 Then we hastened to join the others, 
 who had already missed us, and were won- 
 dering at our absence. “ I should like to 
 tell your uncle all to-night,” said Adrian 
 before we parted ; “he has been a kind 
 friend to me, and not only to me, but to 
 my friends.” Uncle Basset had published 
 the letter about Roger Chillingworth, and 
 having so done, had gone warmly into his 
 defence till he had seen him righted in the 
 world’s eyes. “ I do not feel as if I were 
 acting honourably by him in letting him 
 remain in ignorance for a single hour while 
 you are under his roof.” 
 
 “ Brydget and I are staying with Uncle 
 Basset now,” I said, “ but he does not 
 settle anything about us. Aunt Barbara 
 settles more, but she lets us very much 
 alone, kind though she is to us. It is my 
 VOL. i. 18 
 
274 THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE. 
 
 father and mother, who ought to be told 
 first.” 
 
 “ I do not know your father and mother,” 
 and his voice sounded as it did in the House 
 of Commons, cold and hard and business- 
 like. 
 
 “No,” I said, “you do not know them, 
 so I had better tell them. I will write and 
 tell them at once. I should not like any 
 one else to know first.” 
 
 “ Your father is the Dean of St. Mar- 
 garet’s, is he not ?” said Adrian Levison. 
 
 “ Yes, he is the Dean of St. Margaret’s,” 
 I replied. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 “ ’Tis misty all, both sight and sound, 
 
 I only know ’tis fair and sweet ; 
 
 ’Tis wandering on enchanted ground 
 With dizzy brow and tottering feet.” 
 
 Keble . 
 
 I wonder whether Uncle Basset’s theory 
 about music was correct, and whether ener- 
 vating strains lead to some of those many 
 evils of the day, often attributed, amongst 
 other influences, to that of two of the lead- 
 ing journals, whose carping tone gives the 
 key-note to the world’s discord, as it also 
 falls in with that which the world has 
 already chosen for itself. Certainly looking 
 back I see that I always met Adrian Levi- 
 son to the sound of music ; the morning in 
 Lady Brydget’s studio, and the morning in 
 
 18—2 
 
276 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 Uncle Basset’s studio were the solitary ex- 
 ceptions, and those two mornings there was 
 no succumbing to temptation, if, indeed, to 
 love each other was a sin. I do not know 
 if it was or not. I have thought about it all 
 till I can no longer be certain about any- 
 thing. I know' it brought great misery to 
 both, and to others beside ourselves, but 
 whether it itself v r as sinful I do not know. 
 It seems to me it cannot be wrong to love 
 excellence, and though he sinned like me 
 in the end — yes, certainly he must have 
 sinned one time or the other — yet I do still 
 think that Adrian Levison, when first I 
 knew him, was as near perfection as mortal 
 man has ever approached, and I know I am 
 not alone in thinking so. I know that his 
 father and mother thought so, that his 
 brothers took him as their model, that he 
 was his sisters’ hero, that men of the Libe- 
 ral party said he had in him the making of 
 the greatest statesman of this or any age, 
 marred only by a too great conscientious- 
 ness and by holding, really holding, not 
 only nominally, a religion different from 
 that of the land in which he lived. I know 
 that I have heard a man, who called him- 
 self a free thinker, pronounce Adrian Levi- 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 277 
 
 son the most liberal-minded man he had 
 ever come across ; and I know that Roger 
 Chillingworth, who, in spite of undoubted 
 talents and great learning, can never be a 
 bishop because of over zeal — I know that 
 even he said he had never known a better 
 man, nor one with whom it did him more 
 good to converse, sending him back braced 
 and refreshed to his great work of purify- 
 ing souls. I do not say that Adrian Levi- 
 son was beautiful, his voice harmonious, his 
 movements graceful ; I do not say that he 
 was so bright and light-hearted in his talk 
 of every day, that no girl could fail to hail 
 his coming with joy. I do not say all this 
 because, though I cannot fancy Adrian Levi- 
 son different, I do not believe it was any of 
 these lesser qualities that made me love 
 him. I seem to myself to have been some- 
 thing like St. Christopher, who went about 
 looking for the mightiest man ; I saw all 
 that were called the great men of England, 
 all, at least, that were to be seen in Lon- 
 don, and I experienced the usual disap- 
 pointment of finding that great writers did 
 not talk quite like their books, that distin- 
 guished generals could not display their 
 energy in a drawing-room with the same 
 
278 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 effect as on a battle-field, and that powerful 
 statesmen were often as impolitic as other 
 men in the little details of every-day life, and 
 then I met with a man, who had certainly 
 done nothing as yet, had had no time as 
 yet to do more than show himself, and from 
 whom, perhaps, for that very reason people 
 expected all things, and who never littered 
 an irreverent jest, never neglected an act 
 of courtesy, and who seemed not only fit to 
 be a leader in England’s drawing-rooms, 
 but a leader of England also. I did not 
 love him for the former fitness, but because 
 the former fitness made me better realise 
 the other. He seemed to me a complete 
 man, not only a politician or a soldier or a 
 writer or a drawing-room darling ; certainly 
 not this last, for though he was admired, 
 he was often shunned, and I knew this 
 before I had met him many times ; knew 
 that mothers did not court him for their 
 daughters, nor daughters for themselves, 
 and I did not court him for myself. I 
 had a sort of feeling from the first that it 
 was better for me not to talk to him, but I 
 met him, my ideal of a great, good man, 
 and all the world pronounced him such, or, 
 rather, that he would be such, the world 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 279 
 
 that was better calculated to judge than I 
 was, and I believed the world, saw that it 
 was right, and loved Adrian Levison. 
 
 I cannot yet think that it was wrong in 
 me to do so, but after that conversation at 
 the flower show I began to have a feeling 
 that it might not be altogether right. He 
 had said if there were to be any speech of 
 love between us, there must be no thought 
 of change of religion. Could this be right ? I 
 knew very little of the Jewish religion then— *- 
 very little at least of what modern Jews be- 
 lieved — in spite of all my fondness for think- 
 ing about their return to Jerusalem. I be- 
 lieved, that they wished to go back there, 
 lived in constant expectation of the Messiah’s 
 coming, and did not believe that our Lord 
 Jesus Christ was God as well as man. I 
 believed all this, and knew little more about 
 their creed ; now, as the Messiah has al- 
 ready come, and not only come, but died for 
 us miserable sinners, could it be right for 
 me to love a man who was not only not 
 grateful for but actually disbelieved in this 
 great sacrifice made for his sake ? and even 
 if this were right, could it be right for me 
 to love such a man, and not to use every 
 exertion in my power to make him know 
 
280 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 the truth ? I could not decide this in my 
 own mind. I had promised, I knew, and 
 my promise weighed heavily upon me ; but 
 Herod did evil when he kept his vow, and 
 when I should be asked at the judgment- 
 day, why Adrian Levison was not a 
 Christian, it would be of no avail for me to 
 allege my promise. If that were wrong, 
 the keeping it would be wrong also. 
 Whether it were wrong I could not decide, 
 but till 1 had decided I could not write to 
 my father, could tell no one that I was 
 ready to marry Adrian Levison. I was not 
 sure that I was ready, but, oh God ! it 
 would kill me, I thought, to be told I 
 should never do so. 
 
 So I lay awake at night, thinking, think- 
 ing, and sometimes I would clasp my hands 
 and pray that I might be guided to decide 
 aright, and at last I could bear it no longer, 
 and knelt by my bedside, and prayed, with 
 streaming tears ; and as the gray dawning 
 gradually crept in through the closed blinds, 
 I looked up from my knees and saw my old 
 favourite photograph of the Mater Dolorosa, 
 that always hung at the foot of my bed, and 
 it looked so sad, so unutterably sad, that I 
 fell a-sobbing, till Brydget was awakened by 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 281 
 
 my sobs, and sprang out of bed to know 
 what was the matter. 
 
 Then I kissed her, and clasped her in my 
 arms, declaring nothing was the matter, but 
 I cried still, till Brydget cried, too, from 
 sympathy ; and as she pressed her tearful 
 cheek against mine, I wondered what would 
 be the end of it all if I married this man, 
 whom I loved. Would this Brydget, who 
 now nestled so lovingly in my arms, say then 
 as Salome said to Miriam — 
 
 “ I blot tbee from my heart, I wipe away 
 All memory of our youthful pleasant hours, 
 
 Our blended sports, and tasks, and joys, and sorrows ?” 
 
 Would my father look sternly upon me, 
 as I had before now seen him look sternly 
 on any one who had displeased him, and 
 bid me henceforward see his face no more ? 
 Would my mother no longer suffer me to 
 consider myself her child ? Oh, I could 
 bear it all for his sake, I thought, all, all, 
 and a thousand times more, if only it were 
 right ! But was it ? 
 
 “ Brydget,” I said, “ if George Lumley 
 were a very wicked man, would you marry 
 him just the same ?” 
 
 “ He would not be George if he were 
 
282 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 wicked !” cried Brydget, indignantly ; “ but 
 if he had committed murder, or done any- 
 thing, that might possibly be forgiven, 
 though the world thought not, I should 
 love him just the same, and I’d go with 
 him to the scaffold, only I’d ask to have my 
 head cut off first,” said she, sobbing afresh 
 at the idea. 
 
 “ But he would not have his head cut off. 
 That is only for high treason, and for very 
 grand people. He would be hung, and 
 they would not hang you also — not unless 
 you had been concerned in the crime, so it 
 would be no use asking them.” 
 
 “ Then I would be concerned in the crime 
 also !” cried Brydget. 
 
 “ If it broke my father’s and mother’s 
 heart, and mine also, Brydget ?” 
 
 “ I should not care — I mean I should be 
 very sorry, but I could not help it. Gwen, 
 dear, you are older than me, but I do not 
 think you quite understand. When one 
 has promised to marry a man, one has 
 promised, and it is just the same as being 
 married to him already — one has to leave 
 all one has, and just care for him. I should 
 always love George, anyhow, but why should 
 you think of such dreadful things ?” 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 283 
 
 “ I am ill, I think,” I said, shivering ; 
 “ at least I could not sleep all night, but 
 now go to bed again, Brydget, and forget 
 all about this. I have been silly, I know.” 
 But Brydget would not leave me, she 
 would stay with me now till day should, 
 really come, so in a short time she had 
 fallen asleep in my arms, while I lay awake 
 looking at her soft rosy cheek and sweet 
 red lips, and thought what a convenient 
 creed hers was, that when one had promised 
 to marry a man it was just the same as 
 being married to him, and one was equally 
 bound to leave all for his sake. I wished 
 I could hold it also, but one comfort I got 
 from Brydget — as she would never leave off 
 loving George, whatever he might do, so 
 I knew she would never leave off loving me ; 
 and now as I thought of it more quietly, I 
 knew that, though possibly my father and 
 mother might even go so far as to forbid me 
 to marry Adrian Levison, yet that if I per- 
 sisted and married him they would certainly 
 one day or another forgive me my disobe- 
 dience ; that my father would not curse me, 
 as the fathers in old romances sometimes 
 cursed their daughters, but would love me 
 still, and pray for me always just the same, 
 
284 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 however terribly angry he might be at first 
 — and that he would be angry I knew ; for 
 I knew my father, and was he not the Dean 
 of St. Margaret’s ? If his daughter were to 
 insist on marrying a Jew, it would, indeed, 
 seem as if the world were coming to an end ; 
 but if Adrian Levison became a Christian 
 first — ah, then, how different ! 
 
 I wondered when I should next see him, 
 but I had not long to wonder ; that after- 
 noon Aunt Barbara had an afternoon party, 
 and among the guests, greatly to my sur- 
 prise, I saw Adrian Levison arrive. I was 
 turning over a portfolio of drawings, trying 
 to find one, which Mrs. Valpy had expressed 
 a wish to see, and in my confusion at seeing 
 him I let all the drawings fall from the port- 
 folio upon the ground. It was Adrian Levi- 
 son, who picked them up and helped me to 
 replace them again. 
 
 “ Have you written to your father ?” he 
 asked, and our hands met, and I looked up 
 at him, my hero, my Perseus, my life, my 
 love, and saw at once my exceeding folly of 
 the night before. With Adrian Levison at 
 hand to consult, why torment myself with 
 things beyond my understanding ? Could 
 I not trust him to decide, even against his 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 2S5 
 
 own interest if it were necessary ? Oh, it 
 would never he necessary for any one I 
 loved to say to me, “ And trust me not at 
 all, or all in all.” I trusted wholly where 
 I had once begun to trust. 
 
 “ I want so much to talk to you,” I said. 
 
 “ Yes,” he replied, and looked at me 
 gravely for a moment ; then he glanced 
 towards the open window, and as I ad- 
 vanced there, and stood among the mig- 
 nonette, he followed me, and stood half in 
 the balcony, half in the room. His back 
 was turned on the people there, and I was 
 only visible to the passers in the street, 
 and very little visible even to them, for 
 Aunt Barbara’s pretty striped blinds were 
 drawn down over the balcony to-day ; only 
 just a little open to let the fresh air into 
 the drawing-room. Thus we may be said 
 to have been alone and together ; and for 
 a moment I half felt as if I could not say 
 anything, I could not even think of giving 
 up Adrian Levison, unless I might die also. 
 I could not just then remember even that 
 there was any gulf between us. “ What 
 was it you wished to talk to me about ?” 
 he asked, in his sweet voice, the sweetest 
 voice that was ever heard. 
 
286 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 “ I Lave been thinking of what you said 
 the other day,” I replied, speaking reso- 
 lutely, now that I had taken the first 
 plunge, he having already broken the ice 
 for me. I looked him full in the face as I 
 spoke, and placed both our fates in his 
 hands. “ You said that there must be no 
 speech between us of change of religion.” 
 How his face altered at these words ! I 
 could not have believed it could look so 
 hard and stern, aS it looked now. I went 
 on. “ I promised you that there should 
 not be, but can that promise be right ? I 
 ask you to tell me, for I cannot decide ; 
 can that promise be right for me ? Of 
 course if it is wrong, I ought not to keep 
 it.” 
 
 His face had softened now, and he 
 looked down at me very tenderly, but still 
 he was pale and sorrowful, very different 
 from what he had appeared on first enter- 
 ing the room. 
 
 “ You are very good thus to trust me,” 
 he said. “ You do not know how sweet it 
 is to feel, that you thus trust me ; but in- 
 deed I do not know what you have been 
 taught. My people do not believe much 
 in conversion.” 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 287 
 
 “ No, I know you do not,” I exclaimed, 
 quickly ; “ you cannot make other people 
 Jews, so you do not care much for prose- 
 lytes, but we believe so differently, and 
 that it is by faith men are saved.” 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” said he, leaning against the 
 wall, “ is it by a true faith, or by one that 
 is feigned, or taken upon trust ? I have 
 believed all my life a certain creed, my 
 people, whenever they meet together, thank 
 God that He has not made them ‘ like the 
 nations of other lands/ we rejoice, we make 
 our boast of being Jews. What do you 
 offer me instead of this faith that I have 
 held all my life ?” 
 
 I could not speak, he had as it were 
 invited me to a discussion of the differences 
 between us, and I could say nothing. I 
 felt he knew already all I would say. 
 
 “ Truth is one,” he went on, “ but it is 
 . infinite, and human minds are finite, and 
 can only comprehend a portion of the great 
 whole. I believe there is no religion, that 
 has existed a single day, wholly without 
 truth, and that the pious of all nations 
 have a share in the world to come ; but it 
 is to us Jews that the truth has been con- 
 fided by the Almighty himself ever since 
 
288 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 the first ages. We are a living witness to 
 His word ; as long as it suited His good 
 purpose a united people upon the highway 
 between what were then the civilized 
 nations of the world ; now dispersed among 
 all nations, to testify everywhere to 
 Him, holding our belief in His unity, and 
 preserving intact the Scriptures committed 
 to our care through all the fiery persecu- 
 tions of the middle ages, and since that 
 time through the hardly lesser trials of this 
 present day. True, it is now only in Tunis, 
 and countries like that, that a Jew may be 
 hacked to death for clinging to his religion ; 
 but was it no trial to the Jew Rothschild, 
 do you think, when he cut himself off 
 from all part in public life by refusing 
 to repeat the meaningless formula, ‘ On 
 the faith of a Christian,’ repeated by 
 many and many a so-called Christian, 
 who none the less writes books disprov- 
 ing Christianity, and uses his seat in the 
 House to oppose every measure for the good 
 of that Church to which he professes to 
 belong ? We Jews hold to our religion, 
 for we know what we believe, and we have 
 believed the same for thousands and thou- 
 sands of years ; we can afford to look with 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 289 
 
 pity upon the innumerable sects into which 
 Christianity has been split up even in these 
 latter days. You are not as we are. Would 
 that I could make all the nations of the 
 earth beloved as my own race ! but the 
 wish is fruitless, and we can but pray that 
 soon all nations may come to such know- 
 ledge of the truth as men are capable of, 
 and, united in the worship of the one God, 
 thus enter within the gates of Paradise.” 
 
 As he spoke, his face brightened till it 
 was as it were the face of an angel to look 
 upon. I felt as if my own faith were 
 nothing in comparison with his ; I recol- 
 lected how I had heard Christians speak, 
 and blushed to think I had wished to con- 
 vert him to even such a faith as George 
 Lumley’s, a faith that supposed things 
 were so, thought it odd, could not quite 
 understand it, wondered if it could not be 
 explained away. 
 
 “I know,” I said, simply, “that what- 
 ever religion you were of, you would still 
 be the best man holding it, but since our 
 Lord’s coming ” 
 
 “ Grant that he was God as well as 
 man,” broke in Adrian Levison. “ Did He 
 ever say that Judaism was to cease with 
 
 VOL. I. 19 
 
290 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 Himself ? Did He not rather say that He 
 had come to fulfil the law, not to destroy 
 it ? Did not your own St. Paul, the 
 special prophet of the Gentiles, circumcise 
 Timothy, and offer sacrifices in the Temple ? 
 Were not sacrifices offered there for forty 
 years after the death of Jesus ? Oh, do 
 not believe that Israel’s mission is at an 
 end, it will never cease while there is a 
 single heathen living, and Judaism will 
 eventually prevail, though at present Chris- 
 tianity is the vanguard, preparing the 
 ground.” 
 
 “ And do you really believe that we shall 
 all be Jews ? Oh, surely you do not. I 
 never thought you believed this.” 
 
 “ Part of our morning service is a prayer 
 that all the inhabitants of the world may 
 accept the yoke of God’s kingdom, and that 
 He may speedily reign over them for ever 
 and ever. I could not pray for anything 
 that I did not believe might one day be 
 granted, and besides it is said : ‘ The 
 
 Eternal shall be king over the whole earth.’ 
 I do not seek to convert you, because 
 though I believe all may have a portion in 
 the life to come, yet the peculiar ordinances 
 we observe were for the chosen people 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 291 
 
 alone, who out of all the nations of the 
 earth have a peculiar mission, and I believe 
 also that the more we two talk together, 
 not in the spirit of controversy, the more 
 subjects of agreement we shall find.” 
 
 “ But your ordinances ! you can no longer 
 observe them,” I pleaded. He said he did 
 not wish to convert me, but he knew all his 
 arguments so well, and showed so plainly 
 how well he knew what I would advance, 
 thus rendering it impossible for me to care 
 to say anything, that I began to feel as if, 
 since he knew all, and yet was not con- 
 vinced, I myself must be under a delusion, 
 and yet I knew I was not. 
 
 “ You have asked me about our sacrifices 
 before. I tried then to show you how they 
 are still offered up, though in a different 
 manner. They were Israel’s expression 
 of dependence upon God as a nation, pri- 
 vate individuals were nowhere ordered to 
 bring sacrifices. The national worship has 
 ceased with the existence of Israel as a 
 nation, we pray for its restoration, but 
 meanwhile we have the ordinances we per- 
 form in our own homes and in the syna- 
 gogue, and I do not think Christians are at 
 all generally aware that since the destruc- 
 
 19—2 
 
292 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 tion of the first temple only a small portion 
 of the Jewish people have ever offered 
 sacrifices at Jerusalem. Ezra took hack 
 but a small colony with him, and previously, 
 during the captivity, the Jews were equally 
 cut off from the most solemn rites of their 
 religion. It will not always be so. Mean- 
 while we keep up our lesser ordinances, as 
 badges to distinguish us from less favoured 
 nations, knowing well also that each smallest 
 detail of our ritual is full of meaning, since 
 our ritual alone was ordained of God, and 
 is no imagining of blinded men, like that of 
 which we have heard so much during the 
 last few years in England.” 
 
 “ Oh, do not lay our divisions to our 
 blame,” I cried. “ Where there are no per- 
 secutions zeal must always find a vent for 
 itself in inventing new distinctions.” 
 
 “ True,” he replied, “ it seems as if even 
 virtues must for ever be distorted into faults, 
 but whilst it is so, whilst nothing can be 
 perfect — but that which is ordained by the 
 Omniscient,” he hastened to add, “ while 
 there is no manner of worship directly or- 
 dained for Gentiles, I can never wish to 
 interfere with your manner of worship, of 
 your and my Maker, and can you still think 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 293 
 
 that you are bound to interfere with my 
 manner of so doing ? Can you still think so, 
 Gwynydd, my Gwynydd ?” 
 
 His voice was very low and soft, and he 
 bent over me pleadingly, as he spoke, but 
 there was no need for this, he had con- 
 vinced me for the moment, and I spoke 
 readily enough. “ No, I do not think so. 
 You have put everything differently before 
 me. I never understood how you really 
 thought about things.” 
 
 “We are much misrepresented,” he an- 
 swered, “ and there is hardly a book, that 
 you can read, which does not make grave 
 mistakes about us. It is true that I belong 
 to the reformed Jews, who are seeking to 
 clear our worship from the multiplicity of 
 customs, which have sprung up during the 
 course of ages, and to which some of the 
 old Jews, and my family generally, still 
 cling ; but I think you would find many 
 among us, who think as I do.” 
 
 “ I shall never be able to make my father 
 see it all in this way,” I said, half to myself. 
 
 “ Shall I go down to St. Margaret’s, and 
 tell him all ?” asked Adrian Levison. “Oh, 
 believe me, dearest, I would wish to spare 
 you all possible pain.” 
 
294 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 “ I must tell my father myself,” I said, 
 resolutely, “ I am his favourite child, and 
 it would pain him too much that I should 
 not tell him, but I need not tell him quite 
 at once, need I ? I should so like a little 
 time to think, to get accustomed to it all. 
 Need I tell my father at once ?” 
 
 “My sweetest, how can you ask me? 
 You put too much trust in me. Need you? 
 No, of course not. Let us both he happy a 
 little longer.” 
 
 Yet Adrian Levison did not look happy, 
 as he said these last words. 
 
 “ Then I ought not to stay talking to 
 you any more now,” I said. “ Aunt Bar- 
 bara will be missing me.” So I slipped into 
 the room again, trying to do so unperceived, 
 and succeeding in a measure, for the room 
 was still full of people. I found myself 
 next to one of the Miss Valpys, to whom 
 the sallow young man I had observed the 
 day before was again talking. She intro- 
 duced him to me, and then said, “ Now, 
 we must change the style of our conversa- 
 tion, or Miss Jerninghame will be quite 
 shocked. Recollect she is a Dean’s daugh- 
 ter.” 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 295 
 
 “ Oh, then you are bound to believe in 
 going to church, and all that sort of thing,” 
 said the young man, turning to me. “As 
 for me, I am a Mahommedan by convic- 
 tion.” 
 
 “ A Mahommedan !” I exclaimed, looking 
 at him with horror, and then sorry the 
 moment after that I had done so, for of 
 course I saw he had intended to startle me. 
 
 “ Yes, I believe it is the best religion 
 under the sun, though perhaps the Em- 
 peror of China was right, when he said all 
 religions were equally bad, and a wise man 
 would be content to let them all alone.” 
 
 Any other day I should have turned 
 away in disgust at the light, flippant tone 
 in which he spoke, but this afternoon I was 
 so full of what Adrian Levison had been 
 saying, the impression left upon me by his 
 deep living faith was so recent, that I could 
 not help wondering at the difference, and 
 so I stood still looking at him, thinking 
 how it could be that both were men alike, 
 and wondering which the ordinary race of 
 men most resembled. 
 
 “ I see I am shocking your prejudices 
 horribly, Miss Jerninghame,” he went on, 
 “ but you can’t really believe all those 
 
296 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 things you profess to believe as a Christian. 
 Why, you know if people did they would 
 all reduce themselves to beggary to 
 produce pauperism, and no magistrate 
 could pronounce sentence. ‘ Let him cast 
 the first stone that is without sin among 
 you.’ I forget the text exactly, but you 
 know it, of course. And if you were robbed 
 of half your possessions, you ought imme- 
 diately to insist on the robber’s taking the 
 other half, but you do not. No, the real- 
 isation of the Christian ideal would soon 
 bring the world to the verge of ruin, and 
 people are too w r ise for that.” 
 
 “ And what would the realization of the 
 Mahommedan ideal do ?” asked Miss Yalpy. 
 
 “ I should not like to tell you one thing 
 it would do,” said he, looking at her with a 
 bold, bad expression on his face. 
 
 “ Why not, I should like to know ?” 
 
 “ Because you would perhaps never speak 
 to me again. But, all the same, I think it 
 is an end much to be desired ; and I am 
 pretty sure nine Englishmen out of ten 
 would agree with me, only there is so much 
 cant about, they are afraid to say so.” 
 “Well, no one ever accused you of being 
 afraid to say anything,” said a tall, slight 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 297 
 
 man, coming up and joining them. “ But, 
 as to your being a Mahommedan, that is all 
 nonsense, you know. No; since the nine- 
 teenth century has disestablished hell, I see 
 no objection to being a Christian myself, 
 only I prefer being nothing. You know 
 what you believe then.” 
 
 “ You believe nothing, you mean, Mr. 
 Nellitor V 
 
 “ Much the best plan,” he replied, with a 
 sweet smile ; “ and certainly more sensible. 
 I am sure I am very glad to give any one 
 my share of heaven.” 
 
 Miss Yalpy remained talking and laugh- 
 ing with the two men. They were both 
 rich, and considered good partis, and all 
 the Miss Yalpy s, as I knew, were tolerant 
 of any opinions, unless it suited their in- 
 terest to be intolerant. As for me, I was 
 intolerant, I suppose ; for I went to the 
 furthest end of the room, and there I tried 
 desperately to talk to one or two people, as 
 if to wash away the recollection of what I 
 had just heal'd ; and meanwhile I watched 
 Adrian Levison, and thought over and over 
 again of what he had said to me. 
 
 What had pleased me specially was what 
 he had said about Israel’s mission. While 
 
298 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 there were such men as Mr. Nellitor and 
 his friend in the world, and such girls as 
 the Miss Yalpys, I thought there certainly 
 must exist that mission of which he had 
 spoken ; but I could not think of their 
 conversation without disgust, and I tried to 
 forget it, only I could not. Months after- 
 wards, when I heard that one of the Miss 
 Yalpys was to marry Mr. Nellitor, and that 
 all the relations of both parties were heartily 
 pleased with the engagement, I could not 
 help feeling a little bitter just at first : I 
 could not help thinking that that battle 
 with cant would soon have to be fought 
 over again — that, indeed, it required to be 
 constantly fought, and as soon as one cham- 
 pion died another champion must be sought 
 for. Of course, Mr. Nellitor did not object 
 to calling himself a Christian ; and it is not 
 truths, but names, that the world regards. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 “ Etre avec les gens qu’on aime, cela suffit; rever, 
 leur parler, ne leur parler point, penser a eux, penser 
 a des choses plus indiffdrentes, mais aupres d’eux, tout 
 est egal .” — La Bruy ere. 
 
 We were going to a dejeuner at Richmond, 
 and the Valpys were going also ; and after 
 a little discussion it had been arranged 
 that, as I was looking tired, I was to drive 
 there later with Uncle Basset and Mr. 
 Valpy, and only join the others in the cool 
 of the evening. This arrangement suited 
 me very well. I was feeling tired, and not 
 at all inclined for the exertion of talking to 
 people I did not care about ; besides, of all 
 the Valpys Mr. Valpy was the only one I 
 liked at all. I really did rather like him ; 
 he struck me as sensible and straightfor- 
 ward, and, as he always ignored my exis- 
 
300 
 
 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 tence as completely as that of every other 
 young lady with whom he ever chanced to 
 be brought into contact, I looked forward 
 to listening quietly to his and Uncle Bas- 
 set’s conversation, while leaning back en- 
 joying whatever breeze the evening might 
 bring forth. At first they talked politics, 
 as I had expected, and I was listlessly con- 
 sidering the pros and cons of some bill they 
 were discussing, when Mr. Yalpy broke oft’ 
 in his abrupt fashion, 
 
 “ By the way, how ill Levison is look- 
 
 mg ! 
 
 “What! Adrian!” said my uncle, sur- 
 prised. “ I always look upon him as the 
 picture of health, on whom Venus ‘lumenque 
 juventce Purpureum.’ ” 
 
 “ Oh, I’m no classical scholar,” said Mr. 
 Valpy, testily cutting him short ; “and, for 
 my part, I believe it is all this absurd copy- 
 ing of the ancients, and setting such store 
 by athletics, that is ruining the health of 
 the present generation. Now, there’s Levi- 
 son : never was fellow in better condition, 
 trained to perfection, so much so that the 
 least over-exertion bowls him clean over 
 at once. He is very energetic, certainly ; 
 but I’m pretty sure I did as much work as 
 
THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 301 
 
 he does now, without suffering from it, 
 when I was a young man ; and already he’s 
 looking regularly done up.” 
 
 “ I’m sorry to hear it, I am sure,” said 
 Uncle Basset. “ I have not seen him these 
 last few days ; but I never heard that 
 Adrian Levison was great at athletics, so it 
 can hardly be that which has done the 
 mischief.” 
 
 “ I never heard of his winning cups, cer- 
 tainly,” said Mr. Yalpy, “ but I fancy he 
 despises that sort of thing — very wisely, 
 too, in my opinion. However, he is a 
 member of the Alpine Club, and one thing 
 is certain, no amount of training could get 
 a man into better condition than he was in 
 a week or two ago.” 
 
 Uncle Basset laughed. “ So because 
 Levison was the picture of health a week 
 or two ago, you think that quite accounts 
 for his being ill now. Bather straining a 
 point, is not that, eh, Yalpy? But did 
 you think him ill when you last saw him 
 Gwynydd ? I think you have seen him 
 since I have.” 
 
 I started violently on being thus ad- 
 dressed, hut in a moment recovered myself. 
 “No, I did not think so,” I said. 
 
302 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 “ I saw him yesterday evening, and 
 thought him looking wretchedly ill,” said 
 Mr. Yalpy, doggedly, “and it is my belief 
 those people, who look so healthy, mostly 
 have no constitutions, and accounts are 
 squared in that way in the end. I fancy 
 old Levison is getting uneasy about this 
 son, for he was not expected in England 
 this summer, and I met him, just now, 
 before I started, looking for Adrian, in a 
 great fuss.” 
 
 “ A pity the father failed in his election 
 last time,” said Uncle Basset, musingly. 
 “ He is a clever fellow, though not equal to 
 his son. What is the matter with you, 
 Gwynydd ; have you a headache ?” 
 
 “ No, no,” I said, faintly. “ Is Mr. 
 Levison like his son ?” I was confused, 
 and did not know what I was saying. It 
 had startled me to hear of Adrian Levison’s 
 father in England. I think I had forgotten 
 that he had any relations, he had become so 
 entirely the one man in the world to me, 
 the Phoenix of these latter days, I could 
 more easily fancy Melchisedec with father 
 and brothers. 
 
 “ What ! like Adrian ? Yes, very like, 
 only not so good-looking,” said Uncle 
 
THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 303 
 
 Basset. “ They are all alike, all the Levi- 
 sons, except the son who was drowned, 
 and he was the best looking young man 1 
 ever saw. They are all a good-looking family, 
 and a clever family, and they are the strictest 
 Jews there are in England, I believe. You 
 know more about that, though, Yalpy ; but 
 I think I am right, am I not ?” 
 
 “ Quite right, I believe,” replied Mr. 
 Valpy. “ It would be well worth any one’s 
 while to convert them, but — ” Then the 
 carriage stopped, and we alighted, and were 
 soon mingling in a gaily-dressed crowd, from 
 which, after a little looking for them, we 
 distinguished Aunt Barbara and Brydget, 
 and there standing- talking to them was 
 Adrian Levison. 
 
 “ Is not that Bougainvillia lovely ?” and 
 he moved towards it. 
 
 “ Lovely !” and I followed him. 
 
 We stood together., in a winding walk, 
 screened from the busy talkers by that mass 
 of splendid colour we had nominally come 
 to admire, and I looked at Adrian Levison, 
 looked at him, and saw that he looked ill. 
 There was something strange about his face, 
 something that had never used to be there, 
 but which I now knew I had always ob- 
 
304 
 
 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 served, though silently, since that night of 
 the fancy dress ball, that night when we 
 had first confessed to one another the love 
 we felt. It was not his paleness that was 
 strange, nor that light that seemed to shine 
 from his very face, it was the look in his 
 eyes. I cannot describe it, but I know I 
 shrank from it; it had never used to be 
 there of old. 
 
 “ I thought you were never coming,” he 
 said, looking at me, while I cast down my 
 eyes, after that one earnest glance to see if 
 he were really ill, and remained playing 
 with the flowers, among which we stood. 
 
 “ You told me you were so busy, I never 
 thought you would be here,” I said, depre- 
 catingly. 
 
 “ Even time can he made where there is 
 a will to make it,” he replied, in those ring- 
 ing tones that seemed to ring on and on 
 through my very heart. 
 
 “ But you must not make yourself ill,” I 
 exclaimed, anxiously. “ You must not 
 work too much.” 
 
 “ Is it -work being here ?” he asked, play- 
 fully. “ You need not be alarmed about 
 me, we all pride ourselves upon our health.” 
 
 “ But your brother 
 
THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 305 
 
 “ My brother !” A cloud passed over bis 
 face. Oh, how I longed to drive it away 
 again. It seemed against nature that any 
 cloud should ever fall on him. “ My brother, 
 who was drowned, you mean ?” 
 
 “ Oh, he was drowned,” I repeated, ab- 
 sently. “ I had forgotten that, but tell me 
 about him ; was he like you ?” 
 
 “ Better, a thousand times better in every 
 way, cleverer, too ; but though he was the 
 eldest of all, he was so young when he died, 
 no one could tell what he might have been, 
 only every one could see that he was fitted 
 for a better life than this. He was so 
 gentle, sb amiable, sa unswerving in his ad- 
 herence to what he thought right,” and a 
 spasm seemed to contract his forehead. 
 
 “ You loved him very much,” I said, 
 softly. 
 
 “ Yes.” He walked on for a few minutes 
 in silence, then added, “ Every one loved 
 him that knew him. His was as perfect a 
 character as any I can imagine, and he lived 
 and died a Jew.” He uttered these last 
 words low, as if to himself, not to me, but 
 involuntarily I replied, 
 
 “ It still seems strange to me that it 
 should have been so.” 
 
 YOL. I. 
 
 20 
 
306 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 “ He said he could not be a Christian, if 
 only for their light speaking of their Christ.” 
 
 “ Oh, do not let us speak of this to-day — 
 not to-day !” I exclaimed, desperately. 
 
 “You are right. Not to-day. To-morrow 
 must come — we all know it must come — 
 but to-day — Gwynydd, do you know how 
 beautiful you are ?” 
 
 He spoke so abruptly that he frightened 
 me. The sudden transition in his tone 
 made me almost forget the gloom at the 
 beginning of his sentence, but it weighed 
 on me still a little, as I replied, very gravely, 
 “ I am glad that you should think me so,” 
 but I did not feel glad, his manner was so 
 strange. 
 
 “ Give me that flower as a remembrance 
 of this day,” he said. 
 
 A piece of mignonette was in my hand. 
 It had been stuck into my di'ess, but now 
 had fallen out, and already it had grown so 
 withered and scentless with the covetous 
 sun sucking all the sweetness out of it, that 
 instead of replacing it, I was pulling it to 
 pieces, but I now handed it to him at once. 
 He pressed it to his lips, then he said, 
 more lightly than he had spoken for some 
 time : 
 
THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 307 
 
 “ I must give you a flower also, but it shall 
 be a rose for you.” 
 
 “ A white rose, then,” 1 said. There 
 were no white roses near, save one full- 
 blown flower upon a bush of Macartney 
 roses. Adrian Levison stooped to gather it 
 for me, and as he plucked it two of the 
 wide-blown petals fell off ; he made a motion 
 to throw it away, but I held out my hand 
 for it, and as I took it from him one by one 
 the remaining petals dropped to the ground. 
 “ It has got some scent still. I can always 
 remember this day by it, if I need any re- 
 minder,” I said, smiling the more calmly, 
 because he appeared affected by the omen. 
 
 “ It was my fault,” he said, “ all my 
 fault. I should not have gathered it so 
 roughly.” 
 
 “ It would not have mattered how you 
 gathered it,” I replied ; “ it had had its day 
 and its leaves were meant to fall.” 
 
 “ Are you such a fatalist V said he, laugh- 
 ing. “ I think it was a just punishment to 
 me for gathering a flower at all. People do 
 not give dej diners that every one may have 
 an opportunity of robbing their gardens. 
 However, I must give you another, and 
 that I may not be too conspicuous a plun- 
 
 20—2 
 
308 
 
 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 derer, I shall descend to commonplaces, and 
 ask you to keep this forget-me-not for my 
 sake.” 
 
 “ It is not necessary,” I replied ; “ but if 
 you descend to commonplaces, I had rather 
 you would give me heart’s-ease.” 
 
 Again a sudden pain contracted his fore- 
 head. “ Could I insult you with the flower, 
 while robbing you of the reality ? No ; no 
 more heart’s-ease in the world for us — 
 but it is a foolish name, I like the Portu- 
 guese Perfect Love better, do you not, 
 Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ Is that what they call it ? It is much 
 the same, however it may be called, I sup- 
 pose.” I was in a dream that day. 
 
 “ The same !” he cried. “ They are as 
 far as the poles asunder. Pomeo and Juliet ! 
 Othello and Desdemona ! Where do you find 
 Heart’s Ease and Love together V 
 
 “ If Pomeo had loved Juliet with a per- 
 fect love, he would have lived on to do great 
 deeds for her sake, not killed himself because 
 he missed her.” 
 
 “ Is that your theory of love ?” he asked. 
 “ Mine is very different.” 
 
 He did look very pale, as I glanced up 
 at him then, very pale and tempest-tossed, 
 
THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 309 
 
 different altogether from his old bright 
 sunny self. 
 
 “Would you kill yourself?” I asked, 
 gravely,. 
 
 “ That would be the act of a coward, but 
 I could not live on to do great deeds, 
 as you say. My life would be a daily 
 dying, a self-annihilation.” 
 
 “ Do you not think that it would be glori- 
 ous to show the world how worthy a 
 choice your Juliet had made ?” 
 
 Adrian Levison smiled. “ When I am 
 happy the world’s opinion is of consequence 
 to me, but if I were miserable I should 
 think only how it was formed of nonentities, 
 or worse still, people who always will see 
 everything just as it never can be. If I 
 were miserable, I think I should prefer 
 that the world should esteem ill of me, 
 rather than well. Anyhow I shall always 
 be in a minority,” and he sighed. 
 
 “ Levison, you here ! Have you seen your 
 father yet ?” and Mr. Valpy paused in 
 passing by, laying his hand upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Adrian Levison started. “ My father !” 
 
 “ Yes, I met him just as I was leaving 
 town. He seemed in a hurry to see you, 
 
310 
 
 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 and I told him I thought he was certain to 
 find you at the House.” 
 
 “ I paired off with Fairfax Reynolds. 
 But my father, I had no idea he was in 
 England, I must go b.ack to town at once.” 
 
 “ Come with me then. I have had 
 enough of this sort of thing, and am going 
 back now.” 
 
 “ I’ll join you in an instant.” 
 
 Then Adrian Levison and I walked back 
 together to Aunt Barbara, and Aunt Bar- 
 bara looked at me very gravely, as I re- 
 joined her. 
 
 “ Good-bye, Lady Basset,” said Adrian 
 Levison. “ I hear my father has just 
 arrived in town, and I must hurry back to 
 see him.” 
 
 “ It is quite time we were all going,” 
 said Aunt Barbara, still gravely. 
 
 “ Oh no, don’t say so. I envy you all so 
 for staying,” and he sent a long lingering 
 glance round him. 
 
 “ Stay then,” said Brydget, looking up 
 gaily from watching a dog, which George 
 Lumley was encouraging to perform tricks 
 for her amusement. “ Nothing ever comes 
 the same again, and who knows what may 
 happen before we next meet ?” 
 
THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 311 
 
 “ Words of wisdom from your lips,” said 
 he, smiling. “ I thought you told me just 
 now that you considered nothing so sensible 
 as nonsense.” 
 
 “Exactly so,” said^Brydget, with a very 
 good imitation of poor Duke’s manner, 
 when he was forced to agree to something, 
 he did not particularly relish. “ And now 
 you see you are of the same opinion, for 
 you call my words, words of wisdom, and 
 yet every one knows I always talk non- 
 sense,” and she laughed merrily. “ Here, 
 my dear doggie, do stand up on your hind 
 legs again. Don’t you wish you had four 
 feet, Mr. Levison, that you might some- 
 times stand upon only two, and make every 
 one laugh as much as this silly creature 
 does ?” 
 
 “ I am afraid every one does not laugh 
 quite so readily as you d<),” he replied. 
 
 “ I am standing only on one foot now. 
 Does that amuse you, Brydget ?” asked 
 George Lumley. 
 
 “ Oh yes, immensely,” she cried, and 
 laughed so much, that he very soon had to 
 stand upon two feet again, growing very 
 red as he did so, and thus causing Brydget 
 to laugh yet more. 
 
312 THE DREAM DREAMED OUT. 
 
 Whilst this was going on, Adrian Levison 
 -took hold of my hand. “Good-bye, 
 Gwynydd,” he said. 
 
 “ Good-bye. When shall I see you 
 again ?” 
 
 “ Soon,” he replied, then he murmured 
 to himself : “ Yes, it had better be soon, 
 
 and then — and then ” 
 
 My eyes filled with tears, and he let go 
 of my hand, and went away with his sen- 
 tence yet unfinished, but indeed he had 
 not been speaking to me. Only I heard 
 him, and I understood what he meant. I 
 understood it all for a moment, then I 
 would not understand it any longer, and I 
 turned, and answered some remark about 
 the weather, that had been addressed to 
 me. Adrian Levison had left me, but only 
 for a time ; we should meet again, and 
 soon, he had said. I recollected that and 
 believed it. I would not recollect anything 
 more. It was in a strange state of exulta- 
 tion I drove back to town ‘that night. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 “ Ah ! when will all be ended ? If the dead 
 Have unto them some little memory left, 
 
 Tet would to God these days at least were past, 
 And all be done ttat here must needs be done !” 
 Life and Death of Jason. 
 
 “ Gwynydd, my dear,” said Aunt Barbara, 
 “ I don’t often interfere with you and 
 Brydget, but I think it would be better if 
 you did not talk quite so much to Mr. Levi- 
 son. Do you understand me, Gwynydd ?” 
 “Yes, I understand you, aunt,” I said, 
 speaking very low, my voice almost sticking 
 in my throat. Then was my time for re- 
 peating something of what Lady Brydget 
 had said about cant and commonplace, but 
 I smiled at the idea of my saying anything 
 of the kind to Aunt Barbara ; at that fdte 
 in the Horticultural Gardens she had been 
 
314 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 to me the World personified, and now this 
 day again she seemed to me to be the 
 World personified, so of course she took 
 the world’s view of the matter, and held 
 Adrian Levison as no fitting intimate for 
 me. That was of course, and I only smiled 
 a little bitterly to myself; but this speech 
 of hers did not help me in what I was 
 doing. There was a pen in my hand, and 
 a sheet of paper lay before me, on which 
 were written the words, “ My dear Father,” 
 The ink of those -words was long ago dry, 
 but no other words had followed them yet, 
 no other words would come. I sat and 
 stared at the paper. Should I write and 
 say, “ I am with your permission engaged 
 to Mr. Adrian Levison, of whom I have 
 seen a good deal, since I came to town. 
 My uncle has a very high opinion of him, 
 and considers him the rising man of his 
 party. He is very good, and very clever, 
 and very beautiful, and very rich ; he is of 
 a different religion from my own, but that, 
 perhaps, you and my mother will be content 
 to overlook, as I have been content to over- 
 look it.” If I wrote that, I could fancy 
 how my father would exclaim, “ Of a dif- 
 ferent religion ! the fellow must be a 
 
"awaking. 
 
 315 
 
 Ha, Levison ! Levison ! a Jewish name ! 
 
 1 know the family. J know who the fellow 
 is. Why the girl must he mad, we must 
 send for Gwynydd home directly. Now if 
 it were Brydget I could understand any 
 tomfoolery of the sort, but Gwynydd !” 
 Then my father would stride up and down 
 the room, and talk at my mother, as if 
 she were opposing him in what he wanted 
 to do ; and then I should be sent for home 
 immediately, and I should never see Adrian 
 Levison again, and my father would forbid 
 me even to mention his name. 
 
 Should I write a quite different sort of 
 letter, a defiant letter, and say, “ I am en- 
 gaged to marry a Jew, and I mean to do it, 
 whatever you and my mother may say ; for 
 I love him better than all the world beside, 
 and he is nobler and braver and wiser 
 than any one else.” Why, if I did that, 
 then I might carry out my threat if I chose. 
 I should be of age in about a year’s time, 
 and of course I might wait till then, and 
 see Adrian Levison, or not see him all that 
 time, it would not much matter which ; 
 and then after that I might marry him, if 
 I chose, and see him always, and perhaps 
 never again see my father or mother, or 
 
316 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 Brydget or Duke or any one else whom I 
 loved. Could I bear that ? Yes, I told 
 myself, I could hear it, and gladly. Though 
 the tears rolled down my cheeks, as I even 
 thought of it, yet I told myself I could 
 bear anything, yes, anything to be with 
 Adrian Levison, to spend the rest of my life 
 with him. And I know it was true, I 
 could have borne anything. But then I 
 thought to myself, how I could ever be put 
 into the position to make such a choice as 
 that of which I had just been thinking ; 
 was it true that we ever in life had it in 
 our power to make such a choice ? 
 
 “ Hercules had his choice given him,” I 
 said, looking up vaguely at Aunt Barbara 
 and Brydget, as Brydget lay in Aunt Bar- 
 bara's arms, deluging her w T ith kisses after 
 a fashion of her own. “ Could he have 
 chosen pleasure rather than duty ?” I 
 asked. 
 
 “ Yes, of course he could,” cried Brydget ; 
 “ but he would have been very wicked if 
 he had. There is never more than one 
 thing at a time that it is right to choose, 
 and that is always the unpleasant thing, 
 that is why I must go back to my patch- 
 work, instead of kissing you any more, you 
 
AWAKING. 
 
 317 
 
 dear old auntie,” and suiting the action to 
 the words, Brydget sprang off the sofa at 
 once, and set to work at her quilt with 
 renewed energy. 
 
 Then I tore up the letter I had begun, 
 and went quickly from the room. “ There 
 was never more than one thing at a time 
 that was right to do, and that was always 
 the disagreeable thing.” Yes, Brydget was 
 right, it must be wrong for me to love 
 Adrian Levison. I leant out of the little 
 dressing-room window, and watched the 
 sparrows pecketing on the opposite roofs ; 
 they hopped about busily, as if it mat- 
 tered whether they picked up this morsel or 
 dropped that, as if it mattered whether 
 they stood here or there. I wished I were 
 a sparrow, and cared about such things. I 
 wished I were dead ; I wished the sparrows 
 were dead. I began to think how I might 
 kill them ; then I recollected it was wrong 
 to wish such things, and so I wished that 
 Duke might be right, and the world coming 
 to an end. It was a dark, gloomy day, 
 and I thought very likely the world was 
 coming to an end. I knelt down and asked 
 God to forgive me my sins. Then I said that 
 was not what I wished, I wished nothing 
 
3 1 8 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 but only that Adrian Levison might one 
 day be happy in heaven. “ I do not ask 
 to be with him there,” I cried, while the 
 tears streamed down my cheeks. “ I do 
 not ask that, 0 God, only that he may be 
 happy there with me, or without me, for I 
 do not know how it may be there, but we 
 can be no more together on earth, and on 
 earth I know he can never be happy with- 
 out me. 0 God, have mercy, and take 
 him to Thyself, for I cannot bear to bring 
 him grief! O Lord, I cannot bear it !” 
 Then while I was praying that Adrian 
 Levison might die, — Adrian, my Adrian, 
 whom I loved more than all the world, — 
 Brydget knocked at the door, and said, 
 
 “ Gwynydd, papa is here ; he has come 
 up to town for the day on business, and he 
 says he wants to see you alone. I think 
 he has something very important to say to 
 you.” 
 
 Then I said, “God help me!” For the 
 first time in my life I shrank from seeing my 
 father, and it was hardly an additional pang 
 that shot through my heart as I thought of 
 Eve, and when she shrank from seeing her 
 Father. I went to the glass and slowly 
 and steadily smoothed my hair, and bathed 
 
AWAKING. 
 
 319 
 
 my eyes. I was a Jerninghame, and my 
 father was a Jerninghame ; whatever he 
 had to say to me, there must he no tear- 
 stains on my face to confuse the conversa- 
 tion, but I did not think at all about what 
 my father might have to say to me, as I 
 went down stairs, and fearing he was in 
 Uncle Basset’s study, went there also. He 
 wanted to see me alone, he had said. 
 
 I took it all very quietly ; it hardly sur- 
 prised me at all, that my father should have 
 come to London for the day, and should 
 now wish to see me alone. It seemed to sur- 
 prise every one else, but I took it very 
 quietly ; the world had come to an end, 
 Adrian Levison was dead, my father had 
 come up to town, it was all one to me then 
 what I heard, and I went as if it was the 
 most natural thing in the world into Uncle 
 Basset’s study. There I found my father 
 standing very tall and erect, as all the Jer- 
 ninghames always had stood from time im- 
 memorial, all except Duke, at least. Duke 
 was the tallest of them all, but perhaps 
 for that very reason he generally stooped. 
 My father turned round on hearing me 
 enter, and though he looked very grave — 
 graver and sterner than I should have liked 
 
320 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 to see him at any other time — he clasped 
 me in his arms very lovingly and tenderly 
 as he kissed me and said, “ God bless you, 
 Gwynydd, my dear child !” but then having 
 thus for a moment given way to his natural 
 joy on seeing me, he pushed me away from 
 him, and bidding me sit down, placed a 
 letter before me, and said, almost harshly, 
 “Tell me what is the meaning of this, 
 Gwynydd. I got this letter yesterday, 
 and I have come up to town at once, for I 
 own to you it is quite beyond me.” 
 
 I sat down and looked at the letter, it 
 was in Duke’s handwriting. After looking 
 at it for a few minutes, noticing how Duke 
 always forgot to cross his t’s, and would 
 make his r’s in the childish fashion, we had 
 been taught long ago, when we first learnt 
 round hand, I recollected all at once that I 
 had been told to explain the meaning of 
 the letter, and to do that I must read it 
 first, so I took it up and read it. “ My 
 dear uncle,” Duke began, “ you were so 
 kind to me when I was last at St. Mar- 
 garet’s, that I think I ought to tell you 
 how I have neglected to follow your advice, 
 and wait till I came of age before I asked 
 Gwynydd to be my wife. I am sorry I did 
 
AWAKING. 
 
 321 
 
 not follow your advice, because you may 
 very justly blame me for this, but I do not 
 think it would have made any difference. 
 Gwynydd told me at once that it could 
 never be, and the manner in which she did 
 so left me no hope. I need not tell you I 
 am very unhappy, but of course that makes 
 no difference. I hope my aunt is well, and 
 does not miss Brydget very much. Both 
 Gwynydd and Brydget were very well when 
 1 last saw them. I have been at the Castle 
 some time now, but I could not make up 
 my mind to go over to St. Margaret’s to 
 tell you, so at last I think it best to write. 
 I am your affectionate nephew, Marma- 
 •duke Courteney Jerninghame.” 
 
 My father stood quite still looking at me 
 while I read Duke’s note, then when he 
 saw I had got to the end of it, he said, 
 “Well!” as if it was now my business to 
 begin explaining. 
 
 “ I think the meaning of this note is 
 quite clear,” I said, quietly, folding it up, 
 now that I had read it. “ Duke asked me 
 to be his wife, and of course I told him that 
 could never be.” 
 
 “ Of course you told him that could never 
 he ! Why, of course ?” asked my father. 
 
 VOL. i. 21 
 
322 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 I looked up surprised, it seemed to me 
 so strange that any one should think I 
 could marry Duke. Of course I could not 
 marry him ; I, who loved Adrian Levison ! 
 and at once his name rose to my lips, but, 
 before I spoke it, I looked up at my father, 
 resting one hand on the table now, but still 
 tall and uncompromising as ever. How 
 often had I not heard him described as 
 “ one of the most upright pillars of our 
 church,” and was I now going to tell him, 
 that I loved a man who was not even a 
 Christian ? No, it could not be, it could 
 not be ; it was all very well for Lady 
 Brydget to talk of cant and commonplace, 
 but there were some popular opinions that 
 were not canting, there were some common- 
 places that were not only commonplace, 
 but also true. She herself would be among 
 the first to see the truth of them, did I but 
 attempt to put the opposite theory into 
 practice. But I did not even dream of 
 doing this now ; I had known I could never 
 marry Adrian Levison, when I had knelt in 
 my room, and prayed God to take him to 
 Himself, to give him the greater joys of 
 heaven, since he could never have the lesser 
 joys of earth. I had known then I could 
 
AWAKING. 
 
 323 
 
 not marry him, so what use to speak of him 
 now to my father ? Only I could not marry 
 Duke, not Duke nor another, but least of all 
 Duke, whom I valued, and whose love, if 
 he felt such for me, must, I knew, merit a 
 better return than any I could ever give, 
 so after long thought I said falteringly and 
 slowly, “ I have loved Duke all my life.” 
 
 “ And is that a reason why you should 
 not marry him ?” my father exclaimed, in- 
 dignantly. “ This is absurd, Gwynydd. Of 
 course you have loved him all your life, 
 and it has always been an understood thing 
 that you should marry him. Who else is 
 Duke to marry, I should like to know ?” 
 
 “ I am sure I don’t know any one else for 
 Duke to marry, father,” I said at last. 
 
 “ I should think not, nor any one else 
 either. Duke is not the kind of man to fall 
 in love and marry on a fortnight’s acquain- 
 tance. Duke can only marry a girl he has 
 known all his life, as he has known yon, 
 and he is none the worse for that, I think.” 
 “ No, none the worse for that,” I an- 
 swered, readily. “ But I cannot marry him, 
 father.” 
 
 “ You cannot marry him ! Then what is 
 to become of the Jerningbames, I should like 
 
 21—2 
 
324 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 to know ? Is the old name to become ex- 
 tinct, because you cannot marry your cousin, 
 whom you have loved all your life ? Poh ! 
 that is nonsense, Gwynydd. No, the truth 
 is, you are hankering after marrying some 
 young spark, whom you have met in Lon- 
 don.” 
 
 “ I am not thinking of marrying any one, 
 father. I do not mean ever to marry.” 
 
 “ That is nonsense, that is just what all 
 girls say. No, if you had been in love with 
 some one else, I should have been very 
 sorry, for I have always set my heart on 
 your marrying your cousin, but of course I 
 must have given way then — if there had 
 been no objection to the other man you 
 wished to marry.” 
 
 I was silent; then at last I spoke. “There 
 is no other man, father.” 
 
 “ Then this is all nonsense,” said my fa- 
 ther, calmly, pocketing Duke’s letter again 
 now ; “ and I suppose this is only some sort 
 of lovers’ quarrel, such as all young people 
 go through some time or other, though I 
 thought you were more sensible, Gwynydd. 
 But, however, I suppose girls will be girls, 
 and I dare say this coming to London has 
 put some silly ideas into your head. I 
 
AWAKING. 
 
 3 ? 5 
 
 never much liked it, but we’ll soon drive 
 them away when we get you back to St. 
 Margaret’s again,” and my father kissed me 
 warmly now. 
 
 “Have you missed me much ?” I ventured 
 to ask, and I looked up at my father, and 
 fancied that he looked thinner than he had 
 been wont to be, and that his hair was 
 grayer. I do not know if it was really so, 
 or if it was only my fancy. 
 
 “ We manage to get on somehow,” said 
 my father, smiling. “ St. Augustine is a 
 very good companion in the winter evenings, 
 but I seem to think I should like my Gwy- 
 nydd best, now the summer has almost 
 come. However, you won’t be much longer 
 away now, that is one comfort, and we shall 
 have nice long walks and talks in the sum- 
 mer evenings, when you come back to St. 
 Margaret’s. You look pale, though, my 
 child, I don’t think this London suits you, 
 you must take care not to get ill with too 
 much racketting about. I should like to 
 see you with some of Brydget’s colour. 
 That seems a nice young fellow she has 
 taken to. I knew his father well long ago, 
 and this young fellow reminds me of him 
 uncommonly. I am glad to have seen him 
 
326 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 to-day. Now I must just go up-stairs, and 
 say good-bye to Brydget and the others, for 
 I have got some business I must see about, 
 as I have come up to town. I consider this 
 business with you settled/’ said my father, 
 smiling, “ and I shall tell Duke not to 
 fret.” 
 
 “ Do not tell him I shall ever marry him, 
 father, for indeed I cannot.” 
 
 “Well — well, we will see about that,” he 
 said, still smiling, “ greater wonders than 
 that have sometimes come to pass, my 
 daughter.” 
 
 Then in a few minutes my father had to 
 say good-bye to us all, and go on about his 
 other business, and he thanked Uncle and 
 Aunt Basset for their kindness to us, and 
 hoped we did not give them much trouble, 
 and told George Lumley he was glad to 
 have made his acquaintance, and that he 
 was a fine young fellow, but he must be 
 content to wait a little. In the meantime he 
 hoped to see him at St. Margaret’s before 
 long, and then Brydget threw her arms 
 round my father’s neck, and sent a hundred 
 kisses to dear, “ darling mamma,” and after 
 that my father turned to me and folded me 
 in his arms very tenderly : “May God bless 
 
AWAKING. 
 
 327 
 
 and protect you, my dearest child,” he said, 
 and I sent no message to my mother, and 
 no message to any one, but I went back to 
 my uncle’s study, where I knew I should 
 find paper and ink, and where I knew also 
 I should be alone for a little, and there I 
 wrote, without pausing once to think, or 
 making one single mistake, for I was in a 
 hurry to write this note, and felt as if I had 
 hardly been honest in letting my father 
 think there was no other man, while 
 as yet this note was unwritten. And 
 yet I did not think of marrying Adrian 
 Levison, no, not ever ; so it was true, only 
 I wanted to write and tell him so. So, in 
 great haste, and without pausing once, I 
 wrote : 
 
 “It can never, never be. I knew I had 
 been mad to think it possible, when I tried 
 to write to my father this morning and tell 
 him. Since that he has been here, and I 
 have told him nothing, for it would be of no 
 use. Perhaps we may meet and love each 
 other in heaven, but we must never meet, 
 again on earth. It could do us no good, 
 only make us more miserable than we are 
 now, if indeed that is possible. You told 
 me not to talk of dying, but pray for me 
 
328 
 
 AWAKING. 
 
 that I may die now.” Then I read my note 
 through, and signed my name, “ Gwynydd 
 Jerninghame.” It looked rather bald just 
 written by itself, but I could not sign my- 
 self “his truly,” I could not sign myself, “his 
 faithfully.” I was not his faithfully or truly, 
 and I had no right any longer to call myself 
 “his loving.” I did up the letter quickly 
 and directed it, then I laid it on the hall 
 table, to be posted with the others; no one 
 was likely to see it and wonder what I had 
 been writing to him about, and even if they 
 did, Uncle Basset would be sure to think I 
 had been writing a note for Aunt Barbara, 
 and Aunt Barbara that it was for Uncle 
 Basset. 
 
 When I had put my note on the hall 
 table, I went up stairs, hut I was frightened 
 myself, as I saw my reflection in the glass, 
 my face looked so wild. I tried to brush 
 the wildness away by smoothing my hair, 
 but in vain. Soon I went down stairs, I 
 was in a feverish state, and could not bear 
 to be alone ; only the restraint of other peo- 
 ple’s presence seemed to give me strength 
 to bear what I had to bear. So I went to 
 be with the others, and I smiled when 
 people spoke to me, and even made believe 
 
AWAKING. 
 
 329 
 
 to eat some luncheon. I know Aunt Bar- 
 bara said I looked pale, and advised me to 
 lie on the sofa, and Uncle Basset wanted 
 me to take some wine, but I do not remem- 
 ber how the rest of that day passed, only 
 I recollect standing once more at the open 
 window of the little dressing-room, and 
 looking out into the night. The stars were 
 shining brightly then, and I looked at them 
 and wondered how long they had been 
 shining there, and thought of the old 
 legend how the stars were set to watch the 
 earth all the night, and the flowers all the 
 day, and how these last soon grew red with 
 shame at the dreadful sights they saw, 
 while some grew white with horror, and the 
 stars were for ever involuntarily shutting 
 their eyes, and then remembering their 
 duty, opening them again, and so always 
 now they twinkle, shutting and opening 
 their eyes — I did not wonder they twinkled 
 that night. It must be a dreadful thing to 
 look upon despair. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY, 
 
THE LAST 
 
 OF 
 
 THE JERNINGHAMES. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. E. N. BEWICKE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 “ LOVE ME FOR MY LOVE,” “ ONE FOOT ON SHORE,” 
 ETC. 
 
 lOirtrit qui ftatitur. 
 
 “ Remember that thy departure will not be from men who have the 
 same principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there be any, 
 which could draw us the contrary way, and attach us to life, to be 
 permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. 
 But now thou seest how great is the distress caused by the difference 
 of those who live together, so that thou mayest say, c Come quick, O 
 Death, lest perchance I, too, should forget myself,’ ” 
 
 Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON’: 
 
 CHARLES J. SKEET, 10, KING WILLIAM STREET, 
 
 CHARING CROSS. 
 
 1873. 
 
 [All Rights Reserved .] 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
CONTENTS OF YOL. II, 
 
 CHAPTER FACE 
 
 I. TURNED TO STONE 1 
 
 II. AFTERWARDS . , . .24 
 
 III. IN SWITZERLAND 46 
 
 IY. WORDS .... 68 
 
 Y. AT DOMO D’OSSOLA ... 87 
 
 YI. LAST STRUGGLES . . ,112 
 
 YII. BACK IN LONDON . . . 123 
 
 YIIT. THE LAST OE BRYDGET JERNINGHAME 137 
 
 IX. DOUBTS .... 159 
 
 X. PINS AND NEEDLES . . . 171 
 
 XI. WHEN WE TWO PARTED . . 187 
 
 XII. THE SORROW EORETOLD . . 207 
 
 XIII. LIFE AND HONOUR IN PERSEUS’ HANDS 223 
 
 XIY. BRYDGET DISSATISFIED . . 239 
 
 XY. MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED . . 253 
 
 XYI. DUKE DISSATISFIED . . . 273 
 
 XYII. DUKE ..... 287 
 
 XYI'II. CONCLUSION . . . .311 
 
THE 
 
 LAST OF THE JERNINGHAIES, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 “ Love, as hopeless as the shattering song, 
 
 Wailed for loved beings who have joined the throng 
 Of mighty dead ones.” 
 
 George Eliot. 
 
 So now the die was cast, and there was no 
 going back any more. I had seen my father, 
 my dear father, who had loved and trusted 
 me all my life, and I had told him nothing. 
 I had written to Adrian Levison, and now 
 all would he, as it had been before we ever 
 met. Never now need I fear Brydget’s 
 speaking to me as Salome spoke to Miriam, 
 never now need I fear my father’s casting 
 me off from being his child. No, there 
 VOL. II. 1 
 
2 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 would be no need for that now. I was a 
 Christian, like other people ; I was the 
 daughter of the Dean of St. Margaret’s, 
 one of the most upright pillars of our 
 mother Church, respected and followed by 
 all the county, and also of weight in far 
 distant counties. I might now go through 
 life as the dignified Miss Jerninghame, who 
 went to church twice a day, and taught 
 poor children the meaning of the collects on 
 Sundays, and read wise books — rather wiser 
 than those women in general read, and 
 altogether led a most exemplary and re- 
 spectable life. I wondered whether, as I 
 grew into iron-gray old age, people would 
 talk of an unfortunate love affair in my 
 youth, as I had heard them whisper such 
 things about other equally exemplary 
 spinsters ; they would not speak of it till I 
 was well advanced in years, of that I felt 
 sure. A Jerninghame might die, I thought, 
 the aching grief digging out the very hearty 
 but there would be no tear stains on the face 
 to betray the secret of the love, that gnawed 
 and gnawed at that ever-aching heart, till 
 at last it ceased to palpitate with the 
 mechanical palpitation of a pendulum at the 
 little monotonous events of an even, well- 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 3 
 
 regulated life. As I sat before the glass, 
 while Si veil twisted up my hair in smooth, 
 regular coils, and looked at the proud pale 
 face, that met my gaze so unflinchingly, I 
 told myself 1 ought to be glad that I had 
 fixed my life so unalterably. “ I shall never 
 see him again,” I said to myself, “ but it is 
 I that have done this, not any one else, 
 whose cruel orders I might possibly one day 
 rebel against. I can never rebel now, for it 
 is I myself, who have settled it all, and as 
 
 for him ” I put my hand to my head ; 
 
 something in it seemed to be beating so 
 wildly I felt as if my forehead must break 
 with the agony ; but I quickly took my 
 hand away, my head was so burning hot. 
 Then I went down to breakfast, and after 
 Uncle Basset laid down the Times, I took it 
 up, and saw that Adrian Levison had spoken 
 in the House the night before, and first I 
 read the short summary of his speech, say- 
 ing, “ Mr. Levison brought forward much 
 
 the same argument as the member for , 
 
 but with more eloquence, and a slightly un- 
 necessary degree of warmth.” In one of 
 the articles, there were also some comments 
 on his speech : “We hardly recognised the 
 concise, perspicuous style of the member 
 
 1—2 
 
4 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 for in the stream of slightly turbid 
 
 eloquence that flowed from Mr. Adrian 
 Levison’s lips last night. The subject of 
 religion was introduced most unnecessarily, 
 and we think it is to be regretted that what 
 was not intended to be a party question, was 
 intrusted to one who now proves to be such 
 a fiery partizan. The practical bearing of 
 the question was quite neglected.” Then I 
 turned to the speech, and wondered what 
 they meant by the words, fiery and turbid, 
 to me it seemed cold and formal in the 
 extreme, and yet I knew that Adrian Levi- 
 son must have got my note before making 
 it. 
 
 I went up to my room, and lay down. 
 Brydget followed me after a few minutes. 
 
 “ Gwen, dear, are you ill ?” she asked. 
 
 “ I have got a headache,” I replied, 
 shortly. 
 
 “You have had a headache ever since 
 papa was here. What did papa want to 
 say to you ?” asked Brydget ; but I an- 
 swered nothing. Then she touched my 
 forehead with her cool, soft hand, and in a 
 minute she was bathing it with water, 
 bathing it carefully and tenderly as the 
 most experienced nurse might have done, 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 5 
 
 letting not a drop of water run down. I 
 looked up in gratitude, and then I saw her 
 face so white and frightened, that I sprang 
 up frightened also. 
 
 “ What is the matter, dearest Brydget ?” 
 I exclaimed ; “ what has happened ?” 
 
 “ Nothing has happened, Gwen, dear,’ 7 
 Brydget replied, in soft, cooing tones. “Now 
 I am just going to leave you for a moment, 
 to ask Aunt Barbara to send for a doctor.” 
 “ Oh, no — no, Brydget, do not do that. 
 It would kill me to see a doctor, it would 
 kill me to see any one. I want only to be 
 alone — I shall always be alone now !” I 
 added, wildly. 
 
 Then Brydget looked at me with those 
 lovely eyes of hers, looking like a creature 
 of joy and sunshine, as she was ; to me she 
 seemed to be a being of another world. 
 
 “ Gwen, dear, you were over tired by the 
 fancy ball,” she said ; “ do you not really 
 think it will be best to see a doctor ? It 
 would be such a pity to be quite laid up.” 
 
 “ It would not matter at all,” I replied ; 
 “ but I am not going to be laid up, only I 
 have got a headache, and want to be quiet. 
 So do not stay with me, my pet, though I 
 like to have you with me, of course ; but do 
 
6 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 not stay with me, or Aunt Barbara will be 
 coming to see what is the matter, and I do 
 not want to see her. I do not want to see 
 any one, and I do not want to go out driving 
 to-day.” 
 
 Then Brydget put on her things to go 
 out, but she hardly looked at her bonnet, 
 as she tied it quickly over her bright gold 
 brown hair ; then she turned round and 
 looked at me gravely, more gravely than I 
 had ever seen Brydget look at any one be- 
 fore, and again she took up a sponge and 
 water, and bathed my forehead, then she 
 stooped and kissed my face. “ Lie quiet, 
 Gwen, dear, and then you will soon be well, 
 I hope,” she whispered. 
 
 “ Leave the door open,” I cried. “ The 
 room is so hot.” 
 
 Brydget looked back at me once more on 
 this, then she went out, and meeting Aunt 
 Barbara in the passage, I heard her say : 
 “ Gwynydd is tired, Aunt Barbara, so you 
 must be satisfied with only me for a com- 
 panion to-day.” 
 
 “ What is the matter with Gwynydd ?” 
 asked Aunt Barbara. “ She has been look- 
 ing very ill lately.” 
 
 “ Oh, she has only got a headache, she 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 7 
 
 says,” said Brydget, lightly. “ No, don’t 
 go to her, Aunt Barbara, I have been 
 bothering her for a long time, and she says 
 she does so wish to be left alone. Poor 
 Gwen !” 
 
 “Well, I hope she will lie still and rest,” 
 said Aunt Barbara, going rustling down 
 stairs. “ I will give orders that no visitors 
 shall be let in to disturb her.” 
 
 Then they went out, and directly I heard 
 the hall door shut I jumped up and went 
 down stairs, for I could not lie still any 
 longer now that Brydget’s bright presence 
 had left the room, and her skilful hands no 
 longer sought to cool my burning head, so 
 I went down to the drawing-room, where 
 the windows were open, and the breath of 
 the mignonette was stealing in upon a 
 gentle breeze, and I knelt down beside the 
 mignonette and watched it in a sort of 
 stupid way, thinking every now and then 
 what an ugly, insignificant little flower it 
 was, and yet what a sweet perfume it gave, 
 and then forgetting it altogether, but star- 
 ing at it still, always in the same stupid 
 way. Then I heard a carriage drive up to 
 the door, and I started up in a sudden 
 panic, till I recollected that Aunt Barbara 
 
8 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 had ordered that no visitors should he ad- 
 mitted, and in a few minutes I heard it roll 
 away again. But I could not go back to 
 the mignonette again. I stood before a 
 photograph of Duke, a misty, indistinct 
 photograph done by a new process much 
 admired by artists. It was life-size, but as 
 I looked at it now, it hardly seemed to re- 
 mind me of Duke at all. It was so very 
 like the pictures of our Lord — our Lord 
 hanging upon the cross with the crown of 
 thorns about his head, that I stood before 
 it, and thought where the thorns would be, 
 if it were a picture of our Lord, and then all 
 the events of that dreadful day came hack 
 to my heated imagination, and I thought 
 how it was that the Jews had done it all — 
 the Jews, the “ holy nation,” once the 
 chosen of the Lord. Ah me ! now they 
 were despised and rejected of men, even as 
 He had once been despised and rejected of 
 them — He, their God and Saviour. Yes, it 
 was impossible for me to marry a Jew, wrong 
 that I should even love him, if I could help 
 it. I could not help it now. I did not 
 think I ever should have strength for that, 
 hut I thanked God that he had at least 
 given me strength to make the sacrifice of 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 9 
 
 my love, to lay it at His feet for His dear 
 Son’s sake, even as all our earthly treasures 
 should there be laid. “ What, though 
 Thou callest me to resign What most I 
 prize, it ne’er was mine, I only yield Thee 
 that is Thine, Thy will be done.” I felt 
 as if my life were over, and the victory won, 
 hut only for a moment. Then the door 
 opened and the conflict began again — the 
 bitterest drop in all my hitter cup was yet 
 to drink. The door opened, and Sedley, 
 my uncle’s confidential servant, entered the 
 room. 
 
 “Mr. Levison is here, Miss Jerninghame.” 
 Sedley always called me Miss Jerninghame, 
 and I often thought how my father would 
 have shuddered to hear him, hut in all 
 things else Sedley was most respectful, 
 only in this he was a servant of the nine- 
 teenth century. “ Mr. Levison is here, 
 Miss Jerninghame, and when he heard you 
 were alone at home, he seemed so desirous to 
 see you, that I thought I would come and 
 ask, if you were equal to the exertion, 
 though it was contrary to her ladyship’s 
 orders ; but I hope your head is better, 
 now, Miss Jerninghame, and I thought Mr. 
 Levison might have some message on busi- 
 
10 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 ness for his lordship, though he did not care 
 to entrust it to me.” 
 
 Sedley knew that Adrian Levison had 
 been of late transacting some business with 
 Uncle Basset, and he had once or twice 
 before come to the house to speak about 
 their mutual affairs. 
 
 “ Thank you, Sedley, my head is better,” 
 I said, “ but I cannot see Mr. Levison.” 
 
 “Yes, Miss Jerninghame,” said Sedley, 
 with evident dissatisfaction, then, after tak- 
 ing a few steps to leave the room, he came 
 back. “ Mr. Levison said, if it were possible, 
 he must see you this morning. I never saw 
 a gentleman more determined on anything. 
 If your head is better ” 
 
 “ Show him up,” I said, coldly, interrupt- 
 ing him at once. If Adrian Levison were 
 determined to see me once more, be it so ; 
 it would be for the last time, but I was a 
 Jerninghame, and it was not for me to 
 shrink from a painful interview. 
 
 I glanced once more at the photograph, 
 that was of Duke, really, but was so very 
 like the pictures of our Lord, in sorrow, 
 then 1 smoothed the hair upon my forehead. 
 I had brushed it off before to let the cool 
 air blow more freely upon my fevered brow. 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 11 
 
 but I wanted to look, as much as possible, 
 my usual self now, and with a face white, 
 but determined, I waited Adrian Levison’s 
 coming. I had not long to wait. 
 
 Adrian Levison came into the room, look- 
 ing so little like himself, that I think I 
 should hardly have known him, had I not 
 been thus expecting him. I have seen 
 a butterfly, battered by the wind, and 
 drenched by a storm of sudden rain ; I 
 have seen a bird, that has flown into the 
 hall at St. Margaret’s with broken wings 
 and feet, that refused any longer to support 
 the fragile, tempest-tossed frame. The bird 
 died in my hand, the butterfly — I do not 
 know what became of that. Brydget took 
 compassion upon it, and she said she thought 
 it must have got better and flown away. 
 But it is a different thing when a man, who 
 has never known sorrow before, knows 
 sorrow for the first time ; he does not take 
 it as the birds and butterflies do. Adrian 
 Levison had once before dropped my arm 
 from his, and thrown himself in agony upon 
 an ottoman. I understood all that, now ; 
 though I had not understood it at the time. 
 That was when he had first revealed to me 
 his love — now it was an acknowledged thing 
 
12 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 between us, that we loved each other ; but 
 I had told him that it must not be so any 
 more, that we must not meet again. He 
 came into the room with a wild look in his 
 eyes, an expression of pleading on his face ; 
 he walked hastily up to me, then he seemed 
 to understand what my face said to him — 
 said so plainly, without any need for speech 
 or words, and he stopped short, and for a 
 moment or two seemed to find a difficulty 
 in uttering a word. It was I who spoke 
 first. Some people say it is always the 
 woman, who speaks first, when there is any- 
 thing very terrible to be discussed. I do 
 not know how this may be, but I know I 
 spoke first then. 
 
 “ You have wished to see me,” I said. 
 “ I should have thought it best, that we 
 should not meet again, but since you wished 
 it, I could not refuse you this.” 
 
 “ No, you could not refuse me this — not 
 very well, at least. Gwynydd,” and his 
 voice shook and thrilled through me, so that 
 I shook also, “ Gwynydd, what is the mean- 
 ing of it all ? I thought you were to be 
 true to me for ever.” 
 
 “ I cannot be,” I said ; “ I have told you 
 I cannot be.” 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 13 
 
 “ You do not love me ?” he asked. He 
 was half leaning on the table now, looking 
 up at me with those clear, noble eyes of his. 
 
 I could not bear to look at them, so I stood 
 before him with my eyes cast upon the 
 floor, only I had to look at him when he 
 spoke. 
 
 “ I love you,” I said. “ You know it 
 quite well, you need not ask me about it 
 now. You know I would rather have died 
 than write to you, what I wrote to you the 
 other day. But I wrote it,” I said, 
 proudly. 
 
 “Yes,” he said, “when you came to 
 think of it, you thought your father would 
 be angry with you, that the Dean of St. 
 Margaret’s would not like his daughter to 
 marry a Jew. My father would have 
 cursed me, where I stood, but I would have 
 borne that for your sake ; you could not do 
 without your father’s blessing, and yet you 
 talk of loving me.” 
 
 “ Do you not believe me ?” I asked. 
 
 Adrian Levison did not answer, he had 
 taken up a paper cutter, and was playing 
 with it. 
 
 “ Do you understand that I was ready 
 to give up everything for you ?” he asked 
 
14 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 at length. “ No son has been more loved 
 than I have been, no son has had his path 
 in life made more easy for him, than I have, 
 but for one thing. As things are settled 
 at present I am to be one of the richest 
 men in England, and riches are power now, 
 and power is worthy no man’s scorn. 
 There was nothing in the world I could 
 ask for and not have ; and when I saw you, 
 
 ' I loved you, and it would have been sweet 
 to me — as it may have been to many a man, 
 since the world began — it would have been 
 sweet to me to lay all I had at your feet, 
 and implore you to accept of it, a father 
 and mother, who would love you as your 
 own, and are full as worthy to be loved, 
 wealth unbounded as far as anything in 
 this world can be, and a name among the 
 oldest and most honoured, a name held in 
 high esteem while England was never 
 thought of. You value old names, I know, 
 and therefore I dwell on this. But I knew 
 I could not give you all I had, I knew that 
 there was that difference between us of 
 race and of religion, that with myself I 
 could give you nothing but my love ; that 
 my name would only stamp you as an out- 
 cast from your people, that my wealth 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 15 
 
 would dwindle into nothingness were I to 
 think of marrying you ; and that, instead 
 of love, to you 1 could only bring the curses 
 of my father and my mother. Do you 
 believe that it was any thought of myself 
 that kept me from asking you to be my 
 wife long ago, Miss .Jerninghame ?” 
 
 I shivered that he should call me so, he, 
 who of late had always called me Gwynydd. 
 It was so sweet to be called Gwynydd by 
 him. 
 
 “ No, I do not,” I said. “ I know it 
 was no thought for yourself, but only 
 thought for me, and that when you knew I 
 loved you ” 
 
 “ I told you all my love for you, and 
 claimed your love as my own ; but I told 
 you,” and here again Adrian Levison looked 
 up, and our eyes met, and I could stand no 
 longer, but sank down upon a sofa, and 
 trembled among the cushions, “ I told 
 you that if you shrank from linking your 
 lot with mine, if you shrank from it, you 
 were as free as air. If no father and 
 mother were concerned, if you and I were 
 alone in the world, would you shrink from 
 me then, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ No, no,” I said. “ I love you,” and I 
 
16 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 groaned aloud, and covered my face with 
 my hands. 
 
 “ Then I will never give you up,” cried 
 Adrian Levison, fiercely, and sat down on 
 the sofa beside me, and passed his arm 
 round me, and covered me with hot pas- 
 sionate kisses. “ My own ! my Gwynydd ! 
 No one shall ever separate us now.” 
 
 “ Yes, I shall,” I said, and sat upright, 
 uncovering my face, and motioning him 
 back from me. “We are not alone in the 
 world, there are others to be considered. 
 There is no one else advising me to say 
 this, it is I myself who say it ; it is I 
 myself who come between us two. It is 
 not right for us to marry, and it cannot be, 
 unless you will become a Christian. If you 
 only would — ” and I was sinking upon my 
 knees at his feet, but Adrian Levison 
 stopped me, and forced me to remain seated 
 where I was. 
 
 “ That is not your place, Miss Jerning- 
 hame,” he said, sternly. “ You have for- 
 gotten your promise, I see, or perhaps you 
 think equally lightly of all promises. So 
 you cannot bear the stigma of marrying a 
 Jew ; you think of Isaac the Jew, and of 
 Shy lock, and of all the other Jews, to whom 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 17 
 
 Christian novelists and romance writers 
 have given such a noble immortality, and 
 you prefer the thought of a Christian hus- 
 band.” 
 
 “ No, no, I do not,” I said. “ I shall 
 never marry, never.” 
 
 “ So you say now,” he said, bitterly, “ but 
 you will forget that also to-morrow.” 
 
 There seemed such terrible truth in his 
 words, I could not bear it, I felt I must 
 make him believe me, be it womanly, or 
 unwomanly, anyhow I must make him 
 believe me. I seized his hand, and pressed 
 it to my forehead. 
 
 “ Do you feel my forehead, how hot it 
 is I exclaimed, passionately. Then I 
 pressed his hand to my lips, and as I did 
 so I said : “ I love you — you, only you — 
 better than father, or than mother, or than 
 all the world beside. By this dear hand, 
 the dearest hand in all the world to me, I 
 tell you so, and you must not talk to me of 
 marrying, or of not loving you, for I do 
 love you, and I shall never marry anyone, 
 not unless it is you, not unless you become 
 a Christian. A nobler woman might marry 
 you without that, perhaps — a better woman 
 might, but I dare not, for I love you too 
 VOL. II. 2 
 
18 
 
 TURNED' TO STONE. 
 
 dearly, and I know that my religion is 
 true, and yet loving, you as I do, I could 
 not be your wife, and see you so noble, 
 without learning to love my God less truly. 
 I know, I know I could not, and my first 
 duty is to God, who died for me, and you, 
 and all of us ; and so I can never marry 
 you, unless you believe in Him also, and to 
 bring that about I would be content to be 
 tortured all the days of my life, even to 
 bear such agony as I have borne for the 
 last day and night.” Then I cast his hand 
 from me, and buried my face among the 
 cushions, and sobbed aloud. 
 
 But his arms were round me again, and 
 he was bending over me, kissing my hands 
 fondly, penitently, as if he dared not kiss 
 my face. 
 
 “ Gwynydd ! my Gwynydd !” he said, 
 speaking very low, and yet I heard each 
 word distinctly, as it might have been the 
 Archangel’s trump. “ Forgive me, for I 
 have been cruel to you ; forgive me, dar- 
 ling of my heart, angel in woman’s form. 
 I know you love me, and will never 
 marry any one else. I know it, and believe 
 it now. Forgive me, oh, forgive me, for I 
 am very miserable. I have been used to 
 
TUBNED TO STONE. 
 
 19 
 
 be so happy, and now I know that I can 
 never be happy again.” 
 
 Then I did it that time. He had no 
 spirit left to stop me, and I fell on my 
 knees at his feet, and begged him, prayed 
 him to become a Christian. But he only 
 smiled a melancholy smile, and I saw that 
 sadness on his face, that sadness that I had 
 seen once before, the hereditary shadow of 
 his race. 
 
 “ You would not have me twice perjured, 
 would you, Gwynydd ? Perjured before 
 man and God ! Oh, would that I could 
 believe ! but I cannot. Yours is a softer 
 creed than ours, softer and tenderer ; but 
 ours is the truth committed into the keep- 
 ing of my people from the earliest times, 
 and even were I ever to have doubts of it, 
 which God forbid, those doubts can never 
 lead me to anything else now. The bribe 
 is too great,” he said, loftily. “ The joys of 
 Paradise are beyond compare, but while we 
 are still bounded and blinded by a fleshly 
 covering, earthly happiness is magnified by 
 its nearness. The thought, that I might gain 
 you that way, that will alone always save 
 me from becoming a renegade, for the day 
 will never come, when I can think the 
 
 2—2 
 
20 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 matter over clearly untroubled by thoughts 
 of you. Never on earth,” he repeated, 
 solemnly. “ If this is the last time we 
 meet on earth, we can but both pray, that 
 the great Maker of the Universe may yet 
 grant us a happier meeting, when our tasks 
 are done, and we may sit down with Abra- 
 ham and Isaac and Jacob in the mansions 
 of the blest.” 
 
 “ Oh, God grant it !” I said ; and now as 
 he had risen I stood up also. 
 
 Adrian Levison looked at me. 
 
 “ Call me Adrian once more,” he said. 
 
 “ Good-bye, Adrian,” I said, and held out 
 my hand. 
 
 “ Good-bye, Gwynydd,” he murmured ; 
 but held my hand in both his, as though he 
 could never let it go. 
 
 “ If I died,” I said, “ you might yet be- 
 come a Christian.” 
 
 “ Yes, if you died,” he said ; “ but you 
 will not die : it is only the happy that 
 die.” 
 
 “You believe that I am not happy ?” I 
 said ; and for a moment a smile played 
 about my face. 
 
 I was happy that at last he believed me, 
 and believed in my misery. I thought then 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 21 
 
 that it might some day lead to his becoming 
 
 a Christian, even in spite of what he had 
 
 said. Ah, God ! that seems to me the last 
 
 time that I was ever happy. 
 
 “ Some day you will become a Christian; 
 
 I know you will ; and then I do not care. 
 
 I am content never to see you again ; for 
 
 we shall meet in heaven, if only I am good 
 
 — if only I am good.” 
 
 “ You are one of God’s children already. 
 
 Jew or Gentile, you are an angel now. 
 
 I am leaving my good angel in leaving 
 )) 
 
 you. 
 
 And yet he held my hand in his. 
 
 “ Oh, do not say so,” I cried ; “ do not 
 say so. You will always do what you hold 
 to be your duty, I know you will. And 
 you will do good to other men, and one day 
 you will win fame, and I shall hear of it.” 
 And my face . lightened at the thought ; 
 but his face grew darker. 
 
 “ No, I shall never win fame now,” he 
 said. “ It would be mine already, were I 
 one of your own people ; but we fight under 
 a disadvantage. There are many careers 
 thrown open to us now, but only to a 
 certain height : then in every ladder 
 
 there comes a round, that no Jew may sur- 
 
22 
 
 TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 mount. Once I meant to conquer this — 
 meant to conquer all ladders to fame for 
 my people — throw them open to Jew and 
 Gentile alike, and die famous, if for that 
 alone ; but now in the ladder that leads to 
 happiness I have come to that round, and I 
 go away a beaten man, knowing that it is 
 not for one of my nation to surmount it. I 
 know now, I am not the chosen champion 
 of my race, and no barriers will be over- 
 thrown by me, and within those guarded 
 lists Christians may tilt against each other; 
 but I shall tilt no more. Once vanquished 
 is vanquished for ever, and my name will 
 never now be sounded by Fame’s trumpet. 
 Better so : I will do good deeds, God help 
 me ! and, done for him alone, they may one 
 day win His reward. The world’s rewards 
 are dust and ashes to me now.” 
 
 And, so saying, he let go my hand and 
 went from the room, with that sorrowful 
 cloud shadowing the noble features, which I 
 had thought like Perseus. I had forgotten 
 Medusa’s head then ; now it seemed as if 
 he had shown it to me, so white and still I 
 stood, turned as it were to stone. Then I 
 heard the hall door shut, and with a wild 
 cry I sank down upon the sofa, and kissed 
 
TURNED TO STONE. 
 
 23 
 
 the cushions, against which he had rested, 
 and kissed the paper-knife, which he had 
 touched. Then I remember no more ; but 
 when Aunt Barbara and Brydget came in, 
 they found me lying senseless on the floor. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 a Quel jour ! et quelle nuit ! et demain, et toujours ! 
 
 Quel repos ! quel r <6 veil ! quelies nuits et quels jours ! 
 
 X ^ 
 
 W W *7T *3T ’W' 
 
 D’liier a cette nuit un siecle me separe !” 
 
 Lamartine . 
 
 Probably there are few people, who have 
 ever heard of them, who have not wondered 
 how Charles the First felt when, attempting 
 once more to obtain a hearing after the de- 
 livery of his sentence, he was hurried from 
 the court in involuntary silence : how 
 Montrose felt, when he was carried by the 
 executioner, bare-headed and pinioned, in a 
 cart into Edinburgh : how Marie Antoinette 
 felt, when she was led out to her execution 
 — she, the proud daughter of Austria, the 
 beautiful, the beloved : how felt the hun- 
 dreds and thousands of those, who died for 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 25 
 
 her and hers, bearing themselves with the 
 air of the vraie noblesse — all but the frail 
 Du Barry, who alone shrieked and struggled 
 in her love for life : how the noblest of this 
 century’s martyrs — Maximilian, over whose 
 early death some of the bitterest tears ever 
 wept by mortal eyes are stiil shed : how he 
 felt, on that fatal nineteenth of J une, when he 
 drew a deep breath as he reached the street 
 before the convent of the Capuchins : “ Ah, 
 what a splendid day ! I always wished to 
 die on such a day,” to the last feeling 
 that keen enjoyment in natural sights and 
 sounds so characteristic of the man. That 
 tragedy at Queretaro is too recent for much 
 to have been written of it as yet ; but who 
 has not thought of it — felt it, as might, 
 perhaps, better be said — wondered how the 
 man, who so longed for noble action, felt 
 when he knew that there were no more 
 actions to be done by him henceforward, 
 that now there was nothing left for him 
 but to suffer and endure. Ah, that suffer- 
 ing and enduring ! it must tax terribly a 
 man of action. Does it try him, as it 
 must, one would think, have tried the 
 almost mythical Joan of Arc to leave her 
 quiet country village — as it certainly tried 
 
26 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 Charlotte Corday, before she did the deed 
 with which history yet rings — the deed 
 which doomed her to no more doing ever 
 again ? She felt resigned ; we know that 
 she spoke of her death as a happy deliver- 
 ance for one of too warm a heart, too lively 
 an imagination ; but I wonder if the others 
 felt resigned — “ folded their pale hands so 
 meekly, spake with us on earth no more” — 
 or whether they bore it with that different 
 courage that grasps the arm of a chair 
 while undergoing a surgical operation, and 
 bends a bar of iron, yet utters no sound nor 
 changes colour. I think in all the heroism 
 was alike, and the bitterness was that life 
 was over for them — that they could attempt 
 no more — not the manner in which death 
 came to them. And I think that as it is 
 with great souls, so, in a lesser degree, it 
 must be with all ; and so, when I opened 
 my eyes, and saw the sun shining, and 
 heard a bird singing, and saw Brydget sit- 
 ting by my side, looking pale and weary, I 
 did not think of Adrian Levison — did not 
 think that I had lost him for ever, and by my 
 own deed, and that the manner of my death 
 was bitter, but only that henceforth I was 
 dead to the world — that there could be no 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 27 
 
 more doing for me, only suffering and en- 
 during. 
 
 “ Brydget,” I asked, “ have I been ill ?” 
 
 “Yes, dear Gwen,” said Brydget, rising 
 and coming at once to hang over me and 
 kiss me. “Yes, dear Gwen, you have been 
 a little ill; not much, you know, but just a 
 little, so you must make haste and get well, 
 you see.” 
 
 “ How long have I been ill ?” I asked. 
 I should not have been surprised to hear, 
 that I had been ill for weeks, and yet I did 
 not feel very ill, only tired, and I knew 
 that Brydget was right, when she said I 
 had been only a little ill, making her sweet 
 attempt to soothe me, lest I might he 
 alarmed about myself. That she had been 
 alarmed, it had been easy for me to know, 
 seeing her sit there so pale and weary, 
 before I spoke to her, but now she was her 
 sprightly self again, only, perhaps, a trifle 
 tenderer and more caressing than usual, 
 and Brydget was always tender towards 
 others. No amount of happiness could 
 ever make her hard or selfish. 
 
 Now she spoke merrily, feigning a light- 
 ness of heart which I, who knew her well, 
 knew she did not feel. “ Why, Gwen, I 
 
28 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 believe you think you have had a serious 
 illness. How long have you been ill ? Only 
 since yesterday, my dear , dear darling ,” 
 and at each word of affection Brydget 
 kissed my hand with her soft rosebud lips. 
 She was evidently afraid of kissing my face, 
 lest she should tire or heat me. “ When 
 we came in, Aunt Barbara and I, we found 
 you had fainted, and then when you reco- 
 vered from that you were a little delirious, 
 so Dr. Barlow was sent for, and he pro- 
 nounced that you had been overdoing it, as 
 most young ladies do during the season, 
 and that you must be kept quiet for a 
 little, so now Gwen, dear, you must not 
 encourage me to talk any more, for you 
 know it is not my nature to sit silent, so it 
 will be quite hopeless for me to attempt it 
 unless you help me.” 
 
 “ Yes, darling, and I will help you ; but 
 tell me first, Brydget, did I talk, that you 
 say I was delirious V 
 
 “ No, you did not talk, you only crooned,” 
 replied Brydget, pursing up her pretty lips 
 as if she would not say one word more. 
 
 “ Crooned, Brydget ! what do you mean ?” 
 I asked, growing flushed and eager, as I 
 raised myself upon my elbow. 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 29 
 
 “ Why, like an old nurse hushing a fret- 
 ful baby. And it was like an angel, and 
 just exactly like you,” cried Brydget, giving 
 up her attempt at being silent, as I did not 
 help her, and now twining her arms round 
 my neck, “ for you said nothing but hymns, 
 and Aunt Barbara said it quite frightened 
 her to be with you, for you went on so 
 solemnly with 
 
 “ ‘ My God, my Father, while I stray 
 Far from my home in life’s rough way, 
 
 Oh, teach me from my heart to say 
 Thy will be done — Thy will be done,’ 
 
 over and over again, always the same.” 
 Then Brydget burst into tears, and I held 
 her in my arms, and rested my cheek 
 against hers, and recollected everything. 
 
 I was not thought well enough to get up 
 that day, and as I lay still Aunt Barbara 
 came and lamented over me. “ I can’t 
 think how you got ill all on a sudden,” she 
 said ; “ it must have been that fancy ball, 
 that knocked you up, you have never been 
 the same since. But it was too tiresome of 
 Sedley, after I had given particular orders, 
 that no one was to be let in to bother you, 
 to admit Adrian Levison. By-the-bye, 
 
30 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 what was it he wanted to say to your 
 uncle ?” 
 
 I was very tired just then, tired and very 
 weak, and I could not recollect whether 
 Adrian Levison had given me any message 
 for my uncle or not. I tried hard to re- 
 member, but I could not ; I could only re- 
 member Sedley had thought he wanted to 
 leave some message for Uncle Basset, and 
 had appeared rather affronted, that it was 
 not entrusted to himself. “ I cannot re- 
 member,” I said at last, pressing my hand 
 to my head with an expression of pain. 
 
 “ Oh, never mind, dear Gwynydd, do 
 not try your poor head now. I dare say it 
 was nothing of the least consequence, only 
 men always think their business of the most 
 vital importance ; they are just like chil- 
 dren about it. Ten to one your uncle will 
 see Mr. Levison to-day, and then he will 
 tell him all about it, only I wish he had 
 not come in and tired you yesterday. You 
 will not be able to go to Lady Brydget’s 
 now to-night, and she will be so disap- 
 pointed ; really I think we had better none 
 of us go.” 
 
 “ Oh, yes, don’t let us go, let us all stay 
 at home with Gwynydd — poor Gwynydd !” 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 31 
 
 said Brydget, fondling my hand in hers. 
 She seemed as if she could not make enough 
 of me after my short illness. 
 
 “ Perhaps Gwynydd would rather be 
 alone, though,” said Aunt Barbara, looking 
 inquiringly at me. “ Which had you rather, 
 Gwynydd? As for me, I would just as 
 soon stay at home. I have settled to wear 
 my yellow satin to-night, and I am so tired 
 of myself in it ; besides, all men think 
 yellow hideous.” 
 
 I smiled. Aunt Barbara seemed to think 
 she was giving such a very good reason for 
 not caring about Lady Brydget’s party, but 
 I knew she did care about it, so I said, 
 “Now that yellow satin is your most be- 
 coming dress, Aunt Barbara. You know it 
 is, and I should not like to keep you and 
 Brydget at home at all ; you must go, and 
 make my excuses.” 
 
 “Well, Gwynydd, how are you?” said 
 Uncle Basset, when next day I went down 
 stairs, and he came in and found me lying 
 on the sofa. “ I have been hearing a 
 shocking account of you, it is quite sensa- 
 tional, found fainting upon the floor, and 
 then carried off to bed, and becoming deli- 
 rious. It is really a comfort to see you 
 
32 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 looking like yourself in the end, but you 
 are still a little pale, I see. Do you feel 
 ill, my dear child ?” 
 
 “ No, thank you, uncle,” I said, “ only 
 tired,” and I smiled. I think I smiled at 
 everything that was said to me that day. 
 It was my duty now to suffer and endure. 
 I might break down, if I once permitted 
 myself to look sorrowful over it. But, 
 .though I smiled, Uncle Basset looked 
 gravely at me. 
 
 “ You have been doing too much, I am 
 afraid,” he said. “ This racketty London 
 life is so different from what you are accus- 
 tomed to. Ah, dear ! dear ! 
 
 “ ‘ Man’s feeble race what ills await ! 
 
 Labour and penury, the racks of pain, 
 
 Disease and sorrow’s weeping train, 
 
 And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate.’ ” 
 
 “ Really, Basset, you are a Job’s com- 
 forter, I must say,” cried Aunt Barbara, 
 interrupting him. “ The idea of coming 
 and saying such things to Gwynydd when 
 she is not feeling well.” 
 
 “ My dear, you interrupted me just as I 
 was coming to the comforting part. Never 
 mind, Gwynydd, well have you about again 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 33 
 
 soon, enjoying yourself like the best of them, 
 and more than you ever did before. 
 
 “ 4 See the wretch that long has tost 
 On the thorny bed of pain, 
 
 At length repair his vigour lost, 
 
 And breathe and walk again ; 
 
 The meanest floweret of the vale, 
 
 The simplest note that swells the gale, 
 
 The common sun, the air, the skies, 
 
 To him are opening Paradise.’ ” 
 
 Then Aunt Barbara tossed Uncle Basset 
 the Pall Mall Review, saying she believed 
 he was making himself so disagreeable only 
 in order that she might give it to him to 
 stop his mouth, and Uncle Basset took the 
 Pall Mall and read it, and Aunt Barbara 
 went to write some notes, and Brydget 
 proceeded with her letter to my mother, 
 and I lay still with my eyes shut, lest the 
 tears should overflow. I had forgotten 
 there was such a word as Paradise. 
 
 When Aunt Barbara and Brydget went 
 for their afternoon drive, Brydget said to 
 me : “ Are you going to write to mamma, 
 Gwynydd ?” and when I replied, No, she 
 said, “Do read my letter then, and if I 
 have left out anything, put it in, or alter 
 anything you like. Good-bye, dear Gwy- 
 
 VOL. II. 3 
 
34 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 nydd ; are you sure you would not like me 
 to stay with you ?” Then she kissed me, 
 and went away, and after a few minutes I 
 began looking over her letter ; it was no- 
 thing unusual for her to give me her letters 
 to look over, for she was always very 
 humble about her powers as a correspon- 
 dent, as, indeed, about everything else, 
 though she did toss her head, and make 
 saucy speeches sometimes — dear little 
 Brydget ! But this afternoon I soon saw, 
 why she had given me her letter to read, 
 for it was all about me. 
 
 “ Dear Gwynydd is ill,” she wrote ; “ she 
 has never been like herself since the fancy 
 hall, and Aunt Barbara says she thinks it is 
 that that has made her ill, but I do not 
 think she really thinks so, and I am sure I 
 do not. I think it is something quite dif- 
 ferent, and I am so very, very sorry for her. 
 1 do not like to say more, because I think 
 she might not like it, and I do not like to 
 say anything at all to her, because if she 
 wishes to speak to me, I- suppose she will, 
 and I dare say she thinks me too young and 
 foolish. I wish Duke were here, for I think 
 he would do Gwynydd good, only the worst 
 of it is, I am afraid he cares too much for 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 her now, but if you think I am wrong 
 about this, don’t you think you could tell 
 him to come back to town ? I am sure he 
 would directly, and no one has ever under- 
 stood Gwynydd like Duke, just as no one 
 else understands Duke like Gwynydd. If 
 you do not think this plan will do, will you 
 not send and say we are to come home ? for 
 then Gwynydd would have papa whom she 
 might talk to, and it is dreadful for her to 
 be here with nobody. She has looked 
 much sadder and iller since papa was here, 
 perhaps something he said to her made her 
 worse, and now she never sighs, as she used 
 to do at St. Margaret’s, but just smiles 
 all day, till I cannot bear to see her. I am 
 sure this is not one of my foolish fancies, 
 so do think about it please, dear mamma.” 
 There was a good deal more, but this was 
 the greater part of the letter ; however, as 
 it was all written on one sheet of paper, I 
 tore it off, and sat up, and wrote a little 
 note myself, saying how I had not been 
 very well, but how it was nothing, and I 
 should soon be quite as usual again, and 
 then I added : “ Dear little Brydget had 
 written you a long letter, but it was full of 
 such foolish fancies about me, that I have 
 
 3—2 
 
36 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 torn it up, as she told me to do what I 
 liked with it. Please give much love from 
 me to my dear father, and with much love 
 to yourself also, believe me always, dear 
 mother, your affectionate daughter, Gwy- 
 
 NYDD JeRNINGHAME.” 
 
 Then when Brydget came in, I kissed 
 her as I said to her, “ I did not send all 
 your letter, dear Brydget,” and Brydget 
 looked at me very gravely for a moment, 
 and then she said gaily, “ When shall I 
 grow sensible like you, Gwynydd, and 
 never write nonsense ?” 
 
 “ But that time must never come now, 
 Brydget,” said Uncle Basset, teasingly ; 
 “ you know you are never to grow wiser, 
 for George likes you best as you are.” 
 
 Then as Brydget shook her tiny fist at 
 him, Uncle Basset went on, 
 
 “ By the way, what an odd fellow that 
 Levison is ! He has gone off to St. Peters- 
 burg all on a sudden to join one of his 
 brothers ; it may be on business, certainly, 
 but it is the oddest thing to do while Par- 
 liament is sitting, and in the very thick of 
 business, too. You can’t recollect what 
 message he left for me, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ I can’t — I can’t remember that he left 
 
'afterwards. 37 
 
 any,” I stammered out, but Uncle Basset 
 took no notice of my confusion, and said, 
 good-humouredly, 
 
 “ No, no, don’t try to remember. Your 
 head is not quite all right yet, and I don’t 
 want you to be bothered about anything. 
 Very likely he will write to me in a day or 
 two.” 
 
 But the days passed, and Adrian Levison 
 did not write, and the days passed, and I 
 got no better. I was not ill exactly, only 
 I looked very pale, and felt tired and 
 fainted, if I sat up too long, or if the day 
 was hot, or if many callers came, or some- 
 times for no reason at all. 
 
 “ Gwynydd, my dear,” said Uncle Basset, 
 “ do you think you would like to go back 
 to St. Margaret’s ? This being ill does not 
 quite suit London, not that I at all like the 
 idea of taking you back so ill.” 
 
 “ Now don’t talk nonsense, Basset,” said 
 Aunt Barbara, as usual opposing any plan 
 he proposed, though I had reasons in this 
 instance to believe that she had first put it 
 into his head. “ Gwynydd only wants a 
 little rest, and then she will be quite well, 
 it is nothing but this hot weather that 
 makes her weak now.” 
 
38 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 Somehow everyone was always finding 
 reasons for my being ill, always saying it 
 was owing to the fancy ball, or to going 
 out too much, or as now to the heat, and 
 though I did not think any of these things 
 had much to do with it, did not, indeed, 
 think I was ill at all, yet I always agreed, 
 for I knew I appeared ill, and if I was not 
 really so, yet it was hard to know what else 
 to say was the matter with me, and of 
 course any of the reasons assigned might 
 have something to do with it, so I said : 
 “ Summer weather is very weakening, per- 
 haps it will be cooler soon, and then, perhaps, 
 I may get stronger. I am afraid I am very 
 much in your way here.” 
 
 “ My dear child,” exclaimed both Uncle 
 and Aunt Basset simultaneously, and then 
 went on to make kind, loving protestations, 
 so I smiled, just as I always did now, till 
 Brydget could not bear to see me, as she 
 said, and then went on : “ I do not at ail 
 wish to go back to St. Margaret’s just yet, 
 if you are so kind as not to find me in the 
 way here.” 
 
 So then a few more days passed, and I 
 was considered so much better that I dined 
 down stairs at a dinner party, but in the 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 39 
 
 course of the dinner I fainted, just as I was 
 always doing now, for no reason at all, and 
 then Lady Brydget would leave the room 
 with me, and nothing would satisfy her but 
 she must stay and sit with me. She was 
 very kind to me that evening, kinder even 
 than she had ever been before, and I did 
 not think her kindness artificial that night, 
 it seemed to flow straight from her heart. 
 I had always been told Lady Brydget’s was 
 a very kind heart, though she was so stately, 
 and altogether such a grand lady. She sat 
 beside me, holding my hand, and bathing 
 my forehead every now and then, just as 
 my own mother might have done, and for 
 some time she did not talk to me at all, but 
 at last she said, 
 
 “ Tell me, my dear Gwynydd, has your 
 father or mother been sent for to come and 
 see you ?” 
 
 “ No,” I said, and shuddered. “ I do 
 not want them to be sent for to London.” 
 
 “ No ; you would rather go home to St. 
 Margaret’s,” said Lady Brydget, caress- 
 ingly. 
 
 “ Oh no, no,” I cried, “ I never wish to 
 see St. Margaret’s again,” and I hid my 
 face in the cushions. I was ashamed of 
 
40 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 having spoken so openly, but somehow Lady 
 Brydget was so very kind that night that 
 I could not help saying more to her than I 
 had ever said to anyone yet. 
 
 She was silent for a time, then she said, 
 “ I had a letter from Duke to-day, would 
 you like to hear it, Gwynydd?” 
 
 “Yes,” I said, and uncovered my face 
 again. The letter was short, as most of 
 Duke’s letters to his mother were, but she 
 valued them none the less. Though she 
 never understood Duke, her whole heart 
 was wrapt up in him. It was rather a sad 
 little note, at least I always think any note 
 sad, that tells nothing about the writer, for 
 I think if there were anything pleasant to 
 be said, it would be said as well as all the 
 news about business, and other people, and 
 as I listened to Duke’s little note, my eyes 
 rested on his photograph, and unconsciously 
 filled with tears. I began to have deep pity 
 for Duke, whom somehow I had quite for- 
 gotten of late. 
 
 Lady Brydget pressed my hand in hers. 
 “ Duke is very sorry to hear that you are 
 ill ; I am sure of that, though he does not 
 say much about it. He never says much 
 about what he feels, but perhaps he has 
 written to you also !” 
 
AFTERWARDS'. 
 
 41 
 
 “ No, he has not written to me for a long 
 time, not since he left London,” I said. 
 
 “ Shall I tell him you would like to hear 
 from him ?” asked Lady Brydget. 
 
 “ Oh no, no,” I said, and shuddered again. 
 Then fearing I might appear rude, I added 
 quickly, “ I am always glad to hear from 
 him, when he writes to me, but I should 
 not like you to ask him to do so.” 
 
 “ Poor Duke !” said Lady Brydget, 
 thoughtfully, and fell into a reverie. 
 
 Then just as the other ladies were coming 
 in from the dining-room, she said to me 
 quickly : “ Gwynydd, you know how fond 
 I am of going abroad, I do not like going 
 without a companion. Will you come to 
 Switzerland with me this year ? I should 
 be so glad if you would, and I would try 
 that you should not find it too dull after 
 London.” 
 
 “ I should not be at all afraid of finding 
 it dull,” I said. Then the other ladies 
 came in. 
 
 I did not faint any more that evening, 
 but I was very tired, and sat still without 
 talking much. In this way I heard more 
 than I generally did of what other people 
 were saying, and I thought they chose very 
 
42 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 odd subjects for conversation, and not at all 
 specially interesting ones, but at last I 
 heard a name that at once fixed my atten- 
 tion. A man I did not know was saying 
 to Mr. Valpy, “Poor Roger Chillingworth, 
 yes, he is certainly an enthusiast, and he 
 seems quite cut up about it.”- 
 
 “ Had he really any hopes ? I thought 
 there was not an instance of it in the 
 family.” 
 
 “ Chillingworth is a man without pre- 
 cedent, and he does not look for precedents 
 as you do, Valpy. He says he never felt 
 so confident of anything in his life, and then 
 all on a sudden the fellow writes to him, 
 thanking him very much for all his kind- 
 ness, but begging that the subject may 
 never be mentioned between them again, 
 and the next thing he hears is that he is 
 off to Russia.” 
 
 “ I suppose Levison thought an enthu- 
 siast was not to be trusted, and that it 
 might be as well to put some few miles 
 between them just at first, if Chilling- 
 worth had got the idea that he was going 
 to make a convert of him. Perhaps he only 
 wants to think it over, and will come back 
 like a Christian before the season is at an 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 43 
 
 end. It would be greatly for his advantage 
 if he did, he might be in the ministry but 
 for that difficulty.” 
 
 “ He is the last fellow to be guided by 
 what would be to his advantage,” said the 
 other man, “ but I am not so sure that it 
 would. He would lose an awful lot of 
 money, if he became a Christian ; not that 
 he would think twice of that, though. For 
 a practical man he certainly has the most 
 high-flown ideas. However, it is a great 
 pity : Chillingworth is a man to be trusted, 
 and he says he felt perfectly sure of him, 
 and now from that note, and from one or 
 two other little things, he says he believes 
 he’ll die as good a Jew as any of his ances- 
 tors from the beginning of the world. I 
 believe that answers for our conquest with 
 them, does it not V’ he said, and laughed. 
 
 Then they talked of other matters, while 
 I sat and thought. Adrian Levison 
 had told me he could never become a 
 Christian now, not while I lived ; but of 
 course I thought I should die. It is diffi- 
 cult, looking back, to recollect exactly, 
 when one first began to think particular 
 things, and when one ceased to do so. I 
 cannot help thinking that even with all my 
 
44 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 pains I have represented myself as caring 
 for Adrian Levison long before I really did 
 so, because it was so impossible for me to 
 write of him except in the way in which I 
 afterwards learnt to think of him. I am 
 afraid of making the same mistake again, 
 but I certainly think it was now, that I 
 began to think I should die of this illness, 
 which was no illness at all, as the doctors 
 said, no illness at all, only unaccountable 
 weakness, probably due to late hours and 
 over excitement. I think it was now that 
 I began to fancy I should die of it, and to 
 wish that it might be very soon, not because 
 I could not bear my life any longer, not 
 because I shrank from suffering and endur- 
 ing, but because I was afraid the impression, 
 Roger Chill ingworth had made, might pass 
 away from Adrian Levison, if I were long 
 about dying, and because, of all things, I 
 thought the thing to be most desired, the 
 only thing, indeed, to be desired any longer, 
 was that he might become a Christian, and 
 that could not be till I was dead. 
 
 It was settled that evening that, if my 
 father and mother did not disapprove, I 
 should go to Switzerland with Lady Bryd- 
 get ; and I settled in my own mind, that 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 45 
 
 tliey would not disapprove, and that in this 
 way all pain of parting from my dear ones 
 would be spared both them and me, for of 
 course I should die in Switzerland, and 
 then Adrian Levison would become a 
 Christian, and all would be well. I felt 
 quite happy at the thought, and kissed 
 Lady Brydget, as I thanked her for propos- 
 ing to take me with her. I had not shrank 
 from dying before, but the thought of my 
 father’s and mother’s sorrow, and my darl- 
 ing Brydget’s tear-stained face, had been 
 very painful to me ; now all would be 
 greatly softened by distance, and Brydget 
 would marry George Lumley, and Adrian 
 Levison would become a Christian, and — 
 and I hoped my father would not miss me 
 much, but I feared it was selfish in me to 
 be so glad to die, and as I prayed to my 
 heavenly Father that night, I prayed him 
 to forgive me if it were so, and to teach me 
 in all things to say always, “ Father, Thy 
 will be done.” 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 “ So tired ! so tired, my heart and I.” 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 It was soon settled that I should go to 
 Switzerland with Lady Brydget ; certainly 
 no one could think London desirable for 
 me, while I remained so weak, and I shrank 
 from returning to St. Margaret’s, while 
 everyone else seemed also very averse to 
 my returning there, still ill. Not that the 
 doctors allowed that I was ill — more than 
 one was consulted before Uncle and Aunt 
 Basset could be easy about me — but they 
 all said there was nothing the matter with 
 me, and then murmured something about 
 the bad effects of late hours and over 
 fatigue, and each suggested a slightly dif- 
 ferent tonic. One only differed from the 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 47 
 
 others — he was a doctor celebrated for his 
 brusque manner, but I think Aunt Barbara 
 forgot this, when she left the door open 
 between the room, in which I was, and that 
 into which she took him to deliver his 
 opinion upon me. 
 
 “ Do you think there is anything the 
 matter with her V asked Aunt Barbara. 
 
 “Nervous system completely shattered, 
 that’s all.” 
 
 “ Shattered ! but you think she will get 
 over it ?” 
 
 “ Not she. Do they tell you she will 
 ever get well ? Don’t believe them. There 
 has been a sudden shock, it has not killed 
 her, won’t kill her yet a while, but if you 
 think she is ever to walk about, and laugh, 
 like other girls, you will soon find out your 
 mistake. Switzerland ! oh, yes, certainly, 
 if you like. No, there’s no objection against 
 it, not that I know of. Kamschatka ! ex- 
 actly the same thing. People rally some- 
 times after a shock, such as she has had, but 
 they don’t recover — at least, not in this 
 world. Been no shock ! Now, my dear 
 lady, what is the use of consulting a doctor, 
 if you put no more trust in him than that ?” 
 and he banged out of the room, and I lay 
 
48 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 still and smiled. I might rally, but I should 
 never recover. I perfectly believed this 
 doctor, but not so Aunt Barbara and Uncle 
 Basset. As all the other doctors agreed 
 together, they believed them, and so when 
 Dr. Barlow said, “ A little change would, 
 perhaps, be desirable,” they were immedi- 
 ately most anxious that Lady Brydget’s re- 
 quest should be granted. I do not know 
 what my father and mother thought about 
 it. They wrote to me very tenderly, but 
 they did not urge my going home, nor did 
 they suggest coming to town to see me, but 
 then Brydget’s letter had never gone, and 
 Aunt Barbara only wrote what the doctors 
 said. She was very anxious not to alarm 
 them, and, like a child, afraid lest they 
 should think it her fault, if they once under- 
 stood that I was ill. Lady Brydget wrote 
 also, but she was quite determined to take 
 me to Switzerland with herself, so she wrote 
 accordingly. She came to see me every 
 day, and brought me flowers, and would sit 
 and talk to me in the same charming way, 
 in which she had talked to me when I was 
 sitting to her for Andromeda ; and when 
 there was any doubt expressed as to 
 whether I was well enough to travel, she 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 49 
 
 said, at once, that foreign railways were 
 quite different from those in England, and 
 that I could lie down all the way, if I 
 chose. 
 
 In the end I did lie down all the way. 
 Sometimes Lady Brydget would say, “ Ah, 
 that is a pretty peep !” or, “ Now, this view 
 will do you good, Gwynydd, dear and 
 then I would sit up for a minute and look 
 out of the window of the railway-carriage, 
 but in a minute or two she always made me 
 lie down again, and thus, at last, we found 
 ourselves in one of the grand white and 
 gold hotels on the banks of the Lake of 
 Geneva. It was hot there, as it had been 
 hot in London, and I did not seem to get 
 back my strength at all. At first it was 
 supposed, that I was tired with the journey, 
 and Lady Brydget piled up cushions for me 
 to lie on, when we went out boating, and 
 had a sofa kept permanently in the shade 
 of the little garden, that I might have as 
 much fresh air as possible with the minimum 
 of fatigue ; but after a while, as I still got 
 no stronger, it became necessary to find a new 
 reason, just as it had before been necessary in 
 London, and Lady Brydget laid it all upon 
 the weather, and assured me it was the 
 VOL. II. 4 
 
50 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 hottest summer ever known in Switzerland. 
 But, in truth, it was not very hot. 
 
 Lady Brydget was very kind to me all 
 this time. Sometimes I wondered she did 
 not lose all patience with me, for it was 
 provoking that I should lie there, so pale 
 and weak, and yet have nothing the matter 
 with me, never anything to complain of in 
 particular, only that my head ached and 
 that I felt tired ; but Lady Brydget never 
 lost patience with me, and I learnt to know 
 her better now than I had ever known her 
 before. It was not her way, in general, to 
 talk of her benevolent schemes, but she 
 talked of them to me now, hoping to interest 
 me in them, if in nothing else, and she told 
 me long histories of the young artist she 
 had discovered in Lancashire, and sent to 
 Rome to study, at her own expense, and of 
 the struggling authors she had befriended, 
 and not only of them, but of the worn-out 
 governesses whom she was assisting, and of 
 the hard-worked curates for whom she had 
 contrived change of air, besides procuring 
 for them a few pleasures, to form a silver 
 thread among all the dreary ash-colour of 
 their daily life. I was surprised by the 
 completeness of all her schemes for bestow- 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 51 
 
 ing happiness. She had not been satisfied 
 with sending the Lancashire lad to Rome, 
 but she had herself chosen rooms for him 
 there, and seen them fitted up in the 
 English fashion, besides asking some Lanca- 
 shire people to befriend him there, that the 
 young artist might not feel strange, so far 
 from his own home. She had herself super- 
 intended the fitting up of a tiny cottage for a 
 poor old governess, and taken care that the 
 bedroom should be draped with white and 
 rose-colour, to remind the old woman of the 
 early home, in which, as she often said, no 
 money had been spared by her then flourish- 
 ing father to procure every luxury for her- 
 self and for her mother. Innumerable other 
 little incidents of this kind came out, re- 
 vealing a degree of thought and considera- 
 tion, with which I should hardly have 
 credited Lady Brydget, and I saw that it 
 was quite in character with the rest of her 
 life, that she now devoted the whole of her 
 day to trying to please and interest me, yet 
 did so, so unobtrusively, that I should never 
 have noticed it, had I not had so many hours 
 in which to lie still and think. 
 
 She had asked Duke also to come to 
 Switzerland, but Duke had decline I, and 
 
 4—2 
 
52 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 he took no notice of this invitation in a 
 letter which he wrote to me just as I was 
 leaving England. He wrote a very nice 
 friendly letter, just suchas he had been in the 
 habit of writing to me for years. Of course 
 at first he said he was sorry to hear that I was 
 ill, but then he went on just as usual to tell 
 me about the books he was reading, and he 
 offered no explanation of his long silence, 
 nor did he make any allusion to our last 
 interview. “ I am working rather hard,” 
 he wrote, “ trying to master Goethe’s 
 Faust — he must have meant something 
 by the second part, but what it is hard to 
 say. As for the first part I have read that, 
 till it masters me, and I feel as if I had 
 written it myself. Have you ever tried 
 Goethe’s and Schiller’s sEsthetische Brief e ? 
 I am working at them also now. I want 
 to read all wrnrks of imagination, and all 
 those connected with the imagination, 
 whilst I am yet young, and can enter into 
 them. It is my belief, that as w r e get older 
 the memory and imagination decay, in exact . 
 proportion as the understanding ripens, and 
 that this is the natural course of things, not 
 a. consequence of a faulty system of educa- 
 tion. Meanwhile college work is unfortu- 
 nately getting rather neglected. Since I 
 
IN' SWITZERLAND. 
 
 53 
 
 have read the Ajax, I do not seem to 
 care to turn to any other play. That ‘oimoi! 
 oimoi !’ is to my mind the grandest sound 
 of lamentation in any human language, and 
 I cannot say it now without thinking of 
 Ajax." 
 
 Thus, and more in the same style wrote 
 Duke, and after that I heard pretty regu- 
 larly from him, just as I had been used to 
 do, but he never said anything about what 
 he was doing, only about what he was 
 reading, and it seemed to me that as of old 
 he was always reading everything but just 
 what would help him to distinguish himself 
 at Oxford. However, his letters were very 
 pleasant to me, and I think they had a good 
 effect upon me, for at once on getting the 
 first, I wanted to read again. I had long 
 ago tried Goethe’s and Schiller’s letters, and 
 found it quite hopeless to understand them, 
 and I did not feel as if I dared read Faust 
 again now, but somehow what Duke said of 
 the Ajax took my fancy, and though Lady 
 Brydget laughed at me, and said she thought 
 I must indeed be a regular blue stocking 
 not to be able to enjoy myself in Switzerland 
 without a Greek play to amuse me, yet she 
 got it for me directly. Then while I slowly 
 and listlessly looked out the words and tried 
 
54 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 to guess at the meaning of the choruses, 
 Lady Brydget would make pretty little 
 sketches, which she never finished, and 
 sometimes, according to my translation, she 
 would try to illustrate the Ajax, but it was 
 not a subject that suited her pencil, any 
 more than landscape. She excelled in 
 figures, but not in the grand simple forms 
 deemed necessary for Greek art. Perseus 
 and Andromeda had been a success, but 
 then that is a subject rather by itself, and 
 she had worked at it for months. Now just 
 making rapid little outline drawings in the 
 summer mornings, it suited her better to 
 draw Faust and Gretchen in the garden, or 
 Gretchen in prison, but as she said herself 
 it was absurd to try anything of the kind, 
 after Betzeh, so often she would make little 
 pictures of me, or get some of the various 
 people, who came to the Hotel, to sit to her 
 for their portraits. In this she excelled, 
 though her portraits were generally some- 
 what idealised and decidedly flattering to 
 the sitters, not that they often seemed to 
 notice this themselves. In this quiet way 
 the days passed on, and each evening I 
 thought I was one day nearer dying, and 
 that soon, soon, Adrian Levison might be 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 55 
 
 a Christian, and really I sometimes believe 
 now it was my great content at this thought, 
 that kept me alive. If I had wished to 
 live, been afraid to die, I think I should 
 have died, but as it was I lived, getting 
 neither better nor worse, only growing each 
 day more and more of a confirmed invalid. 
 I had begun by sitting up for dinner, at 
 least, but now I always lay down for that, 
 as well as for everything else. I lay down 
 all day long, and never did so much as even 
 walk across the room to get a book for my- 
 self, but, notwithstanding, my face looked 
 brighter than it had ever looked. I was 
 happy, for I thought that I was dying. 
 
 I heard very often from Brydget, dear 
 little Brydget ; at first she used to write 
 me long rhapsodies about George, nothing 
 but George, and somehow I was always 
 worse after I got those letters. I think 
 now Lady Brydget must have noticed this, 
 and written to my dear little sister about 
 it, for I know one day she wrote to Brydget, 
 and after that the letters quite changed : 
 they came just as often, but they were now 
 much shorter, and there was rarely if ever 
 any mention of George Lumley, and as 
 often as not all that was said of him was. 
 
56 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 that he sent his love. When this message 
 came it always made me smile, for George 
 Burnley was not at all the kind of young 
 man, who would ever send his love, unless 
 the message was suggested for him. ' At last, 
 one day, a letter came, rather longer than 
 those Brydget had sent recently, and in 
 this she said, “ Mr. Levison has returned to 
 town. His party have all been furious with 
 him for going away, and he is said to have 
 made them still more angry by talking of 
 accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, but I 
 think this must have been a mere report. 
 He told Aunt Barbara the other day, that 
 he had been obliged to go to St. Peters- 
 burgh on business, and that he had been 
 travelling night and day to get back quicker, 
 he certainly looks very pale and ill. Uncle 
 Basset asked him to dinner the other night, 
 but at the last moment he sent an excuse. 
 He did not ask after you, when we met him 
 the other day, but Aunt Barbara told him 
 you were ill, and then he looked very sorry, 
 but I do not think he said anything. He 
 looked very ill himself, and people say he 
 is working much too hard.” 
 
 Poor little Brydget, taking such pains to 
 tell me every, the least thing, that she 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 57 
 
 thought might interest me, and yet never 
 daring to say anything to imply, that she 
 knew I was interested. I could have 
 kissed her, and I did kiss her letter. I 
 wished almost that I had told her how I 
 loved Adrian Levison, that I might have 
 had some excuse to write and ask again 
 how he looked, and what he was doing, 
 and whether she ever saw him ; but I had 
 never liked to cloud her happiness by tell- 
 ing her anything of my sorrow, and of 
 course I could less than ever do so now. 
 Yet it was terrible to be left so entirely 
 alone with it. I often thought circum- 
 stances had conspired together to keep it a 
 secret from every one, and that it would 
 have been better if any one had known of 
 it at any time. If only that last letter had 
 been seen directed to him in my hand- 
 writing, if only somebody had insisted on 
 knowing what had passed between us in 
 that last interview, after which I had been 
 found fainting on the floor ; but no one 
 had, and it did not seem to occur to any 
 one but Brydget, that Adrian Levison was 
 more to me than he was to every one else — 
 very talented, very beautiful, very full of 
 promise. 
 
58 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Only Lady Brydget seemed to have 
 some idea of it, for certainly she could not 
 have acted differently by me, if she had 
 been my confidante throughout ; and some- 
 times in my longing for sympathy I almost 
 thought of making her so now, but she 
 always contrived to divert the conversation 
 whenever it led in this direction. I under- 
 stand now, that she knew all about it, but 
 that she did not wish to be known to know, 
 and as people so often do, even while she 
 divined the truth, she yet hoped it was 
 not true. But it was true, I loved Adrian 
 Levison, and I think it would have been 
 better, if I had had some one to whom I 
 could speak of my love, and that this alone 
 would have saved me from committing the 
 great sin into which I was afterwards led. 
 If that person had been Lady Brydget, I 
 should never have been even tempted to 
 the committing of that sin. 
 
 But as it was I lay and gazed at the 
 mountains tinted with that belle couleur de 
 rose, of which Bousseau writes so admiringly, 
 and which lingers so long after the sun has 
 bade his last good night to the lake below. 
 I thought of Rousseau a good deal during 
 those days ; who could go to the lake of 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 59 
 
 Geneva, and not think of him ? one is 
 reminded of him at every step. I had never 
 read his Heloise, but I thought of him 
 as the “ apostle of affliction,” and I thought 
 of Byron, who thus names him, and with, 
 whose memory the lake is more closely knit 
 in the minds of his country people, than 
 even with that of the three, whom he com- 
 memorates as bequeathing a name to their 
 abodes. It was all a puzzle to me, they 
 were all such deservedly well-known men, 
 Rousseau, Voltaire, Gibbon, they had all 
 suffered, though probably the last the least, 
 and I shivered sometimes at the thought, 
 that they would have made a mock at my 
 suffering now, could they have heard of it. 
 Would they, could they have believed that 
 I loved Adrian Levison, and yet had parted 
 myself from him, myself cut the tie that 
 bound us together ? And if not, was 
 the fault theirs or mine ? Was not my idea 
 of duty after all a sort of Juggernaut, 
 which I had set up for myself, before which 
 to sacrifice my heart’s best hopes ? In 
 short, was I acting wisely, or foolishly ? 
 rightly or wrongly ? It came to that in 
 the end ; for though it might be only 
 foolish to blast my own happiness, it must 
 
60 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 be wrong thus to treat his, unless I was 
 obliged to do so, unless it was my duty. 
 Sometimes I wavered. 
 
 Meanwhile Lady Brydget never relaxed 
 her efforts to draw me out of myself, she 
 tried to interest me in the people in the 
 hotel ; she even condescended to talk gossip 
 about them, a great condescension this on 
 her part. In a general way she would 
 never have thought of gossiping about any 
 less a personage than a royalty, and then 
 of course it is not gossip any longer. But 
 now she talked to me about the people, 
 who only happened to be staying in the 
 same hotel with us, and had no further 
 claims upon our notice ; she told me how 
 one sweet-faced old lady had come to using 
 the two pairs of spectacles, that now dis- 
 figured her, and how sadly she spoke of 
 day by day feeling her little remaining 
 sight leaving her ; she tried to persuade 
 me that a pale, melancholy, German lady 
 was the young bride of the very repulsive 
 looking man, with whom she was travelling, 
 and that she was already, now it was 
 too late, realising the full misery of her 
 fate. She said she was convinced that two 
 very young people, who only stayed one 
 
IN SWITZEBLAND. 
 
 61 
 
 night at the hotel, and then went on again, 
 were a runaway couple ; and that an old 
 gentleman, who arrived a few days after, 
 and went off again in a great hurry, was 
 the father of the young lady in full pursuit. 
 
 Entirely to try and interest me, she 
 found out the antecedents of the, as usual, 
 mysterious Pole (there seems always to be 
 something mysterious about Poles), told me 
 how he came over from a neighbouring vil- 
 lage every day, and sat for an hour mes- 
 merising an unfortunate Russian lady in 
 our hotel, who was affected with some 
 nervous illness, and declared she could 
 only sleep with his hand upon her heart, 
 thus enjoying a brief hour’s repose ; she 
 invented various explanations for the be- 
 haviour of the Spaniard, who, sending his 
 wife and children to the table d’hote, 
 always dined himself at the same hour off 
 the same dishes, but at a little table apart, 
 as if he were too proud, or too miserable, to 
 sit down with his fellows. 
 
 But though her stories were made as 
 romantic as possible, they never awakened 
 any interest in me. I listened, that was 
 all, and in the same way I listened to and 
 answered the different people who spoke 
 
62 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 to me ; but I never wished that they 
 should do so, or even wished that they 
 should not. It was all alike indifferent to 
 me. One day a bright-faced English girl 
 offered me her parasol, as she saw the sun 
 was shining on my sofa, and I had none 
 with me, and as she did so, she startled me 
 a little, for she said : 
 
 “What long illness is it that you are 
 recovering from ?” 
 
 “ I am not recovering from any long ill- 
 ness,” I answered, slowly, a little surprised 
 by her question. 
 
 “ Then you have been ill all your life,” 
 said she, looking at me compassionately. 
 
 “No, I have never been ill till lately.” 
 
 “ Then you have had an illness,” said she, 
 decidedly. “Why do you say you have 
 not ? If it has not been long, it must have 
 been very severe. But you are certainly 
 getting better.” 
 
 I was much worse for the next few days 
 after hearing that, it was a terrible idea to 
 my mind. 
 
 “ It is a pity you don’t sing or play,” 
 said a German lady, after looking at me 
 gravely one day. 
 
 “ Yes,” I said, apathetically. I did not 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 63 
 
 much regret it, but I supposed it would 
 have been better to be able to do so. 
 
 “ You would have relieved yourself in 
 that way,” she proceeded. “ Every one 
 wants some outlet to their feelings. That 
 is the reason all women should be taught 
 music, they are so much more restrained 
 than men. As for you, you must write, 
 or you will die.” 
 
 “ I wish to die.” 
 
 “ That is easy to see,” said she, shrug- 
 ging her shoulders ; “ but you have no right 
 to kill yourself, however much you may 
 wish it, and it is just killing yourself to try 
 to remain self-contained. Confide your 
 feelings to friends, or confide them to the 
 much more friendly paper. As you do not 
 play or sing, you have no other choice left. 
 Painting does something for some people, 
 but it would not save you now, it again is 
 too self-contained ; besides, I observe you 
 do not paint. Now [ shall never see you 
 again,” said she, “ and therefore I’ll tell 
 you my story, such as it is. I was about 
 your age, when I was left alone in the 
 world from a variety of circumstances, with- 
 out a friend within reach, only relations I 
 had never known, and very few of them, 
 
64 
 
 IN SWITZEKLAND. 
 
 and just enough money to live upon, but 
 not a farthing to spend on pleasures or em- 
 ployments. I could have a roof to sleep 
 under, food to eat, and clothes on my back, 
 and there I was with all the day to spend, 
 and not a soul to say a kind word to me. 
 You may fancy I was miserable, so I took 
 to wTiting, much as men take to smoking, 
 to pass the time away, got some money, 
 and made friends, as I thought. One fine 
 day it comes out that I write ; all my 
 friends say, £ A. young girl like that writ- 
 ten a book like that ! How comes she to 
 know this, that, or the other ? What busi- 
 ness have such ideas in her head V I 
 began to think at last they were right, 
 that my ideas were wicked, and got 
 wretcheder than ever, so I wrote more and 
 more, always more, pouring out all my 
 wretched, lonely, unhealthy thoughts, till 
 the writing took up so much time, that I 
 had no leisure to feel miserable, and now 
 you know the only reason I did not go 
 melancholy mad, and if you knew my name 
 you would find you knew my books. I 
 have heard you talking of them, and speak- 
 ing highly of them since you were here. I 
 have a new set of friends now, and the old 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 65 
 
 friends would be only too happy, if I would 
 but think them so again. People call me a 
 successful woman, and I should be, perhaps, 
 if I could forget the bitter past, but I cannot, 
 and in all those young years, when the 
 nature is pliable, I learnt too well the custom 
 of being miserable to be ever able quite to 
 unlearn it in this world. But I look back, 
 now an old woman, and I tell you I should 
 have gone melancholy mad if I had not ex- 
 pressed my thoughts to the friendly paper. 
 Recollect you have no right to let yourself 
 die ; you would not treat another person so 
 without lifting up a finger to help them. 
 That is the reason why I am telling you 
 now, what I never told to any one before, 
 because I dare not let you die without doing 
 all I can to help you, and yet, poor child, I 
 can’t help wishing it were lawful to give 
 you a little push on to heaven. You 
 would rest so well there. Now if you 
 guess who I am, do not tell it to any one, 
 for my only weakness is to be thought suc- 
 cessful, and if the world knew too much, it 
 would soon sit down with ‘ Kismet’ in its 
 mouth, for they who have gained what all 
 are trying for, they only know what Suc- 
 cess is.” 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Then she walked away humming to her- 
 self “ Freut euch des Lebens,” &c., and I 
 sat and mused over her words, but I was 
 too indifferent then for them or anything to 
 make much impression upon me, only I re- 
 collected them long afterwards, and then I 
 took to writing this history of my life, 
 writing it as much like a book as possible, 
 dividing it into chapters and paragraphs, 
 just as if it were meant for publication. It 
 is never meant for publication, of course, 
 but I think the writing of it has soothed 
 and saved me, if not from dying, from a 
 worse fate, a death in life. It has forced 
 me to look all the past in the face, as I 
 never dared to do, till I took to writing this 
 history in my bitter misery, and if it has 
 prolonged my life, I still thank my un- 
 known German friend for her warning, for 
 Pythagoras of old forbade men “ to depart 
 from their guard or station in life without 
 the order of their commander, that is, of 
 God,” and Christianity only teaches the 
 same lesson more strongly. I have not yet 
 been called to go, but I believe I might 
 have died, if I had chosen, only I wait to 
 see a hand I have not seen, “ that beckons 
 me away,” to “ hear a voice I have not 
 
IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 67 
 
 heard, forbidding me to stay.” “ Father, I 
 know that all my times are portioned out 
 by Thee, And the changes that will surely 
 come I do not fear to see, but I ask Thee 
 for a patient heart intent on pleasing 
 Thee.” 
 
 5—2 
 
CHAPTER IY. 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 “ Words are mighty, words are living; 
 
 Serpents with their venomous stings, 
 
 Or bright angels crowding round us, 
 
 With heaven’s light upon their wings.” 
 
 Miss Procter. 
 
 “ Take up thy cross and follow me,” that 
 was the text, and then the preacher went 
 on to say, that we all had a cross, which it 
 was our duty to take up. “ The great sin 
 of the age is selfishness,” he said, “ a 
 shrinking from the cross, a desire to spare 
 ourselves. Even the best of us wish more 
 to win heaven than to follow our Master ; 
 the desire to win heaven is a right desire, 
 but it is in a manner selfish. The follow- 
 ing of our Master permits of no selfishness. 
 He did not seek how to escape temptation, 
 
WORDS. 
 
 69 
 
 how best to keep Himself undefiled. Had 
 He sought this, He could never have taken 
 man’s nature upon Him, and mixed with a 
 sinful world. He, the holiest of all, may 
 almost be said to have gone out of His way 
 to put Himself in a position of trial, but 
 we shrink back from trials ; we think just 
 enough of saving our own souls to shrink 
 back from taking up our crosses, lest the 
 burden of them should prove so irksome to 
 us, as to drive us further into the paths of 
 sin. Oh, believe me, my brethren, it is by 
 saving the souls of others we can best save 
 our own souls ; it is by forgetting ourselves, 
 thinking nothing of ourselves, of the trials 
 and temptations, to which we may be ex- 
 posed, it is by thus doing we can best follow 
 in our Master’s footsteps. In the little 
 things of every-day life we all know we 
 ought to prefer the advantage of another to 
 our own, but do we think of this in the 
 great decisions that affect our whole life ? 
 Do we not rather think, ‘ In this way I 
 shall grow rich, and thus save myself from 
 many temptations, to which poorer men are 
 exposed ; in this way I shall -save myself 
 from a responsibility, which might be too 
 great for me,’ rather than ‘ In this way I 
 
70 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 shall take an unfair advantage of no man, 
 and help others to live on what they have 
 already, though without gaining more for 
 myself; in this way I shall save my bro- 
 ther’s soul, and so doing God will take care 
 of mine.’ ” 
 
 Thus, and much more, spoke the preacher, 
 a tall, awkward young man, with a very 
 timid manner, saying each sentence as if he 
 were obliged to say it, rather than as if he 
 wished to do so, yet with a mild, devout 
 expression, showing that he himself, at 
 least, was fully convinced of the truth of 
 the words he was uttering. Thus he 
 preached to us in that little room fitted up 
 as a chapel, and we all sat still and listened 
 to him. We were a well-bred audience, 
 and there was nothing in our faces to show 
 whether we agreed or not with his doc- 
 trine ; whether we were astonished at his 
 presumption in uttering it, or whether we 
 were mentally saying to ourselves, “We 
 have heard that more than once before,” 
 and with difficulty stiffing a yawn, as he 
 seemed nervously apprehensive might be 
 the case. The young clergyman finished 
 after a well-calculated twenty minutes, “ In 
 the name of the Father, etc.,” and his expres- 
 
WORDS. 
 
 71 
 
 sion of pain, yet relief that it was over, as 
 he turned to the East, away from the con- 
 gregation, showed that he, at least, had 
 taken up his cross in addressing us. In a 
 few minutes we were all dispersed, looking, 
 like well-bred people, wholly unaffected by 
 what we had heard. 
 
 “ Then you dislike preaching?” said Lady 
 Brydget to the young clergyman, as they 
 were talking together afterwards. 
 
 “ It is a great responsibility,” said he, 
 nervously. 
 
 “According to your own teaching you 
 ought not to shrink from it for that reason,” 
 said she, with a smile, graciously showing 
 that she recalled, at least, some part of 
 what he had been saying. “ I think I 
 should dislike it in a place like this, be- 
 cause I should feel as if it were impossible 
 to make people listen.” 
 
 “ One ought to be able to make them,” 
 he said, very sadly. “ But it is as you say. 
 I know I cannot, and I feel as if I only 
 brought the word of God into contempt, by 
 preaching it before an audience, I cannot 
 make attentive. If I could think that but 
 one word of mine — ” and he broke off 
 and sighed. 
 
72 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 Would it have comforted him, I wonder, 
 if he had known that upon one, at least, of 
 his congregation every word of that sermon 
 had fallen as a barbed dart, never to be 
 drawn out again, that I should recollect it 
 for years after, never to forget it till my 
 dying day ? I do not know if it would 
 have comforted him, but I know I said 
 nothing, looked as calm and indifferent as 
 the others, only, perhaps, more tired — yes, 
 certainly more tired. The room had been 
 hot, the chairs uncomfortable, the sermon 
 wearisome, of course that accounted for my 
 paleness, as for the yawns of some fat, rosy 
 little boys, who were forbidden to play, 
 because it was Sunday, and were now only 
 just saving themselves from going to sleep 
 by worrying an unhappy dog. There ! the 
 dog has snapped at one of them, and he is 
 running crying to his old governess, a 
 woman with gray hair, and a red, plain, but 
 kindly face. That governess is the cause of 
 my listening so attentively to the sermon. 
 
 She had arrived at the hotel a few days 
 before, one of a large party, a father and 
 mother, two grown-up daughters, and a 
 son, three school-room girls, two fat little 
 boys, a variety of maids and nurses, and 
 
WORDS. 
 
 73 
 
 men servants. They had come with a great 
 bustle, and as with a great bustle they were 
 going to take possession of the bedrooms 
 allotted to them, Lady Brydget. had ad- 
 dressed the old governess, who had lingered 
 slightly behind, with the two chubby boys 
 clinging to her skirts. “ I am glad to see 
 you have recovered sufficiently to take 
 another situation,” she said. 
 
 “ Lady Brydget Jerninghame !” exclaimed 
 the governess, in great astonishment. “ To 
 think of meeting you here ! Yes, thanks to 
 the kindness of my old pupils, I am now 
 strong enough to work again ; and, of course, 
 as soon as that was the case, I was anxious 
 to support myself once more, and not be 
 any longer dependent on their kindness, 
 though at first they were quite angry. 
 They wished to keep me doing nothing all 
 my life, I believe,” she said, and laughed. 
 
 This was one of the many broken-down 
 old governesses, with whom Lady Brydget 
 had come in contact in the course of her 
 charitable ministrations, but she had done 
 nothing for her, as she hastened to explain 
 directly Miss Lang had left the room. “ No, 
 I found her abundantly provided for.” 
 
 I took no interest in Miss Lang, and I 
 
74 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 was tired that day — it seems to me I was 
 tired every day, for each day I can re- 
 member I was tired, and the large party 
 coming in had exhausted me, so I made no 
 remark. Lady Brydget seemed a little put 
 out, that I asked no further questions, but 
 she invited Miss Lang to join us that evening 
 in our private sitting-room, and after the 
 chubby boys had been put to bed Miss 
 Lang appeared. She and Lady Brydget 
 had already had a long talk in the garden 
 together, and as it now seemed they had 
 exhausted their mutual subjects of interest, 
 for after a while Lady Brydget said the 
 room was stifling, and she must really take 
 a turn in the moonlight, and then, without 
 asking the governess to accompany her, 
 she wrapped a shawl round herself and 
 went out, and Miss Lang and I were left 
 alone together. My heart sank within me 
 at the thought of entertaining this unknown 
 middle-aged lady during the hours that 
 would probably elapse before she would 
 think it fitting to go, and I felt, for a mo- 
 ment, provoked with Lady Brydget; but 
 directly I was conscious of this feeling I took 
 myself well to task for it, feeling confident 
 that she had done it from the best of mo- 
 
WORDS. 
 
 75 
 
 tives, and, though I was quite sure she was 
 mistaken, thinking, perhaps, the little effort 
 of talking to this stranger might do me 
 good. Of course she knew I never should 
 talk as long as she herself remained in the 
 room. 
 
 I felt it was very wrong in me to have felt 
 provoked with her, and very wrong in me 
 to feel so little friendly to Miss Lang, and I 
 sat up on the sofa, and tried hard to think 
 of something to say, that would be civil, but 
 it was just like the old days at St. Mar- 
 garet’s — I could positively think of nothing, 
 and the more I thought, the more impossible 
 it became to me to say anything. 
 
 At last Miss Lang had to take the initi- 
 ative, and after eyeing a little timidly the 
 tall, dark young lady, who seemed to be at 
 so little pains to be polite to her, she asked, 
 “ Do you also know my old pupils, who 
 have been such good friends to me ever 
 since, in consideration of the little I was 
 once able to teach them ?” 
 
 “ I do not think it is at all likely,” I re- 
 plied, in my coldest, stiffest manner, hating 
 myself for being thus stiff and cold to a 
 kindly-faced old governess, who so evidently 
 required no putting down to keep her in 
 
76 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 her proper place. Then, with a great effort, 
 and lying down now, finding that it was 
 quite impossible to me to he civil and sit up. 
 “ Who were your old pupils ?” I asked. 
 
 “ The Levisons ! and Lady Brydget told 
 me she knew Adrian very well. I thought, 
 perhaps, you might know him, too.” 
 
 She was sitting a little behind me, as I 
 now lay upon the sofa, and she could not 
 see the expression of my face. I do not 
 know what it was made her exclaim, “ Are 
 you in pain, Miss Jerninghame ?” and she 
 came in front of me, and knelt beside me, 
 taking one of my hands in hers. 
 
 “ I am very faint to-night,” I said, speak- 
 ing slowly, as one speaks, when one is 
 in great physical pain, and is determined 
 not to be mastered by it ; “ that is why I 
 am lying down. Do you mind sitting where 
 you were before ?” and I took my hand 
 from hers, and pressed both my hands to my 
 face. “ Do you mind sitting where you 
 were before ?” I repeated, coldly, as she did 
 not move. “ It makes me worse to have 
 you there. I do not like having people 
 about me when I am faint.” 
 
 Miss Lang retreated, very much fright- 
 ened. I think any one would have been 
 
WORDS. 
 
 77 
 
 frightened, to whom I had spoken so im- 
 periously, and her way of life had long ago 
 robbed her of any spirit she might once 
 have possessed. I felt I had been unkind 
 to her, and I did so wish to be kind. 
 
 “ That is better,” I said. “ Somehow I 
 could not breathe, while you were hanging 
 over me. So the Levisons were your 
 pupils ? You were going to tell me about 
 them, were not you? Were they all your 
 pupils ?” 
 
 “Yes, all, from the eldest, who was 
 drowned, down to the very youngest. Ah ! 
 but the eldest one was my darling — he was 
 the darling of every one who knew him, so 
 good, and so clever, and so beautiful. I 
 never saw such a beautiful boy — everyone 
 loved him. It was as well, perhaps, that 
 he died, for he’d have broken a many hearts 
 had he lived. But you’ll let me fetch you 
 a little water, now, Miss Jerninghame, won’t 
 you ?” she broke off, coaxingly. “ I don’t 
 want to bother you — and I know it often 
 does bother people, when they are faint to 
 have any one hanging about them, but water 
 always does good.” 
 
 “You can fetch me some, then,” I said, 
 feeling as if I were conferring a favour by 
 
78 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 allowing her to do something for me ; and 
 when she brought it to me I dashed the 
 cold iced water on my forehead, and felt 
 quite strong again. She drew her chair, 
 where she could see me, and sitting down 
 there looked at me, keeping always a pru- 
 dent distance, evidently afraid lest she 
 should again inconvenience my breathing. 
 But there was no danger of that now. I 
 had braced myself for whatever might come, 
 and I lightly brushed the water from my 
 forehead with my handkerchief, fanning it 
 as I did so, then looking her full in the face, 
 I said, “I know Mr. Adrian Levison. I 
 made his acquaintance last season, in town.” 
 “ Did you ?” said she, her eyes sparkling. 
 “ I hear there’s quite a fuss made about him 
 in London, now, and if he wasn’t a Jew 
 they say he would soon be in the Ministry. 
 Oh ! isn’t he a noble young man ! I’m sure 
 there’s no one better or handsomer than he 
 is. Though I am his old governess, I don’t 
 like to say anything about his cleverness, 
 for he is a great deal too clever for me to be 
 able to judge anything about that now.” 
 
 “ He is considered very clever,” I said. 
 
 “ Oh, there is no one like him, I think. 
 Dear me, it seems only yesterday that I was 
 
WORDS. 
 
 79 
 
 teaching him his letters. What a merry 
 child he was, to be sure ! There was no 
 possibility of scolding him, for when he 
 looked up in my face and smiled — not that 
 there was any need of scolding him, either — 
 I have taught a many children, but I never 
 knew any so quick to learn as he was. It 
 all seemed to come quite naturally to him, 
 and he laughed right through the multipli- 
 cation table. Dear me, but he does not 
 laugh now, I am afraid.” 
 
 Certainly I did not speak, I looked at 
 her with my dignified Jerninghame expres- 
 sion, lying quite still upon the sofa, my hair 
 brushed back from my temples, and my fore- 
 head still wet with the iced-water I had so 
 liberally poured upon it. Perhaps my very 
 silence made her more ready to go on talk- 
 ing than any questions would have. She 
 was evidently a nervous woman, and she 
 went on in a flurried manner — 
 
 “I did so hope I should see him a Christian 
 before I died. He is a better Christian now 
 than half the people who call themselves so, 
 but I did so hope I should see him one, 
 really, and now they say it will never be. 
 Did you know Mr. Chillingworth ?” 
 
 “ I have heard of him.” I had moved the 
 
80 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 lamp back, and now I put up one band to 
 shield my face. “ The light dazzles me,” 
 I said, quite simply. Miss Lang immedi- 
 ately jumped up, and moved the lamp to the 
 further end of the room, throwing an anti- 
 macassar over it. 
 
 “ Shall I put it out ?” she asked, as she 
 did so. 
 
 “ No; Lady Brydget might not like that,” 
 I replied. “ I do not mind it now,” but I 
 still kept my hand half over my face, so 
 that she could not see it at all now. 
 
 “ I am tiring you,” she said, as she sat 
 down again. “ Don’t mind me, please. I 
 suppose I ought to wait till Lady Brydget 
 comes back, but ” 
 
 “ Please tell me more. You are interest- 
 ing me very much,” I said. “ You were 
 speaking of — of Mr. Chillingworth.” 
 
 “ Yes, yes,” she said, “ of Mr. Chilling- 
 worth. I did so hope he would persuade 
 Adrian, at least, to be a Christian. It 
 would make a dreadful break-up in the 
 family, and having seen them all so good 
 and happy together, I hardly know how I 
 wish it, but I do — with all my heart I do. 
 And only the other day I thought it was really 
 coming to pass, and old Mr. Levison thought 
 
WORDS. 
 
 81 
 
 so, too. He hurried home to England, in a 
 dreadful fright, and then Adrian told 
 him he was thinking of nothing of the 
 kind ; but I know he had been, if he was 
 not then, but that he was wishing to marry 
 a Christian, and that, you know, they think 
 as dreadful. No Levison has ever married 
 a Christian. Why, when a Jew does so, 
 you know, all his family mourn for him as 
 dead, not speaking, nor sitting upon chairs, 
 and rending their garments for I forget how 
 many days.” 
 
 “ But he is not going to marry a Christian, 
 I believe,” I said, “ so what is the use of 
 thinking of all this now ?” and I uncovered 
 my face and looked at her. 
 
 “ The use ! Perhaps there is no use,” 
 she said, shrinking into herself in her fright- 
 ened governess manner. “ Only it is all 
 because of that girl he wished to marry 
 that he will never become a Christian now, 
 because she will not marry him till he does, 
 and he is afraid of being bribed into leaving 
 his religion.” 
 
 “ Is he afraid of people saying he became 
 a Christian just in order to gain a wife ?” I 
 asked, desperately. 
 
 I did not know what I was saying. The 
 
 VOL. II. 6 
 
82 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 room seemed going round and round, and 
 we seemed the only two stationary things 
 in it, she and I : everything else was whirl- 
 ing. But, whenever I looked up, I saw 
 the old governess, with her smooth gray 
 hair, and red, kindly face, and thin, worn 
 hands, twitching uneasily at the plain black 
 dress. 
 
 “Not afraid of people saying so,” she 
 exclaimed, all her nervousness deserting her 
 in her eagerness to defend her old pupil. 
 “You know Adrian Levison very little, if 
 you think he would ever be guided by what 
 people might say. No; he is afraid of him- 
 self : he feels he cannot trust himself to be 
 uninfluenced by the thought of the girl he 
 loves. I dare say it was a good deal seeing 
 her so good and noble ; for that I am sure 
 she must be, or he would not have loved 
 her ; I dare say it was a good deal that, 
 that first roused him into looking more 
 closely into our religion. Oh, I cannot think 
 why she did not marry him as he was : then 
 he would have been sure to have turned in 
 the end.” 
 
 “ Why, do you think, when she was his 
 wife, he would have been less afaid of being 
 influenced by her than before ?” I asked ; 
 
WORDS. 
 
 83 
 
 and, as she made no answer, I went on, 
 “ And what would all her relations have 
 felt if she had married him ? They might 
 not, perhaps, have mourned for her as dead, 
 as the Jews do,” I said, bitterly ; “ but 
 they would have mourned quite as really, I 
 think.” 
 
 “Yes, I dare say she could not marry 
 him,” said the old woman, meekly. “ But, 
 oh ! I should like to be in her place, and 
 then I would marry some one else directly. 
 Then he must surely be able to think 
 things over clearly, and, of course, he’d be- 
 come a Christian.” 
 
 “Do you think that would be right — of 
 her,” I asked, “ if she loved him V 
 
 I spoke with difficulty. 
 
 “ If she loved him, she would do it with- 
 out thinking twice. She would care for his 
 becoming a Christian more than anything, 
 and she would know that was the only 
 way now, for she could not kill herself.” 
 
 “ She might die,” I suggested. 
 
 “ Yes, she might die ; but people never 
 do die when they are wanted to ; and, be- 
 sides, that would be doing nothing for him. 
 Oh, if my doing it would make Adrian 
 Levison a Christian, I would marry the 
 
 6—2 
 
84 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 old gentleman himself to-morrow, without 
 caring what might happen to me. But 
 then I have known him from a baby, and I 
 love him like a mother ; and young people 
 never love like that, though they talk a 
 deal about it.” 
 
 “ I think they do love sometimes,” I 
 said, very gently. “You seem to believe 
 yourself that Mr. Levison loves — this girl 
 — who — But suppose she was to marry 
 some other man, would that be kind to 
 him ?” 
 
 “ She could not marry him unless he 
 asked her ; and if he did ask her, I sup- 
 pose he would think it kind of her to say 
 yes. But if she loved Adrian rightly, what 
 an old woman like me means by love, she 
 would never think about any other man, 
 any more than she would about herself.” 
 
 I lay still, and thought. Of course, I 
 did not think then, that Miss Lang was 
 right in the line of conduct she was advo- 
 cating, but I lay and thought about it, 
 wondering what made it seem right to her. 
 Lady Brydget did not come in, and, as I 
 did not speak, I suppose she thought I was 
 sleepy, for she said, after a few minutes, 
 
 “Beally, I don’t think I ought to stay 
 
WORDS. 
 
 85 
 
 any longer ; it is getting quite late. Will 
 you say good night to Lady Brydget for 
 me ? I dare say I shall see her again to- 
 morrow. Good night, now ; I am afraid I 
 have been tiring you sadly.” 
 
 “ Good night,” I said, and I took hold of 
 her hand. Then a sudden impulse seized 
 me. “You have not tired me,” I said ; 
 “ only I am always too tired to talk now.” 
 And I sat up on the sofa and kissed her. 
 I could not help it ; she loved Adrian 
 Levison. 
 
 The poor old woman looked surprised for 
 a moment ; then she kissed me also. 
 
 “ God bless you, my dear young lady !” 
 she said ; “ and may you soon get your 
 health back, and a good husband, too, such 
 as a beautiful young lady like you should 
 have ! and he will be a very happy man, 
 whoever he may be ; of that I am sure.” 
 Then she went away, and I lay still, and 
 thought, and lay awake all night, and 
 thought ; and the next day was Sunday, 
 and the preacher chose for his text, “ Take 
 up thy cross, and follow Me,” and preached 
 to us, that we were to save our own souls 
 by saving the souls of others, thinking no- 
 thing of ourselves — of the trials and tempta- 
 
WORDS. 
 
 ' 86 
 
 tions, to which we might be exposed — and 
 that thus we should follow in our Master’s 
 footsteps, bidding us act in the way in 
 which we might best save our brother’s 
 soul, and trusting to God to take care of 
 our own. And as he preached, Adrian 
 Levison’s old governess nodded her head in 
 approbation of every word he said ; and I 
 wondered whether all the rest of the world 
 saw things alike, and I alone was mistaken, 
 or whether the preacher were not unwit- 
 tingly preaching the Jesuitical doctrine, 
 that we may do evil in order to bring about 
 good, and whether she were not unwittingly 
 agreeing to it. Anyhow, I kept on a calm, 
 conventional face; then at last I escaped to 
 my own room, and, like St. Peter, I wept 
 bitterly. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 “ The morn is up again, the dewy morn, 
 
 With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, 
 Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn. 
 
 And living as if earth contained no tomb.’* 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 It is almost like living in a church, living 
 on the banks of the Lake of Geneva. 
 There are the vines — trained out of much 
 natural beauty, certainly, but trained so as 
 best to be useful to man — and there are 
 the pleasant, smiling houses, all so bright 
 and fresh, these represent the congrega- 
 tion ; and there is the blue, placid lake, 
 telling one to be thankful — be thankful, 
 always thankful, and serene, and smiling, 
 like itself, that is like the Psalms ; and 
 then there are the mountains, pointing up 
 
88 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 to heaven, and preaching ever the same 
 solemn lesson they have preached since 
 the beginning of time, convincing all, whose 
 hearts are not hardened, of the pettiness of 
 the things of this life, and proving, far 
 more clearly than any Femdon or Paley, 
 or even Butler, that there is a greater life 
 beyond — a life so much grander and nobler, 
 that in comparison with it the lake, and 
 the houses, and the vines, and the men and 
 women, who work or play among them, all 
 become as nothing, simply nothing. The 
 great doctrine of Benunciation can never 
 be so fitly preached as among mountains. 
 I do not think any one can go much 
 amongst them, without feeling loosened 
 the ties, that have hitherto bound to life, 
 and without feeling a grave, chastened joy 
 in this loosening. It is not resignation we 
 learn among the mountains ; it is rather 
 magnanimity. “ The things of earth are 
 little worth there are better things than 
 they, and in those better things we, the 
 weak creatures of this life, have yet a part. 
 
 It was thus I felt, as I went out for a 
 morning walk from the little inn at Domo 
 d’Ossola. I had been seized with a longing 
 to go among the mountains. It is said 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 89 
 
 that one must have been brought up from 
 a child among them to feel really at home 
 among them. If so, the hills of Wales 
 must be higher than they are generally 
 esteemed ; for I felt quite a home-sickness 
 to be among the mountains. I had stared 
 at them from a distance so long, that at 
 last I felt I must go nearer to them, go 
 amongst them, try to become as it were a 
 part of them, as poets talk of being. I 
 knew I was no poet, yet I felt as if, could I 
 but go among the mountains, I must be- 
 come a part of them, imbibe something of 
 their great nature, and thus rise in a mea- 
 sure out of my own pettiness. 
 
 Lady Brydget was at first averse to the 
 idea ; she suggested that I had hitherto 
 always felt unequal to taking even the 
 shortest expedition, that she wanted me to 
 grow stronger, and then we should be able 
 to enjoy properly the most delightful Swiss 
 tour possible, which she had already 
 planned out elaborately, taking in all the 
 well-known beauties, and lingering particu- 
 larly upon the lake of Thun, her favourite 
 spot in all Switzerland ; but as she saw I 
 really had a wish at last, and that that 
 wish was to cross the Simplon, where 
 
90 
 
 AT DOMO DOSSOIA. 
 
 crossed long years apart the two great con- 
 querors Hannibal and Napoleon ; she was 
 too delighted to find there was anything I 
 cared about to offer the least opposition 
 any longer, and proposed descending the 
 Italian side, and seeing all the loveliness of 
 the Lago Maggiore, if the weather were 
 not so hot as to make it quite out of the 
 question. 
 
 The weather was hot, and when we ar- 
 rived at Domo d’Ossola, the mountain air 
 seemed to have done me so much good, 
 that she was unwilling to risk destroying 
 the effects of it, so we settled to stav for a 
 night or two at the tiny inn, and I walked 
 out before breakfast, and sat down, and 
 looked about me, as I had not walked, and 
 looked about for weeks now. I need not 
 describe what I saw, for I have not under- 
 taken to write an account of the places to 
 which I went ; and though these places 
 had their effect upon me, yes, doubtless 
 had their effect, I do not know what that 
 was, nor can I now recall even what the 
 places themselves were like. I seemed to 
 see them all in a dream. So I went out 
 that morning from the little inn at Domo 
 d’Ossola, and sat down after I had walked 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 91 
 
 a little, and looked of course at the view, 
 but I did not see the view that other 
 travellers, who stay at Domo d’Ossola, see 
 there. 
 
 Scientific men, I believe, tell us no two 
 people ever see quite the same view, and it 
 is certainly well known that, out of any 
 number of accounts of the same thing, no 
 two have ever been found exactly coin- 
 ciding ; certainly that day I sat and looked 
 at the view, and I saw — Adrian Levison, 
 saw him, as I had last seen him when he 
 had said : “ Better so. I will do good 
 
 deeds, God help me, and done for Him 
 alone, they may one day win His reward. 
 The world’s rewards are dust and ashes to 
 me now.” 
 
 1 had never dared to think of him like 
 that till now, but on this cool morning 
 among the mountains I sat and thought of 
 him ; and perhaps it was no wonder I did 
 not see the view, that other travellers see, 
 for I covered my face with my hands, and 
 pressed them against my eyes, till the eye- 
 balls ached, and I saw Adrian Levison only 
 the more distinctly. 
 
 I saw him, not angry, but very sorrow- 
 ful, utterly sorrowful, with the resolution 
 
92 
 
 AT DOMO DOSSOLA. 
 
 of despair, and nobler in his despair than 
 other men in the hour of their triumph. I 
 saw him going about, doing the day’s work 
 in the day, and gaining God’s rewards, but 
 not rejoicing in his gain, with no light of 
 smiles playing about the thoughtful eyes, 
 or relaxing the resolute mouth. I thought 
 to myself that he was the noblest man I 
 had ever known, or should know, and that 
 he had loved me with the purest love man 
 can give to woman ; and I thought to my- 
 self, that I hoped, yes I hoped that I might 
 never see him again, and then, this being 
 so, I asked myself what I should do with 
 my life, what I ought to do with my life. 
 “ Marry Duke,” something within me 
 whispered, but I answered : “ No ; a 
 
 thousand times no. If Duke is not the 
 noblest man I have known, no, nor yet the 
 second noblest, for there is my father, yet 
 he is still far too noble to be wronged, as I 
 should wrong him marrying him, while 
 thus thinking of another. 
 
 “ No, dear Duke,” I said, “ it can never 
 be,” and my tears fell fast through my 
 clasped fingers, for I knew now that Duke 
 loved me well, and I loved him, too. I had 
 shed no tears while thinking of Adrian 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 93 
 
 Levison. But then I thought of him firm 
 and resolute, fronting the world bravely, 
 and winning almost against himself that 
 “ vain applause Misjudging man now 
 gives and now withdraws.” When I 
 thought of Duke, I thought of him with 
 his tall stooping figure, with his sorrowful 
 face, more sorrowful now perhaps than even 
 of old, Sir Marmaduke Jerninghame, who 
 had an undoubted place in the County, 
 might easily have had the first place, as the 
 representative of such a very, very old 
 family, a family always respected ; but 
 winning nothing for himself, rather losing 
 what he already had, and sorrowing over 
 his loss in his absent, puzzled way, not 
 because he valued the world’s opinion, no 
 man ever less, but because he thought it 
 was his duty, his duty , poor Duke ! to 
 carry weight, and he knew he did not. I 
 had just got a letter from Duke that morn- 
 ing, and had not read it, yet, that was 
 perhaps the reason why I thought so ten- 
 derly of him ; that unread letter reproached 
 me. I took it out of my pocket and read it 
 sitting alone there in the cool morning air. 
 Dear Duke, I have that letter of his still, 
 though no one can read it now but myself, 
 
94 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 it is so blurred by my tears. I know it all 
 so well, I know where the words ought to 
 be, so I can read it still, and I read it often 
 now, and with pleasure. , 
 
 There was nothing selfish in that letter 
 of Duke’s, God knows there was nothing 
 selfish in himself ; he never asked any one 
 to sacrifice their happiness for his, not even 
 in the smallest thing. Even when he was 
 a boy, I often thought he was the most 
 unselfish person I ever knew, and boyhood 
 is well known as the time of selfishness. 
 Now Duke was almost a man, and he was 
 much older than other young men of his 
 age, much older than some ever learn to 
 be. I think if George Lumley lives to 
 eighty he will never be so old as Duke was 
 at twenty. Strangers always took him for 
 far older than he was ; and knowing him 
 better only made one know better how 
 much older he was than other young men 
 of his age. I often wonder now, had he 
 really lived more than other men, I do not 
 mean faster, but more. As the word fast 
 is used now, no man had ever lived more 
 slowly than Duke, my cousin, who had 
 been like a brother to me all my life. But 
 had he lived, really lived more than other 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 95 
 
 men ? Dear Duke, do you know I am 
 thinking of you now, writing about you, 
 loving you, as once you wished to be loved ? 
 Do you know it now, my dear cousin Duke, 
 my brother, my Duke ? 
 
 That letter of bis was like many of bis 
 letters, it said nothing very particular, it 
 told very little about himself ; the long 
 vacation was not ended yet, and he was 
 spending the last part of it with the Duke 
 
 of , Lady Brydget’s brother. “ The 
 
 house is full of people, but I do not see 
 much of them,” he said, and then he went 
 on to give his views about a little German 
 hook called “ Clara,” and containing some 
 rather metaphysical opinions on Purgatory, 
 which seemed to have greatly charmed him, 
 and which now of course charmed me also ; 
 for our minds were greatly alike as to what 
 pleased, or displeased them. I was led so 
 far away by these remarks of Duke’s, that 
 I almost forgot to finish his letter ; at last 
 I turned to it again, and saw : “I have 
 just got a letter from my mother. I am so 
 very sorry that you do not get your 
 strength back ; would you not be better at 
 St. Margaret’s ? I think you would feel 
 more at home there, and that that alone 
 
96 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 would rest you.” My eyes filled with tears 
 at this proof of Duke’s thoughtfulness for me. 
 Any one must know Duke very well to 
 understand how much it implied ; that he 
 should go out of his way to make a prac- 
 tical suggestion for my advantage, espe- 
 cially when he knew me to be with his 
 mother, under Lady Brydget’s very eye. 
 I knew Duke very well, and I understood 
 all it meant, and my heart ached for him. 
 I loved Duke so very well, not as a girl 
 loves a man she wishes to marry, but as a 
 brother, a very favourite brother, and I 
 feared he must love me far more, or he 
 would never have been led into making 
 this suggestion for my good. 
 
 I put the letter into my pocket, and 
 went back to the house ; breakfast was 
 waiting for me, and so was Lady Brydget. 
 I made a sort of apology, she smiled ten- 
 derly, and seemed only careful that I 
 should eat some breakfast, after the unusual 
 exertion I had been making ; but I noticed 
 she took none herself, and she looked very 
 unhappy. The letters had come in the 
 night, and I feared she had had bad news. 
 
 “ I have got a letter from Duke,” I said, 
 and handed it to her. 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 97 
 
 She took it eagerly from me, and read it 
 with a changing colour. Oh, she loved 
 Duke very well 1 and yet she never could 
 understand him, nor make him happy, and 
 when he was with her, he was a constant 
 vexation to her, but she loved him very 
 dearly. I hardly think he loved her so 
 well, but he had a limitless admiration for 
 her, and perhaps men never do love their 
 mothers, as they are loved by them. It is 
 different with us, I think ; I loved my 
 father far more than he loved me, and yet 
 I was his favourite child, and I never knew 
 which he loved best, me or my mother. Of 
 course he had loved her best at one time, 
 but he never had much respect for her 
 opinion, except in practical matters, there 
 he always followed her advice, and he was 
 very proud of me. 
 
 Lady Brydget pressed her handkerchief 
 to her eyes, as she finished Duke’s letter. 
 “ He says nothing about himself,” she cried, 
 half wildly, and let the letter fall to the 
 ground. 
 
 I hastened to pick it up, then I saw she 
 was in great sorrow, and I knelt down be- 
 side her, and passing my arms round her, 
 “ Dear Aunt,” I said, “ wh it is the matter ?” 
 
 VOL. II. 7 
 
98 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 Lady Brydget wept in silence, then she 
 handed me a letter, and hurried from the 
 room ; the letter was from her sister-in-law 
 and I hastened to read it, for I saw Duke’s 
 name at the top of the page. 
 
 “ Dear Brydget, 
 
 “ You ask about Duke, and I wish in- 
 deed I had better news to give, but as you 
 directly ask me I think it more right to tell 
 the truth, and indeed anyhow I think it 
 would be false kindness to conceal it from 
 you. I never could understand Duke, and 
 I cannot profess to do so any better now, but 
 I fear there must be something very much 
 the matter with him, though he is at all 
 times so unlike other young men of his age, 
 that it is difficult to judge. Harry says he 
 has been just the same for a long time now, 
 and that no one at Oxford can make him out 
 at all. Harry, you know, is devoted to him, 
 and always has been, but though they sit 
 up late talking together, I do not see that 
 they have much more to do with each other. 
 Indeed Duke will not have anything to do 
 with any one ; he gets up very early, but he 
 rarely appears till dinner-time, then he looks 
 wretchedly ill, and all the evening he sits 
 with his elbows resting on the table, his 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 99 
 
 head resting on his hands, and looking so 
 unhappy, that it makes one perfectly miser- 
 able to look at him. We all do what we 
 can to cheer him up, but quite in vain, 
 though he is just as amiable and anxious to 
 please people as he ever was. I told him 
 one day it made me quite unhappy to see 
 him so sorrowful, but I regretted doing so 
 directly afterwards, for he looked down in 
 that contrite way of his, you must know so 
 well, ‘I will go away directly ; I am so sorry, 
 but I will go away directly.’ Of course I 
 was obliged to pass it off as best I could, 
 but I don’t think he has ever quite for- 
 gotten it, for he now always tries to smile, 
 whenever he catches my eye, and unfortu- 
 nately his smiles are the saddest thing 
 about Duke, as they always were. He 
 seems to read a great deal, and generally 
 takes a book out with him, or spends the 
 morning in the library, but will not go out 
 shooting with the other men, and though 
 he once took a gun to oblige me, he never 
 loaded it all day. Adelaide is growing so 
 very pretty, that I hope she will make quite 
 a sensation, when she is presented next 
 season, but when I asked Duke if he did 
 not think her improved, he thought for a 
 
 7—2 
 
100 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 long time, and then at last replied, ‘ I — I 
 really have not noticed.’ Indeed, I think 
 he notices nothing. Harry says that, in 
 spite of being the cleverest fellow he knows 
 — he always had a wonderful opinion of 
 Duke’s abilities — he expects he will be 
 plucked, if he goes on as he has been doing 
 lately. He says he sits up all night, reading 
 German, and has hardly opened one of the 
 classics during the last term. I am really 
 sorry, my dear Brydget, to write you so 
 unsatisfactory an account of your son, but 
 I think it is best to write the whole truth 
 to you. There must be some cause for his 
 depression, and if he is in love or anything 
 of that kind, perhaps you might do some- 
 thing. Certainly something ought to be 
 done, if possible. Now I have written at 
 such great length, that I have barely left 
 myself room to hope that your niece is 
 better, and that you are both enjoying your 
 Swiss tour.” 
 
 It was with a heavy heart I read this 
 letter, and when Lady Brydget came back, 
 I could only return it to her in silence, I 
 could not speak to her about it, neither ap- 
 parently could she speak to me, for she sat 
 down in silence, and turned over the last 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 101 
 
 pages of a novel. Meanwhile I lay on the 
 sofa, with my face turned to the wall ; I 
 was trying to make up my mind, hut I could 
 not. The thought of Duke was very pre- 
 sent to me ; Duke sitting with his head 
 resting on his hands, so that it made every 
 one perfectly miserable to look at him ; 
 Duke wandering about alone with a book, 
 which he did not read ; Duke sitting up 
 all night over German metaphysics ; dear 
 Duke, with his kind heart, his mild docile 
 temper, his face so full of sorrowful thoughts, 
 and his figure prematurely bowed. I thought 
 how he was the last of the Jerninghames, on 
 whom it depended to keep up and perpetuate 
 the old name, and that he was not the man 
 to marry a girl he had only known a fort- 
 night, as my father had said, and how my 
 father relied on my marrying him, and 
 treated it as nonsense that I should not, 
 and how Duke had asked me to marry him, 
 and how I had not believed he cared for 
 me, but thought that the idea had been put 
 into his head by some one else. I did not 
 think this any longer now. I knew that 
 Duke loved me, perhaps as much as I my- 
 self had loved Adrian Levison. Had loved ! 
 Yes, it seemed already a thing of the past 
 
102 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 to me. Adrian Levison was to me a hero, 
 an angel ; but he was as unattainable, as 
 far separated from me as if he had been 
 already with the angels. Then, indeed, I 
 might perhaps sometimes have stretched 
 out my hands to him, longing to be nearer 
 him, weeping over the days when I had 
 once fancied myself so ; I could hardly do 
 that now. Indeed, the only thing I could do 
 for him any longer was to marry some one 
 else or to die. Oh, how much rather I would 
 have died ! and yet, poor Duke ! and my 
 father and mother, and darling little 
 Brydget, and kind Lady Brydget, and 
 Uncle and Aunt Basset, could I bear to 
 leave them all ? I thought that I could 
 bear to leave them all. But to make them 
 so miserable as I should make them by 
 dying ! The tears ran down my cheeks at 
 the thought, and yet I knew it was not in 
 my own power, I knew that I could not 
 live or die at my pleasure ! “Father, I know 
 that all my times are portioned out by thee.” 
 But if I were to live, then why should I not 
 make Duke happy ? I felt sure I could 
 make him so happy, dear old Duke, and my 
 father would be so pleased, and every one. 
 And Adrian Levison ? It would be best for 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 103 
 
 him, also, I thought. But I put that 
 thought away from me quickly ; his old 
 governess might say what she liked, but I 
 could not, in thinking of marrying Duke, 
 consider what effect that marriage would 
 have upon the. man I had really loved. 
 If I had thought of it much I think 1 
 must have decided differently, for then I 
 could not have failed to put the question 
 to myself in a different way. What effect 
 would it have upon me, if Adrian Levison 
 were to marry some one else ? But as it 
 was I never put that question to myself — 
 that idea never crossed my mind. Poor 
 Duke ! poor Duke ! 
 
 “ Grwynydd,” said Lady Brydget, looking 
 up from her novel, “ have you read this 
 book ?” i 
 
 “ No, aunt,” I said, “I don’t care to read 
 it. Novels do not seem to interest me.” 
 
 “ I ought to send it back to-day, so I am 
 glad you do not care to read it, but I think 
 it would have interested you. It has in- 
 terested me very much,” and Lady Brydget 
 sighed. 
 
 Her hands looked so very lovely, one 
 supporting the volume she had just finished, 
 the other lightly turning over the pages, -and 
 
104 
 
 AT pomo d’ossola. 
 
 both sparkling with diamonds, that I could 
 not help wishing some artist might have 
 been there to see them, and that the sight 
 had not been wasted on only me. Her face 
 looked still intent upon the book, but there 
 was a sorrowful shadow hanging over it, a 
 recollection of the emotion of the morning, 
 and though my own heart was still as heavy 
 as ever, I was anxious if possible to prevent 
 her thoughts from reverting to Duke. 
 “What kind of a book is it?” I asked. “ One 
 of the startling books, in which every sen- 
 tence begins with sentiment, and ends with 
 cold mutton, or a hole in the heroine’s boots, 
 or one of the old sensational school ?” 
 
 “ Neither,” said Lady Brydget, gravely. 
 “ The style is perfectly simple, and, though 
 it is the story that has interested me, it is 
 not in the least sensational ; there are no 
 murders in it, and all the events recorded 
 
 in the book might happen to any one of 
 
 )) 
 
 US. 
 
 “ And yet it is interesting. I thought 
 our stoiies only interested us, because we 
 ourselves were the actors in them, and that 
 they would seem monotonous to any one 
 else.” 
 
 “ It may be so,” said Lady Brydget, 
 
AT DOMO DOSSOLA. 
 
 105 
 
 thoughtfully. “ Perhaps this book is a 
 little monotonous, but I did not find out 
 that fault in reading it.” 
 
 “ What is the story ?” I asked. 
 
 “ It is a very simple story,” said Lady 
 Brydget, almost unwillingly ; “ perhaps, on 
 the whole, a little commonplace. There is 
 a young girl, who fancies herself very pas- 
 sionately in love with a man she cannot 
 marry.” 
 
 “ Why not ?” I asked, interrupting. 
 
 “ Oh, it would take too Jong to enter 
 into all the details, it is all very clearly 
 explained in the book ; it is really a pity 
 you have not read it, but I should have 
 thought any one could fancy reasons for 
 that. Anyhow, it is out of the question 
 that they should marry ?” 
 
 “ Did he love her ?” I asked, quickly. 
 
 “ Yes, just as much as she loves him — 
 that is to say, he fancies he loves her, as 
 people love once in a lifetime,” and Lady 
 Brydget sighed, and I knew she was think- 
 ing of her young husband, whom she in 
 her day had loved passionately, as she 
 could love but once in a lifetime, and who 
 had died of consumption before the first 
 year of their married life was over. “There 
 
106 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 is another man who loves her also : all her 
 family are very desirous that she should 
 marry him, and there is nothing against 
 him himself ; she likes him, but she loves 
 the man she cannot marry.” 
 
 “ What does she do ?” I asked. 
 
 I had a faint hope, a last faint hope ; it 
 was but a straw to cling to, but I clung to 
 it : if this girl would not marry the man 
 she did not love, then never would I marry 
 Duke ; but if she did, then 
 
 “Why, she was a good girl,” said Lady 
 Brydget, “ a very good girl, who knew she 
 could trust herself to act up to what she 
 thought right.” 
 
 “ So she did not marry ?” I said, and 
 breathed relieved. 
 
 “ No ; she married the man all her rela- 
 tions wished her to marry, and she made 
 him a very good wife, and he never had the 
 least idea but that she had loved him from 
 the first. She seems to have been a very 
 brave girl.” 
 
 “ I am not brave,” I said, almost sullenly, 
 as it seems to me, now looking back. 
 “ Brydget might do that sort of thing, but 
 I never could ; I should be sure to show I 
 had loved some one else.” 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 107 
 
 “ No ; I do not think that at all. You 
 are more reticent, and have more power of 
 self-command than one girl in a thousand ; 
 whilst little Brydget — she is a darling little 
 thing, but one can hardly fancy her without 
 George Lumley now.” 
 
 “ Dear little Brydget !” I said ; “ she 
 would make any man happy, I think, whether 
 she loved him or not : it must make any 
 man happy to live with her, and to see all 
 her winsome ways.” 
 
 “ She could never make a man like Duke 
 happy,” said Lady Brydget, sighing, and 
 going to the window. Then, as she turned 
 from the window and came back to me, she 
 saw the tears, which I could now no longer 
 restrain, slowly rolling down my cheeks. 
 She stooped and kissed them away, kissing 
 me with the lingering, yet passionate kiss, 
 that seems to hunge? for love or for some- 
 thing in return for all, it itself is so lavish 
 of. “ Poor Duke ! would you not like to 
 have him here with us ?” she asked. 
 
 “ Yes,” I said, in a half-stifled voice. 
 
 It was true, quite true ; I should have 
 liked to have him with us, and yet, in so 
 saying, I felt as if I were telling a lie. 
 
 “ May I tell him so ?” 
 
108 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 “ Yes ; oh, yes, tell him so,” I said. 
 
 Then I turned over on the sofa, and 
 buried my face among the cushions, burst- 
 ing into an agony of tears, weeping as I 
 had not wept for many a long day. My 
 tears had all seemed dried up of late. But 
 before this Lady Brydget had left the 
 room. When she came back the letter was 
 written and sent ; and when I knew this, 
 then I went up stairs, and knelt by my 
 bedside and prayed. I prayed for forgive- 
 ness, if I were doing wrong, and for strength 
 to bear whatever was to be borne ; but I 
 trembled as I prayed, and when I rose up 
 from my knees, and took up a photograph 
 of Duke — a little photograph he had given 
 me, about a year before, of himself sitting 
 at a table reading, and looking up from his 
 book, as people mostly do look up from 
 their books in photographs — I shrank from 
 his sorrowful eyes, as I had never shrunk 
 from them before ; and yet I had done no- 
 thing as yet, only let Lady Brydget send a 
 message, that I wished he was with us. 
 Was it not a natural wish ? He was my 
 cousin, almost my brother, I had not seen 
 him for a long time ; I had been ill since 
 then ; I now heard he was ill and unhappy. 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 109 
 
 Was it not natural that I should wish to 
 see him again ? 
 
 “ What did you say to Duke, exactly, 
 aunt V’ I asked, when I went down stairs 
 again. 
 
 “ I said I heard he was not well, and 
 that we had both spent a melancholy morn- 
 ing in consequence. If you want to know 
 exactly what I said, as far as I can remem- 
 ber it was this : ‘ You would not come to 
 Switzerland when I asked you ; will you 
 come now, when Gwynydd wishes it also ? 
 She has asked me to send this message to 
 you. It is too hot to go on to the Italian 
 lakes, as we once thought of doing, so I 
 think we shall recross the Simplon at once, 
 and wait for you at Y evey. I am already 
 calculating how soon we may see you. My 
 dear boy, I am very happy/ Yes, dear 
 Gwynydd, you have indeed made me very 
 happy — happier than I once thought it was 
 ever possible I should be again.” 
 
 And with mingled smiles and tears Lady 
 Brydget kissed me. Perhaps my forehead 
 felt very cold, or perhaps she thought I 
 was graver and paler than befitting. 
 
 “ Have I not sent your message as vou 
 wished it ? Oh, dear Gwynydd, would you 
 
110 
 
 AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 rather have written yourself? and have I 
 been selfish in wishing to be the first to 
 break such glad tidings to Duke ? Would 
 you rather have written yourself, my 
 child ? ” 
 
 “ No ; I did not wish to write myself,” I 
 said. “It is very, very kind of you to — 
 but — but I am so tired. I think I should 
 like to lie quiet and read. Is that book 
 you were talking of still here ?” 
 
 And I moved away, and looked blindly 
 about the room for it, anxious, were it pos- 
 sible, to quell all demonstration of feeling. 
 
 “ I have taken it away to be packed up, 
 but I will fetch it for you. Lie quiet, my 
 dear child, and I will soon get it for you. 
 If Th4rese has packed it up, she can soon 
 unpack it again.” 
 
 But, of course, Lady Brydget knew I 
 would not permit her to take this trouble 
 for me. “ I did not care about the book,” 
 I said. I have read it since then — looked 
 at it, that is to say — but I found nothing 
 of that simple story Lady Brydget told to 
 me that summer morning ; but then I read 
 it long after — long after ; the story may 
 have changed in so many months. 
 
 On the summer afternoon, that followed 
 
AT DOMO D’OSSOLA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 at once upon that summer morning, I did 
 not read that book ; I wandered out, and 
 walked to the same spot where I had sat in 
 the early morning ; and I clasped my hands 
 over my eyes, and saw no view, no trees, no 
 rocks, no Adrian Levison, nor Duke ; I 
 saw nothing, and thought of nothing. I 
 sat there as if stunned, and I knew it was 
 I who had done it. 
 
 “ It is better so,” I said to myself at last. 
 “ I will think no more of Adrian Levison ; 
 I must not think of him any more now, and 
 he will become a Christian, and I will make 
 a good wife to Duke, and he will be very 
 happy, and I hope we shall all be very 
 happy.” 
 
 Thus I settled the future for myself, and 
 then I rose up, drawing myself up to my 
 full height, and walked to the house with a 
 firm, decided step — the calm, self-possessed 
 Miss Jerninghame, Sir Manna duke’s wife 
 that was to be. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 “ Per has ego te lacrymas — ” 
 
 Virgil. 
 
 I have always admired Regulus far more 
 than any other hero of antiquity. Hora- 
 tius was very brave, Curtius very noble, 
 but Regulus’s sacrifice was the most lasting. 
 He displayed endurance as well as courage, 
 and he crushed every tenderest feeling of 
 his heart, that he might not injure the 
 country, for which he afterwards died so 
 terrible a death. I have often thought of 
 him being rolled down that hill at Carthage 
 in the cask set round with spikes, and 
 fancied that even that bitter agony must 
 have been welcome to him, as being at last 
 the end of all things. It is so easy to bear 
 death, even torture, in a moment of exalta- 
 
LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 113 
 
 tion, it is so difficult to preserve that feel- 
 ing of exaltation through days of “ linked 
 anguish long drawn out.” Lord Colling- 
 wood is the only man of modern times, who 
 has seemed to me at all to come up to 
 Regulus ; those long years, during which his 
 wife and children grew to be as strangers 
 to him, how much must they not have cost 
 the loving sailor heart ! Perhaps one ought 
 not to say it without having tried, it seems 
 almost like detracting from the merit of a 
 hero, that fault against which Duke always 
 lifted up his voice in warning, but it often 
 seems to me, that I could have stretched 
 out my arms and pressed against my beat- 
 ing heart as many of the enemies’ spears as 
 I could reach, lovingly, as though they were 
 a bunch of fragrant flowers ; that I could 
 have cried out like d’Assas, “ A moi, 
 Auvergne! ces sont les ennemis,” even with 
 the enemies’ bayonets at my breast to be 
 buried within it, at the first word of alarm ; 
 yet it never seems to me, that I could have 
 acted like Pegulus, and I doubt if I should 
 ever have waited alone upon the burning 
 deck like the boy Casabianca. If like that 
 martyr to fidelity, whose name 1 never re- 
 member, though the manner of his death 
 VOL. II. 8 
 
114 
 
 LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 has often made me shudder, if I had died 
 as he died, refusing to give up the name of 
 Napoleon, his master and director, while 
 that very master looked on and disowned 
 him ; if, like him, I had borne to hold my 
 peace, it would have been more, because 
 with feelings thus outraged death would 
 have seemed a thing to be desired more 
 than life, rather than because I had strength 
 of mind to “ suffer and be strong.” In a 
 moment of exaltation many a woman, I 
 think, would be eager to make a suttee of 
 herself, who yet after a year or two finds 
 the wearing of a widow’s cap a grievance, 
 and is all too ready to substitute an zEneas 
 for the Sycheus of her first love. 
 
 If on that afternoon at Domo d’Ossola I 
 could have been put to death in any the 
 most ingenious modes of torture, the human 
 intellect has yet invented, I think I could 
 have borne it to make Duke happy ; I am 
 sure I could have borne it to convince 
 Adrian Levison of the truth, but when the 
 hours passed and nothing was done to me, 
 and no result came of anything, and I lay 
 awake through the dreary watches of the 
 night, and contemplated the long expanse of 
 lifetime, that possibly lay before me as my 
 
LAST STBUGGLES. 
 
 115 
 
 cousin Duke’s wife, then I wetted my pillow 
 with my tears, and shrank back affrighted 
 at the pins and needles of daily life, which 
 I imagined in the future, while I told my- 
 self, and still tell myself, I should not have 
 trembled, should have shed no tears, uttered 
 no moan, save, perhaps, one last convulsive 
 moan stifled in the uttering, had the cruelest 
 of daggers torn me into little bits upon the 
 instant. 
 
 “ It is not right that I should do this 
 thing,” I said to myself, and then I sat up 
 in bed, and tossed back with both hands 
 the long heavy hair from my aching brow, 
 and looked out into the dawning. That is 
 always an awful time to me, that time of 
 early morning before the sun has risen, and 
 when everything seems unwillingly waking 
 into life again, I can never help thinking 
 of the resurrection, when we shall all wake, 
 however unwilling we may be, for the last 
 time, never to sleep again. It is an awful 
 idea to me that, that there is no sleep in 
 heaven, no sleep and no sea ! Thinking of 
 the resurrection, I thought, as it has always 
 been rather a way with me to think, how 
 would it be with me now were the last 
 trump to sound, and were I this instant 
 
 8—2 
 
116 
 
 LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 called to appear before the judgment seat 
 of God. Could I say there, that I was wil- 
 ling to marry Duke, and yet loved Adrian 
 Levison ? I told myself I could not. “It 
 is not right that I should do so, then,” I 
 said, and comforted by this thought, I lay 
 down again, and in a few -minutes had 
 fallen asleep. In that sleep I seemed to 
 see Adrian Levison sitting on a throne with 
 wings, and eyes more piercing than I had 
 ever seen, and he looked at me, and seemed 
 to see me through and through, and then 
 he passed away, though how I do not know, 
 for he was seated on a throne ; perhaps it 
 was I who moved, I do not know. Then 
 came Duke, and he looked pityingly at me, 
 and oh ! so sorrowfully, and I sprang for- 
 ward to throw myself at his feet, and beg 
 him to look happier, but the movement I 
 made woke me, and I looked up, and saw no 
 Duke, and no Adrian, but only the glad 
 summer sunshine streaming in through the 
 window, and filling the little room. I 
 hastened to get up and dress, but as I 
 passed by the glass, I happened to see my- 
 self reflected in it, and as had happened to 
 me once or twice of late, my own reflection 
 frightened me, and I clasped the back of a 
 
LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 117 
 
 chair, and stood still, and stared at it, fasci- 
 nated, as it were, by the gaze of those two 
 great brown eyes, with the deep black rings 
 under them, gleaming out of a face that 
 looked almost blue, it was so drawn and 
 weary, and so much shaded by the heavy 
 masses of dark hair falling sullenly on either 
 side of it. Instead of dressing I shut the 
 shutters, and threw myself on my bed 
 again, and wept bitterly. “ Oh, Duke ! 
 Duke !” I cried, “ if you knew all, you 
 would be satisfied to live without me. You 
 would never add one hair’s weight to my 
 burden, if you knew bow heavy it was 
 already. You would find out some other 
 wife, if only to please me, I believe, and 
 then if you married, they would soon be 
 content, and let me alone. Oh, Duke ! I 
 know you would never be cruel ! never, 
 dear Duke ! It is not your fault, I know, 
 but it is breaking my heart, and I cannot 
 bear it.” Then I thought to myself, that I 
 must spare Duke the burden of a fresh dis- 
 appointment, I must never let him know, 
 that I had not sent exactly such a message, 
 as Lady Brydget had given ; that I had 
 not asked her to send it, only said “yes,” 
 when she had pressed me in a moment of 
 great misery. 
 
118 
 
 LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 “ Dear aunt,” I said, after we had finished 
 breakfast, “ I think it is a pity you asked 
 Duke to join us in Switzerland.” 
 
 “ I think so, too,” said Lady Brydget, 
 meditatively, and stroking my hair, as she 
 spoke, with one of her soft white hands. “ I 
 did it in a moment of excitement, and I 
 think it was a mistake. It would be much 
 better, if we went home instead. At first I 
 thought this place was doing you good, but 
 you look paler than ever this morning. I 
 believe, after all, St. Margaret’s will be the 
 best place for you.” 
 
 “ Oh, no, not St. Margaret’s,” I said, and 
 shuddered. It was so near to Castle Jer- 
 ninghame, and my father, I knew, laughed 
 at the idea that I should not one day marry 
 Duke. Besides, it would be going back to 
 the old life, it would be, as it were, anni- 
 hilating that time in London, that time, 
 the memory of which even now mingled a 
 sort of sweetness in my sorrow. “ Oh, no, 
 not St. Margaret’s.” 
 
 “ Dear Gwynydd, you shall not go home 
 unless you like it. You understand, dear- 
 est, do you not, that you are as much at 
 home with me as anywhere. You could 
 stay at the Castle a little if you like ; Duke 
 
LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 119 
 
 will soon be coming of age, and that is 
 one reason why I want to go home and 
 make arrangements. It will be proper for 
 you all to stay at the Castle for his birth- 
 day.” 
 
 “ Oh, not at the Castle,” I said, and 
 moaned. Yes, I, who think I could have died 
 like Arnold von Winkelried ; I moaned. 
 
 “ Well, dearest, in London. We will write 
 and tell Duke, we made a mistake, and that 
 he may come and meet us in London, if he 
 likes — only if he likes. Do you not like 
 the idea of London ?” she asked, caress- 
 ingly, as she saw a reluctant gesture on 
 my part. “ In my tiny house, you know, 
 quite a different part to your Uncle Bas- 
 set’s, it will seem like a different place. You 
 will like that, will you not, Gwynydd, you 
 used always to be so fond of my curiosity 
 shops ?” 
 
 I smiled faintly. Lady Brydget kissed 
 me, “ Really I shall be glad to have better 
 medical advice for you. I hoped to have 
 taken you back to England, quite well and 
 strong, but now this morning you look 
 wretchedly ill. You must try to get some 
 colour into your cheeks, Gwynydd, or what 
 will your dear father so.y ? Now, I must 
 
120 
 
 LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 ■write to Duke, for he is such an unaccoun- 
 table hoy, he might take a month to consider 
 whether he would join us, or he might start 
 off on the spur of the moment, without 
 waiting even to pack a portmanteau. Do 
 you think it would he safer to telegraph V 
 I smiled again at this idea; then I lay 
 very weary on the sofa, and wondered what 
 Lady Brydget was writing. I felt as if I 
 ought to know, and yet I could not bring 
 myself to make the exertion of asking, and 
 I did not think she would tell me ; but in 
 this I was mistaken. In a few minutes 
 Lady Brydget looked up with her smile of 
 unm in «;led bonhommie towards all the 
 world: “As you are a good girl, and do 
 not oppose anything, you shall hear my 
 confession of error,” said she, gaily. “ I am 
 afraid I wrote to you in too great a hurry 
 yesterday, dear Duke, I don’t think Gwy- 
 nydd quite meant the message I sent, any- 
 how she and I have decided this morning, 
 that it would be best to return to England 
 at once. I shall be glad to get some good 
 advice for her, as she looks wretchedly ill 
 again to-day, so we shall probably stop in 
 town a little, and if you like you can join 
 us there. I shall be glad to see you thece, 
 
LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 121 
 
 and I dare say Gwynyddwill be as glad as she 
 would be to see any one, but she hardly looks 
 equal to much gladness to-day, so do not ex- 
 pect anything but a very quiet time ; I dare 
 say it would be better for you if you went 
 back to Oxford ; I hear sad accounts of your 
 not reading, puzzling yourself with all sorts of 
 unintelligible German metaphysics instead. 
 There, shall I send any message from you, 
 Gwynydd ?” and Lady Brydget paused, and 
 looked up from her letter with a smile, that 
 said so much more than her words, that I 
 sprang up and embraced her almost as 
 Brydget might have done. She kissed me 
 very tenderly, but I saw it was with diffi- 
 culty she was swallowing her tears, and 
 indeed, it was with difficulty I was swallow- 
 ing my own, so in a moment I had to run 
 away, and kneeling down in my own room 
 I thanked God, for I saw it was all a mis- 
 take, I had not pledged myself to be Duke’s 
 wife, and Lady Brydget knew I had not, 
 and would make Duke understand this, too. 
 Of this I had no doubt, though I had only 
 heard a bit of her letter, but I had no doubt 
 about anything now ; I was full of thank- 
 fulness. I should see Duke soon now, I 
 hoped ; I should, indeed, like to see him 
 
122 
 
 LAST STRUGGLES. 
 
 better than any one, if I were not pledged 
 to be his wife, and it seemed I was not, and 
 I should be able to talk to him, and see if 
 I could not make him happy in some other 
 way, and time would show what was right 
 to do. Ah ! how much we trust to time ! 
 and then after all it would be nice to see 
 my father and mother and Brydget. I was 
 so full of thankfulness, I could understand 
 things being nice once more, that childish 
 adjective of pleasure, which we cling to in 
 our after years for the associations that it 
 recalls. I was almost happy that morning ; 
 I did not expect, I did not hope ever to see 
 Adrian Levison again, but I was not pledged 
 to marry Duke. I felt quite sure of that 
 then, and I determined I would not pledge 
 myself in a hurry. After that we started 
 homewards, and the journey to England 
 was almost cheerful compared to the journey 
 from it, and yet then I had not been pledged 
 to marry Duke either, but even in misery 
 there are different grades, even in Dante’s 
 Inferno there are different Bolge. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 “ Vain is the art that seeks itself for to deceive.” 
 
 Fairy Queen. 
 
 The banks of the lake of Geneva, and the 
 streets of London ! One feels different in 
 the two places, somehow. Even though it 
 may be out of the season, and the London 
 streets deserted, yet there is something in 
 the sound of the carriage wheels rolling 
 through them that makes one feel like a 
 different creature, no longer lie back on soft 
 cushions with a dreamy sadness on the face, 
 but sit up and look living, and collect one- 
 self, as a living creature should. So I sat 
 up, and looked as if I were alive once more, 
 and collected myself, and saw Lady Brydget 
 grand and gracious beside me, and Duke 
 sitting opposite with the far-away looks in 
 his eyes, and his clothes hanging loose upon 
 
124 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 him, as Duke’s clothes had a knack of 
 hanging. 
 
 “ Poor Duke ! I am afraid you have been 
 ill, too.” 
 
 “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I 
 have been ill,” said Duke, meditatively. 
 “ I have been thinking a good deal.” Then, 
 “ It is a curious question to consider when 
 a man may properly be called ill. Is it 
 when the mind affects the body, and when, 
 were the disturbing influence removed from 
 the mind, the body would certainly right 
 itself at once ? If so, then surely he must 
 be called cross, when his crossness simply 
 arises from bodily causes, and if cross, he 
 must be so far blamable. But how so, when, 
 but for his temporary fit of indigestion, or 
 some such cause, wholly beyond his own con- 
 trol, he would be placid as — ” 
 
 “ My dear Duke, please don’t attempt 
 to talk metaphysics before we have even 
 reached our own door. Really Gwynydd and 
 I are not equal to such very deep questions.” 
 
 Duke looked pained ; the expression came 
 over his face of having made a mistake ; a 
 mistake, which he had often made before, 
 and feared he should often make again — a 
 weary, humble, contrite expression, that it 
 
BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 125 
 
 always grieved me to see upon his face, and 
 which he often wore in Lady Bryd get’s pre- 
 sence, for all fond and really proud of him, 
 though she was, she would often cut him 
 short in one of his dreamy meditations, with 
 those clear ringing tones of hers, which 
 always seemed to have the right on their 
 side, so distinct and unwavering were they. 
 
 I could not help trying to comfort Duke, 
 and without thinking, almost involuntarily, 
 “ I understand you, Duke,” I said. 
 
 His face brightened. “ You always under- 
 stand me,” and he took hold of my hand. 
 
 Lady Brydget smiled lovingly. “ But 
 you must not tire Gwynydd now, Duke. 
 Recollect she has been ill for a long time, 
 and must not be tired or excited.” 
 
 Then Duke at once let go my hand, with- 
 out my having time to withdraw it, had I 
 wished to do so, and he leant back, and 
 looked out of the carriage, with a still smile 
 on his face, that I felt almost angry at 
 seeing there, and yet I had been very sorry 
 for him, when I saw him first with his hair 
 so long and ragged, and his clothes hanging 
 loose upon him. I knew so well how it had 
 been with him. 
 
 If I had been labelled “ Glass, with care,” 
 
126 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 Duke could not have been tenderer of me 
 than he was, as he helped me out of the 
 carriage, and gave me his arm to walk into 
 the house. I took his arm gratefully, for 
 though I had tried to look brisk, arriving 
 in brisk, busy London, yet I was really too 
 tired to walk alone ; and then Lady Bryd- 
 get made me take off my hat and jacket, 
 and told me to lie down on the sofa and rest, 
 till some tea was brought to refresh me, 
 and again Duke was most tender of me, 
 trying to arrange the cushions comfortably 
 for me to lie down, and drawing the curtains 
 across the window to shut out the glare. 
 Dear Duke ! he drew them so, that all the 
 light seemed concentrated into one horrid 
 ray, which shone just into my eyes, but I 
 shaded them with my hand, and then I did 
 not seem to feel it. Lady Brydget had 
 gone up stairs to take off her things, and 
 Duke sat down beside me. Now is the 
 time, I thought ; now I must make Duke 
 understand that, though I love him very 
 dearly, as a cousin, I can never marry him, 
 and he must not think I have changed my 
 mind, whatever Lady Brydget may have 
 said in her two notes. I could not think, 
 however, how I ought to begin about it, 
 
BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 127 
 
 since Duke had not again asked me to be 
 his wife, nor said anything to lead me to 
 suppose he was still wishing it, and yet I 
 seemed to know he was, seemed to know, 
 too, by that smile of his, as we drove up to 
 the door, that he was expecting it, counting 
 upon it. I must undeceive him — but how ? 
 My head ached, and the glare was very 
 trying, though my hand did shut it off a 
 little. At last, “You have been unhappy 
 lately, I am afraid, Duke ?” 
 
 “ I don’t remember,” said Duke, with 
 that complacent smile, that always irritated 
 me, looking strangely out of place upon his 
 melancholy features. “ How far is to suffer 
 to be unhappy ?” 
 
 “ Surely it is the same thing,” I said, 
 gravely. I feared Duke was growing 
 mistier than ever in his ideas. 
 
 “ 1 think to suffer is the grandest thing 
 in the world !” cried Duke, enthusiastically. 
 “You liked the Ajax, did you not ? It is 
 grand, it is sublime ! ‘ There is no greatness 
 any greater left, than willingly to bear what 
 must be borne.’ No, there is nothing grander 
 than suffering — except, of course, suffering 
 for the sake of another,” he added, more 
 gravely. 
 
128 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. ' 
 
 “For the sake of another,” I repeated, 
 dreamily. “ Do you say that, too, Duke ?” 
 
 “ Of course, of course,” he replied, sur- 
 prised. “ * Greater love hath no man than 
 this.’ We cannot die for one another, but 
 what can be nobler than to lay down all 
 hopes of happiness for oneself, for the sake 
 of another ? What can show greater love ? 
 How better can we follow our great Master’s 
 example ?” 
 
 There was a pause, during which we 
 neither of us spoke, only there was a rapt 
 expression upon Duke’s face, as if for the 
 moment he had been caught away into a 
 better and a purer region. Of course I could 
 have called him back to earth in a moment 
 by saying, “ Then, dear Duke, you will be 
 content to think of me as nothing more 
 than a cousin all the rest of your life ?” 
 And what could be easier ? It would pain 
 him, of course ; he would have to suffer, 
 dear Duke, but was he not preaching the 
 religion of suffering, and if he preached it, 
 ought he not to be ready to practise it ? 
 He was ready, dear Duke — he was ready, 
 very ready then to suffer, as when had he 
 not been ready to take up the cross in this 
 grave business of life, with which we are 
 
BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 129 
 
 charged, and which we are bounden each 
 one of us to conduct, so as to gain honour 
 thereby, unheeding of the pleasure or the 
 pain ? He was ready to suffer, but I was 
 not ready to strike the blow, now that it was 
 in my own power to do so. I had thought 
 I was, but now I could not pain one I loved 
 so well. “Unstable as water, thou shalt 
 not excel.” 
 
 Duke returned from his rhapsody after a 
 time, and his eyes rested upon my face. 
 “ You look very unhappy, Gwynydd.” 
 
 “ Do you not like to see me look un- 
 happy ? You used to say I was too merry.” 
 “ That was only for a short time,” said 
 Duke, gravely. “ I would rather see you 
 merry again, now.” 
 
 “ But I have been ill, dear Duke — ill for 
 a long time.” 
 
 “ You are better now.” 
 
 “ Yes, better, but I shall never be well 
 again, I think,” I said, speaking my 
 thoughts for the first time to Duke. I 
 had never dared to tell anyone else, that I 
 thought I should never be well again. 
 “You will be patient with me, Duke, will 
 you not ? You will not be vexed with me 
 if I do not get well ?” 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 Duke looked at me very gravely. Some- 
 how it seemed to me, that his face had 
 gained in expression, since we had last been 
 together. I had not noticed it at first, but 
 I noticed it now, as he looked at me search- 
 ingly, as the Duke of old times could never 
 have looked. “ I would be very patient/' 
 he said, “ but — ” and there he broke off, 
 and began again in a lighter tone, that 
 sounded almost as if it -were meant to be 
 playful, “ Your being ill may try your own 
 patience, but I do not see how it should 
 try mine. I hope you will get well for 
 your own sake, but for me it will always be 
 my happiness to be with you, whether you 
 are well or ill.” 
 
 Dear Duke, his attempt at playfulness 
 soon faded into earnestness. 
 
 I might have said, “ But it will not be 
 mine,” but I think it would have been un- 
 kind, and worse than flippant, besides being 
 hardly true, for I loved Duke very dearly, 
 and my nearest approach to happiness for 
 many a long day had been meeting him but 
 now, and hearing his familiar tones again. 
 As it was, I said something very different. 
 I do not know what possessed me, but I 
 
BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 131 
 
 said, “ Do you love me as much as ever, 
 Duke ?” 
 
 “ More than ever,” said Duke, solemnly. 
 Then he bent forward, and kissed my fore- 
 head. He had never kissed me, since we 
 had both been children together. As we had 
 grown up, we had put away that custom, as 
 we had put away our childish games, but it 
 did not seem strange to me then to be 
 kissed by him, it did not recall Adrian 
 Levison’s kiss, rather my father’s, when he 
 had said, “ Greater wonders than that have 
 come to pass, my daughter,” and had blessed 
 me. That wonder would come to pass now, 
 I supposed, and I thought how my father 
 would be pleased, and everyone. Oh, how 
 selfish I had been ! Truly there was nothing 
 nobler than laying down all one’s own hope 
 of happiness for the sake of another. Duke 
 said so, and everyone, and I had always had 
 a great respect for Duke’s opinion. 
 
 “ You will be patient with me, Duke,” I 
 said. “ You will not be vexed, if I cannot 
 grow merry and well again ?” 
 
 “ Have I been so very impatient, Gwy- 
 nydd ?” he asked, pleadingly. “ I thought 
 
 I had been patient. I meant ” 
 
 Then l^ady Brydget came in, and Duke 
 
 9—2 
 
132 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 stopped short in what he was saying. 
 Lady Brydget smiled softly, as she earne in, 
 and looked at ns both, and she came and 
 stroked my hair lovingly from my face. 
 “ Gwynydd looks better already, I think. 
 We must make her quite well, before we let 
 her go back to the Deanery, must we not, 
 Duke ?” 
 
 “ She has been ill a long time. She must 
 take her own time about getting well,” said 
 Duke, slowly. 
 
 Lady Brydget looked at him, surprised, 
 then, as she moved away, she saw that 
 the sun, which she had obstructed for 
 a moment, was now shining full upon 
 my face, and she began adjusting 'the 
 curtains. 
 
 Duke got up uneasily. “ I thought I 
 had arranged them.” 
 
 “ So that the sun should shine exactly 
 into Gwvnyad’s eyes,” said Lady Brydget, 
 playfully. 
 
 “ I am so sorry. Why did you not tell 
 me, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 Poor Duke ! he w r as far more distressed, 
 than if I had asked him to draw the cur- 
 tains differently in the original instance.. 
 It might have been a warning to me, but of 
 
BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 133 
 
 course it was not. “ I did not mind it,” I 
 said, apologetically. 
 
 Then the tea came, and then — and then — 
 I know at last I went to bed, and when I 
 did so I stood at the window, and looked 
 out at the stars — the same stars I had 
 looked out at once before, when I did not 
 wonder that they twinkled, if only because 
 of my own misery and despair. I was not 
 despairing now. I stood there, upright and 
 resolute, and looked out into the night. 
 “ I am to be Duke’s wife,” I said to myself. 
 “ It is settled ; there is no drawing back 
 now.” After all, being Duke’s wife would 
 not be so very different from being his 
 cousin, I considered ; only there was the 
 marriage service to go through, first. I 
 thought, perhaps, I would rather be married 
 by a civil marriage, but I knew that was 
 impossible ; so after a few minutes I sat 
 down, and took up my Prayer Book, and read 
 the whole marriage service through from be- 
 ginning to end. After that I had no more 
 difficulties at all. Whether we were married 
 or not, Duke and I must always try to be a 
 help and comfort “to each other in prosperity 
 and adversity,” and as to the vows I should 
 have to make — why, I did love and honour 
 
134 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 Duke. There could be no doubt about that, 
 and I should be very glad to obey him 
 always in everything, only I knew Duke a 
 great deal too well to think I should ever 
 have any opportunity of doing that. I 
 knew he would never order me to do any- 
 thing. He had astonished me once for all 
 by asking one thing of me — asking me to 
 be his wife. Well, I was going to be his 
 wife, and he was not likely to astonish me 
 again by asking anything else so great. I 
 did not know what he could ask me so 
 great. Anyhow I was only his cousin now, 
 and it seemed I was ready to do this great 
 thing he had asked of me. Probably I 
 should be at least equally ready when I was 
 his wife. 
 
 It was all settled now. He had not said 
 anything, and I had not said anything. I 
 moved a little uneasily, as I recollected all 
 that I had meant to say, but it was all 
 settled now, and I had read the marriage 
 service, and found no difficulty in it. There 
 was no need for me to insist upon being 
 married by a civil marriage. That would 
 have been necessary, had I been going to 
 marry Adrian Levison, but I might be 
 married at St. Margaret’s now, in the pre- 
 
BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 135 
 
 sence of all the congregation, and the only 
 matter for anxiety would be, whether the 
 choir were in tune together, not whether 
 my vows were true or not. They would 
 be true, and they would be kept, with 
 God’s help. I would be a good wife to 
 Duke, and Adrian Levison would become 
 a Christian, Would he marry, too, I 
 wondered. It was the first time such an 
 idea had ever presented itself to my mind, 
 and I put it away from me at once, and 
 buried my face in my pillow and thought 
 of Duke. Then I soon fell asleep, but 
 I dreamed of Adrian Levison — dreamed 
 only that he had come to call, and talked 
 about the weather, and about politics — the 
 talk of a morning call, but dreamed of him 
 all the same. When I awoke I was very 
 angry with myself, and felt as if I had 
 been guilty of some injustice to Duke, in 
 thus dreaming of another man than the 
 one who was to be my husband. So I was 
 kinder than ever to him all the next day, 
 and Lady Brydget left us a good deal 
 alone together ; but when the night came, 
 again I dreamed of Adrian Levison. I felt 
 as if it must be being in London, that made 
 me do so. I had never dreamt of him all 
 
136 
 
 BACK IN LONDON. 
 
 the time I had been in Switzerland, so I 
 begged Lady Brydget to let me leave 
 London, and after a little discussing of the 
 pros and cons, it was settled that I should 
 go to Castle Jerninghame, not yet to the 
 Deanery — not yet. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LAST OF BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 “ In a drear y-nigbted December, 
 
 Too happy, happy tree, 
 
 Thy branches ne’er remember 
 Their green felicity.” 
 
 Keats. 
 
 That stay at Castle Jerninghame was not 
 very long. Duke had to go back to Oxford 
 after a few days, and then Lady Brydget 
 pronounced, that it was much too dull for 
 me to stay alone there with her, and I 
 went home, whilst she went to stay with 
 her brother, the Duke of , and in- 
 
 spect her beautiful niece, Adelaide, who 
 was to create such a sensation next season. 
 Nevertheless, my stay at Castle Jerninghame 
 had had its effect, though I did not realise 
 it till afterwards, when the county neigh- 
 
138 
 
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 hours came to congratulate my mother on 
 the prospect of her daughter’s soon becom- 
 ing Lady Jerninghame, as of course the en- 
 gagement must now be considered an- 
 nounced, since I had gone to the Castle 
 instead of returning home at once after my 
 absence abroad. However, that made no 
 difference to me. Other girls might jilt 
 and be jilted, as I knew was only too much 
 the case, but a Jerninghame could not go 
 back from her given word, even when that 
 word had never been spoken, only implied. 
 I did not feel myself one jot more bound, 
 because all the county knew of my engage- 
 ment. Only to some girls it might have 
 made a difference. 
 
 My father and my mother and my pretty 
 little sister had all been over to the Castle 
 to see me, before I went home, and at first, 
 when she saw the change my illness had 
 caused in me, my mother had been very 
 tearful and more loving, than she had ever 
 been to me, kind, tender mother though 
 she had always been. 
 
 “ My dear child, if I had only known, I 
 should have come to you long ago ; if I had 
 only known how ill you were.” 
 
 My father said the same, only Brydget 
 
BRYDGET JERN1NGHAME. 
 
 139 
 
 treated my illness as nothing, and said, laugh- 
 ingly, “ Oh, Gwynydd was always grave 
 and pale. It is only because you have not 
 seen her for so long, you think that she is 
 changed. I believe you had grown to fancy 
 she was something like me.” But Brydget’s 
 own face was very grave, when a few minutes 
 afterwards she sank down in her old childish 
 position on the floor beside me, and resting 
 her face on my knees, looked up into my 
 eyes. 
 
 “ Dear Brydget, you are very happy V I 
 asked. 
 
 “ And you, Gwynydd ?” she said, gravely, 
 without replying to my question. 
 
 “ Have I not everything to make me 
 happy ?” I replied. 
 
 “No !” said she, but then my father came 
 into the room, and immediately she sprang 
 up from the floor and ran away into the 
 garden, from which she presently returned 
 with a whole handful of roses. “ Since 
 everyone declares poor Gwen wants them 
 so much,” she said, and proceeded to make 
 merry over my pale cheeks, till I really 
 believe she almost persuaded my father and 
 mother they were imaginary. 
 
 When I got back to the Deanery among 
 
140 
 
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 all the old familiar books and prints again, I 
 began once more the old life I had left off on 
 going to London, and no longer acted as an 
 invalid. Certainly I lay on the sofa more 
 than I had been used to do, and I was 
 always very tired as bedtime drew near, 
 but hardly anyone could have noticed much 
 difference, and people ceased to believe that 
 I was ill. One night there was a dinner- 
 party, and among the guests was that 
 brusque London doctor, who had said that 
 I should never get well. He was a man of 
 some note, and as he had come down to St. 
 Margaret’s, my father had at once asked 
 him to dinner ; for as my father had few 
 opportunities for making the acquaintance 
 of superior men in other places, he never 
 neglected those which came in his way at St. 
 Margaret’s. The old doctor sat next me at 
 dinner, and afterwards, when he came to 
 talk to me in the drawing-room, I could not 
 resist saying to him, “ You said I should 
 never get really better.” 
 
 “ Did 1 ? I don’t recollect telling you 
 so.” 
 
 “ No, you did not tell me so, but I heard 
 you say it all the same. You think so still, 
 do you not ?” 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 141 
 
 “ Why, you seem very well now, are not 
 you ? People are never satisfied. Do you 
 want to get better still ?” 
 
 “ No,” I said, “ I am quite content ; but 
 you said I might rally, but only for a time. 
 Do you still think I shall die soon V 
 
 “ I never said you would die soon,” he 
 replied, testily. “ Depend upon it, my 
 dear young lady, you’ll be called away, 
 when the time comes, neither sooner nor 
 later.” 
 
 “ But you think it will be soon V I per- 
 sisted. 
 
 “ Oh, so you wish to die ?” said he, turn- 
 ing his sharp twinkling eyes full upon me, 
 and looking fixedly at me from under his 
 heavy brows. 
 
 “ No, no,” I said, faintly. “ How should 
 
 I wish to die, when I have so much ” 
 
 and my voice stuck in my throat as I 
 glanced round the room, and saw my father 
 and Brydget, and thought how they would 
 feel at losing me. 
 
 “ And very thankful you are for all your 
 blessings,” growled the old doctor. “ Do 
 you count them over every night, before you 
 go to bed, for fear you should forget them, 
 and so fail to be properly thankful ? I have 
 
142 
 
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 known people do that before now. No ? 
 Well, you’d better not, perhaps ; might 
 keep you awake too late, there’d be so 
 many of them,” and so saying, he got up, 
 and went to the further end of the room, 
 and never came near me any more that 
 evening. I felt vexed with myself, fearing 
 I had been unmannerly in asking what he 
 might consider his medical opinion, and 
 that I had thus offended him, but I had 
 been asking his opinion as a friend. He 
 had been the first person to give me the 
 idea I might die soon, and I felt as if he 
 were a real friend ; besides, he had been 
 very kind to me during dinner. I felt the 
 more vexed with myself, that I seemed to 
 have failed in politeness towards him, be- 
 cause in a general way I thought my stay 
 in London had improved me, and indeed 
 once or twice I had heard people saying so. 
 Even that night I heard something of the 
 kind. ‘ 
 
 “ It has done Miss Jerninghame a great 
 deal of good seeing more society,” said one 
 old lady to another ; “ she used to move 
 about, as if she had got a poker down her 
 back, and now ” 
 
 “ She floats about like a lovely cloud,” 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 143 
 
 said one of the Canons, who overheard her, 
 and then he started on looking up and see- 
 ing me just beside him, “ and as silently,” 
 he added, smiling ; “it seems it is not 
 always the case, that listeners hear no good 
 of themselves.” 
 
 “ Were you speaking of me ?” I asked. 
 It seemed so strange to be spoken of as a 
 lovely cloud, that I could hardly believe he 
 had meant it. 
 
 Every now and then there was some talk 
 of my being married to Duke, but I always 
 shrank back from any suggestion of the 
 kind, and pleaded that, as Brydget had 
 been engaged first, so she ought to be mar- 
 ried first also, and partly because of my 
 saying this so often, and partly because of 
 George Lumley’s impatience, it was at last 
 settled that they should be married in the 
 spring, and so in the spring the house was 
 full of people, and Lady Brydget came 
 down to the Castle (Duke was to have 
 come, also, but he was at last reading for 
 honours, and I begged him not to come), 
 and Uncle Basset and Aunt Barbara came 
 the day beforehand, Uncle Basset very full 
 of politics, and we all knew that it was the 
 last day of our darling Brydget’s maiden life 
 
144 
 
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 Dear little Brydget ! she hardly stirred 
 from my mother’s side on that last day, 
 and as to coming near me, for several days 
 she had never done that, so I was left to 
 entertain the visitors, and make them all 
 feel themselves at home. Aunt Barbara 
 was most satisfactory in this respect, she 
 chose out the most comfortable chair in the 
 room, and drawing it near the fire, and 
 establishing herself with a cup of tea, pro- 
 ceeded to pour out all the news she could 
 think of about all the people I had met, or 
 might have met in London the year before, 
 and whom she had recently been meeting 
 again, for she had already been in town for 
 a month before coming to the Deanery. It 
 was 1 then she told me about Miss Valpy’s 
 engagement, and how pleased every one 
 was, and then as she went on to tell me 
 about a lot more mutual acquaintance, 
 Uncle Basset said, 
 
 “ Have you seen Levison’s new pamphlet, 
 
 ‘ Our Currency V ” Then as I looked con- 
 fused, I suppose, “ You remember Levison, 
 dofl’t you V 
 
 “ Y es — ye — es,” I faltered out. 
 
 “ I see the London papers are full of it 
 to-day, and no wonder, the best-written 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 145 
 
 tiling for many a long day ; and depend 
 upon it, Miss Gwynydd, it is all very well 
 for poets to say 
 
 “ ‘ The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest, 
 The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless, 
 
 The last corruption of degenerate man.’ 
 
 But that currency question is an important 
 one, and always will be, and by no means 
 an unworthy subject for a man of note to 
 gather fresh laurels from, and a man of 
 note Levison unquestionably is. I had a 
 long chat with him in the Bow the other 
 day, just one of those fine bright days you 
 used so to enjoy last season. Do you re- 
 collect wondering what all the people went 
 there for every day, eh, Gwynydd?” 
 
 “Yes,” I said, resolutely; and if I ever 
 looked as if I had a poker down my back, I 
 think I must have looked so then. “ What 
 did Mr. Levison say, when you met him the 
 other day ? Anything worthy of a man of 
 note ?” 
 
 “ Oh, just as usual,” said my uncle, 
 hardly noticing the question. “ He was 
 not a friend of yours, was he ? No, I re- 
 member you never took to him. It always 
 surprised me ; I should have thought he 
 VOL. II. 10 
 
146 
 
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 would just have suited you ; but you see 
 you and Brydget were both pre-occupied. 
 And now, when is your marriage to be ? 
 Long engagements are quite out of date, as 
 Bab there will tell you. She is the autho- 
 rity for the fashions always.” 
 
 “ My dear Basset, don’t talk as if I were 
 a modern Lady Teazle,” said Aunt Bar- 
 bara, breaking off in a description of a 
 drawing-room, which she was pouring into 
 her next neighbour’s ear, and handing my 
 uncle her cup to put down. 
 
 “ I never concern myself about the 
 fashions,” I said, with dignity. “ Did 
 you tell Mr. Levison you were coming 
 here ?” 
 
 “ I don’t remember if we mentioned your 
 name at all. Yes, now I think of it, he did 
 ask if you were any better, and said he had 
 been sorry to hear of your illness, and I 
 told him how that was all over, and you 
 were to marry your cousin Duke, and be as 
 happy as the day is long.” 
 
 “ Did he seem surprised ?” 
 
 “ Surprised ! no, why should he ? He 
 said he had heard something of the kind 
 before, but had not been sure if it were 
 true, as he had been seeing a good deal of 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 147 
 
 Duke lately, and Duke had never men- 
 tioned it.” 
 
 “ Seeing a good deal of Duke lately, has 
 he?” 
 
 “ Yes ; but you seem to take an uncom- 
 mon interest in Levison to-day. I recollect 
 one day last season you were hardly civil 
 to him, when he came into my study. I 
 always meant to speak to you about it, for 
 I did not know if you were conscious how 
 very cool your manner was — really rude, 
 as much as a lady can be. I half thought 
 at the time he must have offended you.” 
 
 “ Yes, he had offended me,” I said. 
 
 “ Offended you ! why, what had he 
 done ?” 
 
 “ Oh, nothing !” I exclaimed, hurriedly, 
 suddenly awakened to a knowledge of what 
 I had been saying by my uncle’s astonished 
 expression. “ Did I say he had offended 
 me ? I did not mean it. Of course not — 
 of course — such a friend of yours, too ! I — 
 I mean, such a high opinion as you always 
 had of him. I — I hope he is quite well, 
 and as happy as the day is long.” 
 
 My uncle stared at me. “ I don’t know 
 about his being well. He is a great deal 
 changed. They say he is going to be mar- 
 
 10—2 
 
3 48 
 
 THE LAST OF 
 
 ried soon to a cousin of his own, a great 
 beauty, but I don’t know if it is true. He 
 did not say anything about it, but then I 
 believe it has been arranged for years, so 
 that it is not so unnatural.” 
 
 I left the room somehow, left the room, 
 and went up stairs, and then I dragged 
 myself to my bed, and when I had dragged 
 myself there, fell prostrate. When I 
 came to myself, Brydget was dashing 
 cold water in my face, and her first words 
 were : 
 
 “ Oh, Gwen ! Gwen ! I will not be mar- 
 ried, if you cannot bear it.” 
 
 “ Cannot bear what, my darling ?” but 
 Brydget only twined her arms about me, 
 and said, “ Dear, dear Gwen, if I could but 
 see you happy ! You, who are so good, 
 must surely be happy some day.” 
 
 “ Hush, hush, darling. I am not good 
 at all. Oh, Brydget, sometimes I believe 
 I am very, very wicked.” 
 
 “ I do not,” said Brydget, “ and I believe 
 you will be happy some day. You must, 
 when you make Duke so happy, as I know 7 
 you will.” 
 
 “ Duke must learn to do without me. I 
 shall never live to be his wife.” 
 
BRYDGET JERYINGHAME. 
 
 149 
 
 “ Then Duke must die, too, for it would 
 break his heart to lose you now.” 
 
 “ Do you think so, Brydget ?” 
 
 “ Yes, I am sure of it, and you know it, 
 too,” said Brydget. “ Sometimes I believe, 
 if he did not love you so much, you would 
 love him more. Do you love him, 
 Gwynydd V 
 
 And I looked into my darling’s loving 
 trustful eyes, and said, “ Yes, I do love 
 him, Brydget, dearly.” 
 
 Brydget looked at me very earnestly for 
 a long time, then she said, “ If you loved 
 him, you would be ready to marry him, 
 Gwynydd.” 
 
 “ So I am ready,” I said, turning my 
 face away ; “ but my father and mother 
 should not lose us both at once.” 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” said Brydget, putting her 
 soft cheek against mine, “ is it right to tell 
 stories ?” 
 
 “No, it is not right. Nothing is right,” 
 I said, bitterly. 
 
 “ Ob, dear Gwynydd, do not say that, 
 please ; it is so dreadful.” 
 
 “Yes, dreadful.” 
 
 My voice startled myself, it sounded like 
 a dismal echo of Brydget’s, such a very 
 
150 
 
 THE LAST OF 
 
 dismal echo, as from a deserted tomb, un- 
 opened for ages, perhaps since the Christian 
 era, and still saddened by the drearily 
 flitting ghost of some old heathen warrior. 
 
 “ Gwen,” said Brydget, standing beside 
 me in all the pride of her youth and beauty, 
 a sweet matronly look already softening 
 the fair white brow, and for a moment 
 steadying the shimmer of her eyes. 
 “ Gwen, if ycu love some one else, not 
 Duke, ycu will be doing very wrong in 
 ever marrying him ; and then it is true, 
 nothing will ever be right for you again, 
 for all your life will be untrue. Oh believe 
 me, Gwynydd, believe me, to whom God 
 has been so kind, that He has granted to 
 me to marry the man I love and the man 
 who loves me ; believe me there is nothing 
 holier than marriage, when two people love 
 one another, but — oh, Gwynydd, you do 
 love Duke, do you not? You are not 
 thinking of marrying him without V 
 
 I had never seen Brydget so earnest 
 before, never heard the plaything of us all 
 speak so solemnly ; but I did not think of 
 this then. I sat upon the bed, resting my 
 chin on my hands, and staring straight in 
 front of me, as if I were some stick or 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 151 
 
 stone, that Brydget might talk at, till she 
 was tired, but could never put life into. 
 
 “ Gwen — dear Gwen — speak to me — you 
 are not angry with me, are you ? Speak 
 to me. Do you not love Duke V’ 
 
 “ I don’t know,” at last I said. 
 
 “ You don’t know,” cried Brydget 
 aghast. Then with a sudden resolution, 
 and clasping my hands in hers, as if deter- 
 mined to arrest my attention. “ If you do 
 not know, indeed, indeed you do not love 
 him, Gwynydd. If you loved him the least 
 little bit in the world, you could never say 
 ‘ I don’t know ’ in that way. Oh, 
 Gwynydd, promise me you will never marry 
 him, if you do not love him. Indeed — in- 
 deed it would be doing wrong, and it 
 would be far better to break his heart, even 
 if it did, and I dare say it would not, for 
 Duke would be very patient, he is very 
 patient ” 
 
 “ I do not know what you are talking 
 about,” I interrupted, stroking back my 
 hair from my face, as if my head were hot 
 and burdened, as indeed it was, “ and I 
 don’t think you do either. I am engaged 
 to marry Duke, and I do love him, and I 
 will not have him pained either by me, or 
 
152 
 
 THE LAST OF 
 
 by any one else. I will marry him — only 
 not yet — not yet,” I moaned out. Then 
 suddenly regaining control of myself, I rose 
 up from the bed, and kissed Brydget. 
 “ You are a silly little thing, my darling,” 
 I said. “ Because you don’t love Duke 
 yourself, but George Lumley, who is very 
 different, you think no one else can love 
 Duke either. I was ill, when you came in 
 first — and startled — and I did not quite 
 know what you were saying.” 
 
 The words were drawn out from me as 
 by an effort. 
 
 “ George is very different from Duke 
 certainly,” said Brydget, slowly ; “ but 
 George is quite perfect for me. I should 
 not at all care about his being any cleverer. 
 I should not like him to be as wise as Duke, 
 he would be too wise for me then,” and the 
 tears stood in her sweet, loving eyes. 
 
 “ He is best as he is,” said I, smiling ; 
 “ he is just made for you, and you for him, 
 and he is quite perfect, as you say, only for 
 me, I prefer Duke, you see.” 
 
 “ But do you prefer him ? Is there no 
 one else ?” 
 
 “ Brydget, are you sure there is no one 
 else you love better than George ?” 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 153 
 
 “ Gwen, you must be joking,” cried 
 Brydget, her cheeks on fire, and her eyes 
 blazing. 
 
 “Not any more than you were just now, 
 my darling.” 
 
 “ Oh Gwen, Gwen, how silly I have 
 been,” cried Brydget, hiding her face on 
 my shoulder. 
 
 “Very silly, my pet. It is time you 
 should grow wiser, now you are so soon to 
 be a married woman. It will not do for a 
 wife, however young, to have such foolish 
 fancies.” 
 
 Then Brydget put up her face, like the 
 child she was, to be kissed and forgiven ; 
 and next day she married George Lumley, 
 and went away from us all, forsaking her 
 own people, that henceforward she might 
 cleave to him, and him only. 
 
 “Well, you know it is all nonsense 
 people saying that sort of thing. It is 
 only the sort of humbug, that is always 
 talked at weddings ; but you must own 
 that there never was such a pretty bride as 
 Brydget,” said George Lumley to me, 
 before the two said good-bye to us all, and 
 went away into the world together. 
 
 “ No, never,” I said, tearfully, “ and 
 
154 
 
 THE LAST OF 
 
 there never has been such a good wife 
 either, as she will be to you.” 
 
 “ I believe you,” cried he, enthusiasti- 
 cally. “ How can you all forgive me for 
 taking her away ? I am sure it is awfully 
 good of you. No, you must give me a kiss 
 to show you don’t bear malice. You know 
 yoii’ve- never had a brother before, but I’m 
 your brother now. Now, my own darling, 
 we really must be going. Good-bye to you, 
 Dean. Oh, you don’t know how grateful I 
 am to you all. Oh, my dear Brydget, please 
 don’t cry,” and George Lumley nearly cried 
 himself at seeing her tears, and was only 
 saved by Brydget’s turning round a beam- 
 ing though still tear-stained face upon him, 
 and then tearing herself from my mother’s 
 loving embrace, and jumping into the car- 
 riage without waiting for any one to help 
 her, after which she apparently devoted 
 her whole attention to the arrangement of 
 her dress, thus hiding her emotion. 
 
 My father bent over her to give her his 
 farewell blessing, and Brydget smiled a last 
 greeting at us all. Then suddenly she 
 caught sight of me. “ Gwen ! Gwen !” she 
 called out. She had said good-bye to us 
 all ever so many times, but she now 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 155 
 
 stretched out her arms, and as I went to 
 her, and leant into the carriage, she drew 
 my face down to a level with her own. 
 “ Do, do he as happy as I am. Do, please — 
 for Brydget’s sake, Gwen, if for nothing 
 else.” Then she drove off, smiling through 
 her tears, George Lurnley swelling with 
 pride, as he sat beside her. 
 
 “ There go two young people who’ll make 
 no troubles for themselves. God grant 
 there may not be many made for them,” 
 said the old Bishop, who had married 
 them. 
 
 “ My Gwynydd, I don’t wish to lose you, 
 but I wish I could see you as happy,” said 
 my mother, through her tears, fondling my 
 hand in hers as she spoke. 
 
 “ Now the next thing is your wedding, 
 Gwynydd,” said Aunt Barbara, yawning. 
 “ Do make haste, for I am dying to get a 
 salmon-coloured watteau, and that would 
 be just the thing for it.” 
 
 “It is not so much the question what is 
 to be done about our currency, as — ” said 
 Uncle Basset, going on with his conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 “ Oh — ah !” said my father, “ that pam- 
 phlet to be sure ! Yes, I read it last night, 
 
156 
 
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 the closest bit of reasoning I have seen for 
 a long time. Well ! it is very nice to see 
 a young man really in love, certainly, but I 
 must say I do like to meet with a man, now 
 and then, whose whole heart is in his 
 work.” 
 
 “ That is quite the case with Levison,” 
 replied Uncle Basset. “Not the sort of 
 fellow one can ever fancy being in love. 
 Indeed, in talking about anything serious 
 to him, one almost forgets he is young, he 
 is — ” 
 
 “ Gwynydd, dearest, has this been too 
 much for you ?” and Lady Brydget’s arm 
 was passed round me. “ Come, and take a 
 turn with me in the garden, the fresh air will 
 revive you. Poor Duke ! his heart has 
 been here to-day, though he could not come 
 himself. It was very good of him to stay 
 away at his work, was it riot ? But he 
 would do anything for you, and we shall 
 see him some day a great man against his 
 will, shall we not, now ? I trust to you to 
 urge him on, dearest, that is all he needs, 
 is it not ? If he had but a little ambition !” 
 and Lady Brydget sighed gently. 
 
 “ He would never be so really great, as 
 he is now in his beautiful humility.” 
 
BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 157 
 
 “ Right, as usual, dear Gwynydd. It is 
 indeed a beautiful humility. What other 
 young man in Duke’s position would think 
 as little of himself as he does ?” 
 
 “ It is absurd to compare him with other 
 men,” said I, hotly. Somehow I was ruffled 
 by Lady Brydget’s praise. “ There is no one 
 the least like him.” 
 
 “ No, there is no one,” said Lady Brydget, 
 proudly. She looked like an empress, 
 walking along the lawn, in her rich lace and 
 satin. I held my head higher, that I might 
 look worthy of my future mother-in-law, as 
 we turned and entered the drawing-room 
 together. 
 
 “ * Gleam of satin and shimmer of pearl !’ 
 My dear Lady Brydget, you seem sent to 
 teach us how heaven loves colour, 
 
 “ ‘ How great nature clearly joys in red and green ; — 
 What sweet thoughts she thinks 
 Of violets and pinks, 
 
 And a thousand flushing hues made solely to be 
 seen!”’ 
 
 “ Gallant as ever, Lord Basset, but I 
 trust I am not dressed in anything so fright- 
 ful — for a dress, as red and green.” 
 
 “No, indeed, you are like a magnificent 
 crimson cactus flower.” 
 
158 THE LAST OF BRYDGET JERNINGHAME. 
 
 “ And what is Gwynydd like V asked 
 Lady Brydget, lightly. “ Have you nothing 
 pretty to say about her ?” 
 
 “That orbed maiden, with white fire-laden, 
 whom mortals call the moon,” hummed 
 Uncle Basset to himself, then he broke 
 out with, “ The cheeks pale tinge, the lids 
 dark fringe, That lies like a shadow there, 
 were beautiful in the sight of all — ” 
 
 “ Hush ! hush ! my dear Lord Basset, 
 she was dead you know,” cried Lady Bryd- 
 get, quite disconcerted. “ You are quoting 
 from Mrs. Norton’s beautiful poem of ‘ The 
 Mourners.’ ” 
 
 “ No — no — was I ? Oh ! ah ! I am sure 
 I don’t know — I was thinking — ” but Uncle 
 Basset was also much disconcerted by the 
 coincidence, if such it may be called, and so 
 much so, that he could think of no more 
 quotations for the time. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 “ Si j’^tais charge de classer les miseres humaines ? 
 je le ferais dans cette ordre : 1. Les maladies ; 2. La 
 mort ; 3. Le doute .” — De Tocqueville. 
 
 “ He therefore that will be saved, must thus 
 think of the Trinity. — This is the Catholic 
 faith, which, except a man believe faith- 
 fully, he cannot be saved.” How beautiful 
 Tallis’s chants are, and especially that one, I 
 had always loved it from a child, “ Grlory be 
 to the Father,” etc. I was always sorry, 
 when it was over, and yet I did not like 
 the Athanasian creed. 
 
 “ Do you believe the Church’s doctrine 
 to be narrow or broad, father ?” I asked, as 
 a conversation about the errors of the day 
 between my father and one of the Canons, 
 having dragged itself along its weary length, 
 at last appeared to have arrived at a sorrow- 
 ful full stop. 
 
160 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 “ The broadest possible,” replied my 
 father, unhesitatingly. “ Is not its catho- 
 licity only qualified by its holiness ?” 
 
 “ That is in the Apostles’ creed,” I said. 
 “ In that called after St. Athanasius there 
 is nothing said of its holiness, but though 
 three times ‘ the Catholic faith ’ is spoken 
 of—” 
 
 “ Surely that creed is no difficulty to you, 
 Gwynydd ? Sometimes I wish it were dis- 
 used, for of late it seems to have become 
 more of a stumbling block than a help, 
 but I hoped that you understood it 
 rightly.” 
 
 The Canon pricked up his ears on hearing, 
 what he evidently considered such an un- 
 orthodox wish, from the lips of the Dean of 
 St. Margaret’s, “ the most upright pillar of 
 our Church,” and the next Sunday he 
 preached upon the Athanasian creed, taking 
 as his text, “ And many false prophets shall 
 arise, and shall deceive many. And because 
 iniquity shall abound, the love of many 
 shall wax cold but preaching really upon 
 the Athanasian creed, and what he called 
 the accursed spirit of unbelief, raging in 
 these latter days, and ever seeking whom 
 it may devour. 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 161 
 
 “ That is the sort of sermon that makes 
 infidels,” said mj father, as we came away 
 from church. “ I was always sorry when 
 that man came among us — I shall preach 
 myself on the same subject next Sun- 
 day.” 
 
 So on the following Sunday my father 
 also preached on the Athanasian creed, and 
 took for his text, “ Him that is weak in the 
 faith receive ye, but not to doubtful dispu- 
 tations,” and he finished his sermon with 
 the words, “ For we know in part and we 
 prophesy in part. But when that which is 
 perfect is come, then that which is in part 
 shall be done away. And now abide faith, 
 hope, charity ; but the greatest of these is 
 charity.” The italics, of course, are my fa- 
 ther s. 
 
 “ Dear father,” I whispered, as we left 
 the Cathedral together, “ I like that sermon 
 better than any I have ever heard you 
 preach before,” and I was quite glad when 
 one or two people, who had hung back from 
 the rest of the congregation, came forward 
 and thanked Mr. Dean for his very excel- 
 lent discourse. 
 
 “ If a few more clergymen preached like 
 you, sir, we should not have so many dis- 
 
 VO L. II. 1 1 
 
162 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 senters,” said one shopkeeper, respectfully 
 touching his hat. 
 
 “ My dear friend, the way is very narrow, 
 hut the gate has not been left ajar ; it is 
 wide open, and I trust in God, that there 
 will be people found to have gone in 
 thereat, who would be astonished now, were 
 they told they were walking the same 
 path.” 
 
 “ Then have you hope for the Papists, 
 too, Mr. Dean ?” 
 
 “ The greatest of these is charity. I have 
 hope for all men ; but I fear most for those, 
 who deny hope to others,” said my father, 
 firmly. 
 
 “ Have you hope for the Jews, father ?” 
 I asked, timidly. 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” said my father, almost 
 sternly, “you are too fond of questions of 
 that sort. I will answer you in the words 
 of a poet who is, I believe, very popular 
 with the young people of this generation. 
 
 ‘ We have but faith, we cannot know.’ I 
 have no hope for those who forsake the 
 light; there may be hope for those also, 
 but I have none. Only for those who are 
 ;born without faith I have hope and pity ; 
 ■but the Jews are an accursed people.” 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 163 
 
 I asked no more questions ; only, as we 
 reached the Deanery, I said, 
 
 “ De Tocqueville calls a state of doubt 
 the most insupportable of all the evils of this 
 world. Why are we, then, to be for ever 
 exposed to it from the beginning of our 
 lives to the end ?” 
 
 My father looked at me very gravely as 
 he answered, 
 
 “ People are fond now of calling in 
 question the truths of the Old Testament, 
 and explaining it away as a collection of 
 old legends, such as might naturally spring 
 up among any primitive people. There 
 is nothing that better proves the truth 
 of it, to my mind, than the undiminished 
 power of that old temptation held out by 
 the serpent to Eve. When German pro- 
 fessors make poor jokes about the world 
 being lost through an apple, they would be 
 better employed, to my mind, in fighting 
 against that very temptation, that always 
 seems to spring up, Phoenix-like, from its 
 own ashes. ‘ Do this or that called wrong, 
 refuse to believe this or that, that is bind- 
 ing, and your eyes shall be opened, and ye 
 shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ 
 Oh, my daughter, God never meant to 
 
 11—2 
 
164 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 make us gods ; He made us men and 
 women, and he has put us into a garden of 
 Eden, if we would but see it ; hut one re- 
 striction He has laid upon us, and that is, 
 that in this life we shall never know. Only 
 we may believe : and may God grant to us 
 all the strength to believe, and to resist all 
 the devil’s temptations to leap over our 
 boundaries. We shall gain nothing by 
 yielding, only flounder more and more in 
 that Sea of Despond, to which Doubt leads 
 more surely than anything. Let us all 
 pray that we may be delivered from that 
 danger. Want of Faith is still generally 
 esteemed a sin, but I think it is too often 
 forgotten that Faith itself is a gift of God, 
 to be obtained, not by our own efforts 
 alone, but by God’s grace, and that we 
 can only hope for by earnest and fervent 
 prayer.” 
 
 Then my father bent and kissed me 
 solemnly, as he always did everything, and, 
 with my face wet with tears, I ran away to 
 my own room, and knelt in earnest and 
 fervent prayer for God’s grace. “ Lord, I 
 believe ; help thou mine unbelief.” 
 
 When I met my father again, I knew 
 that he had been praying for me also, and 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 165 
 
 I think his prayers were answered. My 
 faith had been slipping further and further 
 from me of late. Somehow the want of 
 faith in others had become a sore stumbling- 
 block to me ; and then Adrian Levison 
 seemed to me the most earnest man I had 
 known for long — had ever known, indeed — 
 and he did not believe what I had been 
 accustomed to believe. Could it be true, 
 then ? Could my Belief be a true Belief? 
 How it might have been with me had I 
 consented to become his wife, I can never 
 know now ; but as it was, his want of faith 
 in my Faith was a sore trial to me, not 
 only for him, but for myself also. However 
 wide open that gate might be by which we 
 might all of us enter, I knew that he had 
 not entered by it ; and yet, if ever man 
 were walking the narrow road that leads 
 on high, surely he was walking it. “ Faith 
 without works is dead,” but what of works 
 without faith ? are they dead also ? Some- 
 times it seemed to me that I had made a 
 great sacrifice for my Faith — resigned what 
 most I prized — and that, after all, this 
 sacrifice had been uncalled for — that Jew 
 and Christian would alike meet hereafter 
 in the kingdom of heaven, and that there- 
 
166 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 fore there could be no sin in meeting first 
 here on earth — that there could be no sin 
 in their loving one another. “God is love,” 
 and only in hating do we sin against God. 
 
 Ah ! now as I write down these thoughts 
 of long ago, I see at once how many foul 
 sins might be justified in this way — some 
 of the foulest that have ever been com- 
 mitted — and yet I cannot decide whether 
 I did wrong in loving Adrian Levison — 
 cannot decide whether I might not have 
 continued to love him, married him, been 
 his “ help and comfort, both in prosperity 
 and adversity,” as surely he would have 
 been mine. Would he not? or would he 
 have made an infidel of me ? He could 
 never have made a Jew of me. However, 
 then I was engaged to marry my cousin 
 Duke, so I shrank from pursuing this train 
 of thought. Now I can think it all over, 
 and I have plenty of time, God knows, but 
 I do not know that that helps me : some- 
 times I think I only puzzle myself, and 
 that every one would tell me I did right in 
 refusing to marry Adrian Levison, and 
 surely every one cannot be wrong. There 
 must be something wrong in me to doubt 
 about it still. 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 167 
 
 The days were very weary to me then, 
 hearing nothing of Adrian Levison ; and 
 yet I did not wish to hear anything — 
 wished rather to learn to think of him as a 
 bright ensample it had once been permitted 
 to me to have before mine eyes, and not as 
 a man I had loved, loving me again ; and 
 each time I did chance to hear of him, it 
 only gave me fresh pain. 
 
 Nevertheless, I sat for a long time one 
 day, with a pen in my hand, trying to 
 write to Duke, “ Who are your friends 
 now ? I should like to hear about the 
 people you are associating with.” But I 
 knew it was one friend I wished to hear 
 about, and yet I could not bring myself to 
 write, “ Tell me about Mr. Levison ; I hear 
 you have been seeing a good deal of him 
 lately.” And so in the end I would not 
 write the other words, which, though not 
 false, were yet not as sincere as they might 
 have been, and thus I asked no questions 
 about Duke’s friends, and heard nothing. 
 There was one I wished to hear about so 
 much the most, that I could not ask about 
 the others, and yet I should have liked to 
 hear about them also, for Duke’s sake, only 
 about one I wished to hear for his own. 
 
168 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 And yet what I did hear about Adrian 
 Levison only pained me. Of course, I had 
 read his pamphlet on “ Our Currency,” and 
 taken note of all the newspaper comments 
 upon it, and observed how they all said, 
 “A man wrapped up in his work,” “A man 
 with his heart in his work,” and so on. Of 
 course, they had some of them sneered at 
 the pamphlet ; no one had found any real 
 fault with it, only one or two had sneered 
 at it as a needless exercise of ingenuity, but 
 they had all allotted the writer that amount 
 of praise, that he had not come half-hearted 
 to his work. And I could see that for my- 
 self by reading the pamphlet. It made a 
 great stir at the time, though doubtless it 
 is forgotten now, but not by me, and I hate 
 that subject of our currency. I was sorry 
 to see that it was revived again the other 
 day, and that Punch was making wretched 
 jokes about it. Must they make jokes 
 about everything now-a-days ? I wish there 
 were allowed to be monopolies of subjects. 
 I would willingly give over some of my 
 dearest subjects to the jokers, if only I 
 were allowed to keep one or two — only one 
 or two — a close monopoly for the serious 
 people who are in earnest. I know the 
 
DOUBTS. 
 
 169 
 
 jokers are in earnest, too, sometimes, but 
 that does not reconcile me to them any 
 more : I always feel as if they were poach- 
 ing. And they poach everywhere now : 
 there are no longer any preserves allowed, 
 not even for those who have spent their all 
 of time and learning. No; the world takes 
 the benefit, and those who have spent their 
 all are turned into a jest next morning. 
 
 Soon after the pamphlet came out I read 
 a speech of Adrian Levison’s, and it struck 
 me as bitter. Twice he used the phrase 
 “ in this Christian land,” and apparently 
 the words must have rankled in the minds 
 of those who heard them, as they did in 
 mine, though he said nothing that any one 
 could actually find fault with; but the 
 member who spoke next repeated them, 
 saying, “ in this Christian land, as said the 
 honourable member who spoke last,” just as 
 if the phrase had annoyed him, and he 
 could not forget it at once. I feared 
 Adrian Levison might be growing bitter, 
 and I knew Uncle Basset said he was 
 changed, and engaged to be married, and 
 somehow everything I heard about him 
 pained me. It was curious then, that I 
 wished to hear more about him from Duke, 
 
170 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 and yet I did wish it ; perhaps I thought, 
 that Duke would see things differently from 
 other people, and would tell them to me, as 
 I had wished them to be. Duke had a 
 knack of doing that sometimes, and yet 
 Duke was truth itself, but he had a loving, 
 tender heart, and those loving, tender 
 hearts often seem to see more clearly than 
 what are called clear-sighted people. 
 
 I hate clear-sighted people, but I know I 
 ought not to hate any one, only I am very 
 wicked, so I thank God for giving me time 
 to amend. Oh ! I do not wish to die yet, 
 and yet people would call it a happy de- 
 liverance were I taken, and so it would be 
 in some ways, but all in God's good time,, 
 and that time has not come yet, it seems. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 “ In youth we borrow patience from our future 
 years ; the spring of hope gives us courage to act and 
 suffer. ’ ’ — Hazlitt . 
 
 That spring passed away, and was folded 
 down with the other pages of my life, to be 
 recollected often, but never to be re-read, 
 and Duke took honours and distinguished 
 himself generally, but most of all in natural 
 science, which he had only taken up two 
 months before, so that Lady Brydget was 
 annoyed, and thought that if he had de- 
 voted those last two months to some one of 
 the subjects he had previously studied, he 
 might, perhaps, have taken a first, possibly 
 even a double first ; but it was wonderful 
 enough that Duke had taken honours, and 
 
172 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 my father and I thought every one ought to 
 be satisfied with that. As to Duke him- 
 self, he came down full of triumph, because 
 his cousin, Lord Henry, had actually taken 
 his degree, and he seemed to think it of 
 very little consequence in comparison that 
 he himself had taken honours. 
 
 “ You see, I read for them,” said he, in a 
 sort of puzzled tone, as my mother told him 
 how glad we had all been. 
 
 “Yes, dear boy, and I dare say you 
 might have taken a first, in classics, at 
 least, if you had tried,” said my mother, 
 smiling. 
 
 “ I never thought of that,” said Duke, as 
 if it were a new, and on the whole, brilliant 
 idea, now for the first time presented to 
 him. “ But you see natural science is such 
 an interesting subject, and up to this time 
 so little studied at either of our universities, 
 that really since I have taken it up I 
 have hardly looked at a book on any other 
 subject.” 
 
 “ And that you call reading for honours !” 
 said my mother, playfully. “ Oh, Duke ! 
 Duke !” 
 
 “ Exactly — exactly so,” said Duke, quite 
 pleased at having his own absurdity pointed 
 
PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 173 
 
 out to him by my mother, though it would 
 have pained him had Lady Brydget done 
 so, but then no one ever could be pained 
 by what my mother said, she was so kind 
 and gentle. 
 
 Then Duke went out into the garden 
 with me, and we sat together under that 
 drooping cedar, where we had sat once 
 before, and Duke had told me mine was the 
 most beautiful face he had ever seen, and I 
 had said he only thought so, because he 
 loved me. I could not have told him so 
 now, so calmly. He was no longer a boy 
 now, but a man, and my lover, and every 
 one treated him as such. I had read about 
 lovers in poems and romances, but I had 
 not realised, that Duke was my lover, till he 
 came this time to the Deanery, and every 
 one seemed always to be treating us with 
 consideration, as people in love with each 
 other, and who would prefer to be alone 
 together, so that it no longer seemed 
 natural, when we found ourselves alone, as 
 it had always used to be, but as if some one 
 must have kindly arranged it for us. So I 
 could not now have told Duke, that it was 
 because he loved me, that he thought me 
 beautiful. This day it was Duke, who 
 
174 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 spoke of love. He had tried to speak of it 
 that day long ago — tried and failed, because 
 I was too self-possessed and indifferent to 
 give him any opening so to do ; but now he 
 seemed to stand in no need of any opening, 
 and spoke as naturally as I had ever done, 
 only he meant a very different thing when 
 he spoke of loving. 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” said Duke, “ I hope you 
 are not disappointed that I have not done 
 more. You have always known what a 
 foolish, dreamy sort of fellow I am, with no 
 powers of application or concentration like 
 other men. It is no disappointment to you, 
 is it V’ 
 
 “ Dear Duke, I am so pleased, and so — 
 so grateful, for I know you do not care for 
 distinction for itself. It is so good of 
 you to have worked for what you do not 
 value in the least.” 
 
 “ No,” said Duke ; “ it seems to me a 
 matter of perfect indifference, but you must 
 not say grateful, Gwynydd.” 
 
 “-Why not, dear Duke ?” 
 
 “ Because there can be no gratitude for 
 anything I do for you. If you wish a thing, 
 of course I wish to do it — really wish it, not 
 just as one wishes for a thing one cares about 
 
PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 175 
 
 for oneself. I think it must always be so, 
 where one loves.” 
 
 . I was silent. Duke was speaking, as he 
 had never spoken before, and I had nothing 
 to say to him, when he spoke in this way, 
 so I sat and looked at the gray cathedral 
 towers in the distance, and thought of the 
 many Jerninghames buried within its walls, 
 and how they had all loved, and been made 
 love to. Duke took hold of my hand. 
 
 “ Gwynydd, dearest,” he said, “ some- 
 times I think I have said too little to you, 
 but you have been ill, and I have always 
 been afraid of troubling you, and so it has 
 come about, that I have never told you how 
 much I loved you, but you know it, do not 
 you, my wife that is to be ?” 
 
 And as he spoke these words Duke 
 raised my hand to his lips and chivalrously 
 kissed it. Yes, it was Sir Marmaduke Jer- 
 ninghame paying court to his future bride ; 
 no longer my cousin Duke, whom I was as 
 little shy of as myself. I was shy of h im 
 now, and it v^as with averted head, and 
 almost in a whisper, I replied, “ Yes, I know 
 it, I think.” 
 
 “ More than my life,” said Duke, “ oh, 
 so much more !_ so that I would rather, ten 
 
176 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 thousand times rather suffer any misery 
 myself, than cause you a minute’s pain.” 
 
 “ Dear Duke !” I whispered again, and 
 tried to withdraw my hand, but Duke held 
 it fast. 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” he said, “ do not take away 
 your hand. Let me hold it a moment 
 longer, that I may know you are telling 
 me the truth, and now tell me, Gwynydd, 
 do you believe me in what I am saying ? 
 Will you trust in me, and act upon your 
 belief, and sooner give me much to bear 
 myself, rather than for my sake suffer 
 pam { 
 
 “ Dear Duke, you ask too much,” I said, 
 with the tears almost blinding me, as I 
 spoke. 
 
 “ Too much,” and if ever human face was 
 transfigured, Duke’s face was transfigured 
 then, as I saw it through my tears. 
 
 “ Yes, too much ; do you allow nothing 
 for my love for you ? Do you think it is 
 of a different kind ? Oh, Duke, do you 
 think I could bear to see you suffer ?” 
 
 And I tore my hand away, and covered 
 my face with my hands, and sobbed aloud. 
 Duke was inexpressibly shocked at the 
 result of his -words ; he fell on his knees 
 
PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 17 7 
 
 beside me, and passed his arm round me, 
 and exhausted himself in his attempts to 
 console me ; but in a few minutes the 
 crying fit had passed, and I was able to 
 speak composedly again. 
 
 “ It was very stupid of me, but you see 
 I am not strong, and somehow I could not 
 bear the thoughts that came into my mind. 
 You must be patient with me, please, 
 Duke, and forgive me for being so 
 stupid.” 
 
 And Duke just took my hand again, and 
 kissed it, and said simply, “ You must 
 come and lie down, Gwynydd, and let me 
 bring you some wine. You are not strong, 
 as you say but I saw he was white, and 
 almost trembling with his sorrow for having 
 thus agitated me, and I could not enough 
 admire the noble self-denial that prevented 
 his saying how sorry he was, for I knew it 
 was all he could do not to give vent to his 
 sorrow in words, and that he only did not 
 from his fear of agitating 1 me again. So I 
 could not but let him fetch me some wine, 
 as I knew he would like to do something 
 for me, and I lay resting on the sofa in the 
 drawing-room, till he brought it to me. 
 Then I could not help saying : 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 “ Duke, tell me how to make myself 
 worthy of you. I feel as if I were wicked 
 even to think of marrying you, you are so 
 much too good — too good for earth alto- 
 gether,” I murmured. 
 
 Duke’s face flushed. 
 
 “ Please do not say that. Please never 
 say that again, Gwen,” he said, low and 
 hurriedly. “ It seems so much more than 
 I can ever deserve, that I should have you 
 for my wife, that sometimes I can hardly 
 believe it is true, I think it must be all a 
 dream, like that terrible dream, when I 
 thought I could never have you, never go 
 near you again ; for I felt as if I could 
 never hear to be near you, and know you 
 did not love me as I wished to be loved. 
 But I taught myself to bear it in the end, 
 I was ready to bear that or anything, when 
 I went up to London to meet you and my 
 mother. My mother had said something 
 to lead me to hope, but I knew she wished 
 for it so much, that I did not dare to trust 
 to what she said, and so I was ready then 
 to bear to see you — even the wife of 
 another,” said Duke, with an effort ; “ and 
 then — and then all this happiness came 
 upon me, and I have never been able to 
 
PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 179 
 
 understand it since. It is too much — quite 
 too much for me.” 
 
 And my eyes filled with tears, and I 
 could say nothing, only pressed Duke’s hand, 
 and Duke bent and kissed me tenderly, as 
 one might kiss a poor tired child, and saying 
 he would leave me to rest, went away and 
 left me, and I closed my eyes, and tried to 
 sleep, but could not ; only saw visions of 
 angels floating up and down Jacob’s ladder, 
 and Duke always on the highest bar, 
 always nearest heaven, but so sad, so 
 terribly sad, that I cried again with think- 
 ing of his sad face. I am ashamed to 
 remember how foolish I was, but oh, I was 
 so tired, so very tired all those bright 
 summer days ; and all the time I had to 
 walk about and talk and smile, and no- 
 body thought that I was suffering, nobody 
 knew that I cried, whenever I reached my 
 room at night ; cried for very tiredness, 
 nothing else. I never broke down in any 
 one’s sight, never, but that one time when 
 Duke asked me to give him pain, rather 
 than bear pain myself. Oh God ! I could 
 not pain him ; all I lived for was to save 
 him pain. 
 
 Brydget and George Lumley came home 
 
 12—2 
 
ISO 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 from their long honeymoon, while Duke 
 was still with us, both looking so bright 
 and happy, it did every one good to see 
 them, only Brydget confided to my mother 
 and me, that she was very unhappy ; 
 George was so much too good to her. 
 
 “ And you see,” said Brydget, “ I am so 
 tiresome, always wanting to have such 
 large boxes, that my poor dear dresses may 
 not be crushed, and never satisfied unless I 
 buy some little curiosity, just as a recollec- 
 tion, you know, of all the places we go to ; 
 and then I am never ready for the trains 
 till just the right time ; naturally that 
 makes George uneasy, and when I am 
 tired I am afraid I am cross ” 
 
 But at this we all laughed so much, that 
 poor Brydget was unable to continue the 
 catalogue of her misdeeds, only at dinner 
 time my mother asked George quite 
 gravely, whether Brydget were not very 
 cross after a long journey. 
 
 “ Cross !” repeated George, quite puzzled. 
 “ Cross did you say ! Brydget !” and then 
 he remained staring at my mother without 
 a word more to say, as if he could not make 
 it out at all. 
 
 “Yes, Brydget says she is very cross, 
 
PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 181 
 
 and tries your patience dreadfully, though 
 she says also you bear it so well, you do 
 not appear to feel it.” 
 
 “ Brydget is a little ” began George 
 
 Lumley, looking at her with the proud 
 happy smile, with which he seemed always 
 to regard his pretty bride. 
 
 “ I am not a little, I am very provoking, 
 am I not, George ?” interrupted Brydget, 
 looking up at him in the most bewitching 
 manner possible with those dazzling eyes of 
 hers. 
 
 “Very provoking, indeed,” replied George. 
 “ You’ll be obliging me to walk round the 
 table to kiss that naughty face of yours, if 
 you don’t take care.” 
 
 “ Oh that would not look at all well,” 
 cried Brydget. “ Little children must 
 never play with their toys at dinner time, 
 don’t you know that, you dear old 
 George T 
 
 “ Are you only my toy then, Brydget ?” 
 asked George, plaintively. 
 
 But Brydget only shook her head at him, 
 on which George turned round to my 
 mother and said, “ I will tell you one great 
 fault Brydget has, she is much too fond of 
 teasing, and then when she has nothing 
 
182 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 more to say, she always shakes her head, 
 as if she could persuade every one she was 
 very wise by only looking so.” 
 
 “ Fancy poor little Brydget looking wise,” 
 said Duke, smiling on her paternally. 
 
 Duke and Brydget seemed to have much 
 more to say to each other now than 
 they had ever had before, and one day 
 I heard Brydget giving good advice to 
 Duke. 
 
 “ Duke,” she said, “ you will never urge 
 .Gwynydd to do more than she does now, 
 will you ? I am so afraid when you are 
 alone with her, you will let her see that 
 you do not care for doing anything unless 
 she does it with you, and that will only 
 end in poor Gwen's knocking herself up in 
 order to be more of a companion to you. 
 You will try to make her believe you 
 prefer doing some things alone, will not 
 you, Duke ?” 
 
 “ Gwynydd would know that I did not, 
 whatever I tried to persuade her,” said 
 Duke, slowly ; “ but I will do all I can not 
 to let her tire herself. I will do all I can. 
 You do not think I tire her now, do you ?” 
 
 “No,” said Brydget; “but you have a 
 way of looking at her sometimes, as if you 
 
PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 183 
 
 would give so much to see her brighter and 
 more active.” 
 
 “ And so I would,” said Duke, almost 
 groaning. “ Oh, Brydget, do you recollect 
 how different she was in London, when I 
 used to come up from Oxford for the day ? 
 Will she never be like that again ? She 
 was happy then. Shall I never see her 
 happy like that again ?” 
 
 “ You dear, stupid Duke,” cried Brydget, 
 caressingly, “ don’t you see that you came 
 up from Oxford like a beautiful surprise, to 
 be made the most of in a hurry, before it 
 passed away ? Why, I used to be wild 
 with joy when George came to talk to me 
 sometimes that spring, and now there’s no 
 excitement about it at all, and I can speak 
 to him quite easily without my eyes almost 
 dancing out of my head for happiness, but 
 do you think I am not as happy as ever ? 
 Oh, with such a beautiful steady happiness 
 now, and I love him ever so much better,” 
 and catching sight of George passing through 
 the garden, Brydget tripped through the 
 open window, and passing her hand through 
 his arm, looked up in his face in certainly 
 the most provoking manner possible. 
 
 I suppose Duke and Brydget had not 
 
184 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 thought I was hearing what they were say- 
 ing. I was lying on the sofa in the little 
 hack room opening into the drawing-room, 
 and perhaps they thought me asleep, for 
 my eyes were closed, but I was not really 
 asleep, only in a doze, in which every sound 
 seemed preternaturally distinct. It was a 
 kind of doze in which I often lay now, 
 gaining no strength ; indeed, sometimes I 
 thought I felt wearier afterwards than be- 
 fore, and sometimes a horrid fear would 
 take possession of me, that, unless I resisted 
 it, this kind of doze would grow upon me, 
 till at last I should become powerless, sense- 
 less, no longer a living active being. But I 
 had to resist it now. Though I knew Bryd- 
 get’s winsome words must have in a measure 
 cheered Duke, as they could not fail, in a 
 measure, to cheer every one, yet I could 
 not let him remain mournfully wondering, 
 whether he should ever see me happy 
 again, so I got up, and went to him with 
 the brightest smile I could command, and 
 lightly laying my hand on his shoulder, 
 “ What are you thinking of, dear Duke V’ 
 I asked. 
 
 Duke was sitting with his elbows resting 
 on the table, his face resting on his hands — 
 
PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 185 
 
 in the attitude in which the Duchess 
 
 of had described him as sitting during 
 
 those months that Lady Brydget and I 
 had been away in Switzerland — but he 
 looked up from his reverie at the sound of 
 my voice. 
 
 “ I was thinking of you,” he said. 
 
 “ Duke,” I said, playfully, “ you will 
 never give me cause to be jealous. What 
 a pity it is, for now I shall never know 
 whether I am naturally jealous or not.” 
 
 “ No, you will never know,” said Duke, 
 smiling also now. “ Shall I ever know 
 whether I am, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ Yes, you shall know,” I said, with a 
 mock gravity. “ Some day 1 will make 
 you very jealous, and then we will see 
 whether you are or not.” 
 
 “ Do you know you are growing Irish, 
 Gwen ?” said Duke, looking up lazily from 
 very contentment. 
 
 “ Am I ?” said I. “ But come, let us 
 talk of some more interesting subject than 
 me — or even you,” I added, mischievously. 
 
 But no, we never did, we had been 
 cousins all our lives, but never lovers till 
 lately, and we were lovers now, so all our 
 talks were about each other, till I felt as if 
 
186 
 
 PINS AND NEEDLES. 
 
 I could not bear it much longer, and I did 
 not often manage to speak so lightly of it 
 as this day, when I smiled as brightly — at 
 least so I hoped — as I had smiled in Lon- 
 don, and Duke was in the seventh heaven, 
 fancying he saw some hope of some day 
 seeing me happy again. Poor Duke ! 
 “ Facilis descensus Averni,” but Pauci 
 quos cequus amavit Jupiter, atque ardens 
 evexit ad cetliera virtus, can ever hope to 
 return to the happier regions of a contented 
 life. No habit can we more easily lose 
 than that of contentment, and certainly 
 none is it more difficult to regain. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 " Le cas n’arrive guere ou l’on puisse dire, j’etais 
 ambitieux ; ou on ne Test point, ou on Test toujours ; 
 mais le temps vient ou Ton avoue que l’on a aime.” — 
 La Bruyere. 
 
 Duke’s coming of age had only been quietly 
 celebrated during his absence at Oxford ; 
 now that he was coming to reside on his 
 estate, there were to be grand rejoicings, 
 and Lady Brydget was busy superintend- 
 ing the arrangements at the Castle. The 
 house was to be full of people, and there 
 was to be a ball given to all the county, 
 besides a dinner to the tenantry, and a 
 tenants’ ball. Duke went up to London 
 to arrange bis business affairs, and when 
 he had settled that, he was not to come to 
 the Deanery, but to go to the Castle, and 
 
1S8 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 we were all to go and stay there also. The 
 
 Duke and Duchess of were there, 
 
 their eldest son was abroad, but Duke’s 
 friend, Lord Henry, was to arrive in a day 
 or two, and the beautiful Adelaide had 
 come with her father and mother, and 
 Uncle and Aunt Basset were there, and a 
 lot more people. We were all anxious as 
 to how Duke would acquit himself on the 
 occasion, but Duke never thought about 
 himself enough to be nervous, and the ex- 
 citement roused him. When the day came 
 he made a very good speech, very simple 
 and touching, with its allusion to the father 
 he had never seen, and its other allusion to 
 the mother who had thus had twofold duties 
 cast upon her, and had fulfilled them, 
 “how well he need not say, seeing that all 
 who heard him knew her.” To mention 
 her was, he knew, enough, and Lady 
 Brydget required no praises from her son ; 
 she was the grandest lady in all the 
 county, admired by all, and loved by very 
 many. Lady Brydget returned thanks for 
 herself, when her health was drunk, and her 
 speech, though less touching and less ap- 
 plauded than Duke’s, was very graceful 
 and well turned, and no one could help 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED, 
 
 189 
 
 being moved, when her eyes filled with 
 tears as they rested on her son, while she 
 expressed her gratitude for having lived to 
 see this day, when he, in whom all her 
 hopes were centred, was about to take his 
 place among them as a man, and to release 
 her from those cares for their welfare, which 
 had at times — she might say it now that 
 they were over — which had at times weighed 
 somewhat heavily upon her. Then after that 
 the healths of the ladies were drunk, and in 
 especial that of the future Lady Jerning- 
 hame, “ Sir Marmaduke’s bride that is to 
 be,” and all eyes were turned upon me, and 
 Duke returned thanks again, and I do not 
 know what he said, for I felt faint and 
 dizzy, only I know that after that speech 
 the cheers seemed quite to deafen me, but 
 then I was feeling ill already. However, 
 my father told me afterwards, that he had 
 never heard anything simpler and more 
 manly than that short speech of Duke’s. 
 
 At last it was all over, and we were able 
 to retire and rest a little before dressing for 
 the ball, and then Duke said, “ Have you 
 seen Levison, mother ?” 
 
 “ Seen whom ?” cried Lady Brydget, in 
 a startled tone. 
 
190 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 “ Levison, mother ; Adrian Levison. Did 
 I not tell you I had asked him to come 
 down ? I forgot, I suppose, hut he came 
 just before luncheon, and I did not know if 
 you had seen him yet.” 
 
 “ When did you ask him to come down, 
 Duke ?” 
 
 “ The other day, in town. You told me 
 to ask any one I cared about, and he and 
 Henry are my only real friends. I thought 
 you liked him, mother. I am so sorry, if I 
 have done anything to vex you, but I 
 thought Gwynydd liked him, too, and I 
 wanted to do something to please you,” he 
 went on, turning with a smile to me, “ to 
 show you I was not jealous, too.” 
 
 “ Yes,” I said, “ yes,” and smiled. 
 
 “ How well Gwynydd looks to-day ! See, 
 does not she, mother ? I have not seen 
 her with such a colour for a long time.” 
 Lady Brydget turned, and took hold of 
 my hand, holding it with a long lingering 
 pressure, then she turned away, as she said, 
 “How long have you asked Mr. Levison 
 for, Duke ?” 
 
 “ I did not mention any time. He would 
 stay as long as the others, I hoped, but I 
 am so sorry — so sorry,” repeated poor Duke, 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 191 
 
 looking perplexedly from one to the other 
 of us. “ Would you rather I had not asked 
 him, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “Yes, I had rather you had not asked 
 him,” I said, quietly, taking my hand away 
 from Lady Brydget’s, and going to sit down 
 by the open window, with my back turned 
 on the rest of the room. 
 
 “ Dear boy, it was quite natural you 
 should ask him,” said Lady Brydget, caress- 
 ingly, “ and I am so glad you did, as he is 
 a friend of yours, but I had rather he did 
 not stay long, if it could be managed. 
 Don’t you see — a Jew ! it is hardly the 
 thing, with Gwynydd’s father in the house, 
 too ?” 
 
 “ Your father will not mind, will he, 
 Gwen ?” asked Duke, advancing toward 
 me, but Lady Brydget laid a detaining 
 hand upon his arm. 
 
 “ Leave Gwynydd to rest a little now. 
 Lovers must not be too exigeants, and this 
 has been a tiring day for her. Don’t you 
 see it is not the question whether her father 
 will mind personally, but as Dean of St. 
 Margaret’s it is not quite the thing, and I 
 think if I could give Mr. Levison a little 
 gentle hint, that you had not quite thought 
 
192 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 of this, when you invited him, he would not 
 be offended, and it might perhaps be as 
 well.” 
 
 But meanwhile I had come from the 
 window. Duke should not be called too 
 exigeant, he never was, and he should not 
 be told not to be so, just as if he had been 
 so at some past time. “ Duke,” I said, 
 “ my father will not mind at all. If you 
 had heard a sermon of his a little while ago, 
 you would know he would be rather glad 
 than otherwise to have this opportunity of 
 meeting — a Jew,” I added, firmly, after a 
 moment’s hesitation, “ since of course he 
 could not well ask him to his own house. 
 But I should not think Mr. Levison would 
 be able to spare much time to remain here, 
 since he is generally so very busy.” 
 
 “ Yes ; I had great difficulty in persuad- 
 ing him to come at all,” said Duke, sorrow- 
 fully, “ and now I wish I had not succeeded, 
 since it seems to vex my mother, but he is 
 the man of all men I most admire, and I 
 think it is a real privilege to know him. 
 If he had only lived a few hundred years 
 ago, people would by this time be convinced 
 of his merits, but now I suppose I shall not 
 live to see him appreciated. It takes a 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 193 
 
 hundred years before even a saint is recog- 
 nised. If he had been a Greek or Roman, 
 you would be the first to speak in his praise, 
 Gwynydd, but now you seem to see nothing, 
 but that he is a Jew. I am very sorry I 
 asked him to come,” and Duke went away 
 more annoyed than I had ever seen 
 him. 
 
 “ That is the worst of Duke,” said Lady 
 Brydget, sighing, “ he is not easily put out, 
 but when he is, it is impossible to smoothe 
 him over. People often told me his dear 
 father was like that, certainly I never had 
 reason to find it out, and I trust you never 
 may, dear Gwynydd, but recollect Duke 
 does not forgive easily.” 
 
 “ I shall never give him cause to forgive 
 me,” I said, coldly, and I, too, passed from 
 the room. 
 
 It seemed we had been eating all day, 
 and that one of the old fairy tales was 
 coming terribly true, and as fast as one 
 table was cleared, another appeared, covered 
 with every delicacy, glittering with plate, 
 and gay with fruit and flowers. Thus it 
 seemed to me, as I sat down at the supper 
 table, with Lord Henry on one side of me, 
 and Adrian Levison on the other, and saw 
 
 13 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
194 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 every one else sitting down, all in gala dress, 
 and with society smiles, that is to say every 
 one I could see through the glimpses 
 afforded by the varying sizes and shapes of 
 the flower decorations on the table, for 
 there was a bush of white azaleas almost 
 immediately in front of me, and between 
 me and it a little low dish filled with heart’s 
 ease, which, with other dishes of the same 
 kind, but filled with other flowers, made a 
 sort of mosaic down the table, relieved every 
 here and there by massive silver epergnes 
 and other bushes of azaleas. Adrian Levi- 
 son had not spoken to me yet, he had come 
 into the drawing-room only the minute 
 before supper, having, as he had said apolo- 
 getically, been busy with letters till the 
 very last moment, and he had immediately 
 been button-holed by Uncle Basset, who 
 wanted to hear the last news about some 
 contested election somewhere or other, but 
 where I had not been able to make out. I 
 had seen that his whiskers were grown, or 
 his face was thinner, one of the two, for 
 certainly his face was more covered with 
 hair than when last I had seen him ; and 
 his nose, which Duke had said from the 
 first spoiled the likeness to Perseus, was 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 195 
 
 now more prominent than it used to be. 
 He did not look the least like Perseus now, 
 as he stood heavily upon his feet, like a 
 responsible man of business, not in the 
 light airy manner suggestive of wings, 
 which had struck me so much the first time 
 I had seen him, standing among the flowers 
 in Aunt Barbara’s festively -attired drawing- 
 room, the lamp-light shining full upon his 
 face. He had not shaken hands with me, 
 nor taken any notice of me then, though I 
 was sitting near to him ; but the room was 
 full of people, and doubtless he did not 
 notice me at first. Now he turned round 
 at once, and shook hands with me, quite as 
 a matter of course ; then he turned away 
 again, and went on talking to the young 
 lady he had taken in to dinner, Duke’s 
 beautiful cousin Adelaide. If he had seemed 
 to mind shaking hands with me, I think I 
 should not have minded it so much. As it 
 was — 
 
 “ You must persuade Duke to stand for 
 the county, Miss Jerninghame,” said Lord 
 Henry, on my other side. 
 
 “Yes, very much so,” I said. 
 
 “ He would take to it thoroughly, if only 
 oncehe could be persuaded into thinking him- 
 
 13—2 
 
196 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 self fit for it. A great pity fie is so modest, 
 is it not ?” 
 
 “ Yes, yes, very amusing,” I said, and 
 laugfied. Lord Henry always laugfied, 
 whatever fie said, and I supposed he had 
 made some joke. He looked surprised. 
 
 “ Great bore, this sort of thing, is it not ? 
 I am glad I am not an eldest son, to have 
 all this bother to go through ; could not 
 make a speech to save my life.” 
 
 “ No, no,” I said, looking round, wonder- 
 ingly. I could not imagine what he was 
 talking about. After that Lord Henry 
 seemed to think it best to leave me alone. 
 
 “ You are tired, I see,” he said. “ Don’t 
 mind me, we are relations, or ought to be. 
 Anyhow we shall be soon,” and he turned 
 and devoted himself to his neighbour on 
 the other side, and I listened to Adrian 
 Levison’s voice. “ So you mean to enter 
 Parliament yourself, Lady Adelaide. May 
 1 ask what party is to have the honour of 
 numbering you among its adherents ?” 
 
 “ Oh, I don’t mean to belong to any 
 party. That would be so slow. I mean to 
 be an erratic member, always astonishing 
 every one by my vote, and giving the poor 
 papers something to write about.” 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 197 
 
 " It is wonderful how kind women are. 
 
 I fear we men should never be so quix- 
 otic.” 
 
 “ No, that is the reason the Times is 
 so stupid. As to the Saturday Review, 
 that is all about us — all its best things, at 
 least, aren’t they ?” 
 
 “ What do you call its best things, Lady 
 Adelaide ?” 
 
 “ Why, the things about us. How stupid 
 you are !” cried Lady Adelaide, laughing. 
 “ It is not my fault if you oblige me to talk 
 in a circle. I am not going to be caught 
 in a trap of my own laying. Oh, how I 
 should like to be cross-questioned by a 
 lawyer 1” 
 
 Adrian Levison smiled. There was a 
 time, when he would have laughed at every 
 one of these flippant remarks, especially as 
 said by this spoilt young beauty, but I 
 suppose that time was passed now, and 
 though he seemed amused, Lady Adelaide 
 w r as not content to laugh alone, so she soon 
 turned to her next neighbour, whom she 
 kept in fits of laughter during the rest of 
 dinner. Then Adrian Levison turned to 
 me. 
 
 “ You are better, Miss Jerninghame, I 
 
198 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 hope. I was sorry to hear you were rather 
 knocked up by the London season.” 
 
 “ It is very tiring going out much, when 
 one is not accustomed to it,” I said, falter- 
 ingly. 
 
 “ It requires training and study. Some 
 ladies attain to such a perfection in the art, 
 that I have known them to leave London 
 with as brilliant complexions, as they 
 brought up from the country, after having 
 been up till two or three every morning 
 since. But then, of course, they have de- 
 voted a good deal of thought to the matter, 
 and probably are learned as to the best 
 stimulants to go upon. It is wonderful 
 what may be accomplished when people set 
 their minds to it.” 
 
 I looked up, surprised at the tone of sar- 
 casm. “ Do you think it is worth any one’s 
 setting their mind to ?” I asked, gravely. 
 
 “ That depends upon the calibre of the 
 mind. Probably worth a woman’s while, 
 since it is generally your leaders who are 
 most successful in the art. Women never 
 attained to such power as in France, a little 
 while ago, when the salons of Paris ruled 
 the kingdom, and in the salons women were 
 pre-eminent, and I fancy Madame du Maine 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 199 
 
 and Madame du Chatelet could have taught 
 you a few secrets, that might have been 
 useful to you last year in London. As to 
 the great Madame de Stael, probably even 
 she had considered a little how to be the 
 life and soul of a conversazione till the 
 small hours of the morning, without ex- 
 hausting more of her strength than if she 
 had taken the prescribed amount of beauty 
 sleep.” 
 
 “ I think every one ought to consider 
 their health, both men and women alike.” 
 
 “ Undoubtedly. Women only show their 
 superior wisdom by a better understanding 
 of the subject. It was thrown away upon 
 them, when one of those epigrammatic 
 Frenchmen, some woman’s pupil, doubtless, 
 exerted himself to produce that sentence 
 about a good digestion and a cold heart, 
 rather coarse in the original, but none the 
 less a favourite quotation on that account. 
 Women do not need to quote it, they knew 
 all about it as babies.” 
 
 “It is a pity they do not act upon it 
 more, then,” I said. “ (Enone need not 
 then have thrown herself upon Paris’s 
 funeral pyre, nor Echo have pined away to 
 a voice for love of the boy Narcissus.” 
 
200 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 “ I am sorry to see you have to resort to 
 mythology, rather than history, for your 
 examples. These were men’s imaginings of 
 what women might have been.” 
 
 “ Perhaps you have never heard of our 
 Queen Eleanor, who sucked the poison 
 from her husband’s arm ; or Imelda, who 
 did the same for her young lover, only 
 perished in the act.” 
 
 “ A very thoughtless one,” said Adrian 
 Levison, lightly. “ Successful in one in- 
 stance, hut much more calculated to kill two 
 people than save the life of one. Do not 
 let us pretend to argue, though. I feel 
 myself terribly ungallant not to have con- 
 fessed myself vanquished by your first ad- 
 mirably chosen examples. What a pretty 
 flower device this is !” 
 
 “ Yes,” and my eye falling on the little 
 plate in front of me, “ I am very fond of 
 hearts-ease,” I said. Then I would have 
 given worlds not to have said so, but my 
 words seemed to recall nothing to Adrian 
 Levison. He seemed to have no sentiment 
 connected with hearts-ease, nor to re- 
 member one petal-less white rose. He 
 bent forward and jestingly removed a 
 flower from the dish, saying he was sure as 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 201 
 
 much, as that could be spared to him, and 
 he had forgotten to adorn his button-hole 
 before coming down to dinner. Then he 
 turned, and joined in Lady Adelaide’s lively 
 talk, and laughed at one or two of her 
 merriest sayings. He seemed to admire 
 her beauty very much, I thought. She 
 certainly was very pretty, with her lilies- 
 and-roses complexion, and abundance of 
 feathery gold hair, but there was not an 
 atom of expression in her face, nor did she 
 look as if she had any heart. I did not 
 like her face at all. 
 
 Just before we left the dining table 
 Adrian Levison spoke once more to me. 
 
 “ I have had no opportunity of congratu- 
 lating you before,” he said, “ but I hope 
 you do not require to be told it, to know 
 that you have my best wishes for your hap- 
 piness. There is no man, whose friendship 
 I value so much as that of your cousin Sir 
 Marmaduke.” 
 
 “ My cousin,” I said, vaguely. 
 
 “ Yes, your cousin,” he repeated, smiling. 
 “ Perhaps you are almost forgetting that 
 relationship in the thought of the nearer 
 one, that is so soon to exist. Your future 
 
202 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 husband, I should have said. When is the 
 wedding to be ?” 
 
 “ In the autumn, I believe.” 
 
 “ In the autumn. That is a melancholy 
 time for a wedding. If I were you, I 
 should have chosen some gladder time of 
 year.” 
 
 “ That suits me best, thank you,” I said, 
 coldly. It was too much, that he, Adrian 
 Levison, should tell me what time of year 
 he would have fixed for my wedding, had 
 he had the arranging of it. 
 
 “ I beg your pardon,” he said, without 
 looking at me. “ Chacun a son goilt, of 
 course, and especially chacune, but I should 
 always choose the spring time for a wed- 
 ding. It begins to be dismal, when the 
 leaves fall from the trees — for people, who 
 notice such sort of things,” he added 
 quickly, “ as I believe all women do.” 
 
 “ Don’t you ?” 
 
 “No, I have given up noticing the 
 change in the seasons. It is all the same 
 to me, summer and winter, day and night.” 
 “ I thought you used to be very suscep- 
 tible to such influences. I am sure you 
 have told me, you were not the same person 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 203 
 
 on a cloudy day, and on a bright sunshiny 
 one.” 
 
 “ That was when I was a hoy with a 
 boy’s foolish fancies. We all pass through 
 that stage, I suppose. Thank heaven, it 
 did not last long with me,” but he hardly 
 looked very thankful, as he said so. 
 
 “ I ought to congratulate you,” I said 
 now, in my turn, very coldly; “you have 
 become a distinguished man, since last I 
 saw you. Pray accept my congratulations 
 on your success.” 
 
 “ People should not talk of success, till 
 they know at what a man is aiming. 
 When I last saw you, Miss Jerninghame, I 
 think, I told you that for myself I aimed 
 at no distinction ; but perhaps your 
 memory is not equally good on all points.” 
 
 Then the ladies rose to leave the dining- 
 room, and Lady Brydget passed her arm 
 round me, as I walked away with Adrian 
 Levison’s last stern words still ringing 
 sharply in my ears. 
 
 Of course I opened the ball with Duke. 
 Adrian Levison did not dance at all. Lady 
 Adelaide tried to make him ask her, but 
 he said he had given that up long ago, and 
 
204 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 soon disappeared — to write letters, I sup- 
 pose. 
 
 “ You are looking well to-night, Gwy- 
 nydd,” said Uncle Basset, coming up to me 
 early in the evening. “ I was saying to 
 Levison just now, it was exactly the pome- 
 granite’s red you had in your cheeks.” 
 
 “ And what did he say ?” I asked. 
 
 “ Oh, he has become very absent of late. 
 I don’t know what is the matter with him, 
 overdone with business I suppose.” 
 
 “ So he said nothing ?” I asked. 
 
 “ Oh, here is Gwynydd fishing for a 
 compliment. There, do you hear, Duke, 
 you had better take care ; a young lady, 
 who is engaged, ought to care for compli- 
 ments only from one man. But Levison is 
 growing quite one-ideaed. I told him how 
 it would be. I am sure I have preached to 
 him enough ! All play and no work make 
 Jack a mere toy, but all work and no play 
 make Jack a dull boy. ‘ My dear Levison,’ 
 I said to him only the week before I left 
 town, ‘ if you won’t condescend to any 
 amusement, not even to light literature, 
 you will find yourself growing old and 
 muddled before your time.’ And you’ll see, 
 it will turn out so. I had great hopes of 
 
WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 205 
 
 liim once, but already be is not half so 
 brilliant as be used to be, and, as it is said, 
 it is less rare to find people with esprit — 
 that untranslatable word — than to find 
 people, who know how to make use of it. 
 That he has got esprit, there is no doubt, 
 but he will lose his talent c’est & dire raison 
 produite avec eclat and his esprit both to- 
 gether, or at all events his reputation for 
 them, if he so forgets the value of eclat, 
 and gives himself up to mere plodding.” 
 
 “ And meanwhile Gwynydd is losing her 
 compliment,” said Duke, smiling delightedly 
 at hearing some one else ramble on in a 
 way in which he was only too conscious he 
 was constantly transgressing himself. 
 
 “ Oh, her compliment ! but he did not 
 pay her any ; he only muttered something 
 about a white rose, and a single petal, and 
 so it was no wonder, and then he went off, 
 leaving me in the middle of what I was 
 saying. Like Yiolante in the pantry I 
 found myself alone. I was quite astonished 
 when I looked round, and found I had 
 been talking to thin air. Come Gwynydd, 
 what is Yirgil always saying ? pars — pars 
 — I really believe my memory is going.” 
 But if so, it seemed that my memory 
 
206 
 
 WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 
 
 was already gone, for I could recollect 
 nothing that Virgil had ever said, or any 
 one else either, only that Adrian Levison 
 had muttered something about a white 
 rose, and then disappeared unaccountably, 
 and I went away, and danced with Duke, 
 and felt the colour burning in my cheeks. 
 They seemed to scorch my hand, when I 
 put it up once, trying to cool them, but as 
 we left off dancing my mother came to me, 
 and said that she thought I had better not 
 dance any more, and that indeed she 
 thought it would be best, if I went to my 
 room at once, I was so very pale. So I 
 went to my room, and as I passed by the 
 library, the door was open, and I saw 
 Adrian Levison sitting, writing at the 
 round table in the middle of it, with a lot 
 of blue books beside him, and a regular 
 business expression on his face, and he 
 never looked up, as 1 passed, nor seemed 
 in any way aware of my doing so. My 
 heai’t had stopped beating as I had caught 
 sight of him. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 “ Bitter torment growing day by day, 
 
 And faint hope lessening till it fades away 
 Into dull waiting for the certain blow.” 
 
 The Life and Death of Jason. 
 
 “ This is the grandest hook I have read 
 for a long time,” said Duke, walking into 
 the drawing-room, where we were most of 
 us assembled, discussing plans for the day, 
 not quite satisfactorily settled at breakfast. 
 
 “ What is it ?” asked Adrian Levison, 
 stretching out his hand. “ ‘ Dion and the 
 Sybils.’ A novel,” he added, in a tone of 
 disgust. 
 
 “ It is no ordinary novel,” said Duke, 
 enthusiastically. “ It is laid in the time of 
 the first Csesars. The writing is good, and 
 some of the ideas are sublime. There is a 
 
208 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 speech made by a gladiator in defence of the 
 men of his calling, which one feels inclined to 
 thank the author for having written. Then 
 the taming of a wild horse is one of the 
 best bits of description possible ; and the 
 first chapter of the book alone affords more 
 matter for thought than half the books, that 
 one reads generally do in their entirety. 
 Oh, reading such a book always makes me 
 wish I were a sufficiently distinguished man 
 to be able to send the writer my hearty and 
 sincere thanks.” 
 
 “ If it be so great a book as you describe,” 
 said A_drian Levison, turning over its pages, 
 “ depend upon it the writer was actuated by 
 no thought of the gratitude he would receive. 
 He wrote it out of the loftiness of his own 
 nature : he requires no thanks ; the conscious- 
 ness of having done a good action must al- 
 ways be sufficient reward to the man capable 
 of it. Triumphs and crowns were all very 
 well for the conquerors in the world of 
 matter, whose souls, after all, may not have 
 been so very great ; but for the conqueror 
 in the spiritual world the feeling of con- 
 quest is enough : it is in itself so great, that 
 the opinion of men at once sinks into insig- 
 nificance in comparison.” 
 
THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 209 
 
 And Adrian Levison laid down the book, 
 and looked out into the summer morning 
 with a set, hard expression upon his noble 
 features. If he, too, did good works, with 
 no care for the applause or gratitude of his 
 fellow-creatures, it was because both alike 
 were empty to him. But Duke said, 
 
 “ I never thought any man wrote a good 
 book, or did any other noble work, for the 
 sake of the gratitude he might thus obtain, 
 but that is no reason why we should with- 
 hold our thanks. It seems to me I would 
 equally give a loaf to a hungry beggar, 
 whether he would be thankful for it or not, 
 but his gratitude would be none the less 
 pleasing, because I had not given my loaf in 
 order to obtain it, nor would he be at all 
 justified in withholding it for the same 
 reason.” 
 
 “ All that talk about gratitude seems to 
 me almost insulting,” said Adrian Levison, 
 with a stern expression on his face, such as 
 seemed to have grown habitual to him of 
 late. “ People only express it in order to 
 get rid of the sense of obligation.” 
 
 “ And you would rather retain them 
 under the sense of obligation ?” said I, 
 quickly glancing up. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 “ Not so,” lie replied. “ Amongst well- 
 principled men I think that there can be 
 no such feeling.” Then, turning to Duke 
 again, “ 1 consider we are all too impotent 
 ever to be able to do what may truly be 
 called a kindness to one another. The 
 Almighty can be kind, but if men can be 
 just to one another, that is all they can be, 
 more than they ever are.” 
 
 “ I see what you mean,” said Duke, 
 slowly. “ But if I had no coat, and you 
 gave me one of yours, of course you would 
 be only doing what you were called upon 
 to do : it would not be just that you should 
 have several coats whilst I had none, unless 
 I had lost mine by some fault of my own ; 
 but it seems to me I should be grateful to 
 you all the same.” 
 
 “ I dare say you would be,” said Adrian 
 Levison, smiling ; “ that is to say, if you 
 ever found out you had got no coat of your 
 own, but I doubt your becoming aware of 
 the fact, unless somebody pointed it out to 
 you.” 
 
 “ Perhaps not.” And Duke smiled, too, 
 “ But, take yourself, who profess to be so 
 very practical : can you not fancy feeling 
 gratitude V 
 
THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 211 
 
 “ No.” And a cloud passed over Adrian 
 Levison’s face. “ There is nothing I either 
 wish for or care about : I do not see how 
 any one could put me under an obligation. 
 And even in one of your fancy situations, I 
 feel convinced, you had rather give me a 
 coat than have several, and let me go bare- 
 backed; so I should feel almost as if I were 
 putting you under an obligation by taking 
 it, not quite so because I might wish for 
 one, if it so happened I had none. I can- 
 not tell how that might be ; I have no 
 imagination, you see.” 
 
 And he got up and went away, and I 
 took “ Dion and the Sybils,” and began to 
 read that first chapter, that gave Duke so 
 much subject for thought. It set me think- 
 ing very soon ; but I forget what I thought 
 about now, only it seems to me very strange, 
 in writing down this conversation between 
 Adrian Levison and Duke, that I recollect 
 thinking at the time what the first said so 
 much the grandest ; now I think it almost 
 mean, in comparison with that ready, large- 
 hearted feeling of gratitude towards every 
 one, who had done him a service, whether 
 intentional or unintentional, to which Duke 
 had striven to give utterance. 
 
 14—2 
 
212 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 We sat out under the trees in the park 
 that morning, without rambling far, and, 
 when Adrian Levison appeared in the dis- 
 tance, Duke at once beckoned to him to join 
 us, and I was almost glad when he did so, 
 for Duke had been sentimentalising to me 
 that morning, and I shrank from anything of 
 the kind from him. However, he continued 
 much the same sort of conversation, when 
 we were three, as before when we had been 
 two. Duke’s thoughts were always hard 
 to turn from any channel into which they 
 had once strayed. 
 
 I was sitting leaning against the trunk 
 of a beech-tree, picking daisies to pieces, 
 Duke lying on the grass beside me, Lady 
 Brydget sketching at a little distance, 
 Brydget and George Lumley, and Lady 
 Adelaide and her brother Henry, and one 
 or two other young people, in a group ex- 
 tending from her to us, all in more or less 
 lounging attitudes, except Lady Adelaide, 
 who sat like a little queen on a red cushion 
 she had insisted on having brought out for 
 her especial use, and who was occupied in 
 pelting every one in turn with flowers from a 
 basket which Lord Henry held for her. He 
 was very proud of his beautiful sister, and 
 
THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 213 
 
 spoiled her more than any one. George 
 Lumley was apparently asleep, and Brydget 
 was embroidering a cigar-case for him ; 
 every one else seemed to have enough to 
 do to dodge Lady Adelaide’s flowers, and 
 laugh when they succeeded, and laugh also 
 when they failed. Adrian Levison came 
 and sat down beside Duke. A rose from 
 Lady Adelaide greeted him as he did so, 
 but he took no further notice of it than 
 picking it up and squeezing the fragrance 
 out of it with his finger and thumb : he 
 was evidently thinking of something else, 
 and the rose might as well have been a 
 daisy, as far as he was concerned. No 
 more flowers were thrown in his direction. 
 
 “ You will read * Dion,’ will you not, 
 Levison ?” said Duke. 
 
 “ To oblige you ?” asked the other, with 
 a slight smile, which only showed more 
 plainly how grave and absorbed he was. 
 
 “ Exactly, exactly so,” said Duke, smiling 
 much more expansively. “But I shall take 
 care not to thank you if you do. I want 
 you to read it, and yet I don’t know if you 
 will like it. There is not much story in 
 it,” he added, after a few moments, during 
 which no one else said anything ; “ hut 
 
214 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 what there is, is the kind of story I like. 
 All the people marry their first loves — all 
 who do marry, I mean.” 
 
 “ That is the kind of story you like,” said 
 Adrian Levison, meditatively. 
 
 “ Yes, I can’t bear novels like Trollope’s ; 
 they have great merits, I know, but I can’t 
 bear novels where people are always doubt- 
 ing between two loves. To me that is a 
 monstrous notion. Either there is no love 
 or no doubt. Don’t you think so ?” 
 
 “It is a subject I have not much con- 
 sidered,” said Adrian Levison, slowly, while 
 Duke went on, smiling at me, and picking 
 up a daisy I had just discarded — 
 
 “ I have been so fortunate, that perhaps 
 I am too prejudiced to judge, but indeed I 
 could not bear the idea that the woman I 
 loved had ever loved anyone else, and even 
 that is not so bad as actually doubting 
 between the two men at the same time.” 
 
 “ So long as she made up her mind — a 
 woman’s mind — for you in the end, it would 
 not much matter, I should say.” 
 
 “ If you had ever loved you would not 
 talk in that way,” said Duke, from his 
 superior wisdom. “I wonder if you will 
 ever marry, Levison ?” 
 
THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 215 
 
 “ Probably,” said Adrian Levison, cool- 
 ly. “ About thirty is the right time, I 
 think.” 
 
 “ About thirty !” said Duke, in horror. 
 “ When you meet the woman you love, I 
 should say.” 
 
 “ Yes, I dare say you would. You are 
 in love now, and talk as men mostly do 
 under such circumstances. When I marry 
 it will be, because it is what most sensible 
 men, who have sufficient wealth, do, as they 
 get on in life.” 
 
 “ Without any love on your side at all ?” 
 asked Duke, thoughtfully. “ I suppose 
 you will not expect your wife to love you 
 either ?” 
 
 “ Women are very pliable about that 
 sort of thing. I suppose she will love me 
 as much as most women love their hus- 
 bands, if she thinks me a suitable parti.” 
 
 “ As if that made any difference l” cried 
 Duke, indignantly. “ I suppose, too, it will 
 make no difference to you if she has loved 
 anyone else first.” 
 
 “ Some people say women improve by 
 practice,” said Adrian Levison, in the same 
 cold tones, always watching Lady Adelaide, 
 as she tossed her flowers about, and talked, 
 
216 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 and laughed. As for me, I might as well 
 not have existed, for all the notice he took 
 of me. I do not know if he had even seen 
 me. 
 
 “ Horrible ! too horrible !” cried Duke, 
 rising from the ground, and growing almost 
 angry, as he spoke. “ So far men and 
 women are alike, and people either love 
 once or not at all.” 
 
 “ Some people say you love not at all, or 
 several times, never only once. I am but 
 quoting ; for myself I do not consider I 
 have any experience.” 
 
 “ Have you never loved anyone, then V’ 
 asked Duke. 
 
 “ Once I fancied I did,” and Adrian 
 Levison stretched himself out upon the 
 grass, and tilted his hat over his eyes to 
 shield them from the sun glinting through 
 the trees. 
 
 “Was it only fancy ?” asked Duke, re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 “ Not fancy at all in one sense, and yet 
 all fancy in the other. Once I saw a 
 woman whom I fancied all that I could 
 love, and I loved the creature of my imagi- 
 nation under her name.” 
 
 “How did you find out she was only the 
 
THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 217 
 
 creature of your own imagination ? Besides, 
 I thought you had no imagination,” objected 
 Duke. 
 
 “ I had then. Most men have some 
 when they are very young. She threw me 
 over for a man she had known always, and 
 not loved, but who was a good match for 
 her, while I was not, a fortnight after 
 she had been persuading me, that she only 
 loved me less than her soul ; that it was 
 almost a question which of the two she did 
 prefer, but that of the two she did prefer 
 her soul — in which certainly she was right 
 — a fortnight after that she was engaged to 
 another man.” 
 
 “No, no, not a fortnight,” I said, bending 
 lower over my daisies, but speaking quickly 
 and involuntarily. > 
 
 “ Why, how do you know, Gwynydd ?” 
 asked Duke, surprised, while Adrian Levi- 
 son turned to me for the first time, glancing 
 sternly, but interrogatively at me. 
 
 “ How long, then, Miss Jerninghame ? 
 How long do you give a woman to forget 
 one man and love another ?” 
 
 “ Not for some months, at least,” I said, 
 hurriedly, without noticing his last words. 
 “No, of course I do not know, Duke, but 
 
218 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 it was not for some months, I am sure.” It 
 was the first time in my life I had ever told 
 a downright story, and I told it to the man 
 who was to be my husband. 
 
 “ Two months and two weeks are very 
 much the samething, sometimes, ”said Adrian 
 Levison, turning his eyes from me some- 
 what scornfully, and speaking still in the 
 same cold hard tones. “ She had talked of 
 loving me for all eternity. A woman’s 
 eternity !” he muttered, bitterly. 
 
 “ Are you sorry you did not marry her?’ 
 asked Duke, looking at him very gravely. 
 
 “ No,” was the reply, very firmly and 
 deliberately given. “ Inasmuch as I am 
 glad of anything, I am glad of that. I 
 should have had to make a great sacrifice in 
 order to marry her. I would have made it 
 gladly then, but she saved me from the 
 necessity, and now I am glad of it, for no 
 woman could be worth such a sacrifice. Ac- 
 cording to you, I ought to be grateful to 
 her, specially grateful to her for making me 
 the less regret her by showing her little 
 worth, though I do not suppose she did so 
 with the intention of arousing my grati- 
 tude.” 
 
 And I had loved this man, who could 
 
THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 219 
 
 speak thus cruelly, with the deliberate 
 desire to give pain, as it seemed — I had 
 loved him, and oh, madness ! I loved him 
 still ! 
 
 But Duke took no note of Adrian Levi- 
 son’s last words. “ I could not think about 
 a sacrifice for the woman I loved,” he 
 said, and his voice trembled with deep 
 feeling. 
 
 “ You are not in a position, in which you 
 could be called upon to make any such 
 sacrifice as that which I contemplated 
 making, and all ready as you always are to 
 throw yourself into another person’s circum- 
 stances, and feel for and with them, yet I 
 do not think even you could realise what 
 that sacrifice was. Anyhow I have been 
 spared making it, and for that I am thank- 
 ful — yes, thankful,” repeated Adrian Levi- 
 son. “ I forgot one obligation one human 
 being has put me under, when I was talking 
 this morning,” he continued, still more 
 bitterly. “ Shall I follow her with my 
 thanks, or leave her to go on her way con- 
 tented with the consciousness that she has 
 but acted after the manner of women, that 
 is to say, as was befitting ?” 
 
 “ I cannot fancy the woman very con- 
 
220 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 tented who has once cast away your love, 
 Levison,” said Duke, gravely. 
 
 “ Cannot you ?” said the other, rising 
 now from his lying posture, and looking at 
 him sharply for an instant, then crushing 
 a handful of grass in his hand. “ Does it 
 not strike you, that we are shamefully 
 misusing this fine summer morning ? 
 Your cousin is much better employed, 
 plucking the roses ere they wither. Have 
 you no flowers to spare for me, Lady 
 Adelaide ?” 
 
 “ So you are awake at last,” she cried, 
 glancing up at him. “ I supposed you 
 would come to your senses some day, if you 
 were only let alone long enough, but as to 
 you and Duke and Miss Jerninghame, you 
 have sat up there under the shade of that 
 tree like the three miseries of modern 
 days, whom the ancients left out of their 
 mythology.” 
 
 “And what are the three miseries of 
 modern days, Adelaide ?” asked Duke, 
 laughingly. “ I should like to hear you 
 classify us.” 
 
 “ The want of money, and the want of 
 leisure, and the want of something to do. 
 That must be the third,” said Lady Ade- 
 
THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 221 
 
 laide, readily. “ That must be Miss Jer- 
 ninghame, for that is the woman’s cry.” 
 
 “ And which is the want of money ?” 
 asked Lord Henry. “ My dear Adelaide, 
 out of two millionaires which will you select 
 to represent that ? I am sure I am a much 
 better example, an unfortunate younger 
 son.” 
 
 “ Be quiet, Henry. Who asked you to 
 talk ? There you three miseries, you may 
 divide those thorns among you. I threw 
 Mr. Levison a rose long ago, but he neg- 
 lected his opportunity, and now he must 
 take what he can get and be thankful.” 
 
 “ Why should I be thankful, Lady Ade- 
 laide ?” 
 
 “You needn’t unless you like. I only 
 said that by way of a perora — peroration 
 — bravo ! well done us for a polysyllable ! 
 Why don’t you say bravo, Henry ? I am 
 sure it makes no difference to me whether 
 you a.re grateful or not. Dear Mrs. Lumley, 
 do make thosegood people behind you a little 
 merry. Nobody can resist you, and I posi- 
 tively cannot support their grave looks any 
 longer.” 
 
 “ Gwen, dear, don’t look so grave,” said 
 Brydget, over her shoulder to me. “Duke, 
 
222 
 
 THE SORROW FORETOLD. 
 
 it is always the host’s business to make his 
 guests cheerful. Mr. Levison, you may be 
 as serious as you please over your business, 
 hut in ladies’ society it is bad manners. 
 Now they have all been scolded, of course 
 they will he good children, and grow merry 
 at once,” said she, turning to Lady Adelaide 
 again. But at the same time she crept up 
 to me, on the pretence of consulting me about 
 her work, and while tumbling her bright 
 coloured silks upon my lap, and sitting 
 between me and the others, she took hold 
 of my hand, caressingly. “ Gwen, dearest, 
 your head aches, I am sure. Come into the 
 house with me, won’t you ? It will be much 
 cooler and pleasanter there.” 
 
 So I went into the house with Brydget. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR IN PERSEUS’ HANDS. 
 
 Quel fococVio pengai che fosse spento 
 Dal freddo tempo e dall’ eta men fresca 
 Piamma e martir nell ’anima rinfresca. 
 
 Petrarch . 
 
 I could not bear it. It waa all very well, 
 but I could not bear it. People often use 
 the phrase without really meaning it, but 
 there are some cases in which it is actually, 
 literally true. I do not believe there are 
 many cases in which people have died, be- 
 cause life was simply insupportable to them, 
 but I believe there are some, and before 
 dying people will do a great deal, eat cheese 
 as the French princess declared she would, 
 or catch at straws as drowningmen are said 
 to do, or speak their minds even, lay bare 
 the secrets of their hearts, in fact, do any 
 
224 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR 
 
 of those things, which they would rather 
 die than do at any other time, when there 
 is no question of dying, when they can bear 
 not to do them in fact. 
 
 I was supposed to have a headache, and 
 I sat on a low lounging chair in the morn- 
 ing-room, with a book in my hand, “ Dion 
 and the Sybils,” as it happened, but I was 
 not reading it then. I do not know how in- 
 teresting the book would have been for me 
 to have read it then, but I held a book in 
 my hand of course, and I do not think it was 
 topsy-turvy. For my part, I do not think 
 anyone at all in the habit of reading, would 
 ever hold a book topsy-turvy for any time, 
 however engrossed they might be by their 
 own thoughts ; long habit would surely 
 make them hold it straight. Adrian Levi- 
 son came into the room, and of course seeing 
 me, turned and sauntered to the window 
 opening on to the lawn, where Lady Ade- 
 laide was holding a little court, consisting 
 of her brother, and two other young 
 men. 
 
 “ You are not to come here, Mr. Levison, 
 you are much too grave.” 
 
 “ I may look and long from a distance, 
 may I not V said he, pausing in the open 
 
IN PERSEUS HANDS. 
 
 225 
 
 window, and standing leaning against the 
 wall, looking at the merry group outside. 
 
 He looked very grave indeed, as he stood 
 there, and I, who longed to speak to him, 
 to be spoken to by him, sat still with my 
 book before me, considering how I w r as the 
 only human being to whom he professed to 
 be under an obligation. And what an ob- 
 ligation ! Oh ! I could not bear it ! 
 
 “ Miss Jerninghame ! Miss Jerninghame !” 
 called Lord Henry, and I advanced to the 
 open window. “ Do come out here, I 
 am sure it would do you more good than 
 sitting * poring over miserable books/ ” 
 “Yes, do come,” said his sister. “We 
 will promise to be very good, and not make 
 too much noise, if you will.” 
 
 “ Thank you,” I said, “ I think you are 
 happier making a noise, and I am really 
 too tired to come out, though it is very nice 
 and pleasant here now.” And I paused at 
 the open window for a moment. The 
 creepers round it were all loading the air 
 with their fragrance, and everything looked 
 very bright and happy, the trees casting 
 long soft shadows on the grass, the birds 
 singing their evening hymns, Lady Adelaide 
 in her white dress and blue ribbons, the 
 VOL. II. 15 
 
226 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR 
 
 young men all in various adaptations of 
 light summer costume, the flowers sweet 
 and lovely, trailing about with a studied 
 negligence. “ How delicious it is !” I said, 
 as I bent over a trail of Banksia roses. 
 
 Adrian Levison moved slightly, he crossed 
 one leg over the other, and then uncrossed 
 it, otherwise he took no notice of my speak- 
 ing, only remained leaning against the wall, 
 looking still at the group outside. 
 
 “ Is it not sweet ?’’ I said again, and bent 
 the trail in his direction. 
 
 “Yes, very," he said, absently. 
 
 “ You think her very pretty ?” I asked, 
 following the direction of his eyes. 
 
 “ I don’t think her so, she is so. It is 
 the prettiest doll’s face I think I have ever 
 seen." 
 
 I supposed mine was not a doll’s face, 
 so this could hardly be intended to be rude, 
 but I was not sure that by this expression 
 he did not mean just any woman’s face, he 
 had grown so contemptuous towards women ; 
 anyhow it did not seem to be any objection 
 to it in his eyes, that this was a doll’s face 
 he was looking at. “ I suppose she is to 
 marry the Marquis of Longacre next sea- 
 
in perseits’ hands. 
 
 227 
 
 “ The Marquis of Longacre ! Why, she 
 does not even know him, I believe.” 
 
 “ No ; she will be taken up to London to 
 make his acquaintance, 1 suppose. He is 
 the best parti among the titles, and as a 
 Duke’s daughter and a beauty, I should 
 think she will be satisfied with nothing 
 less. I believe he is a good sort of fellow, 
 a great fool, but that does not matter, as 
 he has not got his bread to make.” 
 
 “ English people do not make up their 
 marriages in that sort of way,” I said, re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 “ Don’t they ? I thought they did.” 
 The group outside had moved, and he fol- 
 lowed them with his eyes, till they disap- 
 peared within the shrubbery. 
 
 “ If I could but make you understand ! 
 
 If I could but ” I said, faintly, sinking 
 
 down upon the window-sill, and looking up 
 at him, pale, imploring. 
 
 “ Why you marry your cousin. Thank 
 you, I understand perfectly,” he said, with- 
 out looking at me, his eyes now fixed on 
 the setting sun visible over the tops of the 
 distant trees. 
 
 “ No, you do not,” I said. “ You are so 
 bitter, you speak so bitterly of women.” 
 
 15—2 
 
228 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR 
 
 “ Pardon me, Miss Jerninghame, but you 
 attach too much importance to yourself, if 
 you think that it is because of anything 
 you have said or done, that I speak so bit- 
 terly, as you call it, of women in general. 
 Excuse my saying that you are the first 
 person, who has called me bitter, and at 
 the same time recollect that the people of 
 my nation have what, perhaps, you might 
 consider slightly Asiatic notions with re- 
 gard to women. When I had the pleasure 
 of your acquaintance before, I found you, 
 like most of the people of your religion, 
 slightly ignorant as regarded mine. Per- 
 haps you are not aware, that each time we 
 go to the synagogue the men of my nation 
 bless the Creator for not having made them 
 women. We should not speak thus, if we 
 thought women of like nature as ourselves. 
 This may, perhaps, account for what you 
 call my bitterness in speaking of them ; 
 though I acknowledge, when I last knew 
 you, I thought this notion of the inferiority 
 of your sex a mistaken one, I have since 
 seen reason to confess to the superior wis- 
 dom of my people in this as in other mat- 
 ters. Both these changes may be in a 
 measure your doing, but the result is that 
 
IN PERSEUS’ HANDS. 
 
 229 
 
 I am but where I was before, agreeing with 
 the body of my co-religionists.” 
 
 I sat and looked at him despairingly. 
 There he stood and gazed at the setting 
 sun, every feature in his face fixed and re- 
 solute. There was not a trace of feeling in 
 his face as he spoke, but there was a cloud 
 upon his brow. 
 
 “ But you are not happy,” I murmured. 
 
 “ Who are happy after their first youth ? 
 But if I live till sixty — and few public men 
 live to be very old — if I live till sixty and 
 never know any happier days than those I 
 am knowing now, I shall still say I have 
 enjoyed much happiness, for I was very 
 happy till I knew you, Miss Jerninghame.” 
 
 “ And that has robbed you of your hap- 
 piness for ever ?” 
 
 “Yes !” he said, shortly, glancing at me 
 for a moment, then immediately looking 
 away again. “I do not look forward to 
 being happy again, but in that respect we 
 are quits. That short time, during which 
 we knew each other, will, I fear, always 
 form the dark thread in your life, however 
 good and loving a wife you may be to your 
 cousin, and that I know you will be. You 
 see I still think well enough of women for 
 
230 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR 
 
 that. You will be very useful to him ; for 
 your sake he will do many things he would 
 never have thought of doing otherwise, and 
 he is a man worth calling into action, for 
 his principles are of the highest, and his 
 mental powers very great. Yes, you are 
 fortunate in being called to a position of 
 great influence.” 
 
 “ Very fortunate !” I said, bitterly. 
 “Would you not he thankful, were you 
 called upon to influence in some such way 
 any woman as much worth influencing, 
 could that be possible, of course V’ 
 
 “ But you do not love any one else,” he 
 said, speaking quickly. 
 
 “ And you ?” I asked, passionately. 
 
 “ Last year is not so long ago to me as 
 it is to you, perhaps,” he said, and looked 
 down on me coldly, contemptuously, as it 
 seemed to me. 
 
 “ It is not long ago to me,” I cried, 
 wildly. 
 
 “ Yes it is,” he said, wearily, “ for you 
 do not love me now, and you did then. 
 Yes, Miss Jerninghame, I have been a little 
 bitter, I believe, for I did not think this 
 •when I came here, but I do believe it now. 
 I believe you did love me, and I believe 
 
IN PERSEUS’ HANDS. 
 
 231 
 
 you may have had a hard struggle before 
 you brought yourself to love your cousin ; 
 though it is strange it should have been so, 
 for I often think now it is a pity you did 
 not know me a little better, to see how 
 much more like your ideal he is than I 
 could ever be.” 
 
 “ What is my ideal ?” I asked, faintly. 
 
 “ Your ideal is a very idealistic one, a 
 man tender-hearted as any woman, yet 
 large-minded as any man that ever lived, 
 full of grand theories, too grand to be 
 ever translated from the purer element of 
 thought even into the slightly grosser ele- 
 ment of words. How impossible to be 
 carried out in action I need not then say. 
 A man so unselfish as to be incapable of 
 sacrifice, it being a pleasure rather than a 
 pain to him to yield up his own will for the 
 sake of another ; finally, a man steeped in 
 the spirit of your religion, who admires 
 Regulus, because he died, not because he 
 kept to the word of his agreement, who ad- 
 mires justice in theory, but would unhe- 
 sitatingly commit the greatest injustice in 
 practice, could it but be at his own ex- 
 pense.” 
 
232 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR 
 
 My eyes filled with tears at this descrip- 
 tion of Duke. 
 
 “ And now,” said Adrian Levison, turn- 
 ing and looking at me, “ if Sir Marmaduke 
 knew how we had been talking, do you 
 not think he would feel that you, as his 
 future wife, and I as his chosen friend, had 
 both been acting somewhat treacherously 
 by him ?” 
 
 “ Shall I tell him, then ?” I asked. 
 “ Shall I tell him all?” 
 
 “ And have him with his head more 
 bowed than usual, and his eyes more sor- 
 rowful, walk about like a ghost, moving 
 heaven and earth in vain efforts to enable 
 you to become my wife instead of his.” 
 
 “ Vain !” I repeated ; “ could that never 
 be now ?” 
 
 “ No, Gwynydd,” he said, and as the 
 last ray of the setting sun disappeared be- 
 hind the trees, he turned his eyes finally 
 away from the far distance and fixed them 
 upon my face. “ No, Gwynydd, that can 
 never be now. You saved me from the 
 temptation of a great sin once ; you, woman 
 though you were, were stronger than I 
 was, or your love weaker ; no, do not let 
 me detract from your merit, you were 
 
IN PERSEUS’ HANDS. 
 
 233 
 
 stronger once, you saved me from the 
 temptation of doing what would have been 
 far more wrong for me than for you, and 
 now I could never succumb to the tempta- 
 tion again. It could never again present 
 itself to me such as once it was. I have 
 seen the danger now — and now what I want 
 to say to you is, would you rather I should 
 go away at once, that we should avoid each 
 other all our lives, and that thus ceasing to 
 be reminded by my bodily presence, you 
 should gradually forget altogether what 
 once we were to each other, or do you 
 think, as I did when I came here, that it 
 is better that, as in the natural course of 
 things we are likely to be brought much in 
 contact with each other, we should as soon 
 as possible accustom ourselves to look upon 
 each other as acquaintances — friends, I 
 would say, for I must ever be your friend, 
 if only because your future husband is the 
 man I most esteem of all those I know — 
 which do you think best ? I will go or 
 stay, as you wish.” 
 
 “ I think it would have been better if 
 we had never met,” I said, faintly. “ But 
 now it is better for me to learn to look 
 upon you — as a friend, as you say. If you 
 were to go away now, I should always feel 
 
234 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR 
 
 as if I dared not meet you, and that would 
 be terrible ; but — but — ” and I looked up 
 at him again. I had looked away during 
 the last few speeches, but I looked up at 
 him now, for the second time in my life 
 putting my fate in his hands, as it were, 
 as if I had any right to do that, as if it 
 were not safe in God’s hands, and in God’s 
 hands alone. “ But have I any right to 
 marry Duke, as it is, not loving him ?” 
 
 “ You do love him,’’ said Adrian Levison, 
 firmly, and, sitting down beside me, he looked 
 at me more tenderly than he had done yet. 
 “ Believe me, you have always loved him. 
 Never were two people more suited to each 
 other. Only you came up to London, having 
 seen very few people, and you met me very 
 young, and very happy — it is not so long 
 ago, but I was very young then — and you 
 were attracted by my youth and happiness, 
 and then you thought my people were la- 
 bouring under a great injustice — as, indeed, 
 we are — and all the romantic side of your 
 nature was enlisted on my behalf, and you 
 twined your beautiful womanly imaginings 
 about me until in the end you loved me : 
 all the romance in you loved me, but your 
 heart was true to your cousin through it 
 
IN PERSEUS* HANDS. 
 
 235 
 
 all. If it had not been you would have 
 married me. No ; you do not love me ; 
 you never did.” 
 
 “ Then I worship you,” I said, and looked 
 at him — so beautiful, so noble, so kind. If 
 I had loved him, when he was cold and 
 cruel in the morning, how could I not love 
 him yet more now, when he was so good 
 and kind ! 
 
 “ If you even fancy you do, you put a 
 great responsibility on me,” said he, sighing. 
 “But I cannot pretend to see into the 
 secrets of a woman’s heart. It is conve- 
 nient to talk of such a thing, whether it 
 exists or not ; and, after all, it is to the 
 Judge of all the world that you must stand 
 or fall in the end, and it will be no excuse 
 in His eyes that you have been misled by 
 me, though if I have done it knowingly it 
 must bring a curse upon me. I do not 
 know what goes to the idea of a Christian 
 marriage, only I think that you might be 
 very useful to your cousin, and might make 
 him very happy. But if you think that 
 you cannot do so — that, having gone so far, 
 you have not strength to complete your 
 sacrifice of self for his happiness, why then 
 the sooner you tell him so the better. It 
 
236 
 
 LIFE AND HONOUR 
 
 is but increasing both his and your pain to 
 protract the struggle. But I believe you 
 love him, and will be happy yourself with 
 him eventually — as happy as your nature 
 admits of being. Come, be strong, Miss 
 J erninghame ; be proud ; and tell me that 
 I have no right to talk in this way to Sir 
 Marmaduke Jerninghame’s promised wife.” 
 “ Oh God !” I cried, “ I have got no pride, 
 and no strength left ; it is all used up.” 
 Adrian Levison looked gloomily on to 
 that pleasant lawn, all shadow now in the 
 still, calm summer’s evening — the stillness 
 only broken by the buzzing of the bees, and 
 Lady Adelaide’s voice at times sounding out 
 merrily from the other side of the house. I 
 saw he was vexed, and longed to please 
 him. I believe I was capable of any mad- 
 ness then, capable of even marrying Duke 
 to please Adrian Levison. 
 
 “ I wish I could advise you better,” he 
 said at last ; “ but not only do I feel my 
 own incapacity, but there are some subjects 
 on which no human being’s advice is worth 
 having : people must decide for themselves. 
 I can only pray for you that God may help 
 you to decide aright. But,” and as he 
 spoke he rose up, and stepped out upon the 
 
IN PERSEUS HANDS. 
 
 237 
 
 lawn, “ I think you will be doing right in 
 marrying your cousin. And now I think it 
 would be better if I went away to-morrow. 
 I did wrong in coming here.” 
 
 There was an expression of deep pain on 
 his face, and he looked wan and weary. 
 
 “ No, no,” I said ; “ do not go now. I 
 can never marry Duke, if I cannot bear that 
 you should stay in the house, and yet de- 
 cide to do so. You must not go now. I 
 must decide with you here. Only there is 
 nothing to decide : I am engaged to him, 
 and I must marry him.” 
 
 His face had brightened at the beginning 
 of my speech, but it clouded again now. 
 
 “ There is no must in the case,” he said : 
 “ you are not married yet. Many people 
 would have said, we ought not to have met 
 till you were ; but — but I thought there 
 was only myself to be considered, and — and 
 half the sins of the world are brought about, 
 because people think they must not commit 
 them, and then half by very nervousness are 
 led on to do so. There is no must now, and 
 you are still free — free to decide whether 
 you will marry your cousin or not.” 
 
 “ Do you wish me to do so ?” 
 
 “ My wishes ought not to have the 
 
238 LIFE AND HONOUK IN PEKSEUS’ HANDS. 
 
 smallest effect upon you,” lie said, sternly, 
 turning away. Then he turned hack again 
 quickly, and, bending over me, almost whis- 
 pered, “ But if you fancy they have — yes; I 
 do wish you to marry your cousin.” 
 
 Then he left me. 
 
CHAPTEE XIY. 
 
 BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 u Wir aergern uns oft iiber Nichts, 
 
 Und werden wieder gut ohne Etwas.” 
 
 Lied . 
 
 “ Gwen, dearest, where are you ? Oh, 
 Gwen, darling, is your head better ? I 
 have just been talking to Duke, and telling 
 him he ought to get you to fix a day for 
 your wedding, and I fancy he will be com- 
 ing to ask you. Only I thought it better 
 you should be a little prepared first, and so 
 I ran on before him.” 
 
 So spoke Brydget, rubbing her soft, 
 peach-like cheek against mine, and looking 
 like some fairy changeling in her bright 
 blue habit, with all her soft, tangled hair 
 blown about her face by her quick canter 
 home, and subsequent run through the long 
 passages of the Castle. 
 
240 
 
 BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ Oh, Brydget, what have you done ?” I 
 exclaimed, starting up. 
 
 But Brydget had skipped out through 
 the open window, and it was Duke I con- 
 fronted as I rose up from my lonely seat on 
 the window-sill. 
 
 “ Is your head better, dearest ?” said 
 Duke, coming up to me lovingly. 
 
 “ My head !” said I. “ I have not got a 
 headache.” 
 
 “ Have not you ? You said you had,” 
 said Duke, smiling. “ But I am glad you 
 have not, for then we shall be able to have 
 a little talk. I want to talk to you, dear 
 Gwynydd, and I so seldom see you alone 
 now.” 
 
 “ It is time to dress for dinner,” I said, 
 desperately. “ I can’t talk now, Duke; I 
 must really go and dress.” 
 
 “ It is not nearly time yet,” said Duke, 
 taking out his watch, disconsolately. 
 
 “ Oh yes, Duke, it is. Indeed I cannot 
 stay now. I cannot bear dressing in a 
 hurry. Some other time will do just as 
 well to talk.” 
 
 “ What are you going to put on, that 
 takes such a long time, Gwen ?” asked Duke, 
 smiling again. 
 
BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 241 
 
 It always provoked me when he smiled. 
 
 “ As if I had thought yet ; That is what 
 will take such a long time to decide — yes, 
 to decide,” I repeated, wildly. 
 
 Duke looked puzzled. 
 
 “ Well, I won’t keep you now, as you 
 don’t wish it,” he said. “ But if you have 
 not decided yet, wear your white dress, 
 with the gold band in your hair, Gwynydd. 
 I like you best like that.” 
 
 Duke was very fond of doing or saying 
 something, that seemed to him to be what 
 lovers generally did or said. Few people 
 noticed dress less, but he thought, as my 
 lover, it was the right thing that he should 
 like one of my dresses better than the 
 others, and, as I had worn this dress every 
 night while he had been staying at the 
 Deanery, he had naturally got to know it, 
 and fancied it was his favourite. But this 
 dress was particularly associated in my 
 mind with Adrian Levison. I had worn 
 it at that Ballad Concert at which he had 
 sat next me, and then I had never had 
 the heart to wear it again, till at last, 
 determined to conquer my foolish feel- 
 ings about it, I had put it on regularly 
 every night while Duke was at the 
 VOL. ii. 1 6 
 
242 
 
 BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 Deanery. Now, however, I could not bear 
 to wear it. 
 
 “ Oh, no, not that dress,” I exclaimed, 
 
 “ not to-night of all the nights in the year. 
 Oh, no, any other dress but that,” and 
 this time I fairly ran away, and did not 
 stop again till I found myself in my own 
 room. 
 
 There I crouched by the window, staring 
 out at the green grass, and the trees gently 
 waving their long arms, and the cows 
 munching slowly in the distant meadows, 
 and I ached all over — head, and heart, and 
 limbs. I had not had time to collect my 
 thoughts yet ; I did not know what I was 
 doing, or going to do. I knew I had 
 spoken unkindly, nay, rudely, to Duke, for 
 the first time in my life. I knew Adrian 
 Levison had said his wishes ought to have no 
 effect upon me, but that he wished me to 
 marry Duke. I knew Adrian Levison himself 
 loved me still, in spite of everything. He 
 had admitted as much, when he said, “ But 
 you do not love some one else.” I knew all 
 this, and nothing more. I was aching all 
 over — head, and heart, and limbs. The 
 door opened, and Brydget, still in her habit, 
 came running in. 
 
BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 243 
 
 “ Gwynydd, what have you done to 
 Duke ? What have you said, to him ?” 
 
 I did. not move, nor look up. “ I don’t 
 know,” and my head drooped lower, though 
 still supported by my hands. 
 
 “ He says you do not love him, never 
 have loved him, and he looks as if he were 
 in despair. Oh, Gwynydd, what does it all 
 mean ?” and Brydget stooped down over 
 me and tried to look into my face, but in 
 vain ; it was resolutely turned away from her. 
 
 “ It means that you should not interfere 
 between us,” I said, coldly. “We get on 
 very well alone, but if anyone puts ideas 
 into Duke’s head, then it must all be over.” 
 “ Perhaps it had better all be over,” said 
 Brydget, gravely. “ Often and often I 
 believe it had, only George says it is all 
 nonsense of mine. But I do not think so ; 
 I wish I did. Gwynydd, you know it is 
 killing you going on like this. I have 
 never said anything yet, and I do all I can 
 to prevent other people from taking notice, 
 because I know, if they did, it would drive 
 you mad ; but you know you cannot bear the 
 idea of marrying Duke, and you are hoping 
 and hoping you may die before it comes to 
 pass, and it is very wicked, Gwen.” 
 
 16—2 
 
244 
 
 BRYDGET DISSATISFIED, 
 
 I looked up at this outburst of indigna- 
 tion, and saw Brydget standing over me 
 like the angel Michael in Guido’s picture. 
 
 “ Brydget,” said I, wearily, “ I am more 
 ill than any of you guess, and I think 
 very likely I shall die before I marry Duke, 
 but I am not hoping that, nor anything 
 else, now. If you let us alone, all will go 
 right, and as to people noticing anything, I 
 am sure I go about just as usual.” 
 
 “Yes, if it is just as usual for a girl who 
 is on the point of being married to go about 
 with her cheeks as white as my handker- 
 chief, and her eyes heavy with tears.” 
 
 “ Brydget, I do not,” I protested. 
 
 “No, you do not, I acknowledge,” said 
 Brydget, “ not so that anyone who did not 
 know you well should see it. No ; people 
 only say, ‘ How proud that pale Miss Jer- 
 ninghame is ! Could she never smile or 
 talk like other girls ? Or is it only since 
 she is engaged to Sir Marmaduke, that she 
 cannot do anything like other people V 
 But I, who know you, as no one else does, 
 I see you are dying of it, Gwen, and I will 
 not stand by and see it happen,” cried 
 Brydget, stamping her foot in her excite- 
 ment. " If you can make up your mind to 
 
BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 245 
 
 marry Duke, and fix the day, well; but if not, 
 better tell him so at once. It shall not go on, 
 draggingon and on, and killing you by inches, 
 and so I put it into Duke’s head to make 
 you fix the day for your marriage, and if 
 you will not, that is the end of it all, 
 and perhaps it is all over as it is, for Duke 
 seems in despair, and will say nothing but 
 that you do not love him, never did. If it 
 is all over, and you say it is my doing, I do 
 not shrink from the responsibility, for I will 
 not stand by and see you killed ; I will not, 
 and I cannot, Gwen, darling,” and Bryd- 
 get’s loving arms were wreathed round my 
 neck, and her hot, excited face pressed 
 against mine, while her quick sobs shook 
 us both ; but though I trembled with her 
 sobbing, I did not sob myself. 
 
 “ It is not all over,” I said. 
 
 “ Then go and speak to Duke at once. 
 Go and comfort him, for he is miserable.” 
 
 “ I cannot go,” I said. “ I will not go.” 
 
 “ Oh, if anything I had said had made 
 George so miserable, would I not fly to 
 comfort him,” cried Brydget. 
 
 “ You are his wife,” I said, coldly. 
 
 “ And you are going to he Duke’s. I do 
 not see the difference. But if it is not all 
 
246 
 
 BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 over, and this is only what they call a 
 lovers’ quarrel, thank God I never had any, 
 for it would have killed me,” cried Brydget. 
 “ Come, Gwynydd, do not attempt to dress ; 
 you are not well enough. Say your head 
 aches too much for you to come down to 
 dinner ; indeed, I am sure it does, and let 
 me send Duke to you in the library, and 
 make it all up there.” 
 
 “ No, no,” I said, “ not in the library.” 
 
 “ Why not in the library ?” 
 
 “ Oh, there would be somebodv there. 
 Mr. Levison, or somebody.” 
 
 “ I wish he had never come here. I do 
 not like Mr. Levison.” 
 
 “ Nor do I,” I said, faintly. 
 
 “ I hate him !” cried Brydget. 
 
 “ Oh, Brydget, how can you, when he is 
 
 all that is good, and noble, and ” 
 
 “ Why do you not like him, then ?” asked 
 Brydget. 
 
 “I must really dress,” I said, turning 
 away. 
 
 “ Don’t ring, then ; I will help you. I 
 am going to dress you, Gwen. Which 
 dress will you have ?” and Brydget took 
 hold of that very white dress which Duke 
 had asked me to wear. 
 
BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 247 
 
 “ No ; no, not that one,” I cried, turning 
 sick and trembling at the sight. 
 
 “ This one, then. This pink one.” 
 
 “ No — no !” I exclaimed, passionately, 
 more because everything was hateful to 
 me than because I had any reason against 
 * it. 
 
 “ Will you have some rouge, Gwen ? I 
 got some for a fancy ball the other day, 
 will you wear some ?” 
 
 “ No ; why should I ? What are you 
 thinking of, Brydget ?” 
 
 “ Only you look so ghastly, so terribly 
 pale,” said Brydget, sighing. 
 
 “ I am not pale,” I said, angrily. 
 
 “ Well, wear this pink dress though. 
 At all events it will make you look less 
 so.” 
 
 “ If you like,” I said, sullenly. 
 
 “ Now, I am going to arrange your hair. 
 No, not that way, let me draw it off your 
 face so. There now the pink dress gives 
 you a little colour, and if any one says you 
 don’t look well, they can see at once, it is 
 all because I have done your hair so badly. 
 Nothing would make any difference to- 
 night ; you look so ghastly, but they can 
 fancy it is all the fault of the hair. Gwen, 
 
248 
 
 BKYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 dear, you are trembling ; indeed, indeed 
 you are not well enough to go down 
 stairs.” 
 
 “ I am not trembling,” I said. “ I am 
 not ill.” 
 
 “ Then why do I feel you tremble so, 
 while I fasten your dress ?” 
 
 “ Because you do it badly,” I said. 
 “ You shake me. There, now let me alone, 
 Brydget, I do very well as I am.” 
 
 “You certainly do look dreadful,” said 
 Brydget, contemplating me. “I consider 
 I have been very successful with your hair ; 
 it is vilely done, every one must think it is 
 all because of that, you look so bad.” 
 
 “ I must be careful how I let you dress 
 me again,” I said, “ if you only do it to 
 make me look dreadful.” 
 
 “ Gwen, you are not strong enough to 
 go down. You will not know what to say 
 to Duke, when you see him.” 
 
 “ Yes, I shall,” I said, and broke away 
 from her detaining hand, and passed along 
 the long passage, on into Duke’s particular 
 little sitting-room, and there I found him, 
 as I knew I should, and looking despairing 
 indeed, as he sat with his head resting on 
 his hands, his hands resting on the window 
 sill. 
 
BBYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 249 
 
 “ Duke, I have been very disobedient, 
 do you see ? I have not put on the dress 
 you asked for. Brydget said I was so pale, 
 I must wear pink.” My voice sounded 
 strange even to myself, as I tried to speak 
 thus lightly, and playfully. I hardly knew 
 what I was saying, but Brydget had roused 
 my spirit, as I suppose she knew she would. 
 “ And Duke, dear,” I continued, putting 
 my arm round him, “ I have been very 
 miserable. I feel sometimes, as if we 
 should never be married, and it was some- 
 thing of that feeling made me speak so 
 crossly just now. I know it is all my 
 fault, I have kept putting off, and putting 
 off, and now 1 think it would be so much 
 better, if we were to fix some day, it would 
 make it seem so much more real, so much 
 more likely to happen, so I have not fixed 
 the day exactly, because I did not know 
 what you would like, and I had no alma- 
 nac to see the day of the week ; but how 
 would the first week in November suit you ? 
 Would that please you, Duke, dearest ?” 
 
 “ Gwen, my own dearest ! my own, own 
 Gwen !” and Duke rose up, almost speech- 
 less with astonishment and happiness. 
 “ Oh Gwen, I do not know what I have 
 
250 
 
 BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 been thinking of since I saw you last, but 
 dreadful, dreadful things. Very foolish 
 thoughts they seem now,” he added, with 
 a smile. “ But is this your own wish, 
 dearest Gwen ? Do you really wish that 
 the day should be fixed, and that it should 
 be in the first week of November ! As for 
 me I only wish it could be to-morrow.” 
 
 “ So do I,” I said, simply. 
 
 “ Then why not ? Why not have it 
 sooner ? The settlements could surely all 
 be drawn up in a week.” 
 
 “ They generally take longer,” I said, 
 gently. “ Not that it matters much about 
 them, but then there is the trousseau and 
 a lot of things to arrange, and what I 
 really think of is my father and mother. 
 It would not be fair to hurry it now, and 
 take them by surprise as it were. They 
 would think we ought to have fixed it 
 sooner, for they have always been willing 
 for us to fix any day we liked, only we 
 ought to give them time.” 
 
 “ Yes, yes,” said Duke, “ and they will 
 miss you very much. I can’t think what 
 they will do without you ; the Dean espe- 
 cially.” 
 
 “ He will not miss me so much, as he 
 would have a year ago,” I said, and sighed. 
 
BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 251 
 
 “ You ought to be glad of that, Gwen,” 
 said Duke, caressingly. “ You ought not 
 to wish to be missed. I am so glad you 
 went away to London to teach him to do 
 without you for a little, it will make him 
 grudge you less to me now. Oh dear, I 
 am so glad of everything ; it is all too 
 happy, it seems almost too good to be true, 
 that we should really be going to be married 
 at last. There is no dark side to it,” said 
 Duke, pensively ; “ we have never either 
 of us cared for any one else, and now 
 having known, and loved each other all 
 our lives, we are to marry and live happily 
 ever after,” and Duke grew radiant with 
 smiles. “ It is all couleur de rose.” 
 
 “ Yes ; like my dress,” I said ; “ but 
 make haste now, Duke, or you will be late 
 for dinner.” 
 
 “ You are in a great hurry for every one 
 to be dressed for dinner to-day, Gwynydd,” 
 said Duke, reproachfully. 
 
 “You know it vexes Lady Brydget, if 
 you are late,” I said. “ And I do not like 
 her to be vexed through my fault ; she has 
 always been so good to me, so especially 
 good in never being jealous of your love for 
 me,” I added, and looked up in his face, 
 
252 
 
 BRYDGET DISSATISFIED. 
 
 and smiled ; “ and think how it would 
 
 have been, if your mother had not liked 
 your wife.” 
 
 Duke smiled at the idea, and went away 
 to dress, and I went to the drawing-room, 
 and saw my own reflection in one of the 
 mirrors, as I entered. Truly Brydget need 
 not have feared, that I should look pale 
 that night. I suppose I was vain, for at 
 once I drew my hair down over my fore- 
 head, as it usually was. There was no 
 need to look a fright, I thought, and it was 
 very unbecoming as she had arranged it. 
 
 Lady Adelaide was exhibiting her photo- 
 graph book to Adrian Levison ; she looked 
 very pretty leaning on the end of the sofa, 
 glancing up into his face to see if he liked 
 her friends ; and Adrian Levison seemed 
 to think so, too, for he looked a great deal 
 more at her than at the photographs. I 
 wondered her mother could allow her to 
 come forward so much, seeing she was not 
 to be presented till next season. But I 
 supposed it was because she was so young, 
 she was so silly, and that she would grow 
 wiser some day ; certainly at present she 
 seemed to grow sillier and vainer every 
 day. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ Each time we love, 
 
 We turn a nearer and a broader mark 
 To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.’’ 
 
 Alexander Smith . 
 
 “ G-wynydd, Duke has just been talking 
 to me, and I am so glad, dearest child,” 
 said my mother, taking my hand, and sit- 
 ting down beside me on an ottoman in a 
 dimly lighted recess of the long state draw- 
 ing-room of the Castle. It was a very 
 grand stiff room, only used when the house 
 was quite full of people, as now, and it had 
 always given me an uncomfortable feeling, 
 ever since I was a child. I had the idea 
 that no one had ever been quite at their 
 ease in it, and that the times it had been 
 used, ever since it was built in the days 
 
254 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 when the Jerninghames first aspired to be 
 distinguished as courtiers, as they had 
 already long ago aspired to renown in the 
 camp and in the church, that all those 
 times could easily be numbered ; and that 
 there was none of them, but was marked 
 by some great grief, for the Jerninghames 
 had never been a happy family ; and there 
 were strange stories about their deaths, 
 and stranger still about their marriages. 
 The last possessor of the Castle was perhaps 
 the first, that had never been crossed in 
 love, and he had died within a year of his 
 marriage ; that state drawing - room had 
 been used during the brief time before and 
 after his wedding, then it had never been 
 used again till now, when it was opened 
 once more for the rejoicings in celebration 
 of Duke’s attaining his majority, and which 
 had been delayed so long, that they now 
 served also for his approaching wedding. 
 There always seemed to be a presentiment 
 of something dreadful hanging about the 
 old drawing-room, and as I sat down in 
 that gloomy recess, there was a feeling of 
 comfort in having my hand taken by my 
 gentle mother, and hearing her sweet voice 
 saying, “I am so glad, dearest child. 
 
MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 255 
 
 Somehow it has seemed to me lately, that 
 you have shrunk from Duke more than was 
 natural, and I had begun to fear that, 
 without meaning it, we might have made 
 our wishes too clear, that you should marry 
 him, and influenced you unduly ; but now 
 he tells me that you have decided on the 
 beginning of November for your wedding, 
 and that you yourself wish it could be 
 sooner.” 
 
 “Yes, I do not like the thought of it,” I 
 said, with a feeble smile. “ It makes me 
 nervous.” 
 
 “ That is only natural, dearest. It is 
 a very solemn event, and no wonder you 
 feel nervous thinking of it beforehand. 
 Dear little Brydget was so happy in her 
 loving trust, that she was spared more than 
 a very little of that kind of fear, but it is 
 only natural that you should feel it even 
 more than other girls, you always take 
 things so seriously. But, Gwynydd, dearest, 
 are you quite sure that you are de- 
 ciding for your own happiness ? Somehow, 
 my darling, I never feel as if I had done 
 my duty by you. I have never gained your 
 confidence as I ought to have done, and of 
 late I have felt this more than ever. I 
 
256 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 have fancied that you were keeping back 
 something. Your illness was so strange, 
 and then you have looked so sad of late. 
 Are you sure, dear Gwen, that you are 
 happy ?” 
 
 “ I do not deserve to be happy,” I said, 
 after a few moments’ pause, which seemed 
 an age to me, hut I could not speak 
 sooner. 
 
 “We none of us deserve to be happy, 
 dearest,” said my mother, softly, sighing a 
 little as she spoke. Then she looked into 
 my face, mutely asking for my confidence ; 
 she could not bear to ask for it again in 
 words. My heart smote me for not speak- 
 ing to her, not telling her all, but what 
 could I tell her ? how could I ever make her 
 understand ? And besides, now was not 
 the time, when I had just settled on my 
 wedding day with Duke. My head drooped 
 lower, and I could only press her hand in 
 mine, and whisper, “ Dear mother !” 
 
 Perhaps my mother was encouraged by 
 this, or perhaps, timid though she always 
 was, she thought it was her duty to question 
 me then, and so would not shrink back ; 
 anyhow she went on. “ Gwen, dear, when 
 your father went to see you in London, he 
 
MV MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 257 
 
 asked you if you had seen any one else you 
 liked, and whether it was that which made 
 you refuse Duke. Did you tell him quite the 
 truth, dearest ?” 
 
 “ He did not ask me that, exactly,” I 
 said, hoarsely. Then I leant my head on 
 my mother’s shoulder, and said slowly, as 
 if my words were drawn from me with diffi- 
 culty, and I had hardly strength to speak, 
 and yet wished to do so, “ Dearest mother, 
 it was no use to tell him anything,” and 
 then, after a moment or two, I added, 
 “ Besides, it was not because I cared for 
 any one else, that I refused Duke, but be- 
 cause I did not care for himself, and indeed 
 I think I should have said yes, even then, 
 if I had known how much he cared for me, 
 but I thought it was only a foolish fancy, 
 which would pass.” 
 
 “ Then there was some one else you did 
 love afterwards,” said my mother, very 
 softly. “ My poor, poor Gwynydd !” 
 
 “ Do not pity me, mother,” I said. “ I can 
 Sear pain, but not — not pity.” 
 
 “ Gwen, dearest,” said my mother, “ I do 
 not wish to pain you, you know that, and 
 I have perfect trust in you. I know you 
 would not mean to do anything you thought 
 VOL. II. 1 7 
 
258 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 wrong ; but are you sure that sufficient 
 time has passed, that you can bear to marry 
 Duke ?” 
 
 “ I can bear it,” I said, sadly. 
 
 “ And that is all,” said my mother, 
 gravely. “ But, Gwynydd, dearest, Duke 
 has to be considered, and you know Duke 
 would rather die than that you should 
 marry him, thinking of it in that way.” 
 
 “ Duke will never know,” I said, raising 
 my head, and looking straight in front of 
 me, very upright, with my hands lying 
 listless on my lap, my customary attitude. 
 
 “ The man you loved did not love you, 
 Gwen,” said my mother, slowly, as if think- 
 ing her own thoughts aloud, without no- 
 ticing what I said. “ Are you sure it is no 
 feeling of pique that prompts you to marry 
 Duke r 
 
 “ Quite sure,” I replied at once. 
 
 “ And would you marry Duke equally if 
 he were poor, and not Sir Marmaduke V 
 
 “ Yes, of course,” I said, actually smiling 
 at this question. “ Duke would be just the 
 same, whatever he was. Indeed, dear mo- 
 ther, you must not be unhappy about me. 
 I cannot be so mirthful as Brydget, I never 
 was, but Duke and I have known each 
 
MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 259 
 
 other all our lives, and we are if anything 
 only too well suited to each other. You 
 must not be uneasy about us, mother dear, 
 because I am ill and low-spirited. I always 
 was, you know.” 
 
 “ Yes, always,” said my mother, sighing. 
 “ But somehow it is very strange, Brydget 
 was so much younger, and I knew so little 
 of George then, but I never felt half so un- 
 easy about them as I do about you and 
 Duke, and now what you have said to me 
 to-night only makes me more so. Gwen, 
 dear, can you not trust me a little ? Will 
 you not tell me something about this man 
 you said you did love ? Why should you 
 not have married him ?” 
 
 “ Because I would not,” I said, slowly, 
 my eyes staring unblinkingly at the portrait 
 of Mistress Adelgitha Jerninghame, once a 
 celebrated beauty, now long ago mouldering 
 in the old family vault, but still represented 
 on the walls of the Castle, in the pride of 
 her beauty, clad in the minimum of white 
 satin, and the maximum of pearls. She was 
 said to have poisoned her husband, but I 
 did not think of this, as I gazed at her, 
 unblinkingly, and said, “ Because I would 
 not.” 
 
 17—2 
 
260 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ And you spoke hastily, and repented 
 directly you had done so. Oh, Gwynydd, 
 my child, let me put it all right for you. It 
 may yet be done, perhaps.” 
 
 “ No, that can never be done,” said I, 
 smiling compassionately at my dear mother’s 
 eagerness. “ And think of Duke,” I said, 
 “ how would Duke like that, mother ?” 
 
 “ Duke is very dear to me,” said my 
 mother, faintly, “ but Duke is not my son. 
 But Gwen, dear, you speak as if you did 
 not wish it.” 
 
 “ No ; for I did not repent directly I had 
 spoken. I do not think I have repented — 
 at least, I do not know — I do not re- 
 member ” 
 
 “ The man you loved must have been 
 worthy, Gwynydd, and if he asked you to 
 be his wife, he must have loved you.” 
 
 “ Yes, he loved me, I think,” and I 
 smiled through my tears. “ But I could 
 not ever marry him, and he would not 
 wish it either now. He was worthy, too, 
 mother, most worthy ; a man of whom 
 you and my father could not have thought 
 too highly, but you would not have wished 
 me to marry him, and— it was impossi- 
 ble.” 
 
MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 2G1 
 
 “ Gwynydd, my child, he was not married 
 already ?” 
 
 “ No — oh, no,” I exclaimed, in a tone of 
 almost equal horror. 
 
 The gentlemen had all come into the 
 drawing-room by this time, and Duke sat 
 down on my other side. The piano had been 
 opened, and Brydget was singing, “ For 
 Auld Robin Gray, he is kind unto me.” 
 
 “ I cannot bear that song,” said Duke, 
 quickly. 
 
 “ You mean it is too sorrowful — pains 
 you too much ?” 
 
 “ No, it makes me angry. What busi- 
 ness had she to marry old Robin Gray, 
 while her own true love was alive ? Surely 
 you do not feel for her, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ Yes, I do,” I said, and again stared at 
 Mistress Adelgitha’s portrait. 
 
 “ Gwynydd is sorry for her in her sorrow, 
 without considering how it was caused,” 
 said my mother, quickly. “We can often 
 feel for pain which we cannot imagine un- 
 dergoing ourselves.” 
 
 Somehow I had never realised before that 
 I had a secret from Duke, as now I realised 
 it, when my mother spoke so quickly, as if 
 fearful of my betraying myself. But Duke 
 answered with a smile — 
 
262 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ The true kind of sympathy that. It 
 is a poor selfish sort which only feels for 
 people under like sufferings as our own.” 
 Then his eyes followed mine, and so doing 
 rested upon the portrait of his ancestress. 
 “ Is it not strange to think of all the sin 
 and misery in her life, some of it even 
 before that portrait was taken, while we, 
 who look so much more suited to sorrow, 
 we two are chosen out of all the world to 
 be so happy together ? Hers looks such a 
 light, laughing face, one would have thought 
 she must have had a happy life, at all events 
 an innocent one.” 
 
 “ Perhaps the picture is not really like 
 her;” I said, “ but it a little reminds me of 
 Brydget, and hers will be a very happy 
 life, I hope. It certainly has been such 
 hitherto.” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Duke, in a still lower voice, 
 though my mother had risen now and left 
 us, “ and it seems only natural that it 
 should be ; but if I were to see a picture 
 of you or of myself, I should never think 
 ours was to be such a happy lot as that 
 which now lies before us. Gwynydd, is it 
 not a comfort that we have known each 
 other all our lives, so that there can be no 
 
MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 263 
 
 doubt but that we have never either of us 
 loved any one else ?” 
 
 “ Do not be too sure of that,” I said. 
 “For all you know I may have loved a 
 hundred people before you.” 
 
 “ But I know you have not,” said Duke, 
 confidently ; “ and yours is not a nature to 
 love a hundred people, Gwen. You could 
 only love once.” 
 
 I looked up at Duke, about to say some- 
 thing, though what I did not exactly know, 
 bjit something in his face checked me, so I 
 changed my mind. “ Come and look at 
 that book of engravings,” I said. “ I have 
 hunted it out for you at last from the very 
 dustiest corner of the library. You know 
 the book I mean ; you were asking me 
 where it was the other day, and Duke, you 
 really must have your books looked after, 
 they are in a sad state of disorder.” 
 
 “ You must arrange them for me, Gwen,’ 
 said Duke, smiling lovingly on me. “ I 
 fancy you would make a very good librarian, 
 and would not dislike the office either.” 
 Then he followed me to the great round 
 table at the other end of the drawing-room, 
 and we sat down on a sofa together, and 
 turned over the book of prints which I had 
 
264 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 laid there. “ Come, Levison, come and 
 look at this print of your favourite Falk- 
 land,” said Duke, after a few minutes. 
 
 Adrian Levison had been standing at a 
 little distance looking at the prints also, 
 but in silence. He advanced now, as if he 
 did not much care to see them any nearer. 
 “ The statue in the lobby of the House of 
 Commons is the best likeness of him there 
 is,” he said ; “ but I thought he was your 
 favourite rather than mine.” 
 
 Then Duke and he fell into one of those 
 discussions about the civil wars in which 
 some people seem always to find fresh plea- 
 sure, and I turned over the prints in silence, 
 and listened to them. But when Duke had 
 fallen into one of his rhapsodies, which 
 seemed to last a longer time than usual, as 
 he followed out his own thoughts as if to 
 himself, without considering that some one 
 else was listening to them, though I do 
 not know that Adrian Levison was, for he 
 looked very much abstracted, with his eyes 
 fixed on the carpet, I ventured at last to 
 say, “ Duke, suppose you were to return to 
 the Lowlands of common sense ; you have 
 soared so high, I cannot help thinking you 
 have left them a little too far behind you.” 
 
MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 265 
 
 “ I am afraid I don’t often tread those 
 Lowlands, as you call them,” said Duke, 
 with a smile, while I saw Adrian Levison 
 with his attention immediately arrested, 
 glancing from me to him, to see how he 
 took my interruption. “ I never went in 
 for being a practical man, but now you are 
 a judge, Levison, was there not some sense 
 in what I was saying ? Not common sense, 
 perhaps, but ” 
 
 “ Uncommon sense,” said Adrian Levi- 
 son, slowly. “ I should never look for any- 
 thing common from you, but I fear I was 
 not giving close enough attention to your 
 words to decide. You are one of the few 
 people who always carry me with them in 
 their rhapsodies, and having soared with 
 you, I cannot criticise the manner of our 
 flight. Do you know, Jerninghame, I think 
 you must be a very fatiguing companion 
 to live with, for your thoughts are never at 
 rest, nor are they ever engaged upon things 
 one can see or touch, as other people’s are. 
 You are always raising up pictures before 
 one’s mind, of which if one lets go for a 
 minute one loses the thread of your 
 thoughts. Does it not tire yourself, I 
 wonder ? You look a little weary of life.” 
 
266 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ I do not feel so,” said Duke. “ Except 
 when one thinks of that which is to come, 
 
 I feel almost too much contented with the 
 present.” 
 
 “You believe very confidently in that 
 life to come ?” said Adrian Levison, look- 
 ing at him for a moment with one of his 
 searching glances, then turning away and 
 looking at the carpet once more. 
 
 “ Yes ; do not you ?” 
 
 “ Yes, I believe in it firmly,” he added, 
 while a look of deep weariness passed over 
 his face. “ Only they say all who go there 
 are to be happy, and I cannot think how 
 that should be.” 
 
 “ You are over-worked, and want rest 
 and sleep, Levison. No wonder you can- 
 not fancy being happy. How much sleep 
 did you allow yourself last session, now ?” 
 
 “ Four hours is as much as any busy man 
 can afford.” 
 
 “ Four hours. Well, how much do you 
 allow yourself here ?” 
 
 “I do not suppose myself to be working 
 here, but, to tell, the truth, I did not go 
 to bed at all last night ; I did not feel in- 
 clined.” 
 
 “ Now that is the unfairness of people,” 
 
MY MOTHEK DISSATISFIED. 
 
 267 
 
 cried Duke, “ because you can talk a little, 
 as I cannot, you are a practical man, and I 
 am not ; but I should like to know which 
 is the most practical, to go to bed for seven 
 or eight hours every night, or to allow one- 
 self four, and not sleep at all, unless one 
 just happens to feel inclined. I wonder 
 you can eat at regular hours, either. Do 
 you not insist on having your meals at 
 any moment you may feel hungry ?” 
 
 “ Not being a Robinson Crusoe yet, that 
 might be difficult to manage,” said the other, 
 lightly; “but I see some sherry coming round 
 now, and I have been longing for some for a 
 long time. Mere force of habit, I suppose ; 
 still, that idea shall not prevent me from 
 recruiting exhausted nature, as we are 
 pleased to call it,” and he walked across 
 the room to get some sherry, as if he had 
 not known very well that it would soon 
 come in his direction of its own accord. He 
 returned no more that evening. 
 
 I had been trying to design a monogram 
 for Duke during these last few speeches. 
 He had asked me to make one for him, and 
 he now began to look over me, and in a few 
 moments carried away my design to ex- 
 hibit. As he handed the little bit of paper 
 
268 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 to Adrian Levison, I saw the latter start 
 and turn pale. “ What is it ?” asked 
 Duke, and then as he brought back the 
 paper to me, he said, “ Did you mean this 
 for a likeness of Levison, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ No, I did not,” I said, and looked sur- 
 prised at the little profile sketch I had 
 scribbled on to the paper, whilst thinking 
 about the monogram. “ I must have done 
 it without thinking. It is not at all like 
 him.” 
 
 “ I had no idea you could draw so well,” 
 said Duke, and he then began to insist 
 upon it, that he would sit to me himself for 
 his portrait next day. He seemed to think 
 if I could produce such a good likeness 
 without intending it, I should certainly do 
 a much better one when I was meaning to 
 do so. 
 
 With a little of Lady Brydget’s assis- 
 tance, that likeness of Duke was really re- 
 cognisable, and we spent a very pleasant 
 morning over it next day, Lady Brydget 
 and Duke and I. It was like one of the 
 old mornings, little more than a year ago, 
 when we spent so much time together in 
 Lady Brydget’s London studio, and I sat 
 to her as Andromeda. Now it was Duke, 
 
MV MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 269 
 
 who sat to me, as himself, hut it did not 
 seem to make much difference. It was a 
 very pleasant morning, and Duke and I 
 said, gaily, all the rest of our lives was to 
 be like it. 
 
 “No,” said Lady Brydget, smiling down 
 with graciousness on us, happy children, as 
 she always seemed to consider us, “I shall 
 not always be with you to make a tiresome 
 third. Your future life is to be like this 
 morning, only brighter, unspoilt by me.” 
 
 “ It is not spoilt now,” said Duke, 
 tenderly, “ and we cannot spare you 
 mother, can we, Gwynydd ?” 
 
 “ No, indeed,” I said, earnestly. “ I 
 could not fancy the castle without Lady 
 Brydget. Fancy me pretending to be 
 mistress of it, instead of her !” cried I, 
 appealing to Duke. 
 
 “ You will make a very good mistress of 
 it, dear child,” said Lady Brydget, taking 
 my hand in hers. “ No, I shall often come 
 to see you, I hope, and then there may be 
 some mornings like this again, but the 
 castle will no longer be my home, when 
 Duke has got a wdfe of his own to be 
 mistress of it. He is very good to have 
 allowed me to consider it as such so long.” 
 
270 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ Mother, the castle will always be your 
 home as long as I live,” said Duke, earn- 
 estly. “ I had rather I should not live 
 here myself, than that you should not.” 
 
 But Lady Bry dget only stroked his shoulder 
 fondly, and went away, and Duke and I 
 were left alone together, thinking gladly of 
 our future, when who was it who spoke 
 beneath the window ? “ Oh, he is not the 
 
 first of them who has bought his wife ; but 
 I am sorry for this poor girl, she looks 
 more wretched every day.” 
 
 Without thinking, both Duke and I 
 turned to the window and looked out. It 
 was one of those still, clear summer days, 
 when voices sound peculiarly distinctly 
 through the air, but at any time it was 
 easy enough for any one standing at the 
 window to hear what was said by people 
 passing on the lawn, so just as if it had 
 been said to one of us, we beard the 
 Duchess reply, “ But dear Duke is not buy- 
 ing his wife. She wants to make him 
 happy. However, there is plenty of time 
 before November, and I should not wonder 
 if she died first.” 
 
 “ Come away, Duke,” I said, laying my 
 hand on his arm. “ Come and look at your 
 
MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 271 
 
 picture again. I am not satisfied with it 
 yet.” 
 
 “ Who are they talking of?” asked Duke, 
 still continuing to lean out of the window. 
 
 “ Oh, I don’t know ; it is some gossip or 
 other. Dowagers always do gossip in a 
 country house, and though she is your 
 aunt, the Duchess is a dreadful goose.” So 
 speaking, I could not hear what was said 
 outside the window, and I hoped Duke 
 could not either, but the words, “No, not 
 love him, certainly,” floated into me never- 
 theless, and I did not know how much 
 more he might not have heard. “Duke, I am 
 astonished at you standing eavesdropping,” 
 I said, more loudly than before. 
 
 “ Eavesdropping !” said Duke, looking 
 round. “ But what does it mean, Gwy- 
 nydd ? Whose marriage are you talking of 
 so earnestly, aunt ?” he asked, leaning out 
 of the window again, as the two ladies 
 passed, taking another turn. 
 
 “ Whose marriage ! Oh, Duke, how you 
 startled me !” exclaimed the Duchess. 
 “ Why, whose marriage should we be talk- 
 ing of but yours ? We were discussing 
 what a lovely bride Gwynydd would make. 
 I always admire dark brides.” 
 
272 
 
 MY MOTHER DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ Then you were talking of Gwynydd just 
 now, when you passed ?” 
 
 “No,” said the Duchess, with a readi- 
 ness at lying for which I should not before 
 have given her credit. “We were talking 
 of that melancholy story of that unfortunate 
 Sir Marmaduke, who was poisoned. That 
 is such a lovely picture of his wife that 
 hangs in the large drawing-room. They 
 say he married her for her money, not for 
 her beauty, though. Which are you 
 marrying for, Duke ?” 
 
 Then I left, the Duchess to invent at her 
 leisure. I supposed she would satisfy 
 Duke, and I did not wish to be seen, so I 
 ran away to my own room, but I felt sorry 
 I had done so directly afterwards. I had 
 better have stayed with Duke just then. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ Die Eifersucht ist eine Leidenscbaft, die mifc 
 Eifer sucht, was Leiden schafft.” — Schleiermacher. 
 
 “ I do not know what I am going to do/' 
 I said, in answer to Lord Henry’s inquiries 
 at luncheon. “ Are you going to ride, 
 Duke, this afternoon ?” 
 
 “ No ; not unless you will, at least.” 
 
 “ I don’t think I wish to. I would just 
 as soon play croquet, then,” I said, turning 
 to Lord Henry. He was a great croquet 
 player, and rather disgusted that there was 
 not more thought about the game at the 
 Castle. Somehow it had been a relief to 
 me to hear Duke say those few words ; he 
 had been looking grave, I thought, when I 
 first came into luncheon, but now it was 
 
 18 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
274 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 evident lie was not allowing himself to be 
 disturbed by those foolish words, which we 
 had overheard that morning. I had been 
 nervous that he might have done so, but 
 the Duchess was a woman of the world, 
 and of course she had easily explained them 
 away. 
 
 Duke came out and looked on at the 
 croquet; he would not play himself, but he 
 stood and looked on, and once he moved a 
 chair to where I was standing. “ You looked 
 tired, I thought,” he said. Standing always 
 tired me very much, and I had been sitting 
 down all through the game, whenever I 
 could get an opportunity, but I was pleased 
 that he should think of bringing me a chair, 
 and I smiled, and tried to look so, but 
 Duke did not stay to talk to me ; he just 
 brought me the chair, and then went away 
 again, and stood aloof from the game, 
 watching. When it was over, he said, 
 “ You won’t play another game, will you ?” 
 
 “ No,” I said, “ I am too tired for an- 
 other.” 
 
 “ And it is just time for tea,” said Lord 
 Henry, laughing merrily — he never spoke 
 without laughing. “ Ladies consider cro- 
 quet such a capital excuse for having tea 
 
DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 275 
 
 half-an-hour earlier than usual, and ‘an- 
 other cup, if you won’t be quite shocked, 
 please, but that game really took so much 
 out of me.’ ” 
 
 “ Oh, then, you are going to have tea 
 now ?” said Duke, with a disappointed air. 
 
 “ No, I do not care about any tea,” I 
 said. “ Do you want me to do anything 
 with you, dear Duke ?” 
 
 “Not till you are quite at leisure ; then 
 you will find me in the shrubbery.” 
 
 “ I am quite at leisure now,” I said, and 
 we went together to the shrubbery. 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” said Duke, as soon as we 
 were hidden from the others by the inter- 
 vening bushes, “ do you mind sitting down 
 here, the ground is quite dry, or shall we 
 go on till we come to a bench ?” 
 
 “ I think I had rather walk,” I said. 
 “ That would rest me better after so much 
 standing.” 
 
 “ But do you mind sitting down ?” asked 
 Duke. 
 
 “ Oh no, dear Duke, not in the least. 
 Here, this mossy bank looks very comfort- 
 able.” 
 
 Duke did not sit down also, he remained 
 standing in front of me, only he leant 
 
 18—2 
 
276 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 against a tree, a young silver birch. I bad 
 always been fond of birches before, and 
 wished some grew at the Deanery, now I 
 am thankful none do. 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” said Duke, “ you heard 
 what those people said this morning. Was 
 there any truth in it ?” 
 
 “ Duke, I am astonished at your thinking 
 again of such idle gossip.” 
 
 “It is not idle gossip for my aunt to 
 talk about my marriage with one of my 
 mother’s oldest friends.” 
 
 “ No ; perhaps not gossip, but though 
 she is your aunt, the Duchess is a very 
 foolish woman.” 
 
 “ Yes, a very foolish woman,” said Duke, 
 thoughtfully. “ It is always wrong to tell 
 stories ; but it is foolish also, when you 
 know the person, to whom you are telling 
 them, cannot possibly believe them. But 
 I do not want to discuss my aunt now, I 
 never was particularly fond of her. What 
 I want to know is, if what she was saying 
 this morning was true, Gwynydd. I know 
 it was not, but it would be a comfort to me 
 to hear you say so.” 
 
 “ It would be a comfort to you to hear 
 me say that I was not marrying you for 
 your money, Duke V 
 
DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 277 
 
 “No, Gwynydd, you know that is not 
 what I want you to say. But you dare not 
 say what I want. You are ready to marry 
 me, but you dare not tell me you love me. 
 I have thought this sometimes before, but 
 I know it now.” 
 
 “ Duke, dear Duke,” I began. 
 
 “ Gwynydd,” said Duke, looking at me 
 gravely, very gravely, “ you know you dare 
 not look me in the face and tell me that 
 you love me, as a woman ought to love the 
 man she means to marry.” He paused, but 
 my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, 
 and I could not speak, nor look up at him. 
 “ And yet you have thought of marrying 
 me,” cried Duke, with increased bitterness, 
 a despairing tone in his voice now, such as 
 I had never heard before. “ Oh Gwynydd ! 
 Gwynydd ! a girl who had known me but 
 a short time might have thought of acting 
 thus by me, but you, who have known me 
 all your life !” 
 
 “ I do love you, Duke,” I said, trembling, 
 but I did not look him in the face. 
 
 “ But you love some one else better. I 
 know it all now. I understand it all,” cried 
 Duke, with his voice vibrating so that it 
 seemed to tremble right through me. “ I 
 
278 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 do not know who it is, nor do I wish to 
 know ; it is enough for me that you love 
 some one else, and that yet you thought, 
 you — who have known me all my life — that 
 you would marry me and make me happy. 
 I thank you for the thought. I thank you 
 for the sacrifice you would have made, but 
 I do not accept it, Gwynydd.” 
 
 “ Duke, hear me,” I pleaded, and rose up 
 so far as to kneel before him, and stretched 
 out my hands to him, but Duke turned 
 from me. 
 
 “ It was a bright dream,” he murmured, 
 half to himself and half to me, “ and it makes 
 life look a little dreary at first to know that 
 it was only a dream, but you need not sa- 
 crifice yourself for me. I can bear to live 
 without you, Gwynydd. Go and be happy 
 with the man whom you do love.” 
 
 “ Oh, do not, Duke, do not — I shall never 
 marry any one, if I do not marry you. Will 
 you not have me, Duke ?” 
 
 “ No,” said Duke, sternly, turning and 
 looking upon me with an expression hard 
 and obstinate, such as I had never thought 
 his face could wear. “ No ; for you do not 
 wish it yourself.” 
 
 “Yes, I do,” I said, faintly, and moaned, 
 
DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 279 
 
 and fell forward on the ground, as I tried 
 to detain him. 
 
 “ That is false,” said Duke, harshly, as 
 he stooped and raised me from the ground, 
 forcing me, as he did so, to sit down again 
 on the mossy seat I had first chosen. “That 
 is false like all the rest. It may have been 
 my fault at first, for you were ill, and I did 
 not wish to harass you, and I was told you 
 loved me, and, oh, God! I was only too 
 ready to believe it, but you know, if no one 
 else knows, that I never — never wished for 
 a wife who did not love me, and all the 
 time you heard me talk, as I did last night 
 — oh, my God ! my God ! you knew you 
 were deceiving me, treating me as one 
 treats a child. Oh, Gwynydd, you have 
 cheated me cruelly ! I was resigned to 
 give you up once, resigned to see you the 
 wife of another, and I could have brought 
 myself, I think, even to rejoice in your hap- 
 piness, and be glad myself through you 
 with a sort of vicarious gladness, but now 
 you have deceived me, robbed me of all 
 faith in every one, and made the cup of life 
 so sweet only to dash it from my lips for 
 ever — yes, for ever. It was a wife I had 
 
280 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 hoped to gain, and you offered me a vic- 
 tim.” 
 
 “ Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Duke !” I 
 said, and I trembled before him. It was 
 very sudden, but I knew it was all over 
 now : I could never be my Cousin Duke’s 
 wife now. It was all over, all. 
 
 “Forgive you!” said Duke, speaking 
 with repression. “ Oh, yes, I forgive you, 
 Gwynydd. You had known me always, 
 and you could not bear to pain me ; and 
 you could not marry the man you loved, 
 and so you did me the bitterest wrong a 
 woman can do a man, and persuaded me 
 you loved me. I know you nearly died in 
 the effort, and it was all for my sake, and 
 very kind.” 
 
 “ Duke, you will kill me,” I cried. “ Oh, 
 I cannot bear it,” I moaned out. “ What 
 shall I do ? What will become of me ?” 
 
 “ Nothing will happen to you,” said 
 Duke, loftily. “ Do not be afraid but that 
 I shall take care of you. I am your cousin 
 still, and your name is mine. Nothing 
 shall be said now, all shall go on just as 
 usual : it must while all these people are in 
 the house. The name of Jerninghame must 
 be as much shielded as possible, and I would 
 
DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 281 
 
 not for the world, that this insult you have 
 put upon me should become the tattle of 
 the county. Only in a day or two you will 
 go back to the Deanery, and then I will 
 tell your father how our marriage can never 
 be. He must know it, though no one else 
 need ; but he shall not blame you, not if I 
 can help it.” And Duke drew himself up. 
 It was the first time in his life I bad ever 
 seen him stand upright, and I knew some 
 very terrible change must have come over 
 him to bring that to pass. “ And then I 
 shall go abroad for a year or two, and there 
 shall be no more talk of our marriage, and 
 gradually people will understand that it is 
 never to be. They will know it before I 
 come hack again. But now all must go on 
 just as usual : there must be nothing to 
 make more gossip. It will only be for a 
 few days, and you can bear to be a hypo- 
 crite for that time, Gwynydd ; it cannot be 
 so new to you. Only never call me dear 
 Duke again ; and the less we speak to each 
 other for the future the better, though be- 
 fore people we must, of course.” 
 
 And there was nothing more to say — 
 absolutely nothing. Duke was resolute : it 
 did not seem to cost him much to part with 
 
282 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 me for ever. Only he stooped and kissed 
 me. 
 
 “ The only woman I have ever loved, and 
 my cruellest enemy,” he said. “ I thought 
 to love you for all eternity, and now I say 
 good-bye for ever, Gwynydd. We shall 
 have to meet again, but only in appearance. 
 Our hearts are parted for ever. And, oh 
 God ! how I have loved you, all my life — 
 yes, all my life ! — but never as I love you 
 now.” 
 
 And he went away, and I cried, 
 
 “Duke! Duke!” 
 
 But he never stopped nor turned. 
 
 “ What has become of Duke ? I thought 
 he was with you,” asked Lord Henry, com- 
 ing down the path. “ Here is a telegram 
 for him. I dare say it is nothing, but still 
 it is a telegram ; so, hoping I might not be 
 interrupting some very sweet tete-a-tete , I 
 brought it, and now I find you all alone.” 
 
 “ Yes, Duke has gone for a further walk,” 
 I said, quietly ; “ he preferred to go alone. 
 I dare say the telegram is not of much im- 
 portance, and you would most likely not 
 find him, so you had better come back to 
 the house with me.” 
 
 I knew Duke wished the name of 
 
DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 283 
 
 Jerninghame to be spared as much as pos- 
 sible, and I thought he might prefer to be 
 alone at present, so I persuaded Lord Henry 
 to go to the house with me, and I tried to 
 walk and talk as usual, that I might please 
 Duke in that way. I might please him in 
 that way, perhaps, by not appearing to mind 
 parting from him, and I would try anything 
 to please him, for — I loved Duke now. 
 
 We went to Duke’s sitting-room, Lord 
 Henry and I together, to lay the telegram 
 on his table, that he might find it directly 
 he came in, and, so doing, we saw my draw- 
 ing, the likeness I had tried to take of Duke 
 that morning. It was lying on the table, 
 and I lifted it up and looked at it, sitting 
 down as I did so, and gazing earnestly at it. 
 Was it likely that Duke would ever relent, 
 ever wish for me as his wife again ? 
 
 “ You love him very much, do not you ?” 
 said Lord Henry, looking over my shoulder. 
 
 Somehow, no one had ever asked me that 
 before. 
 
 “ Yes, I love him with my whole heart,” 
 I said. Then I looked up at Lord Henry 
 with clasped hands. “ And some day, per- 
 haps, you will tell him that I told you so, 
 and when. Not now, but when I am dead ; 
 
284 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 then do not forget, but tell Duke, that I 
 told you I loved him with my whole heart. 
 You will not forget ?” 
 
 “ No, I will not forget,” said Lord Henry, 
 looking rather frightened. “ But you should 
 not talk about dying in that dreadful way, 
 Miss Jerninghame; it makes one quite 
 melancholy.” 
 
 “ Does it ?” I said. “ What is it to be 
 melancholy ?” 
 
 “ Surely you know.” 
 
 “ No ; I know what it is to be miserable,” 
 I said, speaking wildly. “But recollect — 
 recollect you have promised to tell Duke 
 what I said : and you will not forget what 
 day I said it, and when. Here, give me 
 your pocket-book, and let me write down 
 the date.” 
 
 And I held out my hand for his pocket- 
 book, while Lord Henry, more and more 
 astonished, replied, 
 
 “ I am afraid I don’t possess such a thing, 
 but you may trust my memory : I have a 
 very good memory, and I shall recollect it 
 was the day when you took Duke’s like- 
 ness in the morning, and after I found you 
 sitting alone in the shrubbery. Now, you 
 need not die till you are a hundred, and if 
 
DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 285 
 
 Duke survives you — which I do not think 
 he would — I will give him all your message 
 quite correctly ; that is to say, if I am alive 
 also, and if I am not, it would not have 
 been a bit of use your writing down the 
 date in my pocket-book, if I had one, for 
 Duke would not be likely to see it, and he 
 would not understand it, even if he did. I 
 am glad, though, you have said to me what 
 you did just now, for Duke and I are great 
 chums ; and sometimes — sometimes, do you 
 know, I have thought you did not care for 
 him quite so much as he did for you.” 
 
 “You were wrong,” I said, calmly. “I 
 care for him a great deal more than he 
 does for me. I could never be harsh to 
 him, nor bear to break his heart,” and I 
 went away, and left Lord Henry staring 
 after me. 
 
 Perhaps after all I was not quite such a 
 good hypocrite, as Duke seemed to think I 
 should be ; certainly 1 seemed to find it 
 very difficult to act just as usual that day. 
 I met Adrian Levison in the hall, and 
 I shivered as I did so. 
 
 “ Are you cold ?” he asked, as he looked 
 at me. 
 
 “ No, not cold,” I said, quite angrily. 
 
286 
 
 DUKE DISSATISFIED. 
 
 “ Why do you ask if I am cold, or not ? 
 What right have you ?” and I hurried past 
 him, and went into my own room, and 
 cowered down by the window, as I had 
 cowered there a few nights before. At 
 last a prayer came to my lips, and I fell on 
 my knees and said, “ Oh God, make Duke 
 love me again, for I do love him now, and 
 I know he can never he happy without me. 
 Oh God, make him love me again but 
 there came no answer to my prayer, and at 
 last I said, wearily, “ Thy will be done,” 
 and then I felt as if I were giving Duke 
 up in real earnest, and the tears came to 
 my eyes. Duke would be miserable with- 
 out me, and I could not bear to think of 
 him miserable. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 “ There’s more in late repentant love 
 Than steel may keep suppress’d.” 
 
 Hemans. 
 
 Not so far back I see that I have written, 
 that there are some things one cannot bear, 
 but I think I was mistaken. I fancy there 
 is nothing one cannot bear for a little 
 while, or how did I bear it, when I went 
 down dressed for dinner at last, and was so 
 scared seeing the room fall of people, and 
 Duke standing just in front of me, Duke 
 like himself, and yet not like himself ; 
 Duke just as usual, and yet quite different ; 
 all the room full of people, and all the 
 people Duke, over and over again, all 
 Duke, all just as usual, and yet quite dif- 
 ferent; yes, quite different, wherever I 
 
288 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 could look — how did I bear it, that when I 
 was so scared and confused by this, that I 
 could not find a chair for myself, and 
 tottered and grew pale, it was Duke, who 
 found me a chair, Duke who turned it to 
 the open window, Duke, who brought me a 
 bottle of salts, handed it to me silently, 
 and then left me again ? 
 
 How did I bear it, when my father talk- 
 ing to me appealed to Duke upon some 
 subject, on which he, being fresh from the 
 University, might be thought to be better 
 informed, and Duke came forward, and 
 said, “No, I don’t think so. I think 
 Gwynydd is right,” and then went to the 
 library, and painstakingly brought a great 
 classical dictionary, which he laid before 
 my father, whilst he proceeded to convince 
 him that I was right ? 
 
 How did I bear it, I say ? Once my 
 hand touched Duke’s, as I was referring to 
 the book in my turn, and I started, and 
 nearly dropped it ; but Duke caught the 
 book, and put it more securely upon the 
 table. Only he never spoke to me, never 
 said a word to me. I spoke to him once 
 or twice, I looked up appealingly into his 
 face, and it was all I could do to keep myself 
 
DUKE. 
 
 289 
 
 from calling him “ dear Duke,” though that 
 of course I did not do ; but Duke never 
 spoke to me, nor answered anything that I 
 said. Only that he heard it, I know, for 
 he seemed to see and hear everything 
 that night ; and once when Lady Brydget 
 sat down beside me, and said, “ Gwynydd, 
 dear, have you fixed which day your wed- 
 ding is to be yet ?” Duke answered for 
 me : 
 
 “We have thought of the first week of 
 November. We have not fixed the day 
 yet.” 
 
 I looked up at Duke then. Did he mean 
 it ? Or could he possibly tell a story so 
 calmly ? Did it cost him nothing to do so ? 
 It seemed not, for Duke looked very hard 
 and cold, and never glanced at me. It 
 was clear he had not changed his mind, 
 never would change his mind. I knew 
 Duke too well for that. I knew it was 
 impossible he should ever marry me now. 
 But apparently he was in reality no better 
 actor than myself ; for later on Brydget 
 sat down beside me, saying, 
 
 “ Gwen, dear, what is the matter with 
 Duke ? He looks even more miserable 
 than the other evening. Is your wedding 
 
 VOL. II. 19 
 
290 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 really fixed for the first week in Novem- 
 ber ?” 
 
 “ Yes,” I said, “ the first week in Novem- 
 ber.” 
 
 But I looked at Duke also then ; he was 
 standing alone looking out into the night, 
 and perhaps he thought no one was observ- 
 ing him, for his forehead was drawn as if 
 with poignant pain, and his eyes were look- 
 ing out into the darkness. “ As when with 
 the daring Last look of despairing, Fix’d 
 on futurity.” Ah me ! but it was a bitter 
 futurity Duke seemed to see then ; and 
 I could not rise and go to him — I, 
 whose business it had been to comfort 
 him all his life, whenever I saw him 
 needing comfort — I, who till a few 
 hours ago had meant to consecrate my 
 whole life to the office, I could not comfort 
 him then. Next day it was worse still, 
 growing worse and worse, till it reached 
 that deep of sorrow, beyond which there 
 was no deeper, coming very soon now, very 
 surely, though we none of us knew any- 
 thing of it. Duke did not speak to me all 
 day, only in the evening he met me with a 
 letter in his hand, and as I looked at it, he 
 said. 
 
DUKE. 
 
 291 
 
 “ It is to Howard, but you need not say 
 anything of it. He is in the first place 
 going to Paris, and I shall only tell my 
 mother, that I am going to Paris for a 
 time. I can bear to do without your love 
 you see, but not that others should know 
 how you have despised me. It is very 
 weak, is it not ? I am surprised at it myself. 
 It must be a false pride, and I never knew 
 that I was proud before ; but I do not 
 choose that every one should pity me for 
 your not esteeming me so highly, as I once 
 blindly fancied you did. You understand 
 me, I fancy, enough to know what I mean ; 
 and though you have wronged me very 
 much, perhaps you will oblige me by help- 
 ing me in this matter.” 
 
 Then he passed on without waiting to 
 hear my answer; of course he knew I 
 would do all I could to oblige him in this, 
 or in anything, and it made no difference 
 to him ; he was not angry with me, he 
 could still bear to be beholden to me for a 
 trifle, only he never cared to speak to me 
 again, nor to hear me speak. I knew Mr. 
 Howard had long been projecting a voyage 
 round the world, and that he had been 
 very anxious Duke should join him, and 
 
 19-2 
 
292 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 that his stay in Paris was but to be a short 
 one, and he was already there, and I 
 thought of Lady Brydget quickly unde- 
 ceived, and Duke’s career blighted for ever 
 by the very person, whom she had trusted 
 to inspire him with ambition ; and I 
 walked on to the drawing-room with my 
 head bowed. It made no difference to me, 
 what people thought or said of me, my 
 own thoughts accused me too bitterly ; 
 only Duke’s wishes must be respected, so I 
 joined in a light laughing talk about his 
 trip to Paris, and jested with Lord Henry 
 as to what present he should bring me 
 back from thence. Only at dinner I could 
 not even make pretence to eat or drink, 
 my hands trembled so, and I was afraid 
 people might notice it, and make their 
 comments. They must make no com- 
 ments ; there was only one way in which 
 I could oblige Duke now, and I looked at 
 him, as he moved about the room, and 
 wondered if other people did not also 
 notice the great change in him. But he 
 kept himself apart very much, he did not 
 mix with the others, but went out into the 
 garden, and walked up and down talking 
 to Adrian Levison. I never knew what 
 
DUKE. 
 
 293 
 
 they talked about. So the night passed, 
 and the morning came, and I went into 
 Duke’s little sitting-room, for I had spent 
 so many happy hours there in the long- 
 gone-by days, and I knew we were to leave 
 the castle on the morrow, and perhaps I 
 might never see it again ; so I went into 
 the little sitting-room, and sat there by 
 myself, and wondered if Duke would ever 
 know how much I loved him now. I 
 thought perhaps he might some day, but 
 that thought brought little comfort to my 
 heart, for I felt as if it could never be, till 
 he was dying, when the eyes become some- 
 what opened to things, they have never had 
 the power to see before, and I could not 
 bear to think of his dying, for I loved Duke 
 now. 
 
 I had prayed once that Adrian Levison 
 might die, because I could not fancy him 
 happy here without me, but I never even 
 for a moment wished that Duke might die ; 
 the very thought was intolerable to me, 
 for all his life had been bound up with 
 mine, and it would not be one wrench, 
 and all over, I should miss him every day, 
 and every day more. 
 
 It was after breakfast we were standing 
 
294 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 about in the morning-room, and Duke and 
 Adrian Levison were talking, as they 
 turned over the Times together, of the 
 Queen of Spain, and the state of affairs in 
 her kingdom, then very disturbed. “ She 
 must be a sort of fiend,” said the latter, at 
 last, as if he thought this a charitable ex- 
 planation of everything. 
 
 “Say, rather, a woman who wished to 
 be kind to the people in her power. 
 
 * The tender mercies of the wicked’ must 
 be a mistranslation for the kindnesses of 
 women.” 
 
 Adrian Levison looked up surprised. 
 
 1 They cannot help it,” he said, depre- 
 catingly ; “ they were not meant to rule 
 over men, and if men will have it so, they 
 must take the consequences. Women are 
 all very well in their proper place, and 
 the world could not get on without them 
 very easily.” He said it as if he wished it 
 could. 
 
 “What is their proper place, then?” 
 asked Duke, bitterly ; “ to be wives ?” 
 
 “ Yes, to be wives and mothers. But I 
 would not have them all married, they are 
 useful in other ways, only I would have no 
 man put his happiness at their disposal. It 
 
DUKE. 
 
 295 
 
 is a pity they are so charming. I believe 
 there is much truth in that expression 
 beaute de diable, and that God never made 
 them so. It was a device of Satan’s to lure 
 men to make women their rulers, and thus 
 expose them to such misery here, as only 
 the patience of Job could endure without 
 murmuring. All men are not Jobs.” 
 
 “ No, I do not wish I were,” said Duke, 
 still more bitterly. “ As sailors refuse to 
 learn to swim, that they may not protract the 
 agony of dying, so I would not be patient 
 to suffer pain longer. I would rather die 
 of it at once.” 
 
 Adrian Levison looked at him, a long, 
 searching gaze. “ But you have no need 
 to suffer pain ; your cousin loves you quite 
 as dearly as you love her, and whilst that 
 is the case, she is at least as much your 
 slave as you are hers. Your happiness is 
 not at her disposal ; she dare not destroy 
 it, lest she should destroy her own.” 
 
 “ Oh, yes, my slave — my slave,” mut- 
 tered Duke. “ I do not want a slave. 
 But you are right,” he added, louder ; “ my 
 happiness is not at her disposal.” 
 
 And he turned and went, and I heard it 
 all, and rustled the paper, and turned to 
 
296 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 my mother, saying, “ There is no news in 
 it. I do not think it will interest you. 
 No, there is no news in it, none ; only an- 
 other bank broken, and a colliery accident, 
 and that sort of thing, which happens every 
 day,” I said. 
 
 And Adrian Levison looked at me, and 
 every one looked at me, as I said this, so I 
 went from the room, and went down into 
 the hall to breathe the fresh air, and found 
 Duke there, and Lord Henry, and one or 
 two more of the gentlemen just about to 
 start for a ride. There was something 
 wrong with one of Duke’s spurs, and he 
 was trying to put it right. 
 
 “ Let me do it for you, Duke,” I said at 
 last, after he had fumbled over it helplessly 
 for some time, and I held out my hand for 
 it, but Duke looked at me with a sort of 
 surprised air, as if “ Who are you that 
 you should come and offer to do this thing 
 for me ?” and then he gave it another tug 
 himself, while the groom said, 
 
 “ Surely Sir Marmaduke is not going to 
 ride the roan with spurs !” 
 
 “ Duke, your horse won’t require spur- 
 ring,” cried Lord Henry, leaning back on 
 
DUKE. 
 
 297 
 
 his own chestnut. “ He is only chafing to 
 be off, as it is.” 
 
 But Duke took no notice, only tugged at 
 his spur. His hands were trembling with 
 nervousness. 
 
 “ Let me do it for you, Duke,” I urged 
 again. 
 
 “ No, Gwynydd,” he replied, very low ; 
 so low, indeed, that I was never quite sure 
 whether he said it, or whether I only 
 fancied it ; then he fastened on the spur, 
 all broken as it was, and did not seem to 
 hear, as the groom again urged, “ You don’t 
 generally ride the roan with spurs, sir.” 
 He was evidently too much put out to 
 notice anything just then. 
 
 I stood and gazed after them, as they 
 rode away under the trees, and Lord Henry 
 took off his hat to me, and before they dis- 
 appeared again turned and waved his hand, 
 but Duke never turned nor waved his 
 hand, and the last words he had spoken to 
 me were “ No, Gwynydd,” spoken so low, 
 that I hardly was sure he said them. The 
 groom and the butler were talking toge- 
 ther, but I did not notice what they said, 
 only I recalled it afterwards, as the butler 
 came up to me very respectfully, “ If you 
 
298 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 please, Miss Jerninghame,” he said, “ do 
 you think there would be any harm in 
 sending a message after Sir Marmaduke ? 
 He is sometimes not quite all there, as one 
 may say, and I don’t think he knew it was 
 the roan horse he was riding, when he put 
 on spurs this morning.” 
 
 “ I do not think he would care if you 
 did send after him,” I said ; “ but let the 
 groom run after them if you think it best.” 
 And the butler did think it best, for he 
 sent the groom running after them. 
 
 “ Have you got the spurs ?” he asked, as 
 the latter came slowly back again. 
 
 “ No ; Sir Marmaduke was much obliged 
 to Miss Jerninghame, but he preferred to 
 ride with spurs; and Miss Jerninghame 
 need not be alarmed, for they were not 
 going far.” 
 
 “ Did you say I sent you ?” I asked, 
 quickly, while a sick feeling came over me 
 as I thought how my name would be likely 
 to have influenced Duke. 
 
 “Yes, ma’am,” said the groom. 
 
 “ Oh, I dare say Sir Marmaduke was 
 ashamed to take them off at once. Young 
 gentlemen often are like that. Depend 
 upon it, he’ll slip them off presently. He’ll 
 
DUKE. 
 
 299 
 
 not ride far with his spurs to-day, Miss 
 Jerninghame,” said the butler, reassuringly. 
 Evidently he and the groom were afraid, 
 lest I should be hurt by Duke’s seeming to 
 pay so little heed to what had been said to 
 him as my message. 
 
 But I was not hurt, of course. I had 
 sent no message — never should have sent 
 any such message — and I was not in the 
 least nervous. Duke had ridden always 
 from a child, and he was not an impetuous 
 rider. 
 
 Just then Brydget came running down 
 the stairs, with a basket on her arm. She 
 was going to gather some flowers, she said, 
 and I went with her to the garden. It 
 was hot there, and the flowers seemed 
 all drooping their heads from the heat, 
 but I did not feel it. I gathered some 
 hearts-ease, and made a bouquet for my- 
 self of them. Brydget stuck some steph- 
 anotis in my hair, and told me to fancy I 
 was a bride. “ Oh, yes, I am a bride,” I 
 said, and I was afraid to pull it out, lest 
 she should notice anything. There was 
 only one night more, and then we should 
 go back to the Deanery, and my father 
 would be told, that I was never to he 
 
300 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Duke’s wife, and gradually all the world 
 would understand, that I was never to be a 
 bride. As it was, I wore the stephanotis 
 flower in my hair, and stuck some hearts- 
 ease in my bosom. Brydget, meanwhile, 
 had gathered a basket full of flowers, dazzl- 
 ing scarlet geranium, with its soft pink- 
 tipped bride, sweet-scented heliotrope, and 
 precious deep crimson roses. They were 
 all stretching out of the basket, telling the 
 air the tale of the glad summer, that was 
 passing fast away, even as they were fading 
 in the sunshine, and thus laden, we re- 
 turned together to the house. There was 
 some one running, and George Lumley came 
 down the gravel path to meet us. “ Bryd- 
 get, darling, come back with me this way. 
 Gwynydd, you are not going to leave us, 
 are you ?” 
 
 “ I am going into the house,” I said. 
 
 “Yes, but you are not in such a hurry. 
 Come this way, come this way. I want to 
 go into the flower-garden. You can go just 
 as quickly to the house this way.” 
 
 “ Yes, take Brydget,” I said. I do not 
 know why I was so obstinate, but I saw a 
 stable-boy panting with running, and the 
 butler and one or two of the servants 
 
DUKE. 
 
 301 
 
 standing about in front of tbe bouse. 1 
 advanced among them. “ There has been 
 an accident ?” I said. 
 
 “ I don’t rightly know, Miss Jerninghame. 
 I don’t know yet,” said the butler, while 
 the other servants fell back and looked at 
 each other. “ Would it not be better if 
 you went into the house, Miss Jerning- 
 hame ? There has something happened, 
 certainly, and ladies — here comes Lord 
 Henry, he will know. Oh, good God !” 
 
 For there appeared Lord Henry, and he 
 was carrying some one. He and one of the 
 keepers were carrying some one, and behind 
 them some one else was riding, and leading 
 Lord Henry’s horse, but the roan was not 
 there, and Duke was not either. 
 
 For it was not Duke they were carrying. 
 I knew it at once, knew it was not Duke, 
 but his dead body, and they went on, and 
 carried it into Duke’s little sitting-room, 
 and all the servants clustered in, and there 
 seemed to be a great crowd, but they all 
 made way at once, as I followed them in. 
 They all made way for me to draw near. 
 “ Duke ! Duke !” I said, and Lord Henry 
 put his arm round me to lead me away, but 
 
302 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 it was Adrian Levison who, with a face 
 as pale as death, said, 
 
 “ Let her be, let her be. She would 
 rather stay with him a little now. She 
 loved him best of all.” 
 
 And I looked at him, and thanked him 
 with my eyes, and bent over Duke, and 
 held his hand, and I heard Lord Henry 
 sending the servants away. “ Go away. 
 Go away now, please. It is no use. He is 
 dead, quite dead. Yes, killed on the 
 spot. Dashed his head against a tree, 
 and was killed on the spot,” and there 
 was a sound of sobbing, and then we were 
 left alone ; Duke lying cold and still on the 
 sofa, and Adrian Levison, very white and 
 grave, at a little distance, and I bending 
 over Duke, holding his hand. Lord Henry 
 came back from turning the servants out, 
 and with a sort of sob, he said, “ You had 
 better come away, too, Miss Jerninghame. 
 Indeed, you had better come away. Does 
 Lumley know ? Did he understand ? 
 Will he tell Lady Brydget, do you think ?” 
 “ I don’t think he understood,” said 
 Adrian Levison. “ I did not understand 
 myself, and we were together. Shall I go ? 
 
DUKE. 
 
 303 
 
 Can I be of any use V and then the door 
 opened, and Lady Brydget herself came in 
 with my father and Uncle Basset, and 
 Lady Brydget asked if a doctor had been 
 sent for, and Lord Henry could not answer 
 her, and Adrian Levison said, “Yes, we 
 sent for one before — before we knew how it 
 was,” and I turned round, and looked at 
 Lady Brydget, and then I think she knew 
 how it was. She said afterwards my face 
 alone told her the truth, and she turned 
 away weeping bitterly, and dared not draw 
 near to Duke, while my father came and 
 bent over me. 
 
 “ My daughter, my daughter, God has 
 tried you very heavily. Oh, Duke ! my 
 boy, my boy ! I never thought to live to 
 see this day !” And my father would have 
 put his arm round me, but I would not 
 have it so. 
 
 “No, I am not your daughter now,” I 
 said. “ I am his wife, all his. Yes, there 
 is no one can say anything now. I am 
 yours, all yours now, Duke, dear Duke !” 
 and then I remembered how he had for- 
 bidden me ever to call him so again, and 
 I shivered all over. 
 
 Then the doctor came in with George 
 
304 
 
 DUKE, 
 
 Lumley, but he had been sent for before 
 they had seen how it was, and he only 
 spoke very low, and went away with the 
 tears in his eyes, for he had known Duke 
 well ; and after that my mother came in, 
 and she in her turn tried to lead me away. 
 
 “ Kiss him, and come away, my child,” 
 she said, but I shuddered at the thought. 
 
 “ It is not Duke who lies there,” I said. 
 
 Then my mother stooped and kissed him. 
 “ Dear Duke, we have all loved you very 
 well,” she murmured, “ but we must not 
 wish you back again, for you are very happy 
 now, happier than we could ever make 
 you.” 
 
 “ Happy without me !” I cried, and rose 
 from kneeling beside him, and turned to go 
 away. 
 
 “Gwynydd, my child, he is with God.” 
 
 “ Happy without me 1” I repeated, and 
 still turned to go away, and they all made 
 room for me to pass, just as the servants 
 had made room for me before. 
 
 It was Adrian Levison, who opened the 
 door for me, and as 1 glanced at him in 
 passing through it I saw that he was whiter 
 and graver than even Duke. It was the 
 last time I ever saw him, and he looked to 
 
DUKE. 
 
 305 
 
 me more dead than Duke, but Duke did 
 not speak, and he did. 
 
 “ You will go with her, Mrs. Jerning- 
 hame. She should not be left alone. Great 
 grief has turned her mind.” 
 
 So my mother went with me, and I sat 
 down by the window in my room, and 
 looked out on the green boughs of the 
 trees. A bird was singing — oh, so sweetly ! 
 — and I thought of the angels’ songs Duke 
 might be hearing now. My mother sat 
 down beside me, and passed her arm gently 
 round me. I did not repulse her as I had 
 repulsed my father, but I did not speak, 
 and she did not speak either, but only passed 
 her arm round me, and we sat in silence 
 together, and the sun shone, and the birds 
 sang, and the hours passed away. There 
 were no more hours for Duke, no more time 
 nor space for him. He was in Paradise 
 now. 
 
 The shadows were growing long in the 
 soft evening air, when Brydget came and 
 knocked at my door. 
 
 “ May I come in, Gwen ?” she asked. 
 
 “ Yes, come in,” I replied ; and it was the 
 first time I had spoken since I had sat down 
 by the open window, and Brydget came in, 
 VOL. II. 20 
 
306 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 with her face swollen with crying, and her 
 eyes almost washed away. She was trem- 
 bling all over as she came and leant against 
 me. I put my arm round her, and drew 
 her head down to rest upon my shoulder. 
 “ Dear Brydget, he is very happy now,” 
 I said. “ I could never have made him 
 happy.” 
 
 But Brydget only shook the more. 
 
 “ And you, Gwynydd ? and you ?” 
 
 “ I do not think of myself,” I said. “ He 
 is dead.” 
 
 Then Brydget sobbed aloud, and my 
 mother sobbed also ; but no tear dimmed 
 my eyes. 
 
 “ Papa sent me to ask you,” said Brydget, 
 after a few moments, and still almost choked 
 by her sobs — “ Papa sent me to ask you, 
 whether you would like to come and hear 
 him read some prayers in that room. There 
 was no time to say any prayers while Duke 
 was dying, but — but we can still pray for 
 ourselves, if not — not for him ; and he 
 thought you might like it.” 
 
 “ Dear father !” I said, “ I should like it 
 of all things.” 
 
 And I rose up, and led the way with a 
 firm step, while Brydget and my mother 
 
DUKE. 
 
 307 
 
 followed, weeping. My hand trembled a 
 little, as I turned the handle of the door 
 and entered the room, where Duke was not. 
 My father came and kissed me. 
 
 “ God bless you and comfort you, my 
 child !” he said. “ I thought it might help 
 you, that we should pray together beside 
 him. We may fancy Duke’s spirit still 
 with us in that way; but would you rather 
 we should be alone ?” 
 
 “ No,” I said ; “ I should like every one 
 in the house to come ; and when we have 
 prayed a little I should like to sing a 
 hymn.” 
 
 “ What hymn V’ asked my father. 
 
 And I took up Duke’s hymn-book, lying 
 on the table, and with trembling fingers 
 turned to his favourite — “ Brief life is here 
 our portion.” Then I kept his book for 
 myself to use. And gradually they all 
 came in, the servants sobbing and looking 
 with awe-struck glances at me, hardly 
 daring to look at the dead body on the sofa, 
 and Lady Brydget with a handkerchief 
 over her face. She went and sat down by 
 her son, and Lady Adelaide came in, very 
 white and trembling, and put her arms 
 round me and kissed me, and then burst 
 
 20—2 
 
308 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 into tears. Poor little thing ! she had been 
 very fond of Duke, and it was the first 
 time she had been brought face to face 
 
 c5 
 
 with Death. Aunt Barbara came in on 
 Uncle Bassets arm, but I think he was 
 crying most ; only as Aunt Barbara pressed 
 my hand in passing I felt it was very hot. 
 My father had kept a place for me beside 
 himself, and his hand was resting on the 
 back of my chair ; but just as we were 
 going to kneel down Lady Brydget un- 
 covered her face. 
 
 “ Gwynydd ! Where is Gwynydd V’ she 
 said. “ This is her place.” 
 
 And she rose from her seat beside Duke’s 
 head, and beckoned to me to take it ; but 
 I drew a footstool forward, and, placing it 
 at her feet, sat down there, and so while I 
 knelt I held Duke’s hand, and looked upon 
 his face, that was so still, but even yet so 
 sorrowful, even in death. Thus I sat with 
 Duke and Lady Brydget, while my father 
 read the chapter in the Burial Service all 
 Christians know and love. I sat with 
 them, and not with my own people — a 
 Jerninghame still, but a Jerninghame of an- 
 other family — as if I belonged to them, and 
 had married Duke already. I should never 
 
DUKE. 
 
 303 
 
 have married him had he lived, but that 
 they need never know ; he had not wished 
 it to be known, and it need never be known 
 now. He was dead now, and he was mine 
 once more : I was his now, all his. So the 
 others sobbed and trembled, but I neither 
 sobbed nor trembled, while we all stood up 
 and sang : 
 
 “ 0 sweet and blessed country. 
 
 The home of God’s elect ! 
 
 O sweet and blessed country, 
 
 That eager hearts expect ! 
 
 “ Jesu, in mercy bring us 
 
 To that dear land of rest ; 
 
 Who art, with God the Father, 
 
 And Spirit, ever blest. 
 
 “.Amen.” . 
 
 Then we all prayed together, and after 
 that my father gave us his blessing ; and 
 when he had blessed us all, then they each 
 came and looked at Duke. I do not 
 know who set the example, but each of the 
 servants came in turn before they marched 
 out in order. Then Lady Adelaide fainted, 
 and was carried away by her brother. After 
 that all the others came and looked at Duke, 
 and most of them kissed him. Only as my 
 
310 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 darling sister came, she paused before kissing 
 him, and bent over me, and took from my 
 hair the Stephanotis flower, which but that 
 morning she had placed there so gaily, and 
 which I had worn all this time unconsciously. 
 Then she sobbed convulsively as she saw it 
 in her hand and thought what she had said 
 whilst placing it in my hair. But I took 
 the flowers from her and put them in his 
 hand : fair bridal blossoms that they were, 
 tor his bride was Death. And I took the 
 heart’s-ease from my bosom, and laid them 
 upon him. No one spoke, only Brydget 
 stood and gazed at me ; then she kissed 
 Duke’s forehead, and after that she passed 
 away, and the others passed away also, and 
 last of all it was my turn ; but I did not 
 kiss Duke. I had said good-bye to him be- 
 fore — good-bye for ever ; I did not need to 
 say it again now. He knew all now, and 
 he must have forgiven me long ere this. 
 We did not need to part any more now. 
 There was no call for any farewell kiss. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 “ The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
 
 Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown ; 
 
 No traveller e’er reached that blest abode 
 Who found not thorns and briars in his road.” 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 So the last of the Jerninghames was buried 
 with his fathers, and we all stayed at the 
 Castle till the funeral was over. All the 
 relations stayed ; every one else had gone 
 away at once. But I saw no one after that 
 evening, when we all prayed together by 
 Duke’s dead body, only my father and my 
 mother, not even Brydget, and I never 
 looked upon Duke’s face again ; but I said 
 I must go to the funeral, and so they 
 suffered me to go, and again there Lady 
 Brydget and I stood together : I did not 
 stand with my own people. Then, when 
 we had buried al! that was left of him 
 
312 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 among us — laid his dust with the dust of 
 his forefathers, and prayed over his grave — 
 then again we sang a hymn, and I had been 
 allowed to choose it again, and I chose, 
 “ Oh Paradise ! Oh Paradise !” but we could 
 not sing that hymn : one after another the 
 voices dropped off, till there was no one left 
 singing, and after a little pause my father 
 gave us the blessing, and we came away. 
 Then I drove home with Lady Brydget — I 
 mean to the Castle — it was never to be my 
 home now, I called it so by mistake : and 
 after we had driven home I turned to Lord 
 Henry. 
 
 “ You were last with him. Will you tell 
 me about him ?” I said. “ Come to Duke’s 
 room, and tell me.” 
 
 Then I led the way to Duke’s room, and 
 Lord Henry followed me, and he said, 
 
 “ There is very little to tell. He was 
 very silent and absent that day, always 
 riding in front or behind, and it was only 
 not hearing his horse’s feet behind made 
 me look round and see — ” 
 
 And he shuddered. 
 
 “ Was he dead, then ?” I said. “ Had 
 he been riding fast, or how?” 
 
 “No, he had not been riding fast, and it 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 313 
 
 was not the roan’s fault, the roan had been 
 going very quietly, and I do not know if 
 he felt the spurs or not ; of course it may 
 have been the spurs. But Duke had been 
 riding very carelessly all the morning, with- 
 out looking where he was going, as if he 
 were thinking of something else, in short, 
 and then you see we were cantering, and 
 he can’t have looked where he was going, 
 and his head hit against the branch ; he was 
 killed on the spot, and the horse knew it, 
 and stopped !” 
 
 “ He can have felt no pain,” I said. 
 
 “ No, no pain ; only just stunned. There 
 could not have been an easier death, the 
 doctor said.” 
 
 “And did Duke say nothing all that 
 morning ? Can you recollect nothing that 
 he said ? When the groom ran after him 
 to ask him not to wear spurs, did he seem 
 annoyed ?” 
 
 “Yes, he seemed annoyed,” said Lord 
 Henry, slowly. 
 
 “ Much annoyed ?” I persisted. 
 
 “ Yes, he did ; very much annoyed, I 
 must say. I could not understand why, at 
 the time, but Duke was rather obstinate, 
 he never liked being interfered with. We 
 
314 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 can never know now what it was. Perhaps 
 something in the man’s manner.” 
 
 “ He used my name, did he not ?” 
 
 “Yes, I thought it was that, which an- 
 noyed him at the time. But I would not 
 think about it, if I were you. You did your 
 best to save him, and — ” 
 
 “ No, I did not,” I said, quietly. “ T 
 never sent that message, I was not the least 
 uneasy about Duke then. The man was 
 himself, and he misunderstood me, perhaps 
 purposely. But can you not recollect any- 
 thing that Duke said ?” 
 
 “ Only about the day and the horses. 
 He said the roan was spirited but gentle, 
 and I said that was just the kind of horse 
 that most minded spurs, but I did not think 
 much about them, any more than you did, 
 and I don’t think it was because of them at 
 all, and then I said something about cutting 
 a vista through the trees, and he said he 
 did not think he ever should now, and 
 muttered something about going abroad, 
 but what I did not quite hear, and then 
 one thing I like to think of,” said Lord 
 Henry, “ and perhaps you may, too, only I 
 did not quite know how to tell you. It 
 was the last thing he said. He stopped his 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 315 
 
 horse, and looked at the sun shining through 
 the trees, and the Castle in the distance, 
 and he said, ‘ When I am dead, I wonder 
 if my heir will love this place as much as I 
 do,’ and I said to him — I suppose I was 
 very foolish, I mostly am — ‘ Oh Duke, old 
 fellow, don’t give me the dismals by talking 
 of dying on such a day as this. Surely you 
 don’t need to think of dying yet,’ and he 
 said, quite sternly, ‘ That is the one thing 
 I have got to think of now,’ and then he 
 cantered on, and we all cantered, but the 
 roan had got a way of dancing among the 
 trees, or else Duke made her, and she soon 
 got behind, and then, when I did not hear 
 her coming, I looked round, and saw him — 
 dead.” 
 
 And Lord Henry spoke the last word in 
 a sort of terrified whisper ; he and Duke 
 had always been great friends, and I saw it 
 had been a dreadful shock to him. 
 
 “ Thank you,” I said. “ Will you leave 
 me now a little to think over what you 
 have been telling me ? I shall like much 
 to recollect it some day, I dare say, but now 
 I had rather be alone. Thank you very much, 
 I know you were always one of Duke’s 
 dearest friends, and I held out my hand to 
 
316 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 him, and Lord Henry pressed it and said, 
 with the tears in his eyes : 
 
 “ You see I can never give your message 
 now.” 
 
 “ No, you can never give my message 
 now,” I repeated, dreamily. 
 
 “ I feel as if it was all my fault,” he said, 
 his voice almost choked, “ as if it was be- 
 cause I was such a bad foolish fellow, that 
 this was sent as a sort of warning to me.” 
 
 “ Oh, do not say that,” I cried. “ It was 
 for Duke’s own sake as well as ours. They 
 wanted him in heaven ; it was not just to 
 keep him any longer suffering here, so God 
 called him to Himself, and you say there 
 could not have been a more painless death. 
 Duke did not need anything to wean him 
 from earth, he was quite ready to go, quite 
 fit for heaven. He said himself he had no- 
 thing but dying left to think of, and he 
 thought of it, and he died. Oh, he is so 
 happy now !” I said ; “ and he understands 
 everything now, he is no longer perplexed 
 and sorrowful. He is quite happy now!” 
 and my eyelids dilated, and I seemed 
 to see Duke, not any longer on the ladder 
 leading up to heaven, not any longer on 
 the topmost step, but in heaven itself, 
 
CONCLUSION, 
 
 317 
 
 among the blessed angels, and I stretched 
 out my arms to him, and he looked lovingly 
 at me, as he had been used to look all my 
 life, but only for these last few days, and 
 his face seemed brighter than I had ever 
 seen it, and there came a sound to me as of 
 the angels singing, and then I knew no 
 more. When I next opened my eyes, and 
 saw with them, so as to know what I saw, 
 I was no longer in Duke’s little room at the 
 Castle, but in my own room at the Deanery, 
 and my mother was watching beside me. 
 “ Am I alive still ?” I asked. 
 
 “ Yes, my darling child. Thank God, 
 you are alive still,” said my mother, bending 
 over me. 
 
 “ I thought I was in heaven, with Duke 
 and with the angels,” I said, wearily. “ I 
 did not see God, mother.” 
 
 “ No, my child, you are alive yet, but 
 some day you will die, and then you will 
 see him, I hope and trust, my Gwynydd.” 
 
 “ Am I dying now, mother ?” 
 
 “ No, my child, I hope not.” 
 
 “ Can you really hope it for me, mother?” 
 I asked, and closed my eyes again, but 
 some tears fell on my face, and I heard my 
 mother weeping silently for some time after 
 that. 
 
318 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 “ Do not be unhappy, mother, dearest,” 
 I said at last ; “ it is all one to me whether 
 I go or stay, and God knows what is best.” 
 Then my mother took my hand, and held 
 it fast in hers. 
 
 I did not speak again for some hours 
 after that, only the doctor came and looked 
 at me and felt my pulse, but he did not ask 
 any questions, so I did not speak, but after 
 he had gone away I asked my mother, 
 “ Have I been long ill ?” 
 
 “ Yes, my child, for a long time.” 
 
 “ Weeks, or months ?” 
 
 “Not months,” said my mother, “ but 
 many weeks.” 
 
 “ Then is it November now ?” I asked. 
 “Yes, dear Gwynydd; but do not ask 
 any more questions. You are too weak to 
 talk yet.” 
 
 “ Only one more question, mother. Is it 
 the first week in November ?” 
 
 “ Yes, my darling child,” said my mo- 
 ther, speaking tremulously. “ It is the 
 first Thursday in November.” 
 
 “ I always meant to have been married 
 on a Thursday,” I said. 
 
 Then I was ill for a long time after that 
 again. My mind had wandered at first, and 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 319 
 
 it wandered again now for a little, though I 
 never talked much, only crooned as I had 
 done in London, but by degrees my illness 
 went from my head and settled in my spine, 
 and I suffered agonies at first. They say 
 the illness will never leave my spine again 
 now, and that I shall alwa} r s suffer agonies, 
 but I seem to be accustomed to it now, and 
 it often does not appear to me that I suffer 
 as much as people think. All sorts of doc- 
 tors have been consulted about me, but they 
 can none of them do me any good. It 
 seemed quite like seeing an old friend, when 
 the doctor, who had seen me in London and 
 said I might rally for a time, came and 
 looked at me. His eyes were glistening 
 with tears, as he asked, “ Can you bear 
 it ?” 
 
 “ Oh, yes,” I said ; “ it will not be for 
 very long, will it ?” 
 
 “ I cannot say,” he replied. “ Ah ! it is 
 a weary thing waiting.” 
 
 “ No, not weary now,” I cried ; “ I have 
 so much to think of, and repent of. I do 
 not at all wish to die now. I did once ; I 
 was very wicked then, and told you that I 
 did not, but I did. Only tell me the truth 
 now as you told it once before. Of course 
 
320 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 you cannot know, but do you think I shall 
 have long to live ?” 
 
 “ I have known cases like yours go on 
 for years.” 
 
 I suppose my face fell, for he added 
 quickly, “But do not despond. It is only 
 for a time, you know, after all, and that 
 will not shorten eternity. Besides, their 
 pain was not so great as yours.” 
 
 “ Only you think I might live to be an 
 old woman ?” I asked. 
 
 “ There is no reason why you should not. 
 God forbid that I should not tell the truth 
 to you, for you are hardly of this world, as 
 it is,” and the old doctor’s eyes glistened. 
 
 “ Thank you for telling me the truth,” I 
 said. “ I know it has given you pain, but 
 I am in no hurry to die.” 
 
 “All in God’s good time,” said the old 
 man, pressing my hand. “ But what made 
 you wish to die before ? That was a strange 
 wish for you then.” 
 
 “ I was not good enough to be his wife,” 
 I said. 
 
 The old doctor shook his head. “It was 
 not that, that made you ill in London. 
 There was some one else.” 
 
 “ No, no,” I cried, earnestly, “ no one 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 321 
 
 else. I loved Duke, always Duke. I was 
 very weak and miserable once, and wished 
 to die, but no one must ever talk to me of 
 any one else. I loved him above every one. 
 Duke — my Duke.” 
 
 Even now I do not know if I told a lie 
 then ; anyhow it seemed to me for a little 
 while in that first great bitterness after his 
 death, that I loved him, and had loved him 
 always with the highest, truest love, such 
 as a woman feels for the husband of many 
 years, and he had wished that no one should 
 know that I had not always felt towards 
 him as I had tried to do. I could not but 
 respect his wishes even in death, so, cost me 
 what it might, no one should ever know the 
 secrets of our last parting, and that had he 
 lived I should never have been Duke’s wife. 
 Dear Duke ! does it pain you when I call 
 you so now? I sinned against you very 
 cruelly, but I loved you all the while — like 
 a brother, a most beloved brother. Some- 
 how I think that you only remember that 
 now. 
 
 Of Adrian Levison I have very rarely 
 heard since that dreadful day when I last 
 saw him. lie is married, and people say 
 he does not work so hard since then, and 
 
 VOL. II. 21 
 
322 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 he has never greatly distinguished himself'. 
 I do not care to hear more about him, for I 
 can pray just as well for him without know- 
 ing more, and that is all that I can do now 
 for him or any one, for I can never leave 
 the Deanery again, never, till other hands 
 lay me within 
 
 “ That little grave’s green hill,” 
 
 that is 
 
 “ Daily drawing nearer at every step we take, 
 
 Our heart’s delights are dying, 
 
 And with them our hearts break.” 
 
 But I am not impatient to rest beneath 
 that little hill, for I have much of which to 
 repent, and I think I must grow less sor- 
 rowful before I am meet for the joys of 
 Paradise, and I cannot learn to be less sor- 
 rowful yet. So it seems that I am to grow 
 into the highly respected elderly Miss Jer- 
 ninghame, about whom there is a melan- 
 choly story, just as I used to wonder if I 
 should, only I shall not go to the Cathedral 
 every day, nor do anything useful about St. 
 Margaret’s, for I am very seldom free from 
 pain, and often it is all that I can do to 
 bear it. Happily God doth not need 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 323 
 
 “ Either man’s work, or his own gifts ; who best 
 Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best, 
 
 They also serve who only stand and wait.” 
 
 So I wait, and wonder sometimes how it 
 would have been had I married Adrian 
 Levison long ago. Perhaps it is the pain 
 that makes me so stupid, but it is all still a 
 puzzle to me, for I know that there was 
 more of Christ’s teaching in his heart than 
 even in George Lumley’s, and yet he and 
 Brydget and their little ones are so happy 
 together ; but I suppose we must not hope 
 to understand everything in this life. Our 
 darkened intellects only let us catch 
 glimpses of that great pearl, Truth, which 
 God has set bright and shining before 
 us, so bright and shining that many are 
 satisfied with even the reflection, and 
 those who have caught but a glimpse of 
 the real pearl, find it hard to believe that 
 there can yet be more to see, so very beauti- 
 ful and so very perfect is that fragment 
 of which they have caught sight. Per- 
 haps it has been so with me and Adrian 
 Levison, and we had but caught different 
 glimpses, only then I should not have acted 
 in accordance with my glimpse had I 
 married him, just as I was not acting in 
 
 21 2 
 
324 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 accordance with it, when later on I con- 
 sented to marry Duke. Ah, I have sinned 
 greatly, so now I am punished greatly. But 
 those others, who suffered through me, 
 what had they done ? 
 
 Ah me ! it had been sweet, as sorrowful, 
 that young love-dream. But it is Duke’s 
 loss that I feel every day now, and Duke’s 
 presence that I miss every day more. Dear 
 Duke ! you have forgiven me long ere this, 
 I know, and you know now, as I can only 
 believe, that it was in mercy our heavenly 
 Father saw fit to part us here, that He 
 might draw us both nearer to Himself. 
 And thus one day He will bring us all 
 nearer to one another than we can ever 
 hope to be on earth, for one day we shall 
 meet again, I trust, never to be parted 
 again, nor to separate any more, but to be 
 united for ever and ever, perfectly united 
 in perfect love of the All-Good. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 f 
 
 BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY. 
 

 
 t