Mr. Delane Likes the Idea.

On a bright morning, when February was in one of its brief moods of kindliness, Janet Delane was in the garden, and flitting from it into the hothouses in search of flowers. It was half-past eleven, and Captain Ripley had kept her gossiping long after breakfast; that was the worst of idle men staying in a house. So she hastened to and fro in a great parade of business-like activity, and, as she went, she would sing blithely and stop and smile to herself, and break into singing again, and call merrily to her dog, a rotund, slate-colored bundle of hair that waddled after her, and answered, if he were given time to get within earshot, to the name of Mop. Mop was more sedate than his mistress: she only pretended to be on business bent, while he had been dragged out to take a serious constitutional on account of his growing corpulence, and it made him sulky to be called here and beckoned there, and told there were rats, and cats, and what not—whereas in truth there was no such thing. But Janet did not mind his sulkiness; she smiled, and sang, and smiled, for she was thinking—but is nothing to be sacred from a prying race? It is no concern of anyone's what she was thinking, and no doubt she did not desire it to be known, or she would have told Captain Ripley in the course of that long gossip.

The Captain stood gazing at her out of the window, with his hands in his pockets and a doleful look of bewilderment on his face. He stared out into the garden, but he was listening to Mrs. Delane, and wondering uneasily if he were really such a dolt as his hostess seemed to consider.

"You know, Gerard," said Mrs. Delane in her usual tone of suave sovereignty, "that I am anxious to help you all I can. I have always looked forward to it as an event which would give us all pleasure, and I know my husband agrees with me. But really we can't do anything if you don't help yourself."

The Captain gnawed his mustache and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets.

"I can't make her out," said he. "I can't get any farther with her."

"It's not the way to 'get farther,'" answered Mrs. Delane, marking the quotation by a delicate emphasis, "with any girl to stand on the other side of the room and scowl whenever she talks to another man."

"You mean Bannister?"

"I mean anybody. I don't care whether it's Mr. Bannister or not. And it's just as useless to pull a long face and look tragic whenever she makes fun of you."

"She didn't use to be like that last time I was home."

"My dear boy, what has that got to do with it? She was a child then."

"She's always blowing me up. This morning she asked me why I didn't go to India instead of wasting my time doing nothing in London."

This was certainly unfeeling conduct on Janet's part. Mrs. Delane sighed.

"I don't know that I quite understand her either, Gerard. There's the Squire calling you. He's ready to ride, I expect."

When Janet came, she found her mother alone.

"Where's Gerard?" she asked.

"He's gone for a ride."

"Is he staying to-night?"

"Yes; two or three days, I think."

"Well, dear, I am glad we amuse him. There doesn't seem much for a man to do here, does there?"

"Don't you like him to be here?"

"Oh, I don't mind; only he wastes my time."

"I begin to think he's wasting his own too," remarked Mrs. Delane.

"Oh, he's got nothing else to do with it—or at least he does nothing else with it."

"You know what I mean, Janet, dear."

"I suppose I do, but how can I help it? I do all I can to show him it's no use."

"You used to like him very much."

"Oh, so I do now. But that's quite different."

The world goes very crooked. Mrs. Delane sighed again.

"It would have pleased your father very much."

"I'm so sorry. But I couldn't care for a man of that sort."

"What's the matter with the man, my dear?"

"That's just it, mamma. Nothing—nothing bad—and nothing good. Gerard is like heaps of men I know."

"I think you underrate him. His father was just the same, and he was very distinguished in the House."

Janet's gesture betrayed but slight veneration for the High Court of Parliament, as she answered: "They always say that about dull people."

"Well, if it's no use, the sooner the poor boy knows it the better."

"I can't tell him till he asks me, can I, dear? Though I'm sure he might see it for himself."

Mrs. Delane, when she made up her mind to sound her daughter's inclinations, had expected to find doubt, indecision, perhaps even an absence of any positive inclination toward Captain Ripley. She had not been prepared for Janet's unquestioning assumption that the thing was not within the range of consideration. A marriage so excellent from a material point of view, with one who enjoyed all the advantages old intimacy and liking could give, seemed to claim more than the unhesitating dismissal with which Janet relegated it to the limbo of impossibility, with never a thought for all the prospects it held out, and never a sigh for the wealth and rank it promised. Of course the Delanes needed no alliances to establish their position; still, as the Squire had no son, it would have been pleasant if his daughter had chosen a husband from the leading family in the county. The more Mrs. Delane thought, the more convinced she became that there must be a reason; and if there were, it could be looked for only in one direction. She wondered whether the Squire's penchant for his gifted young neighbor was strong enough to make him welcome him as a son-in-law. Frankly, her own was not.

Mr. Delane came in to luncheon, but Captain Ripley sent a message of excuse. He had ridden over to Sir Harry Fulmer's, and would spend the afternoon there. Mrs. Delane's reception of the news conveyed delicately that such conduct was only what might be expected, if one considered how Janet treated the poor fellow, but the Squire was too busy to appreciate the subtleties of his wife's demeanor.

Important events were in the way to happen. Denshire, like many other counties, had recently made up its mind that it behooved it to educate itself, and a building had arisen in Denborough which was to serve as an institute of technical education, a school of agriculture, a center of learning, a home of instructive recreation, a haven for the peripatetic lecturer, and several things besides. Lord Cransford had consented to open this temple of the arts, which was now near completion, and an inauguration by him would have been suitable and proper. But the Squire had something far better to announce. The Lord Lieutenant was, next month, to be honored by a visit from a Royal Duke, and the Royal Duke had graciously consented to come over and open the Institute. It would be an occasion the like of which Denborough had seldom seen, and Lord Cransford and Mr. Delane might well be pardoned the deputy-providential air with which they went about for the few days next following on the successful completion of this delicate negotiation.

"Now," said the Squire, when he had detailed the Prince's waverings and vacillations, his he-woulds and he-would-nots, and the culmination of his gracious assent, "I have a great idea, and I want you to help me, Jan."

"How can I help?" asked Janet, who was already in a flutter of loyalty.

"When the Duke comes, I want him to have a splendid reception."

"I'm sure he will, my dear," said Mrs. Delane; "at least I hope that we are loyal."

"We want," continued the Squire, "to show him all our resources."

"Well, papa, that won't take him very long. There's the old Mote Hall, and the Roman pavement and——Oh, but will he come here, papa—to the Grange?"

"I hope he will take luncheon here."

"How delightful!" exclaimed Janet joyfully.

"Goodness!" said Mrs. Delane anxiously.

"But, Jan, I want to show him our poet!"

"Papa! Mr. Bannister?"

"Yes. I want Bannister to write a poem of welcome."

"My dear," remarked Mrs. Delane, "Mr. Bannister doesn't like princes;" and she smiled satirically.

"What do you say, Jan?" asked the Squire, smiling in his turn.

"Oh, yes, do ask him, papa. I wish he would."

"Well, will you ask him to?"

"Really, George, you are the person to suggest it."

"Yes, Mary. But if I fail? Now, Jan?"

"Oh, don't be foolish papa. It's not likely——"

"Never mind. Will you?"

But Janet had, it seemed, finished her meal; at least she had left the room. Mrs. Delane looked vexed. The Squire laughed, for he was a man who enjoyed his little joke.

"Poor Jan!" he said. "It's a shame to chaff her on her conquests."

Mrs. Delane's fears had been confirmed by her daughter's reception of the raillery. She would have answered in the same tone, and accepted the challenge, if the banter had not hit the mark.

"It's a pity," said Mrs. Delane, "to encourage her to think so much about this young Bannister."

"Eh?" said the Squire, looking up from his plate.

"She thinks quite enough about him already, and hears enough, too."

"Well, I suppose he's something out of the common run, in Denshire at all events, and so he interests her."

"She'll have nothing to say to Gerard Ripley."

"What? Has he asked her?"

"No; but I found out from her. He's quite indifferent to her."

"I'm sorry for that, but there's time yet. I don't give up hope."

"Do you think you help your wishes by asking her to use her influence to make Dale Bannister write poems?"

The Squire laid down his napkin and looked at his wife.

"Oh!" he said, after a pause.

"Yes," said Mrs. Delane. "Are you surprised?"

"Yes, I am, rather."

He got up and walked about the room, jangling the money in his pocket.

"We know nothing about young Bannister," he said.

"Except that he's the son of a Dissenting minister and has lived with very queer people."

The Squire frowned; but presently his face cleared. "I dare say we're troubling ourselves quite unnecessarily. I haven't noticed anything."

"I dare say not, George," said Mrs. Delane.

"Come, Mary, you know it's a weakness of yours to find out people's love affairs before they do themselves."

"Very well, George," answered she in a resigned tone. "I have told you, and you will act as you think best. Only, if you wouldn't like him for a son-in-law——"

"Well, my dear, you do go ahead."

"Try to put him out of Janet's head, not in it;" and Mrs. Delane swept out of the room.

The Squire went to his study, thinking as he went. He would have liked the Ripley connection. Lord Cransford was an old friend, and the match would have been unimpeachable. Still—— The Squire could not quite analyze his feelings, but he did feel that the idea of Dale Bannister was not altogether unattractive. By birth, of course, he was a nobody, and he had done and said, or at least said he had done, or would like to do,—for the Squire on reflection softened down his condemnation,—wild things; but he was a distinguished man, a man of brains, a force in the country. One must move with the times. Nowadays brains opened every front door, and genius was a passport everywhere. He was not sure that he disliked the idea. Women were such sticklers for old notions. Now, he had never been a—stick-in-the-mud Tory. If Dale went on improving as he was doing, the Squire would think twice before he refused him. But there! very likely it was only Mary's match-making instincts making a mountain out of a molehill.

"I shall keep at Jan about that poem," he ended by saying. "It would be a fine facer for the Radicals."