CHAPTER XXX.

GUY FAWKES, however, as the Vicar's wife called him, made a most attentive lover: he used to ride or drive over from Grimwood every day, and spend many hours with Laura, interfering sadly with the regularity of her life, and her methodical arrangements; and of course she submitted uncomplainingly.

Nay, more. These interruptions of Lord Hatterleigh were far from unpleasant. Those good folks who said to one another, "How can that noble girl endure that booby for ten minutes?" knew very little either of Laura or of Lord Hatterleigh. In the first place, all her hundred-and-one rules and regulations, though bravely persisted in, were, so far from being any relief, becoming intolerably irksome. They had always been tiresome to her in the old times; but she had grown into the creed that the only difference between an Englishwoman and a foreign woman, the only difference between an immaculate saint and an ordinary sinner, consisted in the adherence to these aforesaid rules. That the immaculate saints, when they did fall, made a far worse mess of it than the ordinary sinners, who had not pitched their pipes too high, she had long suspected; but she had been brought up to consider that the only life possible for a decent woman was that of the well-regulated British female of the superior classes, and on to this belief she had engrafted the Tractarianism she had learned from the Vicar. Whether the creed she had knocked up, between Hannah-More regularities and ultra-high-church regularities would not hold together, or whether her mind had all along been too extremely ill-regulated for either, is a question we must leave to abler hands to decide. We have only to do with results; and the results were, first and last, unsatisfactory.

Last, more particularly: when she had that terrible fright about Poyntz-Hammersley, she began to believe her grandmother once more, and fled back to her old formulas. She found them deader than ever, so very dead, that when she recognized that the submitting to Lord Hatterleigh's attentions. was part of her duty, she found at the same time that his babble was the only thing in life that she cared for. When he was absent she went on with her other duties, her regular reading, her poor, her schools, or what-not. But as day after day went on she began to look more eagerly for his coming, and, to his great delight, to chide him for being late. She had always liked the man,

and she liked him better day by day. Though he at first gobbled like a turkey-cock, and blundered about like a hobbled donkey, yet what he said was far better worth hearing than anything else she heard; and as for clumsiness, he improved rapidly.

"I wish," he said once, “that I could put you on your horse." "Why?" she asked.

"Because then we could ride together; and it seems so shameful to me that you should have given up your riding on my ac

count."

"Would you like to ride with me, then?"

"I would give anything to do so; but I should pitch you over. And I can't ride."

"You ride well enough, and the stud-groom can put me on. Do you desire that I should ride with

you ?"

He laughed, and so did she. "I make a formal request that you ride with me.”

"I obey, of course," she said. morrow?”

"Will you ride with me to

"Shall we go with your father to the meet?" he said, eagerly. "I know you would like it."

"What can we want at the meet, my dear George? Every man can't ride to hounds, and you can't. I don't love you or respect you one whit the less for it, but I don't want you to be sneered at by all the horse-breakers and horse-dealers on that account. Come with me over the sands.'

So they went, farther and farther each day; poor and schools being more and more neglected for a week. At the end of that time Laura made her appearance one night in her father's dressing-room, as of old, and, putting her arm around his neck, said,

66

George and I have got such a quarrel with you, you wicked and unfeeling old man!

"My darling, why?"

"

“You never come and ride with us; you treat us like the dust under your feet. If you want us ever to speak to you again, you will come and ride with us to-morrow."

He could only kiss her and cry. Poor old gentleman! with all the ruin hanging over their heads, and he afraid to realize it to himself, still more afraid to tell Lord Hatterleigh the truth. But he came with them day after day, and, for the first time for so many years, was sorry when a hunting-day came, and they were separated. He forgot that he was ruined during these rides; he only remembered it in the dark watches of the night, while the unconscious Lady Emily murdered sleep by his side. They rode everywhere these three, Sir Charles pioneering, ― by the river, through the woodlands, up the glen, on the mountain ridge,

along the sands. They talked of everything, of hounds, politics, other folks' housekeeping, Constance Downes's match, bullocks, ploughs, cottages and their improvement, horses, and servants. But there was one horse they never spoke of, "The Elk";

there was one servant they never mentioned, — Poyntz-Hammersley; and there was one ride they never rode, the bay under Leighton Castle, where "The Elk" lay dead on the morning after the dark night in which Poyntz-Hammersley had been lost in the quicksands.

CHAPTER XXXI.

"Ir is all getting so terrible and so tragical," said Laura once before. So it was, though she knew nothing of her father's impending ruin. She could see that her mother and her grandmother knew nothing, or would know nothing, of the great tragedy which was being played around them: of her state of mind, for instance, with regard to Poyntz-Hammersley and Lord Hatterleigh; or, again, of the relations between Sir Harry Poyntz, his wife, and Colonel Hilton: which last were getting horridly confused in Laura's mind. Whatever happened, she was sure that they would have a respectability handy, and would get over it: "My dear, he was a handsome fellow, and Laura behaved with great discretion, far better than poor dear Lady Becky"; or, "My dear, he used her shamefully, and she went off with Colonel Hilton. She must never be mentioned again." Laura was right. If they had known of Sir Charles's difficulties, they would only have said, "Poor dear Charles has been living too fast!" That would have been their formula for ruin; and they would have gone to Baden with the utmost complacency, and without any loss of dignity. The thing had happened before to dozens of people in their rank of life, and with their way of living; therefore, there was nothing shocking about it, — nothing particular to grieve about. Laura knew this, and knew that it would be a more shocking thing, in her grandmother's eyes, if Sir Charles had sold his grapes or his game, than if he had lived beyond his income in doing usual extravagances, and had landed them all au premier at Brussels.

She had done with these two ladies, and she felt less inclined to renew her confidence with them every day; for she had found a friend, — Lord Hatterleigh. Every day she felt more respect

for him, and every day she felt more and more that with that noble, high-minded, highly-educated oddity at her side, she could face the world in arms. There was not perfect confidence between them, and that made her at times uneasy. Much as she loved him, he was no lover of hers. One night while Sir Harry Poyntz was walking up and down his room, and thinking when he should begin to poison Lord Hatterleigh's mind against her, she was tossing on her bed, brimful of the resolution of breaking off her engagement with Lord Hatterleigh and taking him for her friend. She never did so. She let things drive; she did not move in the matter any more than did Sir Harry Poyntz. They both bided their time.

But the pleasure she felt in the confidence and conversation of this man was very great; she revelled in it. She told him everything (save that one, and got to forget that, and to act about it as she did when it first happened, -to shove it back into her deepest consciousness, with such success that she thought it was going to stay there). She told him of her systematic bringing-up, and her early rebellions and he laughed; of her religionism—and he spoke gravely and well, praising her and blaming her confidentially and sensibly; showing her the absurdity of running into these extremes, and, in the end, persuading her to return in a moderate manner to her old routine; and, as part of it, took going to church on saints' days with her himself. Her grandmother could not have been more discreet than this youth; sometimes, however, she was forced to laugh when he got too priggish. There was perfect equality between them; it was all give-and-take. He was a strong anti-Tractarian,— would have been, if he could, leader of the Oxford Liberals; and they had many a fine fight over that matter. She, on the other hand, was merciless about untidiness, and bullied him systematically about his personal appearance, until he got to put on his clothes in a decent manner, and to come into the room without falling into the fireplace. In short, they did one another a great deal of good,

as any two honest people may, if they will only speak the truth to one another. She by degrees laughed him out of his sententious Daniel-come-to-judgment way of talking; and he, though sometimes in a fantastical way, put more good sense and knowledge of the way in which the world wags into her head than ever had been there before.

In the full luxury of the new-found confidence between them, the following dialogue took place one day when they were riding together.

"George," she said, "there is something very near my heart, and you must share it.”

He said ― &c., &c., &c.,—just what you or I would say.

"Don't cackle; and you should n't giggle after such a speech as that; and you have got your feet too far in your stirrups, and are turning your toes out. Men who don't hunt should n't ride like grooms. Keep your toes in as if you were in the Row." "Is that what was so near your heart?"

"Now, pray, don't be funny; remember the bull in the chinashop."

ra;

“I will, — and turn my toes in too.

There! Now then, Lau

if you are going to be serious, be so."

"I am not at all sure that you are in a fit state of mind to be consulted with; you are a trifle rebellious, and I have a good mind But, George dear, let us be in earnest; I want to speak to you about Maria Poyntz.”

Lord Hatterleigh looked over his shoulder to the groom, and said, “Go home to the Court, and borrow me a clean pockethandkerchief from Sir Charles's valet." And he went.

"What about her?"

"Is there nothing to be done? Is there no way to warn them, to warn her?"

"Do you wish to try?”

"I only want your sanction."

"Then you have it.

God speed you!"

CHAPTER XXXII.

"Is Captain Wheaton come in?" said Sir Harry Poyntz to his valet one day, about half an hour before dinner.

"He has been in some time, Sir Harry; he is smoking in the library."

“He has no business to smoke there, unless I am present. Did you tell him that he was to come to me the moment he came in?"

"I did, Sir Harry."

"Then why the devil did n't he come? Lawrence, that man is getting too much of a gentleman for us; he must have a lesson."

"The best lesson you could give him, Sir Harry, would be to pack him about his business.”

"But who is to do the dirty work, the spying, informing, mischief-making, gaining information, and so on? You won't. I have asked you more than once, and you flatly refused. Who is to do it?”