Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-03-29

~ SAE
DO YOU KNOW THAT FELLOW?
The divan is little room on the half fight,
fitted up in Mauresque style and only divided
from the landing by partition. partly paipte d
glass and partly carved sandal wood from
Persia. 1t is a capital nook for gossip or firta-
ton and when We have party the divan is al
ways in great request. 1t is lighted by an
Oriental lamp, which is in perfect harmony
with the decoration, but which gives very in
different light. .r -
Cyril ordered strawberries and lemonade to
be sent up to this retreat and we sat there for
half an hour pretending to talk about the
opera, but both of us obviously preoccupied
and uncomfortable, and both of us listening
for the opening of the study door below
know we talked in hushed voices and never
withdrew our attention from what was going
on down stairs We could see the hall door
through the open door of the divar. at the
end OF the vista beyond the shallow flight of
stairs.
II hate mysteries" Cyril said at last, in the
midst of a languid debate about the merits
and dement's of the new tenor.
got up and Cyril and went on to the landing
and stood there looking over the balustrade into
the hall until the door opened and his fathers
voice called to the fOOtman "See that person
out" whereupon the man opened the great hall
door and the midnight visitor went out Just q
minute or so before the carriage stopped and
mother alighted.
She came into the hall in her long white
cloak with Its downy ostrich trimming. such a
lovely, gracious figure, the gems in her rich
brown hair flashing in the lamp light. Uncle
Ambrose came out of his den to receive her.
Were you amused. dearest?" he asked '.Was
1t pleasant party?"
1T was a brilliant one at any rate" she an
swered. Il met all the people we know and a
few stars and foreign orders that l don't know
How white you look. Ambrose. You ought not
to be up so late. What was the use of staying
away from the opera and the reception only to
tire yourself at homer
Il have not been firing myself except with
dull book by clever man. What pains some
clever men take to be dull, by the way. i have
been resting as much as l can rest, dear am
past that golden age when sleep comes at viii ~
But you had late visitor. Who was the
man who went out of the house Just before
arrlved?"
IAN old acquaintance-thati is to say book
binder who worked for me years ago, who has
the common complaint of old acquaintance
lmpecuniousness."
.'And you helped him, of course"
slider it,
But if he is in immediate want"
My dearest, have no opinion of the mans
character, and am doubtful whether ought
to believe his story. He forced an entrance
into this house in an understandable manner.
and 1t would have served him right had sent
Tor policeman and given HIM In charge. How
ever, he pleads distress as an excuse for
his audacity, and let him tell me his story.
shall do nothing for him unless l get some con-
hrmatlon OF 1T from respectable quarter"
Cyril and l were leaning over the balustrade
stralning our ears to listen.
A book binder; that impertinent wretch is a
book binder. And what tissue of falsehoods
his story of distress must be, when saw him
Keeling out OF a restaurant with his boon COM
panions less than week ago.
suppose the wretch has said nothing about
his meeting with me. He may not have asso-
ciated the name of Hatrel with his old en-
ployer, MIR. Arden: and yet a man of that kind,
hanging about the house as he has DONE would
be likely to find out all about us. he passed
close to me as he pushed his way into the hall;
but it is just possible he did not recognize me
in my very different style of dress.
There was nothing in my step-father's man.
ner to indicate agitation or irritation of any
kind. l never heard his melodious voice calmer
or his accents more measured than when ne
explained the midnight visit to my mother in
the hall.
The mountain has brought forth mouse"
said Cyril gaiy.
Mother came upstairs in the next minute, so
wished Cyril good night and went up to her
dressing room with her to hear all about the
party while her maid took off her Jewels and
tinery.
July 15th.-we are at home once more in the
dear old rooms and in the lovely old garden.
and feel almost as if my sixteenth birthday
were still a grand event in the future-feel
almost as young as l felt in the old childish
days before mothers marriage, and our Italian
travels, and our London gaities, and all the ex-
periences that have made me a woman of the
world. l feel almost as L felt at sixteen
almost, but not quite, as happy as felt then.
There is no use in keeping a diary unless one
Is sternly truthful, and stern truth conpels me
to acknowledge to this book that I am not 20
happy as 1 was before mothers marriage and
my own engagement to Cyril I Wv"
In those old days was free as air-free
to think and to dream and to shape the many
colored visions of my future life out Of those
idle dreams. Now my future is all mapped
out for me and my life has master who will
dictate all things. He is good, he is
devoted, he is all that a fiance should be, but
still he is my master. There can be no doubt
of that. My duty as his plighted wife involves
confidence and obedience. l am bound to
confide in him; l am bound to obey him.
Oh, wish, wish loved him better I wish
l could feel as mother did when she was nine
teen years OF age and engaged to my father.
She has talked to me often of her thoughts and
feelings at that time-how it seemed to her as
If this life OF ours and all this world we live in
began and ended in Robert Hatrell.
l have never felt like that, never, never
never.
What a perverse wretch must be- How per-
sistently all my thoughts and fancies drift into
the wrong channel Only this morning walk
ing alone on the terrace, where made tea for
Mr.. Florestan, the fancy flashed into my mind
that on that particular afternoon was happier
than had ever been in my life.
What an idle notion, as idle and capricious
as any of the fancies Of my childhood when L
used to give myself up to day dreams and lie
upon the new cut grass in haymaking time
and dream Of all the people 1 loved most in
history, and dream that was walking in the
woods beyond Lamford with Charles the FIJI st
and Henrietta Maria, and that was appointed
| somehow to come between him and his enc
mics, yes, to save him from the scaffoid, to
help him in his escape, like Flora Macdonald
with the young Pretender. Charles Edward
was not romantic enough for me. Alas. knew
that he got fat and took to drinking in his old
| age. History is SO brutal. Charles the First
was my hero. forgot AL his stiffness and
double-dealing, his selfish sense of his own i'm
| portance. his cowardly abandonment Of STRAIT
| ford. forgot everything except that his head
was very beautiful. as Vandyke painted it, and
that Bradshaw and h is crew cut it of.
Foolish, foolish Alice-in.W Wonderland fancies.
| Every girl of eleven or twelve has her Wonder
| land, and If she has been crammed with history
it is not of birds or beasts that she dreams, but
OF Joan of Arc and her martyrdom at R9nen. or
OF Henry. the first Bourbon king, murdered in
the quaint old streets of MEDIEVAL Paris, or of