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Miss Bretherton

Miss Bretherton image
Parent Issue
Day
26
Month
November
Year
1891
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

[ CONTISÍOED] lrSo; (be m fiue creatui-p," taiJ Kendal, almost inechuir.cally. How Hule Mrs. Stuart knew- or, rathar, bon entirely remóte she was from leclin- what bad httppened! It cerned to hira that tlie emotion of that sceno was still thrilliug through ali his pulses, yet to what ordinary littlo proportions had it been reducpd iullrs. Stuart'smind! He alone had Been the veil lifted, had como close to the energetic reality of the girl's nature, 'f hat Isabella Brctlierton could fecl so, could look eo, was known only to bim- the thought had pain in it, but the keenest ]leasure also. 'Do you know," said Mrs. Stuart presently, with a tono of reproach in her voice, "that she asked for you on the last night?" "Did she?" "Yes. We had just gono ou the stage to see her after the curtain had fallen. It was such a pretty sight, you ought not to have missed it. The prince had come to say goodby to hor, and, as we came in, she was jut turning away in her long phantom dress with the white bood falling round her head, Uke that Romney picture- dou't yon remember.' - of Lady Hamilton- Mr. Forbes bas drawn her iu it tno or three times. The , stage, was full of people. Mr. Forbes was there, of course, and Edward, and ourselfes, and presently I heard her say to Edward, 'Is Mr. Kendal here? I did not see him in the house.' Edward said something. about your not baving been able to get a seat. which I thought clumsy of him, for, of eouii-, irr (■ .;. I have got some sort of a plauQ lor ;. ".: ai tlip tas.t moment. She didii't say aiiyii: uu. bul I CboagUt- -if jou won't mimi mj ayiny . Mr. Cendal- that, een sideriug aii tuinas, tl would have beenbetrer if you had boen tiiere." "It seems to me," sakl Keudal, with vexation in lus voice, "tuat there is a fateagainst my doing auything as I ought to do it I thousht, on the whole, It would be better not to make a fuss about ít wben it carne to the last. You see she must look upon mo to some extent as a critical, if not a hostile, influeuce, and I did not wish to remind her of my existence." ■'Oh, well, said Mrs. Stuart, in her cheery, common sense way, "that evening was snch an overwhelming experience that I don't suppose sbe could have feit any soreness towards anybody. And, do you know, she is improved? I don't quite know what it is, but certainly one or two cf tho6e long scènes she does more intelligently, and eren the death scène is better- less monotonous. I sometimes think she will surprise us all yet." "Very likely," said Kendal, absently, not in reality believing a word it, but it was impossible to dissent. "I hope so," exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, "with all my heart. She has been very depressed often these last weeks, and certainly, on the whole, people have been harder upon her than they were at first. I am so glad that she and your sister will meet in Venice. Mme. de Chateauvieux is just the friend she wants." Kendal walked home feeling the rankhng of a fresh pin point. She had asked for him, and he had not been there 1 What must she think, apparently, but that, from a sour, moróse consistency, ho had refused to be a witness of her triumph 1 Oh, hostile f ates! A week later Eustace was settled in the Surrey farm house whieh had sheltered the Sunday league ou its first expedition. The Surrey country was in its f uil glory ; the flrst purple heather was fully out and the distant bilis rose blue and vaporous across stretches of vivid crimson, broken here and tbere by the dim gray greens of the furze or the sharper color of the bracken. The chorus of birds had died away, but the nests were not yet tenantless. Tho great sand pit near the farm house was still vocal with innumerable Drooas oí sana mnrtins, still enüvened by the constant skimming to and fro of the pareut birds. And under Kendal's sitting room window a pair of tomtits, which the party had watched that May Sunday, were just launching their young famiJy on the world. One of his flrst walks was to that spot beyond the pond wuere they had made their afternoon camping ground. The nut hatches had fled - flod, Kendal hoped, sorao time before, for the hand of the spoiler had been ncar their dweil ing, nnd its fragmenta lay scattered on tlo ground. Ho preseutly learned to notice that Ue never bearj the sharp sound of the bird's tappiug beak araong the woods without a little start of recollectiob. Outside his walks, hi3 days were spent in continuous literary eilort. His bookwasin a conditiou which callad tor uil his energios, and ho threw bimself vigorously into it. The first weeks weru taken up witli a long review of Víctor Ilugo's prose and poetry, with a view to a final critica! result. It seemed to him that there was stuff in the great Frenchman to suit all weathers and all skks. There wero somber, wind swept days wheu thj stretcbes of brown ling not yet in flower, the hurrj'iug clouds and the bending trees were in harmony with all the floree tempestuous sMe of the great romantic. There were others when the homely, tender, domestio aspect of the country f ormed a sort of framework and accompaniment to the simpler patriare bal ciernen ts in the books which Kendal had a bout him. Then, when the pages on Victor Ungo wore written, thoso already printed on Chateaubriand begaa to dissatisfy him, and he steeped himself once more in the rolling artificial harmonies, the mingled beauty and f alsity of one of the most wonderful of styles, that he might draw f rom it its secrets and say a last just word about it. Ha knew a few families in the neighboruood, but he kept away f rom thein, and almost his only cvnjuectiou with the outer world during b is Üi'st nnjntb in the country was his conespoudfen'.."e with Mme. de Chateauvieux, uiij was at Eretat witli her husbanci. b.if wruta her botber very Lvely duuvcteristie ac ■ mal , uil lift tuer1, '.úg her letters with amusiug sketches or tne political or artistic celebrities with whom tba little Norman town swarms ia the seas on. After the third or fourth letter, however, Kendal began to look restlessly at tbo Etretat postmark, to reflect that Marie had been there a long time, and to wonder Bhe was not already tired of such a public sort of existence as the Eiretat life. 'iho bathing scènes, and the fire eating, deputy, and tha üterary woman with a mistión f or the spread of naturalism, became very flat to him. Ho was astonished that his sister was not as anxious to start for Italy as ue was to hear that she had done so. This temper of his was connected with the fact that af ter tlie first of August he begau to develop a curious impatienco on the subject of the daily post. At üld House farm the post was taken as leisurely as everything else; tuero was no regular delivery, and Kendal generally was content to trust to the casual mercies of the butcher or baker for his letters. But after the date meutioned it occurred to him that his letters reached him with an abominable irregularity, aud that it would do his work no hdrm, but, ou the contrary, much good, if he took a daily constitutional in the direction of the postofflce, which gave a touch of official dignity to the wasp füled precincts of a grocer's shop in the village, soine two miles off. For some considerable number of days, however, his walks ouly furnished him with food for reüection on the common disproportion of means to ends in this hfe. ïis sister's persistence in sticking to the soil of France began to-seem to bim extraordinary I However, ai ast tbo monotony of the Etretat postmarks was broken by a post card from Lyons. "We are here for the night on some business of Paul's ; to-morro w we hope to be at Turin, and two or three days later at Venice. By the way, whero will the Brethertons be? I must trust to my native wits, I suppose, when I get thero. She is not the sort of light to be bidden under a busbel.'' This post card disturbed Kendal not a little, and he feit irritably that somebody had mismanaged matters. Ho had supposed, and Ddeed suggestcd, that Miss Bretherton sbould incloso his note in one of her owu to his sister's Paris address, giving, at the same timo, some indication of a place of meeting in Venica But if she had not dono this, it was very possiblo that the two women might miss each other aiter all. Sometimes, when ho had been contemplating this possibüity with disgust, he wonld, with a great effort, make himself refleet why it was that ho eai ed about the matter so disproportionately. Why was he so deeply interested in Isabel Brethertou's movements abroad and in the meeting whieh would bring her, so to speak, once more into his own world? Why? because it was impossible, he would auswer himself indignantly, not to feel a profound interest in any woman who had ever shared as much emotion with you as sbe had with bim in those moments at Nuueham, who had received a wound at your hands, had winced under it and still bad remained gracious and kind and womanly 1 "I sbould be a bard hearted brute," he said to himself, "if I did not feel a very deep and peculiar interest iu her - if 1 did not desire that Marie's frieudship should abundantly make up to her for my blundering 1" Did he ever really deceive himself into imagining that this was all? It is difficult to say. The mind of a man no longer young, and trained in all the subtleties of thought, does not deal with an invading sentiment exactly as a voutb would do with all bis Xperience to come. It steals npon bim more slowly, be is capable of disguising it to himself longer, of escaping from it into other interests. Passion is in its ultímate essence the same, wherever it appears and under whatever conditions, but it possesses itself of human Ufe in different ways. Slowly ani certainly the old primeval flre, the commonest, fatalest, divinest force of life, was making its way into Kendal's nature. But it wás making its way against antagonist forces ot habit, tradition, self restraint - it found a haudred other interests in possessiou; it bad a strange impersonality and timidity of nature to tight with. Kendal bad been accustomed to live in other men's lives. Was he only just beginning to live his own? But, however it was, he was at least conscious during this waiting time that life was f uil of some bidden savor ; that his thoughts were never idle, never vacant; that, as he lay flat among the fern in his moments of rest, f ollowing the march of the clouds as they sailed divinely over the rich breadtb and color of the commons, a whole brood of images nestled at his heart, or seemed to hover iu the sunny air before him - vision3 of a slender form fashioned with Greek suppleness and majesty, of a soft and radiant presence, of looks all womanliness, and gestures all grace, of a smile like no other he had ever seen for cbarm, of a quick, impulsiva gait! He followed tbat figure through scène after i scène; be saw primroses in its hand, and the pale spring blue above it ; he recalled It standing tense and still with blanched check and fixed appealing eye, while all round the June woods murmured in the breeze; he surrounded it in imagination with the pomp and circumstance of the stage, and realized it as a center of emotion to thousands. And then from memories be would pass on to speculations, from the scènes he knew to those he could only guess at, from the life of which be had seen a little to the largor and plorad life beyond. And so the days went on, and thougb be was iinpatient and restless, yet indoors his work was congenial to him, and out of doors the sun was bright and all the wbileacertain little god lay hidden, speaking no articúlate word, but waiting with a raischievous patience for the final overthrow of one more pooi" mortal. At last the old postmistress, whom ho had almost come to regai"d as cherishing a personal grudgo against him, ceased to repulse him, and after his seven yeara of famine the years of abundance set In. For the space of three weeks letters from Venice lay waiting for him almost every altérnate morning, and the heathery slopes between tho farm and the village grew familiar with the spectacle of a i tall, thin man in a rough tweed suit struggling as he walked with sheets of f oreign paper which the wind was doing its best to filch away from him. The following extracta from these letters ■ contain such portions of them as are necessary to our object: "Casa Mixghetti. "My Dear Eustaci- I can only write you a very scrappy letter today, for we are just settling into our apartment, and the rooms are strewn in the most distracting way with boxes, books and garments ; while my maid, Felicie, and the old Italian woman Caterina, who is to cook and manage for us, seem to bo able to do nothing- not even to put a chair straight or order somo bread to keep us from starving - without Consulting me. Paul, taking advantage of a hnsband's prerogative, has gone off to flaner on the piazza, while his women folk make lifb tolerable at home; which is a very unfair and spiteful version of his proceedings, for he has really gone as much on my business as on his own. I sent him - feeling his look of misery, as he sat on a packing case in the middls of tbis chaos, terribly on my mind - to see if he could flud the English consul (whom he knows a little), and discover from him, if possible, where your friends are. It is strange, a3 you say, ihat Miss Bretherton should not have written to me: but I iuclü;e to out it down to oor old Jaeques at borne, Tho Ls gettíng mojo ana more imbecile witbthe weight oí years and infirmities, and is caite capable of forwarding to us all the letfers whieh are not worth posting, and leavinj; all the important ones piled up in the hálito await our return. It is provoking, f or, ilthe Bretherton party are not going te staylong in Venice, we may easily spend all ourtime in looking for each other; which will, hileed, be a lame and impotent conclusión. However, I have hopea of Paul'3 cleverness "And now, 4 o'dock! There is no help for it, my dear Hhstace. I must go and instruct Caterina htw not to poison us in our dinner to-night. Sle looks a dear old soul. but totally innocentiof anything but Italian barbarities in tho w of cooking. And Felicie also is well meaningbut ignorant, so unless I wish to have Paul oo my bands for a week I must be off. Thls rugh picnicking life, in Venice, of all placa, is a curious little experienoe, but I madi up my mind last time we were here thaij wo wou ld venture our precious selves in nc more hotels. TUe heat, the musquitoe3, the ïorrors of the food were too much. Ilere ro have a garden, a kitchen, a cool sittiag roem, and if I choose to feed Paul on lis ne and milk puddings, who is to prevent n :? . "Paul had just come in with victory written on his br ir, The English consul was of no use; but, s he was strolling home, he went into St. Ma k's, and there, of courso, found them! In thachureu were apparently all the English peopjo who have a3 yet ventured to Veniee, and these, or most of them, seenied to be foll jtig in the wake of a little party of four pericas- two ladies, a gentleman and a lame giif walking with a crutch. An excited Englisb tourist condescended to inforni Pml that ij was 'the great English actress, Miss Brethfrton,' who was creating all tho commotionJ ïheu, of course, he went up to her - he wal provoked that he could harily see her in to dim light of St. Mark's - lutroduced uimsdt and descnbed our perplexities. Of couijsc, she had written. I expected as much. jeques must certainly bo pensioned off 1 Patü thought the other three very inferior to hfr, though the unele was civil and talked ccndescendingly of Venice, as though it were even good enough to be admired by a Woirall. It ia arranged that the beauty is to cotae and see me to-inorrow if, after Caterina tas operated upon us during two rae.-ils, vte are still alive. Qood night and good-bv." "Vbsice, Aug. 7. "Well, I havo leêu berl It has been a blazing day. I was sitting in the little garden which separatas one-half of our rooms from the other, while Caterina was arranging the dejeuner ucder the little acacia arbor in the center of it. Suddenly Felicie came out from the house, and behind her a tall figure in a large hat and a white dress. Tho figure held out botk hands to me in a cordial, un English way, aid said a number of pleasant things rapidly in a delicious voice, while I, with the dazzle oT the sun in my eyes, so that I could hardlj make out the features, stood feeling a littfe thrilled by the advent of so famous a person, In a few momeute, however, as it seemed to me, we were sitting under the acacias, she was helping me to cut up the melon and arrange the figs, as if we had known one auother for montbs, and I was experiencing one of those sudden rushes of liking which, asyou know, are a weakness of mine. She staytd and took her meal with us. Paul, of courie, was fasciuated, and for once has not set her down as a reputation surf ai te. "Her beauty has a. curious air of the place; and now I remember that her mother was Italian- Venetian, octually, was it not? That accounts for it; she is the Venetian type spiritualized. At the foundation of her face, as it were, lies the face of the Burano lace maker; only the original type has been so refined, so chiseled and smoothed away, that, to speak fancif ully, only a beautiïul guost of it remains. That large stateliness of ber movement, too," ís Italian. You may see it in any Venetian street, aud Veronese has fixedit in art." "While we were sitting in the garden who should be announeed but Edward Wallaee. I knew, of course, from you that he rnlght be here about this time, but in the burry of our settling in I had quite forgotten bis existence, so that the sight of his trim person bearing down upon us was a surprise. He and the Bretherton party, however, had been going about together for several days, so that he and she had plenty of gossip" in common. ÏIrs. Bretherton's enthusiasm about Venice is of a very naive, hot, outspoken kind. It seems to me that she is a very susceptible creaturo. She Uves her life fast and crowds into it a greater numlier of sensations than most people. All this zest and pleasure must consume a vast amount of nervous force, but it makes her very refreshing to I people as bias as Paul and I are. My first feeling about her is very much what yours was. Personally, there seems to be all the stuff in her of which anactressia made. Will she some day stumble upon the discovery of how to bring her own individual llame and force to bear upon her art? I should think it not unlikely, and, altogether, I feel as though I should take a mora hopeful view of her intellectually than you do. You see, my dear Eustace, you men never realizo how clever we women are, how fast we learn and how quickly we catch up hints from all ters under beaven and improve upon them. All aotress ko vonnc ftml en Rvmnt.hitíí na Isabel Brethertou must still be very much of an unknown quantity dramatically. I know you tbink tbat tho want of training is fatal, and that popularity will stereotype her faults. It may beso; but I urn inclined to tbink, from my flrst sight of her, that she is a nature that will gather from life rather what Btiniulates it than what dulU and vulgarizes it. Altogether, when I compare my first impressions of her with the image of her lef t by your letters, I feel that I have been pleasantly surprised. Only in the matter of intelligence. Otherwise it has, of course, been your descriptions of her that have planted and nurtured in me that strong sensa of attraction wbieh blossomed into liking at the moment of personal contact." "August 10. "This afternoon we have been out in tüe góndola belonging to this modest establishment, with our magnificent gondolier, Piero, and his boy, to convey us to the Lido. I got Miss Bretherton to talk to me about her Jamaica career. Sho made us all laugh with her account3 of the blood and thunder pieces i in which the audiences of the Kingston theatre rereled. She seems generally to hare played the 'Bandit'a Daughter,' the 'Smuggler's Wife,' or '1"he European Damsel Carried Off by Indians,' or soms other thrilling elemental personage of the kind. The 'White Lady' was, apparently, her flrst introduction to a more complicated order of play. It is extraordinary, when one comes to think of it, how Hule positiva dramatic knowledge she must have! She knows somo Shakespeare, I think - at least she mentions two or three plays - and I gather from something sha said that sbe is now making the inevitable study f Juliet that every actress makes sooner or latei; but Sheridan, Goldsmith, and, of course, all the French people are mer uames to her. When I think of the minute exhaustiva training our Paris actors go through and compare it with sucfa a state of nature as hers, I am amazed at what sho has done! For, after all, you know, she must be able to act to some extent; she must know a great deal more of her business than you and I suspect, or she could not get on at all." "August 16. "It is almost a eek, I see, since I wrote to you last. During that timo we havo seen a great deal more of Miss Bretherton, sometimes in company with her belongings, sometimes without tbetn, and my impressions of her have ripened very tast. Oh, my dear Eustace, you have been hasty - all the world has bee hasty. Isabel Bretberton's real self is only now coming to the front, and it is a self which, as I say to myself with astonishment, not even your keen eyes have ever seen- hardly suspected even. Should I, myself a woraan, have been as blind to a woman's capabilities, I wonder! Very likely I These sudden ríen developments of youth aro often beyond all calculation. "Mr. Wallace's attitude makes me realize more than I otherwise could the past and present condition of things. He comes and talks to me with amazement of the changos in her tone and outlook, of the girl's sharpening intellect anii growing sensitiveness, and as he recalls incidents and traits of the London season- confessions or judgments or blunders of hers, and puts them beside tho impression which hesees her to be making on Paul and myself - I begin to understand from his talk and his bewilderment something of the real nature of tho case. Intellectually, it has been 'the ugly duckling' over again. Under all the crude, unftedged imperfection of her young performance, you people who bave watched her with your trained critical eyes seem to me nerer to havo suspected tho coming wings, the strange nascent power, whien is onJy now asserting itself in the light of day. ' 'Wtat has Eustace been aboutï said Paul to me last night, af ter wo had all returned from rambüng round and round the moonlit piazza, and he had been describing to me his talk with her. 'Ho ought to have seen further ahe.ul That creature is ouly just beginning to live, and it will be a life worth having. He has Rinclled it, too, as much as anybody. Of course, we have not seen her act yeL, and ignoraot - yes, sae is oortainly ignorant - though not so much as I imagined. But as for natural power and dolicacy of mind, there can be no question at all about t hem !' " 'I don't know that Eustace did question them,' I said. 'He thóugbt simply tbat slio had no conception of what her art really required of her, and never would have because of her popularity.' "To which Paul replied that, as far as ho could make out, nobody thought more meanly of her popularity than she did, and he has been talking a great deal to her about her season. " 'I never saw a woman at a more critical or interesting polnt of developmont,' he exclaimed at last, stridingup and down, and so absorbed in the subject that I could have almost laughed at hls eagerness. 'Something or other, luckily for nar, set her on the right track three months ago, and it is apparently a nature on which nothlng is lost. One can see it in the way in which she tak es Venico; there isn't a scrap of her, little as she knows about it, that isn't keen and interested and wide awakel' " 'Well, after all,' I reminded him as he was settling down to his books, 'we know nothing about her as an actress.' " 'We shall see,' he said; 'I will find out something about that too before long.' "And so he has!" "August 17-19. "Paul has been devoting himself more and more to the beauty, Mr. Wallace and I looking on with considerable amusement and interest; and this afternoon, flnding it intolerable that Miss Bretherton bas not even a bowing acquaintance with any of hls favorite plays, Augier, Dumas, Víctor Hugo or any t hing else, he has been readmg aloud to us in the garden, running on f roin scène to scène and speech to speech, translating as he went - she in rapt attention, and he gesticulating and spouting, and, ezcept for un occasional queer rendering that made us laugh, getting on capitally with his English. 6ue waseuchanted; the novelty and the excitoment of it absorbed her; and every now and then she would stop Paul with a little imperious wave of her hand, and repeat the substance of a speech after him with an ünpetuous elan, an energy of comprehension, which drew little nods of satisfaction out of him, and sometimes produced a strong and startling effect upon myself and Mr. Wallace. However, Mr. Wallace might stare as ha liked; the two ieople concerned were totally unconscious of tho rest of us, until at last, after the great death scène in the 'Nuit Blanche,' Paul threw down the book almost witb a sob, and she, rising witb a burst of feeling, held out her white arms towards an imagiuary lover, and with extraordinary skill and memory repeated the substanco of the heroine's last speeches: " 'Achille, belovedl my eyes are dim- the mists of death are gathering. O Achille! the white cottage by the river - the nest in the reeds - your face and mine in the water - the blue heaven below us in the stream- O joy, quickl those hands, those lips! But listen, listen! it is the cruel wind rising, rising; it chiils me to the bone; it chotes, itstifles me! I cannot see the river, and the cottage is gone, andthosun. O Achille, it is dark, so darkl Gather me close, beloved I - closer! close rl O death ís kind- tender, like your touch 1 I have no f ears - none I' "She sank back into her chair. Anything more pathetic, more noble than her intonation of those words could not have been imagined. Desforets herselí could not hava spoken them with a more simple, a mora pierciDg tenderness. I was so coníused by a multitude of confliotiag feelings- my own impressions aud yours, the realities of the present position and the possibilities of the future - that I 'f orgot to applaud her. It was the first time I bod had any glimpse at all of her dramatic power, and, rough and imperfect as the test was, it seetned to me enough. I have not been 60 devoted to the Francais, and to some of the people connected with it, forten years for notmngl One gets a kind of insight f rom long habit, which, I think, one may trust. Oh, you blind Eustace, how could you forget that for a creature so f uil of primitive energy, so rich in the stuff of life, nothing is irreparable? Education has passed her by. Well, sbe will go to find her education. Sho will make a teacher out of every friend, out of every sensation. Incident and feelin", praiso and dispraise wül all alike tend to mold the sensitivo, plastic material into shape. So far as she may have remained outsido her art ; the art, no doubt, has been a conventional appendage, and little more. Training would have given her good conventions, whereas she has only picked up bad and imperfect ones. But no training could have given her what sbe will evidently soon develop for herself, that forcé and fíame of imagination which f uses together instrument and idea in one great artistic whole. She has that imagination. You can see it in her responsivo ways, her quick, sensitivo emotion. Only let it be ioused and guided to a certain height, and it will overleap tb barriers which have hemmed it ia, and pour itself into the channels made ready for it by her art. "There, at least, jou have my strong impression. It is, in many ways, at variance with some of my most cherished principies; for both you and I are perhaps inclined to overrate tho vaiue of education, whttber technical or general, in its effect on the individuality. And, of course, a better technical preparación would have saved Isabel Bretberton an immense amount of time; would have preventea Iiit :i. boet of bad habite- all ui ai i ■ ui wiil ine Iu unlearu But the rooi ui I b ■ :.i il i ú in lur, of tha I am sure; anti whalevsr eigiit of bostile circumstan ;t lier, süo wül, i she keeps iwr li-u.1.) tw i i which I aui sonietimes, lika yon, a Uíile auxioiu - breaL through it aii and triumpU. "But if you di.l iki uudentuuid har quite, you have enormouoly he'.ped i.t, bo uiuch X will teil you tor } uur comfort, Olio suid to me yostcrday aln-uptly- tra rara uione iu our góndola, far out on the ..i.ion - 'Dul your brother ever teil you oí n uoüreraation be and I had in r,n; hh1s at Nuaohan) aoout Mr. Wallaces play (' "'Yes,' I ausweivd " I boktness, buta litt.o luword trepidaliou , '1 ba Vnown anytbio u so mucli Cor a long time. Etothoughtyou bad misuuder stood him.' '"No.'siv ly, bal nu it Hinrori to me with an ULidLi'-curreut oí" ejiiotioa in her voice; 'I did luc miminderetaad hiiu. IIo meant what he suid, and 1 would havo forced the truth from bun, irhatortr happened. I was datermined to make him show mo what he feit. Tliac Loudou season was sometimes terrible to me. 1 seemed to myself to be living iu two.worlds- one a world in Tvhich there was alwaysa sea of f aces opposite to me, or crowds about me, and a praiso ringing in my ears which was euougb to turn anybody's head, but whfuh after a hila repelledme as if tbeiv was sometliing humiliating iu it; and then on the other side, a Uttio muer world of people 1 cared for and respected, who lookcd at me kindly," and tbougbt for me, liut to whom, as an actross, I was just of no account at all I It was your brothor who first roused that sense in nw, it wassostrange and painful, for how cu.ild I help at first believing in nll tbe hubbub und applausel' " 'Poor clüKl!' l said, raoching out my hand for one of hers. 'Did Eustaee luake himself disagreeable to youP " 'It was more, I think,' she answered, as if reflecting, 'the standard he always seemed to carry about with hiin than anything connected with my own work. At least, of course, I mean bef ore that Nuneham day. Ah, that Nunehaui dayl Itcutdeep.' "She turned away f rom me and leaned over the side of the boat, so that I oould not see her face. " 'You f oreed it out of Eustuce, you know,' I said, trying to laugh at her, 'you uneom promising youug person! Of course, he flattered hiniself that you forgot a!l about his preaching the moment you got home. Meu always make themselves believe what they want to believe.' " 'Why should he want to believe sof she replied quickly. 'I had half foreseeu it, I had forced it (rom him, and yet I feit it like a blowl It cost me a sleepless night, and somo - well, some very bitter tears. Not that the tears wero a new experience. Jlow often, after all that noise at the theatre, have I gone home and cried myself to sleep over the impossibility of doing what I wanted to do, of moving those hundreds of people, of making them feel aud of putting my own feeling into shapel Ent that night, and with my sense of illness just then, I saw myself- it seemed to me quite in the near future - grown old and ugly, a forgotten failure, without any of those memor.es which console people who have been great when they must give up. I feit myself struggling against such a neight of ignorance, of bad habits, of unfavorabie surroundiugs. llow wasl ever to get f ree and to le.-orse that judgmeut of Mr. Kendal's? My very success stood in my way. How was "Miss Brotberton" to put herself to school;1 " 'But now,' I said to her warmly, 'you have got f ree; or, rather, you are on the way to freedom.' "Sho thouht a little without s)eakin, her chin restjug ou her hand, her elbow on her knee. Wa ere passing the great red brown mass of the Armenian convent. She seempd to be driukiug in the duzzling harmonies of blue mul warm browü aud pearly light. When shedid eak agaiu ït was very slowly, as though she were tryiug to give words to a DOmber of comiilex iuipressions. " 'Yes,' she suid ; 'it seems to rae that I ara different; but i cran"t tall exactly how or why. I see all sorts of new possibilities, new meaningsoverywaere; that is one half of it: But the other, and the greater, half is - b.nv to make all these new feelings and any uew knowledge wüich raay come to me teil on my art.' And then shechanged ultogetbrr witti one of those deligbtf ui swif t transf rmatious of hers, ani her faco rippled with laughter. 'At present thu cbief reduit of the dilTeience, whatever it may be, seems to be to inake me most umnanageable at home. 1 ain forever lisagreeing with my people, sayiug I cau't do this anJ I wou't do that. I ani getting to enjoy having my own way in the most abominable manuer.' And then she caught my hand, that was holding hers, between both her owd, and said half laughing and half in earnest: " 'Did you realize that I don't know any single longuage besides my own - not even Frenchi That I can't read aay French bopk gr any_ JYench play.r [TO BB COMTINÜKD. 1

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