Beatrice Boville and Other Stories

ly cut the county, from not being one of the grass countries, and as I couldn't put forward any patriotic claims like Mr. Harper Twelvetrees, (who, as he's such a slayer of vermin,

ose name heads this paper once obligingly called me, torture unparalleled by anything short of acid wine or the Chinese atrocities, though truly he who heads our Lower House with his vernal heart and his matchless brain were enough to make any man, coxcomb or hero, oppositionist or ministerialist, proud to sit in the same chamber with him. But there are nights now and then, of course, when I like to go to both Houses, to hear Lord Derby's rich, intricate oratory, or Gladstone's rhetoric, (which has so potent a spell even for his foes, and is yet charged so strangely against him as half a crime; possibly by the same spirit with which plain women reproach a pretty one for her beauty: what business has he to be more attractive than his compeers? of course it's a péché mortel in their eyes!) and when Mrs. Breloques, who is a charming little woman, to whom no man short of a Goth could possibly say "No" to any petition, gave me a little blow with her fan, and told me, as I valued her friendship, to get an order and take her and Gwen to hear the Lords' debate on Tuesday, when my cousin Viscount Earlscourt, one of the best orators in the Upper House, was certain to speak, of course I obliged her. Her sister Gwen, who was a girl of seventeen, barely out, and whom I wished at Jerico, (three is so odious a number, one of the triad must ever be de trop,) was wrathful with the Upper House; it in no wise realized her expectations; the peers should have worn their robes, she thought, (as if the horrors of a chamber filled with Thames

ery ill-don't you think

t she had sought to see him thus rather than not see him at all? When his speech was closed, and he had resumed his place on the benches, she leaned back, covering her eyes with her hand for a moment: and, as I said aloud (more for her benefit than Mrs. Breloques's) my regret that Earlscourt would wear himself out, I was afraid, in his devotion to public life, Beatrice started at the sound of my voice, turned her head hastily, and her face was colorless enough to tell me she had not gratified her pride without some cost. Of course I spoke to her; she had been a favorite of mine always, and I had often wished to come across her again;

Men said his stamina was not equal to his brain; physicians, that he gave himself too much work and too little sleep. I knew he was more wrapped in public life than ever; that in his place in the government he worked unwearyingly, and that he found time in spare moments for intellectual recreation th

ular? Persigny said he should

ary, he had forbidden me ever to mention her name to him, and no allusion to her had ever passed his lips. The worn, stern gravity, that had become his habitual expression, changed for a moment; bullet-proof he might be, but

to me. Without being forbidden, I should have th

broached the subject before, by your desire; but, now I have once broken the ice, I must ask you o

and breathed heavily as I spoke

You are the only living being so thoughtless or so merciless as to force her name upon me, and rake up the one

housands that heard his briliant speech that night, or read it the next morning, who saw him pass in his carriage, and had him pointed out to them as the finest orator of his day, or dined with him at his ministerial dinners at his house in Park Lane, would have belie

w!) said to me, the next day, at one of the Musical Society concerts. "Incredible effrontery, wasn't it, in her, to come and hear Earlscourt's speech? One would have imagined that conscience and delicacy mi

ourish, n'importe how victorious it may have been in crushi

-t-on. If constructions are wrong, to the deuce with them! they matter nothing to sensible people; and the man who lives in dread of "reports" will have to shift his conduct as the old man of immortal fable shifted his donkey, and won't ever journey in any peace at all. If anybody remarked my visiting Lowndes Square, I couldn't help it: I wanted to see Beatrice Boville again, and to Lowndes Square, after the concert, I drove my tilbury accordingly, which, as that turn-out is known pretty tolerably in those parts, I should be wisest to leave behind me when I don't want my calls noticed. By good fortune, I saw Beatrice alone. They were going to drive in the Park, and she was in the drawing room, dressed and waiting for her aunt. She was not altered: at her age sorrow doesn't tell physically as it does at Earlscourt's. In youth we have Hope; later on we know that of all the gifts of Pandora's box none are so treacherous and delus

nt you to release m

y with that determined pride and hauteur that they had worn the last time I had

hat you told me in the Kursaal last autumn until you gave me leave; that leave I ask you for now. Silence lies in the way of your own happiness, I feel sure, and not alone of yours. If you gi

er little, white teeth were set together as they h

myself, withdraw it. I would never have told you, but

er stakes were involved by my silence. Surely, if you once had elevated mind enough to comprehend and admire such a man as Earlscourt, and be won by the greatness of his intellect to prefer him to younger rivals, it is impossib

on-the color hot in her cheeks, and her attitude full o

I did? Did you think any physical torture would not have been easier to bear than what I felt when I saw his face once more, and thought of what we should have been

me leave to tell him? Why not write to him yourself? A word would clear you, a

plomatist, or I shouldn't ha

oked at me haugh

gave me up without a trial. I never will force myself upon him. He thanked God I was not his wife-could I seek to be his wife after that? Love him passionately I do, but forgiv

he street, stood my tilbury, with the piebald Cognac that everybody in Belgravia knew. There, in the open window, stood Beatrice and I; and Earlscourt, as he happened to glance upward

om my promise?" I asked Beatrice, as I p

ook he

nk you are too much of a gentlem

xpressive of indomitable pride as any face could be. And yet, though I swore at her as I drove Cognac out of the square, I couldn't help liking her all the better for it, the little Pythoness! for, af