Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

“ Eunice Rollo looked like a little grey mouse beside her, the very colour seeming to be absorbed from her face by the brilliancy of the contrast, while bonnie Mellicent appeared of a sudden awkward and blousy.
“Rosalind makes every one else look a fright, the moment she comes into a room. I shudder to think of the guy I must appear. Poor dear Arthur! I don’t wonder at his devotion. She is so lovely that she fascinates one in spite of oneself!” sighed Peggy, trying to harden herself against the glances of the sweet caressing eyes, and feeling her heart softening with every moment that passed. ”

“ Eunice regarded her with pensive envy.
“Oh dear, I wish I felt like that! It would be like a book, as you say. I love reading, but I always think real life is so different.”
“And so much better! It’s true,” cried Peggy ardently, “and the other is pretence. I think it’s a glorious thing to live, and just most marvellously and wonderfully interesting. Why, think of it—every day is a mystery. You make your plans in the morning, but you know nothing of what may happen before night! ”

“ When I love people, I feel,” Peggy threw back her head and expanded her little shoulders with a terrific breath, “omnipotent! There is nothing I could not be or do or suffer to help them. The more they need from me the happier I am. Don’t you know how you feel after listening to a beautiful sermon—that you really wish something disagreeable would happen, to give you an opportunity of behaving well and being sweet and unselfish? Well, that’s just how one feels in a lesser way to the people one loves on earth. It’s how I feel to you at this moment, Arthur darling, when I know you are suffering. ”

“ The moonlight seemed cold and wan after that bright ray, but not so cold as it had been before, for some of the atmosphere of love and kindness for which that home was famous seemed to have escaped through the open door, and warmed the hearts of those who looked on.
“If we can make a home like that, Peg, we shall never be poor, however little money we may have to spend. We shall have found the greatest treasure the world can give,” said Rob softly; and “Amen!” sighed Peggy Saville beneath her breath. ”

“ The pavement outside was flooded with sunshine, carriages were driving to and fro; two men walking along together broke into a peal of laughter as they passed; a newsboy shouted out some item of popular interest. Nobody knew, nobody cared! The great, noisy, cruel world jostled on its way as if such things as death and parting had no meaning in its ears. Peggy’s young heart swelled with bitterness. She dared not speak to Mrs Asplin, dared not trust her own voice, but she drew the thin hand through her arm, and gripped it with passionate fervour. ”

“ Her lips tightened, the colour deepened in her cheeks, and her eyes sent forth an unmistakable gleam of vexation. She hated being forced into an unpleasant position, but there was one thing which she would hate even more—to be obliged to take a dowdily dressed, countrified-looking visitor to one of the social events of the season, and at all risks this must be avoided. Mellicent would probably be offended, Peggy furious, Arthur pained and disappointed—she knew it beforehand, and lamented the knowledge; but, as Arthur had said, the bent of a lifetime is too strong to be overcome in a moment. ”

“ I’m glad women don’t have to ask men to marry them, it must be so embarrassing to be refused! Now, if Hector Darcy had proposed to me, I should have said ‘Yes’ out of sheer fright, but Peggy would refuse a prince to-morrow, if she got the chance. I wonder what she said to him! In books the girl always says, ‘I cannot give you my love, but I will always be your friend.’ I should be so cross, if she said that to me, that I should want to shake her. How could you be friends with a person who had made you so miserable? ”

“ As Arthur looked at his old friend, and noted the softening of eye and lip, the new sweetness of expression, there rose before his imagination another face, which for many years had seemed to him the most beautiful in the world, but which now appeared suddenly hard and loveless. He never realised the fact for himself, but it was really in this moment of meeting with Esther in the flush of her happiness that the last link was snapped in the chain which had bound him to Rosalind Darcy. ”

“ People sigh and moan over the uncertainty of life, but that is ungrateful, for there are happy surprises as well as sad, and all sorts of pleasant things cropping up which one never expects. And it ought to go on growing more and more beautiful as we grow older, and can appreciate and understand.”
“Yes,” sighed Eunice softly. “Oh yes, and so it will—for you, Peggy, at least, for you have the gift of happiness. I feel things too, but I can’t express my feelings. I want to act, and I hang back trembling until some one else steps forward. I try to speak, and my lips won’t move. ”

“ A little white-gloved hand lay on her lap, and, as Arthur looked at it, a swift remembrance arose of the afternoon a few weeks back when he had seen that hand stretched out to comfort a companion in distress. His lip twitched beneath his moustache and his smile faded.
“Ah, well,” he said to himself sadly, “we cannot all be alike; but it does one good to see her—dear, little, gentle thing! She’ll make some one very happy some day, and he will think her beautiful, for he will see his home in her eyes.” ”

“ I made father take me for a drive on the top of a City omnibus the other day, and it was just thrilling. I love the roar and rush and bustle, and the feeling that one is in the very centre of the world, and that inside those big bare buildings, and among those jostling crowds, the greatest men in the world are at work, making literature—making kingdoms—making history! I look at the different people as they pass, and wonder who they are, and what they are doing and feeling and thinking. ”

“ When the voices of the choristers rang out in the psalms for the morning, Mellicent shed tears on her Prayer-book, and felt icy-cold all the way down her spine, and Peggy’s eyes flashed fire, and the rare colour burned in her cheeks.
When the service was over the two girls wandered about together gazing at the monuments, reading the inscriptions which recalled noble deeds, and exchanging ardent confidences the while.
“I should like to come here every day,” said Mellicent softly, “every single day. I should like to be a verger, and spend my life in an abbey. ”

“ Any other girl in the world would have understood and obeyed; but Mellicent only gaped the more, raised questioning eyebrows, and even mouthed a dumb inquiry. Peggy screwed up her face into a vicious glare of anger, at which moment, it is needless to say, Eunice seized the opportunity to lift her eyes from the carpet. For one second amazement held her motionless, then she fell to work on the card-case with redoubled zeal, and tilted her hat over her face. Her eyes could not be seen, but her lips were twisted on one side, and her cheeks grew suddenly, mysteriously pink. ”

“ To bear the weary ache, and know that it will grow worse; to feel one power after another slipping away, and to realise that it is for ever; to be lonely, and to see the loneliness closing in ever deeper and deeper. Ah, think of it, young impatient soul! Think of it and be tender, be loving! Spare not the sweet gift of sympathy. The time will come when you will long to have done still more.
Peggy held Mrs Asplin’s hand in her own as they sat waiting together in the doctor’s study, and kept her seat sturdily through the interview which followed. ”

“ Eunice Rollo! Could anything be more wounding to the vanity which made her treasure the idea of broken-hearted grief? Once more Rosalind called Peggy cruel in her heart, and Peggy mentally justified her harshness by reminding herself that the knowledge of Arthur’s fortitude would do more towards turning Rosalind’s heart toward her fiancé than a volume of moral reflections. Some slave to worship and adore, she must possess, and if she could no longer think of Arthur in that position, so much the more chance that she would appreciate his successor. ”

“ He was so good, so strong, so radiant, that his very presence was a guarantee of happiness, of something more than happiness, for, with all his brightness of manner, there was an underlying nobility in Arthur Saville’s character which Rosalind recognised and longed after in the depths of her vacillating heart. She could be a better woman as his wife than in any other sphere in life; if she rejected him, she would reject also her own best chance of becoming a good woman. ”

“ Colonel Saville looked very fierce during the drive which followed. His light eyes sent out little sparks of fire, and the waxed ends of his moustache bristled with anger, while Peggy sat opposite him in a little heap in the corner of the carriage, with her eyebrows peaked into the old eave-like shape, and the corners of her lips drooping pensively downward. The meek little, “Yes, father!” “No, father!” which replied to his strictures, would have melted a heart of stone, and Mellicent was relieved to see the colonel’s frown gradually giving place to the usual good-natured twinkle. ”

“ If another man had been rash enough to disturb their flowering, they would have sulked for the rest of the season, and made him suffer for his boldness; but no plant ever sulked at Robert Darcy. He had simply to lay it down in any spot he liked, and, behold, it grew and flourished! His fingers seemed to possess the power to impart health and strength, and, thanks to his care, Peggy soon felt safe from ridicule, at least on the score of her garden, and could devote herself with an easy mind to the work indoors. ”

“ Marriage is the best thing that can happen to a woman, if her husband is as good and kind and noble as your father. I’m not selfish enough to spoil your life for my own benefit, Peggy; but when the times comes, remember I shall be very, very particular about the man you choose.”
“Where, and how, shall I earliest meet him?
What are the words that he first will say?”
chanted Peggy, with so disastrous an attempt at the correct tune that Mrs Saville shook with laughter, despite the pain in her head, and Hector Darcy, entering the room, demanded to know the nature of the joke. ”

“ Have you grown into a fashionable young lady, by any chance, Mariquita? Are you going to join the social treadmill, and spend your time in a rush after gaiety and enjoyment? or are you the same little girl I used to know, who had an ideal of her own, and wanted to do something grand and noble with her life? Which of the two is it? I can’t decide!”
“Oh, Rob!” cried Peggy piteously, and clapped her hands together. “Oh, Rob, it’s both! I do want to be good more than anything else in the world. ”

“ I ought to be superior like Esther, and not care a bit, but I do. I care frightfully. I feel a worm, and as it I’d like to crawl away and hide myself out of sight,”—and Mellicent’s fair face clouded over with an expression of such hopeless melancholy, that Peggy, catching sight of it, came forward instantly to discover the reason.
“Tired?” she cried cheerily. “Never mind, we won’t be long now, and then we’ll drive home, and you shall be tucked up in bed, and have a comfy rest. Sight-seeing is tiring... Which do you like best?” ”

“ I want my home for myself, and not for a crowd of visitors. One spare room, or two at most, is all I would have furnished if there were a dozen empty. Give me retirement and a quiet home life!” cried the colonel, whereat his wife and daughter exchanged glances of amusement, for if ever there lived a man who adored his fellow-creatures, and delighted in crowding his house from floor to ceiling with unexpected guests, that man was Colonel Saville, and would be until his death. ”

“ It is the best proof that I do care for your happiness that I have the courage to be disagreeable. You know, Rosalind, the plain truth is that you want to act a part to gain admiration and applause, but it’s absurd to think you can go on doing that all your life, and to a person who is with you on every occasion. It must be real, not pretence, if it is to succeed, so try not to think so much about his opinion of you, and more about how you can help him, and be the sort of wife he wants. ”

“ Do you care for Lord Everscourt, Rosie?”
She shook her head at him with a soundless movement of lips shaped to pronounce a “No.”
“But he is a good fellow, I am told, and devoted to you. I don’t agree with Peggy on this question, Rosalind. You have been brought up to value certain things so highly that you cannot be happy without them, and if you meet an honest English gentleman who can give them to you, and love you sincerely into the bargain, I believe that it would be your best chance of happiness. If you can esteem and respect him, love would probably follow.” ”

“ You can’t deny that I’m better worth seeing.”
“Oh, you are, especially when you pull faces!” responded Eunice unexpectedly. “Peggy, some day, when there is nothing else to do and you are not tired, will you imitate people for me again? Will you? Will you do Hector Darcy and Miss Asplin and your father when he is angry? I have never laughed as much in my life as when you imitated the National Gallery pictures, and Mr Saville says that these are even funnier. It must be delightful to be able to mimic people, if you are sure they won’t think it unkind.” ”