Miss Murray

“ We have struck up a great friendship with Miss Murray, the Queen’s Maid of Honor, who paid me a visit of three hours to-day, in the midst of which came in Colonel Estcourt, whom I was delighted to see, as you may suppose. Miss Murray is to me a very interesting person, though a great talker; a convenient fault to a stranger. She is connected with half the noble families in England, is the grand-daughter of the Duchess of Athol, who governed the Isle of Man as a queen, and the descendant of Scott’s Countess of Derby. ”

“ Miss Murray was distinguished for her affability as well as beauty, and delighted in pointing out to the poet the romantic scenery of the banks of the Earn. She was married in 1794 to Lord Methven, a judge in the court of session. ”

“ He confided in Murray that he was saving for a car, just a little coupé, he couldn’t afford anything else yet, but it would be nice for Elizabeth to take the baby out in. There was a nice eager domestic air about him that was different from anything Murray had experienced among his young men friends, even the married ones. He did not remember that any of them had babies, or if they had they did not speak about them. They were tucked away somewhere with their nurses out of sight till they should be old enough to burst upon the world full-fledged in athletics or society. ”

“ She flashed from languor into a mood of vivid irony. Her lips curled, her eyes opened wide with a dancing beryl-coloured flame behind them, and her eyebrows arched in a sublime disdain.
‘You didn’t send him?’ she asked
‘I?’ said Paul, with a guilty stammer—’ I—send him?’
‘Now, before you lie,’ said Annette, with a tragic gesture of the hand, ‘hear me. The window of our dressing-room happens—just happens, by God’s providence to confute a fool—to command a view of Dr. Laurent’s door. I saw you go in; I could even hear you knock. Do you think you can deceive me? ”

“ But Murray wouldn't. He had the same kind of mind as Amy and Ethel. He did not like robust and hearty things or robust and hearty people. He wore a corset to keep his hips small, and stood up at teas and receptions with an almost military carriage. Of course he had to sit down at dinners, but he sat very straight. He, too, had family portraits and family silver, and he lived scrupulously up to them. His fortunes, unlike the Merrymans', had not declined. He had money enough and to spare. He could have made Amy or Ethel very comfortable if he had married either of them. ”

“ Yes, it is indeed true, that Mr. Murray considered the interests of the people of his charge as his own. Most fondly did he cherish, and perseveringly did he seek, by every possible means, to advance their reputation. He sympathized with the afflicted, and largely partook their sorrows; while, so often as the course of events brought joy to their bosoms, his eye beamed gladness, and his tongue exulted to dwell upon facts, which illumined the hours of his protracted pilgrimage. His voice, at the bed of death, was the herald of consolation. ”

“ She meant to be the last found, and to elude Murray as long as she could, a very girlish feeling having taken possession of her that the time to run away is the time when you see somebody looking uncommonly as if he would like to be with you. Although she longed to hear the outcome of the conference in the library, she was somehow just a little afraid of the new Murray, and it was with a delightful sense of exhilaration that she made her quick and quiet way up a third flight of stairs to one of Shirley's haunts in an unused portion of the regions under the eaves. ”

“ It happened that Murray said less to Jane than to any of the others, but he noticed her not a little. He thought he had never seen a girl who looked so spirited and sweet and gay and gentle all in one. He felt that his sister Olive must learn to know her at once, that she might learn what it is to be pretty without seeming aware of the fact, and how it is possible to make a stranger feel wholly at his ease without appearing to exercise any arts. ”

“ Should she forget to send it to you, please remind her when she comes to Kew, as assuredly she will, to talk about her Florida new fern. I have filled up the Ward case which she brought over, also a box of American plants which she takes, I suppose, for Mr. Fox Strangways. Her various boxes and packages will nearly fill the ship, I should think.
Miss Murray is a most lively, most active person, has traveled widely through the country, and traversed rough places, such as no other woman past sixty ever did. ”

“ Paul stooped for the ring as it rolled to his feet, and bestowed it in his pocket.
‘You and Laurent,’ cried Annette, ‘have conspired to kill me. Oh, I know you both! but if there is justice in earth or heaven, I will have it Do not think because I am a woman and alone that I can find no protector. ”

“ Oh, well, life was a disappointment anyway, whichever way you turned. Now here was Murray! What a bitter disappointment he was! Just when he might have been a comfort. Of course there was a slight possibility of his being injured somehow, but if he had been able to take a girl to the hospital he couldn’t have been very badly off. No, he was probably off with the fellows somewhere having a good time, or off with his Countess, or his latest fancy! What a son! But he must do his duty as a father, anyhow. So Murray’s new car was smashed! That was probably the reason Murray did not come home. ”

“ Murray put his arm around Edna, and drew her face to his bosom.
"Darling, do you remember that once, in the dark days of my reckless sinfulness, I asked you one night, in the library at Le Bocage, if you had no faith in me? And you repeated so vehemently, 'None, Mr. Murray!'"
"Oh, sir! do not think of it. Why recur to what is so painful and so long past? Forgive those words and forget them! Never was more implicit faith, more devoted affection, given to any human being than I give now to you, Mr. Murray; you, who are my first and my last and my only love." ”

“ Why can we not be such?"
At this moment Mrs. Murray came into the dining-room, and as she looked at the two sitting there in the early sunshine, with the basket of flowers between them; as she marked the heightened color and embarrassed expression on one fair, sweet face, and the eager pleading written on the other, so full of manly beauty, so frank and bright and genial, a possible destiny for both flashed before her; and pleased surprise warmed her own countenance as she hurried forward. ”

“ Armstrong,’ the mother answered, ‘that there can be no discussion about this matter, and that I rely upon my daughter to do justice to herself. She will learn in a little while to know that you have done her a very serious wrong, and that will help her to live her trouble down.’
‘Madam,’ cried Paul, rising to his feet, and speaking with an impassioned swiftness, ‘I beseech you to listen to me for one minute only; if I try to justify myself in some small degree, you will understand my purpose. At an age when life is opening for most men I had tied myself to a hopeless burden. ”

“ I beseech thee, I implore thee, by the ties of consanguinity that connect us, by the duty ye owe to me as thy sovereign, to spare his life!"
"You know not what you ask, madam," replied Murray, stalking up and down the apartment. "How can his life be spared consistently with your honour? Save him, and you will set a thousand slanderous tongues a-wagging. It may not, must not, be."
Mary herself could not deny the force of this remark, and, finding she had nothing to oppose to it, she flung herself into a chair, and again burst into tears. ”

“ Murray has sung of the life and pleasures of its students, of examinations and Gaudeamuses—supper parties—he has sung of the sands, the links, the sea, the towers, and his name and fame are for ever blended with the air of his city of youth and dream. It is not a wide name or a great fame, but it is what he would have desired, and we trust that it may be long-lived and enduring. We are not to wax elegiac, and adopt a tearful tone over one so gallant and so uncomplaining. ”

“ On the other hand the ' Quarterly,' in spite of change and competition, fully sustained under Murray's auspices its reputation as an organ of the highest criticism. But perhaps the greatest glory of the firm under the third Murray's direction consists in the admirable series of illustrated books of travels, associated with the names of Miss Bird (Mrs. Bishop) , Dr. Lumholtz, Du Chaillu, Bates, and Yule, whose edition of ' Marco Polo ' was largely due to Murray's enlightened enterprise. ”

“ She stooped forward and laid a hand upon his head.
‘Do you care so much to leave me, Paul?’ she asked.
A man of the world would have known the studied quaver in the voice—the throaty, stagey sweetness of it. What was to be expected of a yokel of genius who had been rushed through a hundred towns or so in everlasting association with De Vavasours and Montmorencys—rushed through London and through Paris under much the same inauspicious petticoat influences, and had hardly ever met a real live lady in his life on terms of intimacy until now? ”

“ What was going to happen, at any rate, was that Murray would show himself as beautifully and consciously understanding—and it would be prodigious that Europe should have inoculated him with that delicacy. Yes, he wouldn't claim to know now till she had told him—an aid to performance he had surely never before waited for, or been indebted to, from any one; and then, so knowing, he would charmingly endeavor to "meet," to oblige and to gratify. He would find it, her case, ever so worthy of his benevolence, and would be literally inspired to reflect that he must hear about it first. ”

“ Murray, how greatly you succeed, when engaged upon a theme which I emphatically call your own. I love to hear you speak upon any subject; but on this, you are, I had almost said, divine; your whole soul seems engaged, when dwelling upon the Redeemer, and His love to man; nothing but the voice of the God who made you, and who hath so wonderfully endowed you, can exceed the honied accents of your heaven-inspired tongue. Do you wonder that I am daily wishing myself among the number of your hearers, your happy hearers! ”

“ A clear, fine-grained skin, with a colour like that of a June rose in her cheeks, well-opened, calm-looking, grey-blue eyes, a mass of golden hair, almost too heavy for her head; a well-cut profile, and rather stately bearing, made Elizabeth Murray a noticeable person even amongst women more strictly beautiful than herself. She was poorly and plainly dressed, but poverty and plainness became her, throwing into strong relief the beauty of her rose-tints and finely-moulded figure. She did not start when she saw Percival at the door ”

“ Paul looked at his boots, tried to look at his hair, squinted downwards in search of the smut, and said: ‘Bother!’
‘All right,’ the girl responded. ‘You’ll find ‘em in the garden. They’ll be rare and proud to see you.’
Paul, somewhat shamefaced, took the familiar way into the garden, and stood rooted. A small striped tent of pink and white had been set up on the unshaven grass-plot, and five or six girls, all in white dresses, were seated near it round a tea-table. One, who had black hair and dark eyes, wore a crimson sash, and the rest had blue sashes with prodigious bows. ”

“ It was so wise, so friendly, so childlike, so gay, so unlike the dull and dreadful aspect his face had worn when I had first known it that it affected me strongly, “My dear Fyffe,” he said, reaching his friendly hand out towards me once more, “why should we talk about money? If you can put Brunow out of your mind I can put money out of mine. My daughter loves me, and the man who saved me loves my daughter; and Violet—well, she shall speak for herself.” ”

“ Murray politely, 'not more than most of them I hef seen from your country; but surely it cannot be so healthy as other places; the young ladies are so thin and delicate-looking whatever; many a one I would like to hef kept here for a while—for more friendly young ladies I never met with anywhere—just to see what the mountain air and the sweet milk would do for her.'
'Well, then, Mrs. Murray, you will have the chance of trying your doctoring on my daughter when she comes up here a few weeks hence ”

“ Here are a--er--a pair of Olive's rubbers for your feet, so you won't show any tracks."
Murray's voice was shaking also, and in a minute more the two were laughing together. Jane, shrouded in her rug, emerged from the closet into the attic, and Murray regarded her by the light of his electric searcher.
"You don't look much the worse for having taken such desperate measures to escape me," he remarked, noting with keen enjoyment the rich colour on the cheek near which he was rather mercilessly holding his torch. "Rather meet a cold ducking than a warm friend any time, wouldn't you?" ”

“ When I return, I shall wish to take up my social life where I left it, and if I should find my friends alienated by the eccentricity of my daughter-in-law, I should feel that a wrong had been done which it would be difficult to overlook."
"About the hardest thing in the world," thought Murray, as he pondered these lines, "seems to be for one woman to get another's point of view. Here 's Jane, staying at home all summer to keep me company, when she might have gone off to the seaside or the mountains with Olive. ”

“ Now, Paul had never played the conquering dog until now. He had so far been the victim of the sex, and in his own small way had suffered scorn and beguilement enough. What with the luncheon and the sticky champagne, he began to feel mighty and vainglorious, and he took the airs which he supposed to be appropriate to the situation. He praised the lady, therefore, with a humorous appreciation of the manner in which she accepted flatteries which were passed, so to say, upon a shovel, and he tasted with a gratified palate his own fine flavour as a man of the world. ”