Sure enough the Mola.s.ses party were absent, and there was no Frank Lovell. Then it was true, after all! He had sold himself to that lackadaisical young lady, and had been making a fool of _me_, Kate Coventry, the whole time. How angry I ought to have been! I was surprised to find I was _not_. On the contrary, my first feeling was one of inexpressible relief, as I thought there was now no earthly obstacle between myself and that kind face on the other side of the breakfast-table; though too soon a horrid tide of doubts and fears surged up as I reflected on my own unworthiness and caprice.

How I had undervalued that n.o.ble, generous character! How often I had wounded and annoyed him in sheer carelessness or petulance, and thought little of inflicting on him days of pain to afford myself the short and doubtful amus.e.m.e.nt of an hour's flirtation and folly!

What if he should cast _me_ off now? What if he had obtained an insight into my character which had cured him entirely of any regard he might previously have entertained for me? What if I should find that I had all my life been neglecting the gem which I was too ignorant to appreciate, and now, when I knew its real value and would give my life for it, it was beyond my grasp?

At all events, I would never forget _him_. Come what might now, I would never care for another. I felt quite glad Frank Lovell was as good as married, and out of the way. The instant I had swallowed my breakfast I put my bonnet on and rushed into the garden, for I felt as if fresh air was indispensable to my very existence. The first person I met amongst the flower-beds was dear old Mr. Lumley. He had hobbled out on his crutches purposely to give me an interview. I thanked him, as if he had been my father, for all his kindness; and he talked to me gently and considerately, as a parent would to a child.

"I promised you, my dear, that they should not fight, and I think I have kept my word. Your cousin, Miss Coventry, is a n.o.ble fellow,"

said the old man, his benevolent features kindling into admiration; "but I had more difficulty with him than his antagonist. He would not be satisfied till Captain Lovell had a.s.sured him, on his honour, that you had yourself declined his advances in a manner which admitted of no misconstruction; and that then, and not till then, he considered himself free. You were right, my dear--I am an old man, and I take a great interest in you, so do not think me impertinent--you were right to have nothing to say to a _roue_ and a gambler.

"I was not always the old cripple you are so forbearing with now. I lived in the world once, and saw a good deal of life and men. My experience has convinced me that selfishness is the bane of the generality of mankind; but that nowhere is it so thoroughly developed as in those who live what people call 'by their wits,' and enjoy all the luxuries and pleasures of life by dint of imposing on the world. I consider Frank Lovell, though we all vote him such a good fellow, one of that cla.s.s, and I do not think he would have made a good husband to my young friend Miss Coventry. Your cousin, my dear, is a character of another stamp altogether; and if, as I hear everybody say, he is really to be married to that Welsh girl, I think you will agree with me that she has got a prize such as falls to the lot of few."

Mr. Lumley was by this time out of breath; but I could not have answered him to save my life. Like one of his own favourite house-spiders, I had been unconsciously spinning a web of delightful self-delusion, and here came the ruthless housemaid and swept it all away. How blind I must have been not to see it long ago! John might be very fond of pheasant-shooting, and I believe, when the game is plentiful and the thing well managed, that sport is fascinating enough; but people don't travel night and day into such a country as Wales, where there are no railroads, merely for the purpose of standing in a ride and knocking over a certain quant.i.ty of half-tame fowls. No, no; I ought to have seen it long ago. I had lost him now, and _now_ I knew his value when it was too late. Too late!--the knell that tolls over half the hopes and half the visions of life.

Too late!--the one bitter drop that poisons the whole cup of success.

Too late! The golden fruit has long hung temptingly just above your grasp; you have laboured and striven and persevered, and you seize it at last and press it to your thirsty lips. Dust and ashes are your reward. The fruit is still the same, but it is too late: your desire for it is gone, or your power of enjoying it has failed you at the very moment of fruition; all that remains to you is the keen pang of disappointment, or, worse still, the apathy of disgust. I might have made John my slave a few weeks ago, and _now_--it was too provoking, and for that Welsh girl too! How I hated everything Welsh! Not Ancient Pistol, eating his enforced leek with its accompanying sauce, could have entertained a greater aversion for the Princ.i.p.ality than I did at that moment.

Presently we were joined by Lady Scapegrace. She too had got something pleasant to say to me.

"I told you so, Kate," she observed, taking my arm, and leading me down one of those secluded walks--"I told you so all along. Your friend Captain Lovell proposed to Miss Mola.s.ses yesterday. Don't blame him too much, Kate; if he's not married within three weeks, he'll be in the Bench. Never mind how I know, but I _do_ know. I think he has behaved infamously to you, I confess; but take comfort, my dear--you are not the first by a good many."

I put it to my impartial reader whether such a remark, though made with the kindest intentions, was not enough to drive any woman mad with spite. I broke away from Lady Scapegrace, and rushed back into the house. We were to leave Scamperley that day by the afternoon train. Gertrude was already packing my things; but I was obliged to go to the drawing-room for some work I had left there, and in the drawing-room I found a whole bevy of ladies a.s.sembled over their different occupations.

Women never spare each other; and I had to go through the ordeal, administered ruthlessly, and with a refinement of cruelty known only to ourselves. Even Mrs. Lumley, my own familiar friend, had no mercy.

"We ought to congratulate you, I conclude, Miss Coventry," said one.

"He's a relation of yours, is he not?" inquired another.

"Only a very great _friend_," laughed Mrs. Lumley, shaking her curls.

"It's a great marriage for _him_," some one else went on to say--"far better than he deserves. Poor thing! he'll lead her a sad life; he's a shocking flirt!"

Now, if there is one thing to my mind more contemptible than another, it is that male impostor whom ladies so charitably designate by the mild term "a flirt." It is all fair for _us_ to have our little harmless vanities and weaknesses. We are shamefully debarred from the n.o.bler pursuits and avocations of life; so we may be excused for pa.s.sing the time in such trivial manoeuvres as we can invent to excite the envy of our own and triumph over the pride of the opposite s.e.x.

But that a man should lower himself to act the part of a slave, "tied to an ap.r.o.n-string," and voluntarily be a fool, without being an honest one--it is too degrading!

Such a despicable being does us an infinity of harm: he encourages us to display all the worst points of the female character; he cheats us of our due amount of homage from many a n.o.ble heart, and perhaps robs us of our own dignity and self-respect. Yet such is the creature we encourage in our blind vanity, and whilst we vote him "so pleasant and agreeable," temper our commendation with the mild remonstrance, "though I am afraid he's rather a flirt!"

I saw the drawing-room on that morning was no place for me; so I folded my work, and curbing my tongue, which I own had a strong inclination to take its part in the war of words, I sought my own room, and found there, in addition to the litter and discomfort inseparable from the process of packing, a letter just arrived by the post. It was in Cousin Amelia's hand, and bore the Dangerfield postmark. "What now?" I thought, dreading to open it lest it might contain some fresh object of annoyance, some further inquiries or remarks calculated to irritate my already overdriven temper out of due bounds.

"Cousin Amelia never writes to me unless she has something unpleasant to say," was my mental observation, "and a very little more would fill the cup to overflowing. Whatever happens, I am determined not to cry; rather than face all those ladies with red eyes when I go to wish Lady Scapegrace good-bye, I would forego the pleasure of ever receiving a letter or hearing a bit of news again!"

So I popped Cousin Amelia's epistle into my pocket without breaking the seal, and put on my bonnet at once, that I might be ready to start, and not keep Cousin John waiting.

The leavetaking was got over more easily than I expected. People generally hustle one off in as great a hurry as the common decencies of society would admit of, in order to shorten as much as possible the unavoidable gene of parting. Sir Guy, staunch to his colours, was to drive me back on the detested drag; but his great face fell several inches when I expressed my determination to perform the journey _this_ time _inside_.

"I've bitted the team on purpose for you, Miss Kate," he exclaimed, with one of his usual oaths, "and now you throw me over at the last moment. Too bad; by all that's disappointing, it's too bad! Come now, think better of it; put on my box-coat, and catch hold of 'em, there's a good girl."

"_Inside_, or not at all, Sir Guy," was my answer; and I can be pretty determined, too, when I choose.

"Then perhaps your maid would like to come on the box," urged the Baronet, who seemed to have set his heart on the enjoyment of _some_ female society.

"Gertrude goes with me," I replied stoutly; for I thought Cousin John looked pleased, and Sir Guy was at a nonplus.

"Awfully high temper," he muttered, as he took his reins and placed his foot on the roller-bolt. "I like 'em saucy, I own, but this girl's a regular vixen!"

Sir Guy was very much put out, and vented his annoyance on his off-wheeler, "double-thonging" that unfortunate animal most unmercifully the whole way to the station. He bade me farewell with a coldness, and almost sulkiness, quite foreign to his usual demeanour, and infinitely pleasanter to my feelings. Besides, I saw plainly that the more I fell in the Baronet's good opinion, the higher I rose in that of my _chaperone_; and by the time John and I were fairly settled in a _coupe_, my cousin had got back to his old, frank, cordial manner, and I took courage to break the seal of Cousin Amelia's letter, and peruse that interesting doc.u.ment, regardless of all the sarcasms and innuendoes it might probably contain.

What a jumble of incongruities it was! Long stories about the weather, and the garden, and the farm, and all sorts of things which no one knew better than I did had no interest for my correspondent whatever.

I remarked, however, throughout the whole composition, that "mamma's"

sentiments and regulations were treated with an unusual degree of contempt, and the writer's own opinions a.s.serted with a boldness and freedom I had never before observed in my strait-laced, hypocritical cousin. Mr. Hayc.o.c.k's name, too, was very frequently brought on the _tapis_: he seemed to have breakfasted with them, lunched with them, walked, driven, played billiards with them, and, in short, to have taken up his residence almost entirely at Dangerfield. The postscript explained it all, and the postscript I give verbatim as I read it aloud to Cousin John whilst we were whizzing along at the rate of forty miles an hour.

"_P.S._--I am sure my dear Kate will give me joy. You cannot have forgotten a _certain_ person calling this autumn at Dangerfield for a _certain_ purpose, in which he did not seem clearly to know his own mind. Everything is now explained. My dear Herod (is it not a pretty Christian name!)--my dear Herod is all that I can wish, and a.s.sures me that all along _it_ was intended for me. The _happy day_ is not yet fixed; but my dearest Kate may rest a.s.sured that I will not fail to give her the _earliest intelligence_ on the _first opportunity_. Tell Mr. Jones I shall be married before him, after all."

The last sentence escaped my lips without my meaning it. Had I not come upon it unexpectedly, I think I should have kept it to myself.

John blushed, and looked hurt. For a few minutes there was a disagreeable silence, which we both felt awkward. He was the first to break it.

"Kate," said he, "do you think I shall be married before Miss Horsingham?"

"How can I tell?" I replied, looking steadfastly out of the window, whilst my colour rose and my heart beat rapidly.

"Do you believe that Welsh story, Kate?" proceeded my cousin.

I knew by his voice it _couldn't_ be true; I _felt_ it was a slander; and I whispered, "No."

"One more question, Kate," urged Cousin John, in a thick, low voice.

"Why did you refuse Frank Lovell?"

"He never proposed to me," I answered; "I never gave him an opportunity."

"Why not?" said my cousin.

"Because I liked some one else better," was my reply; and I think those few words settled the whole business.

I shall soon be five-and-twenty now, and on my birthday I am to be married. Aunt Deborah has got better ever since it has all been settled. Everybody seems pleased, and I am sure no one can be better pleased than I am. Only Lady Horsingham says, "Kate will _never_ settle." I think I know better. I think I shall make none the worse a wife because I can walk, and ride, and get up early, and stand all weathers, and love the simple, wholesome, natural pleasures of the country. John thinks so too, and that is all I need care about.

I have such a charming trousseau, though I am ashamed to say I take very little pleasure in looking at it. But kind, thoughtful Cousin John has presented Brilliant with an entirely new set of clothing; and I think my horse seems almost more delighted with his finery than his mistress is with hers. My Cousin and I ride together every day. Dear me, how delightful it is to think that I shall always be as happy as I am now!

THE END.