Doreen

“ Doreen's eyes were on her cousin. Her face wore its usual serene look. The enormity of the proceeding did not seem so great to her as it did to him. He did not take into consideration the sublime manner in which women look straight to a goal, without marking the mud which may have to be crossed to reach it. ”

“ Vava's colour rose, but she walked on without taking the least notice of what was said.
Not so, Doreen. She stopped in front of them, and demanded loudly, 'What do you mean by that? I have no titled friend, because I'm only a tradesman's daughter, and very proud of the fact, for he earned every penny he's got honestly, which is more than you can say of some grand people.'
'We don't mean anything to do with you, Doreen; you don't give yourself airs or despise us; but if you knew what Vava Wharton thinks of you, you wouldn't walk with her!' said Rosie Brown. ”

“ Doreen marked the deepened wrinkles on her forehead, the tightening of the thin lips, the contraction of the nostrils, and waited with accustomed self-possession to hear her elder's pleasure. The countess was displeased about something. Her fine face was pale, her eyes tinged with red. Her majestic draperies seemed to whisper in their soft rustle that something was seriously disturbing the spirit of the chatelaine. Wheeling round presently, she faced her niece, and, scrutinising her narrowly, spoke.
'Terence has come home to live,' she remarked. ”

“ And the thought of it made Doreen pause when she had got outside the door on the broad drive between the lawns.
Only for the moment. The next she was flying across the rougher grass outside the garden among the oaks and the beeches of the park. She saw no one in front of her, and for a few seconds her heart beat very fast. She thought she had missed him.
There was no lodge at the park entrance; only a modest wooden gate in the middle of the fence. Doreen was hesitating whether to go through or to go back, when she saw the figure of Dudley Horne coming toward the gate from the stables. ”

“ I don't talk when Doreen is talking, because then nobody would listen to me. I could talk, too, if anybody ever talked to me."
"But one sees so little of you," pleaded Dudley. "You are generally out district-visiting, or busy for Mrs. Wedmore, so that one hasn't a chance of knowing you well. And one has got an idea that you are too good to waste your time in idle conversation with a mere man!"
"Good!" cried Queenie contemptuously. "There's nothing good about my district-visiting. I like it, Doreen goes about telling people it is good of me. ”

“ One little ghost of doubt yet lingered in my lady's mind, which she did her best to exorcise. Doreen was dreadfully pigheaded. What if moping were to render her more obstinate? She was not a Blaster or a Cherokee, but a stern-browed damsel, with much romance, tempered by a little common-sense, and an awkward tendency to rely upon her own judgment. Being a woman, too, she would probably detect at once another woman's web, such as might hope to escape the scrutiny of male observation. Was it possible that she might choose to upset all her aunt's elaborate scaffolding, after all? ”

“ Just as grave people, for an idle whim, will turn for a moment from lofty contemplations to consider a pebble by the wayside, so calm Doreen had been bitten by a conceit. In her self-examination she had become convinced, with sorrow, that the part of Judith was beyond her strength, if Shane was to play Holofernes; and, disgusted with her own weakness, had permitted her mind to settle on my lady's nickname of Miss Hoyden. ”

“ I should have thought that even you must be not quite indifferent to any man's honest feelings of esteem and admiration toward you!"
Doreen was looking at him helplessly, with wide-open eyes. Did he really think any girl was ever moved by this sort of address, deliberately uttered, with the words well chosen, well considered? As different as possible from the abrupt, staccato method used by Dudley in the dear old days!
"Oh, I'm not indifferent at all!" said she, quickly. "I'm never indifferent to anything or anybody. ”

“ Queenie's not old enough, and she's too good besides. Now, you do know, you do understand what it is to be head over ears in love."
"Good heavens, Doreen, don't talk like that! You mustn't, you know!"
"Don't talk nonsense," interrupted his sister, sharply. "I tell you I love Dudley, and ever so much more since I've found out he is in great trouble; as any decent woman would do. Now I don't feel nearly so sure as everybody else as to what his trouble is, but I want you to find out, and to help me if you can."
"What, play detective—spy? Not me. It's ridiculous, unheard of. ”

“ Doreen gently cut the longest tress from Sara's golden head and pressed it into Robert's palm.
'Thanks,' he said, with a quiver of the lip. 'I will wear this in my bosom when I mount the scaffold. I am ready, gentlemen, and will not detain you. Before I leave the world--and I leave it now when I leave my friends--I have one request to make. May the charity of oblivion be accorded to my memory! Let no one write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dares now to vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. ”

“ It would be nice, she affirmed, for the gentlemen to enjoy the unrivalled panorama of the Donegal mountains whilst sipping the equally unrivalled claret of their host.
Doreen, who on reflection was grievously annoyed anent the folly of her large admirer, was taken by surprise when she beheld this new phase in her aunt's demeanour. She was a kaleidoscope, but certainly not mad. No judge on the bench was more sane than she. The corroding gloom was still there, but lightened; no longer engrossing its victim as it had done. Power had been given by some mysterious agency to shake off the weight. ”

“ Doreen knew quite well that Robert Emmett's was a lovable nature, that he was free from the ordinary frailties of youth, sensitive to a fault, just such a visionary as would suffer terribly in a great crisis such as was at hand. Just as Tone was a chivalrous man of action, so the younger Emmett was a dreamer of the most unpractical kind--one who, staring at the stars, and striving to pierce their mysteries, would plunge head-foremost into the first pitfall that was made ready for his feet. His admiration for Theobald was as great as Doreen's. ”

“ You are a sly, artful girl! Yes, it is right that you should hear the truth. You do no credit to your bringing-up. Is it maidenly to receive letters from a man in secret--to retire, as I have ofttimes seen you do, to a secluded spot in the rosary, there to gloat over them--and that man married, and an outlaw! Fie upon you! Your father is not aware of this, or it would break his heart; for, God help him! he loves you beyond your deserts. But there, there! I will not waste my breath in railing; for what else could be expected of your blood and your religion?'
Doreen's cheek, too, had paled. ”

“ I'm sure we're always being drilled in good manners by Miss Upjohn, and the inspectors and visitors always say there's such a good tone among the girls!' exclaimed Doreen, and she looked at Vava as if she suspected her of having taken some tales to her sister, or made some complaint about them. Then as Vava did not answer, for she could not very well explain the true facts of the case, Doreen went on, 'I suppose you think we are not too civil to you about your Scotch accent; but, if we laughed, we didn't mean it unkindly. It's no use being too thin-skinned in this world. ”

“ Doreen rewarded him for this speech with a humorous look, in which there was something of gratitude, but more of rebellion.
"Accommodate myself? No, I couldn't. I think, do you know, that if I were ever foolish enough to marry—and it would be foolishness in a spoiled creature like me—I should want a husband who could accommodate himself to me. Now, you couldn't. Clergymen never accommodate themselves to anything or anybody."
The Reverend Lisle Lindsay did at last look rather disconcerted. Mischievous Doreen saw her triumph and made the most of it. ”

“ Reckless of life himself, its value to others made no impression on him. Playful and unpitying, commanding the smile and heeding not the sigh, he was a human paradox. The more Doreen considered him the less could she understand such a person, being herself true and impulsive and open as the day.
'We will go to Ely Place at once,' she said hurriedly. 'Lord Clare must and shall help us.'
The ladies walked their horses in order that panting Mrs. Gillin might tell all she knew. Tone's doom was fixed. Of that she was sure. Neither the chancellor nor anybody else could avert his passing. ”

“ We have reached that limit, and will feel no more;' and, strange as it may seem, with that resolve comes an impression of calm, which, in its way, is a sort of negative happiness. We have lost something, we are bereft of something which above all things we valued, yet we seem vaguely better for the loss. It is like the expression of peace which all blind faces wear, though their most precious treasure has been stolen--the sense of sight.
Doreen shrank from probing her own feelings with regard to Terence. ”

“ And so, I am sure," added he, with a significant smile, "Doreen will be."
"Thank you, sir," said Dudley. "You are very kind, very indulgent. I am not ungrateful, I assure you."
Max, behind them, was listening with attentive ears. He did not feel so sure as his father seemed to be that all was now well with Dudley.
"Where's Doreen?" he asked his younger sister.
"Don't know, I'm sure. She's taken herself off somewhere. Probably somebody else will find her quicker than you will."
The younger sister was right. The younger sister always is on these occasions. ”

“ As she thought what a blow his death would be, her bosom swelled with anxiety; for every earnest woman sets up an idol in her heart, to be clothed in the trappings of her own belief, which she takes for its native adornments. She sits and keeps pious vigil over it, and weaves ennobling legends concerning it, seeming to become purified by contact with a nobler power, which, after all, is but the reflection of her own better self. That her influence over Theobald was great, Doreen knew, but not so great as his was over her. ”

“ Think of that!"
"Had papa been speaking to him?" put in the shrewd younger sister, who was chalking her cue at the other end of the room.
The younger sister always sees most of the game.
"Ye—es, but—I don't know—I hardly think it was that," answered Doreen quickly. "At any rate, Max, I want you to do this for me; I want you to go up to town to-morrow and see him. I shan't rest until I know he's—he's all right—after what I saw of his face and the look on it. Now, you will do this, won't you, won't you? Without saying anything to anybody, mind. Queenie, you can hold your tongue, too. ”

“ To lure honest men, like a siren, to destruction? What could her faltering answer be? I meant well. I acted for the best. I was presumptuous. I am sorry.... Can regret undo the injuries which are due to our presumption? No. The wretched Doreen was crushed by an overwhelming sense of her own littleness and failure. There was nothing for it but to kneel down and cry, 'I have sinned;' to clasp her sorrow and take it to the north, there to hold vigils of unfruitful repentance, whilst praying humbly to be released from earth. The wilds of Glas-aitch-é should be her covert. ”

“ Doreen was too much upset to appear at breakfast, so my lady picnicked alone on the window-seat which looked upon the stable-yard, watching for her vagrant darling, keeping a keen look-out, too, as to whether her niece went out for a scamper. For my lady had passed a sleepless night--one of those terrible nuits blanches much worse than any nightmare--when all our sins sit heavy on our chests; when our brains throb to bursting, and we hope there is no hereafter. She tossed--listening for Shane's return--growing more feverish as hour after hour passed silently. Still at the Little House! ”

“ Doreen had never given her clumsy admirer any encouragement; would probably refuse him even though he hoarded mines of gold. Was she not rich herself? If he could not have Doreen, it would be quite as well to have money; and he could not earn his proper wage without openly joining the Battalion of Testimony. It was a very delicate question. Would it not be best to sound Miss Wolfe once more? Maidens are coy. Some who are prepared to take us if we persevere, require much wooing. Maybe the fair Doreen was one of these. ”

“ But it was the degree of the young man's agitation which had seemed morbid. Mr. Wedmore found it difficult to understand why a mere suggestion of the man's disappearance—if it were indeed the man—should affect Dudley so deeply. And the idea of incipient insanity in young Horne grew stronger than ever in Mr. Wedmore's mind.
Now, Doreen was by no means so sanguine as she pretended to be. She was one of those high-spirited, lively girls who find it easy to hide from others any troubles which may be gnawing at their heart. ”

“ But Doreen gave a little sigh.
"I don't think that a man has a right to turn inquisitor over another man, just because the second man is ready to marry the first man's daughter," said she. "And I'm sure papa wouldn't have stood it when he was young."
The doctor laughed.
"He ought to put up with any amount of questioning rather than lose the girl of his choice," said he decisively. "And if he has the stuff of a man in him he will do so." ”