Kitabı oku: «Airy Fairy Lilian», sayfa 3

CHAPTER IV

"Ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection

Embitters the present, compared with the past." – Byron.

When Lady Chetwoode, who is sitting in the drawing-room, hears the carriage draw up to the door, she straightens herself in her chair, smoothes down the folds of her black velvet gown with rather nervous fingers, and prepares for an unpleasant surprise. She hears Cyril's voice in the hall inquiring where his mother is, and, rising to her feet, she makes ready to receive her new ward.

She has put on what she fondly hopes is a particularly gracious air, but which is in reality a palpable mixture of fear and uncertainty. The door opens; there is a slight pause; and then Lilian, slight, and fair, and pretty, stands upon the threshold.

She is very pale, partly through fatigue, but much more through nervousness and the self-same feeling of uncertainty that is weighing down her hostess. As her eyes meet Lady Chetwoode's they take an appealing expression that goes straight to the heart of that kindest of women.

"You have arrived, my dear," she says, a ring of undeniable cordiality in her tone, while from her face all the unpleasant fear has vanished. She moves forward to greet her guest, and as Lilian comes up to her takes the fair sweet face between her hands and kisses her softly on each cheek.

"You are like your mother," she says, presently, holding the girl a little way from her and regarding her with earnest attention. "Yes, – very like your mother, and she was beautiful. You are welcome to Chetwoode, my dear child."

Lilian, who is feeling rather inclined to cry, does not trust herself to make any spoken rejoinder, but, putting up her lips of her own accord, presses them gratefully to Lady Chetwoode's, thereby ratifying the silent bond of friendship that without a word has on the instant been sealed between the old woman and the young one.

A great sense of relief has fallen upon Lady Chetwoode. Not until now, when her fears have been proved groundless, does she fully comprehend the amount of uneasiness and positive horror with which she has regarded the admittance of a stranger into her happy home circle. The thought that something unrefined, disagreeable, unbearable, might be coming has followed like a nightmare for the past week, but now, in the presence of this lovely child, it has fled away ashamed, never to return.

Lilian's delicate, well-bred face and figure, her small hands, her graceful movements, her whole air, proclaim her one of the world to which Lady Chetwoode belongs, and the old lady, who is aristocrat to her fingers' ends, hails the fact with delight. Her beauty alone had almost won her cause, when she cast that beseeching glance from the doorway; and now when she lets the heavy tears grow in her blue eyes, all doubt is at end, and "almost" gives way to "quite."

Henceforth she is altogether welcome at Chetwoode, as far as its present gentle mistress is concerned.

"Cyril took care of you, I hope?" says Lady Chetwoode, glancing over her guest's head at her second son, and smiling kindly.

"Great care of me," returning the smile.

"But you are tired, of course; it is a long journey, and no doubt you are glad to reach home," says Lady Chetwoode, using the word naturally. And though the mention of it causes Lilian a pang, still there is something tender and restful about it too, that gives some comfort to her heart.

"Perhaps you would like to go to your room," continues Lady Chetwoode, thoughtfully, "though I fear your maid cannot have arrived yet."

"Miss Chesney, like Juliet, boasts a nurse," says Cyril; "she scorns to travel with a mere maid."

"My nurse has always attended me," says Lilian, laughing and blushing. "She has waited on me since I was a month old. I should not know how to get on without her, and I am sure she could not get on without me. I think she is far better than any maid I could get."

"She must have an interest in you that no new-comer could possibly have," says Lady Chetwoode, who is in the humor to agree with anything Lilian may say, so thankful is she to her for being what she is. And yet so strong is habit that involuntarily, as she speaks, her eyes seek Lilian's hair, which is dressed to perfection. "I have no doubt she is a treasure," – with an air of conviction. "Come with me, my dear."

They leave the room together. In the hall the housekeeper, coming forward, says respectfully:

"Shall I take Miss Chesney to her room, my lady?"

"No, Matthews," says Lady Chetwoode, graciously; "it will give me pleasure to take her there myself."

By which speech all the servants are at once made aware that Miss Chesney is already in high favor with "my lady," who never, except on very rare occasions, takes the trouble to see personally after her visitors' comfort.

* * * * * * *

When Lilian has been ten minutes in her room Mrs. Tipping arrives, and is shown up-stairs, where she finds her small mistress evidently in the last stage of despondency. These ten lonely minutes have been fatal to her new-born hopes, and have reduced her once more to the melancholy frame of mind in which she left her home in the morning. All this the faithful Tipping sees at a glance, and instantly essays to cheer her.

Silently and with careful fingers she first removes her hat, then her jacket, then she induces her to stand up, and, taking off her dress, throws round her a white wrapper taken from a trunk, and prepares to brush the silky yellow hair that for eighteen years has been her own to dress and tend and admire.

"Eh, Miss Lilian, child, but it's a lovely place!" she says, presently, this speech being intended as a part of the cheering process.

"It seems a fine place," says the "child," indifferently.

"Fine it is indeed. Grander even than the Park, I'm thinking."

"'Grander than the Park'!" says Miss Chesney, rousing to unexpected fervor. "How can you say that? Have you grown fickle, nurse? There is no place to be compared to the Park, not one in all the world. You can think as you please, of course," – with reproachful scorn, – "but it is not grander than the Park."

"I meant larger, ninny," soothingly.

"It is not larger."

"But, darling, how can you say so when you haven't been round it?"

"How can you say so when you haven't been round it?"

This is a poser. Nurse meditates a minute and then says:

"Thomas – that's the groom that drove me – says it is."

"Thomas!" – with a look that, had the wretched Thomas been on the spot, would infallibly have reduced him to ashes; "and what does Thomas know about it? It is not larger."

Silence.

"Indeed, my bairn, I think you might well be happy here," says nurse, tenderly returning to the charge.

"I don't want you to think about me at all," says Miss Chesney, in trembling tones. "You agreed with Aunt Priscilla that I ought to leave my dear, dear home, and I shall never forgive you for it. I am not happy here. I shall never be happy here. I shall die of fretting for the Park, and when I am dead you will perhaps be satisfied."

"Miss Lilian!"

"You shan't brush my hair any more," says Miss Lilian, dexterously evading the descent of the brush. "I can do it for myself very well. You are a traitor."

"I am sorry, Miss Chesney, if I have displeased you," says nurse, with much dignity tempered with distress: only when deeply grieved and offended does she give her mistress her full title.

"How dare you call me Miss Chesney!" cries the young lady, springing to her feet. "It is very unkind of you, and just now too, when I am all alone in a strange house. Oh, nurse!" throwing her arms round the neck of that devoted and long-suffering woman, and forgetful of her resentment, which indeed was born only of her regret, "I am so unhappy, and lonely, and sorry! What shall I do?"

"How can I tell you, my lamb?" – caressing with infinite affection the golden head that lies upon her bosom. "All that I say only vexes you."

"No, it doesn't: I am wicked when I make you think that. After all," – raising her face – "I am not quite forsaken; I have you still, and you will never leave me."

"Not unless I die, my dear," says nurse, earnestly. "And, Miss Lilian, how can you look at her ladyship without knowing her to be a real friend. And Mr. Chetwoode too; and perhaps Sir Guy will be as nice, when you see him."

"Perhaps he won't," ruefully.

"That's nonsense, my dear. Let us look at the bright side of things always. And by and by Master Taffy will come here on a visit, and then it will be like old times. Come, now, be reasonable, child of my heart," says nurse, "and tell me, won't you look forward to having Master Taffy here?"

"I wish he was here now," says Lilian, visibly brightening. "Yes; perhaps they will ask him. But, nurse, do you remember when last I saw Taffy it was at – "

Here she shows such unmistakable symptoms of relapsing into the tearful mood again, that nurse sees the necessity of changing the subject.

"Come, my bairn, let me dress you for dinner," she says, briskly, and presently, after a little more coaxing, she succeeds so well that she sends her little mistress down to the drawing-room, looking her loveliest and her best.

CHAPTER V

"Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,

Recluse amid the close-embowering woods."

– Thomson.

Next morning, having enjoyed the long and dreamless sleep that belongs to the heart-whole, Lilian runs down to the breakfast-room, with the warm sweet flush of health and youth upon her cheeks. Finding Lady Chetwoode and Cyril already before her, she summons all her grace to her aid and tries to look ashamed of herself.

"Am I late?" she asks, going up to Lady Chetwoode and giving her a little caress as a good-morning. Her very touch is so gentle and childish and loving that it sinks straight into the deepest recesses of one's heart.

"No. Don't be alarmed. I have only just come down myself. You will soon find us out to be some of the laziest people alive."

"I am glad of it: I like lazy people," says Lilian; "all the rest seem to turn their lives into one great worry."

"Will you not give me a good-morning, Miss Chesney?" says Cyril, who is standing behind her.

"Good-morning," putting her hand into his.

"But that is not the way you gave it to my mother," in an aggrieved tone.

"No? – Oh!" – as she comprehends, – "but you should remember how much more deserving your mother is."

"With sorrow I acknowledge the truth of your remark," says Cyril, as he hands her her tea.

"Cyril is our naughty boy," Lady Chetwoode says; "we all spend our lives making allowances for Cyril. You must not mind what he says. I hope you slept well, Lilian; there is nothing does one so much good as a sound sleep, and you looked quite pale with fatigue last night. You see" – smiling – "how well I know your name. It is very familiar to me, having been your dear mother's."

"It seems strangely familiar to me also, though I never know your mother," says Cyril. "I don't believe I shall ever be able to call you Miss Chesney. Would it make you very angry if I called you Lilian?"

"Indeed, no; I shall be very much obliged to you. I should hardly know myself by the more formal title. You shall call me Lilian, and I shall call you Cyril, – if you don't mind."

"I don't think I do, – much," says Cyril; so the compact is signed.

"Guy will be here surely by luncheon," says Lady Chetwoode, with a view of giving her guest pleasure.

"Oh! will he really?" says Lilian, in a quick tone, suggestive of dismay.

"I am sure of it," says Guy's mother fondly: "he never breaks his word."

"Of course not," thinks Lilian to herself. "Fancy a paragon going wrong! How I hate a man who never breaks his word! Why, the Medes and Persians would be weak-minded compared with him."

"I suppose not," she says aloud, rather vaguely.

"You seem to appreciate the idea of your guardian's return," says Cyril, with a slight smile, having read half her thoughts correctly. "Does the mere word frighten you? I should like to know your real opinion of what a guardian ought to be."

"How can I have an opinion on the subject when I have never seen one?"

"Yet a moment ago I saw by your face you were picturing one to yourself."

"If so, it could scarcely be Sir Guy, – as he is not old."

"Not very. He has still a few hairs and a few teeth remaining. But won't you then answer my question? What is your ideal guardian like?"

"If you press it I shall tell you, but you must not betray me to Sir Guy," says Lilian, turning to include Lady Chetwoode in her caution. "My ideal is always a lean old gentleman of about sixty, with a stoop, and any amount of determination. He has a hooked nose on which gold-rimmed spectacles eternally stride; eyes that look one through and through; a mouth full of trite phrases, unpleasant maxims, and false teeth; and a decided tendency toward the suppression of all youthful follies."

"Guy will be an agreeable surprise. I had no idea you could be so severe."

"Nor am I. You must not think me so," says Lilian, blushing warmly and looking rather sorry for having spoken; "but you know you insisted on an answer. Perhaps I should not have spoken so freely, but that I know my real guardian is not at all like my ideal."

"How do you know? Perhaps he too is toothless, old, and unpleasant. He is a great deal older than I am."

"He can't be a great deal older."

"Why?"

"Because" – with a shy glance at the gentle face behind the urn – "Lady Chetwoode looks so young."

She blushes again as she says this, and regards her hostess with an air of such thorough good faith as wins that lady's liking on the spot.

"You are right," says Cyril, laughing; "she is young. She is never to grow old, because her 'boys,' as she calls us, object to old women. You may have heard of 'perennial spring;' well, that is another name for my mother. But you must not tell her so, because she is horribly conceited, and would lead us an awful life if we didn't keep her down."

"Cyril, my dear!" says Lady Chetwoode, laughing, which is about the heaviest reproof she ever delivers.

All this time, her breakfast being finished, Lilian has been carefully and industriously breaking up all the bread left upon her plate, until now quite a small pyramid stands in the centre of it.

Cyril, having secretly crumbled some of his, now, stooping forward, places it upon the top of her hillock.

"I haven't the faintest idea what you intend doing with it," he says, "but, as I am convinced you have some grand project in view, I feel a mean desire to be associated with it in some way by having a finger in the pie. Is it for a pie? I am dying of vulgar curiosity."

"I!" – with a little shocked start; "it doesn't matter, I – I quite forgot. I – "

She presses her hand nervously down upon the top of her goodly pile, and suppresses the gay little erection until it lies prostrate on her plate, where even then it makes a very fair show.

"You meant it for something, my dear, did you not?" asks Lady Chetwoode, kindly.

"Yes, for the birds," says the girl, turning upon her two great earnest eyes that shine like stars through regretful tears. "At home I used to collect all the broken bread for them every morning. And they grew so fond of me, the very robins used to come and perch upon my shoulders and eat little bits from my lips. There was no one to frighten them. There was only me, and I loved them. When I knew I must leave the Park," – a sorrowful quiver making her voice sad, – "I determined to break my going gently to them, and at first I only fed them every second day, – in person, – and then only every third day, and at last only once a week, until" – in a low tone – "they forgot me altogether."

"Ungrateful birds," says Cyril, with honest disgust, something like moisture in his own eyes, so real is her grief.

"Yes, that was the worst of all, to be so soon forgotten, and I had fed them without missing a day for five years. But they were not ungrateful; why should they remember me, when they thought I had tired of them? Yet I always broke the bread for them every morning, though I would not give it myself, and to-day" – she sighs – "I forgot I was not at home."

"My dear," says Lady Chetwoode, laying her own white, plump, jeweled hand upon Lilian's slender, snowy one, as it lies beside her on the table, "you flatter me very much when you say that even for a moment you felt this house home. I hope you will let the feeling grow in you, and will try to remember that here you have a true welcome forever, until you wish to leave us. And as for the birds, I too love them, – dear, pretty creatures, – and I shall take it as a great kindness, my dear Lilian, if every morning you will gather up the crumbs and give them to your little feathered friends."

"How good you are!" says Lilian, gratefully, turning her small palm upward so as to give Lady Chetwoode's hand a good squeeze. "I know I shall be happy here. And I am so glad you like the birds; perhaps here they may learn to love me, too. Do you know, before leaving the Park, I wrote a note to my cousin, asking him not to forget to give them bread every day? – but young men are so careless," – in a disparaging tone, – "I dare say he won't take the trouble to see about it."

"I am a young man," remarks Mr. Chetwoode, suggestively.

"Yes, I know it," returns Miss Chesney, coolly.

"I dare say your cousin will think of it," says Lady Chetwoode, who has a weakness for young men, and always believes the best of them. "Archibald is very kind-hearted."

"You know him?" – surprised.

"Very well, indeed. He comes here almost every autumn to shoot with the boys. You know, his own home is not ten miles from Chetwoode."

"I did not know. I never thought of him at all until I knew he was to inherit the Park. Do you think he will come here this autumn?"

"I hope so. Last year he was abroad, and we saw nothing of him; but now he has come home I am sure he will renew his visits. He is a great favorite of mine; I think you, too, will like him."

"Don't be too sanguine," says Lilian; "just now I regard him as a usurper; I feel as though he had stolen my Park."

"Marry him," says Cyril, "and get it back again. Some more tea, Miss – Lilian?"

"If you please – Cyril," – with a light laugh. "You see, it comes easier to me than to you, after all."

"Place aux dames! I felt some embarrassment about commencing. In the future I shall put my mauvaise honte in my pocket, and regard you as something I have always longed for, – that is, a sister."

"Very well, and you must be very good to me," says Lilian, "because never having had one, I have a very exalted idea of what a brother should be."

"How shall you amuse yourself all the morning, child?" asks Lady Chetwoode. "I fear you're beginning by thinking us stupid."

"Don't trouble about me," says Lilian. "If I may, I should like to go out and take a run round the gardens alone. I can always make acquaintance with places quicker if left to find them out for myself."

When breakfast is over, and they have all turned their backs with gross ingratitude upon the morning-room, she dons her hat and sallies forth bent on discovery.

Through the gardens she goes, admiring the flowers, pulling a blossom or two, making love to the robins and sparrows, and gay little chaffinches, that sit aloft in the branches and pour down sonnets on her head. The riotous butterflies, skimming hither and thither in the bright sunshine, hail her coming, and rush with wanton joy across her eyes, as though seeking to steal from them a lovelier blue for their soft wings. The flowers, the birds, the bees, the amorous wind, all woo this creature, so full of joy and sweetness and the unsurpassable beauty of youth.

She makes a rapid rush through all the hothouses, feeling almost stifled in them this day, so rich in sun, and, gaining the orchard, eats a little fruit, and makes a lasting conquest of Michael, the head-gardener, who, when she has gone into generous raptures over his arrangements, becomes her abject slave on the spot, and from that day forward acknowledges no power superior to hers.

Tiring of admiration, she leaves the garrulous old man, and wanders away over the closely-shaven lawn, past the hollies, into the wood beyond, singing as she goes, as is her wont.

In the deep green wood a delicious sense of freedom possesses her; she walks on, happy, unsuspicious of evil to come, free of care (oh, that we all were so!), with nothing to chain her thoughts to earth, or compel her to dream of aught but the sufficing joy of living, the glad earth beneath her, the brilliant foliage around, the blue heavens above her head.

Alas! alas! how short is the time that lies between the child and the woman! the intermediate state when, with awakened eyes and arms outstretched, we inhale the anticipation of life, is as but one day in comparison with all the years of misery and uncertain pleasure to be eventually derived from the reality thereof!

Coming to a rather high wall, Lilian pauses, but not for long. There are few walls either in Chetwoode or elsewhere likely to daunt Miss Chesney, when in the humor for exploring.

Putting one foot into a friendly crevice, and holding on valiantly to the upper stones, she climbs, and, gaining the top, gazes curiously around.

As she turns to survey the land over which she has traveled, a young man emerges from among the low-lying brushwood, and comes quickly forward. He is clad in a light-gray suit of tweed, and has in his mouth a meerschaum pipe of the very latest design.

He is very tall, very handsome, thoughtful in expression. His hair is light brown, – what there is of it, – his barber having left him little to boast of except on the upper lip, where a heavy, drooping moustache of the same color grows unrebuked. He is a little grave, a little indolent, a good deal passionate. The severe lines around his well-cut mouth are softened and counterbalanced by the extreme friendliness of his kind, dark eyes, that are so dark as to make one doubt whether their blue is not indeed black.

Lilian, standing on her airy perch, is still singing, and imparting to the surrounding scenery the sad story of "Barb'ra Allen's" vile treatment of her adoring swain, and consequent punishment, when the crackling of leaves beneath a human foot causing her to turn, she finds herself face to face with a stranger not a hundred yards away.

The song dies upon her lips, an intense desire to be elsewhere gains upon her. The young man in gray, putting his meerschaum in his pocket as a concession to this unexpected warbler, advances leisurely; and Lilian, feeling vaguely conscious that the top of a wall, though exalted, is not the most dignified situation in the world, trusting to her activity, springs to the ground, and regains with mother earth her self-respect.

"How could you be so foolish? I do hope you are not hurt," says the gray young man, coming forward anxiously.

"Not in the least, thank you," smiling so adorably that he forgets to speak for a moment or two. Then he says with some hesitation, as though in doubt:

"Am I addressing my – ward?"

"How can I be sure," replies she, also in doubt, "until I know whether indeed you are my – guardian?"

"I am Guy Chetwoode," says he, laughing, and raising his hat.

"And I am Lilian Chesney," replies she, smiling in return, and making a pretty old-fashioned reverence.

"Then now I suppose we may shake hands without any breach of etiquette, and swear eternal friendship," extending his hand.

"I shall reserve my oath until later on," says Miss Chesney, demurely, but she gives him her hand nevertheless, with unmistakable bonhommie. "You are going home?" glancing up at him from under her broad-brimmed hat. "If so, I shall go with you, as I am a little tired."

"But this wall," says Guy, looking with considerable doubt upon the uncompromising barrier on the summit of which he had first seen her. "Had we not better go round?"

"A thousand times no. What!" – gayly – "to be defeated by such a simple obstacle as that? I have surmounted greater difficulties than that wall many a time. If you will get up and give me your hands, I dare say I shall be able to manage it."

Thus adjured, Guy climbs, and, gaining the top, stoops to give her the help desired; she lays her hand in his, and soon he draws her in triumph to his side.

"Now to get down," he says, laughing. "Wait." He jumps lightly into the next field, and, turning, holds out his arms to her. "You must not risk your neck the second time," he says. "When I saw you give that tremendous leap a minute ago, my blood froze in my veins. Such terrible exertion was never meant for – a fairy!"

"Am I so very small?" says Lilian. "Well, take me down, then."

She leans toward him, and gently, reverentially he takes her in his arms and places her on the ground beside him. With such a slight burden to lift he feels himself almost a Hercules. The whole act does not occupy half a minute, and already he wishes vaguely it did not take so very short a time to bring a pretty woman from a wall to the earth beneath. In some vague manner he understands that for him the situation had its charm.

Miss Chesney is thoroughly unembarrassed.

"There is something in having a young guardian, after all," she says, casting upon him a glance half shy half merry, wholly sweet. She lays a faint emphasis upon the "young."

"You have had doubts on the subject, then?"

"Serious doubts. But I see there is truth in the old saying that 'there are few things so bad but that they might have been worse.'"

"Do you mean to tell me that I am 'something bad'?"

"No" – laughing; "how I wish I could! It is your superiority frightens me. I hear I must look on you as something superlatively good."

"How shocking! And in what way am I supposed to excel my brethren?"

"In every way," with a good deal of malice: "I have been bred in the belief that you are a rara avis, a model, a – "

"Your teachers have done me a great injury. I shudder when I contemplate the bitter awakening you must have when you come to know me better."

"I hope so. I dare say" – naively – "I could learn to like you very well, if you proved on acquaintance a little less immaculate than I have been led to believe you."

"I shall instantly throw over my pronounced taste for the Christian virtues, and take steadily to vice," says Guy, with decision: "will that satisfy your ladyship?"

"Perhaps you put it a little too strongly," says Lilian, demurely. "By the bye" – irrelevantly, – "what business took you from home yesterday?"

"I have to beg your pardon for that, – my absence, I mean; but I could not help it. And it was scarcely business kept me absent," confesses Chetwoode, who, if he is anything, is strictly honest, "rather a promise to dine and sleep at some friends of ours, the Bellairs, who live a few miles from us."

"Then it wasn't really that bugbear, business? I begin to revive," says Miss Chesney.

"No; nothing half so healthy. I wish I had some more legitimate excuse to offer for my seeming want of courtesy than the fact of my having to attend a prosy dinner; but I haven't. I feel I deserve a censure, yet I hope you won't administer one when I tell you I found a very severe punishment in the dinner itself."

"I forgive you," says Lilian, with deep pity.

"It was a long-standing engagement, and, though I knew what lay before me, I found I could not elude it any longer. I hate long engagements; don't you?"

"Cordially. But I should never dream of entering on one."

"I did, unfortunately."

"Then don't do it again."

"I won't. Never. I finally make up my mind. At least, most certainly not for the days you may be expected."

"I fear I'm a fixture," – ruefully: "you won't have to expect me again."

"Don't say you fear it: I hope you will be happy here."

"I hope so, too, and I think it. I like your brother Cyril very much, and your mother is a darling."

"And what am I?"

"Ask me that question a month hence."

"Shall I tell you what I think of you?"

"If you wish," says Lilian, indifferently, though in truth she is dying of curiosity.

"Well, then, from the very first moment my eyes fell upon you, I thought to myself: She is without exception the most – After all, though, I think I too shall reserve my opinion for a month or so."

"You are right," – suppressing valiantly all outward symptoms of disappointment: "your ideas then will be more formed. Are you fond of riding, Sir Guy?"

"Very. Are you?"

"Oh! am I not? I could ride from morning till night."

"You are enthusiastic."

"Yes," – with a saucy smile, – "that is one of my many virtues. I think one should be thoroughly in earnest about everything one undertakes. Do you like dancing?"

"Rather. It entirely depends upon whom one may be dancing with. There are some people" – with a short but steady glance at her – "that I feel positive I could dance with forever without knowing fatigue, or what is worse, ennui. There are others – " an expressive pause. "I have felt," says Sir Guy, with visible depression, "on certain occasions, as though I could commit an open assault on the band because it would insist on playing its waltz from start to finish, instead of stopping after the first two bars and thereby giving me a chance of escape."

"Poor 'others'! I see you can be unkind when you choose."

"But that is seldom, and only when driven to desperation. Are you fond of dancing? But of course you are: I need scarcely have asked. No doubt you could dance as well as ride from morning until night."

"You wrong me slightly. As a rule, I prefer dancing from night until morning. You skate?"

"Beautifully!" with ecstatic fervor; "I never saw any one who could skate as well."

"No? You shan't be long so. Prepare for a downfall to your pride. I can skate better than any one in the world."

Here they both laugh, and, turning, let their eyes meet. Instinctively they draw closer to each other, and a very kindly feeling springs into being.

"They maligned you," says Lilian, softly raising her lovely face, and gazing at him attentively, with a rather dangerous amount of ingenuousness. "I begin to fancy you are not so very terrific as they said. I dare say we shall be quite good friends after all."