Diana Tempest, Volume I (of 3)

oney of

ver drew

ou

ide and bridegroom, and looking round the crowded drawing-room, where the fictitious gaiety of

nion. "He told me half an hour

me home. I believe young men are the root of all evil. Don't pin your

won

concealed in the handles of umbrellas, which you were quite unable to see for yourself? One good turn deserves another. Ah! now the people are really beginning to go. Is not that Lady

rougham? One throws expense to the winds on an occasion of this kind. There comes your hansom behind it. What

best man to make himself generally useful to the chief bridesmaid. I've read it in my l

o, you are not coming in. Don't shut the doo

Hemsworth, with his arms on the carriage-door, perfec

a

uck; so

in her eyes. "In the meantime you are stopping the whole pr

for the return of her granddaughter from the wedding to which at the last moment she had been unable to escort her herself. Her headache was b

. People while they are undergoing the strain of the ordinary ills that flesh is heir to, the bitterness of inadequately returned love, the loss or alienation of children, the grind of poverty or the hydra-headed wants of insufficient wealth, are not as a rule pleasant or sympathetic companions. The lessons of life are coming too quickly upon them to allow of it. They are preoccupied. But tout passe. Mrs. Courtenay had loved and had suffered, and had presented a brave front to the world, and had known wealth, as she now knew poverty. The pain was past; the experience remained; therein lay the secret of he

ay had that

t leisure

e and sy

ibly because she made it so to one and all alike. None but the pushing and the dictatorial were ever overlooked. Country relations with the loud voices and the abusive political views peculiar to rural life were her worst bugbea

ndour of sunrise illusions. She remembered, too, its great ignorance, and was not, like so many elders, exasperated with the you

g in the meshes of middle age, no longer interesting to others or even to themselves. Many came to Mrs.

r eyes to the Louis Quatorze clock

," she said

ually gathered round her. It came now, and touched the white Capo di Monte figures on the mantelpiece, and brought into momentary prominence the inlaid ivory dolphins on the ebony cabinet; those dolphins with curly tails which two Dianas had loved at the age when permission to drive dolphins and sit on waves was not a final impossibility though denied for t

r a swift light step mounted the stair, and Di came in, tall and radiant i

applied, and the most ordinary good looks usurp the name of beauty. But between prettiness and beauty there is nevertheless a great gulf fixed. No one had ev

ark eyelashes, and her mother's features with their inherent nobility and strength, which were so entirely lacking in the Tempests-at least, in the present generation of them. Some people, women mostly, said there was too much contrast between her dark eyes and eyebrows and the extreme fairness of her comple

ulling off her long gloves and instantly beginning to unwir

s. Courtenay, watching her granddau

tar one mass of white peonies! White peonies at Easter! Sir Henry was the only red one there. And eight of us all youth and innocence in white and amber to bear her company. We bridesmaids were all waiting for her for some time before she arrived or he either; but Lord Hemsworth marched him in at last, just when I was beginni

h her little inward laugh, "yo

ber sash! What extravagance! It will be long enough before I have another. It was really

leine loo

e chancel steps where the security for fifteen thousand a year and two diamon

r again let me hear you laugh at the man who once did you the h

almost frightened those who regarded her only as a charming but somewhat eccentric woman. Di's best friends said they did not understand her. The little foot-rule by which they measured others did not seem to apply to her. She was grave or gay, cynical or tender, frivolous or sympathetic, according to the mood of the hour, or according as her quick intuition and sense of mischief showed her the exact opposite was expected of her. But behind the various moods which naturally high sp

y one, but Di took her by surprise now. She laid down

id he want it? He knew I did not like him-I made that sufficiently plain. Did he care one single straw for anything about me except my looks? If he had lik

iqued into making assertions exactly contrary to her real opinions. "I fancied you had mor

and that nice little newly-ironed Bishop were for. They were quite unnecessary. A register-office and a clerk would have done just as well, and have been more in keeping. But how silly it is of me to be wasting my time in holding forth when your cap is not even trimmed for this evening. The price of a virtuous woman is above rubies nowadays. Nothing

enay, thoughtfully. "People are beginning to wear t

Sir Henry has his good points, after all. I see it now that it is too late. And why do people sprinkle themselves all over with watches nowadays, Granny, in unexpected places? Lord Hemsworth counted five-was it, or six?-set in different presents. There were two, I think, in bracelets, one in a fan, and one in the handle of an umbrella. What can be the use of a watch in the handle of an umbrella? Then th

o see you

rocade; but it can't be done. I won't have you spending so m

ed of those occasional little dinner-parties of eight to which people were so glad to come. Who was likely to divine that the two black satin chairs had been covered by Di's strong hands-that the pale Oriental coverings on the settees and sofas that harmonized so we

rich are those who have nothing to keep up. This is true if the narrow means have not caused the wants to become so circumscribed that nothing further remains that can be put down. The rich,

t without effort, and, indeed, as a matter of course, into that

g in return for what they receive. They may have a thousand virtues, and be far superior in their domestic relations

ence is an overpayment. Every one who goes into society must, in some form or other, as Mrs. Lynn Linton expresses it, "pay their shot." All the doors were open to Mrs. Courtenay and her granddaughter, not because they were handso

ng professed a great affection for the younger girl, with whom she had nothing in common

the diamond monogram brooch-"the gift of the bridegroom"-the tears that ha

r the first time, at least leaves us our illusions; but this voluntary death in life, from which there is no resurrection, filled Di's soul with loathing