Barbara Rebell

e chosen

argainer

or let leap

rack and dr

end may

nd with ma

e Mer

eces of furniture added to the room by its present occupant, and now laden with substantial silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and sugar-basin burnished to their highest point of brilliancy-was out of keeping with its fragile charm. The room, indeed, had been

ad such desecration been otherwise possible, the new mistress of Chancton Cottage was only too well aware that she lacked the means to make the old-fashioned house what she would have considered habitab

-for she had no love of the open air-she tried to remind herself that this phase of her life was only temporary; that soon-her son thought in two or thre

ing eagerly the one with the other. As the mother sat in her drawing-room patiently longing for her cup of tea, but content to wait Oliver's good pleasu

erable political position which his personality and his wealth together had known how to win for him. When with Berwick Mrs. Boringdon was never wholly at ease, never entirely her cool, collected self. And now this afternoon, sitting there waiting for them to come in and join her, she wondered for the thousandth time why Oliver was not more amenable to his important friend-why he had not known how to mak

able to him was the position he had accepted, she had been sorely tempted to speak-to point out to him that men in the position of James Berwi

oom door opened and

's really absurd he should stick on here looking after the Chancton cabbages, dead and alive-but he's positively incorruptible! I'm thinking of starting a new

oking as James Berwick now looked, his fair hair tossed and rumpled with the constant ruffling of his fingers, come and thrown himself down in this free and easy attitude

e been able to render him a slight service-in fact, on two occasions he had been able to meet a friend, a lady, in her drawing-room. In doing what she had done Mrs. Boringdon had lowered herself in her own eyes, and she had had the uncomfortable sensation that she had lost in his some of the prestige naturall

s rudely interrupte

t," and he named two well-known members of Parliament who were believed to be financially interested in certain important journals. "It isn't as if you wanted what the Americans call

stless and impatient, with Berwick smiling lazily up at him, th

sister are back at Fletchings, and that they are expecting a good many people down-" She add

than ever, the most delightful spot on earth! I know that Oliver doesn't agree with me, but even he, Mrs. Boringdon, ought to enjoy the humours of the place. What other

ward smiling, good humour restored, and took his

And then, there's another thing I think I can claim for Chancton. Here one may always expect to come across the unexpected! To-day whom should we meet

. "A nymph!" she exclaimed, "do you mea

y reminded this whimsical young man of Mistress Quickly, and it was an added delight to

with the summer visitors, and he always prefers strangers to acquaintances. I must say the doctor is one of the Chancton characters with whom I, for one, could well dispense! He

ody connected with the Priory as his very particular concern. "I must be off now," he said, "Arabella has several people

ing one of the village boys to come in any minute. Kemp promised me to talk to h

of delicate reserve had come into Mrs. Boringdon's voice; she never, i

pect to be over just for the night to-mor

" she said, "that you might have done, dear, what Mr. Berwick asked you to do-I mean, as to seeing him back part of the way to

ellow has been talking to him about it, and now he thinks he would like to resuscitate it. Incredible that so shrewd a man should sometimes choose to do such foolish things, actuat

as I have. Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't do better to throw it all up and go to London. I certainly don't want to edit any paper for Berwick

are right," she said, rather slowly, "I do not like Chancton any better than you do, but I shall always be glad we

asily; he was aware that with her

ce, "I have often been tempted to wonder lately, my dear boy, what you really thin

or a moment he felt nearer to her than he had done for years. Still, he was glad that she went on

estion," he said at last-"one I find

also felt unwontedly moved. She had

l of what a girl should be." How odd, how inadequate, how priggish his words sounded to himself! Still he went on, with gathering courage, "But no one knows better than you do how I am situated. For what I am pleased to call my political ambitions, you have already made sacrifices. If I am to do what I wish with my life, such a marri

on into the fire; a curious look, one of perp

r to look round at him, "surely you don't

was one which to his mind could scarcely be discussed with decency by himself and his mother. Then a vision of Lucy Kemp, steady, clear-eyed Lucy, almost too sensible-so the people at Chancton, he knew, regarded her to be-came to his help. "No

rse of action, was now weighing the pros and cons of what had become to her a matter for imme

d James Berwick's marriage-he once accused me of condemning what he did, and I could not deny that I had done so-I see how much more wise he was than I. Why, to him that marriage which so shocked me was the turning point-ay, more, that money, together, perhaps,

daughter was still in the schoolroom, and her son at Charterhouse. Her middle-aged wooer had been a man of some commercial standing and much wealth, but "not a gentleman," so the

it. Of late I have sometimes wondered, Oliver, if you knew-whether you are aware"-for the life of her she could not help the sudden alteration in her measured voice-"th

tion, she explained her knowledge as having come to her from an absolutely sure source, from a certain Miss V

What a brute I should think him if he does!" and Mrs. Boringdon felt keenly, perhaps not unreasonably, irritated. Her son's words also took her by surp

e Grange for half an hour in order to consult General Kemp over that village lad whose conduct was giving Oliver so much trouble, Mrs. Boringdon smiled.

a pair of silk socks, she allowed her smile to broaden till it transformed her face almos

way through the laurel hedges and so into the moonlit road, he turned to the left,

t once his political chief and his political pupil, Chancton and its petty affairs had been forgotten, and yet now, to-night, he told himself with something like dismay that even when talking to Berwick he had more than once thought of Lucy Kemp. The girl had become his friend, his onl

king the essential nobility which would have been required in such a man as himself to accept a fortune, even from a beloved hand. What, take Lucy's ￡20,000-or was it ￡25,000-in order

ed with an experience in his life which he had striven not unsuccessfully to forget,-the

ream which had to a certain extent embittered and injured the whole of his youth. What a fool he had been! But, on the other hand, so he remem

to pass. The beautiful girl, secure in her superior altitude of twenty-five years of life, and an already considerable knowledge of the world, had taken up the clever boy, her brother's Oxford friend, with pretty enthusiasm. She had liked him quite well enough to accept smilingly his adoration, to allow that

fruition, during the last days of his first spring and summer in London after he had gone down from Oxford. Some merciful angel or some malicious dev

me on her face to face,-on Arabella Berwick, on his goddess, on the woman whose every glance and careless word had been weighed by him wit

ance, looked down on him as being so much less intimate at Bosworth House than he was himself. The man into whose plain, powerful face Arabella Berwick was gazing with such agonised intensity was Daniel O'Flaherty, an Irish barris

-stricken eyes, making no effort to pass by, to show the decent hypocrisy he should have shown; and what he heard made it only too e

t was the Irishman, of whom Boringdon had made such small account in his own mind, who at last-with the measured dignity born of measureless grief and loss-led her towards the spectator whom he vaguely recognised as one of James B

n Boringdon's lot to listen while his companion t

fact that for the present we are both penniless. He admits that often years go by before a man situated as he is makes any real way at the Bar. I ought not to have allowed

ng but James." Then at last had come a word he had felt sorely. Arabella Berwick had looked at him with something like fear in her eyes,-"You will not say anything of this to

ad won a place even in the Berwicks' high little world: steady, moderate adherence to his country's unpopular cause had made him something of a personage even in the House of Commons, and he was known t

o stretch Lord Bosworth's always uncertain and encumbered income to its furthest possible limit, for one of Miss Berwick's virtues had always been a great horror of debt. More, she had so fashioned her life during the last ten years that she was regarded by many shrewd observers as being quite as remarkable a person as her brother-in fact, where he was concerned, the power b

had at first tried, foolishly, to make a friend of him, a confidant, but he had not been possessed of the requisite amoun

made a difference. The sister's influence was on the whole always thrown in against that of the friend. It had certainly not been with Miss Berwick's goodwill that Boringdon had been offered, through her br

le, Boringdon would not now have turned into the Grange gate, but it was his great wish that what had been said this day should make no difference

is evening call at the Grange should be of a purely busines

emed to bring with it peace-restored in subtle measure the young man's good opinion of himself. And then she seemed so simply, so unaffectedly glad to see him! Within the next hour, he was gradually brought to tell her, both of

start such a paper-that it might do him harm

if I don't join in, the scheme will probably come to nothing." Lucy allowed her softened gaze to linger on the face of the man who had gra

sh officer's life in time of profound peace, his love of hunting and rough out-door games,-all seemed to make him most unheroic in Lucy's eyes. She was dimly aware that Captain Laxton's love for her was instinctive, that he was attracted in spite of himself; and the knowledge perplexed and angered her. She knew well, or t

d that her regard for Boringdon was "friendship." Who could hesitate as to w

something." Lucy's he

it?" He turned

ing the life of

gerly. "It's inter

it is that now a young man who has every aptitude for political life--" Lucy hesitated, the word

again, as if to

money from-from-a friend, if it will

from James Berwick?" He was looking at her rather grimly. He had n

she said, in a low tone, "I should

t know that this was an old quarrel between my mother and myself. Berwick did once make me such

so finding, told himself, and a little later told his wife, that the world had indeed changed in the