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AUTHOR OF 'JOHN SPLENDID,' 'THE DAFT DAYS,' ETC.

CHAPTER XIX.

THREE days after, a joyous sun-scorched band of the village children, all the care of the world unknown to them,-dear hearts! pattered with bare feet behind a barouche which had never once previously emerged from the coach-house of the Schawfield mansion since the days of the late Sir George. It might have been the golden chariot of Mumford's Circus by the interest it awakened as it made its way without an occupant except its driver towards Fancy Farm, whose yard had never seen a carriage with the family crest before. The children cheered, and Captain Cutlass, suddenly appearing, helped them at the cheering, "with one more for bare young legs and good old walking!" The lad who drove looked uneasily self-conscious, as a lad might very well do who had not previously been charioteer for anything more glorious than a timber-jonker, and flicked in his rear when he felt the slightest jerk upon the springs, and heard the shouts of "Whip behind!" from envious youngsters who were pushed away by older ones from the joy of hanging on.

"Losh! is the Captain takin' to a carriage?" cried the village in a tone of apprehension; he had so long appeared among

VOL. CLXXXVIII.—NO. MCXXXVII.

them otherwise that the notion of his separation from a saddlehorse was painful to contemplate, like a centaur cut in two.

A week or two more and Peter Powrie was restored to the grateful arms of his lady; he came from Fife with the champion Dandie Dinmont, whereof, it appeared, Miss Norah Grant was now the owner, and he was to spend the rest of his days in driving Miss Amelia, who thus got the darling wish of her life. Her happiness was only slightly clouded by the fact that Captain Cutlass all his days refused to share it.

Watty Fraser and the heathen people of the Wynd were the only ones who regretted the innovation; the sentinel Jock could make no pretence at holding the fort against a carriage, and when Penelope learned that this last redoubt of the very poor was forced by a contingency she had not anticipated, she almost rued her share in the expansion of life in Fancy Farm. She availed herself, however, of Miss Amelia's longer absences by going to the kitchen to be rebuffed at first by a cook whose art had long been lapsing from desuetude because of the baronet's indifference to a

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Good Table, but soon, by cunning wiles, to rouse again the spirit of art, which, in cookery as in painting or in poetry, must be kept from sleeping by applause. Cook and Pen, between them, fashioned dinners which defied the culinary theories of Captain Cutlass. He blinked at mysterious and chromatic dishes. "Astounding!" he exclaimed; "I wish I weren't really hungry, and I'd try them; please pass me the bread again, Reggy." But no more lectures on the simple life of the seaman and the forester, since fancy food it seemed was a taste of Pen's.

There was even a grand party!-a diversion which had not disturbed the calm routine of Fancy Farm since the death of Lady Jean. Norah shone, magnificent and commanding, all her jewels on. She took her company in her hands, and played their happiest notes as if they were an instrument of strings a singularly cheerful evening! The women seemed so tender and so sane, the men so witty and so humanly fraternal. Sir Andrew thought the time on a ceremonious dinner well expended if it took the stilts from people, and showed his cousin to such great advantage. Never had he seen her look the same before, serene and regal, all the more conspicuous against the foil provided by Penelope, unreasonably quiet and self-effaced. He rallied all his social charms that night, to the support of Norah; he was the best of hosts, and his courtly graces to the golden ones, the Brooks and Beswicks, made his happy aunt relinquish the last

of those vague unrests aroused by the incidents of that Saturday when her nephew and Penelope came riding up the street together. Who could think that there could ever be anything between Sir Andrew Schaw and the parson's daughter?

"Now, Andy, you see how nice a dinner-party may be, if one goes about it sensibly," she said to him with a smack of satisfaction when the company had dispersed. "Everything went off so beautifully, and I never saw you more like my idea of Sir Andrew Schaw."

"Oh, parties clearly have their place in the puzzling scheme of things," he admitted. "I got as close to the heart of Mr Beswick to-night as if he had been a ploughman, and we were sitting on a dyke together sharing the same tobacco. There's a lot to be said for a glass of wine. I'm glad you're pleased, aunt, but indeed you owe me no gratitude: if the God of things-as-they-shouldbe is appeased, we have to thank Penelope."

Luckily for her peace of mind the last phrase failed to penetrate Aunt Amelia; she went off to bed elated. The night wind breathed outside among the trees; it bore in its louder flaws, diminuendo, sounds of rolling carriages, passing into distance over devious ways; Sir Andrew, Norah, Pen, and Maurice gathered round the hearth and softly laughed at some common secret understanding.

"Well, madam," said Sir Andrew to Penelope, with a deferential bow, "we are get

More than that, it stamps the owner as a man of system, parcelling off the day and its duties in a way that's foreign to me. Confound it, Pen! I always just do what I like and when I like!" He put on a ludicrous air of protest.

ting on famously. I admit I watch, a lot of trouble; it's got found your guests exceedingly to be wound, for one thing. agreeable and entertaining. When one has no ulterior motives, even Mabel Brooks has a certain depth of soul in her." "Even the very rich are human, Andy," said his cousin. "There are times when they should be pitied, they are so forlorn. You are far too prone to be on agreeable terms with every class except your own; that's very narrow-minded."

"I trust I comported myself to them all to-night like one with as much good-will as I sincerely felt for them? But But what is the next of your august behests as a lady of rank and wealth, Penelope?"

Pen had thrown off her selfeffacement; she answered gaily, a humorous acceptance of the dignity in her tone. "I want more punctuality at meals," she said. "You almost spoiled the soup, Sir Andrew. It upsets everything. A person can be unpunctual and irregular only at the expense of other people; my father used to tell us it was a kind of theft."

He comically knit his brows. "H'm! There's something in it! If I have hitherto failed in this respect, it was, honestly, not for want of trying to do better. I'm afraid those minor virtues are a gift, like a head for mathematics; you have it or you have it not. I must certainly buy a watch; my instinct for the exact breakfast hour is not what it used to be. And I hate a watch, for many reasons; I spoiled the only one I ever had as a boy by using it, in fishing, as a sinker. But I foresee, in the possession of a

"That's all very well for gipsies, but I could never think it very wise or right in a gentleman," said Penelope, the loyal slave of the everyday duties. "All the good work of the world is done by men and women who know the value of time."

"You're as much as ever for uniformity, I can see," he answered, shrugging his shoulders; "but as Mistress of the Keys you shall certainly be obeyed."

That was the joke-Penelope, the parson's daughter, for the nonce was regent queen of Schawfield, demure and selfeffaced so far as any open indication of her office went, but actually in power to indulge her theories, and command resources, with Miss Norah and Sir Andrew for her agents! Had Aunt Amelia known by what influence she had got her carriage, how dreadful would have been her indignation!

This grand caprice had occurred to Captain Cutlass on the day they rode from the moor together, inspired by Penelope's views on wealth and her confession that she sometimes longed to test its power. "Look here!" he exclaimed impulsively, after pondering on it for a little; "I've a great idea-you shall manage Schaw

field for a month, absolutely! myself to delegate her powers You'll be Mistress of the Keys for a week or two." in everything except the vested offices of Aunt Amelia; you can do what you like, and, as far as my bank account goes, indulge yourself in pearls if you find your nature cry for them."

She drew herself more upright on the saddle, reddening furiously, and stared at him with sudden and disquieting doubts; his honest face was lit with boyish fun. "My dear!" he cried ecstatically, "it would be splendid! splendid! Ha! ha! You'd see then I was right about the stewardship, and I'm ready to swear you wouldn't want the pearls. I ought to have done something of the kind that night with good Tom Dunn, you know; as it was, we only got half the possible sport of that escapade."

Despite her sense of humour, which in many things could be as active as his own, she flatly refused at first to have any thing to do with such a wild vagary. "It's the maddest of ideas!" she exclaimed.

"Well! well!" he retorted heartily; "isn't that the beauty of it? And it's only east by nor'-east of dull sanity; if I did half the mad things I am sometimes tempted to do, I'd put the ship about and sail for Atlantis, where the folk that sit for ever singing on the sands never do anything like anybody else."

"Norah- " she began. "Norah understands," he broke in hastily; "I never devised a good joke yet but Norah wanted a hand in it. She'll be just as delighted as

He was right, too; Norah entered into the scheme with the liveliest alacrity; swept away the last objections of Penelope, and stood by to watch the fun to which she was contributor in a way the author never once suspected. "I want the barouche at Schawfield House brought out," was the first demand of the regent lady. "It's only proper that Sir Andrew Schaw should have a carriage, even if it is only to prevent his guests from awkward adventures in Mrs Nish's landau."

"Who that has ever known the glory of a saddle would want to sit and joggle in a wheeled arm-chair?" he asked, disappointed at her selection.

"Your aunt has wanted the carriage out for years," replied Penelope.

"She has never once said so," he exclaimed with genuine surprise.

"No, because she knows your views about a carriage; she was afraid to press the matter. I'm afraid of nothing," but she glanced at Norah with some sign of perturbation, as if she looked for her support. "And then I want-I want a dog for Norah, if I can get the one she fancies-the champion Dandie Dinmont."

"Good Lord!" he cried, "I never suspected you of a taste for Dandie Dinmonts, Norah."

"It has been the guilty passion of my life," said Norah. "You are so wrapped up in your own fancies that you seldom think other people may have fancies too. I'll pay my

self for the dog if we can get it, Pen; it needn't come from your bank account."

"If we can get the dog we can get Peter Powrie too as coachman," proceeded Pen with nonchalance. "Of course one wants a good driver for one's Aunt Amelia. I was almost thrown out of a landau once by an inexperienced amateur."

He smiled at the reminiscence. "Mrs Powrie will not thank you for bringing back her Peter," he suggested.

"I think I know Mrs Powrie a good deal better than that," replied Penelope. "It is only the absent Peter she is angry with that's a woman's way, and I feel certain she'll be glad to share his fidelity with a well-bred dog."

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"Very well, madam,' he agreed. "And après? "And après? What next?"

"I insist on good cooking," continued Pen, who had now entered a little breathlessly into the spirit of domestic autocrat, supported by the obvious approval of Norah and the imperturbable good-humour of Captain Cutlass. "I think it is a shame to spoil a good cook by not giving her an opportunity to keep up her practice; she may not always be at Fancy Farm, you know, and all other houses are not so easily satisfied as this. . . . And I want a dinner-party to show off Norah and her pearls."

"No pearls for yourself?" asked Captain Cutlass, smiling slyly.

"No. Now that I can have them, I suppose, I don't

seem to want them. Besides, I can see them better on Norah."

And thus by a playful acceptance of the situation into which his whim had forced her she had given joy to Miss Amelia and Mrs Powrie, gave Norah an opportunity she had not had previously to show herself at her best, and made a great success of the dinnerparty whose component parts were now scattered to the night.

"You seem to have thought of everybody except yourself, so far," said the baronet.

"Oh, no!" she answered cheerfully, "I have thought of myself too, and sent for a dozen of the very latest novels."

"And not a single poet!" exclaimed the mocking Maurice.

"Not one! I'm determined I shan't encourage them. I'll not be renegade to my Goldsmith."

"I'm beat to understand how you, Pen, with a head like yours

"Thank you so very much, Mr Maurice!" she broke in with a flicker of the spitfire. "You don't expect much of a head of any kind on a woman, do you?"

"I'm beat to understand how you can bear to waste your time on such trashy stories," he persisted.

"I can easily tell you why," she said. "It's because they are quite untrue to life. The good men in them are always handsome, brave, chivalrous, and true, and the heroines are always beautiful and fortunate. The bad people are so trans

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