351

Damocles.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "FOR PERCIVAL."

Rachel.

CHAPTER III.

SHADOWS AND A GHOST.

EASTWOOD'S hopes with regard to the weather were not destined to be fulfilled. The next day was mild and grey, with persistent, softlydropping showers which kept all the party indoors. "Better to-day than tomorrow," said Charley, who had fixed Friday for Effie and himself to visit some friends at Brookfield. Good-tempered as he was, it vexed him to see his holiday melting away in these soft spring rains, when there were so many walks he would have liked to take with indoors. When he had studying the sky from the strolling in and out of the

Nor could he find much occupation done with the newspaper, he was reduced to front and back of the house alternately, and rooms to see what other people were doing. "Oh, here's Charley!" said Fanny on one of the occasions. "Now please don't tease Fido-he has just gone to sleep on his cushion, poor dear!"

"I tease Fido!-what next?" said Eastwood. "I'm sure you tease him much more than I do-you are always washing the miserable little beast, and combing him, and fussing after him, and putting ribbons round his neck-only he hasn't got any neck, he's so fat."

"Well, I know you do tease him, and he doesn't like you," Fanny replied as she threaded her needle. "Now, Effie, doesn't he tease him?" "Not very often, I think," said Effie. "Only now and then. You're a nice, kind boy, Charley dear, but you are very cruel on a wet day."

Rachel looked up from her book. "At that rate you'll be something terrible if this rain goes on," she remarked.

"Shan't I?" said Charley. "I should think the effect would be permanent." He meditated a little. "Lucky I wasn't one of Noah's sons-fancy me shut up in the ark with all that live stock! But you needn't trouble yourselves, you two; I'm never going to tease a dog again."

"I'm very glad to hear it," said Fanny.

"Never again," Charley repeated in a tone of regret. "I'm a reformed character."

"What's the cause of the reformation?"

"Oh, I saw the error of my ways a day or two ago," he replied. "I don't know about cats-you had better keep that kitten out of my way, Effie. But I'm never to tease dogs any more-especially tied-up ones. I'm not sure that a mad bull-dog, loose, would come under this rule; perhaps I might be allowed to amuse myself with that." He turned to Miss Conway. "What do you think?"

"I should think perhaps you might-on a wet day."

'Oh, yes, on a wet day, of course." He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down. But he felt so strong an impulse to kick Fido, who lay, snow-white and snoring, at his feet, that he judged it prudent to fly from temptation, and went away to smoke a pipe in the porch.

The only pleasant interruption to the monotony of the day was the arrival of a messenger from the Hall. Effie happened to meet Mary in the passage, and came running into the drawing-room, where Rachel, book in hand, leaned by the window, looking out into a bower of damp greenery, and listening to the gentle falling of the rain.

"Look!" cried Effie, "look what lovely flowers Mr. Lauriston has sent me!"

Rachel rushed to see them. "Oh, how beautiful! beautiful! That's because of your song last night, Effie!"

How very

"It's worth while singing songs, then," said the girl coolly, as she laid her treasures out one by one. "Oh, aren't they sweet?" she exclaimed, stooping over the delicate blossoms. "Rachel, weren't we silly to go hunting for wild flowers yesterday?"

"They are pretty, too," said Miss Conway, "only they faded so." "But not pretty like these." She stood looking at the tender waxen petals on their background of dusky green cloth. "Rich people have all the nice things," she said with a sigh. "He never goes out and picks a bunch of rubbish out of the hedges."

"Mr. Lauriston? No, I don't suppose he does."

"No, and Mrs. Lauriston didn't, I know," said Effie with a little nod. "Not when she could have all the flowers she wanted. She made believe she liked them, I suppose, when she was a shepherdess. So would I make believe I liked them now and then if I had the others every day."

"Effie, we heard more than once how charming wild flowers were, when we went out yesterday."

"That was because I couldn't get any others. Let's turn out those shabby old things of Fanny's, and put these beauties in." Effie sighed again as she began to arrange them, and felt that Fate was very cruel to her. She remembered the time when she could please Mr. Lauriston without an effort, when she might sit on his knee, and play with his watchguard, and turn the ring on his finger, and kiss him, instead of having to keep up the conversation and behave like a young lady. She did not particularly wish for any alteration in herself, but she thought that Mr. Lauriston might be changed in many respects with advantage. Why wasn't he easy to talk to, like Charley, or like ? Effie had had more than one harmless little flirtation already, and could have supplied a name or two to fill up the blank.

She felt this cruelty of Fate still more that evening when Mr. Lauriston sent his carriage to fetch them. As they rolled easily and swiftly through the park, Effie remembered what miles and miles her little feet had trudged through country lanes, and recalled her experience of cab and omnibus in London streets. For the time the hothouse flowers were half forgotten, and the possession of a carriage became the height of felicity. Rachel meanwhile sat opposite, and looked with obedient interest at every view which Mrs. Eastwood pointed out. "You don't see it to advantage," said the latter regretfully. But Miss Conway liked the green dimness of the judiciously designed plantations, and the softened outlines of the irregular swells, as she saw them first that evening through a thin veil of rain. She was almost sorry when they arrived at the Hall, where Effie, alighting, added two tall footmen to her dream of joy.

Mr. Lauriston had invited Mr. Brand, the curate, to meet them. Rachel had already seen him in church—a dark, rather handsɔme man, with a narrow forehead and a determined mouth. The young ladies of the parish worshipped him, and he accepted their adoration with unaffected ease as a matter of course. Even before they went to dinner he began to talk of parish matters to Fanny and Effie, while Mrs. Eastwood monopolised Mr. Lauriston, and boldly questioned him about the little boy.

"He is very well, thank you," was the reply. "No, I never see him in the evening-don't such young people go to bed before this time?"

Well, yes, Mrs. Eastwood had no doubt that he would be in bed. She was glad to hear he was well.

"Yes," Mr. Lauriston repeated, "he is very well. Not a very strong child, they tell me, but he never seems to be ill."

"A great favourite, of course?" she said with a beaming smile, though in fact she had her doubts. "I daresay his papa spoils him, if the truth were known."