"Like glints of moonshine in a clouded sky"--

and the suggestion of pale yellow, with a bunch of crimson on the shoulder, where it reached beyond the shadow which fell on the rest of the figure.

Mrs Naylor was a woman; and while she might not be able to recall the back of her own father, a gown once seen was imprinted on her memory, and she recognised it at once. "Miss Hillyard," she said to herself, "the heroine--in her lovely Paris dress. I wonder whom she has got there. That is not the contradictious Scotch schoolmaster, at any rate, with his awkward knees and elbows. The men seem wild about her.

Natural, that, in the men. But a little unfeminine," she could not help thinking, "in a lady to swim so well. And it would have been in better taste if she had dressed more quietly for this once, after making herself so remarkable in the morning. But then she is a Yankee, and perhaps not altogether a lady. One never knows how to cla.s.s those people. Best let them alone;" and her thoughts reverted to Mr Sefton of Pugwash, and she felt much inclined to return to the ball-room and get Lucy away from him without further seeking enlightenment.

At that moment the gentleman in shadow began to speak more loudly, pointing to where the moonlight made a patch of flickering l.u.s.tre on the hazy sea.

"How bright the moonlight lies out yonder on the water! Every ripple catches it a moment and throws it back, till the surface seems to burn.... How different it was this morning! How different it must be down deep below, and how easily I might be there now--cold and stiff, rolling amongst the sea-weed, and slime, and things nibbling in the darkness! It is a horrible reflection, and it would have come true if it had not been for you."

The lady demurred, and moved, and asked if they had not better go in now; and Mrs Naylor beheld her brother-in-law turn round and lead his companion back among the dancers.

She could scarcely believe her eyes. Joseph was forty-seven. She knew the date of his birth. He had never cared to dance within her recollection, and she had known him almost since her marriage. She remembered his coming home from sea about that time, a sad-eyed youth, who avoided company, and lived in a sort of patient gloom, finding his sole distraction in close application to business. Her husband whispered that he had met with a disappointment into which they must not pry, but rather strive by unspoken sympathy and kindness to reconcile him to his lot, and wean him from his sorrow.

In time the cloud upon his spirits had seemed to lift. He was too kind-hearted not to take interest in the people among whom he lived; and, sympathising with them in their joys, his own depression by degrees was lightened. A man's capacity, even for suffering, is limited. Divide his attention, and you mitigate the intensity of his woes. It is the self-centred egotist whose troubles kill him, or may drive him mad, because he is incapable of distraction. To Joseph the better part of his life had seemed over, and work his only remaining resource. Yet he had never closed his heart against the cares and pleasures of his fellows, and he felt a wholesome interest in all that went on around him, like a father watching the opening hopes of children, who have not learnt to misgive, or dread the nipping frosts of disappointment.

His sister-in-law, not being addicted to moral a.n.a.lysis, probably did not consider this; but she had seen his despondency clear away, and knew that he was the kindest, most cheerful, and most popular man she had ever met--ready to join in every pastime, and differing from the rest only in a premature middle-aged benevolence, setting in before he was thirty, which found pleasure in amusing others, without seeking anything for himself. He had seemed impervious to female charms through all the years she had known him, and especially he had avoided dances--or if by chance he found himself at one, only joining when charity led him to the side of some neglected wallflower. And here he was to-night, when there was no benevolent occasion for it whatever, leading out the best-dressed woman in the room, with an ardour which would have seemed more natural in him twenty years before. True, the lady had saved his life; but it seemed a droll way of manifesting grat.i.tude to _dance_ with her, at his age. Her eyebrows made a satirical twitch upwards, and she sighed impatiently at men's lack of common-sense. The present was no time to unburden her anxieties--that was plain; and meanwhile she would saunter round the crowd, and watch him in his new character of middle-aged youngster.

The evening was warm, but in the dancing-room it was positively hot.

The atmosphere quivered with the blare of sounding bra.s.s, and the whirling figures, chasing the fleeting strains, raised a sirocco of sultry air and dust. Still the young people seemed to like it, and Mrs Naylor looked on in wonder, forgetting that she had once been young herself. But who were those in the farthest corner, keeping themselves so well clear of the hurrying hubbub?--revolving dreamily on the outer edge, in perfect sympathy and time, and in an orbit of their own--avoiding collision with the meteors and comets of the greater system, spinning calmly and smoothly on the flood of sound, engrossed with themselves, and indifferent to all the world beside.

She looked again. The girl was her own daughter Margaret; but who was the man in whose arms she was so restfully and intimately revolving?

Her self-reliant daughter was not wont to dance in that clinging fashion, and she could not imagine what dweller at Clam Beach could have won her to such unaccustomed softness. What masterful bird could so have won upon the fancy of her favourite chick? Was he one of the proper sort? But Margaret was too high-spirited to take up with a cross-breed, and she felt less solicitous than had it been that featherhead Lucy. Still she was curious to know who could have tamed proud Meg to so mild a demeanour. It was not young Petty. She could have wished that it had been. This one was not so tall, neither was he raw-looking, as--candour compelled the admission--was Mr Walter Petty--just a little; but then he was young yet, and it would soon wear off, with his prospects and a.s.sured position. This one was thoroughly in possession of himself and all his limbs. How deftly he steered and threaded their way, without stop or collision, among the less skilful dancers! How strong he looked, and calm, without heaviness! She could have wished herself young again, to be danced with by a partner such as he. In their continuous whirling, and the perpetual intervening of other couples, she could not make out or recognise his face. After a while they stopped, and she moved from where she had been standing, to get a better view. How intimately Margaret stood up to him and talked, with her flapping fan interposed between them and the rest of the world!

Mrs Naylor's curiosity increased, and she drew nearer. "What!" she almost cried out aloud. "Walter Blount! How comes he here? This must not be!" And flushing, and tightening her lips, she walked across to where they stood. To think that after all the management she had expended in making her brother-in-law bring them to the seaside, and so remove her girl for a while beyond the reach of the "detrimental"

whose fascinations threatened to ruin her prospects, the aggravating youth should have followed them! It was too provoking. She sniffed indignantly, and bore down on the offenders, tightening her lace shawl about her shoulders, and looking tall and stately with all her might.

"Margaret, my dear," she said, "you are dancing a great deal too much.

You will be knocked up to-morrow, and I mean you to accompany me to Boston."

Margaret was taken aback. Her mother's habitual seat was in the conversation-room, at the other end of the suite, with two pairs of folding-doors and all the dancers between. It was to avoid her observation that they had been confining their career to this far-off corner, and her sweeping thus down on them was altogether unexpected.

She let go her partner's arm, and with drooping eye and pouting lip prepared to follow her mother, like a naughty child detected in the act.

"Mrs Naylor," said Blount, "will you not speak to me?"

"How d'ye do, Mr Blount? I was not aware you were at Clam Beach."

"It used to be 'Walter,' and you allowed me to call you aunt. Why this change?"

"That was nonsense. We are not related. You are not a stripling now, Mr Blount, and my daughters have grown to be young women since then."

"That does not make me feel the less regard for you and them, dear Mrs Naylor. It is not our fault that we grow older."

"Why have you left your farm? These haunts of idleness and dissipation are no good place for a young man who should be making his fortune.

Your stock will be straying and breaking down fences; and how is your harvest-work to go on in your absence? I am sure your friends would not approve if they knew."

"I have sold the farm--sold it very well--and I shall soon be looking out for another."

"I am sorry to hear you are becoming unsettled. Roving from place to place is the sure way for a young man to ruin himself. Remember the proverb about rolling stones.... Now, Margaret, if you are ready we will go." And drawing her daughter's arm through her own, she sailed away, leaving Blount disconsolate.

"I am amazed, Margaret, at your want of common-sense and proper feeling," she began, as she led the captive back by the gallery towards the place where she was wont to sit. But she got no further with her harangue. Mr Peter Wilkie, coming through a window, intercepted her retreat, requesting Margaret for the favour of a dance.

Margaret was declining with thanks, being in no mood for further exercise; but her mother, whose brow had cleared at once on the new-comer's appearance, interposed.

"Indeed, Margaret, I think a dance would do you good. What an oppressive evening, Mr Wilkie! We came out here for a breath of coolness, but I do think it is better for young people not to yield.

The more you give way to the heat, Margaret, my dear, the limper you will become. A dance with a good partner is far the best way of throwing off the oppression."

Margaret felt a little doubtful about the goodness of the partner, but she said nothing, and took Mr Peter's arm without further demur. What did it matter? Her evening was irretrievably spoilt. Besides, her mother meant to be disagreeable--that was abundantly plain--and she had better accept the offered deliverance. She accompanied Peter back into the room. She laid her hand on his shoulder and they began to dance.

If there is no method of motion more perfect than a good waltz, there is no purgatory so grievous as a bad one. Racing, stumbling, jolting, and running into other couples, with the danger of getting entangled among the feet and knees of her partner at every stride, and her ear outraged by his disregard of the music, Margaret could only liken their progress to a hurdle-race at a country fair, as they broke through the bars of the music, or cleared them helter-skelter. At length she was able to stop, and Mr Peter, somewhat giddy, and holding on till his head grew steady, drew a long breath.

"Heh! that was fine! The best dance I've had to-night. You and me suit one another splendid, Miss Margaret. Let's have another turn. Are you ready?"

"Really, Mr Wilkie, you must let me rest a moment, I am quite out of breath;" and she fanned herself industriously, taking care, however, not to include the partner this time. "How oppressive it is here! Do you not think a breath of fresh air on the gallery would be pleasant?"

and Mr Wilkie, without at all intending it, found himself promenading in the moonlight, when he would rather have been regaling the company with his antics in the dance. Like other rugged and ungraceful men, he had a high opinion of his personal graces; and his doting mother, who worshipped his very shadow, had conspired with his natural vanity to breed a self-admiration which tempted him in expansive moments to display himself before an admiring world. He would have liked to exhibit under the lights in the crowded ball-room, with this fine girl hung gracefully on his shoulder, as he knew she could pose herself; but if that was not to be, at least she was a young person of intelligence who could appreciate a man of talent. He resigned himself to the comparative seclusion, stroked his chin, and cleared his voice, preparatory to saying something smart.

What the observation was to have been, n.o.body knows. It is in Limbo with other good things which have missed their opportunity. It was Margaret who spoke--

"Mr Blount! You out here! Found it too warm inside? So did we. How pleasant it is here!"

At that moment the music ceased. The dance was ended, and Mr Peter Wilkie, his smart saying unsaid, found himself exchanging a valedictory smile with his companion, who somehow had become detached from him, and, before he well understood the situation, was wafting away with Mr Blount, leaving him alone with his handsome shadow in the moonlight.

CHAPTER XI.

DISCUSSING A SUITOR.

Is there some connection between a maiden's tresses and the workings of her mind? When the braids are coiled in shining order for the captivation of the world, are her thoughts as well confined in conventional rolls and waves conforming to the fashion of the time?

Poets love to dwell upon her "locks": can it be because they guard her confidences that they have named them so? There is more in this than a mere wretched pun; there is a connection between sound and sense--involuntary, no doubt, but the beginnings of language are all involuntary. When the hair is unbound, the mind is freed from the trammels of convention and reserve; and this may be why, at hair-brushing time, as I have heard, girls' tongues are wont to wag so freely.

There must be infinite relief to the poor little head, and brain benumbed, when the weight of firmly drawn and twisted hair is unbuckled and let down, and a refreshing stimulation of thought in the action of brush and comb, spreading and airing and drawing out the uncomfortable glory.

Margaret and Lucy Naylor had retired for the night, but not as yet to rest. Relieved from hair-pins, they stood before their gla.s.ses in freedom and disarray, more charming far than when decked out to meet the public eye, which might not, alas! be privileged to behold them now.

Yet doubtless there is a happiness in being handsome, for its own sake, even if one is alone. One may legitimately rejoice in beauty though it be one's own; and it were churlish to libel that as vanity which is common to all things beautiful. See how the roses spread their petals to the light, and how birds of starry plumage perch in solitary places in the sun, to preen their feathers and display their brilliant dyes!

The girls were pretty seen at any time, but when busied in these secret mysteries they were vastly more so. The glossy abundance hung down like mantles over the pearly shoulders and far below their waists, and the supple white arms held up and played among the falling waves of hair, which flashed like skeins of pale and ruddy gold-thread in the flicker of the candles. The glittering veil half hid their smiling features, but ever and anon the eyes flashed out beneath the shadow, more brightly than their wont, answering to lips of red, and rows of small white teeth, and gurgling rounds of laughter.

The doings of the evening were all gone over again, the successes won anew; and in relation, what had seemed but trifling incidents at the time, grew bigger, and under merry comment vastly entertaining. Lucy had most to say. She was the chatterbox, and had much to tell about the gentlemen she had danced with, and their sometimes rather vapid talk. Could those lordly wiseacres have heard the _resume_ and description of their stiff-backed endeavours to converse and please, they would have been surprised, and some of them not over-gratified, at the shrewd commentaries of the pretty, timid, and not too clever little thing they had trifled with so condescendingly.

Margaret had much less to say, but she was in equally good spirits. It was with a very old friend that she had mostly been pa.s.sing the time, so there was nothing to tell, though Lucy looked a little incredulous when she said as much; but her evening had been none the less pleasant on that account, to judge from her ready appreciation of her sister's fun.

There was a knock while the talk was at its briskest, but in the babblement and laughter it was not heard. The knock was repeated, and this time the speaker stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and both turned round and looked at each other.