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PAMELA POUNCE

AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE

By
AGNES & EGERTON CASTLE

Pamela Pounce

John Seneschal's Margaret

New Wine

Minniglen

Wolf-Lure

Rose of the World

The Secret Orchard

If Youth But Knew

Wroth
The Star Dreamer

Panther's Cub

Diamond Cut Paste

The 'Pride of Jennico

My Merry Rockhurst

The Composer
Flower of the Orange

The Bath Comedy-
Incomparable Bellairs
The Heart of Lady Anne
The Lure of Life
The Haunted Heart
Our Sentimental Garden
The Hope of the House
Wind's Will

By EGERTON CASTLE

Young April
The Light of Scarthey

Consequences

Marshfield the Observer

The House of Romance

Schools and Masters of Fence

English Book-Plates

The Jerningham Letters

Le Roman du Prince Othon

T i960

PAMELA POUNCE

A TALE OF TEMPESTUOUS PETTICOATS

BY
AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE

AUTHORS OF "THE PRIDE OF JENNICO," "THE

INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS," "jOU.V

SENESCHAL'S MARGARET," ETC.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK MCMXXI

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

PRINTED Il» THB UMITID STATES OF AMERICA

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PREFACE

THEEE can be no doubt that shedding her petticoats,
a woman has shed much, if not all of her femininity, till
she is now merely a person of an opposite sex. She is a
female, for nothing will ever make her a man, but Woman
(with a capital W), Woman with her charm, her elusive-
ness, her mystery, her reserves, her virginal withdrawals,
her exquisite yieldings — she is that no longer.

How much of her queenship has she not given up with
her petticoats?

At no time was Woman more thoroughly feminine, more
absolutely mistress of her own fascinations and of the
hearts of men, than in the eighteenth century, preferably
the latter half.

That was a time when it may be said that no woman
could look ugly, that beauty became irresistible. Take
the period consecrated by the art of Sir Joshua Reynolds
and of Romney ; take the picture of the Parson's Daugh-
ter by the latter artist, that little face, so piquant, inno-
cent, fresh, sly, mischievous, is nothing at all without
its cloud of powdered curls but a very ordinary visage,
almost common, indeed, with its distinctive coiffure,
framing, softening, etherealizing, giving depth to the eyes
and allurement to the smile. How irresistibly delicious!
How irresistibly delicious, too, is the mode which exposes
the young throat so modestly between the soft folds of
the muslin kerchief.

Youth, then, even without much beauty, is served to
perfection by the taste of the period. What of beauty

PREFACE

itself? Look at the portrait of the Duchess of Devon-
shire by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous one with the
big hat, where she is holding the dancing baby. There
is an answer more eloquent than any words can give.

And, the rarest thing in a fashion, it became age as
completely. Even elderliness emerged triumphant. I vow
that Mrs. Hardcastle, Mrs. Malaprop, Mrs. Primrose are
delightful figures of buxomness on any stage. Their
double chins assume a pleasant sort of dignity, over-
shadowed by the curls and loops of their tremendous
coiffures. The dress with its panniers, its apron, its gen-
eral amplitude, is peculiarly advantageous to the too
solid flesh of the matron.

The mode of the moment has a singular effect on the
morals of the moment. Our emotions are more molded
and colored by our clothes than we are aware.

It is quite certain that when a young lady went pan-
niered and patched, fichued and ruffled, powdered and
rouged, tripping on high heels, ready for the minuet, her
feelings went delicately with her, metaphorically garbed
in daintiness to match.

And when a gentleman of fashion was a Beau, when
his fine leg showed to its utmost in a silk stocking, when
his pampered hand was as elegant of gesture with a pinch
of snuff between falling ruffles as it was in whipping out
a small sword, he retained his masculine virility none the
less; but, like the blade of that same small sword, was
cutting, polished, deadly, vicious even, all .within the
measure of courtesy and refinement.

The world has mightily changed since the days when
hearts beat under the folds of the fichu or against the
exquisite embroideries of the waistcoat. Sad divagations
then, as now, were taken out of the path of rectitude,

PREFACE

but they were taken with a rustle of protesting petticoats,
to the gallant accompaniment of buckled shoes or more
romantic still, dashing top boots.

A tale of 1788 is necessarily a tale of petticoats.

A winning wave, deserving note
Of a tempestuous petticoat,

cries the poet of an earlier age. Femininity must needs
rustle and whisper and curtsy and flounce through every
chapter.

The collaborator, whose name appears for the last time
on this title page, turned to the century of The Bath
Comedy and the subsequent and connected chronicles as
a kind of relaxation of the mind from what he most hated,
the ugliness of modern life. The realism which sets itself
to describe the material and grosser aspect of any emo-
tion, the brutality that miscalls itself strength, that forc-
ing of the note of horror — which is no more power than
the beating of a tin can or the shrieking of a siren is
music — were abhorrent to him. He liked the pretty
period in spite of its artificialities; he liked the whole
glamour of the time ; he liked its reticence and its gayety,
its politeness, its wit, and its naughtiness and its quaint-
ness, because, as in an artistic bout of fencing, it was
all bounded by a certain measure of grace and rule.

The laughter he gave to these conceptions came, as true
laughter must, from the most innocent and wholesome
heart. It is this laughter which is his last legacy to a
sad, tangled and rather ugly world.

AGNES EGERTON CASTLE

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE ..........>... v

PROLOGUE 1

CHAPTER

I. How MY LADY KILCRONEY EKTEBZO INTO ROYAL SEBV-

ICK UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ITALIAN HAT

TRIMMED BY Miss PAMELA POUNCE 5

II. IN WHICH Miss PAMELA POUNCE Is ORDERED TO

PACK 37

III. IN WHICH Miss PAMELA POUNCE, THE MILLINER'S

ASSISTANT, BECOMES ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

IN HIGH SOCIETY 49

IV. SHOWING STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT .... 72

V. IN WHICH Miss PAMELA POUNCE DEMONSTRATES THE

VALUE OF VIRTUE TO HER FAMILY AXD HER FRIENDS 102

VI. IN WHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH AND

Miss POUNCE THROWS COLD WATER ON IT ... 129

VII. ' IN WHICH Is MANIFEST THE HAND OF THE SAINTED

JULIA 152

VIII. IN WHICH A WONDERFUL BIT OF LUCK COMES OUT

OF Miss POUNCE'S BANDBOX FOR SOMEBODY ELSE . 163

IX. IN WHICH Miss PAMELA POUNCE HAS DONE WITH

LOVE 191

X. IN WHICH Miss PAMELA POUNCE SETS THREE BLACK

FEATHERS FOR TRAGEDY 207

XI. IN WHICH THERE Is A PRODIGIOUS SCANDAL ABOUT

PINK FLOUNCES 235

XII. IN WHICH MY LADY KILCHONEY INSISTS ON THE DUTY

OF MORALITY . 247

XIII. IN WHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY MAKES AN INDELI-

CATE Fuss 265

XIV. IN WHICH KITTY Is MORE INCOMPARABLE THAN EVER 287

XV. IN WHICH "THE MAD BRAT" TAKES THE BIT BETWEEN
HER TEETH, BUT Miss PAMELA POUNCE KEEPS HOLD
OF THE REINS 299

XVI. IN WTHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY HAS THE LAST WORD 330

PAMELA POUNCE

PROLOGUE

" \JO man is hero to his valet"; so runs the cynical

-L V adage. But you can reverse the saying with ref-
erence to the other sex. Every woman is a heroine to her
lady's maid; it may not be true in all cases, but 'tis true
enough for any proverb.

The romance of a lady's own woman is centered in her
mistress. She will clothe her in finery with a greater joy
than if she were draping herself; rather than see her go
shabby she would wear sackcloth; she will hang over the
banisters, on a dinner-party night, to observe the sit of
her train as she sweeps downstairs on the arm of some
notable personage; she will lean out of the window to
watch her step into her sedan, and if there are Beaus
hovering and my Lady tosses her plumes and whisks her
panniers to proper advantage it is Abigail's heart that
beats high with pride.

Even Miss Lydia Pounce, own woman to my Lady Kil-
croney, a damsel remarkable from her earliest youth for
her tart and contradictious ways, who was verging on
elderliness now with the acidity and leanness peculiar to
the "born old maid," would have laid down her life to in-
sure that my Lady's Court *,own should Jit her trim waist
without a wrinkle, or that the pink silk stocking that
clothed her pretty leg was drawn to its proper skin-tight
limit.

(Both the Incomparable Kitty and her Lydia were ex-

PAMELA POUNCE

ccedingly particular that these same stocking-, should
never be worn with the gross slovenliness that permitted a
sag. Not, indeed, that anything but the merest glimpse
of slender, arched feet like the "little mice" of an earlier
poet's fancy, peeping in and out from under the flutter
and foam of lace and silken flounce, was ever displayed
to the vulgar eye; but to know these niceties complete in
the smallest and most delicate detail was necessary to the
comfort of any self-respecting woman. And on this point
Lydia was in thorough sympathy with her mistress, as
upon all others connected with the elegance and bon ton of
the most modish of Mayfair belles; of that leader of
Fashion, Feeling and Style which the Lady Kilcroney un-
doubtedly was.)

If Woman be a heroine to her lady's maid, in what light
does she appear to her Milliner?

Here we come upon debatable ground. At first sight it
would seem that, as the milliner is dependent upon her cus-
tomers for her very existence, it must follow that, what-
ever her private opinion may be with regard to their ap-
pearance and taste, she can have but one burning desire —
to please her patronesses. There is nevertheless another
side to the question.

What Woman of intelligence but does not realize that a
Mode may make or mar her? How much may hang on
the droop of a feather ; the tilt of a hat brim ; the glow
of a rose in cunning juxtaposition with the soft carmine
of a blushing cheek? Blue eyes, that before had lan-
guished their tenderest in vain, may flash into sudden sig-
nificance under a knot of azure ribbon. Saucy innocence
may triumph beneath a shepherdess wreath, or tired
charms may kindle into new brilliancy stimulated by the
consciousness of the perfect inspiration. In fine, all that

PROLOGUE

life holds best is at the mercy of the mantuamaker where
the Lady of Fashion is concerned. Let but a clever busi-
ness woman grasp this great and awful truth ; and she who
combines the brain that can devise, the taste that never
fails, the acumen that knows no hesitation, the finger that
is at once light and firm, unerring and ethereal, becomes
to her employers a treasure beyond the mines of Golconda !

Such a treasure did Miss Pamela Pounce, with whom
these pages are concerned, prove herself to the noted
Madame Mirabel of Bond Street. And such an influence,
far-reaching, and subtle, did she exercise on the lives of
the elegantes who consulted her, with the eager submission
and reverence of the believing Greek for his Oracles,
though with far other and comfortably practical results !

Miss Pamela Pounce, Goddess of Modes, was ipso facto
Goddess of the Machine of Life, deciding, with a lucky
toss of ribbons or hitherto undreamed-of combination of
fal-lals, the fate of her fair customers, and incidentally
that of their Beaus, their lovers and their husbands: my
Lady Kilcroney and her lazy, jolly, life-loving Lord ; dark-
browed Susan Verney, who would fain have bent the whole
world to her sway as she did her weary Baron; Lady
Anne, her sister, still fondly, foolishly in love with her
stalwart, countrified Squire, Philip Day; their young
sister, the last of the fair Vereker Ladies and the naughti-
est, with her amazing love-stories ; Mr. Stafford, the once
famous Beau, proud of the startling beauty of his excel-
lent, dull wife and anxious that she should flaunt it a la
mode with the best of them; Sir Jasper Standish, the
sporting Baronet, who, scarce widowed of his exquisite,
clinging Julia, found himself entangled beyond belief with
Miss Pamela Pounce's ribbons ; the noted young actress,
Miss Falcon, known as "Fair Fatality," whose brief life

PAMELA POUNCE

drama was more tragic than any she had enacted for the
benefit of the public ; the plain Miss Vibart, who found
beauty and love and happiness all in a Pounce bandbox;
Mistress Molly Laf one's own sister — who would believe it?
— to the pearl of ingenuous womanhood, Prue Stafford,
Molly Laf one, that minx whom the members of my Lady
Kilcroney's coterie were so unanimously leagued to sup-
press and exclude, and who, in spite of their efforts, con-
trived to insinuate herself disastrously into all their com-
binations (was it not under a wreath twisted by Pamela's
long, clever fingers that this elegant little adventuress
came to her most deserved catastrophe?) — there was not
one of them but came under her wand !

But at the same time, the arbiter of the fate of others
in the shape of a very human young woman, guided the
shuttle of her own destiny, and wove a remarkably pretty
design for herself.

Milliners, unlike Oracles and Sibyls, have each their per-
sonal human span with its joys and fears, pleasures, pains
and triumphs. Pamela's romance ran like a cherry-col-
ored thread through the warp and woof of those other
existences, so far above her, in which her profession had
involved her. To show the whole pattern, light and dark,
sparkling and deep-hued, flowered, dotted, arabesqued, of
this brocade of earthly life, the poor Modiste must assume
as important a place as that of her clientele.

CHAPTER I

HOW MY LADY KILCRONEY ENTERED INTO ROYAL SERVICE
UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ITALIAN HAT TRIMMED BY
MISS PAMELA POUNCE

WHILE Miss Pamela Pounce was serving her third
year as apprentice to the great art of Hat Con-
fectionery, under the aegis of no less a personage
than the world-famous Madame Eglantine of Paris —
once "the little French Milliner" of Bath — her aunt and
benefactress, who had placed her in these favorable cir-
cumstances, had begun to taste the proudest triumph of
her life.

Miss Lydia Pounce was about to become own woman to
a Court lady ! My Lady Kilcroney, to whom she had so
faithfully and ruthlessly devoted herself — from the days
when, as the Widow Bellairs, she first scintillated in the
world of Fashion, to her present position of Viscountess —
was chosen by Her Majesty, Queen Charlotte, to fill the
post of Lady-in-Waiting to her own Sacred Person.

To enter Court circles had been the dream of Lydia's
angular and ambitious breast. Her mistress's gratified
vanity was a trifling emotion compared with the bursting
satisfaction which this upward step on the social ladder
afforded the maid. It is not too much to say that she
regarded herself in the light of a Prime Minister who has
successfully brought about some great political event and
who is a far more important person than the Sovereign
whom he serves.

It came to pass in this wise.

PAMELA POUNCE

His Most Gracious Majesty King George III had been
ordered to Cheltenham Spa for the waters by his physi-
cians ; his state of health was causing anxiety, the extent
of which was as yet quite unknown to the bulk of his loyal
subjects. Queen Charlotte, the most devoted of spouses,
had, of course, determined to accompany him; and the
Royal party duly proceeded to the Spa.

It happened to be Lady Flora Dare Stamer's term of
attendance on Her Majesty, and that stout estimable
Lady-in-Waiting happened to be Lady Kilcroney's very
close and dear friend. There was nothing remarkable, per-
haps, in the conjunction of these two happenings; but it
was, indeed, singular that Kitty Kilcroney should happen
to discover a delicacy in her son and heir which necessi-
tated an instant visit to the celebrated health resort now
so vastly honored.

These events having succeeded each other, nothing more
natural than that my Lady Kilcroney should invite her
"poor dear Flo" to a dish of tea and a chat at her lodg-
ings to rest her of the fatigue consequent upon her eminent
but exhausting office.

Though Lady Flora had made no secret to her intimates
of her intention to rid herself of her honors as soon as
might be, who so surprised as her dearest Kitty to learn
that she now believed her emancipation at hand.

"To tell you the truth, my dear," said Lady Flo, chew-
ing a macaroon, "it's not a job that suits me in the least.
'Twould fit you vastly better."

"Oh, Lady Flo!" cried Kitty in accents of amazement.
"What a strange thought ! I vow and declare such an
idea never crossed my mind. And, in truth, 'tis rank im-
possible. There are a hundred reasons — a thousand rea-

THE ITALIAN HAT

sons — why I am the last person likely to be selected by
Her Majesty. I am too young."

"Upon my word !" said her companion bluntly. "I doubt
if there's so much between us, my dear, were it not that
I have run to fat. These macaroons are excellent. 'Tis
like your genius to be so well served in lodgings. You've
brought the best of your staff with you, I make no
doubt."

"And oh, my love! the difficulty of housing them!
There's scarce a tradesman in the town that hath not a
servant of mine."

Kitty spoke with the careless self-importance of the
wealthy woman. And Lady Florence approved.

"How right you are, my love, to insist on Com-
fort !" Comfort was the first and last of her aspirations.
"Aye, I will have a little more cream. This whipped
stuff — I dare swear 'tis your idea to have it so lavishly
flavored with the vanilla ; vastly delicate. Your chocolate
is as incomparable as your agreeable self ! But yours are
not the years of giddiness ; I speak in all friendship, I beg
you to believe."

Kitty murmured in an absent voice that she had mar-
ried her first — worthy Bellairs — a mere child, practically
out of the nursery.

"Anyhow, my sweet Kilcroney, no woman who has had
two husbands can deny a certain amount of experience,
and upon rep," with a rolling laugh, "I don't care who
knows that I'm on the wrong side of thirty ! You must
be pretty well advanced on the right side of it?"

"If you can call twenty-eight "

"Admit to twenty-eight, by all means ! — nevertheless,
'tis an age of discretion and Her Majesty "

"I understand," said Kitty, balancing her teaspoon on

PAMELA POUNCE

the rim of her handleless cup with a musing air — she won-
dered in her soul if the excellent Lady Flo could really be
taken in by this pretense; if it were possible she did not
guess that she, Kitty Kilcroney, was longing, grilling to
step into her Court shoes, as if she cared who knew that
she was over thirty her last birthday, and warming but
to riper beauty as the months slipped by !

" 'Tis not," she said aloud, with a pout, "that I would
decline a post about Our Gracious Queen, if 'twere offered
me, God forbid ! I am too loyal a subject. But I under-
stand the German woman, that frumpish creature, the
Keeper of the Robes — what's her barbarous name? — hath
the Royal ear, and will not suffer anything young or
comely, if she can help it, about Her Majesty. (And
there's one for you, my Lady Flo, with your right and
your wrong side of thirty !) 'Tis a vast of pity you will
not continue to occupy a position so honorable and so be-
coming to you."

"To tell you the truth," said Lady Flora, unmoved,
helping herself to another macaroon, " 'tis the standing
that undoes your poor friend! Conceive it, my love, full
fourteen stone and on my feet hours every day. Hours,
did I say? Centuries. Look hither!" She thrust out a
large, sandaled foot, which certainly had a plethoric ap-
pearance. " 'Tis swollen beyond relief. I acknowledge
my stoutness. I make but little count of it, for I've been
a prodigious comfortable woman along of it. 'Tis a
cushioned life. It pads the mind as it were. I assure
you, I believe myself to have been, only some three months
ago, the most good-tempered woman in England. And
now, 'pon rep I am growing peevish! Fie upon it — stout
and peevish ! Was there ever such a combination ?"

As if to contradict her own statement she again gave

THE ITALIAN HAT

way to her jolly laugh. Kitty, watching her through long
eyelashes, sighed.

"But what can induce you to think of me, my Lady Flo?
Poor little retiring me?"

"Pray, my dear, do not play the Molly Lafone with

me:

Molly Lafone! Such a comparison was too comic!
Kitty laughed and dropped her not very successful mask.

"Upon my word, then, I believe it would suit me ! But
how can it be accomplished ? I am not one to push myself
forward. My Lord Kilcroney is an Irishman and no court-
ier and Their Majesties have their own favorites; and
indeed to begin with, I doubt whether you will find it so
easy to resign."

"Resign, Kitty ! Resign ! No, dear Kilcroney, I am on
the point of being graciously dismissed. It took some
management, but I was desperate. Another month of
this, I said, and Mr. Stamer will be able to look out for a
new wife — which he would do, my dear love, across my
very coffin. 'Twas yesterday sennight then, I made up my
mind. I took my best rose-point flounce — by the mercy
of heaven it was just returned from the lace-mender,
neatly packed in tissue, tied with ribbon and a scent bag
within, as elegant a parcel as you could wish to see ! — and
I sought Mrs. Schwellenberg — aye, that same! — and says
I, 'For mercy's sake, give me a chair. My poor feet
will scarce support me!' At which she looks as sour as a
crab, and, quoth she: 'We all have veet, Lady Florence'
(you know her vile accent), 'but we forget dem in our
great honor and brivilege.' 'Would God I could forget
mine,' thinks I. But she glances at the parcel in my hand:
'Take a zeat,' she says with a roll of her old eye. 'Ah, my

PAMELA POUNCE

good Frau,' says I to myself, 'you may look, but you
shan't clutch yet a bit !' "

Lady Florence laughed reminiscently, and Kitty
screamed :

"Never tell me you gave the old Dutch villain your rose-
point flounce !"

"And what could be the good of a rose-point flounce to
me, when I should be dropped dead in the Queen's apart-
ment, like any hackney jade? My love, I showed that an-
cient toad my two feet — and I vow 'toad' is a good name
for her, for she hath the countenance and the croak of
her own pet frogs — I showed her my feet and I lamented
my stones of weight. 'Pon rep! I gave myself sixteen,
I did indeed, and what with the swelling, I looked 'em!
'Let me confide in you,' I cries, 'if ever I saw a truly
noble soul writ on a human brow, 'tis on yours! My
frame,' I cries, 'is not equal to my devotion. My ankles
will not support the loyalty of my heart! 'tis not that I
should grudge passing away in such service,' I cries, turn-
ing up my eyes — you could not have done it better, Kitty !
— 'but were I to faint in those sacred precincts, were I
to pass away in that august Presence, Her Majesty would
be justly annoyed. Dr. Jebb has warned me. Alas ! look
at me. Am I not fat? 'Vat you are,' says she, 'but so
am I.' Well, then, my love, I gave her a peep of the lace
and she began to dribble at the corners of her mouth and
I knew the trick was done! 'If I speak to Her Majesty,'
says she, and she, fingering my rose-point, 'I vender vot
substitute I could suggest. Her Majesty she does not

like the changes, and ' And then I thought of you,

Kitty."

"I wonder why, in the name of Heaven !" cried this lady
tartly.

THE ITALIAN HAT

"Your feet won't swell, my love."

"I need not accept," quoth Kitty, pinching her lips.

"Kitty, if you play your cards well, the post will be
offered to you while Their Majesties are here at Chelten-
ham. 'Tis all settled with the Schwellenberg. Do you
not know," said Lady Florence, pushing the dish with a
single remaining macaroon upon it virtuously from her,
"that Susan Verney is making all the interest in the world
for the honor? But she was rude to the Schwellenberg
one day — you know poor Susan's way ! — and when they
met in my drawing-room at Queen's Lodge, and the
Schwellenberg would have none of her !"

"Say no more !" cried Kitty, and fire shot from her eyes.

"My love, I believe I have served you," said Lady Flor-
ence, replying to the eloquence of that glance. " 'My
Royals are not partial to the Irish,' said Schwellenberg.
*Ah, but Madam,' I says, 'my Lady Kilcroney is not Irish.
She is true-born English, and has vast wealth — widow
of an Indian nabob — vast wealth and a generous heart !
And you admire the lace, Madam?' says I. 'In the very
truth I was hoping I might venture to offer it to you, for
'tis lace that should be worn at Court, Madam, and in no
other place and as I mentioned to you, my Lady Kil-
croney and her Lord have practically severed all ties with
Ireland. If you would accept the flounce, Madam, on my
retirement (I think there is a narrow edging of rose
point to match)' — 'I will tink of what you say about my
Lady Kilcroncy,* croaks she. Am I not a good friend,
Kitty?"

She looked at Kitty with such beaming kindness that
all the latter's caprices vanished; she cast herself affec-
tionately on Lady Florence's huge bosom and voted that
she was indeed the best and dearest !

PAMELA POUNCE

It was agreed between them before the large and jovial
lady left the pleasant apartments overlooking the
meadows, that she would call early next morning and re-
port the result of Mrs. Schwellenberg's "tinking," since
she had been given to understand that Her Majesty would
deliver her gracious dismissal that evening, during the
process of the Royal disrobing.

"You must hold yourself ready, my sweet child, to be
at any point considered suitable along Her Majesty's
path during the next few days. By the looks Her Majesty
casts on me I am convinced Schwellenberg kept her word
and prepared the ground ere we left Queen's Lodge.
Well, she knew she would not get the rose-point other-
wise."

Kitty stood reflecting in the bow window long after
Lady Florence's chairmen had reeled away with their bur-
den towards Lord Fauconberg's small house on the hill,
which had been placed at Their Majesties' disposal. It
could not be said that she had quite so altogether con-
suming a desire for the post of Lady-in-Waiting since
hearing Lady Florence's talk and gazing on those swollen
feet, but, rather than that Susan Verney, dark, overbear-
ing Susan, should have the advantage Kitty would have
stood on burning plowshares. She had, thank Heaven,
as good health as any lady in the kingdom, a back that
was never tired, and a fund of humor and good humor
that made her equal to most trials. Moreover, she had
a fighting spirit, and, she flattered herself, a charm of
her own. If she did not get the better of Schwellenberg,
on the one hand, and ingratiate herself with Royalty, on
the other, then she was no longer "Incomparable Bel-
lairs"!

THE ITALIAN HAT

Her agreeable reflections were broken in upon by the
entrance of my Lord Kilcroney.

Now, hot-blooded, red-headed Irishman as he was, it was
the rarest thing in the world for this nobleman to be seri-
ously out of temper with any one, let alone with the wife
of his bosom; but, as he now flung himself into Kitty's
hired parlor, he was in as irate a mood as he had ever in-
dulged in, and that with his Lady.

"Here's a pretty business !" quoth he, and cast his hat
on the table in the middle of the room, very nearly dis-
lodging the glass dome which protected a gold filigree
basket containing the most purple plums, the reddest
strawberries, the bluest grapes that ever artist in wax pro-
duced. "Here's a pretty to-do !" cried Denis Kilcroney.

"There seems indeed to be a to-do!" retorted Kitty.
She wheeled round from the window. "But you will con-
descend to explain the cause perhaps, my Lord?"

"So I hear you've got a place about the Court, me dar-
ling," said Denis, plunging into sarcasm, with a flushed
countenance. " 'Pon me soul, 'tis the grand lady you're
going to be entirely! 'Tis the back seat your husband
will have to be taking. Glory be to God, what's a hus-
band ? And an Irish one into the bargain !"

"Pray, my Lord," cried Kitty, all eagerness, "where
have you heard the news? For, as I'm a living woman,
'tis news to me."

"Ah ! go on out of that !" My Lord was certainly very
angry and more than usually Hibernian. "Didn't that
fat baggage come straight out of these doors? Didn't
she put that full-moon face of hers out of the sedan win-
dow and bawl to her men to stop and then with the sweat
dripping off them, God help them ! And 'Oh,' she calls,
'my Lord Kilcroney,' she cries, * 'tis quite settled,' she says.

PAMELA POUNCE

'And your Kitty to take my post about Her Majesty.'
Why, all Cheltenham could have heard her."

"Tush!" Kitty's peach-tinted countenance agog with

delight, fell. "Is that all? Why " She was about to

expound to Denis with some firmness the folly of giving way
to passion over an event that was still in the uncertain
/uture, at the same time conveying to him her clear inten-
tion to leave no stone unturned towards its accomplish-
ment, when her little black page appeared at the open
door, grinning at the sounds of dispute, and announced:
"Mistress Lafone." And if the sight of dusky innocence
amused was exasperating to my Lady, what can be said
of the feeling aroused by the smile of minxish artfulness?

"Good Heavens !" cried Kitty. "And what brings you
to Cheltenham, if one may ask?"

"Good-morrow, my sweet Kilcroney."

This familiarity!

"Good-morrow, Madam." Kitty swept a curtsy to
mark her distance, the while my Lord kissed the creature's
hand, positively as if he liked doing so and him but out of
such a tantrum as never was.

"And what should bring me to Cheltenham? — No, my
Lord, pray. I prefer the little stool. I do, indeed. — Why
should not poor little me be here with the rest?"

"Why, indeed ?" growled Kilcroney.

"And what has brought you, my Lady, if one may in-
quire?"

"She thought little Denis looked pale!" cried my Lord
and gave a great guffaw.

"You may laugh, Madam," said Kitty, as Mrs. Lafone
tinkled delicately. "There are feelings which only a
mother can understand."

Mistress Lafone was childless.

THE ITALIAN HAT

"One excuse will serve as well as another." My Lord
let himself fall into a chair that creaked threateningly be-
neath his weight.

"Oh, I seek for no excuse," quoth Molly Lafone.
Crouching on the low stool, she had a singular air of as-
tuteness in spite of her fostered childishness. "I never can
understand why people should not tell the truth." She
raised arch eyes toward my Lord, while Kitty sat with the
majesty of an Eastern idol and had not as much as the
quiver of an eyelash.

"I'm here to curry favor with Royalty," she laughed
again sweetly, "like the rest of us !"

The brazenness of it! My Lord guffawed again. He
certainly was in a most unpleasant mood.

"Huthen. I hope you'll be as successful as my Lady
there!"

"Oh! my Lady Kilcroney! "

"Sure isn't it the surprise of her life !" Kilcroney once
more waded heavily in sarcasm. "She hadn't as much as
the faintest notion such a thing could happen to her —
had you, me Lady? She hadn't as much as opened her
mouth for the plum" — it was perhaps the purple artifice
on the table that suggested the simile — "but didn't it drop
into it? It's going to be Lady-in-Waiting she is, in place
of my Lady Flo "

"Oh! my Lord, say you so? Says he right, my dearest
Lady Kilcroney? 'Tis the most splendid, the most mon-
strous, delightful news I've heard this long time. Oh!"
cried Mrs. Lafone, clasping and wringing her hands in
ecstasy. "May not your little Molly rejoice with you?"

"You are vastly disinterested," said Kitty.

Mrs. Lafone gave her tinkling laugh.

"Ah, my Lady ! — Indeed, my Lord, I have said that I am

PAMELA POUNCE

frank. Dearest Lady Kilcroney, I will be frank — if I
could obtain some little post — the teeniest, weeniest little
post at Court "

But Kitty interrupted, bouncing out of her stateliness.

"Pray, Mrs. Lafone, for what post should you consider
yourself qualified about the august person of Our Gra-
cious Queen?"

"Oh ! my Lady Kilcroney, the least little post in all the
world ! Hath not the Queen appointed a plain Miss Bur-
ney readei ? I believe I could very well be reader. Mr.
Lafone says I have a silver tone in iny voice, and our
curate at home once told me "

"Tush, the celebrated Miss Burney hath qualifications,
child, which you in your foolishness fail to appreciate."

"Yet she is but a music teacher's daughter, Madam,"
said Molly with a mighty sigh. She dropped her white
eyelids and turned a green glint on my Lord, and sighed
again. "Or if not actually about Her Majesty — who am
I indeed to aspire to that Presence? — some office about
yourself, dear Lady Kilcroney. I would be your secre-
tary, your Lady-in- Waiting, your devoted attendant !"

"This is folly," cried Kitty. "I am by no means ap-
pointed to my Lady Flo's post, and if I were — well to be
frank with you, Lafone, since you like frankness so much
— you are the last person in the world I should ever be
instrumental in bringing to Court. Heavens !" cried Kitty,
gazing upwards at the low ceiling, as if she saw through it
into the celestial regions. "What discretion, what fault*
less propriety of conduct, what a delicate sense of re-
sponsibility, what a blameless record should be demanded
of one who would enter that circle !"

(It was the glint of her visitor's green eye at my Lord
which gave this stern decision to Kitty's tones.)

THE ITALIAN HAT

Here quite unexpectedly and with admirable effective-
ness large tears rose in Mrs. Lafone's eyes and rolled
down her cheeks without in the least disturbing the pret-r
tines-s of her pointed visage. My Lord cast a glance from
one to the other ; it was lit with a tender sympathy as it
fell on this touching impersonation of grief and kindled
with reproach as it shot to Kitty.

Mrs. Lafone gave a small sob.

"Your sweet lady," she said, now audaciously address-
ing her male champion, "has ever been a friend in need.
'Tis for that, that I have ventured, my Lord, that I have
ventured to come to her to-day, hearing — yes ! I will own
it — I already knew that she was like to be next in the
Queen's choice. I made the journey hither in the hopes —
'tis for no reason of petty vanity, no mere envious ambi-
tion" (thus the minx), "no hankering greed of office —
oh! my Lord, I scarce know why, I have ever been sadly
persecuted. I am the victim of evil tongues ! — My repu-
tation has been assailed!"

"Ha!" said Kitty. The ejaculation leaped from her.

Molly Lafone produced another silver sob. "Quite un-
foundedly, I do assure you! My conscience is spotless,
my Lady Kilcroney, spotless" — she caught Kitty's eye and
went on in a humble voice — "in this instance ! Indeed,
my Lady — but Mr. Lafone — I am sadly maligned, he is

suspicious, he " Here the unfortunate young woman

became quite incoherent in her demonstrations of distress.
She wrung her white hands with extra pathos. Another
large tear flowed and quite a volley of little sobbing, dis-
jointed phrases accompanied it, "domestic happiness — ig-
norance of the world — poor little me, country-bred and
guileless — salvation or despair!"

In the midst, Kitty rose, returning to majesty.

PAMELA POUNCE

"I must put a stop to a scene so useless and so painful.
How is it possible, Madam, you do not see that every word
you utter but marks the impossibility of your request?
Pray, my Lord, see Mistress Lafone to her chair."

"Kitty !" cried Kilcroney, springing to his feet. He
had not thought it of her, to requite these open-hearted
confidences with insult; to turn so trusting and touching
a creature into the street ; a lady — an old friend ! "Pray,
Mistress Lafone, let us be offering you a dish of tea,"
cried he.

There are days when everything goes askew. Kitty's
great footman marched into the room and presented his
mistress with a letter which, he said, had just been brought
by a riding messenger. Kitty took it from the salver with
all the air of one glad of the diversion, but no sooner had
she perused it than she exclaimed in tones of such con-
sternation that my Lord leaned forward and took it out
of her hand. He exclaimed in his turn, but in accents of
pleasure.

"Why, what is this ? Sure, Alanna, there is naught here
to upset you; 'tis the best of good fortune, on the con-
trary! Here's your sweet friend, my Lady Mandeville,
actually at Malvern and proposing to drive over and spend
the day with you to-morrow, bringing her little rogue to
play with ours."

"Oh, this is intolerable 1" cried Kitty ; "this is past bear-
ing! Bid the messenger wait. Good heavens, do I not
hear him riding away? — Call him back, my Lord, call him
back ! On no account must my Lady Mandeville be per-
mitted to visit me to-morrow."

My Lord stood rooted to the spot and the veins on his
forehead swelled. Kitty rushed to the window and hailed
vigorously; the rhythmic footfalls of a horse receding at

THE ITALIAN HAT

slow pace along the cobblestones was, on a sudden, altered
to the clatter of a returning trot.

"Damnation!" cried my Lord. "This passes all!"

Mistress Lafone had stopped the wringing of hands and
the production of tears and was all malicious interest.

Kilcroney had entered into a towering passion. He
protested that it was the most monstrous low thing, that
he forbade my Lady to behave so base to her friend.

"Tare an' 'ounds !" cried he, "if it wasn't ashamed you
were to be enjoying the finest hospitality in the world, the
kindest, the most open-hearted, 'tis not ashamed you
should be to return a thrifle of it! Shame!" ejaculated
Denis. "Shame! 'tis on the other leg. Gad, 'tis the
shameful bit of meanness you'd be practicing and 'tis
ashamed I am of you meself (that I should live to say it !).
Your best friend! And all for what? For what if ye
please? For the favor of them that never as much as
acknowledged your existence. 'Pon me soul, rather than
wound the feelings of that angel upon earth, that fair,
fond, gentle, noble creature" — my Lord's voice cracked —
"I'd see the whole of Windsor, and Kew to boot, tumble
into the Liffey."

Kitty, white under her delicate smears of rouge, sat
down at her writing table with the most sublime air of
offended virtue, but the hand that dipped the pen into the
ink shook, and there were tears in the voice which pres-
ently declared that if ever there was woman maligned by
her own husband, it was my Lady Kilcroney : she who had
not liked to disturb her Lord, but who had nevertheless
noticed a red spot behind their darling little Denis's ear
that very morning; which spot, as every one who was a
mother knew, might very well betoken no less a malady
than the measles, which malady being highly infectious to

PAMELA POUNCE

young children, she, as a mother, now felt it her duty to
put off her cherished Lady Mandevillc and the adored
little Impington to a more auspicious day.

"Spot !" interrupted my Lord with a roar between deri-
sion and wrath, "and "

"Spot?" cooed Mistress Lafone, now letting herself go
openly to insolence. "My dearest Lady Kilcroney, you
are too droll!"

There was contempt written on the countenance of the
pair so odiously conjoined against Kitty; neither of them
being subtle enough to see that my Lady was content with
any excuse, so long as it flung a veil of elegance over her
set purpose.

This incomparable woman recovered herself, rose, sum-
moned Pompey and sent him forth with her letter to my
Lord Mandeville's groom. She watched its delivery
through the window and, having beheld the man start off
again, returned to the center of the room, made in silence
a profound curtsy which included her Lord and her vis-
itor and sailed forth, closing the door carefully behind her.

My Lord let himself fall again into the armchair and
once more this article of furniture protested with ominous
creaks and cracks.

"There's not a stick in the place, bejabers, that isn't as
rotten as pears. 'Pon my word," grumbled Denis Kil-
croney, "I wish the plaguy waters had never been discov-
ered, I do indeed ; 'tis a poor thing when a man's own son
and heir is made a weapon against him, and him but turned
of three. 'Little Denis is pale, and we must to Chelten-
ham. And we'll lie at Lady Mandeville's, which is on our
way, my love' (and it thirty miles out, taking the back and
the forth of it). 'And our little Denis will have a play-
fellow, 'twill be so vastly good for him. Little Impington

THE ITALIAN HAT

and he will be comrades.' And scarce are we settled at
Impington Court with as good entertainment — aye — and
as generous ('tis the cellar of the world my Lord Mande-
ville has, and 'tis as free with it he is — troth as I'd be
meself if my Lady'd let me, and I can give him no finer
character !) — No sooner are we settled, and scarce a cork
drawn ye may say, but 'tis : 'Little Impington is too rough
for our darling Denis. He will teach him ill ways, he will
do him a hurt. And Impington Court is a thought too
low for the child's health. And we must move on to Chel-
tenham, my love, or there will not be a lodging to be had.'
And you should have seen the farewells, the clingings, the
embracings, and the tears, and heard the promises. 'We
shall meet again soon, my dearest, dearest Rachel. I vow
I'll not be parted from the most cherished of my friends.'
And now 'tis : 'Keep away — little Denis hath a spot !' — To
be sure, our dearest Rachel must not cast a blight over
my Lady's Court prospects."

"But why, pray you, why, my Lord Kilcroney, should
my Lady Mandeville cast a blight ? Is she not in the Court
favor?"

Mistress Molly's tones were as insinuating as the fillet
of sweetness that issues from a flute; nevertheless, Denis
starting from his black mood, gave her a sudden odd look.

"Prithee, why, my Lord?"

Kitty was in the right of it. The little jade was as
false as loaded dice! As if every one did not know poor
Rachel's story ; how she had been a Quaker and an actress,
and my Lord Mandeville's mistress before she had been his
wife; and how, save for that one stain, which indeed had
been the fall of a pure woman piteously and devotedly in
love, she had shone in a wicked world, the noblest example
to her sex.

PAMELA POUNCE

Mistress Lafone caught my Lord's look upon her and
deemed it time to depart. Without waiting, therefore, for
his reply to her question, she feigned horror at the lateness
of the hour, and bustled away from the Kilcroney lodg-
ings, malcontent with her visit, the more so that my Lord
Kilcroney brought a wooden countenance and a dry man-
ner to the very hall door.

She went forth down the single street and across the
meadows ; for her rooms were in an out-of-the-way cottage,
far from the fashionable quarter patronized by the well-
to-do. Mrs. Laf one's fortunes were indeed at a low ebb.
Her elderly, niggardly husband had vowed some time ago
that he would pay no more debts for her and he was
keeping his vow. In her efforts at self-extrication, Mis-
tress Molly, not having a scrupulous delicacy of conduct,
had become further considerably entangled. A scandal
threatened which might be the undoing of her. And there
was my Lady Kilcroney not only declining to help her, but
as good as turning her out of the house!

Molly Lafone was sharp of scent as a weasel. It was
unpleasantly clear to her that the irate great lady was
determined to seize the first opportunity of cutting her
altogether ; and when my Lady Kilcroney, leader of society
as she was, cast her off, she would be lost indeed. She
had no thought in her breast, as she walked along the road
between the flat fields, but the longing to pay Kitty out.

The way was deserted. Evening shadows were length-
ening across the mellowness of the sun-steeped plain.
Molly Lafone slackened her pace. Why, indeed, should
she hurry back to the stuffy little room where she could
afford herself no better supper than bread and milk?

Truly, if there are angels who reward the virtuous, there
must be little demons who provide dainties for those who

THE ITALIAN HAT

serve the ways of evil! — There, just at her feet, shining
quite golden in the rays of the setting sun, lay a letter.

It lay so that its superscription was visible and Molly
could hardly believe her eyes when she read in Kitty's
writing the words: "For the hand of My Lady, The
Countess Mandeville."

"The ?areless fellow," said she, "he's dropped it from
his belt as he jogged along. Pshaw, how I hate a clumsy
fool!"

Then she laughed shrilly. "My Lady Mandeville will
never get her Kitty's affectionate answer, nor hear how
little Denis hath a spot, and she will come driving in to-
morrow to hang herself and her tarnished name round
Kitty's neck for all Cheltenham to see, under the nose of
the virtuous Queen Charlotte. That is very well done!"
cried Molly. "That is a very fit punishment for such
base intentions. I am very glad."

And lest any one should be busybody enough to pick
up the dropped letter and forward it to its destination,
which would be a sad interference with the just action of
Providence, Mistress Lafone picked it up herself and
minced it into small pieces as she walked along towards her
cottage lodging. She had quite a good appetite for her
bread and milk that night.

It had been my Lady Kilcroney's intention to keep her
cherished little Denis in his cot for the space of at least
a day, for, indeed, there was more than one red mark on
the satin of his small plump body, and Kitty vowed it was
of a piece with the rest of my Lord's brutality to declare
that those who leave their own homes for the discomforts
of lodgings must expect the occasional flea. But on re-
ceipt of a letter sent round by my Lady Flora's own.

PAMELA POUNCE

woman, she promptly altered her plans and ordered the
protesting cherub to be arrayed in his best robe-coat cov-
ered with fine muslin and his white satin hat with feathers.
My Lord, as soon as his infant's roars had been soothed
by candies, picked up the letter which Kitty had dropped
on the floor in her hurried exit to her bedchamber; and,
while his Lady was alternately pealing at her bell and
shouting for Lydia, without compunction read it.

"My dearest Lady Kilcroney, 'tis all arranged. I con-
sider my freedom well purchased at the price of the rose-
point flounce, and the service to a friend, no less, by the
trimmings to match. Her Majesty received me in her
closet last evening and the matter was settled quick, I
must confess, dearest Kitty, with all the 'veneration9 and
'love' (these words were heavily underlined) that I cherish
for Her August Person, I did feel it hard to find that my
poor feet were represented as the dropsy. Dropsy, my
love. And I but turned of thirty! 'You should have
warned me,' said Her Majesty, 'that you were suffering
from a disease.9 'Ma'am,9 said I, 'if disease there is' — (/
was afraid to deny it, dear Kitty, lest the fetters should
not be struck off my aching ankles) — ' 'twas contracted in
Your Majesty's service.9 And now if my Kilcroney has
a taste for gilded slavery, though there's less gilding than
you would believe, let her be at the entrance of the Pump-
room, to receive Her Majesty at the head of the other
lady visitors, on Her first visit thither this very morning
at eleven o'clock. The gentlemen-in-waiting are inforni'-
ing the other notabilities and Her Majesty is prepared
for the little ceremony which she desires shall have the
appearance of an Impromptu, it being her wish to avoid
state during the Royal Visit and not to be incommoded by

THE ITALIAN HAT

the crowd. If your little Denis 'were to offer a bunch of
roses, it would, I think, please the Queen, who likes to see
ladies occupied of their children and is interested in any
who are about the age of the Princess Amelia. From
what Mrs. Schwellenberg — oh! Kitty, to think of that
toad festooned about with my lace — hath wrote to me
(Thank God we have left the 'frog-fancier' behind at
Windsor!) I understand you can consider the appoint-
ment as good as made "

The letter dropped from Kilcroney's hand. His good-
natured face (for in spite of tantrums he was to the core
a man of good nature) clouded with genuine dismay.
It looked as if the plaguy business, which he had re-
garded in the light of a mere game, was like to turn to
earnest.

Why, in the name of Heaven, a woman with all the
world could give her,* and a devoted husband besides,
should break up her family life for the pleasures of an
annual three months' slavery (Lady Florence had well
named it) passed his comprehension !

"Nay, Lydia," Kitty's voice was uplifted in the other
room, "take back the tabby ; aye and the satin cloak from
Madame Mirabel's. I have thought better of it, child.
Put away the Eglantine new hat with the feathers. I will
wear muslin and the straw. I wish to Heaven," cried Kitty
pettishly, "that there was a milliner in the Kingdom who
could run up a hat to suit a lady's eyelashes or the tilt of
her nose, outside Paris."

"There's the Italian straw we bought last time we was
staying over there at Madame the Duchess's," said Lydia
tentatively, "the same your Ladyship ordered for yourself
to wear at the Feet at Trianon to which the French Queen

PAMELA POUNCE

asked us — and a sweet elegant creature Her Majesty is
with all her fancies for dairies and such — and the thunder-
storm coming on it was the disappointment of the world
and one that I am not like to forget in a hurry! Sure
your Ladyship ain't forgotten it. A plain rice straw with
a ribbon round but with a set to it ! Aye, and trimmed by
my own blood niece, as is apprenticed to Madame Eglan-
tine out of my own poor savings; me being always one
to stand by my family, cost what it do."

"The Italian straw," my lady reflected ; " 'twas mon-
strous thoughtful of you, child, to pack it — La, Lydia 'tis
the very thing — trimmed by your niece did you say ? Nay,
only the genius of Eglantine could twist a bow like that.
Put it on my head. Why 'tis perfect — Aye, I will wear
it. Her Majesty desires simplicity."

"Simplicity, is it?" (Kilcroney groaned.) "God help
us all !"

As Kitty sallied forth, all in vapory white, fresh and
sweet as a privet blossom, her face delicately pink under
the artful shepherdess hat, Pompey following with the
great rose bunch in a bandbox and little Denis trotting
alongside scarlet-cheeked from a triumphant battle royal
over the wearing of gloves, my Lord looked after them with
some melancholy.

"I'll stroll along presently and keep in the background.
I'd not like to be blighting Kitty's prospects after the
fashion of yonder poor Rachel. By all accounts Her
Gracious Majesty Queen Charlotte is no more like to fancy
an Irishman than the unhappy girl who has a mistake to
her name."

Kitty had determined to walk to the Pump-room. 'Twas
scarce a hundred yards away and "squeeze those crisp
flounces into a chair before they had served their pur-

THE ITALIAN HAT

pose? — never!" She had taken but a few steps along the
street when who should cross her but Mrs. Lafone — Molly,
all in the modesty of lilac dimity, with pensiveness, some-
thing even approaching penitence, on her pert face. Kitty
was in a fair humor, and as her little enemy flung her a
deprecating glance of green eyes, actually paused and
smiled.

"Whither away, Lafone?"

"Alas, my Lady Kilcroney, stepping into the Pump-
room anon to drink my glass of the waters, I heard as
how Her Majesty was expected and how you and the other
ladies of note are to receive her on this, her first appear-
ance My Lady Kilcroney, knowing myself so unfit,

feeling myself so out of spirits, I deemed it more becoming
to retire till all was over."

Now Kitty, riding on the top of the wave, was a trifle
intoxicated. It was in a tone of almost royal patronage
that she exclaimed :

"Why should you miss the sight, child? You could
very well find a little place where you could see and not
be seen. Retrace your steps with me."

"Oh! my Lady Kilcroney," cried Molly, with her dra-
matic clasp of the hands, "was there ever any one so truly
benevolent as you are !"

Hanging her head, the little minx started off, a humble
step behind her patroness, and, looking over his shoulder
at her, Denis the younger was fascinated by the wicked
mockery on her face and nearly fell into a puddle for
staring.

There was no excitement in the town, for Her Majesty's
intention was known but to the favored few. The Royal
Family, it was bruited, were still reposing from the
fatigues of their journey. There was, however, a small

PAMELA POUNCE

group of gentlemen about the Pump-room doors in elegant
morning attire, and two or three barouches and as many
chairs were in the very act of depositing their fair burdens
as Lady Kilcroney sailed up. She was just in time, in-
deed, to see Lady Verney — black-browed Susan panting,
flushed, incredibly plumed, hurl herself out of her hired
sedan. At sight of Kitty this personage halted in her
rush forward into the Pump-room.

"You here, dear Kilcroney?" Her voice shook. There
was fury in her eye.

"Even so, dear Verney. Pray, my Lord Courtown, shall
I take my stand on this spot? — Hither with the flowers,
Pompey. My little son is to offer these to Her Majesty;
Colonel Digby, certainly 'twould be a mercy if you would
have the kindness to hold them till the right moment
comes. Such tender years are scarcely to be trusted!
Nay, Denis, lambkin, no more sugar plums till we get home
again, or little pandies would be so sticky. Denis couldn't
give the nosegay to the beautiful Queen. What a pity, my
dearest Susan, you should have made yourself so fine. By
Her Majesty's most express wish, all is to have the ap-
pearance of the simplest impromptu ! Still, my skirts are
fairly wide. If you place yourself behind me —

Place herself behind Kitty! Had her beloved friend
run mad, she that was always so flighty? My Lady Verney
to place herself in the rear, be hidden by another's
flounces, she who had posted day and night, all the way
from Hertfordshire, upon the news of a probable vacancy
about the Queen's person ! Was it possible that Kitty,
with her Irish husband, labeled with such a name, could
fancy that she was like to meet with the Queen's favor?
Susan was sorry for her poor friend. She tossed her

THE ITALIAN HAT

head with a snort. My Lady Verney had something of
>the appearance of a handsome horse.

But stupefaction succeeded indignation when Lord
Courtown, very civilly addressing her, begged her to take
her place with the other ladies in the rear of my Lady
Kilcroney for the Royal party might be expected any
moment.

"Mrs. Tracy, ma'am, as one conversant in these matters
will you stand at my Lady's elbow? (My Lady Kilcroney,
Mrs. Tracy — Her Majesty's Senior Bedchamber Woman,
who is at the Waters on her own account.")

My Lady Verney, biting her lip, stamped heavily on
her neighbor's foot as she shifted her position. Turning
at the low cry, her fierce black eyes met the plaintive
green ones of Mrs. Lafone, who, in spite of her discreet
protestations, had taken as forward a place in the group
as well she could. As a rule, Molly was in no better favor
with Susan Verney than with the rest of the coterie, but at
that moment they shared a sentiment which made them
suddenly and momentarily sympathetic.

"Oh, my Lady Verney," whispered Molly, "did you ever
see any one so sadly cocked up as our poor Kitty? It
frightens me for her, it does, indeed. I fear such pride
must have a fall."

Although Susan could see no sign of this prognostica-
tion being fulfilled, it comforted her nevertheless ; and she
was able to ,bear, with a better equanimity than any who
knew her would have thought possible, the painful spec-
tacle of my Lady Kilcroney's success with the Queen.
Success it indubitably was, though Her Majesty was a
dry woman and not given to displays of affability. It
was evident that she had come prepared to be pleased with
Kitty Kilcroney and that pleased she found herself. And

PAMELA POUNCE

truly, Kitty in her snowy flounces, so charmingly blushing
under her wide-brimmed hat — which was indeed trimmed
by Miss Pamela Pounce — Kitty so daintily maternal with
the sturdy little boy clutching his roses, was as pretty
a picture as any would wish to gaze upon.

The two blooming Princesses exclaimed upon the darling
child, and good-natured Lady Flo was one broad beam
behind "her Royals" back. And if Kitty blushed she had
nevertheless the most elegant ease. Her curtsy was a
model ; the dignified modesty with which she advanced and
then retreated within the due measure of etiquette was
perfect of its kind. And when the incident took place,
which might indeed have proved awkward, of Master Denis'
declining to part with his posy, his mother saved the situa-
tion. "Denis," quoth she — bending but not whispering, all
with a modest assurance that could not have been bettered
by one who had been years at Court — "lambkin, do you
not remember what I bid you? To whom were you to offer
these flowers?"

"To the beautiful Queen," said the child, his great
brown eyes roaming about as if he were seeking — as well
he might, poor innocent! — whom the description might
fit. The Queen, with a flattered smile, herself took the
offering from his chubby fingers.

"Pretty rogue!" said Princess Augusta.

When the other introductions had been gone through it
seemed to be nobody's business to present Mistress Lafone ;
and though the equerries looked tentatively at her and
then at my Lady Kilcroney, nothing could be less re-
sponsive than that usually alert being. So Molly made
an artless curtsy as became her simplicity, and thought,
in her disloyal heart, how frumpish and dowdy Her Maj-
esty looked, and wondered if 'twas Miss Burney who ap-

THE ITALIAN HAT

peared so shortsighted and awkward and timid, with no
more air than nothing at all. And save for the gentlemen
who were very personable and had bright looks about them
as if they might be enjoyable company to a woman of
spirit, there was really naught in this vision of the Court
which would make her, little Molly, yearn for it — a vast
stiffness and dullness indeed ! If it had not been that needs
must when the devil drives she would have snapped her
slender fingers and "thank you," but as matters stood —
the drowning do not pause to contemplate the quality of
the spar flung to them.

Mrs. Lafone looked vindictively at Kitty and then
turned a watchful glance at the door. She wondered how
soon and in what circumstances Kitty's dearest friend, who
was not received at Court, might make her appearance.
However Kitty might strive to hide the visit, Mrs. Lafone
would take care that it should be known of; she had but
to whisper the fact to my Lady Verney and she did not
doubt that the Royal occupants of Fauconberg Hall would
promptly be in possession of the damning fact. Other
people could put spokes in wheels besides my Lady Kil-
croney ; and the more swiftly they were rolling to favor,
the greater might be the upset !

Her Majesty, talking very affably to Kitty, had ad-
vanced toward the counter where the waters were dis-
tributed. Here divers magnates of the town were await-
ing her whom the Comptroller of the Household, my Lord
Courtown, named to her, one after the other. Kitty and
her group of ladies were left thus for the moment outside
the Royal circle of attention. The hall by this time con-
tained a certain number of curious spectators, very re-
spectfully aligned against the walls, for the public of
Cheltenham, genteel, quiet folk, would have died rather

PAMELA POUNCE

than presume on Her Majesty's condescending informal-
ity.

"Pray," said the Queen, to Mr. Clark the town doctor,
"let me have a taste of the water, sir, to drink, which the
King has been sent hither. I ought at least to know," she
added archly, "to what penance he hath been condemned."

She sipped and declared she had expected worse;
Princess Royal and Princess Augusta also sipped, but
they cried out and protested that they were sorry for
dear papa. And while the Royal pleasantries were pro-
ducing the most exquisite if refined mirth throughout the
whole assembly, Mrs. Lafone, who had been agreeably con-
scious that she was the object of considerable interest to
one of the equerries (indeed, he was lifting his quizzing
glass to mark his notice), perceived his glance wander
from herself and become fixed. He dropped his quizzing
glass, the better to see ; a warmth of wondering admira-
tion, prodigious different from the familiar ogle she had
herself evoked, wrote itself on his countenance. But for
the presence of Royalty, she thought he might have ex-
claimed out loud. Molly's glance promptly followed his.
She could hardly believe her eyes. Here was fate playing
her game with a vengeance. Her enemy was delivered into
her hands. Every one knew the face of Rachel Peace!

My Lady Mandeville advanced, clad, like Kitty herself,
in white, but with a flutter of gray ribbons here and there
to mark her Quaker preference. Her delicate pale face
was faintly flushed under the wide brim of her simple
hat. She was not less fair than the pearls at her throat,
not less shining in delicate beauty. She held by the hand
a noble boy, slightly older than little Denis, who marched
as if the place belonged to him and gazed about under

THE ITALIAN HAT

frowning brows as though he wondered who dared occupy
it without his permission.

If Kitty made a charming picture with her little son,
Rachel with the heir of Mandeville, graceful and gracious,
with a lovely tenderness emanating from her, was the very
embodiment of sweet motherhood.

She came across the wide hall with swift step, looking
from right to left, a smile hovering on her lips, her seeking
eyes already lit with fond pleasure. Where was her dear
Kitty? Suddenly she stopped — the smile faded, the light
of the expectant gaze went out, shadow fell upon her
radiance, a flutter as of fear shook her; yet she had but
encountered the gaze of my Lady Verney. Susan Verney,
who was very well acquainted with Rachel Mandeville, who
had indeed tasted of her hospitality, both in town and
in the country, now withered her with a blasting stare of
denegation, a stare which said: "My Lady Mandeville, I
am pure virtue to-day, I do not know you"

The room was all eyes to look at Rachel, and though so
decorous it was all whispers.

The next moment the poor thing saw the Queen and the
Princesses and Kitty Kilcroney white as death and good
Lady Flora scarlet in the face; she saw and understood.
Motionless she strove to rally her courage. She wanted
strength of heart and clearness of mind to do just what
would be right ; Quaker Rachel who had never done wrong
but once ! And for that breathless moment, unknown to
herself, her eyes hung on Kitty's face ; and Kitty's eyelids
were cast down.

The little Viscount Impington tugged at her hand. His
was an impatient spirit.

"Come on, Mamma," cried he, in loud authority; and
at the same moment little Denis O'Hara raised a piping

PAMELA POUNCE

cry: "Imp, Imp, Imp!" and tearing himself from the
maternal clasp, galloped across the room to hurl himself
upon his baby comrade.

The Queen looked at Kitty with an air of profound
surprise and disapproval and Kitty looked back at the
Queen. And her heart rose within her; for, with all her
foibles and fancies, she had a heart.

It led her then to do the noblest act of her whole exist-
ence.

Holding herself very erect and moving with a beautiful
dignity, she slowly backed the length of the room that
divided her from Rachel Mandeville ; and, keeping her
eyes on the Royal face the while, she took her friend by
the hand. Then she stood very upright and waited.
Rachel could do naught else but wait too.

In the dead silence the Queen prepared to take her
departure.

Little Mr. O'Hara and my Lord Impington were begin-
ning to show signs of following up their affectionate greet-
ing with a rough-and-tumble fight and each mother had
to take possession of her child and keep him firmly held ;
but they kept tighter hold of each other still.

The Royal group advanced, the kindly young Princesses
with awed looks, as if they felt how ill things were going
without understanding. When she reached my Lady Kil-
croney and her friend, Queen Charlotte paused and seemed
to hesitate. She cast a strange, troubled glance at the
two young women and Kitty and Rachel fell, still clasping
hands, into a great curtsy. And the question was, which
of the two made it with a nobler grace.

The last of the equerries to follow looked back at the
door, and saw my Ladies Mandeville and Kilcroney em-

THE ITALIAN HAT

bracing and kissing and he thought they were both in
tears.

My Lord Kilcroney had been among those who unob-
trusively joined the spectators in the Pump-room during
the Royal visitation, and, beholding the scene, his own eyes
filled. In the effort to regain his self-control he turned
his dimmed gaze away from the two who enfolded each
other in such affecting and unaffected friendship and it
fell upon Mistress Lafone. As had been a while ago his
son and heir, he was fascinated by the expression on the
small pale visage ; Molly caught his riveted glance, wilted
beneath it, and somehow vanished. Not my Lord Kil-
croney nor any one else could ever as much as guess at her
share in the morning's business ; yet so does conscience
make cowards of us all, as Mr. Shakespeare has it.

My Lord kissed his wife's hand before most respectfully
saluting that of my Lady Mandeville. At sight of him
Kitty mingled laughter with her tears.

"Is it not delightful, Denis," cried she, "that our sweet
Rachel should have had this happy thought? — But, oh,
my dear love, our little rascals are at fisticuffs again!"

"My dear Kitty" wrote Lady Florence that evening,
in a letter brought round from Fauconberg Hall by one
of the pages in waiting, "/ thought you were dished, I did,
•ndeed. And of all the odd tiresome contretemps, my
love — well, I have not time to say even a word of what
I felt. Her Majesty is not fond of audacities and you did,
dearest Kitty, the most audacious deed — well, never mind
again!

" 'Twas your hat did the trick to begin with, my love,
you was always so clever about clothes, Kitty. Sure, it
was the finest inspiration to wear that modest country

PAMELA POUNCE

straw with its plain ribbon. It caught Her Majesty's eye
from the first moment, and that you know means so much.
So modest, sensible and quiet you showed beside poor
Susan! Susan, with that tow-row of feathers on her head!
'Tis she who is dished after all: 'A loud young woman,'
says the Queen to me. 'I do not approve of Lady Verney's
style.' And what must she do on the top of it but present
herself in my parlor at Fauconberg Hall this very after-
noon?— a vast piece of presumption, since the Queen hath
forbidden visitors to all and sundry! — and wants an in-
terview with Her Majesty, to apologize — prithee, Kitty,
think of it!— for Her Majesty's having been exposed to
such a meeting. She, to apologize for the town! She, to
cast her stone at poor Rachel! I have never known my
Royal so angry. 'Are you then not acquainted with my
Lady Mandeville?' she asks of Verney. You should have
seen Susan's face under her red plumes. (7 had taken
good care Her Majesty should know we all were.) To be
brief, Kitty, Verney went forth with her comb considerably
cut, and Her Majesty took a twist in the other direction
and spoke very kind to me; though regretting the inci-
dent, she said she could not find too grave a fault with a
display of loyalty. 'Tell my Lady Kilcroney,' she says,
'that about My Person I appreciate loyalty!' '

Denis Kilcroney heard the contents of this missive with
a grave countenance. Then, looking at his wife's charm-
ing face, all irradiated between the joys of her good con-
science and its unexpected reward, he exclaimed generously
that it was a proud day for the House of O'Hare.
"Though," he added, "the proudest moment of it all was
when I saw you stand by your friend, me darling girl!"

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE IS OBDERED TO PACK

PAMELA POUNCE sat with the bunch of cowslips in
one hand and the lid of the ribbon box in the other ;
she had fallen into a profound muse.

It was the cowslips, though they were but artifice, which
had set her active brain thus suddenly and idly daydream-
ing. They had brought her back with a rush to the old
farm where she had been born and brought up. The
whole surroundings of her exile had vanished. She was
no longer in the big, bare, stuffy, untidy workroom at the
back of Madame Eglantine's celebrated Paris hat shop:
in the center of snippets and straws, feathers, fringes,
flowers and other fashionable fripperies, under the glare of
the skylight, with the patter and gabble of French voices,
the click of scissors, the long-drawn sighs or quick pants
of energetic stitching, the rustle of crumpled silks, in her
ears, and in her nostrils the indescribable atmosphere of
the atelier, as it was called. An apartment hermetically
sealed to the outer airs, save what might penetrate of
them through the opening of its doors, redolent of the
gums of artificial flowers, of last year's and this morning's
succulent cookery — Monsieur Ildefonse, the husband of
Madame Eglantine, liked a point of garlic in most dishes —
and of the faint, sickly scents of hair powder and fine
ladies* perfumes which hung about the whole establish-
ment. There were other odors in the workroom besides,
of which the less said the better. It was little wonder that
Pamela Pounce should now and again feel her splendid

PAMELA POUNCE

vitality slacken; that she should have fined down consid-
erably from a country buxomness since she had joined
Madame Eglantine's staff.

But the bunch of cowslips had brought her away — far
away from it all for a blissful moment.

She was back again at home. The exquisite freshness
of an early summer morning on the Kentish downs en-
compassed her. Her young bosom lifted with ecstasy.
Oh! the breath of England: pungent of the sea, sweet of
the moorland herbs, free from the hills and whispering of
the woods, was there ever anything like it? There was a
fragrance of bread making, too, from mother's oven and a
lovely reek of burning weeds where father was busy over
the potato fields !

Pamela started. A voice, sharp as a penknife, had re-
called her to reality.

"Ah, Meess" — she went by no other name in this French
servitude either from her employer or her sister workers.
It was an unconscious tribute to a certain fine apartness
of character as well as to her British independence. "Ah,
Meess," cried Madame Eglantine, "is this how I find you?
Asleep with your eyes open ! My faith, is this how you
conduct yourself in the thick of the business hours? And
the Marquise who expects that hat by noon !"

Pamela opened her daydreaming eyes full upon the
speaker, gave an inaudible sigh and a small ironic smile.
She did not start or blush or show any sign either of flurry
or vexation at the acrid accent of the rebuke ; she was too
completely mistress of herself for that. Her hand hovered
over the ribbon box ; then with a decisive movement she
nipped a shimmering purple roll and began to draw out
its darkly radiant lengths.

"Purple!" ejaculated Madame Eglantine, surprised into

ORDERED TO PACK

a quite amiable tone, "purple for that blond Marquise
who is not yet twenty ! And she means to wear all white
muslins with lace in floods. Did I not tell you so? That
ribbon I bought for Madame la Gouvernante — it is for
dowagers "

She broke off and stared.

Pamela had twisted and snipped and pinched and the
hat was trimmed in what her famous patronne herself
would have described as "un tour de main" She now held
it up on her balled hand and turned it slowly from side
to side.

"But it is a stroke of genius!" exclaimed the little
Frenchwoman. She hated Pamela, but she was above all
an artist. "No, no, do not touch it again, no one must
touch it! You have a thousand times reason. Blue or
green or pink — any one with the ordinary mind would
have blended me the banal pretty-pretty with those cow-
slips. The Marquise would have been but one of a score
of shepherdesses, no more distinguished than a dragee box
for a baptism! But now "

She paused and waved her hands before the delight of
the mental picture. A small, dusky woman with very
bright eyes and extraordinarily swift movements, she was
like some quick, furry animal of the mouse tribe ; a greater
contrast to the fair, large, composed English girl could
hardly be imagined ; yet on one point these two were singu-
larly akin. Both were geniuses in the same restricted yet
fascinating realm of art.

If there was a creature on earth capable of stepping
straight off into the shoes of Madame Eglantine, first
milliner in the world of Fashion, it was Pamela Pounce, the
British yeoman's daughter!

Perhaps it was this consciousness of her rival's merits

PAMELA POUNCE

which made the Frenchwoman, while too acute of intellect
not to recognize them, regard her clever apprentice with
feelings which approached detestation. Yet she was soon
to find another cause.

"I'd better put in the stitches myself, I suppose,
M'dame?" said Pamela tranquilly. She spoke French
fluently by this time, with a pronounced if not unpleasing
British accentuation. "The young ladies are so fond of
sewing things to death. It's like a hand on pastry," she
went on meditatively, as she bit her thread, and flung a
cool, tantalizing glance at the irate ring of countenances
about her. "You have, or you haven't got it, and no one
to blame."

"That will do, Meess. There is too much conversation
here, Mademoiselle Panache !" Madame hopped spitefully
from Pamela upon the directress, who sitting large, square
and sallow at the center table, dispensing materials, had
permitted herself a gratified smile over the snubbing of
the English girl. For a moment or two there was silence
in the overlighted, underventilated apartment. The sea-
son was early July ; a blazing white sunshine was pouring
down through the casements which their muffed glass but
feebly mitigated.

Then the little angry sharp-toothed mouse that was the
bland, coaxing, fluent Eglantine of the showroom found
a fresh grievance.

"My God, Mademoiselle Anatoline, are you making a
bouquet or tying bristles on a broomstick? And Heaven
pardon me, Mademoiselle Eulalie, but if those hands of

yours have been washed since — since What have you

been doing with those hands, ma file? Blacking the boots
or scratching your head?"

Anatoline, who was large and fat and fair, became an

ORDERED TO PACK

apoplectic purple; and Eulalie, who was the color of a
lemon with hair like a raven's wing, turned a shade more
livid than nature had made her.

There was a titter, beginning sycophantically upon the
lips of Mademoiselle Panache. But Pamela's smooth face,
white where it was not delicately carnation, might have
been that of a handsomely tinted statue. She cut her
thread, tweaked one of the shimmering purple loops, and
once again putting the hat on her clenched hand, gave .;t
a little shake. The creation was complete !

Madame's swift, beady eye rolled in her direction.

"Give yourself the trouble to bring that upstairs to the
showroom, Meess," she ordered. "Madame D'Aimargues
said she would call herself before midday to try it on be-
fore it was sent. I will join you presently and you had
better remain in case there were required an alteration."

"Bien, M'dame," Pamela responded with some alacrity.
She might get a whiff of good open air as she went up the
stairs. There might even be a window ajar in the show-
room. Such a miracle had been known to occur on a very
hot day.

Monsieur Ildefonse, Eglantine's husband, was sitting in
the little glass cage off the back showroom, pompously re-
ferred to as the Bureau. This individual had once been
a very noted personality; no other, actually, than the
French Queen's appointed coiffeur; in consequence sought
after in frenzy by every woman with the smallest pre-
tension to Fashion. Fine ladies had had their heads dressed
at six o'clock in the morning ; nay, even three days before
some special assembly at Court. To be able to say, with
a toss of flying vaporous curls exquisitely redolent of
Poudre a la Marechale: "In effect my dear one, Ildefonse's
last idea, what do you think of it? It is succeeded. Hein?"

PAMELA POUNCE

To be responded to, perchance, with a cry of envy and
despair: "Ildefonse! You managed to get Ildefonse!"
And to know your interlocutor, younger than you per-
haps, and prettier, altogether at a disadvantage. "A posi-
tive frump, my dear !" under less skillful hands. That had
been to reach in verity, the very needlepeak of feminine
triumph, a few years ago!

But star succeeds star ; one Monsieur Charles was Court
twiddler, curler, crimper, frizzer, and general head artist.
For Monsieur Ildefonse had come into heritage and re-
tired. Not a fallen star, therefore, merely astronomically
removed to another hemisphere ! He shone now, though, it
may be added, with a doubtful radiance in a restricted
connubial circle ; in other words, he sat at home and totted
up accounts for his clever, money-making spouse; made
bargains for her with flower manufacturers and mercers
and bullied the stewards of great houses, when Madame la
Duchesse or Madame la Connetable forgot to remember
such insignificances as the settlement of bills.

Unanimously the workgirls adored him, with the single
exception of Pamela; and the relations between Madame
Eglantine and her consort, characterized in public by the
most touching demonstrativeness were regarded as the very
romance of matrimony. But Pamela who had come under
the glance, more often than she cared, of Monsieur Ilde-
fonse's slyly roving eye, had her private opinion.

She shuddered from him as she had shuddered from the
fat, sleek, brown slugs that came out after rain on the
garden walls at home.

As a little girl she would explain : " 'Taint that I'm
afraid, you see, but it makes me creep."

She could have found no better words in which to de-

ORDERED TO PACK

scribe the effect upon her of the fascinating Monsieur
Ildefonse.

There was a midday lull this scorching day, even in
Madame Eglantine's thriving establishment. It was late
season, too, and save for orders like that of the little
Marquise D'Aimargues, for such as were privileged to join
in the pastimes of Royal hay-making and churning, or a
stray wedding order, business was slack and the great
little milliner herself was preparing for that round of the
most noted watering places, with "just a few models" in
her baggage, which was her thrifty fashion of spending the
holidays.

Pamela cast, in passing, a hasty glance between the
green curtains of the Bureau, to assure herself that her
pet aversion was safely employed.

He had removed his wig on account of the heat, and she
turned her eyes quickly away from the spectacle of his
close-cropped, bristling, black head, and the roll of olive
fat at the back of his neck above the embroidered collar
of his blue cloth coat.

The pink, be-padded, be-wreathed, be-gilded, be-mir-
rored, be-draped salons of Madame Eglantine were empty.
Pamela walked slowly into the middle of the front room
and hesitated. Her own charming shape was reflected
from every possible angle. Down below, the whole Place
seemed asleep ; a buzz of flies within and without ; a lazy
footfall on the shady side and a distant rumble empha-
sized the universal drowsiness. When Madame la Mar-
quise's coach came along there would be a prodigious clat-
ter to wake them all up. Pamela knew that she was quite
safe. It's all very well to trim a hat. You never know
what it's like till you've tried it on.

Very deliberately she divested her glossy chestnut hair

PAMELA POUNCE

of its discreet cap; loosened the swelling waves a trifle
more on either side of the firm, rose-tinted ivory of her
face.

"If a dash of powder was for poor girls like me, I
wouldn't be too bad-looking. I'd say that for myself,"
she thought, and firmly set the hat of the Marquise at
the right angle over her radiant brow.

Well, it was a complete success. Like every true artist
she was doubly critical of herself; but Pamela had to
admit that she could find no flaw in her own taste; and
that the wide-brimmed, curving Italian straw with its bold
sweep of purple ribbon and its hanging bunches of cow-
slips was a remarkably fine set-off for the glory of her
amber hair and the audacious brilliance of her complexion.
Without a tinge of envy or discontent she surveyed herself
thoughtfully.

"Upon my word, Pamela Pounce, my girl!" she was
fond of addressing herself mentally, as if it were her
strong reasonable mind to her agreeable body — "you
would have held your own with the best of them if it had
been the fancy of Providence to set you in the aristoc-
racy— Ugh!"

With a piercing scream she started out of her com-
placent reflection.

A horrible, olive-hued, leering face appeared over her
shoulder in the mirror ; a blue-clothed arm stole round her
waist.

Pamela swung herself free, whisked the hat off her head,
ready to use it as a weapon should Monsieur Ildefonse
pursue his advances.

In the dead pause the quick rustle of Madame Eglan-
tine's light summer flounces was heard on the stairs.

Instantly the ex-hairdresser's countenance lost its satyr

ORDERED TO PACK

smile and became composed into its usual mask of smooth
propriety.

"Is that you, mon Agneau rose?" he cooed.

"Yes, yes, it is I, petit rat de mon cceur," she replied.

These endearments having perfunctorily passed between
them, Madame halted on the threshold and sent the glitter
of her swift glance from her spouse to her apprentice.

"I took the liberty of trying on the hat what I've just
trimmed, M'dame," said Pamela then, in her brazen way.

She wasn't going to put it into Monsieur Ildefonse's
power to tell on her behind her back ; or, worse still, to pre-
tend to be shielding her. She knew his slimy ways !

"You do well to call it a liberty," said Madame Ude-
fonse, showing her pointed teeth as if she wanted to bite
Pamela. She was panting a little; and there was a sort
of whiteness about her nostrils that pointed to consider-
able if repressed emotion. "But let it pass. You were
giving your opinion, I presume, my cabbage-stalk?"

"Meess very naturally wished me to admire your ex-
quisite taste, ma tendre biche," he responded. " 'No one,'
says she to me, 'but Madame Eglantine could have made
this inimitable, this absolutely original and distinguished
combination; all the while retaining the stamp of the
most high tone.' "

Monsieur Ildefonse was very glib of tongue.

"A-ah!" said Madame, smiling horribly. "You and
Meess flatter me in your private conversations."

"My charmer, how can I console myself in your absence,

except by " He broke off, for at that moment, with

sounds of pomp, a thunder of hoofs, a crash and a clatter,
the street woke up indeed, as Miss Pounce had prognosti-
cated. And Madame D'Aimargues drove up in her four-
horsed coach.

PAMELA POUNCE

Madame Eglantine cast off her rage, as one may divest
oneself of a garment, to be reassumed at the chosen mo-
ment; Monsieur Ildefonse, with a relieved shrug of his
huge shoulders, began to retire, cat-footed, to his den.

"Remain as you are, Meess," commanded the milliner,
now entirely concentrated on the exigencies of her business.

She shook out her flounces and, summoning the bland
business smile to her features, cast a swift glance at the
nearest mirror before taking two steps to greet her valu-
able patroness.

It was that glance at the mirror which precipitated the
catastrophe. By some counter reflection, Madame Eglan-
tine's jealous eyes caught a vision of Edefonse, her hus-
band, her cabbage, the rat of her heart, pausing in his turn
to cast a final ogle upon the abandoned, the sly, the se-
ductive, the shameless Meess !

Eglantine beheld that ogle. She swallowed her emotion.
She was above all femme d'affaires. Everything must
give way before the profit of the moment. She could wait !

The little Marquise, blond and slim and rouged, ethereal
yet vivid, fluttered in, fanning herself; tried on her hat,
chattered, laughed, approved, exclaimed upon the heat;
and, still fanning herself, departed, leaving on Pamela's
mind the impression of a glittering butterfly, as lovely, as
useless and as impalpable ! You could crush her, thought
the girl, between finger and thumb.

Her serious, lambent gaze had hardly followed the radi-
ant apparition to the door, when the explosion burst forth.

It was all the more devastating for having been with-
held ! Wanton ! Hussy ! Baggage, designing, intriguing
slut! Meess de Malheur! What was Pamela, after all,
but a stray apprentice, and an English one at that, flung
upon her, Madame Eglantine's, benevolence for the sake of

ORDERED TO PACK

old friendship! A beggar too, living on her charity!
Cette Lydie, how she had haggled! — But if such wicked-
ness had been paid in all the gold of England, Madame
Eglantine would not have kept her, to the destruction of
her domestic happiness!

"Meess, you pack this day!"

She added a further flood of vituperation, to which
Pamela, all her pretty carnations dead on her white cheeks,
listened in a fixed silence.

When the French woman had run herself out of breath
on a high scream, Pamela answered her in English, which
the whilom Bath milliner spoke brokenly, but understood
perfectly. "That'll do, M'dame. I'm as pleased to get
out of this place as ever you can be to see the back of me.
As for that fat husband of yours, I wouldn't touch him
with a pair of tongs. And as for yourself, I'd not remain
a moment longer than I can help with one as doesn't
know the meaning of truth and would take an honest girl's
character away out of pure spite and malice. And don't
you dare," pursued Pamela, with a swelling voice, "say
anything against my character, or as sure as there is
justice in heaven, I'll bring your business about your
ears. I'll tell that old cat, my Aunt Lydia, what's hap-
pened, that you caught your horrid old Ildefonse ogling
me in the glass, and that you haven't that trust in him —
and sure, I'm with you there, for he ain't fit to be trusted
the length of your apron and so I tell you fair — you
haven't that trust in him that you could have another
moment of peace with me under your roof. God help you,
I don't blame you ! Give me the price of my ticket home
and I'll see Aunt don't get at you over the indenture."

For all her courage, for all the longing which the thought

PAMELA POUNCE

of England brought her, the heart of Pamela Pounce was
heavy as lead. She knew that at the Kentish farm things
were going badly with the yeoman; she knew that she
dared not add the burden of her penniless self to that
which rested on his shoulders. She knew that, odious as
it would be, and abominably as her relative would abuse of
the situation, there would be nothing for it, but to throw
herself again on her Aunt Lydia's family feeling, as soon
as the Dover coach landed her in London town.

Her aunt was now with her mistress in Hertford Street,
back from the Wells, according to the latest reports ; that
was one bit of luck ; and another was, that judging by the
tone of the letter just received by Madame Eglantine with
an order for hats, my Lady Kilcroney's maid was in the
highest exultation over her mistress's Royal promotion!

CHAPTER in

IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE, THE MILLINER'S ASSISTANT,
BECOMES ARBITER OP LIFE AND DEATH IN HIGH SO-
CIETY

" TT^RAY, Mrs. Tabbishaw," wrote my Lady Kilcroney's
JL woman to the Mantuamaker in Cheapside, "send
Pamela along with those white feathers of her Ladyship's,
which you has, this ever so long, to be died blew, yours
obleeged,

"Lydia Pounce."

Now the fact of Pamela's being Lydia's niece did not en-
dear her to that maturing damsel ; "which," she was fond
of remarking to any beholding them together, "do seem
prodigious absurd, seeing as how there's scarce a year or
two betwixt us."

But if Miss Lydia was not fond of displaying herself in
public with a fine, strapping young woman of twenty-three
who had an inconsiderate way of dropping out "Aunt" at
every second word ("which, reely, my dear, I vow she does
a-purpose" — and perhaps indeed she did), my Lady Kil-
croney's indispensable Abigail, as she never omitted in-
forming all and sundry, had a remarkable sense of family
duty. She had placed the inconvenient niece with the
matchless Eglantine. With such a start in life, she con-
sidered the girl's fortune made. And if Paris were to
become the stable abode of so much bloom and bumptious-
ness, she, for one, would continue to bear the separation
with fortitude.

PAMELA POUNCE

When,' after three years' absence, however, Pamela re-
appeared on the scene, extraordinarily Frenchified, un-
conscionably beautified, and quite unpardonably wide-
awake, having quarreled to the death with Madame
Eglantine, and possessing, to boot, only the clothes on her
back and the price of her ticket, Miss Lydia Pounce was
very justly annoyed. It was quite impossible to send the
girl home, since bankruptcy threatened the Kentish farm.
Once again Lydia's fine conception of family obligation
came to the fore. There was Mrs. Tabbishaw, at whose
second-rate establishment in Cheapside the elder Miss
Pounce had been in the habit of having such odd jobs done
for her Ladyship as the dyeing and recurling of feathers,
the cleaning and mending of unimportant laces, the quilt-
ing of winter petticoats! Mrs. Tabbishaw owed her a
good turn ; and if she would now make room for Pamela,
give her her board and just enough wage for her clothes,
Lydia would see to it that her mistress should go as far
as to purchase an occasional hat.

Pamela had no choice but to fall in with her aunt's
arrangements, for had not Madame Eglantine sworn that
she would give her no character? (As if, indeed, it had
been her fault that that odious Monsieur Ildefonse should
take to ogling her behind Madame's back, and her staring
into the mirror!) She knew very well, however, that she
was sadly wasted at the poor, unmodish place; and, in-
deed, since Mrs. Tabbishaw was too stupid to realize the
treasure that had come her way, the younger Miss Pounce
was forthwith turned into a maid-of-all-work. Her long,
clever fingers were set to scrub and to cook, to pink or to
quilt, or to whatever odd job pressed the most. She was
kept running to and fro with parcels, and up and down
stairs on messages. She was sent galloping to shops and

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

warehouses to match ribbons and velvets ; and all the while
the wives and daughters of the city went on purchasing
the modes of the year before last, as interpreted by vulgar
minds, while spirit, delicacy, art, dash, millinery genius in
fine, was actually within their reach! Not that Pamela
Pounce had any desire to adorn them. Her aspirations
flew very high. Some day she meant to be as great in
her line as Eglantine herself ; to exercise her talents upon
heads as worth while as my Lady Kilcroney's own.

"You're jealous of me, you cat!" It was thus she apos-
trophized the worthy Aunt Lydia in the solitude of her
attic chamber. "You're jealous of me. You know you're
an old maid and peevish, and I'm only twenty-three and
better-looking than you ever were in your life, with twice
your wits, though yours are as sharp as your elbows.
You think I'd take the shine out of you, you lemon-faced
thing ! You know I'd toss up a bit of lace and feather for
your Ladyship's boudoir cap, and that her Ladyship would
nigh faint with the ecstasy of it when she saw herself in
the glass! And a sweet pretty creature she is — the one
glimpse I ever had of her, and that through the door, you
mean thing ! Ah, give me a chance, and I swear the sedans
and the carriages would be blocking the streets to get at
me ! But not if you can help it, old Miss Pounce ! You're
to be the only important Miss Pounce in this world ; that's
your little game ! But 'tis not for nothing I've got it all
in me!"

And hugging her knees as she sat on her bed — the chair
being too rickety to bear her fine proportions — Miss
Pounce the younger would map out her future in glorious
processions of feathers and headdresses, hats and bonnets,
wreaths and negligees.

Through all the hardships, the dreary daily grind, the

PAMELA POUNCE

unkindness and the unremitting exertions, her star shone
upon her with a light that never wavered. The first winter
was a trying one, and Pamela found London, after Paris,
a cruel, ugly place, a cruel cold one, and a cruel hard
one. When the summer came, existence might be easier,
but the hours were longer with the daylight; and there
were nights when even Pamela's high heart gave way and
she would drop on her pallet bed almost too exhausted to
sleep. She had grown thin, and there was a certain fierce-
ness in the fire of her bright gray eyes, as they looked on
all humanity as an enemy, by that July 16, 1789, when
my Lady Kilcroney's woman wrote for the "blew feathers."

"Oh, drat!" said Mrs. Tabbishaw.

She was just sitting down to her dinner at three o'clock
in the afternoon of a torrid day. The reek of roast duck
and sage and onions was succulently in the air, and there
was a tankard of porter foaming and winking amber bub-
bles beside her plate already.

"Drat!" Mrs. Tabbishaw took a gulp of the porter
and waddled to the door to scream : "Those blue feathers,
where the deuce were they put? Pamela! Pamela! I
say, where is that girl? My chest is wore out screeching
for her. Where's Pamela, Miss Trotter, dear?"

"Just a-setting down to bread-and-cheese in the scul-
lery," screamed a thin voice from the countinghouse.

"Setting down ! It's like her impidence ! Send for her
this moment, Miss Trotter. Tell her she's got to take my
Lady Kilcroney's blue feathers to Hertford Street this
very minute. Tell her it's pressing, Miss Trotter. And
stay, look out my lady's bill, which Miss Pounce promised
me to have settled this while back, and it twelve pound odd.
Tell the chit to ask her aunt for it. I'm none too fond of
letting fine ladies' bills run up, and it all for odds and

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

ends that are scarce worth my doing. And, hark ye, tell
her she'll have to hurry back too, with that pinking to
finish to-night for Mrs. Alderman Gruntle's cradle and
her eleventh due any time."

"For mercy's sake, Aunt Lydia," said Pamela Pounce,
as, much to that damsel's surprise and annoyance, she was
ushered in upon her by Pompey, the black page. "Give
me a bit of bread-and-butter, and a drink of Bohea, for I
declare to Heaven I'm starving. And I've brought you
the feathers. And they're dyed a dreadful blue, I think;
but once you give anything over to Mrs. Tabbishaw you
get the mark of her paw upon it, and so I tell you."

" 'Twould be well if she put the mark of her paw upon
you, miss, for your impidence. Bread-and-butter, quotha !
And I'm sure 'tis a good thing if you are a trifle fined
down from the gross size you was when you came back
from Paris. 'Dear me,' says my Lord's new man to me,
when he caught sight of you, 'that's a prize one! She'd
make ten of you,' he says; and him so genteel, I blushed
to hear him."

"Oh, that fellow!" Pounce the younger tossed her
head ; "waylaying me on the stairs to say I couldn't be a
Pounce, being so — well, so vastly different from you, Aunt
Lydia. And begging to see me home ; as if I'd let him — a
valet, indeed!"

"Upon my word !" Lydia's faded, sallow pretty coun-
tenance went a trifle more sallow, and looked considerably
less pretty. "Who's to talk of impidence, I'd like to
know? And what do you expect, miss?"

"Somebody considerably less like stripes and buttons.
If I don't get a gentleman one day, Aunt "

"A gentleman ? La, hear her !"

PAMELA POUNCE

"I'll go single, like yourself."

Pamela's full, light gray eyes became abstracted. Anon,
as she turned in at the area railings, a young gentleman
had dashed by her up the steps, and had set the knocker
thundering against the panels of the hall door. As she
had looked up, he had looked down at her; and then he
had smiled and made a little gesture towards his hat,
which, if not the courtesy he would have paid to one of
his own class, was nevertheless a genial, pleasant salute.
She thought she had never seen so handsome a counte-
nance; Come under the gaze of such flashing dark eyes.
There would be a lad for one who was lucky enough to be
able to go in at the front door !

"And, indeed, miss "

Lydia wheeled round, and perceiving Pompey lingering,
all one grin, tweaked his wool.

"How dare you, you little blackamoor ! What are you
doing here?"

"He's waiting for orders to get me a cup of chocolate
and a bit of cake, aren't you, Pompey?" cried the quite
audacious Pamela. "I'm sure my Lady'll never miss it.
And as soon as I've got it to give, I'll give you a crown-
piece, Pompey."

She laughed at the little boy, and when Pamela Pounce
laughed she was something to look on ; for her wide, fresh
mouth curled so deliciously and the corners of it went up
so gayly, and she had such fine, white, even teeth ; and as
the dimples came and went, she gained such adorable little
lines of fun about half-shut eyes and the most engaging
little crinkle in her cocked nose !

"La!" Mrs. Tabbishaw's slavey cast herself into her
aunt's armchair, untied the ribbons of her wide straw hat,
and flung it on the table. She ran her long fingers, sur-

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

prisingly white, in spite of their toil, through the rough-
ened curls of her chestnut hair, stretched her long legs
luxuriously and contemplated the dust on her shabby
shoes. "Thought I should have dropped, I did," she cried,
"when I come into Shepherd's Market — three big feathers
and two little ones, Aunt Lydia ! And, la ! the blue ! 'Tis
the peacockest vile color, I ever — and, oh, here's my Lady's
bill ! And old Tabby must have it paid. She's all swears
and spits, and fur flying about it, as it is. 'Get your aunt
to pay,' she says, 'for her beggarly odds and ends that
don't bring an honest body a bit of worth while,' and oh,"
she yawned outrageously, "I'm to hurry back no less for
Mrs. Alderman Gruntle's eleventh is waiting on my
pinking."

"My Lady's account!" Lydia snatched the written
sheet from her niece's hand. "Of all the — there, that's
what comes o' dealing with them second-class shops. Mrs.
Tabbishaw thinks my Lady can be treated like one of her
City bodies, I declare."

"I'm not to go back without the money," said Pamela.

"Dear, to be sure ! And my Lady so put about as never.
What with her new hat being such a failure, and her out
of sorts too, over her gown for the birthday, she about
to take up her first turn as Lady-in-Waiting into the
bargain — Court friends being that spiteful — and my Lord
having the ill luck at White's and Bellairs' young nephew,
Mr. Jocelyn, an audacious, gaming, young rascal, if ever
I see one, as set on the dice as my Lord, and him but a
beggar, so to speak ! And my Lady paying his passage
back to India twice over, to my certain knowledge, and
him losing it on the green cloth within the hour! Well,
my Lady's done with him, that's one good thing. 'Tain't
the moment for Tabbishaw, and so I tell you !"

PAMELA POUNCE

"Why, la!" Pamela had a graceful, lazy mockery in
her eye and voice which, however ill-placed in one of her
humble station, somehow became her. "My Lord must have
been, indeed, uncommon out of luck if my Lady Kilcroney,
her as every one knows is a-rolling in old Bellairs' money,
can't pay twelve sovereigns to a poor shop in the City!
But give me back the bill, aunt, and I'll tell Mrs. Tab-
bishaw she's got to wait till my Lord casts a better tot."

Lady Kilcroney's maid gazed at her audacious relative
as if deprived of speech. Nevertheless, in all her wrath
there was a certain grudging admiration.

"The girl's as insolent as if she'd been born a lady !"

The thought flashed across her mind as she whisked
through the door, brandishing the account. On the
threshold the power of language returned to her.

"As if twelve sovereigns wasn't as so many farthings
to one of my Lady's wealth!"

Here she nearly cannoned against Pompey with a tray,
and, bidding him wait to be dealt with till his hands were
empty of chocolate, disappeared, objurgating, down the
passage.

Pamela was halfway through her second cup of choco-
late, vastly refreshed and comforted by it and the agree-
able little cakes which had accompanied it, when her rela-
tive returned, with a red spot on either cheek bone, her
nostrils dilated over panting breaths. She had all the air
of one who emerges from a wrestle. The light of battle
was still in her eye, but of battle victorious.

"Here, miss," she cried, "thirteen sovereigns to settle
your Tabbishaw, and milady says you can keep the change.
Gave me all sorts, she did, being, as who should know
better than I, from early morning, my dear, in as peevish
a temper as ever was. And what she can be in that line,"

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

said Lydia, turning up her eyes, "you'd never believe if
you hadn't seen, the world being made up of Diddumses.
There wasn't an item along here she didn't have her scratch
at, and in the end, she says : 'For Heaven's sake stop talk-
ing!' (That's how poor servants is treated.)

" 'You'll have me reeling in the head,' she says. 'Take
thirteen sovereigns from my purse, and get out of my
room and don't let me hear another word of that there
maddening bill!' And so you can keep the change, my
love. And, if you'd believe it, just out of cussedness, the
young gentleman what's annoyed her so prodigious has
the boldness to come knocking at our hall door and de-
manding urgent, through Mr. Blandfoot, the butler, a few
moments' conversation with her Ladyship. My Lady hav-
ing given orders that he was not to be admitted, the
scamp sends for the butler — well, that's about dished him,
I can tell you!

" 'Tell him, Blandfoot,' says my Lady, 'that I don't
give alms at the door. Tell him,' she says, 'to go and
earn his living. I don't hold,' she says, 'with able-bodied
beggars !' "

"Oh," said Pamela, her thoughts flying back with com-
passion to the dashing young gentleman, "what a cruel,
wicked thing to say. 'Tis insulting misfortune."

"Insulting fiddlesticks ! Here, hasten, you baggage, or
you'll lose your good place, and I've had enough of you
for one day, I can tell you that."

"And what a darling, sweet auntie you are!" said the
second Miss Pounce, as she tied on her shepherdess hat
with knowing little peeps at the mirror. " 'Tain't any
wonder I love you. Ta-ta."

She dropped the sovereigns into her worn reticule,

PAMELA POUNCE

kissed her hand from the door in sarcastic farewell, and
departed.

With fourteen shillings and twopence to the good in her
pocket, Pamela felt a singular sense of independence. In-
stead of hurrying back into the heat, crowd, and toil of
Cheapside, she turned her steps towards Hyde Park, the
green boughs of which seemed to beckon to her from the
top of the street.

"I'll go and sit under the trees," thought the girl. "An
idea for a hat has come into my mind, and I'll work it out
and let Mrs. Alderman Gruntle and her cradle and the
pinking go to the deuce."

She found a retired spot in the shade; and, the turf
being dry and inviting, stretched herself luxuriously at
full length to stare upwards at the odd little triangles and
stars of blue sky visible through the interlacing leaves
above her.

Composing her hat with the zest of a poet his verses, she
lay at ease, in great content, when she was startled by
the sound of rapid footsteps on the sward.

She sat up and beheld a young man, a very fine and
modish-looking young gentleman, indeed, who advanced
with great strides, brought himself to a sudden halt within
the shady little dell, and casting swift looks from side to
side, as if to make sure he was not observe^ flung his hat
on the ground and stood staring.

Pamela, shielded from observation by a clump of bushes,
watched with a sudden and inexplicable feeling of appre-
hension, which grew as she caught sight of a drawn coun-
tenance, deathly pale.

"For sure," thought she, "the poor gentleman's des-
perate !"

The next instant she sprang to her feet with a scream ;

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

he had drawn a pistol from his breast pocket and, with an
odd jerk, almost as if forced by some malevolent power
which he could not withstand, raised it to his temple.

Pamela was one of those rare beings in whom swift wits
unite with swift action. She hurled herself upon the
would-be suicide and wrenched the weapon from his hand.
For a strange moment they stood facing each other, eye
into eye. It seemed to her as if the whole world held
nothing but those mad eyes of his, dilated, starting,
haunted; the pupils were contracting and expanding in
the violet irises as with some dreadful pulse of his heart.
Suddenly his whole being relaxed ; he smiled.

"Good heavens !" she cried, " 'tis the young gentleman
on the doorstep 1"

"And you," said he, "are the young lady in the area.
If the next world's as odd as this, 'twill be a vastly comic
place."

"Oh!" cried Pamela, who did not at all like this refer-
ence to Eternity.

Still less did she like the manner in which he put out
his hand towards the pistol.

"By your leave, my dear. My property, I believe?"

She strove to avoid his grasp; she fought to keep the
weapon in her hand. "Why, what farce is this?" he ex-
claimed, laughing. "What do you imagine, my good girl?

May not an actor practice his greatest scene without ?

Why, what prodigious nonsense have you got into your
pretty head? The thing's not even loaded!"

"Ah, but what did you say yourself just now?"

She was a vigorous, creature, and terror lent her
strength. She remained in possession of the dangerous
implement.

"What did I say? I merely tried the effect of my most

PAMELA POUNCE

telling speech upon you — with fine result. If my public
are as impressionable "

Once more he stretched out his hand, but, leaping from
him, the girl raised the pistol, aimed at the nearest bush,
pulled the trigger, and fired.

As the reverberations died away she turned a face,
drained of color but triumphant, upon him.

"So much for your story, Mr. Actor!" cried she.

"Why, you're too quick for me!" he answered, and,
with a moody change, thrust his hands into his pockets
and began to pace the dell backward and forward before
her, kicking his hat each time he passed it.

She thought that he was no more than a boy, for all his
manly growth, and her heart went out to him.

"Here, give me the pistol," he said. "Tush, child, 'tis
safe enough for the moment. We'll be having the park-
keeper upon us to see who's been murdered. Let us look
innocent."

"Oh, oh," she shuddered, "if I had not been here !"

"Nay, my dear, I'm in no mood to thank you, I protest.
Yet 'tis something to have had a vision of a pretty face
and a kind, womanly spirit at the last."

"There you go again, sir !"

She surrendered the smoking pistol, and, as he slipped
it into his pocket:

"Farewell, my dear," said he.

"Ah, no !" She clutched his arm by both hands. "You
shall not go till you have promised me — promised me on
your honor as a gentleman to spare yourself."

"I could do that, on my honor," he answered her ; "but
I will not quibble before such true eyes. Nevertheless,
it is to spare myself that I. seek death. You bid
me, on my honor. 'Tis because I cannot live dishonored

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

that I hold this pistol to my temples. 'Tis not that I
don't love life as well as another man, or better. 'Fore
Heaven, it is because I have loved life too well. Had I
as much as a guinea in my pocket I would have defied
Fate. When I stood on those steps and rapped that
knocker a while ago, I swear I had as little thought of
blowing my brains out as you had. When you and I
smiled at each other I thought this world a very good
place, I do assure you. That woman in her fine house
yonder, rolling in luxury, with her lap dog and her choco-
late and her black page, her jewels and her laces, her
silks and her satins, all in her cushions ; that woman, I
say, who finds the Bellairs' money of so vast a use to
spend, might have given me a ten-pound note out of her
store. When all's said and done, I'm the only Bellairs
left. And, if but a nephew-in-law, nevertheless the last
kin of her old nabob. Ten pounds I asked of her — that
contemptible sum! And what did I receive? The vilest
insult, through the most insulting medium. Odds my life,
when I think of it "

He clenched his hands.

Pamela stood, reflecting profoundly, one needle-marked
finger to her lip, her white brow drawn together under
the shade of her hat.

Ten pounds to save a man's honor. It seemed indeed
a strangely small sum! As if he read her thought, he
broke forth.

"I dreamt last night, three times over, that I tossed a
double six at tric-trac, and 'tis the 16th of July and
I am twenty-six! My Lord Sanquhar promised to give
me my revenge at the Six Bells at six of the clock. 'Twas
such a conjunction of luck as could not fail. I would
have won back my I.O.U.'s. I would have returned my

PAMELA POUNCE

Lady Kilcroney the passage money to India. She wants
to ship me to India, my dear, the inconvenient poor rela-
tion! Ah, she need not fear! I shall beg from her no
more. What a farce it has all been! 'Tis time to put
an end to it. Bless you for your sweet looks, my pretty
child. Think of me only as one who, after life's fitful
fever, sleeps well. Aha! I shall sleep better I daresay,
than my Lady Kilcroney when she has read the letter I
sent to her anon !"

"One moment, Mr. Bellairs — since that's your name,"
said Pamela Pounce, with her wide, lovely smile. She
dived into her reticule, and began to gather the coins
together with counting digits. "If you'll condescend to
borrow of a person who goes in by the area gates, here
are thirteen sovereigns at your service. I've just had a
long bill paid me. And, oh," cried Pamela, suddenly and
unexpectedly bursting into tears, "I wish they were three
hundred !"

"Gracious heavens !" said the young gentleman.

"If you don't take them I'll never know another happy
moment," sobbed Pamela. "Oh, how could I? Oh, sir,
don't say 'No,' because I am just a poor girl."

"Nay, then. I won't say 'No.' Upon my soul, I don't
care if you go in at the coal hole, you've the finest spirit
and the prettiest face, aye, and the warmest heart I've ever
met in woman."

He held out his hand, and she put the money into it.
He hesitated then, and looked at her ; and perhaps because
of some warning that flashed through her wet eyes, or per-
haps because of some innate spring of good breeding in
him, he only kissed the hand that had been strong to
save him.

"Pray, what o'clock is it?" He struck his waistcoat,

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

where a black ribbon made pretense for a missing watch.
"My timepiece has gone the way of most of my pos-

sessions.
tt

'Tis past five," she said, "by the shadows."

The country girl had not forgotten her lore.

"Past five," cried he, "and I due at the Six Bells ! If
you will move a step, my dear, I will pick up my hat."

"Allow me, sir," said she. "Hats are my business."

She lifted the felt from the grass, dusted it with her
arm, pushed out the dent where he had kicked it, and gave
each corner a perfectly unnecessary twist.

"I'm in the millinery," said she, as she handed it to him.

"I thought there was something remarkably elegant
about your headgear," he observed. "And pray oblige me
with your address, that I may know where to return my
loan, for the conviction grows in me that I am destined to
win and to live."

She knew that sense of victory ; it was akin to the con-
victions of her own confident soul; but while she smiled
she pondered. Then she said demurely:

"My name is Pamela Pounce, sir. If you will inquire
for me care of my aunt, Miss Lydia Pounce, own woman
to my Lady Kilcroney, 'twill be the safest address."

He gave her a quaint look, bowed profoundly, and hur-
ried away.

"The safest address," he murmured, as he went. "Ah
Pamela, you're one of the wise virgins !"

Then he laughed.

"Farce did I call it! And! I set for the blackest
tragedy! Nay, 'tis a mighty delicate comedy, and we're
but at the first act of it."

Pamela stood gazing after the retreating figure.

"Now," said she to herself, "I have the choice of three

PAMELA POUNCE

roads. I must go — to Bridewell, to the river, or to Aunt
Lydia. It had better be to Aunt Lydia."

"Stripes and buttons," who had not forgotten how the
younger Miss Pounce had snubbed him on their first meet-
ing, informed her that she might "hunt up the old girl for
herself"; her Ladyship having gone out, her Ladyship's
woman, if not in her own apartment, might be found in
her Ladyship's chamber.

And here indeed, with a not altogether comfortably
beating heart, Pamela confronted her aunt.

Lydia stared, as if beholding a ghost.

"La, whatever's to do?"

"The money's gone," said Pamela with great firmness.

She had made up her mind from the first that nothing
should induce her to betray either the unfortunate young
gentleman or her own rash interference with his concern.

"Gone? Gone, miss?"

Pamela opened her reticule, mutely took out from it a
vinaigrette, three pennies, a sixpence, and a pocket hand-
kerchief, and showed the remaining vacuum to Lydia's
horrified eyes.

"But how in the name of goodness could such a thing
happen ?"

"You lend me the money, aunt, and I'll pay you back
faithful, and I'll trim you all your hats for three years
for nothing into the bargain."

But with an action of little bony hands which typified
her patronymic, Miss Pounce seized the reticule from her
niece. She shook it, and tested it ; she held it up to the
light, she pulled its lining out. Then she tried the clasp,
which fastened with a snap as uncompromising as that
which now closed her own tight jaws.

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Still, without speaking, she looked volumes at the milli-
ner's assistant.

"I declare as I'm a living woman, aunt," asseverated the
sinner, "that I have no more notion what's become of the
gold than you have yourself. And all I can tell you
is" — hen courage rose with the sense of this perfect
adherence to the truth — "that as I left this house it was
jingling in that bag, and when last I looked there wasn't
one left. And if you don't come to my aid — why, you know
what Madam Tabbishaw is? She'll always say I stole
them. Come, you'll lend me the money, I know you will,
for father's sake, and the name's sake. We Pounces ain't
never been called thieves, aunt."

Her voice shook, for suddenly the word stung her, un-
repentant though she remained.

"Lend you !" Miss Lydia let herself fall into my Lady's
own rosy-cushioned chair and broke into piercing remon-
strance.

How in the name of goodness was she to find such a
sum? Did Pamela think she was made of gold? Here
was a return for all her kindness ! A girl who was so
wickedly careless — likely to keep her promises, indeed !
She that ought to be racking her brains to pay back her
dear auntie for all her sacrifices.

"Thirty pounds, miss, it cost me to send you to Paris,
and you to be so unprincipled as to let Madame Eglan-
tine's husband take to ogling you! And it's paying me
back you ought to be, instead of having the brazenness to
ask me for thirteen pounds. And indeed, miss, it's not
thirteen pounds I'll give you ; no, not a farthing more than
the sum of the bill. You that might have had fourteen
and tuppence all for yourself!"

PAMELA POUNCE

She suddenly broke off, sat up straight, and pointed a
finger at her niece with a sharp throw.

"Where did you go to, miss, when you left this house?
Straight, now ! What? You went and sat under the trees
in the Park? Upon my word, I never! And how long
might you have been a-sitting there? You don't know.
Better and better. You went to sleep, miss, with that
there bag full of gold. Oh, you "

Pamela drooped her head, receiving the indictment as
with the humility of a guilty conscience, though she was
considerably relieved by the solution which the older Miss
Pounce had found for herself.

Suddenly Lydia bounced out of her seat.

"Mercy on us, here's my Lady !" cried she. And then,
with a scream : "Mercy on us !" she cried again. "What
in the world has happened?"

Pamela stared. My Lady Kilcroney it was certainly,
to judge by a fine feathered hat and a delicate flutter of
muslins, but a vastly different Lady Kilcroney from the
charming, happy little lady of Pamela's remembrance. A
small figure with a stricken face crawled into the room,
and, as Lydia rushed forward, nearly swooned against her.

"My Lady, my Lady, what is it?" cried the maid in
genuine concern, guiding her mistress's form to the chair
she had herself but just vacated.

"Oh, oh, oh!" moaned my Lady. "Oh, in the name of
Heaven, send for my Lord! Oh, Lydia, the letter, the
letter !"

Both women then saw that in a little gloved hand my
Lady Kilcroney was clutching an open sheet. Lydia
took it into her own grasp and glanced at it.

"Mercy on us !" then cried she for the third time.
"That dratted young man you've been so good to ! Well,

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

if ever was anything so ungrateful! To go and put an
end to himself, just to spite you ! Never you take on, my
Lady, he's no great loss, I protest. A good riddance,
say I."

"Oh, oh, oh!" Kitty Kilcroney sat up and wrung her
hands. "Was ever any woman so punished for a fit of
temper? Oh, Lydia! Oh! I shall never smile again!
'Twas my Lord being so late in yester-even from
White's, mad-stupid with his losses. And, oh, the night I
had trying to show him the error of his ways and the vast
folly of not letting bad be, when the luck's against him!
And him going off in a huff, God knows where, before I'd
as much as swallowed my chocolate ! And Madame Mira-
bel's hat coming on the top of it, and it is a sight to
frighten the crows after all my trouble! And my gown
for Her Majesty's birthday, the wrong yellow and no time
to get another ! And for the wretched boy to come to me
then, with his horrid tale of the dice and the cards, as bad
as my Lord's own, him, without a farthing but my bounty !
Oh, oh, 'twas true I insulted him! What's that you say?
Who are you, pray?"

She had dropped her cries of anguish to speak with the
irritability of the afflicted.

"I am your woman Lydia's niece."

Pamela went down on her knees before the distracted
lady, and spoke very gently and deliberately as to a child ;
the while she spoke Kitty's eyes widened on her smiling
countenance as if they beheld an angel's.

"Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs has not committed suicide, my
Lady Kilcroney, nor will he do so because I took the pistol
out of his grasp. Yes, my Lady, I, with these hands. And
I gave him the thirteen pounds you sent me to pay Mrs.
Tabbishaw's bill. Thirteen pounds ! And he went away

PAMELA POUNCE

to gamble with them at the Six Bells, and he was quite
sure that he was going to win all his money back from
Lord Sanquhar with the help of them, and I am quite sure,
too, for him. Says he, 'My luck is turned.' And "

She was interrupted.

"And that's what happened to my Lady's money. Oh,
you deceitful wretch ! Oh, you vile young thief !"

Lydia forgot everything but her indignation. Her gim-
let tones might have pierced the slumbers of the dead, but
neither my Lady nor Pamela paid the smallest heed to her,
for Kitty Kilcroney had flung herself upon the young
milliner's neck, and, shedding tears of joy, called her the
most incomparable girl, the noblest creature, the nearest
thing to a seraph that had ever walked in a world of woe.

They were both as keen of wit one as the other ; and it
was wonderful how, with scarce half a dozen questions and
answers, the whole story came out.

"You turned into the Park, you did not know why ? Ah,
but I know why ! 'Twas Providence, child. A most merci-
ful act of Providence! And you saw his desperate face?
Oh, I can scarce bear it! You wrenched the pistol from
his very hand? Oh, if I live to be a hundred, how can I be
grateful enough to Heaven and to you? Rash and unfor-
tunate young man! You gave him thirteen pounds? He
only asked me for ten. Oh, where did you say he had gone
to? I must send after him. Lydia, bid the carriage round
again. I must go myself. And you shall go with me,
child. Oh, you shall indeed !"

"Since her Ladyship's in such a fine mood of generos-
ity," cried Lydia, who occasionally presumed on ten years'
service, "perhaps she'll pay Mrs. Tabbishaw's bill over
again? Or else my niece will be getting into trouble, and

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

she needn't look to me to get her out of it, lying to mj
very face!"

Kitty was standing before her mirror, happily setting
her flounces into trim, as a ruffled bird its feathers.

"And why did you never tell me you had such a niece,
Lydia, I should like to know? And what do you mean by
burying a fine young woman like that with a creature like
Tabbishaw?— Oh! Oh! Oh!"

My Lady's nerves were pardonably on edge. The shrieks
that again escaped her as my Lord Kilcroney marched
into the room were as piercing as Lydia's own.

"Good heavens, my Lord, you'll be the death of me!
You should have married Susan Verney, you should
indeed, or some one with a cast-iron constitution.
Stay "

Kitty's frowns were never of long duration, and she was
in no mood for frowning ! "You've come in the very nick
of time, my dearest love. Do I not hear your coach with-
out? Hasten, hasten to the tavern of the Six Bells. Pray,
where is it, my dear? Oh, doubtless you know, dearest
Denis ! And you will ask for Jocelyn Bellairs. You know,
Denis, poor young Bellairs?"

"Faith, then, I've been beforehand with you, me dar-
ling!" said my Lord.

He was running Pamela's straight young figure up and
down with the eye of the connoisseur as he stood a hand-
some devil-may-care gentleman; one who patronized so
superlative a tailor, wore such fine lawns and laces, and
had withal so monstrous elegant a frame whereon to hang
them that a trifle of a loop hanging here or a button loose
there merely pointed to a genteel carelessness.

"Faith, I've been beforehand with you ! Meeting my
Lord Sanquhar anon, he took me to the Six Bells, where he

PAMELA POUNCE

had a rendezvous with your poor young relative, Mr. Joce-
lyn Bellairs. And be jabers," cried my Lord, with his
favorite Irish oath, "if that young rascal hasn't cleaned
both me and my Lord Sanquhar as bare as Mother Hub-
bard's cupboard !"

He paused; the investigating eye fixed itself with a
guilty twinkle upon his Kitty's countenance, where a mix-
ture of strange emotions were struggling for expression.
And suddenly Lydia clapped her hands and broke into
eldritch laughter. Whereat my Lady also made her choice
of emotions, and laughed too.

"And troth, mavourneen," said my Lord, delighted to
find the situation so unexpectedly agreeable, "I'm here to
say 'twas you were in the right of it the livelong night.
There's not a ha'porth of good in trying to force fortune
when the jade has made up her mind to flout ye. And I'll
take your advice, me darling, and go with you into the
country the moment we get those devils of I.O.U.'s settled,
till it's time for you to abandon me for that dashed damna-
tion Court of yours !"

"Oh, I can't scold you !" cried his wife. "But, oh, why
did you abandon me all day? 'Twas cruel unkind of you,
and I dare swear if you'd been here 'twould never have
happened ; for you'd not see a fellow dicer go wanting for
a ten-pound note, my Lord, if I know you ! Oh, read that
letter, Denis, and you'll understand! And if it had not
been for Lydia's niece here, admirable girl! who took the
pistol out of his very hand in the Park, and gave him her
employer's money — oh ! if it were not for this noble, clever
young woman, where should I be now?"

"You needn't worry about the bill, aunt," said Pamela,
with the perfect composure that compelled that person's
disapproving admiration. "I gave your address to Mr.

ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Bellairs, and, as he will certainly be punctual with repay-
ment, her Ladyship will perhaps kindly allow me to remain
until he calls anon, with the money?"

There was nothing my Lady Kilcroney would have re-
fused Miss Pounce the younger at that moment; and the
milliner's assistant proceeded to add to her obligations.

"If your Ladyship would trust me with the retrimming
of Madame Mirabel's hat meanwhile, I make bold to say I
could alter it to your satisfaction "

CHAPTER IV

SHOWING STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

are some who seem to be destined always to
JL keep on top as the wheel of life revolves, no matter
how others may suffer from the law of its relentless
motion.

My Lady Kilcroney ( still in the minds of those who had
first known her in her brilliant widowhood "Incomparable
Bellairs !") might be counted among the rare ones who are
thus miraculously favored.

Beauty, wit, charm, wealth, rank and the irresistible
dash of the born leader she had already possessed; now
she had attained to Court favor. She was Lady-in-wait-
ing to Queen Charlotte! It is scarcely necessary to add
that she had become a power in the world; should she
choose to exercise her influence on behalf of any one clever
and virtuous enough to profit by it, that person's fortune
might be regarded as made.

So do great planets, following their allotted orbits, carry
in their wake lesser stars that bask and shine in a re-
flected light !

In the instance of Miss Pamela Pounce the luminary
thus lifted into prominence, possessed a very considerable
power of shining on her own account; and, her position
in the hemisphere once assured, she required no borrowed
brilliancy.

In other words, my Lady Kilcroney's recommendation
obtained for Pamela Pounce a new start in life. Madame
Mirabel, exceedingly dissatisfied with her head milliner;

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

aware that Madame Eglantine of Paris was growing sleek
on the very cream of her rightful British custom, and
being moreover much struck with Pamela's genteel appear-
ance, her manner and her aptitude, was all readiness to
oblige so distinguished a client as my Lady Kilcroney and
give the young woman a trial.

Before the autumn of her disastrous summer had waned,
the younger Miss Pounce found herself firmly established
in the very position which had been the object of her
wildest dream. She was head of the millinery department
of the great Bond Street mantuamaker.

Like her unexpected patroness, it might seem that her
cup of happiness was full. But — there is no factor in the
calculations of existence so easily forgotten as that most
important item of all, the human heart !

Pamela, in making her courageous plan of life, had for-
gotten to reckon with her heart !

And this tiresome, irresponsible, uncontrollable organ
began to trouble her exceedingly. In those hours of leisure
when she was not concocting delightful schemes for the
breaking of other people's hearts — for every one knows
what a killing hat will do — she found herself considerably
inconvenienced by the peculiar conduct of her own.

Said Miss Polly Popple of the millinery department to
Miss Clara Smithson, the bookkeeper:

"You mark my words, my dear, there's something up
with that young woman, Pounce ! She'll be getting herself
into a regular scandal, with that dashing young spark of
hers! And if she ain't got something on her conscience
already — I don't know the signs !"

Miss Smithson leaned forward, wheezing heavily.

"Providence ain't always unjust, Polly," she said, "and

PAMELA POUNCE

people do come by their rights, no matter how many Vis-
countesses is against them 1"

"Ah," said Polly, swelling her fine bust, and looking at
herself in the fly-blown glass which hung over the chimney
in the little room at the back of the Bond Street shop
where she was sitting, after hours, with her friend. "That
was a bit of jobbery, that was! There isn't one in the
establishment, I do believe, that wasn't struck all of a heap
when they heard that a strange young female was put
into old Mrs. Dodder's place instead of me, which the next
in rank is always, by law, you might say, entitled to.
Lady Kilcroney being that prodigious in the fashion — not
that I was ever one to admire her ; give me breeding ! — and
Madame Mirabel being so set on cutting out Madame
Eglantine — not that she ever will, and you mark my words,
for London ain't Paris, I say, and that I'll maintain and
you may talk yourself blue in the face, Clara, and you
won't alter that! If it hadn't been for that put-up job,
'tis I'd have been head of the millinery here this moment."

Miss Polly Popple's case was clear ; but Miss Smithson's
reasons for disliking Pamela were perhaps more abstruse.
She talked big of the claims of friendship, of her sympathy
for Miss Popple, and also of a "rising within her" which
was an infallible sign of "something fishy" in somebody
else. But the truth was that the newcomer's radiant
youth, her success, her spirit of enterprise, had started
the base passion of envy in Miss Smithson's withered
breast; a passion the more prejudicial that it flourishes
entirely outside the pale of reason! She listened very
greedily, therefore, to Miss Popple's rapid exposition of
her suspicions. Between gossip, malice, and inventiveness
the new head milliner's character seemed indeed in a par-
lous condition when Miss Popple concluded.

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

That wheezing breath of Miss Smithson's was drawn
with ever increased intensity.

"Walking with the young gentleman late of an evening
in the Green Park ! Upon my word ! If it had been you
that had seen her last night, now, Miss Popple, dear, in-
stead of that poor foundling of a Mary-Jane, which
Madame Mirabel was saying only yesterday could scarce
be trusted to match a skein of blue silk, I'd go to Madame
Mirabel this minute with it. I would, being so to speak,
a cousin "

"Beware what you does, Miss Smithson, you'll ruin all.
Give her rope."

"Rope, Miss Popple?"

"Rope to hang herself with," said Miss Popple vin-
dictively. "That's in a manner of speaking. Plain !
She'll give herself away or he'll give her away," she had
an ill-natured giggle, "so as we give them time. It's his
game to give her away, a devil-may-care hand, some young
buck who only wants to have her at his mercy, just for
his fun. Wasn't he after her here — open — three after-
noons out of last week?"

"After her here?" Miss Smithson again repeated her
friend's last words. She was exceedingly shocked.

"Why, mercy to goodness !" she went on in horrified
tones. "And it the rule of the House as no male belong-
ings is allowed after the young ladies here, not if they were
grandfathers itself. And they churchwardens !"

"Oh, tush, Smithson," interrupted Polly contemptu-
ously. "Of course my sly young Beau comes dangling in
with some lady friend, to help her to choose a hat — by
way of — Polly winked. "Toosday, it was Mrs. Lafone as
brought him, or to be correct, he brought her, which know-
ing the minx as I do — I refers her to Mrs. Lafone — 'tis

PAMELA POUNCE

my intimate conviction 'tis he will pay for that there hat !
But, as you knows, Miss Smithson, and none better, ladies'
morals ain't our concern, thanks be, so long as we keeps
our own respectable."

Miss Smithson admitted this regrettable truth, with a
doleful sigh. Polly took another pull at the brew of hot
spiced beer which they had concocted for their comfort
this cold December night, and proceeded:

"Thursday, if Mr. Stafford doesn't bring him along, all
innocent ! He with his handsome lady on his arm, up from
Windsor for the day, to buy her a stylish head for a
Christmas present. And, 'What are you doing, looking in
at a hat-shop window, Bellairs?' says he, laughing and
joking ('tis his way, my dear, a very agreeable gentle-
man!). 'Gad,' says he, 'you've not got a wife to run you
up bills ! Your chinkers goes hopping out on bosses and
dice and cards and what not ! Selfish fellows you bachelors
are !' And Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs, bowing to Mr. Stafford
and declaring he only wished he had other people's luck —
and indeed, Miss Smithson, Mrs. Stafford is a real
beauty ! — But all the while, my dear, who is he looking at
and ogling and taking occasion to whisper to — but Miss
Pounce, if you please! — And if I didn't see the way her
kerchief lace was quivering with the palpitation of her
heart, and her hands shaking as she took down heads for
Mrs. Stafford and held them up for her — well my name's
not Popple."

Miss Smithson leaned over the sulky coal fire and lifted
the saucepan from the hob to refill her glass. Her own
hands shook. That Pamela was a disgrace and would
bring discredit in the whole House of Mirabel! she felt
it in her bones.

"You may say so, dear." As her friend drank, Polly

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

Popple tendered her own tumbler for replenishment, mur-
muring parenthetically, however, "Not a drop more, love.
I never did hold with stimulants, only you were so pressing
and it is a foggy night, I won't deny, and a drop of cordial,
a mere medical precaution, so to speak. — You may say
so," the slighted young lady of the bonnet department
took up her theme with fresh gusto. "And you'd say
so a million times more if you had seen them to-day.
For Mr. Jocelyn comes in with my Lady Kilcroney — and
oh, the bold brazenness of it ! — then he stands behind my
Lady's chair and Pounce — La! I declare I'd have been
sorry for her if she wasn't what she is, the baggage — red
and white and not knowing where to put her eyes with him
signaling to her. Yes, and if he did not thrust a letter
into her hand as I went out, you may set me down a liar.
And her stuffing it into her kerchief under my very nose !"

"Don't, dear, don't," moaned Miss Smithson, beating
the air with her bony hand. Then, after a long pause dur-
ing which she seemed to be painfully bringing her virginal
mind to confront the awful pictures just presented to it,
she went on acridly: "There'll be a bust up! When a
girl comes to that pint of disreputableness, things is bound
to happen. It can't go on like this — you mark my words."

Now, strangely enough, barring the inexactitude of the
premise, such a conclusion had just formed itself in
Pamela's own mind.

It could not go on. Something was bound to happen.
She had saved the life of Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs; and he
had demonstrated his gratitude by promptly falling head
over heels in love with her. So far, so good ; or rather, so
far, so bad, where a dashing young gentleman of expensive
habits, small principle and remarkable fascination and a
young person of the working class are concerned ! For

PAMELA POUNCE

the mischief of it was she had fallen in love with him.
Poor Pamela, with her high spirit, her clear brain and her
strong courage, to be betrayed by a heart as vulnerable
as any silly girl's of the lot! She was clear-sighted
enough to know that stripped of the golden glamour, the
path of her romance led to a very ugly gulf. She despised
herself for her weakness. She had no illusions on the
quality of the attachment offered to her by Mr. Jocelyn
Bellairs, but, as the short December days dropped away
to Christmas, she found, growing within her, a dangerous
new self, a reckless creature who cried: "The Devil might
take the consequences, a girl was young but once: you
•found your fate, and had to clasp him or lose him, the one
man you could love and him only, or go wanting to your
grave!"

"I know it's death and destruction sometime," said
Pamela to herself, sitting hugging her knees in the neat
little chamber in Shepherd Street, where she lodged with
a most respectable widow woman who had once seen better
times, "but isn't it death and destruction anyhow at once
if I have to give him up?"

She reread the letter he had slipped into her hand — the
audacious fellow — a few hours ago at Madame Mirabel's.

"It must be yes or no, my darling lovely girl." My
darling lovely girl. That was what his eyes were always
saying, and, oh, it was sweet !

It must be yes or no! She told herself that if she
couldn't say "yes," it was still more impossible to say
"no." Backwards and forwards she struggled with the
insolvable problem, till her tallow candle expired with a
great stench, and she was left in darkness and misery.
Worn out with her long day, she fell at last asleep, to be
wakened by the call of a cock in Shepherd's Market.

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

Perhaps it was this farmyard cry which, weaving into
her consciousness, had made her dream so strongly of the
old place at home. When she woke she could hardly be-
lieve she was not in the billowing four-poster in the great
attic, with pretty Sister Susie asleep beside her.

Again, the cold, foggy, bleak London morning was rent
by the crow of the cock. Then Pamela knew where she
was, and she knew, too, something else.

That other self which had got into her must not be
listened to on any account. It must indeed be stamped
out of existence with the utmost promptitude.

Now Pamela was considerably wiser than most young
women in her position. She took a sensible resolution.

"I'll go to Madame Mirabel this very morning," she de-
cided, "and ask for a Christmas holiday. She won't refuse
me, being the good-natured soul she is, and me so useful to
her. And once I get home and feel mother's arms about
me — there! I know I'll be all right! I needn't be afraid
of myself any more."

Pamela Pounce took seat in the Dover coach. She was
in a sedate flutter, an admirably dignified bustle. She
knew to the fraction of an inch the amount of space to
which she was entitled, and she possessed herself of it de-
terminedly. She had, besides her own agreeable person,
divers bandboxes and loose parcels to place, and this she
did with an amiable assurance that put protest to the
blush, and set other passengers' pretensions in a gross
light. When her arrangements were concluded she heaved
a sigh, presented a vague smile, and lay back, her hands
folded, to survey the other travelers at leisure. She was
herself better worth looking at than any of the coach-
load, which contained a foreign couple, one or two of the

PAMELA POUNCE

usual bagmen on the road to France, a Dover shopkeeper,
a farmer's wife, and an elderly gentleman of delicate and
serious mien, who drew an old calf-bound volume from a
shabby bag, and fixed large gold-mounted spectacles upon
his high, transparent nose with all the air of one prepared
with solace for the journey.

But as he sat exactly opposite Miss Pamela Pounce,
his shrewd, cold blue eye wandered ever and anon from the
print to fix itself upon her, as though — which was indeed
the fact — he were puzzled in what category to place her.
It was obvious to Sir Everard Cheveral, who, though im-
poverished, was himself a gentleman of the first water,
that the ambulant nymph in front of him was not of his
class, perfect as was the fit of her gray riding coat, refined
arid reposeful as were the hands in their long gray gloves,
tasteful in its coquettishness as was the gray riding toque,
set on chestnut curls, and suitably as these curling tresses,
unpowdered, were smoothed away to be tied with a wide
black ribbon at the back of the long, proud throat.

In the first instance, no young person of family with
such claims to distinction as her elaborate traveling gear
pointed to would be voyaging in the public coach unat-
tended; in the second, in her quiet ease, and the full yet
not immodest assurance of her glance, the manners of one
accustomed to fight the world for herself were very obvious ;
in the third, there was an indefinable lack of the never-to-
be-mistaken stamp of breeding.

"For all your clever counterfeit, my good girl," re-
flected Sir Everard, "you haven't the ring of the guinea
gold."

Yet he reproached himself for the accusation. Here
was, after all, no counterfeit ; very good metal of its kind.

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

"Fine yellow brass," thought he with a chuckle. "All in
a good sense, my dear."

What was she? From whence and whither speeding?
Not an actress. That fresh, close-textured skin had never
known paint on its flowerlike surface. The cheeks were
not even rouged; indeed, after the flush of bustle, the
color of them was now settling back in a curious ivory
pallor, which went well with the ardent hair. No fine
lady's young woman, every movement had betrayed con-
scious independence. A shopgirl? The wife of some
small merchant? Nay, 'twas the impersonation of maiden
liberty, and what shopgirl could encompass such a wealth
and detail of modishness ?

She caught his gaze upon her, leaned forward and
smiled. He had already noticed that her smile was rather
dazzling. He quite blinked to find it addressed to himself.

"I trust, sir," said she, "my bandboxes do not incom-
mode you?"

"By no means, Madam," answered he civilly ; and moved
his long thin legs back a further fraction beneath his seat.

"I haven't been home," said she, "for four years, and
luggage do grow when one has five young sisters at home,
sir, and presents run to hats."

"To hats?" he repeated with that interested air that
obviates the audacity of a question.

"Along, sir," said Miss Pounce, and her smile broadened,
"with me being in the millinery business."

She drew herself up with a very pretty and, to his mind,
becoming pride.

"A business," he said, "which I take it, Madam, is in a
flourishing condition."

"You may say so, sir," her pride increased. "Since
Miss Pamela Pounce — that's me ! — has been made head of

PAMELA POUNCE

the department, Madame Mirabel can scarce execute the
vast number of orders."

"Upon my word !" He had removed his spectacles, and
was smiling on her in his turn in a kindly, detached, faintly
satiric way. "I trust Madame What's-Her-Name recog-
nizes her debt to you?"

The head milliner gave her curls ever so slight a toss.

"Well, sir, she wouldn't like to lose me. She knows I'm
worth my weight in gold to her."

His glance flickered over her comely proportions. Tall,
generously made, he had called her a nymph, "Goddess
would have been the better appellation," murmured he.

"Well, 'tis a comfort to an old man like myself to meet
one so youthful to whom work is proving both fruitful and
blessed."

Miss Pamela Pounce didn't need any old gentleman to
commend her. She knew the value of work, and who bet-
ter? And if it was blessed to her, why she took good care
that it should be. And, as to content with her lot — sure,
if she hadn't been, she wasn't a fool, she'd have picked
out another for herself !

" 'Tis some old clergyman," she thought, and laughed.
"He'll scarce know what a hat means. Clergymen's wives
and daughters in the country would give any woman of
taste bad dreams for a fortnight. There was Mrs. Prue
Stafford. Had she not still to learn that to wear pink
and blue with such cheeks as she had was positive vulgar?
And she married to the finest of fine gentlemen !"

Sir Everard folded his spectacles, put them carefully
into his breast pocket, and closed his Virgil. Here was
an opportunity of studying a — to him — hitherto quite
unknown branch of humanity, after an unexpectedly pleas-
ant fashion. The girl pleased him. He had called her

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

brass and humored the simile. A shining, solid composi-
tion of metal that took a handsome polish and showed
itself boldly for what it was. He liked her for her spring
of youth, her frank pride of her trade, for having no petty
nonsense nor poor pretentiousness to pass for what she
was not. He liked her brave independence. There was,
he thought, a better modesty in her quiet certainty than
any prudish airs and graces could have lent her.

" 'Twould be a presuming fellow," he mused, "that
would dare to try his gallant ways with such an one, and
if he did, I would back my young milliner to teach him a
lesson."

She told him how she had, so to speak, graduated in
Paris which accounted, thought he, for a taste that was
scarcely indigenous. And her home was between Canter-
bury and Dover, and she, brought up till seventeen on
the farm, the eldest of eleven. Then he knew whence she
had drawn that sap of splendid vigor; a hardy flower of
English soil. And, the chief of his many prides being that
he was an Englishman, he was still better content.

She would alight, she told him at The Rose at Can-
terbury where she would lie the night. And father would
fetch her in the morning; for 'twas mortal cold across the
downs on a winter's evening and 'twas a long drive for
the mare even in good weather.

"Bravo," said he, "I, too, halt at The Rose, I am glad
to know that I shall have such good company. May I
sit beside you at supper in the eating room, my dear
young lady?"

"Oh, you're vastly obliging, sir!" said Pamela Pounce.
A faint pink crept, like the color of a shell, into her
smooth, pale cheek, for she had a good eye for a gentle-
man, and she knew that she was honored.

PAMELA POUNCE

Her tongue ran on gayly, and he listened with a gentle
air of courtesy and an interest which, in truth, was not
assumed.

In spite of her sophisticated manner, her chatter was
very artless. It was a revelation of a character which
had remained curiously untouched by the world. The
busy mart in which she lived had cast none of its dust
upon her soul.

Dear, to be sure, how prodigious joyful they would be
at home to see her back !

"Four years, sir, think on it ! I was but a child when
I left them, and now I'm a woman!" 'Twas like, indeed,
that none would recognize her again, should they just hap-
pen to meet, accidental like. She half wished she could
have walked in upon them and taken them by surprise.
But then: "Father, sir, would ha' lost the pleasure of
coming to fetch me," and her mother might have been
vexed. "Mother's very house-proud, sir. She'd want to
have things pretty for me, and bake cakes and that."

And they'd all be looking out for her on the house
step. Just to think of their dear faces fair turned her
silly ! She blinked away a tear and gave her bright smile*
But as he smiled back it was with a certain melancholy.
The farmer with his eleven children — poor, struggling fel-
low ! — the hard-worked mother, the good, industrious child,
returning home with her hands full of gifts, blessed in her
honest toil for them, were they not all about to taste joys
from which he had deliberately cut himself off in his fas-
tidious isolation? He had scarcely ever regretted his
chosen solitariness. His beautiful old shabby house, set
in the loneliness of the snowy park, the wood fire in the
library in the company of a favorite book, the ministra-
tions of a couple of well-drilled servants, an austere

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

silence, a harmonious communion with the high spirits of
the dead ; that was the Christmas to which he himself had
looked forward with complacency. Now he wondered ; his
heart contracted with a most unusual sense of pain; had
he lost the best in life? If he had had a daughter by his
shoulder with a white, pure forehead such as this girl had,
and had seen her eyes fire with love, heard her voice
tremble at the thought of meeting him, her old father!
would not that have brought him a sweetness finer than
the most exquisite page in Virgil?

The day, which had opened blue and gold, with a high
wind and clear sunshine, began to gather threatening
clouds by the time the posting station was reached; and
the Dover High-Flyer plunged away again into a snow
squall with all the speed of its fresh horses.

"We are like to have a seasonable Christmas," quoth Sir
Everard, and was pleased to note that, while the rest of
the company grumbled and complained, the fine specimen
of young womanhood opposite him produced a warm shawl
from a bundle, tucked it round her knees, and offered him
the other end, declaring, with a smile, that she was as
warm as a toast, and that she did love a white Christmas.

They all dined at Rochester, and had hot punch, of
which Miss Pounce partook with enthusiasm, but in very
discreet measure.

Conversation flagged on this, their last, stage. The
snoring of the foreign pair who, having tied their heads up
in terrible colored handkerchiefs, leaned against each other
and gave themselves up to repose with much the same
animal abandonment as that with which they had gobbled
the beef-steak pie and gulped the hot rum of the Bull Inn
at Rochester; the sighing fidgets of the farmer's wife,
and the grunts of her neighbor, the Dover tradesman,

PAMELA POUNCE

each time they jarred him from a fitful somnolence, alone
broke the inner stillness. Without, the multiple rhythm
of the horses' hoofs and the varying answer of the road
to the wheels — now the scrunch of cobblestones, now the
slushy whisper of the snow-filled rut, now the whirring
ring of a well-metaled stretch — formed a monotonous
whole which lulled to silence those who could not sleep.

Sir Everard saw, by the shifting flicker of the lamps,
how pensiveness gathered on the bright face opposite him.
Once or twice the girl raised a finger to the corner of her
eyelid as if to press back a rising tear; sighs lifted her
bosom.

"Ah!" thought the old philosopher, "the Goddess of
Modes is not so fancy-free as I had thought. Here, truly,
are all the signs of a gentle love tale. Perhaps the young
man is in the countinghouse, or some sprightly haber-
dasher, who sees Miss pass to her work, and would fain
capture for his own counter a face so fair and charming."

Sir Everard felt very old and stiff by the time Canter-
bury was reached, and half regretted his suggestion to his
traveling companion, to continue their comradeship at
supper. He thought it might have better become his years
and aching bones to retire into a feather bed with a basin
of gruel. Far indeed was he from guessing the singular
emotions into which his old age was destined to be plunged
that evening.

A fine room with a four-poster, no less indeed than the
chamber which went by the name of "Great Queen Anne,"
this was what the landlord proposed to allot to Sir
Everard. A chimney you couldn't beat in the kingdom
for drawing, mine host averred, and a fire there this min-

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

ute; agreeable to Sir Everard's obliging communication.
And what could he do for Miss?

Sir Everard was a little shocked to hear Miss Pounce
enter upon a brisk bargain for an attic, and hesitat-
ingly began a courteous offer of his own apartment, when
she interrupted him with the valiant good sense which he
had already had cause to admire in her.

"Not at all, sir! 'Tis what suits my station — so long
as the sheets are clean and there's a good bolt to the
door; you'll promise me that, Mr. Landlord? And if
you can't spare a warming pan, sure a hot brick will do
vastly well. And now, sir, give me time to see my band-
boxes in safety, and I'm for supper."

Even as she spoke she started. Her eye became fixed,
her lips fell open upon a gasp of amazement. The
healthy white bloom of her countenance turned to deathly
pallor, and then a tide of blood rushed crimsoning to
her forehead. Beholding this evidence of strong emo-
tion, it scarcely needed the sight that met Sir Everard's
glance as he followed the direction of her eyes to con-
firm his instant conclusion. The young man, of course!
Stay, the young man is a gentleman — poor nymph!
Here then were joy, fear, confusion, the warning of con-
science, and artless passion, all mixed together.

The young gentleman advanced; a fine buck, of the
very kind, thought Sir Everard, who took an instanta-
neous dislike to him, to turn the head of any girl beneath
him in station, whom he might honor with his conquering
regard. There was a black-and-white handsomeness about
his chiseled countenance; all the powder in the world
could not disguise that those jet eyebrows were matched
with a raven spring of hair. With a smile, a dilation of
nostrils, a swagger of broad shoulders, a leisurely step

PAMELA POUNCE

of high-booted legs, he came forward out of the tap
room. No surprise on his side: my gentleman had
planned the meeting.

"La, Mr. Bellairs 1" Pamela Pounce exclaimed, and her
voice* trembled. Then she rallied, and strove to pursue
with lightness, "Who ever would have thought of seeing
you here?"

He took her hand and lifted it to his lips with an
exaggerated courtesy, as if he mocked himself for it the
while.

"Why, did I not guess rightly, my dear, you would
be spending a lonely evening here on your way home?"

"Oh, Mr. Bellairs !"

He kept her hand in his, to draw her apart. Sir Ever-
ard, gazing at them, his chin sunk in his muffler, with
severe, sad eyes saw how she swayed towards him, as
she went into the window recess, as if her very soul
floated on the music of his voice. He watched them
whisper ardently together, and then she went by him
like a tornado, picking up her bandboxes as she passed,
quite oblivious of his presence, or of anything, appar-
ently, save the young rascal, so Sir Everard apostro-
phized him, who stood gazing after her with the same
insufferable smile; the smile of the easy conqueror.

Sir Everard never had had a high opinion of women.
Life had given him no reason to indulge in illusions. But
now all his condemnation was for the man. The strong,
self-reliant creature who had faced him all those weary
hours with such unalterable good humor, such a candid
outlook, such a pleasant acceptance of her own position
that it was the next thing to high breeding, what was
this Captain Lothario planning to make of her? And
how, since he had found her already so hard to win that

he must travel to Canterbury for the purpose, did she
now thus readily yield herself to his plucking hand? Aye,
the villain had struck at some peril point in the life of
her soul. The child was tired after her long journey;
tired, too, perhaps, by the mental conflict from which
her integrity had hitherto emerged triumphant. A sud-
den assault had found the fortress unprepared. 'Twas
the old story!

Sir Everard went wearily to his room. The thought
of the feather bed and the gruel, of a selfish withdrawal
from further association with what was like to end in
sordid tragedy tempted him perhaps, but he did not yield
to it. The girl's smile haunted him. It had been so
brightly innocent; and he was haunted, too, by the last
memory of her face, stricken with astonishment, quiver-
ing with joy. However she might fall, it would not be
through light-mindedness. The folly, the misery, was
deep rooted in her poor heart.

He made a careful toilet, and went down the slippery
oak stairs, leaning on his gold-headed cane, looking a
very great personage indeed, delicately austere and nobly
haughty.

Alas ! Pamela never so much as lifted her radiant head
when he came into the eating room. She was seated
beside her gallant at the end of the table in close con-
versation— that whispered, blushing, laughing, sighing
conversation of lovers — and if the roof had fallen over
them, Sir Everard thought, the two would scarce have
noticed it, so absorbed were they in each other.

The young man had ordered champagne, and the girl's
glass was filled, but the bubbling wine had barely been
touched. Another intoxication, more deadly and more
sure, was working through her veins. The old philoso-

PAMELA POUNCE

pher, seeing her condition, resigned for the moment all
thought of interference, and sat down to his bottle of
claret and bowl of broth.

Hardly, however, had he broken his hot roll, than the
room was invaded by fresh arrivals ; a young woman,
wrapped in furs, conducted by a gentleman who had not
removed his traveling coat, and kept his hat pressed
on his brows; a personage who entered with an intoler-
able arrogance as if the place belonged to him, who or-
dered champagne and supper for the lady, and fresh
horses for his coach, in a voice which rang like the crack
of a whip. He could not wait; the servers must bustle.
A guinea each to the ostlers if they harnessed within ten
minutes. "And, hark ye, sirrah, a bottle of your best
Sillery, and "

"Surely I know this autocratic fellow," thought Sir
Everard, and, as the traveler drew his companion with
an imperative sweep of his arm about her, to the end of
the table opposite to that at which Mr. Bellairs and His
Dulcinea were seated. "My Lord Sanquhar!" cried Sir
Everard, "by all that's outrageous ! And who in the name
of pity is his victim now?"

That the two were lovers, of a stage considerably more
advanced than the poor milliner and her Beau, was ob-
vious to the onlooker; and as my Lord Sanquhar now
tore his hat from his head, to dash the snow that cov-
ered it into the fire, where it hissed and spluttered like a
curse, the young woman who accompanied him let her-
self fall on the settle and turned a look of darkling chal-
lenge, of brooding suspicion, into the room.

She was clad in the most sumptuous garments. There
was a bloom of royal purple against the tawny clouds
of her sables. There was a fire of ruby at her throat,

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

caught up and repeated at each ear, as if deep gouts of a
lover's blood had taken to themselves flame for her adorn-
ing. But the countenance she turned upon the room was,
Sir Everard thought, so striking, that all this splendor
seemed its natural attribute; striking, with a Spanish
beauty, a richness and depth of color, with flashing orbs,
high nostrils, and scarlet lips.

"Good heavens!" Sir Everard mused, "where has he
picked the jade? Victim? Nay, 'tis the kind that keeps
a knife in her stocking and will whip it out and under
your rib, and make an end of you with less ado than an-
other will shed a tear ! My Lord Sanquhar will have to
look out for himself. Illicit love, is a dangerously charged
atmosphere in which to handle live gunpowder."

The Dover High-Flyer had only dropped two of its
passengers at The Rose, and the landlord was free to
attend to his imperious guest. He himself served my
Lord Sanquhar's champagne, and with bent back re-
ceived his "pishs" and "pshaws" on the dearth of proper
entertainment for tlie lady. She wanted fresh fruit, and
there was none. She asked for chocolate, and pettishly
refused to touch it. One sniff was enough. All her
desires and denials she communicated in a guttural un-
dertone to her companion, who translated them into oaths.

Sir Everard, who had had but a poor appetite, was
now, his broth bowl pushed on one side, dipping bits of
roll into his wine after a foreign fashion, and watching
the while the two sets of lovers at the further end of
the room. He noticed not without some satisfaction,
that constraint had fallen upon the ardent Bellairs and
his fair milliner. The color on the young man's face
fluctuated. He bit his lip and shot doubtful looks of
question from the blatant couple to the downcast counte-

PAMELA POUNCE

nance of his companion, who had grown very pale, scarcely
spoke, and seemed now and again as if she were struggling
with tears.

A clatter of hoofs, the clang of a bell, and a shout
from the door announced yet another guest, a solitary
horseman, it seemed. The landlord, who was just enter-
ing the room with a plate of dried plums in the hope
of tempting the appetite of the capricious lady — he had
scented my Lord's quality with unerring nose — here thrust
the dish into the hands of a waiter and turned back to
receive the newcomer. He left the door open behind him,
and all could hear the passionate explosion of a hoarse
voice in the hall. The dark little lady on the settle by
the fire sprang to her feet, and stood, tense. Her com-
panion gave a swift, frowning look of surprise. Sir Ever-
ard, gazing upon her also, drew a quick breath. "By
the immortal gods," said he to himself, "the drama is
coming swifter than one could have imagined!" And, in-
deed, what the ancient quiet inn was destined to hold
for the next ten minutes in the way of human passion,
conflict, and tragedy, might happily be never as much as
guessed at in the lifetime of most men!

The landlord, his wig awry, his features discomposed,
puffing and blustering, was vainly endeavoring to pre-
prevent the ingress of a small thickset man who, though
wrapped in a cloak and carrying some considerable bur-
den which he kept hidden under its folds, contrived by
a single violent thrust of his shoulder, to send him spin-
ning out of the way. The intruder advanced then at a
headlong run, brought himself up short, flung back his
cloak and, with the same gesture, his hat, and stood re-
vealed, swarthy, grizzled, livid, panting through dilated
nostrils, glaring upon the woman by the settle. There

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

was a great flare of color on his broad chest, where,
wound in a scarlet shawl, a little child of about two, with
a head of curls of that dark copper hue destined to turn
black with years, lay placidly asleep ; the curve of a plump
apricot cheek was all that was visible of its face.

"Good heavens !" said Sir Everard and at the sight of
the sleeping innocence, something in his old heart began
to lament.

There was a moment's extraordinary silence, broken
only by the breathing of the man with the child, which
hissed through his set teeth like the strokes of a saw.
Then my Lord Sanquhar laughed.

The man leaped as if he had been struck. A torrent of
words broke from him, guttural, fierce, intolerably an-
guished. Sir Everard knew a little Spanish.

The unfortunate was pleading: "Come back, come back!
I will forgive all. Come back, Dolores, you cannot leave
us. You cannot leave the little one. Come back in the
name of God, in the name of His Holy Mother. Madre di
Dios, look at her ! You cannot leave that ! Ah ! unhappy
one, you want gold and jewels. Was not our love your
treasure? Is not our child a pearl? Look at her!"

In singular contrast to the unrestrained violence of his
outburst, the manner in which he held out the child was
pure, tender. The little one awoke, stared about her with
devouring black eyes of amazement, caught sight of the
standing woman's face and cried joyfully, beating the air
with minute dusky hands, "Mamma, Mamma !"

At this a sob burst from the unhappy Father, so deep
and tortured it was as if it rent him.

"Dolores, our little girl, she calls you: 'Mamma,
Mamma !' Call again, my angel : 'Mamma, Mamma !' "

PAMELA POUNCE

He went down on his knees and held out the babe ; and
as he did so she wailed.

The mother, meanwhile, stood, insolent lids half closed,
red lips thrust forward, tapping the floor with impatient
foot, the embodiment of cruel disdain.

At her child's cry she stuffed her fingers into her ears
with savage gesture; stamped, and flung a raging glance
at her lover as one who said, "How long am I to endure
this?"

He answered it by the movement of a beckoning finger,
which brought her to his side. Then he cast a gold piece
on the table, clapped his hat on his head, and together
they moved towards the door.

"Ah ! By the blessed saints !"

The Spaniard in a bound was before them. He shook
the screaming infant in their faces as if it had been a
weapon.

"I swear this shall not be ! I swear that I shall kill you
and your paramour and the child and myself rather than
that this shall be!"

It was here that Pamela caught the little one from him.
He was perhaps too far gone in passion to notice the
action ; perhaps he was glad to have his hands free for his
fierce purpose — anyhow, he relaxed his hold. And the girl,
clasping the baby in her arms, hushing it and soothing it,
ran with it to the farther end of the room. Sir Everard
had also risen and Bellairs had started forward. But it
would have been as easy to balk a wild cat of its leap as
to arrest the betrayed husband in his spring upon his
betrayer.

No one ever quite knew how it happened. There was
the flash of a knife, an oath ; my Lord Sanquhar's "Damn
you, you would have it!" and the explosion of a pistol.

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

The Spaniard fell without a groan, right across the
doorway. Sir Everard and Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs both
knew that he was a dead man before he touched the ground.

"You are witness all," said my Lord Sanquhar, "that
this was in self-defense."

The woman cast a backward glance into the room. Her
rich bloom had faded. She was white, but with a palpi-
tating whiteness as of fire most intense; the gaze of her
great eyes was as fire, too. Almost red they shone, repeat-
ing the blood fires of the rubies. Then she gave herself
to Lord Sanquhar's embrace, and together they rushed
out into the night.

"Odds my life!" said Mr. Bellairs, looking up at Sir
Everard. He had flung himself on one knee beside the
stricken man, and was going through the vain parade of
seeking for a pulse which he knew no longer beat. "Did
you see that, sir?"

"He lifted her across her husband's very body! He
lifted her right across the body!" said Sir Everard, in a
hushed voice of disgust.

"Lifted her? Sir, she jumped!"

Pamela kept the child's face turned against her breast
with a loving hand, and as she rocked and soothed, she
herself wept as if her heart would break.

Through the doors, cast open to the night, the roar of
a new snow wind hurtled in upon them. There followed a
sudden clamor of voices, as the host endeavored to arrest
my Lord's departure and was borne down, well-nigh anni-
' hilated, from his path ; the crackling shout of my Lord's
orders, the plunge and clatter of hoofs on the cobbles. It
seemed as if the bloodguilty pair had gone on the wings
of the storm, and that the very elements cried after them
as they went.

PAMELA POUNCE

Sir Everard, as the most responsible witness, assisted
the landlord in the preliminary investigation of magis-
trate and constable. He took a certain grim pleasure in
furnishing Lord Sanquhar's name, and trusted the noble-
man might be summoned to answer for his action. Even
if acquittal were a foregone conclusion, to a reputation
already tarnished, this incident was not likely to add a
luster. By the quality of the murdered man's clothes, the
massive gold of his watch chain, the signet ring on his dead
hand, it was judged that he was a merchant of the better
class, and that the unfortunate incident would probably
make some stir among his compatriots.

The cold and stiffening body which had been so short a
while before pulsing with agony and passion, was laid in
the harness-room of the inn, covered with a white sheet.
Scarce ten yards away the gray horse that had borne its
rider on the wild race to death was placidly munching its
corn, the sweat not yet dry on its flanks.

When Sir Everard returned to the eating room he found
Pamela still on the settle, the child asleep on her lap. On
the board beside her a half-finished bowl of bread and milk
showed that she had been occupied with the worse than
motherless babe, while he had attended to the last con-
cerns of its doomed father. On the other side of the
hearth, one elbow propped on the high mantelshelf stood
Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs. The old man's entrance had evi-
dently interrupted a conversation between the two lovers,
of an interest so vital that both the faces now turned upon
him were stamped with fierce emotion.

Sir Everard removed a chair from before the table and
sat down on it facing the fire, and for a space no one
spoke.

Pamela had cast the scarlet shawl across one shoulder,

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

so as to shade the child's head from the light. Her hand
patted and her knees swayed, rocking the infant sleeper.

"Poor little creature!" said Sir Everard at last.

The girl gave him a quick glance.

"I'll keep her to-night. I've told the landlord I would,
and I'd keep her always if I could."

" 'Tis a generous thought," said the old gentleman,
with a faint smile for the magnanimous impracticabilities
of youth, and as he smiled he was aware that Mr. Bellairs
snapped his fingers and jerked his foot, on the edge of
an irritable outburst.

Suddenly Pamela began to sob quickly under her breath,
turned her head aside so that her tears should not fall on
the little placid face.

"I've been a wicked girl ! A wicked girl !"

"Hush !" cried Mr. Bellairs, and flung out his hand.

"No, sir ; I won't be silent !"

"But, good God, my dear, need you drag this stranger
into our intimate concerns?"

"He's no stranger to me, Mr. Bellairs. We traveled
down in the coach together, and he couldn't have been
more civil to me if I'd been a lady born ; no, nor kinder if
he'd been my father. Oh, sir, I don't know your name, but
I know by the pitying way you looked at me that you
understood what dreadful danger I was in and how" —
again she sobbed — "how ready I was to yield to it!
He wanted me to go to Paris with him. He did, indeed!
He wanted his love to be my all in all, and nothing else
was to matter. I've been a wicked girl ! I listened to him.
I never would listen to him before — not when he spoke like
that — but to-night I did. Heaven forgive me! What
took me?"

"Confound !" said Mr. Bellairs.

PAMELA POUNCE

He wheeled away from the sight of her weeping,
clutched the mantelpiece with both hands and dropped his
head on them.

"Well, 'tis all over now."

Sir Everard spoke uneasily. This openness upon a sub-
ject so delicate was painful to him; but Pamela had the
yearning to relieve herself by confession.

"Oh, sir, how could I do it? I don't know myself.
I swear when I look back, 'tis as if I had not been myself
at all. Something came into me — so rash, so desperate ! —
'Twas as if nothing mattered but just his love, our love.
And then — then — when those two came in I saw our sin
as it was. Oh, heavens ! Oh, Heaven forgive me ! Murder
and every evil was there. Would I not have been just as
cruel, done just as horrid murder? When the truth came
out, would my father and mother and my own dear loves
at home, waiting for me so fond and so trusting and so
proud of their poor, silly Pam, ever have held up their
heads again? Oh, base, base! I would have murdered
them for my pleasure. And that love, what was it ? The
thing that those two looked at each other, something vile,
something that brought contamination even just to see go
between them. Did he and I look at each other like that?
It turned me sick even to think on even before — before
that poor, poor man came in ! Heaven forgive me !
Heaven strike those two in their bad hearts ! Oh, sir, did
you look at her when she stared back upon us, that
woman? I suppose there was beauty in her face; I sup-
pose he who went with her thought her handsome airs
worth the cruelty and the blood and the crime on his soul.
But to me she was ugly, all ugly, with the ugliness of her
sin "

She broke off, bit her quivering lip, and stared fixedly

STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

•before her ; an expression of horror on her countenance as
if she still beheld the ugliness of which she spoke.

Mr. Bellairs straightened himself and snapped his fingers
again.

"Tall talk, my dear," he began; and then broke off,
dropped his eyes under Sir Everard's stern gaze, and
stood abashed. Then : "Perhaps you're right," he said in
an altered, strangled voice; and dashed from the room as
if driven.

Pamela started, glanced after him, and then wiped her
wet cheeks with the end of the baby's shawl.

"Let him go," she said.

"You're a brave girl."

"Oh, no, sir ! Only so grateful, so wonderfully saved, so
ashamed. Oh, this little creature against my breast —
must I not feel it? — think of it? — if I had had my foolish
way I should never have been worthy to hold such a lovely,
lovely little dear in my arms again."

Sir Everard insisted on lighting Pamela to her attic
chamber. She went up before him with a step so elastic,
in spite of the burden of the child in her arms, that she
had to wait for him on every landing; which she did with
a return of her bright amiability and even a flicker of
its former radiance in her smile. Each time she halted
she rocked the baby, swaying from foot to foot, murmur-
ing under her breath a crooning song which the old man
thought very sweet ; so sweet indeed, that, with a swing
of memory's pendulum it brought him back to his own
childhood days and the tender face of his mother, long
dead — a mother who had never been old like him.

On the threshold of her poor room they parted. She
spared him her right hand for a second from its motherly

PAMELA POUNCE

caressing and patting of the child which she bore with
such ease on her left arm. He bowed over it as if it had
been his queen's.

When he went down to the flaming hearth which justi-
fied the landlord's boast, he sat long by it.

He who had hitherto lived apart in a world of books
found his mind obsessed by the thought of the frightful
passions of humanity as they had this night played them-
selves out before him.

The whole scene reproduced itself in his tired brain with
the colors of life ; Lord Sanquhar's sardonic, pale, haughty
face, the rich vividness, the unblessed allurement, the cruel
beauty of the unfaithful wife ; the Spaniard's agony ; the
irredeemable tragedy of that picture of the father with
the child; then the dead face.

"Heaven strike their bad hearts !" had cried Pamela in
her honest revulsion. Could God ever forgive those who
had sent forth the soul of their victim so charged with
fury and despair that even death could bring no peace to
his brow?

And then he" thought of Pamela's face as he had last
seen it — pale, tear-stained, but with the old luminous inno-
cence. And, after all, he thought, there had come good
out of the evil.

"The Providence of God is over us all," he thought with
gratitude, as he rose stiffly to seek that feather bed, where
there was small likelihood of sleep that night for him.

He heard the call of a coach horn beyond, in the night,
and immediately afterwards the mighty clatter of the four
sets of hoofs and the rush of the wheels in the streets.
He went to his window, opened it, and looked out.

The up coach from Dover, pausing only to drop a single
passenger — stay, to take up a passenger, too ! Sir Ever-

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STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

ard recognized the swing of the shoulders, the tall, alert
frame, the indefinable swagger, even though muffled in the
raany-caped traveling coat.

Young Bellairs was not going to Paris with a fair com-
panion !

"Thank Heaven!" said Sir Everard.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE DEMONSTEATES THE VALUE
OF VIRTUE TO HER FAMILY AND HER FRIENDS

" A ND I'm sure, my dear," said Mrs. Pounce, the tears

-tV welling in her eyes as she gazed lovingly at her
eldest daughter, " 'tis the golden girl you've been to us !"

"Ah, you wait, mother!" cried Pamela. "Just you
wait! If I can't finish paying off that there mortgage
with the new spring fashions, call me Tabbishaw, that's
all I say."

The force of condemnation for vulgar stupidity could
go no further on Miss Pounce's lips.

Farmer Pounce, seated before the kitchen fire, turned
his big, grizzled head to cast a glance no less affectionate
than his wife's upon the good daughter.

"This time last year," he said; then, in a ruminating
voice, "Ah, 'twas a black lookout! As much as I could
do to squeeze the interest on the borrowed money and the
expenses of the new loan. And Sir Jasper, with his eye
on the farm this long while, turning the screw on me, he
and lawyer Grinder between them. Cruel hard terms they
made me, cruel hard; but there, 'twasn't as if I didn't
know their little game. Aye, aye, they were but waiting,
the both of them, to sell me up and get me out of it all ;
the land my father's father's father called his own."

Mrs. Pounce wept at the mere recollection. Where
would they have been, they and the little ones, but for the
golden girl?

"Pamela winked away a bright tear of sympathy. Every-

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

thing about this girl was bright: the spring of her chest-
nut hair from her white forehead, which itself shone as
with a kind of luminosity, the glance of her full, shrewd
eyes, the smile that curved her lips. Oh, above all, it was
Pamela's smile that was bright with the gayety and joy
of life!

"Pish, you dears," she said now, and covered up her
emotion with just one of those flashing smiles. "Don't
be making too much of it. All those months I wasted at
old Tabbishaw's didn't I know in my spirit it would all
come right? Wasn't I sure the whole time" — she played
with her capable fingers in the air — "that there was a
fortune in these hands once I could get them proper to
work. And I tell you now, without vanity — oh, I ain't
got a mite of vanity about it, 'tis my gift, the way pigs
is father's gift — give me a yard of ribbon, a feather, and
a bit of straw, and I'll turn you out two guineas before
you can say knife."

"Dear to be sure," mused Mrs. Pounce, forgetting to
knead her scones. "And think of the Christmas dinner
we've had. A turkey fit for the Queen's table, though I
says it as shouldn't. And me having to sell every one of
my lovely birds last year and keep father on the salt beef,
Christmas and all ! And there's Susie, such a picture, in
the bonnet you trimmed for her, at morning service, that
I'd never be surprised if Farmer Fleet's son were to come
to the scratch to-night at Sir Jasper's barn dance, I
shouldn't indeed."

"I've got a white cambric, mother, and blue ribbons
ready for her," said Pamela, smacking her lips with gusto,
"and a Shepherdess Dunstable. If that don't settle him!
'Tis the very thing, so simple and fresh, a sort of daisy
gown, father and mother, that'll start Master Tom think-

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PAMELA POUNCE

ing o' dairies and the clean linen and the white flour in the
bin: and, 'What a modest, nice girl,' he'll say. 'The very
wife for a farmer. No nonsense of cheap finery. Only
what a maid could buy for herself and stitch at home,' he'll
think, poor innocent, and it's the model for the French
Queen at Trianon, where she plays at milkmaid, you'd
never believe!"

"Mercy on us!" said Mrs. Pounce with an uncompre-
hending stare. "Frenchies be queer people, to be sure."

"And Jenny and Betty shall wear the sprigged muslin,"
pursued Pamela. "And my little pet, Peg, the robe coat
I made her out of the odds and ends Madame Mirabel gave
me from her ladies' counter."

"And what will you wear yourself, my dear ?" asked the
mother, cutting her rolled-out paste into neat rounds.

"Is it me, mother?" Pamela hesitated. Then: "I don't
mean to go," says she.

"Not mean to go?" screamed the farmer's wife, blank
disappointment writing itself on her good-humored coun-
tenance.

"Tut ! tut!" cried the farmer, and wheeled himself round
in his chair.

The London girl colored, and a shadow came over her
face.

"Some one's got to stay at home and look after little
Tom," said she stoutly, "and him but ten months old, the
poor fond lamb!"

She glanced at the wooden cradle to the left of the
hearth, where, under a patchwork quilt, a chubby minia-
ture reproduction of the farmer was lying, with fists
clenched in a determined fashion, as if he defied any one
io rob him of his repose.

"Why, I never heard such nonsense!" Mrs. Pounce

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

gathered the cuttings of paste together and dabbed them
into a single lump with an irritable hand. "And who's
minded little Tom, do ye think, all the hours, miss, that
I've got to be butter making, plucking of geese, and cut-
ting up pig for the salting? Who but old Nance, my
love, who looked after yourself when you was no bigger
than the little 'un there?"

"She's getting very old," said Pamela. "I caught her
nodding yesterday with the Blessing on her lap, and he as
near as anything into the cinders. Besides, my mind's
made up, and there's no use your trying to unmake it.
I've my reasons, and that's all there is to it."

"Why, Pam, why, lovey" — Mrs. Pounce had a
grimace like an infant about to cry — "you fair break
my heart. Why, 'twas all my thought, these days and
days, how I'd let neighbors see what a beauty my dear,
good London da'ter be, and as elegant as any lady !"

"If you've got a reason for disappointing your mother,
out with it, girl, so it's a good 'un," said Farmer Pounce
with some sternness.

Pamela tossed her head. She was never one for making
mysteries.

"Well, father and mother, if you must know so par-
ticular, wasn't that Sir Jasper Standish as was driving
the high curricle away from Pitfold Church this morning?
The stout gentleman with the kind of red eye, and it
rolling?"

"Aye, aye," grumbled the farmer, "the very man, my
dear, and a hard gentleman he be. And queer tales there
are about him. 'Tis a good thing he comes to Standish
Hall but seldom. Aye, aye, 'twas him driving them bloods
in the curricle. And a mort of fine ladies and gentlemen
in the barouche. They'll be staying Christ-nas, I reckon."

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PAMELA POUNCE

"Aye," corroborated Mrs. Pounce. "A twenty-pound
jar of my best salt, and six turkeys, no less, not to speak
of the geese — aye, and a ham, cured in that very chamber
in the chimbley, child. But, dear, to be sure, was you set
against meeting Sir Jasper just for the seeing of him step
into his curricle?"

"You didn't happen to note, mother, the gentleman who
stepped in after him?"

Farmer Pounce and his wife exchanged a scared look,
and then by common consent transferred it to their daugh-
ter. There was silence, broken only by the cheerful song
of the kettle on its chain over the embers, and the stertor-
ous breathing of the infant farmer in the cot.

Then, with a catch in her breath :

"Well, child?" ventured Mother Pounce.

Once more Pamela tossed her head. She was seated at
a corner of the kitchen table, needle, scissors, and workbox
at her elbow, and she turned and twisted the lilac satin
rosette in her hand.

"Well," she said at last, without looking up. "I don't
happen to want to meet him, that's all."

"How my dear?" Mrs. Pounce shot a frightened glance
at her husband's grim face, and another at her daughter's
bright, bent head.

"Ain't the young gentleman a friend of yours?" she
asked faintly.

Pamela snapped her thread.

"You do want to know a lot, don't you, mother, dear?
But there! There's no reason why I shouldn't tell you.
I've done nothing to be ashamed of. That young gentle-
man has the good taste to admire me a mortal lot, but he
ain't got the good taste, in my opinion, to admire me the
right way. He came after me to Canterbury, knowing I

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

was due here for mj Christmas holiday, and I sent him
packing, and, thinks I, 'tis done now, once for all, and
we'll be the best of friends at a distance. And you could
have knocked me down with a feather when I see his black
eye roaming round the church this morning. Encourage
him by going with you to-night? That would never do!
Pamela, my girl, says I to myself, and "

"What dost mean by the right way, daughter?" inter-
rupted the farmer, who had been ruminating her words,
and not found them to his liking. The veins of his fore-
head were swelled ; the hand that gripped the wooden arm
of his chair shook.

"I mean the wrong way. Now, father, don't you be
a-working yourself up. I can look after myself, and ain't
that just what I'm doing? Mother, I vow your cap will
beat the one I made for the Duchess of Queensberry all to
nothing. Now, won't the children be pleased when they
find those cakes all piping hot, mother? They ought to
be in soon now — back from Rector's. I'd like to try the
little gown on my poppet ere you put her to rest to-night."

It was the first party Sir Jasper had invited to Standish
Hall since the death of his wife, and lavish as was his
hospitality, the loss of that incomparable woman had
never been more painfully felt. A widower forlornness was
over everything. Dusty, flowerless, unkempt the parlors ;
discomfort, an open negligence of refined detail, the lack
of the controlling hand, in fine, was sensible to all his
guests.

The Christmas dinner was over, and the ladies had re-
tired. If you had cared to have examined the bottles in
rows on the floor, or the cut-glass decanters on the table,
you would have found that the company had drawn con-

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PAMELA POUNCE

siderably on Sir Jasper's generous cellar, and had not
scrupled to mix very freely.

Sir Jasper and his youngest male guest, Mr. Jocelyn
Bellairs were at the height of an argument, egged on and
applauded by good-natured Squire Upshott, and that
saturnine rake, Sir James Devlin, while Lawyer Grinder,
from Canterbury, leaned back, smiling grimly, his gray
fingers round his glass, his gray eyes acute, his large ears
pricked outside his scratch wig for any business advantage
the holiday dissipation should lay open.

"Pshaw ! My dear fellow, the girl's been three years in
Paris, I tell you ! You'll not have me believe she's better
than her neighbors. Why, don't I know all about her?
Isn't her father squatting on a bit of land that juts into
my ring fence — 'pon honor, like a fly in a man's honey —
eh, Grinder? As handsome a slut as I ever laid eyes on,
if that's the bouncer I saw at church this morning. If
you're after her, lad, go in and win ! If not, step aside,
and make room for your elders !"

Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs took a draught from the beaker in
front of him, then cast rather a wild glance at his host.

"You!" cried he. "You step in with Pamela Pounce!
My dear Sir Jasper, I do not intend to be uncivil, but
the idea is too droll !"

"How now? Is Miss so difficult? You know 'tis but a
milliner?"

"Aye, I know more of her, I dare swear, than you do.
Difficult? Well, Sir Jasper, you or any one may try their
chances so far as I am concerned — I would not give
that for them," — snapping his fingers. "Pure waste!
When I tell you that I have failed "

The unconscious cockscombry was greeted with a shout
of laughter.

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

"Hark to him !" cried old Upshott.

"Odds life!" jeered Sir Jasper. "You stimulate me!
So fastidious?"

"Nay!" Young Bellairs flung a fine black eye about
him. "So virtuous," said he, his voice sinking quite an
octave deeper than its usual gay note.

There was another laugh ; and then a silence ; and then
Sir Jasper repeated drawling:

"So virtuous? It all depends what the virtue is — eh,
gentlemen ? There's prudence, now — they tell me 'tis much
practiced of the French."

"What am I to take out of that, sir?"

"Why, lad, you may take it that Miss knows her value.
With all due deference to your good looks, you might fail
where one like myself might succeed."

"Meaning, Sir Jasper ?"

"Meaning, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs, that little milliners,
especially if they've been in Paris, may have learned to
have an eye to the main chance."

There was again much and loud merriment. The four
other gentlemen looked at the one handsome youth of the
party as if it were agreeable to see his comb cut.

"Gad, if there's any betting going on it, I'll back Jas-
per," said Sir James Devlin, with that cold smile of his
which seemed to blight where it rested. "But the mis-
chief's in it, who'd take up the wager at such odds?
What? Sweet, penniless Romeo in the one scale, and rich
Sir Paris in the other, and Juliet a French milliner?
Pshaw !"

"Why then, Sir James," cried Mr. Bellairs. "Romeo is
none so penniless but that he can back his own word.
I'm ready to wager Sir Jasper this moment as much as
he cares to risk that Miss Pamela Pounce — who is not

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PAMELA POUNCE

French, sir, but good Kentish stock — will send him to the
rightabout, as she has sent — aye, though 'tis I say it — a
better man! That all his moneybags will not weigh this
nutshell" — he crushed one under his clenched hand on the
mahogany as he spoke — "against her virtue."

Sir Jasper grew red in the face ; his eyes protruded, his
veins swelled.

"Why, done with you, you poor innocent "

"Stay, stay," intervened Sir James. "If there's to be
betting, let's do it proper, in Heaven's name! In prvmo,
what is the wager to be?"

Sir Jasper and Bellairs spoke together:

"That pretty Pounce will pounce fast enough if it is
made worth her while," cried Sir Jasper, with a guffaw.

And:

"That Sir Jasper has about as much chance of Miss
Pamela Pounce's favor as of the Princess Royal's," as-
serted Bellairs.

"Now, tut, tut !" Sir James Devlin shook his head and
clacked his tongue. "If I'm to draw up your wager,
gentlemen, you must, if you please, be a trifle less slipshod.
You can't bet on a pun, Sir Jasper, nor you on a high-
falutin' comparison to Royal ladies, young man. You've
got to bet on facts, my lads. Say, that a week from
to-day we find the young person agreeably installed under
the protection of our host here, in — better say London —
eh, Jasper? Might be a bit awkward, too close to Miss's
family, what? Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs here to be given
ocular proof that circumstances alter cases. Let your
charmer ask him to tea in her new abode this day week."

"Carry her off, carry her off, good old style. Tallyho !"
cried the tipsy squire.

"Capital idea !" Mr. Grinder shook with amusement.

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

"Run away with her ! . Carry her off, and keep her from
the hats and feathers, Sir Jasper, and I'll see that you
get Little Pitfold at long last. We'll foreclose for the
rest of the mortgage. Zounds, we will! Drat that girl!
She's been paying off at an uncommon quick rate. Took
my breath away, she did. We had to give old Pounce a
couple of years for the look of the thing, you remember —
never dreaming — But there! Time will be up next Lady
Day, and" — he broke into dry chuckling — "if you carry
off the girl you'll win your wager and get your land into
the bargain. Kill two birds with one stone."

Jocelyn Bellairs lay back in his seat with arms folded,
and a scornful smile on his countenance. He did not care
what conditions were imposed, and the higher the stake
the better for him. He was so sure of the result.

Sir James Devlin had drawn out his tablets.

"The wager's plain enough now," quoth he. "Sir Jasper
Standish wagers Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs that the girl, Pamela
Pounce, will give him a dish of tea this day week, at an
address hereafter to be determined, the said Pamela
Pounce being then established under the protection of the
said Jasper Standish. What are the stakes?"

"Oh, make it worth while!" eagerly cried Bellairs.

Devlin gave him a keen side glance.

" 'Tis scarce usual to make the stakes higher than you
can meet, Mr. Bellairs."

The young man flushed darkly. But before he could
reply:

"Odds my life," exclaimed Sir Jasper, "let's make it
worth while ! What say you to a thousand guineas ?"

"Done!" cried Jocelyn eagerly. Then he added: "I'd
like to make a stipulation. If Sir Jasper loses, let him

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PAMELA POUNCE

remit the rest of that mortgage first, whatever it is. I'll
be content with the residue."

" 'Pon my word, sir, that's a strange proposal," said
Sir Jasper, staring with an air which gave him an odd
resemblance to an incensed bull.

"You can cry off the whole bet, if you're afraid of it,"
taunted his guest.

"Foh !" said Mr. Grinder. " 'Tis but a matter of a
hundred and eighty-nine pounds, when all is said and done.
Never niggle at that, Sir Jasper. Go in and win ! 'Pon
me soul!" cried the old sinner, rubbing his hands, "I'd
sleep better in my grave if I thought the Standish estate
had got Pitfold at last."

"The stakes to be a thousand guineas," murmured Dev-
lin, as he wrote, "out of which Sir Jasper remits the rest
of Farmer Pounce's mortgage, one hundred and eighty-
nine pounds, and hands the residue eight hundred and
eleven, plus the shillings for the guineas, to Mr. Jocelyn
Bellairs. Any backers? Fifty guineas on Jasper. Who'll
take me?"

Squire Upshott was too far gone, and Lawyer Grinder
shook his head, so Sir James had to content himself with
jotting down, "No backers."

"Why, zounds!" exclaimed Sir Jasper, after he had
ruminated a while, "it seems that more hangs on this
betting to-night than the virtue of Miss, after all. What?
The farm that we Standishes from grandfather down have
vainly been trying to get hold of. That's a fine idea of
yours, Grinder, odds my life, it is ! A thousand guineas
besides, and as fine an armful — hark ye, Devlin, did ye
notice her this morning in church, as neat as a chestnut
filly? Foh! There's blood in her, sir, there's blood in

her, or I'm no judge "

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

He broke off. 'Twas a dashed superior smile on young
puppy's face. What made the fellow so cocksure, in the
name of all that was sly? A sudden thought struck him.

"Look you here, Master Bellairs," cried he, with a
muffled roar. "No collusion ! No putting your head and
Miss Pounce's together to do me out of a thousand
guineas! Eh, Devlin? Eh, Grinder? No blanked tricks !"

Jocelyn's nostrils quivered scornfully.

"I give you my word of honor, Sir Jasper," said he,
"to have no communication in private with the young lady
till your week is out."

"Come, come !" said Sir James. "Split me, Jasper, we're
all gentlemen here !"

The smile on the face of Mr. Bellairs became accentu-
ated.

"I'm ready to give Sir Jasper any guaranty," said he.

"Deuce take him ! He's like a fellow with a card up his
sleeve !" thought Sir Jasper. "Word of honor, or no word
of honor, I'll make Devlin keep watch for me."

When they went upstairs to the splendid, neglected
drawing-room where Lady Barbara Flyte, her niece, Miss
Lesbia Ogle, and Mrs. Colonel Dashwood were waiting to
pour out tea for them, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs showed him-
self in high spirits.

"Ah, Pamela, my girl !" cried he to himself, "that was
an angry look you cast at me across your prayer book
this morning, a monstrous, unpeaceful kind of look to a
man of good will; but if this day's work has not wiped

out old scores A 'filly,' he called you, aye, you'll

come over the fence as clean as a bird. I've no fear of you,
my splendid girl, and you'll be kinder to me, I dare swear,
when next we meet; but that won't be this day week, at
any lodging paid for by Sir Jasper."

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PAMELA POUNCE

"Why, la, Sir Jasper, what a merry tune !" And "Oh,
Sir Jasper, what a strange, pretty place!" And, "Why,
Sir Jasper, 'tis the most Christmas sight I've ever beheld !"
And "Pray, pray, Sir Jasper, don't ask me to trip it with
your country bumpkins, for I vow and protest I could
never pick up those vulgar steps !" And "Oh, Aunt Bab,
do but look at the pink roses in Goody's cap!" And
"Oh, Miss Ogle, you're nowhere, I declare, beside, Miss,
in feathers yonder plucked from the old turkey before
mother put it in the pot." "You're too droll, Mrs.
Dashwood!" "Do you think, Sir Jasper, the buck in the
top-boots would have me for his partner if I simpered
ever so sweet upon him?"

Sir Jasper, moving in this fire of chatter, a lady on each
arm and Miss Lesbia Ogle hanging on his coat-tails, ap-
peared at the barn-door when he believed his guests to
be assembled. The merry tune to which Lady Bab had
alluded fell silent at his approach; there were curtsies
and dips and bows on every side, while the three fiddlers
mopped their streaming faces and, rising as one man from
the wooden bench on which they had been seated in a row,
duly ducked their shock heads to their patron.

Sir Jasper gave condescending smiles and short, indif-
ferent nods right and left, the while his eyes roamed, seek-
ing, this way and that. Here was old Mother Pounce,
right enough, as large as one of her own feather beds, in
a lace cap, if you please, mighty genteel, with lavender
knots. And Farmer Pounce in his red waistcoat ; confound
the fellow, with his air of independence! Aye, was there
not a sort of triumph about him? Don't cry till you're
out of the wood, Mr. Yeoman! And, split him, what a
row of young Pounces — a fine healthy litter! And, 'pon
honor, a monstrous pretty little chit in white muslin with

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

a straw hat ! Pshaw ! He had no time to waste on silly
seventeen. Where was their agreeable bone of contention ;
where was the handsome Pamela?

"How, now, yeoman, where is your elder daughter?"

"At home, Sir Jasper," answered the father, vith the
brevity that declines discussion.

"Sure, Sir Jasper," put in Mrs. Pounce, conciliatingly,
"my daughter was vastly obleeged, but she was a trifle
fatigued this evening."

"She would stay and look after our Tom," piped Susie.

"She preferred not to come, sir," said Yeoman Pounce,
frowning.

Sir Jasper's brow had likewise gathered thunderclouds.
His eyes rolled inward. One excuse contradicted another;
the farmer's insolence voiced the truth. And Master
Jocelyn Bellairs, who had not accompanied his host to
the dance, because forsooth, it might be difficult for him
to keep his honorable pledge — Master Jocelyn Bellairs,
who had announced his intention of taking a pleasure stroll
this freezing Christmas night — Master Jocelyn Bellairs,
whose very presence at Standish Hall demanded explana-
tion, who was practically a self-invited visitor, where was
he? Pshaw, did they take him for a fool? Was he to
be mocked in his own house and jockeyed by his own guest?
Zounds! The whole plot was clear in a minute. A plot
it was; no wonder Mr. Bellairs had that insufferable air
of certainty. He and his ladylove would soon be laughing
over the thought of how they had swindled him of a
thousand guineas. And what a spending time they would
have together!

If the revelation came swift as lightning to Sir Jasper,
no less swiftly did he make up his mind for action.

It was a three-mile walk to Pitfold Farm. He would

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PAMELA POUNCE

have out his curricle, and his bloods and be beforehand
with Bellairs.

Some ten minutes later he was bowling along the frozen
road at the highest speed of his roughed horses, an,
astounded groom beside him. Purpose was setting in his
mind as hard as the ice in the ditches. There was no time
like the present. He had a slippery pair of young rascals
to deal with. If he was to win his wager he must carry off
the girl this very night.

He laid his plans with a wiliness which is not infre-
quently a characteristic of gross natures. Conscious in
himself of a fine capacity for evil, such as he will be sus-
picious of every one and everything, look for treachery
from his most trusted friend, and infidelity in the wife of
his bosom.

He dismounted at the farmyard gate, and bade Job
Stallion, the groom, drive in alone and announce that Sir
Jasper Standish had sent the curricle for Miss Pounce, as
it was her father and mother's pleasure she should come
to the dance.

The ruse succeeded with a facility beyond his expecta-
tions. Pamela had been finding the lonely evening discon-
solate enough. Baby Tom slept, while old Nance dis-
played uncommon wakefulness. The time was heavy on
Pamela's hands, and to while it away she had had the
happy thought of trying on the pretty garments which
she had prepared before Mr. Bellairs' appearance in
church had made a call upon her prudence.

Now the reaction which so often follows self-sacrifice
had set in. She was beginning to call herself a fool, and
to regret her excessive discretion. Thus, when old Nance
labored, panting, to the attic chamber, and supplemented
Job's message with: "You'd never think of saying nay now,

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

Pam, my dear. Ain't it Providence you should just have
been fitting on? And, oh, to be sure, was there ever so
pure lovely a gown? You'll be the belle o' the ball, my
dearie, that you will, and easy !"

Pamela never hesitated at all. She caught her traveling
cloak off the peg, and lifted her best feathered hat from
its bandbox — how could a milliner resist such an oppor-
tunity?— pinned it on her auburn curls, cast herself head-
long down the stairs, out through the farm kitchen like a
whirlwind, and laughing, swung herself up on the curricle
beside the grinning Job.

She was rather taken aback when this latter halted out-
side the farmyard gate, and a portly figure appeared from
the shadow of the oak tree* Hat in hand, Sir Jasper
pleasantly saluted her.

"Why, Miss Pounce, this is capital. Your father and
mother vowed you'd never come, but I said I was sure so
good a daughter would be obedient to her parents. Never-
theless"— he was climbing up beside her in the high seat,
while Job shut the gates behind them — "I was ready, you
see, to exercise a neighbor's persuasion, should you persist
in your cruel resolve. The ball would be nothing without
you, 'pon honor. There are half a dozen fine young bucks
with faces as long as my whip handle already."

By this time Job was up on the back seat, and his master
started the chestnuts at a pace that only his own pride
and temper would have urged upon them.

"Oh, la!" cried Miss Pounce, and made a clutch for
her hat. She drew the pure, keen air into her lungs, felt
the wind of their passage blow with the most delicious
invigoration against her face. "Oh, la! Was there ever
anything so beautiful ? 'Tis the first time I have driven by
moonlight. 'Tis the first time I have ever driven in a

117

PAMELA POUNCE

curricle! Oh, 'tis like flying, Sir Jasper! Oh, what a
night ! I vow I feel like a bird !"

The moonlight flooded the road, hedges and trees
sparkled and shimmered white as diamonds. The sky was
one mighty sapphire, darkly, wonderfully blue. The stars,
fainting in the moonlight, looked like the thousand facets
of a jewel.

"Oh," cried Pamela again, "I'll make a head out of it
for the opera, I will indeed! Sapphire blue ribbons and
frosted silver feathers. 'Tis an inspiration."

This gave Sir Jasper his opening.

"Why," said he, " 'tis a monstrous pity such a mon-
strous fine girl as you should have to work for her living.
The moment I set eyes on you this morning, said I to
myself "

Pamela interrupted.

"Keep your pity and your compliments, sir. They're
wasted on me."

"Why, how now, I like your spirit. I vow, my dear,
'tis you are wasted on such a life."

"What if I like my work, sir?"

"You were born to wear 'em — the fine hats — not to
make 'em. You were born to be a lady, that's what I said
to myself the moment I clapped eyes on you this morning."

"Foh ! I know 'tis gentlemen's way to start this kind
of silly talk whenever they get with a poor girl, but I
assure you, sir, I've no relish for it. And as for my being
a lady, I've seen too much of gentlefolk. I wouldn't thank
the Lord to ha' made me one."

She spoke with her head up and a straight back.

' 'Tis but gentlemen's way," she repeated to herself ;
"but I'll let him see he'll have to respect me, lady or no
lady."

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

She gripped the rail of the curricle, not to give herself
courage — for she had no thought there was anything to
fear — but to brace herself the better against any further
presumption. She was quite unprepared, therefore, when
he turned his bloods away from the road leading to
Standish Hall, and, with a flourish of the whip, sent them
helter-skelter up the hill on the London causeway.

The cry she gave was one more of anger than of fear.
A solitary pedestrian, coming at a swinging pace along
the road which led from Sir Jasper's residence, heard it,
and beheld the curricle as it topped the hill, fantastically
silhouetted in black against the moonlit sky. He gave an
answering shout, and started running. But he had as
much chance of overtaking the gig as if it had been a bird
on the flight. He gave up, panting, after a yard or two,
stamped his foot, shook his fist at the radiant sky, and
started running again in the opposite direction.

"Where are you taking me to?"

Sir Jasper's teeth and eyeballs flashed horribly in the
silver light as he smiled upon Pamela.

"You'll be uncommon grateful to me one day, my pretty
little milliner."

"Good Heaven, what do you mean, sir ?"

"I dare swear you ain't so far from being grateful now.
Oh, aye ! 'Tis the regular thing to set up a hullabaloo,
but I'm not to be taken in by any tushery, and so I tell
you ! You may scream till you're blue, there ain't a soul
on the roads to hear you, and as for kicking, 'tain't easy
on a curricle, so, like a girl of sense, let's pretend you've
had your vapors, and you and I will have a glorious time
together. Why, who was talking of silver feathers ? 'Tis
golden chains I'll give you, my splendid child ; aye, and a
pearl each for your pretty ears — I can't see 'em under

119

PAMELA POUNCE

your hat, but I dare swear they're pretty like the rest —
and maybe a diamond brooch for your kerchief. And you
shall have a house of your own and a pair of fine London
maids to wait on you, and I'll take you about, my dear,
and you will have naught to do in the world but enjoy
yourself."

She listened in dead silence till he had finished, and then
without condescending to reply to him, turned her head
over her shoulder, and hailed the groom.

"Job Stallion, Job Stallion," she said, "your father was
reared on my father's land. Will you see a Kentish girl
carried away to perdition against her will, and not lift a
finger to save her?"

"Job Stallion," said Sir Jasper, snatching a pistol from
the seat beside him, "if you unfold your arms you're a
dead man."

Then Sir Jasper and the yeoman's daughter stared into
each other's eyes, each drawing long, fierce breaths
through dilated nostrils. Suddenly he laughed and
dropped the pistol back into its holster. Again he sent
his whip circling. The horses broke into a canter on the
downward slope, the light-hung vehicle swaying and leap-
ing behind them. The very intensity of their speed saved
them from stumbling.

At length Pamela said in a low voice :

"At least I have a right to know where you are taking
me."

"Did I not tell you? To London."

"You do not think I am so simple as to believe you can
drive to London with these horses to-night?"

"Why, of course not. We'll stop at Ashford, and get
a chaise and four of the best posters money can hire.

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

We'll be in London to-night, never fear. Hark, there's
nine of the clock striking from Catterford Hill."

He pointed with1 his whip. Pamela saw the square tower
of the little church silver and black against the sky. A
lump rose in her throat. For the first and only time that
night a burst of hysterical weeping threatened to over-
whelm her.

"I'm lost," she said to herself, "if I don't keep brave.
If I don't keep my head, I'm lost."

No strong soul ever cries vainly on courage. The an-
guish passed, her spirit rose.

"Sir Jasper Standish," said she, "why are you running
away with me? Tell me that."

"Won't you believe I want to make a lady of you?"

"No."

"Well, then, the mere sight of that handsome face of
yours this morning has made me mad in love with you.
Will you believe that?"

"Neither the one nor the other, sir. You see," she went
on, "I am not kicking nor screaming, I am in your power,
and I can't help myself. I think you'd find it better for
yourself, sir, and better for me, if you'd tell me the truth."

Her quiet tone, the perfect composure of her face, very
pale and lovely in the moonlight as she turned it upon
him, struck some faint spark of generosity.

"By Heaven!" said he admiringly. "You're a well-
plucked one! The truth you want. Split me, 'tis all
true! But you're right there's yet another reason. I
want to win a wager, my little darling !"

"What wager, sir?"

"You." He grinned at her. "That spark of yours — he
is a spark of yours, ain't he? — that fine young fellow,
Jocelyn Bellairs, he wagered you were too virtuous for a

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PAMELA POUNCE

man to have a chance with. But I wagered him you wasn't.
Come now, you're a good-hearted piece. Help me to win
my wager, and I'll make it worth your while."

Pamela reflected profoundly. Then she gave a little
laugh.

"Why, Sir Jasper!" she exclaimed. "What sad, wild
creatures you gentlemen are! It comes to this, then
I've got to make the best of a bad job." Then she swal-
lowed hard, and said, with a still more sprightly air,
"You'll give me a bit of supper at Ashford, I suppose, for
I'm mortal hungry."

He broke into hoarse laughter, and cried again that,
by Heaven, she was a well-plucked one, and they'd get on
first class; that she should have the finest supper the
Bear Inn could afford. If she'd stand by him, by jingo,
he'd stand by her. There wasn't a gentleman in England
who'd be such a friend to the woman who trusted him as
he would be to her.

When they arrived at Ashford, she demanded, with a
sudden air of command, which became her, he thought,
mightily, and tickled his already high good humor to posi-
tive hilarity, that she should be brought to a sitting-room
and partake of the meal in privacy while the post-chaise
was being got ready.

"And," quoth she, "let it be champagne, Sir Jasper,
since" — she gave him a wide, taunting smile — " 'tis to be
made worth my while."

He flung an arm about her the moment the waiter had
withdrawn ; she freed herself with a vigorous thrust, but
as she did so, she laughed.

"Nay, drink your Sillery, sir. Aye, pour me a glass.
Oh, aye, I'll drink any toast you like. Have you not said
it yourself? I'm the best-natured girl in the world — so

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

long as you keep your place, sir. Why, 'tis the finest
pigeon pie I've tasted since Paris. You know I was in
Paris, Sir Jasper?"

Sir Jasper chuckled, winking at her.

Her fingers clenched round her knife, the while her
smile would not have misbefitted the lips of a bacchante.

"And will you bring me to the opera, Sir Jasper? Oh,
and to Ranelagh? Oh, to think of me going to Ranelagh
on a gentleman's arm, like a lady !"

He was enraptured. He tossed the remainder of his
tumbler down, and filled himself a third, emptying the
bottle. He had almost forgotten the wager in the intoxi-
cation of his personal triumph. Dash it! It had not
taken him long to cut out young Bellairs. What a demni-
tion handsome piece she was. There wasn't one of those
raffish ladies he had left behind him at Standish Hall could
hold a candle to her. And odds his life ! What a pair of
eyes she had, and what teeth, and what a skin !

Suddenly she dropped her knife and fork.

"Sir Jasper," said she, with an air of great gravity,
"I'll not go a step further with you unless you do some-
thing for me."

"Name it, my dear."

"Why, sir, send Job back with a letter to my parents.
And 'twill be the best for yourself, I can tell you, as mat-
ters stand. My father wouldn't let the King rob him of
his daughter without a fight."

He stood staring at her doubtfully, his wide nostrils
scenting mischief like an irritated bull; she went on very
quickly, "I'll not go a step farther with you unless you
do. Give me your tablets — gentlemen always carry them,
I know. You shall see for yourself what I write :

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PAMELA POUNCE

"Dear Father, don't be alarmed, I'm going with Sir
Jasper for a wager. 'Tis a mere joke. He's too grand a
gentleman to let harm come to me out of it. Your loving
daughter, Pam."

She read it to him. He went over it himself, then once
more tried to catch her to him, vowing she was as clever
as she was handsome.

"Nay, nay, nay!" She was the most imperative, tan-
talizing creature possible to imagine. "Now, Sir Jasper,
run and give this to Job yourself. Stay, put a guinea
with it, to make the lad eager. Tell him to ride, ride,
ride, hell for leather ! Isn't that what you gentlemen say,
'Hell for leather5?" she repeated, laughing, as she hustled
him from the room. "Don't come back to me till you've
seen him start."

He went. That third bumper of champagne on the
head of so many potations earlier in the day, after the
long, cold drive, had fairly stupefied him. He went, be-
cause her strong will drove him, without attempting to
analyze her motive. For the moment his suspicious brain
was lulled to a kind of imbecile complacence. He went
pounding forth. As soon as the sound of his heavy steps
died away on the wooden boards, Pamela was out of the
room like a dart.

She had seen the dark pit of the back stairs gape on
the passage as they had passed along to the sitting-room.
She was down it now, as sure-footed as if it had been lit
up. In another moment, past a pair of staring kitchen
sluts and a tapman, she was out in the back yard and
running along the village street.

She always declared, afterwards, that she had been as
one guided. She did not pause to reconnoiter or hesitate

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THE VALUE OF VIRTUE

at a turning. Fleet and light as a shadow, she raced
through the alleys of the little town, deserted this Christ-
mas night, till she came to a point on the main road which
she knew Job Stallion must pass on his homeward way,
and then she hid herself.

She had not very long to wait before the beat of horses'
hoofs resounded on the frozen ground. Hell for leather,
indeed! 'Twas the most egregious jog-trot that ever took
lazy groom and unwilling horse from warm quarters on a
Christmas night!

Job Stallion let fly a terrified oath as Pamela rose out
of the ditch and laid a hand upon his bridle. He was
scarcely less alarmed when he discovered that he had to do
with neither wraith nor highwaywoman, but with his mas-
ter's prize. She cut short his "darsen'ts" and his whim-
pering expostulations very sternly.

"I am going to ride pillion behind you, Job Stallion,
and you must whip up that fat brute of a post-horse to
something of a canter, for you've got to carry me back
home before Sir Jasper can overtake us. Thank your
stars, my lad," she went on, "that the Lord has given you
a chance of redeeming the night's work, for I tell you it
would have gone hard with any who had a hand in it.
Men have been hanged for less !"

She kept him busy with whip and spur till the old gray
mare wheezed and bucketed along the road at a pace
astonishing for her years and size.

It was somewhere midway between Ashford and Pit-
fold that they crossed Mr. Bellairs riding towards them
on his own rakish chestnut as if for a race. If Pamela's
heart beat high at sight of him, she did not avow her pride
and pleasure even to herself; if her bright, clear heat of
anger and triumphant determination gave place to ten-

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PAMELA POUNCE

der, womanly emotions, she betrayed no sign of them.
She postponed explanations, and issued instructions to
Mr. Bellairs as to Job Stallion in the accents of one who
means they shall be carried out.

"You will kindly ride a hundred paces behind me, Mr.
Bellairs. I have no notion of having my name mixed up
with yours or Sir Jasper's this night. As for you, Job,
hand me over that tablet. You can keep the guinea for
yourself. And you will drop me, if you please, in the
courtyard at Standish Hall, for 'tis not too late to join
the dancers in the barn. And I mean there shall be no
talk on this night's work, if I can help it.

"If you breathe a word, Job Stallion, you'll wish you
never were born, or my father's name not Jeremy Pounce !
And as for you, Mr. Bellairs, sir, you've won your wager —
yes, I know all about it — so you owe me a good turn, I
think, and all I ask for is silence, silence ! My father's a
violent man, and it does no woman's name any good — no,
not even a poor milliner's — to be made such sport of as
mine betwixt you two gentlemen to-night. As for Sir
Jasper, I warrant he'll hold his tongue. He don't cut so
fine a figure !"

And so it ended. Pamela went to the barn dance after
all, and danced in vast condescension with several agree-
able young farmers. Jocelyn Bellairs got the rector to
introduce him to Mrs, Pounce, and sitting beside that
lady made himself so agreeable that she was, as she ex-
pressed it, quite in a twitter. Mindful of his word passed
to Sir Jasper, he did not again approach Pamela, but
the gaze with which he followed her about the long room
was eloquent enough.

When the little Pounces had nearly yawned themselves
off the benches, and Pamela's poppet, Peg, had gone to

126

sleep outright, her curly head on her mother's ample lap,
it was the elegant young gentleman who conducted Mrs.
Pounce to the waiting farm-cart, with as much courtesy
as if he were leading a duchess to her barouche. The
moon was set. The courtyard was fitfully illumined by
torches thrust into clamps in the wall and by the shifting
rays of the lanterns carried by the revelers.

As Pamela, standing by the cart, lifted Peg up to her
mother's extended arms, while Mr. Bellairs obligingly held
the lantern, Sir Jasper's curricle wheeled slowly into the
yard, drawn by a pair of fairly exhausted thoroughbreds.
Without stirring from his high seat, the reins slipping
from his hands, Sir Jasper stared at the picture painted
on the night as at some spectral vision.

"Why, here's Sir Jasper!" cried an obsequious voice.
"Three cheers for Sir Jasper, lads !"

Perhaps because his appearance had been as unexpected
as his disappearance, perhaps because the sight of his
dreadful face of wrath, flamingly illumined by the red
glare of a torch was enough to choke off any demonstra-
tion, perhaps because he was too unpopular a landlord
even for so many glasses of negus and so many mince pies
to counterbalance — however it may have been, there was
but a poor response: a faint cry, that rose and quavered
away. It was almost more deadly in its effect than an
execration. Sir Jasper rolled a bloodshot eye upon his
tenants and neighbors.

"Blast you all !" he cried huskily, let himself drop from
his seat, and reeled towards the house.

On New Year's Day Pamela returned to London, and
on the day after a summons to Yeoman Pounce to attend
at Mr. Grinder's office in Canterbury caused some per-

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PAMELA POUNCE

turbation to the inmates of Little Pitfold. But when he
returned he brought astounding intelligence.

"You'll never believe it, wife !" he cried from the thresh-
old, "but the mortgage is paid off! Buss me, mother,
we're free of our own again !"

"Oh, 'tis our Pam! 'Tis that best of children! Oh,
the surprise, father! Oh, the slyness of it, never telling
us a word! Oh, was there ever so good a girl?"

"Lawyer Grinder," said the farmer, letting himself drop
heavily in a chair, "kept a close mouth. He wasn't at
liberty, those were his words, to say who it was as had
paid it off. 'But paid off it is, and that's enough for you,
farmer,' says he. 'I reckon I know whom I'm beholden
to,' I says, 'and I'll tell you plain, lawyer,' says I, 'I'm
not a man as 'ud be beholden without it was to one who, so
to speak, be but paying back what's due to a parent.'
At that he smiles on the wrong side of his mouth, after his
fashion, wife, none best pleased, I can tell you. As for Sir
Jasper — well, he won't get hold o' Little Pitfold nohow
now !"

When Mrs. Pounce wrote to Pamela in London the letter
was very full of blessings on a good daughter.

("And your father is so out of himself with joy, my
dear; 'tis a new lease of life.")

And Pamela smiled as she read. Her lover, now very
respectful, though by no means less ardent, had told her
the story of the wager. Who was to say, after all, that
she had not paid off the mortgage? As for the rest, she
knew when to speak and when to be silent.

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH MY LADY ETLCBONEY MAKES A MATCH AND MISS
POUNCE THROWS COLD WATEB ON IT

late Lady Standish was one of my Lady Kil-
-•• croney's earliest friends.

When Kitty first burst upon society in the select pre-
cincts of Bath — then the fabulously rich, unpardonably
pretty, delightful, audacious, amazing little Widow Bel-
lairs! — Julia Standish was scarce a three weeks' bride.

From the very beginning Kitty's endeavor had been to
insert some backbone into the lovely but invertebrate
Julia ; and once, in despair, she had summed up the situa-
tion by exclaiming that " 'twas like trying to mold too
soft a jelly: the moment you thought you had her into
shape, she was deliquescent again."

Therefore, though the connection was long and close;
though Kitty, whether as Mistress Bellairs or my Lady
Kilcroney, counted no party complete without her Julia;
though, when in town together scarce a day could pass
upon which Julia, driven by the stress of some overwhelm-
ing emotional crisis did not fling herself, weeping, upon
Kitty's breast; it could not be said that my Lady Kil-
croney was very ardently attached to Lady Standish, or
that her death, sad and premature as it was, plunged her
in any depth of sorrow*

The truth was that Julia Standish, elegant and vir-
tuous, fair to look on and fond of feeling, belonged to
the class that wear out the affections by overusage. The
stuff of Kitty's sturdy good comradeship had been worn

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PAMELA POUNCE

so uncommonly thin that at the time of Julia's lamented
death scarcely enough had been left between them to make
a darn worth while.

Kitty liked life in a strong brew and Lady Standish
wept into her cup so persistently that there was nothing
left but salt water.

Nevertheless, when the news of the irreparable event
reached her, my Lady, being the best-hearted little woman
in the world, wept herself for quite three minutes ; and
then, dispatching her Lord to see what service he could be
to poor Sir Jasper, ordered her sedan and had herself de-
posited at Madame Mirabel's in Bond Street, to order a
black bonnet and mourning mantle for the funeral.

My Lord had set out on his melancholy errand with a
dutiful concealment of its intense distastefulness.

He thought Jasper's case the most confounded dreadful
a man could be placed in; and shrank, with all his Irish
softness, from the spectacle of a woe beyond his conso-
lation.

He found matters even more tragic than he anticipated.
The last word Sir Jasper's incomparable Julia murmured
to him, as, her hand in his, she left him for a better world,
was to remind him of his promise never to replace her.
This pledge had been exacted many times during the seven
years of their existence together, but never more solemnly
than in the hours that had preceded her demise.

From the moment of her seizure — spasms on the lungs —
to that last breath, Sir Jasper had been in unremitting
attendance. Every physician of note had been summoned
to her bedside ; but, in spite of all the resources of science,
bloodings, blisters and cuppings, pills and potions, poor
Julia Standish persisted in succumbing. He was the most
afflicted of widowers ! She had been the pearl of wives.

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LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

No woman could ever compare with her in the whole world
again. He was a blasted man. "Console himself 1" he
roared. That angel, that departed saint need have put
him to no promise. She might sleep in peace ; her Jasper
was henceforth naught but a solitary mourner. What was
left him, indeed, but to live for his little ones, those five
pledges of their mutual affection; to rear them worthy
of such a mother, and, his task accomplished, take his
broken heart to lie beside her in the grave? "For I will
be buried with my Julia," he cried upon each fresh gush
of tears.

"Faith," said Lord Kilcroney to his Kitty, describing
the scene to her when they met again, "she's dropped her
mantle upon him with a vengeance. Wasn't it the water-
ing-pot you used to call her, me darling? The poor lady !
He caught me by the neck a while ago, and troth he soaked
me to the skin. *She was the most elegant woman !' cries
he. 'She was that, me lad,' says I. 'And the most vir-
tuous !' cries he, with another gulp. 'Aye, that she was,'
cries I. And, sure, Kitty, if ever a poor soul made virtue
tedious and dismal "

"Hush, hush!" My Lady Kilcroney interrupted.
"Speak no ill of the dead, sir. Poor Julia, she was a
fond, foolish creature, but she was an old friend, and,
'pon honor, Denis, I'm crying for her myself. 'Tis but
fitting indeed that Sir Jasper, who was a sad, bad hus-
band, my love, and would have given any woman red eyes,
should mourn her now."

" 'Tis the frantickest widower I ever met. Mourn,
quotha ! 'How shall I survive ?' is all his cry, and to see
him going on that way, you'd scarce give him a sennight."

"Pshaw!" said Kitty. "Such frantic fits never last, I

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PAMELA POUNCE

give him a sennight, my Lord, to — to dry his eyes and
look about for number two."

" 'Pon me honor, Kitty, you're out of it ! Didn't she
extract a promise from him, the dying angel, that he'd
never look at woman again, and as for marriage "

"And if that isn't Julia all over!" cried Kitty indig-
nantly. "And he with five children! A man of Sir Jas-
per's temperament! Tush! Pooh! And were I on my
deathbed, Denis, 'twould be the last of my wishes to lay
such a monstrous bit of nonsense on your spirits. Why,
'twould be but tempting you to perjury. Yes, you — or
any other man. 'Look out for a well-bred creature, pray,'
I would say, 'and a healthy, that she be kind to our little
Denis, and pick her sensible for the Lord's sake.' Now,
Sir Jasper, mark my words, I give him a week to bellow,
and, after that — observe me — he will be found at such
common, low places as a cockfight, or a bruising match,
with a kerchief high about his neck, and a hat down on his
eyes. And he will, like as not, make expeditions to Bristol
and Plymouth, where he is less known, and where a man
may attend a bit of sport without his friends' eyes upon
him. Do I not know your masculine ways, my Lord? And
by and by he will be found at the clubs, at the cards, and
the betting; and however lugubrious he may show his
countenance, and however sadly he may heave his sigh
when he first appears, 'twill wear off marvelous ! And oh,
and oh," cried Kitty, breaking into wrathful laughter,
"then there will be never such a buck on the town, nor one
with such an eye for petticoats, as your disconsolate
widower !"

" 'Tis a biting tongue ye have in your head, me dar-
ling," said Kilcroney, half-admiring, half-displeased.

"Before the year is out," concluded my Lady triumph-

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LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

antly, " 'twill be the duty of all his friends, aye, and of
poor dear Julia's, who care for the welfare of her children,
to see that he is safe wed. I shall look to it myself. I owe
it to the memory of poor dear Julia !"

Kitty broke off. Her glance roamed. A frown cor-
rugated her white forehead. Kilcroney saw that she was
mentally seeking, among all her acquaintance, for a sub-
stitute with the desired qualifications.

About the time of Sir Jasper's bereavement, that dis-
tinguished peer, my Lord Ongar, put off this mortal coil.
The title and fortune passed to a nephew, and it was
found that his widow and the daughter, who was yet too
young to have left the parent nest, were singularly ill-
provided for. My Lady Ongar, who was a Frenchwoman,
was in poor health; and much sympathy was felt for her
situation, as well as for that of the little Lady Selina,
who, on the threshold of presentation to the world, found
herself suddenly at so great a disadvantage. It was true
that both her sisters had made good marriages ; one to
Lord Verney, who had a house in town as well as country
property; the other to Squire Day, of Queen's Compton.
But then, as Kitty Kilcroney said, who that had a heart
in her breast could suggest placing a high-spirited girl
under the charge of Susan Verney? "For sure, my dear,
somewhere back there must have been a slave-driver among
her ancestors. And as for Nan Day, was she not lost in
domestic bliss ; and no one ought to expect pretty Selina
to bury herself in hay cocks and babies — other people's
babies."

It was owing to the Viscountess Kilcroney's influence
that the young lady was offered a post about the Princess
Augusta, the second of the bevy of beautiful Royal Prin-
cesses ; for since assuming her duties as I ady-in- Waiting

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PAMELA POUNCE

to Queen Charlotte, Kitty had vastly pleased Her Majesty
in that capacity.

Not indeed that my Lady Kilcroney, who now had her
own personal experience to go by, approved of Court life
as a career for any young unmarried female. 'Twas
monstrous cramping, she declared to those who had her
complete confidence; and the Royals, perfect beings as
they were, and gratifying as it was to be chosen to serve
them, had a fashion of very naturally considering them-
selves paramount and their favor the chief benefit of ex-
istence.

"I'll not have the child's youth sucked out of her,"
quoth my Lady, in the strict privacy of her chamber, to
the grunting Denis, who himself disliked the Court and all
its ways with a large intolerance, born of its demands on
his Kitty. "But a year, my love, 'twill give her a certain
stamp of elegance. We can scarce look for a very great
marriage for our Selina, with never two farthings in her
pocket, but there are a vast of pleasant gentlemen of the
second rank who water at the mouth at the thought of
anything favored by Royalty."

It was not till Lady Selina had been some nine months
in her new post, and Sir Jasper Standish well nigh a year
a widower, that the great idea flashed into Kitty's mind.

Sir Jasper was a personable man and had not yet topped
thirty-five; a very prime age for a bridegroom with the
greenness of youth cast off, the tedium of maturity not
yet as much as dawned. With your man of thirty-five it
is a point of honor to be as ready with the generosity of
youth as the lad of twenty, especially should his fancy
turn to sweet seventeen. He will have gained, however, a
vast of experience, and, unless he be a fool, a seasoned
judgment. Sir Jasper was no fool; and though he had so

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LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

far justified my Lady Kilcroney's prognostications as to
be more conspicuous at any dashing sport meeting than
ever before, he kept chiefly in the company of his own sex,
and never so much as noticed the passage of the most
flouncing petticoat ; and who was more likely to know than
Kitty, since she was the only lady in the world whose
society the widower now frequented !

At first the talk would be all of his Julia ; but in a little
while lamentations gave way to more cheerful discourse
anent the young family.

It was in her capacity of godmother to little Kate
Standish that, a due interval having elapsed since the loss
of their ever-to-be-regretted Julia, Kitty Kilcroney first
addressed Sir Jasper on the subject of a second marriage.
She was, of course, quite prepared for the shocked refusal
which met her.

Was it possible my Lady Kilcroney should not be aware
of the solemn vow, by which he had pledged himself to his
"Dying Treasure," to remain ever faithful to her memory?

My Lady Kilcroney was very well aware of it. Heaven
knew, she exclaimed, rolling her pansy eyes towards the
ceiling of her drawing-room — she was for the while free of
her Court duties, and was established in the Hertford
Street mansion — Heaven knew, if ever there was any one
in the world who could appreciate what a second mar-
riage meant to a true mourner it was she ! When Bellairs

went "Ah, you never knew my first, Sir Jasper ! The

most excellent, the most estimable, the most generous and
noble-minded of men. There was not a condition in his
will, I do assure you ! Everything, everything left to me !
'My dearest wife, Kitty, in token of the perfect happiness
she gave me.' Those were his words, Sir Jasper. But a
year's happiness, alas! and he, poor seraph, scarce able

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PAMELA POUNCE

to endure any one in the room with him with the gout so
cruel settled in his joints that, if you'll believe me, his feet
were like nothing so much as warming-pans, and his
hands — my poor Bellairs' hands, why, there were days
when he could not have borne that a butterfly should settle
on them ! When my cherished martyr was released from
his sufferings, did I not, like you, vow in my heart that
I never, never could replace him?"

Here Kitty fixed her eyes upon Sir Jasper's lugubrious
countenance, and, positively, though her tone was filled
with such pious melancholy, they twinkled.

"I fail to see the analogy, my Lady Kilcroney," said
he huffily. "My Julia was as young as she was fair, as
elegant in form as she was virtuous in character."

"True, true, Sir Jasper ! Bellairs became, very shortly
after our espousals, a wreck, an absolute wreck. But he
retained the most admirable amiability of temper. 'Twas
indeed that which first drew my heart to him. 'My dear,'
he said to me, 'when I heard that my poor old friend Ned
had gone smash, and shot himself and left a little daughter
without a farthing to buy a ribbon with, I cast about in
my mind what I should do to help her. And, faith, I can
think of no better way, my dear, than to make a rich
widow of you.' And then he set to laughing in his droll,
wheezing way. 'I'm game for a year,' says he, 'if you can
stand the old man for a year,' says he. 'I'll put you in
the way of getting the best the world can give you ; honor
and good repute, and wealth and a young husband in due
time — better than if your poor father had kept out of
indigo. If you'll trust me, I'll trust you,' says he. And
my dear Bellairs kept his word royally. He'd never so
much as a suspicion of me; or aught but a smile for my
pleasures." Here a tear suddenly flashed. "I'm proud

136

LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

to say," cried Kitty, "I deserved his confidence. Is there
ever anything so beautiful in life as wedded trust?"

Sir Jasper went home thoughtful. His Julia had had
every merit, but if she had had also just the tiniest part
of Bellairs', the nabob's, generosity of mind, would he,
could he, have so often — as, alas ! he had ! But there were
times when he had been goaded, indubitably driven, to
seek distraction. Angel as she had been, to what scream-
ing vapors, what swoons had she not treated him? How
often also — here he held his head higher, and made a
knowing thrust at a door post with his gold-headed walking
stick as he went by — had she not suspected the vilest deeds
when he had been as innocent as the lambs in the field?

"You cannot," said Sir Jasper, sapiently to himself, as
his marital crimes appeared before him suddenly trans-
mogrified into peccadilloes, "you cannot be said to betray
a trust that has never been reposed in you."

Next time my Lady spoke of matrimony to the bereaved,
it was in the tone of one who regrets a rash determination,
but recognizes its binding quality.

"What a pity, Sir Jasper, you should have been led
into such fond folly! To take such a vow! Irrevocable,
of course ! Who would have the dreadful courage to sug-
gest the breaking of a pledge to one who is now among the
saints. What if a father's duty points one way, that
deathbed obligation sternly points the other."

She pitied Sir Jasper — she did indeed. How was a man,
and he so young, to deal with five children, and they with
all the difficulties of life before them ; character, education
and — heavens! — illnesses? Measles and mumps, hectics
and whooping-coughs, and all the rest of it ! "Poor Julia,
could she but see now to what her intemperate passion for

137

PAMELA POUNCE

you has led ! If our Julia had a fault — dare I say it, Sir
Jasper? — she was a little, leetle inclined to jealousy."

When Kitty returned to Queen's Lodge to take up
service with Her Majesty, Sir Jasper and she had come
to discussing very freely the kind of person who might be
regarded as worthy to fill their dearest Julia's shoes.

Kitty was full of suggestions, but, one way or another,
the paragons enumerated by the lady were never to the
gentleman's taste.

When Lady Selina joined the Court circle, she was, if
truth be told, the very last young female whom Kitty
could in conscience have selected as a fitting companion
for a widower of Sir Jasper's kidney, or the proper kind
of stepmother to his peevish brats. Nevertheless, when
the idea came, it was with the brilliant conviction of a
flash of lightning.

Selina Vereker was not dark and masterful like Susan
Verney, nor was she soft and warm-hearted, all feminine
impulse and charm, like Nan Day. She was a bold piece,
Kitty had decided from the first, with a short* nose and a
short temper; hair under her powder as blazing as Sir
Jasper's own, and a gray eye that possessed a certain cold,
reflective audacity which made Kitty thoughtful. She
was a judge of minxes. Withal the creature, if not pretty,
was mighty attractive ; with a little head on a white throat,
and a way of tossing it; slim, long limbs like a boy and
a freedom of movement inside her voluminous skirts that
was almost unbecoming to her sex. And the tiresome
child was in a hundred scrapes and in Royalty's black
books before she had been a fortnight at her duties. This
was unpleasant for Kitty, who had recommended her.
And, as she had a kind heart, it filled her with apprehen-
sion for the future. For if anything so awful were to

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LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

happen as that Selina should fall into serious disgrace
and be dismissed from Court, what in the world would be-
come of her ? So poor, so naughty, and so innocent ; with
a pair of selfish sisters and her mother retired to a con-
vent ! Why, with Royal displeasure upon her, never could
she hope to ally herself to a genteel family !

Sir Jasper! Was not the man to her hand? He de-
served a wife with some fire in her, after having so long
endured the deliquescent Julia, and he deserved too, sad
rake that he was, something with a temper of her own to
keep him to attention and in his place.

"To heel, sir, or beware, there are other fine fellows in
the world who are ready to appreciate what you have the
bad taste to neglect."

Her mind made up, Kitty set to work with a transparent
artifice, to which only the blundering male would fall a
prey.

"Pray, come to tea to-morrow, sir — or stay, perhaps
better not, for I have Princess Augusta's Maid-of-Honor,
the little Selina Vereker, and, oh, no, I would not for the
world that you should meet 1"

"And why, pray?"

"La, Sir Jasper, and you on the lookout for a new Lady
Standish! You might fall in love with her, to be sure."

"And what then, my Lady Kilcroney?"

"Oh, Sir Jasper, Sir Jasper, that would never do !"

"And why not, ma'am?"

"But eighteen, sir."

"I see no objection there.'*

"Fie, Sir Jasper, and you turned thirty-six!"

"But thirty-five my last birthday, ma'am, as I'm a
sinner."

"A sinner, indeed, Sir Jasper, and now you have it.

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PAMELA POUNCE

What? Would you, sir, mate with innocence, guileless-
ness ; lamblike light-heartedness, and sprightliness ; you
with ?"

"Come, come, my Lady Kilcroney. I've not been a
model husband, I dare say."

"I dare say not, sir. Heavens, my poor Julia!"

"Your poor Julia, ma'am, would have driven a saint-
Pshaw ! She was too good for me !"

"Believe me, sir, you should wed a young lady of some
experience, if not a widow, a staid female, sir."

"Thank you, my Lady, I'm vastly obliged, I'm sure."

"And you so jealous, Sir Jasper, who could scarce even
trust virtue's self, in the shape of Julia ! La, to think of
you with Selina — such beauty, Sir Jasper; such grace,
such charm, so ready to take the pleasure of her years, so
pure ignorant of the world's ways !"

"Good heavens, my Lady Kilcroney, if I do not come
to your tea party to-morrow, 'twill be that I am a dead
man."

"Do not say you were not warned," said my Lady, and
had the laugh of scorn to herself to see with what con-
quering airs Sir Jasper glanced at himself in each mirror
when, departing, he crossed the long length of her draw-
ing-room at Queen's Lodge.

The pretty Maid-of-Honor and the already forsworn
widower duly met over Kitty's Bohea next afternoon.
Sir Jasper duly fell head over heels in love ; and before the
week was out, they were engaged to be married. Royalty
approved, my Lady Ongar gave her consent with tears of
joy; and both Susan Verney and Nan Day sent cool sis-
terly sanction.

Having secured her victim, Kitty prepared herself to
enjoy every moment of the delightful process of decking

140

LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

her for the sacrifice. What woman but does not feel that
in the trousseau lies the true inward satisfaction of the
bridal state? To a benevolent heart like my Lady Kil-
croney's the choice of Lady Selina's garments ; the proper
expenditure of the funds entrusted to her for the purpose
by the widowed mother, offered a task in which duty went
hand in hand with delight. Generous soul that she was,
she promptly decided to supplement the Dowager's ex-
iguous allotment by a contribution of her own ; secretly, so
as not to hurt the poor child's feelings, but to an extent
which should in her estimation befit the wedding of a Maid-
of-Honor under the protection of the Lady Kilcroney.

Needless to add that to bring Selina to Pamela Pounce
was almost the first of her desires as self-elected Fairy
Godmother. Who but Pamela indeed could set out a Bride
so that her appearance on the great morning should be
an event in the world of Fashion? Pamela under Kitty's
instructions — there never was such a combination of in-
tellect !

My Lady Kilcroney, as she drove up through the bright
sunshine from Windsor, was filled with anticipations so
agreeable and exciting that she had little thought to spare
for the silence and irresponsiveness of the girl beside her.

Selina had a delicious little countenance, even though
she was sulking heavily; so, when her glance strayed re-
flectively upon her, my Lady found nothing in the contem-
plation to disturb her equanimity.

It was the first time in its annals that the House of
Mirabel beheld a carriage with the Royal liveries halt
before its portals,, and the flutter in its discreet walls was
indescribable.

Madame Mirabel herself, catching sight of the scarlet
splendor through the first-floor window, was seized with the

PAMELA POUNCE

trembles and had to send Miss Clara Smithson for a glass
of ratafia out of the back parlor cupboard before she
could control her limbs sufficiently to walk downstairs. It
was true that her immense agitation was promptly allayed
by Miss Polly Popple, who put her head in at the door
to say:

"It's only my Lady Elcroney after all, what's brought
a pale Miss for a wedding hat. So don't you put yourself
about, Madame Mirabel, and Miss Pounce that cool it
don't look as if her opinions were what they ought to be and
gracious goodness, where is the roll of silver ribbon came
from Lyons? I laid it out of my hand, Clara, when I ran
up a while ago about Mrs. Lafone's bill, and him giving
all sorts in the showroom. I wouldn't be married to an
elderly gentleman what's miserly, not for — where's the sil-
ver ribbon for mercy's sake? There's the bell going after
me like mad. Thank you, dear. Don't put yourself about,
Madame Mirabel — who ever told you it was the Queen!
It's only my Lady Kilcroney^ — drat it! there it goes
again — I'm coming."

Pamela Pounce had caught a glimpse of Kitty's dainty
profile behind the misleading scarlet as the Queen's
barouche halted; and it was with her usual graceful self-
composure that she swam forward to curtsy to her
patroness. Four steps and a nicely graduated obeisance,
with just an undulation which included my Lady's com-
panion, Pamela had a perfect command of the correct at-
titude. Then she waved her hand.

"Chairs, Miss Popple. — Pray be seated, ladies."

Then, with a pretty spring of alacrity in manner and
voice, a most respectful yet delightfully confidential ap-
proach to familiarity:

"And what can I show your Ladyship to-day?" cried

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LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

she. "There's the sweetest head, a twist of cherry tulle
with a bunch of green grapes, just come from Paris —
made for your Ladyship!"

Kitty waved the tempting suggestion to one side.
"Nothing for me to-day, my dear creature. I've brought
Lady Selina."

Selina, who had entered, stood and sat down like an
automaton with every reason to be dissatisfied with its
surroundings, here gave her patroness a steely look of
enmity; and then cast down her eyes so that their long
eyelashes cast a shadow on her white cheek.

Pamela appraised the small, set face and Kitty pro-
ceeded to expound : "The fact is, Miss Pounce, I am here
with Lady Selina for a wedding order."

"Indeed, my Lady."

"Yes, indeed," cried Kitty, warming to her subject,
"the wedding hat, no less, child, and the going away!
Oh! And a head for the dinner party I mean to give in
honor of the engagement. Princess Augusta has promised
to attend. And the wedding is to take place from my
house in Hertford Street, Pamela, the very moment May is
over. What with my Lady Verney having a feeling about
the mourning, and my Lady Anne Day so set about with
measles in her nursery, there isn't any one as near to this
dear girl as myself, if it's reckoned by old friendship."

Here Kitty paused for breath and after duly waiting
for Lady Selina to express some acknowledgments of these
handsome sentiments, Pamela, in the young person's per-
sistent mutism, was fain to remark that there was no
one like her Ladyship for kindness, that she knew. And
though this was but a deferential murmur, there was con-
viction in it. Pamela had every reason for this testimony.

As Kitty glanced askance at the bride's most unbride-

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PAMELA POUNCE

like countenance, she faintly shrugged her shoulders.
None of the Verekers had good tempers and she was not
going even to notice Selina's moods.

"A wedding hat."

Pamela pondered upon the bride, while her quick brains
worked.

("Dear, to be sure, the poor young lady ! One would
think 'twas her funeral things they were getting together.
Who are they going to marry her to? And why is my
Lady Kilcroney managing it all, and that mortal
tickled?") "I wouldn't recommend white satin for my
Lady Selina," she said out loud, "though I know it's the
usual thing, my Lady. And if I might venture, it wouldn't
do to be putting dead white next her face. No, my Lady
Kilcroney, no, my Lady Selina, not if you were to rouge
ever so and that would be a thousand pities ; my Lady's
skin is a treat to look at. And it's her cachet to be pale
with those dark eyes — excuse me, my Lady, for dropping
into French, it's a way I got into in Paris. Now I'd like
lace." The milliner spoke slowly as if she were tasting
one by one, the condiments of an exquisite dish. "A fine
brim of real lace, my Lady, with a tulle lining, three layers
of tulle, and the middle one pale pink. Oh, pale, pale,
pale." Pamela twiddled her fingers in the air, mitigating
the color till it faded into nothingness. "The tint they're
calling in Paris, culsse de nymphe emue. Excuse me, my
Lady, I won't be so bold as to translate it. Yes, your
Ladyship, the French have droll minds ! But your Lady-
ship has seized the idea; not pink, but just a warmth, a
lightening of the white, 'twill be exquisite. A twist of
silver ribbon to hold it together — Miss Popple, where's
that silver ribbon that came from Lyons? I have a model
here," went on Pamela, stooping to pull out one of the

LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

deep drawers of the cupboard which ran the length of the
room, and in which the most special treasures in the mil-
linery line were hidden away from the ordinary public,
only to be brought out for the favored. "I have a model
here which is the very latest, out of Paris. It'll never be
seen at all, so to speak, till next month, and that on a
Queen's head."

Queen Charlotte's Lady-in-Waiting sprang up and
tripped across the carpet to stand by the milliner's side.

"It must be worth while for a female of Fashion," my
Lady was thinking, "to have a post about Queen Marie
Antoinette, always the first in the land in modes and in
looks as in everything else."

Now Lady Selina Vereker, hearing the two women whis-
per as they stood together, lifted her eyes and watched
and hearkened very intently.

"The young lady's just engaged, I take it," said Pamela,
shaking the tissue paper from a cobweb vision of blue tulle
and lace.

" 'Twas only ratified by Lady Ongar last night, from
her retreat at Wimbledon. (They say it's a convent of
Wimbledon, my dear, but 'tis not generally known.)

"Dear, to be sure, the poor lady !"

Here Kitty lowered her voice, but Selina's irately keen
ears caught the murmur.

"Sadly ill-provided for. My Lord Ongar's affairs in
a desperate state. Hardly a brass farthing between the
three poor girls! A most prodigious relief to have the
third settled."

Then Pamela's clear compassionate undertone : "I trust
the young lady is happy in her choice, so young as she
looks."

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PAMELA POUNCE

The milliner's eye wandered to the bride elect and met
her darkling gaze.

"Why, that goes without saying," exclaimed my Lady
tartly, "since I made the match, Miss Pounce. Sir Jasper
Standish is one of my lord's oldest friends."

"Sir Jasper Standish! Good God!" Pamela started
and wheeled round. She echoed the words in accents which
left no doubt as to the consternation evoked by the name.

Her face was reflected in the glass in front of her, and
Selina had a vision of its blasted expression of horror and
disapproval.

The next moment Miss Pounce had resumed her usual
bland self-control, and was bending over the French hat,
feigning to be absorbed in twitching its knotted ribbons
into place.

"Upon my word, Miss Pounce," exclaimed Kitty, in high
surprise and anger. "And what have you got against Sir
Jasper Standish, may I ask, that you should couple his
name with such impiety?"

"Oh, nothing, my Lady, nothing !"

Pamela's hands trembled as she twitched the faint pink
ribbons. "Nothing but a bit of a business trouble between
my father and Sir Jasper, our place being all but next
door to Standish Hall — I crave your Ladyship's pardon,
I'm sure, for letting my feelings go away with me — but
Sir Jasper was hard on father over a mortgage."

"Oh, a mortgage! Pish, child!" Kitty was immensely
relieved, though she could not conceal that she considered
it a great liberty in a milliner thus to obtrude her family
affairs upon the notice of distinguished clients. She had
not so very high an opinion of Jasper herself, and Pamela
was a prodigious handsome girl! She had been actually
trembling over what might have come out !

146

LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

My Lady's manner for the rest of the seance comically
varied between a dignified displeasure and the overwhelm-
ing fascination exercised by the milliner's supreme talent.

Lady Selina submitted to all the trying-on and listened
to the prolonged discussions with the same demeanor of
angry martyrdom which she had brought into the shop.

"You've been insufferable, my dear!" cried Kitty, pa-
tience giving way at length, as the sleek Royal horses
started on their homeward way.

Selina turned her long, brilliant eyes upon her com-
panion without speaking. There was a pert question and
an underlying significance in them, which further exas-
perated the chaperone.

" 'Pon honor !" exploded Kitty, "I marvel what's to do
with you. You, with everything the world can give you,
and three as sweet hats chosen as ever I've seen in my
whole life! Such a picture as you'll look, a Bride, with
your mother's lace and all, and by the airs of you, you
might have been trying on sackcloth to go to the stake."

"You must remember, my Lady Kilcroney, that I am in
mourning."

"Pshaw!"

"And Sir Jasper, a widower himself."

"And what of that, child?"

"Oh, nothing," said Selina. "Do you think it's going
to rain?"

Kitty looked at her long and earnestly. Was there ever
such a little shut-up countenance, such obstinate close lips
and such naughty secret eyes?

"I wish to Heaven," she said, at last, "that you'd say
what you've got in your heart, child."

"Oh, I was just thinking about Miss Pamela Pounce."

"And what of her?"

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PAMELA POUNCE

My Lady still uneasily remained cross.

"Oh, I only thought she looked honest!" said the girl.
And not one other word to the purpose could my Lady
Kilcroney extract from her.

. They drove into Windsor in a strained silence and
separated to their divers duties in no very cordial mood.

Kind-hearted people in positions of authority are apt td
fall into the danger of doing good to their neighbors in
spite of themselves. They see so clearly the value of the
benefits they mean to confer, that fate having given them
the power to enforce their acceptance, they do not hesitate
to wield it. With the best intentions in the world they
become tyrants. Kitty had a real desire to be of use to
the orphan, and she was quite sure that the plans she had
laid for her were entirely for her comfort and well-being.
In any case matters had gone too far for Selina even to
dream of such a catastrophe as a withdrawal of her word.

The Maid-of-Honor had accepted Sir Jasper of her
own free will. If she had secretly repented, if she chose
to sulk and make a martyr of herself Kitty knew better
than to encourage her by seeming to notice it. And my
Lady told herself that the moods of such a chit were of
no account. She was too fresh out of the schoolroom to
stand so much promotion all together — Maid-of-Honor,
Bride-elect, the pet of Royalty, all in a couple of months —
a little spoiled cat, and if she scratched Jasper 'twould
but do him a vast of good.

Nevertheless, my Lady Kilcroney felt slightly uncom-
fortable until she next beheld the engaged couple together.
Then indeed — it was the next evening after their shopping
drive to London, in my Lady's own rooms — Selina ap-
peared to have completely forgotten her gloomy fit. The
child was in outrageous spirits, with quite scarlet cheeks,

148

LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

taunting and mocking her ardent lover, till he was beside
himself.

Kitty forbore rebuke. In her relief she was full of in-
dulgence towards behavior which, at another time, she
would have severely reprobated.

"My dear love," she wrote to her husband that night —
she was still in attendance at Windsor and Denis, very
much injured, was alone at Hertford Street — "every-
thing is going as well as possible. Do not forget to call
on Mr. Gunter's about the wedding cake and on Mr. Barto-
lozzi about the tickets of invitation."

Could she have known how Lady Selina had employed
the afternoon of that very day, the poor Lady-in-Waiting
would have issued very different instructions.

For Selina had obtained leave from her "Royal" to go
to town about her trousseau. The Princess Augusta, all
blandness and good nature, offered every facility, even to
her own carriage.

How grateful was Lady Selina ! But, "Oh, no, Ma'am,"
she pleaded, "it makes me feel so horrid shy! There we
were yesterday, my Lady Kilcroney and I, in one of the
Queen's barouches and every one turning round and star-
ing at us, and oh ! so disappointed, Ma'am, not to see the
Royal faces. My mother is sending her own maid for me,
and we'll take a chaise and Sister Verney will meet me in
the town."

Princess Augusta looked very kindly at the child. She
liked her modest disclaimer and the little flattery it
wrapped about, and it all sounded very proper and be-
coming. How could she guess that Selina was lying like
a little devil ; that the audacious creature would positively
set out from the consecrated precincts of Queen's Lodge
alone, take the common coach to town and proceed on

149

PAMELA POUNCE

foot to Bond Street ; in a kind of disguise indeed, a plain
bonnet, borrowed from a Royal housemaid, which had a
brown gauze veil to drop over her face, so that she might
have passed her own mother in the street and not been
known !

The cunning girl watched her opportunity and slipped
into Miss Pounce's showroom at a slack moment. As she
flung back her veil, Pamela's color changed ; she saw who
it was.

Selina walked up quite close to her and the two stood
a moment staring at each other. The milliner was too
acute not to feel the moment big with importance and too
shrewd not to guess at the cause.

"What did you mean," said Selina then, "by saying
yesterday like that: 'Sir Jasper! good God'?"

Pamela was not often taken to, but she felt herself in a
most disagreeable fix.

"La!" she faltered. "I could have bitten my tongue
out. I can only ask your pardon."

"I want you to answer my question. What did you
mean ?"

Pamela, who had been growing pale, grew paler.

"Father had trouble with him over a mortgage."

"Oh, tush with your mortgage! That's only a bit of
trumpery. It wasn't the mortgage. You know some-
thing of Sir Jasper."

The milliner hesitated ; then she tossed her head.

"And if I do, my Lady ? There ! There ain't anything
for you to suspect me about, I do assure you."

"Oh, I don't suspect you !" cried Selina wildly. "I see
you hate him ! I hate him myself ! I haven't any one to
help me. What do you know of him?"

"Nothing that would count as against a genfleman's

150

LADY KILCRONEY MAKES A MATCH

honor," said Pamela, bitterly, recalling with an inward
shudder, the vile trick that had been played upon her, and
the narrowness of her escape.

Selina caught the working woman's two capable hands.

"I won't get you into a scandal ! I know you've got
your bread to earn. I'll never mention your name or let
any one guess! I promise! I promise! Look here, I'll
put it differently: if you were me, would you marry Sir
Jasper Standish?"

Pamela drew a long breath and the truth leaped.

"I'd see myself dead rather !"

The absurdity of the phrase did not detract from its
effectiveness.

"Ah!" cried Selina. "Thank you! That's all I wanted
to know."

She wrung the hands she had caught, whisked her veil
over her flushed countenance and turned to leave. On
the threshold of the shop she paused and flung back a
quick reassurance.

"Don't be afraid. I'll never betray you !" which Miss
Polly Popple, overhearing, promptly carried to the awe-
struck ears of Miss Clara Smithson.

"There's a low-class girl just been in the showroom
blackmailing Miss Pounce and gone off Heaving knows
with how much hush-money! 'I won't betray you,' says
she. And Miss Pounce looking after her, that distraught,
you'd think she'd seen a ghost."

"Ah ! my dear," said Miss Smithson. "Retribution is
gathering over that abandoned creature's head."

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH IS MANIFEST THE HAND OF THE SAINTED JULIA

H, my Lady Kilcroney, I haven't a moment! The
most dreadful thing has happened !"

Selina Vereker stood before the astonished Kitty. She
was robed for Court ceremonial and looked a very splendid
young woman in brocaded whites and silver laces. Her
hair was full dressed and spread mightily in wings and
curls. In her hand she held a posy of pink roses. But
against all this elegance the small countenance looked
troubled; it was indeed contorted like that of a child
about to cry.

"I haven't a moment," she repeated. "The Princess
Augusta expects me to attend her to the Duchess of
Hampshire's ball, and even now she will be waiting for
me. But oh, my Lady, oh, my Lady, I thought I must run
in to tell you — Sir Jasper has broken with me !"

"Never say so, child ! And the marriage for next Mon-
day as ever was !"

My Lady Kilcroney was in the long, narrow parlor
which formed part of her set of rooms in St. James's
Palace. She, too, was in full fig: a marvel of glistening
white, with the fashionable purple trimmings that pro-
claimed attachment to Royalty. The Bellairs diamonds
shone on her throat and bodice, and diamonds winked
from every angle of her piled and flying curls. At the
Maid-of-Honor's words she shook and sparkled and quiv-
ered in all her finery, looking like some magic tropical
bird spreading out wings for battle.

152

THE HAND OF THE SAINTED JULIA

"The Princess Augusta is waiting for me !" cried Selina
and sobbed.

"Let her wait !" quoth Kitty fiercely. She had enough
familiarity with the Royals now to appreciate the fact
that after all they were but human beings. "What has
happened ? Sit there and tell me this moment. Sir Jasper
break off his engagement! Some fantastic of jealousy,
sure. The man's mad! Why, 'tis but this morning you
showed me that wonderful knot of brilliants he gave you,
child, on your complaining you had no fancy for a dead
woman's jewels."

Selina let herself fall into the chair indicated, and hid
her face in her hands.

"Oh, the disgrace !" she moaned.

"It shall not be," stormed her patroness. "You've
dropped your roses, child."

"What, the roses? How — did I still hold them? Oh,
my Lady, the roses, 'tis they undid me !"

"Your roses undid you? Talk plain, in the name of
common sense."

"The roses undid me, Madam," said Lady Selina, lifting
up her head to grind her teeth at Kitty, as that lady said
afterwards, for all the world like her little Denis at ten
months old with the double ones coming. "How should
I know that when the beautiful pink roses arrived they
were not from Sir Jasper? and oh, my Lady, he came
storming into my parlor, demanding to see me, and I
scarce out of the hands of Monsieur Achille and going
in to him in my wrapper, I do assure you, not knowing
what prodigious important thing he had to say to me,
and he, my Lady Kilcroney, scarce able to speak with the
fierce rage. 'The roses,' he says, 'where are the roses you
was to wear to-night?' And there they were, unpacked

153

PAMELA POUNCE

at his elbow before I had had time as much as to take them
in my hand. As I'm a living woman, as I hope to be
saved, my Lady, I, all innocence 1 'The roses?' says I, and
he falls upon them, and, oh, to think of it ! in the very
middle rose, hidden like a snake in the grass, was a billet.
A billet, my Lady Kilcroney, I scarce know how to tell
you — from "

"Another gentleman?" screamed Kitty, jumping to the
horrid truth.

"Some stranger."

"And indeed I hope so, miss. And what was wrote in
it, pray?"

Selina dropped long, white eyelids over those brilliant,
curious eyes of hers which never seemed to corroborate her
lips, and drawing an immense quivering sigh, the corners
of the same pretty lips going down over a sob. "Oh, my
Lady, the monstrous audacity of it!" she cried. "The
creature wrote — God knows who he can be — '// you wear
those roses to-night, beauteous Selina, your adorer will
know that, whatever happens, he may still hope'*

" Ton my word !" said Kitty.

"It seems, Sir Jasper had had an anonymous let-
ter "

"Ha," interrupted the Queen's Lady-in- Waiting. "Now
lift up your head, my love. 'Tis all a vile plot. An
anonymous letter, say you? Why, now all is plain. 'Tis
some base envious creature — Heaven knows who !" said
Kitty. "Some old flame, some wretch who wants to break
the marriage for abominable designs of her own. Pshaw !
Was there ever a grosser scheme? 'Twould not take in
a mouse."

"Sir Jasper will not listen to a word of reason," com-
plained the bride elect, now unveiling the fuvy of her eyes.

154

"He declares that there was guilt on my face ; that he had
long had suspicions of me. He vows I have been cold to
him, dearest Lady Kilcroney, and that matters must have
gone very far between me and my lover — oh, is it not
monstrous of him? — before any one would have dared
address me in such familiar words."

"You need not repeat his raving to me," cried my Lady
Kilcroney decidedly. "Dry your eyes now, and hasten to
your duty. Sir Jasper in his present mood may very well
not come to the ball, but he shall render an account of
his folly in this very room to-morrow morning, and if the
marriage does not take place from my house next Monday
as arranged, I am a Dutchwoman, as complete a Dutch-
woman as Mrs. Schwellenberg, I can say no more. And
I trust," said Kitty, soliloquizing as the door slammed on
the Maid-of-Honor's exit, "and I trust you will pay Sir
Jasper back for this evening's work in good ringing coin,
child, once you're Lady Selina Standish. As I have no
doubt you will, my love — cold-hearted, capricious? — aye,
he's not so far out there — and fiery-tempered to boot ! It
will give me a vast of pleasure to see such a buck as he
proper punished and tamed!"

She herself began the process with considerable con-
scientiousness next morning in that interview which Sir
Jasper was ready enough to grant. My Lady was tired ;
for to be in attendance on Royalty was to make of a ball
more of a fatigue than a diversion. She was anxious too ;
for the Queen had heard that it was Lady Selina's visit
to Lady Kilcroney which had resulted in the Princess
Augusta's actually being kept waiting; and had shown
displeasure at so extraordinary a breach of etiquette.

Kitty had no explanation to offer. She would have died
rather than hint at the threatening scandal. So consid-

155

PAMELA POUNCE

erable peevishness had accumulated to fall upon the de-
voted head of Sir Jasper.

But at first that individual was beyond feeling anything
save his own anguish. He roared like a wounded bull ; hit
his brow till the powder flew; thumped his chest till his
vocal cords reverberated; paced the room, declaiming in
one breath that he was infamously betrayed, and in the
next that 'twas a just retribution for perjury to the best
of wives. He swore that his heart was broken ; never had
he loved, never could he love woman as he loved the false,
intriguing Selina. Then he declared that the organ in
question had never been mended, but lay in fragments
under the tombstone sacred to Julia.

It was only when his passion had expended itself in
exhaustion that my Lady was able to make herself heard.
Then she dissected the value of the evidence upon which
he proposed to make so outrageous a step. She exposed
the folly of his jealousy, she mocked the absurdity of the
figure he cut.

"You have now," she said, "lost the finest young lady
in the kingdom. You were about to contract a marriage
altogether beyond what a man of your position and birth
could hope for. You a middle-aged widower, of no par-
ticular title — what's a baronet? — of no such remarkable
fortune, with certainly no good looks to commend you —
you were about to espouse the loveliest little creature in
all the world, the Queen's favorite, scarce eighteen — a
beauty, sir, of the first family! And on some kind of
monstrous whimsey, arising from your own bad past — oh,
of that I am quite certain, Sir Jasper — you have cast
away this flower, and you have cast away with it your good
name, your good fame, your own claim to be a gentleman !
Never will that cake be eaten for your wedding with Lady

156

THE HAND OF THE SAINTED JULIA

Selina Vereker, I can promise you that ! Oh, she's out of
conceit with you, poor child! 'Only one thing I beg of
you !' she says to me. 'Do not ask me to look at him
again, for I never, never can !' 'Then you shall not,' says
I. I uphold her, sir, in her determination. 'You've come
out of this business with flying colors, my love,' I says,
'and the Queen shall hear the whole story.' Fie, Sir Jas-
per, how you bellow ! I have one last word to speak to you,
sir, aye, indeed, the very last you shall ever hear from
these lips, and that is that I scarce think there's a gentle-
man of your friends, when it gets about the clubs, who
would deem it worth his honor to cross swords with such
as you."

She made a great flounce of silk skirts as if to withdraw,
but he was down on his knees clutching at them; to do
him justice, less affected by her threats and the picture
she had drawn of his awful position than by the realization
that he had lost his bride. Never had Lady Selina ap-
peared to his eyes in a light so entrancing; never did he
so clearly perceive the worthlessness of his existence with-
out her, as in this moment, when he believed he had lost
her. His distress was so genuine, his supplications were
so heartrending, that Kitty Kilcroney could not but let
herself be mollified. She exacted every possible pledge of
future good conduct, she obtained the completest retrac-
tation, the most abject and repeated apologies before send-
ing for Selina.

When this young lady appeared, Sir Jasper was put
to another half hour of torture ere he was readmitted to
favor; and even then the bride remained cold and unre-
sponsive, and looked with a hard glitter in her ryes from
one to the other, as if she by no means had forgiven her

157

PAMELA POUNCE

betrothed, and was scarce grateful to my Lady Kilcroney
for her share in the reconciliation.

She had that moment, she informed him, sent the parcel
containing Sir Jasper's presents, including the betrothal
ring, by a trusted hand to his house; she vowed she con-
sidered matters vastly well as they stood; both would yet
repent a return to the old terms.

Sir Jasper did not kneel to Selina. He behaved, Kitty
thought, with a better dignity than she could have ex-
pected and also more intelligence. He promised perfect
confidence in the future and a rope of pearls ; the most
tender forbearance in all difficulties and emerald earrings ;
the unswerving devotion of a manly heart and six Cata-
lonian horses to the finest coach woman ever drove in. He
furthermore volunteered to double his wife's pin-money,
and altogether, as Lady Kilcroney informed her Denis
afterwards, made a more graceful leg out of the business
than could have been imagined from the gross fashion in
which he had cantered in.

Lady Selina at length allowed an inert hand to lie in his
clasp, and even permitted him to touch an averted cheek
in token of her pardon ; and it was an extremely chastened
buck that wended his way out of St. James's Palace in
the direction of Bond Street, and it was a tremendous sigh
of relief that my Lady Kilcroney heaved.

"Now, child," quoth she, "as Mr. Shakespeare hath it,
'All's well that ends well.' But do not make the mistake of
keeping up your frigid airs too long. The real way to
treat the wretches is to grant a little from time to time,
and demand a great deal."

"I'm much obliged to you, I'm sure, ma'am, for your
kind interest," said Lady Selina, and dropped her white
eyelids over her audacious cold eyes.

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THE HAND OF THE SAINTED JULIA

"There has been another elopement," wrote Miss Bur-
ney, the Queen's reader, to her sister, "and you would
never believe, my dearest Susan, who and in what circum-
stances. Lady Selina Vereker was, you know, to wed Sir
Jasper Standish, that handsome widower (scarce indeed a
year widowed of his poor Julia; men are strange things!
I met her once, she was a very elegant woman). Lady
Selina was, as I say, dear Susan, to wed Sir Jasper this
actual next Monday, and my Lady Kilcroney who, as you
know, hath the kind of good nature that is forever inter-
fering in other people's affairs, was to give the breakfast
at her own mansion in Hertford Street. 'Twas said she
made the match. 'Tis quite certain she recommended tJie
young lady at Court. She must be vastly sorry on both
these accounts now. Princess Augusta was to go to the
wedding (the bride being her own Maid-of -Honor); and
altogether it is an odd, unpleasant business, as you will
hear. Last night, then, Lady Selina attended the Royals
to the Opera House. 'Twas to be her last duty of the
kind, and she was ablaze, my dear, they tell me, with Sir
Jasper's jewels. The poor man was infatuated. I cannot
but pity him. She stood behind the Princess Augusta in
the box as usual, and no one knows the exact moment of
her disappearance. 'Tis positive she was present at the
beginning of the third act. Then all attention was turned
to the stage, and at the end of it she was nowhere to be
found! Conceive it, my dearest Susan, to choose such a
manner and such company, for such a proceeding! To me
it is beyond imagination; but, from the letter she left be-
hind her, there can be, alas! no mistake. The young gentle-
man *or whom she has shown her preference m so singular
a fashion, is, it seems, a person of no note at all, a mere
officer of the Marines, by name Simpson, with scarce any

159

PAMELA POUNCE

fortune beside his pay. The whole affair leaves one in a
state of amaze, and I verily believe the world is going mad"

On the morning following the fatal evening just de-
scribed, my Lady Kilcroney was awakened from very
agreeable slumbers by the urgency of Miss Lydia Pounce,
who, placing a letter on the bed, begged in a tone so im-
portant that her Ladyship should wake up and read it at
once, that Kitty, omitting to scold, forthwith proceeded
to obey.

"Lady Selina's woman also brought a large case, my
Lady. I've left it in the antechamber."

Kitty was in Hertford Street, making ready in sweet
security for the wedding festivities ; yet not so secure but
that her heart misgave her from the first moment of the
matutinal summons ; it hardly needed the mention of Lady
Selina's name to confirm her instant suspicions. Yet she
was ill prepared, as she herself averred to all and sundry
later, for such a revelation of mixed baseness, ingratitude
and idiocy.

"You have taken so Jcind an interest in my affairsf my
dear Lady Kilcroney" wrote the Maid-of -Honor, "that
I wish you to be the first to hear that by the time this
reaches you I shall have become the wife of Lieutenant
Simpson of the Royal Marines. 'Tis no sort of match
for me, I am well aware, but I prefer him so infinitely to
Sir Jasper Standish that, seeing no other way out of it,
I have yielded to his solicitations. You may perhaps re-
member that when we were with Their Majesties at
Brighton last month, there was a young man who used to
stand on the Parade and stare as we went by. That was
Mr. Simpson. From the moment I had accepted Sir Jas-

160

THE HAND OF THE SAINTED JULIA

per — and indeed, it teas scarce fair to put such pressure
on me, and me so young — I knew I had made a great mis-
take. And oh, Heaven knows, how 1 tried to induce him
to break it off! When I haS succeeded at last — for 'twas
I who wrote the anonymous letter about the roses, and
'twas I placed the 'billet-doux* inside the rose (I still think
'twas a very ingenious trick), if it had not been for you,
all wauld have gone well. iVo one would have blamed me,
as you told Sir Jasper youmelf, but you would interfere,
my Lady, and you brought it on again. And now, if you
please, will you explain matters to Sir Jasper? I am
sending the jewels to you that you may give them back.
A nd, oh, 1 am so glad to be free of him, and of them, and
of Court, I can't tell you! Oh, pray ao not try your hand
at matchmaking again, my Lady, for indeed you have no
talent for it.

"Your obedient servant,

"Selina Soon-to-be-Simpson.

"I am sorry to treat my fat, good-natured Royal so.
She was a kind piece. But 'tis a vile life."

"And, oh, oh, 'tis she is a vile piece! Simpson! Let
her be Simpson to the end and die an old woman !"

Kitty was more outraged, more incensed, more pro-
foundly disturbed than she had ever known herself. Why,
indeed, had she meddled with matchmaking, and who would
be looked on coldly over such scandal at Court, but she?
all innocence, kind heart and good nature ! She had half
a mind to send in her resignation and have done with it.

As for Sir Jasper, he was well served, for an odious,
bullying, stupid fellow, who couldn't make himself agree-
able when he had the chance of his life ! She put herself
out any more for him? She expose herself to the un-

161

PAMELA POUNCE

pleasantness of breaking the news to him? Not Kitty,
not my Lady Kilcroney !

The little woman made up her mind in a minute. She
would go out of town. It was fine April weather. Bath
would be at its best. She preferred it out of the season.

She would pass on the jilt's letter to Sir Jasper. Lydia
should call a hackney coach and go round with it and the
jewels at once.

"And I shall add a line," thought Kitty, "that will pre-
vent him from coming to seek sympathy from me !"

"When you have perused tJie letter of Lady Selina, by
this time Simpson, dear Sir Jasper," [she wrote] "perhaps
you will feel as I do that what has plucked you apart has
not been either your indelicate behavior or tlie young
lady's capriciousness, but the hand of your sainted Julia."

It was fortunate that there was no one in the room to
hear the awful words that escaped Sir Jasper's lips when
he came to this. What fell from them was the blasphemy :
"Damn Julia!"

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH A WONDEBFUL BIT OF LUCK COMES OUT OF MISS

POUNCE'S BANDBOX FOB SOMEBODY ELSE

MISS PAMELA POUNCE, having inadvertently
marred a most desirable alliance and incidentally
assisted a mad elopement, told herself that it was a sad,
tiresome world in which love brought trouble to high and
low and that the best thing a woman of intelligence could
do, was to put such stuff out of her head and be grateful
that she could work.

"Dear, to be sure," Pamela wondered, "how did people
get along at all, who hadn't some honest occupation to
keep their silly minds off themselves?"

'Twas only to be. expected that she should have such
fretful faces to suit with heads and hats : disappointed
mothers coming to complain that Miss's toque was the
wrong shade of blue, passionate damsels vowing that the
very sight of a pink rosette made them sick.

Pamela could read "as if it was wrote in print," as she
said herself, the fluctuations of many an amourette, many
a well-laid matrimonial scheme. Where her art might help
she was ready with the most obliging disinterestedness;
when failure had followed on her best efforts she took the
despite of her disappointed clients with the utmost phi-
losophy.

It was well that she was philosophic, for her own poor
misplaced romance was going singularly ill ; so ill, indeed,
that it might be said to have dwindled down to nothing
at all.

163

PAMELA POUNCE

After his tender and respectful farewell to her on the
night of Sir Jasper Standish's Christmas ball, Pamela had
hardly seen anything more of her once too ardent ad-
mirer. She told herself that 'twas all as it should be; he
now understood the kind of girl she was ; and his present
attitude showed more true affection for her than his for-
mer light-minded persecution. If she had been born his
equal, or if she had not been, humble as she was, a creature
of principle, what could have parted them? — For if ever
there had been love

Pamela was very valiant, and kept her courage up with
such reflections. And she found considerable distraction
in her work, and quite a fund of consolation in the in-
creased success which it was bringing to her. But when
events enabled her to coax a bit of happiness to some one
else, through the witchery of her talents, it was more real
satisfaction to her than the tot of the weekly accounts.

"Hats for these young ladies, Madam. Yes, Madam."
"A hat for this young lady," said Lady Amelia Vibart
severely.

She looked disapprovingly at Miss Pamela Pounce. She
disapproved on principle of any one whom she considered
her inferior, and when a person belonging to the working
classes was presuming enough, not only to have good looks
but to make the most of them, Lady Amelia considered it
a direct attack on the prerogatives of those destined by
Providence to hold a higher station. Only that she had
been recommended to Madame Mirabel's shop as the one
place, positively, in the whole town where any self-respect-
ing woman of fashion could get herself a hat to be called
a mode, she would have walked out of the showroom at
the mere sight of this creature, so tall and self-possessed,

164

LUCK OUT OF THE BANDBOX

so white and ruddy clothed in garments that fitted an in-
decently fine figure to positively scandalous nicety; a
creature who moved as if she were the condescending
party and carried taper hands each side of her waist-
ribbon, not exactly akimbo, but with an air — yes, in very
truth, an air of independence !

Miss Pounce looked at her visitors reflectively ; a high-
nosed, haughty, short, stout lady, flanked on either side
by two tall daughters, the one beautiful, astoundingly so,
a perfect miracle of loveliness ; and the other plain. No
doubt about that, pleasant, bright-eyed, witty-looking, but
plain.

"A hat for Miss," said the milliner, her glance resting
upon the less favored but unmistakably the elder damsel.

The high-nosed lady tossed her head.

"Certainly not," she said with a glare. Here she pushed
the beauty forward, "For this young lady."

She looked around for a chair, let herself subside on a
velvet stool, obsequiously advanced by Polly Popple, and
began to talk very volubly and pompously.

"I have been told that you have very good taste. What
can you suggest for my daughter? Perhaps I had better
tell you I am Lady Amelia Vibart. The Duchess of
Queensberry has recommended you. I am sure that I
shall find that you deserve her kind recommendation. I
trust that you will. It is not my custom to come to shops
myself, I generally expect to be served in my own house,

but the Duchess advised me This is Miss Jane Vibart.

I think you must have heard of Miss Jane Vibart."

She paused, inflating her nostrils and fixing an oxlike
stare upon the young woman, who really seemed quite in-
dependent.

Pamela turned her attentive gaze upon Miss Jane

165

PAMELA POUNCE

Vibart. It was perfectly true that she had heard of her,
for there was a great deal of talk in the particular dis-
tinguished circle that patronized Madame Mirabel on the
subject of the beautiful Miss Vibart. Something super-
lative, overwhelming, an absolute miracle, she was pro-
claimed to be; but the head milliner preferred something
with a little more life and mind in it, herself. She be-
trayed by no sign that she recognized the overwhelming
favor and opportunity that was here bestowed upon her,
but inclined her head sideways, after the most elegant
millinery convention and said: "Indeed, Madam? Cer-^
tainly, my Lady," as if these were any ordinary new
customers.

Lady Amelia snorted, took an immense breath and burst
into fresh volubility with, if possible, an increased pom-
pousness.

"It is of high importance, you understand, that Miss
Jane Vibart should be suited in the finest taste ; I must i
request you to give your earnest attention to the matter.
Stand forward, Jane, have I not already told you to stand
forward? And you, sit down, Sarah. You're in every-
body's way. — Now, young woman, what do you suggest?
I want something of distinction ; girlish, you understand,
but absolutely elegant. Every one will be looking to see
what Miss Jane Vibart is wearing. "Tis Miss Jane
Vibart's first appearance upon the Windsor Walk. I
think it will be very good business for you if you suit her.
It will bring you a great many orders. I trust you will
consider that, young woman, and represent it to your
employer."

"Excuse me, your Ladyship," said Miss Pounce, when
Lady Amelia stopped for want of breath, "I am sure,
speaking for Madame Mirabel, that she will be duly con-

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scious of your Ladyship's kind patronage, which we shall
do our best to deserve — Miss Popple, bring me the prim-
rose set, if you please," and as the assistant sped away,
Pamela looked out of the window and remarked that it
was a fine day. Now it was exactly according to the best
tradition of shop etiquette that the customer's attention
should be respectfully distracted during an enforced wait,
by some polite conversation; and indeed, most of Miss
Pounce's ladies had a good deal to say and a good deal to
listen to, when fortune favored them with a quiet moment
in Miss Pounce's company, but Lady Amelia gazed upon
the milliner with an arrogance that marked her repressive
intention and then turned her head away and told Sarah
to give her seat to Jane, or the child would look a fright
for the rout to-night.

"Dear to be sure," thought Miss Pounce, "to see that
poor piece jump up, and her younger sister take her seat,
all as if it were the most natural thing in the world, if
that don't tell a tale! I wish 'twas the plain one I had
the hatting of, I'd get some credit out of it. Why, if you
put a sunbonnet on the beauty there, she'd look out of
it, no more nor less than the same handsome doll. — You've
dropped your mouchoir, Miss."

Pamela handed the elder Miss Vibart back her useful
linen handkerchief with a movement as deferential as if it
had been the finest gossamer and Valenciennes; and that
young person took it with a pleasant smile, blew her nose
in it lustily and thrust it into her reticule, no whit ashamed
of its sensible quality.

"That's the girl for my money," thought the observant
shop woman.

What a world in miniature was this showroom of hers !
Pamela had already seen many a comedy, many a drama

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PAMELA POUNCE

played out in it. Here was a case of Cinderella on the
wrong sister. A shame it was to treat a nice young lady
so, because she happened to have a little pug nose, and a
wide mouth.

"La! Miss Popple, give me that. (One would think
you'd had to go to Paris for it.) And straight from
Paris, it is, my Lady — and all the trouble in the world to
get it over, things being far from settled — as straight,"
said Miss Pounce, turning up her fine eyes, "as any confec-
tion in this establishment. The newest idea, Madam. Hat,
robe and trimmings, down to the parasol all complete, all
in harmony, as you perceive. The ve-ry lat-est id-e-a,"
said the milliner, dropping her syllables one by one,
spreading the flounces and frills over a chair and poising
the hat on her clenched hand. "Ex-qui-site, that's the
word, isn't it, Miss? Oh, it will become either of your
young ladies to perfection. The embroidered lawn, very
delicate, very girlish, Madam. Absolutely correct for a
young lady that's a debutante. Not white, oh, no, your
Ladyship, cream. Pull up the blinds over there, Miss Pop-
ple— Cream, a shade deeper than ivory, and the pale green
ribbons, the blond, your Ladyship sees, just flung over
the hat and fastened with this bunch of primroses. Did
yoilr Ladyship ever behold anything more fanciful and
pretty? I would not put a bit of ribbon or set another
pin into that hat," said Miss Pounce, "not if you was to
offer me a thousand pounds to do it ! Oh, Paris, ma'am.
Yes, ma'am. Hot from Paris, if one can use such a word
for a thing so cool and April-like. Any young girl," said
Miss Pounce, not without a spice of malice, "would be
noted in such attire."

"Oh, Mamma," said Jane. It was the first time she
had spoken. She was gazing at her reflection in the mirror,

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crowned by the wonderful hat. Her voice was awe-struck,
as if she were overwhelmed by the sight of her own love-
liness.

Lady Amelia pursed her lips, and then with some tart-
ness bade her daughter turn round. As she obeyed, Miss
Pounce seized the vapory gown and cunningly held it up
against the young lady's figure. A kind of maternal greed
obviously struggled with prudence in Lady Amelia's heart.
She gaped meltingly, then frowned, put her finger to
her lip.

"Miss could try them all on," insidiously suggested
Pamela Pounce.

"Oh, Mamma," said Miss Jane Vibart.

"Oh, Mamma," cried her sister. "Jenny looks a per-
fect picture in that hat and I'm sure the dress is the most
lovely thing I've ever laid eyes on. It would be a sin and
shame not to get them for her."

But Lady Amelia was not so swiftly moved to decision.
The garment was tried on and the beautiful Jane was
turned and twisted in every direction, while her mother
hummed and hawed and criticized.

"I'm not so sure I like the green waist-ribbon, no, nor
the primroses, neither, mere hedgerow flowers. A nice ar-
tificial garden rose now and a good blue taffety sash."

"Oh, Mamma !" protested the plain Miss Vibart in tones
of anguish.

"I couldn't do it, your Ladyship," said Pamela with a
slightly heightened color, deftly whisking the hat from
the fair head and motioning her underling to conduct the
patient back behind the screen.

"It's the primrose and the green — your Ladyship will
excuse me — that makes the real Parisian elegance of this
gown. If your Ladyship requires ordinary English taste,

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PAMELA POUNCE

there's Madame Flouncer's in Clarges Street, a very re-
spectable firm, very respectable indeed, as I've heard tell,
where your Ladyship would find herself better suited."

"Upon my word, young woman!" spluttered Lady
Amelia.

"Yes, you may toss your old head and sniff and snort,
my Lady Amelia," thought the shopwoman, remaining her-
self quite imperturbable, save for that deepening color,
"but you'll not come it over me with your high nose and
your country taste, and you needn't think it."

They gazed upon each other steadily for nearly a
minute, then the dowager's glare wavered.

"It's an original effect of color, I'll say that," she said
weakly, "and — does that parasol go with it?"

Miss Pounce took up the minute article in question,
shook out the fringe, opened it and held it gracefully at
divers angles.

"An ivory handle, your Ladyship perceives, cream poult
de sole of the first quality, the sarcenet lining beautifully
gathered, isn't it, Miss? a deeper shade of primrose, so
becoming to the complexion, and such a background for
the powder — really as never was."

"An ivory handle," said Lady Amelia, pulling a long
upper lip, "and fringe and what not! Absurd extrava-
gance for a girl."

"It goes with the whole inspiration, my Lady. A cheap
parasol or a wrong color would — foh! would destroy
it all."

After which Lady Amelia fell to haggling. She de-
manded a personal interview with Madame Mirabel. She
declared that the advantage to the firm of clothing the
beautiful Miss Jane Vibart, if not sufficient compensation

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in itself, ought to make a considerable difference in the
charges made.

Miss Pounce regretted that Madame Mirabel was not
visible. Madame Mirabel could not be troubled on these
matters. She who spoke was solely responsible for the
department. She regretted that she could not regard the
favor of clothing Miss Jane Vibart otherwise than as a
business transaction. What was the price? Nothing!
Twenty-five guineas — given away ! Oh, no, my Lady, she
did not think she could use up a square of her Ladyship's
old Honiton instead of the blond. No, nor make it twenty
guineas and throw in the parasol. It was a tremendous
contest. Lady Amelia haggled with a zest and energy
that spoke of long practice and an actual enjoyment of
the process. Miss Pounce's cheeks were flaming when the
transaction was at last concluded and she had after all
gracefully conceded a reduction of five pounds.

("And let it be a lesson to you, my dear," she said to
Miss Popple afterwards. "And when you see a customer
come in with that kind of an air about her, put it up to
her at once. What was the set marked at, Miss Popple,
dear? Eighteen? You don't say? Well, let that be a
lesson to you.")

"And do you want nothing for Miss?" inquired the
astute milliner, turning with a kind smile to the plain girl.
"I've a positive sweet of a Tuscan straw with cornflowers,
and a blue muslin. It would suit Miss to a charm. Very
reasonable."

Lady Amelia, one stout foot poised for departure — she
had a high aristocratic action suited to her nose, paused.

"Cheap did you say?" she questioned.

"Miss Popple, the blue muslin and the assorted
chapeau."

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PAMELA POUNCE

Lady Amelia gazed through her eyeglass and Pamela
rejoiced to see that she hesitated. Color and sparkle had
risen to the plain Miss Vibart's cheeks and the flash of
joy brought out all kinds of beauties: dimples, and tiny
smile waves and an archness in the curve of that too wide
mouth over milk white teeth.

"Chapeau and robe," she said emphatically, "for you,
my Lady, since your Ladyship has already so generously
patronized us, and not to disappoint the young lady, eight
guineas. Pray, Miss, let my Lady see you in the hat."

Her hands lifted to her country straw, Sarah Vibart
paused, looked at her mother and the light died out of
her eyes.

"Jane, you will want another gown," muttered Lady
Amelia. "And blue was always your color."

"Oh, Mamma," said Jane, with a smile of joy that made
her for the moment quite exasperatingly lovely.

It was that smile that settled her in Miss Pounce's
opinion.

"Of all the mean, unnatural girls! 'Tis a shame, I
call it, a shame !" thought she.

If her business conscience would have allowed her, she
would have placed the Tuscan on the beauty's head and
contrived to give the curls a good tweak as she did so.
But as it was, she masked her feelings by handing the gar-
ments to her underling, loftily commanding: "You carry
on with the order, Miss Popple. Regretting, Madam, I
have an appointment"; and sweeping majestically away.

As she did so, she in turn dropped a pocket handker-
chief, quite a dainty little article with an embroidered P
and a delicate edge of lace, smelling, too, of the lavender
with which the Kentish mother kept her elegant town
daughter liberally supplied.

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The plain Miss Vibart made a plunge and picked it up.

"Good God, Sarah!" cried Lady Amelia, the exclama-
tion jerked out of her by a proceeding so very unbe-
coming.

"Thank you, Miss," said Pamela, looking into the candid
green eyes, that refused to acknowledge the rising tears.
"I hope some day I'll have the dressing of you, and 'twill
be a pleasure and privilege."

"Jane," cried her mother angrily, "don't stand staring
and if you poke like that I might as well throw all the
money into the sea! Try on the hat this minute, and
you may tell Madame Mirabel — you — you young woman —
that I consider it very impertinent of the person who pre-
sides over the department to go away like this ; a vast bit
of disrespect, and I've half a mind to cancel my orders —
Hold your tongue, Jane ! I would, if it were not that it
might hurt the Duchess's feelings."

In spite of Lady Amelia's censure, it was scarce a fort-
night afterwards when a very small page boy brought a
very large folded sheet to Madame Mirabel's shop, marked
"Immediate," which he was enjoined to deliver straight
into the hands of Miss Pounce. This document ordered
with equal imperativeness and urgency that Madame Mira-
bel's principal woman should instantly proceed to 6a Queen
Street, bringing a selection of heads suitable for Miss
Jane Vibart's wear that night at the masked ball at Hamp-
shire House. "It is very important that the principal
woman should come HERSELF." This was heavily un-
derlined. "Lady Amelia Vibart must insist on her per-
sonal attendance."

"Hoighty-toighty," said Miss Pounce, and stood look-

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PAMELA POUNCE

ing down at the page with one hand on her hip, eyelids
drooping, a quizzical smile, and a tilted chin.

"And how'd it be if I can't give up my Duchesses and
Marchionesses to whom I've been engaged for goodness
gracious knows how long? — There, trot along, and tell
my Lady I'll do my best, seeing she's so pressing! — Yes,
yes. I'll come. And shut your mouth, little boy, in the
name of Heaven, or you'll be picked up for a frog and
brought to the Royal Aquarium."

Number 6a Queen Street was a small narrow house
wedged in between two larger residences ; one of those
domiciles that seem made for the impecunious fashionable.
Miss Pounce, serenely preceded Madame Mirabel's liveried
porter who negotiated an alarming array of bandboxes,
not without some bumpings, up the narrow stairs, in the
wake of the country footman. On the second-floor landing
she ordered the important chattels to be deposited; and,
bidding the porter have a hackney in half an hour, stood
a monument of composure while the country footman
knocked at the panels of the door.

There was a clamor within, voices, among which Lady
Amelia's didactic tones could easily be distinguished: ob-
jurgations, lamentations, sobs. The footman invited Miss
Pounce by a leer to share the joke, knocked louder and at
an exasperated "Come in," flung open the door. As
Pamela entered the long, dingy bedroom a silence fell.

The beauty was sitting in an armchair by the empty
fireplace, her face buried in her hands, evidently in tears ;
the elder sister was bending over her with a countenance
of concern, while in the background stood a frightened-
looking elderly maid, her finger to her lip.

"Come in, come in!" repeated Lady Amelia, bursting
into speech. "Shut the door. I'm sorry to have troubled

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you, I'm sure. No. I don't want the bandboxes. Miss
Jane Vibart cannot possibly go out to-night. She has
most successfully contrived to make such a spectacle of
herself that I doubt if she will be able to show again for
the rest of the season."

"Oh, Mamma!" exclaimed the elder daughter in re-
proachful accents. " 'Tisn't Jenny's fault !"

"You'll not say it's mine, I trust?" retorted a deeply
annoyed parent ; and, as the beauty lifted her face, Pamela
saw that it was indeed disfigured almost out of recogni-
tion by that distressing if not alarming complaint, the
toothache. The poor girl's left cheek was swollen to
comicality.

Jane Vibart, with a loud boo-hoo, buried her head in
her handkerchief again, and Sally, with a championship
which Pamela thought the younger ill-deserved, protested :
"But Mamma, Mr. Tugwell hurt her so dreadfully last
time, that poor Jenny was terrified "

"Foh! I've no patience with her," stormed the lady.
"She'll have to have it out now, and 'twill hurt her a vast
deal more. Provoking creature and it so important, so
particularly important that she should go to-night. Well,
Miss, if you lose your chance of the match of the year,
you've none but yourself to blame and let that be a com-
fort to you. Pray, young woman, did you not hear me
say I should not require your goods? Oh! I could shed
tears of vexation and it all so neatly planned! The
Duchess herself would have seen that you took the floor
with Mr. W., and says she to me: 'The child has but to
unmask at supper and I think we may say 'tis as good as
done.' Mr. W., his uncle's heir, and such a personable
worthy young man, by all accounts and looking to be
settled. Well, well! Meeking, take Miss Jane to her

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PAMELA POUNCE

apartment and tell Mrs. Martha to apply the leeches.
'Tis time for me to be dressing."

Whether rendered irritable by pain, or overwhelmed by
Disappointment at the probable loss of Mr. W., or goaded
by the thought of the leeches, certain it is that the afflicted
daughter broke out with a passion which amazed Miss
Pounce so much that she turned on the threshold to stare
and perhaps even admire.

The beauty declared that Mamma was a nasty unkind
thing and that she herself wished she was dead.

"Jane!" cried Lady Amelia, in a voice of thunder.
"Sarah, take your sister away."

Ere the sobbing girl, advancing in three totters and a
stop to gasp, could reach the door Lady Amelia be-
thought herself of a fitting punishment which spoke vol-
umes for the matron's methods of education.

"Your sister shall go in your place to-night. Yes, Jane,
not another word. I have quite made up my mind. Sarah,
get ready to accompany me."

Pamela slipped out of the room after the girls and was
witness on the landing of a small fraternal scene which
confirmed her previous opinion of the lovely Jane. This
aggrieved maiden first nearly fell over the bandboxes ; and
then was seized by such a convulsion of rage and jealousy
at sight of them, that, shaking herself free of Sarah's en-
circling arm, she slapped and pinched her sister ; and, then
at Pamela's horrified interference, dashed up the staircase
to her own chamber.

" 'Pon my word," thought the milliner, "Mr. W. may
have had the escape of his life ! A doll lined with a vixen !
'Tis the most dismal combination. Don't cry, Miss," she
went on aloud, as Sarah sniffed into her useful pocket
handkerchief. "Don't cry, there's a dear young lady!

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Let me come in your room with you and see what I've got
in these boxes. You shall look nice to-night, or my name's
not Pamela Pounce."

Now Sarah's chamber happened to be a narrow slit at
the back of her mother's apartment ; for of course Beauty
had to be well lodged, no matter how pokily plain Miss
Sarah might fare.

Nipping a bunch of bandboxes dexterously in each hand,
Pamela bundled after the astonished Cinderella into her
dingy little cell.

"As for the price, Miss, bless you," she whispered
breathlessly, with her back against the door, "you'll pay
me when you're married." Then she smacked her lips as
if the dish of her choice were spread before her. "I don't
know when I've took to any one as I've took to you. La !
We must have candles though, your window giving on a
shaft as I see, and being so to speak, worse than none.
But I'd rather dress a lady by candlelight, any day in the
year. And what was you thinking of wearing, Miss?"

"Oh, dear, I'm sure I don't know !" cried Sarah. "My
muslins are dreadful washed out, and Mamma said I must
do with her mauve Tabby made over, for she couldn't
afford to dress two "

Here there came a knock at the door, and Meeking, the
drab, elderly maid, entered, carrying a white silk brocade
gown, powdered with little rosebuds.

"My Lady says you're to wear this, Miss Sally, and
I'm mortal glad," added the woman, dropping her voice
and looking, as if for support, at the milliner, "that you
should come to your rights once in a while ! — Too bad the
way this pore young lady's put upon, Miss. There ! I've
said it now, and I'm glad of it. Her Ladyship's just given
me notice. I wish I could dress you, Miss Sally, I do

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PAMELA POUNCE

indeed, but I've got to go back to your Mamma this in-
stant minute."

"Don't you put yourself out, ma'am," cried Miss Pounce
sweetly. "I'll help your young lady with all the pleasure
in life! I was just about to show her the heads I brought
on approval."

"Ah!" said the Abigail darkly as she withdrew.
"There's heads enough in this house to-night and that's
the truth !"

"I hardly like, though," exclaimed Sarah, "to wear poor
Jenny's clothes."

"Why, you're a sweet creature!" The milliner shook
out the glistening folds. " 'Twill suit you, Miss "

"Oh, my ugly face !"

"Ugly! As far as that comes to, Miss Vibart, there's
ugly beauties and there's charming — well, charming ugli-
nesses, since that's your own word. I'd never call a lady
ugly who'd so fine a figure, and so bright an eye and if
your mouth is a bit wide, Miss, sure your teeth are a pic-
ture ; and if your nose is a trifle snub, there's something so
merry and arch in the way it cocks when you smile, that
I for one would not have you different. I vow I would
not!"

Pamela was in the act of passing the Beauty's fine gown
over Cinderella's shoulders, and as she twitched it into
place she proceeded with fresh energy.

"What's the matter with you, Miss, is that you've been
so set aside that you're afraid to smile and be merry. Let
yourself go to-night, and you'll see

"Why, 'twill be right enough," said Sarah ruefully, "so
long as I'm masked — all the dancing ladies are to be
masked, you know. I'm not afraid but I can hold my own
then. 'Tis the thought that all the while people are look-

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ing at me they're saying 'poor girl,' and comparing me
with sister. However I may get on with my partner at
the rout to-night, the moment I take off my mask "

"Now don't go for to say that, Miss! You haven't
seen the head I've got in this bandbox. One would think,"
cried the milliner enthusiastically, "that your good angel
had inspired me, for I've got here the very mode to match
Miss Jane's brocade and to suit you. Well, there! there
won't be no gentleman at the ball to-night, wishing you
was your sister. I'll take my oath o' that."

And indeed, when some twenty minutes later, the plain
Miss Vibart contemplated her image in the glass, she con-
ceded that she might very well hold her own. By a couple
of twists of clever fingers, Pamela Pounce had contrived
to loosen and display her curls to an advantage hitherto
undreamed of. When a hairdresser was called in, his
services were not wasted on Sarah. And the head; what
an exquisite indescribable trifle and how becoming! The
twist of silver tissue as light as the most delicate cloud,
the single hint of blue and the one full pink rose ! It lent
an ethereal aspect to the flying curls of powdered hair;
Sarah's small, round face took a something elfin, and, as
she smiled at herself, roguish, that made the milliner clap
her hands and vow that she was delicious and that her own
anticipations were far exceeded.

Sarah turned and hugged her unexpected friend before
obeying her mother's call.

"I'll come round to Madame Mirabel's in the morning
and tell you all about it. See if I don't."

Miss Sarah Vibart looked so modest and inconspicuous
as she slipped into Madame Mirabel's hat shop on the
thundery June morning after the Masked Rout at Hamp-

179

PAMELA POUNCE

shire House, that Miss Popple deemed it not worth her
while to inquire what her pleasure might be.

"Foh !" thought Polly. "Some poor country cousin on
the spy for fashion," for no one can be so haughty as the
young person who caters for the high and mighty.

What was her surprise to see the head milliner conclude
the affairs of a most important dowager in perfunctory
haste, with a peremptory, "Door, Miss Quigly," and ad-
vance the most urgent courtesy to the customer in the
plain print gown, with the unmistakable home-trimmed
hat and the not-at-all-pretty face underneath it !

"Step with me into the dressing-room, Miss Vibart.
I've got your matinee ready to fit on," said Pamela, with
a knowing wink.

And when the two found themselves together in the little
screened-off apartment with the big mirror, Miss Pounce
scanned her companion's face with the most searching
anxiety. There was something in that face that had not
been there before, an emotion between trembling joy and
crucial doubt, a color that fluctuated, a vague and veiled
glance, and a smile that wavered.

"Well, Miss?" panted Pamela, as the girl, letting herself
fall into a chair, seemed to float away on a dream : "Well,
Miss, how did you enjoy yourself. Wasn't my head
the prettiest there by a long way? I don't think the
Duchess herself had such a bit of real art, and I ought to
know! I'm sure, if you only looked as you did upstairs
in that little room when you took off your mask "

"Oh, you dear kind thing, I never took off my mask
at all."

"What, Miss?"

"Oh, I couldn't!"

"Of all the pities! There, I might as well have spared

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my trouble, I see. There ain't a mite of use in trying to
help those that won't help themselves, that's flat !"

"Nay, pray, pray don't be vexed with me! You've
been such a friend to me ! You're the only friend I have !
Oh, I must tell you! There's no one in the world I can
tell."

There was such real distress in the girl's whole air, and
at the same time, some pathetic hope that seemed to cast
a pale beam across her trouble like sunshine on a gloomy
day, that Pamela swallowed down her natural irritation
and began to feel, moreover, that her efforts might prove
to have been not so altogether wasted after all. More
than this, how could she fail to be touched by the appeal :
"You are my only friend." Flattered, too, considering—
and Pamela was far too sensible not to consider the differ-
ence in their station.

"Oh," cried the plain Miss Vibart, as if the gentle look
the milliner cast on her had been a Moses wand and the
spring gushed forth under its touch. "Oh, pity! Oh,
why am I not beautiful, like Jane? I never envied her
before — never, never ! — but oh, why did I go to the party
at all? If I hadn't known him first, if he had not been
so wonderful kind and clever and charming and loving to
talk to me, and understanding me so — oh, oh, and so
handsome ! Oh, I'd never have known what he was if Jane
had had him first !"

"There, don't cry, you poor thing! Why, now, you
said you'd tell me about it, Miss, and I'm sure, I think it
uncommon pleasant of you, Miss, and I'd never take ad-
vantage— no! 'Twill be as sacred, as sacred, no! not if
I was to be drawn and quartered ! But there, Miss, why,
how do you know 'tisn't all going to end lovely? How do

181

you know the gentleman isn't like me and wouldn't rather
have you than the beauty, fifty thousand times?"

Here came such a lifting of swimming eyes, such a timid
smile that Pamela thought she, for one, never wanted to
see anything sweeter than the face of the plain Miss
Vibart.

And after that the confidences came, broken, halting,
but explicit enough for such quick wits as those of Madame
Mirabel's head woman. How Sarah had followed her
mother, with a higher heart than she had ever carried in
her bosom to any entertainment, into the great, splendid
ballroom of Hampshire House, safe under her mask; and
they had scarce been there a five minutes when up comes
the Duchess of Queensberry in a great fuss, followed by
a tall young gentleman, and she says to Mamma, for the
Duchess is Mamma's cousin by marriage and has remem-
bered the relationship since Jane came out, " 'for Jane,'
she says, 'is the most beautiful creature in the world,' and,
so she is," cried the loyal sister, breaking off her narrative
with a trembling lip.

" 'Tis the young gentleman's looks I want to hear
about," Miss Pounce interpolated skillfully. "Mr. W. I
suppose? Him your lady Mamma was alluding to."

"Mr. W. it was, Mr. Walsingham. And oh, he's a per-
son of great consequence, for he's the nephew and heir of
the old Marquis of Harborough, him that succeeded his
brother, you know, and none of them ever married. And
oh, dear, my dear friend — your name's Pounce, isn't it?
I'd rather call you by your Christian name if you don't
mind. Pamela? Oh, I like that. Dear Pamela, I thought
when the Duchess introduced him and he bowed and smiled
I'd never seen anything so agreeable, nor so well looking.
With such straight and honest eyes and so kind a smile.

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And the Duchess was in such a fuss, as I told you, she
wouldn't listen to Mamma who wanted to explain about
Jane, and I think she's a little deaf too. 'Here, Edward,'
she cries, *here's Miss Vibart, what I've told you of and
you'd better engage her at once, for once it gets about
what face is behind that mask, there'll be twenty clamoring
for her. Oh, you're a lucky dog,' says she — that's the
way she speaks, and I think it's rather gross, but Mamma
won't have it, because she's a duchess — 'oh, you're a lucky
dog,' she cries, 'and there won't be a buck in the room that
won't want your blood when midnight comes and that face
is revealed.' "

"Dear, to be sure," said Pamela, with a sucking breath.
"And do you think Mr. W. — I can't help it, Miss, I shall
always call him that: 'tis so mysterious like — didn't hear
what your Mamma tried to tell the Duchess? Did he take
you for your sister straight off?"

An overwhelming blush spread over the plain Miss
Vibart's face.

"Oh, Pamela Pounce," she cried, " 'twas very silly and
cowardly of me, but I didn't want him to find out. I
thought for once I'd know, even on false pretenses, what
it means to be admired and courted. And oh, my dear
creature, yes, I'll be truthful. I liked him so much from
the very first that I couldn't, I couldn't make up my mind
to his going away and leaving me."

In the pause which ensued, the milliner discreetly waited
while last night's heroine once again fell into a retrospec-
tive muse. Suddenly the girl broke out.

" 'Twas the strangest thing ! Our tastes met at every
point. 'Never think, sir,' cries I to him, 'to find me enter-
taining company, for I'm the veriest country mouse '

'Country!' cries he, 'Madam, there's no life for any one

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PAMELA POUNCE

but in the country, to my mind. This town existence, what
is it? How can any one but an idiot substitute the fresh
air and the green fields and the fine views and the whole-
some activities, the pleasant neighborly intercourse, for
this inane round of dissipations in the atmosphere of
smoke, the hideous confinement of brick and mortar and
the feverish intercourse with strangers between people
who can have naught in common and as like as not can
never meet again?"

"La," cried Pamela, "how you remember it all, Miss!
And sure, to my mind, 'twas scarce an auspicious open-
ing."

"Nay, but it was, for it set me off laughing. 'And,'
cries I, 'an idiot and inane! You're vastly obliging, sir,
but, pray, remember that I, at least, am subject to au-
thority.' 'And so am I, Madam,' cried he, ' 'tis by my
uncle's orders that I am in the town, so you and I may
perhaps call ourselves the only sane people in a room full
of vapidity. And such being the case,' he went on, 'you
will allow me to add most respectfully that we scarce meet
altogether as strangers, and that I trust our first meeting
may not be the last.' '

The milliner gave a whistle.

"Quick work !" quoth she, "a'most like putting on the
feathers before the straw is stitched together."

"Oh, nay indeed !" cried the other again, "we were sctne-
how so comfortably at home with each other from the
first ! And after we had danced a minuet — it is not van-
ity on my part to say that I can dance and that better
than dear Jane, though to be sure, it scarce matters how
she steps for none will look but at her face — we got on
amazing in the figures, and afterwards better still in the
talk we had together. Never was there such harmony of

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LUCK OUT OF THE BANDBOX

taste, I do assure you. I told him how vastly I preferred
the country gentleman to the town fop and he told me
the town young lady could never hold a candle to the fresh
country creature that would be up betimes in the dairy,
and still room. And oh, a dairy is all my joy, and as to
a still room, why, I scarce know how the time flies, once
I'm in ours ! Our housekeeper is very old, and Mamma is
very kind and lets me help her. And there's no butter
half so good as mine in the county, and the dear cows, I
love the very sight of them. Aye and I can milk, too!
And there's not a herb in the garden I don't know the use
of. And "

"Why, Miss," said the milliner, amused, "what a mis-
tress you'll be of a country house of your own, one of
these days !"

"Why, that's what he said !"

"Did he indeed?" Pamela laughed out loud.

"Nay, but," the girl's face, which had been wonderfully
brightened, fell, "you must remember he thought I was
the beauty all the time ! He has heard about Jane. 'Tis
quite clear. He is in love with her without ever having
seen her and that was why the more charming, the more
ardent, respectfully ardent, he was, the more my heart
sank. Though indeed I do think our minds were in sym-
pathy, and, to be sure, sister scarce knows rhubarb from
angelica, or cream cheese from curds."

"Ah, if I'd been you," said Pamela Pounce with fire,
"I'd have pulled my mask off, Miss, and faced him and
said, 'By your tongue you're a man of sense, show your-
self one by your eyes.' '

"Oh, you may talk," Sarah cast a desperate upward
glance at the kindling face, "you that's so handsome!
Little you know what it is to feel plain. 'Tis as I have

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PAMELA POUNCE

told you, I couldn't — aye, that's the word ! — face it. And
so I slipped from him, even as all the assembly was sum-
moned to the supper room, and hid myself. And oh!"
cried Sarah, between laughing and crying, "when Mamma
found me at last, sitting with the maids among the cloaks,
she was very angry first. 'And where have you been?'
cries she. 'The Duchess and Mr. W. have been looking
for you everywhere. Mr. Walsingham's mad after you,
child,' and oh," here Sarah sobbed, "she was most angry
because she thought he had liked me too much. And when
I told her he took me for sister. 'Why,' said she, 'put on
your mask this minute, Miss. And I forbid you ever to
let on that you took Jane's place. He told the Duchess
that you're the most intelligent young woman, that your
mind and your principles are all he could desire — believing
you to be Jane of course. Things could not be better!
His intentions are most serious !' And now," cried Sarah,
drying her eyes desperately, "sister's had her tooth out
this morning and the apothecary says in a week there'll
be nothing to show for it. And though there's been a
message from the Duchess to say Mr. W. wished to call
to-day, Mamma has wrote back that Jane has taken a cold
at the masked ball and must keep her room for a few days.
But oh, Pamela, when he comes and looks upon her — why,
you can guess how it will be !"

" 'Tis a monstrous shame," the partisan exclaimed, "I
wouldn't put up with it, Miss ! And all the time 'tis you
yourself he'll think he's getting. You ought to up and
tell him straight and let him make his choice."

But Sarah, pulling on her shabby gloves and drawing
her hat over her red eyes, shook her head. "I couldn't do
that," said she. "Mamma says if I breathe a word 'twill

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be the basest treachery to sister. And she'll keep me out
of the way," she added under her breath.

The girl then flung her arms round the milliner's neck.
Sarah was indeed sadly lacking in propriety.

"I'll send back your head. 'Tis as fresh as ever. And
thank you a million times. At least I've had a peep into
happiness."

It was quite ten days later, when Pamela Pounce re-
ceived an urgent message from Miss Vibart to come and
see her after closing hours.

"Mamma and Jane are going out and I shall be quite
alone. Do come, I have something so strange to tell you"

Miss Pounce did not need to be bidden twice to such an
appointment. Her warm heart had been considerably pre-
occupied on the subject of the plain Miss Vibart's affairs.

She was shown in, not to the fireless dark slit of a room
overlooking the shaft, but to quite a comfortable small
bedroom on the street. Sarah in an elegant white muslin
wrapper, sprang up from her writing table to embrace
her friend.

"Yes, yes, look at me !" she cried. "I ain't ashamed
of my face to-day. Indeed I quite love it. Oh, I've just
been writing to all the dear old people at home, my blessed
old nurse and Mrs. Comfit — that's our good housekeeper —
to tell them — to tell them my great news ! Oh, Pamela,
I wanted to tell it by degrees and surprise you but I can't.
'Twill out ! It is me he wants."

"Mr. W.?"

"My own dear darling Edward Walsingham, who else?
Oh, was there ever such a lucky girl? Oh, Pamela ! Here,

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PAMELA POUNCE

sit beside me. Let me hold your hand. Let me hold your
hand, your warm dear hand that lifted me up, when I was,
oh, in such a fit of despond !"

The two sat together on the maiden bed, and Pamela
began to cry, as women will, over the tender emotions of
the moment.

"I'm as glad, my dear," she said, "as glad as if you'd
given me a hundred thousand pounds. Gladder ! And
how did it come to pass?" She drew her sucking breath of
delighted anticipation.

"This morning, then — oh, when I think it was only this
morning! — Sister being quite unswollen and looking love-
lier than ever, Mamma put her into the blue muslin — your
blue muslin, you remember it? — and made Meeking do her
hair in a new way with a black ribbon bow at the back
and little curls, like the Duchess of Devonshire, and oh,
sister did look lovely! And just as she was ready, up
comes Joe Footman to say the Duchess of Queensberry
and Mr. Walsingham was in the withdrawing-room. And
mamma takes sister by the hand and 'Come, child,' says
she. 'And if you poke when you come into the room I'll
slap you.' (Sister does poke sometimes, you know.) And
off they go, without so much as a look at me. I'd been
helping to dress sister, you see, holding the hairpins and
that. And there was I in my old frumpy gown and I
just looked at myself in the glass and I thought: 'You
plain thing, how dare you be jealous of beauty and your
own sister, too !' And if you cry, you silly creature, you'll
only make yourself plainer, so what's the good of that !'
And I wouldn't cry, dear. I picked up sister's clothes
and was putting them away, trying not to think. Oh!
trying so hard not to think — of him downstairs, looking
worship at Jane, when all at once up comes Joe Footman

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again. 'And you're to come down, Miss, you're to come
down this minute to the drawing-room. Her Ladyship has
sent for you.' And oh, you'll never believe the dreadful
thought that came into my head and haw near I was say-
ing I would not obey Mamma, for, to tell you the truth, I
thought she wanted to show off Jane with my plainness.
But then I thought, 'Nay, daughters must do as they're
bid,' and I set my teeth and down I went, just as I was*
Oh, Pamela such an untidy, ill-dressed poor girl, with a
sad pale face ! And oh ! — I can hardly believe it myself —
the moment I came into the room up he jumped — yes ! he,
Mr. W. — and I heard him cry out quite joyful, "Ah, I
knew I could not be mistaken. Ah, 'tis she, 'tis she indeed !'
And then he took both my hands in his and kissed them
one after the other very respectful. And says he, 'Forgive
me, Madam, forgive me ! Your mother will explain. It has
been an absurd misunderstanding. I found a treasure,
and I thought I had lost it. Oh, forgive me if I seem too
precipitate!' And Jane got up and went to the window
and began to tap on the pane, and Mamma and the
Duchess looked at each other. And the Duchess said: 'I
congratulate you, Amelia; this is the most crazy bit of
good fortune that ever befell a mother.* And everything
did seem rather crazy, for there was Mamma at one minute
looking as if she could kill me and at the next clasping me
and calling me her favorite child. And oh," went on the
plain Miss Vibart, "it is precipitate, but what does that
matter, when we're both so happy? And oh, it seems I
must tell you, and 'tis not vanity! that the moment he
saw Jane he stared and looked so mortal disappointed
and seemed so confused, falling back two steps, indeed,
instead of coming forward, that the Duchess cried : 'What's
the matter with the fellow? Ain't she pretty enough?*

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PAMELA POUNCE

And he said, 'This is never the young lady to whom you
introduced me at Hampshire House, ma'am. There is
some cruel mistake here,' he says. And oh, he said to
me when we were alone together a little while ago that
when he saw that empty face — that's what he said — that
doll's face, that bit of waxwork, his blood ran cold, and
then says he, 'When you came in!' — oh, dear, I'm not
dreaming! — 'when I saw your charming expressive coun-
tenance, full of life and spirit and wit and goodness* — he
did say that — 'I could not hold myself back, I had to
speak at once, lest I lose you again.' And now, con-
cluded the future Marchioness, turning her radiant visage
upon the milliner, "He's gone to Harborough House to
tell his uncle, and Mamma and Jane have gone out to a
dinner party and if you'll help me into my frock, dear —
yes, it is one of poor Jane's — I'll be ready for him when
he calls back to wish me good-night."

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE HAS DONE WITH LOW

PAMELA POUNCE was nothing if not a business
woman, as her history will have shown. She had not
only those valuable intuitions which divine the public taste,
she had the still more priceless quality of inspiring it.

Before she had completed her first year with Madame
Mirabel, the millinery department had become the main-
stay of the house ; and Pamela felt herself in a position to
hint to her employer how very much more it would be to
their mutual advantage that she should be given a pro-
prietary share in the business, than that she should set up
for herself.

Set up for herself ! The mere thought of such a catas-
trophe put Madame Mirabel in such a flutter that she had
to be revived with ratafia on the spot. There was no con-
cession that she would not have been willing to make to
prevent it.

Pamela had prepared a scheme, which was just, fair-
minded and practical like herself. She was willing to in-
vest a thousand pounds for the development of the depart-
ment and continue to direct the thriving showroom, if
Madame Mirabel would admit her as a partner with right
to half profits.

The agreement was drafted between them, drawn up by
Pamela herself. Fortified by this document, she sought
her redoubtable aunt.

"Now, Aunt Lydia," said she, "here's the opportunity
of your life. You lend me a thousand pounds, and I'll

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PAMELA POUNCE

give you ten per cent for three years and pay you back
at the end of it with a bit over. And if I drop down dead
between, you can come on Madame Mirabel."

Lydia was no fool. She was as fond of money as only
such a nature can be, and had, indeed, gathered together
quite a substantial hoard in her long years of lucrative
employment. She made all the difficulties, of course, which
the circumstance demanded, but Pamela, who saw the
gleam of greed in her eye, knew that her cause was won
from the outset.

She good-humoredly consented to sign the stringent
document which Lydia thought necessary for her safety;
and to obtain Madame Mirabel's signature to it also. The
transaction was concluded without much more delay and
Miss Pamela Pounce passed from the position of underling
to that of partner.

The matter was, needless to say, kept private between
Madame Mirabel and herself. It is never wholesome for the
reputation of a business concern to have these conveniences
of management discussed ; and, for the mere sake of disci-
pline where large numbers are employed and easy jealousies
excited, no change affecting authority can be acknowl-
edged.

Miss Smithson and Miss Popple, therefore, while unable
to blind themselves to the fact that their aged employer's
infatuation for that scheming Miss Pounce, was more
lamentably evident than ever, still buoyed themselves up
with the hope that her true character would be revealed
before the eyes of the too trusting dame.

Miss Sarah Vibart's wedding order — bride's anil brides-
maid's hats ; (Jane was chief bridesmaid, an advertisement
which, as Pamela herself said, would have been worth pay-
ing for ten times over) — brought a rush of new clientele to

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PAMELA HAS DONE WITH LOVE

the Bond Street house. Mr. Walsingham's wedding was
the event of June — luckily timed before the unexpected
death of the Marquis of Harborough — and it is scarcely
too much to say that the first thought of every lady of
fashion who received a ticket of invitation was : "Pounce
shall make me a new hat!"

Lydia, who kept a close tongue where her nest-egg was
concerned, began to unbend considerably towards her
niece. Nothing succeeds like success. You could scarce
have dragged five shillings out of her, had the girl been
lingering on at Tabbishaw's, but as matters stood, my
Lady's Abigail felt "warm in her inwards," every time
she thought of that thousand pounds which was so likely
to bring a blessing upon her high sense of family feeling.

She took to inviting Pamela to a dish of chocolate in
the sewing parlor at Hertford Street of a Saturday after-
noon, promising her also a plate of those Queen cakes
"which my Lady's still-room maid do turn out rather well,
and which you're so fond of, my dear."

These invitations Pamela accepted with increasing fre-
quency, and if Lydia happened to be washing her Lady-
ship's best lace caps or ironing out her ribbons it was only
becoming, from a niece to an aunt, that she should lend a
hand; particularly considering the money obligations be-
tween them.

But Pamela's real reason for presenting herself at Hert-
ford Street lay so deep down that it could scarcely be said
that she acknowledged it even to herself.

She was hankering for news of Jocelyn Bellairs ; and, at
last, by an artful twist of the conversation, Miss Lydia
was induced to drop a stray word in connection with him:
"that rubbish! her Ladyship had got a place for him at

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PAMELA POUNCE

Bristol, with an India merchant," and she hoped to good-
ness he'd keep steady and they'd hear no more of him.

That was the first item of information which Pamela
gathered for her starving heart. She tried to tell herself
what a relief it was not to have him hanging about and how
splendid that he should have work, and how sure she was
that he, so clever, would now make a way for himself, even
as she had done. But it was poor comfort !

After two Saturdays wasted, she once more heard the
beloved name mentioned, this time again in no uncertain
tones of condemnation.

My Lady was so put-about. Lydia hadn't known her
so upset since the day my Lord was took up as a highway-
man ; and she, the Widow Bellairs and he, Denis O'Hara.

"That audacious young villain ! He's been making a
regular popinjay of himself at Bath. There's my Lady
Nan Day, recovering from the measles, writes: 'Your
nephew, my dear, your nephew is the rage here ; driving
the most elegant curricle you ever saw with a pair of
bloods, which my Philip says make his mouth water.
Has he come into a fortune or not?' writes my Lady
Nan — and she was always a spiteful one — 'for he will need
it,' says she. 'We was all mortal sorry that his horse,
what he set such store by, failed at the Spring Races.'
My Lady has wrote to him," pursued Lydia, her green eyes
maliciously fixed upon her niece, "to explain, for goodness
gracious' sake, 'for unless he's robbed the mail, Lydia,'
says she, 'or been more successful on the highway than my
poor Denis' — and that was what put it into my head,
Pamela, my love — 'I'm very much afraid,' she says, ' 'tis
his master's strong box he's been at, and that will spell
prison,' she says, 'and the name so well known. Oh, the
shame of it !' "

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PAMELA HAS DONE WITH LOVE

"Shame, indeed!" cried Pamela, her glance flashing
back, at Lydia's taunt; she knew very well what gave
such extra zest to these tales; but she, Pamela, was not
one to wear her heart on her sleeve for an old magpie to
peck at.

On the following Saturday she saw, from the first mo-
ment she crossed the threshold, that Lydia was big with
news, unpleasant enough to make her bursting to tell it.

Pamela was past mistress of exasperating tactics her-
self; and there was some very pretty fencing between the
two, by which Lydia was forced to restrain her old-
maidish desire to plant a dagger in the bosom of the
younger maid. Pamela had so much to discourse about
on the new Turban mode ; and the last letter from Madame
Eglantine to Madame Mirabel.

"Poor thing, she's in all the states, what with these new
dreadful doings and the insolence of the people and Ilde-
f onse letting his hair grow and going out to clubs o' nights
to talk blasphemy. Ugh!" said Pamela, "I never could
abide that man. And my Lady Amelia Vibart, haggling
over the wedding bills, 'twas a scandal ! And had Aunt
Lydia heard the last horrid titbit about my Lord Har-
borough and Miss Falcon? And wouldn't it be a pity if
Mr. Walsingham were to miss coming in for the title after
all? 'Twas said my Lord Harborough was mad set on
marrying her, when there wouldn't be a mite of reason why
she shouldn't have a brat to put Mr. W.'s nose out
of joint!"

Lydia was still seeking for an interval in which to
thrust, when my Lady's bell rang with the double pull
which indicated that Miss Pounce had better hurry herself
or my Lady would know the reason why.

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PAMELA POUNCE

Pamela smiled to herself as the door was banged behind
her aunt ; then she sighed.

Aunt Lydia was a tabby if ever there was one, but oh,
dear, what dreadful bit of tattle was she bound to hear be-
fore the evening was out? And oh, dear, what a pity it
was that things went so contrary in this world, and that
poor girls had hearts at all !

She had hardly had time pensively to nibble through a
Queen cake — for Pamela was much too sensible to let any
sentimentality interfere with her appetite — when Lydia re-
appeared and, with much flouncing and head tossing, in-
formed her that, it being a dratted nuisance that people
wouldn't mind their own business, it had come to her Lady-
ship's ears, through Pompey, that Pamela was present in
the house. Nothing would serve her Ladyship but that
she must come up at once about a head for to-night's
concert.

Pamela shook the crumbs from her apron, and rose with!
the imperturbable alacrity which it was her pride to bring
to all affairs of business.

The day was hot, and my Lady's big bedchamber a
delicious cave of coolness after the highly elevated atmos-
phere of Lydia's own parlor. The amber curtains were
drawn before the big windows ; there was a shining sea of
parquet floor on which delicate French furniture made here
and there an attractive island. An immense bunch of roses
on the spindle-legged dressing table just caught the breeze
from the wide-open window and wafted fragrance. My
Lady herself, extended in a vapor of white muslin on an
amber satin couch, lazily fanning herself, was as agreeable
a spectacle as any heated young woman with refined tastes
could hope to gaze upon.

"Sit down, Miss Pounce," said Kitty affably. "(Lydia,

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PAMELA HAS DONE WITH LOVE

get out the bandbox with the saffron head.) Now my
dear, good, kind creature, look at it. Yes ! I know. 'Tis
the sweetest thing I've laid eyes on this season, but con-
ceive my horror, Miss Pounce, when I heard anon, that
Her Majesty was to be present at the Duchess of Port-
land's to-night. Conceive my horror! I saw myself with
the Queen's eyes ! I tell you, Miss Pounce, my days at
Court would have been counted."

Here Lydia was heard to murmur, with the familiarity
of long service, and a backward scratch at her niece that
she was tired telling her Ladyship that the last year's head
from Madame Eglantine, which her Ladyship had never
worn but the once, would be the very thing for her to wear
to-night, "and a genteel, tasty, Frenchy confection it
was," which her Ladyship wouldn't better, not if she ran-
sacked Bond Street.

"I tell you, you perverse piece," cried her mistress, fan-
ning herself with an energy calculated to make even the
spectator feel hot, "that turn myself into a frump with a
last year's mode, I'll not do, even to please the Queen.
Pamela, child, I've set my heart on the saffron head. I
vow and protest those gold ospreys with the cluster of saf-
fron roses and the little wreath of green leaves between, I
vow and protest 'tis the very dream to go with my India
gold-embroidered gown — 'Tis there on the bed, my dear,
as fine as a cobweb ! There'll not be another like it in the
room. And there's never anything so elegant as white and
gold of a hot night. With my dark eyes, Pamela, and the
gold ospreys. Oh, but the gold ospreys, so airy, so fly
away! And Her Majesty who will not even tolerate
feathers! I'd have worn my high band of diamonds.
Pshaw! it grieves me to the very soul! What can you
suggest ?"

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PAMELA POUNCE

Pamela put her finger to her lip and corrugated her
white brow in the profoundest thought. Kitty held her
breath as she watched her. The fate of nations might
have been hanging between them. Then said the milliner
decisively, "I see nothing for it. We can't do it, my Lady.
The ospreys will have to go." Then, as Kitty's face fell,
she added briskly: "But there! I often say to myself,
what seems a trial is a blessing. Why should not your
Ladyship set a fashion? It came to me just as I looked at
your Ladyship's gown and the fairy elegance of that India
embroidery, and your Ladyship wears a wreath so becom-
ing; wouldn't gold grapes and green leaves look tasty,
bunches each side with the diamond bandeau to draw them
together?"

"Pounce, you're a genius !" Kitty dropped her fan to
clap her hands.

At the same moment my Lord came into the room and
smiled to see her look so pleased.

"Faith, and I've come at the right tick of the clock, I
think — Morning to you, Miss Pounce. You and my Lady
and your fripperies 'tis the business of the world, ain't it?"
he rubbed his hands and hemmed. "By your bright face
Pve come at the right tick, Kitty, me darling, to ask you
for a proof of your good nature."

"A proof of my good nature, my Lord? So long as 'tis
nothing to go against my good sense."

Kitty was always ready to oblige, in reason; but she
had her wits about her.

"Stay, child," she cried, as Pamela prepared discreetly
to withdraw. "It can but take a moment. We must send
Pompey to Bond Street for the grapes, and I vow that no
hand but yours shall fasten them in my curls. Your niece
will write a note, Lydia, at my escritoire, and see that the

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black brat runs. They might send a choice of sizes, what
think you, Pamela? — Oh, what is it, my Lord? You men
are so impatient."

"Why, Kitty," said her husband, coming close to the
sofa, on which his lively little spouse now sat very straight,
gesticulating among the mother-of-pearl shimmer of her
cushions. "The matter concerns you, really more than
meself. At least it concerns your family. Poor young
Bellairs has been arrested for debt. Nipped from me very
side, my dear, as we came out of the Cocoa Tree together
a while ago, by a rascally pimp !"

"Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs? Do you refer to Mr. Jocelyn
Bellairs?" asked my Lady Kilcroney, becoming rigid.

Pamela's quill, scratching wildly across a great sheet
of paper was arrested in midflourish.

There was a small, unpleasant pause, broken by a loud
sniff from Lydia.

Then my Lady said: "Indeed. I understood the young
gentleman was at Bristol."

My Lord was not misled by the quietness of her tone.
"Ah, God help you, Kitty," he exclaimed, flustered. "Sure
you never believed you could keep a lad of that kidney with
his nose in a desk? Didn't he off with himself with his first
three months' salary and hasn't his luck been the talk of
Bath, barring the let-down of a sorrel filly at the point-
to-point! And sure if it hadn't been that the dice has

been going against him the last three or four days "

He broke off.

Kitty sat like an image of scorn ; and my Lord, seeing
that his mission did not seem likely to be blessed with suc-
cess, proceeded in nettled tones :

"The long and the short of it is, I've promised Jocelyn
we'd see to it. 'Tis only a matter of ninety-seven pound

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PAMELA POUNCE

ten, when all is said and done. And that to a livery
stableman."

He drew a crumpled sheet of blue paper from his pocket
as he spoke. Kitty unexpectedly stretched out her hand ;
with a sigh of relief he put it into it.

"I knew you'd be the first to say it ought to be paid,
my dearest life."

"Certainly, it ought to be paid, Denis."

"You wouldn't wish the poor dear lad — and him as
pleasant over the green cloth as ever I met — to be penned
up in the sponging house. Besides which," added Kil-
croney, in imprudent reminiscence, "don't I know ; isn't it
the mischief once you get into one of those holes! 'Tis
like a sheep in a ditch; the sky is black with crows after
you, in a twinkling."

"Very sad," said my Lady.

She tendered the blue paper back with an indifferent
gesture.

"Have you dispatched Pompey, Lydia ?"

Lord Kilcroney put his hands behind him.
• "Nay! nay!" cried he, with the uneasy boisterousness
of one who would force the issue as a joke. " 'Tis your
business, me darling."

"I thought you wanted it paid, my Lord ?"

"And maybe," cried he, laughing yet more violently,
"you think I can pay it?"

He began pulling his pockets out.

"Sure, that would be the joke entirely! I'm cleaned
through. There ain't a single chinker left in my purse,
Kitty, and it the lovely red silk one you made me yourself
last Christmas. Troth! I am this moment what they
say nature abhors "

"And what's that, sir?"

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PAMELA HAS DONE WITH LOVE

"A vacuum, my love," quoth my Lord, with a great
guffaw.

Kitty contemplated him a moment, icily. Then she
said: "All my sympathies are with Nature."

Kilcroney reddened, shrugged his shoulders, and, re-
placing the linings of his pockets in their normal position,
thrust his hands into them and sauntered out of the
room.

There was nothing further to be done; the moment
was unpropitious.

Kitty balled the blue sheet with an angry hand and
flung it after him, and Pamela, who had never finished that
phrase of directions, rose from the escritoire and picked
it up.

The action was performed with so much composure
that it seemed but the natural outcome of her good
manners.

"Don't give it back to me, child !" exclaimed Kitty with
tartness. "Throw it into the waste-paper basket. Have
you wrote your message?"

Pamela walked back to the writing table.

"I was un-bethinking myself, your Ladyship, that it
would be better for me to run back myself and choose the
sprays. Miss Smithson, the person in charge of the office
of a Saturday, is that disagreeable, she'd send the wrong
sets on purpose. It won't take me half an hour,
my Lady."

She tore the sheet she had begun writing upon, in two,
and dropped it into the elegant little gilt beribboned
basket, which was the repository of my Lady Kilcroney's
scraps. She made a brisk curtsy and stepped out of
the room.

Even Lydia's sharp eyes failed to perceive that she had

201

PAMELA POUNCE

not thrown away the liveryman's crumpled account ; that
she had thrust into her kerchief.

Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs was not destined to spend the
Sabbath in a sponging house, for he was released on Satur-
day night, some one having settled Mr. Thomas Jobbin's
livery-stable account, before any other of his creditors had
had wind of his arrest.

Now the young gentleman had stepped into liberty in a
very bad humor. He had no doubt but that he was once
again indebted to my Lady Kilcroney in the matter, but,
like many another spendthrift, not having the smallest
claim upon her generosity, he considered that it ought to
be unlimited in his regard and felt himself injured that it
should go no further. He had come to review himself as
having a right to a share of old Bellairs' money. Wasn't
he, split him, the last of the name? Now, was this a way
to treat the only living representative of a Nabob who had
left his widow the command of millions? Just the debt
writ off and not a farthing over to jingle in your pocket,
or a question what was to become of a fellow ! "Never you
turn a hair," had said my Lord, "I'll be back again in a
jiffy to set you free, and we'll have a jolly night of it while
my Lady's at her caterwaul."

He had expected no less of one who, like Denis Kil-
croney, was profiting not only of his own wide hoard, but
of that old gentleman's tactful demise.

But instead of the promised reappearance, a message
had been flung in at him, left by a lackey towards seven
of the clock : my Lord was mortal sorry and he sent a bot-
tle of gin and some lemons.

And at ten the prisoner had been told he was free.

Mr. Bellairs had hot blood and it was all afire. And the

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PAMELA HAS DONE WITH LOVE

mischief was in it that he might not even have the satis-
faction of calling out the dashed Irishman for his in-
solence, since he couldn't help being under an obligation.

He avoided the Cocoa Tree that evening and plunged
into lower haunts, where, not in the very best company,
play ran very nearly as high as at the Mayfair clubs.

He was an audacious, reckless player, but in the main a
successful one. To-night there was something almost fan-
tastic in his luck. He went home in the blue of the morn-
ing with his pockets full of gold ; his resentful mood was
rather augmented by his good fortune than otherwise.

Nor was he in a whit better temper when, some five
hours later, he swaggered out into the Green Park, shaven
to velvet; his sparrow-tailed coat, his high, close-fitting
boots, his tight buckskin breeches and their bunches of
ribbon, his short waistcoat and his big buckled hat the
very last thing in manly modes. It was his intention to
call upon my Lady Kilcroney in Hertford Street, and
repay her the paltry ninety-seven pounds ten which stood
between him and a meeting with my Lord.

Miss Pamela Pounce, coming from church and stepping
in the same direction — she had grown singularly attentive
to Aunt Lydia — came plump upon the Beau as their paths
converged at the Piccadilly gate. His dark face kindled,
while her blooming cheek grew pale.

"La, to be sure, sir, who'd ha' thought of meeting you?"

"Why and is it you, Pamela?"

His eye ran her up and down. She was clad in shim-
mering blue-lilac taffeta and her wide-brimmed hat, of the
kind which Sir Joshua had set the rage, was trimmed with
broad silk ribbons of the same shade. She wore a plain
muslin kerchief; a black ribbon tied back her unpowdered
chestnut curls. She made a very pleasant picture; all,

203

PAMELA POUNCE

with perfect taste, within a certain modest compass becom-
ing her station.

There was no mistaking the emotion evoked in her by
the sight of him. Her breath came quickly ; her clear gaze
fluttered and fell, and her pallor was succeeded by a flame
of carnation.

Now out of the black mood in Mr. Bellairs' soul there
flashed an evil fire.

"Of all the meetings in the whole world," cried he,
ardently, "there's none could give me half so much joy,
my dearest creature! Turn with me. I must speak with
you. Nay, Pamela, I vow, I vow you've not been out of
my thoughts this month. Turn and come with me, I say.
Let us away under the trees, where we can talk by our-
selves. Pamela, dearest Pamela, take my arm. You are
more lovely than ever, and I am — I am more headlong in
love than ever I was before !"

There was too great a flutter in the girl's soul for her to
have her usual cool grip of the situation. An overwhelm-
ing tide of happiness lifted her from her mental balance.
She could not doubt that, after all these months, it must
be genuine love that lit up his glance, that trembled in his
voice and in his touch. She had proved to him, surely,
what kind of girl she was. He must mean the right thing
at last, or he would not so whole-heartedly declare himself.
And she had just rendered him a signal service, which,
though he could not yet know it, gave her a delightful
sense of meeting him on his own level. She was, moreover,
in a vastly different position now from that of the mere
working milliner. She had resources at her command, a
future before her.

And there he was, the dear fellow, and he loved her

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PAMELA HAS DONE WITH LOVE

still ! Could a Sunday morning in June hold a more
golden bliss?

So she hung on his arm, and listened with parted lips
to his raptures, to the fantastic string of plans, the sweet,
repeated endearments wlu'ch poured from his lips. Now
that they had met there were to be no more partings.
Things were changed. He had plenty of money. Here,
she looked at him in astonishment and he drew a handful of
gold from his pocket. He was in the devil's own vein of
luck, he told her. He wouldn't listen to her objurgation ;
he laughed at the admonishing finger. Her assurance that
she possessed a safer and more worthy source of wealth
he tossed aside as a jest. There was a horse of his booked
for Ascot. If she did not romp in with a sweet little cot-
tage at Fulham for them both at her heels !

"Oh, Mr. Bellairs 1" Pamela clasped her other hand over
his arm. "I could come up and down to business as easy
as easy. A cottage with a bit of garden ! 'Tis the very
thing I've always dreamed of!"

"And I hope you put me in the dream, my lovely girl."
He kissed her behind the trunk of a big beech tree.
"Why," cried he, "who'd have thought to find you so
sensible all at once?"

It was not, perhaps, so much the words, as the way in
which he looked at her after he had kissed her, that opened
the sudden gulf before her! She drew back and stood
staring, her face haggard, all the lovely bloom and youth-
ful ecstasy blasted out of it.

Then she said, in a low, strained voice — Pamela went
straight to her point, she was not one to cover ugly situa-
tions with a mince of words — "You don't mean marriage,
then, Mr. Bellairs."

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PAMELA POUNCE

The ugliness of his mood sprang into naked prominence.
He broke into a laugh.

"Come, don't play the prude, now ! Don't pretend you
didn't understand." Then he added, a sort of shame
creeping into his accents in spite of himself, "Be sensible,
my dear girl. Don't play the fool with our lives again."

He put out his arm again to embrace her, but she struck
him a vigorous buffet that sent him staggering from her.

"You've laid a vile trap for me, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs,
but thank God I didn't fall into it ! I see you now as you
are, a low, selfish scamp that doesn't think it shame to take
his pleasure on other people. You'd drag my good name
into the dust with as little concern as you live on my
Lady's money. So long as you get your fling you don't
care who you rob or what you destroy ! Oh, I'm glad to
have seen you as you are ! And good-morning to you, Mr.
Jocelyn Bellairs, for a very paltry dog !'*

She swept him a curtsy which was magnificent in its
repudiation. He had a swift vision of her scorching eyes,
her scarlet cheeks ; she turned and left him, dumbfounded.

"I'm done with love," said Pamela Pounce to herself.
"May I never hear of it or see it or touch it again !"

Little did she guess with what overwhelming passion
she was very shortly destined to behold the cruel god at
work upon another life !

CHAPTER X

IN WHICH MISS POUNCE SETS THEEE BLACK FEATHEES
FOR TEAGEDY

MISS Pamela Pounce was in the act of tying on her
own hat, in the upper room, preparatory to de-
parture after the day's work, when a breathless junior
summoned her.

"There's a young lady below as wants to see you, Miss
Pounce, and, la ! I think 'tis Miss Falcon 1"

Now, Felicity Falcon had recently flashed out upon the
London stage with a startling and unexpected splendor
that was more like that of a comet than of a star; Miss
Farren, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Jordan were for the moment
as idols overthrown. The cry was all for Falcon. Her
name was on every man's lips. She was the first excite-
ment of the season; and not the opera, not an oratorio
nor a concert, not a rout at Almack's nor a display at
Ranelagh could be said to offer attraction in comparison
with the playhouse which announced the fair Falcon in the
night's performance.

On hearing this remarkable name Pamela paused, her
hand on the velvet string which fastened her simple Dun-
stable straw under her round, white chin. A play-actress !
Many a young person of that profession had Miss Pounce
with dignity shown forth already from the doors of this
select establishment: "Much regretting, Madam, that
there is nothing likely to suit you here."

Heavens, if a Mirabel hat were to be recognized on the
boards. But Felicity Falcon? It was only last week that

207

PAMELA POUNCE

Pamela had wept and trembled and sucked in breaths of
excitement over her "Mrs. Haller." Never had she beheld
anything more affecting, more impassioned, more soul-
stirring, and elegant than that impersonation.

To provide Miss Falcon with a hat in which she would
enthrall and ravish all London! It was too splendid an
opportunity for such an artistic soul as that of Pamela to
resist. After hours, too, and the shutters putting up, and
no fear of awkward encounters. And if some of her ladies
did find it out, why, f oh ! for one that would be offended,
forty would order a hat to the same model.

Pamela flung the Dunstable straw off her chestnut head,
and turning with great dignity, "Inform Miss Falcon,"
said she, "that I will attend her presently."

After a due delay, which she spent in drumming with
white fingers on the dressing table, her eyes lost beyond
her own reflection in a far vision of millinery genius,
Madame Mirabel's partner appeared in the empty shop,
sedate, her eyebrows well elevated into her white forehead,
her hands folded on her trim waistband.

The slender figure in the brown silk cloak turned quickly
with a rustle and flutter.

"You was wishful to speak with me, Madam?" ques-
tioned Miss Pounce, in her finest business manner.

"I want a hat for to-night, for Lady Teazle — for the
third act, for the screen scene. Oh, I want some-
thing "

Miss Pounce raised her hand.

"One moment, Madam."

She gazed at the narrow, pale face, unrouged, the
dark, ardent eyes.

" 'Tis the most mortal-genteel creature I have ever
seen," thought Pamela.

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

"Not a word, Miss Falcon 1" cried she. Then in the
tone of a sibyl: "Black and white, or yet all white. But
if you listen to me, black and white."

"I've no time to get any new gowns for the part," said
Miss Falcon.

She had a slow, musical voice, with a ring in it as of
tears never far off, yet never to be shed.

"And if you'll excuse me, Miss," repeated the milliner.
"Lady Teazle's not your part, so to speak. Tragedy,
that's what you're born to. Oh, your Mrs. Haller!"
Pamela drew a sucking breath in reminiscence of last
week's thrills. "There! I'd never ask to enjoy anything
more. Cry I did. I couldn't see out of my two eyes, I vow
and protest, when I came forth of the theater. But if it's
got to be Lady Teazle, Madam, 'tis your one bit of trag-
edy I'm to dress your head for, as I understand it. And
put color on it — I declare I'd as soon stick a pink rosette
on that there goddess with the lamp from Greece his
Grace of Hampshire sets so much store by in his hall. Put
yourself into white for it, Miss Falcon, and I'll do you a
hat that'll show it off and you. When all's said and done,
'twill be a symbol of what an innocent, poor young lady
you are, so took in by that lying young gentleman, what I'd
hiss off the boards every time he showed his vile, deceit-
ful face, if I'd my will ! La ! men are base creatures," cried
Pamela, out of her own bitterness. "White for your inno-
cence and the shadow of my broad brim over your eyes
with a toss of white feathers atop, and just three black
plumes standing up in the midst of them — the bit of trag-
edy that has come into your young life; one," said Miss
Pounce, "for the horrid danger you've escaped, and one
for your poor deceived heart, and one for the remorse,
like, over the goodness of that kind Sir Peter, making his

209

PAMELA POUNCE

will so generous and trusting, for all his ways, 'ud be
enough to drive any wife out of her wits. Those black
feathers," said the girl impressively, "will show you off,
Miss Falcon, better than trumpet blasts."

Miss Falcon listened with an odd, abstracted look.

"So you think I'm best in tragedy, do you?" she said,
and signed. "But I don't want to be tragic. I want to be
happy." And then: "I'm late!" she cried impetuously.
"You'll have to bring me the hat at the theater. I've
scarce the time to get into my clothes."

A handsome private coach, with liveried footmen, was
waiting for her at the door, and as Pamela accompanied
her to the threshold, the actress looked back over her
shoulder with a fugitive smile:

"I'll wear a white satin gown for the screen scene," she
said, stepped into the coach, and was whirled away.

Pamela stood looking after her.

"Now who's paying for all that?" the milliner asked
herself. "Some very great personage, 'tis well known ; for
anything more splendid and discreet I never see. Best in
tragedy, you poor thing!" The tears rose to Pamela's
candid eyes. "Why, 'tis tragedy itself you are already 1
You, so young, with that smile that ought to have warmed
a good man's heart! La, if my ladies knew who 'tis I'm
going to trim a hat for this minute, and where 'tis I'm to
bring it when 'tis done !"

Pamela Pounce looked about her with shrewd eyes, as
she sat very politely, on the edge of a cane chair in Miss
Falcon's dressing-room at Drury Lane. A bandbox at
her feet, her hands folded one across the other in her dove
gray lap, she presented the very image of elegant pro-
priety in a doubtful atmosphere. She had not expected to

210

THREE BLACK FEATHERS

find company in the dressing-room, the play being well
started; nevertheless, there was a knot of two or three
modish-looking individuals who laughed a good deal to-
gether, and tapped the lids of their own snuff-boxes and
took pinches out of each other's with positively the last
thing in flourishes.

The gaunt woman who moved about at the back of the
dressing table, unnecessarily shaking garments, was, of
course, the actress's dresser, and a sour piece she was,
thought Pamela, who had already refused, with a high air
of contempt, this functionary's proposal to leave the
bandbox with her. "As if I was come all this way to do
porter's work!" thought Miss Pounce, with a toss of her
admirably tired head.

Miss Falcon was standing at the door, looking in upon
them, before any one was aware of her presence ; then she
came forward, followed by a portly, handsome gentleman
past middle age, at sight of whom the gossips bowed to a
most obsequious depth.

Miss Falcon bore still upon her countenance the humor-
ous peevishness of the character she had just represented.

"Why, how now?" she exclaimed. "Fie, for shame,
gentlemen! What are you doing here? If you desire to
show me a compliment your place is before the curtain,
sirs ! Fob ! 'Tis a poor compliment to salute an actress
in her dressing-room !"

"Why, my dearest creature !" exclaimed the chief of the
fops coming forward, and bowing repeatedly with such an
affected parade of courtesy that Pamela's hand itched to
box his ears. "I vow and declare we are but mustering all
our energies to acclaim you after your great scene! We
would not spoil that effect, 'pon our life ! Not for a hun-
dred thousand guineas! What's Lady Teazle before the

211

PAMELA POUNCE

screen scene? No part for your genius, incomparable
Falcon!"

"Out with you now, then!" said Miss Falcon. "Good-
evening, Miss Pounce. Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen, indeed
you cannot remain here! Miss Pounce and I have the
most important business on hand. La, that bandbox! It
is vastly good of you, Miss Pounce. Pray, my Lord, give
the gentlemen the lead and take them to their seats !"

"Rat me !" said the spokesman of the fashionable group,
looking round with what Pamela thought was a very offen-
sive leer. "If my Lord Harborough sets the example, who
are we that we should refuse to follow it? After you, my
Lord Marquis."

Pamela had often heard the name of the great marquis,
especially of late, but she had never yet seen him. She
now gazed at him with shrewd eyes of disapproval.

"Ah, my Lord, you may have a fine taste in coaches
and in the horses to draw them, and a superlative delicate
taste in play-actresses, but to my mind 'tis mortal poor
taste to be bringing those gray hairs that are under your
wig, and an honored name, and all your privilege, to the
undoing of one poor girl ! You should keep all that smile
for your grand-nephews — Mr. W*'s brats — you should in-
deed, my Lord !"

My Lord Harborough raised himself from a profound
bow over the hand which Felicity Falcon extended to him
in a careless sort of way, more as if she were dropping
something out of it than yielding it to his caress. The
smile he gave her as he straightened himself was full of
ardent admiration. Although he failed to meet with her
favor, Pamela could not but admit that he had a very
splendid presence, and that any woman's head, much less

212

THREE BLACK FEATHERS

that of a young player on her promotion, might well be
turned by receiving attention from such a quarter.

My Lord Marquis now waved the company from the
room with a politely compelling gesture, as of a host who
bids his guests pass before him, kissed his hand to Miss
Falcon, and himself departed.

"Now, my dear, my -dear girl, the hat !" cried she, turn-
ing upon Pamela.

And Pamela had the strange thought that Miss Fal-
con— even though she had stepped off the boards! — had
not ceased acting for one single moment, and that no
emotion had been more cleverly counterfeited than the
playfulness with which she was now herself addressed.

Indeed, when Felicity Falcon first contemplated her
countenance in the mirror under that confection in which
Miss Pounce considered her own genius had reached its
most perfect expression, so deep an air of tragedy spread
itself over her features that the sprightly milliner thought
in dismay, "Heaven be good to me ; to see her one would
think my lovely feathers were crowning a hearse !"

But as if she guessed her companion's thoughts, the
play-actress instantly resumed a jocund air, and, twist-
ing her head from side to side, treated her own reflection
to smiles of different meanings, as though testing their
effect ; mischief, archness, innocent mirth, mockery, melan-
choly chased each other across her fair countenance like
shadows over a pool, and in each Miss Pounce could have
cried out to her to stay it, vowing that she was more per-
fect in it than the last.

Indeed, the delicate loveliness set in the flying powdered
curls, crowned with the soft splendor of the feathers,
marked, so to speak, by the three notes of black, was a
vision worth gazing upon. The sheen of the white satin

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PAMELA POUNCE

she had chosen for her robe flung up the ivory of her
shoulders and throat. Miss Pounce almost regretted to
see the obligatory smear of rouge put on each pale cheek ;
by which, however, the lily fairness gained something
exotic, feverish, that seemed to match very well with the
swift passion of her art.

"It'll be such a Lady Teazle as never was," thought the
milliner; and was wondering whether she could yet find a
seat for herself in the theater, when, suddenly turning
dark haunted eyes upon her, Miss Falcon said like a
child:

"Oh, do let me find you here when I come back, you
kind thing!" and, without giving Madame Mirabel's head
woman time to reply, she added: "I know you will," and
whisked back to the dressing table.

Her hand hovered over a closed jewel case, then, shrug-
ging her shoulders, she drew out a string of pearls and
clasped it round her throat.

It was strange for Pamela presently to sit alone in the
little dressing-room and think of the mimic play of emo-
tion, clash of passion and interest that was enthralling so
many scores of spectators within a few yards of her; to
think, too, of that drama of real life, so sad and shameful,
of which she had unexpectedly become a witness.

It was contrary to her vivacious nature to sit, unoccu-
pied and in patience, while the world swept on its way,
but to-night she had much to engross her thoughts. All
she had seen pointed to courses which, to her straight
judgment, could not but appear as evil. Yet if ever,
thought Pamela Pounce, there was delicacy and purity
stamped on a human countenance, if ever noble pride, it
was on the face of the young play-actress.

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

"Why did she ask me to remain?" puzzled the girl. "If
my Lord Harborough is her protector, as he seems to be,
what does she want with a poor, honest milliner? Oh, la!
to see her, so beautiful, with them pearls, and to know
what it means, I could fair cry !"

Miss Falcon's dresser came rushing in, declaring that
there never had been such a success as the new Lady
Teazle; that the house had had her out again and again.
"And, oh, my goodness, the shouts and claps and nosegays
flying! What a pity Miss had not been in the gallery!"

Before Pamela had time to reply Miss Falcon herself,
accompanied by a very conspicuous group of admirers,
returned to her dressing-room. Her flush outdid the
rouge, her eyes flashed. The tips of her taper fingers
rested on Lord Harborough's wrist, and he came in leading
her with an air as though her triumph belonged to him.
Behind her the sycophants gabbled, "for all the world like
father's geese," thought Miss Pounce.

"Oh, my Lord, she is incomparable !" "I do assure you,
Miss Falcon, when the screen was knocked down and you
stood forth I could have fallen on my knees before you!"
" 'Pon honor. 'Pon honor never was acting half so fine !"

The flush was fading, and the fire dying in her gaze as
she turned round upon them.

"Pray, gentlemen, you are very kind, but I have to
change my gown for the next act. My Lord, bid your
friends leave me. And you, too, my Lord."

As bowing, kissing hands, grimacing, jostling against
each other, the little knot of gossips withdrew, obedient
once more to their patron's wave, he himself lingered.

"Felicity," he said, "there never was any one like you.
My dear, you brought the tears to my eyes."

When he released her hand there was a new ring upon it*

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PAMELA POUNCE

The donor hurried forth, as if, with the finest tact, to
forego gratitude in connection with a trifle, or so Miss
Pounce understood his magnificent mien.

Felicity gazed at the object on her hand, gave a laugh
which rang scornful, dropped the jewel from her on the
dressing table, and sat down before the mirror.

"Now," said she to Pamela, "take off the hat yourself,
if you will. My dresser hath so gross a touch. The hat,
you know, it has made me to-night. I owe you a vast debt
of gratitude. Oh, those black feathers! Your excellent
taste, child, gave the note, I do assure you, to my whole
rendering. The tragedy, you know, and the innocence,
and the remorse."

It seemed to Pamela as if she were mocking herself as
she gazed upon her own countenance. She broke off.;
There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," she cried. And, as a young gentleman in
mourning, with a pale face, appeared in the aperture, she
went on in an unchanged voice: "How would it be, Miss
Pounce, if I were to run a blue ribbon among these curls?
'Twould not come amiss, I think, in this last act, to mark
the girlishness of Lady Teazle beside so old a husband.
Now, my Lord, pray be quick about your business. I have
scarce five minutes to give you! Yes, a blue ribbon, I
think. You have such charming fingers, my dear, pray
pass it in yourself. Go on, my Lord, I can see you very
well in the glass, and sure, besides, I did not promise to
look at you, so long as I listen."

"You mean to torture me," said the young man in a
low voice.

Had he been on the rack, Pamela thought, glancing
compassionately at his reflection, as her hands moved deli-

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

cately in the actress's tresses he could scarce have had a
greater air of suffering.

"Foh!" cried Miss Falcon. ("Is not that a trifle too
forward, Miss Pounce?") "Pray, my Lord, remember,
this interview is none of my seeking."

"I asked to speak with you alone."

"Ah, but I did not promise you that ! Say out, or keep
silence, it matters nothing to me."

"I begin to believe what I have heard," he exclaimed
hoarsely.

Her eye flashed lightning at his image in the glass.

"Indeed, my Lord? And that again leaves me in-
different."

But as she spoke she turned round on her chair. What
a marvel of loveliness she was, thought the milliner. 'Twas
but natural any poor young gentleman that loved her
should be distraught upon her. He gazed on her wildly,
then broke out, clasping his hands.

"Nay," he cried. "I will not believe it. I will not be-
lieve it, unless you tell me yourself. Felicity, my father is
dead. I am my own master. Look at me. Behold this
black. I came straight — yes, I am not ashamed of it —
straight from the closing of my father's grave to offer you
my hand and name."

He paused.

"I ought, no doubt, to be overwhelmed at your generos-
ity. A month ago you were no less ardent, if I remember
right, in pressing a different proposition," she said
very quietly.

Pamela's heart quickened in passionate sympathy.
What a world was this for poor girls !

"It's not possible," the young gentleman cried, "that
you will carry rancor so far! A month ago I was not a

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PAMELA POUNCE

free agent ; a month ago I — oh, confusion ! You cannot
have understood. I — Miss Falcon, I am now Earl Ash-
more, and I ask you to become my countess. This is a
question of marriage. You cannot thus lightly dismiss so
honorable, so respectful an offer!"

"Marriage !" she laughed. "I, too, am a free agent, sir,
and I have tasted liberty longer than you. I have no de-
sire to relinquish it."

A moment he stood gazing dt her with clenched hands
and open mouth, as if unable to grasp the extent of her
folly and his own misery. Then he snapped his jaws to-
gether and crimsoned to the roots of his lightly pow-
dered hair.

"It's true, then?"

"What is true?"

"What all the world says; that you're my Lord Har-
borough's — my Lord Harborough's "

He choked upon the word.

Pamela Pounce held her breath in the dreadful silence
that ensued. Then:

"Don't be a foolish lad," said Miss Falcon in a changed,
kind voice. "One day you'll say, 'Whatever the player
woman may have done, she did one good deed to me.
She wouldn't marry me when I was fool enough to ask
her.' "

Then Felicity turned back to the mirror with a laugh
that rang like tinkling icicles, so musical it was, so cold.

The wretched young man cast himself on his knees,
lifted his clasped hands and wrung them. He had forgot-
ten that there was any witness, save the one who was at
that moment all the world to him.

"Felicity, I don't care what you have done — what you

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

are to that bad old man. I will forgive everything. Come
to me and be my wife !"

"Now, Bonnets, open the door. Miss Pounce, pray put
a hand upon my Lord's elbow and help him to rise. That
is the way out, my Lord Ambrose. (I cannot help it. I
remember best the name under which you once insulted
me.) You forgive me? Had I the time I could laugh.
Heavens ! But three minutes to get into the paduasoy !"

She did laugh as the young nobleman, a look on his face
which struck a kind of terror into Pamela's womanly
heart, flung his hands out with a menace and dashed from
the room.

"Thank Heaven, the creature's gone! Bolt the door,
Mrs. Bonnets. I'll have no more visitors till the play's
over !"

Pamela Pounce was not bidden to remain this time ; but
she could not bring herself to leave the dressing-room until
Miss Falcon's last appearance there. Talk of plays!
What a tremendous play she had seen that night. 'Twould
be like walking out before the last curtain dropped to go
home now.

When the actress returned she was accompanied only by
Lord Harborough. As he led her in he looked at her
hand.

"I see," he said, "you have not honored my poor gift."

"My Lord," she said, "I have honored you sixty-five
times with these pearls. Is it not enough? As for rings,
there is a slave weight about them. I hate them. But is
this really mine ? Mine to do as I will with ?"

He smiled at each question, and Pamela thought that,
for all his fond admiration, there was a sort of contemptu-
ous indulgence lurking in his glance — that he had the air
of one who says to himself, "These pretty tricks are

219

PAMELA POUNCE

known ; these charming moods are part of the little game.
I have not the enthusiasm of youth, but I have experience,
I have toleration, and I have patience !"

"It is an elegant and artistic ring," said Miss Falcon,
lifting it to the light of the wax candles which branched
from her mirror. "A sapphire, I see, and all chased."

"It was found," said Lord Harborough, "in a Roman
tomb. There is not another like it in the world !"

"And what does it represent? Oh, I see snakes about
that strange little face 1"

" 'Tis a Medusa head."

"What ?" she cried. "What an ill omen for an actress !
How terrible if I were to turn my audience to stone. Fie,
I would not keep such a thing about me for the world!
Pray, Miss Pounce, will you accept this trifle in memory
of our first acquaintance and of, oh, your beautiful hat!
How kind of you, dear girl, to stay and see the last of me.
Why, it just fits your finger! Nay, I will take no refusal.
My cloak, Bonnets! La, I am mortal tired. Pray, my
Lord, good-night. Well, as far as the coach, then, but no
further. Remember our compact!"

"As far as the coach," said the peer with his disillu-
sioned smile. "As far as the coach at least, lovely mys-
tery, beautiful secret! Oh, the Medusa head would have
been vastly appropriate, I assure you !"

They went forth, and Pamela Pounce stared at her
ring. She had never felt, in all her varied energetic exist-
ence, thus puzzled and troubled.

"Heaven ha' mercy," she thought, "what a prodigious
bit of insolence to give it to me under his very nose ! And,
oh, lud, what's a body to think? Will he marry her after
all and my poor Miss Sarah and Mr. W. be cut out? She

220

THREE BLACK FEATHERS

wears his pearls and drives in his coach, and yet withal

he's to lead her no further than the door!"

" 'Tis the most dreadful tale, child, that's current,"
said my Lady Kilcroney to her friend, Nan Day, as they
met in Madame Mirabel's hat shop. "They say my young
Lord Ashmore has put an end to himself. I met the Duke
of Hampshire anon, and his Grace could scarce speak, so
overwhelmed was he. Lord Ashmore's father was his
friend and neighbor."

Pamela Pounce put down the dove-colored capote she
had been about to place upon Lady Anne Day's pretty
head. She was more affected than her customer, who
looked up, knitting her brows vaguely, with small interest
in her blue eyes.

"Ashmore?"

"Why, Nan, he — that was young Ambrose! A pretty
youth and full of promise. It seems he was mad in love
with Falcon, the actress. Did you see her Lady Teazle
last night? 'Twas a wonder, my love, but a thought too
solemn. But, oh, Pounce, child, she had a hat! You
should have seen it! With all your art, you've never
dreamed one like it. Eglantine, Eglantine at her best.
Paris was stamped all over it. When all is said and done
there is naught like the French taste."

"I have always said so, my Lady," responded Miss
Pounce, "and there's a case upstairs full of the real Paris
modes, of which I'd like your Ladyship to have her pick
this moment ! Perhaps the last consignment we'll get for
goodness knows how long, seeing the trouble over there.
Fetched at the Dover coach office by our special messenger
not half an hour ago, I do assure your Ladyship."

Pamela could control her voice better than her

221

PAMELA POUNCE

hands, and the professional patter escaped her almost
mechanically.

"But I haven't seen how the capote suits me," protested
Nan Day, a little pettishly. "Kitty, what say you?
I've been so long in the fields. I was scarce fit to go out in
a chair at Bath, so worn was I with the sick-nursing,"
complained the squire's wife, "I have positively forgot
what a fashion looks like. Sister Susan promised to meet
me here, and advise — not indeed that I care for my Lady
Verney's taste. You are ten thousand times better, my
dearest Kitty. Pray, give me your opinion."

"My love," said Kitty, "in all sober earnest I am too
overset to be able to give my mind to it as I ought. That
unfortunate young man ! It seems Lord Harborough cast
him out of her dressing-room last night, and there was a
monstrous great scandal at the theater door. The
wretched girl, my Lord Harborough "

"And what, my Lady, have you heard of it already?"
said a masculine voice behind her, and all started to be-
hold Lord Verney in their midst. "I thought I was the
first to have wind of it, coming straight from Brooke's.
'Tis scarce an hour since he was picked up unconscious."

"Never say," cried my Lady Kilcroney in horror, "that
he had so little discretion as to choose a club for such
an act !"

Lord Verney stared.

"Why, Madam, you speak as if the poor Marquis had
had any choice in the matter?"

"The poor Marquis? In Heaven's name collect your
wits. 'Tis not Lord Harborough who has committed
suicide ?"

"Indeed, my Lady Kilcroney, the idea is sprung entirely
from your own imagination. Lord Harborough's illness is

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

a fit. He had scarce interchanged a few words with a
friend in the club-room when he groaned and fell forward.
Sir Richard Jeb and Dr. Jenner were at once summoned.
They could not get the blood to flow. He was still breath-
ing, that was all."

"Well, 'tis another old sinner gone to his account," said
Nan Day philosophically. "And Sarah W. is a Marchion-
ess— who'd have thought it? — Where is Susan? I'm not
sure, Miss Pounce, that I really care for a capote. Could
you not let me see some of those French hats you spoke
of anon?"

"Ah, Nan, you have indeed sadly lost touch with the
world, child ! 'Twas a magnificent fine gentleman, a noble
patron of literature and art "

"Aye, and of the stage, by your own showing, Kitty."
Nan Day spoke smartly. "Pray, Miss Pounce, did you
not hear me?"

Pamela felt sick and faint. She was glad enough of the
excuse to crawl away and take a dose of the hartshorn
which was kept handy in the workroom in hot weather.
When she returned to the showroom to announce that the
case was at that moment being opened — her head girl was
wrapping all last week's inspirations carefully in tissue
for the occasion — she found the company increased by my
Lady Verney and Mrs. Lafone, and that well-known per-
sonage, Beau Stafford. He was speaking as she entered,
and the first words that caught her ear were these :

"I call her Fair Fatality."

Mistress Molly Lafone's shrill accents were then heard.

"Why, Mr. Stafford," though she was sister-in-law to
the Beau there was small love lost between them, "granting
the suicide — to be sure, the poor young man must have

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PAMELA POUNCE

been mad — you cannot hold Miss Falcon responsible for
Lord Harborough's seizure."

"You know a good deal, Mistress Molly, but you don't
know everything. Young Lord Ashmore attacked the
Marquis in the street last night. There was a terrible
scene between them. Aye, ladies, all on account of that
wild bird, the Falcon. Lord Harborough had to call to
his footmen — fact, I assure you! Only for the scandal,
he would have handed his assailant to the watch. 'Twas
the shock of hearing of the rash youth's dreadful end. this
morning, that has been the death of him. Aye, my Lord
Harborough is dead. They were pulling down the blinds
of Harborough House as I passed along the Mall."

"Fair Fatality, indeed!" cried Kitty. "And her so
young and handsome, and not a six months famous yet."

"Oh, she's a cunning piece !" interposed Molly. "I have
heard tales of her ways. They say none knows where she
lives, nor where she comes from, nor her real name. She
wraps herself in the utmost mystery. Probably," went
on the little lady, with her acid titter, " 'tis some grocer's
daughter! But poor simplicity has no chance, especially
with the gentlemen. You must play the romantic."

My Lady Kilcroney, her finger to her lips, seemed lost
in reflection.

"Was there not a story of a duel, Mr. Stafford?"

"A duel, Madam? Five, to my certain knowledge,"
asseverated the Beau. "And all with more or less seri-
ous results."

"Pshaw, 'tis like an Italian tale of the evil eye!" Nan
shuddered. "I'll not go to Drury Lane and come under
it, 'tis pos! Pray, Miss Pounce? Oh, no, not green!
Green! Am 1 never to get away from it?"

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

Miss Falcon's fame did not suffer from the double trag-
edy of which she had been so singularly the cause. She
withdrew from the programs for a week after the funerals
of the two unfortunate noblemen, and then reappeared, to
play to houses more crowded, more enthusiastic than ever.
The wild rumors which began to circulate about her only
served to increase the public frenzy.

Pamela Pounce, much occupied with the Walsingham
mourning, was for some time unable to gratify her desire
to see Fair Fatality act once more; a desire which — so
far was she from sharing Lady Anne Day's fears — had
now indeed become a kind of obsession. When circum-
stances permitted her at last to indulge herself, she pur-
chased a ticket in the forefront of the gallery, and pre-
pared to enjoy a couple of hours' complicated emotion.
To her amazement, at the end of the second act a note was
handed to her :

"/ have just seen your kind face. Will you be a Friend
to me to-night, and come bach with me to my house? If
you can do me this favor — my heart tells me you will
— meet me at the stage door after the last act. — Felicity
Falcon."

At any time the adventure was one likely to tempt a
girl of Pamela's spirit. In present circumstances,
wrought to the highest pitch of excitement and interest by
the emotions of the drama and the personality of the
young play-actress, the invitation came to her as the
magic fulfillment of a dream. Although never had Miss
Falcon's acting been more poignant, more intense in pas-
sion and tragedy, the milliner could hardly wait for the
drop of the curtain, so eager was she to enter upon what

225

PAMELA POUNCE

she could not avoid considering the more thrilling
drama still.

The crowds that packed the theater were so immense,
and the determination to recall the favorite so obstinate
and prolonged, that it was after considerable delay that
Pamela found herself at last at the stage door.

An elegant, sober-looking carriage, with servants in
dark liveries, stood in waiting, and just behind it a hack-
ney coach.

Miss Falcon, hooded and cloaked, escorted by a group
of gentlemen, stepped forward and took her hand.

"I knew you would come," she whispered. Her manner
was preoccupied. "This is no place for introductions,"
she went on, turning to her escort. "Since it must be, let
us even start."

"Sheridan," said one who walked in advance of the
others, one, indeed, whom the milliner, with a thumping
heart, scarce dared recognize as the heir to the throne,
"you accompany the ladies."

The two women drew back while he passed somewhat un-
steadily out of the theater, and was with discreet bows
ushered to his carriage, by all the gentlemen of the party,
a single member of which then followed him in. The car-
riage, evidently to order, moved a few paces up the street
and again halted, while the hackney was drawn to
the door.

Mr. Sheridan, followed by the other gentlemen, now
came back. He offered his right arm to Miss Falcon, and,
with some exaggeration of ceremony, which his com-
panions seemed to find humorous, his left to Miss Pounce.
After he had handed the ladies into the hackney coach, he
paused, laughing at the door.

"What address shall I say, sweet Falcon !" He raised

226

THREE BLACK FEATHERS

his voice, as for the benefit of those behind him. "Now for
the great disclosure !" he cried.

Fair Fatality had a cold smile. Pamela could see her
face by the light of the links each side of the theater por-
tals. It was very pale.

"Pray, get in, sir," she said ; "the man knows his way."

As they drove off, Mr. Sheridan rubbed his hands and
laughed again.

"To think that I should be sitting vis-a-vis the fairest
intrigue in all London, and actually be going to solve the
mystery! Though, to be sure, 'tis no mystery to you,
ma'am, I dare swear?"

He looked tentatively at Pamela through the gloom.

They were turning out of a by-street into the main
thoroughfare, and Pamela, casting her glance out of the
window, was startled but scarcely surprised to see that
the Prince's carriage was very closely following theirs.

"Why, Pamela, my girl," said the milliner to herself,
"little you thought when you set out that you'd perhaps
be supping with Royalty ! But there's one thing clear.
You've got to stand by this poor soul to-night."

Mr. Sheridan did not seem to relish the idea of con-
versation with Miss Falcon's companion. Pamela, who
from the first had fancied that, though carrying his liquor
with decorum, he was far from sober, was not sorry to *ee
him fall into a doze. Whether on her side the actress was
asleep or not she could not guess, but she never moved nor
spoke. The drive was long, and Pamela had lost all her
sense of district when the coach was pulled up at last.
But Mr. Sheridan, waking with a start and looking eagerly
about him, cried:

"Why, this is the King's Road ! I'll be hanged if that's
not the lodge of Elm Park House*"

227

PAMELA POUNCE

"This, sir," said Miss Falcon, "is Mulberry House, my
poor abode, to which you are" — she paused, and altered
her phrase — "where I am this night privileged to re-
ceive you."

Pamela understood she would not bid them welcome.
At the same moment the Royal carriage halted in its turn ;
but Miss Falcon, alighting quickly, did not pause to pay
the respect etiquette demanded. She pushed open the
gate, and went across the flagged courtyard towards the
little house which stood square and solid, with pedimented
portico, before them.

As Pamela hurried after she saw that a light shone
through the cracks of the shuttered ground-floor windows.
Miss Falcon inserted a key in the lock and opened the
house door. She drew Pamela into an oak-paneled hall,
dimly lit with a couple of candles in a silver candelabra,
and herself stood in the aperture.

She dropped a profound curtsy as the Prince appeared,
followed by Mr. Sheridan and that other gentleman whom
Pamela supposed to be the equerry-in-waiting.

"Forgive me, sir" — her voice was low and tired, and it
struck Pamela that something had gone out of it — the fire
and thrill and youthful pathos that had made it every
moment an appeal — "that you should have such a poor
reception. Since I was not prepared for the honor, since
it was your pleasure to surprise me by this favor, I must
beg you to take me as I am. There are no servants here
to-night."

She moved backwards as she spoke. Theatrical train-
ing stood her in good stead. The movement was perfect.

"Will you condescend to enter? Mr. Sheridan, pray,
close the door behind His Highness."

She preceded the Prince, still backing easily, to a parlor

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

on the right of the entrance. It was a small, gay apart-
ment, paneled in white, with double doors leading appar-
ently into an inner room. Four candles on the center
table, burning rather low in their sockets, gave a fairly
sufficient light.

Pamela, who slipped in with some timidity in the wake
of the party, perceived their hostess's face to be deathly
pale, and hurried to her side.

Miss Falcon caught her hand with an ice-cold grip.

It must be confessed that the portly, elderly gentleman,
who once for his charm and youthful grace had been known
as Prince Florizel, looked discomfited to confoundment by
the unexpected strangeness of the situation. His two
companions stared at each other. The sobriety they all
three needed seemed to be returning to them.

"Will Your Highness condescend to take a chair?"

Still holding the milliner's warm hand the play-actress
stood erect.

"Sir, it has been your pleasure to command the revela-
tion of a secret which concerned only my humble person.
I understand that you have even honored me so far as to
make my insignificance the object of a wager. I trust
I am too obedient a subject to disobey my future Sov-
ereign, too loyal not to assist him in the gratification of
his sporting instincts. With the more readiness, indeed,
that at four o'clock this afternoon my reason for wishing
to keep my unimportant identity, my unobtrusive abode

from the knowledge of the world has ceased to exist "

She broke off.

Not more intently had the mighty audience hung upon
her lips to-night than did now these four, her oddly enter-
tained guests. Pamela's heart beat high. She felt herself
as on the very edge of some fathomless chasm of tragedy.

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PAMELA POUNCE

"Your Royal Highness," went on Felicity Falcon, her
sweet voice hoarse, "since it is your pleasure to know it,

my name is Gwenlian Morgan. I am the wife " A

spasm crossed her face. She caught her breath and went
on: "I married one Evan Morgan, a Welsh preacher.
Ours has been a great love ; but with him God was always
first. He believed he had a call to London. We left the
fair hills and our cottage for these dreadful streets. He
failed. He fell into a decline. We had hardly any money
left. He could work no more and he would not take charity.
I had to earn for him. How? I had to earn much and
quickly or he would die. There was only one way and
that way an anathema to him. Td his pure and lofty
mind the stage was always ruin and damnation!"

Again there was a brief silence. The equerry tried to
whisper to Mr. Sheridan, but that good-hearted gentleman
gave him an angry scowl. The Prince sat breathing hard,
his eyes fixed, his mouth slightly open.

"There was but one way in which I could earn much,
and quickly I took it. I took it in secret. I began low.
Fortune favored me. I was noticed behind the scenes by
one whose notice meant advancement. Yes, sir" — she
flashed a dark look at the equerry, who murmured a
name — "my Lord Harborough was a generous patron;
and then all came easy. At home I had but to lie. Good
heavens, how I lied and plotted and contrived and de-
ceived! But what did anything matter? There was no
crime save unfaithfulness to my Beloved that I would not
have committed for his sake. I told him I had inherited
a fortune. I kept him almost from the first in comfort.
When I was able to hire this house I told him I had sold
out funds to do so. He believed me. He trusted me.
He would as soon have thought of doubting an angel, as

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

of doubting me. And so I — hoodwinked him. It was the
easier that he had to keep to his bed. My one servant,
his nurse, deaf and silent, never pried into my goings and
comings. She believed, like him, that they were accounted
for by the chapel meetings and mission- work; by neces-
sary relaxation and repose. I went in and out of this
house at night by the mews at the back. No one ever
saw me enter. I took care of that. To-day — to-day the
doctor came. He filled me with more hope than ever be-
fore. 'Take him to Italy,' he said. 'And 'twill be a
cure !' With four thousand pounds in the bank "

She stopped so suddenly that Pamela cast an arm about
her, fearing she might fall; but she clasped a rigid
strength. Mr. Sheridan raised his quizzing glass to stare
at the actress's countenance ; into her pale cheeks a fierce
color had risen. She was amazingly beuutiful.

"And so, my dear Miss Falcon — my dear Mrs. Mor-
gan," he cried curiously, "you took the favorable moment
of confessing your subterfuge, your freroic subterfuge, to
your pious husband ! How did he bear it ? A Welshman
and a chapel man ! I trust it was not a shock."

Her eyes turned upon him as if she were bereft of the
power of understanding.

"Mr. Sheridan means, ma'am," cried the equerry im-
patiently, "how did the good preacher bear the awful reve-
lation? Did you not yourself say that at four o'clock —
four, wasn't it, Sherry? — the great Falcon mystery ceased
to exist."

"You are right, sir," said Fair Fatality. "When I re-
turned from rehearsal this afternoon I found — I saw — I
knew — there was no secret between us any more ! You
want to know so much about me, all of you." Her voice

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PAMELA POUNCE

rose suddenly and piercingly. "Your curiosity shall be
gratified to the end."

She moved away from Pamela with a steady step, flung
open the folding doors, and pointed into the room revealed
with a single magnificent gesture.

Grasping the elbows of his chair, fuddled, inquisitive,
the Prince of Wales lifted himself to stare. Mr. Sheridan
took two strides and brought himself up with an ejacula-
tion. And "Damn me!" cried the equerry, in accents of
anger and fear. "This is a dashed low trick!"

There was no need for any one to cast a second glance
into that room. The lights and the flowers, the rigid
figure on the bed, covered with a white sheet, told their
own story. The genial party were looking upon death.

"Oh, you poor creature ! You poor, unhappy dear !"
cried Pamela Pounce, bursting into hot tears and catching
the Falcon to her heart.

The preacher's wife abandoned herself to the embrace;
but only for the span of a moment, not for the relief of
tears, not for the comfort of another woman's tenderness,
but because, just for that little while, every power fell into
suspense. When she disengaged herself they were alone
with the dead. Royalty and its boon companions had
seized the opportunity to retire from a scene so discom-
forting.

Felicity turned an abstracted gaze into the dining-
room; it was clear to Pamela that her visitors, Royalty
and all, were of less consequence in her mind than the stray
moth that fluttered round the candles.

"Will you look at him?" said the widow.

Pamela wished that she would cry or swoon. This
composure was terrible. Sobbing herself, she was drawn
to the bedside, and, as Felicity lifted the sheet, gazed

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THREE BLACK FEATHERS

down upon the quiet, beautiful face. The play-actress
bent and kissed the young forehead set in such majestic
peace and replaced the coverlet, rearranging the white
roses after she had done so. Then once more she took
her companion by the arm, led her back into the dining-
room, and closed the folding doors.

"Now you must drink a glass of wine with me," she
said, "before you go."

"But I will stay with you."

"No. No. The coach is waiting for you. The driver
will take you safe back. I prefer to be alone."

She went to a cupboard and drew out a decanter and
a couple of glasses, and while Pamela sat and mopped
her eyes with a drenched handkerchief, and bit her lip to
keep down the rising sob, and chid herself for a poor,
vaporous wretch no use to any one, the woman who had
lost her all poured out the wine with a steady hand ; and
with a steady hand did something else besides.

She brought the glasses to the table, gave one to
Pamela, and stood watching her while she drank.

Then she sat down beside her, and, still holding her own
full glass between taper fingers, leaned across and said:

"Kiss me, my dear, and thank you. When I went back
to him after the rehearsal to-day, so full of joy, the
woman said he was asleep and I bent to kiss him, and, oh,
his lips were cold ! His lips were cold ! Yours are warm.
I wish I'd known you before. We should have been
friends. Nay, 'tis as well! I might have brought mis-
fortune to you as to the others. 'Tis better as it is,"
she repeated rather wildly.

And when sobbing that her own story was told and that
she knew, too, what a broken heart meant, Pamela would

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PAMELA POUNCE

have kissed her again, Felicity pushed her from her and
drank quickly.

In the silence that followed Pamela drew herself phys-
ically and mentally together, twisted her handkerchief,
patted her curls, wiped her eyes a last time, then, in the
tone of one firmly determined on the right course of action :

"The coach may go, I'll not leave you !" she cried.

She broke off. Was it the scent of the flowers from
the death-chamber, or some curious flavor in the wine?
She was all at once aware of a singular, intense smell of
almonds in the air.

"Miss Falcon, Mrs. Morgan, my dear ! Oh, you're faint,
you're ill, and no wonder 1"

She clutched the sinking figure, but Fair Fatality had
acted her last tragedy.

Pamela Pounce never wore the Medusa ring. She
dared not ; but she kept it all her life.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH THEEE IS A PBODIGIOUS SCANDAL ABOUT PINK

FLOUNCES

NONE ever knew the share which Pamela had taken in
Felicity Falcon's last night on earth.

She had laid the slender figure as decently and respect-
fully as she could, on a couch ; kissed the cold cheek once
more and walked out of the house.

Those who would find her in the morning must make
what they could of the story. Pamela had her own life
and those dependent on her to consider. She could not
afford to be mixed up with a scandal.

Whether the chapel people to whose ranks the young
preacher had belonged were desirous of hushing up the
evidence which might bring discredit upon them, or
whether it was really believed that Mrs. Morgan had died
of a heart-stroke brought on by grief did not transpire.
They were buried together and given a very pious funeral
with much preaching and psalm-singing.

The event made a profound impression upon Pamela;
it revived the cruel emotions of her recent personal ex-
perience.

She had seen what love meant as never before; she
understood its fearful supremacy, and how little anything
else mattered beside it in life. There were times when
she even envied Felicity Falcon; true, she had loved to
desperation and death ; but she had loved and been loved
with a noble purity and faithfulness !

The memory of the young Welsh preacher's dead face,

235

PAMELA POUNCE

radiantly innocent, and of the triumph, set in agony, of
the actress's countenance as she had last seen it, haunted
her continually. Death had stamped on their mortal love
the seal of Eternity.

Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs had lain in wait, the whole warm
June sunset hour, till Miss Pounce should emerge from
the side door of the shut-up shop; he followed the erect,
briskly walking figure with due discretion and only per-
mitted himself to catch her up at the corner of Berkeley
Square. Then he accosted her.

"Don't, I do beseech you," he cried, quickly forestalling
the fierce repudiation in her eye, "don't refuse to listen!
I have not come after you to insult you, I haven't, upon
my honor ! Pamela, I want to apologize. I want to ask
your pardon."

His tone was so imploring and respectful, he looked so
eager, so gallant and handsome too, in the rosy amber
light, as he bent towards her, bare-headed, that her
weapon of pride seemed broken in her hand.

She tried to say with dignity: "There's nothing more
that I ever wish to hear from you, Mr. Bellairsj" but her
voice faltered, and a sudden tear in each eye betrayed her.

"See," he went on eagerly, "the gate of the garden there
is open. Let us go in and sit on that bench. Just for a
little while ! Five minutes ! One minute !"

Pamela, shaking her head and exclaiming: "No, sir, nay,
Mr. Bellairs, I cannot listen, 'tis impossible ! 'Tis wrong !
'Tis folly!" nevertheless allowed herself to be drawn into
the cool green tree-shadowed spot, and actually sat down
on the suggested seat.

He did not as much as offer her his hand; yet his
urgency drove her almost with a physical force.

236

"Oh, Pamela," he cried, letting himself fall beside her,
and clasping his hands and wringing them, "can you con-
ceive what I felt when I heard that 'twas you — you ! — oh,
my generous girl — who paid my debt? And to think now
the first use I made of my liberty was to offend you so
grossly."

Pamela swallowed a sob.

" 'Tis over and done with now, Mr. Bellairs. Let me
forget."

She tried to rise, but he caught a fold of her dress.

"One moment more, if you have a woman's heart. Nay,
you see how anxious I am not to presume. I will go on
my knees if you like. — Oh, Pamela, when I went to pay
back my Lord his ninety-seven pound ten, out of that
pocketful of money you know of, and he stared at me and :
'Why man,' says he, 'I never thought to see you this morn-
ing.' Her Ladyship was in one of her bad ways and sure,
if it was I had been in the sponging house she'd not have
out with a farthing ! 'I've been but waiting for a better
moment,' says he. 'Then, who in the name o' God?' cries
I, cutting him short. Pamela, I lost no time in making
my congee to my Lord and I ran all the way to that fellow
Jobbins, I promise you ; 'for I'll get to the bottom of this,'
I cried. 'And 'twas a lady veiled,' quoth he, and stuck
to it, and the fool that I am, must needs think my cousin
Kitty was playing a sort of game with me; ashamed not
to pay for me, but the stingy thing ! mortal afraid lest I
should ask her again ! And I went back again to Hertford
Street to make a further exhibition of myself."

Here Pamela could not keep from laughter.

"You laugh ! 'Tis all I deserve. Indeed, 'twas a mon-
strous absurd scene ! But my Lady pretty soon convinced
me that the magnanimity I ascribed to her was unknown

237

PAMELA POUNCE

to that bit of strass she calls her heart. By the Lord, I
think I was mad that morning altogether ! I hardly know
how I got out of Hertford Street once more and all the
way down to Jobbins, for the thought had dawned ! — I've
not so many friends you see, Pamela ! 'A tall, fine figure
of a lady,' says he, 'stepping as clean as your own sorrel
filly, Mr. Jocelyn. And I caught,' says he, *a gleam of
hair under her veil — now, if you'll run your eye down the
row in there,' says he, jerking his thumb towards his
stables, 'you'll see, third from the door, a bit of gloss on
a hack's back that's just the same color.' And so I knew,"
added Jocelyn, with a sudden drop from his tone of mim-
icry, into accents of real emotion.

Pamela set her teeth upon her trembling lip. She made
a desperate effort after her usual fine air of independence.

" 'Twas when we were friends I'll have you remember,
Mr. Bellairs," she said, with a toss of her head.

"Ah, but Pamela, let us be friends now," he spoke with
a boyish earnestness, which made him infinitely more at-
tractive than in his most dashing mood of sparkishness.
" 'Tis for that I have sought you. I want your forgive-
ness. I want your friendship. Let me see you sometimes,
as a friend, a most respectful friend, honored by your
acquaintance. I am a wretched, worthless fellow," he went
on, with a kind of bitter humility. "I can't even pay you
back your loan, now, Pamela. But grant me a chance.
Let me show myself better than you have known me. 'Pon
honor, it would give me something to hope for, just to
think you'd let me see you now and again, in a kindly
way; that you had not cast me altogether out of your
life."

It was the acknowledgment that he couldn't pay her
back that softened Miss Pounce's obduracy towards him.

238

A PRODIGIOUS SCANDAL

She consented to forgive him, to consider him as a friend,
even to admit the possibility that if they met — oh, quite
accidentally ! — on an off day, she mightn't refuse to take
a stroll with him in the Green Park.

It would seem as if nothing had changed: as if she was
the same too trusting, foolish girl, and he the same sly,
audacious villain; yet, as she determinedly parted from
him and hurried out of the garden to her lodging, she
knew that there had come a profound alteration into their
relations.

Meanwhile the enmity, excited in the bosoms of Miss
Smithson and Miss Popple against the successful mil-
liner was far from abating. Indeed the mature young
lady who had hoped for Pamela Pounce's present position
had an ever-gathering sense of grievance. What if she
had a heavy hand? Were there not solid dowagers and
others who preferred substance and money's worth to your
fly-away gossamer nothings?

Between these two important members of Madame Mira-
bel's establishment, there had come to be a tacit under-
standing— though they were far too genteel and high-
minded to indulge in anything like a conspiracy — that it
was their bounden duty, in dear Madame Mirabel's inter-
ests, to keep a sharp lookout on Miss Pounce and report
any proceedings of hers calculated to injure them.

"As, of course, my dear, poor Anna-Maria," Clara
Smithson would declare of her rich business relative, "is
that good-natured, that times and times I've had to step
in, as it were, and save her from herself."

Miss Popple was too tactful to request specification.

"La, you never say, dear !" she would exclaim, with un-
flagging emphasis. "And what a good thing it is that

239

PAMELA POUNCE

she's got you, the poor kind creature! 'Tis what we all
feel."

The while her private thoughts would run contemptu-
ously :

"As if every one didn't know, you long-toothed old
frump, that 'tis you Madame keeps on out of charity, and
has the books regular checked by a spry young gentleman
from the bank every Saturday night, private, or they'd
be in the muddle of the world before the month was out !"

Miss Clara Smithson's secret opinion of Miss Popple
was probably no more complimentary; but it is in the
nature of things that worthy individuals, working for a
common cause, should sink personal feelings; and, there-
fore, when Miss Smithson made the appalling discovery
in connection with the pink flounced muslin of a Sunday
afternoon, it was Miss Popple to whom she confided it
the first thing on Monday morning.

That Sunday afternoon being a remarkably fine day,
Miss Smithson had accepted the offer of the married
nephew in the Tobacco Trade, who was particularly civil
to her in view of her reported savings, to drive with him
in a hackney as far as Richmond Park, and partake of a
choice refection of ale and winkles by the riverside. Now,
as the hackney was rolling along the highway towards
Richmond, they passed a cottage on the outskirts of the
town; a quite superior cottage residence with an em-
bowered garden, honeysuckle, and roses. In this garden,
upon a rustic chair, a young woman was seated with a
child upon her lap. She wore a conspicuous dress of pink
muslin. Her head, which was bent over the child, was
bare, unpowdered, and clothed with a profusion of bright
chestnut tresses. The child's face, Miss Smithson was

240

A PRODIGIOUS SCANDAL

able to observe, was very dark, almost foreign-looking,
and its little curly pate coppery-red.

There was something familiar in the attitude of the
young person in the flaring frock, and Miss Smithson, who
was not a rapid thinker, puzzled over it most of the after-
noon. Towards the end of her last glass of ale, neglecting
the tempting offer of a final winkle which the devoted
nephew was extending to her on his tie-pin, she clapped
her hands and cried :

"I have it !"

Being asked to explain this strange diversion from the
business of the hour, she declined, and it was only into the
sympathetic bosom of Miss Popple that she now unfolded
her theories.

"Pamela Pounce it was, my dear, as I'm a living sinner !
There's not another head like that on the town, I'll swear!
And a little black child on her lap, as bold as brass ! Miss
is so fashionable, too, as we all know. Foh, the hussy!
It really," said the virtuous Miss Smithson, "makes me
shudder !"

And shudder she did, till Miss Popple thought she heard
her bones rattle.

"I always said," said Polly Popple, "that there was
something mysterious about that young woman's private
life. Dark, did you say, dear? We all know the com-
plexion of the young gentleman that used to come here
after Miss Pounce. And she's been seen with him in the
Green Park agajn, most audacious of late. And what's
to be done now," she cried in a virtuous passion, "to get
her out of the house, and not have her contaminating us
respectable females? Let's to Madame Mirabel this mo-
ment !"

"Beware how you do such a thing!" exclaimed Miss

241

PAMELA POUNCE

Smithson, horror-struck. "Tut, Polly ! We've got to get
things a vast more circumspect before we take such pre-
cipitous action. The first thing to find out is whether
Miss Pounce has a gown of that impudent color."

"I'll ask her this minute!" exclaimed Popple, springing
up from the little horsehair chair and making for the door.

"And if we do bring it home to her, Polly," pursued
Miss Smithson, clutching her friend's fat wrist, "far be it
from me to be hard on a fellow creature, however per-
verted and brazen. I'd rather put the matter before Miss
Pounce herself — aye and before that good creature, her
aunt, my Lady Kilcroney's woman, who's had a mort of
trouble with her already — and get the abandoned gal to
send in her resignation ; rather than upset my cousin !
Anna Maria has a weak heart."

Polly Popple pondered. Both prudent virgins ex-
changed a look. It dawned upon these sensitive con-
sciences that Madame Mirabel might not be of their way
of thinking; might, in fine, be disposed to put modes be-
fore morals, especially as custom was increasing every day
and the fame of Pounce millinery spreading far and wide.

"Maybe you're right," said Polly thoughtfully. "Well,
I'll be back as soon as I can, dear, and let you know what
I've drawn out of her."

The showroom was empty of custom, the hour being
still early, and Pamela, singing a little song under her
breath, -was engaged, with the bright energy which charac-
terized her, in superintending the disposal of the wares.
She had fanciful schemes of color differing with each
day, and subtly suited to the mood most likely to be en-
gendered by the weather. Thus, on a cold, bleak autumn
afternoon you might find a flamingo flame of feather call-
ing you through the glass ; and on a torrid July morning

242

A PRODIGIOUS SCANDAL

such as the present, the coolest and most ethereal creams
and grays ; or a rustic straw with a wreath of moon daisies
that would set you dreaming of the country. Even such
a creation was Miss Pounce now holding in her hand when,
rather out of breath — for she was of a stout habit and
a congested type of comeliness — Polly Popple came heavily
up to her.

"And, pray, Miss Pounce," said the assistant, while, at
the abruptness of the address, unprecedented by the usual
"Good-morning" all the young ladies turned to stare —
"pray, Miss Pounce, was you by any chance Richmond
way yesterday?"

Polly was no diplomatist.

"And what's that to you, Miss Popple?" responded
Pamela. "As a matter of fact, I was ; but 'tain't none of
your business, as I'm aware ! Girls, what are you doing?"

Pamela scented mischief and resented the tone of the
question, which rang in unmistakable challenge. Never-
theless, she remained good-humored.

"Perhaps," said the other darkly, " 'tis more my busi-
ness than you think of. Might I further inquire if you
was wearing a pink gown, Miss?"

"Yes, Popple, I was. A pink gown, flounced to the
waist, muslin. A sweet thing it is, and suits me uncommon.
Perhaps you'd like to know if I wear a white bouffand to
it, and the style of hat?"

"Oh, never mind the hat, Miss Pounce ! Since you are
so obleeging as to permit me another question, might I
ask if you was a-setting in a garden a-holding of a child
upon your lap?"

The color flew like a flag to the head milliner's cheek
and fire to her eye. Then she abruptly turned her back
upon the questioner, and the youngest assistant, who hap-

243

PAMELA POUNCE

pened to be taking a hat out of a drawer, was surprised
to see that she was struggling with a violent inclination
to laugh.

"Ho !"

The ejaculation leaped with a world of horror from
Polly's lips.

Her superior wheeled back upon her.

"Yes, Miss Popple, I was sitting in a garden, and very
pleasant it was among the roses ; and I had a child upon
my lap, the dearest, sweetest little creature that ever
breathed, a perfect cherub ! A girl, if you want to know,
Miss Popple, and though dark, like to be a beauty."

The young ladies tittered, though there were looks in-
terchanged, too. And Pamela's tone, tripped up with
subterranean mirth, sounded to some of them rather hys-
terical.

Polly, after a dumb show of wounded female delicacy,
expressively rendered, tottered from the room as if her
legs could scarce carry so much horrified rectitude; and
the incident apparently dropped. Indeed, Pamela re-
garded it merely as another of Popple's nasty bits of
spleen. A low-minded, common creature ! As if her girls
would be taken in by such vile suggestions ! As if the life
of Pamela Pounce, head milliner, was not as fresh and
fair as her own face!

An episode which Pamela could not but consider as
curious in the circumstances presently occurred and drove
the very existence of Popple from her mind.

A carriage drew up to the door, early as it was — ten
o'clock had not yet struck — and a customer entered; a
short, dark young woman of a marked type of Spanish
beauty, who walked with a bold cadence of the hips that
set her maize silk panniers swinging, and a carriage of

244

A PRODIGIOUS SCANDAL

the head that you might call like that of a fawn or of a
serpent, as your feelings towards her prompted.

Pamela advanced in her most engaging manner.

"What can I do for you, Madam?" She broke off.
"Merciful heavens!" something within her cried. "I
should know that face."

The newcomer fixed her with beautiful, insolent eyes.
There was a gleam of rubies in each delicate ear, and at
the dusky round throat a red fire that came and went from
a monstrous clasp of the same stones, half-hidden by laces.

"If you will show me a hat, all black, with black
feathers," began the lady. She had a slow voice, rich like
cream, and an odd guttural aspiration of the consonants.
"Something with the Spanish air."

In her turn, she stopped short. The milliner had fallen
back a pace, and was looking at her with horror.

"I think," said Pamela, very low but very distinctly,
"that you have entered this establishment by mistake."

The foreign lady wheeled upon her. There was no doubt
about it, with all her beauty she was viperish.

"Fool, my name is the Countess Sanquhar 1"

"And a very fit name for you, too !" responded Pamela.

Upon which extraordinary observation she herself
opened the door and stood until the visitor passed out.

You may be a beauty, and you may be the lawful wife
of an English peer, but it is difficult to keep your dignity
when you are turned out of a shop by a miserable working
woman as if you were the last of the last. Only by doing
murder on her offender could the notorious Lady Sanqu-
har, who had been once the respected wife of an honest
Spanish merchant, have redeemed the situation from utter
ignominy. But as she could not do murder in actual fact.

245

PAMELA POUNCE

she only did it with her eyes, as, swaying more than ever,
she went forth.

Pamela shut the door ; the four assistants stared at her
with one accord. They had not known such an exciting
morning for a long time.

"Upon my word, Miss Pounce," said Poppy Popple,
"you take a deal upon yourself, you do."

Pamela sat down, rather white about the lips, breathing
quickly through dilated nostrils.

"If it had got known that I'd sold as much as a feather
to that creature," she said, "Madame Mirabel might as
well put up her shutters, for there's not a lady of quality
would have crossed the threshold of her showroom again."

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH MY LADY KIL.CRONEY INSISTS ON THE DUTY OP

MORALITY

"TF you please, my Lady, might I speak to your Lady-

1 ship?"

My Lady Kilcroney looked up from the sorrows of
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, which she was particularly enjoy-
ing, and gazed at her handmaiden.

Lydia Pounce and her mistress had gone through, to-
gether, so many emotions, intrigues, quarrels, reconcilia-
tions, triumphs, and despairs that it was scarcely too much
to say they had become indispensable to each other.
Therefore, too, both had grown to read each other's coun-
tenance with the utmost facility. Now, Lydia was pale
and pinched; her knobby little hands were clasping each
other fiercely across her neat waistband; she was visibly
trembling. Lady Kilcroney knew these symptoms.

"What is to do, Lydia?"

"Ho, my Lady!"

The Abigail here clutched at her heart and turned up
her eyes.

"Dear me, Lydia," said her Ladyship tartly, "have they
ventured to laugh again in the pantry as you happened
to be passing, or has any one broken into the safe and
stolen my diamonds?"

"Ho, your Ladyship, you may well ask. Heaven knows
I'm prepared from this out to be the laughing stock of this
house. Every one may point the finger of scorn at me.
The name of Pounce is forever blasted ! As for thieves,

247

PAMELA POUNCE

my Lady, there are worse thieves than will ever be hanged,
walking about this moment, and treasures stolen of value
far above diamonds !"

"Dear me !"

"Her Ladyship wouldn't be so easy with her 'dear meV
if she knew what's happened. 'Tis gospel truth, my Lady,
and I'm telling no falsehood, that the thought of having to
inform your Ladyship is the bitterest part of the sorrow
that has come upon me this day !"

Kitty Kilcroney put down her book. Seeing that her
maid's eyes were genuinely tear-stained, and that the con-
vulsive shiverings were not all assumed, she began to
feel concern.

"Dear me!" she said, again, in quite another tone. "I
trust nothing has happened to your family — your good
brother, or any of the children?"

She broke off. Lydia, who was making the most dread-
ful grimaces, here flung her little muslin apron over her
head and sobbed behind it.

"It'll break my brother's heart, him so respected on his
own property, as old in the name as gentry, yeomen these
hundreds of years, and only for bad times none of them
ever looking to service. And ho ! my Lady, him setting
such store by that girl, and me so proud of her !"

"That girl ! You don't mean Pamela ?"

Lydia dropped the apron.

"I do. The horrid, wicked creature. And ho, my Lady,
it all comes of encouraging idle young gentlemen and pay-
ing their debts for them and letting them off going to
India, and if the name of Pounce is blasted, the name of
Bellairs ain't much better, and so I tell you, fair and
square, my Lady !"

"Good heavens!" said my Lady Kilcroney, whisking

248

THE DUTY OF MORALITY

round so sharply on the sofa that Clarissa fell in one direc-
tion, and my lady's cushions, fan, and pocket-handkerchief
in the other. "Never tell me that that silly young man is
— has been — can be "

"He was, he is, and as to can be, your Ladyship knows
yourself what young gentlemen are! Oh, to think of its
going on so long, though, indeed, I might ha' known !
Haven't I seen them walking together on a Sunday after-
noon, time and again, and it's all head toss and 'How dare
you, aunt ?' if so much as a word of warning is given !"

"Jocelyn Bellairs! But what has been discovered?
What proof have you ?"

"Oh, la !" the fire of excitement was drying up the elder
Miss Pounce's tears. " 'Tis all over Mirabel's already.
Proof, my Lady? Wasn't the unfortunate girl seen sitting
in a garden last Sunday in a secret cottage, with a dark
baby on her lap? A dark baby, my Lady! And think of
Mr. Bellairs as black as my shoe! And her, as Miss
Smithson — that's the bookkeeper, my Lady — who has just
left me, said to me, as bold as brass, all in the sunshine.
And she ain't denied nothing, neither."

"Who? Pamela?"

Kitty was falling from amazement to amazement. She
had seen a vast deal, one way and another, of Madame
Mirabel's milliner, and if ever there was, in her opinion, an
honest, sensible, good-living young woman, it was Pamela
Pounce.

"She don't deny it. Miss Popple up and taxed her
straight out, and she as good as admitted it. Not a bit
ashamed, either."

"Foh !" my Lady fumed. "Surely you're not going to
condemn your own flesh and blood on hearsay, woman?"

"My Lady," Lydia began to pant, as if she suddenly

249

PAMELA POUNCE

remembered how hard she had been running. "I'm back
from Madame Mirabel's this moment, and seen Pamela,
and, oh, the audacity of her! Laughing in my face, and
tossing her head! 'And 'tis true,' cries she, 'the little
rogue is dark. And I prefer 'em dark,' says she, 'what
then?'

" 'Ho, Miss,' says I, 'your taste lies in the dark line,'
says I. 'That's no surprise to me, you bold hussy !' And
then, my Lady, you'll never believe it, she regular in-
sulted me.

" 'Well,' she says, 'and if I do prefer a dark gentleman,
ain't a body free to have their fancy? There's you,' she
says, 'as likes them fat and cat-footed, with a wheeze and
a paunch,' referring, my Lady, to the attentions Mr.
Blandfoot is paying me. And then I answers her back :

" 'I'm sure, you wicked girl, if Mr. Blandfoot and I ever
agree to settle, it'll be as man and wife, respectable and
respected !'

" 'Why, lud, aunt,' she says, 'you have a nasty mind.'
And more than that, my Lady, I couldn't get out of her,
it being her busy time. And — oh, dear, to be sure ! — was
there ever such a desperate bit of work? Her getting on
so well, fought over by the ladies, I may say ! "

Lady Kilcroney allowed the lamentations to continue
without interruption for some time, her own thoughts
being concentrated on the painful problem. The more she
reflected upon it, the more, alas! she began to believe in
the story.

Old Bellairs' nephew was a sad dog — a handsome,
plausible, dashing, insidious rascal — she knew that. And
that he had pursued Pamela with his attentions, she was
also aware. The girl's attitude of defiance could hardly
go with innocence, and there was that strange story about

250

THE DUTY OF MORALITY

the debt. Now Kitty liked Pamela, and she had a certain
sympathy, too, with a spirit that refused to humiliate
itself on a question of private conduct.

"I trust no one has ever been able to say of me that I
am otherwise than strictly virtuous," she thought, "but I
can't abide these prying prudes that think 'tis their busi-
ness to show up any poor child that's made a slip in
her time."

"And, ho, my Lady," concluded Lydia, "they've kept it
from Madame Mirabel, on condition that my niece resigns
her situation."

"Now, look here, Lydia, stop sniffing. If 'tis my poor
dear Bellairs' nephew that wronged the girl, I'll see that
he makes reparation. He shall marry her. Leave it to
me. Leave it to me, I say ! I'll have the truth out of them
both, and then I'll join their hands, I swear it, before I'm
two days older!"

Kitty was one of those whose plans are swiftly conceived
and whose impatient spirit will not brook an instant's
delay in their execution. She sat down that very moment
to write to her graceless relative.

"He must not guess," she thought, as her quill ran
with little squeaks and pauses, "he must not guess that
he is to be brought to book or my young gentleman will
have a thousand good reasons for declining to present
himself."

"Dear Nephew Jocelyn," wrote she, very silkily, "pray
come and visit me this next Thursday afternoon at three
of the clock. It is a long time since we have met, and there
is a little matter "

Here Kitty stopped and nibbled at her pen. How could
she bait the trap so that the fox would fall into it?

251

PAMELA POUNCE

"a little matter which I wish to discuss with you. I think
when you hear what it is, you will agree 'twas worth wast-
ing half an hour on your attached aunt-in-law.

"Kitty Kilcroney."

Kitty shook the pounce-box over the sheet, folded,
superscribed, and affixed, with a pat, a knowing little wafer
which bore the semblance of a rose with the touching
motto: "Sweet unto death."

Then, propping her round chin on her clasped hands, she
gave herself to reflection, quite a minute's reflection.

"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself. There
never was a sounder law. I'll not trust Lydia."

My Lady took up her pen again.

"My good Pounce" — thus ran the quill — "Pray present
yourself here on Thursday at three o'clock, bringing the
dark baby about which there's such a to-do. I think I have
proved myself a friend to you; do you prove that you
recognize it by falling in with my desire.

"K. Kilcroney."

"P.S. I was never more anxious to act well by you than
in this instance."

Having dispatched these missives, my Lady kept her
counsel ; and when the answers came — Mr. Bellairs* reply
accepting rather effusively, with indeed, as his benefac-
tress felt, not without some malice, a lively sense of favors
to come; and Pamela's in four respectful lines couched in
the best millinery phraseology — the plotter locked them
into her bureau, and forbade Lydia to mention the subject
to her again, if she valued her situation.

On the Thursday afternoon fixed for the meeting my

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THE DUTY OF MORALITY

Lady Kilcroney thoroughly prepared to enjoy herself.
There was nothing she more relished than the ruling of a
difficult situation. She had no qualms as to the extent of
her genius; she had no inconvenient scruples as to her
wisdom.

The nephew of her late poor Bellairs had, it seemed,
wronged the young person in whom she took an interest.
He should be made to right that wrong, or her name was
not Kitty Kilcroney.

When the hour approached she clothed herself in gar-
ments subtly adapted to her role, rich in texture, yet grave
in hue; a mulberry satin, to be precise, brocaded with
amber roses. Her toilet accomplished, she flung a satisfied
look into her mirror. 'Twas a bit heavy for a summer's
day, but really, with the old deep-hued lace at throat and
elbows, mightily becoming.

Then she wheeled upon her maid.

"Now, Lydia," ordered she, "you are not to show your
nose till I bid you. I'll not have you poking it into my ar-
rangements. It's a deal too sharp and fond of prying, as
it is. Aye, I do expect your niece and Mr. Jocelyn Bel-
lairs. And, no, I haven't told you anything about it. I'm
to manage this business or I wash my hands of it. If you
goggle your eyes any more, Lydia, they will drop out!
Nay, I will not permit you a word with Pamela. Nay, not
so much as a look at her. You will keep to your premises
till I ring my bell."

Lydia tossed her head a good deal, and was sure she
was very grateful to her Ladyship. And no one could ac-
cuse her of wanting to interfere. Heaven knew ! And, as
for looking at that creature's bold face again till she was
an honest woman, it was enough for her, the last time.

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PAMELA POUNCE

Heaven was her witness that she'd had a queasiness at the
pit of the stomach ever since!

Having issued her instructions, Kitty sailed downstairs,
turned the astonished Kilcroney out of his library, which
had, she considered, a more judicial appearance than the
gold-and-white drawing-room, ordered my Lord, in the de-
termined tone which he never resisted, to his club till
dinner-time; rang for a couple of footmen to remove my
lord's tankard, pipe and other witnesses of loose living
from the premises, and sat herself down in a large leather
armchair to await the sinners.

Three had not yet struck from the grandfather clock in
the corner when Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs was announced. He
entered with rather less of the conquering air than was
his wont. No doubt a very handsome youth, and vastly
improved in manners, thought Kitty, noting the exact
depth of his bow and the decorous air of homage with
which he kissed her extended hand. Attired, too, with a
quiet elegance, which, considering that the hand he saluted
was the one which had frequently paid his tailor, was, my
Lady considered, well chosen.

"Pray, sit down, Nephew Jocelyn, I am glad to see
you."

When she had resumed her position in the seat of jus-
tice, and he had deferentially placed himself in a high-
backed chair — a little too near her, she thought, for
proper respect, but some slight familiarity might be par-
doned to a relative — he looked at her interrogatively, and
there ensued a silence.

It was not Kitty's policy to put him at his ease by small
talk; rather, indeed, through a certain measured severity,
to awaken stirs of conscience. And as now his fine brown
orbs took the inward roll which she knew betokened self-

254

THE DUTY OF MORALITY

searching, she kept an immovable countenance, looking
down at her brocade lap and smoothing a fold here and
there with delicate, beringed fingers. She had considerable
knowledge of the world, this spoiled, pretty child of
fortune !

"I'll wager," thought she, "he's counting up his debts,
and wondering which I've heard of, and never giving a
thought to his horrid immorality."

Mr. Bellairs cleared his throat, glanced uneasily at his
hostess, began a sentence on the subject of the weather,
broke off in the middle and said, with a plunge :

"Here I am, then, Aunt Kilcroney, agreeable to your
command !"

"And, indeed, 'tis no less than your duty, I should think.
'Tis a vast of time, sir, since you have done me the honor
to call upon me. Yet I think each quarter day brings you
the wherewithal to remember me by, to say the least of it."

He looked at her with an expression in which relief and
disappointment struggled. Was it only to keep him to
heel, like a well-trained dog, that she had sent for him?
Was there nothing but huffiness at his lack of assiduity to
account for her air of disapproval, or had she heard of
that little bill to which my Lord Kilcroney had so good-
naturedly set his name? Or of that ruffling night at the
Cocoa Tree when he had lost four hundred pounds to my
Lord Sanquhar and thereafter raised the money to settle
it with Mr. Aaron, on my lady's own banker's order to
himself? A transaction which might have been ruin indeed
if the most generous girl in all the world had not got him
out of the sponging house in time! Here his cogitations
came to an abrupt end, and the very person in his thoughts
stood in the doorway.

He got up, all amazement, as my Lady, too, majesti-

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PAMELA POUNCE

cally rose. What in the name of Heaven brought Pamela
Pounce hither, and why, by all that was crazy, was she
carrying a little dark child in her arms?

The young man flushed, bit his lip, and trembled with a
sudden fury. By Heaven, if Pamela had gone behind his
back to tattle to my Lady, he would — yes, dash it, he
would pay her back and never speak to the chit again !

"Is this the child?" said Kitty, with a bell-like tone
of melancholy.

Pamela curtsied with great deliberation for all reply,
and at a wave of Kitty's hand, gracefully sat down, set-
tling her pretty burthen in her lap.

It was a little girl, beautiful in a dark way, with devour-
ing brown eyes. She was exquisitely dressed in a lawn
frock, with insertion and mignonette trimming. The
Princess Amelia could not have been finer clad, thought
Kitty ; and as Pamela took off the straw hat with the os-
trich feathers and revealed an ordered tangle of copper
curls, which would one day be night-black, threaded
through with a faint blue ribbon, my Lady could hardly
restrain a cry of admiration.

Kitty stood and looked at Mr. Bellairs. He was in the
throes of undeniable agitation. She looked at Pamela,
serene and, as she gazed down at the child, Kitty thought,
lovely, with a maternal softening of her bright, hand-
some face.

"Ah, Jocelyn Bellairs !" cried Lady Kilcroney, dramati-
cally, "you may well turn away. You may well feel that
sight were more than you can endure. But raise your
eyes, sir. Behold, behold, and let your heart speak. Can
you yourself a man and refuse that trusting creature her
rights, refuse that exquisite cherub a father's name?"

"Good Lord !" cried Jocelyn. He cast the hat he had

256

THE DUTY OF MORALITY

been clasping under his arm into the middle of the room,
the better to clutch his temples. "Am I stark staring
mad ? What monstrous stroke is this, what plot, what in-
conceivable mistake?"

There was such a ring of truth in his accents that my
Lady shot a doubting glance at Pamela, but conviction re-
turned upon her as she saw this young woman bending
over the child so as to hide her face, and shaken with hys-
terical emotion.

Kitty drew a long breath, and started again.

"Do not think, nephew, that by adding deceit to your
vileness you can make a better situation for yourself.
Far from it. I have not sent for you here to-day to re-
buke, or even to reproach. My sole desire is to help you
both. Heaven forbid that I should be hard on any woman
who has been betrayed by her own heart !

"Pamela, if you had confided in me ere this — nay, never
mind now! Suffice it that I know all. As for you, sir, I
am well aware that gentlemen think all too lightly of a
woman's virtue ; that if their fancy leads them to court in
a class lower than their own, the most hitherto virtuous
and confiding female becomes to use their own horrid
words, 'fair game.'

"But I'll not have Pamela Pounce treated so ! She's far
too good for you, sir, and so I tell you straight. And the
proposal which I am about to make to you is for her sake,
and not for yours. You shall marry this good young
woman — good but for you, you scamp ! — and I shall make
it my business to place you in an advantageous position
out of England. I'll pay your debts again, sir, and set
you up. I have not thought where yet, but it shall not
be India, for the little angel's sake "

Here she stopped suddenly. Her eyes strayed to the

257

PAMELA POUNCE

child, and she saw, to her utter amazement, that the young
milliner was laughing, not weeping.

"Pamela Pounce !" she cried, in a scandalized voice.

Pamela got up and set the child on the floor*

"Will your Ladyship observe the little one? She is
small for her age, I know, nevertheless it is plain to see
she is over two years. How old are you, Carmelita ? Tell
the lady."

The child, who had maintained a solemn observant
silence during the whole proceeding, her great eyes roam-
ing from one person to another, while she contentedly sat
on Pamela's lap, now looked up into her friend's face with
a roguish smile.

"Tell the pretty lady."

"Tell you," said the child.

"Well, then, tell Pamela."

But with the perversity of its sex and years, the child
was here seized with overwhelming giggles and buried its
head in Pamela's skirt.

Kitty was staring with her mouth and eyes open, while
a dawning sense of something utterly ludicrous and amaz-
ing showed itself on her face.

"If her Ladyship will kindly tax her memory," Pamela
spoke in ineradicable bonnet-shop phraseology, "to the
extent of recollecting that I met Mr. Bellairs for the first
time on the doorstep of this house but eighteen months
ago, she will realize that "

"Enough ! Enough !" cried Kitty.

She waved her hand, fell back into her armchair, press-
ing her filmy handkerchief to her lips, trying to check her
peals of laughter. Perhaps she was not quite so over-
whelmed with merriment as she pretended. Perhaps she
felt that the only way of mitigating the supreme ridi-

258

THE DUTY OF MORALITY

cule of her situation was by being the first to laugh at it.

As her patroness laughed, Pamela waxed serious, while
Jocelyn Bellairs stood scarlet and indignant, the picture
of offense and injured rectitude.

"I little thought, my Lady, when those cats at Mirabel's
got hold of my cat of an aunt — begging your Ladyship's
pardon — and started this scandal against me, and all
along of seeing my pink flounces at tea with old Madame
Guturez, this darling's grandmother, I little thought your
Ladyship would be ready to believe such an outrageous bit
of spiteful nonsense.

"When they upped and attacked me, says I to them,
'Mind your own business !' Heaven be good to me," said
Pamela. "I wasn't going to stoop to defend myself to
them, and if I hadn't been the best-natured girl in the
world, I'd have gone straight to Madame Mirabel and told
her then and there of the plot !

"And as for Aunt Lydia — well, her Ladyship knows
herself. Those old maids have the minds of I don't know
what. It's enough to be young and good-looking for them
to think the worst of you. And her a-drawing in Mr. Bel-
lairs so shameful. I don't mind confessing to you, my
Lady, that the more that poor old thing shook and shivered
and went on at me, the more I thought it would be a fine
joke to let her give herself away. But when it comes to
your Ladyship "

"Well, well," said Kitty, not quite liking the tirade,
with pansy eyes rather angry over tightly smiling lips.
"You had but to write me three words of explanation,
Pamela "

"Begging your Ladyship's pardon, if I'd explained ever
so, your Ladyship wouldn't have believed. No lady would
ever believe a poor girl accused like me, if she didn't bring

259

PAMELA POUNCE

up proof. And allow me to point out, your Ladyship,"
went on the milliner, with a flourish, as if she were indi-
cating some remarkable feather or trimming, "that your
Ladyship having merely wrote me to come round with the
child, it wouldn't have been becoming in me to be attribut-
ing meanings to your Ladyship's commands."

The fire went out of Kitty's eyes, for she was just a
woman; she laughed again, and this time with a
genuine ring.

"Why, was there ever such a girl ! And I so moved over
your story and so yearning over the child, and so stirred
up, ready to threaten and appeal. And so pleased with
myself to be standing such a friend to you and bringing
Master Jocelyn to book so clever !"

"Nay," said Pamela, "she's not mine at all." Here she
swung the little creature up into her arms and hugged her.
"And I'm sure I wish she was. There, I don't know what I
wouldn't have gone through to have such a little darling
as this all my own! No, she's not mine, your Ladyship.
Poor innocent. Ah, 'tis cruel ! It's worse than no mother
at all she has, her that's the child of the wretch that calls
herself Lady Sanquhar."

Both Kitty and her nephew-by-law cried out at this ;
Master Jocelyn was shaken from his injured mood by sud-
den memories.

"What, that odious, bold-faced, dressed-up strumpet!"
exclaimed Kitty, "driving about in the park in his Lord-
ship's curricle, and brazening it at the Opera, till a woman
of virtue scarce knows which way to look !" and :

"The Spanish woman that ran away with Lord
Sanquhar!" shouted Mr. Bellairs, "whose husband was
shot before my very eyes as he was trying to stop her?
Aye, aye, I remember there was a little child."

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THE DUTY OF MORALITY

"And only three days ago," said Pamela, "I turned the
woman out of the shop. 5Tis transported she'd be, if
justice were done."

At this my Lady Kilcroney stepped across the room
and embraced Miss Pamela Pounce. Then she kissed the
child, too, with lingering, repeated caresses; that round
velvet cheek stirring irresistible motherly passions.

"And it shall have a cake, it shall, and nice chockey to
drink, it shall, the pretty rogue ! Ring the bell, Jocelyn."

Having obeyed, Mr. Bellairs advanced, nostrils dilated,
swaggering a little as he came, with a defiant smartness
which did not sit ill on him.

"I presume, Aunt Kilcroney, that as there is nothing
else upon which you can desire to confer with me, you
would wish me to withdraw. Nevertheless, there is one
word I should like to say in your hearing to Miss Pamela
Pounce. Will you spare me a hand, Pamela. Thank you.
I kiss this honest hand, this honest, kindly, helpful hand,
and I say that if you will condescend to bestow it on me,
I will "

But Pamela drew away her fingers, and curtsying, child
and all, said with great dignity:

"Thank you, Mr. Bellairs, I have no intention of
changing my state."

Kitty looked doubtfully from one to the other. Had
he been in earnest? She saw that Pamela did not think
so, for the girl had colored to the roots of her hair, and
tossed her head. She would have no gentleman's pity
or condescension.

The countenance of the young man was inscrutable, as
he bowed very low, turned on his heel and left the room.

It was past nine that evening before Madame Mirabel's

261

PAMELA POUNCE

head milliner had sufficiently made up her afternoon's holi-
day to be able to leave the workroom. There was a purple
twilight over the whole busy town, and the lamplighter
was going round with his ladder, leaving a jonquil flame
behind him at long intervals. Here and there a torch
flared in a link. The streets were full of the sound of feet,
the quick feet of those hurrying home, the slow feet of the
strollers. Pamela was tired; the day had been a long
and agitating one. She paused a moment on the pave-
ment, outside the shop, to inhale the warm air, and to
enjoy the sense of leisure at last. Her mind worked
mechanically.

"A twist of purple net on dark blue satin, with a tuft
of orange feathers. 'Twould be a new combination and
vastly genteel. ('Twould suit my Lady Kilcroney, too,
with her pansy eyes.)"

Some one came up behind her with a quick tread that
suddenly faltered. Then a voice called her:

"Pamela!"

"La, Mr. Bellairs, what a start you gave me !"

"May I go a little way with you, Pamela, dear?"

"There now! If that isn't a gentleman all over, and
me having only just reestablished my character! A-wait-
ing for me again outside Madame Mirabel's, with goodness
gracious knows how many cats' eyes a-spying on me from
behind the shutters !"

Something about the girl's gay courage, her sane,
bright outlook on life touched him at a spot already ex-
ceedingly vulnerable. Any one else, he thought, would be
having the vapors over this afternoon's work ; reproach-
ing, weeping, lost in self-pity and recrimination. He re-
flected, too, how it might have been, had she listened to him
one winter's evening and one summer's day. A girl in a

262

THE DUTY OF MORALITY

thousand! His mind had been already made up; but he
ratified the inner decision with an ardent leap of the heart.

They went on, side by side, till they reached the Park,
and then she remembered again, how, a few yards away,
nearly two years ago, she had snatched a pistol from him.
He stopped her and spoke.

"Pamela, I asked you to give me your hand to-day. I
ask you again to be my wife. Oh, when I saw you etand
with the little dark child in your arms, which they thought
was ours, I vowed you were the one woman in the world
for mel Oh, I have been a base wretch! I owe you
money. I owe you my honor. I owe you my life. I owe you
something more worth than all these; the only real, the
only pure love I have ever known. Pamela ! You'll make
a man of me yet, if you'll have me."

She had once been shaken, flattered by his attentions;
had looked up at him as a being, splendid, dashing, gal-
lant, altogether out of her sphere. When he had courted
her, it was as if a god had stooped. But this evening he
was something quite different to her ; a weak, wild youth
whom her love might steady ; a spendthrift, a gambler, an
amiable prodigal for whom she might prepare the fatted
calf, whom her ring might bind to home ; one, in fine, who
had need of her. It was the mother in her who smiled on
him now with wet eyes.

Under a high moon and a sky full of stars they presently
discussed plans that seemed to Pamela to combine the bliss
of Eden with the practicality of a workaday world.

"I'll not give up my business, sir ! I'll never pretend to
be other than I am. No false lady airs for me !*'

"You wouldn't be Pamela if there were. You shall do
exactly what you like ! But I'm going to work, too. In-
deed, my dearest girl, I will ! And we'll have that cottage

263

PAMELA POUNCE

somewhere in the green, but not too far but what you can
get the coach of a morning."

"Oh," cried Pamela, clasping her hands and laughing,
"I'll have roses in the garden, and sit out of a Sunday in a
pink muslin dress with flounces !"

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY MAKES AN INDELICATE FUSS

MY Lord Kilcroney had none of your nasty prudish
minds that think harm of a kiss. To salute a rosy
cheek, or clasp a trim waist came as natural to him as to
toss off a tankard of brown ale, or light his long clay, or
sit in the sunshine. And indeed, my Lady, knowing him,
had, as a rule, an indulgence for such peccadilloes; the
merest shrug of the shoulders or a "Fie for shame, my
Lord !" in a voice scarce more indignant than that in which
'she chid the littler Denis for putting his fingers in the
sugar bowl. But the mischief was in it, this summer at
Weymouth, Kitty being in attendance on her Royals, that
such a change should come over the whole spirit of the
whilom sensible spouse.

Such a hullabaloo over a kiss ! If ever there was any-
thing likely to drive a really faithful husband to desperate
courses, it was this unexpected, undeserved severity.

Unfortunately he had been unlucky in his choice of
partner for the peccadillo. Molly Lafone's smooth cheek,
fine-grained as a geranium leaf, and as delicately rouged
as a miniature, Molly Lafone's cheek, ethereally tinted,
had the quality of pitch in the eyes of other ladies, and the
touch of it defiled*

My Lord, puffing at his clay in the County Club at
Weymouth, with an air half-humorous, half-defiant, and
thinking back on that same cheek with a certain com-
placence, might perhaps have altered his opinion on the
whole matter had he been aware how neatly Mrs. Lafone

265

PAMELA POUNCE

had timed the episode for the passage of the Queen's
equipage.

They had met, quite accidentally, on the parade.

"Oh, my Lord Kilcroney," quoth she, "is it indeed you?"

Her victim as good-humored and devil-may-care as you
please, brought himself up with a wheel and a flourish.

Molly was clasping her hands. It was her trick to go
like a snowdrop in the dawn, when the rest of womanhood
flared carnation on the cheek. Her small faintly tinted
face was absolutely irradiated.

"Is it indeed you, Denis Kilcroney? I declare 'tis like
meeting the sun in a fog to see you ! Oh, your kind look,

my Lord, and your good smile! This place " She

broke off.

"How now !" said he, gallantly saluting! a pearl-like inch
of wrist between rumpled glove and lace ruffle. "What's
wrong with the place, Mrs. Lafone? Troth, and I thought
it was the St. James's over again, for every ten steps don't
I come across a friend! And this is the best meeting of
all," he added, with another bow, another kiss, and a still
broader smile, for — deuce take him ! — the little thing had
been monstrous glad to see him, there was no mistake
about that, and he was nothing if not responsive. "And,
as for sun," he went on, straightening himself and gazing
down at her rather fatuously, "Isn't the great orb of
Royalty shining on Weymouth this minute ?"

Now Molly Lafone knew how to play such a one as
Denis Kilcroney as a skillful angler plays a fish. She had
hooked him with that glance of innocent joy; now she
drove the crochets in more firmly by an air of flutter which
would have melted any masculine temperament.

("Oh, I have betrayed myself," her tremor, her shy

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AN INDELICATE FUSS

butterfly glance, her sigh, her shaken laughter pro-
claimed.)

"Oh, the Royal Orb," she murmured. "Oh, my Lord !"
Then, "Aye, true, indeed. Oh, as you say ! The orb and
scepter. George" — here a gleam of mischief came like
April sunshine to drive the shadows from her pretty,
abashed countenance. Her faltering voice took a saucy
note. "George and his Dragon," she whispered, tittered,
put her finger to her lip. "Oh, the mortal dullness of it !
I'm a parson's daughter, as your Lordship knows, and
brought up prodigious proper, but I vow and declare that
if anything could make me wish — want to — shake my sense
of piety and virtue — what am I saying? Good heavens,
my Lord Kilcroney! You are but just arrived; but if
Windsor is pompous and dull, Weymouth is— oh!" she
yawned.

Kilcroney was eying her, his sides shaking with mirth;
but at the word "pompous" the laughter left his lips, he
scratched his chin.

"Well, now that you mention it, my dear," he mur-
mured, "it struck me there was a certain tedium in
the air."

"Oh, tedium!" cried Molly, and went off on another
yawn.

As she yawned, he reflected. Pompous, she had said.
There had distinctly been a shade of pomposity about his
Kitty, as, just landed from the coach, he had hurried to
embrace her, scarce eighteen hours ago.

"Heavens, Denis, not in full view of the window. The
Princesses are fond of an evening walk. And good
gracious, my Lord, what a coat to travel in, and the King's
gentlemen always point-device ! And pray, dear Denis, let
me send for the hairdresser, for if Her Majesty was to see

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PAMELA POUNCE

you, such a show, down the parade, and she so set against
the Irish, I scarcely know how I could bear myself in her
Presence."

This was the welcome Denis had had the day before;
and it had somewhat clouded his morning thought. It
had taken all the comfort of his recent passage through
the hands of a first-class barber, and of as good a tankard
of burned Sherry as ever he had tasted at the County
Club, to restore him to the good humor in which Mistress
Lafone had found him. He now thought back upon his
grievance, and as is often the case, with an increased sense
of injury.

" 'Pon me soul, you're in the right of it ! And what in
the world my Lady and the rest of them want to be hanging
on the Court for, this way, passes me. Glory be to God,
doesn't weariness ooze out of them all? It's sodden they
are with it."

"Weariness," echoed she again. She glanced up at the
black-faced clock with the white figures on the church
tower across the way. The sea was on the other side of
them : the foam-capped waves tossing and furling and pur-
suing each other in playful froliclike myriads of lambs on
a deep blue field. There was a gay sky to match, and a
gay wind, full of an intoxicating tang, and it blew Mistress
Lafone's shot green taffety into balloons and silvery lique-
factions, and fluttered her light curls, and set the long
amber streamers of her rustic hat flying like pennons. She
glanced back from the clock to my Lord's face and her
eyes danced and flickered as if the sea were in them, and
suddenly filled with huge tears.

" 'Tis not the weariness, I mind," she exclaimed with a
sob. " 'Tis the cruelty !"

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AN INDELICATE FUSS

"Why, you poor little bird," quoth he, tenderly com-
passionate. "Could any one be cruel to you ?"

"Oh, indeed, they are, my Lord, and I can't think how
I have offended them ! Oh, the slights, the unkindnesses !
And my Lady Kilcroney, your own dear lovely lady, my
Lord, what she hath against me. — Oh, I do assure you,"
cried Mrs. Lafone, raising her voice piteously, as the
measured trot of Royal horses beat upon her ear, "I've
cried myself to sleep, night after night, and when I saw
your face, 'Here's one,' I said to myself, 'who will be a
little kind to me !' "

The wind — it certainly was a naughty wind, as if it, too,
were a rebel against the decorum imposed by the pres-
ence of Royalty — came rushing up from the wide ocean
and caught Mistress Lafone in a positive whirl, seizing
her with a great beat of invisible pennons as if about to
fly away with her.

"Oh, oh!" she cried. Her light figure swayed and
seemed to lift. She flung out her arms. What could my
Lord do but catch her? And holding her, what could he
do but kiss her? For there were tears on her delicate
face which melted him, and sparkles behind them which
dared him; and what's a kiss when all is said and done?

The Royal carriage wheeled by them and Kitty, sitting
bolt upright opposite the Queen, had a good view of her
erring spouse and his infamous companion for the whole
length of the parade. It can scarcely be credited; the
culprits, as they gazed back at her, were laughing.

The matrimonial course of the Kilcroneys had been
fond, but as any one who knew my Lady might guess, it
had been variegated. She had a quick temper, an im-
patient spirit, and a detestation of monotony; withal the
soundest heart in the world. So that never did couple so

269

PAMELA POUNCE

often fall out or so fervently make it up, as they. My
Lord, who was of an easy-going temperament, who loved
and admired his Kitty in all her moods, rather enjoyed
these connubial storms.

"Begad," he would say, "there never was anything to
equal a dash of red pepper for making a man enjoy the
taste of the wine afterwards !"

But now my Lady's wrath took an unpleasant form;
one which, in its turn, aroused his resentment. It drove
him even to a certain bitterness, as he sat in the bow
window of the County Club, pulling at his long clay. It
drove the complacent memory of Molly Lafone's smooth,
pert cheek from his mind as with a sting.

" 'Pon me word !" he said, swinging his leg. "A man
would think it was the leper I'd made of myself ! Split
me, Verney, if me Lady doesn't whisk away her skirts as
she crosses me path ! And never a word out of her since
she first had at me — -Be jabers! I'm not like to forget
that in a hurry! But it's pinched lips and dropped eyes
and turn away with her till I'm crazy."

Squire Day and my Lord Verney gazed with compassion
on the sinner; the compassion that is the worst kind of
condemnation. Then Squire Day said, a little dryly :

" "Pis a pity that the occasion should have been quite
so public."

And my Lord Verney, drawing in his turn the clay from
his lips, burst out:

"Susan says — My Lady Verney hath it, that 'twas
Mistress Lafone's very plan — to show you up before Their
Gracious Majesties and shame Kitty !"

Kilcroney stared a moment with widening eyes and drop-
ping jaw at the speaker. Then the crimson rose in his
handsome, dissipated face.

270

AN INDELICATE FUSS

"Ah! God help you!" he exclaimed, "if that isn't the
ladies all over. 'Tis the down of the world they have on
that poor little creature. And what in name o' God
should she want to be playing such a thrick for? And

sure, oughtn't I to know, 'twas the innocentest " He

broke off, for Squire Day's laugh was loud.

"Innocent?" he repeated. "My dear Kil, 'tis you who
are as innocent as Adam ! But I'm with you on one point.
The ladies have treated that little Lafone monstrous cruel.
I doubt if they have as much as let her nibble a macaroon,
with them since they came down here. And your Kitty has
given the lead."

"My Kitty!" exclaimed her spouse in a generous heat.
"Why, man, she's picked that same Molly out of a hundred
scrapes. Sure, Lafone's no more sense than a child.
Why, she owes my Lady "

"Ah," said Squire Day, quietly, "she's one who pays
back with interest."

Kilcroney stared again.

"I'll be hanged if I know what you're driving at, man,"
he began, but suddenly fell silent with fixed eyes.

His armchair was opposite the door, which had now
been quietly opened; a fine portly gentleman walked in as
if the place belonged to him.

"Tare and 'ounds, lads," cried the Irishman, under his
breath. "Here's his Royal Highness !" and sprang to his
feet.

The next instant the club-room rang with shouts of
mirth.

"By the Holy Father ! Stafford !— Ned, me boy, I took
you for the Prince of Wales. 'Pon me living soul, I did.
Oh, Ned, Ned ! 'tis the fill of your waistcoat you are, and
no mistake."

271

PAMELA POUNCE

"His Highness ought to be flattered," said Mr. Stafford,
who was not.

Miss Pamela Pounce was deposited at The White Hart,
Weymouth, by the midday coach, having slept at Dor-
chester.

She looked as crisp and modish as one of her own hats,
as she tripped along the parade towards my Lady Kil-
croney's lodgings, followed by a porter who moved in a
perfect grove of bandboxes.

Miss Pounce had traveled to Weymouth with a selection
of hats and heads for the tempting of her fashionable
clientele. Born business woman that she was, she carried
her unerring instinct into every detail, such as that very
halt at Dorchester, which enabled her to impress at once
by her appetizing freshness and her air of not having lost
a minute in providing an esteemed customer with the very
latest ; "piping hot," as she herself expressed it.

She had no hesitation in the choice of her first patroness.
My Lady Kilcroney gave the lead and Madame Mirabel's
partner only spoke the truth when she averred that she
had rather have my Lady's custom than that of Queen
Charlotte and all the Princesses.

Softly signaling to the burthened porter to wait in the
hall, Miss Pounce nipped two special bandboxes from his
grasp and herself mounted the stairs behind Kitty's black
boy. Her Ladyship was in her bedroom. That suited
Pamela very well; in fact she had timed herself to find
Kitty in her negligee, perfumed from her toilet, restored by
her morning chocolate, just planning the pleasures of the
day. Miss Pounce smiled, as bending her ear she caught
the sound of feminine voices and laughter within. A dis-

272

AN INDELICATE FUSS

creet play of nails upon the panels remaining unanswered,
she gave one authoritative tap and entered.

Kitty, in a cloud of lace, with lavender ribbons, occupied
the center of the apartment, throned in a high winged
armchair. Her elbows were on the table before her, on
which were strewn divers colored prints and an immense
heap of light-hued patterns of silk and satin. On either
side of her sat her two special cronies, Lady Anre Day
and Lady Flora Dare Stamer. All three heads were bent
together; no conspirators planning the downfall of the
crown could have seemed more wrapped in mysterious col-
loquy. Pamela had to "hem," before her presence was
noticed. Then the faces were lifted with a start, and
Miss Pounce had no reason to complain of the effect of
her unexpected appearance.

Kitty clapped her hands.

"What good wind has driven you hither, child, to-day
of all days?"

"And I who was thinking," cried Nan Day, "that I
hadn't a head to my curls, fit to appear at Kitty's party,
for my country slut has packed your rose tulle turban,
and the Paris toque, Miss Pounce, I do assure you, as if
she was stuffing a goose 1"

"As for me," said Lady Flora, "I haven't paid Madame
Mirabel's account, this goodness knows how long. But
there — I think she knows I'm no bad customer after all" —
with her fat laugh. "And I'm sure she'll let me have a
mode to set off my poor countenance, or I shall be lost
indeed, amid so much youth and beauty!"

Miss Pounce put down her bandboxes, to give them ad-
mirably differentiated curtsies, and drew in her breath
with that sucking sound which meant the excess of en-
joyment.

273

PAMELA POUNCE

My Lady Kilcroney was about to give an entertainment ;
an entertainment before which every other effort of hers
should pale. It was to be honored with the presence of
the King and Queen and the Princesses ; that went without
saying. But it was to be more distinguished even than
this. His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, was ex-
pected for three days at Weymouth, on a kind of recon-
ciliation visit to their Majesties — there had been one of
those too frequent ruptures between them — and my Lady's
party was the only one which he had signified his pleasure
to attend. Never in all her triumphant days had Kitty
reached such a triumph. It was no wonder that her eyes
sparkled, and her hands trembled, as she turned over pat-
terns, and discussed minuets.

Five violins from the Opera were coming, and the famous
lady harpist. Only the select of the select were to be
admitted to the sacred circle. The supper was to beat
every feast that Kitty's chef, with the assistance of several
club friends, had ever before accomplished, and Kitty's
costume (carmine brocade, powdered with silver rose-
buds ) was to outshine anything that that leader of fashion
had previously donned.

"I declare I was about to post an express to Madame
Mirabel to get you down, my dear," said Kitty when the
first clatter of conversation had somewhat died away.

Pamela pinched her lips.

"Well, if it isn't Providence ! I've got in that bandbox
a head ! — a head I say, my Lady, roses dew-dropped with
Strass, and just a twist of silver net illusion — if it ain't
Providence !"

Perhaps Miss Lydia Pounce had assisted Providence in
this matter. That admirable Abigail had her wits all
about her.

274

AN INDELICATE FUSS

The three charming ladies held their breath while the
nimble young milliner went down on one knee and began
to unfasten the cordings of the larger bandbox. ' Scarcely
had her fingers reached the palpitating stage of tissue
paper, when the door was flung violently open, and Lord
Kilcroney marched into the room. He came in with a
great swing of coat-tails and stamp of high boots, and
it was plain to see, by other tokens — his flaming eye, his
dilated nostril, his clenched jaw — that he was in a tower-
ing rage.

The ladies fell apart, with the movement of scared birds
under the dash of the hawk. Even Kitty cowered in her
chair, though only for a second. Before the gathering
wrath exploded, she had reared her pretty head in defiance,
and was ready to meet him with a temper-flash as stormy
as his own.

He flung on the table an open letter — a fragrant pink
sheet it was, with coquettish wafer still attached — and pin-
ning it with his finger, asked in a voice, hoarse and trem-
bling from his efforts to control it : "Is this a forgery, my
Lady, or is it a bad joke?"

Kitty glanced down at the scrap of paper, marked with
her own delicate caligraphy, in the latest thing in violet
inks ; then, her hotly resentful gaze contradicting the ice-
cold mockery of her accents : "I marvel, my lord, that you
can find a joke in what is to me so monstrous sad."

"I say it's a bad j oke, a blanked, ill-bred devilish bit of
cattiness !"

"Oh, pray, pray !" tittered my Lady on the edge of hys-
terical fury. "Remember you are not in the bosom of
your family, Denis. Here are witnesses "

"Witnesses, is it?' I've nothing to hide, I'd have it
called by the town crier. The letter which a wife was not

275

PAMELA, POUNCE

ashamed to send to her husband, may be sung up and down
the parade, for all I care ! — Listen to this, Nan Day : you
led your husband a pretty dance once upon a time, but
split me, you stopped short of public insult! Listen,
Lady Flora, all the world knows what a treasure Dare-
Stamer has in you and how 'tis the good humor of the
world you have with him, and the patience ! — Here's a mes-
sage for a wife to write to her husband :

"My dear Denis, Her Majesty has most graciously con~
doned the dreadful Act of Disrespect by which you made
an exhibition of yourself and of another person who shall
be nameless, at a moment, "when the Horrid Spectacle could
not fail to meet her August Glance, in so far as not to
•withdraw her condescending promise to be present at my
Ball to-morrow night. She has, nevertheless, given me to
understand with her own incomparable Tact and Kindness
that should you find it convenient to be absent on business
on that occasion it would considerably add to the harmony
of the evening. I am sure I need only convey this expres-
sion of Her Royal Pleasure to you, that you are not so
altogether lost to decency and good feeling as not instantly
to take steps to meet it. Pray, believe me, my Lord, to
remain your attached and dutiful Wife "

Denis's voice shook and broke with a sound that ap-
proached a snarl, on the last words.

"What do you think of that? What do you think of
it?" he shouted, shaking the letter, first under Lady
Flora's, then under Nan Day's nose.

Both ladies looked scared.

"Dear! dear!" said Lady Flora, "I'm sure 'tis vastly
disagreeable all round, but — well, there, my good soul,

276

AN INDELICATE FUSS

wouldn't it help matters if you was just to do as the Queen
asks? La! she's so prodigious stiff -backed. And who
should know it but me ! Didn't I nearly die of being Lady
of the Bedchamber for three mortal months. Oh, I'm too
fat and soft for Her Majesty! But sure, it'll all blow
over, and you so good-natured yourself, and so obliging !"

"I'm sure," said Nan, stepping up to Kitty, and turn-
ing a fierce blue eye on my Lord, "I don't know what you
mean about leading my Philip a dance, my Lord Kilcroney.
Whatever points of difference there may have been be-
tween us, they've been private ones. And my husband,
sir, a gentleman of high principles and good conduct, and
if I were not all a wife should be to him, I should indeed
be the basest of women ; but were I" — she suddenly be-
gan to shake and tremble upon tears — "were I wedded to
one who outraged my tenderest feelings, offended my dig-
nity in public, made a mock of the most solemn vows and —

and ' She flung her arms round Kitty and clasped

her, sobbing.

Her emotion was contagious. Kitty burst into tears on
the spot.

"May you never know what it means, my sweet Nan!
May your heart never be broken !"

The two clung together, sobbing as for a wager; and
Lady Flora, whisking out a capable handkerchief, sniffed
and begged them, with reddening eyelids, to stop for
mercy's sake.

"Don't, Kilcroney ! Don't, Nan! I'm so soft! You'll
have me off too. I never could bear to see any one cry."

Even Pamela, kneeling beside her bandbox, flung a gaze
of deep reproach upon the sinner. She knew something
of the story : her aunt was one who liked to retail a bit of
spicy gossip when it came her way.

277

PAMELA POUNCE

The weight of this feminine condemnation was too much
for the unhappy Denis, but his wrath was unabated.

"Vastly well, my Lady. Vastly well," he cried, thrusting
the crumpled note into his pocket. "I'll off with myself,
aye, and I'll take this love token with me. I'll not pollute
your party, never fear ; but whatever you hear of me, now,
remember, you drove me to it."

Denis Kilcroney fulfilled his dark threat by going
straight to the confectioner's shop over which Mrs. La-
fone had taken modest lodgings. He found her in com-
pany with her brother-in-law, Ned Stafford. That gentle-
man was lying, as much at his ease as he could in the only
armchair, which was, however, hard and slippery, being
covered with horsehair. His hands were joined by the
fingertips, his eyes were closed. With a resigned lift of
eyebrow he was listening to the little lady's shrill and
voluble harangue.

Mistress Molly, in a white muslin morning wrapper tied
round her slim waist by an azure blue ribbon, with silver
fair hair, scarcely powdered, all unbound, save for where
a knot of the same blue caught the curls at the nape of
her neck, looked perhaps only the more attractive be-
cause her eyes and cheeks blazed with anger. And it was,
my Lord Kilcroney saw with relief, a dry anger; for his
Kitty, playing the victim while exercising such — yes ! dash
it, the only word was spite! — had added exasperation to
his sense of injury !

"Come in, come in, my Lord," Mistress Molly wheeled
upon him with a laugh, if Denis could only have recognized
the fact, more full of spite than his Lady's utmost petu-
lance. "Pray have you heard what I've been saying?
Oh, you needn't blink at me like that, Brother Stafford,
I'll say it all over again. I'll say that my Lady Kil-

278

AN INDELICATE FUSS

croney is the most jealous cat in the whole of England.
She has left me out of her Royal ball, has she? I'm not
virtuous enough ! What, my Lord, you kissed my wrist on
the parade — and if I say it was my wrist, Tom Stafford?
I ought to know! and Kitty — oh, the virtuous Kitty! —
and her old cross Royal thought to see the kind of shock-
ing spectacle your virtuous people are fond of thinking
they see! My Lady was always jealous of poor little me!
I don't care who hears me. I say — hold your tongue,
Tom ! — 'tis a conspiracy, 'tis a scandal. I'll make Mr.
Lafone tell His Royal Highness all about it. I'll go to
law on it. There can't be more scandal about me than
there will be for being the only one of the ladies at Wey-
mouth left out to-morrow night!"

Mr. Stafford, who had been glinting at Denis between
his bored eyelids, now opened them a fraction wider.

"For heaven's sake, good lad," said he, "get her a
ticket."

"Get her one yourself."

"My good Kil, your Lady does not even know that I'm
in Weymouth."

"Why, then, you've but got to show yourself. You're
not her husband," added Kilcroney bitterly.

"Not at all !" cried Mr. Stafford with some energy, "it
shall never be said that I have set myself to curry favor
with Kitty Kilcroney, more especially since 'tis my own
sister-in-law that she's treating so uncivil. Nay, Kil, I'll
keep out of it. I'm only giving you a bit of advice for
your own sake. Get her a ticket. 'Twill save a lot of
bother in the end. And I do assure you," as Denis
laughed hollowly, " 'twill have an excellent effect on so-
ciety generally. There has been far too much fuss about
an incident which should have been — ahem ! — passed over !"

279

PAMELA POUNCE

Lord Kilcroney dropped upon the horsehair sofa which
creaked dismally.

"And pray," said he, in a tone of sarcasm, "when you
had dealings with my Lady yourself — and you had a few,
one way and another — did you find her so easy to
manage?"

Now Mr. Stafford had, somewhere hidden away, an old
grudge against Lady Kilcroney, who had not only jilted
him, but had scored off him notably on more than one
occasion. Mr. Stafford was far from approving of Molly,
whom indeed, it may be said, he heartily disliked, but to
find a close relative pilloried on your arrival at a fashion-
able watering place is a set-down to a Beau's pride. He
was inclined to champion her. Under his languid airs he
was very wroth with my Lady Kilcroney ; she was making
an indelicate fuss ; she had lost her usual tactful grasp of
the situation through ridiculous jealousy. After all, as
Kilcroney himself represented, there couldn't have been
much harm in a kiss bestowed on the open parade in a
high wind ; between wrist or cheek, like enough there was
a confusion by one or other of the parties. But Kil-
croney's next remark made him jump to his feet.

"As for a ticket for the show, me lad, I'm not to have
one either.'*

"Kil!"

"My Lord !"

Molly broke into shriller laughter and beat her palms
together.

"And his Royal Highness coming and all !"

"Aye, and by the same token I saw that august per-
sonage driving his curricle along the sea road on my way
here," said Mr. Stafford, relapsing into his usual rather
insolent serenity. Your fine gentleman will not let him-

280

AN INDELICATE FUSS

self be betrayed into emotion if he can help it. "And I
was less flattered than ever at your taking me for him
yesterday, Kil."

His sister-in-law looked at him curiously. "But my
Lord Kilcroney is right," she cried maliciously. "Since
you've grown so prodigious fat, Brother-in-law."

Then having planted the pin-prick which she never al-
lowed to escape her, she returned to the real subject of
interest.

"Not to be present at your own wife's entertainment?
Oh, come, my Lord, this is an Irish way of evading the
question! You must think us monstrous simple to
credit "

It was a morning of interruptions; for here Miss
Pounce and the bandboxes marched unexpectedly in upon
them. She was breathing quickly and speaking with
volubility.

My Lady Verney's own woman had informed her of
Mrs. Lafone's address in the town, and she had ventured
to present herself with the very latest, positively the very
latest, to show to her most esteemed customers. Miss
Pounce was quite sure that Mistress Lafone and Mistress

Stafford "Is your lady here, sir?" she curtsied to the

Beau who was ogling her jocosely. "Not till next week?
Oh, dear, what a pity! I'd have been honored, sir, to
supply a hat or a head for the beautiful Mrs. Stafford.
But as I was saying, I am quite sure that you, Madam,
and your sister, being such kind patrons of the establish-
ment, Madame Mirabel would have taken it very bad of
me, very bad of me indeed, had I failed to seek you out."

Denis Kilcroney was sitting erect upon the sofa, with
his arms folded, and a stern glance upon the glib Pamela.
This young person avoided meeting the glance in question.

281

PAMELA POUNCE

She felt that her swift appearance at Mrs. Lafone's lodg-
ings on the heels of my Lord's stormy exit, was, for all her
clever patter, a little too obvious a coincidence.

"Pve a head here," went on Miss Pounce, beginning to
set down her bandboxes and making the most theatrical
effects with the undoing of strings and rustling of tissue
paper. "Well, really, the Duchess of Hampshire wanted
right or wrong to have it for her ball last week when she
entertained the Prince, as you may have seen by the
news sheet, Madam. But I says to her, 'No, Your Grace,'
I says, ' 'tis too elfin for Your Grace. Your Grace wants,
so to speak, the Goddess effect.' And as I says it, if
you'll believe me, I thought of you, ma'am."

Mrs. Lafone did not believe her, but she stood, hesi-
tating a little, over the bandboxes, torn between a pettish
desire to dismiss with obloquy the wretch who had come
to turn the dagger in the wound, and the budding hope
that Mr. Stafford, who had plenty of money, might be
moved to do the generous for once, and present his injured
sister-in-law with a token of his esteem.

Miss Pounce drew out what was, indeed, a fairylike
wreath of pale blue convolvulus, and Molly exclaimed in
rapture. In a wink Miss Pounce had placed it on the fair
disheveled head.

"Oh, Madam, if ever there was a perfect vision ! Look,
Mr. Stafford, Sir ! Look, my Lord, if I may make so bold ;

isn't Mrs. Lafone fitted, so to speak, like a — like a "

She faltered on the simile, for neither gentlemen showed
any disposition to rise to the occasion.

My Lord cast another glance upon the milliner, which
said as plain as words: "Don't think you can take me in,
my good girl," and then with a formal bow to the siren

282

AN INDELICATE FUSS

and a wave of the hand to Stafford, he sauntered out of
the room.

Mr. Stafford flung a glance of mocking pity after him,
whistling a ballad tune under his breath; then he put his
hand into his pocket, but it was only to produce a snuff-
box, from which he proceeded to inhale.

Molly pettishly tore the wreath from her curls, de-
claring in her most acrid accents:

"Really, Miss Pounce, this is a great liberty. I can
order my hats for myself when I require them, and then
I usually write to Madame Eglantine in Paris. And any-
how I am not going into society by doctor's orders. I am
here for my health. Pray, Mr. Stafford, will you pull
the bell-rope that Madame Mirabel's assistant may be
shown to the door."

Miss Pounce started to repack the wreath, with further
extraordinary manipulations of tissue paper. She was all
bland apology. She craved a hundred pardons. She had
made so sure that Mrs. Lafone would be going to my
Lady Kilcroney's ball at the Assembly Rooms to-morrow
night. She hoped and trusted it would be as great a
success as the Duchess of Hampshire's last week, and that
His Royal Highness would be equally delighted with his
entertainment. Though of course — here the milliner
genteelly tittered — "it was not likely he would be equally
demonstrative to his hostess. Was it possible Madam had
not heard how His Royal Highness, saying 'It is a Sov-
ereign's privilege to salute another Sovereign and you are
Queen of Beauty,' had kissed Her Grace of Hampshire on
the cheek after the minuet — oh, indeed, she had danced
like an angel and looked exceedingly well ! — before the
whole assembly?"

"Dear me !" said Mr. Stafford, with humorous meaning.

283

PAMELA POUNCE

"And I'm sure, I hope," cried acrid Molly, "that His
Royal Highness may be as prodigal of caresses to my Lady
Kilcroney. Oh !" she cried, clasping her hands, "if that
is the kind of fit that's on him* and he was to kiss my
sweetest Kitty before his Royal Mamma and the lovely
Princesses, what a monstrous joke it would be!"

Mr. Stafford stepped forward and opened the door.

"Allow me, my dear," said he, and, with what Pamela
thought an insufferable free-and-easiness, lifted her band-
boxes one after the other into the passage and literally
bowed her out.

She stood, snapping her fingers and biting her nails, to
linger and listen as long as she dared. Up to this she
had, after all, but poor gleanings to bring back to her
Aunt Lydia for the retailing into her patroness's ear,
save, indeed, the sad verification of my Lord's presence in
the Minx's lodgings. But she saw that she was suspected
by one, if not both, of the gentlemen, and however neces-
sary it is for a young milliner to make quite certain that
the cords of her boxes are properly tied, it is not an opera-
tion that can be prolonged indefinitely. Some phrases she
did catch.

"The joke of it is that the Prince — " Mr. Stafford was
observing.

The rest of the remark was lost; it was followed by a
crow from Molly Lafone.

"Not to be there after all? Serve her right!" Then
in another tone. "Oh, I have the drollest inspiration !"

"Hush!"

Pounce pricked her ear to its utmost alertness.

"I have the drollest inspiration," said Mrs. Lafone.
"Since you say, Tom, you're poz that His Royal Highness

284

AN INDELICATE FUSS

don't mean to attend my Lady's ball, — and I say it serves
her right — why should you not go in his stead ?"

"Go in his stead?" Mr. Stafford blankly repeated then.
"You're crazy, Molly!"

"And not at all ! Oh, it can be managed, I do assure
you ! Oh, it would be too droll, too delightful ! And it
would be better than droll, for 'twould be a certain way
to heal the breach, the sad, sad breach between our poor
Kil and that same jealous Kitty. Pray, Brother-in-law,
before you interrupt, let me speak one word ! Kitty's
Royals, King, Queen and Princesses, will but pass through
the Assembly Rooms. 'Tis the way of Royalty. 'Tis all
any one would expect of them, more especially as His
Majesty is so out of health. What is to prevent the
Prince changing his mind, and popping in for late supper?
By the Prince, I mean you, Tom. Come now, you know
'tis a thing he might do very well? People would only
say he could not bear the tedium of dancing at his Royal
parents' heels. Come now, Mr. Stafford, sir ! I see it
in your eye. You know 'tis a trick could be played on
my Lady with perfect success. Oh, you need not present
yourself on the scene till every one should have departed
save the select little circle, those sweet, dear, charming
ladies and their stupid husbands who won't have anything
to say to poor little me! And then, oh, Mr. Stafford!
you must be monstrous charmed, and monstrous gallant,
and — well, monstrous tipsy if you like, and you will but
the closer ape our dear future sovereign! And then
(Oh, how you gape!) don't you see? You must kiss my
Lady, and if she don't have to forgive my Lord after-
wards "

"Foh!" said Mr. Stafford. " 'Tis the rankest nonsense.
And I'm not so prodigious like the Prince as all that.'*

285

PAMELA POUNCE

"Oh, but you are, Mr. Staff ordl Didn't my Lord
Kilcroney take you for him only yesterday? With one
of those new white chokers, and a frill to the shirt and a
bit of blue ribbon across it and a new wig with a topknot
to it, and a fine brocade waistcoat on your fine figure —
you were always so clever at the acting, Brother-in-law ! —
I'd defy even your Prue to find you out!"

Mr. Stafford was apparently unconvinced, for Molly
Lafone's accents changed from wheedling to taunting.

"And indeed, Tom, I thought you'd more spirit. Here
I give you such a chance, as never was, of paying my
Lady out for the trick she played on you. Why, she made
you the laughingstock of Bath. Oh, I have heard such
droll tales — how rather than marry you she made my
Lord — Denis O'Hara, as he was then — dress up as a
woman and pretend to be your previous wife at the altar
steps. Are you so mean spirited as to forget? And
'tisn't as if it wouldn't be the best turn in the world for
my Lord, and him so good-natured, and treated so shame-
ful! I thought gentlemen stood by each other. For a
wife to insult her husband so!"

"It mightn't put me in such very good odor with His
Royal Highness," said Mr. Stafford ; Pamela knew by his
tone that he was faltering.

"As if any one was likely to tell him. — However, if
you're afraid, Brother-in-law "

"You're a little devil," said Mr. Stafford.

And Pamela picked up her boxes and flew. She had
heard enough and she knew that Mistress Lafone had
carried her point.

CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH KITTY IS MORE INCOMPARABLE THAN EVEE

OOD God!" said Nan Day, under her breath. "If
that is not the Lafone piece! My dearest Kitty,
what insolence!"

"I invited her," said my Lady Kilcroney, quietly.

"Kitty!"

"By special messenger to-day."

"Kitty!!!"

"I particularly wished for the presence of Mrs. Lafone
here to-night."

The siren was now approaching, crowned with the very
wreath she had cast back at Pamela Pounce, writhing like
a lissome snake, in the billows and laces of her changing
sea-green ball gown. Nan watched Kitty's urbanity and
the minx's unconcealed impertinence, with ever growing
amazement.

"Am I too late to see the dear, dear Royals?"

"Unfortunately Their Majesties stayed but a short
time. The King was feeling unwell."

"Oh, my dearest Lady Kilcroney, what a disappoint-
ment for you !"

Kitty had a tilting smile.

"Less to me than to other people, perhaps, my dear
Lafone, since I have the privilege of being so constantly
in Their Majesties' company."

"True, true. It must be a sad fatigue for you. Her
Majesty has no mercy on her ladies' legs, I always heard."
The minx's eyes were wandering. "But His Royal High-

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PAMELA POUNCE

ness has remained I trust? 'Twas the talk of the place
how he was expected."

"His Royal Highness has left Weymouth, I under-
stand."

Kitty was really too unconcerned. It could take in
nobody, Lady Anne Day thought. She bit into a rose of
her bouquet and wished she could beat Lafone about the
head with it.

"Oh, my dearest Lady Kilcroney, who could have told
you such a tale? His Royal Highness is even now sitting
at the window of the County Club eating lobster by the
light of a silver candelabra. I saw him as my chair was
carried by. Surely he will present himself at supper
time? The Prince is always so courteous, so considerate."

"Pray, Mrs. Lafone, the quadrille is beginning. Have
you a partner? Or shall I provide you with a gentle-
man?"

Molly rolled her glistening green eyes with well-feigned
anxiety from side to side.

"Well, there's an old promise to my Lord Kilcroney.
He made me swear to give him the first dance at the next
assembly, wherever we might happen to meet. Ah! — is
he not yonder? Nay, 'tis quite another countenance!
But he will be at your Ladyship's side in a moment, I make
no doubt."

"My Lord has left Weymouth."

"Oh, my dearest Lady Kilcroney, what a sad strange
contretemps!"

Even as she spoke that green eye became fixed. One of
Kitty's magnificent footmen was approaching, bearing a
letter on a salver. My Lady read it ; glanced at Mrs. La-
fone, and then turned to Lady Anne: "The Prince is com-
ing after all, Nan. How strange" — she turned back to

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MORE INCOMPARABLE THAN EVER

Molly — "that you should this moment have suggested the
possibility."

Mistress Lafone had recognized in a single flash, the
great folded sheet that she had herself prepared and sealed
with so much amusement to the accompaniment of the pro-
tests of the rather doubtful yet not altogether unwilling
Beau. The seal had been Molly's triumph. What will
not a determined woman accomplish? She had actually
got possession of the kind of wafer habitually used by the
Prince. Like mistress, like maid, it is said: Mistress
Molly's own maid was as much of a minx as her mistress.
She had started flirtations with every likely scoundrel
about Weymouth before she had been a fortnight in the
place. One of the drawers at the Crown Inn had thought
it a small price to pay for the smiles of Jenny Jinks to give
her, as a keepsake, a few wafers out of the Prince's own
ivory box, off the writing table in the room occupied by
His Royal Highness.

"The Prince coming after all !" cried Nan Day joyfully.
She was genuinely fond of Kitty, but even if she had not
been so, to see Lafone discomfited would have been delight-
ful to her.

This latter was seized with a fit of tittering, and was
fain to retire, fanning herself violently, and simulating a
threat of the vapors.

Lady Anne looked after her contemptuously.

"She can hardly conceal her spite," quoth she. "Ah,
Kitty, I believe you knew the Prince was coming all the
while and that was why you invited that little rascal !"

Kitty had upon this, as even the obtuse Nan could not
but notice, a singular smile.

Certainly it would have been a thousand pities had my
Lady Kilcroney's entertainment fallen flat, for never had

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PAMELA POUNCE

even her bright wits and long purse made more charming
and sumptuous preparations.

The Assembly Rooms had been transmogrified into a
fairy bower, with hangings of white silk and garlands of
roses. The band was surpassing itself: the supper, no
doubt, would be unsurpassable. There was a special sup-
per room prepared off the great ballroom, where, it was
hinted, such delicacies would be served as would tickle the
jaded palate of the Prince. If he had not come 'twould
have been a catastrophe. Yes, positively a catastrophe for
my Lady Kilcroney.

The moment approached for the appearance of the
Royal guest. The most pompous of the company had
taken its departure, closely upon the heels of Royalty,
and now there was left none but that select circle — to
which Mistress Lafone had referred with so much
acrimony — and a sprinkling of young naval officers ; quite
negligible beings.

Nevertheless, one of these was now, to suit Mistress
Molly's purpose very well. Most unaccountably, she, \vho
was generally surrounded by the male sex, found herself
neglected to-night by the gentlemen of Kitty's coterie.
Perhaps her mermaid charms seemed more dangerous than
alluring after the trap into which my Lord Kilcroney had
fallen. Anyway, she was glad to hang upon the arm of a
blushing youth in blue; and the celebrated band striking
up "God save the Prince of Wales" with a great stroke of
bows, planted herself, with her cavalier, near the entrance
to watch ; her heart beating high with ecstasy and fear —
for the appearance of Brother-in-law Tom as the Prince
of Wales.

A stout gentleman in the very pink of fashion with all
his double-chins majestically sunk in swaths of fine cam-

290

brie, with ruffles, blue ribbon and a star ; with calves that
must have made Kitty's footmen green with envy, and
shoulders that would have been remarkable in a guards-
man, advanced stepping with the inimitable carriage of
the great.

Again an hysterical burst of laughter rose in Molly's
throat. The next moment she pinched the arm of the
young naval gentleman so fiercely that he turned in alarm.

"What is the matter?"

"I am swooning!" said Molly with a gasp; and swoon
she did, and no mistake about it 1

However cunningly Mr. Stafford might make himself up,
however paint and pad and bewig himself, strut and look
majestic, he could not have given to his handsome brown
eyes the dull protruding stare, nor to his features that
thickness which a plethoric habit was inducing in the Heir
to the Throne ; and Mr. Stafford would not have been es-
corted by the gentlemen of the Prince's own suite; and,
most certain of all, he would not have had my Lord Kil-
croney by his side !

The dreadful discovery flashed upon the unfortunate
Molly with the still more appalling realization that the
next few minutes must inevitably see the bogus Prince
present himself on the heels of the genuine one; that all
must be discovered, to the everlasting undoing of those
concerned !

"Oh, if I have but the time to warn him !" thought she,
but Nemesis overtook her in the shape of that real swoon.

"You go on slapping her hands, auntie, while I burn
another feather. Dear, to be sure, don't she look bad!
Downright silly, I call it, for ladies to be lacing themselves

291

PAMELA POUNCE

so tight, and she as thin as a fish to begin with ! I declare,
when I cut those green laces, they regular popped."

As through layers of swirling mist which both blinded
and deafened her, Mrs. Lafone vaguely caught these
words. Another voice penetrated more sharply to her
growing consciousness.

"And if you was to pull yourself in a bit, Pamela, you'd
look a deal more genteel. A well-looking girl like you, with
all your advantages and gowned, I will say that for you,
with uncommon taste, to go about with such a milkmaid
figure ! I'd drink a tablespoon of white vinegar night and
morning, if I was you — Drat! how green she do keep!
Slap a bit harder, child. Fm all of a dither to get into
that little balcony that overlooks the supper room, and see
my Lady and His Highness and all."

"A balcony, is there?'* Pamela's pleasant accents ques-
tioned.

"Yes, my dear, and you can come along with me, once
we get the life back into Madam. A minstrels' gallery they
call it, overlooking the hall. Oh, I had a peep just now
when I ran for the hartshorn! 'Tis the elegantest spec-
tacle you ever saw ; to look down on the supper table was
like fairyland. — Ain't she sighed? She was always an ag-
gravating piece," said the elder Miss Pounce with some
asperity.

Molly lay with closed eyes and fully recovered wits.
She was debating whether to prolong the fit, and let her-
self be carried back seemingly unconscious to her lodg-
ings, would not be the best way out of an unpleasant
dilemma. It would annoy these two impertinent females :
that was an added advantage.

"Was they already at table when you looked in on them,

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MORE INCOMPARABLE THAN EVER

auntie?" asked Madame Mirabel's partner between two
brisk smacks of Mrs. Lafone's palm.

"They was, my dear. — Well, since there don't seem to be
a mite of use trying to get her to swallow anything I'll
have that drop of ratafia myself. It sort of turns me to see
people that color — they was all a-sitting round the supper
table, His Highness beside my Lady, and my Lord with
Lady Flo, and just the rest of my Lady's intimates. The
supper table looking beautiful with the best gold plate.
And then red, red roses my Lady paid such a sum for.
And the Prince's topknot shining lovely and your wreath
— 'twas the naturalest thing. You could have sworn, the
dew had just fallen on it! But my Lady Anne's blue tur-
ban's a trifle heavy for my taste, Pam. She was a-sitting
rather glum I thought ; but perhaps that was because she
didn't have her gentleman."

"Her gentleman?"

"My Lady was counting on Mr. Stafford "

There was a double cry.

"Mr. Stafford !" screamed Pamela and Mrs. Lafone to-
gether. Pamela dropped the hand she was slapping with
such good will, and Mrs. Lafone sat bolt upright.

"Did you say my Lady was expecting Mr. Stafford?"
asked Pamela. She was in such amazement she could not
give a thought to the patient's miraculous recovery.

"Well, and upon my word, and why should not my Lady
invite Mr. Stafford? What's took you? And as for you,
ma'am, if ever I see a lady come out of a swound, as you
have, sudden like this minute "

But the invalid interrupted, rising to her feet, clasping
her disheveled head with both hands and staring from one
to the other, as if she or they were mad.

"When was Mr. Stafford invited? What do you know

293

PAMELA POUNCE

about his having been expected? Heavens, woman, an-
swer me! 'Tis a matter of life and death for me."

"Mercy on us! Shall you be giving us the screaming
vapors next, ma'am? I happen to know — if you must
have it — that my Lady only heard of his presence in Wey-
mouth at seven of the clock this evening and nothing would
serve her but he must be sent to that instant minute."

"Take me to the balcony you spoke of," said Mrs. La-
fone in an extinct voice.

Her clothes were hanging off her back, as Lydia,
shockedly pointed out ; her hair was a sight for the crows ;
and my Lady had only given leave for her own woman
(though she wouldn't mind Pam). Lydia felt sure that
her Ladyship wouldn't, so to speak, care about people as
isn't asked to the supper party, spying on His Highness
in that common kind of way !

But Mrs. Lafone produced a gold piece with so much
promptitude, that her bodice was pinched together, her
mantle brought, and her still tottering steps guided to the
upper passage and to the gallery in a remarkably short
space of time. The balcony was filled with palms and
flowering plants. If any one had thought of looking up,
and chanced to see the narrow white face and fiery eyes
peering down at them, they might have thought some
witch had flown in on her broomstick to cast a baleful spell
upon the cheerful company.

The two Miss Pounces quite forgot their uncomfortable
companion in the thrilling interest of the scene. Lively
were the whispers they exchanged across the stem of a
stout tree fern.

"La, aunt, if that isn't Mr. Stafford down there, as
cool as a cucumber! Well, to be sure; ain't the world a
strange place ?"

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MORE INCOMPARABLE THAN EVER

"Cool he always was, as nobody knows better than me.
The way he on and off with that poor piece, Madame
Eglantine, when she kept a milliner's shop at Bath, and
proposing to my Lady all the while, and she, the rich
widow Bellairs. Well — cucumbers was not in it !"

Pamela Pounce was craning eagerly forward. Cer-
tainly to see Mr. Stafford in propria persona sitting
genially in the company of the Prince, the guest of my
Lady Kilcroney, after conspiring to humiliate and con-
found her, was the last development she had expected of
the night's drama.

That my Lord Kilcroney should be playing host to the
wife who had with contumely dismissed him was another
matter. Miss Pamela Pounce was by no means so amazed
to see him sitting at the supper table as Mrs. Lafone had
been to see him walk in.

"The little cat !" thought Pam. " 'Twas a real fit sure
enough and serve her right. She ain't succeeded this time
— though she came near enough to it — in separating the
elegantest couple in all society. What a good thing it is,
Pam, my girl" (she was fond of apostrophizing herself
thus), "that you ain't too squeamish to do a bit of spying
in season and listen outside doors."

"His Royal Highness is taking a glass of wine with
Mr. Stafford," whispered Lydia sibilantly in a prodigious
state of excitement.

Pamela felt an abrupt movement beside her and
glancing round, beheld Mrs. Lafone darting from the gal-
lery like a snake disturbed. The girl drew a long breath.
The air was easier to her lungs now that this miasma of
malice was removed from it.

His Royal Highness was most agreeably and flatter-
ingly inebriated at the end of Kitty's supper party. He

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PAMELA POUNCE

declared thickly that it had been a most delightful evening.
If he did not salute her cheek with his Royal lips as he
had saluted the Duchess of Hampshire's, he mumbled her
hand with repeated kisses. But Kitty's triumph was not
yet complete. Its culminating point was only reached
when she found herself with my Lord, back in the with-
drawing-room of her lodgings, accompanied on her express
invitation, by Mr. Stafford.

She flung off her wraps and standing in the middle of
the room, with rather a tearful smile held out a hand
to each.

"Denis, my love — Stafford, my old friend — we have each
of us, I dare say, things against each other to forgive and
forget, but for my part 'tis all done with already."

"Ah, my Lady Kilcroney ! Ah, Kitty !" cried the Beau,
moved out of his wont, and pressing the little hand against
his breast, before lifting it to his lips. "When I received
your note warning me of the ass I would be making of
myself in trying to get the better of you, I thought — dash
me, I thought — there's not a woman in the world to com-
pare with her for generosity and wit! And how in the
name of God, did you know, Kitty?" he cried, with a
change of tone. " 'Pon my soul, never tell me that piece,
Molly, betrayed me for an invitation?"

"By no means, sir, the invitation was sent to her — well !
as a little punishment. She came all agog to see my dis-
comfiture and Lydia, my woman, tells me she was so over-
set at the sight of His Highness that she swooned."

My Lord by this time had an arm about his wife's waist.

" 'Twas I told me wife," said he in his richest brogue,
"of your dastardly plot, me fine fellow."

"You?"

"Ah, meself and no other."

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MORE INCOMPARABLE THAN EVER

"But this is mystery upon mystery," said Mr. Stafford,
and he was really mystified.

"A little bird told me," said Kilcroney, wagging his
head.

Kitty interrupted laughing.

"Aye, and by the way, my Lord, ring the bell and send
Pompey for that very little bird. She must not go
unrewarded."

"She?" repeated Mr. Stafford. His eyebrows went up.
He was perhaps not altogether amazed to see Pamela
Pounce walk into the room.

"Come here, child," said my Lady and picked from her
bodice a pretty, sparkling brooch. "Wear this for my
sake in remembrance of to-night. As for me," her light
voice deepened, "I shall never forget your good sense and
courage. She guessed you were planning some mischief
with your charming sister-in-law, Mr. Stafford, sir, and
having to tie her bandboxes outside the door, she caught
some whispers of your little game."

"Oho 1" said Mr. Stafford.

"I listened," cried Pamela, with flaming cheeks, "and I
went straight to my Lord here and my Lord "

Here my Lord himself took up the tale, his lazy pleasant
voice creaming forth in contrast to the excited tones of
the young milliner.

"And, faith, bad husband as I am — troth, sure it's the
worst in the world — there was but one thing for me to do
and that was to protect me wife. So I went to His Royal
Highness and did a little bit of coaxing — not that he
needed much. God bless him, isn't he always ready to
condescend to be entertained? And I got him to promise,
easy enough, to come in to supper after his Royal Parents
had gone to bed. And then I wrote a line to my Lady and

297

PAMELA POUNCE

asked her permission to bring the Prince; and, by the
same token, I told her about your fine scheme of counter-
feit. Sure, I knew my Lady could be trusted to deal
with that !"

"Denis," said Kitty. "There was an infamous note I
sent you on pink paper. Have you got it about you?"

He gave her a grim look, inserted two fingers into his
waistcoat pocket and drew it forth.

"Give it back to me, my dear love."

"Why, I was thinking 'twouldn't be a bad token for me
to keep about me, lest I should be meeting some sorrowful
young creature that wanted comforting on a parade "

"Oh, my Lord, don't mock me!"

She twitched it from his hand and began to tear it into
a hundred shreds. Then, between laughing and crying,
she gathered in her turn a little note from her bosom.

" 'Tis you that are generous, 'tis you that are for-
giving, my Lord. How could I keep up petty malice, Mr.
Stafford, when my Denis had treated me so gallant? This
letter," cried Kitty, kissing it, "shall be my treasure till
I die."

CHAPTER XV

IN WHICH "THE MAD BEAT" TAKES THE BIT BETWEEN HER
TEETH, BUT MISS PAMELA POUNCE KEEPS HOLD OF THE

BEINS

first stage between Weymouth and London
A brought Miss Pamela Pounce to Blandford where
she intended to pass the night. She had spent an agree-
able and lucrative week at Weymouth, whither the pres-
ence of Royalty had brought a host of fashionables and
where it had been easy for her to dispose of all the modish
hats and heads, caps and toques which she had selected to
tempt holiday appetites.

With a light conscience and heavy pockets, therefore,
Pamela was setting off for London in finest spirits. She
had brought more than her usual zest to this journey, she
who always enjoyed traveling to the full; the movement,
the change of scene, the bustle at arrival and departure,
the choice of the night's lodging, the chance adventure,
the shifting company all stimulated, interested, delighted
her. She could take care of herself and had no fear, either
of the rare highwayman or of the intrusive gallant.

The "Rover" deposited its burden with a fine flourish of
horn and whip and clatter of hoofs, tick on time, in the
cobbled courtyard of the Crown Inn at Blandford.

Six of the clock had just been huskily beaten out behind
the great white dial that surmounted the celebrated sta-
bles. The jolly coachman turned half round in his seat
and winked at the gentleman in the many-caped roquelaure

299

PAMELA POUNCE

who had entertained him with such racy gossip for five
hours that day, and who had not failed, moreover, to sea-
son their conversation with a brimmer at every halt-
ing place.

"What do you think o' that for punctuality, my Lord ?"

Now "my Lord" was a mere fluke-shot at quality, but
for once it had hit the bull's-eye.

The traveler, descending with care from the coach (for
the last tankard had been tightly laced and required some
carrying) was nearly run into by a brisk young lady in a
gray riding coat and black satin hat, who exclaimed gen-
teelly : "To be sure, sir, I crave your pardon !" And then
cried : "My Lord Kilcroney, is it indeed you !"

"Why, 'tis never Miss Pounce !" exclaimed my Lord, sur-
veying her, as if the last thing wanting to his joviality had
now been granted him by Fate. And, indeed, not only was
Pamela Pounce vastly pleasing to look upon — she had
something of the firmness, the clear red-and-white and the
general appetizing appearance of a white-heart cherry —
but she was vastly agreeable company too, as he had
found out on more than one occasion. Added to which,
she had recently done him a very good turn with his lady,
as sometimes comes in the way of milliners and such like
who collect back-door gossip and exercise back-door influ-
ence. Withal, which certainly spoiled nothing, she was a
young person of merit : virtuous, responsible and discreet.
My Lord knew that she would take at their proper value
any little compliment or other expression of esteem, such
as the squeeze of a trim waist, an absent-minded clasp of
taper fingers, even a snatched kiss. He might get a box on
the ear ; he would never be treated either to outraged sensi-
bility, or — still more inconvenient contingency — an unde-
sired responsiveness.

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PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

He held Miss Pounce's hand and smiled down into her
bright face with something approaching enthusiasm.

"Split me, my dear, but this is a piece of good luck.
And I who thought I'd be all at my lonesome over — " he
stopped and sniffed. "What is it? — the beefsteak pud-
ding and the roast capons to-night. I invite you to sup-
per with me, Pamela. I sent my rascal ahead to bespeak
the little oak parlor on the garden, and "

"Thanking you kindly, my Lord," said Miss Pounce,
disengaging her hand and speaking with great firmness, "I
dine with no gentleman in the back parlor."

His merry face fell.

"How now so prudish?"

"Nay, my Lord, merely prudent. 'Tis as much as my
reputation is worth. The ladies wouldn't like it. No, nor
the landladies. The common room is best for a common
working girl like me."

"My dear," said Lord Kilcroney, " 'tis an uncommon
girl you are. You're in the right of it a thousand times.
Faith, my Lady would be ready to tear the wig from my
head if she heard of it !"

"And she'd tear my hats from hers and that would be
vastly the greater calamity of the two, forgive me for say-
ing so, my Lord."

"See here," said he, "I'll face the bagmen for the pleas-
ure of your conversation, for, odds my life, you've a
sparkle about you that's as good as champagne after the
clreary road! I'll tell them to lay your place beside mine
in the coffee room, and you'll season my supper to me with
that spicy tongue of yours."

Pamela said she was a poor girl, and she hoped she knew
her place, that my Lord was vastly condescending, and that
she'd have to take what seat was given her ; which remarks

301

PAMELA POUNCE

my Lord, rightly understanding to be an oblique accept-
ance, greeted with laughter and applause and went gayly
towards the inn after her, admiring her generous, well-knit
shape and taking off his hat with a mock flourish as she
modestly stood back to let him enter first.

The summer evening was warm, and the odors of viands
potent in the coffee room. The tables were crowded;
there was an immense buzz of voices, and clatter of knives
and forks, and a running to and fro of aproned drawers
and sturdy bare-armed wenches.

Pamela stood at the door and looked in discontentedly.
She was as little squeamish as any healthy young woman
of her class; she left "vapors" and "qualms" to her bet-
ters. But the long day had tired her, and there was my
Lord, with his wig askew and a couple of bottles before
him, and an air of having already done some justice to
them. It was all very well to have chosen the propriety of
the public room, but it might have its drawbacks. A poor
girl never knew what spiteful eyes might be watching. It
would do her no good if some loose tongue were to start a
bit of scandal about her: "Miss Pamela Pounce behaving
shameful with my Lord Kilcroney, as brazen as you like,
before everybody." It would always be, of course, the
poor girl who behaved shameful, never the half-tipsy noble-
man. Such is the way of the world.

"And as like as not," went on Pamela to herself — she
had a vivid and swift imagination, "the next thing will
be: 'They left Weymouth together. 'Twas a regular
elopement.' — No, thank you, Pamela, my girl. It ain't
good enough for us to sit next to my Lord in his cups, and
eat beefsteak pudding — a dish I never was partial to — on
a hot night — and lose my character to boot."

She whisked round and out through the luggage-piled

302

hall into the yard, where, by the gate which gave upon the
river meadow, she had marked a bench erected around an
old tree stump.

"I'll sit here," resolved Miss Pounce, suiting the action
to the thought. "And, by and by, when those creatures
have done gorging within, I'll have a little supper by my
own. Lord, how vastly more pleasant it is out here !"

She drew a long breath, inhaling the air, sweet with
the near fragrance of honeysuckle, and distant scents of
ripe corn. She clasped her hands on her knees — those
busy, clever hands which so seldom rested — gazed dream-
ily out upon the scene. It made a pleasant picture;
'the red-tiled roof of the stables was beginning to glow in
the warm evening light; the irregular outline of the old
Inn, already in shadow, was cut darkly against the limpid
blue of the sky; white and gray pigeons flitted lazily
hither and thither. From within the open stable doors
came peaceful sounds of munching jaws, rattling chains,
and now and again a stamping hoof. A fat tortoise-shell
cat sat licking herself on a window sill. There was not a
human creature in sight for the moment, and Miss Pounce
felt quite poetic.

But she was not destined to be indulged long in her
rare mood for solitude. There came a clatter of hoofs, a
hum of wheels along the dusty road. A high curricle
swung into the yard, at the raking trot of a tall chestnut,
driven by a reckless hand. It was drawn up with a splash
of protesting hoofs; and Pamela, suddenly pricked to
interest, beheld, springing unaided from the high perch,
the young lady whose erratic conduct had earned for her
the sobriquet of "the Mad Brat" — Lady Selina, who had
scandalized society, outraged her Royal patrons, alienated
her friends and positively stupefied her family a bare three

303

PAMELA POUNCE

months ago by eloping from the very back of the
Princess's chair at the Opera with a penniless, insignificant
officer of Marines of the name of Simpson. Lady Selina
Simpson's further career, though necessarily passed in
comparative obscurity, had done little to lessen the apt-
ness of the sobriquet. Much the contrary, indeed, and
Lieutenant Simpson being stationed at Weymouth, Lady
Selina had had an unexpected opportunity for a display of
eccentricity, which made both her elder sisters agree for
once that something must be done to put a stop to Selina's
goings on. "Under the very nose of the Royals, my dear,
she does it on purpose to discredit us." Even if "some-
thing" entailed the purchase for Lieutenant Simpson of
some post pleasantly remote in the Indies.

Here, then, was "the Mad Brat," as naughty and
modish as you please (Miss Pamela's professional eye was
quick to notice) ; wrapped to the ears in a military-looking
cloak of elegant blue, and hatted with as smart a little
beaver, also of military cock, as she, Pamela had ever seen
— and that was saying a great deal.

My young Lady Selina's curls were scarcely powdered,
and shone very golden under the evening light, set in flying
bunches, each side of her narrow, pretty, pale, impertinent
face. There was something in the expression of her coun-
tenance, attractive for all its willfulness, that made
Pamela's quick wits jump to a horrid conclusion — before
even she had clapped eyes on the driver of the curricle.

"Lord ! if ever I see the look of one bent on a desperate
course, I see it this minute !" thought the milliner, turning
the glance on Lady Selina's companion.

And there it was for you ! That black-a-vised gentle-
man, with the bushy black eyebrows and the small restless
black eyes beneath, with the blue chin and full, insolent

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PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

mouth — that was never young Simpson ! "Some elderly
rip, out of the poor lad's regiment !" diagnosed Pamela
rapidly, seeing the gold-lace glint. "And that is why my
young Madam is so monstrous military herself. If ever I
see an elopement ! "

And, indeed, the two had a flushed and conscious air,
defiant, suspicious.

"However you may try to brazen it out, your heart's as
heavy as lead, you poor silly thing," was the next conclu-
sion of the watcher. "As for you, you wicked wretch, you
are all ardors and whispers, all swollen with triumph, yet
you aren't a bit sure of her. There, now, I knew it — she
won't let you lead her in, with your arm about her waist ;
not even let you take her hand. She's no notion to have
you blazon her your conquest, for all the Inn company to
see. — Mercy on us, there's a toss of the head ! — Aye, and
here's a look for you, my fine gentleman ! No — I wouldn't
make too sure of her yet, if I were you !"

The sound of hoofs and wheels and of the clanging bell
had brought landlord and landlady to the doorway.
Pamela emerged slowly from her leafy retreat. She had a
mind to keep "the Mad Brat" under observation as long
as she could.

'Twas a mere child ! Pamela knew that she could scarce
have reached her twentieth year; and Pamela had once
herself been mighty near flinging away everything a
woman should hold dear, for a man's smile. She had been
saved, on the very edge of the precipice, by a sort of
miracle. And she often had shuddered, contemplating
the horrible depth of the chasm into which she had all but
fallen. Did she not now read on the young wife's face
something of the frantic recklessness that had once
moved her?

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PAMELA POUNCE

Besides which she had a pride in her sex which made it
personally grievous to her when a woman went wrong.
And lastly, she flattered herself she was a judge of char-
acter, and yonder military buck was a bad, dissipated,
selfish wretch, with no use for a woman but to break
her heart.

As she entered the hall, discreetly, in the wake of the
newcomers, she found Lady Selina in high wrangle with
her swain.

"And I say, I will have a post-chaise, Colonel Endacott !
And I protest your making a vast mistake! Pray, Mr.
Landlord, a bowl of broth and a glass of wine in a private
parlor — and a post-chaise, with a decent pair of horses,
in an hour. The gentleman will go to the coffee room.
Yes, sir — you will go to the coffee room. — Do I hear you
curse, sir? La! here is a charming thing, indeed!"

Suddenly her eye became fixed, she uttered an exclama-
tion in a high tone of surprise and excitement.

"Sir Jasper Standish — as I am a living woman !"

Pamela then perceived, standing in the doorway of the
coffee room, chewing a gold toothpick, no less a personage
than the dashing widower. He was surveying his whilom
betrothed and her illicit cavalier with a bantering, swag-
gering, insolent air in which there was more than a glint
of jealous anger.

As Lady Selina hailed him, he tripped forward. "Good
heavens," reflected the milliner, "I'd slap any man's face,
gentleman or no, who dared to look at me like that !"

Colonel Endacott, biting his full under lip, and blackly
scowling, seemed very much of this opinion ; but "the Mad
Brat" extended both hands :

"Sir Jasper! — well met! 'Tis a vast of pleasure for
me to greet an old friend. Why, here am I, on my road

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PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

to London — pray, Colonel Endacott, do you know Sir Jas-
per Standish? Gentlemen, let me introduce you: Colonel
Endacott — Sir Jasper Standish. — Hearing that I was
about to post to London, Colonel Endacott kindly offered
me a seat in his curricle. My husband's Colonel, Sir Jas-
per. The wife of a poor Lieutenant, it was no offer to de-
cline! Colonel Endacott, who is really all condescension
and good nature, Sir Jasper, had further been so obliging
as to offer me his escort for the whole way. But the mis-
chief is in it, we must part at the first stage! Colonel
Endacott will have it he must lie at Blandford and I am
equally determined to push on !"

Colonel Endacott ground his high-booted foot on the
flags of the hall, as though he would pulverize the volatile
lady who was so obviously making a mock of him.

"Why, my dear Lady Selina," cried Sir Jasper, in a
rich voice of victory, "let me then be your escort! Fie,
fie, you cannot think of traveling alone with a mere post-
boy for protection, and the roads so unsafe. I could not
think of allowing it ! So old a friend as I am may surely
be permitted the privilege, the honor, the duty "

"Pray, sir," interrupted Colonel Endacott, his tones
were husky with rage, "you misunderstand, I think. Lady
Selina Simpson is under my protection. It was entirely

for her sake " Here he cast a glance of mingled ardor

and fury upon "the Mad Brat" who tossed her head till
her ringlets danced, and hunched a shoulder on him in its
military cloak, with a taunting glance. " 'Twas but for
her sake," the harsh accents grew raucous, "that I sug-
gested the night's rest here. Lady Selina knows that she
had but to speak the word, and I am ready "

"Ah, not at all ! — pas du tout!" cried Lady Selina, who
had a French mother and certain inherited French ways

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PAMELA POUNCE

that added not a little to her provoking charm, "Monsieur
le Colonel has made such big eyes at me I am positively
frightened of him ! And my dear Mamma — do you know,
Sir Jasper, my dear widowed mother is at Wimbledon, and
I have half a mind to go see her there — Mamma would be
desolated if I were to travel under the escort of a gentle-
man who is not my husband. Since my Frederick is so
tied up in his military duty — yes, you cruel man, you saw
to that ! — But with Sir Jasper, Mamma knows Sir Jasper
so well ! Pray Mistress Landlady, bring me to a chamber
where I can wash the dust off my face. 'Tis vile traveling
in an open curricle. And you, Mr. Landlord, what of that
parlor and that broth? — How would it be, Sir Jasper, if
you were to join me over this slight refection? We could
discuss the journey."

Sir Jasper drew a long breath through dilated nostrils,
and bowed, the corners of his lips tilting upwards in a
smile of immense complacency. The landlady, who had
been staring at the young Madam with amazement and
disapproval, majestically led the way up the narrow
stairs, expressing by a tremulous shake of her lace-capped
head, and an occasional loud sniff, that such manners and
customs were not to be encouraged on her premises.

Pamela Pounce saw the look which Colonel Endacott
cast at the fatuously smirking Sir Jasper.

"There will be swords drawn over this, before my Lady
Selina has had time to dry that dusty face of hers !" she
thought. "And dear to goodness, I have it in my heart
to hope it may be Sir Jasper, for if not, it is out of the
frying pan into the fire with her, imp of mischief as she
is!"

Out of the frying pan into the fire it was. — Colonel
Endacott and Sir Jasper strolled, to all appearance very

308

PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

amicably together through the meadow gate, in the direc-
tion of a certain hazel copse by the riverside. In a very
short time, Sir Jasper reappeared, alone; and, strolling
back into the stable-yard of the Crown, directed, with the
most genteel coolness, that a couple of ostlers should take
a wheelbarrow and a chair, or maybe a hurdle, and carry
in his friend, who had had an accident to his leg, and would
be found, incapacitated, just beside yonder little copse.
It was not a matter of the least consequence, he assured
them — a mere sprain, a scratch, or something of the sort.

The ostlers grinned. He cast a gold piece among them
and passed on, treading jauntily, in quest of the parlor.

Miss Pounce, eating bread and butter and cold meats,
to a modest bowl of milk in the window seat of the now
nearly deserted coffee room, saw the gallant gentleman's
return, and understood.

" 'Tis the devil and all," she thought, "that my Lord
Kilcroney is so free with his bottle; he might be of use
here. If my Lady Selina thinks she can fling off Sir Jas-
per as easy as she has her Colonel, she is mighty mistaken.
Such a chance doesn't come a woman's way twice! Silly
child, and him with an old score to pay off — and their
starting off by night and all ! — why, what ails the creature,
to be up to such cantrips?" thought Pamela.

She bit into her bread and butter, and then flung the
slice away from her. "Well, drunk or sober, my Lord will
be better than nobody."

Upon this decision, Pamela shook the crumbs from her
skirt, set a hand on each hip, and holding her white chin
very high in the air, made a bee line for the snuggery
whence loud sounds of mirth proclaimed the presence of
convivial company.

Here she found my Lord, with a long clay pipe in one

309

PAMELA POUNCE

hand, and cool tankard in the other, hilariously setting the
tune to a roaring chorus consisting of a lumpish young
squire, an elderly naval officer, a land surveyor and the
local doctor. My Lord was more than exhilarated, as
Pamela saw at the first glance. He went on melodiously
chanting and beating time, while the others staring at the
handsome girl, fell dumb, and young Squire Pitt, all one
purple blush began bashfully to draw himself out of
his chair.

"My Lord — my Lord Kilcroney !" began Pamela with
an unwonted sense of discomfiture, "I crave a word apart
with your Lordship."

But before she could make her voice heard, she was un-
ceremoniously trust aside by Mr. Landlord himself.

"And, craving your pardon," he eluded, "this is no place
for young gals. — Dr. Dawson, sir, you're wanted."

A dark man in a scratch wig, with a long, bony face and
a restless protruding jaw, jumped up from his corner,
and came forward.

"What's happened?" quoth he, feeling about his pock-
ets with big knuckly hands that made Pamela shudder.

"Why, will you step outside, sir. Gentlemen hurt
through the leg."

"Odds my bones, I've left it at home! You'll have to
send little Jimmy for my instrument-case. What's hap-
pened, I say ?"

The landlord wagged his head slyly, pinching his lips
together, and made a thrusting gesture with his right fore-
finger; then he tapped the same finger on the side of his
rubicund nose.

The doctor gave a short laugh; and with a not alto-
gether steady step, suffered himself to be led down the
passage.

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PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

Lord Kilcroney imitated the double gesture with his
pipe-stem and sprang to his feet.

"Now, glory be to God !" said he, "if I had known there
was such a diversion on hand " Here he seemed sud-
denly to become aware that Miss Pounce's presence in the
snuggery portended something distinctly unusual. As
he stared at her with a flicker of returning acuteness in
his amiable eye, she seized the opportunity.

"For God's sake, my Lord, give me a moment apart !"

He lurched towards her, and she seized him by the lapel
of his coat ; again he looked at her ; caught perhaps some-
thing of the urgency of her spirit, and said, in altered
tones :

"Wait a minute, me girl, I'll just drain the tankard to
steady my head ; and I am with you."

She got him as far as the window seat in the coffee
room ; and then, casting a glance without, exclaimed :

"See for yourself. Turn your eye yonder, and see for
yourself."

Lord Kilcroney flung a bewildered gaze in the direction
of her pointing finger; opened his mouth, closed it again
and wiped his forehead.

"Jasper ! Jasper Standish and a lady, as I live ! What
the dev "

"Don't you know the lady, my Lord? See now, see now,
with the lamplight on her face. She is getting into the
chaise. Don't you recognize Lady Selina Simpson?"

"Se — Selina Simpson I" echoed he with a fine tipsy sibi-
lance. He let himself fall on the window seat, and gripped
his head in both hands. "Se — Selina?'*

" 'The Mad Brat,' my Lord ! Good God, we are too
late, the chaise is driving away ! — This will be fine hearing

311

PAMELA POUNCE

for my Lady Verney, and for your Lady's own dear friend,
Lady Anne!"

Lord Kilcroney dropped his hands and sat, with pro-
truding eyeballs, staring at Pamela. Then, his waistcoat
was shaken with a rumbling laugh ; and he made an uncer-
tain poke with his forefinger.

"And, is it poor Simpson, then, that's in the claws of
that old red raven of a doctor this minute? And my Lady
off with Jasper? D'ye know, it's a mons'ous joke! Oh,
Gad — Jasper was her first love !"

Pamela flung a single, searching look upon him. He was
muttering to himself, and laughing, winking and shaking
his head, the picture of affable inebriety.

"My Lord, my Lord, you must pull yourself together !
Lady Selina is not twenty yet. And him such a bold bad
man, as, indeed, you know, my Lord. 'Tis ruin, 'tis dis-
grace, for her, and that poor innocent lad, her husband!

"By the powers !" Kilcroney staggered to his feet.
"Jasper's a scoundrel! I'll not have it! — What, Nan
Day's little sister, mere child — monstrous ! Get me a
wet napkin, girl."

He plucked his wig from his head as she spoke, and
looked, Pamela thought, singularly boyish with his close-
cropped red poll exposed to view. Even as she hurried out
to summon the drawer, a brilliant idea struck her.

Colonel Endacott's curricle, and a fresh horse! With
anything of a roadster, so light a vehicle should easily
overtake the post-chaise ! 'Twas a plan of retributive jus-
tice which pleased Miss Pounce hugely.

What woman wills, God wills, is an adage invented by
some sycophantic admirer of the fair sex. Nevertheless,
there is no doubt that the world is apt to give way before
any one with determined purpose, and, if this any one

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PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

happens to be young, handsome and a woman, the odds are
overwhelmingly in her favor. Pamela ordered, cajoled,
reasoned, implored, bustled, taunted and threatened. She
made lavish yet judicious use of her Weymouth earnings;
and before the half-hour was out, found herself, high-
perched by the side of my Lord (a strange figure, with the
wet napkin still tied round his head), driving — as the
group of ostlers who watched him depart unanimously
declared with much admiration — like hell.

It was one of those summer nights when scarce a leaf
stirs ; there was not a cloud upon the sky which stretched
a wonderful amethyst blue, deepening to sapphire at the
zenith, and paling into translucent primrose to the west
where the last traces of the afterglow still lingered. There
would be a fine moon presently, had been the landlord's
parting words, as he respectfully deposited his Lordship's
wig, hat and pistol case in the curricle. The streets of the
sleepy little town were clatteringly left behind, the steep
hill surmounted, and then the Salisbury Road lay before
them straight and white across the gray mystery of
the downs.

Pamela thought it was the strangest night vision she
had ever beheld. The earth seemed as featureless as the
sky, the winds which had slept in the valley were lively
enough here, as if the earth were their playground. There
was a wonderful harvest smell, warm and wholesome, of
ripening apples and a full cornfield, in the air — a great,
mellow, sweet aroma from the fertile fields and farms that
lay below the downlands.

Pamela was not romantic, yet she could not but feel that
it was "as good as play-acting" to be hurled through the
summer night across this vast peaceful loneliness, by this

313

PAMELA POUNCE

same mad, kind, fantastic Irish lord whose odd adventures
were always the talk of the town.

"A stern chase is a long chase," observed the nobleman,
dexterously tipping the flanks of the big bay.

The horse bounded, and the curricle rocked; and
Pamela choked a scream. Over the crest of the down a
huge red moon began to show her face, swimming in a
curious misty incandescence. Pamela sucked in her breath
and her heart stirred sentimentally. If only the man of
her choice had been sitting beside her, how vastly she
would have enjoyed herself!

They swung through the shadows of a copse and out
into the open again. My Lord cast his napkin into the
road ; he begged Pamela to lend him a hand with his wig.
The black horse had fallen to a foot pace up the steep
incline, and my Lord, with returning sobriety, began ap-
parently to consider the kind of undertaking into which he
had plunged, and how to carry it through.

"We'll not," said he, gliding into speed again with the
care of the practiced whip, "overhaul them much before
Salisbury." Then the moonlight caught his face, showed
his quizzical smile, and the rueful questioning of his eyes,
as he went on: "And what the dickens am I to say when
we do? Split me, Miss Pounce, you've rushed me into a
pretty kettle of fish! Be jabers, what in the world is it
to me all said and done, that Jasper should be off with that
little lady?"

"Oh, fie, my Lord " began Pamela warmly. But he

interrupted her :

"Well, well, never fear, 'tis as good an excuse as another
for a bit of fun. Faith, didn't my Lady tell me the other
day, it was the regular old gentleman I was grow-
ing into !"

PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

He caught her absently by the waist, as he spoke, laugh-
ing as the vehicle swerved ; and Pamela found herself again
wishing for the company of the dark-browed slim young
gentleman to whom she had given her heart and who — Mr.
Jocelyn had such sensibility — would have understood the
really grave nature of this seemingly mad quest.

It was after two hours' steady chase, even as the road
•dipped from the downs into the valley, back again into the
cornfields — these had a marvelous silver and amber glow
in the moonlight — that they saw, half a furlong away,
the black bulk of a moving vehicle, and heard the double
clatter of leisurely trotting horses.

" 'Tis but another farm wagon," quoth my Lord.

"Nay," cried Pamela, "for I see the bobbing of the
postboy, plain as plain."

"Do you, indeed, my dear?" cried my Lord in exhila-
rated accents, handling the reins with a zest that sent the
horse forward with a great impetus. "You haven't dath-
ered your sight with the Crown's noted treble ale. Well,
if this isn't the fun of the world! I've stopped a coach
before, my dear — that in your ear — but split me, never
from a curricle, with a monstrous fine girl beside me!"

"I'm a farmer's daughter," she said, resolutely, "and
can manage a horse with any one. So I can take the reins,
my Lord, when you want your hands free."

" 'Pon me sowl !" ejaculated Kilcroney admiringly. But
he proceeded no further, for the black horse, gathering
speed, and excited by the clatter of rival hoofs, made a
dash forward, and my Lord with voice and cracking lash,
encouraged the canter to a gallop.

The postboy started from his jogging trance, looked
over his shoulder and hastily pulled to one side. The cur-

315

PAMELA POUNCE

ricle went by at a flash; my Lord never slackened speed
till they had reached the bottom of the hill and a bit
beyond.

"Now," said Kilcroney, as he maneuvered the curricle
right across the road, "now for the fun of the fair ! Just
put your lovely hand under the seat and see if you can lay
ahould of me pistols."

(My Lord's brogue became agreeably marked in mo-
ments of emotion.)

The black horse was dancing from hoof to hoof; the
curricle swayed rhythmically to his capers, and Pamela
felt, when her companion plucked the pistols from the case
she held open, as if every fiber of her being were dancing in
unison ; exhilaration, a sense of splendid adventure, a spice
of fear, and a delightful recklessness had hold of her. She
almost understood now how "the Mad Brat" could fling
everything to the winds for the mere taste of such a mo-
ment. Lord Kilcroney thrust the reins into her hands,
leaped lightly from his perch ; and he, too, seemed to dance
in the moonlight as he advanced towards the chaise*

The postboy had prudently pulled up at sight of the
obstacle in the road ; now, as the pistol barrels glinted in
the moonlight, he raised a dismal shout, and dived side-
ways off the fat gray haunches of his mount. The landlord
of the Crown had provided a stalwart plodding pair for
Lady Selina's post-chaise ; and these were content enough
to draw breath, craning their necks, snorting comfortably
down their nostrils, and shuddering in turn till the har-
ness rattled.

"How now !" cried an angry voice from the chaise, and
Sir Jasper's head emerged into the moonlight. "What's
the matter, rascal, scamp — Hallo, stap me !" this in quite

316

PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

another tone. "Why, the devil — 'tis a highwayman, a
footpad !"

Kilcroney, who had planted himself, with face con-
cealed by his extended arm, chanted in the most musical
tones he could muster:

"Stand and deliver !" Then, breaking into laughter, he
disclosed his countenance, with a fine flourish of his man-
tons; "Stand and deliver," he repeated. "Jasper, stand
and deliver your stolen goods !"

There was a faint cry within the chaise, altogether lost
in the round volley of oaths from Sir Jasper. He con-
signed Kilcroney's soul to perdition and his body to cor-
ruption, with explicitness and repetition, and commanded
the postboy to remount and carry on, if he did not wish
to be flayed alive. But the sagacious youth was appar-
ently swallowed in the darkness.

Presently Kilcroney's shouts of laughter were echoed in
silver titters both from the chaise and the curricle. These
sounds goaded the baronet to madness. "Poor Jasper!"
(Kilcroney afterwards related.) "He was foaming like a
tankard of porter, and was almost as black in the face, by
Jingo, when he lepped from the chaise and at me. Troth,
he had his sword out, and sure the next moment he would
have let the moonlight through me, hadn't my little lady in
the chaise caught him by the skirts of his coat ! It was the
grand slap he came on the flint of the road — aye and the
grand escape I had of it entirely ! 'Up with you, me boy,
and we'll have it out like gentlemen,' cries I, and by the
time he got up again I was ready for him, as pretty as
Angelo, with the barkers back in my pocket and my little
bodkin taking the air in my hand."

It was not the first time that my Lord Kilcroney and
Sir Jasper had crossed blades. Indeed, Kilcroney's mer-

317

PAMELA POUNCE

curial temperament and Sir Jasper's inflammably jealous
one had come into collision more than once. In the last
encounter the Irishman had had the worst of it, but to-
night, whatever disability the day's potations might have
caused him was more than counterbalanced by the blind
rage which possessed the baronet as he fell to his guard.
Perhaps Sir Jasper had been already in none too good
a temper when the novel highwayman had arrested him in
the full course of elopement; certainly the countenance
with which his Helen watched the encounter from the
chaise window, displayed more entertainment than anxiety.
In fact when Sir Jasper, receiving a neat thrust through
his sword arm, fell back with a curse and a groan, it was
Pamela who cried out in alarm, while Lady Selina shrilly
laughed and clapped her hands.

An odd little procession towards midnight, roused the
slumbers of the Mitre Inn at Salisbury, with peremptory
summons: Two ladies in a post-chaise, escorted by two
gentlemen in a curricle. The ladies seemed to be in high
dudgeon with each other. The gentlemen very friendly.
Indeed, the younger and better-looking of the two ( though
both were personable men) was distinctly assiduous in his
attention to the other who had (as the landlord was duly
informed) met with a nasty accident through the over-
turning of the curricle at a sharp corner, which robbed
him of the use of his right arm.

The postboy had a curious tale to tell over a restoring
mug of ale. But so scared and bewildered did he appear ;
so monstrous a jumble did he make of highwaymen and
duels, that the landlord, who was a sensible man, diagnosed
pure coward's flimflams and promptly dismissed him to
his straw.

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PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

Pamela slept late. She had been allotted the dressing-
room of the superior bedchamber which she had herself
claimed for Lady Selina. Her last thought, as she snug-
gled down in the feather bed, had been : "I've got her safe,
the little fool 1" and the first that bore into her conscious-
ness in the morning was the same comforting reflection:
"I've got her safe."

Angry words had passed between the two women in the
chaise last night. Though Pamela had been unable to
make head or tail of the arguments produced by "the Mad
Brat" to justify her conduct, every word had revealed a
childish inconsequence.

"One would say," thought the milliner, as she lay, re-
flecting on her impressions, "that the silly chit had laid
some wager, or was pretending to be wicked for the mere
show off of the thing. For, if ever I saw a gentleman set
down it was Sir Jasper last night ! In my opinion he was
mortal glad to be out of it at the price. Never saw him so
loving with my Lord ! And, as for her, she looked at him
like a wildcat, as she passed him by, on the way to
her room !"

Pamela sat on the edge of her bed, yawned and gazed at
the door which separated her from Lady Selina's apart-
ment, congratulating herself that, so old-fashioned was
the hostelry, there was no other issue. But, as she looked,
the smile faded from her face. The door was not quite
closed! She remembered very well, how my Lady Selina
had banged and bolted it last night; intimating thereby,
better than by any speech, what she thought of the intru-
sive proximity of the milliner.

"It's not possible " On the spur of suspicion,

Pamela was out of bed and into the next room at a spring.
Sunshine was pouring in between the open shutters ; the

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PAMELA POUNCE

great four-post bed was empty. There was no trace of
the fair delinquent, save a long gauntleted glove on
the floor.

"Well, of all — of all the minxes!" Miss Pounce
pivoted on herself. "Pamela, my girl, you're fooled !
And you such a light sleeper, to think you should have
slept so deep and let the bird fly !"

She ran back to her room and after ringing the bell
violently proceeded like a hurricane to her toilet. Cold
water and yellow soap were good enough for her any day.
The service at the Mitre seemed scarce like to add to its
reputation. Miss Pounce was well advanced, indeed, she
had reached the stage of buttoning her trim figure into the
gray riding coat, before her repeated attacks on the bell-
pull produced a panting housemaid.

"Oh, please, Miss," began this damsel volubly, "was you
ringing? I was kept by the gentlemen in Blue Parrot,
helping the gentleman to bind the other gentleman's arm,
what hurt himself. And that there postboy was not so
far out, for if ever I see a sword cut "

Pamela interrupted with an ejaculation of relief.

"Sir Jasper is still in the Inn, then? And my Lord too?"

"Aye, Miss "

"And the lady?"

"The lady's been gone this hour, Miss. Oh, aye, she
went off with the other gentleman "

"What !" shrieked Pamela.

"Oh, aye, Miss! The handsome dark gentleman what
traveled all the way from London to meet her. Last
night, when he came riding in, Missis and all of us agreed,
we never saw a handsomer gentleman. 'I expect,' says he,
'a lady by coach from Weymouth.' ' She stopped to
stare: "Ben't you well, Miss?"

320

PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

Pamela had fallen into a chair. A cold and pricking
fear had laid hold of her. There are premonitions of the
heart which outleap any perception of the wits.
"His name, his name!" she gasped.
"Lud, now !" The girl clacked her tongue. "I did hear

her call him "

Stay !" cried Pamela. "Was it Bellairs?"

"Lud, Miss," cried the girl, "however did you know?"
"Because," said Miss Pounce sternly, "I am the lady he
came to meet."

With the same deadly composure, she ordered a post-
chaise, and started once again in pursuit. This time she
would have no man's help. She would go alone. "What
business is it of yours?" had cried Lady Selina insolently
last night. And she had answered, "It's every true
woman's business to keep another straight if she can."
But, now here was no altruistic interference; here love and
life were at stake for her. Here was her own business and
nobody else's, with a vengeance!

Gone this hour! Well — she would overtake them at
Basingstoke where they must halt of a certainty.

Pamela had had, in a little purse apart, twenty golden
guineas, her own profit in the successful week's transac-
tions in modes at Weymouth. She had meant to add them
to the comfortable nest of savings which were to facilitate
her marriage with her charming spendthrift. Now the
shining company in the green silk meshes had already
dwindled ; and at every five miles or so, Pamela would draw
forth a coin and, thrusting her pretty head out of the
window, would hail the postboy and hold it up to his sight.

"Another goldfinch for you, my lad, if you mend
your speed !"

321

PAMELA POUNCE

By the time they reached Basingstoke there were four
sovereigns for the youth; and if he was sweating, it was
nothing to what the horses were doing. They dripped
and trembled and steamed, foam-flecked from mane to tail.
Pamela's green purse was considerably lighter ; but it had
been worth it. The fat dappled grays which had trotted
off with my Lady Selina and Mr. Bellairs that morning
were even now being led out of the shafts. A comfortable
trot they had come at, to judge by their untroubled ap-
pearance.

"Yes, Miss," said the formidable-looking landlady who
ruled at the Angel, Basingstoke, and who, no doubt, found
a distinct growth of beard and a bass voice as useful to
her if not more than the support of any man, "a lady and
a gentleman are partaking of refreshment in the parlor.
And what might you be wanting with them?"

Her eye, small and fierce as a wild boar's, appraised
the new guest up and down.

Pamela saw that traveling alone she was suspected ; she
had an inspiration.

"I am Lady Selina's own woman," she said pertly.
"Her Ladyship expects me. Kindly direct me."

She had seen too many lady's maids, not to be able to
play the part : she was now the fashionable Abigail to the
life ; plausible, supple, sure of herself ; her gaze was chal-
lenging; her air deferential yet on the verge of insolence.

The bearded landlady shrugged her shoulders, and told
the drawer to bring Miss into Britannia.

"You needn't knock, young man, I will announce my-
self," said Pamela. She tapped discreetly with her nails
on the panel just beneath the painted figure with the
trident; then, without waiting for a reply, opened the
door.

322

In one swift glance she took in the scene : the Mad Brat
did not seem to be getting on any better with Mr. Bellairs
than she had with either her Colonel or her baronet. She
was seated, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hand.
With frowning brows, a fixed and angry stare, flushed
cheeks and pouting lips, she was the image of "Beauty in
a rage." Mr. Bellairs was pacing the room, with his
hands behind his back; and he, too, the very incarnation
of bad temper.

The milliner did not give herself time to reflect whether
the obvious tension betokened good or evil for her. She
had to act.

"If you please, my Lady," she said, advancing as if she
had been indeed what she represented herself, "you have
forgotten your glove."

"Good heavens!" cried Mr. Bellairs. "Pamela!"

He wheeled in his walk to turn upon the newcomer a
countenance marked with the oddest mixture of discom-
fiture, amusement, and wrath.

Lady Selina merely cast a glance from the glove which
Pamela laid before her, to the girl's face and lifted her
eyebrows. She had passed from anger to insolence.
Pamela itched to box her ears.

"I assure you, my dear," protested Mr. Bellairs in an
ill-assured voice, "that / have forgotten nothing."

Pamela understood well enough the intention of the
speech; she smiled scornfully. And, when Lady Selina,
just rolling her eyes in his direction, dropped the words:
"Except your manners, sir," she felt certain the rebuke
had been well deserved.

Indeed, now that she came to look at him more closely,
she saw a red patch on the olive of his cheek, and guessed
the offense which had called for such a buffet. Oh ! she

323

PAMELA POUNCE

knew the ways of men ; and, to her philosophy, the gentle-
man who, thrust into such a position as Mr. Bellairs,
should have failed to take advantage of it, would have
been little less than a milksop. Nevertheless, there had
been defection. It was her, Pamela, whom he had come
to meet — Pamela, his affianced, to whom, because of the
very difference in their stations, he owed more delicacy of
attention than if she had been his equal. And he had let
himself be whisked away by the first wanton who lifted a
beckoning finger ! Serves her right if he had kissed, and
serves him right if she had slapped! Oh! she knew the
ways of men. But — the ways of "the Mad Brat" were still
an enigma to her. What was this piece of mischief about?
As if to answer the perplexed thought, Lady Selina sud-
denly spoke:

" 'Tis positive sickening to think that there is not a
gentleman of the lot who would give a lady his protection
as far as town, without thrusting his odious attentions
on her!"

"But my dear good creature "

"I'm not your dear good creature, sir!" Lady Selina
sprang to her feet and burst into a sudden passion of
tears. "Was ever any one," she cried, "so plagued, so
persecuted, so distracted, so unhappy, so — so abandoned?"

Pamela again felt an overwhelming conviction that here
was one merely as naughty and as innocent as a child.

"Oh, my dear !" she exclaimed, and caught her, forcibly,
into her own strong warm arms. There was more than
a touch of the mother in Pamela ; she never could bear to
leave suffering uncomforted. "Why in the name of God,
did you leave your own husband?"

"The Mad Brat" screamed as if the last word had been
a blow.

324

PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

"Oh, oh, my Fred !"

Pamela cast a look over the bride's shoulder at Mr.
Bellairs.

"There, sir!" she said severely, "there's for you and
your vanity ! For you, and the others, who are so ready
to think that any lady who so much as smiles on you is
mad in love with you ! — And all the while you're but the
cat's-paw of her jealousy !"

"Pamela !" cried Jocelyn Bellairs. He had been stand-
ing, very ill at ease, struggling with the variety of his
emotions. He now broke into laughter which had yet
something of wrath in it. "I've been a confounded fool!
And I swear you are an angel ! — Oh, confusion ! I can't
bear to hear a woman cry. But I must say Joseph him-
self would have been tempted by that little devil, this
morning !"

"Hush!" cried the milliner, rocking the weeping Selina
as if she were a baby, but shooting another glance at
Mr. Bellairs which, after all, held more indulgence than
resentment. "Hush, sir! Leave me with her Ladyship.
Go refresh yourself with a tankard of cool ale after your
dusty drive — and send the landlady hither with the
hartshorn."

If Mr. Bellairs had thought highly of Pamela before,
he now told himself she was the pattern of true women.
He paused but to kiss the firm, capable, white hand she
extended to him ; and then hastily closed the door between
himself and those distressing vapors.

"Now, my dear," coaxed Pamela, "I see how it is.
You've had a quarrel with that elegant young officer of
yours. You've had a quarrel, and you went off in a huff
with that dark, bad, old Colonel "

Lady Selina shuddered, and stamped her foot; and

325

PAMELA POUNCE

inarticulately declared that if she'd had a dagger to her
hand, she'd have stabbed him.

"Well, Sir Jasper's done it for you, very neat, in the
leg."

Selina interrupted with another scream.

"Sir Jasper? Why, he was worse! Oh, how glad I
was to see my Lord Kilcroney run him through !"

"I'm sure," said Pamela, a little dryly, "it is a mercy,
my Lady, I came alone after you and Mr. Bellairs ! Mr.
Bellairs is engaged to me, my Lady, and I don't seem to
fancy a hole in him."

Lady Selina was too much absorbed in her own grief to
have a thought to spare for any such trifles. She fell
again into her chair, cast her arms upon the table and
buried her face on them, wailing, in an extravagance of
despair, that her Fred would never forgive her and that
there was nothing left for her but death.

"Why, there's no harm done," Pamela briskly consoled.
"I*m ready to vouch for you that you've traveled with

me, and slept with me " she broke off. Her quick ear

had caught the sound of certain well-known accents in the
courtyard without.

"Glory be to God !" my Lord was saying, in his richest
brogue. "Will any one catch me that young gentleman
by the leg? He's not safe to be loose. Trip him up, I
tell you, or there'll be murder done ! Come back, Simpson,
you omadhaun!"

Pamela made a spring for the door; she had said that
she would not have a hole made in her Jocelyn: heaven
knew what catastrophe might not ensue, were she not on
the spot to prevent mischief with Bellairs, apt as tinder,
and this young Simpson in his fury! She went like the
wind down the passage, and across the bar, towards that

326

PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

spot in the courtyard whence arose sounds of struggle
and fierce objurgation.

She found a slim young gentleman in uniform, locked
in the embrace Lord Kilcroney. My Lord was laugh-
ing so considerably that it threatened to invalidate his
grip. The young officer's countenance shocked Pamela,
so disfigured was it by rage and jealousy.

Even as she approached he wrenched himself free and,
leaping forward, all but knocked her down in his blind
rush. Pamela's body, however, was as well-balanced as
her mind ; she propped herself against the Inn porch and
caught the outraged young husband vigorously by the
arm. — It was her words that really arrested him.

"You are looking for Lady Selina, Mr. Simpson, sir;
for your wife? She is waiting for you in the parlor."

He stared at her, his lips moving, his eyes starting, his
whole begrimed, unshorn, exhausted countenance stamped
with a wildness of despair.

"Yes, sir," Pamela slipped her firm clasp down to his
shaky ice-cold hand; her voice was as soothing as her
touch: "Yes, sir, her Ladyship and I we came here to-
gether. Her Ladyship was good enough to accept my ser-
vices on the road. I'm traveling back to business from
Weymouth, it fitted in nicely. And Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs,
coming to meet me at Salisbury — he and I being an en-
gaged couple, if you will forgive my being so personal —
that fitted in very nicely too, for he escorted us — Your
Lady's very young to be traveling alone, sir "

Pamela knew that there is no better defense for the
guilty than to reproach the innocent.

"There now, me boy," cried Kilcroney, taking up the
cue, "didn't I tell you it was the wrong scent you were
after, altogether? Hadn't ye me word for it that Colonel

327

PAMELA POUNCE

Endacott and Jasper had fixed up that little meeting at
Blandford, ever since the night of my Lady Kilcroney's
rout at Weymouth? And sure, when my Lady Selina
walked in to the Crown Inn, wasn't Miss Pounce behind
her? Miss Pounce will swear to that. And I'll lay you
me oath that she's speaking truth, since it's the one coach
load of it we all were."

But whether or no these assurances and plausibilities
might have proved convincing to the inflamed brain of
the injured husband, they were doomed to failure by the
action of "the Mad Brat" herself.

This impetuous young woman suddenly hurled herself
into their midst and upon her husband's breast; tears,
kisses, passionate confession pouring from her.

"Oh, Fred, Fred, darling ! — Oh, my one and only love —
I tried to run away from you and I couldn't! Fred, my
angel, it was all that cruel thing — that cruel thing you
said. Oh, Fred, you do remember?" She shook him.
"You know you said that you did not think any other
man would be such a f — f — fool — yes, you did — you said
no other man would be such a f — fool as to run away
with me !"

My Lord Kilcroney, with his Lady, and the other friends
interested in the erratic young couple, were all agreed that
"the Mad Brat" was well matched in her spouse. For
of all the hot-headed, light-witted, frantic fellows — these
were my Lord's own words — he had ever had to deal with,
Lieutenant Fred Simpson of the Marines was the "jewel of
the lot" ! The united efforts of himself, Squire Day, and
Lord Verney, were ultimately successful, however, in pre-
venting the series of duels which Master Fred at first
seemed bent on bringing about. Even Lord Kilcroney did

328

PAMELA HOLDS THE REINS

not escape a challenge ; but on his representing his services
on the Salisbury Road, the affair had to end in a laugh.
Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs on Pamela's prompting made a very
frank and full apology, couched in language so admirably
chosen, that even the young Othello had to be satisfied
with it.

"I confess," he said, "that I was led away, Mr. Simpson.
I confess that I lost my head (and very nearly my heart).
But ask yourself, whether, in such company, an angel
from heaven might not have succumbed?"

Providence itself intervened in the matter of Colonel
Endacott, for this gentleman's wound, whether owing to
original distemper in the blood, or to the ministrations
of Dr. Dawson, became so inflamed that it was held as
more than doubtful whether that gallant officer would ever
walk again. He was invalided out of the regiment, thereby
providing at least one step for Mr. Simpson.

There only remained Sir Jasper — no easy personage to
deal with, as my Lord knew from long experience. But
by the time the baronet's sword arm had healed, an excel-
lent post abroad had been obtained for Mr. Simpson ; and
to the infinite relief of all her relations, "the Mad Brat"
and her spouse carried their bickerings and reconciliations
to another clime.

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH MY LADY KLLCRONEY HAS THE LAST WORD

THE best tempered of women are apt to be a trifle
peevish after a wedding, especially if they are re-
sponsible for the event and have had most of the trouble
of the bridal preparations.

My Lady Kilcroney had had two reasons for patronizing
the marriage between Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs and Miss
Pamela Pounce.

In the first place, she flattered herself that she had made
it. It pleased her sense of rectitude to know that it was
an heroic decision. Jocelyn, the rascal, had gone too far,
and Pamela was a first-class good girl. 'Twas but
justice.

Then, my Lady Kilcroney was a woman of the world,
to her finger tips. The alliance, which she could not have
prevented if she would, was a strange, foolish, unequal
business. To silence ill-natured gossip and the malicious
tattle of dear, intimate enemies, there was nothing for it
but for her to take a firm stand of championship. 'Twas
the only attitude to insure respect, from Royalty down-
wards. To tell the truth, Kitty was getting a bit sick
of Royalty, and would not have cared had she followed
my Lady Flo's example; but not upon this crisis. She
knew how to take the Queen by this time, not being a born
fool ; and indeed, had emerged more triumphantly than
ever from a situation which might have lost her her place
at Court.

"I thought of you, ma'am," she had said, turning up her

330

THE LAST WORD

eyes, "how you would have wished me to act, you that
sets virtue before everything."

If the Queen had gathered a lower opinion of Pamela
Pounce's moral stamina from the interview than was justi-
fied by facts, she had gained a vastly higher one of my
Lady Kilcroney's. So the incident was closed to Kitty's
advantage.

And now Pamela was wed, and my Lady Kilcroney had
made quite a droll, pretty feast of it.

Farmer Pounce, in blue cloth and brass buttons, Mrs.
Pounce in a lovely new bonnet trimmed for the occasion
by her daughter, followed by a rosy progeny, had been
really such honest, simple dears that Kitty quite loved
them; and Pamela (sensible, excellent creature that she
was, who had chosen to be married in a snowy muslin and
a white chip) had looked so sweet and wholesome and
happy and withal remained so respectfully in her place,
was so pleasantly unassuming, that my Lady very genu-
inely considered old Bellairs' nephew to be more lucky than
he deserved.

She had convened her special circle to witness the cere-
mony, which was performed in her own drawing-room at
Hertford Street ; not omitting Mistress Lafone, for Kitty
would not put it into the minx's power to say that she
was afraid of her tongue.

There was a brisk passage between these two ladies,
out of which Kitty, she flattered herself, emerged vic-
torious.

"Dear, to be sure," had said Molly, with her most tart,
sweet air, "how monstrous strange it will be to be order-
ing hats from your own niece, my Lady Kilcroney !"

And my Lady had responded: she trusted to Heaven

331

PAMELA POUNCE

that Pamela would be more particular than ever, now,
whom she served.

Madame Mirabel had had the good sense to excuse her-
self on the ground of age and infirmity; a piece of tact
which, coupled with the handsome present she bestowed
on her esteemed partner, was as clever a stroke of business
as the astute old lady had ever contrived.

Miss Clara Smithson and Miss Polly Popple, on the
other hand, who were, as the whole of the Bond Street es-
tablishment knew, that devoted to their dear, darling Miss
Pounce that they were as glad of her happiness in the
depths of their feeling hearts as if it had been their own,
could not of course be omitted from the list of guests;
and indeed it may be said that Lydia's only consolation
on a day, which was otherwise unmitigatedly displeasing
to her, was the opportunity which the presence of these
females gave her of discharging her bosom of some of its
accumulated gall.

When all her company had departed, my Lady owned
that she was tired, and Lydia was very plainly given to
understand that she must not presume upon a relation-
ship which was, to say the least of it, ridiculous.

Lydia had made herself far finer than the bride, and
Kitty thought it prodigious bad taste in her to be so
ruffled and flounced and panniered.

"And the shade of lavender you've chosen, Lydia, posi-
tive sets my teeth on edge, and I should have thought
you'd have known better than to rouge yourself up, till
any one would take my own woman for an actress and a
low one at that."

"Well, then, I'm sure, your Ladyship," retorted Lydia
with spirit, "not having any acquaintance with such fe-
males, save your Ladyship's own dear friend, my Lady

332

THE LAST WORD

Mandeville (who would have looked better for a bit of
color to-day), it wouldn't become me to set myself up
against your Ladyship's opinion in the matter; but con-
sidering the practice I've had on your Ladyship it's to
be hoped I'd know how to put on the rouge, if I don't
show it off, as well as your Ladyship, not being so full
in the face. And I'm sorry your Ladyship ain't satisfied
with the hue of my gown, it being one of her own presents
to me, Christmas five years that was. And indeed," went
on Lydia, "I never could abide it myself, but since it was
when your Ladyship went sudden out of mourning for old
Mr. Bellairs, and she didn't know what to do with the
eight yards of taffety, I couldn't be so disobliging as not
to make the best of them. And indeed, considering the
occasion to-day I thought they fitted in uncommon apt."

"Dear to be sure!" cried Kitty, sinking into a chair,
"what a tongue you have! 'Tis to be hoped it isn't a
family failing or else my poor dear Bellairs' nephew,
the last of his name, will have a sad time of it."

"Dear to be sure !" echoed Lydia, with frightful acri-
mony, "I could find it in my heart to pity that pore young
gentleman myself. No one can ever say I wanted that
there owdacious marriage" (which was certainly true.
Lydia would infinitely have preferred to see her niece
bloom unplucked on her maiden stem). "Of all the un-
pleasant situations, I says, him to have a wife a milliner
as is born to another class, and spend his days, torn, so
to speak, between the high and the low. He'll never make
a fine lady of Pamela, what's a work-woman in the bone,
and he can't," pursued Lydia, moved by her own eloquence
almost to tears, "strip his own gentility off of himself
like a coat and sit as it were in his shirt-sleeves, common,
for the rest of his life."

333

PAMELA POUNCE

Seeing angry retort leaping in her mistress's eye, Lydia
proceeded in a great hurry, to get out the next most dis-
agreeable remark she could think of: "And as to him
being the last of his name, your Ladyship can't go count-
ing on that. Mrs. Jocelyn Bellairs," Lydia tittered, "will
have a long family like her mother before her, and before
we know where we are we'll have little Bellairses a-running
about all over the place like spiders "

She broke off. Intimately acquainted with her mistress
as she was, there were sides to her character which Miss
Lydia Pounce had as yet failed to grasp. She had
thought to pay out my Lady for her odious unkindness,
but her shaft had singularly missed the mark. All the
ill-humor vanished from Kitty Kilcroney's charming coun-
tenance. She clasped her hands with a genuine cry of
delight.

"Why, Lydia, I'll be godmother to the first girl, I will
indeed! It ought to be a charming creature, they so
handsome and so happy ! I'll be godmother, and 'twill be
a vast of pleasure to me, child, to think there'll be another
Kitty Bellairs !"

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