impropriety, as if you could even conceive the idea of it!"

"Well, we are not in Arcadia now, and we must behave ourselves
accordingly," said Elizabeth, who was beginning to feel glad in her
gentle heart that she had been able to make this explanation. "I think
we are getting corrupted with wonderful rapidity. We have even been
_called upon_, quite as if we were people of fashion and consequence,
by a lady who was dressed in the most magnificent manner, and who came
in her carriage. Her name was Aarons--Mrs. Aarons. She said she had
heard of of our being here, and thought she would like to make our
acquaintance."

"Did she?" responded Paul warmly, thinking how nice and delicate it
was of Mrs. Aarons to respect his anxious wish that his name and
interposition should not be mentioned, which was certainly more than he
had expected of her. "And were you all at home when she called?"

"As it happened--yes. It was on Saturday afternoon, when we are
generally rather busy."

"And have you returned her call yet?"

"No. We don't mean to return it," said Elizabeth composedly; "we did
not like her enough to wish to make an acquaintance of her. It is no
good to put ourselves out, and waste our own time and theirs, for
people whom we are sure not to care about, and who would not care about
us, is it?"

"But I think you would like her if you knew her, Miss King," pleaded
Paul, much disturbed by this threatened downfall of his schemes. "I
am sure--at least, I have always heard, and I can speak a little from
personal knowledge--that she is a particularly nice woman; thoroughly
kind and amiable, and, at the same time, having a good position
in society, and a remarkably pleasant house, where you might meet
interesting people whom you _would_ like. Oh, don't condemn her at
first sight in that way! First impressions are so seldom to be trusted.
Go and call, at any rate--indeed, you know, you ought to do that, if
only for form's sake."

"For politeness, do you mean? Would it be rude not to return her call?"

"It would be thought so, of course."

"Ah, I was not sure--I will call then. I don't _mind_ calling in the
least. If she has done us a kindness, it is right to acknowledge it in
whatever is the proper way. It was my sisters--especially Patty--who
took a dislike to her, and particularly wished not to see her again.
Patty thought she asked too many questions, and that she came from some
motive of curiosity to pry into our affairs. She was certainly a little
impertinent, I thought. But then, perhaps, ladies in 'the world' don't
look at these things as we have been accustomed to do," added Elizabeth
humbly.

"I don't think they do," said Paul.

By this time they had reached the gate through which Patty and Eleanor
had passed before them out of the gardens. As they silently emerged
into the road, they saw the pair flitting along the pavement a
considerable distance ahead of them, and when they turned the corner
into Myrtle Street both the slender black figures had disappeared. Paul
wondered to see himself so irritated by this trifling and inevitable
circumstance. He felt that it would have done him good to speak to
Patty, if it were only to quarrel with her.

Elizabeth bade him good-night when she reached the gate of No. 6, where
the hall door stood open--putting her warm, strong hand with motherly
benevolence into his.

"Good-night, Miss King. I am so glad to have seen you," he responded,
glaring fiercely at the balcony and the blank window overhead.
"And--and you will return that call, won't you?"

"O yes--of course. We will walk there on Monday, as we come home from
the Library. We are able to find our way about in Melbourne very well
now, with the help of the map you were so kind as to give us when we
first came. I can't tell you how useful that has been."

So, with mutual friendship and goodwill, they parted--Elizabeth to join
her sisters upstairs, where one was already setting the tea-kettle to
boil on the gas stove, and the other spreading a snow-white cloth on
the sitting-room table--Paul Brion to get half-an-hour's work and a
hasty dinner before repairing to the reporters' gallery of "the House."

He did not see them again for a long time, and the first news he heard
of them was from Mrs. Aarons, whom he chanced to meet when she was
shopping one fine morning in Collins Street.

"You see, I remembered my promise," she said, when matters of
more personal moment had been disposed of; "I went to see those
extraordinary _protégées_ of yours."

"Extraordinary--how extraordinary?" he inquired stiffly.

"Well, I put it to you--_are_ they not extraordinary?"

He was silent for a few seconds, and the points of his moustache went
up a little. "Perhaps so--now you mention it," he said. "Perhaps they
_are_ unlike the--the usual girl of the period with whom we are
familiar. But I hope you were favourably impressed with your visit.
Were you?"

"No, I wasn't. I will be frank with you--I wasn't. I never expected to
find people living in that manner--and dressing in that manner. It is
not what I am used to."

"But they are very lady-like--if I am any judge--and that is the chief
thing. Very pretty too. Don't you think so?"

"O _dear_ no! The middle one has rather nice eyes perhaps--though
she gives herself great airs, I think, considering her position. And
the youngest is not bad looking. _Miss_ King is _plain_, decidedly.
However, I told you I would do something for them, and I have kept my
word. They are coming to my next Friday. And I do _hope_," proceeded
Mrs. Aarons, with an anxious face, "that they will dress themselves
respectably for the reputation of my house. Do you know anyone who
could speak to them about it? Could you give them a hint, do you think?"

"_I!_--good gracious! I should like to see myself at it," said Paul,
grimly. "But I don't think," he added, with a fatuity really pitiable
in a man of his years and experience, "that there is any danger of
their not looking nice. They must have had their old frocks on when you
saw them."

CHAPTER XI.

DISAPPOINTMENT.

How they should dress themselves for Mrs. Aarons's Friday was a
question as full of interest for our girls as if they had been brought
up in the lap of wealth and fashion. They were not so ignorant of the
habits and customs of "the world" as not to know that evening dress
was required of them on this occasion, and they had not seen so many
shop windows and showrooms without learning something of its general
features as applied to their sex and to the period. Great were the
discussions that went on over the momentous subject. Even their studies
at the Public Library lost their interest and importance, it is to be
feared, for a day or two, while they were anxiously hesitating, first,
whether they should accept the invitation, and, secondly, in what
costume they should make their first appearance in polite society.
The former of these questions was settled without much trouble.
Elizabeth's yearning for "friends," the chance of discovering whom
might be missed by missing this unusual opportunity; Patty's thirst
for knowledge and experience in all available fields, and Eleanor's
habit of peaceably falling in with her sisters' views, overcame the
repugnance that all of them entertained to the idea of being patronised
by, or beholden for attentions that they could not reciprocate to, Mrs.
Aarons, against whom they had conceived a prejudice on the first day of
contact with her which a further acquaintance had not tended to lessen.
But the latter question was, as I have said, a matter of much debate.
Could they afford themselves new frocks?--say, black grenadines that
would do for the summer afterwards. This suggestion was inquired into
at several shops and of several dressmakers, and then relinquished,
but not without a struggle. "We are just recovering ourselves," said
Elizabeth, with her note-book before her and her pencil in her hand;
"and if we go on as we are doing now we shall be able to save enough to
take us to Europe next year without meddling with our house-money. But
if we break our rules--well, it will throw us back. And it will be a
bad precedent, Patty."

"Then we won't break them," said Patty valiantly. "We will go in our
black frocks. Perhaps," she added, with some hesitation, "we can find
something amongst our mother's things to trim us up a little."

"She would like to see us making ourselves look pretty with her
things," said Eleanor.

"Yes, Nelly. That is what I think. Come along and let us look at
that bundle of lace that we put in the bottom drawer of the bureau.
Elizabeth, does lace so fine as that _go_ with woollen frocks, do you
think? We must not have any incongruities if we can help it."

Elizabeth thought that plain white ruffles would, perhaps, be best,
as there was so much danger of incongruities if they trusted to their
untrained invention. Whereupon Patty pointed out that they would have
to buy ruffles, while the lace would cost nothing, which consideration,
added to their secret wish for a little special decoration, now that
the occasion for it had arisen--the love of adornment being, though
refined and chastened, an ingredient of their nature as of every other
woman's--carried the day in favour of "mother's things."

"And I think," said Patty, with dignity, when at last Friday came
and they had spread the selected finery on their little beds, "I
think that ladies ought to know how to dress themselves better than
shop-people can tell them. When they want to make themselves smart,
they should think, first, what they can afford and what will be
suitable to their position and the occasion, and then they should think
what would look pretty in a picture. And they should put on _that_."

Patty, I think, was well aware that she would look pretty in a picture,
when she had arrayed herself for the evening. Round the neck of her
black frock she had loosely knotted a length of fine, yellow-white
Brussels lace, the value of which, enhanced by several darns that
were almost as invisibly woven as the texture itself, neither she nor
her sisters had any idea of. Of course it did not "go" with the black
frock, even though the latter was not what mourning was expected to
be, but its delicacy was wonderfully thrown up by its contrast with
that background, and it was a most becoming setting for the wearer's
brilliant face. Patty had more of the priceless flounce sewn on her
black sleeves (the little Vandal had cut it into lengths on purpose),
half of it tucked in at the wrists out of sight; and the ends that
hung over her breast were loosely fastened down with a quaint old
silver brooch, in which a few little bits of topaz sparkled. Elizabeth
was not quite so magnificent. She wore a fichu of black lace over her
shoulders--old Spanish, that happened just then to be the desire and
despair of women of fashion, who could not get it for love or money;
it was big enough to be called a shawl, and in putting it on Patty had
to fold and tack it here and there with her needle, to keep it well
up in its proper place. This was fastened down at the waist with a
shawl-pin shaped like a gold arrow, that her grandmother had used to
pin her Paisley over her chest; and, as the eldest daughter, Elizabeth
wore her mother's slender watch-chain wound round and round her neck,
and, depending from it, an ancient locket of old red gold, containing
on its outward face a miniature of that beautiful mother as a girl,
with a beading of little pearls all round it. Eleanor was dressed up
in frills of soft, thick Valenciennes, taken from the bodice of one
of the brocaded gowns; which lace, not being too fragile to handle,
Elizabeth, ignorant as yet of the artistic excellence of the genuine
coffee-colour of age, had contrived to wash to a respectable whiteness.
And to Eleanor was given, from the little stock of family trinkets,
a string of pearls, fastened with an emerald clasp--pearls the size
of small peas, and dingy and yellow from never having been laid out
on the grass, as, according to a high authority, pearls should be.
Upon the whole, their finery, turned into money, would probably have
bought up three of the most magnificent costumes worn in Melbourne that
night; yet it can scarcely be said to have been effective. Neither Mrs.
Aarons nor her lady friends had the requisite experience to detect
its quality and understand what we may call its moral value. Only one
person amongst the company discovered that Eleanor's pearls were real,
and perhaps only that one had been educated in lace, save rudimentally,
in the Melbourne shops. And amongst the _nouveaux riches_, as poor
gentlefolks well know, to have no claims to distinction but such as are
out of date is practically to have none.

Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this
particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what
he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist
the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and
when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had
prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who
obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged
to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking
neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin
gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance
was enough to satisfy _him_ that there had been no fear of their not
looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe
little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and
bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart
and distinct from all the faces in the room--or in the world, for that
matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position
was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to
the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so
modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk
mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man
could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several
hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but
the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them
up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them
altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs.
Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed
the case--people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace
of unfashionable connections) not to own to them more than she could
help.

He withdrew from their neighbourhood before they saw him, and went to
seek his hostess, swelling with remonstrant wrath. He found her on a
sofa at the other end of the room, talking volubly (she was always
voluble, but now she was breathless in her volubility) to a lady who
had never before honoured her Fridays, and who, by doing so to-night,
had gratified an ambition that had long been paramount amongst the many
ambitions which, enclosed in a narrow circle as they were, served to
make the interest and occupation of Mrs. Aarons's life. She looked up
at Paul as he approached her, and gave him a quick nod and smile, as if
to say, "I see you, but you must be perfectly aware that I am unable
to attend to you just now." Paul understood her, and, not having the
honour of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance himself, fell back a little
behind the sofa and waited for his opportunity. As he waited, he could
not help overhearing the conversation of the two ladies, and deriving a
little cynical amusement therefrom.

"And, as soon as I heard of it, I _begged_ my husband to go and see if
it was _really_ a genuine example of Derby-Chelsea; and, you see, it
_was_," said Mrs. Aarons, with subdued enthusiasm--almost with tears of
emotion.

"It was, indeed," assented Mrs. Duff-Scott earnestly. "There was the
true mark--the capital D, with the anchor in the middle of it. It is
extremely rare, and I had no hope of ever possessing a specimen."

"I _knew_ you would like to have it. I said to Ben. '_Do_ go and snatch
it up at once for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.' And he was so pleased
to find he was in time. We were so afraid someone might have been
before us. But the fact is, people are so ignorant that they have no
idea of the value of things of that sort--fortunately."

"I don't call it fortunate at all," the other lady retorted, a little
brusquely. "I don't like to see people ignorant--I am quite ready to
share and share." Then she added, with a smile, "I am sure I can never
be sufficiently obliged to Mr. Aarons for taking so much trouble on my
account. I must get him into a corner presently, and find out how much
I am in his debt--though, of course, no money can represent the true
worth of such a treasure, and I shall always feel that I have robbed
him."

"Oh, pray, pray don't talk of _payment_," the hostess implored, with a
gesture of her heavily-ringed hands. "You will hurt him _dreadfully_
if you think of such a thing. He feels himself richly paid, I assure
you, by having a chance to do you a little service. And such a mere
_trifle_ as it is!"

"No, indeed, it is not a trifle, Mrs. Aarons--very far from it. The
thing is much too valuable for me to--to"--Mrs. Duff-Scott hesitated,
and her face was rather red--"to deprive you of it in that way. I don't
feel that I can take it as a present--a bit of _real_ Derby-Chelsea
that you might never find a specimen of again--really I don't."

"Oh, _please_"--and Mrs. Aarons's voice was at once reproachful and
persuasive--"_please!_ I know you wouldn't wish to hurt us."

A little more discussion ensued, which Paul watched with an amused
smile; and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave in.

"Well, if you insist--but you are really too good. It makes me quite
uncomfortable to take such a treasure from you. However, perhaps, some
day I may be able to contribute to _your_ collection."

Like her famous model, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins, Mrs. Aarons stalked
her big game with all kinds of stratagems, and china was the lure with
which she had caught Mrs. Duff-Scott. This was a lady who possessed
not only that most essential and valuable qualification of a lady,
riches, but had also a history that was an open page to all men. It
had not much heraldic emblazonment about it, but it showed a fair
and honourable record of domestic and public circumstances that no
self-respecting woman could fail to take social credit for. By virtue
of these advantages, and of a somewhat imperious, though generous
and unselfish, nature, she certainly did exercise that right to be
"proud" which, in such a case, the most democratic of communities will
cheerfully concede. She had been quite inaccessible to Mrs. Aarons,
whom she was wont to designate a "person," long after that accomplished
woman had carried the out-works of the social citadel in which she
dwelt, and no doubt she would have been inaccessible to the last. Only
she had a weakness--she had a hobby (to change the metaphor a little)
that ran away with her, as hobbies will, even in the case of the most
circumspect of women; and that hobby, exposed to the seductions of a
kindred hobby, broke down and trampled upon the barriers of caste. It
was the Derby-Chelsea specimen that had brought Mrs. Duff-Scott to
occupy a sofa in Mrs. Aarons's drawing-room--to their mutual surprise,
when they happened to think of it.

She rose from that sofa now, slightly perturbed, saying she must go
and find Mr. Aarons and acknowledge the obligation under which he had
placed her, while all the time she was cudgelling her brains to think
by what means and how soon she could discharge it--regretting very
keenly for the moment that she had put herself in the way of people
who did not understand the fine manners which would have made such a
dilemma impossible. Her hostess jumped up immediately, and the two
ladies passed slowly down the room in the direction of the corner
where our neglected girls were sitting. Paul followed at a respectful
distance, and was gratified to see Mrs. Duff-Scott stop at the piano,
in place of hunting for her host (who was never a conspicuous feature
of these entertainments), and shake hands cordially with a tall German
in spectacles who had just risen from the music-stool. He had come
to Mrs. Aarons's Friday in a professional capacity, but he was a
sufficiently great artist for a great lady to make an equal of him.

"Ah, my dear Herr Wüllner," she said, in a very distinct voice, "I
was listening, and I thought I could not be mistaken in your touch.
Heller's _Wanderstunden_, wasn't it?" And they plunged head first into
musical talk such as musical people (who never care in the least how
much unmusical people may be bored by it) love to indulge in whenever
an occasion offers, while Mrs. Aarons stood by, smiling vaguely, and
not understanding a word of it. Paul Brion listened to them for a few
minutes, and a bright idea came into his head.

CHAPTER XII.

TRIUMPH.

Our girls still sat in their corner, but a change had come over them
within the last few minutes. A stout man sitting near them was talking
to Elizabeth across Eleanor's lap--Eleanor lying back in her seat, and
smiling amiably as she listened to them; and Miss King was looking
animated and interested, and showed some signs of enjoying herself at
last. Patty also had lost her air of angry dignity, and was leaning a
little forward, with her hands clasped on her knees, gazing at Herr
Wüllner's venerable face with rapt enthusiasm. Paul, regarding her for
a moment, felt himself possessed of sufficient courage to declare his
presence, and, waiting until he could catch her eye, bowed pleasantly.
She looked across at him with no recognition at first, then gave a
little start, bent her head stiffly, and resumed her attentive perusal
of Herr Wüllner's person. "Ah," thought Paul, "the old fellow has woke
her up. And she wants him to play again." Mrs. Duff-Scott had dropped
into a chair by the piano, and sat there contentedly, talking to the
delighted musician, who had been as a fish out of water since he came
into the room, and was now swimming at large in his native element
again. She was a distinguished looking matron of fifty or thereabouts,
with a handsome, vivacious, intelligent face and an imposing presence
generally; and she had an active and well-cultivated mind which
concerned itself with many other things than china. Having no necessity
to work, no children on whom to expend her exuberant energies, and
being incapable of finding the ordinary woman's satisfaction in the
ordinary routine of society pleasures, she made ardent pursuits for
herself in several special directions. Music was one. Herr Wüllner
thought she was the most enlightened being in female shape that he
had ever known, because she "understood" music--what was really music
and what was not (according to his well-trained theories). She had,
in the first place, the wonderful good sense to know that she could
not play herself, and she held the opinion that people in general had
no business to set themselves up to play, but only those who had been
"called" by Divine permission and then properly instructed in the
science of their art. "We won't look at bad pictures, nor read trashy
books," she would say. "Why should our artistic sense be depraved and
demoralised through our ears any more than through our eyes? Mothers
should know better, my dear Herr Wüllner, and keep the incapables in
the background. All girls should learn, if they _like_ learning--in
which case it does them good, and delights the domestic circle; but
if at sixteen they can't play--what _we_ call play--after having had
every chance given them, they should leave off, so as to use the
time better, or confine their performances to a family audience."
And Mrs. Duff-Scott had the courage of her convictions, and crushed
unrelentingly those presumptuous amateurs (together with their
infatuated mammas) who thought they could play when they couldn't, and
who regarded music as a mere frivolous drawing-room amusement for the
encouragement of company conversation. Herr Wüllner delighted in her.
The two sat talking by the piano, temporarily indifferent to what was
going on around them, turning over a roll of music sheets that had had
a great deal of wear and tear, apparently. Mrs. Aarons sat beside them,
fanning herself and smiling, casting about her for more entertaining
converse. And Paul Brion stood near his hostess, listening and watching
for his opportunity. Presently it came.

Mrs. Duff-Scott lifted up a sheet of crabbed manuscript as yellowed by
time as Patty's Brussels lace, and said: "This is not quite the thing
for a mixed audience, is it?"

"Ah, no, you are right; it is the study of Haydn that a friend of mine
asked of me yesterday, and that I propose to read to him to-night,"
said Herr Wüllner, in that precise English and with that delicate
pronunciation with which the cultivated foreigner so often puts us to
shame. "It is, you perceive, an arrangement for one violin and a piano
only--done by a very distinguished person for a lady who was for a
short time my pupil, when I was a young man. You have heard it with
the four-stringed instruments at your house; that was bad--bad! Ach!
that second violin squeaked like the squeaking of a pig, and it was
always in the wrong place. But in good hands it is sublime. This"--and
he sighed as he added more sheets to the one she held and was steadily
perusing--"this is but a crippled thing, perhaps; the piano, which
should have none of it, has it all--and no one can properly translate
that piano part--not one in ten thousand. But it is well done. Yes, it
is very well done. And I have long been wanting my friend to try it
with me."

"And what about the young lady for whom it was written?--which part did
she take?"

"The piano--the piano. But then she had a wonderful execution and
sympathy--it was truly wonderful for a lady, and she so young. Women
play much better now, as a rule, but I never hear one who is an amateur
play as she did. And so quick--so quick! It was an inspiration with
her. Yes, this was written on purpose for that lady--I have had it ever
since--it has never been published. The manuscript is in her own hand.
She wrote out much of her music in her own hand. It was many, many
years ago, and I was a young man then. We were fellow-pupils before I
became her master, and she was my pupil only for a few weeks. It was a
farce--a farce. She did not play the violin, but in everything else she
was better than I. Ah, she was a great genius, that young lady. She was
a great loss to the world of art."

"Did she die, Herr Wüllner?"

"She eloped," he said softly, "she ran away with a scapegrace. And the
ship she sailed in was lost at sea."

"Dear me! How very sad. Well, you must make your friend try it over,
and, if you manage it all right, bring him with you to my house on
Monday evening and let me hear it."

"That shall give me great pleasure," said the old man, bowing low.

"You have your violin with you, I suppose?" she asked.

"It is in the hall, under my cloak. I do not bring it into this room,"
he replied.

"Why not?" she persisted. "Go and fetch it, Herr Wüllner, and let Mrs.
Aarons hear you play it"--suddenly bethinking herself of her hostess
and smiling upon that lady--"if she has never had that treat before."

Mrs. Aarons was eager to hear the violin, and Herr Wüllner went
himself, though reluctantly, to fetch his treasure from the old case
that he had hidden away below. When he had tuned up his strings a
little, and had tucked the instrument lovingly under his chin, he
looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott and said softly, "What?"

"Oh," cried Mrs. Aarons, striking in, "play that--you know--what you
were talking of just now--what Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted so much to hear.
_I_ want to hear it too."

"Impossible--impossible," he said quickly, almost with a shudder. "It
has a piano part, and there is no one here to take that."

Then Paul Brion broke in, conscious that he was running heavy risks of
all sorts, but resolved to seize his chance.

"I think there _is_ someone who could play it," he said to Mrs. Aarons,
speaking with elaborate distinctness. "The Miss Kings--one of them, at
any rate--"

"Nonsense," interrupted Mrs. Aarons, sharply, but under her breath.
"Not at all likely." She was annoyed by the suggestion, and wished to
treat it as if unheard (it was unreasonable, on the face of it, of
course); but Mrs. Duff-Scott caught at it in her direct way. "Who are
they? Which are the Miss Kings?" she asked of Paul, putting up her
eye-glass to see what manner of man had taken upon himself to interfere.

"My dear lady," sighed Herr Wüllner, dropping his bow dejectedly, "it
is out of the question, absolutely. It is not normal music at its
best--and I have it only in manuscript. It is impossible that any lady
can attempt it."

"She will not attempt it if she cannot do it, Herr Wüllner," said Paul.
"But you might ask her."

Mrs. Duff-Scott had followed the direction of his eyes, and her
attention was violently arrested by the figures of the three girls
sitting together, who were so remarkably unlike the majority of Mrs.
Aarons's guests. She took note of all their superficial peculiarities
in a moment, and the conviction that the lace and the pearls were real
flashed across her like an inspiration. "Is it the young lady with the
bright eyes?" she inquired. "What a charming face! Yes, Herr Wüllner,
we _will_ ask her. Introduce her to me, Mrs. Aarons, will you?"

She rose as she spoke and sailed towards Patty, Mrs. Aarons following;
and Paul Brion held his breath while he waited to see how his reckless
enterprise would turn out. In a few minutes Patty came towards the
piano, with her head up and her face flushed, looking a little defiant,
but as self-possessed as the great lady who convoyed her across the
room. The events of the evening had roused her spirit, and strung up
her nerves like Herr Wüllner's fiddle-strings, and she, too, was in a
daring and audacious mood.

"This is it," said the old musician, looking at her critically as he
gave a sheet of manuscript into her hand. It was a wonderful chance, of
course, but Patty had seen the facsimile of that manuscript many times
before, and had played from it. It is true she had never played with
the violin accompaniment--had never so much as seen a violin until she
came to Melbourne; but her mother had contrived to make her understand
how the more delicate and sensitive instrument ought to be deferred to
in the execution of the piano part, and what the whole should sound
like, by singing the missing air in her flexible trilling voice; and
just now she was in that peculiar mood of exaltation that she felt
inspired to dare anything and assured that she should succeed. "You
will not be able to read it?" Herr Wüllner suggested persuasively,
drawing hope from her momentary silence.

"Oh, yes," she said, looking up bravely: "I think so. You will stop me,
please, if I do not play it right." And she seated herself at the piano
with a quiet air of knowing what she was doing that confounded the two
ladies who were watching her and deeply interested Mrs. Duff-Scott.
Paul Brion's heart was beating high with anticipated triumph. Herr
Wüllner's heart, on the contrary, sank with a mild despair.

"Well, we will have a few bars," he sighed. "And pray, my dear young
lady, don't bang the piano--I mean don't play over me. And try to keep
time. But you will never do it--with the best intentions, my dear, you
will never be able to read it from such a manuscript as that."

Patty looked up at him with a sort of radiant calmness, and said
gently, "Go on. You see you have an opening movement to yourself."

Bewildered, the old man dropped his bow upon the strings, and set forth
on his hopeless task. And at exactly the right moment the piano glided
in, so lightly, so tenderly, and yet with such admirable precision and
delicate clearness, that it justified, for once, its trespass upon
ground that belonged to more aerial instruments. It was just what Paul
Brion had counted on--though Paul Brion had not the least idea what
a wild chance had brought about the fulfilment of his expectations.
Patty was able to display her chief accomplishment to the very best
advantage, and the sisters were thereby promoted to honour. The cold
shade of neglect and obscurity was to chill them no more from this
happy moment. It was a much greater triumph than Patty herself had any
idea of, or than anybody had had the least reason to expect. _She_
knew that piles of music, all in this self-same handwriting (she had
never seen any other and supposed that all manuscript music was alike),
were stowed away in the old bureau at home, and in the ottoman which
she had constructed out of a packing-case, and that long familiarity
had made it as easy to her to read as print; but Herr Wüllner was not
in a position to make the faintest guess at such a circumstance. When
Elizabeth moved her seat nearer to the piano, as if to support her
sister, though he was close enough to see it, he did not recognise in
the miniature round her neck the face of that young lady of genius who
eloped with a scapegrace, and was supposed to have been drowned at
sea with her husband. And yet it was that lady's face. Such wonderful
coincidences are continually happening in our small world. It was not
more wonderful than that Herr Wüllner, Mrs. Duff-Scott, Paul Brion, and
Patty King should have been gathered together round one piano, and that
piano Mrs. Aarons's.

The guests were laughing and talking and flirting, as they were wont to
do under cover of the music that generally prevailed at these Friday
receptions, when an angry "Hush!" from the violinist, repeated by Mrs.
Duff-Scott, made a little circle of silence round the performers. And
in this silence Patty carried through her responsible undertaking
with perfect accuracy and the finest taste--save for a shadowy mistake
or two, which, glancing over them as if they were mere phantoms of
mistakes, and recovering herself instantly, only served to show more
clearly the finished quality of her execution, and the thoroughness of
her musical experience. She was conscious herself of being in her very
best form.

"Ah!" said Herr Wüllner, drawing a long breath as he uttered the
exclamation, and softly laying down his violin, "I was mistaken. My
dear young lady, allow me to beg your pardon, and to thank you." And he
bowed before Patty until his nose nearly touched his knees.

Mrs. Duff-Scott, who was a woman of impulses, as most nice women are,
was enthusiastic. Not only had she listened to Patty's performance with
all her intelligent ears, but she had at the same time investigated
and appraised the various details of her personal appearance, and been
particularly interested in that bit of lace about her neck.

"My dear," she said, putting out her hand as the girl rose from the
music-stool, "come here and sit by me and tell me where you learned to
play like that."

Patty went over to her readily, won by the kind voice and motherly
gesture. And, in a very few minutes, Paul had the pleasure of seeing
the great lady sitting on a sofa with all three sisters around her,
talking to them, and they to her, as if they had known one another for
years.

Leaving them thus safe and cared for, he bade good-night to his
hostess, and went home to his work, in a mood of high contentment.

CHAPTER XIII.

PATTY IN UNDRESS.

When Paul Brion bade Mrs. Aarons good-night, he perceived that she was
a little cold to him, and rather wondered at himself that he did not
feel inclined either to resent or to grieve over that unprecedented
circumstance.

"I am going to steal away," he said in an airy whisper, coming across
her in the middle of the room as he made his way to the door. "I have a
good couple of hours' work to get through to-night."

He was accustomed to speak to her in this familiar and confidential
fashion, though she was but a recent acquaintance, and she had always
responded in a highly gratifying way. But now she looked at him
listlessly, with no change of face, and merely said, "Indeed."

"Yes," he repeated; "I have a lot to do before I can go to bed. It
is delightful to be here; but I must not indulge myself any longer.
Good-night."

"Good-night," she said, still unsmiling, as she gave him her hand. "I
am sorry you must go so soon." But she did not look as if she were
sorry; she looked as if she didn't care a straw whether he went or
stayed. However, he pressed her hand with the wonted friendly pressure,
and slipped out of the room, unabashed by her assumed indifference and
real change of manner, which he was at no great trouble to interpret;
and he took a cab to his office--now a humming hive of busy bees
improving the shining hours of the gaslit night--and walked back
from the city through the shadowy gardens to his lodgings, singing a
tuneless air to himself, which, if devoid of music, was a pleasant
expression of his frame of mind.

When he reached Myrtle Street the town clocks were striking twelve.
He looked up at his neighbours' windows as he passed the gate of No.
6, and saw no light, and supposed they had returned from their revels
and gone peaceably to bed. He opened his own door softly, as if afraid
of waking them, and went upstairs to his sitting-room, where Mrs.
M'Intyre, who loved to make him comfortable, had left him a bit of
supper, and a speck of gas about the size of a pea in the burner at the
head of his arm-chair; and he pulled off his dress coat, and kicked
away his boots, and got his slippers and his dressing-gown, and his
tobacco and his pipe, and took measures generally for making himself at
home. But before he had quite settled himself the idea occurred to him
that his neighbours might _not_ have returned from Mrs. Aarons's, but
might, indeed (for he knew their frugal and unconventional habits), be
even then out in the streets, alone and unprotected, walking home by
night as they walked home by day, unconscious of the perils and dangers
that beset them. He had not presumed to offer his escort--he had not
even spoken to them during the evening, lest he should seem to take
those liberties that Miss Patty resented so much; but now he angrily
reproached himself for not having stayed at Mrs. Aarons's until their
departure, so that he could, at least, have followed and watched over
them. He put down his pipe hastily, and, opening the window, stepped
out on the balcony. It was a dark night, and a cold wind was blowing,
and the quarter-hour after midnight was chiming from the tower of the
Post Office. He was about to go in for his boots and his overcoat, when
he was relieved to hear a cab approaching at a smart pace, and to see
it draw up at the gate of No. 6. Standing still in the shadow of the
partition that divided his enclosure from theirs, he watched the girls
descend upon the footpath, one by one, fitfully illuminated from the
interior of the vehicle. First Eleanor, then Elizabeth, then Patty--who
entered the gate and tapped softly at her street door. He expected to
see the driver dismissed, with probably double the fare to which he was
entitled; but to his surprise, the cab lingered, and Elizabeth stood at
the step and began to talk to someone inside. "Thank you so much for
your kindness," she said, in her gentle but clear tones, which were
perfectly audible on the balcony. A voice from the cab answered, "Don't
mention it, my dear. I am very glad to see as much of you as possible,
for I want to know you. May I come and have a little gossip to-morrow
afternoon?" It was the voice of Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, after keeping
them late at Mrs. Aarons's, talking to them, had frustrated their
intention of making their own way home. That powerful woman had "taken
them up," literally and figuratively, and she was not one to drop them
again--as fine ladies commonly drop interesting impecunious _protégées_
when the novelty of their acquaintance has worn off--save for causes in
their own conduct and circumstances that were never likely to arise.
Paul Brion, thoroughly realising that his little schemes had been
crowned with the most gratifying success, stole back to his rooms, shut
the window softly, and sat down to his pipe and his manuscripts. And he
wrote such a maliciously bitter article that, when he took it to the
office, his editor refused to print it without modifications, on the
ground that it would land the paper in an action for libel.

Meanwhile our girls parted from their new friend with affectionate
good-nights, and were let into their house by the landlady, who had
herself been entertaining company to a late hour. They went upstairs
with light feet, too excited to feel tired, and all assembled in
Elizabeth's meagrely-appointed bedchamber to take off their finery
and to have a little happy gossip before they went to rest. Elizabeth
herself, who was not a gushing person, had the most to say at first,
pouring out her ingenuous heart in grateful reminiscences of the
unparalleled kindness of Mrs. Duff-Scott. "What a dear, dear woman!"
she murmured, with soft rapture, as she unwound the watch-chain and
locket from her neck and disembarrassed herself of her voluminous
fichu. "You can _see_ that what she does and says is real and
truthful--I am certain you can trust her. I do not trust Mrs. Aarons--I
do not understand her ways. She wanted us to go and see her, and when
we went she was unkind to us; at least, she was not polite. I was very
sorry we had gone to her house--until Mrs. Duff-Scott came to our sofa
to speak to us. But now I feel so glad! For it has given us _her_. And
she is just the kind of friend I have so often pictured to myself--so
often longed to know."

"I think it was Patty's playing that gave us Mrs. Duff-Scott,"
said Eleanor, who was sitting by the dressing table with her frock
unbuttoned. "She is fond of music, and really there was no one who
could play at all except Herr Wüllner--which was a very strange thing,
don't you think? And the singing was worse--such sickly, silly sort of
songs, with such eccentric accompaniments. I could not understand it,
unless the fashion has changed since mother was a girl. I suppose it
has. But when Patty and Herr Wüllner got together it was like another
atmosphere in the room. How did you come to play so well, Patty?--to be
so collected and quiet when there was so much to frighten you? I was so
nervous that my hands shook, and I had to squeeze them to keep myself
still."

"I was nervous, too, at first," said Patty, who, divested of her
dress and laces, was lying all along on Elizabeth's bed, with her
pretty bare arms flung up over the pillows, and her hands clasped
one over the other at the back of her head. "When we got there, that
impudent maid in the room where we took our things off upset me; she
looked at our old hats and water-proofs as if she had never seen such
things before--and they _did_ seem very shabby amongst all the pretty
cloaks and hoods that the other ladies were taking off. And then it
was so ignominious to have to find our way to the drawing-room by
following other people, and to have our names bawled out as if to call
everybody's attention to us, and then not to _have_ attentions. When we
trailed about the room, so lost and lonely, with all those fine people
watching us and staring at us, my knees were shaking under me, and I
felt hot and cold--I don't know how I felt. The only comfort I had was
seeing how calm Elizabeth was. She seemed to stand up for us all, and
to carry us through it. _I_ felt--I hate to think I could be such an
idiot--so nervous and so unhinged, and so miserable altogether, that
I should have liked to go away somewhere and have a good cry. But,"
added Patty, suddenly sitting up in the bed, and removing her hands
from the back of her head to her knees, "but after a little while it
got _too_ horrid. And then I got angry, and that made me feel much
better. And by-and-bye, when they began to play and sing, and I saw how
ridiculous they made themselves, I brightened up, and was not nervous
any more--for I saw that they were rather ignorant people, in spite
of their airs and their fine clothes. When the girl in that beautiful
creamy satin dress sang her whining little song about parting and dying
half a note flat, while she dashed her hands up and down the keyboard,
and they all hung round her when she had done and said how charming
it was, I felt that _really_--" Patty paused, and stared into the
obscurity of the room with brilliant, humorous, disdainful eyes, which
expressed her sentiments with a distinctness that made further words
unnecessary.

"But, you see, if people don't _know_ that you are superior to them--"
suggested Eleanor, folding up Elizabeth's best gloves, and wrapping
them in tissue paper, with a reflective air.

"Who would care about their knowing?" interposed Elizabeth. "We should
not be very much superior to anyone if we could indulge in a poor
ambition to seem so. That is not one of Patty's feelings, I think."

"But it is, then," Patty confessed, with honest promptness. "I found
it out to-night, Elizabeth. When I saw those conceited people sweeping
about in their splendid trains and looking as if all Melbourne belonged
to them--when I heard that girl singing that preposterous twaddle,
and herself and all her friends thinking she was a perfect genius--I
felt that I would give anything, _anything_, just to rise up and be
very grand and magnificent for a little while and crush them all into
vulgarity and insignificance."

"Patty!" murmured Elizabeth.

"Yes, my dear, it shocks you, I know. But you wouldn't have me disguise
the truth from you, would you? I wanted to pay them out. I saw they
were turning up their noses at us, and I longed--I _raged_--to be in
a position to turn up my nose at them, if only for five minutes. I
thought to myself, oh, if the door should suddenly open and that big
footman shout out, 'His Grace the Duke of So and So;' and they should
all be ready to drop on their knees before such a grand person--as
you know they would be, Elizabeth; they would _grovel_, simply--and he
should look with a sort of gracious, ducal haughtiness over their heads
and say to Mrs. Aarons, 'I am told that I shall find here the daughters
of my brother, who disappeared from home when he was young, along with
his wife, the Princess So and So.' You know, Elizabeth, our father, who
never would talk about his family to anybody, _might_ have been a duke
or an earl in disguise, for anything we know, and our mother was the
very image of what a princess _ought_ to be--"

"We should have been found out before this, if we had been such
illustrious persons," said Elizabeth, calmly.

"Yes, of course--of course. But one needn't be so practical. You are
free to think what you like, however improbable it may be. And that is
what I thought of. Then I thought, suppose a telegram should be brought
in, saying that some enormously wealthy squatter, with several millions
of money and no children, had left us all his fortune--"

"I should think that kind of news would come by post," suggested
Eleanor.

"It might and it mightn't, Nelly. The old squatter might have been that
queer old man who comes to the Library sometimes, and seems to take
such interest in seeing us reading so hard. He might have thought that
girls who were so studious would have serious views of life and the
value of money. Or he might have overheard us castle-building about
Europe, and determined to help us to realise our dreams. Or he might
have fallen in love with Elizabeth--at a distance, you know, and in a
humble, old-fashioned, hopeless way."

"But that doesn't account for the telegram, Patty."

"And have felt himself dying, perhaps," continued Patty, quite
solemnly, with her bright eyes fixed on her invisible drama, "and have
thought he would like to see us--to speak to Elizabeth--to give some
directions and last wishes to us--before he went. No," she added,
checking herself with a laugh and shaking herself up, "I don't think it
was that. I think the lawyer came himself to tell us. The lawyer had
opened the will, and he was a friend of Mrs. Aarons's, and he came to
tell her of the wonderful thing that had happened. 'Everyone has been
wondering whom he would leave his money to,' he says to her, 'but no
one ever expected this. He has left it to three poor girls whom no one
has ever heard of, and whom he never spoke to in his life. I am now
going to find them out, for they are living somewhere in Melbourne.
Their name is King, and they are sisters, without father or mother, or
friends or fortune--mere nobodies, in fact. But now they will be the
richest women in Australia.' And Mrs. Aarons suddenly remembers us,
away there in the corner of the room, and it flashes across her that
_we_ are the great heiresses. And she tells the other ladies, and they
all flock round us, and--and--"

"And you find yourself in the position to turn up your nose at them,"
laughed Eleanor. "No one would have guessed your thoughts, Patty,
seeing you sitting on that sofa, looking so severe and dignified."

"But I had other thoughts," said Patty, quickly. "These were just
passing ideas, of course. What really _did_ take hold of me was an
intense desire to be asked to play, so that I might show them how much
better we could play than they could. Especially after I heard Herr
Wüllner. I knew he, at least, would appreciate the difference--and
I thought Mrs. Duff-Scott looked like a person who would, also. And
perhaps--perhaps--Paul Brion."

"Oh, Patty!" exclaimed Elizabeth, smiling, but reproachful. "Did
you really want to go to the piano for the sake of showing off your
skill--to mortify those poor women who had not been taught as well as
you had?"

"Yes," said Patty, hardily. "I really did. When Mrs. Duff-Scott came
and asked me to join Herr Wüllner in that duet, I felt that, failing
the duke and the lawyer, it was just the opportunity that I had been
looking and longing for. And it was because I felt that I was going to
do so much better than they could that I was in such good spirits, and
got on--as I flatter myself I did--so splendidly."

"Well, I don't believe you," said Elizabeth. "You could never
have rendered that beautiful music as you did simply from pure
vindictiveness. It is not in you."

"No," said Patty, throwing herself back on the bed and flinging up
her arms again, "no--when I come to think of it--I was not vindictive
all the time. At first I was _savage_--O yes, there is no doubt about
it. Then Herr Wüllner's fears and frights were so charming that I
got amused a little; I felt jocose and mischievous. Then I felt Mrs.
Duff-Scott looking at me--_studying_ me--and that made me serious
again, and also quieted me down and steadied me. Then I was a little
afraid that I _might_ blunder over the music--it was a long time since
I had played that thing, and the manuscript was pale and smudged--and
so I had to brace myself up and forget about the outside people. And
as soon as Herr Wüllner reached me, and I began safely and found that
we were making it, oh, so sweet! between us--then I lost sight of lots
of things. I mean I began to see and think of lots of other things. I
remembered playing it with mother--it was like the echo of her voice,
that violin!--and the sun shining through a bit of the red curtain
into our sitting-room at home, and flickering on the wall over the
piano, where it used to stand; and the sound of the sea under the
cliffs--_whish-sh-sh-sh_--in the still afternoon--" Patty broke off
abruptly, with a little laugh that was half a sob, and flung herself
from the bed with vehemence. "But it won't do to go on chattering like
this--we shall have daylight here directly," she said, gathering up her
frock and shoes.

CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE WOMB OF FATE.

Mrs. Duff-Scott came for her gossip on Saturday afternoon, and it
was a long one, and deeply interesting to all concerned. The girls
took her to their trustful hearts, and told her their past history
and present circumstances in such a way that she understood them even
better than they did themselves. They introduced her to their entire
suite of rooms, including the infinitesimal kitchen and its gas stove;
they unlocked the drawers and cupboards of the old bureau to show her
their own and their mother's sketches, and the family miniatures, and
even the jewels they had worn the night before, about which she was
frankly curious, and which she examined with the same discriminating
intelligence that she brought to bear upon old china. They chattered
to her, they played to her, they set the kettle on the gas-stove and
made tea for her, with a familiar and yet modest friendliness that
was a pleasant contrast to the attitude in which feminine attentions
were too often offered to her. In return, she put off that armour of
self-defence in which she usually performed her social duties, fearing
no danger to pride or principle from an unreserved intercourse with
such unsophisticated and yet singularly well-bred young women; and she
revelled in unguarded and unlimited gossip as freely as if they had
been her own sisters or her grown-up children. She gave them a great
deal of very plain, but very wholesome, advice as to the necessity
that lay upon them to walk circumspectly in the new life they had
entered upon; and they accepted it in a spirit of meek gratitude that
would have astonished Paul Brion beyond measure. All sorts of delicate
difficulties were touched upon in connection with the non-existent
chaperon and the omnipotent and omnipresent Mrs. Grundy, and not only
touched upon, but frankly discussed, between the kindly woman of the
world who wished to serve them and the proud but modest girls who were
but too anxious to learn of one who they felt was authorised to teach
them. In short, they sat together for more than two hours, and learned
in that one interview to know and trust each other better than some of
us will do after living for two years under the same roof. When at last
the lady called her coachman, who had been mooning up and down Myrtle
Street, half asleep upon his box, to the gate of No. 6, she had made a
compact with herself to "look after" the three sweet and pretty sisters
who had so oddly fallen in her way with systematic vigilance; and
they were unconsciously of one mind, that to be looked after by Mrs.
Duff-Scott was the most delightful experience, by far, that Melbourne
had yet given them.

On the following Monday they went to her house, and spent a ravishing
evening in a beautiful, cosy, stately, deeply-coloured, softly-lighted
room, that was full of wonderful and historical bric-à-brac such as
they had never seen before, listening to Herr Wüllner and three brother
artists playing violins and a violoncello in a way that brought tears
to their eyes and unspeakable emotions into their responsive hearts.
Never had they had such a time as this. There was no Mr. Duff-Scott--he
was away from home just now, looking after property in Queensland;
and no Mrs. Aarons--she was not privileged to join any but large and
comprehensive parties in this select "set." There were no conceited
women to stare at and to snub them, and no girls to sing sickly
ballads, half a note flat. Only two or three unpretentious music-loving
ladies, who smiled on them and were kind to them, and two or three
quiet men who paid them charmingly delicate attentions; nothing that
was unpleasant or unharmonious--nothing to jar with the exquisite music
of a well-trained quartette, which was like a new revelation to them
of the possibilities of art and life. They went home that night in a
cab, escorted by one of the quiet men, whose provincial rank was such
that the landlady curtsied like an English rustic, when she opened
the door to him, and paid her young lodgers marked attentions for days
afterwards in honour of their acquaintance with such a distinguished
individual. And Paul Brion, who was carefully informed by Mrs. M'Intyre
of their rise and progress in the world that was not his world, said
how glad he was that they had been recognised and appreciated for what
they were, and went on writing smart literary and political and social
criticisms for his paper, that were continually proving too smart for
prudent journalism.

Then Mrs. Duff-Scott left Melbourne for a visit to some relations
in Brisbane, and to join her husband on his homeward journey, and
the girls fell back into their old quiet life for a while. It was an
exceedingly simple and homely life. They rose early every morning--not
much after the hour at which their neighbour on the other side of the
wall was accustomed to go to bed--and aired, and swept, and scrubbed
their little rooms, and made their beds, and polished their furniture,
and generally set their dwelling in an exquisite order that is not at
all universal with housewives in these days, but must always be the
instinct of really well-bred women. They breakfasted frugally after the
most of this was done, and took a corresponding meal in the evening,
the staple of both being bread and butter; and at mid-day they saved
"messing" and the smell of cooking about their rooms, and saved also
the precious hours of the morning for their studies, by dining at a
restaurant in the city, where they enjoyed a comfortable and abundant
repast for a shilling apiece. Every day at about ten o'clock they
walked through the leafy Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and the bright
and busy streets that never lost their charm of novelty, to the Public
Library, where with pencils and note-books on the table before them,
they read and studied upon a systematic principle until the clock
struck one; at which hour they closed their books and set off with
never-failing appetites in search of dinner. After dinner, if it was
Thursday, they stayed in town for the organ recital at the Town Hall;
but on other days they generally sauntered quietly home, with a new
novel from Mullen's (they were very fond of novels), and made up their
fire, and had a cup of tea, and sat down to rest and chat over their
needlework, while one read aloud or practised her music, until the time
came to lay the cloth for the unfashionable tea-supper at night-fall.
And these countrified young people invariably began to yawn at eight
o'clock, and might have been found in bed and asleep, five nights out
of six, at half-past nine.

So the days wore on, one very much like another, and all very gentle
and peaceful, though not without the small annoyances that beset the
most flowery paths of this mortal life, until October came--until
the gardens through which they passed to and from the city, morning
and afternoon (though there were other and shorter routes to choose
from), were thick with young green leaves and odorous with innumerable
blossoms--until the winter was over, and the loveliest month of the
Australian year, when the brief spring hurries to meet the voluptuous
summer, made even Melbourne delightful. And in October the great
event that was recorded in the annals of the colony inaugurated a new
departure in their career.

On the Thursday immediately preceding the opening of the Exhibition
they did not go to the Library as usual, nor to Gunsler's for their
lunch. Like a number of other people, their habits were deranged and
themselves demoralised by anticipations of the impending festival. They
stayed at home to make themselves new bonnets for the occasion, and
took a cold dinner while at their work, and two of them did not stir
outside their rooms from morn till dewy eve for so much as a glance
into Myrtle Street from the balcony.

But in the afternoon it was found that half a yard more of ribbon was
required to complete the last of the bonnets, and Patty volunteered to
"run into town" to fetch it. At about four o'clock she set off alone
by way of an adjoining road which was an omnibus route, intending to
expend threepence, for once, in the purchase of a little precious time,
but every omnibus was full, and she had to walk the whole way. The
pavements were crowded with hurrying folk, who jostled and obstructed
her. Collins Street, when she turned into it, seemed riotous with
abnormal life, and she went from shop to shop and could not get waited
on until the usual closing hour was past, and the evening beginning
to grow dark. Then she got what she wanted, and set off home by way
of the Gardens, feeling a little daunted by the noise and bustle of
the streets, and fancying she would be secure when once those green
alleys, always so peaceful, were reached. But to-night even the gardens
were infested by the spirit of unrest and enterprise that pervaded the
city. The quiet walks were not quiet now, and the sense of her belated
isolation in the growing dusk seemed more formidable here instead of
less. For hardly had she passed through the gates into the Treasury
enclosure than she was conscious of being watched and peered at by
strange men, who appeared to swarm all over the place; and by the time
she had reached the Gardens nearer home the appalling fact was forced
upon her that a tobacco-scented individual was dogging her steps, as if
with an intention of accosting her. She was bold, but her imagination
was easily wrought upon; and the formless danger, of a kind in which
she was totally inexperienced, gave a shock to her nerves. So that when
presently, as she hurriedly pattered on, hearing the heavier tread and
an occasional artificial cough behind her, she suddenly saw a still
more expeditious pedestrian hastening by, and recognised Paul's light
figure and active gait, the words seemed to utter themselves without
conscious effort of hers--"Mr. Brion!--oh, Mr. Brion, is that you?"

He stopped at the first sound of her voice, looked back and saw her,
saw the man behind her, and comprehended the situation immediately.
Without speaking, he stepped to her side and offered his arm, which
she took for one happy moment when the delightful sense of his
protection was too strong for her, and then--reacting violently from
that mood--released. "I--I am _mortified_ with myself for being such
a fool," she said angrily; "but really that person did frighten me. I
don't know what is the matter with Melbourne to-night--I suppose it is
the Exhibition." And she went on to explain how she came to be abroad
alone at that hour, and to explain away, as she hoped, her apparent
satisfaction in meeting him. "It seems to promise for a fine day, does
it not?" she concluded airily, looking up at the sky.

Paul Brion put his hands in his pockets. He was mortified, too. When he
spoke, it was with icy composure.

"Are you going to the opening?"

"Yes," said Patty. "Of course we are."

"With your swell friends, I suppose?"

"Whom do you mean by our swell friends? Mrs. Duff-Scott is not in
Melbourne, I believe--if you allude to her. But she is not swell. The
only swell person we know is Mrs. Aarons, and she is not our friend."

He allowed the allusion to Mrs. Aarons to pass. "Well, I hope you will
have good seats," he said, moodily. "It will be a disgusting crush and
scramble, I expect."

"Seats? Oh, we are not going to have seats," said Patty. "We are going
to mingle with the common herd, and look on at the civic functions,
humbly, from the outside. _We_ are not swell"--dwelling upon the
adjective with a malicious enjoyment of the suspicion that he had not
meant to use it--"and we like to be independent."

"O yes, I know you do. But you'll find the Rights of Woman not much
good to you to-morrow in the Melbourne streets, I fancy, if you go
there on foot without an escort. May I ask how you propose to take care
of yourselves?"

"We are going," said Patty, "to start very early indeed, and to take
up a certain advantageous position that we have already selected
before the streets fill. We shall have a little elevation above the
heads of the crowd, and a wall at our backs, and--the three of us
together--we shall see the procession beautifully, and be quite safe
and comfortable."

"Well, I hope you won't find yourself mistaken," he replied.

A few minutes later Patty burst into the room where her sisters were
sitting, placidly occupied with their bonnet-making, her eyes shining
with excitement. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," she cried breathlessly, "Paul
Brion is going to ask you to let him be our escort to-morrow. But you
won't--oh, you _won't_--have him, will you?"

"No, dear," said Elizabeth, serenely; "not if you would rather not. Why
should we? It will be broad daylight, when there can be no harm in our
being out without an escort. We shall be much happier by ourselves."

"Much happier than with _him_," added Patty, sharply.

And they went on with their preparations for the great day that had
been so long desired, little thinking what it was to bring forth.

CHAPTER XV.

ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND.

They had an early breakfast, dressed themselves with great care in
their best frocks and the new bonnets, and, each carrying an umbrella,
set forth with a cheerful resolve to see what was to be seen of the
ceremonies of the day, blissfully ignorant of the nature of their
undertaking. Paul Brion, out of bed betimes, heard their voices and the
click of their gate, and stepped into his balcony to see them start.
He took note of the pretty costumes, that had a gala air about them,
and of the fresh and striking beauty of at least two of the three
sweet faces; and he groaned to think of such women being hustled and
battered, helplessly, in the fierce crush of a solid street crowd. But
they had no fear whatever for themselves.

However, they had not gone far before they perceived that the idea of
securing a good position early in the day had occurred to a great many
people besides themselves. Even sleepy Myrtle Street was awake and
active, and the adjoining road, when they turned into it, was teeming
with holiday life. They took their favourite route through the Fitzroy
and Treasury Gardens, and found those sylvan glades alive with traffic:
and, by the time they got into Spring Street, the crowd had thickened
to an extent that embarrassed their progress and made it devious and
slow. And they had scarcely passed the Treasury buildings when Eleanor,
who had been suffering from a slight sore throat, began to cough and
shiver, and aroused the maternal anxiety of her careful elder sister.
"O, my dear," said Elizabeth, coming to an abrupt standstill on the
pavement, "have you nothing but that wisp of muslin round your neck?
And the day so cold--and looking so like rain! It will never do for you
to stand about for hours in this wind, with the chance of getting wet,
unless you are wrapped up better. We must run home again and fix you
up. And I think it would be wiser if we were all to change our things
and put on our old bonnets."

"Now, look here, Elizabeth," said Patty, with strong emphasis; "you see
that street, don't you?"--and she pointed down the main thoroughfare of
the city, which was already gorged with people throughout its length.
"You see that, and that"--and she indicated the swarming road ahead of
them and the populous valley in the opposite direction. "If there is
such a crowd now, what will there be in half-an-hour's time? And we
couldn't do it in half-an-hour. Let us make Nelly tie up her throat
in our three pocket-handkerchiefs, and push on and get our places.
Otherwise we shall be out of it altogether--we shall see _nothing_."

But the gentle Elizabeth was obdurate on some occasions, and this was
one of them. Eleanor was chilled with the cold, and it was not to be
thought of that she should run the risk of an illness from imprudent
exposure--no, not for all the exhibitions in the world. So they
compromised the case by deciding that Patty and Eleanor should "run"
home together, while the elder sister awaited their return, keeping
possession of a little post of vantage on the Treasury steps--where
they would be able to see the procession, if not the Exhibition--in
case the crowd should be too great by-and-bye to allow of their getting
farther.

"Well, make yourself as big as you can," said Patty, resignedly.

"And, whatever you do," implored Eleanor, "don't stir an inch from
where you are until we come back, lest we should lose you."

Upon which they set off in hot haste to Myrtle Street.

Elizabeth, when they were gone, saw with alarm the rapid growth of
the crowd around her. It filled up the street in all directions, and
condensed into a solid mass on the Treasury steps, very soon absorbing
the modest amount of space that she had hoped to reserve for her
sisters. In much less than half-an-hour she was so hopelessly wedged
in her place that, tall and strong as she was, she was almost lifted
off her feet; and there was no prospect of restoring communications
with Patty and Eleanor until the show was over. In a fever of anxiety,
bitterly regretting that she had consented to part from them, she kept
her eyes turned towards the gate of the Gardens, whence she expected
them to emerge; and then she saw, presently, the figure of their good
genius and deliverer from all dilemmas, Paul Brion, fighting his way
towards her. The little man pursued an energetic course through the
crowd, which almost covered him, hurling himself along with a velocity
that was out of all proportion to his bulk; and from time to time she
saw his quick eyes flashing over other people's shoulders, and that he
was looking eagerly in all directions. It seemed hopeless to expect him
to distinguish her in the sea of faces around him, but he did. Sunk in
the human tide that rose in the street above the level of his head,
he made desperately for a footing on a higher plane, and in so doing
caught sight of her and battled his way to her side. "Oh, _here_ you
are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "I have been so anxious about
you. But where is Miss Patty? Where are your sisters?"

"Oh, Mr. Brion," she responded, "you always seem to turn up to help us
as soon as we get into trouble, and I am _so_ thankful to see you! The
girls had to go home for something, and were to meet me here, and I
don't know what will become of them in this crowd."

"Which way were they to come?" he inquired eagerly.

"By the Gardens. But the gates are completely blocked."

"I will go and find them," he said. "Don't be anxious about them. They
will be in there--they will be all right. You will come too, won't you?
I think I can manage to get you through."

"I can't," she replied. "I promised I would not stir from this place,
and I must not, in case they should be in the street, or we should miss
them."

"'The boy stood on the burning deck,'" he quoted, with a laugh. He
could afford a little jest, though she was so serious, for he was happy
in the conviction that the girls had been unable to reach the street,
that he should find them disconsolate in the gardens, and compel Miss
Patty to feel, if not to acknowledge, that he was of some use and
comfort to her, after all. "But I hate to leave you here," he added,
glaring upon her uncomfortable but inoffensive neighbours, "all alone
by yourself."

"Oh, don't mind me," said Elizabeth, cheerfully. "If you can only find
Patty and Nelly, and be so good as to take care of them, _I_ shall be
all right."

And so, with apparent reluctance, but the utmost real alacrity, he left
her, flinging himself from the steps into the crowd like a swimmer
diving into the sea, and she saw him disappear with an easy mind.

Then began the tramp of the procession, first in sections, then in
imposing columns, with bands playing, and flags flying, and horses
prancing, and the people shouting and cheering as it went by. There
were the smart men of the Naval Reserve and the sailors of the
warships--English and French, German and Italian, eight or nine hundred
strong--with their merry buglers in the midst of them; and there were
the troops of the military, with their music and accoutrements; and all
the long procession of the trades' associations, and the fire brigades,
with the drubbing of drums and the blare of trumpets and the shrill
whistle of innumerable fifes accompanying their triumphal progress.
And by-and-bye the boom of the saluting guns from the Prince's Bridge
battery, and the seven carriages from Government House rolling slowly
up the street and round the corner, with their dashing cavalry escort,
amid the lusty cheers of Her Majesty's loyal subjects on the line of
route assembled.

But long before the Queen's representative made his appearance upon
the scene, Elizabeth had ceased to see or care for the great spectacle
that she had been so anxious to witness. Moment by moment the crowd
about her grew more dense and dogged, more pitilessly indifferent to
the comfort of one another, more evidently minded that the fittest
should survive in the fight for existence on the Treasury steps. Rough
men pushed her forward and backward, and from side to side, treading
on her feet, and tearing the stitches of her gown, and knocking her
bonnet awry, until she felt bruised and sick with the buffetings that
she got, and the keen consciousness of the indignity of her position.
She could scarcely breathe for the pressure around her, though the
breath of all sorts of unpleasant people was freely poured into her
face. She would have struggled away and gone home--convinced of the
comforting fact that Patty and Eleanor were safely out of it in Paul
Brion's protection--but she could not stir an inch by her own volition.
When she did stir it was by some violent propelling power in another
person, and this was exercised presently in such a way as to completely
overbalance her. A sudden wave of movement broke against a stout
woman standing immediately behind her, and the stout woman, quite
unintentionally, pushed her to the edge of the step, and flung her upon
the shoulder of a brawny larrikin who had fought his way backwards and
upwards into a position whence he could see the pageant of the street
to his satisfaction. The larrikin half turned, struck her savagely
in the breast with his elbow, demanding, with a roar and an oath,
where she was a-shoving to; and between her two assailants, faint and
frightened, she lost her footing, and all but fell headlong into the
seething mass beneath her.

But as she was falling--a moment so agonising at the time, and so
delightful to remember afterwards--some one caught her round the waist
with a strong grip, and lifted her up, and set her safely on her feet
again. It was a man who had been standing within a little distance of
her, tall enough to overtop the crowd, and strong enough to maintain an
upright position in it; she had noticed him for some time, and that he
had seemed not seriously incommoded by the bustling and scuffling that
rendered her so helpless; but she had not noticed his gradual approach
to her side. Now, looking up with a little sob of relief, her instant
recognition of him as a gentleman was followed by an instinctive
identification of him as a sort of Cinderella's prince.

In short, there is no need to make a mystery of the matter. At
half-past ten o'clock in the morning of the first of October in the
year 1880, when she was plunged into the most wretched and terrifying
circumstances of her life--at the instant when she was struck by the
larrikin's elbow and felt herself about to be crushed under the feet of
the crowd--Elizabeth King met her happy fate. She found that friend for
whom, hungrily if unconsciously, her tender heart had longed.

CHAPTER XVI.

"WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED."

"Stand here, and I can shelter you a little," he said, in a quiet tone
that contrasted refreshingly with the hoarse excitement around them.
He drew her close to his side by the same grip of her waist that had
lifted her bodily when she was off her feet, and, immediately releasing
her, stretched a strong left arm between her exposed shoulder and the
crush of the crowd. The arm was irresistibly pressed upon her own
arm, and bent across her in a curve that was neither more nor less
than a vehement embrace, and so she stood in a condition of delicious
astonishment, one tingling blush from head to foot. It would have been
horrible had it been anyone else.

"I am so sorry," he said, "but I cannot help it. If you don't mind
standing as you are for a few minutes, you will be all right directly.
As soon as the procession has passed the crowd will scatter to follow
it."

They looked at each other across a space of half-a-dozen inches or
so, and in that momentary glance, upon which everything that mutually
concerned them depended, were severally relieved and satisfied. He was
not handsome--he had even a reputation for ugliness; but there are
some kinds of ugliness that are practically handsomer than many kinds
of beauty, and his was of that sort. He had a leathery, sun-dried,
weather-beaten, whiskerless, red moustached face, and he had a
roughly-moulded, broad-based, ostentatious nose; his mouth was large,
and his light grey eyes deeply set and small. Yet it was a strikingly
distinguished and attractive face, and Elizabeth fell in love with it
there and then. Similarly, her face, at once modest and candid, was an
open book to his experienced glance, and provisionally delighted him.
He was as glad as she was that fate had selected him to deliver her in
her moment of peril, out of the many who might have held out a helping
hand to her and did not.

"I am afraid you cannot see very well," he remarked presently. There
were sounds in the distance that indicated the approach of the
vice-regal carriages, and people were craning their necks over each
other's shoulders and standing on tiptoe to catch the first glimpse of
them. Just in front of her the exuberant larrikin was making himself as
tall as possible.

"Oh, thank you--I don't want to see," she replied hastily.

"But that was what you came here for--like the rest of us--wasn't it?"

"I did not know what I was coming for," she said, desperately,
determined to set herself right in his eyes. "I never saw anything like
this before--I was never in a crowd--I did not know what it was like."

"Some one should have told you, then."

"We have not any one belonging to us to tell us things."

"Indeed?"

"My sisters and I have lived in the bush always, until now. We have no
parents. We have not seen much yet. We came out this morning, thinking
we could stand together in a corner and look on quietly--we did not
expect this."

"And your sisters--?"

"They went home again. They are all right, I hope."

"And left you here alone?"

Elizabeth explained the state of the case more fully, and by the time
she had done so the Governors' carriages were in sight. The people
were shouting and cheering; the larrikin was dancing up and down in
his hob-nailed boots, and bumping heavily upon the arm that shielded
her. Shrinking from him, she drew her feet back another inch or two;
upon which the right arm as well as the left was firmly folded round
her. And the pressure of those two arms, stretched like iron bars to
defend her from harm, the throbbing of his heart upon her shoulder, the
sound of his deep-chested breathing in her ear--no consideration of
the involuntary and unromantic necessity of the situation could calm
the tremulous excitement communicated to her by these things. Oh, how
hideous, how simply insupportable it would have been, had she been thus
cast upon another breast and into other arms than HIS! As it was, it
was all right. He said he feared she was terribly uncomfortable, but,
though she did not contradict him, she felt in the secret depths of her
primitive soul that she had never been more comfortable. To be cared
for and protected was a new sensation, and, though she had had to bear
anxious responsibilities for herself and others, she had no natural
vocation for independence. Many a time since have they spoken of this
first half hour with pride, boasting of how they trusted each other at
sight, needing no proofs from experience like other people--a foolish
boast, for they were but a man and woman, and not gods. "I took you to
my heart the first moment I saw you," he says. "And I knew, even as
soon as that, that it was my own place," she calmly replies. Whereas
good luck, and not their own wisdom, justified them.

He spoke to her with studied coldness while necessarily holding her
embraced, as it were, to protect her from the crowd; at the same
time he put himself to some trouble to make conversation, which was
less embarrassing to her than silence. He remarked that he was fond
of crowds himself--found them intensely interesting--and spoke of
Thackeray's paper on the crowd that went to see the man hanged (which
she had never read) as illustrating the kind of interest he meant.
He had lately seen the crowd at the opening of the Trocadero Palace,
and that which celebrated the completion of Cologne Cathedral; facts
which proclaimed him a "globe-trotter" and new arrival in Melbourne.
The few words in which he described the festival at Cologne fired her
imagination, fed so long upon dreams of foreign travel, and made her
forget for the moment that he was not an old acquaintance.

"It was at about this hour of the day," he said, "and I stood with the
throng in the streets, as I am doing now. They put the last stone on
the top of the cross on one of the towers more than six hundred years
after the foundation stone was laid. The people were wild with joy, and
hung out their flags all over the place. One old fellow came up to me
and wanted to kiss me--he thought I must be as overcome as he was."

"And were you not impressed?"

"Of course I was. It was very pathetic," he replied, gently. And she
thought "pathetic" an odd word to use. Why pathetic? She did not like
to ask him. Then he made the further curious statement that this crowd
was the tamest he had ever seen.

"_I_ don't call it tame," she said, with a laugh, as the yells of the
larrikin and his fellows rent the air around them.

He responded to her laugh with a pleasant smile, and his voice was
friendlier when he spoke again. "But I am quite delighted with it,
unimpressive as it is. It is composed of people who are not _wanting
anything_. I don't know that I was ever in a crowd of that sort before.
I feel, for once, that I can breathe in peace."

"Oh, I wish I could feel so!" she cried. The carriages, in their slow
progress, were now turning at the top of Collins Street, and the hubbub
around them had reached its height.

"It will soon be over now," he murmured encouragingly.

"Yes," she replied. In a few minutes the crush would lessen, and he
and she would part. That was what they thought, to the exclusion of all
interest in the passing spectacle. Even as she spoke, the noise and
confusion that had made a solitude for their quiet intercourse sensibly
subsided. The tail of the procession was well in sight; the heaving
crowd on the Treasury steps was swaying and breaking like a huge wave
upon the street; the larrikin was gone. It was time for the unknown
gentleman to resume the conventional attitude, and for Elizabeth to
remember that he was a total stranger to her.

"You had better take my arm," he said, as she hastily disengaged
herself before it was safe to do so, and was immediately caught in the
eddy that was setting strongly in the direction of the Exhibition. "If
you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes longer, you will be able
to get home comfortably."

She struggled back to his side, and took his arm, and waited; but they
did not talk any more. They watched the disintegration and dispersion
of the great mass that had hemmed them in together, until at last they
stood in ease and freedom almost alone upon that coign of vantage which
had been won with so much difficulty--two rather imposing figures,
if anyone had cared to notice them. Then she withdrew her hand, and
said, with a little stiff bow and a bright and becoming colour in her
face--"_Thank_ you."

"Don't mention it," he replied, with perfect gravity. "I am very happy
to have been of any service to you."

Still they did not move from where they stood.

"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" she asked timidly.

"Do you?" he responded, looking at her with a smile.

"O dear no, thank you! I have had quite enough, and I am very anxious
to find my sisters."

"Then allow me to be your escort until you are clear of the streets."
He did not put it as a request, and he began to descend the steps
before she could make up her mind how to answer him. So she found
herself walking beside him along the footpath and through the Gardens,
wondering who he was, and how she could politely dismiss him--or how
soon he would dismiss her. Now and then she snatched a sidelong glance
at him, and noted his great stature and the easy dignity with which he
carried himself, and transferred one by one the striking features of
his countenance to her faithful memory. He made a powerful impression
upon her. Thinking of him, she had almost forgotten how anxious she
was to find her sisters until, with a start, she suddenly caught sight
of them sitting comfortably on a bench in an alley of the Fitzroy
Gardens, Eleanor and Patty side by side, and Paul Brion on the other
side of Eleanor. The three sprang up as soon as they saw her coming,
with gestures of eager welcome.

"Ah!" said Elizabeth, her face flaming with an entirely unnecessary
blush, "there are my sisters. I--I am all right now. I need not trouble
you any further. Thank you very much."

She paused, and so did he. She bent her head without lifting her eyes,
and he took off his hat to her with profound respect. And so they
parted--for a little while.

CHAPTER XVII.

AFTERNOON TEA.

When he had turned and left her, Elizabeth faced her sisters with
that vivid blush still on her cheeks, and a general appearance of
embarrassment that was too novel to escape notice. Patty and Eleanor
stared for a moment, and Eleanor laughed.

"Who is he?" she inquired saucily.

"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Where have you been, dears? How have
you got on? I have been so anxious about you."

"But who is he?" persisted Eleanor.

"I have not the least idea, I tell you. Perhaps Mr. Brion knows."

"No," said Mr. Brion. "He is a perfect stranger to me."

"He is a new arrival, I suppose," said Elizabeth, stealing a backward
glance at her hero, whom the others were watching intently as he walked
away. "Yes, he can have but just arrived, for he saw the last stone put
to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and that was not more than six or
seven weeks ago. He has come out to see the Exhibition, probably. He
seems to be a great traveller."

"Oh," said Eleanor, turning with a grimace to Patty, "here have we been
mooning about in the gardens, and she has been seeing everything, and
having adventures into the bargain!"

"It is very little I have seen," her elder sister remarked, "and this
will tell you the nature of my adventures"--and she showed them a rent
in her gown. "I was nearly torn to pieces by the crowd after you left.
I am only too thankful you were out of it."

"But we are not at all thankful," pouted Eleanor. "Are we, Patty?"
(Patty was silent, but apparently amiable.) "It is only the stitching
that is undone--you can mend it in five minutes. We wouldn't have
minded little trifles of that sort--not in the least--to have seen the
procession, and made the acquaintance of distinguished travellers. Were
there many more of them about, do you suppose?"

"O no," replied Elizabeth, promptly. "Only he."

"And you managed to find him! Why shouldn't we have found him
too--Patty and I? Do tell us his name, Elizabeth, and how you happened
on him, and what he has been saying and doing."

"He took care of me, dear--that's all. I was crushed almost into a
pulp, and he allowed me to--to stand beside him until the worst of it
was over."

"How interesting!" ejaculated Eleanor. "And then he talked to you about
Cologne Cathedral?"

"Yes. But never mind about him. Tell me where Mr. Brion found you, and
what you have been doing."

"Oh, _we_ have not been doing anything--far from it. I _wish_ you knew
his name, Elizabeth."

"But, my dear, I don't. So leave off asking silly questions. I daresay
we shall never see or hear of him again."

"Oh, don't you believe it! I'm _certain_ we shall see him again. He
will be at the Exhibition some day when we go there--to-morrow, very
likely."

"Well, well, never mind. What are we going to do now?"

They consulted with Paul for a few minutes, and he took them where they
could get a distant view of the crowds swarming around the Exhibition,
and hear the confused clamour of the bands--which seemed to gratify
the two younger sisters very much, in the absence of more pronounced
excitement. They walked about until they saw the Royal Standard hoisted
over the great dome, and heard the saluting guns proclaim that the
Exhibition was open; and then they returned to Myrtle Street, with a
sense of having had breakfast in the remote past, and of having spent
an enormously long morning not unpleasantly, upon the whole.

Mrs. M'Intyre was standing at her gate when they reached home, and
stopped them to ask what they had seen, and how they had enjoyed
themselves. _She_ had stayed quietly in the house, and busied herself
in the manufacture of meringues and lemon cheese-cakes--having, she
explained, superfluous eggs in the larder, and a new lodger coming in;
and she evidently prided herself upon her well-spent time. "And if
you'll stay, you shall have some," she said, and she opened the gate
hospitably. "Now, don't say no, Miss King--don't, Miss Nelly. It's past
one, and I've got a nice cutlet and mashed potatoes just coming on the
table. Bring them along, Mr. Brion. I'm sure they'll come if _you_ ask
them."

"We'll come without that," said Eleanor, walking boldly in. "At least,
I will. _I_ couldn't resist cutlets and mashed potatoes under present
circumstances--not to speak of lemon cheese-cakes and meringues--and
your society, Mrs. M'Intyre."

Paul held the gate open, and Elizabeth followed Eleanor, and Patty
followed Elizabeth. Patty did not look at him, but she was in a
peaceable disposition; seeing which, he felt happier than he had been
for months. They lunched together, with much enjoyment of the viands
placed before them, and of each other's company, feeling distinctly
that, however small had been their share in the demonstrations of the
day, the festival spirit was with them; and when they rose from the
table there was an obvious reluctance to separate.

"Now, I'll tell you what," said Eleanor; "we have had dinner with you,
Mrs. M'Intyre, and now you ought to come and have afternoon tea with
us. You have not been in to see us for _years_."

She looked at Elizabeth, who hastened to endorse the invitation, and
Mrs. M'Intyre consented to think about it.

"And may not I come too?" pleaded Paul, not daring to glance at his
little mistress, but appealing fervently to Elizabeth. "Mayn't I come
with Mrs. M'Intyre for a cup of tea, too?"

"Of course you may," said Elizabeth, and Eleanor nodded acquiescence,
and Patty gazed serenely out of the window. "Go and have your smoke
comfortably, and come in in about an hour."

With which the sisters left, and, as soon as they reached their
own quarters, set to work with something like enthusiasm to make
preparations for their expected guests. Before the hour was up, a
bright fire was blazing in their sitting-room, and a little table
beside it was spread comfortably with a snow-white cloth, and twinkling
crockery and spoons. The kettle was singing on the hearth, and a
plate of buttered muffins reposed under a napkin in the fender. The
window was open; so was the piano. Patty was flying from place to
place, with a duster in her hand, changing the position of the chairs,
and polishing the spotless surfaces of the furniture generally, with
anxious industry. _She_ had not asked Paul Brion to come to see them,
but since he was coming they might as well have the place decent, she
said.

When he came at last meekly creeping upstairs at Mrs. M'Intyre's heels,
Patty was nowhere to be seen. He looked all round as he crossed the
threshold, and took in the delicate air of cheerfulness, the almost
austere simplicity and orderliness that characterised the little room,
and made it quite different from any room he had ever seen; and then
his heart sank, and a cloud of disappointment fell over his eager face.
He braced himself to bear it. He made up his mind at once that he
had had his share of luck for that day, and must not expect anything
more. However, some minutes later, when Mrs. M'Intyre had made herself
comfortable by unhooking her jacket, and untying her bonnet strings,
and when Elizabeth was preparing to pour out the tea, Patty sauntered
in with some needlework in her hand--stitching as she walked--and took
a retired seat by the window. He seized upon a cup of tea and carried
it to her, and stood there as if to secure her before she could escape
again. As he approached she bent her head lower over her work, and
a little colour stole into her face; and then she lifted herself up
defiantly.

"Here is your tea, Miss Patty," he said, humbly.

"Thanks. Just put it down there, will you?"

She nodded towards a chair near her, and he set the cup down on it
carefully. But he did not go.

"You are very busy," he remarked.

"Yes," she replied, shortly. "I have wasted all the morning. Now I must
try to make up for it."

"Are you too busy to play something--presently, I mean, when you have
had your tea? I must go and work too, directly. I should so enjoy to
hear you play before I go."

She laid her sewing on her knee, reached for her cup, and began to
sip it with a relenting face. She asked him what kind of music he
preferred, and he said he didn't care, but he thought he liked "soft
things" best. "There was a thing you played last Sunday night," he
suggested; "quite late, just before you went to bed. It has been
running in my head ever since."

She balanced her teaspoon in her hand, and puckered her brows
thoughtfully. "Let me think--what was I playing on Sunday night?" she
murmured to herself. "It must have been one of the _Lieder_ surely--or,
perhaps, a Beethoven sonata? Or Batiste's andante in G perhaps?"

"Oh, I don't know the name of anything. I only remember that it was
very lovely and sad."

"But we shouldn't play sad things in the broad daylight, when people
want to gossip over their tea," she said, glancing at Mrs. M'Intyre,
who was energetically describing to Elizabeth the only proper way of
making tomato sauce. But she got up, all the same, and went over to the
piano, and began to play the andante just above a whisper, caressing
the soft pedal with her foot.

"Was that it?" she asked gently, smiling at him as he drew up a low
wicker chair and sat down at her elbow to listen.

"Go on," he murmured gratefully. "It was _like_ that."

And she went on--while Mrs. M'Intyre, having concluded her remarks upon
tomato sauce, detailed the results of her wide experience in orange
marmalade and quince jelly, and Elizabeth and Eleanor did their best
to profit by her wisdom--playing to him alone. It did not last very
long--a quarter of an hour perhaps--but every moment was an ecstasy
to Paul Brion. Even more than the music, delicious as it was, Patty's
gentle and approachable mood enchanted him. She had never been like
that to him before. He sat on his low chair, and looked up at her
tender profile as she drooped a little over the keys, throbbing with
a new sense of her sweetness and beauty, and learning more about his
own heart in those few minutes than all the previous weeks and months
of their acquaintance had taught him. And then the spell that had been
weaving and winding them together, as it seemed to him, was suddenly
and rudely broken. There was a clatter of wheels and hoofs along the
street, a swinging gate and a jangling door bell; and Eleanor, running
to the window, uttered an exclamation that effectually wakened him from
his dreams.

"Oh, _Elizabeth--Patty--_it is Mrs. Duff-Scott!"

In another minute the great lady herself stood amongst them, rustling
over the matting in her splendid gown, almost filling the little room
with her presence. Mrs. M'Intyre gave way before her, and edged towards
the door with modest, deprecatory movements, but Paul stood where
he had risen, as stiff as a poker, and glared at her with murderous
ferocity.

"You see I have come back, my dears," she exclaimed, cordially, kissing
the girls one after the other. "And I am so sorry I could not get to
you in time to make arrangements for taking you with me to see the
opening--I quite intended to take you. But I only returned last night."

"Oh, thank you," responded Elizabeth, with warm gratitude, "it is treat
enough for us to see you again." And then, hesitating a little as she
wondered whether it was or was not a proper thing to do, she looked at
her other guests and murmured their names. Upon which Mrs. M'Intyre
made a servile curtsey, unworthy of a daughter of a free country, and
Paul a most reluctant inclination of the head. To which again Mrs.
Duff-Scott responded by a slight nod and a glance of good-humoured
curiosity at them both.

"I'll say good afternoon, Miss King," said Mr. Brion haughtily.

"Oh, _good_ afternoon," replied Elizabeth, smiling sweetly. And she and
her sisters shook hands with him and with his landlady, and the pair
departed in some haste, Paul in a worse temper than he had ever known
himself to indulge in; and he was not much mollified by the sudden
appearance of Elizabeth, as he was fumbling with the handle of the
front door, bearing her evident if unspoken apologies for having seemed
to turn him out.

"You will come with Mrs. M'Intyre another time," she suggested kindly,
"and have some more music? I would have asked you to stay longer
to-day, but we haven't seen Mrs. Duff-Scott for such a long time--"

"Oh, pray don't mention it," he interrupted stiffly. "I should have had
to leave in any case, for my work is all behind-hand."

"Ah, that is because we have been wasting your time!"

"Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use--in the absence of your
other friends."

She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned
to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain
her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly
indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want
your books changed or anything?"

She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment;
and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I--I think _you_ have a book
that I should like to borrow--if I might."

"Most happy. What book is it?"

"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete
edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present.
I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about
a man being hanged--and a crowd--" She broke off with an embarrassed
laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.

"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled
'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches'--"

"That is the book I mean."

"All right--I'll get it and send it in to you at once--with pleasure."

"Oh, _thank_ you. I'm _so_ much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest
care of it," she assured him fervently.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.

Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying
to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father
was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been
inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere
accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott,
serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions
upon the subject.

"Don't encourage him, my dears--don't encourage him to come again," she
was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two
very different people, whatever they may think."

"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has
done so much for us."

"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls _can't_ be grateful to young
men--don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got
_me_ to do things for you."

"But he helped us when we had no one else."

"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him--a
privilege--for _him_ to be grateful for rather than you. But--well,
Elizabeth knows what I mean"--turning an expressive glance towards the
discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and
Elizabeth answered both of them at once.

"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.

"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his
place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you
know--that is what I mean."

"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with
heightened colour.

"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is
_a friend of Mrs. Aarons's_."

"And is not Mrs. Aarons--"

"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about
her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in
the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but
still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends
are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly,
my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of
experience."

She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary,
indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was
dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference
to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and
her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible
idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned
away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from
throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and,
like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined
to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard.
Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power
to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely
necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance.
Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social
circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In
her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking
down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate
to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of
interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the
ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across
this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at
the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic
influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her
hint would take its full effect.

She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves,
while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of
bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping
pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies,
as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition
building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of
the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I
shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be
seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world,
and I can't allow you to neglect it."

"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging
ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading--at least none
worth doing--for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of
yesterday and all this morning--"

"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.

They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing
the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious
person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young
man"--though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.

"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her
far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are
a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public
Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary
studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn
what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of
the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in--a--what
shall I call it--social science?--the study of human nature?"

Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told
her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often
as they could. But--but their literary studies were their equipment for
the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great
world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?

"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There
is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the
present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it--until we
get old--and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we
have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've
got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store
you can, of course--take all reasonable precautions to insure as
satisfactory a future as possible--but don't forget that the Present is
the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter
what your circumstances may be."

The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be
right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too
young to be convinced by another person's experience.

"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded,
"and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what
the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long
day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll--I'll--" She broke
off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising
embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.

"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you,
but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly--you
won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being
under obligations--it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true
generosity, when it is the case of a friend who--" She stammered and
hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at
a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it
was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her
hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up
stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently
fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.

"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things
from another who is not a relation--I know that. _Not_ because it
is improper--it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for
people to help each other--but because in so many cases it can never
happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so--so
superficial? But I--Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great
deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to
fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china,
or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I
have taken a fancy to you--I have grown _fond_ of you--and I have
made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted
daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in
return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let
me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure,
than I could do for you."

"O no--no--_no!_" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her
hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would
do everything for us, and we _could_ do nothing for you. You would
overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps--perhaps, by-and-bye, you
would not care about us so much as you do now--we might want to do
something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves _obliged_
to do, however much you disliked it--and if you got vexed with us, or
tired of us--oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret
that you had--had--made us seem to belong to you. And how we should
hate ourselves."

She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her
eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.

"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that
_you_ are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.

But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs.
Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne
remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the
question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six
o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into
some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than
any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked
both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans
for the welfare of her _protégées_, and until she had designed down to
the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for
them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.

CHAPTER XIX.

A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION.

Paul Brion was wakened from his sleep next morning by the sound of Mrs.
Duff-Scott's carriage wheels and prancing horses, and sauntering to
his sitting-room window about ten minutes later, had the satisfaction
of seeing his young neighbours step into the distinguished vehicle and
drive away. There was Elizabeth reposing by her chaperon's side, as
serene as a princess who had never set foot on common earth; and there
were Patty and Eleanor, smiling and animated, lovelier than their wont,
if that could be, nestling under the shadow of two tall men-servants
in irreproachable liveries, with cockades upon their hats. It was a
pretty sight, but it spoiled his appetite for his breakfast. He could
no longer pretend that he was thankful for the fruition of his desires
on their behalf. He could only feel that they were gone, and that he
was left behind--that a great gulf had suddenly opened between them and
him and the humble and happy circumstances of yesterday, with no bridge
across it that he could walk over.

The girls, for their part, practically forgot him, and enjoyed the
difference between to-day and yesterday in the most worldly and
womanly manner. The sensation of bowling along the streets in a
perfectly-appointed carriage was as delicious to them as it is to most
of us who are too poor to indulge in it as a habit; for the time being
it answered all the purposes of happiness as thoroughly as if they had
never had any higher ambition than to cut a dash. They went shopping
with the fairy godmother before they went to the Exhibition, and that,
too, was absorbingly delightful--both to Elizabeth, who went in with
Mrs. Duff-Scott to assist her in her purchases, and to the younger
sisters, who reposed majestically in the carriage at the door. Patty's
quick eyes caught sight of Mrs. Aarons and a pair of her long-nosed
children walking on the pavement, and she cheerfully owned herself a
snob and gloried in it. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, she said,
to sit there and look down upon Mrs. Aarons.

As they passed the Melbourne Club on their way to the Exhibition, the
coachman was hailed by the elder of two gentlemen who were sauntering
down the steps, and they were introduced for the first time to the
fairy godmother's husband. Major Duff-Scott, an ex-officer of dragoons
and a late prominent public man of his colony (he was prominent
still, but for his social, and not his official qualifications), was
a well-dressed and well-preserved old gentleman, who, having sown a
large and miscellaneous crop of wild oats in the course of a long
career, had been rewarded with great wealth and all the privileges
of the highest respectability. He had been a prodigal, but he had
enjoyed it--never knowing the bitterness of either hunger or husks.
He had tasted dry bread at times, as a matter of course, but only
just enough of it to give a proper relish to the abundant cakes and
ale that were his portion; and the proverb which says you cannot eat
your cake and have it was a perfectly dead letter in his case. He had
been eating his all his life, and he had got it still. In person he
was the most gentle-looking little man imaginable--about half the size
of his imposing wife, thin and spare, and with a little stoop in his
shoulders; but there was an alertness in his step and a brightness in
his eye, twinkling remotely between the shadow of his hat brim and a
bulging mass of white moustache that covered all the lower part of
his small face, which had suggestions of youth and vigour about them
that were lacking in the figure and physiognomy of the young man at
his side. When he came up to the carriage door to be introduced to his
wife's _protégées_, whom he greeted with as much cordiality as Mrs.
Duff-Scott could have desired, they did not know why it was that they
so immediately lost the sense of awe with which they had contemplated
the approach of a person destined to have so formidable a relation to
themselves. They shook hands with him, they made modest replies to his
polite inquiries, they looked beyond his ostensible person to the eyes
that looked at them; and then their three grave faces relaxed, and in
half a minute were brimming over with smiles. They felt at home with
Major Duff-Scott at once.

"Come, come," said the fairy godmother rather impatiently, when
something like a fine aroma of badinage was beginning to perfume
the conversation, "you must not stop us now. We want to have a long
morning. You can join us at the Exhibition presently, if you like,
and bring Mr. Westmoreland." She indicated the young man who had
been talking to her while her spouse made the acquaintance of her
companions, and who happened to be one of the three husbands whom she
had selected for those young ladies. He was the richest of them all,
and the most stupid, and therefore he seemed to be cut out for Patty,
who, being so intellectual and so enterprising, would not only make
a good use of his money, but would make the best that was to be made
of _him_. "My dears," she said, turning towards the girls, "let me
introduce Mr. Westmoreland to you. Mr. Westmoreland, Miss King--Miss
Eleanor King--Miss _Patty_ King."

The heavy young man made a heavy bow to each, and then stared straight
at Eleanor, and studied her with calm attention until the carriage bore
her from his sight. She, with her tender blue eyes and her yellow hair,
and her skin like the petals of a blush rose, was what he was pleased
to call, in speaking of her a little later to a confidential friend,
the "girl for him." Of Patty he took no notice whatever.

Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to Carlton, stopped to speak to an
acquaintance who was driving in an opposite direction, and by the time
she reached the Exhibition, she found that her husband's hansom had
arrived before her, and that he and Mr. Westmoreland were waiting at
the entrance to offer their services as escort to the party. The major
was the best of husbands, but he was not in the habit of paying her
these small attentions; and Mr. Westmoreland had never been known,
within her memory of him, to put himself to so much trouble for a
lady's convenience. Wherefore the fairy godmother smiled upon them
both, and felt that the Fates were altogether propitious to her little
schemes. They walked up the pathway in a group, fell necessarily into
single file in the narrow passage where they received and returned
their tickets, and collected in a group again under the great dome,
where they stood to look round on the twenty acres of covered space
heaped with the treasures of those nations which Victoria welcomed in
great letters on the walls. Mrs. Duff-Scott hooked her gold-rimmed
glasses over her nose, and pointed out to her husband wherein the
building was deficient, and wherein superfluous, in its internal
arrangements and decorations. In her opinion--which placed the matter
beyond discussion--the symbolical groups over the arches were all out
of drawing, the colouring of the whole place vulgar to a degree, and
the painted clouds inside the cupola enough to make one sick. The
major endorsed her criticisms, perfunctorily, with amused little nods,
glancing hither and thither in the directions she desired. "Ah, my
dear," said he, "you mustn't expect everybody to have such good taste
as yours." Mr. Westmoreland seemed to have exhausted the Exhibition,
for his part; he had seen it all the day before, he explained, and he
did not see what there was to make a fuss about. With the exception
of some mysteries in the basement, into which he darkly hinted a
desire to initiate the major presently, it had nothing about it to
interest a man who, like him, had just returned from Europe and had
seen the Paris affair. But to our girls it was an enchanted palace of
delights--far exceeding their most extravagant anticipations. They
gave no verbal expression to their sentiments, but they looked at each
other with faces full of exalted emotion, and tacitly agreed that they
were perfectly satisfied. The fascination of the place, as a storehouse
of genuine samples of the treasures of that great world which they
had never seen, laid hold of them with a grip that left a lasting
impression. Even the _rococo_ magnificence of the architecture and its
adornments, which Mrs. Duff-Scott, enlightened by a large experience,
despised, affected their untrained imaginations with all the force of
the highest artistic sublimity. A longing took possession of them all
at the same moment to steal back to-morrow--next day--as soon as they
were free again to follow their own devices--and wander about the great
and wonderful labyrinth by themselves and revel unobserved in their
secret enthusiasms.

However, they enjoyed themselves to-day beyond all expectation. After
skimming the cream of the many sensations offered to them, sauntering
up and down and round and round through the larger thoroughfares in
a straggling group, the little party, fixing upon their place of
rendezvous and lunching arrangements, paired themselves for a closer
inspection of such works of art as they were severally inclined to.
Mrs. Duff-Scott kept Patty by her side, partly because Mr. Westmoreland
did not seem to want her, and partly because the girl was such an
interesting companion, being wholly absorbed in what she had come
to see, and full of intelligent appreciation of everything that was
pointed out to her; and this pair went a-hunting in the wildernesses of
miscellaneous pottery for such unique and precious "bits" as might be
secured, on the early bird principle, for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.
Very soon that lady's card was hanging round the necks of all sorts of
quaint vessels that she had greedily pounced upon (and which further
researches proved to be relatively unworthy of notice) in her anxiety
to outwit and frustrate the birds that would come round presently;
while Patty was having her first lesson in china, and showing herself a
delightfully precocious pupil. Mr. Westmoreland confined his attentions
exclusively to Eleanor, who by-and-bye found herself interested in
being made so much of, and even inclined to be a little frivolous. She
did not know whether to take him as a joke or in earnest, but either
way he was amusing. He strolled heavily along by her side for awhile
in the wake of Mrs. Duff-Scott and Patty, paying no attention to the
dazzling wares around him, but a great deal to his companion. He kept
turning his head to gaze at her, with solemn, ruminating eyes, until at
last, tired of pretending she did not notice it, she looked back at him
and laughed. This seemed to put him at his ease with her at once.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, with more animation than she
thought him capable of.

"Nothing," said she.

"Oh, but you were laughing at something. What was it? Was it because I
was staring at you?"

"Well, you _do_ stare," she admitted.

"I can't help it. No one could help staring at you."

"Why? Am I such a curiosity?"

"You know why. Don't pretend you don't."

She blushed at this, making herself look prettier than ever; it was not
in her to pretend she didn't know--nor yet to pretend that his crude
flattery displeased her.

"A cat may look at a king," he remarked, his heavy face quite lit up
with his enjoyment of his own delicate raillery.

"O yes, certainly," she retorted. "But you see I am not a king, and you
are not a cat."

"'Pon my word, you're awfully sharp," he rejoined, admiringly. And
he laughed over this little joke at intervals for several minutes.
Then by degrees they dropped away from their party, and went straying
up and down the nave _tête-à-tête_ amongst the crowd, looking at the
exhibits and not much understanding what they looked at; and they
carried on their conversation in much the same style as they began it,
with, I grieve to say, considerable mutual enjoyment. By-and-bye Mr.
Westmoreland took his young companion to the German tent, where the
Hanau jewels were, by way of giving her the greatest treat he could
think of. He betted her sixpence that he could tell her which necklace
she liked the best, and he showed her the several articles (worth
some thousands of pounds) which he should have selected for his wife,
had he had a wife--declaring in the same breath that they were very
poor things in comparison with such and such other things that he had
seen elsewhere. Then they strolled along the gallery, glancing at the
pictures as they went, Eleanor making mental notes for future study,
but finding herself unable to study anything in Mr. Westmoreland's
company. And then suddenly came a tall figure towards them--a
gentlemanly man with a brown face and a red moustache--at sight of whom
she gave a a little start of delighted recognition.

"Hullo!" cried Mr. Westmoreland, "there's old Yelverton, I do declare.
He _said_ he'd come over to have a look at the Exhibition."

Old Yelverton was no other than "Elizabeth's young man."

CHAPTER XX.

CHINA V. THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY.

Meanwhile, Major Duff-Scott took charge of Elizabeth, and he was
very well satisfied with the arrangement that left her to his care.
He always preferred a mature woman to a young girl, as being a more
interesting and intelligent companion, and he admired her when on a
generous scale, as is the wont of small men. Elizabeth's frank face
and simple manners and majestic physical proportions struck him as an
admirable combination. "A fine woman," he called her, speaking of her
later to his wife: "reminds me of what you were when I married you,
my dear." And when he got to know her better he called her "a fine
creature"--which meant that he recognised other good qualities in her
besides that of a lofty stature.

As soon as Mrs. Duff-Scott stated her intention of going to see "what
she could pick up," the major waved his hand and begged that he might
be allowed to resign all his responsibilities on her behalf. "Buy what
you like, my dear, buy what you like," he said plaintively, "but don't
ask me to come and look on while you do it. Take Westmoreland--I'm sure
he would enjoy it immensely."

"Don't flatter yourselves that I shall ask either of you," retorted his
wife. "You would be rather in the way than otherwise. I've got Patty."

"Oh, she's got Patty!" he repeated, looking with gentle mournfulness at
the young lady in question, while his far-off eyes twinkled under his
hat brim. "I trust you are fond of china, Miss Patty."

"I am fond of _everything_," Patty fervently replied.

"Oh, that's right. You and Mrs. Duff-Scott will get on together
admirably, I foresee. Come, Miss King"--turning to Elizabeth--"let us
go and see what _we_ can discover in the way of desirable bric-à-brac.
We'll have a look at the Murano ware for you, my dear, if you
like"--again addressing his wife softly--"and come back and tell you
if there is anything particularly choice. I know they have a lovely
bonnet there, all made of the sweetest Venetian glass and trimmed with
blue velvet. But you could take the velvet off, you know, and trim it
with a mirror. Those wreaths of leaves and flowers, and beautiful pink
braids--"

"Oh, go along!" she interrupted impatiently. "Elizabeth, take care of
him, and don't let him buy anything, but see what is there and tell me.
I'm not going to put any of that modern stuff with my sixteenth century
cup and bottle," she added, looking at nobody in particular, with a
sudden brightening of her eyes; "but if there is anything pretty that
will do for my new cabinet in the morning room--or for the table--I
should like to have the first choice."

"Very well," assented her husband, meekly. "Come along, Miss King.
We'll promise not to buy anything." He and Elizabeth then set off on
their own account, and Elizabeth found herself led straight to the foot
of a staircase, where the little major offered his arm to assist her in
the ascent.

"But the Murano Court is not upstairs, is it?" she asked, hesitating.

"O no," he replied; "it is over there," giving a little backward nod.

"And are we not going to look at the glass?"

"Not at present," he said, softly. "That will keep. We'll look at it
by-and-bye. First, I am going to show you the pictures. You are fond of
pictures, are you not?"

"I am, indeed."

"Yes, I was certain of it. Come along, then, I can show you a few
tolerably good ones. Won't you take my arm?"

She took his arm, as he seemed to expect it, though it would have
been more reasonable if he had taken hers; and they marched upstairs,
slowly, in face of the crowd that was coming down.

"My wife," said the major, sententiously, "is one of the best women
that ever breathed."

"I am _sure_ she is," assented Elizabeth, with warmth.

"No," he said, "_you_ can't be sure; that is why I tell you. I have
known her a long time, and experience has proved it to me. She is one
of the best women that ever lived. But she has her faults. I think I
ought to warn you, Miss King, that she has her faults."

"I think you ought not," said Elizabeth, with instinctive propriety.

"Yes," he went on, "it is a point of honour. I owe it to you, as the
head of my house--the nominal head, you understand--the responsible
head--not to let you labour under any delusion respecting us. It
is best that you should know the truth at once. Mrs. Duff-Scott is
_energetic_. She is fearfully, I may say abnormally, energetic."

"I think," replied Elizabeth, with decision, "that that is one of the
finest qualities in the world."

"Ah, do you?" he rejoined sadly. "That is because you are young. I
used to think so, too, when I was young. But I don't now--experience
has taught me better. What I object to in my wife is that experience