Punctually at the hour announced the eminent man, with placidly serene face, and softly, tenderly melting eyes, stepped on to the platform, amidst the cheering of the audience, the majority of whom were ladies, who waved their pocket handkerchiefs, which they well knew they should presently require. Mr. Spenser Churchill began his address. It was eloquent, touching, impressive; the handkerchiefs grew quite moist long before it was concluded, and when at last his soft and tearfully sympathetic voice died away in his final words, many a soft-hearted woman—and dare I say soft-headed man?—felt perfectly convinced that Mr. Spenser Churchill was far, far too good for this wicked world!
I am surely convinced that the hour will come in which the world will see him without his mask, and be ready to stone the hypocritical villain whom they almost worshiped as a saint; but the hour has not yet come, and the great philanthropist still flourishes as the bay-tree. Great will be the fall thereof when the truth he so loves to talk about shall prevail, and the ax lays the accomplished hypocrite low! May we be there to see!
A year passed away, and the sun, which goes on shining, though marquises die and hypocrites continue to flourish, shone through Lady Despard’s beautiful boudoir in Chester Gardens.
In her favorite attitude—half-reclining, half-sitting—her ladyship nestled among the soft cushions of her favorite couch. Near her sat Doris—who, though known to the world as Lady Mary Stoyle, shall be Doris to us till the end of this eventful history. She was sitting at a writing-table, spread with letters and volumes, some of them fearfully like pages of account books, and her beautiful face was puckered up with a charming frown.
Every now and then she consulted one of the appalling volumes, and then wrote for a few moments, after which operation she would grow more puckered and draw a series of perplexed and bothered sighs.
“How happy you look, dear!” said Lady Despard, with a smile, after watching her for some time.
Doris started slightly, and turned round to her.
“I thought you had gone away hours—days—weeks ago. Happy! I am almost driven to distraction. I wish—oh, I do wish, there were no such things as accounts! or, at any rate, that I had nothing to do with them.”
Lady Despard laughed.
“‘Muckle coin, muckle care,’ my dear. Though I sympathize with your misery, I must confess I rather enjoy the sight of it. I suffered so much when I came into my own property. Oh, the weary, weary hours I plodded through heavy columns of figures and dreary ‘statements.’ But I’ve got used to it, and that’s what you will do, in time.”