The Three Brides

principle; and whatever she said of Lady Rathforlane's easy management of her nurslings, did not desire to be too many hours absent from her Julia.

'I only want to stay till the Three-year-old Cup has been run for,' said Cecil. 'Mrs. Duncombe would feel it unkind if we did not.'

'You look tired,' said Rosamond, kindly; 'put your feet upon the front seat-nobody will look. Do you know how much you cleared?'

'Not yet,' said Cecil. 'I do not know what was made by the raffles. How I do hate them! Fancy that lovely opal Venetian vase going to that big bony Scotswoman, Mr. M'Vie's mother.'

'Indeed! That is a pity. If I had known it would be raffled for, I would have sent a private commission, though I don't know if Julius would have let me. He says it is gambling. What became of the Spa work-box, with the passion- flower wreath?'

'I don't know. I was so disgusted, that I would not look any more. I never saw such an obnoxious girl as that Miss Moy.'

'That she is,' said Rosamond. 'I should think she was acting the fast girl as found in sensation novels.'

'Exactly,' said Cecil, proceeding to narrate the proposed election; and in her need of sympathy she even told its sequel, adding, 'Rosamond, do you know what she meant?'

'Is it fair to tell you?' said Rosamond, asking a question she knew to be vain.

'I must know whether I have been deceived.'

'Never by Raymond!' cried Rosamond.

'Never, never, never!' cried Cecil, with most unusual excitement. 'He told me all that concerned himself at the very first. I wish he had told me who it was. How much it would have saved! Rosamond, you know, I am sure.'

'Yes, I made Julius tell me; but indeed, Cecil, you need not mind. Never has a feeling more entirely died out.'

'Do you think I do not know that?' said Cecil. 'Do you think my husband could have been my husband if he had not felt that?'

'Dear Cecil, I am so glad,' cried impulsive Rosamond; her gladness, in truth, chiefly excited by the anger that looked like love for Raymond. 'I mean, I am glad you see it so, and don't doubt him.'

'I hope we are both above that,' said Cecil. 'No, it is Camilla that I want to know about. I must know whether she told me truth.'

'She told! what did she tell you?'

'That he-Raymond-had loved some one,' said Cecil in a stifled voice; 'that I little knew what his love could be. I thought it had been for her sister in India. She told me that it was nobody in the country. But then we were in town.'

'Just like her!' cried Rosamond, and wondered not to be contradicted.

'Tell me how it really was!' only asked Cecil.

'As far as I know, the attachment grew up with Raymond, but it was when the brother was alive, and Sir Harry at his worst; and Mrs. Poynsett did not like it, though she gave in at last, and tried to make the best of it; but then she-Camilla-as you call her-met the old monster, Lord Tyrrell, made up a quarrel, because Mrs. Poynsett would not abdicate, and broke it off.'

'She said Mrs. Poynsett only half consented, and that the family grew weary of her persistent opposition.'

'And she made you think it Mrs. Poynsett's doing, and that she is not possible to live with! O, Cecil! you will not think that any longer. Don't you see that it is breaking Raymond's heart?'

Cecil's tears were starting, and she was very near sobbing as she said, 'I thought perhaps if we were away by ourselves he might come to care for me. She said he never would while his mother was by- that she would not let him.'

'That's not a bit true!' said Rosamond, indignantly. 'Is it not what she has most at heart, to see her sons happy? When has she ever tried to interfere between Julius and me? Not that she could,' added Rosamond to herself in a happy little whisper, not meant to be heard, but it was; and with actual though suppressed sobs, Cecil exclaimed-

'O, Rose, Rose! what do you do to make your husband love you?'

'Do? Be very naughty!' said Rosamond, forced to think of the exigencies of the moment, and adding lightly, 'There! it won't do to cry. Here are the gentlemen looking round to see what is the matter.'

Ardently did she wish to have been able to put Cecil into Raymond's arms and run out of sight, but with two men-servants with crossed arms behind, a strange gentleman in front, the streets of Wil'sbro' at hand, and the race-ground impending, sentiment was impossible, and she could only make herself a tonic, and declare nothing to be the matter; while Cecil, horrified at attracting notice, righted herself and made protest of her perfect health and comfort. When Raymond, always careful of her, stopped the carriage and descended from his perch to certify himself whether she was equal to going on, his solicitude went to her heart, and she gave his hand, as it lay on the door, an affectionate thankful pressure, which so amazed him that he raised his eyes to her face with a softness in them that made them for a moment resemble Frank's.

That was all, emotion must be kept at bay, and as vehicles thickened round them as they passed through Wil'sbro', the two ladies betook themselves to casual remarks upon them. Overtaking the Sirenwood carriage just at the turn upon the down, Raymond had no choice but to take up his station with that on one side, and on the other Captain Duncombe's drag, where, fluttering with Dark Hag's colours, were perched Mrs. Duncombe and Miss Moy, just in the rear of the like conveyance from the barracks.

Greetings, and invitations to both elevations were plentiful, and Rosamond would have felt in her element on the military one. She was rapidly calculating, with her good-natured eye, whether the choice her rank gave her would exclude some eager girl, when Cecil whispered, 'Stay with me pray,' with an irresistibly beseeching tone. So the Strangeways sisters climbed up, nothing loth; Lady Tyrrell sat with her father, the centre of a throng of gentlemen, who welcomed her to the ground where she used to be a reigning belle; and the Colonel's wife, Mrs. Ross, came to sit with Lady Rosamond. The whole was perfect enjoyment to the last. She felt it a delightful taste of her merry old Bohemian days to sit in the clear September sunshine, exhilarated by the brilliancy and life around, laughing with her own little court of officers, exclaiming at every droll episode, holding her breath with the thrill of universal expectation and excitement, in the wonderful hush of the multitude as the thud of the hoofs and rush in the wind was heard coming nearer, straining her eyes as the glossy creatures and their gay riders flashed past, and setting her whole heart for the moment on the one she was told to care for.

Raymond, seeing his ladies well provided for, gave up his reins to the coachman, and started in quest of a friend from the other side of the county. About an hour later, when luncheon was in full progress, and Rosamond was, by Cecil's languor, driven into doing the honours, with her most sunshiny drollery and mirth, Raymond's hand was on the carriage door, and he asked in haste, 'Can you spare me a glass of champagne? Have you a scent- bottle?'

'An accident?'

'Yes, no, not exactly. She has been knocked down and trampled on.'

'Who? Let me come! Can't I help? Could Rosamond?'

'No, no. It is a poor woman, brutally treated. No, I say, I'll manage. It is a dreadful scene, don't.'

But there was something in his tone which impelled Rosamond to open the carriage door and spring out.

'Rose, I say it is no place for a lady. I can't answer for it to Julius.'

'I'll do that. Take me.'

There was no withstanding her, and, after all, Raymond's tone betrayed that he was thankful for her help, and knew that there was no danger for her.

He had not many yards to lead her. The regions of thoughtless gaiety were scarcely separated from the regions of undisguised evil, and Raymond, on his way back from his friend, had fallen on a horrible row, in which a toy- selling woman had been set upon, thrown down and trodden on, and then dragged out by the police, bleeding and senseless. When he brought Rosamond to the spot, she was lying propped against a bundle, moaning a little, and guarded by a young policeman, who looked perplexed and only equal to keeping back the crowd, who otherwise, with better or worse purposes, would have rushed back in the few minutes during which Mr. Poynsett had been absent.