Phantom Fortune

ier pausing to exchange greetings with almost everyone

ely simplicity, its stern, slatey hue. The plainest granite cross would have satisfied Mr. Hammond, or a cross in pure white marble, with a sculptured lamb at the base. Surely the lamb, emblem at once pastoral a

t back to the place of graves, and sat on the low parapet above the beck, smoking their cigarettes, and talking with that perfect unreserve which can only obtain bet

ster Lesbia?' s

difficulty with most men m

y style. And she

piquancy to her beauty;

is human, and not infallible, and only just a little better than you or me. When I choose a wife, she will be no such example of cultivated

our sister's character: and from what you have told me about her ladyship, I should thi

ia's mind in all her own pet ideas and prejudices. Yet, God knows, we have

man situated as he was in finding a fit reply. He smoked in silence, looking down

pboard, and the nobler and more ancient the race the bigge

tance - in their case it was not a single skeleton, but a whole charnel house. I do

rder - a runaway wife - a rebellious son - a cruel husband. I have heard such stories hinted at in the records of families. But our story means disgrace. I seldom see str

unduly ha

esty is dishonesty all the world over; and to plunder Rajahs on a

proved against y

the story of his profligacy and dishonour. Some people say he committed suicide in order to escape the inquiry; but I have heard my mother emphatically deny this. My father told her that he had often

part of his life away from England?' Hammond asked, feeling that it

t of the old Maulevrier scandal he was peculiarly sensitive, perhaps all the more so because his grandmother had n

n remember the voyage - and I can remember my poor mother who never recovered the blow of my father's death, and who died in yonder house, after five years of broken health and broken spirits. We had no one but the dowager to look to as children - hardly another friend in the world. She did what she liked with us; she kept the girls as close as nuns, so they have never heard a hint of the old history; no breach of scandal has reached their ears. But she could not shut me up in a country house for ever, though she did succeed in keeping

r hear the e

; and then, little by little, there arose the suspicion that he was trafficking in English interests, selling his influence to petty princes, winking at those mysterious crimes by which rightful heirs are pushed aside to make room for usurpers. Lastly it became notorious that he was the slave of a wicked woman, false wife, suspected murderess, whose husband, a native prince, disappeared from the scene just when his existence became perilous to the governor's reputation. According to one version of the story, t

every part of the story has been distorted and exaggerated in the telling; and a great deal of it may be pure invention, evolv

person. Her feeble light was extinguished by the radiance o

affection, 'no one will ever think the worse of

in his blood. People don't believe in spontaneous generation, moral or physical, now-a-days. Typhoid breeds typhoid, and t

randson is, I will never believe that the gra

without a word, and it was w

a woman who has led a life of self-sacrifice, and

ck - a man who took high honours at Oxford, and could hold his own against all comers. Such a grandson would have gratified her pride, and would have repaid her for the trouble she had taken in n

her's friend. It was such a new thing to have a stranger at the family board, a man whose information was well abreast with the march of progress, who could talk eloquently upon every subject which people care to talk about. In this new and animated society Le

s quite acute enough to see the stranger's keen appreciation of

Shut a girl up in a tower till she is eighteen years old, and on the day of her release introduce her

untain-bred damsel. Molly, feeling that her conversational powers were not appreciated by her brother's friend, took half a dozen dogs for company, and with three fox-terriers, a little Yorkshire dog, a colley and an otter-hound, was at no loss for society on the road, more especially as Maulevrier ga

They were not necessary, for the Fr?ulein knew her ladyship's intentions with regard to her elder granddaughter - knew them, at least, so far as that Lesbia was intended to make a brilliant marriage; and she knew, therefore, that the presence of this handsome and altogether attractive

ns had explored these, they went back to the shores of the little lake, and climbed that rocky eminence upon which the poet used to sit, above the placid waters of silv

s, and the rich luxuriance of water-lilies. 'Is it not pitiable to think of the years he spent in this monotonous place, without any society wor

and vivid desire for a life of action, cannot imagine the calm blisses of reverie and constant communion with nature. Wordsworth ha

grateful to him for living such a life, since it has bequeathed us some exquisite poet

ng the obvious excitement of her bandy-legged hound; and she rushed down to the brink

e till he's wanted. If you disturb him now he'll desert his holt,

h you?' asked

in Lesbia's company, but closely guarded by Miss Müller. These three went to look at Nab Cottage, where poor Hartley Coleridge ended his brief and clouded days; and

to see you!' exclaimed Lesbia, looking

gelina;' and the three fox terriers flew along the road, falling over themselves in the swiftness of their flight, darting

ill hunting the water, but the terriers never went out of Mary's s

r a very late tea. Lady Maulevrier wa

your tea!' exclaimed Lesbia, looking

hand me my cup,' replied the dowag

omed duty. 'Indeed, dear grandmother, I had no idea it was so late; but it was such a lov

dmother, whom she really loved. She hung over Lady Maulevrier's chair, attending to her small wants, and seeming scarcely to r

r muddy gown, and came in presently, dressed

o draw him into some revealment as to his family and antecedents: but he evaded every attempt of that kind. It was too evident that he was a self-made man, whose intellect and good looks were his only fortune. It was criminal in Maulevrier to have brought such a person to Fellside. Her ladyship began to think seriously of sending the two girls to St. Bees or Tynemouth for change of air