"Well, you were there, in that arbor" – pointing to it – "where we" – with a scornful laugh – "so often sat; but then you had a more congenial companion. Trant was with you. He held your hand, he caressed it; he called you his 'darling,' and you allowed it, though indeed why should you not? doubtless it is a customary word from him to you! And then you wept as though your heart, your heart" – contemptuously – "would break. Were you confessing to him your coquetry with me? and perhaps obtaining an easy forgiveness?"
"No, I was not," quietly, though there is immeasurable scorn in her tone.
"No?" slightingly. "For what, then, were you crying?"
"Sir," – with a first outward sign of indignation, – "I refuse to tell you. By what right do you now ask the question? yesterday, nay, an hour since, I should have felt myself bound to answer any inquiry of yours, but not now. The tie between us, a frail one as it seems to me, is broken; our engagement is at an end: I shall not answer you!"
"Because you dare not," retorts he, fiercely, stung by her manner.
"I think you dare too much when you venture so to address me," in a low clear tone. "And yet, as it is in all human probability the last time we shall ever meet, and as I would have you remember all your life long the gross injustice you have done me, I shall satisfy your curiosity. But recollect, sir, these are indeed the final words that shall pass between us.
"A year ago Colonel Trant so far greatly honored me as to ask me to marry him: for many reasons I then refused. Twice since I came to Chetwoode he has been to see me, – once to bring me law papers of some importance, and last Friday to again ask me to be his wife. Again I refused. I wept then, because, unworthy as I am, I know I was giving pain to the truest, and, as I know now," – with a faint trembling in her voice, quickly subdued – "the only friend I have! When declining his proposal, I gave my reason for doing so! I told him I loved another! That other was you!"
Casting this terrible revenge in his teeth, she turns, and, walking majestically into the house, closes the door with significant haste behind her.
This is the one solitary instance of inhospitality shown by Cecilia in all her life. Never until now was she known to shut her door in the face of trouble. And surely Cyril's trouble at this moment is sore and needy!
To disbelieve Cecilia when face to face with her is impossible. Her eyes are truth itself. Her whole manner, so replete with dignity and offended pride, declares her innocent. Cyril stands just where she had left him, in stunned silence, for at least a quarter of an hour, repeating to himself miserably all that she has said, and reminding himself with cold-blooded cruelty of all he has said to her.
At the end of this awful fifteen minutes, he bethinks himself his hair must now, if ever, be turned gray; and then, a happier and more resolute thought striking him, he takes his courage in his two hands, and walking boldly up to the hall door, knocks and demands admittance with really admirable composure. Abominable composure, thinks Cecilia, who in spite of her stern determination never to know him again, has been watching him covertly from behind a handkerchief and a bedroom curtain all this time, and is now stationed at the top of the staircase, with dim eyes, but very acute ears.
"Yes," Kate tells him, "her mistress is at home," and forthwith shows him into the bijou drawing-room. After which she departs to tell her mistress of his arrival.
Three minutes, that to Cyril's excited fancy lengthen themselves into twenty, pass away slowly, and then Kate returns.
"Her mistress's compliments, and she has a terrible headache, and will Mr. Chetwoode be so kind as to excuse her?"
Mr. Chetwoode on this occasion is not kind. "He is sorry," he stammers, "but if Mrs. Arlington could let him see her for five minutes, he would not detain her longer. He has something of the utmost importance to say to her."
His manner is so earnest, so pleading, that Kate, who scents at least a death in the air, retires full of compassion for the "pore gentleman." And then another three minutes, that now to the agitated listener appear like forty, drag themselves into the past.
Suspense is growing intolerable, when a well-known step in the hall outside makes his heart beat almost to suffocation. The door is opened slowly, and Mrs. Arlington comes in.
"You have something to say to me?" she asks, curtly, unkindly, standing just inside the door, and betraying an evident determination not to sit down for any consideration upon earth. Her manner is uncompromising and forbidding, but her eyes are very red. There is rich consolation in this discovery.
"I have," replies Cyril, openly confused now it has come to the point.
"Say it, then. I am here to listen to you. My servant tells me it is something of the deepest importance."
"So it is. In all the world there is nothing so important to me. Cecilia," – coming a little nearer to her, – "it is that I want your forgiveness; I ask your pardon very humbly, and I throw myself upon your mercy. You must forgive me!"
"Forgiveness seems easy to you, who cannot feel," replies she, haughtily, turning as though to leave the room; but Cyril intercepts her, and places his back against the door.
"I cannot let you go until you are friends with me again," he says, in deep agitation.
"Friends!"
"Think what I have gone through. You have only suffered for a few minutes, I have suffered for three long days. Think of it. My heart was breaking all the time. I went to London hoping to escape thought, and never shall I forget what I endured in that detestable city. Like a man in a dream I lived, scarcely seeing, or, if seeing, only trying to elude, those I knew. At times – "
"You went to London?"
"Yes, that is how I have been absent for three days; I have hardly slept or eaten since last I saw you."
Here Cecilia is distinctly conscious of a feeling of satisfaction: next to a man's dying for you the sweetest thing is to hear of a man's starving for you!
"Sometimes," goes on Cyril, piling up the agony higher and higher, and speaking in his gloomiest tones, "I thought it would be better if I put an end to it once for all, by blowing out my brains."
"How dare you speak to me like this?" Cecilia says in a trembling voice: "it is horrible. You would commit suicide? Am I not unhappy enough, that you must seek to make me more so? Why should you blow your brains out?" with a shudder.
"Because I could not live without you. Even now," – reproachfully, – "when I see you looking so coldly upon me, I almost wish I had put myself out of the way for good."
"Cyril, I forbid you to talk like this."
"Why? I don't suppose you care whether I am dead or alive." This artful speech, uttered in a heart-broken tone, does immense execution.
"If you were dead," begins she, forlornly, and then stops short, because her voice fails her, and two large tears steal silently down her cheeks.
"Would you care?" asks Cyril, going up to her and placing one arm gently round her; being unrepulsed, he gradually strengthens this arm with the other. "Would you?"
"I hardly know."
"Darling, don't be cruel. I was wrong, terribly, unpardonably wrong ever to doubt your sweet truth; but when one has stories perpetually dinned into one's ears, one naturally grows jealous of one's shadow, when one loves as I do."
"And pray, who told you all these stories?"
"Never mind."
"But I do mind," with an angry sob. "What! you are to hear lies of me, and to believe them, and I am not even to know who told you them! I do mind, and I insist on knowing."
"Surely it cannot signify now, when I tell you I don't believe them."
"It does signify, and I should be told. But indeed I need not ask," with exceeding bitterness; "I know. It was your brother, Sir Guy. He has always (why I know not) been a cruel enemy of mine."
"He only repeated what he heard. He is not to be blamed."
"It was he, then?" quickly. "But 'blamed'? – of course not; no one is in the wrong, I suppose, but poor me! I think, sir," – tremulously, – "it would be better you should go home, and forget you ever knew any one so culpable as I am. I should be afraid to marry into a family that could so misjudge me as yours does. Go, and learn to forget me."
"I can go, of course, if you desire it," laying hold of his hat: "that is a simple matter; but I cannot promise to forget. To some people it may be easy, to me impossible."
"Nothing is impossible. The going is the first step. Oblivion" – with a sigh – "will quickly follow."
"I do not think so. But, since you wish my absence – "
He moves toward the door with lowered head and dejected manner.
"I did not say I wished it," in faltering tones; "I only requested you to leave me for your own sake, and because I would not make your people unhappy. Though" – piteously – "it should break my heart, I would still bid you go."
"Would it break your heart?" flinging his hat into a corner (for my own part, I don't believe he ever meant going): coming up to her, he folds her in his arms. "Forgive me, I entreat you," he says, "for what I shall never forgive myself."
The humbleness of this appeal touches Cecilia's tender heart. She makes no effort to escape from his encircling arms; she even returns one out of his many caresses.
"To think you could behave so badly to me!" she whispers, reproachfully.
"I am a brute! I know it."
"Oh, no! indeed you are not," says Mrs. Arlington. "Well, yes," – drawing a long breath, – "I forgive you; but promise, promise you will never distrust me again."
Of course he gives the required promise, and peace is once more restored.
"I shall not be content with an engagement any longer," Cyril says, presently. "I consider it eminently unsatisfactory. Why not marry me at once? I have nine hundred a year, and a scrap of an estate a few miles from this, – by the bye, you have never yet been to see your property, – and, if you are not afraid to venture, I think we might be very happy, even on that small sum."
"I am not afraid of anything with you," she says, in her calm, tender fashion; "and money has nothing to do with it. If," with a troubled sigh, "I ever marry you, I shall not come to you empty-handed."
"'If: dost thou answer me with ifs?'" quotes he, gayly. "I tell you, sweet, there is no such word in my dictionary. I shall only wait a favorable opportunity to ask my mother's consent to our marriage."
"And if she refuses it?"
"Why, then I shall marry you without hers, or yours, or the consent of any one in the world."
"You jest," she says, tears gathering in her large appealing eyes. "I would not have you make your mother miserable."
"Above all things, do not let me see tears in your eyes again," he says, quickly. "I forbid it. For one thing, it makes me wretched, and" – softly – "it makes me feel sure you are wretched, which is far worse. Cecilia, if you don't instantly dry those tears I shall be under the painful necessity of kissing them away. I tell you I shall get my mother's consent very readily. When she sees you, she will be only too proud to welcome such a daughter."
Soon after this they part, more in love with each other than ever.
CHAPTER XXIII
"Phebe.– I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
For what had he to do to chide at me?" —As You Like It.
When Lilian's foot is again strong and well, almost the first use she makes of it is to go to The Cottage to see Cecilia. She is gladly welcomed there; the two girls are as pleased with each other as even in fond anticipation they had dreamed they should be: and how seldom are such dreams realized! They part with a secret though mutual hope that they shall soon see each other again.
Of her first two meetings with the lovely widow Lilian speaks openly to Lady Chetwoode; but with such an utter want of interest is her news received that instinctively she refrains from making any further mention of her new acquaintance. Meantime the friendship ripens rapidly, until at length scarcely a week elapses without Lilian's paying at least one or two visits at The Cottage.
Of the strength of this growing intimacy Sir Guy is supremely ignorant, until one day chance betrays to him its existence.
It is a bright but chilly morning, one of November's rawest efforts. The trees, bereft of even their faded mantle, that has dropped bit by bit from their meagre arms, now stand bare and shivering in their unlovely nakedness. The wind, whistling shrilly, rushes through them with impatient haste, as though longing to escape from their gaunt and most untempting embraces. There is a suspicion of snow in the biting air.
In The Cottage a roaring fire is scolding and quarreling vigorously on its way up the chimney, illuminating with its red rays the parlor in which it burns; Cecilia is standing on one side of the hearth, looking up at Lilian, who has come down by appointment to spend the day with her, and who is mounted on a chair hanging a picture much fancied by Cecilia. They are freely discussing its merits, and with their gay chatter are outdoing the noisy fire. To Cecilia the sweet companionship of this girl is not only an antidote to her loneliness, but an excessive pleasure.
The picture just hung is a copy of the "Meditation," and is a special favorite of Lilian's, who, being the most unsentimental person in the world, takes a tender delight in people of the visionary order.
"Do you know, Cecilia," she says, "I think the eyes something like yours?"
"Do you?" smiling. "You flatter me."
"I flatter 'Mademoiselle la Meditation,' you mean. No; you have a thoughtful, almost a wistful look about you, at times, that might strongly remind any one of this picture. Now, I" – reflectively – "could never look like that. When I think (which, to do me justice, is seldom), I always dwell upon unpleasant topics, and in consequence I maintain on these rare occasions an exceedingly sour, not to say ferocious, expression. I hate thinking!"
"So much the better," replies her companion, with a faint sigh. "The more persistently you put thought behind you, the longer you will retain happiness."
"Why, how sad you look! Have I, as usual, said the wrong thing? You mustn't think," – affectionately, – "if it makes you sad. Come, Cis, let me cheer you up."
Cecilia starts as though struck, and moves backward as the pretty abbreviation of her name sounds upon her ear. An expression of hatred and horror rises and mars her face.
"Never call me by that name again," she says with some passion, laying her hand upon the sideboard to steady herself. "Never! do you hear? My father called me so – " she pauses, and the look of horror passes from her, only to be replaced by one of shame. "What must you think of me," she asks, slowly, "you who honored your father? I, too, had a father, but I did not – no, I did not love him. Am I hateful, am I unnatural, in your eyes?"
"Cecilia," says Lilian, with grave simplicity, "you could not be unnatural, you could not be hateful, in the sight of any one."
"That name you called me by" – struggling with her emotion – "recalled old scenes, old memories, most horrible to me. I am unhinged to-day: you must not mind me."
"You are not well, dearest."
"That man, my husband," – with a strong shudder, – "he, too, called me by that name. After long years," she says, throwing out her hands with a significant gesture, as though she would fain so fling from her all haunting thoughts, "I cannot rid myself of the fear, the loathing, of those past days. Are they past? Is my terror an omen that they are not yet ended?"
"Cecilia, you shall not speak so," says Lilian, putting her arms gently round her. "You are nervous and – and upset about something. Why should you encourage such superstitious thoughts, when happiness lies within your grasp? How can harm come near you in this pretty wood, where you reign queen? Come, smile at me directly, or I shall tell Cyril of your evil behavior, and send him here armed with a stout whip to punish you for your naughtiness. What a whip that would be!" says Lilian, laughing so gleefully that Cecilia perforce laughs too.
"How sweet you are to me!" she says, fondly, with tears in her eyes. "At times I am more than foolish, and last night I had a terrible dream; but your coming has done me good. Now I can almost laugh at my own fears, that were so vivid a few hours ago. But my youth was not a happy one."
"Now you have reached old age, I hope you will enjoy it," says Miss Chesney, demurely.
Almost at this moment, Sir Guy Chetwoode is announced, and is shown by the inestimable Kate into the parlor instead of the drawing-room, thereby causing unutterable mischief. It is only the second time since Mrs. Arlington's arrival at The Cottage he has put in an appearance there, and each time business has been his sole cause for calling.
He is unmistakably surprised at Lilian's presence, but quickly suppresses all show of emotion. At first he looks faintly astonished, but so faintly that a second later one wonders whether the astonishment was there at all.
He shakes hands formally with Mrs. Arlington, and smiles in a somewhat restrained fashion upon Lilian. In truth he is much troubled at the latter's evident familiarity with the place and its inmate.
Lilian, jumping down from her high elevation, says to Cecilia:
"If you two are going to talk business, I shall go into the next room. The very thought of anything connected with the bugbear 'Law' depresses me to death. You can call me, Cecilia, when you have quite done."
"Don't be frightened," says Guy, pleasantly, though inwardly he frowns as he notes Lilian's unceremonious usage of his tenant's Christian name. "I shan't detain Mrs. Arlington two minutes."
Then he addresses himself exclusively to Cecilia, and says what he has to say in a perfectly courteous, perfectly respectful, perfectly freezing tone, – to all of which Cecilia responds with a similar though rather exaggerated amount of coldness that deadens the natural sweetness of her behavior, and makes Lilian tell herself she has never yet seen Cecilia to such disadvantage, which is provoking, as she has set her heart above all things on making Guy like her lovely friend.
Then Sir Guy, with a distant salutation, withdraws; and both women feel, silently, as though an icicle had melted from their midst.
"I wonder why your guardian so dislikes me," says Mrs. Arlington, in a somewhat hurt tone. "He is ever most ungenerous in his treatment of me."
"Ungenerous!" hastily, "oh, no! he is not that. He is the most generous-minded man alive. But – but – "
"Quite so, dear," – with a faint smile that yet has in it a tinge of bitterness. "You see there is a 'but.' I have never wronged him, yet he hates me."
"Never mind who hates you," says Lilian, impulsively. "Cyril loves you, and so do I."
"I can readily excuse the rest," says Mrs. Arlington, with a bright smile, kissing her pretty consoler with grateful warmth.
* * * * * * *
An hour after Lilian's return to Chetwoode on this momentous day, Guy, having screwed his courage to the sticking-point, enters his mother's boudoir, where he knows she and Lilian are sitting alone.
Lady Chetwoode is writing at a distant table; Miss Chesney, on a sofa close to the fire, is surreptitiously ruining – or, as she fondly but erroneously believes, is knitting away bravely at – the gray sock her ladyship has just laid down. Lilian's pretty lips are pursed up, her brow is puckered, her soft color has risen as she bends in strong hope over her work. The certain charm that belongs to this scene fails to impress Sir Guy, who is too full of agitated determination to leave room for minor interests.
"Lilian," he says, bluntly, with all the execrable want of tact that characterizes the very gentlest of men, "I wish you would not cultivate an acquaintance with Mrs. Arlington."
"Eh?" says Lilian, looking up in somewhat dazed amazement from her knitting, which is gradually getting into a more and more hopeless mess, "what is it, then, Sir Guy?"
"I wish you would not seek an intimacy with Mrs. Arlington," repeats Chetwoode, speaking all the more sternly in that he feels his courage ebbing.
The sternness, however, proves a mistake; Miss Chesney resents it, and, scenting battle afar off, encases herself in steel, and calmly, nay, eagerly, awaits the onslaught.
"What has put you out?" she says, speaking in a tone eminently calculated to incense the listener. "You seem disturbed. Has Heskett been poaching again? or has that new pointer turned out a disappointer? What has poor Mrs. Arlington done to you, that you must send her to Coventry?"
"Nothing, only – "
"Nothing! Oh, Sir Guy, surely you must have some substantial reason for tabooing her so entirely."
"Perhaps I have. At all events, I ask you most particularly to give up visiting at The Cottage."
"I am very sorry, indeed, to seem disobliging, but I shall not give up a friend without sufficient reason for so doing."
"A friend! Oh, this is madness," says Sir Guy, with a perceptible start; then, turning toward his mother, he says, in a rather louder tone, that adds to the imperiousness of his manner, "Mother, will you speak to Lilian, and desire her not to go?"
"But, my dear, why?" asks Lady Chetwoode, raising her eyes in a vague fashion from her pen.
"Because I will not have her associating with people of whom we know nothing," replies he, at his wit's end for an excuse. This one is barefaced, as at any other time he is far too liberal a man to condemn any one for being a mere stranger.
"I know a good deal of her," says Lilian, imperturbably, "and I think her charming. Perhaps, – who knows? – as she is unknown, she may prove a duchess in disguise."
"She may, but I doubt it," replies he, a disagreeable note of irony running through his speech.
"Have you discovered her parentage?" asks Lady Chetwoode, hastily. "Is she of low birth? Lilian, my dear, don't have low tastes: there is nothing on earth," says Lady Chetwoode, mildly, "so – so – so melancholy as a person afflicted with low tastes."
"If thinking Mrs. Arlington a lady in the very best sense of the word is a low taste, I confess myself afflicted," says Miss Chesney, rather saucily; whereupon Lady Chetwoode, who knows mischief is brewing and is imbued with a wholesome horror of all disputes between her son and his ward, rises hurriedly and prepares to quit the room.
"I hope Archie will not miss his train," she says, irrelevantly. "He is always so careless, and I know it is important he should see his solicitor this evening about the transfer of York's farm. Where is Archibald?"
"In the library, I think," responds Lilian. "Dear Archie, how we shall miss him! shan't we, auntie?"
This tenderly regretful speech has reference to Mr. Chesney's intended departure, he having at last, through business, been compelled to leave Chetwoode and the object of his adoration.
"We shall, indeed. But remember," – kindly, – "he has promised to return to us at Christmas with Taffy."
"I do remember," gayly; "but for that, I feel I should give way to tears."
Here Lady Chetwoode lays her hand upon the girl's shoulder, and presses it gently, entreatingly.
"Do not reject Guy's counsel, child," she says, softly; "you know he always speaks for your good."
Lilian makes no reply, but, gracefully turning her head, lays her red lips upon the gentle hand that still rests upon her shoulder.
Then Lady Chetwoode leaves the room, and Lilian and her guardian are alone. An ominous silence follows her departure. Lilian, who has abandoned the unhappy sock, has now taken in hand a very valuable Dresden china cup, and is apparently examining it with the most profound interest.
"I have your promise not to go again to The Cottage?" asks Sir Guy at length, the exigency of the case causing his persistency.
"I think not."
"Why will you persist in this obstinate refusal?" angrily.
"For many reasons," with a light laugh. "Shall I tell you one? Did you ever hear of the 'relish of being forbidden?'"
"It is not a trifling matter. If it was possible, I would tell you what would prevent your ever wishing to know this Mrs. Arlington again. But, as it is, I am your guardian," – determinately, – "I am responsible for you: I do not wish you to be intimate at The Cottage, and in this one matter at least I must be obeyed."
"Must you? we shall see," replies Miss Chesney, with a tantalizing laugh that, but for the sweet beauty of her riante face, her dewy, mutinous mouth, her great blue eyes, now ablaze with childish wrath, would have made him almost hate her. As it is, he is exceeding full of an indignation he scarcely seeks to control.
"I, as your guardian, forbid you to go to see that woman," he says, in a condensed tone.
"And why, pray?"
"I cannot explain: I simply forbid you. She is not fit to be an associate of yours."
"Then I will not be forbidden: so there!" says Miss Chesney, defiantly.
"Lilian, once for all, do not go to The Cottage again," says Guy, very pale. "If you do you will regret it."
"Is that a threat?"
"No; it is a warning. Take it as such if you are wise. If you go against my wishes in this matter, I shall refuse to take charge of you any longer."
"I don't want you to take charge of me," cries Lilian, tears of passion and wounded feeling in her eyes. In her excitement she has risen to her feet and stands confronting him, the Dresden cup still within her hand. "I am not a beggar, that I should crave your hospitality. I can no doubt find a home with some one who will not hate me as you do." With this, the foolish child, losing her temper in toto, raises her hand and, because it is the nearest thing to her, flings the cherished cup upon the floor, where it lies shattered into a thousand pieces.
In silence Guy contemplates the ruins, in silence Lilian watches him; no faintest trace of remorse shows itself in her angry fair little face. I think the keenest regret Guy knows at this moment is that she isn't a boy, for the simple reason that he would dearly like to box her ears. Being a woman, and an extremely lovely one, he is necessarily disarmed.
"So now!" says Miss Lilian, still defiant.
"I have a great mind," replies Guy, raising his eyes slowly to hers, "to desire you to pick up every one of those fragments."
This remark is unworthy of him, proving that in his madness there is not even method. His speech falls as a red spark into the hot fire of Miss Chesney's wrath.
"You desire!" she says, blazing instantly. "What is it you would say? 'Desire!' On the contrary, I desire you to pick them up, and I shall stay here to see my commands obeyed."
She has come a little closer to him, and is now standing opposite him with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. With one firm little finger she points to the débris. She looks such a fragile creature possessed with such an angry spirit that Chetwoode, in spite of himself acknowledging the comicality of the situation, cannot altogether conceal a smile.
"Pick them up," says Lilian imperatively, for the second time.
"What a little Fury you are!" says Guy; and then, with a faint shrug, he succumbs, and, stooping, does pick up the pieces of discord.
"I do it," he says, raising himself when his task is completed, and letting severity once more harden his features, "to prevent my mother's being grieved by such an exhibition of – "
"No, you do not," interrupts she; "you do it because I wished it. For the future understand that, though you are my guardian, I will not be treated as though I were a wayward child."
"Well, you have a wicked temper!" says Guy, who is very pale, drawing his breath quickly. He smiles as he says it, but it is a smile more likely to incense than to soothe.
"I have not," retorts Lilian, passionately. "But that you goaded me I should never have given way to anger. It is you who have the wicked temper. I dislike you! I hate you! I wish I had never entered your house! And" – superbly, drawing herself up to her full height, which does not take her far – "I shall now leave it! And I shall never come back to it again!"
This fearful threat she hurls at his head with much unction. Not that she means it, but it is as well to be forcible on such occasions. The less you mean a thing, the more eloquent and vehement you should grow; the more you mean it, the less vehemence the better, because then it is energy thrown away: the fact accomplished later on will be crushing enough in itself. This is a rule that should be strictly observed.
Guy, whose head is held considerably higher than its wont, looks calmly out of the window, and disdains to take notice of this outburst.
His silence irritates Miss Chesney, who has still sufficient rage concealed within her to carry her victoriously through two quarrels. She is therefore about to let the vials of her wrath once more loose upon her unhappy guardian, when the door opens, and Florence, calm and stately, sweeps slowly in.
"Aunt Anne not here?" she says; and then she glances at Guy, who is still holding in his hands some of the fragments of the broken cup, and who is looking distinctly guilty, and then suspiciously at Lilian, whose soft face is crimson, and whose blue eyes are very much darker than usual.
There is a second's pause, and then Lilian, walking across the room, goes out, and bangs the door, with much unnecessary violence, behind her.
"Dear me!" exclaims Florence, affectedly, when she has recovered from the shock her delicate nerves have sustained through the abrupt closing of the door. "How vehement dear Lilian is! There is nothing so ruinous to one's manners as being brought up without the companionship of well-bred women. The loss of it makes a girl so – so – hoydenish, and – "
"I don't think Lilian hoydenish," interrupts Guy, who is in the humor to quarrel with his shadow, – especially, strange as it seems, with any one who may chance to speak ill of the small shrew who has just flown like a whirlwind from the room.
"No?" says Miss Beauchamp, sweetly. "Perhaps you are right. As a rule," – with an admiring glance, so deftly thrown as to make one regret it should be so utterly flung away, – "you always are. It may be only natural spirits, but if so," – blandly, – "don't you think she has a great deal of natural spirits?"