The Farringdons

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

  CHAPTER XIV

  ON THE RIVER

  For many a frivolous, festive year I followed the path that I felt I must; I failed to discover the road was drear, And rather than otherwise liked the dust. It led through a land that I knew of old, Frequented by friendly, familiar folk, Who bowed before Mammon, and heaped up gold, And lived like their neighbours, and loved their joke.

  It was a lovely summer's day when Lady Silverhampton collected herforces at Paddingdon, conveyed them by rail as far as Reading, and thentransported them from the train to her steam-launch on the river. Theparty consisted of Lady Silverhampton herself, Lord and Lady RobertThistletown, Lord Stonebridge, Sir Wilfred Madderley (President of theRoyal Academy), Cecil Farquhar, and Elisabeth.

  "I'm afraid you'll be frightfully crowded," said the hostess, as theypacked themselves into the dainty little launch; "but it can't behelped. I tried to charter a P. and O. steamer for the day; but theywere all engaged, like cabs on the night of a county ball, don't youknow? And then I tried to leave somebody out so as to make the partysmaller, but there wasn't one of you that could have been spared,except Silverhampton; so I left him at home, and decided to let the restof you be squeezed yet happy."

  "How dear of you!" exclaimed Lord Robert; "and I'll repay your kindnessby writing a book called How to be Happy though Squeezed."

  "The word _though_ appears redundant in that connection," Sir WilfredMadderley remarked.

  "Ah! that's because you aren't what is called 'a lady's man,'" LordRobert sighed. "I always was, especially before my unfortunate--oh! Ibeg your pardon, Violet, I forgot you were here; I mean, of course, myfortunate--marriage. I was always the sort of man that makes girlstimidly clinging when they are sitting on a sofa beside you, andshort-sighted when you are playing their accompaniments for them. Iremember once a girl sat so awfully close to me on a sofa inmid-drawing-room, that I felt there wasn't really room for both of us;so--like the true hero that I am--I shouted 'Save the women andchildren,' and flung myself upon the tender mercies of the carpet, tillI finally struggled to the fireplace."

  "How silly you are, Bobby!" exclaimed his wife.

  "Yes, darling; I know. I've always known it; but the world didn't findit out till I married you. Till then I was in hopes that the secretwould die with me; but after that it was fruitless to attempt to concealthe fact any longer."

  "We're all going to be silly to-day," said the hostess; "that's part ofthe treat."

  "It won't be much of a treat to some of us," Lord Robert retorted. "Iremember when I was a little chap going to have tea at the Mershire's;and when I wanted to gather some of their most ripping orchids, Lady M.said I might go into the garden and pick mignonette instead. 'Thankyou,' I replied in my most dignified manner, 'I can pick mignonette athome; that's no change to me!' Now, that's the way with everything; it'sno change to some people to pick mignonette."

  "Or to some to pick orchids," added Lord Stonebridge.

  "Or to some to pick oakum." And Lord Bobby sighed again.

  "Even Elisabeth isn't going to be clever to-day," continued LadySilverhampton. "She promised me she wouldn't; didn't you, Elisabeth?"

  Every one looked admiringly at the subject of this remark. ElisabethFarringdon was the fashion just then.

  "She couldn't help being clever, however hard she tried," said thePresident.

  "Couldn't I, though? Just you wait and see."

  "If you succeed in not saying one clever thing during the whole of thispicnic affair," Lord Bobby exclaimed, "I'll give you my photograph as areward. I've got a new one, taken sideways, which is perfectly sweet. Ithas a profile like a Greek god--those really fine and antique statues,don't you know? whose noses have been wiped out by the ages. The BritishMuseum teems with them, poor devils!"

  "Thank you," said Elisabeth. "I shall prize it as an incontrovertibletestimony to the fact that neither my tongue nor your nose are as sharpas tradition reports them to be."

  Lord Bobby shook his finger warningly. "Be careful, be careful, oryou'll never get that photograph. Remember that every word you say willbe used against you, as the police are always warning me."

  "I'm a little tired to-day," Lady Silverhampton said. "I was taken in todinner by an intelligent man last night."

  "Then how came he to do it?" Lord Robert wondered.

  "Don't be rude, Bobby: it doesn't suit your style; and, besides, howcould he help it?"

  "Well enough. Whenever I go out to dinner I always say in an aside to myhost, 'Not Lady Silverhampton; anything but that.' And the consequenceis I never do go in to dinner with you. It isn't disagreeableness on mypart; if I could I'd do it for your sake, and put my own inclination onone side; but I simply can't bear the intellectual strain. It's a marvelto me how poor Silverhampton stands it as well as he does."

  "He is never exposed to it. You don't suppose I waste my own jokes on myown husband, do you? They are far too good for home consumption, likefish at the seaside. When fish has been up to London and returned, it isthen sold at the place where it was caught. And that's the way with myjokes; when they have been all round London and come home to roost, Iserve them up to Silverhampton as quite fresh."

  "And he believes in their freshness? How sweet and confiding of him!"

  "He never listens to them, so it is all the same to him whether they'refresh or not. That is why I confide so absolutely in Silverhampton; henever listens to a word I say, and never has done."

  Lord Stonebridge amended this remark. "Except when you accepted him."

  "Certainly not; because, as a matter of fact, I refused him; but henever listened, and so he married me. It is so restful to have ahusband who never attends to what you say! It must be dreadfully wearingto have one who does, because then you'd never be able to tell him thetruth. And the great charm of your having a home of your own appears tobe that it is the one place where you can speak the truth."

  Lord Bobby clapped his hands. "Whatever lies disturb the street, theremust be truth at home," he ejaculated.

  "Wiser not, even there," murmured Sir Wilfred Madderley, under hisbreath.

  "But you have all interrupted me, and haven't listened to what I wastelling you about my intelligent man; and if you eat my food you mustlisten to my stones--it's only fair."

  "But if even your own husband doesn't think it necessary to listen tothem," Lord Bobby objected, "why should we, who have never desired to beanything more than sisters to you?"

  "Because he doesn't eat my food--I eat his; that makes all thedifference, don't you see?"

  "Then do you listen to his stories?"

  "To every one of them every time they are told; and I know to an inchthe exact place where to laugh. But I'm going on about my man. He wasone of those instructive boring people, who will tell you the reason ofthings; and he explained to me that soldiers wear khaki and polar bearswhite, because if you are dressed in the same colour as the place whereyou are, it looks as if you weren't there. And it has since occurred tome that I should be a much wiser and happier woman if I always dressedmyself in the same colour as my drawing-room furniture. Then nobodywould be able to find me even in my own house. Don't you think it israther a neat idea?" And her ladyship looked round for the applausewhich she had learned to expect as her right.

  "You are a marvellous woman!" cried Lord Stonebridge, while the othersmurmured their approval.

  "I need never say 'Not at home'; callers would just come in and lookround the drawing-room and go out again, without ever seeing that I wasthere at all. It really would be sweet!"

  "It seems to me to be a theory which might be adapted with benefit toall sorts and conditions of men," said Elisabeth; "I think I shall takeout a patent for designing invisible costumes for every possibleoccasion. I feel I could do it, and do it well."

  "It is adopted to a great extent even now," Sir Wilfred remarked; "Ibelieve that our generals wear scarlet so that they may not always bedistinguishable from the red-tape of the War Office."


  "And one must not forget," added Lord Bobby thoughtfully, "that thebenches of the House of Commons are green."

  "Now in church, of course, it would be just the other way," said LadySilverhampton; "I should line my pew with the same stuff as my Sundaygown, so as to look as if I was there when I wasn't."

  Lord Stonebridge began to argue. "But that wouldn't be the other way; itwould be the same thing."

  "How stupid and accurate you are, Stonebridge! If our pew were linedwith gray chiffon like my Sunday frock, it couldn't be the same as if mySunday frock was made of crimson carpet like our pew. How can thingsthat are exactly opposite be the same? You can't prove that they are,except by algebra; and as nobody here knows any algebra, you can't proveit at all."

  "Yes; I can. If I say you are like a person, it is the same thing assaying that that person is like you."

  "Not at all. If you said that I was like Connie Esdaile, I shouldembrace you before the assembled company; and if you said she was likeme, she'd never forgive you as long as she lived. It is throughreasoning out things in this way that men make such idiotic mistakes."

  "Isn't it funny," Elisabeth remarked, "that if you reason a thing outyou're always wrong, and if you never reason about it at all you'realways right?"

  "Ah! but that is because you are a genius," murmured Cecil Farquhar.

  Lady Silverhampton contradicted him. "Not at all; it's because she is awoman."

  "Well, I'd rather be a woman than a genius any day," said Elisabeth; "ittakes less keeping up."

  "You are both," said Cecil.

  "And I'm neither," added Lord Bobby; "so what's the state of the odds?"

  "Let's invent more invisible costumes," cried Lady Silverhampton; "theyinterest me. Suggest another one, Elisabeth."

  "I should design a special one for lovers in the country. Don't you knowhow you are always coming upon lovers in country lanes, and how hardthey try to look as if they weren't there, and how badly they succeed? Ishould dress them entirely in green, faintly relieved by brown; and thenthey'd look as if they were only part of the hedges and stiles."

  "How the lovers of the future will bless you!" exclaimed Lord Bobby. "Ionly regret that my love-making days are over before your patentcostumes come out. I remember Sir Richard Esdaile once coming uponViolet and me when we were spooning in the shrubbery at Esdaile Court,and we tried in vain to efface ourselves and become as part of thescenery. You see, it is so difficult to look exactly like two laurelbushes, when one of you is dressed in pink muslin and the other in whiteflannel."

  Lady Robert blushed becomingly. "Oh, Bobby, it wasn't pink muslin thatday; it was blue cambric."

  "That doesn't matter. There are as many laurel bushes made out of pinkmuslin as out of blue cambric, when you come to that. The difficulty ofidentifying one's self with one's environment (that's the correctexpression, my dear) would be the same in either costume; but MissFarringdon is now going, once for all, to remove that difficulty."

  "I came upon two young people in a lane not long ago," said Elisabeth,"and the minute they saw me they began to walk in the ditches, one onone side of the road and one on the other. Now if only they had worn mycostumes, such a damp and uncomfortable mode of going about the countrywould have been unnecessary; besides, it was absurd in any case. If youwere walking with your mother-in-law you wouldn't walk as far apart asthat; you wouldn't be able to hear a word she said."

  "Ah! my dear young friend, that wouldn't matter," Lord Bobby interposed,"nor in any way interfere with the pleasure of the walk. Really nice mennever make a fuss about little things like that. If only theirmothers-in-law are kind enough to go out walking with them, they don'ta bit mind how far off they walk. It is in questions such as this thatmen are really so much more unselfish than women; because themothers-in-law do mind--they like us to be near enough to hear what theysay."

  "Green frocks would be very nice for the girls, especially if they werefair," said Lady Robert thoughtfully; "but I think the men would lookrather queer in green, don't you? As if they were actors."

  "I'm afraid they would look a bit dissipated," Elisabeth assented; "likealmonds-and-raisins by daylight. By the way, I know nothing that looksmore dissipated than almonds-and-raisins by daylight."

  "Except, perhaps, one coffee-cup in the drawing-room the morning after adinner party," suggested Farquhar.

  Elisabeth demurred. "No; the coffee-cup is sad rather than sinful. It isas much part and parcel of a bygone time, as the Coliseum or the ruinsof Pompeii; and the respectability of the survival of the fittest is itsown. But almonds-and-raisins are different; to a certain class ofsociety they represent the embodiment of refinement and luxury andself-indulgence."

  Sir Wilfred Madderley laughed softly to himself. "I know exactly whatyou mean."

  "Well, I don't agree with Miss Farringdon," Lord Bobby argued; "to mymind almonds-and-raisins are an emblem of respectability and moralworth, like chiffonniers and family albums and British matrons. Noreally bad man would feel at home with almonds-and-raisins, I'm certain;but I'd appoint as my trustee any man who could really enjoy them on aSunday afternoon. Now take Kesterton, for instance; he's the type of manwho would really appreciate them. My impression is that when his lifecomes to be written, it will be found that he took almonds-and-raisinsin secret, as some men take absinthe and others opium."

  "It is scandalous to reveal the secrets of the great in this manner,"said Elisabeth, "and to lower our ideals of them!"

  "Forgive me; but still you must always have faintly suspected Kestertonof respectability, even when you admired him most. All great men havetheir weaknesses; mine is melancholy and Lord K.'s respectability, andShakespeare's was something quite as bad, but I can't recall just nowwhat it was."

  "And what is Lady K.'s?" asked the hostess.

  "Belief in Kesterton, of course, which she carries to the verge ofcredulity, not to say superstition. Would you credit it? When he was atthe Exchequer she believed in his Budgets; and when he was at the WarOffice she believed in his Intelligence Department; and now he is in theLords she believes in his pedigree, culled fresh from the Herald'sOffice. Can faith go further?"

  "'A perfect woman nobly planned,'" murmured Elisabeth.

  "Precisely," continued Bobby,

  "To rule the man who rules the land, But yet a spirit still, and damp With something from a spirit-lamp--

  or however the thing goes. I don't always quote quite accurately, youwill perceive! I generally improve."

  "I'm not sure that Lady Kesterton does believe in the pedigree," andElisabeth looked wise; "because she once went out of her way to assureme that she did."

  Lord Bobby groaned. "I beseech you to be careful, Miss Farringdon;you'll never get that photograph if you keep forgetting yourself likethis!"

  Elisabeth continued--

  "If I were a man I should belong to the Herald's Office. It would besuch fun to be called a 'Red Bonnet' or a 'Green Griffin,' or some othernice fairy-tale-ish name; and to make it one's business to unite dividedfamilies, and to restore to deserving persons their long-lostgreat-great-grandparents. Think of the unselfish joy one would feel insaying to a worthy grocer, 'Here is your great-great-grandmother; takeher and be happy!' Or to a successful milliner, 'I have found yourmislaid grandfather; be a mother to him for the rest of your life!' Itwould give one the most delicious, fairy-godmotherly sort ofsatisfaction!"

  "It would," Sir Wilfred agreed. "One would feel one's self aphilanthropist of the finest water."

  "Thinking about almonds-and-raisins has made me feel hungry," exclaimedLady Silverhampton. "Let us have lunch! And while the servants arelaying the table, we had better get out of the boat and have a stroll.It would be more amusing."

  So the party wandered about for a while in couples through fieldsbespangled with buttercups; and it happened--not unnaturally--that Ceciland Elisabeth found themselves together.

  "You are very quiet to-day," she said; "how is that? You are generallysuch a chatty person, but to-day y
ou out-silence the Sphinx."

  "You know the reason."

  "No; I don't. To my mind there is no reason on earth strong enough toaccount for voluntary silence. So tell me."

  "I am silent because I want to talk to you; and if I can't do that, Idon't want to talk at all. But among all these grand people you seem sofar away from me. Yesterday we were such close friends; but to-day Istretch out groping hands, and try in vain to touch you. Do you neverdream that you seek for people for a long time and find them at last;and then, when you find them, you can not get near to them? Well, I feeljust like that to-day with you."

  Elisabeth was silent for a moment; her thoughts were far away fromCecil. "Yes, I know that dream well," she said slowly, "I have often hadit; but I never knew that anybody had ever had it except me." Andsuddenly there came over her the memory of how, long years ago, she usedto dream that dream nearly every night. It was at the time when she wasfirst estranged from Christopher, and when the wound of his apparentindifference to her was still fresh. Over and over again she used todream that she and Christopher were once more the friends that they hadbeen, but with an added tenderness that their actual intercourse hadnever known. Which of us has not experienced that strangedream-tenderness--often for the most unlikely people--which hangs aboutus for days after the dream has vanished, and invests the objects of itwith an interest which their living presence never aroused? In that olddream of Elisabeth's her affection for Christopher was so great thatwhen he went away she followed after him, and sought him for a long timein vain; and when at last she found him he was no longer the sameChristopher that he used to be, but there was an impassable barrierbetween them which she fruitlessly struggled to break through. The agonyof the fruitless struggle always awakened her, so that she never knewwhat the end of the dream was going to be.

  It was years since Elisabeth had dreamed this dream--years since she hadeven remembered it--but Cecil's remark brought it all back to her, asthe scent of certain flowers brings back the memory of half-forgottensummer days; and once again she felt herself drawn to him by that bondof similarity which was so strong between them, and which is the mostpowerfully attractive force in the world--except, perhaps, theattractive force of contrast. It is the people who are the most like,and the most unlike, ourselves, that we love the best; to the others weare more or less indifferent.

  "I think you are the most sympathetic person I ever met," she added."You have what the Psalmist would call 'an understanding heart.'"

  "I think it is only you whom I understand, Miss Farringdon; and thatonly because you and I are so much alike."

  "I should have thought you would have understood everybody, you havesuch quick perceptions and such keen sympathies." Elisabeth, for all hercleverness, had yet to learn to differentiate between the understandingheart and the understanding head. There is but little real similaritybetween the physician who makes an accurate diagnosis of one'scondition, and the friend who suffers from the identical disease.

  "No; I don't understand everybody. I don't understand all these finepeople whom we are with to-day, for instance. They seem to me so utterlyworldly and frivolous and irresponsible, that I haven't patience withthem. I daresay they look down upon me for not having blood, and I knowI look down upon them for not having brains."

  Elisabeth's eyes twinkled in spite of herself. She remembered howcompletely Cecil had been out of it in the conversation on the launch;and she wondered whether the King of Nineveh had ever invited Jonah tothe state banquets. She inclined to the belief that he had not.

  "But they have brains," was all she said.

  Cecil was undeniably cross. "They talk a lot of nonsense," he retortedpettishly.

  "Exactly. People without brains never talk nonsense; that is just wherethe difference comes in. If a man talks clever nonsense to me, I knowthat man isn't a fool; it is a sure test."

  "There is nonsense and nonsense."

  "And there are fools and fools." Elisabeth spoke severely; she wasalways merciless upon anything in the shape of humbug or snobbery. MariaFarringdon's training had not been thrown away.

  "I despise mere frivolity," said Cecil loftily.

  "My dear Mr. Farquhar, there is a time for everything; and if you thinkthat a lunch-party on the river in the middle of the season is asuitable occasion for discussing Lord Stonebridge's pecuniarydifficulties, or solving Lady Silverhampton's religious doubts, I canonly say that I don't." Elisabeth was irritated; she knew that Cecil wasannoyed with her friends not because they could talk smart nonsense, butbecause he could not.

  "Still, you can not deny that the upper classes are frivolous," Cecilpersisted.

  "But I do deny it. I don't think that they are a bit more frivolous thanany other class, but I think they are a good deal more plucky. Eachclass has its own particular virtue, and the distinguishing one of thearistocracy seems to me to be pluck; therefore they make light of thingswhich other classes of society would take seriously. It isn't that theydon't feel their own sorrows and sicknesses, but they won't allow otherpeople to feel them; which is, after all, only a form of good manners."

  But Cecil was still rather sulky. "I belong to the middle class and I amproud of it."

  "So do I; but identifying one's self with one class doesn't consist inabusing all the others, any more than identifying one's self with onechurch consists in abusing all the others--though some people seem tothink it does."

  "These grand people may entertain you and be pleasant to you in theirway, I don't deny; but they don't regard you as one of themselves unlessyou are one," persisted Cecil, with all the bitterness of a smallnature.

  Elisabeth smiled with all the sweetness of a large one. "And why shouldthey? Sir Wilfred and you and I are pleasant enough to them in our ownway, but we don't regard any of them as one of ourselves unless he isone. They don't show it, and we don't show it: we are all toowell-mannered; but we can not help knowing that they are not artists anymore than they can help knowing that we are not aristocrats. Beingconscious that certain people lack certain qualities which one happensto possess, is not the same thing as despising those people; and Ialways think it as absurd as it is customary to describe one'sconsciousness of one's own qualifications as self-respect, and otherpeople's consciousness of theirs as pride and vanity."

  "Then aren't you ever afraid of being looked down upon?" asked Cecil, towhom any sense of social inferiority was as gall and wormwood.

  Elisabeth gazed at him in amazement. "Good gracious, no! Such an ideanever entered into my head. I don't look down upon other people forlacking my special gifts, so why should they look down upon me forlacking theirs? Of course they would look down upon me and make fun ofme if I pretended to be one of them, and I should richly deserve it;just as we look down upon and make fun of Philistines who cover theirwalls with paper fans and then pretend that they are artists. Pretenceis always vulgar and always ridiculous; but I know of nothing else thatis either."

  "How splendid you are!" exclaimed Cecil, to whose artistic sensefineness of any kind always appealed, even if it was too high for him toattain to it. "Therefore you will not despise me for being so inferiorto you--you will only help me to grow more like you, won't you?"

  And because Cecil possessed the indefinable gift which the world callscharm, Elisabeth straightway overlooked his shortcomings, and setherself to assist him in correcting them. Perhaps there are few thingsin life more unfair than the certain triumph of these individuals whohave the knack of gaining the affection of their fellows; or morepathetic than the ultimate failure of those who lack this specialattribute. The race may not be to the swift, nor the battle to thestrong; but both race and battle are, nine times out of ten, to the manor the woman who has mastered the art of first compelling devotion andthen retaining it. It was the possession of this gift on the part ofKing David, that made men go in jeopardy of their lives in order tosatisfy his slightest whim; and it was because the prophet Elijah was asolitary soul, commanding the fear rather than the love of men, thatafter his
great triumph he fled into the wilderness and requested forhimself that he might die. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten thatto this lonely prophet it was granted to see visions of angels and tohear the still small Voice; and that, therefore, there are abundantcompensations for those men and women who have not the knack of hearingand speaking the glib interchanges of affection, current among theirmore attractive fellows. There is infinite pathos in the thought ofthese solitary souls, yearning to hear and to speak words of lovinggreeting, and yet shut out--by some accident of mind or manner--fromdoing either the one or the other; but when their turn comes to seevisions of angels and to hear the still small Voice, men need not pitythem overmuch. When once we have seen Him as He is, it will matter butlittle to us whether we stood alone upon the mountain in the wind andthe earthquake and the fire, while the Lord passed by; or whether Hedrew near and walked with us as we trod the busy ways of life, and wasknown of us, as we sat at meat, in breaking of bread.

  As Elisabeth looked at him with eyes full of sympathy, Cecil continued--

  "I have had such a hard life, with no one to care for me; and thehardness of my lot has marred my character, and--through that--my art."

  "Tell me about your life," Elisabeth said softly. "I seem to know solittle of you and yet to know you so well."

  "You shall read what back-numbers I have, but most of them have beenlost, so that I have not read them myself. I really don't know who Iam, as my father died when I was a baby, and my poor mother followed himin a few months, never having recovered from the shock of his death. Iwas born in Australia, at Broken Hill, and was an only child. As far asI can make out, my parents had no relations; or, if they had, they hadquarrelled with them all. They were very poor; and when they died,leaving one wretched little brat behind them, some kind friends adoptedthe poor beggar and carried him off to a sheep-farm, where they broughthim up among their own children."

  "Poor little lonely boy!"

  "I was lonely--more lonely than you can imagine; for, kind as they wereto me, I was naturally not as dear to them as their own children. I wasan outsider; I have always been an outsider; so, perhaps, there is someexcuse for that intense soreness on my part which you so much deprecatewhenever this fact is once more brought home to me."

  "I am sorry that I was so hard on you," said Elisabeth, in a verypenitent voice; "but it is one of my worst faults that I am always beingtoo hard on people. Will you forgive me?"

  "Of course I will." And Elisabeth--also possessing charm--earnedforgiveness as quickly as she had accorded it.

  "Please tell me more," she pleaded.

  "The other children were such a loud, noisy, happy-go-lucky pack, thatthey completely overpowered a delicate, sensitive boy. Moreover, Idetested the life there--the roughness and unrefinement of it all." AndCecil's eyes filled with tears at the mere remembrance of his childishmiseries.

  "Did you stay with them till you grew up?"

  "Yes; I was educated--after a fashion--with their own sons. But at lasta red-letter day dawned for me. An English artist came to stay at thesheep-farm, and discovered that I also was among the prophets. He was abachelor, and he took an uncommon fancy to me; it ended in his adoptingme and bringing me to England, and making of me an artist like himself."

  "Another point of similarity between us!" Elisabeth cried; "my parentsdied when I was a baby, and I also was adopted."

  "I am so glad; all the sting seems to be taken out of things if I feel Ishare them with you."

  "Then where is your adopted father now?"

  "He died when I was five-and-twenty, Miss Farringdon; and left me barelyenough to keep me from abject poverty, should I not be able to make aliving by my brush."

  "And you have never learned anything more about your parents?"

  "Never; and now I expect I never shall. The friends who brought me uptold me that they believed my father came from England, and had beenconnected with some business over here; but what the business was theydid not know, nor why he left it. It is almost impossible to find outanything more, after this long lapse of time; it is over thirty yearsnow since my parents died. And, besides, I very much doubt whetherFarquhar was their real name at all."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "Because the name was carefully erased from the few possessions my poorfather left behind him. So now I have let the matter drop," added Cecil,with a bitter laugh, "as it is sometimes a mistake to look upback-numbers in the colonies; they are not invariably pleasant reading."

  Here conversation was interrupted by Lady Silverhampton's voice callingher friends to lunch; and Cecil and Elisabeth had to join the others.

  "If any of you are tired of life," said her ladyship, as they sat down,"I wish you'd try some of this lobster mayonnaise that my new cook hasmade, and report on it. To me it looks the most promising prescriptionfor death by torture."

  "O bid me die, and I will dare E'en mayonnaise for thee,"

  exclaimed Lord Bobby, manfully helping himself.

  And then the talk flowed on as pleasantly and easily as the river, untilit was time to land again and return to town. But for the rest of theday, and for many a day afterward, a certain uncomfortable suspicionhaunted Elisabeth, which she could not put away from her, try as shewould; a suspicion that, after all, her throne was not as firmly fixedas she had hoped and had learned to believe.