"trifles light as air."

—othello.

when luncheon is over, sir penthony stafford retires to write a letter or two, and half an hour afterward, returning to the drawing-room, finds himself in the presence of mr. buscarlet, unsupported.

the little lawyer smiles benignly; sir penthony responds, and, throwing himself into a lounging-chair, makes up his mind to be agreeable.

"well, mr. buscarlet, and what did you think of the sermon?" he says, briskly, being rather at a loss for a congenial topic. "tedious, eh? i saw you talking to lady elizabeth after service was over. she is a fine woman, all things considered."

"she is indeed,—remarkably so: a very fine presence for her time of life."

"well, there certainly is not much to choose between her and the hills in point of age," allows sir penthony, absently—he is inwardly wondering where cecil can have gone to,—"still she is a nice old lady."

"quite so,—quite so; very elegant in manner, and in appearance decidedly high-bred."

"hybrid!" exclaims sir penthony, purposely misunderstanding the word. "oh, by jove, i didn't think you so severe. you allude, of course, to her ladyship's mother, who, if report speaks truly, was a good cook spoiled by matrimony. 'hybrid!' give you my word, buscarlet, i didn't believe you capable of anything half so clever. i must remember to tell it at dinner to the others. it is just the sort of thing to delight mr. amherst."

now, this lawyer has a passion for the aristocracy. to be noticed by a lord,—to press "her ladyship's" hand,—to hold sweet converse with the smallest scion of a noble house,—is as honey to his lips; therefore to be thought guilty of an impertinence to one of this sacred community, to have uttered a word that, if repeated, would effectually close to him the doors of lady elizabeth's house, fills him with horror.

"my dear sir penthony, pardon me," he says, hastily, divided between the fear of offending the baronet and a desire to set himself straight in his own eyes, "you quite mistake me. 'hybrid!'—such a word, such a thought, never occurred to me in connection with lady elizabeth eyre, whom i hold in much reverence. highly bred i meant. i assure you you altogether misunderstand. i—i never made a joke in my life."

"then let me congratulate you on your maiden effort; you have every reason to be proud of it," laughs sir penthony, who is highly delighted at the success of his own manœuvre. "don't be modest. you have made a decided hit: it is as good a thing as ever i heard. but how about lady elizabeth, eh? should she hear it? really, you will have to suppress your wit, or it will lead you into trouble."

"but—but—if you will only allow me to explain—i protest i——"

"ah! here come lady stafford and miss massereene. positively you must allow me to tell them——" and, refusing to listen to mr. buscarlet's vehement protestations, he relates to the new-comers his version of the lawyer's harmless remark, accompanying the story with an expressive glance—that closely resembles a wink—at lady stafford. "i must go," he says, when he has finished, moving toward the door, "though i hardly think i do wisely, leaving, you alone with so dangerous a companion."

"i assure you, my dear lady stafford," declares mr. buscarlet, with tears in his eyes and dew on his brow, "it is all a horrible, an unaccountable mistake, a mere connection of ideas by your husband,—no more, no more, i give you my most sacred honor."

"oh, sly mr. buscarlet!" cries her ladyship, lightly, "cruel mr. buscarlet! who would have thought it of you? and we all imagined you such an ally of poor dear lady elizabeth. to make a joke about her parentage, and such a good one too! and sir penthony found you out? clever sir penthony."

"i swear, my dear lady, i——"

"ah, ha! wait till she hears of it. how she will enjoy it! with all her faults, she is good-tempered. it will amuse her. molly, my dear, is not mr. buscarlet terribly severe?"

"naughty mr. buscarlet!" says molly, shaking a reproachful dainty-white finger at him. "and i believed you so harmless."

at this they both laugh so immoderately that presently the lawyer loses all patience, and, taking up his hat, rushes from the room in a greater rage than he could have thought possible, considering that one of his provocators bears a title.

they are still laughing when the others enter the room, and insist on learning the secret of their mirth. tedcastle alone fails to enjoy it. he is distrait, and evidently oppressed with care. seeing this, molly takes heart of grace, and, crossing to his side, says, sweetly:

"do you see how the day has cleared? that lovely sun is tempting me to go out. will you take me for a walk?"

"certainly,—if you want to go." very coldly.

"but of course i do; and nobody has asked me to accompany them; so i am obliged to thrust myself on you. if"—with a bewitching smile—"you won't mind the trouble just this once, i will promise not to torment you again."

through the gardens, and out into the shrubberies beyond, they go in silence, until they reach the open; then molly says, laughing: "i know you are going to scold me about mr. potts. begin at once, and let us get it over."

her manner is so sweet, and she looks so gay, so fresh, so harmless, that his anger melts as dew beneath the sun.

"you need not have let him place his arm around you," he says, jealously.

"if i hadn't i should have slipped off the pedestal; and what did his arm signify in comparison with that? think of my grandfather's face; think of mine; think of all the horrible consequences. i should have been sent home in disgrace, perhaps—who knows?—put in prison, and you might 'never, never, see your darling any more.'"

she laughs.

"what a jealous fellow you are, ted!"

"am i?"—ruefully. "i don't think i used to be. i never remember being jealous before."

"no? i am glad to hear it."

"why?"

"because"—with an adorable glance and a faint pressure of his arm—"it proves to me you have never loved before."

this tender insinuation blots out all remaining vapors, leaving the atmosphere clear and free of clouds for the rest of their walk, which lasts till almost evening. just before they reach the house, luttrell says, with hesitation:

"i have something to say to you, but i am afraid if i do say it you will be angry."

"then don't say it," says miss massereene, equably. "that is about the most foolish thing one can do. to make a person angry unintentionally is bad enough, but to know you are going to do it, and to say so, has something about it rash, not to say impertinent. if you are fortunate enough to know the point in the conversation that is sure to rouse me to wrath, why not carefully skirt round it?"

"because i lose a chance if i leave it unsaid; and you differ so widely from most girls—it may not provoke you."

"now you compel me to it," says molly, laughing. "what! do you think i could suffer myself to be considered a thing apart? impossible. no one likes to be thought odd or eccentric except rich old men, and bohemians, and poets; therefore i insist on following closely in my sisters' footsteps, and warn you i shall be in a furious passion the moment you speak, whether or not i am really annoyed. now go on if you dare?"

"well, look here," begins luttrell, in a conciliating tone.

"there is not the slightest use in your beating about the bush, teddy," says miss massereene, calmly. "i am going to be angry, so do not waste time in diplomacy."

"molly, how provoking you are!"

"no! am i? because i wish to be like other women?"

"a hopeless wish, and a very unwise one."

"'hopeless!' and why, pray?" with a little uplifting of the straight brows and a little gleam from under the long curled lashes.

"because," says her lover, with fond conviction, "you are so infinitely superior to them, that they would have to be born all over again before you could bring yourself to fall into their ways."

"what! every woman in the known world?"

"every one of them, i am eternally convinced."

"teddy," says molly, rubbing her cheek in her old caressing fashion against his sleeve, and slipping her fingers into his, "you may go on. say anything you like,—call me any name you choose,—and i promise not to be one bit angry. there!"

when luttrell has allowed himself time to let his own strong brown fingers close upon hers, and has solaced himself still further by pressing his lips to them, he takes courage and goes on, with a slightly accelerated color:

"well, you see, molly, you have made the subject a forbidden one, and—er—it is about our engagement i want to speak. now, remember your promise, darling, and don't be vexed with me if i ask you to shorten it. many people marry and are quite comfortable on five hundred pounds a year; why should not we? i know a lot of fellows who are doing uncommonly well on less."

"poor fellows!" says molly, full of sympathy.

"i know i am asking you a great deal,"—rather nervously,—"but won't you think of it, molly?"

"i am afraid i won't, just yet," replies that lady, suavely. "be sensible, teddy; remember all we said to john, and think how foolish we should look going back of it all. why should things not go on safely and secretly, as at present, and let us put marriage out of our heads until something turns up? i am like mr. micawber; i have an almost religious belief in the power things have of turning up."

"i haven't," says luttrell, with terse melancholy.

"so much the worse for you. and besides, teddy, instinct tells me you are much nicer as a lover than you will be as a husband. once you attain to that position, i doubt i shall be able to order you about as i do at present."

"try me."

"not for a while. there, don't look so dismal, ted; are we not perfectly happy as we are?"

"you may be, perhaps."

"don't say, 'perhaps;' you may be certain of it," says she, gayly. "i haven't a doubt on the subject. come, do look cheerful again. men as fair as you should cultivate a perpetual smile."

"i wish i was a nigger," says luttrell, impatiently. "you have such an admiration for blackamoors, that then, perhaps, you might learn to care for me a degree more than you do just now. shadwell is dark enough for you."

"yes; isn't he handsome?" with much innocent enthusiasm. "i thought last night at dinner, when——"

"i don't in the least want to know what you thought last night of shadwell's personal appearance," luttrell interrupts her, angrily.

"and i don't in the least want you to hold my hand a moment longer," replies miss massereene, with saucy retaliation, drawing her fingers from his with a sudden movement, and running away from him up the stone steps of the balcony into the house.

all through the night, both when waking and in dreams, the remembrance of the slight cast upon her absent mother by mr. amherst, and her own silent acceptance of it, has disturbed the mind of marcia. "a dancer!" the word enrages her.

molly's little passionate movement and outspoken determination to hear no ill spoken of her dead father showed marcia even more forcibly her own cowardice and mean policy of action. and be sure she likes molly none the more in that she was the one to show it. yet molly cannot possibly entertain the same affection for a mere memory that she feels for the mother on whom she has expended all the really pure and true love of which she is capable.

it is not, therefore, toward her grandfather, whose evil tongue has ever been his own undoing, she cherishes the greatest bitterness, but toward herself, together with a certain scorn that, through moneyed motives, she has tutored herself to sit by and hear the one she loves lightly mentioned.

now, looking back upon it, it appears to her grossest treachery to the mother whose every thought she knows is hers, and who, in her foreign home, lives waiting, hoping, for the word that shall restore her to her arms.

a kind of anxiety to communicate with the injured one, and to pour out on paper the love she bears her, but dares not breathe at herst, fills marcia. so that when the house is silent on this sunday afternoon,—when all the others have wandered into the open air,—she makes her way to the library, and, sitting down, commences one of the lengthy, secret, forbidden missives that always find their way to italy, in spite of prying eyes and all the untold evils that so surely wait upon discovery.

to any one acquainted with marcia, her manner of commencing her letter would be a revelation. to one so cold, so self-contained, the weaker symptoms of affection are disallowed; yet this is how she begins:

"my own beloved,—as yet i have no good news to send you, and little that i can say,—though ever as i write to you my heart is full. the old man grows daily more wearisome, more detestable, more inhuman, yet shows no sign of death. he is even, as it seems to me, stronger and more full of life than when last i wrote to you, now three weeks ago. at times i feel dispirited, almost despairing, and wonder if the day will ever come when we two shall be reunited,—when i shall be able to welcome you to my english home, where, in spite of prejudices, you will be happy, because you will be with me."

here, unluckily, because of the trembling of her fingers, a large spot of ink falls heavily from her pen upon the half-written page beneath, destroying it.

with an exclamation expressive of impatience, marcia pushes the sheet to one side and hastily commences again upon another. this time she is more successful, and has reached almost the last word in her final tender message, when a footstep approaching disturbs her. gathering up her papers, she quits the library by its second door, and, gaining her own room, finishes and seals her packet.

not until then does she perceive that the blotted sheet is no longer in her possession,—that by some untoward accident she must have forgotten it behind her in her flight.

consternation seizes her. whose were the footsteps that broke in upon her quietude? why had she not stood her ground? with a beating heart she runs down-stairs, enters the library once more with cautious steps, only to find it empty. but, search as she may, the missing paper is not to be found.

what if it has fallen into her grandfather's keeping! a cold horror falls upon her. after all these weary years of hated servitude to be undone! it is impossible even fickle fortune should play her such a deadly trick!

yet the horror continues until she finds herself again face to face with her grandfather. he is more than usually gracious,—indeed, almost marked in his attentions to her,—and once more marcia breathes freely. no; probably the paper was destroyed; even she herself in a fit of abstraction may have torn it up before leaving the library.

the evening, being sunday, proves even duller than usual. mr. amherst, with an amount of consideration not to be expected, retires to rest early. the others fall insensibly into the silent, dozy state. mr. darley gives way to a gentle snore. it is the gentlest thing imaginable, but effectual. tedcastle starts to his feet and gives the fire a vigorous poke. he also trips very successfully over the footstool, that goes far to make poor darley's slumbers blest, and brings that gentleman into a sitting posture.

"this will never do," luttrell says, when he has apologized profusely to his awakened friend. "we are all growing sleepy. potts, exert your energies and tell us a story."

"yes, do, plantagenet," says lady stafford, rousing herself resolutely, and shutting up her fan with a lively snap.

"i will," says potts, obligingly, without a moment's hesitation.

"potts is always equal to the occasion," sir penthony remarks, admiringly. "as a penny showman he would have been invaluable and died worth any money. such energy, such unflagging zeal is rare. that pretty gunpowder plot he showed his friends the other night would fetch a large audience."

"don't ask me to be the audience a second time," lady stafford says, unkindly. "to be blown to bits once in a lifetime is, i consider, quite sufficient."

"'well, if ever i do a ky-ind action again,'" says mr. potts,—who is brimful of odd quotations, chiefly derived from low comedies,—posing after toole. "it is the most mistaken thing in the world to do anything for anybody. you never know where it will end. i once knew a fellow who saved another fellow from drowning, and hanged if the other fellow didn't cling on him ever after and make him support him for life."

"i'm sure that's an edifying tale" says sir penthony, with a deep show of interest. "but—stop one moment, potts. i confess i can't get any further for a minute or two. how many fellows were there? there was your fellow, and the other fellow, and the other fellow's fellow; was that three fellows or four? i can't make it out. i apologize all round for my stupidity, but would you say it all over again, potts, and very slowly this time, please, to see if i can grasp it?"

"give you my honor i thought it was a conundrum," says henry darley.

plantagenet laughs as heartily as any one, and evidently thinks it a capital joke.

"you remind me of no one so much as sothern," goes on sir penthony, warming to his theme. "if you went on the stage you would make your fortune. but don't dream of acting, you know; go in for being yourself, pure and simple,—plain, unvarnished plantagenet potts,—and i venture to say you will take london by storm. the british public would go down before you like corn before the reaper."

"well, but your story,—your story, plantagenet," lady stafford cries, impatiently.

"did you hear the story about my mother and——"

"potts," interrupts stafford, mildly but firmly, "if you are going to tell the story about your mother and the auctioneer i shall leave the room. it will be the twenty-fifth time i have heard it already, and human patience has a limit. one must draw the line somewhere."

"what auctioneer?" demands potts, indignant. "i am going to tell them about my mother and the auction; i never said a word about an auctioneer; there mightn't have been one, for all i know."

"there generally is at an auction," ventures luttrell, mildly. "go on, potts; i like your stories immensely, they are so full of wit and spirit. i know this one, about your mother's bonnet, well; it is an old favorite,—quite an heirloom—the story, i mean, not the bonnet. i remember so distinctly the first time you told it to us at mess: how we did laugh, to be sure! don't forget any of the details. the last time but four you made the bonnet pink, and it must have been so awfully unbecoming to your mother! make it blue to-night."

"now do go on, mr. potts; i am dying to hear all about it," declares molly.

"well, when my uncle died," begins potts, "all his furniture was sold by auction. and there was a mirror in the drawing-room my mother had always had a tremendous fancy for——"

"'and my mother was always in the habit of wearing a black bonnet,'" quotes sir penthony, gravely. "i know it by heart."

"if you do you may as well tell it yourself," says potts, much offended.

"never mind him, plantagenet; do go on," exclaims cecil, impatiently.

"well, she was in the habit of wearing a black bonnet, as it happens," says mr. potts, with suppressed ire; "but just before the auction she bought a new one, and it was pink."

"oh, why on earth don't you say blue?" expostulates luttrell, with a groan.

"because it was pink. i suppose i know my mother's bonnet better than you?"

"but, my dear fellow, think of her complexion! and at first, i assure you, you always used to make it blue."

"i differ with you," puts in sir penthony, politely. "i always understood it was a sea-green."

"it was pink," reiterates plantagenet, firmly. "well, we had a cook who was very fond of my mother——"

"i thought it was a footman. and it really was a footman, you know," says luttrell, reproachfully.

"the butler, you mean, luttrell," exclaims sir penthony, with exaggerated astonishment at his friend's want of memory.

"and she, having most unluckily heard my mother say she feared she could not attend the auction, made up her mind to go herself and at all hazards secure the coveted mirror for her——"

"and she didn't know my mother had on the new sea-green bonnet,'" sir penthony breaks in, with growing excitement.

"no, she didn't," says mr. potts, growing excited too. "so she started for my uncle's,—the cook, i mean,—and as soon as the mirror was put up began bidding away for it like a steam-engine. and presently some one in a pink bonnet began bidding too, and there they were bidding away against each other, the cook not knowing the bonnet, and my mother not being able to see the cook, she was so hemmed in by the crowd, until presently it was knocked down to my mother,—who is a sort of person who would die rather than give in,—and, would you believe it?" winds up mr. potts, nearly choking with delight over the misfortunes of his maternal relative, "she had given exactly five pounds more for that mirror than she need have done!"

they all laugh, sir penthony and luttrell with a very suspicious mirth.

"poor mrs. potts!" says molly.

"oh, she didn't mind. when she had relieved herself by blowing up the cook she laughed more than any of us. but it was a long time before the 'governor' could be brought to see the joke. you know he paid for it," says plantagenet, naively.

"moral: never buy a new bonnet," says sir penthony.

"or keep an affectionate cook," says luttrell.

"or go to an auction," says philip. "it is a very instructive tale: it is all moral."

"the reason i so much admire it. i know no one such an adept at pointing a moral and adorning a tale as our plantagenet."

mr. potts smiles superior.

"i think the adornment rested with you and luttrell," he says, with cutting sarcasm, answering sir penthony.

"potts, you aren't half a one. tell us another. your splendid resources can't be yet exhausted," says philip.

"yes, do, potts, and wake me when you come to the point," seconds sir penthony, warmly, sinking into an arm-chair and gracefully disposing an antimacassar over his head.

"a capital idea," murmurs luttrell. "it will give us all a hint when we are expected to laugh."

"oh, you can chaff as you like," exclaims mr. potts, much aggrieved; "but i wonder, if i went to sleep in an arm-chair, which of you would carry on the conversation?"

"not one of them," declares cecil, with conviction: "we should all die of mere inanition were it not for you."

"i really think they're all jealous of me," goes on plantagenet, greatly fortified. "i consider myself by far the most interesting of them all, and the most—er——"

"say it, potts; don't be shy," says sir penthony, raising a corner of the antimacassar, so as to give his friends the full encouragement of one whole eye. "'fascinating,' i feel sure, will be the right word in the right place here."

"it would indeed. i know nobody so really entertaining as plantagenet," says cecil, warmly.

"your ladyship's judgment is always sound. i submit to it," returns sir penthony, rising to make her a profound bow.