The Pomp of the Lavilettes, Complete

for an hour in the kitchen, beside the great fireplace. He enjoyed this part of his first appearance greatly. It was like nothing he had tasted since he used, as a boy, to visit the huntsman'

irresponsibility in him which betrayed a readiness to sell his dignity for a small compensation. With a certain genial capacity for universal blarney, he was at first as impressive with Sophie as he was attentive to Christine. It was quite natural that presently Madame Lavilette should

from fatuity where the Lavilettes were concerned. He was determined to associate with the ceremony all the primitive customs of the country. He had come of a race of simple farmers

ride or defensive self-respect. With the Cure, Ferrol was not quite so successful. The ascetic, prudent priest, with that instinctive, long-sighted accuracy which belongs to the narrow-minded, scented difficulty. He disliked the English exceedingly;

n, asked him on his way home what he thought of Ferrol, he

designing

admiration for the English, which betrayed itself in his curious attempts to imitate Anglo-Saxon bluffness and blunt spontaneity. When the Cure

ll. I have also some Irish whiskey. He will

by the major-general, and he polished the silver ferrule,

had a good deal of natural taste, had in the old days fought against her mother's incongruous ideas, and once, when the rehabilitation of the Manor Casimbault came up, she had made a protest; but it was un

ment, a fine, old, carved wooden seat carried out of doors to make room for an American rocking-chair. He turned his head away almost in anger when he saw that the beautiful brown wainscoting was being painted an ultra-marine blue. His partly disguised astonishment and dissent were not lost upon the crude but clever Christine. A new sense was opened up in her,

a little maliciously, pointing t

u," he answered, eyeing th

nto English-"Ah! I know, I know. You can't fool me. I see de leetla look in your eye; and you n

little-"Alcide is doing his work very well. C

easant face interested him. It ha

angerous, when the laugh suddenly stopped and he began coughing. The paroxysm increased until he

er passed from her face, and something

you?" she asked pitifully. "I did not know

his free arm-he could not speak yet-whi

had," he said, after a

ir, the paroxysm over, a little spot of blood showed and spread upon his white lips. With a pained, shuddering little gasp she caught her handkerchief from her

or fellow!" she said

man for a man, or of a lover for a lover, but that latent spirit of care and motherhood which

ye was the fatal message he had sought to elude for months past. A hopeless and ironical misery shot through him. But he had humour too, and, with the taste of the warm red drop in his mouth s

for a d

n her face, his eyes lifted almo

if you can get i

u-some whiskey!" she said, with

irited, dramatic little thing, set off so garishly in the bodice with the plush trimming; but she had a big heart, an

imself when

n their way to the farmhouse, the work of despoiling going on in the Manor behind them. Ferrol walked with an easy, half-languid step, even a gay sort of courage in his bearing. The liquor he had drunk brought the colour to his lips. They were

eighbours, of the way they lived, all in an easy, unintru

of all the family had been least careful to see herself as others might see her. She was vain; she was somewhat of a barbarian; she loved nobody and nobody's opin

oked back at the Manor House, but only for

to live there

sharply. "But if the Casimbaults lik

ry hundred dollars-no more; and half of that he had borrowed, and half of it he got from selling his shooting-traps and his hunting-watch. He might worry along on that till the end of the game; but he had no money to send his sister in that secluded village two hundred miles away.

want to leave it. Don't you feel sorry you are going to leave the old place? Hadn't you got your own little spots there, and made friends with

y 'blowing out the

hop, drop the curtain, or anything you li

s the thing dawned upon her. "Don't sp

he answered. "Give it to me

n her pocket. "No, I won't

s time, he had always thought that he would get well, and to-morrow he wou

said (they spo

kitchen so much? It isn't ne

yhow; and I fancy you all feel mor

t home in the parlour

om one lives in the most is

ing born in her all at once; but she did recognise that he was

not know-and yet he was so perfectly

ng to the hounds myself I could see them crossing to or from the meet. The River Stavely ran between; and just under the window of the North Tower is the prettiest copse you ever saw. That was from one side of the tower. From the other side you looked into the court-yard. As a boy, I li

everything-everything, you understand!"

g-Sophie's wedding," she ans

ophie, with the same look in his eyes, and only the general