Beyond the City
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

CHAPTER I.

THE NEW-COMERS.

"If you please, mum," said the voice of a domestic
from somewhere round the angle of the door, "number three
is moving in.

Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either
side of a table, sprang to their feet with ejaculations
of interest, and rushed to the window of the
sitting-room.

"Take care, Monica dear," said one, shrouding herself
in the lace curtain; "don't let them see us.

"No, no, Bertha. We must not give them reason to say
that their neighbors are inquisitive. But I think that
we are safe if we stand like this."

The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn, well
trimmed and pleasant, with fuzzy rosebushes and a
star-shaped bed of sweet-william. It was bounded by
a low wooden fence, which screened it off from a broad,
modern, new metaled road. At the other side of this road
were three large detached deep-bodied villas with peaky
eaves and small wooden balconies, each standing in its
own little square of grass and of flowers. All three
were equally new, but numbers one and two were curtained
and sedate, with a human, sociable look to them; while
number three, with yawning door and unkempt garden, had
apparently only just received its furniture and made
itself ready for its occupants. A four-wheeler had
driven up to the gate, and it was at this that the old
ladies, peeping out bird-like from behind their curtains,
directed an eager and questioning gaze.

The cabman had descended, and the passengers within
were handing out the articles which they desired him to
carry up to the house. He stood red-faced and blinking,
with his crooked arms outstretched, while a male hand,
protruding from the window, kept piling up upon him a
series of articles the sight of which filled the curious
old ladies with bewilderment.

"My goodness me!" cried Monica, the smaller, the
drier, and the more wizened of the pair. "What do you
call that, Bertha? It looks to me like four batter
puddings."

"Those are what young men box each other with,"
said Bertha, with a conscious air of superior worldly
knowledge.

"And those?"

Two great bottle-shaped pieces of yellow shining wood
had been heaped upon the cabman.

"Oh, I don't know what those are," confessed Bertha.
Indian clubs had never before obtruded themselves upon
her peaceful and very feminine existence.

These mysterious articles were followed, however, by
others which were more within their, range of
comprehension--by a pair of dumb-bells, a purple
cricket-bag, a set of golf clubs, and a tennis racket.
Finally, when the cabman, all top-heavy and bristling,
had staggered off up the garden path, there emerged in a
very leisurely way from the cab a big, powerfully built
young man, with a bull pup under one arm and a pink
sporting paper in his hand. The paper he crammed into
the pocket of his light yellow dust-coat, and extended
his hand as if to assist some one else from the vehicle.
To the surprise of the two old ladies, however, the only
thing which his open palm received was a violent slap,
and a tall lady bounded unassisted out of the cab. With
a regal wave she motioned the young man towards the door,
and then with one hand upon her hip she stood in a
careless, lounging attitude by the gate, kicking her
toe against the wall and listlessly awaiting the return
of the driver.

As she turned slowly round, and the sunshine struck
upon her face, the two watchers were amazed to see that
this very active and energetic lady was far from being in
her first youth, so far that she had certainly come of
age again since she first passed that landmark in life's
journey. Her finely chiseled, clean-cut face, with
something red Indian about the firm mouth and strongly
marked cheek bones, showed even at that distance traces
of the friction of the passing years. And yet she was
very handsome. Her features were as firm in repose as
those of a Greek bust, and her great dark eyes were
arched over by two brows so black, so thick, and so
delicately curved, that the eye turned away from the
harsher details of the face to marvel at their grace and
strength. Her figure, too, was straight as a dart, a
little portly, perhaps, but curving into magnificent
outlines, which were half accentuated by the strange
costume which she wore. Her hair, black but plentifully
shot with grey, was brushed plainly back from her high
forehead, and was gathered under a small round felt hat,
like that of a man, with one sprig of feather in the band
as a concession to her sex. A double-breasted jacket of
some dark frieze-like material fitted closely to her
figure, while her straight blue skirt, untrimmed and
ungathered, was cut so short that the lower curve of her
finely-turned legs was plainly visible beneath it,
terminating in a pair of broad, flat, low-heeled and
square-toed shoes. Such was the lady who lounged at the
gate of number three, under the curious eyes of her two
opposite neighbors.

But if her conduct and appearance had already
somewhat jarred upon their limited and precise sense of
the fitness of things, what were they to think of the
next little act in this tableau vivant? The cabman,
red and heavy-jowled, had come back from his labors, and
held out his hand for his fare. The lady passed him a
coin, there was a moment of mumbling and gesticulating,
and suddenly she had him with both hands by the red
cravat which girt his neck, and was shaking him as a
terrier would a rat. Right across the pavement she
thrust him, and, pushing him up against the wheel, she
banged his head three several times against the side of
his own vehicle.

"Can I be of any use to you, aunt?" asked the large
youth, framing himself in the open doorway.

"Not the slightest," panted the enraged lady.
"There, you low blackguard, that will teach you to be
impertinent to a lady."

The cabman looked helplessly about him with a
bewildered, questioning gaze, as one to whom alone of
all men this unheard-of and extraordinary thing had
happened. Then, rubbing his head, he mounted slowly on
to the box and drove away with an uptossed hand appealing
to the universe. The lady smoothed down her dress,
pushed back her hair under her little felt hat, and
strode in through the hall-door, which was closed behind
her. As with a whisk her short skirts vanished into the
darkness, the two spectators--Miss Bertha and Miss Monica
Williams--sat looking at each other in speechless
amazement. For fifty years they had peeped through that
little window and across that trim garden, but never yet
had such a sight as this come to confound them.

"I wish," said Monica at last, "that we had kept the
field."

"I am sure I wish we had," answered her sister.

----

CHAPTER II.

BREAKING THE ICE.

The cottage from the window of which the Misses
Williams had looked out stands, and has stood for many a
year, in that pleasant suburban district which lies
between Norwood, Anerley, and Forest Hill. Long
before there had been a thought of a township there, when
the Metropolis was still quite a distant thing, old Mr.
Williams had inhabited "The Brambles," as the little
house was called, and had owned all the fields about it.
Six or eight such cottages scattered over a rolling
country-side were all the houses to be found there in the
days when the century was young. From afar, when the
breeze came from the north, the dull, low roar of the
great city might be heard, like the breaking of the tide
of life, while along the horizon might be seen the dim
curtain of smoke, the grim spray which that tide threw
up. Gradually, however, as the years passed, the City
had thrown out a long brick-feeler here and there,
curving, extending, and coalescing, until at last the
little cottages had been gripped round by these red
tentacles, and had been absorbed to make room for the
modern villa. Field by field the estate of old Mr.
Williams had been sold to the speculative builder, and
had borne rich crops of snug suburban dwellings, arranged
in curving crescents and tree-lined avenues. The father
had passed away before his cottage was entirely bricked
round, but his two daughters, to whom the property had
descended, lived to see the last vestige of country taken
from them. For years they had clung to the one field
which faced their windows, and it was only after much
argument and many heartburnings, that they had at last
consented that it should share the fate of the others.
A broad road was driven through their quiet domain, the
quarter was re-named "The Wilderness," and three square,
staring, uncompromising villas began to sprout up on the
other side. With sore hearts, the two shy little old
maids watched their steady progress, and speculated as to
what fashion of neighbors chance would bring into the
little nook which had always been their own.

And at last they were all three finished. Wooden
balconies and overhanging eaves had been added to them,
so that, in the language of the advertisement, there were
vacant three eligible Swiss-built villas, with sixteen
rooms, no basement, electric bells, hot and cold water,
and every modern convenience, including a common tennis
lawn, to be let at L100 a year, or L1,500 purchase. So
tempting an offer did not long remain open. Within a few
weeks the card had vanished from number one, and it was
known that Admiral Hay Denver, V. C., C. B., with Mrs.
Hay Denver and their only son, were about to move into
it. The news brought peace to the hearts of the Williams
sisters. They had lived with a settled conviction that
some wild impossible colony, some shouting, singing
family of madcaps, would break in upon their peace.
This establishment at least was irreproachable. A
reference to "Men of the Time" showed them that Admiral
Hay Denver was a most distinguished officer, who had
begun his active career at Bomarsund, and had ended it at
Alexandria, having managed between these two episodes to
see as much service as any man of his years. From the
Taku Forts and the _Shannon_ brigade, to dhow-harrying
off Zanzibar, there was no variety of naval work which
did not appear in his record; while the Victoria Cross,
and the Albert Medal for saving life, vouched for it that
in peace as in war his courage was still of the same true
temper. Clearly a very eligible neighbor this, the more
so as they had been confidentially assured by the estate
agent that Mr. Harold Denver, the son, was a most quiet
young gentleman, and that he was busy from morning to
night on the Stock Exchange.

The Hay Denvers had hardly moved in before number two
also struck its placard, and again the ladies found that
they had no reason to be discontented with their
neighbors. Doctor Balthazar Walker was a very well-known
name in the medical world. Did not his qualifications,
his membership, and the record of his writings fill a
long half-column in the "Medical Directory," from his
first little paper on the "Gouty Diathesis" in 1859 to
his exhaustive treatise upon "Affections of the
Vaso-Motor System" in 1884? A successful medical career
which promised to end in a presidentship of a college and
a baronetcy, had been cut short by his sudden inheritance
of a considerable sum from a grateful patient, which had
rendered him independent for life, and had enabled him to
turn his attention to the more scientific part of his
profession, which had always had a greater charm for him
than its more practical and commercial aspect. To this
end he had given up his house in Weymouth Street, and had
taken this opportunity of moving himself, his scientific
instruments, and his two charming daughters (he had been
a widower for some years) into the more peaceful
atmosphere of Norwood.

There was thus but one villa unoccupied, and it was
no wonder that the two maiden ladies watched with a keen
interest, which deepened into a dire apprehension, the
curious incidents which heralded the coming of the new
tenants. They had already learned from the agent that
the family consisted of two only, Mrs. Westmacott, a
widow, and her nephew, Charles Westmacott. How simple
and how select it had sounded! Who could have foreseen
from it these fearful portents which seemed to threaten
violence and discord among the dwellers in The
Wilderness? Again the two old maids cried in
heartfelt chorus that they wished they had not sold their
field.

"Well, at least, Monica," remarked Bertha, as they
sat over their teacups that afternoon, "however strange
these people may be, it is our duty to be as polite to
them as to the others."

"Most certainly," acquiesced her sister.

"Since we have called upon Mrs. Hay Denver and upon
the Misses Walker, we must call upon this Mrs. Westmacott
also."

"Certainly, dear. As long as they are living upon
our land I feel as if they were in a sense our guests,
and that it is our duty to welcome them."

"Then we shall call to-morrow," said Bertha, with
decision.

"Yes, dear, we shall. But, oh, I wish it was over!"

At four o'clock on the next day, the two maiden
ladies set off upon their hospitable errand. In their
stiff, crackling dresses of black silk, with
jet-bespangled jackets, and little rows of cylindrical
grey curls drooping down on either side of their black
bonnets, they looked like two old fashion plates which
had wandered off into the wrong decade. Half curious and
half fearful, they knocked at the door of number three,
which was instantly opened by a red-headed page-boy.

Yes, Mrs. Westmacott was at home. He ushered them
into the front room, furnished as a drawing-room, where
in spite of the fine spring weather a large fire was
burning in the grate. The boy took their cards, and
then, as they sat down together upon a settee, he set
their nerves in a thrill by darting behind a curtain with
a shrill cry, and prodding at something with his foot.
The bull pup which they had seen upon the day before
bolted from its hiding-place, and scuttled snarling from
the room.

"It wants to get at Eliza," said the youth, in a
confidential whisper. "Master says she would give him
more'n he brought."  He smiled affably at the two little
stiff black figures, and departed in search of his
mistress.

"What--what did he say?" gasped Bertha.

"Something about a----  Oh, goodness gracious! Oh,
help, help, help, help, help!"  The two sisters had
bounded on to the settee, and stood there with staring
eyes and skirts gathered in, while they filled the whole
house with their yells. Out of a high wicker-work basket
which stood by the fire there had risen a flat
diamond-shaped head with wicked green eyes which came
flickering upwards, waving gently from side to side,
until a foot or more of glossy scaly neck was visible.
Slowly the vicious head came floating up, while at every
oscillation a fresh burst of shrieks came from
the settee.

"What in the name of mischief!" cried a voice, and
there was the mistress of the house standing in the
doorway. Her gaze at first had merely taken in the fact
that two strangers were standing screaming upon her red
plush sofa. A glance at the fireplace, however, showed
her the cause of the terror, and she burst into a hearty
fit of laughter.

"Charley," she shouted, "here's Eliza misbehaving
again."

"I'll settle her," answered a masculine voice, and
the young man dashed into the room. He had a brown
horse-cloth in his hand, which he threw over the basket,
making it fast with a piece of twine so as to effectually
imprison its inmate, while his aunt ran across to
reassure her visitors.

"It is only a rock snake, " she explained.

"Oh, Bertha!"  "Oh, Monica!" gasped the poor
exhausted gentlewomen.

"She's hatching out some eggs. That is why we have
the fire. Eliza always does better when she is warm.
She is a sweet, gentle creature, but no doubt she thought
that you had designs upon her eggs. I suppose that you
did not touch any of them?"

"Oh, let us get away, Bertha!' cried Monica, with her
thin, black-gloved hands thrown forwards in abhorrence.

"Not away, but into the next room," said Mrs.
Westmacott, with the air of one whose word was law.
"This way, if you please! It is less warm here."  She
led the way into a very handsomely appointed library,
with three great cases of books, and upon the fourth side
a long yellow table littered over with papers and
scientific instruments. "Sit here, and you, there," she
continued. "That is right. Now let me see, which of you
is Miss Williams, and which Miss Bertha Williams?"

"I am Miss Williams," said Monica, still palpitating,
and glancing furtively about in dread of some new horror.

"And you live, as I understand, over at the pretty
little cottage. It is very nice of you to call so early.
I don't suppose that we shall get on, but still the
intention is equally good."  She crossed her legs and
leaned her back against the marble mantelpiece.

"We thought that perhaps we might be of some
assistance," said Bertha, timidly. "If there is anything
which we could do to make you feel more at home----"

"Oh, thank you, I am too old a traveler to feel
anything but at home wherever I go. I've just come back
from a few months in the Marquesas Islands, where I had
a very pleasant visit. That was where I got Eliza. In
many respects the Marquesas Islands now lead the world."

"Dear me!" ejaculated Miss Williams. "In what
respect?"

"In the relation of the sexes. They have worked out
the great problem upon their own lines, and their
isolated geographical position has helped them to come to
a conclusion of their own. The woman there is, as she
should be, in every way the absolute equal of the male.
Come in, Charles, and sit down. Is Eliza all right?"

"All right, aunt."

"These are our neighbors, the Misses Williams.
Perhaps they will have some stout. You might bring in a
couple of bottles, Charles."

"No, no, thank you! None for us!" cried her two
visitors, earnestly.

"No? I am sorry that I have no tea to offer you. I
look upon the subserviency of woman as largely due to her
abandoning nutritious drinks and invigorating exercises
to the male. I do neither."  She picked up a pair of
fifteen-pound dumb-bells from beside the fireplace and
swung them lightly about her head. "You see what may be
done on stout," said she.

"But don't you think," the elder Miss Williams
suggested timidly, "don't you think, Mrs. Westmascott,
that woman has a mission of her own?"

The lady of the house dropped her dumb-bells with a
crash upon the floor.

"The old cant!" she cried. "The old shibboleth!
What is this mission which is reserved for woman? All
that is humble, that is mean, that is soul-killing, that
is so contemptible and so ill-paid that none other will
touch it. All that is woman's mission. And who imposed
these limitations upon her? Who cooped her up within
this narrow sphere? Was it Providence? Was it nature?
No, it was the arch enemy. It was man."

"Oh, I say, auntie!" drawled her nephew.

"It was man, Charles. It was you and your fellows I
say that woman is a colossal monument to the selfishness
of man. What is all this boasted chivalry--these fine
words and vague phrases? Where is it when we wish to put
it to the test? Man in the abstract will do anything to
help a woman. Of course. How does it work when his
pocket is touched? Where is his chivalry then? Will the
doctors help her to qualify? will the lawyers help her to
be called to the bar? will the clergy tolerate her in the
Church? Oh, it is close your ranks then and refer poor
woman to her mission! Her mission! To be thankful for
coppers and not to interfere with the men while they
grabble for gold, like swine round a trough, that is
man's reading of the mission of women. You may sit there
and sneer, Charles, while you look upon your victim, but
you know that it is truth, every word of it.

Terrified as they were by this sudden torrent of
words, the two gentlewomen could not but smile at the
sight of the fiery, domineering victim and the big
apologetic representative of mankind who sat meekly
bearing all the sins of his sex. The lady struck a
match, whipped a cigarette from a case upon the
mantelpiece, and began to draw the smoke into her lungs.

"I find it very soothing when my nerves are at all
ruffled," she explained. "You don't smoke? Ah, you miss
one of the purest of pleasures--one of the few pleasures
which are without a reaction."

Miss Williams smoothed out her silken lap.

"It is a pleasure," she said, with some approach to
self-assertion, "which Bertha and I are rather too
old-fashioned to enjoy."

"No doubt, It would probably make you very ill if you
attempted it. By the way, I hope that you will come to
some of our Guild meetings. I shall see that tickets are
sent you."

"Your Guild?"

"It is not yet formed, but I shall lose no time in
forming a committee. It is my habit to establish a
branch of the Emancipation Guild wherever I go. There is
a Mrs. Sanderson in Anerley who is already one of the
emancipated, so that I have a nucleus. It is only by
organized resistance, Miss Williams, that we can hope to
hold our own against the selfish sex. Must you go,
then?"

"Yes, we have one or two other visits to pay," said
the elder sister. "You will, I am sure, excuse us. I
hope that you will find Norwood a pleasant residence."

"All places are to me simply a battle-field," she
answered, gripping first one and then the other with a
grip which crumpled up their little thin fingers. "The
days for work and healthful exercise, the evenings to
Browning and high discourse, eh, Charles? Good-bye!"
She came to the door with them, and as they glanced back
they saw her still standing there with the yellow bull
pup cuddled up under one forearm, and the thin blue reek
of her cigarette ascending from her lips.

"Oh, what a dreadful, dreadful woman!" whispered
sister Bertha, as they hurried down the street. "Thank
goodness that it is over."

"But she'll return the visit," answered the other.
"I think that we had better tell Mary that we are not at
home.

----

CHAPTER III.

DWELLERS IN THE WILDERNESS.

How deeply are our destinies influenced by the most
trifling causes! Had the unknown builder who erected and
owned these new villas contented himself by simply
building each within its own grounds, it is probable that
these three small groups of people would have remained
hardly conscious of each other's existence, and that
there would have been no opportunity for that action and
reaction which is here set forth. But there was a common
link to bind them together. To single himself out from
all other Norwood builders the landlord had devised and
laid out a common lawn tennis ground, which stretched
behind the houses with taut-stretched net, green
close-cropped sward, and widespread whitewashed lines.
Hither in search of that hard exercise which is as
necessary as air or food to the English temperament, came
young Hay Denver when released from the toil of the City;
hither, too, came Dr. Walker and his two fair daughters,
Clara and Ida, and hither also, champions of the lawn,
came the short-skirted, muscular widow and her athletic
nephew. Ere the summer was gone they knew each other in
this quiet nook as they might not have done after years
of a stiffer and more formal acquaintance.

And especially to the Admiral and the Doctor were
this closer intimacy and companionship of value. Each
had a void in his life, as every man must have who with
unexhausted strength steps out of the great race, but
each by his society might help to fill up that of his
neighbor. It is true that they had not much in
common, but that is sometimes an aid rather than a bar to
friendship. Each had been an enthusiast in his
profession, and had retained all his interest in it. The
Doctor still read from cover to cover his Lancet and
his Medical Journal, attended all professional
gatherings, worked himself into an alternate state of
exaltation and depression over the results of the
election of officers, and reserved for himself a den of
his own, in which before rows of little round bottles
full of glycerine, Canadian balsam, and staining agents,
he still cut sections with a microtome, and peeped
through his long, brass, old-fashioned microscope at the
arcana of nature. With his typical face, clean shaven on
lip and chin, with a firm mouth, a strong jaw, a steady
eye, and two little white fluffs of whiskers, he could
never be taken for anything but what he was, a high-class
British medical consultant of the age of fifty, or
perhaps just a year or two older.

The Doctor, in his hey-day, had been cool over great
things, but now, in his retirement, he was fussy over
trifles. The man who had operated without the quiver of
a finger, when not only his patient's life but his own
reputation and future were at stake, was now shaken to
the soul by a mislaid book or a careless maid. He
remarked it himself, and knew the reason. "When Mary
was alive," he would say, "she stood between me and the
little troubles. I could brace myself for the big ones.
My girls are as good as girls can be, but who can know a
man as his wife knows him?"  Then his memory would
conjure up a tuft of brown hair and a single white, thin
hand over a coverlet, and he would feel, as we have all
felt, that if we do not live and know each other after
death, then indeed we are tricked and betrayed by all the
highest hopes and subtlest intuitions of our nature.

The Doctor had his compensations to make up for his
loss. The great scales of Fate had been held on a level
for him; for where in all great London could one find two
sweeter girls, more loving, more intelligent, and more
sympathetic than Clara and Ida Walker? So bright were
they, so quick, so interested in all which interested
him, that if it were possible for a man to be compensated
for the loss of a good wife then Balthazar Walker might
claim to be so.

Clara was tall and thin and supple, with a graceful,
womanly figure. There was something stately and
distinguished in her carriage, "queenly" her friends
called her, while her critics described her as reserved
and distant.

Such as it was, however, it was part and parcel of
herself, for she was, and had always from her
childhood been, different from any one around her. There
was nothing gregarious in her nature. She thought with
her own mind, saw with her own eyes, acted from her own
impulse. Her face was pale, striking rather than pretty,
but with two great dark eyes, so earnestly questioning,
so quick in their transitions from joy to pathos, so
swift in their comment upon every word and deed around
her, that those eyes alone were to many more attractive
than all the beauty of her younger sister. Hers was a
strong, quiet soul, and it was her firm hand which had
taken over the duties of her mother, had ordered the
house, restrained the servants, comforted her father, and
upheld her weaker sister, from the day of that great
misfortune.

Ida Walker was a hand's breadth smaller than Clara,
but was a little fuller in the face and plumper in the
figure. She had light yellow hair, mischievous blue eyes
with the light of humor ever twinkling in their depths,
and a large, perfectly formed mouth, with that slight
upward curve of the corners which goes with a keen
appreciation of fun, suggesting even in repose that a
latent smile is ever lurking at the edges of the lips.
She was modern to the soles of her dainty little
high-heeled shoes, frankly fond of dress and of pleasure,
devoted to tennis and to comic opera, delighted with a
dance, which came her way only too seldom, longing
ever for some new excitement, and yet behind all this
lighter side of her character a thoroughly good,
healthy-minded English girl, the life and soul of the
house, and the idol of her sister and her father. Such
was the family at number two. A peep into the remaining
villa and our introductions are complete.

Admiral Hay Denver did not belong to the florid,
white-haired, hearty school of sea-dogs which is more
common in works of fiction than in the Navy List. On the
contrary, he was the representative of a much more common
type which is the antithesis of the conventional sailor.
He was a thin, hard-featured man, with an ascetic,
acquiline cast of face, grizzled and hollow-cheeked,
clean-shaven with the exception of the tiniest curved
promontory of ash-colored whisker. An observer,
accustomed to classify men, might have put him down as a
canon of the church with a taste for lay costume and a
country life, or as the master of a large public school,
who joined his scholars in their outdoor sports. His
lips were firm, his chin prominent, he had a hard, dry
eye, and his manner was precise and formal. Forty years
of stern discipline had made him reserved and silent.
Yet, when at his ease with an equal, he could readily
assume a less quarter-deck style, and he had a fund of
little, dry stories of the world and its ways which were
of interest from one who had seen so many phases of
life. Dry and spare, as lean as a jockey and as tough as
whipcord, he might be seen any day swinging his
silver-headed Malacca cane, and pacing along the suburban
roads with the same measured gait with which he had been
wont to tread the poop of his flagship. He wore a good
service stripe upon his cheek, for on one side it was
pitted and scarred where a spurt of gravel knocked up by
a round-shot had struck him thirty years before, when he
served in the Lancaster gun-battery. Yet he was hale and
sound, and though he was fifteen years senior to his
friend the Doctor, he might have passed as the younger
man.

Mrs. Hay Denver's life had been a very broken one,
and her record upon land represented a greater amount of
endurance and self-sacrifice than his upon the sea. They
had been together for four months after their marriage,
and then had come a hiatus of four years, during which he
was flitting about between St. Helena and the Oil Rivers
in a gunboat. Then came a blessed year of peace and
domesticity, to be followed by nine years, with only a
three months' break, five upon the Pacific station, and
four on the East Indian. After that was a respite in the
shape of five years in the Channel squadron, with
periodical runs home, and then again he was off to the
Mediterranean for three years and to Halifax for
four. Now, at last, however, this old married couple,
who were still almost strangers to one another, had come
together in Norwood, where, if their short day had been
chequered and broken, the evening at least promised to be
sweet and mellow. In person Mrs. Hay Denver was tall and
stout, with a bright, round, ruddy-cheeked face still
pretty, with a gracious, matronly comeliness. Her whole
life was a round of devotion and of love, which was
divided between her husband and her only son, Harold.

This son it was who kept them in the neighborhood of
London, for the Admiral was as fond of ships and of salt
water as ever, and was as happy in the sheets of a
two-ton yacht as on the bridge of his sixteen-knot
monitor. Had he been untied, the Devonshire or Hampshire
coast would certainly have been his choice. There was
Harold, however, and Harold's interests were their chief
care. Harold was four-and-twenty now. Three years
before he had been taken in hand by an acquaintance of
his father's, the head of a considerable firm of
stock-brokers, and fairly launched upon 'Change. His
three hundred guinea entrance fee paid, his three
sureties of five hundred pounds each found, his name
approved by the Committee, and all other formalities
complied with, he found himself whirling round, an
insignificant unit, in the vortex of the money market
of the world. There, under the guidance of his father's
friend, he was instructed in the mysteries of bulling and
of bearing, in the strange usages of 'Change in the
intricacies of carrying over and of transferring. He
learned to know where to place his clients' money, which
of the jobbers would make a price in New Zealands, and
which would touch nothing but American rails, which might
be trusted and which shunned. All this, and much more,
he mastered, and to such purpose that he soon began to
prosper, to retain the clients who had been recommened to
him, and to attract fresh ones. But the work was never
congenial. He had inherited from his father his love of
the air of heaven, his affection for a manly and natural
existence. To act as middleman between the pursuer of
wealth, and the wealth which he pursued, or to stand as
a human barometer, registering the rise and fall of the
great mammon pressure in the markets, was not the work
for which Providence had placed those broad shoulders and
strong limbs upon his well knit frame. His dark open
face, too, with his straight Grecian nose, well opened
brown eyes, and round black-curled head, were all those
of a man who was fashioned for active physical work.
Meanwhile he was popular with his fellow brokers,
respected by his clients, and beloved at home, but his
spirit was restless within him and his mind chafed
unceasingly against his surroundings.

"Do you know, Willy," said Mrs. Hay Denver one
evening as she stood behind her husband's chair, with her
hand upon his shoulder, "I think sometimes that Harold is
not quite happy."

"He looks happy, the young rascal," answered the
Admiral, pointing with his cigar. It was after dinner,
and through the open French window of the dining-room a
clear view was to be had of the tennis court and the
players. A set had just been finished, and young Charles
Westmacott was hitting up the balls as high as he could
send them in the middle of the ground. Doctor Walker and
Mrs. Westmacott were pacing up and down the lawn, the
lady waving her racket as she emphasized her remarks, and
the Doctor listening with slanting head and little nods
of agreement. Against the rails at the near end Harold
was leaning in his flannels talking to the two sisters,
who stood listening to him with their long dark shadows
streaming down the lawn behind them. The girls were
dressed alike in dark skirts, with light pink tennis
blouses and pink bands on their straw hats, so that as
they stood with the soft red of the setting sun tinging
their faces, Clara, demure and quiet, Ida, mischievous
and daring, it was a group which might have pleased
the eye of a more exacting critic than the old sailor.

"Yes, he looks happy, mother," he repeated, with a
chuckle. "It is not so long ago since it was you and I
who were standing like that, and I don't remember that we
were very unhappy either. It was croquet in our time,
and the ladies had not reefed in their skirts quite so
taut. What year would it be? Just before the commission
of the Penelope."

Mrs. Hay Denver ran her fingers through his grizzled
hair. "It was when you came back in the Antelope, just
before you got your step."

"Ah, the old Antelope! What a clipper she was!
She could sail two points nearer the wind than anything
of her tonnage in the service. You remember her, mother.
You saw her come into Plymouth Bay. Wasn't she a
beauty?"

"She was indeed, dear. But when I say that I think
that Harold is not happy I mean in his daily life. Has
it never struck you how thoughtful, he is at times, and
how absent-minded?"

"In love perhaps, the young dog. He seems to have
found snug moorings now at any rate."

"I think that it is very likely that you are right,
Willy," answered the mother seriously. "But with which
of them?"

"I cannot tell."

"Well, they are very charming girls, both of
them. But as long as he hangs in the wind between
the two it cannot be serious. After all, the boy is
four-and-twenty, and he made five hundred pounds last
year. He is better able to marry than I was when I was
lieutenant."

"I think that we can see which it is now," remarked
the observant mother. Charles Westmacott had ceased to
knock the tennis balls about, and was chatting with Clara
Walker, while Ida and Harold Denver were still talking by
the railing with little outbursts of laughter. Presently
a fresh set was formed, and Doctor Walker, the odd man
out, came through the wicket gate and strolled up the
garden walk.

"Good evening, Mrs. Hay Denver," said he, raising his
broad straw hat. "May I come in?"

"Good evening, Doctor! Pray do!"

"Try one of these," said the Admiral, holding out his
cigar-case. "They are not bad. I got them on the
Mosquito Coast. I was thinking of signaling to you, but
you seemed so very happy out there."

"Mrs. Westmacott is a very clever woman," said the
Doctor, lighting the cigar. "By the way, you spoke about
the Mosquito Coast just now. Did you see much of the
Hyla when you were out there?"

"No such name on the list," answered the seaman,
with decision. "There's the Hydra, a harbor defense
turret-ship, but she never leaves the home waters."

The Doctor laughed. "We live in two separate
worlds," said he. "The Hyla is the little green tree
frog, and Beale has founded some of his views on
protoplasm upon the appearancer, of its nerve cells. It
is a subject in which I take an interest."

"There were vermin of all sorts in the woods. When
I have been on river service I have heard it at night
like the engine-room when you are on the measured mile.
You can't sleep for the piping, and croaking, and
chirping. Great Scott! what a woman that is! She was
across the lawn in three jumps. She would have made a
captain of the foretop in the old days."

"She is a very remarkable woman.

"A very cranky one."

"A very sensible one in some things," remarked Mrs.
Hay Denver.

"Look at that now!" cried the Admiral, with a lunge
of his forefinger at the Doctor. "You mark my words,
Walker, if we don't look out that woman will raise a
mutiny with her preaching. Here's my wife disaffected
already, and your girls will be no better. We must
combine, man, or there's an end of all discipline."

"No doubt she is a little excessive in her views."
said the Doctor, "but in the main I think as she does."

"Bravo, Doctor!" cried the lady.

"What, turned traitor to your sex! We'll
court-martial you as a deserter."

"She is quite right. The professions are not
sufficiently open to women. They are still far too much
circumscribed in their employments. They are a feeble
folk, the women who have to work for their bread--poor,
unorganized, timid, taking as a favor what they might
demand as a right. That is why their case is not more
constantly before the public, for if their cry for
redress was as great as their grievance it would fill the
world to the exclusion of all others. It is all very
well for us to be courteous to the rich, the refined,
those to whom life is already made easy. It is a mere
form, a trick of manner. If we are truly courteous, we
shall stoop to lift up struggling womanhood when she
really needs our help--when it is life and death to her
whether she has it or not. And then to cant about it
being unwomanly to work in the higher professions. It is
womanly enough to starve, but unwomanly to use the brains
which God has given them. Is it not a monstrous
contention?"

The Admiral chuckled. "You are like one of these
phonographs, Walker," said he; "you have had all this
talked into you, and now you are reeling it off again.
It's rank mutiny, every word of it, for man has his
duties and woman has hers, but they are as separate
as their natures are. I suppose that we shall have a
woman hoisting her pennant on the flagship presently, and
taking command of the Channel Squadron."

"Well, you have a woman on the throne taking command
of the whole nation," remarked his wife; "and everybody
is agreed that she does it better than any of the men."

The Admiral was somewhat staggered by this
home-thrust. "That's quite another thing," said he.

"You should come to their next meeting. I am to take
the chair. I have just promised Mrs. Westmacott that I
will do so. But it has turned chilly, and it is time
that the girls were indoors. Good night! I shall look
out for you after breakfast for our constitutional,
Admiral."

The old sailor looked after his friend with a twinkle
in his eyes.

"How old is he, mother?"

"About fifty, I think."

"And Mrs. Westmacott?"

"I heard that she was forty-three."

The Admiral rubbed his hands, and shook with
amusement. "We'll find one of these days that three and
two make one," said he. I'll bet you a new bonnet on it,
mother.

CHAPTER IV.

A SISTER'S SECRET.

"Tell me, Miss Walker! You know how things should
be. What would you say was a good profession for a young
man of twenty-six who has had no education worth speaking
about, and who is not very quick by nature?"  The speaker
was Charles Westmacott, and the time this same summer
evening in the tennis ground, though the shadows had
fallen now and the game been abandoned.

The girl glanced up at him, amused and surprised.

"Do you mean yourself?"

"Precisely."

"But how could I tell?"

"I have no one to advise me. I believe that you
could do it better than any one. I feel confidence in
your opinion."

"It is very flattering." She glanced up again at his
earnest, questioning face, with its Saxon eyes and
drooping flaxen mustache, in some doubt as to whether he
might be joking. On the contrary, all his attention
seemed to be concentrated upon her answer.

"It depends so much upon what you can do, you
know. I do not know you sufficiently to be able to say
what natural gifts you have."  They were walking slowly
across the lawn in the direction of the house.

"I have none. That is to say none worth mentioning.
I have no memory and I am very slow."

"But you are very strong."

"Oh, if that goes for anything. I can put up a
hundred-pound bar till further orders; but what sort of
a calling is that?"

Some little joke about being called to the bar
flickered up in Miss Walker's mind, but her companion was
in such obvious earnest that she stifled down her
inclination to laugh.

"I can do a mile on the cinder-track in 4:50 and
across-country in 5:20, but how is that to help me? I
might be a cricket professional, but it is not a very
dignified position. Not that I care a straw about
dignity, you know, but I should not like to hurt the old
lady's feelings.

"Your aunt's?"

"Yes, my aunt's. My parents were killed in the
Mutiny, you know, when I was a baby, and she has looked
after me ever since. She has been very good to me. I'm
sorry to leave her."

"But why should you leave her?"  They had reached the
garden gate, and the girl leaned her racket upon the top
of it, looking up with grave interest at her big
white-flanneled companion.

"It's, Browning," said he.

"What!"

"Don't tell my aunt that I said it"--he sank his
voice to a whisper--"I hate Browning."

Clara Walker rippled off into such a merry peal of
laughter that he forgot the evil things which he had
suffered from the poet, and burst out laughing too.

"I can't make him out," said he. "I try, but he is
one too many. No doubt it is very stupid of me; I don't
deny it. But as long as I cannot there is no use
pretending that I can. And then of course she feels
hurt, for she is very fond of him, and likes to read him
aloud in the evenings. She is reading a piece now `Pippa
Passes,' and I assure you, Miss Walker, that I don't even
know what the title means. You must think me a dreadful
fool."

"But surely he is not so incomprehensible as all
that?" she said, as an attempt at encouragement.

"He is very bad. There are some things, you know,
which are fine. That ride of the three Dutchmen, and
Herve Riel and others, they are all right. But there was
a piece we read last week. The first line stumped my
aunt, and it takes a good deal to do that, for she rides
very straight. `Setebos and Setebos and Setebos.'  That
was the line."

"It sounds like a charm."

"No, it is a gentleman's name. Three gentlemen, I
thought, at first, but my aunt says one. Then he goes
on, `Thinketh he dwelleth in the light of the moon.'  It
was a very trying piece."

Clara Walker laughed again.

"You must not think of leaving your aunt," she said.
"Think how lonely she would be without you."

"Well, yes, I have thought of that. But you must
remember that my aunt is to all intents hardly
middle-aged, and a very eligible person. I don't think
that her dislike to mankind extends to individuals. She
might form new ties, and then I should be a third wheel
in the coach. It was all very well as long as I was only
a boy, when her first husband was alive."

"But, good gracious, you don't mean that Mrs.
Westmacott is going to marry again?" gasped Clara.

The young man glanced down at her with a question in
his eyes  "Oh, it is only a remote, possibility, you
know," said he. "Still, of course, it might happen, and
I should like to know what I ought to turn my hand to."

"I wish I could help you," said Clara. "But I really
know very little about such things. However, I could
talk to my father, who knows a very great deal of the
world."

"I wish you would. I should be so glad if you
would."

"Then I certainly will. And now I must say
good-night, Mr. Westmacott, for papa will be wondering
where I am."

"Good night, Miss Walker." He pulled off his flannel
cap, and stalked away through the gathering darkness.

Clara had imagined that they had been the last on the
lawn, but, looking back from the steps which led up to
the French windows, she saw two dark figures moving
across towards the house. As they came nearer she could
distinguish that they were Harold Denver and her sister
Ida. The murmur of their voices rose up to her ears, and
then the musical little child-like laugh which she knew
so well. "I am so delighted," she heard her sister say.
"So pleased and proud. I had no idea of it. Your words
were such a surprise and a joy to me. Oh, I am so glad."

"Is that you, Ida?"

"Oh, there is Clara. I must go in, Mr. Denver.
Good-night!"

There were a few whispered words, a laugh from Ida,
and a "Good-night, Miss Walker," out of the darkness.
Clara took her sister's hand, and they passed together
through the long folding window. The Doctor had gone
into his study, and the dining-room was empty. A single
small red lamp upon the sideboard was reflected tenfold
by the plate about it and the mahogany beneath it,
though its single wick cast but a feeble light into the
large, dimly shadowed room. Ida danced off to the big
central lamp, but Clara put her hand upon her arm. "I
rather like this quiet light," said she. "Why should we
not have a chat?"  She sat in the Doctor's large red
plush chair, and her sister cuddled down upon the
footstool at her feet, glancing up at her elder with a
smile upon her lips and a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
There was a shade of anxiety in Clara's face, which
cleared away as she gazed into her sister's frank blue
eyes.

"Have you anything to tell me, dear?" she asked.

Ida gave a little pout and shrug to her shoulder.
"The Solicitor-General then opened the case for the
prosecution," said she. "You are going to cross-examine
me, Clara, so don't deny it. I do wish you would have
that grey satin foulard of yours done up. With a little
trimming and a new white vest it would look as good as
new, and it is really very dowdy."

"You were quite late upon the lawn," said the
inexorable Clara.

"Yes, I was rather. So were you. Have you anything
to tell me?"  She broke away into her merry musical
laugh.

"I was chatting with Mr. Westmacott."

"And I was chatting with Mr. Denver. By the way,
Clara, now tell me truly, what do you think of Mr.
Denver? Do you like him? Honestly now!"

"I like him very much indeed. I think that he is one
of the most gentlemanly, modest, manly young men that I
have ever known. So now, dear, have you nothing to tell
me?"  Clara smoothed down her sister's golden hair with
a motherly gesture, and stooped her face to catch the
expected confidence. She could wish nothing better than
that Ida should be the wife of Harold Denver, and from
the words which she had overheard as they left the lawn
that evening, she could not doubt that there was some
understanding between them.

But there came no confession from Ida. Only the same
mischievous smile and amused gleam in her deep blue eyes.

"That grey foulard dress----" she began.

"Oh, you little tease! Come now, I will ask you what
you have just asked me. Do you like Harold Denver?"

"Oh, he's a darling!"

"Ida!"

"Well, you asked me. That's what I think of him.
And now, you dear old inquisitive, you will get nothing
more out of me; so you must wait and not be too curious.
I'm going off to see what papa is doing."  She sprang to
her feet, threw her arms round her sister's neck,
gave her a final squeeze, and was gone. A chorus from
Olivette, sung in her clear contralto, grew fainter and
fainter until it ended in the slam of a distant door.

But Clara Walker still sat in the dim-lit room with
her chin upon her hands, and her dreamy eyes looking out
into the gathering gloom. It was the duty of her, a
maiden, to play the part of a mother--to guide another in
paths which her own steps had not yet trodden. Since her
mother died not a thought had been given to herself, all
was for her father and her sister. In her own eyes she
was herself very plain, and she knew that her manner was
often ungracious when she would most wish to be gracious.
She saw her face as the glass reflected it, but she did
not see the changing play of expression which gave it its
charm--the infinite pity, the sympathy, the sweet
womanliness which drew towards her all who were in doubt
and in trouble, even as poor slow-moving Charles
Westmacott had been drawn to her that night. She was
herself, she thought, outside the pale of love. But it
was very different with Ida, merry, little, quick-witted,
bright-faced Ida. She was born for love. It was her
inheritance. But she was young and innocent. She must
not be allowed to venture too far without help in those
dangerous waters. Some understanding there was between
her and Harold Denver. In her heart of hearts Clara,
like every good woman, was a match-maker, and already she
had chosen Denver of all men as the one to whom she could
most safely confide Ida. He had talked to her more than
once on the serious topics of life, on his aspirations,
on what a man could do to leave the world better for his
presence. She knew that he was a man of a noble nature,
high-minded and earnest. And yet she did not like this
secrecy, this disinclination upon the part of one so
frank and honest as Ida to tell her what was passing.
She would wait, and if she got the opportunity next day
she would lead Harold Denver himself on to this topic.
It was possible that she might learn from him what her
sister had refused to tell her.

----

CHAPTER  V.

A NAVAL CONQUEST.

It was the habit of the Doctor and the Admiral to
accompany each other upon a morning ramble between
breakfast and lunch. The dwellers in those quiet
tree-lined roads were accustomed to see the two figures,
the long, thin, austere seaman, and the short, bustling,
tweed-clad physician, pass and repass with such
regularity that a stopped clock has been reset by them.
The Admiral took two steps to his companion's three, but
the younger man was the quicker, and both were equal to
a good four and a half miles an hour.

It was a lovely summer day which followed the events
which have been described. The sky was of the deepest
blue, with a few white, fleecy clouds drifting lazily
across it, and the air was filled with the low drone of
insects or with a sudden sharper note as bee or bluefly
shot past with its quivering, long-drawn hum, like an
insect tuning-fork. As the friends topped each rise
which leads up to the Crystal Palace, they could see the
dun clouds of London stretching along the northern
sky-line, with spire or dome breaking through the
low-lying haze. The Admiral was in high spirits, for the
morning post had brought good news to his son.

"It is wonderful, Walker," he was saying, "positively
wonderful, the way that boy of mine has gone ahead during
the last three years. We heard from Pearson to-day.
Pearson is the senior partner, you know, and my boy the
junior--Pearson and Denver the firm. Cunning old dog is
Pearson, as cute and as greedy as a Rio shark. Yet he
goes off for a fortnight's leave, and puts my boy in full
charge, with all that immense business in his hands,
and a freehand to do what he likes with it. How's that
for confidence, and he only three years upon 'Change?"

"Any one would confide in him. His face is a
surety," said the Doctor.

"Go on, Walker!"  The Admiral dug his elbow at him.
"You know my weak side. Still it's truth all the same.
I've been blessed with a good wife and a good son, and
maybe I relish them the more for having been cut off from
them so long. I have much to be thankful for!"

"And so have I. The best two girls that ever
stepped. There's Clara, who has learned up as much
medicine as would give her the L.S.A., simply in order
that she may sympathize with me in my work. But hullo,
what is this coming along?"

"All drawing and the wind astern!" cried the Admiral.
"Fourteen knots if it's one. Why, by George, it is that
woman!"

A rolling cloud of yellow dust had streamed round the
curve of the road, and from the heart of it had emerged
a high tandem tricycle flying along at a breakneck pace.
In front sat Mrs. Westmacott clad in a heather tweed
pea-jacket, a skirt which just{?} passed her knees and a
pair of thick gaiters of the same material. She had a
great bundle of red papers under her arm, while
Charles, who sat behind her clad in Norfolk jacket and
knickerbockers, bore a similar roll protruding from
either pocket. Even as they watched, the pair eased up,
the lady sprang off, impaled one of her bills upon the
garden railing of an empty house, and then jumping on to
her seat again was about to hurry onwards when her nephew
drew her attention to the two gentlemen upon the
footpath.

"Oh, now, really I didn't notice you," said she,
taking a few turns of the treadle and steering the
machine across to them. "Is it not a beautiful morning?"

"Lovely," answered the Doctor. "You seem to be very
busy."

"I am very busy." She pointed to the colored paper
which still fluttered from the railing. "We have been
pushing our propaganda, you see. Charles and I have been
at it since seven o'clock. It is about our meeting. I
wish it to be a great success. See!"  She smoothed out
one of the bills, and the Doctor read his own name in
great black letters across the bottom.

"We don't forget our chairman, you see. Everybody is
coming. Those two dear little old maids opposite, the
Williamses, held out for some time; but I have their
promise now. Admiral, I am sure that you wish us well."

"Hum! I wish you no harm, ma'am."

"You will come on the platform?"

"I'll be---- No, I don't think I can do that."

"To our meeting, then?"

"No, ma'am; I don't go out after dinner."

"Oh yes, you will come. I will call in if I may, and
chat it over with you when you come home. We have not
breakfasted yet. Goodbye!"  There was a whir of wheels,
and the yellow cloud rolled away down the road again. By
some legerdemain the Admiral found that he was clutching
in his right hand one of the obnoxious bills. He
crumpled it up, and threw it into the roadway.

"I'll be hanged if I go, Walker," said he, as be
resumed his walk. "I've never been hustled into doing a
thing yet, whether by woman or man."

"I am not a betting man," answered the Doctor, "but
I rather think that the odds are in favor of your going."

The Admiral had hardly got home, and had just seated
himself in his dining-room, when the attack upon him was
renewed. He was slowly and lovingly unfolding the
Times preparatory to the long read which led up to
luncheon, and had even got so far as to fasten his golden
pince-nez on to his thin, high-bridged nose, when he
heard a crunching of gravel, and, looking over the top of
his paper, saw Mrs. Westmacott coming up the garden walk.
She was still dressed in the singular costume which
offended the sailor's old-fashioned notions of propriety,
but he could not deny, as he looked at her, that she was
a very fine woman. In many climes he had looked upon
women of all shades and ages, but never upon a more
clearcut, handsome face, nor a more erect, supple, and
womanly figure. He ceased to glower as he gazed upon
her, and the frown smoothed away from his rugged brow.

"May I come in?" said she, framing herself in the
open window, with a background of green sward and blue
sky. "I feel like an invader deep in an enemy's
country."

"It is a very welcome invasion, ma'am," said he,
clearing his throat and pulling at his high collar. "Try
this garden chair. What is there that I can do for you?
Shall I ring and let Mrs. Denver know that you are here?"

"Pray do not trouble, Admiral. I only looked in with
reference to our little chat this morning. I wish that
you would give us your powerful support at our coming
meeting for the improvement of the condition of woman."

"No, ma'am, I can't do that." He pursed up his lips
and shook his grizzled head.

"And why not?"

"Against my principles, ma'am."

"But why?"

"Because woman has her duties and man has his.
I may be old-fashioned, but that is my view. Why, what
is the world coming to? I was saying to Dr. Walker only
last night that we shall have a woman wanting to command
the Channel Fleet next."

"That is one of the few professions which cannot be
improved," said Mrs. Westmacott, with her sweetest smile.
"Poor woman must still look to man for protection."

"I don't like these new-fangled ideas, ma'am. I tell
you honestly that I don't. I like discipline, and I
think every one is the better for it. Women have got a
great deal which they had not in the days of our fathers.
They have universities all for themselves, I am told, and
there are women doctors, I hear. Surely they should rest
contented. What more can they want?"

"You are a sailor, and sailors are always chivalrous.
If you could see how things really are, you would change
your opinion. What are the poor things to do? There
are so many of them and so few things to which they can
turn their hands. Governesses? But there are hardly any
situations. Music and drawing? There is not one in
fifty who has any special talent in that direction.  
Medicine? It is still surrounded with difficulties for
women, and it takes many years and a small fortune to
qualify. Nursing? It is hard work ill paid, and none
but the strongest can stand it. What would you have
them do then, Admiral? Sit down and starve?"

"Tut, tut! It is not so bad as that."

"The pressure is terrible. Advertise for a lady
companion at ten shillings a week, which is less than a
cook's wage, and see how many answers you get. There is
no hope, no outlook, for these struggling thousands.
Life is a dull, sordid struggle, leading down to a
cheerless old age. Yet when we try to bring some little
ray of hope, some chance, however distant, of something
better, we are told by chivalrous gentlemen that it is
against their principles to help."

The Admiral winced, but shook his head in dissent.

"There is banking, the law, veterinary surgery,
government offices, the civil service, all these at least
should be thrown freely open to women, if they have
brains enough to compete successfully for them. Then if
woman were unsuccessful it would be her own fault, and
the majority of the population of this country could no
longer complain that they live under a different law to
the minority, and that they are held down in poverty and
serfdom, with every road to independence sealed to them."

"What would you propose to do, ma'am?"

"To set the more obvious injustices right, and so
to pave the way for a reform. Now look at that man
digging in the field. I know him. He can neither read
nor write, he is steeped in whisky, and he has as much
intelligence as the potatoes that he is digging. Yet the
man has a vote, can possibly turn the scale of an
election, and may help to decide the policy of this
empire. Now, to take the nearest example, here am I, a
woman who have had some education, who have traveled, and
who have seen and studied the institutions of many
countries. I hold considerable property, and I pay more
in imperial taxes than that man spends in whisky, which
is saying a great deal, and yet I have no more direct
influence upon the disposal of the money which I pay than
that fly which creeps along the wall. Is that right? Is
it fair?"

The Admiral moved uneasily in his chair. "Yours is
an exceptional case," said he.

"But no woman has a voice. Consider that the women
are a majority in the nation. Yet if there was a
question of legislation upon which all women were agreed
upon one side and all the men upon the other, it would
appear that the matter was settled unanimously when more
than half the population were opposed to it.  Is that
right?"

Again the Admiral wriggled. It was very awkward for
the gallant seaman to have a handsome woman opposite
to him, bombarding him with questions to none of which he
could find an answer. "Couldn't even get the tompions
out of his guns," as he explained the matter to the
Doctor that evening.

"Now those are really the points that we shall lay
stress upon at the meeting. The free and complete
opening of the professions, the final abolition of the
zenana I call it, and the franchise to all women who pay
Queen's taxes above a certain sum. Surely there is
nothing unreasonable in that. Nothing which could offend
your principles. We shall have medicine, law, and the
church all rallying that night for the protection of
woman. Is the navy to be the one profession absent?"

The Admiral jumped out of his chair with an evil word
in his throat. "There, there, ma'am," he cried. "Drop
it for a time. I have heard enough. You've turned me a
point or two. I won't deny it. But let it stand at
that. I will think it over."

"Certainly, Admiral. We would not hurry you in your
decision. But we still hope to see you on our platform."
She rose and moved about in her lounging masculine
fashion from one picture to another, for the walls were
thickly covered with reminiscences of the Admiral's
voyages.

"Hullo!" said she. "Surely this ship would have
furled all her lower canvas and reefed her topsails if
she found herself on a lee shore with the wind on her
quarter."

"Of course she would. The artist was never past
Gravesend, I swear. It's the Penelope as she was on
the 14th of June, 1857, in the throat of the Straits of
Banca, with the Island of Banca on the starboard bow, and
Sumatra on the port. He painted it from description, but
of course, as you very sensibly say, all was snug below
and she carried storm sails and double-reefed topsails,
for it was blowing a cyclone from the sou'east. I
compliment you, ma'am, I do indeed! "

"Oh, I have done a little sailoring myself--as much
as a woman can aspire to, you know. This is the Bay of
Funchal. What a lovely frigate!"

"Lovely, you say! Ah, she was lovely! That is the
Andromeda. I was a mate aboard of her--sub-lieutenant
they call it now, though I like the old name best."

"What a lovely rake her masts have, and what a curve
to her bows! She must have been a clipper."

The old sailor rubbed his hands and his eyes
glistened. His old ships bordered close upon his wife
and his son in his affections.

"I know Funchal," said the lady carelessly. "A
couple of years ago I had a seven-ton cutter-rigged
yacht, the Banshee, and we ran over to Madeira from
Falmouth."

"You ma'am, in a seven-tonner?"

"With a couple of Cornish lads for a crew. Oh, it
was glorious! A fortnight right out in the open, with no
worries, no letters, no callers, no petty thoughts,
nothing but the grand works of God, the tossing sea and
the great silent sky. They talk of riding, indeed, I am
fond of horses, too, but what is there to compare with
the swoop of a little craft as she pitches down the long
steep side of a wave, and then the quiver and spring as
she is tossed upwards again? Oh, if our souls could
transmigrate I'd be a seamew above all birds that fly!
But I keep you, Admiral. Adieu!"

The old sailor was too transported with sympathy to
say a word. He could only shake her broad muscular hand.
She was half-way down the garden path before she heard
him calling her, and saw his grizzled head and
weather-stained face looking out from behind the
curtains.

"You may put me down for the platform," he cried, and
vanished abashed behind the I curtain of his Times,
where his wife found him at lunch time.

"I hear that you have had quite a long chat with Mrs.
Westmacott," said she.

"Yes, and I think that she is one of the most
sensible women that I ever knew.

"Except on the woman's rights question, of course."

"Oh, I don't know. She had a good deal to say for
herself on that also. In fact, mother, I have taken a
platfom ticket for her meeting."

----

CHAPTER VI.

AN OLD STORY.

But this was not to be the only eventful conversation
which Mrs. Westmacott held that day, nor was the Admiral
the only person in the Wilderness who was destined to
find his opinions considerably changed. Two neighboring
families, the Winslows from Anerley, and the
Cumberbatches from Gipsy Hill, had been invited to tennis
by Mrs. Westmacott, and the lawn was gay in the evening
with the blazers of the young men and the bright dresses
of the girls. To the older people, sitting round in
their wicker-work garden chairs, the darting, stooping,
springing white figures, the sweep of skirts, and twinkle
of canvas shoes, the click of the rackets and sharp whiz
of the balls, with the continual "fifteen love--fifteen
all!" of the marker, made up a merry and exhilarating
scene. To see their sons and daughters so flushed and
healthy and happy, gave them also a reflected glow,
and it was hard to say who had most pleasure from the
game, those who played or those who watched.

Mrs. Westmacott had just finished a set when she
caught a glimpse of Clara Walker sitting alone at the
farther end of the ground. She ran down the court,
cleared the net to the amazement of the visitors, and
seated herself beside her. Clara's reserved and refined
nature shrank somewhat from the boisterous frankness and
strange manners of the widow, and yet her feminine
instinct told her that beneath all her peculiarities
there lay much that was good and noble. She smiled up at
her, therefore, and nodded a greeting.

"Why aren't you playing, then? Don't, for goodness'
sake, begin to be languid and young ladyish! When you
give up active sports you give up youth."

"I have played a set, Mrs. Westmacott."

"That's right, my dear." She sat down beside her, and
tapped her upon the arm with her tennis racket. "I like
you, my dear, and I am going to call you Clara. You are
not as aggressive as I should wish, Clara, but still I
like you very much. Self-sacrifice is all very well, you
know, but we have had rather too much of it on our side,
and should like to see a little on the other. What do
you think of my nephew Charles?"

The question was so sudden and unexpected that Clara
gave quite a jump in her chair. "I--I--I hardly ever
have thought of your nephew Charles."

"No? Oh, you must think him well over, for I want to
speak to you about him."

"To me? But why?"

"It seemed to me most delicate. You see, Clara, the
matter stands in this way. It is quite possible that I
may soon find myself in a completely new sphere of life,
which will involve fresh duties and make it impossible
for me to keep up a household which Charles can share."

Clara stared. Did this mean that she was about to
marry again? What else could it point to?

"Therefore Charles must have a household of his own.
That is obvious. Now, I don't approve of bachelor
establishments. Do you?"

"Really, Mrs. Westmacott, I have never thought of the
matter."

"Oh, you little sly puss! Was there ever a girl who
never thought of the matter? I think that a young man of
six-and-twenty ought to be married."

Clara felt very uncomfortable. The awful thought had
come upon her that this ambassadress had come to her as
a proxy with a proposal of marriage. But how could that
be? She had not spoken more than three or four times
with her nephew, and knew nothing more of him than he had
told her on the evening before. It was impossible, then.
And yet what could his aunt mean by this discussion of
his private affairs?

"Do you not think yourself," she persisted, "that a
young man of six-and-twenty is better married?"

"I should think that he is old enough to decide for
himself."

"Yes, yes. He has done so. But Charles is just a
little shy, just a little slow in expressing himself. I
thought that I would pave the way for him. Two women can
arrange these things so much better. Men sometimes have
a difficulty in making themselves clear."

"I really hardly follow you, Mrs. Westmacott," cried
Clara in despair.

"He has no profession. But he has nice tastes. He
reads Browning every night. And he is most amazingly
strong. When he was younger we used to put on the gloves
together, but I cannot persuade him to now, for he says
he cannot play light enough. I should allow him five
hundred, which should be enough at first."

"My dear Mrs. Westmacott," cried Clara, "I assure you
that I have not the least idea what it is that you are
talking of."

"Do you think your sister Ida would have my nephew
Charles?"

Her sister Ida? Quite a little thrill of relief and
of pleasure ran through her at the thought. Ida and
Charles Westmacott. She had never thought of it. And
yet they had been a good deal together. They had played
tennis. They had shared the tandem tricycle. Again came
the thrill of joy, and close at its heels the cold
questionings of conscience. Why this joy? What was the
real source of it? Was it that deep down, somewhere
pushed back in the black recesses of the soul, there was
the thought lurking that if Charles prospered in his
wooing then Harold Denver would still be free? How mean,
how unmaidenly, how unsisterly the thought! She crushed
it down and thrust it aside, but still it would push up
its wicked little head. She crimsoned with shame at her
own baseness, as she turned once more to her companion.

"I really do not know," she said.

"She is not engaged?"

"Not that I know of."

"You speak hesitatingly."

"Because I am not sure. But he may ask. She cannot
but be flattered."

"Quite so. I tell him that it is the most practical
compliment which a man can pay to a woman. He is a
little shy, but when he sets himself to do it he will
do it. He is very much in love with her, I assure
you. These little lively people always do attract
the slow and heavy ones, which is nature's device for the
neutralizing of bores. But they are all going in. I
think if you will allow me that I will just take the
opportunity to tell him that, as far as you know, there
is no positive obstacle in the way."

"As far as I know, "Clara repeated, as the widow
moved away to where the players were grouped round the
net, or sauntering slowly towards the house. She rose to
follow her, but her head was in a whirl with new
thoughts, and she sat down again. Which would be best
for Ida, Harold or Charles? She thought it over with as
much solicitude as a mother who plans for her only child.
Harold had seemed to her to be in many ways the noblest
and the best young man whom she had known. If ever she
was to love a man it would be such a man as that. But
she must not think of herself. She had reason to believe
that both these men loved her sister. Which would be the
best for her? But perhaps the matter was already
decided. She could not forget the scrap of conversation
which she had heard the night before, nor the secret
which her sister had refused to confide to her. If Ida
would not tell her, there was but one person who could.
She raised her eyes and there was Harold Denver
standing before her.

"You were lost in your thoughts," said he, smiling.
"I hope that they were pleasant ones."

"Oh, I was planning," said she, rising. "It seems
rather a waste of time as a rule, for things have a way
of working themselves out just as you least expect."

"What were you planning, then?"

"The future."

"Whose?"

"Oh, my own and Ida's."

"And was I included in your joint futures?

"I hope all our friends were included."

"Don't go in," said he, as she began to move slowly
towards the house. "I wanted to have a word. Let us
stroll up and down the lawn. Perhaps you are cold. If
you are, I could bring you out a shawl."

"Oh, no, I am not cold."

"I was speaking to your sister Ida last night." She
noticed that there was a slight quiver in his voice, and,
glancing up at his dark, clear-cut face, she saw that he
was very grave. She felt that it was settled, that he
had come to ask her for her sister's hand.

"She is a charming girl," said he, after a pause.

"Indeed she is," cried Clara warmly. "And no one who
has not lived with her and known her intimately can
tell how charming and good she is. She is like a sunbeam
in the house."

"No one who was not good could be so absolutely happy
as she seems to be. Heaven's last gift, I think, is a
mind so pure and a spirit so high that it is unable even
to see what is impure and evil in the world around us.
For as long as we can see it, how can we be truly happy?"

"She has a deeper side also. She does not turn it to
the world, and it is not natural that she should, for she
is very young. But she thinks, and has aspirations of
her own."

"You cannot admire her more than I do. Indeed, Miss
Walker, I only ask to be brought into nearer relationship
with her, and to feel that there is a permanent bond
between us."

It had come at last. For a moment her heart was
numbed within her, and then a flood of sisterly love
carried all before it. Down with that dark thought which
would still try to raise its unhallowed head! She turned
to Harold with sparkling eyes and words of pleasure upon
her lips.

"I should wish to be near and dear to both of you,"
said he, as he took her hand. "I should wish Ida to be
my sister, and you my wife."

She said nothing. She only stood looking at him with
parted lips and great, dark, questioning eyes. The
lawn had vanished away, the sloping gardens, the brick
villas, the darkening sky with half a pale moon beginning
to show over the chimney-tops. All was gone, and she was
only conscious of a dark, earnest, pleading face, and of
a voice, far away, disconnected from herself, the voice
of a man telling a woman how he loved her. He was
unhappy, said the voice, his life was a void; there was
but one thing that could save him; he had come to the
parting of the ways, here lay happiness and honor, and
all that was high and noble; there lay the soul-killing
round, the lonely life, the base pursuit of money, the
sordid, selfish aims. He needed but the hand of the
woman that he loved to lead him into the better path.
And how he loved her his life would show. He loved her
for her sweetness, for her womanliness, for her strength.
He had need of her. Would she not come to him? And then
of a sudden as she listened it came home to her that the
man was Harold Denver, and that she was the woman, and
that all God's work was very beautiful--the green sward
beneath her feet, the rustling leaves, the long orange
slashes in the western sky. She spoke; she scarce knew
what the broken words were, but she saw the light of joy
shine out on his face, and her hand was still in his as
they wandered amid the twilight. They said no more
now, but only wandered and felt each other's presence.
All was fresh around them, familiar and yet new, tinged
with the beauty of their new-found happiness.

"Did you not know it before?" he asked. "I did not
dare to think it."

"What a mask of ice I must wear! How could a man
feel as I have done without showing it? Your sister at
least knew."

"Ida!"

"It was last night. She began to praise you, I said
what I felt, and then in an instant it was all out."

"But what could you--what could you see in me? Oh,
I do pray that you may not repent it!"  The gentle heart
was ruffled amid its joy by the thought of its own
unworthiness.

"Repent it! I feel that I am a saved man. You do
not know how degrading this city life is, how debasing,
and yet how absorbing. Money for ever clinks in your
ear. You can think of nothing else. From the bottom of
my heart I hate it, and yet how can I draw back without
bringing grief to my dear old father? There was but one
way in which I could defy the taint, and that was by
having a home influence so pure and so high that it may
brace me up against all that draws me down. I have felt
that influence already. I know that when I am talking to
you I am a better man. It is you who, must go with
me through life, or I must walk for ever alone."

"Oh, Harold, I am so happy!"  Still they wandered
amid the darkening shadows, while one by one the stars
peeped out in the blue black sky above them. At last a
chill night wind blew up from the east, and brought them
back to the realities of life.

"You must go in. You will be cold."

"My father will wonder where I am. Shall I say
anything to him?"

"If you like, my darling. Or I will in the morning.
I must tell my mother to-night. I know how delighted she
will be."

"I do hope so."

"Let me take you up the garden path. It is so dark.
Your lamp is not lit yet. There is the window. Till
to-morrow, then, dearest."

"Till to-morrow, Harold."

"My own darling!"  He stooped, and their lips met for
the first time. Then, as she pushed open the folding
windows she heard his quick, firm step as it passed down
the graveled path. A lamp was lit as she entered the
room, and there was Ida, dancing about like a mischievous
little fairy in front of her.

"And have you anything to tell me?" she asked, with
a solemn face. Then, suddenly throwing her arms round
her sister's neck, "Oh, you dear, dear old Clara! I am
so pleased. I am so pleased."

CHAPTER VII.

VENIT TANDEM FELICITAS.

It was just three days after the Doctor and the
Admiral had congratulated each other upon the closer tie
which was to unite their two families, and to turn their
friendship into something even dearer and more intimate,
that Miss Ida Walker received a letter which caused her
some surprise and considerable amusement. It was dated
from next door, and was handed in by the red-headed page
after breakfast.

"Dear Miss Ida," began this curious document, and
then relapsed suddenly into the third person. "Mr.
Charles Westmacott hopes that he may have the extreme
pleasure of a ride with Miss Ida Walker upon his tandem
tricycle. Mr. Charles Westmacott will bring it round in
half an hour. You in front. Yours very truly, Charles
Westmacott."  The whole was written in a large,
loose-jointed, and school-boyish hand, very thin on the
up strokes and thick on the down, as though care and
pains had gone to the fashioning of it.

Strange as was the form, the meaning was clear
enough; so Ida hastened to her room, and had hardly
slipped on her light grey cycling dress when she
saw the tandem with its large occupant at the door. He
handed her up to her saddle with a more solemn and
thoughtful face than was usual with him, and a few
moments later they were flying along the beautiful,
smooth suburban roads in the direction of Forest Hill.
The great limbs of the athlete made the heavy machine
spring and quiver with every stroke; while the mignon
grey figure with the laughing face, and the golden curls
blowing from under the little pink-banded straw hat,
simply held firmly to her perch, and let the treadles
whirl round beneath her feet. Mile after mile they flew,
the wind beating in her face, the trees dancing past in
two long ranks on either side, until they had passed
round Croydon and were approaching Norwood once more from
the further side.

"Aren't you tired?" she asked, glancing over her
shoulder and turning towards him a little pink ear, a
fluffy golden curl, and one blue eye twinkling from the
very corner of its lid.

"Not a bit. I am just getting my swing."

"Isn't it wonderful to be strong? You always remind
me of a steamengine."

"Why a steamengine?"

"Well, because it is so powerful, and reliable, and
unreasoning. Well, I didn't mean that last, you know,
but--but--you know what I mean. What is the matter with
you?"

"Why?"

"Because you have something on your mind. You have
not laughed once."

He broke into a gruesome laugh. "I am quite jolly,"
said he.

"Oh, no, you are not. And why did you write me such
a dreadfully stiff letter?"

"There now," he cried, "I was sure it was stiff. I
said it was absurdly stiff."

"Then why write it?"

"It wasn't my own composition."

"Whose then? Your aunt's?"

"Oh, no. It was a person of the name of Slattery."

"Goodness! Who is he?"

"I knew it would come out, I felt that it would.
You've heard of Slattery the author?"

"Never."

"He is wonderful at expressing himself. He wrote a
book called `The Secret Solved; or, Letter-writing Made
Easy.'  It gives you models of all sorts of letters."

Ida burst out laughing. "So you actually copied
one."

"It was to invite a young lady to a picnic, but I set
to work and soon got it changed so that it would do very
well. Slattery seems never to have asked any one to ride
a tandem. But when I had written it, it seemed so
dreadfully stiff that I had to put a little beginning and
end of my own, which seemed to brighten it up a good
deal."

"I thought there was something funny about the
beginning and end."

"Did you? Fancy your noticing the difference in
style. How quick you are! I am very slow at things like
that. I ought to have been a woodman, or game-keeper, or
something. I was made on those lines. But I have found
something now."

"What is that, then?"

"Ranching. I have a chum in Texas, and he says it is
a rare life. I am to buy a share in his business. It is
all in the open air--shooting, and riding, and sport.
Would it--would it inconvenience you much, Ida, to come
out there with me?"

Ida nearly fell off her perch in her amazement. The
only words of which she could think were  "My goodness
me!" so she said them.

"If it would not upset your plans, or change your
arrangements in any way."  He had slowed down and let go
of the steering handle, so that the great machine crawled
aimlessly about from one side of the road to the other.
"I know very well that I am not clever or anything of
that sort, but still I would do all I can to make you
very happy. Don't you think that in time you might come
to like me a little bit?"

Ida gave a cry of fright. "I won't like you if you
run me against a brick wall," she said, as the machine
rasped up against the curb "Do attend to the steering."

"Yes, I will. But tell me, Ida, whether you will
come with me."

"Oh, I don't know. It's too absurd! How can we talk
about such things when I cannot see you? You speak to
the nape of my neck, and then I have to twist my head
round to answer."

"I know. That was why I put `You in front' upon my
letter. I thought that it would make it easier. But if
you would prefer it I will stop the machine, and then you
can sit round and talk about it."

"Good gracious!" cried Ida. "Fancy our sitting face
to face on a motionless tricycle in the middle of the
road, and all the people looking out of their windows at
us!"

"It would look rather funny, wouldn't it? Well,
then, suppose that we both get off and push the tandem
along in front of us?"

"Oh, no, this is better than that."

"Or I could carry the thing."

Ida burst out laughing. "That would be more absurd
still."

"Then we will go quietly, and I will look out for the
steering. I won't talk about it at all if you would
rather not. But I really do love you very much, and you
would make me happy if you came to Texas with me, and I
think that perhaps after a time I could make you happy
too."

"But your aunt?"

"Oh, she would like it very much. I can understand
that your father might not like to lose you. I'm sure I
wouldn't either, if I were he. But after all, America is
not very far o