Lady Baltimore

by Owen Wister

  XVIII: Again the Replacers

  But a little while, and all that I had just witnessed in such vividdumb-show might have seemed to me in truth some masque; so smooth hadit been, and voiceless, coming and going like a devised fancy. Andafter the last of the players was gone from the stage, leaving the whitecloth, and the silver, and the cups, and the groups of chairs near thepleasant arbor, I watched the deserted garden whence the sunlight wasslowly departing, and it seemed to me more than ever like some empty andcharming scene in a playhouse, to which the comedians would in duetime return to repeat their delicate pantomime. But these were mentalindulgences, with which I sat playing until the sight of my interruptedletter to Aunt Carola on the table before me brought the reality ofeverything back into my thoughts; and I shook my head over Miss Eliza. Iremembered that hand of hers, lying in despondent acquiescence uponher lap, as the old lady sat in her best dress, formally and faithfullyaccepting the woman whom her nephew John had brought upon them as hisbride-elect--formally and faithfully accepting this distasteful person,and thus atoning as best she could to her beloved nephew for thewrong that her affection had led her to do him in that ill-starred andinexcusable tampering with his affairs.

  But there was my letter waiting. I took my pen, and finished what I hadto say about the negro and the injustice we had done to him, as well asto our own race, by the Fifteenth Amendment. I wrote:--

  "I think Northerners must often seem to these people strangely obtuse intheir attitude. And they deserve such opinion, since all they need to dois come here and see for themselves what the War did to the South.

  "You may have a perfectly just fight with a man and beat him rightly;but if you are able to go on with your work next day, while his healthis so damaged that for a long while he limps about as a cripple, youmust not look up from your busy thriving and reproach him with hishelplessness, and remind him of its cause; nor must you be surprisedthat he remembers the fight longer than you have time for. I know thatthe North meant to be magnanimous, that the North was magnanimous, thatthe spirit of Grant at Appomattox filled many breasts; and I know thatthe magnanimity was not met by those who led the South after Lee'sretirement, and before reconstruction set in, and that the FifteenthAmendment was brought on by their own doings: when have two wrongs madea right? And to place the negro above these people was an atrocity. Youcannot expect them to inquire very industriously how magnanimous thisNorth meant to be, when they have suffered at her hands worse, farworse, than France suffered from Germany's after 1870.

  "I do think there should be a different spirit among some of thelater-born, but I have come to understand even the slights andsuspicions from which I here and there suffer, since to their minds,shut in by circumstance, I'm always a 'Yankee.'

  "We are prosperous; and prosperity does not bind, it merely assemblespeople--at dinners and dances. It is adversity that binds--beside thegravestone, beneath the desolated roof. Could you come here and seewhat I have seen, the retrospect of suffering, the long, lingeringconvalescence, the small outlook of vigor to come, and the steadfastsodality of affliction and affection and fortitude, your kind butunenlightened heart would be wrung, as mine has been, and is being, atevery turn."

  After I had posted this reply to Aunt Carola, I had some fears that mypen had run away with me, and that she might now descend upon mewith that reproof which she knew so well how to exercise in cases ofdisrespect. But there was actually a certain pathos in her mildness whenit came. She felt it her duty to go over a good deal of history first,but:--

  "I do not understand the present generation," she finished, "and Isuppose that I was not meant to."

  The little sigh in these words did great credit to Aunt Carola.

  This vindication off my mind, and relieved by it of the more generalthoughts about Kings Port and the South, which the pantomime of KingsPort's forced capitulation to Hortense had raised in me, I returned tothe personal matters between that young woman and John, and Charley. Howmuch did Charley know? How much would Charley stand? How much would Johnstand, if he came to know?

  Well, the scene in the garden now helped me to answer these questionsmuch better than I could have answered them before its occurrence. Withone fact--the great fact of love--established, it was not difficult toaccount for at least one or two of the several things that puzzled me.There could be no doubt that Hortense loved John Mayrant, loved himbeyond her own control. When this love had begun, made no matter.Perhaps it began on the bridge, when the money was torn, and Eliza LaHeu had appeared. The Kings Port version of Hortense's indifference toJohn before the event of the phosphates might well enough be true. Itmight even well enough be true that she had taken him and his phosphatesat Newport for lack of anything better at hand, and because she was sickof disappointed hopes. In this case, Charley's subsequent appearanceas something very much better (if the phosphates were to fail) wouldperfectly explain the various postponements of the wedding.

  So I was able to answer my questions to myself thus: How much didCharley know?--Just what he could see for himself, and what he hadmost likely heard from Newport gossip. He could have heard of an oldengagement, made purely for money's sake, and of recent delays createdby the lady; and he could see the gentleman--an impossible husband froma Wall Street standpoint!--to whom Hortense was evidently tempering herfinal refusal by indulgently taking an interest in helping along hisphosphate fortune. Charley would not refuse to lend her his aid in thisestimable benevolence; nor would it occur to Charley's sensibilitieshow such benevolence would be taken by John if John were not "taken"himself. Yes, Charley was plainly fooled, and fooled the more readilybecause he had the old version of the truth. How should he suspectthere was a revised version? How should he discover that passion had nowchanged sides, that it was now John who allowed himself to be loved? Thesigns of this did not occur before his eyes. Of course, Charley wouldnot stay fooled forever; the hours of that were numbered,--but theirnumber was quite beyond my guessing!

  How much would Charley stand? He would stand a good deal, because themeasure of his toleration was the measure of his desire for Hortense;and it was plain that he wanted her very much indeed. But how muchwould John stand? How soon would his "fire-eating" traditions produce a"difficulty"? Why had they not done this already? Well, the garden hadin some way helped me to frame a fairly reasonable answer for this also.Poor Hortense had become as powerless to woo John to warmth as poorVenus had been with Adonis; and passion, in changing sides, had advancedthe boy's knowledge. He knew now the difference between the embracesof his lady when she had merely wanted his phosphates, and these othercaresses now that, she wanted him. In his ceaseless search for somepossible loophole of escape, his eye could not have overlooked thechance that lay in Charley, and he was far too canny to blast hisforlorn hope. He had probably wondered what had changed the nature ofHortense's caresses, and the adventure of the torn money could scarcehave failed to suggest itself to the mind of a youth who, little ashe had trodden the ways of the world, evidently possessed some livelyinstincts regarding the nature of women. To batter Charley as he hadbattered Juno's nephew, might result in winding the arms of Hortensearound his own neck more tightly than ever.

  Why Hortense should keep Charley "on" any longer, was what I could leastfathom, but I trusted her to have excellent reasons for anything thatshe did. "It's sure to be quite simple, once you know it," I toldmyself; and the near future proved me to be right.

  Thus I laid most of my enigmas to rest; there was but one which nowand then awakened still. Were Hortense a raw girl of eighteen, I couldeasily grant that the "fire-eater" in John would be sure to move her.But Hortense had travelled many miles away from the green forests ofromance; her present fields were carpeted, not with grass and flowers,but with Oriental mats and rugs, and it was electric lights, not themoon and stars, that shone upon her highly seasoned nights. No, tornmoney and all, it was not appropriate in a woman of her experience; andso I still found myself inquiring in the words of Beverly Rodgers, "Butwhat can she
want him for?"

  The next time that I met Mrs. Gregory St. Michael it was on my way tojoin the party at the old church, which Mrs. Weguelin was going to showthem. The card-case was in her hand, and the sight of it prompted me toallude to Hortense Rieppe.

  "I find her beauty growing upon me?" I declared.

  Mrs. Gregory did not deny the beauty, although she spoke with reserve atfirst. "It is to be said that she knows how to write a suitable note,"the lady also admitted.

  She didn't tell me what the note was about, naturally; but I couldimagine with what joy in the exercise of her art Hortense hadconstructed that communication which must have accompanied the promptreturn of the card-case.

  Then Mrs. Gregory's tongue became downright. "Since you're able to seeso much of her, why don't you tell her to marry that little steam-yachtgambler? I'm sure he's dying to, and he's just the thing for her?"

  "Ah," I returned, "Love so seldom knows what's just the thing formarriage."

  "Then your precocity theory falls," declared Mrs. St. Michael. And asshe went away from me along the street, I watched her beautiful statelywalk; for who could help watching a sight so good?

  Charley, then, was no secret to John's people. Was John still a secretto Charley? Could Hortense possibly have managed this? I hoped for achance to observe the two men with her during the visit of Mrs. WeguelinSt. Michael and her party to the church.

  This party was already assembled when I arrived upon the spot appointed.In the street, a few paces from the church, stood Bohm and Charley andKitty and Gazza, with Beverly Rodgers, who, as I came near, left themand joined me.

  "Oh, she's somewhere off with her fire-eater," responded Beverly to myimmediate inquiry for Hortense. "Do you think she was asked, old man?"

  Probably not, I thought. "But she goes so well with the rest," Isuggested.

  Beverly gave his chuckle. "She goes where she likes. She'll meet us herewhen we're finished, I'm pretty sure."

  "Why such certainty?"

  "Well, she has to attend to Charley, you know!"

  Mrs. Weguelin, it appeared, had met the party here by the church, buthad now gone somewhere in the immediate neighborhood to find out why thegate was not opened to admit us, and to hasten the unpunctual custodianof the keys. I had not looked for precisely such a party as Mrs.Weguelin's invitation had gathered, nor could I imagine that she hadfully understood herself what she was gathering; and this I intimated toBeverly Rodgers, saying:--

  "Do you suppose, my friend, that she suspected the feather of the birdsyou flock with?"

  Beverly took it lightly. "Hang it, old boy, of course everybody can't beas nice as I am!" But he took it less lightly before it was over.

  We stood chatting apart, he and I, while Bohm and Charley and Kittyand Gazza walked across the street to the window of a shop, where oldfurniture was for sale at a high price; and it grew clearer to mewhat Beverly had innocently brought upon Mrs. Weguelin, and how he hadbrought it. The little quiet, particular lady had been pleased with hisvisit, and pleased with him. His good manners, his good appearance, hisgood English-trained voice, all these things must have been extremelyto her taste; and then--more important than they--did she not know abouthis people? She had inquired, he told me, with interest about two of hisuncles, whom she had last seen in 1858. "She's awfully the right sort,"said Beverly. Yes, I saw well how that visit must have gone: the gentleold lady reviving in Beverly's presence, and for the sake of being civilto him, some memories of her girlhood, some meetings with those uncles,some dances with them; and generally shedding from her talk and mannerthe charm of some sweet old melody--and Beverly, the facile, theappreciative, sitting there with her at a correct, deferential angle onhis chair, admirably sympathetic and in good form, and playing the oldschool. (He had no thought to deceive her; the old school was his byright, and genuinely in his blood, he took to it like a duck to thewater.) How should Mrs. Weguelin divine that he also took to the nouveaujeu to the tune of Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza? And so, to showhim some attention, and because she couldn't ask him to a meal, why, shewould take him over the old church, her colonial forefathers'; she wouldtell him the little legends about them; he was precisely the young manto appreciate such things--and she would be pleased if he would alsobring the friends with whom he was travelling.

  I looked across the street at Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza.They were now staring about them in all their perfection of stare: smallCharley in a sleek slate-colored suit, as neat as any little barber;Bohm, massive, portentous, his strong shoes and gloves the chief note inhis dress, and about his whole firm frame a heavy mechanical strength, alook as of something that did something rapidly and accurately when setgoing--cut or cracked or ground or smashed something better and fasterthan it had ever been cut or cracked or ground or smashed before, andwould take your arms and legs off if you didn't stand well back from it;it was only in Bohm's eye and lips that you saw he wasn't made entirelyof brass and iron, that champagne and shoulders decolletes received apunctual share of his valuable time. And there was Kitty, too, just thewife for Bohm, so soon as she could divorce her husband, to whom she hadunited herself before discovering that all she married him for, his oldKnickerbocker name, was no longer in the slightest degree necessary forsocial acceptance; while she could feed people, her trough would be wellthronged. Kitty was neat, Kitty was trig, Kitty was what Beverly wouldcall "swagger "; her skilful tailor-made clothes sheathed her closelyand gave her the excellent appearance of a well-folded English umbrella;it was in her hat that she had gone wrong--a beautiful hat in itself,one which would have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty itdidn't do at all. Yes, she was a well folded English umbrella, onlythe umbrella had for its handle the head of a bulldog or the leg of aballet-dancer. And these were the Replacers whom Beverly's clear-sightedeyes saw swarming round the temple of his civilization, pushing downthe aisles, climbing over the backs of the benches, walking over eachother's bodies, and seizing those front seats which his family hadsat in since New York had been New York; and so the wise fellow veryprudently took every step that would insure the Replacers' inviting himto occupy one of his own chairs. I had almost forgotten little Gazza,the Italian nobleman, who sold old furniture to new Americans. Gazza wasnot looking at the old furniture of Kings Port, which must have filledhis Vatican soul with contempt; he was strolling back and forth inthe street, with his head in the air, humming, now loudly, now softly"La-la, la-la, E quando a la predica in chiesa siederia, la-la-la-la;"and I thought to myself that, were I the Pope, I should kick him intothe Tiber.

  When Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael came back with the keys and theircustodian, Bohm was listening to the slow, clear words of Charley, inwhich he evidently found something that at length interested him--alittle. Bohm, it seemed, did not often speak himself: possibly once aweek. His way was to let other people speak to him when there were signsin his face that he was hearing anything which they said, it was a highcompliment to them, and of course Charley could command Bohm's ear; forCharley, although he was as neat as any barber, and let Hortense walk onhim because he looked beyond that, and purposed to get her, was just aspotent in the financial world as Bohm, could bring a borrowing empireto his own terms just as skillfully as could Bohm; was, in short, aman after Bohm's own--I had almost said heart: the expression is soobstinately embedded in our language! Bohm, listening, and Charley,talking, had neither of them noticed Mrs. Weguelin's arrival; theystood ignoring her, while she waited, casting a timid eye upon them.But Beverly, suddenly perceiving this, and begging her pardon for them,brought the party together, and we moved in among the old graves.

  "Ah!" said Gazza, bending to read the quaint words cut upon one of them,as we stopped while the door at the rear of the church was being opened,"French!"

  "It was the mother-tongue of these colonists," Mrs. Weguelin explainedto him.

  "Ah! like Canada!" cried Gazza. "But what a pretty bit is that!" And hestood back to admire a little glimpse, across a street, between tiledr
oofs and rusty balconies, of another church steeple. "Almost, one wouldsay, the Old World," Gazza declared.

  "Our world is not new," said Mrs. Weguelin; and she passed into thechurch.

  Kings Port holds many sacred nooks, many corners, many vistas, thatshould deeply stir the spirit and the heart of all Americans who knowand love their country. The passing traveller may gaze up at certainwindows there, and see History herself looking out at him, even as shelooks out of the windows of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. There arealso other ancient buildings in Kings Port, where History is shut up, asin a strong-box,--such as that stubborn old octagon, the powder-magazineof Revolutionary times, which is a chest holding proud memories of bloodand war. And then there are the three churches. Not strong-boxes, these,but shrines, where burn the venerable lamps of faith. And of these threehouses of God, that one holds the most precious flame, the purestlight, which treasures the holy fire that came from France. The Englishcolonists, who sat in the other two congregations, came to Carolina'ssoil to better their estate; but it was for liberty of soul, to lifttheir ardent and exalted prayer to God as their own conscience badethem, and not as any man dictated, that those French colonists soughtthe New World. No Puritan splendor of independence and indomitablecourage outshines theirs. They preached a word as burning as any thatPlymouth or Salem ever heard. They were but a handful, yet so fecundwas their marvelous zeal that they became the spiritual leaven of theirwhole community. They are less known than Plymouth and Salem, becausemen of action, rather than men of letters, have sprung from the loinsof the South; but there they stand, a beautiful beacon, shining upon thecoasts of our early history. Into their church, then, into the shrinewhere their small lamp still burns, their devout descendant, Mrs.Weguelin St. Michael led our party, because in her eyes Kings Port couldshow nothing more precious and significant. There had been nothing towarn her that Bohm and Charley were Americans who neither knew nor lovedtheir country, but merely Americans who knew their country's wealth andloved to acquire every penny of it that they could.

  And so, following the steps of our delicate and courteous guide, weentered into the dimness of the little building; and Mrs. Weguelin'svoice, lowered to suit the sanctity which the place had for her, beganto tell us very quietly and clearly the story of its early days.

  I knew it, or something of it, from books; but from this little lady'slips it took on a charm and graciousness which made it fresh to me. Ilistened attentively, until I felt, without at first seeing thecause, that dulling of enjoyment, that interference with the receptiveattention, which comes at times to one during the performance of musicwhen untimely people come in or go out. Next, I knew that our group oflisteners was less compact; and then, as we moved from the first pointin the church to a new one, I saw that Bohm and Charley were droppingbehind, and I lingered, with the intention of bringing them closer.

  "But there was nothing in it," I heard Charley's slow monologuecontinuing behind me to the silent Bohm. "We could have bought theParsons road at that time. 'Gentlemen,' I said to them, 'what is therefor us in tide-water at Kings Port? '"

  It was not to be done, and I rejoined Mrs. Weguelin and those ofthe party who were making some show of attention to her quiet littlehistories and explanations; and Kitty's was the next voice which I heardring out--

  "Oh, you must never let it fall to pieces! It's the cunningest littlefossil I've seen in the South."

  "So," said Charley behind me, "we let the other crowd buy theirstrategic point; and I guess they know they got a gold brick."

  I moved away from the financiers, I endeavored not to hear their words;and in this much I was successful; but their inappropriate presencehad got, I suppose upon my nerves; at any rate, go where I would in thelittle church, or attend as I might and did to what Mrs. WeguelinSt. Michael said about the tablets, and whatever traditions theirinscriptions suggested to her, that quiet, low, persistent banker'svoice of Charley's pervaded the building like a draft of cold air. Once,indeed, he addressed Mrs. Weguelin a question. She was telling Beverly(who followed her throughout, protectingly and charmingly, with his mostdevoted attention and his best manner) the honorable deeds of certainolder generations of a family belonging to this congregation, some ofwhose tombs outside had borne French inscriptions.

  "My mother's family," said Mrs. Weguelin.

  "And nowadays," inquired Beverly, "what do they find instead of militarycareers?"

  "There are no more of us nowadays; they--they were killed in the war."

  And immediately she smiled, and with her hand she made a light gesture,as if to dismiss this subject from mutual embarrassment and pain.

  "I might have known better," murmured the understanding Beverly.

  But Charley now had his question. "How many, did you say?"

  "How many?" Mrs. Weguelin did not quite understand him.

  "Were killed?" explained Charley.

  Again there was a little pause before Mrs. Weguelin answered, "My fourbrothers met their deaths."

  Charley was interested. "And what was the percentage of fatality intheir regiments?"

  "Oh," said Mrs. Weguelin, "we did not think of it in that way." And sheturned aside.

  "Charley," said Kitty, with some precipitancy, "do make Mr. Bohm look atthe church!" and she turned after Mrs. Weguelin. "It is such a gem!"

  But I saw the little lady try to speak and fail, and then I noticed thatshe was leaning against a window-sill.

  Beverly Rodgers also noticed this, and he hastened to her.

  "Thank you," she returned to his hasty question, "I am quite well. Ifyou are not tired of it, shall we go on?"

  "It is such a gem!" repeated Kitty, throwing an angry glance at Charleyand Bohm. And so we went on.

  Yes, Kitty did her best to cover it up; Kitty, as she would undoubtedlyhave said herself, could see a few things. But nobody could cover itup, though Beverly was now vigilant in his efforts to do so. Indeed,Replacers cannot be covered up by human agency; they bulge, they loom,they stare, they dominate the road of life, even as their automobilesdrive horses and pedestrians to the wall. Bohm, roused from hisfinancial torpor by Kitty's sharp command, did actually turn his eyesupon the church, which he had now been inside for some twenty minuteswithout noticing. Instinct and long training had given his eye, whenit really looked at anything, a particular glance--the glance of theReplacer--which plainly calculated: "Can this be made worth money tome?" and which died instantly to a glaze of indifference on seeing thatno money could be made. Bohm's eye, accordingly, waked and then glazed.Manners, courtesy, he did not need, not yet; he had looked at them withhis Replacer glance, and, seeing no money in them, had gone on lookingat railroads, and mines, and mills,--and bare shoulders, and bottles.Should manners and courtesy come, some day, to mean money to him,then he could have them, in his fashion, so that his admirers and hisapologists should alike declare of him, "A rough diamond, but considerwhat he has made of himself!"

  "After what, did you say?" This was the voice of Gazza, addressing Mrs.Weguelin St. Michael. It must be said of Gazza that he, too, made acertain presence of interest in the traditions of Kings Port.

  "After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes," replied Mrs. Weguelin.

  "Built it in Savannah," Charley was saying to Bohm, "or Norfolk. Thisis a good place to bury people in, but not money. Now the phosphateproposition--"

  Again I dragged my attention by force away from that quiet, relentlessmonologue, and listened as well as I could to Mrs. Weguelin. There hadcome to be among us all, I think--Beverly, Kitty, Gazza, and myself--ajoint impulse to shield her, to cluster about her, to follow her stepsfrom each little lecture that she finished to the new point where thenext lecture began; and we did it, performed our pilgrimage to the end;but there was less and less nature in our performance. I knew (and itwas like a dream which I could not stop) that we pressed a little tooclose, that our questions were a little too eager, that we overprintedour faces with attention; knowing this did not help, nothing helped, andwe wen
t on to the end, seeing ourselves doing it; and it must havebeen that Mrs. Weguelin saw us likewise. But she was truly admirable ingiving no sign, she came out well ahead; the lectures were nothurried, one had no sense of points being skipped to accommodate ourunworthiness, it required a previous familiarity with the church toknow (as I did) that there was, indeed, more and more skipping; yet thelittle lady played her part so evenly and with never a falter ofvoice nor a change in the gentle courtesy of her manner, that I do notthink--save for that moment at the window-sill--I could have been surewhat she thought, or how much she noticed. Her face was always so pale,it may well have been all imagination with me that she seemed, when weemerged at last into the light of the street, paler than usual; but Iam almost certain that her hand was trembling as she stood receiving thethanks of the party. These thanks were cut a little short by the arrivalof one of the automobiles, and, at the same time, the appearance ofHortense strolling toward us with John Mayrant.

  Charley had resumed to Bohm, "A tax of twenty-five cents on the tonis nothing with deposits of this richness," when his voice ceased; andlooking at him to see the cause, I perceived that his eye was on John,and that his polished finger-nail was running meditatively along histhin mustache.

  Hortense took the matter--whatever the matter was--in hand.

  "You haven't much time," she said to Charles, who consulted his watch.

  "Who's coming to see me off?" he inquired.

  "Where's he going?" I asked Beverly.

  "She's sending him North," Beverly answered, and then he spoke with hisvery best simple manner to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. "May I not walkhome with you after all your kindness?"

  She was going to say no, for she had had enough of this party; but shelooked at Beverly, and his face and his true solicitude won her; shesaid, "Thank you, if you will." And the two departed together down theshabby street, the little veiled lady in black, and Beverly withhis excellent London clothes and his still more excellent look ofrespectful, sheltering attention.

  And now Bohm pronounced the only utterance that I heard fall from hislips during his stay in Kings Port. He looked at the church he had comefrom, he looked at the neighboring larger church whose columns stood outat the angle of the street; he looked at the graveyard opposite that,then at the stale, dusty shop of old furniture, and then up the shabbystreet, where no life or movement was to be seen, except the distantforms of Beverly and Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. Then from a goldcigar-case, curved to fit his breast pocket, he took a cigar and lightedit from a gold match-box. Offering none of us a cigar, he placed thecase again in his pocket; and holding his lighted cigar a moment withtwo fingers in his strong glove, he spoke:--

  "This town's worse than Sunday."

  Then he got into the automobile. They all followed to see Charley off,and he addressed me.

  "I shall be glad," he said, "if you will make one of a little partyon the yacht next Sunday, when I come back. And you also," he added toJohn.

  Both John and I expressed our acceptance in suitable forms, and theautomobile took its way to the train.

  "Your Kings Port streets," I said, as we walked back toward Mrs.Trevise's, "are not very favorable for automobiles."

  "No," he returned briefly. I don't remember that either of us found moreto say until we had reached my front door, when he asked, "Will the dayafter to-morrow suit you for Udolpho?"

  "Whenever you say," I told him.

  "Weather permitting, of course. But I hope that it will; for after thatI suppose my time will not be quite so free."

  After we had parted it struck me that this was the first reference tohis approaching marriage that John had ever made in my hearing sincethat day long ago (it seemed long ago, at least) when he had come to theExchange to order the wedding-cake, and Eliza La Heu had fallen in lovewith him at sight. That, in my opinion, looking back now with eyes atany rate partially opened, was what Eliza had done. Had John returnedthe compliment then, or since?