LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1939, 12 May 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LOTTIE CRAVEN’S “YES.” [Abridged from the “Argosy.”] ‘ Two strings to one’s bow may ba a good thing, but this is more than a joke, my lady.’ S-'o said Sir Henry, taking out a cigar, that he might ba prepared, without any signs of a hasty and inglorious r.,treat to close a conversation which he thought mlg possibly ba stormy. ‘More than a joke?’ inquired Lady Davenant, hardly raising her eyes from her wrok.

‘Yes, moro than a joke,’ repeated Sir Henry ; ‘ of course yon stand up for him ; of course, everything that Harry does is right; but does he think that he can marry both those girls ?’ ‘Both? He proposed to Lottie Craven yesterday.’ ‘ I know that yery well, but he has been proposing to Eve Daore every day for the last ton years ’ ‘A boy-and-girl attachment,’ returned Lady Davenant; ‘there has never been any question of love between Eve and Harry.’ 1 Very probably,’ said Sir Henry, ‘ but there may be a great deal of love and no question at all in the matter.’ * I wonder yon are not pleased ; it is such an excellent match for Harry. Mies Craven has at least six thousand a year, and Eve will not have six hundred. ’

‘ Six thousand a year is all very well,’ replied Sir Henry, ‘ although if I were to put myself in the market I should like to go for a rounder sum than that ! I should very likely be pleased if I could feel sure that he was not breaking the heart of a girl who is as near an angel as any woman can be, and was not behaving even worse to another.’

‘Worse to Lottie Craven?’ cried lady Davenant, slightly warming at this. ‘ Yes, worse to Lottie Craven; for how oan a man possibly behave worse to a woman than when he tells her that he loves her better than anything in the world, whilst in real truth he loves nothing about her except her money ?’

* Harry is not mercenary,’ said Lady Davenant, in a tone fall of reproach ; ‘he may have faults, but he is not mercenary. ’ ‘ Still, if a younger son means to do nothing hut lounge about all his days, he is bound to marry an heiress.’ ‘ I never knew you so cynical! He has his profession. He does not mean to do nothing. ’ ‘The profession of a guardsman is hardly lucrative ; at any rate. I would rather that he stuck to his colors.’

‘ What do you mein by sticking to his colors ?’

Lady Davenant understood perfectly well what her husband me tnt, but the moment he went straight to the point, as was his custom whenever he the ught it worth while to see that there was a point, she was in the habit of exercising the power which she possessed of bringing him to punishment in the shape of explanation. Sir Henry was a fox-hunter, and fox-hunters would rather take any sort of leap than the mental one which lands them at the door of an explanation, It was after dinner, however, and the baronet was wound up to the mirk, so he replied stoutly—- ‘ I mean this, that I would rather ho gave up his horses and his cigars, and all the rest of it, to spend his days honestly with the woman he loves, than that he should vere round and give himself up body and soul in exchange for all the guineas that ever were coined.’

Lady Haven ant went on working as siduously. There is a peculiar ring in pure unadulterated truth which it is difficult to silence with shams, and itir Henry Davenant was allowed to go on. * I confess I am disappointed in Harry, and I wish Dacre had been able to corae down from the clouds and settle his ward’s affairs before alibis mystification had set in. However, he may yet find out his mistake. Ho is possibly deceiving himself; he pretends to think he has done the right thing, and what everybody expected of him.’ ‘ But so ho has,’ said Laly Davenant, relieved to find that the storm was blowing over ; *ha has behaved very sensibly. It would be exceedingly foolh.h of him to marry Kve. It Iwould be a perpetual struggle. Harry would have to exchange into another regiment —might be sent abroad, to some outlandish place with a shocking climate. It would be dreadful!’

‘ Very well,’ said Henry ; ‘then I suppose he has done the right thing.’ And he lighted his cigar, with a sigh of relief that he had said what he intended to say, and that the discussion was over. But Lady Davenant, left alone, was by no means bo easy in her mind as she had determined it was best that she should appear to be. Harry’s cause was his mother’s cause, and it was self-evident that a good match was more to be desired than a bad one. She was not, however, so sure that ha nad done what was right. She said so ; she had told herself so ; but when it was found necessary to teach oneself with inshtanoe that a thing is absolutely right, there may ho room for doubting if it be not absolutely wrong. Harry was very dear to her, bat Eve was almost equally as dear. Mr Dacre had buried his paternal love under so heavy a mass of learning that it had never appeared on the surface in any available shape. He had found more consolation for a bereaved life in his study than in his nursery, and Lady Davenant hsd taken to her heart the motherless girl, and thought she loved her as she loved her own. It would have been terrible to her to have to acknowledge that she was ready to sacrifice Eve for an imaginary advantage to >1 arry ; and at this point her reflections became so entangled and so altogether unsatisfactory that she was not sorry when they were interrupted by the chief subject of them. The tuggestion that her boy had been led to act in any way which could be supposed to fall short of the hich ideal which was, as she asserted to herself,

her standard for him, was very grievous to her; bat how was it possible that she could look upon him, as he threw himself down by her side, and listen to any snob suggestion ? Handsome, charming, and a thoroughly spoilt child, who could find fault with Harry t/avenant 7 For a moment it occurred to her that her husband had seen deeper into the matter than any of them. What if that gay and graceful air, those tender tricks and flatteries of manner, those outward shows of ail that seemed moat promising within, had been the means of robbing JEve Caere of that which is a woman’s best possession, * the quiet of her thoughts ?’ And what if she herself had been the means of bringing about a state of things which they might all eventually have to regret ? But she had to throw aside such meditations, and to answer Harry’s somewhat questioning eyes with a smile. ‘ Why are you come back so soon ? I thought you were spending the evening at tl-.e vicarage?’ ‘ Ves, so I was ; bat I got bored, end so I C eje away.’ ‘ Bcred, Hal ?’ * Yea ; Butler had been asked to meet me, and was full of congratulations. Ileally if ve should have a little more tact. It is so extremely annoying to be congratulated ; and what with his ‘complimentary colors’ and his ‘symmetrical arrangements,’ he is dec.de ly a bore. One would think, too, by the way in which the girls look up to him, that ho was the inventor of tbe rainbow ’

‘ Harry 1’ * I was beginning to lose my temper, so I left them.’

‘But Mr Butler thinks of nobody bat Eve; he never listens to anybody else. How came he to engross Lottie ?’ This was said pertinently, and with intention. ‘ I don’t know that he engrossed Lottie ; I don’t know that he thinks cf nobody but Eve’

‘My dear boy, everybody sees that.’ ‘ Everybody is very often very much mis tr.ken ’

‘ There is no mistake about that. I only wish Eve was not so indifferent ; although perhaps, after all, it is better so. It would be an imprudent match.’ ‘lmprudent! by Jove, yes !’ * And he is quite aware that he has no hope ; he even said as much to me, and that she had brought him a happiness beyond ail bounds, in teaching him that it was in his nature to love in an ideal and perfect way ; that it was a benefit which no one else could have bestowed upon him.’ ‘ What bosh!’

‘He said he wan passionately grateful to her.’ ‘ The man’s an ass!’ * Ko, indeed ; he spoke very reasonably; I felt for him so much ; he said it was better for him not to be happy ; that he would hardly have worked so well if it had gone smoothly with him; he might not have sympathised so much with suffering, he might have become self-centred,’

‘ I can almost hear him. They were deep in symbols and the thing signified when I left them ; quoting some German story; a water-witch or nymph, which was, he declared, the pure JKve of the early world. He put me in a passion!’ ‘Undine, I suppose.’ ‘Yes ; Lottie said it was an allegory, and then Butler began raving in verse and talked some nonsense about love being content to write his own name on desert sands, or some such idiotic stuff.’

•A very pretty sentiment for a lover,’ laughed Lady Davenant. Lottie Craven, he cause ’of what Sir Henry Davenant ha, sailed “all this mystification,” having been left, with her unencumbered six thousand a-year, to the guardianship of Mr Dacre, it was forced upon him to take some heed of his duties ; the more especially when, tired of waiting for his advice, she had come down in person to the vicarage. But he, being what Hamlet called himself, a “ John-a-dreams,” was apt to set aside the obnoxious pressure of busi ness matters, and, although he spent more time than ever in his library, and even went so far as to hint that a visit to the law courts might be imposed upon him, he took no further steps in the settlement of her affairs. The guardian and ward were on the best of terms, and consulted daily together, but nothing was done. There are still some blessed spots left in the world were nothing ever is done. (To ~he continued.)