CHAPTER IV. HER STORY.
'Tis over—the weary dinner-party. I can lock myself in here, take off my dress, pull down my hair, clasp my two bare arms one on each shoulder—such a comfortable attitude!—and stare into the fire.
There is something peculiar about our fires. Most likely the quantity of fire-wood we use for this region gives them that curious aromatic smell. How, I love fir-trees of any sort in any season of the year! How I used to delight myself in our pine-woods, strolling in and out among the boles of the trees so straight, strong, and unchangeable—grave in summer, and green in winter! How I have stood listening to the wind in their tops, and looking for the fir-cones, wonderful treasures! which they had dropped on the soft dry mossy ground. What glorious fun it was to fill my pinafore—or in more dignified days my black silk apron—with fir-cones; to heap a surreptitious store of them in a corner of the school-room, and burn them, one by one, on the top of the fire. How they did blaze!
I think I should almost like to go hunting for fir-cones now. It would be a great deal more amusing than dinner-parties.
Why did we give this dinner, which cost so much time, trouble, and money, and was so very dull? At least I thought so. Why should we always be obliged to have a dinner-party when Francis is here? As if he could not exist a week at Rockmount without other people's company than ours! It used not to be so. When I was a child, I remember he never wanted to go anywhere, or have anybody coming here. After study was over (and papa did not keep him very close either), he cared for nothing except to saunter about with Penelope. What a nuisance those two used to be to us younger ones: always sending us out of the room on some pretence, or taking us long walks and losing us, and then—cruellest of all,—keeping us waiting indefinitely for dinner. Always making so much of one another, and taking no notice of us; having little squabbles with one another, and then snubbing us. The great bore of our lives was that love-affair of Francis and Penelope; and the only consolation we had, Lisabel and I, was to plan the wedding, she to settle the bridesmaids' dresses, and I thinking how grand it would be when all is over, and I took the head of the table, the warm place in the room, permanently, as Miss Johnston.
Poor Penelope! She is Miss Johnston still, and likely to be, for all that I can see. I should not wonder if, after all, it happened in ours as in many families, that the youngest is married first.
Lisabel vexed me much to-day; more than usual. People will surely begin to talk about her, not that I care a pin for any gossip, but it's wrong—wrong! A girl can't like two gentlemen so equally that she treats them exactly in the same manner—unless it chances to be the manner of benevolent indifference. But Lisabel's is not that. Every day I watch her, and say to myself, “She's surely fond of that young man.” Which always happens to be the young man nearest to her, whether Captain Treherne, or “my Colin,” as his mother calls him. What a lot of “beaux” our Lisa has had ever since she was fourteen, yet not one “lover”—that I ever heard of; as, of course, I should, together with her half-dozen very particular friends. No one can accuse Lis of being of a secretive disposition.
What, am I growing ill-natured, and to my own sister? a good tempered, harmless girl, who makes herself agreeable to everybody, and whom everybody likes a vast deal better than they do me.
Sometimes, sitting over this fire, with the fir-twigs crackling and the turpentine blazing—it may be an odd taste, but I have a real pleasure in the smell of turpentine—I take myself into serious, sad consideration.
Theodora Johnston, aged twenty-five; medium looks, medium talents, medium temper; in every way the essence of mediocrity. This is what I have gradually discovered myself to be; I did not think so always.
Theodora Johnston, aged fifteen. What a different creature that was. I can bring it back now, with its long curls and its short frocks—by Penelope's orders, preserved as late as possible;—running wild over the moors, or hiding itself in the garden with a book,—or curling up in a corner of this attic, then unfurnished, with a pencil and the back of a letter, writing its silly poetry. Thinking, planning, dreaming, looking forward to such a wonderful, impossible life: quite satisfied with itself and all it was to do therein, since
“The world was all before it where to choose:
Reason its guard, and Providence its guide.”
And what has it done? Nothing. What is it now? The aforesaid Theodora Johnston, aged twenty-five.
Moralists tell us, self-examination is a great virtue, an indispensable duty. I don't believe it. Generally, it is utterly useless, hopeless, and unprofitable. Much of it springs from the very egotism it pretends to cure. There are not more conceited hypocrites on earth than many of your “miserable sinners.”
If I cannot think of something or somebody better than myself, I will just give up thinking altogether: will pass entirely to the uppermost of my two lives, which I have now made to tally so successfully that they seem of one material: like our girls' new cloaks, which everybody imagines sober grey, till a lifting of the arms shows the other side of the cloth to be scarlet.
That reminds me in what a blaze of scarlet Captain Treherne appeared at our modest dinner-table. He was engaged to a full-dress party at the Camp, he said, and must leave immediately after dinner,—which he didn't. Was his company much missed, I wonder? Two here could well have spared it—Colin Granton and Francis Charteris.
How odd that until to-night Captain Treherne should have had no notion that his cousin was engaged to our Penelope, or even visited at Rockmount. Odd too, that other people never told him. But it is such an old affair, and we were not likely to make the solemn communication ourselves; besides, we never knew much about the youth, except that he was one of Francis's fine relations. Yet to think that Francis all these years should never have even hinted to these said fine relations that he was engaged to our Penelope!
If I were Penelope—but I have no business to judge other people. I never was in love, they say.
To see the meeting between these two was quite dramatic, and as funny as a farce.
Francis sitting on the sofa by Penelope, talking to Mrs. Granton and her friend Miss Emery, and doing a little bit of lazy love-making between whiles. When enters, late and hurried, Captain Treherne. He walks straight up to papa, specially attentive; then bows to Lisabel, specially distant and unattentive; (I thought, though, at sight of her he grew as hot as if his regimental collar were choking him); then hastens to pay his respects to Miss Johnston, when lo! he beholds Mr. Francis Charteris.
“Charteris! what the—what a very unexpected pleasure!”
Francis shook hands in what we call his usual fascinating manner.
“Miss Johnston!”—in his surprise Captain Treherne had quite forgotten her—“I really beg your pardon. I had not the slightest idea you were acquainted with my cousin.” Nor did the young man seem particularly pleased with the discovery.
Penelope glanced sharply at Francis, and then said—how did she manage to say it so carelessly and composedly!—.
“Oh yes, we have known Mr. Charteris for a good many years. Can you find room for your cousin on the sofa, Francis?”
At the “Francis,” Captain Treherne stared, and made some remarks in an abstract and abstracted manner. At length, when he had placed himself right between Francis and Penelope, and was actually going to take Penelope down to dinner, a light seemed to break upon him. He laughed—gave way to his cousin—and condescended to bestow his scarlet elbow upon me; saying as we went across the hall:—
“I'm afraid I was near making a blunder there.—But who would have thought it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“About those, there. I knew your sister was engaged to somebody—but Charteris! Who would have thought of Charteris going to be married. What a ridiculous idea.”
I said, that the fact had ceased to appear so to me, having been aware of it for the last ten years.
“Ten years! You don't say so!” And then his slow perception catching the extreme incivility of this great astonishment—my scarlet friend offered lame congratulations, fell to his dinner, and conversed no more.
Perhaps he forgot the matter altogether—for Lisabel sat opposite, beside Colin Granton; and what between love and hate my cavalier's attention was very much distracted. Truly, Lisabel and her unfortunate swains reminded me of a passage in “Thomson's Seasons,” describing two young bulls fighting in a meadow:—
“While the fair heifer balmy-breathing near,
Stands kindling up their rage.”
I blush to set it down. I blush almost to have such a thought, and concerning my own sister; yet it is so, and I have seen the like often and often. Surely it must be wrong; such sacred things as women's beauty and women's love were not made to set men mad at one another like brute beasts. Surely the woman could help it if she chose. Men may be jealous, and cross, and wretched; but they do not absolutely hate one another on a woman's account unless she has been in some degree to blame. While free, and shewing no preference, no one can well fight about her, for all have an equal chance; when she has a preference, though she might not openly shew it towards its object, she certainly would never think of shewing it towards anybody else. At least, that is my theory.
However, I am taking the thing too seriously, and it is no affair of mine. I have given up interfering long ago. Lisabel must “gang her ain gate,” as they say in Scotland. By the bye, Captain Treherne asked if we came from Scotland, or were of the celebrated clan Johnstone?
Time was, when in spite of the additional t, we all grumbled at our plebeian name, hoping earnestly to change it for something more aristocratic,—and oh, how proud we were of Charteris! How fine to put into the village post, letters addressed, “Francis Charteris, Esq.,” and to speak of our brother-in-law elect as having “an office under Government!” We firmly believed that office under Government would end in the Premiership and a peerage.
It has not, though. Francis still says he cannot afford to marry; I was asking Penelope yesterday if she knew what papa and his first wife, not our own mamma, married upon? Much less income, I believe, than what Francis has now. But my sister said I did not understand: “The cases were widely different.” Probably.
She is very fond of Francis. Last week, preparing for him, she looked quite a different woman; quite young and rosy again; and though it did not last, though after he was really come, she grew sharp and cross often,—to us, never to him, of course;—she much enjoys his being here. They do not make so much fuss over one another as they did ten years ago, which indeed would be ridiculous in lovers over thirty. Still, I should hardly like my lover, at any age, to sit reading a novel half the evening, and spend the other half in the sweet company of his cigar. Not that he need be always hankering after me, and “paying me attention.” I should hate that. For what is the good of people being fond of one another, if they can't be content simply in one another's company, or, without it even, in one another's love? letting each go on their own several ways and do their several work, in the best manner they can. Good sooth! I should be the most convenient and least troublesome sweetheart that ever a young man was ever blessed with; for I am sure I should sit all evening quite happy—he at one end of the room, and I at the other, if only I knew he was happy, and caught now and then a look and a smile—provided the look and the smile were my own personal property, nobody else's.
What nonsense am I writing? And not a word about the dinner-party. Has it left so little impression on my mind?
No wonder! It was just the usual thing. Papa as host, grave, clerical, and slightly wearying of it all. Penelope hostess. Francis playing “friend of the family,” as handsome and well-dressed as ever—what an exquisitely embroidered shirt-front, and what an aërial cambric kerehief! which must have taken him half an hour to tie! Lisabel—but I have told about her; and myself. Everybody else looking as everybody hereabouts always does look at dinner-parties—ex uno disce omnes—to muster a bit of the Latin for which, in old times, Francis used to call me “a juvenile prig.”
Was there, in the whole evening, anything worth remembering? Yes, thanks to his fit of jealousy, I did get a little sensible conversation out of Captain Treherne. He looked so dull, so annoyed, that I felt sorry for the youth, and tried to make him talk; so, lighting on the first subject at hand, asked him if he had seen his friend, Doctor Urquhart, lately?
“Eh—who? I beg your pardon.”
His eyes had wandered where Lisabel, with one of her white elbows on the table, sat coquetting with a bunch of grapes, listening with downcast eyes to “my Colin.”
“Doctor Urquhart, whom I met at the Cedars last week. You said he was a friend of yours.”
“So he is; the best I ever had,” and it was refreshing to see how the young fellow brightened up. “He saved my life. But for him I should assuredly be lying with a cross over my head, inside that melancholy stone wall round the top of Cathcart's Hill.”
“You mean the cemetery there.—What sort of a place is it?”
“Just as I said—the bare top of a hill, with a wall round it, and stones of various sorts, crosses, monuments, and so on. All our officers were buried there.”
“And the men?”
“Oh, anywhere. It didn't matter.”
It did not, I thought; but not exactly from Captain Treherne's point of view. However, he was scarcely the man with whom to have started an abstract argument. I might, had he been Doctor Urquhart.
“Was Doctor Urquhart in the Crimea the whole time?”
“To be sure. He went through all the campaign, from Varna to Sebastopol; at first unattached, and then was appointed to our regiment. Well for me that! What a three months I had after Inkerman! Shall I ever forget the day I first crawled out and sat on the benches in front of the hospital, on Balaklava Heights, looking down over the Black Sea?”
I had never seen him serious before. My heart inclined even to Captain Treherne.
“Was he ever hurt—Doctor Urquhart, I mean?”
“Once or twice, slightly, while looking after his wounded on the field. But he made no fuss about it, and always got well directly. You see, he is such an extremely temperate man in all things—such a quiet temper—has himself in such thorough control—that he has twice the chance of keeping in health that most men have—especially our fellows there, who, he declares, died quite as much of eating, drinking, and smoking, as they did of Russian bullets.”
“Your friend must be a remarkable man.”
“He's a—a brick! Excuse the word—in ladies' society I ought not to use it.”
“If you ought to use it at all, you may do so in ladies' society.”
The youth looked puzzled.
“Well, then, Miss Dora, he really is a downright brick—since you know what that means. Though an odd sort of fellow too; a tough customer to deal with—never lets go the rein; holds one in as tight as if he were one's father. I say, Charteris, did you ever hear the governor speak of Doctor Urquhart, of ours?”
If Sir William had named such a person, Mr. Charteris had, unfortunately, quite forgotten it. Stay—he fancied he had heard the name at his club, but it was really impossible to remember all the names one knew, or the men.
“You wouldn't have forgotten that man in a hurry, Miss Dora, I assure you. He's worth a dozen of—— but I beg your pardon.”
If it was for the look which he cast upon his cousin, I was not implacable. Francis always annoys me when he assumes that languid manner. For some things, I prefer Captain Treherne's open silliness—nothing being in his head, nothing can come out of it—to the lazy superciliousness of Francis Charteris; who, we know, has a great deal more in him than he ever condescends to let out, at least for our benefit. I should like to see if he behaves any better at his aforesaid club, or at Lady This's and the Countess of That's, of whom I heard him speak to Miss Emery.
I was thinking thus;—vaguely contrasting his smooth, handsome face with that sharp one of Penelope's—how much faster she grows old than he does, though they are exactly of an age!—when the ladies rose.
Captain Treherne and Colin rushed to open the door—Francis did not take that trouble—and Lisabel, passing, smiled equally on both her adorers. Colin made some stupid compliment; and the other, silent, looked her full in the face. If any man so dared to look at me, I would like to grind him to powder.
Oh! I'm sick of love and lovers—or the mockery of them—sick to the core of my heart!
In the drawing-room I curled myself up in a corner beside Mrs. Granton, whom it is always pleasant to talk to. We revived the great blanket, beef, and anti-beer question, in which she said she had found an unexpected ally.
“One who argues, even more strongly than your father and I, my dear—as I was telling Mr. Johnston to-day at dinner, and wishing they were acquainted—argues against the beer.”
This was a question of whether or not our poor people should have beer with their Christmas dinner. Papa, who holds strong opinions against the use of intoxicating drinks, and never tastes them himself, being, every year, rather in ill odour on the subject. I asked who was this valuable ally?
“None of our neighbours, you may be sure. A gentleman from the camp—you may have met him at my house—a Doctor Urquhart.”
I could not help smiling, and said it was curious how I was perpetually hearing of Doctor Urquhart.
“Even in our quiet neighbourhood, such a man is sure to be talked about. Not in society perhaps—it was quite a marvel for Colin to get him to our ball, but because he does so many things while we humdrum folk are only thinking about them.”
I asked what sort of things? In his profession?
“Chiefly, but he makes professional business include so much. Imagine his coming to Colin as ground-landlord of Bourne hamlet, to beg him to see to the clearing of the village pool? or writing to the lord of the manor, saying that twenty new cottages built on the moor would do more moral good than the new county reformatory? He is one of the very few men who are not ashamed to say what they think—and makes people listen to it too—as they rarely do to those not long settled in the neighbourhood, and about whom they know little or nothing.”
I asked if nothing were known about Doctor Urquhart? Had he any relations? Was he married?
“Oh, no, surely not married. I never enquired, but took it for granted. However, probably my son knows. Shall I find out, and speak a good word for you, Miss Dora?”
“No, thank you,” said I, laughing. “You know I hate soldiers.”
'Tis Mrs. Granton's only fault—her annoying jests after this fashion. Otherwise, I would have liked to have asked a few more questions about Doctor Urquhart. I wonder if I shall ever meet him again? The regiments rarely stay long at the camp, so that it is not probable.
I went over to where my two sisters and Miss Emery were sitting over the fire. Miss Emery was talking very fast, and Penelope listening with a slightly scornful lip; she protests that ladies, middle-aged ladies particularly, are such very stupid company.
Lisabel wore her good-natured smile, always the same to everybody.
“I was quite pleased,” Miss Emery was saying, “to notice how cordially Captain Treherne and Mr. Charteris met: I always understood there was a sort of a—a coolness, in short. Very natural. As his nephew, and next heir, after the Captain, Sir William might have done more than he did for Mr. Charteris. So people said, at least. He has a splendid property, and only that one son. You have been to Treherne Court, Miss Johnston.”
Penelope abruptly answered, “No;” and Lisabel added amiably, that we seldom went from home—papa liked to have us at Rockmount all the year round.
I said wilfully, wickedly,—may be, lest Miss Emery's long tongue should carry back to London what was by implication not true—that we did not even know where Treherne Court was, and that we had only met Captain Treherne accidentally among the camp-officers who visited at the Cedars.
Lis pinched me: Penelope looked annoyed. Was it a highly virtuous act thus to have vexed both my sisters? Alack! I feel myself growing more unamiable every day. What will be the end of it?
“First come, first served,” must have been Lisabel's motto for the evening, since, Captain Treherne re-appearing, scarlet beat plain black clear out of the field. I was again obliged to follow, as Charity, pouring the oil and wine of my agreeable conversation into the wounds made by my sister's bright eyes, and receiving as gratitude such an amount of information on turnips, moor-lands, and the true art of sheep-feeding, as will make me look with respect and hesitation on every leg of mutton that comes to our table for the next six months.
“O, Colin, dear Colin, my Colin, my dear,
Who wont the wild mountains to trace without fear,
O, where are thy flocks that so swiftly rebound,
And fly o'er the heath without touching the ground.”
A remarkable fact in natural history, which much impressed me in my childhood. What is the rest?
“Where the birch-tree hangs weeping o'er fountain so
clear,
At noon I shall meet him, my Colin, my dear.”
What a shame to laugh at Mrs. Grant of Laggan's nice old song, at the pretty Highland tune which ere now I have hummed over the moor for miles. Since, when we were children, I myself was in love with Colin! a love which found vent in much petting of his mother, and in shy presents to himself of nuts and blackberries: until, stung by indifference, my affection
“Shrunk
Into itself, and was missing ever after.”
Do we forget our childish loves? I think not. The objects change, of course, but the feeling, when it has been true and unselfish, keeps its character still, and is always pleasant to remember. It was very silly, no doubt, but I question if now I could love anybody in a fonder, humbler, faithfuller way than I adored that great, merry, good-natured schoolboy. And though I know he has not an ounce of brains, is the exact opposite of anybody I could fall in love with now—still, to this day, I look kindly on the round, rosy face of “Colin, my dear.”
I wonder if he ever will marry our Lisa. As far as I notice, people do not often marry their childish companions; they much prefer strangers. Possibly, from mere novelty and variety, or else from the fact that as kin are sometimes “less than kind,” so one's familiar associates are often the furthest from one's sympathies, interests, or heart.
With this highly moral and amiable sentiment—a fit conclusion for a social evening, I will lock my desk.
Lucky I did! What if Lisabel had found me writing at—one in the morning! How she would have teased me—even under the circumstances of last night, which seem to have affected her mighty little, considering.
I heard her at my door, from without, grumble at it being bolted. She came in and sat down by my fire. Quite a picture, in a blue flannel dressing-gown, with her light hair dropping down in two wavy streams, and her eyes as bright as if it were any hour rather than 1.30 a.m., as I showed her by my watch.
“Nonsense! I shall not go to bed yet. I want to talk a bit, Dora; you ought to feel flattered by my coming to tell you, first of anybody. Guess now,—what has happened?”
Nothing ill, certainly—for she held her head up, laughing a little, looking very handsome and pleased.
“You never will guess, for you never believed it would come to pass, but it has. Treherne proposed to me to-night.”
The news quite took my breath away, and then I questioned its accuracy. “He has only been giving you a few more of his silly speeches, he means nothing. Why don't you put a stop to it all?”
Lisabel was not vexed—she never is—she only laughed.
“I tell you, Dora, it is perfectly true. You may believe or not,—I don't care—but he really did it.”
“How, when, and where, pray?”
“In the conservatory; beside the biggest orange-tree; a few minutes before he left.” I said, since she was so very matter-of-fact, perhaps, she would have no objection to tell me the precise words in which he “did it.”
“Oh, dear, no; not the smallest objection. We were joking about a bit of orange-blossom Colin had given me, and Treherne wanted me to throw away; but I said 'No, I liked the scent, and meant to wear a wreath of natural orange-flowers when I was married.' Upon which he grew quite furious, and said it would drive him mad if I ever married any man but him. Then he got hold of my hand, and—the usual thing, you know.” She blushed a little.”
“It ended by my telling him he had better speak to papa, and he said he should, tomorrow. That's all.”
“All!”
“Well?” said Lisabel, expectantly.
It certainly was a singular way in which to receive one's sister's announcement of her intended marriage; but, for worlds, I could not have spoken a syllable. I felt a weight on my chest—a sense of hot indignation which settled down into inconceivable melancholy.
Was this indeed all? A silly flirtation—a young lad's passion—a young girl's cool business-like reception of the same—the formal “speaking to papa,” and the thing was over! Was that love?
“Haven't you a word to say, Dora? I had better have told Penelope. But she was tired, and scolded me out of her room. Besides she might not exactly like this, for some reasons. It's rather hard; such an important thing to happen, and not a soul to congratulate one upon it.”
I asked, why might Penelope dislike it?
“Can't you see? Captain Treherne roving about the world, and Captain Treherne married and settled at home, make a considerable difference to Francis's prospects. No, I don't mean anything mean or murderous—you need not look so shocked—it is merely my practical way of regarding things. But what harm? If I did not have Treherne, somebody else would, and it would be none the better for Francis and Penelope.”
“You are very prudent and far-sighted: such an idea would never have entered my mind.”
“I daresay not. Just give me that brush, will you, child?”
She proceeded methodically to damp her long hair, and plait it up in those countless tails which gave Miss Lisabel Johnston's locks such a beautiful wave. Passing the glass, she looked into it, smiled, sighed.
“Poor fellow. I do believe he is very fond of me.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I like him—like him excessively. If I didn't, what should I marry him for?”
“What, indeed!”
“There is one objection papa may have; his being younger than I, I forget how much, but it is very little. How surprised papa will be when he gets the letter to-morrow.”
“Does Sir William know?”
“Not yet; but that will be soon settled, he tells me. He can persuade his mother, and she, his father. Besides, they can have no possible objection to me.”
She looked again in the mirror as she said this. Yes, that “me” was not a daughter-in-law likely to be objected to, even at Treherne Court.
“I hope it will not vex Penelope,” she continued. “It may be all the better for her, since when I am married, I shall have so much influence. We may make the old gentleman do something handsome for Francis, and get a richer living for papa, if he will consent to leave Rockmount. And I'd find a nice husband for you, eh, Dora?”
“Thank you, I don't want one. I hate the very mention of the thing. I wish, instead of marrying, we could all be dead and buried.” And, whether from weariness, or excitement, or a sudden, unutterable pang at seeing my sister, my playfellow, my handsome Lisa, sitting there, talking as she talked, and acting as she acted, I could bear up no longer. I burst out sobbing.
She was very much astonished, and somewhat touched, I suppose, for she cried too, a little, and we kissed one another several times, which we are not much in the habit of doing.—Till, suddenly, I recollected Treherne, the orange-tree, and “the usual thing.” Her lips seemed to burn me.
“Oh, Lisa, I wish you wouldn't. I do wish you wouldn't.”
“Wouldn't what? Don't you want me to be engaged and married, child?”
“Not in that way.”
“In what way, then?”
I could not tell. I did not know.
“After the fashion of Francis and Penelope, perhaps? Falling in love like a couple of babies, before they knew their own minds, and then being tied together, and keeping the thing on in a stupid, meaningless, tiresome way, till she is growing into an elderly woman, and he—no, thank you, I have seen quite enough of early loves and long engagements. I always meant to have somebody whom I could marry at once, and be done with it.”
There was a half-truth in what she said, though I could not then find the other half to fit into it, and prove that her satisfactory circle of reasoning was partly formed of absolute, untenable falsehood, for false I am sure it was. Though I cannot argue it, can hardly understand it, I feel it. There must be a truth somewhere. Love cannot be all a lie.
My sister and I talked a few minutes longer, and then she rose, and said she must go to bed.
“Will you not wish me happiness? 'Tis very unkind of you.”
I told her outright that I did not think as she thought on these matters, but that she had made her choice, and I hoped it would be a happy one.
“I am sure of it. Now go to bed, and don't cry any more, there's a good girl, for there really is nothing to cry about. You shall have the very prettiest bridesmaid's dress I can afford, and Treherne Court will be such a nice house for you to visit at. Good night, Dora.”
Strange, altogether strange!
And writing it all down this morning, I feel it stranger than ever, still.