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said, blushing in the light of the lamp. I took 50l. to pay her milliner's bill, and Bevis Mamma, what a trouble I am to you. borrowed 1001. before he left, but I dare say he She says she is - may she come to will pay me back. stay! . . And-and-you see she is dear Bevis's sister, and

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"Of course, my dear," said her mother, almost reproachfully. "How can you

ask ? "

Emilia looked a little relieved, but wistful still. "Have you room? To-morrow?" she faltered.

Mrs. St. Julian gave her a kiss, and smiled and said, "Plenty of room, you goose." And then she read,

To the Hon. Mrs. BEVIS BEVERLY,
The Island,
Tarmouth,

Broadshire.

SCUDAMORE CASTLE, September 21.

MY DEAR EMILIA,

BEVIS told me to be sure and pay you a visit in his absence, if I had an opportunity, and so I shall come, if convenient to you, with my maid and a man, on Saturday, across country from Scudamore Castle. I hear I must cross from Helmington. I cannot imagine how people can live on an island when there is the mainland for them to choose. Yours is not even an island on the map. Things have been very pleasant here till two days ago, when it began to pour with rain, and my stepmother arrived unexpectedly with Clem, and Clem lost her temper, and Pritchard spoilt my new dress, and several pleasant people went away, and I, too, determined to take myself off. I shall only stay a couple of days with you, so pray tell Mrs. St. Julian that I shall not, I hope, be much in her way. Do not let her make any changes for me; I shall be quite willing to live exactly as you are all in the habit of doing. Any room will do for my man. The maid need only have a little room next to mine. You won't mind, I know, if I go my own gait while I stay with you, for I am an odd creature, as I dare say you may have often heard from Bevis. I expect to feel dreadfully small with all you clever artistic people, but I shall be safe from my lady and Clem, who would never venture to come near

you.

So good-by, my dear Emilia, for the present.
Yours ever,

JANE BEVERLEY.

Mrs. St. Julian did not offer to show Lady Jane's letter to St. Julian, but folded it up with a faint little suppressed smile. "I think she must be a character, Emmy," she said. "I dare say she will be very happy with us. Queenie" (to me), "will you see what can be done to make Lady Jane comfortable?" and there was an end of the matter. Lord Ulleskelf went and sat out in the verandah with the others until the storm burst which had been gathering, through which he insisted on hurrying home, notwithstanding all they could say to detain him.

which brought our other guest the next We had expected Lady Jane by the boat day, but only Mr. Hexham's dark closecropped head appeared out of the carriage which had been sent to meet them. The coachman declared there was no lady alone on board. Emilia wondered why her sister-in-law had failed: the others took Lady Jane's absence very calmly, and after some five o'clock tea St. Julian proposed a walk. Perhaps I had better stay," Mrs. Beverley said to her mother.

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"No, my dear, your father will be disappointed. She cannot come now," said Mrs. St. Julian, decidedly; "and if she does, I am here to receive her. Mr. Hexham, you did not see her on board? A lady alone?"

No. Hexham had not seen any lone lady on board. There was a good-looking person who might have answered the description, but she had a gentleman with her. He lost sight of them at Tarmouth, as he was looking after his man, and his van, and his photographic apparatus. It was settled that Lady Jane could not possibly come till next day.

II.

My father is all alone at home, and I want to get back to him if I can steal a march on my lady. She is so jealous that she will not let me Lady Jane Beverley had always declared be alone with him for one hour if she can help that she hated three things - islands, clever it, in her absence. Before she left Castlerookham people, and interference. She knew she was she sent for that odious sister of hers to play clever, but she did not encourage this dispopicquet with him, and there was a general scene sition. It made people bores and radical when I objected. My father took part against in her own class of life, and forward if they me, so I started off in a huff, but he has managed to shake off the old wretch, I hear, and so were low. She was not pretty. No; she I do not mind going back. I must say it is didn't care for beauty, though she confessed very pleasant to have a few halfpence that one she should be very sorry if she was not able can call one's own, and to be able to come and to afford to dress in the latest fashion. It go one's own way. I assure you that the said was all very well for artists and such people halfpence do not last for ever, however. Clem to say the contrary, but she knew that a

plain woman well dressed would look better | Emmy was not certainly worth all this fuss, than the loveliest dowdy that ever tied her but determined to look after her. Lady bonnet-strings crooked. It was true her Jane was rather Low Church, slightly susbrother Bevis had thought otherwise. He picious but good-natured and not unamenahad married Emilia, who was not in his ble to reason. She cultivated an abrupt own rank of life; but Lady Jane supposed frankness and independence of manner. he had taught her to dress properly after Her frankness was almost bewildering at her marriage. She had done her very best times, as Lady Jane expected her dictums to dissuade him from that crazy step; once to be received in silence and humility by it was over she made the best of it, though the unlucky victims of her penetration. none of them would listen to her; and in- But still, as I have said, being a truedeed she had twice had to lend him sums hearted woman, if she was once convinced of money when his father stopped his allow- that she was in the wrong, she would always ance. It is true he paid her back, other-own to it. Marriage was rather a sore subwise she really did not know how she could ject with this lady. She had once notified have paid her bills that quarter. If she to a young evangelical rector that although had not had her own independence she his prospects were not brilliant, yet she was scarcely could have got on at all or borne not indisposed to share them, if he liked to with all Lady Mountmore's whims. How- come forward. To her utter amazement, ever, thanks to old aunt Adelaide, she need the young man got up in a confused manner, not think of anybody but herself, and that walked across the room, talked to Lady was a very great comfort to her in her Clem for the rest of his visit, and never many vexations. As it was, Clem was for called again. Lady Jane was much surever riding Bazook, and laming her ponies, prised; but, as her heart was not deeply and borrowing money. Beverley and Bevis, concerned in the matter, she forgave him on of course, being her own brothers, had a deliberation. The one softness in this right to expect she would be ready to lend strange woman's nature lay in her love for them a little now and then; but really Clem children. Little Bevis, her brother's baby, was only her step-sister, and considering would coo at her, and beat her high checkthe terms she and Lady Mountmore were bones with his soft little fat hand; she let Lady Jane had a way of ram- him pull her hair, the curls, and frills, and bling on, though she was a young woman plaits of an hour's erection, poke his fingers still, not more than six or seven and twenty. into her eyes, swing her watch violently It was quite true that she had had to fight round and round. She was still too young her own battles at home, or she would have to have crystallized into a regular old maid. been utterly fleeced and set aside. Bever- She had never known any love in her life ley, her eldest brother, never quite forgave except from Bevis, but Bevis had been a her for being the old aunt's heiress, and did little afraid of her. Beverley was utterly not help her as he should have done. Bevis indifferent to anybody but himself. was always away on his missions or in disgrace. Old Lord Mountmore was feeble and almost childish. Lady Mountmore was not a pleasant person to deal with, and such heart as she possessed was naturally given to Lady Clem, her own child.

on.

Lady Jane was fortunately not of a sensitive disposition. She took life calmly, and did not yearn for the affection that was not there to get, but she made the best of things, and when Bevis was sent to South America on a mission, she it was who brought about a sort of general reconciliation. She was very much pleased with herself on this occasion. Everybody looked to her, and consulted her. 66 You will go and see Emmy sometimes, won't you, Jane?" said poor Bevis, who was a kind and handsome young fellow. Lady Jane said, Most likely," and congratulated herself on her own tact and success on this occasion, as well as on her general ways, looks, style, and position in life. She thought poor

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Lady Jane had fifteen hundred a year of her own. She was not at all bad-looking. Her thick reddish hair was of the fashionable colour. She was a better woman than some people gave her credit for being, seeing this tall over-dressed and overbearing young person going about the world with her two startled attendants and her hunters. Lady Jane had not the smallest sense of humour or feeling for art: at least, this latter faculty had never been cultivated, though she had furnished her boudoir with bran new damask and sprawling gilt legs, and dressed herself in the same style; and had had her picture taken by some travelling artist a pastile all frame and rosecoloured chalk which hung up over her chimney, smirking at a rose, to the amusement of some of her visitors. Lady Jane's notion of artists and art were mainly formed upon this trophy, and by what she had seen of the artist who had produced it. Lady Clem used to say that Jane was a born old

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"Let me hold this for you, it will tire you," said the gentleman, tenderly taking The Times out of her hand; are you resting? I thought I would try and meet you, and see if I could save you from fatigue. My aunt Scudamore told me you were coming this way. There, that is where my people live: that white house among the trees."

maid, and would never marry; but every-van, which is to follow in a barge; and body was not of that opinion. Lady Jane there is a languid dark handsome gentlehad been made a great deal of at Scuda- man talking to a grandly dressed lady more Castle, especially by a certain Cap- whose attendants have been piling up tain Sigourney, who had been staying there, wraps and Times and dressing-cases and a nephew of Lady Scudamore's-tall, dark, umbrellas. interesting, in want of money, notwithstanding his many accomplishments. Poor Tom Sigourney had been for many years a hanger-on at Scudamore. They were extremely tired of him, knew his words, looks, tones by heart. Handsome as he undoubtedly was, there was something indescribably wearisome about him after the first introduction a certain gentle drawl and prose that irritated some people. But Lady Jane was immensely taken by him. His deference pleased her. She was not insensible to the respectful flattery with which he listened to every word she spoke. Tom Sigourney said she was a fine spirited girl, and Lady Scudamore seized the happy occasion-urged Tom forward, made much of Lady Jane. "Poor girl! she needs a protector," said Lady Scudamore gravely to her daughters. At which the young ladies burst out laughing. "Can you fancy Tom Sigourney taking care of anybody?" they cried.

Lady Mountmore arrived unexpectedly, and the whole little fabric was destroyed. Sigourney, who had not much impudence, was simply driven off the field by the elder lady's impertinences. Lady Jane was indignant, and declared she should not stay any longer under the same roof as her mother-in-law. Lady Scudamore did not press her to remain. She had not time to attend to her any longer or to family dissensions; but she did write a few words to Tom, telling him of Lady Jane's movements, and then made it up with Lady Mountmore all the more cordially that she felt she had not been quite loyal to her in sending off this little missive.

The little steamer starts for Tarmouth in a little crowd and excitement of rolling barrels and oxen driven and plunging sheep in barges. The people come and look over the side of the wooden pier and talk to the captain at his wheel. Afternoon rays stream slant, and the island glistens across the straits, and the rocks stand out in the water; limpid waters beat against the rocks, and toss the buoys and splash against the busy little tug; one or two coal-barges make way. Idlers and a child or two in the way of the half-dozen passengers are called upon by name to stand aside on this occasion. There are two country dames returning from market; friend Hexham in an excitement about his

"It is a nice place," said Lady Jane.

The rocks were coming nearer, and the island was brightening to life and colour, and the quaint old bricks and terraces of Tarmouth were beginning to show. There was, a great ship in the distance sliding out to sea, and a couple of gulls flew overhead.

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Before I retired from the service," said Sigourney, "I was quartered at Portsmouth. I know this coast well; that is Tarmouth opposite, and that is-ah, 'm -a pretty place, and an uncommon pretty girl at the hotel."

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How am I to get to these people if they have not sent to meet me, I wonder?" interrupted Lady Jane, rather absently.

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"Leave that to me," said Captain Sigourney. "I am perfectly at home here, and I will order a fly. They all know me, and if they are not engaged will always come for me. You go to the inn. I order you a cup of tea, and one for your maid. I see a fast horse put up into a trap, and start you straight off."

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Oh, Captain Sigourney, I am very much obliged," said Lady Jane; and so the artless conversation went on.

At Tarmouth the ingenious captain would not let her ask whose was a carriage she saw standing there, nor take one of the two usual flys in waiting, but he made her turn into the inn until a special fast horse, with whose paces he was well acquainted, could be harnessed. This took a long time; but Lady Jane, excited by the novelty of the adventure, calmly enjoyed her afternoon tea and devotion, and sat on the horse-hair sofa of the little inn, admiring the stuffed carp and cuttle-fish on the walls, and listening with a charmed ear to Tom's reminiscences of the time when he was quartered at Portsmouth.

The fast horse did not go much quicker than his predecessors, and Lady Jane arrived at the Lodges about an hour after Hexham, and at the same time as his great photographic van.

III.

They were all strolling along the cliffs towards the beacon. It stood upon the summit of High Down, a long way off as yet, though it seemed close at hand, so clearly did it stand out in the still atmosphere of the sunset. It stood there stiff and black upon its knoll, an old weatherbeaten stick with a creaking coop for a crown, the pivot round which most of this little story turns. For when these holiday people travelled away out of its reach, they also passed out of my ken. We could see the beacon from most of our windows, through all the autumnal clematis and ivy sprays falling and drifting about. The children loved the beacon, and their little lives were one perpetual struggle to reach it, in despite of winds, of time of meals, of tutors and lessons. The elders, too, loved it after their fashion. Had they not come and established themselves under the shadow of High Down, where it had stood as long as the oldest inhabitant could remember! Lord Ulleskelf, in his yacht out at sea, was always glad to see the familiar old stubby finger rising up out of the mist. My cousin, St. Julian the R. A., had 'made a strange rough sketch of it, and of his wife and her eldest daughter sitting beneath it; and a sea, and a cloud horizon, grey, green, mysterious beyond. He had painted a drapery over their heads, and young Emilia's arms round the stem. It was an awful little picture Emilia the mother thought when she saw it, and she begged her husband to turn its, face to the wall in his studio.

"Don't you see how limpid the water is, and how the mist is transparent and drifting before the wind?" St. Julian said. Why do you object, you perverse woman ?"

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The wife didn't answer, but her soft cheeks flushed. Emilia the daughter spoke, a little frightened.

"They are like mourners, papa," she whispered.

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St. Julian shrugged his shoulders at them. "And this is a painter's wife!" he cried; "and a painter's daughter! But he put the picture away, for he was too tender to pain them, and it lay now forgotten in a closet. This was two years ago, before Emilia was married, or had come home with her little son during her husband's absence. She was carrying the child in her arms as she toiled up the hill in company with the others, a tender bright flush in her face. Her little Bevis thinks it is he who is

carrying "Mozzer," as he clutches her tight round the neck with his two little

arms..

I suppose nobody ever reached the top of a high cliff without some momentary feeling of elation, — so much left behind, so much achieved. There you stand at peace, glowing with exertion, raised far above the din of the world. They were gazing as they came along (for it is only of an island that I am writing) at the great sight of shining waters, of smiling fertile fields and country; and of distant waters again, that separated them from the pale glimmering coast of the mainland. The straits, which lie between the island and Broadshire, are not deserted like the horizon on the other side (it lies calm, and tossing, and self-sufficing, for the coast is a dangerous one, and little frequented); but are crowded and alive with boats and white sails: ships go sliding past, yachts drift, and great brigs slowly travel in tow of the tiny steamer that crosses and recrosses the water with letters and provisions, and comers and goers and guests to Ulles Hall and to the Lodge, where St. Julian and his family live all through the summer-time; and where some of us indeed remain the whole year round.

The little procession comes winding up the down, Lord Ulleskelf and the painter walking first, in broad-brimmed hats and coats fashioned in the island, of a somewhat looser and more comfortable cut than London coats. The tutor is with them. Mr. Hexham, too, is with them; as I can see, a little puzzled and interested by the ways of us islanders.

As St. Julian talks his eyes flash, and he puts out one hand to emphasize what he is saying. He is not calm and self-contained as one might imagine so great a painter, but a man of strong convictions, alive to every life about him and to every event. His cordial heart and bright artistic nature are quickly touched and moved. He believes in his own genius, grasps at life as it passes, and translates it into a strange quaint revelation of his own, and brings others into his way of seeing things almost by magic. But his charm is almost irresistible, and he knows it, and likes to know it. The time that he is best himself is when he is at his painting; his brown eyes are alight in his pale face, his thick grey hair stands on end; he is a middle-aged man, broad, firmly-knit, with a curly grey beard, active, mighty in his kingdom. He lets people in to his sacred temple; but he makes them put their shoes off, so to speak, and will allow no word of criticism except from one or two. In a moment his thick

brows knit, and the master turns upon the tively seemed to turn to his favourite unlucky victim. daughter.

The old tutor had a special and unlucky knack of exciting St. Julian's. ire. He teaches the boys as he taught St. Julian in bygone days, but he cannot forget that he is not always St. Julian's tutor, and constantly stings and irritates him with his caustic disappointed old wits. But St. Julian bears it all with admirable impatience for the sake of old days and of age and misfortune.

Hester's charm did not always strike people at first sight. She was like some of those sweet simple tunes which haunt you after you have heard them, or like some of those flowers of which the faint delicate scent only comes to you when you have waited for an instant.

Hexham, for instance, until now had admired Mrs. Beverley infinitely more than he did her sister. He thought Miss St. Julian handsome certainly, but charmless; whereas the sweet, gentle young mother, whose wistful eyes seemed looking beyond the sunset, and trying in vain to reach the distant world where her husband would presently see it rise, appealed to every manly feeling in his nature. But as the father and daughter turned to each other, something in the girl's face -a dim reflex light from the pure bright soul within seemed to touch him, to disclose a something, I cannot tell you what. It seemed to Hexham as if the scales had fallen suddenly from his eyes, and as if in that instant Hester was revealed to him. She moved on a little way with two of the children who had joined her. The young man followed her with his eyes, and almost started when

As they all climb the hill together on this special day, the fathers go walking first, then comes a pretty rout of maidens and children, and Hexham's tall dark head among them. Little Mona goes wandering by the edge of the cliff, with her long gleaming locks hanging in ripples not unlike those of the sea. The two elder girls had come out with some bright-coloured scarfs tied round their necks; but finding them oppressive, they had pulled them off, and given them to the boys to carry. These scarfs were now banners streaming in the air as the boys attacked a tumulus, where the peaceful bones of the bygone Danish invaders were lying buried. The gay young voices echo across the heather calling to each other. Hester comes last with Mrs. William--some one spoke to him. Hester with the mysterious sweet eyes and crown of soft hair. It is not very thick, but like a dark yet gleaming cloud about her pretty head. She is quite pale, but her lips are bright carnation red, and when she smiles she blushes. Hester is tall, as are all the sisters, Emilia Beverley, and Aileen, who is only fifteen, but the tallest of the three. Aileen is walking a little ahead with Mrs. William's children, and driving them away from the edge of the cliff, towards which these little moths seem perpetually buzzing.

The sun begins to set in a strange wild glory, and the light to flow along the heights; all these people look to one another like beatified men and women. Ulleskelf and St. Julian cease their discussion at last, and stand looking seawards.

As St. Julian walked on, he began mechanically to turn over possible effects and combinations in his mind. The great colourist understood better than any other, how to lay his colours, luminous, harmonious, shining with the real light of nature, for they were in conformity to her laws; and suddenly he spoke, turning to Hexham, who was a photographer, as I have said, and who indeed was now travelling in a gipsy fashion, in search of subjects for his camera.

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In many things," he said, "my art can equal yours, but how helpless we both are when we look at such scenes as these. It makes me sometimes mad to think that I am only a man with oil-pots attempting to reproduce such wonders."

"Fortunately they will reproduce themselves whether you succeed or not," said

"Look at that band of fire on the sea," the tutor. St. Julian looked at him with said Lord Ulleskelf.

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his bright eyes. The old man had spoken quite simply. He did not mean to be rude, - and the painter was silent.

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My art is a game half of skill, half of chance," said Hexham. "When both these divinities favour me I shall begin to think myself repaid for the time and the money and the chemicals I have wasted."

"What an evening vesper," said St. Julian. Hester, are you there?" Hester was there, with sweet, wondering sunset eyes. Her father put his hand fondly on her shoulder. There was a sympathy between the two which was very touching; they liked to admire together, to praise together. In sorrow or trouble St. Julian Have you ever tried to photograph figlooked for his wife, in happiness he instinc-ures in a full blaze of light?" Lord Ulles

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