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howyoursense of hearing could have helped
you much,” replied Clare, gravely.
“Nay, my dear, but I heard him; and never
did I hear a man runonso.. Why, he was like
a champagne-bottle with the cork out, exuber-
ant with life and spirit. A silent man, too, in
a general way, though so full.of. sense. AmI
to believe that a miracle of that kind has been
worked without adivinity? Of course you have
promised to marry him?’
-**Indeed, Nannie, I have done nothing of the
kind.” _ . ,
**Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
you cruel creature! .That is, I mean,” added the
old lady, her voice changing suddenly from
indignation to tenderness, ‘if yqu don’t promise
to marry him you will break his heart and mine
too. Oh, Clare, Clare! how can you beso blind
as not to see howhe loves you? And how good
and kind and generous he is, and how. worthy
of the best of wives? My dear, my darling,”
and thelittle woman actually plumped down on
her knees, with Fluff on her shoulders, ‘*I en-
treat you for my sake to make him a happy
man!” 7. :
“My dear Nannie,” replied Clare, embracing
her affectionately, ‘‘that is, above all things,
what I wish todo. But he has asked.what is
not good for himself, and therefore I have de-
clined to give it him. That he is good and
kind and generous, and worthy of the best of
wives, is the very reason why he should not
possess the worst of them.” :
“The worst of them—meaning yourself!” put
in Miss Darrell, contemptuously. :
“Meaning myself,” said Clare, gravely. <‘If
I was not myself—that is, if I stood in the posi-
tion of a stranger to you, instead of a spoiled
child and favorite—you would see the matter in
a just light. Supposing you were this man’s
mother, Nannie, and he had fallen in love with
some girl who had known him for years, had
lived under the same roof with him, had had
every opportunity of estimating him at his true
worth, and yet who had never dreamed of loving
him--nay, who had set her heart on some one
else, the very opposite of him, a man base and
dishonorable, to whom, despite advice and
warning, she had clung to the very_last, even
after his baseness had been proved—for that is
the fact, Nannie—who had not succeeded in
tearing him from her heart-till he had wounded
her self-love past all ‘healing by marrying an-
other—would you wish your son to marry a girl
of thiskind? Tell me ¢hat.”. She spoke with
marvelous force and vigor, and a scorn of her
own self that was most pitiful and painful to
witness. .
“I don’t quite recognize the original of the
portrait you have painted,” returned the ol
lady, with quiet tenderness, ‘‘It seems to me
to be too much in shadow. But I would cer-
tainly wish ”—and here she. placed her hands on
each side of the girl’s face, a3 though to form a
frame for it—‘‘my son to marry a girl of. this
kind.” :
“No, Nannie, no; not'if he was your son.”
“I love Herbert as though he were so, my
darling, and next to your own dear self.”
«That is the point, Nannie; your love forme
disturbs your judgment as regards his welfare.
You are thinking of what is best for me; I ain
thinking of whatis best for him. A man so
good and noble, so honest and pure, deserves a
better wife.than I can make him.” .
“Tut, tut, my dear. You must forgive an
old woman who knows the world for speaking
with some plainness, but that’s all rubbish. No
man isa paragon, or anything like it. Herbert
Newton—bless the lad!—is as good and pure as
the best of them, no doubt; but, my dear girl,
you may take my word for it, he’s no angel—is
he Flaff?” :
Disturbed by this appeal, or by the caress
with which it was accompanied, Fluff uttered a
feeble whine of remonstrance. . _ .
“Just so. Fluff is sorry to say it, you see,
for she likes the young fellow; but the fact is,
man is not madeof alabaster, I had a wide ex-
perience of them in my establishment, includ-
ing French and Germans; and I really don’t
think you need disturb yourself about any one
of them being too good to marry either of us.”
‘‘What have I jot to give him?” murmured
Clare, on whose ears this sweeping tondemna-
tion of the other sex had shared the fate of most
generalizations, She did not see the applica
bility of it to the case in question. : ‘‘ Respect,
regard, aflection—those he always wins from
all who know him; they are no return for the
single-hearted love he offers me, and for which
I have no equivalent.”
‘““My dear child,” returned the old lady,
earnestly, ‘‘you are still in that fool’s para-
dise of first love, though one would really
have thought you had had enough of it.
Some girls seem to think that if the first |.
man who takes their fancy proves a villain, all!
is over with them, and, moreover, that they
themselves are to blame for it.. Why should the
state of matrimony be the one exception to
that good old saying, ‘Second thoughts are
best?” You admit. you have respect, regard,
affection for Herbert Newton. Is it not more
reasonable to expect that love should follow
those allin good time than they should follow
fancy? You have often told me that you loved
Percy Fibbert from the first—surely a great mis-
fortune, since otherwise you, could not have
been blind to the faults which others saw in
him. And now, just because you did not love
Herbert from the first, though you have always
recognized his good qualities, you say you can
never love him.” |
“J didnot say that, Nannie,” answered Clare,
plaintively, ‘though I feel, indeed, as though I
had no longer the capacity for love; but. that
my love at the best would be no match for his.”
“My dear child, that is Herbert’s lookout,
not yours. If he is satisfied with it, surely that
is sufficient. What else have you got for him,
you ask me, in exchange for his’ devotion?
Why, the very thing he wants—sympathy with
his pursuits, You will share his troubles, and
double hjs joys, and be in very truth his help-
mate.” :
“Help him! What do I know? What can I
do for him? How can I help him?” °
“Well, I don’t suppose that the idea of such
assistance has ever entered into the dear
fellow’s mind; but you can, undoubtedly, help
him, and that in a very material way. _ Outside
his profession, to which he is devoted, he is
always hitting on some new invention, such as
he was talking of this very day.” :
“Yes; and J put a stop to it,” murmured
Clare, bitterly. :
“‘True; that is a proof of the value he sets on
your opinion. For‘other things you will have
nothirg but approbation, and your praise will
be aspurto him. Those experiments of his, as
he has told me, are often very expensive, and
your money may be of the greatest service to
d}him. What happiness must it be to a.wife to
be able to gay to herself, ‘I helped my husband
to greatness when he was poor and unknown!’
For though I have no doubt Herbert will be rich
some day, he has nothing at present, you see,
but his income.” us :
‘Nothing but bisincome! What has become
of his ten thousand pounds?” exclaimed Clare.
If it had not been for her Persian cat, as Miss
Darrell afterward observed quite seriously, she
would at this juncture have gone off in a fit.
Until posed by Clare’s question, she had utterly
forgotten that the girl wasisnorant of the man-
ner in which Herbert had disposed of his prop-
erty. Ifshe had had to meet Clare’s inquiring
eyes, full of alarm and anxiety upon her cousin’s
account, she felt that the truth must have been
dragged out of her, and Herbert have been of-
fended past forgiveness. His secret, it is true,
had not been confided to her; she had dis-
covered it for herself; but on informing him that
she knew it she had tacitly undertaken to keep
it. With any other girl the -revelation of it
might have had good results by favoring the
object Herbert had in view; but the knowledge
of his generous behavior to her would, in Clare’s
case, Miss Darrell felt convinced, only increase
her sense of inferiority and humiliation. For-
tunately the cat wasin her lap, and the old lady
was able to hide her guilty face in its ample
fur. ‘Oh dear! oh dear!” she murmured, in an
agony of confusion, ‘‘ Ihave let you out of the
bag, my darling!” . ‘
** Nannie, Nannie, what do you mean?” per-
sisted Clare. ‘* Has Herbert ruined himself?”
“ Yes, that’s just it,” replied Miss Darrell, in :
desperation; ‘‘it’s a dead secret, and you must _
never breathe a word of it, or he will never for-
give me. Aman like Herbert, you see, hates
to be reminded of’ his failures; but the fact is,
the money is all gone.”
‘“Good heavens! What, in experiments?”
‘Well, yes; in a philanthropic experiment—
either that one he told us about or some other.
Perhaps it was thrown into water, in that
diving business—who knows? At all events, it's
gone. . . ’
‘Poor Herbert! Poor dear Herbert!”
‘* He bears his misfortunes, however, like a
man, does he not? You would never guess he
had lost his patrimony, to hear him talk as he
did to-day, would you? But then, poor fellow,
he certainly imagined he was about to be com-
pensated for all his misfortunes.”
Clare’ answered nothing, but sat with a
flushed face and an eager look in her eyes,
which her companion strove in vain to con-
strue. i :
~-**T hope you don’t think, Clare, that Herbert
has behaved ill in not telling you how he was
circumstanced?”
“Tilt! Herbert behave ill! No,- certainly
not. Indeed he told me, now I come to think
of it, that he had nothing but his love to offer
m :
‘That is only what I should have expected
of him; he is incapable of duplicity.”
“‘Duplicity? I should think he never had
so much’as a secret from other people, unless
it was something scientific that they couldn’t
understand.” .
‘‘No doubt,” assented the old lady, with a
quiet twinkle in her kind eyes. ‘He never
could keep such a thing as a secret» from any-
body. He told you one to-day, did he not?
I saw him whispering to you in the passage as
he went away.”
Clare’s delicate, clear-cut face was crimson.
‘And yet it was all no use, was it, Fluff?’
continued the old lady, soliloquizing. ‘She
sent our young friend away without a gleam
of hope.”
“T said I must have six months to think
about — about what he asked of me,” fal- .
tered Clare. .‘‘In that time he may see his mis-
take, or—or somebody else——”
“Just so; some young person with more
money, for instance, put in .the old lady,
cheerfully. “‘ By-the-bye, I do hope I have not
prejudiced you against Herbert.by revealing
his pecuniary misfortunes. Although he has
no capital, he has a pretty good income,
which, with his royalties and so on, will, no
doubt, be greatly increased. You mnustn’t
think that, being poor, his offer was dictated by
any wish—he is not in the least like an advent-
urer—to get hold of your money.”
Clare jumped to her feet, with flashing eyes.
“ Nannie, how dare you? Herbert an adyent-
urer
“There, now, you have frightened the cat. :
You needn’t put yourselfin such a state about
the young man. We didn’t say he was an ad-
venturer, dil we, Fluff?”
Upon the whole, Miss Darrell felt that she had
good cause to-congratulate herself (though it is
not arecommendation to be relied on with young
ladies) that she had revealed to Clare that her
lover was a poor man. :
}
CHAPTER XLV.
HER SUCCESSFUL RIVAL.
THE smooth time runs the fastest, and the
coil of life at Bellingham Park ran out without
a kink in it. To Herbert Newton there was
still, indeed, a hope unfulfilled. but he felt se-
cure of the reward of his patience, and in the
meantime work—that -balm for unrest—was
plentiful with him, and when he had leisure he
well knew where to spend it. If at the mid-
day meal he was absent from Bellingham Park,
the evening always found him there. He had
generally something to tell the two ladies
which had an ‘interest for them; and as for
him, he cared not whether they had news or
not.
For a man who first finds .a.woman to love
him it ‘is news enough to hear her breathe
Ne gh ee ———
—————