"I can't say that, for it wouldn't be true; but I don't mind saying that I think a reasonable woman the most tiresome and detestable being under heaven."
And then Isabel came off the grass.
"I wish you thought better of me!" she said, with a sigh.
Paul laughed. "I'm very glad I don't. It is quite enough for me as it is, thank you."
"I mean, I wish you said pretty things to me, like other men do."
"But I am nothing if not original."
"It seems very unfortunate," murmured Isabel, "that you are the only man that I want to say pretty things to me, and that therefore you won't say them."
"Pardon me, Miss Carnaby, you are confusing cause and effect. I do not refrain from saying pretty things because you want me to say them, but you want me to say them because I refrain."
"Why are you so fond of making me cross?" asked Isabel with a pout.
"Because it is the most amusing form of sport I know. I used to think that rowing and fishing ran it close, but now I have decided that making you cross is the most fascinating pastime in the world—bar one."
"You've never tried the other."
"I know I've not. Probably that is why I still retain such a high opinion of it."
"I am not sure that it would amuse you if you did try it."
"Neither am I," replied Paul, "but I'm not going to try it till I am quite sure that it would not amuse you."
"Then don't you like to see me enjoying myself?"
"Certainly, within reasonable limits. I like to see children enjoying themselves, but there are some things that I should refuse to give them as playthings."
"But you would give those things to the children when they were old enough to appreciate them," said Isabel coaxingly.
"Perhaps."
"How soon do you think I shall be old enough to appreciate things?"
Paul smiled. "Perhaps when you have grown tired of living on refreshments at evening parties, and want some water from the well of Bethlehem for a change."
"Then do you despise me for liking refreshments at evening parties?" asked Isabel.
"Not in the least; but I think it is rather a youthful taste, like currant wine or raspberry vinegar. There will come a time when it won't satisfy you, and then you will cry out for living water from the well at Bethlehem—which, by the way, was your metaphor, not mine; but it expresses what I mean."
"And what will happen then?"
"Ah! that I can't say. It will depend upon whether any one out of the legions who have lackeyed you and taken you down to countless ball-suppers, is ready to go in jeopardy of his life for you; and that only time can show."
Isabel thought for a moment. "There is rather a good lesson for all women in our well-metaphor, isn't there?"
"Yes," replied Paul. "Women, as a rule, make such dreadful mistakes. You see, nothing but love will really satisfy a woman in the long run; and unattractive women, as a rule, acknowledge this. But attractive women get such a lot of admiration that they think at first that admiration will satisfy them."
"I know. Admiration is like porridge—awfully stodging, but you get hungry again almost as soon as you've eaten it."
"Exactly. Therefore," continued Paul, "an attractive woman is more likely to make this mistake than an unattractive one; yet when the time comes that her heart cries out for reality, she will need it quite as much as her less-admired sister, though probably by that time she will have thrown it away, and not be able to find it again. The unattractive woman, on the other hand, treasures up every bit of love she receives, and makes the most of it."
"I see; it is a serious thing to be an attractive woman after all," said Isabel thoughtfully. Then she looked up at Paul and smiled. "But it would be worse to be an unattractive one, wouldn't it? Oh! you don't think I ever shall be, do you, Mr. Seaton—not even when I'm old and grey? Please say you don't."
And Paul said it; and said it several times; and, what is more, he meant what he said.
Do I love you? Can I prove youMore than all the world to me?Thus I ponder, and I wonderWhat my true reply must be.
One afternoon, early in the season following Paul's visit to Elton Manor, he and Isabel were seated under a tree in Kensington Gardens. It was one of those days when spring pretends that it is summer, and the parks pretend that they are the country, and all the world pretends that it is young again: nevertheless Paul's face was very serious.
"Miss Carnaby," he said, "I want to speak to you."
Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "I'm sorry for that; and you look such a 'potent, grave and reverend seignior,' that I feel certain you are going to say something disagreeable. Now do think twice before you speak."
"I have thought twice—and twice a million times over."
"Twice a million times over—I wonder how much that is. I cannot do the sum myself, I am such a poor adder—or ought I to say a poor addist? A poor adder sounds so poisonous and serpenty, doesn't it?"
But Paul would not laugh. "Won't you listen to me?" he asked.
"I suppose I have no alternative, as you have paid the penny for my chair, and I am partaking of your hospitality for the time being. But it really is a pity to use up such a lovely afternoon in speaking seriously; serious speaking—like bagatelle—ought to be reserved as an amusement for wet days."
"I really want to speak to you," persisted Paul, "I am not joking."
"My dear sir, I never for a moment imagined you were. Your expression just now would grace a mute at a funeral. And yet you take the trouble to inform me that you are not joking. You might as well have taken the trouble to inform me that you were not swimming, or painting, or driving a cab."
"It really isn't kind of you to go on like this, Miss Carnaby."
"And it really isn't kind of you to spoil such a lovely afternoon by speaking seriously."
Paul did not answer, so Isabel rattled on: "Now you are sulking, and if there is one thing I hate more than another it is a sulky temper. I'd rather have a squint than a sulky temper any day. Besides, dark men should never look sulky, it isn't becoming to them; it gives a lurid, thundery sort of expression to their faces."
Paul still remained silent, but Isabel did not dare to do so for a moment. "Isn't it a jolly afternoon?" she continued; "and these gardens look perfectly lovely. But I hope it isn't going to be too hot for the Wallingfords' ball next week. I can't bear a hot ball-room; your face gets so red, and your fringe goes out of curl, and altogether you look like one of Turner's sunsets in the National Gallery. At least I do, and I can't bear to feel I'm looking like a sunset. Why don't you smile when a lady talks to you? It is positively refrigerating to talk to a man with an expression like yours. Why don't you smile like a little gentleman, as the nursemaids around us would say?"
"Because I am not amused."
"That is very rude of you! And you are generally such a prettily behaved person. You don't seem to be listening to me, either."
"I'm not," said Paul, "I'm thinking about something else."
"Fie, fie, Master Seaton! whatever will your mamma say when you get home?" cried Isabel, shaking her finger at him.
"When you have quite finished I should like to have my innings," said Paul grimly, "but I don't in the least wish to hurry you."
"You are the most unappreciative man I ever talked to!"
"Look here, Miss Carnaby, it isn't fair to treat a fellow like this. Will you listen to me or will you not? because if you won't I'm going away."
Isabel looked to see if he were in earnest; when Paul was in earnest she knew by experience other people had to be in earnest too.
"All right," she sighed. "Say your say."
Paul's face grew very white. "I never made love to a woman before, and I never shall again, so I am a poor hand at the business. But you know how I love you; and I want to know if you will be my wife."
"Oh, Mr. Seaton!"
"I can't tell you what you are to me," continued Paul; "but you know as well as I do that I've cared for nothing in the world but you ever since that evening at Esdaile. You have seen how I have hungered for a kind word from you, and how I have starved when it pleased your whim to withhold it from me. You have seen all this and it has amused you. But I think it has done something more than amuse you, or else I shouldn't be speaking like this to you to-day. Am I right, Isabel?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"I didn't mean to speak yet, but I simply cannot go on like this any longer. The thought of you comes between me and everything else, till I cannot carry on my work or do my duty for thinking of you. Sometimes I think you really care a bit, and then I am lifted up to heaven; and sometimes I think you have merely been playing with me all the time, and then I am plunged in the depths of despair. I must know one way or the other. This suspense is killing me."
"Poor boy!" said Isabel gently.
"No; I don't want your pity or your friendship. I want your love or nothing at all. If I cannot have that, I must do my best to put you out of my life altogether. I will not go on like this."
"Still our friendship is very nice," said Isabel weakly.
"It isn't enough for me. It unsettles me and takes away my peace of mind, without giving me happiness in return. I feel that I could do anything with you to help me; I feel I could do something without you altogether; but I know I can do nothing as long as I am tortured by seeing daily my heart's desire, and not knowing if it can ever be mine or not."
"I wonder my friendship doesn't please you more," said Isabel with some pique. "Other men have found it both satisfying and stimulating."
Paul smiled scornfully. "Not the men who have loved you as I love you," he said.
"Other men love me as much as you do," persisted Isabel.
"Then let them love you, and let me go," replied Paul roughly. "I may be poor and obscure, and a nobody in your world, but I'm a man all the same, and I'll let no fine lady make a plaything of me."
"You are very unkind!"
"I am very unhappy."
Isabel pouted. "It is your own fault if you are. I'm sure I am nice enough to you to please the most exacting man."
"But I don't thank you for mere niceness. Can't you understand? You are nice to all the men that admire you; but there are some things a fellow can't and won't share. I am asking for bread——"
"And therefore when diamonds and rubies fall from my lips you call them stones," concluded Isabel flippantly.
Paul's face grew stern. "Don't laugh at me," he said, "it is doing both yourself and me an injustice. If you cannot love me, tell me so, and let me go out of the sight of your face and live my own life as best I can; and if you can love me, tell me so, and make me the happiest man this side Paradise. But for pity's sake don't play with me."
Isabel's eyes filled with tears. "Please forgive me," she said. "It was horrid of me, but I did not mean it."
"I know you didn't," replied Paul, and his voice shook. "Oh! my darling, do you think I don't realize all that I am asking of you? Do you think I don't know all that you will have to give up if you marry a poor man like me? But I want you, dear, and I cannot do without you."
"You have always been very good to me," said Isabel.
"Tell me—I cannot bear the suspense any longer—is there any chance for me?"
Isabel looked Paul full in the face. "I will tell you the truth," she said, "I owe you that, at any rate. The best side of me does love you, and wants always to be with you, and knows that I can never be a really good woman apart from you. But there is another side of me which cares for rank and wealth and power, and fights against your influence all the time."
Paul's eyes were very pitiful. "I understand," he said.
"The question is," continued Isabel, "which of my two selves is the stronger—the one that loves you or the one that doesn't. And you must leave me to fight it out by myself."
"Yes," answered Paul, "that is but fair and just. I will wait another week patiently; but after that I must know my fate once and for all."
"And you must always remember," added Isabel, "that the self that is on your side is my best self; and that if I decide against you, I shall be choosing evil rather than good."
"Aunt Caroline," said Isabel to Lady Farley the next day, "Paul Seaton has asked me to be his wife."
"I knew he would," replied her aunt, "men with chins like his never make love without meaning it."
"I am to give him his answer in a week; and I want you to advise me."
"My dear child, I dare not give advice on so important a matter. You are twenty-seven, and therefore old enough to know your own mind, and to please yourself."
"I mean to please myself, Aunt Caroline; but I want you to help me to find out what will please me."
"I will do all I can in that line with pleasure; but the decision must rest with you alone. Tell me yourprosandcons."
Isabel thought for a moment. "Theprosare that he is a good man, and a gentleman, and I love him, and he has the nicest eyes in the whole world."
Her aunt smiled. "And thecons?"
"Theconsare that he has neither money nor position, and would be considered a poor match in the world in which I live."
"Do you think you would be happy with him?" asked Lady Farley.
"Radiantly so. He is so clever that I should let him make up my mind upon every subject. I think it must be lovely to have a husband to make up one's mind for one!"
"Some women prefer making up the husband's mind for him. It is merely a matter of taste, my dear Isabel. The only thing to be avoided is two separate minds in a house, each making itself up."
"I know," laughed Isabel, "a sort of William-and-Mary business."
"Exactly."
"What should you do if you were in my place, Aunt Caroline?"
"Personally, it would not amuse me to marry Mr. Seaton; on the contrary, it would bore me considerably, he is so didactic and so overpoweringly in earnest; but that is no reason why it should not amuse you."
"It wouldn't amuse me to marry Uncle Benjamin, you see; and yet it amuses you."
"Not always, my dear; I have known it have quite an opposite effect. But then your uncle is a G.C.B. and a rich man, and those things amuse me a good deal."
"But love ought to count for something," said Isabel timidly.
"Of course it ought; I am allowing for that; but it counts a good deal more with some women than it does with others, and a woman should take this into consideration. Some women positively enjoy a little mild starvation flavoured with romance."
"I should, I think."
"Then take it, my dear," said Lady Farley, "positive starvation is always, I believe, indigestible; but the moderate starvation, which your own comfortable little income would allow of, might prove quite a treat to people who like picnics."
"By 'moderate starvation' I suppose you mean doing one's own hair and buttoning one's own boots?"
"Yes, and everything elseen suite. This again is a matter of taste, and each must please herself; but what I cannot stand is a woman who deliberately chooses love in a cottage, and then throws the cottage in her husband's teeth, and omits the love. Make your choice, I say; but when you have made it, stick to it."
"I have no patience with girls who will marry poor men, and then quarrel with them for being poor," agreed Isabel.
"Neither have I."
"If I married Paul, I should never be nasty to him afterwards because he wasn't rich."
"I should hope you would not," said Lady Farley. "I should be ashamed of having brought you up if you were. But that is all the more reason for not being in a hurry."
"I know it is."
"I also think, my dear Isabel, that among thecons, you should reckon up the fact that Lord Wrexham is very much in love with you, and that you might be a peeress if you were so minded."
"Yes."
"You should also make a note that Society will invite Lady Wrexham to dinner, but Mrs. Paul Seaton only to the reception afterwards."
Isabel winced. "I know that also."
"Then, my dear child, there is no more to be said. This is the evidence: it is for you to consider the verdict."
And Isabel did consider it to the exclusion of every other subject; and grew pale and wan with the conflict betwixt her contending inclinations. But—true to her order—she fulfilled all her social engagements, and talked and laughed as courageously as ever.
The Marchioness of Wallingford's ball was one of the events of the season—and it fell on the eve of the day when Isabel was to give Paul his final answer. Yet the girl was as undecided as ever when she donned her war-paint.
During the evening she sat out a dance with Lord Bobby. He and Isabel had become firm and fast friends since he had confided to her his attachment to her cousin Violet, and she had sympathized with him.
"You don't look very flourishing," said Lord Bobby kindly, as they sat together under the shelter of a huge palm. "Has any one been bullying you?"
"Life in general has been bullying me," replied Isabel sadly.
"How vile of it! I never thought so badly of life before. It certainly won't be worth living if it begins to be rude to you; I shall have to give it the cut direct by committing suicide, if it insults you again."
"Oh! Bobby, do help me," cried Isabel, with a sudden impulse laying a beseeching little hand on his arm. "You are so young and foolish, and everybody else is so old and wise. I'm old and wise too, and I'm sick of it."
"Poor little girl, what is wrong?"
"Paul Seaton wants me to marry him, and I want it too—but I'm not sure if I've the courage to make such a bad match. I know I'm a wretch to feel like that, but that is how I feel."
Bobby's pleasant face grew grave. "I know," he said.
"The good part of me loves him, but the worldly part of me loves money and position and pleasure, and I don't know which is in the majority."
"If you were only a Government instead of a woman, you'd find out by means of a dissolution," remarked his lordship: "then try the same method."
"How do you mean?" asked Isabel, looking puzzled.
"In the event of your dissolution what should you do?"
"If I were dying do you mean? Oh! then, of course, I should care only for Paul; and money and all that would matter nothing to me."
"Then why not apply the dissolution test to a woman as well as to a Government?" suggested Lord Robert.
"There is a good deal in what you say. I feel sure that if I sent Paul away my heart would cry out for him sooner or later."
"Then why not let it cry now, when there is a chance of anR.S.V.P.?"
"Because I am afraid to give up all the rank and pleasure and luxury that have made life so pleasant to me. It is selfish of me, I know, but I can't help it."
"You seem in a regular fix!" said Lord Bobby with much sympathy.
"Every one I consult is so old and wise, and knows so well the value of outside things. Does everybody grow worldly as they grow older, I wonder?"
"Everybody except mothers," answered Bobby simply. "They never get old or wise or anything horrid."
"But I haven't got a mother," said Isabel, with a little catch in her voice.
"Poor little girl!" said Bobby, and there were tears in his honest blue eyes.
"You see," continued Isabel, "if I marry Paul, the frivolous side of me may come to the front when it is too late, and I may spoil his life by becoming a dissatisfied and grumbling wife."
Bobby nodded.
"While, on the other hand, if I let him go, I shall become hard and shallow and worldly, and the best part of my nature will die of starvation. Oh! Bobby, what am I to do?"
Bobby thought profoundly for several seconds; then he said: "Seaton is a good fellow, there is no doubt of that; but the question just now is not what is he in himself, but how much does he count for in your estimate of life?"
"That is just what I want to find out," sighed Isabel.
"Look here!" continued Bobby; "when he comes into a room does it seem to you as if the place was full of pink light, and the band was playing 'God save the Queen' outside?"
"Yes, yes, it feels just like that," assented Isabel eagerly.
"Then if you've got to that stage, you mustn't let him go; there is only one course open to you. When you feel like that, you can't of course be sure that you'll be happy with that particular person; but you may be certain that you'll be utterly miserable without him."
"There is my next partner searching for me," said Isabel, rising from her seat. "Thank you, Bobby; how you have helped me!"
A few days after Lady Wallingford's ball, Lady Esdaile called upon her sister-in-law.
"My dear Caroline," she began, "is it true that Isabel has engaged herself to that young Seaton?"
"Perfectly true," replied Lady Farley with a sigh.
"How funny of her! He isn't at all well off; but Isabel has got her own money, so that won't matter as much as it might if she hadn't anything; though I can't help feeling it is a poor match for a girl who has been run after as much as Isabel."
"Isabel is old enough to please herself."
"Of course she is, Caroline; I'd been married for ages and ages when I was as old as Isabel. But please don't think I'm saying anything against Mr. Seaton, because I'm not. He is a dear man, and no one knows how adorable he was once when Dick was ill. I was always confusing the gargle with the medicine, and wanting to give the dear boy the wrong one by mistake; but Mr. Seaton never once mistook them for each other. Wasn't it awfully clever of him?"
"He is generally considered to be a clever man," remarked Lady Farley drily.
"I know he is; and so good and religious too. Of course it is awfully nice for a man to be clever and religious and all that, but it seems a funny reason for marrying him, don't you think?"
Lady Farley smiled satirically. "Funnier than if he were rich or had a title," she said.
"But Isabel always was rather original, Caroline. I wonder if she will be happy with Mr. Seaton."
"That is the idea, I believe. Of course one cannot tell yet how it will work out."
"And you will miss her, I dare say," continued Lady Esdaile, not noticing that her sister-in-law winced at this remark, "it will quite be like losing a daughter. I should mind dreadfully if Violet were to get married—and yet I should mind more if she didn't, I think. It really is difficult to know always what one does want."
"And still more difficult to get it," added Lady Farley.
"I never know which one hates the most—the men who want to marry your daughter or the men who don't. They both seem tiresome somehow, don't they, Caroline?"
"My dear Constance, all men are more or less tiresome."
"I know," replied Lady Esdaile feelingly, "and so silly about their dinners. Richard says our new cook is 'a woman of one gravy,' and he wants me to speak about it to the housekeeper; but if ever I do speak about things it always ends in unpleasantness, and I'd far rather make Richard angry than one of the servants; so I shan't interfere."
Lady Farley smiled.
"It takes all my courage," continued Lady Esdaile, "to scold my own maid about things that really matter—such as the way she does my hair and puts my clothes on; and I really have none to spare for dinners, and things like that. But I do wonder if Isabel will be happy. I should think a small house would feel pokey, even with a really nice man like Mr. Seaton. Shouldn't you?"
"Stuffy to a degree, I should imagine. Especially if one knew that one might be reigning as Lady Wrexham at Vernacre instead."
And Lady Farley sighed again; for she had been very proud of Isabel.
As a place of residence Eden was closedWhen Adam and Eve left home;And no one can live there, it is supposed,For many a year to come.But now and again, in the summer days,The gardens are open thrownThat the public may walk down the grassy ways:And nobody walks alone.
Paul and Isabel were sitting in Kensington Gardens under the very tree where he asked her if she would be his wife. They now considered this tree their own peculiar property, and felt inclined to prosecute as trespassers any impertinent persons who dared so much as to walk beneath its shadow; and here was their usual trysting-place in those long and happy afternoons when the year and their engagement were alike young.
"Isn't it dreadful to think how we lived all those years without even having seen each other?" remarked Paul.
Isabel sighed. "It was a shocking waste of time!"
"And it kept me so ignorant and backward," added Paul, "I used to think that fine ladies were animated fashion-plates."
"What do you think they are now?"
"I don't think; I know that they are ideal beings with the airs of Paradise and the graces of Paris."
"I used to think that men were stupid creatures who only cared about dinners and debentures and things of that sort," said Isabel.
"What do you think them now?"
"I know they are intelligent animals with abominable tempers."
Paul laughed. "You are very rude!"
"I know I am. That is because I care for you. I am always rude to the people I really care for."
"That is unwise of you," remarked Paul, "though a not uncommon form of unwisdom. I have often noticed that the people who are ready to die for you, never think it necessary to pass the salt. They seem to imagine that the greater includes the less—which it doesn't."
"The wise people," added Isabel, "are aware that if they only pay you compliments and open your umbrella for you, they will have all the credit of dying for you with none of the expense. They are clever enough to know that, in questions of manners, the less includes the greater—or at any rate infers it."
"Then why are you rude to me, my dear Isabel? You don't seem to live up to your principles."
"I don't. A girl once told me that I should make a bad wife, a good friend, and a simply perfect acquaintance; and I believe she was right."
Paul smiled. "That is hardly a comforting prospect for me, but I mean to risk it nevertheless."
"You see," continued Isabel, who always enjoyed vivisecting herself, "I am awfully nice to people until I begin to care for them; then I become horrid. It is unfortunate, I admit, but nevertheless it is true."
"As I remarked before, I cannot commend your wisdom," said Paul, "I should pursue a precisely opposite course myself."
"You do," replied Isabel with generosity; "unlike me, you live up to your principles. When first I met you, I thought you rather stiff and difficult to get on with; talking to you was like walking up-hill or rowing up-stream; but now you grow more delightful every day, and more easy to talk to."
Paul looked pleased. "I certainly take more trouble to be nice to you than to anybody else."
"And you succeed beyond your wildest expectations. But I am quite different; as long as I really didn't care for you, I was able to be perfectly charming; I know I was."
"You both were and are," said Paul.
Isabel shook her head. "I know as well as ever the things I ought to say to you to please you, and a year ago I should have said them; but now my own feelings get in the way, and I want to say the things that please me; and so I cease to be charming."
"But, my dear girl, the things that please you please me."
"Oh! no, they don't; you deceive yourself if you think they do. Though less clever than I was before I fell in love, I am still a clever woman, and I know that if I said to you all I want to say I should bore you to death."
"Try me, that's all!" was Paul's terse rejoinder.
"For instance, if I followed my own impulses, I should ask you every hour if you loved me as much as you did the hour before."
"That would be a foolish question; you know I do."
"Then," continued Isabel, "I should ask you if you liked me as well as other people and things, all of which I should mention separately, till the list was as long and exhaustive as theBenedicite."
"That also would be a foolish question; you know I love you more than everything and everybody else put together."
"You see I was right," cried Isabel triumphantly; "my normal conversation, if I gave the rein to it, would bore you."
"No, it wouldn't; you couldn't bore me if you tried; but I own I should consider it somewhat unnecessary."
"I don't believe a man ever could really understand a woman," said Isabel rather sadly.
"Perhaps not, any more than a woman could really understand a man. But I don't see that it matters, as long as they love one another."
Isabel was silent.
"What I don't understand in women is their passion for trying dangerous experiments," continued Paul. "Now, I am ready to suffer any amount of pain, if you could gain any benefit thereby; but I am not ready, I confess, to suffer any amount of pain, for you just to see how I look when I am suffering it."
Isabel tried not to smile, but failed. "Do you know when I am trying experiments on you?" she asked.
"Perfectly; I am not such a fool as you think, and I strongly object to the process. Besides it does as little credit to your eye as to your heart, because I really don't look at all nice when I am cross or unhappy. Now do I?"
"No, my dear Paul, I am bound to own that affliction is most unbecoming to you."
"Then why subject me to it?"
Isabel made another futile attempt not to smile.
"Look here," said her lover, "if you will only say straight out to me, 'I am going to talk to Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith just to make you jealous,' I shall know what you are driving at; and I will be a very Othello as long as it pleases you. In fact you needn't bring Jones or Smith into the concern at all; just say, 'Paul, I want you to be jealous for half an hour,' and I will entertain the green-eyed monster to any extent."
"How absurd you are!"
"But," continued Paul, "when you suddenly—without any apparent reason—develop an abnormal craving for the society of Jones or Smith, coupled with an equally inexplicable aversion to the sight of me, I cannot for the life of me make out what I have done to offend you; and my days are made wretched and my nights hideous by dreams of suicide and agonies of remorse."
Isabel laughed. "If you are clever enough to see through my little game, why does it make you so miserable?" she asked.
"That is where I am such an ass! Although, by this time, I have learnt the reason of your intermittent attachments to Jones or Smith, nothing but the customs of good society—grafted on to an early religious training—keeps me from punching of heads and shedding of blood every time I see you smile on the brutes."
"You dear man, you really are very nice!"
"So are you, when you don't think that a course of jealousy is necessary to my moral training," added Paul.
"It isn't good for you to have everything your own way," said Isabel reprovingly.
"If you want to see how I look when I am being hurt, tell me so, and I will go and have a tooth out," said Paul pleasantly, "I should much prefer that, to seeing you talk to the sort of idiots you flirt with sometimes."
"You are a very obliging young man!"
"I am. True, this plan can only be carried out thirty-two times, for obvious reasons; but I daresay we shall think of something else for the thirty-third, if only you will be patient."
"Does it really hurt much when I am nasty to you?" inquired Isabel.
"I should think so. Can't you see that it does?"
"You look rather horrid, Paul, I must say, on those occasions."
"And I feel horrid too. Yet I am a reasonable man, and I can see that you had a right to try this dodge two or three times, just to prove to yourself that I really cared; but what beats me is why you keep on doing it, when you are as certain that I love you as you are that I am sitting here. It is like vaccinating a baby every week, just to torture the creature."
"Oh! Paul, I don't do it every week; only once in three weeks at most."
Paul smiled. "Couldn't you make the experiments 'like angels' visits, few and far between'? Say once in six weeks now?"
"You forgive me each time, however often I do it; I've noticed that."
"Oh! I should forgive you till seventy times seven, but that doesn't make it any the pleasanter for me."
"Poor old boy!" whispered Isabel tenderly.
"By the way," said Paul, "I want you to come with me to see my people. You have not seen them yet, and I want to show them what a prize I have been lucky enough to win. Will you come to Chayford with me next week?"
"Yes, if you want me to. I will do anything you want, Paul, always."
"Then we will go next Tuesday."
"I wonder if your people will like me," mused Isabel.
"Of course they will. How could they—being sane—do otherwise?"
"Suppose they don't like me," persisted Isabel.
"Then I shall quarrel with them; but they will, I am sure of it."
"How sure you always are of everything, Paul!"
"Am I?"
"Yes; you are so strong, you always do what you mean to do, and other people always do what you wish."
Paul shook his head. "I have meant to do two things in my life, and I have only done one of them. Fifty per cent. is not such an enormous success after all."
"What were the two things?" asked Isabel.
"I meant to take a First at Oxford, and I meant to make you love me."
"But it wasn't your own fault that you couldn't take a First; at least it would have been your fault if you had done so, instead of helping your people. It was splendid of you to give up your ambition for them!"
"Thank you, dear," said Paul. "Still, the fact remains that I did not do what I meant to do; which shows that there is a stronger Power than one's own will after all. I used to think that success or failure lay in the hollow of one's hand; and now I am beginning to see that the best of us can do nothing but 'rough-hew'. But when I was young I made up my mind to shape my own ends for myself."
"And now?"
"As regards the two things that I wanted most, Divinity shaped the one and it is left to you to shape the other; so I am not such a very independent fellow after all."
"I hope I shall shape my part all right," said Isabel softly.
Paul looked grave. "It will go hard with me if you don't, Isabel."
There was great excitement at Chayford over the news of Paul's engagement. Mrs. Martin had always hated Paul for fear he should wish to marry Alice; but she hated him still more for not having wished it, and she hated Isabel most of all for having come between Alice and the thing which was considered most undesirable for her.
"I trust that this engagement will turn out for Paul's real welfare," she said to Paul's mother one day; "but I have my doubts, as Miss Carnaby is evidently a thoroughly worldly person, and so will probably be very extravagant."
"Paul is so devoted to Miss Carnaby that I feel no doubt about her making him happy," replied Paul's mother cheerfully, "and I am sure she must be really nice and good, or else Paul would not be so fond of her."
Mrs. Martin shook her head. "Beauty and rank are minor matters, and have, I fear, proved more attractive to Paul than more solid charms."
"Miss Carnaby is not beautiful, however," suggested Mrs. Seaton, "though Paul says her aunt, Lady Farley, is."
Mrs. Martin pricked up her ears at the title. "Is her aunt called Lady Farley, did you say? Dear me, how very interesting! What Farleys are they?"
"Sir Benjamin Farley is a G.C.B., I believe, and had an Indian governorship for a time."
"I know the name; I have often seen it in the papers; but I had no idea that Sir Benjamin was a prospective relative of dear Paul's. I hope, Mrs. Seaton, that should Lady Farley ever visit you, you will do your old friend the honour of asking me to meet her."
"I do not expect Lady Farley ever will visit me," said the minister's wife rather stiffly.
"Still if she did, dear friend, it would be such a delight to me to meet her. And such an advantage, too; for talking with those interesting and distinguished public characters is an education in itself, I consider."
Although Mrs. Seaton fully recognized the necessity for education on Mrs. Martin's part, she did not feel herself called upon to supply the need; so she merely said: "Paul and Miss Carnaby are coming to stay with us next week."
"Indeed; how very delightful! I hope that you will bring the dear young lady frequently to see us while she is with you. She will doubtless feel much more at home in a house like The Cedars than in a small cottage such as this."
"Paul's wife will have to make herself at home among Paul's people," said Mrs. Seaton quietly.
"But think of the discomfort," persisted Mrs. Martin with her usual tact and refinement of feeling, "to a person accustomed to a large establishment! Don't you think it would be better if Miss Carnaby stayed at The Cedars altogether? Mr. Martin and I should be very pleased to entertain her, and she would be a nice friend for Alice." And visions of Alice's entry into society, by the door of Isabel, floated through Mrs. Martin's mind.
"It is very kind of you, but I am sure Paul would prefer Miss Carnaby to stay with us. You see, if she is a lady, she will think no worse of us for having a small house and living quietly; and if she is not, Paul had better find it out before it is too late."
But Mrs. Martin still looked doubtful. "It will be a great change from what she is accustomed to, and I cannot help feeling that the dear young lady would be more at home with us."
The minister's wife could hardly restrain a smile as she recalled a sentence in her son's last letter, which said: "Whatever you do, keep those awful Martins out of the way; their blatant vulgarity would make Isabel positively ill, and I don't want her to be exposed to it". But she wisely kept the humour of the situation to herself, and held her peace.
"I suppose you will dine late while Miss Carnaby is with you," persisted Mrs. Martin: "an early dinner is considered extremely vulgar by well-bred people, I can assure you."
Mrs. Seaton looked surprised. "Certainly not; why should we? I cannot see anything vulgar in the time of one's dinner—it is merely a matter of household convenience. But I think it would be extremely vulgar to alter our habits so as to make our visitor imagine that we were in any way different from what we are. Nothing is really vulgar save pretence; and that is always vulgar, in whatever rank of society it is found."
"Ah! dear Mrs. Seaton, you are too unworldly. Believe me, it is the small things that you despise—such as late dinners and plenty of servants and proper evening-dresses—that make the difference between gentlepeople and others."
"Do you think so? I had an idea that the difference lay in quite another direction."
"Then you were mistaken," replied Mrs. Martin. "I am extremely sensitive to such things myself, and I assure you I should not feel that I was a lady if I dined before seven o'clock, and did not dress for dinner. It is in these trifles that good breeding is really shown. Mr. Martin laughs at me; but I tell him I could not digest my dinner if I did not wear a low dress and a flower in my hair—even if it were only a chrysanthemum."
For the first time in her life Mrs. Seaton felt that her sense of humour ran on the same lines as Mr. Martin's; but she did not point out this similarity to his wife. She merely preserved the chrysanthemum in her memory, to regale Paul and Joanna with at some future time.
But there was no one in Chayford more deeply interested in Paul's love-affair than Martha.
"Well, to be sure, Miss Joanna," she said one day; "it seems only yesterday that I whipped Master Paul for flying into a passion and kicking Mrs. Martin's cook, because she passed the remark that you were the ugliest little girl she'd ever set eyes on; and now he is old enough to be taking to himself a wife. Time does fly, and no mistake!"
Joanna sighed. She was a good woman, and unselfish, but it is "a bitter thing to look into happiness through another man's eyes". "Isabel Carnaby is a lucky girl," she remarked; "for I am sure Paul is a man who will make any woman happy."
Martha shook her head. "Don't be too sure of anything about a man, miss—not even if it is our Paul. They are queer creatures, even the best of them!"
"You are always hard on men, Martha."
"So I am, miss, they are such wild, feckless folks. First in a tantrum about one thing, and then about another, till there is no pleasing them; and they are no use—and far less ornament—as far as I can see."
"You don't understand how to manage them, I am afraid," laughed Joanna.
"Not I, my dear. The Lord Who made them may understand them, but I don't; for if I'd had the making of them, they'd have been made after a different pattern, I can tell you."
"But you must not say all this to Miss Carnaby," warned the wise Joanna.
"Of course not, miss; I know well enough what to say to folks that are courting. Now there was my niece, Eunice Tozer; she got engaged to a young man in her father's shop—and a sore disappointment it was to them all, herself included, that she hadn't done better."
"I hope you didn't say so to her, Martha."
"Not I, my dear! She came complaining to me that it was but a poor settling for her, but I soon cheered her up. 'Eunice,' says I, 'with such a plain face as yours it is a wonder you've got a husband at all—let alone the sort; and you ought to be thankful, instead of finding fault.' That was the way to look at the matter, to my thinking, and I soon made Eunice see it in the same light."
"Was Eunice happy when she was married?" Joanna asked.
"As happy as any woman could be with a man tied to her for the rest of her days; but, as you know, I don't hold with the men, miss. They are troublesome creatures, especially all of them."
"They are indeed," exclaimed Joanna with amusement.
"You see, miss, my mother always said that the troubles which came direct from the Lord, she could bear without murmuring; but the troubles which came from father's stupidity were a different thing, and she hadn't common patience with them. Many a time has she passed the remark that, if a woman has got a husband, she spends all her life in bearing for him the consequences of the things she particularly told him not to do."
Joanna nodded. "That must really be very irritating! It would try me more than anything."
"And me too, miss. There is nothing like a man for trying the temper. Mark my word, it is because there is no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven that the temper of an angelisthe temper of an angel. If the angels had got husbands, there'd be a different tale about their tempers, I'll be bound!"
Where thou goest I will go,Through the sunshine or the snow:Where thou dwellest I will dwell,In a court or in a cell:All thy people mine shall be,Since myself is one with thee.
It was the day of Isabel's arrival at Chayford, and Mrs. Seaton's face was pink with excitement and anxiety that everything should be as Paul wished for Paul's bride-elect. The tea-table was spread with every simple dainty that Martha could suggest and carry out; and was covered with Mrs. Seaton's best table-cloth—a specimen of the finest and most silky-looking damask, with an elegant border composed of arum lilies, and an effigy of John Wesley in the centre.
"I cannot help feeling a little nervous," said Mrs. Seaton, "I am so anxious that everything should be as Paul would like."
The minister smiled. "My dear, you are careful and troubled about many things. If Isabel Carnaby loves our Paul, as I believe she does, she will not notice what viands are spread out before her, nor what servants are ready to serve her. She will be so happy to feel herself in Paul's presence, that minor matters will be of no moment to her."
"But I do want everything to be nice," persisted Mrs. Seaton plaintively.
"Don't worry so, mother," chimed in the sensible Joanna; "we have done our best to prepare a warm welcome for Isabel; and if she isn't pleased, it is her fault and not ours."
"But it is Paul I am thinking of—not Isabel," said Mrs. Seaton, "I should be so sorry to disappoint him in any way."
"My love, you really are overburdened with the cares of this life," replied her husband, "believe me, it is really of no importance what we eat and how we are clothed, provided we have wholesome food and garments beseeming our estate; and it grieves me to see you wearing yourself out about things that do not signify."
"Well, I hope Paul will be satisfied," repeated Paul's mother.
"There they are!" exclaimed Joanna, as a cab drove up to the door, and Paul sprang out, followed by an extremely well-dressed young lady.
The minister and his family went into the hall to receive their visitor; and Mrs. Seaton trembled all over, for she felt it was an ordeal. So did Paul; and his mother knew that he did, as soon as she saw his face.
"Mother, this is Isabel," was all he could say; he was so dreadfully afraid that the two women he loved best in the world would not say the right things to one another.
But Isabel was equal to the occasion. She threw her arms round Mrs. Seaton's neck and kissed her.
"I want you to be a mother to me as well as to Paul," she whispered. "I haven't got a mother of my own, you know, and I do so want one."
And then and there the minister's wife took Isabel into her motherly heart, and never really let her out again, in spite of all that happened afterwards.
When Isabel had duly greeted Mr. Seaton and Joanna, she was introduced to Martha.
"This is our faithful friend, Martha," said Mrs. Seaton, "she nursed Paul when he was a little boy."
Isabel held out her hand with a radiant smile. "I must thank you for taking so much care of him for me," she said, "if you hadn't sown, I should not have reaped, so I owe much of my happiness to you."
"Don't mention it, miss," replied Martha, looking proud and joyful, "it was always a pleasure to do things for Master Paul, in spite of his temper, which I am bound to say was one of the hottest I ever came across, while he was as yet a child of nature and not of grace. I bore the marks of his dear little teeth in my arm for many a day, miss, for once contradicting him when he said that Abraham was the father of Joseph, bless his heart!"
Isabel laughed, and so did Paul.
"But don't let me discourage you, miss, if you've made up your mind to get married," added Martha, fearing that she had said too much, "if you must have a husband, perhaps Master Paul is the best sort you'll get; though bad's the best, to my thinking, with regard to husbands."
Tea that evening was a very cheerful meal at Chayford Cottage. Isabel was so charmed by the refinement and culture of Paul's home, that she was at her best. She found herself in an atmosphere of intellectual activity such as she was accustomed to, but combined with a simplicity of life and a familiarity with higher things such as she had never yet known; and the combination was very attractive to her.
"I shall have much to ask about your life in India, my dear," said Mr. Seaton to Isabel, as they all sat round the tea-table, "I have always longed to go there, and see for myself the remains of one of the world's oldest and most picturesque civilizations, but I shall never accomplish it now; so I must beg you to give me information second-hand."
"Martha is immensely impressed by your having lived in India," exclaimed Joanna; "but she has deliciously vague ideas about the place. I think she pictures it to herself as a 'coral strand' covered with undressed niggers, like the picture on the cover of theMissionary Notices."
"I am not sure that my ideas of India are not a good deal like that," Paul said; "only I add a few elephants and pagodas."
"She asked me the other day," continued Joanna, still addressing Isabel, "if I thought you had ever worshipped idols while you were in India."
Isabel sighed. "I am afraid I sometimes did; but they were not the native ones."
"Never mind, my dear," said Mrs. Seaton kindly; "we have all of us worshipped idols at some time or another—except, of course, the minister."
Her husband shook his head. "I am afraid, my love, that I have worshipped idols too; only I bound them in vellum and called them by theological names."
"I expect we have all got a little museum of cast-off idols somewhere in our hearts," remarked Isabel.
"Which we now and then dust and put in order," added Joanna.
"Although they are no longer used as idols, they are still interesting as curiosities," said Paul. "I've got three fine ones in mine, called rowing and success and power; and I dare not allow myself to take them out and dust them too often, for fear I should fall a-worshipping of them once more."
"Dear old Paul!" said his mother tenderly.
"I used to have two lovely ones called the world and fashion," said Isabel; "but Paul came by and knocked them over in passing, and I have never been able to set them up again."
"I have got a very bothering one named duty," said Joanna, "and it gives me a lot of trouble, because I am not quite sure whether it is an idol or not. Sometimes I think it is, and then I put it by in the museum; but at other times it seems to be a legitimate object of adoration, and then I have to restore it to its shrine. I never can decide where to keep the thing for two days together."
"That would worry me," remarked Isabel; "there is nothing so wearing as indecision."
"But you are very undecided, Isabel," argued Paul.
"I know I am, and that is why I reprove this characteristic in other people. I feel sure I shall become an old woman before my time, through suffering agonies of indecision as to whether I shall take my waterproof to church or not, and how often I shall write to you in a week."
"What idols are in your museum, mother?" inquired Joanna.
"Oh! my dear, when a woman is married there is no room in her heart for anything but God and her husband and her children; and then she has to be very careful lest her husband and her children should take up more than their share of room."
Mr. Seaton smiled. "I do not think you need be afraid, Ruth; for I believe that the more room we give in our hearts to our fellow-creatures, the more room there is left for God."
"Paul will have to show you all about Chayford to-morrow," said Mrs. Seaton, turning to Isabel, "it is a pretty old town, and the surrounding country is lovely. Are you a good walker, my dear?"
"I am as fond of walking as I am of talking, Mrs. Seaton, which is saying a great deal; in fact, I may confess I am as walkative as I am talkative; walkative is rather a good word, I think. I've just invented it."
"It is capital," agreed Paul.
"Paul has told me about the people here," added Isabel, "I already know them all by their names. I am sure I could pass an examination in Chayford, and take honours."
"It will be fun to show you all the neighbours," exclaimed Joanna, "and to see if they are like what you expect!"
"How is Mrs. Martin?" asked Isabel.
"Better than ever!" was Joanna's reply; "she is torn asunder between her social respect for, and her spiritual disapproval of, you. But she reconciles you to herself by measuring your position in this world and your prospects in the next by different measures—like troy weight and avoirdupois—so that the two do not clash."
"How very nice of her!" exclaimed Isabel with delight.
"She offended Martha dreadfully the last time she called here," continued Joanna, "by saying that our cat's tail is too short for a real Persian. Martha related it to me afterwards with great indignation, and added: 'As if the Lord didn't know how to make a cat without Mrs. Martin's interference!'"
Everybody laughed; then Isabel said: "Martha is a dear! Even in this present world, 'I shall desire more love and knowledge of her'."
"She repays research," remarked Paul, "though I confess I think she would be more agreeable if her conscience were not so bent on setting forth unflattering truths. I do not ask for lies; but even truth requires clothing."
"Besides it is not always necessary to say the whole truth about everything," said Mrs. Seaton, "it is wrong to utter falsehood, but it is not wrong to keep silence."
"You mean that if a person had good eyes and an ugly mouth, you would tell her how pretty her eyes were, and leave her mouth to speak for itself?" suggested Isabel.
Mrs. Seaton looked amused.
"That would be mother's plan," said Joanna; "she never says anything that could hurt anybody's feelings. And I believe that, as a matter of fact, she would only look at the eyes, and never notice that the mouth was ugly. She has a splendid habit of only seeing the good in people and things."
"That is quite true," agreed the minister.
Joanna continued: "I am sorry to say that unpleasant truths are a terrible temptation to me. I really don't mean to be disagreeable, but sometimes they fly out of my mouth before I have time to stop them. Miss Dallicot asked me yesterday if I liked her new bonnet, and I'd said 'No' before I had time to weigh my words. I was extremely sorry afterwards, she looked so hurt."
"My child," said Mr. Seaton, "you should consider other people's feelings, and strive never to give pain where it can be avoided."
"So I do, father; but now and then the truth is too strong for me. And I am sure that a glimpse of the bonnet itself will prove to you that I was not without provocation."
"What was it like?" asked Isabel.
"It was a ghastly combination of black and white feathers and red flowers," replied Joanna; "and resembled a young person's funeral passing through a field of poppies; it really was a weird sight!"
"Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not," said Mr. Seaton reprovingly, "and Miss Dallicot is a dear and valued friend of mine."
"I am not forsaking her, father; I am only describing her head-gear."
Mr. Seaton smiled as he shook his head. "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly; and ridicule and friendliness hardly seem to me compatible, my child."
"Wait till you see the bonnet," persisted Joanna.
"I, for one, am looking forward to the vision," exclaimed Paul. "When she comes into chapel on Sunday, I shall begin to sing 'The morning flowers display their sweets'."
"Did I tell you that she tumbled down coming into chapel last Sunday?" said Joanna.
"No—did she? I wish I'd been there to see," cried the unregenerate Paul.
"Yes; she caught her foot on the mat of the door, staggered up the aisle with increasing speed at every step, and finally fell—an inert mass—at the pulpit steps, while her parasol and pocket-handkerchief and hymn-book flew all over the chapel like leaves in autumn."
Paul and Isabel laughed heartily; then the latter said: "My aunt had a similar misadventure the other day. She sneaked into a shop in Regent Street to inquire the price of a carpet she had no intention of buying—a mean trick, as I told her, and her sin found her out."
"Why, what happened?" asked Paul.
"She, likewise, tripped on entering, and ran a wild and reckless race the whole length of the shop. Brave young men sprang over the counter to stop her mad career, and even the cashier rushed out of his little square pew to check her rapid flight; but all in vain. She outstripped them all, and lay at last—convulsed with laughter—at the foot of a mirror at the very far end of the shop."
Mrs. Seaton laughed till the tears ran down her face. "It really seems too bad to laugh at such things, but I never can help it; I hope Lady Farley was not hurt."
"Not in the least. But you can picture her shame and humiliation when she had to confess to the crowd of young men collected to pick up her remains, that she had only looked in to inquire the price of a carpet!"
"It was rather dreadful for her!" agreed Mrs. Seaton, still simmering with amusement.
"I wish Mrs. Martin did not sit just before me in chapel!" sighed Joanna.
"Why not?" asked Paul.
"Because there is one white tacking-thread left to sully the glory of her otherwise immaculate Sunday mantle; and that tacking-thread comes between me and my devotions. I am torn between the desire to stretch forth my hand and pluck it out, and my knowledge that Mrs. Martin's tacking-threads are no concern of mine."
"You should try not to look at it, my dear," said Mrs. Seaton.
"So I do, mother; but the thing rises up and hits me in the face, so to speak; it is like Gehazi in its unnatural whiteness."
"I should let it stand," said Paul, "as an everlasting testimony to the truth that even Mrs. Martin is human, and not beyond the help of tacking-threads. To my mind there is something infinitely pathetic and poetical in the idea. I feel I could write a poem on it, if not a tract."
"I know I shall tell her about it some day," remarked Joanna.
"I'm awfully interested in your passion for speaking the truth," said Isabel; "it is just the other way with me; I always want to say what I feel people want me to say, rather than what I really think."
"How funny! But that is because it is your nature to make yourself pleasant. It is fearfully difficult for me not to make myself disagreeable—while to make myself agreeable is impossible," replied Joanna.
"Poor Joanna," said her mother.
Joanna went on: "I know that people often blame me for saying disagreeable things; but if they only knew how many disagreeable things I keep myself from saying, and how deeply I regret those I do say, they would commend rather than condemn me."
Then Mr. Seaton questioned Isabel about her life abroad, and the conversation never flagged till it was time for Joanna to go to class, and for Paul and Isabel to start for a walk in the lanes round Chayford Cottage.
Isabel's week at Chayford was a great success. The Seatons were charmed with her, and she with them; and as she and Paul had nothing in the world to do but to make love to each other, there was no occasion for jealousies or misunderstandings between them such as came later in the conflicting interests of "a London June".
Isabel revered Paul's father, because he was so courteous and so saintly, and had read more than any man she had ever met; she liked Joanna, because Joanna was good and clever, and possessed a most admirable sense of humour; and she loved Mrs. Seaton, because the minister's wife was the first woman she had ever met who in some degree satisfied the mother-hunger in her heart. And Mrs. Seaton understood Isabel better than any of them did—not excluding even Paul. She knew that there were depths in the girl's soul, whereof Joanna did not dream, and which Paul had not yet sounded; and that—in spite of her sunny light-heartedness—Isabel's nature was very highly strung. Mrs. Seaton trembled for them both when she realized that Paul's masterly touch might prove a little too heavy for so delicate an instrument, and that some of the strings might break under the pressure. But she knew herself powerless to interfere; for she had learnt that what we call influence, other people often call impertinence, and that it is a power which is more prone to do harm than good. When people are seized with the desire to set about improving their neighbours, it is a phase of thought which might be described as the "negative" of the missionary spirit; that it to say, it is a form of spiritual instruction which has the effect of turning Christians into savages—for the time being, at any rate.
The only person at Chayford that Isabel did not get on with was Mrs. Martin. These two fell foul of each other from the first. Mrs. Martin began by being obsequious, and Isabel snubbed her; and the man or woman who can forgive a social slight is as yet an undiscovered product of civilization. Human nature can only stand a certain strain; and social rudeness stretches this elasticity to its uttermost limit, if not beyond it.
Mrs. Martin opened the ball by calling upon Isabel, decked out in her Sunday best.
"I am so glad to meet you, my dear Miss Carnaby," she began, addressing herself pointedly to Isabel, and coolly excluding Mrs. Seaton and Joanna from the conversation, "I feel sure we shall be friends, for your dear aunt's sake. I believe she is one of the Farleys of Ferngrove, and they were friends of my mother's years ago."
"I am afraid I must confess I never heard of the Farleys of Ferngrove," said Isabel rather stiffly.
"Did you not? dear me, how strange! They were an old county family in Lancashire when my dear mother was a girl—really quite a good old family, I can assure you—and she had the pleasure of meeting them once or twice in those happy old days. I really think your distinguished uncle must belong to the same family. They were most accomplished and extremely rich."
"I don't think so," said Isabel. "Uncle Benjamin's money came to him from his mother's brother, who was in the iron trade; his father was a clergyman, and was extremely poor."
Mrs. Martin looked shocked; to her mind there was something indelicate in the mere mention of poverty. Her father had been extremely poor at the commencement of his commercial career, but she would have died rather than mention so disgraceful a fact. She wondered that Miss Carnaby had not more refinement of feeling. Nevertheless she made another attempt to establish a friendly footing between herself and this coarse-minded young woman.
"I wonder if you ever met my dear friends, the Sedleys?" she said.
Isabel did not think so.
"They are charming people, dear Miss Carnaby, and have such aristocratic connections; only last year they were staying in the same hotel as the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Edelweiss, somewhere in Switzerland; I forget the name of the place, but I know it was most fashionable. The Sedleys never go to any but really fashionable resorts."
"How very interesting," murmured Isabel politely.
"You would delight in Mrs. Sedley, she is so extremely refined. She once told me that unless she always wore silk next her skin, she would die of irritation. Is it not strange how good-breeding shows itself in these small trifles?"
"Very strange," said Isabel.
"You would hardly believe it, Miss Carnaby, but do you know I am physically unable to wear cheap boots or gloves myself? If I attempted to do so, I should become lame and helpless at once. I said to my dear husband only yesterday, it is not that I wish to be extravagant, for I hold extravagance a sin; but my skin is so delicate that the wear of cheap things is simply torture to me."
"I am sorry for you," replied Isabel, "for the pleasure of the summer sales must be lost upon you. You cannot imagine how delightful they are! Lady Farley and I always attend them; and last season we took Lady Eleanor Gregory with us, and she revelled in the bargains even more than we did."