Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"You correspond with twelve men! Good heavens!" exclaimed Ethel, when these open secrets had been revealed to her. "Don't tell auntie of it, I beg. She will--will misunderstand, I fear, and think it dreadful, and perhaps prevent me being here so much. It is not at all in accord with English ideas, you know, dear; and auntie is rather stricter than most, even there."

"Not tell! Why not?" asked Bijou. "What is there to shock her? She must be easily shocked. I have got nothing to be ashamed of; and I shall tell the old dear to-morrow."

"Does your father know it?" said Ethel.

"Why, _of course_ he does," replied Bijou impatiently. "I generally read him the letters, and he laughs fit to kill himself over some of them. Popper don't care one bit. He says I am old enough to paddle my own canoe; and so I am. And he knows I don't care a pin about any of them. It's great fun until you get tired of it. I am tired of it now, rather. I used to write to twenty; but it has dwindled down to twelve, and I'm going to drop two of those, because they are in the army and are both stationed at the same post. You see, it is too much trouble to write different letters to each one, so I get up one bright, smart one that suits all around, and copy it for them all, with some changes."

This speech almost stunned Ethel for a while. "But doesn't it vex them very much to get such letters? What if they should find it out? And if you don't at all care for them, why do it at all?"

"Why, for the _fun_ of the thing, goosie. Angry? No. They do the same thing themselves. Will Piper sent Kate Price and me letters that were exactly the same, word for word: we compared them. That is where I got the idea. Splendid one, isn't it? I am just bent and determined on having stacks of fun before I am married, because after that, you know, I shall be laid on the shelf completely," said Bijou.

"But why should you be 'laid on the shelf'? I can't make it out. Your life will be just beginning," said Ethel.

"Well, because what is so is _so_," replied Bijou, showing her some patterns for slippers, watch-pockets, tobacco-pouches, and so on, that she meant to work up for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, "philopoenas," and other festive occasions, as presents for the adorers.

It is perhaps clearer now why Bijou laid no stress whatever on Mr. Drummond's attentions, while she seemed to him to be receiving them with marked favor. When, on their leaving New York, Mr. Brown had asked him to go home with them and spend a month, he looked upon the prize as won. Before going to Chicago he had shown this so plainly that Bijou had snubbed him roundly,--a course so foreign to her amiable nature and hospitable creed that on his return she had received him with a kindness that had revived all his hopes,--or rather designs. He utterly misunderstood it, and easily persuaded himself that he was practically irresistible. The drive of that afternoon had been planned by him that he might ask the fateful question. He had asked it, and, presumptuously taking her answer for granted, had slipped an arm about her waist, when, to his great surprise, he had found himself half ordered, half pushed out of the buggy immediately, after which Bijou, transported by fury, had laid the whip once smartly across his shoulders and driven away at a gallop, leaving him standing in the middle of the road, an angry man.

She went home, as we have seen, and told her father, who was distinctly excited on hearing it, ordered Mr. Drummond's effects to be packed and sent to the hotel in Kalsing at once, forbade her ever taking another drive with a stranger "the longest day she lived," and would certainly have caned the offender with unparliamentary fervor, instead of being "reasonable" and letting the affair drop, had he known where to find him.

What Mr. Drummond did was to walk into Kalsing and put up at a boarding-house there, where he spent the evening glowering into vacancy blackly enough, and showed his high breeding and respect for the other boarders by taking off his shoes in the parlor and sitting with his stockinged feet propped up on a chair in front of him while he gave himself up to his reflections,--bitter thoughts of the past in which he had been an English gentleman, desperate plans for his future as a _chevalier d'industrie,_ fierce abuse of Americans in general and the Browns in particular, culminating in a fixed resolve to leave "this beastly hole" next day; which was happily carried out.

Mr. Ramsay, offended, held aloof for a little while; but, getting a note from Mr. Brown couched in few words, and those to the effect that his warning had been acted on and Mr. Drummond dismissed, he called next day at the house, assured Mr. Brown with earnestness that his cousin was "a precious rascal," gave some particulars of his shady career, and took up the threads of his intimacy again, unvexed by any such ideas as that he was at all responsible for or could be affected by his kinsman's disreputable behavior. Mr. Brown concealed from him that he had lost some money by Mr. Drummond. Bijou imagined that he must be "feeling dreadfully about it," and took great pains not to say anything that could wound his imaginary susceptibilities as the relative of a _mauvais sujet._ But the simple truth was that, once assured that respectable people were not being deluded or cheated by his cousin, Mr. Ramsay had no further sensitiveness on the subject. The Browns kept what he had told them even from the Ketchums, only to hear him announce in all assemblies that a cousin of his was "goin' about over here,--an awful swindler and 'leg,'--and that the best thing people could do would be to give him the widest sort of berth until he got himself into the penitentiary, as he certainly would,--at least it was quite on the cards," smiling in cheerful enjoyment of the possibility. Entertainments were going on all the while in the neighborhood, and he had ample opportunities of advertising the fact, all of which he improved, while a puzzled audience knew not what to make of so novel a situation, and were sorely put to it for suitable replies as they stared at an Adonis in Poole-cut clothes who sat and looked alternately at them and his patent-leather court pumps and gay silk socks while he affably denounced his father's nephew and "hoped the blackguard was goin' to New Orleans and would get the yellow fever there, which was beginnin' to be had over from the Havana."

This last speech was made at a dinner-party which Mr. Ketchum's partner Mr. Richardson had felt called upon to give in honor of the English guests, and was almost the only amusing feature of the evening to Job. The Richardsons' house was one of those in which everything is provided on such occasions except amusement. When their invitation came, Job said to his wife, "I wish we could get out of going; but we can't. I don't know what is the matter with that house. It is one of the handsomest in the city, elegantly furnished; they always have a crowd of people at their entertainments, some of them delightful people to meet anywhere else, but somehow there seems a kind of pall draped above the front door that drops down behind you when you enter and never lifts till you leave. Mrs. Richardson puts on all her war-paint and feathers and goes around all the evening anxiously trying to make the thing go off, and it gets worse and worse every moment, so dull and stupid that you can hardly keep awake, and not quite quiet enough for a good nap. Richardson buys everything that is to be had, and then sits around and looks as though he had a note to meet in bank and no money to do it with. Altogether, it is about as lively as a water-tank on the Pacific Railroad after the train has gone. But it won't do to hurt their feelings: we have got to go."

So they did, and it was stiff and formal beyond even his expectation. The dinner was interminably long, over-elaborate, and slowly served. They were all sent in with the wrong people. The conversation all but died again and again. Sir Robert was afflicted by a deaf man, who shrieked, "Ha-ow?" and "What say?" at him with brief intervals all during the meal. Mabel shrank into herself, and only ventured on a few trite remarks. Mr. Ketchum's liveliness utterly evaporated after the first ten minutes. It was quite ghastly, and the move back to the drawing-room was a most blessed relief. Mrs. Sykes had made no effort to lighten the tedium of the dinner, and no sooner found it at an end than she lolled back indifferently on the sofa, and, picking up a book, coolly read it for more than an hour, though twice interrupted by Mrs. Richardson, who vainly tried to substitute polite conversation the first time, and offered a cup of tea the second.

"English breakfast?" asked Mrs. Sykes loftily, raising her eyes for a moment. "No; I am afraid not. It is green tea, I think."

"But do take some," replied Mrs. Richardson, "It is very nice indeed."

"No, thank you," said Mrs. Sykes very shortly, her eyes on her book.

"Just one cup. Let me make it for you?" suggested Mrs. Richardson.

"Not for a five-pound note would I drink the poisonous stuff. Say no more about it," replied Mrs. Sykes, with delicate consideration, and turned over a page.

"Do take some coffee, then, or chocolate," insisted Mrs. Richardson.

"Nothing of any sort or kind whatever," snapped Mrs. Sykes, turning away decidedly, to get a better light on her book, apparently, but really to get rid of her hostess.

Mr. Ketchum, fearing to show indecent exultation when the carriages were announced, repressed the satisfaction that would have expressed itself in gay speeches of farewell. A decorous exit was made; and as they rolled away he gave a great sigh of relief, and exclaimed, "I haven't had as much fun since I had the measles. Mussiful Powers! what an evening! I feel like the boy whose mother gave him a good beating for his own sake. But all the same I shall have a word to say to Mrs. Sykes tomorrow; and of course I shall have to apologize for her behavior to Richardson."

"Most insolent, unpardonable conduct, I call it," said Sir Robert. "She's an innately vulgar woman."

"Puts on an awful lot of side. I can't stand her. She gives me the jumps. And she can tell a buster, too, when she likes: I have found that out," put in Mr. Ramsay.

"Well, I don't exactly hanker to be cast away on a desert island with her, even supposing I was one of the royal dukes and had taken the precaution of being introduced while we were tying on the life preservers, in case of accidents," said Mr. Ketchum.

What he said to Mrs. Sykes next morning no one ever knew but the discreet Mabel. Not much, probably, but that little was so much to the point that it had a decided effect,--two of them, indeed, one interior, the other external. It increased her respect for him, and it made her perfectly civil to all his friends, as far as constitution and habit would allow.

"I cut her comb for her, and handled her without gloves," was his report of the interview to his wife, who was amazed at his nerve.

When Sir Robert got a note addressed to "Lord Heathcote, Baronet," beginning "Dear Sir," and signed "Very respectfully your obedient servant, " and read it aloud at the breakfast-table as "a most extraordinary production," Mrs. Sykes had absolutely no comments to make. And when Ethel opened her letters and found among them an invitation to take a buggy-drive, commencing "Dear Miss," Mrs. Sykes still held her peace,--a fact that was full of significance.

It was Miss Noel who said, "Really, Ettie dear, I can't have you driving about furiously in a gig without a groom. But pray thank Mr.--what is the name?--Price for being so kind as to propose it, meaning to give you pleasure. He has been so obliging, too, as to procure tickets for us to the play, and has kindly offered to escort us: I have a letter from him as well. A most lovely day, this. There seems no end, really, to the fine weather. Remind me to look at the thermometer after breakfast, before the sun catches it, love. It must have been _quite_ two degrees hotter yesterday than the day before; but I neglected to make the entry in my journal, and so cannot be quite positive. Only fancy! Is it not annoying? I am getting sadly forgetful about everything. And I so dislike guess-work and conjecture in a record of the kind. I should like to see the rose-trees at home this morning: the garden must be gay with flowers by this,--though the last time I went pottering about it in my pattens there was nothing out but the blackthorn."

Other entertainments followed closely upon the dinner, of which Mrs. Sykes complained to Miss Noel, saying, "Why will they ask me out? Why can't they leave me alone? Really, I shall not let any one know that I am here, if anything ever brings me back to America,--which is most unlikely."

"There is nothing to prevent you staying at home if you do not wish to go out," replied Miss Noel. "But do you not like it? I enjoy going to the Browns'. Mr. Brown is a man of cultivated mind and Christian courtesy; I like him very much; and the people one meets there are generally of superior station and refined education. Why should you object to meeting them?"

"American society may be nice some day,--that is, if it ever grows up. There doesn't seem to be anybody in it now over twenty," grumbled Mrs. Sykes.

One result of the parties was that Mr. Ketchum, going over to Mr. Brown's one morning, found all the young people assembled there practising steps, the "two-and-a-half," the "polka-glide," and other cheerful evolutions. After watching Mr. Ramsay's efforts to do as Bijou did, for a moment, he called out to her to know what she was doing to a British subject under his protection, and, being shown by Bijou (skirts held up a little, the prettiest feet imaginable, daintily shod, and the gliding, swaying, pirouetting, galopading, graceful beyond expression), cried out, "Teaching him to dance, are you? I thought he was practising heading off a calf in a lane." This so exactly expressed the awkward desperate plunges to the right and left which Mr. Ramsay was executing at the moment, that Mr. Heathcote had another of his acute attacks of appreciation, and became almost a subject for sal volatile and burnt feathers, Mr. Ramsay saying good-naturedly, "What a fellow you are for chaffin', Ketchum! Just you hook it out of this, will you, and let us get on with this? One and two and a kick, you say, Miss Brown? I am such a duffer I can't get the kick."

"You do the one and two make one, and leave the kick to Miss Bijou," said Mr. Ketchum suggestively. "Why aren't you gambolling like the playful antelope, Heathcote?"

"I don't often gamble. I leave that to Ramsay, who is an all-fired jewhillikens scratch at it, as you say over here," replied Mr. Heathcote.

"You gamble a little differently, that is all. You have dropped a good deal on loo first and last, for all your wisdom," retorted Mr. Ramsay between his steps.

"Get out your 'Hand-Book of American Slang,' my boy,--two dollars a volume, --and you will retrieve all your losses, I'll engage," said Mr. Ketchum laughingly, as he walked away.

The dancing had been interrupted, however, and Bijou and Mr. Ramsay retired to the bow-window to talk. "Odd that I can't get it, isn't it?" said he. "I never was much of a dancin' man; and I ought to be, you know. I am not a readin' man; and a man that is not a readin' man is nearly always a dancin' man. The governor is a readin' man, and took a double-first; but I am like my poor mother, who was dull." Thus launched, he gave her a full account of his relatives and home with all his own frankness, and she, listening with her heart as well as her ears, did not know whether to smile or sigh: the phraseology of the recital and its completeness amused her, but she also divined the loneliness of such a boyhood. To her great embarrassment, the tears rose in her eyes in quick sympathy when she came to hear of the way he was treated in his childish maladies.

"Poor little fellow!" she said softly, and, as she was obliged to drop the white, thickly-fringed lids and fall to pleating her handkerchief industriously, she felt rather than saw that he was looking at her narrowly.

There was a moment's silence, and then Mr. Ramsay began talking again. "You are very happy here, aren't you? You wouldn't like to leave it and go away to India, or Egypt, or--or--England, or anywhere?" said this particularly deep young man, and, without waiting for any answer, except such as was afforded by her rosy silence, went on: "American girls do have lots of fun, I see that. I am afraid they are too fond of flirting, though. English girls don't get much of a chance at that, as girls. They don't amount to much until they are married and get their own way."

"Why, they don't flirt after they are _married_, do they?" said Bijou, in a horrified tone, her ideal of post-matrimonial conduct being the exact opposite of the ante-matrimonial.

"Oh, don't they, just!" said Mr. Ramsay cheerfully. "You see, as girls they are heavily handicapped. They can't do anything they like, or go anywhere; it's awfully slow for them, poor things. And so they naturally look forward to the time when they will get their liberty as well as a husband. But the competition must be something awful. A fellow that has got a fine property or money is regularly hunted down; and even a poor devil like me has to be monstrous careful. Cowrie, of the Carbineers, who has got sixty thousand a year, says that he can't go to certain houses, for fear they may have a clergyman secreted about the place and will get him spliced to the ugliest daughter before he can escape. Awfully clever chap, Cowrie,--a match for any mamma in England, I can tell you. He is not going to marry any woman but the one he wishes to marry. No more am I. That's why I can't marry. I've got no money. The governor picked out a young woman from Liverpool for me last year,--a brewer's daughter, with pots of it,--and wanted me to make up to her."

"Oh, he did! What did you do about it?" asked Bijou, in a low voice.

"Well, you see, just then I was most awfully hard up, and couldn't afford to break with the governor; and so--"

"I'd be ashamed to say any more about it. Addressing a girl just for her money!" interjected Bijou warmly, disappointed that he had not scorned the proposition utterly.

"It didn't go that far. I thought it might be a good thing, you know. And so I tried it,--spooning, you know," said he placidly.

"Oh, indeed!" commented Bijou sarcastically. "Very honorable of you, I am sure, and delightful for the girl to have such a disinterested admirer. How did it end?"

"How you do pick,a fellow up!" remonstrated Mr. Ramsay amiably. "It sounds awfully conceited to say so, of course, but I think I could have carried off the cup if I had liked. At least every one said she was hard hit. And she wasn't long in the tooth, or very ugly, or vulgar, or anything; but somehow I couldn't stand it. I got to hate her. She breathed so hard when she danced, for one thing. Regular grampus. Upon my word, she almost blew my gibus away from under my arm sometimes. Regular snorts. And then she was always smilin'. And she talked an awful lot about Goethe and Schiller, and those chaps. Altogether, I cried off, and told the governor I would try the Colonies. And he told me that if I was such a consummate ass as to let a good thing like that slip, I could take my little pittance and go to the deuce as soon as ever I liked; and here I am. Some may think I acted foolishly, but one's relatives are not always the best judges of what is good for one, you know, though they may think they are actin' for one's good; and what one wants to do is to do one's best in whatever position one finds one's self in, you know, no matter what one--Hang it all! I know what I want to say, but I can't say it. You understand, I fancy, without me tryin' to explain."

Having tied himself up in this conversational bow-knot, Mr. Ramsay waited to be extricated. His idea had been to convey in the most delicate and roundabout way to Bijou that he was not the man to marry any woman for her money, and that if he had seemed to like a certain person a good deal it was not because she was the daughter of a rich man. To her, however, he seemed to be posing as a conqueror of heiresses, indifferent to the pain he might inflict upon any girl silly enough to be captivated by his good looks and good manners,--a breaker of tacit engagements, and a wicked worldling. So she rose very stiffly, and said that she neither knew nor cared to know what he meant, and was obliged to leave him, and so went away, and left him extremely puzzled and disconcerted by the behavior of his charmer.

After this, the summer of Mr. Ramsay's discontent set in. There was nothing that he could actually complain of in Bijou's treatment of him, but it was plain that she had changed. She was vastly more polite than before, but much less kind. Their intimacy seemed a thing of the past century. It was Mr. Heathcote now who, partly from idleness, partly from a desire to tease his friend, went constantly to the Browns', and showed Bijou various attentions, which she accepted with very pronounced satisfaction. It was with Miss Price now that Mr. Ramsay rode and walked and talked,--Miss Price, whose free-and-easiness, vapid chatter, artificiality, and sentimentalism contrasted unpleasantly with Bijou's frankness and sincerity. By this course each confirmed the other in the impression of untrustworthiness and flirtatiousness both had received, and they ought to have been perfectly satisfied with this result. But, considering how perfectly happy she was in Mr. Heathcote's society, it was odd that Bijou grew paler and thinner every day. And if Miss Price was so perfectly delightful, why did she send Mr. Ramsay home always as gloomy and morose as any young man very well could be? With blundering honesty, Mr. Ramsay once taxed Bijou with a preference for Mr. Heathcote, not knowing that when a jealous lover accuses a girl of being fond of some other man she never fails to encourage the idea, unless it is really true, when she denies it with the utmost vehemence. Bijou, with much feminine circumlocution, insinuated that he was devotedly attached to Miss Price, to which he truthfully replied that he did not care "one rap" about her. Women are born incredulous in such affairs. When sure of themselves, they doubt the lover; when sure of the lover, they invariably doubt themselves. And so the misunderstanding grew, and continued in mutual mistake and suspicion, and no two people were ever more thoroughly and foolishly miserable. Mr. Ketchum, when enlightened by his wife, could see that his guest was in a bad way; and one day it chanced that they were left alone in the library, where Job was most unromantically engaged in looking up plans for a model pig-stye, while he incidentally refreshed himself with his favorite confection, molasses candy.

"Man alive!" said he, after directing a keen glance at Mr. Ramsay's face, "what is the matter? Take some of the Dentist's Friend, won't you?" (pushing a plate toward him.) "I like it better than all the French stuff that was ever made, and Mabel keeps me liberally supplied. You look awfully down in the mouth, Ramsay, as though you'd enjoy howling like the lone wolf on far Alaska's shore, if you were sure nobody was looking. Suppose you tell me what has impaled you. Is it love, money, or indigestion, old fellow?"

The words were light, but the tone hearty and kind; and, thus encouraged, Mr. Ramsay laid bare his woes, Mr. Ketchum listening attentively, and saying, when he had finished, "I know; I know. When I thought I had lost Mabel once, I carried the universe around on a sore back all day, and then my heart would get up on its hind legs and yelp half the night; and there have been other times when I got caught in the machinery, and I know how it hurts, I think of those times often. They grind a man down to the quick, and send the chaff flying: they teach him valuable lessons. I remember I started out in life with two violent prejudices,--one against Jews, and the other against Roman Catholics. Well, in the greatest strait I have ever known, the Christian that came to my relief was a Jew in a town of seven thousand people; and when I had the smallpox a Sister of Charity took me to the hospital and nursed me, when every one had deserted me and left me to die or live without any meddling from them to bias me in my decision. After that I said to myself, 'Job Ketchum, if the Lord can make and stand as great a fool as you have been, he can make plenty of good Jews and Roman Catholics, and if they have got his hall-mark they can do without your valuable endorsement; and when smelting-day comes I reckon you'll find that the Protestant quartz won't pan out _all_ the silver that has been put in the earth's veins. You needn't go around blushing for David and Thomas ?Kempis any longer, my son. Take a holiday.' My advice to you, Ramsay, is to keep a stiff upper lip. Perhaps the buzz-saw has only got your clothes, and you will be all right when you cut loose; but if it has got _you_, all you can do is to stand and take it, and if you can remember who set it going it will be better for you."

The last phrase Mr. Ketchum got out in a shamefaced way, as if very much ashamed of it, as indeed he was; but Mr. Ramsay was the better for the talk, and, though not "a readin' man," had easily understood the illuminated characters in this page of human experience. He brightened perceptibly from this date, and was able to take a healthy interest in certain match-games of base-ball and la-crosse in neighboring cities, which he attended with Mr. Ketchum and Sir Robert, who, besides these diversions, had to visit the prisons and all the public schools, and to gather a mass of information in regard to these two subjects, with criminal and educational statistics, systems, theories, that had to be examined, sifted, recorded in the diary with the pains, study, and reverence for facts that characterized every entry made in it. Meanwhile, quite an intimacy had sprung up between the ladies of the Ketchum and Brown households, or rather the existing one soon embraced the Englishwomen. Mrs. Sykes and Miss Noel were struck by a number of things in the latter establishment.

"Do you suppose that _all_ American households are organized in this extraordinary, miscellaneous way, so as to include, besides the head of the house, his wife and children, all sorts of relatives, outsiders, and strangers?" said Mrs. Sykes to Miss Noel. "Mrs. De Witt told me, quite as a matter of course, that the sister of her husband's first wife lived with them, though she was away when we were there. And look at the Ketchums and the Browns. It is most remarkable. Why do they do it, I wonder? I must really ask about it, how it ever came about. And on such an extraordinary basis, too! Only fancy, that poor, thread-paper creature, Mr. Brown's daughter, has married badly and come back to her father with a troop of children; and she married in opposition to his wishes, and she hasn't a farthing of her own; and yet she seems to have no proper sense of her position whatever. She does nothing to make herself useful and get her living, but sits up in her bedroom, rocking and sewing, all the day long. She bids her father buy this and that for the children, just as though they were not actually beggars, dependent upon him for shelter and every mouthful. She meddles in household matters to any extent, giving the servants orders, having fires made, and even the dinner-hour changed to suit her convenience; and one would think she was mistress there. I wonder she dares do it. Yet, so far from being sat upon or put in her place, I heard Mr. Brown tell Bijou the other day, when some little disagreement took place between them, that she must let her "poor sister" have everything to suit herself, and do her best to make her happy and contented and help her to forget all the trouble she had known, as far as possible. Just as if spoiling her like that, and giving her false ideas of her importance, could be a good plan. Not that it will last. She is a pauper, and will be made to see that she is one, sooner or later. She has nothing but what he gives her, I know, for I have asked her; but she would not tell me why she separated from her husband. Americans are so absurdly secretive and sensitive! Do you know, she was vexed by the inquiry? A great mistake, as I told her, to get rid of him, unless he was a dangerous brute: men are so useful, and 'grass-widows,' as they say here, are always looked down upon. Did you ever know anything so idle as those Brown women? The men here are very active and 'go-ahead,' as they call it, but the women seem to do one of two things,--either they hold their hands altogether and are a thousand times more idle than any queen or duchess, or they work themselves to death, and are cooks, sempstresses, maids, housemaids, nurses, governesses, ladies, and a dozen other things rolled into one,--poor things! Thank heaven I am not an American lady."

"I see what you mean," said Miss Noel. "That dear, sweet girl Bijou has had no practical training whatever. She was amazed that I should make Ethel dye her white kid slippers (when they were soiled) for morning use; and when she saw me getting up some dainty bits of old point that I do not trust to Parsons, she asked me why I bothered with the old stuff and didn't buy new. She has absolutely no idea of the value of money or of household management. On the other hand, that little Mrs. Grey, their friend, told me that she did all the sewing for her twelve children; and Mrs. Grey has not taken a holiday of even a few weeks for twenty years. I can't think how it is they don't break down altogether."

But it was the children of the Brown household that awakened the liveliest surprise in the minds of these ladies,--an astonishment wholly free from admiration or approval, for they were children of a type with which Americans are sadly familiar, but which had never come under their notice before. The little Graysons were utterly undisciplined, and got their own way in everything. Their grandfather, aunt, mother, and nurses combined were powerless to control them, and would give them anything but what they most needed. They pervaded the whole house, and were the hub of it; they ate at all hours, and of whatever they fancied. They had no regular hour for going to bed, but fell asleep everywhere, and were removed with the utmost precaution. Mrs. Sykes, going there, would find them jumping up and down with muddy feet on the drawing-room sofas or playing on the new grand piano with the poker. Miss Noel one day found Mr. Brown in a great state of perturbation, calling out, "Helen! Jane! Bijou! Come here, quick! The baby is bumping his head on the floor!" (The baby being three years old.) "Don't get angry, darling. If you won't bump your head, grandpa will bring you a wax doll from Kalsing to-morrow." Another day, baby's sister in banging on the window-pane struck through the glass and cut her fist. "Poor little dear! Poor childie! Let me bind it up quickly. Harry, love, bid nurse fetch the arnica at once," exclaimed Miss Noel; but the patient stamped and shrieked, and would not have her hand examined or doctored by anybody, whereupon her admiring mother said, "Jenny has always been that way. She has a great deal of character, Miss Noel."

"A very undisciplined one, I fear," replied that lady emphatically. She could scarcely believe that she heard aright when, on asking this model parent what her plans were for the summer, she said,--

"I am going to try Saratoga again. We were there last year, and I went prepared to stay until the 1st of October. I liked it very much; it was very gay and pleasant; but Harry got tired of it, and wouldn't stay after the second week, so I packed up and went to Long Branch, which he has always liked."

"Your brother, or uncle?" inquired Miss Noel, in perfect good faith.

"No, my little Harry," replied the placid mother.

The very appearance of the children, fragile, delicate-looking, nervous, was in striking contrast to the solid, rosy, somewhat stolid English children to whom she was accustomed. They were pretty, quite abnormally intelligent she thought, and as attractive as such rearing would permit them to become; but their habits and manners positively afflicted her. She pined to put them to bed at seven o'clock, keep them four or five hours of every day in the open air, give them simple, nourishing food,--in short, inaugurate the wholesome nursery system of her own country. To see them sitting down to table without saying their grace or putting on their pinafores, and order of the servant soups full of condiments, veal, any or all of eight vegetables, pickles, tarts, pudding, jelly, custard, fruit-cake, bon-bons, strong coffee, cheese, almonds, raisins, figs, more custard, raisins again, and more fruit-cake, all despatched in great haste, with no attention to the proper use of napkin, knife, fork, or spoon, was acutely disagreeable to her; and it was amusing to see her efforts to insinuate, as it were, better things into their daily life. "Nice, clever children," she would say,--"so delicate-featured, and so refined in appearance, but, heavens! what a monstrous system of education!" She had taken a fancy to Bijou from the first, and she soon noticed in her a great many little evidences of weariness, discontent, unhappiness; also that she was alternately very pale and depressed or flushed and animated. She took the girl therefore under her motherly wing, lectured her a little in her gentle way about some things, praised her in others, and was very kind to her.

"My dear," she would say, "do you not eat entirely too many sweets, bon-bons, and what not, and then go without proper food at the regular meals?" Or it would be, "How do you occupy yourself, as a rule, dear child? Do you district-visit, botanize, sketch, learn a language? What do you do? You would enjoy a course of belles-lettres, and should take that. And that head in crayons that you did at school was pleasantly executed: why not study from life constantly?" Bijou had to confess that she did nothing, and not even that industriously. "But, my dear, you are not an Asiatic. You surely don't wish to be a doll, a plaything, self-indulgent, helpless, leading a life of mere luxurious indulgence and artificiality?"

No, Bijou had no such wish; but what was the use of learning or doing anything now as a girl? If she married, it would be different; but then she would never, never marry. But Miss Noel insisted that an idle woman was a miserable woman, married or single, and was brisk and cheerful and kind, and devised a number of small employments for Bijou, whom she kept with her a great deal, and so befriended her as effectually as Mr. Ketchum had done Mr. Ramsay. Mrs. Sykes found fault with her once or twice, but did not find her all meekness.

"Why do you talk of 'an elegant breeze'?" she said to her one day.

"For the same reason that you spoke of 'a beautiful roast' yesterday," retorted the young lady, who might be broken-hearted, but was certainly not broken-spirited. "I know better, and I suppose you do, but we are both careless."

Matters drifted along in this way until a certain morning spent by Mr. Ramsay at the Browns',--eventful because a little thing happened which convinced him that Bijou cared for him. He came home with a new pang substituted for those he had been enduring for a lover's age. After dinner he tramped off for a long walk alone, in the course of which it may fairly be presumed that he decided what course to take, for early on the following day he called especially, for the second time, upon Mr. Brown.

"I have come to tell you that I can't come here any more," he said, holding his hat with his accustomed grace, and going in his straightforward fashion immediately to the subject in his mind. "And I wish to thank you for bein' so kind to me and receivin' me as you have done, and to tell you why I am actin' in this way."

"Why, what's the matter? Going away? Isn't this rather sudden?" asked Brown _p?_, all unsuspicious of what was to come.

"Oh, it isn't _that_! Though of course I shall be goin'. It is that I can't marry. That is what it is. You should have been told of it before, by rights, only I kept puttin' it off. You have a perfect right to blame me for not sayin' so long ago, when you were good enough to admit me here on an intimate footin'. It was a shabby, dishonorable thing of me, and I hope you'll forgive it, rememberin' that it was not my intention to deceive you," said Mr. Ramsay. "It wasn't, now, really."

"But, my dear fellow, of what are you accusing yourself? There must be some mistake. What has that got to do with your visits here?" asked Mr. Brown.

"Why, don't you see?--don't you object to me bein' thrown so much with Miss Brown, under the circumstances?" stammered out Mr. Ramsay.

"Not the least in the world,--not the least in the world, I assure you. Delighted to see you, I am sure, whenever you like to come," said Mr. Brown, with hospitable warmth. "Why should I? There is no necessity for your marrying anybody, that I can see. What put such a foolish idea in your head?"

"But I thought you would think--she would think I thought--that is--as you might say--"

A hearty laugh from Mr. Brown interrupted him: "Why, you seem to have thought a good deal on the subject. The most extraordinary idea! Excuse my saying so. This house is always full of young men dancing attendance on Bijou, who is as popular a girl as there is; but I don't trouble _my_ head about them, I can assure you. No, indeed. Half of them don't want to marry Bijou, and she don't want to marry any of them that I know of. And I guess I shall be told when the affair comes off, so that I can order the wedding-cake. Why, they are just all young people together. It don't mean anything. They just naturally like each other's society. They are amusing themselves,--that's all; and quite right, too."

Mr. Ramsay had never conceived of such a philosophical parent or agreeable state of affairs. He was very much embarrassed, and caught at a familiar idea in his confusion. "That's what I thought you would think,--that I was amusin' myself. And I wanted to tell you that I am not, you know. I have far too much respect for Miss Brown to dream of doin' such a thing," he said very eagerly.

"Oh, you mean at her expense? I understand now. Well, now, let me make your mind perfectly easy on that score. Bijou can take care of herself as well as any girl in America, and I never thought of such a thing. If you are thinking of _her_, that's all right. If you are thinking of yourself, of course that is another thing. She isn't thinking of marrying _you_. She doesn't care anything about you in that way, I am certain. I should have noticed it if she had been," said Mr. Brown, who labored under the usual parental delusion as to his daughter's heart having a glass window through which he could see all that went on there.

"I am tryin' to do what is best for both of us," said Mr. Ramsay honestly, blushing profusely. "And I came to say good-by. And here is a little note I have written Miss Brown. I have left it open, in case you wished to see it."

"Not at all,--not at all. Bijou would blow me up sky-high if she caught me reading it, I can tell you. I'll give it to her, certainly. I think you are giving yourself unnecessary concern; but your scruples, though novel, do you honor. If you think it best to give us up, you are, as far as you are personally concerned, the best judge. Good-by. Send us a line to say how you like the West. Good-by," said Mr. Brown, and smilingly accompanied him to the front door.

Papa Brown gave his daughter the note, which ran as follows:

"MY DEAR MISS BROWN,--I am going away, and you have been so awfully kind to me that I know you will excuse me writing to say how awfully grateful I am to your family for receiving a stranger as they have done."

Here "I shall often think of you" was carefully scratched out, and "I shall always remember it and the pleasant hours I have spent with them" substituted.

"And now I have got to say a disagreeable word, which is good-by. I hope you will have a fine hot summer and will think of me sometimes when you are spooning tremendously at croquet,--as you know you do, though it isn't fair. With best regards to all the members of your household, I am

"Faithfully yours,

"ARTHUR RAMSAY.

"P.S.--If I should drop into a good thing you will hear of it."

Mr. Ramsay had taken four hours to compose something that should not be actionable or compromising, and yet that should convey some idea of the state of his mind and feelings, and had turned out this masterpiece, which Bijou read in bitterness of soul over and over again.

"Excuse me writing," "fine hot summer," "croquet," she quoted mentally. "After all that has passed between us! If he had really cared for me, and anything had separated us, he would have had the common honesty and manliness to say so. No; he thinks me another Liverpool girl, 'hard hit.' He is running away from _me_." At this cruel idea, so abhorrent to her vanity, pride, affection, and general womanhood, the poor girl sank down on her bed overwhelmed, and did not leave her room for three days,--or rather eternities,--at the end of which time she met Mr. Ramsay by accident on the high-road and cut him dead.

"I must pull myself together and get away out of this," said Mr. Ramsay to Mr. Ketchum that evening. "I have bought of Albert Brown his ranch in Colorado, near Taylorsville, and I leave in the morning."

"WHAT!" cried Mr. Ketchum. "Has he sold you that tumble-down claim on a burnt prairie, miles from any wood or water? I know the place."

"I haven't examined the property; but he assures me it is a fine one. And, anyway, it is settled, I am going. A thousand thanks for all your kindness, Ketchum. An Englishman that I met in New York wants me to go huntin' with him, and I shall join him at St. Louis and go on out from there."

"Why, I thought you had all promised to go to Niagara as my guests in a few days. Do change your mind and stay, won't you?" urged Mr. Ketchum.

But Mr. Ramsay was obdurate, and took himself and a car-load of property off in the direction of the setting sun by the mid-day train next morning.

"Ramsay, I want you to promise me one thing. If, owing to that skunk Brown, you are disappointed out there, or don't get on, write or telegraph me, and I'll stand by you to the tune of ten thousand or so. Good-by, old fellow. Remember, I'm your _friend_," said generous Job, at the station. And as he went home he stopped and presented Mr. Albert Brown with a piece of his mind that any other man would only have taken in exchange for a flogging, delivered.

"How very nice and kind of the dear duke to give Mr. Ramsay an invite to join him!" said Mrs. Sykes, with emotion, at dinner that day.

F.C. BAYLOR.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

* * * * *

A TEMPLE PILGRIMAGE

Sauntering down the southerly side of Fleet Street, toward the historic spot where once stood Temple Bar, crested with its ghastly array of pike-pierced traitors' heads, the curious itinerant comes to an arched gate-way of Elizabethan architecture. The narrow lane which it guards is known as Inner Temple Street, and cleaves the Temple enclosure into unequal parts, ending at the river. Standing in the shady archway, with the roar and rattle, the glare and glitter, of Fleet Street at our backs, we instinctively feel that we are about to enter a new and strange locality, the quiet atmosphere and the cloister-like walks of which seem redolent of books and the pursuits of bookish men.

We are on the threshold of the Temple,--a spot than which none in all this historic metropolis is more replete with memories of the storied past. Nor does its interest consist solely in its associations with the men and manners of a by-gone epoch. Despite its antique architecture and its quaint observances, the Temple still maintains its reputation for scholarship and legal acumen. Its virility is fitly symbolized in the venerable and vigorous trees whose branching boughs wave above its walls: sound to the core, it sends forth new scions with perennial freshness.

The gray gate-way under which we have halted is one of the two chief entrances to the Temple. It was built in the reign of James I., being consequently nearly three centuries old. White-aproned porters, with numbered pewter badge on lapel, stand on either side, ready--for a consideration--to direct our transatlantic ignorance into veritable "paths of pleasantness and peace." Access to the Middle Temple from Fleet Street is had by way of another gate-house, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1684, soon after the Great Fire. It is in the style of Inigo Jones, of reddish brick, with stone pointing. There are several other entrances,--many of them known only to the initiated,--through intricate courts and passages debouching on Fleet Street and the surrounding thoroughfares, and one from the river at Temple Pier; but, chiefly because of their proximity to the New Courts of Law, these two gate-ways are most frequented.

The boundaries of this famous abode of British wit and intellect may be roughly sketched as follows: on the north, Fleet Street; on the south, the Thames and the Victoria Embankment; on the east, Serjeants' Inn and the Whitefriars region; on the west, Essex Street, Strand. These boundaries remain substantially as they were six or seven centuries ago. The Middle Temple lies nearest the river; the Inner Temple is nearer to Fleet Street, and "inside"--that is, on the "city" side--of Temple Bar. Essex House and its purlieus, once the abode of the powerful earls of that name, were formerly a part of the Temple. It was called the Outer Temple, because "outside" of Temple Bar.

In the reign of Henry II., about the year 1185, the ground now included in the Temple area became the head-quarters in London of the crusading Knights Templar. Removing from humbler quarters in Holborn, the order, having become wealthy and ambitious, bought a tract of land extending from the walls of Essex House to Whitefriars, and from the river to Fleet Street. They erected a church, a priory, and other buildings clustered around in the mediaeval fashion, and in imitation of the Temple near the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

Under the first Richard and the third Henry the Templars increased in pelf, power, and pride. After a career commenced in zeal and purity, culminating in valor and fanaticism, and closing in corruption and indolence, in the year 1312, when the second Edward sat on the throne of England, the now useless order was formally abolished by Clement V., the reigning Pontiff. The Temple domain, by grant of the crown, then passed to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who conveyed it to the Earl of Lancaster, a cousin of Edward II. It was then rented to the professors and students of the common law, who had recently become an incorporate body, In 1333 the Temple had apparently reverted to the crown, for we find Edward III. farming out the rents for twenty-five pounds a year.

The Knights Hospitallers of St. John, meantime, affected to be much scandalized at what they deemed a desecration of holy ground, and claimed the custody of the place. In 1340, in consideration of a hundred golden guineas contributed toward the armament against France, the king made over the Temple to the Hospitallers. They handsomely endowed the church with lands, and gave "a thousand fagots yearly from Lillerton Wood to nourish the church fires."

The records of the Temple date back no further than the reign of Henry VII., so that the history of the previous period; is more or less obscure and traditional: the precise manner in which the Temple passed from the control of the sword to that of the wig and gown is not certain. The Hospitallers of St. John, who already possessed a priory at Clerkenwell, in the north of London, after having vindicated the sanctity of the church and cloisters, are believed to have leased the buildings and the demesne to the lawyers for the rent of ten pounds, payable yearly. Another account says that the latter purchased the property outright. However this may have been, in the reign of Richard II. we find the legal fraternity of the metropolis securely domiciled in the locality they have ever since tenaciously clung to.

Even so early as the time of Henry VI. the brotherhood of lawyers had attained to an unwieldy growth, and it separated into two halls, the original two halls of the Knights Templar forming the nuclei around which the frequenters of each grouped themselves. Thus arose the Middle and Inner Temple. Under the eighth Henry the two societies became direct tenants of the crown once more. In 1609 James I. granted "letters patent to the mansion of the Inner Temple," at a yearly rent of ten sovereigns; and a like sum was exacted for the Middle Temple. The societies have not been disturbed in their holdings since that time.

The Temple to-day comprises two of the four great Inns of Court, --Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple,--which, taken collectively, constitute the backbone of the legal polity of England. Ben Jonson described them as "the noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty in the kingdom." They are all of great age and the recipients of rich revenues. The income of the Middle Temple alone (not the richest of the four) from the single item of rents is about thirteen thousand pounds yearly; but the affairs of the Inns are so shrouded in administrative secrecy that exact information on this topic is not easily obtained.