The Mating of Lydia

early summer were melting into each other; reaches of the river gave back a silvery sky, while under the trees the shadows slept. The mountains were indisti

them to her dress-maker, served her at Duddon, in her own phrase, mainly "for my maid to show the housekeeper." They lay in scented drawers, daintily folded in tissue paper, and a maid no less ambitious than her fellows for a well-dressed mistress kept mournful watch over them. This carelessness of dress had gr

ut of the way?" she asked her son as they

u saw the

ive i

he read it thro

He is going over to the neighbourhood of Carlisle on b

y not to 'regret,'

all"-Tatham's brow was a little furrow

you will know how to meet it. It would be very lik

mpetuously, "was Melros

ady Tatham looked up startled; a fa

nish me, he nearly succeeded in entangling my younger sister-your Aunt Edith. I stood in his way. He hates me, of course. I think he suffered. In those days he was very different. But

hould ask! He did m

an threw his arm round her shoulders, loo

ither to be pitied-nor he," she added slowly, "though I

could ever have

ion showed a mind dra

by him. Then when I-and others-broke with him, he turned his back on England and wen

mother?" cried Tatham, outraged b

hat followed was slight but poignant. "I knew that still more plainly

and though he rarely spoke of his father his childish recollections of him, and the impression left by his mother's constant and deliberate talk of him, during the boyish years of her son, had entered deep into the bases of character. It is on such feelings and t

elvellyn range lying purple under a southwest sky,

ave no

ped his br

the

to a halt. "And Harry-don't call too of

were such little one

too quick." The

way at all," he protes

g the Darra, the little

way at last into that

hrelfall, but on his way

liver a note f

a key which would admit their pony-carriage to some of the private drives of the park, wild enchanted ways which led up to the very eastern heart of Blencathra. That was not quite so successful, because both Lydia and her mother were out, and his call had been made chiefly on Susan, who had been even queerer than usual. After taking the key, she had let it fall absently into a waste-paper basket, while she talked to him about Ibsen; and he had been forced to rescue it himself, lest Lydia should never know of his visit. On all other occasions he had found Lydia, and she had been charming-always charming-but as light and inacce

world had been to make him indifferent to things that most men desire. No merit in that! As he truly said, he had so much of them! But he was proud of his health and strength-his shooting and the steady lowering of his golf handicap. He was proud also of certain practical aptitudes he possessed, and would soon allow no one to interfere with him-hardly to a

dacity, as though to say that gentleness and civility are not for the likes of them. Lydia was always gentle-kind, at least-even when she laughed at you. Unless she got upon her "ideas." Then-like Susan-she could harangue a little, and grow vehement-as she had at Duddon that day, talking of the new independence of women. But neither her gentleness nor her vehemence seemed to have any relation to what a man-or men-might desire of her. She lived for herself; not indeed

o feminine, yet with its suggestion of something unconquerable, moving in a world apart-he could not define it in any such words; but there it was, the attraction, the lure. S

p with manners none too polite, there were others who avenged them; women, a few, very few women, whom the great man, strange to say, sighed to paint, and sighed in vain. Such women were generally women of a certain age; none of your soft-cheeked beauties. And Lady Tatham was one of them. The great artist had begged her to let herself be painted by him. And Victoria had negligently replied that, perhaps, at Duddon, some day, there might be time. Several reminder

siasm. "You know him? How lucky for you! He's wonderful! I? Oh, no. How should I? I saw him once in the

d happily as h

ch as she jolly well pleases. And of course he'll take to her, and offer to giv

atham arrived at Green Cottage, and tying

smiling youth approached her. She was sewing, apparently mending house-linen, which she quietly put down to gr

to the gate, and admired his horse. But as to any flutter of hand or eye; any consciousness in her, answering to the eager feeling in him-he knew very well there was nothing of the kind. Never mind! There was an inner voice in him that kept

th to ride away, he told her that he was o

n surprise. "Mr. Faversham sent us a note. I don't be

nybody, I can't think! Undershaw told me last week he must get him away,

h made the splendid young fellow beside her envious at once of the invalid.

in! You didn't know Faversham-I think you said-before that

rid pang sometimes that I di

all right," said Tatham scornfully. "Scores of to

-bye to him; received the lingering bow and eager look, which betrayed the youth; thought of "young Harry with his

llious affection. There had been no education to speak of, for either her or Susy. But the qualities and gifts of remoter ancestors had appeared in them-to the bewilderment of their parents. And when after her father's death Lydia, at nineteen, had insisted on entering the Slade School, she had passed through some years of rapid development. At bottom her temperament always remained, on the whole, conservative and critical; the temperament of the humourist, in whose heart the old loyalties still lie warm.

s way-were still dominant. Marriage was not necessary. Art and knowledge could v

parochial creatures. She was impatient of her sex, and the narrowness of her sex's sphere. She dreamed of a broadly human, practical, disinterest

of generations. We want to taste and handle it for ourselves; as men do. Why can't they take us by the hand-a few of us-teach us, confide in us, open the treasure-house to us?-and let us al

t of an Italian church; drawing back the curtains of a Doge; hovering in quiet skies; or offering the Annunciation lily, from one side of a great tomb, to the shrinking Madonna on the other. These creations of Italy in her early prime are the most spontaneous of the children of beauty. There are no great differenc

thinking a

y in the wind, and she were not a mere lump of conceit), that marrying was not her line; but that, as a friend, he might rely upon her. Anything-in particular-that she could do

a moment! She, the artist with art and the world before her; she, with her soul in her own keeping, and all the beauty of sky and fell and stream to be had for the asking, to make herself the bond slave of Duddon-of that formidably beautiful, that fond, fastidious mother!-and of all the ceremonial and paraphernalia that must come with Duddon! She saw herself spending weeks on the mere ordering of her clothes, calling en

oing the same; if it were really his intention to offer his handsome person, and his no less handsome possessions to a girl as insignificant as herself. Custom had not staled him. And there was his mother too;

c-apparently-than the attitude of both Tatham an

d to them. "It would take me half a lifetime to find out what

't call, cuts bazaars, has never been known to take the chair at a meeting. But I should call that shirking. Either refuse the gam

not get on without the young man, I should put up with any conditions. But I can get o

late if you don't get ready,

! I have only to

ought you'

best cotton frock is good enough

self up a good deal with her books; she had written two tragedies in blank verse; and she held feminist views, vague yet fierce. She was apparently indifferent to men, much more so than Lydia, who frankly preferred their society to that of her own sex; but Lydia noticed that if the vicar, Mr. Franklin, did not call for a week Susan would ingeniously invent some device or other for peremptorily inducing him to do so. It was understood in the family, that while Lydia enjoyed life, Susan only endured it. All the same she was a good deal spoilt. She breakfasted in bed, wh

uidly, her hand to her brow.

ou have got

lit

te poetry directly after lunch. Why

a," said Susa

n their tails-and then go and take a walk. Indigestion, my dear-which is the plain Eng

g up her hair, and generally putting her to rights. When the operat

, that would take your headache aw

th dignity. "I shall go for a w

ending her sister to keep out of the sun; and was hurryin

d Tatham who

er sister, holding up t

o dine with t

rtnight," said Susan, with feminine exaggeration.

defiantly. "We are not a convent;

age him-if you don'

her hands behind her, and tossing her

said Susan slowly, "that m

r a moment, but

t why should I drive him away, or be rude to him? I want t

opose to you," sa

olden youth will trouble about such a trifle for long. Think of all the other things he has to am

our heart!" said the tragedienne, her da

ully! There'

held

lly going t

a man, you oughtn't to go to his house

ut Mr. Melrose,"

suddenly fro

! let

ounted almost to second sight. She seemed to be in the Tower-in one of its locked and shuttered rooms; to be looking at a young man stretch