The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

As matters were now arranged, she could enjoy herself to her heart's content without the necessity of setting foot across her own threshold. To be expensively dressed--and mourning can be made very expensive, as some of us know to our cost--and to receive a constant succession of visitors in your own drawing-room, who are just as ready to tell you everything there is to tell--with, it may be, a few more or less fanciful additions of the narrator's own incorporated here and there--as you are to listen to it, and yet who neither put you to too much outlay in return, nor stay long enough to bore you--can anything be more delightful?

To Fanny Hazeldine the first three or four months after her father's death were the dreariest she had ever known. The dreadful nature of the tragedy which had overshadowed her own and her mother's life had the effect of intensifying their bereavement in the eyes of the world, and, for the time, of isolating them more completely than if Mr. Hazeldine's death had resulted from natural causes.

That Fanny doffed her "horrid crape" at the earliest possible date goes without saying. She was fully alive to the fact that the soft semi-tones of half-mourning became her admirably; and before long she began to plume herself for further conquests.

But, indeed, when she came once more to cast her eyes around, the prospect was a most disheartening one; for where is the use of a young Amazon donning her armor and going forth on conquest bent, when with every year that passes it becomes a more difficult matter to find anyone on whom it is worth while to try one's prowess? And that such is becoming the case in Ashdown can no longer be denied. More and more the young men, while not yet out of their teens, take to turning their back on their provincial homes, going to fight the battle of life, and find wives for themselves elsewhere.

Well may Fanny Hazeldine, as one birthday comes treading on the heels of another, begin to feel a touch of despair. In years gone by she was an arrant flirt, having entered the lists at an early age, and in pure recklessness, and because she loved the game too well to bring it willingly to a close, spurned two or three really excellent offers. Now it seems as if the Fates are about to avenge themselves, as they have a way of doing, sooner or later, by allowing her--dreadful phrase!--to be "left on the shelf."

Hermia and Clement were married about three months after Miss Pengarvon's death, by which time Clement had succeeded to a great part of the practice of Doctor Finchdown, whom advancing years had compelled to retire. A tenant was found for Broome in the person of a wealthy manufacturer. Even had her husband been a man of independent means, instead of a hard-working country Doctor, Hermia would have shrunk from making the old house her home. It was associated in her mind with too many painful episodes in connection with her mother for her ever to have felt happy under its roof. At her wish, the entrance to the "Priest's Chamber" was bricked up, and the Green Parlor panelled afresh.

Barney Dale, liberally pensioned by Hermia, took up his abode with his niece and her husband. Twice a year he spends a week with Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldine at Ashdown, on which occasions the old man is made much of and petted to his heart's content.

Major Strickland, who is fond of his club, fluctuates between London and Oaklands, which is the name of Doctor Hazeldine's new house, where his room is always kept in readiness for him, so that he can come and go as the whim takes him, which is just what he likes to do.

The latest news anent Edward Hazeldine is to the effect that he has at length definitely made up his mind to offer himself to the electors of Ashdown as a candidate at the next General Election. In this he is encouraged by his wife, who has her ambitions; and as Lord Elstree, who has considerable influence in the borough, has promised to back him up in every legitimate way possible, there seems a fair chance of success for him, more especially in view of the fact that the present member has contrived to render himself thoroughly obnoxious to a large number of his supporters.

When, in due course, a son and heir made his appearance at Oaklands, at the christening Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte acted as sponsors for the child. When Master Hazeldine woke up in his cot after the christening guests had gone and made his voice heard in the land, his mother, on going to him, was surprised to find that his chubby fingers were firmly grasping a piece of paper. This, on being examined, was found to be a cheque for the twelve hundred and odd pounds about which we know something already. It was Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte's gift to their godson.