'Oh no-quite impossible! These are Merrifields, but the daughters are two regular old goodies, wrapped up in Sunday schools and penny clubs.'
'Well, that is odd! The editor of the -- came down in the train with me, and said he was going to see Mesa-Miss Elizabeth Merrifield.'
'I do think it is very unfair,' began Arthurine; but at that moment the door-bell rang. 'How strange at this time!'
'Oh! perhaps the editor is coming here!' cried Arthurine. 'Did you tell him I lived here, Miss Elmore?'
'Admiral Merrifield,' announced the parlour-maid.
He had resolved not to summon the young lady in private, as he thought there was more chance of common-sense in the mother.
'You are surprised to see me at this time,' he said; 'but Mrs. Rudden is perplexed by a communication from you.'
'Mrs. Rudden!' exclaimed Arthurine. 'Why, I only sent her word that I was too busy to go through her accounts to-day, and asked her to come to-morrow. That isn't against the laws of the Medes and Persians, is it?'
'Then did you send her this letter?'
'I?' said Arthurine, staring at it, with her eyes at their fullest extent. 'I! fifty pounds! Mr. Foxholm! What does it mean?'
'Then you never wrote that order?'
'No! no! How should I?'
'That is not your writing?'
'No, not that.'
'Look at the signature.'
'Oh! oh! oh!'-and she dropped into a chair. 'The horrible man! That's the autograph I gave him this afternoon.'
'You are sure?'
'Quite; for my pen spluttered in the slope of the A. Has she gone and given it to him?'
'No. She brought it to me, and set the policeman to watch him.'
'What a dear, good woman! Shall you send him to prison, Admiral Merrifield? What can be done to him?' said Arthurine, not looking at all as if she would like to abrogate capital punishment.
'Well, I had been thinking,' said the Admiral. 'You see he did not get it, and though I could commit him for endeavouring to obtain money on false pretences, I very much doubt whether the prosecution would not be worse for you than for him.'
'That is very kind of you, Admiral!' exclaimed the mother. 'It would be terribly awkward for dear Arthurine to stand up and say he cajoled her into giving her autograph. It might always be remembered against her!'
'Exactly so,' said the Admiral; 'and perhaps there may be another reason for not pushing the matter to extremity. The man is a stranger here, I believe.'
'He has been staying at Bonchamp,' said Mrs. Arthuret. 'It was young Mr. Mytton who brought him over this afternoon.'
'Just so. And how did he come to be aware that Mrs. Rudden owed you any money?'
There was a pause, then Arthurine broke out-
'Oh, Daisy and Pansy can't have done anything; but they were all three there helping me mark the tennis-courts when the message came.'
'Including the brother?'
'Yes.'
'He is a bad fellow, and I would not wish to shield him in any way, but that such a plot should be proved against him would be a grievous disgrace to the family.'
'I can't ever feel about them as I have done,' said Arthurine, in tears. 'Daisy and Pansy said so much about poor dear Fred, and every one being hard on him, and his feeling my good influence-and all the time he was plotting this against me, with my chalk in his hand marking my grass,' and she broke down in child-like sobs.
The mortification was terrible of finding her pinnacle of fame the mere delusion of a sharper, and the shock of shame seemed to overwhelm the poor girl.
'Oh, Admiral!' cried her mother, 'she cannot bear it. I know you will be good, and manage it so as to distress her as little as possible, and not have any publicity.'
'1 will do my best,' said the Admiral. 'I will try and get a confession out of him, and send him off, though it is a pity that such a fellow should get off scot-free.'
'Oh, never mind, so that my poor Arthurine's name is not brought forward! We can never be grateful enough for your kindness.'
It was so late that the Admiral did not come back that night, and the ladies were at breakfast when he appeared again. Foxholm had, on finding there was no escape, confessed the fraud, but threw most of the blame on Fred Mytton, who was in debt, not only to him but to others. Foxholm himself seemed to have been an adventurer, who preyed on young men at the billiard-table, and had there been in some collusion with Fred, though the Admiral had little doubt as to which was the greater villain. He had been introduced to the Mytton family, who were not particular; indeed, Mr. Mytton had no objection to increasing his pocket-money by a little wary, profitable betting and gambling on his own account. However, the associates had no doubt brought Bonchamp to the point of being too hot to hold them, and Fred, overhearing the arrangement with Mrs. Rudden, had communicated it to him-whence the autograph trick. Foxholm was gone, and in the course of the day it was known that young Mytton was also gone.
The Admiral promised that none of his family should mention the matter, and that he would do his best to silence Mrs. Rudden, who for that matter probably believed the whole letter to have been forged, and would not enter into the enthusiasm of autographs.
'Oh, thank you! It is so kind,' said the mother; and Arthurine, who looked as if she had not slept all night, and was ready to burst into tears on the least provocation, murmured something to the same effect, which the Admiral answered, half hearing-
'Never mind, my dear, you will be wiser another time; young people will be inexperienced.'
'Is that the cruellest cut of all?' thought Miss Elmore, as she beheld her former pupil scarcely restraining herself enough for the farewell civilities, and then breaking down into a flood of tears.
Her mother hovered over her with, 'What is it? Oh! my dear child, you need not be afraid; he is so kind!'
'I hate people to be kind, that is the very thing,' said Arthurine,-'Oh! Miss Elmore, don't go!-while he is meaning all the time that I have made such a fool of myself! And he is glad, I know he is, he and his hateful, stupid, stolid daughters.'
'My dear! my dear!' exclaimed her mother.
'Well, haven't they done nothing but thwart me, whatever I wanted to do, and aren't they triumphing now in this abominable man's treachery, and my being taken in? I shall go away, and sell the place, and never come back again.'
'I should think that was the most decided way of confessing a failure,' said Miss Elmore; and as Mrs. Arthuret was called away by the imperative summons to the butcher, she spoke more freely. 'Your mother looks terrified at being so routed up again.'
'Oh, mother will be happy anywhere; and how can I stay with these stick-in-the-mud people, just like what I have read about?'
'And have gibbeted! Really, Arthurine, I should call them very generous!'
'It is their thick skins,' muttered she; 'at least so the Myttons said; but, indeed, I did not mean to be so personal as it was thought.'
'But tell me. Why did you not get on with Mesa?'
'That was a regular take-in. Not to tell one! When I began my German class, she put me out with useless explanations.'
'What kind of explanations?'
'Oh, about the Swiss being under the Empire, or something, and she would go into parallels of Saxon words, and English poetry, such as our Fraülein never troubled us with. But I showed her it would not do.'
'So instead of learning what you had not sense to appreciate, you wanted to teach your old routine.'
'But, indeed, she could not pronounce at all well, and she looked ever so long at difficult bits, and then she even tried to correct me.'
'Did she go on coming after you silenced her?'
'Yes, and never tried to interfere again.'
'I am afraid she drew her own conclusions about High Schools.'
'Oh, Miss Elmore, you used to like us to be thorough and not discursive, and how could anybody brought up in this stultifying place, ages ago, know what will tell in an exam?'
'Oh! Arth
urine. How often have I told you that examinations are not education. I never saw so plainly that I have not educated you.'
'I wanted to prepare Daisy and Pansy, and they didn't care about her prosing when we wanted to get on with the book.'
'Which would have been the best education for them, poor girls, an example of courtesy, patience, and humility, or getting on, as you call it?'
'Oh! Miss Elmore, you are very hard on me, when I have just been so cruelly disappointed.'
'My dear child, it is only because I want you to discover why you have been so cruelly disappointed.'
It would be wearisome to relate all that Arthurine finally told of those thwartings by the Merrifields which had thrown her into the arms of the Mytton family, nor how Miss Elmore brought her to confess that each scheme was either impracticable, or might have been injurious, and that a little grain of humility might have made her see things very differently. Yet it must be owned that the good lady felt rather like bending a bow that would spring back again.
Bessie Merrifield had, like her family, been inclined to conclude that all was the fault of High Schools. She did not see Miss Elmore at first, thinking the Arthurets not likely to wish to be intruded upon, and having besides a good deal to think over. For she and her father had talked over the proposal, which pecuniarily was so tempting, and he, without prejudice, but on principle, had concurred with her in deciding that it was her duty not to add one touch of attractiveness to aught which supported a cause contrary to their strongest convictions. Her father's approbation was the crowning pleasure, though she felt the external testimony to her abilities, quite enough to sympathise with such intoxication of success as to make any compliment seem possible. Miss Elmore had one long talk with her, beginning by saying-
'I wish to consult you about my poor, foolish child.'
'Ah! I am afraid we have not helped her enough!' said Bessie. 'If we had been more sympathetic she might have trusted us more.'
'Then you are good enough to believe that it was not all folly and presumption.'
'I am sure it was not,' said Bessie. 'None of us ever thought it more than inexperience and a little exaltation, with immense good intention at the bottom. Of course, our dear old habits did look dull, coming from life and activity, and we rather resented her contempt for them; but I am quite sure that after a little while, every one will forget all about this, or only recollect it as one does a girlish scrape.'
'Yes. To suppose all the neighbourhood occupied in laughing at her is only another phase of self-importance. You see, the poor child necessarily lived in a very narrow world, where examinations came, whatever I could do, to seem everything, and she only knew things beyond by books. She had success enough there to turn her head, and not going to Cambridge, never had fair measure of her abilities. Then came prosperity-'
'Quite enough to upset any one's balance,' said Bessie. 'In fact, only a very sober, not to say stolid, nature would have stood it.'
'Poor things! They were so happy-so open-hearted. I did long to caution them. "Pull cup, steady hand."'
'It will all come right now,' said Bessie. 'Mrs Arthuret spoke of their going away for the winter; I do not think it will be a bad plan, for then we can start quite fresh with them; and the intimacy with the Myttons will be broken, though I am sorry for the poor girls. They have no harm in them, and Arthurine was doing them good.'
'A whisper to you, Miss Merrifield-they are going back with me, to be prepared for governesses at Arthurine's expense. It is the only thing for them in the crash that young man has brought on the family.'
'Dear, good Arthurine! She only needed to learn how to carry her cup.'
MRS. BATSEYES
I. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
SCENE.-The drawing-room of Darkglade Vicarage. Mr. Aveland, an elderly clergyman. Mrs. Moldwarp, widow on the verge of middle age.
Mr. A. So, my dear good child, you will come back to me, and do what you can for the lonely old man!
Mrs. M. I know nothing can really make up-
Mr. A. Ah! my dear, you know only too well by your own experience, but if any one could, it would be you. And at least you will let nothing drop in the parish work. You and Cicely together will be able to take that up when Euphrasia is gone too.
Mrs. M. It will be delightful to me to come back to it! You know I was to the manner born. Nothing seems to be so natural!
Mr. A. I am only afraid you are giving up a great deal. I don't know that I could accept it-except for the parish and these poor children.
Mrs. M. Now, dear father, you are not to talk so! Is not this my home, my first home, and though it has lost its very dearest centre, what can be so dear to me when my own has long been broken?
Mr. A. But the young folks-young Londoners are apt to feel such a change a great sacrifice.
Mrs. M. Lucius always longs to be here whenever he is on shore, and Cicely. Oh! it will be so good for Cicely to be with you, dear father. I know some day you will be able to enjoy her. And I do look forward to having her to myself, as I have never had before since she was a little creature in the nursery. It is so fortunate that I had not closed the treaty for the house at Brompton, so that I can come whenever Phrasie decides on leaving you.
Mr. A. And she must not be long delayed. She and Holland have waited for each other quite long enough. Your dear mother begged that there should be no delay; and neither you nor I, Mary, could bear to shorten the time of happiness together that may be granted them. She will have no scruple about leaving George's children now you and Cicely will see to them-poor little things!
Mrs. M. Cicely has always longed for a sphere, and between the children and the parish she will be quite happy. You need have no fears for her, father!
II. BROTHER AND SISTER
SCENE-The broad walk under the Vicarage garden wall, Lucius Moldwarp, a lieutenant in the Navy. Cicely Moldwarp.
C. Isn't it disgusting, Lucius?
L. What is?
C. This proceeding of the mother's.
L. Do you mean coming down here to live?
C. Of course I do! Without so much as consulting me.
L. The captain does not ordinarily consult the crew.
C. Bosh, Lucius. That habit of discipline makes you quite stupid. Now, haven't I the right to be consulted?
L. (A whistle)
C. (A stamp)
L. Pray, what would your sagacity have proposed for grandpapa and the small children?
C. (Hesitation.)
L. (A slight laugh.)
C. I do think it is quite shocking of Aunt Phrasie to be in such haste to marry!
L. After eleven years-eh? or twelve, is it?
C. I mean of course so soon after her mother's death.
L. You know dear granny herself begged that the wedding might not be put off on that account.
C. Mr. Holland might come and live here.
L. Perhaps he thinks he has a right to be consulted.
C. Then she might take those children away with her.
L. Leaving grandpapa alone.
C. The Curate might live in the house.
L. Lively and satisfactory to mother. Come now, Cis, why are you so dead set against this plan? It is only because your august consent has not been asked?
C. I should have minded less if the pros and cons had been set before me, instead of being treated like a chattel; but I do not think my education should be sacrificed.
L. Not educated! At twenty!
C. Don't be so silly, Lucius. This is the time when the most important brain work is to be done. There are the art classes at the Slade, and the lectures I am down for, and the Senior Cambridge and cookery and nursing. Yes, I see you make faces! You sailors think women are only meant for you to play with when you are on shore; but I must work.
L. Work enough here!
C. Goody-goody! Babies, school-children, and old women! I'm meant for something beyond that, or what are intellect and artistic faculty given for?
L. Y
ou could read for Cambridge exam. all the same. Here are tons of books, and grandpapa would help you. Why not? He is not a bit of a dull man. He is up to everything.
C. So far as you know. Oh no, he is not naturally dense. He is a dear old man; but you know clerics of his date, especially when they have vegetated in the country, never know anything but the Fathers and church architecture.
L. Hum! I should have said the old gentleman had a pretty good intelligence of his own. I know he set me on my legs for my exam. as none of the masters at old Coade's ever did. What has made you take such a mortal aversion to the place? We used to think it next door to Paradise when we were small children.
C. Of course, when country freedom was everything, and we knew nothing of rational intercourse; but when all the most intellectual houses are open to me, it is intolerable to be buried alive here with nothing to talk of but clerical shop, and nothing to do but read to old women, and cram the unfortunate children with the catechism. And mother and Aunt Phrasie expect me to be in raptures!
L. Whereas you seem to be meditating a demonstration.
C. I shall tell mother that if she must needs come down to wallow in her native goodiness, it is due to let me board in Kensington till my courses are completed.
L. Since she won't be an unnatural daughter, she is to leave the part to you. Well, I suppose it will be for the general peace.
C. Now, Lucius, you speak out of the remains of the old tyrannical barbarism, when the daughters were nothing but goods and chattels.
L. Goods, yes, indeed, and betters.
C. No doubt the men liked it! But won't you stand by me, Lucius? You say it would be for the general peace.
L. I only said you would be better away than making yourself obnoxious. I can't think how you can have the heart, Cis, such a pet as you always were.
C. I would not hurt their feelings for the world, only my improvement is too important to be sacrificed, and if no one else will stand up for me, I must stand up for myself.
III. BRIDE-ELECT AND FATHER
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