"Half prankt with spring, with summer half embrowned."
"Half prankt with spring, with summer half embrowned."
Under a scented hawthorn-hedge, skirting the main road that leads into the High Street of Nutsford, the Misses Lefroy pause for a moment to adjust the sylvan vagaries of their toilet.
Addie pulls a long limp plume of hartstongue and branch of "woodbine faintly streaked with red" from the battered leaf of her straw hat, which she pitches lightly over her straggling locks, then gives her pelerine a hasty unmeaning twitch that carries the center hook from the right to the left shoulder, and feels perfectly satisfied with her appearance. Pauline steps in front of her sister, with arequest to stand on a troublesome bramble caught in her skirt. Addie without hesitation puts forth a patched unlovely boot, and the other moves forward with a brisk jerk, leaving not only the incumbrance well behind, but also a flounce of muddy lining hanging below her skirt; and thus the descendants of the Sieur de Beaulieu saunter down the High Street, with heads erect, callous, haughtily indifferent to public opinion, looking as it the whole county belonged to them.
"Look, mother—look at those poor Lefroys!" cried Miss Ethel Challice, the banker's daughter, as she drives past in her elegantly appointed C-spring landau, perfectly gloved, veiled, and shod. "Aren't they awful? Not a pair of gloves among them! And their boots—elastic sides—what my maid wouldn't wear! Patched at the toes, too! You would never say they were ladies, would you?"
"Poor children! They have no mother, you know, darling, and a bad, bad father."
"Oh, yes, I know! But he was such a handsome, attractive man! Don't you remember, mother, at Ascot, three years ago, when he asked us to lunch on his drag, and introduced me to Lord Squanderford, how fascinating we all thought him?"
Mrs. Challice shrugs her portly shoulders.
"Fascinating, but thoroughly unprincipled, my dear. I do pity his poor children. What will become of them, thrown destitute on the world? Well, I have nothing for which to blame myself. I tried to do my best for them; but—whether it was from want of manner or through senseless pride I can not tell—Miss Lefroy did not respond to my attempted civility, and the last day I called—about a year ago—I saw the whole family flying from the house across the wilderness like a crowd of scared savages, when the carriage stopped at the hall door."
"Oh, it was all want of manners, of course, mother dear! That poor girl would not know how to receive a visitor or enter a drawing-room. She has never been in any society, you know. All the county people have left off calling on them too; they treated them just in the same way that they treated you. They're perfect savages!"
"The second girl promises to be rather good-looking."
"Do you think so? She's too gypsified for my taste—looks as if she would be in keeping at a country fair, with a tambourine and a scarlet cap."
"She's a remarkably good-looking girl—that's what she is," Mr. Percy Challice puts in, with a knowing smile—"steps out like a thoroughbred, she does. 'Twould be well for you, my dear sister, if you had her action on the pavement."
"So I could have, if I wore boots and skirts like hers," retorts Miss Ethel sullenly.
"Then I'd strongly advise you, my dear, to get the address of her milliner and bootmaker at once."
"I say, Pauline, is that Miss Rossitor going in at No. 3? It's just like what I remember of her dear old-maidish figure. I know she was expected home this month."
"Poor old Rossitor!" laughs Pauline. "Do you remember, Addie, the long mornings she used to spend trying to make Bob and you understand the difference between latitude and longitude?"
"I remember," answers Addie, with a sigh, "that she was wonderfully patient and painstaking with us, and I wish now with all my heart that I had profited more by her teaching. Pauline, I think I'll just run in and see if it is she. You and Lottie can return and let auntie know where I am."
Miss Rossitor, a neat bright-eyed little woman of thirty-five, daughter of a deceased clergyman, had, some three years before, undertaken the education of Colonel Lefroy's neglected children, spending three or four hours every morning in their dilapidated school-room. She had become much attached to her unruly pupils, and it was with sincere regret that she had to give them up and go abroad as resident governess in a French family, being very poor herself, and finding it impossible to get her quarterly applications for salary attended to by the gallant but ever-absent colonel.
"You old dear!" cries Addie, kissing the little lady vehemently. "It is you, really! I'm so glad to see you again! When did you arrive? How did you manage to get leave?"
"I arrived last night; mother did not expect me for another week. I managed to get leave, because, most fortunately—I mean unfortunately—well, well"—with a beaming smile—"we won't try to qualify the circumstance—at any rate, one of my pupils had a bad attack of rheumatic fever, and was ordered to some German baths for a couple of months, and, as the family have accompanied her, I got leave for the time being. Now let me have a look at you, my dear Addie. Well, to be sure, what an immense girl you have grown! But your face has not changed much. And all the others—the boys—I suppose they have shot up too? Three years do make a difference, do they not?"
"Rather!" cries poor Addie, lugubriously plunging at once into the subject of her woes. "It has made an immense difference to us. Oh, Miss Rossitor, you left us three years ago the happiest, the most contented and united family under the sun—you return, to find us the most miserable, destitute outcasts in England! Oh, oh!"
"There, there, child; don't give way so, don't, dear! Tell me all your troubles, Addie; it may lighten them for you. I don't know anything about you clearly: mother has not had time to tell me yet; we've had visitors all the morning."
"There—there is little to tell. About two months ago we were turned out of Nutsgrove. Every article of furniture was sold by auction—even—even mother's wedding-presents—and the place was bought by Tom Armstrong, the great vitriol and chemical manure man of Kelvick. That's the whole story."
"But your—your father, child! What of him? Surely he did not allow—"
"He—he—did nothing. He mortgaged every stick to the place, and did not even pay the interest on the money raised."
"And, Addie, where is he now?"
"I don't know," she answers drearily—"in America somewhere, I believe; he disappeared nearly three years ago. He backed the wrong horse for the Derby, just ran down here for half an hour, burned some papers in his study, kissed us all round, and went away. We never heard from him afterward—at least, not directly."
"But surely he can not have deserted you altogether—have left you five children totally unprovided for?"
"He left us with a capital of four pounds fifteen between us—four pounds fifteen—not a penny more! And we have had nothing from him since; and yet the Scripture tells us to honor our parents!"
"Hush, child—hush! We must not question the commands of Holy Writ. Why, if it comes to that, women are ordered to love, honor, and obey their husbands; and, oh, my dear, my dear," continues the little woman, the corkscrew ringlets of her frisette nodding with impressive emphasis, "if you could only have seen or heard the men some women are called upon to honor—to honor, mind you—why, you—"
"Ah, but that is different, quite different! A woman has the power of choosing her husband; if she selects the wrong man, there is no one to blame but herself. But a child can't choose its own father; if it could, you may be sure poor Bob wouldn't have selected one who would rob him of his patrimony and cast him penniless on the world without even the resource of education."
"Come, Addie dear, are you not too severe on your father? He has had many temptations, has been unfortunate in his speculations; but, when he knows the state you are in, you may be sure he will make an effort to help you—probably send for you all and give you a home in the new world."
Addie does not reply at once; a sudden wave of color floods her soft face, and she says hurriedly—
"After all, why shouldn't I tell you? I—I dare say you will hear it from some one else; I—I suppose half the county knows it."
"Knows what, dear?"
"That our father has abandoned us altogether—that he has other family-ties we—we knew nothing of—"
"Addie, my dear, what are you talking of?"
"He did not leave England alone, Miss Rossitor," she answers excitedly; "he asked none of us to go with him, but he took two other children we had never heard of, and a—a wife. I believe she was an actress at a London theater—"
"My dear child," interrupts Miss Rossitor, much flurried and shocked, "where did you hear all this? Who told you? Do the others know?"
"No; I did not tell them—I don't mean to do so. I heard it all one day accidentally. Aunt Jo and Lady Crawford were discussing it; they did not know I was behind the curtain. My dress was all torn, and I didn't want Lady Crawford to see me, so I hid there, and—and was obliged to hear it all."
Poor Addie's crimson face sinks upon her outstretched arm; for a time she sobs bitterly, refusing to be comforted. However, a cup of tea has a somewhat soothing effect, and after a time she resumes her tale of desolation:
"When he went, poor Aunt Josephine came to take care of us—you know she was our mother's eldest sister, a maiden lady who lived with a widowed childless niece in a pretty little house at Leamington, where everything was peace and quietness and neatness—three things Aunt Jo loves better than anything else on earth; nevertheless she stayed on with us ever since, and has supported us on her annuity of eighty pounds a year."
"Supported six of you on eighty pounds a year! I can't believe that, Addie!"
"And yet it is true. We did not have dinnersà la Russe, you understand, nor did we get our frocks from Paris, and the boys had to give up their schooling; but we managed to rub along somehow, and were happy enough, all except poor aunt, who has never enjoyed a peaceful hour since she left Leamington. We had the house, you know, and the garden, which was stocked with fruit and vegetables; there was an old cow too, and a few hens, who laid us an egg occasionally. Oh, we didn't mind—we got along famously! But now—now Heaven only knows what is to become of us!"
"My poor, poor child," exclaims Miss Rossitor, with tears in her voice, "this is too sad! Something must be done. You have some other relatives to help you? Where are you staying now?"
"I'll tell you all about it. When we left Nutsgrove, two months ago, we took up our quarters at Sallymount Farm, belonging to Steve Higgins, who was a stable-boy in grandfather's time, and who married our old nurse Ellen Daly. She had some spare rooms, and she asked us to use them while we looked about us and decided what was to be done. We began by sending round the hat, as Bob calls it, to all our kith and kin. You know in the old days we seemed to have a lot of prosperous relatives; I remember, when I was a small child, a whole band of cousins stopping at Nutsgrove for the Kelvick races, with their maids and valets. And so we thought, for the sake of the family name, they would help us; but—but somehow the hat failed to reach them; they seemed to have moved on, to have vanished into space—they weren't to be found, in fact."
"But there is Mrs. Beecher of Greystones, your father's half-sister. She couldn't possibly overlook you."
"No, she couldn't well, living within twenty miles and having no children of her own. She and the admiral came over and reviewed usen masse, and, I believe, were nervously indisposed for days afterward—the admiral had to swallow half a bottle of sherry before he recovered from the shock of our combined comeliness. They stayed an hour, and said as many disagreeable and insulting things during that time as we had ever heard in our lives before. However, the upshot of their visit was that Aunt Selina offered to send away her companion, Miss McToadie, and take Pauline in her place. Aunt Jo closed with her at once, not giving poor Polly a voice in her fate; and so she is to go over to Greystones the day after to-morrow. Poor, poor Polly!"
"Well at any rate, she is sure of a home. The Beechers will eventually adopt her; and they are very rich people. You should not pity her, Addie; it would be very injudicious," says Miss Rossitor sagely.
"Oh, I didn't to her face! Adversity is teaching me wisdom, I can tell you. After that, Robert was put up in the market, and found wanting in capacity for commercial or professional pursuits, so an old relative with an interest in shipping got him a berth on board a vessel going to China with a cargo of salt. The most horrid line in the whole mercantile service, poor Bob says; and the worst of it is he won't get a penny of salary for nearly three years, and he'll have to work like a galley-slave all the time. Fine opening, is it not? But beggars can not be choosers, you would say. Well, Miss Rossitor, that is all our relatives have done for us so far, except that dear Aunt Jo—Heaven bless her!—has adopted, or, at least, will try to adopt Lottie, and take her back to Leamington when we break up. There is some talk too of getting Hal into a third-rate endowed school near London. Judge Lefroy, a cousin out in India, promises to pay ten pounds a year toward it if two other members of the family subscribe the same sum. But we've had no other advances; and so Hal's affairs arein statu quoat present; in other words, he's a pensioner on the poor aunt who has taken Lottie."
"And you, my dear, have you any prospect for yourself?"
"I? Miss Rossitor, I am—don't laugh, please—trying to get a situation as governess to some very small and ignorant children. You remember of old my list of accomplishments? Well, I haven't swelled their quantity or quality since. I can't run a clean scale up the piano yet; I don't know the difference between latitude and longitude; compound proportion is as great a mystery to me as ever; and yet three times last week I offered my services to the public in the columns of the 'Daily News,' 'Daily Telegraph,' and the 'Kelvick Gazette,' and received only one answer. It was from a lady who would give me a home, but no salary—which would not do, as I must at least have a few shillings to buy shoes and stockings,et cætera."
"Only one answer! That was unfortunate. You can not have worded your advertisement attractively enough, dear."
"Oh, yes, I did! Bob composed it in strict orthodox fashion. Unfortunately there were lots of other governesses advertising, and no one seeming to want them; but there was a great run on cooks and barmaids and housemaids. I don't know what is to become of me, for I can not and I will not live on poor auntie—that I'm determined! I'd—I'd rather scrub kitchen floors, or pick potatoes in the field like a laborer's daughter!" cries the girl passionately, her cheeks flushing.
"Addie," says Miss Rossitor slowly, hesitatingly, "I think I know of a situation that might suit you, if you really wish—"
"You do? Oh, you dear, you dear! Tell me quickly where it is."
"It's so wretched I'm almost ashamed to mention it; but you seem so anxious, dear," says Miss Rossitor deprecatingly. "A friend of mine is there at present; but she is leaving this week tobetter herself, as indeed she might easily do. No, no, Addie dear, I won't tell you about it—it's too miserable, too mean—"
"Oh, Miss Rossitor, dear friend, don't refuse to help me! I am not what I was; all my stupid pride is gone; work is all I crave. Oh, can't you feel for me, can't you understand me?" she pleads vehemently.
Miss Rossitor gently kisses the pleading upturned face, and then answers gravely—
"That will do, child; I will hesitate no longer. The family I allude to are retired Birmingham tradespeople, not particularly refined, I fear, in their habits or surroundings. They have four children ranging in age from five to twelve—one boy and three girls; these you would have to educate, and you would have to be with them all day, take them for walks, help the nurse to dress them in the mornings, even, I believe, occasionally to mend their clothes. Your salary for all this would be twenty-two pounds a year—think of that—twenty-two pounds a year!"
"Will you give me their address?" is all Addie says.
"I will write for you myself, dear child, it you wish it. You can at least make a trial; but I warn you that the life of a nursery-governess in an underbred household cramped probably in a suburban villa is very different from what you—"
"I know, I know; but I am prepared to bear anything. What does anything matter now that we are all separated and have lost our beloved home for ever? Oh, Miss Rossitor"—springing to her feet and pacing up and down the room with clinched hands—"that is the thought that stings, that paralyzes hope, that deadens energy—to think that it is gone from us for ever! Sometimes I feel that, if Heaven had made me a man, it would not have been so."
"What would you have done, Addie?"
"I would have thrown myself into the fight, and have struggled undaunted against any odds—against hardship and disappointment and failure—until I had won it all back, until I had ousted the upstart who supplanted us. If he, an illiterate tradesman, friendless, alone, without money, without education, without help of any kind, succeeded in amassing a large fortune, succeeded in becoming master-mariner on the great tide of industry in his native town, why should not I, with such a heart-moving aim in view—I, with the blood of heroes running in my veins—do so likewise? But what is the use of talking? What can a woman do, tied down, hampered, checked on every side by the superstition of ages? Oh, it is too stifling, too exasperating! Sometimes I wish I had never been born. What good am I? What place have I in the world? What—"
"You will find your use in the place Heaven gives you, my dear, if you only put your trust in Providence. Tell me, Addie, something about this prosperous upstart, Armstrong of Kelvick. Have you met him? What sort of man is he?"
"Oh, a very ordinary style of man indeed! There's nothing remarkable about him in one way or another. He seemed quiet and heavy, I thought; I didn't notice him very particularly. He came two or three times to the farm to talk over some business matters with auntie."
"Then you did not find him oppressively vulgar, did you?"
"No, not oppressively so; but I'm no judge of manners, you know, having so little to boast of myself; Bob and Polly, however, who understand these things, say that he is an out-and-out cad, that his every movement betrays him, and that no one but a person utterly devoid of delicacy and good taste would have sent us a present of flowers and vegetables out of our own garden as he did."
"He sent you flowers and vegetables! How was that?"
"Yes, to Aunt Jo. The last time he called she asked him, when he was leaving, how the peas were doing this year down near the currant-bushes—for you know our garden was supposed to produce the finest peas in the county; and that evening he sent her up a basket of flowers and vegetables, and a couple of quarts of gooseberries, enough to make a glorious 'fool;' but Robert pitched the whole lot out of the window indignantly, and when auntie sent the young Higginses to pick them up again, he went out and kicked them all round. He's awfully proud, you know, dear Robert; I remember you used to call him 'Robert the Magnificent.'"
"Yes; I have seldom met a young gentleman of his years who had such a high opinion of himself and his social dignity."
"He has just the same opinion now. I sometimes tell him he ought to have been born a sultan. And to think of him swabbing decks and tarring ropes—oh, dear!"
"The chances are that Mr. Armstrong sent you the flowers and vegetables only in a spirit of harmless kindness," says Miss Rossitor musingly.
"I dare say. People of that sort don't understand our feelings. Bob said that, had we given him the slightest encouragement, he'd have probably asked us to dinner. Well, I must be going now. Thank you sincerely for your much-needed kindness, dear friend. You'll let me know my fate as soon as possible, won't you? And may I sometimes come down to you in the morning for a practice? They haven't a piano at the farm. I've been reading up my French for the last week.Bonsoir, bonne amie, bonsoir!"
"Addie, where are you going?"
"Only up to the grove for a good long morning's study, auntie; don't wait for dinner for me if I'm not back at three. I have some bread and apple in my satchel."
"Why can't you study quietly in the house, like any other sensible girl?" says Aunt Jo querulously. "I never saw such children as you all are; you'd live like squirrels if you were allowed. People may say what they like about the grand Carlovingian dynasty of the Lefroys; it's my firm belief they're the descendants of Bedouins or gypsies—nothing else!"
"I couldn't study in the farm this morning, auntie dear," answers Addie, laughing; "there is such a heavy smell of cabbage-water and soap-suds all over the place; and then the baby, poor little dear, is teething, and not a very soothing companion. Will you tell Bob where I'm going, if he asks for me?"
It is a fortnight since Miss Lefroy confided her troubles to her old governess, and the first break in the family has taken place. Paulineis safely established at Greystones, and in ten days more Addie is to enter on her new duties as nursery-governess to the family of Mrs. Augustus Moggeridge Philpot, of Burlington Villa, Birmingham. That estimable lady, having been fascinated by Miss Rossitor's recommendation of her candidate, has accepted Addie's services without inconvenient questioning, and she is now busy storing her mind with knowledge, unencouraged by advice or assistance from her more experienced friend, who has gone to the seaside with her mother.
Addie stretches herself at full length on the scented sward, and honestly tries to occupy her powerful intellect solely with the dry pages of Noel and Chapsal, tries to banish the fleeting fancies of the summer hour and all the worries and sorrows crowding her life so heavily, tries—hardest task of all—to forget for the moment that this is her beloved Robert's last week on shore, that three days more will see him sailing down Channel with his sloppy cargo into the thundering Biscay waves.
"'Adjectives ending inxform their feminine inse—as,heureux, heureuse;jaloux, jalouse. But there are many exceptions to this rule—such asdoux, douce;roux, rousse;faux, fausse.' Oh, dear me, what a language French is for exceptions! Poor Goggles was about right in her grumblings; it's a miserable language when you come to look into it," sighs Addie wearily. "I've had enough of it for one morning. I think I'll have a tussle now with the Tudors and those bothering Wars of the Roses. I wonder how long it will be before the Moggeridge Philpots—what an awful mouthful!—find me out! Not very long, I fear; and, after that, the Deluge!"
The drowsy hours creep by; Noel and Chapsal, Ince and Mangnall lie unheeded on the turf; crowds of ants, wood-lice, and earwigs are exploring their dry surfaces; Addie, her soft rosy cheek resting on a mossy bank, is fast asleep, dreaming that she is home again, helping old Sally to make gooseberry-jam in the big tiled kitchen, when an adventurous beetle, scampering sturdily across her nose, awakens her. She rises, yawning heavily, collects her property, and sets forth to refresh herself with a look at Nutsgrove. But the trees are too luxuriant in foliage; she walks up and down and stands on tiptoe without getting a glimpse of its brickwork. Near the high-road she comes to a stalwart tempting-looking oak, with giant blanches outstretched, inviting her into their waving shelter, promising her a delicious peep into the green dell they overhang. She climbs nimbly, firmly clutching her Mangnall, rests for a minute clinging to the trunk, and then, advancing cautiously out, balances herself most luxuriously on the swaying branch, an arm of which supports her back and shoulders in most obliging fashion.
"This is jolly, and no mistake!" she laughs delightedly, nibbling a wrinkled sapless apple. "If the aunt could see me now, there would be some sense in calling me a squirrel. How sweet and still the old place looks! Not a soul about hacking or hammering at anything to-day. I am in luck. Now to work steadily and conscientiously. 'For what was ancient Babylon famed?' Let me see—let me see. Oh, yes, I know! For its hanging gardens, lofty walls, and the luxurious effeminacy of its inhabitants. Hanging gardens! How funny! I wonder if they were as nice as mine! Iwonder if ever a poor Babylonian girl came up and swung in one to have a peep at her dear lost home that she never—never—"
A sudden heavy swaying movement, an angry, cracking sound, and the next second, with a sounding thud, Miss Lefroy and her book are deposited side by side on the turf beneath.
"I think—I think I have broken something—something besides the branch," pants Addie, half-stunned with pain—"my—my ankle I suppose. Oh, oh, it is awful! I—I never felt anything like it before. Oh, what shall I do? I feel so queer—so faint—so—so—"
A cold perspiration breaks over her quivering face, she swerves from side to side, and then her head falls forward helplessly on the ground, on a line with her crippled foot.
How long she lies thus she does not know; but, after a time, she is dimly conscious of a man's arm raising her head, and forcing some strong spirit through her lips, which, after reviving her for a moment, sends her into a pleasant painless dream, from which she at last awakens to find herself lying on a soft couch, her foot firmly bandaged, a pile of cushions supporting her head, and a picture of a Dutch fishing-scene which hung between the drawing room windows at Nutsgrove facing her. She can not be mistaken; there is the same "soapsuddy" sea, the same fat grimy boat all over on one side, the same lovely gamboge sunset behind the distant pier, the same massive molded frame, only well dusted and regilt.
She glances round and quickly recognizes other friends of her childhood—an old Chippendale cupboard, a Louis Quatorze table, a tapestried screen, and a pair of large Dresden vases.
"Why, it is Nutsgrove! I am in the drawing-room!" she cries, rubbing her startled eyes. "The chairs, the carpet, the curtains, are different; but the room—the room is the same. What does it mean? Who brought me here?"
A buxom housekeeper who has been bandaging her foot answers at once,
"The master, Mr. Armstrong, brought you here, miss, in his dog-cart about twenty minutes ago. He saw you lying in a dead faint under a tree in the grove as he was driving home from Kelvick. I hope you feel better now; I bathed your foot in hot water according to his directions, and the swelling went down a good deal. The doctor will be here in a minute. Ah, here he is already!"
Dr. Newton, after a hurried inspection, says that the ankle is only slightly sprained, bandages it up again, orders an embrocation to be applied twice a day, and then speeds off to a dying patient.
"You are looking much better, Miss Lefroy; are you quite free from pain now?"
Addie turns with a start and finds the new master of Nutsgrove standing behind her.
He is a tall heavily-built man of about thirty-eight, keen-eyed, rugged-featured, with a dark strong face, the lower part of which is entirely concealed by a tawny brown beard hanging low on his broad chest. A decidedly powerful looking plebeian is Tom Armstrong of Kelvick.
"Thank you—almost," she answers, a little flurried by his massive incongruous appearance in that well-known room. "I feelquite restored now; and I have to thank you, Mr. Armstrong, very much for your prompt and kindly rescue."
"Pray don't mention it, Miss Lefroy; I was only too glad to have been of assistance to you. You quite startled me at first, you looked so still and white lying on the ground."
"I wish he'd sit down, or move away, or do something," thinks Addie impatiently; "he's so big, he oppresses me and spoils the room." Aloud she says, with a slightly nervous laugh, "I fell from the tree, you know, and broke your lovely branch. It was so—so funny! I had just been reading about the hanging gardens of—of—what's its name?"
"Babylon."
"Yes, Babylon—when down I came with such a thud! I suppose I must have fainted then, or something, though I can't understand how I did such a silly thing; it's the first time in my life it ever happened."
"You must have had a very heavy fall."
"Oh, but I've had much worse falls than that! I've come through trap doors in lofts no end of times. I crashed through a glass-house once and cut myself horribly. I've been bitten by dogs, had my hands squeezed in doors and wedged in machinery—all sorts of accidents, in fact—and I certainly never fainted after them. I'm sure I don't know what the boys will say when they hear of it." She stops suddenly, with an air of startled dignity, seeing the ghost of a smile hover round her host's bearded mouth. "But I am detaining you, Mr. Armstrong; pray—"
"You are not indeed, Miss Lefroy," he answers easily. "I am free from business in the afternoon. Would you not like me to send a message to your aunt to let her know where you are, as the doctor thinks it advisable that you should rest here for an hour before moving again?"
"It is not necessary, thank you. I told her I should probably not return until the evening, so she won't be uneasy. I'm very sorry to have to trespass so long on your hospitality," she says stiffly.
He waves aside the apology without comment.
"You must have found it very strange to awake and discover yourself in this room, Miss Lefroy. Did you know where you were at once?"
"Yes, and—no. It was such a surprise, I could not tell whether I was asleep or awake at first," she answers more naturally. "You—you have not changed the room so much, Mr. Armstrong; the tone of the paintings, of the carpet and curtains, is much as it was, and you have many of the old things too. That's mother's old screen by the fireplace, just as it always stood. She worked it when she was a girl at school. But that corner over there by the second window is quite different—where thatjardinièrestands, I mean. That used to be my special little parlor. I kept my old work-box there, papier-mâché desk, and two little padded baskets for Andrew Jackson and the Widow Malone."
"For whom?"
"My dog and cat; we had one each. I gave Andrew to Mr. Rossitor, but the poor Widow disappeared two days before the—the—auction, and I have never seen her since."
There is a short uncomfortable pause.
"You—you were fond of your old home, were you not, Miss Lefroy?" he asks presently.
The girl's gray eyes flash angrily, her cheeks deepen to a dusky glow; she answers not a word. He looks at her seriously, a little sadly, in no whit abashed by the eloquent rebuke of her silence. She glances at the clock and half rises.
"I—I really must be going now, Mr. Armstrong; my aunt will be getting uneasy, and my foot feels much better."
"Won't you at least wait to take a cup of tea, Miss Lefroy? The carriage is not round yet—let me persuade you."
She hesitates; her eyes fall on the tea-tray that is being brought that minute into the room, bearing most appetizing fare—a pile of hot-buttered toast, a jug of delicious cream, home-made plum-cake, a few dishes of fresh fruit resting on cool green leaves.
The servant lays his burden on a side-table, preparing to officiate, when he is interrupted by a shrill cry from Miss Lefroy.
"Our old Crown Derby set! Our dear old set! Oh, have you got it—have you really got it? Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Armstrong, let me pour out the tea; do—just for this once! I always did it—always since I was seven years old—and I never broke anything. Let me—do!"
Mr. Armstrong laughs outright at this impulsive appeal, at the eager, childish face and outstretched hands. He motions to the butler to bring the table to Miss Lefroy's couch. Blushing somewhat at the effect of her outburst, and heedless of medical advice, she struggles into an upright position and softly caresses the delicate surface of the sugar-basin.
"There was a chip on the lip of the cream-jug. Yes, it's there still. Hal did it when he was a baby. I see you've had a handle put on to this cup. How neatly it is done!" sighs Addie, discontentedly acknowledging to herself that even during his short tenancy the bachelor-master of Nutsgrove has made some marked efforts to remove the stains, rents, seams of their untidy reckless childhood, to purify his orderly household from all trace of their damaging footprints, as Bob said he would. What wonderful penetration, what knowledge of the world the dear boy had! Yes, all would come to pass as he had prophesied; a few years more and she would not know the old home again. This was her last glimpse, her farewell view; that handle to the cup was the beginning of the end, the key-note to the reign of paint, of varnish, of vandalic renovation and commercial "improvements" that were to wreck the home she loved.
But Addie does not linger long over these somber forebodings, for the urn is hissing at her elbow, and duty and instinct claim her undivided attention for the moment. In virtue of her twelve years' office she has arrived at a pitch of perfection in the art of tea-making which commands the family respect. Before the tea-pot she reigns supreme; no one ever questions her authority or presumes to criticise the quality of her brew, and her sarcastic information in reply to a request for a fourth cup—"Certainly; as long as there's water there's tea"—is always received in meek silence, from fear lest she, being a hot-tempered and ofttimes hopelessly huffyyoung person, might throw up office and leave the family at the mercy of either Pauline or Aunt Jo, both of whom have been tried and found dismally wanting during her temporary illnesses. She knows to a grain the quantity of sugar each member requires, to a drop the cream; she knows who likes "mustard," whose nerves and tender years exact "wash," who requires a sensible and palatable "go between."
Therefore, Addie unable to throw aside the patronizing attitude of years, more or less overcome by the beloved familiarity of her surroundings, rattles the enemy's rich-toned crockery with the same freedom and brisk importance as if she were handling Ellen Higgins's coarse "chaney" in the farm parlor.
"Do you take cream and sugar, Mr. Armstrong?"
"Cream and sugar," he repeats stupidly, as if half asleep—"cream and sugar? How? Where?"
"Where?" Addie answers, a touch of elder-sisterly impatience in her voice. "Where? In your tea, of course!"
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure. How dull I am! Yes, both, please."
This is the first time in his thirty-eight years of life that a lady has presided at Tom Armstrong's tea-board, and the strangeness of the circumstance has for the moment paralyzed his attention. He has had a motherless, sisterless, almost homeless childhood; no woman's gentle influence and refining contact have smoothed the rugged upward path that he has been climbing for more than a quarter of a century. In his springtide, when men's fancies are apt to "lightly turn to thoughts of love," he was too absorbed in prosaic business and ambitious dreams of wealth and power to have time for sweethearting like most young fellows of his age and position. He has never strolled down country lanes on soft Sabbath morns, his arm encircling the plump waist of some apple-cheeked Mary Jane or Susan Ann; he has never picnicked with her under scented hawthorn-hedges, or drunk tea with her, seasoned with shrimps and radishes, at rustic inns or in beer-tainted summer-houses. So to him the unusual position is unmarred by even shadow-clouds of dead joys and by-gone pleasures. Addie's fresh flower face awakes no ghost of fevered memory to taunt him with the sweets of lost youth.
"Here is your tea, Mr. Armstrong; you must tell me if it is right. I don't know your tastes yet."
"It is delicious," he answers slowly, while a sudden thought strikes his musing brain, flooding it with a stream of sunshine—a thought he has never entertained before. What a pleasant thing it would be to have a woman, a young, fresh-faced, gray-eyed woman like Miss Lefroy, to sit by his fireside every night and hand him his tea, just as she does that moment, with that quaint inimitable little air of business-like patronage, of half-matronly, half-childish, yet wholly graceful self-possession! Yes; how very pleasant it would be! He has a house now, a rapidly-growing estate—he has a position of unimpeached respectability, if not of aristocratic quality—he has a clear future, a clean past, a goodly name at his banker's—why should he not take a wife to himself at last, and create ties to dispel the gloom of coming age—a wife just like Addie Lefroy—who wouldgrace his hearth as she does, who would refine and enliven with her graceful youth the atmosphere of the heavily-draped room, which already he has begun to find so still and wearisome after the bustling life outside his den at the factory in Kelvick?
A wife just like Addie Lefroy—not one whit more elegant, more beautiful, more fascinating, but just as she is—soft-faced, irregular-featured, simple-mannered, gentle-voiced, yet with a suggestion of hot-breathed, breezy youth about her every movement, her every gesture. Yes; if ever he marries, it will be some one like her, very like her—her exact counterpart, in fact; and where is he to find that? That is the question. Rapidly, while he sips his tea, he runs his eye, as he would down a stiff column of figures, over the many eligible young ladies whose acquaintance he owns in his native town; but none of them suits his prejudiced eye. One is too handsome, another too tall, another too fashionable, another too affected—all of them are everything that is not Addie Lefroy. Addie Lefroy, Addie Lefroy! Softly he repeats her name again and again, as if the words themselves tickle his palate and season his tea pleasantly, fragrantly. Addie Lefroy! How the name suits her! It has a sort of liquid, swinging sound. If ever she changes it, will she get another to suit her as well? For instance, Addie—Addie—Arm—
With a start he "pulls himself together," and swallows a big lump of cake that he loathes, which he hopes will act as a sort of break in the dangerous current of his imagination.
Meanwhile Miss Addie, quite unconscious of the agreeable turmoil that her presence is awaking in the breast of her massive middle-aged host, sips her tea and munches cake in blissful unconcern.
"I suppose," she muses, with a little ruefulness, "if the boys and Polly knew, they would think it awfully mean of me, feeding on the enemy like this; but—but—I really can not help it—I'm half famished. Perhaps, if they hadn't eaten anything from sevenA.M.until fiveP.M.but half a moldy apple, they wouldn't be so particular. I don't know about Bob, though; I think his pride would stomach a longer fast than that. I don't believe any strait of body would induce him to eat a crumb under this roof now—and yet Mr. Armstrong hasn't behaved so badly. I might have been lying in the wood but for him. Oh, dear, how horrible! I've actually cleared the whole plate of toast alone! I—I hope he won't notice; I'll shove the dish behind the urn. Yes; he can't see it there. How did I do it? I never felt myself eating. That cake is delicious too—better than any of Sally's. I feel so much better now; I suppose it must have been hunger that helped me to go off in that ridiculous fashion in the grove."
Her head sinks back pleasantly on the soft cushions; she looks out on the sunny lawn and the timbered wealth she knows so well. Both the windows are wide open, and a faint evening breeze brings to her couch a breath of mignonette from a parterre outside, which her mother laid out with her own hands when she came to Nutsgrove, a happy bride, twenty-two years before. A thrush that has yearly built his nest in the heart of the gloire de Dijon, the shining leaves of which are fluttering against the casement, bursts into song. Addie closes her eyes, and she is at home once more, living over again the sweet spring evenings of her blissful neglected youth.Armstrong of Kelvick and his trim purified apartments vanish into space; the notched and rickety chairs are back again, the threadbare carpet with its sprays of dim ghostly terns, the dusky curtains. Her work-box is standing in its old place, she hears Pauline's light footsteps flying down the stairs, the boys are calling the dogs
"With wild halloo and brutal noise"
"With wild halloo and brutal noise"
away to "marshy joys" in the grove, and old Sally is hunting the chickens out of the kitchen with a peculiar hooting noise that no throat but her own can produce.
"Miss Lefroy, you have not answered my question yet. You were very fond of Nutsgrove, were you not?"
She starts up, an angry crimson dyeing her face, to find her host leaning forward, his keen hazel eyes fixed intently on hers. She answers vehemently, passionately—
"No, I did not answer you, because I thought it was a senseless question; but I will answer you now, if you insist. Were we fond of Nutsgrove? We were—we were—we were! Will that satisfy you? What else had we to be fond of? We had no father, no mother, no friends, no outside amusements or pleasures, and we wanted nothing—nothing but to be left here together. We were content—oh, yes! Even—even when Polly and I began to grow up, we never longed to go away to London or Paris, to fashionable places, or balls and parties, like other girls; and the boys—they never asked to go to school or foreign parts, never wanted to see the world, like other boys. The woods, the river, the gardens, the dear old farm-yard, gave us all we wanted the whole year round—summer, winter, autumn, spring. Fond of Nutsgrove? Ah, we were! We loved every blade of grass, every mossy stone, every clump of earth; every flower and every leaf of the trees was dearer to us than they can be to you if you live here half a century. Now you are answered, Mr. Armstrong, and very rudely and impertinently too; but—but I could not help myself. I—I am very hot-tempered, and you should not have persisted when you saw—when you saw—"
"I know, I know," he interrupts earnestly; "but, believe me, Miss Lefroy, I did not persist out of idle curiosity or for the purpose of giving you wanton pain. Will you bear with me yet a little longer, and permit me to ask you another question, which—which may appear to you even more impertinent than the first? I have a purpose—an extenuating purpose in both. You are leaving this house very soon, are you not, to become a governess—a nursery-governess if I have heard aright—in a family of inferior position, and at a salary so mean as to exclude the idea of helping your family, who are—are almost completely unprovided for, thrown on the world without any visible means of support? Is my information correct?"
"Your information is perfectly correct, Mr. Armstrong," Addie retorts, springing to her feet, her eyes blazing; "but I fail to see your object in forcing me to discuss such—"
With a gesture he silences her, motioning her back to her seat almost impatiently.
"A moment more, if you please; then I shall have done. Onyour own admission, therefore, I may conclude that your future prospects, both personally and collectively, are not, to put it mildly, in a flourishing condition, and that at present you see no glimmer of improvement, no chance of reprieve from a life of servile drudgery, for which you feel yourself totally unfitted, first of all from a strong distaste to teaching, and secondly from the unconventional nature of your early life and education."
She is too amazed to resent even by a gesture this extraordinary speech. After a slight pause, he resumes, in the same low mechanical voice, with a faint tinge of color in his swarthy cheek:
"Therefore, I presume to ask you, Miss Lefroy, if in these circumstances you would deem it any improvement to your condition to—to—marry me and live out your life at Nutsgrove?"
She looks at him with eyes wide open, staring stupidly, and blank white face.
"To—to marry you? I—I don't understand. Are you joking, Mr. Armstrong?"
"No, Miss Lefroy, I am not joking; on the contrary, I am very much in earnest. Men mostly are, I believe, when they ask a woman to be their wife."
"You ask me to—to be your wife?"
"Yes, I most assuredly do. If you consent, I will settle this place on you unreservedly, so that, whatever happens to me, nobody will be able to oust you from it again. Nutsgrove will belong to you, you alone, as virtually as it belonged to your grandfather sixty years ago, before an acre was mortgaged. Will you marry me, Miss Lefroy? Is the bribe sufficient?" he asks sharply.
But poor Addie has no power to answer; she sits gazing into the frowning, flushed face of her suitor with the same blank expression, without a tinge of shyness, hesitation, or embarrassment in her attitude, or flicker of color in her cheek. Armstrong feels as if he would like to shake her.
"She looks at me as if I were not human, as if I were some strange animal escaped from a menagerie. She's a woman, I'm a man; why should I not ask her to marry me?" he thinks. "Well," he says aloud, with an irritation he strives in vain to repress, "have you understood my question, Miss Lefroy? Must I repeat it? No? Then will you kindly put me out of pain—that is the correct term, I believe—as soon as you can?"
"Oh!" pants Addie, waving her hands nervously, as if pushing him from her. "Can't you give me a moment to breathe—to feel—to understand?"
"Certainly, if you wish it."
He walks to the window, steps out, and paces up and down the terrace, smoking furiously.
Addie, left to herself, heaves a great sigh of relief, then glances languidly round the room, and tries to realize her situation, to understand that she can be mistress of the old place again, that she need never yawn the dreary hours away in the Moggeridge school-room, need never darn alien socks, help to tub peevish babies, never bow her haughty young head to the yoke of uncongenial servitude, but spend her days by the familiar fireside, rambling through the leafy grove and mellow orchards, her own, her very own forever. A floodof sunshine bathes the park in flickering glory; every leaf trembling with the pulse of coming summer, every bird singing in the budding grove, every gurgling ripple of the stream that feeds the marshy pond behind the park, seems to whisper to the girl's troubled heart words of welcome and entreaty, seems to sing in gladsome chorus, "Come back, Addie, come back, come back; we miss you sorely!" At that moment a shadow falls across her path, the song of the birds dies into a wordless twitter, the glory of the evening fades, as the burly, massive form of the vitriol-manufacturer stands between her and the sunset.
"To live with him alone here!" she thinks, with a shudder, while the hot blood dyes her face and neck. "Oh, I couldn't—I couldn't! He would spoil everything; he would take the beauty, the poetry out of everything I love. I couldn't—I couldn't! Nobody would expect it of me. The bribe is big, but not sufficient—not sufficient, unless—unless—Oh, I wish I knew what to do—what to say to him! If he would let me be his gover—I mean his housekeeper, his dairy-maid—anything—anything but his—his—wife! Oh, dear, dear, what put it into his head? What made him think of such a thing? He never even looked at me when he came to the farm; and now he wants to marry me. He is a strange man; when he turns to me with that stern straight look in his eyes, I feel—I feel as if I didn't belong to myself, as if I had no power over my life. Ellen Higgins says that he always gets everything he wants, that every one gives in to him sooner or later in Kelvick—nice prospect for me! And the flowers told me last autumn that I was to marry a gentleman—a gentleman they told me over and over again—a gentleman!"
A quarterof an hour later Mr. Armstrong re-enters the room, and stands with still impenetrable face before his guest.
"You—you have given me good measure," she says, rather hysterically. "I have been trying to think, to understand it all thoroughly."
"Yes?"
"It is very kind, very thoughtful of you to make such a suggestion, to—to offer to give me back what I—I value so dearly and believed forever out of my reach; and, you—you understand, I would not have spoken as freely as I did—"
"I understand perfectly. Do you accept or reject my offer then?"
"Oh, dear, dear, how point-blank you are!" she answers flutteringly. "I—I do neither yet. Of course it is a great bribe, a great temptation; but—but—"
"But what? Do not be afraid of me, Miss Lefroy. Please tell me unreservedly what is on your mind. I am not a very sensitive plant, I assure you."
"I will then. I dare say it would be better always to come to the point as you do," she says, with a weak laugh. "But women never can, you know; they must flutter round corners and by-ways a little at first—'tis their nature to, Bob says. What I mean is that, dearlyas I love the old place for itself, it—it was more the surroundings, it was being all together—we five—that—that made it what it was to me. I know, I feel sure it would—would never be the same, never be the old home to me, if I were living in it all alone and they outside struggling in the world. I'm afraid," continues Addie, her fingers nervously crimping the ragged flounces of her cotton dress, "that I don't express myself very—very clearly; but I think you—you will understand what I mean."
"Yes I understand what you mean, Miss Lefroy," he returns slowly, meditatively, and then relapses into silence, which she does not break. "Perfectly, young lady, perfectly!" he echoes to himself grimly enough. "You mean me to understand that, if I marry you, I must also marry your entire family circle—the tall, dark-eyed sister, the small sickly one, the two cubs of brothers, the hysterically-disposed maiden aunt, who would do duly as mother-in-law—the whole interesting group—just a round half dozen. Hum! Rather a formidable number, Tom, my man, wherewith to plunge into the doubtful sea of matrimony—as a maiden venture too—you who have hitherto steered so clear of petticoats, who never until now felt any attractions in their refining rustle! To start with a family of six—six useless dependent pauper aristocrats, who would probably consider you the favored party in being allowed the honor of feeding, housing, clothing, educating them—By Jove, 'twould be a position to make a stouter-hearted man than I am quail! I'd better hedge a bit while there is yet time, pause on the brink of—what? Ten to one, on the brink of a gulf of irreparable folly!"
He looks stealthily at the origin of his troublous irresolution, at the shabby gray-eyed girl whom half an hour before he had no more idea of marrying than he had of marrying his cook, whose presence he has barely noticed during the few times he has found himself in her company. "Is the game worth the candle?" he asks himself for the twentieth time in impatient iteration. She is no beauty, this Addie Lefroy. Her features are not the least bit regular; her skin, though pure and fresh, is thickly freckled; her figure, willowy and rounded enough, is not the type of figure Madame Armine of Kelvick would love to adorn. Then she has no accomplishments, scarcely any education, no money, no connection, save her nightmare of a family; and—most damning fact of all—she does not like him personally. He, Tom Armstrong of Kelvick, is repugnant to her—that he can see clearly enough. Therefore is he not making an ass of himself—an unmitigated ass? A man of his years and experience to introduce on the impulse of a moment an element into his hitherto self-sufficing contented life that may bring with it infinite discord, life-long annoyance! Is there sense or meaning in his vague intangible longing to possess that callous undisciplined child who almost shrinks from his touch, just because she has sat in his drawing-room as if she were at home there, and has handed him a cup of tea gracefully? What is her fascination, her attraction? Not her beauty, certainly, for she is not half as good-looking as other girls he knows—as Miss Ethel Challice, for instance—no, certainly not!
He turns aside and unsuccessfully tries to recall to his mind's eye the vision of that young lady as he sat by her side on the night before in her father's elegant drawing-room. How handsome, how gracefulshe looked in her shimmering silk, roses clustering in her golden hair! How sweetly and kindly she smiled on him when he went to help her at the tea-table! Why did he not fall in love with her, or have the sense to invite her to come up to Nutsgrove and pour him out a cup of tea from that magical exasperating pot? It might have done the business for him just as well; and how infinitely more suitable and sensible it would have been in every way! She—Miss Challice—would have been just the wife for him, eligible all round—a handsome accomplished young woman, six years nearer his age than the other, with eighteen thousand pounds dowry and no incumbrance—a young woman who would have sat at the head of his table, ruled his house, and reared his children, with comfort and pleasant smooth-working skill.
"I think she might have said 'Yes' had I asked her," he muses ruefully. "Now that I come to think of it, she always seemed pleased to see me; and her parents are continually asking me up to their place. But I never even thought of it, never noticed—If I had—well, well, if I had, she wouldn't have stared at me as if I had just escaped from a lunatic asylum or the Zoölogical Gardens. No, I think not; her pretty eyes would have drooped a little, her cheeks have flushed ever so faintly, no matter which way her answer would have gone. And she has such lovely hair, too—though I remember a brute at the club said it was dyed, one night. I don't believe it a bit, not a bit! How stupid, how exasperating of me never to have noticed how handsome and attractive—yes, really attractive, by Jove!—Challice's daughter is—his only daughter too! And now—now—"
He turns from the window to take another covert look.
Miss Lefroy has left her couch and is kneeling on the carpet, a gaunt, green-eyed, grimy-coated cat clasped to her breast, over which she is cooing with the rapturous joy of a mother over a downy-pated infant whom she has lost and unexpectedly recovered.
"It's the Widow, Mr. Armstrong," she explains, with dewy upturned eyes. "My own dear, darling, long-lost Widow, whom I thought never to see again! She must have heard my voice through the open window; she came flying in straight to my arms five minutes ago. Oh, you don't know what a cat she is! We've had her nine years, and she's had about eighty-seven kittens. Hal kept an account; and the rats and the mice she has killed—no one could keep an account of them—could they, my darling, could they?"
"She seems glad to see you again—hungrily glad," says Armstrong, stroking her dusty fur; "and she is giving you a demonstrative welcome, and no mistake! I wonder if anything or any one in the world would be as glad to see me after a few months' absence?"
"Why, of course, Mr. Armstrong, your brothers and sisters—and other relatives would!"
"I have no brothers and sisters, or other relatives—at least, no near ones," he answers a little wistfully.
"Dear, how lonely you must feel!"—looking at him with compassionate eyes.
"Miss Lefroy," he says quickly, swallowing a lump in his throat, "With regard to the difficulty we were discussing a few minutes ago, I wish you to understand that, in case you—you—should decideon accepting my offer, I—should quite sympathize with your family feeling in the matter, and sincerely hope you would be able to induce your sisters to come and live with you here—in fact, to look on Nutsgrove as their home as long as they liked."
"Oh!"
"As regards your brothers, the case is different. You see, my chi—I mean, Miss Lefroy, I am much older than you or they, and I am satisfied I should only be doing them an irreparable injustice if I asked them to continue to live the life they have hitherto led here. Men must go out into the world, fight their way, and learn the value of independence and success—must earn the birthright of self-respect to transmit to those who come after them. I know it will be a harder struggle for them than for others brought up differently; but I should be always by to give them an encouraging hand and help them with my advice and experience; and then, when their occupation allowed it, they could always come here for a holiday—in fact, continue to look upon the old place as their head-quarters until they built up separate homes and shaped interests for themselves, as most men do sooner or later."
"You are very kind—you are very kind," she answers breathlessly.
"You have said that before."
"I know; but what else can I say?"
"Say that you will marry me."
"Oh, I think I will soon—not just yet—not just yet! Will you give me a few hours more—until to-morrow—to think and talk it over with the others?"
"I will give you until to-morrow morning."
"Thank you—you are very kind. There is a brougham at the door—for me, isn't it? I must be going now"—with a great sigh of relief.
"But can you walk?"
"Oh, yes, with a little help, quite easily."
"Here is my stick—not a Rotten Row crutch, you see—lean on it well on one side, and on my arm on the other—so."
At the threshold of the door she pauses to rest a moment and take one backward glance at the beloved flower-scented room, at the dainty table all awry, at the Widow Malone, her raptures exhausted, sipping a saucer of cream on the spotless carpet.
"Oh, what a mess I have made of your beautiful tidy room!" she cries in childish dismay. "It is easily seen a Lefroy has been in possession. It's quite disgraceful—the cushions all upside down, the antimacassars crumpled, saucers on the floor, and an old bow from my polonaise, with two crooked hairpins, stuck in the arm of the sofa. I must get them, let me go."
"No," he says, laughing; "leave the room exactly as it is, and consider your property confiscated, Miss Lefroy."
With an impulse that she can not control, she looks up into his face and says quickly, with a puzzled frown—
"What made you do it? What put it into your head?"
"What put what into my head?"
"Oh, you know what I mean! What made you ask me to marry you?"
Here is a splendid opportunity for the orthodox declaration as yet unuttered in this strange courtship; but Armstrong takes no advantage thereof, he answers lightly enough, with smiling, careless face—
"What made me? I hardly know myself as yet. A variety of intangible emotions that I must analyze at my leisure."
"Pity, compassion?" she suggests softly.
"For whom?"
"For—for your neighbor."
He shakes his head.
"No, they were not the chief ingredients certainly. I doubt if they had anything to say to it."
"A feeling of wider philanthropy perhaps, more in the Don Quixote line?"
"No, Miss Lefroy. It is of no use; you can not thus lay light finger on the crotchets of man's 'most sovereign reason;' do not try."
"Well, I—I don't mind much, so long as you don't think I—I was trying to—"
She stops, blushing furiously.
"Trying to what?"
"Nothing, nothing."
"I'll not let you leave the room until you finish that sentence," he says decisively.
"You are a tyrant! Trying—trying to catch you—there! Oh, why will you make me say such things?"
"Trying to catch me!" he exclaims vehemently. "Good gracious, child! how could I imagine such a thing?"
"Oh, I don't know, I'm sure!" she answers, floundering helplessly under the half-amused, half-bitter expression of his dark face. "They say all men are conceited, no matter what they're like, and—and Ellen Higgins says that—that a great many of the Kelvick girls had their eyes on you, but that—that Miss Challice made—made the running too hot for—Oh, what am I saying—what am I saying? Mr. Armstrong, don't mind me; I'm a light-headed fool—a regular fool! Bob always said I hadn't an ounce of ballast, and I haven't—I haven't! Let me go, let me go!"
"If I let you go like this, how do I know I shall ever get you back again?"
"You said you would give me until to-morrow to decide—you know you did."
"I repent of my promise, then. I'd rather know now, if you please."
"But I can't decide in such a hurry. You, as a business man, ought to know it's ill-judged to rush at decisions in such—"
"I'm not in my office now, and don't feel at all like a business man; it's of no use appealing to me as such, Miss Lefroy. Listen, while I tell you a crisp anecdote that may help to throw light on the crotchets of my character."
"It's very late. I must go; auntie will be—"
"One soft spring day I was sitting in a room alone with a young lady—"
Addie stops unconsciously, interested in spite of herself.
"A young lady whom I knew very slightly, and in whom I had hitherto taken not the faintest interest."
"Yes?"
"Until she happened to hand me a cup of tea—"
"Oh!"
"And the fancy suddenly struck me that I should like to marry that girl; and, before I had finished my cup, my mind was made up—I determined she should be my wife. That's all."
"That's all, is it?" says Addie, drawing a long breath. "I—I don't like your story much. You were determined, were you? And do you always get what you determine on?"
"I don't want to boast; but I've been rather lucky up to the present."
"And, if the thing—the person is determined the other way, what then?"
"What then? You know every Britisher has a bit of the bull in him, and enjoys his fight, and you have heard also that flowers out of reach—nearly out of reach—smell the sweetest."
"Oh, there speaks the man all over! You've one touch of nature with my boys, at any rate, Mr. Armstrong—anything well out of reach has the most attraction for them. Bob always gathers his fruit from the ridge of the wall, and Hal would climb the tallest elm in the grove to rob a nest, and yet never lay hand on that of the thrush that builds every year in the gloire de Dijon under the window."
"Well, my limbs are not as supple as they were twenty years ago. I wonder shall I have to climb very high for the nest I want?"
Addie looks down and makes no reply.
They have now reached the brougham, into which he assists her carefully, placing his stout ash by her side.
"Better keep it for a day or two, Miss Lefroy—you may find it serviceable; and remember the doctor's instruction."
He busies himself for a few moments propping up her foot with shawls and cushions, and then, as the horse is about to start, says in a low voice, looking up in her face entreatingly—
"I would try to make you happy."
"You are very kind," says poor Addie for the fourth and last time that day; and then the horse plunges forward, and she is off.