AT SUNSET-TIME. (RONDEAU.) AT sunset-time, the joyous bird, The cattle, fragrant-breathed, close herd, Low sinks the sun; hath Nature erred At sunset-time. O. M. W. . LOT 13. 6 BY DOROTHEA GERARD, AUTHOR OF LADY BABY,' ORTHODOX,' AND 'A QUEEN OF CURDS AND CREAM,' AND JOINT AUTHOR OF 'REATA,' ETC. (Copyri ̧hted in America, 1893, by D. Appleton & Co., New York.) CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TWO QUEENS. IT had been on one of the first days of June that Bernard parted from Marian in the back-garden of 31, Laurel Road. When another June came round again, with its roses and its thunderstorms, its pleasant evenings and its unpleasant caterpillars, the view which spread itself daily before Marian's eyes was vastly improved-stretches of smooth lawn instead of smoky chimneys, and giant beeches in place of the one poor meagre laburnum which had formed the pride of the enclosure. After waiting what he considered to be a decent interval, the Captain had taken formal possession of Thornton. But he did so neither joyously nor light-heartedly. This strange fortune which had met him on the threshold of his old age, perplexed and embarrassed almost more than it rejoiced him. If it had been anybody's money except Bernard's, he would not have minded it, but the thought that his nephew, for whom he had always had a true fondness, was a loser by his gain, made him feel uncomfortable, do what he would. There was one obvious solution to the difficulty which, of course, would have made everything straight again, but this was unfeasible, as he soon convinced himself. 'It would be far the simplest if you two could manage to get up a liking for each other,' he had observed to Marian one day, when the idea first occurred to him. 'Don't you think you could manage it? He has always been more of a brother to you, I know, but perhaps if you got used to the thing you might get to like him in a different way; eh, Marian?' 'No,' said Marian, smiling a little wearily, 'I don't think I shall ever like him in a different way.' 'Of course he is what people call "a wretched match;" but that doesn't matter, considering that you're a first-class one. Upon my word, there's a great deal in the idea; it's only the newness that startles you. At any rate, there can be no harm in my writing to Bernard and throwing out a suggestion.' 'You shall not do that!' Marian had answered so vehemently that the Captain stood still in his pacing of the room and stared in amazement at his daughter. 'Do you hear, father?' she had added, coming close up to him; 'whatever you do, you must not write that letter to Bernard. I shall never be his wife.' The poor Captain left the room crestfallen, without another word. It was the first time in her life that Marian had openly rebelled, and to his astonishment he felt that he had no choice but to strike his colours on the spot. 'He is too small a catch for her, that is evident,' he reflected within himself. She has got her head full of all those titled fellows. And yet I never took Marian to be that kind of girl. Dear, dear, to be sure, I suppose there must be something, after all, in what they call the corruption of wealth. I'm blest if I don't feel some of it myself.' By which the Captain meant that, despite the feeling of mental discomfort from which he was never quite free, he had discovered that there was such a thing as physical comfort, to the charms of which he by no means felt superior. After all, it was quite a different thing to be able to indulge in your second and even third glass of port wine without feeling shy at the thought of your wine-merchant's bill, and a valet could not help being a much superior article even to Jemima. With every day did the Captain become more distinctly aware of his deep appreciation of the comforts of life; that he also had a certain leaning towards its epicurean side was to be surmised from his increasing corpulence, his reddening complexion, and duller eye-changes in his appearance which the first half-year had brought about, and which Marian watched with growing apprehension. Neither did she like his new habit of falling asleep after dinner-a weakness he never used to indulge in in former days. In the appearance of the Misses Honoria and Valeria this same half-year had likewise wrought alterations, to the delight of the one but to the gentle grief of the other, for Thornton was evidently not the place for doing a Banting cure, as Miss Valeria gleefully observed. She had not been three months under her brother-in-law's roof-which, of course, she never meant to quit again, if she could help it-before, in the postscript of a letter addressed to an intimate friend, she bashfully but joyfully confided to her the fact that the waistbands of all her gowns had been let out by half an inch. But there is no hope for poor Honoria,' she added. This first-rate cream and these new-laid eggs are so delightfully nourishing, and at the same time so irresistible. The dear creature is growing stouter every day. But this time she has given up struggling, and has resigned herself to her fate. The only one among us who has not even grown plump, is Marian. I have been looking out for the country roses in her cheeks, but she is paler and quieter even than she was in London.' It was perfectly true. Marian had always been silent and always been serious, but since she was at Thornton she had become an aggravated copy of herself. The place was detestable to her. When she had last been here she had thought to love it; now that everything reminded her of those few happy weeks, she felt as though she could not breathe its air. Rather would she have lived in some dark alley where the sun never shone, in some tumble-down hovel, anywhere rather than in this luxurious home where the shadow of Bernard seemed to meet her at every turn, reproaching her for being in the place which should have been his. The sight of every farmhouse which she had entered when accompanying him on his daily rounds, of the plans for the model-cottages, which were discovered in a drawer in the writing-table, of these and many other things, was enough to make the old wound bleed afresh each time. Once-it was on the day when she first saw again the ruined chapel and the ivygrown walls of the cemetery within the park-a passion of grief seized on her, so intense and so irresistible that she flung herself down, face downwards, on the ground, not weeping, for the tears would not come, but tearing at the grass with nervous fingers, while her chest heaved with dry sobs, and her teeth were tightly locked. It was on the spot that she had met Bernard on the morning after coming to Thornton, and it was here that he had spoken first of the dead Caroline Berrincott who had become the indirect cause of his misfortune. The sight of the cemetery walls had brought back the moment so vividly that Marian was frightened at herself. She had not even known that she was capable of such passion as this. From her childhood, upwards, she had been trained to hide every sign of outward emotion, and the result had been that the strong feelings, forcibly repressed, had grown stronger yet, with the intense strength of concentration. Until to-day she had never thoroughly understood herself, and it was dating from this solitary outburst that she began to see the necessity of battling against her grief. It must not be allowed to master her again in this fashion; the world must not know that she was mourning for her cousin. From that day forward she carefully avoided the part of the park where the cemetery lay, and she began more frequently to accompany her aunt Valeria to dinner-parties and afternoon calls. And yet, despite of everything she could do, the county pronounced her to be 'not like other girls,' and the various suitors, who had sprung up like mushrooms around the newmade heiress, could not understand why it should be so difficult to win a single paltry smile, not to speak of higher favours, which even the most sanguine among them soon came to recognise as standing out of their reach. The comforts of life had not the same attraction for Marian that they had for her father, partly, no doubt, because youth can more easily dispense with this sort of outward supports than middle-age, and therefore it was that even this source of consolation failed her. What was the good of it all? she sometimes asked herself; what was she to do with all this money placed at her command, since not even one shilling of it could go to lighten Bernard's struggle with existence? There was one thing, however, for which she wanted her large allowance. Ever since she had learnt of Miss McCrie's dismissal from office, the old maid had become her pensioner. The Captain was not much of a connoisseur in ladies' dress, and yet even he was puzzled at the want of variety in Marian's attire, and the dearth of those laces and furbelows which figured so largely on the persons of his neighbours' daughters, and which surely £20 a month ought to have sufficed to procure. How could he know that about two-thirds of the bank-notes destined for these agreeable frivolities sailed out to St. Clara by the first mail of every month? However indignant she might feel towards the betrayer of her secret, Marian could not let her starve, because of having saved her from the consequences of her own rash act, and Miss McCrie had accepted the proffered support without protest, with the same straightforward simplicity that she would have given it. Besides, Miss McCrie was the only |