Two Strangers

hear so much about? I understand Lucy's rap

raft about it; a nice young woman has as m

only a nice

, and she's clever. She has read a lot, and seen a lot, and been everywhere, and knows heaps and heaps of people, and yet just as simple and as nice as if she had{8} never been married, never had a baby, and was just a gir

er, with a half smile; "but-there is no n

, though," said Lucy, with a lowered v

tle showers whenever the faintest breath{9} of air arose, and where the green turf was not veiled by their many colored remnants, it was green with that emerald hue which means only wet; one knew as one gazed across it that one's foot would sink in the spongy surface, and wet, wet would be the boot, the skirt which touched it; the men in their knickerbockers, or those carefully turned up trousers-which we hear are the fashion in the dryest streets of Paris and New York-suffered comparative

ng-room, which was over-furnished after the present mode of drawing-rooms, but at least warm, and free from draughts. She was working-knitting with white pins, or else making mysterious chains and bridges in white wool with a crochet-hook, her eyes being supposed to be not very strong, and this kind of industry the best adapted for them. As to what Lucy was doing, that defies description. She was doing everything{11} and nothing. She had something of a modern young lady's contempt for every kind of needlework, and, then, along with that, a great admiration for it as something still more superior than the superiority of idleness. A needle is one of the things that has this double effect. It is the scorn of a great number of highly advanced, very culture

cy says, for ourselves-not that it is of much importan

other's prime favorite. She is the nicest person in the neighborhood. She is here constantly, or I a

d dropping all the white fabric of wool on her knees,

least," Lucy cried. "Ralph knows-of course, I would

ould she prefer him to her own nice friends, who were soft of voice and soft of step, and made much of her, and thought as she did? It is acknowledged universally that in certain circumstances, when the man is her lover, a girl prefers that man to all the rest of the creation; but why, when it is only your brother Raaf, and it may really be said that you don't know him-why should you prefer him to your own beloved friends? Lucy did not ask herself this question-she said what she knew i

ot all muffs or clowns in the country. He has a kind of notion that is abo

Lucy, raising her

unless you're nothing but a sportsman, or a great swell doing it as the right thing,

ith a smile; "but that, I suppose, I may take as an exaggeration too. We do

he devil like{15} other folks since it began life, which is rather a long time ago. After a few hundred yea

You do yourself very poor justice, Raaf-no justice at all, i

tion; but one white flower is perhaps enough in a family th

ot say, did not smoke; he did not do anything to disturb the perfect outline of an accomplished gentleman, refined and fastidious, which was his natural aspect. To smell of tobacco, or indeed of anything, would have put all the fine machinery of his nature out of gear. He hated emotion as he hated-what shall I say?-musk or any such villainous smell; he was always point devise, body and soul. It is scarcely necessary to say that he{17} was Mr. Wradisley and the head of the house. He had indeed a Christian name, by which he was called by his mother, brother, and sister, but not conceivably by any one else. Mr. Wradisley was as if you had said Lord, when used to him-nay, it was a little more, for lord is tant soit peu vulgar and common as a symbol of rank employed by many other people, whereas Mr., when thus elevated, is unique; the commonest of addresses, when thus sublimated and etherealized, is always the grandest of all. He was followed into the room by a very different person, a person of whom the Wradisley household did not quite know what to make-a friend of Ralph's who had co

l of Bertram, finding in him, on the whole, something which neither of her brothers possessed, though he must

f his head toward his brother, "and I am delighted to find we have a great many tastes i

things, Reginald," said Mrs. Wradisley, precipitately.

ng his eyebrows. "My dear mother, could you

t amiss," said the big sportsman

ld be quick, no doubt, but if Mrs. Wradisley had not been jealous for her younger son this very sma

u too, mother, as much as the worst of us. I

g about them but for a wild year or two I spent in Greece and the islands. A traveler ge

spelt by mere British f

or Lucy-just the things a girl would like-but Bertram there snapped them all up before I had a chance-confounded kno

alph had brought home had been chiefly hideous ivory carvings of truly African type,{21} whi

aid Bertram. "I am sorry Miss Wradisley had not her share of them-they're buried i

ot unkindly on his little sister's shoulder, as she handed him, exactly as he liked it, h

ur friends, Reginald? October is getting on, and the ladies that b

iends of the house, friends of the covers, if you like. Not so great a nui

eginald. They are coming, anyho

a memorandum of everything, which is m

d a little discussion as to where they were to be placed; to Mrs. Wradisley proposing the yellow room for one couple who had already, in Mr. Wradisley's mind, been settled in the green. It was not a very grea

e,-I mean I am going to see Mrs. Nugent," said Lucy, "while{23}

, and he was such a gentleman, neither rough like Raaf, nor over-dainty li