The Pit Town Coronet, Volume III (of 3)

into the sweet matronly dignity which is so frequently seen among the happy wives and mothers of the English aristocracy. Haggard was still proud of his wife, because even he couldn'

e lovely and affectionate woman of the old happy times. Hers was the beauty of the happy mother, the sweet matronly loveliness which is perhaps the more touching when tinged by

t the old lord's urgent entreaty the visit had been indefinitely prolonged. Although Haggard was, as we know, a wealthy man, he could not afford to disregard any suggestion of his great-uncle. At

ough to occupy his mind with his eternal whist at the club till the small hours of the morning. The odd trick was far more to him than the possession of Walls End Castle and the Pit Town title. But Mr. Lancelot Haggard remained a plain esquire till his death, which occurred seven years after that of the unfortunate Lord Hetton. When his man-servant opened the study door one morning, for he had found the bedroom empty, h

Square had been placed at Haggard's disposal, and though he frequently ran up to town, his pied-à-terre was at the house which would one day be his own, and the Haggards had no regular establishment in London. As for Georgie Haggard herself, she invariably passed a portion of the summer with her father at The Warren. She usually made her annual visit accompanied only by the two boys, for Haggard invariably absented himself in the summer either for Norway fishing, lengthy yacht voyages, or as one of a little party of men of his own kidney, who sought their sport further afield and went lion-hunting in South Africa, shooting the hippopotamus on the White Nile, or chasing the fast-disappe

egislators. Of course Haggard had many friends, or rather acquaintances, all of whom were ready to kootoo and truckle to the man who would be the next Earl of Pit Town; men whom he would invite to dinner, and who would entertain him; generally men of his own age, or club-room bucks with wrinkled cheeks; men whose clothes

Bull-headed Bill, the half-bred titular cook of the expedition. Capt was a silent man, and his fellow servants were never able to extract any gossip from him respecting his master's wanderings. But Haggard was lucky in retaining one real friend; his old

she had inherited from the colonel, her father. I am afraid she had become a confirmed old maid; she had flirted and philandered till she was thirty, and there were plenty of the very smartest people who were quite ready to flirt with her now, for Lucy Warrender still retained her good looks, her dreamy blonde beauty, and her eyes still sparkled as of old. We have said Lucy Warrender was homeless and friendless, and she had developed two master vices: to drown her troubles she gambled as only a woman can gamble, and she drugged herself with chloral and other abominations to procure a temporary forgetfulness of a black shadow that incessantly pursued her. The man Capt knew of the long-buried secret, and he persistently blackmai

both sexes, and by most of his elders, who ought to have known better, to an extent sufficient to have turned the head of any ordinary young man of well-regulated mind. But Lucius Haggard's was not a well-regulated mind. He was of his father's religion, but he carried the religion further. Reginald Haggard was a self-worshipper, a man determined to get the greatest amount of pleasure and amusement out of this world, regardless of consequences to others, a man for whom trumps were continually turning up, a man who felt he was a brazen pot among the earthen ones floating down the stream, and to whom the annihilation of the weaker vessels was a matter of utter indifference. Like Napoleon, he believed in his star, and he had been right in doing so, for when at two-and-twenty he had been turned out to take his chance, he had rapidly become the possessor of wealth far beyond his needs; a little later, after a short

ng upon his mind, that he, as a younger son, would have to get his own living. And George Haggard was ambitious; he meant if possible to force his way into the arena of political life, and had already determined to make a struggle for name and fame at the Bar. But though George Haggard was ambitious, his was an affectionate disposition; he idolized his mother, and he truckled to no one, not even to his father or the old earl. George Haggard knew we

assed away. Two old gentlemen arm-in-arm slowly walked down the principal saloon, the one a big grey-haired man whose face was disfigured with many scars; as he walked he gesticulated, and he spoke with a strong German accent

minds years ago that there should be nothing doubtful here, and here is the only remaining space filled at last, and filled, as it should be, by a masterpiece. Yes," said the old nobleman, as he rubbed

t is not well to be sad. You set yourself a great task y

t what am I to do with him? I know too well that my natural heir looks upon the contents of these galleries

y lord, the you

can't tell why, Wolff, I have never trusted him. Perhaps the aged are over-suspicious. I confess to you that if I thou

ie them up

pictures I've loved would suffer. Who will ca

d, my lord, of giving the

e," he said, as he pointed to the portrait of wicked Bab Chudleigh, who simpered and smiled at him from the wall. "No, Wolff, I shouldn't like my pictures to be hawke

ginald Haggard en

the old nobleman, "that you have hung the last lo

d lord

in the weeding process

ll confer an obligation; but I think you'll find it difficult. In my opinion, Haggard," he continued, "and

slightly

rance," he said; "it is w

of their old age. I began it sixty years ago, and I'm afraid my long life's lab

ngs in a melanchol

n gone; and perhaps it's a little sad to me to

fect an interest I do not feel," s

For we should find him

our business to detect shams," he said. "

try your skill on Lucius; he po

e two young men e

to your tender mercies. If he be a sham Priest of Art, unfrock him by

aged relative with respect, an

no soul," said young Lucius Haggard; "he actually tells me that

ius; don't forget the pain i

He declares he sees more beauty in a sunlit rust

a picture when it gave pleasure to my eyes, as does the wicked wanton on the wal

not glory in being a Phi

r enthusiasm. Why, amidst so much that is beautiful, so much that is spiritual, so much that appeals to the higher na

, that whatever else she may have been, if Bab Chudleigh was li

ir, that you speak so confidently?" said the German

now, and all that sort of thing, though I for my own part would rather not see his angels, for I haven't been educated up to the pitch where one admires the beauty of decay, as Lucius has, the creatures with the pointed chins, the sandy towzled hair, the great hungry eyes, the uncomfortable poses, the deficiency of adipose tissue and the preh

and generous on your part to hand ov

ings. You go in for art and the artif

her, "you will cease to judge by externals, I trust. You will have learned t

aid Georg

to pose, while the worshipper of nature took pain