A Great Success

t did you gi

on't make a fuss. I know exac

nation. "The fare was one and twopence. Of cou

his fares, was just on the point of starting from the door of the small semi-detached house i

turned at

You've been

made her a low bow, and ma

ghter, and as his wife, discomfited, turned back i

e letters-and you know what a post we had this morning! Now don't

sofa beside her husband, who threw a bundle of letters upon his wife's lap

first lecture. Calm! Invitations from the Scottish Athenaeum-the Newcastle Academy-the Birmingham Literary Guild-the Glasgow Poetic Society-the 'British Philosophers'-the Dublin Dilettanti!-Heavens!-how many more! None of them offering cash, as far as I can

ws. The whole aspect of the man, indeed, was not unworthy of the adjective "Olympian," already freely applied to it by some of the enthusiastic women students attending his now famous lectures. One girl artist learned in classical archaeology, and a haunter of the British Museum, had made a charcoal study of a well-known archaistic "Diespiter" of the Augustan period, on the same sheet with a rapid sketch of Meadows when lecturing; a performance which

rumpeting in two or three Tory newspapers, and had produced a real sensation, of that mild sort which alone the British public-that does not love lectures-is capable of receiving from the report of one. Persons in the political world had relished its plain speaking; dames and counsellors of the Primrose League had read the praise with avidity, and skipped the criticism; while the mere men and women of letters had appreciated a style crisp, unhackneyed, and alive. The second lecture on "Lord George Bentinck

so certain was intelligent London that in going to hear Arthur Meadows on the most admired-or the most detested-personalities of the day, they at least ran no risk of wishy-washy panegyric, or a dull caution. Meadows had proved himself

from the last of these epistles. "I really di

m with a fond but rat

t I'm not always lazy when I seem so-that a man must have time to think, and smoke, and dawdle, if he's to write anything decent, and can't always rush at the first job tha

ad, with a look at his wife

ehead pucke

re we should have been if it hadn't I'm sure I don't know! And, as it is-By the way,

this post is-well, upon my word, it's overwhelming!" And, gathering up the letters, he threw himself with an air

ow is the last day for ca

n't catch it, they must

f they won't take it,

rk magazine, who had agreed by cable to give a large sum for t

wisted

o think of

uccess I don't know what is." He pointed to the letters on his lap, an impatient gest

onet! Gracious! I believe it's the woman who asked

ll languor dispelled, and hel

-though you don't deserve it, Doris, for you didn't

Doris, interrupting him

t of it perfectly. Bu

come to Crosby Ledgers for a week-end, on July 16? We hope to have a pleasant party, a diplomat or two, the Home Secretary, and General Hichen-pe

s sin

L DUNS

maid, perhaps she wil

with the tea-tray, and Doris rose to make a place for it. The parlourmaid put it down with much unnecessary noise, and Doris, lookin

will give me no

d easily get a better!"

hook he

" she said, sighing. "And

omplains of me!" The voice

d all these things you have been buying lately-oh, Arthur, if you wouldn't buy t

-a real Georgian piece!"

r back against it 'There's another of them beastly copper coal-scuttles come!' You should have seen her eyes blazing. 'A

t last I have something good to look at in this room." He turned his eyes cares

a fresh entrance of Jane, who, with an air of defiance, deposited a

books? Heavens, Arthur, what have you been ordering now! I

't they my tools, my stock-in-trade? Haven't these l

surveyed his wife in re

t them all at the London L

nd forwards after books? Any man of letters worth his s

plaintive emphasis, as she ruefully turned ove

hat I'm getting for the Dizzy lecture is al

think of all the oth

r marriage she had timidly asked him, after one of their bridal dinner-parties in which she had worn her wedding-dress-"Did I look nice to-night? Do you-do you ever think I look pretty, Arthur?" And he had looked her over, with an odd change of expression-careless affection passing into something critical and cool:-"I'm never ashamed of you, Doris, in any company. Won't you be satisfied with that?" She had been far from satisfied; the phrase had burnt in her memory from then till now. But she knew Arthur had not meant to hurt her, and she bore him no grudge.

deed running in her mind. She took up Lady Dunsta

rself, Arthur, of cours

an't pos

proteste

's notice. You can't get out of it. Do you want me to be known as a man who accepts

g upon him. But her mouth w

's fit for Crosby Ledgers. And I'm

Shan't we have more money in a fe

wanted. Besides, I h

ear D

mounted in Do

like! But ten pounds is ten pound

n with eagerness, and had been going regularly to the Campden Hill studio of an Academician-her mo

to do anything of the kind,"

take paid work when I can get i

ess

They had no children; and, as he well knew, Doris pined for them. The look in her eyes when she nursed her f

of Crosby Ledgers. They had a long and heated di

my old black gown, and it will be a botch at the en

note of acceptance to the Home Secretary, who had asked him to luncheon. Doris was not included in the invitation. "But anybody may ask a husband-or a wife-to lunch, separately. That's understood. I shan't do it often, however-that I can tell them!" And justified by

it up," and that she would do it herself. "A week wasted!" she thought-"and all for nothing. What do we want with Lady Dunstable! She'll flatter Arthur, and make him lazy. They all do! And I'

rrative, this genius-for it was something like it-for literary portraiture? And now at last the stimulus had come-and the opportunity with it. Could she ever forget the anxiety of the first lecture-the difficulty she had had in making him finish it-his careless, unbusiness-like management of the whole affair? But then had come the burst of praise and popularity; and Arthur was a new man

h frowning clear-sightedness. "They make a perfect fool of him. Now, then, I

at down

accepting your kind invitation, and I will let

adows, struck by a sudden

Jane into staying. I should feel a horrid snob-but it would be rather fun-especially as Lady Dunstable will certainly be immensely surprised. The

ing, Doris tore up her

g your kind invitation, and I will let you know our tr

sinc

S ME

*

ner-parties to which they were already invited as the "celebrities" of the moment; in making Arthur's wardrobe presentable; in watching over the tickets and receipts of the weekly lectures;

e parties at Crosby Ledgers. These accounts were generally prefaced by the laughing re

e pleased. Everything she did apparently was acceptable to Lord Dunstable, who admired her blindly. But in one point at least she was a disappointed woman. Her son,

y!" said the wife of a dramatist, whose one success

is. "Do you mean

le-Pater's, or Ruskin's, or Carlyle's. Each person throws two slips into a hat. On one you write the subject, on another the name of the author whose style is to be imitated. Then y

Doris, with round eyes. "I have f

could only remember a long, sallow face, with striking black eyes and a pointed chin, a general look of distinction and

she had always been in touch with the intellectual world, especially on its scientific side. And for nearly two years before her marriage she had been a student at the Slade School. But since her imprudent love-match with a literary man had plunged her into the practical work of a small

the political biographies with which Arthur's shelves were crowded, having all the while, however, the dispiriting conviction that Lady Dunstable had been dandled on the knees of every En

eparations entirely secret from Arthur, and she saw the day o