The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christina, by L. G. Moberly This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Christina Author: L. G. Moberly Release Date: January 14, 2012 [EBook #38573] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTINA *** Produced by Al Haines CHRISTINA BY L. G. MOBERLY Author of "Hope, My Wife," "That Preposterous Will," etc. WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED LONDON, MELBOURNE & TORONTO 1912 Dedicated to WINIFRED V. WALKER, WITH MUCH LOVE. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. "THE LITTLE PRACTICAL JOKE" II. "MUMMY'S BABA—DAT'S ALL" III. "ONE OF THE BEST THINGS LEFT" IV. "I SUPPOSE IT WAS AN HOUR" V. "I KNOW THIS IS WORTH A LOT OF MONEY" VI. "BABA LOVES YOU VERY MUCH". VII. "A VERY BEAUTIFUL PENDANT, WITH THE INITIALS 'A.V.C.'" VIII. "IT IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH" IX. "A VERY BEAUTIFUL LADY" X. "IT IS ONLY HE WHO MATTERS!" XI. "YOU CAN TRUST DR. FERGUSSON" XII. "YOU ARE JUST 'ZACKLY LIKE THE PRINCE" XIII. "YOU HAVE BEEN A FRIEND TO ME TO-DAY" XIV. "I AM QUITE SURE YOU NEED NOT BE AFRAID" XV. "I DO TRUST, CICELY, YOU KEEP HER IN HER PLACE" XVI. "MY MOTHER GAVE IT TO ME" XVII. "WHO DO YOU MEAN BY SIR ARTHUR?" XVIII. "YOU ARE MY OWN SISTER'S CHILD" XIX. "PER INCERTAS, CERTA AMOR" XX. "SHE HAS A SWEET, STRONG SOUL" XXI. "IF YOU GO ACROSS THE SEA!" XXII. "I CAME TO-DAY TO TELL YOU SO" XXIII. "THE KING OF MY KINGDOM" CHRISTINA. CHAPTER I. "THE LITTLE PRACTICAL JOKE." "Don't be a silly ass, Layton. Do I look the sort of man to play such a fool's trick?" "My dear fellow, there's no silly ass about it. You, a lonely bachelor, and not badly off—desirous of settling down into quiet, domestic life, would like to find a young lady of refined and cultured tastes who would meet you with—a view to matrimony. I'll take my oath you are as ready as this gentleman is, to swear you will make an excellent husband, kind, domesticated, and——" Further speech was checked by a well-directed cushion, which descended plump upon the speaker's bronzed and grinning countenance, momentarily obliterating grin and countenance alike, whilst a shout of laughter went up from the other occupants of the smoking-room. "Jack, my boy, Mernside wasn't far wrong when he defined you as a silly ass," drawled a man who leant against the mantelpiece, smoking a cigarette, and looking with amused eyes at the squirming figure under the large cushion; "what unutterable drivel are you reading? Is the Sunday Recorder responsible for that silly rot?" "The Sunday Recorder is responsible for what you are pleased to call silly rot," answered the young man, who had now flung aside the cushion, and sat upright, looking at his two elders with laughing eyes, whilst he clutched a newspaper in one hand, and tried to smooth his rumpled hair with the other. "The Sunday Recorder has a matrimonial column—and—knowing poor old Rupert to be a lonely bachelor, not badly off, and desirous of settling down into quiet domestic life, etc., etc.—see the printed page"—he waved the journal over his head—"I merely wished to recommend my respected cousin to insert an advertisement on these lines, in next Sunday's paper." "Because some wretched bounders choose to advertise for wives in the Sunday papers, I don't see where I come in," said a quiet and singularly musical voice—that of the third man in the room—he who a moment before had flung the large cushion at young Layton. He was sitting in an armchair drawn close to the glowing fire, his hands clasped under his head, his face full of languid amusement, turned towards the grinning youth upon the sofa. Without being precisely a handsome man, Rupert Mernside's was a striking personality, and his face not one to be overlooked, even in a crowd. There was strength in his well-cut mouth and jaw; and the rather deeply-set grey eyes held humour, and a certain masterfulness, which dominated less powerful characters than his own. In those eyes there was a charm which neutralised his somewhat severe and rugged features, but in Rupert Mernside's voice lay his greatest attraction; and a lady of his acquaintance had once been heard to say that with such a voice as his, he could induce anyone to follow him round the world. Why he had remained so long a bachelor had long been matter for speculation, not only to the feminine portion of the community, but also to his men friends; but thirty-five still found Rupert Mernside unmarried, and the manoeuvres of match-making mothers, and of daughters trained to play up to their mothers' tactics, had hitherto failed to lead him in the desired direction. "My dear Rupert," his young cousin said solemnly, after a pause, "you are a bachelor—the fact is painfully self- evident; you have enough money to—settle down and become domesticated. There are hundreds—no—thousands of young women in the world, who would 'meet you with a view to matrimony.' It seems a crying shame that you should waste your sweetness on the desert air—when you might be blooming in a fair lady's garden." "You utter young rotter," Mernside ejaculated, laughing as he rose, and stretched himself, "if you are so keen on matrimonial advertisements, why not put one in on your own account?" "Awful sport," Layton ejaculated; "think of the piles of letters you would get from every kind of marriageable woman—old and young. And you might arrange to meet any number of them at different places, and have no end of a ripping time. You only have to ask them to meet you with a view to matrimony; the matrimony needn't come off, unless both parties are satisfied." "Silly ass!" Mernside exclaimed again, with a laugh that mitigated the words, "one of these days you'll find yourself in some unpleasantly tangled web, my boy, if you play the goat over matrimonial advertisements. Better leave well alone and come up to Handwell Manor with me. Cicely wants a message taken to the Dysons." "Cicely's messages are like the poor—always with us," the younger man answered flippantly; "no, thank you, Rupert; on this genial and pleasant November afternoon, when you can't see half a mile ahead of you for the mist, and the country lanes are two feet deep in mud, I prefer the smoking-room fire. Besides, I have letters to write." "I'll go with you, Mernside"; the man who had been lounging against the mantelpiece straightened himself, and flung away the end of his cigarette; "Cicely won't be down till tea-time; she is spending the afternoon in the nursery, looking after the small girl. Confounded nuisance for her that the nurse had to go off in a hurry like this, for my respected sister was not intended by nature for the care of children." "Fortunate she has only one," Mernside answered; "what would she have done with a large family party?" "Managed by hook or by crook to get a party of nurses and nurserymaids to mind them," laughed the other man; "she's the dearest little soul alive, but Cicely never ought to have been a mother, though I shouldn't say that, excepting to you two who are members of the family, and know of what stuff Cicely and I are made." Mernside and Layton joined in the laughter, and the younger man said lazily: "Cicely's just Cicely; you can't imagine her less perfect than she is, and you, Wilfrid, being merely her brother, are not entitled to give an opinion about her. Rupert and I, as cousins, see her in a truer perspective. Bless her sweet heart! She makes a perfect chatelaine for this delectable castle, and the small heiress couldn't have a sweeter guardian." "Hear, hear," Mernside murmured, touching Layton's shoulder with a kindly, almost caressing touch, as he and his cousin, Lord Wilfrid Staynes, went out of the room, leaving the young man in sole possession. Left alone, Layton stretched himself again, yawned, lighted a cigarette, and, strolling to the window, looked at the not very inviting prospect outside. Bramwell Castle stood on the slope of a hill, and on even moderately fine days, the view commanded, not only by the window of the smoking-room, but by every window on that side of the house, was one of the wildest, and most beautiful in the county. But, on this Sunday afternoon in November, nothing more was visible than the broad gravel terrace immediately below the house, and a grass lawn that sloped abruptly from the terrace, and was dotted with trees. Everything beyond the lawn was swallowed up in a white mist that drifted over the tree-tops, and clung to the dank grass, blotting out completely all trace of the park, that swept downwards from the lawn, and of the great landscape which stretched from the woodlands to the far-away hills. Park, woods, and hills were visible to Jack Layton only in the eyes of his imagination; he could see none of them, and, with a shiver and a shrug of the shoulders, he turned back into the warm fire-lit room. Thanks to his close relationship to Lady Cicely Redesdale, the mistress of the house, to whom he had always been more of younger brother than cousin, he had carte blanche to be at the Castle whenever he chose, and to treat the house as if it were in reality, what he assuredly made of it—his actual home. Both to him—and to Cicely's other cousin, Rupert Mernside—the late John Redesdale, her husband, had extended the fullest and most warm hospitality; and since his death, it had still remained a recognised thing that the two cousins should spend their weekends at Bramwell, whenever Lady Cicely and her little daughter were there. The kindly millionaire who had married the lovely but impecunious Cicely Staynes, one of the numerous daughters of the Earl of Netherhall, possessed a host of hospitable instincts, and the Castle had opened its gates wide to Cicely's relations and friends. Only one reservation had been made by honest John Redesdale. No man or woman of doubtful reputation, or damaged character, was allowed to be the guest of his wife; and the shadier members of Society never set foot within any house of which the millionaire was master. Jack Layton, strolling idly now across the smoking-room, whose panelled walls and carved furniture had been Redesdale's pride and joy, glanced up at the mantelpiece, over which hung a portrait of the dead man. "Poor old John," the young man reflected, as he kicked a coal back into its place in the fire; "he was one of the best chaps that ever lived—even if he hadn't many good looks with which to bless himself." He looked up again at the plain but kindly features of the man in the portrait, and a smile crossed his pleasant young face, as his eyes met the pictured eyes above him. "It wasn't a love match, of course," his thoughts ran on; "at least, I don't suppose Cicely loved the dear old fellow. Well; he was thirty years her senior, so who could wonder? But they were jolly happy, for all that; John worshipped the ground her pretty feet walked upon, and he was her master, without ever letting her feel his hand through the glove. Cicely wants a master—all women do want a master," Jack wagged his head sagely, when his thoughts reached this point. Having attained to the ripe age of twenty-five, he felt he had plumbed the nature of woman to its lowest depths, "and Cicely was lucky to find a master who could give her a place like this." He sauntered away from the fireplace, and next surveyed the well-stocked bookcases, but although they contained every variety of literature, nothing he saw appealed to his fastidious taste of the moment—and, yawning afresh, he once more picked up the Sunday Recorder, which he had flung upon the floor. That someone who is perennially ready to turn idle hands to account, was watching over this idle youth on that November afternoon, may, on the whole, be taken for granted, for as Jack's blue eyes ran down the columns of the paper, a sudden mischievous light sprang into them, a low laugh broke from his lips. "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "What sport, what ripping sport. Why on earth didn't I think of it before? And—as I start for a four months' trip with Dundas on Saturday—I shan't have to pay the piper, so to speak, yet awhile. In fact, by the time I come back, good old Rupert may have forgotten the little practical joke." Whilst he soliloquized, he was making his way towards the writing-table, where, having seated himself, he drew towards him a blank sheet of paper—and began to write a letter, glancing frequently at the Sunday Recorder beside him. An expansive grin lightened his features as he wrote, and at intervals he chuckled softly to himself, murmuring under his breath: "Poor old Rupert. If only I could be there when he gets the answers. But one can't have everything," he went on philosophically, whilst addressing an envelope to the Editor of the Sunday Recorder; "it will be pure joy to think of the dear soul's dismay, horror, and disgust. ''Tis a mad world, my masters'—and, oh! to see our Rupert's face when the letters pour in. For they will pour in." During this rapid soliloquy, he was writing a second letter, which gave him less trouble, and needed less thought, than the first. Indeed, it ran very briefly: "DEAR SIR,—I am desired to ask if you will be good enough to forward all letters in response to the enclosed advertisement to R.M., c/o your newspaper, to 200, Termyn Street, S.W.—Yours faithfully, "J. LAYTON." With a final chuckle, the young man put both letters into an envelope, and having stamped it, went whistling from the house, and through the park to the village, to post the missive himself at the little village post office. "Quiet and cultivated gentleman of good family and means, is anxious to meet a young lady of good birth who needs a home, etc., etc., etc.," he murmured as he walked slowly back to the Castle through the dripping November mist. "Oh! what sport—what utterly ripping sport!" CHAPTER II. "MUMMY'S BABA—DAT'S ALL." In the great Free Library of a crowded London district, the gas burnt dimly; the yellow fog of a November morning crept even into the big room, and the few readers shivered a little in its cold clamminess. At this early hour, for the building had only just opened its doors on a Monday morning, merely a scattered number of men and women were to be seen in the place, and those who were there clustered round the advertisement columns of the newspapers. Both men and women alike were a sorry-looking crew, and the sad words "out of work," were stamped upon them all. Their clothing bore the marks of much wear and tear; their faces were worn, and in the eyes of each of them was that strained expression, that rises from much looking for that which never comes. Old and young men were there, searching the long columns of the papers for work that might suit their pressing needs; old and young women were there, too—women whose faces gave eloquent testimony to their hard fight with fortune—whose eyes glanced hungrily along the printed lines, whose hands tremblingly wrote down this or that address, which might by some merciful chance give them, if not exactly what they wanted, at any rate that which would ensure their earning a pittance, however scanty. Almost every member of the forlorn group eyed every other member suspiciously, with furtive glances, that seemed to say: "If you are lucky enough to get a job out of those columns, then I shall fail to get one. We are cutting each other's throats here. Your success is my failure." And as each one finished jotting down the addresses that were likely to be of use, he or she moved silently away from the library, speaking no word to the rest—like cowering animals who, having received a bone, or the promise of a bone, slink away from their fellows, fearful lest even the small thing they have gained, should be snatched from them. The greater number amongst the searchers for work, consisted of those who, for want of a better title, may be described as belonging to the middle classes. They were neither the very poor—in the recognised acceptation of the words, though heaven knows they were poor enough—neither could they be classed amongst artisans, or mechanics. Their appearance would lead an onlooker to suppose that the men were accustomed to office work of some description, and that the women were governesses, companions, or perhaps lady housekeepers—all respectable, all possessing certain ideals of life and propriety, all struggling to maintain the degree of gentility, which would keep them above the high-water mark of degradation. A girl who stood a little apart from the rest, looked round the dimly-lit room with pitiful eyes, and a shudder ran through her slight frame, as she watched the faces and forms of these women who were no longer young, but who were yet still engaged in this hand-to-hand fight with destitution. The girl was young; it was impossible to suppose that more than twenty years had gone over her head, though the deep shadows under her eyes, and the lines of anxiety, about her mouth, might have made a casual observer regard her as an older woman. Like the rest of her sex who scanned the advertisement columns, she was dressed in clothes which had plainly seen better days—much better days. But, whereas some of the other women had already begun to drift into untidiness, and into the slovenly ways which mark the first step along a downward road, this girl was exquisitely neat from head to foot. Her hat, in spite of its age, was well brushed; her threadbare coat and skirt were tidy, and showed no traces of dirt or grease; her gloves, though they were white at the tips, had no holes; and there was no sign of neglect or disorder in the arrangement of the dark hair, that showed in soft, dusky curls below her hat. "Poor things! Oh! poor things!" was her thought, as she looked at the sad string of humanity filing its slow way to the door. "Some of them have been every day for weeks, and they are getting older every day. And the older one gets, the harder it is to find work. Some day I shall be like that, old, and tired, and worn out; and then—work will be more difficult to get than it is now—and I can't get it—even now—when I am young." The thoughts that had begun in sheer pity for those other battlers with the waves of this troublesome world, ended in a shuddering realisation of her own position; and not only of her position for the moment, but of the future that stretched inimitably before her across the years. She, Christina Moore, was only twenty, and in all human probability another sixty years of life might be hers, for she dimly remembered hearing her mother say that both she and her husband belonged to long-lived families. That they two had been cut off in the prime of life by a virulent epidemic of typhoid fever that swept the village like a plague, did not alter the fact that they came of races famous for octogenarians; and Christina, the last of two long lines of ancestors, shivered anew at the thought of the weary, weary years of struggle that might still lie before her. It was seldom that she was assailed by such depressing reflections; her youth had a way, as youth has, of asserting itself, and rebounding from its own despair; and there was an abundance of pluck behind those queer, green eyes of hers, and no lack of resolution in her small square chin. But the fog outside, the chilly atmosphere of the big library, whose fires were barely alight, and the sight of the same unemployed men and women who for weeks past had, as it were, dogged her footsteps, all combined this morning, to send Christina's spirits down to zero. Matters had not been improved by the calculations over which she had busied herself before leaving her lodgings an hour earlier. Whilst eating her dry bread, and drinking tea without milk, because both milk and butter were luxuries she no longer dared to give herself, she had written out her pitiful accounts upon a half-sheet of paper; and the result of the reckoning had given her a terrible feeling of desperation. For two years since her parents' death, she had occupied the post of nursery governess in the family of a Mrs. Donaldson, to whom her mother had once shown some trifling kindness. But three months earlier these people had left England for Canada, and no longer required her services—and Christina, untrained to any profession, with a few pounds in hand, and with nothing but a strong personality, and an innate love for little children, to offer as her stock in trade, found herself amongst the hundreds of other unemployed— just a waif in a great city! Relations, as far as she knew, she had none. Her father had been an only child. Her mother had cut herself off from her own people by marrying against their consent, and Christina was even unaware of who they were, or to what part of the country they belonged. Long ago, she had grasped the fact that she was alone in the world, and when the Donaldsons went away, she had no intimate friends in the old country—two years of life with them in a London suburb having effectually cut her off from the very few acquaintances she had left behind, in the Devonshire village, where her parents died. Alone in the world, with no work, after nearly three months of fruitless search for it, and with her small stock of money growing beautifully less each day, it was no wonder that on this morning in November, Christina Moore's heart sank in despair. Save for one or two men still busily engaged in extracting addresses from the papers, she was alone in the library, before she herself began her daily search along those monotonous columns, whose lines seemed to her tired eyes to run into one another, and become lost in an infinite haze. So many people appeared to require nursery governesses, companions, and mothers' helps; and yet, as bitter experience taught her, there were many more applicants for the posts than there were posts to fill; and it was with a half-hearted sense of intense discouragement that she noted down some of the addresses. She even wrote down some that she had hitherto despised—those who offered only a home and no salary in return for services; for, as she reflected despondently, "even to have a roof over one's head, and meals to eat, is better than to have no lodging, or food—and no money to pay for either." Having glanced down the advertisements in the chief dailies, her hand idly turned the pages of one of the Sunday papers close by, and her eyes glanced down them, more with the idea of distracting her thoughts, than with any conception that she might find anything there, that would be of use to her. And her lips parted in a smile, as she read, in large print: "MATRIMONIAL NEWS." "How funny," she mused, whilst she read that a gentleman of means wished to find a lady of fortune who would take pity on his loneliness; or that a lady no longer young, but still handsome, wished to meet a gentleman with a moderate income, with a view to marriage. "How funny—how very funny!" she mused again; then paused suddenly, her glance riveted to a sentence that caught and held her attention, almost against her will. "Quiet and cultivated gentleman of means," so the paragraph ran, "is anxious to meet a young lady of good birth, who needs a home. No fortune is necessary, but marriage may be agreed upon if both parties are mutually satisfied. Reply by letter to R.M., Box 40,004, Sunday Recorder Office, Fleet Street, E.C." Over the girl's white face there slowly spread a stain of vivid colour; into her eyes crept an odd light. She drew the paper more closely into her hands, reading and re-reading the paragraph, until every word of it was imprinted upon her mind. "Young lady—who needs a home—no fortune necessary," she murmured. "Oh! if only it didn't seem so cold- blooded and horrid, what a way out it might be! Only—it seems—so—so mercenary—and not what I always thought of when I was silly—and dreamt—things," her musings ran on. "Once—I dreamt about a fairy prince—who would— just come—and—make me love him—and he and I would—be—all the world—to each other. But—of course—one couldn't be all the world to a person one had arranged to meet through a newspaper." Another smile broke over her face, and when she smiled, Christina's face was very sweet. "It may be just some dreadful trap to catch a silly girl," she reflected sagely, "and if—if I did really think of answering it, I should have to be very careful what I said—and where I arranged to meet R.M. Of course I—shan't really answer it at all—only—if I did—and if he were nice—and if—it all came right—there wouldn't be any more of this dreadful struggle!" She noted the address of this advertisement amongst the others in her little pocket-book, and then made her way out of the library and trudged homewards through the yellow murk, buttoning her very inadequate coat tightly about her and shiveringly speculating whether, if she really answered R.M.'s advertisement, there might be a chance of obtaining clothing more fitted to resist the penetrating chill of a November fog. Her own small room looked dingier than usual when she entered it, and it was so full of fog and damp, that she rolled a blanket round her before lighting a candle and seating herself at the tiny table, to answer some of the advertisements she had copied. The room was bare of all but the most necessary furniture. A camp bedstead stood against the wall, whose paper was of that indeterminate drabness affected by lodging-house keepers; a deal table occupied the centre of the room, with the common cane-chair on which Christina sat; and a painted chest of drawers nearly blocked up the one tiny window. There was no wash-hand stand; a cracked white basin and a still more cracked jug stood upon the top of the drawers, a looking-glass of ancient and battered appearance hung over the mantelpiece, and an open cupboard in the wall served Christina as sideboard and larder combined. Beside the bed was a narrow strip of much-faded carpet, but of comfort and homeliness the room showed no trace whatever, save in the tiny touches of home the girl had herself striven to impart to it, by hanging on the walls one or two sketches of the Devonshire village she loved, and by putting on the mantelpiece a few treasured photographs. But her best endeavours had failed to make the room other than a most dreary and dispiriting abode, and the view from the window, of the backs of other houses looming darkly through the fog, was not calculated to lift the cloud of despair that for the moment had settled heavily upon her. She felt listlessly disinclined to state her qualifications as nursery governess, or mother's help, to the various ladies who hankered after such commodities. Involuntarily, but continually, her thoughts returned to that paragraph from the Sunday Recorder, which was not only engraved upon her mind, but which she had actually copied also into her book. "Quiet and cultivated gentleman of means is anxious to meet a young lady of good birth, who needs a home. No fortune is necessary." At that point in her reading, Christina paused. "No fortune is necessary," she said aloud, in an oddly deprecating voice. "R.M., whoever he may be, only asks for a young lady of good birth, who needs a home. Well," she turned her eyes towards the foggy roofs just visible outside her dirty window-panes, "well, as far as I know I am of good birth, even though father only taught music; and some people seem to look down on musicians. And—I certainly need a home." Her glance left the gloomy world without, and went ruefully round the scarcely less gloomy prospect within. "And if I suited R.M.—perhaps—perhaps, he would be good to me. Should I suit him, I wonder? I'm not pretty, and certainly not amusing, and I'm dreadfully shabby, and nearly as poor as it is possible to be. There is not one single thing to recommend me." She pushed back her chair; and, rising from the table, moved slowly to the mantel-piece, over which hung the tarnished glass whose powers of reflecting objects satisfactorily had long since departed. Into this unpromising mirror, poor little Christina, holding the candle far above her head, peered long and earnestly, her small white face looking all the whiter, because of the background of yellow fog; her eyes seeming more green than was their wont, because of the dark shadows that underlay them. She had thrown off her hat, and the soft masses of her hair lay in curly confusion about her head. It was a shapely little head, and particularly well put on, but these were points of which Christina took no special account, being intent on finding beauties in her face, and failing to notice that there was anything admirable in the turn of her neck, in the poise of her firm chin, and in the straightforward glance of her eyes. "If R.M. met me casually in the street, he wouldn't look at me twice—no man would," she exclaimed with a sigh, as she turned away from the glass, "I am horribly ordinary. The only thing is—if I could screw up my courage to answer him—and then to meet him—he might like to find a girl who didn't want anything but a quiet home; who would be satisfied to go without gaiety or amusement." She sighed again, and a wistful look crept into her eyes. "I haven't really ever had any fun, so I shouldn't miss it, and I could just try to make a happy home for R.M., if that is all he wants. And —after all," she went on, still speaking aloud, "there isn't any harm in answering his letter. It may all come to nothing; and yet—it might be worth while—and—it almost seems presidential that I just happened to see that paragraph in the Sunday Recorder." The letter she sat down to write as the outcome of all these conflicting meditations, was the most difficult she had ever written in her young life; and before it was finished, and finally consigned to its envelope, she had torn up many sheets of paper, and allowed fully two hours of the morning to pass by. Twelve o'clock was chiming from all the clocks in the neighbourhood, when, with her answers to some of the other advertisements in her hand, she once more pinned on her hat, and ran downstairs to the post. The fog had thickened considerably during the morning, and Christina found the street lamps alight—tiny points of brightness set high above the prevailing gloom, and producing very little effect upon the darkness. Indeed, there was something almost bewildering about those far-off lights; they seemed to heighten, rather than diminish, the all-pervading blackness, which deepened every moment. The girl walked slowly, feeling her way along the area railings, and guiding herself as far as possible by the rumble of traffic along the roadway, though the confusion of sounds made even this guidance a very uncertain one. Drivers shouted, horses slipped and stumbled; and the shrill voices of boys carrying flaring torches, added to the pandemonium. Earlier in the morning the fog had merely been of the familiar yellow variety known to every Londoner. It was now a black and total darkness that seemed to engulf the world. To cross the road to the pillar-box was a matter of no small difficulty, but Christina, with a dogged determination not to be outwitted by the elements, stepped off the kerb and into the seething mass of carts, cabs, and other vehicles, that jostled and struggled with one another in apparently inextricable confusion. On the far side of the street she plunged into a comparatively quiet square, where the fog had lifted somewhat, and was no longer of such Cimmerian blackness, but merely a drifting and bewildering white mist. The pillar-box at the corner loomed faintly through it, and Christina had just dropped her packet of letters into it, when there struck upon her ears the soft cry of a little child. There was such a note of fear, of lonely misery, in that soft cry, that Christina, a child-lover to the core of her being, paused, and listened intently. Everything about her was very still; the square was a quiet one, though separated only by a short street from a main thoroughfare; and, excepting for the distant noise of traffic and shouting, nothing was to be heard, until again the little whimpering cry became audible on Christina's right. "What is it?" the girl said gently. "Don't be frightened, dear. I'll take care of you," and as she spoke, she heard a gasp of relief, and a shaking, childish voice exclaimed: "Baba's most drefful fightened; please take Baba home." "But where is Baba?" Christina was beginning cheerily, when, through the fog, she caught sight of a tiny figure coming quickly towards her, and, stooping down, she gathered close into her arms a little child, of perhaps three years old, a little child who clung to her with a desperate, terrified clutch, lifting a tear-stained face to hers. "Take Baba home," the baby voice wailed again, and as the fog rolled back a little more, Christina saw that the child was no street waif, but obviously the daintily-clad darling of some great house. Her golden head was bare, and the tangle of curls was like a frame about the lovely little face, whose great blue eyes looked appealingly into Christina's own. A red woollen cloak hung over the child's shoulders, but as the cloak fell back, Christina saw that her frock was chiefly fashioned of exquisite filmy lace, and that a string of pearls was fastened round the little white throat. "Where is Baba's home?" she questioned softly, lifting the child right into her arms, and kissing the flower-like face, on which the tears still lay like dewdrops in the heart of a rose. "Tell me where you live, sweetheart, and I will take you home." "Baba doesn't know where she lives," the child shook her yellow curls, and her big eyes filled again with tears. "Baba's awful, drefful fightened. The door was open—and Baba did just run out to see the pretty horses—and then—it was all black—and Baba was lost." "I don't think Baba ought to have come out by herself in a fog," Christina said, a gentle reproof in her tones; "and now we must try to find out where your home is, little girl. Tell me what your name is—besides Baba." "Baba—Mummy's Baba—dat's all," the baby answered, with a conclusive shutting of her pretty mouth. "Baba's forgot her other name—she's only just Mummy's Baba." "But Baba—what?" Christina said patiently, walking slowly along the square, the child in her arms. "Try to remember your other name, my sweet; then I can take you safe home to mummy and nurse." "Baba hasn't got no nurse, nurse's gone away. Mummy minds Baba now, and Baba can't remember her other name. She's got a bone in her head," quoth the baby, smiling deliciously into Christina's troubled face, and evidently paraphrasing some former servant's excuses. "Baba likes you—pretty lady—come home with Baba!" "I wish I could," Christina said gravely, feeling rather helpless, as she looked from the child in her arms to the stately houses in the square, and back again. "I wonder where you live, you queer mite; and how I am going to find out who are your belongings. They are probably moving heaven and earth at this moment to find you." The baby laughed. She did not follow more than half Christina's words, but her infantile fancy had been caught by the girl's gentle manner and motherly ways, and she put two dimpled arms round her rescuer's neck, and rubbed her face confidently against Christina's white cheeks. "Baba's not fightened any more," she murmured contentedly; "you just take Baba home—and we'll find mummy— and then Baba will be all right." "Yes; it will be all right when we find home and mummy," Christina answered with a short laugh but her arm tightened round the soft little body, her lips pressed themselves against the tangled curls, and all the time she pursued her slow way along the square, hoping that so small a person could not have travelled very far, and that presently someone in pursuit of her would put in an appearance. They had gone the length of the square, and down the line of houses along one of its sides, when all at once the baby uttered a shout of triumph. "There's James—over there," she exclaimed; "now Baba can see her own house. James—James!" she cried excitedly, and Christina saw that on the side of the square at right angles to them, a footman stood on the doorstep, looking distractedly to right and left of him. At the sound of the uplifted baby voice, he left his post at the door, and ran quickly up to Christina, who had paused to await his arrival. "That's my dear James," the child cried; and, with the easy fickleness of her years, she unclasped her arms from Christina's neck, and held them out to the footman. "Baba was lost," she said to him confidingly. "This lady finded Baba, and brought her home." The footman took the baby into his arms, and turned a scared face to Christina. "She've just been missed," he said breathlessly; "must have run out when the door was open; and we was all in a taking. Where did you find her, miss? I'm sure it's very kind of you to have brought her home." "She was on the far side of the square, and very frightened in the fog. I am so glad she is safe." "Baba quite safe now; Baba going home with James; good-bye, pretty lady," and waving her hand to Christina, the small girl was carried away in the arms of the breathless James, who was still too distracted to reflect that his mistress might wish to thank the young lady who had brought back the child. "What a dear wee thing!" Christina reflected, as she wended her way back to her lodgings. "I wonder who she is. Somebody important, if she lives here. I wish——" then she sighed and fell to wondering whether anything would result from all the answers to the advertisements she had just posted. "I'm glad I didn't post the one I wrote to R.M.," she said to herself; "now I can think over it all day long, and if I haven't changed my mind by then, perhaps I will re-write it and post it by the last post. But—I am not sure whether I shall be brave enough to do it." CHAPTER III. "ONE OF THE BEST THINGS LEFT." The chambers in Jermyn Street occupied by Rupert Mernside, had a character which seemed to reflect their owner. Perhaps all rooms in a more or less degree are reflections of those who live in them: human beings, whether consciously or unconsciously, stamp their personalities upon their surroundings, and create their distinctive atmospheres, even in hired lodgings. Rupert's rooms, filled as they were with the furniture he had from time to time picked up, the walls hung with pictures his fastidious taste had chosen, the bookcases filled with his own special collection of books, were, to those with eyes to see, a mirror of their master's nature. Simplicity was the keynote of the whole. There were no expensive hangings, no luxurious rugs or heavily upholstered chairs and couches; there was nothing of what Mernside himself would have described as "frippery," nothing effeminate or over-dainty. Matting, with here and there a soft-coloured rug, covered the floor of the sitting-room; the walls, tinted a pale apricot yellow, were hung with water- colour sketches, each one of which bore the mark of a master hand; the bookcases were of carved oak, as were the one or two tables, whilst the chairs, of a severely simple pattern, and even the few armchairs, spoke rather of solid comfort, than of any undue luxury. Upon the breakfast table, pushed near the window, stood a bowl of chrysanthemums, touched into jewelled beauty by a faint ray of November sunlight. Seeing the sunlight on the rich coloured blossoms, Rupert smiled, as he entered the sitting-room a week after his return from Bramwell Castle. It was not his habit to fill his rooms with flowers: he had a fancy that such a custom savoured of womanishness; but Cicely, his pretty little cousin, had rifled the greenhouse for him with her own hands, and Cicely's fashion of giving would have made even a dandelion a charming and acceptable gift. Mernside was early that morning, and he had seated himself in front of the silver coffee-pot and covered dishes, before Courtfield, his irreproachable servant, brought in the letters. "Good Lord, man!" his master exclaimed, as the salver was handed to him, "those letters can't possibly all be for me," and he eyed the huge pile with the disfavour of one who regards a letter merely as a rather tiresome piece of business, which must perforce be answered. "Well, sir, I should gather they were all for you," Courtfield answered respectfully, whilst his master gathered the packet of envelopes into his two hands. "I thought myself at first that there must be some mistake, seeing that they are only addressed in initials. But the number is correct, sir." "By Jove!" Mernside exclaimed, gazing with stupefied eyes at the unprecedented batch of correspondence, and observing that every letter bore the initials only, "R.M.," and had been forwarded to him from a newspaper office. Courtfield noiselessly left the room, but his master's coffee remained in the pot, and his breakfast untasted, whilst he sat and stared with a petrified stare at the pile of unopened letters, with their extraordinarily unfamiliar address. A dusky flush mounted to his forehead, and he turned over one of the letters distastefully, as though its very touch were odious to him. "I am not in the habit of being addressed by initials only," he muttered, "nor of corresponding through newspapers; the wretched things are probably not meant for me at all—unless it's some confounded hoax," he added, after a pause, at the same moment tearing open the top letter of the pile, one addressed in an untidy, uneducated handwriting. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, pushing back his chair, and staring down at the letter he unfolded, with the disgusted stare of one who sees something unexpectedly horrible, "is the woman mad? or am I mad?—or—what does it mean?" His eyes travelled quickly down the written page, the large, sprawling writing imprinting itself upon his brain. "DEAR SIR" (so the epistle ran),— "Having seen your advertisement in yesterday's Sunday Recorder, I beg to say that I should be pleased to enter into correspondence with you—with a view to meeting, etc. Am twenty-one, tall, and said to be elegant. Some call me pretty. Have large blue eyes, fair hair, and a good complexion. Am domesticated and sweet-tempered. Would send photograph if desired. "Yours truly, ROSALIE." "PS.—Should be pleased to cheer your loneliness." Mernside read this effusion to the end; then one word only, and that a forcible one, broke from his lips, and with grimly-set mouth, and eyes grown suddenly steely, he began to open and read one after another of the other letters, his expression becoming sterner and more grim as he laid each one down in turn. "My opinion of women is not enhanced by my morning's correspondence," he reflected cynically, during the course of his reading; "could one have believed there were so many silly women in the world—or so many plain ones?" and with a short laugh he picked up two photographs, and looked with scornful scrutiny at the wholly unattractive features of the ladies of uncertain age, and quite certain lack of beauty. Before he had waded half through the packet of letters, his table was strewn with his correspondence, and the look on his face was one, which, as his best friends would have known, indicated no amiable frame of mind. "Domesticated." "Would make a lonely man intensely happy." "Only long for a quiet home such as you suggest." "Such as I suggest—I!" Mernside looked wildly round him. "Do I appear to be in search of a quiet home?" he exclaimed, apostrophising the pictures on the walls; "do I want a domesticated female? 'Am considered pretty'—oh, are you, my good young woman? You can't write a civilised letter, that's certain. 'I have a slender income of my own— amply sufficient for my modest wants—but I gather you do not require a fortune with the lady—only a companion for your loneliness.' "A fortune with the lady? I don't require the lady, thank you," Rupert soliloquised, picking, out sentences from the letters as he read them, and flung them one by one upon the pile. "'I have been lonely for so long myself, that I can fully understand what a lonely man feels. I am no longer in my first youth, but I have a heart overflowing with tenderness. Your happiness would be my first, my only care, etc., etc.' "Pshaw—what tommy rot! "'All my friends say I am cheerful. I have often been called a little ray of sunshine'"—Rupert lay back in his chair, and shouted with sudden laughter. "'I would make your home a heaven of bliss.'" "Oh! Good lord! Good lord!" quoth the unhappy reader, "who in heaven's name has played this confounded practical joke upon me? And what am I to do with these abominable letters and photographs? I should like to burn the lot!—but oh! hang it all, the silly women have taken some rotten hoax for earnest, and"—he paused, as though struck by a sudden recollection, then bounced out of his chair with a good round expletive. "That young ass, Jack Layton! I'll take my oath he was at the bottom of this tomfoolery. Wasn't he reading some matrimonial humbug out of—wait!—by Jove! it was the Sunday Recorder," and without more ado, Mernside strode across the room and rang the bell. "Get me a copy of the Sunday Recorder of the day before yesterday, at once," he said curtly, when Courtfield appeared. As soon as the man had vanished, he returned to the table, gathered up the letters he had read, and thrust them into the bureau near the fireplace; and by the time Courtfield came back with the paper in his hand, his master was decorously eating a poached egg, and deliberately opening the nineteenth or twentieth letter of his morning mail. There was little deliberation in his movements when, alone once more, he feverishly turned the pages of the Sunday Recorder, until his eyes fell on the words, "Matrimonial Bureau." Yes—there it was. The wretched thing seemed to leap into sight as though it were alive, and to his disordered vision the lines appeared to be twice the size of the ordinary print. "Quiet and cultivated gentleman of means, who is very lonely, is anxious to meet a young lady of good birth who needs a home. No fortune is necessary, but marriage may be agreed upon, if both parties are mutually satisfied." "Oh! may it indeed?" Mernside said scathingly, flinging the paper upon the floor. "A young lady of good birth!" His thoughts went back to the letters he had just been perusing, most of them ill-written, many mis-spelt, some genteel, some sentimental—but all bearing the unmistakable stamp of having been penned by the underbred and the vulgar. "A young lady of good birth." Again he reflected grimly, continuing to eat his breakfast, and to open letter after letter mechanically, expending over their contents a force of language which would greatly have surprised the writers, could they have heard it. "Not one of these good women has the most elementary conception what the word 'lady' means. No lady would be likely to answer such an advertisement," his thoughts continued contemptuously, as he picked up the last letter of the pile, and glanced idly at the writing of the address. That writing held his attention; it was different from the others; yes, it was certainly different. It did not sprawl; it was not exaggerated or affected; it was merely a round, simple, girlish hand, with unmistakable character in the well-formed letters and clean strokes. And when he had drawn out the contents of the envelope, and read them slowly, some of the grim lines about his mouth faded away, a softer look came into his eyes. "This is different," he said, "very different," and for the second time he read the terse phrases. "c/o Mrs. Cole, Newsagent, "100, Cartney Street, S.W. "DEAR SIR,— "I should not have answered your advertisement, but that I cannot find work. I need a home very much. If I could make things better for somebody else who is lonely, I should be very pleased. I am not at all pretty or clever, but I can cook a little, and I can sew. "Yours truly, C.M. "I am twenty." "Poor little girl," Rupert murmured, "if this is genuine, I am sorry for C.M. She is the only one of the lot who writes like a lady, and the only one who does not suggest a meeting, or actually appoint a meeting place. Those are points in her favour. But, had I ever any intention of marrying, I should not make my matrimonial arrangements through the medium of a newspaper!" Each writer of the letters which had so disturbed Mernside at breakfast time, received a few hours later a short note, and the wording of all the notes was identical. "DEAR MADAM,— "I regret that both you and I should have been the victims of a hoax. The advertisement in the Sunday Recorder was inserted without my knowledge or consent. Regretting any annoyance this may cause you. "Yours faithfully, R.M." But when, having laboured through the mass of "Rosalies," "Violets," "Lilians," and "Hildas," he finally reached the little note signed "C.M.," Mernside paused. "I—don't think I can let this little girl know she has been the victim of a hoax," he mused, a pitiful tenderness creeping about his heart as he thought of the girl who was without work or home; "the others are fairly tough-skinned, I am ready to swear. This one"—he looked again at the round, characteristic handwriting, the simple phrases—"this one —did not make up her mind to write such a letter, excepting under stress of circumstances, I am sure of that. This one —is different. And if that incorrigible young ass, Ja...