Classic Audiobook Collection - Mount Royal Volume II by Mary Elizabeth Braddon ~ Full Audiobook [romance]

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Mount Royal Volume II by Mary Elizabeth Braddon audiobook. Genre: romance Mount Royal Volume II deepens Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Victorian tale of passion tested by conscience and circumstance. Angus Hamleigh, shaken by a dangerous illness and the shadow of his own past, receives a letter from his beloved Christabel Courtenay that asks for sacrifice instead of vows: she cannot marry him unless he makes amends for a wrong that society will never forget. As Angus weighs love against duty, Christabel returns to the sheltered grandeur of Mount Royal under the watchful devotion of her aunt, Mrs. Tregonell, only to find the old household schemes tightening into a trap. Mrs. Tregonell's son, Leonard, comes home with jealousy, charm, and a sense of entitlement to the woman he has always expected to claim, and his presence turns every conversation into a contest of pride and note-perfect manners. While visitors drift through the Cornish estate and gossip blooms into accusation, Braddon layers romance with unease: half-heard rumors, compromised reputations, and the hint that violence may follow where selfishness leads. In this volume, love is not a simple choice, but a trial that demands courage, secrecy, and a price no one wants to pay. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:15:09) Chapter 02 (00:24:19) Chapter 03 (00:49:13) Chapter 04 (01:29:09) Chapter 05 (01:58:32) Chapter 06 (02:14:24) Chapter 07 (02:32:52) Chapter 08 (02:47:54) Chapter 09 (03:28:25) Chapter 10 (04:08:20) Chapter 11 (04:43:10) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. Chapter 1 Let Me and My Passionate Love Go By That second week of July was not altogether peerless weather. It contained within the brief span of its seven days one of those sudden and withering changes which try humanity more than the hardest winter, with which ever transatlantic weather profit threatened our island. The sultry heat of a tropical Tuesday was followed by the blighting east wind of a chilly

Wednesday. And in the teeth of that keen east wind blowing across the German ocean, and gathering force among the Pentlands, Angus Amley set forth from the cozy shelter of hillside upon a long day's salmon fishing. His old kinswoman's health had considerably improved since his arrival, but she was not yet so entirely restored to her normal condition as to be willing that he should go back to London. She pleaded with him for a few days more, and in order that the days should not hang heavily on his hands, she urged him to make the most of his Scottish holiday by enjoying a day or two salmon fishing. The first floods, which did not usually begin till August, had already swollen the river, and the grills and early autumn salmon were running up. According to

Donald, the handyman who helped in the gardens, and who was a first-rate fisherman. There's all your end tackle upstairs in one of the presses, said the old lady. You'll just find it ready to your hand. The offer was tempting. angus had found the long summer days pass but slowly in house and garden albeit there was a library of good old classics he so longed to be hastening back to christabel found the hours so empty and joyless without her he was an ardent fisherman loving that leisurely face-to-face contemplation of nature which goes with rod and line the huntsman sees the landscape flash past him like a dream of gray wintry beauty it is no more to him than a picture in a gallery he has barely time to feel nature's tranquil charms. Even when he must need stand still for a while, he is devoured

by impatience to be scampering off again and to see the world in motion. But the angler has leisure to steep himself in the atmosphere of hill and streamlet, to take nature's colors into his soul. Every angler ought to blossom into a landscape painter. But this salmon fishing was not altogether

a dreamy and contemplative business. Quickness, presence of mind and energetic action were needed at some stages of the sport. The moment came, when Angus found his rod bending under the weight of a magnificent salmon, and when it seemed a toss-up between landing his fish and being dragged under water by him. "'Jump in!' cried Donald excitedly when the angler's line was nearly expended. "'It's only up to your neck.'

So Angus jumped in and followed the lightning-swift rush of the salmon downstream, and then, turning him after some difficulty, had to follow his prey upstream again, back to the original pool where he captured him and broke the top of his 18-foot rod. Angus clad himself thinly because the almanac told him it was summer. He walked far and fast, overheated himself, waited four hours knee-deep in the river, his fishing boots of three seasons ago, far from watertight, ate nothing all day, and went back to hillside at dusk, carrying the seeds of pneumonia under his oil-skin jacket. Next day he contrived to crawl about the gardens, reading Burgeon in an idle desultory way

that suited so desultory a book, longing for a letter from Christabel and sorely tired of his Scottish seclusion. On the day after he was laid up with a shark attack of inflammation of the lungs attended by his aunt's experience told doctor, a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman, contemporary with Simpson, Sibson, Ferguson,

all the brightest lights in the Caledonian galaxy, and nursed by one of his aunt's old servants. While he was in this condition, there came a letter from Christabel, a long letter which he unfolded with eager, trembling hands, looking for joy and comfort in its pages. But, as he read, his pallid cheek flushed with angry, feverish carmine, and his short heart breathing grew shorter and harder. Yet the letter expressed only tenderness. In tenderest words his betrothed reminded him of past wrongdoing and urged him upon the duty of atonement. If this girl, whom he had so passionately loved a little while ago, was

society's standpoint unworthy to be his wife. It was he who had made her unworthiness. He alone could redeem her from absolute shame and disgrace. All the world knows that you wronged her. Let all the world know that you are glad to make such poor amends as may be made for that wrong, wrote Christabel. I forgive you all the sorrow you have brought upon me. It was in a great measure my own fault. I was too eager to link my life with yours. I almost thrust myself upon you. I will revere and honor you all the days of my life, if you will do right in this hard crisis of our fate. Knowing what I know I could never be happy as your wife. My soul would be rung with jealous fears.

I should never feel secure of your love. My life would be one long torment. It is with this conviction that I tell you our engagement is ended, Angus, loving you with all my heart. I have not come hurriedly to this resolution. It is not of anybody's prompting. I have prayed to my God for guidance. I have questioned my own heart, and I believe that I have decided wisely and well.

And so, farewell, dear love. May God and your conscience inspire you to do right. Your ever constant friend, Christabel Courtney. Angus Hamley's first impulse was anger. Then came a softer feeling, and he saw all the nobleness of the womanly instinct that had prompted this letter, a good woman's profound pity for a fallen sister.

an innocent woman's readiness to see only the poetical aspect of a guilty love, an unselfish woman's desire that right should be done at any cost to herself. God bless her, he murmured, and kissed the letter before he laid it under his pillow. His next thought was to telegraph immediately to Christabel. He asked his nurse to bring him a telegraph, form, and a pencil, and with a shaking hand, began to write. No, a thousand times no. I owe no allegiance to anyone but to you. There can be no question of broken faith with the person of whom you write. I hold you to your promise.

Scarcely had his feeble fingers scrawled the lines and he tore up the paper. I will see the doctor first, he thought. Am I a man to claim the fulfillment of a bright girl's promise of marriage? No, I'll get the doctor's verdict before I send her a word. When the old family practitioner had finished his soundings and questionings, Angus asked him to stop for a few minutes longer. You say I'm better this afternoon and that you'll get me over this bout, he said, and I believe you. But I want you to go a little further and tell me what you think of my case from a general point of view.

Hmm, muttered the doctor. It isn't easy to say what proportion of your symptoms may be temporary and what permament. But ye, a very shabby pair of lungs at this present writing. What's your family history? My father died of consumption at thirty. Hump, and the other relative? My aunt, a girl of nineteen, my father's mother, at seven and twenty. Dear, dear, that's no very lively retrospect.

Is this your fairest attack of hemorrhage? Not by three or four. The good old doctor shook his head. You'll need to take extreme care of yourself, he said, and you'll no be for spending much of your life in East Country. You might do very well in September and a while. October at Rosset, or in the Isle of Iran, but I recommend ye to winter in the south.

Do you think I shall be a long-lived man? My dear, sir, that'll depend on care and circumstances beyond human foresight. I couldn't conscientiously recommend your life to an insurance office. Do you think that a man in my condition is justified in marrying? Do you want a plain answer? The plainest that you can give me. Then I tell you,

frankly that I think the marriage of a man with a marked consumptive tendency like yours is a crime. A crying sin, which is inexcusable in the face of modern science and modern enlightenment, and our advanced knowledge of the main springs of life and death. What, sir, can it be less than a crime to bring into this world, children burdened with an hereditary curse, destined to a heritage of weakness and pain? Bright young minds fettered by diseased bodies, born to perish untimely, Mr. Hamley, did you ever read a book called Eke Homo? Yes, it is a book of books. I know it by heart.

Then you'll maybe remember the writer's summing up of a practical Christianity as a system of ethics, which in its ultimate perfection will result in the happiness of the human race. Even that last enemy, death, if not subdued, may be made to keep his distance, simply by a due observance of natural laws. by an unselfish forethought and regard in each member of the human species for the welfare of the multitude the man who becomes the father of a race of puny children can be no friend to humanity he pre-dooms future suffering to the innocent by reckless indulgence of his own inclination in the present yes i believe you are right said angus with a despairing sigh it seems a hard thing for a man who loves and his beloved by the sweetest among women, to forego even a few brief years of perfect bliss and go down lonely to the grave, to accept this doctrine of renunciation and count himself as one dead in life.

Yet a year ago I told myself pretty much what you have told me today. I was tempted from my resolve by a woman's loving devotion, and now a crucial point has come, and I must decide whether to marry or not. If you love humanity better than you love yourself, you'll die a back. "'Satchler,' said the Scotchman gravely, but with infinite pity in his shrewd old face. "'Ye've asked me for the truth, and I've given it ye. Truth is often hard.' Argus gave his thin hot hand to the doctor in token of a friendly feeling, and then silently turned his face to the wall, whereupon the doctor gently patted him upon the

shoulder, and left him. Yes, it was hard. In the bright springtime, his health wondrously restored by that quiet, restful winter on the shores of the Mediterranean, Angus had almost believed that he had given his enemy the slip, that death's dominion over him was henceforth to be no more than over the common ruck of humanity, who, knowing not when or how the fatal lot may fall from the urn, drop into a habit of considering themselves immortal, and death a calamity of which one reads in the newspapers, with only a kindly interest in other people's mortality.

All through the gay London season he had been so utterly happy, so wonderfully well that the insidious disease, which had declared itself in the past by so many unmistakable symptoms, seemed to have relaxed its grip upon him. He began to have faith in an advanced medical science, the power to cure maladies hitherto considered incurable. That long interval of languid, days and nights of placid sleep, the heavy sweetness of southern air breathing over fields of orange flowers and violets, February roses and carnations had brought strength and healing. the foe had been baffled by the new care which his victim had taken of an existence that had suddenly become precious this was the hope that had buoyed up angus hamley's spirits all through the happy springtime and summer which he had spent in the company of his betrothed he had seen the physician who less than a year before had pronounced his sentence of doom and the famous physician taking the thing in the light-hearted way of a man for whom humanity is a collection of cases was jocose and congratulatory full of wonder at his patient's

restoration, and taking credit to himself for having recommended yeah. And now the enemy had him by the throat. The foe, no longer insiduously hinting at his deadly meaning, held him in the fierce grip of pain and fever. Such an attack as this, following upon one summer day's imprudence, showed but too plainly by how frail a tie he clung to life, how brief and how prone to malady must be the remnant of his days. Before the post went out, he re-read Christabel's letter, smiling mournfully as he read. Poor child, he murmured to himself. God bless her for her innocence.

God bless her for her unselfish desire to do right. If she only knew the truth, but, better that she should be spared the knowledge of evil, what good end would it serve if I were to enter upon painful explanations? He had himself propped up with pillows and wrote in a hand which he strove to keep from shaking the following lines. dearest, I accept your decree, not for the reasons which you allege, which are no reasons, but for other motives, which it would pain me too much to explain. I have loved you, I do love you, better than my own joy or comfort, better than my own life,

and it is simply and wholly on that account I can resign myself to say, let us in the future be friends, and friends only. You're ever affectionate, Angus Hamley. He was so much better next day as to be able to sit up for an hour or two in the afternoon, and during that time he wrote at length to Mrs. Tregenel, telling her of his illness, and of his conversation with the Scotch doctor, and the decision at which he had arrived on the strength of that medical opinion, and leaving her at liberty to tell Christabel as much or as little of this as she thought fit.

I know you will do what is best for my darling's happiness, he said. If, I did not believe this renunciation a sacred duty, and the only means of saving her from infinite pain in the future, nothing that she or even you could say about my past follies would induce me to renounce her. I would fight that question to the uttermost. But the other fatal fact is not to be faced except by a blind and cowardly selfishness which I dare not practice. After this day the invalid mended slowly, and old Miss McPherson, his aunt, being soon quite restored, Mr. Hamley telegraphed to his valet to bring books and other necessaries from his chambers in the Albany, and to meet him in the Isle of Aron, where he meant to vegetate for the next

month or two, chartering a yacht of some kind, and living half on land and half on sea. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2 Alas, for me, then, my good days are done. Angus Hamley's letter came upon Christabel like a torrent of cold water, as if that bright silvery arc which pierces the

as St. Nekhton's Kiev had struck upon her heart with its icy stream, and chilled it into stone. All through that long summer day upon which her letter must arrive at hillside, she had lived in nervous expectation of a telegram expressing indignation, remonstrance, pleading, anger, a savage denial of her right to renounce her lover, to break her engagement. She had made up her mind in all good faith. She meant to go on to the bitter end, in the teeth of her lover's opposition, to complete her renunciation in favor of that frail creature who had so solemn acclaim upon Angus Hamley's honor. She meant to fight this good fight, but she expected that the struggle would be hard.

Oh, how long and dismal those summer hours seemed, which she spent in her own room trying to read, trying to comfort herself with sad as strains of classic melody, and always end through all listening for the telegraph's boys' knock at the hall door, or for the sudden stopping of a handsome against the curb, bringing home her lover to remonstrate in person, in defiance of all calculations of time and space. There was no telegram. She had to wait nearly 24 hours for the slow transit of the mails

from the high latitude of Inverness. And when she read Angus Hamley's letter, those few placid words which so quietly left her free to take her own way, her heart sank with a dull despair that was infinitely worse than the keen agonies of the last few days. The finality of that brief letter,

the willingness to surrender her. The cold indifference, as it seemed to her future fate, was the hardest blow of all. Too surely it confirmed all those humiliating doubts which had tortured her since her discovery of that wretched past. He had never really cared for her. It was she who had forced him into an avowal of affection by her unconscious revelation of love. She who, unmaidenly in her ignorance of life and mankind, had been the wooer rather than the wooed. Thank God that my pride and my duty helped me to decide, she said to herself, what should I have done if I had married him and found out afterwards how weak a hold I had

upon his heart, if he had told me one day that he had married me out of pity. Christabel told Mrs. Tregenel she had written to Mr. Hamley. She spoke of him only as Mr. Hamley now, and had received his reply, and that all was now over between them. I want you to return his present for me, Auntie, she said. They are too valuable to be sent to his chambers while he is away. the diamond necklace which he gave me on my birthday, just like the one I saw on the stage.

I suppose he thinks all women have exactly the same ideas and fancies. The books, too. I will put them all together for you to return. He has given you a small library, said Mrs. Tregenel. I will take the things in the carriage and see that they are properly delivered. Don't be afraid, darling.

You shall have no trouble about them. My own dear girl, how brave and good you are. How wise to you. Yes, Belle, I am convinced that you have chosen wisely, said the widow with the glow of honest conviction, for the woof of self-interressed is so cunningly interwoven with the warp of righteous feeling that very few of us can tell with the threads cross. She drew her knees to her heart and kissed her, and cried with her a little, and then said cheeringly, and now tell me, darling, what would you like to do? We have ever so many engagements for this week and the next

fortnight. But you know they have been made only for your sake, and if you don't care about them. Care about them? Oh, Auntie, do you think I could go into society with this dull aching pain at my heart? I feel as if I should never care to see my fellow creatures again, except you and Jessie. And Leonard, said the mother. Poor Leonard, who would go through fire and water for you? Christabel winced, feeling fretfully that she did not want anyone to go through fire and water. a kind of acrobatic performance continually being volunteered by people who would hesitate at the loan of five pounds where shall we go dear would you not like to go abroad for the autumn switzerland or italy for instance suggested mrs tregonel with an idea that three months on the continent was a specific in such cases no said christabel shudderingly remembering how angus and his frail first love had been happy together in italy oh those books those books with their passionate record of past joyce those burning lines from byron and haine which expressed such a world of feeling in ten syllables no i would ever so much rather go back to mount royal my poor child the place is so associated with mr hamley you would be thinking of him every hour of the death

I shall do that anywhere. Change of scene would be so much better for you. Traveling, variety. Auntie, you are not strong enough to travel with comfort to yourself. I am not going to drag you about for a fanciful alleviation of my sorrow. The landscape may change, but not the mind. I should think of, the past, just as much at Montblanc as on Willard-Park. No, dearest, let us go home.

Let me go back to the old, old life. as it was before I saw Mr. Hamley. Oh, what a child I was in those dear days. How happy! How happy! She burst into tears, melted by the memory of those placid days, the first tear she had shed since she received her lover's answer. And you will be happy again, dear? Don't you remember that passage I read to you in the Caxton's a few days ago,

in which the wise, tender-hearted father tells his son how small a space one great sorrow takes in a life, and how to turn you. triumphantly the life soars on beyond it. Yes, I remember. But I didn't believe him then, and I believe him still less now, answered Christabel doggedly. Major Brie called that afternoon and found Mrs. Tregenel alone in the drawing-room. Where is Belle? he asked. She has gone for a long country ride. I insisted upon it.

You were quite right. She was looking as white as a ghost yesterday when I just caught a glimpse of her in the next room. She ran away like a guilty thing when she saw me. Well, has this cloud borne over? Is Hamley back? No. Christabel's engagement is broken off. It has been a great blow, a severe trial. But now it is over, I am glad.

She never could have been happy with him. How do you know that? asked the Major sharply. I judge him by his antecedents. What could be expected from a man who had led that kind of life? a man who so grossly deceived her. Deceived her? Did she ask him if he had ever been in love with an actress?

Did she or you ever interrogate him as to his past life? Why, you did not even question me, or I should have been obliged to tell you all I knew of his relations with Miss Main. You ought to have told me of your own accord. You should not have waited to be questioned, said Mrs. Tregonnell indignantly. Why should I stir dirty water? Do you suppose that every man who may be questioned? makes a good husband and lives happily with his wife has been spotless up to the hour of his

marriage. There is a sturmundrong period in every man's life. Depend upon it. Far better that the tempest should rage before marriage than after. I can't accept your philosophy, nor could Christabel. She took the business into her own hands, bravely, nobly. She has cancelled her engagement and left Mr. Hamley free to make some kind of reparation to this actress person. Reparation. to Stella Maine. Why, don't you know that she is the mistress of Colonel Luscombe, who has ruined his social and professional prospects for her sake? Do you mean to say that old Harpy who gave you your information about Angus

did not give you the epilogue to the play? Not a word, said Mrs. Tregonel, considerably dashed by this intelligence. But I don't see that this fact alters the case much. Christabel could never have been happy or at peace with a man who had once been devoted to a creature of that class. would you be surprised to hear that creatures of that class are flesh and blood and that they love us and leave us and cleave to us and forsake us just like the woman in society asked the major surveying her with mild scorn she was a good woman no doubt and acted honestly according to her lights yet he was angry with her believing that she had spoiled two lives by her incapacity to take a wide and liberal view of the human comedy end of chapter two chapter three of mount royal volume two by mary elizabeth brayden this libervox recording is in the public domain chapter three grief a fixed star and joy a vein that veers

they went back to the cornish moors and the good old manor house on the hill above the sea went back to the old life just the same and all outward seeming as it had been before that fatal visit which had brought love and sorrow to christabel how lovely the hills looked in the soft summer light how unspeakably fair the sea in all its glory of sapphire and emerald and those deep garnet-coloured patches which show where the red seaweed lurks below with its pinnacles of rock and colonies of wild living creatures gull and cormorant vasking in the sun little beau castle too gay with the coming and going of many tourists the merry music of the guard's horn as the omnibus came jolting down the hill from bodmin or the coach wound up the hill to boud busy with the bustle of tremendous experiments with rockets and life-saving apparatus in a soft-gillai darkness noisy with the lowing of cattle and plaintive tremolo of sheep in the market-place and all the rude pleasures of a rural fair alive with all manner of sound and movement and having a general air of making money too fast for the the capability of investment. The whole place was gorged with visitors, not the inn only, but every available bedchamber at post-office, shop, and cottage was filled with humanity. And the half-dozen or so available pony carriages were making the journey to Tintagel and back three times a day, while the patient investigators who tramped to St. Necton's

Kiev, without the faintest idea who St. Necton was, or what a Kiev was, or what manner of local curiosity they were going to see, were legion. all coming back ravenous to the same cozy inn to elbow one another in friendly contiguity at the homely tabledote in the yellow light of many candles christabel avoided the village as much as possible during this gay season she would have avoided it just as much as had been the dull season the people she shrank from meeting were not the strange tourists but the old gaffers and goodies who had known her all their lives the uncles and aunts in cornwall uncle and aunt are a kind of patriarchal title given to honour age, and who might consider themselves privileged to ask why her wedding was deferred, and when it was to be. She went with Jesse on long, lonely expeditions by sea and land. She had half a dozen old sailors who were her slaves, always ready to take her out in good weather, deeming at their highest privilege to obey so fair a captain, and one who always

paid them handsomely for their labor. They went often to Trebarwis' sands, and sat there in some sheltered nook, working and reading at peace, resided. to a life that had lost all its brightness and color. Do you know, Jesse, that I feel like an old maid of fifty? said Belle on one of those rare occasions when she spoke of her own feelings. It seems to me as if it were ages since I made up my mind to live and die unmarried, and to make life somehow or other self-sufficing, as if Randy and I were both getting old and gray together.

For he is ever so much grayer, the dear thing, she said, laying her hand lovingly on the honest black head and gray muzzle. What a pity that dog should grow old so soon when we are so dependent on their love. Why are they not like elephants, in whose lives a decade hardly counts? Oh, Belle, Belle, as if a beautiful woman of twenty

could be dependent on a sheep-dog's affection, when she has all her life before her and all the world to choose from? Perhaps you think I should change my lover as some people change their dogs, said Belle, bitterly. Be deeply attached to a collie this year and next year be just as devoted

to a spaniel. My affections are not so easily transferable. Mrs. Tregonel had told her niece nothing of Angus Hamley's final letter to herself. He had given her freedom to communicate as much or as little of that letter as she liked to Christabel, and she had taken the utmost license and had been altogether silent about it. What good could it do for Christabel to hear of his illness? The knowledge might inspire her to some wild, quixotic act. She might insist upon devoting herself to him, to be his wife in order that she might be his nurse, and surely this would be to ruin her life without helping him to prolong his. The blow had fallen, the sharpest pain of this sudden

sorrow had been suffered. Time and youth, and Leonard's faithful love would bring swift healing. Oh, I loved and grieved for his father, thought Mrs. Tregonel. Yet I survived his loss and had a peaceful, happy life with the best and kindest of men. A peaceful happy life. A peaceful happy life, yes, the English matrons calm content in a handsome house and a well-organized household. A good stable, velvet gowns, family diamonds, the world's respect.

But that first passionate love of youth, the love that is eager for self-sacrifice, that would welcome beggary, the love which sees a lover independent of all surrounding circumstances, worshipping and defying the man himself. That sacred flame had been forever

extinguished in Diana Chapernown's heart before she met Burly Braud shoulders squire Tregonel at the county ball. She wrote to Leonard telling him what had happened, and that he might now count on the fulfillment of that hope which they both had cherished years ago. She asked him to come home at once, but to be careful that he approached Christabel only in a friendly and cousinly character, until there had been ample time for these new wounds to heal.

She bears her trouble beautifully in his all goodness and devotion to me, for I have been weak and ailing ever since I came from London, but I know the trial is very hard for her. The house would be more cheerful if you were at home. You might ask one or two of your Oxford friends. No one goes into the billiard-room now. Mount Royal is as quiet as a prison. If you do not come soon, dear boy, I think we shall die of melancholy. Mr. Tregonnell did not put himself out of the way to comply with his loving mother's request. By the time the widow's letter reached him, he had made his plans for the winter, and was not disposed to set them aside in order to oblige a lady who was only a necessary detail in his life.

A man must needs have a mother, and as mothers go, Mrs. Tregonel had been harmless and inoffensive. But she was not the kind of person for whom Leonard would throw over elaborate sporting arrangements, hired guides, horses, carts, and all the paraphernalia needful for red-liver explorations. As for Christabel, Mr. Tregonel had not forgiven her for having set another man in the place which he, her cousin and boyish lover in a rough, tyrannical way, had long made up his mind to occupy. The fact that she had broken with the man was a redeeming feature in the case, but he was not going into raptures about it,

nor was he disposed to return to Mount Royal, while she was still moping and regretting the discarded lover. Let her get over the doldrums, and then she and I may be friends again, said Leonard to his boon companion, Jack Vandler, not a friend of his university days, but an acquaintance picked up on board a Coonard steamer, son of a half-pay naval captain, a man who had begun life in a line regiment

fought in Afghanistan, sold out, and lived by his wits and upon his friends for the last five years. He had made himself so useful to Mr. Tregonel by his superior experience as a traveller, his pluck and knowledge of all kinds of sport, that he had been able to live at free quarters with that gentleman from an early stage of their acquaintance.

Thus it was that Christabel was allowed to end the year in quietness and peace. Everyone was tender and gentle with her, knowing how keenly she must have suffered. There was much disappointment among her country friends at the sorry ending of her engagement, more especially among those who had been in London during the season and had seen the lovely Cornish debutante in her brief day of gladness.

No one hinted a question to Christabel herself. The subject of marrying and giving in marriage was judiciously avoided in her presence. But Mrs. Tregenel had been questioned and had explained briefly that certain painful revelations concerning Mr. Hamley's antecedents had constrained Christabel to give him up.

Everyone said it was a pity. Poor Miss Courtney looked ill and unhappy. Surely it would have been wiser to waive all question of antecedents and to trust to that sweet girl's influence for keeping Mr. Hamley's trait in the future. Anticidents indeed, exclaimed a strong-minded matron with five marriageable daughters. It is all very well for a young woman like Miss Courtney,

an only child, with fifteen hundred a year in her. own right, to make a fuss about a young man's antecedents. But what would become of my five girls if I were to look at things so closely? Christabel looked at the first column of the time supplement daily to see if there were the advertisement of Angus Hamley's marriage with Stella Mayne. She was quite prepared to read such an announcement. Surely, now that she had set him free, he would make this act of atonement, he, in all whose sentiments she had perceived so nice a sense of honour.

But no such advertisement appeared. it was possible however that the marriage had taken place without any public notification mr hamley might not care to call the world to witness his reparation she prayed for him daily and nightly praying that he might be led to do that which was best for his soul's welfare for his peace here and hereafter praying for his days whether few or many should be made happy there were times when that delicate reticence which made angus hamley's name a forbidden sound upon the lips of her friends was a source of keenest pain to Christabel. It would have been painful to hear that name lightly spoken, no doubt, but this dull-dead silence was worse. One day it flashed upon her that if he were to die, nobody would tell her of his death. Kindred and friends would conspire to keep her uninformed. After this, she read the list of deaths in the times as eagerly as she read the marriages, but with an agony of fear lest that name, as if written in fire should leap out upon the page.

At last, this painful sense of uncertainty as to the fate of one who a few months ago had been a part of her life became unendurable. Pride withheld her from questioning her aunt or Jessie. She shrank from seeming small and mean in the sight of her own sex. She had made her sacrifice of her own accord, and there was a poverty of character in not being able to maintain the same Spartan courage to the end. But from Major Bree, the friend and playfellow of her childhood, the indulgent commons, companion of her youth, she could bear to accept pity. So one mild afternoon in the beginning of October, when the major dropped in at his usual hour for tea and gossip, she took him to see the chrysanthemums in a house on the further side of the lawn. And here, having assured herself there was

no gardener within hearing, she took courage to question him. Uncle Oliver, she began, falteringly, trifling with the fringed petals of a snowy blossom, I want to ask you something. My dear, I think you must know that there is nothing. in the world I would not do for you. I am sure of that, but this is not very difficult. It is only to answer one or two questions. Everyone here is very good to me, but they make me one mistake. They think, because I have broken forever with Mr. Hamley,

that it can do me no good to know anything about him, that I can go on living and being happy while I am as ignorant of his fate as if it were inhabitants of different planets. But they forget that after having been all the world to me he cannot all at once become nothing. I have still some faint interest in his fate. It hurts me like an actual pain not to know whether he is alive or dead, she said with a sudden sob. My poor pet, murmured the Major, taking her hand in both his own. Have you heard nothing about him since you left London? Not one word. People make believe that there was never any such person in this world. They think it wiser to do so,

in the hope you will forget him. "'They might as well hope that I shall become a blackamore,' said Christabel scornfully. "'You have more knowledge of the human heart, Uncle Oliver, and you must know that I shall always remember him.' "'Tell me the truth about him just this once, and I will not mention his name again for a long, long time. He is not dead, is he?' "'Dead, no, bell.

What put such a notion into your head?' Silence always seems like death, and everyone has kept silence about him. "'He was ill when he was in Scotland, a touch of the old complaint. "'I heard of him at Plymouth the other day, "'from a yachting man who met him in the Isle of Aron after his illness. "'He was all right then, I believe.' "'I'll, and I never knew of it, dangerously ill, perhaps.'

"'I don't suppose it was anything very bad. "'He had been yachting when my Plymouth acquaintance met him.' "'He has not married. That person,' faltered Christabel. "'What person?' miss main good heavens know my dear nor ever will but he ought it is his duty my dear child that is a question which i can hardly discuss with you but i may tell you at least that there is an all-sufficient reason why angus hamley would never make such an idiot of himself "'Do you mean that she could never be worthy of him? "'That she is irredeemably wicked?' asked Christabel. "'She is not good enough to be any honest man's wife.'

"'And yet she did not seem wicked. She spoke of him with such intense feeling.' "'She seemed. She spoke,' repeated the major aghast. "'Do you mean to tell me that you have seen, that you have conversed with her?' "'Yes. "'When my aunt told me the story which she heard from Lady Cumberbridge, I could not bring myself to believe it until it was confirmed by Miss Main's own lips. I made up my mind that I would go and see her, and I went. Was that wrong?

Very wrong. You ought not to have gone near her. If you wanted to know more than common rumor could tell you, you should have sent me, your friend. It was a most unwise act. I thought I was doing my duty. I think so still, said Christabel, looking at him with Frank's at fast eyes. We are both women. If we stand far apart, it is because Providence has given me many blessings which were withheld from her. It is Mr. Hamley's duty to repair the wrong he has done. If he does not, he must be answerable to his maker for the eternal ruin of a soul. I tell you again, my dear, that you do not understand the circumstances and cannot fairly judge the case. You would have done better to take an old soldier's advice before

you let the venomous gossip of that malevolent Herodon spoil two lives. I did not allow myself to be governed by Lady Cumberbridge's gossip, Uncle Oliver. I took nothing for granted. It was not till I had heard the truth from Miss Main's lips that I took any decisive step. Mr. Hamley accepted my resolve so readily that I can but think it was a welcome release. My dear, you went to a queer shop for truth. If you had only known your way about town a little better, you would have thought twice before you sacrificed your own happiness in the hope of making Miss Main a respectable member of society. But what's done cannot be undone. There's no use in crying over spilt milk. I dare say you and Mr. Hamley will meet again

and make up your quarrel before we are a year older. In the meantime, don't fret, Bell, and don't be afraid that he will ever marry anyone but you. I'll be answerable for his constancy. the anniversary of christabel's betrothal came round st luke's day a gray october day with a drizzling west country rain she went to church alone for her aunt was far from well and miss bridgman stayed at home to keep the invalid company to read to her and cheer her through the long dull morning perhaps they both felt that christabel would rather be alone on this day she put on her waterproof coat took her dog with her and started upon that wild lonely walk to the church in the hollow of the hills randy was a beast of perfect manners and would lie quietly in the porch all through the service waiting for his mistress she knelt alone just where they two had knelt together there was the humble altar before which they were to have been married the rustic shrine of which they had so often spoken as the fittest place for a loving union fuller of tender meaning than splendid st georgias with its fine oaken panelling painted windows and hogarthian architecture never at that altar nor at any other were the two to kneel. A little year had held all,

her hopes and fears, her triumphant love, joy beyond expression, and sadness too deep for tears. She went over the record as she knelt in the familiar pew, her lips moving automatically, repeating the responses, her eyes fixed and tearless.

Then, when the service was over, she went slowly wandering in and out among the graves, looking at the gray slate tablets with the names of those whom she had known in life. All at rest now. Old people who had suffered long and patiently before they died. A fair young girl who had died of consumption, and whose sufferings had been sharper than those of age. A sailor who had gone out to a ship with a rope one desperate night and had given his life

to save others. All at rest now. There was no grave being dug today. She remembered how, as she and Angus lingered at the gate, the dull sound of the earth thrown from the grave-digger's spade had mixed with the joyous song at the robin perched on the gate. Today there was neither grave-digger nor robin. Only the soft drip, drip of the rain on dock and thistle, fern, and briny. She had the churchyard all to herself, the dog following her about meekly, crawling over grassy mounds, winding in and out among the long wet grass. When I die, if you have the ordering of my funeral, be sure I am buried in Minster Churchyard.

That is what Angus had said to her one summer morning when they were sitting on the maidenhead coach, and even West and London and a London park looked lovely in the clear June light. Little chance now that she would be called upon to choose his resting place, that her hands would fold his in their last meek attitude of submission to the universal conqueror. Perhaps he will spend his life in Italy, where no one will know his wife's history, thought Christabel, always believing, in spite of Major Breeze protest, that her old lover would sooner or later make the one possible atonement for an old sin. Nobody except the Major had told her how little the lady deserved that such atonement should be

made. It was Mrs. Tregonnell's theory that a well-brought-up young woman should be left in darkest ignorance of the darker problems of life. Christabel walked across the hill and down by narrow winding ways into the valley, where the river, swollen and turbid after the late rains, tumbled noisily over rock and root and bent the long reeds upon its margin. She crossed the narrow footbridge and went slowly through the level fields between two long lines of hills,

a gorge through which, in bleak weather, the winds blew fiercely. There was another hill to ascend before she reached the field that led to Pentagon Bay, half a mile or so of high road between steep banks and tall, unkempt hedges.

How short and easy to climb that hill had seemed to her in Angus Hamley's company. Now she walked wearily and slowly under the softly falling rain, wondering where he was, and whether he remembered this day. She could recall every word that he had spoken, and the memory was full of pain, for in the light of her new knowledge, it seemed to her that all he had said about his early doom had been an argument intended to demonstrate to her why he dared not and must not ask her to be

his wife, an apology and an explanation, as it were, and this apology, this explanation had been made necessary by her own foolishness. by that fatal forgetfulness of self-respect which had allowed her love to reveal itself. And yet, surely that look of rapture which had shown in his eyes as he clasped her to his heart, as he accepted the dedication of her young life, those tender tones, and all the love that had come afterwards could not have been entirely falsehood. I cannot believe that he was a hypocrite, she said, standing with thee two had sat side by side in the sunlight of that lovely day,

gazing at the gray sea, smooth as a lake under the low gray sky. I think he must have loved me, unwillingly perhaps, but it was true love while it lasted. He gave his first and best love to that other, but he loved me too. If I had dared to believe him, to trust in my power to keep him. But no, that would have been to confirm him in wrongdoing. It was his duty to marry the girl he wronged. The thought that her sacrifice had been made to principle rather than to feeling sustained her in this hour as nothing else could have done. If she could only know where he was and how he fared, in what he meant to do with his future life, she could be happier, she thought.

Luncheon was over when Christabel went back to Mount Royal. But as Mrs. Tregenel was too ill to take anything beyond a cup of beef tea in her own room, this fact was of no consequence. The mistress of Mount Royal had been declining visibly since her returned to her. Cornwall. Mr. Treherne, the family doctor, told Christabel there was no cause for alarm, but he hinted also that her aunt was not likely to be a long-lived woman. I'm afraid she worries herself, he said. She is too anxious about that scapegrace son of hers. Leonard is very cruel, answered Christabel. He lets weeks and even months go by without writing, and that makes his poor mother miserable. She is perpetually worrying herself about imaginary evils.

storm and shipwreck, runaway horses, explosions on steamboats. If she would but remember a vulgar adage, that, naught is never in danger, muttered the doctor with whom Leonard had been no favorite. And then she has frightful dreams about him, said Christabel. My dear Miss Gordney, I know all about it, answered Mr. Treherne. Your dear aunt is just in that comfortable position of life in which a woman must worry herself about something or other. Man was born to trouble, don't you know, my dear?

The people who haven't real cares are constrained to invent shamwins. Look at King Solomon. Did you ever read any book that breathed such intense melancholy in every line as that little work of his called Ecclesiastes? Solomon was living in the lap of luxury when he wrote that little book and very likely hadn't trouble in this world. However, imaginary cares can kill as well as the hardest reality. so you must try to keep up your aunt's spirits, and at the same time be sure that she doesn't

over-exert herself. She has a weak heart, what we call a tired heart. Does that mean heart disease? Paltred Christabel with a despairing look. Well, my dear, it doesn't mean a healthy heart. It is not organic disease, nothing wrong with the valves, no fear of excruciating pains, but it's a rather risky condition of life and needs care. I will be careful, murmured the girl with white lips, as the awful shadow of a grief hardly thought of till this moment fell darkly across a joyless horizon. Her aunt, her adopted mother, mother in all sweetest care and love and thoughtful culture,

might too soon be taken from her. Then indeed and then only could she know what it was to be alone. Keenly, bitterly, she thought how little during the last dismal months she had valued that love, almost as old as her life, in how the loss of a newer love had made the world desolate for her, life without meaning or purpose.

She remembered how little more than a year ago, before the coming of Angus Hamley. Her aunt and she had been all the world to each other, that tender mother-love all-sufficing to fill her life with interest and delight. In the face of this new fear that sacred love resumed its old place in her mind. Not for an hour,

Not for a moment of the days to come should her care or her affection slacken. Not for a moment should the image of him whom she had loved and renounced come between her and her duty to her aunt. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Mount Royal Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Librevovok's recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4. Love will have his day. From this time, Christabel brightened and grew more like her old self.

Mrs. Tregenel told herself that the sharp sorrow was gradually wearing itself out. No girl with such happy surroundings as Christabel's could go on being unhappy forever. Her own spirits improved with Christabel's increasing brightness, and the old house began to lose its dismal air. Until now the widow's conscience had been ill at ease, she had been perpetually arguing with herself that she had done right, trying to stifle doubts that continually renewed themselves. But now she told herself,

that the time of sorrow was past, and that her wisdom would be justified by its fruits. She had no suspicion that her niece was striving of set purpose to be cheerful, that these smiles and this bright girlish talk were the result of painful effort, duty, triumphing over sorrow. Mount Royal that winter seemed one of the brightest, most hospitable houses in the neighborhood. There were no parties. Mrs. Tregonale's delicate health was a reason against that, but there was generally someone staying in the house. Some nice girl, whose vivacious talk and whose new music helped to beguile the mother from sad thoughts about her absent son,

from wearying doubts as to the fulfillment of her plans for the future. There were people coming and going, old friends driving 20 miles to luncheon, and sometimes persuaded to stay to dinner, nearer neighbors walking three miles or so to afternoon tea. The cheery rector of Trevalga and his family, friends of twenty-year standing were frequent guests. Mrs. Tregenel was not allowed to excite herself, but she was never allowed to be dull. Christabel and Jessie watched her with unwavering attention, anticipating every wish, preventing every fatigue.

A weak and tired heart might hold out for a long time under such tender treatment. But early in March there came an unexpected trial in the shape of a sudden and great joy. Leonard, who had never learnt the rudiments of forethought and consideration for others, drove up to the house one afternoon. in a higher chaise from Lanceston, just as Twilight was creeping over the hills,

and dashed unannounced into the room where his mother and the two girls were sitting at tea. "'Who is this?' gasped Mrs. Tregonel, starting up from her low easy chair, as the tall, broad-shouldered man, bearded, bronzed, clad in a thick gray coat and big white muffler stood before her. And then, with a shriek, she cried, "'My son! My son!' and fell upon his breast. When he placed her in her chair a minute later she was almost painting and it was some moments before she recovered speech

Christabel and Jessie thought the shock would have killed her Oh, Leonard, how could you? murmured Christabel reproachfully. How could I do what? Come home without one word of notice knowing your mother's delicate health. I thought it would be a pleasant surprise for her. Besides, I hadn't made up my mind to come straight home

till two o'clock today. I had half a mind to take a week in town first before I came to this god-forsaken hole. You stare at me as if I had no right to be here at all, Belle. Leonard, my boy, my boy, faltered the mother, with pale lips, looking up adoringly at the bearded face, so weather-beaten, so hardened and altered from the fresh lines of youth. If you knew how much I have longed for this hour, I have had such fears. You have been in such perilous places. among savages, in all kinds of danger.

Often and often I have dreamt that I saw you dead. Upon my soul this is a lively welcome, said Leonard. My dearest, I don't want to be dismal, said Mrs. Tregenel with a faint hysterical laugh. Her heart was beating tumultuously, the hands that clasped her sons were cold and damp. My soul is full of joy. How changed you are, dear. You look as if you had gone through great. hardships. Life in the Rockies isn't all child's play, mother, but we've had a jolly time of it

on the whole. America is a magnificent country. I feel do sorry to come home, except for the pleasure of seeing you and Belle. Let's have a look at you, Bill, and see if you are as much changed as I am. Step into the light, young lady. He drew her into the full broad light of a heaped up wood and coal fire. There was very little daylight in the room. The Tapestry curtains fell low over the heavy mullioned two-door windows, and inside the tapestry there was a screen of soft muslin. "'I have not been shooting moose and skunk, or living in a tent,' said Christabel, with a forced laugh. She wanted to be amiable to her cousin, wished even to like him, but it went against the grain. She wondered if he had always been as hateful as this.

You can't expect to find much difference in me after three years vegetation in Cornwall. "'But you've not been vegetating all the time,' said Leonard, looking her over as coolly as if she had been a horse. "'You have had a season in London. I saw your name in some of the gossiping journals when I was last at Montreal. "'You wore a pink gown at Sandown. "'You were one of the prettiest girls at the Royal Fancy Fair. "'You were white and tea roses at the Marlborough House Garden Party.

"'You have been shining in high places, Mistress Bell. "'I hope it has not spoiled you for country-life. life. I love the country better than ever. I can vouch for that. And you have grown ever so much handsomer since I saw you last? I can vouch for that, answered her cousin with his free and easy air. How do you do, Miss Bridgman? He said, holding out two fingers to his mother's companion, whose presence he had until this moment ignored. Jesse remembered Thackeray's advice and gave the squire one finger in return for his two. You're not altered, he said, look. at her with a steady stare.

You're the hard-wearing sort, warranted fast color. Give Leonard some tea, Jesse, said Mrs. Tregenel. I'm sure you would like some tea, looking lovingly at the tall figure, the hard, handsome face. I'd rather have a brandy and soda, answered Leonard carelessly, but I don't mind a cup of tea presently when I've been and had a look round the stables and kennels. Oh, Leonard, surely not yet, said Mrs. Tregonnell. Not yet.

why I've been in the house ten minutes, and you may suppose I want to know how my hunters have been getting on in the last three years, and whether the cold nickel's bread is good for anything? I'll just take a hurried look round and be back again slick. Mrs. Tregenel sighed and submitted. What could she do but submit to a son who had had his own way and followed his own pleasure ever since he could run alone? Nay, had roared and protested loudly at every attack upon his liberty when he was still in the invertebrate jellyfish stage of existence, carried at full length in his nurse's arms,

with his face turned to the ceiling, perpetually contemplating that flat, white view of indoor existence which must needs have a depressing influence upon the meditations of infancy. The mothers of spirited youths have to fulfill their mission, which is for the most part, submission. How well he looks, she said fondly, when the squire had hurried out of the room, and how he is broadened and filled out. Jesse Bridgman thought within herself that he was quite broad enough before he went to America

and that this filling-out process had hardly improved him, but she held her peace. He looks very strong, said Christabel. I could fancy Hercules just such a man. I wonder whether he has brought home any lion's hides and if he will have one made into a shooting jacket. Dearest, dearest auntie, she went on, kneeling by the widow's chair,

I hope you are quite happy now. I hope your cup of bliss is full. I am very happy, sweet one, but the cup is not full yet. I hope it may be before I die, full to the overflowing, and that I shall be able to say, Lord, let me depart in peace,

with a glad and grateful heart. Leonard came back from the stables in a rather gloomy mood. His hunters did not look as well as he expected, and the new colt was weak and weedy. Nichols ought to have known better than to breed such a thing, but I suppose he'd say, like the man in Tristram Shandy, that it wasn't his fault,

grumbled Mr. Tregonel, as he seated himself in front of the fire with his feet on the brass fender. He wore clumped sole boots and a rough heather-mixture shooting suit, with knickerbockers and coarse stockings, and his whole aspect was sporting. Christabel thought of someone else who had sat before the same hearth in the peaceful twilight hour and wondered if the spiritual differences between these two men were as wide as those of manner and outward seeming. She recalled the exquisite refinement of that other man, the refinement

of the man who is a born dandy, who, under the most adverse circumstances, compelled to wear old clothes and to defy fashion, would yet be always elegant, and refined of aspect. She remembered that outward grace which seemed the natural indication of a poetical mind, a grace which never degenerated into a feminacy, a refinement which never approached the feeble or the lackadaisical.

Mr. Tregenel stretched his large limbs before the blaze, and made himself comfortable in the spacious plush-covered chair, throwing back his dark head upon a cruel anti-Maccasser, which was a work of art almost as worthy of notice as a watercolor painting, so exquisitely had the flowers been copied from nature by the patient needlewoman. This is rather more comfortable than the Rockies, he said, as he stirred his tea with big broad hands, scratched and scarred with hard service. Mount Royal isn't half a bad place for two or three months,

in the year. But I suppose you mean to go to London after Easter? Now Belle has tasted blood, she'll be all agog for a second plunge. Sandown would be uncommonly jolly this year. No, we are not going to town this season. Why not? Hard up. Spent all the dollars? No, but I don't think Belle would care about it. That's Bosch. Come now, Belle. You want to go, of course, said Mr. Tregonale, turning to his cousin. No, Leonard. That kind of thing is all very well for once in a lifetime. I suppose every woman wants to know what the great world is like, but one season must resemble another, I should think.

Just like Bocastle Fair, which I used to fancy so lovely when I was a child till I began to understand that it was exactly the same every year and that it was just possible for one to outgrow the idea of its delightfulness. That isn't true about London, though. There is always something new, new clubs, new theatres, new actors, "'New race meetings, new horses, new people.

"'I vote for May and June in Bolton Row.' "'I don't think your dear mother's health "'would be equal to London this year, Leonard,' said Christabel gravely. "'She was angry with his beloved and only son "'for not having seen the change in his mother's appearance. "'We're talking so loudly and so lightly, "'as if there was nothing to be thought of in life "'except his own pleasure.'

"'What, old lady, are you under the weather?' "'He asked, turning to survey his mother with a critical air. This was the American manner of inquiring of her health. Mrs. Tregonnell, when the meaning of the phrase had been explained to her, confessed herself an invalid, for whom the placid monotony

of rural life was much safer than the dissipation of a London season. Oh, very well, said Leonard with a shrug. Then you and Belle must stop at home and take care of each other. And I can have six weeks in London, en garson. It won't be worthwhile to open the house in Bolton-Roe. I'd rather stop at an hotel. But you won't leave me directly after your return, Leonard.

No, no, of course not. Not till after Easter. Easter's three weeks ahead of us. You'll be tired enough of me by that time. Tired of you? After three years' absence? Well, you must have got accustomed to doing without me, don't you know? said Leonard, with charming frankness.

When a man has been three years away, he can't hurt his friend's feelings much if he dies abroad. They've learnt how easy it is to get along without him. Leonard, how can you say such cruel things? Expostulated his mother with tears in her eyes. The very mention of death as among the possibilities of existence scared her. There's nothing cruel in it, ma'am, it's only common sense, answered Leonard. Three years?

Well, it's a jolly long time, isn't it? And I dare say to you in this sleepy hollow of a place, it seemed precious long. but for fellows who are knocking about the world, as Poker van der Lear and I were, time spins by pretty fast, I can tell you. I'll host in some more sap. Another cup of tea, if you please, Miss Bridgman, added Leonard, handing in his empty cup. It's uncommonly good stuff. Oh, here's old Randy. Come here, Randy. Randy, clutched unceremoniously by the tail and drawn over the hearth rug like any inanimate chattel, remonstrated with a growl and a snap. He had never been over-fond of the master of Mount

Royal, and absence had not made his heart grow fonder. His temper hasn't improved, muttered Leonard, pushing the dog away with his foot. His temper is always lovely when he's kindly treated, said Christabel, making room for the dog in her low arm-chair, whereupon Randy insinuated himself into that soft, silken nest, and looked fondly up at his mistress with his honest brown eyes. You should let me give you a Pomeranian instead of that ungainly beast, said Leonard. No, thanks. Never any other dog while Randy lives. Randy is a person, and he and I have a hundred ideas in common.

I don't want a toy dog, a dog that is only meant for show. Pomeranians are clever enough for anybody, and they are worth looking at. I wouldn't waste my affection upon an ugly dog any more than I would on an ugly woman. "'Randy is handsome in my eyes,' said Christabel, caressing the sheep-dog's grey muzzle. "'I am through,' said Mr. Tregonel, putting down his cup. He affected Yankee phrases and spoke with the Yankee twang. America and the Americans had suited him, down to the ground, as he called it. Their decisive rapidity, that go-ahead spirit, which charged life with a kind of mental electricity,

made life ever so much better worth living than in the dull, sleepy old world. where everyone was content with the existing condition of things, and only desired to retain present advantages. Leonard loved sport and adventure, action, variety. He was a tyrant and yet a Democrat. He was quite willing to live on familiar term with grooms and gamekeepers, but not on equal terms.

He must always be master. As much good fellowship as they pleased, but they must all knuckle under to him. He had been the noisy young autocrat of the stable-yard and the saddle-room when he was still in Eton jackets. He lived on the easiest terms with the guides and assistance of his American travels, but he took care to make them feel that he was their employer, and, in his own language, the biggest boss they were ever likely to have to deal with. He paid them lavishly, and gave himself the airs of a prince.

Prince Henry, in the wild Faustapian days, before the charge of a kingdom taught him to be grave, yet with but too little of Henry's gallant spirit and generous instincts. Three years' travel, in Australia and America, had not exercised a refining influence upon Leonard Tregonnell's character or manners. Blind as the mother's love might be, she had insight enough to perceive this, and she acknowledged the fact to herself sadly. There are travellers, and travellers,

some in whom a wild free life awakens the very spirit of poetry itself, whom unrestrained intercourse with nature elevates to nature's grander level, some whose mental power deepens and widens in the solitude of forest or mountain, whose noblest instincts are awakened by loneliness that seems to bring them nearer God. But Leonard Tregonel was not a traveller of this type. Away from the restraints of civilization, the conventional refinements and smoothings down of a rough character, his nature coarsened and hardened.

His love of killing wild and beautiful things grew into a passion. He lived chiefly to hunt and to slay, and had no touch of pity for those gracious creatures which looked at their slaughterer reproachfully, with dim, pathetic eyes, wide with a wild surprise at man's cruelty. Constant intercourse with men coarser, and more ignorant than himself,

dragged him down little by little, to a lower grade than he had been born to occupy. In all the time that he had been away, he had hardly ever opened a book. Great books had been written. Poets, historians, philosophers, theologians had given the fruits of their meditations

and their researches to the world, but never an hour had Mr. Tregonnell devoted to the study of human progress, to the onward march of human thought. When he was within reach of newspapers, he read them industriously, and learned from a stray paragraph how some great scientific discovery in science,

some brilliant success in art, had been the talk of the hour. but neither art nor science interested him. The only papers which he cared about were the sporting papers. His travels, for the most part, had been in wild, lonely regions, but even in the short intervals that he had spent in cities, he had shunned all intellectual amusements. He had heard neither concerts nor lectures,

and had only affected the lowest forms of dramatic art. Most of his nights had been spent in barrooms or groceries, playing Farrow, Monty, Poker, Euker, and falling in pleasantly with whatever might be the most popular form of gambling in that particular city. And now he had come back to Mount Royal, having sown his wild oats, and improved himself mentally and physically, as it was supposed by the outside world by extensive travel. And he was, henceforward, to reign in his father's place, a popular country gentleman, honorable and honored, useful in his generation, a friend to rich and poor.

Nobody had any cause for complaint against him during the first few weeks after his return. If his manners were rough and coarse, his language larded with American slang, his conduct was unobjectionable. He was affectionate to his mother, attentive in his free and easy way to Christabel, civil to the old servants, and friendly to old friends. He made considerable alterations in the stables, bought and sold and swapped horses, engaged new underlings, acted in all out-of-door arrangements as if the place were entirely his own, albeit his mother's life interest in the estate gave her the custody of everything. But his mother was too full of gladness at his return to object to anything that he did.

She opened her purse-strings freely, although his tour had become a costly business. Her income had accumulated in the less expensive period of his boyhood, and she could afford to indulge his fancies. He went about with Major Bree, looking up old acquaintances, riding over every acre of the estate, lands which stretched far away towards Lancastern on one side, towards Bodmin on the other. He held forth largely to the major on the pettiness and narrowness of an English landscape, as compared with that vast continent in which the rivers are seas and the forests rank in gloomy

wildernesses reaching to the trackless and unknown. Sometimes Christabel was their companion in these long rides, mounted on the thoroughbred which Mrs. Tregonnell gave her on that last two happy birthday. The long rides in the sweet soft April air brought health and brightness back to her pale cheeks. She was so anxious to look well and happy for her aunt's sake to cheer the widow's fading life. But, oh, the unutterable sadness of that ever-present thought of the aftertime,

that unanswerable question as to what was to become of her own empty days when this dear friend was gone. Happy as Leonard seemed at Mount Royal in the society of his mother and his cousin, he did not forego his idea of a month or so in London. he went up to town soon after easter took rooms at an hotel near the haymarket and gave himself up to a round of metropolitan pleasures under the guidance of captain van der lor who had made the initiation of provincial and inexperienced youth a kind of profession he had a neat way of finding out exactly how much money a young man had to dispose of present or contingent and put him through it in the quickest possible time and at the pleasantest space but he knew by experience that leonard had his own ideas about money and was as keen as experience itself. He would pay the current rate for his pleasures, and no more,

and he had a prudential horror of Jews, post-obits, and all engagements likely to damage his future enjoyment of his estate. He was fond of play, but he did not go in the way of losing large sums. Ponys, not monkeys, were his favorite animals, and he did not care about playing against his chosen friend. I like to have you on my side, poker, he said amiably, when the captain proposed a deviled bone in a hand of a carté after the play. You're a good deal too clever for a comfortable antagonist.

You play a carté with your other young friends, poker, and I'll be your partner at Wist. Captain Vandaler, who by this time was tolerably familiar with the workings of his friend's mind, never again suggested those quiet encounters of skill which must inevitably have resulted to his advantage, had Leonard been weak enough to accept the challenge. To have pressed the question would have been to avow himself a sharper. he had won money from his friend at blind hooky but then at blind hooky all men are equal and leonard had accepted the decree of fate but he was not the kind of man to let another man get the better of him in a series of transactions he was not brilliant but he was shrewd and keen and had long ago made up his mind to get fair value for his money if he allowed jack vandler to travel at his expense or dine and drink daily at his hotel it was not because leonard was weakly generous but because Jack's company was worth the money.

He would not have paid for a pint of wine for a man who was dull or a boar. At Mount Royal, of course, he was obliged now and then to entertain boars. It was an incident in his position as a leading man in the county, but here in London he was free to please himself, and to give the cold shoulder to uncongenial acquaintance. Gayestown was, Mr. Tregonel soon tired of it upon this particular occasion. after Epson and Ascot his enjoyment began to wane. He had made a round of the theatres.

He had dined and supped, and played a good many nights at those clubs which he and his friends most affected. He had spent three evenings watching a great billiard match, and he found that his thoughts went back to Mount Royal, and to those he had left there, to Christabel, who had been very kind and sweet to him since his homecoming, who had done much to make home delightful to him, riding with him, playing and singing to him, playing billiards with him, listening to his stories of travel, interested, or seemed interested

in every detail of that wild free life. Leonard did not know that Christabel had done all this for her aunt's sake in the endeavor to keep the prodigal at home, knowing how the mother's peace and gladness depended on the conduct of her son. And now, in the midst of London dissipations, Leonard yearned for that girlish companionship. It was dull enough, no doubt, that calm and domestic life under the old roof tree, but it had been pleasant to him, and he had not wearied of it half so quickly as of this fret and fume, and wear and tear of London amusements. Leonard began to think that his natural bent was towards domesticity, and that, as Bell's husband, there could be no doubt that she would accept him when the time came for asking her,

he would shine as a very estimable character, just as his father had shown before him. He had questioned his mother searchingly as to Bell's engagement to Mr. Angus, Hamley, and was inclined to be retrospectively jealous and to hate that unknown rival with a fierce hatred. Nor did he fail to blame his mother for her folly in bringing such a man to Mount Royal. How could I suppose that Bell would fall in love with him? asked Mrs. Tregonnell meetly. I know how attached she was to you. Attached, yes, but that kind of attachment means so a little. She had known me all her life. I was nobody in her estimation. No more than the chairs and tables, and this man was a novelty. And again, what has a girl to do in such an out-of-the-way

place as this, but fall in love with the first-comer? It is almost the only amusement open to her. You ought to have known better than to have invited that fellow here, mother. You knew that I meant to marry Belle. You ought to have guarded her for me, kept off dangerous rivals. Instead of that, you must needs go out of your way to get that fellow here. You ought to have come home sooner, Leonard. That's nonsense. I was enjoying my life where I was. How could I suppose you would be such a fool? Don't say such hard things, Leonard. Think how lonely my life was. The invitation to Mr. Hamney was not a new idea. I had asked him half a dozen times before.

I wanted to see him and know him for his father's sake. His father's sake. A man whom you loved better than ever you loved my father, I dare say. No, Leonard, that is not true. you think not perhaps now my father is dead but i dare say while he was alive you were always regretting that other man nothing exalts a man so much in a woman's mind as his dying look at the affection of widows as compared with that of wives mrs tregonel strove her hardest to convince her son that his cousin's affections were now free that it was his business to win her heart but leonard complained that his mother had spoiled his chances that all the freshness of Christabel's feelings must have been worn off in an engagement that had lasted nearly a year. She'll have me fast enough, I dare say, he said, with his easy, confident air. That calm, masculine consciousness of superiority, as of one who talks of an altogether inferior

creature. All the faster, perhaps, on account of having made a fiasco of her first engagement. A girl doesn't like to be pointed at as jilt or jilted. But I shall always feel uncomfortable about this fellow Hamley. I shall never be able quite to believe in my wife. Leonard, how can you talk like that? You who know Christabel's high principles. Yes, but I wanted to be sure that she had never cared for anyone but me, and you have spoiled my chances of that.

He stayed little more than a month in London, going back to Mount Royal soon after Ascot, and while the June roses were still in their glory. Brief, as his absence had been, even his careless eye could see that his mother had changed for the worse since their parting. The hollow cheek had grown hollower, the languid eye more languid, the hand that clung so fondly to his broad brown palm was thinner and more waxen of hue. His mother welcomed him with warmest love.

My dearest one, she said tenderly, this is an unexpected delight. It is so good of you to come back to me so soon. I want to have you with me, dear, as much as possible. Now? Why, mother? He asked kindly, for a dull pain in his breast seemed to answer to these words of hers. Because I do not think it will be for long. I am very weak, dear. Life seems to be slipping away from me. But there is no pain, no terror. I feel as if I were being gently carried along a slow, gliding stream to some sheltered haven, which I can picture to myself, although I have never seen it. I have only one care, Leonard, one anxiety, and that is for your future happiness.

I want your life to be full of joy, dearest, and I want it to be a good life like your fathers. Yes, he was a good old buffer, wasn't he? said Leonard. Everybody about here speaks well of him. But then, I dare say, that's because he had plenty of money and wasn't afraid to spend it, and was an easy master and all that sort of thing, don't you know? That's a kind of goodness. which isn't very difficult for a man to practice.

Your father was a Christian, Leonard, a sound, practical Christian, and he did his duty in every phase of life, answered the widow, half proudly, half reproachfully. No doubt, all I say is that it's uncommonly easy to be a Christian under such circumstances. Your circumstances will be as easy, I trust, Leonard, and your surroundings no less happy if you win your cousin for your wife.

And I feel sure you will win her, "'Ask her soon, dear. Ask her very soon, that I may see you married to her before I die.' "'You think she'll say yes if I do? I don't want to precipitate matters and get snubbed for my pains.' "'I think she will say yes. She must know how my heart is set upon this marriage. It has been the dream of my life.' Despite his self-assurance, his fixed opinion as to his own personal and social value, Leonard Tregonel hesitated a little at asking that question which must certainly be one of the most solemn inquiries of a man's life. His cousin had been all kindness and sweetness to him since his return, yet in his inmost heart he knew that her regard for him was at best of a calm cousin quality. He knew this, but he told himself that if she were only willing to accept him as her husband, the rest must follow.

It would be his business to see that she was a good wife, and in time she would grow fonder of him, no doubt. He meant to be an indulgent husband. He would be very proud of her beauty, grace, accomplishments. There was no man among his acquaintance who could boast of such a charming wife. She should have her own way in everything. Of course, so long as her way did not run counter to his. She would be mistress of one of the finest places in Cornwall, the house in which she had been reared,

and which she loved with that foolish affection which cats, women, and other inferior animals feel for familiar abutations. altogether as mr tregonel told himself in his simple and expressive language she would have a very good time and it would be hard lines if she were not grateful and did not take kindly to him yet he hesitated considerably before putting the crucial question and at last he took the leap hurriedly and not too judiciously one lovely june morning when he and christabel had gone for a long ride alone they were not in the habit of riding alone and major brie was to have been their companion upon this particular morning, but he had sent at the last moment to excuse himself on account of a touch of sciatica. They rode early, leaving Mount Royal soon after eight, so as to escape the Meridian Sun. The world was still fresh and dewy as they rode slowly up the hill, and then down again into the lanes leading towards Camelford, and there was that exquisite feeling of purity in the

atmosphere which wears off as the day grows older. "'My mother is looking rather seedy bell, don't you think?' he began. She is looking very ill, Leonard. She has been ill for a long time. God grant we may keep her with us a few years yet, but I am full of fear about her. I go to her room every morning with an aching heart, dreading what the night may have brought.

Thank God you came home when you did. It would have been cruel to stay away longer. That's very good in you, Belle, uncommonly good, to talk about cruelty, when you must know that it was your fault I stayed away so long. "'My fault! What had I to do with it?' "'Everything. I should have been home a year and a half ago, home last Christmas twelve-month. I had made all my plans with that intention, for I was slightly homesick in those days.

Didn't relish the idea of three thousand miles of everlasting wet between me and those I loved, and I was coming across the big drink as fast as a Coonard could bring me when I got Mother's letter telling me of your engagement. then I coiled up and made up my mind to stay in America till I'd done some big licks in the sporting line. Why should that have influenced you? Christabel asked coldly. Why? Confound it.

Bell, you know that without asking. You must know that it wouldn't be over pleasant for me to be living at Mount Royal while you and your lover were spooning about the place. You don't suppose I could quite have stomach that, do you? To see another man making love to the girl I always meant to marry? for you know, Belle, I always did mean it. When you were in pinafores, I made up my mind that you were the future Mrs. Tregonel.

You did me a great honor, said Belle with a nicey smile, and I suppose I ought to be very proud to hear it now. Perhaps if you had told me your intention while I was in pinafores, I might have grown up with a due appreciation of your goodness. But you see, as you never said anything about it, my life took another bent. Don't chaff, Belle, exclaimed Leonard. I am in earnest. I was hideously savage when I heard that you had got yourself engaged to a man whom you'd only known a week or two, a man who had led a rackety life in London and Paris.

"'Stop!' cried Christabel, turning upon him with flashing eyes. "'I forbid you to speak of him. What right have you to mention his name to me?' "'I have suffered enough, but that is an impertinence I will not endure. If you are going to say another word about him, I'll ride back to Mount Royal as fast as my horse can carry me. And get spilt on the way. Why, what a spitfire you are, Belle. I had no idea there was such a spice of the devil in you, said Leonard, somewhat abashed by this rebuff. Well, I'll hold my tongue about him in future. I'd much rather talk about you and me and our prospects. What is to become of you, Belle, when the poor mother goes? You and the doctor have both made up your

that she's not long for this world for my own part i'm not such a croaker and i have known many a creaking door hanging a precious long time on its hinges still it's well to be prepared for the worst where is your life to be spent bell when the master has sent in her checks heaven knows answered christabel tears welling up in her eyes as she turned her head from the questioner my life will be little worth living when she is gone but i dare say i shall go on living all the same "'Sorrow takes such a long time to kill anyone. "'I suppose Jesse and I will go on the continent "'and travel from place to place, "'trying to forget the old dear life among new scenes and new people. "'And nicely you will get yourself talked about,' said Leonard, "'with that unhesitating brutality which is friends called Frankness.

"'A young and handsome woman, "'without any male relative wandering about the continent. "'I shall have Jesse.' "'A paid companion. "'A vast protection she would be to you, "'about as much as a Pomeranian dog or a pole parrot.' "'Then I can stay in England,' answered Christabel indifferently. "'It will matter very little where I live.'

"'Come, Belle,' said Leonard, in a friendly, comfortable tone, "'laying his broad, strong hand on her horse's neck, "'as they rode slowly side by side up the narrow road "'between hedges filled with honeysuckle and agglantine. "'This is flying in the face of Providence, "'which has made you young and handsome, and an heiress, in order that you might get the most out of life. Is a young woman's life to come to an ant all at once

because an elderly woman dies? That's rank nonsense. That's the kind of way widows talk in their first edition of crape and caps. But they don't mean it, my dear, or say they think they mean it, they never hold by it. That kind of widow is always a wife again before the second year of her widowhood is over.

And to hear you, not quite one in twenty, and as fit as a fid, in the very zenith of your beauty, said Leonard hastily, correcting the hoarsy tone of his compliment, to hear you talk in that despairing way is too provoking. Come, Belle, be rational. Why should you go wandering about Switzerland and Italy with a shush little old maid like Jesse Bridgman? When, when you can stay at Mount Royal and be its mistress?

I always meant you to be my wife, Belle, and I still mean it, in spite of bygones. You are very good, very forgiving, said Christ. with most irritating placidity, but unfortunately I never meant to be your wife then, and I don't mean it now. In plain words, you reject me? If you intend this for an offer, most decidedly, answered Christabel as firm as a rock.

Come, Leonard, don't look so angry. Let us be friends and cousins, almost brother and sister, as we have been in all the years that are gone. Let us unite in the endeavor to make your dear mother's life happy, so happy, that she may grow strong and well again, restored by perfect freedom from care.

If you and I were to quarrel, she would be miserable. We must be good friends always, if it were only for her sake. That's all very well, Christabel, but a man's feelings are not so entirely within his control as you seem to suppose. Do you think I shall ever forget how you threw me over for a fellow you had only known a week or so? And now, when I tell you how, from my boyhood, I have relied upon your being my wife,

I always kept you in my mind as the only woman who was to bear my name, and sit at the head of my table. You coolly inform me that it can never be. You would rather go wandering about the world with a hired companion. Jesse is not a hired companion. She is my very dear friend. You choose to call her so, but she came to Mount Royal in answer to an advertisement, and my mother pays her wages, just like the housemaids.

You would rather roam a belt with Jesse Bridgman, getting yourself talked about at every tabladoat in Europe, a prey for every captain to cease, or loose fish on the continent, then you would be my wife and mistress of Mount Royal. Because nearly a year ago I made up my mind never to be any man's wife, Leonard, answered Christabel gravely. I should hate myself if I were to depart from that resolve. You mean that when you broke with Mr. Hamley,

you did not think there was anyone in the world good enough to stand in his shoes, said Leonard savagely. And for the sake of a man who turned out so badly that you were obliged to chuck him up, you refuse a fellow who has loved you all his life. Christabel turned her horse's head and went homewards at a sharp trot, leaving Leonard discomfited in the middle of the lane. He had nothing to do but trot meekly after her, afraid to go too fast lest he should urge her horse to a bolt,

and managing at last to overtake her at the bottom of a hill. Do find some grass somewhere so that we may get to canter, she said, and her cousin knew that there was to be no more conversation that morning. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5. But here is one who loves you as of old.

After this, Leonard sulked, and the aspect of home life at Mount Royal became cloudy and troubled. He was not absolutely uncivil to his cousin, but he was not absolutely uncivil to his cousin, but he was deeply resentful, and he showed his resentment in various petty ways, descending so low as to give an occasional sly kick to Randy. He was grumpy in his intercourse with his mother. He took every opportunity of being rude to Miss Bridgman. He sneered at all their womanly occupations, their charities, their church-going.

That domestic sunshine which had so gladdened the widow's heart was gone forever, as it seemed. Her son now snatched at every occasion for getting away from home. He dined at Bodmin one night, at Launceston another. He had friends to meet at Plymouth and dined and slept at the Duke of Cornwall. He came home bringing worse devils, in the way of ill-temper and rudeness, than those which he had taken away with him. He no longer pretended the faintest interest in Christabel's playing, confessing frankly that all classical compositions, especially those of Beethoven, suggested to him that far-famed melody which was fatal to the traditional cow. He no longer offered to make her a fine billiard player.

No woman ever could play billiards, he said contemptuously. They have neither eye nor wrist. They know nothing about strengths, and always handle their cue as if it was Moses' rod and was going to turn into a snake and bite him. Mrs. Tregonel was not slow to guess the cause of her son's changed humor. She was too intentionally anxious for the fulfillment of this chief desire of her soul

not to be painfully conscious of failure. She had urged Leonard to speak soon, and he had spoken with disastrous result. She had seen the angry cloud upon her son's brow when he came home from that tait-a-tight ride with Christabel. She feared to question him, for it was her rash counsel, perhaps, which had brought this evil result to pass. Yet she could not hold her peace forever. So one evening when Jessie and Christabel were dining at Travalca rectory, and Mrs. Tregonel was enjoying the sole privilege of her son's company, she ventured to approach the subject.

How altered you have been lately? Lately, meaning for at least a month, in your manner to your cousin Leonard. She said, with a feeble attempt to speak lightly, her voice tremulous with suppressed emotion. Has she offended you in any way? You and she used to be so very sweet to each other. Yes, she was all honey when I first came home, wasn't she, mother?

returned Leonard, nursing his boot and frowning at the lamp on the low table by Mrs. Tregonnell's chair. All hypocrisy, rank humbug, that's what it was. She is still bewailing that fellow whom you brought here, and mark my words, she'll marry him sooner or later. She threw him over in a fit of temper and pride and jealousy, and when she finds she can't live without him, she'll take some means of bringing him back to her. It was all your doing, mother.

You spoiled my chances when you brought your old sweetheart's son into this house. I don't think you could have had much respect for my dad. father when you invited that man to Mount Royal. Mrs. Tregonnell's mild look of reproach might have touched the hardest heart, but it was lost on Leonard, who sat scowling at the lamp and did not once meet his mother's eyes. "'It is not kind of you to say that, Leonard,' she said gently. "'You ought to know that I was a true and loving wife to your father,

in that I have always honoured his memory as a true wife should.' He knew that I was interested in Angus Hamley's career, and he never resented that feeling. I am sorry your cousin has rejected you. More sorry than even you yourself can be, I believe, for your marriage has been the dream of my life. But we cannot control fate. Are you really fond of her, dear? Fond of her?

Her great deal too fond. Foolishly, ignominiously fond of her, so fond that I am beginning to detest her. Don't despair, then, Leonard. Let this first refusal count for nothing. Only be patient and just. with her. Not cold and rude as you have been lately. It's easy to talk, said Leonard contemptuously.

But do you suppose I can feel very kindly towards a girl who refused me as coolly as if I had been asking her to dance, and who let me see at the same time that she is still passionately in love with Angus Hamley? You should have seen how she blazed out at me when I mentioned his name. Her eyes flaming, her cheeks first crimson and then deadly pale. That's what love means. and even if she were willing to be my wife to-morrow she would never give me such love as that curse her muttered the lover between his clenched teeth i didn't know how fond i was of her till she refused me and now i could crawl at her feet and sue to her as a palavering irish beggarsues for alms cringing and fawning and plattering and lying and yet in my heart of hearse i should be savage with her all the time knowing that she will never care for me as she cared for that other fellow "'Leonard, if you knew how it pains me to hear you talk like that,' said Mrs. Tregenel.

"'It makes me fearful of your impetuous self-willed nature.' "'Self-will be—blank. Somethinged,' growled Leonard. "'Did you ever know a man who cultivated anybody else's will? Would you have me pretend to be better than I am? Tell you that I can feel all affection for the girl who preferred the first stranger who came in her way to the playfellow and companion of her childhood? "'If you had been a little less tormenting, a little less exacting with her in those days, Leonard. I think she would have remembered you more tenderly,' said Mrs. Tregenel.

"'If you are going to lecture me about what I was as a boy, we'd better cut the conversation,' retorted Leonard. "'I'll go and practice the spot-stroke for half an hour, while you take your after-dinner nap.' "'No, dear, don't go away. I don't feel in the least inclined for sleep. I had no idea of lecturing you, Leonard, believe me. only I cannot help regretting, as you do, that Christabel should not be more attached to you. But I feel very sure that if you are patient, she will come to think differently by and by.

Didn't you tell me to ask her, and quickly? Yes, that was because I was impatient. Life seemed slipping away from me, and I was so eager to be secure of my dear boy's happiness. Let us try different tactics, Leo. Take things quietly for a little. "'Behave to your cousin, just as if there had been nothing of this kind between you, "'and who knows what may happen?'

"'I know of one thing that may and will happen next October, "'unless the lady changes her tune,' answered Leonard sulkily. "'What is that?' "'I shall go to South America. "'Do a little mountaineering in the equatorial Andes. "'Enjoy a little life in Valparaiso, to Xiloh. "'Lord knows where. "'I have done North America from Canada to Frisco,

"'and now I shall do the south.' "'Lennard, you would not be so cruel as to leave me to die in my loneliness. "'For I think, dear, you must know that I have not long to live. "'Come, mother, I believe you fancy yourself ever so much worse than you really are. "'This jog-trot, monotonous life of yours, would breed vapours in the liveliest person. "'Besides, if you should be ill while I am away, you'll have your niece, whom you love as a daughter, and perhaps your niece's husband, this dear Angus of yours, to take care of you.' You are very hard upon me, Leonard.

And yet, I went against my conscience for your sake. I let Christabel break with her lover. I never said one word in his favor, although I must have known in my heart that they would both be miserable. I had your interest at heart more than theirs. I thought, here is a chance for my boy. You were very considerate, a day after the fair. Don't you think it would have been better to be wise before the event,

and not have invited that coxcomb to mount Royal. He came again and again to the charge, always with fresh bitterness. He could not forgive his mother for this involuntary wrong which she had done to him. After this he went off to the solitude of the billiard-room and a leisurely series of experiments upon the spot-stroke. It was his only idea of a contemplative evening. He was no less sullen and gloomy in his manner to Christabel next morning at breakfast, for all his mother had said to him overnight. He answered his cousin in monosyllables and was rude to Randy, wondered that his mother should allow dogs in her dining room, albeit Randy's manners were far superior to his own.

Later in the morning, when Christabel and her aunt were alone, the girl crept to her favorite place beside Mrs. Tregenel's chair, and with her folded arms resting on the cushioned elbow, looked up lovingly at the widow's grave, sad face. "'Auntie, dearest, you know so well how fondly I love you "'that I am sure you won't think me any less loving and true "'if I ask you to let me leave you for a little while. "'Let me go away somewhere with Jessie to some quiet German town "'where I can improve myself in music

"'and where she and I can lead a hard-working studious life, "'just like a couple of Gertian girls. "'You remember last year you suggested that we should travel, "'and I refused your offer, "'thinking that I should be happier at home. "'But now I feel that I feel that. need of a change. And you would leave me, now that my health is broken, and that I am so dependent on your love,

said Mrs. Tregonel with mild reproachfulness. Christabel bent down to kiss the thin, white hand that lay on the cushion near her, anxious to hide the tears that sprang quickly to her eyes. You have Leonard, she faltered. You are happy, are you not, dearest? Now Leonard is at home again? At home, yes. I thank God that my son is under my roof once more.

But how long may he stay at home? How much do I have of his company, in and out all day, anywhere but at my side, making every possible excuse for leaving me? He has begun already to talk of going to South America in the autumn. Poor boy, he is restless and unhappy, and I know the reason. You must know it, too, Belle. It is your fault. You have spoiled the dream of my life.

Auntie, is this generous? is this fair pleaded christabel with her head still bent over the pale-waisted hand it is natural at least answered the widow impetuously why cannot you care for my boy why cannot you understand and value his devotion it is not an idle fancy born of a few weeks acquaintance not the last new caprice ever battered rouet who offers his worn-out heart to you when other women have done with it leonards is the love of long years the love of a fresh unspoiled nature. I know he has not Angus Hamley's refinement of manner. He is not so clever, so imaginative, but of what value is such surface refinement when the man's inner nature is coarse and profligate. A man who has lived among impure women must have become coarse. There must be deterioration, ruin for a man's nature in such a life as that, continued Mrs. Tregonnell passionately, her resentment against Angus Hamley kindling as she thought how he had ousted her son.

"'Why should you not value my boy's love?' she asked again. "'What is there wanting in him that you should treat him so contemptuously? "'He is young, handsome, brave, owner of this place of which you are so fond. "'Your marriage with him would bring the Champor-Nown estate together again. "'Everybody was sorry to see it divided. "'It would bring together two of the oldest and best names in the county. "'You might call your eldest son Champor-Nown Tregonel. Don't, Auntie, don't go on like that, entreated Christabel, piteously.

If you only knew how little such arguments influenced me. The glories of our rank and state or shadows, not substantial things. What difference do names and lands make in the happiness of a life? If Angus Hamley had been a ploughman's son, like Burns, nameless, penniless, only just himself, I should have loved him exactly the same. Dearest, these are the things in which we cannot be governed by other people's wisdom. Our hearts choose for us, in spite of us. I have been obliged to think seriously of life since Leonard and I had that unlucky conversation the other day. He told

you about it, perhaps? He told me that you refused him. As I would have refused any other man, auntie, I have made up my mind to live and die unmarried. It is the only tribute I can offer to one I loved so well. And who proved so unworthy of your life? love, said Mrs. Tregonel, moodily. Do not speak of him, if you cannot speak kindly. You once loved his father, but you seem to have forgotten that. Let me go away for a little while, Auntie. A few months only, if you like.

My presence in this house only does harm. Leonard is angry with me, and you are angry for his sake. We are all unhappy now. Nobody talks really, or laughs, or takes life pleasantly. We all feel constrained and missus. "'Let me go, dear. When I am gone, you and Leonard can be happy together.' "'No, Belle, we cannot. You have spoiled his life. You have broken his heart.' Christabel smiled a little contemptuously at the mother's wailing. "'Hearts are not so easily

broken,' she said. Leonard's least of all. He is angry because for the first time in his life he finds himself thwarted. He wants to marry me, and I don't want to marry him. Do you remember how angry he was when he wanted to go out shooting at eleven years of age, and you refused him a gun? He moped and fretted for a week, and you were quite as unhappy as he was. It is almost the first thing I remember about him. When he found you were quite firm in your refusal, he left off sulking and reconciled himself to the inevitable.

He will do just the same about this refusal of mine, when I am out of his sight, but my presence here irritates him. Christabel, if you leave me, I shall know that you have never loved me, said Mrs. Tregonel, with sudden vehemence. You must know that I am dying, very slowly, perhaps, a wearisome decay for those who can only watch and wait and bear with me till I am dead. But I know and feel that I am dying. This trouble will hasten my end, and instead of dying in peace, with the assurance of my boy's happy future, with the knowledge that he will have a virtuous and loving wife, a wife of my own training to guide him and influence him for good,

I shall die miserable, fearing that he may fall into evil hands, and that evil days may come upon him. I know how impetuous, how impulsive he is, how easily governed through his feelings, a little able to rule himself by hard common sense. And you, who have known him all your life, who know the best and worst of him, you can be so indifferent to his happiness, Christabel.

How can I believe in the things, of this that you ever loved me, his mother. I have loved you as my mother, replied the girl with her arms around her aunt's neck, her lips pressed against that pale, thin cheek. I love you better than anyone in the world. If God would spare you for years to come, and we could live always together and be all in all to each other as we have been, I think I could be quite happy. Yes, I could feel as if there was nothing wanting in this life.

But I cannot marry a man I do not love, whom I know. never can love. He would take you on trust, Belle, murmured the mother imploringly. He would be content with duty and good faith. I know how true and loyal you are, dearest, and that you would be a perfect wife. Love would come afterwards. Will it make you happier if I don't go away, Auntie? asked Christabel gently. Much happier. Then I will stay, and a Leonard may be as rude to me as he likes. He may do anything disagreeable except kick Randy, and I will not murmur. But you and I must never talk of him as we have talked today. It can do no good. After this came much kissing and hugging and a few tears, and it was agreed

that Christabel should forego her idea of six-month study of classical music at the famous conservatoire at Leipzig. She and Jessie had made all their plans before she spoke to her aunt, and when she informed Miss Bridgman that she had given way to Mrs. Tregonnell's wish, and had abandoned dull idea of Germany, that strong-minded young woman expressed herself most unreservedly. "'You are a fool,' she exclaimed. "'No doubt that's an outrageous remark from a person in my position to an heiress like you, but I can't help it. You are a fool, a yielding self-abnegating fool.

If you stay here you will marry that man. There is no escape possible for you. Your aunt has made up her mind about it. She will worry you till you give your consent, and then you will be miserable ever afterwards. I shall do nothing of the kind. I wonder that you can think me so weak. If you are weak enough to stay,

you will be weak enough to do the other thing, retorted Jessie. How can I go when my aunt looks at me with those sad eyes, dying eyes? They are so changed since last year, and implores me to stop. I thought you loved her, Jesse. I do love her with a fond and grateful affection. She was my first friend outside my own.

own home. She is my benefactress. But I have to think of your welfare, Christabel, your welfare in this world and the world to come. Both will be in danger if you stay here and marry Leonard Tregonel. I am going to stay here, and I am not going to marry Leonard. Will that assurance satisfy you? One would think I had no will of my own. You have not the will to withstand your aunt. She parted you and Mr. Hamley, and she will marry you to her son. "'The parting was my act,' said Christabel. "'It was your aunt who brought it about. "'Had she been true and loyal, there would have been no such parting.

"'If you had only trusted to me in that crisis, "'I think I might have saved you some sorrow. "'But what's done cannot be undone. "'There are some cases in which a woman must judge for herself,' "'Christabelle replied coldly. "'A woman, yes, a woman who has some experience of life, "'but not a girl, who knows nothing of the hard real world, and its temptations, difficulties, struggles.

Don't let us talk of it anymore. I cannot trust myself to speak when I remember how shamefully he was treated. Christabel stared in amazement. The calm, practical Miss Bridgman spoke with a passionate vehemence which took the girl's breath away, and yet, in her heart of hearts, Christabel was grateful to her for this sudden flash of anger.

I did not know you liked him so much, that you were so sorry for him, she faltered. Then you ought to have known, if you ever took the trouble to remember how good he always was to me, how sympathetic, how tolerant of my company when it was forced upon him day after day, how seemingly unconscious of my plainness and doughtiness. Why, there was not a present he gave me which did not show the most thoughtful study of my taste and fancies.

I never look at one of his gifts. I was not obliged to fling his offerings back in his face as you were, without wondering that a fine gentleman could be so full of small charities and delicate courtesy. he was like one of those wits and courtiers one reads of in Burnett, not spotless, like Tennyson's Arthur, but the very essence of refinement and good feeling. God bless him, wherever he is. You are very odd sometimes, Jesse, said Christabel, kissing her friend,

but you have a noble heart. There was a marked change in Leonard's conduct when he and his cousin met in the drawing-room before dinner. He had been absent at luncheon on a trout-fishing expedition, but there had been time since his return for a long conversation between him and his mother. She had told him how his sullen temper had almost driven Christabel from the house, and how she had been only induced to stay by an appeal to her affection. This evening he was all amiability, and tried to make his peace with Randy,

who received his caresses with the stolid forbearance rather than with gratification. It was easier to make friends with Christabel than with the dog, for she wished to be kind to her cousin on his mother's account. That evening the reign of domestic peace seemed to be renewed. There were no thunder clouds in the atmosphere. Leonard strolled about the lawn with his mother and Christabel, looking at the roses, and planning where a few more choice trees might yet be added to the collection. Mrs. Tregenel's walks now rarely went beyond this broad velvet lawn or the shrubberies that bordered it.

She drove to church on Sundays, but she had left off visiting that involved long drives, though she professed herself delighted to see her friends. she did not want the house to become dull and gloomy for leonard she even insisted that there should be a garden party on christabel's twenty-first birthday and she was delighted when some of the old friends who came to mount royal that day insinuated their congratulations in a tentative manner upon miss courtney's impending engagement to her cousin there is nothing definitely settled she told mrs stobin but i have every hope that it will be so leonard adores her and it would be a much more suitable match for her than the other, said Mrs. St. Obin, a commonplace matron of irreproachable lineage. It would be so nice for you to have her settled near you. Would they live at Mount Royal? Of course. Where else should my son live but in his father's house? But it is your house. Do you think I should allow my life interest in the place to stand in the

way of Leonard's enjoyment of it? exclaimed Mrs. Shregonel. I should be proud to take the second place in his house, proud to see his young wife at the head of his table. that is all very well in theory but i have never seen it work out well in fact said the rector of travalga who made a third in the little group seated on the edge of the wide lawn where a sport of youth was playing tennis in half a dozen courts to the enlivening strains of a military band from bodmin barracks how thoroughly happy christabel looks observed another friendly matron to mrs tregonel a little later in the afternoon she seems to have quite got over her trouble about mr hamley yes i hope that is forgotten answered mrs treganel this garden party was an occasion of unspeakable pain to christabel her aunt had insisted upon sending out the invitations there must be some kind of festival upon her adopted daughter's coming of age the inheritor of lands and money was a person whose twenty-first birthday could not be permitted to slip by unmarked like any other day in the calendar if we were to have no garden party this summer people would say you were broken-hearted at the sad end of last year's engagement darling said mrs tregonel when christabel had been to have no garden party this summer people would say you were broken-hearted at the sad end of last year's engagement darling said mrs treganel when christabel had had pleaded against the contemplated assembly, and I know your pride would revolt at that. Dear auntie, my pride has been leveled to the dust, if ever I had any. It will not raise its

head on account of a garden party. Mrs. Tregonnell insisted, albeit even her small share of the preparations, the mere revision of the list of guests, the discussion and acceptance of Jesse Bridgman's arrangements, was a fatigue to the jaded mind and enfeebled body. When the day came, the mistress of Mount Royal carried herself with the old air of quiet dignity which her friends knew so well. People saw that she was aged, that she had grown pale and thin, and won, and they ascribed this change in her anxiety about her niece's engagement. There were vague ideas as to the cause of Mr. Hamley's dismissal, dim notions of terrible iniquities, startling revelations, occurring on the very brink of marriage. That section of county society which did not go to London

knew a great deal more about the details of the story than the people who had been in town at the time and had seen Miss Courtney and her lover almost daily. For those daughters of the soil who but rarely crossed the Tamar, the story of Miss Courtney's engagement was a social mystery of so darker complexion that it afforded inexhaustible material

for tea-table gossip. A story of which no one seemed to know the exact details gave wide ground for speculation and could always be looked at from new points of view. And now, here was the same. Miss Courtney smiling upon her friends, fair and radiant, showing no traces of last year's tragedy in her looks or manners, being indeed one of those women who do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves for Dawes to peck at. The local mind, therefore, arrived at the conclusion

that Miss Courtney had consoled herself for the loss of one lover by the gain of another, and was now engaged to her cousin. Clara St. Obin ventured to congratulate her upon this happy issue out of bygone griefs. I am so glad, she said, squeezing Christabel's hand during an inspection of the hot-houses. I like him so much. I don't quite understand, replied Christabel with a freezing look. Who is at whom you like?

Then you cure it? No, dear. Don't pretend to misunderstand me. I am so pleased to think that you and your cousin are going to make a match of it. He is so handsome, such a fine, frank, open-hearted manner, so all together nice. I am pleased to hear you praise him, said Christabel still supremely cold, but my cousin is my cousin and will never be anything more.

You don't mean that? I do, without the smallest reservation. Clara became thoughtful. Leonard Tregonel was one of the best matches in the county, and he had always been civil to her. They had tastes in common, were both horsey and doggy and plain-spoken to brusqueness. Why should not she be the mistress of Mount Royal by-and-by if Christabel despised her opportunities?

At half-fast seven, the last carriage had driven away from the porch, and Mrs. Tregonel, thoroughly exhausted by the exertions of the afternoon, reclined languidly in her favourite chair, moved from its winter-place by the hearth to a deep and bayed window looking on to the Rose Garden. Christabel sat on a stool at her aunt's feet, her fair head resting against the cushioned elbow of Mrs. Tregonel's chair. Well, Auntie, the people are gone and the birthday is over. Isn't that a blessing? she said lightly.

Yes, dear, it is over, and you are of age, your own mistress. My guardianship expires today. I wonder whether I shall find any difference in my darling, now she is out of leading strings. I don't think you will, Auntie. I have not much inclination for desperate flights of any kind. What can freedom or the unrestricted use of my fortune give me, which your indulgence has not already given? what whim or fancy of mine have you ever thwarted no aunt die i don't think there is any scope for rebellion on my part and you will not leave me dear till the end pleaded the widow your bondage cannot be for very long

"'Auntie, how can you speak like that, when you know, when you must know that I have no one in the world but you now?' "'No one, dearest,' said Christabel, on her knees at her aunt's feet, clasping and kissing the pale, transparent hands. "'I have not the knack of loving many people. Jesse is very good to me, and I am fond of her as my friend and companion. Uncle Oliver is all goodness, and I am fond of him in just the same way. But I never loved anyone but you and Angus.'

Angus is gone from me, and if God takes you, Auntie, my prayer is that I may speedily follow you. My love, that is a blasphemous prayer. It implies doubt in God's goodness. He means the young and innocent to be happy in this world. Happy and a source of happiness to others. You will form new ties. A husband and children will console you for all you have lost in the past. No, aunt, I shall never marry.

Put that idea out of your mind. You will think less badly of me for refusing Leonard if you understand that I have made up my mind to live and die unmarried. But I cannot and will not believe that, bell. Whatever you may think now, a year hence your ideas will have entirely altered. Remember my own history? When George Hamley died, I thought the world, so far as it concerned me, had come to an end, that I had only to wait for death. My fondest hope was that I should die within the year and be buried in a grave near.

his. Yet, five years afterwards, I was a happy wife and mother. God was good to you, said Christabel quietly, thinking all the while that her aunt must have been made of a different clay from herself. There was a degradation in being able to forget. It implied a lower kind of organism than that finely-strung nature which loves once and once only. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This the Brevalk's recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6. That Lip and Voice Are Mute Forever

Having pledged herself to remain with her aunt to the end, Christabel was vain to make the best of her life at Mount Royal, and in order to do this she must needs keep on good terms with her cousin. Leonard's conduct of late had been irreproachable. He was attentive to his mother, all amiability to Christabel, and almost civil to Miss Bridgman. He contrived to make his peace with Randy, and he made such a good impression upon Major Bree

that he won the warm praises of that gentleman. The cross-country rides were resumed, the Major all was in attendance, and Leonard and his cousin were so often together, riding, driving, or walking, that the idea of an engagement between them became a fixture in the local mind, which held that when one was off with the old love,

it was well to be on with the new. And so the summer ripened and waned. Mrs. Tregonol's health seemed to improve in the calm happiness of a domestic life in which there was no indication of disunion. She had never surrendered her hope of Christabel's relenting. Leonard's frank and generous character, his good looks, his local popularity,

must ultimately prevail over the memory of another, that other having so completely given up his chances. Mrs. Tregenel was half inclined to recognize the nobleness of that renunciation, half disposed to accept it as a proof that Angus Hamley's heart still hankered after the actress who had been his first infatuation. In either case, no one could doubt that it was well for Christabel to be released from such an engagement.

To where Angus would have been to tie herself to sickness and death, to take upon herself the burden of early widowhood, to put on sackcloth and ashes as a wedding garment. It was winter, and there were patches of snow upon the hills, and sea and sky were of one chill, slaty hue, before Leonard ventured to repeat that question which he had asked with such ill effect in the sweet summer morning between hedgerows flushed with roses. but through all the changes of the waning year there had been one purpose in his mind and every act of his life had tended to one result he had sworn to himself that his cousin should be his wife whatever barriers of disinclination direct antagonism even there might be on her side must be broken down by dogged patience unyielding determination on his side he had the spirit of the hunter to whom that prey is most precious which costs the longest chase

he loved his cousin more passionately to-day after keeping his feelings in check for six months than he had loved her when he had asked her to be his wife every day of delay had increased his ardor and strengthened his resolve it was new year's day christabel and miss bridgman had been to church in the morning and had taken a long walk with leon who contrived to waylay them at the church door after church they had come a rather late at luncheon after which christabel spent an hour in her aunt's room reading to her and talking a little in a subdued way. It was one of Mrs. Tregonnell's bad days, a day upon which she could hardly leave her sofa, and Christabel came away from the invalid's room full of sadness. She was sitting by the fire in the library, alone in the dusk, save for Randy's company, when her cousin came in and found her. Why, Belle, what are you doing all alone in the dark? he exclaimed. I almost thought the room was empty.

Ah, I have been thinking, she said with a sigh. Your thoughts could not have been over-pleasant, I should think, by. that sigh, said Leonard, coming over to the hearth and drawing the logs together. There's a cheerful blaze for you. Don't give way to sad thoughts on the first day of the year, Belle. It's a bad beginning. I have been thinking of your dear mother, Leonard, my mother, for she has been more to me than one mother in a hundred is to her daughter. She is with us today, a part of our lives, very frail and feeble, but still our own. Where will she be next New Year's Day?

"'Ah, Belle, that's a bad lookout for both of us,' answered Leonard, seating himself in his mother's empty chair. "'I'm afraid she won't last out the year that begins today. But she has seemed brighter and happier lately, hasn't she?' "'Yes, I think she has been happier,' said Christabel. "'Do you know why?' His cousin did not answer him. She sat with her face bent over her dog, hiding her tears on Randy's sleek black head. "'I think I know why the mother has been so tranquil in her mind lately, "'said Leonard, with unusual earnestness. "'And I think you know just as well as I do. "'She has seen you and me more friendly together,

"'more cousinly, and she has looked forward "'to the fulfillment of an old wish and dream of hers. "'She has looked for the speedy realization of that wish, Bell, "'although six months ago it seemed hopeless. "'She wants to see the two people she loves best on Earth united "'before she has taken away. "'It would make the close of her life happy "'if she could see my happiness secure.

I believe you know that, Belle. Yes, I know that it is so, but that can never be. That is a hard saying, Christabel. Half a year ago I asked you a question, and you said no. Many a man in my position would have been too proud to run the risk of a second refusal. He would have gone away in a huff and found comfort somewhere else. But I knew there was only one woman in the world who could make me happy, and I waited for her. You must own that I have been patient, have I not, Belle.

"'You have been very devoted to your dear mother, very good to me. "'I cannot deny that, Leonard,' Christabel answered gravely. She had dried her tears and lifted her head from the dog's neck and sat looking straight at the fire, self-possessed, and sad. It seemed to her as if all possibility of happiness had gone out of her life. "'Am I to have no reward?' asked Leonard. "'You know with what hope I have waited. You know that our marriage would make my mother happy,

that it would make the end of her life a festival. You owe me nothing, but you owe her something. That is suing in Forma par Paris, isn't it, Belle? But I have no pride where you are concerned. You ask me to be your wife, you don't even ask if I love you, said Christabel bitterly. What if I were to say yes, and then tell you afterwards that my heart still belongs to Angus Hamley? You had better tell me that now, if it is so, said Leonard, his face darkening in the firelight. then I will tell you that it is so.

I gave him up because I thought it by duty to give him up. I believed that in honor he belonged to another woman. I believe so still. But I have never left off loving him. That is why I have made up my mind never to marry. You are wise, retorted Leonard. Such a confession as that would settle for most men. But it does not settle for me, Belle.

I am too far gone. If you are a fool about Hamley, I am a fool about you. Only say you will marry me, and I will take my chance of all the rest. I know you will be a good wife, and I will be a good husband to you. And I suppose in the end you will get to care for me a little. One thing is certain that I can't be happy without you. So I would gladly run the risk of an occasional taste of misery with you. Come, Belle, is it a bargain?

He pleaded, taking her unresisting hands. Say that it is, dearest. Let me kiss the future mistress of Mount Wurham. Royal. He bent over and kissed her, kissed those lips which had once been sacred to Angus Hamley, which she had sworn in her heart should be kissed by no other man upon earth. She recoiled from him with a shiver of disgust. No good omen for their wedded bliss. This will make our mother very happy, said Leonard. Come to her now, Belle, and let us tell her. Christabel went with slow, reluctant steps, ashamed of the weakness which had yielded to persuasion and not to duty.

but when Mrs. Tregonel heard the news from the triumphant lover, the light of happiness that shone upon the wan face was almost an all-sufficing reward for this last sacrifice. My love, my love, cried the widow, clasping her knees to her breast. You have made my last earthly days happy. I have thought you cold and hard. I feared that I should die before you relented. But now you have made me glad and grateful.

I reared you for this. taught you for this. I have prayed for this ever since you were a child. I have prayed that my son might have a pure and perfect wife. And God has granted my prayer. After this came a period of such perfect content and tranquility for the invalid that Christabel forgot her own sorrows. She lived in an atmosphere of gladness. Congratulations, gifts were pouring in upon her every day. Her aunt petted and cherished her, was never weary of praising and correct. She lived. She was never weary of praising and caressing her. Leonard was all submission as a lover. Major Bree was delighted at the security which this engagement promised for the carrying

on of the line of chapernawns and Tregonelles, the union of two fine estates. He had looked forward to a dismal period when the widow would be laid in her grave, her son a wanderer, and Christabel a resident at Plymouth or Bath. While spiders wove their webs in shadowy corners of the good old manor house and mice, to all appear in self-sustaining, scampered and scurried behind the panel. "'Jesse Bridgman was the only member of Christabel's circle "'who refrained from any expression of approval. "'Did I not tell you that you must end by marrying him?' she exclaimed.

"'Did I not say that if you stayed here the thing was inevitable?' "'Continual dropping will wear away a stone. "'The stone is a fixture and can't help being dropped upon. "'But if you had stuck to your colours and gone to Lepzig to study the piano, "'you would have escaped the dropping.' as there was no possible reason for delay while there was a powerful motive for a speedy marriage in the fact of mrs trekenal's precarious health and her ardent desire to see her son and her niece united before her fading eyes closed forever upon earth and earthly cares christabel was fain to consent to the early date which her aunt and her lover proposed and to allow all arrangements to be hurried on with that view so in the dawning of the year when proserpenny's returning footsteps were only faintly indicated by pale snowdrop and early violets lurking in sheltered hedges, and by the gold and purple of crocuses

in all the cottage gardens, Christabel put on her wedding gown, and whiter than the pale ivory tint of the soft sheenies satin, took her seat in the carriage beside her adopted mother, to be driven down into the valley and up the hilly street where all the inhabitants of Boe Castle, save those who had gone on before to congregate by the litch gate, were on the alert to see the bride go by. Mrs. Tregenel was paler than her niece, the fine regular features, blood. with that awful pallor which tells of disease, but her eyes were shining with a light of gladness. "'My darling,' she murmured as they drove down to the harbor bridge,

"'I have loved you all your life, but never as I love you today. My dearest, you have filled my soul with content.' "'I thank God that it should be so,' faltered Christabel. "'If I could only see you smile, dear,' said her aunt. "'Your expression is too sad for a bride.' "'Is it, Auntie?' "'But marriage is a serious thing, dear. It means the dedication of a life to duty.'

"'Duty which affection will make very light, I hope,' said Mrs. Tregonel, chilled by the cold statuesque face wrapped in its cloudy veil. "'Christabel, my love, tell me that you are not unhappy, that this marriage is not against your inclination. It is of your own free will that you give yourself to my boy.' "'Yes, of my own free will,' answered Christabel. firmly. As she spoke, it flashed upon her that if agenia would have given the same answer before they led her to the altar of offended Artemis. There are sacrifices offered with the

victim's free consent, which are not the less sacrifices. "'Look, dear,' cried her aunt as the children clustering at the schoolhouse gate, dismissed from school an hour before their time, waved their sturdy arms and broke into a shrill, treble cheer. Everybody is pleased at this marriage. If you are glad, dearest, I am content, murmured her niece. It was a very quiet wedding, or a wedding which ranks among quiet weddings nowadays, when nuptial ceremonies are for the most part splendid. No train of bridesmaids in aesthetic colors, Duchess of Devonshire hats, and long mittens, no page boys tagging under gigantic baskets of flowers,

no fuss or fashion to make that solemn ceremony a rare re-show for the gaping crowd. The rector of Travalga's two little girls were the only brought. whitesmaids, dressed after Sir Joshua, in short-waisted dove-coloured frocks and pink sashes, mob caps and mittens, with big bunches of primroses and violets in their chubby hands. Mrs. Tregenel looked superb in a dark ruby velvet gown and long mantle of the same rich stuff bordered with darkest sable. It was she who gave her niece away, while Major Bree acted as best man for Leonard. There were no guests at this winter wedding. Mrs. Treganel's frail health was a sufficient reason for the avoidance.

of all pomp and show, and Christabel had pleaded earnestly for a very quiet wedding. So before that altar where she had hoped to pledge herself for life until death to Angus Hamley, Christabel gave her submissive hand to Leonard Tregonel, while the fatal words were spoken, which have changed and blighted some few lives, to set against the many they have blessed and glorified. Still, deadly pale, the bride went with the bridegroom to the vestry to sign that book of fate, the register. Mrs. Tregonel following on Major Bree's arm, Miss Bridgman, a neat little figure in silver-gray poplin, and the child bridesmaids crowding in after them until a small vestry was filled with a gracious group,

all glow of color and sheen of silk and satin in the glad spring sunshine. Now, Mrs. Tragonal, said the Major cheerily when the bride and groom had signed, Let us have your name next, if you please, for I don't think there is any of us who more rejoices in this union than you do. The widow took the pen and wrote her name, below that of Christabel, with a hand that never faltered. The incumbent of Minster used to say afterwards that this autograph was the grandest in the register.

But the pen dropped suddenly from the hand that had guided it so firmly. Mrs. Tregenel looked round at the circle of faces with a strange, wild look in her own. She gave a faint half-stifled cry, and fell upon her son's breast, her arms groping about his shoulders feebly, as if they would fain have wound themselves round his neck but could not encumbered by the heavy mantle. Leonard put his arm round her and held her firmly to his breast. Dear mother, are you ill? he asked, alarmed by that strange look in the haggard face. It is the end, she faltered. Don't be sorry, dear. I am so happy. And thus, with a shivering sigh, the weary heart throbbed its last dull beat. The faded eyes grew dim, the lips were dumb,

forever. The rector tried to get Christabel out of the vestry before she could know what had happened, but the bride was clinging to her aunt's lifeless figure, half sustained in Leonard's arms, half resting on the chair which had been pushed forward to support her as she sank upon her son's breast. Vain to seek to delay the knowledge of sorrow. All was known to Christabel already as she bent over that marble face which was scarcely whiter than her own.

End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Liebervaux recording is in the public domain. Chapter 7. Not the gods can shake the past. There was a sad, silent week of waiting before the bride set forth upon her bridal tour, robed in deepest mourning. For six days the windows of Mount Royal were darkened, and Leonard and his newly wedded wife kept within the shadow of that house of death, almost as strictly as if they had been Jewish mourners, bound by ancient seven.

ceremonial laws, whereof the close observance is a kind of patriotism among a people who have no fatherland. All the hot-houses of Mount Royal gave out their treasures. White hyacinths, and rose-flash-cyclemen, gardenia, wax and camellias, faint de jijon roses, for the adornment of the death chamber. The corridor outside, that darkened room, had an odor of hot-house flowers. The house, folded in silence and darkness, felt like some splendid sepulcher. Leonard was deeply depressed by his mother's death, more shocked by its suddenness by this discordant note in his triumphant marriage song than by the actual fact. This loss, having been long discounted in his own mind among the evils of the future. Christabel's grief was terrible, albeit she had lived

for the last year in constant fear of this affliction. Its bitterness was in no wise lesson because it had been long expected. Never even in her saddest moments had she realized the agony of that parting, the cold, dull sense of loneliness, of dismal abandonment in a loveless, joyless world, when that one beloved friend was taken from her. Leonard tried his best to console her, putting aside his own sorrow in the endeavor to comfort his bride, but his efforts at consolation were not happy, for the most part taking the form of philosophical truisms, which may be very good in an almanac, or as padding for a country newspaper, but which sound dull and meaningless to the ear of the mourner who says

in his heart, there was never any sorrow like unto my sorrow. In the low sunlight of the March afternoon they laid Mrs. Tregonnell's coffin in the family vault, beside the niche, where her faithful husband of ten years wedded life took his long, last rest. There, in the darkness, the perfume of many flowers mixing with the cold-earthy odors of the tomb, they left her who had so long been the despotic mistress of Mount Royal, and then they drove back to the empty house, where the afternoon light that streamed in through newly opened windows had a garish look, as if it had no right to be there. The widow's will was of the simplest. She left legacies to the old servants, her wardrobe,

with the exception of laces and furs to dormer, mementos to a few old friends, two thousand pounds in trust for certain small local charities, to Christabel all her jewels and books, and to her son, everything else of which she died possessed. He was now, by inheritance from his mother and in right of his wife, master of the Champarnown estate, which united to the Tregonnell property, made him one of the largest landowners in the west of England. Christabel's fortune had been strictly settled on herself before her marriage, with reversion to Leonard in the failure of children. But the fact of this settlement to which she had readily agreed did not lessen Leonard's sense of importance as representative of the Tregoner's

Anne Champernown's. Christabel and her husband started for the continent on the day after the funeral, Leonard fervently hoping that change of scene and constant movement would help his wife to forget her grief. It was a dreary departure for a honeymoon tour, the sombre dress of bride and bridegroom, the doleful visage of dormer, the late Mrs. Tregonel's faithful maid, whom the present Mrs. Tregonel retained for her own service, glad to have a person about her who had so dearly loved the dead. They travelled to Weymouth, crossed to Chabour, and thence to Paris, and on without stopping to Bordeaux. Then, following the line southward, they visited all the most interesting towns of southern France.

Albis, Montauban, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Narbonne, Montpellier, Nisme, and so the fairy-like shores of the Mediterranean, lingering on their way to look at medieval cathedrals, Roman bass and amphitheaters, citadels, prisons, palaces, aqueducts, all somewhat dry as dust and tiresome to Leonard, but full of interest to Christabel, who forgot her own griefs as she poured over these relics of pagan and Christian history. Nice was in all its glory of late spring when, after a lingering progress, they arrived at that Brighton of the South. It was nearly six weeks since that March sunset, which had lighted the funeral procession

in Minster Churchyard, and Christabel was beginning to grow accustomed to the idea of her odds death. Nay, had begun to look back with a dim sense of wonder at the happy time in which the two had been together, their love unclouded by any fear of doom and parting. That last year of Mrs. Tregonal's life had been Christabel's apprenticeship to grief. All the gladness and thoughtlessness of youth had been blighted by the knowledge of an inevitable parting, a farewell that must soon be spoken. A dear hand clasped fondly today, but which must be let go tomorrow. Under that soft southern sky, a faint bloom came back to Christabel's cheeks,

which had not until now lost the wan whiteness they had worn on her wedding day. She grew more cheerful, talked brightly and pleasantly to her husband, and put off the aspect of gloom with a heavy crape-shrouted gown which marked the first period of her morning. She came down to dinner one evening in a gown of rich lustreless black silk, with a cluster of Cape Jasmine among the folds of her white-crape fichu, whereat Leonard rejoiced exceedingly, his being one of those philosophic minds which believe that the two brief days of the living should never be fritted away upon lamentations for the dead. You're looking uncommonly jolly, Belle, said Leonard. as his wife took her seat at the little table in front of an open window overlooking the blue water and the amphitheatre of hills glorified by the sunset.

They were dining at a private table in the public room of the hotel, Leonard having a fancy for the life and bustle of the tabledote rather than the seclusion of his own apartments. Christabel hated sitting down with a herd of strangers. So, by way of compromise, they dined at their own particular table and looked on at the public banquet as at a stage play enacted for their amusement. There were others who preferred the exclusiveness of a separate table, among these two middle-aged men, one military, both new arrivals, who sat within earshot of Mr. and Mrs. Tregonnell. That's a fascinating get-up, Bell, pursued Leonard, proud of his wife's beauty, and not displeased at a few respectful glances

from the men at the neighboring table which that beauty had elicited. By the by, why shouldn't we go to the opera tonight? They do traviata, none of your Wagner stuff, but one of the few operas a fellow can understand. It will cheer you up a bit. Thank you, Leonard. You are very good to think of it. But I had rather not go to any place of amusement this year.

That's rank rubbish, Bell. What can it matter, here, where nobody knows us? And do you suppose it can make any difference to my poor mother? Her sleep will be none the less tranquil? I know that, but it pleases me to honour her memory. I will go to the opera as often as you like next year, Leonard. you may go or stay away so far as i'm concerned answered leonard with a sulky air i only suggested the thing on your account i hate their squalling this was not the first time that mr tregonel had shown the cloven foot during that prolonged honeymoon he was not actually unkind to his wife he indulged her fancies for the most part even when they went counter to his he would have loaded her with gifts had she been willing to accept them he was the kind of spouse who in the estimator

of the outside world passes as a perfect husband. Proud, fond, indulgent, lavish, just the kind of husband whom a sensuous, selfish woman would consider absolutely adorable from a practical standpoint, supplementing him, perhaps, with the ideal in the person of a lover. So far, Christabel's wedded life had gone smoothly, for in the measure of her sacrifice, she had included obedience and duty after marriage.

Yet there was not an hour in which she did not feel the utter want of sympathy between her and the man she had married. Not a day in which she did not discover his inability to understand her, to think as she thought, to see as she saw. Religion, conscience, honor. For all these husband and wife had a different standard. That which was right to one was wrong to the other. Their sense of the beautiful, their estimation of art,

were as wide apart as earth and heaven. How can any union prove happy? How could there be even that smooth peacefulness which blesses some passionless unions, when the husband and wife were of so different to clay. Long as Leonard had known and loved his cousin, he was no more at home with her than he would have been with Undine, or with that ivory image which Aphrodite warmed into life at the prayer of Pygmalion the sculptor. More than once during these six weeks of matrimony, Leonard had betrayed a jealous temper, which threatened evil in the future. His courtship had been

one long struggle of self-repression. Marriage gave him back his liberty, and he used it on more than one occasion to sneer at his wife's former lover, or at her fidelity to a cancelled vow. Christabel had understood his meaning only too well, but she had heard him in a scornful silence, which was more humiliating than any other form of reproof. After that offer of the opera, Mr. Tregonale laughed into silence. His subjects for conversation were not widely varied, and his present position, aloof from all sporting pursuits and poorly provided with the London papers, reduced him almost to dumbness. Just now, he was silent from temper, and went on sulkily with his dinner, pretending to be absorbed

by consideration of the wines and dishes, most of which he pronounced abominable. When he had finished his dinner, he took out his cigarette case and went out on the balcony to smoke, leaving Christabel sitting alone at her little table. The two Englishmen at the table in the next window were talking in a comfortable, genial kind of way, and in voices quite loud enough to be overheard by their immediate neighbors. The soldier-like man sat back to back with Christabel, and she could be. could not avoid hearing the greater part of his conversation. She heard, with listless ears,

neither understanding nor interested in understanding the drift of his talk, her mind far away in the home she had left, had desolate and ruined home, as it seemed to her, now that her aunt was dead. But by and by, the sound of a too familiar name riveted her attention. Angus Hamley, yes. I saw his name in the visitor's book. He was here last month, gone on to Italy, said the soldier.

You knew him, asked the other. Don't aton. I saw a good deal of him when he was about town. Went to Mucker, didn't he? I believe he spent a good deal of money, but he never belonged to an out-and-out-fast lot. Went in for art and literature and that kind of thing, don't you know? Garrick Club, behind the scenes at the swell theatres,

Richmond and Greenwich dinners, Maidenhead, Henley, lived in a houseboat one summer. Men used to go down by the last train to Moonlit Sun. after the play. He had some very good ideas and carried them out on a large scale, but he never dropped money on cards or racing, rather looked down upon the amusements of the million. By the by, I was at rather a curious wedding just before I left London. Whose? Little fishkeys. The colonel came up to time at last. Fishky? Interrogated the civilian vaguely. Don't you know Fischke? Alias Syke,

the name by which Stella Maine condescended to be known by her intimate friends during the run of Cupid and Syke. Colonel Luscombe married her last week at St. George's, and I was at the wedding. Rather feeble of him, wasn't it? asked the civilian. Well, you see, he could hardly sink himself lower than he had done already by his infatuation for the lady. He knew that all his chances at the horse guards were gone, so if a plain gold ring could gratify a young person who had been surfeited with diamonds, why should our friend withhold that simple and inexpensive ornament? Whether the lady and gentleman will be any the happier

for this rehabilitation of their domestic circumstances is a question that can only be answered in the future. The wedding was decidedly queer. In what way? It was a case of vaulting ambition which oar leaps itself. The colonel wanted a quiet wedding. I think he would have preferred the registrar's office, no church-going or fuss of any kind.

But the lady, to whom matrimony was at, new idea willed otherwise. So she decided that the nest in St. John's Wood was not spacious enough to accommodate the wedding guests. She sent her invitations far and wide and ordered a a recherche breakfast at an hotel in Brook Street. Of the sixty people she expected about fifteen appeared, and there was a rowdy air about those select few, male and female, which was by no means congenial to the broad glare of day. Night birds every one, painted cheeks, dyed, mustachios, tremulous hands, a foreshadowing of Del Tram

in the very way some of them swallowed their champagne. I was sorry for Fischke, who looked lovely in her white satin frock and orange blossoms, but who had a piteous droop about the corners of her lips, like a child whose birthday feast has gone wrong. I felt sorrier still for the Colonel, a proud man debased by low surroundings. He will take her off the stage, I suppose,

suggested the other. Naturally he will try to do so, he'll make a good fight for it i dare say but whether he can keep fishky from the footlights is an open question i know he's in debt and i don't very clearly see how they are to live she is very fond of him isn't she yes i believe so she jilted hamley a man who worshipped her to take up with luscombe so i suppose it was a case of real affection i was told that she wasn't very bad health consumptive that sort of little person is always dying answered the other carelessly it is part of the mitye the marguerite gautier drooping lily kind of young woman but i believe this one is sickly christabel heard every word of this conversation heard and understood for the first time that her renunciation of her lover had been useless that the reparation she had deemed it his duty to make was past that the woman to whose wounded character she had sacrificed her own happiness was false and unworthy. She had been fooled, betrayed by her own generous instincts, her own emotional impulses. It would have been better for her and for Angus if she had been more worldly-minded,

less innocent of the knowledge of evil. She had blighted her own life, and perhaps his for an imaginary good. Nothing had been gained to anyone living by her sacrifice, I thought I was doing my duty, she told herself helplessly as she sat looking out at the dark water, above which the moon was rising in the cloudless purple of a southern night. Oh, how wicked that woman was to hide the truth from me, to let me sacrifice my love and my lover, knowing her own falsehood all the time. And now she is the wife of another man. How she must have laughed at my folly!

I thought it was Angus who had deserted her, and that if I gave him up, his own honorable feeling would lead him to atone for the past wrong. And now, I know that no good has been done. Only infinite evil. She thought of Angus, a lonely wanderer on the face of the earth, jilted by the first woman he had loved, renounced by the second, with no close ties of kindred, uncared for and alone.

It was hard for her to think of this, whose dearest hope had once been to devote her life to caring for him and cherishing him. prolonging that frail existence by the tender ministrations of a boundless love she pictured him in his loneliness careless of his health wasting his brief remnant of life reckless hopeless indifferent god grant he may fall in love with some good woman who will cherish him as I would have done was her unselfish prayer for she knew that domestic affection is the only spell that can prolong a fragile life it was a weak thing no doubt next morning when she was passing through the hall of the the hotel to stop at the desk on which the visitor's book was kept, and to look back through the signatures of the last three weeks for that one familiar autograph, which she had such faint chance of ever seeing again in the future. How boldly that one name seemed to stand out from the

page, and even coming upon it after a deliberate search, what a thrill it sent through her veins. This signature was as firm as a bold. She tried to think that this was an indication of health and strength. But, later in the same day, when she was a little, alone in her sitting-room, and her tea was brought to her by a German waiter, one of those superior men whom it is hard to think of as a menial, she ventured to ask a question. There was an Englishman staying here about three weeks ago. Mr. Hamley, do you remember him, she asked. The waiter interrogated himself silently for half a minute, and then replied in the affirmative. Was he an invalid? Not quite an invalid, madam. He went out a little, but he did not

seem robust. He never went to the opera or to any public entertainment. He rode a little and drove a little, and read a great deal. He was much fonder of books than most English gentlemen. Do you know where he went when he left here? He was going to the Italian lakes. Christabel asked no further question. It seemed to her a great privilege to have heard even so much as this. There was very little hope than in her road of life she would often come so nearly on her lost lover's footsteps. She was too wise to desire that this should ever meet face to face, that she, Leonard's wife, should ever again be moved by the magic of that voice, thrilled by the pathos of those dreamy eyes. But it was a privilege to hear something about him she had lost,

to know what spot of earth held him, what skies looked down upon him. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Libre Fox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8. I have put my days and dreams, out of mind. It was the end of May when Christabel and her husband went back to England and to Mount Royal. Leonard wanted to stay in London for the season and to participate in the amusement's anticipation of that golden time, but this his wife most steadfastly refused. She would be guilty of no act which could imply want of respect for her beloved dead.

She would not make her courtesy to her sovereign and her new character of a matron, or go into society within the year of her aunt's death. "'You will be horribly moped in Cornwall,' remonstrated Leonard. "'Everything about the place will remind you of my poor mother. "'We shall be in the dolefuls all the year.' "'I would rather grieve for her than forget her,' answered Christabel. "'It is too easy to forget.'

"'Well, you must have your own way, I suppose. You generally do.' retorted Leonard, churlishly, and after having dragged me about a lot of mouldy old French towns, and made me look at churches and Roman bass and the sights of ancient circuses, until I hated the very name of antiquity, you will expect me to vegetate at Mount Royal for the next six months.

I don't see any reason why a quiet life should be mere vegetation, said Christabel, but if you would prefer to spend part of the year in London, I can stay at Mount Royal. And get on uncommonly well without me, cried Leonard. I perfectly comprehend your meaning, but I am not going in for that kind of thing. You and I must not offer the world another example of a semi-attached couple, or else people might begin to say you had married a man you did not care for. I will try and make your life

as agreeable as I can at the manner, Leonard, Christabel answered, with supreme equanimity. It was an aggravation to her husband that she so rarely lost her temper. So long as you do not ask me to fill the house with visitors, or to do anything that might look like want of reverence for your mother's memory. Look, ejaculated Leonard, what does it matter how things look? We both know that we are sorry for having lost her, that we shall miss her more or less every day of our lives. Visitors are no visitors.

However, you needn't invite any people. I can rub on with a little fission and boaton. They went back to Mount Royal, where all things had gone as if by clockwork during their absence, under Miss Bridgman's sage administration. To relieve her loneliness, Christabel had invited two of the younger sisters from Shepard's Bush to spend the spring months at the manor house, and these damsels, tall, vigorous, active, had reveled exceedingly in all the luxuries and pleasures of a rural life under the most advantageous

circumstances. They had scoured the hills, had rifled the hedges of their abundant wildflowers, had made friends with all Christabel's chosen families in the surrounding cottages, had fallen in love with the curate who was doing duty at Minstrand. and Forerbury, had been buffeted by the winds and tossed by the waves in many a delightful boating excursion, had climbed the rocky steeps of Tintagel so often that they seemed to know every stone of that ruined citadel, and now had gone home to shepherd's bush, their cheeks bright with country bloom, and their meager trunks overshadowed by a gigantic hamper of country

produce. Christabel felt a bitter pang as the carriage drew up to the porch, and she saw the neat little figure in a black gown waiting to receive her, thinking of that tall and noble form which should have stood there, the welcoming arms which should have received her, rewarding and blessing her for her self-sacrifice. The sacrifice had been made, but death had swallowed up the blessing and reward. And in that intermediate land of slumber where the widow lay there could be no knowledge of gain, no satisfaction in the thought of her son's happiness. Even granting that Leonard was supremely happy in his marriage, a fact which Christabel deemed

open to doubt. No, there had been nothing gained, except that Diana Tregonel's last days had been full of peace. Her one cherished hope realized on the very threshold of the tomb. Christabel tried to take comfort from this knowledge. If I had denied her to the last, if she had died with her wish ungratified, I think I should be still more sorry for her loss, she told herself.

There was bitter pain in the return to a home where that one familiar figure had been the central point, the very axis of life. Jesse led the new Mrs. Tregenel into the paneled parlor, where every object was arranged just as in the old days. The tea table on the left of the wide fireplace, the large low armchair, and the book table on the right. The room was bright with white and crimson May, as alias, tea roses. I thought it was best for you to get accustomed to the rooms without her, said Jessie in a

low voice, as she placed Christabel in the widow's old chair and helped to take off her hat and mantle, and I thought you would not like anything changed. "'Not for worlds. The house is a part of her, in my mind. It was she who planned everything, as it now is, just adding as many new things as were needful to brighten the old. I will never alter a detail unless I am absolutely obliged.' "'I am so thankful to hear you say that. Major Bree is coming to dinner. He wanted to be among the first to welcome you. I hope you don't mind my having told him he might come. I shall be very glad to see him. He is a part of a part of the first. He is a part of my old life here. I hope he is very well. Splendid, the soul of activity and good

temper. I can't tell you how good he was to my sisters, taking them about everywhere. I believe they both went away deeply in love with him, or at least with their affections divided between him and Mr. Ponsonby. Mr. Ponsonby was the curate, a bachelor, and of pleasing appearance. Leonard had submitted reluctantly to the continued residence of Miss Bridgman at Mount Royal. He had been for dismissing her as a natural consequence of his mother's death, but here again Christabel had been firm. "'Jesse is my only intimate friend,' she said, and she is associated with every year of my girlhood. She shall be no trouble to you, Leonard, and she will help me to save your money.'

This last argument had a softening effect. Mr. Tregonnell knew that Jesse Bridgman was a good manager. He had affected to despise her economies while it was his mother's purse which was spared, but now that the supplies were drawn from his own resources, he was less disposed to be contemptuous of care in the administrator of his household. Major Bree was in the drawing-room when Christabel came down dressed for dinner, looking delicately lovely in her flowing gown of soft, dull black, with white flowers and white crape about her neck. The Major's cheerful presence did much to help Mr. Tregenel and his wife through that first dinner at Mount Royal. He had so many small local events to tell them about, news too insignificant to be recorded

in Jesse's letters, but not without interest for Christabel, who loved place and people. Then after dinner he begged his hostess to play, declaring that he had not heard any good music during her absence, and Christabel, who had cultivated her musical talents assiduously in every interval of loneliness and leisure which had occurred in the course of her bridal tour, was delighted to play to a listener who could understand and appreciate the lofty flights in harmony. The Major was struck with the improvement in her style. She had always played sweetly, but not with his breath and power. You must have worked very hard in these last few months, he said. Yes, I made the best use of every opportunity. I had some lessons from a very

clever German professor at Nice. Music kept me from brooding on my loss, she added in a low voice. I hope you will not grow less industrious now you have come home, said the major. most women give Mozart and Beethoven to the winds when they marry, shut up their piano altogether, or at most aspire to play a waltz for their children's dancing. I shall not be one of those. Music will be my chief pursuit, now. The Major felt that although this was a very proper state of things from an artistic point of view, it argued hardly so well for the chances of matrimonial bliss. That need of a pursuit after marriage indicated a certain emptiness in the existence of the wife.

A life, closed and rounded in the narrow circle of a wedding ring, hardly leaves room for the assiduous study of art. And now began for Christabel, a life which seemed to her to be in some wise a piece of mechanism, an automatic performance of daily recurring duties, an hourly submission to society which had no charm for her. A life, which would have hung as heavily upon her spirit as the joyless monotony of a convict prison, had it not been for the richness of her own mental resources and her love of the country in which she lived. She could not be altogether unhappy roaming with her old friend Jesse over those wild, romantic hills, or facing the might of that tremendous ocean, grand and somewhat awful even in its calmest aspect. Nor was she unhappy seated in her own snug morning room among the books she loved.

Books which were always opening new worlds of thought and wonder. Books of such inexhaustible interest that she was often inclined to give way to absolute despair at the idea of how much of this world's wisdom must remain unexplored even at the end of a long life. De Quincey has shown by figures that not the hardest reader can read half the good old books that are worth reading, to say nothing of those new books daily claiming to be read. No, for a thoroughly intellectual woman, loving music, loving the country, tender and benevolent to the poor, such a life as Christabel was called upon to lead in this first year of marriage could not be altogether unhappy. Here were two people joined by the strongest of all human ties,

and yet utterly unsympathetic. But they were not always in each other's company, and, when they were together, the wife did her best to appear contented with her lot, and to make life agreeable to her husband. She was more punctilious in the performance of every duty she owed him than she would have been had she loved him better. She never forgot that his welfare was a charge

which she had taken upon herself to please the kinswoman to whom she owed so much. The debt was all the more sacred, since she to whom it was due had passed away to the land where there is no knowledge of earthly conduct. The glory of summer grew and faded, the everlasting hills changed with all the varying lights and shadows of autumn and winter.

And in the tender early spring, when all the trees were budding and the hothern hedges were unfolding crinkly green leaves among the brown, Christabel's heart melted with a new strange emotion of maternal love. A son was born to the Lord of the Manor, and while Albo Castle rejoiced

at this important addition to the population, Christabel's pale face shone with a new radiance as the baby face looked tap at her from the pillow by her side. Eyes clear and star-like with a dreamy faraway gaze, which was almost more lovely than the recognizing looks of older eyes, a being hardly sentient of the things of earth, but bright with memories of the spirit world. The advent of this baby boy gave a new impulse to Crystal Bell's life. She gave herself up to these new cares and duties with intense devotion, and for the next six months. of her life was so entirely engrossed by her child that Leonard considered himself neglected. She deferred her presentation at court till the next season, and Leonard was compelled to be

satisfied with an occasional brief holiday in London, during which she naturally relapsed into the habits of his bachelor days, dined and gamed at the old clubs, and went about everywhere with his frantic ally, Jack Vandler. Christabel had been married two years, and her boy was a year old when she went back to the old house in Bolton Row with her husband. to enjoy her second season of fashionable pleasures. How hard it was to return under such altered circumstances, to the rooms in which she had been so happy,

to see everything unchanged except her own life. The very chairs and tables seemed to be associated with old joys, old griefs. All the sharp agony of that bitter day on which she had made up her mind to renounce Angus Hamley came back to her as she looked around the room in which the pain had been suffered. The flavor of old memories, was mixed with all the enjoyments of the present. The music she heard this year was the same music they two had heard together.

And here was this smiling park, all green leaves and sunlight, filled with this seeming frivolous crowd. In almost every detail the scene they too had contemplated, amused and philosophical four years ago. The friends who called on her and invited her now were the same people among whom she had visited during her first season. people who had been enraptured at her engagement to Mr. Hamley were equally delighted at her marriage with her cousin, or at least said so.

Albeit, more than one astute matron drove away from Bolton Row sighing over the folly of marriage between first cousins, and marveling that Christabel's baby was not deaf, blind, or idiotic. Among other old acquaintance, young Mrs. Tregonel met the Dowager Lady Cumberbridge at a great dinner, more Medusa-like than ever, in a curly Auburn wig after Madame de Montespan and a diamond coronet. Christabel shrank from the two well-remembered figure with a faint shudder. But Lady Cumberbridge swooped upon her like an elderly hawk

when the ladies were on their way back to the drawing-room and insisted upon being friendly. My dear child, where have you been hiding yourself all these years? She exclaimed in her fine baritone. I saw your marriage in the papers and your poor aunt's death, and I was expecting to meet you and your husband, society last season. You didn't come to town? A baby, I suppose. Just so, those horrid babies. In the coming century there will be some better arrangement for carrying on the species. How well you are looking, and your husband is positively charming. He sat next me at dinner,

and we were friends in a moment. How proud he is of you. It is quite touching to see a man so devoted to his wife, and now—' They were in the subdued light of the drawing. They were in the subdued light of the drying room by this time, light judiciously tempered by ruby-colored Venetian glass. Now, tell me all about my poor friend. Was she long ill? And with a ghoulish interest in horrors, the dowager prepared herself for a detailed narration of Mrs. Tregonel's last illness. But Christabel could only falter out a few brief sentences. Even now she could hardly speak of her aunt without tears, and it was painful to talk of her to this worldly dowager, with keen eyes glittering under penthouse brows

and a hard, eager mouth. In all that London season, Christabel only once heard her old lover's name, carelessly mentioned at a dinner party. He was talked of as a guest at some diplomatic dinner at St. Petersburg early in the year. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This is a Lieberwaffe recording. chapter nine and pale from the past we draw nigh thee it was october and the chestnut leaves were falling slowly and heavily in the park at mount royle the oaks upon the hillside were faintly tinged with bronze and gold while the purple bloom of the heather and the yellow flower of the gorse were seen in rarer patches amidst the sober tints of autumn it was the time at which to some eyes this cornish coast was most lovely with a subdued poetic loveliness a dreamy beauty touched with tender melancholy mount royal was delightful at this season liberal fires in all the rooms filled the old oak-panelled house with a glow of colour and a sense of ever-present warmth that was very comfortable after the sharpness of october breezes those greenhouses and hot-houses which had been for so many years mrs tregonnell's perpetual care now discolourable their choicest contents.

Fragile white and yellow asters. Fairy-like ferns. Lijon roses, lilies of the valley, Stephanotus, Mignonette, and Cape Jasmine filled the rooms with perfume.

Modern blinds of diapered crimson and gray subdued the light of those heavily mullioned windows which had been originally designed with a view to strengthen architectural effect, rather than to the admission of the greatest possible amount of daylight.

The house at this season of the year seemed made for war-worn. so thick the walls, so heavily curtained the windows. Just as in the height of summer it seemed made for coolness. Christabel had respected all her aunt's ideas and prejudices. Nothing had been changed since Mrs. Tregonnell's death, save for that one sad fact that she was gone. The noble made her in a figure, the handsome face,

the kindly smile were missing from the house where the widow had so long reigned, an imperious but a beneficent mistress, having her own way in all things, but always considerate of other people's happiness and comfort. Mr. Tregonel was inclined to be angry with his wife sometimes for her religious adherence to her aunt's principles and opinions in things great and small. You are given over body and soul to my poor mother's fads, he said. If it had not been for you, I should have turned the house out of windows when she was gone,

got rid of all the warm-eaten furniture, broken out new windows, and led in more light. One feels half asleep in a house where there is nothing. nothing but shadow and the scent of hot-house flowers. I should have given carte blanche to some London man, the fellow who writes verses, and who invented the storks and sunflower style of decoration, and have let him refurnish the saloon and music-room, pitch out a library which nobody reads,

and substitute half a dozen dwarf bookcases in gold and ebony, filled with brightly bound books, and with Japanese jars and bottles on the top of them, to give life and color to the oak paneling. I hate a gloomy house. oh leonard you surely would not call mount royal gloomy but i do i hate a house that smells of one's ancestors just now you objected to the scent of the flowers you are always catching me up there was never such a woman to argue but i mean what i say the smell is a combination of stephanotus and old bones i wish you would let me build you a villa at torquay or dartmouth i think i should prefer dartmouth it's a better place for yaw You are very kind, but I would rather live at Mount Royal than anywhere else.

Remember, I was brought up here. A reason for your being heartily sick of the house as I am? But I suppose in your case there are associations, sentimental associations. The house is filled with memories of my second mother. Yes, and there are other memories, associations which you love to nurse and brood upon. I think I know all about it. and read up your feelings to a nicety. You can think and say what you please, Leonard,

she answered, looking at him with unaltered calmness, but you will never make me disown my love of this place and its surroundings. You will never make me ashamed of being fond of the home in which I have spent my life? I begin to think there is very little shame in you, Leonard muttered to himself as he walked away. He had said many bitter words to his wife, had aimed many a venomed arrow at her breast, but he had never made her blush

and he had never made her cry. There were times when a dull, hopeless anger consumed him, anger against her, against nature, against fate, and when his only relief was to be found in harsh and bitter speech, in dark and sullen looks. It would have been a greater relief to him if his shots had gone home, if his brutality had elicited any sign of distress. But in this respect, Christabel was heroic.

She who had never harbored an ungenerous thought was moved only to a cold, calm scorn by the unjust and ungenerous conduct of her husband. Her contempt was too thorough for the possibility of resentment. Once, and only once, she attempted to reason with a fool in his folly. Why do you make these unkind speeches, Leonard? She asked, looking at him with those calm eyes before which his were apt to waver and look downward, hardly able to endure that steady gaze. Why are you always harping upon the past, as if it were an offence

against you. Is there anything that you have to complain of in my conduct? Have I given you any cause for anger? Oh, no, none. You are simply perfect as a wife. Everybody says so, and in the multitude of counsellors, you know. But it is just possible for perfection to be a trifle cold and unapproachable, to keep a man at arm's length, and to have an ever-present air of living in the past which is galling to a husband who would like, well, a little less amiability and a little more affection. By heaven, I wouldn't mind my wife being a devil if I knew she was fond of me.

A spitfire who would kiss me one minute and claw me the next would be better than the calm superiority which is always looking over my head. Leonard, I don't think I have been wanting an affection. You have done a great deal to repel my liking, yes, since you forced me to speak plainly. You have made my duty as a wife more difficult than it need have been. But have I ever forgotten that you are,

my husband and the father of my child? Is there any act of my life which has denied or made light of your authority? When you asked me to marry you, I kept no secrets from you. I was perfectly frank. Devilish, Frank, muttered Leonard. You knew that I could not feel for you as I had felt for another. These things can come only once in a lifetime. You were content to accept my affection, my obedience, knowing this.

Why do you make what I told you then a reproach? against me now. He could not dispute the justice of this reproof. Well, Christabel, I was wrong, I suppose. It would have been more gentleman-like to hold my tongue. I ought to know that your first girlish fancy is a thing of the past, altogether gone and done with. It was idiotic to harp upon that worn-out string, wasn't it? He asked, laughing awkwardly, but when a man feels savage he must hit out at someone. This was the only occasion on which husband and wife had ever spoken plainly of the past. But Leonard let fly those venom-deros of his on the smallest provocation. He could not forget that his wife had loved another man better than she had ever

loved or even pretended to love him. It was her candor which he felt most keenly. Had she been willing to play the hypocrite to pretend a little, he would have been ever so much better pleased. To the outside world, even to that narrow world which encircles an old family seat in the depths of the country, Mr. and Mrs. Tregenel appeared a happy couple, whose union was the most natural thing in the world, yet not without a touch of that romance which elevates and idolizes a marriage. Were they not brought up under the same roof, boy and girl together like and yet not like, brother and sister? How inevitable that they must become devotedly attached. That little episode of Christabel's engagement to another man counted for nothing.

She was so young, had never questioned her own heart. Her true love was away, and she was flattered by the attention of a man of the world like Angus Hamley, and so, and so, almost unawares, perhaps, she allowed herself to be engaged to him, little knowing the real bent of his character and the gulf into which she was about to plunge, for in the neighbourhood of Mount Royal, it was believed that a man who had once lived as Mr. Hamley had lived was a soul lost forever, a creature given over to ruin in this world and the next. there was no hopefulness in the local mind for the after career of such an offender. At this autumn season, when Mount Royal was filled with visitors,

all intent upon taking life pleasantly, it would have been impossible for a life to seem more prosperous and happy to the outward eye than that of Christabel Tregenel. The centre of a friendly circle, the ornament of a picturesque and perfectly appointed house, the mother of a lovely boy whom she worshipped, with the overweening love of a young mother for her firstborn, admired, beloved by all her little world,

with a husband who was proud of her and indulgent to her, who could deny that Mrs. Tregonnell was a person to be envied. Mrs. Fairfax-Torrington, a widow with a troublesome son and a limited income, an income whose narrow boundary she was continually overstepping, told her hostess as much one morning when the men were all out on the hills and the rain, and the women made a wide circle around the library fire,

some of them intent upon cruel work, others not even pretending to be industrious, the faithful Randy lying at his mistress's feet, as she sat in her favorite chair by the old carved chimney-piece, the chair which had been her aunt diana's for so many peaceful years. There is a calmness, an assured tranquility about your life which makes me hideously envious, said Mrs. Fairfax Torrington, waving the society paper which she had been using as a screen against the fire, after having read the raciest of its paragraphs aloud, and pretended to be sorry for the dear friends of whom the censor's airy shafts were aimed. I have stayed with Duchess's and with millionaires, but I never envied either.

The Duchess is always dragged to death by the innumerable claims upon her time, her money and her attention. Her life is very little better than the fate of that unfortunate person who stabbed one of the French kings, forty wild horses pulling forty different ways. It doesn't make it much better because the horses are called by pretty names, don't you know, Court friends Plowishows, Bals

Church, Opera, Ascot Fancy Fairs, Seaton Scotland, Place in Yorkshire, Baden, Monaco. It is the pull that wears one out, the dreadful longing to be allowed to sit in one's own room by one's own fire and rest. I know what it is in my

small way, so I have always rather pitied duchesses. At a millionaire's house one is inevitably bored. There is an insufferable glare and glitter of money and everything, unpleasantly accentuated by an occasional blot of absolute meanness. No, Mrs. Tregonnell, pursued the agreeable rattle. I don't envy Duchesses or Millionaire's wives. But your existence seems to me utterly enviable. So tranquil and easy a life in such a perfect

house, with the ability to take a plunge into the London vortex whenever you like, or to stay at home if you prefer it, a charming husband, an ideal baby, and above all that sweet, equable temperament of yours, which would make like Fizi under much harder circumstances. Don't you agree with me now, Miss Bridgman? I always agree with clever people, answered Jesse calmly. Christabel went on with her work a quiet smile upon her beautiful lips. Mrs. Torrington was one of those gushing persons to whom there was no high or bliss, after eating and drinking, than the indulgence in that lively monologue which she called

conversation, and a happy facility for which rendered her, in her own opinion, an acquisition in any country house. The general run of people are so dull, she would remark in her confidential moments. There are so few who can talk without being disgustingly goutistical. Most people's idea of conversation is autobiography and installments.

I have always been liked for my high spirits and flow of conversation. High spirits at 45 are apt to Paul, unless accompanied by the rare gift of wit. Mrs. Thorrington was not witty, which she had read a good deal of light literature, kept a commonplace book, and had gone through life believing herself

a Sheridan or a Sidney Smith in petticoats. A woman's witch is like dancing and fetters, she complained sometimes. There are so many things one must not say. Christabel was more than content that her acquaintance should envy her. She wished to be thought happy. She had never, for a moment, posed as victim or martyr.

In good faith, and with steady purpose of well-doing, she had taken upon herself the duties of a wife, and she meant to fulfill them to the uttermost. There shall be no shortcoming on my side, she said to herself, If we cannot live peaceably and happily together, it shall not be my fault. If Leonard will not let me respect him as a husband, I can still honor him as my boy's father. In these days of fashionable agnosticism and hysterical devotion, when there is hardly any middle path between life spent in church and church work and the open avowal of belief. Something must be said in favor of that old-fashioned sober religious feeling which

enabled Christabel Tregonel to walk steadfastly along the difficult way. Her mind possessed with the ever-present belief in a righteous judge who saw all her acts and knew all her thoughts. She studied her husband's pleasure in all things, yielding to him upon every point in which principle was not at stake. The house was filled with friends of his choosing, not one among those guests, in spite of their surface pleasantness, being congenial to a mind so simple and unwordly, so straight and thorough as that of Christabel Tregonel. Without Jesse Bridgman, Mrs. Tregonel would have been companionless in a house full of people. The vivacious widow, the slangy young ladies with a marked taste for billiards and shooting parties,

and an undisguised preference for masculine society thought their hostess behind the age. It was obvious that she was better informed than they, had been more carefully adjudiced. educated, played better, sang better, was more elegant and refined in every thought and look and gesture. But in spite of all these advantages, or perhaps on account of them, she was slow, not an easy person to get on with. Her gowns were simply perfect, but she had no chic. Nos'Otre, with ever so much less money to spend on our toilets, look more striking, stand out better from the rock. An artificial rose here, a rag of old lace, a fan, a vivid ribbon in the mazes of our hair, and the effect catches every eye, while poor Mrs. Tregonel

with her lovely complexion and a gown that is obviously Parisian is comparatively nowhere. This is what the Miss Van der Leur's old campaigners told each other as they dressed for dinner on the second day after their arrival at Mount Royal. Captain Vandalur, otherwise poker van der Lear from a supposed natural genius for that intellectual game, was Mr. Tregonel's old friend and traveling companion. They had shared a good deal of sport and not a little hardship in the Rockies, had fished and shot, and tobogged in Canada, had played Euker in San Francisco, and Monty in Mexico, and, in a word, were bound together by memories and tastes in common.

Captain Vandallor, like Byron's Corsair, had one virtue amidst many shortcomings. He was an affectionate brother, I was glad to do a good turn to his sisters, who lived with a shabby old half-pay father in one of the shabbiest streets in the debatable land between Pimlico and Chelsea, by courtesy, South Belgravia. Captain Vandler rarely had it in his power to do much for his sisters himself. A five-pound note at Christmas or a bonnet at midsummer was perhaps the further stretch of his personal benevolence. But he was piously fraternal in his readiness to victimize his dearest friend for the

benefit of dopsy and mopsie. These, being the poetic pet names, devised to mitigate the dignity of the baptismal, Adolphine, and Margaret. When Jack Vandler had a pigeon to pluck, he always contrived that Dopsy and Mopsy should get a few of the feathers. He did not take his friends home to the shabby little ten-roomed house in South Belgravia.

Such a nest would have too obviously indicated his affinity to the Hawk tribe, but he devised some means of bringing Mopsy and Dopsy and his married friends together. A box at the opera, stalls for the last burlesque, a drag from Epson or Ascot, or even afternoon tea at Hurlingham.

and the thing was done the miss van der lures never fail to improve the occasion they had a genius for making their little wants known and getting them supplied the number of their gloves the only shop in london of which wearable gloves could be bought how naively these favourite themes for girlish converse dropped from their cherry lips sunshades fans lace flowers perfumery all these luxuries of the toilette were for the most part supplied to dopsy and mopsie from this fortuitous source. Some pigeons lent themselves more kindly to the plucking than others, and the Miss Vandallers had long ago discovered that it was not the wealthiest men who were the most lavish.

Given a gentleman with a settled estate of fourteen thousand a year, and the probabilities were that he would not rise above a dozen gloves or a couple of bouquets. It was the simple youth who had just come into five or ten thousand, and had nothing but the workhouse ahead of him

when that was gone, who spent his money most of the money most freely. It is only the man who is steadfastly intent upon ruining himself, whoever quite comes up to the feminine idea of generosity. The spendthrift, during his brief season of fortune, leads a charmed life. For him, it is hardly a question whether gloves cost five or ten shillings a pair, whether Stephanotus is in or out of season. He offers his tribute to beauty without any base scruples of economy. What does it matter to him whether ruin comes a few months earlier by reason of this lavish liberality, seeing that the ultimate result is inevitable.

With the Miss Vandallors, Leonard Tregonnell ranked as an old friend. They had met him at theatres and races. They had been invited to little dinners at which he was host. Jack Vandallor had a special genius for ordering a dinner, and for acting as guide to a man who liked dining in the highways and byways of London. It being an understood thing that Captain Vandalers' professional position as counselor exempted him from any share in the reckoning. under his fraternal protection dopsy and mopsie had dined snugly in all manner of foreign restaurants and had eaten and drunk their fill at mr dregonel's expense they were both gourmins and they were not ashamed of enjoying the pleasures of the table

It seemed to them that the class of men who could not endure to see a woman eat had departed with Byron and Bulwer and Dorsey and a Musay. A new race has arisen, which likes a jolly girl who can appreciate a recherche dinner and knows the difference between good and bad wine. Mr. Tregenel did not yield himself up a victim to the fascinations of either dopsy or mopsie. He had seen too much of that class of beauty during his London experiences to be caught by the orichomous stangles of one or aorticomous tangles of one or afts. the flax and fringe of the other. He talked of them to their brother as nice girls with no nonsense about them. He gave them gloves and dinners and stalls for Madame Angot, but his appreciation took no higher form. It would have been a fine thing for one of you if you could have hooked him, said their brother as he smoked a final pipe between midnight and morning in the untidy little

drawing-room in South Belgravia after an evening with Chomont. He's a heavy swell in Cornwall, I can tell you. Plenty of money. Fine, old place. But there's a girl down there he's sweet upon, a cousin. He's very close. But I caught him kissing and crying over her photograph one night in the Rockies, when our rations had run short and two of our horses gone dead, and our best guide was down with Ague, and there was an idea that we'd lost our track and should never see England again. That's the only time I ever saw Traganale sentimental. I'm not afraid of death, he said, but I should like to live to see home again for her sake. And he showed me the photo. A sweet, fresh young face, smiling at us with a look of

home and home affection, and we poor beggars not knowing if we should ever see a woman's face again. If you knew he was in love with his cousin, what's the use of talking about his marrying us? asked Mopsy petulantly, speaking of herself and her sister as if they were firm. Oh, there's no knowing, answered Jack coolly as he puffed at his meersham. A man may change his mind. "'Girls, with your experience, ought to be able to twist a fellow round your little finger. "'But though you deuce keen at getting things out of men, "'you're uncommonly slow at bringing down your bird. "'Look at our surroundings,' said Dobsy bitterly.

"'Could we ever dare to bring a man here? "'And it is in her own home that a man gets fond of a girl.' "'Well, a fellow would have to be very far gone to stand this,' "'Captain Vandalor admitted, with a shrug of his shoulders "'as he glanced round the room with its blotchy paper and smoky ceiling, its tawdry chandelier and dilapidated furniture, flabby faded covers to chairs and sofa, side table piled with shabby books and accumulated newspapers, the half-pay father's canes and umbrellas in the corner, his ancient slippers by the fender, his easy chair, with its

morocco cover indented with the greasy imprint of his venerable shoulders, and over all the rank orders of yesterday's dinner and stale tobacco smoke. A man in the last stage of spooniness will stand anything, You remember the opening chapter of Willem Meister, said Captain Jack meditatively. But he'd need be very far gone to stand this, he repeated with conviction. Six months after this conversation, Mopsy read to Dobsy the announcement of Mr. Tregonel's marriage with the Cornish cousin. We shall never see any more of him, you may depend, said Dobsy, with the air of pronouncing an elegy on the ingratitude of man.

But she was wrong. For two years later, Leonard Tregonel was knocking about touch. again in the height of the season with poker vandalur and the course of his diversions included a little dinner given to dopsy and mopsie at a choice italian restaurateurs not very far from south belgravia they both made themselves as agreeable as in them lay he was married all matrimonial hopes in that quarter were blighted but marriage need not prevent his giving them dinners in stalls for the play or being a serviceable friend to their brother poor jack's friends are his only reliable income said Mopsy. He had need hold him fast. Mopsy put on her lively at Madame Chomont manner and tried to amuse the Benedict. Dopsie was graver and talked to him about his wife.

She must be very sweet, she said, from Jack's account of her. Why, he's never seen her, exclaimed Mr. Dreganel, looking puzzled. No, but you showed him her photograph once in the Rockies. Jack never forgot it. Leonard was pleased at this tribute to his good taste. She's the lovelyest. woman I ever saw, though she is my wife, he said, and I'm not ashamed to say I think so. How I should like to know her, sighed Dobsy. But I'm afraid she seldom comes to London.

That makes no difference, answered Leonard, warmed into exceptional good humor by the soft influences of Italian cookery and Italian wines. Why should you not both come to Mount Royal? I want Jack to come for the shooting. He can bring you and you'll be able to amuse my wife while he and I out on the hills. It would be quite too lovely and we should like it of all things, but do you think Mrs. Tregenel would be able to get on with us? asked Dobsy diffidently. It was not often she and her sister were asked to country houses. They were both fluttered at the idea and turned their thoughts inward for a mental review of their wardrobes. We could do it, decided Mopsy with a little help from Jack.

Nothing more was said about the visit that night, but a month later when Leonard had gone back to Mount a courteous letter from Mrs. Tregonel to Miss Vandler confirmed the squire's invitation, and the two set out for the west of England under their brother's wing, rejoicing at this stroke of good luck. Christabel had been told that they were nice girls, just the kind of girls to be useful in a country house, girls who had very few opportunities of enjoying life and to whom any kindness would be a charity,

and she had done her husband's bidding without an objection of any kind. But when the two damsels appeared at Mount Royal, tightly sheathed in sage-green marino with limp little capes on their shoulders, and picturesque hats upon picturesque heads of hair, Mrs. Tregonel's heart failed her at the idea of a month spent in such company. Without caring a straw for art, without knowing more of modern poetry than the names of the poets and the covers of their books, Mopsy and Dopsy had been shrewd enough to discover that for young woman with narrow means, the aesthetic style of dress was by far the safest fashion. Stuff might do duty for silk.

A sunflower, if it were only big enough, might make a startling an effect as a blaze of diamonds. A rag of limp tool or muslin serve instead of costly lace. Hair worn after the ideal suffice instead of expensive headgear and home dressmaking pass current for originality. Christabel speedily found, however, that these damsels were not exacting

in the manner of attention from herself. So long as they were allowed to be with the men, they were happy. in the billiard-room or the tennis court in the old tudor's hall which was leonard's favorite tabaji in the saddle-room or the stable-yard on the hills or on the sea wherever the men would suffer their presence dopsy and mopsie were charmed to be On those rare occasions when the out-of-door party was made up without them, they sat about the drawing-room in hopeless, helpless idleness, turning over yesterday's London papers, or stumbling through German waltzes on the iron-framed Kirkman Grand,

which had been Leonard's birthday gift to his wife. At their worst, the Miss Vandallars gave Christabel very little trouble, for they felt curiously shy in her society. She was not of their world. They had not one thought or one taste in common. Mrs. Torrington, who insisted upon taking her hostess under her wing, was a much more troublesome person. The vandalor girls helped to amuse Leonard, who laughed at their slang and their mannishness, and who liked the sound of girlish voices in the house, albeit those voices were loud and vulgar.

They made themselves particularly agreeable to Jesse Bridgman, who declared that she took the keenest interest in them, has natural curiosities. Why should we pour over moss and zoophytes and puzzle our brains? with long greek and latin names demanded jesse when our own species affords an inexhaustible variety of creatures all infinitely interesting these vandular girls are as new to me as if they had dropped from mars or saturn life therefore to all outward seeming went very pleasantly at mount royal a perfectly appointed house in which money is spent lavishly can hardly fail to be agreeable to those casual inmates who have nothing to do with its maintenance to do topsy and mopsie mount royal was a terranes a terranes to do with its maintenance to dopsy and mopsie mount royal was a terran They had never imagined an existence so entirely blissful. This perfumed atmosphere, this unfailing procession of luxurious meals, no cold mutton to hang on hand, no beggarly mutation from bacon to bloater and bloater to bacon at breakfast time, no wolf at the door.

To think that money can make all this difference, exclaimed Mopsy, as she sat with Dobsy on a heather-covered knoll waiting for the shooters to join them at luncheon, while the servants grouped themselves respectfully a little way off with the brake and horses. Won't it be too dreadful to have to go home again? Loathsome, said Dobsy, who is conversational strength, consisted in the liberal use of about half a dozen vigorous epithets. I wish there were some rich young men staying here, that one might get a chance of promotion. Rich men never marry poor girls, answered Mopsy dejectedly, unless the girl is a famous

beauty or favorite actress. You and I are nothing. Heaven only knows what is to become of us when the Paterre dies. Jack will never be able to give us free quarters. We shall have to go out as shop, girls. We're a great deal too ignorant for governesses. I shall go on the stage, said Dobsy with decision. I may not be handsome, but I can sing in tune,

and my feet and ankles have always been my strong point. All the rest is leather and prunella, as Shakespeare says. I shall engage myself to spires and pond, said Mopsy. It must be a more lively life and doesn't require either voice or ankles, which I, rather vindictively, do not possess. Of course Jack won't like it, but I can't help that. Thus, in the face of all that is loveliest and most poetical in nature,

the dreamy moorland, the distant sea, the lion-rock with the afternoon sunshine on it, the blue boundless sky, and one far-away sail, silvered with light, standing out against the low dark line of Lundy Island, debated Mopsy and Dopsy, waiting with keen appetites for the game pasty, and the welcome bottle or two of Mouette, which they were to share with the sportsman. While these damsels thus beguiled of the autumn afternoon, Christabel and Jesse had sallied out alone for one of their old rambles.

Such a solitary walk as had been their delight in the careless long ago, before ever passionate love and sorrow, his handmaiden came to Mount Royal. Mrs. Torrington and the three other guests had left that morning. Vandalers and Reginald Montague, a free and easy little war office clerk, were now the only visitors at Mount Royal, and Mrs. Tregenel was free to lead her own life. So, with Jessie and Randy for company, she started at noontide for Tintagel. She could never weary of the walk by the cliffs, or even if the quiet country road with its blossoming hedge-rose and boundless outlook. Every step of the way, every tint on field or meadow, every change in sky and sea was

familiar to her, but she loved them all. they had loitered in their ramble by the cliffs talking a good deal of the past for jesse was now the only listener to whom christabel could freely open her heart and she loved to talk with her of the days that were gone and of her first lover of their love and of their parting she never spoke to talk of those things might have seemed treason in the wedded wife but she loved to talk of the man himself of his opinions his ideas the stories he had told them in their many rambles his creed his dreams speaking of him always as mr hamley and just as she might have spoken of any clever and intimate friend lost to her through adverse circumstance for ever it is hardly likely since they talked of him so often when they were alone that they spoke of him more on this day than usual but it seemed to them afterwards as if they had done so and as if their conversation in some wise forecast that which was to happen before yonder sun had dipped behind the wave they climbed the castle hill and seated themselves on a low fragment of the wall with their faces seaward there was a lovely light on the sea scarcely a breath of wind to curl the edges of the long waves which rolled slowly in and slid over the dark rocks and shining slabs of emerald-tinted water here and there deep purple patches showed where the seaweed grew thickest and here and there the dark outline of a convocation of shags stood out sharply above the crest of a rock it was on just such a day that we first brought mr hamley to this place said christabel yes our cornish autumns are almost always lovely and this year the weather is particularly mild answered jessie in her matter-of-fact way she always put on this air when she saw christabel drifting into dangerous feeling i shouldn't wonder if we were to have a second crop of strawberries this year

do you remember how we talked of tristan and isult poor isult poor mark i think mark one can't pity him he was an ingrate and a coward he was a man and a man and a man and a man and a man a husband, retorted Jesse, and he seems to have been badly treated all round. Whither does he wander now, said Christabel, softly repeating lines learnt long ago. Happily in his dreams, the wind wafts him here and lets him find the lovely orphan child again in her castle by the coast. The youngest fairest Chattelaine that this realm of France can boast, our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea, Isoult of Brittany. poor Isult of the white hand, said a voice at Christabel's shoulder.

After all, was not her lot the saddest. Had not she the best claim to our pity? Christabel started, turned, and she and Angus Hamley looked in each other's faces in the clear, bright light. It was over four years since they had parted, tenderly, fondly, as plighted husband and wife locked in each other's arms, promising each other's speedy reunion, ineffably happy in their assurance. of a future to be spent together. And now they met with pale cheeks

and lips dressed in a society smile. Eyes, to which tears would have been a glad relief, assuming a careless astonishment. You hear, Mr. Hamley, cried Jessie, seeing Christabel's lips quivered dumbly, as if in the vain attempt at words and rushing to the rescue. We were told you were in Russia.

I have been in Russia. I spent last winter at Petersburg, the only place where caviards, and Adelina Patti are to be enjoyed in perfection, and I spent a good deal of this summer that is just gone in the Caucasus. How nice! exclaimed Jesse, as if he had been talking of Buxton or Malvern. And did you really enjoy it?

Immensely. All I ever saw in Switzerland is as nothing compared with the gloomy grandeur of that mighty semicircle of mountain peaks of which Alboors the shining mountain. The throne of Armuz occupies the centre. And how do you happen to be here, on this insignificant mound, asked Jesse. Tintagel's Serge Beat Hill can never seem insignificant to me.

National poetry has peopled it, while the Caucasus is only a desert. Are you touring? No, I am staying with the vicar of Trevina. He is an old friend of my fathers. They were college chums. And Mr. Carlyan is always kind to me. Mr. Carlyan was a new vicar

who had come to Trevina within the last two years. Shall you stay long? asked Christabel in tones which had a curiously flat sound as of a voice produced by mechanism. I think not. It is a delicious place to stay at, but... A little of it goes a long way, said Jessie. You have not quite anticipated my sentiments, Miss Bridgman. I was going to say that, unfortunately for me, I have engagements in London which will prevent my staying here much longer.

You are not looking over-robust, said Jessie, touched with pity by the sad forecast which she saw in his faded eyes, his hollow cheeks, faintly tinged with hectic bloom. I'm afraid the Caucasus was rather too severe a training for you. A little harder than the ordeal to which you submitted my locomotive powers some years ago, answered Angus, smiling. But how can a man spend the strength of his manhood better than in beholding the wonders of creation? It is the best preparation for those still grander scenes which one faintly hopes to see by and

by among the stars. according to the platonic theory a man must train himself for immortality. He who goes straight from earthly feasts and junketings will get a bad time in the underworld or may have to work out his purgation in some debased brute form. Poor fellow, thought Jesse with a sigh. I suppose that kind of feeling is his nearest approach to religion. Christabel sat very still, looking steadily towards Lundy, as if the only desire in her mind were to identify younger,

vague streak of purplish-brown or brownish-purple, with the level strip of land chiefly given over to rabbits. Yet her heart was aching and throbbing passionately all the while, and the face at which she dared scarce look was vividly before her mental sight, sorely altered from the day she had last seen its smile upon her in love and confidence. But mixed with the heartache there was joy. To see him again, to hear his voice again, what could that be but happiness? She knew that there was delight in being with him, and she told herself that she had no right to linger. She rose with an automatic air. Come, Jessie, she said, and then she turned with an effort to the man whose love she had renounced,

whose heart she had broken. Goodbye, she said, holding out her hand and looking at him with calm, grave eyes. I am very glad to have seen you again. I hope you always think of me as your friend. Yes, Mrs. Tregonel, I can afford now to think of you as a friend. he answered gravely gently, holding her hand with a lingering grasp and looking solemnly into the sweet, pale face. He shook hands cordially with Jesse Bridgman, and they left him standing amidst the low grass-hidden graves of the unknown dead, a lonely figure looking seaward.

Oh, Jesse, do you remember the day we first came here with him? cried Christabel as they went slowly down the steep winding path. The exclamation sounded almost like a cry of pain. "'Am I ever likely to forget it, or anything connected with him?' "'You have given me no chance of that,' retorted Miss Bridgman sharply. "'How bitterly you say that. "'Can I help being bitter when I see you nursing morbid feelings? "'Am I to encourage you to dwell upon dangerous thoughts?'

"'They are not dangerous. "'I have taught myself to think of Angus as a friend, and a friend only. "'If I could see him now and then, even as briefly as we saw him today, I think it would make me quite happy. You don't know what you are talking about, said Jesse angrily. Certainly you are not much like other women. You are a piece of icy propriety. Your love is a kind of milk and watery sentiment,

which would never lead you very far astray. I can fancy you behaving somewhat in the style of Worther's Charlotte, who is, to my mind, one of the most detestable women in fiction. Yes, Gerta has created two women who are the opposite poles of feeling Gretchen and Lottie, and I would stake my faith that Gretchen the fallen has a higher place in heaven than Lottie the impeccable. I hate such dull purity, which is always lined with selfishness. The lover may slay himself in his anguish, but she, yes, Thackeray has said it, she goes on cutting bread and butter. Jesse gave a little hysterical laugh which she accentuated by a leap from the narrow path where she had been walking to a boulder four or five feet below.

How madly you talk, Jesse. You remind me of Scott's Vanella, and I believe you are almost as wild a creature, said Christabel. Yes, I suspect there is a spice of gypsy blood in my veins. I am subject to these occasional outbreaks. These revolts against Philistinism. Life is so steeped in respectability, the dull level morality which prompts every man to do what his neighbor thinks he ought to do, rather than to be set in motion by the fire that burns within him. This dread of one's neighbor, this slavish respect for public opinion, reduces life to mere mechanism, society to a stage play. End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of Mount Royal, Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 10 But it suffice that the day will end. Christabel said no word to her husband about that unexpected meeting with Angus Hamley. She knew that the name was obnoxious to Leonard, and she shrank from a statement which might provoke unpleasant speech on his part. Mr. Hamley would doubtless have left Trevina in a few days, there was no likelihood of any further meeting. The next day was a blank day for the Miss Vandalers, who found themselves reduced to the joyless society of their own sex. The Harriers met at Trevina at ten o'clock, and thither, after an early breakfast,

rode Mr. Tregonnell, Captain Vandall and three or four other kindred spirits. The morning was showery and blustery, and it was in vain that Dobsy and Mopsy hinted their desire to be driven to the meat. They were not horsewomen, from no want of pluck or ardor for the chase, but simply from the lack of that material part of the business, horses. Many and many a weary summer day had they paced the path beside Rotten Row, whistfully regarding the riders, and thinking what a seat and what hands they would have had, if Providence had only given them a mount. The people who do not ride are the keenest critics of horsemanship. Compelled to find their amusements within doors, Dobsy and Mopsies sat in the morning room for half an hour as a sacrifice to good manners,

paid a duty visit to the nurseries to admire Christabel's baby boy, and then straggled off to the billiard-room to play each other and improved their skill at that delightfully masculine game. Then came luncheon. At which meal, the gentleman being all away, and the party reduced to four, the baby boy was allowed to sit on his mother's lap, and make occasional raids upon the table furniture, while the Miss Vandler's made believe to worship him. He was a lovely boy with big blue eyes, wide with wonder at a world which was still full of delight and novelty. After luncheon,

Mopsy and Dopsy retired to their chamber to concoct, by an ingenious process of reorganization of the same atoms, a new costume for the evening, and as they sat at their work, twisting and undoing bows and lace, and straightening the leaves of artificial flowers, they again discoursed somewhat dejectedly of their return to South Belgravia, which could hardly be straved off much longer. "'We have had quite too delicious time,' sighed Mopsy, adjusting the stock of a sunflower.

But it's rather a pity that all the men staying here have been detrimental's, not one worth catching.' "'What does it matter?' ejaculated Dobsy. "'If there had been one worth catching, he wouldn't have consented to be caught. He would have behaved like that big, Jack Mr. Tregonel was trying for the other morning, eaten up all our bait and gone and sulked among the weeds. Well, I'd have had a try for him anyhow, said Mopsy defiantly, leaning her elbow

on the dressing table and contemplating herself deliberately in the glass. Oh, Dopp, how old I'm getting. I almost hate the daylight. It makes one look so hideous. Yet neither Dopsie nor Mopsy thought herself hideous at afternoon tea time, when, with complexions improved by the powder-puff, eyebrows piquantly accentuated with Indian ink, and loose flowing tea-gowns of old gold satine and older black silk, they descended to the library, eager to do execution even on detrimental's. The men's voices sounded loud in the hall as the two girls came downstairs. Hope you have had a good time, cried Mopsy in cheerful soprano tones.

Splendid, I'm afraid Treganel has lamed a couple of his horses, said Captain Vandalur. And I have a shrewd suspicion that you've lamed a third. "'interjected Leonard in his strident tones. "'You galloped Betsy Baker at a murderous rate.' "'Nothing like taking them fast downhill,' retorted Jack. "'Bee-B is as sound as a roach and quite as ugly.' "'Never saw such a breck-neck work in my life,' said Mr. Montague, "'a small, dandified person who was always called a little Monty.

"'I'd rather ride a horse with the corn for a week than this country for a day.' "'Our country is as God made it,' answered Leonard. "'I think Satin must have split it about a bit afterwards,' said Mr. Montague. "'Well, Mop,' asked Leonard, "'how did you and Dob get rid of your day without us?' "'Oh, we were very happy. It was quite a relief to have a nice homey day with dear Mrs. Tregonnell,' answered Mopsy, nothing offended by the free and easy curtailment of her pet name. Leonard was her benefactor and a privileged person.

"'I've got some glorious news for you two girls,' said Mr. Tregonel, as they all swore into the library, where Christabel was sitting in the widow's old place, while Jesse Bridgman filled her accustomed position before the tea-table, the red glow of a liberal wood-fire contending with the pale light of one low moderator lamp under a dark velvet shade. "'What is it? Please, please tell.' "'I'll give it you in ten, a thousand, a million,' cried Leonard, flinging himself into the chair next his wife and with his eyes upon her face. "'You'll never guess. I have found you an eligible bachelor, a swell of the first

water. He's a gentleman whom a good many girls have tried for in their time, I've no doubt. Handsome, accomplished, plenty of coin. He has what the French call a stormy youth, I believe. But that doesn't matter. He's getting on in years, and no doubt he's ready to sober down and take to domesticity. I've asked him here for a fortnight to shoot Woodcock, and to offer his own unconscious breast as a mark for the arrows of Cupid. And I shall have a very poor opinion of you two girls if you can't bring him to your feet in half the time. At any rate, I'll try my hand at it, said Mopsy. Not that I care a straw for the gentleman,

but just to show you what I can do, she added, by way of maintaining her maidenly dignity. Of course, you'll go in for the conquest as high art without any arreire-ponseil, said Jack Vandaler. There never were such audacious flirts as my sisters, but there's no malice in them. You haven't told us your friend's name, said Dobsy.

"'Mr. Hamley,' answered Leonard, with his eyes still on his wife's face. Christabel gave a little start and looked at him in undisguised astonishment. "'Surely you have not asked him here?' she exclaimed. "'Why not? He was out with us today. He is a jolly fellow. Rides on commonly straight, though he doesn't look as if there were much life in him. He tailed off early in the afternoon. But while he did go he went dews-dwell. Well, he rode a deuced fine horse, too. I thought you were prejudiced against him, said Christabel very slowly.

Why, so I was, till I saw him, answered Leonard with the friendliest air. I if answered he was one of your sickly sentimental twadlers with long hair and a taste for poetry. But I find he is a fine manly fellow with no nonsense about him. So I asked him here and insisted upon his saying yes. He didn't seem to want to come, which is a very. odd, for he made himself very much at home here in my mother's time, I've heard. However, he gave in when I pressed him, and he'll be here by dinner-time tomorrow. By dinner-time, thought Mopsy delighted, then he'll see us first by candlelight,

and first impressions may do so much. Isn't it almost like a fairy tale, said Dobsy, as they were dressing for dinner with a vague recollection of having cultivated her imagination in childhood? She had never done so since that juvenile age. just as we were sighing for the prince he comes true said mopsie and he will go just as all the other fairy princes have gone leaving us alone upon the dreary high road and riding off to the fairy princesses who have good homes and good clothes and plenty of money the high art toilettes were postponed for the following evening so that the panoply of woman's war might be fresh and on that evening mopsie and dopsy their long limbs she teeth and sea-green velveteen, Toby frills round their necks, and sunflowers on their shoulders were gracefully grouped near the fireplace in the pink and white panel drying-room,

waiting for Mr. Hamley's arrival. "'I wonder why all the girls make themselves walking advertisements of the Sunfire office,' speculated Mr. Montague, taking a prosaic view of the Vandalur sunflowers as he sat by Miss Bridgman's work-basket. "'Don't you know that sunflowers are so beautifully Greek?' asked Jesse. They have been the only flower in fashion since Alma Tadama took to painting them, fountains and marble balustrades and Italian skies and beautiful women and sunflowers. Yes, but we get only the sunflowers.

Mr. Hamley, said the butler at the open door, and Angus came in and went straight to Christabel, who was sitting opposite the group of sea-green vandalers, slowly fanning herself with a big black pan. Nothing could be calmer than their meeting. This time there was no surprise, no sudden shock, no dear familiar scene, no solemn grandeur of nature to make all effort at simulation unnatural. The atmosphere to-night was as conventional as the men swallowed tail-coats and white ties. Yet, in Angus Hamley's mind, there was the picture of his first arrival at Mount Royal, the fire-lit room, Christabel's girlish figure kneeling on the hearth. The figure was a shade more matronly now, the carriage and manner were more dignified, but the face had

lost none of its beauty or of its divine candor. I am very glad my husband persuaded you to alter your plans and to stay a little longer in the West, she said with unfaltering voice. And then seeing Mopsy and Dopsy looking at Mr. Hamley with admiring expectant eyes, she added, Let me introduce you to these young ladies who are staying with us. Mr. Hamley, Miss Vandler, Miss Margaret Vandler. Dobsy and Mopsie smiled their sweetest smiles and gave just the most aesthetic inclination. of each tousled head. I suppose you have not long come from London,

murmured Dobsy, determined not to lose a moment. Have you seen all the new things at the theatres? I hope you are a nervingite. I regret to say that my religious opinions have not yet taken that bent. It is a spiritual height which I feel myself too weak to climb. I have never been able to believe in the unknown tongues. Ah, now you are going to criticize this pronunciation

instead of admiring his genius, said Dobsy. who had never heard of Edward Irving and the Latter-day Saints. If you mean Henry Irving, the tragedian, I admire him immensely, said Mr. Hamley. Then we are sure to get on. I felt that you must be sympathica, replied Dobsy, not particular as to gender in a language which she only knew by sight, as Bannister knew Greek. Dinner was announced at this moment, and Mrs. Tregonnell won Dobsy's gratitude by asking Mr. Hamley to take her into dinner. Mr. Montague gave his arm to Miss Bridgman, Leonard took Mopsy, and Christabel followed with

Major Brie, who felt for her keenly, wondering how she managed to bear herself so bravely, reproaching the dead woman in his mind for having parted two faithful hearts. He was shocked by the change in Angus, obvious even to-night, albeit the soft lamplight and evening dress were flattering to his appearance, but he said no word of that change to Christabel. I have been having a romp with my godson, he said when they were seated, knowing that this was the one topic likely to cheer and interest his hostess. I am so glad, she answered, lighting up at once,

and unconscious that Angus was trying to see her face under the low lamplight, which made it necessary to bend one's head a little to see one's opposite neighbor. And do you think he has grown? It is nearly ten days since you saw him, and he grows so fast. "'He is a young Hercules. "'If there were any snakes in Cornwall, "'he would be capable of strangling a brace of them. "'I suppose Leonard is tremendously proud of him.'

"'Yes,' she answered with a faint sigh. "'I think Leonard is proud of him.' "'But not quite so fond of him as you are,' "'replied Major Brie, interpreting her emphasis. "'That is only natural. "'Inphantoletry is a feminine attribute. "'Wait till the boy is old enough to go out, out fishing and shootin'

The major was too much a gentleman to pronounce a final g. And then see if his father don't dot upon him. I dare say he will be very fond of him then, but I shall be miserable every hour he is out. Of course. Women ought to have only girls for children. There should be a race of man-mothers to rear the boys.

I wonder Plato didn't suggest that in his republic. Mr. Hamley, with his head gently bent over his soup-plate, had contrived to watch Christabel's face while politely replying to a good deal of gush on the part of the fair dopsy. He saw that expressive face light up with smiles and then grow earnest. She was full of interest and animation, and her candid look showed that the conversation was one which all the world might have heard. She has forgotten me. She is happy in her married life. He said to himself, and then he looked to the other end of the table where Leonard sat, burly, florid, black-haired, mutton-chop-whiskered, the very essence of Philistinism,

happy, with him. And I am sure you must adore Alan Terry, said Dobsy, whose society conversation was not a many-stranged instrument. Who could live and not worship her? ejaculated Mr. Hamley. Irving as Shylock, sighed Dopsy. Miss Terry as Portia, retorted Angus. Unnatureably sweet was she not? Her movements were like.

a sonata by Beethoven. Her gowns were the essence of all that Rubens and Van Dyck ever painted. I knew you would agree with me, exclaimed Dobsy. And do you think her pretty? Pretty is not the word. She is simply divine. Gruse might have painted her. There is no living painter whose palette holds the tint of those blue eyes. Dobsy began to giggle softly to herself and to flutter her fan with maiden modesty. I hardly like to mention it after what you have said. she murmured, but, Pray be explicit. I have been told that I am rather,

another faint giggle and another flutter, like Miss Terry. I never met a fair-haired girl yet who had not been told as much, answered Mr. Hamley coolly. Dopsy turned crimson and felt that this particular arrow had missed the gold.

Mr. Hamley was not quite so easy to get on with as her hopeful fancy had painted him. After dinner there was some music in which art neither of the Miss Vandler has excelled. Indeed, their time had been too closely absorbed by the ever-pressing necessity for cutting and contriving to allow of the study of art and literature. They knew the names of writers and the outsides of books,

and they adored the opera, and enjoyed a ballad concert, if the singers were popular and the audience well-dressed. And this was the limit of their artistic proclivities. They sat stifling their yawns and longing for an adjournment to the billiard-room, whether Jack Vandallure and Mr. Montague had departed, while Christabel played a capricio by Mendelsohn.

Mr. Hamley sat by the piano listening to every note. Leonard and Major Bree lounged by the fireplace, Jesse Bridgman, sitting near them, absorbed in her cruel work. It was what Mopsy and Dobsy called a very slow evening, despite the new interest afforded by Mr. Hamley's presence. He was very handsome, very elegant, with an inexpressible something in his style and air which Mopsy thought poetical. But it was weary work to sit and gaze at him as if he were a statue,

and that long Capriccio with a little Beethoven to follow, and a good deal of Mozart after that, occupied the best part of the evening. To the years of Mop and up it was all Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They would have been refreshed by one of those lively melodies in which Miss Farrant so excels. They would have welcomed a familiar strain from Chilperic, Madame Angault. Yet they gushed and said, too delicious, quite too utterly lovely, when Mrs. Tregonnell rose from the piano. "'I only hope I have not wearied everybody,' she said. Leonard and Major Bree had been talking local politics all the time, and both expressed

themselves much gratified by the music. Mr. Hamley murmured his thanks. Christabel went to her room, wondering that the evening had passed so calmly, that her heart, though it had ached at the change in Angus Hamley's looks, had been in no wise tumultuously stirred by his presence. There had been a peaceful feeling in her mind rather than agitation. She had been soothed and made happy by his society. If love still lingered in her breast, it was love purified of every earthly thought and hope.

She told herself sorrowfully that for him the sand ran low in the glass of earthly time, and it was sweet to have him near her for a little while towards the end, to be able to talk to him of serious things, to inspire hope in a soul whose natural bent was despondency. It would be sadly, unutterably sweet to talk to him of that spiritual world whose unearthly light already shone in the too brilliant eye, and colored the hollow cheek. She had found Mr. Hamley despondent and skeptical,

but never indifferent to religion. He was not one of that eminently practical school, which, in the words of Matthew Arnold, thinks it's more important to learn how buttons and papier-mache are made than to search the depths of conscience, or fathom the mysteries of a divine providence. Christabel's first sentiment when Leonard announced Mr. Hamley's intended visit had been horror. How could they, too, who had loved so deeply, parted so sadly, lived together under the same roof as if they were everyday friends? The thing seemed fraught with danger, impossible for peace.

But when she remembered that calm, almost solemn, look with which he had shaken hands with her among the grays of tintagel, it seemed to her that friendship, calmest, purest, most unselfish attachment, was still possible between them. She thought so even more hopefully on the morning after Mr. Hamley's arrival, when he took her boy in his arms and pressed his lips lovingly upon the bright baby brow. "'You are fond of children,' exclaimed Mopsy, prepared to gush. "'Very fond of some children,' he answered gravely. "'I shall be very fond of this book.'

if he will let me. Leo is such a darling, and he takes to you already, said Mopsy, seeing that the child graciously accepted Mr. Hamley's attentions and even murmured an approving gur, followed by a simple one-part melody of gurgling noises. But whether in approval of the gentleman himself or of his watch-chain, about which the pink flexible fingers had bound themselves, was an open question. This was in the hall after breakfast on a bright, sun-shiny morning. doors and windows open, and the gardens outside all abloom with chrysanthemums and scarlet geraniums.

The gentlemen of the party standing about with their guns ready to start. Mopsy and Dopsy were dressed in homemade gowns of dark brown serge, which simulated the masculine simplicity of tailor-made garments. They wore coquettish little tokes of the same dark-brown stuff, also homemade, and, surely, if a virtuous man contending with calamity is a spectacle meat for the gods to admire, a needy young woman making her own raiment, is at least worthy of human approval. You are coming with us,

aren't you, Hamley? asked Leonard, seeing Angus still occupied with a child. No, thanks. I don't feel in good form for Woodcock shooting. My cough was rather troublesome last night. Mopsy and Dopsy looked at each other despairingly. Here was a golden opportunity lost.

If it were only possible to sprain an ankle on the instant. Jack Vandler was a good brother, so long as fraternal kindness did not cost money, and he saw that look of blank despair in poor Dobsy's eyes and lips. I think Mr. Hamley is wise, he said. This bright morning will end in broken weather. Hadn't you two girls better stay at home?

The rain will spoil your gowns. Our gowns won't hurt, said Mopsy, brightening, but do you really think there will be rain? We had so set our hearts on going with you. But it is rather miserable to be out on those hills, in a blinding rain. One might walk over the edge of a cliff. Keep on the safe side and stay at home, said Leonard, with that air of rough good nature which is such an excellent excuse for bad manners.

Come, Ponto, come, Juno. Hi, Delia, this to the lovely lemon and white spaniels, fawning upon him with mute affection. I think we may as well give it up, said Dobsy. We shall be a nuisance to the shooters if it rains. So they stayed, and beguiled Mr. hamley to the billiard-room where they both played against him and were beaten after which mopsie entreated him to give her a lesson in the art declaring that he played divinely in such a quite style so very superior to jacks or mr tregonels though both those gentlemen were good players angus consented kindly enough and gave both ladies the most careful instruction in the art of making pockets and cannons but he was wondering all the while how christabel was spending her morning and thinking how sweet it would have been to have strolled with her across the hills to the quiet little church in the dingle where he had once dreamed they two might be married i was a fool to submit to delay he thought remembering all the pain and madness of the past if i had insisted on being married here and at once how happy oh god how happy we might have been

well it matters little now that the road is so near the end i suppose a dismal clothes would have come just as soon if my way of life had been strewed with flowers it was luncheon-time before the miss vanderers consented to release him once having got him in their clutch he was as firmly held as if he had been caught by an octopus christabel wondered a little that angus hamley should find amusement for his morning in the billiard-room and in such society perhaps after all the miss vandalers are the kind of girls whom all gentlemen admire, she said to Jessie. I know I thought it odd that Leonard should admire them, but you see Mr. Hamley is equally pleased with them. Mr. Hamley is nothing of the kind, answered Jesse in her usual decided way. But Dopp is setting her cap at him in a positively disgraceful manner, even for Dopp. Pray don't call her by that horrid name.

Why not? It is what her brother and sister call her, and it expresses her so exactly. Mr. Hamley and the two damsels now appeared, summoned by the gong, and they all went into the dining-room. It was quite a merry luncheon party. Care seemed to have no part in that cheery circle. Angus had made up his mind to be happy, and Christabel was as much at ease with him as she had been in those innocent, unconscious days when he first came to Mount Royal. Dobsy was in high spirits, thinking that she was fast advancing towards victory. Mr. Hamley had been so kind, so attentive, had done exactly. what she had asked him to do, and how could she doubt that he had consulted his own pleasure in

so doing? Poor Dobsy was accustomed to be treated with scant ceremony by her brother's acquaintance, and it did not enter into her mind that a man might be bored by her society and not betray his weariness. After luncheon, Jessie, who was always energetic, suggested a walk. The threatened bad weather had not come. It was a grayish afternoon, sunless, but mild. If we walk towards St. Necton Skev, we may meet the shoot. said Christabel. That is a great place for Woodcock. That will be delicious, exclaimed Dobsy. I worship St. Necton Sgev, such a lovely, ferny, rocky, wild, watery spot. And a way she and her sister skipped, to put on the

brown toks, and to refresh themselves with a powder-puff. They started for their ramble with Randy, and a favorite cumber spaniel, degraded from his proud position as a sporting dog to the ignoble luxury of a house-pet, on account of an incorrigible desultoriness in his conduct with birds. These affectionate creatures frisked round Christabel, while Miss Vandler and her sister seemed almost as friskly to surround Mr. Hamley with their South Belgravean blandishments. You look as if you were not very strong, hazardedopsie sympathetically. Are you not afraid of a long walk?

Not at all. I never feel better than when walking on these hills, answered Angus. It is almost my native air, you see. I came here to get a stock of rude health before I go to winter in the south. And you are really going to be abroad all the winter? sighed Dopsy, as if she would have said, How shall I bear my life in your absence? Yes, it is five years since I spent a winter in England.

I hold my life on that condition. I am never to know the luxury of a London fog or see a drury-lane pantomine or skate upon the serpentine. A case of real distress, is it not? Very sad, for your friends, said Dobson. But I can quite imagine that you love the sunny south. How I long to see the Mediterranean, the mountains, the pine trees, the borderland of Italy. No doubt you will go there someday, and be disappointed.

People generally are when they indulge in daydreams about a place. My dreams will always be dreams, answered Dobsy with a profound sigh. We are not rich enough to travel. Christabel walked on in front with Jesse and the dogs. Mr. Hamley was longing to be by her side, to talk as they had talked of old, of a thousand things which could be safely discussed without any personal feeling.

They had so many sympathies, so many ideas in common. All the world of sense and sentiment was theirs wherein to range at will. But Dobsy and Mopsie stuck to him like burrs, plying him with idle questions and stereotyped remarks, looking at him with languishing eyes.

He was too much a gentleman, had too much good feeling to be rude to them, but he was bored excessively. They went by the cliffs, a wild grand walk. The wide Atlantic spread its dull, leaden-colored waves before them under the gray sky, touched with none of those translucent azures and carmines which so often beautify that western sea. They crossed a bit of hillocky common, and then went down to look at a slate quarry under the cliff, a scene of uncanny grandeur, gray and wild and desolate. Dopsy and Mopsy gushed and laughed and declared it was just a scene for a murder or a duel or something dreadful and dramatic.

The dogs ran into all manner of perilous places and had to be called away from the verge of instant death. Are you fond of aristocratic society, Miss Vandaleur? asked Angus. Mopsy pleaded guilty to a prejudice in favor of the upper ten. Then allow me to tell you that you were never in the company of so many duchesses and countesses in your life as you are at this moment. Mopsy looked mystified, until Miss Bridgman explained that these were the names given to the slates of particular sizes, great stacks of which stood on either side of them ready for shipment. How absurd! exclaimed Mopsy.

Everything must have a name, even the slate that roofs your scullery. From the quarry these strolled across the fields to the high road and the gate of the farm which contains within its boundary the wonderful waterfall called Sank Necton Skia. They met the sportsman coming out of the hollow with well-filled game-bags. Leonard was in high spirits. So you've all come to meet us, he said, looking at his wife, and from his wife to Angus Hamley with a keen, quick glance, too swift to be remarkable. Uncommonly good of you.

We are going to have a grand year for Woodcock, I believe, like the season of 1855, when a farmer at St. Berion shot 54 in one week. "'Poor dear little birds,' sighed Mopsy. "'I feel sorry for them.' "'But that doesn't prevent you're eating them, with breadcrumbs and gravy,' said Leonard, laughing. "'When they are once roasted it can make no difference who eats them,' replied Mopsy. "'But I am intensely sorry for them all the same.'

They all went home together, a cheery procession with the dogs at their heels. Mr. Hamney's efforts to escape from the two damsels who had marked him for their own were futile. Nothing less than sheer brutality would have set him free. They trudged along gaily, one on each side of him. They flattered him. They made much of him. A man must have been stony-hearted to remain untouched by such attentions. Angus was marble, but he could not be uncivil. It was his nature to be gentle to women. Mop and daup were the kind of girls he most detested. Indeed, it seemed to him that no other form of girlhood could be so detestable. They had all the pertness of Bohemia without any of its wit.

They had all the audacity of the demi-monde with far inferior attractions. Everything about them was furious and second-hand. Every air and look and tone was put on, like a ribbon or a flower, to attract attention. And could it be that one of these meretricious creatures was angling for him? For him, the Lozun, the Decmul, the Prince de Belgioso of his day, the born dandy with whom fastidiousness was a six-sense. Intolerable as the idea of being so pursued was to him, Angus Hamley could not bring himself to be rude to a woman. It happened, therefore, that from the beginning to the end of that long ramble, he was never in Mrs. Tregonnell's society.

She and Jessie walked steadily ahead with their dogs, while the sportsman trampled slowly behind Mr. Hamley and the two girls. Our friend seems to be very much taken by your sisters, said Leonard. Captain Van D'Eleur. My sisters are deuce-taking girls, answered Jack, puffing at his 17th cigarette, though I suppose it isn't my business to say so. There's nothing of the professional beauty about either of them. Dysnically not, said Leonard.

But they've plenty of chic, plenty of go, some are fair, in all that kind of thing, don't you know? They're the most companionable girls I ever met with. They're uncommonly jolly little buffers, said Leonard kindly, meaning it for the highest praise. They've no fools' flesh about them, said Jack, and they can make a fiver go further than anyone I know.

A man might do worse than marry one of them. Hardly, thought Leonard, unless he married both. It would be a fine thing for Doff if Mr. Hamley were to come to the scratch, mused Jack. I wonder what was Leonard's motive in asking Mr. Hamley to stay at Mount Royal, said Christabel suddenly, after she and Jessie had been talking of Indeuxie. different subjects. I hope he had not any motive, but that the invitation was the impulse of the

moment, without rhyme or reason, answered Miss Bridgman. Why? Because if he had a motive, I don't think it could be a good one. Might he not think it just possible that he was finding a husband for one of his friend's sisters, speculated Isabel. Nonsense, my dear. Leonard is not quite a fool. If he had a motive, it was something very different from any concern for the interests of or mop. I will call them dop and mop. They are so like it. In spite of mopsie and dopsy, there were hours in which Angus Hamley was able to enjoy the society which had once been so sweet to him, almost as freely as in the happy days that were gone. Brazen, as the two damsels were, the feeling of self-respect was not altogether extinct in their

natures. Their minds were like grass plots which had been trodden into mere clay, but were a lingering green blade here and there shows that the soil had once been verdant. Before Mr. Hamley came to Mount Royal, it had been their habit to spend their evenings in the billiard-room with the gentleman, albeit Mrs. Tregonel very rarely left the drawing-room after dinner, preferring the perfect tranquility of the almost deserted apartment, the inexhaustible delight of her piano or her books, with Jessie for her sole companion. Nay, sometimes quite alone, while Jesse joined the revelers at pool or shell-out. Dobsy and Mopsy could not altogether alter their habits because Mr. Hamley spent his evenings in the drawing-room.

The motive for such a change would have been too obvious. The boldest huntress would scarce thus openly pursue her prey. So the Miss Van der Lurz went regretfully with their brother and his host and marked or played an occasional four-game, and made themselves conversational agreeable all the evening, while Angus Hamley sat by the piano and gave himself up to dream he thought, soothed by the music of the great composers, played with a level perfection which only years of careful study can achieve. Jesse Bridgman never left the drawing-room now of an evening. Faithful and devoted to her duty of companion and friend, she seemed almost Christabel's second

self. There was no restraint, no embarrassment caused by her presence. What she had been to these two in their day of joy, she was to them in their day of sorrow, wholly and completely one of themselves. She was no stony guardian of the proprieties. no bar between their souls and dangerous memories or illusions. She was their friend, reading and understanding the minds of both. It had been finally said by Matthew Arnold that there are times when a man feels in this life, the sense of immortality, and that feeling must surely be strongest with him who knows that his race is nearly run, who feels the rosy light of life's sunset warm upon his face,

who knows himself near the lifting of the veil, the awful, fateful experience, experiment called death. Angus Hamley knew that for him the end was not far off. It might be less than a year, more than a year, but he felt very sure that this time there would be no reprieve. Not again would the physician's sentence be reversed. The physician's theories gained sayed by facts. For the last four years he had lived as a man lives who has ceased to value his life. He had exposed himself to the hardships of mountain climbing. He had sat late in gaming saloons, not gambling himself, but interested in a cynical way, as Bazac might have been in the hopes and fears of others, seeking amusement wherever and however it was

to be found. At his worst, he had never been a man utterly without religion. Not a man who could willingly forego the hope in a future life, but that hope, until of late, had been clouded and dim. A rabelais is great, perhaps, rather than the Christian's assured belief. As the cold shade of death drew nearer, the horizon cleared, and he was able to rest his hopes in a fair future beyond the grave. An existence in which a man's happiness should not be dependent on the condition of his lungs, nor his career marred by an hereditary taint in the blood, an existence in which spirits should be divorced from clay, yet not become so entirely abstract as to be incapable of such pleasures as are sweetest and purest among the joys of humanity, a life in which

friendship and love might still be known in fullest measure. and now with the knowledge that for him there remained but a brief remnant of this early existence that were the circumstances of his life ever so full of joy that life itself could not be lengthened it was very sweet to him to spend a few quiet hours with her who for the last five years had been the poor star of his thoughts for him there could be no arire pensie no tending towards forbidden hopes forbidden dreams death had purified life it was almost as if he were an immortal spirit already belonging to another world yet permitted to revisit the old dead and gone love below For such a man, and perhaps for such a man only, was such a super mundane love as poets and idealists have imagined, all satisfying, and all sweet. He was not even jealous of his happier rival. His only regret was the too evident unworthiness of that rival. If I had seen her married to a man I could respect, if I could know that she was completely happy, that the life before her were secure from all pain and evil, I should have nothing to regret.

he told himself. But the thought of Leonard's coarse nature was a perpetual grief. When I am lying in the long, peaceful sleep, she will be miserable with that man, he thought. One day, when Jesse and he were alone together, he spoke freely of Leonard. I don't want to malign a man

who has treated me with exceptional kindness and cordiality, he said, above all a man whose mother I once loved and always respected. Yes, although she was hard and cruel to me, but I cannot help wishing that Christabel's husband had a more sympathetic nature. Now that my own future is reduced to a very short span, I find myself given to forecasting the future of those I love, and it grieves me to think of Christabel in the years to come,

linked with a man who has no power to appreciate or understand her, tied to the mill-wheel of domestic duty. Yes, it is a hard case, answered Jesse bitterly, one of those hard cases that so often come out of people acting for the best, as they call it. No doubt Mrs. Tregenel thought she acted for the best with regard to you and Christabel. She did not know how much selfishness, as selfish idolatry of her own cub, was at the bottom of her over-righteousness. She was a good woman, generous, benevolent, a true friend to me, yet there are times when I feel angry with her, even in her grave, for her treatment of you and Christabel.

Yet she died happy in the belief in her own wisdom. She thought Christabel's marriage with Leonard ought to mean bliss for both, because she adored her Cornish gladiator. Forsooth, she must needs think everybody else ought to dote upon him. You don't seem warmly attached to Mr. Tregonel, said Angus. I am not, and he knows that I am not. I never liked him, and he never liked me, and neither of us ever pretended to like each other.

We are quits, I have. assure you. Perhaps you think it rather horrid of me to live in a man's house, eat his bread and drink his wine, one glass of claret every day at dinner, and dislike him openly all the time? But I am here because Christabel is here, just as I would be with her in the dominions of Orcas. She is, well, almost the only creature I love in this world, and it would take a good deal more than my dislike of her husband to part us. If she had married a galley slave, I would have taken my turn at the oar. You are as true as steel, said Angus, and I am glad to think Christabel has such a friend. To all the rest of the world he spoke of her as Mrs. Tregenel, nor did he ever address her by any other

name. But to Jesse Bridgman, who had been with them in the Housian days of their lovemaking, she was still Christabel. To Jesse and to none other could he speak of her with perfect freedom. End of Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 11. of Mount Royal Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 11. Who knows not Circe? The autumn days crept by, sometimes grey and sad of aspect, sometimes radiant and sunny, as if summer had risen from her grave amidst fallen leaves and faded heather.

It was altogether a lovely autumn, like that beauteous season of five years ago, and Christabel and Angus wandered about the hills and lingered by the trout stream in the warm green valley, almost as freely as they had done in the past. They were never alone. Jesse Bridgman was always with them, very often Dopsy and Mopsy, and sometimes Mr. Tregonale with Captain Vandalur and half a dozen dogs. One day they all went up the hill and crossed the plowed field to the path among the gorse and Heather above Pentergon Bay, and Dobsy and Mopsy climbed crags and knolls and screamed affrightedly, and made a large display of boots, and were generally,

fascinating after their manner. If any place could tempt me to smoke it would be this, said Dobsy, gazing seaward. All the men except Angus were smoking. I think it must be utterly lovely to sit dreaming over a cigarette in such a place as this. What would you dream about? asked Angus. A new bonnet? Don't be cynical.

You think I am awfully shallow because I am not a perambulating bookshelf like Mrs. Tregenel, who seems to have heard all the books that ever were printed. There you are wrong. She has read a few. Non-Multa said Multum. But they are the very best, and she has read them well enough to remember them, answered Angus quietly. And Mop and I often read three volumes in a day, and seldom remember a line of what we've read, sighed Dobsy. Indeed, we are awfully ignorant. Of course, we learn things at school. French and German, Italian, natural history, physical geography, geology, and all the onomies. Indeed, I shudder when I remember what a lot of learning was, poured into our

poor little heads, and how soon it all ran out again. Dobsy gave her most fascinating giggle and sat in an aesthetic attitude idly plucking up faded Heather blossoms with a tightly gloved hand, and wondering whether Mr. Hamley noticed how small the hand was. She thought she was going straight to his heart with these naive confessions. She had always heard that men hated learned women, and no doubt Mr. Hamley's habit of prose about books which Mrs. Tregonel was merely the homage he paid to his hostess. You and Mrs. Tregenel are so dreadfully grave when you get together, pursued Dobsy, seeing that her companion held his peace. She had contrived to be by Mr. Hamley's side when he crossed

the field, and had, in a manner got possessed of him for the rest of the afternoon, barring some violent struggle for emancipation on his part. I always wonder what you can find to say to each other. I don't think there is much cause for wonder. have many tastes in common. We are both fond of music, of nature, and of books. There is a wide field for conversation. Why won't you talk with me of books? There are some books I adore. Let us talk about Dickens. With all my heart, I admire every line he wrote. I think him the greatest genius of this age. We have had great writers, great thinkers, great masters of style, but Scott and Dickens were the creators. They made new worlds and people them. I am

quite ready to talk about Dickens. I don't think I could say a single word after that outburst of yours, said Dobsy. You go too fast for me. He had talked eagerly, willing to talk just now even to Miss Vandalor, trying not too vividly to remember that other day, that unforgotten hour, in which, on this spot, face to face with that ever-changing, ever-changeless sea, he had submitted his fate to Christabel, not daring to ask for her love, warning her rather against the misery that might come to her from loving him. And misery had come, but not as he presaged. It had come from his youthful sin,

that one fatal turn upon the road of life which he had taken so lightly, tripping with joyous companions along a path strewn with roses. He, like so many, had gathered his roses while he might, and had found that he had to bear the sting of their thorns when he must. Leonard came up behind them as they talked, Mr. Hamley, standing by Miss Vandalers' side, digging his stick into the heather and staring idly at the sea. "'What are you two talking about so earnestly?' he asked. "'You are always together.' "'I begin to understand why Hamley is so indifferent to sport.'

The remark struck Angus as strange, as well as underbred. Dopsy had contrived to inflict a good deal of her society upon him at odd times, but he had taken particular care that nothing in his bearing or discourse should compromise either himself or the young lady. Dipsy giggled faintly and looked modestly at the heather. It was still early in the afternoon, and the western light shone full upon a face which might have been pretty, if nature's bloom had not long given plays to the poetic pallor of the powder-puff.

We were talking about Dickens, said Dobsy, with an elaborate air of struggling with the tumult of her feelings. Don't you adore him? If you mean the man who wrote books, I never read him, answered Leonard. Life isn't long enough for books that don't teach you anything. i've read pretty nearly every book that was ever written upon horses and dogs and guns and a good many on mechanics that's enough for me i don't care for books that only titulate one's imagination why should one read books to make oneself cry and to make oneself laugh it's as idiotic a habit as taking snuff to make oneself sneeze that's rather a severe way of looking at the subject said angus it's a practical way that's all my wife surfeits herself with poetry she is stuffed with tennyson and browning loaded to the very muzzle with byron and shelley she reads shakespeare as devoutly as she reads her bible but i don't see that it helps to make her pleasant company for her husband or her friends

she is never so happy as when she has her nose in a book give her a bundle of books and a candle and she would be happy in the little house on the top of willa park not without you and her boy said dopsy gushingly she could never exist without you two mr tregonow lit himself another cigar and strolled off without a word he has not lovable manners has he inquired dopsy with her childish air but he is so good-hearted no doubt you have known him some time haven't you? inquired Angus, who had been struggling with an uncomfortable yearning to kick the squire into the bay. The scene offered such temptations. They were standing on the edge of the amphitheater, the ground shelving steeply downward in front of them, rocks and water below. And to think that she, his dearest, she, all gentleness and refinement, was made it to this coarse clay. Was King Mark such an one as this, he wondered, and if he were, who could be angry with Tristan. Tristan, who died longing to see his lost love, struck to death by his wife's cruel lie,

Tristan, whose passionate soul passed by metampsychosis into briar and leaf, and crept across the arid rock to meet and mingle with the beloved dead. Oh, how sweet and sad the old legend seemed to Angus today, standing above the melancholy sea, where he and she had stood folded in each other's arms in the sweet, triumphant moment of love's first avowal. Dobsy did not allow him much for mournful meditation. She prattled on in that sweetly girlish manner which was meant to be all spirit and sparkle, glancing from theme to theme, like the butterfly among the flowers, and showing a level ignorance on all. Mr. Hamley listened with Christian resignation and even allowed himself to be her escort home, and to seem especially attentive to her

at afternoon tea, for although it may take two to make a quarrel, assuredly one, if she but brazen enough may make a flirtation. Dobsy felt that time was short and that strong measures were necessary Mr. Hamley had been very polite, attentive even. Dobsy, accustomed to the free and easy manners of her brother's friends, mistook Mr. Hamley's natural courtesy to the sects for particular homage to the individual. But he had said nothing,

and she was no nearer the assurance of becoming Mrs. Hamley than she had been on the evening of his arrival. Dobsy had been fain to confess this to Mopsy in the confidence of Sister discourse. It seems as if I might just as well have had a try for him myself, instead of standing out to give you a better chance, retorted Mopsy somewhat scornfully. Go in and win if you can, said Dobsy. It won't be the first time you've tried to cut me out. Dobsy, embittered by the sense of failure, determined on new tactics. Hitherto, she had been all sparkle. Now she melted into a touching sadness. What a delicious old room this is,

she murmured, glancing round at the bookshelves and dark panelling, the high, wide chimney-piece with its coat of arms, in heraldic colours flashing and gleaming against the background of brown oak. I cannot help feeling wretched at the idea that next week I shall be far away from this dear place, in dingy, dreary London. Oh, Mr. Hamley, detaining him while she selected one particular piece of sugar from the basin he was handing her. Don't you detest London?

Not absolutely. I have sometimes found it endurable. Ah, you have your clubs, just the one pleasantest street in all the great overgrown city, and that street lined with palaces whose doors are always standing open for you. Libraries, smoking rooms, billiard tables, perfect dinners, and all that is freshest and brightest in the way of society. I don't wonder men like London. But for women it has only two attractions, Moody, and the shop windows.

And the park, the thief. Theaters, the churches, the delight of looking at other women's gowns and bonnets. I thought that could never, Paul. It does, though. There comes a time when one feels weary of everything, said Dobsy, pensively stirring her tea, and so fixing Mr. Hamley with her conversation that he was obliged to linger. Yeah, even to set down his own teacup on an adjacent table, and to seat himself by the

charmer's side. I thought you so delighted in the theatres, he said. You were full of enthusiasm about the drive. the night I first dined here. Was I? demanded Dopsie naively, and now I feel as if I did not care as draw about all the plays that were ever acted, all the actors who ever lived. Strange is it not, that one can change so in one literal fortnight? The change is a hallucination.

You are fascinated by the charms of a rural life, which you have not known long enough for satiety. You will be just as fond of plays and players when you get back to London. "'Never,' exclaimed Dobsy. "'It is not only my taste that is changed. It is myself. I feel as if I were a new creature.' "'What a blessing for yourself and society of the change were radical,' said Mr. Hamley, within himself, and then he answered lightly.

"'Perhaps you have been attending the little chapel at Beauchastle, secretly imbibing the doctrines of advanced Methodism, and this is a spiritual awakening.' "'No,' sighed Dobsy, shaking her head pensively as she gazed at her teacup. It is a nutter change. I cannot make it out. I don't think I shall ever care for gaiety, parties, theatres, dress, again. Oh, this must be the influence of the Methodists. I hate Methodists.

I never spoke to one in my life. I should like to go into a convent. I should like to belong to a Protestant sisterhood and to nurse the poor in their own houses. It would be nasty. I should catch some dreadful complaint and die, I dare say. But it would be better than what I feel now. and dobsy taking advantage of the twilight and the fact that she and angus were at some distance from the rest of the party burst into tears they were very real tears tears of vexation disappointment despair and they made angus very uncomfortable

my dear miss van der lor i am so sorry to see you distressed is there anything on your mind is there anything i can do shall i fetch your sister no no gasped dobsy in a choke voice, "'Please don't go away. I like you to be near me.' She put out her hand, a chilly, tremulous hand, with no passion in it save the passionate pain of despair, and touched his,

timidly, entreatingly, as if she were calling upon him for pity and help. She was indeed, in her inmost heart, asking him to rescue her from the great dismal swamp of poverty and disrepute, to take her to himself and give her a place and status among well-bred people, and make her life worth living.

this was dreadful angus hamley in all the variety of his experience of womankind had never before found himself face to face with this kind of difficulty he had not been blind to miss vandaler's strenuous endeavors to charm him he had parried those light arrows lightly but he was painfully embarrassed by this appeal to his compassion it was a new thing for him to sit beside a weeping woman whom he could neither love nor admire but from whom he could not withhold his pity "'I dare say her life is dismal enough,' he thought, with such a brother as Poker van der Leur and a father to match. While he sat in silent embarrassment, and while Dobsy slowly dried her tears with a gaudy little colored handkerchief taken from a smart little breast pocket in the tailor gown, Mr. Tregonail sauntered across the room to the window where they sat,

a tudor window with a deep embrasure. "'What are you two talking about in the dark?' he asked, as Dobsy confusedly shuffled the handkerchief back into the breast pocket. Something very sentimental, I should think, from the look of you. Poetry, I suppose. Dobsy said not a word. She believed that Leonard meant well by her, that if his influence could bring Mr. Hamley's nose to the grindstone, to the grindstone that nose would be brought. So she looked up at her brother's friend with a watery smile and remained mute.

We were talking about London and the theatres, answered Angus, not a very sentimental topic, and then he got up and walked away with his teacup to the table near which Christabel was sitting in the flickering firelight, and seated himself by her side, and began to talk to her about a box of books that had arrived from London that day. Books that were familiar to him and knew to her. Leonard looked after him with a scowl, safe in the shadow. Wildopsy, feeling that she had made a fool of herself, lapsed again into tears. I am afraid he is behaving very badly to you, said Leonard. Oh, no, no, but he has such strange ways.

He blows hot and cold. In plain words, he's a heartless flirt, answered Leonard impatiently. He has been fooled by a pack of women, pretends to be dying of consumption, gives himself no end of airs. He has flirted outrageously with you. Has he proposed? No, not exactly, faltered Dobsy. "'Someone ought to bring him to the scratch.

"'Your brother must tackle him. "'Don't you think if—if Jack were to say anything "'were just to hint that I was being made very unhappy, "'that such marked attentions before all the world put me in a false position, "'don't you think it might do harm?' "'Quite the contrary, it would do good. "'No man ought to trifle with the girl's feelings in that way. "'No man shall be allowed to do it in my house.

"'If Jack won't speak to him, I will.' "'Oh, Mr. Tregonel, what a noble heart you have. What a true friend you have always been to us. "'You are my friend's sister, my wife's guest. "'I won't see you trifled with.' "'And you really think his attentions have been marked?' "'Very much marked. "'He shall not be permitted to amuse himself at your expense.'

"'There he sits, talking sentiment to my wife, "'just as he has talked sentiment to you. "'Why doesn't he keep on the safe side "'and confine his attentions to married women?' you are not jealous of him asked dopsy with some alarm jealous i it would take a very extraordinary kind of wife and a very extraordinary kind of admirer of that wife to make me jealous dobsy felt her hopes in some wise revived by mr dregonel's manner of looking at things up to this point she had mistrusted exceedingly that the flirting was all on her side but now leonard most distinctly averred that angus hamley had flirted and in a manner obvious to every one and if mr hamley really admired her if he were really blowing hot and cold inclining one day to make her his wife and on another day disposed to let her languish and fade in south belgravia might not a word or two from a judicious friend turn the scale and make her happy for life she went up to her room to dress in a flutter of hope and fear so agitated that she could scarcely manage the more delicate details of her toilette the drapery of her skirt the adjustment of the sunflower on her shoulder

"'How flush and shaky you are!' exclaimed Mopsy, pausing in the pencilling of an eyebrow to look at her sister. "'Is the deed done? Has he popped?' "'No, he has not popped, but I think he will.' "'I wish I were of your opinion. I should like a rich sister.' "'It would be the next best thing to being well off oneself.' "'You only think of his money,' said Dobsy, who had really fallen in love, for only about the fifteenth time,

so there was still freshness in the feeling. I should care for him just as much if he were a pauper. No, you would not, said Mopsy. I dare say you think you would, but you wouldn't. There is a glamour about money which nobody in our circumstances can resist. A man who dresses perfectly, who has never been hard up, who has always lived among elegant people, there is a style about him that goes straight to one's heart.

Don't you remember how in Peter Wilkins there are different orders of beings, A superior class, born so, bred so, always apart and above the others? Mr. Hamley belongs to that higher order. If he were poor and shabby, he would be a different person. You wouldn't care two pence for him. The rector of Trevalga and his wife dined at Mount Royal that evening. So Dobsy fell to the lot of Mr. Hamley, and had plenty of opportunity of carrying on the siege during dinner,

while Mrs. Tregonnell and the rector, who was an enthusiastic antiquarian, talked of the latest discoveries in Traymary, duetic remains. After dinner came the usual adjournment to billiards. The rector and his wife stayed in the drawing room with Christabel and Jesse. Mr. Hamley would have remained with them, but Leonard specially invited him to the billiard room. You must have had enough Mendelssohn and Beethoven to last you for the next six months, he said. You had better come and have a smoke with us. I could never have too much good music, answered Angus. Well, I don't suppose you'd get much tonight. The rector and my wife will talk about pots and pans all the evening, now they've

once started. You may as well be sociable for once in a way and come with us. Such an invitation given in heartiest tones and with seeming frankness could hardly be refused. So Angus went across the hall with the rest of the billiard players to the fine old room, once a chapel, in which there was space enough for settees and easy chairs, tea tables, books, flowers and dogs, without the slightest inconvenience to the players. You'll play, Hamley, said Leonard. No, thanks. I'd rather sit and smoke and watch you.

Really? Then Monty and I will play Jack in one of the girls. Billiards is the only game at which one can afford to play against relations. They can't cheat. Mopsy, will you play? Dobsy can mark. What a thorough good fellow he is, thought Dobsy, charmed with an arrangement which left her comparatively free for flirtation with

Mr. Hamley, who had taken possession of Christabel's favorite seat, a low, capacious basket chair by the wide wood fire, and had Christabel's table near him loaded with her books and work-basket, those books which were all his favorites as well as hers, and which made an indissolable link between them. What is mere blood relationship compared with the subtler tie of mutual likings and dislikes? The men all lighted their cigarettes, and the game progressed with tolerably equal fortunes. Jack Vandler, playing well enough to make amends for any lack of skill on the part of Mopsy, whose want of the scientific purpose and certainty which come from long experience was as striking as her dashing and self-assured method of handling her cue and her free use of all

slang terms peculiar to the game. Dopsie oscillated between the marking board and the fireplace, sometimes kneeling on the Persian rug to play with Randy and the other dogs, sometimes standing in a pensive attitude by the chimney-piece, talking to Angus. all traces of tears were gone her cheeks were flushed her eyes brightened by an artful touch of indian ink under the lashes her eyebrows accentuated by the same artistic treatment her large fan held with the true grovener galleer do you believe that peacock's feathers are unlucky she asked looking pensively at the fringe of green and azure plumage on her fan i am not altogether free from superstition but my idea of the fates has never taken that particular form why should the peacock be a bird of evil omen i can believe anything bad of the screech-owl or the raven but the harmless ornamental peacock surely he is innocent of our woes i have known the most direful calamities follow the introduction of peacock's feathers into a drying-room yet they are so tempting one can hardly live without them really do you know that i have found existence endurable without so much as a tuft of down from that unmelodious bird have you never longed for its bloomage to give life and colour to your rooms such exquisite colour such delicious harmony i wonder that you who have such artistic taste can resist the fascination

i hope you have not found that pretty fan the cause of many woes said mr hamley smilingly as the damsel posed herself in the early italian manner and slowly waved to the bright-hued plumage i cannot say that i have been altogether happy since i possessed it answered dopsy with a shy downward glance and a smothered sigh and yet i don't know i have been only too happy sometimes perhaps and at other times deeply wretched is not that kind of variableness common to our poor human nature independent of peacock's feathers not to me i used to be the most thoughtless happy-go-lucky creature until when till i came to cornwall with a faint sigh and a sudden upward glance of a pair of blue eyes which would have been pretty had they been only innocent of all scheming then i'm afraid this mixture of sea and mountain air does not agree with you too exciting for your nerves perhaps I don't think it is that, with a still fainter sigh. Then the peacock's feathers must be to blame. Why don't you throw your fan into the fire? Not for whorls, said Dobsy. Why not?

First because it cost a guinea, naively, and then because it is associated with quite the happiest period of my life. You said just now you had been unhappy since you owned it. Only by fits and starts, too utterly happy at other times. If I say another word, she will dissolve into tears again, thought Angus. I shall have to leave Mount Royal. A man in weak health is no match for a young woman of this type. She will get me into a corner and declare I have proposed to her.

He got up and went over to the table where Mr. Montague was just finishing the game, with a break which had left Dobsy free for flirtation during the last ten minutes. Mr. Hamley played in the next game, but this hardly bettered his condition, for Dobsy now took her sister's place. with the cue and required to be instructed as to every stroke, and even to have her fingers place in position, now and then by Angus, when the ball was under the cushion and the stroke in any way difficult. This lengthened the game and bored Angus exceedingly, besides making him ridiculous in the eyes of the other three men.

I hate playing with lovers, muttered Leonard, under his breath, when Dobsy was especially worrying about the exact point at which she was to hit the ball for a particular canon. Decidedly, I must get away tomorrow, reflected Angus. The game went on merrily enough, and was only just over when the stable clock struck eleven, at which hour the servants brought in a tray with a tankard of malt claret for vice, and a siphon for virtue. The Miss Vandilers, after pretending to say good-night, were persuaded to sip a little of the hot-spiced wine, and were half inclined to accept the cigarettes persuasively offered by Mr. Montague.

Till, warned by a wink from Jack, they drew up suddenly, declared they have been quite too awfully dissipated, that they should be too late to wish Mrs. Tregonnell good-night, and skipped away. "'Affily jolly girls, those sisters of yours?' said Montague, as he closed the door which he had opened for the damsel's exit, and strolled back to the hearth where Angus was sitting dreamily caressing Randy, her dog. How many a happy dog has received caresses charged with the love of his mistress. such mournful kisses as Dido lavished on the young Ascanius in the dead watches of the weary night. Jack Vandler and his host had begun another game, delighted to having the table to themselves. "'Yes, they're nice girls,' answered Mr. Vandler, without looking off the table.

"'Just the right kind of girls for a country house. No starch, no prudishness, but as innocent as babies and as true-hearted. Well, they are all heart. I should be sorry to see anybody trifle with either of them.' "'It would be a very serious thing for her, and it should be my business to make it serious for him.' "'Great advantage for a girl to have a brother "'who enjoys the reputation of being a dead shot,' said Mr. Montague,

"'or it would be if dueling were not an exploded institution, "'like a trial for witchcraft and hanging for petty larceny.' "'Dueling is never out of fashion among gentlemen,' "'answered Jack, making a cannon and going in off the red. "'That makes seventeen, Monty.' There are injuries which nothing but the pistol can redress, and I'm not sorry that my Red River experience has made me a pretty good shot. But I'm not half as good as Leonard.

He could give me fifty and a hundred any day. When a man has to keep his party and butcher's meat by the use of his rifle, he'd need be a decent marksman, answered Mr. Tregonnell carelessly. I never knew the right use of a gun till I crossed the Rockies. By the way, who is for Woodcock shooting tomorrow? You'll come, I suppose, Jack? "'Not to-morrow, thanks. "'Monti and I are going over to Bodmin to see a man hanged.

"'We've got an order to view, as the house agents call it. "'Monti is supposed to be on the times. "'I go for the Western Daily Mercury.' "'What a horrid, ghoulish thing to do,' said Leonard. "'It's seeing life,' answered Jack, shrugging his shoulders. "'I should call it the other thing. "'However, as crime is very rare in Cornwall, "'you may as well make the most of your opportunity.

but it's a pity to neglect the birds. This is one of the best seasons we've had since 1860 when there was a remarkable flight of birds in the second week in October. But even that year wasn't as good as 55 when a farmer at St. Burian killed close upon 60 birds in a week. You'll go tomorrow, I hope, Mr. Hamley.

There's some very good ground about St. Necton's Kiev, and it's a picturesque sort of place that will just hit your fancy. I have been to the cave often, yes. Yes, it is a lovely spot, answered Angus, remembering his first visit to Mount Royal, and the golden afternoons which he had spent with Christabel among the rocks and the ferns. Their low voices half drowned by the noise of the waterfall. But I shan't be able to shoot tomorrow. I have just been making up my mind to tear myself away from Mount Royal,

and I was going to ask you to let one of your grooms drive me over to Launceston in time for the midday train. I can get up from Plymouth by the limited mail. "'Why are you in such a hurry?' asked Leonard. I thought you were rather enjoying yourself with us. So much so that as far as my own inclination goes, there is no reason why I should not stay here for the rest of my life. Only you would get tired of me. And I have promised my doctor to go southward before the frosty weather begins.

A day or two can't make much difference. Not much. Only when there is a disagreeable effort to be made the sooner one gets it over the better. "'I am sorry you are off so suddenly,' said Leonard, going on with the game and looking rather oddly across the table at Captain Van der Leur. "'I am more than sorry,' said that gentleman. "'I am surprised. But perhaps I am not altogether in the secret of your movements.'

"'There is no secret,' said Angus. "'Isn't there?' "'Then I'm considerably mistaken. It has looked very much lately as if there were a particular understanding between you and my elder sister. and I think as her brother, I have some right to be let into the secret before you leave Mount Royal.

I am sorry that either my manner or Miss Vandalors should have so far misled you, answered Angus with freezing gravity. He pitied the sister, but felt only cold contempt for the brother. The young lady and I have never interchanged a word which might not have been heard by everybody at Mount Royal. And you have no serious intentions?

You have never pretended to any serious feeling about her. Never. Charming as the young lady may be, I have been, and am, adamant against all such fascinations. A man who has been told that he may not live a year is hardly in a position to make an offer of marriage. Good night, Trigonel. I shall rely on your letting one of your men drive me to the station. He nodded good-night to the other two men and left the room. Randy, who loved him for the sake of old times, followed at his heels. There goes a cur who deserves a dose of cold lead, said Jack, looking vindictively towards the door. What? Randy, my wife's favorite. No, the two-legged cur. Come, you two men know how

outrageously that puppy has flirted with my sister. I know there has been some kind of flirtation, answered Mr. Montague, luxuriously buried in a large armchair with his legs hanging over the arm, and I suppose it's the man who's to blame. Of course it's it always is the man. Did you ever hear such a sneaking evasion? demanded back. Not a year to live forsooth? Why, if he can't make her his wife, he is bound as a gentleman to make her his widow? He has plenty of coin, hasn't he? asked Montague. Your sister has never gone for me, and I'm dreadfully soft under such treatment. When I think of the number of girls I've proposed to and how gracefully I've always backed out of it afterwards, I really wonder at my own audacity.

I never refused to marry the lady. Pussybet. I adore you and will be married to-morrow, if you like, I say. But you'll have to live with your papa and mama for the first ten years. Perhaps by that time I might be able to take second-floor lodgings in Bloomsbury, and we could begin housekeeping. You're a privileged pauper, said Captain Bandler. Mr. Hamley is quite another kind of individual,

and I say that he has behaved in a dastardly manner to my elder sister. everybody in this house thought that he was in love with her you have told us so several times answered montague coolly and we're bound to believe you don't you know i should have thought you'd have had too much spunk to see an old friend's sister jilted in such a bare-faced way tregonel said jack van der lor who had drunk just enough to make him quarrelsome "'You don't mean to say that I'm accountable for his actions, do you?' retorted Leonard. "'That's rather a large order.' "'I mean to say that you asked him here, and you puffed him off as a great catch, and half turned poor little Dobbs' head by your talk about him. "'If you knew what an errant flirt he was, you oughtn't to have brought him inside your doors.' "'Perhaps I didn't know anything about it,' answered Leonard, with his most exasperating air.

"'Then I can only say that if half I've heard is true you ought to have have known all about it. As how? Because it's common club talk that he flirted with your wife, was engaged to her, and was thrown off by her on account of his extremely disreputable antecedents. Your mother has the sole credit of the throwing off, by the by. You had better leave my mother's name and my wife's name out of your conversation. That's 28 to me, Monty. Poker has spoiled a capital break by his D blank personality. "'I beg your pardon. Mrs. Tregonel is simply perfect, and there is no woman I am more deeply honor. But still, you must allow me to wonder that you ever let that man cross your threshold.'

"'You are welcome to go on wondering. It's a wholesome exercise for a sluggish brain.' "'Game!' exclaimed Mr. Montague, and Leonard put his cue in the rack and walked away without another word to either of his guests. "'He's a dreadful bear,' said Little Monty, emptying the tankard. But you oughtn't to have talked about his wife, poker. That was bad form. Does he ever study good form when he talks of my people? He had no business to bring that fine gentleman here to flirt with my sister. But really now, don't you think your sister did her share of the flirting, and that she's rather an old hand of that kind of thing? I adore dop and mop, as I'm sure you know, and I only wish I were rich enough to back my opinion by marrying one of them,

but I don't think our dear little dopsy is the kind of girl to break her heart about any man, more especially a sentimental duffer with hollow cheeks and a hollow cough. Just the kind of man to interest a warm-hearted girl. No more, claret. Well, I suppose we may as well go to roost. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of Mount Royal Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This Lieber Vox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 12. And time is setting Wimmy O. Angus Hamley left the billiard players with the intention of going straight to his own room. But in the hall he encountered the rector of Travalga, who was just going away, very apologetic at having stayed so late, beguiled by the fascination of antiquarian talk. Christabel and Jesse had come out to the hall to bid their old friends good-night, and thus it happened that Mr. Hamley went back to the drawing-room and sat there talking till nearly midnight. They sat in front of the dying fire, talking as they had talked in days gone by, and their conversation grew sad and solemn as the hour were on.

Angus announced his intended departure, and Christabel had no word to say against his decision. We shall be very sorry to lose you, she said, sheltering her personality behind the plural pronoun, but I think it is wise of you to waste no more time. I have not wasted an hour. It has been unspeakable happiness for me to be here. and I am more grateful than I can say to your husband for having brought me here, for having treated me with such frank cordiality. The time has come when I may speak very freely, yes,

a man whose race is so nearly run need have no reserves of thought or feeling. I think, Mrs. Tregonel, that you and Miss Bridgman, who knows me almost as well as you do, better, perhaps, murmured Jesse in a scarcely audible voice, must both know that my life for the last four years, years has been one long regret, that all my days and hours have been steeped in the bitterness of remorse. I am not going now to dispute the justice of the sentence which spoiled my life and broke my heart. I submitted without question because I knew that the decree was wise.

I had no right to offer you the ruin of a life. Do not speak of that, cried Christabel, with a stifled sob. For pity's sake, don't speak of the past. I cannot bear it. Then I will not say another word. except to tell you that your goodness to me in these latter days your friendship so frankly so freely given has steeped my soul in peace has filled my mind with sweet memories which will soothe my hours of decline when i am far from this dear house where i was once so happy i wish i could leave some pleasant memory here when i am gone i wish your boy had been old enough to remember me in the days to come as one who loved him better than any one on earth could love him after his father and mother christabel answered no word she sat with her hand before her eyes tears streaming slowly down her cheeks tears that were happily invisible in the faint light of the shaded lamps in the fading fire and then they went on to talk of life in the abstract its difficulties its problems its constellations and of death and the dim world beyond the unknown land of universal recompense where the deep joys driven after here and never attained are to be hours in a pure

your more spiritual form, where love shall no longer walk hand in hand with pain and sorrow, dogged by the dark specter of death? Illness and solitude had done much to exalt and spiritualize Angus Hamley's mind. The religion of dogma, the strict, hard and fast creed, which was the breath of life to Leonard's mother, had never been grappled with or accepted by him, but it was in his nature to be religious. Never, at his worst, had he sheltered his errors under the brazen front of paganism. never had he denied the beauty of a pure and perfect life, a simple childlike faith,

heroic, self-abnegating love of God and man. He had admired and honored such virtue and others and had been sorry that nature had cast him in a lower mold. Then had come the sentence which told him that his days here were to be of the fewest, and without conscious effort his thoughts had taken a more serious cast. The great problem had come nearer home to him, and he had found its only solution to be hope. Hope more or less, vague and dim, more or less secure and steadfast, according to the temperament of the thinker. All metaphysical argument for or against, all theological teaching could push the thing no further. It seemed to him that it was the universal instinct of mankind to desire and hope for an

imperishable life, pure, better, fairer than the life we know here, and that innate in every human breast there dwells capacity for immortality, and disbelief in extinction. and to this universal instinct he surrendered himself unreservedly content to demand no stronger argument than that grand chapter of corinthians which has consoled so many generations of mourners so now speaking with these two women of the life to come the fair sweet all satisfying life after death he breathed at no word which the most orthodox churchman might not have approved he spoke in the fulness of a faith which based on instinct and not on dogma had ripened with the word which the most orthodox churchman might not have approved he spoke in the fulness of a faith which based on instinct and not on dogma had ripened with the decline of all delight and interest in this lower life. He spoke as a man for whom Earth's last moorings had been loosened, whose only hopes pointed skyward. It was while he was talking thus,

with an almost passionate earnestness and yet wholly free from all-earthly passion, that Mr. Tregenel entered the room and stood by the door, contemplating the group by the hearth. The spectacle was not pleasant to a man of intensely jealous temperament, a man who had been testing and proving the wife whom he could not completely trust, whom he loved grudgingly with a savage half-angry love. Christabel's face, dimly lighted by the lamp on the low table near her, was turned towards the speaker, the lips parted, the large blue eyes bright with emotion. Her hands were clasped upon the elbow of the chair, and her attitude was one of who listens to words of deepest, dearest meaning.

While Angus Hamley sat a little way off with his eyes upon her face, his whole air and expression charged with feeling. to leonard's mind all such earnestness all sentiment of any kind came under one category it all meant love-making more or less audacious more or less hypocritical dressed in modern phraseology sophisticated disguised super refined fantastical called one day aestheticism and peacock's feathers another day positivism agnosticism swinburne come burn jonesism but always the same thing au font and meaning more to domestic peace there sat jessie bridgman the dragon of prudery placed within call but was any woman safer for the presence of a duenna was it not in the nature of such people to look on simperingly while the poison cup was being quaffed and to declare afterwards that they had supposed the mixture perfectly harmless no doubt tristan and usult had somebody standing by to play propriety when they drank from the fatal goblet and bound themselves for life in the meshes of an unhappy love no the mere fact of miss bridgman's presence was was no pledge of safety. There was no guilt in Mrs. Tregonnell's countenance, assuredly, when she looked up and saw her husband standing near the door, watchful, silent, with a preoccupied air that was strange to him.

"'What is the matter, Leonard?' she asked, for his manner implied that something was amiss. "'Nothing. I—I was wondering to find you up so late, that's all.' The rector and his wife stayed till eleven, and we have been sitting here talking. Mr. Hamley means to leave us to-morrow. "'Yes, I know,' answered Leonard curtly. "'Oh, by the way,' turning to Angus, "'there is something I want to say to you before you go to bed. "'Something about your journey to-morrow.

"'I am quite at your service.' Instead of approaching the group by the fireplace, Leonard turned and left the room, leaving Mr. Hamley under the necessity of following him. "'Good-night,' he said, shaking hands with Christabel. "'I shall not say goodbye till to-morrow. I suppose I shall not have to leave Mount Royal till eleven o'clock. I think not.

Good night, Miss Bridgman. I shall never forget how kind you have been to me. She looked at him earnestly but made no reply, and in the next instant he was gone. What can have happened? asked Christabel anxiously. I am sure there is something wrong. Leonard's manner was so strange. Perhaps he and his dear friends have been quarreling,

Jesse answered carelessly. I believe Captain, Van der breaks out into vindictive language sometimes, after he has taken a little too much wine. Mop told me as much in her amiable candor, and I know the captain's glass was filled very often at dinner, for I had the honor of sitting next to him. I hope there is nothing really wrong, said Christabel, but she could not get rid of the sense of uneasiness to which Leonard's strange manner had given rise. She went to her boy's nursery, as she did every night before going to bed and set her prayers beside his pillow.

She had begun this one night when the child was ill and had never missed a night since. The quiet recess in which the little ones caught stood was her oratory. Here in the silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock or the fall of a cinder on the hearth, while the nurse slept near at hand, the mother prayed. And her prayers seemed to her sweeter

and more efficacious here than in any other place. So soon as those childish lips could speak it would be her delight to teach her son to pray. And in the meantime, her supplications went up heaven for him, from a heart that overflowed with motherly love. There had been one dismal interval of her life when she had loved no one, having really no one to love, secretly loathing her husband, not daring even to remember that other once so fondly loved.

And then, when her desolate heart seemed walled round with an icy barrier that divided it from all human feeling, God had given her this child. And lo! The ice had melted, and her reawakened soul had kindled and glowed with warmth and gladness. It was not in Christabel's nature to love many things, or many people. Rather, was it natural to her to love one person intensely, as she had loved her adopted mother in her girlhood, as she had loved Angus Hamley in the bloom of her womanhood, as she loved her boy, now. She was leaving the child's room after prayers and meditations that had been somewhat longer

than usual when she heard voices, and saw Mr. Tregonel and Mr. Hamley by the door of the room occupied by the latter, which was at the further end of the gallery. "'You understand my plan,' said Leonard, perfectly. "'It prevents all trouble, don't you see?' "'Yes, I believe it may,' answered Angus, and without any word of good-night he opened his door and went into his room, while Leonard turned on his heel and strolled to his own quarters. "'Was there anything amiss between you and Mr. Hamley that you parted so coldly just now?'

asked Christabel presently when her husband came from his dressing-room into the bedroom where she sat musing by the fire. "'What? Aren't you? you gone to bed yet, he exclaimed. You seem to be possessed by a wakeful demon tonight. I have been in the boy's room. Was there anything amiss, Leonard? You are monstrously anxious about it? No. What should there be a miss? You didn't expect to see us hugging each other like a couple of Frenchmen, did you? End of Chapter 12. End of Mount Royal Royal Volume 2 by Mary Elizabeth Braden.