LITMIR.BIZ

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be round-about—while her face, what shall we say? It was a face transmitted through generations of easy, healthy, wealthy ancestors, who have occasionally married beauties,—and yet it had a note of its own. Her sisters were handsome, but it was reserved for her, the youngest, to strike out a new line in the family looks and one which did not ripen quickly. So that whereas the three elder Miss Bolderos had high noses and high foreheads, and long, pale, aristocratic faces, varying but little from each other—(for somehow Sue, by resembling her father, had no separate traits)—the funny little Leonore, with her rogue's eyes, and thick bunch of swinging curls, her chubby cheeks and dimpled chin, was for a time entirely overlooked. It was certain she would never be distinguished nor imposing—consequently would never contract the great alliance General Boldero steadily kept in view for Maud or Sybil. [N.B.—He never contemplated a husband for Sue—never had, though she was the handsomest of the three. Briefly, he could not do without her.]

      But although he was presently obliged to confess to himself that the little snub-nosed schoolgirl was developing some sort of impudent looks of her own, he held them to be of such small account that it was as much a source of wonder as of congratulation when it fell out that they had fixed the affections of a suitor with ten thousand a year. It was luck—it was extraordinary luck—that Mr. Godfrey Stubbs could be content with Leo, when really if he had demanded the hand of any one of the three it would have been folly to hold back.

      We need not, however, dwell on this period. Suffice it to say that on each recurring occasion when the general welcomed his married daughter beneath his roof, he was secretly surprised and even faintly annoyed to behold her prettier than before. She glowed with life and colour. She radiated vitality. She had a knack of throwing her sisters, with their far superior outlines, into the shade.

      Even Sybil, who had something of Leo's vivacity, had none of Leo's charm. Even Maud, rated highest in the paternal valuation, had a heavy look. What if he had been over-hasty after all? What if the little witch could have done better? Once or twice he had to reason with himself very seriously before equanimity was restored.

      In mind Leonore was apt, with the intelligence, and it must be added with much of the ignorance, of a child. She was ready to learn when learning was easy—she would give it up when effort was needed.

      As Godfrey was no reader, she only read such books as pleased her fancy or whiled away a dull hour.

      Godfrey told her what was in the newspapers, she said. It did not occur to either that Godfrey's cursory perusal merely skimmed the surface of events.

      Again, Leonore protested that she had no accomplishments, but that her husband could both sing and draw—and she would hasten to place his music on the piano, and exhibit his sketches. She thought his big bass tones the finest imaginable; she framed the sketches as presents for her father and sisters;—and so on, and so on.

      In short the poor little tendril had wound itself round a sturdy pole, and with this support had waved and danced in the sunshine for three years,—and now, all in a moment, with cruel suddenness and finality, the pole had snapped, and the tender young creature must either make shift thenceforth to stand alone, or fall to the earth also. Which will Leonore do?

      The present, in so far as she was concerned, was a grey, colourless vacuum.

      She had of course to give audiences to her solicitor, an elderly, grizzled man, whose coat, she noted, was shockingly ill-made, and who had a heavy cold in the head, which brought his red bandana handkerchief much into play,—but though she dreaded his visits, and kept as far away from him as possible, with a fastidious dislike of his husky utterances, and heavy breathing, he relieved her of all responsibility, and in fact earned a gratitude he did not get.

      His was a thankless task. Leonore only wondered miserably what it was all about? Of course she would do whatever was right; she would give up anything and everything—so what need of details?

      Indeed she offered to surrender cherished possessions which Mr. Jonas assured her were not demanded and might lawfully be kept,—but this point clear, she had no interest in the rest, and his broad back turned, nothing else presented itself to fill up the dreary days which had to elapse before her presence could be spared and her departure arranged for.

      "Your father will provide for you, I understand, Mrs. Stubbs?" ("And a good job too," mentally commented the lawyer, shutting his bag with a snap. "There's many a poor thing has no father, close-fisted or no, to fall back upon.")

      "Yes—yes," said Leonore, hurriedly. She looked so young, and vague, and helpless, that as he held out his hand, and mumbled conventionally, his voice was a shade more husky than before.

      "Oh, yes, thank you; thank you, yes."

      "Now what is she thanking me for?"—queried Jonas of himself. For very pity he felt aggrieved and sardonic, and Leo perceiving the frown, and unable to divine its cause, was thankful anew that release was at hand. Every interview had been worse than the previous one. She had had to go in to the terrible old man all by herself, and be asked this and that, and begged to remember about things which had made no impression at the time, and been entirely wiped from memory thereafter.

      Could she tell—oh, how she came to hate that ominous "Can you tell?" seeing that she never could, and that the confession invariably elicited the same dry little cough of dissatisfaction, followed by a pause.

      What did it—what could it all mean? "Then I think I need not trouble you further, Mrs. Stubbs," said Mr. Jonas slowly,—and Mrs. Stubbs almost jumped from her seat.

      Nothing could ever be as bad as this again. In her own old home no one would disparage poor Godfrey by inference and solemn silences as this grim old Jonas did. Every statement wrung out of her, even though the same simply amounted to a non-statement, a confession of utter ignorance and trustfulness, had somehow damned her husband in the eyes of the man of business—but her own people would feel differently.

      Godfrey had always been treated well, indeed made rather a fuss about at Boldero Abbey. Her father would run down the steps to meet the carriage which brought the young couple from the station on a visit. His hearty, "Well, here you are!" would accompany the opening of the door by his own hand. Then there would be an embrace for herself, and the further greeting of a pleased and affectionate host for her husband.

      The pleasant bustle of welcome outside would be amply followed up within doors, where her sisters would cluster round, making as much of Godfrey as of herself—perhaps even a little more—remembering his tastes, his proclivities, his love of much sugar and plenty of cream in his tea, his partiality for warmth and the blaze of a roaring fire. "Ah, you Liverpool gentlemen, you know what comfort is!"—the general would jocularly exclaim, the while both hands pressed his son-in-law down into his own armchair. "I like to stand;" he would protest,—but Leonore had a suspicion that he did not like to stand for most people.

      Godfrey was a favourite; for Godfrey there would be horses and dogcarts at command, keepers and beaters in the shooting season, (when such visits annually took place), and elaborate luncheons and dinners. "We don't do much in the way of entertaining, you know," the general would explain casually, having delivered himself on the subject to Sue, beforehand—("Hang it all, he can't expect that—but he shall have everything else, everything that we can do for him ourselves")—"We don't go in for that sort of thing, except now and again,—but after all, a family gathering is more agreeable to us all, I take it, eh, Godfrey? That's what you and Leo come for, not to be bothered by a parcel of strangers you know nothing about?"

      But if strangers, i.e., old neighbours whom Leo remembered from her youth up, and whom she would have liked very well to meet again, if these did accidentally cross the path of the Bolderos and their guests, nothing could be handsomer than the way in which Godfrey Stubbs was presented by his father-in-law. Godfrey would tell his wife about his meeting with Lord Merivale or Sir Thomas Butts with an air of elation. "Nice fellows; so chatty and affable." Once he let fall the latter word in public, and nobody winced openly,—so that Leo, who had often heard it in her married home, and never dreamed of thinking it odd, listened and smiled in all innocence.

      It must be remembered that she had barely emerged from the schoolroom when Godfrey Stubbs carried her off as his bride, and that when the last blow fell,

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