LITMIR.BIZ

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of art?"

      "Very," said Mr. Adelstone. "May I look round?"

      The old man waved his hand, and took up his brush.

      Jasper Adelstone wandered round the room, taking up the canvases and examining them; Stella stood at the window humming softly.

      Suddenly she heard him utter an involuntary exclamation, and turning round saw that he had the portrait of Lord Leycester in his hand.

      His face was turned toward her, and as she turned quickly, he was in time to catch a sinister frown of dislike, which rested for a moment on his face, but vanished as he raised his eyes and met hers.

      "Lord Leycester," he said, with a smile and an uprising of the eyebrows. "A remarkable instance of an artist's power."

      "What do you mean?" asked Stella, quietly, but with lowered eyes.

      "I mean that it is a fair example of ideality. Mr. Etheridge has painted a likeness of Lord Leycester, and added an ideal poetry of his own."

      "You mean that it is not like him?" she said.

      Mr. Etheridge painted on, deaf to both of them.

      "No," he said, looking at the picture with a cold smile. "It is like him, but it – honors him. It endows him with a poetry which he does not possess."

      "You know him?" said Stella.

      "Who does not?" he answered, and his thin lips curled with a smiling sneer.

      A faint color came into Stella's face, and she raised her eyes for a moment.

      "What do you mean?"

      "I mean that Lord Leycester has made himself too famous – I was going to say infamous – "

      A vivid crimson rushed to her face, and left it pale again the next instant.

      "Do not," she said, then added quickly, "I mean do not forget that he is not here to defend himself."

      He looked at her with a sinister scrutiny.

      "I beg your pardon. I did not know he was a friend of yours," he said.

      She raised her eyes and looked at him steadily.

      "Lord Leycester is no friend of mine," she said, quietly.

      "I am glad of it," he responded.

      Stella's eyes darkened and deepened in a way peculiar to her, and her color came. It was true that Lord Leycester was no friend of hers, she had but seen and spoken with him by chance, and for a few moments; but who was this Mr. Adelstone that he should presume to be glad or sorry on her account?

      He was quick to see that he had made a slip, and quick to recover himself.

      "Pray forgive me if I have presumed too far upon our slight acquaintance, but I was only thinking at that moment that you had been so short a time in England as to be ignorant of people who are well known to us with whom they have lived, and that you would not know Lord Leycester's real character."

      Stella inclined her head gravely. Something within her stirred her to take up arms in the absent man's defense; the one word "infamous," stuck and rankled in her mind.

      "You said that Lord Leycester was 'infamous,'" she said, with a grave smile. "Surely that is too strong a word."

      He thought a moment, his eyes resting on her face keenly.

      "Perhaps, but I am not sure. I certainly used it as a play upon the word 'famous,' but I don't think even then that I did him an injustice. A man whose name is known all over the country – whose name is familiar as a household word – must be notorious either for good or evil, for wisdom or folly. Lord Leycester is not famous for virtue or wisdom. I cannot say any more."

      Stella turned aside, a faint crimson dyeing her face, a strange thrill of pity, ay, and of impatience, at her heart. Why should he be so wicked, so mad and reckless – so notorious that even this self-satisfied young gentleman could safely moralize about him and warn her against making his acquaintance! "Oh, the pity of it – the pity of it!" as Shakespeare has it – that one with such a beautiful, god-look face, should be so bad.

      There was a few moments' silence. Jasper Adelstone still stood with the picture in his hand, but glancing at Stella's face with covert watchfulness. For all his outward calmness, his heart was beating quickly. Stella's was the sort of beauty to make a man's heart beat quickly, or not at all; those who came to offer at her shrine would offer no half-measured oblations. As he watched her his heart beat wildly, and his small, bright eyes glittered. He had thought her beautiful at the party last night, where she had outshone all the other girls of the village as a star outshines a rushlight; but this morning her loveliness revealed itself in all its fresh purity, and he – Jasper Adelstone, the critical man of the world, the man whose opinion about women was looked upon by his companions in Lincoln's-inn and the bachelors' haunts at the West-end as worth having – felt his heart slipping from him. He put the picture down and approached her.

      "You have no idea how beautiful and fresh the meadows are. Will you stroll down to the river with me?" he said, resolving to take her by surprise and capture her.

      But he did not know Stella. She was only a school-girl – innocent and ignorant of the ways of men and the world; but, perhaps, because of that – because she had not learnt the usual hackneyed words of evasion – the ordinary elementary tactics of flirtation, she was not to be taken by surprise.

      With a smile she turned her eyes upon him and shook her head.

      "Thank you; no, that is impossible. I have all my household duties to perform, and that" – pointing to the sun with her white slim hand – "reminds me that it is time I set about them."

      He took up his hat instantly, turning to hide the frown that knitted his brow and spoiled his face, and went up to the painter to say "good-morning."

      Mr. Etheridge started and stared at him; he had quite forgotten his presence.

      "Good-morning, good-morning – going? I beg your pardon. Won't you stop and take some tea with us?"

      "Mr. Adelstone would like some dinner first, uncle," said Stella.

      Then she gave him her hand.

      "Good-morning," she said, "and thank you very much for the flowers."

      He held her hand as long as he dared, then passed out.

      Stella, perhaps unconsciously, gave a sigh of relief.

      "Very nice young fellow, my dear," said Mr. Etheridge, without taking his eyes from the canvas. "Very clever, too. I remember him quite a little boy, and always said he would make his way. They say that he has done so. I am not surprised. Jasper – "

      "Jasper!" said Stella. "What a horrible name."

      "Eh? Horrible? I don't know – I don't know."

      "But I do," said Stella, laughing. "Well, what were you going to say?"

      "That Jasper Adelstone is the sort of man to insist upon having anything he sets his heart upon."

      "I am glad to hear it," said Stella, as she opened the door, "for his sake; and I hope, also for his sake, that he won't set his mind upon the sun or the moon!" and with a laugh she ran away.

      In the kitchen Mrs. Penford was awaiting her with unconcealed impatience. Upon the white scrubbed table stood the preparations for the making of pastry, an art which Stella, who had insisted upon making herself useful, had coaxed Mrs. Penfold into teaching her. At first that good woman had insisted that Stella should do nothing in the little household. She had announced with terrible gravity that such things weren't becoming to a young lady like Miss Stella, and that she had always done for Mr. Etheridge, and she always would; but before the second day had passed Stella had won the battle. As Mrs. Penfold said, there was no resisting the girl, who mingled willfulness with bewitching firmness and persuasion, and Mrs. Penfold had given in. "You'll cover yourself with flour, Miss Stella, and give your uncle the indigestion, miss, that you will," she remonstrated.

      "But the flour will brush off, and uncle needn't eat pies and puddings for a little while; I'll eat them, I don't mind indigestion," Stella declared, and she made a delightfully

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