CHAPTER XVIII.

PHILOSOPHY FOR GIRLS.

The result of this day’s proceedings was not on the whole satisfactory to Frederick. If, as he, like the maids, felt assured, Innocent’s escapade had been entirely on his own account, a despairing attempt to follow and be with him, such devotion, however flattering, was of an embarrassing character, and very likely to compromise him, however prudently and conscientiously he might struggle to take no undue advantage of her. Like the gardener, he felt that it would not do, and having also, like the gardener, very little confidence in his mother’s severity, he determined to make the matter very clear to Innocent herself. Fortune favoured him so far in this virtuous intention that he found her alone in the breakfast-room next morning when he came down-stairs. Frederick was always late. This was one of the things that made Dick so angry; while he, unhappy boy, was hunted up at seven o’clock, Frederick came down to breakfast at ten, with an occasional mild remonstrance, but no more. Things were sent away to be kept hot for him; fresh coffee had to be made, and fresh rolls procured, and to everybody this seemed the most natural thing in the world. He was always late, but he was later than usual on this particular day, which, being Monday, was an early day with the household. I need not enter into the reasons why Monday was an early day. Every lady who is my gentle reader, and who does her own housekeeping, will understand; and for the uninitiated it is well that they should learn to believe and tremble. It might be unwise of Mrs. Eastwood to leave Innocent alone in the room, but she was unaccustomed to the attitude of suspicion, and felt it dreadful to be obliged always to have her wits about her. Perhaps it was with the object of seeing Frederick, that Innocent, poor soul, lingered. She had been slightly, superficially touched by the kindness of her aunt to her the night before, and by the fact that no “scolding” had followed upon the offence; and she had for the first time offered to do something, no greater a business than arranging moss about some flower-pots, for which purpose it was, nominally, that she was left in the dining-room. But another feeling much more strong possessed her. Frederick had “scolded” her. He had beaten her down when she was very low with angry words, and consequently she had a wistful desire to be forgiven by him; to know how he would speak to her next time; if there was any hope for her, or if all was over for ever. The others had slightly moved the surface of her mind by their kindness, but Frederick, by his unkindness, had touched her much more deeply, almost to the point of revolution. All her senses were keenly awake to indications of his coming. She heard his step a dozen times before it really came; she wondered vaguely what he would say, how he would look; she was eager, and anxious, and tremulous as she had never been before. Her interest in him, instead of being checked, was doubled. This was what his unkindness had done.

When he came into the room first he took no notice of her. He went and poked the fire, and then he examined the table, and rang the bell for his hot coffee. Then only he said, “Good morning, Innocent.” He did not hold out his hand. Sometimes he would stroke her hair, or pat her head, or give her some token of affectionateness. To-day he did not even hold out his hand. “What are you doing?” was his next question, for it was odd to see her doing anything. She made haste to answer, heaping up the moss with such tremulous fingers that it fell down again in a mass.

“I am doing this—for Nelly.”

“That is right,” he said more cheerfully. “Never mind what nonsense you do so long as you make it up with them. I told you the other day you would never get on till you learned to make friends of your own sex.”

Innocent made no answer. What could she say? A general observation like this was like Latin and Greek to her. She looked at him, and that was all. By this time Brownlow had brought in the coffee, and he had begun to eat his breakfast. It is a comfortable sort of thing to do on a chilly spring morning, with a pleasant fire on one side of you, and sunshine and crocuses on the other, looking in through the window. This mollified Frederick in spite of himself.

“That was a very foolish business of yours last night,” he said, but in a softer tone; “you must not do such things. I daresay it is dull for you here. You don’t enter into their life, and there is nothing of your own to interest you. But still you know girls have to put up with that. It may be hard, but still they have to do it. I suppose when you are married it is expected that you should have it made up to you. At least this is the ordinary state of affairs; girls have to put up with it. I cannot take you to my club, you know, or to the—other places—where I go.”

“I did not want you to take me,” said Innocent, surprised.

“I am glad to hear it,” said Frederick. He did not believe her any more than the maids did. He smiled a little within himself at the idea that she was yielding to a conviction of the necessity for pretence. He was half amused by this, and rather more flattered than before. She must be beginning, he thought, to feel half a woman, to understand that she must not say and do everything that came into her head, with the freedom permitted to himself, for instance. “I was going to speak to you very seriously,” he went on, “but as you are trying to make friends with the others, and to do better, I will not worry you. What I said is for your good, Innocent—which is not to be obtained by your usual way of doing what pleases yourself, but by yielding to others and trying to be content with what is thought good for you. This may be hard—(N.B. Frederick certainly had never tried)—but it is the only way for a girl to get on. You must manage somehow to make friends of your own sex.”

Frederick dwelt upon this aphorism with some pride. He felt that it was original, and did him credit, and its wisdom gratified him. On the whole he was pleased with himself while he delivered his little address. Instead of taking advantage of the girl’s fondness for him, as some men might have done, he was doing his utmost to lead her in the paths of virtue. Whether she or any one else appreciated it, he at least did. He was so far softened by the sense of his own goodness, that when he had finished breakfast, he put his hand kindly upon her shoulder while he said “Good morning,” and finding her face near his and turned towards him, kissed her for the first time with much benevolence of feeling. Innocent’s face grew suddenly red under this salute. She was not angry, she was not pleased—she did not know how to receive it; but a sudden flush of colour answered to the light and somewhat careless touch. Frederick himself went off half laughing, half confused. He said to himself that the girl was growing into a woman, that she had developed very quickly since he had brought her home. “I must mind what I am about,” he said to himself. Perhaps, on the whole, in giving this kiss he had gone just a very little too far. And Frederick felt that there was a deep responsibility upon him. He must not delude his cousin with hopes that never could be realized.

With this feeling in his mind he went off to the office, a little wondering and alarmed lest the story of his wonderful encounter last night in the street should have already reached it. But nobody showed any signs of knowing this curious incident, and though Frederick was slightly defiant and ready to stand on his defence at the slightest provocation, no such provocation was offered him. I do not know how it is that when something disagreeable is about to happen to us, we so often have this preparation of looking for something else, perhaps equally disagreeable, which does not come. Frederick was quite prepared to be assailed about the mysterious female figure which he had rescued from the midst of the crowd, and which he had driven off with, without a word of explanation, under the very eyes of his astonished friend. He looked out a little nervously for every new-comer who entered the place, fancying that his last night’s companion would appear. No one came, however, until about three o’clock, just before the hour for leaving, on the verge, as it were, of security. He was just beginning to tell himself that all was safe, that his perils were over for the day, and that a joke of this kind could not survive twenty-four hours, when the porter brought him the card of a visitor, who awaited him down-stairs. Frederick took it unsuspicious, for at that moment he feared only Egerton, his friend of last night. For a moment he gazed in wonder, which rapidly turned into consternation, at the card. This was the inscription upon it:—

The name of a second-rate hotel in London was written in pencil across the card. Frederick held it in his hand, and gazed at it, feeling his features stiffen as if it had been the Gorgon herself whose countenance he was contemplating. I am afraid, that having heard nothing of Mr. Batty for some weeks, he had forgotten the benevolent stranger who had interposed to save him when he was almost in extremity. Mrs. Eastwood had presented her son with a banknote or two by way of paying the expenses of that illness of his, which had detained him compulsorily in Paris, and put him, no doubt, to a great deal of extra expense; but as there was not sufficient to pay Batty, and Batty did not ask for payment, Frederick had disposed of these very comfortably in other ways.

“Shall I show the gentleman up?” said the porter, while the young man gazed horror-stricken at the card.

“Show him into Mr. Jones’s room,” said Frederick, with an effort. Jones was absent on leave, and his room was a safe place, where a disagreeable visitor might be encountered without any more harm than was involved in the sight of him. Then he did what he could to prepare himself for the meeting. He buttoned his coat, and took his hat and cane by way of showing that he was about to leave the office, and had little time for colloquy. He tried to make up in his mind in desperate haste what to say about the money, and he tried at the same time, the one attempt mingling with the other, and confusing it, to make up some story for home, to elicit a few more of those most necessary banknotes. It is dreadful to think how many well-looking, faultlessly-dressed young gentlemen in the public service like Frederick Eastwood, looking self-possessed enough for any emergency, and superior enough to crush into insignificance the greater part of their fellow-creatures, should be secretly occupied in making up hasty and clumsy inventions like this, to stave off the paying of money, or to coax it out of well-guarded pockets. Frederick walked along the passage as slowly as he could towards Jones’s room. Wretched little Innocent! it was all her fault that he had been seduced into this expenditure, and put in this man’s power. Frederick remembered vividly how objectionable the man’s loud voice and coarse geniality had been to him when, with a bad headache and a sinking heart, he sat and studied “Bradshaw,” and counted out his last francs in the Paris hotel. What must he seem now, when he no longer had it in his power to be of use, and appeared only in the guise of a creditor, always an odious character to appear in? Frederick walked into the room at last with something of the feelings which must move the poor wretch who marches to his execution. Could he have followed his own will, ropes would not have sufficed to drag him whither his reluctant feet now paced with that appearance of voluntary motion which is often such a miserable pretence. To how many places do we go thus, pretending to do it of our own free will—to balls and dinner parties, and other festive meetings, to our own marriage sometimes, to every kind of act in which we are—heaven help us!—free agents, as the jargon goes. Frederick’s feelings were doubtless exaggerated, for, after all, he owed this man not much over fifty pounds. But then the man could tell things of him which he fondly hoped were known to no one in his own sphere—as if there was anything in any man’s life of a disagreeable or disgraceful kind which was not known!

Batty met him with the greatest cordiality, with a large red dirty hand outstretched, and smiles of genial welcome.

“Delighted to see you looking so well, sir,” he said; “quite picked up again, eh, after your little spree abroad? Glad of that. You young men have no moderation. A steady old stager like me knows just how far to go. But you’re always on ahead, you young ’uns. I came up to town Saturday, Mr. Eastwood, to look about me a bit, and see how the world was going on, and I’ve lost no time in looking you up.”

“Much obliged, I’m sure,” said poor Frederick, shivering. “I ought to have written to you about that money,” and he went up to the smouldering fire and poked it violently. “How cold the weather keeps for this time of the year!”

“It do, to be sure,” said Batty. “But, Mr. Frederick, if you’ll give me the privilege of calling you so—which comes natural, seeing I have been among Eastwoods all my life—I ain’t come here prying about the money. I’m above such mean tricks. When I can be of service to a gentleman I’m proud, and so long as I’m used honourable, and treated like a friend, hang me if I’d dun any man. It ain’t the money, sir, but feeling that has brought me here.”

“I am sure you are very good,” said Frederick stiffly, “but however that may be on your part, Mr. Batty, I am aware that I ought to have written to you about what is really a debt of honour——”

“Hush, hush!” said Batty, “you make me feel like a shopman, I declare you do. I’ve taken the liberty to write where we’re staying, Mr. Eastwood, on my card, and if you’ll eat a bit of dinner with us at seven, sharp, you’ll do us honour, sir. I’ve got my daughter with me. It ain’t often I can get her up to town, and when I do I like to show her a bit of the world. If you’d ever been down our way with your cousin, the baronet, you’d have heard of my girl. She’s known as the Flower of Sterborne, down our way. I don’t say but what you’ve great beauties about London, greater beauties than our country lasses; but I’m proud of my ’Manda. I’m not in the way of asking my friends when she’s with me, but an Eastwood ain’t like any one else, at least not to her and me.”

“I am sure you are very good,” said Frederick, using the same words again, and stiffening more and more. A rapid calculation had run through his mind while Batty was speaking. Should he say he was engaged, or should he keep the monster in good-humour by enduring a dinner in his company? Was it worth his while, since the monster appeared so amiable by nature, to take all this trouble to keep him in good-humour? These, and various other branches of the same question, went through his mind, retarding his reply. He did not personally know his cousin the baronet, though Frederick was fully aware of the importance to a young man in society of such a relative, and if the man really knew the Eastwoods, his power of telling a disagreeable story was infinitely enhanced. On the whole, it seemed to Frederick that it was better to humour him, to accept his invitation, and trust to the support of Providence to get through the evening. After all, it was seeing “life” as much at least as many other ways which he had taken in his day for that purpose, and which his friends were constantly employing. When he had got rid of Batty he made up, in case of any chance discovery, an explanation of what he was about to do. “I am going to dine with an old fellow whom I picked up in Paris the other day,” he said to the people in the office. “A genuine John Bull, ready for anything, but not knowing a word of any language but his own. He turned out to be some sort of rural hanger-on of my cousin Sir Geoffrey, and out of gratitude he is going to give me a dinner. I expect some fun.”

“I wonder what that elaborate explanation means?” one of his audience said to another. “Eastwood is always up to some mischief when he’s explanatory. This time I wonder what it can be. I don’t believe he knows his cousin Sir Geoffrey from Adam.”

“If he did, he’s a poor wretch in the hands of the Jews, and not much good to any one,” said the other; but perhaps this was because neither of the two had a cousin in the baronetage, which makes a difference in a man’s feelings.

Innocent was in her usual place in the little window by the door when Frederick went home that evening. The sight of her recalled to him all the wise determinations of the morning, and he was annoyed to see how little fruit they had borne. Really, he felt, this must be put a stop to. He made a sign to her to come out to him, and went round the side of the house into the garden. It was a cold and unfavourable spring, scarcely warmer now, though it was the end of March, than it had been in February, but the days had grown longer, and Frederick’s return was now generally in daylight.

“I wanted to say to you, Innocent, that you must give up this habit of watching for me,” he said. “No doubt it is very kind of you. I did not mind it so much when you were quite a stranger, and of course knew me best—and when the nights were darker you were not so much noticed at the window. But now you must recollect it is quite light, and a great girl like you is remarked. People will say unkind things about you. They will say, for instance, that you are fond—of me.”

“I am fond of you,” she said, with the tears in her eyes.

“That is all very well,” said Frederick, “but we must not go too far. Don’t let me see you there again. Girls ought to know these things without being told. You are a great girl, almost grown up: and you know the others now almost as well as you know me. I should have told you this in the morning, but I forgot. Altogether, Innocent, there must be a change. I had thought your own sense would teach you—and I thought that what I said this morning—— But you compel me to speak plainly,” said Frederick, seeing the face of his mother looking out from the drawing-room, and feeling inspired by the thought that he would himself be called to question for this interview with Innocent. He was determined, however, at whatever risk to “put a stop to this sort of thing.” And the annoyance to which he had himself been subjected gave him strength and courage. It seems only right that we should have compensation, and afflict others when trouble has come to ourselves.

Innocent made no answer. She walked silently by his side, overcome by the bitterness of this sudden onslaught when she had expected quite the reverse. Poor child, her earliest training was all emotional; the severest kind of mental discipline. When he made her a sign to come out to him, she had thought he meant to be kinder, more affectionate than usual, more like what he used to be when he travelled with her, and cared for her in everything. How quickly, how gladly she had rushed out, leaving the door open behind her, as Brownlow remembered long afterwards. And to find that all her pleasant expectations were to end in a new and utterly unprovoked accès of scolding! She tried hard not to cry, her pride being hurt at last, but the large tears dropped down her cheeks, as she went silently along the walk by his side. She put up her hand furtively to dash them away. She turned her head from him that he might not see them. Was it the same Frederick who had kissed her before he went out, who had always been good to her, except last night? But she could not say anything either in defence or submission. She was too deeply and cruelly disappointed to have any power of speech left.

“You won’t give in?” said Frederick. “You are just like all women. You will never allow you are in the wrong. When I come home, fretted and vexed from the world,” continued the young man, taking a high tone, “and hoping to have a little repose and comfort at home, you begin to worry me from the first moment you catch sight of me. I declare it is hard; a man who has always tried to do his duty at home—and instead of finding it a refuge from the troubles of life——”

This speech was perfectly unintelligible to Innocent. She looked up at him with vague surprise, being quite unaware, poor child, of the troubles of life from which Frederick escaped with the hope of finding comfort at home. He had fallen without thinking into the ordinary and conventional manner in which manhood indignant addresses its womankind. He pulled himself up suddenly with a “pshaw!” of disgust, which could only be addressed to himself.

“I mean you must put a stop to all this nonsense,” he said abruptly. “Make yourself happy somehow. Do as other people do. Don’t sit and mope in a corner and gaze at me, and don’t watch for me any more at that window. If you do, I shall be horribly vexed. There now, run in and think no more of it. I don’t mean to be cross; but you must remember, Innocent,” he concluded with great emphasis, “you must remember that what you have got to do is to please, not yourself, but me.”

Innocent received this first lesson in the female necessity of self-renunciation in silence, taking it in with her eyes as well as her ears. She kept looking at him, in the dulness of her perception, wondering if there was something more to follow; but nothing followed. Then she said “Yes” vaguely, and they went in together, he to the drawing-room, where he had his mother to encounter, she to the schoolroom, high up in the roof, which she had taken possession of to sit and dream in. Girls seldom have their lesson so very plainly put forth to them in words, but perhaps Innocent’s undeveloped mind required it. “What you have to do is to please, not yourself, but me!” She pondered the words, and got to the length of mastering their meaning without any criticism. Such plainspeaking has in it a certain sublimity, surmounting all secondary shades of meaning, and penetrating into the simplest soul. She got it by heart, seated on her window-ledge, looking out upon the little chapel, which once more had caught something of the aspect of the church of the Spina. “Not yourself, but me; not yourself, but me!” Thus Innocent got her first great lesson by heart.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FLOWER OF STERBORNE.

“Ask her what I said to her, if you don’t trust me,” Frederick had said in high dudgeon, before he went to prepare himself for Mr. Batty’s entertainment; and this encounter excited him, and gave him a perverse inclination to enjoy himself with the host whom he felt would be so highly disapproved of by his family. I don’t think he let his imagination dwell at all on the fact that there was a third person to be present, or that this was a woman and a “beauty.” The greatest beauty in the world being Mr. Batty’s daughter could be of little importance to an Eastwood. He went his way to Batty’s hotel with his head full of many thoughts, but totally indifferent to this one. He thought it was immensely impudent of the fellow to ask him, that it was rather hard upon himself to be obliged to go, that it would be amusing to see how fellows of that sort dined and conducted themselves generally, along with a variety of other reflections equally superficial; but he never thought of the Flower of Sterborne, nor of the special effect she might be likely to produce on a young man suddenly presented to her. The hotel was not one of those seeming humble and quiet establishments, where princes and millionaires abound; it was more pretentious and less expensive, but yet dear enough to frighten any moderate soul out of London. Frederick was shown into a small dining-room, prepared for a small party. He saw with some relief that there were but three places, and took his seat very easily and without ceremony in front of the fire, with the Times, which was lying on a table. He scarcely noticed the door open; when it did open it would no doubt be Batty, who was not shy, and would soon make his presence known. Frederick read on, without looking behind him. Until he became suddenly aware of a rustling and subdued movement, and a slight air moved his paper as if some one had passed behind him. Startled by this, and somewhat ashamed of his own easy indifference, he started suddenly to his feet, and turned round. He never forgot all his life the sight that met his eyes. Standing behind his chair was (he thought) the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The arch look with which she had been contemplating his unconcern was still in her face. She was tall, almost as tall as himself, and ample, a fully-developed and splendid piece of flesh and blood, not so warm or so full-blown as Rubens, but something approaching that school of art. She was of the class of beauty which has come to be distinctive of the present period, though I cannot tell why. Her hair, I need not say, was golden; her complexion dazzling. She was like the sun, almost as brilliant, in her mingling of tints, her snow-white, and rose-red, and glittering glory of hair. The sight of her was too much for weak vision. It dazzled and brought water to the eyes of the rash and feeble beholder. If you could have calmly examined her features, without regard to that soft glow and glory of colour, and texture, and roundness, and life, it is possible that you might have found them to be not at all perfect; but this not one spectator in a hundred had coolness enough to do. Her eyes were hazel; they ought to have been blue, according to all rules; but it seemed part of her character, and the wilfulness which was its chief point, that she should have eyes, which, beautiful as they were, did not quite “go with” her face. There are many kinds of hazel eyes; it is the most changeful, the most capricious of colours. I have seen it turn to gold in a certain pair of orbs I wot of, showing like light itself in the light. I have seen it melt into the softest liquid grey; but there is a kind of hazel eye, very bright, very splendid, in which there is hung a subtle little danger-signal to all mankind. These are the eyes that have a spark of red in them, flashing out now and then from the warm, translucent brown, a spark which tells of temper, of passion, of headstrong will, and impulse. ’Manda Batty had these eyes. They were lamps of light, and it seemed to the looker-on, if any one remarked it at all, that this fiery gleam was necessary to give them character, and keep them from losing their due importance in the brilliant and sweet glow of colour that surrounded them. This, if it really was, as I think, an indication of danger, was the only one. At this moment her face was full of suppressed laughter. She had a finger lifted to her lip like a statue of Silence, but how unlike a statue of Silence was she otherwise! or, indeed, a statue of anything; everything about her was warm and soft, breathing a lavish life. When Frederick turned round upon her so suddenly the laughter in her face burst forth. Perhaps it was louder and more uncultivated than if she had been, as people say, a lady. She threw herself down in a chair, and laughed till the water sparkled on her pretty eyelashes, and she put her hands to her waist with such a rendering of “Laughter holding both his sides” as never entered into any painter’s imagination. “Oh,” she cried, “I shall die of laughing; come and stop me, come, papa.”

It struck Frederick with a shock of surprise and pain when Mr. Batty came in by another door, also inarticulate with laughter. The idea of this wonderful creature being Batty’s daughter appalled and struck him dumb. Not to say that he was very deeply embarrassed by the situation altogether, by the laughter of the new-comer, and his own semi-ridiculous attitude—her beauty had struck him at once with one of those impressions which are not to be shaken off, which count, slight and superficial as is often the instrument, among the great things of life. Never before had Frederick been so profoundly moved. He did not understand the effect, nor what it meant. He ceased to be himself for the moment, and became the subject of a strange and subtle experiment, which stamped her reflection upon him. No, he was not himself; he was a mirror of her, a sensitive plate, upon which that sudden light had painted her likeness. These may seem fantastic similes, but I know no other that would convey what I mean. I suppose it was what we, with our limited powers of expression, call love at first sight. It was certainly adoration at first sight, which is a different thing.

“Well, Mr. Eastwood, here’s my wild girl making fun of us both,” said Batty, “without even giving me a chance of introducing you. ’Manda, this is Mr. Eastwood, as of course you have found out.”

“Don’t say Mr. Eastwood, papa.”

“No, you’re right. Mr. Frederick, that’s what I mean, and a deal nicer a gentleman,” said the father. “You see, Mr. Frederick, ’Manda has been, so to speak, brought up with nothing but Eastwoods. All the young ’uns, from Sir Geoffrey downwards, rode into Sterborne on their ponies to have their lessons with our old curate, and ’Manda being his prime favourite, and partly brought up with him——”

“You don’t suppose, papa, that any one but ourselves cares for all these details. Pray forgive me for laughing at you,” said Miss Amanda, turning to Frederick, “you were so comfortable and so much at your ease reading your Times. What can gentlemen find in the Times always, morning, noon, and night? Papa is never done with his paper; first there is one thing, then another. I suppose you had been reading it all the morning, Mr. Frederick Eastwood, and the first thing you do is to take it up here.”

“I did not know there was any one observing me,” said Frederick, standing confused and humble before her. He who was very lofty and dignified to his mother and sister, was ready to be abject to Amanda. He listened to her with absolute reverence, though all that she had to say was commonplace enough. When he was placed beside her at dinner, and found himself at liberty to look at her and listen to her undisturbed, it seemed to Frederick that he had never been so blessed. He took in all her chatter without losing a word. Miss Batty was in full dress. Those were the days when English ladies were supposed always to appear with bare shoulders in the evening, and her beautiful shoulders and arms were bare. Her dress was blue, with a long train, which was considerably in her way. If there was anything wanting in her it was this—she moved about in a manner that did not suit the dignity of her beauty; her movements were quick, jerky, and without grace; she bustled like a notable housewife rather than a fine lady. Perhaps if her dress had not been much too fine for the occasion this would have been less remarkable, but as it was, Frederick’s dream was disturbed a little when she jumped up to help herself. “Oh, I can’t sit and wait if I want a bit of bread till the servant comes,” she cried. Frederick did not like the words, nor the tone of them, but she was lovelier than ever when she said them. Thus he did not lose his senses instantly, or suppose that everything that fell from her lips was divine. But his admiration, or adoration, mastered all his criticism and swept away his good sense. What she said might be foolish or flippant, but how she said it was heavenly. He could not take his eyes from her. He made what effort he could to keep up the ordinary decorum, and look as if he were capable of eating, and drinking, and talking, as he had been the day before, but the effort was very little successful. Miss Amanda saw her victory, and almost disdained it, it was so easy; and her father saw it, and was satisfied.

“Now take me to the play,” she said, when dinner was over. “It isn’t often I am in town, and I mean to enjoy myself. Oh, we may be late, but it does not matter. If it is only for the after-piece I am determined to go.”

“Was there ever so imperious a girl?” cried her father. “You ought to remember, ’Manda, here is Mr. Eastwood. You can’t send away a gentleman that has but just eaten his dinner.”

“He can come too,” said Amanda. “I like to have two gentlemen. There is always plenty for two gentlemen to do. Won’t you come, Mr. Frederick Eastwood? But anyhow I must go,” she continued, turning to her father, who was almost as abject in his devotion as Frederick was. Had she been anything short of perfection Frederick would have hesitated much before he consented to show himself in public with Mr. Batty and his daughter; indeed, the possibility of such a thing would have driven him frantic. But now he had no such thoughts. If he hesitated it was but to calculate what was going on in the theatrical world; what there was worthy to be seen by her. He was not much of a theatre-goer, but he knew what was being played, and where. He suggested one or two of what were supposed to be the best plays; but she put him down quite calmly. She had already decided that she was going to see one of the sensational pieces of the day, a drama (I do not know it, I may be doing it injustice) the chief point in which was the terrific situation of the hero or heroine, who was bound down on the line of a railway when the train was coming. It was this lofty representation which she had set her heart on seeing. Frederick handed her into the cab which was immediately sent for. He sat by her in it; he breathed in the atmosphere of “Ess. bouquet” which surrounded her. Now and then he thought, with a glimmer of horror, of meeting somebody whom he knew; but his mind was only at intervals sufficiently free to harbour this thought. It was, however, with a certain fright that he found himself in the stage-box, which it appeared had been provided beforehand for Miss Amanda’s pleasure. “I prefer a box,” she said to Frederick, “here one can be comfortable, and papa if he likes can fall asleep in a comfortable chair; but I can’t understand a lady making herself happy down there.” She pointed to the stalls, where Frederick was too happy not to be. There was, of course, somebody he knew in the second row, who found him out he feared in the dignity of his box, where Miss Amanda had no idea of hiding herself. “She objected to her gentlemen,” she said, “taking refuge behind a curtain,” and she did no such injustice to her own beauty as to conceal it. She dropped her cloak from her shoulders, and gave the house all the benefit; and she kept calling Frederick’s attention to one thing and another, insisting that he should crane his neck round the corner to look at this or that. Her beauty and her dress and evident willingness to be admired drew many eyes, and Frederick felt that he had a share in the succès which he could very well have dispensed with. He had experienced a good many adventures, but very few like this. He had always been very respectable under the eyes of the world; to be sure, he was quite respectable now; there was no fault to be found with the party—his beautiful companion, indeed, was something quite new, and not very much used to her present position; but there was nothing wrong in that. Nevertheless Frederick felt that there was something to pay for the strange confusion of blessedness in which he seemed to have lost himself. He felt this by intervals, and he kept as much as he could behind the curtains, behind her. She was perfectly willing to occupy the centre of the box, to rain down influence, to be seen and admired. “Mr. Eastwood, I wish you would not keep behind me. Do let people see that I have some one to take care of me. Papa has gone to sleep, of course,” said the beauty, and she turned round upon Frederick with such a look that he remembered nothing any more but her loveliness, and the delight of being near her. She chattered through all the play, and he listened. She said a great deal that was silly, and some things that were slightly vulgar, and he noted them, yet was not less subjugated by a spell which was beyond resistance. I cannot be supposed to understand this, nor to explain it. In such matters I can only record facts. He was not under the delusion that she was a lofty, or noble, or refined being, though she was Batty’s daughter. He presumed that she was Batty’s daughter heart and soul; made of the same pâte, full of the same thoughts. She was “not a lady,” beautiful, splendid, and well-dressed as she was; the humble, little snub-nosed girl in the stalls below who looked up at this vision of loveliness with a girl’s admiration had something which all the wealth of the Indies could not have given to Miss Amanda. And Frederick Eastwood saw this quite plainly, yet fell in love, or in madness, exactly as if he had not seen it. The feeling, such as it was, was too genuine to make him capable of many words; but he did his best to amuse her, and he listened to all she said, which was a very good way of pleasing this young woman.

“I hope you mean to stay in town for some time,” he said, in one of the pauses of her abundant talk.

“Not very long,” said Miss ’Manda. “Papa likes to live well, and to do things in the best sort of way; so he spends a deal of money, and that can’t last long. Our hotel isn’t like Mivart’s, and that sort of thing: but it is dreadfully dear. We spend as much as—oh, I couldn’t venture to tell you how much we spend a day. Papa likes to have everything of the best, and so do I.”

“And so you ought,” said Frederick, adoring. “Pardon me if I am saying too much.”

“Oh, you are not saying very much, Mr. Eastwood. It is I that am talking,” said Amanda, “and as for our staying long here, that does not much matter, for papa wants you to come to Sterborne. He has been talking of it ever since he came back from Paris. What did you do to him to make him take such a fancy to you? We don’t think the other Eastwoods behaved vary nicely to us, and ever since he met with you papa has been telling me of all your good qualities. You have put a spell upon him, I think.”

“He is very good, I am sure,” said Frederick, stiffening in spite of himself.

“Oh, I know,” said Amanda, with a toss of her head. “We are not so fine as you are, we don’t visit with county people, nor that sort of thing. But we have plenty of people come to see us who are better off than the Eastwoods, and better blood, too, so you need not be afraid. Papa has dealings with the very best. We don’t like to be slighted,” said the beauty, with a gleam of that red light from her beautiful eyes; “and when people put on airs, like your cousin has done, it sets papa’s back up. That was why we went against Sir Geoffrey at the election. But I hope you will come, Mr. Eastwood; papa took such a fancy to you.”

“I have just been away from the office for a month. I fear I shall not have leisure again for some time,” said Frederick, feeling that an invitation from Batty was to be resisted, even when conveyed by such lovely lips.

“How hideous it must be not to be one’s own master; to have to ask for ‘leave’ like a servant,” cried ’Manda with a laugh; which speech set all Frederick’s nerves ajar, and almost released him from the syren. He withdrew into the shade of the curtains, and drew to him all the succour of his pride.

“Yes, it is a pitiful position,” he said, with an angry laugh; “but I may comfort myself that a great many people share it with me. Do you know I am afraid I must leave you. This performance is endless, and rather dull.”

“Upon my word!” cried Miss Batty, “you are free-spoken, Mr. Frederick. To tell a lady you are dull when she is doing her best to amuse you!”

“Pardon me, I spoke of the performance.”

“Oh, I don’t care much for the performance,” said Amanda, with a beaming smile. “I like the lights and the music, and the feeling of being out in the world. But you wouldn’t go off, and leave me—with papa asleep, and no one to talk to?”

“I have an engagement—at my club.”

“Oh, if you wish to go away, Mr. Eastwood——” The beauty turned away pouting, turning her lovely shoulders upon him, and tossing her beautiful head. Frederick had risen partly in the liveliness of personal offence, partly with an impulse of prudence, to escape while he might. But his heart failed him when he saw the averted head, the resentful movement. Batty dozed peacefully in his chair, interfering with no one. And something tugged at the unfortunate young man, who stood undecided whether to fly or to stay. To leave a lovely creature like this, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, alone, without any one to amuse her: to leave the place vacant which a hundred no doubt would give their ears for! What harm could it do him to stay? It was pleasant to spend an hour or two by the side of anything so pretty. Come of it—what could come of it? It was an accidental delight entirely, without connexion with the rest of his life; an isolated event, without either origin or issue. Why should not he like others enjoy himself for the moment? While he was thus hesitating Amanda turned her head round with a sudden provoking glance. “Oh, have you not gone yet?” she asked. Frederick felt, as it were, on his knees before her.

“Must I go? have I proved so unworthy of my privilege?” he cried humbly, taking his seat with deprecating looks. Miss Batty did not wish him to go, and said so freely, with unflattering plainness of speech.

“I should be left to listen to papa’s snores, which I can hear at home,” she said. “I always prefer some one to talk to. I daresay, however, I should not have been left long by myself, for there is Lord Hunterston down below in those horrid stalls looking up. He is trying to catch my eye. No; I don’t care to have too many. I shan’t see him as long as you stay.”

“Then I shall stay for ever,” said Frederick, inspired by that touch of rivalship. Lord Hunterston, however, did manage to find his way up to the box, whether by Miss ’Manda’s permission or not, and Frederick grew stiff and resentful while the other foolish youth paid his homage. Lord Hunterston pricked him into double eagerness, and sent all the suggestions of prudence to the winds. Amanda proved herself thoroughly equal to the occasion. She kept the two young men in hand with perfect skill, though she allowed herself to be slightly insolent to Frederick, referring again to the “leave” without which he could not budge. This time, however, the reference did not make him angry, but only impressed him with the fact that his admiration was nothing to her, and that every step of vantage-ground would have to be fought for, and held with the exercise of all his powers. He felt himself pitted against not Lord Hunterston only, but all the world. It seemed impossible to imagine that this syren, who had conquered himself by a glance, should not attract everybody that had the happiness of approaching her. Terror, jealousy, and pride, all came in to aid the strongest passion of all, which had already taken possession of him—terror of losing her, jealousy of everybody who looked at her, and all the amour propre and determination to elevate himself over the heads of his rivals that could lend warmth to a young man’s determination. No prize is fully estimated until the sense that it will be hotly contested bursts upon the competitor’s mind. Frederick grew half wild when the time came for him to leave the theatre. He secured her arm to lead her down-stairs, but only by dint of having all his wits about him, and taking his rival unawares. And then he was dismissed at the cab door, with all his nerves tingling, his heart beating, his whole frame in a ferment. He walked home all the way, following the path which her vehicle, so ignoble, and unfit for her to enter, must have taken; he passed under the windows he supposed to be hers. In short, he did everything that a foolish young man, mad with sudden excitement, and what is called passion, is expected to do, and worked himself into a higher and higher strain of excitement, as with his head full of thoughts of her he made his way home, longing impatiently for the morning, when he might see her again.

CHAPTER XX.

WHAT IT IS TO BE “IN LOVE.”

The story of such sudden passions as this, which had come upon Frederick Eastwood, are common enough and well known. Love is a subject which concerns and interests the whole world, and though there is not much that is novel to be said about it, it is the event or accident in life of which the gentle reader never tires. Let not that kind listener be shocked if I call it an accident. Sometimes it is the influence which shapes our lives, but sometimes, also, it is so slight an episode that we are disposed to smile or to sneer at the prevailing human prejudice which makes it the chief centre of existence in all song and story. A pure and genuine love, however, has something of attraction in it for every creature. It recalls the most delicious moments of life, those in which the dream of perfect happiness, never to be fully realized, is forming in the youthful imagination, and all heaven and earth thrills and quickens with visionary hopes and aspirations; or it suggests, more sweetly and more vaguely even than those dreams themselves, the visions that are to come. The ignoble love which it is my evil fortune to have now in hand, would, no doubt, could I enter into it, recall its own ignoble yet exciting memories to the minds which are capable of such feelings. Frederick Eastwood scarcely slept all night, and when he did drop into a feverish doze, the image of Miss ’Manda, her golden hair dropping warm and bright upon her beautiful shoulders, the soft rose-white of her hand supporting the milky rose of her cheek, the curves of her face, the splendour and glow of beauty about her, haunted his dreams. Better visions, I hope, haunt the pillows of most lovers, but this was how Frederick loved, or rather how he fell into passion and frenzy, suddenly, without warning or thought, over the attractions of Mr. Batty’s daughter, whom the day before he would have thought quite beneath his lightest thought. Thus Love, even when of the least worthy kind, laughs at prejudice and class distinctions, and at all those conventional restraints which are stronger than the suggestions of wisdom. I do not think that any generous or exalted emotion would have led Frederick Eastwood to commit himself, to depart from what he thought becoming to his own elevated position and character; and this being the case, there may be a certain human satisfaction in the thought that something does exist which is capable of plucking the intellectualist from his eminence, and the man of social pretence from his position, as well as the prince from his throne. Love, that conquers all things, conquers in this way even the predominant influence of self. Frederick for once was superior to that determined adherence to his own will and pleasure which had accompanied him through his whole life. His first thought in the morning was for her. He got up earlier than usual, though he had been late on the previous night. He had no wish to sleep; it was sweeter to wander about the garden in the morning sunshine and think of her, which was a proceeding which filled the family with consternation. When he was discovered at the breakfast-table making himself very pleasant and friendly, the surprise of Nelly and Dick came to a height. As for Mrs. Eastwood, she had a mother’s natural certainty that her son’s manners were always agreeable, except when something had disturbed him. Nothing, it was evident, had disturbed him this morning, and he could show himself in his true colours. He was very communicative and conciliatory, and told them how he had been persuaded to accompany some people whom he met to the play, and that the piece was very stupid, like so many pieces now-a-days.

“That’s all very well for you who were there,” said Dick; “I should like to find out for myself. All pieces are stupid to a fellow that can see them whenever he likes.”

“You might have had my share and welcome, old fellow,” said Frederick, with undiminished amiability. “I didn’t pay much attention, to tell the truth. There was the loveliest girl in the box—a Miss Batty. Her father is a—country doctor, I think; but such a beautiful creature!”

I don’t know what tempted him to make this confidence; probably the desire to be talking of her. And then he described her, which raised a discussion round the table.

“I am sick of golden hair,” said Dick, who was moved by a spirit of contradiction. “There are so many of ’em in novels, great, sleek, indolent, cat-like——”

“And rather improper,” said Mrs. Eastwood; “doing things that one cannot approve of girls doing. In my day what you call golden hair was known as red. Raven locks were the right thing for a heroine, very smooth and glossy——”

“Well plastered down with pomade, and not safe to touch,” said Nelly, shaking her own brown locks. “But I agree with you, Frederick, there is no hair so lovely as golden hair. Is your beauty going to stay long in town? Do we know any one who knows her? Has she come for the season?”

“They are staying at an hotel,” said Frederick, very seriously. “I met the father in Paris, quite by chance, when I was getting better. That is how I came to know them. They are not quite in your set, I suppose. But she is simply the most radiant, dazzling creature——”

“All red and white and green and blue,” said the irrepressible Dick, “with her hair growing down to her eyes—oh, I know! seven feet high, and weighing twelve stone.”

“Yes, that is odd too,” said Mrs. Eastwood; “people like that kind of huge woman. In my days, now, a light, elastic figure——”

“They all died of consumption,” said Nelly. She was herself exactly the kind of being whom her mother described; but she took up the cause of the other with natural perverseness. A curious sense of possible help gleamed across Frederick’s mind as he listened. He would not allow himself to realize under what possible circumstances Nelly’s championship might be useful to him; but his mind jumped at the thought, with a sudden perception of possibilities which he by no means wished to follow out at once to their full length and breadth. When he went to the office he congratulated himself secretly on his skill in having thus introduced the subject so as to awaken no suspicion—and he went into the conservatory, and cut a lovely little white camellia bud, which Nelly had been saving up for quite another button-hole. It was just after the exciting moment of Nelly’s betrothal, and the house was full of a certain suggestion of love-making, which, perhaps, helped to stimulate Frederick’s thoughts; but his blaze of sudden passion was very different from the sentiments of the others. He went to the office first, feeling it too early to be admitted to Amanda’s beautiful presence. Happily, there was not very much to do at the Sealing Wax Office. He spent an hour or two there, in a feverish flutter, disturbing the others (who, fortunately, were not very hard at work), and throwing all his own occupations into confusion. At twelve he went out, and made his way to the hotel. He found Batty there, but not his daughter.

“’Manda? Oh, she’s all right,” said the father; “but the laziest girl in Christendom. Pretty women are all lazy. I haven’t seen her yet, and don’t expect to for an hour or more. Have a glass of something, Eastwood, to fill up the time?”

Frederick winced at this free-and-easy address, and hastened to explain that he was on his way to keep a pressing engagement, and would return in the afternoon, to pay his respects to Miss Batty. At three o’clock he went back, and found her indeed; but found also Lord Hunterston and another visitor, with whom Miss Amanda kept up a very lively conversation. Batty himself filled up the centre of the scene, and made a variety with talk of horses and feats in the hunting field. Frederick was left in the background, to his intense misery. He heard one of the other visitors asked in easy terms to dinner that evening, with again the thrilling prospect of the play after it. He himself, it would seem, had had his day. The only crumb of comfort he procured from the visit was the name of the theatre they were going to. He rushed to Covent Garden after this, poor wretch, and bought the costliest bouquet he could find and sent it to her. Then he dined, miserable and solitary, at his club, speaking no word to any man, and went afterwards to the blessed theatre in which she was to exhibit her beauty to the world. He saw her from the first moment of her arrival, and watched with horrible sensations from his stall the comfortable arrangement of Lord Hunterston in his corner beside her, and the large figure of the father behind dropping into a gentle doze. He sat and gazed at them in tortures of adoration and jealousy, wondering if she was saying the same things to his successor as she had said to him; wondering if Hunterston, too, was being invited to Sterborne, and ridiculed about the necessity of getting “leave”—for, Frederick reflected with some satisfaction, “leave” was necessary also to that distinguished guardsman. As soon as it was practicable he made his way up to the box; but gained little by it, since Mr. Batty insisted upon waking up, and entertaining him, which he did chiefly by chuckling references to their previous meeting in Paris, and the amusements of that gay place. Frederick went home half wild to the calm house where his mother and sister were sleeping quietly; and where poor little Innocent alone heard his step coming up-stairs, and longed to get up and say good-night to him, though he had “scolded” her. Had she known it, Innocent was deeply avenged. Amanda Batty had not spared the rash adorer. She had “made fun” of him in a hundred refined and elegant ways, joking about his gravity and serious looks, about his fondness for the theatre, and his kindness in coming to speak to herself. “When I am sure you might have gone behind the scenes if you liked,” she said, with a laugh that showed all her pearly teeth. “You, who know so much about the theatres: how I should like to go behind the scenes!”

Frederick, who had made so many sacrifices to appearances, and who was distinguished in society for the stateliness of his demeanour, would have been infinitely insulted had any one else said this—all the more insulted for his own consciousness of those moments of aberration in which he had been behind a great many scenes—- though never, so far as he was aware, where he could be found out. But a man in love is compelled, when the lady of his affections is like Miss Amanda, to put up with insults, and does so in scores of cases with a meekness which is nowhere apparent in his domestic character. Frederick felt himself punctured by shafts of ridicule not too finely pointed. He was laughed at, he was rallied, jokes were made upon him. He was even treated with absolute rudeness, Amanda turning her beautiful shoulders upon him, and addressing Lord Hunterston, in the very midst of something Frederick was saying to her. A thrill of momentary fury went through him, but next moment he was abject in his endeavours to get a glance from her—a word of reply.

“Don’t you mind her—it’s ’Manda’s way,” said Batty, laughing as he saw the gloom on Frederick’s face. “The more insulting she is one evening, the nicer she’ll be the next. Don’t you pay any attention: it’s his turn to-night, and yours to-morrow. Don’t take it too serious, Eastwood; if you’ll be guided by me——”

“I fear I don’t quite understand you, Mr. Batty,” said poor Frederick, writhing in impotent pride at the liberties taken with him. Upon which Batty laughed again, more insolently good-humoured than ever.

“As you like—as you like,” he said; “you are more likely to want me, I can tell you, than I am to want you.”

Frederick answered nothing: his mind was torn in pieces. Could he have had strength to go away, to break those fatal chains which in a day—in a moment—had been thrown over him, he would have done it. A sudden impulse to fly came over him; but a hundred past yieldings to temptation had sapped the strength of his nature, and taken away from him all power to make such a strenuous resistance to his own wishes. The self-willed, proud young man put down his head and licked the dust before the coarse beauty who had stolen away his wits, and the coarse man whose familiarity was so odious to him. He turned from the father, and addressed himself with eager adoration to the daughter; and, perhaps because Amanda was a thorough coquette, and enjoyed her own cleverness in pitting one admirer against another—perhaps because the misery and earnestness in the eyes of her new slave softened her, she was friendly to him for the rest of the evening, and wrapped his foolish soul in happiness. Before they parted he was made happy by another invitation. They were but to be two nights more in town, and one of these evenings Frederick was to spend with them.

“Be sure and find out for me the very nicest thing that is to be played in London,” she said, turning round to him as she left the theatre, though the rival had her hand on his arm. The sweetness of this preference, the sign she made to him as the carriage drove away, contented, and more than contented, Frederick. He went home happy; he got through—he did not know how—the intervening time. Next afternoon he went to call on her, at one moment gaining a few words, which made him blessed, at another turning away with his pride lacerated and his heart bleeding. The succession of ups and downs was enough to have given variety to months of ordinary love-making. Frederick was tossed from delight to despair, and back again. He was jibed at, flattered, made use of, tormented, and consoled. Had he been a man of finer mind, he might possibly have been disgusted; but it is astonishing what even men of the finest minds will submit to under the force of such an imperious passion. They console themselves by the conclusion that all women are the same, and that theirs is the common fate. If Frederick had any time to think in the hurry of emotion and excitement which swept him as into the vortex of a whirlpool, he excused Miss ’Manda’s cruelties and caprices by this explanation. All women who possessed, as she did, those glorious gifts of beauty—all the Cleopatras of existence—were like her; they had to be worshipped blindly, not considered as reasonable creatures. Reason! what had reason to do with those shoulders, those cheeks, those eyes?

The evening came at last—the evening of rapture and misery which he was to spend by her side, but which was to be the last. He counted how many hours it could be lengthened out to, and gave himself up to the enjoyment, not daring to forecast to himself what he might say or do before that cycle of happiness was ended. He dressed himself with so much care that Mrs. Eastwood, who had never forgotten that enthusiastic description of Miss Batty, felt an uneasiness for which she could give no very distinct reason. This time the roses in the conservatory were not enough for Frederick. He had brought one from Covent Garden, carefully wrapped up in cotton wool; and he spoiled half-a-dozen ties before he could tie one to his satisfaction. His mother peeped at him from the door of her room as he went down-stairs. In consequence of their play-going propensities, the Battys had to dine early. It was but half-past six when Frederick left The Elms in his hansom, which he had taken the trouble to order beforehand. Mrs. Eastwood opened her window, with a faint hope that perhaps the wind might convey his instructions to the driver to her anxious ear. She withdrew blushing, poor soul, when this attempt proved unsuccessful. It was almost dishonourable—like listening at a door. When one does not succeed in a little wile of this description, one realizes how ignoble was the attempt.

“Of course, if I had asked him where he was going, he would have told me,” she said to herself.

But the truth was that Frederick had so often returned disagreeable answers to such questions, and had made so many remarks upon the curiosity of women, &c., that the household had ceased to inquire into his movements. He was the only one of the family whose comings and goings were not open as daylight to whomsoever cared to see.

His heart beat higher and higher as he threaded the streets and approached the second-rate London inn which was to him the centre of the world. When he was shown into the room, however, in which dinner was prepared as usual, he went in upon a scene for which he was totally unprepared. Seated by the fire, which had suddenly become unnecessary by a change in the weather, and which made the little room very stuffy and hot, was Amanda, wrapped in a great shawl. Her usual sublime evening toilette had been exchanged for a white dressing-gown, all frills and bows of ribbon. High up on her cheeks, just under her eyes, were two blazing spots of pink. Her face, except for these, was pale and drawn. The sound of her voice, fretful and impatient, was the first thing Frederick heard. By her sat a middle-aged woman in an elaborate cap with flowers. There was a medicine bottle on the mantelpiece. Frederick rushed forward, in wonder and dismay.

“Miss Batty—Good God, you are ill——!”

“You may see that, I think, without asking,” said Amanda; “when one is well one does not show like this, I hope. The last night, too—the last time for ages I shall have the least chance of enjoying myself, or having a little fun. Oh, it is too shocking! When one is at home, with nothing going on, one does not mind; it is always something to occupy one. Oh, go away please. Dine somewhere with papa. He is waiting for you outside; never mind me. Oh, aunty, can’t you be still—rustling and rustling for ever and ever, and setting all my nerves on edge.”

A sudden blackness came over Frederick’s soul. “Dine somewhere with papa.” Good heavens! was that the entertainment offered to him after all his hopes? He stood transfixed as it were, immovable in a blank and horrible pause of disappointment. The close room and the sudden revulsion of feeling made him sick and faint. His perfect and faultless costume, the delicate rosebud in his coat, his tie which it had taken him so much trouble to bring to perfection, his boots upon which he had been so careful not to have a speck—all struck Amanda with relenting as she looked at him, and finally roused her a little out of her absorption in her own troubles. He looked such a gentleman! Miss Batty belonged to that class which is given to describe its heroes as “looking like gentlemen,” with often an uneasy sense that the looks are the only things gentlemanlike about them. Frederick impressed her profoundly and suddenly by this means. She relented as she looked at him.

“Dinner was laid here,” she said, “as you see—but I don’t think I could stand it,—and then when one is not dressed or anything—it would not be nice for you——”

“It is perfectly nice for me,” said Frederick, coming to life again—“a thousand times more nice than anything else. Your dress is always perfect, whatever it may be. Let me stay! What do I care for dining or anything else? Let me be with you. Let me read to you. Don’t send me into outer darkness——”

“Oh, how you do talk, Mr. Eastwood,” said Amanda, though with a smile. “No, of course you must dine. We must all dine. No, now go away. I could not have it. Let some one call papa, and you can go with him——” she paused for a moment, enjoying the blank misery that once more fell upon Frederick’s face; then added suddenly,—“On second thoughts, after all, it might amuse me. Aunty, ring the bell. If you are sure you don’t mind my dressing gown—and the room being so warm—and aunty being here,—and the medicine bottle, and the big fire,—well, perhaps,” she said, pausing to laugh in a breathless way,—“you may stay.”

If the Queen had created him Earl of Eastwood with corresponding revenues, it would have been nothing to the bliss of this moment. He drew a footstool to her feet and sat down on it, half kneeling, and made his inquiries.—What was it? How was it? was she suffering? did she feel ill? had she a doctor, the best doctor that London could produce, Jenner, Gull, somebody that could be trusted? Amanda informed him that it was heart disease from which she was suffering, an intimation which she made not without complacency, but which Frederick felt to pierce him like a horrible, sudden arrow—and that “Aunty” here present, whom she introduced with a careless wave of her hand, knew exactly what to do.

“It is dreadful, isn’t it, to think I might die any moment?” she said with a smile.

“Good God!” Frederick said, with unaffected horror, “it cannot be true!” and he sat, stricken dumb, gazing at her, the tears forcing themselves to his eyes. Mr. Batty entered at this moment, and the man, who was human and a father, was touched by this evidence of emotion. He wrung Frederick’s hand and whispered him aside.

“It ain’t as bad as it seems,” he said. “We daren’t cross her. If she wanted the moon I’d have to tell her we’d get it somehow. We’ve known for years that she wasn’t to be crossed; but barring that, I hope all’s pretty safe. It’s bad for her temper, poor girl, but I’m not afraid of her life.”

Frederick spent such an evening as he had never spent in his life. He sat at Amanda’s feet and read to her, and talked to her, and listened to her chatter, which was soft and subdued, for she was languid after her spasms. Mr. Batty sat by most part of the evening admiring, and so did the person called Aunty, who kept in constant attendance. Frederick could not throw himself at Miss ’Manda’s feet according to conventional form; he could not declare his love and entreat her to marry him, as he was burning to do, for he was not permitted a minute alone with her. But short of that, he said everything that a man in love could do. He told his adoration by a hundred signs and inferences. And he went home in such a whirl of sentiment and emotion as I cannot attempt to describe. His love was frantic, yet so tinged and imbued with a sense of the virtuous and domestic character of this evening of complete happiness, that he felt as good as he was blessed. She was going away; that was the only drawback to his rapture; and even that impressed a certain intense and ecstatic character upon it, as of a flower snatched from the edge of a precipice of despair.