PEARL.
BY KATHLEEN O’MEARA, AUTHOR OF “IZA’S STORY,” “A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE,” “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” ETC.
Early next day Mrs. Monteagle sent down to the entresol to know if Col. Redacre was well enough to come up and see her, or, if not, could she go down and see him; she wanted to speak to him on a matter of importance. The answer came on a card of Mrs. Redacre’s, written in pencil:
“I am so sorry! Hugh is really not able to see any one this morning. I hope you will come down to-morrow.—Yours affectionately,
“A. R.”
Mrs. Monteagle was surprised. There was nothing in the fact that the colonel was not able to come up-stairs—Balaklava sometimes made a great difficulty about stairs; but why could she not go down to him? The hope that she “would come down to-morrow” was clearly an intimation that she was not to go to-day. Why should she not go and see Mrs. Redacre, even if her husband was not in a humor to see people? The forenoon passed, and neither of the girls came near her. She inquired if the doctor had been sent for, but the servants said not. M. le Colonel had nothing the matter with him; he complained of Balaklava just as usual; there was no question of such an extreme measure as sending for the doctor. This made it all the more curious why an old friend like herself should be kept out for the day. Mrs. Monteagle, however, was not a gossip, and, after turning it in her mind for a reasonable time, she concluded that it was no business of hers, and that it would be a nuisance, having friends living in the same house with one, if one could not be left alone for a day without their seeing a mystery in it.
Late in the afternoon she went out to pay some visits. It was Mme. de Kerbec’s day. Mrs. Monteagle had rather a horror of “days,” but she was pretty regular in attending this one. Mme. de Kerbec was very particular about people calling on her day, and apt to take offence if they neglected it. To her it was the grand recurring opportunity of her life. She loved dress with a passionate love, tenderly, humanly; and her day was an opportunity for doing it honor, making a kind of feast to it. This was a trial to some of her friends; they felt obliged to respond to the challenge and come always finely dressed, and many were not inclined to don their first-best costumes on so ordinary an occasion. People, however, like Mrs. Monteagle, who had passed the age when society exacted this kind of homage from them, found great amusement in looking at the fine fashions, laughing at them very often, and at the mistress of the house, who, fat, fifty, and not fair, sat on her crimson satin sofa, with the latest and most magnificent costume spread out over it.
To-day she was gorgeous in a Bismarck-en-colère moire antique, so trimmed that the original material nearly disappeared under elaborate passementerie, lace, and fringe. Nothing pleased her like being complimented on her dress; and Mrs. Monteagle, though she was fond of snubbing people when they deserved it, was fond, too, of pleasing them, and occasionally gratified this weakness of Captain Jack.
“How beautiful Mme. de Kerbec’s dress looks!” said some one, breaking a pause in the languishing conversation.
“That’s because it is beautiful,” said Mrs. Monteagle in her literal way. “Where do you get those splendid costumes, countess? One does not know which to wonder at most, their magnificence or their variety. I suspect you have a Titania who works some time of the night weaving those lovely silks and making them up into costumes.”
“Oh! no,” said Mme. de Kerbec gravely. “I never would keep my maid up of a night working, and I always tell the dressmaker that I would rather wait any time than have her keep those poor girls up all night at my dresses; but I dare say she does it all the same—they are so selfish, that class of people.”
“Will you tell me the class that is not selfish?” said Mrs. Monteagle; but she happened to catch Mr. Kingspring’s eye, and there was a dangerous twinkle in it which made her look quickly away and observe that there would be a fine display of dresses at the ball to-night, no doubt.
“Yes, I should think there would be,” said Mme. de Kerbec, composing her countenance, as she always did when dress was spoken of, assuming that peculiar gravity of manner which many people put on when anything connected with the life to come is mentioned.
“It is a pity you don’t go to the Tuileries, countess,” said Mr. Kingspring; “you would cut them all out with your dress.”
“It is a pity in one way,” she replied; “but one has a principle or one has not. It would make no end of a scandal if we were to be seen at this court. The count would never be forgiven by the faubourg; and I have to consider his position before my own pleasure.”
“Of course, certainly,” said Mr. Kingspring.
“It is to be an unusually brilliant affair to-night; the Redacres are going, I believe,” some one remarked.
“I fancy not; the colonel is not well,” said Mrs. Monteagle.
“The young ladies are going with Mme. Léopold,” said Mr. Kingspring. “I met her just now, and she told me Mrs. Redacre had written to ask her to chaperone them, as their father would not go.”
Mrs. Monteagle looked at Mr. Kingspring as he announced this, and she fancied there was a glance of answering intelligence in his eyes.
“The colonel is not seriously ill?” inquired Mme. de Kerbec, who was rather proud of her intimacy with the Redacres.
“He’s not ill at all,” said Mr. Kingspring.
“Then why is he sending his daughters to the ball with Mme. Léopold?”
“I really can’t say, unless it be that he is not in a humor to go; a man does not always feel inclined to go to a ball, especially a man like Redacre.”
“Ah! to be sure. Balaklava is a constant trial to him, poor, dear man!” sighed Mme. de Kerbec.
“Have you seen him lately?” inquired Mrs. Monteagle.
“Yes,” said Mr. Kingspring. “I turned in there this morning for a moment. What does M. de Kerbec say of the ‘situation,’ as they call it? Does he think we shall have war?” This was to Mme. de Kerbec.
“He never tells me what he thinks,” said the lady in an aggrieved tone. “I have, in fact, given up asking him. He only cares to talk politics with men; that is the way with most of you.”
Mrs. Monteagle began to be seriously mystified. This sudden interest in M. de Kerbec’s view of the situation did not deceive her. Mr. Kingspring evidently had turned off the conversation from Col. Redacre on purpose. And why? She was not a meddling person or touchy, but really it was enough to set her wondering, this odd behavior of the Redacres. They were distinctly keeping her out of the way while Mr. Kingspring was allowed to come in! And then Mrs. Redacre writing to Mme. Léopold to chaperone the girls to-night! What did it all mean?
Suddenly it flashed on her that they were anxious to bring about a marriage between Pearl and Léon, and had seized on the ball to-night as an opportunity for suggesting the same idea to the Léopolds. On the other hand, this was such a thoroughly un-English way of proceeding that it was hardly fair to suspect the Redacres of adopting it. Pearl, too, was the last girl she knew who would be likely to fall in with such French manœuvring. Altogether it was puzzling. Mrs. Monteagle was angry with Mr. Kingspring, turned her back on him, and began to converse with a French lady near her. People were dropping in in ones and twos, and Mme. de Kerbec was in high delight, sweeping her glittering train behind her as she rose to greet each new-comer. Mrs. Monteagle took advantage of one of these triumphant moments to say good-by, and, without casting a glance on the offending Kingspring, made her exit.
Just as she reached her own porte cochère Mr. Kingspring overtook her.
“Are you going in to see the Redacres?” he said.
“No; Mrs. Redacre sent me word that she hoped I would go to-morrow, which meant evidently that I was not to go to-day.”
“If I were you I would not mind that; I would go at once. You are their oldest friend here; they will be the better for seeing you.”
“There is something amiss, then?” And Mrs. Monteagle forgot her grievance in real concern.
“There is. I can’t tell you any more. They will tell you themselves; you had better go in and see them.”
He shook hands and hurried away, fearing to say more if he loitered with her. Mrs. Monteagle went slowly up to the entresol, and, after an interval of hesitation, she pulled the bell. “The idea of my being nervous at pulling Alice Redacre’s bell!” she said to herself.
It was answered quickly.
“Madame ne reçoit pas aujourd’hui,” said the servant.
“She is not well?”
“Madame is a little indisposed; M. le Colonel also.”
Mrs. Monteagle left her compliments and regrets, and went on her way up-stairs.
“It is quite clear they do not wish to see me,” was her comment. “What can it mean? It looks odd—it is odd,” she added, correcting herself, as she was in the habit of doing to other people for the same inaccurate mode of speech.
Great was her surprise an hour later to see the two girls going out on horseback, accompanied by an old general officer who sometimes replaced their father in this way. Would they also go to the ball, in spite of the something that was amiss? They always ran up to show themselves to Mrs. Monteagle in their ball-dress whenever they went out; but she did not expect they would do so this evening. At nine o’clock, however, there was a ring, and in they came. Pearl looked sad, though there was no sign of tears in her face; but Polly looked, as she always did on occasions like this, a vision of triumphant beauty. Her blue-black eyes were all aglow with soft, tender lightnings, her curved red lips parted, her delicate skin bright as tinted alabaster. If the combined misfortunes of life had fallen on her as she stood there in her exulting loveliness, Polly might have defied them. She looked a creature born to happiness, buoyant, supple, invulnerable; you might as well have tried to hurt the mounting flame by sticking pins in it as to quench the glory of her youth in that royally beautiful maiden.
“Does she not look pretty?” said Pearl, surveying the young queen proudly.
“She is pretty, you vain puss!” said Mrs. Monteagle. “But why do you always wear white, my dear? Pink would suit your brown eyes better, eh?”
“White is Polly’s color, and any color does for me,” said Pearl.
“Papa likes us to dress alike,” said Polly; “and pink does not go very well with my hair.”
“Tut, nonsense, child! Duckady mud would go well with your hair,” said the old lady. “But Pearl spoils you—that’s what it is.”
“She does indeed!” said Polly heartily, and she twined her lovely arms around Pearl and kissed her.
A voice came from the stairs announcing that Mme. Léopold’s carriage was at the door. The two girls kissed Mrs. Monteagle and hurried away, looking very like a couple of swans as they floated off with their waves of white tulle round them.
“Come up early to-morrow morning and tell me all about it,” said Mrs. Monteagle in a sotto voce to Pearl; “of course it will be settled to-night.”
Pearl blushed up, and there was a sudden look of distress on her face as with an exclamation of protest she hastened after Polly.
CHAPTER III.
CAPTAIN LEOPOLD INTRODUCES HIS FRIEND.
Blanche Léopold was in great delight at having Pearl and Polly with her.
“We are just like three sisters, are not we, petite maman?” she said, as they lightly tossed their skirts over each other so as not to crush them.
“Exactly, chères enfants!” said Mme. Léopold, with a smile at both her protégées; but it was Pearl’s hand she pressed, it was Pearl’s forehead that she stooped to kiss, in answer to Blanche’s appeal.
“Is M. Léon to be at the ball?” inquired Polly.
“Of course he is! What a question, you wicked child!” said Léon’s mother; and then she turned to Pearl and laughed, and pressed her hand again.
Pearl’s cheeks were burning like two live coals, but nobody saw this in the dim light of the carriage.
“I thought he was on duty at the Etat Major this evening?” persisted terrible Polly.
“So he was, but he contrived to get off,” said Blanche.
“A higher duty called him to the Tuileries to-night,” said his mother.
“Oh! the emperor has named him on his staff? How glad I am!” said Polly, and Pearl longed to choke her. “Yes, it will be very nice for you to have him in the emperor’s service,” went on the incorrigible Polly, as innocent as a babe of any mischievous intentions. “You are sure to be asked to the Petits Lundis now; and we shall enjoy them more for having you all there. Are you very deep in engagements to-night, Blanche?”
They compared notes and discussed partners till they drew up before the palace; that is to say, Blanche and Polly did. Pearl lay back very silent all the way, and when they alighted Mme. Léopold noticed that she was very pale and seemed provokingly out of tune with the gay scene.
Who that has ever beheld it can forget how gay it was, that brilliant gathering in the old palace?—the blaze of light, the flashing uniforms, the splendidly-attired women, all the stars of fashion and wealth forming a dazzling galaxy round the beautiful Spaniard’s throne, she herself the centre of the firmament, outshining all in grace and beauty and magnificence of attire.
“There is Léon!” cried Blanche the moment they entered the Salle des Maréchaux. And Léon, obeying the magnetic attraction that we all know of, suddenly turned round, and, across the crowd of “fair women and brave men,” espied his mother and her maidens, and at once made towards them. He was very striking in his picturesque hussar uniform with its hanging dolman.
“Il n’est pas trop mal, mon fils?” said Mme. Léopold, glancing from him to Pearl and smiling at the latter. But Pearl made no answer, only crimsoned and looked away.
“How late you are!” exclaimed Léon. “I have been on the watch for you this last hour. Are you all engaged, mesdemoiselles?” bowing in one sweep to the three young ladies.
They all were, but their partners were not to the fore yet, and they might not meet for a long time.
“Les absents ont toujours tort,” said Léon; “so I claim the privilege of replacing one of them.”
It was to Polly he spoke; she responded by holding out her hand, and in a moment they were wheeling along in a waltz.
“That is a bit of masculine coquetry; he fancies he will make somebody jealous,” said Mme. Léopold, trying to look as if the joke amused her very much; but she was really annoyed with Léon.
Pearl set her face like a flint this time, and, without blushing happily, looked about her with an unconcerned air. She and Blanche were not left long waiting. Partners quickly found them out, and came up in a body, quarrelling over their claim to priority. Before Pearl had come to a decision Mr. Kingspring was at her elbow, and proclaimed his right to the first quadrille over all comers. She caught at this with avidity and hurried away with him.
“How I hate being here to-night!” she said when they were out of Mme. Léopold’s hearing. “I can’t imagine why mamma insisted on our coming. You could tell me if you liked?”
Mr. Kingspring was taken aback by this direct appeal. He was very fond of Pearl, and she treated him with a sisterly sans façon that he was proud of. They were friends, in fact. He might easily put her off with some platitude or prevarication now, but he felt this would not be acting as a loyal friend.
“Is it fair of you to ask me? If your father has not let you into his confidence yet, it would not be honorable in me to do so. It would not be acting as one gentleman should towards another. You would not have me do this? You would not have one whom you call your friend act otherwise than as a gentleman?”
“I can’t imagine why there should be a mystery about it,” sighed Pearl. “If anybody was dead, we should not have been sent to a ball, I suppose?”
Mr. Kingspring coughed and muttered a vague assent.
“Is Cousin Darrell dead?” asked Pearl abruptly.
“No, no; it is nothing about Darrell.”
“Is it anything about money?”
“Well, perhaps it may be; but I hope not. I mean I hope it will turn out a mistake.”
“Mamma was crying this morning,” said Pearl; “she does not cry for nothing.”
“I hope there may be no real cause for her tears. I believe myself there is not.”
“Papa was in a dreadful state,” continued Pearl. “I heard him storming in his study for more than an hour. Was it about a letter he got from England?”
“There was a letter. But don’t cross-examine me; don’t, Pearl. It is not fair, and I really must not speak.”
Pearl never remembered him calling her by her name before, though he declared he used to do so when she was a baby.
“To think of their insisting on our coming here to-night when there is this horrible anxiety at home!” she said, and her eyes began to fill in spite of her.
“There is no certain cause for it so far,” protested Mr. Kingspring. “Don’t worry till you know there is real cause for it; there is no use in saying good-morrow to the devil till you meet him. Let us take a turn with the waltzers; you have done me out of my quadrille.”
They took a few turns down the long gallery, now densely crowded, and then he stopped to let her rest.
“Who is that Polly is dancing with?” said Pearl, as she spied her sister in the distance with a tall, distinguished-looking man in the uniform of the hussars.
“I don’t know; probably some fellow Léopold has introduced.”
While they were still standing in the embrasure of a window Léon came up.
“May I claim the honor of a dance, mademoiselle?” he said, doubling himself in two before Pearl.
“I don’t feel a bit in the mood for dancing,” said Pearl, “the rooms are so hot and so dreadfully crowded. Do you know who that is that my sister is waltzing with?”
“Captain Darvallon, one of the most distinguished officers in the service, and quite the best fellow I know; he is a great friend of mine.”
“Then it was you who introduced him to her?”
“I was proud to procure him that honor.”
“Poor devil!” said Mr. Kingspring. “I suspect you have done for him; if he has such a thing as a heart he will go home a miserable man to-night. I never saw Mlle. Polly looking so unmercifully pretty. D’Arres-Vallon you say his name is? Does he spell it in one word or two? I used to know two families of that name; one spelt it D’Arvalhon, the other D’Arres-Vallon. Which is his?”
“Neither; he writes it in one word with a big D; he does not boast the noble particule.”
“Then he is a man of no family?”
“None whatever. He is what we call the son of his works; he has risen in his profession by sheer force of intelligence and moral worth. There is not an officer in the army more respected than Darvallon.”
Pearl looked again at Polly’s partner, and he struck her as still more prepossessing than at the first glance.
“Amongst military men I can imagine its making no difference; but socially his low birth must subject him to disagreeables now and then,” observed Mr. Kingspring, following the direction of Pearl’s eyes, and surveying the hussar with the sort of interest one bestows on a curious variety of animal new to one’s experience.
“The man who would subject Darvallon to anything of the sort would be either a fool or a snob,” replied Léon coldly. “I suppose there are plenty of both going about the world; but men like Darvallon have a sort of charm that keeps them at a distance.”
Mr. Kingspring felt that this remark addressed to him was not that of a perfect gentleman; it sounded too like a snub. But the Léopolds, as Mme. de Kerbec said, were after all only Empire people, Léon’s grandfather having been made a baron by the first Napoleon.
Pearl admired Léon for standing up so bravely for his friend; there was that in her which responded instinctively to everything noble, even when it was violently against her own opinions or sympathies.
“He must be a nice man, as well as clever,” she said. “Introduce him to me when he has finished his waltz with my sister.”
“Reward me beforehand for that act of generosity by finishing the waltz with me,” said Léon.
And Pearl did, Mr. Kingspring being left alone to meditate on the low ideas of modern Frenchmen and the strange inconsistencies of well-born English maidens.
“Mademoiselle, may I have the honor of presenting to you my friend and brother officer, Captain Darvallon?”
M. Darvallon bowed low, and when he looked up Pearl’s soft brown eyes met his with a glance of interest so full and frank that, if he had been a coxcomb, he might have flattered himself he had slain her on the spot.
Polly was a little tired and said she wanted an ice, so Léon offered her his arm to the buffet, and Pearl followed with her new acquaintance. He was a tall, powerfully-built man, with a Gothic head set on broad shoulders, and long, well-bred hands and feet. Judging from his hands and feet, Captain Darvallon might have had the blood of the Montmorencis in him; not that he needed this cachet of distinction to redeem his appearance otherwise or stamp him outwardly as a gentleman. Pearl, even in the distance, had singled him out as somebody above the common. His head, massive as it was, had nothing coarse about it; his features, without being handsome, were marked by an expression of energy, intelligence, and refinement that impressed you more than mere good looks; and though the prominent characteristic of his whole appearance was power, it was too tempered by gentleness to be alarming or repulsive. An array of stars and crosses on his breast bore witness to his prowess on the field, but his manner had borrowed no tinge of soldierly roughness from the camp; it was, on the contrary, marked by a courtesy towards the fair sex rare enough in these days, when the independence of women who have rights is too often pleaded as an excuse for forgetting that they still have privileges.
“What a crowd there is to-night!” said Pearl.
It was a silly remark, but she wanted to say something that would put her companion at his ease. It was the first time that she had been in the company of a man who had risen from the ranks, and she fancied the experience on his side must be novel enough, too, to be embarrassing.
“Just at this point the crush is rather great; but I don’t think the rooms are more crowded than usual. Is it your first ball, mademoiselle?”
“Oh! no; I came out last season in London. You have never been to England, monsieur?”
“Pardon me; I spent five months there three years ago.”
“Indeed! And did you think it a horrible place? Was it raining all the time?”
“No; it behaved very well in that respect, and I liked the country very much, and London especially; perhaps it was owing in a measure to all the kindness I received there.”
Pearl wondered who the people were who had shown him so much kindness; good-natured middle-class people, no doubt, who thought it rather fine to have a French officer to entertain.
“The English understand the virtue of hospitality in a charming way,” continued M. Darvallon; “the mere fact of your being a stranger opens every door to you.”
“Whereas in France it shuts them?” said Pearl.
“I am sorry if that is your experience of us, mademoiselle.”
“I don’t say that; I only thought you meant to say so. But it is true; we are fond of foreigners in England.”
“Nothing is more delightful, certainly, than the way in which you make them welcome. I was staying at our embassy—I went over with the Comte X—— as military attaché—but it was merely a kind of nominal headquarters; I spent most of the time in the houses of English people. The Duke of S—— was particularly kind to me. I had known his brother in the Crimea, and he made this a pretext for receiving me as an old friend; so did Lord B——. I spent two days at his place on the Thames. What a little paradise it is! The grounds and the house and the view combine to make it a perfect Eden. Some of the country places of your old aristocracy are the most magnificent residences in the world, I suppose; but they are so home-like, there is such a genial atmosphere in them, that one is not oppressed by the magnificence.”
“I am glad to hear you say so; one so often hears foreigners complain of our morgue and stiffness.”
“I saw none of it.”
“Did you visit any of our palaces?”
“Yes; St. James and Buckingham I saw at once, of course. But Windsor is glorious. We have nothing like Windsor in France. I have seen the finest palaces in Europe, and to my mind Windsor is the most beautiful of all. There is such a prestige of historic interest about it, added to its artistic beauty; then the grounds and the surrounding country are so beautiful. Nature and art have put forth their best to make it a worthy abode of royalty.”
“And our royalties—did you approve of them, too?”
“Most highly,” said M. Darvallon, smiling; “they are excellent hosts, since we are on the subject of hospitality. No one is overlooked. La Reine Victoria has in a high degree that royal faculty of making all her guests, from the highest to the humblest, feel that they are duly noticed in her salon.”
So these were the middle-class people who had been ostentatiously civil to the French officer. Pearl was laughing to herself at the false hit she had made, and also at her foolish idea that he needed to be encouraged to be put at his ease. It was impossible to be more entirely simple and free from all shyness and affectation than he was. They had reached the buffet now, and Léon and Polly were pushing their way to get next to them. This was not so difficult, for the crowd fell back, as it instinctively does for all royalties, and made way for Polly as she advanced. Pearl looked up at her companion, and saw his eyes fixed on her sister with an expression of admiration so unfeigned, and so full of respect at the same time, that she felt quite tenderly toward the stalwart hussar.
“Monsieur le Capitaine,” said Polly, as soon as they all came together round the ices, “he insists that it was you who took Sebastopol all by yourself!”
“Voyons, Léopold, don’t push modesty too far,” protested M. Darvallon. “You lent me a hand; he did, I assure you, mademoiselle.”
“Don’t believe him; he is a flatterer. It is a trick he learned at courts,” said Léon, and his solemn black eyes stared Darvallon full in the face without a smile; but Pearl detected an expression of almost feminine fondness in them as they met the gray eyes looking down on him.
“I don’t believe either of you took it,” she said, with saucy defiance; “it was my papa who took it. Did M. Léopold tell you our father is a soldier too, and that he lost a leg at Balaklava?”
“Col. Redacre’s name and valor were known to us all in the Crimea, mademoiselle,” said M. Darvallon, bowing deferentially.
Both the girls blushed with pleasure, and turned a smile of fullest approbation on the speaker.
“I told you he was a flatterer,” said Léon.
Before M. Darvallon could enter a protest some one spoke from behind him.
“I say, Léopold, you are going to catch it for staying away from your mother so long with these young ladies. She’s very angry with you.”
“It’s no fault of M. Léon’s,” said Polly. “We stayed ourselves, dancing; that’s what we came for.”
“We had better go back to my mother and make an acte de présence,” said Léon. “Where is she, Kingspring?”
“Where you left her, in the Salle du Trône. I have just conducted Mlle. Blanche there after waltzing with her.”
Mr. Kingspring moved towards Pearl, as if he expected to conduct her back; but M. Darvallon proffered his arm, and she took it.
On their way through the long ball-room they met Blanche waltzing down on them with a slim, sallow-faced partner, of the type that Polly called “scrubby.” The partners pulled up, and then she saw that Blanche was radiant with smiles, and listening with delighted attention to whatever the scrubby man was saying.
“Qui est ce monsieur?” Polly inquired of Léon.
“That monsieur is the Marquis de Cholcourt, the greatest parti in France just now.”
“Is he amusing?”
“I really don’t know. I shouldn’t say he was, to look at him.”
“Blanche is listening to him as if she thought him so.”
Léon made no remark, and they went on till they reached the Salle du Trône. There they saw Mme. Léopold, just where they had left her; but she had risen from her velvet seat, and was expostulating in an excited manner with M. Léopold, who had just joined her, and who seemed vainly endeavoring to pacify her. Madame shook her head, and opened and shut her fan, talking all the time volubly, and with a countenance disturbed by no pleasant emotion. When she caught sight of Léon and his companion she became suddenly silent, and awaited their approach with an air of grave displeasure.
“Mesdemoiselles, you forget you are not in England; you must know that it is not the custom here,” she began; but the good-natured deputy cut short the scolding, and broke out into compliments to the two delinquents: they were the stars of the Imperial firmament to-night; every French girl in the room was dying with jealousy, etc.
Mme. Léopold was not sorry to have their attention drawn away from herself for the moment, and while this bantering went on with Pearl and Polly she said in a sotto voce to Léon:
“My son, you have behaved with criminal imprudence. Have you said anything to compromise you? Tell me the truth.”
“Compromise! What on earth do you mean, mother?” said Léon in amazement. “I have spoken to no one but these two young ladies.”
“That is just it! You have been parading yourself with Pearl for the last hour. Have you said anything to lead her to hope—”
Léon began to understand, and the look of indignant surprise that answered his mother completely reassured her.
“Thank Heaven!” she muttered under her breath. “I knew you were incapable of it, my son, but—”
Léon did not wait to hear more; he abruptly turned away, fearful lest Pearl should have overheard his mother’s offensive insinuations; but a glance at her face showed him she had heard nothing.
“Are you engaged for the cotillon, mademoiselle?” he said.
“No.”
“Then may I claim your hand for it?”
“Good gracious, my son! you are not so selfish as to want to keep me here till four in the morning? I am worn out already—I am indeed,” protested the terrified mother, whom her son and everybody else knew to be simply indefatigable when the duty to society was in question.
“Pray don’t let us detain you here, madame,” said Polly with a certain asperity; “we shall be glad to go the moment you feel inclined.” She saw that a change had come over their chaperon, and she was annoyed at the way she snapped at Léon about the cotillon.
“Is it indeed true? You would not mind coming away now? I am so exhausted by the heat! I never knew the palace so overheated. But Marguerite wishes to remain for the cotillon?”
“I have not the least wish to remain for it, madame,” said Pearl; the sudden change from affectionate familiarity to being called “Marguerite” showed that she had in some way incurred Mme. Léopold’s displeasure.
“Then let us come,” said that lady, signing to her husband to give his arm.
“And Blanche?” said Léon.
“Good gracious! It shows how ill I am that I could have forgotten her. Where is she? It appears that English manners are à la mode everywhere to-night. Why is your sister so long away from me? Who is she with?”
“I saw her dancing with M. de Cholcourt; but it is some time ago,” said M. Darvallon.
“She was dancing with him again then, five minutes ago,” said Polly.
“M. de Cholcourt!” repeated Mme. Léopold in a tone of unmistakable satisfaction. “Are you sure?”
“M. Léon told me that was his name,” said Polly. “I asked him because Blanche seemed particularly to enjoy his conversation.”
“Dear child! I am glad she is amused. I wonder if she has made an engagement for the cotillon?” This was said interrogatively to the two girls and the two gentlemen with them.
Nobody knew. Meantime, Léon had gone in pursuit of Blanche, and it was not long before he returned with her. She looked angry.
“What is the matter with you, mamma?”
“Chérie, I am rather tired to-night, and these good children are anxious to get home.”
“It was hardly worth coming to go away so soon,” said Blanche, “and I have made an engagement for the cotillon.”
“With whom?”
“The Marquis de Cholcourt.”
“Ha! My dear child, I am always ready to sacrifice myself to your pleasure.... If your young friends don’t mind waiting, I will stay for the cotillon.”
“Pardon, ma mère,” said Léon, “Blanche prefers your comfort to her amusement; she will go home now.”
“My son, you should consider your sister. If she has made an engagement....”
“I will make her excuses to Cholcourt.”
Mme. Léopold looked exceeding displeased, and tried to convey the full motives of her displeasure to Léon through her eyes. But Léon would not see it. Blanche saw there was a conflict between the two, and she sided with her brother.
“Yes, you will tell M. de Cholcourt,” she said. “We had better go at once, mamma, as you are not well.”
“What an angel she is!” said the enraged mother, swallowing her vexation under the fondest smile.
The drive home was performed almost in silence. Mme. Léopold lay back with a pretence of utter exhaustion, and never said a word. Blanche and Polly sat opposite, and had a little confidential talk to themselves.
“Is he nice, that marquis who was dancing with you?” inquired Polly.
“Nice! He is the greatest parti in all France. He is heir to the dukedom, and he has a fortune now of two hundred and fifty thousand francs a year; besides that he is heir to his aunt, who has enormous property in the south; and I believe, only I am not sure, that the Comtesse de V—— has left all the family diamonds to him—just think!”
Blanche summed up all this in a voluble whisper to her friend.
“What a catch he will be!” said Polly. “I hope he may fall in love with you, Blanche.”
“Pas tant de chance, ma chère; my dot will be a drop compared to M. de Cholcourt’s. I have not the ghost of a chance of making a marriage like that.” And the young French girl sighed.
“He might fall in love with you,” suggested Polly.
“His family would never allow him.”
They drew up at Colonel Redacre’s door, and the two girls, thanking Mme. Léopold for her kindness, wished her and Blanche good-night.
At a preternaturally early hour next morning Mme. Léopold presented herself at Mrs. Monteagle’s.
“I make no apologies,” she said on being admitted into that lady’s dressing-room. “The case is so urgent that I could not delay an hour. Did you speak yesterday to the Redacres about that absurd idea of mine?”
“You mean did I offer your son’s hand to Pearl?”
“Oh! you have done it. We are compromised!” exclaimed Mme. Léopold in despair.
“Console yourself, madame; I had not an opportunity of doing your commission—”
“You have said nothing! I thank Heaven! Then indeed we have had a narrow escape. My son is so chivalrous there is no saying what folly he might have committed had he known it.”
“Known what?”
“That I had asked Pearl in marriage for him. Happily, he has not the faintest suspicion of anything. But I am heartily sorry for the poor child,” continued Mme. Léopold, finding room in her heart to pity Pearl the moment her terrors for Léon were allayed. “I feel deeply for her. The disappointment will be a terrible blow, she is so much in love with my son. That is the dreadful part of your English way of doing things; but it is no fault of mine.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mrs. Monteagle. “A terrible blow to Pearl, you say? My good lady, take comfort; Pearl is perfectly heart-whole. Your son is the only person to be pitied in the affair. Ha! ha! ha! Capital! So you thought Pearl was in love with him? What an excellent joke!”
Mme. Léopold did not see the joke, and was deeply offended by this manner of treating the matter.
“I see nothing surprising in the fact of my son’s inspiring a sentiment,” she replied. “You yourself seemed of that opinion yesterday. As to Léon, he could not deny it when I put it to him; he had to admit that it was true.”
“True that Miss Redacre had a passion malheureuse for him? He says so, does he? Then I heartily congratulate Pearl on escaping him,” said Mrs. Monteagle, bridling with the spirit of a gentlewoman and a loyal friend. “I thought your son was a gentleman; it seems he is a cowardly coxcomb.”
“Madame!” Mme. Léopold stood up in wrath.
“I sincerely congratulate my young friend on escaping such a husband!”
“You mean to insult me?”
“I mean to speak my mind. I am sorry if it insults you; but you may tell your son from me, madame, he is stating what is false when he says that Miss Redacre is in love with him: it is a delusion of his own vanity.”
“He never said it,” said Mme. Léopold. “When I said so he did not deny it; he feigned not to believe it; but when I persisted in affirming it he spoke in the kindest terms of Miss Redacre, and declared he was ready to make any sacrifice of his own inclination and happiness if it was necessary to—”
“Pray tell him nothing of the sort is necessary. I am sure it is most kind of him,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a contemptuous chuckle. “He never will have the luck to get such a wife; he is not worthy of her.”
“Madame!”
“But since we are on the subject, may I ask why you have so suddenly changed your views about this marriage?”
“Have you not heard? They are ruined.”
“Who? The Redacres?”
“Yes. Is it possible you have not heard of it?”
Mrs. Monteagle stared at Mme. Léopold with a troubled countenance for a moment.
“Sit down, I beg of you, and tell me what all this means,” she said, her tone changed in a second from anger to one of intense and painful interest.
Mme. Léopold was not sorry for the change as regarded her share in it; she did not want to quarrel with Mrs. Monteagle, and she felt that the wrong had been on her own side. She sat down and told all she knew. It seemed that a letter had arrived on the previous day, by the early post, with news of the death of some person, who by dying in this sudden way let Colonel Redacre in for an enormous sum of money—in fact, utterly ruined him. This was all that Mme. Léopold knew. Who the man was, or how the money was gone, she had not heard; but the main fact was positively true. M. Léopold heard it from M. de Kerbec, who knew more than he liked to tell; Mme. Léopold had heard it from her husband at the ball last night. Mr. Kingspring knew it too; he had been to see the Redacres in the morning. Apparently they wanted to keep the affair quiet for some little time, and this was why the door was closed yesterday on the plea of the colonel’s not being well.
“And this was why they sent the girls to the ball, no doubt,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “It is a most extraordinary affair. Do you know, I am inclined to think there is some mistake. I don’t believe Colonel Redacre ever speculated to the extent of half a crown in his life; in fact, he had nothing to speculate with, as he tells you himself; the money is his wife’s, and that, I know, is bound up so that he could not touch it.”
“I know nothing except that in some way they are ruined,” said Mme. Léopold. “The letter fell on them like a bombshell. I am very sorry for them—very.”
“To me it is like a personal misfortune,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “And to think of their not sending for me at once! How did M. de Kerbec hear it, do you know? But I tell you there is some mistake; I feel certain there is. Those poor, dear girls! It is heartbreaking to think of them if this be true. And the boys—what is to become of them?”
“Boys always pull through somehow,” said Mme. Léopold. “It is the girls that my heart bleeds for. I suppose they will have to go out as governesses—Pearl at least. Polly’s beauty would make it impossible for her to do anything; no family would run the risk of letting that face in amongst them.”
“They shall never be asked to run the risk so long as I can prevent it,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a touch of her old asperity. “While I have a home those children have one.”
“That is real friendship; it consoles me wonderfully to hear you say so, chère madame.”
Mrs. Monteagle made no answer. She was speculating on the possible truth of this story of sudden ruin, and it occurred to her how mysterious Mr. Kingspring had been on the subject of Mrs. Redacre’s not receiving the day before.
“I will go down the moment I am dressed,” she said. “I can’t lose an hour till I know the truth.”
Mme. Léopold rose to go.
“Have you breakfasted, or will you stay and have a cup of tea with me?” said Mrs. Monteagle.
“Thank you; I had my coffee before I came out. You will not mention that I have been here? They think at home that I am gone to see my poor people; I always go early, because then they do not interfere with my day.”
Mrs. Monteagle hurried through her breakfast and went down to the entresol. She was admitted at once.
“What is this? What does it all mean?” she said, as Mrs. Redacre, who was not lying on the sofa, but actively sorting letters at a table, stood up with an exclamation of welcome and hastened to meet her.
The colonel was standing with his back to the fire.
“It means this: that we are beggared,” he said.
“Only for a few years, Hugh. Don’t speak in that despairing way about things!” said his wife, and she cast a look of tender entreaty at him.
“Tell me, for goodness’ sake, what has happened,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “I hear that somebody has died and that you are ruined by their death.”
“That is about it,” said the colonel. “I put my name to a bill for £30,000 some five years ago, and the man for whom I did it is dead, and died a bankrupt, leaving me to pay the money.”
“Thirty thousand pounds!” repeated Mrs. Monteagle.
“We can pay it, Hugh, and Providence will come to our aid,” said his wife.
“By sending us another income when every penny has gone to meet this bill?”
“I don’t know how; but trust me, dearest, help will come. If only you won’t break down under it! What does poverty or anything matter so long as we are left to bear it together?”
He made no answer, but stooped down and gave the fire a savage poke.
“What madness possessed you, Redacre? I always thought you had a horror of speculation,” said Mrs. Monteagle, her resentment against him rising at the sight of Alice’s gentle face of anguish.
“It was no speculation,” said the wife quickly; “he did it to oblige a friend. Any one would have done it in his place.”
“Any fool would,” thought her friend, but she said nothing.
“Fortunately we can meet it,” Mrs. Redacre went on. “I thought at first that it might have been paid off at once with my fortune; but it shows what a goose I am in practical things,” she said, trying to laugh. “My money is so tied up that neither Hugh nor I can alienate the capital; all we can do is to surrender the income for a few years till the debt is paid off.”
“She means that we must raise the money to pay it off, and pay back the loan by mortgaging our income for about ten years.”
“It may not be for half that time, dearest. Providence may shorten the trial for us unexpectedly.”
“You mean that Darrell may die. He is more likely to bury us all. Those kind of men live for ever. I am sure I don’t want to hurry him away; I have made a point of wishing him a long life. You have always heard me say I hoped he might have a long life? Of course, if the Almighty saw fit to call him home, I could not but feel that the loss would be also a gain to me—to you and the children, that is; for myself, I count no man’s money.”
“Has he a very large property to leave?” inquired Mrs. Monteagle. Col. Redacre talked very openly about his money affairs, but in such a vague, exaggerated way that one never knew what to believe about his prospects or his difficulties.
“Broom Hollow is a glorious old place,” he said, “but it brings in nothing; that must come to me. Darrell himself is a rich man, but he may leave his money to whom he pleases. As likely as not he will leave it to pay off the national debt. He is just the man to do a thing of that sort.”
“My dear Hugh! he told you himself that you were to be his heir; that he had made his will and left you sole legatee!” said Alice.
“That’s just it. When a man tells you he has made his will in your favor, be you sure you will never see a penny of his money. I make a point of never believing what men say about their wills.”
“The dean is not the least likely to tell a falsehood, dear, even about his will,” said Alice.
“I don’t say he is. I never said he was not a truth-telling man; but people have crotchety notions about wills. However, we are a long way off from the settling of that question, I fear—that is to say, I hope; I devoutly hope the poor fellow may live for twenty years. At the same time, if the Almighty sees good to call him to his reward sooner, and that he leaves me his money, he will do as good an action as he ever performed in his life.”
“Have you written to him about this unfortunate business?” inquired Mrs. Monteagle.
“No. I will worry nobody about it. What is the use? We are beggared, and there is an end of it.”
“There is no use making things out worse than they are,” said his friend. “They are bad enough as it is; but, as Alice says, Providence will pull you through somehow. I may turn out of some use myself; but we will come to those matters by and by. The thing is, What are you going to do now? Is it out of the question—your getting something to do? You have friends who have influence; so have I.”
“What could they do for me? Could they get me back my leg? If it were not for Balaklava I should not let this catastrophe cast me down a bit; but it makes all the difference when a man has to face the world with one leg.”
“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Monteagle. “You have not half the sense I gave you credit for, Redacre. What difference can it make, your having one leg or two? I don’t expect you to enter an infantry regiment and go on the march. There are appointments to be had where legs are not wanted at all. My nephew, Percy Danvers, has an appointment of fifteen hundred pounds a year at the Horse Guards.”
“But Danvers has both his legs?”
“But he doesn’t write with his legs, and the work he does is all writing.”
“How did he get the appointment?”
“His father got it for him. And, by the way, he had no legs at all, poor fellow; he lost one in the Crimea and the other in China. And he used to joke about it, and say that the loss of his legs was the best investment he ever made, and the only one that paid regularly.”
“That’s just it: if a man loses both he is a hero; if he loses only one he is a cripple. Balaklava never did anything for me but worry my life out.”
“That is a most excellent idea!” said Mrs. Redacre, turning with a look of sunny hopefulness to Mrs. Monteagle. “I don’t see why Hugh should not get something at the Horse Guards. We know so many old generals, and some of them are influential, and I am sure all our friends will be kind and anxious to help us. Hugh, dear, we must lose no time in seeing about this.”
“First of all, we have got to pay this £30,000. When that is done, it will be time to think of the other. But with the government we have now I don’t expect we would succeed. They are a beggarly lot, who toady all the self-made men, as they call them—fellows who have risen Heaven knows from what, and to whom it is as well to throw a bone to stop their mouths. I would see them farther before I asked a favor of them if I had my two legs to stand on.”
“Where are the girls?” said Mrs. Monteagle; she was losing patience with these lamentations over the missing leg.
“I sent them out for a ride before breakfast; they may as well enjoy it while they can, poor darlings!” And the mother’s voice faltered a little.
“Have you told them?”
“Not the whole terrible truth. I prepared them for it yesterday a little, and again this morning. But they guess that worse is coming, and they are very brave.”
The noise of hoofs pattering under the porte cochère announced that the girls had come back. In a few minutes they both entered the room. The fair young things, in their beautifully-fitting habits, their complexions freshened by exercise in the morning air, their features lighted up with the buoyancy of youth hitherto untouched by sorrow, made a pathetic and striking contrast with the group they broke in upon—the father stern and irritable, his fine face ploughed into sudden furrows of care, the mother courageous and tender, with undried tears on her cheeks. Pearl spied the tears at once, and, taking a bunch of violets out of her riding-habit, she went and kissed the wet face lovingly and fastened the flowers in her mother’s breast.
“My darling! Have you had a nice ride?”
“Yes; but we had no heart to care about it. I wish you would let us stay at home with you, and not send us off to amuse ourselves while you are worried. It is not kind of her, is it, Mrs. Monteagle?”
Polly was standing at the table, holding up her habit, and looking from one to the other of them all, with an expression of awakening terror in her large, lustrous eyes.
“I don’t know what it all means,” she said. “Is it very bad? Is it going to last long? Papa, we are not babies; you ought to tell us the truth.”
“I ought, my dear; but I have not the courage to do it. Ask your mother.”
“Redacre, you are a selfish brute!” burst out Mrs. Monteagle, glaring at him.
“Oh! don’t,” cried Alice, with a look at once imploring and angry. “Of course it is my duty, but I am such a coward!” She let her head fall on Pearl’s shoulder, and sobbed aloud.
“For God’s sake, Alice, don’t give way!” cried her husband. “I can bear anything but that; I can indeed, my love. It is quite true I am a selfish brute. I ought not to have asked you to tell them. Come, now, don’t! It will all come right, if you will only cheer up and help me to bear it.” And he went over and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“Help you to bear it!” repeated Mrs. Monteagle; but she checked herself as she met Alice’s eyes uplifted in supplication through her tears.
“Come with me both of you, children,” said the old lady; “I know all about it now, and I will tell you everything. Come, and leave the colonel and your mother to themselves a little; they were very busy when I came and interrupted them.”
The two girls kissed Alice with many a tender endearment, and followed Mrs. Monteagle up to her own apartment. She told them the truth as gently as possible, but without disguising anything.
“Then we have nothing at all to live on except papa’s half-pay?” said Polly, her eyes wide open in dismay, her lily-white hands lying motionless on her knees.
“I fear not, my dear child; but I hope we will soon be able to get an appointment for him. Meantime you must not worry too much. I have some money lying by that he can have and welcome; he won’t refuse me an old friend’s privilege at a moment like this. You must both do your very best to help him and your mother to bear it. You will not let them see you cast down.”
“And the boys,” said Pearl—“they must come home and grow up dunces; that is the worst of all. What is to become of the boys?”
“What is to become of any of us?” said Polly. “What could have possessed papa to promise to pay such an enormous sum of money for any one? It was very wicked of him.” And the big tears welled up and came streaming down the lovely face.
“Has he written to Cousin Darrell?” said Pearl.
“No,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “I asked him, and he said he would not write; that it would worry the dean.”
“But he might give us the money to pay this, or some of it, at any rate,” argued Pearl. “I am certain he would; since we are to have all his money by and by, he would not refuse a portion of it now to do us such a service.”
“I would not be too sure of that, dear Pearl,” said her friend, with a dubious shake of the head. “Giving and bequeathing are very different things. Still, I agree with you, Colonel Redacre ought to write and tell your cousin the truth; he owes that to the dean and to you all.”
“I will make him do it!” said Polly, brushing away the tear-drops and shaking back her head with a resolute air; “and if he won’t write, I will.”
“You mustn’t do it against papa’s will, Polly,” said Pearl, a little frightened by this unexpected display of will. Polly had always had her own way hitherto without making any effort to get it.
“I think we had better go down now,” she said, not answering Pearl’s remark. There was an energy in her manner and look that amazed Mrs. Monteagle.
“Perhaps you had, dears,” said their friend; she was anxious to have a little private talk with Pearl on other things, but she did not venture to ask her pointedly to stay.
“I will go to papa at once, and tell him he must write to Cousin Darrell,” said Polly; and gathering up the folds of her long habit, she walked away, too absorbed in her own thoughts to say good-by or notice if Pearl was following her. Mrs. Monteagle signed to Pearl to stay.
The idea that this misfortune was weighted to Pearl with a super-added individual sorrow had been in her friend’s mind ever since Mme. Léopold had announced the bad news to her. When that lady declared so emphatically that Pearl was attached to her son, Mrs. Monteagle had denied it and laughed to scorn the pretended compassion of the manœuvring mother. This was clearly her duty as a stanch friend, whether she believed or not that Pearl loved Léon; but, indeed, she so earnestly desired at the moment not to believe it that she concluded she did not, that it was a delusion of Léon’s vanity or his mother’s; but now there recurred to her Pearl’s vivid blush at the mention of Léon’s name, and her confusion when Mme. Léopold was announced. It was dreadful if the young heart was to set out on the rude battle of life with its bloom rubbed off and all its brightness quenched. But though she had a true woman’s heart, Mrs. Monteagle indulged little in sentiment. If the mischief was done, it must be undone as quickly as possible, and Pearl was a girl of rare sense.
“My dear, did Léon Léopold propose to you last night?” said the old lady when they were left alone.
“No,” said Pearl, looking her straight in the face. “What put that into your head?”
“But he ought to do so, ought he not? He has been paying you a great deal of attention.”
“Léon!” The old innocent laugh rang out in spite of all her trouble, as Pearl repeated in amazement, “Léon?”
“And you really don’t care for him?”
“Not I, and I should be very sorry to think that he cared for me; but I am perfectly certain he does not. If I were a pot de confiture he might.”
“You relieve me immensely, my dear,” said Mrs. Monteagle, quite at rest now on the score of Pearl’s heart. “It would have been dreadful had you been in love with that young man.”
“It would indeed,” assented Pearl. “I had better be going now; I don’t like leaving mamma alone—without me, that is. Poor darling mamma, if I could take some of the worry off her! What are we to do? I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Keep a cheerful spirit and a brave heart; that is all you have to do for the present. I promise you things will come right in good time.”
Mr. Kingspring called very early, and was closeted a long time with Col. Redacre. Pearl met him in the hall as she was coming out of her father’s study, and whispered to him:
“Make papa write to Cousin Darrell.”
Mr. Kingspring nodded yes and went in.
It had got wind that the Redacres were ruined, and everybody was very sorry for them. It was all conjecture yet how the ruin came about. The general belief was that a banker with whom he had lodged his money had “gone smash.” Mr. Kingspring and M. de Kerbec were the only two who had known the truth from the first, and they were not communicative as to details; Mr. Kingspring from innate discretion, M. de Kerbec from friendly desire to shield Col. Redacre from the ridicule which awaited a man imbecile enough to fool away his money by signing a bill.
“No, I can’t write to Darrell,” said Col. Redacre in answer to Mr. Kingspring’s urgent advice that he should at once apply to his rich cousin. “Darrell is a man who never did a foolish thing in his life, and he despises people who do. If he knew I had been idiot enough to put my name to a bill, he would disinherit me for a fool; he is a most eccentric fellow.”
“But he is sure to hear of it,” said Mr. Kingspring, “and he will be more likely to resent it if you seem trying to hide it from him.”
“I don’t see that he need ever hear of it. He never sees any one, never writes to any one, I believe, except his medical man, and his lawyer perhaps; he leads the life of a hermit down there with his books. If he does not hear of this miserable business from ourselves, he is likely never to hear of it.”
Mr. Kingspring could not press the point after this. Pearl, meantime, was on the watch to catch him when he left the study, and in answer to her eager “Has he promised to write?” Mr. Kingspring only replied, “No; he says it would do no good; and I think he is right.” Pearl was disappointed, and took the news to her sister, who was awaiting it in her own room.
“It is nothing but pride that prevents him,” said Polly, angry and impatient; “it is cruel and selfish of papa to sacrifice us all to spare his own pride.”
“He is sacrificing himself as well as us,” said Pearl; “and I don’t believe it is pride. I am sure papa has some good reason for it; he knows Cousin Darrell better than we do.”
“Do you write to him,” said Polly; “he is your godfather, and he pretends to be greatly interested in you. Tell him you will have to go out as a governess if he won’t come to papa’s help.”
“I could not write against papa’s will,” said Pearl.
“Stuff! Then I will.” And Polly tossed back her head, and her almond-shaped eyes had a light of dangerous wilfulness in them as she rose and went towards her writing-table.
“O Polly! you must not do that; papa would be so angry,” pleaded Pearl.
“He will forgive me when Cousin Darrell sends the money.” And Polly sat down and opened her dainty blotting-book and prepared for action.
“Polly, you sha’n’t. I will go and tell mamma of it. I won’t be a party to your defying papa in this way,” said Pearl resolutely, moving towards the door.
Polly started up.
“Come back; you need not play tell-tale. I won’t write.” And she shut the blotting-book and flung the pen angrily aside.
“I am sure it is better not, darling,” said Pearl. “We can’t know as well as papa in a matter of this kind.” She went over to Polly and would have kissed her; but Polly repulsed the caress with an impatient movement of her head. Pearl did not force the kiss on her, but she felt the tears rising as she turned away and left the room. If misfortune was going to change Polly like this, it was a worse sorrow than anything she had anticipated.
TO BE CONTINUED.
THE ESPOUSALS OF OUR LADY.[[152]]
(Scene: Before the Temple.)
ST. JOSEPH.
From boyhood up I had but one desire:
To live alone with God—as much alone
As wholesome concourse with my fellow-men,
And scope of humble traffic, would allow:
Not sullenly churlish—with a helping hand
For others’ need—but peacefully obscure.
And so, when came the glow of youth, and thoughts
Of woman’s love dawn’d roseate, I upraised
My heart to Him who was indeed to me
The Good Supreme, the Beauty Infinite,
And made, at once, a vow perpetual
Of perfect chastity; and straightway knew
’Twas He had drawn me to it.
Strangely, then,
Sounded the High-Priest’s message, summoning
The unwed of David’s lineage who had claim,
By sacred right of kinship, to espouse
Its sole surviving maiden—bidding them
Bring each a wand, whereby the Lord might show
Whom he had chosen—and, among them, me,
Nearest of kin, but hoping to lie hid
Half-way in the fifth decade of my years!
But, ever wont to obey the voice divine,
Within heard or without, I came, and stood
Unseemly ’mid the suitors. Then the wands
Were laid upon the altar—the High-Priest
Seeking the sign to Moses given of yore,
When, in the wilderness, the tribes rebelled
’Gainst privileged Aaron.[[153]] So we knelt, and went,
And waited on the Lord.
And I, that night,
Like Joseph, son of Jacob, dream’d a dream.
I saw a maiden, robed in purest white,
Sit throned where once, in Solomon’s vanished fane,
Reposed the Ark beneath the Mercy-seat,
Within the Holy of Holies. While I gazed,
Behold, a sudden vista of long light
Opened as into heaven; and, swiftly, a dove
Descended on the maid, yet settled not,
But o’er her head hung brooding! Then a voice
Said softly: “Fear not, Joseph, for thy vow.
Bride of the Dove is she; and thou, her spouse,
Shalt guard her for her Spouse.” Whereat I woke,
Astonished: and to find, upon the morrow,
That one of the rods had budded in the night—
Budded and blossom’d; and that rod was mine!
SINGS:
Though the dream brought me peace, there is mystery still:
But in time He will solve it, the Lord of my love.
’Tis enough that I know I am wedding His will—
Beheld in this maiden, the “Bride of the Dove.”
Ah, who can she be—there enthroned as a bride
Where the Ark of the Covenant rested of old?
Is it She for whose advent our fathers have sigh’d—
The long-promised Virgin Isaias foretold?
And what was the Dove? When the voice said “her Spouse,”
Did it mean that Jehovah had seal’d her his own?
Has she too, like me, made the sweetest of vows—
To live evermore for Divine love alone?
But she comes: and I feel that the angels are here.
Their charge to be mine! They will share it, then, still.
And the dear God himself, was He ever so near?
Be at peace, O my soul! Thou art wedding His will.
MARY (SINGS).
My God, to Thee I bow:
Thy will is ever mine.
Thy grace inspired the vow
That made me wholly thine.
If Thou dost bid me wed,
Thou canst but guide aright.
I follow, darkly led,
Till break the perfect light.
I take my chosen lord,
And plight him troth for Thee.
So find thy sovran word
Its handmaid still in me.
CHORUS.
All hail, blest pair, all hail!
As yet ye little know
What words that cannot fail
To after-times will show.
Not angel eyes command
The glorious lot that waits,
As, meekly, hand-in-hand,
Ye leave the temple’s gates!
May, 1878.
THE BOLLANDIST ACTA SANCTORUM.
For many reasons the Bollandist series of saints’ lives is one of the most remarkable works that ever issued from the pen of man. As a serial publication, what other work of the kind extends over a period of nearly two centuries and a half, comprises upwards of sixty volumes in large folio, and is still advancing, with upwards of one-sixth part of the whole remaining to full completion? Or as a monument of devotion to the saints of God, as a vast storehouse of example and instruction in the way of eternal life, there is nothing that can be put in competition with it. Even this view of it is narrow, as compared with other claims to regard which it possesses, and which are fully recognized by literary men, even among those who have little or no sympathy with the religious side of this great work. The whole range of history, from the foundation of Christianity, forms an essential portion of it. The lives of the apostles demand the investigation of all that is known of that remote period; a large proportion of the Roman pontiffs are among the canonized, and their records belong to the history of the Christian world, including that of the middle ages. The sainted founders of religious orders, from Benedict to Ignatius, from Anthony to Paul of the Cross, cannot be described without entering at length into the origin and progress of their holy institutes, many of which were asylums and homes of refuge for letters and learning during the darkest and most troubled periods of European history, and others served as training-places, whence the confessors and martyrs of the Christian faith went forth to the ends of the earth to propagate divine truth and love at the sacrifice of everything that humanity holds dear, even of liberty and life itself. Or, if it is question of kings and emperors whom the church venerates as saints, the secular history of their dominions naturally falls within the scope of their biographies: as of Hungary under St. Stephen; of Germany under Henry II.; of England under Edward the Confessor; of Denmark under Canute IV.; of Spain under Ferdinand III.; and of France under Louis IX. Not unfrequently the biography of a saint comprises the history of his age: as of the fourth century in the life of St. Athanasius; of the eleventh in that of St. Gregory VII.; of the twelfth in that of St. Bernard; and of the thirteenth in those of St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi. The limits of the Acta are not confined to Europe; they are as wide as our globe itself. Wherever the seed of the Gospel has been sown or watered by the blood of martyrs, among every race of mankind, from China to Paraguay, from Lima to Japan, nothing is foreign to the Bollandists’ pen; their work embraces, incidentally or formally, all the history of all nations.
Intimately connected with the historical researches of their work are several auxiliary branches of knowledge which largely enter into it and cannot be overlooked in estimating its scope and value. The aid of geography, for example, had to be called in to settle the boundaries of episcopal sees, of provinces, of kingdoms; to reconcile history with topography by determining the obsolete or corrupted names of certain places, about which different authors may have held different opinions. Several treatises on chronology entered into the general scheme. Archæology furnished the means of a minute and complete examination into ancient manners, rites, laws, arts, and the rudiments of languages, and of a comparison among the sacred and secular monuments of various nations. Then, again, the art of employing the materials, characters, and other portions of ancient MSS. for the determination of dates engaged the attention of the Bollandists, and of Père Papebroch in particular; and this father, with the frankness inseparable from true genius, did not hesitate to acknowledge his debt to the illustrious master Rei Diplomaticæ, the Benedictine Mabillon. As might have been expected, theology, canon law, and ecclesiastical history are largely represented in those sixty volumes. The teaching of the holy fathers, the decrees of councils, the laws of the church constantly demanded scientific statement and vindication, as also did the perpetual glory of miracles, of prophecy, of celestial revelations, and the undying gift of the loftiest contemplation, as against a class of critics who, while affecting to patronize letters, assume that the lives of saints must be nothing more than a tissue of idle tales and old women’s fables, or at least speak of them as if they thought them so. In the judgment, however, of several eminent critics of the modern school even the legends of saints, regarded as popular beliefs in a remote and half-instructed age, have their value as evidence of the ideas, manners, and customs of the people in the middle ages. M. Guizot was at pains to count twenty-five thousand legends in the Bollandists’ work; and these, he remarks, were the real literature of the first half of that period, and served for aliment to the intellectual, moral, and æsthetic life of those ages, and, from a historian’s point of view, were on that account beyond all price. Another French critic, M. Renan, also regarding the Acta from an external point of view, expresses himself in language of eulogy little to have been anticipated: “Quelle incomparable galerie, en effet, que celle de ces 25,000 héros de la vie désintéressée! Quel air de haute distinction! quelle noblesse! quelle poésie! Il y en a d’humbles et de grands, de doctes et de simples; mais je n’en connais pas un seul qui ait l’air vulgaire. Tous m’apparaissent tels que les pose Giotto, grandioses, hardis, détachés des liens terrestres, et déjà transfigurés. Ils plaisent peu au sens positif, je l’avoue; mais qu’ils ont, après tout, mieux compris la vie, que ceux qui l’embrassent comme un étroit calcul d’intérêt, comme une lutte insignifiante d’ambition et de vanité.”
Such being the character of the Acta, who conceived the comprehensive scheme and gave it actual form and being? The names of its originator and early continuators are preserved in the following lines:
Quod Rosweydus preparaverat,
Quod Bollandus inchoaverat,
Quod Henschenius formaverat,
Perfecit Papebrochius.
Herbert Rosweyd, a native of Utrecht in Holland, entered the Society of Jesus in 1589, at the age of twenty, and taught philosophy and theology successively at Douay and Antwerp. He was a man in whom great learning was united to great piety. He composed and edited many works in Latin and Flemish, and among the rest published an edition of the Oriental ascetic Moschus’ Spiritual Meadow, and an original treatise on the Imitation of Christ to prove its author to have been Thomas à Kempis. Eleven years before his death, in 1629, Père Rosweyd published the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, in a folio volume, at Antwerp. It may be regarded as a first instalment of the Acta Sanctorum. While he was engaged on one of his books the idea occurred to him to collect in some twelve volumes the lives and acts of the beatified and canonized saints of the Catholic Church. At the time when he first conceived his great plan he was too deeply committed to other literary works to take it up at once; but the idea never was abandoned, and death alone prevented him from at least commencing it. When the project was mentioned to Cardinal Bellarmine, he inquired if Père Rosweyd expected to live two hundred years; such was the cardinal’s estimate of the magnitude of the undertaking—an estimate fully borne out by the result. Yet, as we shall presently see, in the first century and a half of the work not a dozen only but four times that number of volumes were published; and if twelve volumes could have comprised it the end would have been reached in little more than forty years from its commencement. What Papebroch said of Bolland may be said of Rosweyd: It was providential that he who first started such a work could not foresee its vast extent. Who but a rash man, or one assured by divine revelation of his success, would otherwise ever have dared to extend his plans and hopes to an age beyond his own, or counted upon the co-operation of future authors yet unborn in an association of labor up to that time without a parallel in the history of letters? It was probably only in the bosom of a religious order like the Society of Jesus, in which years count for days and centuries for years, that such a scheme could ever have been carried out.
Rosweyd, then, was dead, but his conception survived him. The duty of giving effect to it devolved on John Bolland (Latinized, in the style of the period, into Bollandus), after whom the whole body of succeeding editors has since been named Bollandists.[[154]] Bolland was by his birth, August 13, 1596, a native of Tillemont, in Flanders. At the age of sixteen he entered the society, and professed the four solemn vows January 27, 1630. His studies had been distinguished, and as a professor he stood high in many various attainments, in letters and in Oriental and other languages. But, better still, his piety and religious fervor kept equal pace with his other acquirements. Even after his appointment to carry on the work suggested by Père Rosweyd, Père Bolland would never intermit the duties of the confessional in the church of St. Ignatius attached to the house of the professed fathers of the society at Antwerp—now the church of St. Charles Borromeo, at the corner of Wyngard Street and the Katelina Rampart. It was only the spare time unoccupied by hearing confessions that he gave to sacred literature.
A glance at what had been previously done in the way of saints’ lives will enable us the better to understand the plan now adopted by Père Bolland. Of the acts of the martyrs and the other saints the very earliest form is the record of St. Stephen’s origin, arrest, trial, condemnation, and martyrdom, contained in the Acts of the Apostles. Similar records began to be kept first of all in the Roman Church by order of Pope Clement. Notaries were appointed for the purpose of collecting and authenticating the acts of martyrs. The testimony of eye-witnesses was taken down, and, when duly attested, the records were submitted to the judgment of the pope. Similarly the martyrologies took their origin from the burying-places of the martyrs in the catacombs. When a martyr was carried to his rest from the Amphitheatre an inscription was placed beside him, a name, a date, a title, a palm-branch or a dove, perhaps a monogram. Such were the rudiments of the earliest martyrologies. The Roman martyrology, in a few lines, each day records the names of the martyrs of the day under the favorite term of Depositio. The earliest calendar of the Roman Church is composed of a list of depositions copied as it were from the galleries of the cemeteries. These honored names thence passed into the diptychs, and were read aloud to the Christian assemblies on public occasions. Separate churches had their own diptychs, and frequently exchanged them with one another. At first martyrs only were admitted among the select number; but in the fourth century in the Western Church the first exception was made in favor of St. Martin. In the East the lists were opened to confessors somewhat earlier in favor of SS. Ephrem, Athanasius, Hilarion, and Antony. As regarded confessors, the acts were in fact an authenticated narration of their lives. In this way the martyrologies and acts of the martyrs and other saints assumed the form we now know, subject to the scrutiny of the bishops of particular sees, till a later date, when the admission of a new name into the calendar was reserved for the Supreme Pontiff. During the middle ages the literature of saints’ lives was in great part the work of the monasteries. Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian, at an earlier period laid the foundation of this class of composition. Prudentius, in the third century, celebrated in verse the martyr’s crown of victory. There was the Spiritual Meadow of Moschus, and the Mirror of Vincent of Beauvais; and, most celebrated of all, the Legends of the Saints, composed by Da Varaggio, or De Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa—a work better known by its title of the Golden Legend, given it by its admirers. This collection was by far the most popular of all the works of the kind, and was translated into nearly every European language. It was one of the earliest books printed in England by Caxton, in 1483, in folio. To a somewhat later period belonged Surius the Carthusian, from whose Lives, in seven folio volumes, we find Charles Kingsley admitting that he had picked up his knowledge of ecclesiastical history. After Surius came Père Ribadeneira, the Spanish Jesuit, author of the Flower of Saints’ Lives. The work contemplated by Rosweyd and put in hand by Bolland was different from everything of the kind that had gone before it. The new scheme aimed at the collection and publication of the original acts and lives of all the saints in the order in which they stand in the Roman calendar and martyrology. Difficult and obscure passages were to be elucidated. It was adopted as a general rule that no testimony could be admitted which the editors had not thoroughly examined; that, in adducing an important witness, the age he lived in, his trustworthiness and judgment as an author, should be rigorously estimated. Nothing which tended to fuller acquaintance with any saint was to be slurred over without discussion; no place to be deemed too obscure, no people too ignoble, no country too remote, to which a saint had at any time belonged; and, in a word, no language too rude to occupy their careful attention, as far as either the intervention of published and unpublished authors, or correspondence, or the agency of ubiquitous friends could utilize human labor. Their plan was not simply to write a history of the church in numerous countries, strenuously as they meant to labor for that; its scope included the particular foundations of bishoprics, of cities, of monasteries, and of religious orders, the successive stages of whose histories they professed, to the full extent of their powers, to investigate.
Père Bolland’s first care was to collect materials for so extensive a work. He opened a correspondence with churches and monasteries all over Europe and beyond its limits, inquiring in all directions for offices peculiar to different places, and for copies of the rarest archives of the religious houses. These he gradually accumulated, until the foundation of a valuable library and museum was established, which long occupied the upper floor of a detached building in the professed house at Antwerp. Out of these materials Père Bolland then commenced to form his Acta for the month of January. Six years he toiled single-handed; but in 1635 a coadjutor was given him in Père Godfrey Henschen, S.J., a native of Gueldres, in Holland, then in the thirty-sixth year of his age and the sixteenth of his religious profession. The fathers prosecuted the work in company for eight years, and in 1643 the first two volumes were published, comprising the saints belonging to the month of January, to the number of upwards of twelve hundred. Père Bolland struck the keynote of his great work at a sublime height in these few words of dedication:
SANCTO SANCTORUM
JESU CHRISTO
ÆTERNO PONTIFICI
EIUSQUE INTER MORTALES VICARIO
URBANO OCTAVO
ROMANO PONTIFICI.
It was no exaggeration of the fact when Père Paul Oliva, afterwards elected father-general of the Jesuits, thus addressed Père Henschen: “Your reverence and your coadjutor are dwelling, in your every thought and with your pen, in the church in heaven.” The success of the January volumes was from the first assured, and went on increasing after the publication of the February saints, in three volumes, followed in 1658. Pope Alexander VII., the reigning pontiff, recorded his opinion that “a work more useful to the church of God or more glorious for her had never been accomplished, or even begun, by any one.” About the same time a second coadjutor was taken into the work in Père Daniel Papebroch, S.J., a native of Antwerp. His family was originally from Hamburg, but at the Reformation his father removed to Antwerp, where Daniel was born in 1628. At the end of the usual studies he entered the Society of Jesus in 1646, three of his brothers eventually following his example. Père Papebroch was ordained in 1658, and called from the chair of philosophy at Antwerp to assist PP. Bolland and Henschen in the Acta. After the February volumes appeared the pope invited the Bollandist Fathers to Rome. Père Bolland himself was too infirm to accept the invitation, but his younger coadjutors went instead of him. They left Antwerp July 22, 1660, old Père Bolland accompanying them as far as Cologne. Their literary tour, which lasted about two years and a half, was eminently successful. They visited monasteries and libraries without number all over Germany, Italy, and France; every door, every drawer was thrown open to them. Hundreds of precious documents were copied by them and for them; their library and museum were enriched, beyond the expectation of the most sanguine, with manuscripts and books; with missals, breviaries, martyrologies, sacramentaries, rituals, graduals, antiphonaries, and other similar works of many various rites or “uses,” such as the Mozarabic in Spain, the Ambrosian at Milan, the Sarum in England, and its Aberdeen daughter in Scotland. When at its best this library possessed some twelve thousand volumes, and in value and rarity is believed to have surpassed either the Barberini in Rome or the Mazarine in Paris—collections especially noted for their pre-eminence in similar works.
Père Bolland, who was now approaching his seventieth year, survived the return of his coadjutors from their tour only a few months. To the last he took part in the work of the museum, while the fervor of his regular and holy life seemed to increase. The 29th of August, 1665, was the last day he visited the working-room, but on a proof-sheet being put into his hand he was forced to lay it aside and retire to bed. He lingered about a fortnight, and then expired, after receiving all the sacraments of the dying. In his life and in his death, as well as with his indefatigable pen, he proved how well he had studied the saintly models he had been for upwards of thirty years daily contemplating.[[155]]
The next issue of the Acta, in three volumes, comprising the saints for March, appeared in 1668, the joint work of PP. Henschen and Papebroch. It was memorable for more reasons than one. With it began one of the customs of the Bollandists, to open a new volume with a biographical notice of any of their number who had died since the issue of the last. The first volume for March opened with an Eloge of Père Bolland, accompanied by an excellent engraving of his fine head, taken from a portrait of him executed by Fruytiers, a pupil of Rubens. The first difficulty that beset the undertaking arose from passages in the same volumes, in which a favorite opinion of the Carmelite Order, that their founder and first general was the prophet Elias, was quietly ignored. Not only had Baronius and Bellarmine anticipated the Bollandist view of the question, but it had already been taken for granted by two preceding authors belonging to the Carmelite Order itself. The Flemish Carmelites, however, took umbrage at Père Papebroch’s opinion, and a quarto volume soon afterwards appeared in opposition, the first in a tolerably long series of publications resulting from this curious controversy.[[156]] The Bollandists took no notice of their opponents until the publication of the saints’ lives for April, in three volumes, in 1675, afforded an opportunity of repeating and confirming their view of the actual origin of the order in question in the twelfth century of the Christian era. The Flemish Carmelites again asserted the more ancient origin; and when it was known in 1680 that three volumes of the May saints’ lives were about to appear, containing the life of another Carmelite saint, the order addressed an unusual request to Père Papebroch that a copy of the life might be shown them before publication. After some difficulty the Bollandist forwarded a copy to his father-general in Rome to be shown to the general of the Carmelites there. For a long time no answer was returned; three of the May volumes were ready; the bookseller was impatient; and Père Papebroch was on the point of leaving home for Westphalia. He therefore permitted the volumes to be issued for sale. He had hardly gone when Père Henschen received an order from Rome to suppress the life of St. Angel, and despatched it to Père Papebroch. But by this time many copies of the Bollandist May lives had got into circulation; it was too late to attempt the suppression of the life in question, and his father-general accepted Père Papebroch’s apologies. The result was another large volume from a Carmelite pen. Up to this time the dispute had been restricted to the Flemish province of the Carmelites, but in 1682 its area was extended to France by the casual discovery of an opinion favorable to the Bollandist view, expressed by Ducange, the illustrious archæologist, in a private letter to a friend. The provincial of the Flemish Carmelites next called on Pope Innocent XI. to interpose his authority in the matter; and Père Janning, a younger member of the Bollandist body, was sent to Rome to watch the proceedings. In 1690, two-and-twenty years after the dispute began, Père Papebroch was summoned to the tribunal of Pope Innocent XII., who referred the matter to the Congregation of the Index. Rome, however, did not move fast enough for Carmelite zeal. The Acta were denounced, 1691, before the Spanish Inquisition as a work originating within the dominions of the Catholic king. Four years later a decree of the Inquisition condemned the March, April, and May volumes of the Acta as “containing erroneous propositions, scenting of heresy, dangerous to faith, scandalous, impious, offensive to pious ears, schismatical, seditious, presumptuous, offensive,” etc., etc.
That this was a bitter trial to Père Papebroch and his coadjutors cannot be doubted. All the learned men of Europe were on their side, and the Jesuits succeeded in obtaining a subsequent decree of the Inquisition, 1696, permitting the Bollandists to appear and answer the charges; for the former decree had been pronounced in their absence. Upon this Père Papebroch produced a categorical defence of everything laid to his charge, in three volumes (1696-1699). The Carmelites also were quite as busy. Meanwhile, also in 1696, Innocent XII. forbade the disputants to attack each other. The Carmelite general, little satisfied with a neutral decision, petitioned His Holiness to end the dispute by a positive decree. After consulting the Congregation of the Council the pope decided to impose silence on the whole question regarding the origin of the Carmelites, and issued a brief to that effect, dated November 20, 1698. The judgment of the Spanish Inquisition, June 11, 1697, prohibited all the books relating to the dispute, but presumably excluding the Acta themselves; for in 1707 an index of forbidden books, published at Madrid under the authority of the Inquisition, made no mention of the Bollandist lives.
For thirty years, then, Père Papebroch had to bear this unwelcome interruption; and forty years after his death circumstances made it desirable to restate his defence. In 1755 a Supplementum Apologeticum took its place in the Bollandist series, containing all the apologetic volumes published in defence of Père Papebroch’s view in his Carmelite controversy. The successors of the early Bollandists had a noble opportunity, and used it nobly, to bury all former rancors, in the first volume of their revived work, in 1845, and the fifty-fifth of the series. The Life of St. Teresa, the great Carmelitess, occupies nearly the whole of its seven hundred folio pages—the largest scale on which any one life had hitherto been executed by the Bollandists. It was the solitary work of its author, Père Vandermoere, and was illustrated by drawings of places in Spain connected with the saint, and engraved in the highest style of art.
Père Henschen lived to see the first three May volumes issue from the press in 1680, and the following year closed his useful life, of which forty-six years had been devoted to work as a Bollandist. Père Papebroch was now at the head of the work, and had for his assistants PP. Janning and Baert. It went steadily on, and before his death, in 1714, Père Papebroch saw five volumes of the month of June, and of the series twenty-four, completed. For five years preceding his death he was nearly blind, and when it occurred he had reached the age of eighty-seven. This second founder of the great series was the author of several other important works, such as the Annals of the City of Antwerp and the Acta Vitæ Scti. Ferdinandi Regis Castillæ.
It would protract our sketch beyond all reasonable limits if we were to follow the progress of the great work, during the sixty years following Père Papebroch’s death, with as much detail as we have hitherto given. Let it suffice to say that it was prosecuted by fifteen Jesuit fathers in succession in addition to those already named; and when the work was suspended in 1773, the year in which the Society of Jesus was for the time suppressed, fifty volumes of the Acta had appeared, and the fiftieth was the third of the month of October. The plan of the work had indeed grown and expanded since Rosweyd estimated its contents at twelve volumes, since Bolland found two sufficient for the month of January, February, March, and April had each of them occupied three, August six, June and July seven, May and September eight. The chief sources relied upon for the heavy expenses of such a work were at first the gifts of private persons, bishops, abbots, and others, the patrimony of Père Papebroch and his sister forming no inconsiderable item in the account. Afterwards the sale of the volumes ensured a limited annual profit; and in 1688 the court of Vienna granted the fathers a pension, but burdened with the condition that subsequent volumes should each of them be dedicated to some member of the imperial house. Hence, after that date, every volume bears at the head of it an engraved portrait of an emperor or empress, of an archduke or archduchess. The Bollandists also enjoyed a certain revenue from their monopoly of the sale of classical books in the Jesuit colleges of Belgium.
A word as to the place where they lived and worked. Travellers who have visited Antwerp must remember the handsome Renaissance tower of St. Charles Borromeo’s Church, on the corner of the Katelina Rampart and Wyngard Street. That church was originally dedicated to St. Ignatius, the great first Jesuit, and was once a museum of Rubens’ art. At the suppression of the society its best ornaments were removed to Vienna, where many of them may be seen in the public gallery. The church itself perished by fire in 1718, but soon rose again as before. The small square it stands in is formed on two sides by massive buildings, formerly the Antwerp house of the professed fathers of the society. In the upper floor of the building opposite the church Père Bolland established his museum and printing-press, and there the work was carried on for nearly one hundred and fifty years. Few places in the history of Christian literature have a better title to be remembered with honor. In another article we shall trace the progress of the Bollandist Acta after the suppression of the Jesuit fathers until the long suspension of the work itself consequent on the French Revolution. We shall then give our readers an account of its revival some forty years ago, together with a description of the new museum and library in the Collége St. Michel, Brussels, which the writer had the honor of visiting a short time ago.