LITMIR.BIZ

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once at the opera,” “He has given up play altogether,” were the rumors one heard on all sides; and so it was that the young generation, who had only heard of but never seen him, were sorely disappointed in meeting the somewhat quiet, reserved-looking, haughty man, whose wild feats and eccentricities had so often amused them, but who now gave no evidence of being other than a cold, well-bred gentleman.

      It was when hastily passing through London, on his return from India, that Mark Lyle had met him, and Maitland had given him a half-careless promise to come and see him. “I want to go across to Ireland,” said he, “and whenever town gets hot, I’ll run over.” Mark would have heard the same words from a royal duke with less pride, for he had been brought up in his Sandhurst days with great traditions of Maitland; and the favor the great man had extended to him in India, riding his horses, and once sharing his bungalow, had so redounded to his credit in the regiment that even a tyrannical major had grown bland and gentle to him.

      Mark was, however, far from confident that he could rely on his promise. It seemed too bright a prospect to be possible. Maitland, who had never been in Ireland, – whom one could, as Mark thought, no more fancy in Ireland than he could imagine a London fine lady passing her mornings in a poorhouse, or inspecting the coarse labors of a sewing-school, —he coming over to see him! What a triumph, were it only to be true! and now the post told him it was true, and that Maitland would arrive at the Abbey on Saturday. Now, when Mark had turned away so hastily and left his sisters, he began to regret that he had announced the approaching arrival of his friend with such a flourish of trumpets. “I ought to have said nothing whatever about him. I ought simply to have announced him as a man very well off, and much asked out, and have left the rest to fortune. All I have done by my ill-judged praise has been to awaken prejudice against him, and make them eager to detect flaws, if they can, in his manner, – at all events in his temper.” The longer he thought over these things the more they distressed him; and, at last, so far from being overjoyed, as he expected, at the visit of his distinguished friend, he saw the day of his coming dawn with dismay and misgiving. Indeed, had such a thing as putting him off been possible, it is likely he would have done it.

      The long-looked-for and somewhat feared Saturday came at last, and with it came a note of a few lines from Maitland. They were dated from a little village in Wicklow, and ran thus: —

      “Dear L., – I have come down here with a Yankee, whom I chanced upon as a travelling companion, to look at the mines, – gold, they call them; and if I am not seduced into a search after nuggets, I shall be with you some time – I cannot define the day – next week. The country is prettier and the people less barbarous than I expected; but I hear your neighborhood will compensate me for both disappointments.

      “Yours,

      “N. M.”

      “Well! are we to send the carriage into Coleraine for him, Mark?” asked Sir Arthur, as his son continued to read the letter, without lifting his eyes.

      “No,” said Mark, in some confusion. “This is a sort of put-off. He cannot be here for several days. Some friend or acquaintance has dragged him off in another direction;” and he crushed the note in his hand, afraid of being asked to read or to show it.

      “The house will be full after Tuesday, Mark,” said Lady Lyle. “The Gores and the Masseys and the M’Clintocks will all be here, and Gambier Graham threatens us with himself and his two daughters.”

      “If they come,” broke in Mark, “you’ll have my rooms at your disposal.”

      “I delight in them,” said Mrs. Trafford; “and if your elegantly fastidious friend should really come, I count upon them to be perfect antidotes to all his impertinence. Sally Graham and the younger one, whom her father calls ‘Dick,’ are downright treasures when one is in want of a forlorn hope to storm town-bred pretension.”

      “If Maitland is to be baited, Alice, I ‘d rather the bullring was somewhere else,” said her brother, angrily.

      “The real question is, shall we have room for all these people and their followers?” said Lady Lyle.

      “I repeat,” said Mark, “that if the Graham girls are to be here, I ‘m off. They are the most insufferably obtrusive and aggressive women I ever met; and I ‘d rather take boat and pass a month at the Hebrides than stop a week in the house with them.”

      “I think Sally thrashed you when you came home once for the holidays,” said Mrs. Trafford, laughing.

      “No, Alice, it was Beck,” broke in her sister. “She has a wonderful story of what she calls a left-hander, that she planted under his eye. She tells it still with great gusto, but owns that Mark fought on very bravely for two rounds after.”

      “And are these the people you expect me to show Maitland?” said Mark, rising from the table; “I’d rather, fifty times rather, write and say, ‘We cannot receive you; our house is full, and will be for a month to come.’”

      “Yes, dear Mark, that is the really sensible way to look at it. Nobody nowadays has any scruple in such matters. One is invited from Monday to Thursday, but on no possible pretext can he stay to Friday.” And so Mrs. Trafford ran away, heaping, by apparent consolations, coals of fire on his angry head.

      “I think you had better get Alice to write the letter herself,” said Bella; “I’m sure she will do it with great tact and discretion.”

      “Pray do,” added she. “Entrust me with the despatch, and I promise you the negotiation will be completed then and there.”

      “It is quite bad enough to shut the door in a man’s face, without jeering at him out of the window,” said Mark; and he dashed out of the room in a rage.

      “I wish he had shown us his friend’s note,” said Alice. “I’m quite certain that his anger has far, more to do with that epistle than with any of our comments upon it.”

      “I’m very sorry Mark should be annoyed,” said Bella; “but I’m selfish enough to own that, if we escape Mr. Maitland’s visit, I shall deem the bargain a good one.”

      “I suspect Mr. Maitland does not intend to honor us by his company, and that we may spare ourselves all the embarrassment of preparing for it,” said Lady Lyle. And now the three ladies set themselves to consider in committee that oft-vexed problem of how to make a country-house hold more people than it had room for, and how to persuade the less distinguished of the guests that they are “taking out” in cordiality all that their reception wants in convenience. One difficulty presented itself at every step, and in a variety of shapes. Never before had the Abbey been full of visitors without Tony Butler being there to assist in their amusement, – Tony, equally at home on land and on sea, the cavalier of young ladies, the safe coachman of mammas, the guide to all that was noteworthy, the fisherman, the yachtsman whom no weather disconcerted, no misadventure could provoke, – so good-tempered and so safe; ay, so safe! for Tony never wanted to flirt with the young heiress, nor teach her schoolboy brother to smoke a short pipe. He had neither the ambition to push his fortune unfairly, nor to attach his junior to him by unworthy means. And the sisters ran over his merits, and grew very enthusiastic about traits in him which, by inference, they implied were not the gifts of others nearer home.

      “I wish, papa, you would ride over and see Mrs. Butler, and ask when Tony is expected back again.”

      “Or if,” added Mrs. Trafford – “or if we could get him back by writing, and saying how much we want him.”

      “I know I ‘ll never venture on Soliman till Tony has had a hand on him.”

      “And those chestnuts mamma wants for the low phaeton, – who is to break them now?” cried Bella.

      “I only heard yesterday,” said Sir Arthur, “that the ‘Mermaid’s’ sails were all cut up. Tony was going to make a schooner of her, it seems; and there she is now, dismantled, and not one of us able to put her in commission again.”

      “I declare it sounds absurd,” broke in Lady Lyle, “but I fancy the garden is beginning to look neglected already. Certainly I never saw Mr. Graft there the whole morning; and he would

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