An Unsocial Socialist ...........................................................................................................................................1

George Bernard Shaw ..............................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I .............................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................................7

CHAPTER III........................................................................................................................................11

CHAPTER IV........................................................................................................................................25

CHAPTER V.........................................................................................................................................42

CHAPTER VI........................................................................................................................................50

CHAPTER VII .......................................................................................................................................56

CHAPTER VIII.....................................................................................................................................65

CHAPTER IX........................................................................................................................................70

CHAPTER X.........................................................................................................................................79

CHAPTER XI........................................................................................................................................83

CHAPTER XII .......................................................................................................................................91

CHAPTER XIII...................................................................................................................................100

CHAPTER XIV...................................................................................................................................107

CHAPTER XV....................................................................................................................................115

CHAPTER XVI...................................................................................................................................130

CHAPTER XVII ..................................................................................................................................143

CHAPTER XVIII .................................................................................................................................147

In the dusk of an October evening, a sensible looking woman of forty came out through an oaken door to a

broad landing on the first floor of an old English countryhouse. A braid of her hair had fallen forward as if

she had been stooping over book or pen; and she stood for a moment to smooth it, and to gaze

contemplativelynot in the least sentimentallythrough the tall, narrow window. The sun was setting, but

its glories were at the other side of the house; for this window looked eastward, where the landscape of

The lady, like one to whom silence and quiet were luxuries, lingered on the landing for some time. Then she

turned towards another door, on which was inscribed, in white letters, Class Room No. 6. Arrested by a

whispering above, she paused in the doorway, and looked up the stairs along a broad smooth handrail that

swept round in an unbroken curve at each landing, forming an inclined plane from the top to the bottom of

Immediately a girl in a holland dress shot down through space; whirled round the curve with a fearless

centrifugal toss of her ankle; and vanished into the darkness beneath. She was followed by a stately girl in

green, intently holding her breath as she flew; and also by a large young woman in black, with her lower lip

grasped between her teeth, and her fine brown eyes protruding with excitement. Her passage created a

miniature tempest which disarranged anew the hair of the lady on the landing, who waited in breathless alarm

until two light shocks and a thump announced that the aerial voyagers had landed safely in the hall.

"It's a mercy your neck ain't broken," replied some palpitating female. "I'll tell of you this time, Miss Wylie;

indeed I will. And you, too, Miss Carpenter: I wonder at you not to have more sense at your age and with

your size! Miss Wilson can't help hearing when you come down with a thump like that. You shake the whole

Oh bother!" said Miss Wylie. "The Lady Abbess takes good care to shut out all the noise we make. Let us"

"Girls," said the lady above, calling down quietly, but with ominous distinctness.

Silence and utter confusion ensued. Then came a reply, in a tone of honeyed sweetness, from Miss Wylie:

There was some hesitation among them, each offering the other precedence. At last they went up slowly, in

the order, though not at all in the manner, of their flying descent; followed Miss Wilson into the classroom;

and stood in a row before her, illumined through three western windows with a glow of ruddy orange light.

Miss Carpenter, the largest of the three, was red and confused. Her arms hung by her sides, her fingers

twisting the folds of her dress. Miss Gertrude Lindsay, in pale seagreen, had a small head, delicate

complexion, and pearly teeth. She stood erect, with an expression of cold distaste for reproof of any sort. The

holland dress of the third offender had changed from yellow to white as she passed from the gray eastern

twilight on the staircase into the warm western glow in the room. Her face had a bright olive tone, and

seemed to have a golden mica in its composition. Her eyes and hair were hazelnut color; and her teeth, the

upper row of which she displayed freely, were like fine Portland stone, and sloped outward enough to have

spoilt her mouth, had they not been supported by a rich under lip, and a finely curved, impudent chin. Her

half cajoling, half mocking air, and her ready smile, were difficult to confront with severity; and Miss Wilson

knew it; for she would not look at her even when attracted by a convulsive start and an angry side glance

Miss Wylie unexpectedly treated this as a smart repartee instead of a rebuke. She sent up a strange little

"Pray be silent, Agatha," said Miss Wilson severely. Agatha looked contrite. Miss Wilson turned hastily to

"I am especially surprised at you, Miss Carpenter. Since you have no desire to keep faith with me by

upholding the rules, of which you are quite old enough to understand the necessity, I shall not trouble you

with reproaches, or appeals to which I am now convinced that you would not respond," (here Miss Carpenter,

with an inarticulate protest, burst into tears); "but you should at least think of the danger into which your

juniors are led by your childishness. How should you feel if Agatha had broken her neck?"

"I didn't think there was any danger," said Miss Carpenter, struggling with her tears. " Agatha has done it so

oftoh dear! you have torn me." Miss Wylie had pulled at her schoolfellow's skirt, and pulled too hard.

"Miss Wylie," said Miss Wilson, flushing slightly, "I must ask you to leave the room."

"Oh, no," exclaimed Agatha, clasping her hands in distress. "Please don't, dear Miss Wilson. I am so sorry. I

"Since you will not do what I ask, I must go myself," said Miss Wilson sternly. "Come with me to my study,"

she added to the two other girls. "If you attempt to follow, Miss Wylie, I shall regard it as an intrusion."

The three went out; and Miss Wylie, left behind in disgrace, made a surpassing grimace at Miss Lindsay, who

glanced back at her. When she was alone, her vivacity subsided. She went slowly to the window, and gazed

disparagingly at the landscape. Once, when a sound of voices above reached her, her eyes brightened, and her

ready lip moved; but the next silent moment she relapsed into moody indifference, which was not relieved

"Well," she said gaily, "has moral force been applied? Are you going to the Recording Angel?"

"Oh!" said Miss Carpenter slowly, as if this reason had not occurred to her before. "Was that why you pulled

"Dear me! It has actually dawned upon you. You are a most awfully silly girl, Jane. What did the Lady

"Well, never mind, dear," said Agatha soothingly. "Put it in the Recording Angel."

"I won't write a word in the Recording Angel unless you do so first," said Miss Lindsay angrily. "You are

"I bbelieve you LIKE writing in the Recording Angel," said Miss Carpenter spitefully.

"It may be fun to you," said Miss Lindsay sharply; "but it is not very creditable to me, as Miss Wilson said

just now, to take a prize in moral science and then have to write down that I don't know how to behave

Agatha laughed. "What a deep old thing she is! She knows all our weaknesses, and stabs at us through them.

"Of course not. That's because you don't know as much moral science as I, though I never took a prize in it."

"And I hope I never shall," said Agatha. "I would as soon scramble for hot pennies in the snow, like the street

boys, as scramble to see who can answer most questions. Dr. Watts is enough moral science for me. Now for

She went to a shelf and took down a heavy quarto, bound in black leather, and inscribed, in red letters, MY

FAULTS. This she threw irreverently on a desk, and tossed its pages over until she came to one only partly

"For a wonder," she said, "here are two entries that are not mine. Sarah Gerram! What has she been

"Don't read it," said Miss Lindsay quickly. "You know that it is the most dishonorable thing any of us can

"Poch! Our little sins are not worth making such a fuss about. I always like to have my entries read: it makes

me feel like an author; and so in Christian duty I always read other people's. Listen to poor Sarah's tale of

guilt. '1st October. I am very sorry that I slapped Miss Chambers in the lavatory this morning, and knocked

out one of her teeth. This was very wicked; but it was coming out by itself; and she has forgiven me because

a new one will come in its place; and she was only pretending when she said she swallowed it. Sarah

"Little fool!" said Miss Lindsay. "The idea of our having to record in the same book with brats like that!"

"Here is a touching revelation. '4th October. Helen Plantagenet is deeply grieved to have to confess that I

took the first place in algebra yesterday unfairly. Miss Lindsay prompted me;' and"

"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Lindsay, reddening. "That is how she thanks me for prompting her, is it? How dare she

"Serves you right for prompting her," said Miss Carpenter. "She was always a doublefaced cat; and you

"Oh, I assure you it was not for her sake that I did it," replied Miss Lindsay. "It was to prevent that Jackson

girl from getting first place. I don't like Helen Plantagenet; but at least she is a lady.'

"Stuff, Gertrude," said Agatha, with a touch of earnestness. "One would think, to hear you talk, that your

"Miss Wylie," said Gertrude, becoming scarlet: "you are veryoh! oh! Stop Agoh! I will tell Missoh!"

Agatha had inserted a steely finger between her ribs, and was tickling her unendurably.

"Am I Miss Wylie?" demanded Agatha, relentlessly continuing the torture. "Am I verywhatever you were

"No, no," gasped Gertrude, shrinking into a chair, almost in hysterics. "You are very unkind, Agatha. You

"You deserve it. If you ever get sulky with me again, or call me Miss Wylie, I will kill you. I will tickle the

soles of your feet with a feather," (Miss Lindsay shuddered, and hid her feet beneath the chair) "until your

"Well, then," said Gertrude, afraid to press the point, but determined not to record first, "let Jane Carpenter

"Oh, of course," said Jane, with whimpering irony. "Let Jane do all the nasty things first. I think it's very

"You are certainly not such a fool as you look, Jane," said Agatha gravely. "But I will record first, if you

"No, you shan't," cried Jane, snatching the pen from her. "I arm the eldest; and I won't be put out of my

She dipped the pen in the ink resolutely, and prepared to write. Then she paused; considered; looked

"What shall I write?" she said. "You know how to write things down; and I don't."

"Now write, 'I am very sorry that Miss Wilson saw me when I slid down the banisters this evening. Jane

"I hope it's all right," said Jane, looking suspiciously at Agatha. "However, there can't be any harm in it; for

it's the simple truth. Anyhow, if you are playing one of your jokes on me, you are a nasty mean thing, and I

don't care. Now, Gertrude, it's your turn. Please look at mine, and see whether the spelling is right."

"It is not my business to teach you to spell," said Gertrude, taking the pen. And, while Jane was murmuring at

"I have broken the rules by sliding down the banisters today with Miss Carpenter and Miss Wylie. Miss

"You wretch!" exclaimed Agatha, reading over her shoulder. "And your father is an admiral!"

"I think it is only fair," said Miss Lindsay, quailing, but assuming the tone of a moralist. "It is perfectly true."

"All my money was made in trade," said Agatha; "but I should be ashamed to save myself by shifting blame

"No: it shall stay there to witness against you. How see how I confess my faults." And she wrote, in a fine,

"This evening Gertrude Lindsay and Jane Carpenter met me at the top of the stairs, and said they wanted to

slide down the banisters and would do it if I went first. I told them that it was against the rules, but they said

that did not matter; and as they are older than I am, I allowed myself to be persuaded, and did."

"It's beastly mean," said Jane energetically. "The idea of your finding fault with Gertrude, and then going and

"'Thus bad begins; but worse remains behind,' as the Standard Elocutionist says," said Agatha, adding another

"But it was all my fault. Also I was rude to Miss Wilson, and refused to leave the room when she bade me. I

was not wilfully wrong except in sliding down the banisters. I am so fond of a slide that I could not resist the

"Be warned by me, Agatha," said Jane impressively. "If you write cheeky things in that book, you will be

"Indeed!" replied Agatha significantly. "Wait until Miss Wilson sees what you have written."

"Gertrude," cried Jane, with sudden misgiving, "has she made me write anything improper? Agatha, do tell

Here a gong sounded; and the three girls simultaneously exclaimed "Grub!" and rushed from the room.

One sunny afternoon, a hansom drove at great speed along Belsize Avenue, St. John's Wood, and stopped

before a large mansion. A young lady sprang out; ran up the steps, and rang the bell impatiently. She was of

the olive complexion, with a sharp profile: dark eyes with long lashes; narrow mouth with delicately

sensuous lips; small head, feet, and hands, with long taper fingers; lithe and very slender figure moving with

serpentlike grace. Oriental taste was displayed in the colors of her costume, which consisted of a white

dress, closefitting, and printed with an elaborate china blue pattern; a yellow straw hat covered with

artificial hawthorn and scarlet berries; and tancolored gloves reaching beyond the elbow, and decorated with

The door not being opened immediately, she rang again, violently, and w as presently admitted by a maid,

who seemed surprised to see her. Without making any inquiry, she darted upstairs into a drawingroom,

where a matron of good presence, with features of the finest Jewish type, sat reading. With her was a

"Arthur," said the young lady excitedly, "leave the room this instant; and don't dare to come back until you

"Is anything wrong?" said the matron, putting away her book with the unconcerned resignation of an

"Gone! Gone! Deserted me! I" The young lady's utterance failed, and she threw herself upon an ottoman,

"Nonsense! I thought Sidney had more sense. There, Henrietta, don't be silly. I suppose you have quarrelled."

"No! No!! No!!!" cried Henrietta, stamping on the carpet. "We had not a word. I have not lost my temper

since we were married, mamma; I solemnly swear I have not. I will kill myself; there is no other way. There's

"Tut, tut! What has happened, Henrietta? As you have been married now nearly six weeks, you can hardly be

surprised at a little tiff arising. You are so excitable! You cannot expect the sky to be always cloudless. Most

likely you are to blame; for Sidney is far more reasonable than you. Stop crying, and behave like a woman of

Henrietta writhed with impatience. Then, forcing herself to tell her story, she answered:

"We arranged on Monday that I should spend two days with Aunt Judith instead of going with him to

Birmingham to that horrid Trade Congress. We parted on the best of terms. He couldn't have been more

affectionate. I will kill myself; I don't care about anything or anybody. And when I came back on Wednesday

he was gone, and there was this letter." She produced a letter, and wept more bitterly than before.

Henrietta hesitated, but her mother took the letter from her, sat down near the window, and composed herself

to read without the least regard to her daughter's vehement distress. The letter ran thus:

"My Dearest: I am offsurfeited with endearmentto live my own life and do my own work. I could only

have prepared you for this by coldness or neglect, which are wholly impossible to me when the spell of your

"I am afraid that I cannot give you satisfactory and intelligible reasons for this step. You are a beautiful and

luxurious creature: life is to you full and complete only when it is a carnival of love. My case is just the

reverse. Before three soft speeches have escaped me I rebuke myself for folly and insincerity. Before a caress

has had time to cool, a strenuous revulsion seizes me: I long to return to my old lonely ascetic hermit life; to

my dry books; my Socialist propagandism; my voyage of discovery through the wilderness of thought. I

married in an insane fit of belief that I had a share of the natural affection which carries other men through

lifetimes of matrimony. Already I am undeceived. You are to me the loveliest woman in the world. Well, for

five weeks I have walked and tallied and dallied with the loveliest woman in the world, and the upshot is that

I am flying from her, and am for a hermit's cave until I die. Love cannot keep possession of me: all my

strongest powers rise up against it and will not endure it. Forgive me for writing nonsense that you won't

understand, and do not think too hardly of me. I have been as good to you as my selfish nature allowed. Do

not seek to disturb me in the obscurity which I desire and deserve. My solicitor will call on your father to

arrange business matters, and you shall be as happy as wealth and liberty can make you. We shall meet

"Well?" cried Mrs. Trefusis, observing through her tears that her mother had read the letter and was

"Well, certainly!" said Mrs. Jansenius, with emphasis. "Do you think he is quite sane, Henrietta? Or have you

been plaguing him for too much attention? Men are not willing to give up their whole existence to their

"He pretended that he was never happy out of my presence," sobbed Henrietta. "There never was anything so

cruel. I often wanted to be by myself for a change, but I was afraid to hurt his feelings by saying so. And now

Henrietta sprang up, her cheeks vivid scarlet. "If I thought that I would pursue him to the end of the earth, and

murder her. But no; he is not like anybody else. He hates me! Everybody hates me! You don't care whether I

Mrs. Jansenius, still indifferent to her daughter's agitation, considered a moment, and then said placidly:

"You can do nothing until we hear from the solicitor. In the meantime you may stay with us, if you wish. I

did not expect a visit from you so soon; but your room has not been used since you went away."

Mrs. Trefusis ceased crying, chilled by this first intimation that her father's house was no longer her home. A

more real sense of desolation came upon her. Under its cold influence she began to collect herself, and to feel

"I won't stay long," she said. "If his solicitor will not tell me where he is, I will hunt through England for him.

"Oh, you will be no greater trouble than you have always been," said Mrs. Jansenius calmly, not displeased to

see that her daughter had taken the hint. "You had better go and wash your face. People may call, and I

presume you don't wish to receive them in that plight. If you meet Arthur on the stairs, please tell him he may

Henrietta screwed her lips into a curious pout and withdrew. Arthur then came in and stood at the window in

sullen silence, brooding over his recent expulsion. Suddenly he exclaimed: "Here's papa, and it's not five

Mr. Jansenius was a man of imposing presence, not yet in his fiftieth year, but not far from it. He moved with

dignity, bearing himself as if the contents of his massive brow were precious. His handsome aquiline nose

and keen dark eyes proclaimed his Jewish origin, of which he was ashamed. Those who did not know this

naturally believed that he was proud of it, and were at a loss to account for his permitting his children to be

educated as Christians. Well instructed in business, and subject to no emotion outside the love of family,

respectability, comfort, and money, he had maintained the capital inherited from his father, and made it breed

new capital in the usual way. He was a banker, and his object as such was to intercept and appropriate the

immense saving which the banking system effects, and so, as far as possible, to leave the rest of the world

working just as hard as before banking was introduced. But as the world would not on these terms have

banked at all, he had to give them some of the saving as an inducement. So they profited by the saving as

well as he, and he had the satisfaction of being at once a wealthy citizen and a public benefactor, rich in

Mr. Jansenius stared. "Do you mean to say that she has left already?" he said. "What business has she to come

Mr. Jansenius, who mistrusted his own judgment when it differed from that of his wife, replied slowly, "Why

Mrs. Jansenius, puzzled in her turn, looked at him with cool wonder, and remarked, "I am her mother, am I

"I was not aware of it. I am surprised to hear it, Ruth. Have you had a letter too" I have seen the letter. But

what do you mean by telling me that you do not know I am Henrietta's mother? Are you trying to be funny?"

At this Mr. Jansenius became exasperated, and he deemed it best to relate what Henrietta had told her. When

she gave him Trefusis's letter, he said, more calmly: "Misfortunes never come singly. Read that," and handed

"Dear Madam: I write with great regret to request that you will at once withdraw Miss Wylie from Alton

College. In an establishment like this, where restraint upon the liberty of the students is reduced to a

minimum, it is necessary that the small degree of subordination which is absolutely indispensable be

acquiesced in by all without complaint or delay. Miss Wylie has failed to comply with this condition. She has

declared her wish to leave, and has assumed an attitude towards myself and my colleagues which we cannot,

consistently with our duty to ourselves and her fellow students, pass over. If Miss Wylie has any cause to

complain of her treatment here, or of the step which she has compelled us to take, she will doubtless make it

"Perhaps you will be so good as to communicate with Miss Wylie's guardian, Mr. Jansenius, with whom I

shall be happy to make an equitable arrangement respecting the fees which have been paid in advance for the

"I do not understand this," said Mr. Jansenius, reddening as he took in the purport of his soninlaw's letter.

"I don't know. Sidney is mad, I think; and his honeymoon has brought his madness out. But you must not let

"Mad! Does he think he can shirk his responsibility to his wife because she is my daughter? Does he think,

because his mother's father was a baronet, that he can put Henrietta aside the moment her society palls on

"Oh, it's nothing of that sort. He never thought of us. But I will make him think of us," said Mr. Jansenius,

Just then Henrietta returned, and saw her father moving excitedly to and fro, repeating, "He shall answer to

Mrs. Jansenius frowned at her daughter to remain silent, and said soothingly, "Don't lose your temper, John."

"Oh, come, come!" said Mrs. Jansenius peremptorily, "we have had enough crying. Let us have no more of

Henrietta sprang up in a passion. "I will say and do as I please," she exclaimed. "I am a married woman, and I

will receive no orders. And I will have my husband back again, no matter what he does to hide himself. Papa,

won't you make him come back to me? I am dying. Promise that you will make him come back."

And, throwing herself upon her father's bosom, she postponed further discussion by going into hysterics, and

One of the professors at Alton College was a Mrs. Miller, an oldfashioned schoolmistress who did not

believe in Miss Wilson's system of government by moral force, and carried it out under protest. Though not

illnatured, she was narrowminded enough to be in some degree contemptible, and was consequently prone

to suspect others of despising her. She suspected Agatha in particular, and treated her with disdainful curtness

in such intercourse as they hadit was fortunately little. Agatha was not hurt by this, for Mrs. Miller was an

unsympathetic woman, who made no friends among the girls, and satisfied her affectionate impulses by

petting a large cat named Gracchus, but generally called Bacchus by an endearing modification of the harsh

One evening Mrs. Miller, seated with Miss Wilson in the study, correcting examination papers, heard in the

distance a cry like that of a cat in distress. She ran to the door and listened. Presently there arose a prolonged

wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding again. It was a true feline screech, impossible to

localize; but it was interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling, coming unmistakably from

a room on the floor beneath, in which, at that hour, the older girls assembled for study.

"My poor Gracchy!" exclaimed Mrs. Miller, running downstairs as fast as she could. She found the room

unusually quiet. Every girl was deep in study except Miss Carpenter, who, pretending to pick up a fallen

book, was purple with suppressed laughter and the congestion caused by stooping.

"Miss Ward has gone for some astronomical diagrams in which we are interested," said Agatha, looking up

"Has that cat been in here?" she said, not seeing Mrs. Miller, and speaking in a tone expressive of antipathy to

Agatha started and drew up her ankles, as if fearful of having them bitten. Then, looking apprehensively

"There is one somewhere; I heard it," said Miss Ward carelessly, unrolling her diagrams, which she began to

explain without further parley. Mrs. Miller, anxious for her pet, hastened to seek it elsewhere. In the hall she

"He's asleep on the hearthrug in your room, ma'am. But I heard him crying down here a moment ago. I feel

Susan smiled compassionately. "Lor' bless you, ma'am," she said, "that was Miss Wylie. It's a sort of

playacting that she goes through. There is the bee on the windowpane, and the soldier up the chimley, and

"Yes, ma'am. Like as it were a follower that had hid there when he heard the mistress coming."

Mrs. Miller's face set determinedly. She returned to the study and related what had just occurred, adding

some sarcastic comments on the efficacy of moral force in maintaining collegiate discipline. Miss Wilson

looked grave; considered for some time; and at last said: "I must think over this. Would you mind leaving it

Mrs. Miller said that she did not care in whose hands it remained provided her own were washed of it, and

resumed her work at the papers. Miss Wilson then, wishing to be alone, went into the empty classroom at the

other side of the landing. She took the Fault Book from its shelf and sat down before it. Its record closed with

"Miss Wilson has called me impertinent, and has written to my uncle that I have refused to obey the rules. I

was not impertinent; and I never refused to obey the rules. So much for Moral Force!"

Miss Wilson rose vigorously, exclaiming: "I will soon let her know whether" She checked herself, and

looked round hastily, superstitiously fancying that Agatha might have stolen into the room unobserved.

Reassured that she was alone, she examined her conscience as to whether she had done wrong in calling

Agatha impertinent, justifying herself by the reflection that Agatha had, in fact, been impertinent. Yet she

recollected that she had refused to admit this plea on a recent occasion when Jane Carpenter had advanced it

in extenuation of having called a fellowstudent a liar. Had she then been unjust to Jane, or inconsiderate to

Her casuistry was interrupted by some one softly whistling a theme from the overture to Masaniello, popular

at the college in the form of an arrangement for six pianofortes and twelve hands. There was only one student

unladylike and musical enough to whistle; and Miss Wilson was ashamed to find herself growing nervous at

the prospect of an encounter with Agatha, who entered whistling sweetly, but with a lugubrious countenance.

When she saw in whose presence she stood, she begged pardon politely, and was about to withdraw, when

Miss Wilson, summoning all her Judgment and tact, and hoping that they wouldcontrary to their custom in

Agatha closed her lips, drew in a long breath through her nostrils, and marched to within a few feet of Miss

"I don't understand that, Agatha," said Miss Wilson, pointing to the entry in the Recording Angel. "What does

"In every way. I am expected to be something more than mortal. Everyone else is encouraged to complain,

and to be weak and silly. But I must have no feeling. I must be always in the right. Everyone else may be

homesick, or huffed, or in low spirits. I must have no nerves, and must keep others laughing all day long.

Everyone else may sulk when a word of reproach is addressed to them, and may make the professors afraid to

find fault with them. I have to bear with the insults of teachers who have less selfcontrol than I, a girl of

seventeen! and must coax them out of the difficulties they make for themselves by their own ill temper."

"Oh, I know I am talking nonsense, Miss Wilson; but can you expect me to be always sensibleto be

"Yes, Agatha; I do not think it is too much to expect you to be always sensible; and"

There was an awful pause. Neither could have told how long it lasted. Then Agatha, feeling that she must do

or say something desperate, or else fly, made a distracted gesture and ran out of the room.

She rejoined her companions in the great hall of the mansion, where they were assembled after study for

"recreation," a noisy process which always set in spontaneously when the professors withdrew. She usually

sat with her two favorite associates on a high window seat near the hearth. That place was now occupied by a

little girl with flaxen hair, whom Agatha, regardless of moral force, lifted by the shoulders and deposited on

"You will know soon enough, Jane," replied Agatha, suddenly grave. "It is someone who made an impudent

Fear stole upon Jane, and she became very red. "Agatha," she said, "it was you who told me what to write.

"I can't deny it, can't I? I am ready to swear that I never dictated a word to you in my life."

"There," said Agatha, petting her as if she were a vast baby. "It shall not be expelled, so it shan't. Have you

"Chips," said Agatha, calling to the flaxenhaired child, "go upstairs to No. 6, and, if Miss Wilson isn't there,

"Because," continued Agatha, ignoring the question, "you shall wish yourself dead and buried under the

blackest flag in the coal cellar if you don't bring me the book before I count sixteen. Onetwo"

"Go at once and do as you are told, you disagreeable little thing," said Gertrude sharply. "How dare you be so

The child quailed, went out, and presently returned, hugging the Recording Angel in her arms.

"You are a good little darlingwhen your better qualities are brought out by a judicious application of moral

force," said Agatha, goodhumoredly. "Remind me to save the raisins out of my pudding for you tomorrow.

Now, Jane, you shall see the entry for which the besthearted girl in the college is to be expelled. Voila!"

The two girls read and were awestruck; Jane opening her mouth and gasping, Gertrude closing hers and

"Do you mean to say that you had the dreadful cheek to let the Lady Abbess see that?" said Jane.

"Pooh! she would have forgiven that. You should have heard what I said to her! She fainted three times."

"Three times, as you say. And I wonder that a girl brought up as you have been, by moral force, should be

capable of repeating such a falsehood. But we had an awful row, really and truly. She lost her temper.

"For a girl of county family, you are inexcusably vulgar, Jane. I don't know what I said; but she will never

forgive me for profaning her pet book. I shall be expelled as certainly as I am sitting here."

"And do you mean to say that you are going away?" said Jane, faltering as she began to realize the

"I do. And what is to become of you when I am not here to get you out of your scrapes, or of Gertrude

"I am not snobbish," said Gertrude, " although I do not choose to make friends with everyone. But I never

"No; I should like to catch you at it. Hallo, Jane!" (who had suddenly burst into tears): "what's the matter? I

"Indeed," sobbed Jane indignantly, "I know that I am a ffool for my pains. You have no heart."

"You certainly are a ffool, as you aptly express it," said Agatha, passing her arm round Jane, and

disregarding an angry attempt to shake it off; "but if I had any heart it would be touched by this proof of your

"I never said you had no heart," protested Jane; "but I hate when you speak like a book."

"You hate when I speak like a book, do you? My dear, silly old Jane! I shall miss you greatly."

"Yes, I dare say," said Jane, with tearful sarcasm. "At least my snoring will never keep you awake again."

"You don't snore, Jane. We have been in a conspiracy to make you believe that you do, that's all. Isn't it good

Jane was overcome by this revelation. After a long pause, she said with deep conviction, "I always knew that

I didn't. Oh, the way you kept it up! I solemnly declare that from this time forth I will believe nobody."

"Well, and what do you think of it all?" said Agatha, transferring her attention to Gertrude, who was very

"You must be, or Miss Wilson would not be angry with you. Of course, according to your own account, you

are always in the right, and everyone else is always wrong; but you shouldn't have written that in the book.

"It is easy enough to understand you," retorted Gertrude, nettled. "Selfconceit is not so uncommon that one

need be at a loss to recognize it. And mind, Agatha Wylie," she continued, as if goaded by some unbearable

reminiscence, "if you are really going, I don't care whether we part friends or not. I have not forgotten the day

"I have repented," said Agatha, unmoved. "One day I sat down and watched Bacchus seated on the hearthrug,

with his moony eyes looking into space so thoughtfully and patiently that I apologized for comparing you to

"Because he is a cat," said Jane, with the giggle which was seldom far behind her tears.

"No; but because he is not spiteful. Gertrude keeps a recording angel inside her little head, and it is so full of

other people's faults, written in large hand and read through a magnifying glass, that there is no room to enter

"You are very poetic," said Gertrude; "but I understand what you mean, and shall not forget it."

"You ungrateful wretch," exclaimed Agatha, turning upon her so suddenly and imperiously that she

involuntarily shrank aside: "how often, when you have tried to be insolent and false with me, have I not

driven away your bad angelby tickling you? Had you a friend in the college, except halfadozen toadies,

until I came? And now, because I have sometimes, for your own good, shown you your faults, you bear

"I wish you hadn't," said Agatha. "Look at me! I have no conscience, and see how much pleasanter I am!"

"You care for no one but yourself," said Gertrude. "You never think that other people have feelings too. No

"Oh, I like to hear you talk," cried Jane ironically. "You are considered a great deal more than is good for

"As if," declaimed Agatha theatrically, "increase of appetite did grow by what it fed on. Shakespeare!"

"Bother Shakespeare," said Jane, impetuously, "old fool that expects credit for saying things that

everybody knows! But if you complain of not being considered, Gertrude, how would you like to be me,

"As you look," interposed Agatha. "I have told you so scores of times, Jane; and I am glad that you have

"Oh, shut up," said Jane, impatiently; "you have asked me that twice this week already."

The three were silent for some seconds after this: Agatha meditating, Gertrude moody, Jane vacant and

"And are you two also smarting under a sense of the inconsiderateness and selfishness of the rest of the

worldboth misunderstoodeverything expected from you, and no allowances made for you?"

"Neither do I," said Jane angrily. "That is just the way people treat me. You may laugh, Agatha; and she may

turn up her nose as much as she likes; you know it's true. But the idea of Gertrude wanting to make out that

"My manners are as good as yours, and perhaps better," retorted Jane. "My family is as good, anyhow."

"Children, children," said Agatha, admonitorily, "do not forget that you are sworn friends."

"We didn't swear," said Jane. "We were to have been three sworn friends, and Gertrude and I were willing,

"Just so," said Agatha; "and the result is that I spend all my time in keeping peace between you. And now, to

go back to our subject, may I ask whether it has ever occurred to you that no one ever considers me?"

"I suppose you think that very funny. You take good care to make yourself considered," sneered Jane.

"Indeed! Let me try," said Agatha, slipping her arm about Jane's ample waist, and eliciting a piercing

Miss Wilson had just entered the room. Agatha, without appearing to be aware of her presence, stealthily

Jane reddened with indignation, but had to remain silent, for the eyes of the principal were upon her. Miss

Wilson had her bonnet on. She announced that she was going to walk to Lyvern, the nearest village. Did any

"Miss Wilson said the sixth form, Miss Wylie," said Miss Ward, who had entered also. "You are not in the

Miss Wilson looked round. The sixth form consisted of four studious young ladies, whose goal in life for the

present was an examination by one of the Universities, or, as the college phrase was, "the Cambridge Local."

They left the room quietly, and dashed at the staircase the moment they were out of sight. Agatha, though

void of emulation for the Cambridge Local, always competed with ardor for the honor of being first up or

They soon returned, clad for walking, and left the college in procession, two by two, Jane and Agatha

leading, Gertrude and Miss Wilson coming last. The road to Lyvern lay through acres of pasture land,

formerly arable, now abandoned to cattle, which made more money for the landlord than the men whom they

had displaced. Miss Wilson's young ladies, being instructed in economics, knew that this proved that the land

was being used to produce what was most wanted from it; and if all the advantage went to the landlord, that

was but natural, as he was the chief gentleman in the neighborhood. Still the arrangement had its disagreeable

side; for it involved a great many cows, which made them afraid to cross the fields; a great many tramps, who

made them afraid to walk the roads; and a scarcity of gentlemen subjects for the maiden art of fascination.

The sky was cloudy. Agatha, reckless of dusty stockings, waded through the heaps of fallen leaves with the

delight of a child paddling in the sea; Gertrude picked her steps carefully, and the rest tramped along, chatting

subduedly, occasionally making some scientific or philosophical remark in a louder tone, in order that Miss

Wilson might overhear and give them due credit. Save a herdsman, who seemed to have caught something of

the nature and expression of the beasts he tended, they met no one until they approached the village, where,

on the brow of an acclivity, masculine humanity appeared in the shape of two curates: one tall, thin,

closeshaven, with a book under his arm, and his neck craned forward; the other middlesized, robust,

upright, and aggressive, with short black whiskers, and an air of protest against such notions as that a

clergyman may not marry, hunt, play cricket, or share the sports of honest laymen. The shaven one was Mr.

Josephs, his companion Mr. Fairholme. Obvious scriptural perversions of this brace of names had been

"Here come Pharaoh and Joseph," she said to Jane. "Joseph will blush when you look at him. Pharaoh won't

"He loves you, Jane. Thin persons like a fine armful of a woman. Pharaoh, who is a cad, likes blue blood on

the same principle of the attraction of opposites. That is why he is captivated by Gertrude's aristocratic air."

"He is too vain to suspect it. Besides, Gertrude despises everyone, even us. Or, rather, she doesn't despise

The two parsons had been simulating an interest in the cloudy firmament as an excuse for not looking at the

girls until close at hand. Jane sent an eyeflash at Josephs with a skill which proved her favorite assertion that

she was not so stupid as people thought. He blushed and took off his soft, lowcrowned felt hat. Fairholme

saluted very solemnly, for Agatha bowed to him with marked seriousness. But when his gravity and his stiff

silk hat were at their highest point she darted a mocking smile at him, and he too blushed, all the deeper

"They cannot help their sex. They say women are fools, and so they are; but thank Heaven they are not quite

so bad as men! I should like to look back and see Pharaoh passing Gertrude; but if he saw me he would think

The two curates became redder and redder as they passed the column of young ladies. Miss Lindsay would

not look to their side of the road, and Miss Wilson's nod and smile were not quite sincere. She never spoke to

curates, and kept up no more intercourse with the vicar than she could not avoid. He suspected her of being

an infidel, though neither he nor any other mortal in Lyvern had ever heard a word from her on the subject of

her religious opinions. But he knew that "moral science" was taught secularly at the college; and he felt that

where morals were made a department of science the demand for religion must fall off proportionately.

"What a life to lead and what a place to live in!" exclaimed Agatha. "We meet two creatures, more like suits

of black than men; and that is an incident a startling incidentin our existence!"

"I think they're awful fun," said Jane, "except that Josephs has such large ears."

The girls now came to a place where the road dipped through a plantation of sombre sycamore and

horsechestnut trees. As they passed down into it, a little wind sprang up, the fallen leaves stirred, and the

"I hate this bit of road," said Jane, hurrying on. "It's just the sort of place that people get robbed and murdered

"It is not such a bad place to shelter in if we get caught in the rain, as I expect we shall before we get back,"

said Agatha, feeling the fitful breeze strike ominously on her cheek. "A nice pickle I shall be in with these

light shoes on! I wish I had put on my strong boots. If it rains much I will go into the old chalet."

"What matter! Nobody lives in it, and the gate is off its hinges. I only want to stand under the verandanot

to break into the wretched place. Besides, the landlord knows Miss Wilson; he won't mind. There's a drop."

"Miss Wilson," she said, "it is going to rain in torrents, and Jane and I have only our shoes on."

Miss Wilson paused to consider the situation. Someone suggested that if they hurried on they might reach

"The branches are very bare," said Gertrude anxiously. "If it should come down heavily they will drip worse

"Much worse," said Agatha. "I think we had better get under the veranda of the old chalet. It is not half a

"But we have no right" Here the sky darkened threateningly. Miss Wilson checked herself and said, "I

"Then let us go there, by all means," said Miss Wilson, not disposed to stand on trifles at the risk of a bad

They hurried on, and came presently to a green hill by the wayside. On the slope was a dilapidated Swiss

cottage, surrounded by a veranda on slender wooden pillars, about which clung a few tendrils of withered

creeper, their stray ends still swinging from the recent wind, now momentarily hushed as if listening for the

coming of the rain. Access from the roadway was by a rough wooden gate in the hedge. To the surprise of

Agatha, who had last seen this gate off its hinges and only attached to the post by a rusty chain and padlock,

it was now rehung and fastened by a new hasp. The weather admitting of no delay to consider these repairs,

she opened the gate and hastened up the slope, followed by the troop of girls. Their ascent ended with a rush,

When they were safe under the veranda, panting, laughing, grumbling, or congratulating themselves on

having been so close to a place of shelter, Miss Wilson observed, with some uneasiness, a spadenew, like

the hasp of the gatesticking upright in a patch of ground that someone had evidently been digging lately.

She was about to comment on this sign of habitation, when the door of the chalet was flung open, and Jane

screamed as a man darted out to the spade, which he was about to carry in out of the wet, when he perceived

the company under the veranda, and stood still in amazement. He was a young laborer with a reddishbrown

beard of a week's growth. He wore corduroy trousers and a linensleeved corduroy vest; both, like the hasp

and spade, new. A coarse blue shirt, with a vulgar redandorange neckerchief, also new, completed his

dress; and, to shield himself from the rain, he held up a silk umbrella with a silvermounted ebony handle,

which he seemed unlikely to have come by honestly. Miss Wilson felt like a boy caught robbing an orchard,

"For certain, your ladyship," he replied, respectfully applying the spade handle to his hair, which was combed

down to his eyebrows. "Your ladyship does me proud to take refuge from the onclemency of the yallovrments

beneath my 'umble rooftree." His accent was barbarous; and he, like a low comedian, seemed to relish its

vulgarity. As he spoke he came in among them for shelter, and propped his spade against the wall of the

"I came out, honored lady," he resumed, much at his ease, "to house my spade, whereby I earn my living.

What the pen is to the poet, such is the spade to the working man." He took the kerchief from his neck, wiped

his temples as if the sweat of honest toil were there, and calmly tied it on again.

"If you'll 'scuse a remark from a common man," he observed, "your ladyship has a fine family of daughters."

"I thought they mout be, acause I have a sister myself. Not that I would make bold for to dror comparisons,

even in my own mind, for she's only a common womanas common a one as ever you see. But few women

rise above the common. Last Sunday, in yon village church, I heard the minister read out that one man in a

thousand had he found, 'but one woman in all these,' he says, 'have I not found,' and I thinks to myself, 'Right

The man examined the sky with a weatherwise air for some moments. Then he turned to Agatha, and replied

Silence ensued, during which Agatha, furtively scrutinizing the tenant of the chalet, noticed that his face and

neck were cleaner and less sunburnt than those of the ordinary toilers of Lyvern. His hands were hidden by

large gardening gloves stained with coal dust. Lyvern laborers, as a rule, had little objection to soil their

hands; they never wore gloves. Still, she thought, there was no reason why an eccentric workman,

insufferably talkative, and capable of an allusion to the pen of the poet, should not indulge himself with cheap

"The young lady's hi," he said suddenly, holding out the umbrella, "is fixed on this here. I am well aware that

it is not for the lowest of the low to carry a gentleman's brolly, and I ask your ladyship's pardon for the

liberty. I come by it accidentallike, and should be glad of a reasonable offer from any gentleman in want of

As he spoke two gentlemen, much in want of the article, as their clinging wet coats showed, ran through the

gateway and made for the chalet. Fairholme arrived first, exclaiming: "Fearful shower!" and briskly turned

his back to the ladies in order to stand at the edge of the veranda and shake the water out of his hat. Josephs

came next, shrinking from the damp contact of his own garments. He cringed to Miss Wilson, and hoped that

"Oh, it's only a shower," said Josephs, looking up cheerfully at the unbroken curtain of cloud. "It will clear up

"It ain't for a common man to set up his opinion again' a gentleman wot have profesh'nal knowledge of the

heavens, as one may say," said the man, "but I would 'umbly offer to bet my umbrellar to his wideawake that

"That man lives here," whispered Miss Wilson, "and I suppose he wants to get rid of us."

"H'm!" said Fairholme. Then, turning to the strange laborer with the air of a person not to be trifled with, he

"Well, sir, I don't rightly know. If a gentleman like you, knowing jography and such, can't tell, how can I?"

"Where could such a one as me get common sense, sir? Besides, I was only a foundling. Mebbe I warn's born

"Well, let me see you there next Sunday," said Fairholme shortly, turning away from him.

Miss Wilson looked at the weather, at Josephs, who was conversing with Jane, and finally at Smilash, who

"Have you a boy whom you can send to Lyvern to get us a conveyancea carriage? I will give him a shilling

"A shilling!" said Smilash joyfully. "Your ladyship is a noble lady. Two fourwheeled cabs. There's eight on

"There is only one cab in Lyvern," said Miss Wilson. "Take this card to Mr. Marsh, the jotmaster, and tell

Smilash took the card and read it at a glance. He then went into the chalet. Reappearing presently in a

sou'wester and oilskins, he ran off through the rain and vaulted over the gate with ridiculous elegance. No

sooner had he vanished than, as often happens to remarkable men, he became the subject of conversation.

"Or a rogue," said Agatha, emphasizing the suggestion by a glitter of her eyes and teeth, whilst her

schoolfellows, rather disapproving of her freedom, stood stiffly dumb. "He told Miss Wilson that he had a

sister, and that he had been to church last Sunday, and he has just told you that he is a foundling, and that he

only came last Wednesday. His accent is put on, and he can read, and I don't believe he is a workman at all.

"Agatha," said Miss Wilson gravely, "you must be very careful how you say things of that kind."

"But it is so obvious. His explanation about the umbrella was made up to disarm suspicion. He handled it and

leaned on it in a way that showed how much more familiar it was to him than that new spade he was so

"True," said Fairholme, "but there is not much in all that. Workmen nowadays ape gentlemen in everything.

"Oh, thank you so much," said Agatha. Fairholme, suspecting mockery, frowned, and Miss Wilson looked

severely at the mocker. Little more was said, except as to the chancesmanifestly smallof the rain

ceasing, until the tops of a cab, a decayed mourning coach, and three dripping hats were seen over the hedge.

Smilash sat on the box of the coach, beside the driver. When it stopped, he alighted, reentered the chalet

without speaking, came out with the umbrella, spread it above Miss Wilson's head, and said:

"Now, if your ladyship will come with me, I will see you dry into the stray, and then I'll bring your honored

"I shall come last," said Miss Wilson, irritated by his assumption that the party was a family one. "Gertrude,

"Allow me," said Fairholme, stepping forward, and attempting to take the umbrella.

"Thank you, I shall not trouble you," she said frostily, and tripped away over the oozing field with Smilash,

who held the umbrella over her with ostentatious solicitude. In the same manner he led the rest to the

vehicles, in which they packed themselves with some difficulty. Agatha, who came last but one, gave him

"You have a noble 'art and an expressive hi, Miss," he said, apparently much moved. "Blessings on both!

He went back for Jane, who slipped on the wet grass and fell. He had to put forth his strength as he helped her

to rise. "Hope you ain't sopped up much of the rainfall, Miss," he said. "You are a fine young lady for your

She reddened and hurried to the cab, where Agatha was. But it was full; and Jane, much against her will, had

to get into the coach, considerably diminishing the space left for Miss Wilson, to whom Smilash had

"No, lady," said Smilash with a virtuous air. "I am an honest man and have never seen the inside of a jail

except four times, and only twice for stealing. Your youngest daughterher with the expressive hihave

"I have told you that these young ladies are not my daughters," said Miss Wilson sharply. "Why do you not

"Don't be too hard on a common man, lady," said Smilash submissively. "The young lady have just given me

"Bless her innocence, she don't know what is proper to give to a low sort like me! But I will not rob the

young lady. 'Arfacrown is no more nor is fair for the job, and arfacrown will I keep, if agreeable to your

noble ladyship. But I give you back the five bob in trust for her. Have you ever noticed her expressive hi?"

"Wot! Sell for five bob the high opinion your ladyship has of me! No, dear lady; not likely. My father's very

"You said just now that you were a foundling," said Fairholme. "What are we to believe? Eh?"

"So I were, sir; but by mother's side alone. Her ladyship will please to take back the money, for keep it I will

not. I am of the lower orders, and therefore not a man of my word; but when I do stick to it, I stick like wax."

"Take it," said Fairholme to Miss Wilson. "Take it, of course. Seven and sixpence is a ridiculous sum to give

"His reverence says true, lady. The one 'arfcrown will keep me comfortably tight until Sunday morning; and

"Just a little less of your tongue, my man," said Fairholme, taking the two coins from him and handing them

to Miss Wilson, who bade the clergymen good afternoon, and went to the coach under the umbrella.

"If your ladyship should want a handy man to do an odd job up at the college I hope you will remember me,"

"All the country knows you, Miss, and worships you. I have few equals as a coiner, and if you should require

a medal struck to give away for good behavior or the like, I think I could strike one to your satisfaction. And

"You had better be careful or you will get into trouble, I think," said Miss Wilson sternly. "Tell him to drive

The vehicles started, and Smilash took the liberty of waving his hat after them. Then he returned to the chalet,

left the umbrella within, came out again, locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and walked off through

the rain across the hill without taking the least notice of the astonished parsons.

In the meantime Miss Wilson, unable to contain her annoyance at Agatha's extravagance, spoke of it to the

girls who shared the coach with her. But Jane declared that Agatha only possessed threepence in the world,

and therefore could not possibly have given the man thirty times that sum. When they reached the college,

Agatha, confronted with Miss Wilson, opened her eyes in wonder, and exclaimed, laughing: "I only gave him

Saturday at Alton College, nominally a half holiday, was really a whole one. Classes in gymnastics, dancing,

elocution, and drawing were held in the morning. The afternoon was spent at lawn tennis, to which lady

guests resident in the neighborhood were allowed to bring their husbands, brothers, and fathersMiss

Wilson being anxious to send her pupils forth into the world free from the uncouth stiffness of schoolgirls

Late in October came a Saturday which proved anything but a holiday for Miss Wilson. At halfpast one,

luncheon being over, she went out of doors to a lawn that lay between the southern side of the college and a

shrubbery. Here she found a group of girls watching Agatha and Jane, who were dragging a roller over the

grass. One of them, tossing a ball about with her racket, happened to drive it into the shrubbery, whence, to

the surprise of the company, Smilash presently emerged, carrying the ball, blinking, and proclaiming that,

though a common man, he had his feelings like another, and that his eye was neither a stick nor a stone. He

was dressed as before, but his garments, soiled with clay and lime, no longer looked new.

"I was led into the belief that you sent for me, lady," he replied. "The baker's lad told me so as he passed my

"That is quite right; I did send for you. But why did you not go round to the servants' hall?"

"I am at present in search of it, lady. I were looking for it when this ball cotch me here " (touching his eye).

"A cruel blow on the hi' nat'rally spires its vision and expression and makes a honest man look like a thief."

"This is the man from whom I had the five shillings, which he said you had just given him. Did you do so ?"

"But I showed the money to your ladyship," said Smilash, twisting his hat agitatedly. "I gev it you. Where

would the like of me get five shillings except by the bounty of the rich and noble? If the young lady thinks I

hadn't ort to have kep' the tother 'arfcrown, I would not object to its bein' stopped from my wages if I were

"Perhaps you mout 'a' made a mistake. Pence is summat similar to 'arfcrowns, and the day were very dark."

"I couldn't have," said Agatha. "Jane had my purse all the earlier part of the week, Miss Wilson, and she can

tell you that there was only threepence in it. You know that I get my money on the first of every month. It

never lasts longer than a week. The idea of my having seven and sixpence on the sixteenth is ridiculous."

"But I put it to you, Miss, ain't it twice as ridiculous for me, a poor laborer, to give up money wot I never

Vague alarm crept upon Agatha as the testimony of her senses was contradicted. "All I know is," she

protested, "that I did not give it to you; so my pennies must have turned into halfcrowns in your pocket."

"Mebbe so," said Smilash gravely. "I've heard, and I know it for a fact, that money grows in the pockets of

the rich. Why not in the pockets of the poor as well? Why should you be su'prised at wot 'appens every day?"

"Where could the like of me get money?asking pardon for making so bold as to catechise your ladyship."

"I don't know where you could get it," said Miss Wilson testily; "I ask you, had you any?"

"Then you've made a mistake," said Miss Wilson, handing him back his money. "Here. If it is not yours, it is

"Keep it! Oh, lady, but this is the heighth of nobility! And what shall I do to earn your bounty, lady?"

"It is not my bounty: I give it to you because it does not belong to me, and, I suppose, must belong to you.

"I thank your ladyship; I hope I am. Respecting the day's work, now, lady; was you thinking of employing a

"No, thank you; I have no occasion for your services. I have also to give you the shilling I promised you for

"Yes," said Miss Wilson, beginning to feel very angry. "Let me hear no more about it, please. Don't you

"I am a common man, and understand next to nothing," he replied reverently. "But if your ladyship would

give me a day's work to keep me goin', I could put up all this money in a little wooden savings bank I have at

home, and keep it to spend when sickness or odd age shall, in a manner of speaking, lay their 'ends upon me.

I could smooth that grass beautiful; them young ladies 'll strain themselves with that heavy roller. If tennis is

the word, I can put up nets fit to catch birds of paradise in. If the courts is to be chalked out in white, I can

draw a line so straight that you could hardly keep yourself from erecting an equilateral triangle on it. I am

honest when well watched, and I can wait at table equal to the Lord Mayor o' London's butler."

"I cannot employ you without a character," said Miss Wilson, amused by his scrap of Euclid, and wondering

"I bear the best of characters, lady. The reverend rector has known me from a boy."

"I was speaking to him about you yesterday," said Miss Wilson, looking hard at him, "and he says you are a

"Gentlemen is so forgetful," said Smilash sadly. "But I alluded to my native rectormeaning the rector of

my native village, Auburn. 'Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,' as the gentleman called it."

"That was not the name you mentioned to Mr. Fairholme. I do not recollect what name you gave, but it was

"Not in any geography or gazetteer. Do you recollect telling me that you have been in prison?"

"Only six times," pleaded Smilash, his features working convulsively. "Don't bear too hard on a common

man. Only six times, and all through drink. But I have took the pledge, and kep' it faithful for eighteen

Miss Wilson now set down the man as one of those keen, halfwitted country fellows, contemptuously styled

originals, who unintentionally make themselves popular by flattering the sense of sanity in those whose

"You have a bad memory, Mr. Smilash," she said goodhumoredly. "You never give the same account of

"I am well aware that I do not express myself with exactability. Ladies and gentlemen have that power over

words that they can always say what they mean, but a common man like me can't. Words don't come natural

to him. He has more thoughts than words, and what words he has don't fit his thoughts. Might I take a turn

with the roller, and make myself useful about the place until nightfall, for ninepence?"

Miss Wilson, who was expecting more than her usual Saturday visitors, considered the proposition and

assented. "And remember," she said, "that as you are a stranger here, your character in Lyvern depends upon

"I am grateful to your noble ladyship. May your ladyship's goodness sew up the hole which is in the pocket

where I carry my character, and which has caused me to lose it so frequent. It's a bad place for men to keep

their characters in; but such is the fashion. And so hurray for the glorious nineteenth century!"

He took off his coat, seized the roller, and began to pull it with an energy foreign to the measured millhorse

manner of the accustomed laborer. Miss Wilson looked doubtfully at him, but, being in haste, went indoors

without further comment. The girls mistrusting his eccentricity, kept aloof. Agatha determined to have

another and better look at him. Racket in hand, she walked slowly across the grass and came close to him just

as he, unaware of her approach, uttered a groan of exhaustion and sat down to rest.

He looked up deliberately, took off one of his washleather gloves, fanned himself with it, displaying a white

and fine hand, and at last replied, in the tone and with the accent of a gentleman:

"Suppose I tell on you," she said, growing bolder as she recollected that she was not alone with him.

"If you do I shall get out of it just as I got out of the halfcrowns, and Miss Wilson will begin to think that

"What is your own opinion?" he answered, taking three pennies from his pocket, jingling them in his palm.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "I would not tell you mine if you asked me."

"Not they. Besides, I am not hiding from the police. I have a right to wear corduroy if I prefer it to

broadcloth. Consider the advantages of it! It has procured me admission to Alton College, and the pleasure of

your acquaintance. Will you excuse me if I go on with my rolling, just to keep up appearances? I can talk as I

"But I don't know you. I wonder at your" she hesitated at the word which occurred to her, but, being

He laughed, and she watched him take a couple of turns with the roller. Presently, refreshing himself by a

look at her, he caught her looking at him, and smiled. His smile was commonplace in comparison with the

one she gave him in return, in which her eyes, her teeth, and the golden grain in her complexion seemed to

flash simultaneously. He stopped rolling immediately, and rested his chin on the handle of the roller.

"If you neglect your work," said she maliciously, you won't have the grass ready when the people come."

"Oh, lots of people. Most likely some who know you. There are visitors coming from London: my guardian,

"To take me away," she replied, watching for signs of disappointment on his part.

They were at once forthcoming. "What the deuce are they going to take you away for?" he said. "Is your

He laughed again. "Come!" he said, "you are beginning to invent in the Smilash manner. What have you

"I! Oh, I have done nothing. I am only an unromantic gentleman, hiding from a romantic lady who is in love

"Poor thing," said Agatha sarcastically. "Of course, she has proposed to you, and you have refused."

"You tell stories charmingly," said Agatha. "Goodbye. Here is Miss Carpenter coming to hear what we are

"Goodbye. That story of your being expelled beatsMight a common man make so bold as to inquire

This was addressed to Jane, who had come up with some of the others. Agatha expected to see Smilash

presently discovered, for his disguise now seemed transparent; she wondered how the rest could be imposed

on by it. Two o'clock, striking just then, reminded her of the impending interview with her guardian. A

tremor shook her, and she felt a craving for some solitary hidingplace in which to await the summons. But it

was a point of honor with her to appear perfectly indifferent to her trouble, so she stayed with the girls,

laughing and chatting as they watched Smilash intently marking out the courts and setting up the nets. She

made the others laugh too, for her hidden excitement, sharpened by irrepressible shootings of dread,

stimulated her, and the romance of Smilash's disguise gave her a sensation of dreaming. Her imagination was

already busy upon a drama, of which she was the heroine and Smilash the hero, though, with the real man

before her, she could not indulge herself by attributing to him quite as much gloomy grandeur of character as

to a wholly ideal personage. The plot was simple, and an old favorite with her. One of them was to love the

other and to die brokenhearted because the loved one would not requite the passion. For Agatha, prompt to

ridicule sentimentality in her companions, and gifted with an infectious spirit of farce, secretly turned for

imaginative luxury to visions of despair and death; and often endured the mortification of the successful

clown who believes, whilst the public roar with laughter at him, that he was born a tragedian. There was

much in her nature, she felt, that did not find expression in her popular representation of the soldier in the

By three o'clock the local visitors had arrived, and tennis was proceeding in four courts, rolled and prepared

by Smilash. The two curates were there, with a few lay gentlemen. Mrs. Miller, the vicar, and some mothers

and other chaperons looked on and consumed light refreshments, which were brought out upon trays by

Smilash, who had borrowed and put on a large white apron, and was making himself officiously busy.

At a quarter past the hour a message came from Miss Wilson, requesting Miss Wylie's attendance. The

visitors were at a loss to account for the sudden distraction of the young ladies' attention which ensued. Jane

almost burst into tears, and answered Josephs rudely when he innocently asked what the matter was. Agatha

went away apparently unconcerned, though her hand shook as she put aside her racket.

In a spacious drawingroom at the north side of the college she found her mother, a slight woman in widow's

weeds, with faded brown hair, and tearful eyes. With her were Mrs. Jansenius and her daughter. The two

elder ladies kept severely silent whilst Agatha kissed them, and Mrs. Wylie sniffed. Henrietta embraced

"He is in the next room with Miss Wilson," said Mrs. Jansenius coldly. "They want you in there."

"I thought somebody was dead," said Agatha, "you all look so funereal. Now, mamma, put your handkerchief

back again. If you cry I will give Miss Wilson a piece of my mind for worrying you."

"She always is," said Agatha complacently. "You didn't expect to find her in hysterics, did you?"

"Oh, she won't; I know she won't," said Henrietta coaxingly. "Will you, dear Agatha?"

"You may do as you like, as far as I am concerned," said Mrs. Jansenius. "But I hope you have more sense

"Your aunt is quite right," said Mrs. Wylie. "And your Uncle John is very angry with you. He will never

"He is not angry," said Henrietta, "but he is so anxious that you should get on well."

"He will naturally be disappointed if you persist in making a fool of yourself," said Mrs. Jansenius.

"All Miss Wilson wants is an apology for the dreadful things you wrote in her book," said Mrs. Wylie.

"You will, dear," urged Mrs. Wylie, trying to draw Agatha, who passively resisted, closer to her. "For my

Agatha laughed indulgently at her parent, who had long ago worn out this form of appeal. Then she turned to

Henrietta, and said, "How is your caro sposo? I think it was hard that I was not a bridesmaid."

The red in Henrietta's cheeks brightened. Mrs. Jansenius hastened to interpose a dry reminder that Miss

"Oh, she does not mind waiting," said Agatha, "because she thinks you are all at work getting me into a

proper frame of mind. That was the arrangement she made with you before she left the room. Mamma knows

that I have a little bird that tells me these things. I must say that you have not made me feel any

goodygoodier so far. However, as poor Uncle John must be dreadfully frightened and uncomfortable, it is

only kind to put an end to his suspense. Goodbye!" And she went out leisurely. But she looked in again to

say in a low voice: "Prepare for something thrilling. I feel just in the humor to say the most awful things."

She vanished, and immediately they heard her tapping at the door of the next room.

Mr. Jansenius was indeed awaiting her with misgiving. Having discovered early in his career that his

dignified person and fine voice caused people to stand in some awe of him, and to move him into the chair at

public meetings, he had grown so accustomed to deference that any approach to familiarity or irreverence

disconcerted him exceedingly. Agatha, on the other hand, having from her childhood heard Uncle John

quoted as wisdom and authority incarnate, had begun in her tender years to scoff at him as a pompous and

purseproud city merchant, whose sordid mind was unable to cope with her transcendental affairs. She had

habitually terrified her mother by ridiculing him with an absolute contempt of which only childhood and

extreme ignorance are capable. She had felt humiliated by his kindness to her (he was a generous giver of

presents), and, with the instinct of an anarchist, had taken disparagement of his advice and defiance of his

authority as the signs wherefrom she might infer surely that her face was turned to the light. The result was

that he was a little tired of her without being quite conscious of it; and she not at all afraid of him, and a little

When she entered with her brightest smile in full play, Miss Wilson and Mr. Jansenius, seated at the table,

looked somewhat like two culprits about to be indicted. Miss Wilson waited for him to speak, deferring to his

"I have heard with regret from Miss Wilson that you have been very troublesome here," he said, ignoring her

Mr. Jansenius, who had been led by Miss Wilson to expect the utmost contumacy, looked to her in surprise.

"You seem to think," said Miss Wilson, conscious of Mr. Jansenius's movement, and annoyed by it, "that you

may transgress over and over again, and then set yourself right with us," (Miss Wilson never spoke of

offences as against her individual authority, but as against the school community) "by saying that you are

"I was angry then, Miss Wilson. And I thought I had a grievanceeverybody thinks they have the same one.

Besides, we were quarrellingat least I was; and I always behave badly when I quarrel. I am so very sorry."

"The book was a serious matter," said Miss Wilson gravely. "You do not seem to think so."

"I understand Agatha to say that she is now sensible of the folly of her conduct with regard to the book, and

that she is sorry for it," said Mr. Jansenius, instinctively inclining to Agatha's party as the stronger one and

the least dependent on him in a pecuniary sense. Have you seen the book?" said Agatha eagerly.

"Oh, do let me get it," she cried, rising. "It will make Uncle John scream with laughing. May I, Miss

"There!" said Miss Wilson, indignantly. "It is this incorrigible flippancy of which I have to complain. Miss

Mr. Jansenius too was scandalized. His fine color mounted at the idea of his screaming. "Tut, tut!" he said,

"you must be serious, and more respectful to Miss Wilson. You are old enough to know better now,

Agatha's mirth vanished. "What have I said What have I done?" she asked, a faint purple spot appearing in

"You have spoken triflingly ofof the volume by which Miss Wilson sets great store, and properly so."

"Come, come," roared Mr. Jansenius, deliberately losing his temper as a last expedient to subdue her, "don't

Agatha's eyes dilated; evanescent flushes played upon her cheeks and neck; she stamped with her heel.

"Uncle John," she cried, "if you dare to address me like that, I will never look at you, never speak to you, nor

ever enter your house again. What do you know about good manners, that you should call me impertinent? I

will not submit to intentional rudeness; that was the beginning of my quarrel with Miss Wilson. She told me I

was impertinent, and I went away and told her that she was wrong by writing it in the fault book. She has

been wrong all through, and I would have said so before but that I wanted to be reconciled to her and to let

"I have already explained to you, Mr. Jansenius," said Miss Wilson, concentrating her resentment by an effort

to suppress it, "that Miss Wylie has ignored all the opportunities that have been made for her to reinstate

herself here. Mrs. Miller and I have waived merely personal considerations, and I have only required a simple

"I do not care that for Mrs. Miller," said Agatha, snapping her fingers. "And you are not half so good as I

Agatha drew a deep breath, sat down resignedly, and said: "There! I have done. I have lost my temper; so

"You have no right to lose your temper, Miss," said Mr. Jansenius, following up a fancied advantage.

"I am the youngest, and the least to blame," she replied. "There is nothing further to be said, Mr. Jansenius,"

said Miss Wilson, determinedly. "I am sorry that Miss Wylie has chosen to break with us."

"But I have not chosen to break with you, and I think it very hard that I am to be sent away. Nobody here has

the least quarrel with me except you and Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller is annoyed because she mistook me for her

cat, as if that was my fault! And really, Miss Wilson, I don't know why you are so angry. All the girls will

think I have done something infamous if I am expelled. I ought to be let stay until the end of the term; and as

to the Recthe fault book, you told me most particularly when I first came that I might write in it or not just

as I pleased, and that you never dictated or interfered with what was written. And yet the very first time I

write a word you disapprove of, you expel me. Nobody will ever believe now that the entries are voluntary."

Miss Wilson's conscience, already smitten by the coarseness and absence of moral force in the echo of her

own "You are impertinent," from the mouth of Mr. Jansenius, took fresh alarm. "The fault book," she said, "is

for the purpose of recording selfreproach alone, and is not a vehicle for accusations against others."

"I am quite sure that neither Jane nor Gertrude nor I reproached ourselves in the least for going downstairs as

we did, and yet you did not blame us for entering that. Besides, the book represented moral forceat least

you always said so, and when you gave up moral force, I thought an entry should be made of that. Of course I

was in a rage at the time, hut when I came to myself I thought I had done right, and I think so still, though it

"Telling people to leave the room is not moral force. Calling them impertinent is not moral force."

"You think then that I am bound to listen patiently to whatever you choose to say to me, however

"But I said nothing unbecoming," said Agatha. Then, breaking off restlessly, and smiling again, she said:

"Oh, don't let us argue. I am very sorry, and very troublesome, and very fond of you and of the college; and I

"Agatha," said Miss Wilson, shaken, "these expressions of regard cost you so little, and when they have

effected their purpose, are so soon forgotten by you, that they have ceased to satisfy me. I am very reluctant

to insist on your leaving us at once. But as your uncle has told you, you are old and sensible enough to know

the difference between order and disorder. Hitherto you have been on the side of disorder, an element which

was hardly known here until you came, as Mrs. Trefusis can tell you. Nevertheless, if you will promise to be

more careful in future, I will waive all past cause of complaint, and at the end of the term I shall be able to

Agatha rose, beaming. "Dear Miss Wilson," she said, "you are so good! I promise, of course. I will go and tell

Before they could add a word she had turned with a pirouette to the door, and fled, presenting herself a

moment later in the drawingroom to the three ladies, whom she surveyed with a whimsical smile in silence.

"I had no end of trouble in bringing them to reason," said Agatha, after a provoking pause. "They behaved

"Blessings on you, my darling," faltered Mrs. Wylie, attempting a kiss, which Agatha dexterously evaded.

"I have promised to be very good, and studious, and quiet, and decorous in future. Do you remember my

"'Tra! lalala, la! la! la! Tra! lalala, la! la! la! Tra! lalalalalalalalalalala!'"

"Don't be so reckless and wicked, my love," said Mrs. Wylie. "You will break your poor mother's heart."

Miss Wilson and Mr. Jansenius entered just then, and Agatha became motionless and gazed abstractedly at a

vase of flowers. Miss Wilson invited her visitors to join the tennis players. Mr. Jansenius looked sternly and

disappointedly at Agatha, who elevated her left eyebrow and depressed her right simultaneously; but he,

shaking his head to signify that he was not to be conciliated by facial feats, however difficult or contrary to

Mrs. Trefusis's eyes filled with tears so quickly that, as she bent her head to hide them, they fell, sprinkling

"What is the matter between you and Hubby?" demanded Agatha, interrupting her. "You had better tell me,

Henrietta hesitated. Her dignity as a married woman, and the reality of her grief, revolted against the shallow

acuteness of the schoolgirl. But she found herself no better able to resist Agatha's domineering than she had

been in her childhood, and much more desirous of obtaining her sympathy. Besides, she had already learnt to

tell the story herself rather than leave its narration to others, whose accounts did not, she felt, put her case in

the proper light. So she told Agatha of her marriage, her wild love for her husband, his wild love for her, and

his mysterious disappearance without leaving word or sign behind him. She did not mention the letter.

"Have you had him searched for?" said Agatha, repressing an inclination to laugh.

"But where? Had I the remotest clue, I would follow him barefoot to the end of the world."

"I think you ought to search all the riversyou would have to do that barefoot. He must have fallen in

"No, no. Do you think I should be here if I thought his life in danger? I have reasonsI know that he is only

"Oh, indeed! He took his portmanteau with him, did he? Perhaps he has gone to Paris to buy you something

Henrietta's peculiar scarlet blush flowed rapidly over her cheeks as she flung Agatha's arm away, exclaiming,

"Bosh!" said Agatha. "People always grow tired of one another. I grow tired of myself whenever I am left

alone for ten minutes, and I am certain that I am fonder of myself than anyone can be of another person."

"I know you are," said Henrietta, pained and spiteful. "You have always been particularly fond of yourself."

"Very likely he resembles me in that respect. In that case he will grow tired of himself and come back, and

you will both coo like turtle doves until he runs away again. Ugh! Serve you right for getting married. I

wonder how people can be so mad as to do it, with the example of their married acquaintances all warning

"You don't know what it is to love," said Henrietta, plaintively, and yet patronizingly. "Besides, we were not

"So it seems. But never mind, take my word for it, he will return to you as soon as he has had enough of his

own company. Don't worry thinking about him, but come and have a game at lawn tennis."

During this conversation they had left the drawingroom and made a detour through the grounds. They were

now approaching the tennis courts by a path which wound between two laurel hedges through the shrubbery.

Meanwhile, Smilash, waiting on the guests in his white apron and gloves (which he had positively refused to

take off, alleging that he was a common man, with common hands such as born ladies and gentlemen could

not be expected to take meat and drink from), had behaved himself irreproachably until the arrival of Miss

Wilson and her visitors, which occurred as he was returning to the table with an empty tray, moving so

swiftly that he nearly came into collision with Mrs. Jansenius. Instead of apologizing, he changed

countenance, hastily held up the tray like a shield before his face, and began to walk backward from her,

stumbling presently against Miss Lindsay, who was running to return a ball. Without heeding her angry look

and curt rebuke, he half turned, and sidled away into the shrubbery, whence the tray presently rose into the

air, flew across the laurel hedge, and descended with a peal of stage thunder on the stooped shoulders of

Josephs. Miss Wilson, after asking the housekeeper with some asperity why she had allowed that man to

interfere in the attendance, explained to the guests that he was the idiot of the countryside. Mr. Jansenius

laughed, and said that he had not seen the man's face, but that his figure reminded him forcibly of some one;

Smilash, making off through the shrubbery, found the end of his path blocked by Agatha and a young lady

whose appearance alarmed him more than had that of Mrs. Jansenius. He attempted to force his tray through

the hedge, but in vain; the laurel was impenetrable, and the noise he made attracted the attention of the

approaching couple. He made no further effort to escape, but threw his borrowed apron over his head and

Agatha laughed, and said loudly, so that he might hear: "It is only a harmless madman that Miss Wilson

employs. He is fond of disguising himself in some silly way and trying to frighten us. Don't be afraid. Come

Henrietta hung back, but her arm was linked in Agatha's, and she was drawn along in spite of herself. Smilash

did not move. Agatha strolled on coolly, and as she passed him, adroitly caught the apron between her finger

and thumb and twitched it from his face. Instantly Henrietta uttered a piercing scream, and Smilash caught

"Quick," he said to Agatha, "she is fainting. Run for some water. Run!" And he bent over Henrietta, who

clung to him frantically. Agatha, bewildered by the effect of her practical joke, hesitated a moment, and then

"Nothing. I want some waterquick, please. Henrietta has fainted in the shrubbery, that is all."

"Please do not stir," said Miss Wilson authoritatively, "you will crowd the path and delay useful assistance.

Miss Ward, kindly get some water and bring it to us. Agatha, come with me and point out where Mrs.

Trefusis is. You may come too, Miss Carpenter; you are so strong. The rest will please remain where they

Followed by the two girls, she hurried into the shrubbery, where Mr. Jansenius was already looking anxiously

for his daughter. He was the only person they found there. Smilash and Henrietta were gone.

At first the seekers, merely puzzled, did nothing but question Agatha incredulously as to the exact spot on

which Henrietta had fallen. But Mr. Jansenius soon made them understand that the position of a lady in the

hands of a halfwitted laborer was one of danger. His agitation infected them, and when Agatha endeavored

to reassure him by declaring that Smilash was a disguised gentleman, Miss Wilson, supposing this to be a

mere repetition of her former idle conjecture, told her sharply to hold her tongue, as the time was not one for

talking nonsense. The news now spread through the whole company, and the excitement became intense.

Fairholme shouted for volunteers to make up a searching party. All the men present responded, and they were

about to rush to the college gates in a body when it Occurred to the cooler among them that they had better

divide into several parties, in order that search might be made at once in different quarters. Ten minutes of

confusion followed. Mr. Jansenius started several times in quest of Henrietta, and, when he had gone a few

steps, returned and begged that no more time should be wasted. Josephs, whose faith was simple, retired to

pray, and did good, as far as it went, by withdrawing one voice from the din of plans, objections, and

suggestions which the rest were making; each person trying to be heard above the others.

At last Miss Wilson quelled the prevailing anarchy. Servants were sent to alarm the neighbors and call in the

village police. Detachments were sent in various directions under the command of Fairholme and other

energetic spirits. The girls formed parties among themselves, which were reinforced by male deserters from

the previous levies. Miss Wilson then went indoors and conducted a search through the interior of the college.

Only two persons were left on the tennis groundAgatha and Mrs. Jansenius, who had been surprisingly

"You need not be anxious," said Agatha, who had been standing aloof since her rebuff by Miss Wilson. "I am

sure there is no danger. It is most extraordinary that they have gone away; but the man is no more mad than I

"Let us hope for the best," said Mrs. Jansenius, smoothly. "I think I will sit downI feel so tired. Thanks."

Agatha related the circumstances of her acquaintance with Smilash, adding, at Mrs. Jansenius's request, a

minute description of his personal appearance. Mrs. Jansenius remarked that it was very singular, and that she

was sure Henrietta was quite safe. She then partook of claretcup and sandwiches. Agatha, though glad to

find someone disposed to listen to her, was puzzled by her aunt's coolness, and was even goaded into pointing

out that though Smilash was not a laborer, it did not follow that he was an honest man. But Mrs. Jansenius

only said: "Oh, she is safequite safe! At least, of course, I can only hope so. We shall have news

The searchers soon began to return, baffled. A few shepherds, the only persons in the vicinity, had been asked

whether they had seen a young lady and a laborer. Some of them had seen a young woman with a basket of

clothes, if that mout be her. Some thought that Phil Martin the carrier would see her if anybody would. None

As the afternoon wore on, and party after party returned tired and unsuccessful, depression replaced

excitement; conversation, no longer tumultuous, was carried on in whispers, and some of the local visitors

slipped away to their homes with a growing conviction that something unpleasant had happened, and that it

would be as well not to be mixed up in it. Mr. Jansenius, though a few words from his wife had surprised and

At last the police arrived. At sight of their uniforms excitement revived; there was a general conviction that

something effectual would be done now. But the constables were only mortal, and in a few moments a

whisper spread that they were fooled. They doubted everything told them, and expressed their contempt for

amateur searching by entering on a fresh investigation, prying with the greatest care into the least probable

places. Two of them went off to the chalet to look for Smilash. Then Fairholme, sunburnt, perspiring, and

dusty, but still energetic, brought back the exhausted remnant of his party, with a sullen boy, who scowled

defiantly at the police, evidently believing that he was about to be delivered into their custody.

Fairholme had been everywhere, and, having seen nothing of the missing pair, had come to the conclusion

that they were nowhere. He had asked everybody for information, and had let them know that he meant to

have it too, if it was to be had. But it was not to be had. The sole resort of his labor was the evidence of the

"'Im!" said the inspector, not quite pleased by Fairholme's zeal, and yet overborne by it. "You're Wickens's

"Yes, I am Wickens's boy," said the witness, partly fierce, partly lachrymose, "and I say I seen him, and if

"Come," said the inspector sharply, "give us none of your cheek, but tell us what you saw, or you'll have to

"I don't care who I deal with," said the boy, at bay. "I can't be took for seein' him, because there's no lor agin

"Who gave you leave?" said the inspector, collaring him. "Ah," he added, as the captive burst into tears, "I

told you you'd have to deal with me. Now hold your noise, and remember where you are and who you're

speakin' to; and perhaps I mayn't lock you up this time. Tell me what you saw when you were trespassin' in

"I sor a young 'omen and a man. And I see her kissin' him; and the gentleman won't believe me."

"No, I don't. I know wot it is to have a girl kiss you when you don't want. And I gev a screech to friken 'em.

And he called me and gev me tuppence, and sez, 'You go to the devil,' he sez, 'and don't tell no one you seen

me here, or else,' he sez, 'I might be tempted to drownd you,' he sez, 'and wot a shock that would be to your

parents! ' 'Oh, yes, very likely,' I sez, jes' like that. Then I went away, because he knows Mr. Wickens, and I

The boy being now subdued, questions were put to him from all sides. But his powers of observation and

description went no further. As he was anxious to propitiate his captors, he answered as often as possible in

the affirmative. Mr. Jansenius asked him whether the young woman he had seen was a lady, and he said yes.

Was the man a laborer? Yesafter a moment's hesitation. How was she dressed? He hadn't taken notice. Had

she red flowers in her hat? Yes. Had she a green dress? Yes. Were the flowers in her hat yellow? (Agatha's

"Well, I expect he's seen something," said the inspector, "but what it was, or who it was, is more than I can

There was a pause, and they looked askance upon Wickens's boy. His account of the kissing made it almost

an insult to the Janseniuses to identify with Henrietta the person he had seen. Jane suggested dragging the

canal, but was silenced by an indignant "shshsh," accompanied by apprehensive and sympathetic glances

at the bereaved parents. She was displaced from the focus of attention by the appearance of the two

policemen who had been sent to the chalet. Smilash was between them, apparently a prisoner. At a distance,

he seemed to have suffered some frightful injury to his head, but when he was brought into the midst of the

company it appeared that he had twisted a red handkerchief about his face as if to soothe a toothache. He had

a particularly hangdog expression as he stood before the inspector with his head bowed and his countenance

averted from Mr. Jansenius, who, attempting to scrutinize his features, could see nothing but a patch of red

One of the policemen described how they had found Smilash in the act of entering his dwelling; how he had

refused to give any information or to go to the college, and had defied them to take him there against his will;

and how, on their at last proposing to send for the inspector and Mr. Jansenius, he had called them asses, and

consented to accompany them. The policeman concluded by declaring that the man was either drunk or

"Look here, governor," began Smilash to the inspector, "I am a common manno commoner goin', as you

"That's 'im," cried Wickens's boy, suddenly struck with a sense of his own importance as a witness. "That's

'im that the lady kissed, and that gev me tuppence and threatened to drownd me."

"And with a 'umble and contrite 'art do I regret that I did not drownd you, you young rascal," said Smilash. "It

ain't manners to interrupt a man who, though common, might be your father for years and wisdom."

"Hold your tongue," said the inspector to the boy. "Now, Smilash, do you wish to make any statement? Be

"If you was to lead me straight away to the scaffold, colonel, I could tell you no more than the truth. If any

"We don't want to hear about that," said the inspector. "As you are a stranger in these parts, nobody here

"Colonel," said Smilash, deeply impressed, "you have a penetrating mind, and you know a bad character at

sight. Not to deceive you, I am that given to lying, and laziness, and selfindulgence of all sorts, that the only

excuse I can find for myself is that it is the nature of the race so to be; for most men is just as bad as me, and

some of 'em worsen I do not speak pers'nal to you, governor, nor to the honorable gentlemen here assembled.

But then you, colonel, are a hinspector of police, which I take to be more than merely human; and as to the

gentlemen here, a gentleman ain't a manleastways not a common manthe common man bein' but the

"Come," said the inspector, unable to follow these observations, "you are a clever dodger, but you can't dodge

me. Have you any statement to make with reference to the lady that was last seen in your company?"

"Take a statement about a lady!" said Smilash indignantly. "Far be the thought from my mind!"

"You're not bound to answer that, you know," said the inspector, a little put out by Agatha's taking advantage

of her irresponsible unofficial position to come so directly to the point. "You may if you like, though. If

you've done any harm, you'd better hold your tongue. If not, you'd better say so."

"I will set the young lady's mind at rest respecting her honorable sister," said Smilash. "When the young lady

caught sight of me she fainted. Bein' but a young man, and not used to ladies, I will not deny but that I were a

bit scared, and that my mind were not open to the sensiblest considerations. When she unveils her orbs, so to

speak, she ketches me round the neck, not knowin' me from Adam the father of us all, and sez, 'Bring me

some water, and don't let the girls see me.' Through not 'avin' the intelligence to think for myself, I done just

what she told me. I ups with her in my armsshe bein' a light weight and a slender figureand makes for

the canal as fast as I could. When I got there, I lays her on the bank and goes for the water. But what with

factories, and pollutions, and high civilizations of one sort and another, English canal water ain't fit to

sprinkle on a lady, much less for her to drink. Just then, as luck would have it, a barge came along and took

"To such a thing," said Wickens's boy stubbornly, emboldened by witnessing the effrontery of one apparently

of his own class. "I sor you two standin' together, and her a kissin' of you. There worn's no barge."

"Is the maiden modesty of a born lady to be disbelieved on the word of a common boy that only walks the

earth by the sufferance of the landlords and moneylords he helps to feed?" cried Smilash indignantly. "Why,

you young infidel, a lady ain't made of common brick like you. She don't know what a kiss means, and if she

did, is it likely that she'd kiss me when a fine man like the inspector here would be only too happy to oblige

her. Fie, for shame! The barge were red and yellow, with a green dragon for a figurehead, and a white horse

towin' of it. Perhaps you're colorblind, and can't distinguish red and yellow. The bargee was moved to

compassion by the sight of the poor faintin' lady, and the offer of 'arfacrown, and he had a mother that

acted as a mother should. There was a cabin in that barge about as big as the locker where your ladyship

keeps your jam and pickles, and in that locker the bargee lives, quite domestic, with his wife and mother and

five children. Them canal boats is what you may call the wooden walls of England."

"Come, get on with your story," said the inspector. "We know what barges is as well as you."

"I wish more knew of 'em," retorted Smilash; "perhaps it 'ud lighten your work a bit. However, as I was

sayin', we went right down the canal to Lyvern, where we got off, and the lady she took the railway omnibus

and went away in it. With the noble openhandedness of her class, she gave me sixpence; here it is, in proof

that my words is true. And I wish her safe home, and if I was on the rack I could tell no more, except that

when I got back I were laid hands on by these here bobbies, contrary to the British constitooshun, and if your

ladyship will kindly go to where that constitooshun is wrote down, and find out wot it sez about my rights

and libertiesfor I have been told that the workingman has his liberties, and have myself seen plenty took

with him you will oblige a common chap more than his education will enable him to express."

"Sir," cried Mr. Jansenius suddenly, "will you hold up your head and look me in the face?"

Smilash did so, and immediately started theatrically, exclaiming, "Whom do I see?"

"You would hardly believe it," he continued, addressing the company at large, "but I am well beknown to this

honorable gentleman. I see it upon your lips, governor, to ask after my missus, and I thank you for your

condescending interest. She is well, sir, and my residence here is fully agreed upon between us. What little

cloud may have rose upon our domestic horizon has past away; and, governor"here Smilash's voice fell

with graver emphasis"them as interferes betwixt man and wife now will incur a nevvy responsibility. Here

I am, such as you see me, and here I mean to stay, likewise such as you see me. That is, if what you may call

destiny permits. For destiny is a rum thing, governor. I came here thinking it was the last place in the world I

should ever set eyes on you in, and blow me if you ain't a'most the first person I pops on."

"Asking your leave to take the word out of your mouth, governor, I make you a party to nothink. Respecting

my past conduct, you may out with it or you may keep it to yourself. All I say is that if you out with some of

it I will out with the rest. All or none. You are free to tell the inspector here that I am a bad 'un. His

penetrating mind have discovered that already. But if you go into names and particulars, you will not only be

acting against the wishes of my missus, but you will lead to my tellin' the whole story right out afore

"I think the less said the better," said Mrs. Jansenius, uneasily observant of the curiosity and surprise this

"Mr. Smilash, whatever arrangement you may have made with your wife, it has nothing to do with me. You

have behaved infamously, and I desire to have as little as possible to say to you in future! I desire to have

nothing to say to younothing" said Mr. Jansenius. "I look on your conduct as an insult to me, personally.

You may live in any fashion you please, and where you please. All England is open to you except one

placemy house. Come, Ruth." He offered his arm to his wife; she took it, and they turned away, looking

about for Agatha, who, disgusted at the gaping curiosity of the rest, had pointedly withdrawn beyond earshot

Miss Wilson looked from Smilashwho had watched Mr. Jansenius's explosion of wrath with friendly

interest, as if it concerned him as a curious spectator onlyto her two visitors as they retreated. "Pray, do

"I am far too common a man to be able to make any statement that could satisfy a mind cultivated as yours

has been," said Smilash, "but I would 'umbly pint out to you that there is a boy yonder with a telegram trying

She took the telegram; read it; and frowned. "We have had all our trouble for nothing, ladies and gentlemen,"

she said, with suppressed vexation. "Mrs. Trefusis says here that she has gone back to London. She has not

"Don't lose heart, ladies," said Smilash. "She may be drowned or murdered for all we know. Anyone may

send a telegram in a false name. Perhaps it's a plant. Let's hope for your sakes that some little accidenton

Miss Wilson turned upon him, glad to find someone with whom she might justly be angry. "You had better

"This is 'ard," said Smilash plaintively. "My intentions was nothing but good. But I know wot it is. It's that

"Inspector," said Miss Wilson, "will you oblige me by seeing that he leaves the college as soon as possible?"

"Where's my wages?" he retorted reproachfully. "Where's my lawful wages? I am su'prised at a lady like you,

chock full o' moral science and political economy, wanting to put a poor man off. Where's your wages fund?

"Don't you give him anything, ma'am," said the inspector. "The money he's had from the lady will pay him

"Very well," grumbled Smilash. "I bargained for ninepence, and what with the roller, and opening the soda

water, and shoving them heavy tables about, there was a decomposition of tissue in me to the tune of two

shillings. But all I ask is the ninepence, and let the lady keep the one and threppence as the reward of

abstinence. Exploitation of labor at the rate of a hundred and twentyfive per cent., that is. Come, give us

"You have a noble 'art, lady; but you're flying in the face of the law of supply and demand. If you keep payin'

at this rate, there'll be a rush of laborers to the college, and competition'll soon bring you down from a shilling

to sixpence, let alone ninepence. That's the way wages go down and death rates goes up, worse luck for the

He was about to continue when the policeman took him by the arm, turned him towards the gate, and pointed

expressively in that direction. Smilash looked vacantly at him for a moment. Then, with a wink at Fairholme,

What had passed between Smilash and Henrietta remained unknown except to themselves. Agatha had seen

Henrietta clasping his neck in her arms, but had not waited to hear the exclamation of "Sidney, Sidney,"

which followed, nor to see him press her face to his breast in his anxiety to stifle her voice as he said, "My

darling love, don't screech I implore you. Confound it, we shall have the whole pack here in a moment.

"Don't leave me again, Sidney," she entreated, clinging faster to him as his perplexed gaze, wandering

towards the entrance to the shrubbery, seemed to forsake her. A din of voices in that direction precipitated his

"We must run away, Hetty," he said "Hold fast about my neck, and don't strangle me. Now then." He lifted

her upon his shoulder and ran swiftly through the grounds. When they were stopped by the wall, he placed

her atop of it, scrabbled over, and made her jump into his arms. Then he staggered away with her across the

fields, gasping out in reply to the inarticulate remonstrances which burst from her as he stumbled and reeled

at every hillock, "Your weight is increasing at the rate of a stone a second, my love. If you stoop you will

"Let me down," screamed Henrietta in an ecstasy of delight and apprehension. "You will hurt yourself,

He struggled through a dry ditch as she spoke, and came out upon a grassy place that bordered the towpath of

the canal. Here, on the bank of a hollow where the moss was dry and soft, he seated her, threw himself prone

"Nessus carrying off Dejanira was nothing to this! Whew! Well, my darling, are you glad to see me?"

"But me no buts, unless you wish me to vanish again and for ever. Wretch that I am, I have longed for you

unspeakably more than once since I ran away from you. You didn't care, of course?"

"Lest a worse thing might befall. Come, don't let us waste in explanations the few minutes we have left. Give

"Never mind tomorrow, Hetty. Be like the sun and the meadow, which are not in the least concerned about

the coming winter. Why do you stare at that cursed canal, blindly dragging its load of filth from place to

place until it pitches it into the seajust as a crowded street pitches its load into the cemetery? Stare at ME,

She gave him several, and said coaxingly, with her arm still upon his shoulder: "You only talk that way to

"You are the bright sun of my senses," he said, embracing her. "I feel my heart and brain wither in your

smile, and I fling them to you for your prey with exultation. How happy I am to have a wife who does not

"Don't be silly," said Henrietta, smiling vacantly. Then, stung by a half intuition of his meaning, she repulsed

"Not more than I despise myself. Indeed, not so much; for many emotions that seem base from within seem

She broke into wild exclamations of grief, and he drew her head down and kissed her with a tender action

"That would be easy to understand. But the strangeness is that I LOVE you and want to go away from you.

"But I don't want you to go away. I won't let you go away," she said, a trace of fierceness mingling with her

"How do I know? I can no more tell you the whys and wherefores of myself than I can lift myself up by the

waistband and carry myself into the next county, as some one challenged a speculator in perpetual motion to

do. I am too much a pessimist to respect my own affections. Do you know what a pessimist is?"

"So, or thereabout. Modern English polite society, my native sphere, seems to me as corrupt as consciousness

of culture and absence of honesty can make it. A canting, lieloving, facthating, scribbling, chattering,

wealthhunting, pleasurehunting, celebrityhunting mob, that, having lost the fear of hell, and not replaced

it by the love of justice, cares for nothing but the lion's share of the wealth wrung by threat of starvation from

the hands of the classes that create it. If you interrupt me with a silly speech, Hetty, I will pitch you into the

canal, and die of sorrow for my lost love afterwards. You know what I am, according to the conventional

description: a gentleman with lots of money. Do you know the wicked origin of that money and gentility?"

"No, my best beloved; I am a gentleman, and have been doing nothing. That a man can do so and not starve is

nowadays not even a paradox. Every halfpenny I possess is stolen money; but it has been stolen legally, and,

what is of some practical importance to you, I have no means of restoring it to the rightful owners even if I

"What difference can that make now? Don't be disagreeable and full of ridiculous fads, Sidney dear. I didn't

"No; but you marriedonly incidentally, of coursemy father's fortune. That necklace of yours was

"Stop, Sidney. I don't like this sort of romancing. It's all nonsense. DO be nice to me."

"I am thinking, not of you, my dainty one, but of the unfortunate people who slave that we may live idly. Let

me explain to you why we are so rich. My father was a shrewd, energetic, and ambitious Manchester man,

who understood an exchange of any sort as a transaction by which one man should lose and the other gain.

He made it his object to make as many exchanges as possible, and to be always the gaining party in them. I

do not know exactly what he was, for he was ashamed both of his antecedents and of his relatives, from

which I can only infer that they were honest, and, therefore, unsuccessful people. However, he acquired some

knowledge of the cotton trade, saved some money, borrowed some more on the security of his reputation for

getting the better of other people in business, and, as he accurately told me afterwards, started FOR

HIMSELF. He bought a factory and some raw cotton. Now you must know that a man, by laboring some

time on a piece of raw cotton, can turn it into a piece of manufactured cotton fit for making into sheets and

shifts and the like. The manufactured cotton is more valuable than the raw cotton, because the manufacture

costs wear and tear of machinery, wear and tear of the factory, rent of the ground upon which the factory is

built, and human labor, or wear and tear of live men, which has to be made good by food, shelter, and rest.

"We used to learn all about it at college. I don't see what it has to do with us, since you are not in the cotton

"You learned as much as it was thought safe to teach you, no doubt; but not quite all, I should think. When

my father started for himself, there were many men in Manchester who were willing to labor in this way, but

they had no factory to work in, no machinery to work with, and no raw cotton to work on, simply because all

this indispensable plant, and the materials for producing a fresh supply of it, had been appropriated by earlier

comers. So they found themselves with gaping stomachs, shivering limbs,, and hungry wives and children, in

a place called their own country, in which, nevertheless, every scrap of ground and possible source of

subsistence was tightly locked up in the hands of others and guarded by armed soldiers and policemen. In this

helpless condition, the poor devils were ready to beg for access to a factory and to raw cotton on any

conditions compatible with life. My father offered them the use of his factory, his machines, and his raw

cotton on the following conditions: They were to work long and hard, early and late, to add fresh value to his

raw cotton by manufacturing it. Out of the value thus created by them, they were to recoup him for what he

supplied them with: rent, shelter, gas, water, machinery, raw cottoneverything, and to pay him for his own

services as superintendent, manager, and salesman. So far he asked nothing but just remuneration. But after

this had been paid, a balance due solely to their own labor remained. 'Out of this,' said my father, 'you shall

keep just enough to save you from starving, and of the rest you shall make me a present to reward me for my

virtue in saving money. Such is the bargain I propose. It is, in my opinion, fair and calculated to encourage

thrifty habits. If it does not strike you in that light, you can get a factory and raw cotton for yourselves; you

shall not use mine.' In other words, they might go to the devil and starveHobson's choice!for all the

other factories were owned by men who offered no better terms. The Manchesterians could not bear to starve

or to see their children starve, and so they accepted his terms and went into the factory. The terms, you see,

did not admit of their beginning to save for themselves as he had done. Well, they created great wealth by

their labor, and lived on very little, so that the balance they gave for nothing to my father was large. He

bought more cotton, and more machinery, and more factories with it; employed more men to make wealth for

him, and saw his fortune increase like a rolling snowball. He prospered enormously, but the work men were

no better off than at first, and they dared not rebel and demand more of the money they had made, for there

were always plenty of starving wretches outside willing to take their places on the old terms. Sometimes he

met with a check, as, for instance, when, in his eagerness to increase his store, he made the men manufacture

more cotton than the public needed; or when he could not get enough of raw cotton, as happened during the

Civil War in America. Then he adapted himself to circumstances by turning away as many workmen as he

could not find customers or cotton for; and they, of course, starved or subsisted on charity. During the

wartime a big subscription was got up for these poor wretches, and my father subscribed one hundred

pounds, in spite, he said, of his own great losses. Then he bought new machines; and, as women and children

could work these as well as men, and were cheaper and more docile, he turned away about seventy out of

every hundred of his HANDS (so he called the men), and replaced them by their wives and children, who

made money for him faster than ever. By this time he had long ago given up managing the factories, and paid

clever fellows who had no money of their own a few hundreds a year to do it for him. He also purchased

shares in other concerns conducted on the same principle; pocketed dividends made in countries which he

had never visited by men whom he had never seen; bought a seat in Parliament from a poor and corrupt

constituency, and helped to preserve the laws by which he had thriven. Afterwards, when his wealth grew

famous, he had less need to bribe; for modern men worship the rich as gods, and will elect a man as one of

their rulers for no other reason than that he is a millionaire. He aped gentility, lived in a palace at Kensington,

and bought a part of Scotland to make a deer forest of. It is easy enough to make a deer forest, as trees are not

necessary there. You simply drive off the peasants, destroy their houses, and make a desert of the land.

However, my father did not shoot much himself; he generally let the forest out by the season to those who

did. He purchased a wife of gentle blood too, with the unsatisfactory result now before you. That is how Jesse

Trefusis, a poor Manchester bagman, contrived to be come a plutocrat and gentleman of landed estate. And

also how I, who never did a stroke of work in my life, am overburdened with wealth; whilst the children of

the men who made that wealth are slaving as their fathers slaved, or starving, or in the workhouse, or on the

"What is the use of worrying about it, Sidney? It cannot be helped now. Besides, if your father saved money,

"Granted; but he didn't make a fortune. He took a fortune that others made. At Cambridge they taught me that

his profits were the reward of abstinencethe abstinence which enabled him to save. That quieted my

conscience until I began to wonder why one man should make another pay him for exercising one of the

virtues. Then came the question: what did my father abstain from? The workmen abstained from meat, drink,

fresh air, good clothes, decent lodging, holidays, money, the society of their families, and pretty nearly

everything that makes life worth living, which was perhaps the reason why they usually died twenty years or

so sooner than people in our circumstances. Yet no one rewarded them for their abstinence. The reward came

to my father, who abstained from none of these things, but indulged in them all to his heart's content. Besides,

if the money was the reward of abstinence, it seemed logical to infer that he must abstain ten times as much

when he bad fifty thousand a year as when he had only five thousand. Here was a problem for my young

mind. Required, something from which my father abstained and in which his workmen exceeded, and which

he abstained from more and more as he grew richer and richer. The only thing that answered this description

was hard work, and as I never met a sane man willing to pay another for idling, I began to see that these

prodigious payments to my father were extorted by force. To do him justice, he never boasted of abstinence.

He considered himself a hardworked man, and claimed his fortune as the reward of his risks, his

calculations, his anxieties, and the journeys he had to make at all seasons and at all hours. This comforted me

somewhat until it occurred to me that if he had lived a century earlier, invested his money in a horse and a

pair of pistols, and taken to the road, his objectthat of wresting from others the fruits of their labor without

rendering them an equivalentwould have been exactly the same, and his risk far greater, for it would have

included risk of the gallows. Constant travelling with the constable at his heels, and calculations of the

chances of robbing the Dover mail, would have given him his fill of activity and anxiety. On the whole, if

Jesse Trefusis, M.P., who died a millionaire in his palace at Kensington, had been a highwayman, I could not

more heartily loathe the social arrangements that rendered such a career as his not only possible, but

eminently creditable to himself in the eyes of his fellows. Most men make it their business to imitate him,

hoping to become rich and idle on the same terms. Therefore I turn my back on them. I cannot sit at their

feasts knowing how much they cost in human misery, and seeing how little they produce of human

Henrietta seemed a little troubled. She smiled faintly, and said caressingly, "It was not your fault, Sidney. _I_

"Immortal powers!" he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright and appealing to the skies, "here is a woman who

believes that the only concern all this causes me is whether she thinks any the worse of me personally on

"Quite so," he returned, in a polite frenzy. "Nobody sees any harm in it. That is precisely the mischief of it."

"Besides," she urged, "your mother belonged to one of the oldest families in England."

"And what more can man desire than wealth with descent from a county family! Could a man be happier than

I ought to be, sprung as I am from monopolists of all the sources and instruments of productionof land on

the one side, and of machinery on the other? This very ground on which we are resting was the property of

my mother's father. At least the law allowed him to use it as such. When he was a boy, there was a fairly

prosperous race of peasants settled here, tilling the soil, paying him rent for permission to do so, and making

enough out of it to satisfy his large wants and their own narrow needs without working themselves to death.

But my grandfather was a shrewd man. He perceived that cows and sheep produced more money by their

meat and wool than peasants by their husbandry. So he cleared the estate. That is, he drove the peasants from

their homes, as my father did afterwards in his Scotch deer forest. Or, as his tombstone has it, he developed

the resources of his country. I don't know what became of the peasants; HE didn't know, and, I presume,

didn't care. I suppose the old ones went into the workhouse, and the young ones crowded the towns, and

worked for men like my father in factories. Their places were taken by cattle, which paid for their food so

well that my grandfather, getting my father to take shares in the enterprise, hired laborers on the Manchester

terms to cut that canal for him. When it was made, he took toll upon it; and his heirs still take toll, and the

sons of the navvies who dug it and of the engineer who designed it pay the toll when they have occasion to

travel by it, or to purchase goods which have been conveyed along it. I remember my grandfather well. He

was a wellbred man, and a perfect gentleman in his manners; but, on the whole, I think he was wickeder

than my father, who, after all, was caught in the wheels of a vicious system, and had either to spoil others or

be spoiled by them. But my grandfatherthe old rascal!was in no such dilemma. Master as he was of his

bit of merry England, no man could have enslaved him, and he might at least have lived and let live. My

father followed his example in the matter of the deer forest, but that was the climax of his wickedness,

whereas it was only the beginning of my grandfather's. Howbeit, whichever bears the palm, there they were,

"Not all, Sidney. Not we two. I hate tradespeople and country squires. We belong to the artistic and cultured

"Living, meanwhile, at the rate of several thousand a year on rent and interest. No, my dear, this is the way of

those people who insist that when they are in heaven they shall be spared the recollection of such a place as

hell, but are quite content that it shall exist outside their consciousness. I respect my father moreI mean I

despise him lessfor doing his own sweating and filching than I do the sensitive sluggards and cowards who

lent him their money to sweat and filch with, and asked no questions provided the interest was paid

"Oh, Sidney, you are determined not to be pleased. Artists don't keep factories."

"No; but the factory is only a part of the machinery of the system. Its basis is the tyranny of brain force,

which, among civilized men, is allowed to do what muscular force does among schoolboys and savages. The

schoolboy proposition is: 'I am stronger than you, therefore you shall fag for me.' Its grown up form is: 'I am

cleverer than you, therefore you shall fag for me.' The state of things we produce by submitting to this, bad

enough even at first, becomes intolerable when the mediocre or foolish descendants of the clever fellows

claim to have inherited their privileges. Now, no men are greater sticklers for the arbitrary dominion of

genius and talent than your artists. The great painter is not satisfied with being sought after and admired

because his hands can do more than ordinary hands, which they truly can, but he wants to be fed as if his

stomach needed more food than ordinary stomachs, which it does not. A day's work is a day's work, neither

more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose, and due leisure, whether he

be painter or ploughman. But the rascal of a painter, poet, novelist, or other voluptuary in labor, is not content

with his advantage in popular esteem over the ploughman; he also wants an advantage in money, as if there

were more hours in a day spent in the studio or library than in the field; or as if he needed more food to

enable him to do his work than the ploughman to enable him to do his. He talks of the higher quality of his

work, as if the higher quality of it were of his own makingas if it gave him a right to work less for his

neighbor than his neighbor works for himas if the ploughman could not do better without him than he

without the ploughmanas if the value of the most celebrated pictures has not been questioned more than

that of any straight furrow in the arable worldas if it did not take an apprenticeship of as many years to

train the hand and eye of a mason or blacksmith as of an artistas if, in short, the fellow were a god, as

canting brain worshippers have for years past been assuring him he is. Artists arc the high priests of the

modern Moloch. Nine out of ten of them are diseased creatures, just sane enough to trade on their own

neuroses. The only quality o� theirs which extorts my respect is a certain sublime selfishness which makes

them willing to starve and to let their families starve sooner than do any work they don't like."

"INDEED you are quite wrong, Sidney. There was a girl at the Slade school who supported her mother and

"Yes; I was made a landlord and capitalist by the folly of the people; but they can unmake me if they will.

Meanwhile I have absolutely no means of escape from my position except by giving away my slaves to

fellows who will use them no better than I, and becoming a slave myself; which, if you please, you shall not

catch me doing in a hurry. No, my beloved, I must keep my foot on their necks for your sake as well as for

my own. But you do not care about all this prosy stuff. I am consumed with remorse for having bored my

darling. You want to know why I am living here like a hermit in a vulgar tworoomed hovel instead of

tasting the delights of London society with my beautiful and devoted young wife."

"Yes, I do; and I will tell you why. I am helping to liberate those Manchester laborers who were my father's

slaves. To bring that about, their fellow slaves all over the world must unite in a vast international association

of men pledged to share the world's work justly; to share the produce of the work justly; to yield not a

farthingcharity apartto any fullgrown and ablebodied idler or malingerer, and to treat as vermin in the

commonwealth persons attempting to get more than their share of wealth or give less than their share of

work. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish, because workingmen, like the people called their betters,

do not always understand their own interests, and will often actually help their oppressors to exterminate their

saviours to the tune of 'Rule Britannia,' or some such lying doggerel. We must educate them out of that, and,

meanwhile, push forward the international association of laborers diligently. I am at present occupied in

propagating its principles. Capitalism, organized for repressive purposes under pretext of governing the

nation, would very soon stop the association if it understood our aim, but it thinks that we are engaged in

gunpowder plots and conspiracies to assassinate crowned heads; and so, whilst the police are blundering in

search of evidence of these, our real work goes on unmolested. Whether I am really advancing the cause is

more than I can say. I use heaps of postage stamps, pay the expenses of many indifferent lecturers, defray the

cost of printing reams of pamphlets and handbills which hail the laborer flatteringly as the salt of the earth,

write and edit a little socialist journal, and do what lies in my power generally. I had rather spend my

illgotten wealth in this way than upon an expensive house and a retinue of servants. And I prefer my

corduroys and my tworoomed chalet here to our pretty little house, and your pretty little ways, and my

pretty little neglect of the work that my heart is set upon. Some day, perhaps, I will take a holiday; and then

For a moment Henrietta seemed about to cry. Suddenly she exclaimed with enthusiasm: "I will stay with you,

Sidney. I will share your work, whatever it may be. I will dress as a dairymaid, and have a little pail to carry

milk in. The world is nothing to me except when you are with me; and I should love to live here and sketch

He blenched, and partially rose, unable to conceal his dismay. She, resolved not to be cast off, seized him and

clung to him. This was the movement that excited the derision of Wickens's boy in the adjacent gravel pit.

Trefusis was glad of the interruption; and, when he gave the boy twopence and bade him begone, half hoped

that he would insist on remaining. But though an obdurate boy on most occasions, he proved complaisant on

this, and withdrew to the high road, where he made over one of his pennies to a phantom gambler, and tossed

with him until recalled from his dual state by the appearance of Fairholme's party.

"We should be so happy," she said. "I would housekeep for you, and you could work as much as you pleased.

"My love," he said, shaking his head as she looked beseechingly at him, "I have too much Manchester cotton

in my constitution for long idylls. And the truth is, that the first condition of work with me is your absence.

When you are with me, I can do nothing but make love to you. You bewitch me. When I escape from you for

a moment, it is only to groan remorsefully over the hours you have tempted me to waste and the energy you

"True. But that is neither your fault nor mine. We have found that we love each other too much that our

intercourse hinders our usefulnessand so we must part. Not for ever, my dear; only until you have cares

and business of your own to fill up your life and prevent you from wasting mine."

"I believe you are mad," she said petulantly. "The world is mad nowadays, and is galloping to the deuce as

fast as greed can goad it. I merely stand out of the rush, not liking its destination. Here comes a barge, the

commander of which is devoted to me because he believes that I am organizing a revolution for the abolition

of lock dues and tolls. We will go aboard and float down to Lyvern, whence you can return to London. You

had better telegraph from the junction to the college; there must be a hue and cry out after us by this time.

You shall have my address, and we can write to one another or see one another whenever we please. Or you

"I should die of despair, my darling," he said complacently. "Ship ahoooy! Stop crying, Hetty, for God's

"Good arternoon, sir," said a man who, with a short whip in his hand, trudged beside the white horse that

"I want to get on board, and go up to Lyvern with you," said Trefusis. "He seems a well fed brute, that."

"Better fed nor me," said the man. "You can't get the work out of a hunderfed 'orse that you can out of a

hunderfed man or woman. I've bin in parts of England where women pulled the barges. They come cheaper

nor 'orses, because it didn't cost nothing to get new ones when the old ones we wore out."

"Then why not employ them?" said Trefusis, with ironical gravity. "The principle of buying laborforce in the

cheapest market and selling its product in the dearest has done much to make Englishmenwhat they are."

"The railway comp'nies keeps 'orspittles for the like of 'IM," said the man, with a cunning laugh, indicating

the horse by smacking him on the belly with the butt of the whip. "If ever you try bein' a laborer in earnest,

"This man is one of my converts," said Trefusis apart to Henrietta. "He told me the other day that since I set

him thinking he never sees a gentleman without feeling inclined to heave a brick at him. I find that socialism

is often misunderstood by its least intelligent supporters and opponents to mean simply unrestrained

indulgence of our natural propensity to heave bricks at respectable persons. Now I am going to carry you

along this plank. If you keep quiet, we may reach the barge. If not, we shall reach the bottom of the canal."

He carried her safely over, and exchanged some friendly words with the bargee. Then he took Henrietta

forward, and stood watching the water as they were borne along noiselessly between the hilly pastures of the

"This would be a fairy journey," he said, "if one could forget the woman down below, cooking her husband's

"Oh, don't talk any more of these things," she said crossly; "I cannot help them. I have my own troubles to

She had no answer ready. After a pause he began to speak poetically of the scenery and to offer her loverlike

speeches and compliments. But she felt that he intended to get rid of her, and he knew that it was useless to

try to hide that design from her. She turned away and sat down on a pile of bricks, only writhing angrily when

he pressed her for a word. As they neared the end of her voyage, and her intense protest against desertion

remained, as she thought, only half expressed, her sense of injury grew almost unbearable.

They landed on a wharf, and went through an unswept, deeplyrutted lane up to the main street of Lyvern.

Here he became Smilash again, walking deferentially a little before her, as if she had hired him to point out

the way. She then saw that her last opportunity of appealing to him had gone by, and she nearly burst into

tears at the thought. It occurred to her that she might prevail upon him by making a scene in public. But the

street was a busy one, and she was a little afraid of him. Neither consideration would have checked her in one

of her ungovernable moods, but now she was in an abject one. Her moods seemed to come only when they

were harmful to her. She suffered herself to be put into the railway omnibus, which was on the point of

starting from the innyard when they arrived there, and though he touched his hat, asked whether she had any

message to give him, and in a tender whisper wished her a safe journey, she would not look at or speak to

him. So they parted, and he returned alone to the chalet, where he was received by the two policemen who

The year wore on, and the long winter evenings set in. The studious young ladies at Alton College, elbows on

desk and hands over ears, shuddered chillily in fur tippets whilst they loaded their memories with the

statements of writers on moral science, or, like men who swim upon corks, reasoned out mathematical

problems upon postulates. Whence it sometimes happened that the more reasonable a student was in

mathematics, the more unreasonable she was in the affairs of real life, concerning which few trustworthy

Agatha, not studious, and apt to shiver in winter, began to break Rule No. 17 with increasing frequency. Rule

No. 17 forbade the students to enter the kitchen, or in any way to disturb the servants in the discharge of their

duties. Agatha broke it because she was fond of making toffee, of eating it, of a good fire, of doing any

forbidden thing, and of the admiration with which the servants listened to her ventriloquial and musical feats.

Gertrude accompanied her because she too liked toffee, and because she plumed herself on her condescension

to her inferiors. Jane went because her two friends went, and the spirit of adventure, the force of example, and

the love of toffee often brought more volunteers to these expeditions than Agatha thought it safe to enlist.

One evening Miss Wilson, going downstairs alone to her private wine cellar, was arrested near the kitchen by

sounds of revelry, and, stopping to listen, overheard the castanet dance (which reminded her of the emphasis

with which Agatha had snapped her fingers at Mrs. Miller), the bee on the window pane, "Robin Adair"

(encored by the servants), and an imitation of herself in the act of appealing to Jane Carpenter's better nature

to induce her to study for the Cambridge Local. She waited until the cold and her fear of being discovered

spying forced her to creep upstairs, ashamed of having enjoyed a silly entertainment, and of conniving at a

There was one particular in which matters between Agatha and the college discipline did not go on exactly as

before. Although she had formerly supplied a disproportionately large number of the confessions in the fault

book, the entry which had nearly led to her expulsion was the last she ever made in it. Not that her conduct

was betterit was rather the reverse. Miss Wilson never mentioned the matter, the fault book being sacred

from all allusion on her part. But she saw that though Agatha would not confess her own sins, she still

assisted others to unburden their consciences. The witticisms with which Jane unsuspectingly enlivened the

Smilash had now adopted a profession. In the last days of autumn he had whitewashed the chalet, painted the

doors, windows, and veranda, repaired the roof and interior, and improved the place so much that the landlord

had warned him that the rent would be raised at the expiration of his twelvemonth's tenancy, remarking that a

tenant could not reasonably expect to have a pretty, raintight dwellinghouse for the same money as a

hardly habitable ruin. Smilash had immediately promised to dilapidate it to its former state at the end of the

year. He had put up a board at the gate with an inscription copied from some printed cards which he

PAINTER, DECORATOR, GLAZIER, PLUMBER GARDENER. Pianofortes tuned. Domestic engineering

The business thus announced, comprehensive as it was, did not flourish. When asked by the curious for

testimony to his competence and respectability, he recklessly referred them to Fairholme, to Josephs, and in

particular to Miss Wilson, who, he said, had known him from his earliest childhood. Fairholme, glad of an

opportunity to show that he was no mealy mouthed parson, declared, when applied to, that Smilash was the

greatest rogue in the country. Josephs, partly from benevolence, and partly from a vague fear that Smilash

might at any moment take an action against him for defamation of character, said he had no doubt that he was

a very cheap workman, and that it would be a charity to give him some little job to encourage him. Miss

Wilson confirmed Fairholme's account; and the church organist, who had tuned all the pianofortes in the

neighborhood once a year for nearly a quarter of a century, denounced the newcomer as Jack of all trades and

master of none. Hereupon the radicals of Lyvern, a small and disreputable party, began to assert that there

was no harm in the man, and that the parsons and Miss Wilson, who lived in a fine house and did nothing but

take in the daughters of rich swells as boarders, might employ their leisure better than in taking the bread out

of a poor work man's mouth. But as none of this faction needed the services of a domestic engineer, he was

none the richer for their support, and the only patron he obtained was a housemaid who was leaving her

situation at a country house in the vicinity, and wanted her box repaired, the lid having fallen off. Smilash

demanded halfacrown for the job, but on her demurring, immediately apologized and came down to a

shilling. For this sum he repainted the box, traced her initials on it, and affixed new hinges, a Bramah lock,

and brass handles, at a cost to himself of ten shillings and several hours' labor. The housemaid found fault

with the color of the paint, made him take off the handles, which, she said, reminded her of a coffin,

complained that a lock with such a small key couldn't be strong enough for a large box, but admitted that it

was all her own fault for not employing a proper man. It got about that he had made a poor job of the box;

and as he, when taxed with this, emphatically confirmed it, he got no other commission; and his signboard

served thenceforth only for the amusement of pedestrian tourists and of shepherd boys with a taste for stone

One night a great storm blew over Lyvern, and those young ladies at Alton College who were afraid of

lightning, said their prayers with some earnestness. At halfpast twelve the rain, wind, and thunder made

such a din that Agatha and Gertrude wrapped themselves in shawls, stole downstairs to the window on the

landing outside Miss Wilson's study, and stood watching the flashes give vivid glimpses of the landscape, and

discussing in whispers whether it was dangerous to stand near a window, and whether brass stairrods could

attract lightning. Agatha, as serious and friendly with a single companion as she was mischievous and

satirical before a larger audience, enjoyed the scene quietly. The lightning did not terrify her, for she knew

little of the value of life, and fancied much concerning the heroism of being indifferent to it. The tremors

which the more startling flashes caused her, only made her more conscious of her own courage and its

contrast with the uneasiness of Gertrude, who at last, shrinking from a forked zigzag of blue flame, said:

"Quite as safe as in bed, where we cannot see anything. How the house shakes! I believe the rain will batter

They waited for a few moments; Gertrude trembling, and Agatha feeling, as she listened in the darkness, a

sensation familiar to persons who are afraid of ghosts. Presently a veiled clangor mingled with the wind. A

few sharp and urgent snatches of it came unmistakably from the bell at the gate of the college grounds. It was

a loud bell, used to summon a servant from the college to open the gates; for though there was a porter's

"Who on earth can it be?" said Agatha. "Can't they find the wicket, the idiots?"

"No, I won't. Go you, if you like." But Gertrude was afraid to go alone. "I think I had better waken Miss

Wilson, and tell her," continued Agatha. "It seems awful to shut anybody out on such a night as this."

"Well, I suppose you are not afraid of them, in any case," said Agatha, knowing the contrary, but recognizing

They listened again. The storm was now very boisterous, and they could not hear the bell. Suddenly there was

a loud knocking at the house door. Gertrude screamed, and her cry was echoed from the rooms above, where

several girls had heard the knocking also, and had been driven by it into the state of mind which accompanies

the climax of a nightmare. Then a candle flickered on the stairs, and Miss Wilson's voice, reassuringly firm,

"It is I, Miss Wilson, and Gertrude. We have been watching the storm, and there is some one knocking at

the" A tremendous battery with the knocker, followed by a sound, confused by the gale, as of a man

"They had better not open the door," said Miss Wilson, in some alarm. "You are very imprudent, Agatha, to

stand here. You will catch your death ofDear me! What can be the matter? She hurried down, followed by

Agatha, Gertrude, and some of the braver students, to the hall, where they found a few shivering servants

watching the housekeeper, who was at the keyhole of the house door, querulously asking who was there. She

was evidently not heard by those without, for the knocking recommenced whilst she was speaking, and she

recoiled as if she had received a blow on the mouth. Miss Wilson then rattled the chain to attract attention,

"Let us in," was returned in a hollow shout through the keyhole. "There is a dying woman and three children

Miss Wilson lost her presence of mind. To gain time, she replied, "II can't hear you. What do you say?"

"Damnation!" said the voice, speaking this time to some one outside. "They can't hear." And the knocking

recommenced with increased urgency. Agatha, excited, caught Miss Wilson's dressing gown, and repeated to

her what the voice had said. Miss Wilson had heard distinctly enough, and she felt, without knowing clearly

why, that the door must be opened, but she was almost overmastered by a vague dread of what was to

follow. She began to undo the chain, and Agatha helped with the bolts. Two of the servants exclaimed that

they were all about to be murdered in their beds, and ran away. A few of the students seemed inclined to

follow their example. At last the door, loosed, was blown wide open, flinging Miss Wilson and Agatha back,

and admitting a whirlwind that tore round the hall, snatched at the women's draperies, and blew out the lights.

Agatha, by a hash of lightning, saw for an instant two men straining at the door like sailors at a capstan. Then

she knew by the cessation of the whirlwind that they had shut it. Matches were struck, the candles relighted,

Smilash, bareheaded, without a coat, his corduroy vest and trousers heavy with rain; a roughlooking,

middleaged man, poorly dressed like a shepherd, wet as Smilash, with the expression, piteous, patient, and

desperate, of one hard driven by illfortune, and at the end of his resources; two little children, a boy and a

girl, almost naked, cowering under an old sack that had served them as an umbrella; and, lying on the settee

where the two men had laid it, a heap of wretched wearing apparel, sacking, and rotten matting, with

Smilash's coat and sou'wester, the whole covering a bundle which presently proved to be an exhausted

woman with a tiny infant at her breast. Smilash's expression, as he looked at her, was ferocious.

"Sorry fur to trouble you, lady," said the man, after glancing anxiously at Smilash, as if he had expected him

to act as spokesman; "but my roof and the side of my house has gone in the storm, and my missus has been

"Inconvenience!" exclaimed Smilash. "It is the lady's privilege to relieve youher highest privilege!"

The little boy here began to cry from mere misery, and the woman roused herself to say, "For shame, Tom!

before the lady," and then collapsed, too weak to care for what might happen next in the world. Smilash

"To help us," he replied. Then, with an explosion of nervous energy, he added: "Do what your heart tells you

to do. Give your bed and your clothes to the woman, and let your girls pitch their books to the devil for a few

days and make something for these poor little creatures to wear. The poor have worked hard enough to clothe

"No, no. Steady, master," said the man, stepping forward to propitiate Miss Wilson, and evidently much

oppressed by a sense of unwelcomeness. "It ain't any fault of the lady's. Might I make so bold as to ask you to

put this woman of mine anywhere that may be convenient until morning. Any sort of a place will do; she's

accustomed to rough it. Just to have a roof over her until I find a room in the village where we can shake

down." Here, led by his own words to contemplate the future, he looked desolately round the cornice of the

hall, as if it were a shelf on which somebody might have left a suitable lodging for him.

Miss Wilson turned her back decisively and contemptuously on Smilash. She had recovered herself. "I will

keep your wife here," she said to the man. "Every care shall be taken of her. The children can stay too."

"Three cheers for moral science!" cried Smilash, ecstatically breaking into the outrageous dialect he had

forgotten in his wrath. "Wot was my words to you, neighbor, when I said we should bring your missus to the

college, and you said, ironicallike, 'Aye, and bloomin' glad they'll be to see us there.' Did I not say to you

that the lady had a noble 'art, and would show it when put to the test by sech a calamity as this?"

"Why should you bring my hasty words up again' me now, master, when the lady has been so kind?" said the

man with emotion. "I am humbly grateful to you, Miss; and so is Bess. We are sensible of the

Miss Wilson, who had been conferring with the housekeeper, cut his speech short by ordering him to carry

his wife to bed, which he did with the assistance of Smilash, now jubilant. Whilst they were away, one of the

servants, bidden to bring some blankets to the woman's room, refused,saying that she was not going to wait

on that sort of people. Miss Wilson gave her warning almost fiercely to quit the college next day. This

excepted, no illwill was shown to the refugees. The young ladies were then requested to return to bed.

Meanwhile the man, having laid his wife in a chamber palatial in comparison with that which the storm had

blown about her ears, was congratulating her on her luck, and threatening the children with the most violent

chastisement if they failed to behave themselves with strict propriety whilst they remained in that house.

Before leaving them he kissed his wife; and she, reviving, asked him to look at the baby. He did so, and

pensively apostrophized it with a shocking epithet in anticipation of the time when its appetite must be

satisfied from the provision shop instead of from its mother's breast. She laughed and cried shame on him;

and so they parted cheerfully. When he returned to the hall with Smilash they found two mugs of beer

waiting for them. The girls had retired, and only Miss Wilson and the housekeeper remained.

"Here's your health, mum," said the man, before drinking; "and may you find such another as yourself to help

"Is your house quite destroyed?" said Miss Wilson. "Where will you spend the night?"

"Don't you think of me, mum. Master Smilash here will kindly put me up 'til morning."

"The roof and south wall is browed right away," continued the man, after pausing for a moment to puzzle

"But Sir John will build it for you again. You are one of his herds, are you not?"

"I am, Miss. But not he; he'll be glad it's down. He don't like people livin' on the land. I have told him time

and again that the place was ready to fall; but he said I couldn't expect him to lay out money on a house that

he got no rent for. You see, Miss, I didn't pay any rent. I took low wages; and the bit of a hut was a sort of

setoff again' what I was paid short of the other men. I couldn't afford to have it repaired, though I did what I

could to patch and prop it. And now most like I shall be blamed for letting it be blew down, and shall have to

live in half a room in the town and pay two or three shillin's a week, besides walkin' three miles to and from

my work every day. A gentleman like Sir John don't hardly know what the value of a penny is to us laborin'

"Sir John's health!" said Smilash, touching the mug as before. The man drank a mouthful humbly, and

Smilash continued, "Here's to the glorious landed gentry of old England: bless 'em!"

"You should not bring a family into the world if you are so poor," said Miss Wilson severely. "Can you not

see that you impoverish yourself by doing soto put the matter on no higher grounds."

"Some say it's the children, and some say it's the drink, Miss," said the man submissively. "But from what I

see, family or no family, drunk or sober, the poor gets poorer and the rich richer every day."

"Ain't it disgustin' to hear a man so ignorant of the improvement in the condition of his class?" said Smilash,

"If you intend to take this man home with you," she said, turning sharply on him, "you had better do it at

"I take it kind on your part that you ask me to do anythink, after your up and telling Mr. Wickens that I am

"Not in scorn of your brewing, lady; but because, bein' a common man, water is good enough for me."

"I wish you goodnight, Miss," said the man; "and thank you kindly for Bess and the children."

"Goodnight," she replied, stepping aside to avoid any salutation from Smilash. But he went up to her and

"Goodnight, Miss Wilson. If you should ever be in want of the services of a dog, a man, or a domestic

engineer, remind Smilash of Bess and the children, and he will act for you in any of those capacities."

They opened the door cautiously, and found that the wind, conquered by the rain, had abated. Miss Wilson's

candle, though it flickered in the draught, was not extinguished this time; and she was presently left with the

housekeeper, bolting and chaining the door, and listening to the crunching of feet on the gravel outside dying

Agatha was at this time in her seventeenth year. She had a lively perception of the foibles of others, and no

reverence for her seniors, whom she thought dull, cautious, and ridiculously amenable by commonplaces. But

she was subject to the illusion which disables youth in spite of its superiority to age. She thought herself an

exception. Crediting Mr. Jansenius and the general mob of mankind with nothing but a grovelling

consciousness of some few material facts, she felt in herself an exquisite sense and allembracing conception

of nature, shared only by her favorite poets and heroes of romance and history. Hence she was in the common

youthful case of being a much better judge of other people's affairs than of her own. At the fellowstudent

who adored some Henry or Augustus, not from the drivelling sentimentality which the world calls love, but

because this particular Henry or Augustus was a phoenix to whom the laws that govern the relations of

ordinary lads and lasses did not apply, Agatha laughed in her sleeve. The more she saw of this weakness in

her fellows, the more satisfied she was that, being forewarned, she was also forearmed against an attack of it

on herself, much as if a doctor were to conclude that he could not catch smallpox because he had seen many

cases of it; or as if a master mariner, knowing that many ships are wrecked in the British channel, should

venture there without a pilot, thinking that he knew its perils too well to run any risk of them. Yet, as the

doctor might hold such an opinion if he believed himself to be constituted differently from ordinary men; or

the shipmaster adopt such a course under the impression that his vessel was a star, Agatha found false

security in the subjective difference between her fellows seen from without and herself known from within.

When, for instance, she fell in love with Mr. Jefferson Smilash (a step upon which she resolved the day after

the storm), her imagination invested the pleasing emotion with a sacredness which, to her, set it far apart and

distinct from the frivolous fancies of which Henry and Augustus had been the subject, and she the confidant.

"I can look at him quite coolly and dispassionately," she said to herself. "Though his face has a strange

influence that must, I know, correspond to some unexplained power within me, yet it is not a perfect face. I

have seen many men who are, strictly speaking, far handsomer. If the light that never was on sea or land is in

his eyes, yet they are not pretty eyesnot half so clear as mine. Though he wears his common clothes with a

nameless grace that betrays his true breeding at every step, yet he is not tall, dark, and melancholy, as my

ideal hero would be if I were as great a fool as girls of my age usually are. If I am in love, I have sense

She did not tell anyone of her new interest in life. Strongest in that student community, she had used her

power with goodnature enough to win the popularity of a school leader, and occasionally with

unscrupulousness enough to secure the privileges of a school bully. Popularity and privilege, however, only

satisfied her when she was in the mood for them. Girls, like men, want to be petted, pitied, and made much

of, when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited love. These are services which the weak cannot

render to the strong and which the strong will not render to the weak, except when there is also a difference

of sex. Agatha knew by experience that though a weak woman cannot understand why her stronger sister

should wish to lean upon her, she may triumph in the fact without understanding it, and give chaff instead of

consolation. Agatha wanted to be understood and not to be chaffed. Finding herself unable to satisfy both

these conditions, she resolved to do without sympathy and to hold her tongue. She had often had to do so

before, and she was helped on this occasion by a sense of the ridiculous appearance her passion might wear in

the vulgar eye. Her secret kept itself, as she was supposed in the college to be insensible to the softer

emotions. Love wrought no external change upon her. It made her believe that she had left her girlhood

behind her and was now a woman with a newlydeveloped heart capacity at which she would childishly have

scoffed a little while before. She felt ashamed of the bee on the window pane, although it somehow buzzed as

frequently as before in spite of her. Her calendar, formerly a monotonous cycle of class times, meal times,

play times, and bed time, was now irregularly divided by walks past the chalet and accidental glimpses of its

Early in December came a black frost, and navigation on the canal was suspended. Wickens's boy was sent to

the college with news that Wickens's pond would bear, and that the young ladies should be welcome at any

time. The pond was only four feet deep, and as Miss Wilson set much store by the physical education of her

pupils, leave was given for skating. Agatha, who was expert on the ice, immediately proposed that a select

party should go out before breakfast next morning. Actions not in themselves virtuous often appear so when

performed at hours that compel early rising, and some of the candidates for the Cambridge Local, who would

not have sacrificed the afternoon to amusement, at once fell in with her suggestion. But for them it might

never have been carried out; for when they summoned Agatha, at halfpast six next morning, to leave her

warm bed and brave the biting air, she would have refused without hesitation had she not been shamed into

compliance by these laborious ones who stood by her bedside, bluenosed and hungry, but ready for the ice.

When she had dressed herself with much shuddering and chattering, they allayed their internal discomfort by

a slender meal of biscuits, got their skates, and went out across the rimy meadows, past patient cows

breathing clouds of steam, to Wickens's pond. Here, to their surprise, was Smilash, on electroplated acme

skates, practicing complicated figures with intense diligence. It soon appeared that his skill came short of his

ambition; for, after several narrow escapes and some frantic staggering, his calves, elbows, and occiput smote

the ice almost simultaneously. On rising ruefully to a sitting posture he became aware that eight young ladies

"This comes of a common man putting himself above his station by getting into gentlemen's skates," he said.

"Had I been content with a humble slide, as my fathers was, I should ha' been a happier man at the present

moment." He sighed, rose, touched his hat to Miss Ward, and took off his skates, adding: "Goodmorning,

Miss. Miss Wilson sent me word to be here sharp at six to put on the young ladies' skates, and I took the

"Just like her to be thoughtful and yet not let on to be! She is a kind lady, and a learnedlike yourself, Miss.

Sit yourself down on the campstool. and give me your heel, if I may be so bold as to stick a gimlet into it."

His assistance was welcome, and Miss Ward allowed him to put on her skates. She was a Canadian, and

could skate well. Jane, the first to follow her, was anxious as to the strength of the ice; but when reassured,

she acquitted herself admirably, for she was proficient in outdoor exercises, and had the satisfaction of

laughing in the field at those who laughed at her in the study. Agatha, contrary to her custom, gave way to her

"How d'you do, Miss Wylie?" he said, dropping the Smilash manner now that the rest were out of earshot.

"I am very well, thank you," said Agatha, shy and constrained. This phase of her being new to him, he paused

with her heel in his hand and looked up at her curiously. She collected herself, returned his gaze steadily, and

said: "How did Miss Wilson send you word to come? She only knew of our party at halfpast nine last

"Yes. I find it necessary to tell almost as many lies now that I am a simple laborer as I did when I was a

"The truth is this. I am perhaps the worst skater in the world, and therefore, according to a natural law, I covet

the faintest distinction on the ice more than immortal fame for the things in which nature has given me

aptitude to excel. I envy that large friend of yoursJane is her name, I thinkmore than I envy Plato. I

came down here this morning, thinking that the skating world was all abed, to practice in secret."

"I am glad we caught you at it," said Agatha maliciously, for he was disappointing her. She wanted him to be

"I suppose so," he replied. "I have observed that Woman's dearest delight is to wound Man's selfconceit,

though Man's dearest delight is to gratify hers. There is at least one creature lower than Man. Now, off with

"Thank you," she said, disgusted: "_I_ can skate pretty well, and I don't think you could give me any useful

assistance." And she went off cautiously, feeling that a mishap would be very disgraceful after such a speech.

He stood on the shore, listening to the grinding, swaying sound of the skates, and watching the growing

complexity of the curves they were engraving on the ice. As the girls grew warm and accustomed to the

exercise they laughed, jested, screamed recklessly when they came into collision, and sailed before the wind

down the whole length of the pond at perilous speed. The more animated they became, the gloomier looked

Smilash. "Not twopenn'orth of choice between them and a parcel of puppies," he said; "except that some of

them are conscious that there is a man looking at them, although he is only a blackguard laborer. They remind

me of Henrietta in a hundred ways. Would I laugh, now, if the whole sheet of ice were to burst into little bits

Just then the ice cracked with a startling report, and the skaters, except Jane, skimmed away in all directions.

"You are breaking the ice to pieces, Jane," said Agatha, calling from a safe distance. "How can you expect it

"Pack of fools!" retorted Jane indignantly. "The noise only shows how strong it is."

The shock which the report had given Smilash answered him his question. "Make a note that wishes for the

destruction of the human race, however rational and sincere, are contrary to nature," he said, recovering his

spirits. "Besides, what a precious fool I should be if I were working at an international association of

creatures only fit for destruction! Hi, lady! One word, Miss!" This was to Miss Ward, who had skated into his

neighborhood. "It bein' a cold morning, and me havin' a poor and common circulation, would it be looked on

as a liberty if I was to cut a slide here or take a turn in the corner all to myself?"

"You may skate over there if you wish," she said, after a pause for consideration, pointing to a deserted spot

at the leeward end of the pond, where the ice was too rough for comfortable skating.

"Nobly spoke!" he cried, with a grin, hurrying to the place indicated, where, skating being out of the question,

he made a pair of slides, and gravely exercised himself upon them until his face glowed and his fingers

tingled in the frosty air. The time passed quickly; when Miss Ward sent for him to take off her skates there

was a general groan and declaration that it could not possibly be halfpast eight o'clock yet. Smilash knelt

before the campstool, and was presently busy unbuckling and unscrewing. When Jane's turn came, the

campstool creaked beneath her weight. Agatha again remonstrated with her, but immediately reproached

herself with flippancy before Smilash, to whom she wished to convey an impression of deep seriousness of

"Smallest foot of the lot," he said critically, holding Jane's foot between his finger and thumb as if it were an

art treasure which he had been invited to examine. "And belonging to the finest built lady."

"T'other 'un next," he said, setting to work on the remaining skate. When it was off, he looked up at her, and

she darted a glance at him as she rose which showed that his compliment (her feet were, in fact, small and

"Allow me, Miss," he said to Gertrude, who was standing on one leg, leaning on Agatha, and taking off her

"I am well aware that the offer was overbold," he replied, with a selfcomplacency that made his profession

of humility exasperating. "If all the skates is off, I will, by Miss Wilson's order, carry them and the

Miss Ward handed him her skates and turned away. Gertrude placed hers on the stool and went with Miss

Ward. The rest followed, leaving him to stare at the heap of skates and consider how he should carry them.

He could think of no better plan than to interlace the straps and hang them in a chain over his shoulder. By

the time he had done this the young ladies were out of sight, and his intention of enjoying their society during

the return to the college was defeated. They had entered the building long before he came in sight of it.

Somewhat out of conceit with his folly, he went to the servants' entrance and rang the bell there. When the

"Oh," she said, looking at the string of skates as if she had hardly expected to see them again, "so you have

"Such were my instructions," he said, taken aback by her manner. "You had no instructions. What do you

mean by getting our skates into your charge under false pretences? I was about to send the police to take them

from you. How dare you tell me that you were sent to wait on me, when you know very well that you were

"I couldn't help it, Miss," he replied submissively. "I am a natural born liaralways was. I know that it must

appear dreadful to you that never told a lie, and don't hardly know what a lie is, belonging as you do to a class

where none is ever told. But common people like me tells lies just as a duck swims. I ask your pardon, Miss,

most humble, and I hope the young ladies'll be able to tell one set of skates from t'other; for I'm blest if I

"Put them down. Miss Wilson wishes to speak to you before you go. Susan, show him the way."

He smiled at her benevolently and followed Susan upstairs. On their way they met Jane, who stole a glance at

"Won't you say a word to Miss Wilson for a poor common fellow, honored young lady? I have got into

"You needn't give yourself the pains to talk like that," replied Jane in an impetuous whisper. "We all know

"Such stuff and nonsense! I never heard of such a thing in my life," said Jane, and ran away, plainly

understanding that he had disguised himself in order to obtain admission to the college and enjoy the

"Cursed fool that I am!" he said to himself; "I cannot act like a rational creature for five consecutive

The servant led him to the study and announced, "The man, if you please, ma'am."

He went in, and met the determined frown which she cast on him from her seat behind the writing table, by

She bent forward involuntarily, as if to receive a gentleman. Then she checked herself and looked implacable.

"I have to apologize," he said, "for making use of your name unwarrantably this morningtelling a lie, in

fact. I happened to be skating when the young ladies came down, and as they needed some assistance which

they would hardly have accepted from a common manexcuse my borrowing that tiresome expression from

our acquaintance SmilashI set their minds at ease by saying that you had sent for me. Otherwise, as you

have given me a bad characterthough not worse than I deservethey would probably have refused to

employ me, or at least I should have been compelled to accept payment, which I, of course, do not need."

"Not altogether," he said smiling. "But you understand that I am what is called a gentleman."

"No. The gentlemen with whom I am conversant do not dress as you dress, nor speak as you speak, nor act as

He looked at her, and her countenance confirmed the hostility of her tone. He instantly relapsed into an

"I will no longer attempt to set myself up as a gentleman," he said. "I am a common man, and your ladyship's

hi recognizes me as such and is not to be deceived. But don't go for to say that I am not candid when I am as

candid as ever you will let me be. What fault, if any, do you find with my putting the skates on the young

"If you are a gentleman," said Miss Wilson, reddening, "your conduct in persisting in these antics in my

"Miss Wilson," he replied, unruffled, "if you insist on Smilash, you shall have Smilash; I take an insane

pleasure in personating him. If you want Sidneymy real Christian nameyou can command him. But

allow me to say that you must have either one or the other. If you become frank with me, I will understand

"No matter what your name may be," said Miss Wilson, much annoyed, "I forbid you to come here or to hold

"There is much force in that reason, Miss Wilson; but it is not moral force in the sense conveyed by your

Miss Wilson, since her quarrel with Agatha, had been sore on the subject of moral force. "No one is admitted

here," she said, "without a trustworthy introduction or recommendation. A disguise is not a satisfactory

"Disguises are generally assumed for the purpose of concealing crime," he remarked sententiously.

"Therefore, I bear, to say the least, a doubtful character. Nevertheless, I have formed with some of the

students here a slight acquaintance, of which, it seems, you disapprove. You have given me no good reason

why I should discontinue that acquaintance, and you cannot control me except by your wisha sort of

influence not usually effective with doubtful characters. Suppose I disregard your wish, and that one or two

of your pupils come to you and say: 'Miss Wilson, in our opinion Smilash is an excellent fellow; we find his

conversation most improving. As it is your principle to allow us to exercise our own judgment, we intend to

"I see that your principles are those of the Church of England. You allow the students the right of private

judgment on condition that they arrive at the same conclusions as you. Excuse my saying that the principles

of the Church of England, however excellent, are not those your prospectus led me to hope for. Your plan is

"I do not admit it," said Miss Wilson, ready to argue, even with Smilash, in defence of her system. "The girls

are quite at liberty to act as they please, but I reserve my equal liberty to exclude them from my college if I

"Just so. In most schools children are perfectly at liberty to learn their lessons or not, just as they please; but

the principal reserves an equal liberty to whip them if they cannot repeat their tasks."

"I do not whip my pupils," said Miss Wilson indignantly. "The comparison is an outrage."

"But you expel them; and, as they are devoted to you and to the place, expulsion is a dreaded punishment.

Yours is the old system of making laws and enforcing them by penalties, and the superiority of Alton College

to other colleges is due, not to any difference of system, but to the comparative reasonableness of its laws and

"My system is radically different from the old one. However, I will not discuss the matter with you. A mind

occupied with the prejudices of the old coercive despotism can naturally only see in the new a modification

of the old, instead of, as my system is, an entire reversal or abandonment of it."

He shook his head sadly and said: "You seek to impose your ideas on others, ostracizing those who reject

them. Believe me, mankind has been doing nothing else ever since it began to pay some attention to ideas. It

has been said that a benevolent despotism is the best possible form of government. I do not believe that

saying, because I believe another one to the effect that hell is paved with benevolence, which most people,

the proverb being too deep for them, misinterpret as unfulfilled intentions. As if a benevolent despot might

not by any error of judgment destroy his kingdom, and then say, like Romeo when he got his friend killed, 'I

thought all for the best!' Excuse my rambling. I meant to say, in short, that though you are benevolent and

Miss Wilson, at a loss for a reply, regretted that she had not, before letting him gain so far on her, dismissed

him summarily instead of tolerating a discussion which she did not know how to end with dignity. He

"Your system was the cause of my absurd marriage. My wife acquired a degree of culture and reasonableness

from her training here which made her seem a superior being among the chatterers who form the female

seasoning in ordinary society. I admired her dark eyes, and was only too glad to seize the excuse her

education offered me for believing her a match for me in mind as well as in body."

Miss Wilson, astonished, determined to tell him coldly that her time was valuable. But curiosity took

possession of her in the act of utterance, and the words that came were, "Who was she?"

"Henrietta Jansenius. She is Henrietta Trefusis, and I am Sidney Trefusis, at your mercy. I see I have aroused

"Nonsense!" said Miss Wilson hastily; for her surprise was indeed tinged by a feeling that he was thrown

"I ran away from her and adopted this retreat and this disguise in order to avoid her. The usual rebuke to

human forethought followed. I ran straight into her armsor rather she ran into mine. You remember the

"You seem to think your marriage contract a very light matter, Mr. Trefusis. May I ask whose fault was the

"I have nothing to reproach her with. I expected to find her temper hasty, but it was not soher behavior was

unexceptionable. So was mine. Our bliss was perfect, but unfortunately, I was not made for domestic

blissat all events I could not endure itso I fled, and when she caught me again I could give no excuse for

my flight, though I made it clear to her that I would not resume our connubial relations just yet. We parted on

bad terms. I fully intended to write her a sweet letter to make her forgive me in spite of herself, but somehow

the weeks have slipped away and I am still fully intending. She has never written, and I have never written.

This is a pretty state of things, isn't it, Miss Wilson, after all her advantages under the influence of moral

"By your own admission, the fault seems to lie upon your moral training and not upon hers."

"The fault was in the conditions of our association. Why they should have attracted me so strongly at first,

and repelled me so horribly afterwards, is one of those devil's riddles which will not be answered until we

shall have traced all the yet unsuspected reactions of our inveterate dishonesty. But I am wasting your time, I

fear. You sent for Smilash, and I have responded by practically annihilating him. In public, however, you

must still bear with his antics. One moment more. I had forgotten to ask you whether you are interested in the

"He assured me, before he took his wife away, that he was comfortably settled in a lodging in Lyvern."

"Yes. Very comfortably settled indeed. For halfacrown a week he obtained permission to share a spacious

drawingroom with two other families in a tenroomed house in not much better repair than his blowndown

hovel. This house yields to its landlord over two hundred a year, or rather more than the rent of a

commodious mansion in South Kensington. It is a troublesome rent to collect, but on the other hand there is

no expenditure for repairs or sanitation, which are not considered necessary in tenement houses. Our friend

has to walk three miles to his work and three miles back. Exercise is a capital thing for a student or a city

clerk, but to a shepherd who has been in the fields all day, a long walk at the end of his work is somewhat too

much of a good thing. He begged for an increase of wages to compensate him for the loss of the hut, but Sir

John pointed out to him that if he was not satisfied his place could be easily filled by less exorbitant

shepherds. Sir John even condescended to explain that the laws of political economy bind employers to buy

labor in the cheapest market, and our poor friend, just as ignorant of economics as Sir John, of course did not

know that this was untrue. However, as labor is actually so purchased everywhere except in Downing Street

and a few other privileged spots, I suggested that our friend should go to some place where his market price

would be higher than in merry England. He was willing enough to do so, but unable from want of means. So I

lent him a trifle, and now he is on his way to Australia. Workmen are the geese that lay the golden eggs, but

they fly away sometimes. I hear a gong sounding, to remind me of the fight of time and the value of your

Miss Wilson was suddenly moved not to let him go without an appeal to his better nature. "Mr. Trefusis," she

said, "excuse me, but are you not, in your generosity to others a little forgetful of your duty to yourself;

"The first and hardest of all duties!" he exclaimed. "I beg your pardon for interrupting you. It was only to

"I cannot admit that it is the first of all duties, but it is sometimes perhaps the hardest, as you say. Still, you

could surely do yourself more justice without any great effort. If you wish to live humbly, you can do so

without pretending to be an uneducated man and without taking an irritating and absurd name. Why on earth

"I confess that the name has been a failure. I took great pains, in constructing it, to secure a pleasant

impression. It is not a mere invention, but a compound of the words smile and eyelash. A smile suggests good

humor; eyelashes soften the expression and are the only features that never blemish a face. Hence Smilash is

a sound that should cheer and propitiate. Yet it exasperates. It is really very odd that it should have that effect,

Miss Wilson looked at him doubtfully. He remained perfectly grave. There was a pause. Then, as if she had

"Goodmorning, Miss Wilson. The son of a millionaire, like the son of a king, is seldom free from mental

disease. I am just mad enough to be a mountebank. If I were a little madder, I should perhaps really believe

myself Smilash instead of merely acting him. Whether you ask me to forget myself for a moment, or to

remember myself for a moment, I reply that I am the son of my father, and cannot. With my egotism, my

charlatanry, my tongue, and my habit of having my own way, I am fit for no calling but that of saviour of

mankindjust of the sort they like." After an impressive pause he turned slowly and left the room.

"I wonder," he said, as he crossed the landing, "whether, by judiciously losing my way, I can catch a glimpse

Downstairs, on his way to the door, he saw Agatha coming towards him, occupied with a book which she was

tossing up to the ceiling and catching. Her melancholy expression, habitual in her lonely moments, showed

that she was not amusing herself, but giving vent to her restlessness. As her gaze travelled upward, following

the flight of the volume, it was arrested by Smilash. The book fell to the floor. He picked it up and handed it

"I call you the golden idol," he said. "When we are apart I always imagine your face as a face of gold, with

eyes and teeth of bdellium, or chalcedony, or agate, or any wonderful unknown stones of appropriate colors."

"You think you ought to be angry with me, and you do not know exactly how to make me feel that you are

"No. Quite the contrary. At leastI mean that you are wrong. I am the most commonplace person you can

"Of course you do not know; you cannot see yourself as others see you. For instance, you have never thought

"Perhaps so. I know, however, that your face is not really made of gold and that it has not the same charm for

"Believe me, your hurry is only imaginary. Do you fancy that you are behaving in a manner quite ubdued

ardor that affected Agatha strangely. "But first tell me whether it is new to you or not."

"Do not be afraid of it. It is only being alone with a man whom you have bewitched. You would be mistress

of the situation if you only knew how to manage a lover. It is far easier than managing a horse, or skating, or

"Forgive me," he said, interrupting the action. "I am trying to offend you in order to save myself from falling

in love with you, and I have not the heart to let myself succeed. On your life, do not listen to me or believe

me. I have no right to say these things to you. Some fiend enters into me when I am at your side. You should

She blushed, and stood burning and tingling, her presence of mind gone, and her chief sensation one of relief

to hearfor she did not dare to seethat he was departing. Her consciousness was in a delicious confusion,

with the one definite thought in it that she had won her lover at last. The tone of Trefusis's voice, rich with

truth and earnestness, his quick insight, and his passionate warning to her not to heed him, convinced her that

"And yet," she said remorsefully, "I cannot love him as he loves me. I am selfish, cold, calculating, worldly,

and have doubted until now whether such a thing as love really existed. If I could only love him recklessly

"Now I have made the poor childwho was so anxious that I should not mistake her for a supernaturally

gifted and lovely woman as happy as an angel; and so is that fine girl whom they call Jane Carpenter. I hope

Mrs. Trefusis found her parents so unsympathetic on the subject of her marriage that she left their house

shortly after her visit to Lyvern, and went to reside with a hospitable friend. Unable to remain silent upon the

matter constantly in her thoughts, she discussed her husband's flight with this friend, and elicited an opinion

that the behavior of Trefusis was scandalous and wicked. Henrietta could not bear this, and sought shelter

"Well, Hetty, if I am to speak candidly, I must say that I have known Sidney Trefusis for a long time, and he

is the easiest person to get on with I ever met. And you know, dear, that you are very trying sometimes."

"And so," cried Henrietta, bursting into tears, "after the infamous way he has treated me I am to be told that it

She left the house next day, having obtained another invitation from a discreet lady who would not discuss

the subject at all. This proved quite intolerable, and Henrietta went to stay with her uncle Daniel Jansenius, a

jolly and indulgent man. He opined that things would come right as soon as both parties grew more sensible;

and, as to which of them was, in fault, his verdict was, six of one and half a dozen of the other. Whenever he

saw his niece pensive or tearful he laughed at her and called her a grass widow. Henrietta found that she

could endure anything rather than this. Declaring that the world was hateful to her, she hired a furnished villa

in St. John's Wood, whither she moved in December. But, suffering much there from loneliness, she soon

wrote a pathetic letter to Agatha, entreating her to spend the approaching Christmas vacation with her, and

promising her every luxury and amusement that boundless affection could suggest and boundless means

"Dearest Hetty: I don't think I can do exactly what you want, as I must spend Xmas with Mamma at

Chiswick; but I need not get there until Xmas Eve, and we break up here on yesterday week, the 20th. So I

will go straight to you and bring you with me to Mamma's, where you will spend Xmas much better than

moping in a strange house. It is not quite settled yet about my leaving the college after this term. You must

promise not to tell anyone; but I have a new friend herea lover. Not that I am in love with him, though I

think very highly of himyou know I am not a romantic fool; but he is very much in love with me; and I

wish I could return it as he deserves. The French say that one person turns the cheek and the other kisses it. It

has not got quite so far as that with us; indeed, since he declared what he felt he has only been able to snatch

a few words with me when I have been skating or walking. But there has always been at least one word or

"And now, who do you think he is? He says he knows you. Can you guess? He says you know all his secrets.

He says he knows your husband well; that he treated you very badly, and that you are greatly to be pitied.

Can you guess now? He says he has kissed youfor shame, Hetty! Have you guessed yet? He was going to

tell me something more when we were interrupted, and I have not seen him since except at a distance. He is

the man with whom you eloped that day when you gave us all such a frightMr. Sidney. I was the first to

penetrate his disguise; and that very morning I had taxed him with it, and he had confessed it. He said then

that he was hiding from a woman who was in love with him; and I should not be surprised if it turned out to

be true; for he is wonderfully originalin fact what makes me like him is that he is by far the cleverest man I

have ever met; and yet he thinks nothing of himself. I cannot imagine what he sees in me to care for, though

he is evidently ensnared by my charms. I hope he won't find out how silly I am. He called me his golden

Henrietta, with a scream of rage, tore the letter across, and stamped upon it. When the paroxysm subsided she

picked up the pieces, held them together as accurately as her trembling hands could, and read on.

"but he is not all honey, and will say the most severe things sometimes if he thinks he ought to. He has

made me so ashamed of my ignorance that I am resolved to stay here for another term at least, and study as

hard as I can. I have not begun yet, as it is not worth while at the eleventh hour of this term; but when I return

in January I will set to work in earnest. So you may see that his influence over me is an entirely good one. I

will tell you all about him when we meet; for I have no time to say anything now, as the girls are bothering

me to go skating with them. He pretends to be a workman, and puts on our skates for us; and Jane Carpenter

believes that he is in love with her. Jane is exceedingly kindhearted; but she has a talent for making herself

ridiculous that nothing can suppress. The ice is lovely, and the weather jolly; we do not mind the cold in the

Henrietta looked round for something sharp. She grasped a pair of scissors greedily and stabbed the air with

them. Then she became conscious of her murderous impulse, and she shuddered at it; but in a moment more

her jealousy swept back upon her. She cried, as if suffocating, "I don't care; I should like to kill her!" But she

At last she rang the bell violently and asked for a railway guide. On being told that there was not one in the

house, she scolded her maid so unreasonably that the girl said pertly that if she were to be spoken to like that

she should wish to leave when her month was up. This check brought Henrietta to her senses. She went

upstairs and put on the first cloak at hand, which was fortunately a heavy fur one. Then she took her bonnet

and purse, left the house, hailed a passing hansom, and bade the cabman drive her to St. Pancras.

When the night came the air at Lyvern was like iron in the intense cold. The trees and the wind seemed

icebound, as the water was, and silence, stillness, and starlight, frozen hard, brooded over the country. At

the chalet, Smilash, indifferent to the price of coals, kept up a roaring fire that glowed through the

uncurtained windows, and tantalized the chilled wayfarer who did not happen to know, as the herdsmen of

the neighborhood did, that he was welcome to enter and warm himself without risk of rebuff from the tenant.

Smilash was in high spirits. He had become a proficient skater, and frosty weather was now a luxury to him.

It braced him, and drove away his gloomy fits, whilst his sympathies were kept awake and his indignation

maintained at an exhilarating pitch by the sufferings of the poor, who, unable to afford fires or skating,

warmed themselves in such sweltering heat as overcrowding produces in all seasons.

It was Smilash's custom to make a hot drink of oatmeal and water for himself at halfpast nine o'clock each

evening, and to go to bed at ten. He opened the door to throw out some water that remained in the saucepan

from its last cleansing. It froze as it fell upon the soil. He looked at the night, and shook himself to throw off

an oppressive sensation of being clasped in the icy ribs of the air, for the mercury had descended below the

familiar region of crisp and crackly cold and marked a temperature at which the numb atmosphere seemed on

"By George!" he said, "this is one of those nights on which a rich man daren't think!"

He shut the door, hastened back to his fire, and set to work at his caudle, which he watched and stirred with a

solicitude that would have amused a professed cook. When it was done he poured it into a large mug, where

it steamed invitingly. He took up some in a spoon and blew upon it to cool it. Tap, tap, tap, tap! hurriedly at

"Nice night for a walk," he said, putting down the spoon; then shouting, "Come in."

The latch rose unsteadily, and Henrietta, with frozen tears on her cheeks, and an unintelligible expression of

wretchedness and rage, appeared. After an instant of amazement, he sprang to her and clasped her in his

arms, and she, against her will, and protesting voicelessly, stumbled into his embrace.

"You are frozen to death," he exclaimed, carrying her to the fire. "This seal jacket is like a sheet of ice. So is

"My poor love, you are too cold to hate anyone even your husband. You must let me take off these

By this time her voice and tears were thawing in the warmth of the chalet and of his caresses. "You shall not

take them off," she said, crying with cold and sorrow. "Let me alone. Don't touch me. I am going

awaystraight back. I will not speak to you, nor take off my things here, nor touch anything in the house."

"No, my darling," he said, putting her into a capacious wooden armchair and busily unbuttoning her boots,

"you shall do nothing that you don't wish to do. Your feet are like stones. Yes, yes, my dear, I am a wretch

"Let me alone," she said piteously. "I don't want your attentions. I have done with you for ever."

"Come, you must drink some of this nasty stuff. You will need strength to tell your husband all the

She turned her face away and would not answer. He brought another chair and sat down beside her. "My lost,

"You are also my dearest and best of wives. If you ever loved me, Hetty, do, for my once dear sake, drink this

She pouted, sobbed, and yielded to some gentle force which he used, as a child allows herself to be half

"Then," he said cheerfully, as if she had uttered a hearty affirmative, "I will put some more coals on the fire,

and we shall be as snug as possible. It makes me wildly happy to see you at my fireside, and to know that you

"I should wonder at myself if I could look at your face and say anything else. Oatmeal is a capital restorative;

all your energy is coming back. There, that will make a magnificent blaze presently."

"I never thought you deceitful, Sidney, whatever other faults you might have had."

"Precisely, my love. I understand your feelings. Murder, burglary, intemperance, or the minor vices you

"I will go away," she said despairingly, with a fresh burst of tears. "I will not be laughed at and betrayed. I

will go barefooted." She rose and attempted to reach the door; but he intercepted her and said:

"My love, there is something serious the matter. What is it? Don't be angry with me."

He brought her back to the chair. She took Agatha's letter from the pocket of her fur cloak, and handed it to

He took it curiously, and turned it to look at the signature. "Aha!" he said, "my golden idol has been making

"There!" exclaimed Henrietta. "You have said it to my face! You have convicted yourself out of your own

He rose and walked to and fro through the room, reading. She watched him, angrily confident that she should

presently see him change countenance. Suddenly he drooped as if his spine had partly given way; and in this

ungraceful attitude he read the remainder of the letter. When he had finished he threw it on the table, thrust

his hands deep into his pockets, and roared with laughter, huddling himself together as if he could concentrate

the joke by collecting himself into the smallest possible compass. Henrietta, speechless with indignation,

"And so," he said, "on receiving this you rushed out in the cold and came all the way to Lyvern. Now, it

"Oh!" And she wept afresh. "You are a selfish brute, and you do just as you like without considering anyone

else. No one ever thinks of me. And now you won't even take the trouble to deny that shameful letter."

"Why should I deny it? It is true. Do you not see the irony of all this? I amuse myself by paying a few

compliments to a schoolgirl for whom I do not care two straws more than for any agreeable and passably

clever woman I meet. Nevertheless, I occasionally feel a pang of remorse because I think that she may love

me seriously, although I am only playing with her. I pity the poor heart I have wantonly ensnared. And, all

the time, she is pitying me for exactly the same reason! She is consciencestricken because she is only

indulging in the luxury of being adored 'by far the cleverest man she has ever met,' and is as heartwhole as I

am! Ha, ha! That is the basis of the religion of love of which poets are the highpriests. Each worshipper

knows that his own love is either a transient passion or a sham copied from his favorite poem; but he believes

honestly in the love of others for him. Ho, ho! Is it not a silly world, my dear?"

"You had no right to make love to Agatha. You have no right to make love to anyone but me; and I won't

"You are angry because Agatha has infringed your monopoly. Always monopoly! Why, you silly girl, do you

suppose that I belong to you, body and soul?that I may not be moved except by your affection, or think

"You may call me as many names as you please, but you have no right to make love to Agatha."

"My dearest, I do not recollect calling you any names. I think you said something about a selfish brute."

"I don't deny it. But let us return to our subject. What did we begin to quarrel about?"

"Oh, pardon me, Hetty; I certainly did not begin to quarrel about her. I am very fond of hermore so, it

appears, than she is of me. One moment, Hetty, before you recommence your reproaches. Why do you dislike

Henrietta hesitated, and said: "Because you have no right to. It shows how little you care for me."

"I will not stay here to be insulted," said Hetty, her distress returning. "I will go home."

"My cherished one, I have been annoying you purposely because you show by your anger that you have not

ceased to care for me. I am in the wrong, as I usually am, and it is all my fault. Agatha knows nothing about

"I do not blame you so much," said Henrietta, suffering him to place her head on his shoulder; "but I will

never speak to Agatha again. She has behaved shamefully to me, and I will tell her so."

"No doubt she will opine that it is all your fault, dearest, and that I have behaved admirably. Between you I

shall stand exonerated. And now, since it is too cold for walking, since it is late, since it is far to Lyvern and

Next day Smilash obtained from his wife a promise that she would behave towards Agatha as if the letter had

given no offence. Henrietta pleaded as movingly as she could for an immediate return to their domestic state,

but he put her off with endearing speeches, promised nothing but eternal affection, and sent her back to

London by the twelve o'clock express. Then his countenance changed; he walked back to Lyvern, and thence

to the chalet, like a man pursued by disgust and remorse. Later in the afternoon, to raise his spirits, he took

his skates and went to Wickens's pond, where, it being Saturday, he found the ice crowded with the Alton

students and their halfholiday visitors. Fairholme, describing circles with his habitual air of compressed

hardihood, stopped and stared with indignant surprise as Smilash lurched past him.

"Is that man here by your permission?" he said to Farmer Wickens, who was walking about as if

"He is here because he likes, I take it," said Wickens stubbornly. "He is a neighbor of mine and a friend of

mine. Is there any objections to my having a friend on my own pond, seein' that there is nigh on two or three

ton of other people's friends on it 108 without as much as a withyourleave or a byyour leave."

"Oh, no," said Fairholme, somewhat dashed. "If you are satisfied there can be no objection."

"Let me tell you," said Fairholme, nettled, "that your landlord would not be pleased to see him here. He sent

one of Sir John's best shepherds out of the country, after filling his head with ideas above his station. I heard

"Mayhap you did, Muster Fairholme. I have a lease of this landand gravelly, poor stuff it isand I am no

ways beholden to Sir John's likings and dislikings. A very good thing too for Sir John that I have a lease, for

there ain't a man in the country 'ud tak' a present o' the farm if it was free tomorrow. And what's a' more,

though that young man do talk foolish things about the rights of farm laborers and suchlike nonsense, if Sir

John was to hear him layin' it down concernin' rent and improvements, and the way we tenant farmers is put

And Wickens, with a smile expressive of his sense of having retorted effectively upon the parson, nodded and

Just then Agatha, skating hand in hand with Jane Carpenter, heard these words in her ear: "I have something

"I am not quite sure that you will enjoy it as it deserves," he added, and darted off again, after casting an

Agatha disengaged herself from her companion, made a circuit, and passed near Smilash, saying: "What is

Smilash flitted away like a swallow, traced several circles around Fairholme, and then returned to Agatha and

Agatha's face began to glow. She forgot to maintain her balance, and almost fell.

"That is fortunate," he continued, "becausegood evening, Miss Ward; I have done nothing but admire your

skating for the last hourbecause men were deceivers ever; and I am no exception, as you will presently

"You think not? Well, perhaps you are right; I have said nothing to you that is not in a measure true. You

have always had a peculiar charm for me. But I did not mean you to tell Hetty. Can you guess why?"

Agatha's ankles became limp. With an effort she kept upright until she reached Jane, to whom she clung for

"I must sit down," said Agatha. "I am tired. Let me lean on you until we get to the chairs."

"Bosh! I can skate for an hour without sitting down," said Jane. However, she helped Agatha to a chair and

left her. Then Smilash, as if desiring a rest also, sat down close by on the margin of the pond.

"Well," he said, without troubling himself as to whether their conversation attracted attention or not, "what do

"That is the cream of the joke," he replied, poising his heels on the ice so that his skates stood vertically at

legs' length from him, and looking at them with a cynical air. "I thought you were in love with me, and that

the truth would be too severe a blow to you. Ha! ha! And, for the same reason, you generously forbore to tell

me that you were no more in love with me than with the man in the moon. Each played a farce, and palmed it

"There are some things so unmanly, so unkind, and so cruel," said Agatha, "that I cannot understand any

gentleman saying them to a girl. Please do not speak to me again. Miss Ward! Come to me for a moment.

Ward hurried to her side. Smilash, after staring at her for a moment in astonishment, and in some concern,

skimmed away into the crowd. When he reached the opposite bank he took off his skates and asked Jane, who

strayed intentionally in his direction, to tell Miss Wylie that he was gone, and would skate no more there.

Without adding a word of explanation he left her and made for his dwelling. As he went down into the hollow

where the road passed through the plantation on the college side of the chalet he descried a boy, in the

uniform of the post office, sliding along the frozen ditch. A presentiment of evil tidings came upon him like a

The boy, who knew him, fumbled in a letter case and produced a buff envelope. It contained a telegram.

TO J. Smilash, Chamoounix Villa, Lyvern. _________________________________________

Henrietta dangerously ill after journey wants to see you doctors say must come at once

There was a pause. Then he folded the paper methodically and put it in his pocket, as if quite done with it.

"Only to come quicker," said the messenger, faltering. "I came as quick as I could."

"You carried news heavy enough to break the thickest ice ever frozen. I have a mind to throw you over the

"Get back to Lyvern as fast as you can run or slide, and tell Mr. Marsh to send me the fastest trap he has, to

drive me to the railway station. Here is your halfcrown. Off with you; and if I do not find the trap ready

The boy came for the money mistrustfully, and ran off with it as fast as he could. Smilash went into the chalet

and never reappeared. Instead, Trefusis, a gentleman in an ulster, carrying a rug, came out, locked the door,

and hurried along the road to Lyvern, where he was picked up by the trap, and carried swiftly to the railway

"Evening paper, sir?" said a voice at the window, as he settled himself in the corner of a firstclass carriage.

The footwarmer was brought, and Trefusis composed himself comfortably for his journey. It seemed very

short to him; he could hardly believe, when the train arrived in London, that he had been nearly three hours

There was a sense of Christmas about the travellers and the people who were at the terminus to meet them.

The porter who came to the carriage door reminded Trefusis by his manner and voice that the season was one

For a moment Trefusis felt a vagabond impulse to resume the language of Smilash and fable to the man of

hampers of turkey and plumpudding in the van. But he repressed it, got into a hansom, and was driven to his

fatherinlaw's house in Belsize Avenue, studying in a gloomily critical mood the anxiety that surged upon

him and made his heart beat like a boy's as he drew near his destination. There were two carriages at the door

when he alighted. The reticent expression of the coachmen sent a tremor through him.

The door opened before he rang. "If you please, sir," said the maid in a low voice, "will you step into the

On the first landing of the staircase two gentlemen were speaking to Mr. Jansenius, who hastily moved out of

sight, not before a glimpse of his air of grief 174 and discomfiture had given Trefusis a strange twinge,

succeeded by a sensation of having been twenty years a widower. He smiled unconcernedly as he followed

the girl into the library, and asked her how she did. She murmured some reply and hurried away, thinking that

He was joined at once by a gray whiskered gentleman, scrupulously dressed and mannered. Trefusis

introduced himself, and the physician looked at him with some interest. Then he said:

"Was the long railway journey she took in this cold weather the cause of her death?"

Some bitter words that the physician had heard upstairs made him aware that this was a delicate question. But

"She received some unwelcome and quite unlookedfor intelligence before she started. Had that anything to

"It may have produced an unfavorable effect," said the physician, growing restive and taking up his gloves.

"The habit of referring such events to such causes is carried too far, as a rule."

"No doubt. I am curious because the event is novel in my experience. I suppose it is a commonplace in yours.

175 The loss of a lady so young and so favorably circumstanced is not a commonplace either in my

experience or in my opinion." The physician held up his head as he spoke, in protest against any assumption

"For some hours, yes. We were able to do a little to alleviate her painpoor thing!" He almost forgot

"Hours of pain! Can you conceive any good purpose that those hours may have served?"

The physician shook his head, leaving it doubtful whether he meant to reply in the negative or to deplore

considerations of that nature. He also made a movement to depart, being uneasy in conversation with

Trefusis, who would, he felt sure, presently ask questions or make remarks with which he could hardly deal

without committing himself in some direction. His conscience was not quite at rest. Henrietta's pain had not,

he thought, served any good purpose; but he did not want to say so, lest he should acquire a reputation for

impiety and lose his practice. He believed that the general practitioner who attended the family, and had

called him in when the case grew serious, had treated Henrietta unskilfully, but professional etiquette bound

him so strongly that, sooner than betray his colleague's inefficiency, he would have allowed him to decimate

"No. I considered it best that she should not be informed of her danger. She passed away without any

"Then one can think of it with equanimity. She dreaded death, poor child. The wonder is that there was not

The physician bowed and took his leave, esteeming himself somewhat fortunate in escaping without being

A moment later the general practitioner entered. Trefusis, having accompanied the consulting physician to the

door, detected the family doctor in the act of pulling a long face just outside it. Restraining a desire to seize

him by the throat, he seated himself on the edge of the table and said cheerfully:

The doctor was taken aback, but the solemn disposition of his features did not relax as he almost intoned:

The doctor looked a little foolish. "Everything was done that could be done, Mr. Trefusis; but Mrs. Jansenius

was very anxious that no stone should be left unturned. She was good enough to say that her sole reason for

wishing me to call in Sir Francis was that you should have no cause to complain."

"An excellent mother! A sad event for her! Ah, yes, yes! Dear me! A very sad event!"

"Most disagreeable. Such a cold day too. Pleasanter to be in heaven than here in such weather, possibly."

"Ah!" said the doctor, as if much sound comfort lay in that. "I hope so; I hope so; I do not doubt it. Sir

Francis did not permit us to tell her, and I, of course, deferred to him. Perhaps it was for the best."

"Well, there are, you see, considerations which we must not ignore in our profession. Death is a serious thing,

as I am sure I need not remind you, Mr. Trefusis. We have sometimes higher duties than indulgence to the

"Quite so. The possibility of eternal bliss and the probability of eternal torment are consolations not to be

lightly withheld from a dying girl, eh? However, what's past cannot be mended. I have much to be thankful

for, after all. I am a young man, and shall not cut a bad figure as a widower. And now tell me, doctor, am I

"Mr. Trefusis! Sir! I cannot meddle in family matters. I understand my duties and never over step them." The

"Stay, sir! One moment. I have not finished. Mrs. Jansenius has asked me to askI was about to say that I

am not speaking now as the medical adviser of this family; but although an old friendandahem! Mrs.

Jansenius has asked me to askto request you to excuse Mr. Jansenius, as he is prostrated by grief, and is, as

I canas a medical manassure you, unable to see anyone. She will speak to you herself as soon as she

feels able to do soat some time this evening. Meanwhile, of course, any orders you may giveyou must

be fatigued by your journey, and I always recommend people not to fast too long; it produces an acute form

of indigestionany orders you may wish to give will, of course, be attended to at once."

"There is no illfeeling," said the doctor, who, as a slow man, was usually alarmed by prompt decisions, even

when they seemed wise to him, as this one did. "I hope you have not gathered from anything I have said"

"Not at all; you have displayed the utmost tact. But I think I had better go. Jansenius can bear death and

misery with perfect fortitude when it is on a large scale and hidden in a back slum. But when it breaks into his

own house, and attacks his propertyhis daughter was his property until very recently he is just the man

The doctor was unable to cope with this speech, which conveyed vaguely monstrous ideas to him. Seeing

"II thought you might wish to see" He did not finish the sentence, but Trefusis flinched; the blank had

"To see something that was Henrietta, and that is a thing we must cast out and hide, with a little superstitious

"But, sir, whatever your views may be, will you not, as a matter of form, in deference to the feelings of the

"Let them spare their feelings for the living, on whose behalf I have often appealed to them in vain," cried

Trefusis, losing patience. "Damn their feelings!" And, turning to the door, he found it open, and Mrs.

Trefusis was confounded. He knew what the effect of his speech must be, and felt that it would be folly to

attempt excuse or explanation. He put his hands into his pockets, leaned against the table, and looked at her,

The doctor broke the silence by saying tremulously, "I have communicated the melancholy intelligence to

"I hope you told him also," she said sternly, "that, however deficient we may be in feeling, we did everything

"No doubt you arewith the result," said Mrs. Jansenius, hardly. "I wish to know whether you have anything

"What have I to complain of? She had a warm room and a luxurious bed to die in, with the best medical

advice in the world. Plenty of people are starving and freezing today that we may have the means to die

fashionably; ask THEM if they have any cause for complaint. Do you think I will wrangle over her body

about the amount of money spent on her illness? What measure is that of the cause she had for complaint? I

never grudged money to herhow could I, seeing that more than I can waste is given to me for nothing? Or

how could you? Yet she had great reason to complain of me. You will allow that to be so."

"Well, when I am in the humor for it, I will reproach myself and not you." He paused, and then turned

forcibly on her, saying, "Why do you select this time, of all others, to speak so bitterly to me?"

"I am not aware that I have said anything to call for such a remark. Did YOU," (appealing to the doctor) "hear

"Mr. Trefusis does not mean to say that you did, I am sure. Oh, no. Mr. Trefusis's feelings are naturallyare

"My feelings!" cried Trefusis impatiently. "Do you suppose my feelings are a trumpery set of social

observances, to be harrowed to order and exhibited at funerals? She has gone as we three shall go soon

enough. If we were immortal, we might reasonably pity the dead. As we are not, we had better save our

The doctor was deeply offended by this speech, for the statement that he should one day die seemed to him a

reflection upon his professional mastery over death. Mrs. Jansenius was glad to see Trefusis confirming her

bad opinion and report of him by his conduct and language in the doctor's presence. There was a brief pause,

and then Trefusis, too far out of sympathy with them to be able to lead the conversation into a kinder vein,

left the room. In the act of putting on his overcoat in the hall, he hesitated, and hung it up again irresolutely.

Suddenly he ran upstairs. At the sound of his steps a woman came from one of the rooms and looked

A painful sense of constriction came in his chest, and he turned pale and stopped with his hand on the lock.

"Don't be afraid, sir," said the woman, with an encouraging smile. "She looks beautiful."

He looked at her with a strange grin, as if she had uttered a ghastly but irresistible joke. Then he went in, and,

when he reached the bed, wished he had stayed without. He was not one of those who, seeing little in the

faces of the living miss little in the faces of the dead. The arrangement of the black hair on the pillow, the soft

drapery, and the flowers placed there by the nurse to complete the artistic effect to which she had so

confidently referred, were lost on him; he saw only a lifeless mask that had been his wife's face, and at sight

of it his knees failed, and he had to lean for support on the rail at the foot of the bed.

When he looked again the face seemed to have changed. It was no longer a waxlike mask, but Henrietta,

girlish and pathetically at rest. Death seemed to have cancelled her marriage and womanhood; he had never

seen her look so young. A minute passed, and then a tear dropped on the coverlet. He started; shook another

"This is a fraud of which I have never even dreamed," he said. "Tears and no sorrow! Here am I crying!

growing maudlin! whilst I am glad that she is gone and I free. I have the mechanism of grief in me

somewhere; it begins to turn at sight of her though I have no sorrow; just as she used to start the mechanism

of passion when I had no love. And that made no difference to her; whilst the wheels went round she was

satisfied. I hope the mechanism of grief will flag and stop in its spinning as soon as the other used to. It is

stopping already, I think. What a mockery! Whilst it lasts I suppose I am really sorry. And yet, would I

restore her to life if I could? Perhaps so; I am therefore thankful that I cannot." He folded his arms on the rail

and gravely addressed the dead figure, which still affected him so strongly that he had to exert his will to face

it with composure. "If you really loved me, it is well for you that you are deadidiot that I was to believe

that the passion you could inspire, you poor child, would last. We are both lucky; I have escaped from you,

Presently he breathed more freely and looked round the room to help himself into a matteroffact vein by a

little unembarrassed action, and the commonplace aspect of the bedroom furniture. He went to the pillow, and

"Poor child!" he said again, tenderly. Then, with sudden reaction, apostrophizing himself instead of his wife,

"Poor ass! Poor idiot! Poor jackanapes! Here is the body of a woman who was nearly as old as myself, and

perhaps wiser, and here am I moralizing over it as if I were God Almighty and she a baby! The more you

remind a man of what he is, the more conceited he becomes. Monstrous! I shall feel immortal presently."

He touched the cheek with a faint attempt at roughness, to feel how cold it was. Then he touched his own,

"This is what I am hastening toward at the express speed of sixty minutes an hour!" He stood looking down at

the face and tasting this sombre reflection for a long time. When it palled on him, he roused himself, and

"After all, she is not dead. Every word she utteredevery idea she formed and expressed, was an

inexhaustible and indestructible impulse." He paused, considered a little further, and relapsed into gloom,

adding, "and the dozen others whose names will be with hers in the 'Times' tomorrow? Their words too are

still in the air, to endure there to all eternity. Hm! How the air must be crammed with nonsense! Two sounds

sometimes produce a silence; perhaps ideas neutralize one another in some analogous way. No, my dear; you

are dead and gone and done with, and I shall be dead and gone and done with too soon to leave me leisure to

fool myself with hopes of immortality. Poor Hetty! Well, goodby, my darling. Let us pretend for a moment

All this was in a halfarticulate whisper. When he ceased he still bent over the body, gazing intently at it.

Even when he had exhausted the subject, and turned to go, he changed his mind, and looked again for a

while. Then he stood erect, apparently nerved and refreshed, and left the room with a firm step. The woman

was waiting outside. Seeing that he was less distressed than when he entered, she said:

"Delighted! Charmed! The arrangements are extremely pretty and tasteful. Most consolatory." And he gave

"I thank you, sir," she said, dropping a curtsey. "The poor young lady! She was anxious to see you, sir. To

hear her say that you were the only one that cared for her! And so fretful with her mother, too. 'Let him be

told that I am dangerously ill,' says she, 'and he'll come.' She didn't know how true her word was, poor thing;

"Bless you, I know what her feelings were, sir; I have had experience." Here she approached him

confidentially, and whispered: "The family were again' you, sir, and she knew it. But she wouldn't listen to

them. She thought of nothing, when she was easy enough to think at all, but of your coming. Andhush!

Trefusis looked round and saw Mr. Jansenius, whose handsome face was white and seamed with grief and

annoyance. He drew back from the proffered hand of his soninlaw, like an overworried child from an

"So have I, unfortunately. Pray make my apologies to her. I was rude. The circumstances upset me."

"You damned my feelings, and I will damn yours," continued Jansenius in the same tone. Trefusis

involuntarily looked at the door through which he had lately passed. Then, recovering himself, he said

Before Jansenius could reply his wife hurried upstairs, caught him by the arm, and said, "Don't speak to him,

"What!" he said, looking cynically at her. "Without my dead! Without my property! Well, be it so."

"What do you know of the feelings of a respectable man?" persisted Jansenius, breaking out again in spite of

"And what fathers are, and what mothers are," retorted Trefusis, giving way to his temper. "I thought you

loved Hetty, but I see that you only love your feelings and your respectability. The devil take both! She was

right; my love for her, incomplete as it was, was greater than yours." And he left the house in dudgeon.

But he stood awhile in the avenue to laugh at himself and his fatherinlaw. Then he took a hansom and was

driven to the house of his solicitor, whom he wished to consult on the settlement of his late wife's affairs.

The remains of Henrietta Trefusis were interred in Highgate Cemetery the day before Christmas Eve. Three

noblemen sent their carriages to the funeral, and the friends and clients of Mr. Jansenius, to a large number,

attended in person. The bier was covered with a profusion of costly Bowers. The undertaker, instructed to

spare no expense, provided longtailed black horses, with black palls on their backs and black plumes upon

their foreheads; coachmen decorated with scarves and jackboots, black hammercloths, cloaks, and gloves,

with many hired mourners, who, however, would have been instantly discharged had they presumed to betray

emotion, or in any way overstep their function of walking beside the hearse with brasstipped batons in their

Among the genuine mourners were Mr. Jansenius, who burst into tears at the ceremony of casting earth on

the coffin; the boy Arthur, who, preoccupied by the novelty of appearing in a long cloak at the head of a

public procession, felt that he was not so sorry as he ought to be when he saw his papa cry; and a cousin who

had once asked Henrietta to marry him, and who now, full of tragic reflections, was enjoying his despair

The rest whispered, whenever they could decently do so, about a strange omission in the arrangements. The

husband of the deceased was absent. Members of the family and intimate friends were told by Daniel

Jansenius that the widower had acted in a blackguard way, and that the Janseniuses did not care twopence

whether he came or stayed at home; that, but for the indecency of the thing, they were just as glad that he was

keeping away. Others, who had no claim to be privately informed, made inquiries of the undertaker's

foreman, who said he understood the gentleman objected to large funerals. Asked why, he said he supposed it

was on the ground of expense. This being met by a remark that Mr. Trefusis was very wealthy, he added that

he had been told so, but believed the money had not come from the lady; that people seldom cared to go to a

great expense for a funeral unless they came into something good by the death; and that some parties the

more they had the more they grudged. Before the funeral guests dispersed, the report spread by Mr.

Jansenius's brother had got mixed with the views of the foreman, and had given rise to a story of Trefusis

expressing joy at his wife's death with frightful oaths in her father's house whilst she lay dead there, and

Some days later, when gossip on the subject was subsiding, a fresh scandal revived it. A literary friend of Mr.

Jansenius's helped him to compose an epitaph, and added to it a couple of pretty and touching stanzas, setting

forth that Henrietta's character had been one of rare sweetness and virtue, and that her friends would never

cease to sorrow for her loss. A tradesman who described himself as a "monumental mason" furnished a book

of tomb designs, and Mr. Jansenius selected a highly ornamental one, and proposed to defray half the cost of

its erection. Trefusis objected that the epitaph was untrue, and said that he did not see why tombstones should

be privileged to publish false statements. It was reported that he had followed up his former misconduct by

calling his fatherinlaw a liar, and that he had ordered a common tombstone from some cheapjack at the

Eastend. He had, in fact, spoken contemptuously of the monumental tradesman as an "exploiter" of labor,

and had asked a young working mason, a member of the International Association, to design a monument for

The mason, with much pains and misgiving, produced an original design. Trefusis approved of it, and

resolved to have it executed by the hands of the designer. He hired a sculptor's studio, purchased blocks of

marble of the dimensions and quality described to him by the mason, and invited him to set to work

Trefusis now encountered a difficulty. He wished to pay the mason the just value of his work, no more and no

less. But this he could not ascertain. The only available standard was the market price, and this he rejected as

being fixed by competition among capitalists who could only secure profit by obtaining from their workmen

more products than they paid them for, and could only tempt customers by offering a share of the unpaidfor

part of the products as a reduction in price. Thus he found that the system of withholding the indispensable

materials for production and subsistence from the laborers, except on condition of their supporting an idle

class whilst accepting a lower standard of comfort for themselves than for that idle class, rendered the

determination of just ratios of exchange, and consequently the practice of honest dealing, impossible. He had

at last to ask the mason what he would consider fair payment for the execution of the design, though he knew

that the man could no more solve the problem than he, and that, though he would certainly ask as much as he

thought he could get, his demand must be limited by his poverty and by the competition of the monumental

tradesman. Trefusis settled the matter by giving double what was asked, only imposing such conditions as

were necessary to compel the mason to execute the work himself, and not make a profit by hiring other men

But the design was, to its author's astonishment, to be paid for separately. The mason, after hesitating a long

time between twopoundsten and five pounds, was emboldened by a fellowworkman, who treated him to

some hot whiskey and water, to name the larger sum. Trefusis paid the money at once, and then set himself to

find out how much a similar design would have cost from the hands of an eminent Royal Academician.

Happening to know a gentleman in this position, he consulted him, and was informed that the probable cost

would be from five hundred to one thousand pounds. Trefusis expressed his opinion that the mason's charge

was the more reasonable, somewhat to the indignation of his artist friend, who reminded him of the years

which a Royal Academician has to spend in acquiring his skill. Trefusis mentioned that the apprenticeship of

a mason was quite as long, twice as laborious, and not half so pleasant. The artist now began to find

Trefusis's Socialistic views, with which he had previously fancied himself in sympathy, both odious and

dangerous. He demanded whether nothing was to be allowed for genius. Trefusis warmly replied that genius

cost its possessor nothing; that it was the inheritance of the whole race incidentally vested in a single

individual, and that if that individual employed his monopoly of it to extort money from others, he deserved

nothing better than hanging. The artist lost his temper, and suggested that if Trefusis could not feel that the

prerogative of art was divine, perhaps he could understand that a painter was not such a fool as to design a

tomb for five pounds when he might be painting a portrait for a thousand. Trefusis retorted that the fact of a

man paying a thousand pounds for a portrait proved that he had not earned the money, and was therefore

either a thief or a beggar. The common workman who sacrificed sixpence from his week's wages for a cheap

photograph to present to his sweet. heart, or a shilling for a pair of chromolithographic pictures or delft

figures to place on his mantelboard, suffered greater privation for the sake of possessing a work of art than

the great landlord or shareholder who paid a thousand pounds, which he was too rich to miss, for a portrait

that, like Hogarth's Jack Sheppard, was only interesting to students of criminal physiognomy. A lively quarrel

ensued, Trefusis denouncing the folly of artists in fancying themselves a priestly caste when they were

obviously only the parasites and favored slaves of the moneyed classes, and his friend (temporarily his

enemy) sneering bitterly at levellers who were for levelling down instead of levelling up. Finally, tired of

The monument was placed in Highgate Cemetery by a small band of workmen whom Trefusis found out of

Mr. Jansenius took this as an insult to his daughter's memory, and, as the tomb was much smaller than many

which had been erected in the cemetery by families to whom the Janseniuses claimed superiority, cited it as

an example of the widower's meanness. But by other persons it was so much admired that Trefusis hoped it

would ensure the prosperity of its designer. The contrary happened. When the mason attempted to return to

his ordinary work he was informed that he had contravened trade usage, and that his former employers would

have nothing more to say to him. On applying for advice and assistance to the tradesunion of which he was

a member he received the same reply, and was further reproached for treachery to his fellowworkmen. He

returned to Trefusis to say that the tombstone job had ruined him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote an argumentative

letter to the "Times," which was not inserted, a sarcastic one to the tradesunion, which did no good, and a

fierce one to the employers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to content himself with setting

the man to work again on mantelpieces and other decorative stonework for use in house property on the

Trefusis estate. In a year or two his liberal payments enabled the mason to save sufficient to start as an

employer, in which capacity he soon began to grow rich, as he knew by experience exactly how much his

workmen could be forced to do, and how little they could be forced to take. Shortly after this change in his

circumstances he became an advocate of thrift, temperance, and steady industry, and quitted the International

Association, of which he had been an enthusiastic supporter when dependent on his own skill and taste as a

During these occurrences Agatha's schoollife ended. Her resolution to study hard during another term at the

college had been formed, not for the sake of becoming learned, but that she might become more worthy of

Smilash; and when she learned the truth about him from his own lips, the idea of returning to the scene of that

humiliation became intolerable to her. She left under the impression that her heart was broken, for her

smarting vanity, by the law of its own existence, would not perceive that it was the seat of the injury. So she

bade Miss Wilson adieu; and the bee on the window pane was heard no more at Alton College.

The intelligence of Henrietta's death shocked her the more because she could not help being glad that the only

other person who knew of her folly with regard to Smilash (himself excepted) was now silenced forever. This

seemed to her a terrible discovery of her own depravity. Under its influence she became almost religious, and

caused some anxiety about her health to her mother, who was puzzled by her unwonted seriousness, and, in

particular, by her determination not to speak of the misconduct of Trefusis, which was now the prevailing

topic of conversation in the family. She listened in silence to gossiping discussions of his desertion of his

wife, his heartless indifference to her decease, his violence and bad language by her deathbed, his parsimony,

his malicious opposition to the wishes of the Janseniuses, his cheap tombstone with the insulting epitaph, his

association with common workmen and low demagogues, his suspected connection with a secret society for

the assassination of the royal family and blowing up of the army, his atheistic denial, in a pamphlet addressed

to the clergy, of a statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury that spiritual aid alone could improve the

condition of the poor in the Eastend of London, and the crowning disgrace of his trial for seditious libel at

the Old Bailey, where he was condemned to six months' imprisonment; a penalty from which he was rescued

by the ingenuity of his counsel, who discovered a flaw in the indictment, and succeeded, at great cost to

Trefusis, in getting the sentence quashed. Agatha at last got tired of hearing of his misdeeds. She believed

him to be heartless, selfish, and misguided, but she knew that he was not the loud, coarse, sensual, and

ignorant brawler most of her mother's gossips supposed him to be. She even felt, in spite of herself, an

Preparation for her first season helped her to forget her misadventure. She "came out" in due time, and an

extremely dull season she found it. So much so, that she sometimes asked herself whether she should ever be

happy again. At the college there had been good fellowship, fun, rules, and duties which were a source of

strength when observed and a source of delicious excitement when violated, freedom from ceremony, toffee

making, flights on the banisters, and appreciative audiences for the soldier in the chimney.

In society there were silly conversations lasting half a minute, cool acquaintanceships founded on such

halfminutes, general reciprocity of suspicion, overcrowding, insufficient ventilation, bad music badly

executed, late hours, unwholesome food, intoxicating liquors, jealous competition in useless expenditure,

husbandhunting, flirting, dancing, theatres, and concerts. The last three, which Agatha liked, helped to make

the contrast between Alton and London tolerable to her, but they had their drawbacks, for good partners at the

dances, and good performances at the spiritless opera and concerts, were disappointingly scarce. Flirting she

could not endure; she drove men away when they became tender, seeing in them the falsehood of Smilash

without his wit. She was considered rude by the younger gentlemen of her circle. They discussed her bad

manners among themselves, and agreed to punish her by not asking her to dance. She thus got rid, without

knowing why, of the attentions she cared for least (she retained a schoolgirl's cruel contempt for "boys"), and

enjoyed herself as best she could with such of the older or more sensible men as were not intolerant of girls.

At best the year was the least happy she had ever spent. She repeatedly alarmed her mother by broaching

projects of becoming a hospital nurse, a public singer, or an actress. These projects led to some desultory

studies. In order to qualify herself as a nurse she read a handbook of physiology, which Mrs. Wylie thought

so improper a subject for a young lady that she went in tears to beg Mrs. Jansenius to remonstrate with her

unruly girl. Mrs. Jansenius, better advised, was of opinion that the more a woman knew the more wisely she

was likely to act, and that Agatha would soon drop the physiology of her own accord. This proved true.

Agatha, having finished her book by dint of extensive skipping, proceeded to study pathology from a volume

of clinical lectures. Finding her own sensations exactly like those described in the book as symptoms of the

direst diseases, she put it by in alarm, and took up a novel, which was free from the fault she had found in the

lectures, inasmuch as none of the emotions it described in the least resembled any she had ever experienced.

After a brief interval, she consulted a fashionable teacher of singing as to whether her voice was strong

enough for the operatic stage. He recommended her to study with him for six years, assuring her that at the

end of that periodif she followed his directionsshe should be the greatest singer in the world. To this

there was, in her mind, the conclusive objection that in six years she should be an old woman. So she

resolved to try privately whether she could not get on more quickly by herself. Meanwhile, with a view to the

drama in case her operatic scheme should fail, she took lessons in elocution and gymnastics. Practice in these

improved her health and spirits so much that her previous aspirations seemed too limited. She tried her hand

at all the arts in succession, but was too discouraged by the weakness of her first attempts to persevere. She

knew that as a general rule there are feeble and ridiculous beginnings to all excellence, but she never applied

general rules to her own case, still thinking of herself as an exception to them, just as she had done when she

Meanwhile her progress was creating anxieties in which she had no share. Her paroxysms of exhilaration,

followed by a gnawing sense of failure and uselessness, were known to her mother only as "wildness" and

"low spirits," to be combated by needlework as a sedative, or beef tea as a stimulant. Mrs. Wylie had learnt

by rote that the whole duty of a lady is to be graceful, charitable, helpful, modest, and disinterested whilst

awaiting passively whatever lot these virtues may induce. But she had learnt by experience that a lady's

business in society is to get married, and that virtues and accomplishments alike are important only as

attractions to eligible bachelors. As this truth is shameful, young ladies are left for a year or two to find it out

for themselves; it is seldom explicitly conveyed to them at their entry into society. Hence they often throw

away capital bargains in their first season, and are compelled to offer themselves at greatly reduced prices

subsequently,when their attractions begin to stale. This was the fate which Mrs. Wylie, warned by Mrs.

Jansenius, feared for Agatha, who, time after time when a callow gentleman of wealth and position was

introduced to her, drove him brusquely away as soon as he ventured to hint that 200

his affections were concerned in their acquaintanceship. The anxious mother had to console herself with the

fact that her daughter drove away the ineligible as ruthlessly as the eligible, formed no unworldly

attachments, was still very young, and would grow less coy as she advanced in years and in what Mrs.

But as the seasons went by it remained questionable whether Agatha was the more to be congratulated on

Brandon Beeches, in the Thames valley, was the seat of Sir Charles Brandon, seventh baronet of that name.

He had lost his father before attaining his majority, and had married shortly afterwards; so that in his

twentyfifth year he was father to three children. He was a little worn, in spite of his youth, but he was tall

and agreeable, had a winning way of taking a kind and soothing view of the misfortunes of others, could tell a

story well, liked music and could play and sing a little, loved the arts of design and could sketch a little in

water colors, read every magazine from London to Paris that criticised pictures, had travelled a little, fished a

little, shot a little, botanized a little, wandered restlessly in the footsteps of women, and dissipated his

energies through all the small channels that his wealth opened and his talents made easy to him. He had no

large knowledge of any subject, though he had looked into many just far enough to replace absolute

unconsciousness of them with measurable ignorance. Never having enjoyed the sense of achievement, he was

troubled with unsatisfied aspirations that filled him with melancholy and convinced him that he was a born

artist. His wife found him selfish, peevish, hankering after change, and prone to believe that he was attacked

Lady Brandon, who believed that he understood all the subjects he talked about because she did not

understand them herself, was one of his disappointments. In person she resembled none of the types of beauty

striven after by the painters of her time, but she had charms to which few men are insensible. She was tall,

soft, and stout, with ample and shapely arms, shoulders, and hips. With her small head, little ears, pretty lips,

and roguish eye, she, being a very large creature, presented an immensity of half womanly, half infantile

loveliness which smote even grave men with a desire to clasp her in their arms and kiss her. This desire had

scattered the desultory intellectual culture of Sir Charles at first sight. His imagination invested her with the

taste for the fine arts which ho required from a wife, and he married her in her first season, only to discover

that the amativeness in her temperament was so little and languid that she made all his attempts at fondness

ridiculous, and robbed the caresses for which he had longed of all their anticipated ecstasy. Intellectually she

fell still further short of his hopes. She looked upon his favorite art of painting as a pastime for amateur and a

branch of the housefurnishing trade for professional artists. When he was discussing it among his friends,

she would offer her opinion with a presumption which was the more trying as she frequently blundered upon

a sound conclusion whilst he was reasoning his way to a hollow one with his utmost subtlety and seriousness.

On such occasions his disgust did not trouble her in the least; she triumphed in it. She had concluded that

marriage was a greater folly, and men greater fools, than she had supposed; but such beliefs rather lightened

her sense of responsibility than disappointed her, and, as she had plenty of money, plenty of servants, plenty

of visitors, and plenty of exercise on horseback, of which she was immoderately fond, her time passed

pleasantly enough. Comfort seemed to her the natural order of life; trouble always surprised her. Her

husband's friends, who mistrusted every future hour, and found matter for bitter reflection in many past ones,

were to her only examples of the power of sedentary habits and excessive reading to make men tripped and

One fine May morning, as she cantered along the avenue at Brandon Beeches on a powerful bay horse, the

gates at the end opened and a young man sped through them on a bicycle. He was of slight frame, with fine

dark eyes and delicate nostrils. When he recognized Lady Brandon he waved his cap, and when they met he

"Don't, you silly beast!" she cried, whacking the animal with the butt of her whip. "Though it's natural

enough, goodness knows! How d'ye do? The idea of anyone rich enough to afford a horse riding on a wheel

"But I am not rich enough to afford a horse," he said, approaching her to pat the bay, having placed the

bicycle against a tree. "Besides, I am afraid of horses, not being accustomed to them; and I know nothing

about feeding them. My steed needs no food. He doesn't bite nor kick. He never goes lame, nor sickens, nor

"That's all bosh," said Lady Brandon impetuously. "It stumbles, and gives you the most awful tosses, and it

goes lame by its treadles and thingamejigs coming off, and it wears out, and is twice as much trouble to keep

clean and scrape the mud off as a horse, and all sorts of things. I think the most ridiculous sight in the world

is a man on a bicycle, working away with his feet as hard as he possibly can, and believing that his horse is

carrying him instead of, as anyone can see, he carrying the horse. You needn't tell me that it isn't easier to

walk in the ordinary way than to drag a great dead iron thing along with you. It's not good sense."

"Nevertheless I can carry it a hundred miles further in a day than I can carry myself alone. Such are the

marvels of machinery. But I know that we cut a very poor figure beside you and that magnificent creature not

that anyone will look at me whilst you are by to occupy their attention so much more worthily."

She darted a glance at him which clouded his vision and made his heart beat more strongly. This was an old

habit of hers. She kept it up from love of fun, having no idea of the effect it produced on more ardent

"Oh, it's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of in my life," she exclaimed. "A man that lives by himself in

a place down by the Riverside Road like a toy savings bankdon't you know the things I mean?called

Sallust's House, says there is a right of way through our new pleasure ground. As if anyone could have any

right there after all the money we have spent fencing it on three sides, and building up the wall by the road,

and levelling, and planting, and draining, and goodness knows what else! And now the man says that all the

common people and tramps in the neighborhood have a right to walk across it because they are too lazy to go

round by the road. Sir Charles has gone to see the man about it. Of course he wouldn't do as I wanted him."

"Write to tell the man to mind his own business, and to say that the first person we found attempting to

"Then I shall find no one at home. I beg your pardon for calling it so, but it is the only place like home to

"Yes; it is so comfortable since we built the billiard room and took away those nasty hangings in the hall. I

She was interrupted by an old laborer, who hobbled up as fast as his rheumatism would allow him, and began

"Th'ave coom to the noo groups, my lady, crowds of 'em. An' a parson with 'em, an' a flag! Sur Chorles he

Lady Brandon turned pale and pulled at her horse as if to back him out of some danger. Her visitor, puzzled,

"There's goin' to be a proceyshon through the noo groups," he replied, "an' the master can't stop 'em. Th'ave

throon down the wall; three yards of it is lyin' on Riverside Road. An' there's a parson with 'em, and a flag.

"Thrown down the wall!" exclaimed Lady Brandon, scarlet with indignation and pale with apprehension by

turns. "What a disgraceful thing! Where are the police? Chester, will you come with me and see what they are

"There's two police," said the old man, "an' him that lives at Sallust's dar'd them stop him. They're lookin' on.

An' there's a parson among 'em. I see him pullin' away at the wall with his own han's."

Lady Brandon hesitated. But her anger and curiosity vanquished her fears. She overtook the bicycle, and they

went together through the gates and by the highroad to the scene the old man had described. A heap of bricks

and mortar lay in the roadway on each side of a breach in the newly built wall, over which Lady Brandon,

from her eminence on horseback, could see, coming towards her across the pleasure ground, a column of

about thirty persons. They marched three abreast in good order and in silence; the expression of all except a

few mirthful faces being that of devotees fulfilling a rite. The gravity of the procession was deepened by the

appearance of a clergyman in its ranks, which were composed of men of the middle class, and a few

workmen carrying a banner inscribed THE SOIL or ENGLAND THE BIRTHRIGHT OF ALL HER

PEOPLE. There were also four women, upon whom Lady Brandon looked with intense indignation and

contempt. None of the men of the neighborhood had dared to join; they stood in the road whispering, and

occasionally venturing to laugh at the jests of a couple of tramps who had stopped to see the fun, and who

He, standing a little way within the field, was remonstrating angrily with a man of his own class, who stood

with his back to the breach and his hands in the pockets of his snuffcolored clothes, contemplating the

procession with elate satisfaction. Lady Brandon, at once suspecting that this was the man from Sallust's

House, and encouraged by the loyalty of the crowd, most of whom made way for her and touched their hats,

hit the bay horse smartly with her whip and rode him, with a clatter of hoofs and scattering of clods, right at

the snuffcolored enemy, who had to spring hastily aside to avoid her. There was a roar of laughter from the

roadway, and the man turned sharply on her. But he suddenly smiled affably, replaced his hands in his

"I am not Miss Carpenter, I am Lady Brandon; and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Smilash, if it is

His eyes as he replied were eloquent with reproach to her for being no longer Miss Carpenter. "I am not

Smilash," he said; "I am Sidney Trefusis. I have just had the pleasure of meeting Sir Charles for the first time,

and we shall be the best friends possible when I have convinced him that it is hardly fair to seize on a path

belonging to the people and compel them to walk a mile and a half round his estate instead of four hundred

"I have already told you, sir," said Sir Charles, "that I intend to open a still shorter path, and to allow all the

wellconducted workpeople to pass through twice a day. This will enable them to go to their work and

"Thank you," said Trefusis drily; "but why should we trouble you when we have a path of our own to use

fifty times a day if we choose, without any man barring our way until our conduct happens to please him?

Besides, your next heir would probably shut the path up the moment he came into possession."

"Offering them a path is just what makes them impudent," said Lady Brandon to her husband. "Why did you

promise them anything? They would not think it a hardship to walk a mile and a half, or twenty miles, to a

publichouse, but when they go to their work they think it dreadful to have to walk a yard. Perhaps they

"Pray leave me to manage here, Jane; this is no place for you. Bring Erskine to the house. He must be"

"Why don't the police make them go away?" said Lady Brandon, too excited to listen to her husband.

"They have offered, in the handsomest manner, to arrest me if Sir Charles will give me in charge," said

"There!" said Lady Jane, turning to her husband. "Why don't you give himor someonein charge?"

"You know nothing about it," said Sir Charles, vexed by a sense that she was publicly making him ridiculous.

"If you don't, I will," she persisted. "The idea of having our ground broken into and our new wall knocked

down! A nice state of things it would be if people were allowed to do as they liked with other peoples'

"I don't mean you exactly," she said, relenting. "But I will give that clergyman into charge, because he ought

"He will be delighted, Lady Brandon; he pines for martyrdom. But will you really give him into custody?"

"I will," she said vehemently, emphasizing the assurance by a plunge in the saddle that made the bay stagger.

"I don't care what charge," she replied, conscious that she was being admired, and not displeased. "Let them

Human beings on horseback are so far centaurs that liberties taken with their horses are almost as personal as

liberties taken with themselves. When Sir Charles saw Trefusis patting the bay he felt as much outraged as if

Lady Brandon herself were being patted, and he felt bitterly towards her for permitting the familiarity. He uas

relieved by the arrival of the procession. It halted as the 1eadere came up to Trefusis, who said gravely:

"Gentlemen, I congratulate you on the firmness with which you have this day asserted the rights of the people

of this place to the use of one of the few scraps of mother earth of which they have not been despoiled."

"Gentlemen," shouted an excited member of the procession, "three cheers for the resumption of the land of

The cheers were given with much spirit, Sir Charles's cheeks becoming redder at each repetition. He looked

angrily at the clergyman, now distracted by the charms of Lady Brandon, whose scorn, as she surveyed the

Then a middleaged laborer stepped from the road into the field, hat in hand, ducked respectfully, and said:

"Look 'e here, Sir Charles. Don't 'e mind them fellers. There ain't a man belonging to this neighborhood

among 'em; not one in your employ or on your land. Our dooty to you and your ladyship, and we will trust to

you to do what is fair by us. We want no interlopers from Lunnon to get us into trouble with your honor,

"You unmitigated cur," exclaimed Trefusis fiercely, "what right have you to give away to his unborn children

"They're not unborn," said Lady Brandon indignantly. "That just shows how little you know about it."

"No, nor mine either," said the man, emboldened by her ladyship's support. "And who are you that call me a

"Who am I! I am a rich manone of your masters, and privileged to call you what I please. You are a

grovelling faminebroken slave. Now go and seek redress against me from the law. I can buy law enough to

ruin you for less money than it would cost me to shoot deer in Scotland or vermin here. How do you like that

The man was taken aback. "Sir Charles will stand by me," he said, after a pause, with assumed confidence,

"If he does, after witnessing the return you have made me for standing by you, he is a greater fool than I take

"Gently, gently," said the clergyman. "There is much excuse to be made for the poor fellow."

"As gently as you please with any man that is a free man at heart," said Trefusis; "but slaves must be driven,

"He knows a great deal better than you do," said Lady Brandon, interrupting. "And the more shame for you,

because you ought to know best. I suppose you were educated somewhere. You will not be satisfied with

yourself when your bishop hears of this. Yes," she added, turning to Trefusis with an infantile air of wanting

to cry and being forced to laugh against her will, "you may laugh as much as you pleasedon't trouble to

pretend it's only coughingbut we will write to his bishop, as he shall find to his cost."

"Hold your tongue, Jane, for God's sake," said Sir Charles, taking her horse by the bridle and backing him

"I will not. If you choose to stand here and allow them to walk away with the walls in their pockets, I don't,

"They can do nothing," said Sir Charles, almost beside himself with humiliation. "I cannot do anything until I

see my solicitor. How can you bear to stay here wrangling with these fellows? It is SO undignified!"

"It's all very well to talk of dignity, but I don't see the dignity of letting people trample on our grounds

without leave. Mr. Smilash, will you make them all go away, and tell them that they shall all be prosecuted

"They are going to the crossroads, to hold a public meeting andof coursemake speeches. I am desired to

say that they deeply regret that their demonstration should have disturbed you personally, Lady Brandon."

"So they ought," she replied. "They don't look very sorry. They are getting frightened at what they have done,

and they would be glad to escape the consequences by apologizing, most likely. But they shan't. I am not

Trefusis bowed as if he had just been formally introduced to the baronet, who, against his will, returned the

salutation stiffly, unable to ignore an older, firmer, and quicker man under the circumstances.

"This seems an unneighborly business, Sir Charles," said Trefusis, quite at his ease; " but as it is a public

"Which it seems to me you have no right to be, if you are in earnest," struck in Chester, who had been

"Which, as you say, I have undoubtedly no right to be," said Trefusis, surveying him with interest; " but

which I nevertheless cannot help being. Have I the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Chichester Erskine, author of

a tragedy entitled 'The Patriot Martyrs,' dedicated with enthusiastic devotion to the Spirit of Liberty and half a

dozen famous upholders of that principle, and denouncing in forcible language the tyranny of the late Tsar of

"Yes, sir," said Erskine, reddening; for he felt that this description might make his drama seem ridiculous to

"Then," said Trefusis, extending his handErskine at first thought for a hearty shake"give me

halfacrown towards the cost of our expedition here today to assert the right of the people to tread the soil

"You shall do nothing of the sort, Chester," cried Lady Brandon. "I never heard of such a thing in my life! Do

you pay us for the wall and fence your people have broken, Mr. Smilash; that would be more to the purpose."

"If I could find a thousand men as practical as you, Lady Brandon, I might accomplish the next great

revolution before the end of this season." He looked at her for a moment curiously, as if trying to remember;

and then added inconsequently: "How are your friends? There was a MissMissI am afraid I have

"Yes," said Lady Brandon eagerly, forgetting the wall and fence. "But who do you think is coming next

Thursday? I met her accidentally the last time I was in town. She's not a bit changed. You can't forget her, so

"You have not told me who she is yet. And I shall probably not remember her. You must not expect me to

"Oh, of course you must see her. It will be so jolly for us all to meet again just as we used. Why can't you

"I shall be delighted, if you will really allow me to come after my conduct here."

"The lawyers will settle that. Now that you have found out who we are you will stop pulling down our walls,

"Of course," said Trefusis, smiling, as he took out a pocket diary and entered the engagement. "I must hurry

away to the crossroads. They have probably voted me into the chair by this time, and are waiting for me to

open their meeting. Goodbye. You have made this place, which I was growing tired of, unexpectedly

They exchanged glances of the old college pattern. Then he nodded to Sir Charles, waved his hand familiarly

Sir Charles, who, waiting to speak, had been repeatedly baffled by the hasty speeches of his wife and the

"Your house, indeed! I will invite whom I please. You are getting into one of your tempers."

Sir Charles looked about him. Erskine had discreetly slipped away, and was in the road, tightening a screw in

"Who and what the devil is he, and how do you come to know him?" he demanded. He never swore in the

"He is a gentleman, which is more than you are," she retorted, and, with a cut of her whip that narrowly

"Never mind Sir Charles, he is in the sulks," she said, without abating her voice. "Come along." And she went

off at a canter, Erskine following her with a misgiving that his visit was unfortunately timed. unworthy of

"I don't know," said Agatha, affecting to laugh as he looked sceptically at her from beneath his lowered

"I will explain the emotion to you," he said, with a subdued ardor that affected Agatha strangely. "But first