"Stuff and nonsense, Maria!" said the uncle. They were being shown their rooms up-stairs. "You have only to exert yourself. That's all you require to set you up. And of course you must come down to dinner.

The sight of so many strangers will do you good, and we shall want your help to make up our minds about the company."

Mrs Naylor shook her head in plaintive toleration. It was not to be expected that coa.r.s.e-fibred masculinity should comprehend the susceptibility of her delicate nerves. She half-closed her eyes and sank into a chair, with every appearance of taking up her quarters for good--unless, indeed, she should have to be laid upon the adjoining bed.

Joseph, standing impatiently without, grew uneasy, as perhaps was intended. He was of an anxious temper, fussy as well as kind. The responsibility of having a delicate lady on his hands oppressed him.

He had groaned under the load for years, but he had not got used to it. It oppressed him ever the more, the longer he endured it, and he was overridden by the whims and complaints of this relict of his deceased brother, even more than if she had been wife of his own.

"Pray try, sister--try. It is for your health we are here, you know.

It will be distressing if you begin by taking to your bed. I feel confident that a morsel of dinner and a gla.s.s of sparkling wine will do you good."

I will not say that it was the suggestion of the wine which induced Mrs Naylor to change her purpose; it may only have been willingness to yield to entreaty. At any rate, she let herself be persuaded, though not too easily, and eventually went downstairs with the rest.

At dinner they shared a table with their fellow-travellers of the omnibus, and found Mr Wilkie and his mother already placed when they entered.

"Mother," Peter had been saying, "you will have to behave here, or you will compromise me before all those Toronto people. If they carry back a tale of queer doings on our part, you will find it harder than ever to get into society when we go home. There is Mrs Judge Petty with her son and daughter, and there Colonel and Mrs Carraway, and the Vice-Chancellor Chickenpips! Mind what you are about. This is not the Gallowgate of Glasgow--remember that! If they see you biting your bread or eating with your knife, you're done for; and so am I."

"Peter Wilkie, I wonder ye can have the heart to be speaking like that to your dying mother!--bringing on the palpitations worse than ever.

Oh, my heart! it's just thumping. If I did take lodgers at one time--ay, and turn the mangle with my own hands--whose sake was it done for? Tell me that. I wonder where the money would have come from to pay for your fine edication if I had chosen to sit and drink my tea in the afternoons like a f.e.c.kless leddy, as I might have done! It wasn't your bankrupt father, danderin' about the doors hand-idle, that could have helped you. I just slaved with that mangle and the lodgers to bring up my boay; and now, when he is in a splendid way of doing, this is the thanks he gives me--to cast the Gallowgate up to me! As if it wasna you, and your father before you, that brought me down to that! Think shame of yourself, Peter Wilkie!" And the big round tears came rattling in a very hailstorm out of the old blue eyes, leaving watercourses among her ribbons, and mingling with the gravy in her plate, till the son felt like a brute--or at least he should have felt so; and he certainly feared that he must appear like one in the eyes of any fellow-guest who might observe him.

The entrance of the Naylors made a welcome diversion. As they took their places the old woman's tears dried up of themselves, her eyes being withdrawn from the inward contemplation of her own distresses to the lace cap of Mrs Naylor and the gowns of her daughters.

Unconsciously she sat up more squarely in her chair, prinked out her cap-strings, and wondered if Mrs Naylor's hair could be all her own; while her son and the gentleman exchanged an observation on the journey they had made together.

Mrs Naylor was not only of the Provinces, but provincial at that. Like other "leading ladies" of Jones's Landing, she was wont to inform strangers that she was "very exclusive," with the gratifying result of taking away their breath; though perhaps, if she had but known, it was the stupendous conceit which could imagine herself or her circle in the smallest degree desirable, rather than the splendour of her position which astonished them. She had no small opinion of her "position," but, like other rural great ones, she bowed in her heart before the superiority of dwellers in the capital. There was a grandeur in their way of accepting her pretensions, while setting them calmly aside, which filled her with admiring awe on her rare visits to Toronto--made her rave about its elegance, and try to play off in Jones's Landing some of the mannerisms she had found so impressive.

And here it may be observed that, in its way, Toronto is a capital, even as New York is, or London, and quite as accustomed as either to put on metropolitan airs, so far as circ.u.mstances permit; and seeing that all mankind are made of one kind of clay, there may be less difference in the spirit which animates the small community and the great one than would appear. A c.o.c.k-boat is built of the same materials as a man-of-war, and it is floated and steered in accordance with the same laws of nature.

At a distant table Mrs Naylor descried Mrs Justice Petty, Mrs Vice-Chancellor Chickenpip, and Mrs Carraway--the very cream of Toronto society. Ice-cream, alas! they were likely to prove to Mrs Naylor, as she did not know them, and they made a point of not thawing to unknown fellow-country-women whom they met in American hotels--it being difficult to shake them off afterwards, especially the undesirable ones. So far, indeed, did those ladies' prudence carry them, that they would only bathe at eccentric hours and in secretly arranged parties. The very sea should not receive them in the same embrace with persons from Canada who were not in Society. As for Americans, it did not matter: they might never meet them again, and Americans are held to be a peculiar people, without social degrees or defined lines of demarcation. Everybody among them may be anybody, and each is expected to have a spice of everything. Among them, vulgarity, if they have any, is overlooked. They are generally amusing, often rich, and cannot compromise a Canadian.

Mrs Naylor's eye, surveying the company, lighted on her distinguished compatriots. She knew them, although she had not the happiness of being acquainted with them--a humbling thought, which made her approach with more meekness than otherwise she might have felt, the two people from Toronto who shared her table. If not the rose, they at least grew near it, and might--who knew?--be woven into a link of connection with the queen of flowers. She addressed a polite observation to the old lady, who, accepting it as a tribute to her clever son and her own good looks, responded affably, as not unwilling to confer the favour of her notice, though aware that it was a thing of value.

And so it came about that, when dinner was over, the Naylor party and the Wilkies had coalesced, and strolled together to a shady corner of the galleries, where broad awnings, flapping in fitful air-currents, lent a little freshness to the languor of the hot and drowsy afternoon.

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST EVENING.

When the sweltering hours of afternoon have pa.s.sed on westward, and the shadows creep out to meet the coming twilight in the east, there is an arousing in the world comparable to the quickening which pa.s.ses across it at the opening of each new day. The air, too languid, an hour since, to lift the drooping streamer on the flag-staff, awakens into flutterings which set the aspen-leaves in the shrubbery spinning gleefully upon their slender stalks. The watch-dog rattling his chain emerges from his kennel, stretching and blinking, and yawning his formidable jaws. The interest of living steals slowly back on him, and ere long he is amusing himself with a half-gnawed bone, his eyes fixed upon the kitchen-door, whence supper and the cook are wont to visit him.

There are stirrings and rustlings in the long silent pa.s.sages and chambers of the hotel. The life of the inmates, which had burned low, like charcoal-embers in the thick hot stillness, lights up in the eddies of cooler air which flutter in, and brightens into flame. The sleepers draw themselves together where they lie on swing, in hammock, on couch, or deeply cushioned chair, and open their eyes and start and are awake, inhale the freshness of the sea-salt air, and the house is alive once more with the stirring of its inmates, like a clock which had run down, but is now wound up and set agoing.

Old Mrs Wilkie had been surprised by sleep as she lay back in a long cane chair, preliminary to getting up and seeking the privacy of her chamber. Her feet had been raised on the further end of the seductive invention for barely a second, when, with a sigh, her head fell backward, leaving the lips apart, and plunging her in deep sweet gurgling slumber, which echoed purlingly along the silent gallery, like sounds of hidden brooks in shady dells.

She started now, and, wheeling round, sat bolt-upright, in haste to hide among her skirts the broad prunella shoes which had stood up before her like a ma.s.sive screen, concealing her foreshortened figure from intrusive eyes.

"Peter Wilkie! are you sleeping? Come here," were the first words she spoke on opening her eyes. There was crossness in her voice, and her face was aflush with anger, or perhaps with lingering sleep. "I wish you would speak to that impertinent Yankee woman over there. What business has she looking at me like that? It's my feet she's trying to see, I do believe."

"They're big enough to be plainly seen without much trying, mother.

But never mind, I'll back them to gang their ain gate against hers or anybody's. Why did you not go to your room, as I advised you, instead of exhibiting yourself like a sleeping beauty before the whole house?"

"I just fell asleep before I knew; and it's like your father's son to be jawing and jeering when I'm too poorly to take my own part," and she pressed her side. "Sleeping beauty, quothy! It'll be telling ye, my man, if any scart of a wife ye may pick up in this unwholesome country keeps her looks half as well when she comes to my time of life;" and having secured the last word, she withdrew to smooth her tumbled hair and prepare for the next meal.

There was a general rolling up of awnings and opening of shutters all over the house. Doors and windows were thrown open, and whisperings from the sea stole in everywhere, bringing freshness and gaiety where sloth and prostration had brooded all the afternoon. The sounds of laughter and tripping feet echoed on the stairs, and presently the whole body of guests come out from supper were a.s.sembled in the parlours. There were three parlours, connected with each other by folding-doors. Only one was carpeted, to be ready for rainy days at the end of the season. The boards of the other two were bare, like the holystoned deck of a steamer; and, with their open windows descending to the floor, they had the appearance of sheltered continuations of the gallery without, rather than of rooms, they were so sweet and fresh and s.p.a.cious.

Round the pianos, or rather one of them, the crowd gathered. A Bostonian, the pet of the ladies and the aversion of the other young men, seated himself before it and began to play. He played, as the male amateur is wont to play, with abundant sound--eliciting admiring whispers as to the energy of his touch, and acquitting himself successfully, though by no means with the brilliancy he himself supposed. Ere long he slid into a waltz, and then the crowd broke up into its component parts. Those who could find a partner began to dance, those who desired one looked about or waited to be asked, while the elders withdrew to the carpeted drawing-room.

Those first to reach it having secured the rocking-chairs, the remainder had to sit still,--all, that is, but Miss Maida Springer, a school-ma'am, the gossips said, from Vermont--a lady of questionable youth but indubitable independence of character, who tilted her chair till its back touched the wall, and swung her feet in a plenitude of sedentary exercise such as no rocker could afford.

Mrs Judge Petty was one of the first to reach the drawing-room and install herself in a comfortable place. Having done so, she had leisure to look round and consider how the places near her should be filled. Her eye lighted on Mrs Wilkie drifting doubtfully on the stream, and, fixing her with an encouraging smile, drew her forward, and landed her with a turn of the eyelid on a sofa at her elbow.

Mrs Naylor followed close upon her new acquaintance, and Mrs Petty, feeling no desire to know _her_, would fain have staved her off with a chilling stare; but Mrs Naylor could play burr on occasion, and knew how to disregard what it would be inconvenient to see. She stuck to her friend, and made small-talk whilst settling herself by her side; and Mrs Wilkie, though eager to meet the advances of the more worshipful lady, was too unskilful to refrain from answering her a.s.siduous companion. It was tantalising. Circ.u.mstances through life had kept her far off from the judges and magnates of her native land; and now, when she was abroad, and at last in clover--when great ones were actually seeking her acquaintance--to think that a quite ordinary person should intrusively interfere! It made her cross, and her replies grew short and dry; but, alas! to no good purpose--for though Mrs Naylor could be silenced by taciturnity, Mrs Petty had turned away her head in the meantime, and was interesting herself in other things.

Mrs Wilkie flushed and fretted; Mrs Naylor sat and bided her time. She had two girls to bring out and marry well--enterprises in which patience and ability to eat humble-pie speed better than more brilliant qualities. She sat by Mrs Wilkie, keeping her company, though neither spoke. Their eyes were occupied with the moving crowd of dancers in the distance, as they whirled and floated on the tide of sound.

After a while Mrs Petty turned round to her neighbour and observed, "I think I see Mr Wilkie--your son, is he not?--dancing with my daughter Ann. A good height, are they not, for each other? They really look very well."

"Most girls look well dancing with my Peter--Mr Wilkie, I ought to say, for we can't look on a young man in his fine position as just a boy; though, to be sure, he will always be a boy to me. Eh!--the trouble I had with him in his teething! I can never forget that, and the day we put on his first pair of little trousers. I made them myself out of a bit of black-and-red tartan. And now, to see him 'dancing in the hall,' as the song says, with all the finest girls in the room just scuffling to get a catch of him."

Mrs Petty was scarcely gratified at the remark, but she was amused; and as we grow older on this humdrum planet, to be amused befalls one so seldom that it compensates for much, even for a lack of proper respect--so she acquiesced.

"Yes," she said, "Mr Petty--Judge Petty, you know, my husband--says he thinks highly of your son, and expects him to do very well. I too have met him, and like the little I have seen; and now apparently he has made the acquaintance of Ann, and they seem to get on together very nicely."

"Oh yes," chuckled the mother, "he's a great boy with the girls, our Peter. They're all pulling caps to see who's going to get him. I just----"

"Hm!" coughed Mrs Petty, in haste to interrupt before anything worse had been said of the girls, among whom her own daughter seemed audaciously to be included. "Oh yes, an excellent young man. I have scarcely met him, but I hope to see more of him next winter, and I am very pleased to meet his mother."

Whereat the other bridled and was happy. How well it would read in her next letter to her husband--hid away somewhere in Scotland, and never alluded to--to mention Mr Justice Petty and his family among her intimate friends!

"Don't you think my daughter Ann is looking her best this evening?"

the younger mother went on. "So animated. She is perhaps too tranquil in general. 'Statuesque' was how young Lord Norman described her, when he pa.s.sed through Toronto last spring. And really she is clever, though ill-natured people say she has no conversation. When she gets hold of a clever man who can understand, see! she positively rattles."

"Oh yes, Peter generally makes the girls rattle. He's very quick about sounding them. Terrible empty, though, he says he generally finds them;" which was a remark she should have spared her new friend, in view of the elation she felt in making the acquaintance; but Peter was her monomania. With his name on her lips, the words would come of themselves, without judgment or consideration.

"There is my son Walter, too," Mrs Petty continued, taking no notice.

"Dancing, I declare, instead of smoking out of doors. A positive achievement on the part of that young lady, if she only knew. A very handsome girl, and nicely dressed; but I do not seem to have observed her before--must have arrived to-day."

"So she did," answered Mrs Wilkie. "That's--dear me! how bad my memory is growing!"

"Miss Naylor," volunteered her mother. "Niece of Joseph Naylor of Jones's Landing."

"The great lumberman? In--deed!" said Mrs Petty, interested and impressed. "I did not hear of her arrival. I wonder if _he_ is coming!

The richest bachelor in Upper Canada, I understand. It is a risky business, but still----. One likes to see a celebrity."

"He is here," his sister-in-law observed. "We arrived this afternoon."

Mrs Petty turned her eyes, and for the first time permitted them to be seen resting on the stranger, addressing her with much politeness at the same time. "Then perhaps you are related to the beautiful girl who is dancing with my son?"