Contemporaneously with the supper came a four-wheeler with a man and a woman in it.

Sal. "I wonder if that is Lord and Lady Brighthelmston?"

Mrs. B. "Nonsense, my dear; look at the woman's dress."

W.B. "It is probably the butler, and I have a premonition that that is good old Nurse with him. She has been with family ever since the birth of the first daughter twenty-four years ago. Look at her cap ribbons; note the fit of the stiff black silk over her comfortable shoulders; you can almost hear her creak in it!"

B.G. "My eye! but she's one to keep the goody-pot open for the youngsters! She'll be the belle of the ball so far as I'm concerned."

Fran. "It's impossible to tell whether it's the butler or paterfamilias. Yes, it's the butler, for he has taken off his coat and is looking at the flowers with the florist's assistant."

B.G. "And the florist's assistant is getting slated like one o'clock! The butler doesn't like the rum design over the piano; no more do I. Whatever is the matter with them now?"

They were standing with their faces towards us, gesticulating wildly about something on the front wall of the drawing-room; a place quite hidden from our view. They could not decide the matter, although the butler intimated that it would quite ruin the ball, while the assistant mopped his brow and threw all the blame on somebody else. Nurse came in, and hated whatever it was the moment her eye fell on it. She couldn't think how anybody could abide it, and was of the opinion that his ludship would have it down as soon as he arrived.

Our attention was now distracted by the fact that his ludship did arrive. It was ten o'clock, but barely dark enough yet to make the lanterns effective, although they had just been lighted.

There were two private carriages and two four-wheelers, from which paterfamilias and one other gentleman alighted, followed by a small feminine delegation.

"One young chap to brace up the gov'nor," said Bertie Godolphin. "Then the eldest daughter is engaged to be married; that's right; only three daughters and two h'orphan nieces to work off now!"

As the girls scampered in, hidden by their long cloaks, we could not even discover the two we already knew. While they were divesting themselves of their wraps in an upper chamber, Nurse hovering over them with maternal solicitude, we were anxiously awaiting their criticisms of our preparations.



Chapter XII. Patricia makes her debut.



For three days we had been overseeing the details. Would they approve the result? Would they think the grand piano in the proper corner? Were the garlands hung too low? Was the balcony scheme effective? Was our menu for the supper satisfactory? Were there too many lanterns? Lord and Lady Brighthelmston had superintended so little, and we so much, that we felt personally responsible.

Now came musicians with their instruments. The butler sent four melancholy Spanish students to the balcony, where they began to tune mandolins and guitars, while an Hungarian band took up its position, we conjectured, on some extension or balcony in the rear, the existence of which we had not guessed until we heard the music later. Then the butler turned on the electric light, and the family came into the drawing-rooms.

They did admire them as much as we could wish, and we, on our part, thoroughly approved of the family. We had feared it might prove dull, plain, dowdy, though wellborn, with only dear Patricia to enliven it; but it was well-dressed, merry, and had not a thought of glancing at the windows or pulling down the blinds, bless its simple heart!

The mother entered first, wearing a grey satin gown and a diamond crown that quite established her position in the great world. Then girls, and more girls: a rose-pink girl, a pale green, a lavender, a yellow, and our Patricia, in a cloud of white with a sparkle of silver, and a diamond arrow in her lustrous hair.

What an English nosegay they made, to be sure, as they stood in the back of the room while paterfamilias approached, and calling each in turn, gave her a lovely bouquet from a huge basket held by the butler.

Everybody's flowers matched everybody's frock to perfection; those of the h'orphan nieces were just as beautiful as those of the daughters, and it is no wonder that the English nosegay descended upon paterfamilias, bore him into the passage, and if they did not kiss him soundly, why did he come back all rosy and crumpled, smoothing his dishevelled hair, and smiling at Lady Brighthelmston? We speedily named the girls Rose, Mignonette, Violet, and Celandine, each after the colour of her frock.

"But there are only five, and there ought to be six," whispered Salemina, as if she expected to be heard across the street.

"One—two—three—four—five, you are right," said Mr. Beresford. "The plainest of the lot must be staying in Wales with a maiden aunt who has a lot of money to leave. The old lady isn't so ill that they can't give the ball, but just ill enough so that she may make her will wrong if left alone; poor girl, to be plain, and then to miss such a ball as this,—hello! the first guest! He is on time to be sure; I hate to be first, don't you?"

The first guest was a strikingly handsome fellow, irreproachably dressed and unmistakably nervous.

"He is afraid he is too early!"

"He is afraid that if he waits he'll be too late!"

"He doesn't want the driver to stop directly in front of the door."

"He has something beside him on the seat of the hansom."

"The tissue paper has blown off: it is flowers."

"It is a piece! Jove, this IS a rum ball!"

"What IS the thing? No wonder he doesn't drive up to the door and go in with it!"

"It is a HARP, as sure as I am alive!"

Then electrically from Francesca, "It is Patricia's Irish lover! I forget his name."

"Rory!"

"Shamus!"

"Michael!"

"Patrick!"

"Terence!"

"Hush!" she exclaimed at this chorus of Hibernian Christian names, "it is Patricia's undeclared impecunious lover. He is afraid that she won't know his gift is a harp, and afraid that the other girls will. He feared to send it, lest one of the sisters or h'orphan nieces should get it; it is frightful to love one of six, and the cards are always slipping off, and the wrong girl is always receiving your love-token or your offer of marriage."

"And if it is an offer, and the wrong woman gets it, she always accepts, somehow," said Mr. Beresford; "It's only the right one who declines!" and here he certainly looked at me pointedly.

"He hoped to arrive before any one else," Francesca went on, "and put the harp in a nice place, and lead Patricia up to it, and make her wonder who sent it. Now poor dear (yes, his name is sure to be Terence), he is too late, and I am sure he will leave it in the hansom, he will be so embarrassed."

And so he did, but alas! the driver came back with it in an instant, the butler ran down the long path of crimson carpet that covered the sidewalk, the first footman assisted, the second footman pursued Terence and caught him on the staircase, and he descended reluctantly, only to receive the harp in his arms and send a tip to the cabman, whom of course he was cursing in his heart.

"I can't think why he should give her a harp," mused Bertie Godolphin. "Such a rum thing, a harp, isn't it? It's too heavy for her to 'tote,' as you say in the States."

"Yes, we always say 'tote,' particularly in the North," I replied; "but perhaps it is Patricia's favourite instrument. Perhaps Terence first saw her at the harp, and loved her from the moment he heard her sing the 'Minstrel Boy' and the 'Meeting of the Waters.'"

"Perhaps he merely brought it as a sort of symbol," suggested Mr. Beresford; "a kind of flowery metaphor signifying that all Ireland, in his person, is at her disposal, only waiting to be played upon."

"If that is what he means, he must be a jolly muff," remarked the Honourable Arthur. "I should think he'd have to send a guidebook with the bloomin' thing."

We never knew how Terence arranged about the incubus; we only saw that he did not enter the drawing room with it in his arms. He was well received, although there was no special enthusiasm over his arrival; but the first guest is always at a disadvantage.

He greeted the young ladies as if he were in the habit of meeting them often, but when he came to Patricia, well, he greeted her as if he could never meet her often enough; there was a distinct difference, and even Mrs. Beresford, who had been incredulous, succumbed to our view of the case.

Patricia took him over to the piano to see the arrangement of some lilies. He said they were delicious, but looked at her.

She asked him if he did not think the garlands lovely.

He said, "Perfectly charming," but never lifted his eyes higher than her face.

"Do you like my dress?" her glance seemed to ask.

"Wonderful!" his seemed to reply, as he stealthily put out his hand and touched a soft fold of its white fluffiness.

I could hear him think, as she leaned into the curve of the Broadwood and bent over the flowers—

'Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall of the snow Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of beaver? Or swan's down ever? Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier? Or the nard i' the fire? Or have tasted the bag of the bee? Oh, so white! oh, so soft! oh, so sweet is she!'

A footman entered, bearing the harp, which he placed on a table in the corner. He disclaimed all knowledge of it, having probably been well paid to do so, and the unoccupied girls gathered about it like bees about a honeysuckle, while Patricia and Terence stayed by the piano.

"To think it may never be a match!" sighed Francesca, "and they are such an ideal pair! But it is easy to see that the mother will oppose it, and although Patricia is her father's darling, he cannot allow her to marry a handsome young pauper like Terence."

"Cheer up!" said Bertie Godolphin reassuringly. "Perhaps some unrelenting beggar of an uncle will die of old age next and leave him the title and estates."

"I hope she will accept him to-night, if she loves him, estates or no estates," said Salemina, who, like many ladies who have elected to remain single, is distinctly sentimental, and has not an ounce of worldly wisdom.

"Well, I think a fellow deserves some reward," remarked Mr. Beresford, "when he has the courage to drive up in a hansom bearing a green harp with yellow strings in his arms. It shows that his passion has quite eclipsed his sense of humour. By the way, I am not sure but I should choose Rose, after all; there's something very attractive about Rose."

"It is the fact that she is promised to another," laughed Francesca somewhat pertly.

"She would make an admirable wife," Mrs. Beresford interjected—absent-mindedly; "and so of course Terence will not choose her, and similarly neither would you, if you had the chance."

At this Mrs. Beresford's son glances up at me with twinkling eyes, and I can hardly forbear smiling, so unconscious is she that his choice is already made. However, he replies: "Who ever loved a woman for her solid virtues, mother? Who ever fell a victim to punctuality, patience, or frugality? It is other and different qualities which colour the personality and ensnare the heart; though the stodgy and reliable traits hold it, I dare say, when once captured. Don't you know Berkeley says, 'D—n it, madam, who falls in love with attributes?'"

Meantime Violet and Celandine have come out on the balcony, and seeing the tinkling musicians there, have straightway banished them to another part of the house.

"A good thing, too!" murmured Bertie Godolphin, "making a beastly row in that 'nailing' little corner, collecting a crowd sooner or later, don't you know, and putting a dead stop to the jolly little flirtations."

The Honourable Arthur glanced critically at Celandine. "I should make up to her," he said thoughtfully. "She's the best groomed one of the whole stud, though why you call her Celandine I can't think."

"It's a flower, and her dress is yellow, can't you see, man? You've got no sense of colour," said the candid Bertie. "I believe you'd just as soon be a green parrot with a red head as not."

And now the guests began to arrive; so many of them and so near together that we hardly had time to label them as they said good evening, and told dear Lady Brighthelmston how pretty the decorations were, and how prevalent the influenza had been, and how very sultry the weather, and how clever it was of her to give her party in a vacant house, and what a delightful marriage Rose was making, and how well dear Patricia looked.

The sound of the music drifted into the usually quiet street, and by half-past eleven the ball was in full splendour. Lady Brighthelmston stood alone now, greeting all the late arrivals; and we could catch a glimpse now and then of Violet dancing with a beautiful being in a white uniform, and of Rose followed about by her accepted lover, both of them content with their lot, but with feet quite on the solid earth.

Celandine was a bit of a flirt, no doubt. She had many partners, walked in the garden with them impartially, divided her dances, sat on the stairs. Wherever her yellow draperies moved, nonsense, merriment, and chatter followed in her wake.

Patricia danced often with Terence. We could see the dark head, darker and a bit taller than the others, move through the throng, the diamond arrow gleaming in its lustrous coils. She danced like a flower blown by the wind. Nothing could have been more graceful, more stately. The bend of her slender body at the waist, the pose of her head, the line of her shoulder, the suggestion of dimple in her elbow—all were so many separate allurements to the kindling eye of love.

Terence certainly added little to the general brilliancy and gaiety of the occasion, for he stood in a corner and looked at Patricia whenever he was not dancing with her, 'all eye when one was present, all memory when one was gone.'



Chapter XIII. A Penelope secret.



Shortly after midnight our own little company broke up, loath to leave the charming spectacle. The guests departed with the greatest reluctance, having given Dawson a half-sovereign for waiting up to lock the door. Mrs. Beresford said that it seemed unendurable to leave matters in such an unfinished condition, and her son promised to come very early next morning for the latest bulletins.

"I leave all the romances in your hands," he whispered to me; "do let them turn out happily, do!"

Salemina also retired to her virtuous couch, remembering that she was to visit infant schools with a great educational dignitary on the morrow.

Francesca and I turned the gas entirely out, although we had been sitting all the evening in a kind of twilight, and slipping on our dressing-gowns sat again at the window for a farewell peep into the past, present, and future of the 'Brighthelmston set.'

At midnight the dowager duchess arrived. She must at least have been a dowager duchess, and if there is anything greater, within the bounds of a reasonable imagination, she was that. Long streamers of black tulle floated from a diamond soup-tureen which surmounted her hair. Narrow puffings of white traversed her black velvet gown in all directions, making her look somewhat like a railway map, and a diamond fan-chain defined, or attempted to define, what was in its nature neither definable nor confinable, to wit, her waist, or what had been, in early youth, her waist.

The entire company was stirred by the arrival of the dowager duchess, and it undoubtedly added new eclat to what was already a fashionable event; for we counted three gentlemen who wore orders glittering on ribbons that crossed the white of their immaculate linen, and there was an Indian potentate with a jewelled turban who divided attention with the dowager duchess's diamond soup-tureen.

At twelve-thirty Lord Brighthelmston chided Celandine for flirting too much.

At twelve-forty Lady Brighthelmston reminded Violet (who was a h'orphan niece) that the beautiful being in the white uniform was not the eldest son.

At twelve-fifty there arrived an elderly gentleman, before whom the servants bowed low. Lord Brighthelmston went to fetch Patricia, who chanced to be sitting out a dance with Terence. The three came out on the balcony, which was deserted, in the near prospect of supper, and the personage—whom we suspected to be Patricia's godfather—took from his waistcoat pocket a string of pearls, and, clasping it round her white throat, stooped gently and kissed her forehead.

Then at one o'clock came supper. Francesca and I had secretly provided for that contingency, and curling up on a sofa we drew toward us a little table which Dawson had spread with a galantine of chicken, some cress sandwiches, and a jug of milk.

At one-thirty we were quite overcome with sleep, and retired to our beds, where of course we speedily grew wakeful.

"It is giving a ball, not going to one, that is so exhausting!" yawned Francesca. "How many times have I danced all night with half the fatigue that I am feeling now!"

The sound of music came across the street through the closed door of our sitting-room. Waltz after waltz, a polka, a galop, then waltzes again, until our brains reeled with the rhythm. As if this were not enough, when our windows at the back were opened wide we were quite within reach of Lady Durden's small dance, where another Hungarian band discoursed more waltzes and galops.

"Dancing, dancing everywhere, and not a turn for us!" grumbled Francesca. "I simply cannot sleep, can you?"

"We must make a determined effort," I advised; "don't speak again, and perhaps drowsiness will overtake us."

It finally did overtake Francesca, but I had too much to think about—my own problems as well as Patricia's. After what seemed to be hours of tossing I was helplessly drawn back into the sitting-room, just to see if anything had happened, and if the affair was ever likely to come to an end.

It was half-past two, and yes, the ball was decidedly 'thinning out.'

The attendants in the lower hall, when they were not calling carriages, yawned behind their hands, and stood first on one foot, and then on the other.

Women in beautiful wraps, their heads flashing with jewels, descended the staircase, and drove, or even walked, away into the summer night.

Lady Brighthelmston began to look tired, although all the world, as it said good night, was telling her that it was one of the most delightful balls of the season.

The English nosegay had lost its white flower, for Patricia was not in the family group. I looked everywhere for the gleam of her silvery scarf, everywhere for Terence, while, the waltz music having ceased, the Spanish students played 'Love's Young Dream.'

I hummed the words as the sweet old tune, strummed by the tinkling mandolins, vibrated clearly in the maze of other sounds:—

'Oh! the days have gone when Beauty bright My heart's chain wove; When my dream of life from morn till night Was Love, still Love. New hope may bloom and days may come, Of milder, calmer beam, But there's nothing half so sweet in life As Love's Young Dream.'

At last, in a quiet spot under the oak-tree, the lately risen moon found Patricia's diamond arrow and discovered her to me. The Japanese lanterns had burned out; she was wrapped like a young nun, in a cloud of white that made her eyelashes seem darker.

I looked once, because the moonbeam led me into it before I realised; then I stole away from the window and into my own room, closing the door softly behind me.

We had so far been looking only at conventionalities, preliminaries, things that all (who had eyes to see) might see; but this was different—quite, quite different.

They were as beautiful under the friendly shadow of their urban oak-tree as were ever Romeo and Juliet on the balcony of the Capulets. I may not tell you what I saw in my one quickly repented-of glance. That would be vulgarising something that was already a little profaned by my innocent participation.

I do not know whether Terence was heir, even ever so far removed, to any title or estates, and I am sure Patricia did not care: he may have been vulgarly rich or aristocratically poor. I only know that they loved each other in the old yet ever new way, without any ifs or ands or buts; that he worshipped, she honoured; he asked humbly, she gave gladly.

How do I know? Ah! that's a 'Penelope secret,' as Francesca says.

Perhaps you doubt my intuitions altogether. Perhaps you believe in your heart that it was an ordinary ball, where a lot of stupid people arrived, danced, supped, and departed. Perhaps you do not think his name was Terence or hers Patricia, and if you go so far as that in blindness and incredulity I should not expect you to translate properly what I saw last night under the oak-tree, the night of the ball on the opposite side, when Patricia made her debut.



Chapter XIV. Love and lavender.



How well I remember our last evening in Dovermarle Street!

At one of our open windows behind the potted ferns and blossoming hydrangeas sat Salemina, Bertie Godolphin, Mrs. Beresford, the Honourable Arthur, and Francesca; at another, as far off as possible, sat Willie Beresford and I. Mrs. Beresford had sanctioned a post-prandial cigar, for we were not going out till ten, to see, for the second time, an act of John Hare's Pair of Spectacles.

They were talking and laughing at the other end of the room; Mr. Beresford and I were rather quiet. (Why is it that the people with whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to talk?)

The room was dim with the light of a single lamp; the rain had ceased; the roar of Piccadilly came to us softened by distance. A belated vendor of lavender came along the sidewalk, and as he stopped under the windows the pungent fragrance of the flowers was wafted up to us with his song.

'Who'll buy my pretty lavender? Sweet lavender, Who'll buy my pretty lavender? Sweet bloomin' lavender.'

The tune comes to me laden with odours. Is it not strange that the fragrances of other days steal in upon the senses together with the sights and sounds that gave them birth?

Presently a horse and cart drew up before an hotel, a little further along, on the opposite side of the way. By the light of the street lamp under which it stopped we could see that it held a piano and two persons beside the driver. The man was masked, and wore a soft felt hat and a velvet coat. He seated himself at the piano and played a Chopin waltz with decided sentiment and brilliancy; then, touching the keys idly for a moment or two, he struck a few chords of prelude and turned towards the woman who sat beside him. She rose, and, laying one hand on the corner of the instrument, began to sing one of the season's favourites, 'The Song that reached my Heart.' She also was masked, and even her figure was hidden by a long dark cloak the hood of which was drawn over her head to meet the mask. She sang so beautifully, with such style and such feeling, it seemed incredible to hear her under circumstances like these. She followed the ballad with Handel's 'Lascia ch'io pianga,' which rang out into the quiet street with almost hopeless pathos. When she descended from the cart to undertake the more prosaic occupation of passing the hat beneath the windows, I could see that she limped slightly, and that the hand with which she pushed back the heavy dark hair under the hood was beautifully moulded. They were all mystery that couple; not to be confounded for an instant with the common herd of London street musicians. With what an air of the drawing-room did he of the velvet coat help the singer into the cart, and with what elegant abandon and ultra-dilettantism did he light a cigarette, reseat himself at the piano, and weave Scots ballads into a charming impromptu! I confess I wrapped my shilling in a bit of paper and dropped it over the balcony with the wish that I knew the tragedy behind this little street drama.

Willie Beresford was in a royal mood that night. You know the mood, in which the heart is so full, so full, it overruns the brim. He bought the entire stock of the lavender seller, and threw a shilling to the mysterious singer for every song she sung. He even offered to give—himself—to me! And oh! I would have taken him as gladly as ever the lavender boy took the half-crown, had I been quite, quite sure of myself! A woman with a vocation ought to be still surer than other women that it is the very jewel of love she is setting in her heart, and not a sparkling imitation. I gave myself wholly, or believed that I gave myself wholly, to art, or what I believed to be art. And is there anything more sacred than art?—Yes, one thing!

It happened something in this wise.

The singing had put us in a gentle mood, and after a long peroration from Mr. Beresford, which I do not care to repeat, I said very softly (blessing the Honourable Arthur's vociferous laughter at one of Salemina's American jokes), "But I thought perhaps it was Francesca. Are you quite sure?"

He intimated that if there were any fact in his repertory of which he was particularly and absolutely sure it was this special fact.

"It is too sudden," I objected. "Plants that blossom on shipboard-"

"This plant was rooted in American earth, and you know it, Penelope. If it chanced to blossom on the ship, it was because it had already budded on the shore; it has borne transplanting to a foreign soil, and it grows in beauty and strength every day: so no slurs, please, concerning ocean-steamer hothouses."

"I cannot say yes, yet I dare not say no; it is too soon. I must go off into the country quite by myself and think it over."

"But," urged Mr. Beresford, "you cannot think over a matter of this kind by yourself. You'll continually be needing to refer to me for data, don't you know, on which to base your conclusions. How can you tell whether you're in love with me or not if— (No, I am not shouting at all; it's your guilty conscience; I'm whispering.) How can you tell whether you're in love with me, I repeat, unless you keep me under constant examination?"

"That seems sensible, though I dare say it is full of sophistry; but I have made up my mind to go into the country and paint while Salemina and Francesca are on the Continent. One cannot think in this whirl. A winter season in Washington followed by a summer season in London,—one wants a breath of fresh air before beginning another winter season somewhere else. Be a little patient, please. I long for the calm that steals over me when I am absorbed in my brushes and my oils."

"Work is all very well," said Mr. Beresford with determination, "but I know your habits. You have a little way of taking your brush, and with one savage sweep painting out a figure from your canvas. Now if I am on the canvas of your heart,—I say 'if' tentatively and modestly, as becomes me,—I've no intention of allowing you to paint me out; therefore I wish to remain in the foreground, where I can say 'Strike, but hear me,' if I discover any hostile tendencies in your eye. But I am thankful for small favours (the 'no' you do not quite dare say, for instance), and I'll talk it over with you to-morrow, if the British gentry will give me an opportunity, and if you'll deign to give me a moment alone in any other place than the Royal Academy."

"I was alone with you to-day for a whole hour at least."

"Yes, first at the London and Westminster Bank, second in Trafalgar Square, and third on the top of a 'bus, none of them congenial spots to a man in my humour. Penelope, you are not dull, but you don't seem to understand that I am head over-"

"What are you two people quarrelling about?" cried Salemina. "Come, Penelope, get your wrap. Mrs. Beresford, isn't she charming in her new Liberty gown? If that New York wit had seen her, he couldn't have said, 'If that is Liberty, give me Death!' Yes, Francesca, you must wear something over your shoulders. Whistle for two four-wheelers, Dawson, please."



Part Second—In the country.



Chapter XV. Penelope dreams.



West Belvern, Holly House August 189-.

I am here alone. Salemina has taken her little cloth bag and her notebook and gone to inspect the educational and industrial methods of Germany. If she can discover anything that they are not already doing better in Boston, she will take it back with her, but her state of mind regarding the outcome of the trip might be described as one of incredulity tinged with hope. Francesca has accompanied Salemina. Not that the inspection of systems is much in her line, but she prefers it to a solitude a deux with me when I am in a working mood, and she comforts herself with the anticipation that the German army is very attractive. Willie Beresford has gone with his mother to Aix-les-Bains, like the dutiful son that he is. They say that a good son makes a good— But that subject is dismissed to the background for the present, for we are in a state of armed neutrality. He has agreed to wait until the autumn for a final answer, and I have promised to furnish one by that time. Meanwhile, we are to continue our acquaintance by post, which is a concession I would never have allowed if I had had my wits about me.

After paying my last week's bill in Dovermarle Street, including fees to several servants whom I knew by sight, and several others whose acquaintance I made for the first time at the moment of departure, I glanced at my ebbing letter of credit and felt a season of economy setting in upon me with unusual severity; accordingly, I made an experiment of coming third-class to Belvern. I handed the guard a shilling, and he gave me a seat riding backwards in a carriage with seven other women, all very frumpish, but highly respectable. As he could not possibly have done any worse for me, I take it that he considered the shilling a graceful tribute to his personal charms, but as having no other bearing whatever. The seven women stared at me throughout the journey. When one is really of the same blood, and when one does not open one's lips or wave the stars and stripes in any possible manner, how do they detect the American? These women looked at me as if I were a highly interesting anthropoidal ape. It was not because of my attire, for I was carefully dressed down to a third-class level; yet when I removed my plain Knox hat and leaned my head back against my travelling-pillow, an electrical shudder of intense excitement ran through the entire compartment. When I stooped to tie my shoe another current was set in motion, and when I took Charles Reade's White Lies from my portmanteau they glanced at one another as if to say, 'Would that we could see in what language the book is written!' As a travelling mystery I reached my highest point at Oxford, for there I purchased a small basket of plums from a boy who handed them in at the window of the carriage. After eating a few, I offered the rest to a dowdy elderly woman on my left who was munching dry biscuits from a paper bag. 'What next?' was the facial expression of the entire company. My neighbour accepted the plums, but hid them in her bag; plainly thinking them poisoned, and believing me to be a foreign conspirator, conspiring against England through the medium of her inoffensive person. In the course of the four-hours' journey, I could account for the strange impression I was making only upon the theory that it is unusual to comport oneself in a first-class manner in a third-class carriage. All my companions chanced to be third-class by birth as well as by ticket, and the Englishwoman who is born third-class is sometimes deficient in imagination.

Upon arriving at Great Belvern (which must be pronounced 'Bevern') I took a trap, had my luggage put on in front, and start on my quest for lodgings in West Belvern, five miles distant. Several addresses had been given me by Hilda Mellifica, who has spent much time in this region, and who begged me to use her name. I told the driver that I wished to find a clean, comfortable lodging, with the view mentioned in the guide-book, and with a purple clematis over the door, if possible. The last point astounded him to such a degree that he had, I think, a serious idea of giving me into custody. (I should not be so eccentrically spontaneous with these people, if they did not feed my sense of humour by their amazement.)

We visited Holly House, Osborne, St. James, Victoria, and Albert houses, Tank Villa, Poplar Villa, Rose, Brake, and Thorn Villas, as well as Hawthorn, Gorse, Fern, Shrubbery, and Providence Cottages. All had apartments, but many were taken, and many more had rooms either dark and stuffy or without view. Holly House was my first stopping-place. Why will a woman voluntarily call her place by a name which she can never pronounce? It is my landlady's misfortune that she is named 'Obbs, and mine that I am called 'Amilton, but Mrs. 'Obbs must have rushed with eyes wide open on 'Olly 'Ouse. I found sitting-room and bedroom at Holly House for two guineas a week; everything, except roof, extra. This was more than, in my new spirit of economy I desired to pay, but after exhausting my list I was obliged to go back rather than sleep in the highroad. Mrs. Hobbs offered to deduct two shillings a week if I stayed until Christmas, and said she should not charge me a penny for the linen. Thanking her with tears of gratitude, I requested dinner. There was no meat in the house, so I supped frugally off two boiled eggs, a stodgy household loaf, and a mug of ale, after which I climbed the stairs, and retired to my feather-bed in a rather depressed frame of mind.

Visions of Salemina and Francesca driving under the linden-trees in Berlin flitted across my troubled reveries, with glimpses of Willie Beresford and his mother at Aix-les-Bains. At this distance, and in the dead of night, my sacrifice in coming here seemed fruitless. Why did I not allow myself to drift for ever on that pleasant sea which has been lapping me in sweet and indolent content these many weeks? Of what use to labour, to struggle, to deny myself, for an art to which I can never be more than the humblest handmaiden? I felt like crying out, as did once a braver woman's soul than mine, 'Let me be weak! I have been seeming to be strong so many years!' The woman and the artist in me have always struggled for the mastery. So far the artist has triumphed, and now all at once the woman is uppermost. I should think the two ought to be able to live peaceably in the same tenement; they do manage it in some cases; but it seems a law of my being that I shall either be all one or all the other.

The question for me to ask myself now is, "Am I in love with loving and with being loved, or am I in love with Willie Beresford?" How many women have confounded the two, I wonder?

In this mood I fell asleep, and on a sudden I found myself in a dear New England garden. The pillow slipped away, and my cheek pressed a fragrant mound of mignonette, the self-same one on which I hid my tear-stained face and sobbed my heart out in childish grief and longing for the mother who would never hold me again. The moon came up over the Belvern Hills and shone on my half-closed lids; but to me it was a very different moon, the far-away moon of my childhood, with a river rippling beneath its silver rays. And the wind that rustled among the poplar branches outside my window was, in my dream, stirring the pink petals of a blossoming apple-tree that used to grow beside the bank of mignonette, wafting down sweet odours and drinking in sweeter ones. And presently there stole in upon this harmony of enchanting sounds and delicate fragrances, in which childhood and womanhood, pleasure and pain, memory and anticipation, seemed strangely intermingled, the faint music of a voice, growing clearer and clearer as my ear became familiar with its cadences. And what the dream voice said to me was something like this:—

'If thou wouldst have happiness, choose neither fame, which doth not long abide, nor power, which stings the hand that wields it, nor gold, which glitters but never glorifies; but choose thou Love, and hold it for ever in thy heart of hearts; for Love is the purest and the mightiest force in the universe, and once it is thine all other gifts shall be added unto thee. Love that is passionate yet reverent, tender yet strong, selfish in desiring all yet generous in giving all; love of man for woman and woman for man, of parent for child and friend for friend—when this is born in the soul, the desert blossoms as the rose. Straightway new hopes and wishes, sweet longings and pure ambitions, spring into being, like green shoots that lift their tender heads in sunny places; and if the soil be kind, they grow stronger and more beautiful as each glad day laughs in the rosy skies. And by and by singing-birds come and build their nests in the branches; and these are the pleasures of life. And the birds sing not often, because of a serpent that lurketh in the garden. And the name of the serpent is Satiety. He maketh the heart to grow weary of what it once danced and leaped to think upon, and the ear to wax dull to the melody of sounds that once were sweet, and the eye blind to the beauty that once led enchantment captive. And sometimes—we know not why, but we shall know hereafter, for life is not completely happy since it is not heaven, nor completely unhappy since it is the road thither—sometimes the light of the sun is withdrawn for a moment, and that which is fairest vanishes from the place that was enriched by its presence. Yet the garden is never quite deserted. Modest flowers, whose charms we had not noted when youth was bright and the world seemed ours, now lift their heads in sheltered places and whisper peace. The morning song of the birds is hushed, for the dawn breaks less rosily in the eastern skies, but at twilight they still come and nestle in the branches that were sunned in the smile of love and watered with its happy tears. And over the grave of each buried hope or joy stands an angel with strong comforting hands and patient smile; and the name of the garden is Life, and the angel is Memory.'



Chapter XVI. The decay of Romance.



I have changed my Belvern, and there are so many others left to choose from that I might live in a different Belvern each week. North, South, East, and West Belvern, New Belvern, Old Belvern, Great Belvern, Little Belvern, Belvern Link, Belvern Common, and Belvern Wells. They are all nestled together in the velvet hollows or on the wooded crowns of the matchless Belvern Hills, from which they look down upon the fairest plains that ever blessed the eye. One can see from their heights a score of market towns and villages, three splendid cathedrals, each in a different county, the queenly Severn winding like a silver thread among the trees, with soft-flowing Avon and gentle Teme watering the verdant meadows through which they pass. All these hills and dales were once the Royal Forest, and afterwards the Royal Chase, of Belvern, covering nearly seven thousand acres in three counties; and from the lonely height of the Beacon no less than

'Twelve fair counties saw the blaze'

of signals, when the country was threatened by a Spanish invasion. As for me, I mourn the decay of Romance with a great R; we have it still among us, but we spell it with a smaller letter. It must be so much more interesting to be threatened with an invasion, especially a Spanish invasion, than with a strike, for instance. The clashing of swords and the flashing of spears in the sunshine are so much more dazzling and inspiring than a line of policemen with clubs! Yes, I wish it were the age of chivalry again, and that I were looking down from these hills into the Royal Chase. Of course I know that there were wicked and selfish tyrants in those days, before the free press, the jury system, and the folding-bed had wrought their beneficent influences upon the common mind and heart. Of course they would have sneered at Browning Societies and improved tenements, and of course they did not care a penny whether woman had the ballot or not, so long as man had the bottle; but I would that the other moderns were enjoying the modern improvements, and that I were gazing into the cool depths of those deep forests where there were once good lairs for the wolf and wild boar. I should like to hear the baying of the hounds and the mellow horns of the huntsman. I should like to see the royal cavalcade emerging from one of those wooded glades: monarch and baron bold, proud prelate, abbot and prior, belted knight and ladye fair, sweeping in gorgeous array under the arcades of the overshadowing trees, silver spurs and jewelled trappings glittering in the sunlight, princely forms bending low over the saddles of the court beauties. Why, oh why, is it not possible to be picturesque and pious in the same epoch? Why may not chivalry and charity go hand in hand? It amuses me to imagine the amazement of the barons, bold and belted knights, could they be resuscitated for a sufficient length of time to gaze upon the hydropathic establishments which dot their ancient hunting-grounds. It would have been very difficult to interest the age of chivalry in hydropathy.

Such is the fascination of historic association that I am sure, if I could drag my beloved but conscientious Salemina from some foreign soup-kitchen which she is doubtless inspecting, I could make even her mourn the vanished past with me this morning, on the Beacon's towering head. For Salemina wearies of the age of charity sometimes, as every one does who is trying to make it a beautiful possibility.



Chapter XVII. Short stops and long bills.



The manner of my changing from West to North Belvern was this. When I had been two days at Holly House, I reflected that my sitting-room faced the wrong way for the view, and that my bedroom was dark and not large enough to swing a cat in. Not that there was the remotest necessity of my swinging cats in it, but the figure of speech is always useful. Neither did I care to occupy myself with the perennial inspection and purchase of raw edibles, when I wished to live in an ideal world and paint a great picture. Mrs. Hobbs would come to my bedside in the morning and ask me if I would like to buy a fowl. When I looked upon the fowl, limp in death, with its headless neck hanging dejectedly over the edge of the plate, its giblets and kidneys lying in immodest confusion on the outside of itself, and its liver 'tucked under its wing, poor thing,' I never wanted to buy it. But one morning, in taking my walk, I chanced upon an idyllic spot: the front of the whitewashed cottage embowered in flowers, bird-cages built into these bowers, a little notice saying 'Canaries for Sale,' and an English rose of a baby sitting in the path stringing hollyhock buds. There was no apartment sign, but I walked in, ostensibly to buy some flowers. I met Mrs. Bobby, loved her at first sight, the passion was reciprocal, and I wheedled her into giving me her own sitting-room and the bedroom above it. It only remained now for me to break my projected change of residence to my present landlady, and this I distinctly dreaded. Of course Mrs. Hobbs said, when I timidly mentioned the subject, that she wished she had known I was leaving an hour before, for she had just refused a lady and her husband, most desirable persons, who looked as if they would be permanent. Can it be that lodgers radiate the permanent or transitory quality, quite unknown to themselves?

I was very much embarrassed, as she threatened to become tearful; and as I was determined never to give up Mrs. Bobby, I said desperately, "I must leave you, Mrs. Hobbs, I must indeed; but as you seem to feel so badly about it, I'll go out and find you another lodger in my place."

The fact is, I had seen, not long before, a lady going in and out of houses, as I had done on the night of my arrival, and it occurred to me that I might pursue her, and persuade her to take my place in Holly House and buy the headless fowl. I walked for nearly an hour before I was rewarded with a glimpse of my victim's grey dress whisking round the corner of Pump Street. I approached, and, with a smile that was intended to be a justification in itself, I explained my somewhat unusual mission. She was rather unreceptive at first; she thought evidently that I was to have a percentage on her, if I succeeded in capturing her alive and delivering her to Mrs. Hobbs; but she was very weary and discouraged, and finally fell in with my plans. She accompanied me home, was introduced to Mrs. Hobbs, and engaged my rooms from the following day. As she had a sister, she promised to be a more lucrative incumbent than I; she enjoyed ordering food in a raw state, did not care for views, and thought purple clematis vines only a shelter for insects: so every one was satisfied, and I most of all when I wrestled with Mrs. Hobb's itemised bill for two nights and one day. Her weekly account must be rolled on a cylinder, I should think, like the list of Don Juan's amours, for the bill of my brief residence beneath her roof was quite three feet in length, each of the following items being set down every twenty-four hours:—

Apartments. Ale. Bath. Kidney beans. Candles. Vegetable marrow. Tea. Eggs. Butter. Bread. Cut off joint. Plums. Potatoes. Chops. Kipper. Rasher. Salt. Pepper. Vinegar. Sugar. Washing towels. Lights. Kitchen fire. Sitting-room fire. Attendance. Boots.

The total was seventeen shillings and sixpence, and as Mrs. Hobbs wrote upon it, in her neat English hand, 'Received payment, with respectful thanks,' she carefully blotted the wet ink, and remarked casually that service was not included in 'attendance,' but that she would leave the amount to me.



Chapter XVIII. I meet Mrs. Bobby.



Mrs. Bobby and I were born for each other, though we have been a long time in coming together. She is the pink of neatness and cheeriness, and she has a broad, comfortable bosom on which one might lay a motherless head, if one felt lonely in a stranger land. I never look at her without remembering what the poet Samuel Rogers said of Lady Parke: 'She is so good that when she goes to heaven she will find no difference save that her ankles will be thinner and her head better dressed.'

No raw fowls visit my bedside here; food comes as I wish it to come when I am painting, like manna from heaven. Mrs. Bobby brings me three times a day something to eat, and though it is always whatever she likes, I always agree in her choice, and send the blue dishes away empty. She asked me this morning if I enjoyed my 'h'egg,' and remarked that she had only one fowl, but it laid an egg for me every morning, so I might know it was 'fresh as fresh.' It is certainly convenient: the fowl lays the egg from seven to seven-thirty, I eat it from eight to eight-thirty; no haste, no waste. Never before have I seen such heavenly harmony between supply and demand. Never before have I been in such visible and unbroken connection with the source of my food. If I should ever desire two eggs, or if the fowl should turn sulky or indolent, I suppose Mrs. Bobby would have to go half a mile to the nearest shop, but as yet everything has worked to a charm. The cow is milked into my pitcher in the morning, and the fowl lays her egg almost literally in my egg-cup. One of the little Bobbies pulls a kidney bean or a tomato or digs a potato for my dinner, about half an hour before it is served. There is a sheep in the garden, but I hardly think it supplies the chops; those, at least, are not raised on the premises.

One grievance I did have at first, but Mrs. Bobby removed the thorn from the princess' pillow as soon as it was mentioned. Our next-door neighbour had a kennel of homesick, discontented, and sleepless puppies of various breeds, that were in the habit of howling all night until Mrs. Bobby expostulated with Mrs. Gooch in my behalf. She told me that she found Mrs. Gooch very snorty, very snorty indeed, because the pups were an 'obby of her 'usbants; whereupon Mrs. Bobby responded that if Mrs. Gooch's 'usbant 'ad to 'ave an 'obby, it was a shame it 'ad to be 'owling pups to keep h'innocent people awake o' nights. The puppies were removed, but I almost felt guilty at finding fault with a dog in this country. It is a matter of constant surprise to me, and it always give me a warm glow in the region of the heart, to see the supremacy of the dog in England. He is respected, admired, loved, and considered, as he deserves to be everywhere, but as he frequently is not. He is admitted on all excursions; he is taken into the country for his health; he is a factor in all the master' plans; in short, the English dog is a member of the family, in good and regular standing.

My interior surroundings are all charming. My little sitting-room, out of which I turned Mrs. Bobby, is bright with potted ferns and flowering plants, and on its walls, besides the photographs of a large and unusually plain family, I have two works of art which inspire me anew every time I gaze at them: the first a scriptural subject, treated by an enthusiastic but inexperienced hand, 'Susanne dans le Bain, surprise par les Deux Vieillards'; the second, 'The White Witch of Worcester on her Way to the Stake at High Cross.' The unfortunate lady in the latter picture is attired in a white lawn wrapper with angel sleeves, and is followed by an abbess with prayer-book, and eight surpliced choir-boys with candles. I have been long enough in England to understand the significance of the candles. Doubtless the White Witch had paid four shillings a week for each of them in her prison lodging, and she naturally wished to burn them to the end.

One has no need, though, of pictures on the walls here, for the universe seems unrolled at one's very feet. As I look out of my window the last thing before I go to sleep, I see the lights of Great Belvern, the dim shadows of the distant cathedral towers, the quaint priory seven centuries old, and just the outline of Holly Bush Hill, a sacred seat of magic science when the Druids investigated the secrets of the stars, and sought, by auspices and sacrifices, to forecast the future and to penetrate the designs of the gods.

It makes me feel very new, very undeveloped, to look out of that window. If I were an Englishwoman, say the fifty-fifth duchess of something, I could easily glow with pride to think that I was part and parcel of such antiquity; the fortunate heiress not only of land and titles, but of historic associations. But as I am an American with a very recent background, I blow out my candle with the feeling that it is rather grand to be making history for somebody else to inherit.



Chapter XIX. The heart of the artist.



I am almost too comfortable with Mrs. Bobby. In fact I wished to be just a little miserable in Belvern, so that I could paint with a frenzy. Sometimes, when I have been in a state of almost despairing loneliness and gloom, the colours have glowed on my canvas and the lines have shaped themselves under my hand independent of my own volition. Now, tucked away in a corner of my consciousness is the knowledge that I need never be lonely again unless I choose. When I yield myself fully to the sweet enchantment of this thought, I feel myself in the mood to paint sunshine, flowers, and happy children's faces; yet I am sadly lacking in concentration, all the same. The fact is, I am no artist in the true sense of the word. My hope flies ever in front of my best success, and that momentary success does not deceive me in the very least. I know exactly how much, or rather how little, I am worth; that I lack the imagination, the industry, the training, the ambition, to achieve any lasting results. I have the artistic temperament in so far that it is impossible for me to work merely for money or popularity, or indeed for anything less than the desire to express the best that is in me without fear or favour. It would never occur to me to trade on present approval and dash off unworthy stuff while I have command of the market. I am quite above all that, but I am distinctly below that other mental and spiritual level where art is enough; where pleasure does not signify; where one shuts oneself up and produces from sheer necessity; where one is compelled by relentless law; where sacrifice does not count; where ideas throng the brain and plead for release in expression; where effort is joy, and the prospect of doing something enduring lures the soul on to new and ever new endeavour: so I shall never be rich or famous.

What shall I paint to-day? Shall it be the bit of garden underneath my window, with the tangle of pinks and roses, and the cabbages growing appetisingly beside the sweet-williams, the woodbine climbing over the brown stone wall, the wicket-gate, and the cherry-tree with its fruit hanging red against the whitewashed cottage? Ah, if I could only paint it so truly that you could hear the drowsy hum of the bees among the thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows in the distance, and feel that it is midsummer in England! That would indeed be truth, and that would be art. Shall I paint the Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips and the flax, his head as yellow and his eyes as blue as the flowers themselves; or that bank opposite the gate, with its gorse bushes in golden bloom, its mountain-ash hung with scarlet berries, its tufts of harebells blossoming in the crevices of rock, and the quaint low clock-tower at the foot? Can I not paint all these in the full glow of summer-time in my secret heart whenever I open the door a bit and admit its life-giving warmth and beauty? I think I can, if I can only quit dreaming.

I wonder how the great artists worked, and under what circumstances they threw aside the implements of their craft, impatient of all but the throb of life itself? Could Raphael paint Madonnas the week of his betrothal? Did Thackeray write a chapter the day his daughter was born? Did Plato philosophise freely when he was in love? Were there interruptions in the world's great revolutions, histories, dramas, reforms, poems, and marbles when their creators fell for a brief moment under the spell of the little blind tyrant who makes slaves of us all? It must have been so. Your chronometer heart, on whose pulsations you can reckon as on the procession of the equinoxes, never gave anything to the world unless it were a system of diet, or something quite uncoloured and unglorified by the imagination.



Chapter XX. A canticle to Jane.



There are many donkeys owned in these nooks among the hills, and some of the thriftier families keep donkey-chairs (or 'cheers,' as they call them) to let to the casual summer visitor. This vehicle is a regular Bath chair, into which the donkey is harnessed. Some of them have a tiny driver's seat, where a small lad sits beating and berating the donkey for the incumbent, generally a decrepit dowager from London. Other chairs are minus this absurd coachman's perch, and in this sort I take my daily drives. I hire the miniature chariot from an old woman who dwells at the top of Gorse Hill, and who charges one and fourpence the hour, It is a little more when she fetches the donkey to the door, or when the weather is wet or the day is very warm, or there is an unusual breeze blowing, or I wish to go round the hills; but under ordinary circumstances, which may at any time occur, but which never do, one and four the hour. It is only a shilling, if you have the boy to drive you; but, of course, if you drive yourself, you throw the boy out of employment, and have to pay extra.

It was in this fashion and on these elastic terms that I first met you, Jane, and this chapter shall be sacred to you! Jane the long-eared, Jane the iron-jawed, Jane the stubborn, Jane donkeyer than other donkeys,—in a word, MULIER! It may be that Jane has made her bow to the public before this. If she has ever come into close relation with man or woman possessed of the instinct of self-expression, then this is certainly not her first appearance in print, for no human being could know Jane and fail to mention her.

Pause, Jane,—this you will do gladly, I am sure, since pausing is the one accomplishment to which you lend yourself with special energy,—pause, Jane, while I sing a canticle to your character. Jane is a tiny—person, I was about to say, for she has so strong an individuality that I can scarcely think of her as less than human—Jane is a tiny, solemn creature, looking all docility and decorum, with long hair of a subdued tan colour, very much worn off in patches, I fear, by the offending toe of man.

I am a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and I hope that I am as tender-hearted as most women; nevertheless, I can understand how a man of weak principle and violent temper, or a man possessed of a desire to get to a particular spot not favoured by Jane, or by a wish to reach any spot by a certain hour,—I can understand how such a man, carried away by helpless wrath, might possibly ruffle Jane's sad-coloured hair with the toe of his boot.

Jane is small, yet mighty. She is multum in parvo; she is the rock of Gibraltar in animate form; she is cosmic obstinacy on four legs. When following out the devices and desires of her own heart, or resisting the devices and desires of yours, she can put a pressure of five hundred tons on the bit. She is further fortified by the possession of legs which have iron rods concealed in them, these iron rods terminating in stout grip-hooks, with which she takes hold on mother earth with an expression that seems to say,—

'This rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I.'

When I start out in the afternoon, Mrs. Bobby frequently asks me where I am going. I always answer that I have not made up my mind, though what I really mean to say is that Jane has not made up her mind. She never makes up her mind until after I have made up mine, lest by some unhappy accident she might choose the very excursion that I desire myself.



Chapter XXI. I remember, I remember.



For example, I wish to visit St. Bridget's Well, concerning which there are some quaint old verses in a village history:—

'Out of thy famous hille, There daylie springyeth, A water passynge stille, That alwayes bringyeth Grete comfort to all them That are diseased men, And makes them well again To prayse the Lord.

'Hast thou a wound to heale, The wyche doth greve thee; Come thenn unto this welle; It will relieve thee; Nolie me tangeries, And other maladies, Have there theyr remedies, Prays'd be the Lord.'

St. Bridget's Well is a beautiful spot, and my desire to see it is a perfectly laudable one. In strict justice, it is really no concern of Jane whether my wishes are laudable or not; but it only makes the case more flagrant when she interferes with the reasonable plans of a reasonable being. Never since the day we first met have I harboured a thought that I wished to conceal from Jane (would that she could say as much!); nevertheless she treats me as if I were a monster of caprice. As I said before, I wish to visit St. Bridget's Well, but Jane absolutely refuses to take me there. After we pass Belvern churchyard we approach two roads: the one to the right leads to the Holy Well; the one to the left leads to Shady Dell Farm, where Jane lived when she was a girl. At the critical moment I pull the right rein with all my force. In vain: Jane is always overcome by sentiment when she sees that left-hand road. She bears to the left like a whirlwind, and nothing can stop her mad career until she is again amid the scenes so dear to her recollection, the beloved pastures where the mother still lives at whose feet she brayed in early youth!

Now this is all very pretty and touching. Her action has, in truth, its springs in a most commendable sentiment that I should be the last to underrate. Shady Dell Farm is interesting, too, for once, if one can swallow one's wrath and dudgeon at being taken there against one's will; and one feels that Jane's parents and Jane's early surroundings must be worth a single visit, if they could produce a donkey of such unusual capacity. Still, she must know, if she knows anything, that a person does not come from America and pay one and fourpence the hour (or thereabouts) merely in order to visit the home of her girlhood, which is neither mentioned in Baedeker nor set down in the local guide-books as a feature of interest.

Whether, in addition to her affection for Shady Dell Farm, she has an objection to St. Bridget's Well, and thus is strengthened by a double motive, I do not know. She may consider it a relic of popish superstition; she may be a Protestant donkey; she is a Dissenter,—there's no doubt about that.

But, you ask, have you tried various methods of bringing her to terms and gaining your own desires? Certainly. I have coaxed, beaten, prodded, prayed. I have tried leading her past the Shady Dell turn; she walks all over my feet, and then starts for home, I running behind until I can catch up with her. I have offered her one and tenpence the hour; she remained firm. One morning I had a happy inspiration; I determined on conquering Jane by a subterfuge. I said to myself: "I am going to start for St. Bridget's Well, as usual; several yards before we reach the two roads, I shall begin pulling, not the right, but the left rein. Jane will lift her ears suddenly, and say to herself: 'What! has this girl fallen in love with my birthplace at last, and does she now prefer it to St. Bridget's Well? Then she shall not have it!' Whereupon Jane will race madly down the right-hand road for the first time, I pulling steadily at the left rein to keep up appearances, and I shall at last realise my wishes."

This was my inspiration. Would you believe that it failed utterly? It should have succeeded, and would with an ordinary donkey, but Jane saw through it. She obeyed my pull on the left rein, and went to Shady Dell Farm as usual.

Another of Jane's eccentricities is a violent aversion to perambulators. As Belvern is a fine, healthy, growing country, with steadily increasing population, the roads are naturally alive with perambulators; or at least alive with the babies inside the perambulators. These are the more alarming to the timid eye in that many of them are double-barrelled, so to speak, and are loaded to the muzzle with babies; for not only do Belvern babies frequently appear as twins, but there are often two youngsters of a perambulator age in the same family at the same time. To weave that donkey and that Bath 'cheer' through the narrow streets of the various Belverns without putting to death any babies, and without engendering the outspoken condemnation of the screaming mothers and nurserymaids, is a task for a Jehu. Of course Jane makes it more difficult by lunging into one perambulator in avoiding another, but she prefers even that risk to the degradation of treading the path I wish her to tread.

I often wish that for one brief moment I might remove the lid of Jane's brain and examine her mental processes. She would not exasperate me so deeply if I could be certain of her springs of action. Is she old, is she rheumatic, is she lazy, is she hungry? Sometimes I think she means well, and is only ignorant and dull; but this hypothesis grows less and less tenable as I know her better. Sometimes I conclude that she does not understand me; that the difference in nationality may trouble her. If an Englishman cannot understand an American woman all at once, why should an English donkey? Perhaps it takes an American donkey to comprehend an American woman. Yet I cannot bring myself to drive any other donkey; I am always hoping to impress myself on her imagination, and conquer her will through her fancy. Meanwhile, I like to feel myself in the grasp of a nature stronger than my own, and so I hold to Jane, and buy a photograph of St. Bridget's Well!



Chapter XXII. Comfort Cottage.



It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and I suddenly heard a strange sound, that of our fowl cackling. Yesterday I heard her tell-tale note about noon, and the day before just as I was eating my breakfast. I knew that it would be so! The serpent has entered Eden. That fowl has laid before eight in the morning for three weeks without interruption, and she has now entered upon a career of wild and reckless uncertainty which compels me to eat eggs from twelve to twenty-four hours old, just as if I were in London.

Alas for the rarity Of regularity Under the sun!

A hen, being of the feminine gender, underestimates the majesty of order and system; she resents any approach to the unimaginative monotony of the machine. Probably the Confederated Fowl Union has been meddling with our little paradise where Labour and Capital have dwelt in heavenly unity until now. Nothing can be done about it, of course; even if it were possible to communicate with the fowl, she would say, I suppose, that she would lay when she was ready, and not before; at least, that is what an American hen would say.

Just as I was brooding over these mysteries and trying to hatch out some conclusions, Mrs. Bobby knocked at the door, and, coming in, curtsied very low before saying, "It's about namin' the 'ouse, miss."

"Oh yes. Pray don't stand, Mrs. Bobby; take a chair. I am not very busy; I am only painting prickles on my gorse bushes, so we will talk it over."

I shall not attempt to give you Mrs. Bobby's dialect in reporting my various interviews with her, for the spelling of it is quite beyond my powers. Pray remove all the h's wherever they occur, and insert them where they do not; but there will be, over and beyond this, an intonation quite impossible to render.

Mrs. Bobby bought her place only a few months ago, for she lived in Cheltenham before Mr. Bobby died. The last incumbent had probably been of Welsh extraction, for the cottage had been named 'Dan-y-cefn.' Mrs. Bobby declared, however, that she wouldn't have a heathenish name posted on her house, and expect her friends to pronounce it when she couldn't pronounce it herself. She seemed grieved when at first I could not see the absolute necessity of naming the cottage at all, telling her that in America we named only grand places. She was struck dumb with amazement at this piece of information, and failed to conceive of the confusion that must ensue in villages where streets were scarcely named or houses numbered. I confess it had never occurred to me that our manner of doing was highly inconvenient, if not impossible, and I approached the subject of the name with more interest and more modesty.

"Well, Mrs. Bobby," I began, "it is to be Cottage; we've decided that, have we not? It is to be Cottage, not House, Lodge, Mansion, or Villa. We cannot name it after any flower that blows, because they are all taken. Have all the trees been used?"

"Thank you, miss, yes, miss, all but h'ash-tree, and we 'ave no h'ash."

"Very good, we must follow another plan. Family names seem to be chosen, such as Gower House, Marston Villa, and the like. 'Bobby Cottage' is not pretty. What was your maiden name, Mrs. Bobby?"

"Buggins, thank you, miss. 'Elizabeth Buggins, Licensed to sell Poultry,' was my name and title when I met Mr. Bobby."

"I'm sorry, but 'Buggins Cottage' is still more impossible than 'Bobby Cottage.' Now here's another idea: where were you born, Mrs. Bobby?"

"In Snitterfield, thank you, miss."

"Dear, dear! how unserviceable!"

"Thank you, miss."

"Where was Mr. Bobby born?"

"He never mentioned, miss."

(Mr. Bobby must have been expansive, for they were married twenty years.)

"There is always Victoria or Albert," I said tentatively, as I wiped my brushes.

"Yes, miss, but with all respect to her Majesty, them names give me a turn when I see them on the gates, I am that sick of them."

"True. Can we call it anything that will suggest its situation? Is there a Hill Crest?"

"Yes, miss, there is 'Ill Crest, 'Ill Top, 'Ill View, 'Ill Side, 'Ill End, H'under 'Ill, 'Ill Bank, and 'Ill Terrace."

"I should think that would do for Hill."

"Thank you, miss. 'Ow would 'The 'Edge' do, miss?"

"But we have no hedge." (She shall not have anything with an h in it, if I can help it.)

"No, miss, but I thought I might set out a bit, if worst come to worst."

"And wait three or four years before people would know why the cottage was named? Oh no, Mrs. Bobby."

"Thank you, miss."

"We might have something quite out of the common, like 'Providence Cottage,' down the bank. I don't know why Mrs. Jones calls it Providence Cottage, unless she thinks it's a providence that she has one at all; or because, as it's just on the edge of the hill, she thinks it's a providence that it hasn't blown off. How would you like 'Peace' or 'Rest' Cottage?"

"Begging your pardon, miss, it's neither peace nor rest I gets in it these days, with a twenty-five pound debt 'anging over me, and three children to feed and clothe."

"I fear we are not very clever, Mrs. Bobby, or we should hit upon the right thing with less trouble. I know what I will do: I will go down in the road and look at the place for a long time from the outside, and try to think what it suggests to me."

"Thank you, miss; and I'm sure I'm grateful for all the trouble you are taking with my small affairs."

Down I went, and leaned over the wicket-gate, gazing at the unnamed cottage. The brick pathway was scrubbed as clean as a penny, and the stone step and the floor of the little kitchen as well. The garden was a maze of fragrant bloom, with never a weed in sight. The fowl cackled cheerily still, adding insult to injury, the pet sheep munched grass contentedly, and the canaries sang in their cages under the vines. Mrs. Bobby settled herself on the porch with a pan of peas in her neat gingham lap, and all at once I cried:—

"'Comfort Cottage'! It is the very essence of comfort, Mrs. Bobby, even if there is not absolute peace or rest. Let me paint the signboard for you this very day."

Mrs. Bobby was most complacent over the name. She had the greatest confidence in my judgment, and the characterisation pleased her housewifely pride, so much so that she flushed with pleasure as she said that if she 'ad 'er 'ealth she thought she could keep the place looking so that the passers-by would easily h'understand the name.



Chapter XXIII. Tea served here.



It was some days after the naming of the cottage that Mrs. Bobby admitted me into her financial secrets, and explained the difficulties that threatened her peace of mind. She still has twenty-five pounds to pay before Comfort Cottage is really her own. With her cow and her vegetable garden, to say nothing of her procrastinating fowl, she manages to eke out a frugal existence, now that her eldest son is in a blacksmith's shop at Worcester, and is sending her part of his weekly savings. But it has been a poor season for canaries, and a still poorer one for lodgers; for people in these degenerate days prefer to be nearer the hotels and the mild gaieties of the larger settlements. It is all very well so long as I remain with her, and she wishes fervently that that may be for ever; for never, she says, eloquently, never in all her Cheltenham and Belvern experience, has she encountered such a jewel of a lodger as her dear Miss 'Amilton, so little trouble, and always a bit of praise for her plain cooking, and a pleasant word for the children, to whom most lodgers object, and such an interest in the cow and the fowl and the garden and the canaries, and such kindness in painting the name of the cottage, so that it is the finest thing in the village, and nobody can get past the 'ouse without stopping to gape at it! But when her American lodger leaves her, she asks,—and who is she that can expect to keep a beautiful young lady who will be naming her own cottage and painting signboards for herself before long, likely?—but when her American lodger is gone, how is she, Mrs. Bobby, to put by a few shillings a month towards the debt on the cottage? These are some of the problems she presents to me. I have turned them over and over in my mind as I have worked, and even asked Willie Beresford in my weekly letter what he could suggest. Of course he could not suggest anything: men never can; although he offered to come there and lodge for a month at twenty-five pounds a week. All at once, one morning, a happy idea struck me, and I ran down to Mrs. Bobby, who was weeding the onion-bed in the back garden.

"Mrs. Bobby," I said, sitting down comfortably on the edge of the lettuce-frame, "I am sure I know how you can earn many a shilling during the summer and autumn months, and you must begin the experiment while I am here to advise you. I want you to serve five-o'clock tea in your garden."

"But, miss, thanking you kindly, nobody would think of stoppin' 'ere for a cup of tea once in a twelvemonth."

"You never know what people will do until you try them. People will do almost anything, Mrs. Bobby, if you only put it into their heads, and this is the way we shall make our suggestion to the public. I will paint a second signboard to hang below 'Comfort Cottage.' It will be much more beautiful than the other, for it shall have a steaming kettle on it, and a cup and saucer, and the words 'Tea Served Here' underneath, the letters all intertwined with tea-plants. I don't know how tea-plants look, but then neither does the public. You will set one round table on the porch, so that if it threatens rain, as it sometimes does, you know, in England, people will not be afraid to sit down; and the other you will put under the yew-tree near the gate. The tables must be immaculate; no spotted, rumpled cloths and chipped cups at Comfort Cottage, which is to be a strictly first-class tea station. You will put vases of flowers on the tables, and you will not mix red, yellow, purple, and blue ones in the same vase-"

"It's the way the good Lord mixes 'em in the fields," interjected Mrs. Bobby piously.

"Very likely; but you will permit me to remark that the good Lord can manage things successfully which we poor humans cannot. You will set out your cream-jug that was presented to Mrs. Martha Buggins by her friends and neighbours as a token of respect in 1823, and the bowl that was presented to Mr. Bobby as a sword and shooting prize in 1860, and all your pretty little odds and ends. You will get everything ready in the kitchen, so that customers won't have to wait long; but you will not prepare much in advance, so that there'll be nothing wasted."

"It sounds beautiful in your mouth, miss, and it surely wouldn't be any 'arm to make a trial of it."

"Of course it won't. There is no inn here where nice people will stop (who would ever think of asking for tea at the Retired Soldier?), and the moment they see our sign, in walking or driving past, that moment they will be consumed with thirst. You do not begin to appreciate our advantages as a tea station. In the first place, there is a watering-trough not far from the gate, and drivers very often stop to water their horses; then we have the lovely garden which everybody admires; and if everything else fails, there is the baby. Put that faded pink flannel slip on Jem, showing his tanned arms and legs as usual, tie up his sleeves with blue bows as you did last Sunday, put my white tennis-cap on the back of his yellow curls, turn him loose in the hollyhocks, and await results. Did I not open the gate the moment I saw him, though there was no apartment sign in the window?"

Mrs. Bobby was overcome by the magic of my arguments, and as there were positively no attendant risks, we decided on an early opening. The very next day after the hanging of the second sign, I superintended the arrangements myself. It was a nice thirsty afternoon, and as I filled the flower-vases I felt such a desire for custom and such a love of trade animating me that I was positively ashamed. At three o'clock I went upstairs and threw myself on the bed for a nap, for I had been sketching on the hills since early morning. It may have been an hour later when I heard the sound of voices and the stopping of a heavy vehicle before the house. I stole to the front window, and, peeping under the shelter of the vines, saw a char-a-bancs, on the way from Great Belvern to the Beacon. It held three gentlemen, two ladies, and four children, and everything had worked precisely as I intended. The driver had seen the watering-trough, the gentlemen had seen the tea-sign, the children had seen the flowers and the canaries, and the ladies had seen the baby. I went to the back window to call an encouraging word to Mrs. Bobby, but to my horror I saw that worthy woman disappearing at the extreme end of the lane in full chase of our cow, that had broken down the fence, and was now at large with some of our neighbour's turnip-tops hanging from her mouth.



Chapter XXIV. An unlicensed victualler.



Ruin stared us in the face. Were our cherished plans to be frustrated by a marauding cow, who little realised that she was imperilling her own means of existence? Were we to turn away three, five, nine thirsty customers at one fell swoop? Never! None of these people ever saw me before, nor would ever see me again. What was to prevent my serving them with tea? I had on a pink cotton gown,—that was well enough; I hastily buttoned on a clean painting apron, and seizing a freshly laundered cushion cover lying on the bureau, a square of lace and embroidery, I pinned it on my hair for a cap while descending the stairs. Everything was right in the kitchen, for Mrs. Bobby had flown in the midst of her preparations. The loaf, the bread-knife, the butter, the marmalade, all stood on the table, and the kettle was boiling. I set the tea to draw, and then dashed to the door, bowed appetisingly to the visitors, showed them to the tables with a winning smile (which was to be extra), seated the children maternally on the steps and laid napkins before them, dashed back to the kitchen, cut the thin bread-and-butter, and brought it with the marmalade, asked my customers if they desired cream, and told them it was extra, went back and brought a tray with tea, boiling water, milk, and cream. Lowering my voice to an English sweetness, and dropping a few h's ostentatiously as I answered questions, I poured five cups of tea, and four mugs for the children, and cut more bread-and-butter, for they were all eating like wolves. They praised the butter. I told them it was a specialty of the house. They requested muffins. With a smile of heavenly sweetness tinged with regret, I replied that Saturday was our muffin day; Saturday, muffins; Tuesday, crumpets; Thursday, scones; and Friday, tea-cakes. This inspiration sprang into being full grown, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus. While they were regretting that they had come on a plain bread-and-butter day, I retired to the kitchen and made out a bill for presentation to the oldest man of the party.

s. d. Nine teas. . . . 3 6 Cream . . . . 3 Bread-and-butter . . 1 0 Marmalade. . . . 6 ——- 5 3

Feeling five and threepence to be an absurdly small charge for five adult and four infant teas, I destroyed this immediately, and made out another, putting each item fourpence more, and the bread-and-butter at one-and-six. I also introduced ninepence for extra teas for the children, who had had two mugs apiece, very weak. This brought the total to six shillings and tenpence, and I was beset by a horrible temptation to add a shilling or two for candles; there was one young man among the three who looked as if he would have understood the joke.

The father of the family looked at the bill, and remarked quizzically, "Bond Street prices, eh?"

"Bond Street service," said I, curtsying demurely.

He paid it without flinching, and gave me sixpence for myself. I was very much afraid he would chuck me under the chin; they are always chucking barmaids under the chin in old English novels, but I have never seen it done in real life. As they strolled down to the gate, the second gentleman gave me another sixpence, and the nice young fellow gave me a shilling; he certainly had read the old English novels and remembered them, so I kept with the children. One of the ladies then asked if we sold flowers.

"Certainly," I replied.

"What do you ask for roses?"

"Fourpence apiece for the fine ones," I answered glibly, hoping it was enough, "thrippence for the small ones; sixpence for a bunch of sweet peas, tuppence apiece for buttonhole carnations."

Each of the ladies took some roses and mignonette, and the gentlemen, who did not care for carnations in the least, weakened when I approached modestly to pin them in their coats, a la barmaid.

At this moment one of the children began to tease for a canary.

"Have you one for sale?" inquired the fond mother.

"Certainly, madam." (I was prepared to sell the cottage by this time.)

"What do you ask for them?"

Rapid calculation on my part, excessively difficult without pencil and paper. A canary is three to five dollars in America,—that is, from twelve shilling to a pound; then at a venture, "From ten shillings to a guinea, madam, according to the quality of the bird."

"Would you like one for your birthday, Margaret, and do you think you can feed it and take quite good care of it?"

"Oh yes, mamma!"

"Have you a cage?" to me inquiringly.

"Certainly, madam; it is not a new one, but I shall only charge you a shilling for it." (Impromptu plan: not knowing whether Mrs. Bobby had any cages, or if so where she kept them, to remove the canary in Mrs. Bobby's chamber from the small wooden cage it inhabited, close the windows, and leave it at large in the room; then bring out the cage and sell it to the lady.)

"Very well, then, please select me a good singer for about twelve shillings; a very yellow one, please."

I did so. I had no difficulty about the colour; but as the birds all stopped singing when I put my hand into the cages, I was somewhat at a loss to choose a really fine performer. I did my best, with the result that it turned out to be the mother of several fine families, but no vocalist, and the generous young man brought it back for an exchange some days afterwards; not only that, but he came three times during the next week and nearly ruined his nervous system with tea.

The party finally mounted the char-a-bancs, just as I was about to offer the baby for twenty-five pounds, and dirt cheap at that. Meanwhile I gave the driver a cup of lukewarm tea, for which I refused absolutely to accept any remuneration.

I had cleared the tables before Mrs. Bobby returned, flushed and panting, with the guilty cow. Never shall I forget that good dame's astonishment, her mild deprecations, her smiles—nay, her tears—as she inspected my truly English account and received the silver.