Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1886-06-11
CHAPTER II.
A VERY SHORT CHAPTER.

This passage, the only morsel Of sensation
in our boudoir story, has been dismissed as
rapidly as was possible. Indeed, it would
never have been told at all, had it not been n
link in the chain of incident on which the his
tory depends.
OF course, all Kettlewell applauded cur
Sophia. Her midnight descent, her flight
across the hall, her plucky behavior at the
bell rope-everything she had done was
praised. The burglars fed at the first peal,
but Sophia kept on ringing until all the
neighbors were aroused; and then such a
congregation of servants and others had
gathered in the house and grounds that
fear was not to be thought of. All of us
applauded her quickness of thought about the
belfry; the only person who spoke in anything
like a qualified tone being Egerton, who re-
marked that he was far from wishing to cast
any slur on Sophia, but still he must saythat
she would have made a great deal more noise
if she had used the Chinese gong which stood
in the hall. For sounding an alarm, Egerton
said, there was nothing like a Chinese gong.
Sophia, in the gentlest way, but with laugh
ter trembling on her lips, pointed out that
the gong stood just where the robbers were
working; upon which Egerton retorted that
he had not said anything about where it
stood, but only that for sounding an alarm
there was nothing like a Chinese gong.
Now, how would. you expect the little
mother to have actedl To have denied her
own abject terror, and attenuated Sophia's
braveryl she did nothing of the kind.
II was dead with fear" she said, in her
gay way. Courage is not one of my vir-
tues. l could no more nave gone down those
stairs and past those dreadful men than |
could raise that piano with my finger. Deuce
take my heart!"-sometimes, in her easy
moods, she would let fly an expression of this
sort-"I thought it would never beat againl
And Sophia was as cool as if she were going
down to see a visitor. Sophia ought to be a
soldiers wife; she ought to be a soldier her.
self. Few women would have acted as she
did that night. Really, I would not have be-
lieved she had it in her."
One happy result for the poor girl was that
her mothers wrath was not so much APP
peased as effaced. The whole Prendergast
incident was for the time forgotten; and
when Mrs. Barbara Temples mind reverted
to the matter, she admitted to herself that in
charging Sophia with weakness she made a
great mistake. She still deplored the issue
of the affair, but she never again approached
her daughter, and she ever made one or two
indirect apologies for her severity of speech,
ana these we may be sure Sophia was only
tcD willing to accept.
And o there began quite an era in
.SOphia's life. Her lover was absent, and
:hey were not allowed to communicate with
each other, for on this point Mrs. Temple
never relaxed. She was not formally en-
gagged; indeed, she was understood to be open
to an offer-a fact which her mother, still
following her original policy, took care to
publish abroad. Caroline and Sibyl now
fully agreed with their mother that Sophia
was acting recklessly in allowing the fresh
ness of her youth to pass away under this
blighting spell. And all this time, only by
the merest chance, seldom-perhaps never
could she hear anything Of Percival Brent. He
might be untrue; and even then, according to
the words of their agreement, she could not
reproach him with inconsistency. It was q
trying time for her; but during this period
her character was formed, and she who on
her fftieth birthday was with general con-
sent and delight styled LADY Beauty" learned
her secret of charming in this period OF
anxiety and waiting, when her constancy
and her patience were so severely tried. ]
here relate the main incidents of this unevent-
full period, and having at the same time tried
by touches here and there to give you an
idea of the maturity of charms toward which
Time was bearing our dear heroine. l shall
be able in my next book to tell you how it all
ended; whether Percival was true or false;
whether or not happiness of the kind she ex.
pected rewarded the c~onstancy Of her pure,
glowing, and yet never impatient affection.