The History of Sir Richard Calmady

ise. For Lady Calmady's convalescence was slow. An apathy held her, which w

of the women in the adjoining nursery, and, sometimes, the lusty protestations of her baby when-as John Knott had put it-"things didn't suit him." She felt a little jealous of the comely, young wet-nurse, a little desirous to be more intimately acquainted with this small, new Richard Calmady, on whom all her hopes for the future were set. But immediately she was ver

eign of good Queen Anne. It may be questioned whether the parable, wrought out with such patience of innumerable stitches, was closely comprehensible or sympathetic to the said ladies; since a particularly wide interval, both of philosop

strength and fleetness to reach it-the panting, hunted creature may, for a time, find security and repose. Above this resting-place the trees of the forest interlace their spreading branches, loaded with amazing le

n a wondering gladness, cheating herself for an instant with unreasoning delight-look up, only to know her sorrow, and feel the knife turn in the wound. Nevertheless these days made, in the main, for peace and healing. On more than one occasion she petitioned that Julius March should come and read to her, choosing, as the book he should read from, Spencer's Faerie Queene. He obeyed, in manner calm, in spirit deeply moved. Katherine spoke little. But her charm was great, as she lay, her eyes changeful in colour as a moorland stream, listening to those intricate stanzas, in which the large hope, the pride of honourable deeds, the virtue, the patriotism, the masculine fearlessness, the ideality, the fantastic

d, humorous, dependable, never losing sight, in his intercourse w

n, set-for its passing refreshment-in the midst of the Forest of This Life, and to keep, just so long as was possible, the pursuing Leo

king, while talking over with Julius the turf-cutting claims of certain squatters on Spendle Flats--arriv

ittle difficult about the baby-only, you know, sir, if I can say it with a

battery, vomiting out shot and shell, than gone up the broad, stately stairca

upon the blue-and-white tiled hearth. And on the sofa, drawn up at right angles to it, Katherine sat, wrapped in a gray, silk dress

some fancy of Denny's. I'm afraid in the excess of her devotion she makes me rather a nuisance to you.

pression and bearing impressed her, causing her to st

he cried, "Rog

nt made to him by the doctor ten days ago. He dared not look at h

ous, and the horror of the recital grew upon him. His voice sounded to him unnaturally loud and

ress, fixed and rigid as a marble mask. Ormiston was overcome with a consuming pity for her and with a violence of self-hatred. Hangma

give me for telling you

asserted itself. She would have smiled, but her frozen

," she said. "Indeed, it is good of

ed her head. The little flames crackled, dancing among the pine l

u ill again?" Rog

e shook

thing to cure, as a cautery cures-to burn away all idleness and

and steadying themselves on his hands as he too rose. Her face w

ng me the baby. She is to leave him with me. And tell her, as she loves both

iston turned cold. She

uickly, "what on earth

must have him, here, alone, the doors shut-locked if I please." Her lips gave, the corners of her mouth dropped. And watching her Ormiston swore a little under his breath. "We have something

t was a delicious, dimpled creature, with a quantity of silky golden-brown hair, that curled in a tiny crest along the top of its head. It was but half awake yet, the rounded cheeks pink with the comfort of

ld in its white shawls again, rose from her place and walked over to the sunny window, carrying it in the hollow of her arm-it staring up, meanwhile, with the strange wonder of baby eyes, and cooing, as though holding communication with gracious presences haunting the m

she turned her eyes, with almost dreadful courage, upon the mutilated, malformed limbs, upon the feet-set right up where the knee should have been, thus dwarfing the child by a fourth of his height. She observed them, handled, felt them. And as she did so, her mother-love, which, until now, had been but a part and consequence-since the child was his gift, the crown and outcome of their passion, his and hers-of the great love she bore her husband, became distinct from that, an emotion by itself, heretofore unimagined, pervasive of all her being. It had none of the sweet self-abandon, the dear enchantments, the harmonising sense of safety and repose which that earlier passion had. This was altogether diff

ant, her immaturity, her girlhood fell away from Katherine Calma

sity to her own emotion. She clasped her hands about her knees, so that the child might be enclosed, overshadowed, embraced on all sides by the living

hout any asking or will of yours, into a world in which you must always be at so cruel a disadvantage? How will you bear it all when you come to face it for yourself, and I can no lon

d her proud he

ven now, beforehand, foreseeing it, while you still lie smiling unknowing of your own distress. I shall live through it many time

sides, and she sat rigidly upright, her lips

rine of that. Until now, dominated by the rush of her emotion, she had only recognised the bare terrible fact of the baby's crippled condition, without attempting to account for it.

ed spirit, an immense anger possessed her, a revolt against nature which could work such wanton injury, and against God, who, being all-pow

t her bosom, rocking herself to and f

aloud. "He takes pleasure i