Beatrice Boville and Other Stories

was with his general air of calm courtesy, helped her to some cold pheasant, and applied himsel

trength of a bruise as big as a fourpenny-piece, and appeared to consider himself entitled to Ceci

d, with a self-conscious smile, after a cours

impassively. The color rose into her face, a

sleepy to hear it; and it

her coffee. "You shouldn't criticise so s

give her that serenade," observed Cos, with a languid laugh, when we were al

then, that made that confoun

don't play badly when his hands are not numbed, poor devil! Of course he made no end of a row about going o

an had chanced to have been in the billiard-room, it is highly probabl

l," as much to that gallant bay's disquiet as to her owner's; for I don't know which of the two best loves a bu

gh Cecil, liking a fast walk on the frosty roads, a game of battledore and shuttlecock with Blanche (when we were out of the house), or anything, in short, better than working with her feet on the fender, and the Caldecott inanities or Screechington scandals in her ear, often led Laura many an unwelcome dance, and brought that luckless young lady to try at things whi

r gentle, childlike way was the most telling of all her changing moods, but I m

ne in her glory, for Laura was infinitely too terrified at the sight of the bay's strong black hind legs to risk

lky coat with discrimination, and Qui Vive, though not the best-tempered of thorough-bred

ould not resist the fascination of her ways, but he never altered his calm, courteous tone to her-the to

e frost breaks up and we take out the hounds,"

tly, for he is as light as a bird, checks at nothing, and will take you safe ove

uld bear a habit. I am not like Miss Caldecott, who, catching sight of his dear b

unmerciful to poor Miss Caldecott.

st,' and 'such slang style;' I consider that rather a compliment, for I never knew any lady pull to pieces my bonnet, or

s to him in this mood. "No," he said, briefly, "no one would accuse

o; it is pleasant, you know. Yet somet

ond, merely, like Cleopatra, to show your

ion, the whirl of society! I do like admiration. I tell you candidly what every other woman acknowledges to herself but denies to the world; but often it is nothing to me-mere Dead Se

eagle eyes, out of which, when he chose, nothing could

at that moment, she would have flinched at nothing; being a young lady, her hands were tied. She could only go to Cos's stalls with him (Cos knows as much about horseflesh as I do about the profound female mystery they call "shopping"), and flirt with him to desperation

a fiddle-case, and no action at all. "I assure you, Miss St. Aubyn, you make me wretched. I'd die for yo

would have driven Cos distracted if he'

e you at a moment's notice; only don't do it till after our play, because I have set my heart on that suit of Milan armor. Pray don't look s

and I, dropping behind them, he had a good hour of her fascinations to himself. I do not know whether he improved the occasion, but Cecil at luncheon looked tired and teas

om, reading "Clytemnestra" to Blanche, with many pauses, the greater fun of the two. I am keen about sport, too; but ever since, at the age of ten, I conceived a roma

n that incredulous way for? We can be extraordinarily industrious: the steam sewing-machine is nothing to us when we choose! What do you think we are going to do? We are going to decorate the church for Chris

"I can't say I should, but your tastes and mine are probabl

attractions." She flashed a glance at the Colonel, who was watching her over the top of Punch, as, when I was a boy, I have watched the sun, though it pained my eyes to do it. "You're the grand seigneur of Deerhurst," said Cecil, turning to him; "will you

t that moment, to please her, he would have cut down the best timber on the estates-even the old oaks

yew, and the sanctuary itself was a find old Norman place, whose tout

ever did in our lives, regardless of the rose chains with which we were v

ghboring town for no end of ribbon emblazonments and illuminated scrolls, on which Cecil look

ftly. "That is like what you were in To

his eye to satisfy her, but he soon mas

we go to work at once, for fear it gr

to help you?" murmu

hievously. "You can cut some holly if

"You will certainly soil your hands,

let you off duty. You may go back to the dormeuse an

ed texts, as if he had been a carpenter all his life, and his future subsistence entirely depended on his adorning Deerhurst church in good taste. It was amusing to me to see him, whom the highest London society, the gayest Paris life bored-who pronounced the most dashing opera supper

softly and earnestly for once without any "mischief." She talked of her father's embarrassments, her mother's trials, of Mrs. Coverdale, with honest detestation of that widow's arts and artifices, and of her own tastes, and ideas, and feelings, showing the Colonel (what she did not show generally to her numerous worshippers) h

inst the organ, watched her, shading his eyes with his hand. She went on playing-first a Miserere, then Mozart's Symphony in E, and then improvisations of her own-the sort of music that, when one stands calmly to listen to it, makes one feel it whether one likes or not. As she played, tears rose to he

thought that you were divine, but we never knew till now that you brought the an

twice," said Cecil, hurried

irt, if flirt, as he feared-from her sudden caprices to him, her alternate impatience with, and encouragement of, his cousin-Cecil St. Aubyn would prove. He gave her his arm down the yew-tree walk. Neither of them spoke all the way, but he sent a servant on for

g, not literally, for they went into the "dry" and comestibles fast enough, had lived on her smiles for the last month, excused herself to Mrs. Vivian, and

smoked, Heaven knows how many pipes, in the chill December air. The next day, the 23rd, was the night of our theatric

ulorum, sheriff, members, and magistrates-the two latter portions of the constitution being chiefly remarkable for keenness about hunting and turnips, and an unchristian and deadly enmity against all poachers and vagrants; rectors, who tossed down the still Ai with Falstaff's keen relish; other rectors, who came against their principles, but preferred fashion to salvation, having daughters to marry and sons to s

s, dog-carts, drags, tilburies, and hansoms. Before our faces, of course, they only clapped their snowy kid gloves, and murmured "Bravissimo!" with an occasional "Go

ornetcy in ours. As for Cecil, she played à ravir as Cos, in his Milan armor, whispered with some difficulty, as the steel gorget pressed his throat uncomfortably. Vestris hersel

nd-lord-canst

maid? for the

e, though ne'er sh

s great an actress as Rachel, if

self on a par with Blanche's little white terrier, but he'd come to set a price on Cecil's winning smiles, and to see them given pretty equally to him, and to a young fool, her inferior in everything save position, whom he knew in her inmost soul she must ridicule and despise, galled his pride, and steeled his heart against her.

ho had played Ulric. "She's such a deuced lot ove pluck, such eyes, such hair, such a voice!

the satin playbills in his hand, and answered simply, "You do me too m

and brushed past us into her dressing room, whence she emerged, when her name was called, her cheeks bright with their first rouge, and her eyes unnaturally brilliant. How she flirted with Horace that night, when the theatricals were over! Young ladies who wanted to hook the pet baronet, whispered o

ad thanked him for it with her soft, fond eyes, and told him she should use it. Now, as she

ual vivacity, and quite unlike the ordinary soft and winning way she had used of late when with him. He danced no more with her, but, daring the waltzes with which he was obliged to favor certain county beauties, and all the time he was doing the honors of Deerhurst, with his calm, stately, Bayard-like cour