The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories

ess Garnett had pictured himself as bringing together the father and daughter, and hovering in a

ding-day; but until then he begged to be left alone. To this decision he adhered immovably, and when Garnett conveyed it to Hermione she accepted it with a deep look of understanding. As for Mrs. Newell she was too much engrossed in the nuptial preparations to give her husband another though

ty and Mrs. Newell's, Mrs. Hubbard evidently felt that she had penetrated to the sacred precincts where "the right thing" flourished in its native soil. As for Hermione, her look of happiness had returned, but with an undertint of melancholy, visible perhaps only to Garnett, but to him always hauntingly present. Outwardly she sank back into her passive s

at she was desperately in need of that restorative. There were moments, indeed, when he was sorrier for her than for her husband or her

she wanted. How much she had wanted this particular thing was shown by the way in which, on the last day, when all peril was over, s

nd sunless, between walls bristling with iron spikes. On the narrow pavement a blind man pottered along led by a red-eyed poodle: a little farther on a dishevelled woman sat grinding coffee on the threshold of a buvette. The bridal carriage stopped before one of the doorways, with a clatt

y; but there was something oddly shrunken and submerged in his appearance, as though he had grown smaller or his clothes

smoothly and rapidly through the net-work of streets leading to the Boulevard Saint-Germain; only o

sense that in defining that lady's possessions it wa

which were to devolve on him during the coming ceremony. Having mastered these he remained silent, fixing a dry specul

ence of the bridal party. The French fashion prescribing that the family cortege shall follow the bride to the altar, the vestibule of the church was thronged with the participatore in the coming procession; but if Mr. Newell felt any nervousness at his sudden projection into this unfamiliar group, nothing in his look or mann

h-a horrible moment to Garnett, who felt a pang of misery at this satire on the infallibility of the filial instinct. He longed to make some sign, to break in some way the pause of uncertainty; but before he

stood beside his daughter till the church doors were thrown open; then, at a sign from the verger, he gave her his a

hat dowdy distinction, the air of having had their thinking done for them for so long that they could no longer perform the act individually, and the heterogeneous company of Mrs. Newell's friends, who presented, on the opposite side of the nave, every variety of individual conviction in dress and conduct. Of the two groups the latter was decidedly the more interesting to Garnett

the bride and bridegroom to seal and symbolize her social rehabilitation, Garnett himself as the humble instrument adjusting the different parts of the complicated machinery, and her husband, finally, as the last stake in her game, the last asset on which she could draw to rebuild her fallen fortunes. At the thought Garnett was filled with a deep disgust for

ar, Garnett's eyes rested on the central figures of the group, and gradually the others disappeared from his view and his mind. After all, neither Mrs. Newell's schemes nor his own share in them could ever unsanctify Hermione's marriage. It was one more testimony to life's indefatigable renewals,

T

, Ned Halidon and I used to listen, laughing and

e human race; and provisionally restoring the sense of beauty to those unhappy millions of our fellow country-me

'em hate ugliness so that they'll smash nearly everything in sight," he would passionately exclaim, stretching his arms across th

youthful brutality; and Paul, pulling himself up, cast a surprised glance

y rejoined the ladies across a florid waste of Aubusson carpet: "This, sir, is Dabney's first study for the Niagara-the Grecian Slave in the bay window was executed for me in Rome twenty years ago by my old friend Ezra S

as content to live and die in the unmodified black walnut and red rep of his predecessor. It was only in Paul that the grandfather's aesthetic faculty revived, and Mrs. Ambrose us

He could not paint, and recognized the fact early enough to save himself much wasted labor and his friends many painful efforts in dissimulation. But he broug

my ill-timed parenthesis, and the color

d, as though he had noticed t

ed cloth top was worn thread-bare, and patterned like a map with islands and peninsulas of ink; and in its ce

with Ned Halidon, "old Paul will never do anyth

that, my dear fellow. He simply doesn't see things when the

in favour of a superior article of my own: "Look here, I've been looking round for a decent writing-table. I don't care,

vangel on," I agreed, "it is a little in

osts. I find I can't get anything decent-the plainest mahogany-under a hundred and fi

oined. "You talk as if you had to live on a book

I know-I know-that's all very well. But for twenty tables that

ention between Halidon and myself, as to whether this inconsistent acceptance of his surroundings was due, on our friend's part, to a congen

at the table was

o the fact; and I'll wager he became unconsciou

a lot of others, and make up his mind

sensible to ugliness. But the truth is that he doesn't mind th

nother with the sam

rouble," ar

money," I

have founded three travelling scholarships

an to himself,

o all the world besides!" Halidon exclaimed

of thrift was beginning to impede the execution of his schemes of art-philanthropy. The three travelling scholarships had been founded in the first blaze of his ardour, and before the personal management of his property had awakened in hi

affectionately; "but after all," he went on, with one of the quick revivals of optimism that gave a perpetual freshness to his spirit, "aft

of Arts should languish on paper long after all its details had been discussed and settled

to a taunt of mine about Paul's perpetually reiterated plea that he was still waiting for So-and-so's report; "but now that the plan's mature-and such a plan! You'll grant

me back he seemed refreshed by his respite from business cares and from the interminable revision of his cheris

ying to myself: 'You lucky devil, you, to be able to provide such a sight as that for eyes that can make some good use of it! Isn't it bet

off his first ebullition, "when i

ropped. "The fou

uch the electric button t

pace the library hearth-rug-I can see him now, setting

oints to be considered still-one or two

ime enough-that I ought to have put the thing through before this? I suppose you're right; I can see

me. "Ned would have put it th

more executive capacity? More-no, it's not that; he's no

suffering from his evident distress. But he remained planted before me, his littl

h he could spend my money for me!" His face was lit by the reflection of a passing thought. "Do you know, I shouldn't wonder if I dropped out of the r

but he shook his head, saying with a sigh as he tur

repeating our talk, was amused a

ake one gulp of his money, and never give a dollar to the work. Jove, it would be a fine thing to have the carrying out of such a plan-b