Phantom Fortune

rgot to shed their accustomed showers. Westmoreland hills seemed to have lost their power of drawing dow

ss of Kirkstone to Ullswater - on driving excursions, and on boating excursions, and pedestrian rambles, which latter the homely-minded Hammond seemed to like best of all, for he was a splendid walker, a

ised by her governess, but on parole, as it were - and went with her brother and his friend across the hills and far away. Those were happy days for Mary, for it was always delight to her to be with Maulevrier; yet she had a profound conviction of John Hammond's indifference, kind and courteous as he was in all his dealings with her, and a sense of her own inferiority, of her own humble charms and

er knees, her eyes fixed on Wetherlam, upon whose steep brow a craggy mass of brown

inks yo

e he does. I am so su

. Why, Molly, what ar

because you are used to me, but I know he must think me

Lesbia. There is

ly, contemplating Wetherlam with sorrowfu

otha? Why, there are not a finer pair of eyes in Westmorel

led, and altogether odious - like a haymaker or a market woman. Grandmother has said

od, by Jove. Why, what a goose you are, Mary. Jack thinks you a very nice girl, and a very pretty girl, I'll be bound; but aren't you clever enough to understand that when a man is ov

ppiness. You must know what grandmother is, and how she has made up her mind that Lesbia is to marry s

should be very sorry if poor Jack should come to grief. But still, if Lesbia li

ood, and said she would marry the man she liked best in the world, if he were a pauper, her ladyship flew into a terrible passion, and t

ther lightly. 'Then I suppose we must give up

ry. 'You had better invent some plan for sending him

I have fancied that mine was broken more than once

are not like him; wounds d

, a tall well-built figure, clad in brown tweed, coming towards them, with sketch-book and colour-box in his pocket. He had been making what he called memoranda of th

est days; or, at least, Molly and her brother thought so; for to thos

w the waterfall, and had it carried up on to the furzy slope in front of Wetherlam, where they could eat and drink and be merry to the music of the force as

r, who had been her trusted friend and father confessor from her babyhood; but she was too thorough a woman to let Mr. Hammond discover the depth of her sympathy, the tenderness of her compassion for his

tell, will

he asked, s

ly. He might want to apologise to me, and that would be too

tedly y

won't t

il her dignity by so much as a breath? Sooner would

tion for those amusements which kept him within a stone's throw of Fellside: and Mary knew that this disposition had arisen in his mind since Lesbia had withdrawn herself from all share in their excursions. Lesbia had not been rude to her brother or her brother's frie

as Lady Mary declared. He strolled about the grounds with her; he drank the sweet melody of her voice in Heine's tenderest ballads; he read to her on the sunlit lawn in the lazy afternoon hours; he played billiards with her; he was her faithful attendant at afternoon tea; he gave himself up to the study of her character, which, to his charmed eyes, seemed the perfection of pure and placid w

rawing-room at Fellside in a manner which

in Canada anybody had told me you could loll about a drawing-room all day listeni

St. Lawrence,' answered Hammond. 'Summer idlen

edoomed to be her husband when the coming time should bring them together. But agreeable as the fact of this first conquest might be, as an evidence of Lesbia's supremacy among women, the situation was not without its peril; and Lady Maulevrier felt that she could no longer defer the duty of warning her gr

Maulevrier and his friend,' said the dowager. '

esbia. 'Our walks and drives have been very pleasant. Mr. H

e as she spoke of him, an indicatio

r; and you have sense enough to see that this man is a

his manner,' protested Lady Lesbia, with a sti

fawning wretch you have read about in old-fashioned novels. He can flatter adroitly, and feed upon his friends, and yet maintain a show of manhood an

er than himself, he must pay for it,' argued Lesbia. 'I think

ner humiliated by the idea that this man who so palpably wo

cash. The idea of narrow means, of dependence upon the capricious generosity of a wealthy friend is not without its humiliating influence. Lesbia was barely civil to Mr. Hammond that evening whe

rthward. There was a grouse moor in Argyleshire which the two young men talked about as belonging to some

said the dowager, when they talked of these sh

a place, I daresay,' replied Mau

rrogantly, but still in a tone which implied her conviction that John H

ight every one in Argyles

n his position must be wi

rly

' said Lady Maulevrier, with a faint sigh. 'Ha

m told he is like h

some. Lady Florence Ilmin

miration. He remembered how her ladyship's grandson had compared her with the Sphinx; and it seemed to him to-night, as be studied her proud and tranquil beauty, that there was indeed something of the mysterious, the unreadable in that countenance, and that beneath its heroic calm there might be the ashes of tragic passion, the traces of a life-long struggle with fate. That such a woman, so beautiful, so gifted, so well fitted to shine and govern in the great world, should have been content to live a long life of absolute

gret the time wasted since the twelfth of the month, that she thought the danger was past, and she could afford to be civil. She really liked the young man, had no doubt in

dreamily at the lake, and at Fairfield yonder, a broad green slope, silvered

matter whether a man were rich or poor, high-born or low-born, where there should be no such things as rank and state to be won or lost! Lesbi

John Hammond, and talked to him with more appearance of interest in his actual self, and in

s for the future - had

. He meant to devote himsel

her vague?' inqu

g is vague

no doubt, it is delightful - but as a

ve been s

of a young man starting in life intending to earn his bread by literature. One remembers Chatterton. I should have thought that in your case

said Hammond; 'but I have set my heart upon a po

s, and that doors which had remained shut to everybody else would turn on their hinges directly he knocked a

for you - a mother who thinks her son a heav

ion is wanting in my case. I have

t fact has been a bond of sympa

ieve i

vidence will smil

y weeks I have spent at Fellside,' said Hammo

ing the delicate tracing of blue veins, and pressed his li

ain at Fellside,' but she felt that the man was dangerous. Not while Lesbia remained single could she court his c

mother's arm-chair, and talked to her in soft, cooing accents, inaudible to John Hammond, who sat a little way off turning the leaves of the Contemporary Review: and this went on till eleven o'clock, the regular hour for retiring, wh

were not another creature awake in the house. Maulevrier put out the lamps in the billiard-room, and then they

Steadman and his wife, and among the villagers of Grasmere enjoyed the reputation of being haunted. A wide panelled corridor extended from one end of the house to the other. It was lighted from the roof, and served as a gallery for the display of a

nt views, one across the lake and the village of Grasmere to the green slopes of Fairfield, the other along the valley towards Rydal Water. This and the adjoining bo

and the quiet village, where one solitary light shone like a faint star in a cottage window, amidst that little cluster of houses by the old church, once known as Kirktown. Beyond the village rose g

t hardly saw its beauty. The image of a lovely face

imself. 'There was a look in her eyes to-n

a wild, shrill cry that froze the blood in his veins, or seemed so to freeze it - a shriek of agony,

ype="