The Mating of Lydia

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

V

Duddon Castle in May was an agreeable place. Its park, lying on the eastern slopes of the mountain mass which includes Skiddaw and Blencathra, had none of the usual monotony of parks, but was a genuine "chase," running up on the western side into the heather and rock of the mountain where the deer were at home, while on the east and south its splendid oaks stood thick in bracken beside sparkling becks, overlooking dells and valleys of succulent grass where the sheep ranged at will. The house consisted of an early Tudor keep, married to a Jacobean house of rose-coloured brick, which Lady Tatham had since her widowhood succeeded in freeing from the ugly stucco which had once disguised and defaced it. It could not claim the classical charm, the learned elegance of Threlfall Tower. Duddon was romantic—a medley of beautiful things, full of history, colour, and time, fused by the trees and fern, the luxuriant creepers and mosses, and of a mild and rainy climate into a lovely irregular whole; with no outline to speak of, yet with nothing that one could seriously wish away. The size was great, yet no one but an auctioneer could have called it "superb"; it seemed indeed to take a pleasure in concealing the whole extent of its clustered building; and by the time you were aware of it, you had fallen in love with Duddon, and nothing mattered.

But if without, in its broad external features, Duddon betrayed a romantic freedom in the minds of those who had planned it, nothing could have been more orderly or exquisite than its detail, when detail had to be considered. The Italian garden round the house with its formal masses of contrasting colour, its pleached alleys, and pergolas, its steps, vases, and fountains, was as good in its way as the glorious wildness of the Chase. One might have applied to it the Sophoclean thought—"How clever is man who can make all these things!"—so diverse, and so pleasant. And indoors, Duddon was oppressive by the very ingenuity of its refinement, the rightness of every touch. No overcrowding; no ostentation. Beautiful spaces, giving room and dignity to a few beautiful objects; famous pictures, yet not too many; and, in general, things rather suggestive than perfect; sketches—fragments—from the great arts of the world; as it were, a lovely wreckage from a vast ocean set tenderly in a perfect order, breathing at once the greatness and the eternal defeat of men.

The interior beauty of Duddon was entirely due to Victoria, Lady Tatham, mother of the young man who now owned the Tatham estates. She had created it through many years; she had been terribly "advised," in the process, by a number of clever folk, English and foreign; and the result alternately pleased and tormented her. To be fastidious to such a point is to grow more so. And Victoria Tatham was nothing if not fastidious. She had money, taste, patience, yet ennui confronted her in many paths; and except for the son she adored she was scarcely a happy woman. She was personally generous and soft-hearted, but all "causes" found in her rather a critic than a supporter. The follies of her own class were particularly plain to her; her relations, with their great names, and great "places," seemed to her often the most ridiculous persons in the world—a world no longer made for them. But one must hasten to add that she was no less aware of her own absurdities; so that the ironic mind in her robbed her both of conceit for herself and enthusiasm for others.

Two or three days after the storming of Threlfall Tower, Lady Tatham came in from a mountain ramble at tea-time, expecting her son, who had been away on a short visit. She entered the drawing-room by a garden door, laden with branches of hawthorn and wild cherry. In her linen dress and shady hat she still looked youthful, and there were many who could not be got to admit that she was any less beautiful than she had ever been. These flatterers of course belonged to her own generation; young eyes were not so kind.

Tea had been brought in, and she was busy with the arrangement of a branch of wild cherry in a corner of the room where its pearl and silver blossoms shone out against a background of dull purple, when the door was hastily opened, and a curly-haired youth stood on the threshold who smiled at sight of her.

"You are here, mother! That's jolly! I thought I might find you gone."

"I put off London till next week. Mind my hat, you wretch."

For the young fellow had put his arms round her, kissing her heartily. She disengaged herself and her hat, affecting to scold; but her eyes betrayed her. She put up her hand and smoothed back the thick and tumbling hair from his forehead.

"What a ruffian you look! Where have you been all this time?"

"I stopped in Keswick to do various things—and then—I say, shan't we have some tea? I've got lots to tell you. Well, in the first place, mother, I'd better warn you, you may have some visitors directly!"

Lady Tatham opened her eyes, struck by the elation of the tone.

"Strangers?"

"Well, nearly—but I think you've seen them. You know that lady and her daughters who came to White Cottage about two years ago?"

"A Mrs. Penfold?"

"Just so. I told you I met them—in April, when you were abroad—at the Hunt Ball. But—well, really, I've met them several times since. The Deacons know them." The slight consciousness in the voice did not escape his mother. "You know you've never called on them. Mother, you are disgraceful about calling! Well, I met them again this afternoon, just the other side of Whitebeck. They were in a pony-carriage, and I was in the motor. It's a jolly afternoon, and they didn't seem to have anything particular to do, so I just asked them to come on here, and have tea, and we'd show them the place."

"All right, dear. I'll bear up. Do you think they'll come?"

"Well, I don't know," said her son dubiously. "You see—I think Miss
Penfold thought you ought to have called on them before they came here!
But Mrs. Penfold's a nice old thing—she said they'd come."

"Well, there's plenty of tea, and I'll go and call if you want me to."

"How many years?" laughed Tatham. "I remember somebody you took eight years to call on, and when you got there you'd forgotten their names."

"Pure invention. Never mind, sit down and have your tea. How many daughters?"

"How many Miss Penfolds? Well, there are two, and I danced with them both. But"—the young man shook his head slowly—"I haven't got any use for the elder one."

"Plain?"

"Not at all—rather pretty. But she talks philosophy and stuff. Not my sort."

"And the younger one doesn't talk philosophy?"

"Not she. She's a deal too clever. But she paints—like a bird. I've seen some of her things."

"Oh!—so you've been to call?"

Lady Tatham lifted her beautiful eyes upon her son. Harry Tatham fidgeted with his cup and spoon.

"No. I was shy, because you hadn't been. But—"

"Harry," interrupted his mother, her look all vivacity, "did she paint those two water-colours in your sitting-room?"

The boyish, bluntly cut face beside her broke into a charming laugh.

"I bought 'em out of the Edinburgh exhibition. Wasn't it 'cute of me? She told me she had sent them there. So I just wrote to the secretary and bought them."

There was silence a moment. Lady Tatham continued to look at her son. The eyebrows on her brow, as they slowly arched themselves, expressed the half-amused, half-startled inquiry she did not put into words. He flushed scarlet, still smiling, and suddenly he laid his hand on hers.

"I say, mummie, don't tease me, and don't talk to me about it. There may be nothing in it—nothing at all."

His mother's face deepened into gravity.

"You take my breath away. Remember—there's only me, Harry, to look after you."

"I know. But you're not like other mothers," said the youth impatiently. "You want me to be happy and please myself. At least if you'd wanted the usual thing, you should have brought me up differently!" He smiled upon her again, patting her hand.

"What do you mean by the 'usual thing'?"

"Well, family and money, I suppose. As if we hadn't got enough for ten!"

Lady Tatham hesitated.

"One talks in the air," she said, frowning a little. "I can't promise you, Harry, exactly how I should behave, if—"

"If what?"

"If you put me to the test."

"Oh, yes, you can," he said, affectionately. Then he got up restlessly from the table. "But don't let's talk about it. Somehow I can't stand it—yet. I just wanted you to know that I liked them—and I'd be glad if you'd be civil to them—that's all. Hullo—here they are!" For as he moved across the room he caught sight, through a side window commanding the park, of a pony-carriage just driving into the wide gravel space before the house.

"Already? Their pony must have seven-leagued boots, to have caught you up in this time."

"Oh! I was overtaken by Undershaw, and he kept me talking. He told me the most extraordinary thing! You've no idea what's been happening at the Tower. That old brute Melrose! But I say—!" He made a dash across the room.

"What's the matter?"

"I must go and put those pictures away, in case—"

A far door opened and shut noisily behind him. He was gone.

"In case he asks her to go and see his sitting-room? This is all very surprising."

Lady Tatham sat on at the tea-table, her chin in her hands. It was quite true that she had brought up her son with unconventional ideas; that she had unconventional ideas herself on family and marriage. All the same, her mind at this moment was in a most conventional state of shock. She knew it, perceiving quite clearly the irony of the situation. Who were the Penfolds? A little artist girl?—earning her living—with humble, perhaps hardly presentable relations—to mate with her glorious, golden Harry?—Harry whom half the ambitious mothers of England courted and flattered?

The thought of defeating the mothers of England was however so pleasant to her sense of humour that she hurriedly abandoned this line of reflection. What had she been about? to be so blind to Harry's proceedings? She had been lately absorbed, with that intensity she could still, at fifty, throw into the most diverse things, in a piece of new embroidery, reproducing a gorgeous Italian design; and in a religious novel of Fogazzaro's. Also she had been watching birds, for hours, with a spy-glass in the park. She said to herself that she had better have been watching her son.

Meanwhile she was quite aware of the slight sounds from the hall which heralded the approaching visitors. The footman threw the door open; and she rose.

There came in, with hurrying steps, a little lady in widow's dress, her widow's veil thrown back from her soft brown hair and childish face. Behind her, a tall girl in white, wearing a shady hat.

The little lady held out a hand—eager but tremulous.

"I hope, Lady Tatham, we are not intruding? We know it isn't correct—indeed we are quite aware of it—that we should call upon you first. But then we know your son—he is such a charming young man!—and he asked us to come. I don't think Lydia wanted to come—she always wants to do things properly. No, indeed, she didn't want to come. It's all my doing. I persuaded her."

"That was very kind of you," said Lady Tatham as she shook hands first with the mother, and then with the silent daughter. "Oh, I'm a dreadful neighbour. I confess it in sackcloth and ashes. I ought to have called upon you long ago. I don't know what to say. I'm incorrigible! Please will you sit down, and will you have some tea? My son will be here directly."

But instead of sitting down Mrs. Penfold ran to the window, exclaiming on the beauty of the view, the garden, the trees, and the bold profile of the old keep, thrown forward among the flowers. There was nothing the least distinguished in her ecstasy. But it flowed and bubbled with perfect sincerity; and Lady Tatham did not dislike it at all.

"A lady"—she thought—"quite a lady, though rather a goose. The daughter is uncomfortable."

And she glanced at the slightly flushed face of Lydia, who followed in their wake, every now and then replying, as politeness demanded, to some appeal from her mother. It was indeed clear that the visit had been none of her doing.

Grace?—personality?—Lady Tatham divined them, from the way the girl moved, from the look in her gray-blue eyes, from the carriage of her head. She was certainly pretty, with that proud virginal beauty which often bears itself on the defensive, in our modern world where a certain superfluity of women has not tended to chivalry. But how little prettiness matters, beside the other thing!—the indefinable, irresistible something—which gives the sceptre and the crown! All the time she was listening to Mrs. Penfold's chatter, and the daughter's occasional words, Victoria Tatham was on the watch for this something; and not without jealousy and a critical mind. She had been taken by surprise; and she resented it.

Harry was very long in coming back!—in order she supposed to give her time to make acquaintance.

But at last she had them at the tea-table, and Mrs. Penfold's adjectives were a little quenched. Each side considered the other. Lady Tatham's dress, her old hat, and country shoes attracted Lydia, no less than the boyish, open-air look, which still survived through all the signs of a complex life and a cosmopolitan experience. Mrs. Penfold, on her part, thought the old hat, and the square-toed shoes "unsuitable." In her young days great ladies "dressed" in the afternoons.

"Do you like your cottage?" Lady Tatham inquired.

Mrs. Penfold replied that nothing could be more to their taste—except for the motors and the dust.

"Ah! that's my fault," said a voice behind her. "All motorists are brutes. I say, it was jolly of you to come!"

So saying, Tatham found a place between his mother and Mrs. Penfold, looking across at Lydia. Youth, happiness, manly strength came in with him. He had no features to speak of—round cheeks, a mouth generally slightly open, and given to smiling, a clear brow, a red and white complexion, a babyish chin, thick fair hair, and a countenance neither reserved nor foolishly indiscreet. Tatham's physical eminence—and it was undisputed—lay not in his plain, good-tempered face, but in the young perfection of his athlete's form. Among spectacles, his mother, at least, asked nothing better than to see him on horseback or swinging a golf-club.

"How did you come?—through the Glendarra woods?" he asked of Lydia. The delight in his eyes as he turned them upon her was already evident to his mother.

Lydia assented.

"Then you saw the rhododendrons? Jolly, aren't they?"

Lydia replied with ardour. There is a place in the Glendarra woods, where the oaks and firs fall away to let a great sheet of rhododendrons sweep up from the lowland into a mountain boundary of gray crag and tumbling fern. Rose-pink, white and crimson, the waves of colour roll among the rocks, till Cumbria might seem Kashmir. Lydia's looks sparkled, as she spoke of it. The artist in her had feasted.

"Won't you come and paint it?" said Tatham bending forward eagerly. "You'd make a glorious thing of it. Mother could send a motor for you so easily. Couldn't you, mother?"

"Delighted," said Lady Tatham, rather perfunctorily. "They are just in their glory—they ought to be painted."

"Thank you so much!"—Lydia's tone was a little hurried—"but I have so many subjects on hand just now."

"Oh, but nothing half so beautiful as that, Lydia!" cried her mother, "or so uncommon. And they'll be over directly. If Lady Tatham would really send the motor for you—"

Lydia murmured renewed thanks. Tatham, observing her, retreated, with a laugh and a flush.

"I say, we mustn't bother you to paint what we like. That would be too bad."

Lydia smiled upon him.

"I'm so busy with a big view of the river and Threlfall."

"Threlfall? Oh, do you know—mother! do you know what's been happening at
Threlfall. Undershaw told me. The most marvellous thing!" He turned to
Mrs. Penfold. "You've heard the stories they tell about here of old
Melrose?"

Lydia laughed softly.

"Mother collects them!"

Mrs. Penfold confessed that, being a timid person, she went in fear, sometimes of Mr. Melrose, sometimes of his bloodhounds. She did not like passing the gate of Threlfall, and the high wall round the estate made her shudder. Of course the person that put up that wall must be mad.

"A queer sort of madman!" said Tatham, with a shrug. "They say he gets richer every year in spite of the state of the property. And meanwhile no human being, except himself or the Dixons, has ever slept in that house, or taken bite or sup in it for at least twenty years. And as for his behaviour to everybody round about—well, I can tell you all about that whenever you want to know! However, now they've stormed him—they've smoked him out like a wasp's nest. My goodness—he did buzz! Undershaw found a man badly hurt, lying on the road by the bridge—bicycle accident—run over too, I believe—and carried him into the Tower, willy-nilly!" The speaker chuckled. "Melrose was away. Old Dixon said they should only come in over his body—but was removed. Undershaw got four labourers to help him, and, by George, they carried the man in! They found the drawing-room downstairs empty, no furniture in it, or next to none—turned it into a bedroom in no time. Undershaw telegraphed for a couple of nurses—and when Melrose came home next day—tableau! There was a jolly row! Undershaw enjoyed it. I'd have given anything in the world to be there. And Melrose'll have to stick it out they say for weeks and weeks—the fellow's so badly hurt—and—"

Lydia interrupted him.

"What did Doctor Undershaw say of him to-day?"

She bent forward across the tea-table, speaking earnestly.

Tatham looked at her in surprise.

"The report is better. Had you heard about it?"

"I must have seen him just before the accident—"

"Lydia! I never understood," said Mrs. Penfold rather bewildered.

Lydia explained that she too had seen Doctor Undershaw that morning, on his way to the Tower, in Whitebeck village, and he had told her the story. She was particularly interested, because of the little meeting by the river, which she described in a few words. Twenty minutes or so after her conversation with the stranger the accident must have happened.

Mrs. Penfold meanwhile was thinking, "Why didn't Lydia tell me all this on the drive?" Then she remembered one of Lydia's characteristics—a kind of passionate reticence about things that moved her. Had the fate then of the young man—whom she could only have seen for a few minutes—touched her so much?

Lady Tatham had listened attentively to Lydia's story—the inner mind of her all the time closely and critically observant of the story-teller, her beauty, the manner and quality of it, her movements, her voice. Her voice particularly. When the girl's little speech came to an end, Victoria still had the charm of it in her ears.

"Does any one know the man's name?" she inquired.

"I forgot to ask Undershaw," said Tatham.

Lydia supplied the information. The name of the young man was Claude Faversham. He seemed to have no relations whatever who could come and nurse him.

"Claude Faversham!" Tatham turned upon her with astonishment. "I say! I know a Claude Faversham. I was a term with him at Oxford—at least if it's the same man. Tall?—dark?—good-looking?"

Lydia thought the adjectives fitted.

"He had the most beautiful ring!" she added. "I noticed it when he was tying up my easel."

"A ring!" cried Tatham, wrinkling up his forehead. "By George, that is odd! I remember Faversham's ring perfectly. An uncle gave it him—an old Professor at Oxford, who used to collect things. My tutor sent me to a lecture once, when I was in for schools. Mackworth—that was the old boy's name—was lecturing, and Faversham came down to help him show his cases. Faversham's own ring was supposed to be something special, and Mackworth talked no end about it. Goodness!—so that's the man. Of course I must go and see him!—ask after him anyway."

But the tone had grown suddenly dubious. Lady Tatham's eyebrows rose slightly.

"Go to Threlfall, Harry?"

"Well, not to call on Melrose, mother! I should have to make sure he was out of the way. But I feel as if I ought to do something about Faversham. The fact is he did me a great kindness my first term at Oxford—he got me into a little club I wanted to belong to."

"Oh, but you could belong to any club you wished!" cried Mrs. Penfold.

Tatham laughed and coloured. Lady Tatham slipped the slightest look at
Lydia.

"Not at all. Faversham was awfully useful. I must see what can be done.
He can't stay on at that place."

"You never go to Threlfall?" Mrs. Penfold addressed her hostess.

"Never," said Lady Tatham quietly. "Mr. Melrose is impossible."

"I should jolly well think he is!" said Tatham; "the most grasping and tyrannical old villain! He's got a business on now of the most abominable kind. I have been hearing the whole story this week. A man who dared to county court him for some perfectly just claim. And Melrose in revenge has simply ruined him. Then there's a right of way dispute going on—scandalous!—nothing to do with me!—but I'm helping other people to fight him. And his cottages!—you never saw such pigsties! He's defied every sort of inspector. I believe everybody's afraid of him. And you can't get a yard of land out of him for any public purpose whatever. Well, now that I'm on the County Council, I mean to go for him!"

The young man sprang up, apparently to fetch cigarettes, really that he might once more obtain a full view of Lydia, who had moved from the tea-table to a more distant seat.

Mrs. Penfold waved the silver box aside. "I never learnt"—she said, adding with soft, upturned eyes—confidingly—"sometimes I wish I did. Oh, Lydia will!"

And Lydia, following Lady Tatham's lead, quietly lit up. Tatham who cherished some rather strict and old-fashioned notions about women, very imperfectly revealed even to his mother, was momentarily displeased; then lost himself in the pleasure of watching a white hand and arm—for the day was hot and sleeves short—in new positions.

Lady Tatham looked round in answer to her son's last words.

"I wish, Harry, you'd leave him alone."

"Who? Melrose? Mother! Oh, I forgot—he's a sort of cousin, isn't he?"

"My second cousin."

"Worse luck! But that's nothing, unless one chooses it shall be. I believe, mother, you know a heap of things about Melrose you've never told me!"

Lady Tatham smiled faintly, but did not reply. Whereat Mrs. Penfold whose curiosity was insatiable, within lady-like bounds, tried to ask questions of her hostess. A wife? Surely there had been a wife?

"Certainly—twenty years ago. I saw her." The answer came readily.

"She ran away?"

"Not in the usual sense. There was no one, I understand, to run with. But she could not stand Threlfall—nor—I suppose—her husband. So one day—when he had gone to Italy, and she was left behind—she just—"

"'Elopes—down a ladder of ropes'" laughed Tatham; "and took the child?"

"Yes—and a bronze, worth a thousand pounds."

"Sensible woman! And where are they now?"

Lady Tatham shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, they can't be alive, surely," said Lydia. "Mr. Melrose told Doctor Undershaw that he had no relations in the world, and didn't wish to be troubled with any."

Contempt sat on Tatham's ruddy countenance.

"Well, as far as we're concerned, he may take it easy. His family affections don't matter to anybody! But the way he behaves as a landowner does really matter to all of us. He brings disgrace on the whole show."

He rose, straightening his young shoulders as he spoke. Lydia noted the modest involuntary consciousness of power and responsibility which for a moment dignified the boyish countenance; and as her eyes met his Tatham was startled by the passionate approval expressed in the girl's look.

She asked if there was no agent on the Melrose estates to temper the tyrannies of their master.

Tatham came to her side—explaining—looking down upon her with an eagerness which had but a superficial connection with the thing said.

"You see no decent man would ever stay with him. He'd never do the things Melrose does. He'd cut his hand off first. And if he didn't, the old villain would kick him out in no time. But that's enough about him, isn't it? I get him on the brain! Won't you come and see the pictures?"

* * * * *

The quartet inspecting the house had passed through the principal rooms, and had returned to the drawing-room. There Tatham said something to Lydia, and they moved away together. His mother looked after them. Tatham was leading the way toward the door in the farther wall which led to his own sitting-room. Their young faces were turned toward each other. The girl's shyness seemed to have broken up. She was now talking fast, with smiles. Ah, no doubt they would have plenty to say to each other, as soon as they were together.

It was one of the bitter-sweet moments of life. Lady Tatham steadied herself.

"That is a sketch," she said mechanically, "by Burne-Jones, for one of the Pygmalion and Galatea series. We have one or two others on the same subject."

Mrs. Penfold clasped her small hands in rapture.

"Oh! but how interesting! Do you know I was once Galatea? When I was a girl I used to act a great deal. Well, not act exactly—for I didn't have to speak. I never could remember my lines. But I had two great parts. There was Hermione, in 'The Winter's Tale'; and Galatea. I made hundreds of pounds for hospitals—hundreds. It's not vain now, is it, to say one was pretty in one's youth?"

"You like remembering it? Some people don't."

"Ah, no, that's wrong! I'd liked to have been beautiful once, if I'm old and ugly now," cried Mrs. Penfold with fervour. "Of course"—she looked shyly at the sketch—"I had beautiful draperies on. My Galatea was not like that."

"Draperies?" Lady Tatham laughed. "Pygmalion had only just made her—there had been no time to dress her."

"We dressed her," said Mrs. Penfold decidedly, "from top to toe. Some day I must show you the drawings of it—it's not like that at all. The girls think I'm silly to talk of it—oh! they don't say it—they're very good to me. But I can see they do. Only—they've so many things to be proud of. Susy's so clever—she knows Greek and all that kind of thing. And Lydia's drawing is so wonderful. Do you know she has made twenty pounds out of her sketches this week!"

"Capital!" said Lady Tatham smiling.

"Ah, it means a great deal to us! You see"—Mrs. Penfold looked round her—"when you're very rich, and have everything you want, you can't understand—at least I don't think you can—how it feels to have twenty pounds you don't expect. Lydia just danced about the room. And I'm to have a new best dress—she insists on it. Well, you see"—the little pink and white face of the speaker broke into smiles—"that's all so amusing. It puts one in good spirits. It's just as though one were rich, and made a thousand pounds. I daresay"—she looked, awestruck, at the Burne-Jones sketch—"that's worth our whole income. But we're very happy. We never fret. Lydia and Susy both help in the housework. And I make their blouses."

"How clever of you! That's a Fra Angelico"—said Lady Tatham pointing, and not knowing what to do with these confidences—"an Annunciation."

Mrs. Penfold thought it quite lovely. Lydia, when she was studying in London, had copied one like it in the National Gallery. And her poor father had liked it so. As they wandered on through the pictures, indeed, Lady Tatham soon came to know a great deal about Lydia's "poor father"—that he had been a naval officer, a Captain Penfold, who had had to retire early on half-pay because of ill-health, and had died just as the girls had grown up. "He felt it so—he was so proud of them—but he always said, 'If one of us is to go, why, it had better be me, Rosina—because you have such spirits—you're so cheerful.' And I am. I can't help it."

It was all sincere. There was neither snobbishness nor affectation in the little widow, even when she prattled most embarrassingly about her own affairs, or stood frankly wondering at the Tatham wealth. But no one could deny it was untutored. Lady Tatham thought of all the Honourable Johns, and Geralds, and Barbaras on the Tatham side—Harry's uncles and cousins—and the various magnificent people, ranging up to royalty, on her own; and envisaged the moment when Mrs. Penfold should look them all in the face, with her pretty, foolish eyes, and her chatter about Lydia's earnings and Lydia's blouses. And not all the inward laughter which the notion provoked in one to whom life was largely comedy, in the Meredithian sense, could blind her to the fact that the shock would be severe.

Had she really injured the prospects of her boy by the way—the romantic, idealist way—in which she had brought him up. Her Harry!—with whom she had read poetry, and talked of heroes, into whose ears she had poured Ruskin and Carlyle from his youth up; who was the friend and comrade of all the country folk, because of a certain irrepressible interest in his kind, a certain selflessness that were his cradle gifts; who shared in his boyish way, her own amused contempt for shams and shows—had she, after all, been training him for a mistake in the most serious step of life?

For, like it or despise it, English society was there, and he must fill his place in it. And things are seemly and unseemly, fitting and unfitting—as well as good and bad. This inexperienced girl, with her prettiness, and her art, and her small world—was it fair to her? Is there not something in the unconscious training of birth and position, when, bon gré, mal gré, there is a big part in the world's social business to be played?

And meanwhile, with a fraction of her mind, she went on talking "Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff." She did the honours of half their possessions. Then it suddenly seemed to her that the time was long, and she led the way back once more to the drawing-room, in a rather formidable silence, of which even her cheerful companion became aware.

But as they entered the room, the door at the farther end opened again, and Tatham and Lydia emerged.

Good heavens!—had he been proposing already? But a glance dispelled the notion. Lydia was laughing as they came in, and a little flushed, as though with argument. It seemed to his mother that Harry's look, on the other hand, was overcast. Had the girl been trampling on him? Impossible! In any case, there was no denying the quiet ease, the complete self-possession, with which the "inexperienced" one moved through Harry's domain, and took leave of Harry's mother. Your modern girl?—of the intellectual sort—quite unmoved by gewgaws! Minx!

Harry saw the two ladies into their pony-carriage. When he returned to his mother, it was with an absent brow. He went to the window and stood softly whistling, with his hands in his pockets. Lady Tatham waited a little, then went up to him, and took him by the arms—her eyes smiling into his, without a word.

He disengaged himself, almost roughly.

"I wish I knew something about art!" he said discontentedly. "And why should anybody want to be independent all their lives—economically independent?"

He slowly repeated the words, evidently from another mouth, in a land of wonder.

"That's the young woman of to-day, Harry."

"Isn't it better to be happy?" he broke out, and then was silent.

"Harry!—you didn't propose to her?"

He laughed out.

"Propose to her! As if I dare! I haven't even made friends with her yet—though I thought I had. She talks of things I don't understand."

"Not philosophy and stuff?"

"Lord, no!" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's much worse. It's as though she despised—" He paused again.

"Courting?" said his mother at last, her head against his shoulder.

"Well, anything of that sort, in comparison with art—and making a career—and earning money—and things of that kind. Oh, I daresay I'm a stupid ass!—"

Lady Tatham laughed softly.

"You can buy all her pictures, Harry."

"I don't believe she'd like it a bit, if she knew!" he said, gloomily.

The young man's chagrin and bewilderment were evident. His mother could only guess at the causes.

"How long have you known her, Harry?"

"Just two months."

Lady Tatham took him again by the shoulders, and looked into his face.

"Why didn't you tell me before? Do you want her?" she asked slowly.

"Yes—but I shall never get her," was the half desperate reply.

"Pooh!" she said, releasing him, after she had kissed him. "We shall see."

And straightway, with a wave of the hand as it were, she dismissed all thought of the Honourable Johns and Geralds. Mrs. Penfold and her chatter sank out of sight and hearing. She was her son's champion—against the world.