And a very odd 'all' it was, so far; but there was this difference between Bessie Duncombe and Cecil Charnock Poynsett, that the 'gospel of progress' was to the one the first she had ever really known, and became a reaching forward to a newly-perceived standard of benevolence and nobleness: to the other it was simply retrograding, and that less from conviction than from the spirit of rivalry and opposition.
Lady Tyrrell with her father and sister were likewise going to leave home, to stay among friends with whom Sir Harry could hunt until the London campaign, when Eleonora was to see the world. Thus the bazaar was postponed until the return of the ladies in the summer, when the preparations would be more complete and the season more suitable. The church must wait for it, for nothing like a sufficient amount of subscription had been as yet promised.
There was still, however, to come that select dinner-party at Mrs. Duncombe's, to which Julius, moved by her zeal and honesty, as well as by curiosity, had promised his presence with Rosamond, 'at his peril,' as she said.
They were kept so long at the door of Aucuba Villa that they had begun to doubt if they had not mistaken the day, until the Sirenwood carriage crashed up behind them; and after the third pull at the bell they were admitted by an erect, alert figure,-a remnant of Captain Duncombe's military life.
He marshalled them into the drawing-room, where by dim firelight they could just discern the Professor and a certain good-natured horsey friend of the Captain's, who sprang up from easy-chairs on the opposite sides of the fire to greet them, while the man hastily stirred up the fire, lighted the gas, dashed at the table, shutting up an open blotting-book that lay on it, closing an ink-bottle, and gathering up some torn fragments or paper, which he would have thrown into the scrap-basket but that it was full of little books on the hundred ways of dressing a pumpkin. Then he gave a wistful look at the ami de la maison, as if commending the guests to him, and receiving a nod in return, retired.
'I fear we are too early,' said Lady Tyrrell.
'Fact is,' said the familiar, whose name Julius was trying to remember, 'there's been a catastrophe; cook forgot to order the turkey, went to bed last night in hysterics, and blew out the gas instead of turning it off. No, no'-as the guests expecting fatal consequences, looked as if they thought they had better remove themselves: 'she came round, and Duncombe has driven over to Backsworth to bring home the dinner. He'll soon be back.'
This not appearing greatly to reassure the visitors, the Professor added, 'No, no, ladies. Mrs. Duncombe charged me to say that she will be perfectly fixed in a short time, and I flatter myself that my wife is equal to any emergency.'
'It is very kind in her,' said Lady Tyrrell.
'I confess,' said Professor Tallboys, 'that I am not sorry that such an occasion should occur of showing an American lady's domestic powers. I flatter myself they do not discredit her cause.'
Just then were heard the wheels of the drag, and in rushed one of the boys, grasping Eleonora's skirts, and proclaiming, 'We've got the grub! Oysters and a pie! Oh my!'
'Satisfactory!' said the friend. 'But let go, Ducky, you are rumpling Miss Vivian.'
'She's coming to see the quarion! You promised, Lena! Here's a jolly crayfish! He'll pinch!'
There was a small conservatory or glazed niche on one side of the room, into which the boy dragged Lenore, and Julius followed, dimly sensible of what the quarion might be, and hoping for a word with the young lady, while he trusted to his wife to occupy her sister.
The place contained two desolate camellias, with leaves in the same proportion as those on trees in the earlier ages of illumination, and one scraggy, leafless geranium, besides a green and stagnant tank, where a goldfish moved about, flapping and gasping, as the boy disturbed it in his search for the crayfish. He absorbed all the conversation, so that Julius could only look back into the room, where an attempt at artistic effect was still dimly visible through accumulated litter. The Venus of Milo stood on a bracket, with a riding-whip in her arms, and a bundle of working society tickets behind her, and her vis-a-vis, the Faun of Praxiteles, was capped by a glove with one finger pointing upwards, and had a ball of worsted tangled about his legs; but further observation was hindered by the man-servant's voice at the outer door, 'Master Ducky, where are you? Your ma says you are to go to bed directly.'
'No, no, I'll put myself to bed!'
'Come, sir, please do, like a good boy-Master Pinney won't go without you, and I must put him to bed while they are dishing up. Come, sir, I've got a mince-pie for you.'
'And some oysters-Bobby said I should have some oysters!'
'Yes, yes; come along, sir.'
And Master Ducky submitted to his fate, while Julius looked his wonder, and asked, 'Is he nursery-maid?'
'Just now, since the bonne went,' said Lenore. 'He is a most faithful, attached servant, who will do anything for them.
'I am coming to believe so,' he answered. 'There seem to me to be excellent elements.'
'I am so glad!' said Lenore; 'she is so thorough, so true and frank; and much of this oddness is really an inconsistent struggle to keep out of debt.'
'Well! at any rate I am thankful to her for this opportunity of seeing you,' said Julius. 'We have both been longing to speak our welcome to you.'
'Thank you. It is so kind,' she fervently whispered; 'all the kinder for the state of things that is insisted on- though you know that it can make no real difference,' she added, apparently addressing the goldfish.
'Frank knows it,' said Julius, in a low voice.
'I trust he does, though I cannot see him to assure him-you will?' she added, looking up at him with a shy brightness in her eye and a flush on her cheek.
'Yes, indeed!' he said, laying his hand on hers for a moment. 'I fear you may both have much to pull through, but I think you are of a steadfast nature.'
'I hope so-I think I am, for none of my feelings seem to me ever to change, except that I get harder, and, I am afraid, bitterer.'
'I can understand your feeling that form of trial.'
'Oh, if you could, and would help me!'
'As a brother; if I may.'
Again she laid a hand on his, saying, 'I have longed to talk openly to you ever since we met in the cow-shed; but I could not make any advance to any of you, because,' she whispered in haste, 'I thought it my duty to hold back from Frank. And now, till we go away, Camilla watches me and occupies me every minute, will not even let me ride out with papa. I wonder she lets me talk to you now.'
'We know each other,' said Julius, shortly.
It was so. Once, in the plain-spoken days of childhood, Miles and Julius had detected Camilla Vivian in some flagrant cheating at a game, and had roundly expressed their opinion. In the subsequent period of Raymond's courtship, Miles had succumbed to the fascination, but Julius had given one such foil, that she had never again attempted to cajole him.
'I have seen that you did from the first,' said Lenore. 'And it would make it much easier to talk to you than to any outsider, who would never understand, even if it were possible for me to explain, how hard it is to see which way my duty lies-especially filial.'
'Do you mean in general, or in this special matter?'
'Both. You see, in her hands he is so different from what he was before she came home, that I don't feel as if I was obeying him- only her; and I don't think I am bound to do that. Not in the great matter, I am clear. Nobody can meddle with my real sincere pledge of myself to Frank, nobody!' she spoke as if there was iron in her lips. 'But as far as overt acts go, they have a right to forbid me, till I am of age at least, and we must bear it.'
'Yes, you are right there.'
'But there are thousands of other little cases of right and wrong, and altogether I have come to such a spirit of opposition that I find it easier to resist than to do anything with a good grace.'
'You cannot always tell when resistance is principle, and when temper or distaste.'
'There's distaste enough always,' said poor Lenore.
'To gaieties?' he said, amazed as one habituated to his wife's ravenous appetite for any sort of society or amusement.
'Of course,' she answered sadly. 'A great deal of trouble just for a little empty babble. Often not one word
