in a wavering, uncanny manner, in the furious gusts to-night, but Rhoda's eyes were keen; emerging presently from her retirement, she found three pairs of eyes gazing inquiringly at her. "Would you ever believe it," she cried. "It's old Mr. Whaley's dog-cart, with the white mare, and he is in it." "Old Mr. Whaley" was the family lawyer of the Aglionby clan; and had been so for forty years. "Nonsense, my dear child!" protested her sisters. "It is some belated traveler, and the flickering light has deceived you." "I tell you, it was old Mr. Whaley. Don't I know his mare, Lucy, as well as I know my own name? He was sitting muffled up, and crouching together, and his man was driving. Will you tell me I don't know Peter Metcalfe and his red beard? and they were driving toward the road to Bainbeck." "It is strange!" said Delphine. her mother. delivered his horse over to his groom, and sauntered toward the house. "Are they dining, Thompson?" he inquired of a solemn-looking butler whom he met as he passed through the hall. "They are dining, sir," was the respectful reply, and Randulf's visage wore an expression of woe and gravity impossible to describe; yet an impartial observer must have come to the conclusion that Thompson and his young master were enjoying an excellent joke together. "If Sir Gabriel should ask, say I am in, and will join them in five minutes," said Randulf, going up-stairs. During his dressing he again gave vent to the exclamation, "Inc-credible," and this time it may reasonably be supposed to have referred to the extreme celerity with which he made his toilet. When he had ridden into the court-yard ten minutes ago, he had looked animated, interested, and interesting, as he perfectly sat his perfect horse. There had been vigor and alertness in Rhoda going back toward her place, looked at his movements, and a look of purpose and life in his eyes. That look had been upon his face from "Mamma's ill!" she cried, springing to her the moment in which he had reined up his horse side. "No, no! It's nothing. I have not felt very well all day. Leave me alone, children, it will pass off. Old Mr. Whaley, on the road to Bainbeck, did you say, Rhoda? Then he must be going to see your uncle.” CHAPTER XII.-DANESDALE CASTLE RANDULF DANESDALE, after taking leave of Miss Conisbrough, sprang upon his horse again, pulled his collar up about his ears, rammed his cap well on to his head, called to his dog, and rode on in the teeth of the wind toward his home. Soon the storm burst over him in full fury, and he was properly drenched before arriving at Danesdale Castle. During his ride thither, he constantly gave vent to the exclamation, "Inc-credible!" which might have reference to the weather, he being as yet somewhat inexperienced in the matter of storms as they rage in Yorkshire dales. More probably it was caused by some train of thought. Be that as it may, the exclamation was oft reiterated. At last, after a long, rough ride along country roads uncheered by lamps, he ascended the hill going to Danesdale Castle, and rode into the court-yard where the stables and kennels were, by the roadside, and seen Judith Conisbrough's eyes looking up at him. When he came into the dining-room, and the assembled company turned their eyes upon him with a full stare of surprise, or inspection, or both, and his father pretended to look displeased, and his sister looked so in stern reality, he looked tired, languid, indifferentmore than indifferent, bored to death. Sir Gabriel looked as if he would have spoken to him, but Randulf's place was at the other end of the table, nearer his sister, Miss Philippa Danesdale. He dropped into the vacant chair left for him by the side of a lady who looked out of temper ; a lady with considerable claims to good looks, in the confident, unabashed style of beauty; a lady, finally, whose toilet bore evidence of having cost. a great deal of money. She was Miss Anna Dunlop, Miss Danesdale's dearest friend, and Randulf had had to take her in to dinner every day since his return home. Glancing around, he uttered a kind of general apology, including Miss Dunlop in it with a slight bow, and then he looked wistfully round the table. "You appear to be looking for something, Mr. Danesdale," observed Miss Dunlop, her corrugated brow becoming more placid. "Only for the s-soup. I am absolutely starving," was the reply, in a tone of weariness which hardly rose above a whisper. "If you will be so late, Randulf," said his sister in the low voice she always used, "you must expect to have to wait, a minute or two at any rate, for your dinner. The servants are not omnipotent." "I hope not, indeed!" he said. "If they were, where would you be? Where should I be? Where should we all be?" "You snap up people's remarks in the most unkind manner," expostulated Miss Dunlop on Philippa's behalf. "Your sister only meant to calm your impatience, and your misconstrue her remark, and call up a number of the most dreadful images to one's mind." "Dreadful images. Isn't there a song? Oh, no, engines; that's it-not images. 'See the dreadful engines of eternal war.' Do you know it ?" those who had to interpret her mutters or be asking for a repetition of them, may be more easily imagined than described. Her brother, who had seen little of her until this last final home-coming, considered the habit to be one of the most trying and exasperating weapons in the armory of a trying and exasperating woman. Miss Danesdale had every intention of behaving very well to her brother, and of making him welcome, and being very kind to him; but the manner in which she displayed her good-will took a didactic, even a dictatorial form, which failed to recommend itself to the young man. If it were not sure to be taken for feminine ill-will toward the nobler and largerminded sex, the present writer would feel obliged to hint that Randulf Danesdale felt spiteful toward his esteemed sister, and that occasionally he acted as he felt. In any case, he appeared on the present occasion not to hear her, and in exactly the same voice and words, she repeated her question, looking at him as he gazed wearily at the pattern of his “I never heard it. I believe you are making it now empty soup.plate. up," said Miss Dunlop reproachfully. "Ah; it's old. It used to be sung long before your time when I was a boy, in fact," he returned, with a gravity so profound as to be almost oppressive. Miss Dunlop paused a moment, and then decided to laugh, which she did in a somewhat falsetto tone, eliciting no responsive smile from him. A dismal idea that Randulf was a sarcastic young man began to distill its baneful poison through her mind. What did he mean by so pointedly saying, "It used to be sung when I was a boy?" "Did the Sparthwaites keep you so late, Randulf?" asked his sister; but he did not hear her, or appeared not to do so. Miss Danesdale was a plump, red-haired woman, no longer young. It was said by some of those friends of her youth whom she, like others, found somewhat inconvenient when that youth had fled, that she was forty. This, however, was supposed by those who knew her to be a slight exaggeration. She sat very upright, always held her shoulders back, and her head elevated, nor did she stoop it, even in the act of eating and drinking. She always spoke in an exceedingly low voice, which only a great emergency or extreme irritation ever caused her to raise; indeed, it is useless to deny the fact, Miss Danesdale, from what cause soever, muttered, with what results, on the tempers of herself and of "Did the Sparthwaites keep you so late, Randulf?" Miss He looked up with a vague, dreaming expression. "A! Did some one speak to me?" Extreme irritation now came into play. Danesdale raised her voice, and in a far from pleasant tone, cried: "Did the Sparthwaites keep you so late?" "I have come straight here from the Sparthwaites," he replied, mournfully accepting the fish which was offered to him. "Whom did you meet there?" she asked. Any one who could have performed the feat of looking under Randulf's wearily-drooped eyelids into his eyes, would have been rewarded with the vision of a most uncanny-looking sprite, which suddenly came floating and whirling up from some dark well of wickedness deep down in a perverted masculine nature. When he raised his eyelids, the sprite had discreetly drawn a veil between itself and the audience. None the less did it prompt the reply : "Oh, a 1-lot of people. I sat next an awfully good-looking woman, whom I admired. One of those big, black women, like a rocking-horse. C-champed the bit just like a rocking-horse too, and pranced like one. She said " There were accents in Randulf's voice which called a smile to the faces of some of the company, who had begun to listen to his tale. dale exclaimed almost vivaciously: "Why, you must mean Mrs. Pr—” "Don't tell me before I've finished. I don't know her name. Her husband had been ill it seemed, and she had been nursing him, and they pitied her because of it; and she said, 'Oh, I have nursed him before now. I held him in my arms when he was a b-baby.' "Randulf!"' Miss Danes- summation, perhaps not. At least, he did not murmur at it, but attacked the viands before him in such a manner as soon to make up for lost time. Presently the ladies went to the drawing-room, and the men were left to their wine. All the rooms at Danesdale Castle were agreeable, because they could not help being so. They were quaint and beautiful in themselves, and formed parts of a quaint and beautiful old house; and of course Miss Danesdale did not wish to have vulgar rooms, and had not, unless a certain frigid stiffness be vulgarity, which, in a "withdrawing-room," meant to be a centre of sociability and ease, I am inclined to think it is. "I was h-horror-struck; and I suppose I showed it, for she suddenly gave a wild prance, and champed the bit more than ever, and then she said: 'Of course I don't remember it, but they tell me I did. My dear husband is a year or two younger than I am, but so good."" Mr. Danesdale sank again into a reflective silence. Sir Gabriel and the elder portion of the company went off into a storm of laughter, which did not in the least mitigate the deep gloom of the heir. Miss Dunlop's high color had increased to an alarmingly feverish hue. Miss Danesdale looked unutterable things. Sir Gabriel, who loved a joke, presently wiped the tears from his eyes and said, trying to look rebuking: "My dear boy, if you let that sarcastic tongue of yours run on in that way, you'll be getting into mischief." "I sarcastic!" he ejaculated, with a look of the deepest injury. "My dear sir!" "Will you have roast mutton, Randulf?" asked Miss Danesdale, behind her mittened hand, as if she were putting some very disgraceful question, and dreaded lest the servants should hear it. "Because if—' Miss Dunlop was staying in the house. The other ladies were neighbors from houses not too far away. All belonged to "the dale." They were not of a very lively type, being nearly all advanced in middle life, stout, and inclined to discuss the vexed topics of domestics, children, the state of their greenhouses, their schools, and their clergy, all of which subjects they seemed to sweep together into one category, or, as Randulf had been known irreverently to say, "These women lump together infant schools, bedding out plants, parsons, and housemaids in a way that makes it impossible for any ignorant fellow like me to follow the conversation." These dowagers, with Miss Dunlop looking bored and cross (as indeed she felt), and Miss Danesdale looking prim, as she stepped from one to the other of her guests, to mutter a remark and receive an answer-these ladies disposed themselves variously about the well-warmed, comfortable drawing-room, while the one who was the youngest of them, the most simply dressed, the handsomest, and by far the most intelligent-looking, the wife of the vicar of Stanniforth, sat a little apart, and felt amused at the proceedings. "Roast mutton? oh, joy!" he exclaimed, with a look of sudden hungry animation, which greatly puzzled some of the company, who saw him that night for the first time, and who said afterward that really that young Danesdale was very odd. As soon as politeness would allow her, Philippa He came in so late to dinner, and sat looking as seated herself beside Miss Dunlop, and, with a if he were going to faint, and told a very ill-frosty little smile of friendship, said, in a mutter natured story about Mrs. Prancington (though Mrs. Prancington is a ridiculous woman, you know), and then he suddenly fell upon the roast mutton with an ogreish fury, and could hardly be got to speak another word throughout the meal. They were sure he had astonished poor Anna Dunlop beyond bounds, for she did not speak to him again. Perhaps Mr. Danesdale had desired this con intended to be good-natured: "When the men come in, Anna, and if Randulf comes to you, just ask him something, will you?" "Ask him what? If he enjoyed the wine and walnuts as much as the roast mutton? or if he thinks me like Mrs. Prancington ?" "Oh no, dear. And if he did, Mrs. Prancington is a very handsome woman. But ask him if he has seen anything of the Miss Conisbroughs peacock's tail magnified," he said to himself, and to-day." fled toward the priestess for refuge. I suppose you got here before the storm came on, Mrs. Malleson ?" "Yes, we did. We shall have to drive home in it, though." "I'm afraid you will. What roads they are here too! I know I thought so this afternoon, riding from Hawes. . . Don't let us inter She rose, and walked with neat, prim little steps rupt your music on any account, Miss Dunlop," across the room. Miss Dunlop sat still for a few minutes; her big black eyes fixed upon her big, black-mittened hands, upon her yellow satin and black-lace lap, and upon the black and yellow fan which her fingers held. After frowning at her hands for some time, she arose and went to the piano, near which sat Mrs. Malleson, the vicar's wife. Miss Dunlop placed herself upon the music-stool, and began to play a drawing-room melody of questionable value as a composition, in a prononcé, bravura style. By and by the men did come in-Sir Gabriel and the vicar first. A fine old gentleman was Sir Gabriel Danesdale. Abundant curly hair, which had long been snow-white; large, yet delicately chiseled features of great strength and power, and somewhat of the old Roman type, and a complexion of a clear, healthy brown, not turned crimson, either with his outdoor sports or his modest potations. He looked as if he could be stern upon occasion. His face and bearing showed that mingling of patrician pride and kindly bonhomie which made him what he was, and which had secured him the love and good-will of friends and dependents years ago. Behind him followed Randulf, as tall as his father, and with shoulders as broad, looking at the moment as if he could hardly summon up energy to move one foot before the other. He was listening with the air of a martyr to a stout country squire with a red face, and other country squires the husbands of those squiresses who sat in an amply spreading ring about the room-followed after him, talking—what do country gentlemen talk about, whose souls are in the county hunt and the agricultural interest ? Randulf, "promenading" his eyes around the room, beheld Miss Dunlop at the piano, and the vicar's wife sitting close beside her. To the left, he saw the ring of dowagers, "looking like a VOL. XVI.-33 he continued blandly, as she stopped. "Oh, I've finished," answered she, somewhat unceremoniously cutting into the conversation. "Did you ride from Hawes this afternoon ?" "Yes," said he, instantly becoming exhausted again. "And that is a rough road?" "Very." "It comes through Yoresett, doesn't it?" "It does." "Philippa has been telling me about your friends, the Miss Conisbroughs." "Has she?" "The Miss Conisbroughs," said Mrs. Malleson. "Do you know them, Miss Dunlop ?" "Not at all, but I hear Mr. Danesdale does." "Do you, Mrs. Malleson ?" he asked. "Very well indeed. They are great friends of mine and of yours too, it seems. "Of mine? Well, I've known them just as long as I've known you. May I say that Mrs. Malleson and the Misses Conisbrough are great friends of mine!" " to him that afternoon. He felt a tightening at his heart-strings. Mrs. Malleson went on : "As for Delphine, I think she is exquisite. I never saw any lovelier girl, I don't care where. You know, if that girl were rich, and came out in London-I used to visit a great deal in London before I was married-and I am sure, if she were introduced there, she would make a furoredressed in a style that suited her, you know. Don't you think she would ?" "I should not be surprised," he returned, apparently on the verge of utter extinction; "one one never can tell what there will be a furore about in London,-Chinamen, actresses, living skeletons, bilious greens-yes, I daresay she would." Miss Dunlop laughed a little ill-naturedly, while Randulf, displaying suddenly more animation, added: "But the youngest, Mrs. Malleson. That little black-browed one. She is just as handsome as she can be. What a life she would lead any man who was in love with her!" "She will be a strikingly beautiful woman some day, without doubt; but she is a child, as yet.” "Now, Miss Dunlop, you have heard an indisputable verdict on the good looks of the Miss Conisbroughs. All I can say is, that to me Mrs. Malleson's remarks appear full of wisdom and penetration. As for anything else Father!" Sir Gabriel was passing. Despite his overpowering languor, Randulf rose as he called him, and stood beside him, saying: "Miss Dunlop is inspired with a devouring curiosity about the Miss Conisbroughs. What can you tell us about them and their anteced ents?" "Miss Conisbroughs," said Sir Gabriel, knitting his brows. "Oh, of course. Marion Arkendale's daughters. Parson Conisbrough's girls. Ah! she was a bonny woman, and a nice woman, was Marion Arkendale, when we were all young. I know them a little-yes." He disinherited his son, you know, in a fit of passion one day." "Lucky for me that you can't," said Randulf mournfully. "I'm more likely to disinherit you for inordinate yawning than anything else," said Sir Gabriel. "His son married; did he leave any children ?" "One boy." "Surely he won't ignore him utterly." "But he will. I remember him telling me that the mother and her relations had the boy, and were going to look after it, and that he was sure they hoped by that means to get a pull over him and his money. He added with a great oath that the brat might make the best of them, and they of it, for never a stiver of his should it handle. He is the man to keep his word, especially in such a case as that." "Will these girls be much of heiresses?" asked Randulf, apparently stifling a yawn. "Very pretty heiresses, if he divides equally. Some fifteen hundred a year apiece, I should say. But why do you want to know?" added Sir Gabriel. "Has something happened?" "Nothing, to my knowledge," replied his son; "it was only the extreme interest felt in the young ladies by Miss Dunlop that made me ask." "Well, that's all I can tell you about it, except a few anecdotes of old John's prowess in the hunting-field, and of his queer temper and offhand ways." Sir Gabriel left them. Randulf implored Miss Dunlop to sing, which she did, thereby reducing him to the last stage of woe and dejection. "They are Squire Aglionby's grandnieces, all the morning. Randulf was invisible during aren't they?" "Yes, what of that?" "Will they be his heiresses? know the local gossip yet." the greater part of the day, and was reported by his man as having a headache and not wishing for You see, I don't any lunch. "His heiresses-I expect so. Old John never confided the secrets of his last will and testament to me, but it is the universal expectation that they will, when any one ever thinks anything about it. "Headache!" cried Sir Gabriel to the ladies, with a mighty laugh, "at his age I had never even dreamed of a headache. I'd bet something he's on his back on a couch, with a pipe and a French novel." |