CHAPTER V. ~ IN WHICH THE PHILISTINES BE UPON US.
“We are going,” Dolly to Ralph Gowan, “to have a family rejoicing,and we should like you to join us. We are going to celebrate Mollie’sbirthday.”
“Thanks,” he answered, “I shall be delighted.” He had heard of thesefamily rejoicings before, and was really pleased with the idea ofattending one of them. They were strictly Vagabondian, which was onerecommendation, and they were entirely free from the Bilberry element,which was another. They were not grand affairs, it is true, and setetiquette and the rules of society at open defiance, but they werecheerful, at least, and nobody attended them who had not previouslyresolved upon enjoying himself and taking kindly to even the mostunexpected state of affairs. At Bloomsbury Place, Lady Augusta’s “coffeeand conversation” became “conversation and coffee,” and the conversationcame as naturally as the coffee. People who had jokes to make made them,and people who had not were exhilarated by the _bon-mots_ of the rest.
“Mollie will be seventeen,” said Dolly, “and it is rather a trial tome.”
Gowan laughed.
“Why?” he asked.
She shook her head gravely.
“In the first place,” she answered, “it makes me feel as if the dust ofages was accumulating in my pathway, and in the second, it is not safefor her.”
“Why, again?” he demanded.
“She is far too pretty, and her knowledge of the world is far toolimited. She secretly believes in Lord Burleigh, and clings to thepoetic memory of King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid.”
“And you do not?”
She held up her small forefinger and shook it at him.
“If ever there was an artful little minx,” she said, “that Beggar-maidwas one. I never believed in her. I doubted her before I was twelve.With her eyes cast down and her sly tricks! She did not cast them downfor nothing. She did it because she had long eyelashes, and it wasbecoming. And it is my impression she knew more about the king thanshe professed to. She had studied his character and found it weak.Beggar-maid me no beggar-maids! She was as deep as she was handsome.”
Of course he laughed again. Her air of severe worldly experience andthat small warning forefinger were irresistible.
“But Mollie,” he said, “with all her belief in Cophetua, you think thereis not enough of the beggar-maid element in her character to sustain herunder like circumstances?”
“If she met a Cophetua,” she answered, “she would open her great eyesat his royal purple in positive delight, and if he caught her lookingat him she would blush furiously and pout a little, and be so ashamed ofher weakness that she would be ready to run away; but if he was artfulenough to manage her aright, she would believe every word he said, andromance about him until her head was turned upside down. My fear is thatsome false Cophetua will masquerade for her benefit some day. She wouldnever doubt his veracity, and if he asked her to run away with him Ibelieve she would enjoy the idea. We shall have to keep sharp watch uponher.”
“You never were so troubled about Aimée?” Gowan suggested.
“Aimée!” she exclaimed. “Aimée has kept us all in order, and managedour affairs for us ever since she wore Berlin wool boots and a coralnecklace. She regulated the household in her earliest years, and willregulate it until she dies or somebody marries her, and what we areto do then our lares and pénates only know. Aimée! Nobody ever had anytrouble with Aimée, and nobody ever will. Mollie is more like me,you see,--shares my weaknesses and minor sins, and always sees herindiscretions ten minutes too late for redemption. And then, since sheis the youngest, and has been the baby so long, we have not been in thehabit of regarding her as a responsible being exactly. It has struckme once or twice that Bloomsbury Place hardly afforded wise trainingto Mollie. Poor little soul!” And a faint shadow fell upon her face andrested there for a moment.
But it faded out again as her fits of gravity usually did, and in afew minutes she was giving him such a description of Lady Augusta’sunexpected appearance upon a like occasion in time past, that he laugheduntil the room echoed, and forgot everything else but the audaciousgrotesqueness of her mimicry.
It being agreed upon that Mollie’s birthday was to be celebrated,the whole household was plunged into preparations at once, though, ofcourse, they were preparations upon a small scale and of a strictlyprivate and domestic nature. Belinda, being promptly attacked withinflammation of the throat, which was a chronic weakness of hers, wasrather inconveniently, but not at all to the surprise of her employers,incapacitated from service, and accordingly Dolly’s duties became variedand multitudinous.
Sudden inflammation on the part of Belinda was so unavoidable aconsequence of any approaching demand upon her services as to havebecome proverbial, and the swelling of that young person’s “tornsuls,” as she termed them, was anticipated as might be anticipated the risingof the sun. Not that it was Belinda’s fault, however; Belinda’s anxietyto be useful amounted at all times to something very nearly approachinga monomania; the fact simply was, that, her ailment being chronic, itusually evinced itself at inopportune periods. “It’s the luck of thefamily,” said Phil. “We never loved a tree or flower, etc.”
And so Belinda was accepted as an unavoidable inconvenience, and wasborne with cheerfully, accordingly.
It was not expected of her that she should appear otherwise on theeventful day than with the regulation roll of flannel about her neck.Dolly did not expect it of her at least, so she was not surprised, onentering the kitchen in the morning, to be accosted by her grimy younghandmaiden in the usual form of announcement:--
“Which, if yer please, miss, my tornsuls is swole most awful.”
“Are they?” said Dolly. “Well, I am very sorry, Belinda. It can’t behelped, though; Mollie will have to run the errands and answer thedoor-bell, and you must stay with me and keep out of the draught.You can help a little, I dare say, if you are obliged to stay in thekitchen.”
“Yes, ‘m,” said Belinda, and then sidling up to the dresser, and rubbingher nose in an abasement of spirit, which resulted in divers startlingadornments of that already rather highly ornamented feature. “If yerplease, ‘m,” she said, “I ‘m very sorry, Miss Dolly. Seems like I ain’tnever o’ no use to yer?”
“Yes, you are,” said Dolly, cheerily, “and you can’t help the sorethroat, you know. You are a great deal of use to me sometimes. See howyou save my hands from being spoiled; they would n’t be as white as theyare if I had to polish the grates and build the fires. Never mind, youwill be better in a day or so. Now for the cookery-book.”
“I never seen no one like her,” muttered the delighted Sepoy, returningto her vigorous cleaning of kettles and pans. “I never seen no one likenone on ‘em, they ‘re that there good-natured an’ easy on folk.”
It was a busy day for Dolly, as well as for the rest of them, and therewas a by no means unpleasant excitement in the atmosphere of business.The cookery, too, was a success, the game pâtés being a triumph, thetarts beautiful to behold, and the rest of the culinary experiments somarvellous, that Griffith, arriving early in the morning, and beingled down into the pantry to look at them as a preliminary ceremony,professed to be struck dumb with admiration.
“There,” said Dolly, backing up against the wall in her excitement, andthrusting her hands very far into her apron pockets indeed,--“there!what do you think of _that_, sir?” And she stood before him in a perfectglow of triumph, her cheeks like roses, her sleeves rolled aboveher dimpled elbows, her hair pushed on her forehead, and her generalappearance so deliciously business-like and agreeably professionalthat the dusts of flour that were so prominent a feature in her costumeseemed only an additional charm.
“Think of it?” said Griffith. “It is the most imposing display I eversaw in my life. The trimmings upon those tarts are positively artistic.You don’t mean to say you did it all yourself?”
“Yes,” regarding them critically,--“ev-er-y bit,” with a little nod forevery syllable.
“Won-der-ful!” with an air of complimentary incredulity. “May I ask ifthere is anything you can _not_ do?”
“There is absolutely nothing,” sententiously. And then somehow or otherthey were standing close together, as usual, his arm around her waist,her hands clasped upon his sleeve. “When we get the house in Putney, orBayswater, or Peckham Eise, or whatever it is to be,” she said, laughingin her most coaxing way, “this sort of thing will be convenient. And it_is_ to come, you know,--the house, I mean.”
“Yes,” admitted Griffith, with dubious cheerfulness, “it _is_ tocome,--some time or other.”
But her cheerfulness was not of a dubious kind at all. She only laughedagain, and patted his arm with a charming air of proprietorship.
“I have got something else to show you,” she said; “something up-stairs.Can you guess what it is? Something for Mollie,--something she wantedwhich is dreadfully extravagant.”
“What!” exclaimed Griffith. “Not the maroon silk affair!”
“Yes,” her doubt as to the wisdom of her course expressing itself ina whimsical little grimace. “I could n’t help it. It will make her sohappy; and I should so have liked it myself if I had been in her place.”
She had been going to lead him up-stairs to show it to him as it lay instate, locked up in the parlor, but all at once she changed her mind.
“No,” she said; “I think you had better not see it until Mollie comesdown in state. It will look best then; so I won’t spoil the effect byletting you see it now.”
Griffith had brought his offering, too,--not much of an offering,perhaps, but worth a good deal when valued according to the affectionategood-will it represented. “The girls” had a very warm corner in theyoung man’s tender heart, and the half-dozen pairs of gloves he producedfrom the shades of an inconvenient pocket of his great-coat, held theirown modest significance.
“Gloves,” he said, half apologetically, “always come in; and I believe Iheard Mollie complaining of hers the other day.”
Certainly they were appreciated by the young lady in question, theirtimely appearance disposing of a slight difficulty of addition to hertoilet.
The maroon silk was to be a surprise; and surely, if ever surprise was asuccess, this was. Taking into consideration the fact that she had spentthe earlier part of the day in plaintive efforts to remodel a dubiousgarment into a form fitting to grace the occasion, it is not to bewondered at that the sudden realization of one of her most hopelesslyvivid imaginings rather destroyed the perfect balance of herequilibrium.
She had almost completed her toilet when Dolly produced her treasure;nothing, in fact, remained to be done but to don the dubious garment,when Dolly, slipping out of the room, returned almost immediately withsomething on her arm.
“Never mind your old alpaca, Mollie,” she said. “I have something betterfor you here.”
Mollie turned round in some wonder to see what she meant, and the nextminute she turned red and pale with admiring amazement.
“Dolly,” she said, rather unnecessarily, “it’s a maroon silk.” And shesat down with her hands clasped, and stared at it in the intensity ofher wonder.
“Yes,” said Dolly, “it is a maroon silk, and you are to wear itto-night. It is Phil’s birthday present to you,--and mine.”
The spell was broken at once. The girl got up and made an impulsiverush at her, and, flinging her bare white arms out, caught her in atempestuous embrace, maroon silk and all, laughing and crying bothtogether.
“Dolly,” she said,--“Dolly, it is the grandest thing I ever had in mylife, and you are the best two--you and Phil--that ever lived!” And notbeing as eloquent by nature as she was grateful and affectionate, shepoured out the rest of her thanks in kisses and interjections.
Then Dolly, extricating herself, proceeded to add the final touchesto the unfinished toilet, and in a very few minutes Miss Mollie stoodbefore the glass regarding herself in such ecstatic content as she hadperhaps never before experienced.
“Who is going to be here, Dolly?” she asked, after taking her firstsurvey.
“Who?” said Dolly. “Well, I scarcely know. Only one or two of Phil’sfriends and Ralph Gowan.”
Mollie gave a little start, and then blushed in the most patheticallyhelpless way.
“Ah!” she said, and looked at her reflection in the glass again, as ifshe did not exactly know what else to do.
A swift shadow of surprise showed itself in Dolly’s eyes, and died outalmost at the same moment.
“Are you ready?” she said, briefly. “If you are, we will godown-stairs.”
There was a simultaneous cry of admiration from them all when the twoentered the parlor below, and Miss Mollie appeared attired in all herglory.
“Here she is!” exclaimed ‘Toinetté and Aimée, together.
“Just the right shade,” was Phil’s immediate comment. “Catches thelights and throws out her coloring so finely. Turn round, Mollie.”
And Mollie turned round obediently, a trifle abashed by her owngorgeousness, and looking all the lovelier for her momentary abasement.
Griffith was delighted. He went to her and kissed her, and praised herwith the enthusiastic frankness which characterized all his proceedingswith regard to the different members of the family of his betrothed. Hewas as proud of the girl’s beauty as if she were a sister of his own.
Then the object of their mutual admiration knelt down upon thehearth-rug, before Tod, who, attired in ephemeral splendor, had stoppedin his tour across the room to stare up with bright baby wonder at thenovelty of warm, rich color which had caught his fancy.
“I must kiss Tod,” she said; no ceremony was ever considered complete,and no occasion perfect, unless Tod had been kissed, and so taken intothe general confidence. “Tod, come and be kissed.”
But, being a young gentleman of by no means effusive nature, Todpreferred to remain stationary, holding to the toe of his red shoeand gazing upward with an expression of approbation and indifferencecommingled, which delighted his feminine admirers beyond expression.
“He knows it is something new,” said ‘Toinette. “See how he looks atit.” Whereupon, of course, there was a chorus of delighted acquiescence,and Aunt Dolly must needs go down upon the hearthrug, too.
“Has Aunt Mollie got a grand new dress on, Beauty?” she said, glowingwith such pretty, womanly adoration of this atom of all-ruling baby-dom,as made her seem the very cream and essence of lovableness and sweetnonsense. And then, Master Tod, still remaining unmoved by adulation,and still regarding his small circle of tender sycophants with round,liquid, baby eyes serene, and dewy red lips apart, was so effectivein this one of his many entrancing moods, that he was no longer to beresisted, and so was caught up and embraced with ecstasy.
“He notices everything,” cries Aunt Dolly; “and I ‘m sure he understandsevery word he hears. He is _so_ different from other babies.”
Different! Of course he was different. There was not one of them butindignantly scouted at the idea of there ever having before existed sucha combination of infantile gifts and graces. The most obtuse of peoplecould not fail to acknowledge his vast superiority, in spite of theirobtuseness.
“But,” remarked Aimée, with discretion, “you had better stand up,Mollie, or you will crush your front breadths.”
Mollie, with a saving recollection of front breadths, arose, and as itchanced just in time to turn toward the door as Ralph Gowan came in.
He was looking his best to-night,--that enviable, thorough-bred best,which was the natural result of culture, money, and ease; and Dolly,catching sight of Mollie’s guileless blushes, deplored, while she didnot wonder at them, understanding her as she did. It was just like thechild to blush, feeling herself the centre of observation, but shecould not help wishing that her blush had not been quite so quick andsensitive.
But if she had flushed when he entered, she flushed far more when hecame to speak to her. He held in his hand a bouquet of flowers,--whitecamellia buds and bloom,
and dark, shadowy green; a whim of his own, hesaid.
“I heard about the maroon dress,” he added, when he had given it to her,“and my choice of your flowers was guided accordingly. White camellias,worn with maroon sik, are artistic, Mollie, your brother will tell you.”
“They are very pretty,” said Mollie, looking down at them in gratefulconfusion; “and I am much obliged. Thank you, Mr. Gowan.”
“A great many good wishes go with them,” he said, good-naturedly. “IfI were an enchanter, you should never grow any older from this dayforward.” And his speech was something more than an idle compliment.There was something touching to him, too, in the fact of the child’sleaving her childhood behind her, and confronting so ignorantlythe unconscious dawn of a womanhood which might hold so much of thebitterness of knowledge.
But, of course, Mollie did not understand this.
“Why?” she asked him, forgetting her camellias, in her wonder at hisfancy.
“Why?” said he. “Because seventeen is such a charming age, Mollie; andit would be well for so many of us if we did not outlive its faith andfreshness.”
He crossed over to Dolly then, and made his well-turned speech offriendly greeting to her also, but his most ordinary speech to her hadits own subtle warmth. He was growing very fond of Dolly Crewe. ButDolly was a trifle preoccupied; she was looking almost anxiously atMollie and the camellias.
“He has been paying her a compliment or she would not look so flutteredand happy,” she was saying to herself. “I wish he wouldn’t. It mayplease him, but it is dangerous work for Mollie.”
And when she raised her eyes to meet Ralph Gowan’s, he saw that therewas the ghost of a regretful shadow in them.
She had too much to do, however, to be troubled long. Phil’s friendsbegan to drop in, one by one, and the business of the evening occupiedher attention. There was coffee to be handed round, and she stood ata side-table and poured it out herself into quaint cups of old china,which were a relic of former grandeur; and as she moved to and fro,bringing one of these cups to one, or a plate of fantastic little cakesto another, and flavoring the whole repast with her running fire ofspicy speeches, Gowan found himself following her with his eyes andrather extravagantly comparing her to ambrosia-bearing Hebe, at the sametime thinking that in Vagabondia these tilings were better done thanelsewhere.
The most _outré_ of Phil’s hirsute and carelessly garbedfellow-Bohemians somehow or other seemed neither vulgar nor ill at ease.They evidently felt at home, and admired faithfully and with completeunison the feminine members of their friend’s family; and theirreadiness to catch at the bright or grotesque side of any situationevinced itself in a manner worthy of imitation. Then, too, there wasTod, taking excursionary rambles about the carpet, and, far from beingin the way, rendering himself an innocent centre of attraction. Browncracked jokes with him, Jones bribed him with cake to the performanceof before-unheard-of feats, and one muscular, fiercely mustached andbearded young man, whose artistic forte was battle-pieces of the mostsanguinary description, appropriated him bodily and set him on hisshoulder, greatly to the detriment of his paper collar.
“The spirit of Vagabondia is strong in Tod,” said Dolly, who at the timewas standing near Gowan upon the hearth-rug, with her own coffee-cup inhand; “its manifestation being his readiness to accommodate himself tocircumstances.”
Through the whole of the evening Mollie and the camellias shone forthwith resplendence. Those of Phil’s masculine friends who had known hersince her babyhood felt instinctively that to-night the Rubicon hadbeen passed. Unconscious as she was of herself, she was imposing in themaroon silk, and these free-and-easy, good-natured fellows were the verymen to be keenly alive to any subtle power of womanhood. So when theyaddressed her their manner was a trifle subdued, and their deportmenttoward her had a faint savor of delicate reverence.
Dolly was in her element. Her songs, her little supper, and her plansof entertainment were a perfect success. Such jokes as she made and suchlaughter as she managed to elicit through the medium of the smallestof them, and such aptness and tact as she displayed in keeping upthe general fusillade of _bon-mots_ and repartee. It would have beenimpossible for a witticism to fall short of its mark under her activesuperintendence, even if witticisms had been prone to fall short inVagabondia, which they decidedly were not. She kept Griffith busy, too,from first to last, perhaps because she felt it to be the safest plan;at any rate, she held him near her, and managed to keep him in the bestof spirits all the evening, and more than once Gowan, catching aglimpse of her as she addressed some simple remark to the favored one,recognized a certain bright softness in her face which told its ownstory. But there would have been little use in openly displaying hisdiscomfiture; so, after feeling irritated for a moment or so, RalphGowan allowed himself to drift into attendance on Mollie, and, beingalmost gratefully received by that young lady, he did not find that thetime passed slowly.
“I am so glad you came here.” she said to him, plaintively, when hefirst crossed the room to her side. “I do so hate Brown.”
“Brown!” he echoed. “Who _is_ Brown, Mollie? and what has Brown beendoing to incur your resentment?”
Mollie gave her shoulders a petulant shrug.
“Brown is that little man in the big coat,” she said, “the one who wentaway when you came. I wish he would stay away. I can’t bear him,” withdelightful candor.
“But why?” persisted Gowan, casting a glance at the side of the roomwhere Dolly stood talking to her lover. “Is it because his coat is sobig, or because he is so little, that he is so objectionable? To be atonce moral and instructive, Mollie, a man is not to be judged by hiscoat.”
“I know that,” returned Mollie, her unconscious innocence assertingitself; “it is n’t that. _You_ couldn’t be as disagreeable as he is ifyou were dressed in rags.”
Gowan turned quickly to look at her, forgetting even Dolly for theinstant,--but she was quite in earnest, and met his questioning eyeswith the most pathetic ignorance of having said anything extraordinary.Indeed, her faith in what she had said was so patent that he found itimpossible to answer her with a light or jesting speech.
“It is n’t that,” she went on, pulling at a glossy green leaf on herbouquet. “If he did n’t--if he would n’t--if he didn’t keep sayingthings--”
“What sort of things?” asked Gowan, to help her out of her dilemma.
“I--don’t know,” was the shy reply. “Stupid things.”
“Stupid things!” he repeated. “Poor Brown!” and his eyes wandered toDolly again.
But it would not have been natural if he had not been attracted byMollie, after all, and in the course of time in a measure consoledby her. She was so glad to be protected from the advances of the muchdespised Brown, that he found it rather pleasant than otherwise toconstitute himself her body-guard,--to talk to her as they sat, andto be her partner in the stray dances which accidentally enlivened theevening entertainment. She danced well, too, he discovered, and withsuch evident enjoyment of her own smooth, swaying movements as was quitemagnetic, and made him half reluctant to release her when their firstwaltz was ended, and she stopped all aflush with new bloom.
“I am _so_ fond of dancing,” she said, catching her breath in a littlesigh of ecstasy. “We all are. It is one of the things we _can_ dowithout spending any money, you know.”
It was shortly after this, just as they were standing in twos andthrees, chatting and refreshing themselves with Dolly’s confectionsand iced lemonade, that an entirely unexpected advent occurred. Theresuddenly fell upon the general ear a sound as of rolling wheels, and acarriage stopped before the door.
Dolly, standing in the midst of a small circle of her own, paused in herremarks to listen.
“It is a carriage, that is certain,” she said,--“and somebody is gettingout. I don’t know “--and then a light breaking over her face in aflash of horror and delight in the situation commingled. “Phil,” sheexclaimed, “the Philistines be upon us,--it is
Lady Augusta!”
And it was. In two minutes that majestic lady was ushered in by theexcited Belinda, and announced in the following rather remarkablemanner,--
“If yer please, Miss Dolly, here’s your aunt, Mr. Phil.”
For a second her ladyship was speechless, even though Dolly advanced tomeet her at once. The festive gathering was too much for her, and thesight of Ralph Gowan leaning over Mollie in all her bravery, holdingher flowers for her, and appearing so evidently at home, overpowered hercompletely. But she recovered herself at length.
“I was not aware,” she said to Dolly, “that you were having a”--pausefor a word sufficiently significant--“that you were holding areception,”--a scathing glance at the pensive Brown, who was at onceannihilated. “You will possibly excuse my involuntary intrusion. Ithought, of _course_” (emphasis), “that I should find you alone, andas I had something to say to you concerning Euphemia, I decided tocall tonight on my way from the conversazione at Dr. Bugby’s,--perhaps,Dorothea, your friends” (emphasis again) “will excuse you for a moment,and you will take me into another room,”--this last as if she hadsuddenly found herself in a fever hospital and was rather afraid ofcontagion.
But apart from Mollie, who pouted and flushed, and was extremelyuncomfortable, nobody seemed to be either chilled or overwhelmed. Phil’sgreeting was so cordial and unmoved that her ladyship could only profferhim the tips of her fingers in imposing silence, and Dolly’s airof placid good-humor was so perfect that it was as good as a modesttheatrical entertainment.
She led her visitor out of the room with a most untroubled countenance,after her ladyship had honored Gowan with a word or so, kindlysignifying her intense surprise at meeting him in the house, and ratherintimating, delicately, that she could not comprehend his extraordinaryconduct, and hoped he would not live to regret it.
The interview was not a long one, however. In about ten minutes thecarriage rolled away, and Dolly came back to the parlor with a touch ofnew color on her cheek, and a dying-out spark of fire in her eye; andthough her spirits did not seem to have failed her, she was certainly atrifle moved by something.
“Let us have another waltz.” she said, rather as if she wished todismiss Lady Augusta from the carpet “I will play this time. Phil, finda partner.”
She sat down to the piano at once, and swept off into one of Phil’sown compositions, and from that time till the end of the evening shescarcely gave them a moment’s pause, and was herself so full of sparkleand resources that she quite enraptured Gowan, and made the shabby roomand the queer life seem more novel and entrancing than ever.
But when the guests were gone, and only Griffith, who was always last,remained with Phil and the girls, grouped about the fire, the light diedout of her mood, and she looked just a trifle anxious and tired.
“Girls,” she said, “I have some bad news to tell you,--at least somenews that isn’t exactly good. Lady Augusta has given me what Belindawould call ‘a warning.’ I visit the select precincts of Bilberry Houseas governess no more.”
There is no denying it was a blow to them all. Her salary had beena very necessary part of the family income, and if they had beenstraitened with it, certainly there would be a struggle without it.
“Oh!” cried Mollie, remorsefully. “And you have just spent nearly allyou had on my dress. And you do so want things yourself, Dolly. Whatshall you do?”
“Begin to take in the daily papers and peruse the advertising column,” she answered, courageously. “Never mind, it will all come right beforelong, and we can keep up our spirits until then.”
But, despite her assumed good spirits, when she went to see Griffithout of the front door, she held to his arm with a significantly clingingtouch, and was so silent for a moment that he stooped in the dark tokiss her, and found her cheek wet with tears.
It quite upset him, too, poor fellow! Dolly crying and daunted was astate of affairs fraught with anguish to him.
“Why, Dolly!” he exclaimed, tremulously. “Dolly, you are crying!”
And then she did give way, and for a minute or so quite needed theshelter and rest of his arms. She cared for no other shelter or rest;he was quite enough for her in her brightest or darkest day,--justthis impecunious young man, whose prospects were so limited, but whoseaffection for her was so wholly without limit. She might be daunted,but she could not remain long uncomforted while her love and trust werestill unchanged. Ah! there was a vast amount of magic in the simple,silent pressure of the arm within that shabby coat-sleeve.
So, as might be expected, she managed to recover herself before manyminutes, and receive his tender condolences with renewed spirit; andwhen she bade him good-night she was almost herself again, and waslaughing, even though her eyelashes were wet.
“No,” she said, “we are _not_ going to destruction, Lady Augusta to thecontrary, and the family luck must assert itself some time, since it haskept itself so long in the background. And in the mean time--well,” witha little parting wave of her hand, “Vagabondia to the rescue!”