THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

FEBRUARY 1881.

THE COMET OF A SEASON.

MR.

BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P.

CHAPTER IV.

A VEILED PROPHET.

R. MONTANA was to remain only one night in Mr. Aquitaine's house. He was to go on to London by the next morning's train. He had important work to do in London, he said, but he did not explain what it was. He only went so far as to say it was a business which now engrossed his life, and which he would submit to the world for the first time in London.

Mr. Aquitaine noticed that, as they drove from the steamer and passed through the streets of the town, Montana glanced around him inquiringly here and there, as if he were looking out for places he knew. "You have been in this place before," Mr. Aquitaine said. “I can see that.”

"How do you know?" The question was put in cold and cautious tone, and Montana drew himself back in the carriage.

"I see you are looking about inquiringly, as if you were looking out for some place you had known and couldn't find it. Nothing wonderful in that; we make changes very quickly here."

"I have come from a country where changes are quicker," Montana said. He spoke in a deep, clear voice, habitually monotonous, giving the impression of a total absence of interest in what was going on around. "Yes; I was here long ago; when I was a boy. I hardly recollect it. I am not quite certain sometimes whether I did not only dream of it."

There was not much time that day for the new-comers to see the place, or for either set of persons-those who came from across the sea, or those who welcomed them-to study each other's ways and peculiarities. It was somewhat late when they all reached Mr. Aquitaine's house, and nearly time to dress for dinner. Two or three friends only were invited to meet the new guests. Miss Rowan was seated next to a young man who, some one told her, was a barrister, and whose name was Fanshawe. He did not seem to her in the least like any species of lawyer. He looked very young, to begin with. He was a strong young fellow, slender, but like an athlete in build; he had short curling fair hair, and an audacious yellow moustache; bright blue eyes, a complexion fair as a girl's, and a boyish laugh that spoke a genuine sense of enjoyment. and she soon became friendly.

He

"Are you really a lawyer ?" she asked him without hesitation. "A sort of lawyer; yes; a barrister. I believe the two branches are all in one in your country; isn't that so?"

"My country? America is not my country."

"No? I thought it was. I thought you were an American girl. You come from America.”

"So does Mrs. Trescoe. Do you call her an American girl?” "Oh, but she has only been across for a few months or weeks or something. However, if you say you are not an American girl, Miss Rowan, I am sure I believe you. I hope you are not offended with me. I meant no harm: there are some charming American

girls."

"I should be very proud of being an American girl if I were one. I don't think there is a more enviable being in the world than an American girl; except one."

Yes; and who is that one?"

"An American boy, of course."

"Oh, I say!" and Fanshawe laughed.

"But I am not an American girl," Miss Rowan said. "I am

Irish; I have only been living in America."

"Do you like America ?"

"I love it. So you are really a lawyer?"

"Well, I shall be really a lawyer when the law-going public find out my merits and the solicitors send me briefs-which as yet they have unaccountably omitted to do, perhaps by reason of some vile conspiracy."

"A lawyer! I should never have thought it," Geraldine said meditatively.

"Why not?"

"Well, I thought lawyers were generally old and grizzled and grim, and that they wore spectacles."

"When we are successful we come to that," Fanshawe said gravely. "That's what we look forward to."

"Success is all like that, I really believe," Geraldine said, with earnestness.

"Like what, Miss Rowan ?"

"Like that. I am sure you understand. It comes too late to be enjoyed; or if it comes early it often goes too soon. It is bought too dearly. I am sometimes sorry for men because they have to try to be successful. I am glad to be a woman for that reason; we have not to try for it. There is no success for us.” "Except a brilliant match."

"Yes; that is our laurel wreath, our one hope to make life worth enduring. Happily, we are soon put out of pain. The prize does not come with grey hair and spectacles. Our struggle is short. In America we give up at five-and-twenty."

"But you are not five-and-twenty?"

"No; but why do you assume that I have given up?"

"I don't assume anything of the kind. You have only to go in and win."

"Thank you; that was kindly said, but don't try any more like it. Let us not pay compliments."

"Very well.

You are going to London soon?"

"Yes; I am longing to go."

"I am so glad you are going. I live there."

"I am very glad you live there."

"Thank you-especially as you banish compliments. Yes-I come from this town; but I live in London now. My father had a place here once, but he sold it. He got not to like it. My sister died here; and he didn't like the whole place any more." "I am not surprised," said Miss Rowan softly. "The place where one we loved has died; who could bear to see it always ?"

"It was a sad story altogether," Fanshawe said. "They had quarrelled, don't you know-at least, you couldn't know, of course; but they had quarrelled-about a love-match my sister would make; and then my people would have made it up gladly, but-well, she died, and there was an end of it. Then my father couldn't stand the place any more, and so he gave it up."

"Was this long ago?" Geraldine asked, hoping that it was long

ago, so that the revival of its memory might be less of a pain to the young man.

"Yes, it was a good long time ago-fifteen or sixteen years. I was at school all the time in Germany, and didn't know very much about it until the end."

Geraldine liked the young man's fresh and genial manner. There was something about him sympathetic. His talk was refreshing. For the rest, the dinner-party wanted brightness. Mr. Montana spoke little, and was apparently content that people should look at him and ask each other why he did not speak. If he spoke little, he ate and drank less. He made it evident that he regarded the dinner as only a ceremonial for him. Mr. Aquitaine and Captain Marion talked a good deal; but Mr. Aquitaine often went into local affairs, and Captain Marion knew nothing about even the local affairs of the localities which ought to have been of personal concern to himself. Mrs. Trescoe was not near any one she cared to talk to. Melissa remained resolutely silent: Mrs. Aquitaine hardly ever talked.

Geraldine rose early next morning. She was an early riser even for Mr. Aquitaine's habits. She had lived for some years lately in an American town or village where it was an article of faith that no one ought to be out of bed much after nine o'clock in the evening, or in bed after five in the morning. She had fallen into the ways of the country with a flexibility natural to her fresh and vigorous nature. She was a girl of a quick and lively curiosity, and when she was at any new place was unresting until she had seen and learned all that was within her reach to know about it. This first morning, therefore, of her stay at Mr. Aquitaine's she rose very early. She had heard the murmuring of water in her ears all the night through, and she was in hopes, not being quite clear as to the exact situation of her host's dwelling, that when she went to her window in the morning she might look upon the tossing sea. "Sing oh!" she kept murmuring to herself now and then at wakeful moments of the night; "let man learn liberty from crashing wind and lashing sea!" murmuring from the verses of a poet to whom English criticism has not yet done justice, and probably never will. When she woke in the morning and ran to her window she saw not the sea, indeed, but a sight surely not less lovely-a bright broad river flowing in the faint light of a breezy spring dawn. Not even the sea itself has had the love of poets, and of all natures that like the poet's are for ever fresh and young, as the rivers have had. The mother may, as Burns sings, forget the child, and the monarch forget the

crown that has only been an hour upon his head; but who ever forgets the river of his youth? As Geraldine looked out upon the stream below her window, the river of her youth came back upon her memory; and with the river the thought of those who were happy with her by the ripple of its waters; of the father who was father, and friend, and companion alike: and there were tears in her eyes.

She was soon out upon the breezy lawn. Preparations were being made for Mr. Montana's going. His train was starting at an early hour, and Mr. Aquitaine was to accompany him to the station. No other of the family or the guests was yet stirring. Geraldine saw Montana and Mr. Aquitaine on the lawn at a short distance from her. She was rather given to studying character, and of course, like most clever girls, fancied she had a distinct gift for the quick understanding of men and women. She had occupied herself a good deal in the voyage across the Atlantic in studying the characters of her companions, and she was of opinion that she had contrived to sound the depths of each nature except one. She was by no means clear about Mr. Montana. Sometimes he seemed to her merely vain and shallow; but at other times he impressed her with a certain sense of awe or dread, as if there were some hidden strength of dangerous will about him; and again in other moods he seemed to her only a self-deluded visionary. On the whole, she did not like him a rare condition of feeling with her for her first and natural impulse was to like people. Most of us are otherwise constructed by nature our first instinctive impulse is to dislike any new-comer, even though he be only a wayfarer getting into a railwaycarriage, where he has full as good a right to be as we have. If he turns out a good fellow or an agreeable person after, we may like him well enough; but we leave the burden of self-vindication to him. It is enough for us that he is getting into the carriage where we are already seated, and although there be ample room for him. and us, our impulse is to dislike him all the same. Now, Miss Rowan's first impulse would have been to like him, and think that he ought to be made welcome.

She went up to Mr. Aquitaine at once and received his wondering congratulations upon her early rising.

"My daughter won't think of getting up these four or five hours yet. I am going to see Mr. Montana off by his train."

"May I go too?" Geraldine asked, delighted at the prospect of the drive, and the railway-station, and the sights new to her. She had no more hesitation about offering herself as Mr. Aquitaine's