Miss Royston rose to meet her brother in the candle-light. A really superb collect of diamonds sparkled on her white bosom.
“Are they not ravishing?” she said; “and is not Dunlone a princely suitor?”
“Why, he cannot do credit to his own selection with niggardliness.”
“You are always grudging in your acknowledgment of his condescension, brother—yes, condescension, sir, for all your little flippant nose. And simplicity in a smock may be a very engaging thing, but I vow I prefer it in a coronet.”
“Rank, madam, is but the guinea stamp.”
“Then I would be the guinea-hen, and you may go, if you will, to the barn-door for your partner.”
“Angel, the stones are very fine. What a storm in a tea-cup! Dunlone knows where to lay out his property to the best advantage, and I swear your white skin pays a pretty interest on his investment.”
This might have been designed for a compliment. The incensed lady was not to be appeased.
“You may swear,” she said; “but not in my company. This last year is responsible for more than one change to a coarseness of sentiment in you; though, being the impressionable child you are, I do not wonder.”
She turned with an acid smile to a little table hard by.
“Here,” she said, “is the latest intelligence of a country neighbour of yours that you once studied to take your cue from.”
“You mean Tuke, of course. What about him?”
“Why, only that his hoyden hath presented him with an heir to his profligacy;”—and she read out from a current copy of the Lady’s Magazine the following announcement: “‘October 29. The lady of Sir Robt. Linne, Bart., of a son.’”
“I congratulate them with all my heart,” said Blythewood fervently.
Miss Angela looked at him with a stare of infinite scorn.
“You were present at the wedding, I think?” said she.
“You know I was.”
“And you made quite an ingenious little speech to the May-day bride and her Jack-in-the-green, or clown—which was it? and I think you got tipsy, which was the best compliment you could have paid her.”
“I dare say—I dare say; and—well, what then?”
“What then, sir? Why, only that I think Sir Robert Linne should have kept his wife’s name out of an advertisement.”
“Pooh! She takes her husband’s status; and she is a noble wench, by George, and will never bring him to shame.”
“Or he, her, of course,” said Miss Angela—“and, Davy, ’tis time you put on your pinafore and went to play in the nursery.”
And here ends the story—so far as it relates to the personages of this history—of the wonderful ruby that went by the name of the Lake of Wine. And here—or there, set in a leafy swale of the lonely Hampshire downs—stood until somewhat recently the ruins of that fallen house that superstition must still be peopling with spectres. They are gone now, the ruins. When the historian last saw them, a profound silence reigned within the broken walls; a riot of “devil’s-rope” and ground-elder filled the deep hollows of the courts; the ivy stems were grown ancient; and flitting about the green melancholy, a brimstone butterfly was blown aloft like a flake of the destroying fire that the spirit of romance had breathed into life again.
And now a model farm, rising from the wreck, has disciplined the wild fields to a very pretty behaviour, and the ghosts are fled before the terror of the Psychical Society.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
The following misspellings (assumed to be dialects or drunken slurs) in dialogue have been preserved:
[Chapter XI]
“is to my knowledge a scholard and an angler”
[Chapter XIII]
“or d’ye prefer somethig i’ the psalmody fashion”
“It’s cur-curdled the milk o’ human kideness in me”
[Chapter XXXIX]
“where ha’ you been, you inhospitalable scamp”
“Understad?—understad, you conceited peddler?”
If you have access to an alternate edition of the text and can confirm any of the above are indeed spelling errors please contact Project Gutenberg support.
Alterations to the text:
Add TOC.
Punctuation corrections: missing periods, quotation mark pairing, etc.
Note: minor spelling and hyphenization inconsistencies (e.g. blythe/blithe, pellmell/pell-mell, fruit-trees/fruit trees, etc.) have been preserved.
[Chapter III]
Change “that gave out a pleasant fragnance” to fragrance.
[Chapter IV]
“He left the old city and took the Stackbridge road” to Stockbridge.
[Chapter VI]
“The other raisd his head in staring surprise” to raised.
[Chapter VIII]
“and her dress and velvet spenser” to spencer.
“Nature’s purpose would induce receovery” to recovery.
“She smiled back delighfully” to delightfully.
[Chapter IX]
“a sailing rook came through the leafly canopy” to leafy.
[Chapter X]
“In this conection were two matters for” to connection.
“His näive self-importance, half-nullified” to naïve.
[Chapter XXXI]
“Humming ... a fragrant of some late-heard melody” to fragment.
[Chapter XXXIV]
“I should like to ask yuo a question” to you.
[Chapter XXXVII]
“this is Catain Luvaine, Whimple, from whose” to Captain.
“for all his instinctive astion his face had taken a dark flush” to action.
[Chapter LIV]
“A life of torment for a minute of esctasy” to ecstasy.
[End of Text]