The History of Sir Richard Calmady

way, towards the e

gs, and gain volume and vigour as they sparkle away by woodside, and green-lane, and village street-and over those secret, bosky places, in the heart of the great common-lands, where the smooth, white stems and glossy foliage of the self-sown hollies spring up between the roots of the beech trees, where plovers cry, and stoat and weazel lurk and scamper, while the old poacher's le

ht home his bride, and it was but fitting the whole countryside should see her. So all and sundry received generous entertainment according to their degree.-Labourers, tenants, school-children. Weary old-age from Pennygreen poorhouse taking its pleasure of cakes and ale half suspiciously in the broad sunshine. The leading sho

hing alacrity in attending festivals, even those of a secular chara

er brewery, for instance, who was shouldering his way so vigorously towards fortune and a seat on the bench of magistrates; the younger members of the firm of Goteway & Fox, Solicitors of Westchurch; Goodall, the Methodist miller from Parson's Holt, and certain sporting yeoman farmers with their comely woma

a of waiting cases, had hitched his unga

s; and the brown mare, knowing the hand on her mouth, laid herself out to her work. "Handsome young couple as

ly, though," remarked Timothy, with praisew

e you?"-and John Knott drew the lash gen

hird baronet I've a-seen, and

by the fear of losing you, Timothy. Your serviceable old carcass'll hang together for a good while yet."-Then his rough eyebrows dr

Ladyship was constitutionally timid, and he was none too sure of the behaviour of his leaders in face of the string of very miscellaneous vehicles waiting to take up. However, the illustrious party happily got off without any occa

ural leaning towards women in general, and towards those of the upper classes in particular. Katherine Calmady's radiant youth, her courtesy, her undeniable air of distinction, and a certain gracious gaiety which belonged to her, had, combined with unaccustomed indulgence in claret cup, gone far to turn the good man's head

es and beds of bracken,-the lime avenue running along the ridge of the hill, the ragged edge of the fir forest to the east, and the mass of the house, all these were softened to a vagueness-as the landscape in a dream-by the deepening twilight. An immense repose pervaded the whole scene. It affected Ka

dress. For there was in Katherine that inherent desire of harmony with her surroundings, that natural sense of fitness, which-given certain technical aptitudes-goes to make a great dramatic artist. But, since in her case, such technical aptitudes were either non-existent, or wholly in abeyance, it followed that, save in nice questions of private honour, she was quite the least self-conscious and self-critical of human beings. Now, as she passed out under the archway on to the square lawn of the troco-ground, bare-hea

is woman-child. So, while pluming himself on his clear judgment and unswerving reason, he resented, most unreasonably, her birth, since it took his wife from him. Such is the irony of things, forever touching man on the raw, proving his weakness in that he holds his strongest point! In point of fact, however, Katherine suffered but slightly from the poor welcome that greeted her advent in the gray, many-towered house upon the Yorkshire coast. For her great-aunt, Mrs. St. Quentin, speedily gathered the small creature into her still beautiful arms, and lavished upon it both tenderness and wealth, along-as it grew to a companionable age-with the wisdom of a mind ripened by wide acquaintance with men and with public affairs. Mrs. St. Quentin-famous in Dublin, London, Paris, as a beauty and a wit-had passed her early womanhood amid

edge upon the restless North Sea. Lovers came in due course. For over and above its own shapeliness-which surely was reason enough-Katherine's hand was well worth winning from the worldly point of view. She would have money; and Mrs. St. Quentin's influence would count for much in the case of a great-nephew-by-marriage who aspired to a parliamentary or diplomatic career. But the lovers also went, for Katherine asked a great deal-not so much of them, perhaps, as of herself. She

-racing in favour of steeple-chasing. It was said he aspired to rival the long list of victories achieved by Mr. Elmore's Gaylad and Lottery, and the successes of Peter Simple the famous gray. This much Katherine had heard of him from her brother. And having her haughty turns-as what charming woman has not?-set him down as probably a rough sort of person, notwithstanding his wealth and good connections, a kind of gentleman jockey, upon whom it would be easy to take a measure of pretty revenge for his boyish indifference to her existence. But the meeting, and the young man, alike, turned out quite other than she had anticipated. For she found a p

e. This dress would not please her nor that. The image of her charming oval face and well-set head ceased to satisfy her. Surely a woman's hair should be either positively blond or black, not this indeterminate brown, with warm lights in it? She feared her mouth was not small enough, the lips too full and curved for prettiness. She wished her eyes less given to change, under their dark lashes, from clear gray-blue to a nameless colour like the gloom of the pools of a woodland stream

r and scene on her account. She took Mademoiselle de Mirancourt into her confidence, hinting at causes for her restlessness and wayward little humours unacknowledged by the girl herself. Then the two elder women wrappe

of their guests as he happened to meet. It was the fashion of fifty years ago to conduct affairs, even those of the heart, with a dignified absence of precipitation. The weeks passed, while Sir Richard became increasingly welcome in some of the very best houses in Paris.-And Katherine? It must be owned Katherine was

reaching of that far-distant, heavenly country, concerning which it is comfortably assured us "that there they neither marry nor are given in marriage." For the Katherine who came back to her was at once the same, and yet another, Katherine-one who carried her head more proudly and stepped as though she was mistress of the whole fair earth, but whose merry wit had lost its little edge of sarcasm, whose sympathy was quicker and more instinctive, whose voice had taken fuller and more caressing tones, and in whose sweet eyes sat a steady content good to see. And then, suddenly, Mrs. St. Quentin began to feel her age as she had never, consciously, felt it before; and to be very willing to fold her hands and recite her Nunc Dimittis. For,

e yet unborn struggling to force the doors of life-which moved Katherine to seriousness, as she stood alone on t

d mignonette,-was stirred, now and again, by wandering winds, cool from the spaces of the open moors. While, as the last roll of departing wheels died out along the avenues, the voices of the woodland began to reassert themselves. Wild-fowl called from the alder

cres, all the poetry, in short, of great possessions-might be seen in perspective. For Katherine had that necessity-in part intellectual, in part practical, and common to all who possess a gift for rule-to resist the confusing importunity of detail, and to grasp intelligently the whole, which alone gives to detail coherence and purpose. Her mind was not one-perhaps unhappily-which is contented to merely play with bricks, but demands the plan of the building

o think clearly, tried to range the many new experiences of the last months and to reckon with them. But

ement of tenderness, yet for all her high courage with a certain fear. She cried out for a little space of waiting, a little space in which to take breath. She wanted to pause, here in the fulness of her content. But no pause was granted her. She was so ha

y could not have said. Suddenly the terrace door slammed. A moment

called, somewhat imperatively

tching him as he came r

," she cried. "

nswered curtly. "Don'

not why-for, hearing the tone of his vo

nto an absurd state of panic-sent Roger in one d

up to the chapel to search. Where the heart dwells there the feet

e known I sh

ed upon Katherine and with it

to him, holding out her hand. "Here," she continued, "you are a little too shadowy, t

d sleepily. The churring of the night-hawks was continuous, soothing as the hum of a spinning-wheel. Somewhere, away in the Warren, a fox barked. In the eastern sky, the young moon began to climb above the ragged edge of the firs. When t

were you satisfied? Did I en

er been entertained before-like a queen-and the

d to look at

," he said. "It was like a body

d it?" Kather

e day. Brockhurst, and the horses, and the books, a

ng for

r you-just precisely and wholly you, nothing more or less-all through my life, a

involuntarily. She loved these fond exaggerations-as what woman does not who has had the good fortune to hear t

ed?" he aske

up smiling, and

galloped? Sultan will give you no trouble. He is well-seasoned and merely looks on at

lf up, and moved a little from him though still holding his

better not go to-morrow

first blush of the morning, before the day has had time to grow commonplace, while the gossamers are still hung with dew, and the mists are in hollows, and the

And a certain modesty made her shrink from this. To know something in the secret of your own heart, or to tell it, thereby making it a hard concrete fact, outside yourself, over which, in a sen

ushed into her face and throat, and then ebbed, leaving her very wh