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The Daughters of a Genius

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey · English · Gutenberg #32933 · 437,212 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Daughters of a Genius

Author: Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

Illustrator: John Menzies


        
Release date: June 20, 2010 [eBook #32933]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32933

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAUGHTERS OF A GENIUS ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Daughters of a Genius, by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey.

________________________________________________________________________

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THE DAUGHTERS OF A GENIUS, BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY.



CHAPTER ONE.

UNKNOWN COUSINS.

"What is your letter, my dear?  You seem annoyed.  _No_ bad news, I
hope," said the master of Chedworth Manor, looking across the table to
where his wife eat behind the urn, frowning over the sheet which she
held in her hand.  She was a handsome, well-preserved woman, with
aquiline features, thin lips, and eyes of a pale, indefinite blue.  She
looked up as he spoke, then threw down the letter with a sigh of
impatience.

"Oh, bad news, of course!  When did we ever return from a holiday
without finding something of the sort awaiting us?  It's from Stephen
Charrington.  He says he would have written before, but heard that we
were abroad, and did not know where to direct.  Edgar is dead.  He died
a fortnight ago, and the funeral was on Friday week.  I never knew a man
who married improvidently and had a huge family who did _not_ die before
he reached middle age.  It seems a judgment on them; and here is another
instance.  Forty-nine his last birthday!  He ought to have lived for
another twenty years at least."

Mrs Loftus spoke with an air of injury which seemed to imply that the
deceased gentleman had died out of pure perversity, and her husband
knitted his brows in disapproving fashion.  Even after twenty-five years
of married life his wife's heartless selfishness could give him a twinge
of shocked surprise when, as now, it was obtrusively displayed.  He
himself made no claims to philanthropy, but one expected some natural
feeling from a woman; and with all his faults, Edgar Charrington had had
close claim on her sympathy.

"He was your brother, my dear," he said dryly.  "I suppose the poor
fellow would not have died if he could have helped it.  We have not seen
anything of him for a long time, but he used to be a most attractive
fellow.  I thought he would have made his mark.  Never met a man with so
many gifts--painting, music, writing; he used to take them up in turn,
and do equally well in each."

"But excel in nothing!  That was the undoing of Edgar; he had not the
application to keep to one thing at a time, but must always be flying
off to something new.  That disastrous marriage was like a millstone
round his neck, and practically doomed him to failure.  Oh, I know what
you are going to say.  There was nothing against Elma; and you admired
her, of course, because she was pretty and helpless; but I shall always
maintain that it was practically suicide for Edgar, with his Bohemian
nature, to many a penniless girl, with no influence to help him on in
the world.  How they have managed to live at all I can't imagine.  He
never confided in me, and I made a point of not inquiring.  To tell the
truth, I lived in dread of his wanting to borrow money, and one has
enough to do with one's own claims.  I think he was offended because we
never invited the children, for I have scarcely heard from him for the
last five years.  Really, it was too great an experiment I can't imagine
what they must be like, brought up in that little village, with next to
no education.  Social savages, I should say."

"How many children were there?  I've forgotten how they come after the
first two.  Stephen and Philippa visited us once long ago, and I
remember thinking her an uncommonly handsome child, with a spirit of her
own, which will probably stand her in good stead now.  The boy was not
so interesting.  How many are there besides these two?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Dozens!  There was always a baby, I remember,"
returned Mrs Loftus impatiently.  "Goodness knows what is to become of
them now that they are left orphans, with practically no means of
support.  Stephen seems quite bewildered with the responsibility.  He
says he is anxious to see us, as his father's nearest relations, and to
consult with us as to the future.  I think we had better decline all
responsibility.  It is a thankless task to interfere with other people's
business, and young folks are so opinionated.  I shall write a letter of
sympathy, and say that, as I know so little of their circumstances and
surroundings, I do not feel myself competent to advise."

"Just as you please, my dear; but you must speak for yourself alone.  I
shall certainly have a chat with the poor young fellow.  It is the least
we can do, and I am only sorry I was not back in time to attend the
funeral I am afraid we behaved shabbily to poor Edgar while he was
alive, and I should have liked to pay him some respect in death.  This
is Monday.  I must attend to one or two affairs here, but I'll run down
to Leabourne towards the end of the week, and put up at the inn.  Tell
Stephen I'll write later on and say when he may expect me."

Mr Loftus pushed his chair back from the table, and tossed his serviette
on a chair.  He looked decidedly ruffled in temper, and injured and
sorry for himself into the bargain.  If there was one thing he disliked
more than another, it was to have anything approaching a dissension with
the members of his household.  "Peace at all price" had been the motto
of a character kindly enough, yet lacking the necessary strength to make
a stand for the right, and already he was beginning to doubt his own
wisdom, and to reflect sorrowfully how much less trouble it would have
involved to have taken Gertrude's advice.  Half-way down the table he
stopped short, with a sudden softening of the face, and laid his hands
caressingly on the shoulders of a pale, languid-looking girl who had
been a passive listener to the late conversation.

"You had better write too, and sympathise with your poor cousins, Avice.
You wouldn't like it, would you, if _you_ were to lose your poor old
father?"

The girl smiled at him affectionately enough, but made no response until
the door had closed, when she turned to her mother with an expression of
real anxiety upon her face.

"Shall I have to wear mourning, mother!  Will it be necessary?"

"Cer-tainly not!  I should not dream of such a thing.  It is quite out
of fashion nowadays for any but the nearest relations, and it would be a
sin to put aside all those lovely French frocks until they were
out-of-date.  It would be different if we lived in the same place; but
you are not in the least likely to come in contact with your cousins.  I
can't think what has made your father take up this attitude all of a
sudden; but if he insists upon going to Leabourne I shall certainly go
too.  He is so carried away by the impulse of the moment that there is
no knowing to what mad plan he might commit himself.  The best thing
your cousins can do will be to stay quietly where they are and take in
paying guests to make ends meet.  Quite good people do that nowadays;
and with so many girls they would not need much extra service in the
house.  From what Stephen says, I fear they have some notion of coming
up to town, but that I shall strongly denounce.  Most rash and
improvident for them, and uncomfortable for us.  They would, no doubt,
expect us to take them up and introduce them to our friends, and would
be offended when they discovered that we had no intention of doing
anything of the kind.  Much better stay where they are and work among
their old friends."

"I should like to see Philippa again.  It's an age since she was here,
but I remember her quite well.  She was so lively and amusing!  And
there is another girl just my age, with a pretty, uncommon name.  Faith,
is it?  No; Hope.  Uncle Edgar sent me a little sketch of her on my
birthday years ago, and it was so pretty!  I'd rather like to know my
cousins, mother, if they were presentable.  It's so lonely being an only
child."

Mrs Loftus looked at her daughter, and something like a quiver passed
across the hardness of her face.  Avice was her darling, her idol, the
only creature on earth whom she really loved; and every now and again a
spasm of alarm gripped her heart as she noted the languid speech and
movement, the fragile form, and pallid complexion which distinguished
the girl from her companions.  Everything within the power of love and
money had been done to make her strong and happy, yet she continued
listless and ailing, seeming to regard the very amusements provided for
her as so many penalties to be endured with resignation.  Something must
be wrong--and very wrong--to make a girl of twenty-one assume so
unnatural an attitude.  The mother checked a sigh half-way, and said
caressingly:

"There is no reason for you to be dull, dearest.  I am always ready to
invite any one you may fancy.  Surely, with all your friends, you need
not be alone.  What about Truda Bennett!  If you like liveliness you
could hardly improve upon her; and The Knoll is a nice house for you to
visit in return.  Shall I write and ask her to come next week!"

"No, thank you, dear, I'd rather not Truda is very nice, but she tires
me out.  She dislikes being quiet, and cares only for rushing about all
day long.  She doesn't amuse _me_; I have to amuse _her_.  The nice
thing about relations would be that one would not have to be on ceremony
with them all the time.  Couldn't I go down with you to Leabourne next
week, mother, and see what the girls were like, and if I should care to
invite one of them here."

"You could, of course; but I strongly advise you to do nothing of the
sort.  Your uncle Edgar has been dead only a fortnight, remember, and
though I don't think he was an especially devoted father, the children
will naturally be upset and distressed.  It would be very dull for you
with the girls weeping, and your father and Stephen discussing money
matters, and ten to one a dreary, uncomfortable inn.  Better stay at
home, and let me bring back a report.  In any case you won't care to
invite one of them here until the first few months are over and she is
able to go about and make herself agreeable.  It would be depressing to
have her about in her first deep black."

"Oh dear, yes!  I couldn't stand that.  I'd rather be alone than have
any one in low spirits," agreed Avice fervently, the idea that she
herself might possibly help to cheer and console never dawning on her
self-engrossed brain.  "You say that the girls must be savages, mother,
but I should think they can hardly help being interesting.  Aunt Elma
was a beauty, and Uncle Edgar was a genius--and some of them, at least,
must have inherited his gifts.  Why do you say he was not a devoted
father?  From my vague recollection he seemed very proud of the
children."

"Oh yes, he was proud enough; but they worried him when they were young,
and as they grew older I think he felt that they criticised him and
realised how he had wasted his opportunities.  He was devoted to Elma,
for she worshipped him meekly all her life, and was convinced that no
such genius had ever existed.  Your father is right.  I never knew a
more brilliant young man than Edgar was at twenty-one; but what is there
to show for it now?  A few songs, two or three novels and volumes of
poetry, and a number of pictures and sketches which he was ashamed even
to sign!  He was always growing discouraged, turning from one thing to
another, and lowering his standard to meet the taste of the market.  His
songs became more and more clap-trap and commonplace, his stories more
sensational, his pictures of the cheaply-pretty order which sell at
provincial exhibitions.  I believe at the bottom of his heart he
realised his downfall, and when Elma died, and he had not her adoring
admiration to keep up his faith in himself, he fretted himself ill.  The
last time I saw him he was a wreck--mentally and physically--and I fancy
those girls must have had a trying time of it before the end."



CHAPTER TWO.

STEPHEN'S CONFESSION.

Stephen Charrington had expressed a wish to consult with his aunt and
uncle less from any preconceived intention than from a feeling of
helplessness which took possession of him as he penned the news of his
father's death.  It had seemed to him at the moment that the advice of
any one older and wiser than himself would be of value in deciding plans
for the future, but no sooner was the letter irretrievably on its way
than he began to tremble at the prospect of telling Philippa of what he
had done.  Philippa had been left co-trustee with himself, and she was
not a young woman who would meekly be put on one side.  What she
thought, she said; what she willed, she accomplished; and anything like
interference was to her as the brandishing of a red rag in the face of a
bull.  Stephen resolved to wait for a favourable opportunity before
breaking the news of the intended visit, and to introduce it casually in
the midst of a general conversation, when there would be less chance of
a "scene."  On Tuesday he decided to speak on Wednesday; on Wednesday
there seemed abundant reason why he should postpone the disclosure until
Thursday; on Thursday his uncle's note arrived announcing his arrival on
the following day, and there could be no longer delay.  Stephen betook
himself to the morning-room, where his sisters sat in conclave, and hid
himself behind a newspaper, awaiting his opportunity.

Despite the gloominess of the autumn day and the mournful nature of the
work on hand, the scene was far from being doleful.  To begin with, the
background was pretty--a long, low apartment, half studio, half
workroom, its walls washed a rich crimson hue, and covered with
unmounted sketches, plaster casts on brackets, and a hundred quaint,
artistic odds and ends.  Against this background the four sisters made
an interesting group as they busied themselves with the sewing on hand.
There was no money forthcoming to pay dressmaking bills, and little
enough to buy material, so it was necessary to use up what was in the
house--to turn and twist and remake, and cover over, and patch
together--an occupation which involved no little ingenuity in addition
to the mere manual labour.

Philippa stood by the table, the big cutting-out scissors in her hands;
a handsome girl with clearly cut aquiline features, and dark hair which
rippled back in a soft, smoke-like mass, and was coiled gracefully
together on the nape of her neck.  Her shoulders were broad and square,
and had a trick of broadening still further in dignified, self-assertive
fashion when their owner was annoyed or wished to exercise her
authority.  Madge always declared that she looked at Philippa's
shoulders when she wished to see how the wind blew; but then Madge was
so daring and inconsequent in her remarks that no one paid much
attention to what _she_ said!  Behold her now, running seams on the
old-fashioned treadle machine, with bent back and long, pointed chin
poked forward over the needle.  As often as not a jerk of the hands or
an erratic movement of the feet would be followed by a jar, a knot, a
breaking of the thread; and when this occurred Madge would clench both
fists together and mouth dumb anathemas, the while she rolled tragic
eyes to the ceiling.  If there was one thing on earth which she detested
more than another, it was plain sewing; but this morning she had
gallantly volunteered to do the machining, and machine she would, no
matter what tortures it might cost her!  She was a little scrap of a
thin, starved-looking creature, with a long, narrow face, plain
features, and just the prettiest, happiest, most lovable pair of hazel
eyes you can possibly imagine.  Even to-day they looked happy, for there
was a certain transparency and twinkling light in the iris which seemed
independent of varying moods.  Madge was eighteen, and was going to be
an artist and have pictures hung on the line in the Academy or know the
reason why, and in her opinion her time would have been much more
profitably employed daubing in the attic than doing dull, useful work
downstairs; but, as has been said, there are occasions when personal
inclinations have to be laid in the dust.

Theo sat by herself, unpicking a coloured lining from a black grenadine
dress, with an expression of tragic despair.  It was not that she
sorrowed for her father more deeply than her sisters, but it was Theo's
nature to revel in emotion and deliberately to work herself up to the
height of rejoicing or down to the depths of despair.  She was a tall,
graceful girl, with a face which was decidedly interesting if not
regularly pretty, and her broad forehead and deep-set eyes seemed to
portray a greater brain-power than that possessed by the rest of the
family.  Theo had written stories for her own amusement since the age of
ten, and was even now engaged upon a full-fledged novel with which she
hoped to burst upon an astonished world.  It seemed a horrible,
ghoul-like proceeding to examine her own feelings in order to be able to
depict what Veronica, her heroine, should feel in the hour of her
desolation; and she was disgusted with herself because, despite all
resolutions, she had been mentally taking notes during the whole of the
past week.  Now, as she sat unpicking the pretty pink lining and casting
it ruthlessly on one side, her busy brain was weaving a simile by which
it appeared that all the brightness of life was left behind and nothing
remained but blackness and desolation.

By Philippa's side--adviser, assistant, and architect-in-chief--stood
golden-haired Hope, sweet as her name, and all unselfish anxiety for the
good of others.  Her white forehead was wrinkled with the strain of
trying to induce two yards of silk to do duty for three, and she stood
at attention, staring down at the pattern spread over the black folds,
and rubbing her chin in solemn calculation as she discussed the knotty
point.

"If I were to make the yoke of something else, and let the silk come
from the arm-holes only, do you think we could manage it then?  There is
some of that old black velvet that could be used for the yoke, and it
could be made to look very nice.  I am afraid we couldn't match this
silk even if we tried."

"Don't want to try," said Philippa shortly.  "Spent quite enough as it
is.  Well, we shall either have to do it that way or make the sleeves of
another material to match the skirt.--Theo, it's for you.  Which would
you rather have?"

"Don't care at all.  Make it as you please; I take no interest in the
matter," replied Theo, turning her head elaborately in an opposite
direction and speaking in a tone of implied rebuke, which brought a
flash into Philippa's eyes.

"Then you _ought_ to take an interest!  How are we to get on if no one
will say what she wants?  We want to do our best for you, and it's not
much trouble just to say what you like, and help us to decide."

Theo looked round at that, and lo! her eyes were full of tears.

"I think it's hateful to think of clothes at all," she cried
passionately.  "What does it matter _how_ they are made?  Make me a sack
if you like; it will make no difference to me."

"Yes, dear, it will; you are mistaken there.  We shall have to wear
these things for a long time, and the day will come when it would worry
you very much to wear what you did not like.  I know you feel no
interest just now, but it would be really unselfish to rouse yourself
enough to consider the question and help us with our work," said Hope,
the peacemaker, speaking just in time to stop Philippa's sharp retort
and so avert the threatened storm.  Theo, the emotional, was always
ready to be swayed by a soft word; besides, she adored Hope, and was
especially sensitive to her wishes.  So the black skirt was dropped to
the floor, and she came forward obediently to discuss the important
question of sleeves _versus_ yokes.  It was wonderful how particular she
became when once her attention was aroused, and what precise
instructions she had to give concerning shape and size.  Madge dropped
her chin until it looked longer than ever, and exchanged a sly glance
with Philippa; for if the two middle girls paired together, the eldest
and youngest had a wonderful sympathy of feeling, and rarely failed to
understand an unspoken message.

"Very well, then; _that's_ settled," said Theo, in conclusion.  "And
when it is done you needn't trouble to make anything more for me, for if
there is any chance of going to London before winter I would rather wait
and get what I want when we can shop in comfort.  Did you see Mr
Matthews to-day, Stephen, and tell him that this house might be to let
at Michaelmas?"

Poor Stephen!  He quaked behind his newspaper, knowing that his hour had
come.  "No-o, not to-day," he said feebly; and then Madge must needs
fall upon him in her turn, and cry:

"Oh Steve, how foolish!  We told you he was looking at the Masons' house
last week, and if you put off seeing him he may take it before he knows
there is a chance of getting this one.  You really must go to-morrow.
If we let him slip, goodness knows when we may find another tenant."

Stephen put down the newspaper and braced himself for the fray.  After
all, he was the eldest of the family, the man and master, and it was
cowardice to shrink from what a girl might say!  "I can't see him
to-morrow, for I shall be otherwise engaged.  I have had a letter from
Uncle Loftus to say that he and Aunt Gertrude are coming down to-morrow
to talk over arrangements with us and give us their advice as to the
future.  When I wrote to them last week I said I should be grateful if
they would help us in this way, and it is good of them to come so far on
our account.  Uncle writes most kindly.  He seems really interested.  I
think we have misjudged him in the past.  At any rate, his wife was
father's nearest relative, and it seemed right that they should be
consulted."

Silence.  The three girls looked fearfully at Philippa, and Philippa
studied _her_ pattern with an air of elaborate carelessness, making
dainty snicks at the silk with the cutting-out scissors.

"And for how long, may I ask, have you invited them to stay?  It may be
necessary to make a few preparations, and as the house is hardly in a
state to receive visitors, we had better begin at once."

"They are not coming here; they are to put up at the inn.  Now, Phil,
come! don't take it like that.  Honestly, I never intended to do
anything behind your back.  I was so worried and puzzled when I wrote
that I said on the impulse of the moment that I wished they would give
us their help.  I did not tell you about it, for, to tell the truth, I
never expected that they would come.  Surely you feel, as I do, that we
are ignorant and inexperienced, and would be the better for advice from
people who know the world.  You are a sensible girl; I am sure you
agree."

"I don't think it is a question of understanding the world so much as
understanding _us_ and our circumstances," said Philippa, standing up
suddenly and facing him with kindling eyes.  She seemed about to add
something sharp and stinging, but controlled herself with a visible
effort, and said quietly, "You should not have done this without
consulting me, Steve.  If we have to work together there must be
confidence between us.  But let that pass.  I don't want to make
unnecessary difficulties.  We have enough as it is, goodness knows!  I
should welcome any advice that came from a reliable source, but the
Loftus connection have shown so plainly of late years that they wished
to have nothing to do with us, that I can't say their opinion will have
any weight with me.  They are selfish, worldly creatures, who only think
of their own convenience."

"Even so, my dear, they may be useful to us.  Worldly wisdom is an
ingredient which has been conspicuous by its absence in our family up
till now.  It is time we made a reform," said Steve, with a tinge of
bitterness in his voice; for it is a heavy burden for a young fellow of
twenty-five to find himself saddled with the responsibility of an
impecunious young family, and it was difficult to subdue a feeling of
resentment as he remembered the careless _regime_ of the past.  "When it
comes to the final decision you and I must give the casting votes, but
it would be an ease to my mind, at least, if a man of the world like
Uncle Loftus approved of what we were going to do.  Come now, Phil! it
would to you too.  If the worst came to the worst, and our venture
proved a failure, it would be a comfort to you to feel that you had not
acted alone."

"I don't think anything could comfort me then," said Philippa sadly.
She leant against the table and snapped unconsciously at the air with
the scissors.  "If it will be any satisfaction to you, Steve, I am glad
that they are coming; but, honestly, they won't alter my decision.  I
have thought and thought until my brain feels like a jelly, but there
seems no way out of the tangle but the one we propose.  If Uncle Loftus
tries to dissuade me, I shall be obliged to tell him that in this matter
I consider my own judgment better than his.  How can he decide what is
best for us?  What does he know of our characters and possibilities?  We
are not like other families.  We may be less amiable and worthy in many
respects, but we _are_ cleverer.  It isn't conceited to say so, for it's
true.  We have inherited father's gifts, and ought to be able to do
something with our lives.  Other girls might be content to stodge along
and never see anything of the world, and teach the doctor's children,
and marry the curates, and be as poor as Job all their lives, but--"

"`But that's not me nor you!'" quoted Madge vigorously, stopping the
machine with the usual jar and snap, and tossing her determined chin
with an air of defiance.  "I won't stodge for any one.  If fifty aunts
and a hundred uncles came and sat in rows round the room, and besought
me to be a good little girl and stay where I was, I'd snap my fingers in
their faces and tell them that I had to live my own life, and I'd take
jolly good care that I lived it in my own way."

"Madge!"

"Sorry!  Didn't mean to interfere.  Thought you might like to know my
sentiments--that's all.  Keep me out of the room when the Loftuses are
here if you don't wish them to hear home-truths.  I don't mince my words
when I'm roused, as some of you know to your cost I'll shake hands with
them when they come, and say good-bye when they go, and they will say to
each other as they drive away, `Plain, heavy-looking girl that youngest!
They will never be able to do anything with her.'  Ha, ha!" and Madge
laughed in a mocking, derisive fashion, which brought an answering
flicker of amusement to the anxious faces of her companions.  It was
evident that she fully expected an hour to come when her relatives would
be stupefied to discover the genius of the age in the "plain,
heavy-looking girl" whom they had despised, and it said volumes for her
attainments that the prospect seemed within range of possibility to more
than one of her audience.

Theo, however, had an objection to make.  "I think you are very foolish
if you do anything of the kind," she said severely.  "We ought to make
the best of ourselves, not the worst, if we want them to agree to our
plan.  They know that we are poor and have lived in the country all our
lives, and I suppose they imagine that we are great, awkward, clownish
creatures who know nothing about society or how things should be done.
I vote we surprise them.  Let's all put on our nicest things, and make
the house look its very, very best, and prepare a _chic_ little
luncheon, and give them coffee afterwards; and let them see that we
don't require any patronage, and are quite able to take care of
ourselves.  I'm sure that's the best plan; isn't it, Phil?"

"I don't know, I'm sure.  Go your own ways.  You want to appear better
than you are; Madge wants to appear worse.  I'm going to be myself--
horribly myself!  I don't feel that I can pretend one bit.  It's all
very well for you; you are only standing on the ramparts.  I have to go
down and fight the battle," cried poor Philippa dismally, and Hope's arm
stole round her waist with a close, encouraging pressure.

Hope was so sorry for every one in turn that she had no time to be sorry
for herself.  "It will soon be over," she whispered fondly.  "Cheer up,
Phil!  By this time to-morrow they will have come and gone."



CHAPTER THREE.

A FAMILY CONCLAVE.

Mr and Mrs Loftus arrived by the morning train, and drove up to The
Cottage in the ancient village fly.  Uncle Edward wore a black band
round his hat; Aunt Gertrude an elaborately trimmed black gown, which
had obviously _not_ been bought for mourning.  They stared curiously at
the house as they approached, and from behind the blind in the front
bedroom four pairs of eyes stared even more curiously at them.

"Thin lips and a sharp nose!  Face like a hatchet.  No love lost between
_us_, my dear!" cried Madge shrewdly.  "Nice old fellow, Uncle Edward!
Looks as if he would be kind if he had the chance."

"Isn't she smart?  She has taken the flowers out of an ordinary bonnet
to make us think she is in mourning.  I could swear there were once pink
roses where that jet is now," said Theo of the sharp eyes, the while she
glanced complacently at her own careful toilet.  "I am glad I dressed up
the drawing-room.  Don't hurry down, Phil.  Let them have time to look
round and realise that we don't live in a hovel."

"I suppose I ought to fly to meet them at the door, but I don't feel in
the least inclined.  Now Steve is going out.  He looks so nervous!  I'm
sure he wishes that he had not written.  Do you think Aunt Gertrude
looks more determined than I do?  I expect we shall have an awful
battle.  You must come down with me, girls, and be introduced before we
begin.  I wish my heart wouldn't thud; I don't want to give myself away
by looking nervous."

Then came a quick review before the glass, a creeping downstairs, and
the entrance of four girls, one after the other, to greet the unknown
relatives as they stood in the middle of the low, sunny-windowed
drawing-room.  Mrs Loftus put up her _pince-nez_ and stared at each in
turn--Philippa, stately and dignified; pretty, soft-eyed Hope; Theo,
with her air of distinction and clever, interesting face; Madge of the
long, sagacious chin and quick, light movements--and even as she looked
she realised that these were no nonentities, but young women who would
insist upon having a definite vote in the matter of their own destiny.
They sat down and talked company talk, the little handmaid appeared and
offered light refreshments to the travellers, Uncle Loftus made
complimentary remarks, and everything was quite proper and orthodox,
just like a scene in a book, until presently Stephen began to fidget and
glance at the clock, and Philippa looked at her uncle and said, "Shall
we have our talk now?  The girls will leave us alone for an hour, and
Stephen will tell you exactly what our position is, and what we are
thinking of doing."

"Perhaps it would be as well.  I am feeling so tired after the journey
that I should like to go to bed early this evening, and have ordered
dinner at the inn at seven o'clock.  I hope that is convenient to you.
I didn't know what your arrangements might be, or whether it would be
convenient to have us here."

"Whichever you prefer.  We hoped you would spend the evening with us,
but I can quite understand that you must be tired," said Philippa,
resolutely avoiding meeting Theo's eye lest she should be obliged to
smile at the thought of the wasted culinary efforts over which that poor
victim had been groaning the whole of the morning.  Then the door
closed, the two men automatically moved their chairs nearer the table,
and Stephen nervously began his story:

"You know, of course, that my father was in bad health for some years
before he died.  His work was of the kind which was peculiarly dependent
on health, for he had the artistic temperament and could do nothing to
order.  He was in chronic low spirits, and had not the energy to
compose.  In former years he made a very fair income; though, of course,
it was always uncertain, and he could never tell from month to month
what would come in.  Sometimes he made a hit, and one or two of his
songs bring in a fair royalty still.  He was able to save a little, now
and again, but the last two years he was constantly having to draw on
his capital, until we find that there is practically none left.  There
is, however, an insurance which is intact.  It seems that on his
marriage my mother's people insisted on this as a provision for her in
the event of his death; and as the premiums were paid up some years ago,
it has not lapsed.  It amounts to two thousand pounds, and is left to
Philippa and myself in trust for the family, with full discretion to use
it as seems best to us for our mutual benefit and advancement in life.
There are six of us altogether.  My brother Barnard is still at school,
but we have given notice for him to leave at the end of the term, as he
is sixteen, and must begin to work for himself.  Two thousand pounds is
not a large provision for six people."

Mrs Loftus drew in her lips and stared fixedly at a corner of the
ceiling; her husband drummed upon the table and looked unaffectedly
distressed.

"So bad as that!  Tut, tut!  Sorry to hear it--sorry indeed.  And this
house?  You have made it very pretty--charming little bijou residence.
Is the house your own?"

"No.  We have it at a very low rental in consideration of the
improvements which father made from time to time, but it is not our own.
We think we should have no difficulty in letting it; for, as you say,
it is pretty in its way.  In fact, we know of a possible tenant already,
and I think it quite likely that he may take the lease from us at
Michaelmas if we decide to move."

There was a rustle of silken skirts as Mrs Loftus sat upright in her
chair and gave a short preliminary cough before entering into the
conversation.

"But if you get it cheaply, why should you move at all?  I think it
would be a fatal mistake.  Living must be very cheap in this
out-of-the-world place; and you have a garden, I see, which must keep
you supplied with vegetables.  If you kept fowls you might sell the
eggs, and make a little extra money in that way.  Quite a number of
people go in for poultry-farming in these days.  There is nothing _infra
dig._ about it.  I was saying to your uncle as we came down that it was
quite likely that you could get paying guests if you went to work in the
right way.  Many people prefer living in the country in summer-time, and
you could quote reasonable terms.  Then there must surely be some
teaching to be found in the neighbourhood, which would employ the girls
who were not needed at home.  Really I think, with a hundred a year
assured, besides what you earn--you are in a solicitor's office, I
believe, Stephen--you might get along very comfortably."

Philippa's eyes flashed, but her lips twitched at the same time, for it
was too absurd to hear a stranger settling the destinies of a family in
this swift, casual fashion.  She dared not meet Stephen's eye; and even
Mr Loftus seemed conscious of something wrong, for he said testily:

"Not so quick, my dear; not so quick, if you please!  We have not heard
what plans Stephen and Philippa have made for themselves.--I should like
to hear your own ideas; for, of course, you have thought over the matter
from all points of view.  Let us hear what are your plans."

The brother and sister looked at one another, and there was a dead
silence.  Stephen was afraid to speak.  Philippa was anxious not to
monopolise the role of leader.  She waited a full moment, but when she
began there was no hesitation in her voice.

"We intend to go up to London to seek our fortunes.  I agree with Aunt
Gertrude that if we stayed here we should be able to earn enough money
to provide bread-and-butter, and for the time being it would be the
easier course.  But we don't want to think of the present only; we want
to provide for the future.  I believe--and Stephen agrees with me--that
if we settle here now it will practically mean vegetating for the rest
of our lives.  He will remain in the same sleepy office, where if he
worked for twenty years he could never gain more than a few hundreds a
year.  Barney would come home and go into the bank.  There is no other
place to put him, and he is too lively and high-spirited a boy to trust
by himself in a big town.  Then there are the girls.  They are all
clever, and father was very particular about their training.  He
realised that he himself had made a mistake in trying too many things at
once, so he made them each choose one hobby and stick to that alone.
Hope is musical.  She plays charmingly, can read music as easily as a
book, and has already had one song published.  She ought to study
harmony under a clever master, and hear plenty of really good music.
Father said that that was what she wanted most of all--to hear good
music.  She has gone through the drudgery; what she needs now is
confidence and style; but it is impossible to give it to her here.  Theo
wishes to write.  She is always scribbling, and father thought she would
do well some day.  There are one or two editors in London who knew him,
and who would take an interest in her for his sake.  She has a narrow
life here, with very few friends.  It would be the best training for her
to have more varied experience.  Madge is an artist.  It is her ambition
in life to go to a studio and work hard.  She is very original, and has
already quite a distinctive style of her own.  Father was very proud of
her, and used to say she was the cleverest of the family.  Now that he
is gone there is no one within miles who can help her with her work.  It
seems to me a very sad thing to turn these girls into governesses and
household drudges when they have real gifts to cultivate."

"Quite so--quite so.  I can understand your feelings; but you mustn't be
angry with me, my dear, if I say that you must allow some discount for
sisterly partiality.  You think your sisters geniuses, but whether the
public will agree with you is a very different question."  Uncle Loftus
was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable, and to scent a coming
request for a loan of money, to be repaid at that indefinite period when
the aforesaid geniuses should be recognised by the world.  He was a
good-natured man, and was quite ready to help these pretty, attractive
nieces by an occasional present of a dress or a five-pound note; but his
recollection of school bills paid for his own daughter made him shrink
from the prospect of finishing the education of three ambitious and
aspiring young "women."  "Music and pictures are at a discount in these
hard times, and half the artists, by their own account, are starving.  A
poor fellow brought me a couple of water-colours only last month.
Wanted fifteen pounds for them, but was thankful to take five.  Very
good pictures, too!  I don't pretend to understand these things, but
they look very well in my smoke-room.  As for story-writing, there are
half-a-dozen stars who make a fortune in literature, but the vast
majority of authors have a hard fight to earn a living.  Many of them
fail altogether and throw it up in despair, like that poor poet fellow--
Chatterton, wasn't it?  I never can remember names.  Women aren't made
to fight their way, especially country girls, as you are, who have no
idea of life in a great world like London.  Depend upon it, my dear, you
would be far happier and safer where you are."

"For the present--yes.  I said so myself.  If we go to town we shall
have a hard fight for the first few years; but we have faith to believe
that we should succeed in the end, and we would rather fight our battles
while we are young.  If _you_ were beginning life, Uncle Loftus, would
you be content to settle down to lifelong obscurity and poverty, or
would you feel that, come what might, you must go down into the arena
and win a crown for yourself?"

Philippa threw back her head and looked at him with challenging eyes.
So young, so brave, so ignorant, poor child, of the real meaning of the
fight which lay before her, what wonder that the man's heart softened,
and that he laid his hand on hers with a quick movement of sympathy.
Mrs Loftus spied the movement with her cold blue eyes, and hastened to
turn on the tap of cold common-sense.

"Perhaps you will kindly tell us in plain words exactly what it is that
you intend to do.  Your ideas sound very charming and romantic, but I do
not understand how they are to be carried out.  Education is a costly
business, and it is your duty to save rather than to spend.  How can you
reconcile the need of earning money with the programme which you have
drawn out?"

"I don't try," said Philippa boldly.  "I know it is impossible.  You
will think our scheme very daring, Aunt Gertrude, but in plain words it
is this: to take a flat in town in as central a position as we can
afford, and to invest our capital in apprenticing Barney to a firm where
he would have a chance of getting on, and in giving the girls the
lessons and opportunities which they require.  We know quite well that
we could not possibly do this on our tiny income, but we believe that it
is the wisest way of using our capital, and that the time will come when
we shall be thankful that we had the courage to do it.  Th-that's all;
that's our scheme," faltered Philippa, feeling that she had launched a
bombshell, indeed, as her uncle fell back in his chair overcome with
amazement, and her aunt raised protesting eyes to the ceiling as though
calling Heaven to witness that she was no party to this mad folly.

"And--er--Stephen would, of course, give up his situation!  He would--
er--hope to find more lucrative employment in London?" she inquired,
with a thinly veiled satire which roused the head of the family to
dignified response.

"I have every reason to do so.  In that respect at least we should not
be reckoning in the dark, Aunt Gertrude.  The solicitor's office here is
but a small branch of an important one in the City, and my chief has
been anxious for some time that I should remove to the head-office.  He
realised that there could be no promotion for me here, and has been a
most kind friend--anxious to help us in every way.  So far I have
refused to move, for I like a country life, and--"

"He doesn't like it a bit.  He longs to go to town, but he stayed with
us because he knew we couldn't do without him," cried Philippa, with a
loving glance, at which Stephen flushed and darkly scowled an order to
be silent.  Mr Loftus thought the byplay very pretty and creditable to
both the actors, but his business instinct had been shocked, and he felt
it his duty to protest.

"Spend your capital!  Break into your capital!  My dear girl, that is
against all laws of prudence and business.  I really--as you have asked
my advice--I really could not sanction such a step as that.  Your
income, taking everything together, will not amount to over three
hundred a year, I suppose?  No!  I thought not.  Well then, remember
that you would have to pay a high London rent, to feed and clothe six
people, exclusive of a servant, to pay coals and gas, and constant
travelling to and fro, and a hundred extra expenses, before you begin to
think of lessons and concert-going and payment of premiums.  It would
cost you at least twice as much, and I doubt if you could do it on that.
Consider what you are doing.  It is a risk which I could never
sanction--a big risk, a serious risk."

"I believe in risks," cried Philippa gallantly.  "`There is a tide in
the affairs of men'--Risk--deliberate, thoughtful risk--is only another
name for courage and enterprise and faith.  What would become of the
world if no one was willing to take a risk?  What battle would be won if
soldiers did not risk everything--health, limbs, life itself--to
overcome the enemy!  We know it is a risk; we have faced it with our
eyes open; but we feel it is the right thing to do.  It is our chance;
we ought to take it.  We are not acting thoughtlessly or lightly; we
mean to work hard, and to ask God to help us and give us strength not to
be discouraged--"

"We are not going to squander our capital, uncle," said Stephen; "we are
going to _invest_ it.  Surely if you can equip six people with the means
of getting on in the world, it is a better return for money than a
wretched three and a half per cent.  We mean to practise every possible
economy in food and dress and amusements, and to be extravagant in one
way only: the girls shall have no second-rate masters; Barney shall have
a good start.  They realise the responsibility which we are taking upon
ourselves, and are prepared to work hard and shorten the period of
probation as much as possible."

"Yes, yes--of course!  Young things are always eager for change, and are
ready to promise anything in advance.  But suppose they _don't_ make
their way?  Suppose your scheme is a failure?  The money is left to you
and to Philippa to spend as you think wise for the good of the family,
so that legally there would be no claim upon you for what was gone.  But
you might find yourself in a most unpleasant position, all the same.  If
you spend it all within the next few years, Barnard may think himself
ill-used when he grows up and feels the need of a few hundred pounds.
The girls may want a trifle to buy a trousseau, or help in other ways,
and may blame you for influencing them when they were too young to know
their own minds.  Do you ever think, my dears, of what would happen if
your scheme were to fail?"

Did she ever think!  Poor Philippa!  How many scores--nay, hundreds--of
times had the nightmare seized her in its grip!  How often had she lain
awake shuddering with dread, seeing the workhouse loom large in the
foreground, and the reproachful faces of brothers and sisters turned
mutely upon her!  She shivered even now, and clasped her hands beneath
the tablecloth; but she showed a brave face to the enemy, and refused to
be cast down in his presence.

"It is no use beginning a fight with the expectation of being beaten,
uncle.  I should have no courage left if I did that.  I have enough
faith in my brothers and sisters to believe that they will not reproach
us, whatever happens; and at the worst we could come back and try your
plan in the country.  We are strong and capable, and could always earn
enough to live on, even if we had to separate and go out as cooks and
housemaids.  I am not in the least afraid of starving.  We shall manage
to keep ourselves without either asking or expecting help from
outsiders."

"Come, come, my dear! there is such a thing as being too independent.
What is the use of relations if they can't help each other at a pinch?
If you are really determined to try this scheme we must help you all we
can.  You must come to see us when we are in town, and we may be able to
give you useful introductions.  Avice will be pleased to make your
acquaintance, and so shall we all.--We must do what we can for Edgar's
children, mustn't we, mamma?"

"I cannot promise anything which would be an encouragement to what
appears to me a piece of preposterous folly," said Mrs Loftus coldly.
"It is flying in the face of Providence to leave a comfortable home and
deliberately court danger in this fashion.  With your inexperience you
will be ruined before a year is over, and who is to pay your debts I
don't know.  You can't expect any help from us if you act in defiance of
our wishes.  If you had already made up your minds, as appears to be the
case, I must say it was very inconsiderate to inflict this long journey
upon your uncle and myself for the mere farce of asking our opinion.--We
had better get back to the hotel now, Edward.  I am tired, and shall be
glad of a rest."

Mr Loftus rose obediently and followed his wife's lead to the door, but
on his way he managed to whisper a few conciliatory words into
Philippa's burning ear.

"Take no notice, my dear--no notice!  Your aunt is hasty, but she will
come round.  I will see you again this evening when she has gone to bed,
and to-morrow we will both come up again before we leave.  Can't
approve, you know--can't approve; but you are a brave girl.  You mean
well.  Wish you good luck!"

Philippa's eyes swept over him with an expression of magnanimous
superiority.

"Poor little down-trodden, trembling worm!" she was saying to herself.
"Afraid to assert yourself and be your natural self for fear of what a
woman might say!  Oh, if I were a man!  Oh, if I were your husband, my
dear!  I'd keep you in order; I'd tell you straight out what I thought
of you."  Then aloud: "Good-afternoon, Aunt Gertrude!  Mind the
door-step.  So awkward!  _Hope_ you will not be too tired.  _Good-bye_!"

The door closed, and brother and sister drew back and gazed at one
another with bright, excited eyes.  "Well?" queried one.  "Well,"
answered the other.  Then came the rush of feet on the floor, and down
hurried the girls, one after the other, questioning, staring, agape with
curiosity.

"Well--well--well--what did they say?  Were they furious?  Were they
amiable?  Did you stick to your point?  Are they coming again?  What is
decided?  Tell us quickly!  Tell us at once!"

"It is quite decided," said Stephen gravely.  "We are going to London."
He put his arm round his sister's waist, and looked down at her with
admiration.  "Phil, you were glorious!  You convinced _me_, at least, if
you failed with the others.  My last lingering doubt has disappeared.
I'll begin preparations this very day."

"Here endeth the first volume!" chanted Madge shrilly.  "Now for
excitement; now for romance; now for the third volume, with its honour
and glory!"

But Philippa shivered and was silent.  The moment of reaction had come,
and in her heart she said: "But the second volume lies between, and in
the second volume are all the trials and difficulties.  Oh, it may be a
long, long fight before we get to the happy ending!"



CHAPTER FOUR.

THE REMOVAL.

Two months later the plunge was taken.  The Charrington family said
good-bye to their picturesque country home, and established themselves
in the top flat of a massive red building in the picturesque district of
the Tottenham Court Road.  With one exception the rooms were small;
there was no passage to speak of; the coal-cellar was in pleasing
proximity to the drawing-room door; the view consisted of a forest of
chimney-stacks, and the air was thick with smuts.  When Philippa made
her first survey of the premises she felt that she was indeed coming
down in the world; but when she heard the rent demanded she changed her
mind with a shock of surprise.  It was preposterous--incredible!  The
price of a palace rather than of a sooty tenement midway between earth
and sky!  For that price in the country one could have a tennis-lawn,
and a stable, and a pretty flower and vegetable garden, to say nothing
of a roomy and comfortable house.  Off went Miss Charrington with her
head in the air, but two long days of search brought her to the sad
conviction that she would have to change her attitude with regard to
London prices, and that the agent had been right in speaking of the flat
as unusually cheap.  She did not dare to take it, however, without a
family consultation; so she secured the option for a couple of days, and
went home with the story of her wanderings.  The girls howled in unison
at the mention of the rent, but, like their sister, were obliged to come
round to the conclusion that the money must be paid.

"It is really and truly the best thing I could find in a central
position," said Philippa sadly.  "The question is--ought we to give up
the idea of living in town, and take a little house in the suburbs?  If
we went out in an unfashionable direction we could get one for half the
cost.  I asked the agent, and he said there were any number to be had.
They run them up in a few months--rows and rows of them--quite nice,
compact little houses, with all modern conveniences--"

"I know!  Thank you," interrupted Theo haughtily.  "I've seen them from
the train--hundreds of them--exactly alike, with sunflowers in the front
garden, and the washing in the back, and such nice, sociable neighbours
over the palings!"

"It's all very well, Theo, but can we afford to be snobbish?  We shall
have to pocket our pride, and save every penny-piece that is possible.
If the house would be cheaper--"

"I'm not so sure that it would.  It is different for a man and his wife.
But you must remember that we should have four, perhaps five railway
contracts to add to the rent.  Our great object is to be near our work,
and we might almost as well stay where we are as bury ourselves in an
out-of-the-way suburb.  If we go to the flat, Madge will be almost next
door to the Slade School, the boys can come home for lunch, and Hope and
I will be near libraries and concerts, and have some chance of picking
up odd pieces of work.  Suppose I go in for journalism?  How am I to be
in the hum of things when I live a dozen miles away, and have probably a
bad service of trains?"

"Suppose I get accompanying to do at concerts?  I intend to call on some
of the lady professionals who sing father's songs and ask them to give
me a chance.  I shall have to get used to going about by myself at
night, but it would be nice to be in a central position, and not have
_too_ far to go," said Hope wistfully; and her eldest sister, looking at
her golden locks and sweet pink-and-white face, came to a sudden
determination.

"We will take the flat.  It's no use doing things by halves.  We must
hope to save the money in travelling expenses and lunches.  I will write
to the agent and settle it to-night."

So the flat was taken, and the question of furniture was the next to
come upon the tapis.  For the larger articles there could be no
accommodation; they must be sold for what they would bring; but even
without them there was an incredible number of possessions with which it
seemed impossible to part.  Curtains were faded, carpets so darned and
mended as to be incapable of removal, but Edgar Charrington had been
picking up artistic treasures all his life, and the rooms were crowded
with quaint, old-world furniture.  There was a Chinese cabinet, shaped
like a pagoda, with coloured Chinese figures standing in the niches.  It
would take up more room than could be spared, but who could bear to part
with it, remembering the fascination of those figures to the infant
mind, the later joy of turning over the contents of the daintily fitting
drawers, and sniffing the sweet, musty odour?  There was an oak-framed
picture of a church, with a real clock fitted into the steeple.  A place
for that must be found somewhere, or life would be robbed of one of its
oldest associations.  There was a black silhouette picture of
Great-great-aunt Martha riding on a pillion; and another of Grandfather
and Grandmother Charrington, with a family of six little Charringtons,
clad in _decollete_ dresses, spencers, and pantaloons.  What Goth or
Vandal could find it in his heart to part with them?  There was a
collection of old china, of pewter, of old beaten silver; and such
stacks of pictures, framed and unframed, as were quite alarming to
count.

"What shall we do with them?  Shall we pack half away in chests and ask
the vicar to store them in his loft?  He would be only too glad to keep
them for us.  It seems absurd to take such a collection.  The place will
look like a museum," cried Philippa, in despair; but the idea seemed to
commend itself rather than otherwise to her ambitious young sisters.

"Just what it ought to look, as a temple of the Muses.  No use
pretending to be artistic against a commonplace background.  Let us make
our rooms as striking, and unusual, and `ancestory' as we can.  I hate a
house that looks as if it had been furnished yesterday.  When people
come to call, they will: have a pretty good idea of what we are by
looking round our rooms."

"But who is to come, you dear little snob?  We know nobody.  I'm afraid
the arrival of the Charrington family won't make much stir in the great
Metropolis.  I can tell you I felt a lone, lorn creature, walking about
those crowded streets, and thinking that not a single soul knew me or
cared whether I lived or died.  As for Aunt Loftus, she may come once,
perhaps, to pay a formal call, but we sha'n't be troubled with her after
that; and I should be sorry to count upon uncle's promised
introductions.  We shall be left severely to ourselves."

"I am going up to London to know and be known, and I am not going to be
left alone for anybody," cried Madge, tossing her head with a
consequential air.  "Seclusion may suit some people, but not this child.
I'm going to make friends, and have a real good time.  I think I shall
start a _salon_, like that Madame de Thingummy in Paris, and make our
house the resort of all the learned and celebrated people of the day.
I've read about her in magazines, and it sounds quite easy.  You don't
need to be pretty, nor rich, nor to live in a big house; all you have to
do is to announce that you are at home on certain evenings, and give
cups of coffee, and be very vivacious, and talk, and make people laugh.
_You_ can give the coffee, and I'll talk!  There's never any difficulty
in that; the trouble is to be quiet.  Wait until you see Cabinet
Ministers, and Presidents of the Academy, and celebrated authors all
driving up to our door, and toiling up hundreds of steps on purpose to
enjoy the fascinations of my society!"

"Very well; I'll wait.  It will be good exercise for my patience.  For
my own part, I have resigned myself to single blessedness, staying at
home cooking dinners and darning stockings while you are out making your
fortunes.  I shall be too busy to be lonely; and if you earn money, I
shall save it.  We can't _all_ be fascinating society leaders," said
Philippa cruelly.  She was so devoted to Madge, so tempted to applaud
all that she said and did, that as a pure matter of conscience she felt
bound to snub her now and then, just to show her impartiality!  It had
very little effect, however, for Miss Madge was too sharp not to see
through the pretence, and refused to be in the least impressed by her
strictures.

What a comfort the girl was in the weeks which followed, when the burden
of responsibility seemed to weigh ever more and more heavily on the
shoulders of the two young heads of the family!  Hope was always ready
with sympathy, Theo with dramatic invectives against the cruelty of
fate, but Madge met difficulties with a laugh and a jest, and the sound
thereof was as sunshine in the house.  In some respects fortune favoured
the adventurers at the start, for Stephen's firm made no difficulty
about his removal, while Mr Matthews snapped at the offer of the house,
and even promised to buy the fixtures "at a valuation."  But here the
disappointments began.  Philippa instantly made a valuation on her own
account, and added generously to the total in consideration of those
manifold odds and ends which accumulate in households of thirty years'
standing, but which are hardly worth the cost of cartage to pastures
new: oddments of glass and china, of tin and iron and earthenware;
mouldy volumes which no one will read; chairs minus a leg, rusty
fire-irons, and damaged ornaments.

"With a little glue and patching you might make good things of them yet.
Five pounds at the least!  No; say seven pounds.  Seven pounds added to
forty-five--over fifty pounds in all!  That ought to pay for the removal
and leave something over for carpets and blinds.  Thank goodness, I can
mark _that_ expense off the list!" sighed Philippa.

But alas for the frailty of human hopes!  The valuer's estimate came to
exactly a third of the sum expected, while one and all the dealers
refused to bid for the valuable collection of antiquities, so that in
the end a cart had to be hired to convey the whole to the village
schoolroom, to be sold at a coming rummage sale!

Scarcely had poor Philippa recovered from this blow than the estimate
from the furniture remover arrived to cast her down once more.  She
screamed aloud when her eye lighted on the horrible total.  But what
could one do?  The things must be moved, and the firm in question had
been recommended for its economy.  It was appalling to think of the
inroads into capital which would be made before the real life in town
could begin; and Philippa needed all her courage when the hour came to
say good-bye to the old home, and go forth to prepare the flat for its
inmates.  Madge was to accompany her, as a matter of course.  It had
been so certain that she would be chosen as helper that the matter was
not even discussed.  Hope and Theo took refuge at the vicarage, Steve
with a bachelor friend; Barney was to remain at school until the
half-term; and Madge decreed that no one was to approach the flat until
all preparations were finished, and the artistic beauty of the whole
ready to burst upon the enraptured sight.  Philippa thought of the
chimney-pots, and the soot, and the narrow passages, and the weary
flight of stairs, coldly clean, with bottles of fire-extinguisher ranged
on the wall at each landing, to remind the dwellers on the top story of
the peril in which they lived!  She thought of the narrow, begrimed
windows, of the cheap fireplaces, and the saffron paper in the
sitting-room, and felt it her painful duty to undeceive the young
enthusiast lest the blow might fall too heavily upon her.  But Madge
refused to be cast down, and went through the ordeal of the first
inspection with an undaunted smile.

"My hat!" she exclaimed as she peered out of the first window and beheld
the roof-scape in all the beauty of a drizzling autumn rain; and though
the expression was neither lady-like nor elegant, nor in the least
degree appropriate, it yet had a quaint, whimsical sound which made
Philippa laugh and draw a breath of relief.

"Yes!  I told you so.  I didn't exaggerate, you see.  Cheerful and
comprehensive, isn't it?  This is the dining-room.  Not much room to
spare when you have the table in the middle.  I don't know if we can get
it in at all."

"If we can't we'll dine at small tables like a restaurant--far more
_chic_.  Not a bad little den when it is dressed up.  Jolly cosy in
winter.  When summer comes I shall live up on the leads and make a
roof-garden.  Is there any way out?"

"Don't know, I'm sure.  Come and look at the bedrooms.  We can have
first choice, I suppose, as I'm the eldest; but if you don't mind, I'd
like the girls to be at the front.  You could hardly imagine that the
one at the side could be smaller and more dreary, but it is; and Theo
would be so wretched!  Do you think we could possibly get our things in
here?"

Madge stood prospecting the small square box with a ruminating gaze.
"Bed there--dressing-table there--wash-stand there--chest of--No; can't
be done.  We shall have to do without a dressing-table, and use the top
of the bureau.  We can manage all right that way; but you will always
have to get up first, and make way for me while I have my last little
snooze.  It will be good practice for our tempers, for we really daren't
quarrel in such very close quarters.  Let's look at the sitting-room for
a change.  You said that was a decent size."

"Oh yes--quite; and a pretty shape, too.  Don't you like the shape!
Don't you think that rounded window is sweet in the corner?  It would
make a dear, quiet little nook if it were curtained off; wouldn't it
dear?" cried the eldest sister, anxious to divert the artist's eyes from
the saffron paper, with the aggressive roses and the gilded leaves,
which was in such disastrously good condition that the company could not
really be expected to replace it.

"Yes; I'll sit in there when I'm engaged, and let the cord go free.  A
very good room, with plenty of possibilities.  Nothing square and stiff
about it.  That corner would do charmingly for the cabinet; and we will
fit in shelves for the china in that funny little niche.  We must keep
the middle of the floor as clear as possible, for I shall want space for
my receptions.  _Philippa Charrington_!  Do you mean to look me in the
face and say that you are responsible for this paper?"

"No, no--of course not.  The last tenant left it.  I begged hard for
another, but it was no use.  Make the best of it just now, there's a
dear, and perhaps in a year or so we may get another."

"We are going to have another before the week is out," declared Madge;
and when her sister protested, "Look here," she said sturdily, "let us
come to a clear understanding.  We made up our minds to make this move
and to face the cost, and we are not going to spoil the house for the
sake of a few pounds.  Before we have done with putting things in order
we shall have a dozen unexpected expenses.  Things won't fit and will
have to be altered; we shall have to buy little fixings, and have
workmen in and out.  If you are going to groan over every sixpence we
shall have a dismal old time.  Make up your mind to pay and be cheerful,
since you've got to pay whether you like it or not.  About this
wall-paper!  I suppose there are some families who could live in peace
and happiness staring at yellow cabbages, but we are not one of them.
We inherit artistic fastidiousness, and should hate them worse every day
of our lives.  When we can't afford to go out for amusements, isn't it
our duty to make home as attractive as possible?  When we shall spend a
round hundred over the removal, is it worth while to spoil our best room
for the sake of an extra sovereign?"

"You can't possibly--"

"Yes, I can.  I can buy a self-coloured paper for next to nothing--a
pretty soft blue, I think, to make a good background for the pictures--
and hang it myself, to save the expense of the workman."

"You can't possibly--"

"Nonsense!  I did my own room at home, and there's no matching about a
plain paper.  I could not face Theo with that atrocity on the walls.
And besides, think of my _salon_!"

"Oh, well! have it your own way," Philippa cried, with affected disgust.

It was impossible not to feel more interest in the room now that it
could be imagined in its pretty new dress, and the discussion of how it
should be arranged and decorated occupied an hour out of a dreary wait.
The sisters had slept the night before at a boarding-house, and had
hurried to the flat directly after breakfast, so as to be ready to
receive the furniture at ten o'clock as agreed.  At eleven o'clock there
was no sign of the vans; but no one expects furniture-vans to be
punctual within an hour or two, and until noon the girls managed to
possess themselves in patience, and to find amusement in wandering from
room to room.  But when one o'clock drew near the matter became serious.
They had brought a tea-basket with them, but there were no chairs on
which to sit, no table to hold the cups and saucers.  They were growing
tired, and were longing to get to work while daylight lasted, and to
have a bed to sleep on before night fell.  It was two o'clock before the
first van arrived, and seven before the men departed, leaving the two
young mistresses to thread their way between stacks of furniture,
unopened crates, and boxes of luggage.  There was no room for a servant
to sleep in the flat, and the charwoman who was engaged to help could
not come until the following day, so it was hopeless to try to do more
than get one bedroom in tolerable order.  By Hope's forethought the
necessary blankets and linen had been packed in one box and plainly
labelled, so preparations were soon made, and by eight o'clock the tired
workers were already longing for bed.  Downstairs in the basement was a
public dining-room where dinner could be obtained for a shilling a head;
but they were too dishevelled and footsore to feel inclined to appear in
public, so they refreshed themselves instead with more tea, more cakes,
more dried-up sandwiches.  Philippa leant back in her chair and sighed
heavily as she looked first at her roughened hands, then at the hopeless
disorder by which she was surrounded.

"I used to dream," she said slowly--"I used to dream of coming up to
London.  Father seemed so often on the eve of doing something great, and
I used to imagine what it would be like if the book really turned out as
he expected, or the picture made his name famous.  He would have brought
us to town, and we should have been rich, and every one would have
wanted to know us--"

"I know!  So have I.  `Beautiful Miss Charringtons--the rage of the
London season.'  That's the kind of thing, isn't it?  I'm not beautiful,
of course, but I'm vivacious--that's my point.  I can _espiegle_ fifty
times better than Hope, though she is such a darling.  You are very
handsome, Phil, when you look pleasant; and Theo has the air of a
princess in disguise.  We are an interesting family.  It seems hard
lines that the world should not know us.  We do seem slightly--just a
little--what you might call _cornered_ up here."

"We do indeed.  Oh, it is different--so different from what I expected!"
faltered poor, tired Philippa, with a sob; and then of a sudden her
fears and dreads caught her in a grip from which there was no escape.
She looked round the strange, unlovely room, through the bare window at
the great city, lurid and threatening in the light of many lamps, and
trembled at the thought of what she had done.  She had been as a mother
to these children, and she had brought them away from their peaceful
home to face a thousand trials, a thousand difficulties: Stephen,
constitutionally despondent, to be burdened with fresh responsibilities;
the girls, ardent and credulous, to be ready prey for unscrupulous
acquaintances; Barney, pining for mischief, to a swift and certain ruin!
Her face blanched; she held out her hands to her sister with a gesture
of terrified appeal.

"Madge, Madge, I'm frightened!  Suppose it is all a mistake!  Suppose we
fail, and all the money goes, and we are left penniless and alone in
this great wilderness!  I have read of it so often: people come up
hoping to make their fortunes, and the time passes, and they move into
smaller and smaller rooms--and no work comes--and they fall ill.  It is
my doing!  I persuaded Stephen.  Oh Madge, if it's all a mistake, you
will believe I did it for the best, won't you?  I was not thinking of
myself.  It would have been easier for me to stay where we were.  You
will not blame me if the money goes and there is none left?  Promise
that you will never blame me."

But Madge lay back in her chair and folded her arms out of reach of the
trembling hands.

"I will, though!" she replied bluntly.  "I'll make an awful row; and
quite right, too, for it _will_ be your fault.  If you lose heart the
very first night, and fall to crying and groaning, how do you expect to
get on?  If _you_ get low in your mind, Steve will be indigo, and Hope
and Theo will have no spirit left in them.  As for me, I'm not _going_
to fail, nor fall ill, nor starve, nor throw myself over London Bridge,
nor anything else interesting or melodramatic I've always longed to come
up to town, and now that I am here I am going to enjoy myself in the
best way I can.  It is ripping to work hard when you feel you are
getting on, and a little taste of success now and then will be a
wonderful fillip.  There must be some compensations for being poor, and
I mean to find them out, and see if I can't get as much fun for sixpence
as Avice Loftus does for a sovereign."

"I--I believe you will," said Philippa, with a feeble laugh.  "You
mustn't think me a coward, Madge; I could be brave for myself; but it is
the awful feeling of responsibility that weighs upon me.  All this day I
have been saying to myself, `Now we are here.  What is the next step?
What ought we to do next?'"

"Go to bed, I should say.  You look as if you needed it," came the curt
rejoinder; and at that Philippa was obliged to laugh outright.

"Oh, Mr Dick, Mr Dick! your common-sense is invaluable.  Come along,
then; let us go.  We shall need all the rest we can get to prepare us
for our hard work to-morrow."



CHAPTER FIVE.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

A week after the girls had taken possession of the flat Stephen joined
them, and spent his evenings carpentering, hanging up pictures, and
laying carpets, as a pleasant relaxation after a day's work in the City.
He had been unpleasantly surprised to discover that, though the firm
for which he worked was of long standing and first-class position, its
offices were by no means so large or so comfortable as those which he
had left behind in the little country town.  The room in which he worked
was so dark that the gas seemed to be burning all day long; the windows
looked out on a narrow side-street; there was a continual roar of
traffic, a rumbling from the trains underground.  His head ached, and he
found it impossible to concentrate his thoughts.  But when the long day
came to an end, there was a certain exhilaration in walking home through
the crowded streets, in looking at historic scenes, and feeling that one
was an inmate of the greatest city, of the capital of the world!

Every evening, too, the flat looked more home-like, as suitable
resting-places were discovered for the old furniture, and the familiar
pictures smiled a welcome from the walls.  Madge's paper-hanging had
been a success of which she was justly proud, and the little dining-room
looked both pretty and cosy when the curtains were drawn and the lamps
lighted.  The girls were tired but cheerful, and had always amusing
little anecdotes to relate as gleanings from the day's work; the
workmen, the charwoman, the porter at the door downstairs, were all so
different from the country-folk to whom they had been accustomed; and
imitation of the Cockney accent proved an unfailing source of delight.
Madge cultivated special sentences with a view to impressing her sisters
on their arrival, and when they drove up to the door, insisted upon
"p'ying the keb" with a vehemence which left them speechless with
consternation.

Hope and Theo were conveyed upstairs flight after flight--for the lift
had not yet been introduced into these unfashionable mansions--and when
at last they could go no farther, lo! there was an open door, a blaze of
light sending forth a welcome, and the new home all ready to receive
them, even to the very tea on the table, and hot water in the basins in
the bedrooms.  It was delightful to meet again, to have the first meal
in the new home, to feel that the step so long contemplated was an
accomplished fact; and if a certain amount of disillusion had to be
endured, the new-comers had enough good feeling to notice only what they
could admire.  Dark though it was, it was scarcely seven o'clock when
the evening meal was finished; and in the state of pent-up excitement in
which the travellers found themselves, it seemed impossible to stay
quietly indoors.

"Couldn't we _do_ something?" asked Hope wistfully.  "I feel like a
caged lion shut up here, knowing that London lies outside.  We need not
go to bed for three hours at least.  Oh Steve! the top of an omnibus--a
drive along the streets, with all the lights--past Saint Paul's and the
Abbey, and along the Embankment.  Could we do it?  Oh, do you think we
might do it?"

The eager voice and pleading eyes raised a general laugh of amusement,
and even the prudent Stephen could find no objection to so innocent a
request.

"Well, really, I think we might rise to that.  Put on warm coats, and we
will lock the door behind us and sally forth.  An omnibus to Saint
Paul's, and another to Victoria Station, and back the best way we can.
I don't know the ropes yet, but we shall easily find out.  It will do
Phil and Madge good, too, for they have hardly stirred out of the flat
this last fortnight."

No sooner said than done.  It was astonishing how quickly hats and
jackets were donned, and in a quarter of an hour's time the four girls
were fearfully clambering up the narrow steps leading to the top of a
"City" 'bus, and taking their seats on the foremost benches.  Hope took
an outside place, but begged to change seats before she had driven a
hundred yards; at every turn and crossing her heart died within her, and
she seemed to look death in the face.  She hung on to Philippa's arm and
groaned incessantly, but when asked if she would like to return home,
"Oh no, no!  I love it," she cried, and groaned again, more fearfully
than before.

The other occupants of the benches stared with curious gaze at the five
young people, whose animation was in such marked contrast to their own
phlegmatic calm; and Theo studied them in her turn, making up little
romances concerning them, as her nature was.  "That fat dark man is
married to the little woman in blue.  She was left an orphan, and he was
a friend of her father's.  He offered to marry her, and she was lonely
and sad, and didn't care very much what she did.  He is very kind to
her; he is carrying all the parcels; but her heart isn't satisfied.  She
stares before her all the time, and never speaks...  The girl with the
pearl beads serves in a shop.  She is going home to a suburb, and her
`young man' will meet her at the station.  They are going to have a
little shop together, and she is thinking how she will manage it.  How
she does turn and twist!  Her hair is like a great turban round her
head.  She would be pretty if she would not spoil herself so...  That
poor, sad-looking young fellow has just had notice to leave his
situation.  He is thinking how he can tell his wife.  He will put his
arms round her, and they will cry together.  She will kiss him and say,
`For better, for worse, dear; for richer, for poorer.'  Her voice will
be like music.  He will look at her, and his face will shine.  Oh dear!
I am crying myself.  How stupid!  I'll write an article--`On a City
'Bus'--a character sketch, short and strong and dramatic.  Where shall I
send it?"

She went off into a reverie, turning over in her mind the names of
different papers and magazines, planning, wondering, weaving dreams,
while the omnibus made its way down Holborn towards the Viaduct.  Madge
and Steve were chattering gaily together.  Hope sat with clasped hands,
gazing eagerly ahead for the first glimpse of the majestic dome.  Tired
Philippa blinked at the rows of lamps, the flaring advertisements, and
gaily lighted saloons, and wished that the drive would last for hours,
so that she might sit still and feel the refreshing night-air play upon
her brow.  She groaned when the stoppage came and Madge pulled her
impatiently by the arm; and had nothing but yawns to mingle with her
sisters' ecstasies as they stood at the corner of the Churchyard, and
gazed and gazed until it seemed that they would never tear themselves
away.  Hope was hearing in imagination the swell of the great organ, the
reed-like sweetness of the voices of the white-robed choristers.  Madge
was already painting a picture of the great edifice by night, the
twinkling lights beneath, the vast outline losing itself mysteriously in
the clouds.

Theo was trembling, and biting her lips to keep back the tears.  To her
it was not a building at all; it was a sign--a symbol!  The wide steps
were not empty--she saw on them the blaze of great national pageants;
the wide nave was filled with happy faces, with black-robed women who
wept and wrung their hands; in her ears was the tramp of armed men.  She
shivered and drew her cloak closely round her.  When the next omnibus
for Victoria came along she took a surreptitious opportunity of flicking
the drops from her eyelashes.  Some day she would write about this too!
Oh, what wealth of subjects, what capital, what inspiration in this
wonderful, throbbing world!  And then Stephen tapped her on the shoulder
and cried a well-known name:

"Fleet Street, Theo!  Allow me to introduce you.  Your special beat, my
dear."

"My publishers!  Where are my publishers!" cried Theo loudly, as though
she expected to see the heads of the great firms ranged in a body to
greet her.

The other occupants of the benches overheard her words, and gazed upon
her with becoming awe.  This was evidently a distinguished author!  Note
her well--consider her features, so that she may be recognised by the
portraits in the shop windows!  Philippa smiled whimsically at the
thought that already Theo had made an impression.  What further triumphs
or humiliations had this Fleet Street in store for her?

Well, it was a wonderful drive!  If Saint Paul's had been impressive,
what about that glorious pile of buildings at Westminster, and the first
glimpse of the river by night!  It was like a dream--a wonderful dream--
in which the imagined glories of the world passed in review before the
eyes.

That night the girls were in the clouds, lifted far above mercenary
anxieties; but they came back to earth again next morning when their
boxes had been unpacked and stored away, and they were confronted with
the all-important question of the next move.  When lunch was over
silence fell suddenly upon the little room, and four pairs of eyes met
in solemn conclave.

"I--er--I shall go round to the Slade School and make inquiries," said
Madge quickly.  "We are settled down now, and must lose no more time.  I
shall ask what is the very first day I can join."

"I shall write to Mr Hammond, the editor of the _Casket_.  His firm
publish books as well as the magazine, and he took most of father's
things.  I shall ask him if he can see me for ten minutes, as I am
thinking of devoting myself to literature as a profession, and should be
grateful for his advice."

"I--er--I am going to pay a call at Hampstead," said Hope, trying to
look confident and self-possessed, but flushing a tell-tale pink all
over her delicate face.  "You remember the name of Miss Minnie
Caldecott, who sings some of father's songs?  I found one of her cards,
and she is at home every Tuesday afternoon.  I thought if I went early I
might see her before any one else arrived.  I have been working at that
new song ever since you left, Phil, and it _is_ pretty!  It's the best
thing I have written, and if she took a fancy to it, and promised to
sing it at concerts, it would be so much easier to find a publisher.  If
I can summon courage I shall ask her to let me accompany her as well.
If I could sell a few songs, and make a little money by playing
accompaniments, it would help to pay for my lessons."

Poor Hope!  She looked at once so frightened, so eager, and so pretty
that her sisters broke into a simultaneous murmur of sympathy.

"I'll go with you," said Philippa quickly.  "You must have some one to
support you, poor dear!  And how--oh, how are we going to find our way?"

"Ask the porter downstairs.  We shall have to go about alone, so the
sooner we puzzle it out the better.  Yes, do come, Phil!  If you don't,
I shall probably run away as soon as I've rung the bell.  Will she be
very formidable, do you think?"

Philippa did not know, could not conjecture.  Professional singers
existed for her only on the programmes of concerts.  She had never heard
one more celebrated than Miss James, the singing-mistress from Coventry.
Sometimes, she believed, they were paid fabulous prices for singing;
but Minnie Caldecott did not seem to come in the first rank.  Perhaps
she, like themselves, was struggling to make her name.

The girls found their way to Hampstead with wonderfully little trouble;
but it was more difficult to find Mayfield Rood, and they wandered about
for half-an-hour before discovering its whereabouts.  It was not an
attractive situation; neither was the house a palatial residence; and
though Miss Caldecott was "at home" as usual, the costume of the
servant-maid left much to be desired.  She led the way down a narrow
entrance-hall, and showed the visitors into a room at the back of the
house, saying that Miss Caldecott would be with them in a few minutes'
time.

It was barely half-past three, yet two lamps were already burning under
elaborate pink shades, and there was a profusion of flowers on the
mantelpiece and on the small tables with which the floor was crowded.
The piano stood open, with a litter of torn sheets on the top, and there
were photographs--photographs everywhere--of extraordinary-looking
people, who all seemed to write their names underneath with fat
quill-pens and many dashes.  The lady with the little ring in the middle
of her forehead was "Mabs;" the one swinging in a hammock was "Bella;"
"Fanny" smirked from a bower of palms, and wore ropes and ropes of
pearls round her neck.  There was a framed photograph on the wall with a
signature like the rest.  From across the room Hope recognised a
familiar name, and was about to rise to study it close at hand, when
swish-swish came the rustle of silken skirts, the door opened, and Miss
Caldecott herself made her appearance.



CHAPTER SIX.

HOPE'S FIRST VENTURE.

Miss Caldecott was tall and stout, had wavy hair and arched eyebrows,
and wore a slightly _decollete_ gown of blue silk, a trifle soiled if
you looked at it in a critical spirit, but wonderfully elaborate and
becoming.  The broad, beaming face was young, and but for its undue size
would have been strikingly pretty.  She looked at the sisters, showing
her straight, white teeth in the most friendly of smiles, and squeezed
Hope's hand until she winced with the pain.

"How do you do, dear?" she said.  "How d'do, dear?" to Philippa.
"Wretched day, isn't it?  So good of you to come!  Sit down and rest.  I
always flop on the sofa the moment I come in.  So tiring dragging about,
isn't it?  But you are thin.  Wait until you get fat like me."

Her shoulders shook; her eyes danced; the dimples dipped in her round,
pink cheeks.  Philippa and Hope were obliged to laugh in sympathy, but
it was very embarrassing; she evidently mistook them for old friends.
Hope cleared her throat and began the rehearsed explanation.

"I am Hope Charrington, and this is my sister.  You knew my father--by
name at least.  You used to sing some of his songs."

Miss Caldecott looked blank; then she began to laugh.  It appeared that
she was always laughing.

"Then I didn't know you after all!  Heaps of people come to see me, and
I've the silliest memory--always forget what I ought to remember.
Doesn't make much difference, does it?  I know you _now_.  Sung your
father's songs, did I?  Charrington!  Charrington!  Don't remember.
What were they called, do you know?"

Hope's heart sank.  She had expected the name to act as an open-sesame,
and it was not even recognised.

"One was `A Song of Summer,'" she said slowly, "and another `Into the
Night.'"

"La-la-la-La!  Ta-ta-ta-Ta!  Refrain went like that, didn't it?  I
remember.  Pretty change in the second verse.  High G sustained in the
last bar.  I used to bless him when I came to that note.  And he is
dead, you say?  What a pity.  So clever, too!  Do you compose?  You have
a musical face."

Here was a lead, indeed!  Hope flushed with eagerness, and her voice
broke with a little nervous tremor.  Miss Caldecott was so friendly, so
open, so far removed from being formidable that it was impossible to
believe that she could refuse her request.

"Oh yes, I do.  That's what I came to speak to you about to-day.  We
have come up to London to try to find work, for we are very poor.  As
you had liked father's songs, I was going to ask if you would be so
very, very kind as to try one of mine.  I have it with me now.  Messrs
Holding and Co. published one for me before, and if you liked this, and
would promise to sing it, they would be so much more willing to accept
it.  It is very bold of me to ask.  I am horribly nervous, but you are
so kind."

Miss Caldecott laughed and shook her head.

"Not in business matters, dear," she said.  "I have to keep my wits
about me in business.  If you knew the shoals of things I have sent to
me!  But I hate to say no.  Got the song with you, do you say?  Strum it
over, like a dear, and let me hear how it goes.  Sing it too, if you
can.  I've got a horrid cold."

Hope rose eagerly.  She had been prepared for this, and was less nervous
in playing than in speaking.  The piano was delightful; she was tingling
to make the most of her opportunity, and played the introductory bars
with a dainty finish which brought Miss Caldecott's eyes upon her with
an appreciatory flash.  She listened in silence to the first verse,
nodding her head to and fro, then turned to Philippa with another
beaming smile.

"Nice little pipe, hasn't she?  Sweet and simple like herself.  I say!
it wouldn't go far in the Albert Hall, would it?  Let me try a verse."
She put down her hands on either side, lifted herself from her low
chair, and went over to the piano.  "What are the words?  Oh, I can see.
Fire away, then, and I'll see what I can make of it.

  "Pack clouds away, and welcome day--
  With night we'll banish sorrow.

"Funny words, dear!  Where did you get hold of them?  It's not bad, you
know--not half bad--what I call graceful.  Let's try again, and go on to
the next verse."

This time she drew herself up and sang with careful attention.  The
full, rich tones of her voice flooded the room, and Hope thrilled with
delight at the sound of her own creation.  Never--no, never--had she
imagined that it could be so charming; and the last verse was the
prettiest of all.  Surely if Miss Caldecott liked the beginning, she
would be enraptured with the end!

But, alas! at the conclusion of the second verse Miss Caldecott crossed
the room and threw herself on the sofa, with a resounding yawn.

"Thanks awfully, dear.  How clever of you!  It really is sweet.  Doesn't
quite suit my voice, though, does it?  And I don't like those
accidentals.  They are tricky, and I'm such a careless creature.  Where
did you pick up the words?  I don't know the author, but you can tell
him from me that he can't write songs.  Not at all catchy words.  He'll
have to do better than that.  Don't sit perched up there any more, dear;
you look so uncomfortable.  There'll be some other people coming
presently, and we'll have tea.  I bought some lovely cakes from
Buzzard's.  Always make a bit of a splash on my at-home afternoons, you
know, for it's the only entertaining I do.  I'm in digs here, and very
bad they are, too.  But what can one do?  They don't send for me at the
Albert Hall, dear.  It's a shame, for I could do ever so much better
than some of those old, worn-out things who only trade on a name.  My
voice is fresh, and a jolly good one, too, though I say it myself.
Where are _you_ living, dear?  In this neighbourhood?"

Philippa replied.  Hope was too disappointed, too cast down, to be able
to speak.  Miss Caldecott had seemed so pleased; the song had sounded so
charming from her lips.  At one minute acceptance had seemed certain; at
the next the subject was waved aside, and apparently dismissed from
consideration.  She pressed her lips together and stared at the
mantelpiece, with its bank of chrysanthemums in cream-jars, its
photographs of becurled beauties.  Philippa was talking about the flat,
and removal expenses generally, and Miss Caldecott was lavishing floods
of sympathy upon her, and abuse upon those who had disappointed or
thwarted her plans.

"Wretched, good-for-nothing things, the pack of them!  But you are so
near Maple's.  Why don't you go to Maple and let him do the whole thing?
Expense!  Bills!  Oh, bother bills!  You can let them run, you know.
_I_ do!  If I want a thing I get it, and think about the bill
afterwards.  Do you like this tea-gown?  I bought it at the autumn
sales.  Such a bargain!  I have to spend a fortune in clothes.  What
would you advise me to get for this winter, for really swell affairs,
you know?  I go to a good many private receptions.  I got some patterns
this morning.  I look so huge in white!  What would you think of
yellow--eh?  Blue is so ordinary."

"Really, I--really, I don't know."  Philippa thought it was better to
laugh outright than in a covert manner, so she laughed as she spoke, and
Miss Caldecott joined in the strain with the greatest good-humour.

"I'm sure you have good taste, dear; you look so stylish.  I never wear
black myself; it makes me doleful.  I do get doleful sometimes, though
you wouldn't think it.  I live all alone, and sometimes business gets so
slack.  I get plenty of suburban work, but I don't come to the front
somehow.  Can't think why.  My voice is far better than that Marah
Bryce's, whom they all rave about nowadays.  Have you heard her lately?"

Philippa felt relieved to be able to reply in the negative, and Miss
Caldecott enlarged at great length on the personal deformities, mental
blemishes, and vocal limitations of her rival, even condescending to
imitate her rendering of a favourite song.

"High-flown rubbish, I call it!  Something like that song of yours," she
said blandly, turning to Hope.  "You might offer it to her.  Far more
her style than mine.  Don't you say I sent you, though."

"Thank you," said Hope softly.  "I think I should hardly like to
venture.  I don't know her at all, so it's quite different.  You knew
our name at least, and I thought--I hoped--"

Despite herself, Hope's voice broke with a little quiver of
disappointment, for she had counted so much on this woman's help; and if
she refused, what could be expected from a stranger on whom she had no
possible claim for sympathy?  Her face looked so drawn and pale that
Miss Caldecott's good-nature could not look at it unmoved.

"What's the matter, dear?  Disappointed!  Hateful of me, isn't it?  But
I couldn't sing that song even to please you.  I'll tell you what we
will do, though; you shall write another especially for me.
Mezzo-soprano, you know; I don't mind a G now and then, but don't let me
have them too often.  And be sure to give me a catchy refrain--something
the people want to move their feet to at the end of the second verse--
see?  Then the words must be domestic.  I want a song badly, to sing
down Clapham way and places like that, for charities and subscription
concerts.  Let me see--something about children, I think.  Nothing
fetches them like children!  First verses, major, `Happily homeward the
children go;' and about their little troubles, you know, and their
little fears, little smiles, and little tears.  There! that's rhyme.  I
believe I could write it myself.  Then comes the refrain--a little swing
to it, a little lilt--the same words for the first two verses.  Oh, you
know the kind of thing!  Something to make the mothers cry, and the
papas rush off to buy the song next morning.  Nothing draws so well as
children.  And you might change to the minor key at the third verse, and
point a moral: we are all children, life's a journey, and we shall grow
tired, too, and fall asleep at the end of our day.  There!  Never say I
didn't give you an idea.  You write that for me, and we'll make a
fortune out of it."

"Thank you.  Oh, how kind you are!  I see it exactly.  I'll try my very
beat.  It is so very, very good of you to give me the chance!"

Miss Caldecott yawned wearily.  "So close, isn't it?" she said.  "I hate
this muggy weather.  Some people say it's good for the complexion, but I
don't believe it.  I use that new American powder.  Have you tried it?
There's the bell!  I expect it is the Elliotts.  They said they were
coming."

"Then perhaps we ought to--We have stayed a long time already," said
Philippa, rising.  "Thank you so very much for seeing us at all."

"Oh, won't you wait for tea?  Good-bye, dear," cried Miss Caldecott all
in one breath, and without waiting for a reply to her question; and the
sisters went out into the narrow passage, to squeeze their way post
three tall, smartly dressed girls who were engaged in arranging their
veils and pulling out their fringes before the little strip of mirror in
the hat-stand.  They walked down the street in silence, turned the
corner, and exchanged bright, amused glances.

"Our first introduction into professional circles!  How very, very funny
she was!  How many times did she call us `dear,' I wonder?  Not very
formidable, was she?"

"But, oh, what a lovely voice!  So rich and full!  I suppose it is
because she has not had a thorough musical education that she hasn't
come to the front, and because she isn't quite--quite--But it is a shame
to criticise," cried loyal Hope.  "How kind she was!  How perfectly
sweet of her to ask me to write that song!  Phil, Phil, don't you think
I am fortunate!  Don't you think it's a good beginning?  I have an idea
for the song already, and she is almost sure to take it; it is as good
as a commission."

Philippa looked at the shining eyes, and could not endure to breathe
discouragement; but in her heart of hearts she reflected that she should
be sorry indeed to place any reliance upon the promises of Miss Minnie
Caldecott.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

A PRIVATE READING.

Theo was pressed into the service to write the words of the song for
Miss Caldecott, and composed a graceful little ditty which was
sufficiently touching even to the spinster mind, and might safely be
trusted to melt the hearts of parents "in the front rows."  The task
kept her happy and occupied while waiting for the answer to her letter,
and Mr Hammond was both prompt and kind in his reply.

"I shall be happy to give what help I can to your father's daughter," he
wrote.  "He always appeared to me to have a very special gift, and I
regretted that he did not cultivate it to the full.  I hope that you
have inherited his powers, but at the same time I feel it my duty to beg
you to earnestly consider the matter before deciding on your life's
work.  Many young people seem to imagine that they can `take up
literature' as they would typewriting or clerical work, which is a vast
mistake, and it would be cruel to encourage you unless you possess the
inherent qualifications.  Would it not be better for the aiding of my
judgment if, before coming to see me, you forwarded some _short_ MS for
my perusal?  The time at my disposal is limited, but I will contrive to
read anything you send before, say, Monday next, when I shall be pleased
to see you at any time that may be convenient between eleven and one."

The letter was read aloud at the breakfast-table, and the audience
commented on it with the candour which distinguishes family conclaves.

"Very sensible!  Short and to the point.  How can he tell what sort of
rubbish you write!" said Steve.

"Hope you notice the dash under the `short'!  No chance for your novel,
my dear.  He doesn't see himself sitting down to read hundreds of pages
of your appalling fist.  Grows more like lattice-work every day!"
Philippa cried severely.

"I can just imagine what he is like!  A proper little person, with a
shiny bald head.  Fancy writing love-scenes for his inspection!  My
hat!" and Madge lengthened her chin in an expressive grimace.

"The worst of it is, I don't know what to send.  I have nothing short
that's good enough.  It ought to be striking, arresting, original.  I--I
want an idea," cried poor Theo, staring frantically at the coffee-cups,
and wrinkling her brow until she looked ten years older on the spot.
"It's finding a subject that is the hardest part.  I love the writing
when I'm once well started.  I can't possibly send anything before next
week."

"Don't try.  Take your time, and do your very best.  Send a letter to
say you will forward a MS in the course of the next few weeks.  It's
important that you should send your best work, and you can't write
happily with a feeling of hurry.  It must be a story, of course, not an
article."

"Mind you have a nice hero: six feet high--broad shoulders--big
moustache--"

"No, no; clean shaven--clean shaven, with a firm, determined chin; big
feet and hands, quick-tempered, but too sweet for anything to the girl
he loves."

"Make her slim and willowy, with grey eyes; rather wistful-looking, not
exactly pretty, but with `a way with her' that simply mows 'em down!"

"Give her some spirit, mind!" cried Madge once more.  "I hate your
mawkish heroines--sort of creature you would call `The Maiden.'  Don't
call her `The Maiden,' Theo, if you wish me to buy a copy; and whatever
you do, I pray and beseech you, don't write in the present tense: `I am
leaning against a stile; the roses are falling in heavy clusters by my
side; the rays of the sun are pouring on my uncovered head and turning
to gold the wayward curls which refuse to lie straight despite all my
efforts.'  Don't you know the kind of thing!  I feel inclined to throw a
book in the fire when it begins like that.  Don't let your heroine have
`wayward curls,' Theo.  Don't let her have `little tendrils wandering
over her brow.'  Don't say in every chapter that `she had never looked
more lovely;' and for goodness' sake don't let the husband and wife
behave like idiots, and quarrel all the time, though they are really
expiring of love!"

"Well, really!  Any more instructions?  It's a pity you don't write the
whole thing while you are about it," said Theo testily as she pushed her
choir from the table.

The family had grown to dread the times when Theo was settling on a plot
for a new story.  She was so restless; she wandered about in such an
aimless manner; she looked so thoroughly worried and unhappy.  Sometimes
the girls would try to help her with suggestions, and then she would
listen with a forbearing smile, and say, "Oh, thank you!  Yes, it's
_very_ good.  I should think a capital story might be made out of it,
but somehow it doesn't appeal to me."

At other times, when they were never thinking of helping, and were
engaged in what seemed the most ordinary conversation, Theo would
suddenly clap her hands and cry, "Oh, that will do!  Good!  _Now_ I've
got it!" and rush excitedly from the room, leaving her sisters to
discuss what in the world they had said that could possibly suggest a
romance.  Verily, an author in the household was a difficult person with
whom to deal!

For the next few days Theo sat alone in her room making futile efforts
at a beginning, going out for long walks along the crowded streets, or
sitting shivering on the seats in the Park.  In deference to her
condition, Hope kept away from the piano while she was at home; but no
sooner was the door closed behind her than she flew to try the effect of
the new song, and to alter and re-alter the more troublesome bars.  She
must practise, too, for with the hope of public work before her it would
never do to lose execution and flexibility of finger.  Already she was
making arrangements for lessons in harmony, and her time seemed filling
up.

In the energy which distinguishes all beginnings, Hope practised scales
and exercises for a good three hours one Saturday afternoon, and towards
the end of the time was much exercised to account for the meaning of a
thumping noise that seemed to rise from the ground beneath her feet.
She stopped playing; the noise stopped also.  She began again; the noise
was repeated.  Philippa, summoned to decide whether or no they were the
proud possessors of a unique sort of echo, immediately arrived at a more
prosaic explanation.

"It's some one knocking from underneath.  It must be the Hermit, that
bachelor creature who lives just below.  He wants you to stop."

"What cheek!" cried Hope.  She was, as a rule, discreet and punctilious
in her language, but there are points upon which the meekest among us
are keenly sensitive, and when it came to interference with her
practising, propriety flew to the winds.  "What _hateful_ cheek!  What
right has he to interfere!  Has he hired the whole building?  Does he
think we are going to consult _him_ about what we do?  What next,
indeed?  I'll try chromatics now, and see how he will like them.  Cheek!
Abominable cheek?"

She went to work more vigorously than ever, and Philippa thought it
prudent to refrain from interference, but contented herself with
hurrying preparations for tea; and for the time being there was no more
knocking.  Presumably the chromatics had reduced the listener to a
condition of helpless despair.

On the third evening Theo made her appearance wearing her best fichu,
and with a face wreathed in smiles.  "I've got it!" she announced; and
there was no need to ask to what she referred.  The tension was over for
the time being, and the young author worked up her subject with the
usual enjoyment.  When the story was finished the girls begged for a
private reading; a request against which, as a rule, the author steadily
set her face, so that, as usual, the first response was a refusal.

"I can't.  It is too cold-blooded.  The members of one's own family are
too painfully critical.  I'd rather face a dozen editors than you three
girls."

"Very unkind of you, then; that's all I have to say," said Philippa
severely.  "You know how interested we are; and if we _are_ critical,
surely it's better to discuss faults with us than to let them go
uncorrected.  This is a special story, and in consideration of our
anxiety--"

"Oh, well!" said Theo unwillingly, "I'll read it if you like.  Get your
sewing, and don't stare at me all the time.  It's quite short.  You
won't like it, I expect.  Let me sit near the lamp."

She was evidently nervous, and her voice was decidedly shaky for the
first few pages; but after that she forgot herself, and read with
expression and power.  If one of the girls moved, she looked up with a
frown; and when Madge groaned and clasped her hands over her heart at a
particularly touching part of the love-story, she stopped short and
fixed her with a basilisk glare.  It was a story of a truly modern type,
which, so to speak, began at the end and worked slowly but surely back
to the beginning.  It was by no means certain, too, what the heroine
did, or why she did it; and if one had been sceptically minded, one
would have doubted whether the author knew herself.  Hope was puzzled,
Madge engrossed and curious; Philippa was frankly bored.  Her own nature
was straightforward and outspoken, and she had no patience with what
seemed to be wilful obtuseness.  Her attention waned as a Martha-like
anxiety seized her in its grip; her eyes wandered to the clock, and her
brow grew furrowed.  Alas for the trials of the author in the household!
At the very moment when Theo was preparing to deliver the crucial
sentence on which hung the whole construction of the plot--in that
thrilling moment wherein she paused and drew breath, the better to
deliver it with due emphasis and dramatic effect--an anxious voice
claimed precedence and cried loudly:

"_Hope_!  It's after five.  _Did_ you remember to order the fish?"

It was too much for flesh and blood to endure.  Up bounced Theo; down
dashed the MS on the table; bang went the door after her departing
figure as she fled to her bedroom for refuge, while the two younger
sisters stared across the room with eyes large with reproach.

"Phil, how could you?  How cruel!  At the most exciting point!  How
_could_ you do it?"

"I'm sorry," said Philippa; and she really looked it.  "I didn't mean to
vex her; but Steve will be home in less than an hour, and there is only
cold meat.  I was so anxious about the fish.  Was there much more to
read?  You might finish it, and then we can tell her what we think of
it.  I don't like it; do you?"

"It's clever," said Madge decidedly.  "It's atrociously clever.  I'm
dying to know how it ends."

But when the MS was finished Madge's curiosity remained unsatisfied, for
what happened to the heroine was as uncertain as everything else in her
career.

Theo did not make her appearance again until dinner was on the table,
when she came into the room with her head in the air and her lip curled
in disdain.  "I have to live with these poor, grovelling worms, but at
least I need not associate with them!"  So said her expression as
plainly as words could speak.  She had, however, reckoned without her
sense of humour, which, fortunately for her readers, was particularly
acute; and no sooner was the cover removed from the belated fish than
her lips began to twitch and her eyes to twinkle.  Her cheeks grew red,
her shoulders heaved, and finally out came a great burst of laughter;
and there she sat, rocking to and fro in her chair, gasping out short,
strangled sentences, with her hands gripped convulsively over her heart.

"Oh-h!  Oh!  Have you ordered the fish?  The _fish_!  Oh, a prophet--is
not a prophet--_Fish_!  Oh!"

"Might make a joke somehow about fish and Jonah, mightn't you?" said
Madge, laughing, scarcely less heartily, in the relief of seeing Theo's
descent from her high horse.  "I can't quite see how it is to be done,
but it has possibilities.  I finished reading your story, my dear, and I
feel inclined to shake you.  Why couldn't you make a happy ending while
you were about it?"

"Too commonplace!" said the author scornfully.  "You didn't expect me to
make them `live happily ever after,' did you?  I haven't quite descended
to that, I hope.  Well, what do you think of it?"

"I don't like it nearly so well as some of your others.  I was sorry
that I interrupted you, dear; but I am afraid it was because I didn't
like it," confessed Philippa honestly.  "I loved that pretty little
story about the poor governess and the rich lover who came home from
Australia.  Do send that to Mr Hammond; it is really very much nicer."

"Nicer!" repeated Theo.  "Pretty!"  Her voice rang with an incredulous
disdain.  "I want something strong and powerful.  Hope, what do _you_
think?  Don't you like it either?"

Hope wrinkled her brows, and looked puzzled and distressed.

"I can't decide.  It's so queer!  Does it really mean that she marries
him in the end, or that she refuses him because she loves him?  I keep
thinking and thinking, and it is so confusing."

"It is the most maddening story I ever read," chimed in Madge
decisively, "for it tells you nothing that you want to know, and it
makes you want to know so much that you can hardly live for suspense.
You ought to hate that exasperating girl, and yet you feel that life is
not worth living without her.  I will say for you, my dear, that you
have achieved the most worrying, unsatisfactory muddle I can possibly
imagine.  I believe I shall dream of it to-night."

"Hurrah!" cried Theo--"hurrah!" and she tossed her bread in the air, and
caught it again with a wave of triumph.  "I _am_ pleased!  I won't alter
a single word, but will send it off to-night.  If Hope keeps worrying
about it while she is awake, and Madge dreams of it while she is asleep,
I don't want any higher praise.  Never mind if the impression is
painful; it _is_ an impression, and that's the great object of
story-telling.  Thank you both.  I'm so relieved."

"Humph!" muttered Philippa shortly, and added something under her breath
about "executions making a painful impression, if you come to that;"
which the others judiciously affected not to hear.  Phil had her own
grievance by this time, for it is not pleasant to have one's criticisms
overlooked as beneath consideration, and to be calmly ignored by
artistic striplings as a good, commonplace creature who cannot be
expected to rise to the intellectual level of her companions.  Like all
housekeepers, Philippa experienced moments of weariness and revolt
against the everlasting "trivial round"--moments of longing for a more
interesting life-work--and at such times the attitude of her younger
sisters made her lot doubly hard.  She struggled against the temptation
to say something sharp and cutting, and Stephen, watching her face from
the other end of the table, divined the hidden thoughts.  He was not a
brilliant nor, to outsiders, a particularly interesting young fellow,
but just one of those kindly, single-hearted men who are born to make
some woman's life safe and happy; and as, so far, Philippa was his
lady-love, he could not rest while that shadow was on her brow.  Before
they went to bed he made an excuse to call her into the dining-room, and
to lead the conversation in such a direction as would invite her to give
him her confidence.

"It is a little hard, isn't it?" she said wistfully.  "You saw how Theo
ignored my criticism, and the others never even seemed to notice.  I
work for them all day long, keeping the house comfortable and mending
their things, to set them free for their own work, and I am only
despised for it.  It makes me mad, Steve; and, worse still, it makes me
sad."

"Poor old girl!" said Stephen softly.  He leant his elbows on the
mantelpiece and ruffled his hair nervously.  If Philippa had been his
wife he would have taken her in his arms and spoken all that was in his
heart, but a man feels an embarrassment in "letting himself go" before a
sister not known in the nearer and dearer relationship.  He wanted to
say that the woman who makes a home has achieved a greater and nobler
work than the one who produces a mere book or picture, and that in his
eyes at least she is first and best.  But he had a horror of appearing
sentimental, and what he really said was: "Horribly bad form!  Upsetting
young cubs!  They will get a little of the starch knocked out of them
when they find what a poor place they take among the rest."

"Oh, I don't want that!  I want them to succeed," cried Philippa
quickly; and then she began to laugh and to look herself once more.  "We
are like a nice, prosaic old father and mother, Steve, whose children
are so alarmingly clever that we are half-afraid of them.  I am glad you
are ordinary like myself.  You wouldn't be half such a strength to me if
you were a genius too."

"Poor old girl!" said Stephen again, and let his hand drop on her
shoulder with a helpful grip.  He did not say that she could trust him
to stand by her always, and to uphold her in every difficulty, but she
understood the unspoken promise, and went to bed soothed and comforted.

Theo's MS was posted to Mr Hammond, and in due course an answer was
received containing no reference to the story, but simply naming an hour
for the proposed interview.  The young author tried to read signs of
increased deference and respect for her attainments between the lines,
but even her optimism failed in the attempt.  She grew nervous as the
time approached, and looked decidedly pale as she partook of a
strengthening cup of cocoa before dressing for the important expedition.

"What are you going to wear?"  Madge inquired, and the author curled her
lip in disdain.

"My dear, how ridiculous!  As if it mattered!  Do you suppose for one
moment that it will make any difference to Mr Hammond whether I look
charming or a perfect fright!  Are you so innocent as to believe that he
would accept a story that he didn't like from the greatest beauty on
earth?"

"Humph!" said Madge reflectively.  "The heart of man is desperately
wicked!  Not _that_ story, perhaps, but he would be much more willing to
look at another.  Take my advice and put on your toque.  A girl never
loses anything by making herself attractive when dealing with a man.  I
have never met any editors, but I have reason to suppose that they are
not different from the rest of mankind."

"Nineteen, and country-bred!  Where did your worldly wisdom come from,
my dear?" cried Theo, holding up her hands in astonishment.  But she
wore her toque all the same, and took off her veil three times over
because one little curl refused to lie exactly in the right place.  She
desired, above all things, to arouse Mr Hammond's interest and sympathy.

The first visit to a publisher's office!  It was a nervous occasion, and
Theo walked once, twice, thrice past the dreaded door before summoning
courage to enter.  A board on the wall informed her that she must mount
to the third story, so she raised her skirts, ascended a narrow and not
too clean staircase, and stood outside a door labelled "Office,"
wondering what to do next.  Neither knocker nor bell was to be seen;
what, then, was she to do?  If she tapped on the pane and waited for the
door to be opened, she would appear humble and amateurish; if she
entered unannounced, it would seem bold and presumptuous.  She
determined to err rather on the side of overrating her own importance,
hoping thereby to prove the truth of the old adage; so, turning the
handle with a firm hand, she walked into the office, and found herself
confronted by--a small and shabby boy, perched on a high stool!

All this fuss about a child!  Theo's indignation lent an added
haughtiness to her manner as she demanded to see the editor of the
_Casket_, and Jack-in-office stared at her curiously, up and down, down
and up, before he replied.  His expression seemed to imply that he had
seen her like before, and that he more than suspected a MS tied with
blue ribbon was hidden skilfully beneath her coat.

"Have you an appointment?" he asked severely; and though Theo affected a
smile of superiority, she felt an inward conviction that without that
same appointment she would have been compelled to make her way to Mr
Hammond's presence over the dead body of his vassal.  As it was, he
carried away her card, and came back almost immediately to escort her to
the editor's room, where he pointed to a chair, and remarked
encouragingly that Mr Hammond would be disengaged in a few minutes'
time.

Theo threw a glance at her reflection in a dusty mirror, and seated
herself with much the same tremulous sinking of heart as that with which
she was accustomed to settle herself in the dentist's chair.  On the
desk before her lay a litter of papers and proofs; her eye fell absently
on the slip nearest to herself, and lightened into eager interest.  Here
was a treat indeed, for what she saw was the next month's instalment of
a powerful serial as to the termination of which the sisters had
frequently and hotly debated.  A sentence here, a sentence there, gave
the needed clues, and she smiled with mischievous delight at the
advantage she had gained.  That evening she would lead the conversation
to the Count and his lady, and would give graphic prophecies of the next
stage in their adventures.  Even the conversations she would foretell,
so that when the new number arrived her character of wizard would be
fully established.  The interesting prospect dispelled her nervousness,
and she was smiling to herself in bright, natural fashion when the door
opened and Mr Hammond appeared.

The editor was short and dark, middle-aged, and carelessly dressed; an
undignified little figure, on whom the literary aspirant looked with
instant lightening of heart.  "I'm not afraid of _him_," she told
herself; but the thought was no sooner formed than revoked; for Mr
Hammond spoke, and at the first sound of his voice he became aloof,
formidable--a personage!  He greeted the girl kindly enough, but Theo
felt strangely humbled as she faced him, and realised with painful
clearness that she was a girl, a tyro, and that this man was accustomed
to associate with the master-minds of his day.  Her complacency about
the "worrying" story fell from her like a cloak, and she awaited his
verdict with sickening suspense.

"It is kind of you to see me; I know you are very busy.  I sent you a
MS, as you asked for one.  I suppose you--received it?"

"Yes."  Mr Hammond's face gave no clue as to his opinion of the
masterpiece in question.  "I am pleased to see you, and to give you any
help in my power.  As I said in my note, I had a great admiration for
your father.  And so you have determined to settle in town and enter the
great arena?"

"Yes.  We are very poor, and must work for ourselves.  I have been
writing for my own amusement ever since I was a child, and if it were
possible to make a livelihood in that way I should like it better than
anything else.  I would rather live on half the money and do the work I
love."

She looked appealingly at the impassive face, but no approval of her
prospective renunciation was forthcoming.  Mr Hammond merely bent his
head in grave assent and remarked:

"Literature is a good crutch, but a very inefficient staff.  If you have
no private means, and are seeking for a profession which is to be your
entire support, you would be wiser to go in for millinery.  Brain-work
is uncertain, trying, and badly paid.  Even at the best an author's
spell of popularity is short-lived in these degenerate days.  A new
writer comes along with a fresh trick, and the old friend is promptly
forgotten and despised.  For the sake of L.S.D. he is compelled to write
twice as much as he ought to do, and so dooms himself even more
completely.  In millinery, I should suppose, experience adds to
capacity, and the demand for bonnets is a happy certainty."

This time it was the editor who smiled and Theo who was unresponsive.
She was deeply offended, and hope had sunk to the lowest ebb.  Surely if
Mr Hammond had found any merit in her story he would not have humiliated
her by such a suggestion.  She lowered her eyes, and trifled nervously
with her furs.

"Then you think--after reading my story--you think I have no chance?"

"No; I don't say that.  That depends entirely upon--"

"Yes?"

Mr Hammond looked at her with a kindly pity.  "_Upon how much
heart-breaking you can stand_!" he said solemnly.  "The apprenticeship
which you will have to serve is weeks, months--it may be even years--of
steady, persistent, unsuccessful work; weary disappointment after weary
disappointment; nothing to show for your labour but a drawer full of
dog-eared papers which nobody will accept.  Realise what it means, and
ask yourself if you have strength to bear it; if you have sufficient
courage and self-confidence to work on undaunted, and find fresh
inspiration in the midst of defeat."

He looked at her gravely, and Theo lifted her head and returned the look
with flashing eyes.

"If I had the prospect of success in the end--yes! a hundred times, yes!
I am not a child.  I don't expect to make a name in a day.  You can
judge better than I.  Is there a chance for me if I work hard?  Have I a
gift which is worth cultivating?  You promised to tell me the truth, and
I ask it of you now."

Then for the first time Mr Hammond gave a hint of encouragement.  He
smiled whimsically, as at an amusing recollection, and studied the
girl's face with a new interest.

"Oh yes; you have the faculty.  It is there; there is no doubt it is
there.  I read your story, and with all its faults it escapes the two
unpardonable crimes--it is neither dull nor commonplace.  I don't
pretend to say that you will be a great writer, but when you have
learned your trade you will probably be able to place your stories with
little difficulty.  Study style; study the best masters; don't think any
time wasted that is given to cultivating pure, forcible English.  Study
the people around you, and write of what you _know_, not of what you
imagine.  It is difficult to describe an emotion which one has never
felt, or a life in which one has no part.  Study the magazines also, and
note what style is adopted by each, the length of story taken, and so
on.  These things are but the technicalities of the profession, but the
mastery of them will save you needless disappointments.  When a MS is
returned for the sixth time, put it away for a month, then read it over
in a critical spirit, and try to discover wherein the fault lies.  A
little altering and rewriting may make it a marketable article."

"Y-es," said Theo faintly.  That "sixth time" fell sadly on her ear, for
it was one thing to assert that she did not expect to win in a day, and
quite another to hear repeated failure predicted in that cool,
unemotional fashion.  She wondered if Mr Hammond would refer to her
story in any more definite fashion, and seeing that he began to play
with the papers on his desk, as if to intimate that the "five minutes"
were drawing to a close, she summoned courage to put a direct question.

"And the MS that I sent you, Mr Hammond--was it pretty good?  Do you
think it suitable for--er--for--"

Her courage failed as he looked up in grave inquiry, and she dared not
say "the _Casket_," as she had intended; but Mr Hammond finished her
sentence, as if he had not divined the unspoken word.

"Publication!  There would be no harm in trying.  I have read many less
interesting stories, though it bears the mark of inexperience.  Try some
of the smaller papers, like the _Companion_; and, if necessary, cut it
down to their length.  I have it here in this drawer, I think.  Yes--
thank you.  Pleased to have seen you."

Theo rose to her feet a-smart with mortification.  To be recommended to
the _Companion_, and advised to cut down her masterpiece for the
approval of its twopenny-halfpenny editor, was humiliation indeed for
the would-be contributor to the _Casket_.  She followed Mr Hammond to
the door, and held out her hand in silence, her only desire being to end
the painful interview at once.  But the smitten look on the young face,
the sudden collapse of the former audacious complacency, were too marked
to pass unnoticed.  The editor looked at her, and recalled his own
youth, when a kind word was as a magic wand, and a harsh one shut the
door so hopelessly against a cherished dream.  He gave her hand an
encouraging pressure.

"You have the stuff in you; you have the stuff!  Work hard, and when you
have served your apprenticeship come back to me, and I'll help you all I
can.  Send me one MS in three months--one, remember.  If you send more I
sha'n't read them.  When one is accepted you will have reached the first
rung of the ladder.  No, don't thank me!  I will accept nothing from
you, nor from any one else, that does not deserve a place on its own
merits.  Good-morning."

His eyes fell on the roll of paper in her hand, and he pointed to it
with an outstretched finger.

"Don't--er--don't overdo it," he said meaningly.  "Don't try to be too
clever."

Then the door shut, and Theo groped her way down the stairs.  Her cheeks
were crimson; she beat the banisters savagely with the paper roll.
Jack-in-office looked out of his open door and grinned to himself in
amused understanding.  He had seen "them" look like that before.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

VISITORS ARRIVE.

Theo's pride made her represent the interview with Mr Hammond in its
most favourable light to her sisters.  He was satisfied that she had the
makings of a successful author, was anxious to consider MSS from time to
time, and had suggested a likely home for the present story.  The
future, in fact, was assured, but a period of probation must necessarily
elapse while she served what he called her "apprenticeship."  The girls
appeared duly impressed, and Theo felt with satisfaction that this
verdict from a high authority would go far towards procuring for her
that respect and admiration which it is so difficult to obtain from the
members of one's own family.

"He advises me to read a great deal, to study the styles of the best
masters, and to write only what I know.  I think that is rather a
mistake.  If one possesses the literary instinct, it must surely be
possible to project one's self, as it were, into the place of another,
and so create an environment.  How can one be expected to experience
personally the whole gamut of human emotions?"

"Cast your ruminating eye upon me, my love," said Madge suavely,
pointing with a thin forefinger to herself.  Behind Theo's back she had
been occupied in rolling her eyes and waving her hands in dramatic
illustration of the other's high-flown phrases, so that Hope had rushed
to the window to stare at the chimney-pots, while Philippa had dropped
her needle on the floor and grovelled on all-fours in order to redeem
it.  The two returned to their seats with expressions of preternatural
gravity, while Madge continued to declaim her offers of help.

"Study my character!  It is full of rich and unexpected qualities.  When
you get to an _impasse_, ask my advice, and I'll tell you how I should
behave in the circumstances.  Though young in years I am old in wisdom,
and you would go far before you discovered a better preceptor."

Theo laughed with good-natured disdain.  "Old in experience, indeed!
Poor little country mouse, what do you know of life?  You have never
even been in love."

"Oh, haven't I, though!  Shows how little you know," cried Madge darkly.
"I have never been out of it since I was eight years old.  The first
one was Tommy Egerton.  Do you remember those Egertons who took The
Chase for a year?  Tommy was the little boy who wore a fawn coat with a
sealskin collar, and dear little brown gaiters.  I doted on him!  And
one day his mother brought him to call, and I had on a soiled pinafore.
Oh, my feelings!  I consider that my character has been warped for life
by the humiliation I endured that afternoon.  Then there was that
freckled boy who used to send me valentines:--

  "The rose is red, the violet blue,
  And sugar's sweet, and so are you.

"Dear, dear, how bashful I felt the first time I met him after that
special valentine arrived!  Then there was the curate who spoke through
his `dose.'  That was the love that was born of pity!  Every one abused
him, so there arose in my heart that almost maternal tenderness and
compassion which is inseparable from the love of every good woman.
Ahem!"  Madge glanced up with dancing eyes, then grew grave again and
added slowly, "And now there's that student at the Slade School.  I
asked him some questions the other day, and he was _so_ kind!  He has a
lovely chin.  I expect we shall be great friends.  Look at Philippa
growing pale with anxiety."

"It's all very well," cried Philippa irritably.  "I like young men
myself, and wish we knew many more than we do, but we _must_ be careful.
I hope you girls will not make any friends until you have had time to
judge whether they are the sort of people we ought to know.  I don't
want to preach.  I hate preaching.  It is very hard to be in the
position when it falls to me to say all the disagreeable things, but,
situated as we are, we can hardly be too particular.  We want to make
friends who will be a help to us, not a hindrance, and whose influence
can never be hurtful to Barney when he is with us."

The mention of Barney brought a smile to each face, followed by sighs of
anxiety, for it was impossible not to realise that the reckless,
high-spirited boy would be a care as well as a pleasure.  Stephen was
already looking out for a suitable opening in the City, and, with
Philippa's consent, had written to Mr Loftus to ask his assistance in
the search.  As an influential shareholder in many large concerns it was
likely that he would be able to find a situation, and his kindness of
heart made it seem probable that he would put himself to some trouble on
the boy's behalf.  So far no letter had been received in reply; but one
afternoon about five o'clock the electric bell sounded through the
little flat, and Hope ran to open the door to save trouble to the one
small servant who was wrestling with preparations for the evening meal.
She thought it might possibly be the postman with a letter from Miss
Caldecott to say how delighted she was with the new song; but instead
she found herself confronted by two life-size fashion-plates and, hidden
away behind flowing skirts and ruffling chiffons, one small and dejected
lord of creation!

The Loftus trio!  Aunt Loftus come to pay her first call, on the very
occasion when Mary had set fire to the pretty lampshade, so that the
smell of burning pervaded the air, and a naked "chimney" took the place
of rosy frills; when Philippa had felt too tired to change her
morning-blouse, and naughty Madge had taken advantage of an idle hour to
wash her hair, and was even now stretched before the fire in all the
glory of a dressing-gown too old to be spoiled!  Hope was speechless
with consternation, but with the drawing-room distant about two yards
from the front-door escape was hopeless, and she was obliged to
introduce the visitors with what composure she might.

To the credit of their breeding, be it said, Philippa and Madge rose
nobly to the occasion, and welcomed the unwelcome guests without either
apology or confusion.  Madge smiled sweetly through her wisps of hair,
and discussed the weather in orthodox fashion, before sailing out of the
room to clothe herself in more suitable attire.  Hope was proud of her
sisters, and unselfishly annoyed that she should appear to better
advantage than they; for she had dressed early after her return from a
wet and tiring walk.  She met her cousin's curious gaze, and sat down
beside her with a friendly smile.

"You are Avice.  I have so often wondered about you?"

"You are Hope.  I have a picture of you as a little girl.  It is so
pretty!  You haven't changed a bit."

"Oh, oh, you shouldn't!  But how nice of you, all the same!  I love
compliments," confessed pretty Hope, blushing in bewitching fashion
between gratification and embarrassment.  She looked at Avice in her
turn, and decided that she was not at all pretty.  But, oh, what
clothes!  What a dream of a hat!  What distracting ruffles and laces
peeping from between the sables!  What twinkling lights of diamond
brooches!  She paused for a moment to do obeisance before a vision of
herself clad in similar garments, then continued, with a smile, "I am so
glad to meet you!  It feels lonely to be absolutely without friends in
this great London, and so far we know no one at all."

"You are the musical one, aren't you?"  Avice asked curiously.  "You are
all geniuses, father says, and determined to make a name in the world.
Have you begun work?  What have you done so far?"

Hope smiled with pardonable satisfaction.

"Well, really, I think we have made a good start.  Theo has interviewed
one of the most influential editors in Fleet Street, and has been asked
to send MSS to his paper.  Madge has sent in her two show-pictures to
the Slade School, and is to begin regular work there at the half-term.
Meantime she is studying the different exhibitions and collections, and,
as she says, picking up `quite valuable hints' from old masters.  She is
so amusing!  She comes home every evening with absurd accounts of her
adventures.  Most people would find it rather dull spending a whole day
at the National Gallery, for instance, but Madge has the faculty of
finding amusement wherever she goes, and, even apart from the pictures,
has a dozen little histories and romances to recount."

"Y-es," assented Avice flatly.  She herself had little sense of humour,
and was by no means prepossessed by the plain, elf-like figure of her
youngest cousin Hope, on the contrary, was graceful and charming, and
had been already mentally adopted as the friend of the future.  "What
are _you_ doing?" she asked, with an interest which could not fail to be
flattering, and Hope moved her chair a trifle closer with an impulse of
girlish confidence.

"Oh, I am getting on so well!  I have had my first lesson in harmony,
and my master is so kind and encouraging.  He seems to think that I know
a great deal already, and his work is so interesting.  In the mornings I
study and practise, and in the afternoons I try to hear as much music as
I can.  I go to cheap seats at concerts and recitals, or to service at
the Abbey or Saint Paul's.  And fancy!  I have had a commission to write
a song for a professional--a real professional--a lady who sings at
concerts all over the country.  You may know her name--Miss Minnie
Caldecott."

Yes, Avice knew it quite well, and was duly impressed by the news.  She
passed it on to her mother, who was sitting silently criticising the
details of the room, while her husband talked to the older girls.  She
also appeared impressed, and expressed a desire to hear Hope perform one
of her own compositions.  Accordingly the piano was opened, and the girl
sang, not one song, but two, so that her relations might appreciate the
variety of her style: first the graceful and would-be classical setting
to the words which Miss Minnie had despised, and then the more taking,
if less high-class, "domestic" ditty.  Mrs Loftus had little of the
maternal instinct in her composition, but even her hard face softened as
Hope's fresh voice sang the sweet, simple words.  Uncle Loftus cried
"Bravo! bravo!" and Avice opened wide surprised eyes.  Mrs Loftus put up
her eyeglasses and examined the singer in critical fashion.  So young;
so pretty; so exceptionally gifted!  Really, the girl would be a useful
addition to an evening's entertainment or a house-party in the country.
She made a mental note that Hope was the "presentable" member of the
family, then rose to take her departure, murmuring society nothings as
she shook hands with Philippa, and checking Avice's farewell words with
a warning frown.

"Oh yes, we must arrange to meet again.  I will look over our list.
Don't make any plans to-day, dear; you are so overdone with
engagements."

She rustled to the door, followed by her obedient spouse, who was
allowed no time to speak, but instead delivered himself of a succession
of mysterious nods and smiles, which left the girls in a state of amused
mystification.  The explanation was, however, speedily forthcoming, for
ten minutes had not elapsed after the departure of the three when a
second bell sounded, and there stood Mr Loftus, erect and
self-confident, a man on his own account, with no overwhelming feminine
element to keep him in the background.

"Back again like a bad penny!" he cried jocosely.  "Just a word to say
to you, my dears--a word in your ears.  Put the ladies into the
carriage, and went on `to my club.'  He, he!  Useful things, clubs!
About that boy, now.  Don't approve of your spending capital--never
approved of that, you know--but pleased to help you all the same.
Edgar's children.  Yes!  Ought to give you a lift.  Fifteen--eh?  Young
to leave school, but can't be helped, I suppose.  Was speaking to Spence
the other day--most influential man--thinks he might take him in there.
Eh?  Insurance office--huge place--hundreds of clerks.  Spence is
manager.  Always taking in new fellows.  What do you think of that--eh?"

"Please sit down, uncle," said Philippa, greatly puzzled by the short,
jerky sentences; and, so far as she could judge of the proposal,
thinking about as badly of it as it was possible to do.  "It is very
kind of you to remember Barney, and we are most anxious to find him an
opening, but I don't know that insurance--and such a number of clerks,
too!  Would not a boy be likely to be lost among them, and drudge on
year after year without promotion?"

"In an ordinary way, yes; but this would be different.  I'm on the
Board, you see--on the Board--chairman last year.  Spence a personal
friend.  Could help him on if he stuck to his work.  Don't know the boy,
but if Spence took a fancy to him, there isn't a man in town who has
more in his power.  Peculiar man, Spence!  Difficult temper--autocratic;
but if he takes a fancy, there's nothing he won't do.  Barney, now--what
kind of a boy is Barney?"

"All kinds," replied Philippa, smiling.  She felt perfectly satisfied
that Mr Spence _would_ take a fancy to Barney, but whether that young
gentleman would "stick" to his work was another and a very different
question.

"He is a very handsome boy, Uncle Loftus, and full of fun and mischief.
He is clever, but I'm afraid not too industrious.  We hope that he will
settle down and realise that he has his way to make; but he is young, as
you say.  Mr Spence might not have patience with him."

"Oh, Spence would have nothing to do with him at first.  He would have
to obey the head of his department.  Send Stephen to me to talk it over.
Men understand business; girls, you know--pretty girls like you--think
only of bonnets.  That's it, Hope, isn't it?  Quite right, too.  Get a
becoming one, my dear, and come and see me in it when it is bought.  Now
I must be off.  Glad to have seen you all Pretty little nest at the top
of the tree!  Hope it may be prophetic.  Hard on my legs, though.  Stiff
in the knees.  Not so young as I was, my dears--not so young as I was."

He went toddling out of the door, smiling and chuckling to himself, and
as he descended the staircase the echo of disjointed phrases reached the
girls' ears: "Top of the tree!  Ha, ha!  Not so young as I was.
Prophetic--eh!  Hope it is prophetic."

"Poor little mannikin!" said Philippa pitifully.  "I feel like a mother
to him.  He daren't even be kind in his wife's presence, he is so kept
down.  How I do detest to see women snub their husbands and fathers!
When I marry I intend to look up to my husband and think him the finest
man in the world.  I'd rather be ruled by some one stronger and wiser
than myself than have it all my own way.  _My_ husband is going to be
master of his own house, or I'll know the reason why."

She was leaning over the banisters as she spoke, listening to the
departing footsteps of the "mannikin" as he trotted along the stone
entrance-hall; but as she finished speaking she drew back with a gasp of
dismay, for a cadaverous countenance was raised to hers from the landing
immediately beneath, and the tenant who had objected to Hope's
practising stood for a moment buttoning his coat, then slowly took his
way downstairs.  With one bound, as it seemed, the girls were back in
their own sitting-room, confronting each other with horrified, scarlet
faces.

"The Hermit!"

"The author creature who writes all day and sits up all night.  Do you
suppose he _heard_?"

"Heard!  My dear, he has ears; how could he help it?  If you _will_ air
your ideas as to your future husband on the landing of public buildings,
what can you expect?  Never mind.  Perhaps it's just as well that you
should understand each other from the first."

"Don't be vulgar, Madge.  That kind of joke is in the worst possible
taste."

"'Pologise!  My vulgar nature, I suppose.  _Didn't_ he stare?  He looks
shockingly ill.  I should say his nerves were overstrained, and he
wouldn't be too pleasant a companion.  I hope he won't call."

"People never call in London, child, unless they have some sort of
introduction or a mutual friend.  Besides, the porter told me that the
Hermit is quite a celebrity.  Why should he call upon us?  He writes
articles for the reviews, and long, learned books which no one can
understand.  I will never try to, for one.  I hope I may never, never
see his face again!" cried Philippa, in a sudden outburst of passion,
for it was really most trying to discover a strange man playing the part
of audience on the one occasion on which she had "let herself go."

Stephen called upon Mr Loftus as suggested, was taken to interview the
eccentric Mr Spence, and eventually decided to accept the offered
opening for Barney.  It was not exactly the position which he would have
chosen, but beggars cannot be choosers, and his uncle's influence,
backed by a personal introduction to the manager, seemed to hold out a
reasonable chance of promotion.  At the worst, the experience would give
the boy some knowledge of office life, and prevent his running wild over
London, getting into fresh mischief with every hour, as his custom was.

The half-term arrived, and with it Mr Barnard himself.  The lad drove up
in a hansom, and smiled patronisingly upon the sisters assembled to
welcome him in the bare entrance-hall.  He was nearly as tall as
Philippa herself, and very like her in appearance, though his sparkling
face lacked as yet her characteristic strength and earnestness of
expression.  So far, indeed, life had appeared one huge joke to Barney,
and his radiant spirits had suffered no eclipse.  He allowed himself to
be kissed and hugged by one sister after another, and was then escorted
up the stone staircase with all the honours of a returned hero, the
while his bright eyes roved from side to side in search of adventure.
He tested the banister, calculated its length from top to bottom, and
offered to race Madge down with a handicap of half a minute.  He pointed
to the bottles of fire-extinguishers ranged on each landing, and cried
genially, "We'll start an alarm of fire one night, and watch the
Johnnies rush out and smash 'em!"  Then seeing the words, "_Do not knock
unless absolutely necessary_," printed on a card nailed to the
"Hermit's" door, he lingered behind to give such a resounding
rat-tat-tat to the knocker as woke the echoes to life.  The girls
scuttled upstairs like so many frightened mice; but what was the good of
that?  They could not hide the noise of their footsteps, and once in the
precincts of their own flat they one and all fell upon Barney, covering
him with reproaches.  How could he?  How dared he?  It was rude,
ungentlemanly, unfair to his sisters.  He must never--no, never--do such
a thing again!

"Well, scarcely ever!" cried the beaming culprit.  "So this is the
rabbit-warren, is it!  What a rummy little show!  When will the feed be
ready?  I'm dying of hunger.  Hope you've slain a jolly big calf while
you were about it."

When the "calf" appeared, and the reunited family seated themselves
round the dining-room table, Barney wished to bet some one "a tanner"
that without leaving his chair he could ring the bell, poke the fire,
pull up the blind, and put a plate on the sideboard; and proceeding to
give practical illustration of his words, overbalanced himself, grazed
his head against a corner of the bookcase, and made an ugly stain upon
the wall-paper with the contents of his overturned plate.

"Really, Barney--really!  That's not at all amusing.  I don't feel in
the _least_ inclined to laugh," protested Philippa severely; but she
belied the truth of her words by smiling lovingly on the culprit
throughout the meal.  It was easy to see who was going to be master of
_that_ flat!



CHAPTER NINE.

AN ANONYMOUS LETTER.

Barney's infectious spirits were a godsend to his sisters, who, truth to
tell, were beginning to experience a reaction from their first elation,
and to realise how many weary rungs of the ladder had to be ascended
before success was gained.  Theo felt that she was condescending sadly
when she sent off her MS to the editor of a threepenny magazine; but
that gentleman evidently differed from her opinion, for he sent it back
again with admirable promptitude, with only a printed rejection by way
of criticism.  Hope received no answer from Miss Minnie Caldecott, and
Madge found herself ranked with other new-comers in the antique room at
the Slade School, and treated with patronising disdain by the older
pupils.  These latter worked "in the life," and had merry little lunches
together in the corridors, while she ate sandwiches in the dreary
cloak-room in the basement, and sadly reflected that she was not the
genius she had imagined.  Her talent lay in caricature and bright
original design, and pray how was she to have a chance of exhibiting
these gifts in a copy of the Venus de Milo?  The probabilities of
earning money seemed to retreat into the dim distance, and poor Philippa
realised as much, and sighed more and more heavily over the weekly
bills.

It was a relief to all to listen to Barney's merry voice, and to sun
themselves in his radiant presence.  The account of his luncheon in town
was a daily amusement; for he had strongly objected to coming home in
the middle of the day, and had finally been allowed the lordly sum of
eight-pence by the head of the exchequer.

"It is twice as much as your return fare in the Tube, so I calculate
that would be about the cost of your lunch here.  If you go to the right
places, Steve says, you can get quite a comfortable meal for
eight-pence--a plate of warm, nourishing soup, or a cup of chocolate and
sandwiches."

So spoke Philippa in her wisdom, but Barney was too much of a schoolboy
to condescend to warm and nourishing diet while sweetmeats were within
his reach.  On a chill and rainy day he would make a selection of three
custard-tarts and a bottle of lemonade, or a cold mince-pie, a slice of
plum-cake, and a glass of milk; after which exploit he would return home
in the best of health and spirits, to eat at one meal as much as his
four sisters put together.

As to his business experiences, Barney was curiously reticent, but he
pronounced the office "not bad sport," talked of the heads of
departments by their Christian names, alluded to the manager as "Old
Waxworks," and was so uncomplaining about the long confinement that
Philippa cherished the fondest hopes of his success.  The boy had
settled down far better than she had expected, and if he were a trifle
uproarious at home, it was not to be wondered at.  Before his arrival
Hope had played favourite classics for the amusement of her sisters
during the evening, but Master Barney had little patience with such a
tame performance.  He preferred to hear popular street ditties, coached
Hope in the airs in a loud, cracked treble, and insisted on a chorus, as
often as not throwing in a step-dance by way of improvement.  From time
to time one of his sisters would offer a mild protest: "Don't, Barney--
don't!"  "Barney, be quiet!"  Whereupon Barney would give a louder stamp
than before, or, by way of reply, elegantly wave a foot over the head of
the protester.

On one of these convivial occasions there sounded once again that
eloquent echo from below; but the performer was happily unconscious, and
his sisters, rolling meaning eyes, exerted every device to divert his
attention in another direction.  Well they knew that if Mr Barney once
grasped the nature of the message his energy would increase tenfold, and
he would dance until he dropped, if only to prove his free and
independent spirit!

Then one evening came the formal opening of the war.

At an unorthodox hour of the night the letter-box clanked, and an
undirected note fell into the box.  Philippa read it, and grew pale with
anger; Madge read it, and grew flaming red; Hope cried, "Oh! oh!" and
Theo tossed her head like a tragedy queen.  The note was short and to
the point; it bore neither address nor signature:

"If the occupants of flat Number 10 would have the consideration to
remember the existence of their neighbours, it would add greatly to the
comfort of the other dwellers in the mansions.  Such establishments
could not continue to exist if rowdiness and horseplay were permitted
without protest.  It is sincerely to be hoped that the matter may be
remedied before appeal be necessary to those in authority."

"Anonymous, too!  As if we did not know perfectly well who wrote it!"
Philippa cried, with curling lip.  "Cranky, sallow-faced wretch!  He
ought to live in a den, and not among ordinary flesh-and-blood mortals.
_I'll_ write an answer!  _I'll_ settle him!"

"He banged on the ceiling one day when I was practising," chimed in
Hope, with smouldering resentment.  "It isn't as if I were a schoolgirl
and couldn't play."

"Thinks we make too much noise, does he?" murmured Barney thoughtfully.
"Sweet innocent!  He doesn't know he is born.  Wait a bit until I have
really given my mind to the subject."

"No, no; none of that now, Barney!  If we live in a flat we are bound to
keep within bounds," interrupted Stephen anxiously.  He reviewed the
past fortnight, and was bound to acknowledge that the writer of the note
had some just ground for complaint.  "I am afraid we have been rather
noisy since you arrived.--But perhaps you can explain in your reply,
Phil, that there have been--er--special circumstances--er--not likely to
occur again.  Smooth him down.  Great mistake to quarrel with one's
neighbours."

Philippa looked her brother over, her head erect, her shoulders squared
in the defiant manner he had learned to know.  She made no reply in
words, but he understood full well what was meant by that look.  If he
were prepared to give in meekly, she was not; if he would not fight for
the rights of the family, she would do it for him; and it would not be
to-day nor to-morrow either that she would write an apology in response
to so audacious a complaint.

All that evening Philippa sat with pursed-up lips, composing and
revising an answer which should be at once haughty, sarcastic, and to
the point; and no sooner was Stephen safely out of the way next morning
than it was written, submitted to Theo for professional revision, and
safely deposited in the "Hermit's" letter-box:

"Miss Charrington is in receipt of an anonymous letter, the source of
which, however, she is at no lose to decide.  She agrees with the writer
that forbearance and consideration are necessary where several tenants
live beneath the same roof, but she would impress upon his notice that
such consideration should be mutual and not one-sided.  It is
unreasonable to expect a large and still young family"--["Still young!
he won't like that--it implies that he is so old himself!"]--"to live in
a condition of absolute inaction; and repeated and varied
complaints"--["That means the rapping on the ceiling"]--"are at least as
disagreeable to its members as their musical efforts appear to be to
their neighbour."

"That ought to settle him for some time to come," cried the girls
complacently; and when by chance they met the "Hermit" on the stairs
they stared at him beneath haughtily contracted brows, and held their
skirts well to the side, lest by chance they should brush against him as
they passed.

November was half-way through when a second letter arrived to introduce
a little excitement into the daily routine.  It bore the postmark of a
small Norfolk township, on the borders of which Mr Loftus had his
shooting-box.  It was addressed to Hope, and was of an import which
brought a flush of excitement to her cheeks.  Her "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of
surprise were aggravatingly uninstructive, and in the end Madge took
forcible possession of the sheet, and glancing over it rapidly, read out
the sentences in slow, sententious accents:

"My dear Hope,--As the address will show, we are staying in Norfolk, and
I write to ask if you would pay us a visit from Monday next to Tuesday
the 30th.  We expect to have several big shoots during the week, and as
you are distinctly the most presentable of the family, and your musical
abilities can be usefully employed in providing free amusement for my
guests, I think you will be quite a valuable addition to our
house-party.  You will find the 11:15 a convenient train, and we will
send to the station to meet you, if we have no better use for the
carriages."

"_Madge_!" cried Hope, aghast.

"What an extraordinary letter!" gasped Philippa, too much stunned by
surprise to protest.  "Give it to me.  Let me see."

Madge handed it over, with a shrug of the shoulders and a slow,
whimsical smile.

"Oh, well," she admitted, "that's not a literal rendering.  I read
between the lines and found the true meaning.  Aunt Loftus is all
politeness, of course.  `You don't look strong--would be better for a
change.  Can leave London more easily than your sisters.  Be sure to
bring plenty of music.'  But my reading is the right one, all the same.
Bah!  Sickening!  If you want to be mean, _be_ mean, and don't try to
wrap it up in the form of philanthropy.  _I_ might be as ill as _I_
liked, but I should never be asked.  Your face is your fortune, Hope.
Make the most of it before you grow old and ugly."

"I won't go.  I shall write and refuse," said Hope quickly; for she had
noticed a shadow fall across Theo's face, and divined the reason of its
presence.  Theo would not grudge her a pleasure, but from a professional
point of view, could not help wishing that the invitation had fallen to
her own share.  Life at a shooting-box would be a new experience, a
useful background for future stories; and the guests would supply the
young author with the opportunity of valuable character-study.
Unfortunately Theo's talent was not of value to a hostess, and she was
conscious that her chance of an invitation to her uncle's shooting-box
was not much greater than that of Madge herself.  For a moment she was
silent, battling against a host of conflicting emotions; then she said
bravely:

"You must go, Hope; it is your duty.  You may meet people who will take
an interest in you and be able to help you on, and we can't afford to
lose opportunities.  You can take your own compositions, and sing them
whenever you have a chance; it will be quite an advertisement in a small
way."

"It seems mean to pay a visit with an idea of making something out of
it," said Hope, with a sigh.  "That is the worst of being poor.  The
money question seems eternally hovering in the background, whatever one
may do.  I shall enjoy seeing Avice, of course; and if I can really help
Aunt Loftus, it will be comforting to feel that the advantage is mutual.
I wonder--What about clothes?"

"That is just what I have been thinking.  We can't afford anything new
just now, for the bills are to heavy," replied Philippa sadly.  "We can
only bestow our united treasures upon you, dear, and make you as smart
as possible.  You shall have mother's old lace for your evening-frock;
but be careful of it, for if you damage it you need never face me again!
It is going to trim my wedding-dress one of these days."

"When the lordly male arrives before whom she is to grovel in the dust!
You shall have my feather boa, too.  It will hide the shabby front of
your jacket;" and Theo sighed, for the feather boa was the pride of her
wardrobe, and represented months of saving and self-denial.  It was none
of your thin, lanky wisps, but a really handsome boa, with a bloom on
the feathers like that on a hot-house grape.  Theo was fastidious, and
would rather do without a thing altogether than accept a poor imitation.
She thought of her reduced appearance without the beloved fluffiness,
and heaved another sigh.

"Nothing to offer you, my dear.  My wardrobe is of so limited a
character that if I gave anything away I should have to stay in bed
until it was returned," cried Madge cheerfully in her turn.  "Accept my
blessing, and my earnest hope that the head of a great musical
publishing house may be among the guests, and will recognise in you the
coming genius of the day."

"So likely, isn't it?  That sort of thing happens only in novels.  The
house will probably be full of sporting men, who don't know one composer
from another, but who find it enlivening to listen to a `tune' in the
evening.  Oh, if Minnie Caldecott would only write!  I look out for that
letter every morning, but it never comes.  Do you think I might send a
little note to jog her memory?"

"Certainly I do.  I should think she was the sort of woman who needed a
good deal of jogging.  Say that you are anxious to know whether she
wishes to secure the song, as, if not, you will offer it elsewhere.
There is nothing like appearing confident and unperturbed.  I am sorry
you are going away, Hope, for I wanted you to sit for me as fair
Rosamond in the picture I have to show to get permission to draw in the
life-room.  I'll have to send in an old one, I suppose.  Look over these
for me, and tell me which you like best."

Hope turned over the sketches in the portfolio, smiling with sisterly
pleasure as she recognised one old favourite after another.  It seemed
incredible to her partiality that Madge should not have immediately
ranked as a genius among the students of the school, for surely there
was something peculiarly original in the treatment of these figures!

She held out a sheet towards her sisters, and cried eagerly, "There!
That is my choice.  What do you think of that?"

"Good--suggestive--full of atmosphere!" pronounced Theo in her most
professional manner; while Philippa put her head on one side, and in all
innocence of heart launched a bombshell into their midst.

"Wouldn't it make a good poster?  Doesn't it look exactly like some of
the posters you see upon the hoardings?"

It was seldom indeed that a speech of Philippa's could wound her
faithful friend and admirer, but this time the arrow went home, and
Madge's thin cheek flushed with displeasure.  She gathered together the
scattered sketches in silence, keeping her head rigorously turned aside,
while Hope made strenuous efforts to redeem the situation.

"Well, really, so it does!  They say poster-painting is quite an art
nowadays.  I hear it pays so well that many artists would be thankful to
take it up, if it were not that it requires a special talent.
Personally I hope it will be cultivated.  It would be so delightful to
see the old eyesores replaced by really artistic pictures."

In vain!  Madge remained silent, red, and angry.  Poster-painting may be
admirable in its way, but when a student dreams of becoming a female
Leighton or Alma Tadema, the alternative is not welcomed with
enthusiasm.  Philippa reflected sadly that another unfortunate remark
was scored against her; but Madge was of too happy a disposition to
harbour a grudge, and in half-an-hour's time the grievance was dismissed
from her mind, and she was once more her own sunny self.

When Barney returned home that evening he joined in the general chorus
of lament at Hope's departure, though his sorrow flowed from a somewhat
different source from that of his sisters.

"What a fag!" he cried.  "Now that old Hermit Johnny will think that we
are quiet because he complained.  I wish to goodness I had taken up the
flute; I would tootle all the evening for his amusement."  He sat for a
while gazing at the ceiling in deep reflection, then slapped his knee
ecstatically.  "There's a fellow in the office who belongs to the London
Scottish and has a bigpipe.  I say, wouldn't it make the Hermit sit up
if I borrowed it and practised reels!  McGregor wouldn't lend it,
though.  He is a stingy beast who will never do a fellow a good turn.  I
have a score against him!  Well, cheer up, Hope; I'll do my best to fill
your place while you're away.  I'll find some way of keeping our friend
alive, or I'm mistaken."

"Barney dear--Barney!" murmured Philippa softly.

Barney smiled at her with indulgent tenderness.  "Keep your hair on, old
lady!" he said encouragingly; and Philippa could only gasp and pant
beneath his bear-like hug, and declare that never--no, never--had she
met such an unmanageable, disrespectful, vulgar boy!



CHAPTER TEN.

THE SHANTY.

A week later Hope travelled down to Norfolk with the united fineries of
the family in her box, a mind stored with good advice from the stock of
worldly wisdom of her sisters, and a heart filled with mingled
expectation and foreboding.  It was the first time in her life that she
had paid a visit on her own account, and she realised, with a shock of
surprise, what a child she remained in spite of her three-and-twenty
years, and how unlimited was her inexperience!  Now that she was really
on her way and it was too late to turn back, she sat aghast at her
temerity in daring to face a houseful of strangers, and trembled at the
ordeal of appearing before them.  She would arrive at the station at
half-past four; after that would follow a drive of, say, half-an-hour.
If she arrived at the house at five o'clock, would tea be over, or only
in progress?  Would the men have returned from their day's sport?  Would
many guests be present to whom she must be introduced, and who would all
want to know if she were tired, if the train had been punctual, if she
had had a comfortable journey?  Would there be any girls in the party
besides herself?  And if so, would they be very superior and
fashionable!  Would Avice be friendly and affectionate, or too much
taken up with her duties to waste time on insignificant Hope
Charrington!  All these and a thousand other questions occupied Hope's
busy brain till she reached the end of her journey.

Insignificant Hope Charrington looked, if the truth were told, anything
but insignificant as she took her place in the high dogcart that was
waiting at the station.  As she drove through the little country town,
more than one admiring glance was cast upon the pretty young lady whose
golden hair and pink-and-white complexion showed to such advantage
against the severe black of her attire.  Tired shop assistants gazed at
her through the shop windows, and sighed with envy as they looked.  It
must be so nice to be a lady and have nothing to do but enjoy one's
self, and look pretty, and never know an anxious thought all one's days?
That lovely young lady, for instance, was going to stay at The Shanty,
where there was already a houseful of guests: handsome men ready to fall
in love at a moment's notice; girls over whom the new-comer would reign
as queen!  Her luggage was no doubt following in the cart: box upon box
of fineries; different dresses for every day in the week; jewel-cases
full of glittering gems!

So much for imagination, while in reality poor Hope was clenching her
hands to keep from trembling, hoping with all her might that the one
black silk evening-dress would not be a mass of creases when unpacked;
wondering if it were possible that where she was going she would meet a
friend who might be able to help her to earn some money--a little money
to put towards those terrible household expenses.

Ten minutes' drive and they had loft the town behind them; another ten
minutes and the lodge gates of The Shanty came in sight; three minutes
more and Hope was stepping inside an entrance-hall lined with fine old
tapestries, and stretching the whole length of the house.  The sound of
voices came to her ear, but she could not locate them until she had
walked half-way down the hall.  Then a deep recess came in view on the
right-hand side--a recess as big as an ordinary room--wherein a dozen
people sat round a blazing fire, drinking tea with leisurely enjoyment.
At sight of the new-comer there was a general pause in the conversation.
Mrs Loftus rustled forward to greet her; Avice smiled and extended a
languid hand; and Uncle Loftus murmured jocosely, "Hope on, Hope ever!
So here you are, my dear--eh!  Glad to see you.  Have a cup of tea!"

"Sit here, Hope.  Let me introduce you," said her aunt; and Hope
listened confusedly to a long list of names, bowed automatically from
time to time, then thankfully subsided into a seat in a corner.  There
were two ladies present besides her aunt and cousin--one elderly and
prosaic matron, and one young and sparkling brunette, who was busily
occupied flirting with three men at the same time, and seemed capable of
adding indefinitely to their number.  For the rest, there were men in
shooting-coats and leather gaiters--old men, middle-aged men, young men,
all bronzed and healthy, and remarkably well satisfied with themselves
and their day's sport.

Hope studied them shyly as she nibbled at her scone.  The buzz of
conversation had begun again by this time, and as her presence was
apparently forgotten, she was at leisure to pursue her investigations.
The stout, grey man was the husband of the prosaic lady.  The merry
little man with the round bald head and the short legs was evidently an
intimate of the family, for he threw fresh logs on the fire, and even
dared to chaff Mrs Loftus herself.  The fair youth with the eyeglass was
only pretending to be captivated by Miss Brunette; the older man with
the fair hair was seriously smitten; the tall, distinguished-looking
personage with the haughty eyelids and drooping moustache had the air of
being bored by everything and every one.  Hope looked at him critically,
with a view to describing him to Theo.  "He would make a splendid hero.
Dark features, sharply cut; two horizontal lines in his forehead; lazy
eyes that give a flash now and then, and show that he could be active
enough if he chose; a square chin; and such great, wide shoulders.  He
looks quite different from the other men; and yet I don't know why he
should."

She looked him critically up and down, and her eyes, travelling upwards
again, found his studying her in return.  It might have been an
embarrassing discovery, but before it had time to become so the man who
was different from other men had strolled across the hall, taken
possession of the seat by her side, and was inquiring if she felt tired
after her journey, in a tone which seemed to imply that he took not the
faintest possible interest in her reply.

"A little tired," said Hope prosaically, conscious that if Madge had
been in her place she would have been ready with a vivacious retort
which would have broken the ice of formality.  She felt quite unable to
frame such a retort.  Instead she said simply, "I am not particularly
fond of railway travelling, and I dislike changes.  I never feel that I
can settle down comfortably when there is a change before me.  Even if
it is two hours ahead, I cannot determine to undo a rug and make myself
comfortable."

"No?" said Mr Merrilies; and once again his voice sounded so flat and
uninterested that she wished she had not been so explicit in setting
forth her feelings.  She allowed herself to be helped to a second cup of
tea, then relapsed into silence, waiting patiently for a fresh lead.
The other men were discussing the day's sport, and presently her
companion must needs report on "the bag" in his turn.

"We have been over the Tansy Woods to-day, seven of us, and the bag was
two hundred and fifteen pheasants, a brace of partridges, thirty hares,
and ninety-five rabbits.  Pretty fair, isn't it?"

"I don't know," said Hope simply.  "I know nothing about shooting.
Neither my father nor brother was a sportsman, so I cannot judge what is
bad or good.  It seems a tremendous number."

She looked so pretty and so winsome as she glanced at him with her
childlike eyes that his face relaxed from its set lines, and he smiled
in involuntary friendliness.

"A few years ago it would have been a record day, a day to put in the
papers, but now it is nothing at all extraordinary.  In shooting, as in
everything else, the standard has risen, and we are less easily
satisfied.  It is an age of great expectations; don't you think so?"

"I don't know," said Hope again; but her brow clouded, and presently she
asked in an anxious little voice, "Do you really think the standard has
risen in everything!  Would it be more difficult to do well in--er--in
any profession, for instance, than it was a dozen years ago!  Would you
have to be much cleverer?"

"Oh dear, yes! certainly you would.  It is a different thing altogether.
A dozen years ago people were easily pleased, and ready to make
allowances, but nothing short of perfection satisfies us nowadays.  The
days of the amateur are past; even professionals need constant study to
maintain their high standard."

"Y-es," assented Hope faintly.  She thought of her poor little songs, of
Theo's "worrying" story, and Madge's poster-like pictures, and felt a
sinking of heart that took away her appetite for scones and plum-cake.
She and her sisters had thought themselves geniuses at dear little
Leabourne, but three months' experience of London had brought a bitter
disillusionment.  She stared at the ground, and Mr Merrilies in his turn
stared at her charming profile, and sighed to think that the prettiest
girls were generally the most stupid.  He was unfeignedly relieved when
Avice came forward to take her cousin upstairs to dress for dinner.

The room which had been set apart for Hope was one of the smallest and
least handsomely furnished in the house, as became the abode of a poor
relation; but it looked attractive enough, all the same, with a bright
little fire burning in the grate and the curtains drawn cosily over the
windows.  Hope's box had already been unpacked, and as there could be no
question of "What will you wear for dinner?" there lay the black silk on
the bed, solid and sober.  Avice glanced at it carelessly.

"Oh yes, that will do very well.  We shall be quite alone," she said,
with a nod; then leant against the mantelpiece and smiled at her cousin
with languid friendliness.  She gave the impression of wishing to be
really kind, but of lacking the energy to put her intention into effect;
as a matter of fact, the girl was too anaemic to feel keen interest in
anything or anybody.  "Sure you have all you want?  If you require
anything just ring, and it will be brought to you at once.  You needn't
be downstairs for an hour and a half.  There are some books over there
if you would like to read."

"Couldn't you stay and talk to me?" asked Hope shyly; but Avice thought
not--thought she had better lie down--thought there would be plenty of
time to talk another day, and glided listlessly away, leaving the
new-comer chilled and disappointed.

A little reading; a home letter written with a "detaily" description of
journey, arrival, and first impressions; a careful if simple toilet,
made short work of the hour and a half's waiting, and Hope stopped shyly
out of her room to find her way along the corridor.  Half-way down a
door creaked, a pair of dark eyes peered cautiously forth, followed by
the whole of a curly dark head, and Miss Brunette's voice accosted her
with the ease and geniality of an old acquaintance.

"There you are!  I have been looking out for you for an age!  Do come
and lace up my dress, there's a kind creature!  I have rung the bell
three times over, but I suppose it is broken, as nobody has appeared.  I
didn't bring a maid with me this time; did you?"

"I?  A maid!  I never possessed such a thing in my life," cried Hope,
laughing; at which Miss Brunette stared, looked her critically up and
down, and affected to frown.

"Really?  But then it doesn't matter to you.  You are one of those
exasperating people who can't help looking nice, whatever they do.  I
_did_ bless you when you walked in this afternoon!  If there is one
thing that makes me wild, it is to have a better-looking girl than
myself staying in a house.  I have had it all my own way here so far,
for Avice is too lazy to count, but now I shall have to play second
fiddle.  Men are so silly about pretty faces.  Do you think I am pretty?
Honestly?  Yes, most people do; but, to tell you a dead secret, it is
all a mistake.  I am really barely good-looking, but I give an
impression of prettiness by my vivacity and strict attention to
business."

Hope laughed, and the two girls chattered gaily together over the
belated toilet.  When it was finished Truda Bennett slid her hand
through Hope's arm in friendly confidence.

"You are a dear," she said.  "I like you.  When you came in I thought
you were bound to be slow and proper.  I always mistrust fair girls with
blue eyes.  Nine times out of ten they are deadly uninteresting; but I
can see you are an exception.  I will try not to be jealous of you, if
you will promise not to flirt with Ralph Merrilies.  I'm especially
interested in him; so play fair, won't you?  You may have all the
others."

"How wholesale of you!  Are you sure you mean it?  From what I have
seen, I should imagine you would hardly be satisfied with one."

In dealing with such a very outspoken young lady, it seemed best to
reply in the same strain, but Hope marvelled inwardly at the
eccentricities of human nature.  Imagine--just imagine--being
"interested" in somebody, and confiding the fact to a stranger the very
first time one spoke to her!  It would be difficult enough to speak of
it even to Theo, her lifelong friend and companion; but to a stranger--
it was incredible!  She studied the girl's dark face with curious eyes
as they walked downstairs, while the men gathered round the fireplace
below, watched them as they approached, and admired the pretty picture.
They made a charming contrast--the sparkling brunette in her amber
draperies, and the tall figure in the black dress, with the sweet
pink-and-white face.

Directly after dinner Mrs Loftus sent Hope to the piano, and the girl
sat down unaffectedly, and played several pieces in succession, to the
complete satisfaction of the company, who apparently found it much more
agreeable to discourse to music than without it.  Mr Merrilies, indeed,
did stroll across the room, to stand by her side and say "Thank you" at
the conclusion, as if he meant what he said; but from a general point of
view the performance was a failure, and Mrs Loftus felt disappointed.
Hope had been invited with the especial intent of providing amusement
for her guests, and if she failed to do so there was really no reason
for her presence.

"Sing something to us, Hope," said Mrs Loftus imperiously.  "Sing some
of your own songs.--Miss Charrington has composed some charming little
things," she explained to the company at large, who murmured politely in
response.

"Compose?  How wonderful of you!  How do you manage to do it?" queried
Truda eagerly, while the fair youth pulled his moustache and looked at
Hope as if she were a wild animal escaped from the Zoo, and Uncle Loftus
began humming what he fondly supposed to be the air of "The Song of
Sleep" to his companion on the sofa.

Plainly, the best thing to do was to begin at once before the situation
grew more embarrassing, so Hope broke into the accompaniment of song
number one, a simple but taking little production which had been
published two years before.  It was greeted with applause, so
spontaneous and genuine that it could not fail to be inspiriting.  Hope
forgot to be nervous, and sang "Pack Clouds Away" in her best style,
sweetly, smoothly, and with that distinctness of enunciation which is so
rare a charm.  More applause followed, more exclamations of
appreciation, more queries as to how she did it, and then Uncle Loftus
must needs begin humming again, and put in a request for "The sleepy
one, you know--the one you wrote to order.  That is the gem of the
collection, in my opinion.  We should like to hear the sleepy one, my
dear."

Now, as it happened, Hope was by no means anxious to grant this request,
for the idea which Miss Caldecott had so slightly suggested had appealed
very strongly to her sensitive nature, and she had put into it her best
work, with the hope that when listening to it its hearers might feel
something of the same thrill, the same earnestness, which she had
experienced in its composition.  She had never been able to go through
it unmoved, and it seemed almost sacrilege to sing it in this room full
of noisy strangers, who would miss its point, and at best pronounce it
"sweetly pretty."  She tried to protest, to declare that she had already
monopolised the piano too long, but it was of no avail.  The more she
hung back, the more eager became her audience.  "The sooner begun, the
sooner it's done," she said to herself, with a sigh of resignation, and
began to sing forthwith.

Theo had clothed the idea in simple and touching words, and Hope had
seconded her with something akin to inspiration; the last few lines,
with their subtle change of key, containing an effect at once charming
and pathetic.  "So to us all comes the end of the day," Bang Hope
softly--so softly that the crackle of the firewood sounded loudly in the
ears of the listeners:

  "So to us all comes the end of the day.
  When our playmates are lost, and our toys cast away;
  Tired children of earth, when the shadows fall deep,
  The Father in Heaven will grant to us--sleep!"

The pause before the last word gave to it an added emphasis, and Hope
let her hands fall on her lap with a sigh of pent-up emotion.  Her eyes
were bright with unshed tears; but there were no signs of emotion in the
audience.

"How sweetly pretty!" cried Truda in the very accents which the singer
had heard in imagination.

"I say!  Quite touching, isn't it?" said the youth with the fair
moustache.

There was a babel of "Thanks--thanks awfully!" and Aunt Loftus said
graciously, "You must be tired, my dear.  Come and sit down.  We must
really give you a rest."

For five minutes afterwards Hope was the centre of an admiring throng,
and tasted the bitter-sweet of an applause which failed to appreciate
the true merit of her work.  It was pleasant enough, so far as it went,
but it left a disappointed ache behind, and she was not sorry when Truda
asserted her rights, and by means of a trick with a lead pencil, a piece
of paper, and a hand-glass succeeded once more in gathering the company
round herself.

Hope remained on the outside of the circle, a little tired after her
exertions, and thankful for a moment's breathing-space.  As she stood
she became conscious of a steady gaze levelled upon her from the other
end of the room.  Mr Merrilies had not taken up a position with the
other men, but was leaning against the mantelpiece, studying her face
with a grave, intent questioning.  For a moment each looked deep into
the other's eyes; the rest of the figures in the room seemed to fade
away, and these two saw each other as they really were, shorn of all the
pretence and artificiality of society.

"It is true," he said to himself: "her mind is as lovely as her face.
She could not have composed that song--she could not have sung it as she
did--if she were not everything that is sweet and good.  _Hope_!  I
wonder--I wonder if--at last--"

He raised his arm from the mantelpiece and walked forward to join the
group by the table, while Hope shrank still farther into the shadow.
Her cheeks flushed, her heart beat with an unaccustomed quickening.  "I
believe," she said to herself--"I believe he understood!"



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

NEW FRIENDSHIPS.

Three days passed, and Hope thoroughly enjoyed the novel experience of
life in a crowded and constantly changing household.  Certain of the
guests were fixtures, among whom were numbered Truda Bennett, Mr
Merrilies, and the fair and facetious Reggie Blake; but for the rest,
every day saw fresh arrivals, fresh departures, all involving a certain
amount of extra work to the busy servants.  Hope could not help
realising the truth of Madge's shrewd surmise that she had been asked to
make herself of use, for her aunt did not foil to claim her services a
dozen times a day.  She arranged the flowers, decorated the
dinner-table, answered business letters, made up and unpacked parcels,
and, in short, discharged all the little duties which ordinarily fall
upon the daughter of the house.

The work kept her more or less separate from the rest of the party, and
there were occasions when she listened longingly to the bursts of
laughter which sounded from the hall or from the billiard-room when on a
wet day the resourceful Truda organised a billiard tournament for the
entertainment of the men.  But for the most part she was delighted to be
of use, to watch her aunt's hard manner gradually soften into something
closely approaching affection, and to receive from time to time one of
her cousin's rare caresses.  Avice never offered to take any part in the
work, but the listless eyes noted more than was imagined; and looking
back over the day's history, Hope often realised that it was to a quiet
word or suggestion from Avice's lips that she owed what little pleasure
came her way.

With Mr Merrilies she had few opportunities of conversation, for he was
out shooting all day long; and in the evening Truda claimed him for her
own, and allowed him no chance of leaving her side.  She had dozens of
what she called "parlour tricks," and every evening produced some new
device to attract attention.  Now it was a ring slung on a piece of
string, which must be separated without undoing the knot; now a feat of
balancing; now some marvellous thought-reading, carefully prearranged
with a confederate.  She was a young person whom it was impossible to
ignore, who systematically made herself the centre of attraction,
laughing, talking at the pitch of her voice, and gesticulating with her
little ringed hands.  Hope felt a curious fascination in watching Mr
Merrilies' expression as he passively played the part of assistant, and
asked herself curiously if he returned Truda's feeling of "especial
interest".  Impossible to say.  His inscrutable face was no index to his
feelings, but if he showed no special pleasure in being thus singled
out, he at least made no effort to escape it.  In spite of the warning
which she had received, Hope could not help feeling more interest in
this man than in any other member of the party; and she realised, with a
little thrill of satisfaction, that the interest was mutual.  If she
took advantage of an unobserved moment to study him, he lost no
opportunity of watching her in return, and the knowledge that his dark
eyes were fixed on her as she talked, and sang, and moved about the room
filled her with a new and delightful self-consciousness.

Now, Hope was a warm-hearted girl, and, as was only natural, had given
many a thought to the lover of the future; but it never occurred to her
that there was any danger in the interest which she felt in Ralph
Merrilies, or in her intense consciousness of his presence.  She deluded
herself into the belief that she was less cordially disposed to him than
to any other member of the party, for she had been warned that another
girl considered him her individual property, and was by no means willing
to share his attentions.  So it came to pass that she kept quietly in
the background, and had little or nothing to say to Truda's cavalier.

On the third evening of Hope's stay at The Shanty the sportsmen came
home unusually tired, and for once Truda's after-dinner tricks failed to
entertain.  The men had no inclination to exert their minds or their
muscles either, and turning to Hope, begged her for "a tune."

"The worst of Miss Charrington," sighed Reggie Blake regretfully, "is
that she is so painfully classical and superior.  She never condescends
to play a piece whose composer hasn't seven syllables to his name and a
sneeze in the middle.  They are very clever and all that sort of thing,
don't you know, but I always wonder when the tune is going to begin.
Squeak, squeak! in the treble; bang, bang! in the bass; a rolling like
heavy machinery, and all sorts of jerks and breaks when you are least
expecting them: that is what you call a `Gigue.'  A bit of a scale
repeated over and over again like the tune the old cow died of: that is
a `Fugue.'  I've a musical sister at home, so I know.  Now, I don't
pretend to be classical; I like a good, rousing air--something that
makes you want to stamp your feet and beat time with your head.  Look at
Miss Charrington laughing at me!  I suppose as a matter of fact you
don't _know_ any airs, Miss Charrington?"

"I have a schoolboy brother," answered Hope demurely.  She wheeled round
on the music-stool and looked at him with dancing eyes; and when Hope
looked mischievous, it was something very well worth seeing in those
days of young womanhood.  "I blush to say," she said slowly--though as a
matter of fact she did not blush at all, but looked particularly beaming
and complacent--"I blush to say that there is not a single tune at
present performed upon the barrel-organs with which I am not intimately
acquainted.  I shall be happy to accompany you, and to coach you in the
words, whenever you feel inclined to perform."

"Hurrah!  Good business!  Will you really!" cried Reggie, jumping to his
feet and hurrying across to the piano, abeam with delight.  "Can you
manage `Mrs 'Enry 'Awkins'?  That is my stock song, and I sing it
wherever I go.--Mrs Loftus, you are dying to hear me sing `Mrs 'Enry
'Awkins'?  I know you are.--Let's tune up at once, Miss Charrington; and
a chorus, mind--a rousing old chorus!"

Every one was laughing, and looking of a sudden bright and animated; no
one was sleepy any longer.  There was a secondary accompaniment of
chuckles as Reggie screwed up his thin, ugly face into the most comical
of grimaces and half-sang, half-recited the celebrated coster love-song.
Hope's spirited playing made him sing his best, and her clear voice
started the chorus with such spirit that presently every one was taking
part, tentatively at first, then with quickly growing ardour, until at
last the volume of sound became overpowering.  Uncle Loftus bellowed
himself hoarse in his corner, and even his wife's lips moved in
sympathetic echo.  At the conclusion of the song there was an outburst
of applause and laughter which made the performer beside himself with
delight.

"To think," he cried, "that we have wasted our time over Wagner and
Grieg, and all those foreign Johnnies, when we might have had music like
this!  I'll sing every night; and we must work up some more choruses.
Mrs Loftus, have you any Gilbert and Sullivan operas in the house?
Couldn't we have a try at them?"

Why not, indeed?  No sooner said than done.  Out came the operas from
the music cabinet, and as half-a-dozen voices urged the claims of
half-a-dozen favourites, there was plainly nothing to be done but take
each in turn.  The chorus was by way of being a scratch combination--one
treble; one alto, who had to accompany as well as sing, and also to put
in all the high notes, because the treble declared that she could not
possibly "go" above F; two tenors, by no means as correct as they might
have been; and an army of heavy, dragging bass--but what was lacking in
ability was made up by fervour.

Mr Merrilies did not sing, but he volunteered to turn over the pages,
and seating himself by Hope's side, watched her face for the signal
which was to guide his inexperience.  At first this signal was a quick
glance at his face, but as time went on this was replaced by a nod of
the head or an upward jerk of the hand--for there was something in the
expression of those watchful eyes which was embarrassing to meet at
close quarters.  They talked quietly together between the choruses,
while the different parts were wrangling loudly, each laying the blame
upon the other, and calling attention to his own superior performance:
and it was not in girl nature to be ignorant of the fact that Ralph
seemed far less concerned about the music than her own comfort.  The
lamp was moved because it dazzled her eyes; the book was raised to a
more convenient angle; a door was closed to avoid a draught; and all in
a quiet, unobtrusive manner that made the attention doubly acceptable.
Members of large families are not accustomed to have their wishes
gratified almost before they are realised, and are all the more ready to
appreciate such consideration from a stranger.

Hope played, and sang, and instructed--gave leads, banged insistently
upon notes which the singers rendered flat instead of sharp, and even
finished a tenor solo which had hopelessly come to grief--until hand and
voice and head alike ached with fatigue; but still the insatiable chorus
clamoured for more, remembering another and another favourite which it
would be a sin to leave untried.

"You are tired," said a low voice in her ear.  "You shall not play any
longer;" and before she had time to protest, Ralph Merrilies had risen
from his seat and closed the book with a determined hand.  "It is nearly
eleven o'clock.  Do you realise how long you have kept Miss Charrington?
She has surely earned a rest.  Do come and sit down, Miss Charrington;
your back must need support."

"Better come upstairs with me, Hope.  I am just going," said Avice,
rising from the sofa and slipping her hand through her cousin's arm.
The singers, contrite at their own lack of consideration, busied
themselves putting away the music, and gathered into little groups round
the piano, so that Mr Merrilies and the two girls were alone in their
corner, and their conversation was not overheard.  "I am afraid we have
been very selfish," he said, looking at Hope's tired face; "but the
music has been such a pleasure that we have gone on and on without
noticing the time, and Miss Charrington was too good-natured to remind
us that she was growing tired."

"Hope never thinks of herself," said Avice quietly; and the colour
flamed into Hope's white cheeks and her blue eyes brightened with
pleasure at this unexpected tribute.  Avice--Avice the languid, the
undemonstrative--to praise her aloud, and in company!  She was too much
taken aback to protest in the conventional way, but she noticed that Mr
Merrilies looked even more pleased than herself.  He smiled at Avice
with a new interest in his eyes, and said quickly:

"In that case it is our duty to look after her.  I should suggest fresh
air in the first place.  How is it that she never joins us at our
out-of-door luncheons?"

"She stays at home to help mother; but she shall come to-morrow.  I will
bring her," replied Avice in a voice that for once was not languid, but
quite brisk and decided.  Wonders would never cease!  Could it be that
friendship for a girl of her own age was about to rouse the listless
Avice to an active interest in the life which was going on around her!



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A SHOOTING LUNCHEON.

It was with the exultation of a child on a holiday that Hope prepared to
start for the picnic lunch the next day.  Hitherto she had watched the
departure of the other ladies with a spasm of not unnatural envy, but
now she was going herself.  The day was bright and mild, and it was so
pleasant to drive in the open behind Pipeclay, the little white pony
which was Avice's special favourite.  Truda had driven on ahead with the
luncheon-baskets, accompanied by a young married lady who was the latest
addition to the house-party, so the two cousins were alone, and could
talk together without fear of interruption.  Hope was all brightness and
animation, for she was experiencing at that moment a mysterious
lightness of heart which made her see everything through rose-coloured
spectacles.  She admired everything--the grey stretches of the
landscape, the outline of the trees against the skies, the tumble-down
cottages by the roadside--while Avice listened to her animated talk with
a wistful smile on her face.

"You enjoy everything, Hope.  How do you manage it?  I wish I knew your
secret, for to me it all seems so stale and uninteresting.  I do not
believe there is anything in the world which would make me so bright and
happy as you seem this morning."

"Nothing?"

"No--nothing.  I enjoy some things more than others, of course; but,
honestly, for me the happiest moment of the day is when I lie down in
bed and feel that for eight hours at least I need do nothing but rest."

"Poor darling!" cried Hope sympathetically--"poor darling!  That is a
matter of health, of course.  But, Avice, don't you think that perhaps
if you--"

"Yes; if I what?"

Hope knitted her brows and looked distressed and nervous.

"Oh, I don't want to preach, but perhaps if you had something to do--if
you did not think quite so much of--I mean to say that if one is feeling
weak and listless, and has nothing to do, one goes on feeling worse and
worse.  But if one gets interested--"

"Yes, I know what you mean; but how is one to get interested?  That is
the question.  I am not clever like you, and have no hobbies to occupy
my mind, and I get so bored with myself.  Mother won't let me help her.
She thinks I am too delicate; and, apart from that, she is quick and I
am slow, and it would fidget her to see me droning through what she
could do in half the time.  It is all very well to say, `Have an
interest.'  Everything that seems new and exciting to you here is stale
to me.  I am sick to death of living in public as we do, entertaining
one set of visitors after another, who all say the same things and amuse
themselves in the same way.  I am not strong enough to go out `slumming'
or visiting hospitals, as some girls do.  Where would _you_ find your
interest if you were in my place, Hope?"

"I'd find it somewhere," said Hope sturdily.  "You have plenty of money
and plenty of time, and there must be a hundred ways of putting them to
account.  I--I think I would try to help girls who are alone in the
world and struggling to make their living.  We are all together, and
have enough money to keep us from actual want, but I can imagine how
_awful_ it must be for girls who are all alone, with no one to help them
if they fall ill; whose lives are one long, colourless struggle, with
never a ray of brightness or pleasure from Monday morning until Saturday
night.  Could you not think of some way of helping them?  What could you
do?  I know; I have it!  There is that sweet little lodge with no one
living in it but old George and his wife, and she was lamenting to me
only yesterday that her daughters were married, and there were no young
folks left in the house.  Why should you not furnish two rooms upstairs,
and invite poor shop assistants and girl-clerks to come down for their
holidays, two at a time, so that they would be companions for each
other?  It would be so easy to manage, for you need not think of
expense; and Mrs Moss would wait upon them, while you provided their
amusements.  You could go round with Pipeclay and take them out for
drives; you could lend them books and papers, and have them up to the
house to tea.  They would confide their joys and troubles to you, and
tell you about their `friends,' and write letters to you when they went
home.  When they married, you could help to provide the trousseaux.  And
when the first little girls were born they would be called after you,
and you would knit their socks.  They would be brought up to love you
because you had been kind to their mothers, and it would be the dream of
their lives to be asked down to see all the places of which they had
heard so much.  In a dozen homes all over the country people would be
blessing you, and looking upon you as the good fairy who had brought
them health and happiness.  Oh Avice, you lucky girl!  What would I give
to have such a chance?  I would begin to-morrow--to-day--this very
afternoon!"

"Well," said Avice reflectively--"well!"  It was not in her nature to be
enthusiastic like her cousin, but she smiled as if the idea found favour
in her sight, and her dull eyes brightened.  "It _does_ sound nice.  I
suppose I could do it if I liked.  Mother wouldn't mind, and Mrs Moss
would be delighted.  She is one of those women who are never so happy as
when they are nursing some one; and she would coddle the girls from
morning till night, and give them beaten-up eggs and black-currant Jelly
for their throats, and her celebrated cough mixture made out of nine
`ingrediencies'!  I really will think about it, Hope.  I believe it
would be interesting.  Would you help me to furnish the rooms and make
them pretty and artistic?"

"Rather!  I adore buying things--when some one else has to pay.  We
would have one room blue, and one pink, with white paint and dear little
white beds, and bookcases full of nice books, and comfy wicker chairs by
the window, where the girls could sit and read, and rest their poor,
tired backs.  And I would be your town agent, and look out for likely
subjects.  If I were in a shop and saw a poor, anaemic-looking girl, I
could find out her circumstances from the manager or head of the
department; and if she had no one to look after her, and was living in
the shop, or in poky little

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