“Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,

Eager tell-tales of her mind;

Paint with their impetuous stress

Of inquiring tenderness;

Those frank eyes, where deep doth lie

An angelic gravity.”

Matthew Arnold.

The last day of Evereld’s school life was drawing to a close, “packing day” as they called it, and when it had been a mere question of the beginning of the holidays it had always been a rather festive occasion. But on this last evening, standing at the threshold of a new untried life, there was a good deal of sadness about it, and her usually bright face was a little clouded as she paced up and down a shady garden walk with her special friend Bride O’Ryan. The merry voices of the younger children, as they played hide and seek, and now and then a distant sound of applause from those who were watching the tennis players, made her feel melancholy, for to-morrow she would no longer have her nook in this happy, busy hive of industry, would no longer have a share in the genial life, but would be in a very different home, a home which was not her own, which had never seemed in the least homelike, and to which she did not at all want to return. A happy remembrance caused her cheerfulness to return.

“Oh, Bride!” she exclaimed, “perhaps, after all, Sir Matthew will let me spend the next fortnight with you as we begged. He won’t let me go to Ireland, he was quite set against that, but he may say yes to your sister’s second letter.”

“To be sure,” said Bride, with her most good-humoured smile. “Why should he be saying no to such a sensible plan? He can’t wish to have you in town for the first part of August. Doreen has plenty of room for you in this house she has taken on the Parade, and we will bathe every day, and have no end of fun.”

“Here comes Aimee with a letter. Bride, I believe it will be from Sir Matthew; things come just when one is talking about them.”

A pretty dark-haired girl now approached them.

“Fraulein asked me to give you this note,” she said, “I believe it is from Cousin Doreen.”

“Yes, that’s Doreen’s writing,” said Bride. “Read it quickly, do.”

And Evereld read as follows:

“My Dear Evereld,

“We shall be delighted if you will spend the next fortnight with us here at Southbourne. Sir Matthew is quite willing that you should do so, though he cannot spare you to us after the 14th August, as he wishes you to go with him to Switzerland. I would have liked you to see our Irish mountains first; however, they can hold their own very well against any Alp ever created, and you must come and stay with us next year instead. Tell Bride to bring you as early to-morrow morning as you like.

“Yours affectionately,

“Doreen Hereford.”

This note gave general satisfaction, and the three friends yielded to the entreaties of some of the younger children and entered with spirit into the game of hide and seek, Evereld feeling all the delight of a reprieve as she realised that for a whole fortnight she should be able to stay at Southbourne and to postpone the parting with Bride.

The next morning when, somewhat saddened by all the partings they had been through, the two girls were driving down to the Parade, they suddenly caught sight of a huge poster announcing the advent on the following Monday of Mr. Hugh Macneillie’s Company, and the performance of “The Winter’s Tale” “The Rivals” and “The Lady of Lyons.” Evereld knew nothing of Ralph’s movements; nothing had been heard from him since the Easter holidays, when he had still been travelling in Scotland. She looked, however, with no small interest at this poster, having always remembered their childish worship of Macneillie.

“I have never seen ‘The Winter’s Tale,’” said Bride. “We must certainly go. Doreen is always delighted if we want to see one of Shakspere’s plays.”

By this time they had arrived at their destination and Evereld who already knew her friend’s family very intimately found herself in the midst of a lively babel of voices, warmly greeted by pretty Mrs. Hereford, hugged by her three children, and speedily made to feel quite at home.

“How is Dermot?” asked Bride.

“Much better,” replied her sister, “you will find him with Mollie in the drawing-room. Let me see, Evereld has not yet met him. We must present the family patriot to you. Poor boy he has always been unlucky, and since his release a year ago from Clonmel gaol he has been desperately ill.”

Evereld felt a little in awe of the released victim of the Coercion Act, but he proved to be the gentlest-mannered of mortals, and her womanly heart went out at once to the hollow-cheeked, large-eyed invalid whose humourous smile only seemed to add to the pathos of his face.

She was sitting the next day beside his Bath-chair on the Parade while Mrs. Hereford read to her children when, as she was watching the sedate couples who passed by in their Sunday best, she suddenly perceived at a little distance a figure that seemed strangely familiar. Surely no one but Ralph had precisely that quick, light step? His face was turned away from her, he was intent on the sea, watching the waves like one who loved them and had no attention to bestow on anything else. He was almost passing them with only the breadth of the Parade between when a puff of wind suddenly whirled away a paper which Dermot had been reading, and hastily glancing round he picked it up and crossed over to restore it to its owner. “Ralph!” exclaimed Evereld springing to her feet.

“You are here still!” he cried, his whole face lighting up, “I thought your holidays would certainly have begun. What good fortune to find you so unexpectedly.”

“I have left school and am staying with Mrs. Hereford for a fortnight. I must introduce you to her.”

Mrs. Hereford knew all about Ralph Denmead, and had always felt that he had been harshly treated by Sir Matthew Mactavish. She looked at him now searchingly and she liked him. He had one of those sensitive mouths that droop a little at the corners in depression or fatigue, but smile as other mouths cannot smile. The classical nose and well-moulded chin added character to what was otherwise just a pleasant, boyish face, bearing upon it the stamp—“good cricketer.” And the thick brown hair not quite so closely cropped as the hideous prevailing fashion demanded, and the absence of beard or moustache bespoke him an actor. What she liked best about him, however, were his clear honest brown eyes, which had the power of lighting up with a most refreshing mirthfulness. There was something touching in the unfeigned delight of the friends in this wholly unexpected meeting, and Mrs. Hereford was determined that they should have the chance of an uninterrupted talk.

“There is still an hour before tea-time,” she said, glancing at her watch. “Take Mr. Denmead to see the view at the end of the Parade, Evereld, and then let us all come home together.”

The two fell in with this plan very readily. The only difference between them and the couples Evereld had lately been watching was that they walked much faster and talked a great deal more. For there was much to tell and to hear, and Evereld wanted to learn every detail of the unlucky Scotch tour, and was delighted above measure to think that their hero Macneillie should have come to the rescue so opportunely.

“We saw that his Company was here to-morrow for a week,” she said, blithely. “How little I dreamed that you were with him, Ralph. Mrs. Hereford is going to take us to see ‘The Winter’s Tale.’ I do hope you have a nice part.”

“Yes, I am Florizel. It’s a very nice part indeed,” said Ralph. “And there is such a jolly country dance. You’ll like that. You can’t think what a difference it is to be in a Company like this after travelling with those awful Skoots.”

“Which was the worst of the two, the husband or the wife?”

“Oh the husband was a swindler, but Mrs. Skoot passes description. How she did hate me, too! If I had had the money to do it I might easily have brought an action against her for abusive language. Towards the end of the time she was never quite sober and once at a railway station she was so hopelessly drunk that she tumbled headlong down a flight of steps, alighting exactly on the top of my bath, which she nearly knocked into a cocked hat! We know now that all the weeks they were not paying us a penny, so that many of us were half starved, she had money of her own hoarded away, and no doubt they are living on it comfortably enough.”

“What became of that poor little Ivy Grant?”

“She stayed for a week with my old landlady and then managed to get into another travelling company, where she seems to be getting on well. The Professor died just after her return. He was no protection to her, poor old man, in fact it was quite the other way. She had to support him, he was invalided and a confirmed opium-eater. Still it seems lonely for Ivy. She is a very plucky little girl though, and will, I fancy, get on well in the profession. Now tell me about yourself. How did you get to know Mrs. Hereford? and who is she?”

“She is the married sister of my great friend at school, Bride O’Ryan; you will see Bride when we go back to tea, and I know you’ll like her. Every one likes her, she is such fun and she is always so good-tempered. Mrs. Hereford lives partly in Ireland, but most of the year in Grosvenor Square because her husband is in Parliament. And Bride will live with her now that she has left school. They were all left orphans, and Mrs. Hereford, who was a good deal older than the others, brought them up. I never knew anyone so good and delightful as she is.”

“I can’t think where I heard the name of Hereford just lately,” said Ralph musingly.

“Perhaps it was from Mr. Macneillie, I think Mrs. Hereford has met him once or twice.”

“That was it,” said Ralph, “Macneillie was telling me how Mr. Hereford gave up his property, Monkton Verney, and turned it into a sort of Cave of Adullam.”

He did not mention to Evereld that Christine Greville was now staying at this very place. Sooner or later she was sure to hear the whole story, but he shrank from telling her what had passed at Mearn Castle, and in no other way could he explain the step Lady Fenchurch had taken. “What is Mr. Hereford like?” he inquired.

“I like him very much,” said Evereld; “he is down here until to-morrow, so you will see him for yourself. Bride says that till he was married he never seemed to settle down to anything, that he was the sort of man everyone expected to do great things, and he never did them. But afterwards it was quite different; he began to work very hard, and now she says out in county Wicklow the peasants love him, and he makes such a good landlord. Bride says he’s almost as Irish as they are.”

“And you are here with them for a fortnight? Where after that?”

“With the Mactavishs in Switzerland. We shall be a party of six altogether. I am to go to keep Lady Mactavish company, for Minnie will be a good deal taken up you see with Major Gillot; they are engaged, the wedding is to be this autumn. Then there will be Sir Matthew and Mr. Bruce Wylie.”

“The inevitable Wylie!” said Ralph impatiently. “I hate that man.”

“And I like him very much,” said Evereld perversely. “You always had a most unfair prejudice against him. He will certainly be the life of the party. I was delighted to hear that he was going.”

Ralph’s face grew grave, there was an expression in it which startled Evereld as he turned towards her.

“Tell me in earnest,” he said anxiously. “Do you really like this man?”

Her truthful eyes met his fully.

“Only as I like an elderly man who used to give us chocolates and treats when we were children,” she said quietly.

Ralph in his relief laughed aloud.

“He wouldn’t be flattered if he knew that you called him elderly. He thinks himself just in his prime. How long shall you be abroad?”

“Six weeks I think,” said Evereld.

There was a silence. They had walked to the extreme end of the Parade and had wandered down to the sea itself. “Let us sit here by this boat,” she suggested. “It is so hot walking.”

Ralph silently assented; she glanced at him in some perplexity. Why had he so suddenly become quiet and troubled.

“Something has vexed you,” she said gently, yet with a smile. “A penny for your thoughts.”

“I am thinking,” said Ralph, “how hard it is that every holiday-maker, every idle lounger in Switzerland will have the chance of being with you while I am altogether cut off from your set, and can only think how other men will be making love to you.”

“They won’t,” she said in low tones. “A girl can always stop that if she chooses. I have heard Mrs. Hereford say so.”

“If you were going to be with her it would be more bearable. But you will be with Sir Matthew, whose one idea is how to make other people and other people’s money serve his purposes. Don’t stop me Evereld—I can’t help it—I distrust him and with very good cause. He and his hateful speculations were the death of my father. I have proof of that, actual proof.”

“Then I am surprised at nothing,” said Evereld, understanding now all the ill-concealed dislike and antagonism between Sir Matthew and Ralph which had often puzzled her in past times.

“He ruined my childhood,” said Ralph hotly, “and must I now stand calmly by while he ruins the rest of my life? Evereld!”—there was a passionate appeal in his voice which stirred the very depths of her heart, “I have no right yet to ask you to be my wife—my career is only beginning—but my darling, I love you—I love you!”

He saw her flush and tremble, but she was quite silent. Her words about a girl always being able to stop that sort of thing if she chose came back to his mind.

“Are you angry with me?” he said pleadingly. “I meant to have waited for years before speaking, but I was carried away.”

She lifted her blue eyes to his, they were bright and dewy, and in her face there seemed to be the glow of sunrise.

“I am glad you didn’t wait, Ralph,” she said softly.

Whereupon Ralph had the audacity to kiss her in the full light of day as they sat under the shelter of the boat; and no one was any the wiser save an old fisherman who was blest with exceptionally long eyesight; he, with a smile, fell to thinking of his own young days, and softly sang as he filled his Sunday pipe the refrain of a sailor’s song:

“Polly, my Polly,

She is so jolly,

The bonniest lass in the world!”

The two were silently but rapturously happy, and it was some little time before any thought of other people came to trouble Ralph. As for Evereld her heart seemed to beat to the rhythm of his words, “I love you!” and she was not at all disposed to consider the question which soon formed itself in his mind.

“I wonder whether I was wrong to speak,” he said. “You must remember darling that you are free, altogether free. After all, you have seen nothing of the world. You are not to let the thought of my love bind you.”

“Perhaps I ought not to make a promise while I am Sir Matthew’s ward,” said Evereld. “That is the only thing which would make me wish to wait; and now that we understand each other the waiting ought not to be too hard.”

“Suppose you tell Mrs. Hereford just the whole truth,” said Ralph, “and see what she advises. I shall feel happier about it if you have someone to turn to, and if she is what she seems to be one could trust her with anything. I wish I could talk to her some day.”

“Well that can easily be managed,” said Evereld. “I will tell her to-night. I am sure you are right about that. Though Sir Matthew is untrustworthy we can trust her, and as I am under her care here it seems right somehow that she should know.”

“She will certainly think me the most presumptuous fellow she ever met,” said Ralph. “Looking at it from an outsider’s point of view it is as bad as it can be. A fellow who is not quite one and twenty, and only earning three pounds a week! Mrs. Hereford will call me ‘The first of the Fortune Hunters,’ and will warn you against me.”

“We shall see,” said Evereld laughing. “I shall be very much disappointed in her if she doesn’t understand you better.”

“Are you sure that you understand me?” he said wistfully.

“Yes,” she said, her sweet eyes smiling into his. “I have summered and wintered you a great many times, as Bridget would say, and I very well know Ralph that you would much prefer it if my father had left me three hundred instead of three thousand a year. I think it is a little foolish of you, for as long as we share it what does it matter which side it comes from?”

A church clock striking four warned them that they must hasten back, and when they rejoined the others they were chatting together so naturally that no one dreamt what an important scene in their drama had been played at the other end of the beach.

Ralph found himself speedily made to feel at home in the delightful atmosphere of the Irish household, with its mirth and good humour, its cheerful babel of voices. It delighted him to think that Evereld who had known nothing of real family life should have found such friends, and he went back to his rooms later on in the highest spirits.

The Herefords had guessed nothing of his story and the O’Ryans had been too much taken up with their own merry discussions to be very observant, but Macneillie saw at a glance the change that had come over his pupil.

“Well?” he said in his genial voice. “What good fortune has befallen you?”

“I have found Evereld,” said Ralph blithely. “She is staying on the Parade with the Max Herefords. Here’s a note for you, by the bye. They want us to breakfast with them to-morrow at half past nine, it was the only free time, for they lunch at one, as he has to go up to town, and I knew rehearsal wouldn’t be over by then.”

“No,” said Macneillie lighting a cigarette, “in your present mood you’re about as likely to give your mind to Shakspere as that lover and his lass,” glancing at a very demonstrative couple on the other side of the road.

“We shall have a long and wearing rehearsal to-morrow.”

“I don’t understand you, Governor,” said Ralph, using the old stage word for the Manager as he generally did now to Macneillie, and somehow conveying by it just the reverence and affection which he felt for the Scotsman.

“I have an unfair advantage over you,” said Macneillie smiling. “I have heard a great deal about Miss Evereld Ewart and know that she is likely to distract you from your labours.”

“You have heard of her? From whom?”

“From you yourself, to be sure, in the feverish nights you had at Callander. I have long been wishing for the opportunity of quoting Mrs. Siddons to you, ‘Study, study, study, and don’t marry until you are thirty.’

“Well we can’t even be engaged yet,” said Ralph; “but we understand each other and that is something. Tomorrow you must see her.”

“I will devote myself to her entirely,” said Macneillie with a mirthful twinkle in his grey eyes. “And you in the meantime can be profitably improving your Irish accent with Mrs. Hereford with a view to Sir Lucius O’Trigger. Your brogue doesn’t quite satisfy me yet.”