and huger vegetation than is found on land, with treasure of shells—some green, some purple, some pearly—clustered in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry. Looking up, and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall pale thing, shaped like man, but made of spray, transparent, tremulous, awful. It stands not alone: they are all human figures that wanton in the rocks—a crowd of foam-women—a band of white, evanescent Nereides.

Hush!—shut the book; hide it in the satchel— Martin hears a tread. He listens: No—yes; once more the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on the wood-path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues forth.

She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin never met a lady in this wood before, nor any female, save, now and then, a village-girl come to gather nuts. To-night the apparition does not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now recognises her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of that veil.

She passes him, and says nothing. He knew she would: all women are proud monkeys—and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind, when the lady retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and, raising her veil, reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks:

‘Are you one of Mr. Yorke’s sons?’

No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.

‘I am,’ he said bluntly; and encouraged himself to wonder, superciliously, what would come next.

‘You are Martin, I think?’ was the observation that followed.

It could not have been more felicitous; it was a simple sentence, very artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the youth’s nature. It stilled him like a note of music.

Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right and sensible that the girl should discriminate him from his brothers. Like his father, he hated ceremony; it was acceptable to hear a lady address him as ‘Martin,’ and not Mr. Martin, or Master Martin, which form would have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible, than ceremony, was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity: the slight tone of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible hesitation, was considered perfectly in place.

‘I am Martin,’ he said.

‘Are your father and mother well?’—(it was lucky she did not say papa and mamma! that would have undone all)—‘and Rose and Jessy?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?’

‘Oh, yes!’

Martin gave a comic half-smile and demi-groan; the half-smile was responded to by the lady, who could guess in what sort of odour Hortense was likely to be held by the young Yorkes.

‘Does your mother like her?’

‘They suit so well about the servants, they can’t help liking each other.’


  By PanEris using Melati.

Previous chapter/page Back Home Email this Search Discuss Bookmark Next chapter/page
Copyright: All texts on Bibliomania are © Bibliomania.com Ltd, and may not be reproduced in any form without our written permission. See our FAQ for more details.