She passed Lady Ross on the staircase, coming up as the latter went down. She spoke in her usual slow, calm tone. "Is it not a little early for breakfast?" she said; "but I will be with you directly. I have been down to the sitting-room to get my bonnet and gloves, which I left there last night." And when the chambermaid of the hotel came into Alice's room, at the hour she had been desired to come, no difference could have been perceived between the condition of that and any other of the sleeping-rooms occupied by the party. The pillow was fairly indented, and the covering duly ruffled, and the towels tossed here and there, and the pretty embroidered slippers kicked irregularly under a chair. All looked as if, instead of swiftly passing up, first to the sittingroom, and then to her own, as soon as the hotel was open and while few busy servants were about, the "lady in No. 62" had risen and dressed for breakfast like her neighbours. Yet Alice had only taken seven minutes and a half to make all these picturesque arrangements! And Sir Douglas, when they parted, embraced her very tenderly, and hoped to see her stronger and better when he returned in the autumn to Glenrossie. But Gertrude shrank more than ever from her alien sister-in-law. Even supposing her to have rashly married James Frere, and to be irrevocably entangled in the meshes of his destiny, what consummate self-possession and hypocrisy had she not displayed the night of that mysterious interview! Either the pretended pedlar was James Frere himself, or a messenger from that evil man. His height, his air, and something in his step when walking away, favoured the supposition in Gertrude's mind that it was himself; and as to disguise, he that was so clever in all things might well be supposed able to contrive one that should baffle the very keenest ob servation. CHAPTER XL. THE COURSE OF EVENTS. IF ever that Tantalus thirst, the love of admiration, could be satisfied, certainly it should have been in the exceptional case of Donna Eusebia's triumphal progress through the London season. She "made furore," as the foreign phrase terms it. A hundred lorgnons were aimed at her sparkling face as she leaned from her opera-box; her graceful arm half nestled in scarlet and gold shawls, and Moorish bournouses of white and gold, black and gold, purple and gold, as the fancy of the evening moved her; for Eusebia had as many shawls and gowns as our vestal and over-rated Queen Elizabeth. She laid her dresses and wreaths out in the morning on her bed, and studied what the evening should bring forth. She tried on her jewels at the glass, and rehearsed the performances of her coiffeur. She tossed a white blonde mantilla over her glossy head, and stuck orange-blossoms under the comb, and tossed it off again, to replace it with heavy black lace and a yellow rose. She sate mute and motionless, contemplating her own little satin shoes with big rosettes to them, and then sprang up and assaulted that bewitching chaussure; pulling off the rosettes, and putting in glittering buckles; relapsing thereafter into the mute idolatry of contemplation. She wore her jet black hair one day so smoothly braided that her head looked as if carved in black marble, and the next it was all loose and wayward and straying about, as if she had been woke out of a restless slumber, and carried off to a party without having time allowed her to comb it through. All the London dandies,-half the grave politicians,a quarter of the philosophic sages,—and a very large proportion of the Established Church, both High and Low,-thought, spoke, and occupied themselves chiefly with the fact of the appearance of this Star of Granada. The pine-apples and flowers of every great country house, and isn't real-and I like things that are real. You are all real, you know; and you don't make nasty little sticky curls with gum and sugar, and plaster them down on your cheek, nor try your things on all day before a looking-glass, nor spend all Sir Douglas's money in getting new jewels. However Kenneth can afford it, I'm sure I don't know! That butterfly of diamonds she had on her forehead last night cost seven hundred and forty pounds. I know it did, because I saw it, and wanted it the day I went to Court, only I was too sensible to buy it; and now she has got it, with its beautiful long trembling horns, and wings that lift up and down, and you had nothing on but that necklace of Scotch pearls! I can't bear it-I can't!" And a little whimpering cry was stifled in Lady Charlotte's embroidered handkerchief, as in days when she wept for Zizine. were at her entire disposal. It was dear Gertie, I know all that, but she rather a favour conferred than received, when she consented to accept a peer's ticket for some state show, or the opening ceremonies of Parliament. Statesmen sat round her after the cabinet was over, and indeed in some cases were even suspected of hurrying the happy moment of their release from such duties, in order to be in time to ride with her in the Park. Bishops wrote her facetious and kindly little notes. Poets extolled her charms in every measure possible in the English language, including the doubtful possibility of hexameters. Beautiful fresh young girls were presented at Court and made their début in the world of fashion, and the greatest compliment that could be paid to the mothers of such as were brunettes was to say that "about the eyes," or "cheek," or "chin," or "mouth," or tout ensemble, they had a look of Donna Eusebia. It was thought the most monstrous reply that ever was made, when handsome Mrs. Cregan, Lorimer Boyd's old friend, said, with a saucy smile at the supposed resemblance to her young daughter, "God forbid! I had rather my girl were ugly, which she is not." The only person who approved this speech was poor Lady Charlotte, who was at once puzzled and outraged at the way in which "the Spanish she-grandee" threw her daughter, Lady Ross, into the shade. She fretted over it: she even cried over it; and was only moderately consoled by the argument of the victim herself, who repeated gently, "But you know, my little mother, it is the brilliant people who are admired in the world, and I never was brilliant. As long as Douglas thinks me beautiful, I do not care if the whole world thought me so plain that they were forced to turn their heads another way to avoid seeing me as I passed by. Do not let us grudge Eusebia her triumphs; she really is so beautiful, and her singing is so wonderful, and she is altogether so unlike anything one ever saw before." To which insufficient comforting Lady Charlotte was wont to reply, as she dolefully pulled the long ringlet, "Yes, my And Gertrude smiled, and kissed the faded little woman, and repeated for the hundredth time how dear to her was that necklace of Scotch pearls, Douglas's gift; and how he thought it became her more than any ornament she had-except, indeed, the turquoise chain which was her mother's own weddinggift. To which Lady Charlotte mournfully replied, that she "knew all that was said to comfort her," but that it really was enough to break one's heart to see how Eusebia was spoilt and run after! "And you are so foolish, Gertie, I must say, though I don't mean that you ain't clever in some things; and, indeed, if you sang like that I shouldn't at all like it, though that is thought very clever, it seems! But you are foolish in one way always talking of Sir Douglas as if he were the only man in the world. Now there are hundreds quite as good judges as he, and they are all running after Eusebia, which is what provokes me so, I don't know what to do. But I can tell you, my dear, that it don't do to think only of what one man thinks, though I hope, of course, you will always be a good wife, and I am sure you will; and your dear father and I never had a word in our lives. But still, depend upon it, a man always admires you more if ever so many more men admire you, because my experience tells me that, and the fact is, Donna Eusebia tries to be admired, and you don't; and she gets all the men to make a fuss about her and it is very wrong, and very provoking, and quite frets me down. And, also, I can't see what right she has to be staying here, making conquests of everybody in your house, and making you really-somehow-second in this house! Why can't she and Kenneth go away and live by themselves?" This last question was, indeed, more pertinent and to the purpose than the usual maunderings of the owner of lost Zizine. Kenneth had been "by way of" coming to stay with Sir Douglas till he found a suitable house in town. But week after week rolled away, and the houses proposed to him were either too small, too shabby, in too unfashionable a locality, or too dear-the latter reason being the preponderating one, for nothing would persuade Kenneth that he was not to find a sort of palace, and pay for it as a common bachelor lodging. Meanwhile he felt no more scruple as to his dependence on his uncle's hospitality than he had felt all his life in such matters. Donna Eusebia never gave it a thought. And Old Sir Douglas, struggling to be just, to be indulgent, and somewhat repentant of a secret revulsion of feeling at the time Alice confided her false confidences to him about her conversations with Mr. Frere and his Scotch neighbours, took little Neil to sleep in his own dressing-room, that the sleeping-nursery might be given to Eusebia's French maid (for even a handsome house in London will not lodge double its expected number of inmates without some little contrivance), and made the best of all small murmurs from Lady Charlotte, exigéances from Donna Eusebia, and provoking assumption of a right to expect everything, as a matter of course, from Kenneth. But the London season, though cer last to an end. Eusebia farewelled her numerous adorers with a coruscation of glittering smiles, interspersed with the prettiest sighs, shakes of the head, and promises to see them all again the following spring. She allowed the Queen's ministers many parting audiences, and permitted herself to accept a riding-whip encrusted with jewels from the Austrian ambassador. Grave statesmen forgot their personal comforts, in the bewilderment of their regret, and had to return upstairs, and hunt for heavy - handled umbrella or walking-stick, which is the awkwardest phase of all the small prosaic realities of life, after an emotional or sensational farewell. Young attachés smoked treble the number of cigars they were customed to, musing on the blank days soon coming in which there was to be no Donna Eusebia,—and felt all the more feverish and discontented in their exaggerated cloud of tobacco. The Bishop of -- endeavoured to point out to his wife how agreeable the musical talent of the Spaniard would be in their country house, if his helpmate would propose such a visit, but found an unchristian stubbornness in that worthy lady as to the point in question. And in the midst of such regrets, jealousies, lamentings, the beautiful Eusebia vanished away to Spain ! ac Nor did she return to comfort the sorrowing adorers of her brief period of glory for a very considerable period. What with debts, and difficulties, and laziness, and wilful wanderings; what, with Eusebia's detestation of the idea of a residence at Torrieburn, and Kenneth's habit of living au jour le jour, and thinking only how much pleasure could be crammed into each; what with (in short) all the small and great impediments, the importance of whose aggregate amazes us when we stand still and consider their influence on long lapses of time, it was full seven years from the date of that London triumph, when Kenneth and Eusebia once more drove up to the bringing with them the only offspring of their marriage, a little girl as picturesquely beautiful as her mother, but very unlike her; pale and timid, with such a wealth of shy love in her eyes, that they scarce seemed to belong to a mere child, when she looked up at you. And, after the relatives had once more met together, it seemed to Gertrude that she was receiving a different Kenneth, and a different Eusebia. Sharp and querulous was the tone adopted by the beautiful Spaniard; sullen, dogged, and provoking, Kenneth's manner in return. Her beauty endured, but it was more hard, more bright, more assisted, than before. Her coquetry had kept in harmony with that change, and seemed bolder and less harmless. Her child she treated with perfect indifference, except when some sharp reproof as to its way of standing, looking, or moving, escaped her lips. And Gertrude observed that at such times the little creature would retreat, and put her tiny hand into her father's, and that Kenneth's sulky bitterness to his wife increased tenfold for the nonce. He was evidently unhappy and disturbed in mind; and Eusebia weary of his destiny and its difficulties. The passion of bygone days had passed away like the light off the hills. They were sick of each other, and of their mutual anxieties; nor had they been guests many days before each made the embarrassing confidence of their griefs against each other, to the person least willing to hear them; namely, Gertrude herself. In vain that sweet peacemaker endeavoured to heal differences. To Kenneth the preaching of indulgence, patience, and the strength of family ties, was simply "bosh." To Eusebia the expectation of fidelity and discretion, economy, and a willingness to retrieve money embarrassments, by residing quietly for some brief years in the only real home her husband possessed, was all impossible nonsense. She looked upon a wife's duties as on a mercantile ledger. The per contra had not been deserved by Kenneth, and she did not feel bound to pay it to him. A cold mist seemed to enter with them into the genial home at Glenrossie; but even Gertrude little foresaw the strange turns of fate that were to follow. Maggie was the first to enter into the storm. The money difficulties which had long oppressed Kenneth had rebounded upon her, in the tightening and denial of a thousand little resources for her simple pleasures. He had cut down trees she and his father had planted "at the back o' the hill: he had raised, and again raised, the rent of the mills; which the old miller was loth to surrender, and unable to keep up. His letters to his mother had been more like commands severely issued to an imprudent steward than requests to a parent; and, finally, he had taken his affairs out of the hands of Sir Douglas's factor (as too indulgent), and made over their management to the factor of Dowager Clochnaben; the very man of whose connivance with foes in the matter of the cart-wheel Maggie and her father had gone to complain the day Lorimer Boyd discussed their right to do so with his mother. Maggie was glad to see her son-her altered son! So glad, that a little of the gladness brimmed over even to Donna Euseeby. She asked him if she mightn't walk with him to the Mill, the day he announced his intention to go there. Her large blue eyes-the only beauty still perfect in her rapidlycoarsening and reddened face-looked wistfully into the eyes of her "ain lad." "The auld man's gettin' no that strang," she said. Kenneth made no answer. "And his sicht's no sae gude as it has been," she added, doubtfully. "He seems still to have a sharp eye to his own interest," laughed Kenneth. Maggie was a little puzzled, and a little fearful lest, in her pity for her father, she should make him out too infirm for business. She tried an echo of Kenneth's laugh. "Ou ay," she said; "he'll do weel yet, aye readin' his ain bills, and settlin' a'." "Well, I'm going to 'settle a'' to-day, my dear mother, and make an end; for things really can't go on as they have done for years past." Maggie turned, and, walking as they were, she flung herself full on Kenneth's breast. "Ou, Kenneth, my ain lad, my wee bairn, my bonny king o' men, ye'll deal saftly wi' the auld man, for your ain mither's sake! He's a' wheen daft noo', wi' sair trouble, and mither's laid by wi' rheumatis. Will ye gie me a promise now, Kenneth? Will ye gie me a promise, my ain bonny lad?" The awkward coaxing, the attempt (ah! poor Maggie, how rare such THE EDEN OF YOUTH. "ON to the land where we shall be at rest, And toil and sorrow cease; Where smile the happy meads with verdure drest, O blissful land, O balmy land, I seem to see thee as from far, I follow in the course of yon red star, That beckons like a warrior's mailed hand, Leading me on from gleaming strand to strand." So spake he to his comrades by the way, Men who had travelled since the break of day, Athwart the pass of that hoar headed mount (Whose rugged sides their blistered feet did climb), The fount that was to make the palsied well, And prove the victor o'er victorious Time. The night fell fast; blank horror and dismay As camped they by a gently murmuring stream, And thick around; they heard the night bird scream, While by the blaze of beacon fires They saw the glare of wild beasts' eyes, And heard the wolf's howl rend the silent skies. Then died within them all their fond desires, Then wept they for their home, Content if ever there no more from thence to roam. But when the morning kissed the mountain's head, The sun's broad beams on them a summer shed, |