her; and the worst that could be said of him was that he managed to waste a large amount of time and money with very little to show for it. His profession was to be son and heir to a large fortune, and he took to the show part of the affair very kindly.
But was this being the man his father had expected him to be? The thought would come across Caroline at times, but not very often, as she floated along easily in the stream of life. Most of the business troubles of her property were spared her by her trustees, and her income was so large that even Allen's expenditure had not yet been felt as an inconvenience. As to the responsibilities, she contributed largely to county subscriptions, gave her clergyman whatever he asked, provided Christmas treats and summer teas for their school-children, and permitted Miss Ogilvie and Babie to do whatever they pleased among the poor when they were at home. But she was not very much at Belforest. She generally came there at Midsummer and at Christmas, and filled the house with friends. All kinds of amusements astonished the neighbourhood, and parties of the newest kinds, private theatricals, tableaux, charades, all that taste or ingenuity could devise were in vogue.
But before the spring east winds the party were generally gone to some more genial climate, and the early autumn was often spent in Switzerland. Pictures, art, and scenery were growing to be necessaries of life, and to stay at home with no special diversion in view seemed unthought of. The season was spent in London, not dropping the artist society on the one hand, but adding to it the amount of intercourse into which she was drawn by the fact of her being a rich and charming woman, having a delightful house, and a son and daughter who might be 'grands partis.' Allen liked high life for her, so she did not refuse it; but probably her social success was all the greater from her entire indifference, and that of her daughter, to all the questions of exclusiveness and fashion. If they had been born duchesses they could not have been less concerned about obtaining invitations to what their maid called 'the first circles,' and they would sometimes reduce Allen to despair by giving the preference to a lively literary soiree, when he wanted them to show themselves among the aristocracy at a drum.
Engagements of all kinds grew on them with every season, and in this one especially, Caroline had grown somewhat weary of the endeavour to satisfy both him and Janet, and was not sorry that her two eldest sons were starting on a yacht voyage to Norway, where Allen meant to fish, and Bobus to study natural history. She had her interview with the housekeeper, and proceeded to her own place in Popinjay Parlour, a quiet place at this time of day, save for the tinkling of the fountain and the twitterings of the many little songsters in the aviary, whom the original parrot used patronisingly to address as 'Pretty little birds.'
Janet was wandering about among the flowers, evidently waiting for her, and began, as she came in-
'I wanted to speak to you, mother.'
'Well, Janet,' said Caroline, reviewing in one moment every unmarried man, likely or unlikely, who had approached the girl, and with a despairing conviction that it would be some one very unlikely indeed!
'You know I am of age, mother.'
'Certainly. We drank your health last Monday.'
'I made up my mind that till I was of age I would go on studying, and at the same time see something of the world and of society.'
'Certainly,' said Caroline, wondering what her inscrutable daughter was coming to.
'And having done this, I wish to devote myself to the study of medicine.'
'Be a lady doctor, Janet!'
'Mother, you are surely above all the commonplace, old world nonsense!'
'I don't think I am, Janet. I don't think your father would have wished it.'
'He would have gone on with the spirit of the times, mother; men do, while women stand still.'
'I don't think he would in this.'
'I think he would, if he knew me, and the issues and stake, and how his other children are failing him.'
'Janet!'-and the colour flushed into her mother's face-'I don't quite know what you mean; but it is time we came to an understanding.'
'I think so,' returned Janet.
'Then you know-'
'I heard what papa said to you. I kept the white slate till you thought of it,' said Janet, in a tone that sounded soft from her.
'And why did you never say so, my dear?'
'I can hardly tell. I was shy at first; and then reserve grows on a person; but I never ceased from thinking about it through all these years. Mother, you do not think there is any chance of the boys taking it up as my father wished?'
'Certainly not Allen,' said Caroline with a sigh. 'And as to Bobus, he would have full capacity; but a great change must come over him, poor fellow, before he would fulfil your father's conditions.'
'He has no notion of the drudgery of the medical profession,' said Janet; 'he means to read law, get up social and sanitary questions, and go into parliament.'
'I know,' said her mother, 'I have always lived in hopes that sanitary theories would give him his father's heart for the sufferers, and that search into the secrets of nature would lead him higher; but as long as he does not turn that way of himself it would be contrary to your father's charge to hold this discovery out to him as an inducement.'
'And Jock?' said Janet, smiling. 'You don't expect it of the born soldier-nor of Armine?'
'I am not sure about Armine, though he may not be strong enough to bear the application.'
'Armine will walk through life like Allen,' scornfully said Janet; 'besides he is but fourteen. Now, mother, why should not I be worthy?'
'My dear Janet, it is not a question of worthiness; it is not a thing a woman could work out.'
'I do not ask you to give it to me now, nor even to promise it to me,' said Janet, with a light in those dark wells, her eyes; 'but only to let me have the hope, that when in three years' time I am qualified, and have passed the examinations, if Bobus does not take it up, you will let me claim that best inheritance my father left, but which his sons do not heed.'
'My child, you do not know what you ask. Remember, I know more about it than only what you picked up on that morning. It is a matter he could not have made sure of without a succession of experiments very hard even for him, and certainly quite impossible for any woman. The exceeding difficulty and danger of the proof was one reason of his guarding it so much, and desiring it should only be told to one good as well as clever-clever as well as good.'
'Can you give me no hint of the kind of thing,' said Janet, wistfully.
'That would be a betrayal of his trust.'
Janet looked terribly disappointed.
'Mother,' said she, 'let me put it to you. Is it fair to shut up a discovery that might benefit so many people.'
'It is not his fault, Janet, that it is shut up. He talked of it to several of the most able men he was connected with, and they thought it a chimera. He could not carry it on far enough to convince them. I do not know what he would have done if his illness had been longer, or he could have talked it out with any one, but I know the proof could only be made out by a course of experiments which he could not commit to any one not highly qualified, or whom he could not entirely trust. It is not a thing to be set forth broadcast, while it might yet prove a fallacy.'
'Is it to be lost for ever, then?'
'I shall try to find light as to the right thing to be done about it.'
'Well,' said Janet, drawing a long breath, 'three years of study must come, any way, and by that time I may be able to triumph over prejudice.'
There was no time to reply, for at that moment the letters of the second delivery were brought in; and the first that Caroline opened told her that the cold which Armine had mentioned on Saturday seemed to be developing into an attack of a rather severe hybrid kind of illness, between measles and scarlatina, from which many persons had lately been suffering.
Armine was never strong, and his illnesses were always a greater anxiety than those of other people, so that his mother came to the immediate decision of going to Eton that same afternoon and remaining there, unless she found that it had been a false alarm.
She did not find it so; and as she remained with her boy, Janet's conversation with her could not be resumed. There was so much chance of infection that she could not see any of the family again. Both the Johns sickened as
