"But--I'm not a bit superstitious," says he solemnly. "But it might
affect you in some way, do you some harm, and--"

"If you are going to make a jest of it, Freddy----"

"It is you who have made the jest. Well; never mind, I accept the
responsibility, and will create even another taradiddle. If I say we are
disinclined to leave home just now, will that do?"

"Yes," says she, after a second's struggle with her better self, in
which it comes off the loser.

"That's settled, then," says Mr. Monkton. "Peace with honor is assured.
Let us forget that unfortunate letter, and all the appurtenances
thereof."

"Yes: do let us, Freddy," says she, as if with all her heart.

But the morning convinces Monkton that the question of the letter still
remains unsettled. Barbara, for one thing, has come down to breakfast
gowned in her very best morning frock, one reserved for those rare
occasions when people drop in over night and sleep with them. She has,
indeed, all the festive appearance of a person who expects to be called
away at a second's notice into a very vertex of dissipation.

Joyce, who is quite as impressed as Monkton with her appearance, gazes
at her with a furtive amazement, and both she and Monkton wait in a sort
of studied silence to know the meaning of it. They aren't given long to
possess their souls in patience.

"Freddy, I don't think Mabel ought to have any more jam," says Mrs.
Monkton, presently, "or Tommy either." She looks at the children as she
speaks, and sighs softly. "It will cost a great deal," says she.

"The jam!" says her husband. "Well, really, at the rate they are
consuming it--I----"

"Oh, no. The railway--the boat--the fare--the whole journey," says she.

"The journey?" says Joyce.

"Why, to England, to take them over there to see their grandmother,"
says Mrs. Monkton calmly.

"But, Barbara----"

"Well, dear?"

"I thought----"

"Barbara! I really consider that question decided," says her husband,
not severely, however. Is the dearest wish of his heart to be
accomplished at last? "I thought you had finally made up your mind to
refuse my mother's invitation?"

"I shall not refuse it," says she, slowly, "whatever you may do."

"I?"

"You said you didn't want to go," says his wife severely. "But I have
been thinking it over, and----" Her tone has changed, and a slight touch
of pink has come into her pretty cheeks. "After all, Freddy, why should
I be the one to keep you from your people?"

"You aren't keeping me. Don't go on that."

"Well, then, will you go by yourself and see them?"

"Certainly not."

"Not even if I give you the children to take over?".

"Not even then."

"You see," says she, with a sort of sad triumph, "I am keeping you from
them. What I mean is, that if you had never met me you would now be
friends with them."

"I'd a great deal rather be friends with you," says he struggling wildly
but firmly with a mutton chop that has been done to death by a bad cook.

"I know that," in a low and troubled tone, "but I know, too, that there
is always unhappiness where one is on bad terms with one's father and
mother."

"My dear girl, I can't say what bee you have got in your bonnet now, but
I beg you to believe, I am perfectly happy at this present moment, in
spite of this confounded chop that has been done to a chip. 'God sends
meat, the devil sends cooks.' That's not a prayer, Tommy, you needn't
commit it to memory."

"But there's 'God' and the 'devil' in it," says Tommy, skeptically:
"that always means prayers."

"Not this time. And you can't pray to both; your mother has taught you
that; you should teach her something in return. That's only fair, isn't
it?"

"She knows everything," says Tommy, dejectedly. It is quite plain to his
hearers that he regrets his mother's universal knowledge--that he would
have dearly liked to give her a lesson or two.

"Not everything," says his father. "For example, she cannot understand
that I am the happiest man in the world; she imagines I should be better
off if she was somebody else's wife and somebody else's mother."

"Whose mother?" demands Tommy, his eyes growing round.

"Ah, that's just it. You must ask her. She has evidently some _arrière
pensée_."

"Freddy," says his wife in a low tone.

"Well! What am I to think? You see," to Tommy, who is now deeply
interested, "if she wasn't your mother, she'd be somebody else's."

"No, she wouldn't," breaks in Tommy, indignantly. "I wouldn't let her,
I'd hold on to her. I--" with his mouth full of strawberry jam, yet
striving nobly to overcome his difficulties of expression, "I'd beat
her!"

"You shouldn't usurp my privileges," says his father, mildly.

"Barbara!" says Joyce, at this moment. "If you have decided on going to
London, I think you have decided wisely; and it may not be such an
expense after all. You and Freddy can manage the two eldest children
very well on the journey, and I can look after baby until you return. Or
else take nurse, and leave baby entirely to me."

Mrs. Monkton makes a quick movement.

CHAPTER XXXII.

    "And I go to brave a world I hate,
      And woo it o'er and o'er;
    And tempt a wave and try a fate
      Upon a stranger shore."

"I shall take the three children and you, too, or I shall not go at
all," says she, addressing her sister with an air of decision.

"If you have really made up your mind about it," says Mr. Monkton, "I
agree with you. The house in Harley street is big enough for a regiment,
and my mother says the servants will be in it on our arrival, if we
accept the invitation. Joyce will be a great comfort to us, and a help
on the journey over, the children are so fond of her."

Joyce turns her face to her brother-in-law and smiles in a little
pleased way. She has been so grave of late that they welcome a smile
from her now at any time, and even court k. The pretty lips, erstwhile
so prone to laughter, are now too serious by far. When, therefore,
Monkton or his wife go out of their way to gain a pleased glance from
her and succeed, both feel as if they had achieved a victory.

"Why have they offered us a separate establishment? Was there no room
for us in their own house?" asks Mrs. Monkton presently.

"I dare say they thought we should be happier, so--in a place of our
own."

"Well, I dare say we shall." She pauses for a moment. "Why are they in
town now--at this time of year? Why are they not in their country
house?"

"Ah! that is a last thorn in their flesh," says Monkton, with a quick
sigh. "They have had to let the old place to pay my brother's debts. He
is always a trouble to them. This last letter points to greater trouble
still."

"And in their trouble they have turned to you--to the little
grandchildren," says Joyce, softly. "One can understand it."

"Oh, yes. Oh, you should have told me," says Barbara, flushing as if
with pain. "I am the hardest person alive, I think. You think it?"
looking directly at her husband.

"I think only one thing of you," says Mr. Monkton, rising from the
breakfast table with a slight laugh. "It is what I have always thought,
that you are the dearest and loveliest thing on earth." The bantering
air he throws into this speech does not entirely deprive it of the
truthful tenderness that formed it. "There," says he, "that ought to
take the gloom off the brow of any well-regulated woman, coming as it
does from an eight-year-old husband."

"Oh, you must be older than that," says she, at which they all laugh
together.

"You are wise to go, Barbara," says Joyce, now in a livelier way, as if
that last quick, unexpected feeling of amusement has roused her to a
sharper sense of life. "If once they see you!--No, you mustn't put up
your shoulder like that--I tell you, if once they looked at you, they
would feel the measure of their folly."

"I shall end by fancying myself," says Mrs. Monkton, impatiently, "and
then you will all have fresh work cut out for you; the bringing of me
back to my proper senses. Well," with a sigh, "as I have to see them, I
wish----"

"What?"

"That I could be a heartier believer in your and Joyce's flattery, or
else, that they, your people, were not so prejudiced against me. It will
be an ordeal."

"When you are about it wish them a few grains of common sense," says her
husband wrathfully. "Just fancy the folly of an impertinence that
condemned a fellow being on no evidence whatsoever; neither eye nor ear
were brought in as witnesses."

"Oh, well," says she, considerably mollified by his defamation of his
people, "I dare say they are not so much to be blamed after all. And,"
with a little, quick laugh at her sister, "as Joyce says, my beauties
are still unknown to them; they will be delighted when they see me."

"They will, indeed," returns Joyce stolidly. "And so you are really
going to take me with you. Oh, I am glad. I haven't spent any of my
money this winter, Barbara; I have some, therefore, and I have always
wanted to see London."

"It will be a change for the children, too," says Barbara, with a
troubled sigh. "I suppose," to her husband, "they will think them very
countrified."

"Who?"

"Your mother--"

"What do you think of them?"

"Oh, that has got nothing to do with it."

"Everything rather. You are analyzing them. You are exalting an old
woman who has been unkind to you at the expense of the children who love
you!"

"Ah, she analyzes them because she too loves them," says Joyce. "It is
easy to pick faults in those who have a real hold upon our hearts. For
the rest--it doesn't concern us how the world regards them."

"It sounds as if it ought to read the other way round," says Monkton.

"No, no. To love is to see faults, not to be blind to them. The old
reading is wrong," says Joyce.

"You are unfair, Freddy," declares his wife with dignity; "I would not
decry the children. I am only a little nervous as to their reception.
When I know that your father and mother are prepared to receive them as
my children, I know they will get but little mercy at their hands."

"That speech isn't like you," says Monkton, "but it is impossible to
blame you for it."

"They are the dearest children in the world," says Joyce. "Don't think
of them. They must succeed. Let them alone to fight their own battles."

"You may certainly depend upon Tommy," says his father. "For any
emergency that calls for fists and heels, where battle, murder and
sudden death are to be looked for, Tommy will be all there."

"Oh! I do hope he will be good," says his mother, half amused, but
plainly half terrified as well.

Two weeks later sees them settled in town, in the Harley street house,
that seems enormous and unfriendly to Mrs. Monkton, but delightful to
Joyce and the children, who wander from room to room and, under her
guidance, pretend to find bears and lions and bogies in every corner.

The meeting between Barbara and Lady Monkton had not been satisfactory.
There had been very little said on either side, but the chill that lay
on the whole interview had never thawed for a moment.

Barbara had been stiff and cold, if entirely polite, but not at all the
Barbara to whom her husband had been up to this accustomed. He did not
blame her for the change of front under the circumstances, but he could
hardly fail to regret it, and it puzzled him a great deal to know how
she did it.

He was dreadfully sorry about it secretly, and would have given very
much more than the whole thing was worth to let his father and mother
see his wife as she really is--the true Barbara.

Lady Monkton had been stiff, too; unpardonably so--as it was certainly
her place to make amends--to soften and smooth down the preliminary
embarrassment. But then she had never been framed for suavity of any
sort; and an old aunt of Monkton's, a sister of hers, had been present
during the interview, and had helped considerably to keep up the
frigidity of the atmosphere.

She was not a bad old woman at heart, this aunt. She had indeed from
time to time given up all her own small patrimony to help her sister to
get the eldest son out of his many disreputable difficulties. She had
done this, partly for the sake of the good old family names on both
sides, and partly because the younger George Monkton was very dear to
her.

From his early boyhood the scapegrace of the family had been her
admiration, and still remained so, in imagination. For years she had not
seen him, and perhaps this (that she considered a grievance) was a
kindness vouchsafed to her by Providence. Had she seen the pretty boy of
twenty years ago as he now is she would not have recognized him. The
change from the merry, blue-eyed, daring lad of the past to the bloated,
blear-eyed, reckless-looking man of to-day would have been a shock too
cruel for her to bear. But this she was not allowed to realize, and so
remained true to her belief in him, as she remembered him.

In spite of her many good qualities, she was, nevertheless, a dreadful
woman; the more dreadful to the ordinary visitor because of the false
front she wore, and the flashing purchased teeth that shone in her upper
jaw. She lived entirely with Sir George and Lady Monkton, having indeed
given them every penny that would have enabled her to live elsewhere.
Perhaps of all the many spites they owed their elder son, the fact that
his iniquities had inflicted upon them his maternal aunt for the rest of
her natural days, was the one that rankled keenest.

She disliked Frederic, not only intensely, but with an openness that had
its disadvantages--not for any greater reason than that he had behaved
himself so far in his journey through life more creditably than his
brother. She had always made a point against him of his undutiful
marriage, and never failed, to add fuel to the fire of his father's and
mother's resentment about it, whenever that fire seemed to burn low.

Altogether, she was by no means an amiable old lady, and, being very
hideous into the bargain, was not much run after by society generally.
She wasn't of the least consequence in any way, being not only old but
very poor; yet people dreaded her, and would slip away round doors and
corners to avoid her tongue. She succeeded, in spite of all drawbacks,
in making herself felt; and it was only one or two impervious beings,
such is Dicky Browne for example (who knew the Monktons well, and was
indeed distantly connected with them through his mother), who could
endure her manners with any attempt at equanimity.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

    "Strength wanting judgment and policy to rule overturneth itself."

It was quite impossible, of course, that a first visit to Lady Monkton
should be a last from Barbara. Lady Monkton had called on her the very
day after her arrival in town, but Barbara had been out then. On the
occasion of the latter's return visit the old woman had explained that
going out was a trial to her, and Barbara, in spite of her unconquerable
dislike to her, had felt it to be her duty to go and see her now and
then. The children, too, had been a great resource. Sir George,
especially, had taken to Tommy, who was quite unabashed by the grandeur
of the stately, if faded, old rooms in the Belgravian mansion, but was
full of curiosity, and spent his visits to his grandfather
cross-examining him about divers matters--questionable and
otherwise--that tickled the old man and kept him laughing.

It had struck Barbara that Sir George had left off laughing for some
time. He looked haggard--uneasy--miserably expectant. She liked him
better than she liked Lady Monkton, and, though reserved with both,
relaxed more to him than to her mother-in-law. For one thing, Sir George
had been unmistakably appreciative of her beauty, and her soft voice and
pretty manners. He liked them all. Lady Monkton had probably noticed
them quite as keenly, but they had not pleased her. They were indeed an
offence. They had placed her in the wrong. As for old Miss L'Estrange,
the aunt, she regarded the young wife from the first with a dislike she
took no pains to conceal.

This afternoon, one of many that Barbara has given up to duty, finds her
as usual in Lady Monkton's drawing room listening to her mother-in-law's
comments on this and that, and trying to keep up her temper, for
Frederic's sake, when the old lady finds fault with her management of
the children.

The latter (that is, Tommy and Mabel) have been sent to the pantomime by
Sir George, and Barbara with her husband have dropped in towards the
close of the day to see Lady Monkton, with a view to recovering the
children there, and taking them home with them, Sir George having
expressed a wish to see the little ones after the play, and hear Tommy's
criticisms on it, which he promised himself would be lively. He had
already a great belief in the powers of Tommy's descriptions.

In the meantime the children have not returned, and conversation, it
must be confessed, languishes. Miss L'Estrange, who is present in a cap
of enormous dimensions and a temper calculated to make life hideous to
her neighbors, scarcely helps to render more bearable the dullness of
everything. Sir George in a corner is buttonholing Frederic and
saddening him with last accounts of the Scapegrace.

Barbara has come to her final pretty speech--silence seems
imminent--when suddenly Lady Monkton flings into it a bombshell that
explodes, and carries away with it all fear of commonplace dullness at
all events.

"You have a sister, I believe," says she to Barbara in a tone she fondly
but erroneously imagines gracious.

"Yes," says Barbara, softly but curtly. The fact that Joyce's existence
has never hitherto been alluded to by Lady Monkton renders her manner
even colder than usual, which is saying everything.

"She lives with you?"

"Yes," says Barbara again.

Lady Monkton, as if a little put out by the determined taciturnity of
her manner, moves forward on her seat, and pulls the lace lappets of her
dove-gray cap more over to the front impatiently. Long, soft lappets
they are, falling from a gem of a little cap, made of priceless lace,
and with a beautiful old face beneath to frame. A face like an old
miniature; and as stern as most of them, but charming for all that and
perfect in every line.

"Makes herself useful, no doubt," growls Miss L'Estrange from the
opposite lounge, her evil old countenance glowing with the desire to
offend. "That's why one harbors one's poor relations--to get something
out of them."

This is a double-barrelled explosion. One barrel for the detested wife
of the good Frederic, one for the sister she has befriended--to that
sister's cost.

"True," says Lady Monkton, with an uncivil little upward glance at
Barbara. For once--because it suits her--she has accepted her sister's
argument, and determined to take no heed of her scarcely veiled insult.
"She helps you, no doubt. Is useful with the children, I hope. Moneyless
girls should remember that they are born into the world to work, not to
idle."

"I am afraid she is not as much help to me as you evidently think
necessary," says Barbara smiling, but not pleasantly. "She is very
seldom at home; in the summer at all events." It is abominable to her to
think that these hateful old people should regard Joyce, her pretty
Joyce, as a mere servant, a sisterly maid-of-all-work.

"And if not with you--where then?" asks Lady Monkton, indifferently, and
as if more with a desire to keep up the dying conversation than from any
acute thirst for knowledge.

"She stays a good deal with Lady Baltimore," says Barbara, feeling
weary, and rather disgusted.

"Ah! indeed! Sort of companion--a governess, I suppose?"

A long pause. Mrs. Monkton's dark eyes grow dangerously bright, and a
quick color springs into her cheeks.

"No!" begins she, in a low but indignant tone, and then suppresses
herself. She can't, she mustn't quarrel with Freddy's people! "My sister
is neither companion nor governess to Lady Baltimore," says she icily.
"She is only her friend."

"Friend?" repeats the old lady, as if not quite understanding.

"A great friend," repeats Barbara calmly. Lady Monkton's astonishment is
even more insulting than her first question. But Barbara has made up her
mind to bear all things.

"There are friends and friends," puts in Miss L'Estrange with her most
offensive air.

A very embarrassing silence falls on this, Barbara would say nothing
more, an inborn sense of dignity forbidding her. But this does not
prevent a very natural desire on her part to look at her husband, not so
much to claim his support as to know if he has heard.

One glance assures her that he has. A pause in the conversation with his
father has enabled him to hear everything. Barbara has just time to note
that his brow is black and his lips ominously compressed before she sees
him advance toward his mother.

"You seem to, be very singularly ignorant of my wife's status in
society----" he is beginning is a rather terrible tone, when Barbara,
with a little graceful gesture, checks him. She puts out her hand and
smiles up at him, a wonderful smile under the circumstances.

"Ah! that is just it," she says, sweetly, but with determination. "She
is ignorant where we are concerned--Joyce and I. If she had only spared
time to ask a little question or two! But as it is----" The whole speech
is purposely vague, but full of contemptuous rebuke, delicately veiled.
"It is nothing, I assure you, Freddy. Your mother is not to be blamed.
She has not understood. That is all."

"I fail even now to understand," says the old lady, with a somewhat
tremulous attempt at self-assertion.

"So do I," says the antique upon the lounge near her, bristling with a
wrath so warm that it has unsettled the noble structure on her head, and
placed it in quite an artful situation, right over her left ear. "I see
nothing to create wrath in the mind of any one, in the idea of a
young--er----" She comes to a dead pause; she had plainly been going to
say young person--but Frederic's glare had been too much for her. It has
frightened her into good behavior, and she changes the obnoxious word
into one more complaisant.

"A young what?" demands he imperiously, freezing his aunt with a stony
stare.

"Young girl!" returns she, toning down a little, but still betraying
malevolence of a very advanced order in her voice and expression. "I see
nothing derogatory in the idea of a young girl devoid of fortune taking
a----"

Again she would have said something insulting. The word "situation" is
on her lips; but the venom in her is suppressed a second time by her
nephew.

"Go on," says he, sternly.

"Taking a--er--position in a nice family," says she, almost spitting out
the words like a bad old cat.

"She has a position in a very nice family," says Monkton readily. "In
mine! As companion, friend, playfellow, in fact anything you like of the
light order of servitude. We all serve, my dear aunt, though that idea
doesn't seem to have come home to you. We must all be in bondage to each
other in this world--the only real freedom is to be gained in the world
to come. You have never thought of that? Well, think of it now. To be
kind, to be sympathetic, to be even Commonly civil to people is to
fulfil the law's demands."

"You go too far; she is old, Freddy," Barbara has scarcely time to
whisper, when the door is thrown open, and Dicky Browne, followed by
Felix Dysart, enters the room.

It is a relief to everybody. Lady Monkton rises to receive them with a
smile: Miss L'Estrange looks into the teapot. Plainly she can still see
some tea leaves there. Rising, she inclines the little silver kettle
over them, and creates a second deluge. She has again made tea. May she
be forgiven!

"Going to give us some tea, Miss L'Estrange?" says Dicky, bearing down
upon her with a beaming face. She has given him some before this. "One
can always depend upon you for a good cup. Ah, thanks. Dysart, I can
recommend this. Have a cup; do."

"No, thank you," says Dysart, who has secured a seat next to Barbara,
and is regarding her anxiously, while replying to her questions of
surprise at seeing him in town at this time of year. She is surprised
too, and a little shocked to see him look so ill.

Dicky is still holding a brilliant conversation with Miss L'Estrange,
who, to him, is a joy for ever.

"Didn't expect to see me here again so soon, eh?" says he, with a
cheerful smile.

"There you are wrong," returns that spinster, in the hoarse croak that
distinguishes her. "The fact that you were here yesterday and couldn't
reasonably be supposed to come again for a week, made it at once a
certainty that you would turn up immediately. The unexpected is what
always happens where you are concerned."

"One of my many charms," says Mr. Browne gayly, hiding his untasted cup
by a skillful movement behind the sugar bowl. "Variety, you know, is
ever charming. I'm a various person, therefore I'm charming."

"Are you?" says Miss L'Estrange, grimly.

"Can you look at me and doubt it?" demands Mr. Browne, deep reproach in
his eyes.

"I can," returns Miss L'Estrange, presenting an uncompromising front. "I
can also suggest to you that those lumps of sugar are meant to put in
the cups with the tea, not to be consumed wholesale. Sugar, plain, is
ruinous to the stomach and disastrous to the teeth."

"True, true," says Mr. Browne, absently, "and both mine are so pretty."

Miss L'Estrange rises to her feet and confronts him with a stony glare.

"Both what?" demands she.

"Eh? Why, both of them," persists Mr. Browne.

"I think, Richard, that the sooner you return to your hotel, or whatever
low haunt you have chosen as your present abode, the better it will be
for all present."

"Why so?" demands Mr. Browne, indignantly. "What have I done now?"

"You know very well, sir," says Miss L'estrange. "Your language is
disgraceful. You take an opportunity of turning an innocent remark of
mine, a kindly warning, into a ribald----"

"Good heavens!" says he, uplifting brows and hands. "I never yet knew it
was ribaldry to talk about one's teeth."

"You were not talking about your teeth," says Miss L'Estrange sternly.
"You said distinctly 'both of them.'"

"Just so," says Dicky. "I've only got two."

"Is that the truth, Richard?" with increasing majesty.

"Honest Injun," says Mr. Browne, unabashed. "And they are out of sight.
All you can see have been purchased, and I assure you, dear Miss
L'Estrange," with anxious earnestness, "paid for. One guinea the entire
set; a single tooth, two-and-six. Who'd be without 'em?"

"Well, I'm sorry to hear it," says Miss L'Estrange reseating herself and
regarding him still with manifest distrust. "To lose one's teeth so
early in life speaks badly for one's moral conduct. Anyhow, I shan't
allow you to destroy your guinea's worth. I shall remove temptation from
your path."

Lifting the sugar bowl she removes it to her right side, thus laying
bare the fact that Mr. Browne's cup of tea is still full to the brim.

It is the last stroke.

"Drink your tea," says she to the stricken Dicky in a tone that admits
of no delay. He drinks it.

Meantime, Barbara has been very kind to Felix Dysart, answering his
roundabout questions that always have Joyce as their central meaning.
One leading remark of his is to the effect that he is covered with
astonishment to find her and Monkton in London. Is he surprised. Well,
no doubt, yes. Joyce is in town, too, but she has not come out with her
to-day. Have they been to the theatre? Very often; Joyce, especially, is
quite devoted to it. Do they go much to the picture galleries? Well, to
one or two. There is so much to be done, and the children are rather
exigeant, and demand all the afternoon. But she had heard Joyce say that
she was going to-morrow to Doré's Gallery. She thought Tommy ought to be
shown something more improving than clowns and wild animals and toy
shops.

Mr. Dysart, at this point, said he thought Miss Kavanagh was more
reflective than one taking a careless view of her might believe.

Barbara laughed.

"Do you take the reflective view?" says she.

"Do you recommend me to take the careless one?" demands he, now looking
fully at her. There is a good deal of meaning in his question, but
Barbara declines to recognize it. She feels she has gone far enough in
that little betrayal about Doré's Gallery. She refuses to take another
step; she is already, indeed, a little frightened by what she has done
If Joyce should hear of it--oh----And yet how could she refrain from
giving that small push to so deserving a cause?

"No, no; I recommend nothing," says she, still laughing. "Where are you
staying?"

"With my cousins, the Seaton Dysarts. They had to come up to town about
a tooth, or a headache, or neuralgia, or something; we shall never quite
know what, as it has disappeared, whatever it is. Give me London smoke
as a perfect cure for most ailments. It is astonishing what remarkable
recoveries it can boast. Vera and her husband are like a couple of
children. Even the pantomime isn't too much for them."

"That reminds me the children ought to be here by this time," says Mrs.
Monkton, drawing out her watch. "They went to the afternoon performance.
I really think," anxiously, "they are very late----"

She has hardly spoken when a sound of little running feet up the stairs
outside sets her maternal fears at rest. Nearer and nearer they sound;
they stop, there is a distant scuffle, the door is thrown violently
open, and Tommy and Mabel literally fall into the room.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

    "Then seemed to me this world far less in size,
      Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far;
    Like points in heaven I saw the stars arise,
      And longed for wings that I might catch a star."

Least said, soonest mended! Tommy is on his feet again in no time, and
has picked up Mabel before you could say Jack Robinson, and once again,
nothing daunted by their ignominious entry, they rush up the room and
precipitate themselves upon their mother. This pious act being
performed, Tommy sees fit to show some small attention to the other
people present.

"Thomas," says Mr. Browne, when he has shaken hands with him, "if you
wait much longer without declaring yourself you will infallibly burst,
and that is always a rude thing to do in a friend's drawing-room. Speak,
Thomas, or die--you are evidently full of information!"

"Well, I won't tell you!" says Tommy, naturally indignant at this
address. He throws a resentful look at him over his shoulder while
making his way to his grandfather. There is a queer sort of
sympathy--understanding--what you will--between the child and the stern
old man.

"Come here," says Sir George, drawing Tommy to him. "Well, and did you
enjoy yourself? Was it all your fancy painted it?"

Sir George has sunk into a chair with all the heaviness of an old man,
and the boy has crept between his knees and is looking up at him with
his beautiful little face all aglow.

"Oh! 'twas lovely!" says he. "'Twas splendid! There was lights all over
the house. 'Twas like night--only 'twasn't night, and that was grand!
And there were heaps of people. A whole town was there. And there
were----Grandpa! why did they have lamps there when it was daytime?"

"Because they have no windows in a theatre," says Sir George, patting
the little hot, fat hand that is lying on his arm, with a strange
sensation of pleasure in the touch of it.

"No windows?" with big eyes opened wide.

"Not one."

"Then why have we windows?" asks Tommy, with an involuntary glance round
him. "Why are there windows anywhere? It's ever so much nicer without
them. Why can't we have lamps always, like the theatre people?"

"Why, indeed?" says Mr. Browne, sympathetically. "Sir George, I hope you
will take your grandson's advice to heart, and block up all these absurd
windows, and let a proper ray of light descend upon us from the honest
burner. Who cares for strikes? Not I!"

"Well, Tommy, we'll think about it," says Sir George. "And now go on.
You saw----"

"Bluebeard!" says Tommy, almost roaring in the excitement of his
delight. "A big Bluebeard, and he was just like the pictures of him at
home, with his toes curled up and a red towel round his head and a blue
night-gown and a smiter in his hand."

"A cimeter, Tommy?" suggests his mother, gently.

"Eh?" says Tommy. "Well, it's all the same," says he, after a pause,
replete with deep research and with a truly noble impartiality.

"It is, indeed!" says Mr. Browne, open encouragement in his eye. "And so
you saw Mr. Bluebeard! And did he see you?"

"Oh! he saw me!" cries Mabel, in a little whimpering' tone. "He looked
straight into the little house where we were, and I saw his eye--his
horrid eye!" shaking her small head vigorously--"and it ran right into
mine, and he began to walk up to me, and I----"

She stops, her pretty red lips quivering, her blue eyes full of tears.

"Oh, Mabel was so frightened!" says Tommy, the Bold. "She stuck her nose
into nurse's fur cape and roared!"

"I didn't!" says Mabel promptly.

"You did!" says Tommy, indignant at being contradicted, "and she said it
would never be worth a farthing ever after, and----Well, any way, you
know, Mabel, you didn't like the heads."

"Oh, no; I didn't--I hated them! They were all hanging to one side; and
there was nasty blood, and they looked as if they was going to waggle,"
concludes Mabel, with a terrified sob, burying her own head in her
mother's lap.

"Oh! she is too young," says Barbara, nervously clasping her little
woman close to her in a quiet, undemonstrative way, but so as to make
the child herself feel the protection of her arms.

"Too young for so dismal a sight," says Dysart, stooping over and
patting Mabel's sunny curls with a kindly touch. He is very fond of
children, as are all men, good and bad.

"I should not have let her go," says Mrs. Monkton, with self-reproach.
"Such exhibitions are painful for young minds, however harmless."

"When she is older----" begins Dysart, still caressing the little head.

"Yes, yes--she is too young--far too young," says Mrs. Monkton, giving
the child a second imperceptible hug.

"One is never too young to learn the miseries of the world," says Miss
L'Estrange, in her most terrible tone. "Why should a child be pampered
and petted, and shielded from all thoughts of harm and wrong, as though
they never existed? It is false treatment. It is a wilful deceiving of
the growing mind. One day they must wake to all the horrors of the
world. They should therefore be prepared for it, steadily, sternly,
unyieldingly!"

"What a grand--what a strong nature!" says Mr. Browne, uplifting his
hands in admiration. "You would, then, advocate the cause of the
pantomime?" says he, knowing well that the very name of theatre stinks
in the nostrils of Miss L'Estrange.

"Far be it from me!" says she, with a violent shake of her head. "May
all such disreputable performances come to a bad end, and a speedy one,
is my devout prayer. But," with a vicious glance at Barbara, "I would
condemn the parents who would bring their children up in a dark
ignorance of the woes and vices of the world in which they must pass
their lives. I think, as Mabel has been permitted to look at the
pernicious exhibition of this afternoon, she should also be encouraged
to look with calmness upon it, if only to teach her what to expect from
life."

"Good heavens!" says Mr. Browne, in a voice of horror. "Is that what she
has to expect? Rows of decapitated heads! Have you had private
information, Miss L'Estrange? Is a rehearsal of the French Revolution to
be performed in London? Do you really believe the poor child is doomed
to behold your head carried past the windows on a pike? Was there
meaning in the artless prattle of our Thomas just now when he condemned
windows as a social nuisance, or----"

"I suppose you think you are amusing!" interrupts the spinster,
malignantly. It is plain that she objects to the idea of her head being
on a pike. "At all events, if you must jest on serious subjects, I
desire you, Richard, to leave me out of your silly maunderings."

"Your will is my law," says Dicky, rising. "I leave you!"

He makes a tragic, retreat, and finding an empty chair near Monkton
takes possession of it.

"I must protest against your opinion," says Dysart, addressing Miss
L'Estrange with a smile. "Children should be regarded as something
better than mere lumps of clay to be experimentalized upon!"

"Oh, yes," says Barbara, regarding the spinster gently but with
ill-concealed aversion. "You cannot expect any one to agree with you
there. I, for one, could not."

"I don't know that I ever asked you to," says Miss L'Estrange with such
open impertinence that Barbara flushes up to the roots of her hair.

Silence falls on the room, except for a light conversation being carried
on between Dicky and Monkton, both of whom have heard nothing. Lady
Monkton looks uncomfortable. Sir George hastens to the rescue.

"Surely you haven't told us everything, Tommy?" says he giving his
grandson a pull toward him. "Besides Mr. Bluebeard, what else was
there?"

"Lots of things," says Tommy, vaguely, coming back from an eager
attention to Miss L'Estrange's evil suggestion to a fresh remembrance of
his past delights. "There was a band and it shouted. Nurse said it took
the roof off her head, but I looked, and her bonnet didn't stir. And
there was the harlequin, he was beautiful. He shined like anything. He
was all over scales, like a trout."

"A queer fish," says his grandfather.

"He jumped about and beat things with a little stick he had. And he
danced, and there was a window and he sprang right through it, and he
came up again and wasn't a bit hurt, not a bit. Oh! he was lovely,
grandpapa, and so was his concubine----"

"His what?" says Sir George.

"His concubine. His sweetheart. That was her name," says Tommy
confidently.

There is a ghastly silence. Lady Monkton's pale old cheeks color
faintly. Miss L'Estrange glares. As for Barbara, she feels the world has
at last come to an end. They will be angry with the boy. Her mission to
London will have failed--that vague hope of a reconciliation through the
children that she had yet scarcely allowed to herself.

Need it be said that Mr. Browne has succumbed to secret but disgraceful
mirth. A good three-quarters of a full-sized handkerchief is already in
his mouth--a little more of the cambric and "death through suffocation"
will adorn the columns of the _Times_ in the morning. Sir George, too,
what is the matter with him? He is speechless--from indignation one must
hope.

"What ails you, grandpa?" demands Tommy, after a full minute's strict
examination of him.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," says Sir George, choking; "it is only--that I'm
glad you have so thoroughly enjoyed yourself and your harlequin,
and--ha, ha, ha, your Columbine. Columbine, now mind. And here's this
for you, Tommy, because you are such a good boy."

He opens the little grandson's hand and presses into the pink palm of it
a sovereign.

"Thank you," says Tommy, in the polite regulation tone he has been
taught, without a glance at his gift--a touch of etiquette he has been
taught, too. Then the curious eyes of childhood wander to the palm, and,
seeing the unexpected pretty gold thing lying there, he colors up to the
tips of his ears with surprise and pleasure. Then sudden compunction
seizes on the kindly little heart. The world is strange to him. He knows
but one or two here and there. His father is poor. A sovereign--that is,
a gold piece--would be rare with him, why not rare with another? Though
filled with admiration and gratitude for the giver of so big a gift, the
child's heart commands him not to accept it.

"Oh, it is too much," says he, throwing his arms round Sir George's neck
and trying to press the sovereign back into his hand. "A shilling I'd
like, but that's such a lot of shillings, and maybe you'd be wanting
it." This is all whispered in the softest, tenderest way.

"No, no, my boy," says Sir George, whispering back, and glad that he
must whisper. His voice, even so, sounds a little queer to himself. How
often he might have gladdened this child with a present, a small one,
and until now----"Keep it," says he; he has passed his hand round the
little head and is pressing it against his breast.

"May I? Really?" says Tommy, emancipating his head with a little jerk,
and looking at Sir George with searching eyes.

"You may indeed!"

"God bless you!" says Tommy, solemnly.

It is a startling remark to Sir George, but not so to Tommy. It is
exactly what nurse had said to her daughter the day before she left
Ireland with Tommy and Mabel in charge, when her daughter had brought
her the half of her wages. Therefore it must be correct. To supplement
this blessing Tommy flings his arms around Sir George's neck and gives
him a resounding kiss. Nurse had done that, too, to her daughter.

"God bless you too, my dear," says Sir George, if not quite as solemnly,
with considerably more tenderness. Tommy's mother, catching the words
and the tone, cheers up. All is not lost yet! The situation is saved.
Tommy has won the day. The inconsequent Tommy of all people! Insult to
herself she had endured, but to have the children disliked would have
been more than she could bear; bur Tommy, apparently, is not
disliked--by the old man at all events. That fact will be sweet to
Freddy. After all, who could resist Tommy? Tears rise to the mother's
eyes. Darling boy! Where is his like upon the whole wide earth? Nowhere.

She is disturbed in her reverie by the fact that the originator of it is
running toward her with one little closed fist outstretched. How he
runs! His fat calves come twinkling across the carpet.

"See, mammy, what I've got. Grandpa gave it to me. Isn't he nice? Now
I'll buy a watch like pappy's."

"You have made him very happy," says Barbara, smiling at Sir George over
her boy's head. She rises as she speaks, and goes to where Lady Monkton
is sitting to bid her good-bye.

"I hope you will come soon again," says Lady Monkton, not cordially, but
as if compelled to it; "and I hope, too," pausing as if to gather
herself together, "that when you do come you will bring your sister with
you. It will give me--us--pleasure to see her." There is such a dearth
of pleasure in the tone of the invitation that Barbara feels her wrath
rising within her.

"I thank you," she manages to say very calmly, not committing herself,
either way, and presently finds herself in the street with her husband
and her children. They had declined Lady Monkton's offer of the brougham
to take them home.

"It was a bad time," says Monkton while waiting at a crossing for a cab
to come to them. "But you must try and not mind them. If the fact that I
am always with you counts for anything, it may help you to endure it."

"What help could be like it?" says she, tightening her hand on his arm.

"That old woman, my aunt. She offended you, but you must remember that
she offends everybody. You thought her abominable?"

"Oh no. I only thought her vulgar," says Mrs. Monkton. It is the one
revenge she permits herself. Monkton breaks into an irresistible laugh.

"It isn't perfect; it couldn't be unless she heard you," says he. The
cab has come up now, and he puts in the children and then his wife,
finally himself.

"Tommy crowns all!" says he with a retrospective smile.

"Eh?" says Tommy, who has the ears of a Midas.

"Your father says you are a social success, and so does your mother,"
says Barbara, smiling at the child's puzzled face, and then giving him a
loving little embrace.

CHAPTER XXXV.

    "Why should two hearts in one breast lie
      And yet not lodge together?
    Oh, love! where is thy sympathy
      If thus our breasts you sever?"

"Well, did you like the gallery?" asks Mrs. Monkton, throwing aside her
book to greet Joyce as she returns from Doré's. It is next day, and
Barbara had let the girl go to see the pictures without telling her of
her meeting with Felix the evening before; she had been afraid to say
anything about him lest that guilty secret of hers might transpire--that
deliberate betrayal of Joyce's intended visit to Bond street on the
morrow. If Joyce had heard that, she would, in all probability, have
deferred her going there for ever--and--it was such a chance. Mrs.
Monkton, who, in her time, had said so many hard words about match
makers, as most women have, and who would have scorned to be classed
with them, had promoted and desired this meeting of Felix and Joyce with
all the energy and enthusiasm of which she was capable But that Joyce
should suspect her of the truth is a fear that terrifies her.

"Very much. So did Tommy. He is very graphic in his remarks," says
Joyce, sinking listlessly into a chair, and taking off her hat. She
looks vexed and preoccupied. "I think he gave several very original
ideas on the subjects of the pictures to those around. They seemed
impressed. You know how far above the foolish feeling, _mauvaise honte_,
he is; his voice 'like a silver clarion rung.' Excelsior was outdone.
Everybody turned and looked at him with----"

"I hope he wasn't noisy," says Mrs. Monkton, nervously.

"With admiration, I was going to say, but you wouldn't let me finish my
sentence. Oh, yes, he was quite a success. One old gentleman wanted to
know if he would accept the part of art critic on his paper. It was very
exciting." She leans back in her chair, the troubled look on her face
growing intensified. She seems glad to be silent, and with downcast eyes
plays with the gloves lying in her lap.

"Something has happened, Joyce," says her sister, going over to her.

"Something is happening always," returned Joyce, with a rather impatient
smile.

"Yes, but to you just now."

"You are sure to make me tell you sooner or later," says Miss Kavanagh,
"and even if I didn't, Tommy would. I met Mr. Dysart at that gallery
to-day."

"Felix?" says Mrs. Monkton, feeling herself an abominable hypocrite; yet
afraid to confess the truth. Something in the girl's whole attitude
forbids a confession, at this moment at all events.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"Well?"

"He was glad to see you, darling?" very tenderly.

"Was he? I don't know. He looked very ill. He said he had had a bad
cough. He is coming to see you."

"You were kind to him, Joyce?"

"I didn't personally insult him, if you mean that."

"Oh, no, I don't mean that, you know what I mean. He was ill, unhappy;
you did not make him more unhappy?"

"It is always for him!" cries the girl, with jealous anger. "Is there
never to be a thought for me? Am I nothing to you? Am I never unhappy?
Why don't you ask if he was kind to me?"

"Was he ever unkind?"

"Well, you can forget! He said dreadful things to me--dreadful. I am not
likely to forget them if you are. After all, they did not hurt you."

"Joyce!"

"Yes, I know--I know everything you would say. I am ungrateful,
abominable, but----He was unkind to me! He said what no girl would ever
forgive, and yet you have not one angry word for him."

"Never mind all that," says Mrs. Monkton, soothingly. "Tell me what you
did to-day--what you said."

"As little as possible," defiantly. "I tell you I don't want ever to see
him again, or hear of him; I think I hate him. And he looked dying." She
stops here, as if finding a difficulty about saying another word. She
coughs nervously; then, recovering herself, and as if determined to
assert herself anew and show how real is the coldness that she has
declared--"Yes, dying, I think," she says, stubbornly.

"Oh, I don't think he looked as bad as that!" says Barbara, hastily,
unthinkingly filled with grief, not only at this summary dismissal of
poor Felix from our earthly sphere, but for her sister's unhappiness,
which is as plain to her as though no little comedy had been performed
for the concealment of it.

"You don't!" repeats Joyce, lifting her head and directing a piercing
glance at her. "You! What do you know about him?"

"Why--you just said----" stammers Mrs. Monkton, and then breaks down
ignominiously.

"You knew he was in town," says Joyce, advancing to her, and looking
down on her with clasped-hands and a pale face. "Barbara, speak. You
knew he was here, and never told me; you," with a sudden, fresh burst of
inspiration, "sent him to that place to-day to meet me."

"Oh, no, dearest. No, indeed. He himself can tell you. It was only that
he----"

"Asked where I was going to, at such and such an hour, and you told
him." She is still standing over poor Mrs. Monkton in an attitude that
might almost be termed menacing.

"I didn't. I assure you, Joyce, you are taking it all quite wrongly. It
was only----"

"Oh! only--only," says the girl, contemptuously. "Do you think I can't
read between the lines? I am sure you believe you are sticking to the
honest truth, Barbara, but still----Well," bitterly, "I don't think he
profited much by the information you gave him. Your deception has given
him small satisfaction."

"I don't think you should speak to me like that," says Mrs. Monkton, in
a voice that trembles perceptibly.

"I don't care what I say," cries Joyce, with a sudden burst of passion.
"You betray me; he betrays me; all the world seem arrayed against me.
And what have I done to anybody?" She throws out her hands protestingly.

"Joyce, darling, if you would only listen."

"Listen! I am always listening, it seems to me. To him, to you, to every
one. I am tired of being silent; I must speak now. I trusted you,
Barbara, and you have been bad to me. Do you want to force him to make
love to me, that you tell him on the very first opportunity where to
find me, and in a place where I am without you, or any one to----"

"Will you try to understand?" says Mrs. Monkton, with a light stamp of
her foot, her patience going as her grief increases. "He cross-examined
me as to where you were, and would be, and I--I told him. I wasn't going
to make a mystery of it, or you, was I? I told him that you were going
to the Doré Gallery to-day with Tommy. How could I know he would go
there to meet you? He never said he was going. You are unjust, Joyce,
both to him and to me."

"Do you mean to tell me that for all that you didn't know he would be at
that place to-day?" turning flashing eyes upon her sister.

"How could I know? Unless a person says a thing right out, how is one to
be sure what he is going to do?"

"Oh! that is unlike you. It is unworthy of you," says Joyce, turning
from her scornfully. "You did know. And it is not," turning back again
and confronting the now thoroughly frightened Barbara with a glance full
of pathos, "it is not that--your insincerity that hurt me so much, it
is----"

"I didn't mean to be insincere; you are very cruel--you do not measure
your words."

"You will tell me next that you meant it all for the best," with a
bitter smile. "That is the usual formula, isn't it? Well, never mind;
perhaps you did. What I object to is you didn't tell me. That I was kept
designedly in the dark both by him and you. Am I," with sudden fire, "a
child or a fool, that you should seek to guide me so blindly? Well,"
drawing a long breath, "I won't keep you in the dark. When I left the
gallery, and your protégé, I met--Mr. Beauclerk!"

Mrs. Monkton, stunned by this intelligence, remains silent for a full
minute. It is death to her hopes. If she has met that man again, it is
impossible to know how things have gone. His fatal influence--her
unfortunate infatuation for him--all will be ruinous to poor Felix's
hopes.

"You spoke to him?" asks she at last, in an emotionless tone.

"Yes."

"Was Felix with you?"

"When?"

"When you met that odious man?"

"Mr. Beauclerk? No; I dismissed Mr. Dysart as soon as ever I could."

"No doubt. And Mr. Beauclerk, did you dismiss him as promptly."

"Certainly not. There was no occasion."

"No inclination, either. You were kind to him at all events. It is only
to the man who is honest and sincere that you are deliberately uncivil."

"I hope I was uncivil to neither of them."

"There is no use giving yourself that air with me, Joyce. You are angry
with me; but why? Only because I am anxious for your happiness. Oh! that
hateful man, how I detest him! He has made you unhappy once--he will
certainly make you unhappy again."

"I don't think so," says Joyce, taking up her hat and furs with the
evident intention of leaving the room, and thus putting an end to the
discussion.

"You will never think so until it is too late. You haven't the strength
of mind to throw him over, once and for all, and give your thoughts to
one who is really worthy of you. On the contrary, you spend your time
comparing him favorably with the good and faithful Felix."

"You should put that down. It will do for his tombstone," says Miss
Kavanagh, with a rather uncertain little laugh.

"At all events, it would not do for Mr. Beauclerk's tombstone--though I
wish it would--and that I could put it there at once."

"I shall tell Freddy to read the commandments to you," says Joyce, with
a dreary attempt at mirth--"you have forgotten your duty to your
neighbor."

"It is all true, however. You can't deny it, Joyce. You are
deliberately--willfully--throwing away the good for the bad. I can't
bear to see it. I can't look on in silence and see you thus miserably
destroying your life. How can you be so blind, darling?" appealing to
her with hands, and voice, and eyes. "Such determined folly would be
strange in any one; stranger far in a girl like you, whose sense has
always been above suspicion."

"Did it ever occur to you," asks Joyce, in a slightly bantering tone,
that but ill conceals the nervousness that is consuming her, "that you
might be taking a wrong view of the situation? That I was not so blind
after all. That I--What was it you said? that I spent my nights and days
comparing the merits of Mr. Beauclerk with those of your friend, Felix
Dysart--to your friend's discomfiture? Now, suppose that I did thus
waste my time, and gave my veto in favor of Mr. Dysart? How would it be
then? It might be so, you know, for all that he, or you, or any one
could say."

"It is not so light a matter that you should trifle with it," says Mrs.
Monkton, with a faint suspicion of severity in her soft voice.

"No, of course not. You are right." Miss Kavanagh moves towards the
door. "After all, Barbara," looking back at her, "that applies to most
things in this sad old world. What matter under heaven can we poor
mortals dare to trifle with? Not one, I think. All bear within them the
seeds of grief or joy. Sacred seeds, both carrying in their bosoms the
germs of eternity. Even when this life is gone from us we still face
weal or woe."

"Still--we need not make our own woe," says Barbara, who is a sturdy
enemy to all pessimistic thoughts. "Wait a moment, Joyce." She hurries
after her and lays her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Will you come with
me next Wednesday to see Lady Monkton?"

"Lady Monkton! Why I thought----"

"Yes, I know. I would not take you there before, because she had not
expressly asked to see you. But to-day she made a--she sent you a formal
message--at all events she said she hoped I would bring you when I came
again."

"Is that all of it?" asks Joyce, gazing at her sister with a curious
smile, that is troubled, but has still some growing sense of amusement
in it. "What an involved statement! Surely you have forgotten something.
That Mr. Dysart was standing near you, for example, and will probably
find that it is absolutely imperative that he should call on Lady
Monkton next Wednesday, too. Don't set your heart on that, Barbara. I
think, after my interview with him to-day, he will not want to see Lady
Monkton next Wednesday."

"I know nothing about whether he is to be there or not," says Barbara
steadily. "But as Sir George likes to see the children very often, I
thought of taking them there on that day. It is Lady Monkton's day. And
Dicky Browne, at all events, will be there, and I dare say a good many
of your old friends. Do say you will come."

"I hate old friends!" says the girl fractiously. "I don't believe I have
any. I don't believe anybody has. I----"

She pauses as the door is thrown open, and Tommy comes prancing into the
room accompanied by his father.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

     "Children know very little; but their capacity of comprehension is
     great."

"I've just been interviewing Tommy on the subject of the pictures," says
Mr. Monkton. "So far as I can make out he disapproves of Doré."

"Oh! Tommy! and all such beautiful pictures out of the Bible," says his
mother.

"I did like them," says Tommy. "Only some of them were queer. I wanted
to know about them, but nobody would tell me--and----"

"Why, Tommy, I explained them all to you," says Joyce, reproachfully.

"You did in the first two little rooms and in the big room afterward,
where the velvet seats were. They," looking at his father and raising
his voice to an indignant note, "wouldn't let me run round on the top of
them!"

"Good heavens!" says Mr. Monkton. "Can that be true? Truly this country
is going to the dogs."

"Where do the dogs live?" asks Tommy, "What dogs? Why does the country
want to go to them?"

"It doesn't want to go," explains his father. "But it will have to go,
and the dogs will punish them for not letting you reduce its velvet
seats to powder. Never mind, go on with your story; so that unnatural
aunt of yours wouldn't tell you about the pictures, eh?"

"She did in the beginning, and when we got into the big room too, a
little while. She told me about the great large one at the end, 'Christ
and the Historian,' though I couldn't see the Historian anywhere,
and----"

"She herself must be a most successful one," says Mr. Monkton, sotto
voce.

"And then we came to the Innocents, and I perfectly hated that," says
Tommy. "'Twas frightful! Everybody was as large as that," stretching out
his arms and puffing out his cheeks, "and the babies were all so fat and
so horrid. And then Felix came, and Joyce had to talk to him, so I
didn't know any more."

"I think you forget," says Joyce. "There was that picture with lions in
it. Mr. Dysart himself explained that to you."

"Oh, that one!" says Tommy, as if dimly remembering, "the circus one!
The one with the round house. I didn't like that either."

"It is rather ghastly for a child," says his mother.

"That's not the one with the gas," puts in Tommy. "The one with the gas
is just close to it, and has got Pilate's wife in it. She's very nice."

"But why didn't you like the other?" asks his father. "I think it one of
the best there."

"Well, I don't," says Tommy, evidently grieved at having to differ from
his father; but filled with a virtuous determination to stick to the
truth through thick and thin.

"No?"

"'Tis unfair," says Tommy.

"That has been allowed for centuries," says his father.

"Then why don't they change it?"

"Change what?" asks Mr. Monkton, feeling a little puzzled. "How can one
change now the detestable cruelties--or the abominable habits of the
dark ages?"

"But why were they dark?" asks Tommy. "Mammy says they had gas then."

"I didn't mean that, I----" his mother is beginning, but Monkton stops
her with a despairing gesture.

"Don't," says he. "It would take a good hour by the slowest clock. Let
him believe there was electric light then if he chooses."

"Well, but why can't they change it?" persists Tommy, who is evidently
full of the picture in question.

"I have told you."

"But the painter man could change it."

"I am afraid not, Tommy. He is dead."

"Why didn't he do it before he died then? Why didn't somebody show him
what to do?"

"I don't fancy he wanted any hints. And besides, he had to be true to
his ideal. It was a terrible time. They did really throw the Christians
to the lions, you know."

"Of course I know that," says Tommy with a superior air. "But why didn't
they cast another one?"

"Eh?" says Mr. Monkton.

"That's why it's unfair!" says Tommy. "There is one poor lion there, and
he hasn't got any Christian! Why didn't Mr. Dory give him one?"

Tableau!

"Barbara!" says Mr. Monkton faintly, after a long pause. "Is there any
brandy in the house?"

But Barbara is looking horrified.

"It is shocking," she says. "Why should he take such a twisted view of
it. He has always been a kind-hearted child; and now----"

"Well. He has been kind-hearted to the lions," says Mr. Monkton. "No one
can deny that."

"Oh! if you persist in encouraging him. Freddy!" says his wife with
tears in her eyes.

"Believe me, Barbara," breaks in Joyce at this moment, "it is a mistake
to be soft-hearted in this world." There is something bright but
uncomfortable in the steady gaze she directs at her sister. "One should
be hard, if one means to live comfortably."

"Will you take me soon again to see pictures?" asks Tommy, running to
Joyce and scrambling upon the seat she is occupying. "Do!"

"But if you dislike them so much."

"Only some. And other places may be funnier. What day will you take me?"

"I don't think I shall again make an arrangement beforehand," says
Joyce, rising, and placing Tommy on the ground very gently. "Some
morning just before we start, you and I, we will make our plans."

She does not look at Barbara this time, but her tone is eloquent.

Barbara looks at her, however, with eyes full of reproach.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

    "Love is its own great loveliness always,
      And takes new beauties from the touch of time;
    Its bough owns no December and no May,
      But bears its blossoms into winter's clime."

     "I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without
     children."

"Oh, Felix--is it you!" says Mrs. Monkton in a dismayed tone. Her hansom
is at the door and, arrayed in her best bib and tucker, she is hurrying
through the hall when Dysart, who has just come, presents himself. He
was just coming in, in fact, as she was going out.

"Don't mind me," says he; "there is always to-morrow."

"Oh, yes,--but----"

"And Miss Kavanagh?"

"It is to recover her I am going out this afternoon." It is the next
day, so soon after her rupture with Joyce, that she is afraid to even
hint at further complications. A strong desire to let him know that he
might wait and try his fortune once again on her return with Joyce is
oppressing her mind, but she puts it firmly behind her, or thinks she
does. "She is lunching at the Brabazons'," she says; "old friends of
ours. I promised to lunch there, too, so as to be able to bring Joyce
home again."

"She will be back, then."

"In an hour and a half at latest," says Mrs. Monkton, who after all is
not strong enough to be quite genuine to her better judgments. "But,"
with a start and a fresh determination to be cruel in the cause of
right, "that would be much too long for you to wait for us."

"I shouldn't think it long," says he.

Mrs. Monkton smiles suddenly at him. How charming--how satisfactory he
is. Could any lover be more devoted!

"Well, it would be for all that," says she. "But"--hesitating in a last
vain effort to dismiss, and then losing herself--, "suppose you do not
abandon your visit altogether; that you go away, now, and get your lunch
at your club--I feel," contritely, "how inhospitable I am--and then come
back again here about four o'clock. She--I--will have returned by that
time."

"An excellent plan," says he, his face lighting up. Then it clouds
again. "If she knows I am to be here?"

"Ah! that is a difficulty," says Mrs. Monkton, her own pretty face
showing signs of distress. "But anyhow, risk it."

"I would rather she knew, however," says he steadily. The idea of
entrapping her into a meeting with him is abhorrent to him. He had had
enough of that at the Doré Gallery; though he had been innocent of any
intentional deception there.

"I will tell her then," says Mrs. Monkton; "and in the meantime go and
get your----"

At this moment the door on the right is thrown open, and Tommy, with a
warhoop, descends upon them, followed by Mabel.

"Oh! it's Felix!" cries he joyfully. "Will you stay with us, Felix?
We've no one to have dinner with us to-day. Because mammy is going away,
and Joyce is gone, and pappy is nowhere; and nurse isn't a bit of
good--she only says, 'Take care you don't choke yourselves, me
dearies!'" He imitates nurse to the life. "And dinner will be here in a
minute. Mary says she's just going to bring it upstairs."

"Oh, do--do stay with us," supplements little Mabel, thrusting her small
hand imploringly into his. It is plain that he is in high favor with the
children, however out of it with a certain other member of the
family--and feeling grateful to them, Dysart hesitates to say the "No"
that is on his lips. How hard it is to refuse the entreaties of these
little clinging fingers--these eager, lovely, upturned faces!

"If I may----?" says he at last, addressing Mrs. Monkton, and thereby
giving in.

"Oh! as for that! You know you may," says she. "But you will perfectly
hate it. It is too bad to allow you to accept their invitation. You will
be bored to death, and you will detest the boiled mutton. There is only
that and--rice, I think. I won't even be sure of the rice. It may be
tapioca--and that is worse still."

"It's rice," says Tommy, who is great friends with the cook, and knows
till her secrets.

"That decides the question," says Felix gravely. "Every one knows that I
adore rice. It is my one weakness."

At this, Mrs. Monkton gives way to an irrepressible laugh, and he,
catching the meaning of it, laughs, too.

"You are wrong, however," says he; "that other is my one strength. I
could not live without it. Well, Tommy, I accept your invitation. I
shall stay and lunch--dine with you." In truth, it seems sweet in his
eyes to remain in the house that she (Joyce) occupies; it will be easier
to wait, to hope for her return there than elsewhere.

"Your blood be on your own head," says Barbara, solemnly. "If, however,
it goes too far, I warn you there are remedies. When it occurs to you
that life is no longer worth living, go to the library; you will find
there a revolver. It is three hundred years old, I'm told, and it is
hung very high on the wall to keep it out of Freddy's reach. Blow your
brains out with it--if you can."

"You're awfully good, awfully thoughtful," says Mr. Dysart, "but I don't
think, when the final catastrophe arrives, it will be suicide. If I must
murder somebody, it will certainly not be myself; it will be either the
children or the mutton."

Mrs. Monkton laughs, then turns a serious eye on Tommy.

"Now, Tommy," says she, addressing him with a gravity that should have
overwhelmed him, "I am going away from you for an hour or so, and Mr.
Dysart has kindly accepted your invitation to lunch with him. I do
hope," with increasing impressiveness, "you will be good."

"I hope so, too," returns Tommy, genially.

There is an astonished pause, confined to the elders only, and then, Mr.
Dysart, unable to restrain himself any longer, bursts but laughing.

"Could anything be more candid?" says he; "more full of trust in
himself, and yet with a certain modesty withal! There! you can go, Mrs.
Monkton, with a clear conscience. I am not afraid to give myself up to
the open-handed dealing of your son." Then his tone changes--he follows
her quickly as she turns from him to the children to bid them good-bye.

"Miss Kavanagh," says he, "is she well--happy?"

"She is well," says Barbara, stopping to look back at him with her hand
on Mabel's shoulder--there is reservation in her answer.

"Had she any idea that I would call to-day?" This question is absolutely
forced from him.

"How should she? Even I--did I know it? Certainly I thought you would
come some day, and soon, and she may have thought so, too, but--you
should have told me. You called too soon. Impatience is a vice," says
Mrs. Monkton, shaking her head in a very kindly fashion, however.

"I suppose when she knows--when," with a rather sad smile, "you tell
her--I am to be here on her return this afternoon she will not come with
you."

"Oh, yes, she will. I think so--I am sure of it. But you must
understand, Felix, that she is very peculiar, difficult is what they
call it now-a-days. And," pausing and glancing at him, "she is angry,
too, about something that happened before you left last autumn. I hardly
know what; I have imagined only, and," rapidly, "don't let us go into
it, but you will know that there was something."

"Something, yes," says he.

"Well, a trifle, probably. I have said she is difficult. But you failed
somewhere, and she is slow to pardon--where----"

"Where! What does that mean?" demands the young man, a great spring of
hope taking life within his eyes.

"Ah, that hardly matters. But she is not forgiving. She is the very
dearest girl I know, but that is one of her faults."

"She has no faults," says he, doggedly. And then: "Well, she knows I am
to be here this afternoon?"

"Yes. I told her."

"I am glad of that. If she returns with you from the Brabazons," with a
quick but heavy sigh, "there will be no hope in that."

"Don't be too hard," says Mrs. Monkton, who in truth is feeling a little
frightened. To come back without Joyce, and encounter an irate young
man, with Freddy goodness knows where--"She may have other engagements,"
she says. She waves him an airy adieu as she makes this cruel
suggestion, and with a kiss more hurried than usual to the children, and
a good deal of nervousness in her whole manner, runs down the steps to
her hansom and disappears.

Felix, thus abandoned, yields himself to the enemy. He gives his right
hand to Freddy and his left to Mabel, and lets them lead him captive
into the dining-room.

"I expect dinner is cold," says Tommy cheerfully, seating himself
without more ado, and watching the nurse, who is always in attendance at
this meal, as she raises the cover from the boiled leg of mutton.

"Oh! no, not yet," says Mr. Dysart, quite as cheerfully, raising the
carving knife and fork.

Something, however, ominous in the silence, that has fallen on both
children makes itself felt, and without being able exactly to realize it
he suspends operation for a moment to look at them.

He finds four eyes staring in his direction with astonishment,
generously mingled with pious horror shining in their clear depths.

"Eh?" says he, involuntarily.

"Aren't you going to say it?" asks Mabel, in a severe tone.

"Say what?" says he.

"Grace," returns Tommy with distinct disapprobation.

"Oh--er--yes, of course. How could I have forgotten it?" says Dysart
spasmodically, laying down the carvers at once, and preparing to
distinguish himself. He succeeds admirably.

The children are leaning on the table cloth in devout expectation, that
has something, however, sinister about it. Nurse is looking on, also
expectant. Mr. Dysart makes a wild struggle with his memory, but all to
no effect. The beginning of various prayers come with malignant
readiness to his mind, the ends of several psalms, the middles of a
verse or two, but the graces shamelessly desert him in his hour of need.

Good gracious! What is the usual one, the one they use at home--the--er?
He becomes miserably conscious that Tommy's left eye is cocked sideways,
and is regarding him with fatal understanding. In a state of desperation
he bends forward as low as he well can, wondering vaguely where on earth
is his hat, and mumbles something into his plate, that might be a bit of
a prayer, but certainly it is not a grace. Perhaps it is a last cry for
help.

"What's that?" demands Tommy promptly.

"I didn't hear one word of it," says Mabel with indignation.

Mr. Dysart is too stricken to be able to frame a reply.

"I don't believe you know one," continues Tommy, still fixing him with
an uncompromising eye. "I don't believe you were saying anything. Do
you, nurse?"

"Oh, fie, now, Master Tommy, and I heard your ma telling you you were to
be good."

"Well, so I am good. 'Tis he isn't good. He won't say his prayers. Do
you know one?" turning again to Dysart, who is covered with confusion.
What the deuce did he stay here for? Why didn't he go to his club? He
could have been back in plenty of time. If that confounded grinning
woman of a nurse would only go away, it wouldn't be so bad; but----

"Never mind," says Mabel, with calm resignation. "I'll say one for you."

"No, you shan't," cries Tommy; "it's my turn."

"No, it isn't."

"It is, Mabel. You said it yesterday. And you know you said 'relieve'
instead of 'received,' and mother laughed, and----"

"I don't care. It is Mr. Dysart's turn to-day, and he'll give his to me;
won't you, Mr. Dysart?"

"You're a greedy thing," cries Tommy, wrathfully, "and you shan't say
it. I'll tell Mr. Dysart what you did this morning if you do."

"I don't care," with disgraceful callousness. "I will say it."

"Then, I'll say it, too," says Tommy, with sudden inspiration born of a
determination to die rather than give in, and instantly four fat hands
are joined in pairs, and two seraphic countenances are upraised, and two
shrill voices at screaming-pitch are giving thanks for the boiled
mutton, at a racing speed, that censorious people might probably connect
with a desire on the part of each to be first in at the finish.

Manfully they fight it out to the bitter end, without a break or a
comma, and with defiant eyes glaring at each other across the table.
There is a good deal of the grace; it is quite a long one when usually
said, and yet very little grace in it to-day, when all is told.

"You may go now, nurse," says Mabel, presently, when the mutton had been
removed and nurse had placed the rice and jam on the table. "Mr. Dysart
will attend to us." It is impossible to describe the grown-up air with
which this command is given. It is so like Mrs. Monkton's own voice and
manner that Felix, with a start, turns his eyes on the author of it, and
nurse, with an ill-suppressed smile, leaves the room.

"That's what mammy always says when-there's only her and me and Tommy,"
explains Mabel, confidentially. Then. "You," with a doubtful glance,
"you will attend to us, won't you?"

"I'll do my best," says Felix, in a depressed tone, whose spirits are
growing low. After all, there was safety in nurse!

"I think I'll come up and sit nearer to you," says Tommy, affably.

He gets down from his chair and pushes it, creaking hideously, up to Mr.
Dysart's elbow--right under it, in fact.

"So will I," says Mabel, fired with joy at the prospect of getting away
from her proper place, and eating her rice in a forbidden spot.

"But," begins Felix, vaguely, "do you think your mother would----"

"We always do it when we are alone with mammy," says Tommy.

"She says it keeps us warm to get under her wing when the weather is
cold," says Mabel, lifting a lovely little face to his and bringing her
chair down on the top of his toe. "She says it keeps her warm, too. Are
you warm now?" anxiously.

"Yes, yes--burning!" says Mr. Dysart, whose toe is not unconscious of a
corn.

"Ah! I knew you'd like it," says. Tommy. "Now go on; give us our
rice--a little rice and a lot of jam."

"Is that what your mother does, too?" asks Mr. Dysart, meanly it must be
confessed, but his toe is very bad still. The silence that follows his
question and the look of the two downcast little faces is, however,
punishment enough.

"Well, so be it," says he. "But even if we do finish the jam--I'm
awfully fond of it myself--we must promise faithfully not to be
disagreeable about it; not to be ill, that is----"

"Ill! We're never ill," says Tommy, valiantly, whereupon they make an
end of the jam in no time.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

    "'Tis said the rose is Love's own flower,
    Its blush so bright--its thorns so many."

There is no mistake in the joy with which Felix parts from his
companions after luncheon. He breathes afresh as he sees them tearing up
the staircase to get ready for their afternoon walk, nurse puffing and
panting behind them.

The drawing-room seems a bower of repose after the turmoil of the late
feast, and besides, it cannot be long now before she--they--return. That
is if they--she--return at all! He has, indeed, ample time given him to
imagine this last horrible possibility as not only a probability, but a
certainty, before the sound of coming footsteps up the stairs and the
frou-frou of pretty frocks tells him his doubts were harmless.
Involuntarily he rises from his chair and straightens himself, out of
the rather forlorn position into which he has fallen, and fixes his eyes
immovably upon the door. Are there two of them?

That is beyond doubt. It is only mad people who chatter to themselves,
and certainly Mrs. Monkton is not mad.

Barbara has indeed raised her voice a little more than ordinary, and has
addressed Joyce by her name on her hurried way up the staircase and
across the cushioned recess outside the door. Now she throws open the
door and enters, radiant, if a little nervous.

"Here we are," she says, very pleasantly, and with all the put-on manner
of one who has made up her mind to be extremely joyous under distinct
difficulties. "You are still here, then, and alone. They didn't murder
you. Joyce and I had our misgivings all along. Ah, I forgot, you haven't
seen Joyce until now."

"How d'ye do?" says Miss Kavanagh, holding out her hand to him, with a
calm as perfect as her smile.

"I do hope they were good," goes on Mrs. Monkton, her nervousness rather
increasing.

"You know I have always said they were the best children in the world."

"Ah! said, said," repeats Mrs. Monkton, who now seems grateful for the
chance of saying anything. What is the meaning of Joyce's sudden
amiability--and is it amiability, or----

"It is true one can say almost anything," says Joyce, quite pleasantly.
She nods her head prettily at Dysart. "There is no law to prevent them.
Barbara thinks you are not sincere. She is not fair to you. You always
do mean what you say, don't you?"

But for the smile that accompanies these words Dysart would have felt
his doom sealed. But could she mean a stab so cruel, so direct, and
still look kind?

"Oh! he is always sincere," says Barbara, quickly; "only people say
things about one's children, you know, that----" She stops.

"They are the dearest children. You are a bad mother; you wrong them,"
says Joyce, laughing lightly, plainly at the idea of Barbara's affection
for her children being impugned. "She told me," turning her lovely eyes
full on Dysart, with no special expression in them whatever, "that I
should find only your remains after spending an hour with them." Her
smile was brilliant.

"She was wrong, you see, I am still here," says Felix, hardly knowing
what he says in his desire to read her face, which is strictly
impassive.

"Yes, still here," says Miss Kavanagh, smiling, always, and apparently
meaning nothing at all; yet to Felix, watching her, there seems to be
something treacherous in her manner.

"Still here?" Had she hoped he would be gone? Was that the cause of her
delay? Had she purposely put off coming home to give him time to grow
tired and go away? And yet she is looking at him with a smile!

"I am afraid you had a bad luncheon and a bad time generally," says Mrs.
Monkton, quickly, who seemed hurried in every way. "But we came home as
soon as ever we could. Didn't we, Joyce?" Her appeal to her sister is
suggestive of fear as to the answer, but she need not have been nervous
about that.

"We flew!" declares Miss Kavanagh, with delightful zeal. "We thought we
should never get here soon enough. Didn't we, Barbara?" There is the
very barest, faintest imitation of her sister's voice in this last
question; a subtle touch of mockery, so slight, so evanescent as to
leave one doubtful as to its ever having existed.

"Yes, yes, indeed," says Barbara, coloring.

"We flew so fast indeed that I am sure you are thoroughly fatigued,"
says Miss Kavanagh, addressing her. "Why don't you run away now, and
take off your bonnet and lay down for an hour or so?"

"But," begins Barbara, and then stops short. What does it all mean? this
new departure of her sister's puzzles her. To so deliberately ask for a
_tête-a-tête_ with Felix! To what end? The girl's manner, so bright,
filled with such a glittering geniality--so unlike the usual
listlessness that has characterized it for so long--both confuses and
alarms her. Why is she so amiable now? There has been a little
difficulty about getting her back at all, quite enough to make Mrs.
Monkton shiver for Dysart's reception by her, and here, now, half an
hour later, she is beaming upon him and being more than ordinarily
civil. What is she going to do?

"Oh! no 'buts,'" says Joyce gaily. "You know you said your head was
aching, and Mr. Dysart will excuse you. He will not be so badly off even
without you. He will have me!" She turns a full glance on Felix as she
says this, and looks at him with lustrous eyes and white teeth showing
through her parted lips. The _soupçon_ of mockery in her whole air, of
which all through he has been faintly but uncomfortably aware, has
deepened. "I shall take care he is not dull."

"But," says Barbara, again, rather helplessly.

"No, no. You must rest yourself. Remember we are going to that 'at
home,' at the Thesigers' to-night, and I would not miss it for anything.
Don't dwell with such sad looks on Mr. Dysart, I have promised to look
after him. You will let me take care of you for a little while, Mr.
Dysart, will you not?" turning another brilliant smile upon Felix, who
responds to it very gravely.

He is regarding her with a searching air. How is it with her? Some old
words recur to him:

    "There is treachery, O Ahaziah!"

Why does she look at him like that? He mistrusts her present attitude.
Even that aggressive mood of hers at the Doré gallery on that last day
when they met was preferable to this agreeable but detestable
indifference.

"It is always a pleasure to be with you," says he steadily, perhaps a
little doggedly.

"There! you see!" says Joyce, with a pretty little nod at her sister.

"Well, I shall take half an hour's rest," says Mrs. Monkton,
reluctantly, who is, in truth, feeling as fresh as a daisy, but who is
afraid to stay. "But I shall be back for tea." She gives a little kindly
glance to Felix, and, with a heart filled with forebodings, leaves the
room.

"What a glorious day it has been!" says Joyce, continuing the
conversation with Dysart in that new manner of hers, quite as if
Barbara's going was a matter of small importance, and the fact that she
has left them for the first time for all these months alone together of
less importance still.

She is standing on the hearthrug, and is slowly taking the pins out of
her bonnet. She seems utterly unconcerned. He might be the veriest
stranger, or else the oldest, the most uninteresting friend in the
world.

She has taken out all the pins now, and has thrown her bonnet on to the
lounge nearest to her, and is standing before the glass in the
overmantel patting and pushing into order the soft locks that lie upon
her forehead.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

    "Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair."
    "Life's a varied, bright illusion,
    Joy and sorrow--light and shade."

"It was almost warm," says she, turning round to him. She seems to be
talking all the time, so vivid is her face, so intense her vitality. "I
was so glad to see the Brabazons again. You know them, don't you? Kit
looked perfect. So lovely, so good in every way--voice, face, manners. I
felt I envied her. It would be delightful to feel that every one must be
admiring one, as she does." She glances at him, and he leans a little
toward her. "No, no, not a compliment, please. I know I am as much
behind Kit as the moon is behind the sun."

"I wasn't going to pay you a compliment," says he, slowly.

"No?" she laughs. It was unlike her to have made that remark, and just
as unlike her to have taken his rather discourteous reply so
good-naturedly.

"It was a charming visit," she goes on, not in haste, but idly as it
were, and as if words are easy to her. "I quite enjoyed it. Barbara
didn't. I think she wanted to get home--she is always thinking of the
babies--or----Well, I did. I am not ungrateful. I take the goods the
gods provide, and find honest pleasure in them. I do not think, indeed,
I laughed so much for quite a century as to-day with Kit."

"She is sympathetic," says Felix, with the smallest thought of the
person in question in his mind.

"More than that, surely. Though that is a hymn of praise in itself.
After all it is a relief to meet Irish people when one has spent a week
or two in stolid England. You agree with me?"

"I am English," returns he.

"Oh! Of course! How rude of me! I didn't mean it, however. I had
entirely forgotten, our acquaintance having been confined entirely to
Irish soil until this luckless moment. You do forgive me?"

She is leaning a little forward and looking at him with a careless
expression.

"No," returns he briefly.

"Well, you should," says she, taking no notice of his cold rejoinder,
and treating it, indeed, as if it is of no moment. If there was a deeper
meaning in his refusal to grant her absolution she declines to
acknowledge it. "Still, even that _bêtise_ of mine need not prevent you
from seeing some truth in my argument. We have our charms, we Irish,
eh?"

"Your charm?"

"Well, mine, if you like, as a type, and"--recklessly and with a shrug
of her shoulders--"if you wish to be personal."

She has gone a little too far.

"I think I have acknowledged that," says he, coldly. He rises abruptly
and goes over to where she is standing on the hearthrug--shading her
face from the fire with a huge Japanese fan. "Have I ever denied your
charm?" His tone has been growing in intensity, and now becomes stern.
"Why do you talk to me like this? What is the meaning of it all--your
altered manner--everything? Why did you grant me this interview?"

"Perhaps because"--still with that radiant smile, bright and cold as
early frost--"like that little soapy boy, I thought you would 'not be
happy till you got it.'"

She laughs lightly. The laugh is the outcome of the smile, and its close
imitation. It is perfectly successful, but on the surface only. There is
no heart in it.

"You think I arranged it?"

"Oh, no; how could I? You have just said I arranged it." She shuts up
her fan with a little click. "You want to say something, don't you?"
says she, "well, say it!"

"You give me permission, then?" asks he, gravely, despair knocking at
his heart.

"Why not--would I have you unhappy always?" Her tone is jesting
throughout.

"You think," taking the hand that holds the fan and restraining its
motion for a moment, "that if I do speak I shall be happier?"

"Ah! that is beyond me," says she. "And yet--yes; to get a thing over is
to get rid of fatigue. I have argued it all out for myself, and have
come to the conclusion----"

"For yourself!"

"Well, for you too," a little impatiently. "After all, it is you who
want to speak. Silence, to me, is golden. But it occurred to me in the
silent watches of the night," with another, now rather forced, little
laugh, "that if you once said to me all you had to say, you would be
contented, and go away and not trouble me any more."

"I can do that now, without saying anything," says he slowly. He has
dropped her hand; he is evidently deeply wounded.

"Can you?"

Her eyes are resting relentlessly on his. Is there magic in them? Her
mouth has taken a strange expression.

"I might have known how it would be," says Dysart, throwing up his head.
"You will not forgive! It was but a moment--a few words, idle,
hardly-considered, and----"

"Oh, yes, considered," says she slowly.

"They were unmeant!" persists he, fiercely. "I defy you to think
otherwise. One great mistake--a second's madness--and you have ordained
that it shall wreck my whole life! You!--That evening in the library at
the court. I had not thought of----"

"Ah!" she interrupts him, even more by her gesture--which betrays the
first touch of passion she has shown--than by her voice, that is still
mocking. "I knew you would have to say it!"

"You know me, indeed!" says he, with an enforced calmness that leaves
him very white. "My whole heart and soul lies bare to you, to ruin it as
you will. It is the merest waste of time, I know; but still I have felt
all along that I must tell you again that I love you, though I fully
understand I shall receive nothing in return but scorn and contempt.
Still, to be able even to say it is a relief to me."

"And what is it to me?" asks the girl, as pale now as he is. "Is it a
relief--a comfort to me to have to listen to you?"

She clenches her hands involuntarily. The fan falls with a little crash
to the ground.

"No." He is silent a moment, "No--it is unfair--unjust! You shall not be
made uncomfortable again. It is the last time.... I shall not trouble
you again in this way. I don't say we shall never meet again.
You"--pausing and looking at her--"you do not desire that?"

"Oh, no," coldly, politely.

"If you do, say so at once," with a rather peremptory ring in his tone.

"I should," calmly.

"I am glad of that. As my cousin is a great friend of mine, and as I
shall get a fortnight's leave soon, I shall probably run over to
Ireland, and spend it with her. After all"--bitterly--"why should I
suppose it would be disagreeable to you?"

"It was quite a natural idea," says she, immovably.

"However," says he, steadily, "you need not be afraid that, even if we
do meet, I shall ever annoy you in this way again----"

"Oh, I am never afraid," says she, with that terrible smile that seems
to freeze him.

"Well, good-bye," holding out his hand. He is quite as composed as she
is now, and is even able to return her smile in kind.

"So soon? But Barbara will be down to tea in a few minutes. You will
surely wait for her?"

"I think not."

"But really do! I am going to see after the children, and give them some
chocolate I bought for them."

"It will probably make them ill," says he, smiling still. "No, thank
you. I must go now, indeed. You will make my excuses to Mrs. Monkton,
please. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," says she, laying her hand in his for a second. She has grown
suddenly very cold, shivering: it seems almost as if an icy blast from
some open portal has been blown in upon her. He is still looking at her.
There is something wild--strange--in his expression.

"You cannot realize it, but I can," says he, unsteadily. "It is good-bye
forever, so far as life for me is concerned."

He has turned away from her. He is gone. The sharp closing of the door
wakens her to the fact that she is alone. Mechanically, quite calmly,
she looks around the empty room. There is a little Persian chair cover
over there all awry. She rearranges it with a critical eye to its proper
appearance, and afterward pushes a small chair into its place. She pats
a cushion or two, and, finally taking up her bonnet and the pins she had
laid upon the chimney-piece, goes up to her own room.

Once there----

With a rush the whole thing comes back to her. The entire meaning of
it--what she has done. That word--forever. The bonnet has fallen from
her fingers. Sinking upon her knees beside the bed, she buries her face
out of sight. Presently her slender frame is torn by those cruel, yet
merciful sobs!

CHAPTER XL.

    "The sense of death is most in apprehension."

    "Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure."

It is destined to be a day of grief! Monkton who had been out all the
morning, having gone to see the old people, a usual habit of his, had
not returned to dinner--a very unusual habit with him. It had occurred,
however, once or twice, that he had stayed to dine with them on such
occasions, as when Sir George had had a troublesome letter from his
elder son, and had looked to the younger to give him some comfort--some
of his time to help him to bear it, by talking it all over. Barbara,
therefore, while dressing for Mrs. Thesiger's "At Home," had scarcely
felt anxiety, and, indeed, it is only now when she has come down to the
drawing-room to find Joyce awaiting her, also in gala garb, so far as a
gown goes, that a suspicion of coming trouble takes possession of her.

"He is late, isn't he?" she says, looking at Joyce with something
nervous in her expression. "What can have kept him? I know he wanted to
meet the General, and now----What can it be?"

"His mother, probably," says Joyce, indifferently. "From your
description of her, I should say she must be a most thoroughly
uncomfortable old person."

"Yes. Not pleasant, certainly. A little of her, as George Ingram used to
say, goes a long way. But still----And these Thesiger people are friends
of his, and----"

"You are working yourself up into a thorough belief in the sensational
street accident," says Joyce, who has seated herself well out of the
glare of the chandelier. "You want to be tragic. It is a mistake,
believe me."

Something in the bitterness of the girl's tone strikes on her sister's
ear. Joyce had not come down to dinner, had pleaded a headache as an
excuse for her non-appearance, and Mrs. Monkton and Tommy (she could not
bear to dine alone) had devoured that meal _à deux_. Tommy had certainly
been anything but dull company.

"Has anything happened, Joyce?" asks her sister quickly. She has had her
suspicions, of course, but they were of the vaguest order.

Joyce laughs.

"I told you your nerves were out of order," says she. "What should
happen? Are you still dwelling on the running over business? I assure
you you wrong Freddy. He can take care of himself at a crossing as well
as another man, and better. Even a hansom, I am convinced, could do no
harm to Freddy."

"I wasn't thinking of him," says Barbara, a little reproachfully,
perhaps. "I----"

"No. Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Here he is," cries she
suddenly, springing to her feet as the sound of Monkton's footsteps
ascending the stairs can now be distinctly heard. "I hope you will
explain yourself to him." She laughs again, and disappears through the
doorway that leads to the second hall outside, as Monkton enters.

"How late you are, Freddy," says his wife, the reproach in her voice
heightened because of the anxiety she had been enduring. "I thought you
would never----What is it? What has happened? Freddy! there is bad
news."

"Yes, very bad," says Monkton, sinking into a chair.

"Your brother----" breathlessly. Of late, she has always known that
trouble is to be expected from him.

"He is dead," says Monkton in a low tone.

Barbara, flinging her opera cloak aside, comes quickly to him. She leans
over him and slips her arms round his neck.

"Dead!" says she in an awestruck tone.

"Yes. Killed himself! Shot himself! the telegram came this morning when
I was with them. I could not come home sooner; it was impossible to
leave them."

"Oh, Freddy, I am sorry you left them even now; a line to me would have
done. Oh, what a horrible thing, and to die like that."

"Yes." He presses one of her hands, and then, rising, begins to move
hurriedly up and down the room. "It was misfortune upon misfortune," he
says presently. "When I went over there this morning they had just
received a letter filled with----"

"From him!"

"Yes. That is what seemed to make it so much worse later on. Life in the
morning, death in the afternoon!" His voice grows choked. "And such a
letter as it was, filled with nothing but a most scandalous account of
his----Oh!"----he breaks off suddenly as if shocked. "Oh, he is dead,
poor fellow."

"Don't take it like that," says Barbara, following him and clinging to
him. "You know you could not be unkind. There were debts then?"

"Debts! It is difficult to explain just now, my head is aching so; and
those poor old people? Well, it means ruin for them, Barbara. Of course
his debts must be paid, his honor kept intact, for the sake of the old
name, but--they will let all the houses, the two in town, this one, and
their own, and--and the old place down in Warwickshire, the home, all
must go out of their hands."

"Oh, Freddy, surely--surely there must be some way----"

"Not one. I spoke about breaking the entail. You know I--his death, poor
fellow. I----"

"Yes, yes, dear."

"But they wouldn't hear of it. My mother was very angry, even in her
grief, when I proposed it. They hope that by strict retrenchment, the
property will be itself again; and they spoke about Tommy. They said it
would be unjust to him----"

"And to you," quickly. She would not have him ignored any longer.

"Oh, as for me, I'm not a boy, you know. Tommy is safe to inherit as
life goes."

"Well, so are you," said she, with a sharp pang at her heart.

"Yes, of course. I am only making out a case. I think it was kind of
them to remember Tommy's claim in the midst of their own grief."

"It was, indeed," says she remorsefully. "Oh, it was. But if they give
up everything where will they go?"

"They talk of taking a cottage--a small house somewhere. They want to
give up everything to pay his infamous----There!" sharply, "I am
forgetting again! But to see them makes one forget everything else." He
begins his walk up and down the room again, as if inaction is impossible
to him. "My mother, who has been accustomed to a certain luxury all her
life, to be now, at the very close of it, condemned to----It would break
your heart to see her. And she will let nothing be said of him."

"Oh, no."

"Still, there should be justice. I can't help feeling that. Her
blameless life, and his----and she is the one to suffer."

"It is so often so," says his wife in a low tone. "It is an old story,
dearest, but I know that when the old stories come home to us
individually they always sound so terribly new. But what do they mean by
a small house?" asks she presently in a distressed tone.

"Well, I suppose a small house," said he, with just a passing gleam of
his old jesting manner. "You know my mother cannot bear the country, so
I think the cottage idea will fall through."

"Freddy," says his wife suddenly. "She can't go into a small house, a
London small house. It is out of the question. Could they not come and
live with us?"

She is suggesting a martyrdom for herself, yet she does it
unflinchingly.

"What! My aunt and all?" asks he, regarding her earnestly.

"Oh, of course, of course, poor old thing," says she, unable this time,
however, to hide the quaver that desolates her voice.

"No," says her husband with a suspicion of vehemence. He takes her
suddenly in his arms and kisses her. "Because two or three people are
unhappy is no reason why a fourth should be made so, and I don't want
your life spoiled, so far as I can prevent it. I suppose you have
guessed that I must go over to Nice--where he is--my father could not
possibly go alone in his present state."

"When, must you go?"

"To-morrow. As for you----"

"If we could go home," says she uncertainly.

"That is what I would suggest, but how will you manage without me? The
children are so troublesome when taken out of their usual beat, and
their nurse--I often wonder which would require the most looking after,
they or she? It occurred to me to ask Dysart to see you across."

"He is so kind, such a friend," says Mrs. Monkton. "But----"

She might have said more, but at this instant Joyce appears in the
doorway.

"We shall be late," cries she, "and Freddy not even dressed, why----Oh,
has anything really happened?"

"Yes, yes," says Barbara hurriedly--a few words explains all. "We must
go home to-morrow, you see; and Freddy thinks that Felix would look
after us until we reached Kensington or North Wall."

"Felix--Mr. Dysart?" The girl's face had grown pale during the recital
of the suicide, but now it looks ghastly. "Why should he come?" cries
she in a ringing tone, that has actual fear in it. "Do you suppose that
we two cannot manage the children between us? Oh, nonsense, Barbara; why
Tommy is as sensible as he can be, and if nurse does prove incapable,
and a prey to seasickness, well--I can take baby, and you can look after
Mabel. It will be all right! We are not going to America, really.
Freddy, please say you will not trouble Mr. Dysart about this matter."

"Yes, I really think we shall not require him," says Barbara. Something
in the glittering brightness of her sister's eye warns her to give in at
once, and indeed she has been unconsciously a little half-hearted about
having Felix or any stranger as a travelling companion. "There, run
away, Joyce, and go to your bed, darling; you look very tired. I must
still arrange some few things with Freddy."

"What is the matter with her?" asks Monkton, when Joyce has gone away.
"She looks as if she had been crying, and her manner is so excitable."

"She has been strange all day, almost repellant. Felix called--and--I
don't know what happened; she insisted upon my leaving her alone with
him; but I am afraid there was a scene of some sort. I know she had been
crying, because her eyes were so red, but she would say nothing, and I
was afraid to ask her."

"Better not. I hope she is not still thinking of that fellow Beauclerk.
However----" he stops short and sighs heavily.

"You must not think of her now," says Barbara quickly; "your own trouble
is enough for you. Were your brother's affairs so very bad that they
necessitate the giving up of everything?"

"It has been going on for years. My father has had to economize, to cut
down everything. You know the old place was let to a Mr.--Mr.--I quite
forget the name now," pressing his hand to his brow; "a Manchester man,
at all events, but we always hoped my father would have been able to
take it back from him next year, but now----"

"But you say they think in time that the property will----"

"They think so. I don't. But it would be a pity to undeceive them. I am
afraid, Barbara," with a sad look at her, "you made a bad match. Even
when the chance comes in your way to rise out of poverty, it proves a
thoroughly useless one."

"It isn't like you to talk like that," says she quickly. "There, you are
overwrought, and no wonder, too. Come upstairs and let us see what you
will want for your journey." Her tone had grown purposely brisk; surely,
on an occasion such as this she is a wife, a companion in a thousand.
"There must be many things to be considered, both for you and for me.
And the thing is, to take nothing unnecessary. Those foreign places, I
hear, are so----"

"It hardly matters what I take," says he wearily.

"Well, it matters what I take," says she briskly. "Come and give me a
help, Freddy. You know how I hate to have servants standing over me.
Other people stand over their servants, but they are poor rich people. I
like to see how the clothes are packed." She is speaking not quite
truthfully. Few people like to be spared trouble so much as she does,
but it seems good in her eyes now to rouse him from the melancholy that
is fast growing on him. "Come," she says, tucking her arm into his.

CHAPTER XLI.

    "It is not to-morrow; ah, were it to-day!
    There are two that I know that would be gay.
    Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
    Ah I parting wounds so bitterly!"

It is six weeks later, "spring has come up this way," and all the earth
is glad with a fresh birth.

    "Tantarara! the joyous Book of Spring
      Lies open, writ in blossoms; not a bird
      Of evil augury is seen or heard!
    Come now, like Pan's old crew we'll dance and sing,
    Or Oberon's, for hill and valley ring
      To March's bugle horn--earth's blood is stirred."

March has indeed come; boisterous, wild, terrible, in many ways, but
lovely in others. There is a freshness in the air that rouses glad
thoughts within the breast, vague thoughts, sweet, as undefinable, and
that yet mean life. The whole land seems to have sprung up from a long
slumber, and to be looking with wide happy eyes upon the fresh marvels
Nature is preparing for it. Rather naked she stands as yet, rubbing her
sleepy lids, having just cast from her her coat of snow, and feeling
somewhat bare in the frail garment of bursting leaves and timid grass
growths, that as yet is all she can find wherein to hide her charms; but
half clothed as she is, she is still beautiful.

Everything seems full of eager triumph. Hills, trees, valleys, lawns,
and bursting streams, all are overflowing with a wild enjoyment. All the
dull, dingy drapery in which winter had shrouded them has now been cast
aside, and the resplendent furniture with which each spring delights to
deck her home stands revealed.

All these past dead months her house has lain desolate, enfolded in
death's cerements, but now uprising in her vigorous youth, she flings
aside the dull coverings, and lets the sweet, brilliant hues that lie
beneath, shine forth in all their beauty to meet the eye of day.

Earth and sky are in bridal array, and from the rich recesses of the
woods, and from each shrub and branch the soft glad pæans of the mating
birds sound like a wedding chant.

Monkton had come back from that sad journey to Nice some weeks ago. He
had had very little to tell on his return, and that of the saddest. It
had all been only too true about those iniquitous debts, and the old
people were in great distress. The two town houses should be let at
once, and the old place in Warwickshire--the home, as he called
it--well! there was no hope now that it would ever be redeemed from the
hands of the Manchester people who held it; and Sir George had been so
sure that this spring he would have been in a position to get back his
own, and have the old place once more in his possession. It was all very
sad.

"There is no hope now. He will have to let the place to Barton for the
next ten years," said Monkton to his wife when he got home. Barton was
the Manchester man. "He is still holding off about doing it, but he
knows it must be done, and at all events the reality won't be a bit
worse than the thinking about it. Poor old Governor! You wouldn't know
him, Barbara. He has gone to skin and bone, and such a frightened sort
of look in his eyes."

"Oh! poor, poor old man!" cried Barbara, who could forget everything in
the way of past unkindness where her sympathies were enlisted.

Toward the end of February the guests had begun to arrive at the Court.
Lady Baltimore had returned there during January with her little son,
but Baltimore had not put in an appearance for some weeks later. A good
many new people unknown to the Monktons had arrived there with others
whom they did know, and after awhile Dicky Browne had come and Miss
Maliphant and the Brabazons and some others with whom Joyce was on
friendly terms, but even though Lady Baltimore had made rather a point
of the girls being with her, Joyce had gone to her but sparingly, and
always in fear and trembling. It was so impossible to know who might not
have arrived last night, or was going to arrive this night!

Besides, Barbara and Freddy were so saddened, so upset by the late death
and its consequences, that it seemed unkind even to pretend to enjoy
oneself. Joyce grasped at this excuse to say "no" very often to Lady
Baltimore's kindly longings to have her with her. That, up to this,
neither Dysart nor Beauclerk had come to the Court, had been a comfort
to her; but that they might come at any moment kept her watchful and
uneasy. Indeed, only yesterday she had heard from Lady Baltimore that
both were expected during the ensuing week.

That news leaves her rather unstrung and nervous to-day. After luncheon,
having successfully eluded Tommy, the lynx-eyed, she decides upon going
for a long walk, with a view to working off the depression to which she
has become prey. This is how she happens to be out of the way when the
letter comes for Barbara that changes altogether the tenor of their
lives.

The afternoon post brings it. The delicious spring day has worn itself
almost to a close when Monkton, entering his wife's room, where she is
busy at a sewing machine altering a frock for Mabel, drops a letter over
her shoulder into her lap.

"What a queer looking letter," says she, staring in amazement at the big
official blue envelope.

"Ah--ha, I thought it would make you shiver," says he, lounging over to
the fire, and nestling his back comfortably against the mantle-piece.
"What have you been up to I should like to know. No wonder you are
turning a lively purple."

"But what can it be?" says she.

"That's just it," says he teazingly. "I hope they aren't going to arrest
you, that's all. Five years' penal servitude is not a thing to hanker
after."

Mrs. Monkton, however, is not listening to this tirade. She has broken
open the envelope and is now scanning hurriedly the contents of the
important-looking document within. There is a pause--a lengthened one.
Presently Barbara rises from her seat, mechanically, as it were, always
with her eyes fixed on the letter in her hand. She has grown a little
pale--a little puzzled frown is contracting her forehead.

"Freddy!" says she in a rather strange tone.

"What?" says he quickly. "No more bad news I hope."

"Oh, no! Oh, yes! I can't quite make it out--but--I'm afraid my poor
uncle is dead."

"Your uncle?"

"Yes, yes. My father's brother. I think I told you about him. He went
abroad years ago, and we--Joyce and I, believed him dead a long time
ago, long before I married you even--but now----Come here and read it.
It is worded so oddly that it puzzles me."

"Let me see it," says Monkton.

He sinks into an easy-chair, and drags her down on to his knee, the
better to see over her shoulder. Thus satisfactorily arranged, he begins
to read rapidly the letter she holds up before his eyes.

"Yes, dead indeed," says he sotto voce. "Go on, turn over; you mustn't
fret about that, you know. Barbara--er--er--" reading. "What's this? By
Jove!"

"What?" says his wife anxiously. "What is the meaning of this horrid
letter, Freddy?"

"There are a few people who might not call it horrid," says Monkton,
placing his arm round her and rising from the chair. He is looking very
grave. "Even though it brings you news of your poor uncle's death, still
it brings you too the information that you are heiress to about a
quarter of a million!"

"What!" says Barbara faintly. And then, "Oh no. Oh! nonsense! there must
be some mistake!"

"Well, it sounds like it at all events. 'Sad occurrence,'
h'm--h'm----" reading. "'Co-heiresses. Very considerable fortune.'" He
looks to the signature of the letter. "Hodgson & Fair. Very respectable
firm! My father has had dealings with them. They say your uncle died in
Sydney, and has left behind him an immense sum of money. Half a million,
in fact, to which you and Joyce are co-heiresses."

"There must be a mistake," repeats Barbara, in a low tone. "It seems too
like a fairy tale."

"It does. And yet, lawyers like Hodgson & Fair are not likely to be led
into a cul-de-sac. If----" he pauses, and looks earnestly at his wife.
"If it does prove true, Barbara, you will be a very rich woman."

"And you will be rich with me," she says, quickly, in an agitated tone.
"But, but----"

"Yes; it does seem difficult to believe," interrupts he, slowly. "What a
letter!" His eyes fall on it again, and she, drawing close to him, reads
it once more, carefully.

"I think there is truth in it," says she, at last. "It sounds more like
being all right, more reasonable, when read a second time. Freddy----"

She steps a little bit away from him, and rests her beautiful eyes full
on his.

"Have you thought," says she, slowly, "that if there is truth in this
story, how much we shall be able to do for your father and mother!"

Monkton starts as if stung. For them. To do anything for them. For the
two who had so wantonly offended and insulted her during all her married
life: Is her first thought to be for them?

"Yes, yes," says she, eagerly. "We shall be able to help them out of all
their difficulties. Oh! I didn't say much to you, but in their grief,
their troubles have gone to my very heart. I couldn't bear to think of
their being obliged to give up their houses, their comforts, and in
their old age, too! Now we shall be able to smooth matters for them!"

CHAPTER XLII.

    "It's we two, it's we two, it's we two for aye,
    All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay,
    Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride!
    All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side."

The light in her eyes is angelic. She has laid her hands upon both her
husband's arms, as if expecting him to take her into them, as he always
does only too gladly on the smallest provocation. Just now, however, he
fails her, for the moment only, however.

"Barbara," says he, in a choked voice: he holds her from him, examining
her face critically. His thoughts are painful, yet proud--proud beyond
telling. His examination does not last long: there is nothing but good
to be read in that fair, sweet, lovable face. He gathers her to him with
a force that is almost hurtful.

"Are you a woman at all, or just an angel?" says he, with a deep sigh.

"What is it, Freddy?"

"After all they have done to you. Their insults, coldness, abominable
conduct, to think that your first thought should be for them. Why, look
here, Barbara," vehemently, "they are not worthy that you should----"

"Tut!" interrupts she, lightly, yet with a little sob in her throat. His
praise is so sweet to her. "You overrate me. Is it for them I would do
it or for you? There, take all the thought for yourself. And, besides,
are not you and I one, and shall not your people be my people? Come, if
you think of it, there is no such great merit after all."

"You forget----"

"No; not a word against them. I won't listen," thrusting her fingers
into her ears. "It is all over and done with long ago. And it is our
turn now, and let us do things decently and in order, and create no
heart-burnings."

"But when I think----"

"If thinking makes you look like that, don't think."

"But I must. I must remember how they scorned and slighted you. It never
seems to have come home to me so vividly as now--now when you seem to
have forgotten it. Oh, Barbara!" He presses back her head and looks long
and tenderly into her eyes. "I was not mistaken, indeed, when I gave you
my heart. Surely you are one among ten thousand."

"Silly boy," says she, with a little tremulous laugh, glad to her very
soul's centre, however, because of his words. "What is there to praise
me for? Have I not warned you that I am purely selfish? What is there I
would not do for very love of you? Come, Freddy," shaking herself loose
from him, and laughing now with honest delight. "Let us be reasonable.
Oh! poor old uncle, it seems hateful to rejoice thus over his death, but
his memory is really only a shadow after all, and I suppose he meant to
make us happy by his gift, eh, Freddy?"

"Yes, how well he remembered during all these years. He could have
formed no other ties."

"None, naturally." Short pause. "There is that black mare of Mike
Donovan's, Freddy, that you so fancied. You can buy it now."

Monkton laughs involuntarily. Something of the child has always lingered
about Barbara.

"And I should like to get a black velvet gown," says she, her face
brightening, "and to buy Joyce a----Oh! but Joyce will be rich herself."

"Yes. I'm really afraid you will be done out of the joy of overloading
Joyce with gifts. She'll be able to give you something. That will be a
change, at all events. As for the velvet gown, if this," touching the
letter, "bears any meaning, I should think you need not confine yourself
to one velvet gown."

"And there's Tommy," says she quickly, her thoughts running so fast that
she scarcely hears him. "You have always said you wanted to put him in
the army. Now you can do it."

"Yes," says Monkton, with sudden interest. "I should like that. But
you--you shrank from the thought, didn't you?"

"Well, he might have to go to India," says she, nervously.

"And what of that?"

"Oh, nothing--that is, nothing really--only there are lions and tigers
there, Freddy; aren't there, now?"

"One or two," says Mr. Monkton, "if we are to believe travelers' tales.
But they are all proverbially false. I don't believe in lions at all
myself. I'm sure they are myths. Well, let him go into the navy, then.
Lions and tigers don't as a rule inhabit the great deep."

"Oh, no; but sharks do," says she, with a visible shudder. "No, no, on
the whole I had rather trust him to the beasts of the field. He could
run away from them, but you can't run in the sea."

"True," says Mr. Monkton, with exemplary gravity. "I couldn't, at all
events."

Monkton had to run across to London about the extraordinary legacy left
to his wife and Joyce. But further investigation proved the story true.
The money was, indeed, there, and they were the only heirs. From being
distinctly poor they rose to the height of a very respectable income,
and Monkton being in town, where the old Monktons still were, also was
commanded by his wife to go to them and pay off their largest
liabilities--debts contracted by the dead son, and to so arrange that
they should not be at the necessity of leaving themselves houseless.

The Manchester people who had taken the old place in Warwickshire were
now informed that they could not have it beyond the term agreed on; but
about this the old people had something to say, too. They would not take
back the family place. They had but one son now, and the sooner he went
to live there the better. Lady Monkton, completely, broken down and
melted by Barbara's generosity, went so far as to send her a long
letter, telling her it would be the dearest wish of her and Sir George's
hearts that she should preside as mistress over the beautiful old
homestead, and that it would give them great happiness to imagine, the
children--the grandchildren--running riot through the big wainscoted
rooms. Barbara was not to wait for her--Lady Monkton's--death to take up
her position as head of the house. She was to go to Warwickshire at
once, the moment those detestable Manchester people were out of it; and
Lady Monkton, if Barbara would be so good as to make her welcome, would
like to come to her for three months every year, to see the children,
and her son, and her daughter! The last was the crowning touch. For the
rest, Barbara was not to hesitate about accepting the Warwickshire
place, as Lady Monkton and Sir George were devoted to town life, and
never felt quite well when away from smoky London.

This last was true. As a fact, the old people were thoroughly imbued
with the desire for the turmoil of city life, and the three months of
country Lady Monkton had stipulated for were quite as much as they
desired of rustic felicity.

Barbara accepted the gift of the old home. Eventually, of course, it
would be hers, but she knew the old people meant the present giving of
it as a sort of return for her liberality--for the generosity that had
enabled them to once more lift their heads among their equals.

The great news meanwhile had spread like wildfire through the Irish
country where the Frederic Monktons lived. Lady Baltimore was
unfeignedly glad about it, and came down at once to embrace Barbara, and
say all sorts of delightful things about it. The excitement of the whole
affair seemed to dissipate all the sadness and depression that had
followed on the death of the elder son, and nothing now was talked of
but the great good luck that had fallen into the paths of Barbara and
Joyce. The poor old uncle had been considered dead for so many years
previously, and was indeed such a dim memory to his nieces, that it
would have been the purest affectation to pretend to feel any deep grief
for his demise.

Perhaps what grieved Barbara most of all, though she said very little
about it, was the idea of having to leave the old house in which they
were now living. It did not not cheer her to think of the place in
Warwickshire, which, of course, was beautiful, and full of
possibilities.

This foolish old Irish home--rich in discomforts--was home. It seemed
hard to abandon it. It was not a palatial mansion, certainly; it was
even dismal in many ways, but it contained more love in its little space
than many a noble mansion could boast. It seemed cruel--ungrateful--to
cast it behind her, once it was possible to mount a few steps on the
rungs of the worldly ladder.

How happy they had all been here together, in this foolish old house,
that every severe storm seemed to threaten with final dissolution. It
gave her many a secret pang to think that she must part from it for ever
before another year should dawn.

CHAPTER XLIII.

    "Looks the heart alone discover,
      If the tongue its thoughts can tell,
    'Tis in vain you play the lover,
      You have never felt the spell."

Joyce, who had been dreading, with a silent but terrible fear, her first
meeting with Dysart, had found it no such great matter after all when
they were at last face to face. Dysart had met her as coolly, with
apparently as little concern as though no former passages had ever taken
place between them.

His manner was perfectly calm, and as devoid of feeling as any one could
desire, and it was open to her comprehension that he avoided her
whenever he possibly could. She told herself this was all she could, or
did, desire; yet, nevertheless, she writhed beneath the certainty of it.

Beauclerk had not arrived until a week later than Dysart; until, indeed,
the news of the marvelous fortune that had come to her was well
authenticated, and then had been all that could possibly be expected of
him. His manner was perfect. He sat still And gazed with delightfully
friendly eyes into Miss Maliphant's pleased countenance, and anon
skipped across room or lawn to whisper beautiful nothings to Miss
Kavanagh. The latter's change of fortune did not, apparently, seem to
affect him in the least. After all, even now she was not as good a
_parti_ as Miss Maliphant, where money was concerned, but then there
were other things. Whatever his outward manner might lead one to
suspect, beyond doubt he thought a great deal at this time, and finally
came to a conclusion.

Joyce's fortune had helped her in many ways. It had helped many of the
poor around her, too; but it did even more than that. It helped Mr.
Beauclerk to make up his mind with regard to his matrimonial prospects.

Sitting in his chambers in town with Lady Baltimore's letter before him
that told him of the change in Joyce's fortune--of the fortune that had
changed her, in fact, from a pretty penniless girl to a pretty rich one,
he told himself that, after all, she had certainly been the girl for him
since the commencement of their acquaintance.

She was charming--not a whit more now than then. He would not belie his
own taste so far as so admit that she was more desirable in any way now,
in her prosperity, than when first he saw her, and paid her the immense
compliment of admiring her.

He permitted himself to grow a little enthusiastic, however, to say out
loud to himself, as it were, all that he had hardly allowed himself to
think up to this. She was, beyond question, the most charming girl in
the world! Such grace--such finish! A girl worthy of the love of the
best of men--presumably himself!

He had always loved her--always! He had never felt so sure of that
delightful fact as now. He had had a kind of knowledge, even when afraid
to give ear to it, that she was the wife best suited to him to be found
anywhere. She understood him! They were thoroughly _en rapport_ with
each other. Their marriage would be a success in the deepest, sincerest
meaning of that word.

He leant luxuriously among the cushions of his chair, lit a fragrant
cigarette, and ran his mind backward over many things. Well! Perhaps so!
But yet if he had refrained from proposing to her until now--now when
fate smiles upon her--it was simply because he dreaded dragging her into
a marriage where she could not have had all those little best things of
life that so peerless a creature had every right to demand.

Yes! it was for her sake alone he had hesitated. He feels sure of that
now. He has thoroughly persuaded himself the purity of the motives that
kept him tongue tied when honor called aloud to him for speech. He feels
himself so exalted that he metaphorically pats himself upon the back and
tells himself he is a righteous being--a very Brutus where honor is
concerned; any other man might have hurried that exquisite creature into
a squalid marriage for the mere sake of gratifying an overpowering
affection, but he had been above all that! He had considered her! The
man's duty is ever to protect the woman! He had protected her--even from
herself; for that she would have been only too willing to link her sweet
fate with his at any price-was patent to all the world. Few people have
felt as virtuous as Mr. Beauclerk as he comes to the end of this thread
of his imaginings.

Well! he will make it up to her! He smiles benignly through the smoke
that rises round his nose. She shall never have reason to remember that
he had not fallen on his knees to her--as a less considerate man might
have done--when he was without the means to make her life as bright as
it should be.

The most eager of lovers must live, and eating is the first move toward
that conclusion. Yet if he had given way to selfish desires they would
scarcely, he and she, have had sufficient bread (of any delectable kind)
to fill their mouths. But now all would be different. She, clever girl!
had supplied the blank; she had squared the difficulty. Having provided
the wherewithal to keep body and soul together in a nice, respectable,
fashionable, modern sort of way, her constancy shall certainly be
rewarded. He will go straight down to the Court, and declare to her the
sentiments that have been warming his breast (silently!) all these past
months. What a dear girl she is, and so fond of him! That in itself is
an extra charm in her very delightful character. And those fortunate
thousands! Quite a quarter of a million, isn't it? Well, of course, no
use saying they won't come in handy--no use being hypocritical over
it--horrid thing a hypocrite!--well, those thousands naturally have
their charm, too.

He rose, flung his cigarette aside (it was finished as far as careful
enjoyment would permit), and rang for his servant to pack his
portmanteaux. He was going to the Court by the morning train.

Now that he is here, however, he restrains the ardor, that no doubt is
consuming him, with altogether admirable patience, and waits for the
chance that may permit him to lay his valuable affections at Joyce's
feet. A dinner to be followed by an impromptu dance at the Court
suggests itself as a very fitting opportunity. He grasps it. Yes,
to-morrow evening will be an excellent and artistic opening for a thing
of this sort. All through luncheon, even while conversing with Joyce and
Miss Maliphant on various outside topics, his versatile mind is
arranging a picturesque spot in the garden enclosures wherein to make
Joyce a happy woman!

Lady Swansdown, glancing across the table at him, laughs lightly. Always
disliking him, she has still been able to read him very clearly, and his
determination to now propose to Joyce amuses her nearly as much as it
annoys her. Frivolous to the last degree as she is, an honest regard for
Joyce has taken hold within her breast. Lord Baltimore, too, is
disturbed by his brother's present.

CHAPTER XLIV.

    "Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with
        might;
    Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of
        sight."

Lady Swansdown is startled into a remembrance of the present by the
entrance of somebody. After all Dicky, the troublesome, was right--this
is no spot in which to sleep or dream. Turning her head with an indolent
impatience to see who has come to disturb her, she meets Lady
Baltimore's clear eyes.

Some sharp pang of remorse, of fear, perhaps, compels her to spring to
her feet, and gaze at her hostess with an expression that is almost